Contents
1) What is RG Breach?
2) Card Choices
3) Technical Play
4) Decklists
5) Matchups
6) Articles
1) What is RG Breach?
RG Breach is a ramp/combo deck. It uses ramp spells to increase its mana production, followed by a slew of game-ending threats.
The deck has several ways to win, with varying speeds, but most of them involve Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. The quickest win is using Through the Breach to put Primeval Titan into play, searching two Valakuts on ETB and two Mountains on the attack for 18 damage (including Titan’s attack). Without Breach, you can hardcast Titan for one more mana and search up two Mountains every turn on the attack. Last of all, if all your creatures have been dealt with, you can still win by slowly playing Mountains or ramp spells to trigger Valakut.
Why should you play RG Breach?
1) Multiple ways to win, as mentioned above. This also means that you don’t just lose to an extraction effect (e.g. Slaughter Games, Sowing Salt, Extirpate) on one of your wincons – it’s possible to make a comeback.
2) Good lategame with Valakut. Lands and ramp spells turn into 3-9 damage with Valakut on the battlefield. This deck can go over the top of any fair deck, and it’s hard to lose if you resolve a Titan against them (even if the Titan gets killed immediately).
3) An instant speed wincon. Breach is an instant, so it can be used to overload your opponent’s counters. More on this in the Technical Play section.
Why should you not play RG Breach?
1) Mana issues. The deck needs G to cast ramp spells and wincons, but Valakut forces you to play lots of Mountains. Maxing out on Stomping Ground and fetchlands gets around this, but you will still have to mulligan some opening hands with 0 green sources.
2) Limited ways to control your draws. Other than maybe a few copies of Oath of Nissa, you are at the mercy of your topdecks. However, as mentioned earlier, even topdecking a land is fine if you have Valakut.
3) Unfavorable aggro matchups. You spend the first few turns playing ramp spells, which leaves you open to a quick rush from your opponent. By the time you get to cast Titan, your life total may be low enough that your opponent can just ignore it and burn you out instead. This deck’s aggro matchups are not as unfavorable as RG Tron’s though, since you can play Lightning Bolt easily.
Valakut is one of your wincons. Auto-include 3-4. It forces you to play a lot of Mountains, so non-Mountain duals (e.g. Copperline Gorge, Grove of the Burnwillows) and utility lands (e.g. Kessig Wolf Run, Tectonic Edge) are out.
Wooded Foothills gets both Mountains and Forests. Play 4. Round them out with some more fetches that can get Mountains.
Stomping Ground is a green source that counts as a Mountain. Play 4.
Cinder Glade is also a Mountain Forest, but Stomping Ground is preferable earlier on. Play 2.
At least 2 Forests are necessary to cast green spells under Blood Moon. You don’t want too many; it doesn’t count towards Valakut. Play 2-3.
If you’re playing a Rx shockland to splash for a third color, cut the 4th Valakut for it.
Search for Tomorrow is a ramp spell that you can play on turn 1. Its CMC is 3, so Chalice of the Void at 1 doesn’t interfere with it. Play 4.
Sakura-Tribe Elder can eat one attack and sacrifice itself to get a land. Play 4.
Farseek can search for Stomping Ground, but it’s the weakest ramp spell in the deck. Start with 4, and cut those if you need more space during deck construction or sideboarding.
Solemn Simulacrum ramps you up from 4 to 6 (assuming you hit your next land drop), but at 4 mana Obstinate Baloth is just better. Not recommended.
Playing removal buys you turns against opposing creatures, so that you can draw cards and make land drops. Lightning Bolt is the cheapest, most efficient removal option, and can be aimed at your opponent if their life total is low enough.
Anger of the Gods wipes the field and exiles the creatures for good measure. It’s great against Abzan Company, since their Voice of Resurgence and Persist creatures won’t come back. On the other hand, all your creatures survive Anger (Sakura-Tribe Elder can be sacced beforehand).
Mid-sized creatures are there to bridge the gap between cheap ramp spells and expensive Titans.
Courser of Kruphix costs 3 mana and gains life in smaller increments. It also gives you some form of card draw. Revealing the top card of your library is a double-edged sword; your opponent can use the information as well as you can.
Obstinate Baloth gains life, blocks and attacks well, and gets played for free if discarded to Liliana. Sadly its 4/4 body loses to 4/5s like Tarmogoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, but it’s still worth playing in BGx matchups.
Huntmaster of the Fells is easier to cast than Baloth, but is inferior in almost all other aspects.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar can be casted without green mana, and gives you two flying blockers. It doesn’t play well with Anger of the Gods though.
Oath of Nissa finds the two extremes in your mana curve: lands and Titans. It’s not too reliable at finding ramp (only Sakura-Tribe Elder fits the bill). The more midrange creatures you play, the less likely you’ll whiff on Oath, so you might want to cut a few removal spells for creatures instead.
For most intents and purposes, Oath can be treated as a sorcery. Being an enchantment only matters if fringe cases like your opponent playing Tarmogoyf and you casting a second Oath. The second ability only matters if you play Nahiri in your deck, especially when your opponent has Blood Moon - you can use all red mana to cast Nahiri, then exile the Moon with her -2.
Titan is the main payoff spell in the deck. Not much to say here, just get Valakuts followed by Mountains and shoot down everything in your way.
Breach enables fast 18 damage Titans. The earliest you can Breach is turn 3 (T1 Search for Tomorrow, T2 Farseek/Sakura-Tribe Elder). It’s also an instant, so you can cast it during your opponent’s end step to overload his counter mana.
Pact acts as extra copies of Titan. Having to pay mana at the next upkeep is a downside, but Titan is so overpowered, and puts lands into play anyway, so it’s worth it. Pact also lets you find SBed green creatures, or an Obstinate Baloth in response to a Liliana of the Veil -1 (it’s ”free” in terms of the number of cards you have in your hand and board, but you still have to pay mana for the Pact). If your opponent plays a late-game Inquisition of Kozilek, you can cast Pact in response to get a Titan.
If you're Breaching into a Pacted Titan, cast Pact to find Titan before casting Breach. If you cast Breach first and your opponent allows it to resolve, you can't Pact then. You can also hold priority, cast Breach, then Pact on top if that's your thing.
Nahiri can tick up twice and put a Titan into play, or, failing that, simply snipe your opponent’s permanents (especially Blood Moon). She’s best when your opponent can’t damage her, but that can be tricky when you’re playing 10+ ramp spells that don’t help in protecting Nahiri, other than Sakura-Tribe Elder which can chump block once.
Emrakul is an alternative to Titan that you can cheat in with Breach/Nahiri/Trap. Pact is generally better, since you can hardcast a Pacted Titan, while you’ll probably never get to hardcast Emrakul.
Summoning Trap was a staple in the older versions of the deck. If you play it, you’ll want more copies of Emrakul instead of Pacts, since revealing a Pact with Trap does nothing. It can be cast for its alternate cost if your opponent Spell Snares your Sakura-Tribe Elder, or counters (including Remand) your Titan/midrange creature, but it’s fine even if you have to hardcast it, since it costs the same as Titan anyway, to say nothing of Emrakul. You can cast multiple Traps in one turn, even if they only countered one creature.
Scapeshift is a pretty mediocre option for this deck. It needs 7 lands in play for one-shot 18 damage hit. In comparison, Breaching in a Titan requires just 5 lands, and hardcasting Titan costs 6. It’s better in all-in variants that use Khalni Heart Expedition.
This section mostly pertains to the rulings behind Valakut.
Stomping Ground counts as a Mountain for Valakut.
Valakut needs 6 mountains in play before it does anything.
Land destruction on Valakut does not stop the damage.
With Primeval Titan, the 2 lands enter the battlefield simultaneously, so if you search for 2 Mountains (with Valakut and at least 4 other Mountains on the battlefield before that), both Mountains will trigger Valakut.
Be careful of land destruction on a Mountain when going for Valakut. Let’s say you have 4 Mountains and a Valakut, and cast Primeval Titan. You search for 2 Stomping Grounds, say A and B, and your opponent destroys A before the Valakut triggers resolve. A will trigger Valakut unhindered, but when the Valakut trigger for B attempts to resolve, B only “sees” 4 other Mountains on the battlefield, so the trigger fizzles. Normally, you can see land destruction coming; the only playable instant-speed land hate is Beast Within.
The same disruption trick doesn’t work with Ghost Quarter, because you will always have a Mountain to search for. In fact the Mountain will trigger your Valakut(s) one additional time!
Land Sequencing
You need 2 green sources to cast every spell in your deck. Common plays involving 2 green are: Obstinate Baloth, Primeval Titan, Summoner’s Pact, and 2 ramp spells in one turn. Plan ahead and try to get at least 2 green sources upon reaching 4 lands.
The best possible set of lands you can have is 2 Stomping Grounds and everything else a Mountain or Valakut. However, this isn’t always possible, since you might not want to crack for an untapped Stomping Ground, or because you played Search for Tomorrow/Sakura-Tribe Elder and can only get basics. 1 Stomping Ground and 1 basic Forest is an acceptable alternative.
2 basic Forests is the only way you can cast your green threats under a Blood Moon, but outside of this situation you should avoid it. 2 basic Forests + 1 other land can’t cast Anger of the Gods, and 2 basic Forests + 3 other lands means that a Breached-in Titan only deals 12 damage max, instead of the usual 18. 2 basic Forest + 2 Valakut + 1 Mountain means a Breached Titan only deals 6 damage (from its attack)!
Sandbagging Fetchlands for spells
This is a common trick that isn’t unique to this deck. If, after playing a fetchland, you are just 1 land off from casting a threat, keep your fetchland uncracked even if your opponent passes his turn without doing anything. If you crack the fetch, you thin your deck of lands, so you are less likely to draw the last vital land on the next turn.
This deck differs from most other decks in that you only need 2 green sources to cast all your spells, and Cinder Glade is a painless dual land once you have 2 basics. If you already have 2 Stomping Grounds for example, you can keep your fetch(es) uncracked. Upon drawing a threat, just crack the fetches for basic Mountains to cast it. Similarly, if you have one basic Forest and Mountain, you can crack for Cinder Glade once you draw a double-green spell. Other decks have stricter casting costs, so they have to weigh the benefits of cracking for a tapped shockland if the opponent passes (reducing their chance of drawing a land) versus leaving the fetch uncracked (and having to pay 2 life if they end up topdecking a land).
Sandbagging Lands at 6 mana
Most of the time it's correct to sandbag Mountains or leave fetches uncracked if you're already at 6 mana (i.e. 6 lands and 1 uncracked fetch). This deck’s curve ends at 6, so any land beyond the 6th is superfluous. This way, if you topdeck Titan (or Trap into Titan), you can play the Mountain or crack the fetch for extra damage.
The exception to this rule are:
1) Valakut is already on the field AND you have enough other Mountains to trigger it AND you want to trigger it immediately.
2) You have two Mountains in hand. Go ahead and play one; you can’t play them both in one turn anyway.
3) You think that the deck-thinning effect from cracking a fetch outweighs the extra damage. This is dependent on the board state and your evaluation of it.
4) You only have one green source and can’t afford to fetch an untapped Stomping Ground if you topdeck a threat.
Here is an example to illustrate the benefits of sandbagging lands:
Your field is 2 Stomping Grounds, 4 Mountains and 1 fetchland. Your hand is empty. Your opponent passes the turn. Do you crack the fetch for a Stomping Ground or not?
If you crack and end up drawing a Titan, you can get 2 Valakuts for 0 damage, or 1 Valakut and 1 Mountain or 3 damage.
If you don’t crack and end up drawing a Titan, you can get 2 Valakuts, then crack the fetch for 6 damage. Much better than the previous route.
Using Instants to overload Counterspells
Through the Breach is an instant. This property allows you to beat opposing counterspells given enough prep time. Here’s what you do, assuming you have 5 lands (going on 6) a Breach and Titan in hand:
1) Pass your turn with enough mana to cast Breach.
2) On your opponent’s end step, cast Breach. Now your opponent can either counter it, or let it resolve.
3a) If your opponent lets it resolve: put Titan into play and attack on your turn.
3b) If your opponent counters it: On your turn, untap and play Titan.
Note that this sequence only works if your opponent only has one counterspell, or only enough mana to cast one counterspell.
Any threatening instant will also work in place of Breach, such as Summoning Trap or Boil.
Primeval Titan Land Sequencing
The important thing to remember when searching for lands with Titan is that you need 6 Mountains before Valakut does anything. Titan grabs lands in 2s.
Under most circumstances, when Titan ETBs, you will want to search enough Stomping Grounds to bring your Mountain count up to 4, then get Valakuts if you still have searches available. On the attack, get 2 Mountains and both of them will trigger Valakut.
If you think that Titan will not survive, search enough Stomping Grounds to bring your Mountain count up to 5, then get Valakuts with the remaining searches. This way, if you topdeck a land/ramp spell, or if Titan eats a Path, you can immediately start shooting things.
If you are in danger of dying, then you should try to get as many Valakut triggers immediately to destroy opposing creatures, instead of saving up for later turns. For instance, if you have 1 Valakut and 4 Mountains, instead of getting 2 Valakuts or 1 Valakut + 1 Mountain, get 2 Mountains and destroy as many threats as possible.
If you Pacted for Titan and already have two green sources, it’s a good idea to get a third if you anticipate LD from your opponent.
Don’t be afraid to use Anger of the Gods to kill one creature
Look at Anger of the Gods. It deals 3 damage to each creature, so you would want to wait until your opponent has at least two creatures before you use it, right? Unfortunately this isn’t always the case. Your opponent may have one extremely threatening creature that is worth absolutely spending 3 mana to remove. Use your judgment. If you don’t know if a particular creature is worth spending the mana on, make a note and review the game after it ends to see if the outcome would have been different if you killed the creature immediately or waited.
One example is if you're on the play and your opponent taps out for a turn 2 Young Pyromancer. Kill it with Anger on your turn. It seems wasteful to do so, but if you save Anger for later, he may have Remand in response, which gives him another token. By not killing it immediately, you will also take 2 damage from the attack.
Is there a difference between using a 3-mana spell to kill YP before it can create an army of tokens, versus saving the 3-mana spell to kill YP and a bunch of tokens? Yes, in fact there is – you end up taking more damage in the latter scenario, because the YP and its tokens get a few turns to attack. So don’t hesitate to use Anger of the Gods to kill just one creature.
It is best to conquer dragons before they hatch.
—Femeref adage
Through the Breach Bluff
This takes an incredible amount of balls/desperation to do. Remember the example in “Using Instants to overload Counterspells?” Now imagine you Breached at EOT, but didn’t actually have a creature to put into play with Breach. If your opponent lets Breach resolve, you’ve just wasted it. You’re counting on him to counter it, even though Breach presents no threat (you don’t have a creature in hand) – but your opponent doesn’t know that!
5) Matchups Sideboarding
The following sideboard guide was prepared by Ricardo van den Bogaard (Rbd340 on MTGS). His decklist can be found in the above section.
More recently Marijn Lybaert has managed to get hold of Rob Pisano, GP Indianapolis finalist, to share his SBing strategies here.
When I tallied the results for the past ban cycle, I saw a lot of familiar faces, a few surprising ones, and only one deck that truly shocked me. This deck I am about to show you has about as many MTGO finishes as Deadguy Ale and GW Death and Taxes, and a few more than Gruul Zoo and Naya Zoo. It's a cool strategy that uses some of the most powerful cards in the format and is the only successful non-Tron ramp deck that I know of.
The deck aims to ramp into big threats, whether Primeval Titan into a Valakut finish, Thragtusk/Huntmaster to out-value an opponent's cards, or Summoning Trap to get out something scary. It also has the combo finish potential of Trap/Breach and Emrakul himself, which gives added range to the deck's strategy.
There are a variety of different versions of this deck, some packing Scapeshift, others using Inferno Titan, and others still packing Courser of Kruphix. And of course, there is a lot of room for the deck to grown. So until we get a primer going for Modern's coolest "new" strategy, this will be the thread where we can discuss the deck, develop it further, and see to it that it remains a Modern mainstay moving into 2015.
This deck got played by bahra_ on twitch and he named the deck RG Makeshift. He 4:0/3:1 several dailies with it, so now wonder, that it reached one criteria.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: You can watch him playing the deck in the past broadcast section, atm he plays Junk Cobra.
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I've seen Spellbreaker Behemoth in Breach Trap sideboards. I'm wondering if they can be swapped with Surrak Dragonclaws. The blue splash is slightly ugly, but Surrak has better stats...
Surrak is a little wobbly because a lot of people are already splashing black for Slaughter Pack in the side. Also the Spell Breaker is great because it comes down turn 3 instead of turn 4.
I would be willing to help with a Primer since I have been playing this deck for the better part of a month now. Though I haven't been able to take it into a daily because of the times they fire off and some other issues I have had. Though I am confident I can give an analysis of the cards used and a general strategy for the deck to at least get it started.
I'll quote Jeff Hoogland when it comes to sideboarding "Side boarding is an art not a science" but I will give some advice what I have found recently in my play of this deck (though I'm about two weeks behind the curve now since I was in the middle of a move and I did not have time to play the past 2 weeks). Now I have no idea if this is what someone would consider the "correct" thing to do, but I will say I tend to win a lot with this deck, so I must be doing something right.
The sideboard could deffinately be tuned, I believe another spellskite is the right way to go here, and I still dont know if Inferno titan is useful, but I'm still running the deck through the gauntlet as well.
I will try to hit upon some of the match-ups that you PMd me about.
The easy one is anything with counter spells aka Twin, Control, Fae, Delver, and so on.
These matchups are normally easy to side in because we have a strong "Gotchya" for them in the main board with Summoning Trap. So I tend to add in The Spellbreaker, the Defense Grid, and the chalice of the void (Try to set it at 1 or 2 early). Depending on the specific deck I would side in other cards that make sense, spellskite for twin, and pyroclasm for delver and Fae. Also if they run Leylines in game 2 I will toss in some enchantment removal as well.
In these matchups I tend to take out some Through the Breaches because it is hard to get them to tap out to something and then cast a 5 mana spell, you kind of have to play it on their terms which you never want to do against control.
Against super aggroy decks the Pyroclasams come in, if its affinty then the shatterstorms come in as well as the Ancient Grudge. Normally the traps come out since you wont get to "trap" someone and they are too slow to do anything by themselves when you are looking at a t5 or faster win. Depending on the match I might take out one of the Emrakuls for an Inferno titan, since getting either a free fireball or something that can pick off more than one creature can by useful if you don't have Valakrut assembled.
Now Pod is a little bit of a tough match up. Since we are both trying to out value the other while getting a combo out. Yet they have an easier way of finding their combo, and tend to have more value. So what to do? Well, I tend to put the Pyros in here to get rid of early mana dorks, Relic is also relevant to shut down a finks or madcap combo. I normally take out summoner traps in this match up because once again you cant trap them, and by the time you have 6 manna sometimes the game is just over, but then again it definitely has saved my but in the matchup with a clutch Emrakul or Titan, this is a match up that I need to playtest more against since it seems to be a flip of the coin match right now.
I love playing against BGx decks, mostly because there is so much redundancy in the deck and also Inquisition and Duress have a high chance of whiffing, and we main deck Baloth. Most of these matches involve durdling until you can drop a fatty that they have a very hard time getting rid of. The sideboard for this is pretty easy, noxious revival to get your discarded card back, and relic to shut down opposing oozes and goyfs. If they are running rats, then put in clasams as well. What do we take out? You guessed it, some traps.
Burn is a very tough match up if you do not get baloths. I have chalice to shut down their 1 cmc spells and defense grid to make their skull cracks next to useless. Spellskites to eat up some damage here and there as well. This match up is really hard for this deck, but if you can land a t3 baloth then it becomes a whole lot easier.
I hope this helped, I am still willing to write up the Primer for this deck, though I do not know if I have to get permission to do so.
The easy one is anything with counter spells aka Twin, Control, Fae, Delver, and so on.
[...]
In these matchups I tend to take out some Through the Breaches because it is hard to get them to tap out to something and then cast a 5 mana spell, you kind of have to play it on their terms which you never want to do against control.
I don't have any experience with this deck, but I would like to disagree here. In general in those control matchups you want to play something on your opponents turn. Through the Breach is an Instant, you play it during their eot, and if they then counter it, you are able to resolve a spell during your own turn. Although Defense Grid makes this not very viable.
And if you Through the Breach a creature in their eot and during your turn they tap it down with Cryptic Command, then you can land a creature in your second main.
And you don't mention it, but against control decks you would obviously side out Anger of the Gods?
Also I don't know if I would like Noxious Revival in the side, another Baloth would be good too against discard and it would improve your Burn matchup a bit.
The easy one is anything with counter spells aka Twin, Control, Fae, Delver, and so on.
[...]
In these matchups I tend to take out some Through the Breaches because it is hard to get them to tap out to something and then cast a 5 mana spell, you kind of have to play it on their terms which you never want to do against control.
I don't have any experience with this deck, but I would like to disagree here. In general in those control matchups you want to play something on your opponents turn. Through the Breach is an Instant, you play it during their eot, and if they then counter it, you are able to resolve a spell during your own turn. Although Defense Grid makes this not very viable.
And if you Through the Breach a creature in their eot and during your turn they tap it down with Cryptic Command, then you can land a creature in your second main.
And you don't mention it, but against control decks you would obviously side out Anger of the Gods?
Also I don't know if I would like Noxious Revival in the side, another Baloth would be good too against discard and it would improve your Burn matchup a bit.
Against a pure control deck I would take out Anger, but against something like Delver or Fae I would keep them in. And you have a point with Breach against control, I normally don't side all of them out (since there isnt much to side in) but for some reason when I have them in my hand against control 9/10 times I wish it was something else (except for that one time I EOT'd Emrakul).
And so far Noxious Revival hasn't done anything for me except make their Thoughtsieze take that instead of something useful, which I guess that is it doing its job? I still need to tool around with the SB and play some more games. Any input is greatly appreciated!
Would be nice to see a Primer for this. I have had a lot of fun playing deck. I Find its issues are lack of card draw and often you just draw lands
Yeah, those are the two things that seem to hold the deck back at times. I cant tell you how many games I have run out of gas and then top decked into land after land after land.
Since we have alot of ramp, maybe this deck needs to run 25 lands? I find it not to often that i actually use scapeshift as the wincon. I have tried 2 Coursers with good success also. Atm im splashing a little more black for abrupt decays.
I cut Scapeshifts out of my build, but I think we still need the land count because getting valakrut online without prime time is a very important way to get uncounterable damage through. Can you post your list? I would love to see a list with more removal.
I will get my list up after tomorrows tourny, but i was thinking. With all this burn and aggro out there. what about a card like Tree of Redemption. Can be in place of some baloths. It also cannot be stomped by skull crack. Just looking for opinions ty
Tree of Redemption is totally stopped by Skull Crack.
Gatherer Ruling:
9/22/2011: When the ability resolves, Tree of Redemption's toughness will become your former life total and you will gain or lose an amount of life necessary so that your life total equals Tree of Redemption's former toughness. Other effects that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly.
Baloth (and also Huntmaster and Thragtusk) is much better, it doesn't give you as much life, but it does give you the lifepoints immediatley without haste. It can kill things when it blocks, and it can attack for the win.
Also I recently saw this list, wich made 5th place in a mtgo daily:
MagicDevil666 (4-0)
Modern Daily #7533102 on 10/13/2014
This is the current version I am testing. I am curious what others think about replacing the Farseeks with Lightning Bolts. There has been a rise in burn, delver and jeskai ascendancy lately which I think the bolts would help with.
Hey all! I have been pondering brewing up a deck of this sort for some time, but my main worry is decks that interact via black/blue and how susceptible we are to thoughtseize and any countermagic, but mainly discard. How painful is it to face decks that play thoughtseize? Also, what about playing see the unwritten to replace summoning trap?
Hey all! I have been pondering brewing up a deck of this sort for some time, but my main worry is decks that interact via black/blue and how susceptible we are to thoughtseize and any countermagic, but mainly discard. How painful is it to face decks that play thoughtseize? Also, what about playing see the unwritten to replace summoning trap?
See the Unwritten is a sorcery and this deck neither uses the graveyard nor reliably triggers early Ferocious. Summoning Trap is much better.
This is the current version I am testing. I am curious what others think about replacing the Farseeks with Lightning Bolts. There has been a rise in burn, delver and jeskai ascendancy lately which I think the bolts would help with.
What were your experiences in general and especially against aggro decks, like Affinity or Zoo? I have build this deck recently (but with a few proxies) and played against friends. All games were without sideboard. I had the feeling that most of the time my Solemn Simulacrums would have been better off as Obstinate Baloths, especially in the games against zoo, wich was hard to beat.
But maybe I just need more experience with the deck. In some games I kept some weird hands, just to see how it would play out.
I haven't had a chance to play it too much as I am still proxying some cards. I had pretty good games against a Zoo deck where I curved into Through the Breach on turn 3. I haven't played affinity yet, but I had some decent games against my friend's elemental combo deck and burn. I have never felt like I wanted Solemn Simulacrum, I would always rather be playing a Baloth in my limited experience. I would love some number of Huntmaster of the Fells in the deck, but it doesn't work very well with Anger of the Gods.
I haven't done much testing with the sideboard. I love Chalice against Delver and Burn, but then I also am considering putting lightning bolts in the main deck in place of Farseeks which would make Chalice worse. There is a lot of burn and delver in my meta and the 3 Anger of the Gods doesn't seem to be enough. My last fetches for the deck are in the mail so hopefully I will be able to try it out in weekly tournaments soon.
Can I ask if anyone knows if this has this had any paper finishes- small events of 50 players or so in Europe, larger SCGs, PTQ finishes?
The reason I ask is that this deck simply will be unlikely to ever turn up in my city and the places nearby unless it gets a paper finish or a high profile article. It may have more finishes than GW D and T but at a local event I will see D and T a lot. Rightly or wrongly MTGO finishes just don't impact the paper meta here at least that much (people tend to shrug their shoulders at MTGO Daily results and make disparaging noises), nor indeed in the other UK cities I have played Modern in, with the only exceptions being the more ludicrous decks like Norrin or Timewalk. If this deck has had a paper finish or two, even an 8th place in a smaller PTQ, then I know I can expect that it will turn up before long as it looks pretty cheap and people always like ramp......
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I tried Valakut and hated it. This deck has a ton of things that cost double green, and Valakut forces you to play a bunch of basic Mountains. Instead, I'm using Titan to search up double Radiant Fountain, or double Ravine, or Kessig Wolf Run.
Without Valakut, I don't have to play Farseek. I'm playing Sylvan Caryatid instead, because it blocks, and is Spell Snare/Liliana fodder.
This deck wants to lead with a T1 Search for Tomorrow or T2 ramp spell, into T3 4-mana fatty. One more mana in the cost and you have to wait another turn (or get super lucky with T1 Search into T2 ramp). That's why I'm not playing Thragtusk.
Polukranos is decent. It's big, acts as a mana sink, and shoots down creatures.
Thrun is a non-bo with Trap, but it doesn't really matter. If Thrun resolves, you've got yourself a threat anyway.
Sideboarding is tricky. You have a combo component (Breach + Emrakul), so you need to ask yourself if you need it to win or not. Broadly speaking there are 3 kinds of SB plans:
-4 Primeval Titan: against decks where your only hope is to race them (e.g. fast combo). Titan is just too slow at goldfishing.
-4 Summoning Trap: against ground-based aggro. You retain the combo plan and Titan, who is fine because he blocks and gains 4 life upon ETB.
-2 Through the Breach, -2 Emrakul: against decks with counters, where it's hard to resolve a Breach, and Emrakul getting stuck in hand is a liability. Or decks with discard, where they can break up the Breach+Emrakul combo easily. I'd leave in at least 2 Emrakuls, otherwise Trap would whiff too often. If you still need space, cut more Breaches.
Also known as: RG Makeshift, RG Valakut
Contents
1) What is RG Breach?
2) Card Choices
3) Technical Play
4) Decklists
5) Matchups
6) Articles
1) What is RG Breach?
The deck has several ways to win, with varying speeds, but most of them involve Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. The quickest win is using Through the Breach to put Primeval Titan into play, searching two Valakuts on ETB and two Mountains on the attack for 18 damage (including Titan’s attack). Without Breach, you can hardcast Titan for one more mana and search up two Mountains every turn on the attack. Last of all, if all your creatures have been dealt with, you can still win by slowly playing Mountains or ramp spells to trigger Valakut.
2) Good lategame with Valakut. Lands and ramp spells turn into 3-9 damage with Valakut on the battlefield. This deck can go over the top of any fair deck, and it’s hard to lose if you resolve a Titan against them (even if the Titan gets killed immediately).
3) An instant speed wincon. Breach is an instant, so it can be used to overload your opponent’s counters. More on this in the Technical Play section.
2) Limited ways to control your draws. Other than maybe a few copies of Oath of Nissa, you are at the mercy of your topdecks. However, as mentioned earlier, even topdecking a land is fine if you have Valakut.
3) Unfavorable aggro matchups. You spend the first few turns playing ramp spells, which leaves you open to a quick rush from your opponent. By the time you get to cast Titan, your life total may be low enough that your opponent can just ignore it and burn you out instead. This deck’s aggro matchups are not as unfavorable as RG Tron’s though, since you can play Lightning Bolt easily.
2) Card Choices
a) Lands
4 Wooded Foothills + 3 other red fetches
4 Stomping Ground
2 Cinder Glade
6 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Blood Crypt or Sacred Foundry if splashing a third color
Valakut is one of your wincons. Auto-include 3-4. It forces you to play a lot of Mountains, so non-Mountain duals (e.g. Copperline Gorge, Grove of the Burnwillows) and utility lands (e.g. Kessig Wolf Run, Tectonic Edge) are out.
Wooded Foothills gets both Mountains and Forests. Play 4. Round them out with some more fetches that can get Mountains.
Stomping Ground is a green source that counts as a Mountain. Play 4.
Cinder Glade is also a Mountain Forest, but Stomping Ground is preferable earlier on. Play 2.
At least 2 Forests are necessary to cast green spells under Blood Moon. You don’t want too many; it doesn’t count towards Valakut. Play 2-3.
If you’re playing a Rx shockland to splash for a third color, cut the 4th Valakut for it.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2-4 Farseek
0-2 Solemn Simulacrum
Search for Tomorrow is a ramp spell that you can play on turn 1. Its CMC is 3, so Chalice of the Void at 1 doesn’t interfere with it. Play 4.
Sakura-Tribe Elder can eat one attack and sacrifice itself to get a land. Play 4.
Farseek can search for Stomping Ground, but it’s the weakest ramp spell in the deck. Start with 4, and cut those if you need more space during deck construction or sideboarding.
Solemn Simulacrum ramps you up from 4 to 6 (assuming you hit your next land drop), but at 4 mana Obstinate Baloth is just better. Not recommended.
0-3 Anger of the Gods
Playing removal buys you turns against opposing creatures, so that you can draw cards and make land drops. Lightning Bolt is the cheapest, most efficient removal option, and can be aimed at your opponent if their life total is low enough.
Anger of the Gods wipes the field and exiles the creatures for good measure. It’s great against Abzan Company, since their Voice of Resurgence and Persist creatures won’t come back. On the other hand, all your creatures survive Anger (Sakura-Tribe Elder can be sacced beforehand).
0-2 Obstinate Baloth
0-2 Huntmaster of the Fells
0-2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Mid-sized creatures are there to bridge the gap between cheap ramp spells and expensive Titans.
Courser of Kruphix costs 3 mana and gains life in smaller increments. It also gives you some form of card draw. Revealing the top card of your library is a double-edged sword; your opponent can use the information as well as you can.
Obstinate Baloth gains life, blocks and attacks well, and gets played for free if discarded to Liliana. Sadly its 4/4 body loses to 4/5s like Tarmogoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, but it’s still worth playing in BGx matchups.
Huntmaster of the Fells is easier to cast than Baloth, but is inferior in almost all other aspects.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar can be casted without green mana, and gives you two flying blockers. It doesn’t play well with Anger of the Gods though.
Oath of Nissa finds the two extremes in your mana curve: lands and Titans. It’s not too reliable at finding ramp (only Sakura-Tribe Elder fits the bill). The more midrange creatures you play, the less likely you’ll whiff on Oath, so you might want to cut a few removal spells for creatures instead.
For most intents and purposes, Oath can be treated as a sorcery. Being an enchantment only matters if fringe cases like your opponent playing Tarmogoyf and you casting a second Oath. The second ability only matters if you play Nahiri in your deck, especially when your opponent has Blood Moon - you can use all red mana to cast Nahiri, then exile the Moon with her -2.
4 Through the Breach
2-3 Summoner’s Pact
0-3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
0-4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
0-2 Summoning Trap
0-2 Scapeshift
Titan is the main payoff spell in the deck. Not much to say here, just get Valakuts followed by Mountains and shoot down everything in your way.
Breach enables fast 18 damage Titans. The earliest you can Breach is turn 3 (T1 Search for Tomorrow, T2 Farseek/Sakura-Tribe Elder). It’s also an instant, so you can cast it during your opponent’s end step to overload his counter mana.
Pact acts as extra copies of Titan. Having to pay mana at the next upkeep is a downside, but Titan is so overpowered, and puts lands into play anyway, so it’s worth it. Pact also lets you find SBed green creatures, or an Obstinate Baloth in response to a Liliana of the Veil -1 (it’s ”free” in terms of the number of cards you have in your hand and board, but you still have to pay mana for the Pact). If your opponent plays a late-game Inquisition of Kozilek, you can cast Pact in response to get a Titan.
If you're Breaching into a Pacted Titan, cast Pact to find Titan before casting Breach. If you cast Breach first and your opponent allows it to resolve, you can't Pact then. You can also hold priority, cast Breach, then Pact on top if that's your thing.
Nahiri can tick up twice and put a Titan into play, or, failing that, simply snipe your opponent’s permanents (especially Blood Moon). She’s best when your opponent can’t damage her, but that can be tricky when you’re playing 10+ ramp spells that don’t help in protecting Nahiri, other than Sakura-Tribe Elder which can chump block once.
Emrakul is an alternative to Titan that you can cheat in with Breach/Nahiri/Trap. Pact is generally better, since you can hardcast a Pacted Titan, while you’ll probably never get to hardcast Emrakul.
Summoning Trap was a staple in the older versions of the deck. If you play it, you’ll want more copies of Emrakul instead of Pacts, since revealing a Pact with Trap does nothing. It can be cast for its alternate cost if your opponent Spell Snares your Sakura-Tribe Elder, or counters (including Remand) your Titan/midrange creature, but it’s fine even if you have to hardcast it, since it costs the same as Titan anyway, to say nothing of Emrakul. You can cast multiple Traps in one turn, even if they only countered one creature.
Scapeshift is a pretty mediocre option for this deck. It needs 7 lands in play for one-shot 18 damage hit. In comparison, Breaching in a Titan requires just 5 lands, and hardcasting Titan costs 6. It’s better in all-in variants that use Khalni Heart Expedition.
Creature Removal
Land Hate
Crumble to Dust
Blue/Counterspell Hate
Discard Hate
Combo Hate
Summoner’s Pact bullets
3) Technical Play
All about Valakut
Stomping Ground counts as a Mountain for Valakut.
Valakut needs 6 mountains in play before it does anything.
Land destruction on Valakut does not stop the damage.
With Primeval Titan, the 2 lands enter the battlefield simultaneously, so if you search for 2 Mountains (with Valakut and at least 4 other Mountains on the battlefield before that), both Mountains will trigger Valakut.
Be careful of land destruction on a Mountain when going for Valakut. Let’s say you have 4 Mountains and a Valakut, and cast Primeval Titan. You search for 2 Stomping Grounds, say A and B, and your opponent destroys A before the Valakut triggers resolve. A will trigger Valakut unhindered, but when the Valakut trigger for B attempts to resolve, B only “sees” 4 other Mountains on the battlefield, so the trigger fizzles. Normally, you can see land destruction coming; the only playable instant-speed land hate is Beast Within.
The same disruption trick doesn’t work with Ghost Quarter, because you will always have a Mountain to search for. In fact the Mountain will trigger your Valakut(s) one additional time!
The best possible set of lands you can have is 2 Stomping Grounds and everything else a Mountain or Valakut. However, this isn’t always possible, since you might not want to crack for an untapped Stomping Ground, or because you played Search for Tomorrow/Sakura-Tribe Elder and can only get basics. 1 Stomping Ground and 1 basic Forest is an acceptable alternative.
2 basic Forests is the only way you can cast your green threats under a Blood Moon, but outside of this situation you should avoid it. 2 basic Forests + 1 other land can’t cast Anger of the Gods, and 2 basic Forests + 3 other lands means that a Breached-in Titan only deals 12 damage max, instead of the usual 18. 2 basic Forest + 2 Valakut + 1 Mountain means a Breached Titan only deals 6 damage (from its attack)!
This deck differs from most other decks in that you only need 2 green sources to cast all your spells, and Cinder Glade is a painless dual land once you have 2 basics. If you already have 2 Stomping Grounds for example, you can keep your fetch(es) uncracked. Upon drawing a threat, just crack the fetches for basic Mountains to cast it. Similarly, if you have one basic Forest and Mountain, you can crack for Cinder Glade once you draw a double-green spell. Other decks have stricter casting costs, so they have to weigh the benefits of cracking for a tapped shockland if the opponent passes (reducing their chance of drawing a land) versus leaving the fetch uncracked (and having to pay 2 life if they end up topdecking a land).
The exception to this rule are:
1) Valakut is already on the field AND you have enough other Mountains to trigger it AND you want to trigger it immediately.
2) You have two Mountains in hand. Go ahead and play one; you can’t play them both in one turn anyway.
3) You think that the deck-thinning effect from cracking a fetch outweighs the extra damage. This is dependent on the board state and your evaluation of it.
4) You only have one green source and can’t afford to fetch an untapped Stomping Ground if you topdeck a threat.
Here is an example to illustrate the benefits of sandbagging lands:
Your field is 2 Stomping Grounds, 4 Mountains and 1 fetchland. Your hand is empty. Your opponent passes the turn. Do you crack the fetch for a Stomping Ground or not?
If you crack and end up drawing a Titan, you can get 2 Valakuts for 0 damage, or 1 Valakut and 1 Mountain or 3 damage.
If you don’t crack and end up drawing a Titan, you can get 2 Valakuts, then crack the fetch for 6 damage. Much better than the previous route.
1) Pass your turn with enough mana to cast Breach.
2) On your opponent’s end step, cast Breach. Now your opponent can either counter it, or let it resolve.
3a) If your opponent lets it resolve: put Titan into play and attack on your turn.
3b) If your opponent counters it: On your turn, untap and play Titan.
Note that this sequence only works if your opponent only has one counterspell, or only enough mana to cast one counterspell.
Any threatening instant will also work in place of Breach, such as Summoning Trap or Boil.
Under most circumstances, when Titan ETBs, you will want to search enough Stomping Grounds to bring your Mountain count up to 4, then get Valakuts if you still have searches available. On the attack, get 2 Mountains and both of them will trigger Valakut.
If you think that Titan will not survive, search enough Stomping Grounds to bring your Mountain count up to 5, then get Valakuts with the remaining searches. This way, if you topdeck a land/ramp spell, or if Titan eats a Path, you can immediately start shooting things.
If you are in danger of dying, then you should try to get as many Valakut triggers immediately to destroy opposing creatures, instead of saving up for later turns. For instance, if you have 1 Valakut and 4 Mountains, instead of getting 2 Valakuts or 1 Valakut + 1 Mountain, get 2 Mountains and destroy as many threats as possible.
If you Pacted for Titan and already have two green sources, it’s a good idea to get a third if you anticipate LD from your opponent.
One example is if you're on the play and your opponent taps out for a turn 2 Young Pyromancer. Kill it with Anger on your turn. It seems wasteful to do so, but if you save Anger for later, he may have Remand in response, which gives him another token. By not killing it immediately, you will also take 2 damage from the attack.
Is there a difference between using a 3-mana spell to kill YP before it can create an army of tokens, versus saving the 3-mana spell to kill YP and a bunch of tokens? Yes, in fact there is – you end up taking more damage in the latter scenario, because the YP and its tokens get a few turns to attack. So don’t hesitate to use Anger of the Gods to kill just one creature.
It is best to conquer dragons before they hatch.
—Femeref adage
4) Decklists
4 Misty Rainforest
9 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Farseek
1 Scapeshift
4 Summoning Trap
4 Through the Breach
4 Primeval Titan
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Boil
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Combust
1 Krosan Grip
2 Nature's Claim
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sowing Salt
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth
1 Spellskite
1 Blood Crypt
2 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Farseek
3 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Summoning Trap
4 Primeval Titan
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Combust
2 Deglamer
3 Fracturing Gust
4 Slaughter Games
1 Unravel the Aether
4 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa
3 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Forest
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Farseek
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Through the Breach
3 Summoning Trap
4 Primeval Titan
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Boil
2 Combust
2 Sowing Salt
1 Back to Nature
1 Unravel the Æther
1 Shatterstorm
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Defense Grid
2 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blood Crypt
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Farseek
2 Courser of Kruphix
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Through the Breach
2 Summoning Trap
2 Scapeshift
4 Primeval Titan
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Combust
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Sowing Salt
1 Shatterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
2 Slaughter Games
3 Boil
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
2 Cinder Glade
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Farseek
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Courser of Kruphix
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Through the Breach
4 Primeval Titan
3 Summoner's Pact
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Nature's Claim
1 Shatterstorm
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sudden Shock
1 Slaughter Games
1 Gaea's Revenge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Choke
2 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
3 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Farseek
3 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Through the Breach
1 Scapeshift
4 Primeval Titan
3 Summoner's Pact
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Scapeshift
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Crumble to Dust
2 Cinder Glade
4 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
6 Mountain
2 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Farseek
3 Oath of Nissa
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Obstinate Baloth
4 Through the Breach
4 Primeval Titan
3 Summoner's Pact
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Fog
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Shatterstorm
2 Spellskite
2 Cinder Glade
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
6 Mountain
2 Forest
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Farseek
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Through the Breach
4 Primeval Titan
3 Summoner's Pact
1 Scapeshift
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Pulse of Murasa
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Sudden Shock
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Obstinate Baloth
5) Matchups
Sideboarding
The following sideboard guide was prepared by Ricardo van den Bogaard (Rbd340 on MTGS). His decklist can be found in the above section.
More recently Marijn Lybaert has managed to get hold of Rob Pisano, GP Indianapolis finalist, to share his SBing strategies here.
6) Articles
Ari Lax (Video): http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29768_Video-Valakut-Breach-In-Modern.html
Ari Lax, again (Video): http://www.starcitygames.com/article/33584_Video-RG-Through-The-Breach-In-Modern.html
Gerry Thompson (Video): http://www.starcitygames.com/article/33606_Video-RG-Through-The-Breach-In-Modern.html
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I give you, Summoning Trap Valakut:
4 Arid Mesa
1 Blood Crypt
3 Forest
8 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut the Molten Pinnacle
2 Verdant Catacombs
Creatures: 18
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Thragtusk
4 Farseek
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Summoning Trap
4 Through the Breach
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Defense Grid
2 Pyroclasm
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Nature's Claim
2 Slaughter Games
The deck aims to ramp into big threats, whether Primeval Titan into a Valakut finish, Thragtusk/Huntmaster to out-value an opponent's cards, or Summoning Trap to get out something scary. It also has the combo finish potential of Trap/Breach and Emrakul himself, which gives added range to the deck's strategy.
There are a variety of different versions of this deck, some packing Scapeshift, others using Inferno Titan, and others still packing Courser of Kruphix. And of course, there is a lot of room for the deck to grown. So until we get a primer going for Modern's coolest "new" strategy, this will be the thread where we can discuss the deck, develop it further, and see to it that it remains a Modern mainstay moving into 2015.
This deck got played by bahra_ on twitch and he named the deck RG Makeshift. He 4:0/3:1 several dailies with it, so now wonder, that it reached one criteria.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: You can watch him playing the deck in the past broadcast section, atm he plays Junk Cobra.
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I'll quote Jeff Hoogland when it comes to sideboarding "Side boarding is an art not a science" but I will give some advice what I have found recently in my play of this deck (though I'm about two weeks behind the curve now since I was in the middle of a move and I did not have time to play the past 2 weeks). Now I have no idea if this is what someone would consider the "correct" thing to do, but I will say I tend to win a lot with this deck, so I must be doing something right.
Here is my current deck:
3 Obstinate Baloth
4 Primeval Titan
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Through the Breach
4 Summoning Trap
4 Farseek
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Arid Mesa
2 Forest
9 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foorhills
2 Pyroclasm
2 Shatterstorm
1 Sowing Salt
1 Inferno Titan
1 Noxious Revival
1 Nature's Claim
1 Spellbreaker Behemoth
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Defense Grid
1 Spellskite
1 Chalice of the Void
The sideboard could deffinately be tuned, I believe another spellskite is the right way to go here, and I still dont know if Inferno titan is useful, but I'm still running the deck through the gauntlet as well.
I will try to hit upon some of the match-ups that you PMd me about.
The easy one is anything with counter spells aka Twin, Control, Fae, Delver, and so on.
These matchups are normally easy to side in because we have a strong "Gotchya" for them in the main board with Summoning Trap. So I tend to add in The Spellbreaker, the Defense Grid, and the chalice of the void (Try to set it at 1 or 2 early). Depending on the specific deck I would side in other cards that make sense, spellskite for twin, and pyroclasm for delver and Fae. Also if they run Leylines in game 2 I will toss in some enchantment removal as well.
In these matchups I tend to take out some Through the Breaches because it is hard to get them to tap out to something and then cast a 5 mana spell, you kind of have to play it on their terms which you never want to do against control.
Against super aggroy decks the Pyroclasams come in, if its affinty then the shatterstorms come in as well as the Ancient Grudge. Normally the traps come out since you wont get to "trap" someone and they are too slow to do anything by themselves when you are looking at a t5 or faster win. Depending on the match I might take out one of the Emrakuls for an Inferno titan, since getting either a free fireball or something that can pick off more than one creature can by useful if you don't have Valakrut assembled.
Now Pod is a little bit of a tough match up. Since we are both trying to out value the other while getting a combo out. Yet they have an easier way of finding their combo, and tend to have more value. So what to do? Well, I tend to put the Pyros in here to get rid of early mana dorks, Relic is also relevant to shut down a finks or madcap combo. I normally take out summoner traps in this match up because once again you cant trap them, and by the time you have 6 manna sometimes the game is just over, but then again it definitely has saved my but in the matchup with a clutch Emrakul or Titan, this is a match up that I need to playtest more against since it seems to be a flip of the coin match right now.
I love playing against BGx decks, mostly because there is so much redundancy in the deck and also Inquisition and Duress have a high chance of whiffing, and we main deck Baloth. Most of these matches involve durdling until you can drop a fatty that they have a very hard time getting rid of. The sideboard for this is pretty easy, noxious revival to get your discarded card back, and relic to shut down opposing oozes and goyfs. If they are running rats, then put in clasams as well. What do we take out? You guessed it, some traps.
Burn is a very tough match up if you do not get baloths. I have chalice to shut down their 1 cmc spells and defense grid to make their skull cracks next to useless. Spellskites to eat up some damage here and there as well. This match up is really hard for this deck, but if you can land a t3 baloth then it becomes a whole lot easier.
I hope this helped, I am still willing to write up the Primer for this deck, though I do not know if I have to get permission to do so.
I don't have any experience with this deck, but I would like to disagree here. In general in those control matchups you want to play something on your opponents turn. Through the Breach is an Instant, you play it during their eot, and if they then counter it, you are able to resolve a spell during your own turn. Although Defense Grid makes this not very viable.
And if you Through the Breach a creature in their eot and during your turn they tap it down with Cryptic Command, then you can land a creature in your second main.
And you don't mention it, but against control decks you would obviously side out Anger of the Gods?
Also I don't know if I would like Noxious Revival in the side, another Baloth would be good too against discard and it would improve your Burn matchup a bit.
Against a pure control deck I would take out Anger, but against something like Delver or Fae I would keep them in. And you have a point with Breach against control, I normally don't side all of them out (since there isnt much to side in) but for some reason when I have them in my hand against control 9/10 times I wish it was something else (except for that one time I EOT'd Emrakul).
And so far Noxious Revival hasn't done anything for me except make their Thoughtsieze take that instead of something useful, which I guess that is it doing its job? I still need to tool around with the SB and play some more games. Any input is greatly appreciated!
Yeah, those are the two things that seem to hold the deck back at times. I cant tell you how many games I have run out of gas and then top decked into land after land after land.
Gatherer Ruling:
9/22/2011: When the ability resolves, Tree of Redemption's toughness will become your former life total and you will gain or lose an amount of life necessary so that your life total equals Tree of Redemption's former toughness. Other effects that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly.
Baloth (and also Huntmaster and Thragtusk) is much better, it doesn't give you as much life, but it does give you the lifepoints immediatley without haste. It can kill things when it blocks, and it can attack for the win.
Also I recently saw this list, wich made 5th place in a mtgo daily:
MagicDevil666 (4-0)
Modern Daily #7533102 on 10/13/2014
2 Forest
9 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Beast Within
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Summoning Trap
4 Through the Breach
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Combust
2 Deglamer
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Sowing Salt
1 Spellskite
1 Unravel the Aether
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Obstinate Baloth
4 Primeval Titan
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells:
4 Through the Breach
4 Summoning Trap
3 Farseek
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Scapeshift
2 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
9 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foorhills
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Nature's Claim
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Combust
2 Pyroclasm
1 Spellskite
1 Boil
1 Sowing Salt
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth
See the Unwritten is a sorcery and this deck neither uses the graveyard nor reliably triggers early Ferocious. Summoning Trap is much better.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
What were your experiences in general and especially against aggro decks, like Affinity or Zoo? I have build this deck recently (but with a few proxies) and played against friends. All games were without sideboard. I had the feeling that most of the time my Solemn Simulacrums would have been better off as Obstinate Baloths, especially in the games against zoo, wich was hard to beat.
But maybe I just need more experience with the deck. In some games I kept some weird hands, just to see how it would play out.
I haven't done much testing with the sideboard. I love Chalice against Delver and Burn, but then I also am considering putting lightning bolts in the main deck in place of Farseeks which would make Chalice worse. There is a lot of burn and delver in my meta and the 3 Anger of the Gods doesn't seem to be enough. My last fetches for the deck are in the mail so hopefully I will be able to try it out in weekly tournaments soon.
The reason I ask is that this deck simply will be unlikely to ever turn up in my city and the places nearby unless it gets a paper finish or a high profile article. It may have more finishes than GW D and T but at a local event I will see D and T a lot. Rightly or wrongly MTGO finishes just don't impact the paper meta here at least that much (people tend to shrug their shoulders at MTGO Daily results and make disparaging noises), nor indeed in the other UK cities I have played Modern in, with the only exceptions being the more ludicrous decks like Norrin or Timewalk. If this deck has had a paper finish or two, even an 8th place in a smaller PTQ, then I know I can expect that it will turn up before long as it looks pretty cheap and people always like ramp......
2 Windswept Heath
6 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
2 Raging Ravine
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Radiant Fountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Obstinate Baloth
2 Polukranos, World Eater
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Primeval Titan
4 Summoning Trap
4 Through the Breach
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Pyroclasm
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Nature's Claim
2 Combust
2 Defense Grid
2 Relic of Progenitus
Playing this for fun now.
I tried Valakut and hated it. This deck has a ton of things that cost double green, and Valakut forces you to play a bunch of basic Mountains. Instead, I'm using Titan to search up double Radiant Fountain, or double Ravine, or Kessig Wolf Run.
Without Valakut, I don't have to play Farseek. I'm playing Sylvan Caryatid instead, because it blocks, and is Spell Snare/Liliana fodder.
This deck wants to lead with a T1 Search for Tomorrow or T2 ramp spell, into T3 4-mana fatty. One more mana in the cost and you have to wait another turn (or get super lucky with T1 Search into T2 ramp). That's why I'm not playing Thragtusk.
Polukranos is decent. It's big, acts as a mana sink, and shoots down creatures.
Thrun is a non-bo with Trap, but it doesn't really matter. If Thrun resolves, you've got yourself a threat anyway.
Sideboarding is tricky. You have a combo component (Breach + Emrakul), so you need to ask yourself if you need it to win or not. Broadly speaking there are 3 kinds of SB plans:
-4 Primeval Titan: against decks where your only hope is to race them (e.g. fast combo). Titan is just too slow at goldfishing.
-4 Summoning Trap: against ground-based aggro. You retain the combo plan and Titan, who is fine because he blocks and gains 4 life upon ETB.
-2 Through the Breach, -2 Emrakul: against decks with counters, where it's hard to resolve a Breach, and Emrakul getting stuck in hand is a liability. Or decks with discard, where they can break up the Breach+Emrakul combo easily. I'd leave in at least 2 Emrakuls, otherwise Trap would whiff too often. If you still need space, cut more Breaches.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.