Hello nonamealreadytaken,
I believe our decklist are relatively close so we could influence each other in a rather positive way. I hope you respond to my points in a way that will help me escape those of my thought patterns that are wrong in this case.
1) BoP vs. 1-mana removal: We seem to agree on one fact - what makes a midrange good is discard. On the other hand we disagree on one thing that has been questioned many times regarding this kind of decks - shell we play mana dorks? Deathrite has been known as one of the best midrange cards ever, weaker mana dorks are sometimes included. But Niv-Mizzet is special in this respect. At the same time mana dorks are stronger with it and multicolored spells in the deck, but as Mizzet needs enough good hits, BoP compete with 1-mana removal. I'm not really sure that my answer (play removal) is correct, but I believe that it really changes many matchups (Burn, Humans, Spirits, Jund) from unfavorable to positive. Now both give us options to get tempo advantage we tend to lose because of multicolored cards being often a bit too chunky, both perform better against low-removal-count decks...I guess BoP are more risky but when they work, they're great, while removal feels like insurance, stability or something like that. What do you think?
2) Creative 2-drops: Modern midrange decks are well known for their good 2-drops that are capable of pressuring well and creating card advantage (Tarmogoyf, Confident, Pyromancer). Now that's something your deck misses. I think Sculler is wonderful and I'd allways play it over Erasure. Other options I have come up with are Sygg, River Cutthroat and Grim Flayer. But your simic ramp spells work simillary in a way. However, my problem with them is a) you lose on battlefield once you cut Lightning Bolts and than play a ramp spell and b) they make the deck much more about synergy - if you ramp, you need a payoff. Once you don't draw it or it gets answered, the ramp will not help at all. Once again, your list might ve explosive, but less relyable.
2) Staying open for 2-drops: I love my mana base. It works super smoothly. On turn 1 I almost always play a Blood Crypt which allows me to cast any of my 1 - drops and then I can play any of 2-drops in my deck on turn 2 as each of them costs either black or red mana.
Now in your case things get more complicated. Your deck doesn't allow that. If you start with a black spell, you must decide if you'll be able to cast Helix or Growth Spiral on turn 2. And that may depend on context you don't know before fetching. The same goes for BoP in a way. It obviously fixes well, but what if it gets killed? That can disable you from playing anything on turn 2 because you were forced to fetch one way on turn 1.
4) Tempo advantage: I know you mention this, but I still feel like underlining it. Now I haven't played with Glittering Wish for years, but I do remember that you lose tempo if you play it. There might be some decks that just get beaten by a special answer, but as Wish reveals it, they can play around it and you slow down a lot. Against good-stuff decks the wish becomes rather tragic - for getting slown down you don't recieve much. Now a deck that is a bit chunkier tends to lose tempo all the time, so we need to play cards that prevent us from falling behind. I overdid the application of this rule in my earlier lists, but I still think that Reflector is great and Wish too greedy, especially as BtL can play a similar role post-board.
5) Because od sideboard options, I would go for a 2-2 split on the 5-mana slot.
6) As for the BtL hits, Fracturing Gust and Supreme Verdict are great game 2, but that's it.
I think this would do well to just have its EV of Niv-Mizzet be only a mite less greedy timewise and its run out Bird of Paradise into death alley or walkers into that same alley not be there.
The OP deck does seem very good actually, but maybe it can be verging on crazy good.
-4 Pillar of the Paruns
-4 Birds of Paradise
-1 Safewright (this is good but not 3-good)
-2 Domri
-1 Kaya
+2 Vivid Grove
+1 Reflecting Pool
+1 Murmuring Bosk (find with safewright, missing without cause)
(Seems very nearly strictly better, but tweak overall to use it like this)
+2 Farseek
+2 Reborn Hope (the latter cards are way better here if you can retrieve them)
+2 Coiling Oracle
+2 Fulminator Mage
You effectively have more mana here, so main color ramp can be a 2-slot. For a "do as I say, not as I do" deck. Something like this.
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Hey Guys, Jim Davis recently 4-1d with the Bring to Light spell based list. His takeaway as you can see for yourselves at the end of the video is that:
Domri is bad. Izzet charm is underwhelming, Sin collector was never used or tutored for. The silver Bullet tutoring aspect of the deck is AMAZING, giving you legs against most if not all decks in the format.
One thing that may be of use to us developing this strategy is focusing on versatile silver bullets like Unmoored Ego and Detention Sphere (cards that disrupt any deck at least a little but are very powerful in specific scenarios). In the Video, Davis suggests running Growth Spiral, Manamorphose and other snowball planeswalkers to fit in the colors that we lack after removing the cards mentioned above.
I guess a PW focused deck wouldn't be the worst idea ever too. most 2 color walkers snowball out of control very quickly. Bring to light, also, helps you find those answers that help you get time and set up your board in any way you like.
Hello just curious if you think having mono colored spells in this deck is bad since Niv grabs two-colored cards? Just wondering if the good brew would involve 2 drops and some 3 drops that are good two-colored cards// most of which is mentioned above.
Another card I can see being run as a 1 of is Wild Cantor. I know it's not much, but the things I like about it is how it can fix your manabase the turn you Bring to Light or cast Niv. Is a gruul card so can be grabbed with Niv as a blocker if you have 1 mana left. And yes it can get in a few damage if cast as a turn 1 drop. Hope suggesting this card helps a little.
Was also going to suggest Bosk. Dang you leviathan. Lol
Hey No name, As far as your mana base goes I think you should take a look at mine. I still don’t think mine is perfect but I have 8 fetch lands, 4 misty and 4 windswept. My windswept can hit every shockland in the deck. Misty hits all of them except godless shrine. In your mana base definitely take out marsh flats because it doesn’t hit 3 of your shocklands and all your other fetchlands don’t hit 2 of your shocklands. So while playing in a game for me I know I can fetch early for godless shrine and then no matter what land I need to get later on in the game every fetch land I play can grab it. That’s how I went about building my mana base.
On another note.
After further review deafening clarion should just be played over firespout. Simply for the bring to light effect.
I also like knight of autumn over kitchen finks
GROWTH SPIRAL is amazing. Wayy better than coiling oracle. The instant speed is where you want to be because with this style deck you are playing reactive up until turn 4 or 5. Casting spells predominately on your opponents turn. Also growth spiral is a ramp card where as coiling oracle is a chance for a ramp. Yes you have to have that land for growth spiral to work but if you don’t draw one off the top you can still put it in play if one of your 5 cards in hand is a land.
I also am on board with cutting the reflecting pool for a different land. Maybe a steam vents but then windswept can’t find it.. honestly 1 mana confluence.
I too don’t like border post in this deck. I would like there is be another type of ramp spell but I tested with safewright and didn’t really like it. I also tested with far seek and that is just not a good card for a reactive deck. So I am in search for that other ramp spell of some sort. I’m not really a fan of the birds because it gives their dead cards an out plus everyone bolts the bird anyways.
After watching other people play I think the deck needs a 1 of unsmoked ego main deck as well as supreme verdict so the new deck list I’m looking at this week looks a lot like what’s below.
Creatures (9)
2 knight of autumn
1 hunt master of the fells
3 blood braid elf
3 nice Mizzet
Something else to think about is... If anyone is skipping out on the 1 drops as well you could squeeze chalice of the void in the 75 somewhere too. I do like inquisition so people the right play is finding a way to make 4 of them fit into the main deck. With such a greedy mana base I don’t like thoughtsieze, there is already enough life loss.
1/ I agree with what you said regarding the bird. I was thinking it would be better against decks like tron, add nauseam, etc... but probably worse against decks with cheap spot removals, and it also affects the way you fetch so sometimes having it killed is even worse for you mana I noticed. Still it's possible that it's better to have it against humans or spirits just because you can play niv or bloodbraid elf a turn faster. I can afford to take them out against wu control but not against decks like jund where I don't have good enough sb slots. By the way, I have enmoored ego and crumble to dust which seem redundant (where would you bring unmoored ego except against Tron?). Also I removed a trophy from the main since decks often use the mana I am giving them but removing birds and keeping 2 trophies main may keep the Tron mu favorable (I have been winning a lot against them).
2/ I am not a big fan of Grim Flayer and Sygg because you have to work for them. They aren't very good Magic Cards I feel. It's sure they seem better in your list because you have more cheap removals to trigger them. I agree on the manabase and reworked mine because it had issues. Still it's not perfect (coiling oracle which i like better than growth spiral and helix on 2).
4/ 5/ Glittering wish is often cluncky that's right especially in game 2 where you don't keep impactful slots against some matchup. The tempo loss can be offset by Bloodbraid. It's probably too cute. Note I keep the 5 mana UG spell in the board even postboard, so I can still get Niv of it. I have been adding a Tefeiri Time Raveler and a Nahiri in the Board for grinding matchups, and proactive solution to Blood Moon, they are ok. Nahiri is a bit cluncky as a Wish target game 1 since it's hard to tutor for it and play it on the same turn. About the 5 mana split, I prefer 3 1 because of cards like Spell Pierce, Stubborn Denial, Negate postboard, etc... That have been game over against the sorcery. I have been taking it out against Death's Shadow, Merfolks, as an example. I also don't have many good other targets for it except than Niv.
It's true my deck wins mostly to the number of bloodbraid elves you draw, and resolving niv. I will probably hedge by removing some or all the Birds, adding 1 trophy, maybe bolt, sculler or some more coiling oracles (probably try to go turn 1 breeding pool or watery grave if i run oracles). I feel like I cannot afford to play wish anymore anymore if I cut the birds. I tried a few caryatids as well and they were bad. Maybe Knight of the Reliquary is playable, although there should be some special lands to fetch, and I can only see 1 or 2 manlands.
As for your list, I wonder if it's not too hard to cast Niv, unless you keep hitting with Grim Flayer 3 turns in a row. Only 1 electrolyze to draw does not seem enough but I did not check your mana enough to figure it, maybe you can add a land, but in a way it's also super hard to curve 1 through 5, so draw spells (you probably cannot take a turn out ramping)would help even if you cast Niv on 6 or 7. Kitchen finks don't do much I feel, they are not focused enough so it's hard to rely on having 3 (electrolyze is decent as well against aggro). At least 1 should be a Knight of Autumn which helps against about 100 techs, especially the bad ones like random Worships, Platinum Empirion you did not even imagine your opponent could have. Even if you have many ways to deal with these techs, you may not have them in hand, and Knights remains a proactive card anyway. Also, isn't Sin Collector a bit narrow? I have been liking Kambal in some obvious matchups but it's not bad to bring against death shadow, uw control, etc... as well, unless you already have enough cards for these matchups.
To Nonamealreadytaken:
a) I wouldn't underestimate Flayer, Finks and Sygg, all of them saw play in great midranges once. I can't say much more without more testing though.
b) I started at 25 lands but flooded more than I liked, so I trimmed one land and it feels correct. In theory, I thought like 25 was going to be the number, however without any utility lands 24 doesn't look too bad on paper and in practice it works great.
c) I guess I'm persuaded about Knight of Autumn. I'll add one for now and see how I like it here.
d) Sin Collector is rather versatile option. It's a reasonable improvement against a wide range of control (UWx, URx, Teachings, Skred Red, Grull Land Loss) and combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Allosaurus Rider, Storm, Scapeshift, Infect) that also works against Burn. The main idea behind it is that I remove Reflectors in many matchups and so I shell replace their spot on the curve somehow. Collector is never the best card I add, but it's often solid. Though if you have any better suggestions I'll be glad to listen to them.
e) I don't like Crumble to Dust here because of Pillar of the Paruns (and before anybody points that out, yes, I'm aware of BtL searching for it).
f) As for BtL vs. Niv-Mizzet, there are many reasons to prefere one or the other. For Niv: Negate; Spell Pierce; Thalia, Guardian of Traben; Kitesail Freebooter; Duress and Collective Brutality. For BtL: Meddling Mage; Blood Moon; permanents that just need to be answered right away (Primeval Titan, loaded Ascension...); the case when we miss the ideal mana base; it's a hit from Mizzet; lifegain for Burn; silver bullets in sideboard. 2-2 split is the best against Surgical Extraction and cards that work like that. We need at least two Nivs to search for.
I guess it depends on meta, but 2-2 feels generaly the best.
A good suite of cards to play against creatures could be, after sb of course, Supreme Verdict, Deafening Clarion, time wipe, and firespout. This gives you the best odds of grabbing 1 or more with a resolved Niv or BtL.
While time wipe is not necessarily a good wrath effect, grabbing it off Niv against any primarily creature based deck means you will certainly drown them in card advantage. Play Niv grab it plus 2-4 other cards then wrath in a few turns bouncing Niv in the process to draw another 3-4 cards while wiping out their board.
I watched Jim Davis play this deck and it was pretty damn obvious that Domri should have 100% been small teferi. That card does everything the deck wants.
Protects you from Counters
Allows you to play your sorceries at instant speed
bounce problematic cards
Seriously, why has no one mentioned small teferi yet???
Also, the deck should be running either Growth spiral or manamorphose.
@Noob King - TOTALLY AGREE. If you check out my list above I’m running 3 small Teferi and 4 growth spiral. I am really enjoying the glittering wish package. It is wonderful with the Teferi as well. Being able to cast glittering wish at instant speed on your opponents end step then to cast whatever you get on your turn with no interruption.
I watched Jim Davis play this deck and it was pretty damn obvious that Domri should have 100% been small teferi. That card does everything the deck wants.
Protects you from Counters
Allows you to play your sorceries at instant speed
bounce problematic cards
Seriously, why has no one mentioned small teferi yet???
Also, the deck should be running either Growth spiral or manamorphose.
We can go for 4 cards in a colour pair, but I don't think we can actually drop to 1 of any colour pair if we want to maximize Niv-Mizzet flips.
Growth Spiral requires some mana base warping (so does Coiling Oracle), and while Manamorphose is in relatively competition-free RG colours, it sadly doesn't ramp and often feels like an air card. Another mark against Growth Spiral is that UG is already in hot demand with Bring to Light, and I don't think we can afford to hit 6 of any colour pair or some colour pair is really losing out.
Another mark against Growth Spiral is that UG is already in hot demand with Bring to Light, and I don't think we can afford to hit 6 of any colour pair or some colour pair is really losing out.
I think the balance of color pairs is somewhat overestimated. When you cast Niv Mizzet, you'll likely draw 4+ cards, and finish your turn with 7 cards in hand. If you find both BtL and Spiral, I bet you take BtL, you're ahead and are going to win or at least be in a favored position next turn.
Spiral could be played over Birds, especially in a manabase full of shocklands. It's important to save life and reach 5 mana asap, also fetching adn tutoring for lands makes Niv a bit better at not fizzling too much. Birds is a blank to Niv's ability too. I mean, even drawing only 2 cards with Niv is very good, it's very similar to a more powerful Crackling Drake in the worst case scenario.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
I echo what headminerve says here. A LOT of the deck is about surviving early. Once you manage that, a Niv is going to win you the game in most cases. I'd prefer to "top out" at 4 of each colour combo, but bring to light and growth spiral are so far apart on the curve that there will be an obvious pick if offered both.
The UW cards, Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere, only cover 2 slots, and I'd argue D-sphere isn't even that good (a Maelstrom Pulse would likely be better, since its tutorable off Bring to Light and doesn't risk getting blown up, though is less good vs wurmcoil)! So going up to 4 UW cards, by adding 2 teferi, seems legit to me.
I am going to rebuild this again from the ground up, where the aim isn't to make Niv great, it's to make the individual cards good. If your deck is built "poorly" for Niv, you'll still hit 3 cards every time. My average has been 4 hits with cavedans list, so if that average drops to 3, I'm going to be ok with that (hitting 3 cards and a 6/6 flyer for 1 spell is insane). I think that's where the focus should be now.
I went a little more creature-heavy to have more targets for K-Command (and I like playing creatures in general) and am also trying out Discovery // Dispersal as my cantrip over the 4th Growth Spiral just to have a UB card.
I've cut the 3rd maindeck Trophy for a Terminate and replaced Primal Command with Nahiri to get Niv or just rummage and remove stuff.
@D90Dennis14 - nice list. I went down the creature route for a bit but didnt have much luck. Picking up critters with k-command is good though, and picking up Niv is just dirty!
Discovery / Dispersal looks really quite nice, good find. I also agree with dropping Primal Command, I don't use that card very often really. I'd like to be able to, but taking a turn off to stop tron, for example, normally leaves you without a threat or a way to close the game. Good changes overall!
Let us know how your results are and what you have trouble beating.
For the record, I took cavedan's list, dropping sin collector, thought erasure and 2 domri (jim davis suggestions) and added 2 Teferi, Time Raveler, 1 Knight of Autumn and a Growth Spiral.
I'm only in my 3rd match with those changes, but so far baby Teferi hasn't been that impressive. The deck is mostly instants, and if you are behind on board, you can't realistically cast Teferi since she'll just die. It's been just ok, not exciting. Even with those small tweaks, my Niv hits have been worse already, giving me a choice between Knight or Safewright, and even had all 3 UW cards in the top 10 to pick from. Although that's slightly unlucky, had baby Tef been a different colour combo, I'd have got an additional card. However, even with a bad hit of say 3 cards, all not that great (izzet charm, safewright + k-command actually happened to me), I still felt pretty far ahead. A 6/6 flyer for 5 is actually quite hard for people to deal with in modern (push & dismember being common removal spells helps), so the extra cards are just nice to have, almost!
I think that there is no point in discussing our card choises as Modern Horizons are being spoiled these days and we're likely getting there some new options - for now it's the Force cycle in our sideboard and Prismatic Vista as a very viable "5-colored land" that seriously helps us against Blood Moon. I'd like to talk about something more general and I hope there is somebody educated in math (as I'm not) to correct (if needed) or further develop my points.
Some of us are trying to hold the number of Niv-Mizzet Reborn hits as high as possible. I belong to the other group which is not focussing on the namesake card itself and rather tries to make the turns before we play Niv as good as possible. But this is not about my card choices or anything like that, but rather about the sort of cards to choose from.
I hope the table below is readable, I've edited it various time as no reasonable way of getting it here works. It also looks completly different before posting... This is how it gets copied from Word here. The first row represents the number of cards of a certain Guild we play. The first column goes for the expected number of hits we get. All the calculations are done via https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx under an assumption of having 59 cards in our library (excluding the Mizzet that's currently being cast). The numbers shell be probably slightly higher because of fetchlands, though in real games the percentages obviously depend on the context.
.......................1................2................3................4................5................6................7................8.............
1 or more...16,95%...31,27%...43,33%...53,45%...61,91%...68,96%...74,82%...79,66%
1....................16,95%...28,64%...36,17%...40,48%...42,32%...42,32%...40,99%...38,74%
2.......................................2,63%......6,78%.....11,63%...16,56%...21,16%...25,15%...28,38%
3..........................................................0,37%.....1,29%......2,81%......4,91%......7,45%......10,32%
4 or more............................................................0,04%......0,21%......0,58%......1,22%......2,22%..
As you can see, the first copy for each Guild is very valuable, while second and third do a lot of work as well. This kinda changes after adding the fourth card, becouse the percentage for exactly one hit doesn't really increase further. In fact, it starts to lower with the seventh card of a certain two-color combination. What we are in fact doing when we add more copies is going down on the cases when we don't hit any card and going up on the percentage of the cases when we hit more than one card like that, leaving the ideal case of exactly one hit at more or less the same state. Obviously it's still better to hit two (for example) Simic cards then to hit none, but not by I vast gap as thas goes along with decreasing our chances for the other guilds.
Another point I wanted to have is that some cards are just bad hits. I'm never excited about hitting Tidehollow Sculler and hitting Thought Erasure is generaly even less appealing. This way I want to point out that reasoning like: "I play no dimir cards, so the first Thought Erasure is very valuable." is wrong. Just go play Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek because they are better in the early turns while there's no need to be hitting hand disruption later. Mana ramp is not great to hit either. Concider cutting Veinfire Borderpost and Growth Spiral (espetially if you run four copies of Bring to Light), for cards like Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl and Arbor Elf or Lotus Cobra. As the things are, I seem to be the only one to doubt mana ramp as a whole in this deck...
Last but not least, Pillar of the Paruns is by far our best land. However, if we want to run non-multicolored cards, it becomes an obstacle. For each of those cards we have make sure we play enough colored resources to cast it on turn 1. I'd recommand 13 as a minimum colored sources for any of them, though 14 would be optimal (unfortunately, I don't run that many myself). This gets even a bit more problematic for monocolored 2-drops. The probability of having at least one Pillar with one or less non-Pillar lands in an opening hand is 9,88%. Many of these hands would be keeps while holding an uncastable Lotus Cobra or something like that turns them into mulligans. Note that adding a land decreases this probability to 8,68%. So my conclusion is that running mono colored 2-drops in dangerous and it should be done only in the case of very strong cards (like Rest in Peace). 1-drops don't face this Pillar problem almost at all as the probability of holding two at least Pillars and no other land is 3,03% and those are generally no great hands anyway.
@LeFantak - thanks for trying to post those numbers, but they don't really work on MTGSalvation (copy n paste).
I kind of agree with what you're saying, but there's context for all these things. For example, Thought Erasure has 2 scenarios where it is good. 1) Vs Control or Combo, where there's a good chance they have cards in hand after you Niv. In that spot, discard is good to have and it's not a bad hit. Against agro / big mana, that's rarely the case, but there's situations where discard is fine. And the 2nd point - Thought Erasure can help you to dig to mana on turn 2, or threats if you kept a more mana-heavy hand.
Although those points may or may not make it better than Thoughtseize, when you add in that it's an extra hit AND castable off pillar, then I think it's a little too simple to say "just play thoughtseize".
I do agree on cutting borderpost, they have not worked for me. Growth Spiral is a funny 1. I don't like running too many, since the deck is more midrange than it is ramp. Plus it clashes with Bring to Light. However, in the early game, it can help you to get to the magic 5 mana earlier, and you can still hold up interaction while you wait. It's been ok for me as a 1-of.
Since cutting my RG cards and most of my WB cards, I have noticed a drop in succesful hits. It's still been acceptable, but I can see it quite quickly not being ok. I really do recommend keeping hits as high as possible.
I did some pretty quick maths from the same link (basically just to see the table), and 5-6 returns the best hit rate for a colour combination. But, you probably can't fit 5 of every colour.
So, for every 5th card you add, you gain 2% hitrate on that colour combo, but if its at the cost of the 1st copy from another colour, that 1st copy is worth 17%.
Realistically, you do want to try and get at least 1 from every colour, since each is worth 17% (ish). That seems like something to aim for if we can. I have put a cap on 4 cards for myself, and i think that's really the most you want to run.
Thanks for starting me on this line of thinking LeFantak, its very useful and interesting!
I've tried to somehow re-do the table. It doesn't look nice, but at least I can read it. I hope the others can understand it as well.
You are obviously right about Thought Erasure not being a dead card later. You're wrong about it being close to Thoughtseize early, as we already have a bunch of competing 2-drops early and the fact we can discard a card a turn earlier is huge. It can also be reasonably part of a double-spell. As a hit from Niv, it's usually worse than the majority - I love to hit Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Helix, Reflector Mage and so. What unites these cards is that a) it's hard to play around them b) they allow me to get tempo advantage I might have lost before casting the dragon or the turn I cast it. Thought Erasure fits none of these groups, but it's not tragic: I'd be glad I have a hit, but most of the time not that I have this hit.
I'm 3-0 in my current league. My list before went 3-2 but was unlucky not to 4-1.
I think this current list sticks to having only 2 cards in my worst colours, and more in my better colours but never more than 4 (bring to light and lightning helix are my 4-ofs).
What's great about these cards is that they are all flexible, and can all help with the "burn them out" plan. Countersquall is just Negate, and Negate is playable in UW Control (and we're a version of control, kinda). BR isn't a great colour combo either, but k-command picking up Niv and burning for 2 is great, and its also brilliant vs hollow one. So far, Sorin and Kaya haven't shown up often enough, so we'll see how they get on in future matches - when i draw them though, they're usually doing ok.
Manamorphose, as many predicted, has done exactly nothing. I very very rarely need the fixing, so then its just "0-mana draw a card" with the downside of being terrible vs Thalia and Eidolon(s), with the upside of occasionally being a free card I wouldn't have gotten otherwise (compared to growth spiral for example). It's very very middling.
I am only 3 matches in, so pinch-of-salt required.
Also @LeFantak - although UB isn't a great colour combo, Unmoored Ego gives you outs to decks that you otherwise couldn't beat Game 1. An early Bring to Light for this card has won me more than 1 match, and so even if I cut all other Dimir cards, I'll be keeping this 1 in.
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I believe our decklist are relatively close so we could influence each other in a rather positive way. I hope you respond to my points in a way that will help me escape those of my thought patterns that are wrong in this case.
1) BoP vs. 1-mana removal: We seem to agree on one fact - what makes a midrange good is discard. On the other hand we disagree on one thing that has been questioned many times regarding this kind of decks - shell we play mana dorks? Deathrite has been known as one of the best midrange cards ever, weaker mana dorks are sometimes included. But Niv-Mizzet is special in this respect. At the same time mana dorks are stronger with it and multicolored spells in the deck, but as Mizzet needs enough good hits, BoP compete with 1-mana removal. I'm not really sure that my answer (play removal) is correct, but I believe that it really changes many matchups (Burn, Humans, Spirits, Jund) from unfavorable to positive. Now both give us options to get tempo advantage we tend to lose because of multicolored cards being often a bit too chunky, both perform better against low-removal-count decks...I guess BoP are more risky but when they work, they're great, while removal feels like insurance, stability or something like that. What do you think?
2) Creative 2-drops: Modern midrange decks are well known for their good 2-drops that are capable of pressuring well and creating card advantage (Tarmogoyf, Confident, Pyromancer). Now that's something your deck misses. I think Sculler is wonderful and I'd allways play it over Erasure. Other options I have come up with are Sygg, River Cutthroat and Grim Flayer. But your simic ramp spells work simillary in a way. However, my problem with them is a) you lose on battlefield once you cut Lightning Bolts and than play a ramp spell and b) they make the deck much more about synergy - if you ramp, you need a payoff. Once you don't draw it or it gets answered, the ramp will not help at all. Once again, your list might ve explosive, but less relyable.
2) Staying open for 2-drops: I love my mana base. It works super smoothly. On turn 1 I almost always play a Blood Crypt which allows me to cast any of my 1 - drops and then I can play any of 2-drops in my deck on turn 2 as each of them costs either black or red mana.
Now in your case things get more complicated. Your deck doesn't allow that. If you start with a black spell, you must decide if you'll be able to cast Helix or Growth Spiral on turn 2. And that may depend on context you don't know before fetching. The same goes for BoP in a way. It obviously fixes well, but what if it gets killed? That can disable you from playing anything on turn 2 because you were forced to fetch one way on turn 1.
4) Tempo advantage: I know you mention this, but I still feel like underlining it. Now I haven't played with Glittering Wish for years, but I do remember that you lose tempo if you play it. There might be some decks that just get beaten by a special answer, but as Wish reveals it, they can play around it and you slow down a lot. Against good-stuff decks the wish becomes rather tragic - for getting slown down you don't recieve much. Now a deck that is a bit chunkier tends to lose tempo all the time, so we need to play cards that prevent us from falling behind. I overdid the application of this rule in my earlier lists, but I still think that Reflector is great and Wish too greedy, especially as BtL can play a similar role post-board.
5) Because od sideboard options, I would go for a 2-2 split on the 5-mana slot.
6) As for the BtL hits, Fracturing Gust and Supreme Verdict are great game 2, but that's it.
The OP deck does seem very good actually, but maybe it can be verging on crazy good.
-4 Pillar of the Paruns
-4 Birds of Paradise
-1 Safewright (this is good but not 3-good)
-2 Domri
-1 Kaya
+2 Vivid Grove
+1 Reflecting Pool
+1 Murmuring Bosk (find with safewright, missing without cause)
(Seems very nearly strictly better, but tweak overall to use it like this)
+2 Farseek
+2 Reborn Hope (the latter cards are way better here if you can retrieve them)
+2 Coiling Oracle
+2 Fulminator Mage
You effectively have more mana here, so main color ramp can be a 2-slot. For a "do as I say, not as I do" deck. Something like this.
Domri is bad. Izzet charm is underwhelming, Sin collector was never used or tutored for. The silver Bullet tutoring aspect of the deck is AMAZING, giving you legs against most if not all decks in the format.
One thing that may be of use to us developing this strategy is focusing on versatile silver bullets like Unmoored Ego and Detention Sphere (cards that disrupt any deck at least a little but are very powerful in specific scenarios). In the Video, Davis suggests running Growth Spiral, Manamorphose and other snowball planeswalkers to fit in the colors that we lack after removing the cards mentioned above.
I guess a PW focused deck wouldn't be the worst idea ever too. most 2 color walkers snowball out of control very quickly. Bring to light, also, helps you find those answers that help you get time and set up your board in any way you like.
That was 5c Niv in Standard, not Modern.
Was also going to suggest Bosk. Dang you leviathan. Lol
On another note.
After further review deafening clarion should just be played over firespout. Simply for the bring to light effect.
I also like knight of autumn over kitchen finks
GROWTH SPIRAL is amazing. Wayy better than coiling oracle. The instant speed is where you want to be because with this style deck you are playing reactive up until turn 4 or 5. Casting spells predominately on your opponents turn. Also growth spiral is a ramp card where as coiling oracle is a chance for a ramp. Yes you have to have that land for growth spiral to work but if you don’t draw one off the top you can still put it in play if one of your 5 cards in hand is a land.
I also am on board with cutting the reflecting pool for a different land. Maybe a steam vents but then windswept can’t find it.. honestly 1 mana confluence.
I too don’t like border post in this deck. I would like there is be another type of ramp spell but I tested with safewright and didn’t really like it. I also tested with far seek and that is just not a good card for a reactive deck. So I am in search for that other ramp spell of some sort. I’m not really a fan of the birds because it gives their dead cards an out plus everyone bolts the bird anyways.
After watching other people play I think the deck needs a 1 of unsmoked ego main deck as well as supreme verdict so the new deck list I’m looking at this week looks a lot like what’s below.
Creatures (9)
2 knight of autumn
1 hunt master of the fells
3 blood braid elf
3 nice Mizzet
Spells (28)
4 growth spiral
4 bring to light
3 assassins trophy
1 maelstrom pulse
2 Teferi Time Raveler
3 Izzet Charm
1 deafening clarion
4 lightning helix
4 glittering wish
1 supreme verdict
1 unamoored ego
Lands (23)
1 temple garden
1 godless shrine
1 sacred fountry
1 hollowed fountain
1 overgrown tomb
1 breeding pool
1 stomping ground
4 windswept Heath
4 misty rainforest
4 pillar of parums
1 mana confluence
1 forest
1 plains
1 island
Sideboard (glittering wish)
1 assassins trophy
1 niv mizzet reborn
1 kholagans command
1 deafening clarion
1 supreme verdict
1 fracturing gust
1 detention sphere
2 wear tear
1 huntmaster of the fells
1 crumble to dust
1 ashiok
1 terminate
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1/ I agree with what you said regarding the bird. I was thinking it would be better against decks like tron, add nauseam, etc... but probably worse against decks with cheap spot removals, and it also affects the way you fetch so sometimes having it killed is even worse for you mana I noticed. Still it's possible that it's better to have it against humans or spirits just because you can play niv or bloodbraid elf a turn faster. I can afford to take them out against wu control but not against decks like jund where I don't have good enough sb slots. By the way, I have enmoored ego and crumble to dust which seem redundant (where would you bring unmoored ego except against Tron?). Also I removed a trophy from the main since decks often use the mana I am giving them but removing birds and keeping 2 trophies main may keep the Tron mu favorable (I have been winning a lot against them).
2/ I am not a big fan of Grim Flayer and Sygg because you have to work for them. They aren't very good Magic Cards I feel. It's sure they seem better in your list because you have more cheap removals to trigger them. I agree on the manabase and reworked mine because it had issues. Still it's not perfect (coiling oracle which i like better than growth spiral and helix on 2).
4/ 5/ Glittering wish is often cluncky that's right especially in game 2 where you don't keep impactful slots against some matchup. The tempo loss can be offset by Bloodbraid. It's probably too cute. Note I keep the 5 mana UG spell in the board even postboard, so I can still get Niv of it. I have been adding a Tefeiri Time Raveler and a Nahiri in the Board for grinding matchups, and proactive solution to Blood Moon, they are ok. Nahiri is a bit cluncky as a Wish target game 1 since it's hard to tutor for it and play it on the same turn. About the 5 mana split, I prefer 3 1 because of cards like Spell Pierce, Stubborn Denial, Negate postboard, etc... That have been game over against the sorcery. I have been taking it out against Death's Shadow, Merfolks, as an example. I also don't have many good other targets for it except than Niv.
It's true my deck wins mostly to the number of bloodbraid elves you draw, and resolving niv. I will probably hedge by removing some or all the Birds, adding 1 trophy, maybe bolt, sculler or some more coiling oracles (probably try to go turn 1 breeding pool or watery grave if i run oracles). I feel like I cannot afford to play wish anymore anymore if I cut the birds. I tried a few caryatids as well and they were bad. Maybe Knight of the Reliquary is playable, although there should be some special lands to fetch, and I can only see 1 or 2 manlands.
As for your list, I wonder if it's not too hard to cast Niv, unless you keep hitting with Grim Flayer 3 turns in a row. Only 1 electrolyze to draw does not seem enough but I did not check your mana enough to figure it, maybe you can add a land, but in a way it's also super hard to curve 1 through 5, so draw spells (you probably cannot take a turn out ramping)would help even if you cast Niv on 6 or 7. Kitchen finks don't do much I feel, they are not focused enough so it's hard to rely on having 3 (electrolyze is decent as well against aggro). At least 1 should be a Knight of Autumn which helps against about 100 techs, especially the bad ones like random Worships, Platinum Empirion you did not even imagine your opponent could have. Even if you have many ways to deal with these techs, you may not have them in hand, and Knights remains a proactive card anyway. Also, isn't Sin Collector a bit narrow? I have been liking Kambal in some obvious matchups but it's not bad to bring against death shadow, uw control, etc... as well, unless you already have enough cards for these matchups.
a) I wouldn't underestimate Flayer, Finks and Sygg, all of them saw play in great midranges once. I can't say much more without more testing though.
b) I started at 25 lands but flooded more than I liked, so I trimmed one land and it feels correct. In theory, I thought like 25 was going to be the number, however without any utility lands 24 doesn't look too bad on paper and in practice it works great.
c) I guess I'm persuaded about Knight of Autumn. I'll add one for now and see how I like it here.
d) Sin Collector is rather versatile option. It's a reasonable improvement against a wide range of control (UWx, URx, Teachings, Skred Red, Grull Land Loss) and combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Allosaurus Rider, Storm, Scapeshift, Infect) that also works against Burn. The main idea behind it is that I remove Reflectors in many matchups and so I shell replace their spot on the curve somehow. Collector is never the best card I add, but it's often solid. Though if you have any better suggestions I'll be glad to listen to them.
e) I don't like Crumble to Dust here because of Pillar of the Paruns (and before anybody points that out, yes, I'm aware of BtL searching for it).
f) As for BtL vs. Niv-Mizzet, there are many reasons to prefere one or the other. For Niv: Negate; Spell Pierce; Thalia, Guardian of Traben; Kitesail Freebooter; Duress and Collective Brutality. For BtL: Meddling Mage; Blood Moon; permanents that just need to be answered right away (Primeval Titan, loaded Ascension...); the case when we miss the ideal mana base; it's a hit from Mizzet; lifegain for Burn; silver bullets in sideboard. 2-2 split is the best against Surgical Extraction and cards that work like that. We need at least two Nivs to search for.
I guess it depends on meta, but 2-2 feels generaly the best.
While time wipe is not necessarily a good wrath effect, grabbing it off Niv against any primarily creature based deck means you will certainly drown them in card advantage. Play Niv grab it plus 2-4 other cards then wrath in a few turns bouncing Niv in the process to draw another 3-4 cards while wiping out their board.
Edit: Thank you @Doctor_Kickass for the clarification
UWRUWR MidrangeUWR
BUGSultai MidrangeBUG
BUGRTraverse MidrangeBUGR (currently brewing)
Protects you from Counters
Allows you to play your sorceries at instant speed
bounce problematic cards
Seriously, why has no one mentioned small teferi yet???
Also, the deck should be running either Growth spiral or manamorphose.
Teferi, Time Raveler is great fun--Bring to Light with Flash, targeted discard with Flash, cantrips, bounces stuff--but being in actually decent UW colours means he competes for spots with worthy cards like Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere. As much as Domri, Anarch of Bolas sucks, he doesn't have that much competition in RG colours (some of his best rivals are Bloodbraid Elf and Firespout), and at least he ramps.
We can go for 4 cards in a colour pair, but I don't think we can actually drop to 1 of any colour pair if we want to maximize Niv-Mizzet flips.
Growth Spiral requires some mana base warping (so does Coiling Oracle), and while Manamorphose is in relatively competition-free RG colours, it sadly doesn't ramp and often feels like an air card. Another mark against Growth Spiral is that UG is already in hot demand with Bring to Light, and I don't think we can afford to hit 6 of any colour pair or some colour pair is really losing out.
I think the balance of color pairs is somewhat overestimated. When you cast Niv Mizzet, you'll likely draw 4+ cards, and finish your turn with 7 cards in hand. If you find both BtL and Spiral, I bet you take BtL, you're ahead and are going to win or at least be in a favored position next turn.
Spiral could be played over Birds, especially in a manabase full of shocklands. It's important to save life and reach 5 mana asap, also fetching adn tutoring for lands makes Niv a bit better at not fizzling too much. Birds is a blank to Niv's ability too. I mean, even drawing only 2 cards with Niv is very good, it's very similar to a more powerful Crackling Drake in the worst case scenario.
The UW cards, Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere, only cover 2 slots, and I'd argue D-sphere isn't even that good (a Maelstrom Pulse would likely be better, since its tutorable off Bring to Light and doesn't risk getting blown up, though is less good vs wurmcoil)! So going up to 4 UW cards, by adding 2 teferi, seems legit to me.
I am going to rebuild this again from the ground up, where the aim isn't to make Niv great, it's to make the individual cards good. If your deck is built "poorly" for Niv, you'll still hit 3 cards every time. My average has been 4 hits with cavedans list, so if that average drops to 3, I'm going to be ok with that (hitting 3 cards and a 6/6 flyer for 1 spell is insane). I think that's where the focus should be now.
4x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Knight of Autumn
4x Bloodbraid Elf
3x Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Planeswalker (1)
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
Instant (12)
3x Growth Spiral
4x Lightning Helix
2x Assassin's Trophy
1x Terminate
2x Kolaghan's Command
Sorcery (10)
3x Safewright Quest
1x Discovery // Dispersal
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Supreme Verdict
4x Bring to Light
4x Pillar of the Paruns
3x Mana Confluence
4x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Stomping Ground
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Assassin's Trophy
1x Unmoored Ego
1x Fulminator Mage
1x Deafening Clarion
1x Fracturing Gust
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Detention Sphere
1x Ashiok, Dream Render
1x Teferi, Time Raveler
2x Rest in Peace
2x Damping Sphere
I went a little more creature-heavy to have more targets for K-Command (and I like playing creatures in general) and am also trying out Discovery // Dispersal as my cantrip over the 4th Growth Spiral just to have a UB card.
I've cut the 3rd maindeck Trophy for a Terminate and replaced Primal Command with Nahiri to get Niv or just rummage and remove stuff.
Discovery / Dispersal looks really quite nice, good find. I also agree with dropping Primal Command, I don't use that card very often really. I'd like to be able to, but taking a turn off to stop tron, for example, normally leaves you without a threat or a way to close the game. Good changes overall!
Let us know how your results are and what you have trouble beating.
For the record, I took cavedan's list, dropping sin collector, thought erasure and 2 domri (jim davis suggestions) and added 2 Teferi, Time Raveler, 1 Knight of Autumn and a Growth Spiral.
I'm only in my 3rd match with those changes, but so far baby Teferi hasn't been that impressive. The deck is mostly instants, and if you are behind on board, you can't realistically cast Teferi since she'll just die. It's been just ok, not exciting. Even with those small tweaks, my Niv hits have been worse already, giving me a choice between Knight or Safewright, and even had all 3 UW cards in the top 10 to pick from. Although that's slightly unlucky, had baby Tef been a different colour combo, I'd have got an additional card. However, even with a bad hit of say 3 cards, all not that great (izzet charm, safewright + k-command actually happened to me), I still felt pretty far ahead. A 6/6 flyer for 5 is actually quite hard for people to deal with in modern (push & dismember being common removal spells helps), so the extra cards are just nice to have, almost!
Some of us are trying to hold the number of Niv-Mizzet Reborn hits as high as possible. I belong to the other group which is not focussing on the namesake card itself and rather tries to make the turns before we play Niv as good as possible. But this is not about my card choices or anything like that, but rather about the sort of cards to choose from.
I hope the table below is readable, I've edited it various time as no reasonable way of getting it here works. It also looks completly different before posting... This is how it gets copied from Word here. The first row represents the number of cards of a certain Guild we play. The first column goes for the expected number of hits we get. All the calculations are done via https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx under an assumption of having 59 cards in our library (excluding the Mizzet that's currently being cast). The numbers shell be probably slightly higher because of fetchlands, though in real games the percentages obviously depend on the context.
.......................1................2................3................4................5................6................7................8.............
1 or more...16,95%...31,27%...43,33%...53,45%...61,91%...68,96%...74,82%...79,66%
1....................16,95%...28,64%...36,17%...40,48%...42,32%...42,32%...40,99%...38,74%
2.......................................2,63%......6,78%.....11,63%...16,56%...21,16%...25,15%...28,38%
3..........................................................0,37%.....1,29%......2,81%......4,91%......7,45%......10,32%
4 or more............................................................0,04%......0,21%......0,58%......1,22%......2,22%..
As you can see, the first copy for each Guild is very valuable, while second and third do a lot of work as well. This kinda changes after adding the fourth card, becouse the percentage for exactly one hit doesn't really increase further. In fact, it starts to lower with the seventh card of a certain two-color combination. What we are in fact doing when we add more copies is going down on the cases when we don't hit any card and going up on the percentage of the cases when we hit more than one card like that, leaving the ideal case of exactly one hit at more or less the same state. Obviously it's still better to hit two (for example) Simic cards then to hit none, but not by I vast gap as thas goes along with decreasing our chances for the other guilds.
Another point I wanted to have is that some cards are just bad hits. I'm never excited about hitting Tidehollow Sculler and hitting Thought Erasure is generaly even less appealing. This way I want to point out that reasoning like: "I play no dimir cards, so the first Thought Erasure is very valuable." is wrong. Just go play Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek because they are better in the early turns while there's no need to be hitting hand disruption later. Mana ramp is not great to hit either. Concider cutting Veinfire Borderpost and Growth Spiral (espetially if you run four copies of Bring to Light), for cards like Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl and Arbor Elf or Lotus Cobra. As the things are, I seem to be the only one to doubt mana ramp as a whole in this deck...
Last but not least, Pillar of the Paruns is by far our best land. However, if we want to run non-multicolored cards, it becomes an obstacle. For each of those cards we have make sure we play enough colored resources to cast it on turn 1. I'd recommand 13 as a minimum colored sources for any of them, though 14 would be optimal (unfortunately, I don't run that many myself). This gets even a bit more problematic for monocolored 2-drops. The probability of having at least one Pillar with one or less non-Pillar lands in an opening hand is 9,88%. Many of these hands would be keeps while holding an uncastable Lotus Cobra or something like that turns them into mulligans. Note that adding a land decreases this probability to 8,68%. So my conclusion is that running mono colored 2-drops in dangerous and it should be done only in the case of very strong cards (like Rest in Peace). 1-drops don't face this Pillar problem almost at all as the probability of holding two at least Pillars and no other land is 3,03% and those are generally no great hands anyway.
I kind of agree with what you're saying, but there's context for all these things. For example, Thought Erasure has 2 scenarios where it is good. 1) Vs Control or Combo, where there's a good chance they have cards in hand after you Niv. In that spot, discard is good to have and it's not a bad hit. Against agro / big mana, that's rarely the case, but there's situations where discard is fine. And the 2nd point - Thought Erasure can help you to dig to mana on turn 2, or threats if you kept a more mana-heavy hand.
Although those points may or may not make it better than Thoughtseize, when you add in that it's an extra hit AND castable off pillar, then I think it's a little too simple to say "just play thoughtseize".
I do agree on cutting borderpost, they have not worked for me. Growth Spiral is a funny 1. I don't like running too many, since the deck is more midrange than it is ramp. Plus it clashes with Bring to Light. However, in the early game, it can help you to get to the magic 5 mana earlier, and you can still hold up interaction while you wait. It's been ok for me as a 1-of.
Since cutting my RG cards and most of my WB cards, I have noticed a drop in succesful hits. It's still been acceptable, but I can see it quite quickly not being ok. I really do recommend keeping hits as high as possible.
I did some pretty quick maths from the same link (basically just to see the table), and 5-6 returns the best hit rate for a colour combination. But, you probably can't fit 5 of every colour.
So, for every 5th card you add, you gain 2% hitrate on that colour combo, but if its at the cost of the 1st copy from another colour, that 1st copy is worth 17%.
Realistically, you do want to try and get at least 1 from every colour, since each is worth 17% (ish). That seems like something to aim for if we can. I have put a cap on 4 cards for myself, and i think that's really the most you want to run.
Thanks for starting me on this line of thinking LeFantak, its very useful and interesting!
You are obviously right about Thought Erasure not being a dead card later. You're wrong about it being close to Thoughtseize early, as we already have a bunch of competing 2-drops early and the fact we can discard a card a turn earlier is huge. It can also be reasonably part of a double-spell. As a hit from Niv, it's usually worse than the majority - I love to hit Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Helix, Reflector Mage and so. What unites these cards is that a) it's hard to play around them b) they allow me to get tempo advantage I might have lost before casting the dragon or the turn I cast it. Thought Erasure fits none of these groups, but it's not tragic: I'd be glad I have a hit, but most of the time not that I have this hit.
Now for the example let's take Dimir, as a guild where most of us seem to struggle to find a good option. I've thought about:
Agony Warp, Far // Away or Tyrant's Scorn: Those are worse removal than cards like Abrupt Decay, Angrath's Rampage or Lightning Helix. They are good hits, but slightly too situational and just worse than alternatives in other colors.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Discovery // Dispersal, Unmoored Ego, Shadow of Doubt, Thought Erasure: All of these scale from bad to average hits as they are good only in slower matchups. They all lead to tempo loss, which is not good neither befor casting Niv nor after.
Dragonlord Silumgar, Hostage Taker: They compete with Niv and BtL. And they lose badly.
Lazav, the Multifarious, Sygg, River Cutthroat: I think these two are the most promissing ones, but they need you to meet asome spetial conditions to be good. At the same time, they are not particulary tempo swings either.
http://deck.tk/0vPY36tC
I'm 3-0 in my current league. My list before went 3-2 but was unlucky not to 4-1.
I think this current list sticks to having only 2 cards in my worst colours, and more in my better colours but never more than 4 (bring to light and lightning helix are my 4-ofs).
What's great about these cards is that they are all flexible, and can all help with the "burn them out" plan. Countersquall is just Negate, and Negate is playable in UW Control (and we're a version of control, kinda). BR isn't a great colour combo either, but k-command picking up Niv and burning for 2 is great, and its also brilliant vs hollow one. So far, Sorin and Kaya haven't shown up often enough, so we'll see how they get on in future matches - when i draw them though, they're usually doing ok.
Manamorphose, as many predicted, has done exactly nothing. I very very rarely need the fixing, so then its just "0-mana draw a card" with the downside of being terrible vs Thalia and Eidolon(s), with the upside of occasionally being a free card I wouldn't have gotten otherwise (compared to growth spiral for example). It's very very middling.
I am only 3 matches in, so pinch-of-salt required.
Also @LeFantak - although UB isn't a great colour combo, Unmoored Ego gives you outs to decks that you otherwise couldn't beat Game 1. An early Bring to Light for this card has won me more than 1 match, and so even if I cut all other Dimir cards, I'll be keeping this 1 in.