Shoal + FoN have done a great job against hogaak deck. I end up with no gy hate main and only a surgical, a trap and an a return to nature in side. Pressure + permission have won more games than than games in which I see hate. Maybe I'm wrong, but for now I keep going like this...
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Decks played: Modern:
0 Affinity;
URG Delver
URGW Countercats
(Here you can find some video contents about Countercats and Temur Delver decks)
I've now watched a few matches online with people running Nimble Mongoose in the place of Mandrills, and after facing so much targeted removal last Monday, I thought I've give the 'goose a try.
I also got my set of Force of Negations in the mail today, and I'm wondering how many people are running.
With the swap of Goose for Mandrills, I think Stubborn Denial is not a great card in the shell. I was thinking of replacing the Denials with either the Forces of the Shoals. So I've either looking at 4 Shoals, 2 Forces, or 4 Forces, 2 Shoals.
My meta is heavy with Burn, Tron, UW Control, and very often some form of GW Valuetown or Counters combo. Last week I had some close matches against GDS, making me think Mongoose would be good. I don't know what the strongest set up would be against these decks.
Hello everyone! I'm, I believe, a new poster to this forum, but have been a lurker for some time. With the release of Nimble Mongoose, Hexdrinker, and Force of Negation into the Modern format I decided to return to the RUG colors after dabbling in UR and Jeskai Delver variants. What I wanted to test was to run all one drop creatures that I can always drop on turn one or turn two with protection backup instead of cards like Tarmogoyf or Hooting Mandrills. After playing in a local tournament this past Saturday I'm pleased to say that I went 4-1. I'll type in a report below the deck list.
Match 1 vs. Bant Spirits 2-0:
Game one was a very close match with me bolting as many of his lords as possible and trading away Delver of Secrets until finally leveling up a Hexdrinker to level eight. After three hits the snake won the race with me at one life. Game two played out diffrently with me playing two Nimble Mongoose turns one and two before gaining threshold on turn 3. Vapor Snag was an allstar here as it managed to bounce a lord to enable the two Lightning Bolts in my hand.
Match 2 vs. Rakdos Goblins 2-0:
This was by far my favorite match of the day with swings on both sides in game one until finally I was able to stabilze with a level four Hexdrinker, which I was constanly scared to level up due to the presence of Munitions Expert. I managed to work my opponent down to 10 life before going all in on the snake and kicking a Burst Lightning in conjuction with the attack. Game two I used a Force of Negation to counter an Aether Vial on the draw and proceeded to play defence with a Nimble Mongoose until I flipped a Delver of Secrets that I protected. While fairly one sided in the second game the first came down to the wire while we traded resources back and forth. Very cool deck and only getting stronger with M20!
Match 3 vs. Burn 2-0:
So Burn is, in my expeirience, a fairly simple matchup where if we find our free/cheap counter magic with an early threat then we are likely to win. Nimble Mongoose was the ideal threat in this matchup for obvious reasons while Hexdrinker played the role of being thrown in front of any creature swung my way. After killing their early threats a mongoose and a level three snake took the game home for me with the second game playing out much the same way except instead of a Hexdrinker it was a Delver of Secrets. I found my counter magic at the right time which led me to win the game.
A tough match for sure, but one that Nimble Mongoose and Vapor Snag shine in. Game one I keep a risky six card hand with a single land, a Delver of Secrets, and a Serum Visions as the important cards. Since I was on the draw he managed to Thoughtsieze me and after some thought he took my cantrip. I never drew another land. Game two I used a Spell Pierce on his discard spell and slammed a Hexdrinker with multiple ways to protect it. After countering a removal spell I proceeded to level it up to three where the only card I was worried about was Liliana of the Veil out of his side board. The final match came down to the two Nimble Mongoose that managed to get around his Liliana, the Last Hope. With a hand full of removal and his single Death's Shadow getting snagged several times I successfully managed to tempo him out on the turn that the LtLH was going to ultimate.
Match 5 vs. Humans 0-2: Not much to say here. I as rolled so hard that I barely remember the match. Games one and two he had Cavern of Souls into Aether Vial and I was never able to recover both games. I had a fleeting chance game one when I used a free counter to stop the vial, but it was all for naught. Nimble Mongoose tried its best to stop the onslaught.
Conclusion: I loved the feel of the deck with all one drop creatures with Force of Negation as my backup counter spell. The new green creatures have overpreformed for me in both the tournament and the few online games I've managed to play. To this end I wanted to test Flusterstorm in the side board, but I feel it would be better as Dispel. Sorry for the long write up, but please tell me what you think! It has certainly been a while since I've done a report like this.
Well done mandolphin and certainly welcome to our page! Fantastic write up!
I'm looking forward to hearing more from you! While we keep an eye on this page we also talk a lot on discord https://discord.gg/g9m6Cc.
Just my two cents, I think magmatic sinkhole could save you some life points in place of dismember. And if you don't like the flusterstorms we seem to be settling on 3 shoals, 2 FoN main. You could add a FoN side
Just my two cents, I think magmatic sinkhole could save you some life points in place of dismember. And if you don't like the flusterstorms we seem to be settling on 3 shoals, 2 FoN main. You could add a FoN side
I debated Magmatic Sinkhole as the card to replace Dismember, but I thought that the delve on the card would conflict too much with the threshold on Nimble Mongoose. The life loss can be hard, and the alternative ability to hit planeswalkers can be very useful at times, but the conflict between the mongoose and the removal spell worried me. It's definitely worth testing to see if the two can work together though.
As for Force of Negation and Disrupting Shoal numbers I'm staying with the current list's numbers just for testing purposes. I want to jam out a few more games with the new counter spell to get a feel for how it interacts with the format. The exile clause can be a huge advantage when countering certain spells such as Faithless Looting or Life From the Loam. Just like the removal spells above I'll be testing both Force of Negation and Magmatic Sinkhole over the coming weeks.
interesting write up and build, i'm curious what's your opinion of ptermander in this style of build?
Definitely worth testing! Not sure if it's better than Nimble Mongoose or Hexdrinker as each has their own advantages and disadvantages, but it's worth considering.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I think the idea is the staff decided to start a new site they'd be in control of. I'm registered over there and would prefer to move.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Last night I tried out Nimble Mongoose. I was pretty disappointed. Went 1-2 overall. It just felt so underpowered in the meta, and Threshold is actually hard to turn on sometimes, and it's difficult to maintain when necessary. I did a 2/4 arrangement of Disrupting Shoal and Force of negation - that actually felt rather good.
Match 1: vs. Grixis Death Shadow 0-2
GDS is consistently my worst matchup, and this is where Mongoose really floundered. Between Shadow and Angler, my creatures are really lackluster. I know I need to keep Shadow off the table, but once it lands it's hard to get rid of. This feels like a matchup where I want to hold on to my burn spells and send them to the face at a critical moment, but I was just never in that position. I brought in EE, Collar, and Hazoret, but never really say them. Hazoret sat in my hand in my hand and I just never got the 4 mana to cast her.
Match 2: Izzet Phoenix 2-0
This match felt really easy. Echoing Truth and Vapor Snag really shine here. As does Cindervines just to peck away at their life as they spin their wheels.
Match 3: Mono-Red Phoenix 1-2
This was much harder than Izzet Phoenix. The goal is to exhaust their gas until they're top decking. I simply had bad draws. Had to Mull first game and last game, and was never drawing into any of my big creatures. Brought in Weather the Storm and Cindervines. Weather the Storm won me game 2.
My Goose experiment feels over. It just didn't help me out any more than Mandrills. Next time I'll be going back to Mandrills, which means I'm going to try out a counterspell base of 2 Stubborn Denial, 3 Disrupting Shoal, and 3 Force of Negation. If I ever get a set of Hexdrinkers I'll be interested to see how they play out.
@CatParty I'm sorry to hear that Nimble Mongoose under preformed for you at the tournament, but it seems that we had different results surrounding the goose when facing Grixis Shadow. It's possible that the makeup of our decks breed different results such as the presence of Hexdrinker and more copies of Vapor Snag present in my own. On the topic of Hexdrinker I fully recommend trying out the snake because that card alone has won me games I had no business winning while also being a solid threat on its own.
Play a slower control game. And seasoned pyromancer has been performing very well for some vs bgx and control Which is HUGE. Im buying some right now. They also don't handle opposing planeswalkers very well. Like Chandra ToD. Alternatively, hazoret is a good card too.
Seasoned Pyromancer seems like a great add to keep pace with the attrition decks. I don't own any yet, but I can see this being the best option available.
Things I've played: Hazoret is good. I've played Chandra, Torch of Defiance and didn't care for it. A long time ago, I tried Bedlam Reveler but didn't like it much. I've played a Vendillion Clique, a Savage Knuckleblade, a Nimble Obstructionist . . . all more or less fine. My favorite of things I've played is definitely Huntmaster of the Fells, which just eats the board alive if you can untap with it. If you're just aiming for Jund, probably Hazoret is your best bet.
I think the main thing is to just increase your threat density a little bit, and it doesn't much matter with what. I was thinking of playing a pair of Young Pyromancer from the side just to make blockers and have an engine, but Seasoned Pyromancer is just better for that purpose at this point.
But tomorrow, I'm trying something totally different: Veil of Summer as a pair out of the board. I'm always tinkering, a evidenced above, and like I said, I think it basically doesn't matter what extra threat or two you add in. But this is totally different and gives a way to create 2 for 1s pretty easily against decks where that's really relevant. It's also 1cmc. Imagine casting it in response to a Fatal Push, having your creature live, and then drawing a card. It's a very narrow Cryptic Command. I don't know if it's going to be good, but I know exactly how all the other cards behave in the matchup, so I aim to find out if this is viable. I'm 50-50 on it.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
But tomorrow, I'm trying something totally different: Veil of Summer as a pair out of the board. I'm always tinkering, a evidenced above, and like I said, I think it basically doesn't matter what extra threat or two you add in. But this is totally different and gives a way to create 2 for 1s pretty easily against decks where that's really relevant. It's also 1cmc. Imagine casting it in response to a Fatal Push, having your creature live, and then drawing a card. It's a very narrow Cryptic Command. I don't know if it's going to be good, but I know exactly how all the other cards behave in the matchup, so I aim to find out if this is viable. I'm 50-50 on it.
Best I've done so far is counter a Mind Funeral with it ☺️ I think Fry is legit too, great against Humans, UW, etc.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Played in my local Saturday Modern tournament to a successful 4-0 finish. Same list as I posted before except I replaced the 2 Grafdigger's Cage in the SB with a Gut Shot and an Destructive Revelry. I don't have time to post a full report, but the matches were 2-0 UW Tron, 2-1 UR Phoenix, 2-0 GW Devoted Devastation, and 2-0 RUG Scapeshift. All I can say is that Nimble Mongoose and Hexdrinker have over preformed for me the last two weeks. Thinking about taking Ashton's advice, however, and give Fry a try out of the SB as I can see it being powerful in certain match ups.
Guys I'm running into an issue, how the hell do we beat jund?
Jund is a rough match up and the only way I've been able to beat GBx (this is before the additions of Nimble Mongoose and Hexdrinker mind you) is by Blood Mooning them with Huntmaster of the Fells as backup. I haven't played against a Rock deck since the addition of the new cards so I'm still waiting to see how they preform here.
Modern:
I also got my set of Force of Negations in the mail today, and I'm wondering how many people are running.
With the swap of Goose for Mandrills, I think Stubborn Denial is not a great card in the shell. I was thinking of replacing the Denials with either the Forces of the Shoals. So I've either looking at 4 Shoals, 2 Forces, or 4 Forces, 2 Shoals.
My meta is heavy with Burn, Tron, UW Control, and very often some form of GW Valuetown or Counters combo. Last week I had some close matches against GDS, making me think Mongoose would be good. I don't know what the strongest set up would be against these decks.
4 Force of Negation
2 Disrupting Shoal
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
2 mana leak
1 sleight of hand
1 spell snare
2 spell pierce
1 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing truth
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Tarfire
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Snapcaster Mage
Lands
2 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
4 Scalding Tarn
3 misty rainforest
3 Wooded foothills
2 island
1 mountain
1 forest
2 Blood Moon
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Cindervines
2 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Weather the Storm
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Dismember
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Hexdrinker
Spells(31)
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Burst Lightning
3 Vapor Snag
4 Serum Visions
2 Opt
4 Thought Scour
3 Spell Pierce
3 Mana Leak
2 Disrupting Shoal
1 Dismember
4 Force of Negation
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
3 Island
1 Forest
2 Flusterstorm
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Abrade
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Alpine Moon
2 Young Pyromancer
Match 1 vs. Bant Spirits 2-0:
Game one was a very close match with me bolting as many of his lords as possible and trading away Delver of Secrets until finally leveling up a Hexdrinker to level eight. After three hits the snake won the race with me at one life. Game two played out diffrently with me playing two Nimble Mongoose turns one and two before gaining threshold on turn 3. Vapor Snag was an allstar here as it managed to bounce a lord to enable the two Lightning Bolts in my hand.
SB changes: -3 Spell Pierce -1 Force of Negation, +2 Abrade +2 Young Pyromancer
Match 2 vs. Rakdos Goblins 2-0:
This was by far my favorite match of the day with swings on both sides in game one until finally I was able to stabilze with a level four Hexdrinker, which I was constanly scared to level up due to the presence of Munitions Expert. I managed to work my opponent down to 10 life before going all in on the snake and kicking a Burst Lightning in conjuction with the attack. Game two I used a Force of Negation to counter an Aether Vial on the draw and proceeded to play defence with a Nimble Mongoose until I flipped a Delver of Secrets that I protected. While fairly one sided in the second game the first came down to the wire while we traded resources back and forth. Very cool deck and only getting stronger with M20!
SB changes: -3 Spell Pierce -1 Force of Negation, +2 Abrade +2 Young Pyromancer
Match 3 vs. Burn 2-0:
So Burn is, in my expeirience, a fairly simple matchup where if we find our free/cheap counter magic with an early threat then we are likely to win. Nimble Mongoose was the ideal threat in this matchup for obvious reasons while Hexdrinker played the role of being thrown in front of any creature swung my way. After killing their early threats a mongoose and a level three snake took the game home for me with the second game playing out much the same way except instead of a Hexdrinker it was a Delver of Secrets. I found my counter magic at the right time which led me to win the game.
SB changes: -1 Dismember -3 Vapor Snag, +2 Flusterstorm +2 Abrade
Match 4 vs. Grixis Shadow 2-1:
A tough match for sure, but one that Nimble Mongoose and Vapor Snag shine in. Game one I keep a risky six card hand with a single land, a Delver of Secrets, and a Serum Visions as the important cards. Since I was on the draw he managed to Thoughtsieze me and after some thought he took my cantrip. I never drew another land. Game two I used a Spell Pierce on his discard spell and slammed a Hexdrinker with multiple ways to protect it. After countering a removal spell I proceeded to level it up to three where the only card I was worried about was Liliana of the Veil out of his side board. The final match came down to the two Nimble Mongoose that managed to get around his Liliana, the Last Hope. With a hand full of removal and his single Death's Shadow getting snagged several times I successfully managed to tempo him out on the turn that the LtLH was going to ultimate.
SB changes: -1 Lightning Bolt -1 Burst Lightning -2 Force of Negation, +2 Young Pyromancer +2 Flusterstorm
Match 5 vs. Humans 0-2: Not much to say here. I as rolled so hard that I barely remember the match. Games one and two he had Cavern of Souls into Aether Vial and I was never able to recover both games. I had a fleeting chance game one when I used a free counter to stop the vial, but it was all for naught. Nimble Mongoose tried its best to stop the onslaught.
SB Changes: -3 Spell Pierce -1 Force of Negation, +2 Abrade +2 Young Pyromancer
Conclusion: I loved the feel of the deck with all one drop creatures with Force of Negation as my backup counter spell. The new green creatures have overpreformed for me in both the tournament and the few online games I've managed to play. To this end I wanted to test Flusterstorm in the side board, but I feel it would be better as Dispel. Sorry for the long write up, but please tell me what you think! It has certainly been a while since I've done a report like this.
I'm looking forward to hearing more from you! While we keep an eye on this page we also talk a lot on discord
https://discord.gg/g9m6Cc.
Just my two cents, I think magmatic sinkhole could save you some life points in place of dismember. And if you don't like the flusterstorms we seem to be settling on 3 shoals, 2 FoN main. You could add a FoN side
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
Competitive Decks
Devotion to the Lash B ----
Monkey Conservation WUGR ---- Dragon WorshipR
I debated Magmatic Sinkhole as the card to replace Dismember, but I thought that the delve on the card would conflict too much with the threshold on Nimble Mongoose. The life loss can be hard, and the alternative ability to hit planeswalkers can be very useful at times, but the conflict between the mongoose and the removal spell worried me. It's definitely worth testing to see if the two can work together though.
As for Force of Negation and Disrupting Shoal numbers I'm staying with the current list's numbers just for testing purposes. I want to jam out a few more games with the new counter spell to get a feel for how it interacts with the format. The exile clause can be a huge advantage when countering certain spells such as Faithless Looting or Life From the Loam. Just like the removal spells above I'll be testing both Force of Negation and Magmatic Sinkhole over the coming weeks.
Definitely worth testing! Not sure if it's better than Nimble Mongoose or Hexdrinker as each has their own advantages and disadvantages, but it's worth considering.
Here's the new forum. It still lacks Temur delver. We can move there and let the RUG invasion begin. Hope to see you all up there.
Modern:
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Modern:
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=361
Last night I tried out Nimble Mongoose. I was pretty disappointed. Went 1-2 overall. It just felt so underpowered in the meta, and Threshold is actually hard to turn on sometimes, and it's difficult to maintain when necessary. I did a 2/4 arrangement of Disrupting Shoal and Force of negation - that actually felt rather good.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 snapcaster mage
SPELLS
4 thought scour
4 lightning bolt
4 serum visions
2 tarfire
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Negation
2 Spell Pierce
1 Echoing truth
1 sleight of hand
1 Vapor Snag
1 Spell Snare
2 mana leak
2 steam vents
1 Breeding Pool
2 island
1 mountain
1 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Wooded Foothills
4 scalding tarn
1 stomping ground
2 Blood Moon
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Cindervines
2 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Weather the Storm
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Dismember
Match 1: vs. Grixis Death Shadow 0-2
GDS is consistently my worst matchup, and this is where Mongoose really floundered. Between Shadow and Angler, my creatures are really lackluster. I know I need to keep Shadow off the table, but once it lands it's hard to get rid of. This feels like a matchup where I want to hold on to my burn spells and send them to the face at a critical moment, but I was just never in that position. I brought in EE, Collar, and Hazoret, but never really say them. Hazoret sat in my hand in my hand and I just never got the 4 mana to cast her.
Match 2: Izzet Phoenix 2-0
This match felt really easy. Echoing Truth and Vapor Snag really shine here. As does Cindervines just to peck away at their life as they spin their wheels.
Match 3: Mono-Red Phoenix 1-2
This was much harder than Izzet Phoenix. The goal is to exhaust their gas until they're top decking. I simply had bad draws. Had to Mull first game and last game, and was never drawing into any of my big creatures. Brought in Weather the Storm and Cindervines. Weather the Storm won me game 2.
My Goose experiment feels over. It just didn't help me out any more than Mandrills. Next time I'll be going back to Mandrills, which means I'm going to try out a counterspell base of 2 Stubborn Denial, 3 Disrupting Shoal, and 3 Force of Negation. If I ever get a set of Hexdrinkers I'll be interested to see how they play out.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
Things I've played: Hazoret is good. I've played Chandra, Torch of Defiance and didn't care for it. A long time ago, I tried Bedlam Reveler but didn't like it much. I've played a Vendillion Clique, a Savage Knuckleblade, a Nimble Obstructionist . . . all more or less fine. My favorite of things I've played is definitely Huntmaster of the Fells, which just eats the board alive if you can untap with it. If you're just aiming for Jund, probably Hazoret is your best bet.
I think the main thing is to just increase your threat density a little bit, and it doesn't much matter with what. I was thinking of playing a pair of Young Pyromancer from the side just to make blockers and have an engine, but Seasoned Pyromancer is just better for that purpose at this point.
But tomorrow, I'm trying something totally different: Veil of Summer as a pair out of the board. I'm always tinkering, a evidenced above, and like I said, I think it basically doesn't matter what extra threat or two you add in. But this is totally different and gives a way to create 2 for 1s pretty easily against decks where that's really relevant. It's also 1cmc. Imagine casting it in response to a Fatal Push, having your creature live, and then drawing a card. It's a very narrow Cryptic Command. I don't know if it's going to be good, but I know exactly how all the other cards behave in the matchup, so I aim to find out if this is viable. I'm 50-50 on it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Modern: MONKEY GROW & Amulet Titan
Legacy: RG Lands
EDH: Merieke Ri Berit Esper Good stuff
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Jund is a rough match up and the only way I've been able to beat GBx (this is before the additions of Nimble Mongoose and Hexdrinker mind you) is by Blood Mooning them with Huntmaster of the Fells as backup. I haven't played against a Rock deck since the addition of the new cards so I'm still waiting to see how they preform here.