I gonna make an order to buy the new spirits. I don't know how many Marsh Flats are necessary to play a esper list. I suppose that buying 3 are the best option looking to the future. Should I buy some Darkslick Shores too?
Personnally I'm looking at getting 2. I wouldn't bother with Darkslick Shores because I think you'll probably have enough fetches to get a black source when you want it, and you shouldn't need many.
Anyone else here use celestial Kirin? I've found it to be rather interesting vs opposing vial listings, especially given we run Selfless Spirit. Usually when it lands it has hexproof thanks to Drogskol captain and it sort of turns the deck into a board wipe spamming nightmare. I guess my mind set in those match ups is that they only have four vials. Spirits has eight max (sort of).
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Looking forward to seeing lists from this weekend. So far only hearing about Bant Spirits, but I don't know how much that means at a team tournament, since players will likely go with what was best last cycle + Phantom and Cleric.
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Standard
Tempo Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Has anyone tried out Simian Spirit Guide in UW?
Here's my thoughts:
One of the things that is nice about bant spirits is access to our 3 drops on t2 thanks to noble hierarch. With SSG, we can do the same thing. We can also now do something that bant can't do which is put down a 2 drop on t1, which could be super sweet with supreme phantom... something like a selfless spirit on t1 and a supreme phantom on t2! The ape isn't even a terrible top deck late if you have vial out as he is a spirit you can flash in without any red mana. I might even put a single red fetch in the deck to cast him in a pinch later in the game.
Yes, he is card disadvantage, but he is a shot in the arm for tempo and we ARE a tempo deck.
Edit: Bant also made 11th in the Modern Classic for SCG, also with 2 horizon canopy + moorland haunt.
I was piloting the spirits list that finished 11th in the Classic. Wasn't running Moorland Haunt, btw. Tournament report for those interested:
Amulet Titan (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: anemic draws from both players on mulls, ballista from opp is difference maker (L)
G2: T2 Damping Sphere is good on the play, apparently (W)
G3: T2 Damping Sphere is good on the draw, apparently (W)
Bant Defenders (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Five-six lords to alpha strike through Wall of Denial and Arcades (W)
G2: Can’t find Qasali Pridemage in time to tag opp's Worship (L)
G3: Multiple Spell Quellers, tempo out (W)
Grixis Shadow (Win Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Opp stumbles on mana in the face of wanderer and lord, Path his only threat cast (W)
G2: Turn 2 RIP stalls game, Opp Lili LH controls board well enough to buy time to hardcast Gurmag (L)
G3: Multiple Mausoleum Wanderers and a lord are enough (W)
Jund (Lose Die roll): (2-0)
G1: Solid curve; wanderer, rattlechains, lord, opponents draw too clunky with 2-3 lilis
G2: The dream, T1: wanderer, T2: double wanderer, T3: lord, opponent's maelstrom pulse rots in hand
Puresteel Combo (Win Die roll): 3rd place finisher (0-2)
G1: No path, no spell queller, no chance
G2: Damping Sphere not strong enough, no path, no spell queller, no eidolon, next to no chance
Jeskai Delver (Don't remember die roll): (2-1)
G1: Standard opening, blank some removal spells with rattlechains (W)
G2: Opp SB izzet staticaster is the difference maker (L)
G3: Keep 1 lander with double noble, 1st noble is bolted, no second land drop and second noble is helixed, T3 land drop is a second UG land, Opp drops Geist on curve, miss another land drop, take geist hit, topdeck canopy and cast Rhox Mark Monk to stabilize. RWM gains me 16 life over the course of the game as I bounce between 2-9 life over 5-7 turns as we both continue to develop our boards. Eventually gain tempo advantage with nebelgast herald to punch in at extra turns (W)
Bogles (Lose Die roll): 1st place finisher (1-2)
G1: Opp has weird draw of bogle and double keen sense, draws two cards off first hit but never meaningfully connects again (W)
G2: Opp SB Teeg shuts off Settle the Wreckage, they suit up a Dryad Arbor with Sprit Mantle, don’t find any of the 3 post-board paths (L)
G3: Mulled to a six with one land, two nobles, and an EE. Opp plays bogle, plays spiritdancer, suits up spiritdancer with auras as I miss early land drops and don’t rip paths, settle, or runed halo (L)
Titanshift (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Mull to five, opp’s average draw is good enough (L)
G2: Curve out, stick Runed Halo turn before PT (ultimately not necessary, given the EOT CoCo provided lethal) (W)
G3: Opp had bolt for both my T1 and T2 plays, and then anger of the gods for my T3 geist. Stuck Worship on empty board T4, slowly stuck threats and Spell Quellered two Scapeshifts (W)
Affinity (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Slow draw out of opp, had path for their T2 overseer, other than Master of Etherium opp didn’t have any other meaningful plays (W)
G2: Opp is creature-light, but sticks Karn, Ghiapur Aether Grid, and Blood Moon to control the board (L)
G3: Opp gets to activate Steel Overseer multiple times on board with two Vault Skirge - T3 Nebelgast Herald into T4 Coco multiple lords wins the race (W)
For context, been on bant spirits for about a year and half now, 10-5 GP Hartford with similar list (less Supremes and Damping Sphere obviously). A couple of takeaways:
- Only drew the maindeck Remorseful Cleric once, but there wasn't any notable spot in which it would have better than another two-drop. Will definitely start here when making changes.
- Nebelgast Herald wins games that no other spirit would. Might go back to running 2. I CoCo-ed about half a dozen times during my opponent's begin combat step hoping to hit Herald or get Herald triggers, largely to success.
- May be wrong on a few of the details above, it was a long weekend. Hope this is helpful for the modern spirits community!
I bought a playset of celestial kirin when EDM was released and I've yet to see a meta where they would serve me well colt. I typically empty my hand well before I hit the mana to play them in UW vial.
Thanks for the tournament write up Shawn! Cheers on a solid performance. I agree with you on nebelgast as it just feels so great in so many matches. I tend to view it as standard is looking at goblin chainwhirler - back breaking for certain decks and a passable beater against control. The card feels great when I'm behind and at parity. It's fine when I'm ahead.
@maartendq I totally understand the meta call. If I was facing down a bevy of control every week I would also change my list.
I'm glad the deck had such a great show this week. I definately think it's T1 (bant coco or UW vial) and will be meta once more people pick up the deck. This is one I'm glad I moved on early.
The deck will have a better version (between Coco and Vial) at some point. When this is cleared up, we'll see the full potential of the deck.
I believe Nebelgast Herald is better than GosT in the Vial version. It's very important to tap Vault Skirge, Mantis Rider, Lingering Souls in order to win games (and not to lose races). The fact it has flying and haste where Geist has no evasion by itself (and lords don't give one either) is the definite argument to me. Geist gets chumped and forced to stay back in too many MUs.
I have the same reasoning about Mutavault, not being sexy on the paper, while some Ghost Quarters can be clutch in some MUs.
About Moorland Haunt, there's a chance the deck wants to play more copies. I'll start with this 60 :
Remorseful cleric, on the other hand, seems to me a worse version of rest in peace, maybe i will end up splitting the number of copies but so far RIP hoses many more strategies than the Cleric.
Cleric can be protected in this deck, be a proactive clock, be vialed in at instant speed (or when you're stuck at 1 land), be found off Coco, has synergies with lords and Haunt... That's a lot of flexibility for one hate card.
After all every gy-matter deck has stuff to deal with RiP, but they may fall short VS a flash hate. The split seems pretty easy to make (RiP is redudant in multiple too).
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
The deck will have a better version (between Coco and Vial) at some point. When this is cleared up, we'll see the full potential of the deck.
I believe Nebelgast Herald is better than GosT in the Vial version. It's very important to tap Vault Skirge, Mantis Rider, Lingering Souls in order to win games (and not to lose races). The fact it has flying and haste where Geist has no evasion by itself (and lords don't give one either) is the definite argument to me. Geist gets chumped and forced to stay back in too many MUs.
I have the same reasoning about Mutavault, not being sexy on the paper, while some Ghost Quarters can be clutch in some MUs.
About Moorland Haunt, there's a chance the deck wants to play more copies. I'll start with this 60 :
Remorseful cleric, on the other hand, seems to me a worse version of rest in peace, maybe i will end up splitting the number of copies but so far RIP hoses many more strategies than the Cleric.
Cleric can be protected in this deck, be a proactive clock, be vialed in at instant speed (or when you're stuck at 1 land), be found off Coco, has synergies with lords and Haunt... That's a lot of flexibility for one hate card.
After all every gy-matter deck has stuff to deal with RiP, but they may fall short VS a flash hate. The split seems pretty easy to make (RiP is redudant in multiple too).
Wouldn't running the full 4x Cavern of Souls along side 2x Moorland Haunt be too risky? Cavern is fine on turn one for anything but Path to Exile(which isn't cast on turn one usually); however, drawing colorless lands instead of actual color producing lands seems like it would interfere with Paths and Haunt later on in the game. Not to mention the fact that moorland haunts themselves are colorless and you're also running 2x Ghost Quarter.
I think you likely only want to see 1-2 colorless lands per game, so having 8x may be bad for your mana base.
Has anyone tried out Simian Spirit Guide in UW?
Here's my thoughts:
One of the things that is nice about bant spirits is access to our 3 drops on t2 thanks to noble hierarch. With SSG, we can do the same thing. We can also now do something that bant can't do which is put down a 2 drop on t1, which could be super sweet with supreme phantom... something like a selfless spirit on t1 and a supreme phantom on t2! The ape isn't even a terrible top deck late if you have vial out as he is a spirit you can flash in without any red mana. I might even put a single red fetch in the deck to cast him in a pinch later in the game.
Yes, he is card disadvantage, but he is a shot in the arm for tempo and we ARE a tempo deck.
You're on the play, land, exile spirit guide, play selfless. Their turn, land bolt. Who's been tempoed out?
Yes, clearly I was tempoed out in this scenario, but if I played Selfless T2 the traditional way to see it bolted I would still be tempoed out. We know SSG is the loss of a card in most situations, that is a given, but if it can power out our creatures a turn faster or allow us to play two creatures on a turn we would normally only be able to play 1, that is tempo gain.
Now imagine this scenario. I have an opening hand that contains no cmc 1 cards and two cmc 2 spirits (maybe selfless and rattle chains) and let's say a Drogskol Captain.
Scenario 1: T1 pass, T2 rattlechains, T3 Drogskol (or maybe selfless to play more conservatively)
Scenario 2: T1 SSG into rattlechains, T2 selfless, T3 Drogskol
Now imagine our opponent has a lightning bolt in hand.
Scenario 1 leaves us with either a rattlechains or a drogskol on the board (probably the rattlechains because we didn't put enough early pressure on them to make them feel they needed to use their bolt yet).
Scenario 2 leaves us with two creatures on the battlefield instead and you probably have kept your Drogskol because your opponent saw two 2 power flyers by T2 and was pressured into bolting.
The only question to my mind is can we sacrifice a card in hand for a more explosive start? I'm not sure of the answer but I don't think you can immediately dismiss it with the whole "tempoed out by bolt" argument.
Been playing with UW spirits for 10 matchups with great succes.
In my list I am running GoST, Tallowisp and Curious Obsession + Steel of the Godhead, which I can understand that many of you don't believe is proper for this setup, but so far it have worked very well, need more testing to determine the destiny of those cards.
Anyways, I was hoping you could help me with some sideboarding. I am playing with my playgroup this weekend and I know for a fact that I will face Aggro Elves, Green ramp with big creatures and Mardu Pyromancer. How do you think my sideboard is aligned with that?
Hi everyone,
I played Bant for the last ~6 months and I am having a lot of fun and (local) success with my deck. It is a solid 4-1; 3-1 deck in my local FNM-meta atm.
Now I am willing to build a Spirit-toolbox to play the different archetypes Bant, UW, and Tallowisp (mostly for fun). While Bant and UW are well explored and have a lot of attention now, due to the new m19 cards, the tallowisp build is kind of a niche bulid of the archetype.
Im looking forward to play Bant or UW Vial on the most FNMs, but Id really like to play some tallowisp jank sometimes when Im in the mood.
For the upcoming PPTQ in two weeks I might stick to Bant, because I have the most experience with the deck, even if it might not be the best possible Spirits build out there since Core2019.
See my list on Tallowisp two posts up Tried it like 8 matches, works quite well if you get Curious Obsession and/or Tallowisp in opening hand. As soon as u have Tallowisp out, you're basically set with regards to enchantments, you'll have everything you need in your hand in two turns. Steel of the Godhead works extremely well ofc with Geist, but also Spell Queller and Drogskol, if that's what happens to be on your board. Great fun to play, dno how competitive it is though.
Hibernation is SWEET vs ramp and Elves, Worship too since if they are not in black they can't interact with your creatures.
Against Mardu you are favored yet, try some spell pierce and instead rips and grafdiggers, try remorseful cleric wich enhaces your tempo.
Echoing Truth is very good vs mardu's token and vs elves token, i would try as 1-of and the new amulet wich decreases tokens power while hosing burn and combo is good too in the sideboard
Thank you, thought about Remorseful Cleric, but it is only a one time thing as RIP is for the entire game. I will try out both tho definitely.
Hibernation looks sweet, will prob include that!
The grafdigger's are actually meant to counter the Elves deck mostly, to counter Coco. But maybe a Leonin Arbiter would be better? That would counter any "search your library for en elf and put them into your hand"-cards.
Echoing Truth looks nice, but how does that work vs. tokens? he gets them in his hand and then what? can he cast them again?
Speaking for my list, I can only say that I continue to believe that Spirits' niche is as the best Curious Obsession deck in the format, and that not running 4 is a mistake. I think Supreme Phantom does push me toward UW over Bant. I'm interested in testing Mutavault, which I previously thought was bad but with an extra lord may be better, as well as a Remorseful Cleric main (which is probably meta-dependent) and playing with the number of Phantasmal Image I actually want. I think Worship and Settle the Wreckage are very good sideboard cards right now and I highly recommend all players running at least one Detention Sphere as a catch-all answer that can get rid of problem permanents and tokens.
I saw that list
Is Vial + Tallowisp the right thing to do? For me it looks kind of unsuitable on paper because the lack of synergy?! It looks more like a little Tallowisp-toolbox splash in UW instead of a "real" tallowisp deck, but i have never played a tallowisp build before and could be totally wrong ^^
Noob question:
How do I post decklists?
Well, tbh I don't know, I just saw another guy play it and wanted to try it out. I don't know what a "real" tallowisp deck is, but as I said, I haven't played it more than a few matches.
The synergy is there though, in my opinion. You do need some kind of card draw, which is Curious Obsession. But with only 2-3 copies, you won't be starting with it in your hand very often. Tallowisp lets you dig it out, while also letting you dig out Steel of the Godhead for Geist. Before Supreme Phantom, the ideal play was to hit a Vial at turn 1 and then Mausoleum wanderer + curious obsession at turn 2.
Personally i'm thinking of replacing the 2x Tallowisp and 2x Geist with 4x Phantasmal image, which I had before supreme phantom. Gotta try it all out first tho
Hibernation is SWEET vs ramp and Elves, Worship too since if they are not in black they can't interact with your creatures.
Against Mardu you are favored yet, try some spell pierce and instead rips and grafdiggers, try remorseful cleric wich enhaces your tempo.
Echoing Truth is very good vs mardu's token and vs elves token, i would try as 1-of and the new amulet wich decreases tokens power while hosing burn and combo is good too in the sideboard
Thank you, thought about Remorseful Cleric, but it is only a one time thing as RIP is for the entire game. I will try out both tho definitely.
Hibernation looks sweet, will prob include that!
The grafdigger's are actually meant to counter the Elves deck mostly, to counter Coco. But maybe a Leonin Arbiter would be better? That would counter any "search your library for en elf and put them into your hand"-cards.
Echoing Truth looks nice, but how does that work vs. tokens? he gets them in his hand and then what? can he cast them again?
When a token gets back to your hand, it goes into exile instead. So no comeback for the tokens. Or to put it more accurate: "A token that’s in a zone other than the battlefield ceases to exist. This is a state-based action; see rule 704."
The grafdigger's are actually meant to counter the Elves deck mostly, to counter Coco. But maybe a Leonin Arbiter would be better? That would counter any "search your library for en elf and put them into your hand"-cards.
the only cards with that effect are Chord of calling and the newly printed elf lord (which may or may not be included in most lists) as Lead the Stampede and Collected company do not search the library: the effect of Leonin Arbiter is pretty narrow.
Against those decks i would consider wraths like engineered explosives, or effects like ghostly prison. Beware of Worship! while being a strong option, Shaman of the Pack's effect overrides the lock because it makes opponents lose life instead of dealing damage.
Thank you, Ghostly Prison looks awesome and very likely to piss my mate off haha
Regarding engineered explosives: With the Sunburst effect and this deck, the amount of charge counters will be two, right? From a blue and a white mana. So it will only deal 2 dmg, which might not be enough if his elves are pumped? Or am I getting the effect wrong?
I think that decks that base their engine on Tallowisp should follow this thread instead of this one. There's already plenty variants of spirits decks, being UW, Bant an Esper the most commonly used. There's no need to mix Tallowisp in this thread since there's already one dedicated to it. In the future, if needed to be, the two shall be merged (but imho I don't think they have the same play style).
Regarding wide decks such as Elves and/or tokens, I think that the best option would be EE and/or Wrath effects such as Supreme Verdict or Settle the Wreckage.
In general you'll deal far more damage to Elves and pinpoint them much before they can establish a wide board. Inb4 Christmas Land hands comments, remember that you can 2:1 theirs.
Cheers, thanks man. Seems like Engineered Explosives shall have a place in my sideboard, maybe along with Settle the Wreckage/Supreme Verdict.
And sorry for the chain posts, so many things going on...
If I remember correctly they changed MTGO to only post decklists that are different by 20+ cards, which I guess sucks for us since that'll make it a bit harder to figure out whether one version is more prevalent/consistently winning than the other.
Played another modern event tonight at the LGS for a 4-0 finish. Lots of infect, people are jamming a bunch of test decks. Anyway, neat spell interaction came up. I run two blessed alliance in the side for burn and large ground threats I can't easily deal with, which of course come in against infect because they're amazing.
There is a window during combat, someone more rules and phase savvy can probably go into more detail about this, that's after damage is dealt to cast spells that can still impact creatures that had attacked and or dealt damage.
Opponent swung in with a inkmoth nexus and a glistner elf (declare attackers). I blocked the elf (declare blockers) went to damage and ate some infect points and let my dude trade with elf. I then fired off a blessed alliance at end of combat step to kill the nexus. If I fired it off before blocks during thh attackers phase I may not have gotten the trade (as all pump would have just been dumped on the surviving creature). if I fired it off after blocks were declared he would have just sacced the blocked creature. This let me get both dudes off the board and eventually turn the game around as he was forced to set up and protect another threat at that point.
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Personnally I'm looking at getting 2. I wouldn't bother with Darkslick Shores because I think you'll probably have enough fetches to get a black source when you want it, and you shouldn't need many.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
7-0 list seems spicy maindecking 2 Geist of Saint Traft and 2 Vendilion Clique with 1 Eiganjo Castle.
SCG hasn't put up decklists yet but from watchingthe bant list has Moorland Haunt instead of Gavony Township and also has 2 Horizon Canopy.Edit: Bant also made 11th in the Modern Classic for SCG, also with 2 horizon canopy + moorland haunt.
Here's my thoughts:
One of the things that is nice about bant spirits is access to our 3 drops on t2 thanks to noble hierarch. With SSG, we can do the same thing. We can also now do something that bant can't do which is put down a 2 drop on t1, which could be super sweet with supreme phantom... something like a selfless spirit on t1 and a supreme phantom on t2! The ape isn't even a terrible top deck late if you have vial out as he is a spirit you can flash in without any red mana. I might even put a single red fetch in the deck to cast him in a pinch later in the game.
Yes, he is card disadvantage, but he is a shot in the arm for tempo and we ARE a tempo deck.
I was piloting the spirits list that finished 11th in the Classic. Wasn't running Moorland Haunt, btw. Tournament report for those interested:
Amulet Titan (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: anemic draws from both players on mulls, ballista from opp is difference maker (L)
G2: T2 Damping Sphere is good on the play, apparently (W)
G3: T2 Damping Sphere is good on the draw, apparently (W)
Bant Defenders (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Five-six lords to alpha strike through Wall of Denial and Arcades (W)
G2: Can’t find Qasali Pridemage in time to tag opp's Worship (L)
G3: Multiple Spell Quellers, tempo out (W)
Grixis Shadow (Win Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Opp stumbles on mana in the face of wanderer and lord, Path his only threat cast (W)
G2: Turn 2 RIP stalls game, Opp Lili LH controls board well enough to buy time to hardcast Gurmag (L)
G3: Multiple Mausoleum Wanderers and a lord are enough (W)
Jund (Lose Die roll): (2-0)
G1: Solid curve; wanderer, rattlechains, lord, opponents draw too clunky with 2-3 lilis
G2: The dream, T1: wanderer, T2: double wanderer, T3: lord, opponent's maelstrom pulse rots in hand
Puresteel Combo (Win Die roll): 3rd place finisher (0-2)
G1: No path, no spell queller, no chance
G2: Damping Sphere not strong enough, no path, no spell queller, no eidolon, next to no chance
Jeskai Delver (Don't remember die roll): (2-1)
G1: Standard opening, blank some removal spells with rattlechains (W)
G2: Opp SB izzet staticaster is the difference maker (L)
G3: Keep 1 lander with double noble, 1st noble is bolted, no second land drop and second noble is helixed, T3 land drop is a second UG land, Opp drops Geist on curve, miss another land drop, take geist hit, topdeck canopy and cast Rhox Mark Monk to stabilize. RWM gains me 16 life over the course of the game as I bounce between 2-9 life over 5-7 turns as we both continue to develop our boards. Eventually gain tempo advantage with nebelgast herald to punch in at extra turns (W)
Bogles (Lose Die roll): 1st place finisher (1-2)
G1: Opp has weird draw of bogle and double keen sense, draws two cards off first hit but never meaningfully connects again (W)
G2: Opp SB Teeg shuts off Settle the Wreckage, they suit up a Dryad Arbor with Sprit Mantle, don’t find any of the 3 post-board paths (L)
G3: Mulled to a six with one land, two nobles, and an EE. Opp plays bogle, plays spiritdancer, suits up spiritdancer with auras as I miss early land drops and don’t rip paths, settle, or runed halo (L)
Titanshift (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Mull to five, opp’s average draw is good enough (L)
G2: Curve out, stick Runed Halo turn before PT (ultimately not necessary, given the EOT CoCo provided lethal) (W)
G3: Opp had bolt for both my T1 and T2 plays, and then anger of the gods for my T3 geist. Stuck Worship on empty board T4, slowly stuck threats and Spell Quellered two Scapeshifts (W)
Affinity (Lose Die roll): (2-1)
G1: Slow draw out of opp, had path for their T2 overseer, other than Master of Etherium opp didn’t have any other meaningful plays (W)
G2: Opp is creature-light, but sticks Karn, Ghiapur Aether Grid, and Blood Moon to control the board (L)
G3: Opp gets to activate Steel Overseer multiple times on board with two Vault Skirge - T3 Nebelgast Herald into T4 Coco multiple lords wins the race (W)
For context, been on bant spirits for about a year and half now, 10-5 GP Hartford with similar list (less Supremes and Damping Sphere obviously). A couple of takeaways:
- Only drew the maindeck Remorseful Cleric once, but there wasn't any notable spot in which it would have better than another two-drop. Will definitely start here when making changes.
- Nebelgast Herald wins games that no other spirit would. Might go back to running 2. I CoCo-ed about half a dozen times during my opponent's begin combat step hoping to hit Herald or get Herald triggers, largely to success.
- May be wrong on a few of the details above, it was a long weekend. Hope this is helpful for the modern spirits community!
Edit: corrected W/L for delver match
Thanks for the tournament write up Shawn! Cheers on a solid performance. I agree with you on nebelgast as it just feels so great in so many matches. I tend to view it as standard is looking at goblin chainwhirler - back breaking for certain decks and a passable beater against control. The card feels great when I'm behind and at parity. It's fine when I'm ahead.
@maartendq I totally understand the meta call. If I was facing down a bevy of control every week I would also change my list.
I'm glad the deck had such a great show this week. I definately think it's T1 (bant coco or UW vial) and will be meta once more people pick up the deck. This is one I'm glad I moved on early.
I believe Nebelgast Herald is better than GosT in the Vial version. It's very important to tap Vault Skirge, Mantis Rider, Lingering Souls in order to win games (and not to lose races). The fact it has flying and haste where Geist has no evasion by itself (and lords don't give one either) is the definite argument to me. Geist gets chumped and forced to stay back in too many MUs.
I have the same reasoning about Mutavault, not being sexy on the paper, while some Ghost Quarters can be clutch in some MUs.
About Moorland Haunt, there's a chance the deck wants to play more copies. I'll start with this 60 :
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Nebelgast Herald
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Qhost Quarter
2 Moorland Haunt
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Plains
Cleric can be protected in this deck, be a proactive clock, be vialed in at instant speed (or when you're stuck at 1 land), be found off Coco, has synergies with lords and Haunt... That's a lot of flexibility for one hate card.
After all every gy-matter deck has stuff to deal with RiP, but they may fall short VS a flash hate. The split seems pretty easy to make (RiP is redudant in multiple too).
Wouldn't running the full 4x Cavern of Souls along side 2x Moorland Haunt be too risky? Cavern is fine on turn one for anything but Path to Exile(which isn't cast on turn one usually); however, drawing colorless lands instead of actual color producing lands seems like it would interfere with Paths and Haunt later on in the game. Not to mention the fact that moorland haunts themselves are colorless and you're also running 2x Ghost Quarter.
I think you likely only want to see 1-2 colorless lands per game, so having 8x may be bad for your mana base.
Yes, clearly I was tempoed out in this scenario, but if I played Selfless T2 the traditional way to see it bolted I would still be tempoed out. We know SSG is the loss of a card in most situations, that is a given, but if it can power out our creatures a turn faster or allow us to play two creatures on a turn we would normally only be able to play 1, that is tempo gain.
Now imagine this scenario. I have an opening hand that contains no cmc 1 cards and two cmc 2 spirits (maybe selfless and rattle chains) and let's say a Drogskol Captain.
Scenario 1: T1 pass, T2 rattlechains, T3 Drogskol (or maybe selfless to play more conservatively)
Scenario 2: T1 SSG into rattlechains, T2 selfless, T3 Drogskol
Now imagine our opponent has a lightning bolt in hand.
Scenario 1 leaves us with either a rattlechains or a drogskol on the board (probably the rattlechains because we didn't put enough early pressure on them to make them feel they needed to use their bolt yet).
Scenario 2 leaves us with two creatures on the battlefield instead and you probably have kept your Drogskol because your opponent saw two 2 power flyers by T2 and was pressured into bolting.
The only question to my mind is can we sacrifice a card in hand for a more explosive start? I'm not sure of the answer but I don't think you can immediately dismiss it with the whole "tempoed out by bolt" argument.
Been playing with UW spirits for 10 matchups with great succes.
In my list I am running GoST, Tallowisp and Curious Obsession + Steel of the Godhead, which I can understand that many of you don't believe is proper for this setup, but so far it have worked very well, need more testing to determine the destiny of those cards.
Mainboard:
Anyways, I was hoping you could help me with some sideboarding. I am playing with my playgroup this weekend and I know for a fact that I will face Aggro Elves, Green ramp with big creatures and Mardu Pyromancer. How do you think my sideboard is aligned with that?
Sideboard:
Thanks alot in advance
See my list on Tallowisp two posts up Tried it like 8 matches, works quite well if you get Curious Obsession and/or Tallowisp in opening hand. As soon as u have Tallowisp out, you're basically set with regards to enchantments, you'll have everything you need in your hand in two turns. Steel of the Godhead works extremely well ofc with Geist, but also Spell Queller and Drogskol, if that's what happens to be on your board. Great fun to play, dno how competitive it is though.
Thank you, thought about Remorseful Cleric, but it is only a one time thing as RIP is for the entire game. I will try out both tho definitely.
Hibernation looks sweet, will prob include that!
The grafdigger's are actually meant to counter the Elves deck mostly, to counter Coco. But maybe a Leonin Arbiter would be better? That would counter any "search your library for en elf and put them into your hand"-cards.
Echoing Truth looks nice, but how does that work vs. tokens? he gets them in his hand and then what? can he cast them again?
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Supreme Phantom
3 Phantasmal Image
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Spell Queller
Spells (12)
4 Aether Vial
3 Path to Exile
1 Zealous Persecution
4 Lingering Souls
4 Flooded Strand
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Mutavault
2 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
3 Damping Sphere
2 Fragmentize
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Unified Will
2 Worship
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Zealous Persecution
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Sprit
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Spell Queller
3 Geist of Saint Traft
Spells (6)
4 Collected Company
2 Path to Exile
Lands (21)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Satrand
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Gavony Township
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest
2 Path to Exile
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Remorseful Cleric
2 Steel of the Godhead
2 Unified Will
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Natural State
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Rattlechains
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Spell Queller
Spells (11)
4 Aether Vial
4 Curious Obsession
3 Path to Exile
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Chost Quarter
3 Adarkar Wastes
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
3 Settle the Wreckage
2 Stony Silence
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Unified Will
1 Flashfreeze
1 Detention Sphere
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Worship
1 Rest in Peace
1 Relic of Progenitus
Speaking for my list, I can only say that I continue to believe that Spirits' niche is as the best Curious Obsession deck in the format, and that not running 4 is a mistake. I think Supreme Phantom does push me toward UW over Bant. I'm interested in testing Mutavault, which I previously thought was bad but with an extra lord may be better, as well as a Remorseful Cleric main (which is probably meta-dependent) and playing with the number of Phantasmal Image I actually want. I think Worship and Settle the Wreckage are very good sideboard cards right now and I highly recommend all players running at least one Detention Sphere as a catch-all answer that can get rid of problem permanents and tokens.
Well, tbh I don't know, I just saw another guy play it and wanted to try it out. I don't know what a "real" tallowisp deck is, but as I said, I haven't played it more than a few matches.
The synergy is there though, in my opinion. You do need some kind of card draw, which is Curious Obsession. But with only 2-3 copies, you won't be starting with it in your hand very often. Tallowisp lets you dig it out, while also letting you dig out Steel of the Godhead for Geist. Before Supreme Phantom, the ideal play was to hit a Vial at turn 1 and then Mausoleum wanderer + curious obsession at turn 2.
Personally i'm thinking of replacing the 2x Tallowisp and 2x Geist with 4x Phantasmal image, which I had before supreme phantom. Gotta try it all out first tho
Thanks for the explanation
Thank you, Ghostly Prison looks awesome and very likely to piss my mate off haha
Regarding engineered explosives: With the Sunburst effect and this deck, the amount of charge counters will be two, right? From a blue and a white mana. So it will only deal 2 dmg, which might not be enough if his elves are pumped? Or am I getting the effect wrong?
Cheers, thanks man. Seems like Engineered Explosives shall have a place in my sideboard, maybe along with Settle the Wreckage/Supreme Verdict.
And sorry for the chain posts, so many things going on...
There is a window during combat, someone more rules and phase savvy can probably go into more detail about this, that's after damage is dealt to cast spells that can still impact creatures that had attacked and or dealt damage.
Opponent swung in with a inkmoth nexus and a glistner elf (declare attackers). I blocked the elf (declare blockers) went to damage and ate some infect points and let my dude trade with elf. I then fired off a blessed alliance at end of combat step to kill the nexus. If I fired it off before blocks during thh attackers phase I may not have gotten the trade (as all pump would have just been dumped on the surviving creature). if I fired it off after blocks were declared he would have just sacced the blocked creature. This let me get both dudes off the board and eventually turn the game around as he was forced to set up and protect another threat at that point.