@TheGreatGodLoki & @Doctor: I see that you both are running 11 & 12 lands, giving a high density of borderposts. Now that KCI is out of the game, maybe stony silence will decrease in sides, but abrade, kolaghan or another artifact cheat is still heavily played. I`m playing 16 lands with 9 borderposts to play around these cards in side-games. Don´t you have any problem playing against UWx, UR (phoenix or control), death's shadow, or some colour that plays red or white?.
@TheGreatGodLoki: 35/65 Control is a very sad percentage. I rarely lost versus control due to main deck vendilion clique. I encourage you to test replacing maybe one o two supreme will. 25/75 Humans is as real as rock. Spirits is even worse. I'm thinking to test again black version with maindeck Shriekmaw and mardu charm (even a dead//gone) to see how it goes with this linear full-bodies meta (where restore is better).
@Doctor: I get the point of your high number of borderposts and tezzeret, but did you try with nahiri+emrakul?. This combination gives a better path in each game, removing a creature, drawing a card, shuffling your graveyard (and restores in a long game), or even removing a stony silence. Another question that comes to my mind seing your list: why are you removing Blood Moon?.
I keep high land count due to my friend that plays Humans will call border posts after playing a Kitesail Freebooter. So they're nice to have.
Reason I lose a lot to control is that they wise up and just go for countering my Restore Balances. It's why I run 4 Wills to try and combat that. Control also has amazing match ups due to their Op, Serum visions, and all around library manipulation. So I'm often out classed. I do occasionally if I can beat them early or out counter them.
How does Vclick help in the match up?
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I mean that your are playing less than 16 lands. This number is perfect for this deck, adding only 9 bordeeposts.
Against control you have to play violent outburst at the end of his/her turn, and plea/violent/dread in your turn to resolve this second balance. If you add 2/3 blood moon you will have 2/3 more threads to play if you don’t have a plea/violent/dread in your turn for this sequence. The same applies for vendilion: you can play violent/vendilion at the end of his/her turn and thread in your turn. This is the best way to win versus control decks.
True. I could add 2 Vclicks to my SB. Maybe replace the 2 Imprison in the Moon and try it out.
As far as your question goes for my land base, I find that it doesn't effect me too much, I find that running higher lands over posts gives us the consistency we need for T1 hands. Because you can have all the posts you want, but in the end if you don't have the mana to back it up you're screwed. I also find that posts can be inconsistent, if I need a certain color I find I won't have the post to make it and then the basic land saves me. And I mean, to each their own, in the meta I play at it's scales, control, humans, and so forth so I keep my posts small to get around all their hate.
I do run 2 Blood Moon SB which I bring I bring in G2/G3.
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@antoorgut I have tested nahemmy combo and it's definitely the way to go in the white build. I actually rarely ult tezz with my posts I usually make 5/5's and it's a 2 turn clock. If I already have a post untapped when I cast tezz. I want to play nahemmy, reason, ardent, outburst and my cheap removal suite but the posts are awkward for that 4 color build and I really hate shocks and fetches for us. For the record, I am not on a budget but feel the 5 color Mana base is optimal for the kind of list I have. I don't like relying on gargadon to have less lands, I want balance to actually geddon them.
In the blue matches, I feel cards get stranded in my hand (especially lands) if I don't have garga and or high density of posts. How can RB have a better percent against blue if we aren't actually hitting their lands?
In the blue matches, I feel cards get stranded in my hand (especially lands) if I don't have garga and or high density of posts. How can RB have a better percent against blue if we aren't actually hitting their lands?
Well, that is the problem of playing a broken strategy like RestoreBalance xD. Mardu charm could buy some time until you have gargandon. You have to try to resolve a nahiri doing discard with mardu charm (or maybe kolaghan's command?), and in your turn playing a thread like blood moon to cast next turn a nahiri. Without blue, mardu charm is your "vendilion" option.
Maindeck I can't see why we would want creatures like a v clique against control, could you help me understand your choice? I love the card but don't see why we would want it necessary for control mu's. We have no other targets for their removal as a whole, so it is going to be in the yard either way right? Maybe more so against jeskai than blue white but still. I like lingering souls a lot more than mardu charm, but I guess versatility is something to consider.
Maindeck I can't see why we would want creatures like a v clique against control, could you help me understand your choice? I love the card but don't see why we would want it necessary for control mu's. We have no other targets for their removal as a whole, so it is going to be in the yard either way right? Maybe more so against jeskai than blue white but still. I like lingering souls a lot more than mardu charm, but I guess versatility is something to consider.
Vendilion Clique and Mardu Charm, both cards have the same mission for control mu's: playing one of these cards (at the end of control player turn) allow you to discard a counter spell from his/her hand. Now in your turn, you can play a cascader or a Blood Moon and driving that game. This is because control usually plays leak/logic/cryptic and when they recognize that we are playing a Restore deck, they only have to play in 2 ways: pressure with snap (lol) or sitting and keeping untapped with counters. Once you play a Vendilion/Charm, they have to keep sitting (because they might have 2 counters with their 3 mana in play) or tapping to counter that. Now in your turn you will have a free track to cascade. The downside is that you are losing your vendilion, but it worth it.
You can do in turn 1 or 2 (if you gain die roll) Blood Moon, but that is more a lucky play xD.
How do we feel about new dovin as a win con? Cheap, acts similar to a bitterblossom with upside of no life loss. The ultimate doesn't win, but can definitely help filter as we chip away with fliers (something we often struggle with)
Not sure how I feel about that list. While we can now run 1-2 mana spells, and some good ones like Opt, we become super reliant on As Foretold, which if we don't draw it we're spending a lot of our game trying to land it.
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Not sure how I feel about that list. While we can now run 1-2 mana spells, and some good ones like Opt, we become super reliant on As Foretold, which if we don't draw it we're spending a lot of our game trying to land it.
Not sure how I feel about that list. While we can now run 1-2 mana spells, and some good ones like Opt, we become super reliant on As Foretold, which if we don't draw it we're spending a lot of our game trying to land it.
At least from my attempts to pilot that MTGO list, wouldn't Electrodominance be a crummy way to cheat out a Restore Balance that is intended to take out opposing lands? At that point, you also have relatively few lands (or maybe no lands at all), and this build is rather meh at recovering from 0-1 lands without As Foretold.
Electrodominance is good at cheating out a Restore Balance that takes out opposing creatures but not lands, though.
I’m not sure I get your reasoning. Taking out the lands depends mostly on holding Don Gargle in suspense. Electrodom lets you balance at instant speed, so you can do things like play a fetchland turn 2, let your opponent play their third land, crack your fetch, exile a spirit guide, and drop a balance to bring them down to one land while you get to fetch your second.
Even if you have the Don suspended, you can a) probably recover faster then them because you have more control on the timing, and b) you have big boy barry coming off suspend in a couple turns facing a board devoid of permanence.
I’ve found Electro actually gives you a lot more control over the pace of the game. You don’t always have to armageddon your opponent. Sometimes just hitting one or two of their lands can set up the win.
After I finish streamlining my list, I’ll take it to events and post results. As it stands, running white for Nahiri+Emrakul is actually a great boon. Discarding Emrakuls to constantly cycle through the deck gives a lot of inevitability in the grindier matchups.
I’m not sure I get your reasoning. Taking out the lands depends mostly on holding Don Gargle in suspense. Electrodom lets you balance at instant speed, so you can do things like play a fetchland turn 2, let your opponent play their third land, crack your fetch, exile a spirit guide, and drop a balance to bring them down to one land while you get to fetch your second.
Even if you have the Don suspended, you can a) probably recover faster then them because you have more control on the timing, and b) you have big boy barry coming off suspend in a couple turns facing a board devoid of permanence.
I’ve found Electro actually gives you a lot more control over the pace of the game. You don’t always have to armageddon your opponent. Sometimes just hitting one or two of their lands can set up the win.
After I finish streamlining my list, I’ll take it to events and post results. As it stands, running white for Nahiri+Emrakul is actually a great boon. Discarding Emrakuls to constantly cycle through the deck gives a lot of inevitability in the grindier matchups.
The awkward part is that the MTGO Modern League list has no Simian Spirit Guides, so without Greater Gargadon, it can only knock opponents down to 2 lands at fewest. Quite a few decks can do plenty of stuff with 2 lands.
As for Gargadon, maybe it because of the nature of the decks I tested against (mainly creature-heavy decks), but Gargadon often had 4 or more time counters on it post-Restore Balance. I find that opposing decks often recover too fast or at least can find a land and a removal spell for Gargadon if given 4 or more turns to do so.
(Nahiri does seem like a decent walker in this deck, although her inability to deal with untapped creatures frightens me. I'm doubtful about the Jace TMS in the MTGO list because he cannot kill creatures, and I'm trying Ral, Izzet Viceroy instead because he's great at killing creatures and he ults and wins faster.)
The problem I have, is that even with Electro, why not just run cascade spells. Electro is an instant much like Violent Outburst, As Foretold is a sorcery speed, like Ardent Plea, and you can even run As Foretold as well. I think it's cute, but it's just as big a liability as any other cheat card we play.
With Gargadon, I find running 2-3 copies is fine since he's such a dead draw late game and only really good as a sac outlet.
I never liked JtMS. He's too slow with the meta imo. Boggles, Affinity, Green Scale, Coco, Humans, etc. I found just playing a control-ish style with more focus on board wipes is better.
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Just as there were pros and cons in the early days to running borderposts, there are pros and cons to the difference between Cascade and Cascadeless builds. I’ve been firmly against the Cascadeless build until Electro, where I now believe it is meta and pilot dependent.
Why not run cascade spells? Because they severely hinder deck construction and limit early interaction. I can run lightning bolt, serum visions, and opt. I can play Search for Azcanta, a card I severely underestimated in my deck during construction and am debating running a third. In my cascade list, if I was against spirits and balance caught an unfortunate Spell Queller, I had to try to resolve another balance just to end up recasting that balance. In my cascadeless list, I’ve bolted a good number of Quellers and got to restore balance anyway. My favorite was attempting to balance at the end of their turn, catching a queller, then topdecking my gargy on my turn and suspending it, then bolt the queller for a full wipe on my opponent.
Why run cascade? There are cascadeless games where I’ll have one half of the combo, dig ten cards in one turn, and not find the other half. We have redundant ways to cast RB from our hand, but not really any redundant ways to get the RB. Just Tolaria West or eventually digging one out. In the cascade build, all you need is one cascade spell and you can cast it.
I still don’t know about JtMS. I haven’t tested him, but I just don’t like the kit he offers. I’ve actually been trying Chandra, Torch of Defiance (you know, the walker I’ve been adamantly against), and I’m kinda mixed. She’s better than I expected, but she still feels too clunky with her exile. I’ll keep testing the numbers. I kinda wish we had Dack Fayden in modern.
Ral is 5 mana. That’s too expensive for my blood in a deck that routinely deletes lands when it reaches 3. Cast it before you balance and the opponent already has lethal, probably. Cast it after you balance and your opponent will have had ample time to recover.
Just as there were pros and cons in the early days to running borderposts, there are pros and cons to the difference between Cascade and Cascadeless builds. I’ve been firmly against the Cascadeless build until Electro, where I now believe it is meta and pilot dependent.
Why not run cascade spells? Because they severely hinder deck construction and limit early interaction. I can run lightning bolt, serum visions, and opt. I can play Search for Azcanta, a card I severely underestimated in my deck during construction and am debating running a third. In my cascade list, if I was against spirits and balance caught an unfortunate Spell Queller, I had to try to resolve another balance just to end up recasting that balance. In my cascadeless list, I’ve bolted a good number of Quellers and got to restore balance anyway. My favorite was attempting to balance at the end of their turn, catching a queller, then topdecking my gargy on my turn and suspending it, then bolt the queller for a full wipe on my opponent.
Why run cascade? There are cascadeless games where I’ll have one half of the combo, dig ten cards in one turn, and not find the other half. We have redundant ways to cast RB from our hand, but not really any redundant ways to get the RB. Just Tolaria West or eventually digging one out. In the cascade build, all you need is one cascade spell and you can cast it.
I still don’t know about JtMS. I haven’t tested him, but I just don’t like the kit he offers. I’ve actually been trying Chandra, Torch of Defiance (you know, the walker I’ve been adamantly against), and I’m kinda mixed. She’s better than I expected, but she still feels too clunky with her exile. I’ll keep testing the numbers. I kinda wish we had Dack Fayden in modern.
Ral is 5 mana. That’s too expensive for my blood in a deck that routinely deletes lands when it reaches 3. Cast it before you balance and the opponent already has lethal, probably. Cast it after you balance and your opponent will have had ample time to recover.
I do agree with your Ral comment.
But I feel if you're going to be running Opt, Search, Bolt, and so forth in this deck, you're running just a gimped version of UW control. See Living End. They had Kari Zev's Expertise and still ran only 3+ drops. While I do agree with you on pilot and meta playability, I do think Post + Cascade is the superior version just due to my own experience, my own meta, and the countless lists out there. Is my deck/prefered version the best? ABsolutely not. But I'll die on that hill.
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@TheGreatGodLoki: 35/65 Control is a very sad percentage. I rarely lost versus control due to main deck vendilion clique. I encourage you to test replacing maybe one o two supreme will. 25/75 Humans is as real as rock. Spirits is even worse. I'm thinking to test again black version with maindeck Shriekmaw and mardu charm (even a dead//gone) to see how it goes with this linear full-bodies meta (where restore is better).
@Doctor: I get the point of your high number of borderposts and tezzeret, but did you try with nahiri+emrakul?. This combination gives a better path in each game, removing a creature, drawing a card, shuffling your graveyard (and restores in a long game), or even removing a stony silence. Another question that comes to my mind seing your list: why are you removing Blood Moon?.
Cheers!
Reason I lose a lot to control is that they wise up and just go for countering my Restore Balances. It's why I run 4 Wills to try and combat that. Control also has amazing match ups due to their Op, Serum visions, and all around library manipulation. So I'm often out classed. I do occasionally if I can beat them early or out counter them.
How does Vclick help in the match up?
Against control you have to play violent outburst at the end of his/her turn, and plea/violent/dread in your turn to resolve this second balance. If you add 2/3 blood moon you will have 2/3 more threads to play if you don’t have a plea/violent/dread in your turn for this sequence. The same applies for vendilion: you can play violent/vendilion at the end of his/her turn and thread in your turn. This is the best way to win versus control decks.
As far as your question goes for my land base, I find that it doesn't effect me too much, I find that running higher lands over posts gives us the consistency we need for T1 hands. Because you can have all the posts you want, but in the end if you don't have the mana to back it up you're screwed. I also find that posts can be inconsistent, if I need a certain color I find I won't have the post to make it and then the basic land saves me. And I mean, to each their own, in the meta I play at it's scales, control, humans, and so forth so I keep my posts small to get around all their hate.
I do run 2 Blood Moon SB which I bring I bring in G2/G3.
Well, that is the problem of playing a broken strategy like RestoreBalance xD. Mardu charm could buy some time until you have gargandon. You have to try to resolve a nahiri doing discard with mardu charm (or maybe kolaghan's command?), and in your turn playing a thread like blood moon to cast next turn a nahiri. Without blue, mardu charm is your "vendilion" option.
Vendilion Clique and Mardu Charm, both cards have the same mission for control mu's: playing one of these cards (at the end of control player turn) allow you to discard a counter spell from his/her hand. Now in your turn, you can play a cascader or a Blood Moon and driving that game. This is because control usually plays leak/logic/cryptic and when they recognize that we are playing a Restore deck, they only have to play in 2 ways: pressure with snap (lol) or sitting and keeping untapped with counters. Once you play a Vendilion/Charm, they have to keep sitting (because they might have 2 counters with their 3 mana in play) or tapping to counter that. Now in your turn you will have a free track to cascade. The downside is that you are losing your vendilion, but it worth it.
You can do in turn 1 or 2 (if you gain die roll) Blood Moon, but that is more a lucky play xD.
Competitive Modern League 2019-01-29, (5-0)
Format: Modern
Jan 29, 2019
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1618012#paper
5-0 from Shaun McLaren playing UR Electro-Balance
That’s a nice list. Looks similar to mine, but I prefer splashing white for sideboard options and for Nahiri + Emrakul.
Electrodominance pads the reliance on As Foretold greatly.
At least from my attempts to pilot that MTGO list, wouldn't Electrodominance be a crummy way to cheat out a Restore Balance that is intended to take out opposing lands? At that point, you also have relatively few lands (or maybe no lands at all), and this build is rather meh at recovering from 0-1 lands without As Foretold.
Electrodominance is good at cheating out a Restore Balance that takes out opposing creatures but not lands, though.
Even if you have the Don suspended, you can a) probably recover faster then them because you have more control on the timing, and b) you have big boy barry coming off suspend in a couple turns facing a board devoid of permanence.
I’ve found Electro actually gives you a lot more control over the pace of the game. You don’t always have to armageddon your opponent. Sometimes just hitting one or two of their lands can set up the win.
After I finish streamlining my list, I’ll take it to events and post results. As it stands, running white for Nahiri+Emrakul is actually a great boon. Discarding Emrakuls to constantly cycle through the deck gives a lot of inevitability in the grindier matchups.
The awkward part is that the MTGO Modern League list has no Simian Spirit Guides, so without Greater Gargadon, it can only knock opponents down to 2 lands at fewest. Quite a few decks can do plenty of stuff with 2 lands.
As for Gargadon, maybe it because of the nature of the decks I tested against (mainly creature-heavy decks), but Gargadon often had 4 or more time counters on it post-Restore Balance. I find that opposing decks often recover too fast or at least can find a land and a removal spell for Gargadon if given 4 or more turns to do so.
(Nahiri does seem like a decent walker in this deck, although her inability to deal with untapped creatures frightens me. I'm doubtful about the Jace TMS in the MTGO list because he cannot kill creatures, and I'm trying Ral, Izzet Viceroy instead because he's great at killing creatures and he ults and wins faster.)
With Gargadon, I find running 2-3 copies is fine since he's such a dead draw late game and only really good as a sac outlet.
I never liked JtMS. He's too slow with the meta imo. Boggles, Affinity, Green Scale, Coco, Humans, etc. I found just playing a control-ish style with more focus on board wipes is better.
Why not run cascade spells? Because they severely hinder deck construction and limit early interaction. I can run lightning bolt, serum visions, and opt. I can play Search for Azcanta, a card I severely underestimated in my deck during construction and am debating running a third. In my cascade list, if I was against spirits and balance caught an unfortunate Spell Queller, I had to try to resolve another balance just to end up recasting that balance. In my cascadeless list, I’ve bolted a good number of Quellers and got to restore balance anyway. My favorite was attempting to balance at the end of their turn, catching a queller, then topdecking my gargy on my turn and suspending it, then bolt the queller for a full wipe on my opponent.
Why run cascade? There are cascadeless games where I’ll have one half of the combo, dig ten cards in one turn, and not find the other half. We have redundant ways to cast RB from our hand, but not really any redundant ways to get the RB. Just Tolaria West or eventually digging one out. In the cascade build, all you need is one cascade spell and you can cast it.
I still don’t know about JtMS. I haven’t tested him, but I just don’t like the kit he offers. I’ve actually been trying Chandra, Torch of Defiance (you know, the walker I’ve been adamantly against), and I’m kinda mixed. She’s better than I expected, but she still feels too clunky with her exile. I’ll keep testing the numbers. I kinda wish we had Dack Fayden in modern.
Ral is 5 mana. That’s too expensive for my blood in a deck that routinely deletes lands when it reaches 3. Cast it before you balance and the opponent already has lethal, probably. Cast it after you balance and your opponent will have had ample time to recover.
I do agree with your Ral comment.
But I feel if you're going to be running Opt, Search, Bolt, and so forth in this deck, you're running just a gimped version of UW control. See Living End. They had Kari Zev's Expertise and still ran only 3+ drops. While I do agree with you on pilot and meta playability, I do think Post + Cascade is the superior version just due to my own experience, my own meta, and the countless lists out there. Is my deck/prefered version the best? ABsolutely not. But I'll die on that hill.