Enemy Planeswalkers are a pain - ecsp. in the age of oko where even if you balance and they are on the play typically you will be facing an army of elks shortly...
Current list I am using has 4x finale of promise which feels better against control/discard matchups. Also I have izzet charm to help me pitch the awful 3x gargadon hand or if I have finale and need to pitch balance etc. I've tried pulling out the serum visions / opts for other control cards but then the list feels clunky.
The exclusion of simian spirit guide is back and forth - the extra speed can be ok but I find it is a bit 'all in' if the spell the guide was pitched for gets countered - also drawing these in multiples is pure pain...
Any thoughts on mystic sanctuary? I know we nuke our lands but as mystic sanctuary itself counts as an island(?) you should only need 2 in play beforehand(??) and it can be a nice way to recur balance / ancestral vision / footfalls depending on need. As noted not every game ends with the first balance. Also since it is an island being able to grab it with a fetchland can make it into a silver bullet... On the flip side we run low land counts typically and having it come into play tapped can be death in certain MU/draws...
I'm not sure 12 posts is the right number. Honestly I feel like 8-9 is best so artifact hate isn't a complete blowout. Also, 12 posts and 19 lands seems a bit much. Been so long though I forgot how many lands I need. I wanted to keep the artifact count somewhat high since they remove our lands, work with Tezz, and generally play well for the deck.
I have Remand in there for card draw and stall. The planeswalker package I carefully considered for a few reasons.
Karn - he's good against BUG artifacts/affinity/etc, also if you are able to tutor a Liquimetal Coating after a Balance it will ensure the opponent will never get to have more than 1 land, being able to tutor for a Pithing Needle, Bridge, or Cage helps specific matchups
Oko - the creature interactions, and Food tokens can be lifegain for matchups where a few life points is the difference between a win and a loss.
Tezzeret - ultimate is lifegain, also turns posts into blockers or potential beaters, typically it's a 'must counter' kind of card too
Ajani - lifegain, locks down permanents, removes Elk creatures from Oko if they're both out and ultimate helps make sure they don't rebuild after a Balance
I considered a great deal more walkers but had to keep the objective in mind. Balance away the board, then dominate with walkers. I feel like many opponents are going to concede if you Balance the board clean and then play a walker the next turn. If you have 2 walkers out after a Balance I feel like 90% of opponents are going to concede once the second one drops. Part of my thought process was thinking about how difficult it would be for an opponent after having any 2 of them on the board at once.
I feel like borderposts are too much of a potential weakness for their benefit of keeping few lands in play. Not only that, borderposts also slow down any chances for you to suspend garg late game and turbo-him out by eating all the things. Things like ancient grudge and force of vigor really suck to play against for me but for a borderpost list its almost a 1 card death sentence because of how brutal they attack the heart of our deck. That's why I ultimately dropped borderposts altogether. Because lots of things can interact with them and in most cases that spell really crushed my early game, typically resulting in an easy win for my opponent.
Your list looks good for midrange. I really like the 4x remand because that card is honestly insanely good for our decks for interaction AND combo potential (+1 draw is nice). That said your end-game looks very scattered because certain times your balance will not be good for you. Either because you have creatures in play that you cant sacrifice, or cards in hand (high mana curve for many spells). Or maybe you resolve a balance but still have 4 or so counters on gargadon left after you sac 100% of your lands AND borderposts.
Thats why IMO if were doing non cascade version we should be on mox opal plan. Trying to dump our hand as fast as possible and be more of a 'true' 1 shot combo deck ala storm. Maybe we could even fit in 4 remand, too; if we build well enough and focused enough.
I know you guys worry about gargadon hate but really who is going to play 'search target players library and remove 4 cards with the same name' cards? These SHOULD be very rare unless someone has a special vendetta against you and your deck, or in a rare case where many people in your meta share the weakness of exiling 1 combo piece. I dont think its that much of an issue at all, tbh. If I was ever looking for more threats I would look to crashing footfalls an artifact/enchantment/planeswalker that creates a threat. That said, I have almost never really needed more than JUST gargadon when I combo off. I havent played faeries yet and when I played against a planeswalker deck I just attacked the token creating one first, then just 2 shot them.
What you have to understand, and I'm sure you already know. But a lot of people don't MB artifact hate G1. G2, at least for me, I play mainly my lands and go for a slower route. Usually my opponents go all-in on hate and they slow down a little too waiting for me to play my posts only to be met with lands and foretolds.
My issue is that black is still around and with it come INquistions, thoughtsiezes, lilys and so on. Lots of hand distrubtion making the ED version a bit more fragile.
But as you said, the list I commented on has the same issues.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
Thanks for the comments guys, I've been considering going back to the cascade version and throwing in Force of Negation, as well as Teferi and Oko. They're just so good in the format right now. Having an Electro version with borderposts isn't really interacting like I thought it would. The deck still tries to play like the cascade version. Granted, there are moments when it plays like the Electro version but the posts aren't helping tremendously in those situations.
That said, counterspells continue to be the bane of the deck. Discard, burn, planeswalkers, gy stuff can all be dealt with. Outside of Defense Grid or Teferi though, we can't do anything against counterspells. Teferi is a must-counter card for control players. Because of this I'm going to test having 2 in the main and 2 more in the side to help against any control with blue in it.
I agree with Loki in that you don't see artifact hate until game 2, unless they use Assassin's Trophy or Abrupt Decay in game 1. Karn is a thing though and I've seen a lot more of him than tradition artifact hate.
@SunTzu - I understand where you're at with posts. They do have limitations. The upside is to not be so reliant on Garg. End game for this version begins after the first Balance and when you can drop a walker. It's a huge uphill battle for any opponent to come back from that. I don't need to worry about Balancing after turn 6 if I've got a walker or two down, typically. I also don't have problems with having too many cards in hand either. The highest CMC card is 4, and there's only 5 of them. In those situations where I have to pitch cards with Balance if my remaining 1-2 cards are walkers I'm in really good shape, even if I need to draw another land to play one.
My opponent will normally have 0-1 land, 1 card in hand, and no creatures. I have 2-3 mana on the board, and a walker as my last card. It's a much much better situation to be in. Also, I would rather let garg sit in suspend for a while than pitch all my mana just to draw a walker the next turn. Walkers enhance the board position by a ton. They provide options that are normally better post-Balance and they also serve as a threat that the opponent has to deal with before beating us.
Now, I've been considering a Mox Opal package as well for a while. The issue with it is there's only really 3 artifacts you want to run. Mox Opal, Arcum's Astrolabe, and Mishra's Bauble. What makes BUG artifacts so great is the artifacts for them serve double duty. Emry, Lurker of the Loch brings back Bauble all the time. Urza, Lord High Artificer makes any of them tap for U. Oko can turn them into 3/3 Elk to protect himself. In this list they're basically just there to support metalcraft. We can't get full value out of them like BUG can. As far as I'm concerned, for this deck, Mox Opal can only be used in conjunction with a borderpost package. There aren't enough other artifacts that mimic what the Balance deck is trying to do. Sure you could argue that you could throw in Pithing Needle and Grafdigger's Cage but honestly I think those are best as sideboard cards. Since I'm also running Karn, I can tutor for them in game 1 if I need to as well.
Loki, I think you might consider looking at Leyline of Sanctity in your sideboard for those black matchups. It has always been really valuable to me against decks that run more than just 4 Thoughtseize. If they're packing IoK as well, Leyline is a HUGE help.
Lastly, I think I want to mention that in my opinion I think a Teferi, Oko, and Force of Negation package is almost a must. Yeah they're expensive either online or in paper but they're just really good cards. Teferi is good against counterspells, and playing an instant speed Balance off As Foretold is hot. Oko is good against pretty much everything. Force is a good way for either version to protect itself against any must-answer threat. As a plus, having 8 posts that pitch to it is pretty cool.
I'm going to add these in and see what I come up with.
My issue is that I couldn't justify $40(?) per leyline, they were only good in the opening hand in my opinion, and then became a slower draw all game. That's if I saw them at all, because in G2 why would I mull a good hand just at a change to have a leyline in opening hand. Discard wasn't really a problem with me, most people don't know what to get rid of in my hand usually and I run the poor man Monastery Siege as well.
I wouldn't be too concerned with adding Opal. It isn't the strongest card we can use, and we don't need that imediate fixing. I feel you're driftting away from the core of the deck, while I don't mind that, it will dilute the overall deck scheme throwing in cards just to support one card.
What would you be pitching Force too? I feel Remand is better than it, without losing out on tempo. Oko seems fine, he's a strong card like you said, Teferi I think is a bit too expensive in modern, and he'll get wiped away with our balances or leave us in a spot where he'll either chump block or leave up and we eat damage.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
I’m not sure where you’re buying your cards but a full set of Sanctity is around $20 now. They used to be ridiculous a while back but they’ve come down a lot. Quite reasonable now.
With Force we could pitch excess blue borderposts, Oko, Teferi, multiple copies of As Foretold, and of course Remand. The list I’m toying with right now has 17 blue cards. I’m thinking 3 Force is probably the most I’d want to run anyways.
Playing Teferi I wouldn’t be too worried about counterspells. And I’m not sure why you’d think Balance would wipe him off the board. For clarification I’m referring to Teferi, Time Raveler. His passive ability makes it so opponents aren’t able to play instants.
So I learned a few things about my non cascade artifacts lists.
"All" draw and no tutor (eladamri's) is either not viable or needs an entire work-around with something that draws you a LOT of cards. I was on 4 thirst for knowledge and 4 thoughtcast and still wishing I just had one tutor to find exactly what I need. Eladamri's is too good to not use.
Trying to enable Treasure map via voltaic key and manifold key is just a bit too hard on mana. Small upside of being gargadon food might be better of with something like.. clockspinningfor Treasure map plan. About to test this next.
If youre worried about discard and aren't in cascade versions: Venarian Glimmer is dope. For even 1 mana you can peek their hand for a counterspell. It has a lot of utility outside of just discard, that's just its 'main' purpose. That, and vs blue counterspell decks. Another card that should be considered when fighting a lot of discard is finale of promise because they will often times discard our balance, which lets us draw into a 2 mana balance later in this card.
Also, Ceremonious Rejection is probably mandatory SB if youre on artifacts plan. I also love remand and am using 4 in all SB.
I considered trying Emry but I have not tested with him at all yet.
@loki Right, borderposts being a potential weakness to target is more of a G2 issue. The problem still remains though. Signets / mox opal / talismans are less susceptible to hate than borderposts are. And they don't -1 your gargadon food count when they come in.
@Viking I see the difference, Im just not convinced its worth it to be a slower and less focused 'midrange' deck that tries to deal with threats more as opposed to more of a focused 'combo' deck like storm. Its probably meta dependent. Either way I definitely prefer my plan to be a '100%' combo of Balance hitting all cards in their hand, all creatures, and all lands. A full combo gives few to zero outs. Even 'missing' on the combo by 2 cards in hand and 1 land in play gives them so much room to breathe, finish us off, or stabilize. When I 'full combo' they don't stabilize, they die in 2 turns typically.
And, like Ive said; being 'reliant' on garg isnt an issue unless people are playing random black cards that search your library and hand and exile them. Or bitterblossom which is another very good counter to my strategy. Something to consider in the SB space (nature's claim) for sure.
That said, for midrange PW decks I found Bontu's last wreckoning. If you have enough artifact mana you can be on midrange strat, wipe everything; and still not worry about your lands not untapping. Our deck has 5 color potential with little build around and can be done easily. Especially if you have prismatic vistas. Arcum's Astrolabe fixes mana, glimmervoid, treasure tokens, theres 1 more 'artifacts matter' 5 color land Im forgetting the name of. Signets.. talismans.. Pentad Prism.. Etc. Yea 5 color or anything less is super easy. Any color combinations are easy to build around I have found. Honestly this is one of the reasons this deck is fun to build. Because it has a lot of potential for different versions and ways to appraoch the idea.
Also its not that we have to have a lot of 'good' artifacts. Its that, on a focused artifacts-matters gameplan they are an important resource when feeding our artifact-and-creatures matters Gargadon. The closer I am to being able to balance -> Gargadon attack, the better. And I'm telling you, brain in a jar is not a bad card at all. Its a combo piece that only requires 1 mana compared to As foretold. 2 now +1 later vs 3 up front. As foretold is better when you are using tolaria west when you have As foretold in play already, and brain is better when feeding gargadon fast is paramount. Brain functions as as foretold 5-8 and potentially, with electrodominance and finale of promise giving us 16 potential slots for that section of our combo. Its also the only artifact in these 3 cards, so its more on theme with artifacts matters decks.
Chalice of the Void, which most Tron variants run 4 of. If they drop one first game, you have no way to win. Right now, they normally play Chalice on 1. If the deck ever becomes tournament worthy, people will learn to drop Chalice on 0 against us.
Next - BUG artifacts. They run Teferi in the sideboard. Turn 1 land ->Gilded Goose, turn 2 land -> tap both & use Goose to throw out Teferi. A good player is going to know what you're up to and hold countermagic.
Another good example - Humans. Meddling Mage on turn 2 naming Restore Balance, with Thalia protection. They also have Aether Vial which combats Balance very well.
Last example - Death's Shadow with Stubborn Denial. They can be ready with a 4/4 Shadow on turn 3 with Denial backup.
All of these decks have fantastic options against us in game 1. With your list how do you sideboard against all these decks? You have to remove combo pieces, which reduce consistency. They bring in a little more hate which doesn't take away from their general strategy.
After playing the cascade version for years, I know that any Balance deck needs more than 2 wincons. This is my opinion but I'm not going to budge from it. The deck needs a backup plan. Hoping that they don't draw into their hate isn't going to cut it. Reducing the consistency of our own deck in order to interact isn't going to cut it. My two cents.
I thik with the recently announced Modern bans, we can finally have some more breathing room. How do you guys thinks we'll fair now.
That said, one reason I don't buy into the ED version is their lack of a secondary win con. With the cascade version, we have Nahiri + Emrakrul to win out, and Nahiri herself helps deal with a lot of pesky artifacts, enchantments, or creatures. Then I just flexed two spots out for Gideon as a 3d win con to just "get there" in a beat down style.
I think jamming in more planeswalkers and lessing the reliance on counters, digs, and loot spells, may help us win these maatchups. Planeswalkers can help in any situation, such as regular Jace, Nahiri (as mentioned). Kiora, the Crashing Wave and so on. I did play Kiora for a long time, but switched to Gideon for a more faster answer in the late game and a bit more aggresion overall
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
For our deck I don't think they could be any better. With Opal & Lattice now gone, we won't be seeing much of Karn. Oko gone is just icing on the cake.
As for what to do now, we'll have to see how the meta changes.
Myself, I don't think I'm going to change my strategy much. Might try out Eladamri's with a God package since they're indestructible. It will be interesting to see what decks are good after the bannings. I wouldn't be surprised if burn and control become bigger.
Mox was better in other decks in my humble opinion. We still have Simian and if we want to try it, Gemstone Caverns.
I do have to admit I'm a bit sad about Opal. I'm so relieved though because I was going to buy a playset in paper. That saved me around $400!
Time will tell what the meta brings. I think regular (not Eldrazi) tron is going to make a comeback. Big Karn is rising in price. Amulet of Vigor is rising as well. Liliana of the Veil is seeing increases as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if Jund makes a comeback which is a heavy sigh over here. I hate playing Balance against Jund. Especially a good Jund player. Ah well, we'll see.
We do well against Amulet Titan because they're land strat, we may be able to reduce a lot of our control elements in our decks to focus more on the aggro decks. I think if we really want a better land, we can also do Gemstone Mine its what Ad Naseum and Living End use to play back in their heyday. Its a quick mana fixer that sac's itself solving our land problem. Don't think Post decks can run it, but ED may
As for Jund/Liliana time will have to tell what their decks will be. If they focus on Value more we may have a chance, but if they go more controll-y/ heavy on the discard we will always lose
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
BTW guys, while Mox Opal was a phenomenal card for us; we can still just jam signets/talismans/borderposts(my least fav)/artifact mana (pentad prism). They still do double duty with feeding gargadon, and staying around post balance. And let you play less lands total but still be very consistent with mana, even being able to breathe a LOT more with your nonbasic lands. They also enable any color combinations with relative ease.
Youre right about playing vs a really bad hate card like extirpate. Take our balance or our gargadon and its easy match, or at least should be.
Also, for a black list; bitterblossom survives balance, chump blockers for days, and feeds gargadon every turn. Interesting at least.
Heres an example of what Im talking about with artifact mana:
Its just a starting point I was about to work on a bit more. Basically the goal is the same: Get garg in hand -> Suspend ASAP (Early turns is better, which is why I use 3 eladamri's and 4 garg). From there -> play artifacts and mana and try to 'full combo' off as fast as possible. I have 7 combo pieces to CAST balance, 1 more that can be fetched with Karn (who also doubles duty as someone with a target on his head to soak up damage), 4 balances, and 4 tolaria wests for the times when you can either have as foretold in play -> tolaria -> Combo off with '3 mana' and 1 enabler and 1 gargadon. Brain slightly worse for this since its 3 mana for tolaria + 1 for brain. That said, I can combo off instant speed using brain which is going to help a lot more for control matchups. Especially against people who wont know WTF brain in a jar is for till they have seen me 'cheat' the restore balance with it, having put its trigger on the stack then sac it to gargadon in response to cast a 0 spell.
Early turns you just jam as much mana in as possible. Playing talisman into talisman is super easy on the manabase. In my experience this results in us having plenty of mana if we want it, AND 'ramped' mana for things like Karn or Fact or Fiction (need lots of draw to feed gargadon primarily).
I have Karn in there as 2nd wincon with Ghostly prison + Balance making it very very hard for people to attack when I start disrupting mana. Karn might be better suited as another PW, but does have the small added bonus of both fetching a combo piece (brain from SB) AND making attackers if needs be later in the game.
This list also shows how easy it should be to find the colors you need using signets/talismans/artifact mana. Even with mox being gone.
So compared to my old lists its going to a bit slower, but more interactive by a tiny bit.
@SunTzu - I'm not sure how to word my thoughts here without being too edgy. My hope is that I can show you to think more exponential and not lineal. If I come off as aggressive or diminishing that's not my intention at all. My intention is to help show you some valuable lessons I've learned playing the deck, and guide you to a better version.
That said, the problem with most of your lists is they only work on unsuspecting opponents. I get that you're 'all-in' on the Garg+Balance combo. It feels wonderful to 'full Balance' and attack with a Garg twice and just win. The problem is, you expect every game to go like this. The reality is, a good player playing a good deck is going to be able to stop/slow you down AND play their strategy, which is going to result in more losses than wins.
I'm going to highlight some potential weaknesses you'll have to overcome in order to win more games than lose.
- Burn - you have no methods of lifegain, 5 fetch lands, and no ways of protecting your life points other than Balancing
- Turn 1 Thoughtseize - taking your Garg/Call/Balance - if they remove even one of your combo pieces you rely on drawing lucky to survive, let alone win
- 7 ways to cast Balance - if one gets countered you have no backup plan
- Ghostly Prison - burn, combo decks (Ad Naus, Storm, infinite damage combos, etc) and control won't care about Prison
- Counterspells - What if I (opponent) counter just 1 Balance? Can you still put pressure on me before I win the game?
- Enemy Walkers - You have no way of removing a Liliana of the Veil. She can +1 all day against you and then ultimate and repeat.
- Only wincon of Garg/Karn critters - if someone plays Ghostly Prison/Ensnaring Bridge against you how do you win??
Next, I'll go over some anti-synergies in your own deck that you might not see.
- Jar - I know you like it, but it's bad. You HAVE to have a suspended Garg or your combo doesn't work. This is foolish. You can't guarantee that in 100% of games you can suspend Garg. It is VERY possible to go an entire match without seeing those 7 cards. Even if you bump up Call to 4x, there's still a good chance you never get the opportunity to find it. Even if you run Serum Powder there's a chance you won't see Garg.
- Karn - You only have 1 sideboard target which again requires that you must have Garg suspended. If you don't have Garg/Balance, Karn does nothing for you. You don't have any ways of protecting him. You're going to win with Signets and Talismans which would be 2/2's? You only have 7 in the deck too, so you're not going to have a little army.
- As Foretold - There's only 1 card in the deck getting value from this, and that is Balance. The true power of As Foretold comes from being able to wipe the board completely (with or without Garg) and still be able to cast spells with it. Playing trinkets which don't do anything, or tutoring for Garg is not what this card is for. If you're getting it up to 4 counters for Karn/FoF then you should have already won. Why not include more of the suspend cards? Ancestral Vision is still a draw 3 for 0. Crashing Footfalls makes 8 power for 0. Think about it. Those cards are very threatening for an opponent.
- Mishra's Bauble - Why is this here? You're not getting any card advantage from it. It's just replacing itself. You can't tell me that Bauble+Fetch is going to win you the game. Those 4 slots could be used for Lightning Bolt, Assassin's Trophy, or a threat which will actually win the game.
My advice for anyone wanting to play this deck, when building this deck you need to think about what an opponent is going to do in order to get around Balance. Nearly every deck in the format has answers for us, so we must have answers for them. We also need to take into account what is actually threatening in our lists. Having a clear board after a Balance isn't threatening at all, it just slows the game down. If I could recommend anything, try a list with many threats and basic Balance package. It's going to be awkward to play, but you'll see dependable threats will win you games even without Balance. Good cards win games.
A few cards that haven't been mentioned much which could be very good for us:
- Fulminator Mage - 2/2 body which can be removed at a moment's notice so it works well with Balance.
- Veil of Summer - Nobody has mentioned this as a way to combat counterspells. I'm thinking this has to be a staple sideboard choice for ED lists
- Huntmaster of the Fells - This card is a sleeper and I loved playing it in my cascade version. On a clean board I'd rather have Huntmaster than Garg. Flipped version is Ravager of the Fells.
- Indestructible God creatures - They work well with pre-Balance boards since they often won't be creatures until late game. Only work with posts though, but they are indestructible wincons otherwise. Klothys, Thassa, and Keranos are my best picks.
- Kitchen Finks - This one is really cool with Garg suspended. You can either just gain 4 and remove 2 counters or it's a 3/2 body. It's a really good chump blocker which does a fine job at stalling 2 turns until you can Balance.
P.S. For every Balance player - The rise of Wrenn and Six is going to make this deck REALLY hard to pilot. The deck HAS to have maindeck answers. His +1 insures they can rebuild at 1 land per turn. This must be addressed moving forward.
Honestly, I don't think Wrenn and Six will be a big issue.
I think you've said pretty much everything I was going to say with that deck, so I have nothing to add.
Yes, Wrenn and Six help them rebuild their lands, but again. With our deck being able to run so many recover/cast from graveyard effects it becomes a war of attrition. We can let them rebuild all they want, we'll just keep wiping them. And it only works in RG variants. So Esper control decks really don't change against us, and aggro decks probably wont run Wrenn + Six. I can see Jund running it, but that will be determined.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
@SunTzu - I'm not sure how to word my thoughts here without being too edgy. My hope is that I can show you to think more exponential and not lineal. If I come off as aggressive or diminishing that's not my intention at all. My intention is to help show you some valuable lessons I've learned playing the deck, and guide you to a better version.
That said, the problem with most of your lists is they only work on unsuspecting opponents. I get that you're 'all-in' on the Garg+Balance combo. It feels wonderful to 'full Balance' and attack with a Garg twice and just win. The problem is, you expect every game to go like this. The reality is, a good player playing a good deck is going to be able to stop/slow you down AND play their strategy, which is going to result in more losses than wins.
I'm going to highlight some potential weaknesses you'll have to overcome in order to win more games than lose.
- Burn - you have no methods of lifegain, 5 fetch lands, and no ways of protecting your life points other than Balancing
- Turn 1 Thoughtseize - taking your Garg/Call/Balance - if they remove even one of your combo pieces you rely on drawing lucky to survive, let alone win
- 7 ways to cast Balance - if one gets countered you have no backup plan
- Ghostly Prison - burn, combo decks (Ad Naus, Storm, infinite damage combos, etc) and control won't care about Prison
- Counterspells - What if I (opponent) counter just 1 Balance? Can you still put pressure on me before I win the game?
- Enemy Walkers - You have no way of removing a Liliana of the Veil. She can +1 all day against you and then ultimate and repeat.
- Only wincon of Garg/Karn critters - if someone plays Ghostly Prison/Ensnaring Bridge against you how do you win??
Next, I'll go over some anti-synergies in your own deck that you might not see.
- Jar - I know you like it, but it's bad. You HAVE to have a suspended Garg or your combo doesn't work. This is foolish. You can't guarantee that in 100% of games you can suspend Garg. It is VERY possible to go an entire match without seeing those 7 cards. Even if you bump up Call to 4x, there's still a good chance you never get the opportunity to find it. Even if you run Serum Powder there's a chance you won't see Garg.
- Karn - You only have 1 sideboard target which again requires that you must have Garg suspended. If you don't have Garg/Balance, Karn does nothing for you. You don't have any ways of protecting him. You're going to win with Signets and Talismans which would be 2/2's? You only have 7 in the deck too, so you're not going to have a little army.
- As Foretold - There's only 1 card in the deck getting value from this, and that is Balance. The true power of As Foretold comes from being able to wipe the board completely (with or without Garg) and still be able to cast spells with it. Playing trinkets which don't do anything, or tutoring for Garg is not what this card is for. If you're getting it up to 4 counters for Karn/FoF then you should have already won. Why not include more of the suspend cards? Ancestral Vision is still a draw 3 for 0. Crashing Footfalls makes 8 power for 0. Think about it. Those cards are very threatening for an opponent.
- Mishra's Bauble - Why is this here? You're not getting any card advantage from it. It's just replacing itself. You can't tell me that Bauble+Fetch is going to win you the game. Those 4 slots could be used for Lightning Bolt, Assassin's Trophy, or a threat which will actually win the game.
My advice for anyone wanting to play this deck, when building this deck you need to think about what an opponent is going to do in order to get around Balance. Nearly every deck in the format has answers for us, so we must have answers for them. We also need to take into account what is actually threatening in our lists. Having a clear board after a Balance isn't threatening at all, it just slows the game down. If I could recommend anything, try a list with many threats and basic Balance package. It's going to be awkward to play, but you'll see dependable threats will win you games even without Balance. Good cards win games.
A few cards that haven't been mentioned much which could be very good for us:
- Fulminator Mage - 2/2 body which can be removed at a moment's notice so it works well with Balance.
- Veil of Summer - Nobody has mentioned this as a way to combat counterspells. I'm thinking this has to be a staple sideboard choice for ED lists
- Huntmaster of the Fells - This card is a sleeper and I loved playing it in my cascade version. On a clean board I'd rather have Huntmaster than Garg. Flipped version is Ravager of the Fells.
- Indestructible God creatures - They work well with pre-Balance boards since they often won't be creatures until late game. Only work with posts though, but they are indestructible wincons otherwise. Klothys, Thassa, and Keranos are my best picks.
- Kitchen Finks - This one is really cool with Garg suspended. You can either just gain 4 and remove 2 counters or it's a 3/2 body. It's a really good chump blocker which does a fine job at stalling 2 turns until you can Balance.
P.S. For every Balance player - The rise of Wrenn and Six is going to make this deck REALLY hard to pilot. The deck HAS to have maindeck answers. His +1 insures they can rebuild at 1 land per turn. This must be addressed moving forward.
Brother Im telling you we can approach the list in more than one way and there is enough breathing room and different cards to work with to enable many strategies.
I like very focused strategies that nuke everything. They are typically more combo than midrange or control. They will probably lose to extirpate but honestly Im not building my deck around every single card, and if I was I definitely would not be on this list because its far too reliant on moving parts and build around cards in my experience. Any creature.deck will be more focused, consistent, and (hopefully) able to combat random hate. If I was to be worried about being a high % against every single deck in the format I prob wouldnt be playing this list because its a tad bit slow. Restore Balance is a fun build around card. I see what you mean about different things but I think you misunderstand the focus of my list, which isnt to beat every single type of list. Modern is too diverse for that. Im not planning on winning vs red deck wins, and probably not storm, and I'll take a "L" to extirpate.
I promise you, youre just wrong about brain in a jar. When your goal is to balance one single time with gargadon suspended (about all of the core of every deck I make in this archetype) this card is GAS other than the single mana cost which is only truly 'costly' because of tolaria west's 3+ brains 1. Not because brain by itself is clunky. Not only that, it helps in control matchups. I have won many games off the back of people trying to get a tiny bit of value at EOT; whoops I win at instant speed since youre tapped out.
Thoughtsieze decks can be rough, but unless they are more aggro-tilted, I can compete with them and have a close matchup. And especially if my list is tuned well. To be resilient to this I need a lot of redundancy which my decks always have, and also either a lot of tutors or a lot of 'good' card draw.
We definitely can make a midrange list that is more grindy and doesnt 'need' gargadon. That said, as long as gargadon isnt straight extirpated we can still make other type of lists work. Or have just a very small handful of win-cons outside of gargadon that play more off of balance.
Wren and six I have never been even a tiny bit scared of. I just attack their face and they die in 2 turns.
I do appreciate all the feedback. Were not improving at all if we cant raise concerns and consider things.
Please drop any lists you come up with, especially non cascade ones, rough or not and we can talk about ways to tweak them.
@SunTzu - I have to ask, when you play MTG, are you playing competitively or just for fun? That makes a big difference. I understand your goal isn't to win against every list. No deck can win a majority of the time against a competitive field. When that happens, bans happen. What I'm trying to highlight is that your all-in combo isn't going to work against a majority of the decks present in Modern at the moment. I can give at least half a dozen examples if you like.
Lost Legacy/Bitterblossom aren't seeing play so we don't have to worry about them. We don't need to worry about cards until they start showing up. What we do have to worry about is surviving until we can actually Balance. In your case you must have tutors for Garg, Balance in hand, AND have a way to cast it, all before losing.
The problem with being so hyper focused is that you leave yourself vulnerable. Traditionally, decks that require 3 combo pieces in order to go off have a hard time. They're inconsistent, easy to disrupt, and can't adjust to changes in the meta. If you look back at all of the combo decks of the past they all have a few things in common. They make insane amounts of mana, they gain infinite life, deal infinite damage, draw infinite cards, or generate lots of tokens. This deck isn't doing that; it's doing the opposite.
You have many cards in your deck that aren't doing anything. Ghostly Prison isn't helping you gain consistency. Neither is your trinket/Karn package. Bauble is just replacing itself. I'd actually rather see you go back to Scheming + Codex than run Prison and Bauble. The mana trinkets aren't getting you anywhere. They give you 4 mana on turn 3, when you only need 3. Karn isn't doing anything other than being a chump blocker. Fact or Fiction is too slow.
You should add Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand to your list as 4 ofs. Storm needs both of them and so does Ad Nauseam. In order for a combo deck to work in Modern, they have to have draw fixing. Using Jar, you also have the advantage of not needing double red for ED. I think at some point you'll find that needing 4 colors to suspend Garg, play Call, and play cantrips/As Foretold is going to cost you. Not having Mox Opal really cramps your land selection and you've circumvented that by using trinkets and Glimmervoid. I would like to see you tweak the lands in a way that you're playing less fetches/shocks, and still be able to cast everything you need to, instead of relying on Bauble + Glimmervoid. The fetches are just making your burn matchup worse, but you do need some kind of color fixing. Pentad Prism wouldn't be a bad idea because you could pitch it to Garg after you've removed your counters. The drawback of changing your lands and removing the trinkets is that you'll be crushed by Blood Moon, but that's a risk you should take imo.
I still disagree on being a combo deck but I know that's what you really enjoy so I'm trying to help you improve that aspect of your deck.
Edit: Please find a way to add SSG to your list. That will give you the option of Balancing sooner.
@SunTzu - I have to ask, when you play MTG, are you playing competitively or just for fun? That makes a big difference. I understand your goal isn't to win against every list. No deck can win a majority of the time against a competitive field. When that happens, bans happen. What I'm trying to highlight is that your all-in combo isn't going to work against a majority of the decks present in Modern at the moment. I can give at least half a dozen examples if you like.
Lost Legacy/Bitterblossom aren't seeing play so we don't have to worry about them. We don't need to worry about cards until they start showing up. What we do have to worry about is surviving until we can actually Balance. In your case you must have tutors for Garg, Balance in hand, AND have a way to cast it, all before losing.
The problem with being so hyper focused is that you leave yourself vulnerable. Traditionally, decks that require 3 combo pieces in order to go off have a hard time. They're inconsistent, easy to disrupt, and can't adjust to changes in the meta. If you look back at all of the combo decks of the past they all have a few things in common. They make insane amounts of mana, they gain infinite life, deal infinite damage, draw infinite cards, or generate lots of tokens. This deck isn't doing that; it's doing the opposite.
You have many cards in your deck that aren't doing anything. Ghostly Prison isn't helping you gain consistency. Neither is your trinket/Karn package. Bauble is just replacing itself. I'd actually rather see you go back to Scheming + Codex than run Prison and Bauble. The mana trinkets aren't getting you anywhere. They give you 4 mana on turn 3, when you only need 3. Karn isn't doing anything other than being a chump blocker. Fact or Fiction is too slow.
You should add Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand to your list as 4 ofs. Storm needs both of them and so does Ad Nauseam. In order for a combo deck to work in Modern, they have to have draw fixing. Using Jar, you also have the advantage of not needing double red for ED. I think at some point you'll find that needing 4 colors to suspend Garg, play Call, and play cantrips/As Foretold is going to cost you. Not having Mox Opal really cramps your land selection and you've circumvented that by using trinkets and Glimmervoid. I would like to see you tweak the lands in a way that you're playing less fetches/shocks, and still be able to cast everything you need to, instead of relying on Bauble + Glimmervoid. The fetches are just making your burn matchup worse, but you do need some kind of color fixing. Pentad Prism wouldn't be a bad idea because you could pitch it to Garg after you've removed your counters. The drawback of changing your lands and removing the trinkets is that you'll be crushed by Blood Moon, but that's a risk you should take imo.
I still disagree on being a combo deck but I know that's what you really enjoy so I'm trying to help you improve that aspect of your deck.
Edit: Please find a way to add SSG to your list. That will give you the option of Balancing sooner.
Yes I play to compete. Thats my goal of building decks and tweaking them. To improve them to compete more.
I havent run into lost legacy or bitterblossom. I have lost to extirpate once though. Should I run more threats and ways to win? Maybe, but Im not overly worried about it since gargadon does work and almost every time its not an issue. Then I can be that much more focused and consistent in my approach and not have to worry about clunky cards that arent getting me there.
Our '3 combo pieces' aren't just 4 ofs tho. Some of them can be in multiples and all of them can be fetched or drawn into with good draw spells. And sure were not winning with lifegain or w/e or on the spot but when I have a garg in play and they have 1 card in hand (maybe), its a 2 turn clock almost every single time and rarely if ever are they coming back. Maybe I have to attack liliana first so she cant -2. Either way the massive clock is ending them fast.
Youre prob right about not needing Bauble now. The main plus to this was to be thrown into gargs mouth, not even for the draw. Just the 0 mana cost that sometimes gives you a card. Maybe not needed.
Cantrips might work, havent tried them in large numbers yet. That said, you can spend a lot of time and mana spinning your wheels and still not end up with enough artifacts to feed gargadon. Which is typically my goal.. to balance then attack with gargadon on the exact same turn (which is why it end up feeling more like a combo deck to me). Simian spirit guide is the same deal. Its not an artifact and while the +1 mana is great, its fleeting. Sometimes the extra 1 mana whenever you want it might be better as just a land or just a talisman, I have found. I used to play with SSG a lot, not so much anymore. Maybe as a 1 of. Its just a tiny bit too niche or something, idk. Not quite enough power. Who knows, maybe you could be in a spot where you are running some monastery siege or fact or fiction or some random card like that where that turn-earlier spell is more gas than normal.
4 color is not a problem. Neither is splashing GW in a UR deck. I could be 5 colors easily. Theres so many cards to enable that its absurd. Do not need mox. It just helped. Really theres plenty without mox to fix mana.
Signets / talismans are phenomenal. Exactly what you want with balance. For example here is a black list Ive been cooking up:
Buddy dont forget Tolaria West as either 2 or 3 of. 4 is probably too many but in some lists it might actually work.
I feel like borderposts are too much of a potential weakness for their benefit of keeping few lands in play. Not only that, borderposts also slow down any chances for you to suspend garg late game and turbo-him out by eating all the things. Things like ancient grudge and force of vigor really suck to play against for me but for a borderpost list its almost a 1 card death sentence because of how brutal they attack the heart of our deck. That's why I ultimately dropped borderposts altogether. Because lots of things can interact with them and in most cases that spell really crushed my early game, typically resulting in an easy win for my opponent.
Your list looks good for midrange. I really like the 4x remand because that card is honestly insanely good for our decks for interaction AND combo potential (+1 draw is nice). That said your end-game looks very scattered because certain times your balance will not be good for you. Either because you have creatures in play that you cant sacrifice, or cards in hand (high mana curve for many spells). Or maybe you resolve a balance but still have 4 or so counters on gargadon left after you sac 100% of your lands AND borderposts.
Thats why IMO if were doing non cascade version we should be on mox opal plan. Trying to dump our hand as fast as possible and be more of a 'true' 1 shot combo deck ala storm. Maybe we could even fit in 4 remand, too; if we build well enough and focused enough.
I know you guys worry about gargadon hate but really who is going to play 'search target players library and remove 4 cards with the same name' cards? These SHOULD be very rare unless someone has a special vendetta against you and your deck, or in a rare case where many people in your meta share the weakness of exiling 1 combo piece. I dont think its that much of an issue at all, tbh. If I was ever looking for more threats I would look to crashing footfalls an artifact/enchantment/planeswalker that creates a threat. That said, I have almost never really needed more than JUST gargadon when I combo off. I havent played faeries yet and when I played against a planeswalker deck I just attacked the token creating one first, then just 2 shot them.
My issue is that black is still around and with it come INquistions, thoughtsiezes, lilys and so on. Lots of hand distrubtion making the ED version a bit more fragile.
But as you said, the list I commented on has the same issues.
That said, counterspells continue to be the bane of the deck. Discard, burn, planeswalkers, gy stuff can all be dealt with. Outside of Defense Grid or Teferi though, we can't do anything against counterspells. Teferi is a must-counter card for control players. Because of this I'm going to test having 2 in the main and 2 more in the side to help against any control with blue in it.
I agree with Loki in that you don't see artifact hate until game 2, unless they use Assassin's Trophy or Abrupt Decay in game 1. Karn is a thing though and I've seen a lot more of him than tradition artifact hate.
@SunTzu - I understand where you're at with posts. They do have limitations. The upside is to not be so reliant on Garg. End game for this version begins after the first Balance and when you can drop a walker. It's a huge uphill battle for any opponent to come back from that. I don't need to worry about Balancing after turn 6 if I've got a walker or two down, typically. I also don't have problems with having too many cards in hand either. The highest CMC card is 4, and there's only 5 of them. In those situations where I have to pitch cards with Balance if my remaining 1-2 cards are walkers I'm in really good shape, even if I need to draw another land to play one.
My opponent will normally have 0-1 land, 1 card in hand, and no creatures. I have 2-3 mana on the board, and a walker as my last card. It's a much much better situation to be in. Also, I would rather let garg sit in suspend for a while than pitch all my mana just to draw a walker the next turn. Walkers enhance the board position by a ton. They provide options that are normally better post-Balance and they also serve as a threat that the opponent has to deal with before beating us.
Now, I've been considering a Mox Opal package as well for a while. The issue with it is there's only really 3 artifacts you want to run. Mox Opal, Arcum's Astrolabe, and Mishra's Bauble. What makes BUG artifacts so great is the artifacts for them serve double duty. Emry, Lurker of the Loch brings back Bauble all the time. Urza, Lord High Artificer makes any of them tap for U. Oko can turn them into 3/3 Elk to protect himself. In this list they're basically just there to support metalcraft. We can't get full value out of them like BUG can. As far as I'm concerned, for this deck, Mox Opal can only be used in conjunction with a borderpost package. There aren't enough other artifacts that mimic what the Balance deck is trying to do. Sure you could argue that you could throw in Pithing Needle and Grafdigger's Cage but honestly I think those are best as sideboard cards. Since I'm also running Karn, I can tutor for them in game 1 if I need to as well.
Loki, I think you might consider looking at Leyline of Sanctity in your sideboard for those black matchups. It has always been really valuable to me against decks that run more than just 4 Thoughtseize. If they're packing IoK as well, Leyline is a HUGE help.
Lastly, I think I want to mention that in my opinion I think a Teferi, Oko, and Force of Negation package is almost a must. Yeah they're expensive either online or in paper but they're just really good cards. Teferi is good against counterspells, and playing an instant speed Balance off As Foretold is hot. Oko is good against pretty much everything. Force is a good way for either version to protect itself against any must-answer threat. As a plus, having 8 posts that pitch to it is pretty cool.
I'm going to add these in and see what I come up with.
I wouldn't be too concerned with adding Opal. It isn't the strongest card we can use, and we don't need that imediate fixing. I feel you're driftting away from the core of the deck, while I don't mind that, it will dilute the overall deck scheme throwing in cards just to support one card.
What would you be pitching Force too? I feel Remand is better than it, without losing out on tempo. Oko seems fine, he's a strong card like you said, Teferi I think is a bit too expensive in modern, and he'll get wiped away with our balances or leave us in a spot where he'll either chump block or leave up and we eat damage.
With Force we could pitch excess blue borderposts, Oko, Teferi, multiple copies of As Foretold, and of course Remand. The list I’m toying with right now has 17 blue cards. I’m thinking 3 Force is probably the most I’d want to run anyways.
Playing Teferi I wouldn’t be too worried about counterspells. And I’m not sure why you’d think Balance would wipe him off the board. For clarification I’m referring to Teferi, Time Raveler. His passive ability makes it so opponents aren’t able to play instants.
"All" draw and no tutor (eladamri's) is either not viable or needs an entire work-around with something that draws you a LOT of cards. I was on 4 thirst for knowledge and 4 thoughtcast and still wishing I just had one tutor to find exactly what I need. Eladamri's is too good to not use.
Trying to enable Treasure map via voltaic key and manifold key is just a bit too hard on mana. Small upside of being gargadon food might be better of with something like.. clockspinningfor Treasure map plan. About to test this next.
If youre worried about discard and aren't in cascade versions: Venarian Glimmer is dope. For even 1 mana you can peek their hand for a counterspell. It has a lot of utility outside of just discard, that's just its 'main' purpose. That, and vs blue counterspell decks. Another card that should be considered when fighting a lot of discard is finale of promise because they will often times discard our balance, which lets us draw into a 2 mana balance later in this card.
Also, Ceremonious Rejection is probably mandatory SB if youre on artifacts plan. I also love remand and am using 4 in all SB.
I considered trying Emry but I have not tested with him at all yet.
@loki Right, borderposts being a potential weakness to target is more of a G2 issue. The problem still remains though. Signets / mox opal / talismans are less susceptible to hate than borderposts are. And they don't -1 your gargadon food count when they come in.
@Viking I see the difference, Im just not convinced its worth it to be a slower and less focused 'midrange' deck that tries to deal with threats more as opposed to more of a focused 'combo' deck like storm. Its probably meta dependent. Either way I definitely prefer my plan to be a '100%' combo of Balance hitting all cards in their hand, all creatures, and all lands. A full combo gives few to zero outs. Even 'missing' on the combo by 2 cards in hand and 1 land in play gives them so much room to breathe, finish us off, or stabilize. When I 'full combo' they don't stabilize, they die in 2 turns typically.
And, like Ive said; being 'reliant' on garg isnt an issue unless people are playing random black cards that search your library and hand and exile them. Or bitterblossom which is another very good counter to my strategy. Something to consider in the SB space (nature's claim) for sure.
That said, for midrange PW decks I found Bontu's last wreckoning. If you have enough artifact mana you can be on midrange strat, wipe everything; and still not worry about your lands not untapping. Our deck has 5 color potential with little build around and can be done easily. Especially if you have prismatic vistas. Arcum's Astrolabe fixes mana, glimmervoid, treasure tokens, theres 1 more 'artifacts matter' 5 color land Im forgetting the name of. Signets.. talismans.. Pentad Prism.. Etc. Yea 5 color or anything less is super easy. Any color combinations are easy to build around I have found. Honestly this is one of the reasons this deck is fun to build. Because it has a lot of potential for different versions and ways to appraoch the idea.
Also its not that we have to have a lot of 'good' artifacts. Its that, on a focused artifacts-matters gameplan they are an important resource when feeding our artifact-and-creatures matters Gargadon. The closer I am to being able to balance -> Gargadon attack, the better. And I'm telling you, brain in a jar is not a bad card at all. Its a combo piece that only requires 1 mana compared to As foretold. 2 now +1 later vs 3 up front. As foretold is better when you are using tolaria west when you have As foretold in play already, and brain is better when feeding gargadon fast is paramount. Brain functions as as foretold 5-8 and potentially, with electrodominance and finale of promise giving us 16 potential slots for that section of our combo. Its also the only artifact in these 3 cards, so its more on theme with artifacts matters decks.
It worries me being an 'all-in' combo deck. When I was playing my cascade version, a lot of my games didn't go according to plan. I got counterspelled, perfectly timed discard, or something like Thalia. There's also cards that you just can't handle.
Karn, the Great Creator, Stony Silence, Chalice of the Void, Teferi, Time Raveler, Ensnaring Bridge, Meddling Mage, to name a few. There's also a lot of cards that are quite threatening but aren't game ending like Spell Queller, Thought-knot Seer, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Oko, Thief of Crowns to name a few.
Chalice of the Void, which most Tron variants run 4 of. If they drop one first game, you have no way to win. Right now, they normally play Chalice on 1. If the deck ever becomes tournament worthy, people will learn to drop Chalice on 0 against us.
Next - BUG artifacts. They run Teferi in the sideboard. Turn 1 land ->Gilded Goose, turn 2 land -> tap both & use Goose to throw out Teferi. A good player is going to know what you're up to and hold countermagic.
Another good example - Humans. Meddling Mage on turn 2 naming Restore Balance, with Thalia protection. They also have Aether Vial which combats Balance very well.
Last example - Death's Shadow with Stubborn Denial. They can be ready with a 4/4 Shadow on turn 3 with Denial backup.
All of these decks have fantastic options against us in game 1. With your list how do you sideboard against all these decks? You have to remove combo pieces, which reduce consistency. They bring in a little more hate which doesn't take away from their general strategy.
After playing the cascade version for years, I know that any Balance deck needs more than 2 wincons. This is my opinion but I'm not going to budge from it. The deck needs a backup plan. Hoping that they don't draw into their hate isn't going to cut it. Reducing the consistency of our own deck in order to interact isn't going to cut it. My two cents.
That said, one reason I don't buy into the ED version is their lack of a secondary win con. With the cascade version, we have Nahiri + Emrakrul to win out, and Nahiri herself helps deal with a lot of pesky artifacts, enchantments, or creatures. Then I just flexed two spots out for Gideon as a 3d win con to just "get there" in a beat down style.
I think jamming in more planeswalkers and lessing the reliance on counters, digs, and loot spells, may help us win these maatchups. Planeswalkers can help in any situation, such as regular Jace, Nahiri (as mentioned). Kiora, the Crashing Wave and so on. I did play Kiora for a long time, but switched to Gideon for a more faster answer in the late game and a bit more aggresion overall
For our deck I don't think they could be any better. With Opal & Lattice now gone, we won't be seeing much of Karn. Oko gone is just icing on the cake.
As for what to do now, we'll have to see how the meta changes.
Myself, I don't think I'm going to change my strategy much. Might try out Eladamri's with a God package since they're indestructible. It will be interesting to see what decks are good after the bannings. I wouldn't be surprised if burn and control become bigger.
I do have to admit I'm a bit sad about Opal. I'm so relieved though because I was going to buy a playset in paper. That saved me around $400!
Time will tell what the meta brings. I think regular (not Eldrazi) tron is going to make a comeback. Big Karn is rising in price. Amulet of Vigor is rising as well. Liliana of the Veil is seeing increases as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if Jund makes a comeback which is a heavy sigh over here. I hate playing Balance against Jund. Especially a good Jund player. Ah well, we'll see.
As for Jund/Liliana time will have to tell what their decks will be. If they focus on Value more we may have a chance, but if they go more controll-y/ heavy on the discard we will always lose
Trinisphere
Blood Moon
Ghostly Prison (and similar cards)
Planeswalkers
Signets/Talismans/Artifact mana
Bontu's Last Reckoning
BTW guys, while Mox Opal was a phenomenal card for us; we can still just jam signets/talismans/borderposts(my least fav)/artifact mana (pentad prism). They still do double duty with feeding gargadon, and staying around post balance. And let you play less lands total but still be very consistent with mana, even being able to breathe a LOT more with your nonbasic lands. They also enable any color combinations with relative ease.
Youre right about playing vs a really bad hate card like extirpate. Take our balance or our gargadon and its easy match, or at least should be.
Also, for a black list; bitterblossom survives balance, chump blockers for days, and feeds gargadon every turn. Interesting at least.
Heres an example of what Im talking about with artifact mana:
4 Restore Balance
3 Brain in a Jar
4 As Foretold
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Selesnya Signet
2 Talisman of Curiosity
2 Talisman of Impulse
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Eladamri's Call
2 Fact or Fiction
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Glimmervoid
4 Tolaria West
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Brain in a Jar (Karn Fetches this)
4 Remand
3 Venarian Glimmer
2 Nature's Claim
3 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Electrodominance
From what I gather is it just Light Prision/TurboGarg?
Early turns you just jam as much mana in as possible. Playing talisman into talisman is super easy on the manabase. In my experience this results in us having plenty of mana if we want it, AND 'ramped' mana for things like Karn or Fact or Fiction (need lots of draw to feed gargadon primarily).
I have Karn in there as 2nd wincon with Ghostly prison + Balance making it very very hard for people to attack when I start disrupting mana. Karn might be better suited as another PW, but does have the small added bonus of both fetching a combo piece (brain from SB) AND making attackers if needs be later in the game.
This list also shows how easy it should be to find the colors you need using signets/talismans/artifact mana. Even with mox being gone.
So compared to my old lists its going to a bit slower, but more interactive by a tiny bit.
That said, the problem with most of your lists is they only work on unsuspecting opponents. I get that you're 'all-in' on the Garg+Balance combo. It feels wonderful to 'full Balance' and attack with a Garg twice and just win. The problem is, you expect every game to go like this. The reality is, a good player playing a good deck is going to be able to stop/slow you down AND play their strategy, which is going to result in more losses than wins.
I'm going to highlight some potential weaknesses you'll have to overcome in order to win more games than lose.
- Burn - you have no methods of lifegain, 5 fetch lands, and no ways of protecting your life points other than Balancing
- Turn 1 Thoughtseize - taking your Garg/Call/Balance - if they remove even one of your combo pieces you rely on drawing lucky to survive, let alone win
- 7 ways to cast Balance - if one gets countered you have no backup plan
- Ghostly Prison - burn, combo decks (Ad Naus, Storm, infinite damage combos, etc) and control won't care about Prison
- Counterspells - What if I (opponent) counter just 1 Balance? Can you still put pressure on me before I win the game?
- Enemy Walkers - You have no way of removing a Liliana of the Veil. She can +1 all day against you and then ultimate and repeat.
- Only wincon of Garg/Karn critters - if someone plays Ghostly Prison/Ensnaring Bridge against you how do you win??
Next, I'll go over some anti-synergies in your own deck that you might not see.
- Jar - I know you like it, but it's bad. You HAVE to have a suspended Garg or your combo doesn't work. This is foolish. You can't guarantee that in 100% of games you can suspend Garg. It is VERY possible to go an entire match without seeing those 7 cards. Even if you bump up Call to 4x, there's still a good chance you never get the opportunity to find it. Even if you run Serum Powder there's a chance you won't see Garg.
- Karn - You only have 1 sideboard target which again requires that you must have Garg suspended. If you don't have Garg/Balance, Karn does nothing for you. You don't have any ways of protecting him. You're going to win with Signets and Talismans which would be 2/2's? You only have 7 in the deck too, so you're not going to have a little army.
- As Foretold - There's only 1 card in the deck getting value from this, and that is Balance. The true power of As Foretold comes from being able to wipe the board completely (with or without Garg) and still be able to cast spells with it. Playing trinkets which don't do anything, or tutoring for Garg is not what this card is for. If you're getting it up to 4 counters for Karn/FoF then you should have already won. Why not include more of the suspend cards? Ancestral Vision is still a draw 3 for 0. Crashing Footfalls makes 8 power for 0. Think about it. Those cards are very threatening for an opponent.
- Mishra's Bauble - Why is this here? You're not getting any card advantage from it. It's just replacing itself. You can't tell me that Bauble+Fetch is going to win you the game. Those 4 slots could be used for Lightning Bolt, Assassin's Trophy, or a threat which will actually win the game.
My advice for anyone wanting to play this deck, when building this deck you need to think about what an opponent is going to do in order to get around Balance. Nearly every deck in the format has answers for us, so we must have answers for them. We also need to take into account what is actually threatening in our lists. Having a clear board after a Balance isn't threatening at all, it just slows the game down. If I could recommend anything, try a list with many threats and basic Balance package. It's going to be awkward to play, but you'll see dependable threats will win you games even without Balance. Good cards win games.
A few cards that haven't been mentioned much which could be very good for us:
- Fulminator Mage - 2/2 body which can be removed at a moment's notice so it works well with Balance.
- Veil of Summer - Nobody has mentioned this as a way to combat counterspells. I'm thinking this has to be a staple sideboard choice for ED lists
- Huntmaster of the Fells - This card is a sleeper and I loved playing it in my cascade version. On a clean board I'd rather have Huntmaster than Garg. Flipped version is Ravager of the Fells.
- Indestructible God creatures - They work well with pre-Balance boards since they often won't be creatures until late game. Only work with posts though, but they are indestructible wincons otherwise. Klothys, Thassa, and Keranos are my best picks.
- Kitchen Finks - This one is really cool with Garg suspended. You can either just gain 4 and remove 2 counters or it's a 3/2 body. It's a really good chump blocker which does a fine job at stalling 2 turns until you can Balance.
P.S. For every Balance player - The rise of Wrenn and Six is going to make this deck REALLY hard to pilot. The deck HAS to have maindeck answers. His +1 insures they can rebuild at 1 land per turn. This must be addressed moving forward.
I think you've said pretty much everything I was going to say with that deck, so I have nothing to add.
Yes, Wrenn and Six help them rebuild their lands, but again. With our deck being able to run so many recover/cast from graveyard effects it becomes a war of attrition. We can let them rebuild all they want, we'll just keep wiping them. And it only works in RG variants. So Esper control decks really don't change against us, and aggro decks probably wont run Wrenn + Six. I can see Jund running it, but that will be determined.
Brother Im telling you we can approach the list in more than one way and there is enough breathing room and different cards to work with to enable many strategies.
I like very focused strategies that nuke everything. They are typically more combo than midrange or control. They will probably lose to extirpate but honestly Im not building my deck around every single card, and if I was I definitely would not be on this list because its far too reliant on moving parts and build around cards in my experience. Any creature.deck will be more focused, consistent, and (hopefully) able to combat random hate. If I was to be worried about being a high % against every single deck in the format I prob wouldnt be playing this list because its a tad bit slow. Restore Balance is a fun build around card. I see what you mean about different things but I think you misunderstand the focus of my list, which isnt to beat every single type of list. Modern is too diverse for that. Im not planning on winning vs red deck wins, and probably not storm, and I'll take a "L" to extirpate.
I promise you, youre just wrong about brain in a jar. When your goal is to balance one single time with gargadon suspended (about all of the core of every deck I make in this archetype) this card is GAS other than the single mana cost which is only truly 'costly' because of tolaria west's 3+ brains 1. Not because brain by itself is clunky. Not only that, it helps in control matchups. I have won many games off the back of people trying to get a tiny bit of value at EOT; whoops I win at instant speed since youre tapped out.
Thoughtsieze decks can be rough, but unless they are more aggro-tilted, I can compete with them and have a close matchup. And especially if my list is tuned well. To be resilient to this I need a lot of redundancy which my decks always have, and also either a lot of tutors or a lot of 'good' card draw.
We definitely can make a midrange list that is more grindy and doesnt 'need' gargadon. That said, as long as gargadon isnt straight extirpated we can still make other type of lists work. Or have just a very small handful of win-cons outside of gargadon that play more off of balance.
Wren and six I have never been even a tiny bit scared of. I just attack their face and they die in 2 turns.
I do appreciate all the feedback. Were not improving at all if we cant raise concerns and consider things.
Please drop any lists you come up with, especially non cascade ones, rough or not and we can talk about ways to tweak them.
Lost Legacy/Bitterblossom aren't seeing play so we don't have to worry about them. We don't need to worry about cards until they start showing up. What we do have to worry about is surviving until we can actually Balance. In your case you must have tutors for Garg, Balance in hand, AND have a way to cast it, all before losing.
The problem with being so hyper focused is that you leave yourself vulnerable. Traditionally, decks that require 3 combo pieces in order to go off have a hard time. They're inconsistent, easy to disrupt, and can't adjust to changes in the meta. If you look back at all of the combo decks of the past they all have a few things in common. They make insane amounts of mana, they gain infinite life, deal infinite damage, draw infinite cards, or generate lots of tokens. This deck isn't doing that; it's doing the opposite.
You have many cards in your deck that aren't doing anything. Ghostly Prison isn't helping you gain consistency. Neither is your trinket/Karn package. Bauble is just replacing itself. I'd actually rather see you go back to Scheming + Codex than run Prison and Bauble. The mana trinkets aren't getting you anywhere. They give you 4 mana on turn 3, when you only need 3. Karn isn't doing anything other than being a chump blocker. Fact or Fiction is too slow.
You should add Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand to your list as 4 ofs. Storm needs both of them and so does Ad Nauseam. In order for a combo deck to work in Modern, they have to have draw fixing. Using Jar, you also have the advantage of not needing double red for ED. I think at some point you'll find that needing 4 colors to suspend Garg, play Call, and play cantrips/As Foretold is going to cost you. Not having Mox Opal really cramps your land selection and you've circumvented that by using trinkets and Glimmervoid. I would like to see you tweak the lands in a way that you're playing less fetches/shocks, and still be able to cast everything you need to, instead of relying on Bauble + Glimmervoid. The fetches are just making your burn matchup worse, but you do need some kind of color fixing. Pentad Prism wouldn't be a bad idea because you could pitch it to Garg after you've removed your counters. The drawback of changing your lands and removing the trinkets is that you'll be crushed by Blood Moon, but that's a risk you should take imo.
I still disagree on being a combo deck but I know that's what you really enjoy so I'm trying to help you improve that aspect of your deck.
Edit: Please find a way to add SSG to your list. That will give you the option of Balancing sooner.
Yes I play to compete. Thats my goal of building decks and tweaking them. To improve them to compete more.
I havent run into lost legacy or bitterblossom. I have lost to extirpate once though. Should I run more threats and ways to win? Maybe, but Im not overly worried about it since gargadon does work and almost every time its not an issue. Then I can be that much more focused and consistent in my approach and not have to worry about clunky cards that arent getting me there.
Our '3 combo pieces' aren't just 4 ofs tho. Some of them can be in multiples and all of them can be fetched or drawn into with good draw spells. And sure were not winning with lifegain or w/e or on the spot but when I have a garg in play and they have 1 card in hand (maybe), its a 2 turn clock almost every single time and rarely if ever are they coming back. Maybe I have to attack liliana first so she cant -2. Either way the massive clock is ending them fast.
Youre prob right about not needing Bauble now. The main plus to this was to be thrown into gargs mouth, not even for the draw. Just the 0 mana cost that sometimes gives you a card. Maybe not needed.
Cantrips might work, havent tried them in large numbers yet. That said, you can spend a lot of time and mana spinning your wheels and still not end up with enough artifacts to feed gargadon. Which is typically my goal.. to balance then attack with gargadon on the exact same turn (which is why it end up feeling more like a combo deck to me). Simian spirit guide is the same deal. Its not an artifact and while the +1 mana is great, its fleeting. Sometimes the extra 1 mana whenever you want it might be better as just a land or just a talisman, I have found. I used to play with SSG a lot, not so much anymore. Maybe as a 1 of. Its just a tiny bit too niche or something, idk. Not quite enough power. Who knows, maybe you could be in a spot where you are running some monastery siege or fact or fiction or some random card like that where that turn-earlier spell is more gas than normal.
4 color is not a problem. Neither is splashing GW in a UR deck. I could be 5 colors easily. Theres so many cards to enable that its absurd. Do not need mox. It just helped. Really theres plenty without mox to fix mana.
Signets / talismans are phenomenal. Exactly what you want with balance. For example here is a black list Ive been cooking up:
4 Restore Balance
4 Greater Gargadon
4 As Foretold
4 Eladamri's Call
3 Bontu's Last Reckoning
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
4 Talisman of Resilience
3 Coldsteel Heart
4 Veinfire Borderpost
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana Vess
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Bitterblossom
4 Glimmervoid
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Island
4 Tolaria West
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Defense Grid
2 Imprisoned in the Moon
2 Nature's Claim
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Electrodominance
4 Remand
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning