First thing I notice is that your new list does not include Brain in a Jar. It seemed like you were very attached. Care to elaborate why you removed it?
I do like the Bontu's Reckoning and the Lilly package you have, but why aren't you running Fatal Push/Dismember? Also, no Abrupt Decay? Have you considered running an IoK/Thoughtseize package? I think that's one thing that hasn't been explored at all with the ED lists which should be. The ability to remove problem cards seems promising.
Since you're going to be competitive, let's take a look at some of the things you're going to have to beat in this meta:
- Spike Feeder + Heliod, Sun-Crowned. With BoP or Hierarch they can combo for infinite life on turn 3, turn 4 without.
- Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies. This one also needs another combo piece in some form but that's also a turn 3 combo.
- Infect throws down Glistener Elf on turn 1 and turn 2 you'll probably be dead with the pump spells they have. If it's Blighted Agent it's 1 turn slower.
- Ad Naus can combo turn 3 now with the help of Thassa's Oracle. The deck can also combo turn 2 on a nut hand.
- Storm can combo on turn 3 with a nut hand.
- Burn can kill you on turn 4 consistently, especially if they draw multiple Eidolons.
- Scapeshift now has Dryad of the Ilysian Grove which means they can Scapeshift on turn 4.
- Dredge has Ox of Agonas, Life from the Loam, and Narcomoeba to block Garg.
- Tron has turn 3 Karn/Ugin AND they can play Chalice for 0.
- Humans has Meddling Mage, Thalia, and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade.
- Death's Shadow has hand removal and Stubborn Denial, along with burn spells.
- Jund, well I'm not even going to go there.
How consistent is your 'full-combo'? Is it happening in 75%+ of your games, after sideboarding? If you're consistent even after sideboarding then maybe I'm wrong. I just don't see how your list is going to be consistent with 0 card draw and no way to find As Foretold. You're just praying that you get everything you need in your opening hand, and that the opponent doesn't disrupt you in some way. In a goldfish world, your deck looks fine. Against a competitive meta, I'm just not seeing it. Those are my opinions though. Prove me wrong.
Hi, sorry for a brief absence. But I have a few more questions, for you.
1. Arcum's Astrolabe: I don't think you need this mana fixer in your deck. You don't seem to run enough blue to warrent this.
2. Coldsteel Heart: I feel the ETB-Tapped is a bit slow, compared to your borderposts which do its job better by giving you a -1 land count for balances
3. I like your sideboard. I think you've got a solid one there.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
First thing I notice is that your new list does not include Brain in a Jar. It seemed like you were very attached. Care to elaborate why you removed it?
I do like the Bontu's Reckoning and the Lilly package you have, but why aren't you running Fatal Push/Dismember? Also, no Abrupt Decay? Have you considered running an IoK/Thoughtseize package? I think that's one thing that hasn't been explored at all with the ED lists which should be. The ability to remove problem cards seems promising.
Since you're going to be competitive, let's take a look at some of the things you're going to have to beat in this meta:
- Spike Feeder + Heliod, Sun-Crowned. With BoP or Hierarch they can combo for infinite life on turn 3, turn 4 without.
- Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies. This one also needs another combo piece in some form but that's also a turn 3 combo.
- Infect throws down Glistener Elf on turn 1 and turn 2 you'll probably be dead with the pump spells they have. If it's Blighted Agent it's 1 turn slower.
- Ad Naus can combo turn 3 now with the help of Thassa's Oracle. The deck can also combo turn 2 on a nut hand.
- Storm can combo on turn 3 with a nut hand.
- Burn can kill you on turn 4 consistently, especially if they draw multiple Eidolons.
- Scapeshift now has Dryad of the Ilysian Grove which means they can Scapeshift on turn 4.
- Dredge has Ox of Agonas, Life from the Loam, and Narcomoeba to block Garg.
- Tron has turn 3 Karn/Ugin AND they can play Chalice for 0.
- Humans has Meddling Mage, Thalia, and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade.
- Death's Shadow has hand removal and Stubborn Denial, along with burn spells.
- Jund, well I'm not even going to go there.
How consistent is your 'full-combo'? Is it happening in 75%+ of your games, after sideboarding? If you're consistent even after sideboarding then maybe I'm wrong. I just don't see how your list is going to be consistent with 0 card draw and no way to find As Foretold. You're just praying that you get everything you need in your opening hand, and that the opponent doesn't disrupt you in some way. In a goldfish world, your deck looks fine. Against a competitive meta, I'm just not seeing it. Those are my opinions though. Prove me wrong.
Brain is for non cascade lists that want to be as fast as possible. This deck is slow/grindy. Doenst need to win with the first balance since I can offload my manabase into artifact mana and use that for things like bontus.
I just dont really have room for every single card. So I opted towards being streamlined in my approach / gameplan. I want to control the board, maybe stick a liliana. Eventually have 0 lands (gargadon) and restore balance. And eventually win from grinding them down and winning via attrition or just a gargadon. You guys seemed to think we need more than 1 wincon so I added a few more. Even using 18 mana I still need so many of each type of card to make things work and give overlap so I can run 5-8 of a certain card instead of only 1-4. Like how I'm now running 4 As foretold with typically some number of brain with 4 tolaria west+4 balance.
Im not interested in beating every single deck. Like I said everything is meta dependent so just build what you think will work best and most consistently. Sure I'll have garbage matchups but its modern, every deck has garbage matchups. And every list I make will obviously be better vs different types of lists. Its not like I play each list Ive posted X times I havent had much time to test since mox was banned. Im giving you guys concept ideas so people can see what Im talking about: That non cascade can be made in a LOT of different ways and each way can have plenty of overlap and consistency. Then hopefully with any extra slots you can build to your meta. Our deck can be up to 5 colors with ease.
As for 'full combo' typically when I combo off Im at maybe 1 or 2 cards in hand (almost every single time) and 0 lands and 0 creatures. Either that or I didn't make it in time. This will depend on my opponent.
Honestly dude I know youre trying to help but sometimes you seem pretty condescending. Seems like youve been 100% sure my approach wont work despite presumably having never even tested using moxes or seen it work. Have you even tried to playtest non cascade at all? Idk maybe you updated your list but the last one you posted seemed both very scattered and easy to attack from many angles like borderposts being a huge target, which would explain why you seem so convinced this cant work if thats the only list youve tried in this archetype. Try to tone it down a bit man were all on the same side. And honestly if you want this deck that has huge % against all of the field why are you even here?
Hi, sorry for a brief absence. But I have a few more questions, for you.
1. Arcum's Astrolabe: I don't think you need this mana fixer in your deck. You don't seem to run enough blue to warrent this.
2. Coldsteel Heart: I feel the ETB-Tapped is a bit slow, compared to your borderposts which do its job better by giving you a -1 land count for balances
3. I like your sideboard. I think you've got a solid one there.
Astrolabe is awesome. Even just being 1 food and a cantrip is fine. Mana fixing is nice it just brings it all together and gives great consistency, whilst being 'perfect' to slot into any manacurves.
Borderposts are a huge potential weakness. I feel bad running any but were really short on options for this category outside of signets/talismans which dont give double black too well and I dont want to ping myself every time I tap for black mana. So while coldsteel is slower, it gives the color I need (prob the core color black for BB1 bontus). Borderposts giving -1 land is not always an upside, its situational. And if you cant 'shortcut' it its just worse. Def not a card Im trying to play.
Thanks mate! Yea our SB options for this list are great. Finding Ceremonious Rejection recently was great. Fk you karn! Lol
I'll leave you guys with my 'bant' list I brewed up:
@SunTzu - Sorry my posts might seem a bit brash; it's not my intention at all. When I type out responses on here I normally end up writing about 1500 words and then I go through and take all the 'fluff' out to leave in the brunt of what I'm trying to say. I can see how that might come off as condescending. I have to edit out the stuff that makes it sound like I'm casually talking, otherwise my posts would be very long. I have to be careful because I can analyse things to the nth degree and I have to remember that people don't want to read huge blocks of text.
That said, I've played thousands of games with this deck - cascade and ED. The problems that both versions have are close to the same. There's no deck that's going to be good against every deck in the field, but Restore Balance is quite powerful. I really enjoy the way it plays. There's no other deck like it.
I'm completely with you that the deck can be built many different ways. That's one of the reasons I enjoy building lists and trying them out. We don't know for sure what the best way is.
What this deck really is lacking is card advantage. As a mid-range combo deck our only card that provides true card advantage is the Balance itself.
I believe there's 2 main 'roads' if you will for the deck to be optimal:
- Cascade
- ED with Finale and Vision/Footfalls
The other variants are just spread too thin imo. Some of my lists fall prey to this as well; I'm not perfect. We can't have all the best threats, all the best removal, and the best card advantage. There aren't enough card slots after lands and the Balance package. This is where I think the most difficult part of building this deck lies. The cascade version has further restrictions here because it has to play posts otherwise Balance doesn't get good CA. On top of that it also has the 3 CMC mana problem. The upside is that cascade itself is kind of a tutor for 0 mana which is really nice.
As mentioned before, nobody knows the best list. These are only my opinions.
He may be too cute and his ult might be too difficult to pull off but his + and - abilities seem like they could be useful.
So my question to you is, if you do posts you will hit your devtion for those gods. I always did with Thassa since I ran 8 posts that made U and had several U permanents. Can you also win with those gods a few turns you play them.
For the walker, I think he's cool. I run differen't tuck spells than him, and my only issue is reusing the Ardent Plea without any Balances in deck is a dead abilty. But using his ability to exile pesky enchantments using your indestructible gods is cute. I'd say try it out. It seems a bit weaker, and tricky to pull off but if Calix works like you think he will I don't see why he wouldn't work.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
@Loki - In my experience Thassa is a very reliable beater once her devotion is met. Typically, when she becomes a creature you'll also have at least 1 Ardent Plea on the field. I think Thassa is easily the best God for the deck because she is easier to turn into a creature than all the others. Her scry ability and her activated ability have both won me games before so I'm pretty fond of her.
As far as Klothys, Keranos, and Calix go, they seem too inconsistent to me. Calix isn't finding me enough answers because he only digs for 4. His -3 ability is too expensive. If it was -2 I'd continue testing but he ends up taking a dirt nap after the first -3 ability. Klothys and Keranos are nice and provide value but I haven't been able to build enough devotion for them. Their 'passive' abilities aren't strong enough to win the game on their own so I think there are better options out there.
Honestly, the more I play the ED version with Finale the more I'm liking it. I still can't decide which version I like more. I'm going to take a break from posting here and decide which version I'm going to go with. Good luck in your testing guys.
@SunTzu - Sorry my posts might seem a bit brash; it's not my intention at all. When I type out responses on here I normally end up writing about 1500 words and then I go through and take all the 'fluff' out to leave in the brunt of what I'm trying to say. I can see how that might come off as condescending. I have to edit out the stuff that makes it sound like I'm casually talking, otherwise my posts would be very long. I have to be careful because I can analyse things to the nth degree and I have to remember that people don't want to read huge blocks of text.
That said, I've played thousands of games with this deck - cascade and ED. The problems that both versions have are close to the same. There's no deck that's going to be good against every deck in the field, but Restore Balance is quite powerful. I really enjoy the way it plays. There's no other deck like it.
I'm completely with you that the deck can be built many different ways. That's one of the reasons I enjoy building lists and trying them out. We don't know for sure what the best way is.
What this deck really is lacking is card advantage. As a mid-range combo deck our only card that provides true card advantage is the Balance itself.
I believe there's 2 main 'roads' if you will for the deck to be optimal:
- Cascade
- ED with Finale and Vision/Footfalls
The other variants are just spread too thin imo. Some of my lists fall prey to this as well; I'm not perfect. We can't have all the best threats, all the best removal, and the best card advantage. There aren't enough card slots after lands and the Balance package. This is where I think the most difficult part of building this deck lies. The cascade version has further restrictions here because it has to play posts otherwise Balance doesn't get good CA. On top of that it also has the 3 CMC mana problem. The upside is that cascade itself is kind of a tutor for 0 mana which is really nice.
As mentioned before, nobody knows the best list. These are only my opinions.
For card advantage we have thirst for knowledge, fact or fiction, (my least favorite) ancestral vision.
Personally from my testing (non cascade) tutors are often times much much better than card advantage. You can spend a lot of time and mana digging for things but just drawing 1 tutor and getting what you need is elegant. From there sometimes instead of more draw I have just run more redundancy, depending. The main problem being these 'good' draw spells are very clunky mana costs, typically. We have thoughtcast but draw 2 is almost not good enough, just being +1 card advantage. Thirst for knowledge is very good, and monastery siege is as well; but they are 3 mana. The worst on a mana curve.
I did consider and make a paradoxical outcome list but I needed mox's 0 mana cost.
One of our main 'hero' cards (non cascade) is arcums astrolabe. <3 that card.
Hey guys, just wanted to post my decision on which version I'm going to play. It's the ED version with 4x Finale. Crashing Footfalls and Ancestral Vision provide the deck with the gas it needs. Finale is like icing on the cake. Plus, it's really fun to pilot.
I'm also a firm believer that borderposts still need to be in the deck. The ability to withdraw lands in the early turns without Garg is just too good. I've played against lots of tier decks and lots of random brews and I'm finding that I am doing better with posts than without. I tried 2 different strategies: 3x Garg/8x posts and 4x Garg/4x Call/3x Astrolabe. In the tutor version, I found I wasn't able to reduce land count enough before needing to Balance. They would just draw into 1 creature *cough Tarmogoyf* and then I'm on a clock again. In the posts version, I was able to keep their land count down to 1 if I didn't naturally find a Garg. I won't lie I did get blown out by Eldrazi tron and Karn a few times because I needed the posts color mana. All in all, my posts felt like they helped more than being able to tutor for Garg. A lot of the time I wasn't tutoring fast enough, or I didn't have the one extra red mana to suspend Garg AND Balance in the same turn. I'm going to stick with the 3x Garg/8x Posts that I'm running; that feels the best to me.
Next, card advantage is more than just drawing additional cards. For example Anger of the Gods against a bunch of Goblins + tokens could be spending 1 card to wipe out 6 permanents, or a 1-for-6. The Balance itself is insane for card advantage if you're properly set up for it. If you look at Snapcaster Mage the reason it's so good is that it provides more card advantage by giving you a 2/1 body, and allowing you to reuse a spell you've already played. Dark Confidant is a great example because normally it will give you several cards for only using 1 card. Thopter Spy Network is another fantastic example. Not only does it give a hard to remove enchantment, each turn it gives you a 1/1 flying body that also has the potential to keep you drawing more cards. It's pure card advantage.
As a midrange combo deck I feel like our card choices need to have a lot more value in them. For this reason I'm not looking at using counterspells. I'm looking at using threats which will need to be countered or removed. Counterspells are typically 1-for-1 exchanges and I don't think that's good enough.
This is why I really like Finale of Promise in the deck. It gives those already used spells a second chance to come back and get good value. Being able to count it as Balance 5-8 is really nice too.
Both are 2 card combos so they would be fairly easy to implement into the deck. The Spike Feeder/Heliod seems better because they wouldn't work against the Balance shell, but then infinite life won't win the game directly like infinite tokens will. Would only be 8 potential slots with maybe more for tutors. Could work in both versions of the deck? Thoughts?
@vikingtrader: Hi! I’m also very interested in the ED version. I was playing the borderposts version but, after the release of ED, I jumped to them. I’m playing with a black splash for discarding my opponents (with really good results). After reading your last post, I think that using some number of borderposts could improve this ED version. Could you please post your list?
Hey guys, just wanted to post my decision on which version I'm going to play. It's the ED version with 4x Finale. Crashing Footfalls and Ancestral Vision provide the deck with the gas it needs. Finale is like icing on the cake. Plus, it's really fun to pilot.
I'm also a firm believer that borderposts still need to be in the deck. The ability to withdraw lands in the early turns without Garg is just too good. I've played against lots of tier decks and lots of random brews and I'm finding that I am doing better with posts than without. I tried 2 different strategies: 3x Garg/8x posts and 4x Garg/4x Call/3x Astrolabe. In the tutor version, I found I wasn't able to reduce land count enough before needing to Balance. They would just draw into 1 creature *cough Tarmogoyf* and then I'm on a clock again. In the posts version, I was able to keep their land count down to 1 if I didn't naturally find a Garg. I won't lie I did get blown out by Eldrazi tron and Karn a few times because I needed the posts color mana. All in all, my posts felt like they helped more than being able to tutor for Garg. A lot of the time I wasn't tutoring fast enough, or I didn't have the one extra red mana to suspend Garg AND Balance in the same turn. I'm going to stick with the 3x Garg/8x Posts that I'm running; that feels the best to me.
Next, card advantage is more than just drawing additional cards. For example Anger of the Gods against a bunch of Goblins + tokens could be spending 1 card to wipe out 6 permanents, or a 1-for-6. The Balance itself is insane for card advantage if you're properly set up for it. If you look at Snapcaster Mage the reason it's so good is that it provides more card advantage by giving you a 2/1 body, and allowing you to reuse a spell you've already played. Dark Confidant is a great example because normally it will give you several cards for only using 1 card. Thopter Spy Network is another fantastic example. Not only does it give a hard to remove enchantment, each turn it gives you a 1/1 flying body that also has the potential to keep you drawing more cards. It's pure card advantage.
As a midrange combo deck I feel like our card choices need to have a lot more value in them. For this reason I'm not looking at using counterspells. I'm looking at using threats which will need to be countered or removed. Counterspells are typically 1-for-1 exchanges and I don't think that's good enough.
This is why I really like Finale of Promise in the deck. It gives those already used spells a second chance to come back and get good value. Being able to count it as Balance 5-8 is really nice too.
Both are 2 card combos so they would be fairly easy to implement into the deck. The Spike Feeder/Heliod seems better because they wouldn't work against the Balance shell, but then infinite life won't win the game directly like infinite tokens will. Would only be 8 potential slots with maybe more for tutors. Could work in both versions of the deck? Thoughts?
Would you mind posting both those lists? (search eladamris and borderpost).
I was always super convinced borderposts were not the way to go unless I was on cascade because of how easy those cards are to hate out. Running borderposts into a artifact removal card or god forbid ancient grudge is rough. Thats why I always avoid them if I can help it at all.
Even with 4 call and 4 gargadon youre still having trouble suspending gargadon? Sometimes I might just call that being unlucky because thats normally been plenty of ways to fetch up a garg to suspend.
As for more combos make sure you arent diulting the strategy too much. Overlap cards or cards that hit our goals while maintaining the board state will probably help more than individual cards that are nuts when drawn with their counterparts. Especially when we can only run 1-4 of a card "A" and 1-4 of a card "B".
We need so many things to line up already it will probably hurt the deck to require this many slots and maybe even more build around cards to bring it together. That said you do have eladamri's call or congregation at dawn.
Please make sure your sideboard includes probably 2 minimum and easily 3 or even 4 Ceremonious Rejection. When a single card eats our deck so hard we really need to put some SB slots dedicated to stopping it. I also run a lot of remand since its great for tempo and staying on gameplan with the +1 draw, especially if you can go off next turn.
Ive been messing around with a black list but I havent been able to find a playtest partner for a while to test anything new :C
Here is my new spicy black list. It aims to grind my opponent down and win via attrition or maybe just a gargadon. Or maybe I get a small faerie army going and overrun them. Bitterblossom by itself can out race its -1 damage provided the board is clear, but with Bad moon you can actually push your faeries pretty hard into the red zone.:
Another cool card I just found is Sultai Ascendancy. Anyone who has played with Mirri's Guile before can attest to the strength of this type of card having a per-turn filter effect.
I worry about the cost of all of these cards. Those mana costs are brutal. Siege will always go into a card draw 'engine' spot, not one of your interactive spots so you could potentially run both.
Monastery siege has been excellent for me if my opponent is slow at all or not seriously clocking me in the red zone. Probably meta dependent. Been testing Bontu's Last Reckoning and Sultai Ascendancy and they both seem like they have a lot of potential. Sultai Asc 'digs' deeper than Siege does so Im trying numbers skewed towards Asc but using both. 2 Siege 3 Asc. Bontus has been excellent and Im super curious about it. Im wondering if my semi working Sultai list could work using cards like Treasure Map + Clockspinning in some numbers. Simian spirit guide also works well with Bontus and helps me unload my hand which sometimes has been an issue with my newer lists with clunky 3 mana things all over the place.
I also wonder about the potential about a list using aether vial and one of the 'artifacts cost 1 less' creatures for 2 mana. Huge combo potential with paradoxical outcome to find things fast and replay/dump hand.Noose Constrictor to dump hand. Potential to use eladamris -> Constrictor or 1 of Tribute mage to find your brain in a jar to combo off.
so with the new release of cards, are there any that has caught anyones eye to try out yet.
I feel like Vadrok, Apex of Thunder could be an interesting brew. We're already running the proper colors, and the mutate abilty lets us boost our Greater Gargadons AND cast Balance if we need to in a pinch.
I also like Mythos of Vadrok, 4 mana deal 5 split damage, while also buying ourselves some time against troublesom planewalkers.
I know we all kinda faded off here, because there is only so many cards you can review before you wait for a new set to come out. But I like these two so far!
Hopefully you're all doing well admist the covid-19 outbreak.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
I'm inching back into casual play only, so I've been having a lot of fun with different lists. I recently tried out Yidaro, Wandering Monster and he was ok. My list is nowhere close to competitive, so he was fun to mess with, but I don't know if there are any super strong cards that fit well in the posts deck (which is frankly the only one I care about personally). Although I don't know much about the modern meta right now, so who am I to say?
Ya, I haven't touched the competitve scene if forever, my deck list hasn't been upgraded but I don't think it has to be unless I'm itching to do a complete redo of my deck to test things around. |
That monster seems okay, a Greater Gargadon on steriods with some minor card draw. I like it.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
Please note, that while I do follow some sets time to time depending if a card cathes my eye, I haven't actually touched my deck in quite some time and it may appear a bit dated. Some day when my itch to play magic returns, I will probably see what cards are no longer revelant and update.
This deck was made in the time where Boggles, Humans, Green Affinity, Tron, and regular Affinty were still top tier/relavent. This deck was designed to slow or stop them completely with some success against a few, and almost a 100% win rate against others. The matchups I struggled with were Humans, Control, and Burn.
This deck does run the old Nahiri + Emrakul wincon package, tho some post decks that you see posted try to stray away from it since, while strong, probably has outlived its usefulness.
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
Hope you're all well, figured I give this form another try. Been a month since the last post. Hope your brews are going well and that you've been trying new things!
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It's easy to believe you're a god when you're twice as powerful as everyone else.
any players up here brewing with the addition of Shardless Agent? It seems like a perfect fit
I thought about playing a cascade into Resurgent Belief deck, but I there aren't enough cards that enable this deck in the way I would like it to work (cheap cycling enchantments like Lay Claim to steal your opponents lands), that's why I came back to tried and true Restore Balance...just to see that it is dead. Was Spirit Guide that important?
I do like the Bontu's Reckoning and the Lilly package you have, but why aren't you running Fatal Push/Dismember? Also, no Abrupt Decay? Have you considered running an IoK/Thoughtseize package? I think that's one thing that hasn't been explored at all with the ED lists which should be. The ability to remove problem cards seems promising.
Since you're going to be competitive, let's take a look at some of the things you're going to have to beat in this meta:
- Spike Feeder + Heliod, Sun-Crowned. With BoP or Hierarch they can combo for infinite life on turn 3, turn 4 without.
- Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies. This one also needs another combo piece in some form but that's also a turn 3 combo.
- Infect throws down Glistener Elf on turn 1 and turn 2 you'll probably be dead with the pump spells they have. If it's Blighted Agent it's 1 turn slower.
- Ad Naus can combo turn 3 now with the help of Thassa's Oracle. The deck can also combo turn 2 on a nut hand.
- Storm can combo on turn 3 with a nut hand.
- Burn can kill you on turn 4 consistently, especially if they draw multiple Eidolons.
- Scapeshift now has Dryad of the Ilysian Grove which means they can Scapeshift on turn 4.
- Dredge has Ox of Agonas, Life from the Loam, and Narcomoeba to block Garg.
- Tron has turn 3 Karn/Ugin AND they can play Chalice for 0.
- Humans has Meddling Mage, Thalia, and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade.
- Death's Shadow has hand removal and Stubborn Denial, along with burn spells.
- Jund, well I'm not even going to go there.
How consistent is your 'full-combo'? Is it happening in 75%+ of your games, after sideboarding? If you're consistent even after sideboarding then maybe I'm wrong. I just don't see how your list is going to be consistent with 0 card draw and no way to find As Foretold. You're just praying that you get everything you need in your opening hand, and that the opponent doesn't disrupt you in some way. In a goldfish world, your deck looks fine. Against a competitive meta, I'm just not seeing it. Those are my opinions though. Prove me wrong.
1. Arcum's Astrolabe: I don't think you need this mana fixer in your deck. You don't seem to run enough blue to warrent this.
2. Coldsteel Heart: I feel the ETB-Tapped is a bit slow, compared to your borderposts which do its job better by giving you a -1 land count for balances
3. I like your sideboard. I think you've got a solid one there.
The idea is using Calix, Destiny's Hand as a wincon with the indestructible God cards. I'm thinking Thassa, God of the Sea, Klothys, God of Destiny, and Keranos, God of Storms.
Since you're already using Detention Sphere and Ardent Plea, I was curious about your thoughts on this walker.
He may be too cute and his ult might be too difficult to pull off but his + and - abilities seem like they could be useful.
Brain is for non cascade lists that want to be as fast as possible. This deck is slow/grindy. Doenst need to win with the first balance since I can offload my manabase into artifact mana and use that for things like bontus.
I just dont really have room for every single card. So I opted towards being streamlined in my approach / gameplan. I want to control the board, maybe stick a liliana. Eventually have 0 lands (gargadon) and restore balance. And eventually win from grinding them down and winning via attrition or just a gargadon. You guys seemed to think we need more than 1 wincon so I added a few more. Even using 18 mana I still need so many of each type of card to make things work and give overlap so I can run 5-8 of a certain card instead of only 1-4. Like how I'm now running 4 As foretold with typically some number of brain with 4 tolaria west+4 balance.
Im not interested in beating every single deck. Like I said everything is meta dependent so just build what you think will work best and most consistently. Sure I'll have garbage matchups but its modern, every deck has garbage matchups. And every list I make will obviously be better vs different types of lists. Its not like I play each list Ive posted X times I havent had much time to test since mox was banned. Im giving you guys concept ideas so people can see what Im talking about: That non cascade can be made in a LOT of different ways and each way can have plenty of overlap and consistency. Then hopefully with any extra slots you can build to your meta. Our deck can be up to 5 colors with ease.
As for 'full combo' typically when I combo off Im at maybe 1 or 2 cards in hand (almost every single time) and 0 lands and 0 creatures. Either that or I didn't make it in time. This will depend on my opponent.
Honestly dude I know youre trying to help but sometimes you seem pretty condescending. Seems like youve been 100% sure my approach wont work despite presumably having never even tested using moxes or seen it work. Have you even tried to playtest non cascade at all? Idk maybe you updated your list but the last one you posted seemed both very scattered and easy to attack from many angles like borderposts being a huge target, which would explain why you seem so convinced this cant work if thats the only list youve tried in this archetype. Try to tone it down a bit man were all on the same side. And honestly if you want this deck that has huge % against all of the field why are you even here?
Astrolabe is awesome. Even just being 1 food and a cantrip is fine. Mana fixing is nice it just brings it all together and gives great consistency, whilst being 'perfect' to slot into any manacurves.
Borderposts are a huge potential weakness. I feel bad running any but were really short on options for this category outside of signets/talismans which dont give double black too well and I dont want to ping myself every time I tap for black mana. So while coldsteel is slower, it gives the color I need (prob the core color black for BB1 bontus). Borderposts giving -1 land is not always an upside, its situational. And if you cant 'shortcut' it its just worse. Def not a card Im trying to play.
Thanks mate! Yea our SB options for this list are great. Finding Ceremonious Rejection recently was great. Fk you karn! Lol
I'll leave you guys with my 'bant' list I brewed up:
4 As Foretold
3 Brain in a Jar
4 Restore Balance
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
4 Talisman of Curiosity
3 Selesnya Signet
2 Talisman of Creativity
2 Monastery Siege
1 Thopter Spy Network
3 Ghostly Prison
4 Eladamri's Call
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
3 Snow-Covered Island
4 Tolaria West
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Glimmervoid
1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Defense Grid
1 Nature's Claim
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Venarian Glimmer
4 Remand
1 Electrodominance
3 Ceremonious Rejection
That said, I've played thousands of games with this deck - cascade and ED. The problems that both versions have are close to the same. There's no deck that's going to be good against every deck in the field, but Restore Balance is quite powerful. I really enjoy the way it plays. There's no other deck like it.
I'm completely with you that the deck can be built many different ways. That's one of the reasons I enjoy building lists and trying them out. We don't know for sure what the best way is.
What this deck really is lacking is card advantage. As a mid-range combo deck our only card that provides true card advantage is the Balance itself.
I believe there's 2 main 'roads' if you will for the deck to be optimal:
- Cascade
- ED with Finale and Vision/Footfalls
The other variants are just spread too thin imo. Some of my lists fall prey to this as well; I'm not perfect. We can't have all the best threats, all the best removal, and the best card advantage. There aren't enough card slots after lands and the Balance package. This is where I think the most difficult part of building this deck lies. The cascade version has further restrictions here because it has to play posts otherwise Balance doesn't get good CA. On top of that it also has the 3 CMC mana problem. The upside is that cascade itself is kind of a tutor for 0 mana which is really nice.
As mentioned before, nobody knows the best list. These are only my opinions.
So my question to you is, if you do posts you will hit your devtion for those gods. I always did with Thassa since I ran 8 posts that made U and had several U permanents. Can you also win with those gods a few turns you play them.
For the walker, I think he's cool. I run differen't tuck spells than him, and my only issue is reusing the Ardent Plea without any Balances in deck is a dead abilty. But using his ability to exile pesky enchantments using your indestructible gods is cute. I'd say try it out. It seems a bit weaker, and tricky to pull off but if Calix works like you think he will I don't see why he wouldn't work.
As far as Klothys, Keranos, and Calix go, they seem too inconsistent to me. Calix isn't finding me enough answers because he only digs for 4. His -3 ability is too expensive. If it was -2 I'd continue testing but he ends up taking a dirt nap after the first -3 ability. Klothys and Keranos are nice and provide value but I haven't been able to build enough devotion for them. Their 'passive' abilities aren't strong enough to win the game on their own so I think there are better options out there.
Honestly, the more I play the ED version with Finale the more I'm liking it. I still can't decide which version I like more. I'm going to take a break from posting here and decide which version I'm going to go with. Good luck in your testing guys.
For card advantage we have thirst for knowledge, fact or fiction, (my least favorite) ancestral vision.
Personally from my testing (non cascade) tutors are often times much much better than card advantage. You can spend a lot of time and mana digging for things but just drawing 1 tutor and getting what you need is elegant. From there sometimes instead of more draw I have just run more redundancy, depending. The main problem being these 'good' draw spells are very clunky mana costs, typically. We have thoughtcast but draw 2 is almost not good enough, just being +1 card advantage. Thirst for knowledge is very good, and monastery siege is as well; but they are 3 mana. The worst on a mana curve.
I did consider and make a paradoxical outcome list but I needed mox's 0 mana cost.
One of our main 'hero' cards (non cascade) is arcums astrolabe. <3 that card.
I'm also a firm believer that borderposts still need to be in the deck. The ability to withdraw lands in the early turns without Garg is just too good. I've played against lots of tier decks and lots of random brews and I'm finding that I am doing better with posts than without. I tried 2 different strategies: 3x Garg/8x posts and 4x Garg/4x Call/3x Astrolabe. In the tutor version, I found I wasn't able to reduce land count enough before needing to Balance. They would just draw into 1 creature *cough Tarmogoyf* and then I'm on a clock again. In the posts version, I was able to keep their land count down to 1 if I didn't naturally find a Garg. I won't lie I did get blown out by Eldrazi tron and Karn a few times because I needed the posts color mana. All in all, my posts felt like they helped more than being able to tutor for Garg. A lot of the time I wasn't tutoring fast enough, or I didn't have the one extra red mana to suspend Garg AND Balance in the same turn. I'm going to stick with the 3x Garg/8x Posts that I'm running; that feels the best to me.
Next, card advantage is more than just drawing additional cards. For example Anger of the Gods against a bunch of Goblins + tokens could be spending 1 card to wipe out 6 permanents, or a 1-for-6. The Balance itself is insane for card advantage if you're properly set up for it. If you look at Snapcaster Mage the reason it's so good is that it provides more card advantage by giving you a 2/1 body, and allowing you to reuse a spell you've already played. Dark Confidant is a great example because normally it will give you several cards for only using 1 card. Thopter Spy Network is another fantastic example. Not only does it give a hard to remove enchantment, each turn it gives you a 1/1 flying body that also has the potential to keep you drawing more cards. It's pure card advantage.
As a midrange combo deck I feel like our card choices need to have a lot more value in them. For this reason I'm not looking at using counterspells. I'm looking at using threats which will need to be countered or removed. Counterspells are typically 1-for-1 exchanges and I don't think that's good enough.
This is why I really like Finale of Promise in the deck. It gives those already used spells a second chance to come back and get good value. Being able to count it as Balance 5-8 is really nice too.
I would like your thoughts on adding an infinite combo to the deck. There are 2 I want to mention:
- Felidar Guardian & Saheeli Rai - infinite damage via infinite tokens
- Heliod, Sun-Crowned & Spike Feeder - infinite life
Both are 2 card combos so they would be fairly easy to implement into the deck. The Spike Feeder/Heliod seems better because they wouldn't work against the Balance shell, but then infinite life won't win the game directly like infinite tokens will. Would only be 8 potential slots with maybe more for tutors. Could work in both versions of the deck? Thoughts?
Thanks!
Would you mind posting both those lists? (search eladamris and borderpost).
I was always super convinced borderposts were not the way to go unless I was on cascade because of how easy those cards are to hate out. Running borderposts into a artifact removal card or god forbid ancient grudge is rough. Thats why I always avoid them if I can help it at all.
Even with 4 call and 4 gargadon youre still having trouble suspending gargadon? Sometimes I might just call that being unlucky because thats normally been plenty of ways to fetch up a garg to suspend.
As for more combos make sure you arent diulting the strategy too much. Overlap cards or cards that hit our goals while maintaining the board state will probably help more than individual cards that are nuts when drawn with their counterparts. Especially when we can only run 1-4 of a card "A" and 1-4 of a card "B".
We need so many things to line up already it will probably hurt the deck to require this many slots and maybe even more build around cards to bring it together. That said you do have eladamri's call or congregation at dawn.
Please make sure your sideboard includes probably 2 minimum and easily 3 or even 4 Ceremonious Rejection. When a single card eats our deck so hard we really need to put some SB slots dedicated to stopping it. I also run a lot of remand since its great for tempo and staying on gameplan with the +1 draw, especially if you can go off next turn.
Ive been messing around with a black list but I havent been able to find a playtest partner for a while to test anything new :C
Here is my new spicy black list. It aims to grind my opponent down and win via attrition or maybe just a gargadon. Or maybe I get a small faerie army going and overrun them. Bitterblossom by itself can out race its -1 damage provided the board is clear, but with Bad moon you can actually push your faeries pretty hard into the red zone.:
3 Coldsteel Heart
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
3 Brain in a Jar
2 Talisman of Indulgence
2 Talisman of Creativity
2 Dimir Signet
2 Talisman of Dominance
// 4 Creature
4 Greater Gargadon
// 14 Enchantment
4 As Foretold
3 Monastery Siege
4 Bitterblossom
3 Bad Moon
4 Glimmervoid
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Snow-Covered Island
4 Tolaria West
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
// 2 Planeswalker
2 Liliana of the Veil
// 7 Sorcery
4 Restore Balance
3 Bontu's Last Reckoning
2 Defense Grid
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
1 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Remand
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Thoughtseize
Another cool card I just found is Sultai Ascendancy. Anyone who has played with Mirri's Guile before can attest to the strength of this type of card having a per-turn filter effect.
I worry about the cost of all of these cards. Those mana costs are brutal. Siege will always go into a card draw 'engine' spot, not one of your interactive spots so you could potentially run both.
Monastery siege has been excellent for me if my opponent is slow at all or not seriously clocking me in the red zone. Probably meta dependent. Been testing Bontu's Last Reckoning and Sultai Ascendancy and they both seem like they have a lot of potential. Sultai Asc 'digs' deeper than Siege does so Im trying numbers skewed towards Asc but using both. 2 Siege 3 Asc. Bontus has been excellent and Im super curious about it. Im wondering if my semi working Sultai list could work using cards like Treasure Map + Clockspinning in some numbers. Simian spirit guide also works well with Bontus and helps me unload my hand which sometimes has been an issue with my newer lists with clunky 3 mana things all over the place.
I also wonder about the potential about a list using aether vial and one of the 'artifacts cost 1 less' creatures for 2 mana. Huge combo potential with paradoxical outcome to find things fast and replay/dump hand.Noose Constrictor to dump hand. Potential to use eladamris -> Constrictor or 1 of Tribute mage to find your brain in a jar to combo off.
so with the new release of cards, are there any that has caught anyones eye to try out yet.
I feel like Vadrok, Apex of Thunder could be an interesting brew. We're already running the proper colors, and the mutate abilty lets us boost our Greater Gargadons AND cast Balance if we need to in a pinch.
I also like Mythos of Vadrok, 4 mana deal 5 split damage, while also buying ourselves some time against troublesom planewalkers.
I know we all kinda faded off here, because there is only so many cards you can review before you wait for a new set to come out. But I like these two so far!
Hopefully you're all doing well admist the covid-19 outbreak.
I'm inching back into casual play only, so I've been having a lot of fun with different lists. I recently tried out Yidaro, Wandering Monster and he was ok. My list is nowhere close to competitive, so he was fun to mess with, but I don't know if there are any super strong cards that fit well in the posts deck (which is frankly the only one I care about personally). Although I don't know much about the modern meta right now, so who am I to say?
Seconding Loki, hope everyone is doing well <3
That monster seems okay, a Greater Gargadon on steriods with some minor card draw. I like it.
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Mountain
Borderposts = 12
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
4 Wildfield Borderpost
Other Artifacts = 2
2 Bow of Nylea
Planeswalkers = 5
2 Gideon of the Trials
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Greater Gargadon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Instants = 8
4 Violent Outburst
4 Supreme Will
Sorcery = 4
4 Restore Balance
Enchantment = 10
2 Monastery Siege
2 As Foretold
2 Detention Sphere
4 Ardent Plea
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Wear // Tear
2 Imprisoned in the Moon
2 Blood Moon
2 Ricochet Trap
Please note, that while I do follow some sets time to time depending if a card cathes my eye, I haven't actually touched my deck in quite some time and it may appear a bit dated. Some day when my itch to play magic returns, I will probably see what cards are no longer revelant and update.
This deck was made in the time where Boggles, Humans, Green Affinity, Tron, and regular Affinty were still top tier/relavent. This deck was designed to slow or stop them completely with some success against a few, and almost a 100% win rate against others. The matchups I struggled with were Humans, Control, and Burn.
This deck does run the old Nahiri + Emrakul wincon package, tho some post decks that you see posted try to stray away from it since, while strong, probably has outlived its usefulness.
I thought about playing a cascade into Resurgent Belief deck, but I there aren't enough cards that enable this deck in the way I would like it to work (cheap cycling enchantments like Lay Claim to steal your opponents lands), that's why I came back to tried and true Restore Balance...just to see that it is dead. Was Spirit Guide that important?
B/W Tokens
Midnight Presence
Jeskai Weirding
EDH:
WG Selvala, Explorer Returned Activated-Ability-Tribal GW
BR Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Aggro-Reanimator RB
WUR Kykar, Wind's Fury Polymorph RUW
WUBRG Karona, False God Voltron Pillowfort GRBUW