Dark Tutor: Peer through depths doesn't specify that. Merchant scroll does. That's what I was getting at - peer lets you find a win condition, whereas scroll just digs for gifts. It depends a lot where you need help as to which I'd want to play, and personally I think digging 5 cards deep for whatever piece you need is better that just finding one piece that you likely already have.
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Oh man that's a pile. Buuut there are some things I really want to try out. I'm intrigued to find out if the heavy empty plan can help the match 1 percentage against burn, DSJ and other strategies that try to strip our resources, lock us out of our spells or present a fast clock with weenies. Seems weakest against UW control and other sweeper decks but the rest of the starting 60 is usually great against decks like that game 1 so it seems like a fine concession.
Augur of Bolas digs pretty deep and helps protect our guys from Liliana. He can buy a lot of time against rush decks without flyers and put a strain on removal that really wants to be saved for our enablers, but might have to be used in order to create a sufficient clock. Even the single chump can be huge against decks with big attackers like DSJ, old school jund, abzan and other midrangy decks by buying you a crucial turn. The card's efficiency on the curve (t1: cantrip, t2: augur, t3: enabler + shenanigans) definitely intrigues me enough to try it.
The 17 land 3 gemstone mine mana base is very suspect. Mana confluence is probably necessary over mine since turn 1 mine seems like it could be problematic with our curve to turn 4, but I hate the idea of turn 1 confluence just as much. I'm hoping 4x augur means I can afford to cantrip for land drops more often, but only time will tell. maybe a mix of the two in those three slots, with an eighteenth land most likely being correct.
The sideboard is clearly full of winners.
collective brutality I love me some collective brutality these days. It's a haymaker against burn, and brings a lot of utility against thalia, guardian of thraben, gaddock teeg, ad nauseum, surgical extraction, scapeshift, countermagic, the mirror, and even dodges selfless spirit trying to protect hatebears. It's broad array of applications and strength against burn make me want to hurt the mana base for the splash and leave other cards out to make room for the full set.
repeal Repeal and I go back to old extended and my UG tron deck, and boy are those fond memories. Bounce is a wonderful effect for storm to run some number of since you generally only need one turn free from whatever lock piece is getting you down and the universality is greatly appreciated in an archetype that can't generally side out too many cards without diluting the engine. I want to try repeal in the bounce slot so that I can side it in for some of the cantrips (either sleight or augur depending on match-up) without losing too much card drawing velocity. There are a lot of matchups where I want some brutality and repeal so this feels important. I also feel like it benefits more from the mancerdork bonus than any other modern bounce spell and I want to abuse that synergy. 4 may be too many, but in matchups with a lot of hate that brutality doesn't hit I like the idea of having 4 answers to side in anyways.
goblin bushwhacker This pairs with the fourth empty to give me the possibility to side out all of the graveyard based spells and present a fast all in deck that looks to punish opponents that keep slow hands with some hate spells that don't stop empty into whacker. The extra empty plan is already a thing, this just takes it one step further. Maybe the whackers are win more, but they mean you win on the spot and I like that against control opponents who are smart and side in sweepers to not lose to the empty backup plan storm is already known to employ. I've seen this bushwhacker strategy in the past and I know it's generally thought of as jank but I love what it does to the deck's trickiness.
noxious revival I love the one of main that many are running, and probably that is correct, but for now they're in the side. I want to try siding two in against discard heavy strategies to help out-grind them. While it's not card advantage, losing specific cards (enablers/ gifts/ empty) can buy the opponent a lot of time. Getting them back at end step or with the help of a cantrip can dig the deck out of holes from nowhere. I also love the utility it gives against surgical extraction and together with brutality/ repeal provides a lot of strategic flexibility in sideboarding. I want to be able to choose between the all in plan or heavy disruption for hate, even switching or mixing them between games two and three.
I would love to hear what you guys think of these ideas. I'm in awe of what this deck has become and really want to build it (probably never gonna spend the two hundred on scalding tarns and just use the blue fetches I own, but other than that I'm in. Any advice people have on how they sideboard with this deck/ play against hate would be much appreciated.
Dark Tutor: Peer through depths doesn't specify that. Merchant scroll does. That's what I was getting at - peer lets you find a win condition, whereas scroll just digs for gifts. It depends a lot where you need help as to which I'd want to play, and personally I think digging 5 cards deep for whatever piece you need is better that just finding one piece that you likely already have.
I completely misread the post. Sorry
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Not sure if you're for or against it...This deck's two worst mainstream matchups are death's shadow decks and burn so it seems fair to gear the maindeck to beating those while relying on the power of gifts ungiven to muscle through even and good matchups.
darktutor do you side in blood moon against any decks besides the obvious land based decks? Is it worth it against DSJ and other discard heavy, moon-weak decks as another threat to pressure discard and occasionally steal a game? Is it good enough against affinity to shut off their inkmoth, which is often their fastest kill.
ApeSquad: I am playing around with Collective Brutality in my board as well, it seems like a really useful card - it scouts and rips out counterspells, it drains, it kills a hatebear, AND it fills our yard, all for B with one of our enablers out.
Bushwhacker is a really dumb wombo combo with ETW, I might have to try it. I'd been considering Glorious End to prevent the opponent time to topdeck a sweeper, but that works much better.
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i'm surprised no one talked aboutGlorious end before. Sometimes i would only need 1 more turn to kill my opponent and i was thinking about running it as a 2-of in the board
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Modern:
-Rg valakut
-U/W control
-U/R storm
-G/W value town
I am curious on people's thoughts about Insult // Injury. It costs two mana with Baral/Electromancer and it effectively halves your needed storm count every time you cast it. I don't know if it necessarily fits in the Gifts version of storm, but maybe a list with barals, electromancers, multiple grapeshot and multiple Injury. Anyways, I am trying to see if it's worth brewing with or if people have already started messing with it.
A line on turn 3 - baral, ritual, ritual, insult, insult, grapeshot for lethal; sounds interesting...
Has anyone tried Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard? I'm not sure how much better it makes our BGx and Burn matchups? It seems like it takes a lot of slots in our sideboard
i'm surprised no one talked aboutGlorious end before. Sometimes i would only need 1 more turn to kill my opponent and i was thinking about running it as a 2-of in the board
And then we can PIF and cast it again before our end step for another turn
Insult // Injury doubles your storm count, more or less. But so does another copy of Grapeshot, and that costs 1 mana less. Instead of playing X Grapeshot + Y Insult, a better idea would be to play X+Y copies of Grapeshot.
If you're in for the insult effect of doubling storm count I feel like either more copies of the storm spell or remand are the way to go because they do not require one specific circumstance (comboing off and not being able to have enough storm count but having insult and storm piece in hand) to be useful. Remand is my favorite way to double up on a storm spell since it can be used to buy a turn against the opponent's curve and only costs one with an enabler out.
izzetmage: I here you on augur not being a spell I really do. Probably my biggest concern about him. What I want to test out is if the strength of him as an early blocker and piece of interaction to buy time outweighs the times when I would want an extra spell to combo with. Considering how good the gifts-pif engine is at sustaining itself I'm inclined to think the early blocker has some merit over another spell with flashback. This is a very meta based idea, and I wouldn't even be entertaining it if DSJ and burn weren't such big concerns. As for the full set in my list, I'm likely to trim one since practice hands have already shown 17 land to be inconsistent and it's one of the clunkier cards in multiples. I agree thoughtscour, peer through depths, merchant scroll are all better at building a streamlined combo deck, but I like testing out ideas that take into account my opponent may actually be trying to interact with me and see if they have merit over the stronger pure combo options. Augur is a lot like remand to me, but digs deeper and is better against 1 drops instead of being able to combo with your own storm spell and shorten your storm needs.
charm_master: I'm glad you like the janky tech! lol. Definitely can't take the credit I've seen it in old storm sideboards before the days of gifts storm. I'm really attracted to this idea of siding out the graveyard based spells to make the goblin plan as streamlined as possible and threat dense as possible. I can see lines like enabler-ritual-ritual-empty-noxious revival on empty-manamorphose-empty coming up and being able to happen on turn three with no prior board presence. Even enabler-ritual-ritual-grapeshot-empty can be strong against weenie decks where you kill a guy or two and slam 11-12 power on the board. These are the kind of gimped lines I want to be able to happen often against aggressive decks with hate cards and resource denial strategies. The theory is these decks generally aren't prepared to trade one for one with you before 10-15 power of goblins swarms them to death. I'm also really happy you've been considering brutality. Just seems to do so much for this deck and the fact that I can cast it for one mana just has me drooling. Slaughter Games seems like another sweet haymaker card to sideboard in the mirror and other combo matchups. With my maindeck slanted towards beating grindy and aggressive decks this might be a good idea.
Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like glorious end is garbage for this deck. You have to cast it on your opponent's turn to make it work. How often do you guys have three mana open to cast a spell on the opponent's turn after comboing off? I feel like my test hands always leave me using all of my resources once I combo off. Goblin Bushwhacker seems like the stronger option for shortening the empty the warrens kill and even has the benefit of reducing the necessary storm count by half. It has applications for just buying that last turn to combo off with grapeshot, but glorious end doesn't seem great with the empty plan.
Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated. I really don't know if this heavy empty plan is worth it but I'm going to bring this deck proxied to my next Monday night modern and jam some games so hopefully I'll have some insights by then.
do you side in blood moon against any decks besides the obvious land based decks? Is it worth it against DSJ and other discard heavy, moon-weak decks as another threat to pressure discard and occasionally steal a game? Is it good enough against affinity to shut off their inkmoth, which is often their fastest kill.
Against BGx and Shadow a resolved moon is usually game (esp vs shadow). You only need to dodge discard on T1 if on the play or 2 turns if on the draw, as ritual will help you cast it T2. It's not going to warp your winrate, but on the other side of the table when your choice is discard a card that prevents you from winning and a card that will kill you, you're not all that hyped (meaning getting thoughtseized and revealing an enabler and a moon).
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charm_master: I'm glad you like the janky tech! lol. Definitely can't take the credit I've seen it in old storm sideboards before the days of gifts storm. I'm really attracted to this idea of siding out the graveyard based spells to make the goblin plan as streamlined as possible and threat dense as possible. I can see lines like enabler-ritual-ritual-empty-noxious revival on empty-manamorphose-empty coming up and being able to happen on turn three with no prior board presence. Even enabler-ritual-ritual-grapeshot-empty can be strong against weenie decks where you kill a guy or two and slam 11-12 power on the board. These are the kind of gimped lines I want to be able to happen often against aggressive decks with hate cards and resource denial strategies. The theory is these decks generally aren't prepared to trade one for one with you before 10-15 power of goblins swarms them to death. I'm also really happy you've been considering brutality. Just seems to do so much for this deck and the fact that I can cast it for one mana just has me drooling. Slaughter Games seems like another sweet haymaker card to sideboard in the mirror and other combo matchups. With my maindeck slanted towards beating grindy and aggressive decks this might be a good idea.
Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like glorious end is garbage for this deck. You have to cast it on your opponent's turn to make it work. How often do you guys have three mana open to cast a spell on the opponent's turn after comboing off? I feel like my test hands always leave me using all of my resources once I combo off. Goblin Bushwhacker seems like the stronger option for shortening the empty the warrens kill and even has the benefit of reducing the necessary storm count by half. It has applications for just buying that last turn to combo off with grapeshot, but glorious end doesn't seem great with the empty plan.
Not to toot my own horn, but I did mention the possibility of collective brutality a couple pages back. I play ANT in legacy and know how important it is to protect the combo proactively with discard spells. Slaughter games could be a good dagger, but adding much more black I think is a mite too sketchy. Instead I'm opting for Surgical Extraction instead. Less power but much cheaper on the manabase.
I also agree with glorious end, I was just of the mind "we really need a way to keep our opponent from topdecking a spell that can ruin us" and realized we had a new card that stops their turn in upkeep. But it turns out giving your team haste works just as well, if not better. So I'm opting for that.
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Darktutor: Thanks for the response. Seems to play the role I imagined it to. Stealing some games or buying you a ton of time but like you say, it overloads the turn 1-2 discard spells with threats. I'm going to be testing how effective this 3 warren main/ 1 warren + 2 noxious side is at doing essentially the same thing, so I might hold off on the moons until I can get a feel for it. I like that it has applications against a lot of decks though...
Charm_Master: I knew there had to be some people on brutality! I was hoping someone would see my post and want to share their experiences with the card, and viability of splashing in this archetype. I just didn't have the stamina to look through the backlogs last night. When I was putting together a basic list of problematic cards for this deck it was plain as day how many of them brutality helps with. It could be that it's better to sideboard cards with less expansive utility but that are more efficient at what they do, but I am very high on brutality right now. It's also possible the splash isn't worth it over what blue and red already offer, but I like your comparison to ANT in legacy.
For example, trying to resolve gifts with countermagic backup seems too mana intensive for this deck in scenarios where you cannot stick an enabler. Discard can at least be played the turn before casting key expensive spells in tight spots where giving them that one turn window is much better than trying to dig for the fifth land and giving them time to draw into a greater stockpile of answers. If you're enabler is around then both brutality+gifts and dispel/spell pierce+gifts cost the same. I like planning my interaction around the worst case scenarios as opposed to when things are already going according to plan so this seems like a clear upside to discard in this deck. If anyone has insight into this that proves me wrong please let me know, I want to learn as much as possible about gifts storm. I feel like the cost reducer + gifts + past in flames engine has more raw power and intrigue than most things in modern and really want to get behind the deck.
On Glorious End, I think it's biggest weakness is it requires you to already have all of your combo but one less turn than necessary to complete it. That's a pretty specific scenario, and it's useless at digging/buying time outside of that. it just feels like a bad hyprid of countermagic and fog that doesn't do either well when you're still trying to dig for pieces. I feel like using more proactive disruption (that can be played before having all of the combo) is the much more effective way to buy enough time to combo out.
How do you guys play/side in against other combo decks? My initial untested impression is that gifts storm is favored against other combo decks game1 because of the deck's speed and consistency when enablers live, but that isn't backed up by any experience so I would love to hear about this.
Vileshrew: I would love to see a write up and congrats on the sweep!
Trickbind seems like a sweet one of for merchant scroll lists. Dunno how I'd feel about drawing into multiples though.
Pyromancer's Swath! Completely forgot about this card and I love it. I'm currently trying to board up to 4x empty/ 4x bushwhacker for the same effect. I like that the empty-whacker plan also dodges leyline of sanctity though.
Hopefully you find something interesting or helpful!
Match 1: 4 Color Saheeli Combo
Game 1:
Mulligan to 6, keep a very mediocre hand on the draw but it has a sleight of hand and a couple Manamorphose with a Past in Flames, so figured it was good enough to keep. Hit nothing relevant off the Sleight, and after opponent casts a voice of resurgence, I draw a gifts and try to Manamorphose into something. I hit a Serum Visions, and top an electomancer. Opponent Eldrictch Evolutions his Voice into a Pia and Kiran, and I’m not really sure what he’s on at this point. He has a decent amount of pressure now, and he can just hold up mana to kill my Electromancer with the Pia so while he was tapped out I cast Electromancer and Manamorphose, hoping to hit a ritual but instead I end up casting a Baral with the hopes that he can only remove one of the enablers. Turned out he had a path, and the pressure was too much before I could draw out of it.
Game 2: -3 Remand, -3 Sleight of Hand, -1 Gifts Ungiven, -1 Electromancer, -1 Grapeshot
+3 Bolt, +2 Blood Moon, +2 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Shattering Spree
I kept a hand with double Peer through Depths, blood moon and lands. He plays Temple Garden - Oath of Nissa turn 1, and I still have no idea what he’s playing. Draw Baral, and opt not to play it into his likely removal. He drops a voice of resurgence, and I drop a Blood moon turn 3. He then plays Saheeli Rai with the Oath of NIssa, and I start to understand what his plan is. I draw gifts, but don’t quite have the pieces, but since he had tapped out for saheeli and I had him on only mountains I decide to go for it anyway. I manamorphose and draw a ritual, and cast gifts with the normal pile. He needs to give me manamorphose and past in flames to make sure that I couldn’t go off this turn, but I cast the manamorphose into peer through depths. I hit another manamorphose, draw a land and do the same with the second peer through depths, hitting a ritual. Drawing the land plus the ritual gave me 4 red, so I cast past through flames with one floating and go off.
Game 3:
Kept a decent hand with an electromancer, gifts, ritual and sleight of hand. Sleight into the 3rd land after the opponent hits their turn 1 Oath of Nissa again. Opponent was keeping white mana up, representing Path. I draw Baral and decide to play electromancer into it, and he paths it (ramping me). He taps out for Saheeli, and on my turn 3 I draw a ritual, and have 4 mana on the battlefield. I cast Baral – Ritual – Ritual – Gifts Ungiven with 3 mana floating and the rest is history.
2-1 Match 2: Eldrazi Tron
Game 1:
Keep a hand with electomancer, manamorphose, past in flames, lands and remand on the draw. Opponent plays Eldrazi Temple into Expedition map, and I decide to slam the electromancer after drawing a Gifts ungiven, to hopefully untap with it. Opponent had a dismember though, ruining my plans and plays Ghost Quarter. I draw nothing, and opponent cracks map for another Temple. I remand his Thought-Knot Seer, opponent has another temple in hand and drops a Matter Reshaper. I draw nothing again, and opponent resolves a Chalice of the Void X = 2. GG. It’s possible my opening hand wasn’t good enough, but I did have opportunities and instead drew lands or extra past in flames.
Keep a pretty good hand with a baral and multiple cantrips. With cantrips I’m able to sculpt my hand, and on turn 2 he misses his land drop, which lead me to believe he kept a hand with removal or something scary so I decide to play it safe. I wasn’t in danger of chalice yet, and my hand turn 3 was double manamorphose, gifts, ritual Shatterstorm with 2 islands and a mountain on the battlefield. Turn 4, opponent casts the 3rd land and is able to cast Thought Knot because of the temple but my hand is really good. He makes a mistake here and takes the Shatterstorm, when baral would have been the correct pick. Combo off next turn.
Game 3:
Keep a hand with double peer, ritual and a remand. Hold open the ability to remand or peer end of turn. Peer into a manamorphose, and keep holding up the remand until opponent tries to turn 4 chalice me. I had a peer and a couple of manamorphose with no remand for a second Chalice so I knew I had to try and go off this turn. On turn 4, opponent was tapped out after I remanded the chalice. I dropped my 4th land, and my hand was Peer, Ritual, Ritual, Manamorphose, Manamorphose, Past in Flames, Electromancer. I cast the ritual and manamorphose hitting another ritual. Even though I could past in flames, I had a weird feeling that the opponent could have surgical, so I starting playing very carefully. The manamorphoses hit lands but I get another manamorphose off the peer through depths. I manamorphose into serum visions, and hit a gifts ungiven with 11 mana available. I have a Past in Flames in hand already, so my gifts pile was ritual, ritual, manamorphose, sleight of hand. I normally would have gone for a grapeshot there, but again I wanted to play around surgical. I cast the past in flames, and sure enough opponent surgicals away my manamorphose. I cast my rituals and already have a storm count of over 20, and peer but don’t hit the grapeshot. Only real target was shattering spree so I take it. I decide to gifts again, and opponent scoops. I really doubted he had double surgical, but was playing super safe just in case, doing my best to draw the pieces naturally. It was a good thing that I hit the PIF, because surgical on PIF would have been game. Peer through depths was clutch this match, as being able to find and cast the manamophoses helped me draw the pieces before my opponent knew what to surgical.
2-1
Match 3: Burn
Game 1:
Didn’t see Eidelon. He has the swiftspear burn your face draw, so opponent does so. Had me down to 4 life turn 4, then suspends a rift bolt to tap out. My original hand had cantrips, so my hand on turn 4 was baral, ritual, ritual, gifts, remand with 4 lands on the battlefield. Gifts with 3 mana floating, loop for the win at 3 life after cracking my land.
Game 2: -3 Remand, -3 Sleight of Hand, - 1 Grapeshot, -1 electromancer, -1 Gifts Ungiven
+3 Leyline, +3 Bolt, +2 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth
I probably oversideboard when I play burn, but it’s just such a bad matchup that I decide it’s worth it. I keep a medium hand on the strength of Leyline, he drops a relic. He bolts my first electromancer, and scoops soon after. I believe he had a hand full of burn spells, and didn’t bring anything to fight leyline, so one of those ‘got em’ scenarios.
2-0
Match 4: Jeskai Saheeli Control
Game 1:
Opponent is draw-going and in Jeskai, so I assume regular Jeskai Control. I kept a hand with no elctromancer, but I have remand, gifts, and past in flames in hand with plenty of rituals. I usually win control by being patient, building up lands and baiting them with an end of turn spell, into a win the following turn with counterspell backup. I’m patient, keep dropping lands and sculpting my hand, then eventually remand a blade splicer to see if he fights over it. He doesn’t, and eventually I have the win in hand. Since I have a past in flames and gifts already, I play Baral into his removal, and with a lightning helix on the stack, I cast my rituals into gifts. He counters the gifts, (tapping him out), but I have past in flames in hand and actually manamorphose’d into another electromancer. Combo off and win.
Game 2: -4 Sleight of Hand, -1 Gifts Ungiven, -1 Electromancer -1 Grapeshot
+2 Dispel, +2 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Blood Moon
(Didn’t see Saheeli game one or may have boarded differently)
I keep a hand with a gifts, a few manamorphose and blood moon. He plays a Rest in Peace, but I planned to be patient to resolve a big empty the warrens anyway. I play a turn two Electromancer to see if I can tap my opponent out with a path or something. He had a glacial fortress and a colorless land out at the moment, so I wanted to resolve a blood moon. He plays spellskite instead (which isn’t very good vs me), and was apparently stuck on two lands. Blood moon resolves and gets him pretty bad, and then I was just patient until I felt I could go off. He does eventually find blue mana and resolves a saheeli, but the Blood Moon lock was too strong and I eventually resolved a pretty big empty the warrens for the win.
2-0 Match 5: UW Death and Taxes:
Game 1:
Mull to 6, keep a decent one lander on the draw with a serum visions and a sleight of hand. I top a Scalding Tarn, but opponent resolves a Leonin Aribter turn 2. Turn 3 he ghost quarters my first land and I scoop.
Game 2:
-3 Sleight of Hand, -1 Grapeshot, -2 Remand, -1 Electromancer, -1 Gifts Ungiven
+1 Echoing Truth, +2 Empty the Warrens, +3 Bolt, +2 Blood Moon
I kept a Medium hand with a lot of rituals and a gifts. I think opponent accidentally f6’d through his turn, and I draw a remand so I decide to be patient and remand his first play. It was an arbiter, and I draw a baral off the remand. I cast a baral, and had enough mana in hand to grapeshot the arbiter and still gifts as long as baral lives, but he ended up tapping out for something else and I untap and win.
Game 3:
I keep a decent hand with a Blood Moon, bolt, reducer. He plays a Thalia, and I decide to bolt it rather than try and resolve double electromancer effects. Opponent taps out for a displacer, and I’m able to get them with a Blood Moon since they had no basics out. I Baral into Peer Through Depths, and get set up for a decent Empty the following turn since I was not under a terrible amount of pressure. Empty for a lot of golbins, and draw a gifts ungiven with 2 recuders on the field and a decent amount of land anyway for the following turn, so I had opponent way dead either way.
2-1
Overall, I think I played pretty well throughout the league but not perfect. I think I made a few mistakes sideboarding, and there were a couple games where there may have been better plays or options. If you are new to the deck, know that you need to be prepared to fight some serious hate, and knowing what your opponent will bring in against you is important.
Hope you enjoyed!
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Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Augur of Bolas
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Past in Flames
2 Grapeshot
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Island
1 Blood Crypt
2 Steam Vents
4 Polluted Mire
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Collective Brutality
4 Repeal
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Noxious Revival
Oh man that's a pile. Buuut there are some things I really want to try out. I'm intrigued to find out if the heavy empty plan can help the match 1 percentage against burn, DSJ and other strategies that try to strip our resources, lock us out of our spells or present a fast clock with weenies. Seems weakest against UW control and other sweeper decks but the rest of the starting 60 is usually great against decks like that game 1 so it seems like a fine concession.
Augur of Bolas digs pretty deep and helps protect our guys from Liliana. He can buy a lot of time against rush decks without flyers and put a strain on removal that really wants to be saved for our enablers, but might have to be used in order to create a sufficient clock. Even the single chump can be huge against decks with big attackers like DSJ, old school jund, abzan and other midrangy decks by buying you a crucial turn. The card's efficiency on the curve (t1: cantrip, t2: augur, t3: enabler + shenanigans) definitely intrigues me enough to try it.
The 17 land 3 gemstone mine mana base is very suspect. Mana confluence is probably necessary over mine since turn 1 mine seems like it could be problematic with our curve to turn 4, but I hate the idea of turn 1 confluence just as much. I'm hoping 4x augur means I can afford to cantrip for land drops more often, but only time will tell. maybe a mix of the two in those three slots, with an eighteenth land most likely being correct.
The sideboard is clearly full of winners.
collective brutality I love me some collective brutality these days. It's a haymaker against burn, and brings a lot of utility against thalia, guardian of thraben, gaddock teeg, ad nauseum, surgical extraction, scapeshift, countermagic, the mirror, and even dodges selfless spirit trying to protect hatebears. It's broad array of applications and strength against burn make me want to hurt the mana base for the splash and leave other cards out to make room for the full set.
repeal Repeal and I go back to old extended and my UG tron deck, and boy are those fond memories. Bounce is a wonderful effect for storm to run some number of since you generally only need one turn free from whatever lock piece is getting you down and the universality is greatly appreciated in an archetype that can't generally side out too many cards without diluting the engine. I want to try repeal in the bounce slot so that I can side it in for some of the cantrips (either sleight or augur depending on match-up) without losing too much card drawing velocity. There are a lot of matchups where I want some brutality and repeal so this feels important. I also feel like it benefits more from the mancerdork bonus than any other modern bounce spell and I want to abuse that synergy. 4 may be too many, but in matchups with a lot of hate that brutality doesn't hit I like the idea of having 4 answers to side in anyways.
goblin bushwhacker This pairs with the fourth empty to give me the possibility to side out all of the graveyard based spells and present a fast all in deck that looks to punish opponents that keep slow hands with some hate spells that don't stop empty into whacker. The extra empty plan is already a thing, this just takes it one step further. Maybe the whackers are win more, but they mean you win on the spot and I like that against control opponents who are smart and side in sweepers to not lose to the empty backup plan storm is already known to employ. I've seen this bushwhacker strategy in the past and I know it's generally thought of as jank but I love what it does to the deck's trickiness.
noxious revival I love the one of main that many are running, and probably that is correct, but for now they're in the side. I want to try siding two in against discard heavy strategies to help out-grind them. While it's not card advantage, losing specific cards (enablers/ gifts/ empty) can buy the opponent a lot of time. Getting them back at end step or with the help of a cantrip can dig the deck out of holes from nowhere. I also love the utility it gives against surgical extraction and together with brutality/ repeal provides a lot of strategic flexibility in sideboarding. I want to be able to choose between the all in plan or heavy disruption for hate, even switching or mixing them between games two and three.
I would love to hear what you guys think of these ideas. I'm in awe of what this deck has become and really want to build it (probably never gonna spend the two hundred on scalding tarns and just use the blue fetches I own, but other than that I'm in. Any advice people have on how they sideboard with this deck/ play against hate would be much appreciated.
I completely misread the post. Sorry
darktutor do you side in blood moon against any decks besides the obvious land based decks? Is it worth it against DSJ and other discard heavy, moon-weak decks as another threat to pressure discard and occasionally steal a game? Is it good enough against affinity to shut off their inkmoth, which is often their fastest kill.
Bushwhacker is a really dumb wombo combo with ETW, I might have to try it. I'd been considering Glorious End to prevent the opponent time to topdeck a sweeper, but that works much better.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
-Rg valakut
-U/W control
-U/R storm
-G/W value town
Legacy :
-Storm
A line on turn 3 - baral, ritual, ritual, insult, insult, grapeshot for lethal; sounds interesting...
And then we can PIF and cast it again before our end step for another turn
Insult // Injury doubles your storm count, more or less. But so does another copy of Grapeshot, and that costs 1 mana less. Instead of playing X Grapeshot + Y Insult, a better idea would be to play X+Y copies of Grapeshot.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
izzetmage: I here you on augur not being a spell I really do. Probably my biggest concern about him. What I want to test out is if the strength of him as an early blocker and piece of interaction to buy time outweighs the times when I would want an extra spell to combo with. Considering how good the gifts-pif engine is at sustaining itself I'm inclined to think the early blocker has some merit over another spell with flashback. This is a very meta based idea, and I wouldn't even be entertaining it if DSJ and burn weren't such big concerns. As for the full set in my list, I'm likely to trim one since practice hands have already shown 17 land to be inconsistent and it's one of the clunkier cards in multiples. I agree thoughtscour, peer through depths, merchant scroll are all better at building a streamlined combo deck, but I like testing out ideas that take into account my opponent may actually be trying to interact with me and see if they have merit over the stronger pure combo options. Augur is a lot like remand to me, but digs deeper and is better against 1 drops instead of being able to combo with your own storm spell and shorten your storm needs.
charm_master: I'm glad you like the janky tech! lol. Definitely can't take the credit I've seen it in old storm sideboards before the days of gifts storm. I'm really attracted to this idea of siding out the graveyard based spells to make the goblin plan as streamlined as possible and threat dense as possible. I can see lines like enabler-ritual-ritual-empty-noxious revival on empty-manamorphose-empty coming up and being able to happen on turn three with no prior board presence. Even enabler-ritual-ritual-grapeshot-empty can be strong against weenie decks where you kill a guy or two and slam 11-12 power on the board. These are the kind of gimped lines I want to be able to happen often against aggressive decks with hate cards and resource denial strategies. The theory is these decks generally aren't prepared to trade one for one with you before 10-15 power of goblins swarms them to death. I'm also really happy you've been considering brutality. Just seems to do so much for this deck and the fact that I can cast it for one mana just has me drooling. Slaughter Games seems like another sweet haymaker card to sideboard in the mirror and other combo matchups. With my maindeck slanted towards beating grindy and aggressive decks this might be a good idea.
Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like glorious end is garbage for this deck. You have to cast it on your opponent's turn to make it work. How often do you guys have three mana open to cast a spell on the opponent's turn after comboing off? I feel like my test hands always leave me using all of my resources once I combo off. Goblin Bushwhacker seems like the stronger option for shortening the empty the warrens kill and even has the benefit of reducing the necessary storm count by half. It has applications for just buying that last turn to combo off with grapeshot, but glorious end doesn't seem great with the empty plan.
Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated. I really don't know if this heavy empty plan is worth it but I'm going to bring this deck proxied to my next Monday night modern and jam some games so hopefully I'll have some insights by then.
UWG Spirits UWG
UR Gifts Storm UR
Against BGx and Shadow a resolved moon is usually game (esp vs shadow). You only need to dodge discard on T1 if on the play or 2 turns if on the draw, as ritual will help you cast it T2. It's not going to warp your winrate, but on the other side of the table when your choice is discard a card that prevents you from winning and a card that will kill you, you're not all that hyped (meaning getting thoughtseized and revealing an enabler and a moon).
I just picked up the deck this week and would love to read a write up. Congrats on the 5-0!
Not to toot my own horn, but I did mention the possibility of collective brutality a couple pages back. I play ANT in legacy and know how important it is to protect the combo proactively with discard spells. Slaughter games could be a good dagger, but adding much more black I think is a mite too sketchy. Instead I'm opting for Surgical Extraction instead. Less power but much cheaper on the manabase.
I also agree with glorious end, I was just of the mind "we really need a way to keep our opponent from topdecking a spell that can ruin us" and realized we had a new card that stops their turn in upkeep. But it turns out giving your team haste works just as well, if not better. So I'm opting for that.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Charm_Master: I knew there had to be some people on brutality! I was hoping someone would see my post and want to share their experiences with the card, and viability of splashing in this archetype. I just didn't have the stamina to look through the backlogs last night. When I was putting together a basic list of problematic cards for this deck it was plain as day how many of them brutality helps with. It could be that it's better to sideboard cards with less expansive utility but that are more efficient at what they do, but I am very high on brutality right now. It's also possible the splash isn't worth it over what blue and red already offer, but I like your comparison to ANT in legacy.
For example, trying to resolve gifts with countermagic backup seems too mana intensive for this deck in scenarios where you cannot stick an enabler. Discard can at least be played the turn before casting key expensive spells in tight spots where giving them that one turn window is much better than trying to dig for the fifth land and giving them time to draw into a greater stockpile of answers. If you're enabler is around then both brutality+gifts and dispel/spell pierce+gifts cost the same. I like planning my interaction around the worst case scenarios as opposed to when things are already going according to plan so this seems like a clear upside to discard in this deck. If anyone has insight into this that proves me wrong please let me know, I want to learn as much as possible about gifts storm. I feel like the cost reducer + gifts + past in flames engine has more raw power and intrigue than most things in modern and really want to get behind the deck.
On Glorious End, I think it's biggest weakness is it requires you to already have all of your combo but one less turn than necessary to complete it. That's a pretty specific scenario, and it's useless at digging/buying time outside of that. it just feels like a bad hyprid of countermagic and fog that doesn't do either well when you're still trying to dig for pieces. I feel like using more proactive disruption (that can be played before having all of the combo) is the much more effective way to buy enough time to combo out.
How do you guys play/side in against other combo decks? My initial untested impression is that gifts storm is favored against other combo decks game1 because of the deck's speed and consistency when enablers live, but that isn't backed up by any experience so I would love to hear about this.
Vileshrew: I would love to see a write up and congrats on the sweep!
Pyromancer's Swath! Completely forgot about this card and I love it. I'm currently trying to board up to 4x empty/ 4x bushwhacker for the same effect. I like that the empty-whacker plan also dodges leyline of sanctity though.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/626186#online
Hopefully you find something interesting or helpful!
Match 1: 4 Color Saheeli Combo
Game 1:
Mulligan to 6, keep a very mediocre hand on the draw but it has a sleight of hand and a couple Manamorphose with a Past in Flames, so figured it was good enough to keep. Hit nothing relevant off the Sleight, and after opponent casts a voice of resurgence, I draw a gifts and try to Manamorphose into something. I hit a Serum Visions, and top an electomancer. Opponent Eldrictch Evolutions his Voice into a Pia and Kiran, and I’m not really sure what he’s on at this point. He has a decent amount of pressure now, and he can just hold up mana to kill my Electromancer with the Pia so while he was tapped out I cast Electromancer and Manamorphose, hoping to hit a ritual but instead I end up casting a Baral with the hopes that he can only remove one of the enablers. Turned out he had a path, and the pressure was too much before I could draw out of it.
Game 2:
-3 Remand, -3 Sleight of Hand, -1 Gifts Ungiven, -1 Electromancer, -1 Grapeshot
+3 Bolt, +2 Blood Moon, +2 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Shattering Spree
I kept a hand with double Peer through Depths, blood moon and lands. He plays Temple Garden - Oath of Nissa turn 1, and I still have no idea what he’s playing. Draw Baral, and opt not to play it into his likely removal. He drops a voice of resurgence, and I drop a Blood moon turn 3. He then plays Saheeli Rai with the Oath of NIssa, and I start to understand what his plan is. I draw gifts, but don’t quite have the pieces, but since he had tapped out for saheeli and I had him on only mountains I decide to go for it anyway. I manamorphose and draw a ritual, and cast gifts with the normal pile. He needs to give me manamorphose and past in flames to make sure that I couldn’t go off this turn, but I cast the manamorphose into peer through depths. I hit another manamorphose, draw a land and do the same with the second peer through depths, hitting a ritual. Drawing the land plus the ritual gave me 4 red, so I cast past through flames with one floating and go off.
Game 3:
Kept a decent hand with an electromancer, gifts, ritual and sleight of hand. Sleight into the 3rd land after the opponent hits their turn 1 Oath of Nissa again. Opponent was keeping white mana up, representing Path. I draw Baral and decide to play electromancer into it, and he paths it (ramping me). He taps out for Saheeli, and on my turn 3 I draw a ritual, and have 4 mana on the battlefield. I cast Baral – Ritual – Ritual – Gifts Ungiven with 3 mana floating and the rest is history.
2-1
Match 2: Eldrazi Tron
Game 1:
Keep a hand with electomancer, manamorphose, past in flames, lands and remand on the draw. Opponent plays Eldrazi Temple into Expedition map, and I decide to slam the electromancer after drawing a Gifts ungiven, to hopefully untap with it. Opponent had a dismember though, ruining my plans and plays Ghost Quarter. I draw nothing, and opponent cracks map for another Temple. I remand his Thought-Knot Seer, opponent has another temple in hand and drops a Matter Reshaper. I draw nothing again, and opponent resolves a Chalice of the Void X = 2. GG. It’s possible my opening hand wasn’t good enough, but I did have opportunities and instead drew lands or extra past in flames.
Game 2:
-2 Sleight of Hand, -1 Gifts Ungiven, -1 Electromancer
+1 Echoing Truth, +1 Shattering Spree, +1 Shatterstorm, +1 Blood Moon
Keep a pretty good hand with a baral and multiple cantrips. With cantrips I’m able to sculpt my hand, and on turn 2 he misses his land drop, which lead me to believe he kept a hand with removal or something scary so I decide to play it safe. I wasn’t in danger of chalice yet, and my hand turn 3 was double manamorphose, gifts, ritual Shatterstorm with 2 islands and a mountain on the battlefield. Turn 4, opponent casts the 3rd land and is able to cast Thought Knot because of the temple but my hand is really good. He makes a mistake here and takes the Shatterstorm, when baral would have been the correct pick. Combo off next turn.
Game 3:
Keep a hand with double peer, ritual and a remand. Hold open the ability to remand or peer end of turn. Peer into a manamorphose, and keep holding up the remand until opponent tries to turn 4 chalice me. I had a peer and a couple of manamorphose with no remand for a second Chalice so I knew I had to try and go off this turn. On turn 4, opponent was tapped out after I remanded the chalice. I dropped my 4th land, and my hand was Peer, Ritual, Ritual, Manamorphose, Manamorphose, Past in Flames, Electromancer. I cast the ritual and manamorphose hitting another ritual. Even though I could past in flames, I had a weird feeling that the opponent could have surgical, so I starting playing very carefully. The manamorphoses hit lands but I get another manamorphose off the peer through depths. I manamorphose into serum visions, and hit a gifts ungiven with 11 mana available. I have a Past in Flames in hand already, so my gifts pile was ritual, ritual, manamorphose, sleight of hand. I normally would have gone for a grapeshot there, but again I wanted to play around surgical. I cast the past in flames, and sure enough opponent surgicals away my manamorphose. I cast my rituals and already have a storm count of over 20, and peer but don’t hit the grapeshot. Only real target was shattering spree so I take it. I decide to gifts again, and opponent scoops. I really doubted he had double surgical, but was playing super safe just in case, doing my best to draw the pieces naturally. It was a good thing that I hit the PIF, because surgical on PIF would have been game. Peer through depths was clutch this match, as being able to find and cast the manamophoses helped me draw the pieces before my opponent knew what to surgical.
2-1
Match 3: Burn
Game 1:
Didn’t see Eidelon. He has the swiftspear burn your face draw, so opponent does so. Had me down to 4 life turn 4, then suspends a rift bolt to tap out. My original hand had cantrips, so my hand on turn 4 was baral, ritual, ritual, gifts, remand with 4 lands on the battlefield. Gifts with 3 mana floating, loop for the win at 3 life after cracking my land.
Game 2:
-3 Remand, -3 Sleight of Hand, - 1 Grapeshot, -1 electromancer, -1 Gifts Ungiven
+3 Leyline, +3 Bolt, +2 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth
I probably oversideboard when I play burn, but it’s just such a bad matchup that I decide it’s worth it. I keep a medium hand on the strength of Leyline, he drops a relic. He bolts my first electromancer, and scoops soon after. I believe he had a hand full of burn spells, and didn’t bring anything to fight leyline, so one of those ‘got em’ scenarios.
2-0
Match 4: Jeskai Saheeli Control
Game 1:
Opponent is draw-going and in Jeskai, so I assume regular Jeskai Control. I kept a hand with no elctromancer, but I have remand, gifts, and past in flames in hand with plenty of rituals. I usually win control by being patient, building up lands and baiting them with an end of turn spell, into a win the following turn with counterspell backup. I’m patient, keep dropping lands and sculpting my hand, then eventually remand a blade splicer to see if he fights over it. He doesn’t, and eventually I have the win in hand. Since I have a past in flames and gifts already, I play Baral into his removal, and with a lightning helix on the stack, I cast my rituals into gifts. He counters the gifts, (tapping him out), but I have past in flames in hand and actually manamorphose’d into another electromancer. Combo off and win.
Game 2:
-4 Sleight of Hand, -1 Gifts Ungiven, -1 Electromancer -1 Grapeshot
+2 Dispel, +2 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Blood Moon
(Didn’t see Saheeli game one or may have boarded differently)
I keep a hand with a gifts, a few manamorphose and blood moon. He plays a Rest in Peace, but I planned to be patient to resolve a big empty the warrens anyway. I play a turn two Electromancer to see if I can tap my opponent out with a path or something. He had a glacial fortress and a colorless land out at the moment, so I wanted to resolve a blood moon. He plays spellskite instead (which isn’t very good vs me), and was apparently stuck on two lands. Blood moon resolves and gets him pretty bad, and then I was just patient until I felt I could go off. He does eventually find blue mana and resolves a saheeli, but the Blood Moon lock was too strong and I eventually resolved a pretty big empty the warrens for the win.
2-0
Match 5: UW Death and Taxes:
Game 1:
Mull to 6, keep a decent one lander on the draw with a serum visions and a sleight of hand. I top a Scalding Tarn, but opponent resolves a Leonin Aribter turn 2. Turn 3 he ghost quarters my first land and I scoop.
Game 2:
-3 Sleight of Hand, -1 Grapeshot, -2 Remand, -1 Electromancer, -1 Gifts Ungiven
+1 Echoing Truth, +2 Empty the Warrens, +3 Bolt, +2 Blood Moon
I kept a Medium hand with a lot of rituals and a gifts. I think opponent accidentally f6’d through his turn, and I draw a remand so I decide to be patient and remand his first play. It was an arbiter, and I draw a baral off the remand. I cast a baral, and had enough mana in hand to grapeshot the arbiter and still gifts as long as baral lives, but he ended up tapping out for something else and I untap and win.
Game 3:
I keep a decent hand with a Blood Moon, bolt, reducer. He plays a Thalia, and I decide to bolt it rather than try and resolve double electromancer effects. Opponent taps out for a displacer, and I’m able to get them with a Blood Moon since they had no basics out. I Baral into Peer Through Depths, and get set up for a decent Empty the following turn since I was not under a terrible amount of pressure. Empty for a lot of golbins, and draw a gifts ungiven with 2 recuders on the field and a decent amount of land anyway for the following turn, so I had opponent way dead either way.
2-1
Overall, I think I played pretty well throughout the league but not perfect. I think I made a few mistakes sideboarding, and there were a couple games where there may have been better plays or options. If you are new to the deck, know that you need to be prepared to fight some serious hate, and knowing what your opponent will bring in against you is important.
Hope you enjoyed!