MTG Salvation

I can see running the fetches, but why not run the snow-covered for emergency Gifts packages? Seems like a tiny thing, but it's 0 cost to run, and has a non-0 chance of mattering.

It's possible he don't have it foil and signed?

Quote from Teacher RL »

It's possible he don't have it foil and signed?

Likely... lol. It always amazes me. It's like Green decks that run all Elvish Mystics instead of splitting with Llanowar Elves

I picked up Jaya Ballard in a draft last night. How does everyone feel about having it as a one-of in the SB for grindier matchups? It does everything we want to win us the game - gives us mana, card selection, and then potentially an emblem that is just Past in Flames. Thoughts? My only hesitation is that it's a bit slow, but in the matchups where we'd want it that might not matter a whole lot.

A lot of top players seem to be going to a single ETW in the side, I'm not sure it's all that great with the current plan. Literally last resort right?

What do you think about sideboard wincon that dont need to use the grave like Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Platinium Emperion?

I fell that Empty the Warrens isnt the best option because sometimes you cast it with 5 storm counters because you cant use the grave, them you lose the game because 10 goblins arent enough.

Hello,

I think we should discuss Precognition Field. It lets you have potentially all resources available during the match except your sideboard. It appears to me very strong against graveyard hate, and good overall, since there is very limited hate against enchantment g2 and g3. It makes Fetchlands better for the deck because it let you change the top card of your library. I am a big fan of fetchlands, but I play fetchless for field purposes.
Jace´s Sanctum is a nice card that in the right MU's can score you a win. Primal Amulet is also nice because many opponents would never bring artifact hate against us g2, and the surprise element is very good. I am aware that some hate like detention sphere and maelstrom pulse and even Abrade, to name a few, gets it. Wear/Tear is also strong against both of these and blank against Baral/Electromancer.
All of these are slow and have the down sides, but sometimes is so useless to land a creature thats gonna be destroyed or the army of goblins ready to die.
By having all of them, you can have different things as engines, rotating it g2 and g3 it can blank many sideboard cards of your oponents, that do bring enchantment/artifact hate when they see these cards and realize they didn't put sideboards against them. So you bet next game they will be packed with it, and we just gonna be open for comboing, still having Baral/Electromancer/enchantment/artifact(that becomes a land that generates one extra mana and copies a spell) for the win.
Baral and electromancer let you win right away much easier than the rest, but Modern has become a little bit slower, we have decent pieces of interaction, specially if you are playing Caleb's list. Assuming that hate is gonna be brought against us, games will probably be slower anyways and by having a wider variety of engines that demand different cards to interact we get stronger. Also because we make a less horrible Gifts pile that doesn't envolve Noxious Revival, I'm not a big fan of the loss of 2 life and 2 cards, itself and what it could have been. I feel better getting a Snow-Island and Precog/Amulet/Jace's Sanctum/chandra or whatever.

Quote from N0NE »

What do you think about sideboard wincon that dont need to use the grave like Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Platinium Emperion?

I fell that Empty the Warrens isnt the best option because sometimes you cast it with 5 storm counters because you cant use the grave, them you lose the game because 10 goblins arent enough.

I don't think more wincons is what we need, nor can we really support them.
Chandra is a good card, but it's more a value engine than wincon on herself. We don't have many ways to prevent a Control player from Colonnading her to death if he wants (although we can -- and should -- punish them for it with our Storm wincons). The ult might come up one or two times, but it's realistically unreliable (like every other PW ult).

Platinum Emperion might steal some matches against Burn, but it's also unreliable. White decks will keep their paths for our cost reducers. This is also something that only works once, so even if you manage to get a free win on g2 against Burn.
However, what bothers me more about this gameplan is that it requires no less than 40% of your entire sideboard for when Storm has so much targeted hate around the format. The fact that this is terrible against UWx and Jund (grindy matchups, to which half my sideboard is devoted, the other half being anti-hate) also doesn't help.

Quote from Catdag »

Hello,

I think we should discuss Precognition Field. It lets you have potentially all resources available during the match except your sideboard. It appears to me very strong against graveyard hate, and good overall, since there is very limited hate against enchantment g2 and g3. It makes Fetchlands better for the deck because it let you change the top card of your library. I am a big fan of fetchlands, but I play fetchless for field purposes.
Jace´s Sanctum is a nice card that in the right MU's can score you a win. Primal Amulet is also nice because many opponents would never bring artifact hate against us g2, and the surprise element is very good. I am aware that some hate like detention sphere and maelstrom pulse and even Abrade, to name a few, gets it. Wear/Tear is also strong against both of these and blank against Baral/Electromancer.
All of these are slow and have the down sides, but sometimes is so useless to land a creature thats gonna be destroyed or the army of goblins ready to die.
By having all of them, you can have different things as engines, rotating it g2 and g3 it can blank many sideboard cards of your oponents, that do bring enchantment/artifact hate when they see these cards and realize they didn't put sideboards against them. So you bet next game they will be packed with it, and we just gonna be open for comboing, still having Baral/Electromancer/enchantment/artifact(that becomes a land that generates one extra mana and copies a spell) for the win.
Baral and electromancer let you win right away much easier than the rest, but Modern has become a little bit slower, we have decent pieces of interaction, specially if you are playing Caleb's list. Assuming that hate is gonna be brought against us, games will probably be slower anyways and by having a wider variety of engines that demand different cards to interact we get stronger. Also because we make a less horrible Gifts pile that doesn't envolve Noxious Revival, I'm not a big fan of the loss of 2 life and 2 cards, itself and what it could have been. I feel better getting a Snow-Island and Precog/Amulet/Jace's Sanctum/chandra or whatever.

Did you test those cards? They look interesting but I'm not sold on Sanctum and Amulet (4 mana is a real cost on a 17-land deck. It's also harder to get under counters). However, I like how they interact with our gameplay. Amulet being a middle term between Electromancer and Ascension also caught my attention.

Primal Amulet can dodge artifact hate if it has 3 markers, you put the 4th and flip it, getting 1 mana of any color plus u can copy the next spell you cast. Its expensive, yes, but I feel that sometimes, the matches I lose get to the point I have 4 lands, and then if you land your bear, it gets pushed away, easily. of course that landing Baral with 2 mana open is quite nice, but they get discarded by Inquisition of Kozilek and such before you can land them, these have narrower discard. When you land a enchantment or artifact, it narrows the hate down, you can tap and hope to get a next turn. These are aimed to some MU's of course.
Enough said, Precog is the strongest for sure, like a Future in Flames. If only we had Gitaxian Probe.
Inferno Titan is not bad, sometimes I even think about putting Jace or some weird stuff to get people out of their guards. Emperion is quite nice against Ponza. But only one game, because next they gonna bring all the artifact hate.

Quote from Yuhiza »

Hi, I want build UR Gifts Storm but i dont know if is a good idea.

Do you think it´s worth build this deck now?

That depends.

Are you a combo player at heart?
Is it going to be your main deck that you play 80+% of your matches with?
Do you like problem solving on the fly?

If yes, then yeah. Storm's still a great deck. If you want a combo deck to muck about with on the side or you like combo decks that are more A+B then I'd recommend against it. Storm is an easy deck to play when you aren't disrupted. When you are, it becomes a pretty intricate dance where experiance funky problem solving matters.

I don't mean that as discouragement. It's just I've seen some people jump into the deck because it's cheap or looks neat and then turfs it pretty quick because it wasn't the experiance they were looking for.

Quote from Yuhiza »

Hi, I want build UR Gifts Storm but i dont know if is a good idea.

Do you think it´s worth build this deck now?

Objectively speaking, the deck is combo but can easily be disrupted if people come prepared for it. A little like bogles, it thrives in environments that don't expect it and against pilots unfamiliar with it. Just as it presents a learning curve to its pilot (you), it will also eventually be "mastered" by your opponents or your playgroup, and you'll find there was a sweet spot where you knew it inside out and won most games, up till a certain point where your regular playgroup start to even up match percentages.

Financially speaking, a UR manabase is a pretty safe investment if you're building from scratch, because they can be moved easily in the market, or you could just use it for another URx deck if you decided to stop playing storm. For a few dollars you can change up the whole deck into Suicide Bloo AKA UR Kiln fiend, or UR Pyromancer, all equally competitive and fun decks in their own right.

If the budget is tight you can go for a fetchless build which is super affordable given the deck's competitiveness. If you aren't a new player and already have a manabase, what are you waiting for? The spells in storm are incredibly cheap and hardly cost a thing, meaning the question "is it worth it" is probably easy to answer, since you'll only be out less than 50 bucks to put together the nonland portion of the deck. Well, maybe manamorphose needs a reprint, I suppose.

Abrade is much weaker agains Remand and Gigadrowse is just too weak agains a deck that has only Remand to answer stuff, Giga shines against heavy control, feels so good, but still, with 3 manas + Remand you can still play a lightning bolt, or a spell snare.
I also feel like Opt is underperforming, makes more sense to put stuff in the yard with Thought Scour. The fact is that many good stuff is playable here depending on your meta. Dude, if people use a lot of Birds and Hierarchs where you play, Twisted Image can be gg's, people keep hands that are unplayable without the hierarch mana, so you can slow the op down a bit and we get that sweet draw.
I totally agree with MarcWizard. I play with monoU Tron too, very nice deck and also cheap. You can perform very well with only one Chalice, without explosives and Oboro etc... If you optimize you play, many cards can be good and win, if you have the right strategy, many good cards can be played, and when people are not expecting things... oh the surprise. You could totally play 4 through the breach and Emrakul if you like. seriously, just manage to stick it in dude, you win, your personal list is always the best, adapted for your local meta and not for a starcity ten thousand people event...

You are less likely to combo with one less card in hand...

Why isn't Thing in the Ice a ...thing? I have been playing it for a few months, and it won a lot of games on its own.

I just started playing modern and this is the deck I choose. I'm not by any means a good magic player and my lgs has decently experienced guys who have been playing for years. I generally go 1-3 due to my lack of experience but I can still take games of them (usually the second game) . Every game I play I notice things I could've done in order to come out ahead, I just didn't think of them in that moment. Watching Caleb provides a ton of tricks that I have used in games but I still forget a ton of them due to my inexpensive. It's a really fun deck just hard to play. I'd recommend the deck but you are in for a steep learning curve.

Hi,

What do you think of including faithless looting for opt? By the moment i cut 1 opt (all list play 3) for 1 Peer Through deepts. I'm thinking about cutting 2 opt for 2 faithless.

Regards

Quote from AvtrOfWoe »

Why isn't Thing in the Ice a ...thing? I have been playing it for a few months, and it won a lot of games on its own.

Because its a 2 cmc creature that demands investment and dies to most of the same removal (push, decay, path, dismember, terminate, liliana -2, pulse) that hits Baral and Electromancer, except for bolt. And most opponents will know they have to keep you off a reducer if they want to buy time - they see your thing and its just collateral damage. If you're using thing and young pyro to overload their removal, now that could be interesting, but i question how much spell density you'll have left to justify that many spells-matters creatures anyway.

Quote from javierillo_am »

Hi,

What do you think of including faithless looting for opt? By the moment i cut 1 opt (all list play 3) for 1 Peer Through deepts. I'm thinking about cutting 2 opt for 2 faithless.

Regards

I like Thought Scour better, nobody plays Surgical main deck around here, so Thought Scour gives u double card advantage, because it puts a card in your hand and 2 in the yard, essentially they all go to your hand. Looting has flashback, but top decking it is just faithless...

Thought Scour has the potential to make Gifts Ungiven worse. That doesn't seem good.

Faithless Looting is not a 1 card for 1 card cantrip. It's a 3 cards for 2 cards cantrip, making it very suspect in a deck that needs a critical mass of cards.

Quote from Yuhiza »

What do you think about cut 3 copies of Opt from Caleb´s list and play 3 desperate ravings?

Opt's reprinting is what made our 17 land deck a lot more consistent. I wouldn't give it up for a 2 cmc cantrip with random discard.