The original deck idea was developed in Legacy, where the deck is called Tin Fins. The goal of the deck is to reanimate Griselbrand, who is basically a Yawgmoth's Bargain on a 7/7 lifelink body, with either Shallow Grave or Goryo's Vengeance and then draw a bunch of cards and win via a lethal Tendrils of Agony.
Modern doesn't have the tools for a Tendrils kill, since most cards are not Modern legal. Because a Storm based killcondition is not possible in Modern a different way to win was needed. People found Soul Spike and Fury of the Horde which allows us to chain attack steps and keep drawing cards with Griselbrand till the opponent is dead.
At the moment there are 4 ways to building this deck. The first one is the classic Griselbrand/Emrakul Plan, which is either the All-in versions (BR or 5c), the classic Grixis version, then there is Necrotic Ooze build, the new Nourishing Shoal build and the Tin Fists version:
Regardless of straight BR, Grixis for Cantrips or either one with a slight splash for the SB, all of those versions have something in common: They are incredible streamlined, rely on the Combat step and have enough room to play interaction in form of Bolts, Counters or Discard. These versions try to get A+B together as fast as possible with either a Goryo's Vengeance or Through the Breach plus Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. If you want to play this version and are able to afford a fetchland/shockland manabase, I would suggest playing the Grixis version, because of the better cantrips.
PRO:
+ Extremely streamlined
+ Enough flex spots for personal adjustment
+ MD interaction in form of Discard, burn and counter spells in the Grixis version
CON:
- Relies on the Combat step, therefore bad against Twin
- Soft against mixed interaction (counters+removal for Griselbrand e.g.)
Joe Lossett played a new version of the All-In version at the Season 2 SCG Invitational. Although I think that his take has potential, it still needs a ton of tuning. The main plan with this version is, to get a perfect starting hand vie Serum Powder and Mulligans, which increases the chance of a turn 2 win. To compensate the problem with Powder (exiling all Griselbrands/Emrakuls) he runs 2 Pull from Eternity. Pull in combination with Powder is basically a entomb (depending on what you have exiled). Also it allows you to get back pathed Griselbrands or exiled cards with Fury of the Horde (it is a rather fringe use, but you never know). An interesting side note is, that this deck likes to go second. One of it main weaknesses is, that you run a number of dead cards in your deck, which you never want to draw beside in the opening hand when you want to mulligan (namely Serum Powder). To compensate this he runs the full 8 looting effects (Faithless Looting and Izzet Charm). In the end, I haven't played the version yet, so I can't make any specific statements about his version.
Also Caleb Durward plays a more controlling version of the classic BR Version. He replaced the Fury of the Hordes with Lillian of the Veil, giving the deck a better plan B (or overall the possibility for a plan B). Also, his version always run several discard spells MD (around 6), improving the twin match-up by a ton. The backswing of these changes are, that the deck got slower than the other versions and a resolved Griselbrand is just a draw engine (still a super powerful draw engine but you can't kill the opponent from just a Griselbrand). He plays here a daily with the deck.
You can find more content to his version on his Channel Fireball channel: http://www.channelfireball.com/author/caleb-durward/
Necrotic Ooze version
Necrotic Ooze provides Griselbrand Reanimator with an engine. Suddenly, you don't need a Goryo's Vengeance anymore, it is fine, if Griselbrand is in your graveyard. With an Ooze in play you are still able to draw cards, use Soul Spikes to eventually get to a Borborygmos Enraged to kill the opponent with the drawn lands. But here is also the big problem. This version is incredible weak to Graveyard hate, since there are no Through the Breaches in the deck.
This is the newest version of the deck. It cuts down on interaction to be able to play Nourishing Shoal. This card provides some utility which can't be found elsewhere. First, combined with a expensive spell it allows you to chain draws with Griselbrand, second Shoal itself is an Arcane card. This means, that you are able to splice Goryo's Vengeance, Through the Breach and Desperate Ritual on it - hence, you are able to play around 1 counterspell without a problem (EOT of your opponent, Shoal pitch something splice Goryo's, opponent Remands/Mana Leaks it, you untap and cast Goryo's again, to go absolute crazy). The big problem is, that you need a quantity of spells in your deck to find something to pitch. Furthermore, it should have high CMC for more lifegain but it should also be useful with a Through the Breach. The only 2 cards which fits those criteria are Worldspine Wurm and Borborygmos Enraged. The first one replaces Emrakul, loosing Annihilator is rough, but not shuffling the whole graveyard back into the library is a huge plus. Furthermore, it leaves 3 5/5 Wurm tokens, which should be enough to close out the game. The second one provides us with a wincondition, which doesn't require the combat step.
PRO:
+ Can win without the Combatstep
+ Can win at instant speed without using the Graveyard
+ Is able to abuse the Splice mechanic, therefore can play reasonably around counterspells
+ Is able to draw the whole library with Griselbrand
CON:
- Can't use Emrakul MD
- Not many flexslots
- Can't play interaction MD
Tin Fists tries to play the game plan off the traditional BR/Grxis versions, getting a fast Griselbrand or Emrakul out via a Goryo's. The long term plan is totally different though. It relies on actually casting Emrakul and Griselbrand via Fist of Suns. Casting Emrakul as early as Turn 3 is game winning, since you get the additional turn (you are "CASTING" it, not cheating it into play). This version has some big problems too. First, it is a 5c deck which results in an awkward and painful manabase. Therefore, a Blood Moon is just gg most of the time (you have to find your 1-off Through the Breach plus an Emrakul). The deck must also play traditional Mana ramp+fixing to constantly get to all of its colours. Second, it enables the opponent's interaction which would be dead against the other versions (Abrupt Decay and artifact hate).
PRO:
+ Has a option to hardcast Emrakul on Turn 4/5
+ Has best Sideboard options, since 5c
+ Can play reasonably around counterspells via Fist of Suns
CON:
- Is extremely soft to land-hate
- Relies on the combat step
- Is affected by artifact hate and Abrupt Decay which are otherwise dead cards
----4) Card choices
Boseiju, who shelters All
You want to play Boseiju in a Control heavy metagame since it allows you to force your Through the Breach/Goryo's Vengeance through their countermagic. But beware, you don't want to take too much damage from Boseiju. You often need more than 14 life to reliable kill an opponent.
Cavern of Souls
Cavern is kinda Boseiju. You want to play Cavern in a counterspell heavy metagame, so that you can cast your Necrotic Ooze without worrying about counterspells. Play this only in the Necrotic Ooze version.
Pact of Negation
There is a simple rule for Pact: Normally you will never be able to pay for it so you have to make sure to win the turn when you need it. I would only play the Pact in the All in versions or in the SB (if you can grantee a win this turn).
Serum Vision
Best blue Cantrip which is still Modern legal. If you are playing blue, you want to play it.
Thoughtseize
Best discard spell for this deck. It can be used to get rid of counterspells or problematic cards from your opponent. Furthermore, it can be used as a discard outlet (you can target yourself). The problem is, that you can't afford that much lifeloss. In most versions you want to stay over 14 life, sometimes even higher when you want to play around Burn.
Lightning Bolt or
The best red spell in Modern, good old Bolt. The reason of the 2 different ratings is simple. In lists without Soul Spike and Shoal you want to run Bolts since a single swing of Emrakul is often not enough (most opponents will have between 16 and 18 life). Bolt provides in those list a simple win con with Emrakul. In the other versions Lightning Bolt isn't required. It also lost a lot of importance since the banning of Deathrite Shaman, which was a pain in the ass for this deck.
Goryo's Vengeance
What should I say? This little card allows us to play this deck. Turn 1 Looting into Turn 2 reanimate Griselbrand into kill aren't that rare. Since, it is an Instant it allows you to cast it in the end of turn of your opponent and go into your turn with a Legendary Creature of your choice (the Oracle text changed to clarify this. You have to exile the Creature at the beginning of the end step, since you are already in the end step, the effect of Goryo's Vengeance will trigger in the next end step). Also it has Splice on Arcane, which gets abused in the Shoal versions of the deck.
Izzet Charm
This card is the reason to go into Blue. It gives you more looting effects at instant speed, a 2 damage removal for Scavenging Ooze, Affinity Creature with Plating or random Noble Hierachs. Also the Spell Pierce can be used in a counter war (if you have the 2 mana spare), to counter hate cards (Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Ground Seal, Relic of Progenitus,....). Overall a great card.
Tormenting Voices
A better wild guess. Often, you need a critical number of cards in your hand (like Ramp in form of SSG/Prism/Ritual, Breach and Creature) that you can't afford to discard a single card. Furthermore, discarding a card as additional cost can be pretty rough against Remand. Another problem is, that it doesn't allow you to get rid of a freshly drawn Griselbrand (if you have a Goryo's in hand). Also, these type of cards doesn't allow you to recover against a discard heavy hand from your opponent, therefore you shouldn't play 8 Looting effects. This card is better in a Fury/Soul Spike versions, since these cards are dead in your hand and you only want to draw them via Griselbrand in the combo turn.
Night's Whisper
If you aren't playing blue, this is the draw spell to go. It allows you to recover against Discard and an upticking Lilliana of the Veil. The lifeloss can make an impact in the game, but it is the best card draw available. Also, you want to play Night's Whisper over Sign in Blood since it is easier to cast.
See Beyond
This card is decent in a Fury/Soul Spike version, since it can get rid of those pre a Griselbrand Combo Turn without actually losing the card.
Taigam's Scheming
A recent addition in the blue filtering options. Looking 5 deep and pitch the bad cards or the Griselbrand to reanimate makes it pretty good. The only problem is, that it doesn't provide any CA, just CQ.
Anticipate
New card from Dragons of Tarkir. A weaker Impulse but it still makes a good job at finding stuff. I don't know, if it is better than Forbidden Alchemy or the other options. Has to be tested to make a more exact statement.
Grisly Salvage (Necrotic Ooze version only)
The best cantrips in the Necrotic Ooze version. If you want to play the Necrotic Ooze version, run the Playset, since it finds you the Oozes or the land to cast stuff (you never want a Griselbrand in hand, since the Ooze lists don't run any Breaches). Also it fills the graveyard pretty fast, so that you find your Griselbrand/Borborygmos faster.
Manamorphose
On its own a pretty bad card. It is a free cycling which fixes your mana. It is required, when you are drawing a bunch of cards when you are tapped out and use some Simian Spirit Guide, Looting and a Goryo's to get a Creature of your choice back (you need to convert into mana). Also you need to run some amount of Manamorphoses in the Shoal version, since you need a minimum count in your deck to have a pitch card for Shoal.
Time of Need
Time of Need is an interesting card. It allows you to run some amount of utility legendary creatures in the maindeck such as Tasigur, the golden Fang and still be able to find them if you need them. Also it finds Griselbrand and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. It can also find some Silver bullets for the post SB games, such as Thrun, the Last Troll against Control decks.
Nourishing Shoal or
When you want to play this card, it is an commitment. You need at least 14 cards preboard to have a card to pitch for Shoal. If you don't want to run that many cards, don't play it, it is just plain bad then.
Pentad Prism
The only decent Manaramp in Modern besides SSG. Played on Turn 2 it allows you to Through the Breach on Turn 3, if you hit all landdrops. Also, it gives you the option of hardcasting Griselbrand on Turn 4 of 2 Prism. In the classic BR and Grixis version you want some amount of Prism, the Ooze and Shoal version don't need it/doesn't have the spare slots.
Desperate Ritual
On its own a pretty bad card. Casting this and splicing it with a Through the Breach or Goryo's Vengeance the card gets suddenly good, since you don't lose the Breach/Goryo's if the opponent counters the Ritual. It also provides you with some utility in the Shoal versions, since you can splice it on a Shoal to generate enough mana for a breached Creature which matters against onboard Graveyard hate.
Zombie Infestation
This card should only be played in the Necrotic Ooze versions, since it provides a cheap and recurring discard outlet, which that version needs.
Sylvan Caryatid and co or
In the Tin Fist version you need some kind of mana fixing, since you want to have excess to all 5 colours on turn 4 to use it for Fist of Suns. In all other version this kind is to slow, if you want some kind of ramp go with Pentad Prism.
Eerie Procession
The tutor effect for our Arcane spells. If you want to play more cheating effects, go with this one if you are in blue. Furthermore, it is an Arcane spell so it can be used for splicing Ritual, Goryo's or Breach.
Footsteps of the Goryo
Another reanimate spell. It provides some utility, since it is an arcane spell but it has 2 huge problems, first, it is sorcery and second, it doesn't give the creature haste. If you want to play a fifth Reanimate spell in the Shoal version or in a non list, go with this one, but I wouldn't play it.
Fist of the Suns
One of the centrepieces of Tin Fists. It allows you to actually cast Emrakul for only 5 mana which is gg against most decks. It starts by getting the extra turn (you actually cast Emrakul) and ends most of the time with a single swing, since Emrakul takes often the whole board with him. The big problem is, that Fist of the Suns pushes you to a 5c Manabase, which makes you vulnerable to Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge and Blood Moon. Also a single Spreeding Sea can slow you down for several turns. Furthermore, you have to play more lands than the other versions, since you have to hit your land drops. Another big problem is, that the Manabase is quite painful (you have to play some number of City of Brass/Mana Confluence) which is bad in a aggro heavy metagame.
Forbidden Alchemy
Looking 5 cards deep, get the best one and put the rest into the graveyard is incredible strong in this deck. The problems with this card are, that it costs 3 mana, is blue and you have to take Emrakul, because otherwise he will shuffle your graveyard back into the library. A card you might want to test in a blue version.
Necrotic Ooze
Necrotic Ooze enables to win without a Goryo's Vengeance on Griselbrand since he gets the ability from creatures in all graveyards. With a Griselbrand in the Graveyard you can chain draws, shoot Soul Spikes and eventually reanimate Griselbrand for the win. You can also the ability of Borborygmos Enraged to shoot all drawn lands, so you can win without the combat step which matters against Ensnaring Bridge, Ghostly Prision and Twin-Creatures. Also, costing 4 mana is nice, since he can dodge Abrupt Decay. His biggest problem is its 3 toughness, so it dies to Lightning Bolt, one of the most played cards in the format. Another big problem is, that he depends heavy on the graveyard, since single Rest in Peace shuts him down. Otherwise, he has some nice utility, since you can also use the activated abilities from you opponent graveyard. This can be used to generate mana if there is a Noble Hierarch/Birds of Paradise, you can eat stuff with a Scavenging Ooze in the graveyard or other cards with activated abilities (Spellskite, Pack Rat,...).
Jarad's Orders
A four mana hard tutor for both combo parts in the Necrotic Ooze version. It finds the Ooze and the Griselbrand. The big problem with this card is, that is extremely slow (sets up a Turn 5 kill) and getting it Remanded makes things even worse.
Makeshift Mannequin
Another reanimate spell. Since it is instant and can target any creature it provides some utility with Worldspine Wurm, but setting this up cost 5 Mana (Looting+Mannequin).
Through the Breach
Through the Breach is the second combo card in this deck. Although costing 5 mana a Turn 4 Griselbrand/Worldspine Wurm/Emrakul of any kind of ramp (SSG, Pentad Prism or traditional ramp) is most of the time enough. It can also be spliced for only 4 mana, which allows some turn 3 plays in the Shoal version. It also does something, which Goryo's Vengeance doesn't do, it sacrifices the creature at the beginning of the endstep instead of exiling it. Therefore a Griselbrand can be used twice, a Worldspine Wurm leaves his 5/5 buddies and Emrakul shuffles him and the graveyard back into the library.
Tasigur, the golden Fang
Tasigur gives the deck suddenly a Midrange creature, which can stall in the BGx match-ups or can even race an opponent. Her ability also provides some utility in getting back good stuff (we have few true dead card in versions with Tasigur and those can be delved away). He gets even better with Time of Need since you can play a 2/2 split and still have 4 copies of him in the deck while you also increases the chance to of getting SB bombs like Thrun, the last Troll and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Soul Spike
It is a mulligan in your opening hand, but great when you draw it from a Griselbrand. This is a pure combo card with Griselbrand, without him the card is basically dead (there can be situations where you can use it after getting a Emrakul in play, but those hands are pretty rare). Also the card asks for a good quantity of cards in your deck. I don't know the exact amount of cards needed, but it is likely to be at least 16 to get the 2 pitch cards in 7 draws of Griselbrand. This card gets played in the Classic BR version and also in the Necrotic Ooze lists, since both version can provide the count for this card.
Fury of the Horde
Fury is the same case as Soul Spike, good with Griselbrand otherwise dead and you need a good quantity of cards. This card sees play in the traditional BR and Grixis version.
Griselbrand
This card is the main reason beside Breach and Goryo's why the deck even exists. Cheating him into play as soon as Turn 2 (there are cases, when you can reanimate him on Turn 1, but those require a 6 card hand, where only 1 card is redundant) and start chaining draws via Fury, Spikes or Shoals can win you the game on the spot. Also, just cheating him into play to block a Goyf and draw 14 cards is a reasonable move, since you can set up for a kill for next turn. You have to play 4, if you can't afford it, you can't play this deck (he is as essential as Valakut for Scapeshift).
Borborygmos Enraged
This guy only sees play in the Shoal and the Ooze versions. In those versions he provides an instant way to win the game without involving the combat step (looking at you Ensnaring Bridge, Ghostly Prision and Twin-Creatures). Furthermore, reanimating him in the early turns to find lands/creatures can be a good play.
Worldspine Wurm
The reason why the Shoal version is that good is this card. There are 2 ways to use this card, first one is to pitch it for a Nourishing Shoal to gain 11 life and thus allows you to draw even more cards with Griselbrand. The second way is to breach him in play and swing for 15. When you have to sacrifice him eot he is so nice and leaves you 3 5/5 trample buddies which are likely to kill the opponent, if he isn't already dead. Against Twin, you want to breach him in in the second mainphase of the opponent, so that the opponent can't just tap the big wurm which basically results in a fog. Therefore, you can still attack with 10 power.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
In the classic builds, Emrakul is the go to creature. It is by far the best creature for a Breach, since he takes the whole board with him and he gives you enough time to find any combination of burn or combo to kill the opponent. Also you can discard him to a Looting and reanimate him with a Goryo's Vengeance in response to the shuffle-back trigger. The Shuffle clause is also the reason why he isn't that great. You have to shuffle your graveyard into the library, which can result in awkward plays (can't discard Griselbrand, since you want to breach in an Emrakul e.g.). Although he as protection from coloured spells, he can still be targeted by the Twin-Creatures.
Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek
They can hit problematic cards, but can't be used as a discard outlet. Which one you want to play is preference.
Swan Song, Spell Pierce and Spell Snare
They are all decent, but most of the times it is hard to keep mana up in your combo turn. I would play discard over those, since discard can hit everything, where here you have the problem with different hate cards (Enchantments in Rest in Peace, Artifact with Grafdigger's Cage, Creature in Scavenging Ooze and Eidolon of Rhetoric and Counters). If you are running no Fury of the Horde, go with Swang Song, if you run those go with Spell Pierce.
Ancient Grudge
Affinity is pretty much a coinflip, who has the faster hand wins normally. Since Affinity can kill you pretty constant on turn 4 you need some kind of interaction. Ancient Grudge is one of the best ones, since it kills Platings and a ensouled Creature, which are the fastest clocks Affinity can produce. Also, you can flashback it to gain more value out of it and it can also get pitched to a Looting without loosing that much value.
Abrupt Decay
The Swiss Armyknife. If you need some kind of interaction with the board and you are in run it. It offers an answer to the most played hatecards, such as Grafdigger's Cage, Rest in Peace, Scavenging Ooze and Eidolon of Rhetorik. It also stops the Twin Combo and can slow down Affinity enough, that we have the faster win. It is also a great card against Infect, since it hits all infect creatures but Inkmoth Nexus.
Rakdos Charm
Rakdos Charm shines in 2 match-ups, Affinity and Splinter Twin. Against Affinity it buys us time till we have the win, against Splinter Twin it is another wincondition since most of the times they don't have the time for a regular kill, because we can just overload them with questions. Therefore, they are forced to go for the Combo kill, which is answered by Rakdos Charm. It also provides some utility against Graveyard based strategies. Overall a quite strong card.
Pyroclasm
One of the bigger problems for all version of the deck is fast aggro decks. Pyroclasm is the cheapest sweeper available which can destroy a fast start from Affinity, Infect and 1 drop Zoo. If you are expecting an aggro heavy meta, run some number of Pyroclasm in your sideboard.
Hurkyl's Recall
Recall is a silverbullet against Affinity. It buys you enough time to set up the combo without worrying to lose the next turn. If you expect a affinity heavy meta, run some amount of Recalls in your SB.
Torpor Orb
Torpor Orb is a must play for the classic BR and Grixis in the SB, since the Twin match-up is horrible otherwise. When you breach in a Emrakul in your turn which gets tapped down by a Pestermite is brutal. It get even worse when the Twin player untapps and win via a Splinter Twin. If you are running the traditional version, you have to play some amount of Torpor Orb or Defense Grid.
Defense Grid
Another option for the Control and Twin match-up is Defense Grid. Resolving this is most of the time a win against those decks. If you are playing the traditional version, run either Orb or Grid in the SB.
Thrun, the Last Troll
For all versions with Time of Need, Thrun is a excellent card for the Control Match-up. Drawing one and being able to cast him is pretty much gg against classic Control. Remember, that you should hold the regeneration mana up the whole time.
Leyline of Sacntity
Great against Discard and Burn. Since BGx and Burn make nearly 25% of the metagame you want to run Leyline in the Sideboard. You should run at least 3 copies, 4 if you have the space. The problem is, that the only way to cast it is Manamorphose in the non Tin Fists version, since there is no reason to go into white.
Since I only have experience with the classic and the Shoal version I will only make an analysis for those 2 versions.
Traditional Junk/Jund/BGx
Classic 55/45 against W versions; 60/40 otherwise
Shoal 55/45 against W versions; 60/40 otherwise
Classic: The match-up is normally preferable, but a Turn 1 discard spell into Scavenging Ooze/Tarmogoyf into more discard is back breaking for every version. It is possible to recover in a few turns, but Ooze and Goyf are a to fast clock, when they land early enough. For the classic version, try to get a Emrakul in play, since he buys you more than enough time to close out the game. The problem with Griselbrand is (in both versions), that he can get pathed and you don't want to go to low on lifepoints since a Rhino or Bolts can close out the game then. Bring in Leylines if you have them in your SB.
Shoal: You want to go off with Griselbrand and you want to win the Turn you get him into play. Also, go for the Breach Wurm plan, if the opponent is tapped out/has no mana up. They usually have only 1 Maelstrom Pulse in their deck which they have to find in the next draw or they die. Also, the opponent is most of the times rather low on life, since they have to fetch and shock several times. It can happen, that he is at 15 or lower and you can just finish him with a Wurm. Again, a Discard heavy hand followed up by a fast clock can be brutal, but it takes some turns to close out the game. Don't hesitate to cheat a Griselbrand into play to block a Goyf/Tasigur/Ooze to by more time. You can also normally draw a bunch of cards of it, but look out for Rhinos or Bolts.
Burn
Classic 50/50
Shoal 60/40
Classic: Here you want to go off as fast as possible, since Burn represent a constant Turn 4 kill. A breached in Emrakul on Turn 3 can be enough, if he has a creature heavy hand, especially he has to draw more lands to be able to burn you out. When he plays watch out for Sideboarded Deflecting Palm, it can redirect an Emrakul swing back to you. Also board all your Leylines in.
Shoal: Burn is kinda a cakewalk since you have MD lifegain (I heard gain 11 life is good against burn ). Aim for either a Breached Wurm or try to go off with Griselbrand while he is tapped out. Bring all Leylines in and maybe Decays/Discard if you want more interaction. If he plays white, watch out for Deflecting Palm. Post board you normally don't want to swing a Wurm in open Mana (remember Deflecting Palm).
Affinity
Classic 55/45
Shoal 50/50
Classic: You want a Emrakul swing as soon as possible since they hardly can recover from one swing. Depending on how many cards he has in play choose your timing with Emrakul. You want to have the maximum of the Annihilation and even if you could do a Turn 2 swing otp, when he has only to sac 2-4 cards it isn't worth it. You can also use Izzet Charm both as counter and removal if you need more time. Most Affinity players have Spell Pierce and Discard in their SB so play around those as good as possible.
Shoal: This is basically a coinflip on who is faster. You want to go off with Griselbrand since a Wurm doesn't guarantee a win. Especially fast Plating and Ensoul Artifact draws are problematic. Bring in Decays/Artifact Removal or whatever hate you have. Keep either a Turn 2/3 hand or a Turn 4 hand with some form of interaction. Otherwise, you are to slow.
Infect
Classic ????
Shoal 40/60
Classic: I never played with this version against Infect, therefore I can't make an exact statement. What I learned from my games against Infect from other versions of the deck, you want a fast hand with Emrakul or an interaction heavy hand (Lightning Axe, Discard, Bolts,...). Play the removal in your turn, so that he has to waste a pump spell to save the creature. Also an early Emrakul is most of the times enough (they are pretty aggressive with their life). Remember when you are playing against Infect, without interaction the deck represents a constant Turn 3 kill. Bring in your permanent based interaction (bounce, removal or discard) and watch out for Wild Defiance since it makes your bolts useless.
Shoal: This match-up is plain bad. They are usually a turn faster then this version (Turn 3 against no interaction) and the Shoals can't buy you time. You have to mulligan aggressive for a fast hand, especially post board. Bring all the removal/discard you have as long as you don't water the combo down (you can board out some numbers of Morphoses, Night's Whisper and other cards).
Twin
Classic: 30/70
Shoal: 60/40
Classic: You need the attack step to win, guess what the Twin-Creatures can do? Tap your creatures. You want either a Turn 2/3 kill, since they don't have enough Mana for a Tap creature or mulligan the hand. Another big problem are the counters since those buy the Twin player enough time. Bring your Twin hate of choice in post board (Torpor Orb, Defense Grid,...). If you are playing Rakdos Charm in your SB, you can also bring them in since they represent a kill condition for their combo.
Shoal: This match-up feels even better than Burn. You have absolute no problem to make several turns just draw and go and when he goes for the EOT creature you just kill him in response. Furthermore, you can easily play around counters (just wait and start splicing stuff in their EOT). If you have to go for a breached Wurm, breach him in in the second main phase. You have to sacrifice him, but you get 3 5/5 tokens and you start swinging with those. Because of this line, he can't tap you big Wurm down and use this as fog. The Twin player has to go for the Twin kill (both pre- and post board), since the clock is otherwise to slow. If the game goes long you can start to splice stuff and run him out of counters. Bring in some amount of Discard and/or Rakdos Charm if you have them. Also Boseiju is great in this match-up. Don't bring in Thruns, they are to slow and you don't want to tap out.
Scapeshift
Classic 50/50
Shoal 55/45
Classic: This match-up is kinda strange. On the one hand he wants to ramp up to get a kill asap. On the other hand, he needs to leave mana open to not die. If the Scapeshift player knows how to play against this deck, the match-up is pretty worse, because he will try to leave countermana up and once he reaches 4 lands never taps out. The main plan is here to win before he reaches 4 lands since he can't cast Cryptic then (tap/bounce + draw e.g.). A bad Scapeshift player might tap out on Turn 2/3 which enables easier lines to win. Also, a early Emrakul can buy you more than enough time to win the game just with Bolts. Scapeshift usually brings in some amount of Swang Song. Bring in Defense Grid or more discard but no Leylines since they are just a trap (Cryptic Command says hi)
Shoal: This match-up is even stranger for the Shoal version than for the Classic one. You don't mind, if ramps up to 7 lands and then tries to combo off. To be more exact, this is normally the correct moment to go off, since he doesn't have Cryptic mana and you can play easy around a remand. Otherwise, go for the EOT cheat in Griselbrand plan. Another line is, to breach in a Wurm in his second main, so he can't bounce the big Wurm in your attack step. Bring in Discard and stay away from the Leylines, they are a trap. And btw. many Scapeshift players will never ever play around Shoal, so you can bait them to go off with 7 lands and cast a Shoal in response to stay alive. Since he is tapped down then, you can go off in your turn.
UWRx Control/Midrange
Classic ????
Shoal ????
I never played against UWR with either version, so I can't make a statement here. But there is a guideline too: expect Path, Mana Leak and Cryptic if they have the mana open, try to stay above 6 life, since they usually play a pretty burn heavy deck (7-12 burnspells). Also look at their mana. Their manabase isn't the best, so you can normally say, what things they might have and you are likely to play around the correct things. They have some amount of Graveyard hate in their SB, also more counterspells.
Meerfolk
Classic 60/40
Shoal 60/40
Both: An aggrodeck with nearly no interaction? Deal. Just try to get not screwed up by Spreading Sea or Chalice of the Void. I have even saw some Psionic Blasts in their SB. Post board they bring in some amount of counters like Spell Pierce, Spell Snare and Swan Song. Normally you have the time to play around those cards. Another problem can be bounce but Emrakul has no problem against this and the Shoal version can shoot them to death with Borborygmos.
Zoo
Classic 60/40
Shoal 60/40
Both: Again an aggrodeck with nearly no relevant interaction (Path to Exile is the only one). If you can afford it try to stay above 3 or 6 life, since then they can't double bolt you. In their SB they have normally Graveyardhate, bring in some amount of bounce/decay and discard. The traditional Naya version can also play Blood Moon in their SB, better play save and get a Swamp as soon as possible.
Abzan Liege/Little Kid/Kibler Junk/however the deck is called
Classic 60/40
Shoal 60/40
Both: This is preboard an aggro deck, few to non discard spells and only Path as relevant removal. Post board they usually have some amount of Discard and Graveyard hate. You can bring in Leylines if you are thinking they have the 7 discard spell package post board. For the post board games look for the Jund/Junk/BGx analysis.
BW Tokens
Classic: 55/45
Shoal: 55/45
Both: BW Tokens plays between 10-12 Discard spells but doesn't have a fast clock. The match-up is normally pretty straight forward, either try to kill him with an Emrakul (Classic) or with the Grisel-combo (Shoal). It can happen, that the BW Tokens player has enough permanents/tokens to block a Emrakul through the Annihilation, but afterwards the board should be clear (exception is a rather late Emrakul swing), so you have enough time to find the combo again. For the Shoal version you prefer to go off with Griselbrand, but a Wurm can also be enough (watch out for Path's). They have some form of Graveyard hate and more discard in the SB, hence, bring in your Leylines. I saw some lists running Ensnaring Bridge in the SB, if you think he might have this, bring in a few Decays/artifact hate.
RG Tron
Classic: 60/40
Shoal: 60/40
Both: The match-up is normally pretty good BUT: they have maindeck graveyard hate (Relic) and a Turn 3 Karn can just win the game. Ugin sees more play, so watch out for his -X against a Wurm. You are normally the faster deck and you can play pretty aggressive with your life (you can go down to 4 without a real problem, lower can be problematic because of Ugin). Also they can use Oblivion Stone as instant sweeper. Cards you can expect from their SB: Pithing Needle, Surgical Extraction (is rather fringe, but sees play), more Relics and Slaughter Games.
Ux Tron
Classic: 55/45
Shoal: 60/40
Both: Ux Tron decks (either versions) are just to slow to interact with you. They have limited U sources, so go for an EOT play which results most of the times into a tap out of them into a play in your turn. They have counterspells MD (Condescend, Spell Burst and from time to time Spell Snare). Also they have bounce MD, which can be used against Griselbrand/Emrakul/Wurm plays (overloaded Cyclonic Rift). They have Graveyard hate in their SB (Relic) and more counters. Bring in Discard/Defense Grid.
Living End
Classic: 60/40
Shoal: 65/35
Both: Pitch a Griselbrand and just wait till he tries to resolve a Living End = win. When he tries to go for the slow hardcast plan just kill him with Emmi/Grisel/Wurm. Watch out for Beast Within, since it can result in some blow outs. Also he can go for a instant Living End, which can sweep your board. Just don't be greedy. They usually have Slaughter Games in their SB, so bring in Leylines or Discard and try to go of earlier post board. Some lists also run Blood Moon, so fetch for basics if you can afford it.
URxx Delver
----6) Introduction to the Shoal version (aka a Primer in the Primer)
In this chapter, I will explain the most important interactions from the Shoal version, a basic guide, how to play with this deck and some things regarding the SB. Furthermore, for somebody who has no idea regarding the deck, I added a card by card explanation.
To make our live easier, I will use Zach Jesses list to make all those explanations (exception is the SB, since he didn't had enough time to get all cards he needed to play the perfect SB):
You can divide every Shoal deck into 3 sections, the draw spells, the combo cards and the other card choices (mainly lands).
Draw Spells
Faithless Looting
The card by itself doesn’t look that great, but combined with the right shell (like this deck), it turns in an absolute monster. It provides a discard outlet for Griselbrand on turn 1, can get rid of spare lands/spells/combo pieces and has flashback to be able to use it later in the game again
Night’s Whisper
While lacking the discard clause of Looting, Night’s Whisper is the second best draw spell for this deck. It pulls you ahead on cards, refills your hand after some discard spells or just can get you up to 8 cards so that you can natural discard Griselbrand.
Tormenting Voices Tormenting Voices is a in between thing from Looting and Whisper. It does a decent job at the looting and refilling part, but does nothing great. Furthermore, the first one is most of the times ok, the second one you draw is already garbage, since you have nothing relevant left to discard (in most cases). That’s why there are only 2 in the list.
Combo cards
Griselbrand
He is the only reason, why the deck exists. He provides you with a Yagmoth’s Bargain on a 7/7 lifelink body and is a legendary creature. Especially the last part is important, since we can play Goryo’s Vengeance, a card, which allows us absurd turn 2 kills.
Worldspine Wurm
Wurm has 2 applications in the deck, the first is getting pitched for Nourishing Shoal and the second one for a Through the Breach. It has a 15/15 trampling body and leaves 3 5/5 trampling tokens when used by Through the Breach. Normally, a Wurm swing is enough to kill the opponent, but if he has blockers/is above 15 life points, his tokens represent lethal next turn. Furthermore, is CMC is great, everything below is meh, since 2 Shoaled Wurms provide you with 22 life, so exact 3 Griselbrand activations.
Borborygmos Enraged
He is the reason, why we can win with instant speed. Of course, somebody could argue, that Lightning Storm is another way to kill the opponent at instant speed, but he has some huge advantages over Lightning Storm. First, he is a legendary creature, so he can be reanimated by Goryo’s Vengeance (relevant against Discard and Lootings, whereas Lightning Storm is dead in your graveyard). Second, he has a high CMC (8) and is G, so in dire situations, you can use him as Shoal fodder. Third, he has a respectable body (7/6 trample), which can win games on its own (Through the Breach him and next turn Goryo’s Vengeance, discard some lands for the win).
Goryo’s Vengeance Goryo’s Vengeance is the main reason, besides Griselbrand, for the existent of the deck. It allows you to reanimate a Griselbrand on turn 2, which result in a win most of the times. Furthermore, Goryo’s Vengeance has an ability, which sees absolutely no play (spoiler, exception is this deck), Splice onto Arcane. For a detailed description, on why this is so important, look down to the section “Splice onto Arcane”.
Through the Breach Through the Breach is the second cheat spell in the deck. It allows you to put ANY creature from your hand into play, so you can use your Worldspine Wurms to swing for 15. Furthermore, the sacrifice clause is handy in a lot of situations. Worldspine Wurm leaves his tokens because of this or you can Goryo’s Vengeance a Borborygmos/Griselbrand again. Also, on of the most important parts of the card is again Splice onto Arcane.
Nourishing Shoal Nourishing Shoal is a strange card. It comes from a cycle of pitch cards from Kamigawa and was for a long time the worst one of them (all of the others either have seen Standard or Modern play). This deck abuses Nourishing Shoal on a complete different level. First, it lets you chain draws from Griselbrand, if you have it and a Worldspine Wurm in hand since you can exile the Wurm to gain 11 life. Second, it is an Arcane spell, which enables Splice on it. The significance of this feature will be further explored in the “Splice onto Arcane” section.
Desperate Ritual
At first, it may look like a bad card but once when you start playing the deck, you see how good it actually is. First, he has both Splice and has the Arcane type (again those two mechanics) and second it provides the necessary Mana for Through the Breach mid combo.
Other card choices
Manamorphose
It is the worst card in the deck besides Tormenting Voice, but again, it is a necessary evil. At worst it is a free cantrip, at best it provides us the needed B mana mid combo for a Goryo’s Vengeance.
Noxious Revival
Revival may look like an oddball, but it is actually quite useful. It can recycle countered/discarded Goryo’s, can get back a draw spell if you need it and has some applications mid combo (like getting back a Shoal, when there is the risk of fizzling, because you don’t have another one).
The only cards I want to explain from the Manabase are the 4 Temple of Malice. Looking at the deck, it is pretty light on Turn 1 plays (only 4 Lootings). The Temples are basically another form of Turn 1 play. The scry 1 actually matters more, than you are thinking and it makes some lines of play easier (like, with which draw spell should I start).
The plan for every SB is, to have three parts, first against discard decks (BGx mainly), second against counter decks (Delver, Grixis, Twin) and last for our bad match-ups (mainly Infect and Affinity).
When you look at Huangs SB, you will see, that his plan against Discard decks are 4 Blood Moons. Till some weeks ago people preferred Leyline of Sanctity in this slot, but with the upswing of decks, which just folds to Blood Moon (BGx, Amulet Bloom, RG Tron, Grixis), Blood Moon took this place. Often, they have to discard Blood Moon, or just die. This is especially true, since they can’t afford to fetch for basics in the early game, since they need a fast clock and interaction to have a good shot for winning. Remember, you shouldn’t bring in both Blood Moon and Bosejiu, since one of them will be useless.
Against the counter decks he has the Bosejiu, the 3 Pacts and the 2 Discard spells (but don't board always all cards in, sometimes you don't need the discard, sometimes you don't need all 3 Pacts). Especially Bosejiu is game winning in combination with Through the Breach and a Worldspine Wurm. The Pacts are a double edged sword, on the one hand they are awesome, since they are “free” to cast, and on the other hand you will be “never” able to pay for them. So, when you cast a Pact, make sure that you win that turn.
The remaining SB cards (Lightning Axe, Pyroclasm and Shatterstorm), are either for our worst match-ups (Affinity and Infect), or are answers for hate cards (like Scavenging Ooze). Pyroclasm can also be board in against Elves and other Swarm strategies, where we need just a little bit more time.
If you decided to make a small green splash, you want to play 2-3 Abrupt Decays in your SB. Those are hitting nearly all of the possible hate cards (exception is Leyline of the Void). Another good card would be Ancient Grudge, since our Affinity match-up isn’t that great. Other possible G sideboard cards: Nature's Claim and Firespout (although, it should be a R SB card, but hitting Fliers can be relevant). If you want to play G SB, play 1 Overgrown Tomb or 1 Stomping Ground and all fetchlands have to be able to get the land.
But what to cut? A basic guide:
0-1 Noxious Revival (it is already a flex slot, so when the opponent doesn't run discard/counters you can cut it without thinking twice)
0-2 Tormenting Voice (against nearly everything which plays Remands)
0-3 SSG/Desperate Ritual (when we have more than enough time (like against U/UW Tron))
0-1 TTB (often to slow against Infect/Affinity or bad against Twin)
0-1 Goryo's Vengeance (against Surgical Extraction and co and heavy permanent based graveyard hate like Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void,...)
0-1 Worldspine Wurm (against slow decks with Paths, since a Through the Breached Wurm is not good there)
0-1 Shoal (often in combination with a Wurm, when you need more slots for SB cards)
0-1 Land (when you need a super fast hand and you need some form of Interaction post board (Infect says hi), or you are playing Bosejiu in your board (you don't want more than 4 lands, which enters the battlefield tapped))
Although Manamorphose is the worst card in the deck, you need at least 2 of them. Otherwise it can happen that you can’t cast a Goryo’s Vengeance[/c] mid combo, simply because you have no B Mana. If you are playing more than 2, you can cut the spare ones.
Splice onto Arcane
The Splice mechanic provides some advantages over other classic builds. But first, lets take a look at the mechanic (copied from Through the Breach):
"Splice onto Arcane {2}{R}{R} (As you cast an Arcane spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.)"
This allows us to add an effect of a card with “Splice onto Arcane” on an Arcane spell. This means, we could Splice Through the Breach on a Nourishing Shoal, which actual reduces the cost of Through the Breach by 1. Furthermore, we don’t lose Through the Breach, if the Shoal gets countered, since we just added the effect from it.
What does this mean? It means, that we can cast at end from our opponents turn a Shoal, splice Through the Breach on it and say to our opponents: “Ok, you can counter this one, but I can do the same thing again in my turn”. Because of how counters are in Modern (relative Mana intense), they often can just hold up more than one counter. This is especially true in the first few turns, when they have to play creatures too to get a clock going. In the end, we get a way to force either a Through the Breach or a Goryo’s Vengeance (it has also splice) through the counters of the opponents.
This is already awesome, but there are some more things you can do with splice. Desperate Ritual has also “Splice onto Arcane” and is an Arcane spell. Hence, it can be used as either a way to splice a cheat spell on it, or it can be used mid combo to generate an absurd amount of Mana by splicing it on a Shoal. It may sound cute, but my record is 15 Mana alone from spliced Rituals action.
How to play it
One of the most difficult thing with this deck is to choose when to mulligan and when not. Besides the nut hands (so, Griselbrand, Goryo’s Vengeance, Faithless Looting, Lands and co), there are several things you are looking for. First, does the hand have a combo card (Griselbrand/Wurm or Goryo’s/TTB) in it, has it some forms of draw spells (a combination from Lootings, Night’s Whsipers and Tormenting Voices) and has it lands (preferred Scry lands over Blackcleave Cliffs and rest)? If it has a combination of those cards which fits those criteria, keep it, otherwise ship it.
Also, the sequencing of the Draw spells is also another important point. If you want to get the maximum value, go Temple into Night’s Whisper into Looting, when you need to be fast, go with Looting first. You always have to evaluate how much time you have left (you want to be at least above 8 life or have a Shoal+Wurm in hand and be above 3 life) and then choose the order of how to play your draw spells. If the opponent plays R, calculate with Bolts at your end step.
When you start to combo with Griselbrand, remember something, we only play a finite number of Mana generator. We only have 4 Simian Spirit Guides and 2-3 Desperate Rituals in our deck. So, before you actual start to combo, look at your graveyard/exile zone on how many of those cards you already have used. If you used/pitched already 2 Simian Spirit Guides, 1 Ritual and you are tapped out, you will have a very high chance of fizzling due to not having enough Mana to cast Through the Breach/Goryo’s. Splicing a Ritual on Shoals helps with this problem, so when you have to go off now, splice every Ritual you have on the Shoals to get enough Mana to do your stuff. There is an exception to this rule. When you want to use a Shoal to play around a counter spell, don't splice a Ritual on it, when you want to have the possibility of playing the Cheat spell again this turn.
Also, to see when you should stop drawing cards with Griselbrand and just set up a next turn kill is pure training. A small tip, when you have to go low, which would result a lethal attack from our opponent, it is most of the times not worth it (especially if you used/discarded nearly all of your Shoals/Wurms).
14.03.2015 Creation of the Primer
16.03.2015 Updated/Correction of the Primer
03.04.2015 Look at that awesome Banner and more content for the classic BR version
21.05.2015 Small update (nothing special)
10.06.2015 Updated the All-in versions with Joe Lossetts and Caleb Durwards build. Also more video content/references
23.06.2015 Huge update (Shoal version only)
24.06.2015 Editing some stuff, make things easier to read, added more videos,...
Notes/Work in Progress:
Remaining Match-up Analysis
Better explanation of how to play the single versions
Fantastic primer, the original archived thread got me interested, and I have started playing through the deck.
Given, my local meta is 60% burn so I might have been a little biased (Shoal version)
Awesome job! Was constantly switching between threads, thanks for putting info all together.
I've tried the Ooze and Shoal version so far, and I've found the Shoal version to be more consistent. I'll be playing it in a small local event next thursday, I'll post some match-ups.
I ran a variation on the Shoal build last night. The biggest change was the manabase, which is actually set up to be able to bring in 3 Blood Moons from the sideboard and minimize pain from Shocks in order to keep me above 14 life so I can double draw pre-combat with a Griselbrand.
I lost 0-2 to Twin, having kept 2 marginal hands that just failed to live up to their potential, and running into a never ending suite of Remands and bounce spells to blunt my few attempts to cobble together action. The biggest takeaway from both games was that I should have mulligan-ed more aggressively. Even with Faithless and Night's Whisper and Tormenting Voice, you can't keep hand that's "could maybe get there".
I beat Scapeshift 2-1. First game on the play T2 full Grisel into Borbor combo out for 40. Second game, start with a Leyline, and eventually he finds a cryptic to bounce and scapeshifts off. Supporting Kathal's assertion that the Leylines are a trap. Game 3 I turn 2 Blood Moon, and we spend a long time playing draw go until I can finally cobble together a oneshot sure win through any hate.
Beat UWR control 2-1. First game, he failed to counter an end step Through the Breach for Worldspine Wurm. Second, he curved through an insane number of counters and then killed me with 3 bolts from hand and a Snapcaster. Game 3, splice action burned enough counters and a Shoal'd Borbor kept me alive long enough to finish things off.
Beat Merfolk 2-1. First game just went off on turn 3. Second game, he curved perfectly into an active T4 Thassa with double Lord out, and I never saw a shoal to save myself. Third game, neither of us drew action, but I finally got a Borbor in bin, which did little damage, but cleaned his board of any attempt to get critical mass going and I eventually found a Worldspine to seal the deal.
I've been playing this deck on and off since the release of Modern. Played in a PPTQ yesterday went 1-2 drop. Round 2 and 3 I got both my opponents to 1 in game 3 with Emrakul and couldn't find a Lightning Bolt or another combo. Round three was particularly annoying because my hand was 2 Griselbrand, 2 Emrakul, 1 Goryo's with 4 land in play against Burn with an empty board after an Emrakul swing. I was at 2 life from Eidolon and burn since I can't draw Leyline of Sanctity in the opening 7, and he obviously hit 2 lands and Skullcracked me. Bad beats all day from me and my group that played.
Hey folks. I'm glad to see this thread get a fresh primer, I think it's been long overdue. I recently got 4th place at a modern Win-a-box event, there were ~36 people if I remember right. I can do a brief writeup if people are interested. So far I haven't seen anyone run the exact list I am, so I thought it might help people develop their decks. The Blood Moons are now Rending Volleys.
Fantastic primer, the original archived thread got me interested, and I have started playing through the deck.
Given, my local meta is 60% burn so I might have been a little biased (Shoal version)
I'd like to hear your thoughts. In testing, I've really liked it.
Thank you!
About Summoner's Pact. It is basically the same as Time of Need, but it can't find Griselbrand but finds Wurm. Also it is free but it is horrible to pitch it to a Shoal (can be Spell Snared then and gives no life). Also when you use it you normally have to win on the spot or it can get rather awkward with the paying. I'm sure it is better midcombo when you go off with Griselbrand. I don't know. I have to test it to make a better statement.
I ran a variation on the Shoal build last night. The biggest change was the manabase, which is actually set up to be able to bring in 3 Blood Moons from the sideboard and minimize pain from Shocks in order to keep me above 14 life so I can double draw pre-combat with a Griselbrand.
~report~
Blood Moon is an interesting idea, since we can get it into play on turn 2 and it makes our week match-ups a better (RG Tron isn't that great and Infect can just fold to it. It is also great against random decks like Amulett Bloom). I find myself rarely shocking lower then 15 life. The exception are some early beats from our opp. Have to test Moon (after I test Pact and the Grixis Shoal version).
I've been playing this deck on and off since the release of Modern. Played in a PPTQ yesterday went 1-2 drop. Round 2 and 3 I got both my opponents to 1 in game 3 with Emrakul and couldn't find a Lightning Bolt or another combo. Round three was particularly annoying because my hand was 2 Griselbrand, 2 Emrakul, 1 Goryo's with 4 land in play against Burn with an empty board after an Emrakul swing. I was at 2 life from Eidolon and burn since I can't draw Leyline of Sanctity in the opening 7, and he obviously hit 2 lands and Skullcracked me. Bad beats all day from me and my group that played.
Sadly those things can happen. E.g. I bricked with the Shoal version last time after I drew 35 cards (I had to win that turn) since I couldn't find any Goryo's/Breaches for my Borborygmos.
Hey folks. I'm glad to see this thread get a fresh primer, I think it's been long overdue. I recently got 4th place at a modern Win-a-box event, there were ~36 people if I remember right. I can do a brief writeup if people are interested. So far I haven't seen anyone run the exact list I am, so I thought it might help people develop their decks. The Blood Moons are now Rending Volleys.
~deck~
A report would be awesome! I really like several of your choices (like the Desolated Lighthouse). How did you like the Temples? I know, they are great in the BR version, but I never saw them in the Grixis version.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Blood Moon is an interesting idea, since we can get it into play on turn 2 and it makes our week match-ups a better (RG Tron isn't that great and Infect can just fold to it. It is also great against random decks like Amulett Bloom). I find myself rarely shocking lower then 15 life. The exception are some early beats from our opp. Have to test Moon (after I test Pact and the Grixis Shoal version).
This is the 75 I played. The Moon variation came about when I played a practice game the week before and my opponent sided in Blood Moons against me. I shrugged, having already had a single swamp and forest from previous fetches on table. Afterwards we got to discussing, and realized the deck only ever really needs 1 black and 2 red to function at peak efficiency, between the SSGs, Manamorphose, and the fact you rarely, if ever, hard cast Shoals. It took about 2 minutes effort to add a few extra basics and fetches, strip out the 2 filters and the extra shocks, and suddenly the manabase was a lot less painful and supported playing Blood Moon.
It does help with a few marginal matchups, and does give you a large degree of "gotcha" in game 2, as very few decks expect it out of this sort of deck. Sadly, it doesn't really help the absolute worst matchup (Twin). But that's why I've got multiple Abrupts and Combusts in the side.
I don't find the Twin match-up that bad. In matches I'm 9-2, and the of the game losses was my fault (didn't want to play anymore and I was thinking I didn't had a chance for prices). It just requires some testing and you have to know what your goal is.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Instead of Combust try Rakdos Charm, since it is a Win-con against Twin.
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
So a little on my card choices that I haven't seen others running. First, I'm running one less Through the Breach. Through the Breach is more of a backup wincon. It resets your graveyard if you hit an Emrakul and costs significantly more than the primary combo (Faithless Looting + Goryo's Vengeance). Its upside is that you can cast it at the end of your opponents turn and keep that creature around. For consistency reasons I went to 3. I also cut Pentad Prism. The card is slow, clunky, does nothing to further our boardstate, graveyard, or hand, and dies to tons of removal like mainboard abrupt decays, which usually have no other target. I also cut down on my Fury of the Horde. This is also for consistency reasons. I found that the other versions of the deck were drawing dead hands too easily. To help combat this, I added four Serum Visions. It's the best card draw/fixing spell blue has access to. In early versions it was a Peer Through the Depths, but that can't find our bombs. Eventually it became Telling Time, but Serum Visions just does Telling Time's job better. For lands I added a Desolate Lighthouse and three Temples. The temples are currently on my watch list, but so far they've been helpful. They're a nice t1 if you don't have a Serum Visions or Thoughtseize, since t1 Faithless Looting is usually risky. Desolate Lighthouse gives me a little bit of reach with the loot ability. So far it's been great, I've never had a problem with it interfering with my mana fixing. I highly recommend it.
A brief note before I begin my report. So far my lowest win % is vs. Twin. The players I am playing against have adapted to Rakdos charm to the point where it almost does nothing. Because of all the direct damage and self-inflicted damage I take, they usually have a higher life total. I am considering replacing it with something else.
Match 1: Affinity
I find this matchup to be our easiest. Emrakul sets them back incredibly far. Many decks don't have the interaction required to stop us. In the sideboard I bring in Rakdos Charms for Cranial Platings and Anger of the Gods for a boardwipe. Normally I'll take out 4 Thoughtseize, but I have also taken out 3 Izzet Charms and a single Thoughtseize.
Our game one was over quickly. He won the dice roll, played out most of his hand t2. On my turn, I exiled a simian spirit guide, faithless looting'd an Emrakul, goryo's and he scooped. Game 2 went similarly, with Emrakul coming down t3 for the win.
Match 2: Abzan
This matchup is incredibly close. They have tokens of hand disruption, which can really mess with our plans. I'm tempted to take out Emrakuls against them, but then I fear I'd never be able to win. Lingering Souls can be a pain in the ass if we don't get a t2/t3/t4 emrakul on them. They chump incredibly well. Griselbrand is stronger against them, since he still lets you draw cards.
Game one went great for me. I get an early Griselbrand and hit him once to set up an Emrakul through the Breach. Game two and three, he stripped my hand into nothing. Getting Emrakul thoughtseize'd is rarely what we want. Against them I sided in Blood Moon (backfired game Two), and two Pack Rats in game three. I'm still getting used to using Pack Rat and when to bring them in, but I didn't get to see them game three.
Match 3: ???
I forgot, sorry haha. It was a while ago. I won this game, and I remember him being salty about it. The affinity player from earlier was complaining with him about the speed and consistency of my deck. Felt good.
Match 4: Bolt
I still need more practice in this matchup, but I think its favorable. Griselbrand can buy us time very effectively, but it can really come down to draws.
Game One I resolve an Emrakul and wipe her board of three lands and two eidolons. She loses shortly after. Game two, I side in two Chalice of the Void. I hit her with an early Emrakul, then play a Chalice on 1 the next turn. The next 20+ turns are painful as neither of us draw anything. Eventually I hit a Through the Breach and finish her with a Griselbrand.
Match 5: Ad Nauseam
This matchup was horrifying. My sideboard tech was Chalice on 0 and a prayer. I considered Rakdos Charm, but it was about the race, not stopping him. I think that now having four mainboard Thoughtseize will help.
Game One I get him with an early Griselbrand Fury Fury. Game two he Lotus Blooms past my Izzet Charm and hits me with a Lightning Storm(?) for lethal. Game three I hit him with an Emrakul to clear his board, and another Emrakul later to finish him. This matchup was purely about speed. I desperately dug through my deck for the fastest answer. I have no plans to include cards for this matchup.
Top 8 Cut: Affinity
Solidly in the top 8, I get to play the Affinity player I beat round one. He was less than happy about this. He gets me to 5 in game one, but I quickly griselbrand + fury + fury him. In the second game he gets to 33 life and I am down to 4. I emrakul him and he sticks on one permanent for a while. Eventually I hit him with another emrakul, but he refuses to scoop. I topdeck a Through the Breach and finish him with a Griselbrand. The salt flowed.
Looking at the rest of the top 8, my options were either Twin, Twin, Twin, or BW Tokens. None of those matchups are ones I enjoy. The Twin player beat the Twin player, and the Twin player beat the BW tokens player. I had to play the (Arguably) best player in my state on the twin Matchup. I completely psyched myself out. I got two warnings, one was going to be a game loss but my opponent appealed it. Allegedly I scooped early game one, but I couldn't tell. I threw the last matchup. Oops. I went home with 3rd/4th.
Against Twin, I brought in Boseiju. Now that we have Rending Volley, I would bring in both.
I've never done a tournament report before, sorry if it was a little hasty.
Private Mod Note
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Decks:
Ghave, the Guru of Spores
Mayael the Anima
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
I tried Dysent's Midrange Shoal list, with the Tasigurs, basically exactly as written but for extra basics and fewer shocks to facilitate a sideboard package of 3 Blood Moons over the Pack Rats.
I started very strong, with back to back 2-0 victories over Affinity and UWR Geist Midrange. Kills ranged from turn 2 to 6-ish. Thrun from the side did show up against UWR, and did a marvelous job of thumbing his nose at Path and Counters for 2 turns while I built up to being able to play through potential counters.
Round 3 was Infect, which I expected to be a fairly bad matchup. Game 1 I went off on turn 2 and just won. Game 2 he had a hand with multiple pump spells and a T1 Gitaxian Probe that let him play around my potential T2 Blood Moon by fetching his one basic and playing a Hierarch, and I died on his turn 4 before I could untap and breach. Game 3 I unfortunately stalled without black mana, having a Goryo's in hand and a Griselbrand in the bin on T1. The match was more winnable than I thought, but ultimately, sometimes you lose to things like mana screw and other linear decks drawing what they need at the right time.
Round 4 was Sultai Control, similar but not identical to the Fabiano list. Game 1, as was par for the tourney, I smoked him on turn 2 or 3 with the full shoal-driven combo.
The next 2 games were ridiculous grindfests, as both games he exactly had enough mana and an Abrupt in hand to stop early Blood Moons that would have completely crippled his deck with only 3 basics and heavy color commitment. Game 2 he failed to draw a threat for about 10 turns, but instead drew every land and counterspell in his deck, then finally a few snap casters for more counters. Splice onto Arcane kept me in it for that long, but eventually after about the 11th counter I ran out of gas, and his Murderous Cut killed my Tasigur, and the Ashiok finally got up to 11 and ulted, clearing my hand and bin and any hope of winning.
Game 3 was similar, though slightly faster, as he did finally get a Hooting Mandrils in play to provide a clock. I stalled on 4 lands, without seeing a Shoal to splice on. Finally got a Goryos and then made a subtle mistake of choosing to draw 7 when at 14 before combat, rather than after. He Cut in response, and as a result I couldn't draw into Shoals over the top to keep going to set up for the full combo kill. Had I attacked first, I could have responded to the cut with draw and drawn into a shoal match to the Wurm in hand to draw another 14 and probably complete the combo kill. But instead all it could do was stem the bleeding for a few turns. Tasigur tried to whittle down the board on defense, while running spliced breaches into remands, mana leaks, and snapcasters, but eventually Tasi had to trade with a Thragtusk, and I ran out of life and died.
The other possible mistake was not boarding in Leylines. Games 2 and 3, multiple Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes did slow me down, though they didn't ever remove anything critical. It's possible that without those, I might have had the speed to power through the counter wall.
All in all I liked the midrange version. Tasigur was only really super awesome in the BUG matchup, but when he was, he was great. I cast him a few other times, but usually it was more case of hedging bets when I went off the normal route. I'm considering jiggering the sideboard around to keep the Tasigurs there for matchups where I need the grinding attrition, and bringing back a few Tormenting Voice or Night's Whisper main. I definitely did notice the lack of draw and discard power without those, though Time of Need did prove itself, in combination with Tasigur (1BG to fetch and play on T3 after a T1 Faithless and some fetches felt amazing).
Durward's been toying with this deck on and off for a while. The 5-0 deck list is actually a somewhat interesting evolution of where he's been, in that it forgoes any sort of Fury/Spike/Shoal package for pure hand disruption.
The thing that strikes me about this deck is that it's plan to deal with resistance is to go very long. The classic RB and Grixis builds usually try to go under, winning before the opponent can possibly mount enough hate to matter, and finishing in a single flurry. The shoal version just bullies through, relying on splice and lots of life gain to batter down resistance, and having a similar combo finish most often. This version, with a full 10 maindeck sources of discard and no combo finish is just going strip the opponent of any way to fight back and then plop a fatty out when it's clearly safe to do so.
I wonder how often he actually got to use the Quicksilver Amulets. I've played with it before, but it usually ended up being sub par in the lists I had put it in. Ate a lot of artifact removal, and I rarely got to untap with it. But again, with all that disruption, he's clearly settling in for a longer game, so playing this on turn 4 or even earlier (via SSG and/or Prism) and then eventually untapping and dropping a permanent Emrakul seems like an okay line.
The mana base is a bit interesting. I've been running a Blood Moon-enabling mana base in 3 colors, but clearly doing it in 2 is better. Normally I'd be pretty down on the quantity of Temples and Fast lands, as the blitz style combo does not want that many lands which risk coming into play tapped. But, again, all the discard suddenly changes the math a fair bit.
Overall an interesting take, and worth further exploration. Other than fiddling with the lands, my first gut reaction is to drop the 2 tormenting voices for a third each of Liliana and Pentad Prism. I like Voice, but it's main attraction over something like Night's Whisper is the discard outlet, which another Liliana provides, and she's clearly super value in a deck like this. The extra Prism also helps with speed, giving you interesting turn 3 plays more frequently. Amulet and Breach are both much better on 3 than on 4.
I'm also intrigued by the idea of marrying this to the shoal package. Getting up to a full 10 discard would be hard, given the extra room the Shoal package needs for support, like Manamorphose, but you could probably get in 7 or 8 with minimal sacrifice. 2 Lilianas and a 3/2 split of some combination of Duress, Inquisition and Thoughtseize ought to give you a pretty solid plan for dealing with combo/critical mass decks and help significantly against counterspell decks. You've now got an absolute ton of endurance to power through with, between the splicing tricks and the discard package.
Another week of 2-2. Same Midrange Shoal version, with 2 Night's Whispers removed for a singleton Quicksilver Amulet (to give that another try) and a singleton Lighting Axe (as a source of instant speed discard in order to bin a Borborygmos mid-combo for just R).
First loss was a BGw deck that I kind of liked the look of. Raven's Crime, Loam, Liliana, Lingering Souls, Bloodghast, The Rack, Smallpox Inquisition and Thoughtseize, Ensnaring Bridge. Sort of 8Rack meets LoamPox, with a dash of classic Junk. Needless to say, he trashed my hand quite thoroughly both games. 4 Leylines out of the side only help if you get them in your opener, but not if you see 3 of them in the first 7 you draw instead after mulling to 5 looking for them.
The loss to burn was a bit disheartening, as game 3 I went off to try to beat a lethal suspended Rift Bolt. But unusually, I fizzled, having to use my 3rd shoal for X=2 with a manamorphose just to get to 8 be able to draw 7 more, and then whiffing on a shoal in the 7 drawn (but of course getting the Worldspine I needed for the previous shoal). It's pretty damn rare to fizzle once you've drawn your first 7, but I was low enough to have to attack to draw, and not to be able to get an extra 7 for padding and didn't get lucky enough to chain multiple Wurm shoals to dig out of the hole.
The highlight of the night was game 2 against UWR Twin. On the draw, I keep Shoal, Wurm, Borborygmos, Griselbrand, SSG, Goryo, Bloodstained. He plays Colonnade, and passes. Draw, pass, discarding Griselbrand. Turn 2 he shocks on Sacred Foundry to represent counter mana, and passes back. I play the land, go to end step. He takes the opportunity to try and Helix me. Since he's tapped out I tank for a minute and then YOLO. With the Helix still on the stack at end step, I go off. Crack Mire for Swamp, SSG into Goryo's, draw 14, shoal for 11, draw 14, Exile 2 SSGs, Shoal for 8 splicing Desperate ritual, draw 7, Ritual, Shoal for 11 splicing Breach for Borby, draw 7 more cards. After drawing 42 cards and losing 42 life (and gaining 30), win by dealing 36 damage with 12 lands to the face. The Helix still on the stack would have been lethal at resolution several times during the combo had I been forced to stop.
Plays like that are what make this one of the decks I keep coming back to.
3-0-1 last night, would of 4-0'd, but I played a friend and split. We played for fun anyway and I crushed him 2-0.
Round 1(B/G Tron)
2-0
Game 1: My opponent had to mulligan to 5 and still only had 1 land. Didn't hit his second land until turn 5 or 6 and I breached in Griselbrand and killed him.
Game 2: I brought in Blood Moon, Shattering Spree and Rakdos Charm. I casted Blood Moon on 2 and we did nothing for the next 4 turns. Turn 6 he played this 6th land, played Wurmcoil, passed. I was looking for a Through the Breach or Goryo's and still hadn't found it. Turn 7, he casted Karn Liberated, exiled Blood Moon, attacked for 6. On my turn I drew the Goryo's, attacked, drew 7, Faithless Looting discarding Emrakul and reanimated him, casted Fury of the Horde to kill him.
Round 2(Jund Loam)
2-1
Game 1: We both went to 6. Turn 1 I cast Thoughtseize and saw Abrupt Decay x2, Zombie Infestation, Go For the Throat, Land, Murderous Cut. Took Go For the Throat and passed. We went back and forth doing nothing other than both casting our draw spells. Eventually I went off killed my Griselbrand, I drew 7 in response and set it up again for next turn and killed him.
Game 2: I brought in Rakdos Charm, Abrupt Decay x2, Shattering Spree, Leyline of Sanctity x3. He got a turn 2 Zombie Infestation down, made a zombie discarding 2 Firemane Angel, played some Bloodghasts while I drew nothing relevant until I was nearly dead. I had to Goryo's in Griselbrand to gain some life and hopefully set up the kill, but missed.
Game 3 I had a decent had minus a reanimation spell. Drew into a Through the Breach, was hit with Smallpox twice, eventually got to 5 land, breached in Emrakul to clear his board, then drew into a Griselbrand combo to kill him a few turns later.
Round 3(R/G Tron)
2-0
Game 1: My opponent keeps a 1 land hand with Relic of Progenitus, gets punished and never draws his next land until I breach in Griselbrand and kill him.
Game 2: Again, turn 1 Relic of Progenitus, but he actually has lands this game. I Blood Moon him on turn 3, he eventually Nature's Claims it. I breach in Emrakul, clear his board, we start over again. He has 2 pieces of Tron, Grove of the Burnwillows and Expedition Map. He plays map, and passes. I have Rakdos Charm in hand, don't destroy the Map because I forget he has the other 2 pieces of tron already. We play draw-go until he has Tron, plays a Karn, +4, I have 3 cards in hand still(Rakdos Charm, Through the Breach, Fury of the Horde) I give him Fury of the Horde. I draw nothing for my turn, he +4's Karn again and gets Rakdos Charm, then plays another Karn for another +4 and gets something irrelevant. I still have my Through the Breach, draw Emrakul for the turn and my friend behind me just starts laughing.
Round 4(Merfolk)
Split, I actually won 2-0 though.
Game 1: I don't really remember. I think I got a Griselbrand in through his double Vapor Snags somehow.
Game 2: I bring in Boseiju, Defense Grid x2, Pyroclasm x2. He plays Aethervial, passes. I play Boseiju, pass. He casts Spreading Seas on Boseiju, passes. I play a Blackcleave and cast Faithless Looting discarding irrelevant stuff and pass, exile Spirit Guide and play Defense Grid. He plays a Silvergil showing Master of the Pearl Trident and misses his third land. I play a land, and can breach in an Emrakul next turn. I breach in Emrakul, clear his board and put him to 5 and pass. He doesn't hit a land and passes. I draw Faithless Looting and draw Simian Spirit Guide and Lightning Bolt and play Spirit Guide. He misses a land again and passes. I attack with Spirit Guide and Lighting Bolt him for the win.
Thanks to traprootkami, for this awesome banner.
----1) History of Griselbrand Reanimator
The original deck idea was developed in Legacy, where the deck is called Tin Fins. The goal of the deck is to reanimate Griselbrand, who is basically a Yawgmoth's Bargain on a 7/7 lifelink body, with either Shallow Grave or Goryo's Vengeance and then draw a bunch of cards and win via a lethal Tendrils of Agony.
Modern doesn't have the tools for a Tendrils kill, since most cards are not Modern legal. Because a Storm based killcondition is not possible in Modern a different way to win was needed. People found Soul Spike and Fury of the Horde which allows us to chain attack steps and keep drawing cards with Griselbrand till the opponent is dead.
For increased consistency people added Through the Breach and Emrakul, the Aeons torn, so the first Modern Tin Fins list was born:
4 Marsh Flats
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Blood Crypt
4 Mountain
5 Swamp
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
//Creatures
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Thoughtseize
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Axe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Night's Whisper
2 Pentad Prism
4 Through the Breach
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Slagstorm
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Slaughter Games
The first notable finish was at Grand Prix Yokohama (23-24.06.2012) from Victor Mayor Redondo.
4 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Isolated Chapel
4 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//13 creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Griselbrand
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
2 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Zombie Infestation
3 Lingering Souls
2 Unburial Rites
//3 planeswalkers
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Pyroclasm
3 Blood Moon
4 Through the Breach
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
----2) Different Builds of Griselbrand Reanimator
At the moment there are 4 ways to building this deck. The first one is the classic Griselbrand/Emrakul Plan, which is either the All-in versions (BR or 5c), the classic Grixis version, then there is Necrotic Ooze build, the new Nourishing Shoal build and the Tin Fists version:
3 Graven Cairns
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Blood Crypt
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
2 Mountain
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
3 Lightning Axe
4 Night's Whisper
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Pentad Prism
4 Through the Breach
3 Fury of the Horde
Deck Tech
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Lands
1 Swamp
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Gemstone Mine
3 City of Brass
3 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Faithless Looting
2 Pull from Eternity
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Izzet Charm
3 Pentad Prism
3 Serum Powder
1 Eerie Procession
4 Through the Breach
2 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Fury of the Horde
1 Gemstone Mine
4 Silence
3 Thoughtseize
3 Torpor Orb
1 Back to Nature
1 Pyroclasm
2 Leyline of Sanctity
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8156&d=246964&f=MO
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Gemstone Mine
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Spells
4 Faithless Looting
3 Thoughtseize
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Izzet Charm
4 Pentad Prism
1 See Beyond
4 Through the Breach
4 Fury of the Horde
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroclasm
3 Torpor Orb
2 Negate
A more up-to-date list and the current stock version:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=82725
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Izzet Charm
4 Through the Breach
4 Fury of the Horde
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Dragon's Claw
2 Echoing Truth
1 Liliana of the Veil
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8873&d=250609&f=MO
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Copperline Gorge
1 Blood Crypt
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
2 Borborygmos Enraged
//Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Axe
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Zombie Infestation
1 Jarad's Orders
1 Unburial Rites
4 Soul Spike
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Thoughtseize
4 Pack Rat
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Reclamation Sage
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Temple of Malice
2 Blood Crypt
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Mountain
5 Swamp
//Creature
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Borborygmos Enraged
4 Griselbrand
4 Worldspine Wurm
1 Noxious Revival
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Night's Whisper
4 Nourishing Shoal
2 Tormenting Voice
2 Manamorphose
2 Desperate Ritual
4 Through the Breach
3 Pact of Negation
1 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroclasm
1 Defense Grid
1 Torpor Orb
4 Blood Moon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Griselbrand
1 Borborygmos Enraged
4 Worldspine Wurm
//Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Manamorphose
4 Nourishing Shoal
4 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Time of Need
2 Night's Whisper
1 Desperate Ritual
4 Through the Breach
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Stomping Ground
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Pact of Negation
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pack Rat
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Gemstone Mine
3 City of Brass
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Watery Grave
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Island
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Spells
4 Serum Visions
4 Faithless Looting
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Thoughtseize
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Izzet Charm
4 Fist of Suns
1 Through the Breach
----3) Differences between the versions
Content:
BR Howltooth version videos
General stuff
PRO:
+ Extremely streamlined
+ Enough flex spots for personal adjustment
+ MD interaction in form of Discard, burn and counter spells in the Grixis version
CON:
- Relies on the Combat step, therefore bad against Twin
- Soft against mixed interaction (counters+removal for Griselbrand e.g.)
Joe Lossett played a new version of the All-In version at the Season 2 SCG Invitational. Although I think that his take has potential, it still needs a ton of tuning. The main plan with this version is, to get a perfect starting hand vie Serum Powder and Mulligans, which increases the chance of a turn 2 win. To compensate the problem with Powder (exiling all Griselbrands/Emrakuls) he runs 2 Pull from Eternity. Pull in combination with Powder is basically a entomb (depending on what you have exiled). Also it allows you to get back pathed Griselbrands or exiled cards with Fury of the Horde (it is a rather fringe use, but you never know). An interesting side note is, that this deck likes to go second. One of it main weaknesses is, that you run a number of dead cards in your deck, which you never want to draw beside in the opening hand when you want to mulligan (namely Serum Powder). To compensate this he runs the full 8 looting effects (Faithless Looting and Izzet Charm). In the end, I haven't played the version yet, so I can't make any specific statements about his version.
Also Caleb Durward plays a more controlling version of the classic BR Version. He replaced the Fury of the Hordes with Lillian of the Veil, giving the deck a better plan B (or overall the possibility for a plan B). Also, his version always run several discard spells MD (around 6), improving the twin match-up by a ton. The backswing of these changes are, that the deck got slower than the other versions and a resolved Griselbrand is just a draw engine (still a super powerful draw engine but you can't kill the opponent from just a Griselbrand). He plays here a daily with the deck.
You can find more content to his version on his Channel Fireball channel: http://www.channelfireball.com/author/caleb-durward/
For more information look up this deck tech.
PRO:
+ Can win without the Combatstep
+ Has an engine with Necrotic Ooze
+ Can play some form of interaction
CON:
- Extremely Graveyard dependent
- Engine is soft to Removal and Counters
- relies on chained Soul Spikes to be able to draw more cards
This is the newest version of the deck. It cuts down on interaction to be able to play Nourishing Shoal. This card provides some utility which can't be found elsewhere. First, combined with a expensive spell it allows you to chain draws with Griselbrand, second Shoal itself is an Arcane card. This means, that you are able to splice Goryo's Vengeance, Through the Breach and Desperate Ritual on it - hence, you are able to play around 1 counterspell without a problem (EOT of your opponent, Shoal pitch something splice Goryo's, opponent Remands/Mana Leaks it, you untap and cast Goryo's again, to go absolute crazy). The big problem is, that you need a quantity of spells in your deck to find something to pitch. Furthermore, it should have high CMC for more lifegain but it should also be useful with a Through the Breach. The only 2 cards which fits those criteria are Worldspine Wurm and Borborygmos Enraged. The first one replaces Emrakul, loosing Annihilator is rough, but not shuffling the whole graveyard back into the library is a huge plus. Furthermore, it leaves 3 5/5 Wurm tokens, which should be enough to close out the game. The second one provides us with a wincondition, which doesn't require the combat step.
Other informations:
Mini deck tech + basic information
Modern Daily with the deck + Deck Tech
A small deck introduction (no deck tech)
Feature match - Round 5 Jacob Wilson GP Copenhagen
Feature match - Round 9 William Jensen GP Copenhagen
PRO:
+ Can win without the Combatstep
+ Can win at instant speed without using the Graveyard
+ Is able to abuse the Splice mechanic, therefore can play reasonably around counterspells
+ Is able to draw the whole library with Griselbrand
CON:
- Can't use Emrakul MD
- Not many flexslots
- Can't play interaction MD
This version was piloted by Zach Jesse to a Top 8 at GP Charlotte and Bob Huang piloted it to a Top 64 at Charlotte. One week later, Jacob Wilson piloted it to a Top 16 finish at GP Copenhagen.
For more information look up those links:
Short deck tech with Jan Van der Vegt
Tin Fists - Deck Tech and more
PRO:
+ Has a option to hardcast Emrakul on Turn 4/5
+ Has best Sideboard options, since 5c
+ Can play reasonably around counterspells via Fist of Suns
CON:
- Is extremely soft to land-hate
- Relies on the combat step
- Is affected by artifact hate and Abrupt Decay which are otherwise dead cards
----4) Card choices
Boseiju, who shelters All
You want to play Boseiju in a Control heavy metagame since it allows you to force your Through the Breach/Goryo's Vengeance through their countermagic. But beware, you don't want to take too much damage from Boseiju. You often need more than 14 life to reliable kill an opponent.
Cavern of Souls
Cavern is kinda Boseiju. You want to play Cavern in a counterspell heavy metagame, so that you can cast your Necrotic Ooze without worrying about counterspells. Play this only in the Necrotic Ooze version.
Pact of Negation
There is a simple rule for Pact: Normally you will never be able to pay for it so you have to make sure to win the turn when you need it. I would only play the Pact in the All in versions or in the SB (if you can grantee a win this turn).
Faithless Looting aka Looting
All star in this deck. It provides us with a cheap discard outlet for Goryo's Vengeance and it has even Flashback. Furthermore, it increases the R count for Fury of the Hordes.
Serum Vision
Best blue Cantrip which is still Modern legal. If you are playing blue, you want to play it.
Thoughtseize
Best discard spell for this deck. It can be used to get rid of counterspells or problematic cards from your opponent. Furthermore, it can be used as a discard outlet (you can target yourself). The problem is, that you can't afford that much lifeloss. In most versions you want to stay over 14 life, sometimes even higher when you want to play around Burn.
Lightning Bolt or
The best red spell in Modern, good old Bolt. The reason of the 2 different ratings is simple. In lists without Soul Spike and Shoal you want to run Bolts since a single swing of Emrakul is often not enough (most opponents will have between 16 and 18 life). Bolt provides in those list a simple win con with Emrakul. In the other versions Lightning Bolt isn't required. It also lost a lot of importance since the banning of Deathrite Shaman, which was a pain in the ass for this deck.
Lightning Axe
Cheap discard outlet with a decent effect on its own. Was more important in the Deathrite Shaman era.
Goryo's Vengeance
What should I say? This little card allows us to play this deck. Turn 1 Looting into Turn 2 reanimate Griselbrand into kill aren't that rare. Since, it is an Instant it allows you to cast it in the end of turn of your opponent and go into your turn with a Legendary Creature of your choice (the Oracle text changed to clarify this. You have to exile the Creature at the beginning of the end step, since you are already in the end step, the effect of Goryo's Vengeance will trigger in the next end step). Also it has Splice on Arcane, which gets abused in the Shoal versions of the deck.
Izzet Charm
This card is the reason to go into Blue. It gives you more looting effects at instant speed, a 2 damage removal for Scavenging Ooze, Affinity Creature with Plating or random Noble Hierachs. Also the Spell Pierce can be used in a counter war (if you have the 2 mana spare), to counter hate cards (Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Ground Seal, Relic of Progenitus,....). Overall a great card.
Tormenting Voices
A better wild guess. Often, you need a critical number of cards in your hand (like Ramp in form of SSG/Prism/Ritual, Breach and Creature) that you can't afford to discard a single card. Furthermore, discarding a card as additional cost can be pretty rough against Remand. Another problem is, that it doesn't allow you to get rid of a freshly drawn Griselbrand (if you have a Goryo's in hand). Also, these type of cards doesn't allow you to recover against a discard heavy hand from your opponent, therefore you shouldn't play 8 Looting effects. This card is better in a Fury/Soul Spike versions, since these cards are dead in your hand and you only want to draw them via Griselbrand in the combo turn.
Night's Whisper
If you aren't playing blue, this is the draw spell to go. It allows you to recover against Discard and an upticking Lilliana of the Veil. The lifeloss can make an impact in the game, but it is the best card draw available. Also, you want to play Night's Whisper over Sign in Blood since it is easier to cast.
See Beyond
This card is decent in a Fury/Soul Spike version, since it can get rid of those pre a Griselbrand Combo Turn without actually losing the card.
Taigam's Scheming
A recent addition in the blue filtering options. Looking 5 deep and pitch the bad cards or the Griselbrand to reanimate makes it pretty good. The only problem is, that it doesn't provide any CA, just CQ.
Anticipate
New card from Dragons of Tarkir. A weaker Impulse but it still makes a good job at finding stuff. I don't know, if it is better than Forbidden Alchemy or the other options. Has to be tested to make a more exact statement.
Grisly Salvage (Necrotic Ooze version only)
The best cantrips in the Necrotic Ooze version. If you want to play the Necrotic Ooze version, run the Playset, since it finds you the Oozes or the land to cast stuff (you never want a Griselbrand in hand, since the Ooze lists don't run any Breaches). Also it fills the graveyard pretty fast, so that you find your Griselbrand/Borborygmos faster.
Manamorphose
On its own a pretty bad card. It is a free cycling which fixes your mana. It is required, when you are drawing a bunch of cards when you are tapped out and use some Simian Spirit Guide, Looting and a Goryo's to get a Creature of your choice back (you need to convert into mana). Also you need to run some amount of Manamorphoses in the Shoal version, since you need a minimum count in your deck to have a pitch card for Shoal.
Time of Need
Time of Need is an interesting card. It allows you to run some amount of utility legendary creatures in the maindeck such as Tasigur, the golden Fang and still be able to find them if you need them. Also it finds Griselbrand and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. It can also find some Silver bullets for the post SB games, such as Thrun, the Last Troll against Control decks.
Nourishing Shoal or
When you want to play this card, it is an commitment. You need at least 14 cards preboard to have a card to pitch for Shoal. If you don't want to run that many cards, don't play it, it is just plain bad then.
Pentad Prism
The only decent Manaramp in Modern besides SSG. Played on Turn 2 it allows you to Through the Breach on Turn 3, if you hit all landdrops. Also, it gives you the option of hardcasting Griselbrand on Turn 4 of 2 Prism. In the classic BR and Grixis version you want some amount of Prism, the Ooze and Shoal version don't need it/doesn't have the spare slots.
Desperate Ritual
On its own a pretty bad card. Casting this and splicing it with a Through the Breach or Goryo's Vengeance the card gets suddenly good, since you don't lose the Breach/Goryo's if the opponent counters the Ritual. It also provides you with some utility in the Shoal versions, since you can splice it on a Shoal to generate enough mana for a breached Creature which matters against onboard Graveyard hate.
Zombie Infestation
This card should only be played in the Necrotic Ooze versions, since it provides a cheap and recurring discard outlet, which that version needs.
Sylvan Caryatid and co or
In the Tin Fist version you need some kind of mana fixing, since you want to have excess to all 5 colours on turn 4 to use it for Fist of Suns. In all other version this kind is to slow, if you want some kind of ramp go with Pentad Prism.
Eerie Procession
The tutor effect for our Arcane spells. If you want to play more cheating effects, go with this one if you are in blue. Furthermore, it is an Arcane spell so it can be used for splicing Ritual, Goryo's or Breach.
Footsteps of the Goryo
Another reanimate spell. It provides some utility, since it is an arcane spell but it has 2 huge problems, first, it is sorcery and second, it doesn't give the creature haste. If you want to play a fifth Reanimate spell in the Shoal version or in a non list, go with this one, but I wouldn't play it.
Fist of the Suns
One of the centrepieces of Tin Fists. It allows you to actually cast Emrakul for only 5 mana which is gg against most decks. It starts by getting the extra turn (you actually cast Emrakul) and ends most of the time with a single swing, since Emrakul takes often the whole board with him. The big problem is, that Fist of the Suns pushes you to a 5c Manabase, which makes you vulnerable to Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge and Blood Moon. Also a single Spreeding Sea can slow you down for several turns. Furthermore, you have to play more lands than the other versions, since you have to hit your land drops. Another big problem is, that the Manabase is quite painful (you have to play some number of City of Brass/Mana Confluence) which is bad in a aggro heavy metagame.
Forbidden Alchemy
Looking 5 cards deep, get the best one and put the rest into the graveyard is incredible strong in this deck. The problems with this card are, that it costs 3 mana, is blue and you have to take Emrakul, because otherwise he will shuffle your graveyard back into the library. A card you might want to test in a blue version.
Necrotic Ooze
Necrotic Ooze enables to win without a Goryo's Vengeance on Griselbrand since he gets the ability from creatures in all graveyards. With a Griselbrand in the Graveyard you can chain draws, shoot Soul Spikes and eventually reanimate Griselbrand for the win. You can also the ability of Borborygmos Enraged to shoot all drawn lands, so you can win without the combat step which matters against Ensnaring Bridge, Ghostly Prision and Twin-Creatures. Also, costing 4 mana is nice, since he can dodge Abrupt Decay. His biggest problem is its 3 toughness, so it dies to Lightning Bolt, one of the most played cards in the format. Another big problem is, that he depends heavy on the graveyard, since single Rest in Peace shuts him down. Otherwise, he has some nice utility, since you can also use the activated abilities from you opponent graveyard. This can be used to generate mana if there is a Noble Hierarch/Birds of Paradise, you can eat stuff with a Scavenging Ooze in the graveyard or other cards with activated abilities (Spellskite, Pack Rat,...).
Jarad's Orders
A four mana hard tutor for both combo parts in the Necrotic Ooze version. It finds the Ooze and the Griselbrand. The big problem with this card is, that is extremely slow (sets up a Turn 5 kill) and getting it Remanded makes things even worse.
Makeshift Mannequin
Another reanimate spell. Since it is instant and can target any creature it provides some utility with Worldspine Wurm, but setting this up cost 5 Mana (Looting+Mannequin).
Through the Breach
Through the Breach is the second combo card in this deck. Although costing 5 mana a Turn 4 Griselbrand/Worldspine Wurm/Emrakul of any kind of ramp (SSG, Pentad Prism or traditional ramp) is most of the time enough. It can also be spliced for only 4 mana, which allows some turn 3 plays in the Shoal version. It also does something, which Goryo's Vengeance doesn't do, it sacrifices the creature at the beginning of the endstep instead of exiling it. Therefore a Griselbrand can be used twice, a Worldspine Wurm leaves his 5/5 buddies and Emrakul shuffles him and the graveyard back into the library.
Tasigur, the golden Fang
Tasigur gives the deck suddenly a Midrange creature, which can stall in the BGx match-ups or can even race an opponent. Her ability also provides some utility in getting back good stuff (we have few true dead card in versions with Tasigur and those can be delved away). He gets even better with Time of Need since you can play a 2/2 split and still have 4 copies of him in the deck while you also increases the chance to of getting SB bombs like Thrun, the last Troll and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Soul Spike
It is a mulligan in your opening hand, but great when you draw it from a Griselbrand. This is a pure combo card with Griselbrand, without him the card is basically dead (there can be situations where you can use it after getting a Emrakul in play, but those hands are pretty rare). Also the card asks for a good quantity of cards in your deck. I don't know the exact amount of cards needed, but it is likely to be at least 16 to get the 2 pitch cards in 7 draws of Griselbrand. This card gets played in the Classic BR version and also in the Necrotic Ooze lists, since both version can provide the count for this card.
Fury of the Horde
Fury is the same case as Soul Spike, good with Griselbrand otherwise dead and you need a good quantity of cards. This card sees play in the traditional BR and Grixis version.
Griselbrand
This card is the main reason beside Breach and Goryo's why the deck even exists. Cheating him into play as soon as Turn 2 (there are cases, when you can reanimate him on Turn 1, but those require a 6 card hand, where only 1 card is redundant) and start chaining draws via Fury, Spikes or Shoals can win you the game on the spot. Also, just cheating him into play to block a Goyf and draw 14 cards is a reasonable move, since you can set up for a kill for next turn. You have to play 4, if you can't afford it, you can't play this deck (he is as essential as Valakut for Scapeshift).
Borborygmos Enraged
This guy only sees play in the Shoal and the Ooze versions. In those versions he provides an instant way to win the game without involving the combat step (looking at you Ensnaring Bridge, Ghostly Prision and Twin-Creatures). Furthermore, reanimating him in the early turns to find lands/creatures can be a good play.
Worldspine Wurm
The reason why the Shoal version is that good is this card. There are 2 ways to use this card, first one is to pitch it for a Nourishing Shoal to gain 11 life and thus allows you to draw even more cards with Griselbrand. The second way is to breach him in play and swing for 15. When you have to sacrifice him eot he is so nice and leaves you 3 5/5 trample buddies which are likely to kill the opponent, if he isn't already dead. Against Twin, you want to breach him in in the second mainphase of the opponent, so that the opponent can't just tap the big wurm which basically results in a fog. Therefore, you can still attack with 10 power.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
In the classic builds, Emrakul is the go to creature. It is by far the best creature for a Breach, since he takes the whole board with him and he gives you enough time to find any combination of burn or combo to kill the opponent. Also you can discard him to a Looting and reanimate him with a Goryo's Vengeance in response to the shuffle-back trigger. The Shuffle clause is also the reason why he isn't that great. You have to shuffle your graveyard into the library, which can result in awkward plays (can't discard Griselbrand, since you want to breach in an Emrakul e.g.). Although he as protection from coloured spells, he can still be targeted by the Twin-Creatures.
Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek
They can hit problematic cards, but can't be used as a discard outlet. Which one you want to play is preference.
Swan Song, Spell Pierce and Spell Snare
They are all decent, but most of the times it is hard to keep mana up in your combo turn. I would play discard over those, since discard can hit everything, where here you have the problem with different hate cards (Enchantments in Rest in Peace, Artifact with Grafdigger's Cage, Creature in Scavenging Ooze and Eidolon of Rhetoric and Counters). If you are running no Fury of the Horde, go with Swang Song, if you run those go with Spell Pierce.
Ancient Grudge
Affinity is pretty much a coinflip, who has the faster hand wins normally. Since Affinity can kill you pretty constant on turn 4 you need some kind of interaction. Ancient Grudge is one of the best ones, since it kills Platings and a ensouled Creature, which are the fastest clocks Affinity can produce. Also, you can flashback it to gain more value out of it and it can also get pitched to a Looting without loosing that much value.
Abrupt Decay
The Swiss Armyknife. If you need some kind of interaction with the board and you are in run it. It offers an answer to the most played hatecards, such as Grafdigger's Cage, Rest in Peace, Scavenging Ooze and Eidolon of Rhetorik. It also stops the Twin Combo and can slow down Affinity enough, that we have the faster win. It is also a great card against Infect, since it hits all infect creatures but Inkmoth Nexus.
Rakdos Charm
Rakdos Charm shines in 2 match-ups, Affinity and Splinter Twin. Against Affinity it buys us time till we have the win, against Splinter Twin it is another wincondition since most of the times they don't have the time for a regular kill, because we can just overload them with questions. Therefore, they are forced to go for the Combo kill, which is answered by Rakdos Charm. It also provides some utility against Graveyard based strategies. Overall a quite strong card.
Pyroclasm
One of the bigger problems for all version of the deck is fast aggro decks. Pyroclasm is the cheapest sweeper available which can destroy a fast start from Affinity, Infect and 1 drop Zoo. If you are expecting an aggro heavy meta, run some number of Pyroclasm in your sideboard.
Hurkyl's Recall
Recall is a silverbullet against Affinity. It buys you enough time to set up the combo without worrying to lose the next turn. If you expect a affinity heavy meta, run some amount of Recalls in your SB.
Torpor Orb
Torpor Orb is a must play for the classic BR and Grixis in the SB, since the Twin match-up is horrible otherwise. When you breach in a Emrakul in your turn which gets tapped down by a Pestermite is brutal. It get even worse when the Twin player untapps and win via a Splinter Twin. If you are running the traditional version, you have to play some amount of Torpor Orb or Defense Grid.
Defense Grid
Another option for the Control and Twin match-up is Defense Grid. Resolving this is most of the time a win against those decks. If you are playing the traditional version, run either Orb or Grid in the SB.
Thrun, the Last Troll
For all versions with Time of Need, Thrun is a excellent card for the Control Match-up. Drawing one and being able to cast him is pretty much gg against classic Control. Remember, that you should hold the regeneration mana up the whole time.
Leyline of Sacntity
Great against Discard and Burn. Since BGx and Burn make nearly 25% of the metagame you want to run Leyline in the Sideboard. You should run at least 3 copies, 4 if you have the space. The problem is, that the only way to cast it is Manamorphose in the non Tin Fists version, since there is no reason to go into white.
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Since I only have experience with the classic and the Shoal version I will only make an analysis for those 2 versions.
Traditional Junk/Jund/BGx
Classic 55/45 against W versions; 60/40 otherwise
Shoal 55/45 against W versions; 60/40 otherwise
Classic: The match-up is normally preferable, but a Turn 1 discard spell into Scavenging Ooze/Tarmogoyf into more discard is back breaking for every version. It is possible to recover in a few turns, but Ooze and Goyf are a to fast clock, when they land early enough. For the classic version, try to get a Emrakul in play, since he buys you more than enough time to close out the game. The problem with Griselbrand is (in both versions), that he can get pathed and you don't want to go to low on lifepoints since a Rhino or Bolts can close out the game then. Bring in Leylines if you have them in your SB.
Shoal: You want to go off with Griselbrand and you want to win the Turn you get him into play. Also, go for the Breach Wurm plan, if the opponent is tapped out/has no mana up. They usually have only 1 Maelstrom Pulse in their deck which they have to find in the next draw or they die. Also, the opponent is most of the times rather low on life, since they have to fetch and shock several times. It can happen, that he is at 15 or lower and you can just finish him with a Wurm. Again, a Discard heavy hand followed up by a fast clock can be brutal, but it takes some turns to close out the game. Don't hesitate to cheat a Griselbrand into play to block a Goyf/Tasigur/Ooze to by more time. You can also normally draw a bunch of cards of it, but look out for Rhinos or Bolts.
Burn
Classic 50/50
Shoal 60/40
Classic: Here you want to go off as fast as possible, since Burn represent a constant Turn 4 kill. A breached in Emrakul on Turn 3 can be enough, if he has a creature heavy hand, especially he has to draw more lands to be able to burn you out. When he plays watch out for Sideboarded Deflecting Palm, it can redirect an Emrakul swing back to you. Also board all your Leylines in.
Shoal: Burn is kinda a cakewalk since you have MD lifegain (I heard gain 11 life is good against burn ). Aim for either a Breached Wurm or try to go off with Griselbrand while he is tapped out. Bring all Leylines in and maybe Decays/Discard if you want more interaction. If he plays white, watch out for Deflecting Palm. Post board you normally don't want to swing a Wurm in open Mana (remember Deflecting Palm).
Affinity
Classic 55/45
Shoal 50/50
Classic: You want a Emrakul swing as soon as possible since they hardly can recover from one swing. Depending on how many cards he has in play choose your timing with Emrakul. You want to have the maximum of the Annihilation and even if you could do a Turn 2 swing otp, when he has only to sac 2-4 cards it isn't worth it. You can also use Izzet Charm both as counter and removal if you need more time. Most Affinity players have Spell Pierce and Discard in their SB so play around those as good as possible.
Shoal: This is basically a coinflip on who is faster. You want to go off with Griselbrand since a Wurm doesn't guarantee a win. Especially fast Plating and Ensoul Artifact draws are problematic. Bring in Decays/Artifact Removal or whatever hate you have. Keep either a Turn 2/3 hand or a Turn 4 hand with some form of interaction. Otherwise, you are to slow.
Infect
Classic ????
Shoal 40/60
Classic: I never played with this version against Infect, therefore I can't make an exact statement. What I learned from my games against Infect from other versions of the deck, you want a fast hand with Emrakul or an interaction heavy hand (Lightning Axe, Discard, Bolts,...). Play the removal in your turn, so that he has to waste a pump spell to save the creature. Also an early Emrakul is most of the times enough (they are pretty aggressive with their life). Remember when you are playing against Infect, without interaction the deck represents a constant Turn 3 kill. Bring in your permanent based interaction (bounce, removal or discard) and watch out for Wild Defiance since it makes your bolts useless.
Shoal: This match-up is plain bad. They are usually a turn faster then this version (Turn 3 against no interaction) and the Shoals can't buy you time. You have to mulligan aggressive for a fast hand, especially post board. Bring all the removal/discard you have as long as you don't water the combo down (you can board out some numbers of Morphoses, Night's Whisper and other cards).
Twin
Classic: 30/70
Shoal: 60/40
Classic: You need the attack step to win, guess what the Twin-Creatures can do? Tap your creatures. You want either a Turn 2/3 kill, since they don't have enough Mana for a Tap creature or mulligan the hand. Another big problem are the counters since those buy the Twin player enough time. Bring your Twin hate of choice in post board (Torpor Orb, Defense Grid,...). If you are playing Rakdos Charm in your SB, you can also bring them in since they represent a kill condition for their combo.
Shoal: This match-up feels even better than Burn. You have absolute no problem to make several turns just draw and go and when he goes for the EOT creature you just kill him in response. Furthermore, you can easily play around counters (just wait and start splicing stuff in their EOT). If you have to go for a breached Wurm, breach him in in the second main phase. You have to sacrifice him, but you get 3 5/5 tokens and you start swinging with those. Because of this line, he can't tap you big Wurm down and use this as fog. The Twin player has to go for the Twin kill (both pre- and post board), since the clock is otherwise to slow. If the game goes long you can start to splice stuff and run him out of counters. Bring in some amount of Discard and/or Rakdos Charm if you have them. Also Boseiju is great in this match-up. Don't bring in Thruns, they are to slow and you don't want to tap out.
Scapeshift
Classic 50/50
Shoal 55/45
Classic: This match-up is kinda strange. On the one hand he wants to ramp up to get a kill asap. On the other hand, he needs to leave mana open to not die. If the Scapeshift player knows how to play against this deck, the match-up is pretty worse, because he will try to leave countermana up and once he reaches 4 lands never taps out. The main plan is here to win before he reaches 4 lands since he can't cast Cryptic then (tap/bounce + draw e.g.). A bad Scapeshift player might tap out on Turn 2/3 which enables easier lines to win. Also, a early Emrakul can buy you more than enough time to win the game just with Bolts. Scapeshift usually brings in some amount of Swang Song. Bring in Defense Grid or more discard but no Leylines since they are just a trap (Cryptic Command says hi)
Shoal: This match-up is even stranger for the Shoal version than for the Classic one. You don't mind, if ramps up to 7 lands and then tries to combo off. To be more exact, this is normally the correct moment to go off, since he doesn't have Cryptic mana and you can play easy around a remand. Otherwise, go for the EOT cheat in Griselbrand plan. Another line is, to breach in a Wurm in his second main, so he can't bounce the big Wurm in your attack step. Bring in Discard and stay away from the Leylines, they are a trap. And btw. many Scapeshift players will never ever play around Shoal, so you can bait them to go off with 7 lands and cast a Shoal in response to stay alive. Since he is tapped down then, you can go off in your turn.
UWRx Control/Midrange
Classic ????
Shoal ????
I never played against UWR with either version, so I can't make a statement here. But there is a guideline too: expect Path, Mana Leak and Cryptic if they have the mana open, try to stay above 6 life, since they usually play a pretty burn heavy deck (7-12 burnspells). Also look at their mana. Their manabase isn't the best, so you can normally say, what things they might have and you are likely to play around the correct things. They have some amount of Graveyard hate in their SB, also more counterspells.
Meerfolk
Classic 60/40
Shoal 60/40
Both: An aggrodeck with nearly no interaction? Deal. Just try to get not screwed up by Spreading Sea or Chalice of the Void. I have even saw some Psionic Blasts in their SB. Post board they bring in some amount of counters like Spell Pierce, Spell Snare and Swan Song. Normally you have the time to play around those cards. Another problem can be bounce but Emrakul has no problem against this and the Shoal version can shoot them to death with Borborygmos.
Zoo
Classic 60/40
Shoal 60/40
Both: Again an aggrodeck with nearly no relevant interaction (Path to Exile is the only one). If you can afford it try to stay above 3 or 6 life, since then they can't double bolt you. In their SB they have normally Graveyardhate, bring in some amount of bounce/decay and discard. The traditional Naya version can also play Blood Moon in their SB, better play save and get a Swamp as soon as possible.
Abzan Liege/Little Kid/Kibler Junk/however the deck is called
Classic 60/40
Shoal 60/40
Both: This is preboard an aggro deck, few to non discard spells and only Path as relevant removal. Post board they usually have some amount of Discard and Graveyard hate. You can bring in Leylines if you are thinking they have the 7 discard spell package post board. For the post board games look for the Jund/Junk/BGx analysis.
BW Tokens
Classic: 55/45
Shoal: 55/45
Both: BW Tokens plays between 10-12 Discard spells but doesn't have a fast clock. The match-up is normally pretty straight forward, either try to kill him with an Emrakul (Classic) or with the Grisel-combo (Shoal). It can happen, that the BW Tokens player has enough permanents/tokens to block a Emrakul through the Annihilation, but afterwards the board should be clear (exception is a rather late Emrakul swing), so you have enough time to find the combo again. For the Shoal version you prefer to go off with Griselbrand, but a Wurm can also be enough (watch out for Path's). They have some form of Graveyard hate and more discard in the SB, hence, bring in your Leylines. I saw some lists running Ensnaring Bridge in the SB, if you think he might have this, bring in a few Decays/artifact hate.
RG Tron
Classic: 60/40
Shoal: 60/40
Both: The match-up is normally pretty good BUT: they have maindeck graveyard hate (Relic) and a Turn 3 Karn can just win the game. Ugin sees more play, so watch out for his -X against a Wurm. You are normally the faster deck and you can play pretty aggressive with your life (you can go down to 4 without a real problem, lower can be problematic because of Ugin). Also they can use Oblivion Stone as instant sweeper. Cards you can expect from their SB: Pithing Needle, Surgical Extraction (is rather fringe, but sees play), more Relics and Slaughter Games.
Ux Tron
Classic: 55/45
Shoal: 60/40
Both: Ux Tron decks (either versions) are just to slow to interact with you. They have limited U sources, so go for an EOT play which results most of the times into a tap out of them into a play in your turn. They have counterspells MD (Condescend, Spell Burst and from time to time Spell Snare). Also they have bounce MD, which can be used against Griselbrand/Emrakul/Wurm plays (overloaded Cyclonic Rift). They have Graveyard hate in their SB (Relic) and more counters. Bring in Discard/Defense Grid.
Living End
Classic: 60/40
Shoal: 65/35
Both: Pitch a Griselbrand and just wait till he tries to resolve a Living End = win. When he tries to go for the slow hardcast plan just kill him with Emmi/Grisel/Wurm. Watch out for Beast Within, since it can result in some blow outs. Also he can go for a instant Living End, which can sweep your board. Just don't be greedy. They usually have Slaughter Games in their SB, so bring in Leylines or Discard and try to go of earlier post board. Some lists also run Blood Moon, so fetch for basics if you can afford it.
URxx Delver
----6) Introduction to the Shoal version (aka a Primer in the Primer)
In this chapter, I will explain the most important interactions from the Shoal version, a basic guide, how to play with this deck and some things regarding the SB. Furthermore, for somebody who has no idea regarding the deck, I added a card by card explanation.
To make our live easier, I will use Zach Jesses list to make all those explanations (exception is the SB, since he didn't had enough time to get all cards he needed to play the perfect SB):
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Temple of Malice
2 Blood Crypt
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Mountain
5 Swamp
//Creature
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Borborygmos Enraged
4 Griselbrand
4 Worldspine Wurm
1 Noxious Revival
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Night's Whisper
4 Nourishing Shoal
2 Tormenting Voice
2 Manamorphose
2 Desperate Ritual
4 Through the Breach
3 Pact of Negation
1 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroclasm
1 Defense Grid
1 Torpor Orb
4 Blood Moon
You can divide every Shoal deck into 3 sections, the draw spells, the combo cards and the other card choices (mainly lands).
Draw Spells
Faithless Looting
The card by itself doesn’t look that great, but combined with the right shell (like this deck), it turns in an absolute monster. It provides a discard outlet for Griselbrand on turn 1, can get rid of spare lands/spells/combo pieces and has flashback to be able to use it later in the game again
Night’s Whisper
While lacking the discard clause of Looting, Night’s Whisper is the second best draw spell for this deck. It pulls you ahead on cards, refills your hand after some discard spells or just can get you up to 8 cards so that you can natural discard Griselbrand.
Tormenting Voices
Tormenting Voices is a in between thing from Looting and Whisper. It does a decent job at the looting and refilling part, but does nothing great. Furthermore, the first one is most of the times ok, the second one you draw is already garbage, since you have nothing relevant left to discard (in most cases). That’s why there are only 2 in the list.
Combo cards
Griselbrand
He is the only reason, why the deck exists. He provides you with a Yagmoth’s Bargain on a 7/7 lifelink body and is a legendary creature. Especially the last part is important, since we can play Goryo’s Vengeance, a card, which allows us absurd turn 2 kills.
Worldspine Wurm
Wurm has 2 applications in the deck, the first is getting pitched for Nourishing Shoal and the second one for a Through the Breach. It has a 15/15 trampling body and leaves 3 5/5 trampling tokens when used by Through the Breach. Normally, a Wurm swing is enough to kill the opponent, but if he has blockers/is above 15 life points, his tokens represent lethal next turn. Furthermore, is CMC is great, everything below is meh, since 2 Shoaled Wurms provide you with 22 life, so exact 3 Griselbrand activations.
Borborygmos Enraged
He is the reason, why we can win with instant speed. Of course, somebody could argue, that Lightning Storm is another way to kill the opponent at instant speed, but he has some huge advantages over Lightning Storm. First, he is a legendary creature, so he can be reanimated by Goryo’s Vengeance (relevant against Discard and Lootings, whereas Lightning Storm is dead in your graveyard). Second, he has a high CMC (8) and is G, so in dire situations, you can use him as Shoal fodder. Third, he has a respectable body (7/6 trample), which can win games on its own (Through the Breach him and next turn Goryo’s Vengeance, discard some lands for the win).
Goryo’s Vengeance
Goryo’s Vengeance is the main reason, besides Griselbrand, for the existent of the deck. It allows you to reanimate a Griselbrand on turn 2, which result in a win most of the times. Furthermore, Goryo’s Vengeance has an ability, which sees absolutely no play (spoiler, exception is this deck), Splice onto Arcane. For a detailed description, on why this is so important, look down to the section “Splice onto Arcane”.
Through the Breach
Through the Breach is the second cheat spell in the deck. It allows you to put ANY creature from your hand into play, so you can use your Worldspine Wurms to swing for 15. Furthermore, the sacrifice clause is handy in a lot of situations. Worldspine Wurm leaves his tokens because of this or you can Goryo’s Vengeance a Borborygmos/Griselbrand again. Also, on of the most important parts of the card is again Splice onto Arcane.
Nourishing Shoal
Nourishing Shoal is a strange card. It comes from a cycle of pitch cards from Kamigawa and was for a long time the worst one of them (all of the others either have seen Standard or Modern play). This deck abuses Nourishing Shoal on a complete different level. First, it lets you chain draws from Griselbrand, if you have it and a Worldspine Wurm in hand since you can exile the Wurm to gain 11 life. Second, it is an Arcane spell, which enables Splice on it. The significance of this feature will be further explored in the “Splice onto Arcane” section.
Simian Spirit Guides
SSG is the only fast mana card we have left in Modern (Chrome Mox is banned). It enables us to combo off earlier with Through the Breach and provides us with Mana mid combo to be able to cast Desperate Rituals.
Desperate Ritual
At first, it may look like a bad card but once when you start playing the deck, you see how good it actually is. First, he has both Splice and has the Arcane type (again those two mechanics) and second it provides the necessary Mana for Through the Breach mid combo.
Other card choices
Manamorphose
It is the worst card in the deck besides Tormenting Voice, but again, it is a necessary evil. At worst it is a free cantrip, at best it provides us the needed B mana mid combo for a Goryo’s Vengeance.
Noxious Revival
Revival may look like an oddball, but it is actually quite useful. It can recycle countered/discarded Goryo’s, can get back a draw spell if you need it and has some applications mid combo (like getting back a Shoal, when there is the risk of fizzling, because you don’t have another one).
As I said earlier, Noxious Revival is the only true flex spot of the deck. The possible cards for this slot are quite a bunch. The most favourite ones are: Noxious Revival, Dragonlord Atarka, third Manamorphose, third Tormenting Voice, Time of Need or the third Desperate Ritual.
The only cards I want to explain from the Manabase are the 4 Temple of Malice. Looking at the deck, it is pretty light on Turn 1 plays (only 4 Lootings). The Temples are basically another form of Turn 1 play. The scry 1 actually matters more, than you are thinking and it makes some lines of play easier (like, with which draw spell should I start).
Sideboarding
Since I mentioned it earlier, Zach Jesse didn’t had enough time to get the cards he needed for his SB. For this, I will take Bob Huangs SB, since it represents the current BR SB pretty well:
4 Blood Moon, 1 Lightning Axe, 3 Pact of Negation, 2 Inquisition of Kozilek, 2 Pyroclasm, 2 Shatterstorm, 1 Bosejiu, Who Shelters All
The plan for every SB is, to have three parts, first against discard decks (BGx mainly), second against counter decks (Delver, Grixis, Twin) and last for our bad match-ups (mainly Infect and Affinity).
When you look at Huangs SB, you will see, that his plan against Discard decks are 4 Blood Moons. Till some weeks ago people preferred Leyline of Sanctity in this slot, but with the upswing of decks, which just folds to Blood Moon (BGx, Amulet Bloom, RG Tron, Grixis), Blood Moon took this place. Often, they have to discard Blood Moon, or just die. This is especially true, since they can’t afford to fetch for basics in the early game, since they need a fast clock and interaction to have a good shot for winning. Remember, you shouldn’t bring in both Blood Moon and Bosejiu, since one of them will be useless.
Against the counter decks he has the Bosejiu, the 3 Pacts and the 2 Discard spells (but don't board always all cards in, sometimes you don't need the discard, sometimes you don't need all 3 Pacts). Especially Bosejiu is game winning in combination with Through the Breach and a Worldspine Wurm. The Pacts are a double edged sword, on the one hand they are awesome, since they are “free” to cast, and on the other hand you will be “never” able to pay for them. So, when you cast a Pact, make sure that you win that turn.
The remaining SB cards (Lightning Axe, Pyroclasm and Shatterstorm), are either for our worst match-ups (Affinity and Infect), or are answers for hate cards (like Scavenging Ooze). Pyroclasm can also be board in against Elves and other Swarm strategies, where we need just a little bit more time.
If you decided to make a small green splash, you want to play 2-3 Abrupt Decays in your SB. Those are hitting nearly all of the possible hate cards (exception is Leyline of the Void). Another good card would be Ancient Grudge, since our Affinity match-up isn’t that great. Other possible G sideboard cards: Nature's Claim and Firespout (although, it should be a R SB card, but hitting Fliers can be relevant). If you want to play G SB, play 1 Overgrown Tomb or 1 Stomping Ground and all fetchlands have to be able to get the land.
But what to cut? A basic guide:
Although Manamorphose is the worst card in the deck, you need at least 2 of them. Otherwise it can happen that you can’t cast a Goryo’s Vengeance[/c] mid combo, simply because you have no B Mana. If you are playing more than 2, you can cut the spare ones.
Splice onto Arcane
The Splice mechanic provides some advantages over other classic builds. But first, lets take a look at the mechanic (copied from Through the Breach):
"Splice onto Arcane {2}{R}{R} (As you cast an Arcane spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.)"
This allows us to add an effect of a card with “Splice onto Arcane” on an Arcane spell. This means, we could Splice Through the Breach on a Nourishing Shoal, which actual reduces the cost of Through the Breach by 1. Furthermore, we don’t lose Through the Breach, if the Shoal gets countered, since we just added the effect from it.
What does this mean? It means, that we can cast at end from our opponents turn a Shoal, splice Through the Breach on it and say to our opponents: “Ok, you can counter this one, but I can do the same thing again in my turn”. Because of how counters are in Modern (relative Mana intense), they often can just hold up more than one counter. This is especially true in the first few turns, when they have to play creatures too to get a clock going. In the end, we get a way to force either a Through the Breach or a Goryo’s Vengeance (it has also splice) through the counters of the opponents.
This is already awesome, but there are some more things you can do with splice. Desperate Ritual has also “Splice onto Arcane” and is an Arcane spell. Hence, it can be used as either a way to splice a cheat spell on it, or it can be used mid combo to generate an absurd amount of Mana by splicing it on a Shoal. It may sound cute, but my record is 15 Mana alone from spliced Rituals action.
How to play it
One of the most difficult thing with this deck is to choose when to mulligan and when not. Besides the nut hands (so, Griselbrand, Goryo’s Vengeance, Faithless Looting, Lands and co), there are several things you are looking for. First, does the hand have a combo card (Griselbrand/Wurm or Goryo’s/TTB) in it, has it some forms of draw spells (a combination from Lootings, Night’s Whsipers and Tormenting Voices) and has it lands (preferred Scry lands over Blackcleave Cliffs and rest)? If it has a combination of those cards which fits those criteria, keep it, otherwise ship it.
Also, the sequencing of the Draw spells is also another important point. If you want to get the maximum value, go Temple into Night’s Whisper into Looting, when you need to be fast, go with Looting first. You always have to evaluate how much time you have left (you want to be at least above 8 life or have a Shoal+Wurm in hand and be above 3 life) and then choose the order of how to play your draw spells. If the opponent plays R, calculate with Bolts at your end step.
When you start to combo with Griselbrand, remember something, we only play a finite number of Mana generator. We only have 4 Simian Spirit Guides and 2-3 Desperate Rituals in our deck. So, before you actual start to combo, look at your graveyard/exile zone on how many of those cards you already have used. If you used/pitched already 2 Simian Spirit Guides, 1 Ritual and you are tapped out, you will have a very high chance of fizzling due to not having enough Mana to cast Through the Breach/Goryo’s. Splicing a Ritual on Shoals helps with this problem, so when you have to go off now, splice every Ritual you have on the Shoals to get enough Mana to do your stuff. There is an exception to this rule. When you want to use a Shoal to play around a counter spell, don't splice a Ritual on it, when you want to have the possibility of playing the Cheat spell again this turn.
Also, to see when you should stop drawing cards with Griselbrand and just set up a next turn kill is pure training. A small tip, when you have to go low, which would result a lethal attack from our opponent, it is most of the times not worth it (especially if you used/discarded nearly all of your Shoals/Wurms).
Video content
Feature match - Round 5 Jacob Wilson GP Copenhagen
Feature match - Round 9 William Jensen GP Copenhagen
Mini deck tech + basic information
Modern Daily with the deck + Deck Tech
----7) References/Links
Necrotic Ooze Reanimator - deck tech
BR Howltooth version videos
General stuff regarding the classic BR version
Tin Fists - Deck Tech and more
Short deck tech with Jan Van der Vegt
Shoal Insanity introduction
5c Serum Powder All-in Version by Joe Lossett - deck tech
Modern Daily with BR "Control" Reanimator by Caleb Durward
Caleb Durwards Channelfireball channel - lots of Dailies from the BR "Control" Reanimator version
Caleb Durwards twitch stream
Feature match - Round 5 Jacob Wilson GP Copenhagen - Shoal Insanity
Feature match - Round 9 William Jensen GP Copenhagen - Shoal Insanity
Mini deck tech + basic information - Shoal Insanity
Modern Daily with the deck + Deck Tech - Shoal Insanity
Link to the old Primer
Changelog:
14.03.2015 Creation of the Primer
16.03.2015 Updated/Correction of the Primer
03.04.2015 Look at that awesome Banner and more content for the classic BR version
21.05.2015 Small update (nothing special)
10.06.2015 Updated the All-in versions with Joe Lossetts and Caleb Durwards build. Also more video content/references
23.06.2015 Huge update (Shoal version only)
24.06.2015 Editing some stuff, make things easier to read, added more videos,...
Notes/Work in Progress:
Now you can post
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I'm looking forward to trying out the shoal version actually. Seems pretty crazy.
Given, my local meta is 60% burn so I might have been a little biased (Shoal version)
Anyway, I posed the question: for our 'flex' green spell, instead of the Time of Need have Summoner's Pact?
I'd like to hear your thoughts. In testing, I've really liked it.
Link to cubetutor:
http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/10113
I've tried the Ooze and Shoal version so far, and I've found the Shoal version to be more consistent. I'll be playing it in a small local event next thursday, I'll post some match-ups.
I lost 0-2 to Twin, having kept 2 marginal hands that just failed to live up to their potential, and running into a never ending suite of Remands and bounce spells to blunt my few attempts to cobble together action. The biggest takeaway from both games was that I should have mulligan-ed more aggressively. Even with Faithless and Night's Whisper and Tormenting Voice, you can't keep hand that's "could maybe get there".
I beat Scapeshift 2-1. First game on the play T2 full Grisel into Borbor combo out for 40. Second game, start with a Leyline, and eventually he finds a cryptic to bounce and scapeshifts off. Supporting Kathal's assertion that the Leylines are a trap. Game 3 I turn 2 Blood Moon, and we spend a long time playing draw go until I can finally cobble together a oneshot sure win through any hate.
Beat UWR control 2-1. First game, he failed to counter an end step Through the Breach for Worldspine Wurm. Second, he curved through an insane number of counters and then killed me with 3 bolts from hand and a Snapcaster. Game 3, splice action burned enough counters and a Shoal'd Borbor kept me alive long enough to finish things off.
Beat Merfolk 2-1. First game just went off on turn 3. Second game, he curved perfectly into an active T4 Thassa with double Lord out, and I never saw a shoal to save myself. Third game, neither of us drew action, but I finally got a Borbor in bin, which did little damage, but cleaned his board of any attempt to get critical mass going and I eventually found a Worldspine to seal the deal.
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Instant
4 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Izzet Charm
3 Through the Breach
Sorcery
4 Faithless Looting
2 Fury of the Horde
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tormenting Voice
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Blood Crypt
2 Steam Vents
2 Temple of Malice
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Watery Grave
1 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Pack Rat
2 Rakdos Charm
3 Blood Moon
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Anger of the Gods
Ghave, the Guru of Spores
Mayael the Anima
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Thank you!
About Summoner's Pact. It is basically the same as Time of Need, but it can't find Griselbrand but finds Wurm. Also it is free but it is horrible to pitch it to a Shoal (can be Spell Snared then and gives no life). Also when you use it you normally have to win on the spot or it can get rather awkward with the paying. I'm sure it is better midcombo when you go off with Griselbrand. I don't know. I have to test it to make a better statement.
Blood Moon is an interesting idea, since we can get it into play on turn 2 and it makes our week match-ups a better (RG Tron isn't that great and Infect can just fold to it. It is also great against random decks like Amulett Bloom). I find myself rarely shocking lower then 15 life. The exception are some early beats from our opp. Have to test Moon (after I test Pact and the Grixis Shoal version).
Sadly those things can happen. E.g. I bricked with the Shoal version last time after I drew 35 cards (I had to win that turn) since I couldn't find any Goryo's/Breaches for my Borborygmos.
A report would be awesome! I really like several of your choices (like the Desolated Lighthouse). How did you like the Temples? I know, they are great in the BR version, but I never saw them in the Grixis version.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Borborygmos Enraged
4 Griselbrand
4 Worldspine Wurm
Sorceries:9
1 Flesh // Blood
4 Faithless Looting
3 Night's Whisper
2 Tormenting Voice
Instants:18
1 Desperate Ritual
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Manamorphose
4 Nourishing Shoal
4 Through the Breach
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Swamp
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Duress
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Combust
3 Blood Moon
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
This is the 75 I played. The Moon variation came about when I played a practice game the week before and my opponent sided in Blood Moons against me. I shrugged, having already had a single swamp and forest from previous fetches on table. Afterwards we got to discussing, and realized the deck only ever really needs 1 black and 2 red to function at peak efficiency, between the SSGs, Manamorphose, and the fact you rarely, if ever, hard cast Shoals. It took about 2 minutes effort to add a few extra basics and fetches, strip out the 2 filters and the extra shocks, and suddenly the manabase was a lot less painful and supported playing Blood Moon.
It does help with a few marginal matchups, and does give you a large degree of "gotcha" in game 2, as very few decks expect it out of this sort of deck. Sadly, it doesn't really help the absolute worst matchup (Twin). But that's why I've got multiple Abrupts and Combusts in the side.
Right now I'm playing around with the exact numbers of Tormenting Voice, Night's Whisper, and the flex slot which bounces around a lot (Time of Need, Colossal Might, Flesh //Blood, an extra Desperate Ritual and a few others have all been tried with varying degrees of dissatisfaction).
I don't find the Twin match-up that bad. In matches I'm 9-2, and the of the game losses was my fault (didn't want to play anymore and I was thinking I didn't had a chance for prices). It just requires some testing and you have to know what your goal is.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Instead of Combust try Rakdos Charm, since it is a Win-con against Twin.
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Shores up the SB even better against twin, I think
Link to cubetutor:
http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/10113
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Instant
4 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Izzet Charm
3 Through the Breach
Sorcery
4 Faithless Looting
2 Fury of the Horde
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tormenting Voice
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Blood Crypt
2 Steam Vents
2 Temple of Malice
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Watery Grave
1 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Pack Rat
2 Rakdos Charm
3 Blood Moon
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Anger of the Gods
So a little on my card choices that I haven't seen others running. First, I'm running one less Through the Breach. Through the Breach is more of a backup wincon. It resets your graveyard if you hit an Emrakul and costs significantly more than the primary combo (Faithless Looting + Goryo's Vengeance). Its upside is that you can cast it at the end of your opponents turn and keep that creature around. For consistency reasons I went to 3. I also cut Pentad Prism. The card is slow, clunky, does nothing to further our boardstate, graveyard, or hand, and dies to tons of removal like mainboard abrupt decays, which usually have no other target. I also cut down on my Fury of the Horde. This is also for consistency reasons. I found that the other versions of the deck were drawing dead hands too easily. To help combat this, I added four Serum Visions. It's the best card draw/fixing spell blue has access to. In early versions it was a Peer Through the Depths, but that can't find our bombs. Eventually it became Telling Time, but Serum Visions just does Telling Time's job better. For lands I added a Desolate Lighthouse and three Temples. The temples are currently on my watch list, but so far they've been helpful. They're a nice t1 if you don't have a Serum Visions or Thoughtseize, since t1 Faithless Looting is usually risky. Desolate Lighthouse gives me a little bit of reach with the loot ability. So far it's been great, I've never had a problem with it interfering with my mana fixing. I highly recommend it.
A brief note before I begin my report. So far my lowest win % is vs. Twin. The players I am playing against have adapted to Rakdos charm to the point where it almost does nothing. Because of all the direct damage and self-inflicted damage I take, they usually have a higher life total. I am considering replacing it with something else.
Match 1: Affinity
I find this matchup to be our easiest. Emrakul sets them back incredibly far. Many decks don't have the interaction required to stop us. In the sideboard I bring in Rakdos Charms for Cranial Platings and Anger of the Gods for a boardwipe. Normally I'll take out 4 Thoughtseize, but I have also taken out 3 Izzet Charms and a single Thoughtseize.
Our game one was over quickly. He won the dice roll, played out most of his hand t2. On my turn, I exiled a simian spirit guide, faithless looting'd an Emrakul, goryo's and he scooped. Game 2 went similarly, with Emrakul coming down t3 for the win.
Match 2: Abzan
This matchup is incredibly close. They have tokens of hand disruption, which can really mess with our plans. I'm tempted to take out Emrakuls against them, but then I fear I'd never be able to win. Lingering Souls can be a pain in the ass if we don't get a t2/t3/t4 emrakul on them. They chump incredibly well. Griselbrand is stronger against them, since he still lets you draw cards.
Game one went great for me. I get an early Griselbrand and hit him once to set up an Emrakul through the Breach. Game two and three, he stripped my hand into nothing. Getting Emrakul thoughtseize'd is rarely what we want. Against them I sided in Blood Moon (backfired game Two), and two Pack Rats in game three. I'm still getting used to using Pack Rat and when to bring them in, but I didn't get to see them game three.
Match 3: ???
I forgot, sorry haha. It was a while ago. I won this game, and I remember him being salty about it. The affinity player from earlier was complaining with him about the speed and consistency of my deck. Felt good.
Match 4: Bolt
I still need more practice in this matchup, but I think its favorable. Griselbrand can buy us time very effectively, but it can really come down to draws.
Game One I resolve an Emrakul and wipe her board of three lands and two eidolons. She loses shortly after. Game two, I side in two Chalice of the Void. I hit her with an early Emrakul, then play a Chalice on 1 the next turn. The next 20+ turns are painful as neither of us draw anything. Eventually I hit a Through the Breach and finish her with a Griselbrand.
Match 5: Ad Nauseam
This matchup was horrifying. My sideboard tech was Chalice on 0 and a prayer. I considered Rakdos Charm, but it was about the race, not stopping him. I think that now having four mainboard Thoughtseize will help.
Game One I get him with an early Griselbrand Fury Fury. Game two he Lotus Blooms past my Izzet Charm and hits me with a Lightning Storm(?) for lethal. Game three I hit him with an Emrakul to clear his board, and another Emrakul later to finish him. This matchup was purely about speed. I desperately dug through my deck for the fastest answer. I have no plans to include cards for this matchup.
Top 8 Cut: Affinity
Solidly in the top 8, I get to play the Affinity player I beat round one. He was less than happy about this. He gets me to 5 in game one, but I quickly griselbrand + fury + fury him. In the second game he gets to 33 life and I am down to 4. I emrakul him and he sticks on one permanent for a while. Eventually I hit him with another emrakul, but he refuses to scoop. I topdeck a Through the Breach and finish him with a Griselbrand. The salt flowed.
Looking at the rest of the top 8, my options were either Twin, Twin, Twin, or BW Tokens. None of those matchups are ones I enjoy. The Twin player beat the Twin player, and the Twin player beat the BW tokens player. I had to play the (Arguably) best player in my state on the twin Matchup. I completely psyched myself out. I got two warnings, one was going to be a game loss but my opponent appealed it. Allegedly I scooped early game one, but I couldn't tell. I threw the last matchup. Oops. I went home with 3rd/4th.
Against Twin, I brought in Boseiju. Now that we have Rending Volley, I would bring in both.
I've never done a tournament report before, sorry if it was a little hasty.
Ghave, the Guru of Spores
Mayael the Anima
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I tried Dysent's Midrange Shoal list, with the Tasigurs, basically exactly as written but for extra basics and fewer shocks to facilitate a sideboard package of 3 Blood Moons over the Pack Rats.
I started very strong, with back to back 2-0 victories over Affinity and UWR Geist Midrange. Kills ranged from turn 2 to 6-ish. Thrun from the side did show up against UWR, and did a marvelous job of thumbing his nose at Path and Counters for 2 turns while I built up to being able to play through potential counters.
Round 3 was Infect, which I expected to be a fairly bad matchup. Game 1 I went off on turn 2 and just won. Game 2 he had a hand with multiple pump spells and a T1 Gitaxian Probe that let him play around my potential T2 Blood Moon by fetching his one basic and playing a Hierarch, and I died on his turn 4 before I could untap and breach. Game 3 I unfortunately stalled without black mana, having a Goryo's in hand and a Griselbrand in the bin on T1. The match was more winnable than I thought, but ultimately, sometimes you lose to things like mana screw and other linear decks drawing what they need at the right time.
Round 4 was Sultai Control, similar but not identical to the Fabiano list. Game 1, as was par for the tourney, I smoked him on turn 2 or 3 with the full shoal-driven combo.
The next 2 games were ridiculous grindfests, as both games he exactly had enough mana and an Abrupt in hand to stop early Blood Moons that would have completely crippled his deck with only 3 basics and heavy color commitment. Game 2 he failed to draw a threat for about 10 turns, but instead drew every land and counterspell in his deck, then finally a few snap casters for more counters. Splice onto Arcane kept me in it for that long, but eventually after about the 11th counter I ran out of gas, and his Murderous Cut killed my Tasigur, and the Ashiok finally got up to 11 and ulted, clearing my hand and bin and any hope of winning.
Game 3 was similar, though slightly faster, as he did finally get a Hooting Mandrils in play to provide a clock. I stalled on 4 lands, without seeing a Shoal to splice on. Finally got a Goryos and then made a subtle mistake of choosing to draw 7 when at 14 before combat, rather than after. He Cut in response, and as a result I couldn't draw into Shoals over the top to keep going to set up for the full combo kill. Had I attacked first, I could have responded to the cut with draw and drawn into a shoal match to the Wurm in hand to draw another 14 and probably complete the combo kill. But instead all it could do was stem the bleeding for a few turns. Tasigur tried to whittle down the board on defense, while running spliced breaches into remands, mana leaks, and snapcasters, but eventually Tasi had to trade with a Thragtusk, and I ran out of life and died.
The other possible mistake was not boarding in Leylines. Games 2 and 3, multiple Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes did slow me down, though they didn't ever remove anything critical. It's possible that without those, I might have had the speed to power through the counter wall.
All in all I liked the midrange version. Tasigur was only really super awesome in the BUG matchup, but when he was, he was great. I cast him a few other times, but usually it was more case of hedging bets when I went off the normal route. I'm considering jiggering the sideboard around to keep the Tasigurs there for matchups where I need the grinding attrition, and bringing back a few Tormenting Voice or Night's Whisper main. I definitely did notice the lack of draw and discard power without those, though Time of Need did prove itself, in combination with Tasigur (1BG to fetch and play on T3 after a T1 Faithless and some fetches felt amazing).
Here's the full list:
4 Thoughtseize
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Faithless Looting
2 Tormenting Voice
2 Pentad Prism
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Through the Breach
1 Quicksilver Amulet
4 Griselbrand
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blood Crypt
1 Mountain
6 Swamp
4 Temple of Malice
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Darkblast
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Quicksilver Amulet
3 Blood Moon
1 Defense Grid
1 Damnation
The thing that strikes me about this deck is that it's plan to deal with resistance is to go very long. The classic RB and Grixis builds usually try to go under, winning before the opponent can possibly mount enough hate to matter, and finishing in a single flurry. The shoal version just bullies through, relying on splice and lots of life gain to batter down resistance, and having a similar combo finish most often. This version, with a full 10 maindeck sources of discard and no combo finish is just going strip the opponent of any way to fight back and then plop a fatty out when it's clearly safe to do so.
I wonder how often he actually got to use the Quicksilver Amulets. I've played with it before, but it usually ended up being sub par in the lists I had put it in. Ate a lot of artifact removal, and I rarely got to untap with it. But again, with all that disruption, he's clearly settling in for a longer game, so playing this on turn 4 or even earlier (via SSG and/or Prism) and then eventually untapping and dropping a permanent Emrakul seems like an okay line.
The mana base is a bit interesting. I've been running a Blood Moon-enabling mana base in 3 colors, but clearly doing it in 2 is better. Normally I'd be pretty down on the quantity of Temples and Fast lands, as the blitz style combo does not want that many lands which risk coming into play tapped. But, again, all the discard suddenly changes the math a fair bit.
Overall an interesting take, and worth further exploration. Other than fiddling with the lands, my first gut reaction is to drop the 2 tormenting voices for a third each of Liliana and Pentad Prism. I like Voice, but it's main attraction over something like Night's Whisper is the discard outlet, which another Liliana provides, and she's clearly super value in a deck like this. The extra Prism also helps with speed, giving you interesting turn 3 plays more frequently. Amulet and Breach are both much better on 3 than on 4.
I'm also intrigued by the idea of marrying this to the shoal package. Getting up to a full 10 discard would be hard, given the extra room the Shoal package needs for support, like Manamorphose, but you could probably get in 7 or 8 with minimal sacrifice. 2 Lilianas and a 3/2 split of some combination of Duress, Inquisition and Thoughtseize ought to give you a pretty solid plan for dealing with combo/critical mass decks and help significantly against counterspell decks. You've now got an absolute ton of endurance to power through with, between the splicing tricks and the discard package.
First loss was a BGw deck that I kind of liked the look of. Raven's Crime, Loam, Liliana, Lingering Souls, Bloodghast, The Rack, Smallpox Inquisition and Thoughtseize, Ensnaring Bridge. Sort of 8Rack meets LoamPox, with a dash of classic Junk. Needless to say, he trashed my hand quite thoroughly both games. 4 Leylines out of the side only help if you get them in your opener, but not if you see 3 of them in the first 7 you draw instead after mulling to 5 looking for them.
The loss to burn was a bit disheartening, as game 3 I went off to try to beat a lethal suspended Rift Bolt. But unusually, I fizzled, having to use my 3rd shoal for X=2 with a manamorphose just to get to 8 be able to draw 7 more, and then whiffing on a shoal in the 7 drawn (but of course getting the Worldspine I needed for the previous shoal). It's pretty damn rare to fizzle once you've drawn your first 7, but I was low enough to have to attack to draw, and not to be able to get an extra 7 for padding and didn't get lucky enough to chain multiple Wurm shoals to dig out of the hole.
The highlight of the night was game 2 against UWR Twin. On the draw, I keep Shoal, Wurm, Borborygmos, Griselbrand, SSG, Goryo, Bloodstained. He plays Colonnade, and passes. Draw, pass, discarding Griselbrand. Turn 2 he shocks on Sacred Foundry to represent counter mana, and passes back. I play the land, go to end step. He takes the opportunity to try and Helix me. Since he's tapped out I tank for a minute and then YOLO. With the Helix still on the stack at end step, I go off. Crack Mire for Swamp, SSG into Goryo's, draw 14, shoal for 11, draw 14, Exile 2 SSGs, Shoal for 8 splicing Desperate ritual, draw 7, Ritual, Shoal for 11 splicing Breach for Borby, draw 7 more cards. After drawing 42 cards and losing 42 life (and gaining 30), win by dealing 36 damage with 12 lands to the face. The Helix still on the stack would have been lethal at resolution several times during the combo had I been forced to stop.
Plays like that are what make this one of the decks I keep coming back to.
Round 1(B/G Tron)
2-0
Game 1: My opponent had to mulligan to 5 and still only had 1 land. Didn't hit his second land until turn 5 or 6 and I breached in Griselbrand and killed him.
Game 2: I brought in Blood Moon, Shattering Spree and Rakdos Charm. I casted Blood Moon on 2 and we did nothing for the next 4 turns. Turn 6 he played this 6th land, played Wurmcoil, passed. I was looking for a Through the Breach or Goryo's and still hadn't found it. Turn 7, he casted Karn Liberated, exiled Blood Moon, attacked for 6. On my turn I drew the Goryo's, attacked, drew 7, Faithless Looting discarding Emrakul and reanimated him, casted Fury of the Horde to kill him.
Round 2(Jund Loam)
2-1
Game 1: We both went to 6. Turn 1 I cast Thoughtseize and saw Abrupt Decay x2, Zombie Infestation, Go For the Throat, Land, Murderous Cut. Took Go For the Throat and passed. We went back and forth doing nothing other than both casting our draw spells. Eventually I went off killed my Griselbrand, I drew 7 in response and set it up again for next turn and killed him.
Game 2: I brought in Rakdos Charm, Abrupt Decay x2, Shattering Spree, Leyline of Sanctity x3. He got a turn 2 Zombie Infestation down, made a zombie discarding 2 Firemane Angel, played some Bloodghasts while I drew nothing relevant until I was nearly dead. I had to Goryo's in Griselbrand to gain some life and hopefully set up the kill, but missed.
Game 3 I had a decent had minus a reanimation spell. Drew into a Through the Breach, was hit with Smallpox twice, eventually got to 5 land, breached in Emrakul to clear his board, then drew into a Griselbrand combo to kill him a few turns later.
Round 3(R/G Tron)
2-0
Game 1: My opponent keeps a 1 land hand with Relic of Progenitus, gets punished and never draws his next land until I breach in Griselbrand and kill him.
Game 2: Again, turn 1 Relic of Progenitus, but he actually has lands this game. I Blood Moon him on turn 3, he eventually Nature's Claims it. I breach in Emrakul, clear his board, we start over again. He has 2 pieces of Tron, Grove of the Burnwillows and Expedition Map. He plays map, and passes. I have Rakdos Charm in hand, don't destroy the Map because I forget he has the other 2 pieces of tron already. We play draw-go until he has Tron, plays a Karn, +4, I have 3 cards in hand still(Rakdos Charm, Through the Breach, Fury of the Horde) I give him Fury of the Horde. I draw nothing for my turn, he +4's Karn again and gets Rakdos Charm, then plays another Karn for another +4 and gets something irrelevant. I still have my Through the Breach, draw Emrakul for the turn and my friend behind me just starts laughing.
Round 4(Merfolk)
Split, I actually won 2-0 though.
Game 1: I don't really remember. I think I got a Griselbrand in through his double Vapor Snags somehow.
Game 2: I bring in Boseiju, Defense Grid x2, Pyroclasm x2. He plays Aethervial, passes. I play Boseiju, pass. He casts Spreading Seas on Boseiju, passes. I play a Blackcleave and cast Faithless Looting discarding irrelevant stuff and pass, exile Spirit Guide and play Defense Grid. He plays a Silvergil showing Master of the Pearl Trident and misses his third land. I play a land, and can breach in an Emrakul next turn. I breach in Emrakul, clear his board and put him to 5 and pass. He doesn't hit a land and passes. I draw Faithless Looting and draw Simian Spirit Guide and Lightning Bolt and play Spirit Guide. He misses a land again and passes. I attack with Spirit Guide and Lighting Bolt him for the win.
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Through the Breach
4 Faithless Looting
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Thoughtseize
4 Fury of the Horde
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
5 Mountain
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Swamp
2 Defense Grid
2 Pyroclasm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Shattering Spree
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Blood Moon