I think you might be overreacting to the control thing but if it's really an issue I would put 4 voices in your SB and bring them in for birds in those matchups - that'll give you a pretty good idea if it's good enough MD.
I've had pretty good luck with Evolutionary Leap in those matchups in the past too fwiw.
The moment that convinced me that this is worth trying was simply watching the guy who was running 0 birds 4 voice last night.
G1 - T1 Noble, T2 Druid, T3 Vizier, make a bunch of mana and.... flood the board with creatures because I didn't find a combo piece? T4, hit you for 4 because I have a Voice 2 Nobles, and bunch of other ***** on the board, draw 2 extra cards by popping Canopy, playing EWit, and popping Canopy again. T5 play a Gavony and start swinging in with the team and pumping. T6 find a chord and swing in with the team for lethal rather than reveal the card that came off the top.
This was a legitimate aggro beat down in a game that went CLEARLY wrong for the deck and still resulted in a T6 kill with no spells being played during the last 2 turns.
G2 - Same thing happened, but he ran into an EE on 2 which killed 8+ creatures. He lost that one.
G3 - Early combo threat answered by Path. Shift over into the same aggro game we just watched happen twice earlier and win the game around T5.
The threat of a ridiculously large elemental token was relevant in all 3 games. He still could have combo'd just the same as I could had his draws lined up differently, but *this is important to me* when his combo plan fell apart, he was still aggressive and got to force his opponent to spend resources on living, rather than just protecting against the combo. During the matches I watched, Druid was just as important for keeping the deck functioning normal as it was being a combo piece. Thinking about it now, I might move up to 4x Vizier too just to have the extra mana generation when needed, not for the combo, but just to make all the G necessary to play the game.
Games were: win vs RG tron (2-0), win vs jeskai flash (2-1), lose vs eldrazi tron (1-2), win vs grixis control (2-0)
The list is decent. I want to fit either a third gavony or a third canopy but I don't know what to cut. The sideboard had lots of bad cards and needs a lot of work. I think that I will cut some of the mediocre bullets for some stony silences (since I don't run ballista it's fine)
On the control thing, sin collector is really good, I would try to fit one or two in your sideboard if you don't have them.
It could be argued that voice was worse than Spellskite in G3 there. Path decks generally just view Voice as a mediocre spellskite that they have to kill at sorcery speed (or chump with a snapcaster then verdict).
Have you looked at Tribal Humans as a beatdown angle? You can play everything human in your deck except for the druids, and also run Champion of the Parish at 1 (which is gross with collected company).
4th vizier is the easiest cut, but I think Ooze or Pridemage is probably right. I've rarely wanted a game 1 pridemage these days though if Lantern is on the uptick it's reasonable.
I don't think I would cut the 4th vizier. I like this deck because I can continuousy throw combo pieces at my opponent. The midrange plan in this deck is really mediocre (other than kitchen finks and gavony, which are really good beaters and won me lots of games today) so I prefer to have lots of combo pieces instead of cards like tracker or thune/feeder combo, which I tested and underperformed. What would you add in place of the 4th vizier?
I think that MB ooze is a must, qasali was something that I was testing because I was unsure. I think that it should be in the sideboard, since in my testing the only time that I really wanted that effect was vs ad nauseam (for phyrexian unlife), which is probably not enough for a maindeck slot.
The tron matchup has got better, but it isn't anything stellar. The sideboard could have better cards for this matchup (fulminators underperformed), and that in addition to the new combo would make this matchup way better. This are the conditions that I feel like a good sideboard card needs in this pairing, so if someone has any card suggestion that meets some of this requisites please tell me!
1) Multiple land destruction. Cards that destroy only one land have more negative impact in our deck than in the battlefield, so we should avoid quarter or fulminator. Something like magus of the moon to slow them down, or things to prevent them from searching lands like aven mindcensor or stony silence could work.
2) Cards to deny their more impactful spells. We usually don't care too much about chalice, tks or smasher, but endbringer, ballista and all is dust are brutal. Linvala stops endbringer and ballista, stony silence just ballista, and nothing stops all three.
3) Cards that win the game even when they have a better board than us. I thought about mass reanimation like rally the ancestors, but it's mediocre for numerous reasons. Wraths are mediocre too. I can't come up with any good card that meets this condition. Seems like we can't win if they have an active endbringer/ballista + a big attacker.
Maybe we could move to the old school x4 tidehollow/thoughtseize to tear apart their hand if it's weak on acceleration/finishers. That's probably the correct thing to do, adding 4 discard and some stony silences, but I want to hear your thoughts.
@Pokken and the other guys. Thanks for your great help here. 2 things:
1) @Pokken from what I read, you prefer Naya over Abzan, or maybe even straight GW. Why is that?
2) My list is below. What would you change? I haven't touched the deck besides the other day literally for months. But I worked some hours to finetune this list in my mind. Thanks in advance.
3) Dredge is big in my area. Like, REALLY big. Are 1 Ooze in the main + 1 in the side enough? Or should I put something else. And if yes, what? Maybe the Pharika also? But it's kind of slow.
1) I prefer Naya because wolf run enables a higher rate of turn 3 combos than most other methods while not using up slots in the deck. Recruiter is a very decent card but I would prefer to have the playset of ralliers and my 3 flex slots (spirit, flickerwisp, grim lavamancer). I don't think it's necessarily better but the sideboard cards are really flexible too. Being able to run Crumble is very nice. Stingscourger has been pretty good.
This is just a gut feeling but I think GW with ralliers is probably the best deck overall since Duskwatch Recruiter is really strong in multiples and getting rallied back is insane. The 4 ralliers/4 recruiters is just incredibly strong. The issue with this build for me is that sideboarding is rough.
I just do not think kitchen finks is well positioned in modern right now. Renegade Rallier's tempo advantage is unreal. Everyone has different opinions about that and I accept it, but I don't like how soft finks is to prticularly common kinds of graveyard hate (scooze and cage especially). The GW and Naya decks are much more insulated from graveyard hate in general especially Gw with 4 recruiters.
2) Your list is not particularly to my tastes. I would change a lot of things.
-Mana: swamp sucks, 3 horizon canopy is a must (2 minimum), would only run swamp if running pharika in the side. Maaaybe for abrupt decay but prefer not. I am not in love with the 3rd forest either.
-I don't like Pridemage in the main deck anymore. Just don't think it does enough.
-Would cut one seer add one hierarch
-If dredge is big in your area run another ooze. I don't think Pharika is good vs. dredge. too slow and doesn't hit loam or conflagrate. I think the deck is solid against dredge as is and two oozes should do the trick plus selfless spirit and forge tender. If you can blank conflagrate you should combo kill most games.
-I don't like walking ballista. Prefer Rhonas or Entity. Entity is very strong vs. Dredge (since it can out race their most explosive draws and they have limited kill spells for it.
-I prefer flickerwisp to fiendhunter main deck, but YMMV. usually you just need a turn off to combo not to temporarily exile something. Fiendhunter is worse the fewer viscera seers you run.
-I prefer 3 or even 4 township and 23 lands in abzan but I like hitting 4 lands naturally after sideboarding out dorks. I am the minority in that dept, but I would never run fewer than 3 townships and would probably try the full 4 before 3. I'm literally the only one who thinks this way so bear that in mind.
Re: Sideboard
-I would play a maelstrom pulse over the 3rd path and I'm not a huge fan of voice of resurgence.
-I think if you want a hope of beating Storm now you need to be playing canonist -- eidolon is not good enough on its own anymore since you can never chord for 3 before they go off.
-I'm not a giant fan of Linvala. She just seems so medium. In games you will be boarding out chords for removal or cheap creatures for removal, and either way craps on your ability to find linvala or cast meaningful cocos. And they will bring in removal so she's even worse.
-No real opinion on Sculler.
Hope some of that helps but bear in mind again that I am in the minority in a lot of areas if not a total pariah
Small turnout tonight since a number of folks were vacationing. I went 2-0-1 splitting with a buddy playing my bogles deck in the finals.
match 1 vs. GW Tron
I win the play!
Game 1 I kill him turn 3 on the play with wolf run.
Game 2 He misplays around vizier and lets it resolve, I play most of the creatures in my deck and pass turn after he paths my druid and then kill him turn 4 with a mirror entity for 5 and 15 dudes with selfless spirit backing it up. He had to get white for path so was off of tron. Luccccky!
Match 2 vs. Living End
Game 1 I kill him turn 3 on the play with wolf run.
Game 2 we play for 20 some odd turns while he tries to find answers for my natural drawn Eidolon AND canonist and I try to draw a damned chord or collected company and fail. He finds his answers first and I stall for 3 turns by stingscourgering most of his board with rallier but am unable to draw a single damned chord of calling. Chord for mirror entity would have ended the game handily at any point.
--He cast all three angers in this matchup and cycled about 15 times. Literally at any point if I'd drawn a chord I would have won. I boarded out a rallier in this matchup on accident which was a terrible plan. Rally back Ooze so good.
Game 3 I am on the play, with a hand of hierarch, ooze, rallier, land land land after mulling to 6. I think hard on it and play rallier back a fetchland turn 2 so that on turn 3 I can slam Ooze with 3 green up and eat most of his yard. This turns out to be a good strategy. He has to beast within my ooze, I untap and pass, coco into mirror entity and vizier - he violent outbursts and puts living end on the stack, not realizing that mirror entity can activate for 0. I activate for 0 and then kill him by swinging with a board full of 6/6s.
My takeaways from this are:
1) Rallying stingscourger is pretty sick. Rallier is amazing period, the ramp and fixing are very powerful options.
2) I really like having 2 storm hate pieces right now. Good vs. Living end and Ad Nauseam too.
3) Scavenging ooze is a beast.
4) I saw too many wolf runs in a couple games tonight outside of testing and am considering playing the 4th horizon canopy.
Deck feels very good now. I am 11-2-1 with it over the last 4 FNMs or something like that in matches.
I don't think I would cut the 4th vizier. I like this deck because I can continuousy throw combo pieces at my opponent. The midrange plan in this deck is really mediocre (other than kitchen finks and gavony, which are really good beaters and won me lots of games today) so I prefer to have lots of combo pieces instead of cards like tracker or thune/feeder combo, which I tested and underperformed. What would you add in place of the 4th vizier?
I think that MB ooze is a must, qasali was something that I was testing because I was unsure. I think that it should be in the sideboard, since in my testing the only time that I really wanted that effect was vs ad nauseam (for phyrexian unlife), which is probably not enough for a maindeck slot.
The tron matchup has got better, but it isn't anything stellar. The sideboard could have better cards for this matchup (fulminators underperformed), and that in addition to the new combo would make this matchup way better. This are the conditions that I feel like a good sideboard card needs in this pairing, so if someone has any card suggestion that meets some of this requisites please tell me!
1) Multiple land destruction. Cards that destroy only one land have more negative impact in our deck than in the battlefield, so we should avoid quarter or fulminator. Something like magus of the moon to slow them down, or things to prevent them from searching lands like aven mindcensor or stony silence could work.
2) Cards to deny their more impactful spells. We usually don't care too much about chalice, tks or smasher, but endbringer, ballista and all is dust are brutal. Linvala stops endbringer and ballista, stony silence just ballista, and nothing stops all three.
3) Cards that win the game even when they have a better board than us. I thought about mass reanimation like rally the ancestors, but it's mediocre for numerous reasons. Wraths are mediocre too. I can't come up with any good card that meets this condition. Seems like we can't win if they have an active endbringer/ballista + a big attacker.
Maybe we could move to the old school x4 tidehollow/thoughtseize to tear apart their hand if it's weak on acceleration/finishers. That's probably the correct thing to do, adding 4 discard and some stony silences, but I want to hear your thoughts.
Re: Vizier
I would not run 5 persist enablers, so I would either cut the 4th vizier or anafenza for the 3rd township. If you must cut a land because you want to stay at 22, cut swamp. We don't need to cast redcap. Swamp is a miserable land in the deck when we never need to cast a BB spell.
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I agree with your assessment of land destruction. Fulminator has never been good vs. tron for us. we don't have fast enough clock (no 2 mana 5/6s :))
Magus is something I would try for my build for sure if I owned more of them. I would want at least 2 since you can't count on chording for 3 vs. tron. Crumble is not bad.
I would not play Linvala vs. E-tron. They'll have extra removal and probably cages to deny us chording for her.
Against all tron variants the correct approach I believe is to try to turn 3-4 combo and have a minimal bit of interaction (e.g. rec sage/pridemages for their artifact hate pieces). If I wanted to gear to beat that matchup in today's post-pyroclasm meta it would be to run 3 spellskites in the SB and try to assemble skite+druid+vizier. They have a helluva time assembling enough removal to kill your druid through a spellskite. Skite can also be rallied back at instant speed with a coco/chord if it dies to dismember or whatever (if you are playing ralliers).
You also just have to force them to have it a lot of the time. They just don't run enough removal to always have it, and you earn your points by making them have it.
[quote from="spankxz »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/605889-abzan-company?comment=5593"]I would play a Yixlid Jailer in the sb for dredge heavy meta.
Loaming Shaman. Sure it's 3 but doesn't need black (big deal), comprehensive damage done even when removed, and qualifies as a legit beatstick. Also doubles as duty for Living End and Storm.
What's our the plan vs Grafdigger's Cage on game 2? Having 1 or 2 Rec Sage doesn't seem good enough when Chord doesn't work. Maybe that's an argument for keeping black and having 4 Abrupt Decay instead of 4 Path to Exile. Thoughts?
Most decks don't play more than two cages in the board and only lantern, bant eldrazi, and g/x tron play ancient stirrings to find it with any consistency. Sometimes they just have it turn 1, but between chord/company, this deck can find a 2-of pridemage more consistently than most other decks can find a two-of cage.
Ok, points noted Pokken. I will adjust my list to your points, as most of them(all besides Ballista imo are pretty reasonable )
Also, I really, really likes Torpf's List. This following list I adjusted is pretty much influenced by his.
@Torpf:
- How did you find the one off Spellskite in the mainboard?
- 3 Noble Hierarch is a must you think? I mean, it's better than 2 in your opinion?
@Pokken:
- About the number of lands, I agree. In the matchups I side out the Hierarchs and some Birds, I need to be hitting my lands consistently and this does not happen all the time and it's annoying.
- About the Swamp, you are right as well. It's just a mistake. I have to replace it with something, probably a Horizon Canopy.
- Qasali Pridemage unfortunately is a must for me but I take your point and I think you are probably right, depending on the meta. There are some Ensnaring Bridge decks that I hate. I just hate them. In a big tourney I would probably not include it in the mainboard as well.
- About Fiend Hunter, you are right again. It's just not worth it with only 1 Viscera Seer. Maybe a one off Renegade Rallier is bette, but again this is a flexspot and I don't know what to replace it with. Maybe Rhonas, the Indomitable.
- I heavily disagree with Walking Ballista though. It's just a gret magic card and lets you kill 1 toughness creatures in game 1. If I am changing the number of it, it can surely go up to 2 and not 1.
- Also, what do you guys think about 1 of my favourite creatures of all times, Courser Of Kruphix? Torpf played 1 as I saw and I want one as well.
Lastly, I am testing Tireless Tracker now. Also, cut Eidolon Of Rhetoric completely for a second Tidehollow Sculler(some Ad Nauseam players, little to non Storm ones) and as Pokken said, cut an Path To Exile for a Maelstrom Pulse sideboard that's just too good. Also, added 1 Stony Silence. It's worth it. Modern is pretty heavy in artifacts atm(Lantern Prison, Affinity, Tron, maybe Ad Nauseam, etc)
Mainboard: Renegade Rallier is a flexspot, really. Thinking about what I can replace it with. In my testing, I did not exactly loved it, but when it was good it was great.
Maybesideboards(that I am thinking of) / Notes:
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Stony Silence (second) It's just too good.
1 Anafenza, the Foremost Dredge is big in my area. 1 Ethersworn Canonist for Storm and other combos(my area does not have all that many spell based combos, so I am not thinking about it) 1 Sin Collector: my area does not have all that many spell based combos, so I am not thinking about it
Ps: We 're getting there; we 're getting there. The list needs A LOT of tuning but there is a constant evolution from what I can see.
I like where your list is at. I would play the 3rd hierarch.
That's my only real comment except that I do not like rallier as a 1-of. It is questionable as anything but a 3-4 of in my opinion since they tend to enable each other, and it's easier to play around revolt when you have more of them. Revolt is a weird ability that requires critical mass before you start playing around it. I would try lots of things in that slot but IMHO Sin Collector and Orzhov Pontiff are the best positioned in that slot right now. I'd also try weird ***** like playing Abzan Falconer. Anafenza seems fine.
What's our the plan vs Grafdigger's Cage on game 2? Having 1 or 2 Rec Sage doesn't seem good enough when Chord doesn't work. Maybe that's an argument for keeping black and having 4 Abrupt Decay instead of 4 Path to Exile. Thoughts?
I run 2 pridemages and 1 rec sage and have thus far killed 100% of the cages I've seen (4 out of my last 15-16 matches or so), despite losing one of those games. It is pretty backbreaking when you pridemage a cage then rally back the pridemage.
Abrupt decay is just a non-starter for me. I need to deal with Leylines which are pretty common in my meta, and I hate diluting coco so much, and I really like that Pridemage and Rec sage often represent value plays. I get why others might consider decay but I find it too narrow.
Thus far 3 pieces of hate have been enough for me, plus siding in 2 evolutionary leaps -- since Leap enables chaining dorks into pridemages/etc.
After playing the Abzan Melira/Finks combo for a bit, I'm going all-in on the Vizier/Druid combo. I'm planning on bringing this deck to a small tournament tomorrow. Any thoughts?
This is close enough to my list that I feel like I can profitably comment.
Here's what I'd do:
Cut the ballista and the rec sage for 2 more kessig wolf runs. I have not really wanted a main deck ench/artifact hate card most games. If you're super attached to ballista you can just add one wolf run of course.
Replace one forest with a second stomping ground.
Play all 4 foothills
Replace one verdant catacombs with an arid mesa
Replace the other with a sacred foundry
(Alternatively, you could play some more renegade ralliers; I have loved that card with duskwatch)
I am really liking the angle of going all in on duskwatch recruiter the more I consider it. He's been really good a lot lately. Feeling like you might be on the right track there.
I will say that Grim lavamancer *tears up* the mirror match (and most small creature matchups). Just crushes it dead. May want to consider one in the sideboard.
Reasoning behind playing 23 lands: If you're playing 4 duskwatches (and Rhonas and wolf runs) you have SO MANY mana sinks that I think it's a mistake not to play the extra spell lands. It helps you hit 4 for coco and helps when you board out dorks and helps you both activate duskwatch and cast spells or activate wolf runs.
Wish you tons of luck. Love to hear how it works out playing all those duskwatches whether you like my approach or not
only been playing this deck for a week, but i really think 3-4 duskwatch recruiters might be right, i cant think of many games i played where i wouldnt mind drawing one.
Yeah my initial thinking when I had 2 was that it might be a bit slow and it sucked to have to expose them early. When you have 4 I think it's an awesome must-answer threat you can run out and just keep churning through an unending stream of chumpblockers in even the worst case scenarios.
I have Rallied a Duskwatch back a few times and it's generally game over for any attrition based deck.
I'd have to shave some flex slots to be able to fit them but it might wind up being correct. There've definitely been times I'd rather have another duskwatch than selfless spirit (but on the flipside Selfless has won games). Gonna have to give it some serious pondering this week.
After playing the Abzan Melira/Finks combo for a bit, I'm going all-in on the Vizier/Druid combo. I'm planning on bringing this deck to a small tournament tomorrow. Any thoughts?
I've just switched to the red splash too and like it a lot so far. I think you are making a big mistake not taking advantage of some of the other angles the third colour (whatever it is) offers though. All you have really done here is added even more resources to a fairly narrow attack vector, meaning that hate cards will be that much more brutal against you. I really like the GP Kobe 9th place list as it offered some neat ideas. I'm running a MD Harsh Mentor, 2 x Kessigs, 3 Magus of the Moon (wow, have they been good against Eldrazi decks) and 4 x Knight of the Reliquary which give you a pretty good beatdown plan if you run afoul of Cage or an enemy Harsh Mentor. You've got to diversify those vectors. If I was playing U instead of red I'd play Retreats (but if I was just going to add a third colour so I could play two combos I'd stick with Black as it's faster and doesn't rely on naturally drawing an enchantment).
I get it that you are just trying to go off on T3 every game, but the reality is that as more people learn about this deck more hate will fill up the tables and you have to be more resilient. As Twin evolved it went from the all-in UR version to a bunch of other versions that added G ('Goyf), B (Kolaghan's Command, etc) or W (P2E, etc) to make them more resilient to the anti-Twin cards. That's where we're at now.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
Thanks for the advice Pokken. I actually based a lot of my decisions on your reasoning on previous posts.
The plan was to play 2 Wolf Runs but... I only have 1 and the store doesn't have any in stock. So that will have to wait for next week (don't you hate it when that happens for cheap cards you'd buy in an instant?).
I like your idea of going up in mana a bit, so I took out the Rec Sage (less need with the Flickerwisp, which I first saw you advocate for it) and added another Stomping Ground. I also cut one Path in the SB and added a Grim Lavamancer (since the 4 Paths were mostly for the mirror anyway).
I play Elves in Legacy, so when I saw this deck approaching that level of combo I got all excited. Hopefully it'll do well. I'll post a mini-report later today or tomorrow.
So I think Titan scapeshift can probably be raced. Forge tender and selfless do a lot of work to tax their removal. Mindcensor can be ok.
Remand based scapeshift just feels downright unwinnable. I'm not sure it's worth trying to fix that matchup.
If you do want to try, you can run 4 rallier 4 land destruction lands and play a couple life from the loam in the sb. I am not even sure that's good enough but an early gq lock on their green sources is reasonable to attempt.
I think most of the valakut decks are always going to be hard. The most realistic approach with abzan Finks is to rush the combo vs Titan and sin collector vs remand versions. But none of the options are going to make the matches good.
Ive tried a lot of things but creature combo always has a hard time answering those decks that fight with their lands.
Extra feedback: I've pkayed red splash for 2 grim lavamancer at the time of melira version (pre-druid). It was great but very "graveyard intensive" (eating all fetches, dead creatures and spells) and the deck played only 2 eternal witnesses. Now that the deck plays 4 EWit + 1-3 ralliers, I feel that lavamancer would nonbo but I may be wrong. Did someone test it?
I play one lavamancer and it's easy to support in most matchups. You've always got dead mana dorks rolling around and there're usually fetch lands, sometimes extra cocos or chords, etc. It has never even been an inconvenience.
One thing I'll say is that of the times I've had Lavamancer hit the board it has died instantly somewhere around 3/4 times. This has won me games and hey can't argue with a painless thoughtseize
Bottom line I think the deck can support 1 -- I even run 4 witness and 4 rallier. I do think 2 would be a big push.
Thanks for the fast answer.
About that land count question, I've just read a recent article from Frank Karsten. Using his formulas and hypotheses, going from 22 to 23 lands increases the probability of a land drop turn 4 by 4%. That's so little that I think I'll remain on 22.
Yeah I did a lot of pondering on that. I can see the arguments both ways.
My main line of thinking is: Would I rather naturally draw this card I am adding or a Gavony Township or Kessig Wolf Run? And pretty much always it comes down on the side of wolf run or township.
The net reduction in games where you miss your 3rd or 4th land drop is meaningful, something like a 10-12% reduction overall in those games (so going from 36 games out of 100 to 32 games out of 100 with mana screw on 4th turn for example is about 11% reduction).
Everything together keeps me on 23 lands:
* Decks are more mana greedy with recruiters and entity/rhonas/ballista
* overall creatures are worse quality so drawing spell lands (township or wolf run) is more important
* Casting coco is more reliable at assembling a combo, so more important to get to 4
* The deck can combo off with one chord for 2, so drawing naturally to 5 mana is valuable in sweeper heavy games.
* When sideboarding out mana dorks, naturally drawing lands becomes more important
* overall colored mana requirements are lessened because of higher density of mana creatures
Edit:
The flipside of the argument is probably something like this:
* We're adding 2-3 more mana creatures so we can cut 1 land. The deck was already somewhat over-mana'd at 23 lands with 9 mana creatures, we're going up to 11-12.
* The generally accepted rule is that 2 x 1 drop dorks counts as a land and 4x 2 drop dorks counts as a land, so with 7 dorks and 4 druids we're can count those as 4-5 lands, which means 23 lands is running almost virtually 28 with 7 dorks/4 druids.
* We can run additional creature based combo outlets in those slots -- e.g. shave 2 lands add 2 duskwatch recruiters -- which ups our combo density.
* Flooding out is a serious danger when we have 15 complete duds in our deck (4 druids 7 dorks 4 viziers)
All fine reasoning--though from my perspective the 'higher dud' count goes both ways (since lower creature quality = higher value of township).
summ-
However, I think you will see almost all pro versions of these decks running 2 townships or 2 wolf runs and 21/22 lands. So maybe best to take your cue from them. I tend to be fairly conservative in a lot of ways.
I think you might be overreacting to the control thing but if it's really an issue I would put 4 voices in your SB and bring them in for birds in those matchups - that'll give you a pretty good idea if it's good enough MD.
I've had pretty good luck with Evolutionary Leap in those matchups in the past too fwiw.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
G1 - T1 Noble, T2 Druid, T3 Vizier, make a bunch of mana and.... flood the board with creatures because I didn't find a combo piece? T4, hit you for 4 because I have a Voice 2 Nobles, and bunch of other ***** on the board, draw 2 extra cards by popping Canopy, playing EWit, and popping Canopy again. T5 play a Gavony and start swinging in with the team and pumping. T6 find a chord and swing in with the team for lethal rather than reveal the card that came off the top.
This was a legitimate aggro beat down in a game that went CLEARLY wrong for the deck and still resulted in a T6 kill with no spells being played during the last 2 turns.
G2 - Same thing happened, but he ran into an EE on 2 which killed 8+ creatures. He lost that one.
G3 - Early combo threat answered by Path. Shift over into the same aggro game we just watched happen twice earlier and win the game around T5.
The threat of a ridiculously large elemental token was relevant in all 3 games. He still could have combo'd just the same as I could had his draws lined up differently, but *this is important to me* when his combo plan fell apart, he was still aggressive and got to force his opponent to spend resources on living, rather than just protecting against the combo. During the matches I watched, Druid was just as important for keeping the deck functioning normal as it was being a combo piece. Thinking about it now, I might move up to 4x Vizier too just to have the extra mana generation when needed, not for the combo, but just to make all the G necessary to play the game.
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
//Instants
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Eternal Witness
1 Fiend Hunter
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Viscera Seer
4 Vizier of Remedies
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Sin Collector
Games were: win vs RG tron (2-0), win vs jeskai flash (2-1), lose vs eldrazi tron (1-2), win vs grixis control (2-0)
The list is decent. I want to fit either a third gavony or a third canopy but I don't know what to cut. The sideboard had lots of bad cards and needs a lot of work. I think that I will cut some of the mediocre bullets for some stony silences (since I don't run ballista it's fine)
On the control thing, sin collector is really good, I would try to fit one or two in your sideboard if you don't have them.
L: Maverick
Have you looked at Tribal Humans as a beatdown angle? You can play everything human in your deck except for the druids, and also run Champion of the Parish at 1 (which is gross with collected company).
Here's a draft: https://deckbox.org/sets/1716075
Stampede could be chord, just something I was toying with (because the volume of green creatures is lower and to allow caverns)
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I love that we're beating tron now!!
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think that MB ooze is a must, qasali was something that I was testing because I was unsure. I think that it should be in the sideboard, since in my testing the only time that I really wanted that effect was vs ad nauseam (for phyrexian unlife), which is probably not enough for a maindeck slot.
The tron matchup has got better, but it isn't anything stellar. The sideboard could have better cards for this matchup (fulminators underperformed), and that in addition to the new combo would make this matchup way better. This are the conditions that I feel like a good sideboard card needs in this pairing, so if someone has any card suggestion that meets some of this requisites please tell me!
1) Multiple land destruction. Cards that destroy only one land have more negative impact in our deck than in the battlefield, so we should avoid quarter or fulminator. Something like magus of the moon to slow them down, or things to prevent them from searching lands like aven mindcensor or stony silence could work.
2) Cards to deny their more impactful spells. We usually don't care too much about chalice, tks or smasher, but endbringer, ballista and all is dust are brutal. Linvala stops endbringer and ballista, stony silence just ballista, and nothing stops all three.
3) Cards that win the game even when they have a better board than us. I thought about mass reanimation like rally the ancestors, but it's mediocre for numerous reasons. Wraths are mediocre too. I can't come up with any good card that meets this condition. Seems like we can't win if they have an active endbringer/ballista + a big attacker.
Maybe we could move to the old school x4 tidehollow/thoughtseize to tear apart their hand if it's weak on acceleration/finishers. That's probably the correct thing to do, adding 4 discard and some stony silences, but I want to hear your thoughts.
L: Maverick
1) I prefer Naya because wolf run enables a higher rate of turn 3 combos than most other methods while not using up slots in the deck. Recruiter is a very decent card but I would prefer to have the playset of ralliers and my 3 flex slots (spirit, flickerwisp, grim lavamancer). I don't think it's necessarily better but the sideboard cards are really flexible too. Being able to run Crumble is very nice. Stingscourger has been pretty good.
This is just a gut feeling but I think GW with ralliers is probably the best deck overall since Duskwatch Recruiter is really strong in multiples and getting rallied back is insane. The 4 ralliers/4 recruiters is just incredibly strong. The issue with this build for me is that sideboarding is rough.
I just do not think kitchen finks is well positioned in modern right now. Renegade Rallier's tempo advantage is unreal. Everyone has different opinions about that and I accept it, but I don't like how soft finks is to prticularly common kinds of graveyard hate (scooze and cage especially). The GW and Naya decks are much more insulated from graveyard hate in general especially Gw with 4 recruiters.
2) Your list is not particularly to my tastes. I would change a lot of things.
-Mana: swamp sucks, 3 horizon canopy is a must (2 minimum), would only run swamp if running pharika in the side. Maaaybe for abrupt decay but prefer not. I am not in love with the 3rd forest either.
-I don't like Pridemage in the main deck anymore. Just don't think it does enough.
-Would cut one seer add one hierarch
-If dredge is big in your area run another ooze. I don't think Pharika is good vs. dredge. too slow and doesn't hit loam or conflagrate. I think the deck is solid against dredge as is and two oozes should do the trick plus selfless spirit and forge tender. If you can blank conflagrate you should combo kill most games.
-I don't like walking ballista. Prefer Rhonas or Entity. Entity is very strong vs. Dredge (since it can out race their most explosive draws and they have limited kill spells for it.
-I prefer flickerwisp to fiendhunter main deck, but YMMV. usually you just need a turn off to combo not to temporarily exile something. Fiendhunter is worse the fewer viscera seers you run.
-I prefer 3 or even 4 township and 23 lands in abzan but I like hitting 4 lands naturally after sideboarding out dorks. I am the minority in that dept, but I would never run fewer than 3 townships and would probably try the full 4 before 3. I'm literally the only one who thinks this way so bear that in mind.
Re: Sideboard
-I would play a maelstrom pulse over the 3rd path and I'm not a huge fan of voice of resurgence.
-I think if you want a hope of beating Storm now you need to be playing canonist -- eidolon is not good enough on its own anymore since you can never chord for 3 before they go off.
-I'm not a giant fan of Linvala. She just seems so medium. In games you will be boarding out chords for removal or cheap creatures for removal, and either way craps on your ability to find linvala or cast meaningful cocos. And they will bring in removal so she's even worse.
-No real opinion on Sculler.
Hope some of that helps but bear in mind again that I am in the minority in a lot of areas if not a total pariah
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FNM report!!!
Small turnout tonight since a number of folks were vacationing. I went 2-0-1 splitting with a buddy playing my bogles deck in the finals.
match 1 vs. GW Tron
I win the play!
Game 1 I kill him turn 3 on the play with wolf run.
Game 2 He misplays around vizier and lets it resolve, I play most of the creatures in my deck and pass turn after he paths my druid and then kill him turn 4 with a mirror entity for 5 and 15 dudes with selfless spirit backing it up. He had to get white for path so was off of tron. Luccccky!
Match 2 vs. Living End
Game 1 I kill him turn 3 on the play with wolf run.
Game 2 we play for 20 some odd turns while he tries to find answers for my natural drawn Eidolon AND canonist and I try to draw a damned chord or collected company and fail. He finds his answers first and I stall for 3 turns by stingscourgering most of his board with rallier but am unable to draw a single damned chord of calling. Chord for mirror entity would have ended the game handily at any point.
--He cast all three angers in this matchup and cycled about 15 times. Literally at any point if I'd drawn a chord I would have won. I boarded out a rallier in this matchup on accident which was a terrible plan. Rally back Ooze so good.
Game 3 I am on the play, with a hand of hierarch, ooze, rallier, land land land after mulling to 6. I think hard on it and play rallier back a fetchland turn 2 so that on turn 3 I can slam Ooze with 3 green up and eat most of his yard. This turns out to be a good strategy. He has to beast within my ooze, I untap and pass, coco into mirror entity and vizier - he violent outbursts and puts living end on the stack, not realizing that mirror entity can activate for 0. I activate for 0 and then kill him by swinging with a board full of 6/6s.
My takeaways from this are:
1) Rallying stingscourger is pretty sick. Rallier is amazing period, the ramp and fixing are very powerful options.
2) I really like having 2 storm hate pieces right now. Good vs. Living end and Ad Nauseam too.
3) Scavenging ooze is a beast.
4) I saw too many wolf runs in a couple games tonight outside of testing and am considering playing the 4th horizon canopy.
Deck feels very good now. I am 11-2-1 with it over the last 4 FNMs or something like that in matches.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Re: Vizier
I would not run 5 persist enablers, so I would either cut the 4th vizier or anafenza for the 3rd township. If you must cut a land because you want to stay at 22, cut swamp. We don't need to cast redcap. Swamp is a miserable land in the deck when we never need to cast a BB spell.
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I agree with your assessment of land destruction. Fulminator has never been good vs. tron for us. we don't have fast enough clock (no 2 mana 5/6s :))
Magus is something I would try for my build for sure if I owned more of them. I would want at least 2 since you can't count on chording for 3 vs. tron. Crumble is not bad.
I would not play Linvala vs. E-tron. They'll have extra removal and probably cages to deny us chording for her.
Against all tron variants the correct approach I believe is to try to turn 3-4 combo and have a minimal bit of interaction (e.g. rec sage/pridemages for their artifact hate pieces). If I wanted to gear to beat that matchup in today's post-pyroclasm meta it would be to run 3 spellskites in the SB and try to assemble skite+druid+vizier. They have a helluva time assembling enough removal to kill your druid through a spellskite. Skite can also be rallied back at instant speed with a coco/chord if it dies to dismember or whatever (if you are playing ralliers).
You also just have to force them to have it a lot of the time. They just don't run enough removal to always have it, and you earn your points by making them have it.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Loaming Shaman. Sure it's 3 but doesn't need black (big deal), comprehensive damage done even when removed, and qualifies as a legit beatstick. Also doubles as duty for Living End and Storm.
Modern
Value Town
Amulet Titan
Legacy
4C Loam
My Peasant Cube
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11667
I like where your list is at. I would play the 3rd hierarch.
That's my only real comment except that I do not like rallier as a 1-of. It is questionable as anything but a 3-4 of in my opinion since they tend to enable each other, and it's easier to play around revolt when you have more of them. Revolt is a weird ability that requires critical mass before you start playing around it. I would try lots of things in that slot but IMHO Sin Collector and Orzhov Pontiff are the best positioned in that slot right now. I'd also try weird ***** like playing Abzan Falconer. Anafenza seems fine.
I run 2 pridemages and 1 rec sage and have thus far killed 100% of the cages I've seen (4 out of my last 15-16 matches or so), despite losing one of those games. It is pretty backbreaking when you pridemage a cage then rally back the pridemage.
Abrupt decay is just a non-starter for me. I need to deal with Leylines which are pretty common in my meta, and I hate diluting coco so much, and I really like that Pridemage and Rec sage often represent value plays. I get why others might consider decay but I find it too narrow.
Thus far 3 pieces of hate have been enough for me, plus siding in 2 evolutionary leaps -- since Leap enables chaining dorks into pridemages/etc.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Devoted Druid
4 Vizier of Remedies
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Eternal Witness
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Walking Ballista
1 Rhonas
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Flickerwisp
Spells (8)
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Lands (21)
2 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
1 Plains
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf-Run
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Path to Exile
2 Stony Silence
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Harsh Mentor
Here's what I'd do:
Cut the ballista and the rec sage for 2 more kessig wolf runs. I have not really wanted a main deck ench/artifact hate card most games. If you're super attached to ballista you can just add one wolf run of course.
Replace one forest with a second stomping ground.
Play all 4 foothills
Replace one verdant catacombs with an arid mesa
Replace the other with a sacred foundry
(Alternatively, you could play some more renegade ralliers; I have loved that card with duskwatch)
I am really liking the angle of going all in on duskwatch recruiter the more I consider it. He's been really good a lot lately. Feeling like you might be on the right track there.
I will say that Grim lavamancer *tears up* the mirror match (and most small creature matchups). Just crushes it dead. May want to consider one in the sideboard.
Reasoning behind playing 23 lands: If you're playing 4 duskwatches (and Rhonas and wolf runs) you have SO MANY mana sinks that I think it's a mistake not to play the extra spell lands. It helps you hit 4 for coco and helps when you board out dorks and helps you both activate duskwatch and cast spells or activate wolf runs.
Wish you tons of luck. Love to hear how it works out playing all those duskwatches whether you like my approach or not
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I have Rallied a Duskwatch back a few times and it's generally game over for any attrition based deck.
I'd have to shave some flex slots to be able to fit them but it might wind up being correct. There've definitely been times I'd rather have another duskwatch than selfless spirit (but on the flipside Selfless has won games). Gonna have to give it some serious pondering this week.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I've just switched to the red splash too and like it a lot so far. I think you are making a big mistake not taking advantage of some of the other angles the third colour (whatever it is) offers though. All you have really done here is added even more resources to a fairly narrow attack vector, meaning that hate cards will be that much more brutal against you. I really like the GP Kobe 9th place list as it offered some neat ideas. I'm running a MD Harsh Mentor, 2 x Kessigs, 3 Magus of the Moon (wow, have they been good against Eldrazi decks) and 4 x Knight of the Reliquary which give you a pretty good beatdown plan if you run afoul of Cage or an enemy Harsh Mentor. You've got to diversify those vectors. If I was playing U instead of red I'd play Retreats (but if I was just going to add a third colour so I could play two combos I'd stick with Black as it's faster and doesn't rely on naturally drawing an enchantment).
I get it that you are just trying to go off on T3 every game, but the reality is that as more people learn about this deck more hate will fill up the tables and you have to be more resilient. As Twin evolved it went from the all-in UR version to a bunch of other versions that added G ('Goyf), B (Kolaghan's Command, etc) or W (P2E, etc) to make them more resilient to the anti-Twin cards. That's where we're at now.
The plan was to play 2 Wolf Runs but... I only have 1 and the store doesn't have any in stock. So that will have to wait for next week (don't you hate it when that happens for cheap cards you'd buy in an instant?).
I like your idea of going up in mana a bit, so I took out the Rec Sage (less need with the Flickerwisp, which I first saw you advocate for it) and added another Stomping Ground. I also cut one Path in the SB and added a Grim Lavamancer (since the 4 Paths were mostly for the mirror anyway).
I play Elves in Legacy, so when I saw this deck approaching that level of combo I got all excited. Hopefully it'll do well. I'll post a mini-report later today or tomorrow.
Remand based scapeshift just feels downright unwinnable. I'm not sure it's worth trying to fix that matchup.
If you do want to try, you can run 4 rallier 4 land destruction lands and play a couple life from the loam in the sb. I am not even sure that's good enough but an early gq lock on their green sources is reasonable to attempt.
I think most of the valakut decks are always going to be hard. The most realistic approach with abzan Finks is to rush the combo vs Titan and sin collector vs remand versions. But none of the options are going to make the matches good.
Ive tried a lot of things but creature combo always has a hard time answering those decks that fight with their lands.
I play one lavamancer and it's easy to support in most matchups. You've always got dead mana dorks rolling around and there're usually fetch lands, sometimes extra cocos or chords, etc. It has never even been an inconvenience.
One thing I'll say is that of the times I've had Lavamancer hit the board it has died instantly somewhere around 3/4 times. This has won me games and hey can't argue with a painless thoughtseize
Bottom line I think the deck can support 1 -- I even run 4 witness and 4 rallier. I do think 2 would be a big push.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Yeah I did a lot of pondering on that. I can see the arguments both ways.
My main line of thinking is: Would I rather naturally draw this card I am adding or a Gavony Township or Kessig Wolf Run? And pretty much always it comes down on the side of wolf run or township.
The net reduction in games where you miss your 3rd or 4th land drop is meaningful, something like a 10-12% reduction overall in those games (so going from 36 games out of 100 to 32 games out of 100 with mana screw on 4th turn for example is about 11% reduction).
Everything together keeps me on 23 lands:
* Decks are more mana greedy with recruiters and entity/rhonas/ballista
* overall creatures are worse quality so drawing spell lands (township or wolf run) is more important
* Casting coco is more reliable at assembling a combo, so more important to get to 4
* The deck can combo off with one chord for 2, so drawing naturally to 5 mana is valuable in sweeper heavy games.
* When sideboarding out mana dorks, naturally drawing lands becomes more important
* overall colored mana requirements are lessened because of higher density of mana creatures
Edit:
The flipside of the argument is probably something like this:
* We're adding 2-3 more mana creatures so we can cut 1 land. The deck was already somewhat over-mana'd at 23 lands with 9 mana creatures, we're going up to 11-12.
* The generally accepted rule is that 2 x 1 drop dorks counts as a land and 4x 2 drop dorks counts as a land, so with 7 dorks and 4 druids we're can count those as 4-5 lands, which means 23 lands is running almost virtually 28 with 7 dorks/4 druids.
* We can run additional creature based combo outlets in those slots -- e.g. shave 2 lands add 2 duskwatch recruiters -- which ups our combo density.
* Flooding out is a serious danger when we have 15 complete duds in our deck (4 druids 7 dorks 4 viziers)
All fine reasoning--though from my perspective the 'higher dud' count goes both ways (since lower creature quality = higher value of township).
summ-
However, I think you will see almost all pro versions of these decks running 2 townships or 2 wolf runs and 21/22 lands. So maybe best to take your cue from them. I tend to be fairly conservative in a lot of ways.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall