MTG Salvation

I'm playing one darkblast main, Necroplasm is for BW tokens, GQ for tron. I've found GQ/Crime+Loam absolutely crushes control decks.

Are control decks an issue for you? I don't think I side in anything against control decks other then zombie infestations for my darkblasts, unless im pretty sure they are playing some kind of Gy hate then I side appropriate for that. Personally I find that new Nahiri Control a pretty even match up, even favored by us and grixis control just really isn't much of any issue from what I have seen. Tron basically has to see Ugin or they lose if they can even get to tron before they die I find that match up is also quite favored. Most Tron decks play 2-3 Ugins so its not a huge concern for me. My last two losses to Tron were from top decked Ugins however so maybe I should be worrying about it lol.

Just got home from another weekly modern tournament, going 1-3 tonight. (Lost to naya zoo, lost to mill, won against burn and lost to RG zoo. What a meta) Think I'll go back to dredgevine for a while and wait until we get some more pieces to make this version work better (not including haunted dead, it's just a stitchwing skaab sidegrade and that card is only fine in our deck). I love legacy dredge, but just can't make the modern all-in version work properly - we're just missing so many pieces that make legacy dredge the powerhouse it is. The list I played tonight, if anyone's interested:

Quote from daviusminimus »

Could be wrong, but is it worth considering?

With Faithless Looting and Neonate? I don't think it is necessary. A single looting can be much more explosive than a discard to 7 + Street Wraith.

Hello!

It's my first post on this new thread, but I've been following for a while. (by the way great job on the primer izzetmagus, it's very good!)

It's great to see all this progress made on the deck, different builds and card choices! I have been working with iostream on his GP Charloote list (we played the same list), so I still have a preference for 5-color mana base and playing more one mana enablers, including burning inquiry as a payoff card. Given the recent good performance of conflagrate, I would like try it instead of the bridge pacakge. We had the most problem with linear aggro decks at the GP, where conflagrate shines (I still think bridge is quite good though overall).

Here is what I would play at the next tournament (note that this list is in the spirit of iostream orginal list, trying to balance consistency with explosiveness, while they are of course versions that make better use of conflagrate)

4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Life from the Loam
1 Golgari Thug

4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam

4 Insolent Neonate
4 Faithless Looting
4 Tome Scour
3 Burning inquiry

2 Conflagrate
1 Rally the peasants

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
3 Dakmor Salvage
1 Shivan Reef
1 Copperline Gorge

A last recommendation for anyone trying this version: 7 and 6 card hands with only one enablers are usually mulligans, while you should keep all 5s with one way to get going. (There is a lot more mulligan than in the Land heavy Jund version, but overall its not less consistent thanks to Tome Scour.)

Personally, I have no problem with the 5-color manabase, but if there is no blue, I'd recommend shriekhorn to replace Tome Scour, like in Magus_of_the_Moon list that he streams with; Having only 8 one-mana ways to get started is quite low overall.

I feel that the five color mana base isn't as good with loam. I do agree the deck has more absolute power, but loam plus fetches is strong

Agreed on your mulling point. What's your take on only one rally?

I've been running a 19-land rainbow manabase similar to iostream with 3 tome scour (my favorite 1cmc enabler behind neonate and looting), 2 inquiry (for explosiveness), 2 loam, 2 skaab, and a little heavy on the win-cons (2-ofs conflagrate & rally) to mostly positive results. I'm ok with this list but I've liked haunted dead and am going to test more with just a jund manabase.

I haven't played any actual matches with he loam+conflagrate heavy list but from some playtests with haunted dead I'm thinking I'll twitch to Tian's list with -1 loam (I don't think 4 loams are necessary) and +1 rally in the main. His list has been very consistent for me so far and the only concern is no blue mana to cast moeba/amalgam. However I'm going in with the mindset that extra lands/drawn narcomoebas are juicy conflag fodder and that mentality has been working. I'll switch up the sideboard a bit to fit my liking too.

I like the idea of raven's crime in the board against other combo decks as opposed to thoughtseize which is dead in the graveyard so I'll be testing that with the loam build too.

Is a Steam Vents worth running in a Jund based land build just in case you need to hard cast a Narcomeba or Amalgam? I've seen games on the Youtubes that would have been losses without being able to do so.

To hark on some earlier posts, I have a total of 38-30-1 with this deck, almost entirely from XMage, with varying lists. I know i will increase my land counts to 17 or 18, but I don't know what to cut for 19-20. I don't mind the rainbow manabase, mostly because I already invested in it versus a scars manabase. I tested Goblin Lore over Tormenting Voice and absolutely love it, it has some insane draws and can often seal the deal very early. I might bump up the Loam count to 3 over 2, because I find that I need it to finish with Conflagrate more often, and it's a great card overall. I also am still tweaking my sideboard to appropriate matchups.

I'm starting to think 3-4x conflag might be a good enabler since it gives us a turn 2 play. The deck needs a good play when you don't get looting/inquiry. How consistent is lore for you?

As for steam vents, I too think it might be a good idea, but the 2nd mountain is useful vs exile.

dinausorus: I don't think it's a good idea to cut Darkblast + Bridge from iostream's list. His list is very land-light and at least one of your land drops past the 1st is going to come from dredging Dakmor Salvage. Darkblast allows you to use that black mana to get ahead on board position with Bridge + Bloodghast. On the other hand Conflagrate costs double red, which Salvage can't pay for. Loam is also weaker when you only have 17 lands and no fetches.

BTW, always play at least one basic land in the deck. No point giving them free Paths or Ghost Quarters.

OttomanOttoman: I don't like Raven's Crime in the SB. Crime isn't that good unless your deck is base black (we're red) or you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in it. Thoughtseize also takes Cage and RIP, which Crime will never do.

Crime is actually really good even with only 4 black sources, with decay/grudge killing the rest. The problem with Tsieze is you typically win g1, so your opponent will play graf on the play
.

Edit: Noose Constricter (i.e. wild mongrel) could be interesting.

Quote from FLCL »

I'm starting to think 3-4x conflag might be a good enabler since it gives us a turn 2 play. The deck needs a good play when you don't get looting/inquiry. How consistent is lore for you?

As for steam vents, I too think it might be a good idea, but the 2nd mountain is useful vs exile.

I played about 6 games with it, and when I play it t2 with a dredger in the yard it is {i]very[/i] explosive. Often landing a few Amalgams and narcos on that turn, as well as a lot of fuel. I haven't tested with a third conflagrate but I think it will be a good option down the road, especially after a Loam.

I'm thinking 3x conflag + 2x lore might be good. I'm still doing ok with infestation, but it isn't AMAZING. Lore will win you the game if you have a dredger in yard.

Also 2x scourge devils has been nice to me, but I do see some of you run only 1

scourge devils / rally the peasants are not cards you want to draw, they are finishers, and having just one makes it a very small chance it's in your opening hand. Rally has a higher impact but is softer to counterspells, scourge devils has a much lower impact, is weaker to blockers/removal (-4 potential damage if they just bolt him), but carries even weight vs. non-interactive gameplans.

I don't really have an opinion on scourge devils, but rally is really good with the new haunted dead, and I would switch to scourge devils in a really controlling meta, but either way if they are countering rally you're still bashing for 5-10 and they're wasting their mana attempting not to die while still not dealing with the problem.

I personally find people that are having mixed results are polluting their lists to much with random cards that may have been good once or twice for them. Honestly this decks amazing if GY hate doesn't come in its up around an 75% win rate against t1 and t2 decks. Lots of dredgers, lots of enablers I personally run 17 enablers ( I consider conflag an enabler which are a 3 of in my deck) and 13 dredgers, 19 lands (2 are dakmors and dredgers), 12 core creatures. Basically you want everything to do double duty or pretty much everything you can get that does. I personally think haunted dead, stichwing skaab any of those type of cards are a waste of a spot they really do nothing to further our game plan. I know people will disagree but remember if your using it as a discard outlet their are way better ones that also draw/dredge. If your using it to get back amalgams we have life from the loam for land drops for ghasts, we have dakmors to dredge back for land drops, we have just narcos to dredge heavy to get to one of those. I play darkblast so often I will just darkblast my own ghast then land drop amalgams back which you can do for a black mana. Rally is awesome because it can win games out of no where, a creature that enters the field tapped for 2 mana? no thanks for this guy.

I don't play the fetchland manabase, the 1-of haunted dead is to get back amalgams on my opponent's endstep and get them out of my hand if I don't have a conflagrate in the yard. There really aren't better options at the moment in modern, so maybe try testing it before you put it down huh?

I'm now leaning towards a 19 land mana base with 4 looting, 4 inquiry, 4 neonate, and 2 goblin lore/infestation/tormented as I find myself mulling to 5 too much.

Haunted Dead/Stitchwing Skaab improves the board wipe matchups, mostly Tron, but it comes in handy for Jeskai also (although we're favored against them without HD/Skaab anyway). If they tap out to play a wipe we can just return HD/Skaab after they do so, possibly bringing back Amalgam if the graveyard is stocked.

That said, I feel that it's a tech card and you shouldn't play more than 1, since it requires assistance to get into the graveyard before you can use it to discard those Amalgams/Grave-Trolls in your hand. I'd play it in Lee's list, moving the lone Lightning Axe to the SB for it - the way I build decks is to have all your maindeck cards further your game plan regardless of what your opponent is doing; Axe doesn't do much if your opponent doesn't present a target.

Ancient Grudge/ Natural State and Thoughtseize. And prey that we will be fast enough.