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Introduction to Skred Red
Skred Red is a Mono-Red control deck in Modern that takes advantage of the metagame by playing mainboard hate cards like Blood Moon, Relic of Progenitus, and Anger of the gods. The deck keeps the board clear with a plethora of removal spells in the form of Lightning Bolt, Skred, and Pyroclasm-like effects, then wins by playing hasty, hard hitting threats that most modern decks have difficulty answering as Koth of the Hammer, and Stormbreath Dragon. It is a very versatile deck in terms of playstyle. Depending on the match up, the deck can assume the role of: aggressor with its efficient creatures; defender with its suite of removal; or even go for the long, grindy game by abusing Scrying Sheets, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The deck also has a pretty small shell compared to most other decks, allowing it to be very modular, and allowing its pilot to basically play whatever favorite red card they want.
The Pros and Cons of Skred Red
The Pros:
The better developed the metagame is in your area, the better the deck performs. The deck aims to bully players with greedy mana bases with Blood Moon, and graveyard related cards. A Relic of Progenitus looks really good in front of a deck that runs Snapcaster Mage,Tarmogoyf, or in some cases even Gurmag Angler but not so great when the opponent is playing a budget version and using a Leatherback Baloth instead.
This deck is for you if you want to play a (mono) red deck, but don't want to play Burn or Aggro because you find it too linear.
The deck doesn't play shocks or fetches, and therefore starts the game at 20 life total and not 15.
Relatively budget-friendly outside of Blood Moon. No longer the case due to the rising prices of Snow-Covered Mountains and Scrying Sheets.
The deck has a very good match up against creature based decks, most notably Zoo, Infect, Affinity, Humans, and Spirits.
A very modular deck, you can pick and choose the variant that suits you the best and they mostly all accomplish the same goal in the end.
A very good deck for learning the game, as it can switch between proactive and reactive playstyles on the fly, and rewards good, and decision making without complex lines.
Has access to some very janky cards that can steal games.
The Cons:
The deck is weak to combo. We have no way to interact with them, other than exiling their graveyard, and we don't put on much pressure in the early game. Storm/AdNaus/LivingEnd/ usually wins on T4-5, whereas we only begin our offense on those turns.
The deck is weak to enchantment. Red is a color that goes out of it's way to avoid enchantments (ex. Decree of Annihilation, Obliterate), and has no reliable way to deal with them. If something of ours gets hit by something like Oblivion Ring, it's as good as dead to us.
Game 1 can be awkward at times with the amount of hate cards we have in the mainboard. Blood Moon will be bad against decks with tons of basics, and the many pieces of removal is very bad against decks with no creatures.
If you don't know how to approach a match-up, the deck can be pretty unforgiving. It doesn't always have the power to straight up win with card quality.
The free engine for our deck. It is a snow permanent, even under Blood Moon, and powers our Skred and itself. It's basically free and allows us to grind out control decks. Again, pretty self-explanatory.
The deck can run Caverns, but doesn't really need to. The match up against control is already a pretty decent, and the fact that it doesn't provide R, and isn't a snow land, and isn't a mountain for Koth, can be relevant at times. I would only recommend it if you run're running a lot of dragons.
It isn't snow, so it doesn't power Skred and comes into play tapped. It can be blanked by blood moon, and often is. The bolts can be nice, but the format is way too fast for us to get to five mountains. There are better cards to play if you want to grind.
Along with Lightning Bolt, and the deck's namesake, Skred, this is the other card that should be automatically included as a 4-of in the deck. He doesn't die to Path to Exile, Terminate, Inquisition of Kozilek, Abrupt Decay or Lightning Bolt. He swings for 4 the turn he comes in, and it only takes him 2 turns to ultimate to win the game. This doesn't even take into account the utility he brings. He can can -2 for a burst of mana to help push through Mana Leak/Remand, or to fuel a huge spell like Banefire, Obliterate, to monstrosity Stormbreath Dragon. If the situation calls for it, you can +1 to simply untap a land to represent removal. Update: With the printing of Assassin's Trophy, and Fatal Push, Koth isn't as resilient as he used to be. Assassin's Trophy isn't so bad, but getting a land Fatal Pushed can be game losing at times. A lot of lists cut a copy of him for another copy of Chandra, Torch of Defiance.
The topdog of the 5cc threats avaiable to the deck. The haste + flying is often underrated, and something you wouldn't miss until you play without them. Protection from white means this guy goes through lingering souls, and can't be Pathed or bounced by Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. He can even make a pretty great wall against the Spirits deck at times. The monstrosity is free gravy. During the lategame it's a great manasink, and can give that burst of reach that you might need.
Very strong card. Evasion, Haste AND removal all in one? This creature is the card that Sarkhan, dragonspeaker wanted to be but can't be because he isn't. Weak to path, but very few things aren't. Be warned that while it may not seem like it, Exert has a long, long cooldown.
P&K is like a Mono-Red Huntmaster of the Fells/Lingering Souls; the amount of value they can bring is absolutely insane. They can chump block for days for Koth, turn thopters into removal or extra reach, or grind out control decks. They're a great mana sink in the mid to late game, with the ability to turn relics/mindstones into shocks if needed, and in rare situations, they can even protect Wurmcoil Engine from getting pathed. The downside to this card is that they do not play well with our own sweepers, and teamblocking with them can be risky. Update:They're a bit too slow right now, and the 2 damage just isn't enough anymore. They're nowhere as good as they used to be, but can still be played.
The best thing that ever happened to the deck since Koth of the Hammer. This card does EVERYTHING.
Card draw: check
Reach: check
Ramp: check
Removal: check
Wincon: check
Most lists run two or three.
Walls or kills the big creatures of the format without dying, while being a respectable threat on it's own. Can be a great mana sink, turning dead cards into shocks. She is a reverse Stormbeath Dragon in the sense that she great against decks without white, while weak to decks with white.
The best 6 drop creature in the format. Not much to say about it other than it's really good, and can usually win the game by itself against decks without Path. You may be able to save it from being exiled with a well timed Skred. Wins the Jund matchup almost by itself if you can push it out.
"Imagine a thunderstorm that is also a tactical genius. That's him." The cow was once an essential piece of the deck that held it together. There have since been new cards printed that are good enough to take his spot, but he can still pull his weight. His flavor text does a good job at summing him up, if you can get to do creature combat with him, he's absolutely amazing. However, in reality, most people would just not block him and rather take 3 damage. Boros Reckoner does do better when hes in defense duty. He has access to combat tricks, such as first strike + lightning bolt to destroy big opposing creatures. The "main" combo with him though is to simply drop a huge Skred on him and convert everything the opponent's face. Update:Fatal Push, and Assassin's Trophy have made the old cow very, very weak. Even in the matchup where he is supposedly good, he isn't. RIP
The 3/3 that never goes away. Combos really well with our Relics and is really amazing against grindy, control decks. Can be absolutely worthless sometimes. Perhaps it's real strength is in the sideboard.
It is not better than Stormbreath at the 5cc drop, but why not run both? GDD does not fly, but it does have Menace, which often translate to pseudo-flying when he enters the battlefield and flashes back a Lightning Bolt, Skred, or Sweeper. Just be careful when flashing back a a sweeper, as he will drop low enough for an opposing bolt to finish him off. It can flash back the other side of Boom // Bust, and blow up all lands. No longer possible to flashback Bust after rule changes. Update: Significantly weaker now that we have Glorybringer. Glorybringer does more or less the same, but more consistently and with haste and actual Flying.
A fringe, flavorful option. He's interest:ing in a way because he can't be killed by Terminate, Go for the Throat, or even Liliana of the Veil, but he can awkwardly be destroyed by creatures, burn, and path to exile. His -3 ability is sometimes useful for protecting himself, but he is still pretty vulnerable. If he were 4 mana, he might be a staple. The legendary clause also a little bit of a downside. There are way better and more consistent cards to run at 5cmc. Update:Should be cut from the Primer, that how not great he is. Yeah.
This is a pretty interesting choice, and is comparable to Wurmcoil in terms of power. Wurmcoil-lite. Has trouble dealing with the bigger creatures of the format, namely Gurmag Angler, Death's Shadow, and even Hollowed One. It's weak to Fatal Push, Abrade, and now Assassin's Trophy, but is a monster against decks that can't kill it. The format is too fast right now to be able to bounce + replay, so don't depend on it.
He is pretty good! Some players think he's amazing, others think he's trash. Obviously excels in a dragon list, and all his abilities should not be under estimated. He makes dragons playable, either by ramping them out or by helping you cycle to find those dragons when you need them. I only wish that he allows players you draw before discarding.
Could be good. We run lots of planeswalkers, and two of them don't mind spending loyalty counters to crew this. If only it didn't die so easily to Fatal Push.
Another fan favorite, especially to the older Skred players before Stormbreath appeared. This "Dragon" would be simply amazing if not for Path to Exile. His reanimating ability goes in the stack when you cast him, not when he enters the battlefield. That means that even if he gets countered, he can still bring his buddies back from the grave. Another tricky thing about him is that if your opponent counters him while his ability is on the stack, he will hit the graveyard, and then reanimate himself when the ability resolves. Your opponent would need to let the ability resolve before countering it. You have better things to do than trying to make this work.
This card is pretty good, but only when paired with another big dragon. I don't recommend him alone. It's ability stacks with itself, and affects ALL dragons, and it has a respectable body with evasion. It also opens up the deck run Cavern of Souls to make control matchups a little bit easier. Does really well with Sarkhan, Fireblood
This dragon used to be the dragon of choice, up until Stormbreath showed up. It nukes all the lingering souls, and turns on a 3 turn clock all by itself. The one small thing that Thundermaw has that stormbreath does not is the ability to kill Tasigur, Gurmag Angler, and Siege Rhino. Weak to Path, and Glorybringer overshadowing it by being a better card.
If you're running Batterskull, Godo is a SUPER Wurmcoil. For the same mana, you get 2 bodies that are much more resistant to Path to Exile, and if you ever get to go to combat you will decimate your opponent. Batterskull's vigilance allows it to attack twice with Godo's ability, for 8 damage lifelink. Or you can get greedy, and equip it to Godo and swing for 14 damage lifelink. The downside of Godo is that he can be sucky if you drew batterskull already, but that can be offset by playing either another batterskull, or even a Sword of choice. However, the upsides are so huge that it's completely worth it, and even the middle ground situation where Godo gets killed before he gets to swing, you still get a batterskull for free.
UPDATE: GODO THE GOD HAS GOTTEN AN UPGRADE. Helm of the Host allows him to summon an infinite amount of himselves from alternate universes to crush all our opponents in just a single combat step. However, this does not fix the issue of him being weak to hate cards such as Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile.
Mind Stones help us cast our threats earlier, and can cycle in the late game for fuel. Honestly not a very exciting card, but it's good at what it does. You can tap it right away, so technically it only "costs" 1 mana, allowing you to be more mana efficient during your turns.
Play this monkey to cheese people out of the game with a fast Blood Moon, or beat them to death with a gray ogre. The format is too fast to be playing fair.
Outdated. The heart trades the ability to cycle for the ability to produce colored mana, and allow Skred to deal one more damage. Comes into play tapped, and opponents can sometimes blank our Skreds by destroying them with Skred on the stack. Mind Stone is better.
Kills a lot of things that Skred can't kill early, notably Gurmag Angler, Hollow ones, and Tarmogoyfs. Roast is pretty solid, but is another meta call. If there are a lot of Anglers, then you can run 1-2 in the mainboard and should be fine.
Essentially an instant speed Roast for 1 mana less, but costs 4 health. Very strong against Tasigur, Angler, and Death's Shadow. The health can be relevant, but is often times worth it.
Abrade Command is a very good piece of removal for us, it kills just about anything and acts as mainboard artifact hate. Very strong against Hollow One.
Probably an underrated card. ETB effect kills almost anything in the format, and dodges things like spell pierce, negate, stubborn denial and all that jazz. Hard cast 6/1 honestly doesn't seem bad either. It is very possible that it is too slow at 3 mana.
I am a fan of this card. Just by having one on the field might pressure the opponent into trying to play around it and potentially cause misplays. It can cycle for lands if you're missing them early, and can kill pro-red creatures like Kor-Firewalker, or Etched Champion
Our strongest Sweeper right now by far. Hollow One and Dredge are very strong right now and mainboard hate (along with Relics) makes us favored against them. Very strong against Humans, and spirits as well.
Most likely our best sweeper after Anger of the Gods. If don't have much dredge in your meta, this card is probably better as it's never completely dead. You can run a split with Anger of the Gods.
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Update: Two damage sweepers just aren't good enough to be played right now.
The simplest, the fastest, and the cheapest. It gets the job done. It doesn't kill as much as it used to, but it still blows Affinity and Infect out of the water. It is boros reckoner friendly, allowing it to not only survive, but shock the opponent or deal up to 4 damage to another creature.
It isn't as cheap as Pyroclasm, and isn't as powerful as Anger of the Gods, but it's instant speed and uncounterable. The instant speed is a pretty big deal. It allows you to wait until the final moment, letting you to potentially snipe an additional creature, or burning down a manland that the other 2 cannot. It can also hit planeswalkers if needed. I'd say it's real strength is in it's ability to hold mana up. Unfortunately, like Pyroclasm, it doesn't kill much anymore.
It doesnt hurt us, or our opponents, but can be countered. The devoid is good against etched champions, master of waves, and the pro-red white creatures. The other ability will probably never trigger since we don't run eldrazi.
The holy grandfather of sweepers. It's just a shame that it doesn't exile, otherwise it would be a much, much better card. If you land one of these with a Reckoner out, you've probably won. A fringe option, but playable.
This is the reason why this deck is so scary. Blood Moon is devastating, especially game 1, and can singlehandedly hand you the game. Even when they expect it, it still pulls it own weight more often than not. Against control decks it shuts off their manlands, and can possibly keep them off Cryptic Command and other cards with many mana symbols. Against Burn, it completely shuts off Boros Charm, Destructive Revelry, and Lightning Helix, because they don't run basics. Even against decks like Affinity, Elves, Or Merfolk, where it might not seem good, it is still able to pull a little bit of it's weight by shutting off their manlands.
A lot of modern decks play cards that rely on power graveyard interactions, and we don't. card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]? Well, it's an Ambush Viper without deathtouch now. Tarmogoyf? It's a 0/1 Plant Token now. In the worst case, this card can cycle itself for early land drops or lategame threats, and in the best case scenario, this card destroys entire decks. Relic can also stops cards with undying/persist like Kitchen Finks.
Looting can be helpful in grindy games where you can turn extra lands (from Scrying sheets), blood moons, or sweepers that you don't need into possibly better cards. Unfortunately, the card disadvantage is very bad for decks like ours that want to keep hitting land drops.
Needle is a good silver bullet. It hits planeswalkers, and manlands. You don't have to name anything until it enters the battlefield, and the naming can't be responded to. If the opponent has 2 fetchlands, and does not fetch while the needle is still on the stack, you can name the lands to effectively make them useless.
Spellskite used to be a good card for us, but we really don't need it. It's great in matchup we're already good at, and doesn't help our bad matchups in any way.
Pretty good against aggressive decks and tokens. It one of the few ways our deck can get rid of enchantments, and is strong against creatures that grown too big for our removal.
We need to have artifact hate in the sideboard somewhere, and shattering spree should be the one of choice. We don't want Shatterstorm, and the like, because we happen to run a lot of artifacts as well. This is generally better than Vandalblast, because it's easier to cast on multiple targets (affinity), and way harder to counter.
We can use this to counter our opponent's counterspells. We cast it in response to their counterspell, change their spell to Ricochet Trap, and when Ricochet Trap resolves, the counterspell fizzles because it no longer has any legal targets. It can also steal Ancestral Visions with this, and don't forget you can hardcast.
Can be good against Tron, and Scapeshift. But too slow. It does well at getting rid of manlands though.
Damping Sphere: Helps in the Storm, and helps in the Tron match up more than Sowing Salt does.
Alpine Moon: A very low investment card against Tron decks. Use it to name the tron piece that they do not have on the field so that you won't feed them colored mana for free.
This card is a 3 turn clock if left unanswered, all by himself. He does 1 damage the first turn he comes in, then 6 the next, then 8, totaling 15. We have a bad matchup against non-interactive combo, like Storm, and Ad Nauseum, but this can give us an out. Unfortunately, he's only really good if you can get him out turn 2 a-la Simian Spirit Guide.
Legion Warboss:
Same as Rabblemaster, but better. He leaves bigger tokens behind and the clock is practically the same.
A very janky card that actually has a lot of potential. The card blows up everything, except for enchantments, something mono red has a lot of trouble removing, even with a spell this grand. However, that is actually a boon rather than a weakness of Obliterate. It means our Blood Moons survive, while their singleton of basics did not. Obliterate also does not destroy Planeswalkers, as it was not a type at the time, and we just happen to run a ton of them. Koth can not only power this out as early as turn 4, but can end the game by himself afterwards by surviving and playing a land drop. This would actually be a very viable game plan, if it weren't for the potential for the opponent to cast cards post obliterate like Collected Company, Chord of Calling, or even a simple Snapcaster Mage.
Can be cast with -2 Koth early, and can straight up win games by itself especially in Game 1 against certain decks. Is a pretty decent comeback card that can steal games out of nowhere. Double Bolt, or Bolt snap Bolt can be scary, but if they don't have it, you win. The absolute best thing about this card is how ridiculous it is.
Ascetic Skred
A celibate approach to the deck. I think current decklists nowadays are trying to do too much at the same time and that is why we haven't been getting any results.
Ascetic Skred works by discarding the ability to lose the game by abandoning the ability and desire to win the game. Disqualification is a state of nothingness, and Nothing is greater than placing first.
Adonis2k/Morten/Eternal Skred
This list was created by adonis2k/Morten, who has been grinding on MTGO going 4-0 since 2014. Pretty much the baseline for every modern list. It has it's own decktech video, and sideboard/matchup guide, featuring Morten himself. The Skred list that recently won GP Dallas is a slightly more up to date, variation of Morten's list.
Ozzy Kelly's Dragon Skred
There was once a man who wanted to play dragons, and there was nobody there to stop him. And then he won a SCG classic. So now EVERYBODY wants to be a dragon too. (i want to be a dragon.)
Easily one of our best matchups, if you know how to play it. Don't be afraid to take infect damage as long as it doesn't kill you. Don't try to kill their creatures during their turn if they can swing with it the same turn. Kill them during our turn(or post combat), that way if they use pumpspells to save them, we won't be taking damage from it. Use bolts first, and save Skreds for later, as they can plow through pump spells, or Wild Defiance in the late game. Blood Moon is a boss in this matchup, it shuts off a third of their creatures(manlands), and can cut off their blue for Blighted Agent. At the very worst, it limits their green mana and stops them from being able to pump multiple times on the same turn. If you keep a blood moon hand, bolting the Noble Hiearch if often a good idea. If you land a Koth, you should use the +1 to untap a mountain and represent a bolt instead of attacking with it. The 4 damage is less important than holding up a R, and the ultimate. They don't have the resources to stop Koth from ticking up freely. Be aware of the lands they play, some players try to be sneaky and hide a Pendelhaven, or Inkmoth underneath their normal lands.
Mind stones can be awkward to cast because the early game is so intense. 5cc finishers can be hard to cast, especially when we don't ever want to fully tap out, so we can cut a few. Relics are pretty dead in the matchup, but they can stop Become Immense, and can help dig for removal.
Side in as much removal as possible. Sudden Shock is nearly always a 2 for 1, and Pyrite Spellbomb goes through Wild Defiance. Pyromaster can kill every single one of their nonland creatures, and is usually a win if she lands on an empty board. Magus of the Moon is interesting because they can't kill it. Pithing Needle names Inkmoth Nexus, or Spellskite. Expect Nature's claim, Wild Defiance, and Spellskites of their own.
Affinity
Slightly Favored/even preboard, and favored postboard
The key to winning this matchup is to understand how Arcbound Ravager works, and how to beat it, because often times we lose by getting swung on by a creature too big to burn. Save your burn for whatever they equip Cranial Plating on, or they try to put arcbound counters on. Sweepers are amazing in the matchup, but become nearly useless when Ravager lands, so don't hold onto them for too long. Etched Champion can be a problem, but we have some answers for it. We can double block with P&K thopters, eternal scourge, Koth emblem, or we can try to disable metalcraft with our removal.
In: Shattering Spree, Spellskite, Pithing Needle, Sweepers, Flyers, Chalice on the play, pyrite spellbomb, sudden shock.
Blood Moon shuts off manlands, which is decent, but not good enough to run all 3 in my opinion. Reckoner is good at dealing with Ravager, but that's pretty much all it can do since everything else flies, so we can cut a few if we need space. Mind Stone lets us have a T3 P&K, which is very relevent since it trades with any of their fliers, and can ping, but we can cut some mind stones if we have better cards to board in. Chandra Pyromaster can be decent since everything they have has 1 toughness, but again isn't that good. Chalice on 0 is really good when we're on the play. If we draw it we can set it on 2 to stop Etched Champion, Ravager, and Cranial. Pyrite Spellbomb kills Etched Champion, and other things. Spellskite can steal Arcbound Ravager counters. Sudden shock destroys Ravager. Pithing Needle usually names either Ravager, or Cranial Plating, but can name manlands in a pinch.
Burn
Even preboard, favored postboard??
Despite being a red deck, Burn is hit pretty hard by Blood Moon because they don't run any basic lands that aren't mountains. Blood Moon shuts off Lightning Helix, Boros Charm, Atarka's Command, Wild Nacatl, and it even shuts off their out in Destructive Revelry. The matchup itself is pretty straight forward, bolt their critters, and try to finish them off before we die. Be mindful of Atarka's Command and Prowess when bolting creatures. It's also sometimes better to tick Koth up to 6 before ultimating.
Out: Mind Stone, Volcanic Fallout, 5cc finishers, Chandra Pyromaster, Relics
In: Dragon's Claw, Spellskite, Blood Moon, Removal, Pyrite Spellbombs, Chalice of the Void(on the play), Rabblemaster
Again, pretty straight forward. A single Dragon's Claw is often enough to beat them. Same with Spellskite. Chalice on 2 shuts off half their deck, including the answer, and chalice on 1 can be good too, but hits us pretty hard too. Rabblemaster represents a good clock, and can serve as a pseudo fog.
Jeskai Control / UWR
Favorable pre/post board.
Against versions that don't play Nahiri, just activate scrying sheets, land drop and say go until you have enough mana to push through remand/mana leak. They have absolutely no way to pressure us before we reach 7/8 lands, and when we do we can just slam threats through remands/manaleaks until one sticks. Our threats are very difficult for them to answer cleanly, and if they do get rid of it, we can just drop another. Just be careful not to over extend into a Supreme Verdict. Relics make their snapcasters useless. A resolved Stormbreath solos the game most of the time. Blood Moon shuts off Celestial Colonnade, and Cryptic Command(Some lists don't run 3 islands), and turns them into badburndeck.dec
If they do run Nahiri it gets a little harder because now they can actually put a clock on us. We can't play the waiting game anymore, but we can just slam threats and force a threat through counterspells until one sticks, and we should win. If they tap out T4 for Nahiri, we can punish them hard with a hasted mountain(Koth), or Stormbreath. We have both more threats and more answers than they do.
Out: ????? Sweepers, mind stones
In: Pithing Needle, Stormbreath, Rabblemaster
If you expect Stony Silence, you can board out some mind stones. You can board out some sweepers, but be careful of Geist of Saint Traft, and Pia&Kiran Nalaar if they play it. Board in all the threats you can, and maybe some artifact hate for spellskite, isochron. Or don't.
GR Tron
Unfavorable
Despite having mainboard Blood Moons, this is one of our worst matchups. Even if we land an early moon, we don't have the power to kill them quick enough before they can stabilise with an Oblivion Stone or Wurmcoil. It's even worst on the play because they can possibly hit Tron before we even get the chance to drop Blood Moon. If you have a Blood Moon out and a Koth out, you can animate one of their lands and destroy it with Skred/Roast. This is crucial to preventing their Oblivion Stone activations(Animate the land they last played so they can't float mana, and tap it again for 5 because of summon sickness), or land drop for Wurmcoil.
Out:Anger of the gods, Sweepers, Relics?
In:Land destruction, Sowing Salt?, Goblin Rabblemaster, Roast, Shattering Spree, Chalice of the Void
Land Destruction is obviously very good against them. Shattering Spree can hit Wurmcoil, O-Stone, or their cantrip rocks. Chalice on 1 can be very good, but then you might not be able to Koth +1, + Skred their lands. Rabblemasters can steal the game, but they can also just get blanked by pyro/bolts.
Jund/GRx
Even/slightly favored
The matchup kind of plays itself. Blood Moon is really good against them. Even if they fetch for basics it can turn off their double black for Liliana and Kalitas. The only real big threat in this match up is an early Tarmogoyf. If you don't have an early relic/roast to keep it in check, it will destroy you. Don't forget that you can target yourself with relic to shrink goyf by exiling enchantments, artifacts, or planeswalkers. Boros Reckoner is pretty good in this matchup, but he's most likely going to be Terminated or Abrupt Decayed. Always kill the Dark Confidant. Unfortunately, Stormbreath isn't amazing in this matchup, but the haste and evasion can outrace them if they don't have a Terminate. Chandra is decent in the matchup, she can keep lili from ticking up, and help bolts/skred finish off a goyf with the ping. The problem is that there is so much going on in the early game that it can be difficult to resolve her.
You can take out some stormbreaths if you need space. Roast is an allstar in this matchup, bring in as many as you can. You can take out some sweepers, but Kalitas/P&K might pose a problem of you do. Pith is decent, as it can hit lili, or their manlands.
Abzan Company
Even
You can learn how their combo works by sneaking into their primer and reading up on it, or you can just get rid of the Viserca Seer as soon as you can. If the Viserca Seer is on the stack, kill the Anafenza, or Melira instead. If you let them have 2 of the 3 pieces they need for their combo, they will CoCo/Chord for the remaining piece. Relic is very important for the matchup, you can prevent creatures with persist/undying from coming back by exiling them whole they're still in the graveyard. It is very important that you do not miss a turn of exiling their grave. If they do get infinite life, we can still win by getting Koth emblem and decking them out.
Blood Moon is pretty good in the matchup because a lot of their things cost multiple mana symbols, but unfortunately they tend to get Chorded or CoCo'd in. It can still brick them, so is worth running. Pithing Needle naming Viscera Seer. Anger cleanly kills their persist creatures.
Ad Naus
Extremely Unfavorable
Go get a snack, drink some water, take a break, and rest up for the next round.
Out: Everything that doesn't interact with their life total.
In: Everything that does interact with their life total. Shattering Spree can help kill their mana rocks. Pithing Needle can annoy them by naming Lightning Storm.
Mull Aggressively for a T2 Rabblemaster hand, and/or hope they brick.
I've lately found that I've begun to prefer wayfarer's bauble to Coldsteel Heart as it allows us to hold up turn 2 removal off a turn 1 bauble, which could be relevant vs faster matchups depending on your build. Not sure if it's better than Mindstone or not.
About the Abzan CoCo matchup. You can lose really quick if you don't know how to face them. The general trick is to actually land an early blood moon if you can, but always bolt the turn 1 bird/hierarch and the later kitchen finks (to get a -1/-1 counter on him). This means they have to find either Anafenza or Gavony Township before they can combo with that Finks. Also hold up relic whenever possible if they present 4 mana with a combo peice on board. Overall it can be a very favorable matchup for any build.
Literally everything else in the deck is intended for assembling the combo.
They also run Gavony Township as a back up plan, this pumps every creature they have on the board and eventually they can overwhelm you with it.
Grafdigger's Cage seems like a very lucrative sideboard tech In the Coco meta, especially as that explosiveness can be an issue in the lategame for us if we aren't the beatdown and have no card advantage engine. Thoughts?
I went 1-3 tonight, it was sucky and I'm pretty salty about it. I pretty much got mana flooded or screwed nearly every single game. The Demigods were decent, but path is so rampant in the meta. They were also hard to cast sometimes because of the RRRRR.
I thought I could get value out of Faithless Looting but they were actually absolute trash and I threw them in the trashbin. I was expecting to discard spare bloodmoons, or extra lands to draw whatever, but it was never worth it. Not even discarding a Demigod. I would have much rather have had it played, then countered/killed, and played a second one than discarding + playing one. The spare blood moons rarely came up, and there are no spare lands in the deck. We want to continue playing land drops no matter what most of the time. Faithless Looting trades card quantity for quality, but we're not looking for any combo pieces, and almost every single one of our threats are equal in quality.
I'll try the deck again, but with mainboard 2-4 relics again even though I'm running 3 Dark-Dwellers, and 4 Demigods. I playtested it a few times and found that if you sequence your plays properly, the relics don't even hinder the graveyard based gameplan.
@Kurisock
The Cage actually looks amazing as a sideboard card. We currently have a weird match up against CoCo because we sometimes run Anger of the Gods, which stop in their tracks, and sometimes our relics get there. What spices me the most about the Cage is that it's also very good against Nahiri decks that are extremely popular right now.
@cksboy15
Strangely, on paper this looks promising and also very underwhelming at the same time. I said the same about Dark-Dwellers, but I think they really have a home in the deck, so I'll need to give the baubles a chance and test them out next week.
btw, natesroom made a better version of my banner. The double dragons look freaking amazing!
I gave up the demigod build... Its been out of favor for a while now. the 5 red can be a backbreaker if i draw scrying sheets. the Faithless Looting don't ever really synergize at the right time... etc. I would only think about building them if i was all in red no colorless and probably running flamewake phoenix or something like that. (which might not be a bad build)
I've always advocated not running faithless looting in demigod builds. Sure it's great for a potential blow out win, but we don't get maximum value off the card disadvantage (and yes that's exactly what it is). If you want any form of hand filtering I've found better success with Tormenting Voice or just none at all.
Also yeah bauble definitely look underwhelming especially as a late game topdeck but then again so does coldsteelheart heart. Really the best of the bunch for artifact ramp is Mind Stone, but in a demigod build its just not good.
Personally I've just been on the spirit guide burst plan. And this list is largely experimental, but this is what I'm looking at.
4 reckoner
2 Pia N kiran
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers (could justify more for testing)
1 Batterskull
4 spirit guide (might drop back to 3 but I'm only gonna run 23 lands)
3 blood moon (4 is too many)
2 molten rain (I honestly think we need something like this with Dark-Dwellers so we always have a viable target for the trigger)
Outside of that probably just run a basic shell with 4 pyroclasms and 2 (maybe) fallouts main and Angers in the side.
I know it is supposed to be a meta call, but... Vanilla build with reckoners, P&KN, and 2 Batterskulls, or Double Dragon build? What do you think may work better? The "vanilla" has a lot more of interactions, but Double Dragon does a lot of damage if they let it go.
My opinion may not be the most valid as I've only played Skred a couple months now and attended two FNMs with it, but I've usually found Thunderbreak to be largely underwhelming. In spite of his ability, he's an absolute removal magnet and got pathed every time he hit the board for me, with only one exception where he got double bolted, and that was the most value I got. Eating removal is nice, but it always just felt I was paying 4 mana for an inferior Blightning. I feel like P&K Nalaar is a better choice just because of the multiple bodies and ability to direct damage. I could be wrong, and really want Thunderbreak to work, so if anyone's had a different experience I'd like to hear it.
What's really great about Pia and Kiran Nalaar and Hangarback Walker is that they cause your opponents to 2-1 themselves in order to take care of the threat (against white decks I board out 1 HB because of Path, but it's still a decent threat, and I'm okay with getting a free fetch), and they protect Koth extremely well. I'm currently running a 3 HB, 2 Pia list, and it feels quite good.
What I didn't like about 3 Pia and 4 Koth was that I often ended up with dead or redundant cards in hand.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: Mono-U Tron, Skred
Legacy: ANT, Death and Taxes
EDH: Jori En, Ruin Diver Fast Combo
Pauper: Affinity
First: I'm surprised that this thread had to be broken off for the new primer. If that's how it's going, we should probably link to the old thread here, and somehow get a link in the old thread to this new one. Should a mod be contacted about it?
salty
People keep using that word. It does not mean what they think it means.
Versus Abzan Coco (and similar combo)
Grafdigger's Cage is good against more stuff than just the combo. Unfortunately, it can also be forced out by a well-timed Pridemage. On the other hand, so can Crypt or Relic.
Anger of the Gods is pretty great.
Bolting Finks/Redcap works against Anafenza but not Melira. However, I think you can interrupt the combo also with a Bolt if, in response to the Persist trigger, you take out one of the components. Sudden Shock makes the timing a trivial matter.
Really, this match is pretty good for us.
Versus Nahiri:
As I said to a friend earlier, this match is one we're really well positioned for. Their mana base can be fragile, we run far too many threats, and our threats are actually really good versus theirs.
"Hi, I'm Nahiri. I play with pretty rocks. In two turns, I'll have an eldritch monster on your doorstep!"
"Hi Nahiri, I'm Koth. I play with really, really big rocks. MOUNTAIN TO YOUR FACE!"
Or, alternatively, Stormbreath just melts her face.
Demigod v Double-Dragon v P&KN
In addition to the issues with Demigod requiring RRRRR and being taken out by PtE, the presence of several decks has made graveyard hate ubiquitous. This severely weakens the power of Demigod.
Double-Dragon is what I ran for a long time. It can be really good. Its big weakness is that it's not great at protecting Koth. It's also not strong vs. LotV.
PK&N is the direction I'm heading. They buy time for Koth, are reasonably removal resistant, and occassionally can play board-control.
Yes i totally agree the only time Regent is really good is if she is cast, survives one turn and you cast a second one... lol...take 6 feels good - i also have decided to switch out to P&K for now.. I'm really interested in the new Hanweir Battalion 3 drop.
perhaps i need help in sequencing how to play against Coco... I feel its like the worst matchup ever (after ad naus) but i keep reading and hearing ppl say, it s a good matchup for us.
On paper coco seems like a great match-up for us: it runs a 3 color manabase without red and is very creature heavy. I love playing coco, but I also have a friend that plays it so I have a good amount of experience in the match up. Remember to tap relic to keep their yard clean so you could potentially exile a combo piece without cracking relic to get the most value. Anger of the gods is amazing vs them and a turn 2-3 blood moon on the play (or draw really) can sometimes end the game on the spot. Post sideboard they get their hate which can make things a little harder, but all in all I feel like the match up is in our favor.
People keep using that word. It does not mean what they think it means.
It's become slang for irritated/annoyed/bitter, even if that isn't what you had in mind, it's what it's evolved into. I think the old primer had to be closed due to technical limitations. The mods moved this to the Developing Competition subforum and locked the old one, so there's no need to put a new link in the old one.
On paper coco seems like a great match-up for us: it runs a 3 color manabase without red and is very creature heavy. I love playing coco, but I also have a friend that plays it so I have a good amount of experience in the match up. Remember to tap relic to keep their yard clean so you could potentially exile a combo piece without cracking relic to get the most value. Anger of the gods is amazing vs them and a turn 2-3 blood moon on the play (or draw really) can sometimes end the game on the spot. Post sideboard they get their hate which can make things a little harder, but all in all I feel like the match up is in our favor.
I agree with you that it is in our favor, but only if we run Anger of the Gods. The relics and spot removal by themselves can possibly get there but it's very shaky and feels even-ish. It's a match up where knowing exactly how the other deck functions is heavily rewarded. Knowing what to bolt/skred, and when is very important because you can't respond to CoCo after the creatures have been revealed. Do you want to bolt the bird early? Or save it for combo piece? It's all situational. In my opinion, this is one of the match ups where the tables can completely turn around without warning. Collected Company, responses? No, you win. Anger of the gods/Blood Moon, responses? No, you win. Note: I played against deck a few times in tournament, and I understand how it works to the point I can pilot it, but I haven't grinded that many games against it, so you may know something that I might not.
I still need to do the match ups guide, so what do you guys think about discussing 2-3 match ups a week? I can do it myself, but I'm afraid that some of them might be a little bit bias, and maybe inaccurate due to things like inexperience in certain matchups, or meta-related techs that some people run. We can start with Abzan CoCo and Nahiri since we're already on the topic.
Once they have these cards (whether through natural draws, Collected Company, or Chord of Calling, they start the combo. First, they sacrifice the Persist creature. This puts the sac-outlet ability on the stack and the Persist card in their graveyard. Then Persist triggers, putting it on top of the sac-outlet ability. If the Persist trigger resolves, the Persist creature's ETB ability goes on the stack. How things proceed vary slightly from here:
If they have Melira, the Persist creature returns with no -1/-1 counter. They have the sac-outlet ability on the stack, the ETB ability on the stack.
If they have Anafenza, her ability goes on the stack at the same time as the ETB (in whatever order they want). They target the Persist creature. When her ability resolves, the +1/+1 and -1/-1 cancel out. This leaves the sac-outlet on the stack (the ETB may have already resolved, or be on the stack).
Either way, once the -1/-1 counter is off the Persist creature and they have everything still, they can proceed to repeat for infinite ETB triggers.
The bad news is that this combo is pretty nasty and fairly easy to set up. They can also go off in-response to your removal spell (yes, they can and will kill you in response to Anger of the Gods, if you let them set up). The good news is that it has various points of attack:
1. You can proactively attack their combo with burn. Their combo typically includes three 1-2 toughness creatures. Removing the sac-outlet, Anafenza, and/or Melira in advance may delay them going off. The sac outlet is usually the best choice if possible, since it usually has the fewest replicates (though I've seen Cartel Aristocrat used, which changes this). Hitting Persist creatures is a lot more dicey: if either Anafenza or Melira is in play, you can't kill a pristine Persist creature, but you can hit it in advance of or in response to Anafenza. Since it will return before she's in play, Bolster won't trigger to remove the counter. This is just a delaying action though: the next creature will Bolster the -1/-1 counter away. Melira simply invalidates this strategy outright. Generally, target sac-outlets first, then Anafenza/Melira. Or just drop Anger of the Gods and kill 'em all.
2. While the Persist trigger is on the stack, if you can remove the Persist creature from their graveyard, the combo stops as the trigger will have nothing to return.
2a. Alternatively, Grafdigger's Cage actually prevents Persist from working. It also hoses Chord and Company.
3. You can interrupt the combo by zapping a critical piece at the right time. If they have only one sac-outlet or Anafenza/Melira, hit that and the combo breaks. Doing it while the Persist trigger is on the stack is usually safest, since the creature is in their graveyard so they can't respond with more combo.
4. All this goes out the window if they can get two Persist creatures on the table. Once that happens, you will need to interrupt the combo twice to stop them (and once more for each additional Persist Creature). However, because Persist creatures are harder to keep off the table, focusing on locking out the other two combo pieces may be more fruitful at this point.
5. Their combo pieces are cheap. They can conceivably play them all in one turn. Beware of this, and instants are your friends (as you already knew).
6. Chord and Company can find missing pieces at instant speed. You also don't get to see what they're putting into play before it's technically there. Always cast removal in response to even a potentially-lethal Chord or Company.
If this is helpful in any way, feel free to use it in the OP/Guide.
Don't forget that if they have both melira and anafenza out with a viscera seer and persist creature they can make infinitely huge creatures by holding priority and sacrificing their creature in response to anafenza's bolster trigger.
Honestly the creature we can kill easiest is viscera seer as they almost always have only 4 of those. Older lists ran varolz the scar-striped so you might see that one around, but it sees little to no play anymore. However if you can keep a kitchen finks dead, do so.
Well, Im buying the cards for my Skred deck since months and Im finally close to have my full deck My first "competitive" deck. While I have been playing MTG since 9-10 years, I always played with proxies. I only need the 3 Moons and a few cards for the SB. I do think that my build is fine and solid, but I have a few doubts, hope you can help me and give your thoughts about the build, its high $$$ cost for me.
As you can see, there are 59 cards on the main and 11 on the SB. So, about the main: I play mind stones over SSG since, in this build, the only good SSG would do over stones is T2 Blood Moon. Is powerful, but not enough to go over the mind stones (at least for my build, I repeat), because of: T4 Koth / P&KN, sacrifice for P&KN, casting batterskull soon, enough mana for return-cast batterskull... a lot of uses for this build. About the card that should be number 60, I have in mind Chandra, Flamecaller or the 4th Reckoner. Chandra can act as a finisher and as a sweeper, can end the games quick and I have 4 mind stones for the cast. But the 4th Boros reckoner would make the deck less CC intensive and more interactive with skred and volcanic fallout.
About the sideboard: there are left the cards for the combo/tron matchup. Im thinking about 3 Molten Rain 1 Crumble to dust; Rabblemaster can work too, but I think it would be better for SSG builds. Anyone has tested it on a non-SSG build? There has to be out there a 2CC red creature that can be fast enough to put a lot of pressure on the combo/tron matchup.
Well, Im buying the cards for my Skred deck since months and Im finally close to have my full deck My first "competitive" deck. While I have been playing MTG since 9-10 years, I always played with proxies. I only need the 3 Moons and a few cards for the SB. I do think that my build is fine and solid, but I have a few doubts, hope you can help me and give your thoughts about the build, its high $$$ cost for me.
As you can see, there are 59 cards on the main and 11 on the SB. So, about the main: I play mind stones over SSG since, in this build, the only good SSG would do over stones is T2 Blood Moon. Is powerful, but not enough to go over the mind stones (at least for my build, I repeat), because of: T4 Koth / P&KN, sacrifice for P&KN, casting batterskull soon, enough mana for return-cast batterskull... a lot of uses for this build. About the card that should be number 60, I have in mind Chandra, Flamecaller or the 4th Reckoner. Chandra can act as a finisher and as a sweeper, can end the games quick and I have 4 mind stones for the cast. But the 4th Boros reckoner would make the deck less CC intensive and more interactive with skred and volcanic fallout.
About the sideboard: there are left the cards for the combo/tron matchup. Im thinking about 3 Molten Rain 1 Crumble to dust; Rabblemaster can work too, but I think it would be better for SSG builds. Anyone has tested it on a non-SSG build? There has to be out there a 2CC red creature that can be fast enough to put a lot of pressure on the combo/tron matchup.
To be honest though I feel 2 batterskull is too many. I found it best as a 1 of main or side, but at 5cmc we honestly prefer one of the hasty dudes I showed above, but your list does seem pretty good.
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Hop on in to hang out, or ask for matchup advice! We're chill and pretty active in here.
Introduction to Skred Red
Skred Red is a Mono-Red control deck in Modern that takes advantage of the metagame by playing mainboard hate cards like Blood Moon, Relic of Progenitus, and Anger of the gods. The deck keeps the board clear with a plethora of removal spells in the form of Lightning Bolt, Skred, and Pyroclasm-like effects, then wins by playing hasty, hard hitting threats that most modern decks have difficulty answering as Koth of the Hammer, and Stormbreath Dragon. It is a very versatile deck in terms of playstyle. Depending on the match up, the deck can assume the role of: aggressor with its efficient creatures; defender with its suite of removal; or even go for the long, grindy game by abusing Scrying Sheets, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The deck also has a pretty small shell compared to most other decks, allowing it to be very modular, and allowing its pilot to basically play whatever favorite red card they want.
The Pros and Cons of Skred Red
The Lands
Along with Lightning Bolt, and the deck's namesake, Skred, this is the other card that should be automatically included as a 4-of in the deck.He doesn't die to Path to Exile, Terminate, Inquisition of Kozilek, Abrupt Decay or Lightning Bolt. He swings for 4 the turn he comes in, and it only takes him 2 turns to ultimate to win the game. This doesn't even take into account the utility he brings. He can can -2 for a burst of mana to help push through Mana Leak/Remand, or to fuel a huge spell like Banefire, Obliterate, to monstrosity Stormbreath Dragon. If the situation calls for it, you can +1 to simply untap a land to represent removal.Update: With the printing of Assassin's Trophy, and Fatal Push, Koth isn't as resilient as he used to be. Assassin's Trophy isn't so bad, but getting a land Fatal Pushed can be game losing at times. A lot of lists cut a copy of him for another copy of Chandra, Torch of Defiance.
since Koth of the Hammer.This card does EVERYTHING.Card draw: check
Reach: check
Ramp: check
Removal: check
Wincon: check
Most lists run two or three.
Update:Fatal Push, and Assassin's Trophy have made the old cow very, very weak. Even in the matchup where he is supposedly good, he isn't. RIP
It can flash back the other side of Boom // Bust, and blow up all lands.No longer possible to flashback Bust after rule changes. Update: Significantly weaker now that we have Glorybringer. Glorybringer does more or less the same, but more consistently and with haste and actual Flying.A fringe, flavorful option. He's interest:ing in a way because he can't be killed by Terminate, Go for the Throat, or even Liliana of the Veil, but he can awkwardly be destroyed by creatures, burn, and path to exile. His -3 ability is sometimes useful for protecting himself, but he is still pretty vulnerable. If he were 4 mana, he might be a staple. The legendary clause also a little bit of a downside. There are way better and more consistent cards to run at 5cmc.Update:Should be cut from the Primer, that how not great he is. Yeah.
Another fan favorite, especially to the older Skred players before Stormbreath appeared. This "Dragon" would be simply amazing if not for Path to Exile. His reanimating ability goes in the stack when you cast him, not when he enters the battlefield. That means that even if he gets countered, he can still bring his buddies back from the grave. Another tricky thing about him is that if your opponent counters him while his ability is on the stack, he will hit the graveyard, and then reanimate himself when the ability resolves. Your opponent would need to let the ability resolve before countering it.You have better things to do than trying to make this work.This dragon used to be the dragon of choice, up until Stormbreath showed up. It nukes all the lingering souls, and turns on a 3 turn clock all by itself. The one small thing that Thundermaw has that stormbreath does not is the ability to kill Tasigur, Gurmag Angler, and Siege Rhino.Weak to Path, and Glorybringer overshadowing it by being a better card.UPDATE: GODO THE GOD HAS GOTTEN AN UPGRADE. Helm of the Host allows him to summon an infinite amount of himselves from alternate universes to crush all our opponents in just a single combat step. However, this does not fix the issue of him being weak to hate cards such as Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile.
The Spot Removal
Update: Two damage sweepers just aren't good enough to be played right now.
- Dragon's Claw:
You'll need 3-4 if you expect burn decks. You gain life from your own spells as well.
- Pithing Needle/Sorcerous's Spyglass:
Needle is a good silver bullet. It hits planeswalkers, and manlands. You don't have to name anything until it enters the battlefield, and the naming can't be responded to. If the opponent has 2 fetchlands, and does not fetch while the needle is still on the stack, you can name the lands to effectively make them useless.
- Spellskite:
Spellskite used to be a good card for us, but we really don't need it. It's great in matchup we're already good at, and doesn't help our bad matchups in any way.
- Ratchet Bomb:
Pretty good against aggressive decks and tokens. It one of the few ways our deck can get rid of enchantments, and is strong against creatures that grown too big for our removal.
- Relic of Progenitus:
If you're not running the full set of Relics in the mainboard, you can run some more in here instead.
- Shattering Spree:
We need to have artifact hate in the sideboard somewhere, and shattering spree should be the one of choice. We don't want Shatterstorm, and the like, because we happen to run a lot of artifacts as well. This is generally better than Vandalblast, because it's easier to cast on multiple targets (affinity), and way harder to counter.
- Ricochet Trap:
We can use this to counter our opponent's counterspells. We cast it in response to their counterspell, change their spell to Ricochet Trap, and when Ricochet Trap resolves, the counterspell fizzles because it no longer has any legal targets. It can also steal Ancestral Visions with this, and don't forget you can hardcast.
- Anger of the Gods:
Kill.
- Sowing Salt/Crumble to Dust:
Can be good against Tron, and Scapeshift. But too slow. It does well at getting rid of manlands though.
- Damping Sphere: Helps in the Storm, and helps in the Tron match up more than Sowing Salt does.
- Alpine Moon: A very low investment card against Tron decks. Use it to name the tron piece that they do not have on the field so that you won't feed them colored mana for free.
- Molten Rain:
A solid card that can buy time against Tron and Scapeshift players.
- Goblin Rabblemaster:
This card is a 3 turn clock if left unanswered, all by himself. He does 1 damage the first turn he comes in, then 6 the next, then 8, totaling 15. We have a bad matchup against non-interactive combo, like Storm, and Ad Nauseum, but this can give us an out. Unfortunately, he's only really good if you can get him out turn 2 a-la Simian Spirit Guide.
Legion Warboss:Same as Rabblemaster, but better. He leaves bigger tokens behind and the clock is practically the same.
under construction
20 Snow-covered Mountain
3 Scrying Sheets
Creatures
3 Pia & Kiran Nalaar
3 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Eternal Scourge
Planeswalkers
4 Koth of the Hammer
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
3 Anger of the Gods
Artifacts/Enchantments
4 Blood Moon
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Mind Stones
4 Dragon's Claw
4 Molten Rain
2 Shattering Spree
3 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Dismember
Ascetic Skred
A celibate approach to the deck. I think current decklists nowadays are trying to do too much at the same time and that is why we haven't been getting any results.
1 Snow-covered Mountain
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Koth of the Hammer
Instant/Sorcery
1 Skred
3 Abrade
2 Damping Sphere
2 Platinum Angel
5 Snow-covered Mountain
1 Forest
1 Needle Drop
1 Fireball
Ascetic Skred works by discarding the ability to lose the game by abandoning the ability and desire to win the game. Disqualification is a state of nothingness, and Nothing is greater than placing first.
Adonis2k/Morten/Eternal Skred
This list was created by adonis2k/Morten, who has been grinding on MTGO going 4-0 since 2014. Pretty much the baseline for every modern list. It has it's own decktech video, and sideboard/matchup guide, featuring Morten himself. The Skred list that recently won GP Dallas is a slightly more up to date, variation of Morten's list.
20 Snow-covered Mountain
3 Scrying Sheets
Creatures
4 Pia & Kiran Nalaar
2 Eternal Scourge
Planeswalkers
4 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Instant/Sorcery
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Roast
1 Magma Jet
1 Volcanic Fallout
3 Blood Moon
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Mind Stones
1 Batterskull
3 Dragon's Claw
3 Molten Rain
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Sudden Shock
1 Shattering Spree
2 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Vandalblast
Ozzy Kelly's Dragon Skred
There was once a man who wanted to play dragons, and there was nobody there to stop him. And then he won a SCG classic. So now EVERYBODY wants to be a dragon too. (i want to be a dragon.)
21 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Scrying Sheets
1 Cavern of Souls
Creatures
4 Glorybringer
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Stormbreath Dragon
Planeswalkers
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Sarkhan, Fireblood
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
4 Draconic Roar
2 Anger of the Gods
Artifacts/Enchantments
2 Rachet bombs
4 Blood Moon
1 Batterskull
4 Dragon's Claw
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Molten Rain
3 Shattering Spree
1 Alpine Moon
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Curse PremiumAbout the Abzan CoCo matchup. You can lose really quick if you don't know how to face them. The general trick is to actually land an early blood moon if you can, but always bolt the turn 1 bird/hierarch and the later kitchen finks (to get a -1/-1 counter on him). This means they have to find either Anafenza or Gavony Township before they can combo with that Finks. Also hold up relic whenever possible if they present 4 mana with a combo peice on board. Overall it can be a very favorable matchup for any build.
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit --used to get -1/-1 counters off kitchen finks
Viscera Seer --sac engine (normally this is the only one so it is a priority for removal), infinite Scry 1
Kitchen Finks --sac fodder, infinite life
murderous redcap --sac fodder, infinite damage
Archangel of Thune --wincon with infinite life combo not ran often but does see play
Literally everything else in the deck is intended for assembling the combo.
They also run Gavony Township as a back up plan, this pumps every creature they have on the board and eventually they can overwhelm you with it.
I thought I could get value out of Faithless Looting but they were actually absolute trash and I threw them in the trashbin. I was expecting to discard spare bloodmoons, or extra lands to draw whatever, but it was never worth it. Not even discarding a Demigod. I would have much rather have had it played, then countered/killed, and played a second one than discarding + playing one. The spare blood moons rarely came up, and there are no spare lands in the deck. We want to continue playing land drops no matter what most of the time. Faithless Looting trades card quantity for quality, but we're not looking for any combo pieces, and almost every single one of our threats are equal in quality.
I'll try the deck again, but with mainboard 2-4 relics again even though I'm running 3 Dark-Dwellers, and 4 Demigods. I playtested it a few times and found that if you sequence your plays properly, the relics don't even hinder the graveyard based gameplan.
@Kurisock
The Cage actually looks amazing as a sideboard card. We currently have a weird match up against CoCo because we sometimes run Anger of the Gods, which stop in their tracks, and sometimes our relics get there. What spices me the most about the Cage is that it's also very good against Nahiri decks that are extremely popular right now.
@cksboy15
Strangely, on paper this looks promising and also very underwhelming at the same time. I said the same about Dark-Dwellers, but I think they really have a home in the deck, so I'll need to give the baubles a chance and test them out next week.
btw, natesroom made a better version of my banner. The double dragons look freaking amazing!
Thanks for the Kind words on the banner!
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Curse PremiumAlso yeah bauble definitely look underwhelming especially as a late game topdeck but then again so does coldsteelheart heart. Really the best of the bunch for artifact ramp is Mind Stone, but in a demigod build its just not good.
Personally I've just been on the spirit guide burst plan. And this list is largely experimental, but this is what I'm looking at.
4 reckoner
2 Pia N kiran
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers (could justify more for testing)
1 Batterskull
4 spirit guide (might drop back to 3 but I'm only gonna run 23 lands)
3 blood moon (4 is too many)
2 molten rain (I honestly think we need something like this with Dark-Dwellers so we always have a viable target for the trigger)
Outside of that probably just run a basic shell with 4 pyroclasms and 2 (maybe) fallouts main and Angers in the side.
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Curse PremiumWhat I didn't like about 3 Pia and 4 Koth was that I often ended up with dead or redundant cards in hand.
Legacy: ANT, Death and Taxes
EDH: Jori En, Ruin Diver Fast Combo
Pauper: Affinity
People keep using that word. It does not mean what they think it means.
Versus Abzan Coco (and similar combo)
Grafdigger's Cage is good against more stuff than just the combo. Unfortunately, it can also be forced out by a well-timed Pridemage. On the other hand, so can Crypt or Relic.
Anger of the Gods is pretty great.
Bolting Finks/Redcap works against Anafenza but not Melira. However, I think you can interrupt the combo also with a Bolt if, in response to the Persist trigger, you take out one of the components. Sudden Shock makes the timing a trivial matter.
Really, this match is pretty good for us.
Versus Nahiri:
As I said to a friend earlier, this match is one we're really well positioned for. Their mana base can be fragile, we run far too many threats, and our threats are actually really good versus theirs.
"Hi, I'm Nahiri. I play with pretty rocks. In two turns, I'll have an eldritch monster on your doorstep!"
"Hi Nahiri, I'm Koth. I play with really, really big rocks. MOUNTAIN TO YOUR FACE!"
Or, alternatively, Stormbreath just melts her face.
Demigod v Double-Dragon v P&KN
In addition to the issues with Demigod requiring RRRRR and being taken out by PtE, the presence of several decks has made graveyard hate ubiquitous. This severely weakens the power of Demigod.
Double-Dragon is what I ran for a long time. It can be really good. Its big weakness is that it's not great at protecting Koth. It's also not strong vs. LotV.
PK&N is the direction I'm heading. They buy time for Koth, are reasonably removal resistant, and occassionally can play board-control.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
It's become slang for irritated/annoyed/bitter, even if that isn't what you had in mind, it's what it's evolved into. I think the old primer had to be closed due to technical limitations. The mods moved this to the Developing Competition subforum and locked the old one, so there's no need to put a new link in the old one.
I agree with you that it is in our favor, but only if we run Anger of the Gods. The relics and spot removal by themselves can possibly get there but it's very shaky and feels even-ish. It's a match up where knowing exactly how the other deck functions is heavily rewarded. Knowing what to bolt/skred, and when is very important because you can't respond to CoCo after the creatures have been revealed. Do you want to bolt the bird early? Or save it for combo piece? It's all situational. In my opinion, this is one of the match ups where the tables can completely turn around without warning. Collected Company, responses? No, you win. Anger of the gods/Blood Moon, responses? No, you win. Note: I played against deck a few times in tournament, and I understand how it works to the point I can pilot it, but I haven't grinded that many games against it, so you may know something that I might not.
I still need to do the match ups guide, so what do you guys think about discussing 2-3 match ups a week? I can do it myself, but I'm afraid that some of them might be a little bit bias, and maybe inaccurate due to things like inexperience in certain matchups, or meta-related techs that some people run. We can start with Abzan CoCo and Nahiri since we're already on the topic.
1. Creature sacrifice outlet that requires no payments or tapping. Viscera Seer is typical.
2. Persist creature with ETB effect. Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap are typical.
3. Creature that can immediately remove the -1/-1 counter left by Persist. Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit are typical.
Once they have these cards (whether through natural draws, Collected Company, or Chord of Calling, they start the combo. First, they sacrifice the Persist creature. This puts the sac-outlet ability on the stack and the Persist card in their graveyard. Then Persist triggers, putting it on top of the sac-outlet ability. If the Persist trigger resolves, the Persist creature's ETB ability goes on the stack. How things proceed vary slightly from here:
If they have Melira, the Persist creature returns with no -1/-1 counter. They have the sac-outlet ability on the stack, the ETB ability on the stack.
If they have Anafenza, her ability goes on the stack at the same time as the ETB (in whatever order they want). They target the Persist creature. When her ability resolves, the +1/+1 and -1/-1 cancel out. This leaves the sac-outlet on the stack (the ETB may have already resolved, or be on the stack).
Either way, once the -1/-1 counter is off the Persist creature and they have everything still, they can proceed to repeat for infinite ETB triggers.
The bad news is that this combo is pretty nasty and fairly easy to set up. They can also go off in-response to your removal spell (yes, they can and will kill you in response to Anger of the Gods, if you let them set up). The good news is that it has various points of attack:
1. You can proactively attack their combo with burn. Their combo typically includes three 1-2 toughness creatures. Removing the sac-outlet, Anafenza, and/or Melira in advance may delay them going off. The sac outlet is usually the best choice if possible, since it usually has the fewest replicates (though I've seen Cartel Aristocrat used, which changes this). Hitting Persist creatures is a lot more dicey: if either Anafenza or Melira is in play, you can't kill a pristine Persist creature, but you can hit it in advance of or in response to Anafenza. Since it will return before she's in play, Bolster won't trigger to remove the counter. This is just a delaying action though: the next creature will Bolster the -1/-1 counter away. Melira simply invalidates this strategy outright. Generally, target sac-outlets first, then Anafenza/Melira. Or just drop Anger of the Gods and kill 'em all.
2. While the Persist trigger is on the stack, if you can remove the Persist creature from their graveyard, the combo stops as the trigger will have nothing to return.
2a. Alternatively, Grafdigger's Cage actually prevents Persist from working. It also hoses Chord and Company.
3. You can interrupt the combo by zapping a critical piece at the right time. If they have only one sac-outlet or Anafenza/Melira, hit that and the combo breaks. Doing it while the Persist trigger is on the stack is usually safest, since the creature is in their graveyard so they can't respond with more combo.
4. All this goes out the window if they can get two Persist creatures on the table. Once that happens, you will need to interrupt the combo twice to stop them (and once more for each additional Persist Creature). However, because Persist creatures are harder to keep off the table, focusing on locking out the other two combo pieces may be more fruitful at this point.
5. Their combo pieces are cheap. They can conceivably play them all in one turn. Beware of this, and instants are your friends (as you already knew).
6. Chord and Company can find missing pieces at instant speed. You also don't get to see what they're putting into play before it's technically there. Always cast removal in response to even a potentially-lethal Chord or Company.
If this is helpful in any way, feel free to use it in the OP/Guide.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
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Curse PremiumHonestly the creature we can kill easiest is viscera seer as they almost always have only 4 of those. Older lists ran varolz the scar-striped so you might see that one around, but it sees little to no play anymore. However if you can keep a kitchen finks dead, do so.
21 Snow-covered Mountain
2 Scrying Sheets
Creatures
4 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
3 Boros Reckoner
2 Batterskull
Artifacts
4 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
2 Volcanic Fallout
1 Anger of the Gods
3 Blood Moon
Planeswalkers
4 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Dragon's Claw
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Boil
1 Dismember
2 Shattering Spree
As you can see, there are 59 cards on the main and 11 on the SB. So, about the main: I play mind stones over SSG since, in this build, the only good SSG would do over stones is T2 Blood Moon. Is powerful, but not enough to go over the mind stones (at least for my build, I repeat), because of: T4 Koth / P&KN, sacrifice for P&KN, casting batterskull soon, enough mana for return-cast batterskull... a lot of uses for this build. About the card that should be number 60, I have in mind Chandra, Flamecaller or the 4th Reckoner. Chandra can act as a finisher and as a sweeper, can end the games quick and I have 4 mind stones for the cast. But the 4th Boros reckoner would make the deck less CC intensive and more interactive with skred and volcanic fallout.
About the sideboard: there are left the cards for the combo/tron matchup. Im thinking about 3 Molten Rain 1 Crumble to dust; Rabblemaster can work too, but I think it would be better for SSG builds. Anyone has tested it on a non-SSG build? There has to be out there a 2CC red creature that can be fast enough to put a lot of pressure on the combo/tron matchup.
Thanks for help
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Curse PremiumAt 4cmc it's a little hard pressed outside of Koth himself. howvere there's 3 fantastic options at 5 CMC being stormbreath dragon, thundermaw hellkite, and demigod of revenge.
To be honest though I feel 2 batterskull is too many. I found it best as a 1 of main or side, but at 5cmc we honestly prefer one of the hasty dudes I showed above, but your list does seem pretty good.