I disagree that the deck needs anything else. The truth is that very few top players showed up with the deck. The truth is that very few top teams decided to run Jeskai that's all.
It's a very diverse field. In Guangzhou the Japanese were mostly on Infect. Nakamura was on Company and I don't remember him being near the top tables (even with his 3 byes). Yamamoto was on breach and made Top 8.
Jund was EVERYWHERE at my GP but I don't remember seeing many Jund at table 1-2 in the last round.
The top 8/16 are particularly subject to tiebreakers and having byes gives you the edge there too.
I contend that the list I ran (which is posted to the GP article on mtg) gives you a fair game against most match ups and good match ups against popular decks like Jund, Infect, Burn, Affinity and others.
I urge against trying to be more controlling. The Cruz is whether to try for the quick Nahiri ultimate or value Nahiri -2. I found -2 to often aid me in running the opponent out of cards. With 4 Serum Visions the top of our deck tends to be pretty live.
I'll get to some of the other questions when I get to the airport, a little busy at the moment.
Congrats on the 50th place, Chris! Glad the deck felt great man. Lets wait and see what happens at Lille and Indy (it seems we had an 8-1 deck there). Would like to hear about the GP experience itself and some match info you find interesting to share. Also, well done beating Saito! How was that?
Thanks!
The GP was a good experience. My local area has no modern scene and the Internet is very sketchy in China so I rarely play modern But I watch all the content for all the decks and I spend a lot of time thinking about modern, if that makes sense.
I went early on Friday to play a last chance GP trial. Mostly to shake off the rust and ended up losing in the semis to U/W control (old version) still won a box though as the morning trials were double prize points. That player ended up going 2-4 drop in the main event.
Generally, I either combo'd them out with Nahiri or played the "Jund game" and grinded them down.
The Saito match was interesting as it was a pseudo feature match. We had a crowd around us from the beginning. Saito had beat me at GP Beijing SOI sealed in the 5-1 match and I don't think I played all that well. This match we were both 9-2 so loser was eliminated from top 8. We actually got into a huge argument with two minutes left in the match as he got frustrated with me pressuring him to play faster. He was out of gas and I had a snapcaster on the field plus 2 negates and a spell snare that he knew about from probe.
I ended up drawing helix and killing him on t3 of extra turns.
After the GP he found me and told me I did well and should play in some Japanese GPs.
I avoided bad match ups for the most part only Scapeshift and Ad Naseum are unfavorable.
I prepared to beat Jund and went a whooping 12-0 in games against them.
I'm a little tired to most my list but my maindeck spells mirrored Jim Davis but I don't play Timely in the maindeck.
Sideboard
2 Negate
2 Rest in Peace
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Stony Silence
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Izzet Statiscaster
1 Wear/Tear
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Anger of the Gods
Any questions feel free to ask.
Money finish and 2 pro points.
The deck felt fantastic!
Congrats on a solid finish.
You dodged some bad matchups, but to be honest I feel like going 12-0 against Jund is a testament to your play skill. That matchup can be grindy, even if we might be slightly favored with AV.
Can't say I condone zero 4 CMC sweepers (Wrath or Verdict), but results don't lie.
Did any cards in the main deck or sideboard stand out as particularly good or bad? I don't mean cards like Crumble, which obviously isn't good when you never play Tron style decks. But more in a general sense. Like was the singleton Geist worth the spot?
Thanks!
The deck felt good overall. A bunch of parts working cohesively. I'd say lightning helix was crucial. It allowed me to win several races versus Jund,one race against hexproof and kept me from dying in the two burn matchups. AV was devastating against Jund. In several games I suspended AV on T5 or later and it was still good. Serum Visions made the top of the deck gas. Nahiri was usually game over.
In the sideboard going forward I would like access to a second Engineered Explosives. I brought it in almost every sideboard game. Elspeth won me games that other cards wouldn't have. Stonewalling Thruns, Tasigurs, goyfs, raging ravines, etc.
I didn't bring in Geist much as I never faced the mirror or tron. I brought it in on the play against ad naseum, Scapeshift, storm, and the hexproof decks, but sided out versus storm and ad nas. On the draw. Clique number 2 came in often as well.
How did the RIPs perform? Against what did you bring them in, and do you take Emrakul or Snapcasters out in some of those MUs?
Thanks!
I only had Rest in Peace for my post board Storm matchup. I landed it in G3 but he was able to draw 3x empty the warrens and I never saw the izzet staticaster: (
The deck felt good overall. A bunch of parts working cohesively. I'd say lightning helix was crucial. It allowed me to win several races versus Jund,one race against hexproof and kept me from dying in the two burn matchups. AV was devastating against Jund. In several games I suspended AV on T5 or later and it was still good. Serum Visions made the top of the deck gas. Nahiri was usually game over.
In the sideboard going forward I would like access to a second Engineered Explosives. I brought it in almost every sideboard game. Elspeth won me games that other cards wouldn't have. Stonewalling Thruns, Tasigurs, goyfs, raging ravines, etc.
I didn't bring in Geist much as I never faced the mirror or tron. I brought it in on the play against ad naseum, Scapeshift, storm, and the hexproof decks, but sided out versus storm and ad nas. On the draw. Clique number 2 came in often as well.
Yeah I think I might try to find room for a 3rd Helix. Especially if burn is on the rise.
Looks like Tron did better at your GP than the other two. This plus the presence of Bant Eldrazi might have kept many jund decks from the top tables. Not to mention you beating up on them.
Took a close look at your deck list. Is there any reason you chose that distribution of fetch lands? 4 Flooded Strand, 3 Arid Mesa, 1 Scalding Tarn is different from the normal 4 Strands 4 Tarns.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
The deck felt good overall. A bunch of parts working cohesively. I'd say lightning helix was crucial. It allowed me to win several races versus Jund,one race against hexproof and kept me from dying in the two burn matchups. AV was devastating against Jund. In several games I suspended AV on T5 or later and it was still good. Serum Visions made the top of the deck gas. Nahiri was usually game over.
In the sideboard going forward I would like access to a second Engineered Explosives. I brought it in almost every sideboard game. Elspeth won me games that other cards wouldn't have. Stonewalling Thruns, Tasigurs, goyfs, raging ravines, etc.
I didn't bring in Geist much as I never faced the mirror or tron. I brought it in on the play against ad naseum, Scapeshift, storm, and the hexproof decks, but sided out versus storm and ad nas. On the draw. Clique number 2 came in often as well.
Yeah I think I might try to find room for a 3rd Helix. Especially if burn is on the rise.
Looks like Tron did better at your GP than the other two. This plus the presence of Bant Eldrazi might have kept many jund decks from the top tables. Not to mention you beating up on them.
Took a close look at your deck list. Is there any reason you chose that distribution of fetch lands? 4 Flooded Strand, 3 Arid Mesa, 1 Scalding Tarn is different from the normal 4 Strands 4 Tarns.
Yeah. A couple reasons I run that distribution of fetchlands. In general, I'm not looking to fetch basics. Since all the fetchlands get all the shocks you have to look at which scenarios do you want to fetch basics in? Against Blood Moon I want to fetch for basic plains because I can exile Blood Moon with Nahiri and if I get a basic island then all I can really do is cast counterspells that game. Better is to have access to Nahiri than counterspells since you aren't going to win unless you draw a singleton plains.
Secondly, I have 2 basic islands in the deck. Having that extra island means over the course of a large sample of games you will likely draw basic island double as much as basic plains(2-1).
The ability to fetch basic plains is a priority for me.
hmmm overall I would say jeskai harbinger had a pretty lackluster performance across the 3 GPs this weekend.
No top 8 appearances, 1 top 32, and 2-3 top 64 (MTGSalvations own @TappingStones is one of these).
Even with Nahiri + AV it looks like jeskai is still lacking the power to keep up with jund, but I guess that is to be expected.
Metagame is full of Suicide Zoo, Burn, Infect, Affinity, and Jund. Bant Eldrazi and Dredge are decently represented, which only makes the environment more hostile for us. Runner ups are probably Ad Nauseum and Merfolk.
Looks like we will have to keep adapting in order to keep up. If not then I feel out tier 1 status is not long for this world.
Maybe a move towards a more controlling version that de-emphasizes the Nahiri combo? I saw plenty of UW lists rocking multiple Cryptics + 4 Colonnades.
Yeah, that was surprisingly poor results.
It's interesting to take a look at the day 2 metagame-data for GP Guangzhou and compare it to top 64. So there's 14 Jeskai Nahiri decks day 2, which is 4,8% of the field,but top 64 there's only 1 deck left (1,5% of the field). Also very poor numbers for jund and abzan: 34 jund decks (11,8%) of day 2, but only 2 decks (3,1%) of top 64. Infect and RG Tron on the other hand did really well with almost half the decks day 2 going into top 64, and Ad Nauseaum almost all (5 out of 7 decks day 2) ending up top 64.
hmmm overall I would say jeskai harbinger had a pretty lackluster performance across the 3 GPs this weekend.
No top 8 appearances, 1 top 32, and 2-3 top 64 (MTGSalvations own @TappingStones is one of these).
Even with Nahiri + AV it looks like jeskai is still lacking the power to keep up with jund, but I guess that is to be expected.
Metagame is full of Suicide Zoo, Burn, Infect, Affinity, and Jund. Bant Eldrazi and Dredge are decently represented, which only makes the environment more hostile for us. Runner ups are probably Ad Nauseum and Merfolk.
Looks like we will have to keep adapting in order to keep up. If not then I feel out tier 1 status is not long for this world.
Maybe a move towards a more controlling version that de-emphasizes the Nahiri combo? I saw plenty of UW lists rocking multiple Cryptics + 4 Colonnades.
Yeah, that was surprisingly poor results.
It's interesting to take a look at the day 2 metagame-data for GP Guangzhou and compare it to top 64. So there's 14 Jeskai Nahiri decks day 2, which is 4,8% of the field,but top 64 there's only 1 deck left (1,5% of the field). Also very poor numbers for jund and abzan: 34 jund decks (11,8%) of day 2, but only 2 decks (3,1%) of top 64. Infect and RG Tron on the other hand did really well with almost half the decks day 2 going into top 64, and Ad Nauseaum almost all (5 out of 7 decks day 2) ending up top 64.
As I was trying to convey (as the last man standing so to speak at that GP) is that none of the named players were on Jeskai Nahiri. Most of the day two participants were people like me with zero byes or perhaps 1-2 byes from LCQ. The top Chinese players were playing a bunch of different decks and the Japanese were on Infect, Abzan Company, Bant Eldrazi and a few random Breach decks.
It's not so much that Jeskai underperformed but more a shame that more people didn't show up on Jeskai because the field was pretty ripe for Jeskai to have a strong showing but you need to have stronger players on the deck or people with good tie breakers or else you have something like this. I placed 50th but that was because I didn't have any byes. The players on the same record as me with 1,2,3 byes are all ahead of me because of how strong those tie-breakers are.
Perhaps Indy was different? Does anyone know of top pros who were on Nahiri that bombed out? I haven't heard of anything strange. I think people were trying different stuff. Dredge was hugely popular at the Friday LCT but again as day two wore on I didn't see any dredge at the top tables, nor much Bant Eldrazi or CC. Infect, Jund and Burn were rampant.
I had to question what match-up the wrath was really going to do a ton of work for me and other than Bant Eldrazi there wasn't a deck I feared being attacked by multiple big creatures from. I run multiple Anger of the God's and that lines up nicely with a lot of decks right now. I think 4 mana wrath is sort of a security blanket at times. It's not often necessary but makes us feel safe. Sometimes it's needed but right now I don't care for it.
No, but I do wish I had a second Engineered Explosives because that card was amazing and got brought in for almost every game. Not once did I think "Oh man, I drew EE" I'd likely shave down on a Rest in Peace
Funny you ask that. I always wonder why people are playing Ghost Quarter. Mana Leak is a good spell in modern, not a great spell but a good spell. PTE is a great spell, but it weakens mana leak, GQ also weakens mana leak(in comparison to Tec Edge). My tec edge keeps my mana leaks alive longer. Also if you think your singleton GQ is going to make a difference against Tron I would suggest you rethink your game plan. To beat Tron you need to resolve something that kills quickly or find a more permanent solution. I don't need to give away even more basics if I can help it.
Hi TappingStones,
could you please post your decklist with Sideboard for the event? I played two pptqs in my area and was really struggling with graveyard based decks. I list two rounds to dredge. I played 1 Relic, 1 Tormod's Crypt and 2 Anger main. Would you advise playing 2 Rest in Peace in the Sideboard? Would you cut some number of Snapcasters for it?
Wait, you are playing Tormod's Crypt maindeck? That must be a helluva meta you got there my friend! Or just the 2 angers are main? I'm going to assume that for sanities sake
I think RIP is the go to answer against Dredge. I don't know how hard you want to fight Dredge. If in your local meta you think there is a reasonable chance for you to face Dredge multiple times in a 5-6 round tournament than I would run 2-3 RIP and multiple Anger main, yes. If you have 3 RIP then you should also mulligan aggressively to find it (or at least some answers like Anger). I wouldn't personally run more than 2 RIP in my sideboard because the card is so bad in multiples. And they can still cast creatures if you have no action of your own.
Thinking outside the box I also like Izzet Staticaster in the sideboard as it kills all Narcomebas, Blood Ghasts and Haunted dead spirit tokens. You also have 4 PTE, 2 Anger and 4 Snapcaster Mages(because sometimes you don't draw RIP).
Which answers your last question. No, I never board out Snapcaster, ever. If you have an active RIP you are way ahead and 2/1 flash is probably a fine card. If you don't have RIP you will probably be doing the Tappingstones play "Serum Vision, Snapcaster, Serum visions" Where is that damn hate card! Seriously, that's how I win a lot of sideboard games I just try to spam my Serum Visions and bottom everything until I find what I need.
Just out of curiosity why did you choose to cut the Spreading Seas out of your board? I side them in fairly often. Vs Infect, Merfolk, Affinity, Tron, Scapeshift(depending on the build), and Jund/Junk. I haven't, but I saw Gerry Thompson side them against Burn and Death's shadow too the reasoning was that it's essentially a pseudo Sink Hole against them.
Helix is good against Burn, good against Suicide Zoo and regular Zoo. It can also stop you from getting burned out against the mirror or against another UR/x deck. Sweepers are better against Zoo but bad against Suicide Zoo and Burn and Timely is sorcery speed.
All 3 are good cards though. Just for different situations.
Not only that, but sweepers tend to be much slower and can sometimes be mediocre. I'll take Helix over Wrath of God any day against delver, infect, burn, or G/r aggro.
On that note how does everyone feel about mainboarding Engineered Explosives? I moved my Timely Reinforcements to the Sideboard and put the Explosives as a singleton in the main. I keep finding myself siding the card in 90% of the time and finding matches were I need removal instead of lifegain (Infect, Affinity, Etc). In fact I'm pretty sure I want to find a slot for a second one on my 75. It has been that good for me.
Hmm. Well, I'm thinking of taking this to a small tournament. Trying to decide between a couple of decks and a favourable Jund matchup is a big incentive. Any feedback is appreciated:
Token strategies are a pain. I lost to both UB Thopter-Sword-Tezzeret and Esper Mentor/Gifts the last time I played, and am strongly considering moving Timely Reinforcements to the sideboard and bringing a second sweeper to the main. I was thinking to add a second Anger of the Gods, but Engineered Explosives is an interesting idea. Especially for those of us not playing Cryptic Command, it offers a main-deck answer to some off-beat cards (like the T1 Relic I faced in two of the three games vs. Thopter-Sword!?), and provides a more permanent answer to strategies that go wide than Timely Reinforcements does.
There is a reason EE is heading towards 50$. I think it is a 2-of in UWR. It helps against anti-nahiri cards (Cage, RIP, Needle) and helps against go-wide strategies (tokens, tribal decks) and aggro decks (gruul Zoo, burn, sui Zoo, Affinity).
There is a reason EE is heading towards 50$. I think it is a 2-of in UWR. It helps against anti-nahiri cards (Cage, RIP, Needle) and helps against go-wide strategies (tokens, tribal decks) and aggro decks (gruul Zoo, burn, sui Zoo, Affinity).
I probably should have bought two when I got mine. Don't really want to buy a second right now. :/
The flexibility is great, but I still like to have answers that are more permanent (Stony Silence, etc.) or can be Snapcastered (Anger, Wear/Tear). In principle, at least. If I had a second EE, I might play it in place of Wear/Tear.
It's a very diverse field. In Guangzhou the Japanese were mostly on Infect. Nakamura was on Company and I don't remember him being near the top tables (even with his 3 byes). Yamamoto was on breach and made Top 8.
Jund was EVERYWHERE at my GP but I don't remember seeing many Jund at table 1-2 in the last round.
The top 8/16 are particularly subject to tiebreakers and having byes gives you the edge there too.
I contend that the list I ran (which is posted to the GP article on mtg) gives you a fair game against most match ups and good match ups against popular decks like Jund, Infect, Burn, Affinity and others.
I urge against trying to be more controlling. The Cruz is whether to try for the quick Nahiri ultimate or value Nahiri -2. I found -2 to often aid me in running the opponent out of cards. With 4 Serum Visions the top of our deck tends to be pretty live.
I'll get to some of the other questions when I get to the airport, a little busy at the moment.
Thanks!
The GP was a good experience. My local area has no modern scene and the Internet is very sketchy in China so I rarely play modern But I watch all the content for all the decks and I spend a lot of time thinking about modern, if that makes sense.
I went early on Friday to play a last chance GP trial. Mostly to shake off the rust and ended up losing in the semis to U/W control (old version) still won a box though as the morning trials were double prize points. That player ended up going 2-4 drop in the main event.
Generally, I either combo'd them out with Nahiri or played the "Jund game" and grinded them down.
The Saito match was interesting as it was a pseudo feature match. We had a crowd around us from the beginning. Saito had beat me at GP Beijing SOI sealed in the 5-1 match and I don't think I played all that well. This match we were both 9-2 so loser was eliminated from top 8. We actually got into a huge argument with two minutes left in the match as he got frustrated with me pressuring him to play faster. He was out of gas and I had a snapcaster on the field plus 2 negates and a spell snare that he knew about from probe.
I ended up drawing helix and killing him on t3 of extra turns.
After the GP he found me and told me I did well and should play in some Japanese GPs.
Thanks!
The deck felt good overall. A bunch of parts working cohesively. I'd say lightning helix was crucial. It allowed me to win several races versus Jund,one race against hexproof and kept me from dying in the two burn matchups. AV was devastating against Jund. In several games I suspended AV on T5 or later and it was still good. Serum Visions made the top of the deck gas. Nahiri was usually game over.
In the sideboard going forward I would like access to a second Engineered Explosives. I brought it in almost every sideboard game. Elspeth won me games that other cards wouldn't have. Stonewalling Thruns, Tasigurs, goyfs, raging ravines, etc.
I didn't bring in Geist much as I never faced the mirror or tron. I brought it in on the play against ad naseum, Scapeshift, storm, and the hexproof decks, but sided out versus storm and ad nas. On the draw. Clique number 2 came in often as well.
Thanks!
I only had Rest in Peace for my post board Storm matchup. I landed it in G3 but he was able to draw 3x empty the warrens and I never saw the izzet staticaster: (
Yeah I think I might try to find room for a 3rd Helix. Especially if burn is on the rise.
Looks like Tron did better at your GP than the other two. This plus the presence of Bant Eldrazi might have kept many jund decks from the top tables. Not to mention you beating up on them.
Took a close look at your deck list. Is there any reason you chose that distribution of fetch lands? 4 Flooded Strand, 3 Arid Mesa, 1 Scalding Tarn is different from the normal 4 Strands 4 Tarns.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Congrats men!!!! Great Job!!!
How you feel about so little 4 mana wraths.
You dont miss dispel in sb?
Why you pick tectonic over ghost quarter?
Death and taxes
Yeah. A couple reasons I run that distribution of fetchlands. In general, I'm not looking to fetch basics. Since all the fetchlands get all the shocks you have to look at which scenarios do you want to fetch basics in? Against Blood Moon I want to fetch for basic plains because I can exile Blood Moon with Nahiri and if I get a basic island then all I can really do is cast counterspells that game. Better is to have access to Nahiri than counterspells since you aren't going to win unless you draw a singleton plains.
Secondly, I have 2 basic islands in the deck. Having that extra island means over the course of a large sample of games you will likely draw basic island double as much as basic plains(2-1).
The ability to fetch basic plains is a priority for me.
Yeah, that was surprisingly poor results.
It's interesting to take a look at the day 2 metagame-data for GP Guangzhou and compare it to top 64. So there's 14 Jeskai Nahiri decks day 2, which is 4,8% of the field,but top 64 there's only 1 deck left (1,5% of the field). Also very poor numbers for jund and abzan: 34 jund decks (11,8%) of day 2, but only 2 decks (3,1%) of top 64. Infect and RG Tron on the other hand did really well with almost half the decks day 2 going into top 64, and Ad Nauseaum almost all (5 out of 7 decks day 2) ending up top 64.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
As I was trying to convey (as the last man standing so to speak at that GP) is that none of the named players were on Jeskai Nahiri. Most of the day two participants were people like me with zero byes or perhaps 1-2 byes from LCQ. The top Chinese players were playing a bunch of different decks and the Japanese were on Infect, Abzan Company, Bant Eldrazi and a few random Breach decks.
It's not so much that Jeskai underperformed but more a shame that more people didn't show up on Jeskai because the field was pretty ripe for Jeskai to have a strong showing but you need to have stronger players on the deck or people with good tie breakers or else you have something like this. I placed 50th but that was because I didn't have any byes. The players on the same record as me with 1,2,3 byes are all ahead of me because of how strong those tie-breakers are.
Perhaps Indy was different? Does anyone know of top pros who were on Nahiri that bombed out? I haven't heard of anything strange. I think people were trying different stuff. Dredge was hugely popular at the Friday LCT but again as day two wore on I didn't see any dredge at the top tables, nor much Bant Eldrazi or CC. Infect, Jund and Burn were rampant.
Why thank you!
I had to question what match-up the wrath was really going to do a ton of work for me and other than Bant Eldrazi there wasn't a deck I feared being attacked by multiple big creatures from. I run multiple Anger of the God's and that lines up nicely with a lot of decks right now. I think 4 mana wrath is sort of a security blanket at times. It's not often necessary but makes us feel safe. Sometimes it's needed but right now I don't care for it.
No, but I do wish I had a second Engineered Explosives because that card was amazing and got brought in for almost every game. Not once did I think "Oh man, I drew EE" I'd likely shave down on a Rest in Peace
Funny you ask that. I always wonder why people are playing Ghost Quarter. Mana Leak is a good spell in modern, not a great spell but a good spell. PTE is a great spell, but it weakens mana leak, GQ also weakens mana leak(in comparison to Tec Edge). My tec edge keeps my mana leaks alive longer. Also if you think your singleton GQ is going to make a difference against Tron I would suggest you rethink your game plan. To beat Tron you need to resolve something that kills quickly or find a more permanent solution. I don't need to give away even more basics if I can help it.
No problem. My list is here. Scroll down to 50th place. http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpgua16/33rd-64th-decklists-2016-08-28
Wait, you are playing Tormod's Crypt maindeck? That must be a helluva meta you got there my friend! Or just the 2 angers are main? I'm going to assume that for sanities sake
I think RIP is the go to answer against Dredge. I don't know how hard you want to fight Dredge. If in your local meta you think there is a reasonable chance for you to face Dredge multiple times in a 5-6 round tournament than I would run 2-3 RIP and multiple Anger main, yes. If you have 3 RIP then you should also mulligan aggressively to find it (or at least some answers like Anger). I wouldn't personally run more than 2 RIP in my sideboard because the card is so bad in multiples. And they can still cast creatures if you have no action of your own.
Thinking outside the box I also like Izzet Staticaster in the sideboard as it kills all Narcomebas, Blood Ghasts and Haunted dead spirit tokens. You also have 4 PTE, 2 Anger and 4 Snapcaster Mages(because sometimes you don't draw RIP).
Which answers your last question. No, I never board out Snapcaster, ever. If you have an active RIP you are way ahead and 2/1 flash is probably a fine card. If you don't have RIP you will probably be doing the Tappingstones play "Serum Vision, Snapcaster, Serum visions" Where is that damn hate card! Seriously, that's how I win a lot of sideboard games I just try to spam my Serum Visions and bottom everything until I find what I need.
Hope that's helpful!
URBURB
URBURB
All 3 are good cards though. Just for different situations.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
On that note how does everyone feel about mainboarding Engineered Explosives? I moved my Timely Reinforcements to the Sideboard and put the Explosives as a singleton in the main. I keep finding myself siding the card in 90% of the time and finding matches were I need removal instead of lifegain (Infect, Affinity, Etc). In fact I'm pretty sure I want to find a slot for a second one on my 75. It has been that good for me.
URBURB
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells (31)
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
2 Lightning Helix
2 Remand
3 Mana Leak
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Electrolyze
1 Cryptic Command
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
3 Celestial Colonnade
3 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Wear // Tear
1 Celestial Purge
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Negate
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Shatterstorm
1 Wrath of God
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
I probably should have bought two when I got mine. Don't really want to buy a second right now. :/
The flexibility is great, but I still like to have answers that are more permanent (Stony Silence, etc.) or can be Snapcastered (Anger, Wear/Tear). In principle, at least. If I had a second EE, I might play it in place of Wear/Tear.