LURKER HERE - QUESTIONS:
1: How well does the incursion of Ghost Quarters help in the bad MU's of Tron, Valakut, and co?
2: How often do you find opponents failing to find when you Path or Quarter?
3: If there is a reliance on Qhost Quarters in those Matchups, why not Grim Discovery?
4: Across the varied builds here, what would each of you consider being the 'crux card' of the deck? What card wins you the swing matchups and why?
5: With the 'rise' of Infect and Burn, do you think this deck is well positioned in the Meta?
Still vulturing around this build, I really adore it and I think it can go places.
Concerning the stereotypically bad matchups, I feel like Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter could really help demolish in tandem with both Path and Quarter, and I feel like most of their win-cons are reliant on some form of tutoring.
I've been silently lurking this thread for a while since I'm building BW Processors as a modern side project. Thanks for your insights btw!
What do you think about the Mardu Eldrazi deck from Corbin Hosler?
It basically trades Lingering souls with Kolaghan's command. Of course, it is almost a 4 color deck now... I think, he started from the BR version and added white for Eldrazi Displacer.
It is a very interesting deck and I enjoyed watching the videos a few days ago. However, adding red really strains the mana base but you do get one of the ideal sweepers we need (3 damage for 3 mana anger of the gods), bolt, and kolaghan's command. Those three cards are the most compelling reasons to splash red. After looking at this deck and evaluating the 2-drop slot for us, I think that we should just cut our 2-drop creatures entirely in favor of Liliana, the last hope (this card has everything we need and is a good top-deck in the late game if we are careful with our relics), Eldrazi displacer (this card has proven to be amazing and very useful in a lot of situations), and additional kill spells.
Well I've been getting stomped lately by a lot of linear fast aggro strategies, feeling like the deck is not so well positioned right now (like midrange in general). I have a couple slots in the side for Dredge but there is none at my LGS so I will probably up the removal count. I have also been considering dropping the discard for removal instead.
1-3 the last two events I attended, with my sole win last night being a bye. Ugh. Drawing a TON of one-land hands too, for some reason.
Not so sure Warping Wail is too great against Blood Moon, since it only does what we want it to if we have 1C open when they cast the Moon, and then it only buys us one creature. Personally I'd far rather get a Wastes off GQ or Path in such a case. Though of course Wail has other uses that make it attractive as a toolbox choice.
Yeah fast aggro is a HUGE problem and I have been trying to deal with it for a long time. When I play against zoo there are some hands that I just cannot beat. If I make it to turn 4, however, I usually win the game. The best cards that I have found are iok, path, and blessed alliance. Boros charm is the main reason that I run languish over damnation. I'm glad that you kicked butt in the GPT! I placed 3rd in a local GPT with a similar number of players.
LURKER HERE - QUESTIONS:
1: How well does the incursion of Ghost Quarters help in the bad MU's of Tron, Valakut, and co?
2: How often do you find opponents failing to find when you Path or Quarter?
3: If there is a reliance on Qhost Quarters in those Matchups, why not Grim Discovery?
4: Across the varied builds here, what would each of you consider being the 'crux card' of the deck? What card wins you the swing matchups and why?
5: With the 'rise' of Infect and Burn, do you think this deck is well positioned in the Meta?
Still vulturing around this build, I really adore it and I think it can go places.
Concerning the stereotypically bad matchups, I feel like Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter could really help demolish in tandem with both Path and Quarter, and I feel like most of their win-cons are reliant on some form of tutoring.
6: Why then aren't these cards auto-adds?
GLORY TO YOU
Welcome! Here are some answers to your questions:
1. They don't. Tron is very resilient around loosing 1 land, that we have to get somewhat lucky to have our ghost quarters slow them down more than 1 turn. Scapeshift it has hardly any effect. Any scapeshift player worth their salt will fetch 6 mountains to make sure that valakut will still kill us if we ghost quarter a mountain. These matchups are so horrible for us, that I don't dedicate much sideboard hate because I would have to dedicate so many cards that my other matchup percentages would suffer.
2. Totally depends on the deck. The majority of modern decks run 3ish basics but there are decks that do not run any (such as the death shadows deck).
3. Grim Discovery is interesting, but crucible of worlds is just better if you want to ghost quarter-lock them.
4. The crux cards are: thought-knot seer, path of exile, relic of progenitus, reality smasher, lingering souls, and wasteland strangler. I am always on the fence of just cutting my relics to go straight midrange, but relics are currently very well positioned.
5. Even though we have great cards against infect the deck is so good it is annoying. I have around a 30% win rate against infect but the matchups are always really close. A quick summary of my previous four games against infect I: lost on turn 3 twice, lost on turn 4 after using thoughtseize and a path, lost on turn 6 after they top-deck a become immense where I was going to win the next turn.
6. If you want to add these cards, I would suggest just going eldrazi and taxes. They have a much better tron matchup. Every deck has their good and bad matchups. I like to run lingering souls and make jund players cry, which I why I play this deck.
Pretty much agree with all 6 points here. Taking out one tron land is often not enough because of how resilient tron is, but I have had recent success against a GW tron player by hitting two expedition maps (one he drew after I played it) with a T1 pithing needle, then as he slowly recovered from that I slowed him down yet again with a ghost quarter and squeaked out a win before he got going. Just tonight on mtgo against some U/G tron list, I won a game through a fast clock via T2 reshaper into T3 TKS, and I baited a condescend with souls T4 and anguished an o-stone T5, T6 he plays a wurmcoil as his only chance to survive the next attack by me, and I had the path waiting for several turns to use. I also recently added 1 surgical extraction back in the sideboard to combo with my ghost quarters (and 1x fulminator in the side) against tron and valakut, and surgical is decent in a few other matchups as well so it's not dedicated to only that use.
Against greedy mana decks like jund, or really any 3-color deck, if you path and/or quarter enough you'll see fail to finds. It just doesn't happen all too often because of how much of the meta is linear aggro.
Crucible is definitely better over Grim Discovery. I'm actually thinking about picking one up with store credit sometime to have the option to sideboard it if there's hatebears/ponza/etc.
Infect can definitely be rough, I played in a competitive modern tournament last Saturday, my two losses being to infect in group stage and affinity in Ro8. The infect match was really close all 3 games, it was seriously intense. I think because of Gitaxian Probe (which he saw at least two of the three games early) gives them a huge leg up on us if we don't also see their hand, this matchup is very much like a game of chess, where you're planning turns ahead and thinking about how to sequence to have the right removal at the right time. If we don't draw enough removal, or if we have dead strangler's in hand and can't use their -3/-3 because there's nothing in exile, we're going to lose very very fast. I ended up losing game three to a very bad mistake, he had an empty hand and drew a card for turn, swung in presenting lethal with two attackers, I blocked one attacker to trade with reshaper and cast dismember on the other creature which was a blinkmoth nexus, and like a dumbass I wasn't prepared for him to have a counterspell and I paid two black mana intead of 4 life for the dismember. Turns out the card he topdecked was Spell Pierce and I couldn't pay the 2 to stop it. If you have the proper removal you still need very tight play, whoever makes more mistakes will lose givn both players have competitive hands and topdecks early on.
If you want to run Arbiter, you should just to the eldrazi n taxes list, it is incredibly good at executing a lockdown plan. And honestly with this build we want to be accelerating with mind stone, dropping a relic or discard, or dropping a T2 reshaper with temple (my personal favorite) on T2, not playing a 2/2 hatebear.
Oh and deaddrift, I too have been toying with the idea of dropping discard for more removal as it seems like sometimes I can never have enough. A thought I had was running only 2x CoBr maindeck for discard, which obviously also doubles as removal, and moving 2x Thoughtseize to the side. Not too confident about it because Thoughtseize is a house against matchups like tron and bant eldrazi. I've also been reconsidering warping wail back in the side, my loss in the Ro8 to affinity was due to a really bad open G1 where I missed land drops T3 and T4, and G3 I had two dead stranglers in hand that I could have used to remove key robots on T3 and T4 if I had something in exile. Affinity is a matchup I bring like 8 or 9 cards in for, so all 4 relics come out, and warping wail could be used here to enable strangler and it hits a lot of other stuff. But the problem I have with WW is in many cases it's only a minor effect on the game, and I feel like sideboard cards should aim to heavily sway the game in our favor if we draw and play it. Your thoughts? Also you should consider a ratchet bomb maindeck for extra removal, there are so many decks it destroys (people all around my local meta are big on the swiftspear/TiTi decks, which both WW and ratchet bomb are good against) and really not many matchups where it's a terrible card G1 (like tron). Even against a deck like Jund where it's not key to winning, it's a threat they need to account for because it wipes out basically all of their creatures.
LURKER HERE - QUESTIONS:
1: How well does the incursion of Ghost Quarters help in the bad MU's of Tron, Valakut, and co?
2: How often do you find opponents failing to find when you Path or Quarter?
3: If there is a reliance on Qhost Quarters in those Matchups, why not Grim Discovery?
4: Across the varied builds here, what would each of you consider being the 'crux card' of the deck? What card wins you the swing matchups and why?
5: With the 'rise' of Infect and Burn, do you think this deck is well positioned in the Meta?
Still vulturing around this build, I really adore it and I think it can go places.
Concerning the stereotypically bad matchups, I feel like Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter could really help demolish in tandem with both Path and Quarter, and I feel like most of their win-cons are reliant on some form of tutoring.
6: Why then aren't these cards auto-adds?
GLORY TO YOU
1. In varying degrees. Depends on there and our Topdecks.
2. 0 times right now.
3. Grim... whtever. Sounds like a great addition along relic of progenitus.
4. Lingering souls. It's teh single best grind tool in teh format.
5. Infect is a balanced Matchup for us - 50:50 to 60:40 in our favor, depending on your maindeck. Burn needs some hate, most obvious collective brutality shines here. It's tough with there good hands.
6. What Matchups does it fix that doesn't weaken others? You know, it's not about puttin' some Hatebears in and your bad Matchups becomes good. What Decks are you referring to?
I went 4-0 today, beating Grixis Delver, Skred, Mardu Nahiri, and BUG Midrange/Control. Not gonna write 'em up unless someone requests details. Same list as last posted except I finally swapped out my one Isolated Chapel for a Concealed Courtyard and the single SB Hero's Downfall for a Warping Wail, which I did not draw.
For now I am sticking with the same disruption package I have been using, with lots of removal in the sideboard.
LURKER HERE - QUESTIONS:
1: How well does the incursion of Ghost Quarters help in the bad MU's of Tron, Valakut, and co?
2: How often do you find opponents failing to find when you Path or Quarter?
3: If there is a reliance on Qhost Quarters in those Matchups, why not Grim Discovery?
4: Across the varied builds here, what would each of you consider being the 'crux card' of the deck? What card wins you the swing matchups and why?
5: With the 'rise' of Infect and Burn, do you think this deck is well positioned in the Meta?
Still vulturing around this build, I really adore it and I think it can go places.
Concerning the stereotypically bad matchups, I feel like Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter could really help demolish in tandem with both Path and Quarter, and I feel like most of their win-cons are reliant on some form of tutoring.
6: Why then aren't these cards auto-adds?
GLORY TO YOU
Welcome to the thread INYIL.
1. GQ is not enough by itself against the land decks. It helps some there--especially if you can Extract a Valakut or Tron land--but it is really mostly for opposing manlands or utility lands like Gavony Township or Inkmoth Nexus. Against decks playing Leonin Arbiter effects, it can be lots of fun to use it to beat up on their lands when they cannot search. Though if they have a Vial In play this can be a losing strategy.
2.You pretty much have to assume that opponents are going to find a basic when you Path or GQ their permanents. Suicide Zoo is a rare exception, and many Gx Tron builds have only one or sometimes two basics.
3. Grim Discovery seems way too conditional and too cute to me. Land destruction is only one of several angles of attack for this deck, and it would be a mistake to focus on it too heavily.
4. Best wincons for me are Reality Smasher and Lingering Souls, both of which are very strong cards that get much stronger as multiples, and both also synergize extremely well with Sorin and Vault.
5. My personal experience with Infect has been that I feel favored, unless they nut-draw. Overall I win more matches than I lose against Glistener Elf and Co. I also feel favored against Burn in a match of three, though the games are always close.
6. I would not consider Arbiter personally. I tried Aven Mindcensor and didn't like it. I would discourage you from trying to make land control a main focus of your build, since this is a classic multi-axis midrange deck: many answers/good threats are what are going to win you fame and glory in this shell, not narrow strategies like too much hand disruption or heavy land control.
herfs, you bring in sweepers against Burn? I side in Bomb, but I can't think of any decks with Boros Charm that I would bring in Damnation against. Selfless Spirit on the other hand....
BTW, I thought of another reason I like Bomb over EE: the ability to threaten two CMCs at once by leaving it at one value but threatening to tick up in an opponent's EOT. This gives it some additional value when, as happened to me tonight, you want to be able to hit either Lili OR Nahiri, or Moon OR Koth, for instance.
Nacatl Burn is traditionally weaker against sweeper, Boros Burn relies heavily on Burn-Spells instead of Creatures.
I'm for now even not boarding out all of my thoughtseize because hitting boros charm or Atarka's Command
is still worth taking 2 life for.
Pedigree Pal is a thing to consider against a heavy aggro-Meta.
So I just recently put together Processors and took it to a 4-1 and 3-2 finish over the course of two tournaments. Deck is sweet, but I wonder if we dont have room for a singleton Batterskull in the main? My meta is full of midrange and Tron (ugh) so my list is a little unorthodox, but there have been some fairly good synergies going on. I do find myself wishing that I had another source of lifegain though, even with Sorin and Vault. Not sure what to cut or where to start, but putting a Batterskull on a Spirit token seems pretty good vs almost any midrange deck.
Batterskull is a solid choice for sure, run it in good health! My only complaint about it is that it strengthens Stony Silence against us (and weakens Stony for us), plus at 5 non-Eldrazi CMC, it is the slowest card in an already slow-ish deck. I agree that lifegain is a solid choice for the build. I'd suggest also considering either another Sorin SV or even Blood Baron of Vizkopa for that slot as well.
Fair points there Deaddrift. I've also been considering one of the many swords of money and value as a way to provide additional card advantage. Sword of Fire and ice and maybe Feast and famine are the two up for debate right now, but Its all in the testing queue.
So far so good though. The deck is truly solid and has some pretty nutty draws. I'm hoping for some more good cards for this deck in the future, and I will be playing it at SCG Regionals come February. I'll post a tournament report of my past two tournaments if you'd like
I will be playing it at SCG Regionals come February. I'll post a tournament report of my past two tournaments if you'd like
Yes please, I love thoughtful play reports from competitive events! I dunno about the Swords though. One downside to equipping to a Spirit is the opportunity cost of having the little sucker get Bolted in response, which will happen. I used to enjoy Grafted Wargear for this reason, though in that deck I also ran four Abyssal Persecutor so there was double reason to run Wargear.
I played this deck last year from the time that the new eldrazi were released until eye was banned.
I love midrange and it was the most balanced and fun to play midrange deck that I have ever played.
I want to get into it again but my meta has a a lot of high value decks such as kiki chord, elves, kiki chord.
How do we beat those decks?
TBH Kiki Chord, Elves, and Kiki Chord (heh) are not great matchups for Processors. I'd run at least two Damnation in the side (maybe even one main) and maybe a Flaying Tendrils in the 75 as well if I really wanted this deck to do well in a meta like that. Might need to up the count of B sources to support all those sweeper effects too, in that case.
Tournament Report from Last night: Went 4-1 to come in 4th place, not too shabby.
Round 1 Vs Mono-U TronDrazi (0-2)
Matchup is a nightmare for us. This build runs Elder-Deep Fiend, TKS, Smasher, Reshapers and Chalice of the Void. Not the best was to start the tournament, but got the worst matchup out of the way. Game 1 she plays Chalice on 1 off of a land and Simian Spirit Guide, which I promptly scoop too as I have 2 Paths, a Relic, and Thoughtseize in my hand. Game 2 I never get off of three lands and Stabilize at 4 life before she plays two Reality Smashers in the same turn. Brutal. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think that using Surgical to get their Deep Fiends or Smashers can really help the matchup.
Round 2 vs Naya Burn (2-0)
Matchup was a breeze. Turn 2 I hit a fully escalated Brutality to kill his Swiftspear, take a Lava spike, and gain two. Next turn he draws a rift Bolt and plays an Eidolon. I drew Strangler and Processed the bolt to kill Eidolon, he promptly scooped. Game 2 I hit a turn 3 TKS to take his Boros Charm, then played Sorin to close it out. Wasn't even close. This matchup is great for us.
Round 3 vs Abzan Midrange...flicker...budget? (2-1)
Kind of an oddball deck here. We both had Lingering Souls here, but I drew into Liliana, the last hope. Needless to say, that card alone wins games, and it pulled its weight in spades, getting back Reality smashers and killing off Lingering Soul tokens. I win Game 1 by running over his Resto Angels with Two Smashers. Game 2 He "Gets the Nut" and plays back to back Thoughtseizes, lingering souls, and a Siege Rhino, followed up by Eldrazi Displacer. I have only Lingering Souls as my threats, so he blinks them away and I die. Game 3 he must have brought in Loxodon Smiters, because my first Thoughtseize on t2 gave him just that. He follows his play with a Rhino on T4, and I play and flashback souls on my turn. He vomits his hand on T5, Playing Displacer and Wall of Omens, but he doesn't know I have Damnation in hand. I cast Damnation and put him in topdeck mode. I draw Sorin and Flashback a Lingering Souls to close out the match. It is also worth noting that this was a slow, grindy close. I actually managed to ult Sorin.....Twice. He had voice of resurgences and still more lingering souls, but the grind on my end was real. Fun match.
Round 4 vs Naya Burn (2-1)
Not much to say here. Game 1 I nut and hit T2 TKS, taking his Atarka's Command, follow it up with Lingering Souls, and cast Sorin. The Concession was quick. Game 2 he Kills me through a Timely Reinforcements by having 2 Atarka's Command in his hand. Game 3 my opening hand was Brutality, Brutality, Souls, Souls, Marsh Flats, Shambling Vent, Vault of the Archangel. I play vent and he punishes me with Goblin Guide, revealing Strangler. I untap, play vault, and Brutality him, pitching two Lingering souls to take an Atarka's command, kill his Guide and gain 2. He untaps, holds up two mana, and passes. I draw TKS, but hold off on casting it as I assumed It would eat a Path, so instead I brutality him again to take a Lava spike, leaving an Eidolon and Rift bolt in his hand. (Seem familiar?) He untaps on t4 and Plays Eidolon and Suspends Rift bolt. I untap and Cast Strangler to kill Eidolon and Process the Rift Bolt. Salty concession ensues.
Round 5 vs Non Budget Abzan (2-0)
Played against Kevin Jones' brother, who is an awesome dude. Game 1 I Mull to 6 and lead with a vent, and he inquisitions me to reveal Eldrazi temple, Matter reshaper, strangler, 2x Lingering Souls. He takes reshaper and I draw Marsh flats and pass. He untaps and inquisitions me again, this time taking a lingering Souls. It is at this point that I realize that he must not have his own lingering Souls, so I am quick to cast mine the next turn after drawing Relic. We grind for a few turns with a very small goyf vs my souls tokens, but eventually I draw TKS and some stranglers to win the Game. Game 2 he had double Bitterblossom but it would end up hurting him in the long run as I have two Reality smashers in my hand that punished his small 1/1s. It is worth noting that a Thoughtseize that I cast close to turn 5 revealed Zealous persecution, Damnation, and Murderous Cut from him. I had one smasher and a strangler out already, with the second in hand. He has one bitterblossom token. I think for a second before I swing with the team....and he pitches Damnation to kill Smasher with Murderous Cut. Perfection. I untap slam my other smasher to put him to 4, and he goes to 2 on his upkeep, hits the thinktank for a minute, and decides he has no other outs. Good Games and he is always an absolute pleasure to play against.
Impressions:
Deck is solid! Performed very well tonight and I'm sure that if I wasn't land screwed in the first match, I could have went 5-0. We have very interesting lines of attack and I feel that this deck will do very well. I play with players on the skill level of Kevin Jones (Who is a regular at my LGS) and Joe Countryman, so I sometimes get some really good practice in. Having those players around also helps with healthy deck discussion and testing. Despite the fact that some of the players think the deck is "a pile," I feel very confident that if you put the time in to learn the deck, you can do well with it. Cheers!
Also, at least on paper, Matter Reshaper feels bad man. What has it done for you, and how often do you actually capitalize on its' death clause?
The list looks fairly standard, except the two scullers and second sorin. Two sorins would be best with blight herders rather than smashers as a go wide strategy. With your list I'd recommend cutting two scullers for mind stones and the second Sorin for some spot removal or collective brutality. The synergy between CoBr and souls in an opening hand is insane, and mind stone has so many uses, mostly for ramping since our deck had a higher average CMC than most modern decks, we want to more consistently ramp.
Sorin is a lifegain card used to power souls or smasher for a big lifelink gain, it can put us way ahead in a grindy game and his ultimate is something decks that grind are afraid of, so they'll over extend to kill him. The 2/2 flyer has actually been quite useful a few times, such as a scenario where it's T4 or later and you have an empty board and hand. You top deck Sorin, drop a 2/2 flyer, and the next turn start up ticking. I've seen both lilies do well in this slot, but that's about the only alternatives I think synergize well enough. The lifegain is also important to offset paining ourselves from lands, Thoughtseize, and anguished.
Matter Reshaper is awesome. It's either going to give you a draw, ramp you into TKS or smasher with a land, or best case flip a strangler, get the -3/-3 process, basically they kill reshaper only to lose a creature of their own and still be staring at a 3/2 body. Now that feelsbadman (for them). It's also a lot better of a T2 play than strangler. It eats up path to exiles so a followup TKS or smasher has alot easier time sticking to the board. I would run 4 in my list if I could fit it in, but there are games (few and far between) such as merfolk where you don't get opportunities to trade with it.
Edit: oops, just noticed you already had two CoBr in the main. Most people run a go for the throat or dismember for spot removal, I'm an advocate of dismemberest because I love Phyrexian mana and being able to cast it with one colorless land open, opponents rarely play around it.
Also, had some ups and downs with the deck over the weekend. For paper, FNM went really well, 3-1. I have lost a couple weeks in a row to this Goblin Charbelcher deck, that has 6/7 beat downs as a backup plan. Stony silence has been great to shut down the belching and Batterskulls, but I'll be trying a Batterskull of my own over my main deck ratchet bomb for the next couple FNMs. I feel I can get away with it because my FNM meta is really fair right now, no affinity, dredge, or infect; lots of UX control,jund, tron. I trimmed a relic over a smasher because I just can't see going down to 3 smashers when it's one of the best topecks we can get midgame or later.
On mtgo, I had both a 4-1 league and 1-4 league. The first started 4-0, my best start yet, and I got just crushed by living end in round 5. I mean it was insane. Do you guys have any suggestions for this matchup other than cracking relic to empty the GY at opportune times? The 1-4 league started with just abysmal hands, mulligans, and flooding, as well as a couple blood moon opponents. I'll be adding a wastes to my sideboard on mtgo now, it would have without a doubt helped those matches. Then I just got tilted and played poorly the last couple of rounds, such as mis clicking a ratchet bomb and ticking up rather than blowing it up, costing me the game. My mtgo list can be found on my tappedout.net. these were both friendly leagues as I think it's too difficult to make a 12 dollar entry back with a non tiered deck with any consistency in competitive leagues, often I'm finishing 3-2 or 2-3 and I've been slowly accumulating tix through friendly leagues.
Edit: Finished another league to 4-1, again starting 4-0 and then losing to Death's Shadow in round 5 this time. Used This list for it.
Round 1: 2-1 vs. Grixis Delver (1-0)
Game 1: T3 play souls and T4 flash it back. I could have opened faster here with a Reshaper first, but he was playing untap-go as Blue/Black so I assumed some form of Grixis Control with lots of counters and figured souls was a better open to bait out counterspells. He passes on his T4 so I drop a reshaper and start swinging in, his following turn he plays a Tasigur which I path asap. At some point he killed the reshaper with Kolaghan's Command making me discard, discard relic into a relic off of the reshaper trigger. The turn after I pathed Tasigur I drop a smasher and he concedes with 16 life and 5 cards in hand, tapped out though. Wtf?
Game 2: He suspends ancestral vision on T1, meanwhile I have two stranglers in my opening hand. He also drops a Tasigur on T3 thanks to delve, my T3 I strangler and eat vision, thanfully I could now throw the -3/-3 on Tasigur rather than killing my own strangler to do it. He swings with Tasigur and I don't block, my following turn he flashes in Snapcaster to Thought Scour and block the attacking Strangler. I also play Souls on this turn. Then he swings in with Tasigur and I chump with a token. My T5 I play a TKS over a smasher to get a look at his hand since he had 6 cards, he Terminates it before ETB trigger, and when I see his hand I see: Ancestral Vision, Cryptic Command, Damnation, Terminate, Kolaghan's Command, and Duress. My hand was smasher, strangler, and Wreckage and he ended up running away with the game because I could not keep up with that amount of removal. I believe I brought in 1 Pithing Needle after this game just for Tasigur. Oh, and he played three Sun Droplets over the course of what turned out to be a 25 turn game for each of us, him having 5 cards in his deck when he wins and me having drawn over half my deck and not seeing either ratchet bomb to take out the Droplets. He won off of snapping back lightning bolts from the GY over and over lol, that was a new one, this was not a win condition I saw coming and I didn't see many relics anyway to stop it, only one the whole game. The good thing that came out of this game is I went from a 4 minute deficit on the clock (13:00 to 17:00) to being tied at 9:00 going into game 3. My strategy here was to draw this game out and make up clock time while hoping for a ratchet bomb or making him mill out.
Game 3: We both open slowly, the first play is me with a ratchet bomb on T3. Holding a smasher and Pithing Needle in hand, drawing lots of lands. He bolts my EOT on T4 where I dropped a land and passed and then on his T4 plays Tasigur. I topdeck a temple and play my Pithing Needle naming Tasigur and attacking in with smasher which he decides not to chump. He swings in with Tasigur, plays delver and passes. My T6 I swing in with smasher and activate Vault because it's really my only play as I had Vault, shambling, and a swamp in my hand at the time. Turn 6 and I had 6 lands on the battlefield and two in my hand. He does not block, so I heal to 16 and take him down to 9. He plays a Gurmag Angler on his T6, I topdeck a path and target the angler with it and swing in with a vault powered smasher again. He trades with the delver that hadn't flipped yet and the Tasigur, and I was happy and expecting this as I could do 1 damage to each thanks to deathtouch and trample him down to 5, and heal to 21 with a shambling vent in hand to keep the pressure on. He Kolaghan's commands my shambling from my hand, and plays a Tasigur. I topdeck anguished and kill the Tasigur. This whole time ratchet bombs been sitting at 2 because Sun droplet was my only priority for it, he never ended up playing it this game. He delvers and then passes, on my turn on my draw phase after I draw dismember he casts Snapcaster targeting his Kolaghan's to make me discard, I dismember the currently 1/1 delver in response so his Kolaghan's whiffs. He just uses it to do 2 damage to me. His next turn he delvers and passes, I draw a strangler and -3/-3 the delver. He bolts the strangler to swing in with snappy, now its his 4 to my 12 life, I topdeck a land and pass. Then 3 life to 10 as he fetches and I topdeck another land. When he swings with snap the following turn I blow up the ratchet to kill it as I start to get worried about bolt + snapcaster finishing me off, he has a bolt in the GY at the time. I topdeck a relic, cycle for a draw and to clear his GY, and get a TKS which I cast and he casts Mana Leak, I play the 3 to avoid the counter. He bolts face before ETB trigger and now has zero cards in hand for TKS to exile. He fetches down to 2 to thin the deck because he needs an answer to TKS swinging, passes turn with 1 card in hand. Topdeck a smasher and he concedes when I cast it.
Round 2: 2-1 vs. G/W Tron (2-0)
Game 1: I keep a hand with two temples, anguished, koilos, CoBr, path, and relic, a bit slow but it's game 1 and I feel if i draw any eldrazi in my first 3 turns I'm pretty set. Turns out its tron and I had nothing to interrupt his plan, He has two tron lands in hand and sphere's for a green and to cast Sylvan Scrying on T2 and have tron. I scoop because I want to reveal as little info to him as I can in the hopes he doesn't know what I'm on. I think it was the right decision as he did take a while to sideboard.
Game 2: Opening 7 has a pithing needle, ghost quarter, strangler, souls, 3 lands. Instant keep as it already has two ways of slowing him down and pithing also shuts down O-stone and plainswalkers. I hold off on playing ghost quarter until the turn I anticipate using it, in case I get to get a look at his hand and see any duplicates for tron lands to avoid hitting that one. He plays a power plant and tower from his hand T1 and T2, my T3 I play the ghost quarter targeting Tower. He plays mine and casts Sylvan scrying with the forest he got from GQ and is now back to having tron up the following turn. Yay us! My T4 I have two pithings, two souls, a smasher, and strangler in hand, and I jam a pithing needle anticipating a possible karn the next turn and play strangler. He assembles tron and plays.....CHROMATIC STAR!?!? and passes. With 6 cards in his hand at this point I'm 95% sure I just saved my own ass by jamming naming karn before seeing it. I don't have the lands to play smasher so I swing with strangler and cast a souls. He wurmcoils, I anguish it. He plays a land and with 6 cards in hand and 11 mana passes the turn. I finally get a land to start smashing and I also have two smashers in my hand, so I drop one and swing in, he paths the smasher but still goes down to 6 from strangler and 2 souls tokens. He plays o-stone and passes. My first main I play my second pithing, knowing he'll crack the o-stone in response so I can't lock him out of it, which he does. I still name o-stone with it as I have a followup smasher and Ugin is not a threat in that position. He goes down to 1, next turn plays Ulamog and exiles smasher and eldrazi temple. No idea why he chose eldrazi temple over the pithing needle naming o-stone (other pithing which was naming karn was destroyed from the o-stone wipe earlier), as I had 5 lands including temple on the board and a souls and path in my hand. On my turn I path the ulamog and cast a souls, now having two tokens on the battlefield and two copies of souls in my GY. He's at 1 health, COME ON BABY I WANT TO BEAT TRON. He casts Ugin and destroys my souls and my dreams. I topdeck a surgical (which I have yet to see a single time to pair it up with ghost quarter, which is much of the reason I brought it into the sideboard recently), and anguish his ugin and pass with only the surgical in hand and 1 land short of flashing back a souls. He ghost quarters a godless shrine and passes. Topdeck a mind stone and play it, then flash back one of the souls. With him at 1 life its a much better play than casting both souls cards. He topdecks no answer and concedes, WE MADE IT. I am always happy to even take 1 game off tron, it is so difficult to pull off much of the time.
Game 3: Commence the total reversal of roles here. The poor guy didn't even play magic, he casts both expedition map and chromatic star on the play on T2, and with him tapped out I stony silence on my T2 making them both dead cards. His T3 he plays a brushland and passes, now I know he is far behind because that means he has urza's power plant on the battlefield and zero tron lands in hand. On my T3 I play a ghost quarter and remove his power plant, and use temple to cast a strangler and get a clock going. He plays a mine and passes. I swing in with strangler and pass, I'm stuck on 2 lands after saccing my GQ and even though I've got two pithings and can jam one down, I decide to hold up for the warping wail I just drew, hoping to counter a Sylvan Scrying or Ancient Stirrings. He plays nothing and passes, I swing with strangler and pass as I drew a path instead of a land and am now beginning to worry that even with massively slowing him down I'm not presenting enough of a clock with a single strangler. He plays a mine and passes, now 1 topdeck short of tron online. I topdeck a temple and swing him down to 11 with strangler and play souls. He warping wails the souls. He plays nothing and passes, I draw a marsh flats and flashback the souls and swing him down to 8, pass turn with an open marsh flats and 3 paths in hand. He thragtusks and I decide not to path it because he'd get the 3/3 token anyway. Also he was at 5 lands so I knew if I pathed he would potentially be 1 topdecked land away from a karn without tron online. I swing in and he blocks my strangler with the 5/3 and I get him back down to 11 with the souls. Play a matter reshaper and pass turn, he passes his turn and on his end step I path his 3/3 token. I topdeck a smasher and thanks to two temples am able to swing him down to 1 life, he uses 6 lands to cast a wurmcoil on his turn which is immediately pathed and I seal the deal on the tron menace.
Round 3: 2-0 vs. Jund (3-0) This was the saltiest person I've faced in friendly leagues, usually it's little talking or questions about mechanics or friendly banter in chat, as most people are focusing on not playing slow thanks to the possibility of losing due to playing slower than the opponent. But this guy claimed I had the best topdeck and draw luck ever, to which I replied that with 4 maindeck relics, souls, smashers, and paths, that I'm quite favored in the matchup both G1 and post board. He then says something about well thats good, but you have other decks to beat too (assuming he means to call the processors deck bad?) to which I replied that I was 3-0 and had already made my entry back, so it can't be that bad. Sometimes I get the feeling Jund players can get this sense of entitlement that because they spent $2000 on their deck it means they should be unbeatable in grindy creature and removal matchups. And frankly, I quite enjoyed systematically destroying him both game 1 and 2 as he whines in the chat about topdeck luck (meanwhile he topdecks abrupt decay the turn before I play a TKS game 2, allowing him to remove it and get a draw as I cast it).
Game 1: I am on the play, thoughtseize away his terminate as I have a temple and TKS ready to go for T3. His T1 and my T2 are both passed, he drops Goyf on T2. I path it right away as I have a backup dismember in hand. T3 I TKS taking Kalitas, he has a bolt and two lands in hand. He land drops and passes. T5 I swing with TKS and hold a strangler back, because it can be bolted I want to make use of it's -3/-3 as removal. He plays Dark Confidant and passes, I remove it with strangler and he bolts strangler. Swing him down to 9 with TKS. He topdecks Liliana of the Veil and makes me sac TKS, I topdeck anguish but decide to activate shambling to finish off Lili who's at 1 loyalty counter. he plays another lili and with 1 card in hand he does not uptick, I don't mind at all since my two cards in hand are dismember and anguish. I anguish lili, play a relic I just drew, and pass. He inquisitions my dismember and activates and swings with Raging Ravine. I can't stop it as my hand is empty. I topdeck a ghost quarter and play it, and swing in with my shambling to heal to 13 and put him to 7. He passes turn, I topdeck a smasher and rather than play it I decide to take him down to 5 with vent and followup with the surprise smasher the following turn, he bolts the shambling so there goes that plan. He passes turn and I topdeck a mind stone, play smasher and swing him down to 2. He plays scooze and cats CoBr to drain 2 life and passes. I topdeck path and swing in to finish the game.
Game 2: He thoughtseizes away a path on T1, next play of the game is him casting Painful Truths for 3 on T3. I topdeck a much needed 3rd land and play a reshaper, also jam a pithing needle naming liliana since that land was a temple and I had 4 open mana. He plays Huntmaster of the Fells and passes. I topdeck a land and play smasher to swing in for 8, he does not block anything and goes down to 8. He passes turn so his huntmaster flips on my upkpeep, and he attacked with his creatures as well. He takes out reshaper on my upkeep with the trigger, which flips a relic. I anguish the huntmaster and swing in with smasher, he terminates it. On his turn he activates raging ravine, swings me down to 4 life with that and the 2/2 wolf token. I topdeck a TKS but the play I have to make is to cast a souls so I can use 1 to chump the raging ravine the next turn or I would have to chump the TKS to it. He activates ravine and double swings, I double chump. I topdeck a temple which allows me to TKS taking terminate and flash back souls. He had a lili in hand but could not play it thanks to my pithing needle earlier. He terminates TKS and swings with the 2/2 wolf, I take it out with two souls tokens as I have a followup souls in hand he has no clue about, its his 6 life to my 4 life, and I know if I can remove the raging ravine I'll win. He thoughtseizes a souls away (over a ratchet bomb), 4 life to 4. I had wanted to cycle relic here for a draw but could not once souls hit the GY, it was a mistake that I did not do it in response to the thoughtseize but I think at the time I felt like there was no way he'd choose souls over ratchet bomb. At this point I just chump his raging ravine for a turn, then I cycle relic to draw into another souls. Swing him down to 3 with my token, play 4 more tokens, he sends a salty message in the chat. He plays kitchen finks to go up to 5, and plays a second raging ravine. I go full yolo and swing in for the win with 5 tokens and him at 5 life, and him having two cards in hand. He abrupt decays a token to go down to 1 life. I hold back a strangler in hand so I can activate my shambling to chump the ravine once he goes for it on his turn, he draws his card and concedes.
Round 4: 2-1 vs. Eldrazi n Taxes (Stranglers and TKS's, no smashers, seemingly no aether vials at all which I would assume is for budget reasons) (4-0)
Game 1: I open with thoughtseize, seeing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, two Leonin Arbiters, and Flickerwisp. I take an arbiter as I have 1 path for one of the arbiters, and he had a ghost quarter and a path of his own and I did not want to allow him to shut me out of lands, as that is when their deck performs best. T2 I land pass, anticipating to path a creature he plays and then -3/-3 with a strangler the following turn. He thalias which I did not anticipate, for some reason I was thinking he could both play an arbiter and use ghost quarter on T2, and I am unable to path since I played a tapped godless shrine. Definitely a misplay by me, trying to get too cute. I path the thalia on my turn, being one mana short of casting a relic to get something in exile allowing me to -3/-3 without casting path. Would have much preferred that play. He arbiters and ghost quarters my eldrazi temple, I strangler and kill the arbiter. He plays thalia and passes, I play relic and pass, and he casts Tidehollow Sculler and I allow it to resolve rather than pathing it before the trigger resolves, I was holding a souls and path and smasher and I wanted him to make a difficult decision on what to take. He took souls. I play another relic and pass, and on his turn I path the sculler. He gets stuck on three lands for a few turns and I get 4 souls tokens out with 2 smashers and a sorin in hand. I play smasher and swing in, he trades thalia and a strangler for smasher which I'm happy to do since it makes my spells cheaper to cast and I have a followup smasher. He plays a flickerwisp and takes out a souls token, and on my next turn I flash back souls to get 5 tokens total, drop sorin, and swing with 3 tokens. He trades with two of them and now has a lone Eldrazi Displacer on the board. I play my smasher and he paths it, I still swing him down to 4 life thanks to sorin powered tokens, leaving 1 token back to protect sorin. I ghost quarter his caves of koilos to take him off colorless so he can't use his displacer ability to remove my tokens, cast my third smasher of the game and he concedes.
Game 2: He opens with thalia on T2, I pass on T2, and he plays arbiter on T3 and swings. I path the thalia, he gets no search. He also ghost quarters a godless shrine but I'm fine with that as I was holding an eldrazi temple in hand that I did not want destroyed. On my T3 I -3/-3 his arbiter with strangler.He passes T3, on my T3 I cast CoBr, one mode to make him discard, he paths strangler in response, I make him discard a second path since I was hoping to play smasher next turn. He casts Gideon on T4 and makes a 2/2 token. I swing with the smasher I play, taking Gideon down to 1 thru his blocker. He casts TKS and takes away anguished unmaking, and makes a new token. This is the moment I lost the game, where smasher failed to trample enough to take out Gideon and then my only way to remove it was taken from me next turn. He ran away with the game through 2/2 tokens and drawing creatures while I drew dead cards like lands and thoughtseize. I did get a souls draw in there but he removed one with a strangler ETB trigger and one with a flickerwisp ETB.
game 3: Kept an opening 7 that had T2 reshaper, strangler, and dismember. I open with reshaper on T2, he plays a sculler and takes the anguished unmaking I just drew on my turn. That's bad for me as that's my only way in hand to exile something and enable a strangler process, which is hugely important in this matchup where board presence swings mean everything. T3 I play a land and swing with reshaper and pass. His T3 he plays displacer, when he swings with it I dismember it so I can get my anguish back. On my T4 I anguish the displacer so I can swing in with reshaper and because I'm 90% sure he's going to play a creature on his next turn and I plan to remove it with strangler. He plays a strangler and removes my reshaper, I strangler to remove his strangler. On his T5 he plays a fickerwisp only as board presence and passes, I'm at 14 life and he's at 11, I have a path and vault in hand so I activate shambling and swing with both it and strangler, ghost quarters shambling and trades wisp for strangler. He casts a sculler so I path it before ETB trigger, he takes no cards. I topdeck a thoughtseize and cast it to remove a path from his hand. Activate my second shambling and swing him down to 7. He passes turn and I draw and play a strangler and swing again with shambling, now he's down to 5 and I'm presenting lethal. He plays an arbiter and passes, and I swing with both strangler and shambling, he trades with strangler and is now down to 3. He topdecks a ghost quarter and I force him to use it by attacking with vent on my turn after I drew a land. I topdeck a land and he topdecks a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +0 to make a 2/2 token. Now I'm scared af. I topdeck a path and pass turn, he makes another token and passes. I topdeck a ghost quarter and pass, he casts a tidehollow so I path it before ETB, he takes nothing. He makes gideon a 5/5 and swings in, I'm down to 10 and he's still at 3. He then plays a strangler second main and my board is empty so nothing to -3/-3. I topdeck a TKS and he has an empty hand, I play it for board presence alone because he's presenting lethal with a gideon activation. He topdecks a shambling vent and here's where it gets weird, rather than making gideon a 5/5 and swinging for lethal while still holding a 2/2 knight token back to block my strangler or making another 2/2 token, he does his ultimate to get a board of a 4/3 strangler, and two 3/3 knight tokens, and swings in with the strangler and one of the 3/3 tokens. I block a 3/3 with my TKS and kill it, and take 4 from strangler down to 6. I really think this was a massive mistake by him, because he gains nothing from attacking with that 3/3 token as I'm sure as ***** not going to trade my TKS for a lone 4/3 strangler attacking when I'm at 10 life, and he pretty much just gives me a 3/3 token for free rather than holding it back to block. I topdeck a smasher and because of two eldrazi temples and the fact that it's turn 15 I'm able to cast the smasher and activate vault for the win, which made that mistake irrelevant anyway thanks to deathtouch on smasher.
Round 5: 0-2 vs. Death's Shadow (4-1)
Game 1: Kept a slow hand with 3 lands (1 being a temple), souls, and a path. They open T1 with a Gitaxian Probe, then play a Monastary Swiftspear, then play a Mishra's Bauble for prowess and swing for two. I pass on T1 because I'm holding a path for the swiftspear, but he doesn't pump or prowess it at all so I held the path. My reasoning behind this was if I can use something like strangler to remove these early game creatures, and save paths for Death's Shadow, that is the better line to victory. He plays a wild nacatl and passes. So now it's my T2 and I have the choice of playing a ratchet bomb or passing and holding a path. I debate about this but ultimately with me being at 16 life I am too afraid of something like probe + Mutagenic Growth + 1 more 1 cost spell spell + Temur Battle Rage to swing in for lethal, and if I went with ratchet bomb I'd be folding to that. I think this was my biggest mistake of the league and I over thought it too much, I should have went with ratchet, which would have wiped both his creatures on the board in 1 turn and would make him have to have the combo in his hands. Sometimes you can't play around the threat or fear of what potential they have, you have to play the odds of them having the right answer/threat/etc. It also hurt that I never got a look at his hand, as it does against infect. He plays a swiftspear and swings in with two of those and a nacatl, I path the nacatl because he doesn't pump the swiftspears, I'm down to 13. On my T3 I have to play the ratchet bomb, but now it's a lot easier for him to have lethal than it was a turn ago and I would have slowed him down from playing more creatures on the board the previous turn because the threat of ratchet bomb blowing up had I played it on T2. He has two cards in hand, swings in with his creatures, and casts mutagenic growth and Temur battle rage on his nacatl, attacking with 16 damage and killing me.
Game 2: Kept a really solid opening hand of ratchet bomb, sorin, vault, path, souls, mind stone, two lands. Play marsh flats and pass turn, he probes on his T1 and thougthseizes away ratchet. topdeck a land, play mind stone and pass. He plays Death's Shadow and passes, and I play a Sorin and make a 2/2 flyer. Maybe I should have gone with lingering souls instead, but since I had a mind stone ramp I was looking forward to 4 souls tokens on T4, and Sorin on T3 seemed good as well. He attacks with Death's Shadow and I block with the 2/2 flyer, he had 5 cards in hand and 3 untapped lands, and a 5/5 Death's Shadow. He plays a goyf which I was not expecting to see (I don't play against this deck much), and had sided out all but 1 relic. I topdeck a ratchet bomb and play it and leave mana open for a path. He toughtseizes so I path death's shadow in response, and then he gets me good with Faith's Shield, another card I was not expecting to see. I topdeck a blessed alliance and I flash back souls and pass the turn with ratchet at 1. He pyroclasms my tokens away, inquisitions my blessed which ruined my plan of blowing up bomb to kill Death's shadow and then making them sacrifice goyf, thereby wiping their board, instead I had to use blessed in response to inquisition and heal for 4, and then blow up ratchet bomb to kill Death's Shadow but also buff goyf up to a 6/7 once it hit the yard. I'm at 12 and I topdeck a smasher on T6, play it but can't attack with it. He buffs up goyf and swings in with temur battlerage and goes over the top of smasher to kill me.
This deck seems to get hit just as hard as any other when it comes to needing to draw/have the right cards at the right time, but it just feels overall really consistent, and the cantrips make digging for answers feel plausible rather than desperate. And smasher is such a beast, especially chain casting them mid to late game. You hardly lose a game if you get to the point where you have smasher(s) on the board and the opponent can't remove or trade with them.
Great play reports guys, thanks! Tituba9, you wrote a freakin' novel there, thanks for all the detail. Smasher is just about the best topdeck in the format, haste and trample (not to mention the removal tax) are a beating.
INYIL, Reshaper is pure value just about every single time--the only exceptions are when it dies to Kalitas or Anger of the Gods. It's amazing when you flip a Strangler and kill something for free, but any way you slice it, Reshaper is gonna get you another card. That's what's important, not the play-a-permanent-immediately clause. Sorin is a holdover from when the deck ran Blight Herder, because he is amazing with 1/1 tokens. But he stays in now because he is so good with our remaining token producer (Souls) and also with Smasher. The Ajanis would be good with Smasher, but much worse with Souls.
4x Path to Exile
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Collective Brutality
3x Thoughtseize
4x Lingering Souls
1x Go for the Throat
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4x Relic of Progenitus
1x Mind Stone
....So unless I'm missing something, we now have access to unconditional black removal that triggers off of our fetchlands and cantrips. This is a pretty big power spike for us. I like this.
Thoughts?
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1: How well does the incursion of Ghost Quarters help in the bad MU's of Tron, Valakut, and co?
2: How often do you find opponents failing to find when you Path or Quarter?
3: If there is a reliance on Qhost Quarters in those Matchups, why not Grim Discovery?
4: Across the varied builds here, what would each of you consider being the 'crux card' of the deck? What card wins you the swing matchups and why?
5: With the 'rise' of Infect and Burn, do you think this deck is well positioned in the Meta?
Still vulturing around this build, I really adore it and I think it can go places.
Concerning the stereotypically bad matchups, I feel like Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter could really help demolish in tandem with both Path and Quarter, and I feel like most of their win-cons are reliant on some form of tutoring.
6: Why then aren't these cards auto-adds?
GLORY TO YOU
It is a very interesting deck and I enjoyed watching the videos a few days ago. However, adding red really strains the mana base but you do get one of the ideal sweepers we need (3 damage for 3 mana anger of the gods), bolt, and kolaghan's command. Those three cards are the most compelling reasons to splash red. After looking at this deck and evaluating the 2-drop slot for us, I think that we should just cut our 2-drop creatures entirely in favor of Liliana, the last hope (this card has everything we need and is a good top-deck in the late game if we are careful with our relics), Eldrazi displacer (this card has proven to be amazing and very useful in a lot of situations), and additional kill spells.
Here is where I am at for a deck:
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Matter Reshaper
2 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Mind Stone
Sorcery (10)
4 Lingering Souls
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
4 Path to Exile
1 Smother
Planeswalkers (3)
2 Liliana, the last hope
Yeah fast aggro is a HUGE problem and I have been trying to deal with it for a long time. When I play against zoo there are some hands that I just cannot beat. If I make it to turn 4, however, I usually win the game. The best cards that I have found are iok, path, and blessed alliance. Boros charm is the main reason that I run languish over damnation. I'm glad that you kicked butt in the GPT! I placed 3rd in a local GPT with a similar number of players.
Welcome! Here are some answers to your questions:
1. They don't. Tron is very resilient around loosing 1 land, that we have to get somewhat lucky to have our ghost quarters slow them down more than 1 turn. Scapeshift it has hardly any effect. Any scapeshift player worth their salt will fetch 6 mountains to make sure that valakut will still kill us if we ghost quarter a mountain. These matchups are so horrible for us, that I don't dedicate much sideboard hate because I would have to dedicate so many cards that my other matchup percentages would suffer.
2. Totally depends on the deck. The majority of modern decks run 3ish basics but there are decks that do not run any (such as the death shadows deck).
3. Grim Discovery is interesting, but crucible of worlds is just better if you want to ghost quarter-lock them.
4. The crux cards are: thought-knot seer, path of exile, relic of progenitus, reality smasher, lingering souls, and wasteland strangler. I am always on the fence of just cutting my relics to go straight midrange, but relics are currently very well positioned.
5. Even though we have great cards against infect the deck is so good it is annoying. I have around a 30% win rate against infect but the matchups are always really close. A quick summary of my previous four games against infect I: lost on turn 3 twice, lost on turn 4 after using thoughtseize and a path, lost on turn 6 after they top-deck a become immense where I was going to win the next turn.
6. If you want to add these cards, I would suggest just going eldrazi and taxes. They have a much better tron matchup. Every deck has their good and bad matchups. I like to run lingering souls and make jund players cry, which I why I play this deck.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Against greedy mana decks like jund, or really any 3-color deck, if you path and/or quarter enough you'll see fail to finds. It just doesn't happen all too often because of how much of the meta is linear aggro.
Crucible is definitely better over Grim Discovery. I'm actually thinking about picking one up with store credit sometime to have the option to sideboard it if there's hatebears/ponza/etc.
Infect can definitely be rough, I played in a competitive modern tournament last Saturday, my two losses being to infect in group stage and affinity in Ro8. The infect match was really close all 3 games, it was seriously intense. I think because of Gitaxian Probe (which he saw at least two of the three games early) gives them a huge leg up on us if we don't also see their hand, this matchup is very much like a game of chess, where you're planning turns ahead and thinking about how to sequence to have the right removal at the right time. If we don't draw enough removal, or if we have dead strangler's in hand and can't use their -3/-3 because there's nothing in exile, we're going to lose very very fast. I ended up losing game three to a very bad mistake, he had an empty hand and drew a card for turn, swung in presenting lethal with two attackers, I blocked one attacker to trade with reshaper and cast dismember on the other creature which was a blinkmoth nexus, and like a dumbass I wasn't prepared for him to have a counterspell and I paid two black mana intead of 4 life for the dismember. Turns out the card he topdecked was Spell Pierce and I couldn't pay the 2 to stop it. If you have the proper removal you still need very tight play, whoever makes more mistakes will lose givn both players have competitive hands and topdecks early on.
If you want to run Arbiter, you should just to the eldrazi n taxes list, it is incredibly good at executing a lockdown plan. And honestly with this build we want to be accelerating with mind stone, dropping a relic or discard, or dropping a T2 reshaper with temple (my personal favorite) on T2, not playing a 2/2 hatebear.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
1. In varying degrees. Depends on there and our Topdecks.
2. 0 times right now.
3. Grim... whtever. Sounds like a great addition along relic of progenitus.
4. Lingering souls. It's teh single best grind tool in teh format.
5. Infect is a balanced Matchup for us - 50:50 to 60:40 in our favor, depending on your maindeck. Burn needs some hate, most obvious collective brutality shines here. It's tough with there good hands.
6. What Matchups does it fix that doesn't weaken others? You know, it's not about puttin' some Hatebears in and your bad Matchups becomes good. What Decks are you referring to?
Green @ it's best
For now I am sticking with the same disruption package I have been using, with lots of removal in the sideboard.
1. GQ is not enough by itself against the land decks. It helps some there--especially if you can Extract a Valakut or Tron land--but it is really mostly for opposing manlands or utility lands like Gavony Township or Inkmoth Nexus. Against decks playing Leonin Arbiter effects, it can be lots of fun to use it to beat up on their lands when they cannot search. Though if they have a Vial In play this can be a losing strategy.
2.You pretty much have to assume that opponents are going to find a basic when you Path or GQ their permanents. Suicide Zoo is a rare exception, and many Gx Tron builds have only one or sometimes two basics.
3. Grim Discovery seems way too conditional and too cute to me. Land destruction is only one of several angles of attack for this deck, and it would be a mistake to focus on it too heavily.
4. Best wincons for me are Reality Smasher and Lingering Souls, both of which are very strong cards that get much stronger as multiples, and both also synergize extremely well with Sorin and Vault.
5. My personal experience with Infect has been that I feel favored, unless they nut-draw. Overall I win more matches than I lose against Glistener Elf and Co. I also feel favored against Burn in a match of three, though the games are always close.
6. I would not consider Arbiter personally. I tried Aven Mindcensor and didn't like it. I would discourage you from trying to make land control a main focus of your build, since this is a classic multi-axis midrange deck: many answers/good threats are what are going to win you fame and glory in this shell, not narrow strategies like too much hand disruption or heavy land control.
herfs, you bring in sweepers against Burn? I side in Bomb, but I can't think of any decks with Boros Charm that I would bring in Damnation against. Selfless Spirit on the other hand....
BTW, I thought of another reason I like Bomb over EE: the ability to threaten two CMCs at once by leaving it at one value but threatening to tick up in an opponent's EOT. This gives it some additional value when, as happened to me tonight, you want to be able to hit either Lili OR Nahiri, or Moon OR Koth, for instance.
Nacatl Burn is traditionally weaker against sweeper, Boros Burn relies heavily on Burn-Spells instead of Creatures.
I'm for now even not boarding out all of my thoughtseize because hitting boros charm or Atarka's Command
is still worth taking 2 life for.
Pedigree Pal is a thing to consider against a heavy aggro-Meta.
Green @ it's best
So I just recently put together Processors and took it to a 4-1 and 3-2 finish over the course of two tournaments. Deck is sweet, but I wonder if we dont have room for a singleton Batterskull in the main? My meta is full of midrange and Tron (ugh) so my list is a little unorthodox, but there have been some fairly good synergies going on. I do find myself wishing that I had another source of lifegain though, even with Sorin and Vault. Not sure what to cut or where to start, but putting a Batterskull on a Spirit token seems pretty good vs almost any midrange deck.
So far so good though. The deck is truly solid and has some pretty nutty draws. I'm hoping for some more good cards for this deck in the future, and I will be playing it at SCG Regionals come February. I'll post a tournament report of my past two tournaments if you'd like
I love midrange and it was the most balanced and fun to play midrange deck that I have ever played.
I want to get into it again but my meta has a a lot of high value decks such as kiki chord, elves, kiki chord.
How do we beat those decks?
TBH Kiki Chord, Elves, and Kiki Chord (heh) are not great matchups for Processors. I'd run at least two Damnation in the side (maybe even one main) and maybe a Flaying Tendrils in the 75 as well if I really wanted this deck to do well in a meta like that. Might need to up the count of B sources to support all those sweeper effects too, in that case.
Green @ it's best
Round 1 Vs Mono-U TronDrazi (0-2)
Matchup is a nightmare for us. This build runs Elder-Deep Fiend, TKS, Smasher, Reshapers and Chalice of the Void. Not the best was to start the tournament, but got the worst matchup out of the way. Game 1 she plays Chalice on 1 off of a land and Simian Spirit Guide, which I promptly scoop too as I have 2 Paths, a Relic, and Thoughtseize in my hand. Game 2 I never get off of three lands and Stabilize at 4 life before she plays two Reality Smashers in the same turn. Brutal. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think that using Surgical to get their Deep Fiends or Smashers can really help the matchup.
Round 2 vs Naya Burn (2-0)
Matchup was a breeze. Turn 2 I hit a fully escalated Brutality to kill his Swiftspear, take a Lava spike, and gain two. Next turn he draws a rift Bolt and plays an Eidolon. I drew Strangler and Processed the bolt to kill Eidolon, he promptly scooped. Game 2 I hit a turn 3 TKS to take his Boros Charm, then played Sorin to close it out. Wasn't even close. This matchup is great for us.
Round 3 vs Abzan Midrange...flicker...budget? (2-1)
Kind of an oddball deck here. We both had Lingering Souls here, but I drew into Liliana, the last hope. Needless to say, that card alone wins games, and it pulled its weight in spades, getting back Reality smashers and killing off Lingering Soul tokens. I win Game 1 by running over his Resto Angels with Two Smashers. Game 2 He "Gets the Nut" and plays back to back Thoughtseizes, lingering souls, and a Siege Rhino, followed up by Eldrazi Displacer. I have only Lingering Souls as my threats, so he blinks them away and I die. Game 3 he must have brought in Loxodon Smiters, because my first Thoughtseize on t2 gave him just that. He follows his play with a Rhino on T4, and I play and flashback souls on my turn. He vomits his hand on T5, Playing Displacer and Wall of Omens, but he doesn't know I have Damnation in hand. I cast Damnation and put him in topdeck mode. I draw Sorin and Flashback a Lingering Souls to close out the match. It is also worth noting that this was a slow, grindy close. I actually managed to ult Sorin.....Twice. He had voice of resurgences and still more lingering souls, but the grind on my end was real. Fun match.
Round 4 vs Naya Burn (2-1)
Not much to say here. Game 1 I nut and hit T2 TKS, taking his Atarka's Command, follow it up with Lingering Souls, and cast Sorin. The Concession was quick. Game 2 he Kills me through a Timely Reinforcements by having 2 Atarka's Command in his hand. Game 3 my opening hand was Brutality, Brutality, Souls, Souls, Marsh Flats, Shambling Vent, Vault of the Archangel. I play vent and he punishes me with Goblin Guide, revealing Strangler. I untap, play vault, and Brutality him, pitching two Lingering souls to take an Atarka's command, kill his Guide and gain 2. He untaps, holds up two mana, and passes. I draw TKS, but hold off on casting it as I assumed It would eat a Path, so instead I brutality him again to take a Lava spike, leaving an Eidolon and Rift bolt in his hand. (Seem familiar?) He untaps on t4 and Plays Eidolon and Suspends Rift bolt. I untap and Cast Strangler to kill Eidolon and Process the Rift Bolt. Salty concession ensues.
Round 5 vs Non Budget Abzan (2-0)
Played against Kevin Jones' brother, who is an awesome dude. Game 1 I Mull to 6 and lead with a vent, and he inquisitions me to reveal Eldrazi temple, Matter reshaper, strangler, 2x Lingering Souls. He takes reshaper and I draw Marsh flats and pass. He untaps and inquisitions me again, this time taking a lingering Souls. It is at this point that I realize that he must not have his own lingering Souls, so I am quick to cast mine the next turn after drawing Relic. We grind for a few turns with a very small goyf vs my souls tokens, but eventually I draw TKS and some stranglers to win the Game. Game 2 he had double Bitterblossom but it would end up hurting him in the long run as I have two Reality smashers in my hand that punished his small 1/1s. It is worth noting that a Thoughtseize that I cast close to turn 5 revealed Zealous persecution, Damnation, and Murderous Cut from him. I had one smasher and a strangler out already, with the second in hand. He has one bitterblossom token. I think for a second before I swing with the team....and he pitches Damnation to kill Smasher with Murderous Cut. Perfection. I untap slam my other smasher to put him to 4, and he goes to 2 on his upkeep, hits the thinktank for a minute, and decides he has no other outs. Good Games and he is always an absolute pleasure to play against.
Impressions:
Deck is solid! Performed very well tonight and I'm sure that if I wasn't land screwed in the first match, I could have went 5-0. We have very interesting lines of attack and I feel that this deck will do very well. I play with players on the skill level of Kevin Jones (Who is a regular at my LGS) and Joe Countryman, so I sometimes get some really good practice in. Having those players around also helps with healthy deck discussion and testing. Despite the fact that some of the players think the deck is "a pile," I feel very confident that if you put the time in to learn the deck, you can do well with it. Cheers!
If I were to build a drop into a blind meta, how would this suffice?
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
2 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Anguished Unmaking
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Godless Shrine
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Marsh Flats
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Shambling Vent
1 Plains
1 Swamp
Plotting this out for the first time makes me ponder what the function of this particular Sorin has in this deck? Why is it chosen over perhaps Lord of Innistrad, or even Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Ajani Steadfast, or Liliana, the Last Hope?
Also, at least on paper, Matter Reshaper feels bad man. What has it done for you, and how often do you actually capitalize on its' death clause?
The list looks fairly standard, except the two scullers and second sorin. Two sorins would be best with blight herders rather than smashers as a go wide strategy. With your list I'd recommend cutting two scullers for mind stones and the second Sorin for some spot removal or collective brutality. The synergy between CoBr and souls in an opening hand is insane, and mind stone has so many uses, mostly for ramping since our deck had a higher average CMC than most modern decks, we want to more consistently ramp.
Sorin is a lifegain card used to power souls or smasher for a big lifelink gain, it can put us way ahead in a grindy game and his ultimate is something decks that grind are afraid of, so they'll over extend to kill him. The 2/2 flyer has actually been quite useful a few times, such as a scenario where it's T4 or later and you have an empty board and hand. You top deck Sorin, drop a 2/2 flyer, and the next turn start up ticking. I've seen both lilies do well in this slot, but that's about the only alternatives I think synergize well enough. The lifegain is also important to offset paining ourselves from lands, Thoughtseize, and anguished.
Matter Reshaper is awesome. It's either going to give you a draw, ramp you into TKS or smasher with a land, or best case flip a strangler, get the -3/-3 process, basically they kill reshaper only to lose a creature of their own and still be staring at a 3/2 body. Now that feelsbadman (for them). It's also a lot better of a T2 play than strangler. It eats up path to exiles so a followup TKS or smasher has alot easier time sticking to the board. I would run 4 in my list if I could fit it in, but there are games (few and far between) such as merfolk where you don't get opportunities to trade with it.
Edit: oops, just noticed you already had two CoBr in the main. Most people run a go for the throat or dismember for spot removal, I'm an advocate of dismemberest because I love Phyrexian mana and being able to cast it with one colorless land open, opponents rarely play around it.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
On mtgo, I had both a 4-1 league and 1-4 league. The first started 4-0, my best start yet, and I got just crushed by living end in round 5. I mean it was insane. Do you guys have any suggestions for this matchup other than cracking relic to empty the GY at opportune times? The 1-4 league started with just abysmal hands, mulligans, and flooding, as well as a couple blood moon opponents. I'll be adding a wastes to my sideboard on mtgo now, it would have without a doubt helped those matches. Then I just got tilted and played poorly the last couple of rounds, such as mis clicking a ratchet bomb and ticking up rather than blowing it up, costing me the game. My mtgo list can be found on my tappedout.net. these were both friendly leagues as I think it's too difficult to make a 12 dollar entry back with a non tiered deck with any consistency in competitive leagues, often I'm finishing 3-2 or 2-3 and I've been slowly accumulating tix through friendly leagues.
Edit: Finished another league to 4-1, again starting 4-0 and then losing to Death's Shadow in round 5 this time. Used This list for it.
Round 1: 2-1 vs. Grixis Delver (1-0)
Game 1: T3 play souls and T4 flash it back. I could have opened faster here with a Reshaper first, but he was playing untap-go as Blue/Black so I assumed some form of Grixis Control with lots of counters and figured souls was a better open to bait out counterspells. He passes on his T4 so I drop a reshaper and start swinging in, his following turn he plays a Tasigur which I path asap. At some point he killed the reshaper with Kolaghan's Command making me discard, discard relic into a relic off of the reshaper trigger. The turn after I pathed Tasigur I drop a smasher and he concedes with 16 life and 5 cards in hand, tapped out though. Wtf?
Game 2: He suspends ancestral vision on T1, meanwhile I have two stranglers in my opening hand. He also drops a Tasigur on T3 thanks to delve, my T3 I strangler and eat vision, thanfully I could now throw the -3/-3 on Tasigur rather than killing my own strangler to do it. He swings with Tasigur and I don't block, my following turn he flashes in Snapcaster to Thought Scour and block the attacking Strangler. I also play Souls on this turn. Then he swings in with Tasigur and I chump with a token. My T5 I play a TKS over a smasher to get a look at his hand since he had 6 cards, he Terminates it before ETB trigger, and when I see his hand I see: Ancestral Vision, Cryptic Command, Damnation, Terminate, Kolaghan's Command, and Duress. My hand was smasher, strangler, and Wreckage and he ended up running away with the game because I could not keep up with that amount of removal. I believe I brought in 1 Pithing Needle after this game just for Tasigur. Oh, and he played three Sun Droplets over the course of what turned out to be a 25 turn game for each of us, him having 5 cards in his deck when he wins and me having drawn over half my deck and not seeing either ratchet bomb to take out the Droplets. He won off of snapping back lightning bolts from the GY over and over lol, that was a new one, this was not a win condition I saw coming and I didn't see many relics anyway to stop it, only one the whole game. The good thing that came out of this game is I went from a 4 minute deficit on the clock (13:00 to 17:00) to being tied at 9:00 going into game 3. My strategy here was to draw this game out and make up clock time while hoping for a ratchet bomb or making him mill out.
Game 3: We both open slowly, the first play is me with a ratchet bomb on T3. Holding a smasher and Pithing Needle in hand, drawing lots of lands. He bolts my EOT on T4 where I dropped a land and passed and then on his T4 plays Tasigur. I topdeck a temple and play my Pithing Needle naming Tasigur and attacking in with smasher which he decides not to chump. He swings in with Tasigur, plays delver and passes. My T6 I swing in with smasher and activate Vault because it's really my only play as I had Vault, shambling, and a swamp in my hand at the time. Turn 6 and I had 6 lands on the battlefield and two in my hand. He does not block, so I heal to 16 and take him down to 9. He plays a Gurmag Angler on his T6, I topdeck a path and target the angler with it and swing in with a vault powered smasher again. He trades with the delver that hadn't flipped yet and the Tasigur, and I was happy and expecting this as I could do 1 damage to each thanks to deathtouch and trample him down to 5, and heal to 21 with a shambling vent in hand to keep the pressure on. He Kolaghan's commands my shambling from my hand, and plays a Tasigur. I topdeck anguished and kill the Tasigur. This whole time ratchet bombs been sitting at 2 because Sun droplet was my only priority for it, he never ended up playing it this game. He delvers and then passes, on my turn on my draw phase after I draw dismember he casts Snapcaster targeting his Kolaghan's to make me discard, I dismember the currently 1/1 delver in response so his Kolaghan's whiffs. He just uses it to do 2 damage to me. His next turn he delvers and passes, I draw a strangler and -3/-3 the delver. He bolts the strangler to swing in with snappy, now its his 4 to my 12 life, I topdeck a land and pass. Then 3 life to 10 as he fetches and I topdeck another land. When he swings with snap the following turn I blow up the ratchet to kill it as I start to get worried about bolt + snapcaster finishing me off, he has a bolt in the GY at the time. I topdeck a relic, cycle for a draw and to clear his GY, and get a TKS which I cast and he casts Mana Leak, I play the 3 to avoid the counter. He bolts face before ETB trigger and now has zero cards in hand for TKS to exile. He fetches down to 2 to thin the deck because he needs an answer to TKS swinging, passes turn with 1 card in hand. Topdeck a smasher and he concedes when I cast it.
Round 2: 2-1 vs. G/W Tron (2-0)
Game 1: I keep a hand with two temples, anguished, koilos, CoBr, path, and relic, a bit slow but it's game 1 and I feel if i draw any eldrazi in my first 3 turns I'm pretty set. Turns out its tron and I had nothing to interrupt his plan, He has two tron lands in hand and sphere's for a green and to cast Sylvan Scrying on T2 and have tron. I scoop because I want to reveal as little info to him as I can in the hopes he doesn't know what I'm on. I think it was the right decision as he did take a while to sideboard.
Game 2: Opening 7 has a pithing needle, ghost quarter, strangler, souls, 3 lands. Instant keep as it already has two ways of slowing him down and pithing also shuts down O-stone and plainswalkers. I hold off on playing ghost quarter until the turn I anticipate using it, in case I get to get a look at his hand and see any duplicates for tron lands to avoid hitting that one. He plays a power plant and tower from his hand T1 and T2, my T3 I play the ghost quarter targeting Tower. He plays mine and casts Sylvan scrying with the forest he got from GQ and is now back to having tron up the following turn. Yay us! My T4 I have two pithings, two souls, a smasher, and strangler in hand, and I jam a pithing needle anticipating a possible karn the next turn and play strangler. He assembles tron and plays.....CHROMATIC STAR!?!? and passes. With 6 cards in his hand at this point I'm 95% sure I just saved my own ass by jamming naming karn before seeing it. I don't have the lands to play smasher so I swing with strangler and cast a souls. He wurmcoils, I anguish it. He plays a land and with 6 cards in hand and 11 mana passes the turn. I finally get a land to start smashing and I also have two smashers in my hand, so I drop one and swing in, he paths the smasher but still goes down to 6 from strangler and 2 souls tokens. He plays o-stone and passes. My first main I play my second pithing, knowing he'll crack the o-stone in response so I can't lock him out of it, which he does. I still name o-stone with it as I have a followup smasher and Ugin is not a threat in that position. He goes down to 1, next turn plays Ulamog and exiles smasher and eldrazi temple. No idea why he chose eldrazi temple over the pithing needle naming o-stone (other pithing which was naming karn was destroyed from the o-stone wipe earlier), as I had 5 lands including temple on the board and a souls and path in my hand. On my turn I path the ulamog and cast a souls, now having two tokens on the battlefield and two copies of souls in my GY. He's at 1 health, COME ON BABY I WANT TO BEAT TRON. He casts Ugin and destroys my souls and my dreams. I topdeck a surgical (which I have yet to see a single time to pair it up with ghost quarter, which is much of the reason I brought it into the sideboard recently), and anguish his ugin and pass with only the surgical in hand and 1 land short of flashing back a souls. He ghost quarters a godless shrine and passes. Topdeck a mind stone and play it, then flash back one of the souls. With him at 1 life its a much better play than casting both souls cards. He topdecks no answer and concedes, WE MADE IT. I am always happy to even take 1 game off tron, it is so difficult to pull off much of the time.
Game 3: Commence the total reversal of roles here. The poor guy didn't even play magic, he casts both expedition map and chromatic star on the play on T2, and with him tapped out I stony silence on my T2 making them both dead cards. His T3 he plays a brushland and passes, now I know he is far behind because that means he has urza's power plant on the battlefield and zero tron lands in hand. On my T3 I play a ghost quarter and remove his power plant, and use temple to cast a strangler and get a clock going. He plays a mine and passes. I swing in with strangler and pass, I'm stuck on 2 lands after saccing my GQ and even though I've got two pithings and can jam one down, I decide to hold up for the warping wail I just drew, hoping to counter a Sylvan Scrying or Ancient Stirrings. He plays nothing and passes, I swing with strangler and pass as I drew a path instead of a land and am now beginning to worry that even with massively slowing him down I'm not presenting enough of a clock with a single strangler. He plays a mine and passes, now 1 topdeck short of tron online. I topdeck a temple and swing him down to 11 with strangler and play souls. He warping wails the souls. He plays nothing and passes, I draw a marsh flats and flashback the souls and swing him down to 8, pass turn with an open marsh flats and 3 paths in hand. He thragtusks and I decide not to path it because he'd get the 3/3 token anyway. Also he was at 5 lands so I knew if I pathed he would potentially be 1 topdecked land away from a karn without tron online. I swing in and he blocks my strangler with the 5/3 and I get him back down to 11 with the souls. Play a matter reshaper and pass turn, he passes his turn and on his end step I path his 3/3 token. I topdeck a smasher and thanks to two temples am able to swing him down to 1 life, he uses 6 lands to cast a wurmcoil on his turn which is immediately pathed and I seal the deal on the tron menace.
Round 3: 2-0 vs. Jund (3-0) This was the saltiest person I've faced in friendly leagues, usually it's little talking or questions about mechanics or friendly banter in chat, as most people are focusing on not playing slow thanks to the possibility of losing due to playing slower than the opponent. But this guy claimed I had the best topdeck and draw luck ever, to which I replied that with 4 maindeck relics, souls, smashers, and paths, that I'm quite favored in the matchup both G1 and post board. He then says something about well thats good, but you have other decks to beat too (assuming he means to call the processors deck bad?) to which I replied that I was 3-0 and had already made my entry back, so it can't be that bad. Sometimes I get the feeling Jund players can get this sense of entitlement that because they spent $2000 on their deck it means they should be unbeatable in grindy creature and removal matchups. And frankly, I quite enjoyed systematically destroying him both game 1 and 2 as he whines in the chat about topdeck luck (meanwhile he topdecks abrupt decay the turn before I play a TKS game 2, allowing him to remove it and get a draw as I cast it).
Game 1: I am on the play, thoughtseize away his terminate as I have a temple and TKS ready to go for T3. His T1 and my T2 are both passed, he drops Goyf on T2. I path it right away as I have a backup dismember in hand. T3 I TKS taking Kalitas, he has a bolt and two lands in hand. He land drops and passes. T5 I swing with TKS and hold a strangler back, because it can be bolted I want to make use of it's -3/-3 as removal. He plays Dark Confidant and passes, I remove it with strangler and he bolts strangler. Swing him down to 9 with TKS. He topdecks Liliana of the Veil and makes me sac TKS, I topdeck anguish but decide to activate shambling to finish off Lili who's at 1 loyalty counter. he plays another lili and with 1 card in hand he does not uptick, I don't mind at all since my two cards in hand are dismember and anguish. I anguish lili, play a relic I just drew, and pass. He inquisitions my dismember and activates and swings with Raging Ravine. I can't stop it as my hand is empty. I topdeck a ghost quarter and play it, and swing in with my shambling to heal to 13 and put him to 7. He passes turn, I topdeck a smasher and rather than play it I decide to take him down to 5 with vent and followup with the surprise smasher the following turn, he bolts the shambling so there goes that plan. He passes turn and I topdeck a mind stone, play smasher and swing him down to 2. He plays scooze and cats CoBr to drain 2 life and passes. I topdeck path and swing in to finish the game.
Game 2: He thoughtseizes away a path on T1, next play of the game is him casting Painful Truths for 3 on T3. I topdeck a much needed 3rd land and play a reshaper, also jam a pithing needle naming liliana since that land was a temple and I had 4 open mana. He plays Huntmaster of the Fells and passes. I topdeck a land and play smasher to swing in for 8, he does not block anything and goes down to 8. He passes turn so his huntmaster flips on my upkpeep, and he attacked with his creatures as well. He takes out reshaper on my upkeep with the trigger, which flips a relic. I anguish the huntmaster and swing in with smasher, he terminates it. On his turn he activates raging ravine, swings me down to 4 life with that and the 2/2 wolf token. I topdeck a TKS but the play I have to make is to cast a souls so I can use 1 to chump the raging ravine the next turn or I would have to chump the TKS to it. He activates ravine and double swings, I double chump. I topdeck a temple which allows me to TKS taking terminate and flash back souls. He had a lili in hand but could not play it thanks to my pithing needle earlier. He terminates TKS and swings with the 2/2 wolf, I take it out with two souls tokens as I have a followup souls in hand he has no clue about, its his 6 life to my 4 life, and I know if I can remove the raging ravine I'll win. He thoughtseizes a souls away (over a ratchet bomb), 4 life to 4. I had wanted to cycle relic here for a draw but could not once souls hit the GY, it was a mistake that I did not do it in response to the thoughtseize but I think at the time I felt like there was no way he'd choose souls over ratchet bomb. At this point I just chump his raging ravine for a turn, then I cycle relic to draw into another souls. Swing him down to 3 with my token, play 4 more tokens, he sends a salty message in the chat. He plays kitchen finks to go up to 5, and plays a second raging ravine. I go full yolo and swing in for the win with 5 tokens and him at 5 life, and him having two cards in hand. He abrupt decays a token to go down to 1 life. I hold back a strangler in hand so I can activate my shambling to chump the ravine once he goes for it on his turn, he draws his card and concedes.
Round 4: 2-1 vs. Eldrazi n Taxes (Stranglers and TKS's, no smashers, seemingly no aether vials at all which I would assume is for budget reasons) (4-0)
Game 1: I open with thoughtseize, seeing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, two Leonin Arbiters, and Flickerwisp. I take an arbiter as I have 1 path for one of the arbiters, and he had a ghost quarter and a path of his own and I did not want to allow him to shut me out of lands, as that is when their deck performs best. T2 I land pass, anticipating to path a creature he plays and then -3/-3 with a strangler the following turn. He thalias which I did not anticipate, for some reason I was thinking he could both play an arbiter and use ghost quarter on T2, and I am unable to path since I played a tapped godless shrine. Definitely a misplay by me, trying to get too cute. I path the thalia on my turn, being one mana short of casting a relic to get something in exile allowing me to -3/-3 without casting path. Would have much preferred that play. He arbiters and ghost quarters my eldrazi temple, I strangler and kill the arbiter. He plays thalia and passes, I play relic and pass, and he casts Tidehollow Sculler and I allow it to resolve rather than pathing it before the trigger resolves, I was holding a souls and path and smasher and I wanted him to make a difficult decision on what to take. He took souls. I play another relic and pass, and on his turn I path the sculler. He gets stuck on three lands for a few turns and I get 4 souls tokens out with 2 smashers and a sorin in hand. I play smasher and swing in, he trades thalia and a strangler for smasher which I'm happy to do since it makes my spells cheaper to cast and I have a followup smasher. He plays a flickerwisp and takes out a souls token, and on my next turn I flash back souls to get 5 tokens total, drop sorin, and swing with 3 tokens. He trades with two of them and now has a lone Eldrazi Displacer on the board. I play my smasher and he paths it, I still swing him down to 4 life thanks to sorin powered tokens, leaving 1 token back to protect sorin. I ghost quarter his caves of koilos to take him off colorless so he can't use his displacer ability to remove my tokens, cast my third smasher of the game and he concedes.
Game 2: He opens with thalia on T2, I pass on T2, and he plays arbiter on T3 and swings. I path the thalia, he gets no search. He also ghost quarters a godless shrine but I'm fine with that as I was holding an eldrazi temple in hand that I did not want destroyed. On my T3 I -3/-3 his arbiter with strangler.He passes T3, on my T3 I cast CoBr, one mode to make him discard, he paths strangler in response, I make him discard a second path since I was hoping to play smasher next turn. He casts Gideon on T4 and makes a 2/2 token. I swing with the smasher I play, taking Gideon down to 1 thru his blocker. He casts TKS and takes away anguished unmaking, and makes a new token. This is the moment I lost the game, where smasher failed to trample enough to take out Gideon and then my only way to remove it was taken from me next turn. He ran away with the game through 2/2 tokens and drawing creatures while I drew dead cards like lands and thoughtseize. I did get a souls draw in there but he removed one with a strangler ETB trigger and one with a flickerwisp ETB.
game 3: Kept an opening 7 that had T2 reshaper, strangler, and dismember. I open with reshaper on T2, he plays a sculler and takes the anguished unmaking I just drew on my turn. That's bad for me as that's my only way in hand to exile something and enable a strangler process, which is hugely important in this matchup where board presence swings mean everything. T3 I play a land and swing with reshaper and pass. His T3 he plays displacer, when he swings with it I dismember it so I can get my anguish back. On my T4 I anguish the displacer so I can swing in with reshaper and because I'm 90% sure he's going to play a creature on his next turn and I plan to remove it with strangler. He plays a strangler and removes my reshaper, I strangler to remove his strangler. On his T5 he plays a fickerwisp only as board presence and passes, I'm at 14 life and he's at 11, I have a path and vault in hand so I activate shambling and swing with both it and strangler, ghost quarters shambling and trades wisp for strangler. He casts a sculler so I path it before ETB trigger, he takes no cards. I topdeck a thoughtseize and cast it to remove a path from his hand. Activate my second shambling and swing him down to 7. He passes turn and I draw and play a strangler and swing again with shambling, now he's down to 5 and I'm presenting lethal. He plays an arbiter and passes, and I swing with both strangler and shambling, he trades with strangler and is now down to 3. He topdecks a ghost quarter and I force him to use it by attacking with vent on my turn after I drew a land. I topdeck a land and he topdecks a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +0 to make a 2/2 token. Now I'm scared af. I topdeck a path and pass turn, he makes another token and passes. I topdeck a ghost quarter and pass, he casts a tidehollow so I path it before ETB, he takes nothing. He makes gideon a 5/5 and swings in, I'm down to 10 and he's still at 3. He then plays a strangler second main and my board is empty so nothing to -3/-3. I topdeck a TKS and he has an empty hand, I play it for board presence alone because he's presenting lethal with a gideon activation. He topdecks a shambling vent and here's where it gets weird, rather than making gideon a 5/5 and swinging for lethal while still holding a 2/2 knight token back to block my strangler or making another 2/2 token, he does his ultimate to get a board of a 4/3 strangler, and two 3/3 knight tokens, and swings in with the strangler and one of the 3/3 tokens. I block a 3/3 with my TKS and kill it, and take 4 from strangler down to 6. I really think this was a massive mistake by him, because he gains nothing from attacking with that 3/3 token as I'm sure as ***** not going to trade my TKS for a lone 4/3 strangler attacking when I'm at 10 life, and he pretty much just gives me a 3/3 token for free rather than holding it back to block. I topdeck a smasher and because of two eldrazi temples and the fact that it's turn 15 I'm able to cast the smasher and activate vault for the win, which made that mistake irrelevant anyway thanks to deathtouch on smasher.
Round 5: 0-2 vs. Death's Shadow (4-1)
Game 1: Kept a slow hand with 3 lands (1 being a temple), souls, and a path. They open T1 with a Gitaxian Probe, then play a Monastary Swiftspear, then play a Mishra's Bauble for prowess and swing for two. I pass on T1 because I'm holding a path for the swiftspear, but he doesn't pump or prowess it at all so I held the path. My reasoning behind this was if I can use something like strangler to remove these early game creatures, and save paths for Death's Shadow, that is the better line to victory. He plays a wild nacatl and passes. So now it's my T2 and I have the choice of playing a ratchet bomb or passing and holding a path. I debate about this but ultimately with me being at 16 life I am too afraid of something like probe + Mutagenic Growth + 1 more 1 cost spell spell + Temur Battle Rage to swing in for lethal, and if I went with ratchet bomb I'd be folding to that. I think this was my biggest mistake of the league and I over thought it too much, I should have went with ratchet, which would have wiped both his creatures on the board in 1 turn and would make him have to have the combo in his hands. Sometimes you can't play around the threat or fear of what potential they have, you have to play the odds of them having the right answer/threat/etc. It also hurt that I never got a look at his hand, as it does against infect. He plays a swiftspear and swings in with two of those and a nacatl, I path the nacatl because he doesn't pump the swiftspears, I'm down to 13. On my T3 I have to play the ratchet bomb, but now it's a lot easier for him to have lethal than it was a turn ago and I would have slowed him down from playing more creatures on the board the previous turn because the threat of ratchet bomb blowing up had I played it on T2. He has two cards in hand, swings in with his creatures, and casts mutagenic growth and Temur battle rage on his nacatl, attacking with 16 damage and killing me.
Game 2: Kept a really solid opening hand of ratchet bomb, sorin, vault, path, souls, mind stone, two lands. Play marsh flats and pass turn, he probes on his T1 and thougthseizes away ratchet. topdeck a land, play mind stone and pass. He plays Death's Shadow and passes, and I play a Sorin and make a 2/2 flyer. Maybe I should have gone with lingering souls instead, but since I had a mind stone ramp I was looking forward to 4 souls tokens on T4, and Sorin on T3 seemed good as well. He attacks with Death's Shadow and I block with the 2/2 flyer, he had 5 cards in hand and 3 untapped lands, and a 5/5 Death's Shadow. He plays a goyf which I was not expecting to see (I don't play against this deck much), and had sided out all but 1 relic. I topdeck a ratchet bomb and play it and leave mana open for a path. He toughtseizes so I path death's shadow in response, and then he gets me good with Faith's Shield, another card I was not expecting to see. I topdeck a blessed alliance and I flash back souls and pass the turn with ratchet at 1. He pyroclasms my tokens away, inquisitions my blessed which ruined my plan of blowing up bomb to kill Death's shadow and then making them sacrifice goyf, thereby wiping their board, instead I had to use blessed in response to inquisition and heal for 4, and then blow up ratchet bomb to kill Death's Shadow but also buff goyf up to a 6/7 once it hit the yard. I'm at 12 and I topdeck a smasher on T6, play it but can't attack with it. He buffs up goyf and swings in with temur battlerage and goes over the top of smasher to kill me.
This deck seems to get hit just as hard as any other when it comes to needing to draw/have the right cards at the right time, but it just feels overall really consistent, and the cantrips make digging for answers feel plausible rather than desperate. And smasher is such a beast, especially chain casting them mid to late game. You hardly lose a game if you get to the point where you have smasher(s) on the board and the opponent can't remove or trade with them.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
INYIL, Reshaper is pure value just about every single time--the only exceptions are when it dies to Kalitas or Anger of the Gods. It's amazing when you flip a Strangler and kill something for free, but any way you slice it, Reshaper is gonna get you another card. That's what's important, not the play-a-permanent-immediately clause. Sorin is a holdover from when the deck ran Blight Herder, because he is amazing with 1/1 tokens. But he stays in now because he is so good with our remaining token producer (Souls) and also with Smasher. The Ajanis would be good with Smasher, but much worse with Souls.
4x Reality Smasher
4x Wasteland Strangler
3x Matter Reshaper
4x Path to Exile
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Collective Brutality
3x Thoughtseize
4x Lingering Souls
1x Go for the Throat
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4x Relic of Progenitus
1x Mind Stone
2x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Wastes
4x Caves of Koilos
2x Godless Shrine
1x Isolated Chapel
1x Vault of the Archangel
3x Ghost Quarter
2x Shambling Vent
3x Marsh Flats
4x Eldrazi Temple
http://mythicspoiler.com/aer/cards/fatalpush.html
....So unless I'm missing something, we now have access to unconditional black removal that triggers off of our fetchlands and cantrips. This is a pretty big power spike for us. I like this.
Thoughts?