what is your effective strategy against BW eldrazi taxes?
Ive never really had a problem with this deck - sure sometimes that can land screw you an win.. It's important to be aware of vial on 2 for Leonin land screw blowouts, vial on 3 for flickerwisp combat blowouts - once you get used to the matchup it isn't that bad. Explosives is really good against them.
In regards to Chalice. I keep finding myself losing to combo decks and I think Chalice is an effective solution. It can obviously interfere with your own 1 cmc spells - but its usually worth it. As others have said - one of the reasons E-Tron is so successful is that it can beat decks it shouldn't be able to beat because of Chalice (well that and Ballista). I played 4x Chalice during the infect era for months and months - was fantastic - then infect died and I felt I couldnt justify it - but Ive brought it back over the last few weeks and i wouldnt take it out again - its my security blanket for the collective percentage of weird decks that ppl play in addition to be very good against tiered decks like
Storm - 2 cmc is best - but 1 cmc is ok depending on what is necessary at the time
Burn - 1 or 2 cmc depending on the game state - 2 cmc is often better in game 3 as you can bet 4x D-Rev is coming in..
Control decks - hit all their 1 cmc removal and cantrips; 2 cmc if required (snaps, other removal and counters); 0 cmc if they still play AV
Affinity on the play - if you get turn 1 chalice on zero you will win 90+% of games; its also not a terrible strategy in the later game to land it for 2 cmc
Gx Tron - on the play only - too slow otherwise - hits so many of their cards plus sb nature's claim to keep your stony on the board
Other decks
Ad Nauseum - you can now confidently beat this deck - 1 cmc or 0 cmc are fantastic
Lantern - chalice really hoses them on 1 cmc - they do have answers - so landing a second Chalice on 2 cmc is advisable (after you land Stony)
8-Rack - hits their win conditions as well as pretty much all their spells - usually you will lose it to IoK or thoughtseize though
Elves - only on the play and if you sense they have 4x Cavern of Souls its prob not worth it.
Amulet Titan - good on 1 cmc and zero for pacts
Living End - zero cmc - back breaking for them
Infect - absolute house - best card to beat them - but your matchup is generally good regardless
Hollow Vine - these lists vary a lot but usually have ~16 1 cmc spells - I only bring it in on the play..
Restore Balance - zero cmc and restore balance doesnt work anymore
Bogles - you will rely on EE and Chalice to beat this deck
Matyr - great card - they have tons of 1 drops
Thanks for the advise on using Chalice. How many have you been using in your sideboard? It still seems tough to cast chalice on 2 in the match ups where you would want it. storm and burn could win before you get to play a turn 4 chalice on 2. I think the biggest reason I gravitate away from chalice is due to inexperience.
In other news, Thursday night modern update ... record was 3-0-1
Match 1: Saheeli Combo
honestly, i dont really recall much of these games so, Game 1: Win Game 2: Lose Game 3: Draw
Match 2: Budget elves (no collected company--- i didnt know this so i boarded in cages and luckly didnt draw them) Game 1: He did what elves do and destroyed Bant Eldrazi Game 2: I thought knotted taking his heroic intervention. Engineered Explosives blew up some of his creatures. He set his board up to have lethal damage on his next turn, but I was able to end step path to exile his Ezuri, Renegade Leader, untap play smasher and swing for lethal. Game 3: he draws his 7 and sees no land and mulligans. he draws his 6 and sees no land and mulligans. his sees his hand of 5, no lands and keeps. scrys to the bottom and passes turn. he draws land on his turn two, but he cant recuperate after the mulligan to 5 and missed land drop.
Match 3: Paradox Engine Combo For those who have no idea what this is (Myself included prior to tonight)
(https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/modern-paradox-engine-combo/) Game 1: I have no idea whats going on, as this person usually plays lanturn control. I wont say what my plays were, as they were irrelevant to the game as I wasn't fast enough to stop his combo. On his turn one he plays an everflowing chalice on 0. I immediately read the card and confusion resolves. His turn two, he plays a Coretapper, and while I see what synergy is taking place, I am still really confused. Turn 3 he plays a Astral Cornucopia and then puts charge counters on it and all of the sudden has ramped to alot of mana in three turns. Then he casts a Paradox engine, and proceeds to go infinite with two temple bells as his card draw engine. He taps his Temple Bells, draws cards, plays a nonsense artifact card, untaps his bells, and repeats this process while continuing to float mana from the Astral Cornucopia. Eventually he finds his Walking Ballista, spends 40 mana to cast it, and then shoots me in the face for 20. Game 2: I start the game with a Leyline of Sanctity in play, I had a stubborn denial, natural states, stony silence, eldrazi temple, land, and smasher as my opening 7. I draw into another natural state, and while i'm stuck on 3 mana for a few turns, he cant tap his artifacts for mana. I eventually draw another Eldrazi Temple and smash for the win. Game 3: He plays Glimmervoid and plays ancient stirrings and cast a 0 drop Everflowing chalice. His turn two he plays Inventors Fair as his second land drop and casts a Astral cornucopia for 0. on my turn I play engineered explosives on 0 and crack it to blow up both his 0 mana artifacts. Then I proceed to end turn and he has to sacrifice his Glimmervoid. this was my turn 3 and the game was next to over. he draws a few more cards, but cant recover from the engineered explosives.
Match 4: Infect Game 1: I win the die roll and play a turn 1 Noble heirarch. he plays a Noble heirarch of his own. my turn two I play a skyspawner. His turn two plays a Glistener elf and no second land drop. On my turn I play a Engineered Explosives, and blow up his two creatures and it quickly falls apart for him.
Game 2: I had to play this game more conservatively because he was on the play. His infect creatures he had this game were Glistener Elf and a Inkmoth nexus. I had turn one noble, turn two skyspawner. He eventually had to swing with his inkmoth into my skyspawner and use a pump spell to clear the path of my flying blocker.Game ended up being very close as he swings for lethal in the air. Fortunately for me, I had Path to exile and he had no hexproof cards, as he had to use them to get past my skyspawner earlier in the game.
Current MB:
2 reshaper
4 skyspawner
3 displacer
3 drowner
1 rhonas
2 ee
5 dorks
24 lands with 1 gavony
Current SB:
1 Arashin cleric
1 settle the wreckage
1 sorcerous spyglass
2 unified will
1 flashfreeze
1 gideons intervention
1 engineered explosives
2 chalice
1 batterskull
1 rip
1 eidolon of rhetoric
1 reclamation sage
1 worship
This sb gives you huge game against storm and valakut which are the two boogeymen for eldrazi decks. I feel with this configuration I am pretty much at least 50/50 against the current tier 1 meta with a couple of very good matchups in all of the fair decks and eldrazi tron. I have made a few concessions to bolt becoming relevant again and death's shadow being here to stay (adding reshapers, cutting 6th dork for land)
...
Against valakut, I cut all paths and ee. I bring in flashfreeze, unified will, gideons intervention, and possibly sorcerous spyglass if I know they have a bunch of chandras. The game plan should be to kill them by turn 4 or 5 and if not, disrupt them until hopefully you can resolve the gideons intervention which should basically win you the game.
Settle the wreckage boys/girls - this card is super legit in Bant. WW isnt ideal but Ive been crushing hard matchups with it - Merfolk, Elves, CoCo, Affinity - its even decent against E-Tron and GDS and Geist - get on it!
I wouldn't be big on Settle against GDS, Jeskai tempo, or ETron. Sure it's good and can lead to blowouts but it is antithetic to your main gameplan in those situations. You are the beatdown against ETron and Jeskai, and you want to be leaning on creatures and not spells against GDS (esp not one that can't be proactively played in response to discard). It's still a good card for our deck and I think better than EE against the likes of Elves and Humans Company that have distributed CMC's.
I think EE is still better against Affinity and Merfolk. You almost always want it on 0 or 2 in those cases and it's stirrings-able and can't be played around (vs a single ornithopter with a cranial plating).
Also as people play more around Settle it starts to become worse.
The thing is theory crafting about whos the beatdown is nice and everything - but it doesn't play out in every game that way - you can often get on the backfoot - especially on the draw. There are numerous matchups that Eldrazi struggles with - most of them are go wide decks - Elves, Merfolk, CoCo, Dredge and many more (Bogles for example)..
Sure - ppl can play around it - but that can only help you if they do - gives you more time to get in with your creatures..
Just tested a bit. Settle definitely does NOT come in against Eldrazi Tron or GDS. It's way too reactive and getting WW against either deck is pretty hard since good players will consistently kill your dorks. When sideboarding you should always think about beatdown vs control. Not boarding to reflect the correct role simply means you are fundamentally playing the matchup incorrectly.
Settle's true home is a draw-go deck, not Bant. You'll often be in scenarios where you are forced to hold up settle, and not deploy your threats, and your opponent can simply swing in with one dude and prevent you from using your mana effectively.
However, I think the card still deserves a sideboard slot ONLY against go-wide. I don't think it's anywhere close to mainboard material.
Lol. Don't take things so personally - I wasn't saying that you thought it should maindeckable, just that in general the card is not good enough to be maindecked in bant.
To your first comment, it's just like siding in Blessed alliance against GDS or Eldrazi tron. Sure you can do it and get some blowouts, but it's just wrong to even bring it in because you don't want to be reactive in either of those matchups.
WW is also a problem for our deck. The only way we can consistently afford it is in matchups where our dork lives, otherwise 10 white sources cannot reliably cast it. This means it's only consistently live by turn 3-4 against probably just company decks and merfolk.
Won modern last night. First time playing in a while and it was a weird night. Round 1 was vs UW Enchantment Prison which the deck literally can't beat. I lost a very long game 1 by 1 turn (He won with Aetherling) then sniped him with several well timed EE's on 3 game 2 to take it and force the draw. I knew I couldn't win the match so I played to force a draw once I know I was going to lose game 1 since it was better than losing.
Round 2 was against some RW Humans aggro brew. He got me down to 8 life game 1 rally fast and I misplayed and let him shoot me twice with Pia and Kirin Nalaar instead of blinking the tokens and just chumping some other attacks, putting me to 4. He seemed to have no follow up though and I got the Displacer/Drowner engine online and won. Game 2 [card]Reality Smasher[/cards] did what they do best and smashed. If we learned anything already it's that the Eldrazi beat the Humans so if anything this was a very flavorful match.
Round 3 was against Lantern Control, which the guy seemed like he didn't know how to play. He was reading all my cards which was weird because if you're playing Lantern I really hope you know how every deck functions. I quickly got the Displacer/TKS lock on him after he didn't have the fastest start and began controlling his draws. It took him about 20 minutes to concede that game after he realized he was never going to draw a useful card and I had near infinite blinks from extra (Drowner) Scion tokens. Game 2 we didn't have a ton of time so I was going to play it out no matter what and win the match. Lucky for me he mulled to 4 cards, but played a Pithing Needle on T1 naming Displacer (of which I had 2 in hand and 1 on top of my library). I got the T2 Stony Silence and then got him down to 7 life before he topdecked a Bridge to stop me. We drew back and forth for a while before I got a card]Noble Hierarch[/card] and began hitting him down to 5 life. He drew and had to cast a Thoughtseize putting him to 3, but also played a Inventors' Fair and we were suddenly at a stalemate. The game eventually ended when he drew Blood Moon and had to play it to keep Bridge from letting my Scions attack. I won two turns later.
The last round was against UW Geist-Flash and I just had great draws constantly dropping TKS's and Smasher's game 1 with removal at all the right times. Game 2 I had some more fast draws backed up by Cavern of Souls and Stubborn Denials. I took all his big threats and countered his Path to Exiles to run him out of cards. I played out a Drowner hoping to go for the win if he didn't have a wrath.. which he did. Next turn I played another one for it to be wrathed again. Luckily I just kept drawing gas and eventually won pretty handily.
I was playing a pretty old more 'stock' list and honestly I wouldn't change anything. This deck has always been like a better Jund for me going 50/50 against everything and if you know how to pilot it really well you can outplay your opponents. I have tried some small tech cards like EWit and such and never done as well playing them.
Field of ruin seems like a pretty good utility land. It fixes our own mana! I may think about replacing the gavony township... hard to say. Township is so much late game power, but being able to take out opposing townships, tron lands, and colonnades while actually fixing our mana seems really powerful. I feel I have lost to opposing townships more often than I have won with my own.
Field of ruin seems like a pretty good utility land. It fixes our own mana! I may think about replacing the gavony township... hard to say. Township is so much late game power, but being able to take out opposing townships, tron lands, and colonnades while actually fixing our mana seems really powerful. I feel I have lost to opposing townships more often than I have won with my own.
I cut township long ago. I've found games just don't get grindy enough to get to the point of needing it. Worship, although kind of a cheese card, helps in much more matchups from the sidebaord and stalls out the board in the same fashion that a Township would int he matchups that are looking at it. Cutting it and having a slightly better manabase has worked well for me.
On a sidenote I played a Modern FNM last night and 4-0'd again. 2-0 vs 8 Rack/Monoblack Control. 2-1 vs 7 Land Belcher (Kept a 2 lander game 1 and never got a third). 2-0 vs Grishoalbrand. The finals were technically a split but we played it out and I 2-1's KCI Eggs. This deck is outdated in the overall meta for sure but still very powerful for sure. It's not hard to take down local events against any kind of deck.
Township and Worship have nothing to do with each other, you don't have to cut Township to be able to play Worship. Township is in general good against fair decks but has applications in all matchups. Worship only comes in against aggro.
Went 6-0 in rounds and 12-2 in games to win a PPTQ today. Tried out a weird sideboard:
3 Chalice
2 Settle the Wreckage
2 Flashfreeze
1 Unified Will
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Worship
2 Sorcerous spyglass
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gideon's Intervention
I think cutting the RIP for Grafdigger's was questionable, but I won the fair matchups RIP would have come in against anyway. Luckily I dodged counters company; I think it and storm are the only situations I would bring Grafdigger's anyway.
The Settles were okay. They helped me climb back from a losing board state against delver but my opponent had a tasigur which was able to draw 2 a turn because of the massive ramp.
The chalices were good as usual and I may in fact keep the 3. Having 2 chalices in your opener against burn can be extremely punishing, and stirrings and path are both somewhat mediocre in the matchup (Stirrings durdles, path ramps them).
Spyglass is the most interesting - Ive cut Stonies before and played needles as the Stonies can get in the way of EE (although arguably you are winning anyway if Stony is down against Affinity - although not always). Needles can also provide more flexibility. So what do you think about Spyglass (also seems to play well with Chalice)..
There's a key interaction that I think makes spyglass weak, which is that they are 2cmc meaning they are a nonbo with EE with x=2 against affinity and coco. What if, for example, you spyglass inkmoth nexus but they topdeck a cranial and you have EE in hand? However spyglass is probably better against control where the information is important and eldrazi tron where dodging chalice can be relevant.
I think cutting stony is fine and I haven't played stony in a while.
Yeah - good point with EE and spyglass. I guess it depends on what you choose with spyglass - hopefully you blow up whatever you named (presumably most of the time its 2cmc as well - like plating or ravager etc - I guess they could be sandbagging extra copies though).
I think Stony is questionable for affinity given all the other good cards we have (im also playing settle the wreckage) - in all honesty its kind of just a bonus against affinity - I kind of really need it for Tron, Lantern and Ad Naus - combined with other sb cards I find these matchup to be pretty ok with Stony as an additional answer..
So I have to ask,.... in what match ups is settle the wreckage a good card for us? As I was scrolling through the recent modern metagame, I didn't see a deck where I thought settle the wreckage would be good.
Elves and Merfolk maybe? whyjesse mentioned delver. It seems like a terrible card for us. Unless I'm missing something.
Also, I have recently been Unsatisfied with disdainful stroke.
(I really hate the card against eldrazi tron because cavern of souls) I am contemplating removing 1 if not 2 disdainful strokes from my sideboard, but I don't want to auto lose to titan shift. I feel I should replace them with counter spells that can hit scapeshift and prime time. The reasonable replacement options seem to be flashfreeze and unified will.
What has been everybody's experiance with either flashfreeze or unified will? (I ran flash freeze for a while, and really liked it when it was relevant, but it felt a bit narrow)
As for unified will, I've never really tested the counterspell before. I can see situations against some control match ups where I go to counter one of there spells and they can then flash in a snapcaster mage to have equal creatures to me fizzling my counterspell.
Current sideboard for reference.
3 stony silence
2 Rest In Peace
2 grafdigger cage
2 stubborn denial
2 leyline of sanctity
2 disdainful strokes
1 negate
1 natural state
Stony is good against regular Tron but not necessary, and isn't really that good against ETron. Stony is not necessary against AdNaus or Lantern; Chalices are really good in those matchups anyway. Reclamation sage is good in those matchups too (not against regular Tron but good against ETron).
Unified will only comes in against combo-esque decks, not control. In general my rule is if they play any meaningful interaction against creatures I don't bring it in. I don't think counterspells are truly necessary against control.
Counterspells don't need to come in against ETron because we are the beatdown. We generally want to be tapping out, not holding up mana against them.
Settle comes in against: Elves, Merfolk, Affinity (it's mediocre here), Humans company, Counters company (mediocre). These are in general poor matchups, and while many of them aren't tier 1, they are the ones keeping us out of tier 1 territory (the current tier 1 meta is fine for us, it's the tier 2 meta that is bad).
Ive never really had a problem with this deck - sure sometimes that can land screw you an win.. It's important to be aware of vial on 2 for Leonin land screw blowouts, vial on 3 for flickerwisp combat blowouts - once you get used to the matchup it isn't that bad. Explosives is really good against them.
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Storm - 2 cmc is best - but 1 cmc is ok depending on what is necessary at the time
Burn - 1 or 2 cmc depending on the game state - 2 cmc is often better in game 3 as you can bet 4x D-Rev is coming in..
Control decks - hit all their 1 cmc removal and cantrips; 2 cmc if required (snaps, other removal and counters); 0 cmc if they still play AV
Affinity on the play - if you get turn 1 chalice on zero you will win 90+% of games; its also not a terrible strategy in the later game to land it for 2 cmc
Gx Tron - on the play only - too slow otherwise - hits so many of their cards plus sb nature's claim to keep your stony on the board
Other decks
Ad Nauseum - you can now confidently beat this deck - 1 cmc or 0 cmc are fantastic
Lantern - chalice really hoses them on 1 cmc - they do have answers - so landing a second Chalice on 2 cmc is advisable (after you land Stony)
8-Rack - hits their win conditions as well as pretty much all their spells - usually you will lose it to IoK or thoughtseize though
Elves - only on the play and if you sense they have 4x Cavern of Souls its prob not worth it.
Amulet Titan - good on 1 cmc and zero for pacts
Living End - zero cmc - back breaking for them
Infect - absolute house - best card to beat them - but your matchup is generally good regardless
Hollow Vine - these lists vary a lot but usually have ~16 1 cmc spells - I only bring it in on the play..
Restore Balance - zero cmc and restore balance doesnt work anymore
Bogles - you will rely on EE and Chalice to beat this deck
Matyr - great card - they have tons of 1 drops
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
In other news, Thursday night modern update ... record was 3-0-1
Match 1: Saheeli Combo
honestly, i dont really recall much of these games so,
Game 1: Win
Game 2: Lose
Game 3: Draw
Match 2: Budget elves (no collected company--- i didnt know this so i boarded in cages and luckly didnt draw them)
Game 1: He did what elves do and destroyed Bant Eldrazi
Game 2: I thought knotted taking his heroic intervention. Engineered Explosives blew up some of his creatures. He set his board up to have lethal damage on his next turn, but I was able to end step path to exile his Ezuri, Renegade Leader, untap play smasher and swing for lethal.
Game 3: he draws his 7 and sees no land and mulligans. he draws his 6 and sees no land and mulligans. his sees his hand of 5, no lands and keeps. scrys to the bottom and passes turn. he draws land on his turn two, but he cant recuperate after the mulligan to 5 and missed land drop.
Match 3: Paradox Engine Combo For those who have no idea what this is (Myself included prior to tonight)
(https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/modern-paradox-engine-combo/)
Game 1: I have no idea whats going on, as this person usually plays lanturn control. I wont say what my plays were, as they were irrelevant to the game as I wasn't fast enough to stop his combo. On his turn one he plays an everflowing chalice on 0. I immediately read the card and confusion resolves. His turn two, he plays a Coretapper, and while I see what synergy is taking place, I am still really confused. Turn 3 he plays a Astral Cornucopia and then puts charge counters on it and all of the sudden has ramped to alot of mana in three turns. Then he casts a Paradox engine, and proceeds to go infinite with two temple bells as his card draw engine. He taps his Temple Bells, draws cards, plays a nonsense artifact card, untaps his bells, and repeats this process while continuing to float mana from the Astral Cornucopia. Eventually he finds his Walking Ballista, spends 40 mana to cast it, and then shoots me in the face for 20.
Game 2: I start the game with a Leyline of Sanctity in play, I had a stubborn denial, natural states, stony silence, eldrazi temple, land, and smasher as my opening 7. I draw into another natural state, and while i'm stuck on 3 mana for a few turns, he cant tap his artifacts for mana. I eventually draw another Eldrazi Temple and smash for the win.
Game 3: He plays Glimmervoid and plays ancient stirrings and cast a 0 drop Everflowing chalice. His turn two he plays Inventors Fair as his second land drop and casts a Astral cornucopia for 0. on my turn I play engineered explosives on 0 and crack it to blow up both his 0 mana artifacts. Then I proceed to end turn and he has to sacrifice his Glimmervoid. this was my turn 3 and the game was next to over. he draws a few more cards, but cant recover from the engineered explosives.
Match 4: Infect
Game 1: I win the die roll and play a turn 1 Noble heirarch. he plays a Noble heirarch of his own. my turn two I play a skyspawner. His turn two plays a Glistener elf and no second land drop. On my turn I play a Engineered Explosives, and blow up his two creatures and it quickly falls apart for him.
Game 2: I had to play this game more conservatively because he was on the play. His infect creatures he had this game were Glistener Elf and a Inkmoth nexus. I had turn one noble, turn two skyspawner. He eventually had to swing with his inkmoth into my skyspawner and use a pump spell to clear the path of my flying blocker.Game ended up being very close as he swings for lethal in the air. Fortunately for me, I had Path to exile and he had no hexproof cards, as he had to use them to get past my skyspawner earlier in the game.
2 reshaper
4 skyspawner
3 displacer
3 drowner
1 rhonas
2 ee
5 dorks
24 lands with 1 gavony
Current SB:
1 Arashin cleric
1 settle the wreckage
1 sorcerous spyglass
2 unified will
1 flashfreeze
1 gideons intervention
1 engineered explosives
2 chalice
1 batterskull
1 rip
1 eidolon of rhetoric
1 reclamation sage
1 worship
This sb gives you huge game against storm and valakut which are the two boogeymen for eldrazi decks. I feel with this configuration I am pretty much at least 50/50 against the current tier 1 meta with a couple of very good matchups in all of the fair decks and eldrazi tron. I have made a few concessions to bolt becoming relevant again and death's shadow being here to stay (adding reshapers, cutting 6th dork for land)
...
Against valakut, I cut all paths and ee. I bring in flashfreeze, unified will, gideons intervention, and possibly sorcerous spyglass if I know they have a bunch of chandras. The game plan should be to kill them by turn 4 or 5 and if not, disrupt them until hopefully you can resolve the gideons intervention which should basically win you the game.
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
I think EE is still better against Affinity and Merfolk. You almost always want it on 0 or 2 in those cases and it's stirrings-able and can't be played around (vs a single ornithopter with a cranial plating).
Also as people play more around Settle it starts to become worse.
Sure - ppl can play around it - but that can only help you if they do - gives you more time to get in with your creatures..
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Settle's true home is a draw-go deck, not Bant. You'll often be in scenarios where you are forced to hold up settle, and not deploy your threats, and your opponent can simply swing in with one dude and prevent you from using your mana effectively.
However, I think the card still deserves a sideboard slot ONLY against go-wide. I don't think it's anywhere close to mainboard material.
But anyway - where did I suggest it was a maindeckable card?
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
To your first comment, it's just like siding in Blessed alliance against GDS or Eldrazi tron. Sure you can do it and get some blowouts, but it's just wrong to even bring it in because you don't want to be reactive in either of those matchups.
WW is also a problem for our deck. The only way we can consistently afford it is in matchups where our dork lives, otherwise 10 white sources cannot reliably cast it. This means it's only consistently live by turn 3-4 against probably just company decks and merfolk.
Round 2 was against some RW Humans aggro brew. He got me down to 8 life game 1 rally fast and I misplayed and let him shoot me twice with Pia and Kirin Nalaar instead of blinking the tokens and just chumping some other attacks, putting me to 4. He seemed to have no follow up though and I got the Displacer/Drowner engine online and won. Game 2 [card]Reality Smasher[/cards] did what they do best and smashed. If we learned anything already it's that the Eldrazi beat the Humans so if anything this was a very flavorful match.
Round 3 was against Lantern Control, which the guy seemed like he didn't know how to play. He was reading all my cards which was weird because if you're playing Lantern I really hope you know how every deck functions. I quickly got the Displacer/TKS lock on him after he didn't have the fastest start and began controlling his draws. It took him about 20 minutes to concede that game after he realized he was never going to draw a useful card and I had near infinite blinks from extra (Drowner) Scion tokens. Game 2 we didn't have a ton of time so I was going to play it out no matter what and win the match. Lucky for me he mulled to 4 cards, but played a Pithing Needle on T1 naming Displacer (of which I had 2 in hand and 1 on top of my library). I got the T2 Stony Silence and then got him down to 7 life before he topdecked a Bridge to stop me. We drew back and forth for a while before I got a card]Noble Hierarch[/card] and began hitting him down to 5 life. He drew and had to cast a Thoughtseize putting him to 3, but also played a Inventors' Fair and we were suddenly at a stalemate. The game eventually ended when he drew Blood Moon and had to play it to keep Bridge from letting my Scions attack. I won two turns later.
The last round was against UW Geist-Flash and I just had great draws constantly dropping TKS's and Smasher's game 1 with removal at all the right times. Game 2 I had some more fast draws backed up by Cavern of Souls and Stubborn Denials. I took all his big threats and countered his Path to Exiles to run him out of cards. I played out a Drowner hoping to go for the win if he didn't have a wrath.. which he did. Next turn I played another one for it to be wrathed again. Luckily I just kept drawing gas and eventually won pretty handily.
I was playing a pretty old more 'stock' list and honestly I wouldn't change anything. This deck has always been like a better Jund for me going 50/50 against everything and if you know how to pilot it really well you can outplay your opponents. I have tried some small tech cards like EWit and such and never done as well playing them.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
On a sidenote I played a Modern FNM last night and 4-0'd again. 2-0 vs 8 Rack/Monoblack Control. 2-1 vs 7 Land Belcher (Kept a 2 lander game 1 and never got a third). 2-0 vs Grishoalbrand. The finals were technically a split but we played it out and I 2-1's KCI Eggs. This deck is outdated in the overall meta for sure but still very powerful for sure. It's not hard to take down local events against any kind of deck.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Went 6-0 in rounds and 12-2 in games to win a PPTQ today. Tried out a weird sideboard:
3 Chalice
2 Settle the Wreckage
2 Flashfreeze
1 Unified Will
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Worship
2 Sorcerous spyglass
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gideon's Intervention
I think cutting the RIP for Grafdigger's was questionable, but I won the fair matchups RIP would have come in against anyway. Luckily I dodged counters company; I think it and storm are the only situations I would bring Grafdigger's anyway.
The Settles were okay. They helped me climb back from a losing board state against delver but my opponent had a tasigur which was able to draw 2 a turn because of the massive ramp.
The chalices were good as usual and I may in fact keep the 3. Having 2 chalices in your opener against burn can be extremely punishing, and stirrings and path are both somewhat mediocre in the matchup (Stirrings durdles, path ramps them).
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
I think cutting stony is fine and I haven't played stony in a while.
I think Stony is questionable for affinity given all the other good cards we have (im also playing settle the wreckage) - in all honesty its kind of just a bonus against affinity - I kind of really need it for Tron, Lantern and Ad Naus - combined with other sb cards I find these matchup to be pretty ok with Stony as an additional answer..
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Elves and Merfolk maybe? whyjesse mentioned delver. It seems like a terrible card for us. Unless I'm missing something.
Also, I have recently been Unsatisfied with disdainful stroke.
(I really hate the card against eldrazi tron because cavern of souls) I am contemplating removing 1 if not 2 disdainful strokes from my sideboard, but I don't want to auto lose to titan shift. I feel I should replace them with counter spells that can hit scapeshift and prime time. The reasonable replacement options seem to be flashfreeze and unified will.
What has been everybody's experiance with either flashfreeze or unified will? (I ran flash freeze for a while, and really liked it when it was relevant, but it felt a bit narrow)
As for unified will, I've never really tested the counterspell before. I can see situations against some control match ups where I go to counter one of there spells and they can then flash in a snapcaster mage to have equal creatures to me fizzling my counterspell.
Current sideboard for reference.
3 stony silence
2 Rest In Peace
2 grafdigger cage
2 stubborn denial
2 leyline of sanctity
2 disdainful strokes
1 negate
1 natural state
Unified will only comes in against combo-esque decks, not control. In general my rule is if they play any meaningful interaction against creatures I don't bring it in. I don't think counterspells are truly necessary against control.
Counterspells don't need to come in against ETron because we are the beatdown. We generally want to be tapping out, not holding up mana against them.
Settle comes in against: Elves, Merfolk, Affinity (it's mediocre here), Humans company, Counters company (mediocre). These are in general poor matchups, and while many of them aren't tier 1, they are the ones keeping us out of tier 1 territory (the current tier 1 meta is fine for us, it's the tier 2 meta that is bad).
Thanks.
WUB Puresteel Midrange WUB