I'm expecting I'll run into at least half of these decks:
Burn
Psuedo mirror/DS decks
Hollow One
Collected Company decks
And then there should be some combo, humans and control there as well (obviously).
And then the wildcard decks - probably some combo etc. The mountain in the deck is there to help with the burn matchup (painless red fetch has been very good for me in the past in that matchup), and also the control matchups (against Field of Ruin). The huntmaster is there as a card for grind and burn. I would run the Hazoret which I think is hands down the best card for the mirror, but Huntmaster is applicable in more matchups IMO. Other notable choices are 2x cage and no spellbombs. I think spellbomb is by far a better graveyard hate, no arguments there. However Cage is bomb against Collected Company decks and also works very well against Hollow one to make them play my game - and not play all these recurring threats.
The rest of the board I feel is fairly stock. I'm on 12 one-drops, 14 two-drops, 6 three-drops and 4 four-drops, much like Delvers list (difference is +1 Decay, -1 Scooze). The spell distribution is something I've been very happy with the times I've run it.
Besides the lack of completely graveyard wipe (spellbomb) I feel like this deck should in theory be well prepared to face off against most decks. I've run similar board and maindeck configuration and have always felt I've had relevant sideboard cards (as well as cards to take out of the maindeck) - which I think is a sign of a strong board/maindeck. This is still a very difficult deck to play optimally and I continue to make mistakes which is holding me back from the great finishes, but on the flip side I get better constantly
I'm expecting I'll run into at least half of these decks:
Burn
Psuedo mirror/DS decks
Hollow One
Collected Company decks
And then there should be some combo, humans and control there as well (obviously).
And then the wildcard decks - probably some combo etc. The mountain in the deck is there to help with the burn matchup (painless red fetch has been very good for me in the past in that matchup), and also the control matchups (against Field of Ruin). The huntmaster is there as a card for grind and burn. I would run the Hazoret which I think is hands down the best card for the mirror, but Huntmaster is applicable in more matchups IMO. Other notable choices are 2x cage and no spellbombs. I think spellbomb is by far a better graveyard hate, no arguments there. However Cage is bomb against Collected Company decks and also works very well against Hollow one to make them play my game - and not play all these recurring threats.
The rest of the board I feel is fairly stock. I'm on 12 one-drops, 14 two-drops, 6 three-drops and 4 four-drops, much like Delvers list (difference is +1 Decay, -1 Scooze). The spell distribution is something I've been very happy with the times I've run it.
Besides the lack of completely graveyard wipe (spellbomb) I feel like this deck should in theory be well prepared to face off against most decks. I've run similar board and maindeck configuration and have always felt I've had relevant sideboard cards (as well as cards to take out of the maindeck) - which I think is a sign of a strong board/maindeck. This is still a very difficult deck to play optimally and I continue to make mistakes which is holding me back from the great finishes, but on the flip side I get better constantly
Against the decks you want to tackle, Ooze is actually always amazing. I would advice going for 3 copies maindeck. Ooze is great vs Burn, great vs creature based decks and grindy matchups and also great against Hollow one. This also frees up a needed SB slot. You can then potentially run another GY hate in the form of Spellbomb to even help more against Hollow One. I think Decay is mediocre in general anyway, so I would cut the second one for the third Ooze.
As much as I think BBE is an amazing card, I too have been underwhelmed with her in the current meta. At least where I play at, there is a strong prevalence of Burn, Human, Ponza, CoCo decks (And tron too).
vs. Aggro decks I feel like the sacrifice we make to run 4x BBE's maindeck, that being, having a much clunkier mana-base, with less early interactions and risking some very slow opening hands made us a lot worse in aggro match-ups that, in my opinion, the old Jund with 0-2 4 drops (Like someone mentioned) would have fared better more consistently.
Trusting a RNG card to save us when playing vs. Decks like Human where we need a very specific card, and the likeability that such card will get pulled in cascade is around 30ish % is bad.
BBE Jund shines more than old jund vs. Midrange and Control decks, where card-advantage matters a lot more, and where we dont get punished as much for playing tapped lands or having a slow opening hand. Matchups where our Raging Ravines actually eventually turn into creatures and card advantage, rather than matches where we're suffocating by turn 4.
vs. Tron, I'm on the boat that, while BBE has made the match slightly better, its still bloody bad. And our hope vs. Tron remains the same as before: Sideboard and/or Tron losing to themselves.
vs. Ponza (There are plenty at my local shop) BBE rarelly feels like a game-changer. Odds are high that Ponza wont let me get to 4cmc so soon. So its often a dead card. What DOES win the matchup for me is an early bolt to their mana-dorks or a discard followed by a Goyf or Bob early.
I personally have decided that I'll try forgetting BBE for a bit until I start seeing more MIdrange/Control decks again, and instead I'll just run a old Jund decklist with 1 or 2x Huntmasters as my only 4cmc drops, 23 or 24 lands, And +2~3 reliable interactions. Maybe play Grim Lava main deck again.
I really like my Huntmasters, they're reliable and consistent, and since Humans and Hollow Ones run none or close to no removal, I get to flip him a lot. If a burn spends a spell to kill him, then I pretty much got a body to block, 1 spell minus to my face, and +2 health. Which is awesome. He is kinda slow vs. Combo and Tron, but like I said, what beats these decks most of the time for us is Sideboard + Luck + A turn 2 big goyf anyway. (Although if allowed to Flip a huntmaster hits for 8)
I feel like the card I deeply wish we'd have unbanned for our list is DeathRite Shaman over BBE. Heheh!
Would be lovelly to have a faster tempo vs. Decks like Humans and be able to cast a turn 3 HuntM and completelly control the board from there, or a turn 2 Lili.
versus Hollow Ones it'd offer extra Grave hate for Vengevines and Blodghasts, vs. Burn it'd heal us up. And it'd even help with our "too many lands and tapped lands" issue as we maybe could run less lands thanks to having Mana-Dorks.
Regardless, I surelly would trade DeathRite for BBE in the current meta any day. Well, one can only dream, right?
do we want to add some acceleration? if the meta skews towards linear creature decks than sacrificing our control match a little to play some nobles could help up
does noble not producing black really make it bad? I think it obviously is worse than DRS because of DRS versatility, but junds grind power with BBE now makes a sacrifice in grind for tempo seem valuable against decks like humans and hollow one. potentially BOP is just better because it casts bolt and Lili.
Even if there was a Noble Hierarch that produced Jund colored mana it would still not be worthwhile: a mana dork, even with exalted, is too low impact of a top deck draw and also a bad cascade for BBE. Any other mythical dork would either be as good as Deathrite Shaman, Deathrite Shaman itself, or better than Deathrite Shaman. And that's simply not going to happen in Modern any time soon - DRS already nearly warps Legacy many argue.
As much as I think BBE is an amazing card, I too have been underwhelmed with her in the current meta. At least where I play at, there is a strong prevalence of Burn, Human, Ponza, CoCo decks (And tron too).
vs. Aggro decks I feel like the sacrifice we make to run 4x BBE's maindeck, that being, having a much clunkier mana-base, with less early interactions and risking some very slow opening hands made us a lot worse in aggro match-ups that, in my opinion, the old Jund with 0-2 4 drops (Like someone mentioned) would have fared better more consistently.
Trusting a RNG card to save us when playing vs. Decks like Human where we need a very specific card, and the likeability that such card will get pulled in cascade is around 30ish % is bad.
BBE Jund shines more than old jund vs. Midrange and Control decks, where card-advantage matters a lot more, and where we dont get punished as much for playing tapped lands or having a slow opening hand. Matchups where our Raging Ravines actually eventually turn into creatures and card advantage, rather than matches where we're suffocating by turn 4.
vs. Tron, I'm on the boat that, while BBE has made the match slightly better, its still bloody bad. And our hope vs. Tron remains the same as before: Sideboard and/or Tron losing to themselves.
vs. Ponza (There are plenty at my local shop) BBE rarelly feels like a game-changer. Odds are high that Ponza wont let me get to 4cmc so soon. So its often a dead card. What DOES win the matchup for me is an early bolt to their mana-dorks or a discard followed by a Goyf or Bob early.
I personally have decided that I'll try forgetting BBE for a bit until I start seeing more MIdrange/Control decks again, and instead I'll just run a old Jund decklist with 1 or 2x Huntmasters as my only 4cmc drops, 23 or 24 lands, And +2~3 reliable interactions. Maybe play Grim Lava main deck again.
I really like my Huntmasters, they're reliable and consistent, and since Humans and Hollow Ones run none or close to no removal, I get to flip him a lot. If a burn spends a spell to kill him, then I pretty much got a body to block, 1 spell minus to my face, and +2 health. Which is awesome. He is kinda slow vs. Combo and Tron, but like I said, what beats these decks most of the time for us is Sideboard + Luck + A turn 2 big goyf anyway. (Although if allowed to Flip a huntmaster hits for 8)
I feel like the card I deeply wish we'd have unbanned for our list is DeathRite Shaman over BBE. Heheh!
Would be lovelly to have a faster tempo vs. Decks like Humans and be able to cast a turn 3 HuntM and completelly control the board from there, or a turn 2 Lili.
versus Hollow Ones it'd offer extra Grave hate for Vengevines and Blodghasts, vs. Burn it'd heal us up. And it'd even help with our "too many lands and tapped lands" issue as we maybe could run less lands thanks to having Mana-Dorks.
Regardless, I surelly would trade DeathRite for BBE in the current meta any day. Well, one can only dream, right?
I have begun coming to the same conclusion myself (that building around 3-4 BBE's) is not that good, at least in the current meta. The problem, as you point out, is not only the high casting cost, tap out nature of BBE, as well as the other deck building constraints - but also that you can't plan your lines of play due to the random luck factor of what you may or may not cascade into.
Also, while BBE, at its best gives you a one-time tempo and card advantage (sometimes great, sometimes not - again you can't predict) - it itself does not offer the potential for having great board presence for a four drop (unless you play multiples within a game). Whereas other 4 drops, like Huntmaster, Olivia, Kalitas, Chandra, Hazoret typically provide ongoing value, advantage, or pressure from that point forward - in a predictable manner you can craft lines of play with.
Lately I've been testing with deck builds similar to my pre-unban configuration (2 Huntmasters, more kill spells) and it's been better. Except with the notable exception of playing versus Jund BBE decks and Blue control decks.
Has Anger of the Gods pulled its weight for anyone? Everytime I test it I feel like it's only okay, and doesn't even do a job of being graveyard hate at all.
IMO Anger of the Gods only really shines against Dredge and G/W decks with Finks and Voices. Otherwise, the sorcery speed and double red cost is too much - there are better options for the purposes of sweepers: Engineered Explosives, Kozilek's Return, Grim Lavamancer, Maelstrom Pulse, Golgari Charm, etc.
does noble not producing black really make it bad? I think it obviously is worse than DRS because of DRS versatility, but junds grind power with BBE now makes a sacrifice in grind for tempo seem valuable against decks like humans and hollow one. potentially BOP is just better because it casts bolt and Lili.
As far as I know, Wizards won't print new 1 mana dorks like Noble or DRS anytime soon due to them often being too good. The one dork which got printed just know was Llanovar Elves, but thats about it.
IMO Anger of the Gods only really shines against Dredge and G/W decks with Finks and Voices. Otherwise, the sorcery speed and double red cost is too much - there are better options for the purposes of sweepers: Engineered Explosives, Kozilek's Return, Grim Lavamancer, Maelstrom Pulse, Golgari Charm, etc.
Double red is a problem if you don't acknowledge it and don't fetch for enough red sources early on. Its not ideal, which is true, since most manabases only run about 17 red sources (18-19 would be ideal for double red on turn 3) but I think you are pretty obligated to fetch for the red sources to not get blown out by a topdecked Cliff or Ravine while sitting on 3 lands and only 1 red source while you want to cast Anger to not die or whatever. And I think that is the main problem with double red, most of those sources will come into play tapped after turn 3.
The only real difference between Wednesday and tonight was the fact I was running a Tireless Tracker main just to try it out in this meta, and I don't think I like it, even for the board. I had cut a Kolaghan's Command to fit it in, and put it in the board cutting out a Scavenging Ooze to do this. Tonight was the only time that I've got to activate and utilize the Treetop after almost a month of playing 2-3 times a week. I was almost ready to cut it, but now I am not sure.
As for the matchups, tonight I played RG Eldrazi round 1 and 2, I won 1 and lost 1. Round 2 I lost due to flooding games 1 and 3. Round 3 was GW taxes with Voice of Resurgence, Collected Company, and Renegade Rallier and they just outvalued me. Didn't see any of my sideboard cards game 2 which would have potentially changed a lot. Round 4 was basically the same as round 3, just without Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Leonin Arbiter and Collected Company. Round 4 went so much better than round 3.
I really loved Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet every time I saw him. In one of the games, I had a Bloodbraid and Kalitas in hand on T4 and I chose to run out the Bloodbraid before the Kalitas for the simple reason of trying to draw out a path that might be in my opponents hand. Actually cascaded into an Inquisition and there wasn't a path in hand.
Like I already said, matchups like Storm or Humans are not as good as they have once been. Yes, Müller got lucky in R3 but that doesn't change the fact that the deck became clunkier after the unbans. And clunkiness is the last thing you want from your deck in these matchups.
The only real difference between Wednesday and tonight was the fact I was running a Tireless Tracker main just to try it out in this meta, and I don't think I like it, even for the board. I had cut a Kolaghan's Command to fit it in, and put it in the board cutting out a Scavenging Ooze to do this. Tonight was the only time that I've got to activate and utilize the Treetop after almost a month of playing 2-3 times a week. I was almost ready to cut it, but now I am not sure.
As for the matchups, tonight I played RG Eldrazi round 1 and 2, I won 1 and lost 1. Round 2 I lost due to flooding games 1 and 3. Round 3 was GW taxes with Voice of Resurgence, Collected Company, and Renegade Rallier and they just outvalued me. Didn't see any of my sideboard cards game 2 which would have potentially changed a lot. Round 4 was basically the same as round 3, just without Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Leonin Arbiter and Collected Company. Round 4 went so much better than round 3.
I really loved Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet every time I saw him. In one of the games, I had a Bloodbraid and Kalitas in hand on T4 and I chose to run out the Bloodbraid before the Kalitas for the simple reason of trying to draw out a path that might be in my opponents hand. Actually cascaded into an Inquisition and there wasn't a path in hand.
May I ask how did playing 3 BBEs felt? Yesterday we played a non - unified modern trio with two Junds and a Jeskai. Jund record was 0-4 for us, losing to Boggles, Storm, Humans and abzan counters. I feel that other than boggles we should be at least somewhat favored in those matches ; bad luck notwithstanding (as in, I lost a game to Humans with both blood moon and anger of the gods in hand due to having only 2 lands even after drawing 7 cards thanks to a confidant), both my partner and I felt that the Elf was just stuck in our hands in those matches. I would have really loved some finks main board for them, maybe. But I can't find any 3-BBE list, it seems.
Like I already said, matchups like Storm or Humans are not as good as they have once been. Yes, Müller got lucky in R3 but that doesn't change the fact that the deck became clunkier after the unbans. And clunkiness is the last thing you want from your deck in these matchups.
Yes I agree. But I really don't get why a player like Reid Duke keeps playing those 25 land, clunky lists with minimal GY hate (like I heard from coverage that he only has 1 Spellbomb and 1 Cage in the SB, and he doesn't run Anger either) when it clearly is not where you wanna be right now. Humans and Hollow One have to be beaten, otherwise playing in a tournament doesn't make sense at all to me.
Like I already said, matchups like Storm or Humans are not as good as they have once been. Yes, Müller got lucky in R3 but that doesn't change the fact that the deck became clunkier after the unbans. And clunkiness is the last thing you want from your deck in these matchups.
Yes I agree. But I really don't get why a player like Reid Duke keeps playing those 25 land, clunky lists with minimal GY hate (like I heard from coverage that he only has 1 Spellbomb and 1 Cage in the SB, and he doesn't run Anger either) when it clearly is not where you wanna be right now. Humans and Hollow One have to be beaten, otherwise playing in a tournament doesn't make sense at all to me.
I don't know why you all feel that the 25-land lists are super clunky, but that's neither here nor there.
More importantly, I've learned via experience that dedicated graveyard hate is fairly lame for the metagame. There are too many decks that use the graveyard but aren't dedicated graveyard decks so either I build my deck to wipe away those advantages or I don't bother with it.
Truthfully, I really liked playing with only 3 BBE. Like I said, every time I saw Kalitas, it was great, and I think I would have felt worse about things a few times if it had been a BBE. I am going to be running back the same list again today in a few hours at a different store and I will try to take better notes so I can give better results round by round.
I don't exactly know how you define lame here, but I understand it like this: If I pack some Spellbombs to bring in against Jund its pretty lame, but against Hollow One, Mardu and Storm they are really good. Against Grixis Shadow its okay to have.
And in my eyes Anger is not dedicated GY hate. If the 2 best decks in Modern are a deck heavily basing its gameplay on the GY (Hollow One) and a weenie deck, then I don't see a reason why e.g. Anger should not be really great here. Let alone for Humans, Anger might not be justified, because that type of deck is strategy-wise a good matchup for Jund. But Hollow One is a deck that is hard for us to beat, and I really don't think its smart not bothering with that matchup at all, because the other decks on the format don't use the GY that much.
Honestly I think a card like Spellbomb is far more applicable against the field than Ancient Grudge, which is a card that most people here insist being a 2-of. I would actually consider that card more lame against the field than Spellbomb.
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Scavenging Ooze
Instants and sorceries (18)
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Terminate
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Kolaghan's Command
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Raging Ravine
1 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
1 Mountain
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Collective Brutality
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Kitchen Finks
I'm expecting I'll run into at least half of these decks:
Burn
Psuedo mirror/DS decks
Hollow One
Collected Company decks
And then there should be some combo, humans and control there as well (obviously).
And then the wildcard decks - probably some combo etc. The mountain in the deck is there to help with the burn matchup (painless red fetch has been very good for me in the past in that matchup), and also the control matchups (against Field of Ruin). The huntmaster is there as a card for grind and burn. I would run the Hazoret which I think is hands down the best card for the mirror, but Huntmaster is applicable in more matchups IMO. Other notable choices are 2x cage and no spellbombs. I think spellbomb is by far a better graveyard hate, no arguments there. However Cage is bomb against Collected Company decks and also works very well against Hollow one to make them play my game - and not play all these recurring threats.
The rest of the board I feel is fairly stock. I'm on 12 one-drops, 14 two-drops, 6 three-drops and 4 four-drops, much like Delvers list (difference is +1 Decay, -1 Scooze). The spell distribution is something I've been very happy with the times I've run it.
Besides the lack of completely graveyard wipe (spellbomb) I feel like this deck should in theory be well prepared to face off against most decks. I've run similar board and maindeck configuration and have always felt I've had relevant sideboard cards (as well as cards to take out of the maindeck) - which I think is a sign of a strong board/maindeck. This is still a very difficult deck to play optimally and I continue to make mistakes which is holding me back from the great finishes, but on the flip side I get better constantly
Against the decks you want to tackle, Ooze is actually always amazing. I would advice going for 3 copies maindeck. Ooze is great vs Burn, great vs creature based decks and grindy matchups and also great against Hollow one. This also frees up a needed SB slot. You can then potentially run another GY hate in the form of Spellbomb to even help more against Hollow One. I think Decay is mediocre in general anyway, so I would cut the second one for the third Ooze.
As much as I think BBE is an amazing card, I too have been underwhelmed with her in the current meta. At least where I play at, there is a strong prevalence of Burn, Human, Ponza, CoCo decks (And tron too).
vs. Aggro decks I feel like the sacrifice we make to run 4x BBE's maindeck, that being, having a much clunkier mana-base, with less early interactions and risking some very slow opening hands made us a lot worse in aggro match-ups that, in my opinion, the old Jund with 0-2 4 drops (Like someone mentioned) would have fared better more consistently.
Trusting a RNG card to save us when playing vs. Decks like Human where we need a very specific card, and the likeability that such card will get pulled in cascade is around 30ish % is bad.
BBE Jund shines more than old jund vs. Midrange and Control decks, where card-advantage matters a lot more, and where we dont get punished as much for playing tapped lands or having a slow opening hand. Matchups where our Raging Ravines actually eventually turn into creatures and card advantage, rather than matches where we're suffocating by turn 4.
vs. Tron, I'm on the boat that, while BBE has made the match slightly better, its still bloody bad. And our hope vs. Tron remains the same as before: Sideboard and/or Tron losing to themselves.
vs. Ponza (There are plenty at my local shop) BBE rarelly feels like a game-changer. Odds are high that Ponza wont let me get to 4cmc so soon. So its often a dead card. What DOES win the matchup for me is an early bolt to their mana-dorks or a discard followed by a Goyf or Bob early.
I personally have decided that I'll try forgetting BBE for a bit until I start seeing more MIdrange/Control decks again, and instead I'll just run a old Jund decklist with 1 or 2x Huntmasters as my only 4cmc drops, 23 or 24 lands, And +2~3 reliable interactions. Maybe play Grim Lava main deck again.
I really like my Huntmasters, they're reliable and consistent, and since Humans and Hollow Ones run none or close to no removal, I get to flip him a lot. If a burn spends a spell to kill him, then I pretty much got a body to block, 1 spell minus to my face, and +2 health. Which is awesome. He is kinda slow vs. Combo and Tron, but like I said, what beats these decks most of the time for us is Sideboard + Luck + A turn 2 big goyf anyway. (Although if allowed to Flip a huntmaster hits for 8)
I feel like the card I deeply wish we'd have unbanned for our list is DeathRite Shaman over BBE. Heheh!
Would be lovelly to have a faster tempo vs. Decks like Humans and be able to cast a turn 3 HuntM and completelly control the board from there, or a turn 2 Lili.
versus Hollow Ones it'd offer extra Grave hate for Vengevines and Blodghasts, vs. Burn it'd heal us up. And it'd even help with our "too many lands and tapped lands" issue as we maybe could run less lands thanks to having Mana-Dorks.
Regardless, I surelly would trade DeathRite for BBE in the current meta any day. Well, one can only dream, right?
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
I have begun coming to the same conclusion myself (that building around 3-4 BBE's) is not that good, at least in the current meta. The problem, as you point out, is not only the high casting cost, tap out nature of BBE, as well as the other deck building constraints - but also that you can't plan your lines of play due to the random luck factor of what you may or may not cascade into.
Also, while BBE, at its best gives you a one-time tempo and card advantage (sometimes great, sometimes not - again you can't predict) - it itself does not offer the potential for having great board presence for a four drop (unless you play multiples within a game). Whereas other 4 drops, like Huntmaster, Olivia, Kalitas, Chandra, Hazoret typically provide ongoing value, advantage, or pressure from that point forward - in a predictable manner you can craft lines of play with.
Lately I've been testing with deck builds similar to my pre-unban configuration (2 Huntmasters, more kill spells) and it's been better. Except with the notable exception of playing versus Jund BBE decks and Blue control decks.
As far as I know, Wizards won't print new 1 mana dorks like Noble or DRS anytime soon due to them often being too good. The one dork which got printed just know was Llanovar Elves, but thats about it.
Double red is a problem if you don't acknowledge it and don't fetch for enough red sources early on. Its not ideal, which is true, since most manabases only run about 17 red sources (18-19 would be ideal for double red on turn 3) but I think you are pretty obligated to fetch for the red sources to not get blown out by a topdecked Cliff or Ravine while sitting on 3 lands and only 1 red source while you want to cast Anger to not die or whatever. And I think that is the main problem with double red, most of those sources will come into play tapped after turn 3.
3x Raging Ravine
1x Treetop Village
1x Twilight Mire
1x Stomping Ground
1x Wooded Foothills
2x Swamp
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Forest
1x Blood Crypt
2x Overgrown Tomb
3x Bloodstained Mire
Creatures (15)
4x Dark Confidant
2x Scavenging Ooze
3x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Lightning Bolt
2x Terminate
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Thoughtseize
2x Kolaghan's Command
3x Fatal Push
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Kitchen Finks
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Collective Brutality
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Grafdigger's Cage
The only real difference between Wednesday and tonight was the fact I was running a Tireless Tracker main just to try it out in this meta, and I don't think I like it, even for the board. I had cut a Kolaghan's Command to fit it in, and put it in the board cutting out a Scavenging Ooze to do this. Tonight was the only time that I've got to activate and utilize the Treetop after almost a month of playing 2-3 times a week. I was almost ready to cut it, but now I am not sure.
As for the matchups, tonight I played RG Eldrazi round 1 and 2, I won 1 and lost 1. Round 2 I lost due to flooding games 1 and 3. Round 3 was GW taxes with Voice of Resurgence, Collected Company, and Renegade Rallier and they just outvalued me. Didn't see any of my sideboard cards game 2 which would have potentially changed a lot. Round 4 was basically the same as round 3, just without Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Leonin Arbiter and Collected Company. Round 4 went so much better than round 3.
I really loved Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet every time I saw him. In one of the games, I had a Bloodbraid and Kalitas in hand on T4 and I chose to run out the Bloodbraid before the Kalitas for the simple reason of trying to draw out a path that might be in my opponents hand. Actually cascaded into an Inquisition and there wasn't a path in hand.
May I ask how did playing 3 BBEs felt? Yesterday we played a non - unified modern trio with two Junds and a Jeskai. Jund record was 0-4 for us, losing to Boggles, Storm, Humans and abzan counters. I feel that other than boggles we should be at least somewhat favored in those matches ; bad luck notwithstanding (as in, I lost a game to Humans with both blood moon and anger of the gods in hand due to having only 2 lands even after drawing 7 cards thanks to a confidant), both my partner and I felt that the Elf was just stuck in our hands in those matches. I would have really loved some finks main board for them, maybe. But I can't find any 3-BBE list, it seems.
Yes I agree. But I really don't get why a player like Reid Duke keeps playing those 25 land, clunky lists with minimal GY hate (like I heard from coverage that he only has 1 Spellbomb and 1 Cage in the SB, and he doesn't run Anger either) when it clearly is not where you wanna be right now. Humans and Hollow One have to be beaten, otherwise playing in a tournament doesn't make sense at all to me.
I don't know why you all feel that the 25-land lists are super clunky, but that's neither here nor there.
More importantly, I've learned via experience that dedicated graveyard hate is fairly lame for the metagame. There are too many decks that use the graveyard but aren't dedicated graveyard decks so either I build my deck to wipe away those advantages or I don't bother with it.
And in my eyes Anger is not dedicated GY hate. If the 2 best decks in Modern are a deck heavily basing its gameplay on the GY (Hollow One) and a weenie deck, then I don't see a reason why e.g. Anger should not be really great here. Let alone for Humans, Anger might not be justified, because that type of deck is strategy-wise a good matchup for Jund. But Hollow One is a deck that is hard for us to beat, and I really don't think its smart not bothering with that matchup at all, because the other decks on the format don't use the GY that much.
Honestly I think a card like Spellbomb is far more applicable against the field than Ancient Grudge, which is a card that most people here insist being a 2-of. I would actually consider that card more lame against the field than Spellbomb.