Traverse finds you a threat - U cantrips sometimes just spin your wheels without putting a threat into play. It's the main reason I switched to Traverse Shadow. I found myself scouring into visions into scour and nothing was going on in the meantime. This cost me quite a few games that I had no business losing. Very frustrating.
Grixis is definitely better at grinding though, Snap and Kcommand are immensely powerful cards.
Went 3-0 at locals, i feel theres too many decks trying to prey on regular Jund,
Im still playing the stock 4c Shadow list from before the banlist. Ie no manamorphose (Havent gotten around to testing them)
2-1 Vs Vizier Elves
Removal and sweepers win this game, this is a good matchup. The game I lost was by a topdecked path to exile after I made sure he had no answer with a thoughtseize.
2-0 vs Burn
Always exciting matchup, theres a lot of burn floating around. It seems to me this is a favourable matchup but its close. Won both games off the back of temur battle rage and quick maths.
2-0 Vs Infect
Another matchup that feels favourable, we run too much removal
Went 3-0 at locals, i feel theres too many decks trying to prey on regular Jund,
Im still playing the stock 4c Shadow list from before the banlist. Ie no manamorphose (Havent gotten around to testing them)
2-1 Vs Vizier Elves
Removal and sweepers win this game, this is a good matchup. The game I lost was by a topdecked path to exile after I made sure he had no answer with a thoughtseize.
2-0 vs Burn
Always exciting matchup, theres a lot of burn floating around. It seems to me this is a favourable matchup but its close. Won both games off the back of temur battle rage and quick maths.
2-0 Vs Infect
Another matchup that feels favourable, we run too much removal
Could post your stock list please? I'm on DS just since the unban.
Went 3-0 at locals, i feel theres too many decks trying to prey on regular Jund,
Im still playing the stock 4c Shadow list from before the banlist. Ie no manamorphose (Havent gotten around to testing them)
2-1 Vs Vizier Elves
Removal and sweepers win this game, this is a good matchup. The game I lost was by a topdecked path to exile after I made sure he had no answer with a thoughtseize.
2-0 vs Burn
Always exciting matchup, theres a lot of burn floating around. It seems to me this is a favourable matchup but its close. Won both games off the back of temur battle rage and quick maths.
2-0 Vs Infect
Another matchup that feels favourable, we run too much removal
Could post your stock list please? I'm on DS just since the unban.
Heres the list, might be a tad outdated as people are cutiing a land and the 3 lotv and running 4 manamophose instead. Also should find a spot for abrade in the side as it has better utility against hollow one and humans.
I've been playing a list running Faithless Looting lately, has anyone else ever tried playing this card in Traverse Shadow? It feels like I never run out of gas and I haven't really had issues with grindier matchups because their removal just isn't tailored for Death's Shadow right now. I did feel like I needed to drop the blue splash because of the additional strain on the mana base, but Damping Sphere seems like it'll help fill the gaps left behind by the loss of Stubborn Denial.
It feels like a better version of what Manamorphose generally does for the deck. It provides additional card filtering (which is huge in a deck running 8 discard spells that are usually dead after turn 5), fuels delirium very aggressively, is better than Manamorphose in a 1-land hand, and generally just makes it very difficult for decks to run you completely out of gas. I think that Faithless Looting is really underplayed in Modern and after seeing the success of Mardu Pyromancer and Hollow One I wanted to give it a shot.
This is what I'm looking to run through my next Modern league:
Up until this point I've still been playing the blue splash for Stubborn Denial and Delay, but those cards aren't super well positioned right now so I'm going to try a straight Jund configuration. I haven't actually played the Revelers yet (previously a Hazoret and a Radiant Flames), but I want to see if the deck has enough spells to support them. If they're not good then I'll just go back to the previous two cards, which are fairly proven at this point. This deck is also so good at turning on delirium that I may swap the Grim Flayer out for the 4th Traverse.
Good points, but it doesn't accelerate your draws quite like Manamorphose does as it costs mana. Still like the idea though, let us know how the testing goes!
I played Jund DS at my last modern event, and I didn't really like the manamorphose. It just felt clunky, and made my opening hand keep/mull decisions harder (because of the randomness of the manamorphose draw). I think I'm going to try the Faithless Looting tonight.
I think I'm going to run your exact mainboard, and change up the SB a bit to better fit my store's metagame. I like the two Young Pyros though. I felt like I could never beat a LotV with the list I was running. But cutting the Stubborn Denials makes me feel like I can never beat burn.
My plan for burn with the above list is:
-4 Street Wraith
-2 Dismember
-2 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Damping Sphere
+2 Young Pyromancer
+2 Grim Lavamancer
Brutality is an obvious inclusion. Damping Sphere makes sense to me on paper because of the way Burn has to play the matchup. They're usually looking to poke us down with creatures and then burn us out over 1-2 turns with 3-4 spells. If Sphere can buy an extra turn or 2, I think it can have as much of an impact as Stubborn Denial, with the upside of not requiring fetching the splash color or holding up mana. They Pyros and the Lavamen just seem better than Dismember and the two Thoughtseize, and Burn is likely to cut Searing Blaze because it's bad agains Goyf and Shadow.
I think that Burn will be challenging to sequence and navigate but I think this list could do it with tight play. If it feels really bad I would just find room for a 3rd Brutality.
2x Abrade
1x Bedlam Reveler
1x Hazoret
2x Collective Brutality
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Maelstorm Pulse
1x Golgari Charm
2x Radiant Flames
1x Temur Battle Rage
2x Young Pyromancer
I think with his board against burn, i do:
-4 Street Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Abrade
+1 TBR
The CBs and TBRs are obvious, but I think Abrade is fine because it can kill Ensnaring Bridge. I don't have much to work with in the board against burn. But I guess you can't SB against them all, right?
Looks reasonable to me. I would also bring in your Young Pyros over your Dismembers and the Reveler over a Thoughtseize. It's really important to be presenting a threat on turn 2/3 in this matchup (especially without Stub), and it's probably bad for the burn player if they kill your Pyro (spells not going at your face) and bad if they don't (Pyro doing Pyro stuff). Reveler helps you dig to Brutality or refill after escalating one.
I usually fetch for Blood Crypt -> Stomping Ground -> Overgrown Tomb, unless I'm planning to play 2 discard spells on turn 2. This deck does a lot with it's red mana, and when I was first trying out the deck and fetching Overgrown Tomb -> Blood Crypt -> Stomping Ground I found often found myself choked on red mana in the early turns.
Looting has some advantages over Manamorphose, which have been stated, but keep in mind that Looting not necessarily helps fixing our mana and is actually card disadvantage, wheras Manamorphose helps with the mana and is even in terms of CA.
For me, the delirium aspect is probably the biggest factor that makes Looting interesting.
It is disadvantage, but most of the time you'll have something you don't mind getting rid of- discard spells, Traverse without delirium, excess lands. It helps shave dead cards as you segue into the mid game and let you keep the pressure on longer. I have had to adjust my mana base and spell distribution, it's really hard to make everything work when playing 4 colors. If I had the cards I'd try Grixis shadow with 4 Looting instead of Serum Visions.
It is disadvantage, but most of the time you'll have something you don't mind getting rid of- discard spells, Traverse without delirium, excess lands. It helps shave dead cards as you segue into the mid game and let you keep the pressure on longer. I have had to adjust my mana base and spell distribution, it's really hard to make everything work when playing 4 colors. If I had the cards I'd try Grixis shadow with 4 Looting instead of Serum Visions.
It is true, the drawback of negative CA is probably not that high here since the deck wants to kill the opponent fast. The extra card selection could help to do so. However, investing 1 mana into it could also be a problem, especially since the deck does not seek longer games. It could restrict the development of your board to a certain extent.
I went 3-1 at the Modern event last night. Lost to Free Win Red where he got some free wins (t1 blood moon on the play?). Looting felt really good, but there was definitely too many. They were really good, but were not good in multiples. I think it's because I really wanted to deploy my hand out to get ahead on board, and THEN looting to find what I need to finish the game. So when I had two in hand, I couldn't effectively get a fast deployment. So I think I want to cut down to 2 Looting, and replace them with 2 Manamorphose. One issue I realized was that by cutting Stubborn Denial, I had trouble getting an instant in the yard when I was up against decks where I cut my removal.
If I had the cards I'd try Grixis shadow with 4 Looting instead of Serum Visions.
Why would you want to loot aggressively in a deck that doesn't care about delirium? GDS already runs Thought Scour to fuel delve.
Because while Grixis doesn’t care about delirium, it does care about fueling delve. Having both of your cantrips dump 2+ cards in the yard can help increase the consistency of a turn 2 Angler, or refill for a second one. It may not be as good in Grixis as I’ve had it be in Traverse, but I’d still want to try it.
They were really good, but were not good in multiples. I think it's because I really wanted to deploy my hand out to get ahead on board, and THEN looting to find what I need to finish the game. So when I had two in hand, I couldn't effectively get a fast deployment. So I think I want to cut down to 2 Looting, and replace themu with 2 Manamorphose. One issue I realized was that by cutting Stubborn Denial, I had trouble getting an instant in the yard when I was up against decks where I cut my removal.
Was your issue with multiples that you didn’t have enough other relevant cards? I haven’t really found multiples to be an issue because you can either discard them to each other if your hand is really good, or just play them otherwise. I’m glad you did well though, did you get to cast Bedlam Reveler at all?
They were really good, but were not good in multiples. I think it's because I really wanted to deploy my hand out to get ahead on board, and THEN looting to find what I need to finish the game. So when I had two in hand, I couldn't effectively get a fast deployment. So I think I want to cut down to 2 Looting, and replace themu with 2 Manamorphose. One issue I realized was that by cutting Stubborn Denial, I had trouble getting an instant in the yard when I was up against decks where I cut my removal.
Was your issue with multiples that you didn’t have enough other relevant cards? I haven’t really found multiples to be an issue because you can either discard them to each other if your hand is really good, or just play them otherwise. I’m glad you did well though, did you get to cast Bedlam Reveler at all?
The issue I had was I wanted to use all my mana on T1-T3, and having to cast the looting was like wasting the 1 mana because it didn't advance my board at all, and we all know that this deck doesn't work well from behind. It's weird to complain about a 1-mana spell tying up our mana, but it did. I actually cut the remaining two and went back to manamorphose. Mainly because there's like 5 different blood moon decks every modern night at the place I play at.
I've also been having trouble getting delirium reliably. I think I want to turn my 2 bolts back into Tarfires. It makes the humans matchup a bit worse, but I think overall it's a good change. I'm never really bolting my opponent for lethal, and tarfire kills most stuff we need it to. And in matchups where I need to find a threat ASAP (like blood moon decks, tron, combo, etc) I can just EOT Tarfire myself and basically turn on delirium by itself.
I also think I want to run a single Architects of Will. Just for an extra delirium Enabler. Plus I'm on 17 lands, and sometimes struggle to hit that 2nd or 3rd land.
I generally play Looting as one of the last cards in my hand to try to ditch dead/dying cards while segueing into the midgame, so I could see going down to 3 so that you don't draw too many of them early on. I'm still messing around with manabases and color configurations, I think I want to try Lingering Souls instead of Young Pyro/Hazoret/Reveler in the sideboard with no blue. It really feels like there's something there, but parts of the deck are still a little clunkier than I want them to be.
Im going to test out the manamorphose builds, but im cutting stubborn denials and blue completely out of the 75.
Stub feels bad with all the humans, hollow ones, jund decks around, and the rest of blue cards in the side were usually to fend off tron, control and big mana decks which are on the down low at the moment. Instead ill be running lingering souls package out of the side which feels better against jund, mardu and humans.
1. Is this thought process right? is stub and blue still good enough to keep in the 75 vs white?
2. How do you usually fare with the manamorphose build when it comes to running 17 lands? Do you ever fall short in hitting your second land? 18 felt good enough to consistently keep 1 landers. Do you even run out manamorphose as soon as you hit 2 lands for the cantrip, without knowing if you can draw into anything to make use of the 2 mana?
3. Im debating if I should keep in 2 lotv or add 2 bolts instead. or if i should scrap that completely and bring back 2 stubs into the main.
Grixis is definitely better at grinding though, Snap and Kcommand are immensely powerful cards.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Im still playing the stock 4c Shadow list from before the banlist. Ie no manamorphose (Havent gotten around to testing them)
2-1 Vs Vizier Elves
Removal and sweepers win this game, this is a good matchup. The game I lost was by a topdecked path to exile after I made sure he had no answer with a thoughtseize.
2-0 vs Burn
Always exciting matchup, theres a lot of burn floating around. It seems to me this is a favourable matchup but its close. Won both games off the back of temur battle rage and quick maths.
2-0 Vs Infect
Another matchup that feels favourable, we run too much removal
Could post your stock list please? I'm on DS just since the unban.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
Heres the list, might be a tad outdated as people are cutiing a land and the 3 lotv and running 4 manamophose instead. Also should find a spot for abrade in the side as it has better utility against hollow one and humans.
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Grim Flayer
4 Street Wraith
4 Death's Shadow
Land
1 Breeding Pool
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Mishra's Bauble
Instant
1 Dismember
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Battle Rage
4 Fatal Push
Sorcery
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
Planeswalker
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Godless Shrine
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Abrade
1 Golgari Charm
1 Radiant Flames
2 Collective Brutality
3 Lingering Souls
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
This is what I'm looking to run through my next Modern league:
2x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Forest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Stomping Ground
1x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Wooded Foothills
Creature (13)
4x Death's Shadow
1x Grim Flayer
4x Street Wraith
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Dismember
3x Fatal Push
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Temur Battle Rage
Sorcery (15)
4x Faithless Looting
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
3x Traverse the Ulvenwald
Artifact (4)
4x Mishra's Bauble
1x Ancient Grudge
1 Abrade
2x Bedlam Reveler
2x Collective Brutality
2x Damping Sphere
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Golgari Charm
2x Grim Lavamancer
1x Magus of the Moon
2x Young Pyromancer
Up until this point I've still been playing the blue splash for Stubborn Denial and Delay, but those cards aren't super well positioned right now so I'm going to try a straight Jund configuration. I haven't actually played the Revelers yet (previously a Hazoret and a Radiant Flames), but I want to see if the deck has enough spells to support them. If they're not good then I'll just go back to the previous two cards, which are fairly proven at this point. This deck is also so good at turning on delirium that I may swap the Grim Flayer out for the 4th Traverse.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I think I'm going to run your exact mainboard, and change up the SB a bit to better fit my store's metagame. I like the two Young Pyros though. I felt like I could never beat a LotV with the list I was running. But cutting the Stubborn Denials makes me feel like I can never beat burn.
-4 Street Wraith
-2 Dismember
-2 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Damping Sphere
+2 Young Pyromancer
+2 Grim Lavamancer
Brutality is an obvious inclusion. Damping Sphere makes sense to me on paper because of the way Burn has to play the matchup. They're usually looking to poke us down with creatures and then burn us out over 1-2 turns with 3-4 spells. If Sphere can buy an extra turn or 2, I think it can have as much of an impact as Stubborn Denial, with the upside of not requiring fetching the splash color or holding up mana. They Pyros and the Lavamen just seem better than Dismember and the two Thoughtseize, and Burn is likely to cut Searing Blaze because it's bad agains Goyf and Shadow.
I think that Burn will be challenging to sequence and navigate but I think this list could do it with tight play. If it feels really bad I would just find room for a 3rd Brutality.
2x Abrade
1x Bedlam Reveler
1x Hazoret
2x Collective Brutality
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Maelstorm Pulse
1x Golgari Charm
2x Radiant Flames
1x Temur Battle Rage
2x Young Pyromancer
I think with his board against burn, i do:
-4 Street Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Abrade
+1 TBR
The CBs and TBRs are obvious, but I think Abrade is fine because it can kill Ensnaring Bridge. I don't have much to work with in the board against burn. But I guess you can't SB against them all, right?
I usually fetch for Blood Crypt -> Stomping Ground -> Overgrown Tomb, unless I'm planning to play 2 discard spells on turn 2. This deck does a lot with it's red mana, and when I was first trying out the deck and fetching Overgrown Tomb -> Blood Crypt -> Stomping Ground I found often found myself choked on red mana in the early turns.
Good luck, please let us know how it goes!
For me, the delirium aspect is probably the biggest factor that makes Looting interesting.
It is true, the drawback of negative CA is probably not that high here since the deck wants to kill the opponent fast. The extra card selection could help to do so. However, investing 1 mana into it could also be a problem, especially since the deck does not seek longer games. It could restrict the development of your board to a certain extent.
Why would you want to loot aggressively in a deck that doesn't care about delirium? GDS already runs Thought Scour to fuel delve.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Because while Grixis doesn’t care about delirium, it does care about fueling delve. Having both of your cantrips dump 2+ cards in the yard can help increase the consistency of a turn 2 Angler, or refill for a second one. It may not be as good in Grixis as I’ve had it be in Traverse, but I’d still want to try it.
Was your issue with multiples that you didn’t have enough other relevant cards? I haven’t really found multiples to be an issue because you can either discard them to each other if your hand is really good, or just play them otherwise. I’m glad you did well though, did you get to cast Bedlam Reveler at all?
The issue I had was I wanted to use all my mana on T1-T3, and having to cast the looting was like wasting the 1 mana because it didn't advance my board at all, and we all know that this deck doesn't work well from behind. It's weird to complain about a 1-mana spell tying up our mana, but it did. I actually cut the remaining two and went back to manamorphose. Mainly because there's like 5 different blood moon decks every modern night at the place I play at.
I've also been having trouble getting delirium reliably. I think I want to turn my 2 bolts back into Tarfires. It makes the humans matchup a bit worse, but I think overall it's a good change. I'm never really bolting my opponent for lethal, and tarfire kills most stuff we need it to. And in matchups where I need to find a threat ASAP (like blood moon decks, tron, combo, etc) I can just EOT Tarfire myself and basically turn on delirium by itself.
I also think I want to run a single Architects of Will. Just for an extra delirium Enabler. Plus I'm on 17 lands, and sometimes struggle to hit that 2nd or 3rd land.
This article came out today, which makes me feel a little less crazy: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37034_Faithless-Looting-Is-Brainstorm.html
Stub feels bad with all the humans, hollow ones, jund decks around, and the rest of blue cards in the side were usually to fend off tron, control and big mana decks which are on the down low at the moment. Instead ill be running lingering souls package out of the side which feels better against jund, mardu and humans.
1. Is this thought process right? is stub and blue still good enough to keep in the 75 vs white?
2. How do you usually fare with the manamorphose build when it comes to running 17 lands? Do you ever fall short in hitting your second land? 18 felt good enough to consistently keep 1 landers. Do you even run out manamorphose as soon as you hit 2 lands for the cantrip, without knowing if you can draw into anything to make use of the 2 mana?
3. Im debating if I should keep in 2 lotv or add 2 bolts instead. or if i should scrap that completely and bring back 2 stubs into the main.