I've been toying around with an alternate reality list lately that is pretty fun. But beware, I don't think it's actually good. It might be good in the alternate reality where Cavern of Souls doesn't exist (or isn't widely played), but that isn't our reality.
You could easily shave an IOK for another removal spell or a Grim Flayer, I think. Or play with the SB slots. But this is the sort of Shadow shell I *want* to be good. Because Mana Leak feels GREAT here. Just absolutely incredible. It's such a great catch all. But then you get paired against Humans or Spirits and die. Not a tenable position to be in, unless you just REALLY want to beat the big mana decks. But boy do you crush randomness.
Even against Spirits it doesn't seem terrible. At least you can hit Coco or PTE.. but against Humans they have Vial and Cavern so counters can be lame.
I saw a list recently that packed an additional 2 Push in the sideboard (with 2 main). Maybe this could be a technique here to swap out the Leaks against Humans? Per your recent praise of GCR, how do you feel it would slot in to a list like this? Not necessary? Have you faced any dredge or H1?
The decision to play 0 Ghor-Clan in that list is for a couple reasons. First, it's minimizing red mana, so fewer red spells makes that easier. Second, it's still a 4 color list in more matchups, which means the mana is more fragile, which makes Manamorphose more attractive, which means you need to find space. And third, the countermagic makes you better at winning longer games since you can better answer arbitrary things, which makes the appeal of Ghor-Clan smaller.
That said, I could certainly still see finding room for Ghor-Clan, because it's that good in some matchups. But I don't think it's necessary for dredge in this shell. The countermagic does a lot to prevent them from closing. Though obviously Ghor-Clan would improve the deck's win percentage against dredge. Where it would really shine is vs. Humans and Spirits, but that's just not the alternate reality I'm living in . Maybe it's a SB card.
Interestingly, dredge seems to have dropped off the map on MTGO. I've played against it 0 times in my last 3-4 leagues (over the last 4ish days). But I'm running into a ton of R(U) Arclight Phoenix decks, and a decent amount of Grixis Whir, where the countermagic is great and Ghor-Clan is mopey. It could easily just be random noise though.
I won my last 4 fnm being undefeated and one of my oponent (A dude that I face very often
because he's a great player) decided to play a deck suppose to destroy (in his opinion) DS deck's. (Tribal Zoo burn)
I think my best chance is arround TBR; What would you side against it? more Cbrutality?
My gameplan is playing the control game on the first turn. Let him use his burn spell then
drop my creatures. Never fought this deck before. Anyone?
Sideboard (15)
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Surgical extraction
2 collective brutality
2 liliana, the last hope
2 Anger of the god
1 Choke
1 Hazoret, the fervent
1 Ghor Clan Rampager
1 Temur Battle rage
2 Ancient Grudge
If that is your rival's exact list, then I think you should be in good shape. He has zero Path to Exile which is great for you. His creatures are slower then classic Boros Burn, and he's using Risk Factor which seems clunky and slow (could be wrong about that one).
But overall I would say your list needs to be faster. If BBE is working for you then I won't criticise, but it doesn't add up for me. Many of my games don't get me up to 4 lands so I couldn't bare to play a card like that. Tarfire seems better than Seal of Fire because it is specifically two types in one. Instant speed means you can hide it from your opponent.
No Inquisition of Kozilek and no counterspells mean you will likely be weaker to burn decks in any form. Assassin's Trophy also seems less than ideal unless you expect a lot of UW control or Tron.
@Spooly - I expect you're slam-dunking on the Arclight decks as well as lanternless whir decks? Personally I'm really excited for the meta to shift away from UW and Jund because those are the only consistently impossible match-ups for us. I finally got a new laptop so I'll be able to start grinding out MTGO reps again, and checking out the shifting meta game
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
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If that is your rival's exact list, then I think you should be in good shape. He has zero Path to Exile which is great for you. His creatures are slower then classic Boros Burn, and he's using Risk Factor which seems clunky and slow (could be wrong about that one).
But overall I would say your list needs to be faster. If BBE is working for you then I won't criticise, but it doesn't add up for me. Many of my games don't get me up to 4 lands so I couldn't bare to play a card like that. Tarfire seems better than Seal of Fire because it is specifically two types in one. Instant speed means you can hide it from your opponent.
No Inquisition of Kozilek and no counterspells mean you will likely be weaker to burn decks in any form. Assassin's Trophy also seems less than ideal unless you expect a lot of UW control or Tron.
@Spooly - I expect you're slam-dunking on the Arclight decks as well as lanternless whir decks? Personally I'm really excited for the meta to shift away from UW and Jund because those are the only consistently impossible match-ups for us. I finally got a new laptop so I'll be able to start grinding out MTGO reps again, and checking out the shifting meta game
Thank you, I won against him in final (= Another 4-0 undefeated FNM with that list.
(played 3 cbrutality and 2 tbr in sb.)
I use seal of fire for the tempo (turn 1 then turn2 goyf + removal) and because it's a better
cascade than tarfire for BBE. And yes, BBE is doing an amazing job for me. I play this deck since
she's unbanned. She's a house. 4 lands is not a problem for me tho. I feel favored against UW control and tradional jund.
18 lands + 4 traverse + 8 cantrip is enaugh to get it done. My deck doesnt always look for the turn 3-4 kill.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
I don't think Souls are that great right now, they just prolong the game but don't really tend to flip the advantage to your end of the board in my experience. I like Bedlam Reveler as a grindy option if you can make the RR work.
How was Collective Brutality against domain zoo? Seems odd being the only creatures you can hit are Noble and BBE. But even the other two modes are useful.
How often do you cast BBE and flip a total dud such as Bauble or Traverse (with no delirium)? There are other examples as well
How was Collective Brutality against domain zoo? Seems odd being the only creatures you can hit are Noble and BBE. But even the other two modes are useful.
How often do you cast BBE and flip a total dud such as Bauble or Traverse (with no delirium)? There are other examples as well
His list changed a bit, since he lost to me yesterday. (he was also playing Qasali and knight)
Discard Helix, Bolt, Boros, Tribal Flames and more. And gain life if I need to.
Collective brutality has been OK yesterday so far. The master card was TBR against Zoo.
Not having delirium on turn 4 is something that very very rarely happens. Same for having 13 life or more.
Unless, I'm very behind and I have to try something, I won't cast it.
20-0 with the list at FNM level.. and great results online. I'm pretty sure this list have some potential.
@Spooly - I expect you're slam-dunking on the Arclight decks as well as lanternless whir decks? Personally I'm really excited for the meta to shift away from UW and Jund because those are the only consistently impossible match-ups for us. I finally got a new laptop so I'll be able to start grinding out MTGO reps again, and checking out the shifting meta game
I've been beating up on the Arclight decks, yeah. The dredge decks disappeared and Arclight took its place (at least in my leagues), but I'm crushing either way for the most part. The Whir matchup has been more even. I've also been doing pretty well against UW too, just ripping their hand apart, dumping all my threats, and forcing them to find more Terminus than I have counterspells. It hasn't been good, but it hasn't been bad either.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
Nothing really can replace Lingering Souls, but I don't think it's worth it anyway. It's only OK against the control decks, which have lots of wraths, and isn't that good against Mardu, who have way more token generators than we do. It is pretty great against BGx decks specifically though. But it's so hard to gain percentage points in grindy matchups and so much easier to gain percentage points in other matchups. If there's that much grindy stuff running around, the best thing to do is switch to a different deck, honestly. It's too hard to improve those matchups.
But the best nonwhite grindy option is Hazoret, though it's weak to path. As far as the other options: P&K is decent if you can make RR work (probably not worth it), Bedlam Reveler seems like it would be better, but it's actually a bit tough for us to enable even with 4 Manamorphose, Bloodbraid Elf is decent but sometimes it finds you trash (non-delirium Traverse, Bauble, Thoughtseize when you're at a super low life total), K Command is a nice 2 for 1... but not against decks which don't put your creatures in your GY (UWx), planeswalkers can be great but are highly matchup dependent, and so on. I'm inclined to just have 1-2 Hazoret, and try to kill them fast, but really just hope to dodge.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
I don't think Souls are that great right now, they just prolong the game but don't really tend to flip the advantage to your end of the board in my experience. I like Bedlam Reveler as a grindy option if you can make the RR work.
@Spooly - I expect you're slam-dunking on the Arclight decks as well as lanternless whir decks? Personally I'm really excited for the meta to shift away from UW and Jund because those are the only consistently impossible match-ups for us. I finally got a new laptop so I'll be able to start grinding out MTGO reps again, and checking out the shifting meta game
I've been beating up on the Arclight decks, yeah. The dredge decks disappeared and Arclight took its place (at least in my leagues), but I'm crushing either way for the most part. The Whir matchup has been more even. I've also been doing pretty well against UW too, just ripping their hand apart, dumping all my threats, and forcing them to find more Terminus than I have counterspells. It hasn't been good, but it hasn't been bad either.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
Nothing really can replace Lingering Souls, but I don't think it's worth it anyway. It's only OK against the control decks, which have lots of wraths, and isn't that good against Mardu, who have way more token generators than we do. It is pretty great against BGx decks specifically though. But it's so hard to gain percentage points in grindy matchups and so much easier to gain percentage points in other matchups. If there's that much grindy stuff running around, the best thing to do is switch to a different deck, honestly. It's too hard to improve those matchups.
But the best nonwhite grindy option is Hazoret, though it's weak to path. As far as the other options: P&K is decent if you can make RR work (probably not worth it), Bedlam Reveler seems like it would be better, but it's actually a bit tough for us to enable even with 4 Manamorphose, Bloodbraid Elf is decent but sometimes it finds you trash (non-delirium Traverse, Bauble, Thoughtseize when you're at a super low life total), K Command is a nice 2 for 1... but not against decks which don't put your creatures in your GY (UWx), planeswalkers can be great but are highly matchup dependent, and so on. I'm inclined to just have 1-2 Hazoret, and try to kill them fast, but really just hope to dodge.
Thanks, both for the elaborate responses. Ill give hazoret a shot for the time being. Pira and kiran naalar would be perfect if the RR wasn't so rough on our mana requirements; Maybe it works best in variants with manamorphose which could cast it even without having R mana available, or after getting one of your R lands blown up.
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I've never liked KCommand much. LOTV is powerful in a UW/BG heavy metagame but if yours is infested with Dredge and Humans I don't see the point in running her at all right now.
Personally I always keep a single KC in my Sideboard because it's so good against certain match-ups. It's also near useless against other decks so its SB material at best as far as I'm concerned.
LOTV comes in and out of my list from time to time, usually as a singleton. I'm usually disappointed too see her so it's staying out until I expect a metagame where she's more potent. Against Humans and Spirits she's at best a Tribute to Hunger and that's the match-up I want to be most prepared for.
I played a few pick-up games tonight against Arclight Phoenix, two different variations. The deck felt surprisingly weak. Record against one list was 3-0 and 2-0 against the other list. I don't see the angle of the deck working better than traditional burn. I haven't played against the new creeping dredge decks yet, but I'm confident.
Hollow One seems to be losing metagame presence which I consider a bad thing for us, because it's usually an easy win in my experience. UW and Jund are still my nemeses. I've won a game here and there against UW, and I believe my grand total record against Jund is 1-X in god knows how many practice matches with my team.
----
If Amulet Titan is expected to see a Resurgence, what are our best plans against them? Personally I like Delay and Fulminator Mage. Here are something others I thought of:
I think Tunnel Ignus is better than Zo-Zu if you want to get cute with super-narrow sideboard cards, as it comes down a turn sooner, doesn't require double red and hits for 3. Delay is an amazing catch-all and we already have our main TBR plan in place. I love Shadow of Doubt but I think it's too narrow as well. Should be alright in general.
Neither is a great option against Scapeshift though so I guess it's probably too narrow, as you said.
I've only played one match against Amulet Titan (that I recall) and it really took me by surprise game 1. I was surprised how few main deck answers I had for it. But in retrospect, any deck that virtually doesn't interact at all for the first 3-4 turns should be easy for us with TBR.
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Polluted Delta
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Street Wraith
3 Manamorphose
4 Death's Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Mana Leak
2 Fatal Push
2 Dismember
1 Tarfire
2 Temur Battle Rage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Delay
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Hazoret, the Fervent
1 Hostage Taker
1 Radiant Flames
1 Languish
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Assassin's Trophy
1 Grim Lavamancer
You could easily shave an IOK for another removal spell or a Grim Flayer, I think. Or play with the SB slots. But this is the sort of Shadow shell I *want* to be good. Because Mana Leak feels GREAT here. Just absolutely incredible. It's such a great catch all. But then you get paired against Humans or Spirits and die. Not a tenable position to be in, unless you just REALLY want to beat the big mana decks. But boy do you crush randomness.
I saw a list recently that packed an additional 2 Push in the sideboard (with 2 main). Maybe this could be a technique here to swap out the Leaks against Humans? Per your recent praise of GCR, how do you feel it would slot in to a list like this? Not necessary? Have you faced any dredge or H1?
Draft My Cube!
That said, I could certainly still see finding room for Ghor-Clan, because it's that good in some matchups. But I don't think it's necessary for dredge in this shell. The countermagic does a lot to prevent them from closing. Though obviously Ghor-Clan would improve the deck's win percentage against dredge. Where it would really shine is vs. Humans and Spirits, but that's just not the alternate reality I'm living in . Maybe it's a SB card.
Interestingly, dredge seems to have dropped off the map on MTGO. I've played against it 0 times in my last 3-4 leagues (over the last 4ish days). But I'm running into a ton of R(U) Arclight Phoenix decks, and a decent amount of Grixis Whir, where the countermagic is great and Ghor-Clan is mopey. It could easily just be random noise though.
Seems like you're missing two cards in the main there - KCommand perhaps?
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Edited to fix: it was Grim Flayer.
because he's a great player) decided to play a deck suppose to destroy (in his opinion) DS deck's. (Tribal Zoo burn)
Here his list:
https://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?ref=572307&fbclid=IwAR09bg6CbgIFIYx5TDtgGBnr-32m5hQR0OQwsXn18drZOXlFNhibzIgkLVQ
I think my best chance is arround TBR; What would you side against it? more Cbrutality?
My gameplan is playing the control game on the first turn. Let him use his burn spell then
drop my creatures. Never fought this deck before. Anyone?
Here's my list:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Death's shadow
4 Street wraith
4 Bloodbraid elf
Instant(10)
3 Fatal push
1 Dismember
4 Assassin's trophy
2 Kolaghan's command
Sorcery(8)
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
Enchantment(2)
2 Seal of fire
Artifact(4)
4 Mishra's Bauble
Planeswalker(2)
2 Liliana of the veil
Land(18)
4 Verdant catacombs
4 Bloodstained mire
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Overgrown tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood crypt
Sideboard (15)
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Surgical extraction
2 collective brutality
2 liliana, the last hope
2 Anger of the god
1 Choke
1 Hazoret, the fervent
1 Ghor Clan Rampager
1 Temur Battle rage
2 Ancient Grudge
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
But overall I would say your list needs to be faster. If BBE is working for you then I won't criticise, but it doesn't add up for me. Many of my games don't get me up to 4 lands so I couldn't bare to play a card like that. Tarfire seems better than Seal of Fire because it is specifically two types in one. Instant speed means you can hide it from your opponent.
No Inquisition of Kozilek and no counterspells mean you will likely be weaker to burn decks in any form. Assassin's Trophy also seems less than ideal unless you expect a lot of UW control or Tron.
@Spooly - I expect you're slam-dunking on the Arclight decks as well as lanternless whir decks? Personally I'm really excited for the meta to shift away from UW and Jund because those are the only consistently impossible match-ups for us. I finally got a new laptop so I'll be able to start grinding out MTGO reps again, and checking out the shifting meta game
Draft My Cube!
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
Thank you, I won against him in final (= Another 4-0 undefeated FNM with that list.
(played 3 cbrutality and 2 tbr in sb.)
I use seal of fire for the tempo (turn 1 then turn2 goyf + removal) and because it's a better
cascade than tarfire for BBE. And yes, BBE is doing an amazing job for me. I play this deck since
she's unbanned. She's a house. 4 lands is not a problem for me tho. I feel favored against UW control and tradional jund.
18 lands + 4 traverse + 8 cantrip is enaugh to get it done. My deck doesnt always look for the turn 3-4 kill.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
I don't think Souls are that great right now, they just prolong the game but don't really tend to flip the advantage to your end of the board in my experience. I like Bedlam Reveler as a grindy option if you can make the RR work.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
How often do you cast BBE and flip a total dud such as Bauble or Traverse (with no delirium)? There are other examples as well
Draft My Cube!
His list changed a bit, since he lost to me yesterday. (he was also playing Qasali and knight)
Discard Helix, Bolt, Boros, Tribal Flames and more. And gain life if I need to.
Collective brutality has been OK yesterday so far. The master card was TBR against Zoo.
Not having delirium on turn 4 is something that very very rarely happens. Same for having 13 life or more.
Unless, I'm very behind and I have to try something, I won't cast it.
20-0 with the list at FNM level.. and great results online. I'm pretty sure this list have some potential.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
I've been beating up on the Arclight decks, yeah. The dredge decks disappeared and Arclight took its place (at least in my leagues), but I'm crushing either way for the most part. The Whir matchup has been more even. I've also been doing pretty well against UW too, just ripping their hand apart, dumping all my threats, and forcing them to find more Terminus than I have counterspells. It hasn't been good, but it hasn't been bad either.
Nothing really can replace Lingering Souls, but I don't think it's worth it anyway. It's only OK against the control decks, which have lots of wraths, and isn't that good against Mardu, who have way more token generators than we do. It is pretty great against BGx decks specifically though. But it's so hard to gain percentage points in grindy matchups and so much easier to gain percentage points in other matchups. If there's that much grindy stuff running around, the best thing to do is switch to a different deck, honestly. It's too hard to improve those matchups.
But the best nonwhite grindy option is Hazoret, though it's weak to path. As far as the other options: P&K is decent if you can make RR work (probably not worth it), Bedlam Reveler seems like it would be better, but it's actually a bit tough for us to enable even with 4 Manamorphose, Bloodbraid Elf is decent but sometimes it finds you trash (non-delirium Traverse, Bauble, Thoughtseize when you're at a super low life total), K Command is a nice 2 for 1... but not against decks which don't put your creatures in your GY (UWx), planeswalkers can be great but are highly matchup dependent, and so on. I'm inclined to just have 1-2 Hazoret, and try to kill them fast, but really just hope to dodge.
Thanks, both for the elaborate responses. Ill give hazoret a shot for the time being. Pira and kiran naalar would be perfect if the RR wasn't so rough on our mana requirements; Maybe it works best in variants with manamorphose which could cast it even without having R mana available, or after getting one of your R lands blown up.
DECK IS INSANE!
Everything you do is super powerful. T3-T4 kill is fairly consistent but you play midrange well enough.
Would you mind elaborating? Sharing a list or some techniques you've found useful
Draft My Cube!
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Personally I always keep a single KC in my Sideboard because it's so good against certain match-ups. It's also near useless against other decks so its SB material at best as far as I'm concerned.
LOTV comes in and out of my list from time to time, usually as a singleton. I'm usually disappointed too see her so it's staying out until I expect a metagame where she's more potent. Against Humans and Spirits she's at best a Tribute to Hunger and that's the match-up I want to be most prepared for.
I played a few pick-up games tonight against Arclight Phoenix, two different variations. The deck felt surprisingly weak. Record against one list was 3-0 and 2-0 against the other list. I don't see the angle of the deck working better than traditional burn. I haven't played against the new creeping dredge decks yet, but I'm confident.
Hollow One seems to be losing metagame presence which I consider a bad thing for us, because it's usually an easy win in my experience. UW and Jund are still my nemeses. I've won a game here and there against UW, and I believe my grand total record against Jund is 1-X in god knows how many practice matches with my team.
----
If Amulet Titan is expected to see a Resurgence, what are our best plans against them? Personally I like Delay and Fulminator Mage. Here are something others I thought of:
Draft My Cube!
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I've only played one match against Amulet Titan (that I recall) and it really took me by surprise game 1. I was surprised how few main deck answers I had for it. But in retrospect, any deck that virtually doesn't interact at all for the first 3-4 turns should be easy for us with TBR.
Draft My Cube!