Since the changes required going from Grixis Control into Death's Shadow are pretty cheap, I decided to hop on the train.
I'm considering skipping the Fulminator/Molten Rain completetly, instead going for a more aggressive TBR combo supported with counterspells.
How about running Forked Bolt/Electrolyze against Lingering Souls? They have the upside of going upstairs, but another option could be Echoing Truths, that also lets us handle any disrupting enchantments while going for the kill, or in combination with a counterspell or hand disruption we can get rid of it for good.
And yeah, niether Forked Bolt or Electrolyze are perfect, but considering how bad bolt currently is I could see myself playing 2x Bolt and 1x Forked Bolt or something like that depending on how much of an issue chump blockers actually are. That said, I'm 100% behind the "slam TBR and ignore souls"-gameplan.
TBR just seems way too powerful to not play, even if our shell doesn't capitalize on it as well as DS Jund does. The ceiling is still very, very high.
I think most of us came to the conclusion that the white splash isn't worth it. Grixis can already grind well, we don't need Lingering Souls to do that. Also, I would swap your Push/Bolt numbers. Push is just the better removal spell in general.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I see a LOT of fair, dorky creature based strategies 5-0ing lately and much less shadows variants.. knightfall, abzan coco, vizier/druid combo, GWx value decks etc. Definitely movement to counteract the shadows menace I'm sure.
If this is the meta, what kind of changes can we make to our 75 I wonder? Seems like 2 Angers would be a must as a starting place. 2 battle rages in the 75 also.
Also, for the folks running battle rages, how do you determine whether to include battle rages post board?
General consensus is for grindy matchups you take them out because you risk getting 1-for-2'd. For a matchup like vs DSJ I'd agree because it's all about establishing board presence through threats and answers and not racing. But what about vs. abzan, for example? They have their paths, pulses, decays and pushes but I still feel like it may be necessary to run the battle rages.
Also, do you guys take out Denials in midrange matchups? For DSJ/Abzan/mirror I find myself doing so to get as threat/answer dense as possible, but not cutting discard as that can still take planeswalkers and other goods. Obviously that leaves us open to topdecks though
I see a LOT of fair, dorky creature based strategies 5-0ing lately and much less shadows variants.. knightfall, abzan coco, vizier/druid combo, GWx value decks etc. Definitely movement to counteract the shadows menace I'm sure.
If this is the meta, what kind of changes can we make to our 75 I wonder? Seems like 2 Angers would be a must as a starting place. 2 battle rages in the 75 also.
That's my meta at home. I go with 2 AotG, 2 Battlerage, 2 LtLH.
yea that seems reasonable. it's also great that all of those have borader applications.
This deck is pretty powerful yes. I think it's the best blue deck since Splinter Twin but not as opressive,and also, i think it won't be banned since it's capable of healthily regulating the format making Control decks good and goldfishy decks a little worse.
Looks like that 5-0 deck played the 2 Deprives instead of Lightning Bolts. Also, -1 Serum Vision for additional Terminate. I like the Terminates with Eldrazi in the format, but Deprive scares me with it's mana restrictions.
First three games were the first I'd ever played with the deck, got mana screwed all 3. Then I won 4 of 5, finally getting a feel for it, only losing one game due to a top-decked lord turning his 3 dumb little fish into Islandwalking 3/x's for lethal. I'll tell you what, it felt REALLY good to play. Snapcaster has always been one of my favorite cards, so utilizing him here makes me a happy camper.
Overall I'm impressed with the deck, and will be seriously considering it in my ever-more-frantic search for my GP Vegas deck.
I'm currently on 3 main deck terminates and zero bolts. I'm also leaning towards dropping IoK although I'm not quite there yet. Too much graveyard shenanigans in my meta. I have 2 Temur Battle Rage in the side that come in versus any deck that I think I will lose to if the game goes long enough. This has served me better than trying to nit pick at their synergy.
Which SB cards do you find stelar vs Dredge?. Does Anger,Spellbomb and Surgical do anything?. Do you think we need something like 4 Leylines to beat the deck consistently?.
Assuming everyone plays 11-12 fetchlands, 1 island, 1 swamp, 2 watery grave, 1 steam vents and 1 bloody crypt it ultimately comes down to which red dual you want. When it comes to blue vs black I feel that our deck is slightly more blue centered, mainly from our snaps and cantrips that fuel everything. I see blue as the catalyst to our deck and black as the finisher/cleanup crew color. Because of this I would slightly more often draw a blue source than a black source. I have kept quite a few hands where Island was my only land but I have never kept any hand where Swamp was my only land in hand.
That's just my reasoning but honestly if you preferred a 2nd Crypt over Vents that's also completely valid. Don't think you can go wrong with either really, though as much as I want it I know 3 grave 1 vents 1 crypt is ultimately the only wrong choice here.
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Modern URBSome variant of Death's Shadow URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version) JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / Infect
So how does this deck beat eldrazi & taxes? I'm getting whooped on a constant basis.
It's not a linear matchup nor its easy. Both of you try to disrupt the other. I must confess that I'm not the most experienced player because I always seem to dodge the only player I know that plays that deck. The answer I can give you is somewhat theorycrafting and it will depend on the sideboard configuration.
I reckon you'll lose g1 more often than not. Hand disruption is key here. You have to remove their disruptive combos or tempo advantage engine if you're on the play. If you set them back they have no way to recover. You'll have to be as aggressive as possible and win as fast as possible. With Vial+Wisp and with Displacer they can lock you out of attack phases and you'll just die.
After board I think it might get trickier depending if they draw their hate. Snapcaster will be an ambush viper because they'll probably side in 2~4 Rest in Peace against you. The Delve threats will be tough to cast for the same reason. You'll have to try to win with a Death's Shadow but they'll have more removal than you'll have threats. Anger of the Gods will be stellar, as will be LtLH because they won't have great ways to remove it. Ceremonious Rejection hits almost half their threats so it might be a good card to bring in, but bear in mind that Vial makes it a bit worse but if you counter a Vial with it it's almost 50% of a win. Artifact hate won't do you much good, so only bring it in if you have to. Be careful with the Kommand. It's recursion mode is only decent and the other modes aren't that relevant.
Again, take this with a pinch of salt. There are probably other players more experienced in the matchup than me. If I manage to test it or play it later today I'll get back to you.
I agree with this. Sideboard configuration changes how you play against them too, however. I take out all counters and play removal, threats, and discard. Discard is prioritized on Path to Exile and combo pieces like Eldrazi Displacer. You need to get them to play to your hand, so if you have to proper removal for their threats, go after the other cards in hand. Collective Brutality is sweet as you can kill a Arbiter or Thalia and remove Path in hand. If they target your graveyard with Rest in Peace, then you need to make sure you are protecting Death's Shadow and Snapcaster Mage as those are going to be your win conditions. The game goes long more often than not, so bringing in LtLH and your late game cards is good. Vial is annoying, but Kolaghan's Command keeps it in check. I've noticed they take them out Post-Sideboard though. The times I've played against D&T, I've typically lost the 1st game, but win both sideboarded games.
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I'm considering skipping the Fulminator/Molten Rain completetly, instead going for a more aggressive TBR combo supported with counterspells.
How about running Forked Bolt/Electrolyze against Lingering Souls? They have the upside of going upstairs, but another option could be Echoing Truths, that also lets us handle any disrupting enchantments while going for the kill, or in combination with a counterspell or hand disruption we can get rid of it for good.
And yeah, niether Forked Bolt or Electrolyze are perfect, but considering how bad bolt currently is I could see myself playing 2x Bolt and 1x Forked Bolt or something like that depending on how much of an issue chump blockers actually are. That said, I'm 100% behind the "slam TBR and ignore souls"-gameplan.
TBR just seems way too powerful to not play, even if our shell doesn't capitalize on it as well as DS Jund does. The ceiling is still very, very high.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
If this is the meta, what kind of changes can we make to our 75 I wonder? Seems like 2 Angers would be a must as a starting place. 2 battle rages in the 75 also.
General consensus is for grindy matchups you take them out because you risk getting 1-for-2'd. For a matchup like vs DSJ I'd agree because it's all about establishing board presence through threats and answers and not racing. But what about vs. abzan, for example? They have their paths, pulses, decays and pushes but I still feel like it may be necessary to run the battle rages.
Also, do you guys take out Denials in midrange matchups? For DSJ/Abzan/mirror I find myself doing so to get as threat/answer dense as possible, but not cutting discard as that can still take planeswalkers and other goods. Obviously that leaves us open to topdecks though
yea that seems reasonable. it's also great that all of those have borader applications.
Deprive is something I've certainly tried. The main reason I move away from it was because of the mana constraints, but I've thought about going back.
Btw, link to the decklists for everyone else: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2017-05-04
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Polluted Delta
2x Steam Vents
2x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Death's Shadow
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fan
2x Gurmag Angler
4x Street Wraith
4x Serum Visions
4x Thought Scour
2x Lightning Bolt
3x Fatal Push
1x Terminate
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
1x Temur Battle Rage
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Kolaghan's Command
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Kozilek's Return
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Rakdos Charm
2x Collective Brutality
2x Stubborn Denial
1x Terminate
2x Countersquall
First three games were the first I'd ever played with the deck, got mana screwed all 3. Then I won 4 of 5, finally getting a feel for it, only losing one game due to a top-decked lord turning his 3 dumb little fish into Islandwalking 3/x's for lethal. I'll tell you what, it felt REALLY good to play. Snapcaster has always been one of my favorite cards, so utilizing him here makes me a happy camper.
Overall I'm impressed with the deck, and will be seriously considering it in my ever-more-frantic search for my GP Vegas deck.
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
4 Street Wraith
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Gurmag Angler
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Terminate
3 Fatal Push
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Thoughtseize
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Mana Leak
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Ceremonius Rejection
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Terminate
2 Dispel
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Collective Brutality
Went 3-1 at a weekly yesterday, beating normal Jund (not DS Jund), Grixis control, and Lantern control, and losing to Affinity.
Thanks!
All of these things help, but none of them are enough on their own. It's a tough matchup and honestly not worth spending SB slots on.
Yes.
That's just my reasoning but honestly if you preferred a 2nd Crypt over Vents that's also completely valid. Don't think you can go wrong with either really, though as much as I want it I know 3 grave 1 vents 1 crypt is ultimately the only wrong choice here.
URB Some variant of Death's Shadow
URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version)
JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / InfectCommander/EDH
This pile of cards when I feel like it
Death's Shadow discord link
I agree with this. Sideboard configuration changes how you play against them too, however. I take out all counters and play removal, threats, and discard. Discard is prioritized on Path to Exile and combo pieces like Eldrazi Displacer. You need to get them to play to your hand, so if you have to proper removal for their threats, go after the other cards in hand. Collective Brutality is sweet as you can kill a Arbiter or Thalia and remove Path in hand. If they target your graveyard with Rest in Peace, then you need to make sure you are protecting Death's Shadow and Snapcaster Mage as those are going to be your win conditions. The game goes long more often than not, so bringing in LtLH and your late game cards is good. Vial is annoying, but Kolaghan's Command keeps it in check. I've noticed they take them out Post-Sideboard though. The times I've played against D&T, I've typically lost the 1st game, but win both sideboarded games.