I would simply run 3 Bob and 3 Tracker. Its pretty much perfect for tackling each early game CA as well as lategame power. I think you want 24-25 lands. I personally try to stay at 24, since it prevents flooding a little bit more.
How do we feel about 4 Field vs. 3 Field in traditional BG Rock? On the one hand, I love 4 Field as it allows us to play the Rock's gtibdiest game of Magic and solidifies a number of key matchups if the game goes long. It also really turns on mana denial as a viable strategy against most 3+ colored decks. On the other hand, between Quagmire, Village, and Field, the 4th Field is a slight ding on our ability to consistently hit T2 Trophy. Is that worth it? What will all of you lean towards?
I like the colour consistancy a bit more and would probably go for 3. Like opening hands get really awkward sometimes which you want to avoid ideally. Its still a very colour intense deck despite being 2 colour only.
I would simply run 3 Bob and 3 Tracker. Its pretty much perfect for tackling each early game CA as well as lategame power. I think you want 24-25 lands. I personally try to stay at 24, since it prevents flooding a little bit more.
That’s what my first look at the deck involved: 3 Bob, 3 Tracker. Definitely viable, definitely a balanced spread of advantage engines. But what I’m wondering is whether either card is optimized in such a shell. If you’re all in on Tracker, you can safely justify 25 lands, 2 Tasigurs, and more high-curve cards out of the side—if you’re all-in on Bob, you can play a more aggressively low curve where running 3 Trackers may not be ideal.
These thoughts are predicated on the notion that the broadness of Assassin’s Trophy allows us to specialize our remaining 56 cards a little more than we’ve been able to in the past. Perhaps I’m off base here, but if nothing else it may be a useful conceptual deck-building exercise.
As for Field of Ruin, I’ve been testing the 4th copy in the Hoogland list. I like the upsides of access to another LD “spell”, another Landfall trigger for Tracker, and another card in the graveyard for Goyf and Tasigur. That said, all of those upsides are worth less than mana consistency, so if I run into too many issues with color production I won’t hestiate to scale back to 3–but so far there’s nothing bad to report on that front.
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I see your points and think they are sound. I just want to add here, if you want to go the all in on Tracker move, you gotta make sure that your early game isn't suffering too much. You gotta make sure that you can consistantly reach a point where you actually gaining the advantage of Tracker, especially against the linear aggressive decks.
I see your points and think they are sound. I just want to add here, if you want to go the all in on Tracker move, you gotta make sure that your early game isn't suffering too much. You gotta make sure that you can consistantly reach a point where you actually gaining the advantage of Tracker, especially against the linear aggressive decks.
Absolutely, and with this mindset in place the stock of cards like Fatal Push, Collective Brutality, and even Duress begins to rise.
Doesn’t look like there’s much else for us from the GRN full spoiler, but that’s obviously fine. Cannot wait to start slinging Trophies!
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I would go for 4x FoR. I loved it in my straight BG rock deck. I have another matter I want your opinion on. Does one think running cards like ~2x Courser of Kruphix, 1-2 Life from the Loam, ~2x Ramunap Excavator is too greedy in a BG shell? You would have to run a good mix of GQ and FoR. Personally I can't see it working because it's too cute and the 3 CMC spot is already very crowded. However, I would like your opinion.
Courser was semi-popular in Jund some little while ago along with Anger of the Gods - both main-deck. A singleton Excavator occasionally shows up in side-boards.
Such a land-destruction strategy as you are proposing would likely be effective only against really slow decks with few basic lands. Of course I'm merely speculating.
I'm thinking of putting Abzan together as it seems the best shell for Trophy to me. What do you folks think about going all out with Trophy and Path, running 4 of both, maybe even a FoR or two? The way I see it, they're the best catch-all removal in the format and the more you play, the more the downside is diminished. I'd still run 1-2 Push as well.
Is there any advantage to playing a GB traverse list instead of an Abzan traverse list?
Historically, straight BG Rock (not specifically Traverse), allows you to run 3-4 Field as mana denial, run a relatively painless manabase to insulate life totals, maximize Tracker synergies with Field and fetches, avoid mana mismatched hands (e.g drawing basic Plains and BG creature land when you need T1 I'll), and protect our manabase from Moon/Field/etc. I'm sure there are other advantages I'm not mentioning too.
BG Traverse feels like it interferes with some of these advantages. For one, Traverse seems to want lower land counts (19-20) and BG doesn't. Two, Traverse wants Flayer and Flayer really wants Souls. Three, Traverse wants white creatures in the toolbox SB like Teeg, new Knight, Kambal, etc. and BG doesn't get those bullets. Finally, Abzan gets Path as an added 1 cmc instant for delirium and BG Rock will be lighter in that instant slot. This all pushes me away from BG Traverse and towards Abzan Traverse. BG Rock without Traverse still has lots of strengths, but I just don't see them with Traverse included.
Is there any advantage to playing a GB traverse list instead of an Abzan traverse list?
The advantage is the mana-base, but that should be obvious. I played a Rock Traverse list for a very short time, but I didn't give it a thorough testing.
The question is does Rock open up creatures that Junk can't play? The answer is yes, but does anyone really want to play those creatures? Rock could play Rex for example, but is anyone going to try that? Well, anyone besides me?
There are some other heavy B creatures but I think you'll find the consensus is the Wx creatures are the silver-bullets one is looking for.
I think it seems a little greedy to run 3 colors plus field when maindeck land destruction is now a thing. You are going to be run out of basics by opponents as well, and operation "grind them out of lands" is only going to be relevant against slow decks.
I think traverse and an increased basic count is the best solution, being immune to spot removal is going to be the key IMO.
Is there no merit to playing non-Traverse / Hierarch Abzan builds anymore? I think I've seen like one put up results lately but it just doesn't seem nearly as good as Traverse.
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Modern GBRJundGBR GBWAbzan TraverseGBW GBRockGB GBRUJund ShadowGBRU
yeah traverse list is more competitive. but there's some cases where u get mana screwed with lots of field of ruin, ghost quarter because of low land count. but I think traverse is more flexible and you want to be flexible with this wide meta.
Is there no merit to playing non-Traverse / Hierarch Abzan builds anymore? I think I've seen like one put up results lately but it just doesn't seem nearly as good as Traverse.
Hierarch is really good and one of the secretly (maybe not so secretly) best cards in Modern. Its presence takes a number of decks to the next level including Infect, Humans, Bant Spirits, and others. It's similar to Looting or Opal in that respect (I.e. archetype defining cards). Mana accel/cheating is so important in Modern and basically all the best decks do it in various ways (e.g. Opal/Tron through obvious means, cost reduction with stuff like Terminus, Vial, Looting to bin H1 and Dredge stuff, etc.). Hierarch is "just" a dork but also accomplishes the same effect.
Hierarch's pedigree of success suggests that it might well be very good in Abzan decks. BGx doesn't have great ways to cheat on mana, at least nothing like Opal decks or Humans. Hierarch can fit That bill. That said, I fear the payoff isn't as good for us as other strategies. Our best evasion is trample with Flayer/Rhino or little Soul tokens. That's no Mantis Rider or Blighted Agent. Worse evasion makes it hard to capitalize on Hierarch's ability to facilitate corner turning. We also don't take advantage of the blue mana and really want black mana for stuff like Lily. All the other top Hierarch decks are either Bant, 5c, or GW or UG: they use all Hierarch's colors or they use only two with no non-Hierarch splash.
Finally, I don't think our Hierarch payoffs are that great. Humans gets an on-tribal dork that ramps into T2 Mantis and helps cast most of its cards. Infect effectively doubles the Hierarch bonus and lets you T2 Agent with hexproof backup. Bant Spirits gets T3 Company. Our ceiling is mediocre T3 Rhino (laughable in many top Modern matchups), and T2 Lily. Lily is actually a strong payoff but she's matchup dependent, and as great as T2 Lily is, I don't know if that payoff is good enough.
Overall, I'm curious to see if renewed BGx interest thanks to Trophy moves players to experiment with Hierarch. I feel like there is something there because Hierarch is just sooo good, but maybe we need more people working on the deck to figure it out.
i think bgx players are just deathly scared of putting cards into the deck that are poor topdecks, which mana dorks have usually been classified as.
i was actually reading a piece by SaintDoom on reddit, who is a known aficionado of abzan traverse (he did a real nice write-up about it less than a week ago found here), and he is currently testing sultai with noble hierarch. the sultai writeup can be found here.
one point that he makes, that i think is important to emphasize, is that the deck needs to be tailored to maximize 3 mana plays; because that is the major benefit of the acceleration after all. be it a 3 drop, or impactful double-spelling. i see that as being more important than jamming a bunch of 4 drops and trying to ramp to them.
personally im still deciding between trying out abzan or sultai post-GRN. im heavily leaning towards traverse, or DS variants of either. my gut tells me abzan is better, but its hard for me to ever pass up playing snapcaster mage.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
i think bgx players are just deathly scared of putting cards into the deck that are poor topdecks, which mana dorks have usually been classified as.
i was actually reading a piece by SaintDoom on reddit, who is a known aficionado of abzan traverse (he did a real nice write-up about it less than a week ago found here), and he is currently testing sultai with noble hierarch. the sultai writeup can be found here.
one point that he makes, that i think is important to emphasize, is that the deck needs to be tailored to maximize 3 mana plays; because that is the major benefit of the acceleration after all. be it a 3 drop, or impactful double-spelling. i see that as being more important than jamming a bunch of 4 drops and trying to ramp to them.
personally im still deciding between trying out abzan or sultai post-GRN. im heavily leaning towards traverse, or DS variants of either. my gut tells me abzan is better, but its hard for me to ever pass up playing snapcaster mage.
This is an important point, considering this archetype's worst match-up is Tron and we're getting a new sexy 3-drop to deal with it (Unmoored Ego). In that post he mentions one of the impactful 3-drops being Fulminator. Can you imagine Unmoored Ego? Against Bridgevine naming Bridge, or Tron naming Tower, or Storm naming Grapeshot, or Scapeshift naming Valakut. The applications are endless, and Noble powers this out on turn 2
Maybe a blend of Abzan & Sultai with Nobles helping to meet in the middle is the next level of BGx? Although with all the Assassin's Trophy that will be running around, I think 4 colors will be too much on the manabase.
i think bgx players are just deathly scared of putting cards into the deck that are poor topdecks, which mana dorks have usually been classified as.
i was actually reading a piece by SaintDoom on reddit, who is a known aficionado of abzan traverse (he did a real nice write-up about it less than a week ago found here), and he is currently testing sultai with noble hierarch. the sultai writeup can be found here.
one point that he makes, that i think is important to emphasize, is that the deck needs to be tailored to maximize 3 mana plays; because that is the major benefit of the acceleration after all. be it a 3 drop, or impactful double-spelling. i see that as being more important than jamming a bunch of 4 drops and trying to ramp to them.
personally im still deciding between trying out abzan or sultai post-GRN. im heavily leaning towards traverse, or DS variants of either. my gut tells me abzan is better, but its hard for me to ever pass up playing snapcaster mage.
This is an important point, considering this archetype's worst match-up is Tron and we're getting a new sexy 3-drop to deal with it (Unmoored Ego). In that post he mentions one of the impactful 3-drops being Fulminator. Can you imagine Unmoored Ego? Against Bridgevine naming Bridge, or Tron naming Tower, or Storm naming Grapeshot, or Scapeshift naming Valakut. The applications are endless, and Noble powers this out on turn 2
Maybe a blend of Abzan & Sultai with Nobles helping to meet in the middle is the next level of BGx? Although with all the Assassin's Trophy that will be running around, I think 4 colors will be too much on the manabase.
I think that is probably the best point for Sultai, since dealing with generic stuff always seems to be tough for GBx on a consistant level.
Overall I am also curious. The white sideboard cards like Stony are also not neglectible. I honestly hope not one single best, but multiple different strategies become viable with the printing of Trophy.
That’s what my first look at the deck involved: 3 Bob, 3 Tracker. Definitely viable, definitely a balanced spread of advantage engines. But what I’m wondering is whether either card is optimized in such a shell. If you’re all in on Tracker, you can safely justify 25 lands, 2 Tasigurs, and more high-curve cards out of the side—if you’re all-in on Bob, you can play a more aggressively low curve where running 3 Trackers may not be ideal.
These thoughts are predicated on the notion that the broadness of Assassin’s Trophy allows us to specialize our remaining 56 cards a little more than we’ve been able to in the past. Perhaps I’m off base here, but if nothing else it may be a useful conceptual deck-building exercise.
As for Field of Ruin, I’ve been testing the 4th copy in the Hoogland list. I like the upsides of access to another LD “spell”, another Landfall trigger for Tracker, and another card in the graveyard for Goyf and Tasigur. That said, all of those upsides are worth less than mana consistency, so if I run into too many issues with color production I won’t hestiate to scale back to 3–but so far there’s nothing bad to report on that front.
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Absolutely, and with this mindset in place the stock of cards like Fatal Push, Collective Brutality, and even Duress begins to rise.
Doesn’t look like there’s much else for us from the GRN full spoiler, but that’s obviously fine. Cannot wait to start slinging Trophies!
YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
Courser was semi-popular in Jund some little while ago along with Anger of the Gods - both main-deck. A singleton Excavator occasionally shows up in side-boards.
Such a land-destruction strategy as you are proposing would likely be effective only against really slow decks with few basic lands. Of course I'm merely speculating.
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
that's what im brewing now but u have to splash souls. that's the only way u can gain CA with grim flayer.
Historically, straight BG Rock (not specifically Traverse), allows you to run 3-4 Field as mana denial, run a relatively painless manabase to insulate life totals, maximize Tracker synergies with Field and fetches, avoid mana mismatched hands (e.g drawing basic Plains and BG creature land when you need T1 I'll), and protect our manabase from Moon/Field/etc. I'm sure there are other advantages I'm not mentioning too.
BG Traverse feels like it interferes with some of these advantages. For one, Traverse seems to want lower land counts (19-20) and BG doesn't. Two, Traverse wants Flayer and Flayer really wants Souls. Three, Traverse wants white creatures in the toolbox SB like Teeg, new Knight, Kambal, etc. and BG doesn't get those bullets. Finally, Abzan gets Path as an added 1 cmc instant for delirium and BG Rock will be lighter in that instant slot. This all pushes me away from BG Traverse and towards Abzan Traverse. BG Rock without Traverse still has lots of strengths, but I just don't see them with Traverse included.
The advantage is the mana-base, but that should be obvious. I played a Rock Traverse list for a very short time, but I didn't give it a thorough testing.
The question is does Rock open up creatures that Junk can't play? The answer is yes, but does anyone really want to play those creatures? Rock could play Rex for example, but is anyone going to try that? Well, anyone besides me?
There are some other heavy B creatures but I think you'll find the consensus is the Wx creatures are the silver-bullets one is looking for.
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 think traverse and an increased basic count is the best solution, being immune to spot removal is going to be the key IMO.
Modern
GBRJundGBR
GBWAbzan TraverseGBW
GBRockGB
GBRUJund ShadowGBRU
Hierarch is really good and one of the secretly (maybe not so secretly) best cards in Modern. Its presence takes a number of decks to the next level including Infect, Humans, Bant Spirits, and others. It's similar to Looting or Opal in that respect (I.e. archetype defining cards). Mana accel/cheating is so important in Modern and basically all the best decks do it in various ways (e.g. Opal/Tron through obvious means, cost reduction with stuff like Terminus, Vial, Looting to bin H1 and Dredge stuff, etc.). Hierarch is "just" a dork but also accomplishes the same effect.
Hierarch's pedigree of success suggests that it might well be very good in Abzan decks. BGx doesn't have great ways to cheat on mana, at least nothing like Opal decks or Humans. Hierarch can fit That bill. That said, I fear the payoff isn't as good for us as other strategies. Our best evasion is trample with Flayer/Rhino or little Soul tokens. That's no Mantis Rider or Blighted Agent. Worse evasion makes it hard to capitalize on Hierarch's ability to facilitate corner turning. We also don't take advantage of the blue mana and really want black mana for stuff like Lily. All the other top Hierarch decks are either Bant, 5c, or GW or UG: they use all Hierarch's colors or they use only two with no non-Hierarch splash.
Finally, I don't think our Hierarch payoffs are that great. Humans gets an on-tribal dork that ramps into T2 Mantis and helps cast most of its cards. Infect effectively doubles the Hierarch bonus and lets you T2 Agent with hexproof backup. Bant Spirits gets T3 Company. Our ceiling is mediocre T3 Rhino (laughable in many top Modern matchups), and T2 Lily. Lily is actually a strong payoff but she's matchup dependent, and as great as T2 Lily is, I don't know if that payoff is good enough.
Overall, I'm curious to see if renewed BGx interest thanks to Trophy moves players to experiment with Hierarch. I feel like there is something there because Hierarch is just sooo good, but maybe we need more people working on the deck to figure it out.
i was actually reading a piece by SaintDoom on reddit, who is a known aficionado of abzan traverse (he did a real nice write-up about it less than a week ago found here), and he is currently testing sultai with noble hierarch. the sultai writeup can be found here.
one point that he makes, that i think is important to emphasize, is that the deck needs to be tailored to maximize 3 mana plays; because that is the major benefit of the acceleration after all. be it a 3 drop, or impactful double-spelling. i see that as being more important than jamming a bunch of 4 drops and trying to ramp to them.
personally im still deciding between trying out abzan or sultai post-GRN. im heavily leaning towards traverse, or DS variants of either. my gut tells me abzan is better, but its hard for me to ever pass up playing snapcaster mage.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)This is an important point, considering this archetype's worst match-up is Tron and we're getting a new sexy 3-drop to deal with it (Unmoored Ego). In that post he mentions one of the impactful 3-drops being Fulminator. Can you imagine Unmoored Ego? Against Bridgevine naming Bridge, or Tron naming Tower, or Storm naming Grapeshot, or Scapeshift naming Valakut. The applications are endless, and Noble powers this out on turn 2
Maybe a blend of Abzan & Sultai with Nobles helping to meet in the middle is the next level of BGx? Although with all the Assassin's Trophy that will be running around, I think 4 colors will be too much on the manabase.
Draft My Cube!
I think that is probably the best point for Sultai, since dealing with generic stuff always seems to be tough for GBx on a consistant level.
Overall I am also curious. The white sideboard cards like Stony are also not neglectible. I honestly hope not one single best, but multiple different strategies become viable with the printing of Trophy.