Thanks for the perspective, FlyingDeliver! I have one LtLH already, so perhaps I shoot for a 2-2 split of her and LoTV so I can prioritize the goyf as you mentioned. A bit of a hybridized approach.
I only run 2 Goyfs with 3 Flayers in my list since very often the Flayers will be better Goyfs. Just make sure you have a healty amount of 2-drop creatures that clock our opponent, 5 would be minimum.
3 LotV and 2 LtlH is a nice split to save some money but 5 planeswalkers is pretty much mandatory to make sure we pump the Flayers/Goyfs and attack our opponents from a different angle.
I'm gonna give 4 path 4 trophy a try tbh, those 2 can handle everything pretty much.
I was gonna go 3/3 for starters to keep 2 pushes and 1 pulse in the deck. Having the push for a mana dork early is nice, and pulse will still get that 2 for 1 once in a while that makes it worth playing.
Giving ramp to our opponent is much less relevant now that our removal hits EVERTHING. They can cast a JtmS on turn 2 or 2 Hollow ones on turn 1, I don't care really. We'll always have hands that can match up agaisnt our opponents threats.
No reason to play 4/1 split if you aim to play around Meddling Mage, you should be playing 3/2 push/path split instead and even 3/3 is reasonable at this point as more decks show up that are resistant to destruction effects like Hardened Scales Affinity. Adding more paths also makes the Human matchup better as it might be tricky to get revolt against a Mantis Rider and push is likely the first card to be named against Abzan.
Traverse also has a better MU against Humans than classic Abzan since Humans don't really interact with graveyard at all and your removal is live all the time so it's pretty easy to get delirium.
I still wouldn't play more than 2 Path so 4/1 split or 4/2 seems reasonable to me and I don't want to go below 4 Push.
I don't see anything wrong with a 4/2 split or 3/3 split either. I think when I proposed 4/1 I hadn't given enough gravity to things like removing Bloodghast, Vengevine, Phoenix, Walker, etc. which is even further incentive to go up on Path and down on Push.
Decay is a flex slot and could be Trophy #4, which frees up an SB slot for a second sweeper. I don't like Damnation because I think we need to be advancing our board against aggressive decks, not sandbagging. Damnation also doesn't stop Company or HS/Infect manlands, plus is bad against Humans if they see it with a Freebooter; they can just pressure us with 2-3 guys while we can't play critters. At least with Settle we can develop our board and handle those issues. The MD Liliana split could be wrong, but I think Last Hope gives more utility than the 4th LotV in a metagame packed with Humans, Infect, Hardened Scales, and others. Also, if I'm running two Flayer, I'm going to run Last Hope as an added delirium enablers (don't love the singleton Nihil right now, as GY decks have been scaled back a bit due to UW Control).
I can also be convinced to go 22 lands instead of 23 to add another threat between Souls, Tracker/Ooze, that new Guilds Knight, Rhino (maaaybe), or others. Manabase might also need tuning because it's both white-heavy to support Path/Souls but also really wants GB on T2 for Trophy.
This seems like a solid low to the ground approach, could definitely work. I will be testing a more grindy version with 3 trackers and 24 lands at the beginning I think.
The numbers will certainly be shuffled around here and there, but we all seem to have similar ideas on them. The numbers on Path is what will be most interesting supposedly.
Do you think it's wise dropping Fulminator Mage and Ghost Quarter alltogether?
I think Assassin's Trophy is a great addition to help beat our bad matchups, but i wouldn't want to give up the option to traverse for the answer.
Do you think it's wise dropping Fulminator Mage and Ghost Quarter alltogether?
I think Assassin's Trophy is a great addition to help beat our bad matchups, but i wouldn't want to give up the option to traverse for the answer.
I'd go 1 Mage and 1 Sphere in the SB rather than 2-3 Mage. This assumes 4 Trophy between MD/SB. That gives us 5 ways to interact with Tron directly in Abzan (+4 in BG Rock for Field), and a bonus Sphere as the 6th SB card. Sphere has some nice cross-matchup relevance against combo decks and I like spreading out my SB to overlap with as many strategies as possible.
Re: Traverse vs. non-Traverse build
If I were going to a GP/Open this weekend, I'd play the Traverse build. Its current results are better than traditional BG Rock and Abzan, it turns the corner quicker, and the cantrip approach aligns with that of other successful Modern decks. But I'm willing to revisit traditional BGx because of Trophy, as it solves some of the problems that make BGx worse. One of those is answer alignment. Outside of discard, it's very easy to lose in G1 because your answers don't align with the opponent's strategy. The classic example of this is when you keep a hand with Push and Path in G1 and you realize you're up against UW Control. Congrats on the effective mull to 5 with a bunch of dead draws for the rest of the game. Traverse mitigated this with more live draws and velocity. Now, BGx plus Trophy mitigates this by increasing live, relevant draws. It's also a very clean answer to JTMS and Teferi in matchups that hinge on sticking planeswalkers. Now you can do lines like T5 Teferi --> Trophy, drop Liliana when they don't have Cryptic mana. That didn't work in the past because you could drop Lily but then they would just tuck her when they untapped. Now you can kill the Teferi AND stick the Lily unless they have Knot. Trophy creates that line or at least threatens it.
Traverse also helps with the other traditional BGx issue of turning the corner. Jund resolves this with hasty BBE and a Bolt/Kommand Plan B. Traverse Abzan resolves this with Flayer plus Goyf. Shadow resolved this with Shadow and big delve threats. BGx struggled to find traction off the existing cards because it took a few too many turns to get going with Souls and smaller Goyfs/less consistent Flayers. Trophy also helps resolve this by buying multiple extra turns against decks where turning the corner is important. It gives you extra turns to build Trackers and achieve delirium, or to get in 4 more points of damage off Souls. I think this will be enough to help Abzan and BG Rock become more competitive. But if not, it's very easy to switch back to Abzan Traverse which we already know has that corner turning ability at the expense of fewer grind options. Hopefully, Trophy BGx can both grind and close games off bought time.
It appears to me that many of these deck lists are built believing that is the only deck running assassin's trophy. Running fewer lands, and fewer basics, may mean that when you meet someone whose deck has more you will lose. For instance, playing path, seige rhino, etc. and not having a basic plains will open yourself up to land destruction from your opponant. This is one reason why BG may have an advantage.
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Modern: BG Rock, Grixis Control, UW Control
Commander: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
"Win or lose, naught to choose - all men are equal when their memory fades. No one knows, friends or foes, if Valhalla lies beyond the grave." - Motörhead “Deaf Forever”
It appears to me that many of these deck lists are built believing that is the only deck running assassin's trophy. Running fewer lands, and fewer basics, may mean that when you meet someone whose deck has more you will lose. For instance, playing path, seige rhino, etc. and not having a basic plains will open yourself up to land destruction from your opponant. This is one reason why BG may have an advantage.
I don't disagree and am actively exploring BG as well, primarily because I prefer Tracker to Bob and still love 4 Field in the MD. The only card I don't really want to lose is Stony Silence, but that still might be worth it for a straight BG Rock transition (or BG Rock plus maybe 2-3 white sources for some SB splashes). This would be even leaner than the Souls/Silence/Path build.
I don't disagree and am actively exploring BG as well, primarily because I prefer Tracker to Bob and still love 4 Field in the MD.
Note though that Tracker is not in the same slot like Bob. Tracker is a card you would play in the slot of a BBE in Jund, not in place of a Bob. I find it overall very baffling why people talk about Bob and Tracker so interchangeably. While I think you can technically replace Bob with Tracker, it is important to note that you are loosing a little bit of early game CA engine through it. Tracker is a endgame CA card, wheras Bob is an early CA engine. I for example would run both in my Abzan or Rock list, for that exact reason.
Not really as you need to spend much mana in order to grow tracker. But I get your point, its a card that is both a threat and card draw. This is true.
The important thing is still though that Tracker is only good in the lategame, whereas Bob can help you in the early game to keep up with opponents. Against combo decks this is much more relevant for example.
What is the consensus on the Liliana package in Abzan so far with Trophy?
I am buying into Abzan/GB and I am trying to decide if I need the 4th copy of LotV or not. Will most people be starting with a 4/1 split of Veil & Last Hope? Or would a 3/2 split work? Or I guess, maybe even a 3/1 split with an extra threat / removal spell instead of the 5th PW?
In my traverse list i'm going to start with 2 Trophies in the main and i might cut Maelstrom Pulse from the side for a third copy. I will feep my one copy of Fulminator Mage for any big mana deck amd will swap Reclamation Sage for Knight of Autumn.
For those big mana decks i will also keep Ghost Quarter maindeck amd i will go down a copy of Abrupt Decay and the singleton Grisly Salvage.
This last one feels a little tricky since it can help rebuild after the yard gets exiled and can also provide CA with LtlH. All while putting Instant in the yard. This last is obviously mittigated by the new addition.
I'm really lookimg forward to the release of GRN. It's shapimg up to be a pretty nice set for most of my decks.
for me ill cut 2 decay and 2 path for playset of throphy and run bg splash white traverse. 2nd forest for plains. still want pulse for token strat. run 4 right now and trim it later.
In general, these lists have lower land counts, 4 Bauble, 4 Flayer/4 Goyf, and 3 Traverse with the usual BGx complement around it.
Post-Trophy, I'd go -1 Decay, -1 Path, -1 something and +3 Trophy in the MD. -1 LotV/land/Brutality for that 3rd Trophy, and maybe 1-2 more flex slots. Trophy also lets you trim -1 Mage from the SB.
I agree. This is the core pretty much and the rest is flavor. My deck differs slightly but we use the same manabase. I like your inclusion of basic plains like i do. This will be even better when encountering more paths and trophies.
I'll still be rocking Anafenza for as long my friend has his dregde ddck sleeved up, but it has obvious uses against other strategies nowdays.
I mean, he's a bit biased towards to BG rock and always been. So it's no surprise he's advocating BG rock.
I’ve been testing Hoogland’s exact maindeck (I made several changes to the sideboard) against friends who don’t mind getting wrecked by Trophy before it’s officialy released, and his take on Golgari (am I the only one who doesn’t love the name Rock, btw?) is feeling really strong.
Bob is IMO still a very powerful card in these shells, but there’s a certain elegance and cohesion that comes with the territory in these 25-land, 4-Tracker lists with a high number of mana sinks. Like others in this thread, my first take on BGx post-Trophy involved 23-24 lands and a split of Bob and Tracker, but after trying Hoogland’s list I wouldn’t be surprised if the best builds end up running 4/0 or 0/4 copies of Tracker/Bob, with each approach demanding its own supporting cast and looking viable in its own right.
Special mention to the 2x Tasigur in no-Bob builds. I hadn’t given this guy a proper go before my recent games, and he’s blown my expectations out of the water.
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I only run 2 Goyfs with 3 Flayers in my list since very often the Flayers will be better Goyfs. Just make sure you have a healty amount of 2-drop creatures that clock our opponent, 5 would be minimum.
3 LotV and 2 LtlH is a nice split to save some money but 5 planeswalkers is pretty much mandatory to make sure we pump the Flayers/Goyfs and attack our opponents from a different angle.
I was gonna go 3/3 for starters to keep 2 pushes and 1 pulse in the deck. Having the push for a mana dork early is nice, and pulse will still get that 2 for 1 once in a while that makes it worth playing.
Giving ramp to our opponent is much less relevant now that our removal hits EVERTHING. They can cast a JtmS on turn 2 or 2 Hollow ones on turn 1, I don't care really. We'll always have hands that can match up agaisnt our opponents threats.
BGW - Abzan
Legacy
BG - BG Lands
I don't see anything wrong with a 4/2 split or 3/3 split either. I think when I proposed 4/1 I hadn't given enough gravity to things like removing Bloodghast, Vengevine, Phoenix, Walker, etc. which is even further incentive to go up on Path and down on Push.
Re: list
I'd probably start with this for Abzan -
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
2 Grim Flayer
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tireless Tracker
Planeswalkers: 4
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Instant/sorceries: 20
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Lingering Souls
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
1 Plain
2 Swamp
1 Treetop Village
2 Shambling Vent
3 Blooming Marsh
4 Stony Silence
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Damping Sphere
1 Assassin's Trophy
3 Collective Brutality
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Duress
Decay is a flex slot and could be Trophy #4, which frees up an SB slot for a second sweeper. I don't like Damnation because I think we need to be advancing our board against aggressive decks, not sandbagging. Damnation also doesn't stop Company or HS/Infect manlands, plus is bad against Humans if they see it with a Freebooter; they can just pressure us with 2-3 guys while we can't play critters. At least with Settle we can develop our board and handle those issues. The MD Liliana split could be wrong, but I think Last Hope gives more utility than the 4th LotV in a metagame packed with Humans, Infect, Hardened Scales, and others. Also, if I'm running two Flayer, I'm going to run Last Hope as an added delirium enablers (don't love the singleton Nihil right now, as GY decks have been scaled back a bit due to UW Control).
I can also be convinced to go 22 lands instead of 23 to add another threat between Souls, Tracker/Ooze, that new Guilds Knight, Rhino (maaaybe), or others. Manabase might also need tuning because it's both white-heavy to support Path/Souls but also really wants GB on T2 for Trophy.
The numbers will certainly be shuffled around here and there, but we all seem to have similar ideas on them. The numbers on Path is what will be most interesting supposedly.
I think Assassin's Trophy is a great addition to help beat our bad matchups, but i wouldn't want to give up the option to traverse for the answer.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
I'd go 1 Mage and 1 Sphere in the SB rather than 2-3 Mage. This assumes 4 Trophy between MD/SB. That gives us 5 ways to interact with Tron directly in Abzan (+4 in BG Rock for Field), and a bonus Sphere as the 6th SB card. Sphere has some nice cross-matchup relevance against combo decks and I like spreading out my SB to overlap with as many strategies as possible.
Re: Traverse vs. non-Traverse build
If I were going to a GP/Open this weekend, I'd play the Traverse build. Its current results are better than traditional BG Rock and Abzan, it turns the corner quicker, and the cantrip approach aligns with that of other successful Modern decks. But I'm willing to revisit traditional BGx because of Trophy, as it solves some of the problems that make BGx worse. One of those is answer alignment. Outside of discard, it's very easy to lose in G1 because your answers don't align with the opponent's strategy. The classic example of this is when you keep a hand with Push and Path in G1 and you realize you're up against UW Control. Congrats on the effective mull to 5 with a bunch of dead draws for the rest of the game. Traverse mitigated this with more live draws and velocity. Now, BGx plus Trophy mitigates this by increasing live, relevant draws. It's also a very clean answer to JTMS and Teferi in matchups that hinge on sticking planeswalkers. Now you can do lines like T5 Teferi --> Trophy, drop Liliana when they don't have Cryptic mana. That didn't work in the past because you could drop Lily but then they would just tuck her when they untapped. Now you can kill the Teferi AND stick the Lily unless they have Knot. Trophy creates that line or at least threatens it.
Traverse also helps with the other traditional BGx issue of turning the corner. Jund resolves this with hasty BBE and a Bolt/Kommand Plan B. Traverse Abzan resolves this with Flayer plus Goyf. Shadow resolved this with Shadow and big delve threats. BGx struggled to find traction off the existing cards because it took a few too many turns to get going with Souls and smaller Goyfs/less consistent Flayers. Trophy also helps resolve this by buying multiple extra turns against decks where turning the corner is important. It gives you extra turns to build Trackers and achieve delirium, or to get in 4 more points of damage off Souls. I think this will be enough to help Abzan and BG Rock become more competitive. But if not, it's very easy to switch back to Abzan Traverse which we already know has that corner turning ability at the expense of fewer grind options. Hopefully, Trophy BGx can both grind and close games off bought time.
Modern: BG Rock, Grixis Control, UW Control
Commander: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
"Win or lose, naught to choose - all men are equal when their memory fades. No one knows, friends or foes, if Valhalla lies beyond the grave." - Motörhead “Deaf Forever”
I don't disagree and am actively exploring BG as well, primarily because I prefer Tracker to Bob and still love 4 Field in the MD. The only card I don't really want to lose is Stony Silence, but that still might be worth it for a straight BG Rock transition (or BG Rock plus maybe 2-3 white sources for some SB splashes). This would be even leaner than the Souls/Silence/Path build.
Note though that Tracker is not in the same slot like Bob. Tracker is a card you would play in the slot of a BBE in Jund, not in place of a Bob. I find it overall very baffling why people talk about Bob and Tracker so interchangeably. While I think you can technically replace Bob with Tracker, it is important to note that you are loosing a little bit of early game CA engine through it. Tracker is a endgame CA card, wheras Bob is an early CA engine. I for example would run both in my Abzan or Rock list, for that exact reason.
The important thing is still though that Tracker is only good in the lategame, whereas Bob can help you in the early game to keep up with opponents. Against combo decks this is much more relevant for example.
I am buying into Abzan/GB and I am trying to decide if I need the 4th copy of LotV or not. Will most people be starting with a 4/1 split of Veil & Last Hope? Or would a 3/2 split work? Or I guess, maybe even a 3/1 split with an extra threat / removal spell instead of the 5th PW?
For those big mana decks i will also keep Ghost Quarter maindeck amd i will go down a copy of Abrupt Decay and the singleton Grisly Salvage.
This last one feels a little tricky since it can help rebuild after the yard gets exiled and can also provide CA with LtlH. All while putting Instant in the yard. This last is obviously mittigated by the new addition.
I'm really lookimg forward to the release of GRN. It's shapimg up to be a pretty nice set for most of my decks.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
Usually its similar to this:
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
2 Blooming Marsh
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Treetop Village
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Grim Flayer
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Siege Rhino
Non-creature Spells [30]
3 Fatal Push
2 Path to Exile
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Collective Brutality
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Lingering Souls
This is already including some trophies.
I'm just going to defer to Fallleaf on MTGO, who has consistent PTQ/Challenge/League placements with all flavors of Abzan for months throughout 2018. He recently T16d the MTGO PTQ last weekend:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-ptq-2018-09-17
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Creatures:
4 Grim Flayer
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Instants/Sorceries:
1 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
4 Mishra's Bauble
Lands:
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Shambling Vent
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Collective Brutality
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Damnation
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Shriekmaw
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
In general, these lists have lower land counts, 4 Bauble, 4 Flayer/4 Goyf, and 3 Traverse with the usual BGx complement around it.
Post-Trophy, I'd go -1 Decay, -1 Path, -1 something and +3 Trophy in the MD. -1 LotV/land/Brutality for that 3rd Trophy, and maybe 1-2 more flex slots. Trophy also lets you trim -1 Mage from the SB.
I agree. This is the core pretty much and the rest is flavor. My deck differs slightly but we use the same manabase. I like your inclusion of basic plains like i do. This will be even better when encountering more paths and trophies.
I'll still be rocking Anafenza for as long my friend has his dregde ddck sleeved up, but it has obvious uses against other strategies nowdays.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
I’ve been testing Hoogland’s exact maindeck (I made several changes to the sideboard) against friends who don’t mind getting wrecked by Trophy before it’s officialy released, and his take on Golgari (am I the only one who doesn’t love the name Rock, btw?) is feeling really strong.
Bob is IMO still a very powerful card in these shells, but there’s a certain elegance and cohesion that comes with the territory in these 25-land, 4-Tracker lists with a high number of mana sinks. Like others in this thread, my first take on BGx post-Trophy involved 23-24 lands and a split of Bob and Tracker, but after trying Hoogland’s list I wouldn’t be surprised if the best builds end up running 4/0 or 0/4 copies of Tracker/Bob, with each approach demanding its own supporting cast and looking viable in its own right.
Special mention to the 2x Tasigur in no-Bob builds. I hadn’t given this guy a proper go before my recent games, and he’s blown my expectations out of the water.
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