If you are that worried about burn maybe try another collective brutality. I think it’s better against creature based decks such as elves while still being viable against control as a duress and drain life.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
On the subject of threats, I've found Rabblemaster to be amazing. Against any deck where I want to win quickly or need more threats, I bring him in. We have the perfect removal and discard suite to keep him safe or force our opponents to deal with him. I'm currently running this, and considering swapping the Blood Moons in the main with the Rabbles in the side:
Ran into an absolute buzzsaw tonight and went 0-4 against GW Valuetown (Knight of the reliquary package + Rhonas/worship, looked kind of like some maverick brew), Bloomless Titan, Tron, and Bant Spirits.
I tried cutting the 2 Fatal Push in my board for 1 Stony Silence and 1 Liliana of the Veil - didn't see either in the tron MU (only time I brought them in) so no word on if that's better or not. Not really a lot to report since the matches were all so lopsided.
Any thoughts?
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Rhonas + worship seems pretty difficult to defeat. You’d have to get the opponent to 1 or 2 life and kill them with collective brutality.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
Worship is a really bad card, most decks have many outs to it. Mardu Pyro has way too many, mostly in the form of multiple CBs in the main.
If the GW variant runs like 3-4 Courser of Kruphix, you can always board in wear // tear against it and Worship can just end up being collateral damage. They're not boarding Coursers out against Mardu Pyro anyway since it's Bolt/CB/Kolaghan's Command proof and needs revolt to be pushed while blocking pyro tokens efficiently, creating card advantage and gaining life.
Yeah, the issue was I had no clue he had worship since I drew 0 discard spells game 1, and he just won with a 10/10 knight of the reliqaury game 1, only other cards I saw were birds, voice of resurgence and qasali pridemage to kill my turn 3 blood moon on the play (he fetched 2 temple gardens on his first two turns with forest, plains, and pridemage in hand, told me after the match it was specifically to bait out blood moon.) I boarded in spellbombs to neuter KoTR and cut brutalities as I didn't think the drain mode would be relevant. I for sure won't make that mistake next time.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Does anyone else have problems with the Storm matchup? The primer lists it as favourable, but I've had real difficulties with them answering my hate and going off - or, if they can't immediately answer my hate pieces, having a lack of a clock to be able to pressure them before they can dig for their answers to my hate and go off.
Admittedly, I'm down a single Kambal in the board, which doesn't help, but I still feel like the matchup is unfavourable.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Does anyone else have problems with the Storm matchup? The primer lists it as favourable, but I've had real difficulties with them answering my hate and going off - or, if they can't immediately answer my hate pieces, having a lack of a clock to be able to pressure them before they can dig for their answers to my hate and go off.
Admittedly, I'm down a single Kambal in the board, which doesn't help, but I still feel like the matchup is unfavourable.
As a former storm player, yes the matchup should be pretty favorable if you play properly. Game 1 we don't have any way to interact with their graveyard, so you have to lean on discard (hit their grapeshots first, then past in flames, then gifts, then rituals) and killing their bears as soon as you're able to keep them from being able to combo out. Game 2 they're going to board in 12 cards (!) and should look like this if they're following Caleb Scherer's list (he's pretty much THE storm player right now and his word is effectively gospel)
It's very important to remember that in the sideboard games you're not playing against the same deck you just faced, and even though your obvious thought is "jam all the GY hate" it's likely to not work that well. As you can see, the deck largely abandons the route of winning through the graveyard in favor of trying to assemble a large enough number of goblin tokens to win, but the threat of grapeshot/unsub/grapeshot still lingers - often times they'll be content to empty for 5, make 10 tokens and force us to deal with it. Big graveyard hate like Nihil Spellbomb or Leyline of the Void won't phase them, though surgical extraction still can snipe a storm spell we discard to really mess them up.
IN:
-Kambal, Consul of Allocation: This guy (alongside pyromancer) is why they board in five removal spells against us. They simply cannot combo properly with him sitting in play, and the lifegain we get if they try is amazing. Even if they pop a bolt immediately, it's a 4 life point swing which can be relevant. You REALLY are going to want 2 of him, and he's not even expensive at all.
-Engineered Explosives/Anger of the Gods: When storm is on the ETW plan they can go wider than even we can. EE on 0 is the cleanest answer to their play, but it is worth noting that they have 2 empties, plus the one past in flames that can recast them, while we only have 2 sweepers and no way to recur them. They have no way to interact with our hand, but bring in abrade so NEVER deploy an EE unless you're planning to pop it immediately. Anger has the upside of killing (and exiling) their baral, but wiping the token horde is the primary concern. Having a pair is great, but 1 should be manageable.
-Surgical Extraction: As I mentioned above, surgical is probably the one piece of graveyard hate storm actually fears post-board. Leyline and spellbomb they can easily play around, thoughtseize into surgcial they really can't. (You do run the risk of them not boarding properly and keeping Noxious Revival in post-board to countercall extraction, but you should ideally be casting it the same turn you discard so you'll know it's clear.) You'll usually only have 1, but might have a second if other combo decks are locally prevalent.
-Liliana of the Veil: Most lists have abandoned the expensive Lily for her newer counterpart Liliana, the Last Hope as she's relevant in a lot more matchups. This is one of the few where LotV really shines, and if you have her as a tech 1-of in the board she can really apply the pressure. If you don't have her but have a 3rd copy of Collective Brutality sitting in your board, consider that instead for the two relevant modes. (drain 2 + duress)
-Hazoret the Frevent: Often used as a mirror breaker, Hazoret still is a fine card to bring in if you've got it, with 4 toughness (not that it matters due to indestructible) making her Abrade-proof, while also being a mana and card sink to be able to bash through the rest of the damage we need. You would only ever have 1 copy, but bring it in here.
This means you're going to have probably anywhere from 5 to 8 cards to cut, and here's what I'd suggest:
OUT: Blood Moon: While the current iteration of storm doesn't play fetches and therefore is a bit weak to moon, they run 4 basic islands, plus mnamorphose allows them to pretty easily get out from under moon when they want to combo off. Especially post board they don't even really NEED blue mana to kill you, so it's a bit of a clunker there. Cut them both.
Dreadbore/Terminate: The deck post board will only have 2 creatures plus a swarm of tokens that 1-for-1 answers do poorly against. We have Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push that can deal with Baral, so you should be safe cutting all copies of both cards (If you still feel skittish you can leave in 1 Terminate)
Liliana, The Last Hope: As I said before, LtLH doesn't fare well in this matchup. Her +1 won't kill baral and only 1 goblin, her other two abilities are marginally useful but don't come down quickly enough to interact properly.
Lingering Souls: Souls is very rarely a card we cut, but in all honesty our way to win is to rush to a Bedlam Reveler or Hazoret. Pyromancer is just a target that we can hope to get 1-2 tokens out of through incidental value, and even 4 tokens doesn't do great when our opponent has 10+. Cut up to 3 as space requires.
Hopefully this helps you out!
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If you are going to drop a sacred foundry, I kind of think adding another blood crypt makes more sense than godless shrine. A one land blood crypt is going to be more keepable than a godless shrine. I haven’t tested with 1 shrine and 1 foundry though so I’m not 100% sure.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
I doubt Sorins would do much if anything. If you have enough tokens on the board for Sorin to matter, it's likely that you are already winning.
I also think Sorin's going to be too slow to help us stabilize in the MUs we need it to do so in. If we're dropping it T4, we'd probably only have 1-2 bodies on the board when it hits. For example, if that MU is Burn then we're probably in Bolt lethal range since having those bodies on board from T2 and T3 means we likely did not play a Collective Brutality.
Dropping it later in other MUs, say with Reveler, feels a bit win-more to me.
I doubt Sorins would do much if anything. If you have enough tokens on the board for Sorin to matter, it's likely that you are already winning.
I also think Sorin's going to be too slow to help us stabilize in the MUs we need it to do so in. If we're dropping it T4, we'd probably only have 1-2 bodies on the board when it hits. For example, if that MU is Burn then we're probably in Bolt lethal range since having those bodies on board from T2 and T3 means we likely did not play a Collective Brutality.
Dropping it later in other MUs, say with Reveler, feels a bit win-more to me.
Understandable. Also what's people sideboarding in for the Big Mana matchups now? Alpine Moon, Damp Sphere or Molten Rain?
Indeed, but the reason why we choose Molten/Fulminator over Sphere/Alpine is because Sphere hits us pretty hard as well and Alpine is pretty specific hate for Tron. When considering that the matchup is pretty bad anyway, it makes sense to cover other matchups to a better extend (Moltens/Fulminator are more usable across the format and less specific).
Friends, I'm making a purchase of Ensnaring Bridges for my sideboard, I'm going to make the request now, I'm a bit in doubt if I buy 3 or 2, what do you guys think?
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Modern:
Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Shadow
Traverse Shadow
Jund
Abzan
The Rock
Friends, I'm making a purchase of Ensnaring Bridges for my sideboard, I'm going to make the request now, I'm a bit in doubt if I buy 3 or 2, what do you guys think?
Game 1 he was able to get off multiple discard spells + surgicals to remove my lootings, revelers, and k commands. It was a bit of an unreal draw, despite my disruptions T1-2. Scooped.
Game 2 I boarded in EE, Rakdos Charm, Surgical, and Wear/Tear. Removed creature removal except for Dreadbore in case he decided to get cute with Sai, Padeem, or Tezzy. Was able to keep the board clear and picked off his key artifacts early with discard.
Game 3 Boarded in EE in place of remaining removal. Mulled down to 6 to make sure I had discard. He was able to get an early Ensnaring Bridge down with Welding Jars. Popped EE for 0 on his end step, then destroyed Bridge next turn followed by Surgical. He scooped at that point.
Round 2: 0-2 vs. Mono-Blue Artifact Prison
Game 1 he dumped most of his hand Turn 1 with 1x Land, 2x Opals, 2x Jars, and Chalice on 1. Bridge on turn 2. Landed a 2nd bridge turn 3, while I drew lands. T3 dropped Chalice on 3. Scooped.
Game 2 I sideboarded similar to Lantern, but mulled again down to 5 due to zero land hands. Despite an initial T1 discard, drew lands T2-4 and was unable to do anything meaningful before his lock went into effect.
Round 3: 2-1 vs. R/W Burn
Game 1: Quickly lost. Did not draw any Brutalities and he was able to easily resolve his 7x spells.
Game 2: Boarded in 1x Brutality + 2x Kambal. Boarded out Thoughtseize. Mulled down to 6 to get a Brutality in my opener. T1 discard to pluck a Bolt, T2 Brutality on all 3 modes (discard 1x souls + 1x land) to kill Guide + pluck a Boros Charm. Was able to quickly get him to top deck mode and dropped Kambal. We were at a stalemate for 3 turns with Kambal + his 2x Eidolons. He got greedy and bolted Kambal (took 6 DMG + I gained 2x). I top-decked Brutality and dealt the remaining lethal.
Game 3: Played similar to Game 2, except I was able to kill the Eidolons earlier with Brutality. Stuck a Kambal which slowed him down, plus a draw step K Command discard to dunk his top-deck Lava Spike.
Round 4: 2-0 vs. R/W Burn
Game 1: I was on the play and hit him with a basic + thoughtseize before I knew it was burn, which had me worried. Top decked Brutality on T2, which helped me pluck his Bolts while tapped out + life gain.
Game 2: Same as before, boarded in 1x Brutality + 2x Kambal. Kept an opener with 1x Blood Moon, 1x Plains, 1x Swamp, 1x Mountain, 1x Kambal, 1x Inquisition, and 1x Bolt. T1 bolted Guide w/ trigger for another land, T2 Inquisition to find out his hand was all RW spells, T3 Blood Moon, T4 Kambal. He eventually top-deck bolted Kambal a few turns later but it was too late to make a meaningful impact.
This is probably old hat to the more seasoned Mardu pilots here, but the big takeaway for me here was to not be afraid to aggressively mulligan Games 2-3 if I didn't have my specific answers. I didn't do that for my 1x loss, whereas I did it in both Burn matches and having that ideal hand disruption + Life Gain was imperative to seeing those wins.
A lesser takeaway was that I did not encounter any issues with my budget landbase (Dragonskull instead of Blackcleave). There were a few occasions where DSS was my top deck land for #4 and ended up being more helpful in the moment. On the occasions I've had DSS as my 1x land in my opener, I've found that I most likely ought to have mulligan anyway to sculpt a more conservative hand.
I’d say rabblemaster since we are a base red deck. Besides, we have pizzy who gets on the board faster than mentor.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Young Pyromancer
That One Lady
1 Liliana of the Veil
Full Fronter
2 Blood Moon
Quick Slaps
2 Fatal Push
3 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
Grumpy Fun Hoggers
2 Collective Brutality
1 Dreadbore
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
These Are Also Included
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
3 Molten Rain
2 Wear // Tear
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
I tried cutting the 2 Fatal Push in my board for 1 Stony Silence and 1 Liliana of the Veil - didn't see either in the tron MU (only time I brought them in) so no word on if that's better or not. Not really a lot to report since the matches were all so lopsided.
Any thoughts?
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Yeah, the issue was I had no clue he had worship since I drew 0 discard spells game 1, and he just won with a 10/10 knight of the reliqaury game 1, only other cards I saw were birds, voice of resurgence and qasali pridemage to kill my turn 3 blood moon on the play (he fetched 2 temple gardens on his first two turns with forest, plains, and pridemage in hand, told me after the match it was specifically to bait out blood moon.) I boarded in spellbombs to neuter KoTR and cut brutalities as I didn't think the drain mode would be relevant. I for sure won't make that mistake next time.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Admittedly, I'm down a single Kambal in the board, which doesn't help, but I still feel like the matchup is unfavourable.
As a former storm player, yes the matchup should be pretty favorable if you play properly. Game 1 we don't have any way to interact with their graveyard, so you have to lean on discard (hit their grapeshots first, then past in flames, then gifts, then rituals) and killing their bears as soon as you're able to keep them from being able to combo out. Game 2 they're going to board in 12 cards (!) and should look like this if they're following Caleb Scherer's list (he's pretty much THE storm player right now and his word is effectively gospel)
2 Baral, Chief of Compliance
Spells (41)
3 Lightning Bolt (SB)
3 Opt
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Abrade (SB)
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
1 Peer Through Depths (SB)
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Unsubstantiate
4 Pieces of the Puzzle (SB)
2 Empty the Warrens (SB)
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Past in Flames
2 Island
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam vents
4 Shivan Reef
It's very important to remember that in the sideboard games you're not playing against the same deck you just faced, and even though your obvious thought is "jam all the GY hate" it's likely to not work that well. As you can see, the deck largely abandons the route of winning through the graveyard in favor of trying to assemble a large enough number of goblin tokens to win, but the threat of grapeshot/unsub/grapeshot still lingers - often times they'll be content to empty for 5, make 10 tokens and force us to deal with it. Big graveyard hate like Nihil Spellbomb or Leyline of the Void won't phase them, though surgical extraction still can snipe a storm spell we discard to really mess them up.
IN:
-Kambal, Consul of Allocation: This guy (alongside pyromancer) is why they board in five removal spells against us. They simply cannot combo properly with him sitting in play, and the lifegain we get if they try is amazing. Even if they pop a bolt immediately, it's a 4 life point swing which can be relevant. You REALLY are going to want 2 of him, and he's not even expensive at all.
-Engineered Explosives/Anger of the Gods: When storm is on the ETW plan they can go wider than even we can. EE on 0 is the cleanest answer to their play, but it is worth noting that they have 2 empties, plus the one past in flames that can recast them, while we only have 2 sweepers and no way to recur them. They have no way to interact with our hand, but bring in abrade so NEVER deploy an EE unless you're planning to pop it immediately. Anger has the upside of killing (and exiling) their baral, but wiping the token horde is the primary concern. Having a pair is great, but 1 should be manageable.
-Surgical Extraction: As I mentioned above, surgical is probably the one piece of graveyard hate storm actually fears post-board. Leyline and spellbomb they can easily play around, thoughtseize into surgcial they really can't. (You do run the risk of them not boarding properly and keeping Noxious Revival in post-board to countercall extraction, but you should ideally be casting it the same turn you discard so you'll know it's clear.) You'll usually only have 1, but might have a second if other combo decks are locally prevalent.
-Liliana of the Veil: Most lists have abandoned the expensive Lily for her newer counterpart Liliana, the Last Hope as she's relevant in a lot more matchups. This is one of the few where LotV really shines, and if you have her as a tech 1-of in the board she can really apply the pressure. If you don't have her but have a 3rd copy of Collective Brutality sitting in your board, consider that instead for the two relevant modes. (drain 2 + duress)
-Hazoret the Frevent: Often used as a mirror breaker, Hazoret still is a fine card to bring in if you've got it, with 4 toughness (not that it matters due to indestructible) making her Abrade-proof, while also being a mana and card sink to be able to bash through the rest of the damage we need. You would only ever have 1 copy, but bring it in here.
This means you're going to have probably anywhere from 5 to 8 cards to cut, and here's what I'd suggest:
OUT:
Blood Moon: While the current iteration of storm doesn't play fetches and therefore is a bit weak to moon, they run 4 basic islands, plus mnamorphose allows them to pretty easily get out from under moon when they want to combo off. Especially post board they don't even really NEED blue mana to kill you, so it's a bit of a clunker there. Cut them both.
Dreadbore/Terminate: The deck post board will only have 2 creatures plus a swarm of tokens that 1-for-1 answers do poorly against. We have Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push that can deal with Baral, so you should be safe cutting all copies of both cards (If you still feel skittish you can leave in 1 Terminate)
Liliana, The Last Hope: As I said before, LtLH doesn't fare well in this matchup. Her +1 won't kill baral and only 1 goblin, her other two abilities are marginally useful but don't come down quickly enough to interact properly.
Lingering Souls: Souls is very rarely a card we cut, but in all honesty our way to win is to rush to a Bedlam Reveler or Hazoret. Pyromancer is just a target that we can hope to get 1-2 tokens out of through incidental value, and even 4 tokens doesn't do great when our opponent has 10+. Cut up to 3 as space requires.
Hopefully this helps you out!
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
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Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
I also think Sorin's going to be too slow to help us stabilize in the MUs we need it to do so in. If we're dropping it T4, we'd probably only have 1-2 bodies on the board when it hits. For example, if that MU is Burn then we're probably in Bolt lethal range since having those bodies on board from T2 and T3 means we likely did not play a Collective Brutality.
Dropping it later in other MUs, say with Reveler, feels a bit win-more to me.
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW
Understandable. Also what's people sideboarding in for the Big Mana matchups now? Alpine Moon, Damp Sphere or Molten Rain?
Is Molten Rain too slow for tron decks though? By time you rain them they already have Karn/Wurmcoil on board?
Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Shadow
Traverse Shadow
Jund
Abzan
The Rock
I'd just buy 2.
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Young Pyromancer
Instants/Sorceries (29)
3 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
1 Dreadbore
1 Terminate
4 Faithless Looting
2 Fatal Push
1 Manamorphose
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lingering Souls
2 Blood Moon
1 Liliana of the Veil
Lands (20)
4 Marsh Flats
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Blood Crypt
2 Sacred Foundry
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Collective Brutality
2 Molten Rain
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Wear/Tear
Round 1: 2-1 vs. Lantern Control
Round 3: 2-1 vs. R/W Burn
This is probably old hat to the more seasoned Mardu pilots here, but the big takeaway for me here was to not be afraid to aggressively mulligan Games 2-3 if I didn't have my specific answers. I didn't do that for my 1x loss, whereas I did it in both Burn matches and having that ideal hand disruption + Life Gain was imperative to seeing those wins.
A lesser takeaway was that I did not encounter any issues with my budget landbase (Dragonskull instead of Blackcleave). There were a few occasions where DSS was my top deck land for #4 and ended up being more helpful in the moment. On the occasions I've had DSS as my 1x land in my opener, I've found that I most likely ought to have mulligan anyway to sculpt a more conservative hand.
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW
Also Delver thanks for giving me credit for the original primer, I didn't even notice that you did that at first.
I'm just glad someone made this archetype into a real thing. My original primer was a pretty janky deck lul.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W