I've been playing around with a slightly different version of this online, testing out a bunch of different strategies and here is where I've had the best success overall.
I came to the conclusion that I just flat out didn't care about playing tons of maindeck counters. There are very few decks in the format that I care about countering a single card, and against the best combo decks, there are other easier ways to hate them out than to be reactive. Playing this strategy allows me access to Bloodbraid Elf for some nice cascades and a very strong anti-control game.
Why no Punishing Fire? Really grinds out games and wins your Tarmo war.
I've debated on and off for it.
The main probs are that I need to run enough islands, and can't be super efficient to make use of Shackles (which is much better in here than pk fires).
The other problem, is it doesn't really kill many zoo creatures by itself. In mirror matches, it's nice to edge out goyf wars like you said, but when I'm not playing big creatures individually outside Goyf, it's not nearly as strong. If i had more cards that were pure spot removal, it might be worth it, but right now, that's just not the case.
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I've been playing around with a slightly different version of this online, testing out a bunch of different strategies and here is where I've had the best success overall.
I came to the conclusion that I just flat out didn't care about playing tons of maindeck counters. There are very few decks in the format that I care about countering a single card, and against the best combo decks, there are other easier ways to hate them out than to be reactive. Playing this strategy allows me access to Bloodbraid Elf for some nice cascades and a very strong anti-control game.
Is there a reason you are running peek over Probe, cbus?
How is Bloodbraid Elf working for you? seems interesting.
Elf is great. In magical christmas land, cascading into Snapcaster can be amazing. When you don't have 5 mana, it's not incredible, but a 3/2 haste, and a 2/1 is still great value for 4 mana.
More than just that, Cascading into just about anything else in here is great. Even Peek is a good cascade, and it helps get shackles out on a more consistent basis.
And yeah, Peek being an instant is what makes it playable. It's definitely worth playing as a 4-of, and it's the best card you can have turn 1 (since there really aren't any other t1 plays in here).
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LOL magical christmasland. Where you always have the exact right card.
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LOL magical christmasland. Where you always have the exact right card.
Well, considering the fact that you're frequently casting BBE with more than 4 mana on the table (and only need 5 to make use of mage) most of the time you cascade into it, you're hitting a 3-for-1.
When you don't you still get a good amount of Value. A 2/1 isn't the magical cascade of BBE into Ancestral Visions, but it's not a terrible cascade ala BBE into birds of paradise.
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cbus, that's an interesting approach to the deck. It's a pity that blue's best tempo plays, Remand and Repeal doesn't work well with BBE.
As you've said, the strongest appeal to play RUG over Naya or Jund would be cascading into Ancestral Visions. That would make RUG a strong contender. I'm crossing my fingers for the ban list update.
With your current list, I think you might be playing too little spells, which can make SCM inconsistent, especially when cascading into it.
I had a discussion with my friend about RUG Tempo in Modern and this is what was said about the World's deck in comparison (im lazy so copypaste):
1. He play's a higher creature count. One of the problems I encountered with my deck was doing a good job of disruption but never drawing into my threats before I die.
2. He play's a higher number of cantrips (6 to my 4, not counting M. Jet). I guess this is because of his higher creature count and needing to flip Delver. Not to mention if fixes his draws anyways.
3. He plays 3 Cliques and 2 Cryptic Command. In my deckbuilding I had removed these from my list because I figured tapping out for the 3 or four mana cost (he runs the same amount of land) would be a little dangerous.
Well now that I see Cryptic Command is a BOMB, so tapping out wouldn't be that bad perhaps. Time Walk/Counterspell/Draw/Boomerang.
And Clique is a 3/1 with wings so its worth 3 mana to screw their hand. I always thought Clique was too fragile, but I guess I w asn't seeing that he protects himself with the CIP ability anyways.
4. He plays Spellstutter Sprite. Now this is something I was looking for but couldn't find. I often found myself trying to think of a spell that could counter a 1 CMC when I had 2 mana open on the play. Well Spellstutter does that, and combines it with a body (albeit 1/1) to immediately commence the attacking after countering. This is a great creature I need to incorporate. This will solve my dilemma of "Should I leave Leak/Snag Mana open or play Goyf?"
5. He runs Deprive. We talked about this earlier and I think if I'm not mistaken this is also a lategame type slot. So bouncing a land would be OK if the spell absolutely needed countering.
6. Burst Lightning. I don't really see this every being kicked but it's better than Punishing Fire in this deck - costs 1 less mana. More on that later.
7. Flame Slash - I agree with the inclusion, and number of copies here. Burst can deal with Pridemages, Turn 1 W. Nacatls. 2 Flame Slash plus the 4 Bolts should be good enough to take care of any other creatures. That brings it to 8 removal spells.
8. Snapcaster Mage - I guess one thing we can take from the pros (who all play with 4 copies it seems when they are including him at all), is that Snapcaster is TOO GOOD. You have to play 4 and just stop worrying about having him too early. To maximize his effect you just gotta have 4. Just gotta have 4. No less.
9. His lands: 4 shocks, 7 fetches, 7 basic. I have no idea how to make a 3 color manabase with fetches and shock duals.
In my list I kept the colors "balanced" considering I had only green for 4 goyfs and red for bolts and jets. So I tried to make sure a good majority of my lands ran blue. I also came to the realization a little while ago that my shocks could become a huge liability, which is why I bumped up the number of basics. So basically the only intelligent consideration in my list was to try to be more resilient against Aggro (by taking less shockland dmg), and to minimize the impact of Moon or Ghost Quarter Effects.
In his list, he is taking significantly less damage to himself from his lands. 7 fetches to my 8, and 4 shocks to my 6 (LOL). To combat the loss of mana efficiency hes added 2 Cascade Bluffs for the occasional fix. The rest are basic. (Why didn't I think of that..?)
1 tiny detail I don't understand is why the singleton Hinterland Harbor (UG) as opposed to Sulfur Falls (UR). There is a lot more opportunities for red (burn) in his deck than Goyfs. I guess Goyf is just so good that the stronger line of play is always the UG land, that you NEVER want to be missing 1 green mana. So I suppose the Cascade Bluffs are pretty handy after all.
So basically now I am really happy that there's a pro RUG list I can look at, but at the same time I've lost all motivation to experiment on my own. At least I learned some stuff... going to play with this person's list for now. deckbuilding is so hard. Scott's deck pretty much answer's all of my questions about this type of build. More dudes, a little less permission, a lot more anti-aggro. If only I could find his pairings somewhere im curious about what he went against. 6-0 is impressive.
I hope you guys have the patience to read this wall of text...
I always used to netdeck, so trying to make Modern RUG Tempo was pretty difficult for me.
I think all of those points are good, and are humbling in a sense. I thought i was on the right track too, but after trying the Worlds list out I realized that it it just had something that I didn't: consistency.
I didn't understand Hinterland Harbor over Sulfur Falls either...
I am still running with Punishing Fire + Grove. I am willing to trade speed for recursively killing weenie threats here. It also puts other counter spell decks in an awkward position.
Asking out a girl is like trying to cast a first turn Necropotence. Sometimes the other player will have the Force of Will to say no. You shouldn't let that stop you from trying it.
Kavu Predator? That sounds like a terrible idea. If you don't draw a Grove, the Predator is useless. Goyf is just more consistent and gets big faster (even of it can't get as big as a Kavu, the Kavu takes forever and its size would be largely irrelevant by that point.)
Asking out a girl is like trying to cast a first turn Necropotence. Sometimes the other player will have the Force of Will to say no. You shouldn't let that stop you from trying it.
Here's the deck I'll be testing. The match up I'm most worried about is Zoo, mainly Knight of the Reliquary. How is the Zoo match up?
Also might be turning the Tec Edges into a Cascade Bluffs and a Flooded Grove if the mana isn't good enough.
The aggro match up, save RDW is good. We tend to be bigger and more disruptive than they. Of course it is not a walk in the park.
Dedicated creature hate decks stomp this though. So far I have found that this deck's worst enemy is the color black in general. We are kind of a midrange deck that relies a bunch on creature damage to win the game, although sometimes we can get there with burn.
I have enjoyed Kira in the SB and may put another in.
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I came to the conclusion that I just flat out didn't care about playing tons of maindeck counters. There are very few decks in the format that I care about countering a single card, and against the best combo decks, there are other easier ways to hate them out than to be reactive. Playing this strategy allows me access to Bloodbraid Elf for some nice cascades and a very strong anti-control game.
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Vendilion Clique
4x Bloodbraid Elf
Instants/Sorceries
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Peek
2x Dismember
3x Cryptic Command
1x Into the Roil
Artifacts
2x Sword of Light and Shadow
2x Vedalken Shackles
3x Jace Beleren
Lands
3x Breeding Pool
3x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
1x Forest
4x Island
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
1x Raging Ravine
1x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Threads of Disloyalty
2x Combust
2x Blood Moon
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Nature's Claim
1x Beast Within
2x Firespout
2x Chalice of the Void
I've debated on and off for it.
The main probs are that I need to run enough islands, and can't be super efficient to make use of Shackles (which is much better in here than pk fires).
The other problem, is it doesn't really kill many zoo creatures by itself. In mirror matches, it's nice to edge out goyf wars like you said, but when I'm not playing big creatures individually outside Goyf, it's not nearly as strong. If i had more cards that were pure spot removal, it might be worth it, but right now, that's just not the case.
3 mana Grizzly bears are way too slow for the format.
Is there a reason you are running peek over Probe, cbus?
How is Bloodbraid Elf working for you? seems interesting.
there it is. Thanks.
Elf is great. In magical christmas land, cascading into Snapcaster can be amazing. When you don't have 5 mana, it's not incredible, but a 3/2 haste, and a 2/1 is still great value for 4 mana.
More than just that, Cascading into just about anything else in here is great. Even Peek is a good cascade, and it helps get shackles out on a more consistent basis.
And yeah, Peek being an instant is what makes it playable. It's definitely worth playing as a 4-of, and it's the best card you can have turn 1 (since there really aren't any other t1 plays in here).
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Well, considering the fact that you're frequently casting BBE with more than 4 mana on the table (and only need 5 to make use of mage) most of the time you cascade into it, you're hitting a 3-for-1.
When you don't you still get a good amount of Value. A 2/1 isn't the magical cascade of BBE into Ancestral Visions, but it's not a terrible cascade ala BBE into birds of paradise.
As you've said, the strongest appeal to play RUG over Naya or Jund would be cascading into Ancestral Visions. That would make RUG a strong contender. I'm crossing my fingers for the ban list update.
With your current list, I think you might be playing too little spells, which can make SCM inconsistent, especially when cascading into it.
Flame Slash is surprisingly good.
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Vapor Snag
1 Repeal
4 Rune Snag
2 Mana Leak
2 Dispel
1 Turn Aside
4 Serum Visions
2 Flame Slash
2 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Breeding Pool
3 Steam Vents
1 Hinterland Harbor
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
And here is the one that went 6-0 at Worlds:
I had a discussion with my friend about RUG Tempo in Modern and this is what was said about the World's deck in comparison (im lazy so copypaste):
I hope you guys have the patience to read this wall of text...
I always used to netdeck, so trying to make Modern RUG Tempo was pretty difficult for me.
I didn't understand Hinterland Harbor over Sulfur Falls either...
I am still running with Punishing Fire + Grove. I am willing to trade speed for recursively killing weenie threats here. It also puts other counter spell decks in an awkward position.
Again, nice insights and reflections.
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
4 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
2 Tectonic Edge
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak
4 Punishing Fire
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Slash
3 Cryptic Command
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Firespout
2 Combust
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Spell Pierce
3 Threads of Disloyalty
Here's the deck I'll be testing. The match up I'm most worried about is Zoo, mainly Knight of the Reliquary. How is the Zoo match up?
Also might be turning the Tec Edges into a Cascade Bluffs and a Flooded Grove if the mana isn't good enough.
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Standard: RUG Humans
Modern: Delver RUG
*Legacy: Zoo
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Standard: RUG Humans
Modern: Delver RUG
*Legacy: Zoo
The aggro match up, save RDW is good. We tend to be bigger and more disruptive than they. Of course it is not a walk in the park.
Dedicated creature hate decks stomp this though. So far I have found that this deck's worst enemy is the color black in general. We are kind of a midrange deck that relies a bunch on creature damage to win the game, although sometimes we can get there with burn.
I have enjoyed Kira in the SB and may put another in.