I have to disagree about Faerie being just absolutely useless in any MUs. Even if you’re not using it for its ability and getting the full value out of it, it can be extremely useful in other ways.
-It’s an easy hardcast, and therefore a good flying blocker in a pinch. It’s also a clock for when games get weird and you just need some kind of pressure, and sometimes it’s even an awesome clock when you combine it with Kessig.
-it’s also a free creature in the bin. There have been games when I’ve had to cascade waaay earlier than I would like to, and that extra creature in the yard makes all the difference. The free discard also really helps for Horror shenanigans.
That may not sound like a lot, but I just can’t agree that the card is sometimes deader than dead. I’ve benefited many times from it game one in MUs where I subsequently side it out because it’s not as applicable as my other SB cards.
And congrats, Booker. I didn’t see your post last night. Nice run. You’re in the DFW area?
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I do live in the DFW area and mostly go to Reaper on Wednesdays. I might also be considering changing the avalanche riders back into blood moons, but then i remember the RUG scapeshift game where by turn 7 in game 3 my opponent had no lands and decided that was enough.
There is an opportunity cost to a card being in your deck. If macabre is nothing but a free 2/2 flier, it is dead--because it would be far better as a different card.
That said, I am surprised at the assertion that this is a common situation--I think in the current meta most decks should have a myriad of ways for us to use macabre. Snapcaster and Liliana creature decks should both be common, and macabre shines against both of those. That's not even including decks with a more explicit graveyard theme, such as mardu decks. Only eldrazi really should be a dead matchup and common.
I didn’t realize anyone was asserting that Macabre being a dead card is common. I certainly wasn’t. I do still feel that the card is never truly a dead card, based solely on that I’ve never experienced it as such. Sure, there’s plenty of games I’ve sides some or all out because other cards fit a particular MU better.
And when I think of a “dead card” I think of, say, Terminate against Lantern, or Blood Moon against MonoG Stompy.
To me, dead means "cannot do anything worth a card in your deck." Lightning bolt, for instance, is very much dead against lantern if your deck is not burn, despite the fact that you technically can aim it at their face. It is just absolutely not worth a card in your deck to do so.
Over on the E Tron thread, they’re talking about how their Jund MUs have gotten exponentially worse since BBE was unbanned. One guy said he’s lost every match vs Jund since the BnR change.
I think they are also dropping chalice, because it’s not as useful vs the meta as it used to be
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So I just moved to a new town and going into a blind meta. This is the list I just put together. Any critique would be most welcome as I have not run Living End since the lists of old. The manabase feels a bit off and the sideboard is undecided (i.e. not sure on Leylines). Stoked to get out and get after it next weekend. Has Raging Ravine fallen completely out of favor?
I think 4x Horror of the Broken Lands and 4x Desert Ceradon is canon. They’re our best cyclers for sure and a big reason why the deck has gotten much more competitive. I would never cut either, personally.
I think you want 4x Blackcleave Cliffs rather than the 2/2 split because it cycles all three of our one-mana cyclers.
Those are the only things I see that I’d definitely want to change.
Personally I don’t like Dryad Arbor. I don’t want anything that might slow me down from getting my cascade cards online. You have Macabre, SSG, and Fulminator Mage you can easily hardcast and beast tokens as targets for Dread, IF the opponent doesn’t give you one themself. Still, I know we used to run it a lot back in the day.
I personally like the 7x cascade spells. That’s what I run. A lot of people play 8x these days though.
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Agree with Piney regarding which one mana cyclers to run. I think your mana base is mismatched with your inclusion of more of the interaction and Ifnir. I would definitely cut the dryad arbor and shave at least two fetche for more fastlands.
Depending on how much blue control you see in your new meta vs Affinity, Lantern and the like you might consider swapping one of the Ricohet Traps for another Ingot Chewer.
I took the third Ricochet Trap out of my SB a couple of weeks ago because I was never comfortable siding it in. I’m always scared of diluting the deck’s cycle engine too much. We have so many good plays against control I haven’t had to rely on Trap too much. Not to say it isn’t a great card/a blowout, I’m just hesitant to board in too many and have a way to protect our combo, but not a way to cascade into the combo or enough critters in the yard to make it worth LEing.
That said, a lot of (maybe most?) people play three traps.
I would NEVER leave home with less than three Ingot Chewers in my SB though. Everyone slams down artifact grave hate so smuggly at my LGS and I almost always have a way to deal with it. And then they look like I shot their dog. It’s like they can’t imagine that a combo deck that mostly relies on its graveyard (though way less than they imagine), would have ways to deal with GY hate. It’s just a perfect card for our deck. I’ve run four Ingot Chewers before when we had a Robots player, a Lantern player, and a monoG Tron player show up consistently, but I haven’t seen the Robots player in awhile and I’ve since added a MB K-Command.
Even if it’s not at the expense of a Trap, I second that you should find a place for a third Chewer in your SB.
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Trap shouldn't be replacing cyclers unless they're the two mana ones. For what they accomplish, they should be replacing the LD pieces as pre-board, they were the method to deal with counters (constraining the mana required to pay for counters).
I play 3 chewer and 2 trap as a baseline. More chewer is doable, third trap in a Control heavy meta is fine. I prefer to play just 2 Trap myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at the Control MU so it’s not a huge worry.
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Trap shouldn't be replacing cyclers unless they're the two mana ones. For what they accomplish, they should be replacing the LD pieces as pre-board, they were the method to deal with counters (constraining the mana required to pay for counters).
This exact logic is why I find ricochet trap a bit unsettling. Not because I disagree with it, necessarily. There is a good argument that ricochet performs the same structural role in our deck against control as the LD. But the LD does so much more. It can help to keep a Supreme Verdict from going off, constrain their ability to win, and all in all, give more trouble than simply a counterspell would. Ricochet trap is not merely a counterspell, it is only a counter of counters. This is typically good for decks that need to resolve combos, but traditionally those decks win rapidly after comboing. We have a combo with which there can be significant interaction. I therefore remain a skeptic on the card--not an implacable one, and I've run it before, but I don't think it's our evergreen answer to control.
Trap shouldn't be replacing cyclers unless they're the two mana ones. For what they accomplish, they should be replacing the LD pieces as pre-board, they were the method to deal with counters (constraining the mana required to pay for counters).
Whoa! I would never imagine in a million years that boarding out any LD was the right move to make room for Trap. I’m not being facetious, I seriously couldn’t imagine that being the right move. Land hate has always been so powerful for me against control MUs I’ve never really needed to rely on Trap. It just happens to be an extra bonus if I end up with one by the time I’m ready to cascade. I usually just side out an Archfiend and a SSG or two for Trap (I am aware they have some synergy).I’d rather leave Trap at home if I ever had to choose between it or any LD.
I play 3 chewer and 2 trap as a baseline. More chewer is doable, third trap in a Control heavy meta is fine. I prefer to play just 2 Trap myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at the Control MU so it’s not a huge worry.
I’ve gotten A LOT better at the control MU. I’m actually very comfortable with it now. That’s not to say I don’t lose a game every now and then. I completely agree with your sentiments towards Chewer and Trap. I share the same preferences. But honestly in a control heavy meta I’d take a fourth Fulminator Mage over another Trap.
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This exact logic is why I find ricochet trap a bit unsettling. Not because I disagree with it, necessarily. There is a good argument that ricochet performs the same structural role in our deck against control as the LD. But the LD does so much more. It can help to keep a Supreme Verdict from going off, constrain their ability to win, and all in all, give more trouble than simply a counterspell would. Ricochet trap is not merely a counterspell, it is only a counter of counters. This is typically good for decks that need to resolve combos, but traditionally those decks win rapidly after comboing. We have a combo with which there can be significant interaction. I therefore remain a skeptic on the card--not an implacable one, and I've run it before, but I don't think it's our evergreen answer to control.
I never said that it was a slam dunk answer, it's just more efficient. There's obviously going to be corner cases like rule saavy opponents choosing two targets with cryptic or non-counter answers like board wipes but it's not like all the LD is going out, just some.
Whoa! I would never imagine in a million years that boarding out any LD was the right move to make room for Trap. I’m not being facetious, I seriously couldn’t imagine that being the right move. Land hate has always been so powerful for me against control MUs I’ve never really needed to rely on Trap.
For a lot of cases, LD and traps are functionally the same, with one being more efficient.
Take a common example, opponent is on 6 lands, taps 4 for JTMS leaving 2 blue sources open (one unbasic). We're sitting on 6 lands ourselves with outburst and fulminator. The play would be to main phase 1 fulminator blow up unbasic then main phase 2 cascade to dodge the common two mana counters (logic knot, remand, mana leak).
Take that same scenario in which the fulminator is now a trap and I now have two additional mana, could be used to cycle, or even hold a back up cascade with SSG. The result is the same either way as well, LE resolves. In the first example, it resolves because opponent doesn't have the mana to pay for counter, in the second, opponent's counter gets countered.
I suppose it depends on your 60 as well, some of the flex slot cards aren't amazing and I did say that i'd take out 2 mana cyclers before LD pieces. Archfiends (and shriekmaws by extensions) are coming out before LD and if those are in the 60 enough to cover the traps then that's fine. But if I don't have those or am running a crucial 2 mana cycler like pale recluse, I might be more incline to shave LD, especially if I suspect the opponent will hold fetches and/or fetch conservatively which diminishes the power of our LD line greatly.
Firmly disagree that you want to shave one haymaker for another vs control. We want as many as possible. I’m more likely to shave SSGs because of their disadvantage than Fulminator mages.
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-It’s an easy hardcast, and therefore a good flying blocker in a pinch. It’s also a clock for when games get weird and you just need some kind of pressure, and sometimes it’s even an awesome clock when you combine it with Kessig.
-it’s also a free creature in the bin. There have been games when I’ve had to cascade waaay earlier than I would like to, and that extra creature in the yard makes all the difference. The free discard also really helps for Horror shenanigans.
That may not sound like a lot, but I just can’t agree that the card is sometimes deader than dead. I’ve benefited many times from it game one in MUs where I subsequently side it out because it’s not as applicable as my other SB cards.
And congrats, Booker. I didn’t see your post last night. Nice run. You’re in the DFW area?
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That said, I am surprised at the assertion that this is a common situation--I think in the current meta most decks should have a myriad of ways for us to use macabre. Snapcaster and Liliana creature decks should both be common, and macabre shines against both of those. That's not even including decks with a more explicit graveyard theme, such as mardu decks. Only eldrazi really should be a dead matchup and common.
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Seems like a stretch--reality smasher lines up really well against Bloodbraid and Jace. I'd expect it to remain a part of modern for a long time.
I didn’t realize anyone was asserting that Macabre being a dead card is common. I certainly wasn’t. I do still feel that the card is never truly a dead card, based solely on that I’ve never experienced it as such. Sure, there’s plenty of games I’ve sides some or all out because other cards fit a particular MU better.
And when I think of a “dead card” I think of, say, Terminate against Lantern, or Blood Moon against MonoG Stompy.
Macabre is my hombre.
Edit: Arcbound Ravager, Kitchen Finks, Goryo's Vengeance, Knight of the Reliquary, Vengevine, Kolaghan’s Command, Eternal Witness, Renegade Rallier, Scrap Trawler, Sword of the Meek, Search for Azcanta, Bloodghast, etc.
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I think they are also dropping chalice, because it’s not as useful vs the meta as it used to be
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4 Fulminator Mage
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Archfiend of Ifnir
3 Horror of the broken lands
4 Monstrous Carabid
4 Street Wraith
3 Desert Cerodon
1 Shriekmaw
3 Faerie Macabre
Spells (13)
3 Living End
3 Beast Within
3 Demonic Dread
4 Violent Outburst
1 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blooming Marsh
2 Copperline Gorge
1 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Brindle Boar
2 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Krosan Grip
1 Beast Within
3 Ricochet Trap
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Shriekmaw
I think you want 4x Blackcleave Cliffs rather than the 2/2 split because it cycles all three of our one-mana cyclers.
Those are the only things I see that I’d definitely want to change.
Personally I don’t like Dryad Arbor. I don’t want anything that might slow me down from getting my cascade cards online. You have Macabre, SSG, and Fulminator Mage you can easily hardcast and beast tokens as targets for Dread, IF the opponent doesn’t give you one themself. Still, I know we used to run it a lot back in the day.
I personally like the 7x cascade spells. That’s what I run. A lot of people play 8x these days though.
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Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
That said, a lot of (maybe most?) people play three traps.
I would NEVER leave home with less than three Ingot Chewers in my SB though. Everyone slams down artifact grave hate so smuggly at my LGS and I almost always have a way to deal with it. And then they look like I shot their dog. It’s like they can’t imagine that a combo deck that mostly relies on its graveyard (though way less than they imagine), would have ways to deal with GY hate. It’s just a perfect card for our deck. I’ve run four Ingot Chewers before when we had a Robots player, a Lantern player, and a monoG Tron player show up consistently, but I haven’t seen the Robots player in awhile and I’ve since added a MB K-Command.
Even if it’s not at the expense of a Trap, I second that you should find a place for a third Chewer in your SB.
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This exact logic is why I find ricochet trap a bit unsettling. Not because I disagree with it, necessarily. There is a good argument that ricochet performs the same structural role in our deck against control as the LD. But the LD does so much more. It can help to keep a Supreme Verdict from going off, constrain their ability to win, and all in all, give more trouble than simply a counterspell would. Ricochet trap is not merely a counterspell, it is only a counter of counters. This is typically good for decks that need to resolve combos, but traditionally those decks win rapidly after comboing. We have a combo with which there can be significant interaction. I therefore remain a skeptic on the card--not an implacable one, and I've run it before, but I don't think it's our evergreen answer to control.
Whoa! I would never imagine in a million years that boarding out any LD was the right move to make room for Trap. I’m not being facetious, I seriously couldn’t imagine that being the right move. Land hate has always been so powerful for me against control MUs I’ve never really needed to rely on Trap. It just happens to be an extra bonus if I end up with one by the time I’m ready to cascade. I usually just side out an Archfiend and a SSG or two for Trap (I am aware they have some synergy).I’d rather leave Trap at home if I ever had to choose between it or any LD.
I’ve gotten A LOT better at the control MU. I’m actually very comfortable with it now. That’s not to say I don’t lose a game every now and then. I completely agree with your sentiments towards Chewer and Trap. I share the same preferences. But honestly in a control heavy meta I’d take a fourth Fulminator Mage over another Trap.
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I never said that it was a slam dunk answer, it's just more efficient. There's obviously going to be corner cases like rule saavy opponents choosing two targets with cryptic or non-counter answers like board wipes but it's not like all the LD is going out, just some.
For a lot of cases, LD and traps are functionally the same, with one being more efficient.
Take a common example, opponent is on 6 lands, taps 4 for JTMS leaving 2 blue sources open (one unbasic). We're sitting on 6 lands ourselves with outburst and fulminator. The play would be to main phase 1 fulminator blow up unbasic then main phase 2 cascade to dodge the common two mana counters (logic knot, remand, mana leak).
Take that same scenario in which the fulminator is now a trap and I now have two additional mana, could be used to cycle, or even hold a back up cascade with SSG. The result is the same either way as well, LE resolves. In the first example, it resolves because opponent doesn't have the mana to pay for counter, in the second, opponent's counter gets countered.
I suppose it depends on your 60 as well, some of the flex slot cards aren't amazing and I did say that i'd take out 2 mana cyclers before LD pieces. Archfiends (and shriekmaws by extensions) are coming out before LD and if those are in the 60 enough to cover the traps then that's fine. But if I don't have those or am running a crucial 2 mana cycler like pale recluse, I might be more incline to shave LD, especially if I suspect the opponent will hold fetches and/or fetch conservatively which diminishes the power of our LD line greatly.
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