Firstly, been really busy lately so haven't had much time actually sit down and reply here, but it's nice to see that there have been some discussion going on while I was away! Keep at it, guys!
Just updated the first post with some minor changes. Now, for replies!
Typical keepable hand is 2-3 land 5-4 cards so if your opponent doesn't show land on a first turn blackmail you only cannot choose 1-2 cards. Altho I agree this is giving choise its still a bad situation for them becuase people just dont play bad cards you always get to pick something good. Maybe your right tho, and it could be better to just play 4 Inquisition of Kozilek and get rid of low mana plays first and then destroy lands
The thing is that modern is a fast format, even on the play a Goyf or Delver can come online before your land distruction or on the draw your counters. To me it seems that 1 mana discard solves that situation before it arises.
Another thing that bothers me about U/R is that it has a twofold game plan. It wants to be reactive with counters and proactive with land destruction. These two plans do not work well together, a turn 3 Stone rain means you cannot counter his turn 3 play. Id rather be full on proactive and not have to worry about needing mana open on my opponents turn the first part of the game.
Altho i cannot prove that this is a better game plan my gut feeling tells me to avoid this situation.
Yeah, I get that we won't be able to deal with some early plays like Tarmogoyf or Delver of Secrets or whatever, but that's what the spot/mass removals are for. It doesn't hurt us too badly to take some damage early before we draw an answer (hopefully). The cantrips do help too.
About being reactive and proactive, yeah that's the thing about tempo decks (this is kinda tempo-control-ish thing, I guess?). Opponent has a dual land or Urza land in play on my third turn and I have a Stone Rain and Remand in my hand? I'd definitely take out the dual. If not, I'll keep the turn to Remand his next play and continue accordingly. It's all the situations like that and the decision making which makes the deck fun for me.
I just don't see a BR version of this working as well as the UR. Your discard cards will hurt you more than help over the long run i.e. Thoughtseize and in late game, they might not be as useful as counters when the opponent's hand is more thinned out. (and that's the idea here, to stall and do some land destruction). At least, that's what my gut tells me. But hey, this is why I made this thread. Wanted more opinions and people to help me test out the possibilities and discuss it all. So yeah, do test it out and keep me updated on the BR version, man! I'm very interested to see how it plays out.
I like Frost Titan as the finisher here, the extra 2 required to remove him really does add up when mana is already at a premium.
Yeah, that's why I picked him instead of the many other creatures available. He's harder to remove and he denies them their lands too. And with all the 'dead' removals they have been drawing since I barely run creatures, they'll all be waiting in hand, just to drop it on my finisher.
Were I to play LD, I'd play Naya so I could run Knight of the Reliquary and Bloodbraid Elf. Nothing beats cascading into Boom/Bust and casting Bust for free.
Then you have Acidic Slime, which you can flicker with Restoration Angel. And if you're playing Angel, you can have Kiki in the sideboard for a surprise win.
Naya is appealing but if I were to play Naya, it wouldn't be for Restoration Angel. The angel only has synergy with Bloodbraid Elf. There's no other reason to run the angel except BBE. Not worth the slots. Knight of the Reliquary would also only be worth it if you managed to cast Bust. It only gets pumped by your lands, not the opponent's. Shouldn't even be considering it. These two creatures are very strong but they just have no place in the deck. And I'd try not to push too hard on the mana base to avoid playing too many shocklands.
Besides, Ajani Vengeant, Lightning Helix, Ghostly Prison and Leonin Arbiter are pretty much the only good reasons to run white. And the Arbiter screws up our mana fixing for playing 3 colours too so it's not THAT good of an inclusion. Unless anyone has anything else to add?
I also tend to agree that the Naya version must be the most competitive considering the power of the cards the colours offer.
Apart from that i like the U/R version more since it is more "rogue-ish", but splashing the white for Ajani, Vengeant and cheap removal in the early game (Lightning Helix) seems as a must to me, taking the current metagame in consideration.
Hasn't anyone thought about Tamiyo in this deck?
Not sure about Naya being the most competitive but yeah, testing as much as I can. I like the idea of splashing white too, but Helix just doesn't seem worth it. The lifegain could be useful but... I'm not so sure HOW useful.
As for Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, damn, I totally forgot about her! She might be a perfect fit at 5cmc. Have always been missing a card at 5CMC. Will definitely test her.
I'd replace the Wrath of Gods with Pyroclasm or Volcanic Fallout. Also the mana base might hurt you too much though. Wrath is too slow and has WW. Might be a big problem trying to hit that by turn 4. Try a few basics. If your opponent resolves a Blood Moon, you're done (you have no counters too). As for your creatures, Delver and Figure are great, but I don't think this is the right place for them. You'd be better with some counters in their spot.
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For the record, I really do believe that going the BURN approach is the way to do it. Only play creatures that are harder to remove and/or instant board presence the moment played (Frost Titan). That'll leave all/most of their removals as dead cards as you carry on with your gameplan and give you the option of going for a transformational sideboard too.
Also, I wouldn't base the deck on Bloodbraid Elf. Too much luck involved and the typical list for it would be something like what DrWorm posted and it's really clunky. You won't always be getting that LD from the Cascade. I want to be able to 'consistently' attack their mana base my way and not hope for it to happen with every Cascade activation.
Whew, took me awhile to type all that. Will be following the thread closely now. And for those who didn't read everything on the first post, please do.
has anyone tried out Shivan Wumpus as a beater/ld card for this deck. 4 mana 6/6 trample is nice. the only thing is that he is quite bad when your opponents are winning the creature race.
id play this deck B/R
4 blackmail ( only discard in modern to kill lands)
4 rise//fall ( modern hymn that works nicely with blackmail) or inquisition of koizilek
4 terminate or cruel eddict
2 consuming vapors
4 boom// bust
2 bonfire of the damned ( not sure about this one, maybe Terminus could work well in this deck aswell but then it needs 3colors)
4 stone rain
4 magnivore
3 Shivan Wumpus
the plan would be to destroy anything low mana in your opponents hand the first few turns. then start blowing up lands and killing creatures that might have come through.
the issue I have with the blue version is that it seems weak against storm combo and burn, basicly decks that can operate on 2 mana as long as there hand stays untouched.
What do you guys think?
btw: Where is the "weak wildfire" card
3rr deals 3 damage to all creatures each player sac 3 lands... that would be awsome
Shivan Wumpus... This kind of deck is the only home for it to be playable but it's gonna need a lot of testing. I'm a little skeptical.
I like the BR take on it and have thought of it (though not much) but I prefer blue for the counter magic and draw although being able to get their lands from hand could hurt a lot too but Blackmail is giving them a choice. Once they know what we're playing, lands will never be revealed. I don't like it since discard lets them decide and if we're talking about choosing what to discard for them, Thoughtseize and Rise // Fall, they only target nonland stuff. Once they know what they're up against, they'll choose to keep lands and go topdeck mode. So unless we're playing very heavy discard (which will make the LD plan take a backseat) I don't think this will work as well as blue.
I'd rather have them going 'topdeck' mode for lands, even with their hand full. I'm leaning more towards blue for now even with its weak matchups. Against Burn, I'd just aggressively mulligan for a Spreading Seas; that'll keep us alive long enough to stabilise and they don't play that many lands too. For storm, I'm not sure though but it's probably our weakest matchup.
I'm thinking though, if we play some black disruption/discard as part of a transformational sideboard plan...
Isochron Scepter combined with boomerang...if it comes out on turn 2 on the play you can ensure they never get off two land. However many lands they have when you stick it, that's the maximum they'll have until they remove it.
Isochorn Scepter doesn't and probaly won't have much synergy with the type of deck since the average CMC is 3 with all the usual LD. And without it, Boomerang is very subpar at its job of denying them off lands as they'll definitely only be set a turn back, rather than possibly many turns. We're playing a long game and just buying a turn isn't gonna be enough. I'd rather slow them down with removal/counter magic early before starting to destroy lands.
Yeah, the scepter can do that, great. But to make it work 'consistently' enough to warrant their inclusion, gotta have 4 of each. That's 8 slots gone for something so gimmicky and everyone has artifact hate in their 75. Not to mention that having other 2 CMC spells to make the scepter have other targets is essential for it to not be a dead draw. It's also a 2-for-1 on yourself if it gets removed right after you play it. And if it's just a 1-2 of, might as well not play it cause you want it early for it to be best. You're probably already winning if you survive that long.
Well, that's just my opinion. Avoiding bouncing lands instead of destroying; too much risk in the 'already very risky' gameplan.
Focusing more on milling and exiling cards now.
No scalding, misty and such its over my budget.
I like the current deck now, looks good. Some changes:
EDIT: -1 Ravenous Trap (not Trapmaker's Snare), +1 Mana Leak
-1 Leyline of the Void, +1 Snapcaster Mage
Mana Leak's gonna come in handy, and I'll never play less than a playset. Maybe Remand would do better for you here though. Leyline just doesn't do much, you already have another trap to deal with those things. And another Snapcaster would probably do better to recur the trap/trapmaker's snare in case you need it.
As for the fetches, yeah it'll work great with the crab so that's just something for you to invest on slowly.
Please remember that Pithing Needle is useable on Fetch Lands. Since you're not running mana accels this card would be great in helping shut down your oppenents early game.
I tried running LD with a :symg::symr::symw: mana base. I gave up on the idea because of the meta when Modern was first introduced. With the new banned list and meta being rediscovered, this is a good time to look into a LD deck. Best of luck!
Yeah, that's great actually. But probably just a sideboard card, I'd rather they do fetch something, lose 1 life (possibly 3), then I destroy it or cast Spreading Seas on it. Plus, if they've fetched, and I keep destroying their lands, they'll possibly run out of lands even faster.
Also yeah, cause of the new decks emerging and modern changing here and there, I'm having good vibes for this.
If you're doing only then you might want to look into Planeswalkers or maybe Ball Lightning.
Adding just one more color would truly be benefical to your deck. I would consider for Ajani Goldmane or Ajani Vengeant.
White would also bring on more options for creatures. Low casting cost creatures at that.
Playing something like Ball Lightning makes me feel like trying to be RDW as well, and it'll be better if we stray away from that. This isn't sligh, and I think we should stay away from trying to be sligh. Decks that try to be too many things usually don't work out very well. From my experience, at least. Playing creatures, unless they're hard to remove or is beneficial the moment they hit, goes against what I believe we're trying to do. Blanking out pretty much all their removals is quite important and gives you that pseudo card advantage.
The only Planeswalker I found that COULD be useful for the deck are the two already listed in card choices. Chandra, the Firebrand and Ajani Vengeant. But I haven't found that many good reasons to splash white though, so maybe I'm missing something.
I've been pondering on what I can do with so much mana, and I guess Snapcaster Mage would be a fine addition. It has a decent body which could work well with my used spells. Most times during testing, I end up with a lot of mana and nothing to do so maybe it'll be useful to have a few. A playset? I'm skeptical though. Cause let's say, if I had a Snapcaster instead of a Stone Rain in hand on turn 3, then I'll be waiting for some use of the Snapcaster instead of outright destroying a land on that turn and that might/could slow me down. This really needs testing. But I love the idea of including him.
@CHEESY_BARF: I find that running blue gives you more ways to handle stuff than just going for removal aggressively and destroying lands. For example, Spreading Seas will probably colour screw them; there aren't many blue decks around and countermagic will work better at removing early threats than many sweepers. What if he plays something big? A well-fed goyf on the field will be hard to remove with just burns. So countering it would be best, if not outright destroying it (which warrants my inclusion of Beast Within, even though just a singleton).
I've tried going that route, but it's usually only effective against the aggressive creature decks cause of all the burn removal. It'll totally just fold to combo though, especially when you don't have a Blood Moon out by turn 3. And that's if you're lucky. Sometimes, getting it out turn 3 wouldn't matter anyway, which is why I don't wanna be too reliant on it. While I've said that I don't see the Mono-Red LD take on this making it far, do let us know how your testing goes. In any case, considering your deck's gameplan with red, do check out the Moon's Essence primer cause they're discussing exactly what you're trying to do. I'm sure your input will be valuable to those working there.
After playing with a bunch of friends, which I kept loosing
Either bad config or luck.
They recommend me some changes and I added in some input of mine.
Removed Arcane trap and Ghost Quarters as its is very situation and the opponent may not choose to "Search" the library. So thus not triggering the Arcane trap's Effect.
Added Vapor Snag for some spot removal, Yes the deck may lack mass removal. Still thinking of adding a few. But I shall see.
Added in more Sadistic Sacrament as a form of control, Since you can view their deck and exile 3 cards from their deck, Its way too good to say no.
Added in Leyline of the void, To deal with cards with flash black, dredge decks, annoying cards like Chandra's Phoenix, Tormod's crypt is to add in as a back up incase your so unlucky that you didn't get the leyline.
Please comment for improvements
Keep the trap and ghost quarters, seriously. Ghost quarters are great to remove duals and whatever other nonsense they got. And if they don't search for a land, you get a free Strip Mine? How is that bad?
And if you're already intending on splashing white, like DOLZero said, use Path instead. It has way more synergy with the traps. Again, if they choose not to search, you get a free and better Swords to Plowshares. Even better than Vapor Snag. The 1 life they lose don't matter cause you're planning to mill them.
Also, I think the idea is to mill ASAP instead of playing creatures and stuff to 'last longer'. Play some spot removal, couple sweepers, Snapcaster, maybe crab too, and mill away. Try to be less controlling and more aggressive with the milling; I think that's the way to go. Oh. I would advise against playing Sadistic Sacrament too; for the same reasons already given.
If you wanna be cool and stuff too, go for Maralen of the Mornsong. That way, they HAVE to search and you hit them with the trap. Set up with some twincasts in hand, get an archive trap, play Trapmaker's Snare too and just finish the game.
Crab to draw removal early before dropping Maralen for her to do some magic. Might be a little too slow, and could possible hurt you more than them, but it's fun. Played something like that casually long ago. Of course, they'd just search their deck for a removal to answer Maralen, so it'll probably NOT live to do anything. But if it does...
Hmmm invisible stalker + sword of body and mind is the alt win con if the hand is bad, could only think of subbing them for tome scour, 1 U for 5 cards is kinda good.
Hahas, you share the same mind as me, I too think that the crabs are a waste of slots. They make a meh meh blocker thou =\
However I was thinking maybe a cheap U or B with regen could take up crab's slot such as Odious Trow, Drudge Skeletons or Kuro's Taken.
I would think that an alternate win-con shouldn't take so many slots. Maybe just some huge creature as a 4/3-of?
Some form of counter might be good instead of just having creatures for the sake of having creatures. Remand, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce etc are viable options. Plus, that way, you could bounce a Leyline with Into the Roil, Boomerang, Wipe Away etc and counter it when they drop it again later on. Then like the OP mentioned, include Extirpate or Surgical Extraction to remove the Leyline, for good.
Quote from DOLZero »
Snapcaster is a terrible idea. Twincast is much better since you can't flashback archive trap without having to pay 5.
Snapcaster having flash doesn't mean anything if you are using during your turn to flashback Glimpse or Mind Funeral. There are few targets to effectively use his flash ability with this deck.
You guy's are also missing that you can Twincast your opponent's spells. This alone has won me games. Hey, you want to storm combo me? I will just copy that Grapeshot right back at you, and mine resolves first.
Could just include both. 3-3 split or probably 4-2, which could be best. Personally, I'd rather have the 2/1 body than the Twincast but it wouldn't hurt to have both. It's a nice card to have, but you don't wanna see it too much, and in multiples especially. Plus, topdecking a Twincast is gonna hurt a lot more than a Snapcaster. With all the cheap mill we run, it's likely that we'll run out of cards in hand quite quick.
needs more magnivore, that guy really owns in decks like this. late game 10/10 haste for 4 mana really steals games away.
Also 4 darksteel citadel with boom//bust is a must. the chance on t2 stone rain is very nice
Magnivore is great for LD decks, yeah but cause it lacks creatures, and compared to Frost Titan which is harder to deal with, Magnivore will immediately draw whatever 'dead' removal the opponent would have in hand. I'd like to avoid that and have just that pseudo card advantage by letting them hold onto 'dead' removals.
Hadn't thought of the Darksteel Citadels, nice. Should be an auto-include indeed.
P.S. Thinking of removing Annex totally for Molten Rain. With the high land count, I'd rather have a cheaper land destruction spell which could be potential damage than steal a land. Though, in Annex's defense, it'll work great against other decks that play Darksteel Citadel since we can't destroy that. Plus, with the addition of Darksteel Citadel in the deck, Ghost Quarter could be used as a fetch too (for more synergy with Boom // Bust). Thoughts?
EDIT: Moved Annex to sideboard instead in favour of Molten Rain to lower the average CMC of the deck. Dropped Roiling Terrain to 2 as well for the same reason. Added a singleton Red Sun's Zenith and removed the 4th Lightning Bolt to make use of the excess mana in case of a dragged game. And it's reuseable as well, though the chances are slim, more of a finisher than anything.
W/U/B is too hard on the current mana base, especially if you're playing Sadistic Sacrament. BBB is gonna be a dead card in your hand almost always so just drop that and play something else. Some shocklands and more fetches to utilise Hedron Crab too.
And by the looks of this, the crabs are just gonna eat all the removal since they're pretty much your only creatures that 'need' to stay on the battlefield. The Snaps are just to recur your mill spells so eating removal wouldn't matter. I'm beginning to think that playing the crabs are just wasting the slots. Will it be better for them to have dead removals in game 1 then board in the crabs when they remove their removals game 2?
Also, drop the Oblivion Rings for Path to Exile cause they work great with Archive Trap. O-Ring wouldn't work very well as, again, you don't wanna be dragging a game too long. You probably can't too, with all the aggro decks around.
I really feel like you need better / more win conditions. What's going to stop me from Hide/Seek (Seek)ing away or Pathing your Frost Giants when you tap out to drop LD?
When it gets to the point where I do cast Frost Titan, the board will be in my favour if I'm not already dead. The titan on its own can keep 1 land tapped so even cheap removal will be costly considering the amount of land destruction.
As for Hide // Seek and the like, well, I have to say that I don't have answers for that, but it's something consider before tapping out I guess. These cards are partly the reason why I've included some counters like Remands. But yeah, it'll hurt getting hit by that.
The deck's already very dense as it is, I'm really not sure about adding other win conditions. I do get where you're coming from but this really needs more extensive testing as of now.
Have you tried Wildfire? It's the basis of a few completely different deck archetypes, but still a LD spell nonetheless. Artifact ramp and planeswalkers are its BFFs.
SB wise, if you play red you can make space for Blood Moon.
Wildfire is great but it's probably not for this deck cause I believe Boom // Bust will fill in that same role when you draw it late. Once a Frost Titan hits, land a Bust and you're good to go. Pretty much the same idea. Although Wildfire does have that bonus sweeping effect which could come in handy... Maybe a 1/2-of but that'll greatly increase the curve which is quite steep as it is.
Aren't decks like this too slow? I think delver would be good in this type of deck, but you'd have to change some cards to accommodate it, like switching out spreading seas for boomerang and the sweepers for serum visions. Maybe grim lavamancer would be good too? what about 2-3 copies of reverberate?
It's slow, but not too slow because of the early disruption/removal. Just need to survive long enough to get things going. The sweepers are very necessary cause of all early drops around; remember, the deck has no creatures for us to block with. Playing Delver of Secrets isn't what the deck wants to do. And it'll just draw all the removal. Not the deck for it. Might need some testing. As for Grim Lavamancer, that'll just change the whole deck altogether. The beauty of it is to not have any other creatures EXCEPT Frost Titan so any form of removal they draw early on is a dead card. They're transformational sideboard options at best.
Boomerang would just bounce the land, and they'll still be able to play it again. Granted, if it was a shockland, they'd either be slowed down or end up taking more damage, but that's not the aim. While this is somewhat a tempo deck, Boomerang only gives you that slight edge, by only delaying them a turn. Destroying lands will have them hope they draw lands to play and not just play the land we bounced. We're trying to stop them, not stall them. So destroying lands or Spreading Seas them is essential to deny them off their colours. Plus, it cantrips.
Reverberate is a horrible topdeck cause it doesn't do anything on its own. Will be better off without it.
*Updated as much as I can for now, will keep working on it. - 23/08/13
Introduction
Everyone knows this type of deck. Destroy or deny their mana, then take over the game when they're helpless. It's a classic that has been around since the start of MTG (Sinkhole, anyone?). Being a big fan of this fun archetype (even though it'll probably never be very competitive in any format), I really believe that this could work fairly well (even better here than Legacy) since Modern is a format with mostly very greedy land bases. And with more control decks surfacing in the meta, I think this is a good time to give this a(nother) shot.
Why play this?
As said above, there's a ton of greedy land bases around in modern these days. Attacking their land base shuts off their spells, and lets you take over the game. Against decks that play little lands, you have the advantage. It's also actually pretty fun to pilot and annoying to play against if it goes your way. And if you're sick of the usual aggro beatdown decks, this is a nice change than all the mainstream decks.
History (Dedicated/Partial Variants)
There have been many different variants and strategies for this type of deck but since Modern is a quick format filled with lots of aggressive and combo strategies, most of these are either too slow, or too meta-dependent. Here they are.
G/x/x Ponza
This is the classic. Play many mana dorks, ramping artifacts and all that, then head right into the land destruction and with green, Plow Under, then cast a fatty to seal the deal. The general plan of this variant is simple but it's too slow for Modern. I'm sure many of you have tried this. It just doesn't consistently work, especially when you don't manage to be able to deal with all the creatures attacking you.
U/X Tempo
Basically bouncing permanents (essentially lands) with cards like Boomerang but that doesn't really stop them. Some decks like Affinity and Zoo can work well at 2 mana so just bouncing lands wouldn't be enough. It'll only keep you alive for a little longer at best.
This is really fun but it's too fragile and dependent on it. It'll just break and fail without the artifact. And with so much artifact hate in the current meta... Great when it goes your way though.
Wildfire Domain
One of my favourite decks of the '05 period. Basic idea of this is to ramp yourself a little, clear small threats, counter problematic stuff, steal their lands with Annex and Dream Leash, and then play your fatty before throwing a big Wildfire to end it.
Blood Moon Control
Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon based decks are also forms of mana denial. Locking down your opponents by rendering their non-basics useless. Hurts most decks in Modern due to the greedy landbases. But recently, I don't see Blood Moon affecting many decks except maybe TRON. Most decks are starting to play around it now.
Modern Smallpoxl
Modern Pox basically relies on the very damaging Smallpox to gain advantage. The land destruction is a bonus in these decks but Smallpox is really something to abuse. Every 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 with it is huge.
*If there are any more variants that I have missed out, do let me know. But I'm sure I've mentioned it all; been exploring this archetype for modern since it was officially announced
Basic Idea
With such a greedy land base in modern now (and TRON), denying their (specific) colours will go a long way. Much more if you repeatedly do it. The deck aims to be consistent with its plans of destroying and denying (maybe stealing too) your opponent's lands; slowing them down long enough to take full control and finish the game.
The only way for this to work is to deny the opponent of their specific coloured mana while playing some disruption and removal early on. Instead of the most common and usual 'ramping into land destruction', we have to take a different approach because we just can't match the speed of Modern decks. The idea is to slow them down just enough so that we can set the game at our tempo and take over.
Card Choices
There's a ton of options for the decks. It all depends on what colours you decide to play. But generally, 3 colours will work best. But you'll generally have red (duh). As for white, blue, green and/or black, that's entirely up to you on how you want to build it. Personally, I tend to avoid playing green as 'dedicated' ramping strategies are very lackluster in modern. I used to play UR but am now currently playing RBW.
1RRMolten Rain: 3CC, bonus 2 damage on non-basics. Downside, double R.
1R/5RBoom//Bust: 2CC at best, works very well with Ghost Quarter and fetchlands. The Bust part of it pretty much ends the game once Frost Titan gets in play.
2RRRoiling Terrain: With all the fetchlands running around in currently popular decks, coupled with our land destruction, this could potentially be very damaging for just 4CC.
2RRSowing Salt: Great for removing multiple copies of shocklands.
2RRSeismic Spike: Essentially only costs 2CC but I'd very much rather have the bonus damage from Roiling Terrain.
2GBeast Within: The only card that makes me splash green. It's very versatile, in case of troublesome creatures, enchantments, artifacts or planeswalkers. And if there's none of those, works as a land destroyer too.
2RGWreak Havoc: A fine reason to splash green for its versatility in this meta full of artifacts. Playing it doesn't ruin our plan. Works as a desperate answer for a troublesome artifact.
4RRWildfire: Acts as both a great sweeper and land destruction. 4 lands will hurt us, but not as much as it hurts them with all the land stealing and destruction going on. Probably costs too much for us to handle without any acceleration though.
4GGPlow Under: Huge tempo right here. Resolving this would give you the huge advantage to take over the game.
BBSmallpox: Great card, damaging in all ways. Being able to 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 once or twice will give you a great advantage.
1USpreading Seas: This will work very well in the current state the format is in. There are so many multi-coloured decks in play now that enchanting a shockland is really going to hurt. Deny them of their colours. I believe this will only suck horribly vs. Merfolk though.
2UUAnnex: Steal a land, make it yours for a bit, then just Boom//Bust it away when you're done with it.
3RAvalance Riders: 4CC land destruction with a hasty body and a horrible echo cost. Better off playing Roiling Terrain for the guaranteed bonus damage at the same cost.
3RShivan Wumpus: Not exactly a land destruction card but it fits with the gameplan. Only gripe with it is that it'll draw all the removal and it'll beat the point of playing it. Maybe a sideboard tech at best.
8Sundering Titan: 8CC, but with a powerful effect. Second wincon? As 1-of at best.
1WLeonin Arbiter: Reason to splash white, again. Probably a sideboard card, but against all the fetchlands and tutors, it might be good in the main as well.
3RRKazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs: Good for taxing and creating many bodies with all the land destruction going on, but
it's too slow and conditional. Very good against the aggressive meta though.
4UUFrost Titan: Finisher which will primarily act as land denial by tapping down a land. Also very hard to remove with all the land destruction and taxing going on.
And then comes disruption, in the form of counters and removals.
Sweepers
1RPyroclasm: The cheapest sweeper to cast. Merfolk, Elves, Affinity all pretty much fold to it.
1RRSlagstorm: Sweeper to sweep the board early if you're getting swarmed before starting to take control.
1WWUSupreme Verdict: If you somehow need to play around counters.
3UUDevastation Tide: Another sweeper that's kinda perfect for the deck, but the miracle is a little clunky to rely on. Remand and Repeal might get it off during the opponent's turn. However, the anti-synergy with the enchantments could be bad. It makes Spreading Seas reusable though, for another cantrip.
3UUEvacuation: More synergy with the rest of the deck, as it does not bounce our enchantments but at 5CC, it might be too slow. It's great in a sense that after you bounce, they probably won't be able to play the creatures. But this over Wrath? Don't think so.
WPorphyry Nodes: Could work as a cheap removal. Not sure how effective it would be but in this aggressive creature format, it'll buy us some time. Total dead card against combo though, maybe a sideboard.
Spot Removal
XRRed Sun's Zenith: A finisher for the deck to use all the excess mana to end games. Picked this over Banefire and Devil's Play and Fireball for its possible (though unlikely) reuseability.
RLightning Bolt: The most efficient burn removal though it might be weak in case of little critters and whatever small fry that comes in our way. Burn to the face as a finisher works too.
WRLightning Helix: 2CMC burn/heal. Need to say more? The life gain is huge in the meta.
XURepeal: Versatile nonland permanent bouncer which works great early, but will be fine in the mid/late game too.
1USnapcaster Mage: Reusing a spell, whether removal or land destruction, would come in handy at the right time. The things you can do with this is pretty situational, seeing as you'll be flashing back sorceries most times. The surprise factor is still there though.
Planeswalkers
2WRAjani Vengeant: Another reason to splash white. Regularly taps their land down, and a Lightning Helix occasionally wouldn't hurt. His finisher does exactly what we want as well.
3UUTamiyo, the Moon Sage: Great for tapping down extra lands and as a second win-con too. Pretty good inclusion, actually.
3RChandra, the Firebrand: A fine guy to help with the plan. With low amounts of mana once we stabilise the board, the pinging for 1 can be useful taking out weaker creatures. But the duplicating ability is what makes it an insane choice. Double land destruction is really sick.
Locks
3Ensnaring Bridge: Really good card to stop attacks, but this would require another way to win.
2WGhostly Prison: Great reason to splash white, taxing them will buy us some time to stabilise before going on land destruction mode.
Counters
1URemand: Time walk, and chances are, they won't have enough lands to play the spell they just casted again the next turn.
1UMana Leak: As good as a hard counter in a deck like this. They'll never have the extra 3 mana to cast anything once you have things going your way.
USpell Pierce: Similar role as Mana Leak, cheaper too. Probably just a 1-2 of though.
1URune Snag: Another 2CC counter similar Mana Leak, but stronger in a longer game (which is what this deck plays).
XUSpell Burst: Great in the mid/late game as opponents will like have only enough mana to play 1-3CMC stuff if things go our way so we'll even have the mana for buyback-ing it.
[/CARD]
Notes
Here's just some general stuff I've noticed through my playtesting of various builds. Will update more as I notice more things.
As user Flaat has mentioned earlier on when I first started this, discard is a more reliable way of taking care of threats, being proactive, as compared to running counters and being reactive. But not a big discard suite, just a small one coupled with removals. They work a lot better than counters.
Just updated the first post with some minor changes. Now, for replies!
Yeah, I get that we won't be able to deal with some early plays like Tarmogoyf or Delver of Secrets or whatever, but that's what the spot/mass removals are for. It doesn't hurt us too badly to take some damage early before we draw an answer (hopefully). The cantrips do help too.
About being reactive and proactive, yeah that's the thing about tempo decks (this is kinda tempo-control-ish thing, I guess?). Opponent has a dual land or Urza land in play on my third turn and I have a Stone Rain and Remand in my hand? I'd definitely take out the dual. If not, I'll keep the turn to Remand his next play and continue accordingly. It's all the situations like that and the decision making which makes the deck fun for me.
I just don't see a BR version of this working as well as the UR. Your discard cards will hurt you more than help over the long run i.e. Thoughtseize and in late game, they might not be as useful as counters when the opponent's hand is more thinned out. (and that's the idea here, to stall and do some land destruction). At least, that's what my gut tells me. But hey, this is why I made this thread. Wanted more opinions and people to help me test out the possibilities and discuss it all. So yeah, do test it out and keep me updated on the BR version, man! I'm very interested to see how it plays out.
Yeah, that's why I picked him instead of the many other creatures available. He's harder to remove and he denies them their lands too. And with all the 'dead' removals they have been drawing since I barely run creatures, they'll all be waiting in hand, just to drop it on my finisher.
Naya is appealing but if I were to play Naya, it wouldn't be for Restoration Angel. The angel only has synergy with Bloodbraid Elf. There's no other reason to run the angel except BBE. Not worth the slots. Knight of the Reliquary would also only be worth it if you managed to cast Bust. It only gets pumped by your lands, not the opponent's. Shouldn't even be considering it. These two creatures are very strong but they just have no place in the deck. And I'd try not to push too hard on the mana base to avoid playing too many shocklands.
Besides, Ajani Vengeant, Lightning Helix, Ghostly Prison and Leonin Arbiter are pretty much the only good reasons to run white. And the Arbiter screws up our mana fixing for playing 3 colours too so it's not THAT good of an inclusion. Unless anyone has anything else to add?
Not sure about Naya being the most competitive but yeah, testing as much as I can. I like the idea of splashing white too, but Helix just doesn't seem worth it. The lifegain could be useful but... I'm not so sure HOW useful.
As for Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, damn, I totally forgot about her! She might be a perfect fit at 5cmc. Have always been missing a card at 5CMC. Will definitely test her.
I'd replace the Wrath of Gods with Pyroclasm or Volcanic Fallout. Also the mana base might hurt you too much though. Wrath is too slow and has WW. Might be a big problem trying to hit that by turn 4. Try a few basics. If your opponent resolves a Blood Moon, you're done (you have no counters too). As for your creatures, Delver and Figure are great, but I don't think this is the right place for them. You'd be better with some counters in their spot.
For the record, I really do believe that going the BURN approach is the way to do it. Only play creatures that are harder to remove and/or instant board presence the moment played (Frost Titan). That'll leave all/most of their removals as dead cards as you carry on with your gameplan and give you the option of going for a transformational sideboard too.
Also, I wouldn't base the deck on Bloodbraid Elf. Too much luck involved and the typical list for it would be something like what DrWorm posted and it's really clunky. You won't always be getting that LD from the Cascade. I want to be able to 'consistently' attack their mana base my way and not hope for it to happen with every Cascade activation.
Whew, took me awhile to type all that. Will be following the thread closely now. And for those who didn't read everything on the first post, please do.
Shivan Wumpus... This kind of deck is the only home for it to be playable but it's gonna need a lot of testing. I'm a little skeptical.
I like the BR take on it and have thought of it (though not much) but I prefer blue for the counter magic and draw although being able to get their lands from hand could hurt a lot too but Blackmail is giving them a choice. Once they know what we're playing, lands will never be revealed. I don't like it since discard lets them decide and if we're talking about choosing what to discard for them, Thoughtseize and Rise // Fall, they only target nonland stuff. Once they know what they're up against, they'll choose to keep lands and go topdeck mode. So unless we're playing very heavy discard (which will make the LD plan take a backseat) I don't think this will work as well as blue.
I'd rather have them going 'topdeck' mode for lands, even with their hand full. I'm leaning more towards blue for now even with its weak matchups. Against Burn, I'd just aggressively mulligan for a Spreading Seas; that'll keep us alive long enough to stabilise and they don't play that many lands too. For storm, I'm not sure though but it's probably our weakest matchup.
I'm thinking though, if we play some black disruption/discard as part of a transformational sideboard plan...
Isochorn Scepter doesn't and probaly won't have much synergy with the type of deck since the average CMC is 3 with all the usual LD. And without it, Boomerang is very subpar at its job of denying them off lands as they'll definitely only be set a turn back, rather than possibly many turns. We're playing a long game and just buying a turn isn't gonna be enough. I'd rather slow them down with removal/counter magic early before starting to destroy lands.
Yeah, the scepter can do that, great. But to make it work 'consistently' enough to warrant their inclusion, gotta have 4 of each. That's 8 slots gone for something so gimmicky and everyone has artifact hate in their 75. Not to mention that having other 2 CMC spells to make the scepter have other targets is essential for it to not be a dead draw. It's also a 2-for-1 on yourself if it gets removed right after you play it. And if it's just a 1-2 of, might as well not play it cause you want it early for it to be best. You're probably already winning if you survive that long.
Well, that's just my opinion. Avoiding bouncing lands instead of destroying; too much risk in the 'already very risky' gameplan.
I like the current deck now, looks good. Some changes:
EDIT: -1 Ravenous Trap (not Trapmaker's Snare), +1 Mana Leak
-1 Leyline of the Void, +1 Snapcaster Mage
Mana Leak's gonna come in handy, and I'll never play less than a playset. Maybe Remand would do better for you here though. Leyline just doesn't do much, you already have another trap to deal with those things. And another Snapcaster would probably do better to recur the trap/trapmaker's snare in case you need it.
As for the fetches, yeah it'll work great with the crab so that's just something for you to invest on slowly.
Yeah, that's great actually. But probably just a sideboard card, I'd rather they do fetch something, lose 1 life (possibly 3), then I destroy it or cast Spreading Seas on it. Plus, if they've fetched, and I keep destroying their lands, they'll possibly run out of lands even faster.
Also yeah, cause of the new decks emerging and modern changing here and there, I'm having good vibes for this.
Playing something like Ball Lightning makes me feel like trying to be RDW as well, and it'll be better if we stray away from that. This isn't sligh, and I think we should stay away from trying to be sligh. Decks that try to be too many things usually don't work out very well. From my experience, at least. Playing creatures, unless they're hard to remove or is beneficial the moment they hit, goes against what I believe we're trying to do. Blanking out pretty much all their removals is quite important and gives you that pseudo card advantage.
The only Planeswalker I found that COULD be useful for the deck are the two already listed in card choices. Chandra, the Firebrand and Ajani Vengeant. But I haven't found that many good reasons to splash white though, so maybe I'm missing something.
I've been pondering on what I can do with so much mana, and I guess Snapcaster Mage would be a fine addition. It has a decent body which could work well with my used spells. Most times during testing, I end up with a lot of mana and nothing to do so maybe it'll be useful to have a few. A playset? I'm skeptical though. Cause let's say, if I had a Snapcaster instead of a Stone Rain in hand on turn 3, then I'll be waiting for some use of the Snapcaster instead of outright destroying a land on that turn and that might/could slow me down. This really needs testing. But I love the idea of including him.
@CHEESY_BARF: I find that running blue gives you more ways to handle stuff than just going for removal aggressively and destroying lands. For example, Spreading Seas will probably colour screw them; there aren't many blue decks around and countermagic will work better at removing early threats than many sweepers. What if he plays something big? A well-fed goyf on the field will be hard to remove with just burns. So countering it would be best, if not outright destroying it (which warrants my inclusion of Beast Within, even though just a singleton).
I've tried going that route, but it's usually only effective against the aggressive creature decks cause of all the burn removal. It'll totally just fold to combo though, especially when you don't have a Blood Moon out by turn 3. And that's if you're lucky. Sometimes, getting it out turn 3 wouldn't matter anyway, which is why I don't wanna be too reliant on it. While I've said that I don't see the Mono-Red LD take on this making it far, do let us know how your testing goes. In any case, considering your deck's gameplan with red, do check out the Moon's Essence primer cause they're discussing exactly what you're trying to do. I'm sure your input will be valuable to those working there.
Keep the trap and ghost quarters, seriously. Ghost quarters are great to remove duals and whatever other nonsense they got. And if they don't search for a land, you get a free Strip Mine? How is that bad?
And if you're already intending on splashing white, like DOLZero said, use Path instead. It has way more synergy with the traps. Again, if they choose not to search, you get a free and better Swords to Plowshares. Even better than Vapor Snag. The 1 life they lose don't matter cause you're planning to mill them.
Also, I think the idea is to mill ASAP instead of playing creatures and stuff to 'last longer'. Play some spot removal, couple sweepers, Snapcaster, maybe crab too, and mill away. Try to be less controlling and more aggressive with the milling; I think that's the way to go. Oh. I would advise against playing Sadistic Sacrament too; for the same reasons already given.
If you wanna be cool and stuff too, go for Maralen of the Mornsong. That way, they HAVE to search and you hit them with the trap. Set up with some twincasts in hand, get an archive trap, play Trapmaker's Snare too and just finish the game.
Rough idea of it:
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
5x Island
2x Marsh Flats
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
4x Archive Trap
1x Ravenous Trap
4x Trapmaker's Snare
4x Path to Exile
4x Extirpate
3x Twincast
4x Glimpse the Unthinkable
3x Haunting Echoes
Creature (6)
3x Maralen of the Mornsong
4x Hedron Crab
Crab to draw removal early before dropping Maralen for her to do some magic. Might be a little too slow, and could possible hurt you more than them, but it's fun. Played something like that casually long ago. Of course, they'd just search their deck for a removal to answer Maralen, so it'll probably NOT live to do anything. But if it does...
I would think that an alternate win-con shouldn't take so many slots. Maybe just some huge creature as a 4/3-of?
Some form of counter might be good instead of just having creatures for the sake of having creatures. Remand, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce etc are viable options. Plus, that way, you could bounce a Leyline with Into the Roil, Boomerang, Wipe Away etc and counter it when they drop it again later on. Then like the OP mentioned, include Extirpate or Surgical Extraction to remove the Leyline, for good.
Could just include both. 3-3 split or probably 4-2, which could be best. Personally, I'd rather have the 2/1 body than the Twincast but it wouldn't hurt to have both. It's a nice card to have, but you don't wanna see it too much, and in multiples especially. Plus, topdecking a Twincast is gonna hurt a lot more than a Snapcaster. With all the cheap mill we run, it's likely that we'll run out of cards in hand quite quick.
Magnivore is great for LD decks, yeah but cause it lacks creatures, and compared to Frost Titan which is harder to deal with, Magnivore will immediately draw whatever 'dead' removal the opponent would have in hand. I'd like to avoid that and have just that pseudo card advantage by letting them hold onto 'dead' removals.
Hadn't thought of the Darksteel Citadels, nice. Should be an auto-include indeed.
P.S. Thinking of removing Annex totally for Molten Rain. With the high land count, I'd rather have a cheaper land destruction spell which could be potential damage than steal a land. Though, in Annex's defense, it'll work great against other decks that play Darksteel Citadel since we can't destroy that. Plus, with the addition of Darksteel Citadel in the deck, Ghost Quarter could be used as a fetch too (for more synergy with Boom // Bust). Thoughts?
EDIT: Moved Annex to sideboard instead in favour of Molten Rain to lower the average CMC of the deck. Dropped Roiling Terrain to 2 as well for the same reason. Added a singleton Red Sun's Zenith and removed the 4th Lightning Bolt to make use of the excess mana in case of a dragged game. And it's reuseable as well, though the chances are slim, more of a finisher than anything.
W/U/B is too hard on the current mana base, especially if you're playing Sadistic Sacrament. BBB is gonna be a dead card in your hand almost always so just drop that and play something else. Some shocklands and more fetches to utilise Hedron Crab too.
I suggest just dropping the mid-game plan of Invisible Stalker and Sword of Body and Mind for 4 of each of Snapcaster Mage and Hedron Crab. Dragging out a game wouldn't work out very well for the strategy.
And by the looks of this, the crabs are just gonna eat all the removal since they're pretty much your only creatures that 'need' to stay on the battlefield. The Snaps are just to recur your mill spells so eating removal wouldn't matter. I'm beginning to think that playing the crabs are just wasting the slots. Will it be better for them to have dead removals in game 1 then board in the crabs when they remove their removals game 2?
Also, drop the Oblivion Rings for Path to Exile cause they work great with Archive Trap. O-Ring wouldn't work very well as, again, you don't wanna be dragging a game too long. You probably can't too, with all the aggro decks around.
When it gets to the point where I do cast Frost Titan, the board will be in my favour if I'm not already dead. The titan on its own can keep 1 land tapped so even cheap removal will be costly considering the amount of land destruction.
As for Hide // Seek and the like, well, I have to say that I don't have answers for that, but it's something consider before tapping out I guess. These cards are partly the reason why I've included some counters like Remands. But yeah, it'll hurt getting hit by that.
The deck's already very dense as it is, I'm really not sure about adding other win conditions. I do get where you're coming from but this really needs more extensive testing as of now.
Wildfire is great but it's probably not for this deck cause I believe Boom // Bust will fill in that same role when you draw it late. Once a Frost Titan hits, land a Bust and you're good to go. Pretty much the same idea. Although Wildfire does have that bonus sweeping effect which could come in handy... Maybe a 1/2-of but that'll greatly increase the curve which is quite steep as it is.
Might up the land count to 25.
It's slow, but not too slow because of the early disruption/removal. Just need to survive long enough to get things going. The sweepers are very necessary cause of all early drops around; remember, the deck has no creatures for us to block with. Playing Delver of Secrets isn't what the deck wants to do. And it'll just draw all the removal. Not the deck for it. Might need some testing. As for Grim Lavamancer, that'll just change the whole deck altogether. The beauty of it is to not have any other creatures EXCEPT Frost Titan so any form of removal they draw early on is a dead card. They're transformational sideboard options at best.
Boomerang would just bounce the land, and they'll still be able to play it again. Granted, if it was a shockland, they'd either be slowed down or end up taking more damage, but that's not the aim. While this is somewhat a tempo deck, Boomerang only gives you that slight edge, by only delaying them a turn. Destroying lands will have them hope they draw lands to play and not just play the land we bounced. We're trying to stop them, not stall them. So destroying lands or Spreading Seas them is essential to deny them off their colours. Plus, it cantrips.
Reverberate is a horrible topdeck cause it doesn't do anything on its own. Will be better off without it.
*Updated as much as I can for now, will keep working on it. - 23/08/13
Introduction
Everyone knows this type of deck. Destroy or deny their mana, then take over the game when they're helpless. It's a classic that has been around since the start of MTG (Sinkhole, anyone?). Being a big fan of this fun archetype (even though it'll probably never be very competitive in any format), I really believe that this could work fairly well (even better here than Legacy) since Modern is a format with mostly very greedy land bases. And with more control decks surfacing in the meta, I think this is a good time to give this a(nother) shot.
Why play this?
As said above, there's a ton of greedy land bases around in modern these days. Attacking their land base shuts off their spells, and lets you take over the game. Against decks that play little lands, you have the advantage. It's also actually pretty fun to pilot and annoying to play against if it goes your way. And if you're sick of the usual aggro beatdown decks, this is a nice change than all the mainstream decks.
History (Dedicated/Partial Variants)
There have been many different variants and strategies for this type of deck but since Modern is a quick format filled with lots of aggressive and combo strategies, most of these are either too slow, or too meta-dependent. Here they are.
G/x/x Ponza
This is the classic. Play many mana dorks, ramping artifacts and all that, then head right into the land destruction and with green, Plow Under, then cast a fatty to seal the deal. The general plan of this variant is simple but it's too slow for Modern. I'm sure many of you have tried this. It just doesn't consistently work, especially when you don't manage to be able to deal with all the creatures attacking you.
U/X Tempo
Basically bouncing permanents (essentially lands) with cards like Boomerang but that doesn't really stop them. Some decks like Affinity and Zoo can work well at 2 mana so just bouncing lands wouldn't be enough. It'll only keep you alive for a little longer at best.
Liquidmetal Coating Combo
This is really fun but it's too fragile and dependent on it. It'll just break and fail without the artifact. And with so much artifact hate in the current meta... Great when it goes your way though.
Wildfire Domain
One of my favourite decks of the '05 period. Basic idea of this is to ramp yourself a little, clear small threats, counter problematic stuff, steal their lands with Annex and Dream Leash, and then play your fatty before throwing a big Wildfire to end it.
Blood Moon Control
Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon based decks are also forms of mana denial. Locking down your opponents by rendering their non-basics useless. Hurts most decks in Modern due to the greedy landbases. But recently, I don't see Blood Moon affecting many decks except maybe TRON. Most decks are starting to play around it now.
Modern Smallpoxl
Modern Pox basically relies on the very damaging Smallpox to gain advantage. The land destruction is a bonus in these decks but Smallpox is really something to abuse. Every 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 with it is huge.
*If there are any more variants that I have missed out, do let me know. But I'm sure I've mentioned it all; been exploring this archetype for modern since it was officially announced
Basic Idea
With such a greedy land base in modern now (and TRON), denying their (specific) colours will go a long way. Much more if you repeatedly do it. The deck aims to be consistent with its plans of destroying and denying (maybe stealing too) your opponent's lands; slowing them down long enough to take full control and finish the game.
The only way for this to work is to deny the opponent of their specific coloured mana while playing some disruption and removal early on. Instead of the most common and usual 'ramping into land destruction', we have to take a different approach because we just can't match the speed of Modern decks. The idea is to slow them down just enough so that we can set the game at our tempo and take over.
Card Choices
There's a ton of options for the decks. It all depends on what colours you decide to play. But generally, 3 colours will work best. But you'll generally have red (duh). As for white, blue, green and/or black, that's entirely up to you on how you want to build it. Personally, I tend to avoid playing green as 'dedicated' ramping strategies are very lackluster in modern. I used to play UR but am now currently playing RBW.
Non-Creature Spells
2R Stone Rain: 3CC
[MANA]1BB[/MANA/ Rain of Tears: Another 3CC
1RR Molten Rain: 3CC, bonus 2 damage on non-basics. Downside, double R.
1R/5R Boom//Bust: 2CC at best, works very well with Ghost Quarter and fetchlands. The Bust part of it pretty much ends the game once Frost Titan gets in play.
2RR Roiling Terrain: With all the fetchlands running around in currently popular decks, coupled with our land destruction, this could potentially be very damaging for just 4CC.
2RR Sowing Salt: Great for removing multiple copies of shocklands.
2RR Seismic Spike: Essentially only costs 2CC but I'd very much rather have the bonus damage from Roiling Terrain.
2G Beast Within: The only card that makes me splash green. It's very versatile, in case of troublesome creatures, enchantments, artifacts or planeswalkers. And if there's none of those, works as a land destroyer too.
2RG Wreak Havoc: A fine reason to splash green for its versatility in this meta full of artifacts. Playing it doesn't ruin our plan. Works as a desperate answer for a troublesome artifact.
2GG Mwonvuli Acid-Moss: Destroys a land and ramps you too.
4RR Wildfire: Acts as both a great sweeper and land destruction. 4 lands will hurt us, but not as much as it hurts them with all the land stealing and destruction going on. Probably costs too much for us to handle without any acceleration though.
4GG Plow Under: Huge tempo right here. Resolving this would give you the huge advantage to take over the game.
BB Smallpox: Great card, damaging in all ways. Being able to 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 once or twice will give you a great advantage.
1U Spreading Seas: This will work very well in the current state the format is in. There are so many multi-coloured decks in play now that enchanting a shockland is really going to hurt. Deny them of their colours. I believe this will only suck horribly vs. Merfolk though.
2UU Annex: Steal a land, make it yours for a bit, then just Boom//Bust it away when you're done with it.
3UU Dream Leash: Also to steal a land and profit.
Creature Spells
1BB/1RR Fulminator Mage: A "Molten Rain" with a 2/2 body. Could come in handy as a blocker.
3GG Acidic Slime:
3R Avalance Riders: 4CC land destruction with a hasty body and a horrible echo cost. Better off playing Roiling Terrain for the guaranteed bonus damage at the same cost.
3R Shivan Wumpus: Not exactly a land destruction card but it fits with the gameplan. Only gripe with it is that it'll draw all the removal and it'll beat the point of playing it. Maybe a sideboard tech at best.
8 Sundering Titan: 8CC, but with a powerful effect. Second wincon? As 1-of at best.
1W Leonin Arbiter: Reason to splash white, again. Probably a sideboard card, but against all the fetchlands and tutors, it might be good in the main as well.
3RR Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs: Good for taxing and creating many bodies with all the land destruction going on, but
it's too slow and conditional. Very good against the aggressive meta though.
4UU Frost Titan: Finisher which will primarily act as land denial by tapping down a land. Also very hard to remove with all the land destruction and taxing going on.
And then comes disruption, in the form of counters and removals.
Sweepers
1R Pyroclasm: The cheapest sweeper to cast. Merfolk, Elves, Affinity all pretty much fold to it.
1RR Slagstorm: Sweeper to sweep the board early if you're getting swarmed before starting to take control.
2WW Wrath of God: Self-explanatory.
2BB Damnation: Self-explanatory.
1WWU Supreme Verdict: If you somehow need to play around counters.
3UU Devastation Tide: Another sweeper that's kinda perfect for the deck, but the miracle is a little clunky to rely on. Remand and Repeal might get it off during the opponent's turn. However, the anti-synergy with the enchantments could be bad. It makes Spreading Seas reusable though, for another cantrip.
3UU Evacuation: More synergy with the rest of the deck, as it does not bounce our enchantments but at 5CC, it might be too slow. It's great in a sense that after you bounce, they probably won't be able to play the creatures. But this over Wrath? Don't think so.
W Porphyry Nodes: Could work as a cheap removal. Not sure how effective it would be but in this aggressive creature format, it'll buy us some time. Total dead card against combo though, maybe a sideboard.
Spot Removal
XR Red Sun's Zenith: A finisher for the deck to use all the excess mana to end games. Picked this over Banefire and Devil's Play and Fireball for its possible (though unlikely) reuseability.
R Lightning Bolt: The most efficient burn removal though it might be weak in case of little critters and whatever small fry that comes in our way. Burn to the face as a finisher works too.
WR Lightning Helix: 2CMC burn/heal. Need to say more? The life gain is huge in the meta.
XU Repeal: Versatile nonland permanent bouncer which works great early, but will be fine in the mid/late game too.
BG Abrupt Decay: Best removal in the format.
1BG Maelstorm Pulse: Great for multiple copies.
Discard
B Blackmail: The only discard spell that could catch a land.
B Thoughtseize: Clearly the best choice, but in my testing, the life loss is sometimes very hurtful.
B Inquisition of Kozilek: Cheaper alternative to Thoughtseize which actually works very well.
B Duress: Good and cheap against control/combo.
Creatures
1U Snapcaster Mage: Reusing a spell, whether removal or land destruction, would come in handy at the right time. The things you can do with this is pretty situational, seeing as you'll be flashing back sorceries most times. The surprise factor is still there though.
Planeswalkers
2WR Ajani Vengeant: Another reason to splash white. Regularly taps their land down, and a Lightning Helix occasionally wouldn't hurt. His finisher does exactly what we want as well.
3UU Tamiyo, the Moon Sage: Great for tapping down extra lands and as a second win-con too. Pretty good inclusion, actually.
1BB Liliana of the Veil: Great for controlling the board and game.
3R Chandra, the Firebrand: A fine guy to help with the plan. With low amounts of mana once we stabilise the board, the pinging for 1 can be useful taking out weaker creatures. But the duplicating ability is what makes it an insane choice. Double land destruction is really sick.
Locks
3 Ensnaring Bridge: Really good card to stop attacks, but this would require another way to win.
2W Ghostly Prison: Great reason to splash white, taxing them will buy us some time to stabilise before going on land destruction mode.
Counters
1U Remand: Time walk, and chances are, they won't have enough lands to play the spell they just casted again the next turn.
1U Mana Leak: As good as a hard counter in a deck like this. They'll never have the extra 3 mana to cast anything once you have things going your way.
U Spell Pierce: Similar role as Mana Leak, cheaper too. Probably just a 1-2 of though.
1U Rune Snag: Another 2CC counter similar Mana Leak, but stronger in a longer game (which is what this deck plays).
XU Spell Burst: Great in the mid/late game as opponents will like have only enough mana to play 1-3CMC stuff if things go our way so we'll even have the mana for buyback-ing it.
[/CARD]
Notes
Here's just some general stuff I've noticed through my playtesting of various builds. Will update more as I notice more things.
As user Flaat has mentioned earlier on when I first started this, discard is a more reliable way of taking care of threats, being proactive, as compared to running counters and being reactive. But not a big discard suite, just a small one coupled with removals. They work a lot better than counters.
Decklist
My current testing list:
4 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Marsh Flats
4 Arid Mesa
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Godless Shrine
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Blood Crypt
Creatures [1]
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Ajani Vengeant
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Others [26]
1 Batterskull
2 Wrath of God
3 Inquisiton of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Lingering Souls
4 Boom/Bust
4 Smallpox
1 Wrath of God
3 Pyroclasm
2 Wear/Tear
4 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
2 Pithing Needle
Concluding Notes
P.S. The 'card choices' section will be revised as and when possible for me to do so. Probably will need to reorder and tidy up too.
Kuldotha Boros Tokens