Looks like I actually need 13 white and 13 black sources (and 20 colored lands total) to reliably hit BW on turn 2. The only way I see to achieve this is to cut out my tectonic edges, but that feels really bad. The mana denial plan is extra important without eldrazi to hasten the clock! Maybe I have to look into using a third dual land like caves of koilos? But that breaks the math of having 20 colored lands
And now I'm finding I can't hit that 20 mark at all. Even after going to 23 lands. Are we allowed to consider aether vial here to help us cheat our mana? I thought cutting the eldrazi would improve my manabase D:
That list is way distinct from dnt, although he call it that. It's very similar to GW Hatebears (replacing G for U) There's no Flickerwisp, but it's a good video to watch and think about serum visions.
Not to get too caught up on semantics, but I have to disagree on the archetype classification here. I don't think a deck has to run Flickerwisp to be considered D&T, but rather has to follow the core theme of playing a tempo/disruption gameplan through use of one sided taxing effects (thanks to vial). Wisp is great at doing that, but it isn't the only way to do so! There's a lot more to D&T than flicker abuse
Hatebears (as far as I know) wants to play more of a beatdown game, using mana dorks to ramp out bigger threats to apply pressure. I don't think they want to be spending turn 1 playing Serum Visions or holding up 3 mana midgame for a tempo Spell Queller, or even sacrificing 1 or 2 Selfless Spirit to keep a Geist of Saint Traft alive just long enough to win you the game.
That was a very good scientific poll I voted mono white!
And on the topic of mono white, I retract my previous distractions about a B/W build. I think it ended up being a worse 5C humans and a worse D&T, not racing fast enough and not disrupting hard enough. As always I return to mono white, humbled but hopefully having learned something. Never leave home without your 10 copies of land destruction! Ghost QuarterTectonic EdgeField of Ruin are all-stars and splashes aren't worth giving them up!
Oops, yes I am playing 3 Lingering Souls! I updated the post to show that.
@scytale I completely agree. I was noticing that, and I think I'll go take a look at Frank karstens famous land article to fix the manabase. I'm guessing it'll be something like -2 plains, +2 swamps.
As far as heavy hitters goes, I think the list falls somewhere between mono white and eldrazi taxes. No TKS to smash face, but more fliers with copter and souls to push damage through more consistently. And the lower curve and tempo orientation makes it feel a bit more agressive than mono white.
Edit: Looks like I actually need 13 white and 13 black sources (and 20 colored lands total) to reliably hit BW on turn 2. The only way I see to achieve this is to cut out my tectonic edges, but that feels really bad. The mana denial plan is extra important without eldrazi to hasten the clock! Maybe I have to look into using a third dual land like caves of koilos? But that breaks the math of having 20 colored lands
And now I'm finding I can't hit that 20 mark at all. Even after going to 23 lands. Are we allowed to consider aether vial here to help us cheat our mana? I thought cutting the eldrazi would improve my manabase D:
I finally decided to throw my fears out the window of playing all my favorite cards in one deck. Thalia and Lingering Souls together is fine! The only times it's been a problem for me, it is a far bigger problem for my opponent. Seriously, other decks HATE Thalia so much that if she lives more than 1 turn we're in great shape. And Lingering Souls is just unfair as hell.
As far as the Jund matchup goes (what I've tested it against mostly since traditionally that was our worst tier 1 matchup): Dark Confidant, Thraben Inspector, and Lingering Souls let us grind out games like traditional taxes builds can only dream of. Also Jund weeps at the sight of Lingering Souls. This isn't to say it's a super awesome matchup, but it feels a lot more like a 50/50 than it does with mono white.
Like I said, it's pretty rough. I threw it together recently and I'm sure it could be tweaked. But for now I'm surprisingly pleased with it.
You're facing Counters Company on the play, playing as Eldrazi Taxes. It's a post-board game and you've brought in some Fatal Push. T1 they play a Noble Hierarch or a Birds of Paradise. You have a push in hand, along with some hatebear (thalia/arbiter/sculler). Do you push the mana dork? What if you have a path in addition to the push? Do you instead aim to develop your board and hold all removal back for combo pieces?
I struggle mightily with this matchup. Please share your insight into this specific scenario and any other play advice for dealing with this obnoxious deck!
And what do you board out for games 2 and 3? I find myself wanting to bring in 3 push, 2 cage, and 2 RIP (and 2 mirran crusader?). But it's hard to find 7 cards to remove.
I think I have to agree with you on that. It also seems very very wrong to even think of cutting mutavault after last night.
Maybe I'll take a page out of bgx's book and play around with fulminator mage in the board. Seems decent.
E: I'll clarify that the reason I'm thinking about this is b/c these two decks (tron+shift) make up about 20% of the metagame right now, and they're classic bad matchups for midrange decks as it is. So It would be nice to have some concession for them in our 75
Have you ever thought of making room for ghost quarter to shore up the scapeshift/tron matchups? I think it would have to come at the cost of mutavault though.
I went 3-1 tonight! List was what I posted but with a worse sideboard b/c I only own 2 brutalities right now.
Match 1: Boros Prison
Game 1 I had no idea what he was on and got killed by a Hazoret + Chandra + my own bob.
Game 2 he had a t1 blood moon, t3 ensnaring bridge and easily took it. 0-1
Match 2: Grixis Death's Shadow
G1 I got 2 scullers out early to keep him off of threats and he didn't draw removal. Sculler + manland beats took him out, with removal/discard to keep the way open.
G2 I kept a ridiculous hand of 3 lands, 3 path, 1 push. Drew a sculler in time for t2 and used it to keep him off of his stubborn denial, making it impossible for him to put a threat down safely. By the time he found removal for sculler I drew a thoughtseize and took it out of his hand, and eventually manlands + copter got there. 1-1
Match 3: Grixis Death's Shadow
G1 I don't remember much of. I just remember the final turn with him on 1 life and a 12/12 shadow + snap and me with a copter swinging for lethal in the air. He had a thought scour and mana up to try and find a removal spell to then counter punch me for massive lethal on his turn, but thankfully he didn't find it.
G2 Don't remember much of this one either, but I think lingering souls tokens were important. 2-1
Match 4: Burn
G1 I have thoughtseizes, bobs, and we both join in on the fun of killing me.
G2 Lingering Souls is king. I get 2 and end up at the end with 8 tokens out.
G3 Again lingering souls is stellar. That plus a collective brutality, sculler, and discard help me close this game out. 3-1
I had a lot of fun! I recently have been on an Abzan/Jund kick with the thought process of: it's like this deck but with goyf providing a proper clock. I did terribly with the bgx midrange decks though, and coming back to this felt so refreshing. I love knowing that I'm basically never going to stumble on mana colors, and getting to play 4 mutavaults feels silly. One game I had 3 out at once. Copter was great all night as well, looting turn after turn after turn. And I never had trouble crewing it thanks to mutavault.
Changes I like: +1 or 2 Damnation, -Forgetender in sideboard.
Sculler overperformed all night, as did copter and mutavault. Do not underestimate these cards!
@PapaMoons8 You almost certainly are going to want more than 22 lands in this deck. My MB doesn't even play 4 drops and it still wants 24 lands, thanks to mutavault and shambling vent activations (and the fact that they get killed by creature removal). We don't have cantrips the way blue decks do so we have to play a fair number of lands
My list (basically davemo's list with -1 elspeth +1 liliana last hope and different sideboard):
Thanks for the thorough response, I really appreciate it. I know that there are no easy answers here and that a lot of it will come with experience. Do you have any advice on how to practice/improve without MTGO? Currently I just go on cockatrice and play against myself, but that's fairly limiting since I can't pilot the common decks at nearly the level I face in person. Luckily my LGS runs modern 3 times a week so I get those opportunities, but it would be nice to have a way to improve outside of that.
I took Jund to FNM for the first time last night and did really badly! Like the worst I've ever done, 0 wins. I've been on BG and BGw for a while now and doing well (usually go 3-1), so I think I must need to improve and change my playstyle for Jund. Please help me get better!
Here are some areas of play I noticed I felt uncertain about:
Mulliganing decisions. How aggressively do we mulligan? How important is it to have a turn 1 discard spell? Reading articles from pros tells me that I should be more aggressive with mulligans against linear/combo decks and more conservative against midrange/control decks.
Sequencing. I have an opening hand with Goyf and Scooze. Which do I play first? How about Bob? What if Raging Ravine is thrown into the mix and makes things more complex with sequencing? It feels deceptively complex!
Fetching lands. I have a hard time deciding if I should fetch a basic or shock myself in the early turns. I hate taking unnecessary damage, but we're a 3 color deck that needs all 3 colors. Against ghost quarter or path to exile decks it seems more obvious, but against other decks I'm not sure.
Jund surprisingly feels a lot harder than Abzan. I can't just lean on Lingering Souls to cover up small mistakes I make in early turns
When I switched from Junk to Jund, Kolaghan's Command was the card that impressed me most by far. It's probably my favorite red card in Jund now. What could you possibly be cutting it for? It's Jund's Lingering Souls in a lot of ways
Random hypothetical question here for you older Jund players: if BBE were legal how many would we run? I didn't play Jund back in those days, and I see that now we only run 2 4-drops. Would BBE just be a 2-of?
It would be a 4 of, in my opinion. I would personaly cut all other 4 drops (I run 3) and the 3 scooze and I would jam in 4 BBE and 2 Grim Flayer.
And I really think it's about time to get BBE back. It's in no way more over powered than company, for example.
Oooh I forgot about Fetid Heath! Thanks
However, I'm still not at that 20 colored land target Frank Karsten recommends for hitting WB on turn 2. But maybe fetid heath helps.
Not to get too caught up on semantics, but I have to disagree on the archetype classification here. I don't think a deck has to run Flickerwisp to be considered D&T, but rather has to follow the core theme of playing a tempo/disruption gameplan through use of one sided taxing effects (thanks to vial). Wisp is great at doing that, but it isn't the only way to do so! There's a lot more to D&T than flicker abuse
Hatebears (as far as I know) wants to play more of a beatdown game, using mana dorks to ramp out bigger threats to apply pressure. I don't think they want to be spending turn 1 playing Serum Visions or holding up 3 mana midgame for a tempo Spell Queller, or even sacrificing 1 or 2 Selfless Spirit to keep a Geist of Saint Traft alive just long enough to win you the game.
As always his content is super informative. Enjoy
That was a very good scientific poll I voted mono white!
And on the topic of mono white, I retract my previous distractions about a B/W build. I think it ended up being a worse 5C humans and a worse D&T, not racing fast enough and not disrupting hard enough. As always I return to mono white, humbled but hopefully having learned something. Never leave home without your 10 copies of land destruction! Ghost Quarter Tectonic Edge Field of Ruin are all-stars and splashes aren't worth giving them up!
@scytale I completely agree. I was noticing that, and I think I'll go take a look at Frank karstens famous land article to fix the manabase. I'm guessing it'll be something like -2 plains, +2 swamps.
As far as heavy hitters goes, I think the list falls somewhere between mono white and eldrazi taxes. No TKS to smash face, but more fliers with copter and souls to push damage through more consistently. And the lower curve and tempo orientation makes it feel a bit more agressive than mono white.
Edit: Looks like I actually need 13 white and 13 black sources (and 20 colored lands total) to reliably hit BW on turn 2. The only way I see to achieve this is to cut out my tectonic edges, but that feels really bad. The mana denial plan is extra important without eldrazi to hasten the clock! Maybe I have to look into using a third dual land like caves of koilos? But that breaks the math of having 20 colored lands
And now I'm finding I can't hit that 20 mark at all. Even after going to 23 lands. Are we allowed to consider aether vial here to help us cheat our mana? I thought cutting the eldrazi would improve my manabase D:
Anyway, here's something rough I've drafted up. I'd love to get some feedback on it. It's done better than expected in testing (always exciting)!
4 Aether Vial
3 Smuggler's Copter
Creature (24):
4 Dark Confidant
4 Flickerwisp
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Path to Exile
Sorcery (3):
3 Lingering Souls
Land (22):
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Godless Shrine
5 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
2 Fatal Push
3 Collective Brutality
2 Fragmentize
2 Thoughtseize
I finally decided to throw my fears out the window of playing all my favorite cards in one deck. Thalia and Lingering Souls together is fine! The only times it's been a problem for me, it is a far bigger problem for my opponent. Seriously, other decks HATE Thalia so much that if she lives more than 1 turn we're in great shape. And Lingering Souls is just unfair as hell.
As far as the Jund matchup goes (what I've tested it against mostly since traditionally that was our worst tier 1 matchup): Dark Confidant, Thraben Inspector, and Lingering Souls let us grind out games like traditional taxes builds can only dream of. Also Jund weeps at the sight of Lingering Souls. This isn't to say it's a super awesome matchup, but it feels a lot more like a 50/50 than it does with mono white.
Like I said, it's pretty rough. I threw it together recently and I'm sure it could be tweaked. But for now I'm surprisingly pleased with it.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/thoughtseizes-and-fatal-pushes-part-vi-w-b-eldrazi/
Nothing new here, but I figure people will appreciate seeing the archetype in this context.
You're facing Counters Company on the play, playing as Eldrazi Taxes. It's a post-board game and you've brought in some Fatal Push. T1 they play a Noble Hierarch or a Birds of Paradise. You have a push in hand, along with some hatebear (thalia/arbiter/sculler). Do you push the mana dork? What if you have a path in addition to the push? Do you instead aim to develop your board and hold all removal back for combo pieces?
I struggle mightily with this matchup. Please share your insight into this specific scenario and any other play advice for dealing with this obnoxious deck!
Also how aggressively do you mulligan for Grafdigger's Cage or Rest in Peace or a hand full of removal?
And what do you board out for games 2 and 3? I find myself wanting to bring in 3 push, 2 cage, and 2 RIP (and 2 mirran crusader?). But it's hard to find 7 cards to remove.
Maybe I'll take a page out of bgx's book and play around with fulminator mage in the board. Seems decent.
E: I'll clarify that the reason I'm thinking about this is b/c these two decks (tron+shift) make up about 20% of the metagame right now, and they're classic bad matchups for midrange decks as it is. So It would be nice to have some concession for them in our 75
Match 1: Boros Prison
Game 1 I had no idea what he was on and got killed by a Hazoret + Chandra + my own bob.
Game 2 he had a t1 blood moon, t3 ensnaring bridge and easily took it.
0-1
Match 2: Grixis Death's Shadow
G1 I got 2 scullers out early to keep him off of threats and he didn't draw removal. Sculler + manland beats took him out, with removal/discard to keep the way open.
G2 I kept a ridiculous hand of 3 lands, 3 path, 1 push. Drew a sculler in time for t2 and used it to keep him off of his stubborn denial, making it impossible for him to put a threat down safely. By the time he found removal for sculler I drew a thoughtseize and took it out of his hand, and eventually manlands + copter got there.
1-1
Match 3: Grixis Death's Shadow
G1 I don't remember much of. I just remember the final turn with him on 1 life and a 12/12 shadow + snap and me with a copter swinging for lethal in the air. He had a thought scour and mana up to try and find a removal spell to then counter punch me for massive lethal on his turn, but thankfully he didn't find it.
G2 Don't remember much of this one either, but I think lingering souls tokens were important.
2-1
Match 4: Burn
G1 I have thoughtseizes, bobs, and we both join in on the fun of killing me.
G2 Lingering Souls is king. I get 2 and end up at the end with 8 tokens out.
G3 Again lingering souls is stellar. That plus a collective brutality, sculler, and discard help me close this game out.
3-1
I had a lot of fun! I recently have been on an Abzan/Jund kick with the thought process of: it's like this deck but with goyf providing a proper clock. I did terribly with the bgx midrange decks though, and coming back to this felt so refreshing. I love knowing that I'm basically never going to stumble on mana colors, and getting to play 4 mutavaults feels silly. One game I had 3 out at once. Copter was great all night as well, looting turn after turn after turn. And I never had trouble crewing it thanks to mutavault.
Changes I like: +1 or 2 Damnation, -Forgetender in sideboard.
Sculler overperformed all night, as did copter and mutavault. Do not underestimate these cards!
My list (basically davemo's list with -1 elspeth +1 liliana last hope and different sideboard):
4 Smuggler's Copter
Creature
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
Instant
4 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
Land
4 Concealed Courtyard
3 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
4 Mutavault
1 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
3 Swamp
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Sorcery
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Rest in Peace
1 Celestial Purge
3 Disenchant
4 Collective Brutality
Here are some areas of play I noticed I felt uncertain about:
Jund surprisingly feels a lot harder than Abzan. I can't just lean on Lingering Souls to cover up small mistakes I make in early turns
Does BBE make Grim Flayer better?