MTG Salvation

Oof, another 1-2 night. Reverted back to Mandrills, but since I cracked a Hexdrinker, I decided to run one just to see how it played if I drew it. I did a 3/3 split of Shoal/Force, bringing back in two Stubborn Denials, and I added an extra Vapor Snag after my GDS match last week. The 3/3 Split felt really nice. I only ever drew/cast Hexdrinker once, and it ended up getting bounced by a thing after leveling to 3.



Match 1 vs. Burn (0-2)
I though I should have better odds against burn, not entirely sure what cards I'm looking for. I didn't get a good creature to stick - my Delver in game 1 was removed. The pitch spells were nice, but the card disadvantage really hurt. I brought in Cindervines and Weather the Storm, never drew them. The match ended quick so i pulle dout my own burn deck and won the mirror in a casual match.

Match 2 vs. UB Mill (2-1)
Game 1 he milled me out but I put up a real fight, he was down to 2 life. Next 2 games I won by pacing my spells and really biding my time to remove his big mill cards. Brought in Cindervines and Surgicals for this one. Fun games. I really wanna try out Veil of Summer in the SB now, since I've played this guy 3 different times now.

Match 3 vs. Izzet Phoenix (1-2)
I was playing with an opponent who was new to modern, it was his first night piloting the deck. I let him do a few plays over as we was also new to Magic. I could have won based on his poor sequencing, but I always want my opponents to play as well as possible so I let him take a few things back when he didn't understand the rules fully. They were very close games. I now know what I'm looking to counter. I sided in Surgicals, Weather the Storm, and Cindervines for this, never drew into any of them. I think I can beat Phoenix next time, but I also wanna try out Fry in the SP to deal with Things, though Vapor Snag did a great job bouncing them before the flip triggered.

How do people SB and play against Burn and Phoenix? Curious to get other perspectives.

Monday Night Modern Report:

Last night I tried out Nimble Mongoose. I was pretty disappointed. Went 1-2 overall. It just felt so underpowered in the meta, and Threshold is actually hard to turn on sometimes, and it's difficult to maintain when necessary. I did a 2/4 arrangement of Disrupting Shoal and Force of negation - that actually felt rather good.



Match 1: vs. Grixis Death Shadow 0-2
GDS is consistently my worst matchup, and this is where Mongoose really floundered. Between Shadow and Angler, my creatures are really lackluster. I know I need to keep Shadow off the table, but once it lands it's hard to get rid of. This feels like a matchup where I want to hold on to my burn spells and send them to the face at a critical moment, but I was just never in that position. I brought in EE, Collar, and Hazoret, but never really say them. Hazoret sat in my hand in my hand and I just never got the 4 mana to cast her.

Match 2: Izzet Phoenix 2-0
This match felt really easy. Echoing Truth and Vapor Snag really shine here. As does Cindervines just to peck away at their life as they spin their wheels.

Match 3: Mono-Red Phoenix 1-2
This was much harder than Izzet Phoenix. The goal is to exhaust their gas until they're top decking. I simply had bad draws. Had to Mull first game and last game, and was never drawing into any of my big creatures. Brought in Weather the Storm and Cindervines. Weather the Storm won me game 2.

My Goose experiment feels over. It just didn't help me out any more than Mandrills. Next time I'll be going back to Mandrills, which means I'm going to try out a counterspell base of 2 Stubborn Denial, 3 Disrupting Shoal, and 3 Force of Negation. If I ever get a set of Hexdrinkers I'll be interested to see how they play out.

I've now watched a few matches online with people running Nimble Mongoose in the place of Mandrills, and after facing so much targeted removal last Monday, I thought I've give the 'goose a try.

I also got my set of Force of Negations in the mail today, and I'm wondering how many people are running.

With the swap of Goose for Mandrills, I think Stubborn Denial is not a great card in the shell. I was thinking of replacing the Denials with either the Forces of the Shoals. So I've either looking at 4 Shoals, 2 Forces, or 4 Forces, 2 Shoals.

My meta is heavy with Burn, Tron, UW Control, and very often some form of GW Valuetown or Counters combo. Last week I had some close matches against GDS, making me think Mongoose would be good. I don't know what the strongest set up would be against these decks.

Can Fry damage Tasigur, the Golden Fang?

How are people feeling about Blood Moon? Last time I played I brought it in against Tron, but the fact that we rely so much on our one Forest to cast our threats, I was never in a position where I felt I could confidently drop Blood Moon without disrupting my own mana base - I always want as much blue as possible, and often grabbing the Forest feels like it sets us back in flexibility and staying open with counter magic. Does anyone play Alpine Moon instead? It seems like it's good against less decks - though I guess against humans/spirits it can shut down cavern of souls - and Blood Moon seems like it's just so much more of a hoser.

The joy of a pauper cube, for me, is being able to always come home from a prerelease with cards to add to my cube. Pauper Cube mimics in many ways a limited environment, since common cards usually make up the bulk of one's limited deck. A pauper cube is a place to cheaply construct a representation of your favorite affordable cards to play with through the ages. It's fun to see what old commons make the cut for cube, and what new commons do to change the environment. Pauper Cubes are also quite versatile and allow a great variety of cubes to be shaped around such a simple stipulation. Some people like a powered pauper cube - that's fine. It means you're always trying to find which commons have been pushed *just enough* so that they're always "strictly better" than other cards. Other Pauper cubes are focused around synergies - it's fun to construct archetypes through affordable cards. Some people like Pauper Cubes because they naturally restrict the complexity of the cards involved. It makes playing Magic feel like the old days when cards did less things. Some people like pauper cubes that run thirty Relentless Rats or ten Rune Snags.

At a certain point one has to concede that Pauper Cubes can be *ANYTHING* the builder wants them to be. The one thing we can all agree on, and the only thing we might need to agree on, is that we like playing with Magic cards that are printed at Common.

Am I missing something? What makes the two black orcs specifically warcraft inspired?

Modern night. Lame results: 0-1-2. Last two games going to turns. I may have been playing a little slow, but my opponents were playing pretty slow as well. This deck always bamboozles people.



1-2 First Round against GW valuetown. I misevaluated the power of Knight of the Reliquarys and just didn't feel like I had enough to deal with all their creatures. Surgical Extractions to get rid of their Ghost Quarters was the best i could do.

1-1-1 against's Grixis Death Shadow. This feels like a good matchup for us. All the games were close and fun to play, our decks are so similar, I just didn't play well against some of his removal - Nimble Mongoose would actually be pretty good against GDS.

1-1-1 against Mono-G Tron. Blood Moon feel baaaaad in this matchup. We spend too much time durdling to fix our basic mana, and this tron deck felt like it ran relatively "low" with new Karn and New Ugin, outpacing us past the point of Moon making an impact.

Gonna swap Lazotep Plating for Simic Charm again. Then I'd like to cut one Stubborn denial and a Shoal for two Force of Negations once I acquire them. I think I'm gonna try Mongooses for Apes next time, just to see how it feels.

How do people play against G-Tron? That deck really had me against the ropes.

I think this has plenty of Modern applications as well. I play Temur Monkey Grow, so I'm biased, since I know outside of UW Control, most other decks with blue won't need this. But it counters Phoenix triggers, Thing in the Ice flipping triggers, counters Jaces, Teferis, Lilianas, there are a few legendary creatures running around - Kalitas, Thalia... I think this will certainly see some play.

Just Spoiled: Tale's End

Tales End 1U
Instant
Counter target activated ability, triggered ability, or legendary spell.

Well here's our counterspell against control shells. Should keep the abundance of Teferis and Jaces in check. Good against D&T, shuts down Thing from flipping, Phoenixes from returning.... Counters LotV in Jund... Pretty good card, I'd say!

I really hope we see lifegain payoff cards at common. It's annoying (for me and my pauper cube) to have endless decent lifegain cards with no reason to truly run them.

Two planeswalker deck cards are worth talking about, but won’t make the cut for most of us.

Wildfire Elemental 2RR
Summon elemental
Whenever an opponent is dealt noncombat damage, creatures ya control get +1/+0 until end of turn.
3/3

Savage Gorger 1BB
Summon vamp
Flying
At Beginning of your endstep put a +1/+1 counter on Gorger if an opponent lost life this turn.
1/1

and...

Gorging Vulture 2B
Summon Bird
Flying
When Gorging Vulture enters the battlefield, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard. You gain 1 life for each creature card put into your graveyard this way.
2/2

The ajani deck has some uncommon lifegain matters cards. I really wish we could see some soul sisters / lifegain payoff cards at common soon.

Ha ha, yeah, I stopped bothering to make 1 to 1 cuts/additions to my 360 cube. Yesterday I just added every new card I like and want to play with and I'll have to start cutting cards to get back to 360 from (currently) 423. And that doesn't even include M20 cards yet!! I agree with you, @Al_Z_Heimer, the new diversity of cubable cards is great to break up the uniformity of tier 1 cubes. It also enables archetype cubes to be much stronger. I think we'll be seeing much greater variety in each others' cubes moving forward!

Yeah, I'm a big fan of that bird wizard! This set is giving us some very tight new cards at common. The funny this is, none of these cards even look like they should be uncommon. Like this bird would be a lame uncommon, yet we feel its a pushed common. Common, I feel, has to do with complexity of the card. Drawing a card when attacking, and drawing a card upon ETB, these are very simple ideas. Simple and elegant and I'm glad WotC is printing them at common, as they should have always been doing.

I do wish WotC would make a move towards adding some more complexity in the realm of engine cards at common. I miss when we had cards like Tortured Existence being printed that could define a whole archetype.

I think I run enough fliers to make winged Words worth it. Strictly better Divination, right?

Another:
Audacious Thief 2B
Creature - Human Rogue
Whenever Brazen Thief attacks, draw a card and lose 1 life.
2/2

I think this is the first instance of an unconditional draw off an attack trigger at common. Phyrexian Rager guarantees us a card when we play it, but this just needs to swing twice to gain us advantage.

And squad captain 4W
Summon soldier
Vigilance
Whe it ETBs it gets a +1/+1 counter for each other creature you control.
2/2

Kinda meh, risky, but could be interesting if you push swarm.

And...

Goblin Smuggler 2R
Summon Gobbo
Haste
Another target creature with power 2 or less can't be blocked this turn
2/2

Pauper isn’t really a format where we have 2 power creatures that NEED to connect. Maybe you’ll like this if you run cards like Saltwater Stalwart