A card that stands out in recent memory that has a special place in my heart is Geist of Saint Traft. I've practically memorized Doug Beyer's backstory article on the card. The noble hero that gives his life for a cause, the guardian angel that watches over him even in death, his spirit living on and still fighting the horrors of Innistrad--everything about the card makes me smile. Even his flavor synergy with the rest of the block was phenomenal--Restoration Angel'ing him out of combat was like his guardian angel saving him from harm, and attacking with a Runechanter's Pike felt like vengeance for the way he was killed.
His card was powerful, brutally effective, and blatantly unfair for the other player. My opponents can't interact with him, and he kills in 4 turns just by himself. Casting a Geist on T2 off of a Noble Hierarch in Modern felt like cheating, especially with the fistful of countermagic that protects him from harm.
A ridiculously epic and awesome backstory combined with a crazily unfair and fun actual card makes this my #1 favorite creature and one of my favorite cards.
I would like to see some mainboard disruption. This doesn't look like the fastest deck out there, so buying that extra turn could be worth it.
Some mana dorks might help. At best, they ramp you into your combo on turn 3. At worst, it eats a removal spell and buys you a turn.
I'd recommend Wild Guess. Great CA, great for decks that like discarding. Delirium Skeins would be the funniest technology ever to be seen in Modern.
As for graveyard hate, Relic of Progenitus is out of the question, since you need your graveyard too. You could try Scavenging Ooze--not a half-bad mainboard card, too. Surgical Extraction is something to consider, but it isn't the best option.
I completely agree. It's often necessary to kill a manadork from Pod on the draw which isn't possible with Smother. Smother also can't deal damage to the opponent, which matters more than I thought it would. But I had to make a concession somewhere because Vapor Snag just wasn't performing. Dismember is overkill and terrible against any fast deck and Disfigure doesn't kill Goyf, although they're wonderful post-board.
There are still 17 1CMC spells and one less Shoal, so I hope that works out.
6 Island
2 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Phantasmal Bear
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
Instants
4 Remand
4 Cryptic Command
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Smother
4 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
The defining part of the deck was the creature base--a combination of Pauper cards and format pillars. The only thing I didn't like was the spell base, so I decided to tweak that.
Vapor Snag hasn't worked out too well for me in testing--I find myself Snagging my own creature more often than not to save the precious few threats I have from removal, and Pod just makes it look bad pre-board. Gitaxian Probe is nice, but I feel like a discard spell could help with the matchups that we aren't so happy to see (Jund, Splinter Twin, Soul Sisters), which have permanents that are particularly difficult for the deck to answer.
Adding a discard suite to the deck has helped out in the control matchups, and Snapcastering multiple discard spells is a little better than Probing multiple times. Smother is something I wanted to try out in place of Vapor Snag. It kills nearly everything I can think of that could hurt us (DRS, Confidant, Goyf, opposing Delvers, Clique, etc.) and is a more permanent answer than Snag. It's a way to combat the various Aether Vial decks that will just drop the creature with Vial again. It isn't very good against Pod however, so that might be something to consider. It is also absurd against the UWR decks that have almost no win conditions, since it can deal with Colonnade on a permanent basis.
I realize that it just looks like a U/B Delver list, but I maintain that the core of the deck is its unique creature base and not the spells. The land base isn't hurt terribly--I just went a little overboard with my mana base, which is certainly incorrect. My sideboard is still a work in progress:
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Echoing Truth
1 Thoughtseize
2 Disfigure
1 Batterskull
2 Vedalken Shackles
I think people are being misled by the Delver of Secrets--this deck has a lot of control elements despise its threat composition, and can easily and comfortably go into the late game with the CA from the Ninja.
9 Plains
9 Mountain
4 Clifftop Retreat
Creatures
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Student of Warfare
4 Mirran Crusader
3 Cerodon Yearling
2 Boros Reckoner
2 Stormblood Berserker
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Boros Charm
Planeswalkers
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
It's fairly budget--the only thing I spent money on were the Elspeths. I have a LOT of one-drops that require "levelling", so there's not a lot of two-drops. Mirran Crusader is actually insane--untapping with him and a Boros Charm in hand is nearly unbeatable, and he blocks/attacks through Goyf, Kitchen Finks, Tombstalker, etc. Bolt does kill him though, which is annoying. He also doesn't do too much against Affinity or Twin, but equipping Sword of War and Peace to him means the game is over, which is why I'm considering moving the Sword to the mainboard.
Suggestions? Comments? For the sideboard, I currently have:
Kidding aside, I'd say Elementals are also quite Izzet.
If Death himself is also playing an instant-win deck, it becomes a coin flip for your life.
5 Island
4 Plains
3 Swamp
4 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Glacial Fortress
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Celestial Colonnade
3 Arcane Sanctum
Creatures
3 Snapcaster Mage
Instants
4 Mystical Teachings
4 Esper Charm
4 Mana Leak
4 Dissipate
3 Go for the Throat
2 Path to Exile
2 Negate
1 Tribute to Hunger
1 Consume the Meek
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Extirpate
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Duress
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Dispel
1 Remove Soul
1 Extirpate
1 Gainsay
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Gather Specimens
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Trickbind
My playgroup plays borderline casual Modern, so there are a lot of suboptimal choices in the deck. However, this has quickly become my favorite deck in Magic, and I would really like to eventually take this to a tournament or my LGS’s Modern events. Aside from some obvious strict upgrades (Sphinx’s Revelation for USZ, some mix of Cryptic Command/Spell Snare for the Dissipates, etc.), the deck performs like a dream.
The Jace in the sideboard is really a placeholder—I don’t know what to put in that slot. My kill spell of choice is Go for the Throat because there are a lot of random ramp decks in my meta—I can’t afford to give those players lands with Path to Exile, and there’s not a whole lot of Affinity running around. I also have a huge problem dealing with an early Liliana or Karn, which is why I pack 4 Mana Leaks, 2 Negate, and a Hero’s Downfall in the main deck.
I was wondering if the manabase, and by extension the deck itself, could support Nephalia Drownyard as a secondary win condition. It doesn’t seem like a bad choice if my one copy of WSZ is somehow hit. The mana for this deck isn’t particularly taxing, even with the 12 basic land cards—I find that even things like Blood Moon aren’t particularly damaging, and fitting in 2-3 copies of the Drownyard doesn’t seem like it would hurt this deck terribly, since I don’t ever really need to cast something like Esper Charm on turn 3 anyway. I feel like I've got enough early game disruption to be able to weather the storm until the Drownyards come online, and it looks promising against control.
I guess my questions are thus:
1. What could I replace for the Jace in my sideboard? I would like the slot to be helpful against control decks and Tron/ramp if at all possible (maybe Shadow of Doubt?).
2. Is the mainboard OK for a semi-competitive deck? More specifically, are the mainboard Teachings targets OK?
3. Nephalia Drownyard: yay or nay?
Simic Charm is a very versatile card, but it can be fought if broken down. The three modes aren't too hard to play around as well; its' most common usage could be the Rebuff the Wicked mode.
The first thing you should do is to learn to play around counterspells. Baiting less experienced players isn't that challenging, and you can find a turn where they counter your lesser threat only for you drop your Aurelia. Drop threats in increasing magnitudes of severity and force your opponent to keep answering them--control players don't have infinite counterspells, and unless they have a strong card advantage engine, you can exploit that fact to just overwhelm them.
Your mainboard has some natural resilience against some common aspects of control--Boros Charm has been proven in Standard to be able to "counter the uncounterable Wrath", and Path to Exile is cheap enough to dodge most counterspells. Streamlining your deck to be faster is one way to beat control--ideally, you want to get them within range of your burn spells by turn 3, so that even if they manage to cast the turn 4 Wrath, you'll still have a shot at finishing them off.
Usage of cards that produce repeatable threats (Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Chandra, the Firebrand, Mobilization, Heliod, God of the Sun) or effects that make ANYTHING a lethal threat (Sword of Broken and Absurds, Angelic Destiny) are always good against control decks.
Finally, the most important tip--you have to outcard them. Typical control decks must have more cards to be able to answer all of your threats, so find a way to draw more threats or take away their sources of generating said advantage. If your opponent is forced to cast his all-powerful sweeper on just one creature, you're doing fine. If he has to spend two of his Lightning Bolts dealing with your Hero of Bladehold, you're doing great. And if you find yourself in the position of having a hand when he's topdecking, you've won the game.
As for a specific sideboard, I'd need to know what the control decks are using to be able to provide a more solid answer. How exactly are they disrupting you? What are some of the most problematic cards that you find yourself staring down?
One answer in your colors happens to be Aurelia's Fury. You can cast it on the end of their turn to tap down their creatures, or cast it during your own upkeep to ensure that your turn is unhindered by their shenanigans. Too often I've found myself forced to counter the 10-damage Fury on the end of my opponent's turn, only for them to untap and cast Aurelia herself.
Another card that is absolutely brutal against control is Assemble the Legion. If your opponent does not counter this spell, he will lose--no questions asked, no second chances, do not pass go, etc. It produces infinite threats and only gets better the longer your opponent stalls the game.
As a matter of fact, here is the mainboard:
5 Island
4 Swamp
2 Mountain
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Crumbling Necropolis
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Dreadship Reef
4 Snapcaster Mage
Instants
4 Dissipate
4 Mana Leak
4 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
3 Think Twice
1 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Dreadbore
Planeswalkers
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
I saved up for a long time for the Snapcaster Mages, so that's why they're in there. Everything else is very budget and I'd like to keep it that way--hence no Cryptic Command, fetchlands, or Damnation and such. Any critique on the maindeck is also greatly appreciated--I feel uncomfortable with it for some reason.
Slagstorm is a fantastic card--can't believe I didn't think of that before. Will definitely look into it.
It's interesting to note that Pithing Needle DOES stop the Ascension deck, actually! I'll have to look into a couple of copies of that.
I like Mindbreak Trap--it's certainly interesting to note that it can also stop things like Slaughter Games. I was originally looking into Redirect for things like counterwars, but I might look into the Mindbreak Trap plan.
How many of these cards should I run to not also mess up the deck's plan?
2 Slaughter Games
2 Tribute to Hunger
2 Counterflux
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Into the Roil
1 Consume the Meek
1 Dispel
1 Pyroclasm
There are a couple of hard control decks in my meta, as well as some really high-end creature decks like Eldrazi and some decks based around the Gods. I'm drawing a blank when it comes to some powerful sideboard cards that I could use against these decks.
I'm looking for any cards that help against some of the following decks:
White Weenie
Standard Mono-B Devotion
Mono-G Eldrazi
Grixis Control mirror match
Luminarch Ascension
I'd prefer it if all of the cards were Modern legal. Thanks in advance!!
The mighty and all-powerful $30+ Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, scourge of decks everywhere and arguably the most powerful single card ever printed...gets stopped in its tracks by the $0.01 Lawkeeper-that-could.
From my perspective, Esper is definitely strong--the black splash is probably just for Read the Bones and Thoughtseize. I also like Blood Baron of Vizkopa--he's going to be very strong in the early days of RDW-dominated Standard, since he's resilient to a LOT of the good removal in the format and stabilizes like a champ. Supreme Verdict is a card, and Sphinx's Revelation goes without mention. Azorius Charm is also some nice instant-speed draw, and could buy time against aggro. Detention Sphere is also a strong catch-all, and the sideboard unlocks Glare of Heresy, which I have to imagine is going to be absurd. Heliod, God of the Sun also looks to be a great finisher, albeit slower and less effective than something like Aetherling.
However, Grixis just seems to outclass it in almost every way. Anger of the Gods is better than Supreme Verdict a lot of the time against aggro. Izzet Charm is so versatile and arguably better than Read the Bones; it can dig like a champ, counter a Thoughtseize, and shoot down something like Gore-House Chainwalker. Turn/Burn answers so many things it's almost disgusting--including the Blood Baron and the Gods. We don't see Render Silent being played much, but Counterflux is a solid maindeck card and sees play in both sideboards and eternal formats.
We also have straight up BURN. In this format, people might be relying a lot on the shocklands and Thoughtseize, and this could mean that we see a life-total situation similar to Modern, where people are starting off at an effective 14-16. This means that aiming damage straight to the face is going to be VIABLE. Magma Jet, Lightning Strike, Toil/Trouble--hell, we even have Shock if it gets to that--all of these cards put some serious pressure on your opponent's life total and kill them outright.
There are other really strong plays in Grixis as well. Rakdos's Return looks disgusting in combination with Thoughtseize, and Mizzium Mortars still hits Loxodon Smiter. There is almost no UW equivalent to Dreadbore, and Slaughter Games is EXTREMELY good in the sideboard against the control matchups. Stormbreath Dragon looks like a very strong finisher as well; I can certainly argue that it's faster than Aetherling.
In the end, it comes down to a choice of either W or R as the third color. I feel that with the burn and various strong card-advantage engines coupled with equally strong sideboard options, Grixis is going to be the top control deck going into Theros.
I am getting really tired of having to face these things ALL of the time.
I guess I'm not really offering a question or asking for advice here--I'm just looking for a place to rant.
Well, I guess I do have a question: Do you guys get annoyed whenever you have to face un-fun decks like Discard or Mill all of the time? It greatly annoys me when I can't play 2-player Magic, and I've stooped to the level of entering a casual game with some bonkers Vintage Reanimator concoction, just to hate out these players.