fringe idea: what do you think of Venarian Glimmer ?
Venarian Glimmer
Instant, XU
Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card with converted mana cost X or less from it. That player discards that card.
really not trying to be negative but...i only seem this as a budget twin deck.
its seem that you take out the kiki for more (and worse) cards, if you want to really do the combo better play 8+8 pieces, and add draw/search (telling time, thieves fortune, etc) plus protection (counter+hexproof, etc)
maybe you can find another deck with more sinergy for the shell (mantle+merrow), but a twin deck is a twin deck.
Game 1 it was very uneventful, he mulled to 5 and I was on the play. I start with a Hierarch and he plays a steamvents tapped, I play Arbiter and Ghost Quarter and he never drew another land. I'll never know why he chose to discard a Splinter twin instead of go to game 2 as all I saw was a steamvents and serum visions.
Game 2 I play Hierach and then follow up with Choke and he had no way to deal with it. Blade splicer and her golem made it there.
Game 1 So I lose the dice roll and I keep a solid hand. He opens up with Inquisition which takes my Aether Vial, so when it comes to my turn I play a thicket and bird and pass. He bolts the bird, and Inquisitions me again taking my blade splicer leaving me with only land and Thrun in my hand. He follows up with 3 goyfs and I'm unable to catch up.
Game 2 I'm going all in on the mana denial plan with Arbiter and double ghost quarter leaving him with just a forest and a Goyf. He gets stuck on land and I am able to get a path for the goyf and play a couple of blade splicers. I get him to 1 and he's able to Anger of the gods which wipes out all my guys. He then follows up with Prophetic Flamespeaker and Rancor, within a couple turns I'm dead as I wasn't able to find an answer.
Game 1 Opponent wins the dice roll and plays a turn 1 Delver of secrets. I play a bird and hope for the best and I guess I was just lucky as he ended up flooding on lands and delver never flipped. A turn 3 Thrun closed out the game pretty easy.
Game 2 He opens up again with turn 1 Delver which again never manages to flip. He drew 2 more delvers and a couple spellstutter sprites but they were forced into chump blockers. Golems and Angels closed it out
Game 1 I win the die roll and drop a bird, opponent plays sleight of hand and I'm feeling pretty good. I was around 85% sure he was playing storm and I had Thalia, Ghost Quarter, and Arbiter in hand. After I blew up his land and followed up with a Thalia he scooped.
Game 2 I saw only islands and Steam Vents so I board in both my chokes. He kinda combos off turn 2 into empty the warrens giving him 6 goblins. He's tapped out with 2 islands so I risk it and play choke instead of one of my creatures. He ends up playing a mountain but I'm able to stabilize at 2 and he scoops very angry about losing and starts yelling at how stupid I am for bringing in choke. Eventually the Judges had to remove him from the store.
Game 1 I remembered seeing this guy play my friend earlier so I knew he was playing Amulet of Vigor. I shut him down pretty easy with Leonin Arbiter and Ghost Quarter, followed up by Blinking his Karoo lands with Flickerwisp forcing him to bounce more lands. He never recovered and I just beat him down.
Game 2 Same thing as game 1, I get the combo going and there wasn't anything he could do.
Game 1 Opponent wins the die roll and early on I learn I'm up against UR Twin. I was able to pull out an extremely close win with double path in my hand when he tried to combo off.
Game 2 This match was just like the first one except after his Deceiver's/Pestermites ate 3 paths and fizzled out 3 Splintertwins, he drew a 4th one and was able to combo out when I had lethal next turn.
Game 3 A turn 3 Thrun was the allstar here, he couldn't deal with it and I eventually had a safe board state with 2 Path in hand and a Linvala in play. I just beat him into the ground and he couldn't do anything to stop it.
Game 1 I saw what looked to be Storm and tried to aggro him out as fast as I could. Turned out he was playing U/W/R Control with Pyromancer's Ascension. I was barely able to win this and the only reason was because of the lifegain from my Sword. Double lightning bolts hurt pretty bad.
Game 2 My opponent taps out 2 steam vents turn 2 to play Pyromancer's Ascension and I follow up with choke. He wasn't able to deal with it and I beat him down with Splicer tokens and Thalia.
Overall I was really happy with how the deck did today. I'm still bummed out that I missed top 8 by so little but that's to be expected. My reason for running Pride Mages and SoLaS instead of 3 oozes is because when I was looking around before it started I saw pretty much everyone was some U/R Variant, Same reason I decided to put Thrun in the finisher spot. The only thing that I wish I could have changed is have 4 Horizon Canopys. I never liked seeing Brushland, and a few games the draw got me the answer I needed to win.
congrats!!
and about the hierarch/bird, was a big deal playing with 2/2 and not 4/0?
I think both Poppet and Trike are subpar but feel free to test. I've tested Trike but not Poppet.
Merfolk has been easy lately and I don't know why. Maybe I was bad before or their deck was built better and the Thassa version is bad. Note that they pretty much stopped playing cursecatcher which is huge.
Infect is fine for my list. I can set up chalice or angel in most games.
I don't think anyone on my list has lost a match to hexproof. Chalice wins of course and it's like playing a worse version of infect.
My friend Ken, a former pro tour regular, is on my list and he asked for advice against burn in an online 8man. He won g1 with Platinum Angel and g2 with witchbane orb and chalice on 2. The guy boarded in 4 smash to smithereens and 4 molten rain and still got crushed. I think we're a tough matchup for burn, I was just respecting the majority opinion by calling it even to advantageous.
Affinitty is difficult. We're very good against lists without galvanic blast. It requires a lot of skill on both sides.
Pardon, but I don't get it. This is my point: I know Chalice is a blast against aggro, BUT you won't always open a hand with Chalice, if you only play 1 maindeck. The same can be true even post-SB even if you run 4 Chalices. Do you mulligan down to 4 just to find it? Against Infect, Aura, Affinity you rarely have time for tutors, as they can win consistently on turn 4 or earlier. And sometimes if you play Chalice after turn 2 it's doesn't change that much. Same for Angel, it could be game-winning but you can't always dump it early. I know that we have plenty of ways to win, and it can be done, but they have a fast hand more often than you can start with a Chalice. So you'll probably lose G1, have a good chance G2 but G3 will be though anyway, if they start too fast it's GG no matter what kind of hand you could have.
I won't talk about burn, as everyone seems to talk about the crap online version, and of course that could be easy. In paper, burn is 4c, more consistent and with more SB options. And if anyone is playing online against some kind of 'budget' version of these decks (Infect with less than three colors, Aura without Horizon Canopy and such), well I guess that doesn't count too.
We play tutors, tons of draw, multiple Repeals, and large lifelinkers. This deck takes a lot of skill and knowledge of the format to succeed with. I honestly believe it's one of the best decks in the format and current metagame. I played UR and RUG Twin extensively and came back to blue tron because it's more fun to play and I have better results in the many hundreds of games I've played with it.
I've never seen four color burn. I've seen three (BRW), what is the 4th?
dont know now, but pre shaman ban uses 1 stomping grounds, for the shaman and using ancient grudge in SB.
out of curiosity is there a reason not to splash for white in this deck? It seems like adding path, o-ring, wrath, and rev to this deck would make even stronger. Wouldn't even need fetches just some seachrome coasts and collonades. I've not tried the deck so was wondering if it had been tried and if it helped or made it too clunky.
Whenever you are adding a second colour to a Tron deck (i.e. a deck with already 12 colorless lands) you're adding both an extra layer of further weakness manabase and putting cards that will be useful to solve delicate matchups (like aggro, in this case) but will obviously downside on weakening the good ones. Everyone that has tried splashing a colour in mono-blue tron, be it red or white primarily, has come to the conclusion that it is better to leave the deck mono-coloured as it is and accept that it just sucks against certain aggressive strategies, rather than trying to solve them all with a bad and non-consistent deck warping.
In alternative, look at UR or UW tron. They still are clunky as hell, though- the reason why they aren't dominating decks really.
Your points are valid, but UW tron is definitely not clunky. I have found it to be very consistent and can pull answers for most of the decks in the format.
if reid duke cant make day 2 with a deck, there is something wrong with the deck
Round 2 - B Obliterator
Match 1 was easy goin'. Platinum Angel equipped with Batterskull run over him.
Match 2 was ugly. He kept the pressure and i had the Angel. When i was at -8 i simply had no counter or bounce and just waited for removal, but it didn't come. When i stabilized with BAtterskull he killed the Angel, but i responded with Cyclonic Rift, it saved the match. I was able to recur the Angel, equipped it with Skull and slowly brought him down to 0.
2-0
dont understand this, you cyclonic rift your own angel?
yeah, the problem is not SCG, its wizards/players, wizards (supply) for not reprinting things out of the reserves list (FOW, Wasteland, etc) and people (demand) for just buying at any price.
Venarian Glimmer
Instant, XU
Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card with converted mana cost X or less from it. That player discards that card.
for pure financial reasons (like an art picture), hold the mox.
if you like to play modern or legacy, the tarmos.
its really a personal opinion, i would take the tarmos for example (or to be honest, i just sold the mox/tarmos and keep the cash right now).
its seem that you take out the kiki for more (and worse) cards, if you want to really do the combo better play 8+8 pieces, and add draw/search (telling time, thieves fortune, etc) plus protection (counter+hexproof, etc)
maybe you can find another deck with more sinergy for the shell (mantle+merrow), but a twin deck is a twin deck.
PD: find this for example http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/modern-deck-creation/221099-combo-deck-puresight-merrow-paradise-mantle
going into MTGO is really nice option
pd: i dont like EDH either, its fine a couple of games, but never main format.
build a "budget" commander decklist, have a deck to play with them
but focus/hang on with modern, maybe you could pull more people give it a try.
why? because they shape the meta, every other deck are goodstuff decks, but pod and twin shapes the format right now.
pd: i still think that bolt and snapcaster are the best cards in modern, but not the most influential.
congrats!!
and about the hierarch/bird, was a big deal playing with 2/2 and not 4/0?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/modern-deck-creation/220206-mono-black-infect
example decklist:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=7243&d=241512&f=MO
dont know now, but pre shaman ban uses 1 stomping grounds, for the shaman and using ancient grudge in SB.
yeah in mtgo, but paper? you need a lot more!
if reid duke cant make day 2 with a deck, there is something wrong with the deck
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-state-of-standard-march-2014/
i dont mind playing against aggro, combo, control in general, just mirror annoys me
dont understand this, you cyclonic rift your own angel?