I feel bad saying this but I don't believe you haven't had mana problems with that list. 10 basics is incredibly greedy when youre on 4 colors. You have 1 source of red mana that isn't a birds of paradise, and you've got a Kiki-Jiki. Have you never played against a Ghost Quarter deck? Do people never bolt your birds? You have Saheelis, Nahiris, Blood Moons and a Kiki. A well timed bolt (i.e. any time) or a ghostquarter on your red source turns off 8 cards in your deck and completely prevents you from comboing. You also don't have ralliers or eternal witnesses to mitigate the risk of losing a land. I don't understand how you've been avoiding what looks like a glaring issue in your list, and is a huge problem for me in what I feel is a list that is less susceptible to it.
I suppose you have 4 extra sources for your planeswalkers, but needing two birds or a blood moon in play to cast a Kiki-jiki seems really really ambitious.
You are a little bit right. I haven't posted my most recent list in a while (will do that after the weekend, I'm now on my phone traveling to GP Copenhagen), but I made some changes to the list a played with a month ago. Main difference: I swapped a forest for a second stomping grounds, and dropped Kiki. Kiki was indeed sometimes a dead card in my hand (but because I'm playing a lot of blood moon, that's far less often the case because of mana constraints than you might think. Most of the time it's a dead card because it's a 5 drop that is fragile and doesn't do much in certain board states). I mainly dropped Kiki because it's not a very quick way to combo out. When you're at a later stage in the game I found myself wanting to evolve into sigarda more often than Kiki, because sigarda is often a sure way to win the game in 2 turns or so, where kiki gets bolted/pathed/etc too often.
Other than that, 9 basics is not a problem and doesn't really screw you over, because yes we are 4c, but the only blue is for 3 saheelis (that you can cast with oath and birds as well) and the other is a few blood moons that get often boarded out, so in the rare case you miss a color you're still a very potent grinding machine.
It's just different ways to build the deck depending on what meta you are entering. For example, I only play on MTGO, so there is a lot of eldrazi, DS, and affinity, so I play a deck that can threaten T3 combo, but also has the ability to play a more GWr mid-range approach if needed. The deck you posted is great for metas that allow a slightly slower, more controlling build, but I can see it having issues dealing with something like Affinity, Revolt Zoo, Grishoalbrand, and Burn. Also, there aren't a ton of pilots of this deck out there, so the testing is slow, the deck you posted could be closer to the "optimal build" we just don't know yet.
Thanks for the response. I was thinking the same thing - that it is a bit more controlly/midrange-y and thus a slower build - so I've been tweaking the deck to add better game against the decks you listed above. Specifically, I'm thinking 4 Kitchen Finks to help against Zoo and Burn, and then adding in Scavenging Ooze mainboard to also help shore up deficiencies against GY-based strategies (and just add general awesomeness). I really, really like the feel of the deck so far and think it has potential. Now I just need to get in some playtesting!
I was the one playing the deck TheoryCraft referred to in his earlier post (www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15456&d=294138&f=MO). To answer your questions: it's indeed a bit slower build. But the reason to do so is exactly to beat the decks like burn, revolt zoo, death's shadow and eldrazi. 4 finks, moons and worships make these matchups really good for us. Actually, I've tweaked the deck after that tournament to be geared towards T3 combo more, without losing it's controlling value: +2 lotus cobra, -1 voice, -1 hierarch.
If you want to have a strong matchup against shadow (see nal2's post above) then going all-in T3 combo is not the way to go imho, because of all the removal and hand disruption. Moon and worship do a good job there.
Thank you for the response, @JochemW. How have the Lotus Cobra been faring? Have you made any other revisions to the deck recently? And do you feel as though Worship is essential for the version you run?
I was very sceptic about Lotus Cobra, until I tried him. It's really good. Not only does it allow you to combo out on T3 more often than with just T1 birds - T2 saheeli - T3 cat, more importantly it allows you to combo out on T3 without having to deploy Saheeli on T2. (T2 cobra means that you can play cat+saheeli on T3 or saheeli+evolution T3, both without the need of any other board presence) This means that opponents often don't see it coming and tap out on their T2. Also Saheeli is not exposed for opposing attackers.
Worship is very good against eldrazi decks, something we would otherwise struggle with, especially game 1 most opponents don't have a good way of dealing with it. I really like it a lot, but I haven't tested it enough to conclusively say how many is the optimal number. Maybe those two in the board should be dusk/dawns, or something else.
It's just different ways to build the deck depending on what meta you are entering. For example, I only play on MTGO, so there is a lot of eldrazi, DS, and affinity, so I play a deck that can threaten T3 combo, but also has the ability to play a more GWr mid-range approach if needed. The deck you posted is great for metas that allow a slightly slower, more controlling build, but I can see it having issues dealing with something like Affinity, Revolt Zoo, Grishoalbrand, and Burn. Also, there aren't a ton of pilots of this deck out there, so the testing is slow, the deck you posted could be closer to the "optimal build" we just don't know yet.
Thanks for the response. I was thinking the same thing - that it is a bit more controlly/midrange-y and thus a slower build - so I've been tweaking the deck to add better game against the decks you listed above. Specifically, I'm thinking 4 Kitchen Finks to help against Zoo and Burn, and then adding in Scavenging Ooze mainboard to also help shore up deficiencies against GY-based strategies (and just add general awesomeness). I really, really like the feel of the deck so far and think it has potential. Now I just need to get in some playtesting!
I was the one playing the deck TheoryCraft referred to in his earlier post (www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15456&d=294138&f=MO). To answer your questions: it's indeed a bit slower build. But the reason to do so is exactly to beat the decks like burn, revolt zoo, death's shadow and eldrazi. 4 finks, moons and worships make these matchups really good for us. Actually, I've tweaked the deck after that tournament to be geared towards T3 combo more, without losing it's controlling value: +2 lotus cobra, -1 voice, -1 hierarch.
If you want to have a strong matchup against shadow (see nal2's post above) then going all-in T3 combo is not the way to go imho, because of all the removal and hand disruption. Moon and worship do a good job there.
What makes phantasmal image so great in your opinion? It's not a card you can blink or copy which is kind of the thing of this deck. Then again, maybe I'm overlooking something.
I'm preparing for post Amonkhet since my next tournament is after the release.
New cards in my list:
- angel of sanctions as a catch all removal while being evasive pressure
- dusk against eldrazi, DS, BGx midrange (apart from sweeping only opponent's creatures, the value from Dawn seems also really good in grindy matchups). I'm going to try a full set in the board.
Further changes:
- I'm down to 3 saheeli. She's bad in multiples and bad in quite a lot of situations anyway. I use Kiki-Jiki as the fourth saheeli that has the added benefit of being tutorable, so the deck is even more consistent than when running just 4 saheeli and 4 guardian whithout kiki-jiki.
- I replaced Path to exiles with worship mainboard. Against the decks you want path (eldrazi, DS, merfolk, etc) worship is way better, especially mainboard, when most decks simply have no answer to that card. Mainly against inkmoth nexus path is better, so I give up a small percentage against affinity and infect, but those are not heavily played in my meta.
- instead of using voice-into-rallier-shenenigans for value, I just run 4x finks, which is value by itself. This saves your evolutions to ramp into something like Sigarda (which is way more powerful in grindy matchups than voice into rallier) or Kiki-Jiki to just win the game on the spot.
- I was sceptic at first, but after some testing I'm starting to become convinced about lotus cobra. T2 cobra is often a T3 win out of nowhere, (either with guardian + saheeli, or saheeli + evolution) I'm playing 3 cobra instead of 2 now.
I also really like Dusk as a sideboard card against our more difficult matchups Eldrazi and Death's Shadow. It misses almost all of our own creatures while sweeping the other side of the board. Can't wait to try that out.
I've been experimenting a bit this week, and wanted to share my latest version that I just played at an FNM. Went 4-0, against GR Ponza, Bant Eldrazi, Jeskai control and GB midrange. Not the most competitive environment of course, but the deck felt strong and I will definitely try this build at a competitive event next week.
I didn't play this version enough yet to draw any hard conclusions, but my conclusions until now are:
- Squadron hawk is good evolution fodder, and combining it with mistveil plains for endless recursion and two gavony townships fit the rest of the deck very well. I prefer Squadron Hawk over Wall of Omens, which I find too defensive in a lot of matchups. And especially against affinity or infect, hawk plays even the defensive role better. I liked Squadron Hawk enough to keep playing this a bit more before giving my final judgement on it, but I'm leaning towards the misveil plains being too cute.
- 3 Worship in the board fixes a lot of our tougher matchups convincingly. We have a ton of creatures and evolving into Sigarda while having a Worship is very hard to beat. This felt so powerful that worship will definitely stay in my board for a while.
I haven't tried any builds with Lotus Cobra yet. I can see that it enables some fast combos, but it is also often a lousy topdeck. What's the verdict from those of you that played Cobra? Is the upside worth the downside?
I think felidar guardian is decent vs control indeed, because of the flicker effect. It's just that I like a lot of the cards in the board better than Felidar: 2x spirit (vs anger/damnation), 2 nahiri, finks, tusk, titan (deliver value even on an empty board, which happens often against control), eidolon and anafenza (break the snapcaster-command grind)
Spellskite might definitely be worth playing. Depending on my local meta I like Selfless spirit a bit better, because it protects the team against sweepers, but then again spellskite is better against infect, burn, bogles, etc. It depends on you local meta i guess
I like the idea of Saffi! Hadn't considered her. Not only does she protect your silver bullets, but even triggers their ETB effects a second time. And even better than an "indestructible" rallier, is an indestructible Sun Titan
She kinda fits the spellskite / selfless spirit spot. The way I see this spot:
- spellskite: when you expect a lot of infect, burn etc
- Saffi: when you expect a lot of midrange grinds with spot removal
- spirit: when you expect sweepers
I've been brewing green based Saheeli for a month and really love it! Very cool to see there is a primer for the evolution version now, because I really think going green is the way to go for Saheeli in modern. It offers a lot of upside over the Jeskai versions. Thanks for starting this thread Lejoon!
After reading this primer, I tweaked my list a bit (main difference: replaced essence wardens for anafenza, kin tree spirit). I'll share my latest list and highlight some of the differences with the lists I've seen here:
Main differences:
- More Deadeye Harpooner (2 main, 1 side). Way better at grinding out creature decks than path to exile: tutorable with oath and evolution, value with all our blink and saheeli effects. I play a few more fetches to facilitate revolt (also useful for Rallier).
-Anafenza, the foremost in the side, even though it's black. I find I need to be able to slam T2 Anafenza the foremost to tackle dredge, living end and Grishoalbrand. Also very useful against abzan company and grixis delver/control. I added one overgrown tomb and play 4 birds instead of 3 to hardcast this if necessary.
- selfless spirits in the side against sweepers and to protect our silver bullets
Some findings:
- A small Nahiri + Sun Titan package in the board is great in all grindy matchups and adds even more combo possibilities. I also tried this package maindeck, but like it better in the side. It's too clunky for some matchups main, next to all the other 4-drops.
- Even the annoying eldrazi tron is quite doable post board in this build. The harpooners and Stony silence help a lot.
- I like a fourth Evolution in my board and board it in often, because G2 and G3 are often about jamming silver bullets asap, or comboing out asap. Evolution in the board makes all your 1 offs in the board effectively 2 offs. It's like having a 23 card sideboard
I was wondering: in which matchups do you guys board out the combo? I notice I leave it in against most decks. Against control I board out the guardians and the evolutions (but leave saheeli in to scry, ping and create etb trigger value) and against BGx I board out Evolutions, but leave the combo intact in case I draw it naturally. Against all other decks I leave the combo in, but am not sure this is correct.
played a few games with JochemWs list - feels MUCH stronger than some of the other more rock-ish builds I've tried. Lingering souls feels pretty clutch as something to actually do with a garruk ultimate and/or just untapping lands with garruk. Kalitas is also no joke - sadly don't have him in paper and not keen to pay the standard premium for it ><
But I definitely feel like turn 1 sprawl/elf into turn 2 fulminator/souls/liliana/finks into t3 garruk/damnation is the curve that makes this distinct from abzan or jund. I am curious if bitterblossom has any place here (survives clouds) or if its just too slow/low impact? In other lists I had painfully slow and awkward BB plays where I would just end up wrathing my faeries and slowly waiting for a new army to arrive, all while realizing the noticeably low amount of lifegain in the deck (2 finks 2 courser generally)
Glad you liked it!
Indeed, garruk is very easy to ultimate and together with lingering souls it's often lethal. I really love this synergy.
I have tested bitterblossom, and found it too slow. You want immediate chump blockers to protect your walkers. Also I think the lifeloss is too risky in the current aggressive meta. I think lingering souls is always better (immediate impact, no lifeloss, harder to counter, synergy with Lili) and would only consider running a bitterblossom when I maxed out on souls already.
Thanks for your accurate answers JochemW. You convinced me on many things I wasn't sold on!
I think you've got a very efficient point of view on the pack and his main heading, quite different from what people are running currently. All-in sweepers/PW might be the way to go atm indeed. And maybe my concern about very fast aggro decks is a meta-oriented sight where I face a lot of affinity...
Still concerning your build, how is the tempo matchup?. I dunno at all how a deck like yours with heavy threats is doing against remand decks, but I'm used to play 4c Gifts where the gameplan is slightly similar (somehow high curve with mana dorks - I'm on 4 birds maindeck) and I often have hard time against URx tempo decks (delver, grixis and even more iGrow and monkey grow). It's tough when a 4ccm Garruk get snap-remanded and 2 or 3 shots like that are enough to outtempo us for the entire game. Do you have some advices for thoses matchups? I saw URx tempo strategies are on a rising since twin ban, and even if it's too early to say if it will stays, it's still good to be prepared!
Cheers
As for you concern about affinity, just try it. Between the Lingering souls, sweepers, lifegain and fulminators main, and the Stony silence, drown in sorrow and maelstom pulse from the side, you'll find this matchup to be overall really favorable for us.
As for the "new" tempo matchup, we'll have to see, because UR tempo wasn't really a thing until recently. The funny thing is that sometimes our tempo is much higher than theirs: t1 elf, t2 sprawl+garruk+liliana or other 3-drop is our nuts (happens around 1 in 15 games = free win). But also a very common t2 3drop followed by t3 garruk+3drop is really tough to beat for a tempo deck. Especially when we're on the play, because the tempo deck often taps out on t2 for a goyf, or our t2 3drop was a fulminator. I'd say the tempo matchup is more than other matchups reliant on who plays first, and it's an overall 50/50. But I haven't played this matchup very often, as tempo is kind of a new thing in the meta right now, so I might be wrong. Maybe going back to 4 chalice of the void in the side is an option if tempo really becomes a thing, it really wrecks a deck with so many 1drops.
- EDIT - lol, watching chalice spiking now, it might not be the cheapest strategy against tempo after the pro tour
Hi guys, I've been playing Death cloud in all my competitive tournaments for the past 8 months or so and thought let's share my thoughts on this great archetype.
I've tuned this deck a lot, tried all kinds of color combinations (BG, abzan, jund and even sultai) and tried different overall approaches for the archetype. I'm now at the point that I regularly top 8 at the competitive modern tournaments in the Netherlands (avg 50 players), including winning a 90 player PPTQ last year. I honestly feel death cloud is one of the strongest archetypes out there if you know how to play it, and it only got stronger now Twin is banned.
Some overall conclusions:
- I like the Abzan build best. straight BG comes close, but I feel you simply need the lingering souls against affinity, infect and BGx and there is nothing in straight BG to replace that.
- Always go all-in on the death cloud theme. That means 4 death clouds and 4 garruks. Always. Otherwise we're just halfway stuck between two strategies and we're a strictly worse deck than traditional BGx. The only matchups in which I board out deathclouds are affinity when I'm on the draw and burn.
- Kalitas is a beast. Creates zombie armies with our sweepers and liliana, the lifelink is great against aggro as well as midrange, he grows bigger than eldrazi, can't be bolted, and the exile mode is a bonus that comes up more often than you think (and shuts down abzan company).
- The fulminators mainboard are a recent addition for me now that Eldrazi is a thing and it also helps our worst matchup Tron a lot. Also great against affinity, infect and BGx. I like them main, but this is very metagame dependent.
You seems to have a lot of experience with the deck, so I've got a bunch of questions for you as I like big rock Deathcloud, and I'm happy when i see someone doing well with it
- You play 4 garruk 4 lili. I used to play a 4/2 split and it felt clunky sometimes so I came down to 3/2. Don't you open too many hands with 2+ pw you cannot cast or without enough disruption? From my testings it's good to have 1 pw in hand but more than that I find it slow as hell...
Very relevant questions Alpharius! I'll try to shed some light on my reasoning.
About how many planeswalkers to run:
This deck is all about value, and apart from the sweepers, the planeswalkers are the true heroes on that department. Note that with utopia sprawl, you often play Garruk and Lili together turn on T3 (after dropping a defensive finks, souls or even fulminator on T2) which is insane tempo. Multiple Lilis in hand is never a problem, because you can then either use the first one as bait for aggressive decks before dropping the second, or pitch the second one to the +1 against controlly decks.
Garruk is always a 4-off. True, having two of them is a bit clunky, but comboing him with DC is just the nuts. I often pitch a second garruk to Lili or even DC.
About clunkyness of the deck:
With 7 dorks 60% of your opening hands allow you to play a 3-drop on turn two. This tempo easily offsets the sometimes slower hands.
Of the other 40% of opening hands there are quite a few where you are doing something useful in turn 1 or 2 by playing a tapped manland or IoK.
So the amount of hands where you don't have anything useful to do in the first two turns is not that big. But even without IoK or manlands, my experience is that at least half of the hands that "start" at turn 3 are keepers. This is because those hands often contain so much value that they allow you to stabilize pretty fast. (a t3 drown in sorrow, or a t3 souls or finks, followed by a t4 damnation is almost always enough to turn a game in your advantage, also because those hands allow you to not take any damage from your own lands in T1 and T2)
True, those turn-3 hands can be an issue pre-board against very aggressive opponents. But with all our lifegain main and aggro hate in the side, matchups like burn, zoo and affinity are overall in our favor.
There is a bonus to hardly playing 1 drops and 2 drops: being able to play Chalice of the void in the side. I have often played the full set in the side, but 3 is also good. Chalice is exactly the card that fixes those super aggressive matchups like burn, infect, elves and small zoo and happens to hose most of your other difficult matchups too: living end, storm and lantern.
- You barely play some spot removals (exept 2 side maelstrom pulse). Are damnation and kitchen finksenough to keep you alive versus fast aggro decks? I can't imagine surviving the affinity or Zoo or Delver matchup without a abrupt decay/murderous cut/dismember split mainboard. (even with lingering souls)
I dropped the spot removal after twin was banned. Since t3 or t4 often consist of a sweeper (hence the drowns in the side, totaling your sweepers to 10), spot removal is often used for removing a creature that was about to die a turn later anyway. In this case I rather play finks, souls or fulminator (the latter is often used to chump block, then sacced), because those cards can be used in offense so they are never a dead card.
It depends a bit on your meta though. I'd consider playing 1 decay and 2 dismember instead of the three IoKs in metas where you expect to see a lot of zoo and merfolk and less combo.
- You don't play thragtusk. I've found it to be one of the best option for this deck as it survives very well DC and as a huge impact on the board. There is some drawback I'm missing or it's just a room-concern and you've found other cards to be better?
Thragtusk is great and I have often run him. But now we have Kalitas, and he is simply better. Can't be bolted, drops a turn sooner (which is super relevant in this fast meta), gains life repeatedly, and delivers even more value after sweepers.
- You have "just" 23 lands and 7 dorks. I'm on 25 lands and 7 dorks and I would not come down in land count as hitting every landdrop feel so important to an asymetrical DC. PLus you do not use Treetop village, wich is the most activate cost/body effective in our colours. How do you succes in keeping enough lands post DC to activate your "3 ccm" manlands with 23 lands and no treetop?
I find 30 mana sources the max, otherwise there are simply too many hands that ramp into nothing, or have crappy topdecks 3 turns in a row.
Subtle note: the fulminators also ramp us in regard to DC, because when we already destroyed one land with fulminator, our DC doesn't need to be that big for a complete wipeout.
About the manlands, this is a thing I tested extensively. It's true that Treetop is the quickest land to have online post DC. But there are multiple reasons for running my combination of Vent and Wildwood:
- Treetop doesn't produce black mana, which has waay too often resulted in not being able to play DC, Lili or Fulminator on curve.
- Treetop doesn't gain life or block flyers, which is super relevant in the current meta
- True, treetop often swings the turn after a DC, but swinging one land drop later with a Vent or Wildwood is also good enough, since your opponent needs a few more turns than you to recover from the DC.
- Lastly, and this one I realised only after many games: you don't really need your manland to be online after a DC in 90% of the cases. Playing a DC with only lili on the board is enough to win. She will have 7 loyalty by the time your opponent has redeployed some lands, and by that time you win the game on attrition, not by smashing him in the face with a treetop the turn after a DC. Same goes for DC with souls in the yard, or a persisted finks on the board. Those small board advantages are already enough value to justify a DC, winning you the game in the long run.
- How often do you need in the Drown in sorrow? You already play 3 damnation MD and I've found drown in sorrow to lack punch against Zoo mainly.
True, it lacks punch against zoo, but zoo is a favorable matchup anyway thanks to all our life gain and bigger sweepers.
Against affinity, merfolk, burn, elves, hate bears/death & taxes and abzan company however, it performs miracles, resulting in those matchups being really favorable. Post board you have 10 sweepers against those decks, which is nice and comfy, given the lack of spot removal in our deck.
Hi guys, I've been playing Death cloud in all my competitive tournaments for the past 8 months or so and thought let's share my thoughts on this great archetype.
I've tuned this deck a lot, tried all kinds of color combinations (BG, abzan, jund and even sultai) and tried different overall approaches for the archetype. I'm now at the point that I regularly top 8 at the competitive modern tournaments in the Netherlands (avg 50 players), including winning a 90 player PPTQ last year. I honestly feel death cloud is one of the strongest archetypes out there if you know how to play it, and it only got stronger now Twin is banned.
Some overall conclusions:
- I like the Abzan build best. straight BG comes close, but I feel you simply need the lingering souls against affinity, infect and BGx and there is nothing in straight BG to replace that.
- Always go all-in on the death cloud theme. That means 4 death clouds and 4 garruks. Always. Otherwise we're just halfway stuck between two strategies and we're a strictly worse deck than traditional BGx. The only matchups in which I board out deathclouds are affinity when I'm on the draw and burn.
- Kalitas is a beast. Creates zombie armies with our sweepers and liliana, the lifelink is great against aggro as well as midrange, he grows bigger than eldrazi, can't be bolted, and the exile mode is a bonus that comes up more often than you think (and shuts down abzan company).
- The fulminators mainboard are a recent addition for me now that Eldrazi is a thing and it also helps our worst matchup Tron a lot. Also great against affinity, infect and BGx. I like them main, but this is very metagame dependent.
You are a little bit right. I haven't posted my most recent list in a while (will do that after the weekend, I'm now on my phone traveling to GP Copenhagen), but I made some changes to the list a played with a month ago. Main difference: I swapped a forest for a second stomping grounds, and dropped Kiki. Kiki was indeed sometimes a dead card in my hand (but because I'm playing a lot of blood moon, that's far less often the case because of mana constraints than you might think. Most of the time it's a dead card because it's a 5 drop that is fragile and doesn't do much in certain board states). I mainly dropped Kiki because it's not a very quick way to combo out. When you're at a later stage in the game I found myself wanting to evolve into sigarda more often than Kiki, because sigarda is often a sure way to win the game in 2 turns or so, where kiki gets bolted/pathed/etc too often.
Other than that, 9 basics is not a problem and doesn't really screw you over, because yes we are 4c, but the only blue is for 3 saheelis (that you can cast with oath and birds as well) and the other is a few blood moons that get often boarded out, so in the rare case you miss a color you're still a very potent grinding machine.
http://modernnexus.com/video-4-color-saheeli-evolution/
I was very sceptic about Lotus Cobra, until I tried him. It's really good. Not only does it allow you to combo out on T3 more often than with just T1 birds - T2 saheeli - T3 cat, more importantly it allows you to combo out on T3 without having to deploy Saheeli on T2. (T2 cobra means that you can play cat+saheeli on T3 or saheeli+evolution T3, both without the need of any other board presence) This means that opponents often don't see it coming and tap out on their T2. Also Saheeli is not exposed for opposing attackers.
Worship is very good against eldrazi decks, something we would otherwise struggle with, especially game 1 most opponents don't have a good way of dealing with it. I really like it a lot, but I haven't tested it enough to conclusively say how many is the optimal number. Maybe those two in the board should be dusk/dawns, or something else.
I was the one playing the deck TheoryCraft referred to in his earlier post (www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15456&d=294138&f=MO). To answer your questions: it's indeed a bit slower build. But the reason to do so is exactly to beat the decks like burn, revolt zoo, death's shadow and eldrazi. 4 finks, moons and worships make these matchups really good for us. Actually, I've tweaked the deck after that tournament to be geared towards T3 combo more, without losing it's controlling value: +2 lotus cobra, -1 voice, -1 hierarch.
If you want to have a strong matchup against shadow (see nal2's post above) then going all-in T3 combo is not the way to go imho, because of all the removal and hand disruption. Moon and worship do a good job there.
New cards in my list:
- angel of sanctions as a catch all removal while being evasive pressure
- dusk against eldrazi, DS, BGx midrange (apart from sweeping only opponent's creatures, the value from Dawn seems also really good in grindy matchups). I'm going to try a full set in the board.
Further changes:
- I'm down to 3 saheeli. She's bad in multiples and bad in quite a lot of situations anyway. I use Kiki-Jiki as the fourth saheeli that has the added benefit of being tutorable, so the deck is even more consistent than when running just 4 saheeli and 4 guardian whithout kiki-jiki.
- I replaced Path to exiles with worship mainboard. Against the decks you want path (eldrazi, DS, merfolk, etc) worship is way better, especially mainboard, when most decks simply have no answer to that card. Mainly against inkmoth nexus path is better, so I give up a small percentage against affinity and infect, but those are not heavily played in my meta.
- instead of using voice-into-rallier-shenenigans for value, I just run 4x finks, which is value by itself. This saves your evolutions to ramp into something like Sigarda (which is way more powerful in grindy matchups than voice into rallier) or Kiki-Jiki to just win the game on the spot.
- I was sceptic at first, but after some testing I'm starting to become convinced about lotus cobra. T2 cobra is often a T3 win out of nowhere, (either with guardian + saheeli, or saheeli + evolution) I'm playing 3 cobra instead of 2 now.
My list after Amonkhet:
4 birds of paradise
1 noble hierarch
3 lotus cobra
4 voice of resurgence
1 glen elendra archmage
4 felidar guardian
1 deadeye harpooner
4 kitchen finks
1 kiki-jiki, mirror breaker
1 angel of sanctions
1 sigarda, host of herons
spells
4 oath of nissa
3 saheeli rai
3 eldritch evolution
3 worship
2 arid mesa
4 wooded foothills
4 windswept heath
1 plains
2 forest
1 mountain
1 hallowed fountain
1 breeding pool
1 temple garden
1 stomping ground
2 razorverge thicket
2 gavony township
1 acidic slime
1 glen elendra archmage
2 stony silence
2 selfless spirit
1 scavenging ooze
4 dusk
1 izzet staticaster
1 eidolon of rhetoric
1 gaddock teeg
1 reclamation sage
Feedback on my choices is always welcome!
4 squadron hawk
1 sigarda, host of herons
4 birds of paradise
2 noble hierarch
4 voice of resurgence
1 anafenza, kin-tree spirit
1 glen elendra archmage
4 felidar guardian
2 deadeye harpooner
1 kitchen finks
spells
4 oath of nissa
4 saheeli rai
3 eldritch evolution
2 path to exile
1 mistveil plains
2 gavony township
3 misty rainforest
3 wooded foothills
4 windswept heath
1 plains
2 forest
1 breeding pool
1 temple garden
1 stomping ground
3 razorverge thicket
3 worship
2 nahiri, the harbinger
1 sun titan
2 stony silence
2 selfless spirit
1 eldritch evolution
1 thragtusk
1 eidolon of rhetoric
1 gaddock teeg
1 reclamation sage
I didn't play this version enough yet to draw any hard conclusions, but my conclusions until now are:
- Squadron hawk is good evolution fodder, and combining it with mistveil plains for endless recursion and two gavony townships fit the rest of the deck very well. I prefer Squadron Hawk over Wall of Omens, which I find too defensive in a lot of matchups. And especially against affinity or infect, hawk plays even the defensive role better. I liked Squadron Hawk enough to keep playing this a bit more before giving my final judgement on it, but I'm leaning towards the misveil plains being too cute.
- 3 Worship in the board fixes a lot of our tougher matchups convincingly. We have a ton of creatures and evolving into Sigarda while having a Worship is very hard to beat. This felt so powerful that worship will definitely stay in my board for a while.
I haven't tried any builds with Lotus Cobra yet. I can see that it enables some fast combos, but it is also often a lousy topdeck. What's the verdict from those of you that played Cobra? Is the upside worth the downside?
Spellskite might definitely be worth playing. Depending on my local meta I like Selfless spirit a bit better, because it protects the team against sweepers, but then again spellskite is better against infect, burn, bogles, etc. It depends on you local meta i guess
I like the idea of Saffi! Hadn't considered her. Not only does she protect your silver bullets, but even triggers their ETB effects a second time. And even better than an "indestructible" rallier, is an indestructible Sun Titan
She kinda fits the spellskite / selfless spirit spot. The way I see this spot:
- spellskite: when you expect a lot of infect, burn etc
- Saffi: when you expect a lot of midrange grinds with spot removal
- spirit: when you expect sweepers
After reading this primer, I tweaked my list a bit (main difference: replaced essence wardens for anafenza, kin tree spirit). I'll share my latest list and highlight some of the differences with the lists I've seen here:
4 birds of paradise
2 noble hierarch
4 voice of resurgence
2 anafenza, kin-tree spirit
1 glen elendra archmage
4 felidar guardian
2 restoration angel
2 deadeye harpooner
2 renegade rallier
2 wall of omens
spells
4 oath of nissa
4 saheeli rai
3 eldritch evolution
2 path to exile
3 misty rainforest
3 wooded foothills
4 windswept heath
1 plains
2 forest
1 overgrown tomb
1 breeding pool
1 temple garden
1 stomping ground
1 steam vents
3 razorverge thicket
1 gavony township
2 nahiri, the harbinger
1 sun titan
2 stony silence
2 selfless spirit
1 anafenza, the foremost
1 eldritch evolution
1 deadeye harpooner
1 kitchen finks
1 thragtusk
1 eidolon of rhetoric
1 gaddock teeg
1 reclamation sage
Main differences:
- More Deadeye Harpooner (2 main, 1 side). Way better at grinding out creature decks than path to exile: tutorable with oath and evolution, value with all our blink and saheeli effects. I play a few more fetches to facilitate revolt (also useful for Rallier).
-Anafenza, the foremost in the side, even though it's black. I find I need to be able to slam T2 Anafenza the foremost to tackle dredge, living end and Grishoalbrand. Also very useful against abzan company and grixis delver/control. I added one overgrown tomb and play 4 birds instead of 3 to hardcast this if necessary.
- selfless spirits in the side against sweepers and to protect our silver bullets
Some findings:
- A small Nahiri + Sun Titan package in the board is great in all grindy matchups and adds even more combo possibilities. I also tried this package maindeck, but like it better in the side. It's too clunky for some matchups main, next to all the other 4-drops.
- Even the annoying eldrazi tron is quite doable post board in this build. The harpooners and Stony silence help a lot.
- I like a fourth Evolution in my board and board it in often, because G2 and G3 are often about jamming silver bullets asap, or comboing out asap. Evolution in the board makes all your 1 offs in the board effectively 2 offs. It's like having a 23 card sideboard
I was wondering: in which matchups do you guys board out the combo? I notice I leave it in against most decks. Against control I board out the guardians and the evolutions (but leave saheeli in to scry, ping and create etb trigger value) and against BGx I board out Evolutions, but leave the combo intact in case I draw it naturally. Against all other decks I leave the combo in, but am not sure this is correct.
Happy to hear your opinions!
Glad you liked it!
Indeed, garruk is very easy to ultimate and together with lingering souls it's often lethal. I really love this synergy.
I have tested bitterblossom, and found it too slow. You want immediate chump blockers to protect your walkers. Also I think the lifeloss is too risky in the current aggressive meta. I think lingering souls is always better (immediate impact, no lifeloss, harder to counter, synergy with Lili) and would only consider running a bitterblossom when I maxed out on souls already.
As for you concern about affinity, just try it. Between the Lingering souls, sweepers, lifegain and fulminators main, and the Stony silence, drown in sorrow and maelstom pulse from the side, you'll find this matchup to be overall really favorable for us.
As for the "new" tempo matchup, we'll have to see, because UR tempo wasn't really a thing until recently. The funny thing is that sometimes our tempo is much higher than theirs: t1 elf, t2 sprawl+garruk+liliana or other 3-drop is our nuts (happens around 1 in 15 games = free win). But also a very common t2 3drop followed by t3 garruk+3drop is really tough to beat for a tempo deck. Especially when we're on the play, because the tempo deck often taps out on t2 for a goyf, or our t2 3drop was a fulminator. I'd say the tempo matchup is more than other matchups reliant on who plays first, and it's an overall 50/50. But I haven't played this matchup very often, as tempo is kind of a new thing in the meta right now, so I might be wrong. Maybe going back to 4 chalice of the void in the side is an option if tempo really becomes a thing, it really wrecks a deck with so many 1drops.
- EDIT - lol, watching chalice spiking now, it might not be the cheapest strategy against tempo after the pro tour
Very relevant questions Alpharius! I'll try to shed some light on my reasoning.
About how many planeswalkers to run:
This deck is all about value, and apart from the sweepers, the planeswalkers are the true heroes on that department. Note that with utopia sprawl, you often play Garruk and Lili together turn on T3 (after dropping a defensive finks, souls or even fulminator on T2) which is insane tempo. Multiple Lilis in hand is never a problem, because you can then either use the first one as bait for aggressive decks before dropping the second, or pitch the second one to the +1 against controlly decks.
Garruk is always a 4-off. True, having two of them is a bit clunky, but comboing him with DC is just the nuts. I often pitch a second garruk to Lili or even DC.
About clunkyness of the deck:
With 7 dorks 60% of your opening hands allow you to play a 3-drop on turn two. This tempo easily offsets the sometimes slower hands.
Of the other 40% of opening hands there are quite a few where you are doing something useful in turn 1 or 2 by playing a tapped manland or IoK.
So the amount of hands where you don't have anything useful to do in the first two turns is not that big. But even without IoK or manlands, my experience is that at least half of the hands that "start" at turn 3 are keepers. This is because those hands often contain so much value that they allow you to stabilize pretty fast. (a t3 drown in sorrow, or a t3 souls or finks, followed by a t4 damnation is almost always enough to turn a game in your advantage, also because those hands allow you to not take any damage from your own lands in T1 and T2)
True, those turn-3 hands can be an issue pre-board against very aggressive opponents. But with all our lifegain main and aggro hate in the side, matchups like burn, zoo and affinity are overall in our favor.
There is a bonus to hardly playing 1 drops and 2 drops: being able to play Chalice of the void in the side. I have often played the full set in the side, but 3 is also good. Chalice is exactly the card that fixes those super aggressive matchups like burn, infect, elves and small zoo and happens to hose most of your other difficult matchups too: living end, storm and lantern.
I dropped the spot removal after twin was banned. Since t3 or t4 often consist of a sweeper (hence the drowns in the side, totaling your sweepers to 10), spot removal is often used for removing a creature that was about to die a turn later anyway. In this case I rather play finks, souls or fulminator (the latter is often used to chump block, then sacced), because those cards can be used in offense so they are never a dead card.
It depends a bit on your meta though. I'd consider playing 1 decay and 2 dismember instead of the three IoKs in metas where you expect to see a lot of zoo and merfolk and less combo.
Thragtusk is great and I have often run him. But now we have Kalitas, and he is simply better. Can't be bolted, drops a turn sooner (which is super relevant in this fast meta), gains life repeatedly, and delivers even more value after sweepers.
I find 30 mana sources the max, otherwise there are simply too many hands that ramp into nothing, or have crappy topdecks 3 turns in a row.
Subtle note: the fulminators also ramp us in regard to DC, because when we already destroyed one land with fulminator, our DC doesn't need to be that big for a complete wipeout.
About the manlands, this is a thing I tested extensively. It's true that Treetop is the quickest land to have online post DC. But there are multiple reasons for running my combination of Vent and Wildwood:
- Treetop doesn't produce black mana, which has waay too often resulted in not being able to play DC, Lili or Fulminator on curve.
- Treetop doesn't gain life or block flyers, which is super relevant in the current meta
- True, treetop often swings the turn after a DC, but swinging one land drop later with a Vent or Wildwood is also good enough, since your opponent needs a few more turns than you to recover from the DC.
- Lastly, and this one I realised only after many games: you don't really need your manland to be online after a DC in 90% of the cases. Playing a DC with only lili on the board is enough to win. She will have 7 loyalty by the time your opponent has redeployed some lands, and by that time you win the game on attrition, not by smashing him in the face with a treetop the turn after a DC. Same goes for DC with souls in the yard, or a persisted finks on the board. Those small board advantages are already enough value to justify a DC, winning you the game in the long run.
True, it lacks punch against zoo, but zoo is a favorable matchup anyway thanks to all our life gain and bigger sweepers.
Against affinity, merfolk, burn, elves, hate bears/death & taxes and abzan company however, it performs miracles, resulting in those matchups being really favorable. Post board you have 10 sweepers against those decks, which is nice and comfy, given the lack of spot removal in our deck.
I've tuned this deck a lot, tried all kinds of color combinations (BG, abzan, jund and even sultai) and tried different overall approaches for the archetype. I'm now at the point that I regularly top 8 at the competitive modern tournaments in the Netherlands (avg 50 players), including winning a 90 player PPTQ last year. I honestly feel death cloud is one of the strongest archetypes out there if you know how to play it, and it only got stronger now Twin is banned.
Some overall conclusions:
- I like the Abzan build best. straight BG comes close, but I feel you simply need the lingering souls against affinity, infect and BGx and there is nothing in straight BG to replace that.
- Always go all-in on the death cloud theme. That means 4 death clouds and 4 garruks. Always. Otherwise we're just halfway stuck between two strategies and we're a strictly worse deck than traditional BGx. The only matchups in which I board out deathclouds are affinity when I'm on the draw and burn.
- Kalitas is a beast. Creates zombie armies with our sweepers and liliana, the lifelink is great against aggro as well as midrange, he grows bigger than eldrazi, can't be bolted, and the exile mode is a bonus that comes up more often than you think (and shuts down abzan company).
- The fulminators mainboard are a recent addition for me now that Eldrazi is a thing and it also helps our worst matchup Tron a lot. Also great against affinity, infect and BGx. I like them main, but this is very metagame dependent.
My list:
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
4 Fulminator mage
3 Arbor elf
Planeswalkers
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Liliana of the Veil
Spells
4 Death cloud
3 Damnation
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering souls
4 Utopia sprawl
4 Verdant catacombs
4 Windswept heath
2 Marsh flats
2 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Shambling vent
1 Stirring wildwood
2 Twilight mire
3 Overgrown tomb
1 Godless shrine
1 Temple garden
3 Chalice of the void
1 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
1 Mwonvuli acid-moss
1 Choke
2 Stony silence
3 Drown in sorrow
2 Maelstrom pulse
2 Surgical extraction