Looks much more midrange, with that amount of creatures. Makes Kommand much more relevant, I ctually switched out mine because with only 4 snapcaster they often hit nothing.
That's fine ! Personnaly I don't require the deck to have Cruel Ultimatum itself, I'm even thinking about switching it if I find something better to take that role (which hasn't happened yet, I really hope they print a UR or UB version of Sphinx's Revelation :p)
Honestly it's good, actually I have a hard time changing things now, only the sideboard moves, the rest just feel mandatory...
I recently increased Kalitas to 3 for the burn matchup which works great... I want to add some more card draw because sometime I feel a bit tight on cards before I cast ultimatum... But I've looked and I don't see anything really good that doesn't require a lot of setup...
Maybe Archmage's Charm but UUU feels a bit hard to get on turn 3 tbh... And removing those singleton blood crypt/mountain/swamp isn't an option as they really increase the manabase's consistency and resilience to land hate.
And speacking about Cruel Ultimatum, it is great of course, but not if you draw it before turn 7, then it's just a dead card who could be a counter/removal, problem is I didn't find anything really good to replace it >_>
Well, I don't like infinites, there's no fun in playing them, and you know the saying; don't do to others what you wouldn't want for yourself
I mean, if I was in a competitive environment I would probably play as much insta win as possible with Rituals to speed things up and free counterspells but in this case it is more of a casual deck with a combo-ish finisher, but not infinite...
And yes I see how worldgorger could backfire, it's the same as with Fiend Hunter, you sac it before ETB resolve so that leave battlefield trigger never happens.
Could you explain a bit more how I generate infinite mana with Worldgorger? With Bladwing and a sac outlet ? I'm not really interested in infinte in fact but it's true worldgorger open the window for some interesting sheaningans.
I have already added Fact or Fiction yesterday evening while playing in fact
With the filtering I never had trouble casting coutnersquall and I do like having an additionnal definitive NO for stuff like Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace which are very hard to manage once on board for Grixis...
Indeed impulse might be interesting, I was thinking about it. The thing is the ponder-like effects are really good at fixing your draw when you don't get lands because you can always shuffle if you top is full of big fat lizards instead of lands.
I'd like to share this list I've been working on for a long time now. It was originaly a BR list with Bladewing the Risen but I was sick of having to rely on stuff like Witchbane orb to repel yard hate.
Enter the U splash! What better to protect your stuff than counterspells?
Now let's explain how it works: the idea here is to fill your graveyard with dragons while filtering your deck to find either Patriarch's Biding or Living Death. It also possible to win just by playing some dragons there and there with Animate Dead or Necromancy combined with Nicol Bolas, the Arisen's -4.
To instantly win on the mass reanimation spell, you need a few enablers and a cirtical mass of dragons but it is possible to completely one shot the table with just the ETBs, here's a list of enablers:
The best ones are definitly Lathliss + Dragon Tempest + Sourge of Valkas, this with less than 6 other dragons can be lethal, let's do the math:
Let's say we have Lathliss, Dragon Queen and the Scourge of Valkas plus 6 other dragons in yard and Dragon Tempest onboard.
You cast either mass reanimation spell, all 8 dragons enter board simultaneously, which makes 2 * (8 * 8) damages + 7 new dragons tokens. The dragons token themselves also make 2 * (7 * 15) damages for a total of (2 * (8 * 8)) + (2 * (7 * 15)) = 338 damages, large enough to kill the board.
Lathliss can be replaced with Utvara but then you need to have haste and make an attack. Warstorm Surge also works well but does much less than Dragon Tempest and the Scourge
All in all it's really easy to make a lethal reanimation that kill everyone on the same turn, backed with the counterspells to protect it.
Thoughts? I guess I could make it much stronger by adding some mana accel, or even stronger filtering like Ideas Unbound or Cephalid Coliseum.
PS: Cantrips that don't discard are better played when I stop having lands in hand. If you play them while you still have lands in hand, you won't be able to fix your land drops when you stop drawing them.
PS²: Counterspells are not there to counter your opponent's every move but to protect your yard or win turn and stop your opponents' game winning plays.
Haha I'm also more into EDH. Well, let's say EDH is the only thing I didn't stop were my modern game count has been 0 for the past one or two years...
But my issue with modern is a lack of friends playing it and the personnality of the leading players in my local shop >_>
Issue with snag is yard hate and incompatibility with snap. As Cody_X said a mix of leak and logic knot is much better. And if you don't play Tasigur you can use logic knot much more effectively in fact, even saying big fat no to big fat tron with a lot of mana
@Cody_X, damnit, a 5CC deck with manamorphose as fixer and cantrip seems totaly legit imho
Maybe adding some energy counters synergies and Aether Hub ? You could also keep a traditionnal but condenced fetch/shock mix with some basics ? As long as you have some normal blue you can always cast leak
Well your removal suite is meta-dependant, if those Phoenix deck are all over the place then limited removals that counter it are OK imho.
Electrodominance also picked my interest but I think it's a one-of at most. Because it does nothing by itself and drawing multiples early game will be real bad...
Sphinx of the Final Word sure look good in the control mirror that's for sure, I don't like the sorcery speed but he's got protection alright.
Well if he had flash then maybe but 6CCM without flash that has no immediat value (Cruel Ultimatum) or some kind of protection (Keranos, God of Storms) isn't good enough imho.
If you want to wreck control Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir does a much better job and has flash so you can cast it when your opponent carlessly tap out then untap with him and counters. This Niv-Mizzet version feels overkill and clunky.
Anti Tron tech: K-command mainboard with Fulminator Mages sideboard. Though, I remembrer when tron was really strong I dropped Ultimatum all together and ran more colorless lands to destroy other lands like tectonic edge or ghost quarter.
Also, do counter land searching stuff. When against mono U tron I would also bring in cheap artefact answers to destroy expedition maps before they could crack it.
Think I will restart paying this
@beenjameenbear, 4CC isn't played anymore because too slow with vivid lands and such. You'd need a less clunky mana base do compete in modern nowadays. Also you'd probably fold very fast against land destruction. It's already hard enough now (well, I say now but I haven't played modern in a year...)
Surely doesn't have enough lands to fit Ultimatum
Care to share your list ?
I don't know if there's still someone looking around this thread but I recently started playing my grixis draw-go again with this list:
4 Snapcaster Mage
Instants
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
2 Terminate
4 Cryptic Command
3 Logic Knot
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Spell Snare
4 Opt
3 Anticipate
Sorceries
2 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Damnation
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Dispel
2 Force of Negation
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Crumble to Dust
3 Thoughtseize
Honestly it's good, actually I have a hard time changing things now, only the sideboard moves, the rest just feel mandatory...
I recently increased Kalitas to 3 for the burn matchup which works great... I want to add some more card draw because sometime I feel a bit tight on cards before I cast ultimatum... But I've looked and I don't see anything really good that doesn't require a lot of setup...
Maybe Archmage's Charm but UUU feels a bit hard to get on turn 3 tbh... And removing those singleton blood crypt/mountain/swamp isn't an option as they really increase the manabase's consistency and resilience to land hate.
And speacking about Cruel Ultimatum, it is great of course, but not if you draw it before turn 7, then it's just a dead card who could be a counter/removal, problem is I didn't find anything really good to replace it >_>
Are you guys still alive ?
On the draw it lets you counter the t2 goyf and I belive Wrenn & Sixx is also a thing now.
Let's not forget Mystic's unban!
Tbh with Force of Negation's printing I'm thinking of playing the full 4 and just pitching it when it's a dead card.
But I know someone who might still be in (the creator, actually), I'll tell him to pass by and drop a link.
EDIT: He brought it down since it was so inactive. But feel free to make a new one
I mean, if I was in a competitive environment I would probably play as much insta win as possible with Rituals to speed things up and free counterspells but in this case it is more of a casual deck with a combo-ish finisher, but not infinite...
And yes I see how worldgorger could backfire, it's the same as with Fiend Hunter, you sac it before ETB resolve so that leave battlefield trigger never happens.
Could you explain a bit more how I generate infinite mana with Worldgorger? With Bladwing and a sac outlet ? I'm not really interested in infinte in fact but it's true worldgorger open the window for some interesting sheaningans.
I have already added Fact or Fiction yesterday evening while playing in fact
With the filtering I never had trouble casting coutnersquall and I do like having an additionnal definitive NO for stuff like Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace which are very hard to manage once on board for Grixis...
Indeed impulse might be interesting, I was thinking about it. The thing is the ponder-like effects are really good at fixing your draw when you don't get lands because you can always shuffle if you top is full of big fat lizards instead of lands.
Path of Ancestry will definitly get in right away!
Ty
I'd like to share this list I've been working on for a long time now. It was originaly a BR list with Bladewing the Risen but I was sick of having to rely on stuff like Witchbane orb to repel yard hate.
Enter the U splash! What better to protect your stuff than counterspells?
Here's the list:
Commander: Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
1 Portent
1 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Omen
1 Careful Study
1 Faithless Looting
1 Cathartic Reunion
1 Night's Whisper
1 Frantic Search
1 Read the Bones
1 Monastery Siege
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Dig Through Time
1 Pull from Tomorrow
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Swan Song
1 Stifle
1 Trickbind
1 Negate
1 Mana Drain
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
1 Countersquall
1 Disallow
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Damnation
1 Crux of Fate
1 Buried Alive
1 Sneak Attack
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
1 Animate Dead
1 Necromancy
1 Living Death
1 Patriarch's Bidding
1 Anger
1 Dragon Tempest
1 Warstorm Surge
1 Skyline Despot
1 Scourge of the Throne
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
1 Scourge of Kher Ridges
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
1 Nicol Bolas
1 Lathliss, Dragon Queen
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Hellkite Tyrant
1 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Utvara Hellkite
1 Scourge of Valkas
1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
1 Thunder Dragon
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Bladewing the Risen
1 Volcanic Island
5 Island
1 Command Tower
1 Watery Grave
1 Wasteland
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Marsh Flats
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
1 Arid Mesa
1 Underground Sea
3 Swamp
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Molten Slagheap
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Steam Vents
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Graven Cairns
1 Dreadship Reef
Now let's explain how it works: the idea here is to fill your graveyard with dragons while filtering your deck to find either Patriarch's Biding or Living Death. It also possible to win just by playing some dragons there and there with Animate Dead or Necromancy combined with Nicol Bolas, the Arisen's -4.
To instantly win on the mass reanimation spell, you need a few enablers and a cirtical mass of dragons but it is possible to completely one shot the table with just the ETBs, here's a list of enablers:
Those enablers can be devided in groups:
ETB triggers damages: Dragon Tempest, Warstorm Surge and Scourge of Valkas
Token creators: Lathliss, Dragon Queen and Utvara Hellkite
Haste: Anger and Dragon Tempest
The best ones are definitly Lathliss + Dragon Tempest + Sourge of Valkas, this with less than 6 other dragons can be lethal, let's do the math:
Let's say we have Lathliss, Dragon Queen and the Scourge of Valkas plus 6 other dragons in yard and Dragon Tempest onboard.
You cast either mass reanimation spell, all 8 dragons enter board simultaneously, which makes 2 * (8 * 8) damages + 7 new dragons tokens. The dragons token themselves also make 2 * (7 * 15) damages for a total of (2 * (8 * 8)) + (2 * (7 * 15)) = 338 damages, large enough to kill the board.
Lathliss can be replaced with Utvara but then you need to have haste and make an attack. Warstorm Surge also works well but does much less than Dragon Tempest and the Scourge
All in all it's really easy to make a lethal reanimation that kill everyone on the same turn, backed with the counterspells to protect it.
Thoughts? I guess I could make it much stronger by adding some mana accel, or even stronger filtering like Ideas Unbound or Cephalid Coliseum.
PS: Cantrips that don't discard are better played when I stop having lands in hand. If you play them while you still have lands in hand, you won't be able to fix your land drops when you stop drawing them.
PS²: Counterspells are not there to counter your opponent's every move but to protect your yard or win turn and stop your opponents' game winning plays.
But my issue with modern is a lack of friends playing it and the personnality of the leading players in my local shop >_>
Issue with snag is yard hate and incompatibility with snap. As Cody_X said a mix of leak and logic knot is much better. And if you don't play Tasigur you can use logic knot much more effectively in fact, even saying big fat no to big fat tron with a lot of mana
@Cody_X, damnit, a 5CC deck with manamorphose as fixer and cantrip seems totaly legit imho
Maybe adding some energy counters synergies and Aether Hub ? You could also keep a traditionnal but condenced fetch/shock mix with some basics ? As long as you have some normal blue you can always cast leak
Electrodominance also picked my interest but I think it's a one-of at most. Because it does nothing by itself and drawing multiples early game will be real bad...
Sphinx of the Final Word sure look good in the control mirror that's for sure, I don't like the sorcery speed but he's got protection alright.
If you want to wreck control Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir does a much better job and has flash so you can cast it when your opponent carlessly tap out then untap with him and counters. This Niv-Mizzet version feels overkill and clunky.
Anti Tron tech: K-command mainboard with Fulminator Mages sideboard. Though, I remembrer when tron was really strong I dropped Ultimatum all together and ran more colorless lands to destroy other lands like tectonic edge or ghost quarter.
Also, do counter land searching stuff. When against mono U tron I would also bring in cheap artefact answers to destroy expedition maps before they could crack it.
Think I will restart paying this
@beenjameenbear, 4CC isn't played anymore because too slow with vivid lands and such. You'd need a less clunky mana base do compete in modern nowadays. Also you'd probably fold very fast against land destruction. It's already hard enough now (well, I say now but I haven't played modern in a year...)