A few random thoughts about dega midrange ("dega" is such a bad name, btw...) I've been noticing.
By choosing these colors for our midrange, it means we're giving up on the following:
- Blue (Snapcaster, Remand (Counters in general), Geist of Saint Traft, Delver of Secrets, Electrolyze, Vendillion Clique...)
- Green (Goyf, Abrupt Decay, Raging Ravine, Huntsmaster of the Fells, Knight of the Reliquary, Loxodon Smiter,...)
That actually hurts a bit. Snappy is maybe the best modern card. Abrupt, Goyf and Ravine really make an awesome set for midrange. So, in order to judge how worth it, our color pick is, we should consider what we do gain from it.
- The full 1cc imba set of spells (Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile... Thanks god people don't run Chalice of the Void normally). Plus a pull of other great spells (Terminate, Lightning Helix, Blightning, Rakdos's Return....)
- Easy access to full great token spells (mentioned in my last post)
- Full set of the best metagame hate cards: Leyline of Sanctity, Slaughter Games, Nevermore, Pyroclasm, Anger of the Gods, Ghostly Prison, Aven Mindcensor, Timely Reinforcements, Rest in Peace, Bloodghast, Rakdos's Charm ... Sadly Blood Moon will hurt us as well.
- The best planeswalkersplaneswalkers.
- Value Creatures: Grim Lavamancer, Dark Confidant (the soul of midrange decks), Bitterblossom, Restoration Angel, Kitchen Finks, Olivia Voldaren...
- Full Land destruction suit (already mentioned in my last post)
- Probably alot of stuff I couldn't remember
That's a lot of great options. Actually, if we could peek at the opponent's deck before each match, it would be the best color by far, as we have great tools against everything.
The problem is: We must get all these options down to 60(75) and in big tournaments we can't predict meta calls so accurately.
In my resent brewing and testing i found that the best midrange approach (imo) would be to be the control against other midranges, while retaining the same playstyle against control and aggro, while making full use of our awesome SBing.
Taking a look at decklists here, Unless we're attempting on specific non-junk builds, we might want this core.
- 4 Dark Confidant, 1-3 Grim Lavamancer
- 2-4 Thoughtseize, 2-4 Inquisition of Kozilek (Total of 5-7 discards?)
- 3-4 Lightning Bolt, 3-4 Path to Exile (6-8 1cc removals)
- 3-5 additional 1-for-1 removal spells (Terminate, Lightning Helix, Oblivion Ring...)
- 2-4 Liliana of the Veil
(That's a lot of good 1-for 1 trading)
As for how to proceed, we might want to consider:
- Further Junk picks: Kitchen Finks, a few Bitterblossom, a few Lingering Souls, a few more planeswalkers and high end creatures, like Thundermaw Hellkite, Olivia or Baneslayer Angel
- Further Hand hating: 1-4 Blightning, 2-4 Tidehollow Sculler (I don't really like this card right now), 1-3 Sin Collector
- A token suit. Full Bitterblossom set, Full Lingering Souls set, Vault of the Archangel, Hero of the Bladehold, Equipments...
- Using Unburial Rites or not. Same for Resto Angel
- Land denial plan (predicting control, heavy colored decks and tron). Fulminator Mage and World queller with more LDs sideboard.
- A zooish approach: Goblin Guide, Young Pyromancer, more Lightning Helixes and other burns... Heck, with so many 1cc spells and proper discard, even Kiln Fiend!
- Rushing in mainboard hate (Leyline of Sanctity?) possibly including tutoring or Faithless Looting to dig for them, or cycle dead draws.
Please, don`t see my comment as pure flaming. I`m trying to make some constructive criticism.
While "Dega Control" is a very broad concept, which a rich pool and everything, most of what I`ve seen in the thread so far are "myfavoritecards.dec". Confusing or seemingly lost decklists sporting a lot of autoplay cards and a bunch of personal favorites. But no overall strategy intended, very few productive card discussion and nothing solid concerning metagame.
Sure, starting a decklist with 3 Thoughtseize 2 IoK, 4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Path to Exile, 3 Terminate and 4 Bitterblossom gives that warm and fuzzy feeling of "this is a great control beginning", but without a solid idea of "how to actually win" behind it, we`ll be stuck with nothing but good removals.
Comparing potential cards and syngergies, setting up a good plan, testing and naming good cards against specific decks,... That`s what we should be aiming for.
Concept Examples:
- (dega superfriends) As BRW has access to so many great planeswalkers (Chandra 4, Ajani RW, Liliveil,...) a creatureless deck could be viable, so we have good removal to face aggro and playing no craetures would render control`s creature removal suit useless.
- (kiki-angel) BRW has access Kiki-Jikki, Restoration Angel, Wall of Omens and many other good creatures on their own, that pull a surprise splinter-twin win while controlling well.
- Unburial Rites is a great tool for either cheating Griselbrand/Iona/Elesh into play or winning grindy matches with value creatures. Maybe Fulminator Mage? Faithless Looting?
- (meta-hate) Extirpate, Slaughter Games, Pyroclasm, Aven Mindcensor, Timely Reinforcements... This 3-color combination has the richest hate pool, and could easily produce effective meta-hate or lockdown decklists.
- (BWr tokens) We have Lingering Souls, Timely Reinforcements and Bitterblossom... Maybe we can splash red to BW tokens (Intangible Virtue, good equipments)?
- (LD) Fulminator Mage, Zo-Zu, the Punisher, Avalanche Riders, Unburial Rites, Boom/Burst + Flagstones of Trokair, Ajani Vengeant, Molten Rain, Roiling Terrain, World Queller, Ghostly Prison, Pyroclasm, Wrath of God, Culling Scales... it`s a lot of tools for a land destruction-based control.
- Rakdos`s Return is a potential game-winning monster, still untouched in modern. And we have Boseiju, Who Shelters all for sideboard.
Whatever, the point is we should try to explore and point out what the color combination has to offer, what is good (or bad) with what and against what and come up with something awesome. We`re already bloated with great removal, hand disruption and hate cards. When crippling the opponent is our specialty, finding the easy way of killing is the way to go.
With 4 Master of Etherium and 4 Tempered Steel, you already have have a good amount of sheer power. 4 Platings might be too much, especially considering there is almost no creature with evasion
Usually I'm not much into posting to respond to a sigle person, but in this case, it might be worth for the thread:
Muten Yoshi:
(Off-Topic) While I respect your initiative and will to make the deck competitive, and agree that we must think forward... If you overdo it, you might sound as nothing but an inflexible jerk. Be a little careful with HOW you make your comments.
(On-Topic):
- (Splash) While UB has a lot of tools, It feels to me a splash could really be the key to make the deck competitive. Glimmervoid, talismans and Mox Opal are all in our favor.
- White has a lot to offer, some examples up in my decklsit. Sun Titan Seems like a winner to me as well, instead of Wurmcoil.
- Red gets Pyroclasm, EmbersmithGalvanic Blast, Shrapnel Blast, Blood Moon, Trash for Treasure, Faithless Looting and other goodies. Probably worth a different approach without liliveil.
- Green... actually it's hard to say, but I feel a green list could be really interesting, but I can't come up with anything out of my own head.
- (Bridge) I forgot to post the SB, but there's 3 Ensnaring Bridges there. They used to be maindeck, but I gave up on them. In my experience either extreme aggro (affinity, gruul, zoo,...) would simply steamroll me before I could cast it and empty my hand, or midrange/tempo decks (jund, faeries, delver) would just counter/abrupt decay/ bounce it with Crytic Command whenever it would be relevant. In this situation a board wipe would almost always be straight better mainboard, and bridge a convenient SB. At least, as long as we're choosing the control approach for the deck.
- Basilisk Collar, I beg to differ, is a great card in a number of matchups. Gets Myrs and Trinket Mages working against bigger creatures, provides a bunch of life equipped on a 5/5 Darksteel Citadel and gets my Squeletons running great. Maybe against tron or the such it's pointlsss, but once we get grindy, it's a great 1-of trinket and deserves more attention and tests before we just dump it on "cute" list.
Now, commenting to other stuff mentioned here.
- 4th Trinket Mage: while we still need to find out how essential to the deck is the trinket mage package, as long as I'm using it, I think 4 mages is the way to go. Getting Darksteel Citadel with them is never bad, and Basilisk Collar or Trading Post make them at least alwaysa decent draw.
- Ring of Brighthearth looks awesome and just waiting to be broken. Maybe not on the list we're making right now. I'd on something with more mana acceleration.
- Trading Post is that card everyone is hoping to play all day long, as a devotion-less planeswalker we can activate lie instant-speed. Truth be said, as useful as it is, it's hard to make it actually work. I still wanna give it a chance. Maybe, just Maybe with a bunch of talismans, Ring of Bridgehearth and March of the Machines?
- (approach) Poltergeist mentioned Reshape and Lotus Bloom. I'm not even sure UB Tezzeret would fit in there, but this idea is too good to be wasted and deserves a bit of testing.
- The many 1s fits my own playstyle and the fact that in MWS we can face pretty much anything instead of a specific meta. Most of them are 0-3 cards
- Adding White means uncounterable damnation for faeries and delver, 1 more color for explosives (with glimmervoid we can reach 4ccs), the obvious PtE and another wincon in form of Celestial Colonnade.
- The 1 Reasembling Skeleton has won me a number of games, by chump blocking all day with Collar ans synergizing with Trading Post
- Thirst for Knowledge is actually a card I support when we run enough good enough control.
- 25 Lands + 4 Talismans seems like the right number to me (or maybe another land could be added). The deck wants a lot of mana, and can always get rid of the unwanted ones with THirst and Liliana
With this amount of mana fixing dorks, we could even get to 5 colors with little effort on the mana base. Which gives us access to pretty much ANY creature in modern. A quick list:
- Primaveral Titan, as already mentioned. But instead of brisks, the good ol' combination of Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run (the later is particularly relevant), plus a possible convenient land set, like Bojuka Bog, Tectonic Edge, Urza's Factory and so on.
- Grave Titan, this guy alone triggers windbrisk. And not rarely puts opponents in a "wrath or lose" situation.
- Inferno Titan, good against creature aggro.
- Sun Titan, add Eternal Witness to the mix, and Qasali Pridemage and we're off to win long grindy games.
- Sigarda, Host of Herons Hexproof, disables liliana
- Wurmcoil, I-win against aggro, awesome against control. Sadly path to exile still gets rid of it.
- Thundermaw Hellkite yeah, bitterblossom is back
- Baneslayer Angel, why not?
The whole point of the deck would be to try to put pressure as early as possible with heavy creatures that need to be answered right off and/or that can't be answered quickly. I can even think of Cavern of Souls getting some SB slots.
EDIT: Badabingbadabum, would you mind not giving +1/+1 to a creature when you're about to flip emrakul face-up on the table?
I've been lurking for a while, played against the deck a few times (don't think i ever lost to it, though) and even tried it myself a bit.
As far as I noticed, the big problem with this concept is trying to stop too many decks from doing too many different things, while not doing anything to put preassure meanwhile. And there isn't tutoring, drawing or any form of getting what you need, when you need it. Basically, just running counterspelling and removal spells seems easier and more effective. Also, I got frustrated with the number of dead cards and draws I got in a number of matches, when I tested it.
As far as my little testing went, I thought optimizing plan is:
- Figuring what lock cards are better for the desired meta (it isn't possible to be ready against everything with the meta)
- Set the right strategy based on the desired right lockdown cards. Example for this line of thought: if the meta is Pod, Affinity, Splinter Twin and Jund, I would definetely want Suppression Field, but that means few or no planeswalkers... I would like to see some LD (man lands on jund and affinity) and Worldqueller as wincon... or i'd pack burn for control/wincon to go with it and bridge.
Also, Splashing a third color could really benefit the strategy (unless blood moon is really the way to go):
- A bit of counterspelling as general answer to what your available lock cards could make the deck more resilient (especially Izzet Charm) . Also, let's face it, Celestial Colonnade is a thing.
.
- Or black for aggressively denying aggro/combos with discard and Slaughter Games, while retaining anti-creature package against aggro. And yeah, there's Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls.
- While there's all that warm and fuzzy feelig of protection when playing so strong directed hate cards, having them maindeck can often mea trouble. Faithless Looting could help looking for what we want and at the same time dispose of dead draws?
EDIT: fixed two unfinished phrases, as somehow part of them were deleted while I was first typing the post
I tried toying with sovereign (or old standard bant in general) in modern and got really frustrated with the results. Casting a 6 mana creature and still have to attack with it to have effect... and even still don't win right off... It's just a lot of work for little hope of result.
Summoning Trap, though, along with Windbrisk Heights (onewheelwizzard just mentioned it) are great cards (or Mosswort Bridge, for the matter) are great trump cards for insane fattie action. As you intend to use creatures to make mana for trap, they could easily attack for windbrisk.
It's just a matter of switching sovereign with more competitive big creatures
Oh, almost forgot. Nest Invader can fit somewhere in the mix
My thoughts:
Jund in modern for me means "goodstuff.deck." Abusing individually powerful cards and one-for-one trades, along with a few silver bullets for specific meta. And yeah, red for lightning bolt. (ok, no big news here...)
DRS was one of these "too good not to be used" cards, that will force the whole deck to change to get back to tier 1. Simply replacing it with birds won't cut it.
- Lotus Cobra seems to have some potential, but the deck will change a lot in order to fit it, maybe to the point it isnt jund anymore.
- Adding Bitterblossom seems somehow natural to me. It fits the "too good not to be used" clause, and I imagine it doing wonders against pretty much anything. But to include it, either jund will accept the ridiculous life loss (bob, lands, bitter) and goes aggressive, or takes a more controlish approach (and going slower against URW or Tron looks stupid to me.
- Going control makes me think of Olivia Voldaren (she loves bitterblossom tokens). And aggro-blossom reminds me of Swords.
- As mentioned above, Grim Lavamancer seems a natural semi-replacement for DRS. 1cc drop, good against a lot of stuff, fits midrange, is red,... Now all we need is a way to deal with graveyard (Snapcaster, especifically) and gain some life...
- Somehow it feels like Liliana is the one who's in bad shape here. We can't use her turn 2 anymore and a possible Bitterblossom prevalence will render her useless.
- Chandra 4.0 might be meta-dependant. You won't wanna see her against a number of decks,
Actually, unless we can force bitterblossom (or come up with another abusive low costed idea), the deck won't stay tier 1 imo.
What I can remember right now, concerning standard...
- Affinity, Dredge and Storm were probably the three mechanics that messed MtG up a bit.
- Also, while affinity took all the spotlight during standard, Krak-Clan Ironworks combo was equally powerful, and would be equally the bad guy.
- Also in mirrodin, Skullclamp caused the whole metagame to be ALL about it, and each big tournament top 8 included at least 28 copies of the card. (All aggro-combo decks oriented on exploiting clamp as much as possibel)
- During Ursa's Set, there was some hegemony of powerful artifact-based tinker combos. Because of the land Tolarian Academy, the rules concerning mulliganing had to change.
- Back in 1998 (i think), when the meta was a big aggro dispute, among Sligh (RDW), Stompy (monogree aggro) and Monoblack aggro, Kai Buddle completely destroyed Worlds with a monored+artifact control deck based on [/CARD]Grim Monolith[/CARD] + other mana artifacts, Wildfire and Covetous Dragon.
-Mind Sculptor + Stoneforge Mystic got banned[/CARD]. During their pre-ban standard moment, all decks were either jace-oriented controls or Stoneforge aggro. Not by accident, the boogie man of the format was WU Cawblade, featuring both.
And, last and kindda off-topic. Back in odyssey days, Psychatog control utterly dominated the metagame in the unhealthy affinity-like fashion.
By choosing these colors for our midrange, it means we're giving up on the following:
- Blue (Snapcaster, Remand (Counters in general), Geist of Saint Traft, Delver of Secrets, Electrolyze, Vendillion Clique...)
- Green (Goyf, Abrupt Decay, Raging Ravine, Huntsmaster of the Fells, Knight of the Reliquary, Loxodon Smiter,...)
That actually hurts a bit. Snappy is maybe the best modern card. Abrupt, Goyf and Ravine really make an awesome set for midrange. So, in order to judge how worth it, our color pick is, we should consider what we do gain from it.
- The full 1cc imba set of spells (Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile... Thanks god people don't run Chalice of the Void normally). Plus a pull of other great spells (Terminate, Lightning Helix, Blightning, Rakdos's Return....)
- Easy access to full great token spells (mentioned in my last post)
- Full set of the best metagame hate cards: Leyline of Sanctity, Slaughter Games, Nevermore, Pyroclasm, Anger of the Gods, Ghostly Prison, Aven Mindcensor, Timely Reinforcements, Rest in Peace, Bloodghast, Rakdos's Charm ... Sadly Blood Moon will hurt us as well.
- The best planeswalkersplaneswalkers.
- Value Creatures: Grim Lavamancer, Dark Confidant (the soul of midrange decks), Bitterblossom, Restoration Angel, Kitchen Finks, Olivia Voldaren...
- Full Land destruction suit (already mentioned in my last post)
- Probably alot of stuff I couldn't remember
That's a lot of great options. Actually, if we could peek at the opponent's deck before each match, it would be the best color by far, as we have great tools against everything.
The problem is: We must get all these options down to 60(75) and in big tournaments we can't predict meta calls so accurately.
In my resent brewing and testing i found that the best midrange approach (imo) would be to be the control against other midranges, while retaining the same playstyle against control and aggro, while making full use of our awesome SBing.
Taking a look at decklists here, Unless we're attempting on specific non-junk builds, we might want this core.
- 4 Dark Confidant, 1-3 Grim Lavamancer
- 2-4 Thoughtseize, 2-4 Inquisition of Kozilek (Total of 5-7 discards?)
- 3-4 Lightning Bolt, 3-4 Path to Exile (6-8 1cc removals)
- 3-5 additional 1-for-1 removal spells (Terminate, Lightning Helix, Oblivion Ring...)
- 2-4 Liliana of the Veil
(That's a lot of good 1-for 1 trading)
As for how to proceed, we might want to consider:
- Further Junk picks: Kitchen Finks, a few Bitterblossom, a few Lingering Souls, a few more planeswalkers and high end creatures, like Thundermaw Hellkite, Olivia or Baneslayer Angel
- Further Hand hating: 1-4 Blightning, 2-4 Tidehollow Sculler (I don't really like this card right now), 1-3 Sin Collector
- A token suit. Full Bitterblossom set, Full Lingering Souls set, Vault of the Archangel, Hero of the Bladehold, Equipments...
- Using Unburial Rites or not. Same for Resto Angel
- Land denial plan (predicting control, heavy colored decks and tron). Fulminator Mage and World queller with more LDs sideboard.
- A zooish approach: Goblin Guide, Young Pyromancer, more Lightning Helixes and other burns... Heck, with so many 1cc spells and proper discard, even Kiln Fiend!
- Rushing in mainboard hate (Leyline of Sanctity?) possibly including tutoring or Faithless Looting to dig for them, or cycle dead draws.
While "Dega Control" is a very broad concept, which a rich pool and everything, most of what I`ve seen in the thread so far are "myfavoritecards.dec". Confusing or seemingly lost decklists sporting a lot of autoplay cards and a bunch of personal favorites. But no overall strategy intended, very few productive card discussion and nothing solid concerning metagame.
Sure, starting a decklist with 3 Thoughtseize 2 IoK, 4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Path to Exile, 3 Terminate and 4 Bitterblossom gives that warm and fuzzy feeling of "this is a great control beginning", but without a solid idea of "how to actually win" behind it, we`ll be stuck with nothing but good removals.
Comparing potential cards and syngergies, setting up a good plan, testing and naming good cards against specific decks,... That`s what we should be aiming for.
Concept Examples:
- (dega superfriends) As BRW has access to so many great planeswalkers (Chandra 4, Ajani RW, Liliveil,...) a creatureless deck could be viable, so we have good removal to face aggro and playing no craetures would render control`s creature removal suit useless.
- (kiki-angel) BRW has access Kiki-Jikki, Restoration Angel, Wall of Omens and many other good creatures on their own, that pull a surprise splinter-twin win while controlling well.
- Unburial Rites is a great tool for either cheating Griselbrand/Iona/Elesh into play or winning grindy matches with value creatures. Maybe Fulminator Mage? Faithless Looting?
- (meta-hate) Extirpate, Slaughter Games, Pyroclasm, Aven Mindcensor, Timely Reinforcements... This 3-color combination has the richest hate pool, and could easily produce effective meta-hate or lockdown decklists.
- (BWr tokens) We have Lingering Souls, Timely Reinforcements and Bitterblossom... Maybe we can splash red to BW tokens (Intangible Virtue, good equipments)?
- (LD) Fulminator Mage, Zo-Zu, the Punisher, Avalanche Riders, Unburial Rites, Boom/Burst + Flagstones of Trokair, Ajani Vengeant, Molten Rain, Roiling Terrain, World Queller, Ghostly Prison, Pyroclasm, Wrath of God, Culling Scales... it`s a lot of tools for a land destruction-based control.
- Rakdos`s Return is a potential game-winning monster, still untouched in modern. And we have Boseiju, Who Shelters all for sideboard.
Whatever, the point is we should try to explore and point out what the color combination has to offer, what is good (or bad) with what and against what and come up with something awesome. We`re already bloated with great removal, hand disruption and hate cards. When crippling the opponent is our specialty, finding the easy way of killing is the way to go.
Btw, you might want to consider Dramatic Entrance as well... but then, there`s already the Emrakul/Griselbrand Reanimator, right?
Muten Yoshi:
(Off-Topic) While I respect your initiative and will to make the deck competitive, and agree that we must think forward... If you overdo it, you might sound as nothing but an inflexible jerk. Be a little careful with HOW you make your comments.
(On-Topic):
- (Splash) While UB has a lot of tools, It feels to me a splash could really be the key to make the deck competitive. Glimmervoid, talismans and Mox Opal are all in our favor.
- White has a lot to offer, some examples up in my decklsit. Sun Titan Seems like a winner to me as well, instead of Wurmcoil.
- Red gets Pyroclasm, Embersmith Galvanic Blast, Shrapnel Blast, Blood Moon, Trash for Treasure, Faithless Looting and other goodies. Probably worth a different approach without liliveil.
- Green... actually it's hard to say, but I feel a green list could be really interesting, but I can't come up with anything out of my own head.
- (Bridge) I forgot to post the SB, but there's 3 Ensnaring Bridges there. They used to be maindeck, but I gave up on them. In my experience either extreme aggro (affinity, gruul, zoo,...) would simply steamroll me before I could cast it and empty my hand, or midrange/tempo decks (jund, faeries, delver) would just counter/abrupt decay/ bounce it with Crytic Command whenever it would be relevant. In this situation a board wipe would almost always be straight better mainboard, and bridge a convenient SB. At least, as long as we're choosing the control approach for the deck.
- Basilisk Collar, I beg to differ, is a great card in a number of matchups. Gets Myrs and Trinket Mages working against bigger creatures, provides a bunch of life equipped on a 5/5 Darksteel Citadel and gets my Squeletons running great. Maybe against tron or the such it's pointlsss, but once we get grindy, it's a great 1-of trinket and deserves more attention and tests before we just dump it on "cute" list.
Now, commenting to other stuff mentioned here.
- 4th Trinket Mage: while we still need to find out how essential to the deck is the trinket mage package, as long as I'm using it, I think 4 mages is the way to go. Getting Darksteel Citadel with them is never bad, and Basilisk Collar or Trading Post make them at least alwaysa decent draw.
- Ring of Brighthearth looks awesome and just waiting to be broken. Maybe not on the list we're making right now. I'd on something with more mana acceleration.
- Trading Post is that card everyone is hoping to play all day long, as a devotion-less planeswalker we can activate lie instant-speed. Truth be said, as useful as it is, it's hard to make it actually work. I still wanna give it a chance. Maybe, just Maybe with a bunch of talismans, Ring of Bridgehearth and March of the Machines?
- (approach) Poltergeist mentioned Reshape and Lotus Bloom. I'm not even sure UB Tezzeret would fit in there, but this idea is too good to be wasted and deserves a bit of testing.
- approach Just a little fresh idea. How would it be if we tried a deck including 4 Aether Vial and a bunch of utility creatures like Spellskite, Embersmith, Perilous Myr Porcelain Legionarie (which stops wild nacatl), Master of Etherium and such, along with Galvanic Blast and others?
Lands (25)
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Celestial Colonnade
2 Tectonic Edge
4 Marsh Flats
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Watery Grave
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Godless Shrine
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Glimmervoid
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Island
1 Myr Retriver
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Perilous Myr
4 Trinket Mage
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Business
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Batterskull
3 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Progress
3 Supreme Verdict
2 Path to Exile
1 Repeal
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Trading Post
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Pithing Needle
1 Executioner`s Capsule
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
- The many 1s fits my own playstyle and the fact that in MWS we can face pretty much anything instead of a specific meta. Most of them are 0-3 cards
- Adding White means uncounterable damnation for faeries and delver, 1 more color for explosives (with glimmervoid we can reach 4ccs), the obvious PtE and another wincon in form of Celestial Colonnade.
- The 1 Reasembling Skeleton has won me a number of games, by chump blocking all day with Collar ans synergizing with Trading Post
- Thirst for Knowledge is actually a card I support when we run enough good enough control.
- 25 Lands + 4 Talismans seems like the right number to me (or maybe another land could be added). The deck wants a lot of mana, and can always get rid of the unwanted ones with THirst and Liliana
4 Birds of Paradise
(and maybe) 4 Noble Hierarch
With this amount of mana fixing dorks, we could even get to 5 colors with little effort on the mana base. Which gives us access to pretty much ANY creature in modern. A quick list:
- Primaveral Titan, as already mentioned. But instead of brisks, the good ol' combination of Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run (the later is particularly relevant), plus a possible convenient land set, like Bojuka Bog, Tectonic Edge, Urza's Factory and so on.
- Grave Titan, this guy alone triggers windbrisk. And not rarely puts opponents in a "wrath or lose" situation.
- Inferno Titan, good against creature aggro.
- Sun Titan, add Eternal Witness to the mix, and Qasali Pridemage and we're off to win long grindy games.
- Sigarda, Host of Herons Hexproof, disables liliana
- Wurmcoil, I-win against aggro, awesome against control. Sadly path to exile still gets rid of it.
- Thundermaw Hellkite yeah, bitterblossom is back
- Baneslayer Angel, why not?
And by packing 4 brisks, 4 Traps (and maybe even Through the Breach and Dramatic Entrance, bigger monsters becomes viable, like Emrakul itself, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Griselbrand...
The whole point of the deck would be to try to put pressure as early as possible with heavy creatures that need to be answered right off and/or that can't be answered quickly. I can even think of Cavern of Souls getting some SB slots.
EDIT: Badabingbadabum, would you mind not giving +1/+1 to a creature when you're about to flip emrakul face-up on the table?
As far as I noticed, the big problem with this concept is trying to stop too many decks from doing too many different things, while not doing anything to put preassure meanwhile. And there isn't tutoring, drawing or any form of getting what you need, when you need it. Basically, just running counterspelling and removal spells seems easier and more effective. Also, I got frustrated with the number of dead cards and draws I got in a number of matches, when I tested it.
As far as my little testing went, I thought optimizing plan is:
- Figuring what lock cards are better for the desired meta (it isn't possible to be ready against everything with the meta)
- Set the right strategy based on the desired right lockdown cards. Example for this line of thought: if the meta is Pod, Affinity, Splinter Twin and Jund, I would definetely want Suppression Field, but that means few or no planeswalkers... I would like to see some LD (man lands on jund and affinity) and Worldqueller as wincon... or i'd pack burn for control/wincon to go with it and bridge.
Also, Splashing a third color could really benefit the strategy (unless blood moon is really the way to go):
- A bit of counterspelling as general answer to what your available lock cards could make the deck more resilient (especially Izzet Charm) . Also, let's face it, Celestial Colonnade is a thing.
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- Or black for aggressively denying aggro/combos with discard and Slaughter Games, while retaining anti-creature package against aggro. And yeah, there's Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls.
Others:
- Any love for Simian Spirit Guide, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Boom/Burst and friends? Not letting people play spells seems good against a number of decks, and pyroclasm seems to solve most of the others.
- While there's all that warm and fuzzy feelig of protection when playing so strong directed hate cards, having them maindeck can often mea trouble. Faithless Looting could help looking for what we want and at the same time dispose of dead draws?
EDIT: fixed two unfinished phrases, as somehow part of them were deleted while I was first typing the post
Summoning Trap, though, along with Windbrisk Heights (onewheelwizzard just mentioned it) are great cards (or Mosswort Bridge, for the matter) are great trump cards for insane fattie action. As you intend to use creatures to make mana for trap, they could easily attack for windbrisk.
It's just a matter of switching sovereign with more competitive big creatures
Oh, almost forgot. Nest Invader can fit somewhere in the mix
Jund in modern for me means "goodstuff.deck." Abusing individually powerful cards and one-for-one trades, along with a few silver bullets for specific meta. And yeah, red for lightning bolt. (ok, no big news here...)
DRS was one of these "too good not to be used" cards, that will force the whole deck to change to get back to tier 1. Simply replacing it with birds won't cut it.
- Lotus Cobra seems to have some potential, but the deck will change a lot in order to fit it, maybe to the point it isnt jund anymore.
- Adding Bitterblossom seems somehow natural to me. It fits the "too good not to be used" clause, and I imagine it doing wonders against pretty much anything. But to include it, either jund will accept the ridiculous life loss (bob, lands, bitter) and goes aggressive, or takes a more controlish approach (and going slower against URW or Tron looks stupid to me.
- Going control makes me think of Olivia Voldaren (she loves bitterblossom tokens). And aggro-blossom reminds me of Swords.
- As mentioned above, Grim Lavamancer seems a natural semi-replacement for DRS. 1cc drop, good against a lot of stuff, fits midrange, is red,... Now all we need is a way to deal with graveyard (Snapcaster, especifically) and gain some life...
- Somehow it feels like Liliana is the one who's in bad shape here. We can't use her turn 2 anymore and a possible Bitterblossom prevalence will render her useless.
- Chandra 4.0 might be meta-dependant. You won't wanna see her against a number of decks,
Actually, unless we can force bitterblossom (or come up with another abusive low costed idea), the deck won't stay tier 1 imo.
- Affinity, Dredge and Storm were probably the three mechanics that messed MtG up a bit.
- Also, while affinity took all the spotlight during standard, Krak-Clan Ironworks combo was equally powerful, and would be equally the bad guy.
- Also in mirrodin, Skullclamp caused the whole metagame to be ALL about it, and each big tournament top 8 included at least 28 copies of the card. (All aggro-combo decks oriented on exploiting clamp as much as possibel)
- During Ursa's Set, there was some hegemony of powerful artifact-based tinker combos. Because of the land Tolarian Academy, the rules concerning mulliganing had to change.
- Back in 1998 (i think), when the meta was a big aggro dispute, among Sligh (RDW), Stompy (monogree aggro) and Monoblack aggro, Kai Buddle completely destroyed Worlds with a monored+artifact control deck based on [/CARD]Grim Monolith[/CARD] + other mana artifacts, Wildfire and Covetous Dragon.
-Mind Sculptor + Stoneforge Mystic got banned[/CARD]. During their pre-ban standard moment, all decks were either jace-oriented controls or Stoneforge aggro. Not by accident, the boogie man of the format was WU Cawblade, featuring both.
And, last and kindda off-topic. Back in odyssey days, Psychatog control utterly dominated the metagame in the unhealthy affinity-like fashion.