Put in a quote request on 9/30, received a response on 10/1, confirmed sale on 10/3, and have a physical check in my hands on 10/7. While I was somewhat sad to finally leave MTGO, I will say I was very pleased at how smooth the process was with MTGO Traders. I always only bought from them already, but if I ever get back in, they will definitely have my business.
Haven't touched my deck since GP Charlotte, but I'm going to make it out to a tournament this week (RL has just been ultra busy). Didn't manage to snag Marsh Flats before they spiked, so I'm cutting 2 Forest and a Gavony (in the super old build) for 3 Bloodstained Mire (which I already own). Sucks not to have those extra sources of mana but maybe I can trade my way into some Marsh Flats at the LGS.
Your win-con is basically KCI. Being able to accelerate it out with Opal and floating/generating mana with multiple Opals is really key to the deck. Honestly I wouldn't run the deck without it, it's just super-important.
Banefire runs into the same issue I posted above about Zenith. Spellbomb is useful if you are earlier in the cycle, and you can Reshape for Shredder, rebuy and grab Spellbomb if you have multiple recursions in hand.
We tried echoing truth in the glare slot. But truth is only good if you're casting it the turn before you go off, whereas you can just glare something and move on with your life. Glare also hits things you just scoop to if you're running Disenchant, like Teeg. It also hits Thalia which is nice value, and enchantments you hit with it don't recur if you have to cast Open the Vaults.
Terrarion generates you mana with KCI and also let's you Reshape early even off all colorless lands.
With 4 Glares it can be frustrating to not draw one, but with enough other cycling effects in the deck it's not terrible. But you're a fragile combo deck and shouldn't be playing it in a meta full of hate anyway.
For sideboarding the first two to go are the Edges, then usually a Bloom and a Sphere. Emrakul for Spellbomb if they are running GY hate or Leyline.
19 lands felt better than 17. Hitting your early drops to KCI on 3 or 4 is so important. Radiant Fountain is pretty sweet because it buys you a little time against aggro and if you have to discard Emrakul to hand size for whatever reason, you can just blow up their lands and gain 30 life before shipping the turn.
That looks quite like the list I 5-0'd a Modern Festival Prelim with.
Are you playing this on paper? If so, you can run 2x Shredder instead of Zenith and show your opponent the loop. I also board the Emrakul for any matchups I think will possibly have Leyline (and I also board in Glares, obviously). Emmy also plays around GY hate because depending on their clock you can just find a KCI and sac everything to him to win through it anyway.
As for Spellbomb over Shredder - it helps cantrip when you aren't trying to use it as your wincon, so your first few FR you can draw a card to get your engine going vs it sitting dead in your hand.
I've gotten kind of frustrated and not touched the deck in a minute because on MTGO I keep running into stuff like Merfolk with MD relic and a bunch of control decks. But if your meta is full of stuff like Jund or other combo decks I see it still being very strong.
So I cut my gavony because I found I got color screwed enough that I wanted to change it. We have a murmuring bosk in there instead, and it works I realized after today based on experience. If we figure out what to cut for a 24th land, Gavony would be the land to add imo.
It's a good thought but I'd honestly rather run a fetch than a bosk. It will always enter play tapped which could be *really* annoying.
If you went by his list, what would you cut for two fetches
Well, basic can be awkward in the starter. You almost never want to see them in the opener, but it's important to have them available to fetch. I'd cut the 2nd Forest and 2nd Plains for 2x Marsh Flats. In fact, I'd even consider cutting the 2nd Godless Shrine for a third Marsh Flats.
If you're going to add a 3rd fetch in the dorkless build I'd rather cut the Township for it (if you don't want to add a 3rd Wildwood also).
I played my list cut a forest for a plains and it was WAY better at a local tournament I got 3rd place lost to the Ad Nauseam player who's on my team and that I knocked out at the PPTQ so it was revenge lol. I feel the mana problems are sooved with the plains the deck ran smoother and felt better.
IMO the problem with this deck isn't accidentally drawing a turn 1 green mana source. It's the problem of drawing basic+colorless, which adding more fetches should cut down on.
I played a few test games adding 2 Marsh Flats and a Wildwood and the mana felt better. But of course modo did the "give you 1 landers on 7, you keep a 4-land 2-spell hand and draw 6 more lands" sort of games. But I digress...
I might go to a modern FNM tonight. I don't own marsh flats or another wildwood IRL so I'm going to toss in 3 Bloodstained Mire (since IMO I'd rather run 3 extra lands that fetch B on t1 than G).
My next question is,in context how much better is llanowar wastes than just 2 more fetches so we can fetch Overgrown Tomb T1. We end up taking 3 damage with this, but if we have llanowar wastes we end up taking one for the hand attack and then a second for our turn 2 play if we have it. Do we end up taking more damage over the course of a game if we play the painland over a fetchland? We also don't get the deck-thinning that the 2 fetches would provide.
That's also a possibility and honestly I'm not sure I have a great answer.
This topic seems like it's mostly about insulting people for playing variations of essentially the same deck but I'll add something constructive I guess.
izzetmage's comment about Forests is correct. Now that I've gotten to play the deck for a few weeks I agree. I honestly don't know if I even want a basic Plains in the deck, because our only real out to Blood Moon is abrupt decay, which we can cast off Forest+Swamp obviously. But maybe we have enough plays on just XGW where that's dumb and so I'll keep the Plains.
Township is probably questionable in a list that wants so much colored mana, but Vault is just insane in games where you get to activate it.
If I'm going to cut a card for a 24th land, it's probably either a Liege or a Decay. I'm not sure what the math is on going down from 8 to 7 4-drops. Decay would get the cut before a Path because I think Path actually answers more stuff in this meta weirdly. Too many Tasigurs and Anglers and crap running around. Cutting Liege feels awkward because that's the pay off for even playing most of our creatures.
You point on Marsh Flats might be correct in theory, but in practice there's basically no opening hands where I'd want to fetch a basic swamp on turn 1. Even for Thoughtseize, grabbing a basic swamp when your only other cards that even want B are Siege Rhino just feels bad. I also don't have unlimited Magic funds and blew a lot going to the GP, so I'm keeping my Heaths for now.
Again I think cutting Sunpetal for Thicket is correct if we go to Wastes because it will enter untapped on turn 2 and allow us to cast any combination of cards in our hand. Basically the only combinations that don't allow you to cast GB/BW/GW on turn 2 in this setup would require one of the lands to be a basic or vault. I'm honestly not sure what I'd add if we put in a 24th land but I'm open to suggestions on that as well.
I appreciate the time Emracool spent making this deck. Being able to play it now for a little while has given me some ideas on improvements I can make to the deck. I have the physical cards to play the other version as well, but I choose not to because in a meta that is more twin-heavy I think playing a discard spell turn 1 instead of a bird for them to bolt is a little better. But I think slamming decks because they "don't appear on mtgtop8" without trying it is a poor perspective to have, particularly when it takes an hour or two with a friend to fire up cockatrice and jam some games. But innovation is how we get new and exciting decks, better versions of existing decks and how we get things placed on mtgtop8.
I plan on trying those couple of manabase changes on MTGO anyway (which shuffles like crap compared to real life btw) in the interim and getting a better feel for it.
We tried echoing truth in the glare slot. But truth is only good if you're casting it the turn before you go off, whereas you can just glare something and move on with your life. Glare also hits things you just scoop to if you're running Disenchant, like Teeg. It also hits Thalia which is nice value, and enchantments you hit with it don't recur if you have to cast Open the Vaults.
Terrarion generates you mana with KCI and also let's you Reshape early even off all colorless lands.
With 4 Glares it can be frustrating to not draw one, but with enough other cycling effects in the deck it's not terrible. But you're a fragile combo deck and shouldn't be playing it in a meta full of hate anyway.
For sideboarding the first two to go are the Edges, then usually a Bloom and a Sphere. Emrakul for Spellbomb if they are running GY hate or Leyline.
19 lands felt better than 17. Hitting your early drops to KCI on 3 or 4 is so important. Radiant Fountain is pretty sweet because it buys you a little time against aggro and if you have to discard Emrakul to hand size for whatever reason, you can just blow up their lands and gain 30 life before shipping the turn.
Are you playing this on paper? If so, you can run 2x Shredder instead of Zenith and show your opponent the loop. I also board the Emrakul for any matchups I think will possibly have Leyline (and I also board in Glares, obviously). Emmy also plays around GY hate because depending on their clock you can just find a KCI and sac everything to him to win through it anyway.
As for Spellbomb over Shredder - it helps cantrip when you aren't trying to use it as your wincon, so your first few FR you can draw a card to get your engine going vs it sitting dead in your hand.
I've gotten kind of frustrated and not touched the deck in a minute because on MTGO I keep running into stuff like Merfolk with MD relic and a bunch of control decks. But if your meta is full of stuff like Jund or other combo decks I see it still being very strong.
It's a good thought but I'd honestly rather run a fetch than a bosk. It will always enter play tapped which could be *really* annoying.
run ZP over Golgari Charm if you're running Lingering Souls. if you're not, I find the flexibility of Golgari Charm pretty nice.
If you're going to add a 3rd fetch in the dorkless build I'd rather cut the Township for it (if you don't want to add a 3rd Wildwood also).
IMO the problem with this deck isn't accidentally drawing a turn 1 green mana source. It's the problem of drawing basic+colorless, which adding more fetches should cut down on.
I played a few test games adding 2 Marsh Flats and a Wildwood and the mana felt better. But of course modo did the "give you 1 landers on 7, you keep a 4-land 2-spell hand and draw 6 more lands" sort of games. But I digress...
I might go to a modern FNM tonight. I don't own marsh flats or another wildwood IRL so I'm going to toss in 3 Bloodstained Mire (since IMO I'd rather run 3 extra lands that fetch B on t1 than G).
That's also a possibility and honestly I'm not sure I have a great answer.
izzetmage's comment about Forests is correct. Now that I've gotten to play the deck for a few weeks I agree. I honestly don't know if I even want a basic Plains in the deck, because our only real out to Blood Moon is abrupt decay, which we can cast off Forest+Swamp obviously. But maybe we have enough plays on just XGW where that's dumb and so I'll keep the Plains.
Township is probably questionable in a list that wants so much colored mana, but Vault is just insane in games where you get to activate it.
If I'm going to cut a card for a 24th land, it's probably either a Liege or a Decay. I'm not sure what the math is on going down from 8 to 7 4-drops. Decay would get the cut before a Path because I think Path actually answers more stuff in this meta weirdly. Too many Tasigurs and Anglers and crap running around. Cutting Liege feels awkward because that's the pay off for even playing most of our creatures.
You point on Marsh Flats might be correct in theory, but in practice there's basically no opening hands where I'd want to fetch a basic swamp on turn 1. Even for Thoughtseize, grabbing a basic swamp when your only other cards that even want B are Siege Rhino just feels bad. I also don't have unlimited Magic funds and blew a lot going to the GP, so I'm keeping my Heaths for now.
Our current 23 lands:
What I'd propose if we want to keep 23:
Again I think cutting Sunpetal for Thicket is correct if we go to Wastes because it will enter untapped on turn 2 and allow us to cast any combination of cards in our hand. Basically the only combinations that don't allow you to cast GB/BW/GW on turn 2 in this setup would require one of the lands to be a basic or vault. I'm honestly not sure what I'd add if we put in a 24th land but I'm open to suggestions on that as well.
I appreciate the time Emracool spent making this deck. Being able to play it now for a little while has given me some ideas on improvements I can make to the deck. I have the physical cards to play the other version as well, but I choose not to because in a meta that is more twin-heavy I think playing a discard spell turn 1 instead of a bird for them to bolt is a little better. But I think slamming decks because they "don't appear on mtgtop8" without trying it is a poor perspective to have, particularly when it takes an hour or two with a friend to fire up cockatrice and jam some games. But innovation is how we get new and exciting decks, better versions of existing decks and how we get things placed on mtgtop8.
I plan on trying those couple of manabase changes on MTGO anyway (which shuffles like crap compared to real life btw) in the interim and getting a better feel for it.