Welcome to Mardu Pyromancer!
Mardu Pyromancer represents a flexible and powerful deck, which can potentially grind out any opponent, if the deck is well tuned. Because of its grindy nature, the deck operates best in slower metas and creature driven metas. However, over the past years the colour combination has gotten more and more tools to fight combo and big mana matchups as well. It is an excellent deck choice. Mardu Pyromancer shines in one specific aspect very much: It is a very consistant deck, including a high amount of card selection while still performing well in the card advantage aspect of the game. This deck creates high synergy between combining the most effective disruption spells backed up by the most effecient removal spells with its characteristic powerful threats, which can bury the opponents in card advantage. Besides all this, it is also extremely efficient, most spells in the deck cost 1 or 2 mana only. And if that was not enough, the deck can get some free wins singelhandedly through Blood Moon. With having access to white, Mardu Pyromancer gets powerful sideboard options, which can help to beat any opponent in a given meta. It is highly customizable in that sense.
Mardu Pyromancer is a deck of interaction at heart. If you want to disrupt your opponent and prevent the opponent from proceeding their gameplan, then Mardu Pyromancer is the right deck for you. However, typically games are very challenging, but in a good way. Utlizing our set of cards, which all have different purposes (basically controlling/disruptive cards and aggressive cards), to its best in a given matchup, is what makes not only each game unique and fun to play, but also creates challanging and skill oriented games, which is rewarding for skilled players. Besides all that, the manabase in this deck is pretty painfree, which helps naturally against all aggressive strategies in the modern format.
Subsequently, knowledge is key in this deck. It rewards every player who is willing to practise and accommodate more and more knowledge of the modern format and its decks. In fact, this deck could be treated as being a control deck as well, besides its midrangy nature. Often, games play out that way. However, this deck does not lack on winconditions like control decks do. Therefore its a perfect way to be able to play control-ish strategies combined with midrange elements as well. Ultimately, if you know how to play against a given deck, you will be granted the most win-percentage to win and this couldn't be more true for Mardu Pyromancer. Without further ado, let's go ahead!
Below you can find the link to my discord channel, where everyone is invited to discuss about Mardu. You can also discuss every other deck I made Primers for in there as well.
Modern Mardu Pyromancer Discord: https://discord.gg/guSNj7s
"Any dream is a robust harvest. Still, I prefer the timeworn dreams, heavy with import, that haunt the obsessive mind."
One of the many problems Mardu had, was its inability to establish a realible and fast clock. The missing of Tarmogoyf really hurt there, and in the past, people always tried to replace Tarmogoyf with any similar creature in red, black or white. Cards like Hero of Bladehold, or Brimaz, King of Oreskos where among the most common ones. However, as you can imagine, both cards just didn't replace the strength of a classy Tarmogoyf. And basically every creature played in Mardu always kept diving into the token aspect of the colour combination. Mardu as a clan, typically is a great token deck. Obviously it has access to every card a typical BW Token deck has access to, as well as one of the "powerful 2 drop" cycle in red: Young Pyromancer. This always meant Mardu could go wide, but hardly big. And in the past this led to the so-called "X-1" problem, which means, that most of the creatures typically run in Mardu had only one toughness (any token, YP, Dark Confidant, Abbot of the Keral Keep) and this meant Mardu was very susceptible to any kind of sweeper. As Tron back in the days ran Pyroclasm Mardu was completely blown out by that. Even if it sounds crazy, it was the truth.
To summarize, Mardu historically was a good go-wide deck, with a real good ability to grind, but it lacked a good clock and was very susceptible to sweepers. All that combined meant it had an abysmal Tron matchup (which already was a very tough beat for a modern deck at that time) and was generally weak to fast combo decks. However, over the time, powerful new tools where printed for the archetype, which started to strengthen the deck.
The first dab in the Pyromancer kind of strategy was probably through the BR Blitzkrieg strategy. Basically this version was a Blood Moon deck utilizing similar cards like Mardu as their red and black spells, but leaving out on white completely and go in for the full Blood Moon plan. Finishers like Demigod of Revenge was commonly seen. A similar iteration to the Blitzkrieg deck was the Rat Moon deck, which looked pretty close to a now Mardu Pyromancer version. It still played no white spells and had the full 4 Blood Moon, but had Bedlam Reveler already in it.
Speaking of which, I think the most important printing the deck has gotten access to is Bedlam Reveler. Although Mardu didn't explode in popularity right away, it did take a few years before one name frequently kept popping up in magic online leagues 5-0 finishes: Selfeisek. Selfeisek managed to achieve many 5-0 runs before anybody knew about the deck in the first place. By that, a new version of the deck was used, which essentially was the first version of Mardu Pyromancer. Originally, more white was played (to be able to include Lightning Helixes) and more creatures (typically a pair of Monastery Swiftspear) was played by Selfeisek. Interestingly enough, while most Pros and most people playing the deck now dropped both those mentioned cards for good, Selfeisek keeps getting some 5-0 results and still holds on to Helixes.
| Selfeisek's original Mardu PyromancerMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Lands [19] 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 1 Marsh Flats 3 Mountain 2 Sacred Foundry 1 Swamp 3 Wooded Foothills Creatures [10] 4 Bedlam Reveler 2 Monastery Swiftspear 4 Young Pyromancer | Noncreature Spells [31] 1 Burst Lightning 1 Dreadbore 4 Faithless Looting 2 Forked Bolt 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Kolaghan's Command 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Lightning Helix 4 Lingering Souls 2 Terminate 3 Thoughtseize 1 Blood Moon | Sideboard [15] 2 Blood Moon 1 Dragon's Claw 2 Fatal Push 1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 4 Leyline of the Void 2 Pithing Needle 1 Shattering Spree 2 Wear / Tear |
Mardu Pyromancer really got heavy fame during the Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, which was the first modern Pro Tour after a long time. Famous Pros like Gerry Thompson played the deck to a great record, which caught some attention. Unfortunately, this short period of fame was again interrrupted by the shortly after unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf and Jace the Mind Sculptor. People immediatly switched back to Jund and blue based control decks, which let Mardu Pyromancer sink again in popularity. As the modern format warped, a few particular really strong decks started to became popular, namely Humans as well as Hollow One. Due to the high consistancy and linear gameplan, a deck like Jund playing BBE or a deck playing Jace just wasn't good enough. People did realize that it is important to interact as early as possible and a 4 drop which is dependant on RNG (BBE) was not good enough to keep up with that linear gameplan. So Mardu slowly took up some steam again. Mardu Pyromancer is a highly consistant deck, which can operate on a low land count and is able to efficiently interact with the opponent. All this combined led Mardu Pyromancer to the position it is today, probably the best midrange deck in the modern format like basically never before. Below are some top finishing decklists with different versions:
| Gerry Thompson, 2nd place at PT Rivals of Ixalan 2018Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
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Lands [20] 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 2 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Marsh Flats 3 Mountain 1 Sacred Foundry 2 Swamp Creatures [8] 4 Bedlam Reveler 4 Young Pyromancer Noncreature Spells [32] 2 Collective Brutality 1 Dreadbore 4 Faithless Looting 2 Fatal Push 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Kolaghan's Command 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lingering Souls 1 Manamorphose 1 Terminate 3 Thoughtseize 2 Blood Moon 1 Liliana of the Veil | Sideboard [15] 1 Anger of the Gods 2 Collective Brutality 1 Fulminator Mage 1 Ghost Quarter 1 Liliana of the Veil 2 Molten Rain 2 Nihil Spellbomb 3 Surgical Extraction 2 Wear / Tear |
| Marshall Arthurs, 1st place at SCG Open Luisville 2018Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Lands [20] 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 2 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Marsh Flats 2 Mountain 1 Plains 1 Sacred Foundry 2 Swamp Creatures [8] 4 Bedlam Reveler 4 Young Pyromancer | Noncreature Spells [32] 3 Collective Brutality 1 Dreadbore 4 Faithless Looting 3 Fatal Push 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Kolaghan's Command 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lingering Souls 3 Thoughtseize 3 Blood Moon | Sideboard [15] 1 Collective Brutality 3 Ensnaring Bridge 3 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 2 Liliana, the Last Hope 3 Surgical Extraction 3 Wear / Tear |
| Jose Luis Echeverria, 1st place at GP São Paulo 2018Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
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Lands [20] 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 2 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Marsh Flats 2 Mountain 2 Sacred Foundry 2 Swamp Creatures [8] 4 Bedlam Reveler 4 Young Pyromancer Noncreature Spells [32] 4 Faithless Looting 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Thoughtseize 2 Fatal Push 1 Manamorphose 1 Dreadbore 1 Terminate 2 Collective Brutality 4 Lingering Souls 3 Kolaghan's Command 1 Liliana of the Veil 2 Blood Moon | Sideboard [15] 1 Collective Brutality 2 Engineered Explosives 2 Goblin Rabblemaster 2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 3 Molten Rain 1 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Wear // Tear |
"Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery."
One of the most important aspects of playing Mardu Pyromancer successfully, is to be able to pilot the deck according to the player's expected meta. Mardu Pyromancer is generally no deck, which has the perfect 75 cards at all times. However, there are certain guidelines for deck construction, which, over the past, have shown to be pretty helpful when it comes to deck construction. Therefore a good core of the deck has been developed which should basically not be changed. If you start from scratch with a Mardu Pyromancer deck and haven't played it before, its recommended to stick to those guidelines at first and adjust accordingly afterwards.
The Landbase is the fundamental part of every deck, and for Mardu Pyromancer this is no exception. Having a well tuned and working Landbase is the first key to success, and often times one of the most important ones when it comes down to deck piloting. We have high requirements for coloured mana in order to cast our spells, and therefore its extremeley important to have the correct landbase for the deck. The distribution of fetchlands is already of high importance. Why? Because by running an optimal configuration allows you to perfectly fetch for the basic lands we have in our deck (out of the 3 fetchlands stated below, each can get each shock dual anyway). Generally, considering colour requirements: red > black > white. Among the lands, which are absolutely required to run this deck, are the following (considering a standard 20 land landbase):
Bloodstained Mire (4 copies)
This is the decks fetchland of choice. Fetches both of our most important basic lands and grants us access to our shock lands for mana fixing purposes. It can't fetch basic plains but most lists don't run basic plains anyway. Absolutely play 4 copies of this land, there is no exception to this rule.
Marsh Flats (3-4 copies)
One half of our main secondary fetchlands for the deck. Almost as good as Bloodstained Mire as it can fetch all of our Shock lands as well as our basic swamps, it can't fetch up our basic mountains though. Still this is the second best fetchland available to us, since requirements for fetching for swamp are generally higher than fetching for mountains due to Blood Moon. Play at least 3 copies, but many lists do run the full 4 copies as well.
Arid Mesa (0-1 copies)
This is the "worst" fetchland available to us, but still a good option to get extra fetchlands able to fetch for a basic plains and mountain. Since red is the most important colour in the deck, this land is sometimes run to be able to fetch for a basic mountain more often. So it comes down whether you want an extra mountain fetching land or if you are fine with 4 Marsh Flats. So, run this in place of the fourth Marsh Flats if you run it.
Blackcleave Cliffs (4 copies)
Cliffs is outstanding for Mardu (in the first 3 turns at least), It provides us with our most commonly required opening colors (black for discard, red for bolt/looting) and fixes our mana throughout the game. The advantage to running Cliffs is that we don’t lose any life in the early game from our fixing. The disadvantage in using Cliffs is that once we have 3 mana in play, Cliffs enters the battlefield tapped. However, this is effect is highly mitigated by the fact that the deck operates quite fine on 3 lands only. Absolutely play 4 copies of this land, there is not exception to this.
Blood Crypt (2 copies)
Blood Crypt is the best shock dual available for us naturally. Both our most important colours (red and black) is covered through this land. 2 copies is a no brainer due to this.
Sacred Foundry (1-2 copies)
Since the deck is still a 3 colour deck, we need access to our 3rd colour as well. Naturally, having a shock which combines red with white makes the most sense. I would not suggest running Godless Shrine, since red is so important it can sometimes screw you over. However, some people still prever to run one Shrine over the second Foundry. Another option is to play a basic plains.
Swamp (2 copies)
One of our main basic lands, can be fetched with Bloodstained Mire and Marsh Flats. Helps us to mititage life-loss from our own lands and to be able to cast black spells under an active Blood Moon. Concerning basic and its purpose, this one is the most imporant one to have, so absolutely play 2 copies of swamps.
Mountain (2 copies)
Since this deck is largely a red deck, mountain is very important to have. Usually it is somewhat costly to have a one mana type only producing land in the deck, but since the largest portion of spells in the deck is red, we can more or less safely run 2 mountains. That way, you have more mitigation towards Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin effects, while also being able to mitigate life-loss from our own manabase.
Plains (0-1 copy)
Basic plains is an option to have, which is less commonly seen though. If you are high on the Blood Moon plan (especially if you run 3 copies maindeck) you should consider this land. Blood Moon is in general not very punishing for ourself (which is the reason why we run it in the first place) but it can prevent you from casting your white spells at times. If you feel you want to help with that potential problem, then go ahead and run 1 basic plains instead of the second Sacred Foundry. However, note that you loose one importan red source if you do so. Since the deck is mainly a red deck, this can screw you in other ways. So there are arguments for both sides of the coin.
Our creaturebase represent our powerful, valuable threats able to take over the game on their own and grind out the opponent. The creaturebase offers no real flexibilty, since the whole decks strategy is manifested on the creaturebase. Ideally, it is considered best to run about 8-9 creatures in a Mardu Pyromancer deck.
Young Pyromancer (4 copies)
The namesake of the deck. Young Pyromancer (YP) greatly benefits from the high spell count in the deck, essentially adding the effect: "Create a red 1/1 elemental token" to every spell you cast. This card is a grind machince. If it sticks to long on the battlefield, you will most likely win on its own. The only weakness the card has is its comparable low clock and its low impactfulness if you have YP not backed up by a bunch of spells. However, the latter rarely is the case. Play the full playset of this creature.
Bedlam Reveler (4 copies)
This is the big payoff card and also a pretty big threat on its own. The whole concept of creating a Faithless Looting engine generally comes with a card disadvantage. However, Bedlam Reveler completely makes up for this. By binning spells into our GY through Looting, Reveler gets cheaper and lets us cast him sooner. Sometimes as early as turn 3. At that point, usually Reveler is one of the last cards in hand, which completely mitigates the discard aspect of its effect, and often times this turns Reveler into a 2 mana 3/4 prowess with an Ancestral Recall attached to it. Pretty good right? Additionally, binning cards through Reveler is often also not that problematic also, if you look at flashback cards like Lingering Souls or Faithless Looting.
Hazoret the Fervent (0-1 copies)
Hazoret really brought Mardu Pyromancer a way to finish games fast as well as grind on the same basis. Hazoret does seem restrictive as she cannot attack or block if you have 2 or more cards in your hand, but this restriction can actually be circumvented by the nature of our deck. We use our cards quite early in the game and are happy to trade away our cards in order to get ahead in the game. Faithless Looting also helps accomplishing this. Once active, Hazoret can be a very potent topdeck which will get value right away. You can play her and attack on the same turn, and afterwards, you can turn useless topdecks into shocks which results in a big clock. Since she is indestructible, it is also hard to remove her and thus she provides a sticky threat. It is totally fine to run a copy of her in the main. However, the most common spot for her would be in the SB.
Goblin Rabblemaster (0-2 copies)
Rabblemaster is another option to run maindeck. The reason to run Rabblemaster particularly is due to it being a fast clock while not being susceptible to GY hate. It is a great way to hedge against some strategies which involve attacking us from the GY angle. Rabblemaster overall shines against non-interactive decks like Big Mana and Combo. Usually we lack a clock against those decks, but Rabblemaster can really help us out there. If you expect some number of those decks running around (or some GY hate) then consider running this card in the main. Alternatively, it also sees play in the SB.
In order to support our creatures and disrupt our opponents, Mardu Pyromancer utilizes one of the best and most efficient removals and disruption spells available. These spells are crucial to the deck and therefore, for some spells, there is no flexibility possible as their powerlevel will always be great in the modern format and helps executing the main strategy of the deck.
Faithless Looting (4 copies)
Looting is probably the best card in the deck. It is our engine card, our way to maintain consistancy and dig for answers/threats. It does everything we want: Draw more cards and help either casting Lingering Souls faster or help to fuel Bedlam Reveler. As this spell only costs 1 mana, it really helps keeping up with the pace of the modern format. Often it is referred to being Modern's Brainstorm. While this sounds like a bold statement, in some way this is very true for this deck. While technically Looting does not provide card advantage (CA) on its own, it creates virtual CA in the form of binning flashback cards, fueling reveler or simply dumbing dead cards against a given opponent. And everyone who played with Brainstorm before, knows how powerful the card is. Now, the real sick strength of Looting lies in its ability to be flashbacked. Ever faced situations before when you are in desperate need for something good (either a removal spell or a potent threat off the top) but happen to draw a freaking land? With Looting in the yard, you basically get to choose the best of the top 2 cards in your library. And since the deck has so many cheap spells, the flashback cost of Looting is also not too problematic either. Absolutely run 4 of this card, every other number is plain wrong.
Fatal Push (1-2 copies)
In the beginning, Fatal Push was the best removal spell in the format since its printing. The complete modern format has been restructured singlehandedly due to this card. Its cheap, its efficient, and hits a vast majority of creatures in the modern format. However, due to its strenght, decks try to avoid being susceptible to Push by playind either CMC 3+ creatures (revolt is not that easy to enable) or play bigger threats overall which are push proof. Nevertheless, there are still good targets for Push, and running a couple of it is definitely worth it. Typicall you will see 1-2 copies of it. Depending on your meta you can up this amount and therefore lower the amount of Terminates you run. Ideally, you want to run as many pushes as possible, simply because they are cheaper, so run as many copies of it as your meta allows the restriciton of Push to not be a liability. If you feel you want more unconditional removal, then stick to 1-2 copies.
Lightning Bolt (4 copies)
While shortly interupted by Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt is again the best removal spell in modern. Its fantastic against all creature decks, hugely flexible in the ability to steal games or dealing with planeswalkers and only costs one mana. There is no reason to run any less than 4 copies of that card.
Inquisition of Kozilek (4 copies)
A very solid, but conditional, 1cmc discard spell. IoK allows you to take any nonland card with a cmc of 3 or less. Although there is no additional life cost to playing IoK like there is with Thoughtseize, there are a few match-ups that it’s bad against. Generally, 7 discard spells are playing in the MB of Mardu Pyromancer. Among this 7 discard both IoK and TS should be played, most of the time in a 4/3 split of IoK/TS. Sometimes you'll see 4 TS over the 4 IoK, but since this deck already runs 7 discard spells (this is a high number) 3 TS is usually good enough. It basically means you will see the card about once per game, which usually lets you deal with one important thing that IoK doesn't hit. Most of the time, IoK is simply better in modern though.
Thoughtseize (3 copies)
The most powerful 1cmc discard spell in the game. Allows you to take any nonland card in their hand and gives you information on their game plan. It can be suicidal though, costing an additional 2 life to cast. Generally, 7 discard spells are playing in the MB of Mardu Pyromancer. Among this 7 discard both IoK and TS should be played, most of the time in a 4/3 split of IoK/TS.
Terminate (0-2 copies)
Unconditional instant speed creature removal for 2 mana, it’s probably the best straight creature removal spell we have access to in our colors. Its only weak point is that it does not get rid of indestructible creatures and is only partially good vs. sticky creatures like Kitchen Finks. Nonetheless its a staple in our deck and very powerful. Technically you can run no terminates if you value the strenght of Dreadbore more in the deck, but I would recommend sticking to 1 copy at the start.
Dreadbore (1-2 copies)
Effectwise Dreadbore is often times a better Terminate since the ability to kill PWs is usually more important than preventing creature from being regenerated. However, since it is sorcery speed it can get awkward sometimes. I would still play 1 copy at least due to its flexibilty. Compared to a deck like Jund, which runs Maelstrom Pulse maindeck, we also should have a clean way to deal with problematic PWs in the maindeck. You can even go up to 2 copies and drop terminate completely if you feel the sorcery speed is not hindering you too much.
Collective Brutality (0-3 copies)
Collective Brutality (CB) is a very strong and flexible spell, which usually comes with a cost, if you want to escalate the spell. However, since the main strategy of the deck is to empty our hands, fuel the GY with spells, and drop a fast reveler, this perfectly fits our bill. All modes can be relevant, and there is hardly a matchup where its bad (most important one would be Tron). Also, it acts as a discard outlet for Lingering Souls, especially in cases where we don't have white mana available. I would run between 2 and 3 copies of that card in the main. However, run at least 3 copies in the whole 75. There are some people which run Lightning Helix instead of CB. In that case usually CB is run in the sideboard.
Lightning Helix (0-2 copies)
Although being less common, sometimes Lighting Helix is run over CB maindeck. Most importantly Selfeisek pretty much always runs them up to this point. The reason for that is that Helix is overall great vs aggro, and is a better topdeck later in the game. A midrange deck should have a good aggro matchup, for which reason Helix makes perfect sense. It is a little weaker against cobo and control though, since you are lacking the discard mode there. Another aspect is the white mana casting cost. Alongside Blood Moon and the fact that the deck mostly splashes for Souls only, means that by running Helix you have a greater dedication to white mana, which should be kept in mind as well. Overall though it is preference.
Manamorphose (0-1 copies)
Manamorphose as a card seems very odd to run in our deck at first glance. However, there are certain great Mardu Pyromancer players (like Gerry Thompson for example) which love the card. Essentially it can be seen as a free cantrip, filtering for your mana (if you need white for Souls for example) and fuels your Bedlam Reveler quite well as well. Technically it does really contribute to our main strategy. However, deck space is quite limited and I think you cannot overload on the card too much. Often times it can also get quite awkward on what mana to produce with manamorphose, as you don't know what you will draw. Sometimes this may result in unspend mana, which can also hurt you. But I think running 0-1 copies makes sense and can really help powering out revlers, which is the strongest thing we can do. This card is overall optional, most lists run 0-1 copies though.
Kolaghan's Command (3 copies)
Kolaghan's Command is one of the strongest spells Mardu Pyromancer has access to. The main reason Kolaghan's Command is so strong is it's flexibility against nearly every deck in Modern. Kolaghan's Command has four modes:
- Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
- Target player discards a card.
- Destroy target artifact.
- Kolaghan's Command deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
From which you choose two modes. Oh! and it's at Instant speed too!! Yep, that's right, Instant speed discard, Affinities worst nightmare, and it just so happens to give us a massive advantage against grindy match ups too - what's not to love? Combine this with a died reveler in the yard and get full value from reveler again, its insane CA for us. I would say Mardu Pyromancer is the deck in modern which utilizes KCommand as a spell the best.
Lingering Souls (4 copies)
Lingering Souls is another payoff card we have access to, besides Reveler. It is a fantastic tool to make your Looting powerful and your games grindy to overwhelm your opponent. It is one of the best tools to fight control. There are some decks which basically loose to it singlehandedly (like Affinity or Infect). In a typical list, this is the only white card you run in the mainboard. And since the card can also be cast without white mana at all (using its flashback ability from the GY) the deck can certainly operate without any white mana at all. At heart Mardu Pyromancer is a deck which is a red/black deck splashing white for Souls and some SB cards. However, Souls as a card is really powerful and is absolutely justified in this deck.
Blood Moon (1-3 copies)
Blood Moon is a very polarizing card. Either you love it (when you play it yourself) or you hate it when you face it with a deck that is susceptible to it. Mardu as a deck can very well utilize Blood Moon. The main colour is red anyway, and the secondary colour of black can easily be covered by one simple swamp for the most part. As for the white splash, it really is only for Souls and SB cards. As for souls, you can also cast it through discarding it and flashbacking it. So especially maindeck, Blood Moon works really well in this deck. However, there is another reason why it is recommended to play Blood Moon maindeck: Its the surprize factor as well as the missing removal for it in game 1. Opponents might keep a hand against you which isn't able to fetch for basics, as they potentially don't know what you are playing, and Blood Moon really shines here. It can even easily get decks that are normally considered to be less susceptible to Blood Moon. And of course there are matchups which can be singlehandedly won by Blood Moon. It really helps against Tron game 1. It can just get a free win for which reason Blood Moon is a powerful and in my mind a big factor why this deck is performing well at the moment.
Liliana of the Veil (0-1 copy)
The second best planeswalker ever printed. Lillys’ -2 is strong against Aggro and Midrange, her +1 is solid against Control and Combo, her -6 is amazing against any deck, and you get all this for 3cmc. LotV is just a hugely flexible planeswalker that gives most decks nightmares when she lands. She’s almost always a 2(+) for 1 and is one of the only ways we have of taking out Hexproof, Regenerating or Protection from our removal creatures. However, the nature of her being a PW means you have limited slots for her. You cannot just run 4 copies. The deck as a whole needs instants and sorceries, in order to play cheap Bedlam Reveler. Its the main goal of the deck. Liliana should therefore just be a grindy and disruptive tool supporting your gameplan, not your actual main gameplan. I think it is fine to run 1 PWs in the main. But I would not go over that number. And for this you have the option of either running Liliana of the Veil, Liliana, the Last Hope or a different card. Alternatively, she also sees play in the SB. Small go wide creatures usually make LoTV worse. So if you expect many of those, maybe skimp on her.
Liliana, the Last Hope (0-1 copy)
Being both a form of Liliana and with the same cmc as Liliana of the Veil has led to LtLH being unfavorably compared to LotV. She really shines in the mirror, against grindy decks and against aggro decks, as Last Hopes' +1 (giving a creature -2/-1 until our next turn) has the ability to kill some key creatures in the format and shrink other larger, more problematic, threats until our next turn, which is nothing to be taken lightly - although notably a dead ability against a few decks in Modern (like combo and big mana or control). Last Hopes' -2 (Put the top two cards of your library into your graveyard, then you may return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand) has amazing synergy with our Bedlam Revelers as well as giving us the ability to return a creature to our hand can really overwhelm an opponent over the course of a game. People testing Last Hope having said that they've managed to return and play trump creatures like: Reveler or Young Pyromancer multiple times in a game which is incredibly back breaking for an opponent to have to deal with. Liliana, the Last Hopes' -7 (You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your end step, put X 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is two plus the number of Zombies you control".) mounts up quickly over a few turns to churn out an army of 2/2 Zombies which will make quick work of an opponent from that point on. All in all, Last Hope offers us a cheap tool that can swing games against many decks in our favor if left on the battlefield for a few turns or longer. You can run 1-2 or no copy in the maindeck. Alternatively she also sees play in the SB.
Nahiri, the Harbinger (0-1 copy)
Nahiri as a PW is in general very powerful. She naturally fits our gameplan with her plus ability and can act as a random removal for anything pesky (especially the enchantment removal is otherwise not present in our maindeck, despite a potential LoTV ulti of course) So overall she is a good option. However, she still doesn't see overwhelmingly much play. You can see her as a one of sometimes. The thing is that she is quite expensive, dives more into white as a requirement in the maindeck, and doesn't really help with our bad matchups. Overall she can be chosen, but often times more flexible and cheaper PWs like Liliana of the Veil or Liliana, the Last Hope are played.
In order to have a starting point for building a Mardu Pyromancer deck, here is a basic decklist template anyone can use to get a feeling which cards are generally played and more importantly, how often. This list is not meant to be perfect, nor is it meant to be the "best" solution for any meta, but, according to the latest results, the safest list for an unknown meta.
Note: Feel free to ask for any feedback on your own decklist in this threat. However, pls, always state the reasoning and the purpose of a specific decklist, otherwise we won't be able to help accordingly. The reason behind this is, that specific metas sometimes require odd card choices. However, every meta is different. Therefore it is important for us to know in which meta a certain deck will be played in order to help the most effective way possible.
Here are some general rules of thumb when it comes to building the deck, which you should more or less stick to. Don't consider them to be strict like anything, you can break the rules to a certain extend, but especially for new players the rules are highly recommended to stick to.
- The Landbase consists of 20 lands. Among them, 8 cards make up fetchlands, 4 cards make up fastlands, 3-4 make up shocklands and 4-5 are basics.
- The creaturebase is 8 creatures. 4 cards each make up Young Pyromancer as well as 4 Bedlam Reveler. It is possible to run 1 Hazoret mainboard or up to 2 Rabblemaster mainboard if needed.
- Since we have Bedlam Reveler as our main goal to cast, we need a high amount of instants and sorceries to support him. Typically this means running 28-30 instants and sorceries is crucial. Especially going below 28 is something which I would absolutely prevent. Among them there are 7 discard spells, 17-18 one mana spells (including the discard) and about 10 three mana spells. The rest is usually 2 mana spells.
All in all, here is a standard decklist which you can start to play with (selfeisek's newest version):
| TemplateMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
|---|---|
|
Lands [20] 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Marsh Flats 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Blood Crypt 2 Sacred Foundry 2 Swamp 1 Plains 2 Mountain | Creatures [8] 4 Young Pyromancer 4 Bedlam Reveler Non-creature Spells [32] 4 Faithless Looting 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Thoughtseize 2 Fatal Push 1 Forked Bolt 2 Lightning Helix 1 Terminate 1 Dreadbore 1 Nahiri, the Harbinger 2 Blood Moon 3 Kolaghan's Command 4 Lingering Souls |
"Avacyn has adandoned us! We have nothing left except what we can take!"
In Mardu Pyromancer, when it comes to sideboarding, experience and knowledge are really key to it. There are many thing to consider, and in some cases, opinions differ on a specific sideboard decision. Because of this, I want to extract the most important aspects of sideboarding and write them down into an detailed guide here, which will hopefully help every new person and experienced player as well.
Sideboard-Index
To get an idea of what to cut in which matchup, it’s important to recognize an opposing deck for what it is. For this purpose, I am going to categorize different deck types and will be dividing our deck into different categories of tools available for us, and then explain, what is good and what is bad.
The following kinds of decks are out there:
- Swarm aggro decks based on creatures (Zoo, Goblins)
- Aggro decks based on mostly non creature spells (Infect, Death’s Shadow, Burn, Grixis Shadow)
- Synergistic aggro decks (Affinity, Elves, Merfolk)
- Midrange decks based on goodstuff cards (Jund, Junk, Bant Eldrazi)
- Midrange decks including swingy/payoff cards (Abzan Company, Counters Company)
- Big Mana decks (Tron, RG Breach, RG Titanshift, Amulet Titan, Eldrazi Tron)
- Combo decks based on spells mostly (Ad Nauseam)
- Combo decks based on the GY (Goryo’s Vengeance, Living End, BR Hollow One)
- Control decks with an heavy endgame (Grixis Control, Jeskai Control, UW Control)
Of course, each deck functions somewhat differently and attacks the opponent on a different axis, so it is hard to throw them all into one box and then play the same way against them every time, this just does not work. Always, always knowledge is key in order to beat a deck. We just have to know what our opposing deck wants to do, in order to stop it. In addition, we have to know what the SB plan of our opposing decks will be. Only by knowing this, we can squeeze the most win percentage out of being up against a given deck.
Our deck has certain tools to interact with the opponent, which are the following:
- Targeted discard (IOK, TS, CB)
- Non targeted discard (Kolaghan’s Command, Liliana of the Veil)
- Single target removal (Bolt, Terminate, CB…)
- Edict effects (Liliana of the Veil)
- Mass removal (Anger of the Gods, Engineered Explosives)
- Burn (Bolt, KCommand, CB)
- Grindy cards (KCommand, Bedlam Reveler, Lingering Souls, LtlH)
- Threats (Young Pyromancer, Hazoret, Bedlam Reveler, Souls)
- CA engine (Looting, Bedlam Reveler)
- Graveyard Hate (Nihil Spellbomb, Surgical Extraction, Leyline of the Void)
- Land Destruction (Blood Moon, Molten Rain)
Our deck can attack the opponent on a lot of different axis, which gives us game against potentially every opponent. There is no single card which completely shuts down our strategy, which is the reason why Mardu Pyromancer overall performs great.
Let’s see what (in general) is useful against which kind of deck:
This chart should generally show, which tools are good against which kind of strategy. Here is a little bit of explanation for each matchup:
- For Swarm aggro, discard is generally not the best thing we have, as these decks empty the hands rather quickly and doesn’t help with dealing with the threats the opponents have on board. Single target removal is okay, but not the greatest thing, we generally are seeking for big impactful mass removal cards like Engineered Explosives or Anger of the Gods. Of course, threats are very impactful in this matchup. Cards like Bedlam Reveler hold off opposing creatures, as they tend to be bigger than the creatures of the swarm aggro player.
- Spell based aggro decks as Infect and Death’s Shadow often only have few creatures, but more non-creature spells to support them. For this reason, targeted discard is great against them, as well as single target removal. Sweeper are less good here, but still reasonable, when the sweeper is not too over costed. A good example would be: Playing Anger of the Gods against Burn is ok, but Damnation is too clunky and therefore not wanted. This decks are rather fast, and can also be seen as combo decks in some way, so finding answers for their threats is crucial.
- Synergistic aggro decks shine when they can combine a lot of cards which all support each other, among these decks like Affinity or Elves are the best examples. Targeted Discard is not completely bad against them, as there are a few key cards, which you may be able to snatch off their hand. For example: If you can, you want to discard Collected Company from the Elves player’s hand. You also do want to snatch Cranial Plating or Etched Champion from the Affinity player’s hand. However, it does not mean we should increase the amount of discard by sideboarding, since those can still wreck you if you topdeck them later on.
- In Midrange mirrors value, attrition and great topdecking are the most important aspects. For this reason we certainly want to cut all cards which could be potential bad topdecks later in the game. Some people say that discard can be kept in in these mirrors, which might be also an alternative way to sideboard in these matchups. However, the way I see it, is that, even if discard sounds great theoretically (like to discard the opponents removal so that your tarmogoyf lives), I think more often than not discard is going to wreck you. The simple reason of this is, that discard is only good in the early game. You want to discard their most potent card against your hand right at the beginning of the game. Nevertheless, the start of the game is only a small part of the whole game. Midrange decks tend to be slower decks, which play longer games generally and in those matchups, ultimately, it comes down to which player topdecks best at the end of the game. For this reason, threats and grindy cards are of most value in these matchups.
- Midrange swingy decks tend to similarly work like good stuff midrange decks, but they do play payoff cards like Collected Company. The most present example these days would be Abzan Company. This decks uses mana dorks to quickly ramp into bigger threats, which are sticky most of the time, to outclass the opponent. Collected Company is a great card in this deck, especially combined with the manadorks. For this reason discard is good against these decks. However, only targeted discard! Non targeted discard can seriously wreck you due to shenanigans like Loxodon Smiter.
- Big Mana decks are generally very difficult for us to deal with. The best strategy we have is put up a fast clock so that our opponent can’t get to a point where the decks just steamrolls. In the early game these kind of decks are weak, so we have to use this fact as an advantage. Nevertheless, our deck is usually not fast enough to close out the games very fast, although cards like Lightning Bolt and Hazoret the Fervent certainly help in this matchup. Targeted discard is great here, as well as burn and putting up a big threat.
- Combo spell based decks are decks like Ad Nauseam for example. The best thing we have against them is disruption combined with a fast clock. These decks can go off quite fast, but our job is to prevent or hinder the deck to combo off that fast. Each combo deck works differently, so figuring out how to disrupt the opponent is key here.
- Combo GY based decks are basically like spell based combo decks, but using the GY for their advantage. Obviously attacking their graveyard is important here, and for this reason, non-targeted discard is awful in this matchup. Targeted discard on the other hand, is much better.
- Control decks are generally decks, which are weak in the early game, but the longer the game goes, the easier it is for them to take over the game. As we are generally not that fast at closing out games, control decks can often times take the upper hand against us. The absolutely best thing we can do against them is trying to stick a Lingering Souls or Bedlam Reveler and start to dilute their resources. Targeted discard is phenomenal here, as hand information is incredibly useful here.
As a general advice for side boarding, always go for the question: “What can I cut from my main deck?” first rather than “What cards can I bring in?”. This applies to every matchup. For this reason, this guide is more focused on the cards to cut, whether on the cards to bring in, because generally, this is easier to determine.
Note: Before going into the detail analysis of each matchup, I wanted to stress, that the sideboarding suggestions are all listed according to priority. The first card in the list is the first card you should cut in this matchup, the second card should be cut secondly, and so on. Also, no exact numbers concerning how many copies of each card to cut is given. It generally wouldn't make much sense, since every list could potentially run different numbers of a given card in his/her deck. Thats why I found the priority approach to be better, and in addition, you can't just copy a sideboard suggestion and use it, which let's you sideboard more dynamicly. Here is an article by Reid Duke, which explains to determine a metagame:The Metagame
With that general knowledge we got now from the last section of the primer, we should be able to create our own guide to sideboarding. I believe one key to success in sideboarding is the right approach to it. I think for proper sideboarding, it is not adviseable to simply learn cuts and bring ins for each matchup and call it a day. I guarantee that you will more often than not face an unexpected matchup which you don't prepared for preemptively. In such a case, correct sideboarding warrants great success. I want you to look at a card and know what it fundamentally does for us and against which type of deck we want that. If you learn to think that way, you can figure out each matchup by yourself. I can show you how I do it and what has brought me best success in my experience playing the deck. I’ll always go with the approach of creating a gauntlet with the most popular sideboard cards. It is the same gaunlet you will find in the Sideboard Guide section of the primer by the way. In the last section, explaining general guidelines for sideboarding, you saw a more general and theoretical approach of evaluating different areas of attack for all matchups. This theory is taken up as a next step here, to create this gauntlet and divide it into its own sections of use. In the following box you will see the sideboard gauntlet.
Now, this is simply an accomodation of most often used sideboard cards. Its a pile of cards. Not very helpful as of now. However, as a next step, we are gonna divide this pile of cards into 5 fundamental sections of areas of attack. By doing so, we can already distinguish all cards from another and also see which cards are doing similar things. These are the fundamental areas of attack:
- Graveyard Hate: This category explains itself. All cards that interact with the GY fall into this one.
- Destruction: Cards for the pure sake of destroying/dealing with specific problematic permanents, which goes beyond simple creature removal. A clock is included here as well.
- Lifegain: Obviously all cards that gain certain amounts of life.
- Discard: Cards that discard cards from opponents hands.
- Grind: A special category, since it defines the philosophy of our deck. Every card you would want in attrition based games, fall into that category, including removal.
If we take those categories, we will be able to put every common sideboard card in one, or even more of those sections:
Fulminator Mage
Grim Lavamancer
Liliana of the Veil
Wear // Tear
Molten Rain
Collective Brutality
Engineered Explosives
Anguished Unmaking
Zealous Persecution
Fatal Push
Crackling Doom
Liliana, the Last Hope
Anger of the Gods
Kolaghan's Command
Ensnaring Bridge
Goblin Rabblemaster
Stony Silence
Blood Moon
Damping Sphere
Now that we divided all cards among the sections we created, we have to see what types of decks there are, to see what tools available to us are effective against a given deck. The simplest way to divide decktypes is according to the following way:
- Aggro: The most fundamental way to play magic, the only purpose of playing that sort of deck is getting the opponent dead fast. Games involving an aggro deck tend to focus on the early game and is characterized by efficiency and tempo. Synergies are very important here to create an early big advantage from which the opposing deck should not recover or hold up to.
- Midrange: When talking about midrange, terms like value, attrition or good topdecks come to mind. Midrange decks don't seek to kill the opponent fast naturally, it wants to go over the top of other decks and outvalue or outgrind them. This type of deck focuses on mid game primarily, its where the deck shines the most.
- Control: Control decks have only one purpose in mind: Controlling everything the opposing player might want to do and prevent that. Control decks are reactive by nature and run very few actual winconditions. Control decks shine in the mid to late game, and have a weakness for the early game. Its goal is to go from the early into mid and late game quite fast.
- Combo: Combo is a weird type of deck. In a certain way, combo decks are like aggro decks, in which they want to kill the opponent fast, through a certain combination of cards though, rather than simply attacking with creatures. Its primary focus is the early to mid game, focusing on card synergy.
- Big Mana: Big Mana is one type of deck that assembles huge amounts of mana by assembling certain types of lands or a big amount of lands fast. Those decks then try to win through powerful overcosted spells which are hard to deal with. This kind of deck focuses on the mid and late game and also on synergy.
Now that we defined the basic types of decks, we will divide our sideboard gauntlet among the different types of decks:
And there you have it. We completely divided our gauntlet in different areas of attack as well as uses for each type of deck. This should help you to identify your best sideboard for your own metagame. For determining the own metagame, I suggest reading Reid Duke's article: The Metagame. Last but not least, here is a recommended sideboard for the overall meta, kept up to date:
| Sideboard TemplateMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
|---|---|
| Sideboard [15] 1 Nahiri, the Harbinger 3 Molten Rain 2 Pithing Needle 1 Thoughtseize 1 Blood Moon 1 Wear // Tear 2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 4 Leyline of the Void | |
To conclude, these are the general guidelines for sideboarding in a given game. However, in specific cases, specific strategies are needed. For this reason, I want to go over all matchups present in this meta right now and go into a little bit more detail. In order to do so, I want to introduce you to my concept of Priority Lists. Since this deck is fairly different from meta to meta, I designed a gauntlet of most popular cards run in this deck. From that cards I created a list (the priority list) which contains cards I would cut in which matchup (and how often) and also in which order. The same goes for bringing in cards. If you dont have a certain card from that list in your 75, then simply skip it. Information on the matchup itself will be in the information text attached to the list. Next you can find the Gauntlet:
| Gauntlet for Mardu PyromancerMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Creatures Maindeck 1 Young Pyromancer 1 Bedlam Reveler 1 Hazoret the Fervent Noncreature Spells Maindeck 1 Faithless Looting 1 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Thoughtseize 1 Fatal Push 1 Lightning Bolt 1 Terminate 1 Dreadbore 1 Manamorphose 1 Lightning Helix 1 Forked Bolt 1 Collective Brutality 1 Liliana of the Veil 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 1 Kolaghan's Command 1 Lingering Souls 1 Blood Moon | Creatures Sideboard 1 Fulminator Mage 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet 1 Grim Lavamancer 1 Goblin Rabblemaster 1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 1 Hazoret the Fervent | Noncreature Spells Sideboard 1 Zealous Persecution 1 Anguished Unmaking 1 Damping Sphere 1 Kolaghan's Command 1 Collective Brutality 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Surgical Extraction 1 Leyline of the Void 1 Ensnaring Bridge 1 Blood Moon 1 Molten Rain 1 Fatal Push 1 Crackling Doom 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 1 Liliana of the Veil 1 Anger of the Gods 1 Stony Silence 1 Wear // Tear |
Board Out
- Thoughtseize
- Liliana of the Veil
- Blood Moon
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Collective Brutality
- Bedlam Reveler (1 copy)
Board In
- Stony Silence
- Wear // Tear
- Engineered Explosives
- Fatal Push
- Zealous Persecution
- Grim Lavamancer
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Anger of the Gods
Affinity is a synergistic aggro deck, which empties the hand blisteringly fast. Often times this deck drops their hand on turn 2 or 3 going into the top deck mode. For this reason, discard is usually not the best against them. In addition, this deck has several creatures, which are not real threats on its own (well except for Cranial Plating, this card turns every creature into a threat), but all work together to a difficult board of synergy, which we will have to deal with. Edict effects are the worst kind of removal we have against them, usually removing a lone Memnite won’t do much. Subsequently, Liliana of the Veil is one of the worst card against them we have. Mass removal and multiple single target removal is what we are looking for.
This deck runs no cards which have higher CMC than 3. For this reason, Inquisition of Kozilek is strictly better than Thoughtseize. Since we generally don’t want discard, we will cut all Thoughtseizes from our deck after game 1. I personally find IOKs sometimes very useful, as the affinity player tends to drop all his small cheap cards in the first turn, and will hold the payoff cards in the hand for another turn. Even if we are on the draw, snapping this payoff card is great. Still, I wouldn’t bring in more discard because of this. This is just a reason why some numbers of IOK are fine to keep in the MB. Next, cutting some Liliana of the Veil is the priority. In addition, to note, Blood Moon might seem like an okay card in that MU, since this deck has a lot of creature lands. However, I really do not recommend keeping BM in that matchup. Why? Simply because we really want to be able to cast Lingering Souls. I believe one Lingering Souls does a lot more than shutting off some manlands with BM. As Affinity is an artifact based synergy deck, obviously, we will bring all artifact hate in this MU. Next, Sweepers are what is needed. Two main choices do we have: Anger of the Gods and Engineered Explosives.
Your main gameplan is to be on defense the whole time until you can stabilize and control the board safely. Do not make heedless attacks if you could potentially get blown out by a topdecked Cranial Plating. Play it safe and remove every problematic card on sight (Overseer, Ravager, Champion, Plating) if possible. As for Ravager, it really is not worth it to let it live and target your removal spells on other creatures. If the opponent plays a turn 2 Ravager, and you have a Push in hand immediatly point it onto Ravager, unless there is something more problematic on the field. Dont let your opponent work with Ravager, it can get ugly quite fast.
Board Out
- Thoughtseize
- Dreadbore
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Lingering Souls
Board In
- Collective Brutality
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Fatal Push
- Grim Lavamancer
- Anger of the Gods
- Fulminator Mage
- Molten Rain
Burn generally is a spell based aggro deck. It still runs a fair amount of creatures nonetheless. Against this deck, you want to take as little dmg as possible, so be careful with fetching and thoughtseizing the opponent (in game 1). Discard is great in this matchup, especially IOK which can strip of a burn card from the opponents hand without taking dmg.
Burn is a pretty dicey matchup for us. Some people think its unfavourable, but I think its about 50/50 like Jund/Junk. Our clock is indeed slower, but we have more impactful cards for the burn matchup (more CB and Kambal is a beast). What you are looking for in your opening hand is a hand containing either of the following spells: Bolt, Push, CB or Kambal. If you hand doesn't contain anything fo the spells, its likely that you should mulligan the hand.
One of the most common misconceptions involveds around Thoughtseize vs. Burn. Its incredibly bad to leave TS in. But why is that? I often hear people arguing that TS is not as bad against Burn, because you can potentially snatch a Boros Charm or Atarkas Command, effectively gaining 2 life, right? Well, its not that simple.
I look at Burn as being a combo deck, which just has to resolve 6-7 spells in order to win the game. Generally, each spell will do 3 or sometimes 4 dmg to the opponent, so for 20 life --> 7 spells with 3 dmg per spell or 6 spells with two spells dealing 4 dmg are needed. Burn is a very consistant deck. It will more often than not draw the needed spells and just win. Now, when you are playing TS and taking Boros Charm out of the opponent’s hand, you annul the effect of Boros Charm which would have otherwise dealt 4 dmg to your face. But what you also did through this, is effective casting a free Shock on yourself. Combines this with a simple fetch you potentially did prior to this (even if you only fetched for 1) you effectively cast a free Lightning Bolt on yourself. So what did TS actually do for you? Nothing. You took Boros Charm, but bolted you alongside. You gave the opponent 1 of the 7 spells needed to kill you. (And to note, even if you don’t fetch for 1, you effectively cast a combo spell piece on yourself by casting TS, going down to 18 life and the burn player now just needs 6 instead of 7 3-dmg spells) So to conclude, if you TS the Burn player, you take away one spell they have but they simply have to draw one less spell alongside, which is just doing nothing.
Board Out
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Thoughtseize
- Collective Brutality
- Liliana of the Veil (against Abzan)
- Blood Moon
Board In
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Liliana of the Veil (against Jund)
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Fulminator Mage
- Fatal Push
- Anguished Unmaking
- Crackling Doom
- Engineered Explosives
- Nihil Spellbomb
Playing against midrange decks ultimately comes down to who topdecks better, if you want to win or not. Therefore, what has worked for me in the past is that cutting all cards, which are potential bad top deck give you the best win % against Junk/Jund.
In general the rule is: Threat > Removal. Bring in all threats you have and afterwards extra removal. Of course, knowledge of the deck is also important to win the MU. For example, I rate opposing Scavenging Ooze higher than Tarmogoyf in this MU, because Ooze can generally grow to a much bigger threat over time (grinding) and can strip away our Lingering Souls copies from the graveyard for example. Speaking of Lingering Souls, it is basically correct to cut some LoTV if you expect Souls from the opponent. Lastly, I think cutting Blood Moon against the deck is correct. I get the argument that you can get them with their pants down and shut off their manlands, but overall, it is a bad topdeck if you are facing a bunch of Tarmogoyfs. Now I don't think its completely wrong to keep BM, but I personally would go with the minimize your bad topdecks plan.
Board Out
- Fatal Push
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Lingering Souls
- Terminate
- Forked Bolt
- Collective Brutality
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Damping Sphere
- Blood Moon
- Molten Rain
- Fulminator Mage
- Surgical Extraction
- Stony Silence
- Wear // Tear
- Goblin Rabblemaster
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
Tron is our worst matchup we can face. What is important in this MU? Generally, the best sequence we have against them is: Turn 1 discard Turn 2 YP and then turn 3 Fulminator/Molten Rain + Surgical or Blood Moon and finish them off before they get to cast one of their threats. For this reason, slow and grindy cards are bad in this MU, they won’t grant the value they have. I would generaly advise to go for their threats with your discard spells rather than trying to choke them on their ability to find tron lands. (Unless they keep a hand without tron lands and just a Stirrings/Map or whatever).
Board Out
- Collective Brutality
- Lightning Bolt
- Thoughtseize
- Inquisition of Kozilek
Board In
- Liliana of the Veil
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Fulminator Mage
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Crackling Doom
- Fatal Push
- Engineered Explosives
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Blood Moon
Death’s Shadow aggro similarily works like spells based decks such as Burn and Infect. They can win out of nowhere with a giant Death’s Shadow with a Temur Battle Rage attached to it. Lately, Death’s Shadow decks kinda turned into a more tempo-based strategy, using cards like Manamorphose to quickly draw through the deck in order to quickly find a big threat. With the inclusion of Traverse the Ulvenwald and its ability to easily reach delirium the deck is amazingly consistant. With Mardu Pyromancer, our best option is to stick a Young Pyromancer, which allows us to generate a huge load of chump blockers. This is a good strategy to grind your opponent out, giving you time to develop a strong board and deal with every opposing threat. They do not want to enter the lategame, but we do. So do everything possible to prolong the game and get ahead of your opponent.
Removal is king in that matchup, and cards that trade 2-for-1 most likely (LoTV, Liliana, the Last Hope) are great. Be careful with your lifetotal, chip in for dmg when you safely can but be aware of Temur Battle Rage at all times. After sideboarding they will board it out, so here you can focus more on grindy cards.
Board Out
- Collective Brutality
- Forked Bolt
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Liliana of the Veil
- Crackling Doom
- Anguished Unmaking
- Fulminator Mage
- Blood Moon
- Molten Rain
- Surgical Extraction
- Damping Sphere
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Fatal Push
Eldrazi Tron is a deck that combines the unfair elements of the tron lands with the big creatures of Eldrazi. This deck is a bit vulnerable to LD, but its not a blowout due to stuff like Mind Stone and them playing some number of Wastes Fulminator Mage is not automatically game over. Generally I would try to lower cards which are potential bad topdecks, so cutting some discard is good, however, leaving in TS to snap gaint ass threats like Ulamog is surely worth it. You want to draw your threats quickly to finish the opponent off. The key to this match are your hard removals (Terminate, Dreadbore...) combined with YP tokens to hold off threats.The best card to bring in is Blood Moon. It can shut them off coloured mana if they have no Wastes or Mindstones. Fulminator might shut them off of Tron, if you get to hit a land and extract it with Surgical Extraction. On its own, Fulminator is not that impressive though. I personally value Blood Moon higher here because of these reasons. If you got those in, you can also bring in stuff like LoTV and extra removal. Try not to play the long game against this MU. Generally, you want to close games as fast as you can, with Fulminator/Blood Moon only buying you time. Hazoret is a really good card against them, since she is indestructible and can hold off most of their threats while finishing them fast.
Board Out
- Fatal Push
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Lingering Souls
- Forked Bolt
Board In
- Blood Moon
- Fulminator Mage
- Molten Rain
- Surgical Extraction
- Liliana of the Veil
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Collective Brutality
- Goblin Rabblemaster
- Hazoret the Fervent
RG Valakut is one of the worst matchups for Mardu Pyromancer. Generally, it doesn’t depend on the version, all are bad, however its good to note that RG Titanshift is more consistant that Breach, but Breach can potentially be faster than Titanshift. Of course, like against every Big Mana deck, LD is important here. Blood Moon is the best option. Bring in all copies you have. After this, bring in Fulminator, which not only provide a relevant body to race the opponent, but also helps with the LD topic. Bring in Collective Brutalities.
One note concerning Fulminator and Scapeshift: If the opponent plays Scapeshift and wants to sacrifice 7 lands, obviously destroy a land in response, so they can only sac 6 lands. If they scapeshift for 8 lands however, you can't deny the valakut triggers, as 7 lands will also be enough, however, you can reduce the dmg from 36 to 6, if you destroy one mountain in response to the valakut triggers (6 mountains and 2 Valakuts usually, which would normally grant 6 x 6 = 36 dmg). The other 5 mountains won't "see" the other 5 mountains required to deal damage, so those will fizzle. Only the land which was destroyed sees 5 other mountains in order to be triggered, which is just 6 dmg, 3 dmg from each valakut. Generally, if the Valakut player knows this as well, they will scapeshift for 7 mountains and only 1 Valakut generally. In that case its better to destroy one land pre-scapeshift, in order reduce dmg from 36 to 18. So its up to you to decide whether to take the risk of letting it resolve and potentially get rewarded or get screwed. If you would die to 18 dmg nonetheless, then its of course safe to just hope they mess up. You would die anyways otherwise.
Board Out
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Liliana of the Veil
- Lingering Souls
- Kolaghan's Command
Board In
- Anger of the Gods
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Engineered Explosives
- Collective Brutality
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Grim Lavamancer
- Fatal Push
- Zealous Persecution
- Anguished Unmaking
- Crackling Doom
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Blood Moon
- Fulminator Mage
Counters Company is generally a midrange deck, which does contain some combo and go-wide elements in it. It is known for playing sticky creatures and big payoff spells like Collected Company or Chord of Calling to find those threats and junk up the battlefield. In order to do this fast, it plays manadorks along those bigger creatures. As for us, we can't compete with this race of creature build up onto the battlefield, since we don't run these payoff cards. For us it is important to snap those payoff cards before they get to resolve, which means: targeted discard. However, I would still treat this matchup like an attrition matchup, this means that cutting of some discard good. Since the deck is creature based, obviously, sweepers are phenominal here.
Liliana the Last Hope is usually very good in this matchup, because it can kill manadorks, shrink their threats while ticking up an heading towards a win condition on her own. Among the best cards available for us is definitely Anger of the Gods and Ensnaring Bridge. It will deal with the majority of their threats without them coming back, which is really good value. Note though, that some lists play Sigarda, Host of Herons which could potentially shut down Liliana of the Veil, and we cannot remove her through removal unfortunately. Speaking of which, LotV can sometimes be very bad, as you can't plus her safely and also her edict effect can be mediocre if you face Voice of Resurgence or pesky manadorks. With the inclusion of Vizier of Remedies the deck became more combo centered, which can sometimes just get you. Remember that you should always kill Devoted Druid first before you kill Vizier, since Druid as a topdeck wont be able to get the combo online right away due to summoning sickness.
Board Out
- Fatal Push
- Terminate
- Forked Bolt
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Blood Moon
- Fulminator Mage
- Molten Rain
- Collective Brutality
- Liliana of the Veil
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Wear // Tear
- Kolaghan's Command
- Anguished Unmaking
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Nihil Spellbomb
Jeskai Control has a really respectful and powerful endgame when unchecked. Jeskai mostly utilizes powerful Planeswalker like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and its signature manland Celestial Colonnade to finish opponents off. Jeskai is tough and challanging, but ultimately a good matchup since our CA is very high. Generally, if you want to increase your win percentage points against this MU, it not only comes down to sideboard correctly, it also depends on the piloting of the deck. Certain cards like additional copies of Dreadbore really help with dealing with those pesky planeswalkers. However, the biggest problem seems to be Snapcaster Mage, RIP and Jace/Teferi, hands down. Souls, Bedlam Reveler, Liliana of the Veil and single target discard are your greatest friends, alongside hard to deal with threats (like YP). You need them to use their resources to deal with your stuff, and eventually being left with a Reveler or Liliana of the Veil will grant you the win. In theory. Practically, this can be though to do. You want to put them on the backfoot as soon and as often as you can. Lastly, Liliana, the Last Hope is a real great card, as recursion of creatures is relevant and her being a planeswalker is a hard to deal with threat which can win a game on her own. She is just a must answer card, because the control player is usually not fast enough to win beforehand. We also bring in Fulminator Mage and Blood Moon, which are potential 2 for 1s and which will help restricting the Jeskai players mana so that eventually one threat of ours can stick. Be aware of Jace all the time. He can win the game very fast. It is a must answer card. One last interaction to note: One devastating trick the opponent might be able to do is to bounce our most powerful permanent in response to the plus ability from Liliana with a surprise Cryptic Command. If they for example bounce Lili in response, we have to discard her as its the only card in hand. Unless we really don't need that extra land, discard it wont hurt us too much, to protect our Liliana or whatever else.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Lingering Souls
- Dreadbore
- Forked Bolt
- Fatal Push
Board In
- Damping Sphere
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Leyline of the Void
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Surgical Extraction
- Collective Brutality
- Goblin Rabblemaster
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Zealous Persecution
- Engineered Explosives
- Anger of the Gods
Storm is a deck which has seen play in the past. Before the Gitaxian Probe ban, obviously this card was included in the deck and often builds using Pyromancer Ascension have been played. After the bans, a new version came up, including cards like the newly print Baral, Chief of Compliance and Gifts Ungiven. Pyromancer Ascension seemed to be disappeared as of now, the builds tend to focus more on Past in Flames now. So this means, our best cards against them are discard, GY hate and a quick threat. We also have a huge amount of single target removal to get rid of any Goblin Electromancer of Baral right away. Due to this, Storm usually is a good matchup. Removal is great, discard is great and a quick threat is great (Well, we haven't the best, but its alright).
The reason to bring in Sweepers like EE, is because their biggest threat against us is an early Empty the Warrens. A huge amount of small creatures is hard for us to answer. Before that, however, extra discard and GY hate comes in, those are the main priorities. Don't sideboard too much here if you don't have anything to bring in. Usually siding 3-4 cards should be sufficient. Side out a couple of clunky removal like Dreadbore, since experiences Storm players will side out all Electromancers and maybe Barals against you, to blank your removal. However, sometimes they could try to play mindgames and side them in and out, hoping you sided out removal. Be a little causios about this.
Board Out
- Fatal Push
- Blood Moon
- Liliana of the Veil
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Forked Bolt
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
- Kolaghan's Command
Board In
- Leyline of the Void
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Surgical Extraction
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Collective Brutality
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Fulminator Mage
Living End is generally a very tough matchup for us. Removal from us will certainly be blanked at some point due to creatures returning to the battlefield through Living End. Since removal is a big proportion of our deck, many cards just won't do enough generally. Obviously grinding and going for a longer game is not the best idea here. The best thing we can do preboard is using targeted discard to snap all their cascaders which could potentially buy us enough time to finish them off quickly with an early YP. Hard mulligan for some GY hate interaction. Leyline is an allstar in this matchup. Living End does not play much removal, which makes it so that leyline often sticks for a while. If you combine this with discard for cascaders, then Leyline can potentially take over the game. Surgical Extraction is a card I really like against Living End, as you can extract Living Ends from the yard. But I would not use this as primary GY hate for that matchup as it can be weak and sometimes does only extract one creature when there is a Living End on the stack. Also be aware of Faerie Macabre. That card can screw extractions up. The reason why I would bring in Fulminator is because you can also make use of Living End potentially, by getting as many creatures into the GY as possible. Try to really hard mulligan for some kind of interaction with their GY. Lastly, Bridge is a really good card to have since it prevents them from killing you. But ultimately its similar to Leyline.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Liliana of the Veil
- Kolaghan's Command
- Dreadbore
- Fatal Push
- Hazoret the Fervent
Board In
- Anger of the Gods
- Leyline of the Void
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Surgical Extraction
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Collective Brutality
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Grim Lavamancer
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Zealous Persecution
Dredge is a deck which operates on the graveyard and can be very explosive in a way, that you likely face a 10-15 power creature army as early as turn 2 or onward if things go well for them. Killing their creatures one by one is one thing, but does not solve the problem at all. Bloodghasts and Prized Amalgams tend to return back to the battlefield rather easily, which requires other measurements to beat them. Obviously, our single target removal are quite bad here. They can still win you games for sure, but it just doesn't feel good pushing a Bloodghast. The graveyard is what's the scary part. Therefore any form of Graveyard hate is great here (Leyline of the Void > Nihil Spellbomb > Surgical Extraction >). With Surgical, the goal here is to exile the right cards. When you do see only one dredger in the graveyard you want to exile the dredger, since you will prevent dredging most likely for the next draw step. If you see too many dredgers, this does not make much sense though. If, however, you see only a few creatures they can reanimate you want to exile the threats. Also, if they trigger a bloodghast or amalgam or narcomoeba, you want to exile it. If they don't have bloodghasts in the gy, but they dredged a narcomoeba and some amalgams, you want to exile the narcomoeba with its trigger on the stack in order to prevent amalgams hitting the battlefield. Next to gy hate, targeted discard in early turns is decent against them. If you can snap Cathartic Reunions, Faceless Lootings or Insulent Neonates, then you will slow the opponent down significantly. The last thing to keep in mind is their damage source in the form of Conflagrate. They will utilize Life from the Loam in order to gather a bunch of cards to discard to build up a huge conflagrate. A thing to note is that the spell is sorcery speed, which makes it so that the dredge player will have restricted possibilities to use it. But its still a threat which can potentially kill you out of nowhere, so always track life totals.
It is fine to bring in Liliana the Last Hope since she can help reducing the clock of the dredged creatures and buy potential turns in order to set up a wall of blockers or simply win by yourself. Anger of the Gods is of course the premium card to have for this matchup, and will always be welcomed. The matchup on its own is rather difficult and unfavoured, since half of your deck can get blanket or significantly leveraged in its powerlevel since they creatures of the dredge player will return again and again. That combined with its explosiveness often just means we have to operate with clunky hands and try to squeeze out wins. YP creating chump blockers though really help to generate needed time.
Board Out
- Forked Bolt
- Collective Brutality
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
- Inquisition of Kozilek
Board In
- Liliana of the Veil
- Crackling Doom
- Anguished Unmaking
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Fatal Push
- Engineered Explosives
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kolaghan's Command
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Fulminator Mage
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Nihil Spellbomb
Grixis Death Shadow is one of the most popular versions of DS decks out there. Playing this deck will require for you to decide, how to handle the matchup. You can either handle it as a tempo matchup and focus on finishing the game fast, or treat the deck like a grindy attrition based match, where you want to grind max. In my experience, changing the strategies depending on being on the play or draw grants the best results. Since we have a great source of creating needed time (YP), this matchup is more or less favourable. If you are a skilled pilot, this matchup is usually favoured. Grixis Shadow's strenghts ultimately are delve creatures and/or Snapcaster Mage. With your discard, in doubt, you want to target those cards. Do not burn your Pushs/Terminates on low impact snappies on the field, safe them for Tasigur or Gurmag Angler. LoTV is one of the best cards we have against them, for which reason you should watch out for Stubborn Denial.
Bringing in Gy hate is a good idea for that matchup. I personally like Nihil Spellbomb as my gy hate for that matchup, as it is not a bad topdeck. Next to this, removal and grindy cards are a good choice. Lastly, I think its not the worst to bring in Surgical, but I do think its not correct. The biggest argument for it is that the deck is very threatlight, and with Surgical you can extract those threats. But you can't guarantee hitting something relevant. Usually its a weak gy hate and a bad topdeck as well. I would keep my fingers from boarding it in.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Fatal Push
- Lightning Helix
- Terminate
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Liliana of the Veil
- Fulminator Mage
- Collective Brutality
- Molten Rain
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Wear // Tear
- Anguished Unmaking
- Kolaghan's Command
- Hazoret the Fervent
UW Control can be of the tougher matchups for us, depending on the skilllevel of both players. Reveler/Souls really helps to get ahead on CA though. The best thing we can do against the deck is attack their hand early and deploy a fast clock in the following turn. A more resiliant plan is to resolve a Liliana of the Veil and start stripping resources out of the UW Control player's hand. Kolaghan's Command is also really good vs Control, as it likely trades 2-for-1 at least. Try to really trade resources in your favor. The single card that makes the matchup favourable is Souls. It likely trades 2-for-1 as well and can go all the way sometimes.
Bringing in GY hate is not the best idea for that matchup. This deck often runs some copies of Rest in Piece by themselves and only a few Snapcaster. It shows that they don't rely on the graveyard like Grixis variants do. Bring in Fulminator for their Colonnades, Hazoret for obvious reasons (sticky threat), LtLH as threat and recursion, and Wear // Tear for their Azcanta/SS and Detention Spheres. I would not board out all Terminates, if you expect Gideon Jura. One devastating trick the opponent might be able to do is to bounce our most powerful permanent in response to the plus ability from Liliana with a surprise Cryptic Command. If they for example bounce Lili in response, we have to discard her as its the only card in hand. Unless we really don't need that extra land, discard it wont hurt us too much, to protect our Liliana or whatever else.
Board Out
- Manamorphose
- Thoughtseize
- Liliana of the Veil
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Inquisition of Kozilek (2)
Board In
- Engineered Explosives
- Fatal Push
- Anger of the Gods
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Grim Lavamancer
- Zealous Persecution
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Humans is a deck that recently popped up due to its consistant linear strategy of providing a real clock while being disruptive at the same time. Its deck only consisting of creatures and Vials to bring them in fast. This deck similarily operates like a Death and Taxes deck, but focusing on the Human archetype here. Generally, it can be very annoying if you get overrun by massive creatures fast. The strategy to follow here is that you need to be conservative with your lifetotals at all times, be on defense and chip in for dmg only when you can safely do so. As for sideboarding, bring in every card you have access to that can kill a creature.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Liliana of the Veil
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Thoughtseize
- Fatal Push
- Collective Brutality
Board In
- Leyline of the Void
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Surgical Extraction
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kolaghan's Command
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Zealous Persecution
- Engineered Explosives
Well, the mirror. This is an intense grindfest. The game often swings back and forth and ultimately it comes down to how many bedlem revler you draw. Looting therefore is really powerful since it lets you dig deeper to find your revelers. Generally, play YP only if you can guarantee a token or if you pari it with discard. You need to squeeze the max out of every card and a simple 1 for 1 trade isnt enough. Bring in all GY hate you have, this is very important. Also bring in Surgical if you have it. Normally, in any grindy matchup, Surgical is really bad, but this particular matchup is special, as it so heavily centered around the GY. If you get to extract Revelver or Looting/Souls, it gets very hard to win for your opponent. Lastly, Hazoret is a bomb in that matchup, because usually the opponent is not able to remove Hazoret effectively.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Fatal Push
- Terminate
- Forked Bolt
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Collective Brutality
- Surgical Extraction
- Liliana of the Veil
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Crackling Doom
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kolaghan's Command
- Wear // Tear
- Hazoret the Fervent
UR Breach is essentially a Control deck which has a surprize finisher in the form or Through the Breach + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Basically it is easy to disrupt, since it is a 2 card combo. We have plenty of discard to stop them long enough, that our YP/Reveler/Souls can ride to victory. I believe this matchup is favourable, the 2 things you have to keep in mind is cryptic and the combo. If you manouver through the games carefully you should be fine most of the time. Sometimes the combo can get ya, but thats variance and just the game. I think it looks more scary than it actually is.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Liliana of the Veil
- Collective Brutality
- Inquisition of Kozilek (max 2)
- Bedlam Reveler (1 copy)
Board In
- Leyline of the Void
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Surgical Extraction
- Anger of the Gods
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Crackling Doom
- Kolaghan's Command
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Hazoret the Fervent
BR Hollow One is a tough matchup for us in general. However, I believe we are slightly favoured. GY hate is good here, as well as targeted discard for their enablers, which are the mentioned Burning Inquiry as well as Goblin Lore. Sometimes you will face 2 Hollow Ones before you even put your first land into play, thats just the deck, we cant do much about it. Having extra hard removal in the form of KCommand or Wear // Tear can help here, but its still tough. Usually the preboard games play out quite a bit differently than postboard games. Young Pyromancer is a very important card in that matchup. Generally, it mitigates the sheer endless grinding possibility of Hollow One due to their Bloodghasts/Phoenixes and eventually hardcast Street Wraiths. Hollow One as a deck can grind pretty hard, most people don't see that. Thats why this deck is strong overall, it has the possibility of having explosives starts to overwhelm the opponent, but if that doesn't work, they can just switch to grinding mode. We generally can grind harder though. Souls/YP and Revelver holds strong against their recursive threats. So the most important thing to do is survive the early game. You can cut one Reveler as a hedge against Leyline of the Void.
Board Out
- Fatal Push
- Forked Bolt
- Blood Moon
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Liliana of the Veil
- Collective Brutality
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kolaghan's Command
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Fulminator Mage
- Anguished Unmaking
Grixis Control is another control variant like UW Control or Jeskai Control which uses powerful and impactful cards like Cryptic Command and Jace, the Mind Sculptor to get ahead in resources and grind us out. Grixis Control is a little different than the white based Control decks though. First of all, the inclusion of black leaves them out of Path, Detention Sphere and Celestial Colonnade. As first consequence through this, Blood Moon and Fulminator Mage get weaker in that matchup, but Kitchen Finks gets more powerful. Black grants them Fatal Push, Kolaghan's Command, Terminate and discard spells. Due to KCommand, GY hate from our side become a little bit better compared to the other white based variants. I would include this facts in your priority for sideboarding. Against UW and Jeskai we bring in all Fulminator and only then Spellbombs. As for Grixis, I like bringing in all Spellbombs first, and fill up left over slots with Fulminators. Besides that, the matchup is very similar to the other variants. Attack the GY more, and rely more on Hazoret. Rely less on Fulminator though. One last interaction to note: If you have an uncontested Liliana of the Veil in your hand, and the opponent kept one card in his hand. So logically, you want to plus Liliana. If your own draw this turn is an excess land, consider to dont play it before plussing LoTV! Why? One devastating trick the opponent might be able to do is to bounce our most powerful permanent in response to the plus ability from Liliana with a surprise Cryptic Command. If they for example bounce Lili in response, we have to discard her as its the only card in hand. Unless we really don't need that extra land, discard it wont hurt us too much, to protect our Liliana or whatever else.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Forked Bolt
- Kolaghan's Command
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Lingering Souls (max 2)
Board In
- Liliana of the Veil
- Wear // Tear
- Collective Brutality
- Engineered Explosives
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Anger of the Gods
Ponza is a prizon-deck style of a deck, that uses lock cards like Blood Moon or Trinisphere to lock the opponent out of the game. Besides that, Ponza goes after mana, which is an attackable point for every modern deck. However, land destruction spells cost at least 3 mana in modern, which makes the deck generally very slow and clunky. To leverage this fact, they run mana accelerators in the form of Bird of Paradise, Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. With those cards a turn 2 Blood Moon is certainly possible. Now, because of this fact, the deck can potentially get us and lock us out of the game if they hit a turn 2 BM or start to destroy our lands from turn 2 on. Bloodbraid Elf from them can sometimes result in pretty impactful tempo swings. Luckily, we are not that susceptible to their cards. We are mostly cold to a turn 2 BM and we can operate on a low land count if they destroy 1-2 lands. The next point is, that the deck can loose to itself sometimes. Drawing redundant copies of Blood Moon and their mana accelerators can hurt them pretty badly. Liliana of the Veil is fantastic in this matchup (dont get biased due to the double black, if she sticks, you are in a great shape). The plan for this matchup is to always kill the bird on turn 1. If they happen to have Utopia Sprawl (the scariest mana acceleration spell for us, since we likely cannot kill it consistantly if not with Wear // Tear) we need to have discard to take away their scariest threat which could come down on turn 2. Always fetch for basics, and only keep hands which can interact from turn 1 on. The key to beating this deck is usually surviving the first set of turns. If you then get to stick a YP/Reveler or Liliana of the Veil, usually we will be able to win from there. They have a lot of bad topdecks as opposed to us. Deal with their initial threats, and then just play the grindy game.
Board Out
- Dreadbore
- Terminate
- Fatal Push
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Forked Bolt
- Collective Brutality
- Lightning Helix
- Lightning Bolt
Board In
- Engineered Explosives
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Crackling Doom
- Liliana of the Veil
- Wear // Tear
- Ansguished Unmaking
- Blood Moon
- Hazoret the Fervent
Bogles is a matchup which usually was not very present in the meta, nor was it very good. With the unbanning of BBE and the rise of Jund, as well as its restructuring of the deck, Bogles became a respectable choice to beat up on Jund, as well as any potential JTMS decks. Due to us playing mostly 2 EE in the SB this matchup is not that tough. Things like discard, LoTV, Wear // Tear and Bridge can help dealing with the giant threats Bogles slams onto the board quite fast. But EE is really a nightmare card for Bogles. As for technical play, watch out for fetchlands, as they represent Dryad Arbor to nullify our Liliana of the Veil -2.
Board Out
- Blood Moon
- Liliana of the Veil
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Dreadbore
Board In
- Fatal Push
- Grim Lavamancer
- Collective Brutality
- Zealous Persecution
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Crackling Doom
- Kolaghan's Command
- Wear // Tear
- Goblin Rabblemaster
Infect is a matchup were you really want to be able to play correctly against the opponent. If you don't keep your mind focused the whole time, Infect players can win out of nowhere without you even noticing it before it is to late. Generally, it is absolutely not the right thing to tap yourself out against Infect, unless you can safely do so. Generally, you can safely tap out if there is no infect threat on the opponent's side of the battlefield. The reason to tap out is probably to deploy a Liliana of the Veil or a clock, in order to start removing the Infect players resources or kill them. Its ok to take the risk and tap out, if you just be aware of it and know what you are doing. This will take practise and time will tell what to do in a given situation. Besides this, obviously targeted discard is amazing in this matchup. Taking some threats or pump spells alongside knowing what is in the opponents hand is absolutely great. For this reason we want to maximize all targeted discard we have. Generally, we want to do the same with efficient removal. We want to be able to quickly remove all threats from the opponent, and, if we can remove the creatures at first sight (for example, if they tap out turn 2 for a Blighted Agent, immediatly Bolt it if you can). However, be careful here! There is one aspect which is very important: Almost never ever, attempt to kill infect creatures during combat. This will often end up in a crazy mess and you see yourself having 10 poising counters after the dust settles. Why? Because, due to their protection spells, they can make use out of their pump spells and actually turning the pump into poison counters. Its almost always better to just take the single poison counter from a 1/1 Inkmoth than forcing the issue and maybe tapping out for an Bolt and Terminate (maybe getting around one protection spell through this, but not the second one!). Just kill the creatures at the end of the turn, and force them to use their pump/protection spells, which will result in not being effective at all, its just a spell to protect the creature. You are fine with it. If you trade a Bolt for a Blossoming Defense, its absolutely fine at the end of turn. But not during combat! In short: Generally, during combat, let the infect player start the interaction. It effectively means you need one less card to deal with their cards. The person who begins the interaction is disadvantaged.
Board Out
- Liliana of the Veil
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Thoughtseize
Board In
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Fulminator Mage
- Grim Lavamancer
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Anger of the Gods
- Engineered Explosives
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Fatal Push
- Crackling Doom
- Anguished Unmaking
- Collective Brutality
- Blood Moon
- Nihil Spellbomb
GW Company, also known as GW Value Town which was made popular by Todd Stevens, is a midrange deck similar to Counters Company, but focusing on a more grindy approach, skipping any combos and also black as a colour, to simply focus on sticky and grindy threats both in green and in white colours. Compared to Counters Company, we have way more trouble dealing with the creatures. Cards like Knight of the Reliquary, Courser of Kruphix, Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgance all make our cheap Bolts and Pushes very awkward. In order to effectively deal with one of those threats cleanly, we often have to rely on our hard removal and miser removal like Terminate, Dreadbore and Unmaking. Due to that, we cannot effectively execute our gameplan in removing everything from the board, trading 1-for-1 and win through CA. GW Company is a deck that hardly cares about discard as well. They have so many 2-for-1 cards that we will most likely run out of resources before we can remove every threat they have. The presence of Collected Company is just the final straw for us. All in all the matchup is very hard for us. Clunky cards like LoTV (due to the presence of mana dorks and sticky threats) are easy cuts for that matchup. After that, since it is an attrition based game, bad topdecks in the form of discard is what we should cut. Leaving in TS is alright though to snag devastating CoCos.
Board Out
- Forked Bolt
- Collective Brutality
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Liliana of the Veil
Board In
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Fulminator Mage
- Blood Moon
- Molten Rain
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Fatal Push
- Anguished Unmaking
- Crackling Doom
RG Eldrazi emerged just before the unbanning of Jace and BBE as it won the last GP for the old banlist: GP Lyon. It is a deck not utilizing the tron lands, unlike Eldrazi Tron, but instead relies on Grove of the Burnwillows, Eldrazi Temple, Karplusan Forest and Nible Hierarch to generate mana. This deck can be very explosive as it generally wants to play turn 1 mana dork into turn 2 three drop or even four drop sometimes. We need to interact very early on in order to stop that. One mana removal is what I value very highly for that reason. Killing the dork on turn 1 will slow the opponent down quite a bit. Having multiple Fatal Pushs in the deck as well as Terminates help for this matchup. In general, Hazoret is one of our best creature as it can block Reality Smasher. Just be aware of Dismember though. Since there are many creatures, some small ones some medium sized ones and some big ones, LoTV is not at its best here, particularly since they will bring in Baloths against you.
Board Out
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Dreadbore
- Fatal Push
- Collective Brutality
- Forked Bolt
- Lingering Souls
Board In
- Stony Silence
- Wear // Tear
- Kolaghan's Command
- Anguished Unmaking
- Leyline of the Void
- Surgical Extraction
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Damping Sphere
- Liliana of the Veil
- Anger of the Gods
- Goblin Rabblemaster
- Hazoret the Fervent
Krark-Clan Ironworks Combo (short: KCI) is a Combo deck utilizing Krark-Clan Ironworks alongside recursion engines (Myr Retriever and Scrap Trowler in order to kill opponents using recursive Pyrite Spellbomb or playing hard to deal with threats like Wurmcoil Engine. The deck is in general susceptible to discard/destruction and GY hate. Discard alone usually is not very good, since they have lots of card draw to draw their pieces they need again and they can bring back artifacts from their GY. In general, you don't want both KCI and Scrap Trowler to be on the BF at the same time. If possible, prevent this by destroying KCI with KCommand or killing the creature in response. Otherwise they could just go off and draw into their wincons they need. A good way to disrupt their combo is to exile their Artifacts with Spellbombs/Leylines or Surgicals. However, still, the most important thing to have against the deck is a fast clock. A turn 2 YP is therefore always a strong play. There is an article out there showing how to beat KCI: Click.
Board Out
- Liliana of the Veil
- Blood Moon
- Hazoret the Fervent
- Kolaghan's Command
- Lingering Souls
Board In
- Anger of the Gods
- Engineered Explosives
- Zealous Persecution
- Grim Lavamancer
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Fatal Push
- Collective Brutality
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Elves is essentially a combo deck using massive amounts of creatures in order to overrun their opponents through payoff cards like Ezuri, Renegade Leader. It is important to not fall behind and take lifetotals too loosely in this matchup, you can loose out of nowhere. Similar to the Humans matchup, always be on defense and get in for chip dmg if possible. But the most important goal in this matchup to kill payoff cards on sight. Those typically are: Ezuri, Regenade Leader, Elvish Archdruid or Heritage Druid. Always kill their Llanovar Elf on turn 1. It really slows them down significantly. We want to prevent them powering out all elves onto the bf quickly, since things can get very ugly then. Concerning sweepers, be aware of Chord of Calling and a possible Selfless Spirit. It can really blow you out and cost you the game.
Board Out
- Liliana of the Veil
- Inquisition of Kozilek
- Thoughtseize
Board In
- Fatal Push
- Grim Lavamancer
- Engineered Explosives
- Anger of the Gods
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Crackling Doom
- Anguished Unmaking
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Zealous Persecution
- Collective Brutality
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Blood Moon
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Hazoret, the Fervent
- Fulminator Mage
Bant Knightfall is a deck which utilizes the Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm combo to kill an opponent through a one turn kill. The combo is only really relevant in game 1 for us. Postboard, the deck will side the enchantments out and focus on grinding and playing a typical midrange game. In that sense the deck has many annoying threats which are hard to deal with such as Voice of Resurgance. Since they play many small creatures, and many of them being mana dorks, LoTV is quite bad in this matchup. Next you want to focus in removal and threats, play the simple midrange game and grind the opponent out. Therefore siding out discard makes sense.
Board Out
- Liliana of the Veil
- Thoughtseize
- Manamorphose
- Kolaghan's Command
Board In
- Anger of the Gods
- Engineered Explosives
- Collective Brutality
- Grim Lavamancer
- Fatal Push
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Wear // Tear
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Blood Moon
- Zealous Persecution
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Bant Spirits becomes more popular due to the printing of Supreme Phantom which granted the archetype a powerful 2 drop lord. In general, this deck has some tempo elements in it through cards like Spell Queller, Rattlechains and Collective Company. Due to this, we don't want to necessarily rely on clunky grindy spells, since one timely Spell Queller can be a huge blowout. We want max efficiency and therefore a low curve. Thats also the reason I like discard spells in the matchup, you can interact with their flashcards in a cheap way. Since most of their threats are flying, you cant rely on YP to jam the board and generate enough blockers. I would try to play carefully and be on the defense most of the time. Be aware of Mausoleum Wanderer and Rattlechains shenanigans. Usually it is correct to directly bolt the Wanderer if you feel it harms you. The same goes for Selfless Spirit. The reason we bring in Wear // Tear is due to them having RIP and Worship in the SB, which they might bring in against you. Lastly, Manamorphose is quite bad since they have Thalia in their sideboard. Plus it can get hit badly by Wanderer and Queller.
Board Out
- Liliana of the Veil
- Bedlam Reveler (2-3 copies)
- Collective Brutality
- Thoughtseize
- Blood Moon
- Forked Bolt
- Manamorphose
Board In
- Leyline of the Void
- Nihil Spellbomb
- Surgical Extraction
- Anger of the Gods
- Engineered Explosives
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Zealous Persecution
- Collective Brutality
- Grim Lavamancer
- Fatal Push
- Liliana, the Last Hope
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Bridgevine is a deck which entered the scene of competitive modern magic through Stitcher's Supplier. This enabler quickly enables their strategy in milling a bunch of Bridges from Below or Vengevines, in order to create a bunch of 2/2 zombies or bring vengevines back. Their clock is quite fast since they do run Goblin Bushwhacker in order to give their creatures haste and a buff to quickly kill the opponent. Compared to a deck of Hollow One it can be more explosive, but in my mind lacks a bit of grinding ability in the lategame (at least if you get to remove the Bridges from the GY, which is not too hard). However, their plan is to quickly overwhelm the opponent before they get to deal with the bridges and vengevines. Typically it doesn't matter for them if the bridges get exiled alongside a possible chump block from your side if it means you are either already dead or dead in the next 1-2 turns. So this matchup is all about surviving the early game. The longer the game goes, the better of a chance we do have, since we can easily deal with their recurring Gravecrawler. The problem is that our 1/1s from YP do not match well with their 2/2s. Discard is really good vs. them (except for Thoughtseize), which could slow them down, as its all about the enablers. Targets are Looting, Insulate Neonate, Stitcher's Supplier and Cathartic Reunion mostly. Also of course GY hate (Leyline especially) is great alongside a cheap way to deal with their tokens: EE. One intersting interaction to have in mind is if you face opposing Leyline of the Voids: If you have pyro tokens or souls tokens dying when Leyline is on the BF, it will still remove Bridge from Below in the opponents GY, since Leyline does not exile tokens, it only exiles cards (which tokens aren't). Also be aware that Bridge checks upon resolution, which means you can prevent a 2/2 zombie hitting the BF by a Surgical.
"Heavy light flooded across the landscape, cloaking everything in deep crimson."
In this last section of the primer, I want to point out some aspects about technical play of certain cards, how to handle them and also covering some tips and tricks here. In Mardu, sequencing is one of the most important aspects when it comes to playing the deck well. Really don't mess up stuff just because you did them in the wrong order. The following tips should help you avoid this, as I am confidant that these mistakes happened already before (myself included).
- Discard vs. Bolt?: The question is, if the opponent has played a turn 1 creature, should we use our turn 1 to bolt it or to play a discard spell? In most cases, always go for the bolt first. Turn 1 creatures in modern are often mana dorks or aggressive creatures which either help the opponent to quickyl ramp into much more threating stuff or to beat you down quickly. We should stop both those things by bolting the creature right away.
- Kolaghan's Command: One of the nicest interactions we can have with KCommand and our opponent, is when the opponent is in topdeck mode and draws his card for the turn. In the draw step, you can actually cast KCommand and let the opponent discard the freshly drawn card right away, often times effectively time walking yourself. Also, know the interaction of Kolaghan's Command with an opposing Spellskite: If you want to destroy Spellskite (destroy target artifact) and also want to deal 2 dmg to another opposing creature, spellskite can redirect the 2 dmg from Kolaghan's Command also to itself. Be aware of this.
- Kolaghan's Command and Regeneration: How does KCommand interact with regeneration? This might be a strange thing to ask, but it could matter in specific cases. Lets say you are facing Affinity and your opponent has both a Steel Overseer and Welding Jar on the BF. You would like to kill the Overseer because otherwise you will be dead to the added counters on the next turn. One nice way of doing that through the Welding Jar is by using KCommand. Cast it and choose deal 2 dmg as well as destroy target artifact on the Overseer. If the opponent pops the Welding Jar to give the Overseer a regeneration shield, then KCommand still destroys it. Kinda makes sense, but note the important nuances of this interaction: This is only possible because the "destroy artifact" mode comes before the "deal 2 dmg" mode. If the order of those modes are switched, then the Overseer would survive! And the reason of this is, that state-based actions are not performed during the resolving of a spell as well as the fact, that regeneration removes all dmg applied. So, if the Overseer has a regeneration shield on it and it first gets "destroyed" then the shield will pop and it regenerates the Seer. If you deal now 2 dmg to it afterwards, the 2 dmg will be marked on the Seer after the spell resolves and it will die. However, if it would be the other way round, and you deal 2 dmg to the seer first, it would not be destroyed right away, as it only "marks" 2 dmg and waits for state based actions to resolve. If the actual destruction comes after the dmg, the regeneration shiled will pop, and now it will clear all dmg marked to the creature, resulting in a surviving Overseer. So remember, the ordering of how the modes are applied matters (which is simpy the order of how they are listed in the spell)
- Faithless Looting: Looting as a card is straight forward ability-wise, but can be quite difficult to play effectively. In general, I would always wait on casting Looting until you know what you are up against. Exceptions to this rule is if you have great discard targets (like Souls), need to find landdrops or if you have the opportunity to power out a Reveler. Don't always play Looting asap. Keep it in your hand as a resource, it is impactful enough if you cast it later as well. As a general rule though, Looting should be used differently depending on what matchup we are facing. If you are up against a grindy matchup (like the mirror, GBx decks or Control) then usually its better to sandbag Looting if you really don't have anything you want to discard. Don't fall into the trap and Looting in an attrition based game when it means you will ditch some valuable CA cards. Also be aware of CA in general. Sometimes its better to not loot even if you have Souls in hand. The simple reason is that Souls has a fron half as well, which might be more useful for you in a particular situation. On the other side, playing against combo, aggro or Big Mana decks means you won't have much time to fully develop your CA cards and gain full advantage of them. Mardu is an efficient deck, but modern is a fast format nonetheless. Looting here has the task of finding you specific answers you need. The good thing about this is that usually in these kind of matchups you have more dead cards to discard anyway (at least game 1) which means you have additional reason to fire up Looting more early than late here. It should help you to find specific hate cards needed for that matchup (like Blood Moon against Tron)
- Looting or Discard turn 1?: This question basically has been answered in the point above. In general, discard is always the correct move. There are some exceptions of course, but speaking in a general way, you should be playing discard first (even if you have kept a one lander including Looting and hand disruption).
- What colours to make with Manamorphose?: Often times, it can be tough to decide which mana you want to produce if you cast Manamorphose. After all you don't know what you will draw. If you have 3 lands in play, and one of them is a Blackcleave Cliffs, the safest you can do is produce 1 red and 1 white mana. That way you have access to any mana needed to cast any given spell in the deck besides Liliana of the Veil or Liliana, the Last Hope. In other cases, you have to differentiate on what is most likely to be drawn with Manamorphose that I can cast vs. what I want to draw with Manamorphose that I want to cast. If you are in need of a specific card in order to stay in the game (like a souls for needed chump blockers) then producing white is a safe option. Maybe you didn't draw the needed Souls, but it was still the correct choice, since the other card you drew also didn't help you if you were able to cast it.
- Liliana of the Veil: You really don't need to activate Liliana's abilities every turn. Its totally fine to just let Liliana stay if you need all the cards in your hand.
- What to take with discard on turn 1?: This is question, which is very hard to answer. If you play Jund for a long time, you will get a feeling for what to take in given matchup. In short, it depends on the cards you have in your hand (e.g. if I have removal for a creature in my opponents hand, its not necessarily needed to discard the creature), on the cards which are on the battlefield (is my opponent manascrewed? Do I need to take an expensive card out of my opponent's hand? Or does my opponent have a powerful spell which interacts with a permanent on the field which could harm me (Like Become Immense + an Infect creature)) as well as the strategy of the opponent's deck (taking key cards for a certain combo etc.). Its hard to find the correct decision, but practise and experience do help a lot for this! As a general order of priority, I would suggest the following:
- Take the card you can't deal with
- Take the card that's next on the opponents manacurve
- Take removal that kills Young Pyromancer
- Fetchlands: Generally, Bloodstained Mire is our best fetchland since it can get both our basic lands. If it comes down to getting any shockland in our deck, its doesn't matter which fetchland to use (Either Mire, Arid or Flats). So, if your intentions are to get a shockland anyway, then always use other fetchlands first for that. Think about the colour requirements we have in our deck. We want to have double red to be able to cast Revelver. Don't mess this up by fetching for the wrong lands in the first few turns and then you are stranded with a couple of tapped red mana sources (like a Blackcleave Cliffs) which prevent you from casting a potentially needed card. I would recommend that you start thinking through your fetching sequencing during looking at the opening hand. Does my hand get all colours I need in time? Does it produce a mana every turn? Do lands enter the BF tapped at some point? Fetchland have become a lot more valuable due to Fatal Push and Jace, the Mind Sculptor (if they fateseal you). Safe them if you are not wanting to thin your deck!
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet + Anger of the Gods: I think that some people might not know the interaction of Kalitas and Anger of the Gods. If you have Kalitas on board and play Anger of the Gods, with the intention of exiling the opponents board and getting a bunch of tokens, then I have to let you down here. If two replacement effects occur at the same time, the owner of the cards which the effects both have an effect on gets to choose which effect will take place! So, simply said, your opponent owns the creatures and therefore the opponent decides which exiling effect will take place. Obviously they will choose the one from Anger to prevent you getting a bunch of tokens from Kalitas.
- Fatal Push: You are able to target any creature with Fatal Push, not only possible ones due to the current revolt status. So Fatal Push can target a Tasigur for example. But due to its if clause, the creature just won't be destroyed. Most of the time this is not of technical interest, but sometimes you might need to get an instant into the graveyard to get Reveler into play sooner or simply make a token from YP. So Fatal Push checks the CMC only upon resolution.
- Liliana, the Last Hope: Liliana can help you win through an Ensnaring Bridge, since you can shrink your own creatures to be able to attack. Another thing is, if you somehow get to activate Lilis +1 on an Inkmoth Nexus or Blinkmoth Nexus remember that the -2/-1 effect remains until your next turn. That means, when you pass back to your opponent, the Nexi will turn into lands again and stay. However, during that turn, if the opponent decide to activate that Nexus again, it will die as a result of state based effects. Keep that in mind.
- Engineered Explosives: If you want to cast EE for 1, but your opponent has a Chalice on 1, you can just pay 2 mana of the same colour to get the same result. Similar to this, if you opponent has a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in play, if you announce X=1 with EE, but paying 2 different colours of mana for the taxing cost, you will still get 2 counters on EE.
- Liliana of the Veil + Cryptic Command: Be very careful when you plus Lili against a Control deck when you are emtpy handed. In response to her activation, they can Cryptic bounce Lili, which results in we having to discard her. That can also happen to any other permanent which might be important for us.
- Terminating the Colonnade: If you want to kill an opposing Celestial Colonnade, do it at the beginning of combat. If the opponent wants to counter it using a Mana Leak by tapping the Colonnade, they can at least not attack that turn.
- "Thoughtseize You" by Reid Duke. A great article evolving around what to take with discard, which is one of the key disciplines when playing Mardu. Every Mardu player should have read this article.
- "Who's the Beatdown" by Michael Flores. This is the article which is considered to be the fundamental article of magic. Maybe its the best article in the whole history of competitive Magic. Its about your role in the current status of the game. Knowing when you need to attack and when you need to defend, is crucial when playing Mardu, yet any deck even. There are also follow up articles, "Eight Core Principles of Who's the Beatdown" also by Michael Flores, as well as "Who's the Beatdown II" by Zvi Mowshowitz. Both these articles are also great reads and I can only recommend reading them.
- "Technical Play" by Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. Its a really great article about the term Technical Play itself and what it encompasses.
- "The False Tempo Archetype" by Gerry Thompson. This is a great article about the tempo archetype and how it is easy to misunderstand them and therefore play badly against them.
- "Level One: The Full Course" by Reid Duke. Its pretty basic stuff linked here, but its still worth mentioned and to have a look at. I specifically want to point out "The Metagame", which is a great article describing how to identify, handle and fight a certain metagame in magic. Specifically for Mardu, this is very important to understand.
- "How many coloured manasources do you need to consistantly cast your spells?" by Frank Karsten: A great article I personally refer to many times. When building a manabase, this is fundamentally important, but is often overlooked by many people. Manabases tend to get greedier and greedier over time, which might lead to frustration due to easily avoidable losses caused by a bad manabase. Don't be that guy, always put enough coloured sources in your deck! An update to the original article was also made: "How many mana sources do you need to consistantly cast your spells - a guilds of ravnica update" by Frank Karsten. This is the new version of the mana source article and should be referred to when talking about mana bases.
- "How many lands do you need to consistantly hit your land drops?" by Frank Karsten, is a follow up article in the "How many?" series which is a great and important tool to have in mind when it comes down to basic deckbuilding.
- "Tempo and Card Advantage" by Eric: When playing Mardu, we are often dealing with the term "Card Advantage". But what does it actually mean and how can you abuse it? Read this article for more information about it. Further there is an article by Michael Flores which explaines Virtual Card Advantage and when it is mistaken as Card Advantage: "The End of Virtual Card Advantage" by Michael Flores.
- "Playing to win versus playing not to loose" by PVDR: This article is closely related to "Who's the Beatdown", and explains, what you should do, in order to win a difficult match in time. Some matches will end in extra turns, and often times you have the option to play for the win or play not to loose. Great read there.
- "Tight Plays" by Jeremy Neeman: A great article explaining the term "Tight Play" what is often referred to by us Mardu players. Another great article is about taking risks at the right time: "Risky Move" by Jeremy Neeman. Both articles are also very useful and important when playing Mardu.
- "6 Tips to Play Faster" by PVDR, a great article which helps to avoid get timed often. Sometimes we tend to go into extra turns, for which reason this is useful information.
- "Thoughtseizes and Fatal Pushes, Part I" by Reid Duke, is a series of articles that evaluate how to best utilize Thoughtseize and Fatal Push in the current state of modern (As of end 2017) this is generally a great way to enhance ones piloting ability and interesting read.
- "Understanding Standings, Part I: Tournament Structure (The Basics)" by Reid Duke, is a series of articles that explains how a typical tournament is executed. It is imperative to know how standings, pairings etc. work, to know best how you can advance and finish with a better record.
- "3 Tips to Mulligan Smarter" by PVDDR, is a great article about mulligan decisions. He explains in a sufficient way, why mulliganing is never only a matter of which 7 seven or lower cards you have in your hand, but also a huge matter in other contexts as well.
- "What did happen and what could happen" by Reid Duke, is a mind opening article for every long time Mardu player. Maybe at some point you startet autopiloting the deck and didn't give decicions enough time to reconsider? Give this article a read.
- "How many copies of any given card should you put in your deck" by Frank Karsten, is a follow up article to the "how many" series Frank made and talks about how many copies of a given card you need to have in order to draw one or multiples by a given turn. Very important resource when it comes to deckbuilding!
- "Creating a Fearless Magical Inventory" by Sam Stoddard, is a really great article showing the trap an experienced player can fall into. Ego can be a very bad thing, and really hurt your gameplan. I really recommend giving this article a read.
- "Coping With Loosing" is a podcast with sports psychologist Will Jonathan, Lance Austin and BBD. Its a great article to understand everything about loosing and its state in the game.
- The articles of Will Jonathan are a great source of understanding everything about the personal mental game within magic. They explain how you should deal with things such as bad luck, loosing, ego and sportsmanship. Great resource which is certainly helpful beyond magic as well.
- "How many games do you need for statistical significance" by Frank Karsten, is another article in the "How many" series. It greatly shows that results should always been taken with a grain of salt, and when talking about matchup win%, one should really have a feeling what 5 % up or down means. You may be surprized.
- "Getting a read isn't enough" by Reid Duke. This article greatly illustrates a good pathway how to deal with mental game information you might have gathered over the course of a game. Very valuable information and a must read. Also have a look at the follow up article: "How to smell blood and level up your game".
At this point, I want to hugely thank our predecessor and former preserver of our Mardu guide Zomfshark. Zomfshark provided amazing work on the guide, and I am honored, to take over the primer. With great motivation I want to continue Zomfshark's work and want give big credit for what Zomfshark did! Thank you!
The link to the old Mardu Primer can be found here: Zomfshark's Mardu Primer
The link to the old Mardu Primer can be found here: Zomfshark's Mardu Primer
1
Topdeck's happen. That is one of the main problems with discard spells when compared to counter-magic --- you cannot stop a top-deck. With all the affinity, merfolk, junk running around your meta game you might want to up the sweepers to 2. Maybe try an engineered explosives if you have it. Or just put in an additional damnation, wrath of god, or day of judgment.
You could put a sweeper mainboard to have better game 1 matchups. I wouldn't recommend this for an unknown meta though.
3
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/773189-ubx-tezzeret-agent-of-bolas-control
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/571123-modern-esper-draw-go
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/511682-blue-moon-ur-blood-moon-shackles-control
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/678769-uw-control
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/579970-buw-aggro-control-esper-midrange
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/221769-lantern-control
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/603567-grixis-control
There are many more decks. Tron is actually considered a control deck also.
UW or grixis (BUR) have been doing well recently.
1
Turn 1 discard is never risky. It helps us plan out our remaining turns and we can remove their best card from their hand. It is amazing if they mulligan and keep a shaky hand. Discard through thoughtseize or inquisition of kozilek is one of the main reasons to run B.
Phyrexian metamorph is horrible when we don't have a board presence. I would rather play something else.
Thanks for the nice sideboard guide! I do have a few comments/questions:
Infect
You should board in warping wail rather than a sorcery speed removal (declaration in stone) and a card that cannot hit lands (ratchet bomb)
Affinity
Zealous persecution is great in this matchup. Looking at your decklist I would try something like this:
Out: relic x4, thoughtseize x2, iok x2, go for the throat
In: ratchet, disenchant, zealous, declaration, pithing, languish, stony x2, damnation x1
Soul sisters
Discard is not as great in this matchup. All of their creatures have such a low CMC that they just dump their hand in the first couple of turns. I would side out the relics before matter reshaper. Bring in that disenchant to take care of honor of the pure.
Why do you bring in warping wail for blue moon?
You should try out a worship in the side sometime. Some decks cannot beat it.
Sadly it is not for us. It would be good in a bw deadguy ale brew. I was hoping for a -3/-3 3CMC sweeper instead. That would be great against zoo decks.
The worst part about this card is that now we know damnation will not be reprinted.
1
Your first point is exactly why I haven't had a high mana curve and I am glad that you are finding that matter reshaper preforms well. It is a great card against aggro and other midrange decks.
Last night, I went 3-0-1 in a local modern event with 11 people. I used to run languish in my sideboard but I recently sold them since they went up in value. I really, really like languish as the primary sweeper and I am going to get them back once they dip in price again.
Here is my decklist:
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Matter Reshaper
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
Artifacts (3)
3 Relic of Progenitus
Sorcery (9)
4 Lingering Souls
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
Instant (4)
4 Path to Exile
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Land (24)
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Marsh Flats
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Godless Shrine
2 Shambling Vent
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Wastes
1 Fetid Heath
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Day of Judgment
2 Disenchant
1 Engineered explosives
2 Stony Silence
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Warping Wail
1 Rest in peace
1 Zealous persecution
2 Pithing needle
Match 1 :: Bye
All stars :: Free win!
Match 2 :: UWR control [2-0]
All stars :: Discard spells, tidehollow / displacer combo, lingering souls
This was an easy matchup with all of the active discard and lingering souls.
Match 3 :: Bushwacker Zoo [2-0]
Out :: Liliana of the Veil x2, Relic x2
In :: Blessed alliance x2, Engineered Explosives, Day of Judgement.
All stars :: Discard spells, path to exile, relic / wasteland strangler combo
I have played against this guy many times with BW midrange in modern and it is a tough match. The game is pretty much decided by turn 4. If we can stabilize and lay down a thought-knot or reality smasher (which are really hard for them to kill) we are going to win. But this deck is very explosive and the matchup feels like a lottery. Either they have a very explosive start and win or we have the correct cards in our hand.
You ever have those matchups where the opponent has all of the correct cards for everything you lay. Well I was that person in this matchup. I always feel a little lucky when I win against this deck.
Match 4 :: RG Tron, intentional draw [2-0]
Out :: Liliana of the Veil x2, Relic x3
In :: Pithing needle x2, Anguished Unmaking, 2 other cards I don't remember
All stars :: Pithing needle, hitting matter reshaper on turn 3.
I flat out destroyed tron. I swear it was a fluke, but I really like pithing needle in this matchup. Game 1 he kept a really risky hand and I was able to apply a quick clock (matter reshaper, wasteland strangler, lingering souls) while keeping more threats in my hand in case of oblivion stone. Game 2 he played expedition map turn 1, I played pithing needle naming map which effectively locked him out of the game.
Quick thoughts :: I replaced the mind stone's with liliana's and it was good to play such a good planeswalker again. I feel that we need a liliana (of the veil or the new one) to add some more depth to this deck. I was happy to bring her back and I didn't miss mind stone. I am trying to get my hands on some of the new liliana's to try her out.
1
2 Eternal Scourge
2 Matter Reshaper
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
Artifacts (6)
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Mind Stone
Sorcery (10)
4 Lingering Souls
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
4 Path to Exile
Land (24)
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Marsh Flats
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Godless Shrine
2 Shambling Vent
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Wastes
2 Anguished Unmaking
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Celestial Purge
2 Day of Judgment
2 Disenchant
2 Eldrazi Mimic
2 Stony Silence
2 Worship
A few things that I notice while playing the deck:
1
I agree, I tried out the new cards: eternal scourge, collective brutality, and a bit of blessed alliance (which was in the sideboard) and I found that eternal scrouge was meh, I like matter reshaper better. I found that collective brutality was AMAZING! It was so useful in every match. It is not hard to pitch a useless card to activate several modes. I have only played five matches so far and I'll probably try another league match online tonight to further test the new cards. I'll probably try them with the deck in my sig and not with the processor list that I have been trying:
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
2
Yeah, I like matter reshaper a lot but I feel that eternal scourge fills the role of a re-occuring threat that will help out the longer matches. The ability to play eternal scourge and draw a random card when we are top-decking is pretty powerfull. This all could change once I get my hands on it though, I have been wrong many times before.
I would like to hear the under and over performers during your night and what types of deck you played against. If everybody had a similar format it would be easy to compile a list to determine the best 60 cards for the deck and how to fine tune the deck for specific metas. Something of the form:
Deck name (type of deck: aggro, midrange, brew, etc.)
Record
Over performers (OP) :: Thought-knot
Under performers (UP) ::
Notes :: A one or two sentence summary explaining the matchup. Something along the lines of if anybody had any bad draws, somebody mulled down to 3, I couldn't find the right removal or sideboard cards, etc.
Then have the deck list within spoiler tags.
Example:
Affinity (aggro)
2-0
OP :: Lingering souls, stony silence
UP :: Matter reshaper
Notes :: My opponent had a slow start game 1 and I found my silver bullet game 2.
RG Tron (it's tron, ugh...)
0-2
OP :: -
UP ::
Notes :: Natural tron turn 3 both games.
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
1
Collective brutality it would help out against: burn, merfolk, zoo, collective company decks, elves, scapeshift, and 8-whack. It has a relevant mode against most decks in modern and we could discard lingering souls or eternal scourge for value. The ability for the card to either be a kill spell, discard spell, and/or a life gain spell is pretty amazing. Especially since we take so much damage with our mana base.
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
1
1
If you want a faster games you need to lower your mana curve a bit. Currently, you have 12 turn 1 plays (discard, relic, shambling vent) and zero turn 2 threats. Turn 3 you either have lingering souls or a wasteland strangler. Turn 4 is when you can finally start playing threats if you can afford to tap out. You are relying on eldrazi temple to accelerate your drops but it doesn't drop every game and is a prime threat for a ghost quarter. You have a lot of reactive cards (kill spells, relic, surgical) that work well when the opponent plays fetches, creatures, etc. But if they are stalling a bit (or are good players who know how to beat your deck) your decks seems like it would not get going until turn 5.
Just glancing at your deck it seems that your gameplan is to:
Turn 1 discard or relic
Turn 2 - 3 Remove their creatures
Turn 4+ Play threats
If you move it to something like:
Turn 1 discard or relic
Turn 2 - 3 Removal or play threats
Turn 4+ Play finishers
You might have a better tron matchup and find the games to close out faster.