MTG Salvation

Btw, another potential 4 drop which looks good in this deck: Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion

Is not a straight "play a card" like BBE nor "draw 3 when I enter" as Reveler, but with a single swing he will offer more overall benefits than either one.

Greetings,
Kathal

I honestly never thought, that we could get an upgrade on the creature/enabler side, but here we are. Putting the problem with Path aside (which can be handled via different cards), that card is just bonkers. Why?
- It is a recurring cheat engine, since there is no way to remove it permanently (it will return sooner than later)
- It is cheap enough to get hard casted
- It doges most played removal, Lightning Axe, Dismember, Bolt and Push does nothing against Mr. Boar
- It is a three card combo with any other creature with only a single cheat spell, which is insane

The only con is: You want that guy in the classic none Shoal version, which is honestly not that big of an problem, since nobody plays control atm and GDS is either way a piss-poor match-up.

I was already starting to brew with Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion cause of how good his ability is in the Necrotic Ooze version (after brewing around with a Powder + Gemstone Cavern + Pull of Eternity Build), but now I put a stop on it and will go back to the classic version. Dunno if I want to go Powder route or not, has it's pro and cons.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from DaveJacinto »

While it hurts a lot to agree with Hoogland, my view on this mulligan rule is exactly the same. I don't really buy into the Combo Winter that everyone is afraid of. I seriously think that decks that are good will still be good (or slightly better) because we're reducing the number of non-games that occur, and decks that are objectively bad will be worse because they won't have the free wins that boost their apparent win rate.

But isn't this logic chain a fallacy? Cause it basically says this:
- Bad draws from the good deck gets less likely which reduces the punishment what bad decks can do

However, bad decks tend to have worse bad draws than good decks (cause they usually do not lack in power, just in consistency). In my opinion, the exact opposite should happen: The absolute increase of consistency is way higher for bad decks than from good decks which in return gives the bad decks a better edge against the good decks, since their "do nothing draws" will happen way rarer than with the current ruling while little will change for the good decks.

Basically, I would argue the exact opposite is correct going forward. Bad decks will profit way more than the good decks.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from jokerstyle00 »

Random question, since I'm bringing a Gifts-oriented list to my LGS tonight. Should I run Serum Visions instead of Opt if I have one Mystical Teachings? Right now I have 2 Gifts/1 Teachings as my search cards.

IMO no, you want to play stuff at instant speed and Serum Vision doesn't allow this. However, I would play Serum Visions above all other cantrips as the 5+ one, if you want to run more cantrips. The other available Instant speed cantrips are rather trash to say it this way (Peek is the best one remaining).

Greetings,
Kathal

Oh btw. the new Dovin Baal is a nice addition, since it is really good against a lot of decks which have tendencies to be spell heavy and have annoying threats, looking at you Phoenix (shuts down TiTi for several turns), GDS (Angler is the annoying one, since he cannot get pushed) and Burn (Eidolon...).

Greetings,
Kathal

The amounts of me GQ myself to get the required mana to cast an Assault on Turn 3 due to tap lands, colourless lands or simply Forest is to darn high...

Btw. the biggest struggle I have found so far is, that if my Loams get exiled due to a Surgical, I can hardly win anymore. Losing the recurring removal spells is really harsh for many match-ups. Has anybody a idea, how to make the deck less Loam reliant while still being not hot garbage?

My first thought was to add some high power cards, which can act as an Loam alternative, but the ones I would want to play (looking at you Mr. Dack Fayden) are not modern legal

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from jokerstyle00 »

Too bad Scalding Tarn is $100 a piece.

What're people's thoughts on Walking Ballista? We get a ton of mana thanks to Rec, so I think it'd be a decent mana sink if we have nothing else to do?

I would play it in straight BUG, just play two Steam Vents to be able to grab it via any U fetchland, no need for Scalding Tarns.

Balista is very mediocre, cause again, when we have the mana we should do other stuff and when we do not have the mana it is a bad removal spell.

Quote from mapccu »

I've consided ballista but we're so heavy on 4 cmc cards I can rarely see wanting to put counters on it until way late in he game. Before t4 it really is just there to chump and probably kill a dork. It can turn on revolt for push though, so that's plus if you have a creature heavy meta that benefits from push being revolt active often.

Thousand year storm sounds pretty fun lol. I may mess with it a bit.

New card spoiler below:

New saheeli an spit out a ton of servos and eventually generate a clock vs control. Card seems reasonable as a 1-2 of imo her minus can turn a servo into a gearhulk copy for bigger beats. You don't get the ETB again but a 5/6 rumbles with pretty much the whole format.

New Saheeli looks nice, since it is a better Young Pyro for this deck (cause it is a PW which dodges all the creature removal and is not R). However, not sure at all, if the amount of tokens produced is really that massive. Sure, with things like Teaching Chains or stuff like this you get to a lot of Tokens pretty fast, but dunno if you can do it properly against Control. However, against non Phoenix aggro decks it is a good card, since it can produce a ton of tokens quite fast to buy us more time. Though, those aggro decks which see play usually can ignore her quite well, either they fly (Phoenix, Hangerback Walker Tokens, Crackling Drake, Spirits), the deck has some form of board wipe (TiTi, Detention Sphere guy) or they can burn you out quite effective (Dredge, Burn, Walking Balista).

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from cfusionpm »

So the takeaway is that Whir Prison has no bad matchups, but may need more data points. Interactive decks mostly have 0 good matchups (and multiple bad matchups) and proactive/fast/linear decks have large numbers of good matchups. Sounds about right.

One data point. Take a look at the two other GPs where he did it, different percentages. So the best thing will be, after this months worth of GPs, to combine all those to get an actually look, on how it looks like.

Btw. something I stumbled across a few days ago: https://mtgmeta.io/metagame?f=modern

Greetings,
Kathal

I mean, if we really want to play janky finisher, than Thousand-Year Storm is my vote. When you can resolve it you win. When every spell has suddenly Storm, it gets quite ridiculous really fast. Casting Opt into Cryptic is horrifying, the tutor chains with Teachings gets even more absurd and don't start talking about stuff like Nexus or BSZ.

Sure, purely overkill and probably totally unnecessary, but fun nevertheless

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: The only argument for it (besides being a really fast "finisher") is, that it can make a great Wild Rec impression, since instead of doubling your mana you just "go off".

Been a while guys, 4 rounds of Counter Cat with that list (thanks to Mr. @Donkin for the sweet list, with a few adaptation):


First thing first: Punted cause I forgot about the Surgicals for the SB. Welp, I knew I forgot something, but missing the Graveyard hate is kinda hard.

Round 1 vs UR As Foretold Restor Vision.deck (yeah, that janky brew):
Game 1 I went Nacatl into Obsession into Mandrills into gg basically. No way he can deal with an active Obsession.
Game 2 was more drawn out, I was stuck on two lands (own fault for only playing 17 lands), he fired of a Resto via Electrodominance where he needed to sac 3 of his lands just to clear the board from 2x Goyf which represented lethal for the next turn. I went Bolt on Jace, he Dispelled, I went Mandrills into beats into gg. He was not able to land an As Foretold (nor Moon) due to the cheap counter mana set-up which basically allowed to play beater + counter.

Round 2 vs UR Phoenix

'Member that I forgot the Surgicals? Doh.

Game 1 was a slugfest. He didn't find any Phoenixes while my Delvers didn't flip at all (5 turns in a row btw). Since I only drew lands (even with the Fetch to re-set my top trick) I had no out vs his Crackling Drake. In his turn 5 (played Drake on turn 3 cause of an Path on TiTi) he was capable of pumping his Crackling Drake from a mediocre 3|4 into an 12|4 thanks to Thought Scour, Lootings and Manamorphose. Combined with a Bolt it was lethal.

Game 2 was a quick start from my side, early Nacatl into Obsession, Stubbing a Moon into value chain. At least I had the first Delver flip in that tournament in this game, and he still needed 3 turns to pull it together.

Game 3 was quite interesting. I countered a Flashback Looting via a Stub (as a Force Spike), cause he was so greedy to not play the land. On my board was a Goyf + 2x Nacatl and on his 5th turn he went for massive Phoenix turn, churning out 3 guys. He had in his hand a Lightning Axe + pitch (I didn't knew) so he swinged with all three, putting me down to 4 (he also had an Bolt). On my turn, I Bolted him, attacked him and Leaked his Axe and won the game off it.

Thinking about it, I should have leaked the flashback Looting in that Phoenix turn. Would have meant, that I would need another turn to win the game, but it was the more save line (only one Phoenix reanimates, the other two were in hand).

Round 3 vs Devoted Druid

Game 1 I lost the die roll, he went land, I went Serum Visions, he went Druid, I went Nacatl, he went Vizier, I bolted the Druid, he floated mana and cast Postmortem Lunge on the Druid and won from there. There was no way for me to win this since I would need to leave up double interaction to deal with this (which I had) but I would have no clock, which is the bigger problem than him getting the nut draw. Even Bolting in my turn would not be doable, since he still could have won on his turn.

Game 2 I had an early Nacatl with Obsession. I Bolted + Pathed everything releveant while Nacatle generated a ton of value (he didn't want to block with his Dorks, since he was mana screwed). I won on the back of an Mandrills and Snap + Bolt + the Nacatle through his Saheeli. Spell Snare + Pierce countered his combo attempts.

Game 3 was quite interesting. I played it more slower so that I can keep up double interaction when it came to this turn 4: His side: 3 lands (including an Canopy), Duskwatch, 1 Dork, 1 Vizier, 1 Forge Tender vs my 4 lands and Nacatl.

I Bolted the Vizier pre combat, he sacced the Forge Tender, attacked with Nacatle (no blocks) and EoT he sacced Canopy for a draw and in response I cleaned his board with Kozilek's Return. From there it was a smooth sailing, since it was basically a 2 for 4.

Round 4 vs GDS

We ID to get locked first and second and played it out for the exact position:

Game 1: We both mulled to 6, I kept a somewhat greedy 1 lander with a shock on top. He IoK me on turn 2 (he was otp, but wanted to draw the IoK). Lots of resource trading happened and in the end I won the game based on clever life management from him. Not "pumping" the Nacatl and thus only attacking for 2 damage was one of these things (and afterwards fetch to have the mana).

Game 2 was more of game 1, a slug fest where he landed an Angler with double Stub pack-up. I went Path, he stub, Snap Path, he stubbed again into topdeck Path which allowed my Goyfs and Nacatls to swing in. He followed up with an Death Shadow, which put this game in a draw position: If he attacks, he dies at the back swing, if I attack, I lose my board and than die on the backswing.

Game ended by me drawing a Bolt, which turned the attack into a lethal one. Though, I had a Looting in the graveyard, so I was in an better position than him, since any form of pump/interaction would win the game (as it did).


Thoughts:
Obsession is REALLY good, sadly an echantment and thus kinda iffy with Delver (kinda low on the Instant + Sorcery count). Also kinda want to play the 18th land, but no idea what to cut. Blossimg Defence allowed some cool tricks (like countering removal, killing an TiTi with an Nacatl and so on), however, not so sure if it is that much better than Mutagenic Growth. Gut feeling says yes atm.

SB was a mess, but I already mentioned it. Would need to ponder about what I want and what I need. Some number of graveyard interaction has to be in there, most likely Surgicals but could also be something like Cage, which is less painful and also fills the same role. Btw. Magma Spry was the "5th" Path for the Phoenix match-up, but I definitely want a "true" 5th. No idea what to play though, cause stuff like Condemn is just garbage :/

Greetings,
Kathal

Instead of Birds of Paradise run Utopia Sprawl fixes the issue of getting the Dork Bolted on turn 1. Demands a rework of the mana base towards more Stomping Grounds to support it, but that will reap an overall better benefit than something like Bird.

Greetings,
Kathal

It is not nearly as bad as in Legacy, since many of the really good supporting tools (be it Cabal Therapy, Breakthrough, LED or Ichorid) are not legal. This means, while the peak performance is similar (winning on turn 2 based on a Hugs into Dread Return into Griselbrand into Dread Return into Zealot for lethal with a theoretically turn 1 win), the consistency for this is way lower. However, turn 2 wins are already rather feels bad man so I basically see no reason at all to unban it.

Greetings,
Kathal

Basically something like this:



If you want to run 26 lands without any Wayfinder or 24 with two Wayfinders is up to you.

Greetings,
Kathal

It is, but the opportunity cost to land it early is really harsh. You usually need your first 4-5 turns to stabilise the game and Search doesn't help to do it. So you would want to land it at a time period, where Mystical Teachings is already up and running which is usually better than Search (cause you find exactly what you need). It is only better in the late game where we run low on Teachings to find us stuff, so that we have any form of mana sink.

That is at least what I found out about Search, when I tested it.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from Lectrys »

Anyone else think that Lazotep Plating might see Modern play? For 1U at instant speed, you virtually get a 1/1 and omni-Hexproof for you and your permanents.

But which deck would want to have that effect?

At best case it is a Negate + a 1/1 Token for 2 Mana vs removal spells, something not many decks (if one at all) would want. Only RUG Delver plays something similar in Simic Charm and Simic Charm does much more than that spell (cause it either pumps, protects or is a tempo removal).

I can see the benefits of that card, but no deck wanting that effect.

Greetings,
Kathal