I wanted to stop by and offer my sympathies and condolences. I appreciate the difficulty of the position many of you are in - I was a Pod pilot when that was banned last year. Modern was destabilized by the pod banning, and will only become more unstable after this banning. It's not a good direction for the format to go.
In any case, I hope this banning isn't too big a financial loss for you folks. Good luck!
Hi Rowan! Great work on the primer! I'm relatively new to commander in general, and I had occasion to pilot Niv-mizzet a few weeks ago (borrowed a deck for some casual play). It was so much fun, I knew this should be my next project. I do have a couple of cards I'd like to run by you.
Thought Vessel - I saw that you addressed Library of Leng, and cards of that ilk in the primer. Still, Thought Vessel caught my eye because it does double duty, functioning as a mana rock while allowing you to hold cards in hand.
Mystic Confluence - It's no replacement for Cryptic Command, though it is slightly easier to cast. It's more versatile than your average counter spell, and it cantrips (sometimes more than once).
Laboratory Maniac - The Comet Storm/Inner Fire combo is a solid win con. I was thinking it may be worth it to include a win condition that renders the number of opponents irrelevant. Laboratory Maniac has always seemed a little too cute to be viable to me, but if we resolve Enter the Infinite first, or the Curiosity combo, and the entire deck is in hand, we should be able to protect him.
My metagame tends to be large groups, 4 to 6 player games, with life gain a major theme. Are there any suggestions, strategies or adjustments you would suggest?
Hey everyone! I'm still relatively new to the deck, so I thought I'd post my list and get what feedback I can. I'm running the classic 54 plus the following:
I've been having a lot of trouble with Delver Mirrors - particularly Patriot Delver. I believe this sideboard will allow me to deal with a fairly wide variety of decks. What do you guys think? Am I missing anything?
I am really excited that Collected Company has made elves a viable strategy. I am working on my list, and I have some questions about the core of the deck.
- 8 mana dorks, plus Heritage Druid seems like a lot. Do I really need that many?
- I don't see Craterhoof Behemoth being run in too many lists, why is that?
- There's a few other cards I was thinking of including, and I was wondering if any of these had been tested: Scryb Ranger, Eternal Witness, Primal Command, Soul of the Harvest.
Thanks for the info but I already know how the match up goes. The point of adding Deathmark was the extra removal for Goyfs, Siege Rhino, Half a Finks, and Scavenging Ooze. Far Away is 5 Mana and not actually very good it has the same problem of not being high enough impact for it's mana cost like Crackling Doom., I don't wanna wait to take a hit from Goyf to kill it. also gets increasingly bad with Snapcaster Mage, cause it is 4-5 Mana. I'd play an extra Wrath Effect before I'd play a Far and Away. I also don't think our UWR deck wants to Splash 2 Extra Colors for Abzan Charm. I though Illness in the Ranks would be good but then soon realized that it gets kiled by Abrupt Decay so i'm still looking into answers for Lingering souls going 4 for 1 against our targeted removal deck.
Touching on you ideas for card in the main deck. I agree Remand is a tempo card and could/should be replaced with Mana Leak/Negate, Maxing Path to Exile is 100% correct imo, but I'd disagree with cutting Sphinx's Revelation, for the fact it is a finisher if you are relying on it to win you a game you are loosing already, I think it's purpose is to close out the game.
Why not test deathmark out? See if it's worth the splash - it does hit a lot of targets. Out of curiosity, assuming you would add Deathmark to the sideboard, what would you cut?
Good to know I'm generally on the right track with the main. On the subject of Sphinx's Revelation: When I cut my last one, it was in favor of a 4th Cryptic Command. In many ways my 60 is still in its evolutionary process. Sphinx's Rev. may yet make it's way back in. We'll have to see what happens with the metagame.
This is a shot in the dark idea, but I saw a little while back people were using 1 Blood Crypt and 1 Watery Grave for, Crackling Doom, I personally think it was alright but, what about just side boarding 3-4 Deathmark instead of Crackling Doom, to make the Abzan matchup being more of our favor? I think Deathmark and a Snapcaster is a good combo for beating Abzan Decks, and Celestial Purge helps with Liliana, and Tasigur, the only other problem is Lingering Souls. But I've noticed Lightning Bolt/Lightning Helix is just awful vs. Lingering Souls, Liliana, Goyf, Siege Rhino, Tasigur, Kitchen Finks. Cause our plan is stave off early aggression and get to the late game.
I haven't been running control for that long, but I have played a few successful rounds against BGx decks. It's not easy. First off, I max out Path to Exile in the main. I realize it's not good in the early game, and I do try to be mindful of that during the match, however, there are far too many targets for Path to not run the playset. I don't run remand, lightning helix, or Sphinx's Revelation. Remand is a tempo card (this is a control deck yes?), Lightning Helix is of limited use in anything but the burn match-up, and sphinx's revelation is just too slow. I also run 11 permission spells including 4x Cryptic Commands.
Now, during the match, Path the Goyfs and Kitchen Finks, counter Liliana of the Veil and Siege Rhino, and bolt the Bobs on sight. Restoration Angel is your friend in those midrange match-ups as well, they have trouble removing those. We have all the tools we need to take the Abzan match-up. I really think it's just a question of running the correct spells in the correct numbers.
As to a black splash, if I were to go in that direction, I'd probably want something more powerful than deathmark. Far // Away? Really good against Lingering Souls. Abzan Charm you could even maindeck and it would never be dead, worst case you draw cards.
I wonder, if it is save to cut on 2 lands for another wall of omen and instant. I played a similar list (more like the first one I posted here) on a daily and went 2:2, losing the last round to a mono white list because my game started to lag a lot and I lost lots of thinking time to this. It would have been 3:1 otherwise.
1st round was against abzan, with no chance for me. Opening with thoughtseize or kozilek is almost instant loss, when your hand is not redundant. 0:2 this is a really bad matchup.
2nd round was scapeshift. First time I played against it and it went 2:1. First game I lost, because I did not have an answer to his scapeshift in my hand so I tapped out for keranos and hoped that he did not have it in his hand. After boarding it was easy, with flashfreeze countering his baloth(? 4/4 lifegain on etb).
3rd round was scapeshift again, going 2:0 this time knowing the matchup now and having a counter in hand. I think we have a good matchup here.
4th game was the mono white matchup. First game was a breath and second went extremely long letting me draw ca. 19 lands and none of my winning outs. For last game the timer was pretty low due to the constant lag in the 4th round so I had to hurry and made stupid missplays/missclicks in this game.
@Drake0525
if your win condition is creatures, do you really want to play 2x supreme verdicts main? Would you not want to play geist of saint traft? Do you miss the scalding tarns?
Think of the Verdicts as a "break in case of emergency" type deal. This is not a creature deck, it's a control deck, one which can very easily be overwhelmed and killed by real creature decks like Zoo. I've yet to regret the inclusion of the sweepers, and I actually wonder if 2 is enough. I have had a lot of bad experiences with Geist of Saint Traft, and the "midrange" strategy in general - I don't like the idea of including that at all. Personal feelings aside, in a metagame filled with Tarmogoyf and Siege Rhino, I don't think geist is in a good position right now.
I do not miss the Scalding Tarns as of yet, but I've only piloted the deck at a couple of events so far. If the opportunity presents itself, I'd like to add a 7th fetchland to this list, and if I have the opportunity to maybe trade for Scalding Tarn, I will jump on it. The fetches I have included are capable of getting any color I need - of course, that means fetching shocklands most of the time.
How is Flashfreeze and Shadow of Doubt working for you? I notice you don't run Lightning Helix - I just cut those out of my deck, is the lack of lifegain effecting your deck's performance at all?
After doing some testing and some revision, I think my deck is actually evolving into something viable. I'd like to get all of your thoughts on the updated list:
I like how direct and to the point this list is. There is no Cloudstone Curio, or Beck // Call bogging this deck down. He is, however running Ezuri, Renegade Leader as a 4-of - which seems smart to me, not sure if that's normal for the archetype (cardbros?). There is something to be said for the purity and simplicity of this list, it lands a bunch of elves, it makes a ton of mana, it resolves a Chord. Pretty cool in my opinion - actually considering assembling this list just for kicks.
Thanks for all the replies everyone! Based on the feedback I got today from here, and from other sources, I did make a few changes to the list. -3x Pyroclasm, -1x Supreme Verdict, +3x Electrolyze, +1 Wrath of God. I figure I should be ok with that for this time. Further alterations will probably be made later on.
I do sort-of like the idea of exploiting Devotion with a list that is a little lower to the ground. I did some brainstorming, read over the previous few posts, and came up with a list:
I try not to suggest anything that runs contrary to what I know about the metagame. Birthing Pod worked, largely because they designed their skeleton (or core, if you will) to handle certain realities of the metagame in game 1.
Card choices:
- Voice of Resurgence: Great aggro card, anticontrol, and anti-removal.
- Kitchen Finks: The economic answer to all burn decks, and complete with a persist package, which helps us recover from board wipe in the control match. We can also use Gavony Township to take the counters off the Finks, so persist will always trigger when it dies in combat.
- Knight of the Reliquary: An efficient alternative to Primeval Titan. Without our usual ramp package, this is the best option.
- Linvala, Keeper of Silence: I wanted to emphasize how important she is to the viability of this list. This is how we can handle decks like Splinter Twin that like to combo off on turn 3 and kill us. I'm also anticipating some Dredge action in the near future, and this will stop opposing Knight of the Reliquary from running away with the game. In fact, I'm pretty sure that all devotion decks splashing white should be running this card, and Path to Exile.
- Chord of Calling: Alas, it is too mana intensive to run as a 4-of in my view. Slots are precious in this deck, and I wanted a density of threats. At the same time 3 Chord does allow us to use the toolbox gameplan, and we can recur Chord with Eternal Witness.
Now, since this is Naya instead of Abzan, we don't have access to Siege Rhino, so I wanted to give the deck a little something extra. I included Kiki-Jiki, the Mirror Breaker as a win condition, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as the other win con. When we enable Nykthos and fire off a big Chord, these are the targets we go for when we want to end the game.
There are definite merits to this list, but there are also a number of problems.
First, the merits: Lots of good card, lots of good interactions. I really like Thragtusk, and I've always been a fan of Restoration Angel. There's a lot of versitility, lot of tricks.
Now, the problems:
- The first glaring oversight here is the conspicuous absence of Voice of Resurgence. A deck like this one, which unlike the classic devotion lists, is not really a "ramp deck", cannot afford to ignore that card (not in these colors). There are 3 blue decks in the 1st tier alone, Voice of Resurgence was one of the ways Pod was able to aggro those out. When I first built my pod deck, I was running 1 Voice, because it was part of the skeleton, but I didn't think I had room for more than that. By the time I was done playtesting, I was running 3 Voice because it was just that good.
- With Birthing Pod banned, we are seeing a lot of BGx decks in this metagame. The Tarmogoyf-dot-deck of choice! And that being the case, I am of the opinion that Mirror Entity is not the play. I am expecting Abrupt Decay to be a considerable presence in the format for a while until things settle down. You could flicker it with Resto, or bounce it with Temur Sabertooth in response to removal, but why go to that kind of trouble? We run awesome stuff like Primeval Titan and Craterhoof Behemoth, and if those get removed, it doesn't matter, once they enter the battlefield, the damage is already done.
- Fauna Shaman has been kicked around that Pod forum on and off since its printing. Modern is a lightning bolt format, and unfortunately Fauna Shaman is just too slow, and too easy to remove.
- You are running Primeval Titan, but you excluded the Kessig Wolf Run package, why? Titan is a win condition, and not just because he's a 6/6 with trample. In the eternal formats, Titan sees play in ramp decks, where he's actually just a means to an end (Emrakul). Without Kessig, in this format, he's all dressed up with nowhere to go. Why run a 6-drop in Modern, if your not going to win the game?
- I don't see why Path to Exile isn't in the main.
Chord of Calling is a very good, very versatile card. There may be something to this idea, and I do see where your going with this. Keep playtesting, keep tweaking! It'll get there.
OK guys, I played a few games with Devotion tonight. Some were smooth, but one was not. I lost a game to an Isochron Scepter imprinted with Path to Exile. He was able to exile all my creatures and burn me out before I could find a Primal Command to bounce the stupid thing.
Alright, with that in mind, I think there's an important take-away from tonight, and it's that Path to Exile is a card. In a match-up filled with removal, the best answer is a threat with hexproof. I'm putting Thrun back in the deck. I thought it would be enough to have it in the sideboard, but we basically fold game 1 against control without some sort of bullet to handle that sort of thing.
Today i went to a GPT and it went really bad...Too many affinity players. Too fast even if one has plenty of SB for it. We need an answer to this ASAP. Things to consider: i draw very bad hands and the drawing of cards on next turns were horrible in most of my games if not all!
I first played against a deck that had a lot of removal/discard and i won easy! 2-0 but then came the bombs.
Two consecutive rounds against affinity decks. They destroyed me. The second match against affinity went very well. 1-2 but the one i won was great with xenagos and garruk in play and predator ooze i generated a lot of mana and banefired his ass. assisted with primal fetching spellskite and making him slow a turn. But then again. third game and he starts very but very quickly and as soon as i get a slowish hand im doomed. I included 2x chalice, 2x seal of promordium, 1x spellskite and 2x bonfire of the damned to eliminate creatures. It's just too much dmg. plating and steel overseer wreks us. Etched champion is like thrun for us..a difficult thorn to get out. I still don't see how creeping corrosion can gives us a hand really...the onyl thing that comes to mind would be chalice of the void but we need it on first hand to make it alive!.
Then i played against zoo...lost 1-2 against it. The one i won was great cause i had control over everything! primal commanding winning life and looking spellskite up to block 3/3 creatures, dismembering creatures he had in play, i even played a 1 counter chalice on him..and he was like "my godd!" haha. Loved it! But third game he destroyed my ass very but very quickly. Just remember i do not have the board presence that a G-wave devotion has-...
Then my last match was against a goblin...1-2 i couldnt believe this but i has already lost hope this day by then. Any way. First game i won preety quickly. I lost second match to him because i drew a bad first hand and risked it. and by third match i had control over him. He had 10 lifes and i had 7. I had 2 predator each 5/5 on the board, 2x elvish visionary, 1 eternal witness and a token 2/2 haste from xenagos, 4 or 5 more mana including stomping ground with 2 banefire in my hand ready to kill him next turn. He sacrifices a goblin with goblin grenade does 5 dmg to me and a bolt and im dead.. so..i could say he won..by a very tiny bit!
I do not know how to make this deck more competitive. I see the meta is coming HEAVY on affinity. I saw only 1 twin, 2 zoo (one made it to top 8), 4 affinity (3 of them making top 8), lots of Token decks (plenty WW). There will be a lot of BGx, Tron, Affinity and maybe ...but maybe Twin on my meta that could be disturbing for my deck.
Things i am considering after today:
* Splashing white*...that would mean making the deck a 3 colored deck. Red for banefire and kessig and maybe sideboard (combust and ancient grudge). White because we need path to exile, stony silence and kataki (which are all absolutely fantastic against affinity). Just to tell you something ...today a kithkin deck made it to top 4 of GPT because he played against affinity on 3 matches winning 2 of them due to the fact he had kataki and stony silence on SB. This is KEY to winning against them. I may add 3x combust and 3x ancient grudge next time to test if white is really necessary. Splashing white would mean buying myself 2x temple garden, 1x fetchland and 3xstony silence and 2x kataki or maybe 3. That is money i dont have atm so i dont know what to do really. On the other hand, combust gets rid of all twin creatures, gets rid of angels and even rhinos for only 2 mana, can't be countered nor prevented! Ancient grudge is better than seal of primordium so im planning on testing them both.
* Spellskite* is just increadible and a must on the deck against the current meta. He changes everything and gives space to our planewalkers and dorks on receiving hate. It disrupts twin and affinity and everytime i had him on the board i managed to breathe! haha! So i agree with "purklefluff" on adding him as a main board, at least 2, and other 2 on sideboard.
*Chalice* i have certain doubts about it but today it showed me it's worth at least against zoo. I already had dorks on my BF and i played it with 1 counter and it just blew his mind! he had to change his cards again after he lost to put some hate against it. Unfortunately i did not get chalice against both encounters with affinity. I only included 2 cause 4 is too much and i only have 2 of them. And i mentioned earlier that i had bad draws on each match.
*Bonfire of the damned* well i have my reservations on this card. If you do not use it with miracle it takes a lot of mana which u might not have at crucial moments actually. It's not even an instant. Might get this out to make room for combust maybe.
so my next changes can be if i go splash white:
+2 temple garden
+1 fetch
-3 forest
-1 banefire
-2 dismember
+3 path to exile
leaving a sideboard like this:
3 stony silence
2 kataki
3 spellskite
1 thrun (doubts)
1 melira (i have several infect running around my meta)
2 blood moon (i have been thinking about it and i think it's a good addition in certain match ups)
3 combust
Changes with no splash to white:
sideboard:
3 Combust
4 Ancient grudge
2 Chalice of the void
1 Melira
1 Thrun
2 spellskite
2 blood moon
But i do think we need more removal and i am nearly convinced that today meta requires us to splash white as a must!
Sorry to hear you had such a rough go of it! There is a lot of good information here though about what to expect from the new metagame. I do have some ideas regarding your decklist:
- I think the usefulness of planeswalkers in general in this metagame is entirely dependent on what they do for the gameplan. Xenagos, the Reveler does not help the boardstate of this particular archetype as much as Garruk. If you run a 4th walker at all, it should be a 4th Garruk Wildspeaker.
- 3 Primal commmand, 1 Primeval Titan, and 1 Craterhoof Behemoth, leaves you very little access to your win-con compared to some of the other decklists I've looked at in this thread. The typical number of tutor effects I see is 7. You want to max out Primal Commands and the maybe run Chord of Calling. Banefire is fun and uncounterable, but it takes a lot more mana to win that way. If you have 4 creatures in play and resolve a Craterhoof Behemoth, that is a minimum of a 28 point attack, and it doesn't take that long to get there. If its countermagic you worry about, then Banefire works well for control matches, but in aggro match-ups (fair decks), Craterhoof is your best win con, closely followed up by Primeval Titan. But you must be able to get to those cards.
- Since you're not actually running Genesis Wave, I don't think Strangleroot Geist is worth it. Better to devote those slots to improving your problematic match-ups. Why not maindeck a spellskite, and keep an extra one in the board?
I wanted to stop by and offer my sympathies and condolences. I appreciate the difficulty of the position many of you are in - I was a Pod pilot when that was banned last year. Modern was destabilized by the pod banning, and will only become more unstable after this banning. It's not a good direction for the format to go.
In any case, I hope this banning isn't too big a financial loss for you folks. Good luck!
Thought Vessel - I saw that you addressed Library of Leng, and cards of that ilk in the primer. Still, Thought Vessel caught my eye because it does double duty, functioning as a mana rock while allowing you to hold cards in hand.
Mystic Confluence - It's no replacement for Cryptic Command, though it is slightly easier to cast. It's more versatile than your average counter spell, and it cantrips (sometimes more than once).
Laboratory Maniac - The Comet Storm/Inner Fire combo is a solid win con. I was thinking it may be worth it to include a win condition that renders the number of opponents irrelevant. Laboratory Maniac has always seemed a little too cute to be viable to me, but if we resolve Enter the Infinite first, or the Curiosity combo, and the entire deck is in hand, we should be able to protect him.
My metagame tends to be large groups, 4 to 6 player games, with life gain a major theme. Are there any suggestions, strategies or adjustments you would suggest?
2x Spell Snare
2x Dismember
2x Eidolon of the Great Revel
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Flusterstorm
2x Submerge
2x Rough // Tumble
1x Sylvan Library
1x Null Rod
1x Winter Orb
I've been having a lot of trouble with Delver Mirrors - particularly Patriot Delver. I believe this sideboard will allow me to deal with a fairly wide variety of decks. What do you guys think? Am I missing anything?
I am really excited that Collected Company has made elves a viable strategy. I am working on my list, and I have some questions about the core of the deck.
- 8 mana dorks, plus Heritage Druid seems like a lot. Do I really need that many?
- I don't see Craterhoof Behemoth being run in too many lists, why is that?
- There's a few other cards I was thinking of including, and I was wondering if any of these had been tested: Scryb Ranger, Eternal Witness, Primal Command, Soul of the Harvest.
Good to know I'm generally on the right track with the main. On the subject of Sphinx's Revelation: When I cut my last one, it was in favor of a 4th Cryptic Command. In many ways my 60 is still in its evolutionary process. Sphinx's Rev. may yet make it's way back in. We'll have to see what happens with the metagame.
Now, during the match, Path the Goyfs and Kitchen Finks, counter Liliana of the Veil and Siege Rhino, and bolt the Bobs on sight. Restoration Angel is your friend in those midrange match-ups as well, they have trouble removing those. We have all the tools we need to take the Abzan match-up. I really think it's just a question of running the correct spells in the correct numbers.
As to a black splash, if I were to go in that direction, I'd probably want something more powerful than deathmark. Far // Away? Really good against Lingering Souls. Abzan Charm you could even maindeck and it would never be dead, worst case you draw cards.
I do not miss the Scalding Tarns as of yet, but I've only piloted the deck at a couple of events so far. If the opportunity presents itself, I'd like to add a 7th fetchland to this list, and if I have the opportunity to maybe trade for Scalding Tarn, I will jump on it. The fetches I have included are capable of getting any color I need - of course, that means fetching shocklands most of the time.
How is Flashfreeze and Shadow of Doubt working for you? I notice you don't run Lightning Helix - I just cut those out of my deck, is the lack of lifegain effecting your deck's performance at all?
4x Restoration Angel
2x Vendilion Clique
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Lightning Helix
4x Path to Exile
4x Mana Leak
2x Spell Snare
4x Cryptic Command
3x Electrolyze
2x Supreme Verdict
4x Tectonic Edge
4x Arid Mesa
2x Flooded Strand
3x Steam Vents
3x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Island
2x Mountain
1x Plains
2x Wear // Tear
2x Stony Silence
1x Negate
1x Counterflux
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Batterskull
1x Keranos, God of Storms
I like how direct and to the point this list is. There is no Cloudstone Curio, or Beck // Call bogging this deck down. He is, however running Ezuri, Renegade Leader as a 4-of - which seems smart to me, not sure if that's normal for the archetype (cardbros?). There is something to be said for the purity and simplicity of this list, it lands a bunch of elves, it makes a ton of mana, it resolves a Chord. Pretty cool in my opinion - actually considering assembling this list just for kicks.
Thanks again for all the feedback and the advice!
3x Restoration Angel
2x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Lightning Helix
4x Path to Exile
3x Mana Leak
2x Spell Snare
3x Cryptic Command
3x Pyroclasm
2x Supreme Verdict
1x Sphinx's Revelation
4x Tectonic Edge
4x Arid Mesa
3x Flooded Strand
2x Steam Vents
4x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Island
2x Mountain
1x Plains
2x Wear // Tear
2x Stony Silence
2x Negate
1x Counterflux
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Spellskite
1x Batterskull
1x Keranos, God of Storms
I realize I am missing the 4th Colonnade (that could not be helped this time, unfortnately). Any feedback you guys can give me would be great! Thanks!
2x Wall of Roots
3x Voice of Resurgence
1x Spellskite
1x Scavenging Ooze
3x Kitchen Finks
3x Eternal Witness
2x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Reclaimation Sage
1x Kiki-Jiki, the Mirror Breaker
1x Whisperwood Elemental
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3x Chord of Calling
4x Path to Exile
3x Garruk, Wildspeaker
2x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Gavony Township
3x Stomping Ground
3x Windswept Heath
1x Arid Mesa
2x Temple Garden
3x Stomping Ground
3x Forest
2x Plains
1x Mountain
I try not to suggest anything that runs contrary to what I know about the metagame. Birthing Pod worked, largely because they designed their skeleton (or core, if you will) to handle certain realities of the metagame in game 1.
Card choices:
- Voice of Resurgence: Great aggro card, anticontrol, and anti-removal.
- Kitchen Finks: The economic answer to all burn decks, and complete with a persist package, which helps us recover from board wipe in the control match. We can also use Gavony Township to take the counters off the Finks, so persist will always trigger when it dies in combat.
- Knight of the Reliquary: An efficient alternative to Primeval Titan. Without our usual ramp package, this is the best option.
- Linvala, Keeper of Silence: I wanted to emphasize how important she is to the viability of this list. This is how we can handle decks like Splinter Twin that like to combo off on turn 3 and kill us. I'm also anticipating some Dredge action in the near future, and this will stop opposing Knight of the Reliquary from running away with the game. In fact, I'm pretty sure that all devotion decks splashing white should be running this card, and Path to Exile.
- Chord of Calling: Alas, it is too mana intensive to run as a 4-of in my view. Slots are precious in this deck, and I wanted a density of threats. At the same time 3 Chord does allow us to use the toolbox gameplan, and we can recur Chord with Eternal Witness.
Now, since this is Naya instead of Abzan, we don't have access to Siege Rhino, so I wanted to give the deck a little something extra. I included Kiki-Jiki, the Mirror Breaker as a win condition, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as the other win con. When we enable Nykthos and fire off a big Chord, these are the targets we go for when we want to end the game.
What do you guys think?
First, the merits: Lots of good card, lots of good interactions. I really like Thragtusk, and I've always been a fan of Restoration Angel. There's a lot of versitility, lot of tricks.
Now, the problems:
- The first glaring oversight here is the conspicuous absence of Voice of Resurgence. A deck like this one, which unlike the classic devotion lists, is not really a "ramp deck", cannot afford to ignore that card (not in these colors). There are 3 blue decks in the 1st tier alone, Voice of Resurgence was one of the ways Pod was able to aggro those out. When I first built my pod deck, I was running 1 Voice, because it was part of the skeleton, but I didn't think I had room for more than that. By the time I was done playtesting, I was running 3 Voice because it was just that good.
- With Birthing Pod banned, we are seeing a lot of BGx decks in this metagame. The Tarmogoyf-dot-deck of choice! And that being the case, I am of the opinion that Mirror Entity is not the play. I am expecting Abrupt Decay to be a considerable presence in the format for a while until things settle down. You could flicker it with Resto, or bounce it with Temur Sabertooth in response to removal, but why go to that kind of trouble? We run awesome stuff like Primeval Titan and Craterhoof Behemoth, and if those get removed, it doesn't matter, once they enter the battlefield, the damage is already done.
- Fauna Shaman has been kicked around that Pod forum on and off since its printing. Modern is a lightning bolt format, and unfortunately Fauna Shaman is just too slow, and too easy to remove.
- You are running Primeval Titan, but you excluded the Kessig Wolf Run package, why? Titan is a win condition, and not just because he's a 6/6 with trample. In the eternal formats, Titan sees play in ramp decks, where he's actually just a means to an end (Emrakul). Without Kessig, in this format, he's all dressed up with nowhere to go. Why run a 6-drop in Modern, if your not going to win the game?
- I don't see why Path to Exile isn't in the main.
Chord of Calling is a very good, very versatile card. There may be something to this idea, and I do see where your going with this. Keep playtesting, keep tweaking! It'll get there.
Alright, with that in mind, I think there's an important take-away from tonight, and it's that Path to Exile is a card. In a match-up filled with removal, the best answer is a threat with hexproof. I'm putting Thrun back in the deck. I thought it would be enough to have it in the sideboard, but we basically fold game 1 against control without some sort of bullet to handle that sort of thing.
3x Birds of Paradise
2x Elvish Visionary
4x Eternal Witness
3x Predator Ooze
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Temur Sabertooth
1x Whisperwood Elemental
1x Polukranos, World Eater
3x Primeval Titan
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
3x Garruk, Wildspeaker
4x Primal Command
3x Chord of Calling
4x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Stomping Ground
2x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
9x Forest
- I think the usefulness of planeswalkers in general in this metagame is entirely dependent on what they do for the gameplan. Xenagos, the Reveler does not help the boardstate of this particular archetype as much as Garruk. If you run a 4th walker at all, it should be a 4th Garruk Wildspeaker.
- 3 Primal commmand, 1 Primeval Titan, and 1 Craterhoof Behemoth, leaves you very little access to your win-con compared to some of the other decklists I've looked at in this thread. The typical number of tutor effects I see is 7. You want to max out Primal Commands and the maybe run Chord of Calling. Banefire is fun and uncounterable, but it takes a lot more mana to win that way. If you have 4 creatures in play and resolve a Craterhoof Behemoth, that is a minimum of a 28 point attack, and it doesn't take that long to get there. If its countermagic you worry about, then Banefire works well for control matches, but in aggro match-ups (fair decks), Craterhoof is your best win con, closely followed up by Primeval Titan. But you must be able to get to those cards.
- Since you're not actually running Genesis Wave, I don't think Strangleroot Geist is worth it. Better to devote those slots to improving your problematic match-ups. Why not maindeck a spellskite, and keep an extra one in the board?