Blue Tron decks just keep playing their lands and repeal your blood moon the turn they go off.
RG Tron is a better match up game one but if they drop a turn 3 o-stone on you they just win. Post board it only gets worse they bring in at least 5 pieces of enchantment hate (Nature's claim, Ancient Grudge)
***Card Draw***
If your are looking for card draw (which in my builds I'm not) I think the best options are Chandra and Faithless looting.
chandra just just feels so slow, shes like a slightly better scrying sheets that doubles as a cunning sparkmage, and i dont think thats worth 4 mana to us. faithless looting is card disadvantage, but im a fan of it in builds that run alot more silverbullets mainboard. which, btw, have very good odds against these ramp decks people seem to find unbeatable. although i do see how blue tron could be a serious issue w/o salt/boil.
I'm not advocating for the inclusion of either in the current meta. I have played with Chandra out of the board a few times and thought the same thing you did that she seems slow but in the right matchup she was value town in situations when you were the control deck.
Blue Tron decks just keep playing their lands and repeal your blood moon the turn they go off.
RG Tron is a better match up game one but if they drop a turn 3 o-stone on you they just win. Post board it only gets worse they bring in at least 5 pieces of enchantment hate (Nature's claim, Ancient Grudge)
***Card Draw***
If your are looking for card draw (which in my builds I'm not) I think the best options are Chandra and Faithless looting.
With the recent bannings, there is a chance the meta could line up really nicely for Skred.
If your local meta has alot of tron, forget about it. Don't play skred, the match up is as bad in real life as it is on paper.
If you expect to see the void filled by BGx or zoo decks. Then boys and girls lets start rocking main deck Magus of the Moon and lets attack that greedy mana base.
With the Rhino still making appearances, I'd recommend a full 4 copies of Combust (effective vs. twin decks as well) in the sideboard.
I really like SSG as a speed card. Getting a blood moon a turn early is sweet.
I also run Chalice of of my board, so SSG can result in turn one wins against certain decks. Land, SSG, Chalice for 1 vs. burn, boggles, infect, etc. is pretty strong.
He's a win con just because he's a body. What he does do is control the ground and control it really well. He ends up being a win con when you need to pull a game out of your rear and you can skred your reckoner. This doesn't happen all that much as you've typically got the game on lock down and the skred the reckoner win con really only comes into play when they go to remove your reckoner. It's a very risky play to skred the reckoner for the win when your opponent isn't tapped out.
I'm going back to the drawing board, I'm not giving up on the deck but I need to take the lessons I learned and apply them.
Game one: I won he made a really bad play mistake and my Koth went ultimate.
Game two: I mulled to 5, I didn't have a burn spell in hand, so I went for a turn three Boros Reckoner, On my end step he casts pestermite and then on his turn casts twin.
Game 3: I've got a sweet two lander, I keep but never find the third land and I eventually get buried under card advantage as my plays get remanded, and cryptic'd and he goes digging, It was just too much and I drop it.
Round 2: Loss (0-2)
Playing against a Jund list. It was a really different jund list.
Game one he gained 30 life and when I died he was at 10, I dealt 40 damage to him that game and lost. Bow of Nylea was a house for him. I was light on land most of the game, he wiped out my early reckoner and the Bow of Nylea was gaining life for 4 turns while I kept drawing no threats. I finally can cast Stormbreath was only doing one damage per turn. He ends up casting two jund charms on my Stormbreath the next turn I get my 7th land. I then go into draw lands mode and lost to a big goyf.
Game two I resolve a blood moon on curve, but he's got abrupt decay for it. I don't draw any relevant removal timely enough and he's got two 6/7 goyf's online.
Round 3: Win (2-1)one for the Skred Guys!
Played against a homebrew Boros deck. It's sorta burn, sorta planeswalker.
Game 1: I chalice for 1, I've got him on lockdown and I'm feeling pretty good thinking the game was on lockdown. Two spark Troopers later there's a 12 point swing in life. Double volcanic fallout from him wipes both my reckoners and oh yeah kill me
Game 2: Chalice for 1, I kill everything he casts and koth goes ult. to kill him.
Game 3: Opening hand was Chalice, 2x Dragon's claw, scrying sheets, mtn., SSG, Batterskull. Seems really good. When the game finally ended I was at 52 life.
Round 4: Win, (2-1) Burn (B/R bump in the night)
Game 1: not much to see here he kills me fast, Turn 4
Game 2: I hear chalice is good vs. burn. Doesn't hurt that he's stuck on one land and I played an Eidolon on turn 2
Game 3: I land a Dragon's claw and he's got more creatures (GG, Swiftspear) I killed his guys and then late game drop chalice for 1. He scoops when my follow up play the next turn is batterskull
Round 5: Loss (0-2) Angel Pod - I don't recall the details of this one so much because I punted hard in one of what used to be one of my better match ups.
Game 1: Mull to 4. (all lands, no lands, no lands) Anafenza hits the board for him on curve. I'm dead shortly thereafter.
Game 2: This is where I punted hard. I was doing a good job keeping the board clear of dudes and in my mind I'd sequenced my play order pop the relic, kill the reveillark. (I've got a batterskull in play) Instead I go Skred the Reveillark, get back QASALI PRIDEMAGE, kill my batterskull. (I threw up in my mouth as soon as I said skred the reveillark... ugh...) The game goes on for a little while longer but I really lost right there.
Round 6: Win (2-1) against Affinity
Game one, Vault skirge with ensoul artifact on turn two. Well that didn't last long.
game two, he pukes his hand out on his turn one two memnite's spring leaf drum ornithompter. I take two, next turn I cast fallout to wipe his board. (I had no threats in hand just all sweepers and a shatterstorm) he casts another two dudes, I pyroclasm them. Next turn I cast a Reckoner, turn after that I fallout to wipe his board again. and get there with reckoner with a shatterstorm in hand)
Game 3, He gets a turn 2 Arcbound Ravager, with one other artifact creature and a Darksteel Citadel. I cast pyroclasm on my turn and he sacks both artifacts to the Ravager, I take 3 for 3 turns, then I was finally able to find a bolt and kill it and land a stormbreath dragon. He attempts to galvantic blast the stormbreath, (he's only got three artifacts in play one a creature) I skred the creature artifact and we have a rules conversation, which results in a judge call. He thought Metalcraft only mattered when he cast the spell but it's checked during the resolution of the spell. no metal craft, stormbreath takes 2.
Round 7: Lost 0-2 Playing against U/R Twin again
Game 1: boy did this one hurt. I was in great shape, SSG was swinging like it was no tomorrow. I get him down to 6 and I smile and say Good Game. Banefire for 6. He casts Redirect to my face. I'm like wow, that's what I get for being cocky. I've got no gas and I just die.
Game 2: Turn two Eidolon, Turn 3 Eidolon, He casts, Talrand's Invocation and gets two 2/2 flying tokens. I don't swing in thinking my eidolon's will get me there. Yeah, not so much. It just buys him time to load his hand up and eventually he's able to combo off and kill me when I ran out of removal.
So what will I change:
The Reverberate in the side is cute and fun. I hit two or three cryptic commands that's fun to do. Never played scapeshift, the card was in there as a win con vs. scapeshift so I could go over top of them. (done it online a few times It's really funny.) It's my worst card. It really needs to be two more copies of Combust. With Junk running siege Rhino it's really solid there as well as another couple outs to my bad matchup of twin.
I overcorrected for burn and delver, like many did so no one really played either. (not much in the room at all) Chalice on one when you know what your facing is good. When you are in the dark it's just not that good and underperformed. I needed Relics in the main more.
I've loved SSG to speed the deck up but I need to cut one since the chalice plan is in the board. That opens me up to bring Chandra into the main.
Affinity Matchup isn't bad hell it's actually pretty good with all the sweepers. A dedicated card in the sideboard for it is wasted. So No Shatterstorm. Replace with Anger of the Gods. With the other open board slot from Chandra in the main, I'd put in another Anger or maybe the 4th Fallout.
What I liked. 3 Koth was the right number. Batterskull was excellent hard to deal with threat. The singleton Valkut. In grindy games with scrying sheets, I got value out of this more than once.
I like what Tyler did here. He stuck to the core of what the deck does good. Beat down. More spells in the main makes chandra that much better. Instead of scrying sheets went went muta, which I'm sure helps with etched champion and kor firewalkers. Magma Jet I'm sure helped filter the draws. His build played more to the strengths of the deck. Talking with his buddies, turns out he had favorable matchups and never ran into one of his bad matchups (twin, scapeshift, amulet combo, etc.)
I need to learn from this and just play the deck for what it is and not try to make it try to do more than it can comfortably do. I don't like cutting blood moon down to 2 and no scrying sheets, but there have been plenty of times I've drawn a dead moon, so maybe it's worth considering but who am I to critique he's the one who made top 8 and I went 3-4
Trinisphere is out. Just not good enough. 4x chalice of the void in the main deck. If I'm on the play game one I'm setting it at one. If I know what they are playing here's a short list of what I set chalice at for various decks. "Stolen from reddit"
I'm testing something crazy right now. Like really crazy. Since my goal it to have chalice on one. I'm cutting the skred and bolt counts and moving them to the board.
X=0
Affinity, preferably T1 on the play, or with a Hurkyl's Recall
Living End
Ad Nauseam, counters their Pacts and makes the combo extremely fragile to disruption, counters Lotus Bloom
Restore Balance
X=1
Burn/RDW
Elves
UWR, counters their Bolts and Paths
Boggles
Infect
Ad Nauseam, counters Angel's Grace
RG Tron, counters Expedition Map, Ancient Stirrings, and all their cantrips.
8-Rack
UR(w) Delver. So many one-drops.
Baby Zoo
Storm, counters Gitaxian Probe, Sleight of Hand, Serum Visions, Thought Scour, Lightning Bolt. Typically hits 16 cards in their main deck, which is almost always enough to shut down their attempts at comboing off.
X=2
Storm, counters Grapeshot (just the cast spell not the copies), Manamorphose, Pyromancer Ascension, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Goblin Electromancer, Echoing Truth
Jund, counters Tarmogoyf, Bob, Scooze
Amulet Combo, counters Summer Bloom, Explore
///
I'm probably forgetting some obvious ones, but I'm hoping you guys can make some great suggestions.
///
EDIT: Refined my list above to reflect additions in the comments.
I remembered an important one: X=1 vs 8-rack. Counters The Rack and Shrieking Affliction, pretty much their only wincons.
EDIT 2: Since Storm is such a fast deck, it is probably smarter to play Chalice on X=1 if you have it in hand. They play a ton of 1-drops, and X=1 makes it extremely hard for them to build up a storm count.
I house bad delver players. Good delver players house me. Good delver players instead of trying to rush out the team, sit back and play a more mid range tempo game. Post board, I need to drop a chalice on that ass.
I'm weak to scapeshift and Tron. Both matchups are just miserable. I mean like Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day bad.
Trinisphere is as good as advertised in some matchups, other ones it's the most dead card in my hand. Main deck eidolon just felt bad with trinisphere and I just didn't have good results with the two combined.
//Sideboard
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Combust
SB: 3 Shatterstorm
SB: 2 Anger of the Gods
SB: 3 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Blood Moon
Blood moon is less good right now with Burn and U/R Delver at the top of the heap. So I'm bringing in a card that isn't normally played in modern but will slow those tow decks down. Trinisphere. Instead of looking to T2 Bloodmoon, I'm looking to T2 TSphere. Also helps against one of the meta choices that is good against delver and burn, boogles. It isn't so bad against affinity either.
I cut the Boros Reckoners down to three. This was a hard decision for me as it is one of our beaters and a got ya win condition. There have been too many instances where I've had a hard time casting him on turn three because of a scrying sheets. So I made the call and cut him by one.
I also moved Pyroclasm to the board as if Trinisphere is on board, then fallout is just better. Relic is money right now as well.
Personally I have not been a fan of Anger of the Gods but others have told me the card is house. I'd rather have pyroclasm in that slot. I don't like the maindeck Blasphemous Act, unless you know you will see lots of creature based decks. Personally I'd cut Chandra and BA and +2 Relic of Progenitus.
I havn't played with Vexing Shusher in this deck before. What is the purpose of it? When do you side it in?
I have not played with Ajani Vengeant. He could be a better choice than Koth.
Just thinking on the fly here some though, Koth can end the game the turn I play him. Ajani's +1 is a poor man's Icy Manipulator. His ultimate (-7) is expensive to get there. *ex. play Ajani on turn 4, cannot blow all the lands until turn 8, provided he hasn't already taken a bolt to the face. Without playing with it doesn't seem like he gets there very often. His lighting helix ability is pretty sweet, but if all I'm getting is a lighting helix out of him, I'd just play helix. *For those who've played with Ajani prove me wrong, why is he sweet?
Koth can go ultimate at +5. Typically when that happens, Game over Man!
Koth puts pressure on the board every time he +'s up. He also can +1 a mtn. and not attack if you need more mana.
His -2 can be relevant the turn he comes out. It's not as good as it is in normal skred because of those silly plains. Think about a few different lines that Koth opens up. assuming no SSG to get him in their sooner) turn 4 Koth, (say we have 3 mtn's and a Reckoner in play) -2 Koth, cast Volcanic fallout, direct two from Reckoner to wherever you need it, odds are the board is wiped sans your Reckoner and Koth.
Another line, Turn 4 Koth, + him that turn, Turn 5 Koth makes it through unscathed and is still at +4 his -2 can now generate 3-4 additional mana. (I realize this would require a pretty amazing draw but you've gotta know your nut hand when you see it.) 5 lands in play, with the chance to have 9 mana. If you have resto and kiki you win on the spot turn 5.
I cannot envision a line where Ajani Vengeant opens the door for a turn 5 kill.
Quick question, what can this deck about an EOT Deceiver Exarch on Turn 3?
I've been thinking about how to respond to this, because how I approach it is different based on what the situation is. If it's turn 3 and my opponent doesn't have any mana dorks, then there is no fear of losing the game on the spot with kiki hitting the board at the start of their turn four. If I think Kiki is going to hit, I'll hold the burn spell to kill kiki. That's a really aggressive line by my opponent though and typically I'm going to be feeling pretty good about my board state at that point.
If my opponent is playing a twin deck, how I respond depends on which variant of twin. If it's your normal UR twin and I have mana open, I'm going to hope I have flame slash, two skreds, two bolts or a combo of those two in hand. If I don't, I'm just dead, GG and move to the next game. They don't flash in the Exarch without twin in hand at that point.
Post board, I'm bringing in Combust. This situation is why my sideboard isn't fully developed yet. This question raises a wonderful point. Twin is a bad match up for any skred deck, provided the opponent has access to an island. Twin games I win are when blood moon is on board and I've cut them off from blue. All good Twin lists run like 5 islands now.
Torpor orb is a consideration, does cut me off from a win con as well, but does it hurt them more? Only play testing will tell.
Spellskite, Ghostly Prison and blind obedience are all options that I will need to consider for the sideboard to improve my match up against one of the best and most played decks in Modern.
I'm not advocating for the inclusion of either in the current meta. I have played with Chandra out of the board a few times and thought the same thing you did that she seems slow but in the right matchup she was value town in situations when you were the control deck.
RG Tron is a better match up game one but if they drop a turn 3 o-stone on you they just win. Post board it only gets worse they bring in at least 5 pieces of enchantment hate (Nature's claim, Ancient Grudge)
***Card Draw***
If your are looking for card draw (which in my builds I'm not) I think the best options are Chandra and Faithless looting.
If your local meta has alot of tron, forget about it. Don't play skred, the match up is as bad in real life as it is on paper.
If you expect to see the void filled by BGx or zoo decks. Then boys and girls lets start rocking main deck Magus of the Moon and lets attack that greedy mana base.
With the Rhino still making appearances, I'd recommend a full 4 copies of Combust (effective vs. twin decks as well) in the sideboard.
I also run Chalice of of my board, so SSG can result in turn one wins against certain decks. Land, SSG, Chalice for 1 vs. burn, boggles, infect, etc. is pretty strong.
He's a win con just because he's a body. What he does do is control the ground and control it really well. He ends up being a win con when you need to pull a game out of your rear and you can skred your reckoner. This doesn't happen all that much as you've typically got the game on lock down and the skred the reckoner win con really only comes into play when they go to remove your reckoner. It's a very risky play to skred the reckoner for the win when your opponent isn't tapped out.
I'm going back to the drawing board, I'm not giving up on the deck but I need to take the lessons I learned and apply them.
Here's the 75 I played
4 Boros Reckoner
3 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Simian Spirit Guide
Planeswalker (3)
3 Koth of the Hammer
Spells (24)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
3 Pyroclasm
3 Volcanic Fallout
1 Banefire
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Batterskull
4 Blood Moon
20 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Scrying Sheets
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Reverberate
2 Combust
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Shatterstorm
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Dragon's Claw
3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
I went 3-4. Pretty lack luster.
Round 1: Loss (1-2)
Playing against David Meyer U/R Twin: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=76612
Game one: I won he made a really bad play mistake and my Koth went ultimate.
Game two: I mulled to 5, I didn't have a burn spell in hand, so I went for a turn three Boros Reckoner, On my end step he casts pestermite and then on his turn casts twin.
Game 3: I've got a sweet two lander, I keep but never find the third land and I eventually get buried under card advantage as my plays get remanded, and cryptic'd and he goes digging, It was just too much and I drop it.
Round 2: Loss (0-2)
Playing against a Jund list. It was a really different jund list.
Game one he gained 30 life and when I died he was at 10, I dealt 40 damage to him that game and lost. Bow of Nylea was a house for him. I was light on land most of the game, he wiped out my early reckoner and the Bow of Nylea was gaining life for 4 turns while I kept drawing no threats. I finally can cast Stormbreath was only doing one damage per turn. He ends up casting two jund charms on my Stormbreath the next turn I get my 7th land. I then go into draw lands mode and lost to a big goyf.
Game two I resolve a blood moon on curve, but he's got abrupt decay for it. I don't draw any relevant removal timely enough and he's got two 6/7 goyf's online.
Round 3: Win (2-1)one for the Skred Guys!
Played against a homebrew Boros deck. It's sorta burn, sorta planeswalker.
Game 1: I chalice for 1, I've got him on lockdown and I'm feeling pretty good thinking the game was on lockdown. Two spark Troopers later there's a 12 point swing in life. Double volcanic fallout from him wipes both my reckoners and oh yeah kill me
Game 2: Chalice for 1, I kill everything he casts and koth goes ult. to kill him.
Game 3: Opening hand was Chalice, 2x Dragon's claw, scrying sheets, mtn., SSG, Batterskull. Seems really good. When the game finally ended I was at 52 life.
Round 4: Win, (2-1) Burn (B/R bump in the night)
Game 1: not much to see here he kills me fast, Turn 4
Game 2: I hear chalice is good vs. burn. Doesn't hurt that he's stuck on one land and I played an Eidolon on turn 2
Game 3: I land a Dragon's claw and he's got more creatures (GG, Swiftspear) I killed his guys and then late game drop chalice for 1. He scoops when my follow up play the next turn is batterskull
Round 5: Loss (0-2) Angel Pod - I don't recall the details of this one so much because I punted hard in one of what used to be one of my better match ups.
Game 1: Mull to 4. (all lands, no lands, no lands) Anafenza hits the board for him on curve. I'm dead shortly thereafter.
Game 2: This is where I punted hard. I was doing a good job keeping the board clear of dudes and in my mind I'd sequenced my play order pop the relic, kill the reveillark. (I've got a batterskull in play) Instead I go Skred the Reveillark, get back QASALI PRIDEMAGE, kill my batterskull. (I threw up in my mouth as soon as I said skred the reveillark... ugh...) The game goes on for a little while longer but I really lost right there.
Round 6: Win (2-1) against Affinity
Game one, Vault skirge with ensoul artifact on turn two. Well that didn't last long.
game two, he pukes his hand out on his turn one two memnite's spring leaf drum ornithompter. I take two, next turn I cast fallout to wipe his board. (I had no threats in hand just all sweepers and a shatterstorm) he casts another two dudes, I pyroclasm them. Next turn I cast a Reckoner, turn after that I fallout to wipe his board again. and get there with reckoner with a shatterstorm in hand)
Game 3, He gets a turn 2 Arcbound Ravager, with one other artifact creature and a Darksteel Citadel. I cast pyroclasm on my turn and he sacks both artifacts to the Ravager, I take 3 for 3 turns, then I was finally able to find a bolt and kill it and land a stormbreath dragon. He attempts to galvantic blast the stormbreath, (he's only got three artifacts in play one a creature) I skred the creature artifact and we have a rules conversation, which results in a judge call. He thought Metalcraft only mattered when he cast the spell but it's checked during the resolution of the spell. no metal craft, stormbreath takes 2.
Round 7: Lost 0-2 Playing against U/R Twin again
Game 1: boy did this one hurt. I was in great shape, SSG was swinging like it was no tomorrow. I get him down to 6 and I smile and say Good Game. Banefire for 6. He casts Redirect to my face. I'm like wow, that's what I get for being cocky. I've got no gas and I just die.
Game 2: Turn two Eidolon, Turn 3 Eidolon, He casts, Talrand's Invocation and gets two 2/2 flying tokens. I don't swing in thinking my eidolon's will get me there. Yeah, not so much. It just buys him time to load his hand up and eventually he's able to combo off and kill me when I ran out of removal.
So what will I change:
The Reverberate in the side is cute and fun. I hit two or three cryptic commands that's fun to do. Never played scapeshift, the card was in there as a win con vs. scapeshift so I could go over top of them. (done it online a few times It's really funny.) It's my worst card. It really needs to be two more copies of Combust. With Junk running siege Rhino it's really solid there as well as another couple outs to my bad matchup of twin.
I overcorrected for burn and delver, like many did so no one really played either. (not much in the room at all) Chalice on one when you know what your facing is good. When you are in the dark it's just not that good and underperformed. I needed Relics in the main more.
I've loved SSG to speed the deck up but I need to cut one since the chalice plan is in the board. That opens me up to bring Chandra into the main.
Affinity Matchup isn't bad hell it's actually pretty good with all the sweepers. A dedicated card in the sideboard for it is wasted. So No Shatterstorm. Replace with Anger of the Gods. With the other open board slot from Chandra in the main, I'd put in another Anger or maybe the 4th Fallout.
What I liked. 3 Koth was the right number. Batterskull was excellent hard to deal with threat. The singleton Valkut. In grindy games with scrying sheets, I got value out of this more than once.
Skred did make the top 8, Here's the deck list http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=76615
I like what Tyler did here. He stuck to the core of what the deck does good. Beat down. More spells in the main makes chandra that much better. Instead of scrying sheets went went muta, which I'm sure helps with etched champion and kor firewalkers. Magma Jet I'm sure helped filter the draws. His build played more to the strengths of the deck. Talking with his buddies, turns out he had favorable matchups and never ran into one of his bad matchups (twin, scapeshift, amulet combo, etc.)
I need to learn from this and just play the deck for what it is and not try to make it try to do more than it can comfortably do. I don't like cutting blood moon down to 2 and no scrying sheets, but there have been plenty of times I've drawn a dead moon, so maybe it's worth considering but who am I to critique he's the one who made top 8 and I went 3-4
Trinisphere is out. Just not good enough. 4x chalice of the void in the main deck. If I'm on the play game one I'm setting it at one. If I know what they are playing here's a short list of what I set chalice at for various decks. "Stolen from reddit"
I'm testing something crazy right now. Like really crazy. Since my goal it to have chalice on one. I'm cutting the skred and bolt counts and moving them to the board.
X=0
Affinity, preferably T1 on the play, or with a Hurkyl's Recall
Living End
Ad Nauseam, counters their Pacts and makes the combo extremely fragile to disruption, counters Lotus Bloom
Restore Balance
X=1
Burn/RDW
Elves
UWR, counters their Bolts and Paths
Boggles
Infect
Ad Nauseam, counters Angel's Grace
RG Tron, counters Expedition Map, Ancient Stirrings, and all their cantrips.
8-Rack
UR(w) Delver. So many one-drops.
Baby Zoo
Storm, counters Gitaxian Probe, Sleight of Hand, Serum Visions, Thought Scour, Lightning Bolt. Typically hits 16 cards in their main deck, which is almost always enough to shut down their attempts at comboing off.
X=2
Storm, counters Grapeshot (just the cast spell not the copies), Manamorphose, Pyromancer Ascension, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Goblin Electromancer, Echoing Truth
Jund, counters Tarmogoyf, Bob, Scooze
Amulet Combo, counters Summer Bloom, Explore
///
I'm probably forgetting some obvious ones, but I'm hoping you guys can make some great suggestions.
///
EDIT: Refined my list above to reflect additions in the comments.
I remembered an important one: X=1 vs 8-rack. Counters The Rack and Shrieking Affliction, pretty much their only wincons.
EDIT 2: Since Storm is such a fast deck, it is probably smarter to play Chalice on X=1 if you have it in hand. They play a ton of 1-drops, and X=1 makes it extremely hard for them to build up a storm count.
I house bad delver players. Good delver players house me. Good delver players instead of trying to rush out the team, sit back and play a more mid range tempo game. Post board, I need to drop a chalice on that ass.
I'm weak to scapeshift and Tron. Both matchups are just miserable. I mean like Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day bad.
Trinisphere is as good as advertised in some matchups, other ones it's the most dead card in my hand. Main deck eidolon just felt bad with trinisphere and I just didn't have good results with the two combined.
Here's the modified 75 from my last post:
http://deckstats.net/deck-5289344-cbc5557a921827c5536722c18949e467.html
2 Scrying Sheets
21 Snow-Covered Mountain
//Spells
3 Blood Moon
4 Koth of the Hammer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Skred
3 Trinisphere
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Stormbreath Dragon
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Combust
SB: 3 Shatterstorm
SB: 3 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
http://deckstats.net/deck-5200164-2eaf0c3e93da7bdf03caa819e1cda324.html
2 Scrying Sheets
21 Snow-Covered Mountain
Spells
2 Blood Moon
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Skred
3 Trinisphere
4 Volcanic Fallout
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Stormbreath Dragon
//Sideboard
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Combust
SB: 3 Shatterstorm
SB: 2 Anger of the Gods
SB: 3 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Blood Moon
Blood moon is less good right now with Burn and U/R Delver at the top of the heap. So I'm bringing in a card that isn't normally played in modern but will slow those tow decks down. Trinisphere. Instead of looking to T2 Bloodmoon, I'm looking to T2 TSphere. Also helps against one of the meta choices that is good against delver and burn, boogles. It isn't so bad against affinity either.
I cut the Boros Reckoners down to three. This was a hard decision for me as it is one of our beaters and a got ya win condition. There have been too many instances where I've had a hard time casting him on turn three because of a scrying sheets. So I made the call and cut him by one.
I also moved Pyroclasm to the board as if Trinisphere is on board, then fallout is just better. Relic is money right now as well.
What do you think?
It looks like room could be made for some land destruction.
I havn't played with Vexing Shusher in this deck before. What is the purpose of it? When do you side it in?
I have not played with Ajani Vengeant. He could be a better choice than Koth.
Just thinking on the fly here some though, Koth can end the game the turn I play him. Ajani's +1 is a poor man's Icy Manipulator. His ultimate (-7) is expensive to get there. *ex. play Ajani on turn 4, cannot blow all the lands until turn 8, provided he hasn't already taken a bolt to the face. Without playing with it doesn't seem like he gets there very often. His lighting helix ability is pretty sweet, but if all I'm getting is a lighting helix out of him, I'd just play helix. *For those who've played with Ajani prove me wrong, why is he sweet?
Koth can go ultimate at +5. Typically when that happens, Game over Man!
Koth puts pressure on the board every time he +'s up. He also can +1 a mtn. and not attack if you need more mana.
His -2 can be relevant the turn he comes out. It's not as good as it is in normal skred because of those silly plains. Think about a few different lines that Koth opens up. assuming no SSG to get him in their sooner) turn 4 Koth, (say we have 3 mtn's and a Reckoner in play) -2 Koth, cast Volcanic fallout, direct two from Reckoner to wherever you need it, odds are the board is wiped sans your Reckoner and Koth.
Another line, Turn 4 Koth, + him that turn, Turn 5 Koth makes it through unscathed and is still at +4 his -2 can now generate 3-4 additional mana. (I realize this would require a pretty amazing draw but you've gotta know your nut hand when you see it.) 5 lands in play, with the chance to have 9 mana. If you have resto and kiki you win on the spot turn 5.
I cannot envision a line where Ajani Vengeant opens the door for a turn 5 kill.
I've been thinking about how to respond to this, because how I approach it is different based on what the situation is. If it's turn 3 and my opponent doesn't have any mana dorks, then there is no fear of losing the game on the spot with kiki hitting the board at the start of their turn four. If I think Kiki is going to hit, I'll hold the burn spell to kill kiki. That's a really aggressive line by my opponent though and typically I'm going to be feeling pretty good about my board state at that point.
If my opponent is playing a twin deck, how I respond depends on which variant of twin. If it's your normal UR twin and I have mana open, I'm going to hope I have flame slash, two skreds, two bolts or a combo of those two in hand. If I don't, I'm just dead, GG and move to the next game. They don't flash in the Exarch without twin in hand at that point.
Post board, I'm bringing in Combust. This situation is why my sideboard isn't fully developed yet. This question raises a wonderful point. Twin is a bad match up for any skred deck, provided the opponent has access to an island. Twin games I win are when blood moon is on board and I've cut them off from blue. All good Twin lists run like 5 islands now.
Torpor orb is a consideration, does cut me off from a win con as well, but does it hurt them more? Only play testing will tell.
Spellskite, Ghostly Prison and blind obedience are all options that I will need to consider for the sideboard to improve my match up against one of the best and most played decks in Modern.