While your current deck wouldn't take full advantage, Avatar of the Resolute would make a potentially viable maindeck replacement to Woodland Wanderer and double as a Mantis Rider answer that comes down early enough. The GG does make it easy to cast since your first two lands are likely forests. Unfortunately, your only method of enabling the ETB +1/+1 (which would in turn enable Ferocious) is Undergrowth Champion, so that's not ideal. Lacking the ease of entering as a 4/3 does leave it susceptible to Wild Slash (although they might burn that on your first mana dork). Also, it could be making your two drop slot too heavy. But something to potentially think about.
Otherwise, if you're looking for a more versatile sideboard card, there's always Rending Volley. Answers Mantis Rider, Jace, and Soulmaster out of the Jeskai decks. Since it only costs R, it'll be a bit easier getting red and leaving it open while still laying down mana dorks depending on play/draw.
Regardless, appreciate the reports thus far. Wish I had more time for testing/tuning to better contribute.
I've also been playing UG with 1 or 2 Sylvan Scrying as my 13th or 14th infectors. You're right that it can be a turn slower than another 2 drop (Myr being the other usual candidate), but given our low land count, it's not uncommon to just make it your T3 or T4 play and then play the Inkmoth as your land drop for the turn. You're often sitting on just two mana and likely just had your previous threat killed, so Scrying up an Inkmoth and putting it into play has the same effect as running out the Myr, but is far more protected since they can't target it until you untap and at that point you're now in a position to activate it with mana available to protect it.
In my opinion, Scrying is a resiliency/consistency tool. We'd obviously prefer to just stick a T1 or T2 threat and kill our opponent, but when they're disrupting us with removal, that's precisely when you want a creature like Inkmoth to show up.
I've been considering giving Infect a try as my 2nd Modern deck in paper (first being GW DnT). I used to play lots of Wee/Fiend style decks when I still played Pauper on MTGO, so I've long enjoyed the aggro/combo play style (Wee/Fiend just doesn't feel nearly as powerful in Modern w/ the absence of blue cantrips). I've been researching on the deck and trying to determine whether I'd prefer to go UG or BUG and have a question regarding BUG.
Every BUG list I've seen appears to default to 4x Plague Stinger and upping the Apostle's Blessing count to a 4-of (usually from 2x) as well. I was curious why this is? With the added creature count, I can see raising the Blessing count, but why all the way to 4x? Why not instead 2x Stinger and 3x Blessing and leaving room for a few more spells?
I don't mean to imply it's right or wrong, but would like to know what those that have played it think. Do you ever feel like you either have too many creatures/protection or not enough pump? Or does it improve consistency of protecting an 'all in' approach? Curious to hear others' thoughts.
Right now, the two Tidehollow Scullers are what I'm treating as my flex slots. They're there for testing now. Other potentials for these would be 2x Kitchen Finks, 2x Abrupt Decays, or potentially additional sac outlets (Bloodthrone Vampire or Varolz).
So far, I've played primarily against fair decks. Cockatrice doesn't normally have too many combo decks in my experience, so I've unfortunately not played against Twin, Scapeshift, Storm, Living End, Ad Nauseum or even Tron or Affinity. I feel like some of these decks would be a tough matchup for the Junk version, as it's not really capable of a turn 4 kill and has limited disruption (this is why those remaining two flex slots have me gearing more towards catch-all disruption).
Decks I have played against: BW Tokens, Jund, Junk (midrange and aggro), GW hatebears, Naya Zoo, UB mill, Green Devotion, RB burn, Skred Red, UWR control, and Grixis Delver. Of these, Skred Red was an awful match up and BW tokens felt unfavorable, but only slightly. I won all the other matches 2-0 or 2-1. Again, this is on Cockatrice, and I can say that a few of these decks were testing their own spin on things, only BW tokens, Jund and Junk midrange felt like stock lists. So take all this with a grain of salt.
Skred Red:
Main board Angers and Blood Moons. Opponent landed Blood Moon on T3 both games, essentially locking me out. Also had Anger T4. I probably sideboarded poorly. I only brought in Decays for the Blood Moons and Forge-Tenders, but should have also brought in Thoughtseizes to be sure I protected myself proactively. Still, this deck folds hard to Blood Moon as it currently stands.
BW Tokens (note - Didn't have Explosives in SB at this time):
Game 1, he IoK'd my Bob on T1, dropped an Honor the Pure T2, then went into tokens mode. I had a Blood Artist + Aristocrat and my own slew of creatures chumping/draining. He eventually had too much on board, but even so, I was still drawing live to a Rally off the top winning me the game, but didn't happen.
Game 2, we both Sculler each other's removal. I let him keep a Mirran Crusader and took Path. I eventually got Artist/Bob out and kept a stream of chumpers/flying attackers beating in. He eventually matched me on tokens, but I got Gavony active and won.
Game 3, we both had slow/awkward starts. Eventually he started taking the lead after landing an Intangible Virtue. I never drew a Decay to deal w/ it, but had Blood Artist draining while chumping. Game again came down to him overpowering me for the win. Again, a top decked Rally would have won it for me, but no such luck.
Jund/Junk midrange:
In these games, I just out-grinded them. I kept removal for Bob's. Tokens/flyers kept Liliana's in check. I was able to keep pressure up while holding reserves vs. Jund for when they Angered my board. And Tarmogoyf wasn't much of a problem; I just took hits when I could spare the life or was able to chump/drain or had too much board presence for them to attack through while pinging them in the air. Matches were still close, but I felt slightly favored.
GW bears/Naya zoo/Junk aggro/RB burn:
I won a few of these matches w/out ever attacking. My GW bears opponent ended the match w/ 2x 6/6 Voices, 2x 6/6 Wilt-Leafs, and an 8/8 Smiter in play. I used my Paths on his early pair of Dryad Militants when I had Souls in hand and just let Artist triggers through chump blocks do the work until I could swing my flyers and sac out.
Junk player always had a t2 Smiter through Birds or Nobles, but I reserved my Paths for Oozes or Rhinos, taking the early hits until I could setup chumps and swing in myself. My own Rhinos let me keep life high and hold the ground while swinging in the air. Elspeth also helped speed up or break stalls.
Sculler often was my T2 play where I took their only removal. When I didn't have him, I ran out either Artist or Bob based on what the rest of my hand looked like. They normally used removal on the first play and the second would stick around enough to do the work I needed.
RB burn was split between creatures/spells that I regularly chumped before being able to stabilize with Artist or Rhinos. Probably not the best burn list.
Overall, aggro matchups feel good (Merfolk would probably be a different story).
UWR Control/Grixis Delver:
Both were more on the controlling side. Lots of counters/removal. Between Voice, Bob, Sculler or Cartel, they obviously didn't want my 2 drops sticking around. I would just jam these to whittle their resources down. The number of two drop threats + Souls let me eventually either land some threats or exhaust their removal so I could land a Rhino or Elspeth to close out. I did top deck a Rally vs. my Grixis opponent as my only out in one game.
Overall, I like a lot of the deck choices. Cartel, Artist, Bob, Souls, Rhinos have been great. Adjusting the manabase to fit Gavony's has been nice as well. But as I've mentioned, I still haven't faced a good amount of the Tier 1 decks, so sadly, much of my sideboard has gone unused
I've been playing my Junk list lately. On phone and heading to bed, but will post updated list and experiences thus far in the morning if I get time. Will say I've been liking the deck.
I like the idea of Siege Rhino in the Junk version. I guess I was trying too hard to look for something that complimented the rest of the deck the way Butcher/Falken do, but it does feel like a natural fit. Given the lack of desirable three drops besides Lingering Souls, I think I'll start by running 3, maybe even 4 copies. That said, I should perhaps give a couple of Kitchen Finks a fair shake sometime.
I have been impressed a lot with Bob in the deck. I've only gotten about 8-10 matches in so far between the two versions, but he's easily the card that's won me the most games. That said, he's actually rarely my turn two play w/out having an idea of what my opponent is on. Between Blood Artist or a potentially vulnerable Cartel, people seem eager to get our two drops off the table for fear of what they can enable. Depending on my hand, it's often felt correct to let one of your more engine based cards bite the bullet so that you can play and keep Bob around.
As for Tidehollow Sculler, that's another card I've always wanted to have work with the deck. He feels more natural in the Legacy shell due to having a desirable 1 drop sac outlet in Carrion Feeder and doubling as another Zombie for your Gravecrawlers. Nevertheless, I hope to getting around to testing it out soon. With the overall core of the deck, it feels like you have to choose between some number of Tidehollows vs. finishers. I definitely agree that he would shore up the combo matches, but would like to see how he fairs against the rest of the field.
Also, on a side note, my brother is going to do some testing with the Abzan list that I updated on the first page. He is also thinking of switching out Bloodsoaked Champion for Tukatongue Thallid as it's basically another Doomed Traveler. Thoughts on that?
Coming from the Junk side, I think Young Wolf is the other 1 drop you're looking for to play alongside Doomed Traveler. It fulfills the same role in being a recurring body, and growing larger is actually relevant in many instances.
Junk Aristocrats during INN-RTR standard was the deck I picked up when first getting back into Magic after 7-8 years. I absolutely loved the the deck and have always been trying to think of ways to make the deck viable in Modern. I've been trying to test various lists on Cockatrice, but I've mostly been matched up against other brewers, so I can't speak too much to its effectiveness yet. Example deck list:
Junk feels more attrition based with access to Young Wolf and Voice of Resurgence. I feel like this lends itself to keeping a home open for Skirsdag High Priest, but not certain it doesn't just die on the spot too often to matter. I also haven't found the right balance of additional finishers. In INN-RTR, this included 1-2 Varolz, ~2 Garruk Relentless and 2x Gavony Townships. Varolz doesn't seem to do enough work in Modern. All your creatures are basically only 1 or 2 power, and having to do it at sorcery speed is rough. He also conflicts with Rally the Ancestors, though he could maybe still be a 1-of. Garruk also isn't really an option in Modern w/ 1) the presence of Bolt and 2) the lack of reliable 1-2 power creatures worth killing to get him flipped.
I'm also finding Gavony Township difficult to fit in due to the mana requirements out of this deck. G or W 1 drops and B, BW, GW or GB (if playing Abrupt Decay) two drops makes it tough to jam in too many colorless sources in a deck that likely doesn't want more than 22 lands. Elspeth (original) or Swords might work as finishers, but I haven't played enough games yet to draw them and see how they work. I'm considering cutting the 2 Decays from the main for 2 Scavenging Oozes as just a potentially powerful late game play.
I have also play tested Yeahfootball's latest list for a few games (-2 Skirsdag, -2 Dreadbore, -1 Outpost Siege, +2 Goblin Rabblemaster, +2 Lightning Bolt, +1 Mogg War Marshal). I feel like the Mardu list is much more aggro oriented than Junk. I obviously tweaked it a bit more in that direction, but I do feel like the four drop slot of Butcher/Falken lends itself to that direction. I've only played a couple of games w/ the list, but I did like the feel of it. The game plan feels relatively similar, but a bit more streamlined. The color requirements are easier and the finishers feel solid. I'll definitely try playing around with this list, despite my preference to find a viable Junk shell.
Against Ad Nauseam, you generally just have to keep them from casting their namesake. If they get to draw their deck, that means they're going to draw the answers they need to your hate as well (Slaughter Pact, Pact of Negation, Echoing Truth, etc.). Thalia is good at forcing them to either draw into the hate ahead of time, or delay them going off until they have 2-3 extra mana. Eidolon/Canonist and Gaddock Teeg are probably some of the strongest hate cards you could play against them, as it kills their ability to combo until they draw into an answer. Stony Silence also helps delay them as it will shut off their quick mana (Bloom and Prisms).
@Chalupacabra - You're correct in your understanding of how the Fiend Hunter/Restoration Angel interaction w/ the stack works. And at first, I thought jolenar's description was incorrect myself, but after reading it over again, I think he's saying the same thing. I believe "the first creature that gets exiled" he's referring to is actually Creature B in your scenario. It's the first to actually be exiled, although it's the second creature you've targeted with the Fiend Hunter.
While your current deck wouldn't take full advantage, Avatar of the Resolute would make a potentially viable maindeck replacement to Woodland Wanderer and double as a Mantis Rider answer that comes down early enough. The GG does make it easy to cast since your first two lands are likely forests. Unfortunately, your only method of enabling the ETB +1/+1 (which would in turn enable Ferocious) is Undergrowth Champion, so that's not ideal. Lacking the ease of entering as a 4/3 does leave it susceptible to Wild Slash (although they might burn that on your first mana dork). Also, it could be making your two drop slot too heavy. But something to potentially think about.
Otherwise, if you're looking for a more versatile sideboard card, there's always Rending Volley. Answers Mantis Rider, Jace, and Soulmaster out of the Jeskai decks. Since it only costs R, it'll be a bit easier getting red and leaving it open while still laying down mana dorks depending on play/draw.
Regardless, appreciate the reports thus far. Wish I had more time for testing/tuning to better contribute.
In my opinion, Scrying is a resiliency/consistency tool. We'd obviously prefer to just stick a T1 or T2 threat and kill our opponent, but when they're disrupting us with removal, that's precisely when you want a creature like Inkmoth to show up.
Every BUG list I've seen appears to default to 4x Plague Stinger and upping the Apostle's Blessing count to a 4-of (usually from 2x) as well. I was curious why this is? With the added creature count, I can see raising the Blessing count, but why all the way to 4x? Why not instead 2x Stinger and 3x Blessing and leaving room for a few more spells?
I don't mean to imply it's right or wrong, but would like to know what those that have played it think. Do you ever feel like you either have too many creatures/protection or not enough pump? Or does it improve consistency of protecting an 'all in' approach? Curious to hear others' thoughts.
2 Young Wolf
4 Blood Artist
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Dark Confidant
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Siege Rhino
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
2 Rally the Ancestors
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
2 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Plains
2 Gavony Township
2 Burreton Forge-Tender
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Stony Silence
Right now, the two Tidehollow Scullers are what I'm treating as my flex slots. They're there for testing now. Other potentials for these would be 2x Kitchen Finks, 2x Abrupt Decays, or potentially additional sac outlets (Bloodthrone Vampire or Varolz).
So far, I've played primarily against fair decks. Cockatrice doesn't normally have too many combo decks in my experience, so I've unfortunately not played against Twin, Scapeshift, Storm, Living End, Ad Nauseum or even Tron or Affinity. I feel like some of these decks would be a tough matchup for the Junk version, as it's not really capable of a turn 4 kill and has limited disruption (this is why those remaining two flex slots have me gearing more towards catch-all disruption).
Decks I have played against: BW Tokens, Jund, Junk (midrange and aggro), GW hatebears, Naya Zoo, UB mill, Green Devotion, RB burn, Skred Red, UWR control, and Grixis Delver. Of these, Skred Red was an awful match up and BW tokens felt unfavorable, but only slightly. I won all the other matches 2-0 or 2-1. Again, this is on Cockatrice, and I can say that a few of these decks were testing their own spin on things, only BW tokens, Jund and Junk midrange felt like stock lists. So take all this with a grain of salt.
Skred Red:
Main board Angers and Blood Moons. Opponent landed Blood Moon on T3 both games, essentially locking me out. Also had Anger T4. I probably sideboarded poorly. I only brought in Decays for the Blood Moons and Forge-Tenders, but should have also brought in Thoughtseizes to be sure I protected myself proactively. Still, this deck folds hard to Blood Moon as it currently stands.
BW Tokens (note - Didn't have Explosives in SB at this time):
Game 1, he IoK'd my Bob on T1, dropped an Honor the Pure T2, then went into tokens mode. I had a Blood Artist + Aristocrat and my own slew of creatures chumping/draining. He eventually had too much on board, but even so, I was still drawing live to a Rally off the top winning me the game, but didn't happen.
Game 2, we both Sculler each other's removal. I let him keep a Mirran Crusader and took Path. I eventually got Artist/Bob out and kept a stream of chumpers/flying attackers beating in. He eventually matched me on tokens, but I got Gavony active and won.
Game 3, we both had slow/awkward starts. Eventually he started taking the lead after landing an Intangible Virtue. I never drew a Decay to deal w/ it, but had Blood Artist draining while chumping. Game again came down to him overpowering me for the win. Again, a top decked Rally would have won it for me, but no such luck.
Jund/Junk midrange:
In these games, I just out-grinded them. I kept removal for Bob's. Tokens/flyers kept Liliana's in check. I was able to keep pressure up while holding reserves vs. Jund for when they Angered my board. And Tarmogoyf wasn't much of a problem; I just took hits when I could spare the life or was able to chump/drain or had too much board presence for them to attack through while pinging them in the air. Matches were still close, but I felt slightly favored.
GW bears/Naya zoo/Junk aggro/RB burn:
I won a few of these matches w/out ever attacking. My GW bears opponent ended the match w/ 2x 6/6 Voices, 2x 6/6 Wilt-Leafs, and an 8/8 Smiter in play. I used my Paths on his early pair of Dryad Militants when I had Souls in hand and just let Artist triggers through chump blocks do the work until I could swing my flyers and sac out.
Junk player always had a t2 Smiter through Birds or Nobles, but I reserved my Paths for Oozes or Rhinos, taking the early hits until I could setup chumps and swing in myself. My own Rhinos let me keep life high and hold the ground while swinging in the air. Elspeth also helped speed up or break stalls.
Sculler often was my T2 play where I took their only removal. When I didn't have him, I ran out either Artist or Bob based on what the rest of my hand looked like. They normally used removal on the first play and the second would stick around enough to do the work I needed.
RB burn was split between creatures/spells that I regularly chumped before being able to stabilize with Artist or Rhinos. Probably not the best burn list.
Overall, aggro matchups feel good (Merfolk would probably be a different story).
UWR Control/Grixis Delver:
Both were more on the controlling side. Lots of counters/removal. Between Voice, Bob, Sculler or Cartel, they obviously didn't want my 2 drops sticking around. I would just jam these to whittle their resources down. The number of two drop threats + Souls let me eventually either land some threats or exhaust their removal so I could land a Rhino or Elspeth to close out. I did top deck a Rally vs. my Grixis opponent as my only out in one game.
Overall, I like a lot of the deck choices. Cartel, Artist, Bob, Souls, Rhinos have been great. Adjusting the manabase to fit Gavony's has been nice as well. But as I've mentioned, I still haven't faced a good amount of the Tier 1 decks, so sadly, much of my sideboard has gone unused
I have been impressed a lot with Bob in the deck. I've only gotten about 8-10 matches in so far between the two versions, but he's easily the card that's won me the most games. That said, he's actually rarely my turn two play w/out having an idea of what my opponent is on. Between Blood Artist or a potentially vulnerable Cartel, people seem eager to get our two drops off the table for fear of what they can enable. Depending on my hand, it's often felt correct to let one of your more engine based cards bite the bullet so that you can play and keep Bob around.
As for Tidehollow Sculler, that's another card I've always wanted to have work with the deck. He feels more natural in the Legacy shell due to having a desirable 1 drop sac outlet in Carrion Feeder and doubling as another Zombie for your Gravecrawlers. Nevertheless, I hope to getting around to testing it out soon. With the overall core of the deck, it feels like you have to choose between some number of Tidehollows vs. finishers. I definitely agree that he would shore up the combo matches, but would like to see how he fairs against the rest of the field.
Coming from the Junk side, I think Young Wolf is the other 1 drop you're looking for to play alongside Doomed Traveler. It fulfills the same role in being a recurring body, and growing larger is actually relevant in many instances.
Junk Aristocrats during INN-RTR standard was the deck I picked up when first getting back into Magic after 7-8 years. I absolutely loved the the deck and have always been trying to think of ways to make the deck viable in Modern. I've been trying to test various lists on Cockatrice, but I've mostly been matched up against other brewers, so I can't speak too much to its effectiveness yet. Example deck list:
2 Young Wolf
4 Blood Artist
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Dark Confidant
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Skirsdag High Priest
1 Bloodthrone Vampire
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Lingering Souls
2 Rally the Ancestors
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Gavony Township
Overall feelings so far:
Junk feels more attrition based with access to Young Wolf and Voice of Resurgence. I feel like this lends itself to keeping a home open for Skirsdag High Priest, but not certain it doesn't just die on the spot too often to matter. I also haven't found the right balance of additional finishers. In INN-RTR, this included 1-2 Varolz, ~2 Garruk Relentless and 2x Gavony Townships. Varolz doesn't seem to do enough work in Modern. All your creatures are basically only 1 or 2 power, and having to do it at sorcery speed is rough. He also conflicts with Rally the Ancestors, though he could maybe still be a 1-of. Garruk also isn't really an option in Modern w/ 1) the presence of Bolt and 2) the lack of reliable 1-2 power creatures worth killing to get him flipped.
I'm also finding Gavony Township difficult to fit in due to the mana requirements out of this deck. G or W 1 drops and B, BW, GW or GB (if playing Abrupt Decay) two drops makes it tough to jam in too many colorless sources in a deck that likely doesn't want more than 22 lands. Elspeth (original) or Swords might work as finishers, but I haven't played enough games yet to draw them and see how they work. I'm considering cutting the 2 Decays from the main for 2 Scavenging Oozes as just a potentially powerful late game play.
I have also play tested Yeahfootball's latest list for a few games (-2 Skirsdag, -2 Dreadbore, -1 Outpost Siege, +2 Goblin Rabblemaster, +2 Lightning Bolt, +1 Mogg War Marshal). I feel like the Mardu list is much more aggro oriented than Junk. I obviously tweaked it a bit more in that direction, but I do feel like the four drop slot of Butcher/Falken lends itself to that direction. I've only played a couple of games w/ the list, but I did like the feel of it. The game plan feels relatively similar, but a bit more streamlined. The color requirements are easier and the finishers feel solid. I'll definitely try playing around with this list, despite my preference to find a viable Junk shell.
Lemming