I've never seen the Facebook group but it sounds like a mess I'll avoid. In the MOCS I'd have liked to see the Jund players side out hand denial for more impactful cards like Fulminators. The guy that Rubin beat in the semi had a Thrun in his board and didn't bring it in. Mind blown.
Steve Rubin shaved a Dark Confidant on the draw. You guys are making it look like he removed all 4. I don't support his decision in doing this but let's not throw the guy into the fire.
As I posted earlier, I had a Modern event today. It was Gameday and I've won the last 2 we've had (both of which were modern). Once with Jund and the other with Abzan. I'm the town BGx guy and I was worried my streak was going to come to an end today thanks to the new Eldrazi hotness that everyone and their grandmother is rocking, thanks Wizards. >< Here is what I went to battle with today:
The first thing you'll notice is that I ran no hand denial in the main and that's because I expected a meta full of aggro or turn 1 dropping chalice decks. I wanted a deck that could gain a lot of life and abuse the Reality Smasher discard clause while beating other midrange decks in combat. I knew I was a game one dog to decks like affinity and Infect but I felt that my board was prepared for those matches. I also knew I was weak to tron but I didn't expect to see it given how aggro Modern has become since Twin got banned.
Round 1 vs. Mono Black Sacrifice Theme 2 - 0
In the first round I got paired up against a mono black deck that never really got going I think. It was a deck based on making the opponent sacrifice their creatures alongside a discard theme. My deck happened to be it's worst nightmare with Loxodon Smiter, Wilt-Leaf Liege, Voice of Resurgence and Lingering Souls.
Round 2 vs. Burn 0 - 2
Game 1 Burn does as burn does and comes out very aggressively. I was on a mulligan but had the opponent in top deck mode, sadly I was at too low a life total and had not seen a single source of main deck life gain and died. Game 2 I boarded into Scavenging Ooze and Leyline of Sanctity. I mulligan 1 no land hand away and my 6 was not much better. I had no leyline in it either. I was able to stall the board with a turn 3 Smiter but again my life was low. I believe I was at 9. My 4th land was a Vault of the Archangel but I never drew the last land to get it active. The burn player was able to rip into running head shots for 3 and ended me.
Round 3 vs. RG Tron 2 - 0
I know right?! The tron player assembled Tron on the 4th turn and was able to get an Oblivion Stone down. I played a second turn Voice of Resurgence, a third turn Voice of Resurgence and a 4th turn Kitchen Finks. I was on the play so my Tron friend was taking beats. He was able to find a Karn off a stirrings but it was too little too late, off to game 2. For Tron I only had 4 cards in my board that I liked. 2 Gaddock Teeg and 2 Thoughtseize. Game 2 was fairly unexciting. The tron player got tron on turn 5 or 6 but had no Ugin or Karn to play. They played a Wurmcoil Engine that was taken out by Path to Exile all the while they were being beatne up by voices and finks. The deal was sealed by Wilt-Leaf Liege coming down for lethal.
Round 4 vs. Grixis Delver 2 - 1
Voice of Resurgence is a huge winner in this matchup. It makes their deck handle about as smoothly as Sweet Tooth in Twisted Metal. Turn 2 Voice into Turn 2 Smiter get a clock ticking. My opponent main phase hit me with Kolaghan's Command to shoot the Voice and make me discard. Zing! Wilt-Leaf comes into play and the scoop was immediate. I didn't have a lot to side in for this match because I felt pretty favoured in it with what I had in the main. I boarded in the 3rd Scavenging Ooze to reduce the impact of Snapcaster Mage. In game 2 my opponent was on the play and dropped a turn 3 Blood Moon. Well, my pants were around my ankles because I had fetched up 2 shock lands. I didn't expect a 3 color deck to be rocking Blood Moons, guess I was wrong! I slowly died a burn filled death while trying to top deck a swamp or plains to get some action on the board. I had Smiters rotting in my hand as well as an Abrupt decay. Game 3 I was carefully fetching basics as to not get Blood Mooned out again. Voice of Resurgence did its job making the Delver deck have awkward plays and the rest of the team smashed in for gobs of damage.
Top 8 Quarter Final vs. Infect 2 - 1
I knew unless I hit a million copies of Lingering Souls my deck was not going to win game 1. I lost game 1. I had Tarmogoyfs that got ignored by the Inkmoth Nexus that killed me in timely fashion. I boarded in 2 Thoughtseize, 1 Abrupt Decay, 3 Golgari Charm and 3 Wrath of God. The 3 Wraths may seem bizarre but I had so many cards that I felt were do nothings in my deck that I'd be happier trading 1 for 1 with the Infect deck knowing that they only have 12 threats. I removed cards that gained life as my priority switch outs so kitchen finks and Kalitas were the first cuts. I can't remember what else was sided out. Game 2 was very long but decided by Lingering souls buying enough time to mount an offense. I recall blocking an inkmoth nexus with a souls token and before going to damage path to exiling the token away to search up a second plains to be able to use the other 2 paths in my hand. My opponent had a spellskite in play but chose not to redirect my path to it so my mana was fixed. I was able to then use the other 2 paths in my hand as well as the abrupt decay to kill the blighted agent played after combat to turn the game in my favour and win it. Game 3 was decided by a bunch of souls tokens blocking and then a Vault of the Archangel activation to make trades after pumps. It was a sweet victory.
Semi Finals vs. Colorless Eldrazi 2 - 1
This is the match we made the deck for! Game 1 I finally got to abuse Reality Smasher and make the unfair card a liability. My opponent had a Spellskite, a 3/3 Endless One, a tapped Reality Smasher (It had just smashed my face!) an Eldrazi Mimic in play. The Spellskite, Mimic and Endless one were all untapped. I had a Voice of REsurgence and I can't remember the other attacker I came at him with. Both of my attackers were blocked. The Endless one was blocking to kill something and the Mimic was blocking to trade. Before Damage I targeted the Smasher with Path to exile thus triggering the discard clasuse. My opponent paid 2 life to redirect. Path on Spellskite resolved with him fetching a waste and then I "discarded" my wilt-Leaf Liege into play and took out his mans. I had a Maelstrom Pulse for the Smasher post combat tossing a Verdant Catacombs. Eldrazi drew 2 land and died. I brought in 3 Wrath of God for this match. Game 2 was a long game but they were able to be too big too fast and had some good Thought-Knotting to make sure I wasn't getting maximum impact on my draws. Also if any of you are on the Eldrazi plan, get some Sea Gate Wreckage in there. that card ate me. Game 3 The Eldrazi player didn't have an explosive Start and I came out smoothly. I wasn't able to abuse Reality Smasher again but I was able to Wilt-Leaf Pump 6 Souls tokens to get lethal.
Finals vs. Blue Moon 1 - 2
The ride came to an end at the end. I didn't know what my opponent was on in game 1 but it became very clear after I was locked out of the game on my 2nd turn. >< Game 2! I assumed that they were siding the Blood Moons out anticipating I wouldn't be a shock fetcher a second time around. Turns out I was correct but I wasn't going to risk shock fetching and killing myself, you gotta earn it Blue Moon guy! I sided in 2 Gaddock Teeg and 2 Thoughtseize and the 3rd Scavenging Ooze. I knew he was on Batterskull and Cryptic command so Gaddock seemed like a decent sideboard option even if all he did was eat a bolt it may still slow them down a bit from going into their full game plan. It turns out that Loxodon Smiter is great vs. a deck that wants to rely heavily on Mana Leak! I was able to get my elephant men into the red zone enough to get the job done. Game 3 was very cat and mouse. He new that I ran Maelstrom Pulse, he knew that I knew he ran Batterskull. Turns out we both had both in our hand all game. The bad part of this is that my opponent played Pia and Kiran Nalaar and he had already done a fair amount of damage to me with burn spells. I lost multiple Goyfs to roast this game and 2 Wilt Leaf got countered. I was forced to pay 4 life to dismember the parents and attempt a pulse on the tokens. This is where he played Snapcaster into Cryptic Command and I was done.
All in all I enjoyed playing the deck. It did what it was built to do and I can't be too upset about that. Sadly I couldn't represent as hard as I'd have liked for the BGx team but you can't win em all. I haven't thought about what I might change down the road. I feel if I had been playing Jund in the finals I would have won that match. Had I been on Jund in the semi final I would have lost most likely. Modern is a funny format that way but at least as BGx players we can adapt to what we expect to see and generally cause a lot of people a lot of grief. Sorry for the long winded report, thanks for reading!
Chalice doesn't say spells of converted mana cost cannot be played, it says they will be countered. You'll still 5be able to toss the "Free" creatures into play by targeting smasher with path etc even if there is a chalice set to 1 present.
That's right. I still don't think it's worth of playing Loxodon Smiter and/or Wilt-Leag Liege since they're not that well suited for Junk midrange. If you want to play them it's better to play Little Kid Junk.
I've got a modern tournament this weekend and I've decided in the face of the looming Eldrazi threat to little kid it up and play the liege and smiter. Hope this is the answer I'm looking for!
Chalice doesn't say spells of converted mana cost cannot be played, it says they will be countered. You'll still be able to toss the "Free" creatures into play by targeting smasher with path etc even if there is a chalice set to 1 present.
Hey guys, when I was at GP Vancouver I hit up a few Modern side events. One of my matches was against a Mardu Midrange that was pretty sweet. I didn't get the player's list but I was excited to build my own version and this is my first draft:
Not sure if there is enough hate here for the Eldrazi insanity we are looking to be dealing with soon but this at least looks like a fun deck to tweak and work with.
Set is officially slow. Standard looks fun and people are forced to play without hyper efficient cards for a bit. Feels like it will be a breath of fresh air.
Why don't people ever take into account what standard will look like after Dragons of Tarkir and Origins rotate? It's not fair to evaluate cards in a vacuum. Without context most cards seem bad. Let the set come out and see where standard takes us before we label the set bad.
I dunno....maybe cause it's another FREAKIN YEAR before those 2 sets rotate out. THIS is what we have for the next while. THIS is what we will be playing for the next several months. Right now...it's not even on anyone's mind what will happen when Origins and Dragons rotate out.
Why don't people ever take into account what standard will look like after Dragons of Tarkir and Origins rotate? It's not fair to evaluate cards in a vacuum. Without context most cards seem bad. Let the set come out and see where standard takes us before we label the set bad.
Almost won an M15 draft the other day with mill. Had 4 Mind Sculpt and a Grindclock. It was really funny but I lost the finals in 3 games. Milling is terrible and no one should try it unless they promised they would on their youtube channel or are drinking. I was both of these exceptions.
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Instant
4 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
Sorcery
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Lingering Souls
1 Swamp
4 Forest
3 Plains
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
3 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Gavony Township
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Thoughtseize
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Golgari Charm
3 Wrath of God
3 Leyline of Sanctity
The first thing you'll notice is that I ran no hand denial in the main and that's because I expected a meta full of aggro or turn 1 dropping chalice decks. I wanted a deck that could gain a lot of life and abuse the Reality Smasher discard clause while beating other midrange decks in combat. I knew I was a game one dog to decks like affinity and Infect but I felt that my board was prepared for those matches. I also knew I was weak to tron but I didn't expect to see it given how aggro Modern has become since Twin got banned.
Round 1 vs. Mono Black Sacrifice Theme 2 - 0
In the first round I got paired up against a mono black deck that never really got going I think. It was a deck based on making the opponent sacrifice their creatures alongside a discard theme. My deck happened to be it's worst nightmare with Loxodon Smiter, Wilt-Leaf Liege, Voice of Resurgence and Lingering Souls.
Round 2 vs. Burn 0 - 2
Game 1 Burn does as burn does and comes out very aggressively. I was on a mulligan but had the opponent in top deck mode, sadly I was at too low a life total and had not seen a single source of main deck life gain and died. Game 2 I boarded into Scavenging Ooze and Leyline of Sanctity. I mulligan 1 no land hand away and my 6 was not much better. I had no leyline in it either. I was able to stall the board with a turn 3 Smiter but again my life was low. I believe I was at 9. My 4th land was a Vault of the Archangel but I never drew the last land to get it active. The burn player was able to rip into running head shots for 3 and ended me.
Round 3 vs. RG Tron 2 - 0
I know right?! The tron player assembled Tron on the 4th turn and was able to get an Oblivion Stone down. I played a second turn Voice of Resurgence, a third turn Voice of Resurgence and a 4th turn Kitchen Finks. I was on the play so my Tron friend was taking beats. He was able to find a Karn off a stirrings but it was too little too late, off to game 2. For Tron I only had 4 cards in my board that I liked. 2 Gaddock Teeg and 2 Thoughtseize. Game 2 was fairly unexciting. The tron player got tron on turn 5 or 6 but had no Ugin or Karn to play. They played a Wurmcoil Engine that was taken out by Path to Exile all the while they were being beatne up by voices and finks. The deal was sealed by Wilt-Leaf Liege coming down for lethal.
Round 4 vs. Grixis Delver 2 - 1
Voice of Resurgence is a huge winner in this matchup. It makes their deck handle about as smoothly as Sweet Tooth in Twisted Metal. Turn 2 Voice into Turn 2 Smiter get a clock ticking. My opponent main phase hit me with Kolaghan's Command to shoot the Voice and make me discard. Zing! Wilt-Leaf comes into play and the scoop was immediate. I didn't have a lot to side in for this match because I felt pretty favoured in it with what I had in the main. I boarded in the 3rd Scavenging Ooze to reduce the impact of Snapcaster Mage. In game 2 my opponent was on the play and dropped a turn 3 Blood Moon. Well, my pants were around my ankles because I had fetched up 2 shock lands. I didn't expect a 3 color deck to be rocking Blood Moons, guess I was wrong! I slowly died a burn filled death while trying to top deck a swamp or plains to get some action on the board. I had Smiters rotting in my hand as well as an Abrupt decay. Game 3 I was carefully fetching basics as to not get Blood Mooned out again. Voice of Resurgence did its job making the Delver deck have awkward plays and the rest of the team smashed in for gobs of damage.
Top 8 Quarter Final vs. Infect 2 - 1
I knew unless I hit a million copies of Lingering Souls my deck was not going to win game 1. I lost game 1. I had Tarmogoyfs that got ignored by the Inkmoth Nexus that killed me in timely fashion. I boarded in 2 Thoughtseize, 1 Abrupt Decay, 3 Golgari Charm and 3 Wrath of God. The 3 Wraths may seem bizarre but I had so many cards that I felt were do nothings in my deck that I'd be happier trading 1 for 1 with the Infect deck knowing that they only have 12 threats. I removed cards that gained life as my priority switch outs so kitchen finks and Kalitas were the first cuts. I can't remember what else was sided out. Game 2 was very long but decided by Lingering souls buying enough time to mount an offense. I recall blocking an inkmoth nexus with a souls token and before going to damage path to exiling the token away to search up a second plains to be able to use the other 2 paths in my hand. My opponent had a spellskite in play but chose not to redirect my path to it so my mana was fixed. I was able to then use the other 2 paths in my hand as well as the abrupt decay to kill the blighted agent played after combat to turn the game in my favour and win it. Game 3 was decided by a bunch of souls tokens blocking and then a Vault of the Archangel activation to make trades after pumps. It was a sweet victory.
Semi Finals vs. Colorless Eldrazi 2 - 1
This is the match we made the deck for! Game 1 I finally got to abuse Reality Smasher and make the unfair card a liability. My opponent had a Spellskite, a 3/3 Endless One, a tapped Reality Smasher (It had just smashed my face!) an Eldrazi Mimic in play. The Spellskite, Mimic and Endless one were all untapped. I had a Voice of REsurgence and I can't remember the other attacker I came at him with. Both of my attackers were blocked. The Endless one was blocking to kill something and the Mimic was blocking to trade. Before Damage I targeted the Smasher with Path to exile thus triggering the discard clasuse. My opponent paid 2 life to redirect. Path on Spellskite resolved with him fetching a waste and then I "discarded" my wilt-Leaf Liege into play and took out his mans. I had a Maelstrom Pulse for the Smasher post combat tossing a Verdant Catacombs. Eldrazi drew 2 land and died. I brought in 3 Wrath of God for this match. Game 2 was a long game but they were able to be too big too fast and had some good Thought-Knotting to make sure I wasn't getting maximum impact on my draws. Also if any of you are on the Eldrazi plan, get some Sea Gate Wreckage in there. that card ate me. Game 3 The Eldrazi player didn't have an explosive Start and I came out smoothly. I wasn't able to abuse Reality Smasher again but I was able to Wilt-Leaf Pump 6 Souls tokens to get lethal.
Finals vs. Blue Moon 1 - 2
The ride came to an end at the end. I didn't know what my opponent was on in game 1 but it became very clear after I was locked out of the game on my 2nd turn. >< Game 2! I assumed that they were siding the Blood Moons out anticipating I wouldn't be a shock fetcher a second time around. Turns out I was correct but I wasn't going to risk shock fetching and killing myself, you gotta earn it Blue Moon guy! I sided in 2 Gaddock Teeg and 2 Thoughtseize and the 3rd Scavenging Ooze. I knew he was on Batterskull and Cryptic command so Gaddock seemed like a decent sideboard option even if all he did was eat a bolt it may still slow them down a bit from going into their full game plan. It turns out that Loxodon Smiter is great vs. a deck that wants to rely heavily on Mana Leak! I was able to get my elephant men into the red zone enough to get the job done. Game 3 was very cat and mouse. He new that I ran Maelstrom Pulse, he knew that I knew he ran Batterskull. Turns out we both had both in our hand all game. The bad part of this is that my opponent played Pia and Kiran Nalaar and he had already done a fair amount of damage to me with burn spells. I lost multiple Goyfs to roast this game and 2 Wilt Leaf got countered. I was forced to pay 4 life to dismember the parents and attempt a pulse on the tokens. This is where he played Snapcaster into Cryptic Command and I was done.
All in all I enjoyed playing the deck. It did what it was built to do and I can't be too upset about that. Sadly I couldn't represent as hard as I'd have liked for the BGx team but you can't win em all. I haven't thought about what I might change down the road. I feel if I had been playing Jund in the finals I would have won that match. Had I been on Jund in the semi final I would have lost most likely. Modern is a funny format that way but at least as BGx players we can adapt to what we expect to see and generally cause a lot of people a lot of grief. Sorry for the long winded report, thanks for reading!
I've got a modern tournament this weekend and I've decided in the face of the looming Eldrazi threat to little kid it up and play the liege and smiter. Hope this is the answer I'm looking for!
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Restoration Angel
3 Wall of Omens
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Archangel of Thune
Instant:
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Crackling Doom
3 Lingering Souls
2 Lightning Helix
1 Terminate
Sorcery:
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Bitterblossom
Land:
3 Shambling Vent
1 Needle Spires
3 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Godless Shrine
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Path to Exile
1 Thoughtseize
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Olivia Voldaren
2 Rakdos Charm
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Wrath of God
Not sure if there is enough hate here for the Eldrazi insanity we are looking to be dealing with soon but this at least looks like a fun deck to tweak and work with.