Right folks, PPTQ yesterday and I went 1-4-1. Not great and feeling a bit low about it, but I thought I'd put some points on here to help out. To be fair, almost everyone I played was refining a deck for GP so it was quite spikey. About 50 people I guess.
Game 1 - Death's Shadow Jund 0-2
This guy knew his stuff, game one he curved out into a turn 2 shadow, I didn't have removal and either turn 3 or turn 4 he ran me over with a battle raged giant. Board in my black hate, graveyard hate and removal. Game 2 was a much better game, I get a broken lotus cobra start and flood the board. He draws nothing but removal and land, deals with the threats and I have him down to 3, saheeli on board. We're both top decking at this point and I saheeli him down to 1 the turn he plays a Shadow, I pull a blocker and he peels battle rage off the top, my blocker can't stop 24 trampling damage. No feel bads here, it was a good game.
Take home - reflector mage is a house, maybe I should be running more, or 4 paths main.
Game 2 - Abzan 1-2
Game one I die to a Lili ultimate, I probably chose the wrong pile and made a bad decision on the previous turn - I scry 2 with Nissa seeing a reflector mage and something I don't remember - I put that to the bottom. If I had put the whatever on the top I could have chosen the creature pile after the Lili moment, then flipped a reflector mage, probably for the win. In comes black hate. Game 2 I turn 3 evolve a rallier into a sigarda and GG. Game 3 I punted by playing Saheeli onto an empty board facing a 4/5 goyf and a lili (on one), hand is path and cat, opponent hand is empty. I +1 saheeli, forget to redirect to lili (ARGH!) and then have to path the goyf to keep saheeli alive, discard cat to lili, and don't get the topdeck cat. I should have killed lili, path goyf, play cat and win damnit. Lots of feel bads.
Take Home - don't be an idiot, this match up feels good after board because we have such value it's hard to grind us out.
Game 3 - Lantern control 0-2
Game one is interesting, I curve out with nothing fancy and get locked up, but with scooze, excavator, ghost quarter in play, I start to out lock the lock by eating lands and replaying GQ - eventually hoping to run him out of basics, then lands, then as his hand fills up get the win. All going to play until he topdecks pithing needle and names Ghost Quarter, I scoop for time. Bring in all the artifact hate in the world. Game 2 he gets the lock out the fastest I have ever seen but it's all good because I kept a hand with birds and noble. I start getting in for 1 each turn and it looks like this will be the game. He peels Inventor's fair off the top and we lock up with him at 7/8. At that point it became super important that I had some clues on board - but I couldn't crack them unless I saw what I needed - sadly he pithing needled naming clue. I know that angel can get his ensnaring bridge off the embalm, but he draws another one before it arrives so I save him the time of milling me out and we discuss what I should have done. Answer, play stony silence. No feel bads here, he was practicing for GP and having as rough a day as me, I would have liked to win G1 to have the outlocking story to take away but no dice.
Take Away - main board qasali pridemage is a must - not only does it stop Grafdigger's Cage (Came up a couple of times and stops us evolving) but it's fast enough to cause a problem for any lock reliant on bridges.
Game 4 - Jeskai Control 2-1
Game one I curve beautifully with threats and he looks pretty smug as he remoes and counters them. He taps out for an Ajani and I flood him with Cats. Not really sure what to board in here, this match up feels really good - I choose to take out removal for more threats. Game 2 he brings all the answers and I can't go off when he taps out for an Elspeth - cue lots of flying soldiers. Game 3 he is obviously holdin up removal for the combo and I have 3 Saheeli in hand and a sun titan, I just play land go with him for a while, get a couple of Saheeli's killed then he taps for Ajani, holding up a mountain. I guess he is holiding up bolt - fun fact, bolt (or any Saheeli removal) doesn't stop infinite sun titans as he never gets priority at a good time - I win with lots of titans. No feel bads here, he seemed happy and had an awesome playmat that his GF had made for him.
Take Away - This match up feels good as we have both broken hand emptying draws, combo and value. He couldn't keep up with my threats using 1-1 removal on the whole.
Game 5 - Mindslaver Lock 1-1
Game 1 I'm not really sure what he is playing as it's a bit Janky, he naturally trons on about turn 7 while I ate quite a bit of counter magic. He locks it up and I scoop. Artifact hate in. Game 2 I just have it from turn 1 curving beautifully and running him over, sadly this probably took a bit long. Game 3 I keep an average hand with GQ and use it turn 2 to take his tower. Turn 3 he plays another tower (bugger!) then proceeds to set up tron into a wurmcoil, followed by a batterskull. I get out a pridemage and a saheeli and start wrecking by sacing the copies, eventually land an excavator and turn off tron, steady the board but at this point we have gone to turns. I feel like I would have got him but had to play a sun titan into open blue on my last turn and it eats a manaleak - If I could have waited for him to tap out then I would have had it, and it would have come as he had an empty board, was off tron and I was chipping away for 2 each turn. Ah well. Nice guy, no feel bads here.
Take away - Artifact hate maybe, I felt like this is a good match up, I just lost because I played it like it was U-tron game 1 and it really wasn't!
Game 6 - Jund 0-2
This was the only game that wasn't totally fun, Game 1 I don't really remember what happened, just losing to hand disruption, goyfs and removal (normal Jund stuff). In comes the usual. Game 2 I keep a hand with breeding pool, forest, ghost quarter. We exchange blows and we get to the point where I have to GQ my own forest to get a plains to play anything in my hand. I fail to draw any futher land and get run over by a raging ravine. Nice guy, but we were both a bit tired and fed up losing, and mana screw is never nice to play through. I rush off to the train.
Take Away - probably nothing, these things happen, maybe shouldn't have kept the hand (probably would again!)
Main changes going forward:
Qasali Pridemage - 1 main, 1 side instead of just 1 side.
Tireless Tracker - 1 main (min), instead of 1 side
Sun Titan - always in the main for me (as a 1)
Eternal Witness moved to board
Adding a 1 of Kessig Wolf Run to the main
Nissa was good when I saw her, I'll be leaving her in.
Lotus Cobra is broken - 2 is correct here
Finally, I am going to be trying out replacing all evolutions for Fauna Shaman. Evolution is rocking, but more often than not yesterday, I either couldn't stick a creature to evolve (of the correct CMC), sac a creature into counter magic (best avoided but sometimes you just got to go for it) and getting locked out by Grafdigger's (literally everyone seems to play it and because we interact with the GY it gets boarded in). Not sure this is right, probably not, but got to be worth a try!
Clue is not a name that can be named with pithing needle FYI
Do people find this deck actually works more than 25% of the time? Because I've played a dozen or so games with it and have won maybe 2 or 3 while flopping in all sorts of spectacular fashions in the rest.
In particular any deck with counterspells seems pretty much an auto-lose as you try to jam 4 mana planeswalkers while applying no pressure whatsoever and sitting on fists full of sweepers.
Chalice of the Void has also not even come close to winning me a game whether played turn 1 or 2. I invalidate their fatal push and path to exiles which were already dead anyways. The best case scenario is to be on the play, pitch a guide and block some thoughtseizes. But those are the decks that can either abrupt decay the chalice if/when it matters or use something like collective brutality or liliana to turn the dead card into something useful anyways.
just feels like there are an awful lot of dead cards from match to match, and even when you throw down the hammer with a turn 1 chalice/ turn 2 moon sometimes it just doesn't even matter. And in a lot of games 4 mana planeswalkers are just too slow when you have 0 blockers and limited interaction
You might just be having a string of bad luck. I've been playing the Bridge version for a year now and I've definitely accrued more wins than losses since. Granted, some decks are an uphill battle + variance screws us over like anyone else but I believe the deck has game against most of the format.
Still, I understand your frustrations when the deck just refuses to work sometimes. Maybe try the Landkill or Bridge variant to see if they work better for you.
I would 100% suggest a landkill deck right now, suppression field is way too good on turn 1 not to play it.I've gone 7-2-1 in the last two tournaments I played it in. Drew against affinity(I literally drew 16 lands game 3, and darksteel citadel was clutch for him)
Has anyone thought of doing full art cards with the Rebecca Guay art from Commander 2016? I would love to see them how they should've been printed in the first place
I built a version of this deck after Eldrich Moon and sigarda's aid came out, played puresteel back in standard. I was hoping to get some thoughts on sideboard cards, mainly what cards have been 100% needed and why. Any help is appreciated, I'm hoping to take this down to SCG INdy.
I went 4-1-1, top 8. Played a solid G/B deck, featuring Aetherwind Basker and Battle at the Bridge as the only rares. Only round I lost was to 2 of the geo miner guy plus missing my third forest for basker(9/8 split g/b). Defiant Salvager was probably the one card that over performed, but mostly thanks to his snake friend, Winding Constrictor. Fatal Push was always awkward, but still good. Basker is nuts, I was able to attack through the new archangel mythic from 15 to 0 to 20 to 0 in 2 turns just with him lol.
I like your list sirjame333. How do you actually pull off the win in your list? I understand Elixir is your 'recycler' and Bell is your 'decker', but I just want to know how it works out in a game.
The only way I see that it works is you draw your deck except for maybe 1-2 cards just to be safe. Then you play Elixir and pass turn. After cleanup when you discard you can use Elixir at the beginning of their upkeep to recycle your discards back into your library, then you activate Temple Bell enough times so your opponent decks themselves.
Is this kinda what you're trying to accomplish? If so I would like to suggest adding a single copy of Angel's Grace to your deck.
1. It's a decent card on it's own.
2. Can put it on the Scepter.
3. Gives you an out if somehow your GY gets removed.
The problem I see with your deck right now is that you can't remove a Leyline of the Void if it gets dropped turn 0. You also can't remove a Relic of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt, which could exile your GY in response to the Elixir recycling your GY.
A single copy of Angel's Grace would ensure that you can never lose the game. I actually like Angel's Grace as the wincon more than I like the Elixir. Grace can't be responded to or removed. The only thing that would remove Angel's Grace is something like Lost Legacy or Memoricide, and similar cards. As a 1 of it actually makes a lot of sense to me.
Thoughts?
My plan is to deck them on the same turn, as a draw effect they lose to having no cards to draw, and since elixir never goes to the graveyard you can infinitely loop through a leyline. It also gets around Emrakul shuffle effects, since they wont get a chance to discard. Now my games plan does take an extra mana source somewhere to make "infinite mana" before dropping a temple bell.
Angel's Grace is a fine card, but I'm not really worried about loosing so much as them countering a key card mid combo. Also against the hyper aggro decks that use pump spells, Silence in their upkeep means they have one less card and they have to decide to go off then or not, at which point a path post silence just wrecks them.
Every 2 power creature we play 2-for-1s Jund. Jund generally can't sit and take hits from Lark. So Lark, in my experience, wrecks Jund unless they have scooze or Kalitas out. They're a resource-trading deck that rarely can trade resources well against Reveillark. Obviously, if they have graveyard disruption online, it's a different story, but they don't play a ton of it and its obviously high-priority for us to get rid of when they do.
Is there another 5-or-less drop that you have found to be more effective against Jund? I can't really think of one; I think Lark is significantly better than Thragtusk in the matchup, and he's the other one that would come to mind. Sigarda?
Like, Lark clearly doesn't work in the coco versions, but in an evo version, evoing an eternal witness into a lark with anything useful (voice, wall of omens) in the yard is generally a beating Jund won't recover from, in my experience.
I found Reflector Mage to be really really good against the BGx decks.
4x Surge Node - mana ramp, always want to be casted on turn 1 if possible
4x Astral Cornucopia - go-to artifact for the win(need RR to win)
4x Everflowing Chalice - good ramp
2x Mox Opal - untaps with Scepter, adds to speed
2x Welding Jar - protects trinkets, adds to metalcraft, and helps Mox turn on faster
It may seem confusing to some so I'll explain how this deck wins. Basically what you want is a Scepter in play, a mana rock that gives 3+ mana, and Otherworld Atlas. From there you put a lot of counters on Atlas, tap it to draw(40 or more cards), then you cast Molten Psyche for the win.
With this combination of ramp/artifacts, you could actually combo off on turn 2. It goes like this:
Turn 1: Island, Surge Node, Astral Cornucopia(for 0), Mox Opal - tap Island for Node, tap Opal to put counter on Cornucopia, pass turn.
Turn 2: Island, tap Opal/Node on Cornucopia(2 counters). Tap both islands and Cornucopia for Scepter, with 2 mana to untap all artifacts. From there you have infinite mana turn 2. No wincon but there you go...
In my opinion if you want this deck to work you have to go 'all-out' combo.
A creature strategy seems terrible because it's likely your deck won't be much good as an aggro deck. You'll have all these weak creatures and stuff like Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, etc. If you can't draw the combo you should have a very good backup plan. Seems too inconsistent to me.
As a control shell it could be good, as Scepter adds value to a lot of cards like Lightning Helix, Remand, etc. The problem with this style is, can you combo off before your opponent beats you down first? Also, does adding stuff like Mox Opal and a bunch of mana rocks really help out control? My guess is a control list wouldn't want to run the Scepter/Reversal combo because it takes up too much deck space.
So all-in-all I think the deck HAS to be artifact based. They untap off Reversal and they are harder to remove than creatures are. With the Surge Node/Cornucopia/Chalice/Opal package you have 14 cards that can be played turn 1, and will ramp you up to the 4 mana needed to combo.
There's many ways to take this combo and this is just one. I hope I've given you guys some things to think on. I'll continue to check in and see what happens. I hope we can come up with something cool.
How about -4 day's undoing, -1 Molten Psyche, -1 atlas for +4 Temple Bell, +2 Elixir of Immortality? Seems like a more reliable win condition, plus it can help set up the combo turn.
Vs. Aggro - I would rather have Company & Chord. Going wide with cards like Voice/Finks typically trump non-infect aggro decks. For the sake of this conversation, consider Infect in the combo portion of the comparison.. which I would normally anyways. Affinity is probably the one MU where I'd prefer Evo to Company specifically to find Kataki early but Fauana Shaman on 2 allows you to untap and Kataki on 3, also Chording for 2 on T3 in Kiki Company is very possible.
Caveat: All my testing with your build has been on Cockatrice, where literally nobody plays aggro and everybody plays 65 cryptic commands. =)
In my experience, the Rock version of this deck is borderline obscene vs. aggro. 8 maindeck removal spells, and 8 _premium_ 2-drop blockers (4x voice, 4x wall, not counting scooze and pridemage) mean that we've got a really good shot of answering creature-based aggression like infect, death's shadow, or zoo.
I have not played a lot of your deck vs. aggro, but a lot of the coco targets don't block things like swiftspear/nacatl particularly well, and you only run 3 maindeck removal spells. So I suspect the aggro matchup is slightly worse.
I'm certain the coco combo matchup is better, and I...am not sure about the control matchup. You're right that counterspells are better against Rock's fat curve, but at the same time, the Rock version is generally packed with more threats than your average control deck can deal with. It's really tough to run it out of cards, which is usually the control win plan.
To be fair, when testing Evo w/ Bolt Lists (Birds and Birdless) my Infect/Dredge G1 went to total crap and couldn't really turn itself around post board. I agree Wall/Voice are great turn 2 plays vs. Red based aggro variants but I often found myself just getting burned out before I could even establish a clock most games.
Birdless Rock was okay against Jeskai Nahiri, bolts helped deal with Nahiri but If I couldn't find them I was typically sitting on the opposite side of an Emrakul on Turn 6 and it's fairly easy for them to 1 for 1 without resolving a P&K. Haven't gotten to play the MU with Birds + Bolts.
Besides all these different versions, there is one thing I'm worrying about:
Where are the results? Kiki whatever seems to be on it's way to T3. Is the deck worse these days? Do people not like it?
I personally love the deck and think it's strong. All versions can be strong. However, there are no (larger events) results... And I speak of MTGO leagues/SCG stuff/GPs/some pros playing the deck.
Anyway, can't wait to get my hands on some Filigree Familiars. That card seems to be a very powerfull addition to the Evo variants.
I don't want this to turn into a Modern Meta discussion but.. I'm under the impression that there just isn't an established Kiki-Evo/Chord/Company shell to draw Pros/Experienced players in. I do agree the deck is dangerously close to finding itself in Tier 3 territory. MTGO Leagues, while I believe are a poor representation of the Meta, are chock-full of unfair strategies pushing Evo/Chord decks out of contention without the perfect set of answers. Additionally, "newer" players are far less likely to put in the time and effort required to pilot the deck properly.. and why should they when you can just pick up Infect/Burn and cruise your way through free wins.
Modern is just very unfair right now.. A lot of decks with the Twin banning shifted to this mentality of Sorcery Speed 4/5 drops are OK in the format and are now being punished for it with the format shifting to games ending around turn 3.75. If I'm going to play a Kiki variant right now, I want to be as unfair as possible without losing game against the fair decks of the format and that's probably what needs to happen before you see the deck begin to put up results again.
Again.. just my opinion..
Isn't this also a reflection of how unplayable the kiki combos are on MTGO? Same with why Melria coco has lower numbers online? I wouldnt want to pilot these decks on a laggy program, nor lantern...
Clue is not a name that can be named with pithing needle FYI
My plan is to deck them on the same turn, as a draw effect they lose to having no cards to draw, and since elixir never goes to the graveyard you can infinitely loop through a leyline. It also gets around Emrakul shuffle effects, since they wont get a chance to discard. Now my games plan does take an extra mana source somewhere to make "infinite mana" before dropping a temple bell.
Angel's Grace is a fine card, but I'm not really worried about loosing so much as them countering a key card mid combo. Also against the hyper aggro decks that use pump spells, Silence in their upkeep means they have one less card and they have to decide to go off then or not, at which point a path post silence just wrecks them.
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Dramatic Reversal
2 Elixir of Immortality
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Flooded Strand
7 Island
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
2 Pact of Negation
3 Path to Exile
1 Plains
3 Remand
4 Silence
4 Talisman of Progress
4 Temple Bell
1 Welding Jar
1 Path to Exile
4 Porphyry Nodes
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Swan Song
This is my take on a shell, I think I might sleeve it up and test it during the PPTQ tomorrow.
I found Reflector Mage to be really really good against the BGx decks.
How about -4 day's undoing, -1 Molten Psyche, -1 atlas for +4 Temple Bell, +2 Elixir of Immortality? Seems like a more reliable win condition, plus it can help set up the combo turn.
Isn't this also a reflection of how unplayable the kiki combos are on MTGO? Same with why Melria coco has lower numbers online? I wouldnt want to pilot these decks on a laggy program, nor lantern...