- MantisRider
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Member for 9 years, 2 months, and 12 days
Last active Thu, Apr, 5 2018 19:03:24
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Smoldy posted a message on [Primer] Jeskai Control / UWR ControlI have been running a TiTi list on Xmage with a lot of good results. Not sure why people stopped testing it to be honest.Posted in: Modern Archives - Proven -
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Lantern posted a message on [Primer] Zoo [Video Primer]Played against one of the bigger Lantern players around here. We had a good joke at the start because he said "I'm playing lantern control, might not want to play since I'm well known not to like it. But I decided I better pony up for a change and do it, since its worth testing with the whole Thopter sword package now. It was a good game, both of us played like champs, and if he sees this, I'd love his take on it too.Posted in: Aggro & Tempo
Game one was pretty bad. I just got behind a turn 3 bridge turn four thopter combo. Turns out thats a pretty damned good curve. I had no pridemage or ooze, so GG.
Game 2/3 went long as hell. I sided in (with my list in testing, aint worth posting since its still fully in flux) 2 stony, 2 thalia, 1 choke (which was wrong) and 2 finks taking out my 3 paths and 3 arlinn. Retrospect, taking out the 3 paths and one smiter would probably be better that game 1, since I could have kept in arlinn since flipping bolting every other long long turn sounds good under a bridge... Anyways, I did a fair amount of damage, locked out his mill rocks turn 3 with a stony silence, then got myself locked out via bridge... Until I drew a pridemage about 20 turns later, blew it up and then won. I had to play to my outs, and casted a "useless" knight to thin my deck out so oath could find pridemage or an exalted creature. I also was using ooze to keep my tarmo around 1/2 or 0/1 so I could attack with it, but mostly that didnt help since he got a spellskite out to block. Kessig would have got me there eventually.
After seeing the mana they had to use to make it work better, I called in blood moon from the side, and did a turn 2 stony, turn 4 blood moon to shut off combos or kill spells for my stony. About a million turns later I was able to get hierarch and birds later to (heh, literally) peck in for some damage. I noticed about 2 turns late that his hand was growing with colored spells, so the blood moon actually did secret work, turning my attackers back online to finish the game. I should note he locked me out of kessig and pridemage with needles, so what happened was my only out.
Oath was amazing, espeically since I when I burned through my library with knight, finding either a noble or pridemage. It probably wasnt as good as company, but the fact I could cast it and stony in the same turn was stupid good. Pridemage and ooze and noble obviously was good too. So the "bigger" zoo still does play to outs, still is a good deck choice, regardless of the combo, which was present all 3 games in full 2 card combo glory, all 3 games.
Moral is: Sword thopter isn't nearly as bad for zoo as people think it is. between ooze and pridemage, and 2 stony in the side, its probably in our favor because slow=zoo kills you. -
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idSurge posted a message on Knightfall/Bant CompanySecurity net...weakening...Ok I'll test that out, thanks for the feedback. :]Posted in: Midrange - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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3/4 is about how large I can get tarmo on average by turn 3 to 4 but the fact that tribal flames is a sorcery and Ghor clan Rampager is a creature in the yard when used helps out, I can potentially get him to a 4/5 by myself without making any particularly out of place plays. I feel like a 3/4 on average is already better than the two drop alternatives in a deck this aggressive. Also there are enough decks in the meta that help him get huge anyway he's a must include. People so often forget that the cool thing about running tarmo in a zoo deck with nobles is that your tarmos can swing through theirs with only one exalted trigger. I've played about a million different variations on naya/four color zoo, bant company, and Knightfall over the years to know that I like him in the two drop slot more than voice, at least in this kind of aggressive list.
As far as tarfire goes, I've also played jund death shadow and let me just say that card sucked even in a deck that was trying to achieve delerium as well as pump goyfs. There's a reason why most people are on 1 to none in jund based lists now. Shock in modern is a no go.
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My current Domain Knightfall Zoo list. I really think aggression backed by reach and the threat of Knightfall combo is the way to go in this meta.
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1 Academy Ruins
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
1 Great Furnace
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Island
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Mana Confluence
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Shivan Reef
1 Spire of Industry
1 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
1 Underground River
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Watery Grave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Dack Fayden
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
Artifact (26)
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Azorius Signet
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Boros Signet
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Izzet Signet
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Opal
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Time Sieve
1 Voltaic Key
1 Winter Orb
Sorcery (10)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Fabricate
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Scrap Mastery
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vandalblast
1 Vindicate
1 Windfall
1 Arcum Dagsson
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Dark Confidant
1 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Grand Architect
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Master Transmuter
1 Notion Thief
1 Pili-Pala
1 Shimmer Myr
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Spellskite
1 Thopter Engineer
Instant (11)
1 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Dramatic Reversal
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Swan Song
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wear // Tear
1 Whir of Invention
Enchantment (1)
1 Necropotence
My midrrangey Breya list. I'm a very competitive player and this has sort of become my "fun" list. I can combo out early with some good hands but nothing too crazy. It does a lot of fun, artifacty stuff like Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast and Kuldotha Forgemaster + Blightsteel Colossus.
Very much trying to re-envision the Sharuum the Hegemon lists I really enjoyed in my early days of commander into a competitive context.
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1 Brain in a Jar
Creature 17
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Simian Spirit Guide
Land 20
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Forbidden Orchard
4 Windswept Heath
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Kari Zev's Expertise
4 Sram's Expertise
4 Breaking // Entering
4 Beck // Call
4 Faithless Looting
2 Blood Moon
3 Defense Grid
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Nature's Claim
3 Ravenous Trap
The basic idea is to create a deck that uses the interaction between Kari Zev's Expertise, Sram's Expertise, Brain in a Jar, and Breaking // Entering, and Beck // Call to cast both sides of these powerful fuse cards for only the cost of the expertise spell or the brain in the jar activation.
Breaking // Entering is our primary wincon, with the rest of the deck set up to give you a solid statistical chance of hitting a Griselbrand, Emrakul, The Aeons Torn, or an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre off of breaking and reanimating it with Entering permanently with the addition of haste. Hitting an Emrakul is immediate game over, Ulamog does a decent Emrakul impression, and Griselbrand lets you draw an ungodly amount of cards for your trouble to set up another go at Breaking // Entering if it gets pathed. Beck // Call is less of an instant win card but it's honestly closer than you'd think as the sheer value of getting 4 1/1 flyers and drawing 4 is difficult for any other deck in modern to match, not to mention it's just inevitably drawing you closer to setting up a winning Breaking // Entering.
The rest of the deck is ramp and Kari Zev's Expertise targets in Birds of Paradise, Sylvan Caryatid, Dryad Arbor, and Forbidden Orchard. Then a playset of Faithless Looting to grease the wheels and bin your Griselbrands should you draw them. Please note that binning your Eldrazi Monsters with faithless looting WILL CAUSE THEM TO BE SHUFFLED BACK INTO YOUR DECK. They cannot sit in your bin for an easy entering later like Griselbrand can, they MUST be hit in the 8 cards your mill with breaking. This is something you might want to do to get eldrazi stranded in your hand back into your library to increase your chances of a Breaking // Entering hit. But keep in mind, it shuffles your whole graveyard back in, so any Faithless Looting that you haven't flashed back will be gone.
Defense Grid, Leyline of Sanctity, and Nature's Claim are all here to make sure your opponent can't mess with your combo with things like counterspells, discard spells, and little enchantments called Rest in Peace. Blood Moon is here just to gunk up the opponents works when you transform in game 2 and 3 into a more relentless but slower combo deck.
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I could see an additional spell snare. The card's stock definitely went up with the bannings and unbannings.
Thing in the Ice is a card that gets killed a lot in this list, but that's fine considering it usually means they have to spend some amount of time or effort getting it off of the board, which is great for us as it gives us another turn or an additional land (in the case of path to exile) to work with later, and is a resource not spent on developing a board position we might not be able to deal with. I'm really in love with the card. Also gives us main board game against some aggro decks, by bouncing all their dudes back to hand. For whatever reason a lot of people on this board aren't too hot on it and would rather ship the old lists that historically haven't done super well but plus AV and/or Thopter Sword. That's a safe option in my eyes and there's probably some wisdom to upgrading the old lists people know well, but I've always been a brewer at heart who tries to innovate even if it goes down an unproven path. I just can't get over the fact that when thing flips, I always win the game, and that when thing doesn't flip, hell, I'm still usually winning the game. Thing isn't a card that can be your sole wincon but he is an absurdly powerful card that demands that my opponents play around him. He only ever comes out against GBx, where the sheer amount of viable removal against him makes him unlikely to impact the game, in which case I'd rather side into a grindy low creature control deck that naturally blanks their removal spells. So yeah, he has his weaknesses but well worth the inclusion in my eyes.
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Sword of the meek combo is SLOW, folds to the same sideboard cards that affinity folds to, and Arlinn is now giving our guys trample.
The biggest thing that's changed for us with this ban and restricted announcement is that our deck isn't going to get beat up by eldrazi anymore. We're back in business, and the only thing keeping us from success will be these top 3 decks that have a chance to get going too quick for us to stop. That's probably what we should be focusing on beating again, and I still maintain that adding a combo of our own in the form of some amount of Retreat to Coralhelm plus Knight of the Reliquary is our best bet. Splashing blue gets us powerful sideboard tech as well.
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Well if we're going to go ahead and say you need to be completely proactive in modern than this deck as a concept is mostly invalidated. Yes the deck runs a lot of counterspells but it also can run near 12 removal spells for your doomsday scenario. Frankly, every deck in modern can falter because of a poor draw.
Thing has been awesome for me in most scenarios. Sure enough, I'm just one guy testing with friends and on cockatrice (not exactly known for it's consistent playtesting environment), but at the very least I've seen enough to know that this card has a lot of potential in some sort of control shell. The people who think this is going into delver or storm sideboard are dead wrong, making a deck that primarily bets on winning the game with Thing are dead wrong. Removal spells are too prevalent in modern and Thing is a little slow all things considered. He plays best as a tempo suck letting us establish control over the game while our opponents waste their resources killing him. On the off chance he doesn't die though, he wins the game. He's a low investment wincon at best, and a tempo lightning rod at worst. Pretty much exactly what this kind of deck looks for.
If you're uncomfortable sitting back and trying to answer the threats that come at you (understandable in the current modern meta filthy with decks trying to turn 3/4 you) then this deck isn't really going to appeal to you in general.