Yup, reliquary tower on bf means we're not discarding on cleanup anymore. You can't choose to discard just because, the same way you can't discard just because when you have 7 cards in hand. You just never reach the limit of cards in hand.
So, that's why I'd run monastery siege or sth. To discard ulamog when needed so I won't auto mill.
Hey everyone.
Can someone remind me why we're not playing bojuka bog for gy hate?
It can't be countered, it targets and it's a functional land (a slow one, but who cares right?).
Also, reliquary tower for extra card advantage against control? A typical issue is they outnumber my fogs, so why not just having +10 cards in hand so you never do so? The only worry I'd have about it is milling ourselves, but I guess as long as the fogs keep flowing to the gy and as long as we trigger elixir of immortality or discard an eldrazi we'll be fine. Monastery Siege might help doing that last part too.
Yup, lots of stuff to try. I'll list it in order to brainstorm. If someone wants to give me a hand (or two) you're more than welcome.
-Filling up sb with counterspells, I'm not sure which would be the maximum amount we can handle without messing with the core of the deck though. We totaly should pick up hard counters over conditional counters. I'd go with Negate and Swan Song are the best we can get IMO, then you have Deprive, Countersquall, and then the more specific ones.
-Monastery Siege, along with reliquary tower and ulamog, the infinite gyre, so you discard the eldrazi, reshuffling your gy again. If this works, I'll certainly try master the way as a finisher, but that's more of a personal thing I guess. -I'll continue later on, gotta lunch right now. Just did.
On red we have: Crumble to dust/sowing salt as well as plenty of Land Destruction (fulminator mage maybe?), burn spells which can eventually hit a planeswalker and finally blood moon/magus of the moon if you're running lots of basics or going deep into red (do you think it's possible to make a mainboard version including it?).
I'm not really into green, but it has stuff like beast within, as well as some LD among others.
The difference between us and other decks usually is that most decks play their sb tech against tron in order to progressively get board advantage, casting beaters, having more mana to counter their stuff, burning them, or ramping up to a combo. We're not really able to do this, and what is even worse, we're giving them plenty of cards each turn which only helps them find their removal/planeswalkers.
That said, possibly our earlier best shot is stony silence as it hoses eggs, map, o-stone and stuff, which can easily be a 4-of as it's useful against other decks as well. No silver bullet here, you know what I mean. Then we have pithing needle (name karn first, then o-stone, then ugin if you got a god-hand) which it's still sorta useful against certain matchups and pesky cards (IDK.. ghost quarters, planeswalkers, that ad nauseam's lightning storm, qasali pridemage, aether vial, etc). And finally crumble to dust/sowing salt which will grant us they won't assemble the tron.
If you're more into turbo-mill, playing stuff like archive trap for instance, or at least you're able to consistently mill your opponent in the earlier turns, then you'll love to surgical extraction his tron.
Otherwise, look for cool synergies such as recurring a ghost quarter with a crucible of worlds, or build a counterspell/bounce core on your sb.
Or maybe we can just go nuts and go for a radical b plan, including blood moon and a bunch of burn spells.
Oh, and sadly runeflare trap is bad texted on xmage for some reason, saying "if an opponent put three or more cards into his graveyard" instead of "if an opponent drew three or more cards" which makes it unplayable, so I won't be able to do so until they fix that.
And Sudden impact doesn't seem nearly as good as the trap due to its high CMC.
Monastery siege will be another thing to try soon, it's dragon side helps a ton against removal and burn. If we don't face any of them, we just go khans and at least filter our draws. REally good on my Enduring Ideal deck, so much I had to play 4 copies on it .
Oh, you mean about ebony owl netsuke, yeah, but i think I still prefer runeflare trap over that as it can be triggered just after the opponent draws a bunch of cards, therefore dealing proportional damage, and I doubt we'll ever have to hardcast it, and if we have to it's becase we're not having a good match. The owl triggers on the upkeep, its damage is always 4 and you can't instant speed it which IMO is a cool advantage.
I actually have to playtest a tad more with both, then I'll let you know.
What do you mean with "winning in 5 turns"? That's something I've actually never done with any of my builds.. haha. Usually just +10 turns, no matter if fevered visions or sphinx's tutelage (unless I'm facing dredge or sth including treasure hunt, then they help a ton with the mill).
I don't see your point about throwing a silence at them. How'd that deal any damage? Because with fevered visions we don't have to keep their hand at 7 but at 4, and that's pretty much easy. Fevered Visions will deal the same damage no matter if they have 4 or 50 cards in hand, it'll always be 2.
I tried a quick single game (well, I guess it's never quick with turbofog) versus living end today, including 2x runeflare trap and I have to say burning his face for his last 9 felt awesome, i've never had the chance to end a game that fast, kinda harder without sphinx's tutelage, and he certainly didn't see that coming.
Also I went 2-0 against soul sisters, I kinda missed sphinx's tutelage there as he went to nearly 50 life on both matches. I won both games thanks to jace beleren's ultimate.
Yeah! That's my point,and once we're there (splashing red), we even may include some runeflare traps or sudden impacts at least as sb tech for the insta-win (or at least to burn the hell out of our opponent). I'm gonna try one of those next week since these days I'm pretty much busy.
Also red opens up plenty of new possibilities for our deck!.
I'll see if I can record some matches on xmage, can you recommend any software which can do that?
Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm gonna report it or sth then..
BTW, can someone take over this primer in order to update it with new card choices, strategies, matchups and such? I mean, the OP hadn't been around since 2013 and even the whole concept of the deck has changed a ton since then.
We don't need something too fancy, but at least compiling/summarizing the info so anyone interested can join the discussion without having to read the 22 pages of the thread.
I can't do that since they ask you to have at least 100 posts on the forums, and I don't think I can reach that landmark soon hehe.
I could help with the writing and stuff though..
Suppression field shouldn't hit Vessel of volatility isn't it? I mean, otherwise it should't hit eggs too and it doesn't?
Can you confirm this so I may report it as a bug on xmage or not?
Well, I know Starfield will open the enchantments up to be killed, but then I can just slowly keep getting them back. They should only be dead for one turn. Unless they get exiled... But I guess I just wanted other win conditions in case I didn't draw an Ideal. I'm not using blue for the Monastery Siege, so I don't have a way to churn through my deck to find an Ideal to finish the job. Plus, couldn't I just build a huge fleet of enchantments, then play the Starfield and swing with everyone in one fatal attack? Or here's an idea: maybe put it in the SB, so once they side out their creature removal, this will surprise them. Plus, It gives a way to get Form of dragon and Unlife into play if we happen to draw them (Discard to Peace of mind, then search up Starfield. But this is not necessary if I have a Mistveil Plains out obviously).
Yeah, probably you're right about the recursion on starfield to nyx, discarding a form of the dragon with monastery siege/peace of mind to bring it back with starfield is an interaction I never thought about. Gonna try it these days for sure, at least give it a chance.
True, I just didn't see any list including them, and my fear is that I won't draw a prison in the early game or Suppression field to slow them down and they will just be beating me with Nacatcles or Swiftspears. So I liked the idea of cheap removal for early Goyfs or Delvers etc. Maybe I'll put some in the board or in the main if I trim a couple things.
Yeah, I was afraid of the Tron matchups. If they just turn three Karn, what can we do??? I guess the Suppression Field will slow them down a ton on the Expedition Maps and the Plainswalkers, but how can we survive past that? Is there any SB tech for this matchup? Or do we just sacrifice it to better shor eup the matches that are not as tough.
Burn and Valakut seems tough, but if I just mulligan to Leyline or Halo for Valakut, that seems very good. Burn: having a Leyline seems great obviously, but after they Destructive Revelry it, what can we do. I have Sanctimony in the SB but what else? Extra Peace of Minds? Circle of Protection Red?
G1 there's nothing to do, I typically just concede as soon as I see any urza land, so I don't reveal my tech. G2 MVP are stony silence (stops eggs, expedition map, oblivion stone, etc), Aura of silence, suppression field, pithing needle (if you're playing it) and nevermore, yup most of our sb goes here. But even after that is still frustrating, we mostly can't take care of all the threats and they eventually find a way to destroy our stuff. I once had t1 pithing needle naming karn, then suppression fields, then nevermored his ugin, oblivion ringed his oblivion stone, but he casted a ratchet bomb and I didn't find my stony silence, and it was game for him.
U Tron is just unwinnable IMO. Too many counters and threats.
I don't think is necessary to sacrifice that matchup, or in other words, we might still have a chance against them as the stuff we need against them also works against other archetypes.
Leyline is always great on burn, valakut, ad nauseam, storm, 8rack, and a long etcetera. g2 you should nevermore their removal or sth.
Extra peace of minds doesn't seem as good as extra sanctimony. Suppression field's nonboes, y'know.
I haven't tried circle of protection, but if you want to try, and/or need sth wider, go with stony silence.
In my case, monastery siege on dragons mode help a ton against them, making burn and removal more expensive to play.
Interesting...Sphere of Safety can be trimmed, that is one thing I was on the fence about: is it x2 or x3? I can trim it to make room for other things. But I didn't even think about Rest in Peace hosing ourselves...I just thought it would get Living End or Dredge or Zombies or even disrupt the Abzan Compnay infinity life/damage combo.
The great thing about this (and my other modern deck) is that they have built in Mill insurance. Just play a Mistveil Plains, and two other white permanents, then bam. If they mill you out, activate the Mistveil on their endstep. Mistveil Plains literally becomes a Demonic Tutor for your draw step every turn. I have had this happen in my old deck where the mill player thought he won, but he didn't read my Mistveil Plains. So, Wheel of Sun and Moon doesn't seem necessary to me. We just have to get lucky to draw one of the Mistveils and not have all of them milled away.
Yeah, I just hate having my monastery siege discarding cards I don't need as much as others at the time, but that will eventually win me the game, into exile. I mean, having to choose that ghostly prison which will save your ass right now, discarding your only form of the dragon with no recursion possibilities kinda sucks.
Storm, Ad Nauseum, other combo stuff. Elves maybe.
I think I will make some small adjustments based on these comments:
I'll switch a Sphere of Safety for an Oblivion Ring in the main. Then for the SB I'll take out an oblivion ring and Rest in Peace for an extra Starfield of Nyx and Peace of Mind.
More thoughts?
Yeah, I see storm and ad nauseam, elves don't seem to be a big threat though.
You can switch you rule of law for an eidolon of rhetoric, which at the same time will help you block early beaters.
Another peace of mind doesn't sound too good for me honestly, I'd seek for some other lifegain source. It's mostly just there to discard once you casted enduring ideal IMO (it can keep you alive at times though, but it gets worse with s.field out).
The new vessel, as well as herald of the pantheon potentially let us ramp quite effectively.
Cloud key seems worse than just playing mana dorks or wild growth effects.
I don't think any of the prisons are worth running, we have ghostly prison, sphere of safety, and removal, which should be enough.
Blind obedience also doesn't seem that great.
Tried the new Vessel of volatility it helps at times, but it non-boes with suppression fields which is one of my favorite turn 2 drop as it slows fetchlands, planeswalkers, artifacts, etc.
At best, without nykthos, shrine to nyx it can ramp us to a turn 5 enduring ideal or even form of the dragon. I even hardcasted a dovescape on turn 5, with some prisons out which eventually won me a game against control as i had more mana and higher cmc spells, and my opponent had to pay to attack.
But I didn't really liked it because it doesn't add anything else to our deck. I prefer to ramp through nykthos, and suppression field counts toward that.
I would really like to build a blood moon version but I realized I play a ton of utility lands (mistveil plains, nykthos, boseiju and mikokoro) so it'll be kinda tough to go "back to basics", specially because of nykthos.
Ruferd, your list looks just fine, watch out for the interactions between calciform pools and suppression field. Also, I'm not a big fan of starfield to nyx as suddenly all the creature removal your opponent had in hand becomes usable, also, it's pretty much like what happens with slivers, but it's even worse... "It's just like playing bowling with Jade eggs" someone said, meaning you're exposing your lock pieces to damage while trying to do some.
That said, I haven't really tried it because i like going creatureless so you can blank removal spells your opponent had mainboard. Some other users possibly have a more positive perspective on it. My choice is Assemble the legion, but it wouldn't work with your 3x porphyry nodes. Also, my current build is UWR so you wouldn't be able to hardcast it.
- I played a lot of time without dovescape, i don't think it's really necessary, but you kinda miss it at times. I mean, if I sorta have the board under control it's probably the first card I'd get, even before Form of the dragon, because it basically screws all removal, counterspells, and noncreature wincons (let's not mention stuff like cursecatcher and qasali pridemage. I even won a couple games hardcasting it before enduring ideal and going for the bird beatdown.. Dunno, try not playing it for a while and see it by yourself. Having a greater auramancy out, means our opponent needs to spend an extra piece of removal to get rid of something, having two means they just can't. Dovescape it's pretty much the same than having both, but you go wider on the stuff it counters. Abrupt decay still sucks though.
-Suppression field (if not clear yet), is a no-brainer 4-of for me. Let's check out why.
So, I could go on but I'm sorta tired. Maybe later I can keep on adding stuff to the list, or maybe you can go just there and check it out by yourselves.
But my points are:
1)It slows down our opponent's manabase on almost every deck as most decks play fetchlands.
2)It really hoses some decks like lantern control, living-end (cyclers) and sac-outlets ones.
3)It also slows down planeswalkers, activated abilities of stuff which pwns our stuff (qasali pridemage, ratchet bomb, oblivion stone, engineered explosives, etc).
4)It helps a ton against our worst matchup a.k.a. Tron (possibly not as good against U/UW tron, but that one I believe is more unwinnable than R/G tron itself, so we're screwed anyway).
5)It counts towards Nykthos, shrine to nyx, mistveil plains and starfield of nyx (well, actually, i think every spell here should do that).
-As for the matchups, Tron in any of its variants is the worst thing you can face, then you have Control and then you have burn (remember you can actually use aura of silence on his eidolon of the great revel, in fact use everything against it when you see it). Scapeshift is kinda tough if you don't have leyline out turn 0, but then nevermore 1st cryptic command and then runed halo their valakut, the molten pinnacle.
What else.. Oh, 2x sphere of safety proved mostly enough for me these days/weeks/months so maybe you want to keep that extra spot for another porphyry nodes, nevermore, oblivion ring or even one more land (if you need it or sth).
For control I play 3x defense grid sb as well as the replacement I found for rest in peace (because sometimes recursion is key to this deck, specially if you play monastery siege), wheel of sun and moon (which also helps against UB mill which seems to be popular right now on xmage).
No Pithing Needle?
I actually never tried rule of law, what would you use it for?
Hi everyone, just saw this dude from mtg gatherting strat which made up an Enduring Ideal deck for his “underplayed modern” series on youtube.
He basically plays something more similar to the older/non-pillow fort lists; ramp, draw and counterspells are the core of his build.
IMO he didn’t research/playtest the deck a lot, and I say that because of his card choices, the amounts of each card, the core of the deck, and finally the sideboard tech
Also, I actually only saw the G/W hatebears match, but there, on game 3, he had the chance to hardcast a form of the dragon which would eventually save his ass from the beaters his opponent had and probably would’ve won him the game. He didn’t do that for some reason, probably forgetting lotus bloom can provide the RRR he needed for FOTD.
BTW, I'm currently going boros, having a x13 plains manabase + duals in order to include Blood Moon on my build. The card proved to be really strong itself as lots of archetypes play 3+ colors and rely a lot on nonbasics, and it's even a core card for some arcehtypes (blue moon, R/W lockdown, Angel Moon, Land Destruction, Skred Red, etc.) also being sb tech for basically anything with red on it.
It's pretty much like having Leyline of sanctity mainboard, sometimes is just pointless, but at times it can give you some free wins (leyline is possibly wider though).
It would also improve our archnemesis matchup (Tron) a lot.
Oh, and if you're playing sanctimony as sb tech it'd probably get better...
Also, what do you think about a singleton curse of exhaustion on mainboard for control matchup among others? Rule of law isn't something we could benefit from in this one as they'd just counter our only spell each turn and that'd suck.
Also, I was thinking about bringing war's toll which seems to have great synergy with the prisons, but xmage didn't include it on its card base yet .
Hey, thanks for your answer Tyler. Let's see Ebony owl netsuke never made it for me here, I even cut it down on my owling mine build, where is sort of a key piece. As usual, I'm trying to optimize my stuff, using cards which can do "something else" than its primary function. The Owl doesn't do much when they get rid of your stuff or have enough mana to discard their hand. That's the reason why I play Jace Beleren for instance, or Celestial Colonnade, and more recently fevered visions they give an "extra" to my deck.
Doing that, I got a couple more flex-slots which eventually saved my ass, but that also slows the wincons a tad (milling with sphinx's tutelage is probably faster than dealing 2 damage a turn).
I'm changing 1 d-sphere for an oblivion ring as sometimes I just need to remove a d-sphere, hehe.
I'll think about supreme verdict at least as sb stuff, yesterday I had a bad time against control, even with 5 counter-counterspells on my sb.
I sorta need more sb tech for burn too, they got me 2-0 yesterday too. Didn't get my leyline g1, and he got rid of it g2. Needless to say more.
Against Tron I'm just giving up as I always need ALL my sb tech at ONCE to beat them (played lots of times against it and I NEVER won a single match), so I prefer to just skip that matchup and focus on beating some others I believe are more "doable". I'm probably changing my crumble to dust for burn sb tech such as Kor Firewalker, sanctimony or whatever. I'll certainly try intimidation bolt too! Curse of exhaustion seems to be fun too, 4 mana may be too late for sb tech sadly
Oh, and another reason why I left sphinx's tutelage aside is because being on xmage makes your meta unpredictable, and lots of players play weird stuff to cheat an emrakul into play (polymorph, through the breach, tooth and nail, possibilty storm, etc). So I just got tired of milling into an emrakul.
Also, remember red allows you to play burn stuff, which can give you a hand when facing those pain in the ass planeswalkers such as karn. Fevered visions hits planeswalkers too!!
I could try to get into a more aggro playstyle, including more wincons to try to do more damage ASAP. I'll probably include sudden impact/runeflare trap and ebony owl netsuke when that happens. But right now I'm just having fun with this build.
So, I decided to go Jeskai instead of Esper on my deck in order to play Fevered Visions, which IMO is the best card we could've asked for Turbo Fog as it works as both, a draw engine and a win condition, which is great as it gives us some more flex-slots as we don't have to play a card which doesn't do anything else than winning us the game (namely sphinx's tutelage/underworld dreams, or whatever you play there) .
Hear it is.
Basically it's 23 lands (manabase help needed! I suck at it!), 17 fogs, 12 draw engines (13 including mikokoro, center of the sea actually) and 8 flex spots.
My sb isn't really tuned up yet, i threw some swan songs and a dispel there which I'd swap for the more expensive fogs against control, crumble to dust for tron, and then the usual stuff. Supreme verdict is kinda pointless for me since we're supposed to prevent creatures from dealing damage, so I just changed it for another detention sphere.
If anyone is still active here, Fevered Visions and Thing In the Ice seem to have a place here.
Fevered visions being not only a better Howling Mine as we get the first draw and our opponents get theirs EOT, being unable to play it (unless it's an instant), but also being a wincon itself. That said, I think we can even stop relying on Ebony Owl Netsuke as this stuff is also an improvement on that (half the damage, but it triggers with 4 cards, not 7), that'll also give us some extra spots on our deck..
And Thing in the ice, well, it pretty much self-explanatory, earlier turns blocker, after a couple instants it transforms, wipes out the board and gives us a reason to have a runeflare trap or sth at hand.
So, that's why I'd run monastery siege or sth. To discard ulamog when needed so I won't auto mill.
Can someone remind me why we're not playing bojuka bog for gy hate?
It can't be countered, it targets and it's a functional land (a slow one, but who cares right?).
Also, reliquary tower for extra card advantage against control? A typical issue is they outnumber my fogs, so why not just having +10 cards in hand so you never do so? The only worry I'd have about it is milling ourselves, but I guess as long as the fogs keep flowing to the gy and as long as we trigger elixir of immortality or discard an eldrazi we'll be fine. Monastery Siege might help doing that last part too.
Yup, lots of stuff to try. I'll list it in order to brainstorm. If someone wants to give me a hand (or two) you're more than welcome.
-Filling up sb with counterspells, I'm not sure which would be the maximum amount we can handle without messing with the core of the deck though. We totaly should pick up hard counters over conditional counters. I'd go with Negate and Swan Song are the best we can get IMO, then you have Deprive, Countersquall, and then the more specific ones.
-Monastery Siege, along with reliquary tower and ulamog, the infinite gyre, so you discard the eldrazi, reshuffling your gy again. If this works, I'll certainly try master the way as a finisher, but that's more of a personal thing I guess.
-I'll continue later on, gotta lunch right now.Just did.Let's check out what weapons we do have against them.
On colorless we have: Pithing needle (key on this matchup, hoses their biggest "early" threats a.k.a. planeswalkers and oblivion stone), ghost quarter/tectonic edge and damping matrix. Jester's cap may be considered too.
On white we have: Stony silence (shuts eggs, exploration map, oblivion stone, etc,), Suppression Field (slows map, planeswalkers, and o-stone), Nevermore, Aura of silence (slows eggs, map, o-stone and can be sac'd to destroy this last one), and even stuff like oblivion ring can be useful. What do you think about Rule of law/eidolon of rhetoric/ curse of exhaustion?
On blue we have: Counterspells, bouncers such as cyclonic rift, echoing truth andboomerang, spreading seas/sea's claim/convincing mirage (if you're not facing U-versions) shadow of doubt maybe?
On black we have: extraction stuff basically; surgical extraction (great after ghost quartering one of the tron pieces), extirpate, memoricide, cranial extraction, and rain of tears if you like LD. Discard tech is probably not too good as we're providing them plenty of cards each turn.
On red we have: Crumble to dust/sowing salt as well as plenty of Land Destruction (fulminator mage maybe?), burn spells which can eventually hit a planeswalker and finally blood moon/magus of the moon if you're running lots of basics or going deep into red (do you think it's possible to make a mainboard version including it?).
I'm not really into green, but it has stuff like beast within, as well as some LD among others.
The difference between us and other decks usually is that most decks play their sb tech against tron in order to progressively get board advantage, casting beaters, having more mana to counter their stuff, burning them, or ramping up to a combo. We're not really able to do this, and what is even worse, we're giving them plenty of cards each turn which only helps them find their removal/planeswalkers.
That said, possibly our earlier best shot is stony silence as it hoses eggs, map, o-stone and stuff, which can easily be a 4-of as it's useful against other decks as well. No silver bullet here, you know what I mean. Then we have pithing needle (name karn first, then o-stone, then ugin if you got a god-hand) which it's still sorta useful against certain matchups and pesky cards (IDK.. ghost quarters, planeswalkers, that ad nauseam's lightning storm, qasali pridemage, aether vial, etc). And finally crumble to dust/sowing salt which will grant us they won't assemble the tron.
If you're more into turbo-mill, playing stuff like archive trap for instance, or at least you're able to consistently mill your opponent in the earlier turns, then you'll love to surgical extraction his tron.
Otherwise, look for cool synergies such as recurring a ghost quarter with a crucible of worlds, or build a counterspell/bounce core on your sb.
Or maybe we can just go nuts and go for a radical b plan, including blood moon and a bunch of burn spells.
Oh, and sadly runeflare trap is bad texted on xmage for some reason, saying "if an opponent put three or more cards into his graveyard" instead of "if an opponent drew three or more cards" which makes it unplayable, so I won't be able to do so until they fix that.
And Sudden impact doesn't seem nearly as good as the trap due to its high CMC.
I'd really want to try a master the way build, including reliquary tower at least for the LOLS, what'cha think?
Monastery siege will be another thing to try soon, it's dragon side helps a ton against removal and burn. If we don't face any of them, we just go khans and at least filter our draws. REally good on my Enduring Ideal deck, so much I had to play 4 copies on it
Cheers.
SST.
I actually have to playtest a tad more with both, then I'll let you know.
Cheers.
SST.
I don't see your point about throwing a silence at them. How'd that deal any damage? Because with fevered visions we don't have to keep their hand at 7 but at 4, and that's pretty much easy. Fevered Visions will deal the same damage no matter if they have 4 or 50 cards in hand, it'll always be 2.
I tried a quick single game (well, I guess it's never quick with turbofog) versus living end today, including 2x runeflare trap and I have to say burning his face for his last 9 felt awesome, i've never had the chance to end a game that fast, kinda harder without sphinx's tutelage, and he certainly didn't see that coming.
Also I went 2-0 against soul sisters, I kinda missed sphinx's tutelage there as he went to nearly 50 life on both matches. I won both games thanks to jace beleren's ultimate.
Oh, and red would be mostly for sb tech (apart from runeflare trap which I'm testing) as I mentioned before. Maybe intimidation bolt mainboard? Stuff like Wear // Tear also hits Eidolon of the great revel as well.
Cheers.
SST.
Also red opens up plenty of new possibilities for our deck!.
I'll see if I can record some matches on xmage, can you recommend any software which can do that?
Cheers.
SST.
BTW, can someone take over this primer in order to update it with new card choices, strategies, matchups and such? I mean, the OP hadn't been around since 2013 and even the whole concept of the deck has changed a ton since then.
We don't need something too fancy, but at least compiling/summarizing the info so anyone interested can join the discussion without having to read the 22 pages of the thread.
I can't do that since they ask you to have at least 100 posts on the forums, and I don't think I can reach that landmark soon hehe.
I could help with the writing and stuff though..
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/646532-how-to-create-take-over-primers
There's the link on how to do that.
drmarkb are you there?
Cheers.
SST.
Can you confirm this so I may report it as a bug on xmage or not?
Cheers.
SST.
Yeah, probably you're right about the recursion on starfield to nyx, discarding a form of the dragon with monastery siege/peace of mind to bring it back with starfield is an interaction I never thought about. Gonna try it these days for sure, at least give it a chance.
If that's what you're worried about, you can also try blockers like nyx-fleece ram or wall of omens. Also, having 3x porphyry nodes doesn't help you do that?
G1 there's nothing to do, I typically just concede as soon as I see any urza land, so I don't reveal my tech. G2 MVP are stony silence (stops eggs, expedition map, oblivion stone, etc), Aura of silence, suppression field, pithing needle (if you're playing it) and nevermore, yup most of our sb goes here. But even after that is still frustrating, we mostly can't take care of all the threats and they eventually find a way to destroy our stuff. I once had t1 pithing needle naming karn, then suppression fields, then nevermored his ugin, oblivion ringed his oblivion stone, but he casted a ratchet bomb and I didn't find my stony silence, and it was game for him.
U Tron is just unwinnable IMO. Too many counters and threats.
I don't think is necessary to sacrifice that matchup, or in other words, we might still have a chance against them as the stuff we need against them also works against other archetypes.
Leyline is always great on burn, valakut, ad nauseam, storm, 8rack, and a long etcetera. g2 you should nevermore their removal or sth.
Extra peace of minds doesn't seem as good as extra sanctimony. Suppression field's nonboes, y'know.
I haven't tried circle of protection, but if you want to try, and/or need sth wider, go with stony silence.
In my case, monastery siege on dragons mode help a ton against them, making burn and removal more expensive to play.
Yeah, I just hate having my monastery siege discarding cards I don't need as much as others at the time, but that will eventually win me the game, into exile. I mean, having to choose that ghostly prison which will save your ass right now, discarding your only form of the dragon with no recursion possibilities kinda sucks.
Yeah, I see storm and ad nauseam, elves don't seem to be a big threat though.
You can switch you rule of law for an eidolon of rhetoric, which at the same time will help you block early beaters.
Another peace of mind doesn't sound too good for me honestly, I'd seek for some other lifegain source. It's mostly just there to discard once you casted enduring ideal IMO (it can keep you alive at times though, but it gets worse with s.field out).
Cheers.
SST.
Tried the new Vessel of volatility it helps at times, but it non-boes with suppression fields which is one of my favorite turn 2 drop as it slows fetchlands, planeswalkers, artifacts, etc.
At best, without nykthos, shrine to nyx it can ramp us to a turn 5 enduring ideal or even form of the dragon. I even hardcasted a dovescape on turn 5, with some prisons out which eventually won me a game against control as i had more mana and higher cmc spells, and my opponent had to pay to attack.
But I didn't really liked it because it doesn't add anything else to our deck. I prefer to ramp through nykthos, and suppression field counts toward that.
I would really like to build a blood moon version but I realized I play a ton of utility lands (mistveil plains, nykthos, boseiju and mikokoro) so it'll be kinda tough to go "back to basics", specially because of nykthos.
Ruferd, your list looks just fine, watch out for the interactions between calciform pools and suppression field. Also, I'm not a big fan of starfield to nyx as suddenly all the creature removal your opponent had in hand becomes usable, also, it's pretty much like what happens with slivers, but it's even worse... "It's just like playing bowling with Jade eggs" someone said, meaning you're exposing your lock pieces to damage while trying to do some.
That said, I haven't really tried it because i like going creatureless so you can blank removal spells your opponent had mainboard. Some other users possibly have a more positive perspective on it. My choice is Assemble the legion, but it wouldn't work with your 3x porphyry nodes. Also, my current build is UWR so you wouldn't be able to hardcast it.
- The fact you're running runed halo doesn't mean you can run journey to nowhere too. It adds up, y'know.
- I played a lot of time without dovescape, i don't think it's really necessary, but you kinda miss it at times. I mean, if I sorta have the board under control it's probably the first card I'd get, even before Form of the dragon, because it basically screws all removal, counterspells, and noncreature wincons (let's not mention stuff like cursecatcher and qasali pridemage. I even won a couple games hardcasting it before enduring ideal and going for the bird beatdown.. Dunno, try not playing it for a while and see it by yourself. Having a greater auramancy out, means our opponent needs to spend an extra piece of removal to get rid of something, having two means they just can't. Dovescape it's pretty much the same than having both, but you go wider on the stuff it counters. Abrupt decay still sucks though.
-Suppression field (if not clear yet), is a no-brainer 4-of for me. Let's check out why.
Against Jund, we have scavenging ooze, kalitas, traitor of ghet, liliana of the veil and fetchlands.
Affinity: ARcbound ravager, steel overseer, cranial plating, inkmoth nexus, blinkmoth nexus.
Abzan company: Viscera seer, scavenging ooze, spellskite, fetchlands
Burn: Unfortunately only fetchlands and grim lavamancer
Infect: Fetchlands, pendelhaven, inkmoth nexus
Junk: scavenging ooze, liliana of the veil, ghost quarter, manlands and fetchlands
Zoo: Only fetchlands.
Kiki Chord: Qasali Pridemage, scavenging ooze, spellskite, kiki-jiki, mirror breaker, gavony township, manlands, fetchlands.
Merfolk: Cursecatcher, AEther vial, mutavault
Tron: Spellskite,expedition map, relic of progenitus, oblivion stone, karn liberated, ugin, the spirit dragon, ghost quarter and sea gate wreckage.
Scapeshift: Sakura-tribe elder and fetchlands.
Eldrazi & taxes: Eldrazi displacer, aether vial, ghost quarter and shambling vent.
Lantern control: Codex shredder, ghoulcaller's bell, lantern of insight, pyrite spellbomb, pyxis of pandemonium, ghost quarter and academy ruins.
Living End: Fulminator mage, every single cycler, kessig wolf run and fetchlands.
Titanshift: Sakura-tribe elder, relic of progenitus, khalni heart expedition, and fetchlands.
Jeskai Control: Fetchlands, manlands and utility lands.
Bogles: Fetchlands
So, I could go on but I'm sorta tired. Maybe later I can keep on adding stuff to the list, or maybe you can go just there and check it out by yourselves.
But my points are:
1)It slows down our opponent's manabase on almost every deck as most decks play fetchlands.
2)It really hoses some decks like lantern control, living-end (cyclers) and sac-outlets ones.
3)It also slows down planeswalkers, activated abilities of stuff which pwns our stuff (qasali pridemage, ratchet bomb, oblivion stone, engineered explosives, etc).
4)It helps a ton against our worst matchup a.k.a. Tron (possibly not as good against U/UW tron, but that one I believe is more unwinnable than R/G tron itself, so we're screwed anyway).
5)It counts towards Nykthos, shrine to nyx, mistveil plains and starfield of nyx (well, actually, i think every spell here should do that).
-As for the matchups, Tron in any of its variants is the worst thing you can face, then you have Control and then you have burn (remember you can actually use aura of silence on his eidolon of the great revel, in fact use everything against it when you see it). Scapeshift is kinda tough if you don't have leyline out turn 0, but then nevermore 1st cryptic command and then runed halo their valakut, the molten pinnacle.
What else.. Oh, 2x sphere of safety proved mostly enough for me these days/weeks/months so maybe you want to keep that extra spot for another porphyry nodes, nevermore, oblivion ring or even one more land (if you need it or sth).
For control I play 3x defense grid sb as well as the replacement I found for rest in peace (because sometimes recursion is key to this deck, specially if you play monastery siege), wheel of sun and moon (which also helps against UB mill which seems to be popular right now on xmage).
No Pithing Needle?
I actually never tried rule of law, what would you use it for?
Cheers.
SST.
He basically plays something more similar to the older/non-pillow fort lists; ramp, draw and counterspells are the core of his build.
IMO he didn’t research/playtest the deck a lot, and I say that because of his card choices, the amounts of each card, the core of the deck, and finally the sideboard tech
Also, I actually only saw the G/W hatebears match, but there, on game 3, he had the chance to hardcast a form of the dragon which would eventually save his ass from the beaters his opponent had and probably would’ve won him the game. He didn’t do that for some reason, probably forgetting lotus bloom can provide the RRR he needed for FOTD.
His deck looks something like this.
X4: Lotus bloom, Pentad prism, serum visions, remand, peer through depths, see beyond, sleight of hand, enduring ideal
X2: Form of the dragon
X1: detention sphere, phyrexian unlife, melshin, the mind cage, dovescape
SB: 4x silence, 2x phyrexian unlife, 1x aura of silence, 1x nevermore, 3x leyline of sanctity, 1x perplexing chimera.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsShR6WXGKc
BTW, I'm currently going boros, having a x13 plains manabase + duals in order to include Blood Moon on my build. The card proved to be really strong itself as lots of archetypes play 3+ colors and rely a lot on nonbasics, and it's even a core card for some arcehtypes (blue moon, R/W lockdown, Angel Moon, Land Destruction, Skred Red, etc.) also being sb tech for basically anything with red on it.
It's pretty much like having Leyline of sanctity mainboard, sometimes is just pointless, but at times it can give you some free wins (leyline is possibly wider though).
It would also improve our archnemesis matchup (Tron) a lot.
Oh, and if you're playing sanctimony as sb tech it'd probably get better...
Also, what do you think about a singleton curse of exhaustion on mainboard for control matchup among others? Rule of law isn't something we could benefit from in this one as they'd just counter our only spell each turn and that'd suck.
Also, I was thinking about bringing war's toll which seems to have great synergy with the prisons, but xmage didn't include it on its card base yet
Oh, and I wanted to ask you for opinions about: Cloud Key/herald of the pantheon (ramping), norn's annex/windborn muse/archangel of tithes (more prisons) and finally blind obedience (sort of slower, which can can also provide some lifegain/damage).
Wait for yer answers!
Cheers.
SST.
Ebony owl netsuke never made it for me here, I even cut it down on my owling mine build, where is sort of a key piece. As usual, I'm trying to optimize my stuff, using cards which can do "something else" than its primary function. The Owl doesn't do much when they get rid of your stuff or have enough mana to discard their hand. That's the reason why I play Jace Beleren for instance, or Celestial Colonnade, and more recently fevered visions they give an "extra" to my deck.
Doing that, I got a couple more flex-slots which eventually saved my ass, but that also slows the wincons a tad (milling with sphinx's tutelage is probably faster than dealing 2 damage a turn).
Yesterday I won 2-0 vs a polymorph deck. It felt awesome to throw a detention sphere at his emrakul, the aeons torn) g1 and then just laughing at his army of tokens while fevered visions sealed the deal. G2 I nevermored his Polymorph, I had 4 draw engines out, 2 fevered visions a temple bell and dictate of kruphix, he lately got rid of my nevermore with sundering growth EOT, casting emrakul, the aeons torn on his next turn. I didn't get no detention sphere and I was about to concede, but then I realized he was at 4 life so I kept playing. He swings with his army, annihilator triggers, I sac 5 lands and kruphix (casting riot control beforehand, which got me at 26 life), he plays more tokens and goes to 1 card in hand, both fevered visions trigger, I activate temple bell and GG.
I'm changing 1 d-sphere for an oblivion ring as sometimes I just need to remove a d-sphere, hehe.
I'll think about supreme verdict at least as sb stuff, yesterday I had a bad time against control, even with 5 counter-counterspells on my sb.
I sorta need more sb tech for burn too, they got me 2-0 yesterday too. Didn't get my leyline g1, and he got rid of it g2. Needless to say more.
Against Tron I'm just giving up as I always need ALL my sb tech at ONCE to beat them (played lots of times against it and I NEVER won a single match), so I prefer to just skip that matchup and focus on beating some others I believe are more "doable". I'm probably changing my crumble to dust for burn sb tech such as Kor Firewalker, sanctimony or whatever. I'll certainly try intimidation bolt too!
Curse of exhaustion seems to be fun too, 4 mana may be too late for sb tech sadly
Oh, and another reason why I left sphinx's tutelage aside is because being on xmage makes your meta unpredictable, and lots of players play weird stuff to cheat an emrakul into play (polymorph, through the breach, tooth and nail, possibilty storm, etc). So I just got tired of milling into an emrakul.
Also, remember red allows you to play burn stuff, which can give you a hand when facing those pain in the ass planeswalkers such as karn. Fevered visions hits planeswalkers too!!
I could try to get into a more aggro playstyle, including more wincons to try to do more damage ASAP. I'll probably include sudden impact/runeflare trap and ebony owl netsuke when that happens. But right now I'm just having fun with this build.
Cheers.
SST.
Also red gives us access to real cool stuff such as crumble to dust, deflecting palm, lightning helix, land destruction, artifact hate, and even potential burn/wincons such as runeflare trap/sudden impact.
Right now I just included crumble to dust.
Hear it is.
Basically it's 23 lands (manabase help needed! I suck at it!), 17 fogs, 12 draw engines (13 including mikokoro, center of the sea actually) and 8 flex spots.
My sb isn't really tuned up yet, i threw some swan songs and a dispel there which I'd swap for the more expensive fogs against control, crumble to dust for tron, and then the usual stuff.
Supreme verdict is kinda pointless for me since we're supposed to prevent creatures from dealing damage, so I just changed it for another detention sphere.
2x Forbidden Orchard
2x Riot Control
4x Dawn Charm
2x Detention Sphere
4x Ethereal Haze
1x Celestial Colonnade
4x Holy Day
4x Fevered Visions
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
2x Dictate of Kruphix
1x Steam Vents
2x Plains
4x Howling Mine
2x Island
1x Temple Bell
4x Arid Mesa
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Jace Beleren
3x Pollen Lullaby
4x Hallowed Fountain
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Mountain
SB: 2x Pithing Needle
SB: 1x Oblivion Ring
SB: 2x Runed Halo
SB: 3x Nevermore
SB: 1x Dispel
SB: 1x Crumble to Dust
SB: 1x Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4x Swan Song
Any thoughts, opinions, comments, threats are encouraged.
Cheers.
SST.
Fevered visions being not only a better Howling Mine as we get the first draw and our opponents get theirs EOT, being unable to play it (unless it's an instant), but also being a wincon itself. That said, I think we can even stop relying on Ebony Owl Netsuke as this stuff is also an improvement on that (half the damage, but it triggers with 4 cards, not 7), that'll also give us some extra spots on our deck..
And Thing in the ice, well, it pretty much self-explanatory, earlier turns blocker, after a couple instants it transforms, wipes out the board and gives us a reason to have a runeflare trap or sth at hand.
What'cha think?