Boom is sweet because it has two targets so you can target your own fetch land and fetch in response and it will still resolve.
I’ve been a blood moon advocate for the last 9 months, nothing else straight up wins the game out of our deck the way blood moon does. Haymakers are key to winning grindy games.
Re: split cards
I think the reason we don’t play them is because they inherently aren’t effects that we need access to
Completely agree on the split cards. Boom/Bust always just feels like a bad fulminator and the other split cards are just meh. The only one i actually considered was Wear/Tear, when i played Blood Moon in the main (x2) and Twisted Abmonination plus Pale Recluse and tried splashing it via Godless Shrine. But a lot of times you dont want to have a "shock swamp" that folds to Blood Moon. So in benched it entirely. Maybe if there is a reason to play whihte.
Thank you for the input! Right now i'm leaning towards moon aswell but not completely sold on it. I will test with some friends of mine in a few days. Matchups will be Burn, Grixis Midrange (no Jace) and Affinity.
The only one of those that moon is relevant for is Grixis, the other two very easily could play blood moon.
I played 3 moon for a long time in board, now down to just 2 and considering a singleton
Boom is sweet because it has two targets so you can target your own fetch land and fetch in response and it will still resolve.
I’ve been a blood moon advocate for the last 9 months, nothing else straight up wins the game out of our deck the way blood moon does. Haymakers are key to winning grindy games.
Re: split cards
I think the reason we don’t play them is because they inherently aren’t effects that we need access to
I don’t know I think Jeskai is pretty easy, I haven’t ever lost to it with affinity — and that’s playing vs it at LGS 2 a week and a ton on the SCG tour.
I also am undefeated vs Mardu Pyromancer and Storm in comp REL, with my comp REL losses coming to Eldrazi Tron, UW control, Burn, Jund once, and random gotcha decks (Jeskai ascendancy got me after my t3 G1 and g3 on the play, I had him to 1 and 2 life respectively — decks like that) sprinkled in.
Regarding bomat over blast; very bold, but it provides another must-answer threat. Almost like 3 more playoff spells, and the only time it’s dead are in slow hands. I’ve been cutting him in post board games where I bring all the enchantments in, over cutting skirge recently. All worth testing!
I don’t play blasts anymore, I’m playing 3 Bomat Courier instead. It’s been a godsend in the Midrange and Control MUs. Which means I only have the 2 colored spells in the MB (master), so it’s less of a worry when SBing.
Also I cut those ones because they are the ones that individually are pretty weak; Pest is the worst possible creature to topdeck, and if they’re killing all your things it ends up being pretty meh. Skirge I cut because paying 2 life for a guy that is more than likely going to die ends up hurting us, especially when we’re aiming to play a longer game.
However in recent testing I’ve been keeping Skirge in, because it’s the only way to keep our life total safe once bitterblossom lands. I don’t know for sure, I’ve been testing other decks with the Jund resurgence magnified at LGS level — 40 ppl and 8+ on Jund is pretty rough magic
I think legacy is fine in a storm meta. You either get to wipe out grapeshot or you lose to remand... which would’ve beat you anyway, so no sense in playing around it.
Definitely would trim grip, 1 is fine — unless you’re expressly worried about enchantments, in which case I would swap 2 deadshot MB for 1 more Beast within and an archfiend (best creature to cast with enchantment based hate in play)
All that being said, let’s not overstate anything: decks with lackluster cards in their MB like Logic Knot and Opt are typically very complex also, and require a certain finesse to pilot well.
Most people never saw this deck in the first place. For as well positioned and good as I think it is and always has been, it never makes up more than a fraction of the field. Modern has a huge spread of viable decks to begin with, but the deck has a lot of things going against it as far as representation:
It is complex to play
Some people just never play combo
The cards are really esoteric and will not see play in other lists, making them a "bad" investment
It is not a list you can convert into or convert from another format like legacy, it exists only in modern unlike something like affinity which is very similar in both formats.
Format decktype confirmation bias
Is living end really that uncommon and complex to play? The only thing i had to look up was what happens when i cascade with no available target in my library.
The deck is very uncommon, to the degree that some opponents literally have no clue what you’re doing. As for complexity, the gameplay and strategy aren’t difficult to grasp, but the tactics we employ to accomplish the endgame are often unintuitive and require a lot of baiting out.
Built a deck from scratch on cockatrice to beat up on Red and UBx decks because I was sick of playing the Mono red deck in preparation for the PPTQ season (first time back in Standard in years)
I’ve been playing it and tuning it with the reddit /r/spikes crowd for a couple weeks, and I took it to a pptq last weekend to take down 3rd. Didn’t drop a single game until the semis, finally had bad enough luck to lose to Grixis 1-2 (their deck is exceptionally easy to beat for mine).
The deck is a blast to play, and an absolute puzzle to pilot correctly. In my first half-dozen or so competitive leagues, I had a total record of 16-12. Had some real bad leagues, had some real good leagues. Made a lot of mistakes at first, as I was learning both the standard meta AND my deck, at the same time.
When I finally took it to the PPTQ, I was pretty confident in my list. I had last-minute swapped out a MB Glorybringer for the Convergence and the 3rd Phoenix for the SB Convergence, and it paid off immensely; few decks can answer that card efficiently.
In my testing, my plan post-board still doesn’t feel that strong; Nissa overperforms, Chandra always feels mediocre, Glorybringer and Phoenix are great if they decided to shave removal otherwise meh, Sweltering Suns comes in a lot so I’ve considered just cutting 2 Abrades and 1 Hour of Dev to be playing 3 Sweltering MB... a handful of weak points.
I haven’t found any deck other than Approach that has a stronger late game than me. Scarab God is pretty mediocre when you just lock down the board until you cast Hour of Devastation with a carnage tyrant in play. Compass flipped makes them overcommit to the board, then you blow it all up. Sure they have counters, but you’re playing a very threat-dense deck after 5 mana.
Hour of promise is also both virtual and actual card advantage. A 4-for-1 card, grabbing 2 evolving wilds to thin out the remaining basics during your next upkeep means you’ll have 4 fewer lands to draw into vs last turn. Plus 4 power over two bodies... and you’ll be feeding 2 Hostile desert activations, which is my next point.
Hostile desert is the only actual manland in Standard. This is one of the few decks that can reliably play it. Evolving wilds, cathartic reunion, pirates pillage, 9 cycling lands — you never have an issue activating this guy. If I had more room for basics, I would play the 4th evolving wild to make the t3 Hostile Desert -> block happen more often. The fact that mono red casting on-curve creatures can’t beat a 3/4 blocker on T3, that isn’t a creature until after exert would trigger, is just bonkers.
T1/2 evolving wilds -> t3 you have an active hostile desert
T2 cathartic reunion pitching a land, t3 you have an active hostile desert
T2 cycle a land, t3 you have an active hostile desert
Those are all easy scenarios to hit. Turning 13 of our lands into utility (9 cycle, 4 lands) gives us a ton of virtual advantage over most decks. Don’t forget, if you have 6 mana untapped and your opponent attacks with something a Hostile Desert can favorably interact with, you can cycle Shefet to put one in play untapped and ambush an attacker! It also ambushes a t4 Chandra on an empty board, which is also relevant.
The other big advantage we have is the ability to play 4 carnage tyrant MB. Most decks can’t beat this guy G1. Because we play 4 cathartic reunion + 1 pirates pillage (2nd one was cut for Chandra, more flexible ramp), the risk of a clogged hand is mitigated a ton. The amount of times I’ve t2 ditched a carnage tyrant and an hour of X to cathartic reunion is unreal... that’s why we play the cards though! Speaking of cathartic reunion...
The biggest problems ramp decks face are two-fold: you draw the wrong half of your deck, and ramp all the way up to nothing, or you hit land drops every turn and hope you can cast one of the 12 payoff cards you’re playing before you lose. Typically, ramp decks want to consistently ramp; hence the archetype’s existence. In our deck, we are trading consistent mana advantage for flexibility and virtual card advantage. We play 8 mana accelerants, not including Hour of Promise (this is an engine card, not an accelerant). 1 Chandra, 1 pillage, 4 gift, 2 Shefet.
The way these spells line up means we need to be interacting turns 1 and 2, then move straight to 5 mana. Hence 4 hour of devastation + 4 Hour of promise. I play the prerequisite 9 deserts to all but ensure I have a single desert in play when I cast Promise, and my mana sources align so that I should be able to cast all of my spells on curve, aside from t1 and T2 where taplands play a certain role.
Overall, I think the deck is in a great position, and I’m running it back in another PPTQ today. If I get another Top 8, I’ll likely play this in the standard seat in SCG Cinci (if I can convince my team that Mono Red isn’t where we should be). Moving forward, I’m considering all the Abrade out and just playing more magma spray, both because it’s the more often relevant play and because it’s more common to have just a single R on turn 2 than 1R because of taplands. And in the SB, it’s very possible that chandras Defeat is where this deck wants to be in regards to answering the red decks; especially so if we move Sweltering Suns to the MB. The
I hope we can keep tuning, the SB is where I have the biggest trouble. I can’t figure out a way to reliably beat the 4 Duress plan from Grixis, and Gonti is exceedingly annoying.
In my 40-person LGS event tonight, there were 8 Jund decks and 5 affinity decks undefeated going into r2. I got to play and watch a ton of that MU today (I dropped after first round, just wasn’t feeling it today and wanted to jam Standard for the PPTQ tomorrow)
Robot players who sat back, played a grindy game, and played around the utmost amount of outs did exceedingly well. The ones who just went full-on Reptar and balls to the wall (typically the less experienced pilots, but not always) didn’t do so well. The removal decks slow you down, then play some “catch up” spells.
Creeping corrosion/shatterstorm are both real sideboard cards for these BGx decks, not to mention Ancient Grudge and other classic hosers. Because the meta has “narrowed” they can play more cards that just blow the MU wide open, which means we need to have a concrete gameplan when we face these decks.
Personally, as I’ve said before, my gameplan is to side out the weak cards and play haymakers. I’ve been testing -4 Pest -4 skirge -2 memnite for +2 bitterblossom +1 Champion +1 Grid +2 blood moon +2 Thoughtseize +2 spellskite.
With the Jund decks moving to 4 lightning bolt and eschewing fatal push almost altogether, Spellskite has been a House. It also draws Liliana the Last Hope activations, which can be huge in playing to the mid game.
Note that spellskite is also the one of the best cards you have vs Burn, Bogles, and the Mirror. I played a mirror match last week where I resolved t1 bitterblossom and t2 spellskite to my opponent’s t2 Grid. I was able to lock his Grid activations down almost the entire game while I built an army of flyers.
If someone were to go the other direction and decide to just play the fastest game possible, I think it could very easily be time to revisit the actual affinity cards: frogmite, myr enforcer and thoughtcast. Contested war zone perhaps? The entire deck could just play as much to the board as possible, loses a little play but gains a ton of speed.
That version basically beats stony silence, so you’re worried about the removal at that point. And since you’re plan is to be dumping 7 permanents turn 1, the deck could be playing 3-4 welding jar with ease.
Just some thoughts — I’ve got a few hundred play points to spare so Im willing to run it through a couple leagues if anyone is down to contribute to the project!
Depending on the flavor of control. I don’t much care for Faerie Macabre vs straight UW unless I have them on Logic Knot. Even then, maybe not. Our Game is just so strong vs them anyway
I was also thinking about putting it back in the sideboard. It's been a while since I've even seen a Spellskite. Any thoughts on the new leaks? Stabilization Orb and Karn, Scion of Urza seem interesting.
I like them both. Orb vs storm is fine but I’d rather have rule of law. Karn looks deece, out of the board maybe
What part of “remove the utility spells” did you miss from my post? No mages, no Beast within. Just more cyclers, more cascade spells. All-in Living End. 20 lands, 4 SSG even an option. SB for protection and disruption (like most combo decks).
Like, the guy who literally innovated this deck at a Pro level, thinks the meta is weak to this idea. I 3-2’ed the league with it last night, really sweet ambushing a t3 karn + cascading anyway. 4 BBE 4 Outburst 2 Dread 3 LE 20 Land 23 Cycler (3 archfiend 4 deadshot). SB 4 fulm 3 ingot 4 Leyline of the void 2 avalanche riders 2 Beast within. SB out elf vs decks I need the interaction, vs decks like storm/Dredge/robots I have more cascade spells and can keep them in. Lost to RG Eldrazi with chalice=0 t1 g2 and g3, and RW Burn in a close g3 that ended to topdeck runner-runner-runner 3-DMG spells to outrace my BBE and Minotaur (t2 RiP).
Vs UW Control I also tried siding out the 8-card package, everything but 1 Living End, I was lucky to cascade into Fulminator twice but the only other options were Beast within and a LE. Seemed strong to go the hardcast route, I’ll be testing that more in the future.
The only one of those that moon is relevant for is Grixis, the other two very easily could play blood moon.
I played 3 moon for a long time in board, now down to just 2 and considering a singleton
I’ve been a blood moon advocate for the last 9 months, nothing else straight up wins the game out of our deck the way blood moon does. Haymakers are key to winning grindy games.
Re: split cards
I think the reason we don’t play them is because they inherently aren’t effects that we need access to
I also am undefeated vs Mardu Pyromancer and Storm in comp REL, with my comp REL losses coming to Eldrazi Tron, UW control, Burn, Jund once, and random gotcha decks (Jeskai ascendancy got me after my t3 G1 and g3 on the play, I had him to 1 and 2 life respectively — decks like that) sprinkled in.
Regarding bomat over blast; very bold, but it provides another must-answer threat. Almost like 3 more playoff spells, and the only time it’s dead are in slow hands. I’ve been cutting him in post board games where I bring all the enchantments in, over cutting skirge recently. All worth testing!
Also I cut those ones because they are the ones that individually are pretty weak; Pest is the worst possible creature to topdeck, and if they’re killing all your things it ends up being pretty meh. Skirge I cut because paying 2 life for a guy that is more than likely going to die ends up hurting us, especially when we’re aiming to play a longer game.
However in recent testing I’ve been keeping Skirge in, because it’s the only way to keep our life total safe once bitterblossom lands. I don’t know for sure, I’ve been testing other decks with the Jund resurgence magnified at LGS level — 40 ppl and 8+ on Jund is pretty rough magic
Definitely would trim grip, 1 is fine — unless you’re expressly worried about enchantments, in which case I would swap 2 deadshot MB for 1 more Beast within and an archfiend (best creature to cast with enchantment based hate in play)
The deck is very uncommon, to the degree that some opponents literally have no clue what you’re doing. As for complexity, the gameplay and strategy aren’t difficult to grasp, but the tactics we employ to accomplish the endgame are often unintuitive and require a lot of baiting out.
I’ve been playing it and tuning it with the reddit /r/spikes crowd for a couple weeks, and I took it to a pptq last weekend to take down 3rd. Didn’t drop a single game until the semis, finally had bad enough luck to lose to Grixis 1-2 (their deck is exceptionally easy to beat for mine).
Here’s the list I played at the PPTQ:
3 Desert of the Fervent
2 Desert of the Indomitable
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Forest
4 Hostile Desert
2 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Sheltered Thicket
Artifacts
3 Thaumatic Compass
Enchantments
4 Gift of Paradise
1 Sandwurm Convergence
3 Abrade
2 Magma Spray
2 Struggle // Survive
Sorceries
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Hour of Devastation
4 Hour of Promise
1 Pirate's Pillage
Planeswalkers
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Creatures
4 Carnage Tyrant
1 Glorybringer
2 Shefet Monitor
2 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Arborback Stomper
3 Sweltering Suns
1 Abrade
2 Glorybringer
2 Rekindling Phoenix
1 Sandwurm Convergence
The deck is a blast to play, and an absolute puzzle to pilot correctly. In my first half-dozen or so competitive leagues, I had a total record of 16-12. Had some real bad leagues, had some real good leagues. Made a lot of mistakes at first, as I was learning both the standard meta AND my deck, at the same time.
When I finally took it to the PPTQ, I was pretty confident in my list. I had last-minute swapped out a MB Glorybringer for the Convergence and the 3rd Phoenix for the SB Convergence, and it paid off immensely; few decks can answer that card efficiently.
In my testing, my plan post-board still doesn’t feel that strong; Nissa overperforms, Chandra always feels mediocre, Glorybringer and Phoenix are great if they decided to shave removal otherwise meh, Sweltering Suns comes in a lot so I’ve considered just cutting 2 Abrades and 1 Hour of Dev to be playing 3 Sweltering MB... a handful of weak points.
I haven’t found any deck other than Approach that has a stronger late game than me. Scarab God is pretty mediocre when you just lock down the board until you cast Hour of Devastation with a carnage tyrant in play. Compass flipped makes them overcommit to the board, then you blow it all up. Sure they have counters, but you’re playing a very threat-dense deck after 5 mana.
Hour of promise is also both virtual and actual card advantage. A 4-for-1 card, grabbing 2 evolving wilds to thin out the remaining basics during your next upkeep means you’ll have 4 fewer lands to draw into vs last turn. Plus 4 power over two bodies... and you’ll be feeding 2 Hostile desert activations, which is my next point.
Hostile desert is the only actual manland in Standard. This is one of the few decks that can reliably play it. Evolving wilds, cathartic reunion, pirates pillage, 9 cycling lands — you never have an issue activating this guy. If I had more room for basics, I would play the 4th evolving wild to make the t3 Hostile Desert -> block happen more often. The fact that mono red casting on-curve creatures can’t beat a 3/4 blocker on T3, that isn’t a creature until after exert would trigger, is just bonkers.
T1/2 evolving wilds -> t3 you have an active hostile desert
T2 cathartic reunion pitching a land, t3 you have an active hostile desert
T2 cycle a land, t3 you have an active hostile desert
Those are all easy scenarios to hit. Turning 13 of our lands into utility (9 cycle, 4 lands) gives us a ton of virtual advantage over most decks. Don’t forget, if you have 6 mana untapped and your opponent attacks with something a Hostile Desert can favorably interact with, you can cycle Shefet to put one in play untapped and ambush an attacker! It also ambushes a t4 Chandra on an empty board, which is also relevant.
The other big advantage we have is the ability to play 4 carnage tyrant MB. Most decks can’t beat this guy G1. Because we play 4 cathartic reunion + 1 pirates pillage (2nd one was cut for Chandra, more flexible ramp), the risk of a clogged hand is mitigated a ton. The amount of times I’ve t2 ditched a carnage tyrant and an hour of X to cathartic reunion is unreal... that’s why we play the cards though! Speaking of cathartic reunion...
The biggest problems ramp decks face are two-fold: you draw the wrong half of your deck, and ramp all the way up to nothing, or you hit land drops every turn and hope you can cast one of the 12 payoff cards you’re playing before you lose. Typically, ramp decks want to consistently ramp; hence the archetype’s existence. In our deck, we are trading consistent mana advantage for flexibility and virtual card advantage. We play 8 mana accelerants, not including Hour of Promise (this is an engine card, not an accelerant). 1 Chandra, 1 pillage, 4 gift, 2 Shefet.
The way these spells line up means we need to be interacting turns 1 and 2, then move straight to 5 mana. Hence 4 hour of devastation + 4 Hour of promise. I play the prerequisite 9 deserts to all but ensure I have a single desert in play when I cast Promise, and my mana sources align so that I should be able to cast all of my spells on curve, aside from t1 and T2 where taplands play a certain role.
Overall, I think the deck is in a great position, and I’m running it back in another PPTQ today. If I get another Top 8, I’ll likely play this in the standard seat in SCG Cinci (if I can convince my team that Mono Red isn’t where we should be). Moving forward, I’m considering all the Abrade out and just playing more magma spray, both because it’s the more often relevant play and because it’s more common to have just a single R on turn 2 than 1R because of taplands. And in the SB, it’s very possible that chandras Defeat is where this deck wants to be in regards to answering the red decks; especially so if we move Sweltering Suns to the MB. The
I hope we can keep tuning, the SB is where I have the biggest trouble. I can’t figure out a way to reliably beat the 4 Duress plan from Grixis, and Gonti is exceedingly annoying.
Robot players who sat back, played a grindy game, and played around the utmost amount of outs did exceedingly well. The ones who just went full-on Reptar and balls to the wall (typically the less experienced pilots, but not always) didn’t do so well. The removal decks slow you down, then play some “catch up” spells.
Creeping corrosion/shatterstorm are both real sideboard cards for these BGx decks, not to mention Ancient Grudge and other classic hosers. Because the meta has “narrowed” they can play more cards that just blow the MU wide open, which means we need to have a concrete gameplan when we face these decks.
Personally, as I’ve said before, my gameplan is to side out the weak cards and play haymakers. I’ve been testing -4 Pest -4 skirge -2 memnite for +2 bitterblossom +1 Champion +1 Grid +2 blood moon +2 Thoughtseize +2 spellskite.
With the Jund decks moving to 4 lightning bolt and eschewing fatal push almost altogether, Spellskite has been a House. It also draws Liliana the Last Hope activations, which can be huge in playing to the mid game.
Note that spellskite is also the one of the best cards you have vs Burn, Bogles, and the Mirror. I played a mirror match last week where I resolved t1 bitterblossom and t2 spellskite to my opponent’s t2 Grid. I was able to lock his Grid activations down almost the entire game while I built an army of flyers.
If someone were to go the other direction and decide to just play the fastest game possible, I think it could very easily be time to revisit the actual affinity cards: frogmite, myr enforcer and thoughtcast. Contested war zone perhaps? The entire deck could just play as much to the board as possible, loses a little play but gains a ton of speed.
That version basically beats stony silence, so you’re worried about the removal at that point. And since you’re plan is to be dumping 7 permanents turn 1, the deck could be playing 3-4 welding jar with ease.
Just some thoughts — I’ve got a few hundred play points to spare so Im willing to run it through a couple leagues if anyone is down to contribute to the project!
I shave dreads vs them usually
I like them both. Orb vs storm is fine but I’d rather have rule of law. Karn looks deece, out of the board maybe
Like, the guy who literally innovated this deck at a Pro level, thinks the meta is weak to this idea. I 3-2’ed the league with it last night, really sweet ambushing a t3 karn + cascading anyway. 4 BBE 4 Outburst 2 Dread 3 LE 20 Land 23 Cycler (3 archfiend 4 deadshot). SB 4 fulm 3 ingot 4 Leyline of the void 2 avalanche riders 2 Beast within. SB out elf vs decks I need the interaction, vs decks like storm/Dredge/robots I have more cascade spells and can keep them in. Lost to RG Eldrazi with chalice=0 t1 g2 and g3, and RW Burn in a close g3 that ended to topdeck runner-runner-runner 3-DMG spells to outrace my BBE and Minotaur (t2 RiP).
Vs UW Control I also tried siding out the 8-card package, everything but 1 Living End, I was lucky to cascade into Fulminator twice but the only other options were Beast within and a LE. Seemed strong to go the hardcast route, I’ll be testing that more in the future.