MTG Salvation

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

Honestly, I rarely used a Shoal to counter a Bolt or a Path directed to my creatures. Shoal was always meant for Expedition Map, Ancient Stirrings, Cranial Plating, Goblin Guide, Slippery Boogle and the likes of them. So that’s definitely not the problem with Force. The issue is the inability to hit creatures.

Not to be "that guy", but I think we approach this archetype in vastly different ways. I'll agree to disagree here. I use my shoals to protect my threats used to kill the opponent or speedbump them behind my tempo. I just can't get behind the comment "I rarely used a Shoal to counter a Bolt or a Path directed to my creatures" cuz that's literally part of the spells role in the deck.

Most commonly shoaled cards, not close:
- AEther Vial
- Noble Hirarch
- Lightning Bolt
- Fatal Push
- PTE

Quote from Loaf1255555 »

Hi, I don't post on here very often but observe from the sidelines but question: Why is everyone getting so pumped for 'Force of Negation' for our deck? All our opponent has to do is cast a kill spell on our turn and we can no longer use the exile mode of Force. Our deck needs for us to be able counter at low mana cost (0-1) to keep our creatures alive. Force is basically just a "Cancel" on our turn.

Simply put, it's the thing that gives our deck a chance.

We're a tempo deck in a format without tempo tools. Our defining archetype characteristic is being proactive and reactive AT THE SAME TIME, and cards that support that type of strategy do not currently exist in modern, with the exception of very few cards. Force of Negation makes this happen and fits the criteria. That's why we're pumped.

Okay, so there's a few contradictions happening in this thread right now regarding Mongoose and Hexdrinker.

What if a 3/3 Shroud isn't good enough by turn 3?

• How is Hexdrinker exempt from this? It's strictly worse than mongoose until you put four mana into it. The shroud is better than the extra power every day of the week even if it's a 1/1 vs a 2/1.
• Seems like the reaction when the Hexdrinker doesn't get to its second stage is basically "oh well, we tried". It seems to be that there's a general consensus that you have a more reliable way of dumping mana into something rather than filling the graveyard with proactive spells. What? In what world is this true?
• Is the general consensus that removal is less present than grave hate? If so... that's just wrong.

There's really like no merit to Hexdrinker guys, C'mon. We got mongoose.

Quote from Mikefon »

I played with pteramander. The problem is that it's terribly slow. It doesn't grow until turn 4 on average. So all in all mandrills are faster. And it's graveyard dependant as our other threats (except for pyromancer for people who play it).
I wasn't satisfied and got back to mandrills quickly.

You mean pterribly slow?

Quote from MikePemulis »

For those of you who've been playing this deck a long time: how did you do back in the old days against Jeskai control? How have your control matchups changed over the years? Seems like Supreme Verdict is just a huge problem for us, and although I generally feel good about the control matchups, I'm not sure I've ever beaten a resolved, non-desperation Teferi.

I haven't been playing while. So I guess you can take my input with a grain of salt the reason why Supreme Verdict is a tough card for us is because we can't interact with it. We can't say 'no'. Which seems kinda like a "DUH GRINDOR EVERYONE KNOWS THAT" type of thing, but it really puts a point on how we engineer our deck.

Delver decks specifically lean on ways to interact with the opponents spells on the stack, rather than what's on the board. You may say, "Teferi is tough to beat", but isn't everything that has impact on the board that we can't bounce/bolt tough to beat? Liliana of the Veil, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Thoughtknot Seer, Primeval Titan, Arcbound Ravager, Search for Azcanta are all cards that fall under this category if they slip through our slew of countermagic.

It's a fundamental issue of our deck, if we can't counter it or bolt it before it does something, our deck suddenly sucks and falls behind.

In situations like this, I'm finding that the key is to play in a way that puts YOU or THEM dead 8 ways to Sunday. That means forgoing lots of reactive play styles against these things. How do I most often beat Control? I beat the crap outta them with tall goyfs and monkeys and flying scientists. Same with affinity, same with Amulet, same with Eldrazi. Strikingly, our linear plan is almost better than theirs. Then our reactive plan can kick in when needed. Especially if you're on Shoals.

Attacking is still our main gameplay against the UWx decks Scooze can turn sideways to deal damage and that's all there is to it, really.

I personally board in the spell bombs against UWx match ups, but I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the best call in the world. I like making my deck as threat-dense and disruption packed as possible. I go as far as removing all my bolts, pushes, terminates, and depending on what I'm playing against; Decay's and Pulses for any relevant dudes or disruption in my side board.

Quote from Piney_Tinecones »

Do y’all remember the Anger of the Gods/Courser of Kruphix lists a long time ago? I don’t remember what they were in response to, maybe Wild Nacatl being unbanned, I dunno. I think that was right after DRS was banned. Anyway, they ran two MB Anger of the Gods. If Humans and Hollow One or other aggressive decks start actually dominating the meta then that doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. Seems like a decent cascade too. Obviously the meta isn’t there yet, and I think it would require a slightly different build. It’s just a thought I had while mowing the yard today.

Edit: For the record, I was only talking about running Anger. I’m not suggesting running Courser. I was just providing some context.

I remember this! This is when Birthing Pod was at the top of its game. Jund worked it's way back into the meta as one of the "best decks" against birthing pod because it adopted a way to support Anger of the Gods as well as Chandra Pyromaster to keep the board clean, and deal with the pod effectively.

Quote from FlyingDelver »

I basically agree with you. I personally am also not a fan of trying thousand different things now, without actually knowing what we will be up against. Jund is a reactive deck at heart, so I personally like the sit and wait approach for now and stick to what we know. We have to know what we will be up against to adjust our deck accordingly.

Agreed! If we test a ton of things at once, we won't know what's helping or what's hindering us.

I wouldn't cut IoK after board... We need our threats to resolve and apply pressure.

WE DID IT BOYS

Quote from Grindor11 »

guys

https://www.mtgsalvation.com/articles/49777-the-end-of-an-era

I don't know anything about running group pages on Facebook but I'll make a Monkey Grow page unless somebody with more experience wants to jump on that grenade.

Quote from Tubbybatman »

So for my build I’m going to test
4x hexdrinker
4x delver
4x tarmogoyf
2x ?????

I don’t want to run snap because I’d like a proactive card and I really want to see how the deck feels without thoughtscour so no monkey. Any ideas?

Play the mandrills even without the scours. That's still the best option! I'm currently testing this split which is working great:

3 delver (yeah, I know... but it just for testing purposes)
3 hexdrinker
4 goyf
2 mandrills

Agreed that little Teferi is busted. The big one is hard enough, but this new one might just be more important for us to keep off the table. Force should help with that.

I think Simic Charm isn't playable in a deck with Nimble Mongoose. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you'd want to run a little lower to the ground, and only having 8 creatures for Charm to target with the Giant Growth seems silly.

Jotting down some deck ideas at school today, I think Faithless Looting is a better Sorcery than Traverse the Ulvenwald in this deck. Looting would allow us to run more 1-ofs that are situationally useful in the main, like Dismember or Roast, and also allow us to ditch Force and Spell Pierce / Stubborn Denial in creature matchups.

Mongoose makes us weaker to grave hate, but Force allows us to counter it more easily, and Mongoose coming down on turn 1 makes us better able to hold up mana from then on out.

Initial thought for a Mongoose build:



Maybe a pair of Baubles or so is a consideration over a Thought Scour and something else. Maybe 2 Snapcasters is too many. I would run the 18th land out of the board in this case, I think.

The issue with Mongoose is going to be keeping the ground clear in front of it. And while we've got access to all sorts of burn for small creatures, getting past opposing Goyfs / Anglers / etc is going to be an issue. I also think I might miss the trample Mandrills gives, although I think sneaking in early damage with Mongoose might be worth it.

(EDIT: For what it's worth, I think Mandrills slots right into this list, if Goose isn't good. I think lots will depend on the removal situation. I'm just happy to have options.)


Lots to think about here. This week is by far the biggest shot in the arm the deck has gotten in years.

Quote from Grindor11 »

Well just wrapped up a weekend of magic playing delver and had positive results. Nothing stunning, but definitely nothing bad either. Played in three 3-round tournaments a day, Fri-Sun, and landed about 10-6 not counting any draws for prizes. Took home a couple booster boxes in prizes. I’d call UG a real deck.

Nice results! Congratulations!
(P.S. you should have a pm. If you don't, tell me so that I try to send it again ).

I gotta say, I really like the idea of there only being 6 lands that actually tap for mana in your deck.

Ended up playing Modern at the LGS this week. Went 2-2. My list is mostly just modified from old lists I played and I tossed it together with a few additions of newer cards I had laying around. The sideboard was hastily thrown together.



Round 1 vs GW Tokens 1-0
This games was an easy win. It looked like the guy had grabbed a Selesnya Guild kit and added a few cards, so I handily won both games without much problem.

Round 2 vs UW Control 1-1
These were close games. I won the first game by dropping an early threat and slinging counters to get the win. Chart a Course was pretty great in this game. Games 2 and 3, I decided to double down on the aggro plan. I only boarded in one Disdainful Stroke and took out a Bolt. In hindsight, I should have added some cards that help me keep pace with card advantage. Both games played out pretty much the same. I went on the aggressive, but ran out of tricks by the time late game hit and got outvalued. I'm considering the possibility of adding more Chart a Course either in the side or in the main because the card felt really great in this matchup.

Round 3 vs UW Control 2-1
Went to 3 games. Game one I scrapped a victory by sneaking in a bolt-snap-bolt for the kill after a Supreme Verdict cleared out my board. After the last round against UW, I tried to switch to a more midrange gameplan. Game 2, Supreme Verdict, followed by a Teferi I had no answer for lead me to scoop after it was clear that I wasn't going to pull back into the game. We went to time and ended up having a messy judge call after I tried to Simic Charm an unblocked wolf token for the win. Judges ultimately ruled in my favor, but I didn't feel great about the win because of it. Swapping in the grindy cards and getting rid of Shoal seemed to be the right call. Crackling Drake is a house. He's a sweet top deck that can the turn the game around in a single combat phase.

Round 4 vs Humans 2-2
First game was close. I landed a Tarmogoyf which was beating down pretty hard, but he couldn't outrace the double Mantis Rider beatdown. Game 2, I went on a full midrange plan. I did a good job of keeping the board under control, landed a Huntmaster and began flipping him, but a well-timed Meddling Mage via Aether Vial stopped me from Snapping a bolt from the grave. I had the means to turn the game around in my hand, but I needed to use that bolt to get rid of a Mantis Rider to not die from lethal.


All in all, I'm rather surprised how strong the deck felt. With some tinkering, I can probably tool it the meta a little better for some better results. There are definitely some holes in the list I played (no grave hate and no hard removal for bigger threats), so when I break this deck out again, I'll definitely be making some adjustments. The main deck felt okay, but I need some more reps in with it to really adjust numbers and cut the fat, so to speak.

I went 2-2 the other night. It was a blast playing this deck again.

2-1 against Tron: The first game I had the surprise momentum and won by a margin. Game 2 he played Relic and I wasn't quick enough to Shoal for one. He then won after a long game with two Wurmcoil Engine. Game 3 went to extra turns, where I finished with Delver + Clique + Tarfire to bring him from 7 to zero.

2-1 against Suicide Zoo: Turn 3 win by the opponent while I didn't block with Goyf accordingly. After sideboarding 2x Dispel, I felt quite save and had the countermagic in hand at the right time. Dispel on Temur Battle Rage in Game 2, and Mana Leak on Death Shadow Game 3.

0-2 against Phoenix: The first game he bolted my Delver and Lightning Axed Goyf and then played Surgical Extraction on Goyf to take away my beater.
Game Two was great. I sideboarded Surgical Extraction and hit the Phoenix with it. He had one Thing in the Ice in the grave, which would have been target for the second Surgical but he played Thought Scour on my library after I scryed Delver and Surgical to the top. It went into almost never ending Pyromancer Acension card draw fest. He almost decked himself but finally finished with TiTi.

0-2 against Grixis Death Shadow: My opponent knew I played RUG Delver so he adjusted his gameplan and played more conservative. Delver not flipping for two turns didn't help either. Game two was rough because I didn't drew a second land during turn 2 and 3 which was too much of a tempo loss.

All in all it was a great evening. I'm tinkering around the idea to put a Saheeli, Sublime Artificer in the board. The idea of turning a Bauble into a Goyf for a turn seems great. Another idea would be Narset, Parter of Veils against decks that draw lots of cards (Phoenix). Would that be a reasonable play?
Thing in the Ice feels really bad to play against. How about more Vapor Snags? Snagging Allosaurus or Griselbrand seems like a nice play too.

Modern didn't fire again this week, so we drafted my cube instead. But dinking around on MTGO, I'm now playing 3 Mandrills, with a Savage Knuckleblade replacing the 4th. I liked it out of the side and think having a versatile creature like that might be good. I also cut the Hazoret and am back on 2 Huntmasters in the side. I just like the card a lot more, and I had a few points where the Hazoret was clunking in my hand because I had a fistful of counters. I need whatever threat that's going to be to be good against control, and I just want to hold cards against control until I need to interact. Huntmaster works well there.