- CrypticCommander
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Member for 8 years, 4 months, and 10 days
Last active Thu, Sep, 2 2021 20:44:46
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WizardMN posted a message on Finale of Promise + Increasing VengeanceYes, this works. Since you are casting both spells at the same time, you choose what order to cast them. As long as you cast Vision first, it will be on the stack and a legal target for Vengeance. And, since you cast Vengeance from the Graveyard, it will copy Vision twice.Posted in: Rumored Card Rulings -
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michaelvogler posted a message on BW TokensUnless you get really lucky, almost all builds will lose to Tron pre and post board. I won one match against Tron with a "normal" or stock build after my opponent mulled to 5 in game 3. I only won game 1 because I ran outside cards like Castigate and Memoricide. Sideboard Surgical Extraction and Memoricide would really help you out. In general, it's one of those matches that you just let it go and board for all of your other matches.Posted in: Midrange
If Tron is big in your meta, you cut spectral procession and run 5 copies of Ghost Quarter and/or Tectonic Edge/Field of Ruin. Tidehollow Sculler is also a good card in addition to all of your other discard effects. Aven Mindcensor also deserves a nod. Basically, you delay tron and then you strip their hand of anything they could do once they have the mana. The problem with this strategy is you give up so many points against the rest of the field that the benefits of Tokens are negated.
Rock/Jund/and Abzan are pretty much auto wins. If you lose the match then it is entirely on your playing the deck wrong. MVPS include RiP, Zealous Persecution, and Auriok Champion.
Burn is a favored match up for us. Again, running Auriok Champion, Sorin, Solemn Visitor are necessary. Collective Brutality just means "oops, I win."
I'm not surprised to see these decks doing well. Tokens preys on all of the winning strategies that we are currently seeing. Izzet Phoenix would be another "oops I win" match.
A note on Rest in Peace, if you struggle with a match up, RiP is almost always a strong consideration for inclusion. It always hurts your opponent more than you (losing flashback on Lingering Souls isn't that big of a deal when opp has an 0/1 Tarmogoyf or Snapcaster Mage becomes two mana 2/1 pit viper for no value).
Zealous Persecution provides the same role for our deck as Temur Battlerage does for Shadow. It has the added advantage of versatility in creature matchups because it can be a board wipe and/or alter the combat maths so you can effectively kill their creatures for only slight card disadvantage (you might lose 1/2 of the front side of Lingering Souls+Persecution to kill an opposing Tarmogoyf). -
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suckmyfoot posted a message on [Primer] Assault LoamHi,Posted in: Midrange
Competitive Modern League 2019-01-15, (5-0)
Format: Modern
MAIN:
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Bedlam Reveler
1 Grim Flayer
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Collective Brutality
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Life from the Loam
2 Thoughtseize
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 Fatal Push
3 Seismic Assault
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Field of Ruin
1 Forest
1 Graven Cairns
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
SB:
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Damping Sphere
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
1 Jund Charm
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Raven's Crime
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The Jund list is the most solid right now because it has a real easy replacement for Looting in targeted discard spells like Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and Collective Brutality, a switch that many decks were already employing once Wrenn and Six was printed. I'd say this is the deck to play for now because it isn't really affected by the looting ban and it's more traditional than weird RG lists testing out cards like Magmatic Insight which have big downsides.
That being said, you can go even deeper into the individual card choices for each archetype and the deckbuilding gets deeper. Right now I'm on Pox Loam, an archetype that looks like this:
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Canyon Slough
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Graven Cairns
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Raging Ravine
1 Hissing Quagmire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Mortuary Mire
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
3 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Wrenn and Six
3 Seismic Assault
1 Worm's Harvest
Creatures: 6
3 Tireless Tracker
3 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Infinite Obliteration
1 Assassin's Trophy
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Alpine Moon
1 Shenanigans
1 Force of Vigor
My lgs is pretty large, like 60-70 person FNM each week with a pretty diverse set of decks. The most prominent decks however are creature-based strategies like Humans, Spirits, Company, Vizier Combo, Infect, and Bogles. Aside from that, there are a bunch of UW players alongside random UB or Grixis control strategies.
Smallpox is really good at decimating these decks that are trying to curve out on creatures. If I cast Pox turn two on the draw against a Storm player who went t2 land land Baral, casting a Smallpox puts them behind on threats, behind on mana, and behind on cards while we can discard any land and sac a land with Loam or Wrenn to get them back. The effect in this deck is symmetrical in the short term, but by one or two turns later, we're back ahead on cards and, in a weird way, tempo.
To quickly delve into the other parts of the deck...the manabase aims to get double black on turn two every time, and since Seismic Assault is only the late game plan and a 3 of, we don't have to worry too much about t3 RRR every time and we can focus on just casting pox and moving from there. I'm playing 6 fetches because I think that's a good number with all the extra cycling lands and other stuff we have to find spots for, and Polluted Delta is only in the list because I traded away a Bloodstained Mire plus some other cards for a Wrenn and Six. Either way, the important part is that you have a few black fetches to fetch basic swamp when you need to.
Now if your meta was more combo based with decks like Ad Nauseum, Storm, Valakut, or any "critical mass" deck like Burn or Mill, you might want to cut Smallpox and play something with more discard spells and Liliana of the Veil. Raven's Crime is a hoser against any midrange deck or combo deck - when you can have cast 3 discard spells by turn 3, you really can ruin someone's day. With 9-10 discard spells plus Liliana of the Veil, you can play the gameplan of strip all of your resources, then use AssaultLoam to finish off the board then your opponent. This strategy can be kind of slow vs a Burn deck, but usually to combat that you play extra maindeck copies of Collective Brutality and bigger threats like Tarmogoyf, which you can't play in Pox since you have to sac a creature to the namesake card.
I haven't built one of those decks post looting ban, but if you think that's better for your metagame, I can help you build something in that shape.
RG is typically better against aggro in the sense that it deals less damage to itself because of its lands. In the past, the only thing the deck had to do on t1 was play Looting or "bolt the birds," but now the biggest t1 play is gone so we have to find something else to fill its slot. Because of this, for the moment I would stay away from RG and look at something more set in stone that has stood the test of time in Jund Loam, which is the deck that won a GP to put this deck on the map years ago, and is stronger than ever with cycling lands and Wrenn and Six to power it out into the late game.
TL;DR - I think some version of Jund Loam is the best choice right now because the other colors need to replace looting somehow. Let me know what your metagame is like and I can help you find a good list for you.
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If you have a playset of Dark Confidant, those fit pretty well into Wrenn's slot though it's not exact. Confidant dies to removal way easier, and can deal you a bunch of damage - though with the amount of lands we play, it's less than usual. That being said, Bob has it's own advantages in being able to beat in and draw you spells as well as lands, which can't be overstated.
A playset of Confidant is somewhat similar to a playset of Wrenn though, so if you don't have them then it would almost be just as hard to get those. Still, the deck can function without either one and perform fine, just with a slightly different build.
Right now, imo the three playable "archetypes" of AssLoam right now are (in order) Jund, RG, and Naya. Jund can go in many different ways, currently I'm on a low creature count Smallpox list which you can see above. Instead of Wrenn and Six in that deck, you can play Bloodghast which is just a great threat in this strategy especially when combined with a spell like Pox. Bloodghast also makes it so if you are forced to cast a Pox late game, you don't have to sac a Tracker and lose value, you just sac a BG and get it right back. I couldn't find room for the card before, but BG just like Wrenn gives you fuel to get back from Pox, as you can discard it to that side of the card then play a land to get it right back.
If you want, DM me with your specific needs and I can help you figure out a decklist that seems good. We're technically not supposed to go too much into budget talk on this part of the forum, so it would be better to talk there. Hope this helped!
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Aside from that, I'd say you could build an Esper Control shell that's a bunch of one-ofs, one Supreme Verdict, one Damnation, one Kaya's Wrath, one Terminus for example with the wealth of removal and countermagic you can choose from. New cards and old cards alike from Kaya's Guile to Esper Charm could be options there.
You could also play a toolbox deck, which would probably be the most competitive option. With the newly printed for modern Eladamri's Call alongside Chord of Calling, Collected Company, and Finale of Devastaion, you could build a pretty solid Naya or Bant creature deck, even some sort of Kiki-Chord / Vanifar shell. Here's a list from a few months ago from Jeff Hoogland:
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Postboard we have more ways to deal with the gameplan of storm, which pushes it slightly into our favor. Just make sure to bring in either Anger of the Gods or Engineered Explosives to deal with Empty the Warrens.
The allure of the loam archetype is that you can shift to different color combinations to fit the metagame. The best versions against noninteration are Jund and Temur, Jund with hand disruption and edicts, Temur with countermagic. RG is very limited in its disruption, but Blood Moon works to fill a possible slot. Let me know how it does.
I've found grazer to be a less than stellar card to say the least. The tempo lost from being on the draw is pretty well solved by big removal spells like Lightning Axe though, and that's what has been doing me wonders recently. I had been freaking out about losing on the draw, but after reading a few theory articles on the topic of tempo advantage, my recent list's removal package has been pretty stellar in smoothing out a lost die roll.
I feel like all interactive decks in modern have to play this polarized game plan of "Do I have this card that really matters in this matchup?" Most of the matchups you faced last week seemed to be that way. The Amulet matchup is pretty good - that is, if you can line up Ghost Quarter against their Simic Growth Chamber and other bounce lands, or if you can kill their Azusa. I'm leaning more and more heavily on Ghost Quarter, as it is a land that is necessary in a lot of matchups in modern, and can be turned into colored mana if need be for the cost of a land. I feel like we need to run 3 of them.
I just finished finals so all my time is going into the new primer. I'm gonna leave out the new cards for now as we need to test them still, but it should be up by this Wednesday. Cheers.
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For RG, the twister gives you exactly what you need vs control in the long game. 6 mana twister off the top with Seismic Assault lets you dome your opponent for 12 over two turns, basically giving the deck a combo finish. Before, I was struggling to fill the last two slots of the deck with creatures like Bedlam Reveler and Huntmaster of the Fells as inevitability, but nothing seemed to fill the role great. Twister gives you a way to win without Loam, pushing down the number of Loams you need to play, and lets you win on the battlefield and not scoop to graveyard hate. Twister is good in the deck, but I wouldn't run more than 2.
Here's my list, heavily adapted for my metagame:
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember
1 Lightning Axe
1 Flame Slash
2 Flame Jab
1 Conflagrate
Two Drops: 14
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Satyr Wayfinder
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Life from the Loam
2 Commune with the Gods
4 Seismic Assault
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Living Twister
Lands: 23
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
3 Sheltered Thicket
5 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Raging Ravine
2 Alpine Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Pulse of Murasa
1 Nature’s Claim
1 Cindervines
1 Beast Within
PS: Haven't been posting lately because I've been busy building an updated primer. Currently writing matchups for all flavors of RGX Loam. Hopefully the new primer can get some new eyes on the deck.
Edit: Neglected to mention just the inevitability Living Twister gives to the deck. In RG this is very much needed, with the extra tools in the other colors, not so much.
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