MTG Salvation

In theory one can lose with anything against anything because RNG.
I have lost games to control too, but it's when they draw almost every counterspell they have and I don't have ssg, which needless to say happen very rarely. You're right about grixis being even easier.

Yes, valakut deck and especially breach are troublesome. For those wondering, Ensnaring Bridge does as much as Blood Moon; it soft-locks them until they find their Terastodon or eventual claim-effects, which usually ain't long.
Land destruction is the to-go for these decks (and control for that matter), but I believe most play 3-4 Molten Rain sb at this point.

Quote from treachtv »

I would say Skred was better positioned in the metagame before the bans, since both Infect and Dredge were decent to good match-ups. If blue based control decks with a lot of counterspells (and tron decks) rise in numbers , this could spell doom for our mono red control deck, or at least make it less viable in a given metagame.

Control is argueably amongst our best matchups, we got several threats that's hard to answer were it to hit the board, and they only got a linited set of counterspells in due time. Oh, and Blood Moon also counts as death threat.

Tron is another question, it's definately not a great mu, but not impossible either. If the hype stay as high as now, adding some land destruction wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm thinking 4 Fulminator/Rain + 3 Moons

Went 4-2 in a 41-man tournament on sunday, barely missing top-8 at 9.place. Sadly I picked up one of the losses on the first round so was never featured on stream.
List I played was the same as posted earlier, with some slight adjustments to SB:
My first loss were to some bushwacker zoo playing 2+ Hidden Herbalists and Burning-Tree Emissary into Goblin Bushwhacker/Reckless Bushwhacker already on turn 2, must be some of the most explosive lists I've seen ever in modern. Didn't have pyroclasm game 1 -> dead, and game 2 he beat me down low before I could Pyroclasm, and finished me off with burn before I could assemble a win. Don't know how I could've done this matchup better, it was so fast and more resiliant to sweep compared to burn. Volcanic might've worked together with ssg.

Second loss were to spirits, of all things. Usually I 2-0 this matchups, but games 2 and 3 he got down early Vials and were able to string together Spell Quellers and protection on seemingly every planeswalker or Bolt/Skred I had. Not really something I'd change to list to counter, I believe he just drew a bit better than me and even control lists can beat us if they get enough permission to stagger into late game.

Wins were to Jund, 2x Grixis Control, and GR Tron. Reckoner were better than expected, but still unsure if it's a mainstay for me. He actually helped me a bit against Tron since I was able to animate his lands with Blood Moon and Koth, and kill it with Reckoner + Pyroclasm to keep him off Wurmcoil while still getting in 3 damage each turn. Otherwise I notice again that Molten Rain does a LOT of work against my wins, and I'm tempted to swap out Reckoners for a couple Scourge and land destruction instead. Maybe even 3-4 Fulminator Mage, but I've yet to aquire those.

A bit sour to be so close to top 8, but overall I'm content with the results!

I see no problem playing a 2/1 prowess turn 2? Won't get full value but presents a respectable amount of early pressure, I believe. If it eats a bolt/path/push that's a perfectly fine 1:1

I've actually never met any pro red creatures, so didn't even consider it. Don't think it'll be an issue, but I might end up playing scourges and more removal instead of Reckoners anyway.

Random question, did anyone ever try Abbot of Keral Keep in this deck? With all the non-creature spells it'll always swing for 3, and it can snag an extra card later.

Yeah I've considered Volcanic too, but think the difference in cmc is more important than instant speed and uncountrability against affinity, infect and the like as Blood Moons and Bolts fixes manlands. Can only confirm the better fit through testing I suppose, I'll try out both in time.

SSG and 4 blood moons is hardly "all-in", there's no FoW in modern. Either I get down a turn 1-2 Moon or 2-3 Koth and win fairly easy from here, or the game play out in normal manner. Hardcasting an ape late isn't too bad either as it usually eats removal or protect the walkers.
I won't ever touch Demigod in skred as it's only better than Stormbreath when you get the trigger, and I'm not willing to depend on drawing discard spells and deny popping relics.

My main concern is that I'm approaching the meta wrong, and if Reckoner is good enough nowadays. Haven't really played him a lot earlier.

I'm prepping for a big tournament on sunday, but have a bit hard time picking cards against the meta. My friends and I know a lot of the good local players so we have a hunch of what to expect, and it seems to be a LOT of G/x Tron, Breach, some Grixis, and the usual bunch of affinity, burn/zoo, infect.

I'm wondering if Pyroclasm would be the best sweeper for the small stuff, which tempts me to go all classical with Reckoner. And for the bigger lists I've tested a lot and noticed I often go hellbent, and I'll probably need Stormbreaths to have better topdecks for the finish before they recover. I'm currently looking at something like this:
This is a huge difference from what I've been running lately, but I'm trying to metagame for once. I figured Reckoner might do the same works against titan and stompy decks as Bridge (not as good but Reckoner got more flexibility), and P&K hasn't performed well lately because it's a bit too slow against the proactive decks. Still king with Mind Stone tho, but I'm not digging those.

Hope someone with better knowledge of this kind of list can give some feedback!

Quote from Rakka77 »

Btw I find it rather funny that the discussion can change so fast from "are rocks even worth it?" to "what if you play 8?".

Haha yeah it's quite ironic that I make such statements as I've been defending ssg the whole time. However one of the main reasons I didn't like playing with Mind Stones was that they're only really useful on turn 2, otherwise it's mostly a 3 mana cycle. Same can be said for ssg, but it does have some other uses like surprise bolts or blocker. I don't wanna bring the "vs-discussion" up again, just pointing that more than 4 rocks might make the 4-drop turn 3 consistent enough to compensate for awkward timings.

As for cuts, I've made a sample list here. Yes, I know it's a sin to cut sweepers main, but in all honesty I side them out a lot. I've been using Slagstorm lately and the face mode is used much more, so figured sweepers fit better sb in my meta. So little affinity, elves, dredge etc. P&K makes creature-based aggro decks tolerable anyway for game 1. Only thing I don't like is cutting a moon :<

I actually like the idea of 8 rocks. You'll have something to play turn 2 quite often, and can ramp right into threats more consistently. Eventually you can skred for more earlier and drop more rocks until you'll have the opportunity to turn the corner. With 4 P&K the stones ain't completely dead late either and serves as pyrites. Heck, could even throw in a couple Shrapnel Blast alongside the parents.

Well it seems fine in theory, but in reality I'm afraid it would be a problem with card count and consistency, drawing too many rocks and too little threats (or vice versa) will be an issue. Mind Stone is sluggish and won't fix that too well. Might be that it curves out a lot more often than not, only testing can confirm this. In the end I'll probably stay true to my monkeys, though.

Kolaghan's Command is hardly an issue, I'd be more afraid of Stony Silence being active.

Today I learned a couple waysto produce salt.

1. Dropping a Hangarback Walker with 3 counters and Pia&Kiran in play against lantern.

2. Dropping a 1-of Zealous Conscripts into ult on my Koth, with shocks to finish off my threats with emblem.

That's actually a pretty good point.. I somehow slipped the fact that the only thing the Heart survives is bolt (and Lili but the Pilot won't).

Still worth testing tho, it being a 2-drop is relevant. Just not sure how many to run since it's legendary, it doesn't solve the drawback as elegantly as P&K being lightning rod with solid etb.

You're right about the mana issues, we rely on our 4+ drops, but at the same time fast moons or general speed wins a lot of games. In this regard we kinda want both ssg AND Mind Stone, but including both is farfetched.

While Gemstone Cavern seems like an ideal solution, it's not consistent at all. If we have few, it will trigger rarely and we'll draw into wastes. At the same time we don't want to give away our «play first» to maybe trigger cavern. We're not a combo deck. And once we start drawing multiples it's just plain awkward. Even less mountains also makes the core of the deck, Koth (and Skred), less effective.

I can get behind Heart of Kiran tho, really interested to see if it'll be a big hit. Only thing is that I don't like to spend loyalty counters to protect Koth as it ticks him into bolt-range, and makes him slower into ult.

Quote from okoSheep »

Morcrux, i like your list. I'd give it a try, but sadly i dont have bridges. How are the hangarbacks performing without the bridges?? I wouldn't worry about planar bridge, I don't think it would be good in U tron anyway.

Hangarbacks are included mostly to increase the number of good turn 2 play I'll have, but I wouldn't mind a better 2-drop coming up at some point. It offers amazing value if opponents consider it a threat, but if not it will sometimes end up lying around since I need mana to cast moons or Koth the following turns. It is of course amazing later in the game, especially combined with P&K which is why I consider it worthy here. Worst case it chumps a couple turns or ramp into more lands eating a Path (which is perfecly fine for a 2-drop).

I'm wondering how effected dredge will be with the banning, if they're going off meta I'm considering swapping Anger with Slagstorm to offer more reach and thopter-spawn from Hangarback without reducing the sweep damage. There's still CoCo decks but they're few and manageable without Anger.

If you want a specific card to be drawn, you play 4 copies. Extra blood moons sucks for us, but it sucks a lot more for your opponent who got their manabase wrecked. Every other moon deck ever runs 4, even Blue Moon which got lots of cantrips.
Can try Tormenting Voice if you worry about redundancy, I've found 1-of to be a fair card to play either turn 2 or late game to obtain more gas. We run a lot of cards which are good to only a part of the meta, so it's basicly a 2-mana divination most of the time. It does come out against most of our goods matchups, but that's fine.

I've honestly played way too little lately, but had a 4-0 and 3-1 at the 2 last small local tourneys with this list:
As said it's small tourneys and I picked up lot of 2-1's, so results are insignificant. However I did beat both Tron and RG Breach with this setup (thanks Bridge!). U-tron would probably still be horrendous, so let's cross fingers that it won't suddenly burst in popularity due to Planar Bridge. There's a bigger tournament coming up 5.feb or so, hope to get some good results and streams from there!

Might only be me, but I prefer playing a lower curve and 22 lands since I'm on Spirit Guides again. A P&K alongside walker was always my main wincon anyway.
Can't get myself to like Mind Stones, the turn 3 Koth/P&K happened too rarely to compensate for it being an expensive cycler.