Yahenni's Expertise is a pretty restrictive card in that you really need to be playing a base-black version to deal with the casting cost... As Foretold is also cheaper and you can drop it down whenever you want and start building counters on it. It's definitely more versatile and arguably way stronger.
I just found that playing blue puts you completely at odds with the whole resource denial Restore Balance game-plan, and you'd almost always wish you were just playing Ancestral Vision. Having no cards in hand and no lands in play in preparation for a juicy balance sounds like a nightmare for any blue deck, but it's the bread and butter for decks with Liliana of the Veil, Collective Brutality and Ensnaring Bridge. The other thing is that there are no border-posts in Izzet colours so you really have to go Grixis (for more borderposts) or lean on things like Desperate Ritual to keep your land count low, which makes playing blue cards way harder.
I was never impressed with Aspect of the Hydra because the creatures under it kept getting blown up. It most definitely does not win games out of nowhere... you have to have an established board (at least 2-3 creatures) for it to be a Giant Growth.
It feels real good when you're gold fishing and you aspect up your goons for +6/7, but almost every single competing deck has removal of some kind and things aren't going to go according to plan.
Every time I drew aspect I wished it was a Vines of Vastwood. Seeing the light die in your opponent's eyes when you dodge a Fatal Push and chunk them for an extra 4 is the reason I play the deck. In my opinion, Blossoming Defense is the next best thing.
I think the core principle of Stompy is resilience. You power out creatures (Experiment One, Strangleroot Geist) that can weather early removal, leverage this to make ensuing dudes fatter (Avatar of the Resolute) and back them up when the control/mid-range player finds their footing (Vines of Vastwood). Your other threats (Rancor, Treetop Village) are incredibly annoying to deal with as well.
I don't think aspect is core to the deck because it doesn't facilitate any part of this game plan. Running devotion-heavy Stompy for the all in aspect just feels like bad infect.
Also I think the reason nobody plays Lupine Prototype (and Nettle Sentinel) is that you're forced to drop all your tricks pre-combat, giving opponents perfect information on how to block/fire off removal for maximum efficiency.
I can see Rhonas competing with Treetop Village for mana in the lategame. This is kind of a big deal because Rhonas might not be able to attack without using his ability.
the problem is that As Foretold is kind of awful when almost all of your cards (minus the titular Restore Balance) are 3cmc+. Unless you have a balance in hand it's a 2U do nothing for a long time. In that sense it's completely at odds with the deck. Yahenni's Expertise is much better in that situation because it sweeps, and can cast most of the spells in our deck for free.
The biggest advantage of running a cascadeless balance is that you have access to cheap interaction which as foretold can cheat in (one spell on both player's turns), and you have 8 suspend cards (Ancestral Vision as well) so that as foretold doesn't whiff the turn it comes down as often.
However, after quite a bit of brewing, I think it might just be bad for us. If you're playing as foretold, then you're playing ancestral vision, which means you're going for card advantage. This tends more towards a control deck, where you want to durdle for as long as possible until you have an absurdly stacked hand and Celestial Collonades out the ********.
Balancing is all about having as few cards/lands as possible. In the decks I threw together, I kept thinking that they'd be better if I just took out the balance part... and then I'd just be running some boring Jeskai/Grixis list.
I think it's nuts if you're playing standard versions of the deck because you're trying to get online at 3 mana as fast as possible (cascade spells, blood moon, etc).
In a cascadeless version though, I'm not convinced you need it. If the whole deck is cantrips/removal and you're not playing blood moon, it seems like overkill.
I changed that list I posted previously to have a Grixis manabase. The biggest issue is that you can't suspend Restore Balance, but I feel like you rarely want to be doing that with so much card-draw, on the offchance you draw one of the enabler cards (As Foretold, Yahenni's). I have no idea what I'm doing!
Biggest downside is that it's WAY harder to balance.
Might also maybe a discard outlet to make Balances stronger... like Nahiri's Wrath. I feel like this is less of an issue in this version of balance because the spells are much cheaper and easier to cast, and the actual Restore Balance card has to come from hand.
I threw this together in 15 minutes and it seems awful but these spoilers are tingling the jank within me.
quick edit: ancient stirrings is not as amazing as I thought it was.
Abzan Company (1-2)
Three close games. Kitchen finks did way too much work and I scooped to infinite life twice.
Elves (0-2)
Essentially two nut draws for him. Two T2 Elvish Archdruid and SB Essence Warden made life very hard. Felt like a pretty awful matchup (no way to interrupt the stream of elves without drawing Path to Exile).
All in all kinda awful. Stompy feels pretty poorly positioned in my local meta. I'm considering a temporary swap to my other modern love... Restore Balance!
RG Tron (2-1)
Game 1 he goes mine -> map -> tower -> map finds powerplant -> Wurmcoil Engine, and I topdeck a Path to Exile and kill him the following turn. At this point I didn't know what kind of Tron he was but I sided in the Teegs and Qasali Pridemage. I think maybe Pithing Needle is good sometimes but I'm not sure. Game 2 he assembles T3 Tron again and I don't have an answer. Game 3 he gets a late Tron, Oblivion Stones my dudes away, and dies the following turn to an undying Strangleroot Geist with kicked Vines of Vastwood.
RG Tron (0-2)
Game 1 I mull away a no-lander and the next hand has 5 lands in it, scry a Temple Garden away, and proceed to draw another two lands and lose. Game 2 I keep a hand with 1 land and don't draw another one. Path let me hold out for a little while after he drops Wurmcoil but I inevitably lose. It feels like we absolutely cannot have poor draws against RG Tron because they assemble Tron so fast and immediately hose our entire deck with some fattie.
Ad Nauseam (1-2)
Game 1 I beat him down just before he hits the mana to cast both Angel's Grace+Ad Nauseam and he whiffs on the topdeck. Sided out the paths and brought in Teeg (what an allstar). Game 2 after Pact of Negationing a rancor he casts angel's grace to prevent lethal damage from my dudes+Blossoming Defense, casts Spoils of the Vault with 8 health naming angel's grace and finds it at #6. On his upkeep, with the pact trigger on the stack, he casts the 2nd angel's grace, and Simian Spirit Guides up to Ad Nauseam. Game 3 I don't have a fetch in my opening hand and the Narnam Renegade beatdown is too slow.
After Teeg's stellar performance I'm considering upping him to a 3of in the SB. I never played Loxodon Smiter or the elephant so I'm not sure whether they're good. Definitely replacing Kataki, War's Wage with Stony Silence in the side because I haven't played against a single affinity player in my area.
you can drop a 2/3 with deathtouch on turn 1 if you get a fetch in your opening hand. It's just gross. Also hoses Goblin Guide, Spellskite, and can make several other dudes bigger... over several turns. Wasteland Viper only works once, and that's only if you don't play it as a creature.
... also with fetches I can run Path to Exile which has saved my ass many times (and you end up taking way less damage for the splash than using Dismember) + sideboard tech, etc.
I'm going to propose that Thirst for Knowledge is only kinda good in a Gifts shell where you can bin an Unburial Rites target or Lingering Souls. The deck's whole plan is to benefit as much as possible from balancing, which means minimising the number of creatures and lands on board and cards in hand... which is why I think scry effects like Thassa, God of the Sea's and tutors like Gifts Ungiven and Idyllic Tutor are good, instead of sheer card draw.
I think that Baral's Expertise is too cute. If the point of casting it is to get a balance off via one of the cascade spells or Restore Balance inhand then you're basically giving their creatures a second chance - whether they'll get discarded or not. In that respect, it's super bad. Sure, it seems like a blowout vs. chalice, but there are other cards that beat chalice for less mana like Beast Within and Detention Sphere which are also much more versatile.
I also think that expertises are overrated in general because getting Restore Balance in hand has never been as much of an issue (in my experience) as trying to resolve them through counterspells, which is where cards like Bow of Nylea come in handy.
I like Bant Charm for its versatility but I think its role is largely fulfilled by Beast Within,Detention Sphere, and SB Ricochet Trap. It's kind of a clunky counterspell because of it's mana requirements and cost (spirit guides can't help out at all). How often are we trying to resolve cascade spells with a spare three mana of those exact colors?
I've been playing a gifts list for a while but I'm sick of the amount of hate I'm getting with all the borderposts.
I'd like to drop the black (missing out on Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites combo, and Demonic Dread) for a sleeker 'moist Naya' list with only 9 posts... kinda similar to Ari Lax's balance brew but on different colors.
I just found that playing blue puts you completely at odds with the whole resource denial Restore Balance game-plan, and you'd almost always wish you were just playing Ancestral Vision. Having no cards in hand and no lands in play in preparation for a juicy balance sounds like a nightmare for any blue deck, but it's the bread and butter for decks with Liliana of the Veil, Collective Brutality and Ensnaring Bridge. The other thing is that there are no border-posts in Izzet colours so you really have to go Grixis (for more borderposts) or lean on things like Desperate Ritual to keep your land count low, which makes playing blue cards way harder.
It feels real good when you're gold fishing and you aspect up your goons for +6/7, but almost every single competing deck has removal of some kind and things aren't going to go according to plan.
Every time I drew aspect I wished it was a Vines of Vastwood. Seeing the light die in your opponent's eyes when you dodge a Fatal Push and chunk them for an extra 4 is the reason I play the deck. In my opinion, Blossoming Defense is the next best thing.
I think the core principle of Stompy is resilience. You power out creatures (Experiment One, Strangleroot Geist) that can weather early removal, leverage this to make ensuing dudes fatter (Avatar of the Resolute) and back them up when the control/mid-range player finds their footing (Vines of Vastwood). Your other threats (Rancor, Treetop Village) are incredibly annoying to deal with as well.
I don't think aspect is core to the deck because it doesn't facilitate any part of this game plan. Running devotion-heavy Stompy for the all in aspect just feels like bad infect.
Also I think the reason nobody plays Lupine Prototype (and Nettle Sentinel) is that you're forced to drop all your tricks pre-combat, giving opponents perfect information on how to block/fire off removal for maximum efficiency.
4 Experiment One
4 Dryad Militant
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Loxodon Smiter
2 Rhonas the Indomitable
Enchantment
4 Rancor
4 Vines of Vastwood
3 Path to Exile
2 Blossoming Defense
Land
7 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Temple Garden
2 Treetop Village
1 Horizon Canopy
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Stony Silence
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pulse of Murasa
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Spellskite
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
The biggest advantage of running a cascadeless balance is that you have access to cheap interaction which as foretold can cheat in (one spell on both player's turns), and you have 8 suspend cards (Ancestral Vision as well) so that as foretold doesn't whiff the turn it comes down as often.
However, after quite a bit of brewing, I think it might just be bad for us. If you're playing as foretold, then you're playing ancestral vision, which means you're going for card advantage. This tends more towards a control deck, where you want to durdle for as long as possible until you have an absurdly stacked hand and Celestial Collonades out the ********.
Balancing is all about having as few cards/lands as possible. In the decks I threw together, I kept thinking that they'd be better if I just took out the balance part... and then I'd just be running some boring Jeskai/Grixis list.
In a cascadeless version though, I'm not convinced you need it. If the whole deck is cantrips/removal and you're not playing blood moon, it seems like overkill.
I changed that list I posted previously to have a Grixis manabase. The biggest issue is that you can't suspend Restore Balance, but I feel like you rarely want to be doing that with so much card-draw, on the offchance you draw one of the enabler cards (As Foretold, Yahenni's). I have no idea what I'm doing!
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cascadeless-balance/
Something like
16x lands (maybe including Tolaria West)
9x borderposts
4x Restore Balance
4x As Foretold
2x one of the expertises or Bring to Light idk
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Greater Gargadon
4x Serum Visions
2x Sleight of Hand
3x Path to Exile
4x Ancestral Vision
2x Remand
2x Blood Moon
Biggest downside is that it's WAY harder to balance.
Might also maybe a discard outlet to make Balances stronger... like Nahiri's Wrath. I feel like this is less of an issue in this version of balance because the spells are much cheaper and easier to cast, and the actual Restore Balance card has to come from hand.
I threw this together in 15 minutes and it seems awful but these spoilers are tingling the jank within me.
quick edit: ancient stirrings is not as amazing as I thought it was.
Channeler Initiate?
This could be real interesting with Young Wolf... but I feel like it's mostly a gimmicky Kalonian Tusker
I'm thinking fringe sideboard card. It's pretty easily removable, ie. bolt.
Abzan Company (1-2)
Three close games. Kitchen finks did way too much work and I scooped to infinite life twice.
Elves (0-2)
Essentially two nut draws for him. Two T2 Elvish Archdruid and SB Essence Warden made life very hard. Felt like a pretty awful matchup (no way to interrupt the stream of elves without drawing Path to Exile).
Grixis Control (0-2)
Completely wrecked by Anger of the Gods twice. Had him down to two life in game 2 but I ran out of gas and he bolted my Treetop Village + found his own Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
All in all kinda awful. Stompy feels pretty poorly positioned in my local meta. I'm considering a temporary swap to my other modern love... Restore Balance!
The decklist I used is in my signature.
Instant Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1 I get memed on T2 by Goryo's Vengeance+Griselbrand. Game 2 he gets manascrewed and Dryad Militant kept him locked out from Faithless Looting more. Game 3 I keep five lands, Gaddock Teeg, and Scavenging Ooze. The look of sheer disappointment on his face when I dropped the Teeg gave me an erection on the spot.
RG Tron (2-1)
Game 1 he goes mine -> map -> tower -> map finds powerplant -> Wurmcoil Engine, and I topdeck a Path to Exile and kill him the following turn. At this point I didn't know what kind of Tron he was but I sided in the Teegs and Qasali Pridemage. I think maybe Pithing Needle is good sometimes but I'm not sure. Game 2 he assembles T3 Tron again and I don't have an answer. Game 3 he gets a late Tron, Oblivion Stones my dudes away, and dies the following turn to an undying Strangleroot Geist with kicked Vines of Vastwood.
RG Tron (0-2)
Game 1 I mull away a no-lander and the next hand has 5 lands in it, scry a Temple Garden away, and proceed to draw another two lands and lose. Game 2 I keep a hand with 1 land and don't draw another one. Path let me hold out for a little while after he drops Wurmcoil but I inevitably lose. It feels like we absolutely cannot have poor draws against RG Tron because they assemble Tron so fast and immediately hose our entire deck with some fattie.
Ad Nauseam (1-2)
Game 1 I beat him down just before he hits the mana to cast both Angel's Grace+Ad Nauseam and he whiffs on the topdeck. Sided out the paths and brought in Teeg (what an allstar). Game 2 after Pact of Negationing a rancor he casts angel's grace to prevent lethal damage from my dudes+Blossoming Defense, casts Spoils of the Vault with 8 health naming angel's grace and finds it at #6. On his upkeep, with the pact trigger on the stack, he casts the 2nd angel's grace, and Simian Spirit Guides up to Ad Nauseam. Game 3 I don't have a fetch in my opening hand and the Narnam Renegade beatdown is too slow.
Grixis Control (0-2)
Game 1 and 2 were the exact same - T1 Experiment One into T2 Strangleroot Geist answered by a barrage of removal spells and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. I whiffed rancor 3 or so times when he blew up the creature underneath it. Felt like a terrible matchup - never drew Thrun, the Last Troll or Spellskite.
After Teeg's stellar performance I'm considering upping him to a 3of in the SB. I never played Loxodon Smiter or the elephant so I'm not sure whether they're good. Definitely replacing Kataki, War's Wage with Stony Silence in the side because I haven't played against a single affinity player in my area.
... also with fetches I can run Path to Exile which has saved my ass many times (and you end up taking way less damage for the splash than using Dismember) + sideboard tech, etc.
Pretty much never a dead draw. Will definitely have to rethink Rest in Peace though.
I think that Baral's Expertise is too cute. If the point of casting it is to get a balance off via one of the cascade spells or Restore Balance inhand then you're basically giving their creatures a second chance - whether they'll get discarded or not. In that respect, it's super bad. Sure, it seems like a blowout vs. chalice, but there are other cards that beat chalice for less mana like Beast Within and Detention Sphere which are also much more versatile.
I also think that expertises are overrated in general because getting Restore Balance in hand has never been as much of an issue (in my experience) as trying to resolve them through counterspells, which is where cards like Bow of Nylea come in handy.
I like Bant Charm for its versatility but I think its role is largely fulfilled by Beast Within,Detention Sphere, and SB Ricochet Trap. It's kind of a clunky counterspell because of it's mana requirements and cost (spirit guides can't help out at all). How often are we trying to resolve cascade spells with a spare three mana of those exact colors?
I'd like to drop the black (missing out on Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites combo, and Demonic Dread) for a sleeker 'moist Naya' list with only 9 posts... kinda similar to Ari Lax's balance brew but on different colors.
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Greater Gargaradon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
2 Vendilion Clique
Sorcery
2 Idyllic Tutor
3 Restore Balance
2 Timely Reinforcements
Artifact
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
1 Wildfield Borderpost
4 Ardent Plea
2 Blood Moon
1 Detention Sphere
Instant
2 Beast Within
4 Violent Outburst
Planeswalker
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Land
1 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills