In the meantime, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame as a way to cast living end /AV as well as double as a wincon?
Chandra says "You may cast target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your graveyard. If that card would be put into your graveyard this turn, exile it instead.", which is essentially Flashback but only works while you resolve the ability.
Ancestral Vision & Living End on the other hand are spells that can't be cast with mana. Look at their rulings on Scryfall: "This has no mana cost, which means its mana cost can’t be paid for effects such as replicate from Djinn Illuminatus or flashback from Snapcaster Mage."
If you're confused now, let me clarify: Electrodominance works because it says "without paying its mana cost" and As Foretold works because it says "you may pay {0} rather than pay the mana cost". So both replace the mana cost of AV/LE.
Chandra essentially says "you can cast it if you are able to cast it with mana"... but you simply can never cast AV/LE with mana.
to walkers and a sarkan and you have 12 damadge a turn
This is the very definition of "win more". You shouldn't lose the game when you have 3 planeswalkers on the field anyway. If you still do, you chose the wrong 3 planeswalkers.
I tested the deck against Hardened Scales Affinity yesterday. Played 5 games preboard and 4 games postboard. Here's my results.
Preboard:
Won game one with EOT Dominance -> untap -> Cryptic tap. Lost game 2 and 3 to Inkmoth. Too fast, too many different threats. Ravager is a broken card. Won game 4 with LE off As Foretold as my opponent couldn't draw a Ravager or another threat. Lost game 5 to poison again. FFS. Overall, Ravager was definitely a problem, but the real issue was Inkmoth. Yup, all the games I lost were to poison damage. I have no real way of interacting with it preboard besides Cryptic, as Izzet Charm essentially only helps if they attack with it as a 1/1 which they'll almost never do.
I boarded as follows:
- 4 Izzet Charm
- 1 As Foretold
+ 2 Abrade
+ 2 Echoing Truth
+1 Shatterstorm
Chalice doesn't do *****, the rest is useless as well. Could've brought in Fulminator though, but figured it's too slow. Is that correct? How would you guys board?
Postboard:
Went 2-2, although it felt much more even.
Won game one with pure card advantage and even tho he nuked my GY with Crypt once, I filled it up again and killed him once he ran out of options / cards. Felt amazing.
Game two he was simply too fast, again a Ravager was involved.
Third game I kept a reeeaaally questionable hand that I shouldn't have kept (3 lands, 2 Cryptics, 1 As Foretold). It went long, I drew a 3rd Cryptic, I could stall a lot with Echoing Truth, but he drew 3 Ballistas and simply shot me to death.
Game four went long again, and I won with card advantage again. We had a weird turn were I Electrodominance'd a Inkmoth for X=1 as a pure removal spell TWICE to kill it. 6 mana + 2 cards for one threat. Thank **** for Visions. He scooped it up after I EOT'd a 3rd Dominance to kill an Inkmoth AND LE'd for 24 power.
Card choices:
Izzet Charm felt horrible preboard, so I boarded all 4 out. Cryptic felt amazing, as did As Foretold. Electrodominance is much more flexible than it looks. It's removal and card advantage all in one card, especially with Visions. Speaking of which, resolving a Visions is the secret in this matchup and I'd never board it out. Abrade was fine, Echoing Truth always broke the flow of the game. Bouncing 2 Overseers or 2 Hangarback Walkers for 2 mana gave me enough time to draw into real action, as Hardened Scales Affinity is, imho, way slower than expected and b) less scary after turn 5. I also bounced 2 Ballistas at once and a Ravager. I drew one or even both copies in all 4 postboard matches, so it really made a mark. Sadly I didn't draw Shatterstorm at all.
Results:
I'd say I'm a dog preboard, but the matchup feels 60-40 postboard. I just took the control route. Make the game go slow, you can always overwhelm them later. Speaking of slow: Even though I got killed by Inkmoth 3 times preboard, I didn't bring in Fulminator. But Fulminator seems necessary for Tron and Titan, so... what do?
- Which other sideboard card besides Fulminator is good against Inkmoth, Tron AND Titan? Pithing Needle maybe?
- What else could I have done differently? I own 4 Remand, but I don't like the card. It's just a glorified cycler.
- How do you approach the matchup? I expect Affinity to be everywhere in the upcoming weeks as people are sick of Phoenix and Tron - and Affinity stands it's ground against both. We're definitely the control, but for that we need more answers. Shattering Spree maybe?
This list looks extremely streamlined. No Izzet Charm, no Chalice mainboard, no Crypt mainboard. Faerie and Wraith main are like a blast from the past. I'm not sure why he decided to play 21 lands with the full 15 cyclers, but it seems to have worked out.
The sideboard... wow. Day 2 in GP Calgary had 11.5% Burn, 9% Tron and 8% GDS, so his sideboard was on point. Kinda. I have no clue how is plan against the 16% UR Phoenix was.
If Counterspell gets reprinted into Modern... should we go the Counterspell route or do we pack Spell Pierce instead? Are we the aggro or the control in a Counterspell-infested meta? I mean, sure, it depends on the matchup, but will the meta slow down enough with Counterspell to justify Counterspell in our own deck?
This should be able to cast Living End from the graveyard. Could this mean we run Faithless Looting or 3-4 Izzet Charms instead of Remand now?
How good is that card? On MKM, it's already a 10 EUR preorder. Could this be a 2 of? Maybe in the SB? We don't have many 1 cmc spells right now, should we really water down our deck with let's say Opt to get more value out of this? Being able to cast a AV in the graveyard a second time is nice, but how often will that come up?
I personally think this card is a SB card for control matchups and doesn't have a place in the MB, but I could very well be wrong here.
I hope they don't print containment priest or we are f*cked
Check out the rulings for on Containment Priest: "If Containment Priest enters the battlefield at the same time as other creatures, its ability won’t affect those creatures." ... and now read Living End again: "Each player exiles all creature cards from their graveyard, then sacrifices all creatures they control, then puts all cards they exiled this way onto the battlefield."
This means Containment Priest in the GY can't stop a Living End and a flashed-in Containment Priest in response to LE doesn't help either.
Actually it's the other way around. Having Containment Priest in Modern would be amazing for us.
A Containment Priest reprint would give white decks access to a very strong anti-phoenix, anti-dredge, anti-grishoalbrand card, making these decks worse. If these decks became worse, people would switch away from traditional GY decks, and when they become more rare, other people would run less hate like Surgical & Leyline. The less traditional GY decks are present in the meta, the stronger Living End becomes.
tl;dr: Containment Priest doesn't do ***** against us but means fewer GY decks and fewer Leylines will be played.
Chandra says "You may cast target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your graveyard. If that card would be put into your graveyard this turn, exile it instead.", which is essentially Flashback but only works while you resolve the ability.
Ancestral Vision & Living End on the other hand are spells that can't be cast with mana. Look at their rulings on Scryfall: "This has no mana cost, which means its mana cost can’t be paid for effects such as replicate from Djinn Illuminatus or flashback from Snapcaster Mage."
So nope, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame doesn't help ElectroEnd at all.
If you're confused now, let me clarify: Electrodominance works because it says "without paying its mana cost" and As Foretold works because it says "you may pay {0} rather than pay the mana cost". So both replace the mana cost of AV/LE.
Chandra essentially says "you can cast it if you are able to cast it with mana"... but you simply can never cast AV/LE with mana.
This is the very definition of "win more". You shouldn't lose the game when you have 3 planeswalkers on the field anyway. If you still do, you chose the wrong 3 planeswalkers.
Sarkhan the Masterless is a 5 mana 4/4 flyer.
2 Cascade Bluffs
4 Island
2 Mountain
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam Vents
2 Tolaria West
2 Shivan Reef
Spells
4 Ancestral Vision
4 As Foretold
4 Cryptic Command
4 Electrodominance
4 Izzet Charm
4 Living End
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Desert Cerodon
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Abrade
2 Negate
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Shatterstorm
2 Echoing Truth
Sooo... I need some advice.
I tested the deck against Hardened Scales Affinity yesterday. Played 5 games preboard and 4 games postboard. Here's my results.
Preboard:
Won game one with EOT Dominance -> untap -> Cryptic tap. Lost game 2 and 3 to Inkmoth. Too fast, too many different threats. Ravager is a broken card. Won game 4 with LE off As Foretold as my opponent couldn't draw a Ravager or another threat. Lost game 5 to poison again. FFS. Overall, Ravager was definitely a problem, but the real issue was Inkmoth. Yup, all the games I lost were to poison damage. I have no real way of interacting with it preboard besides Cryptic, as Izzet Charm essentially only helps if they attack with it as a 1/1 which they'll almost never do.
I boarded as follows:
- 4 Izzet Charm
- 1 As Foretold
+ 2 Abrade
+ 2 Echoing Truth
+1 Shatterstorm
Chalice doesn't do *****, the rest is useless as well. Could've brought in Fulminator though, but figured it's too slow. Is that correct? How would you guys board?
Postboard:
Went 2-2, although it felt much more even.
Won game one with pure card advantage and even tho he nuked my GY with Crypt once, I filled it up again and killed him once he ran out of options / cards. Felt amazing.
Game two he was simply too fast, again a Ravager was involved.
Third game I kept a reeeaaally questionable hand that I shouldn't have kept (3 lands, 2 Cryptics, 1 As Foretold). It went long, I drew a 3rd Cryptic, I could stall a lot with Echoing Truth, but he drew 3 Ballistas and simply shot me to death.
Game four went long again, and I won with card advantage again. We had a weird turn were I Electrodominance'd a Inkmoth for X=1 as a pure removal spell TWICE to kill it. 6 mana + 2 cards for one threat. Thank **** for Visions. He scooped it up after I EOT'd a 3rd Dominance to kill an Inkmoth AND LE'd for 24 power.
Card choices:
Izzet Charm felt horrible preboard, so I boarded all 4 out. Cryptic felt amazing, as did As Foretold. Electrodominance is much more flexible than it looks. It's removal and card advantage all in one card, especially with Visions. Speaking of which, resolving a Visions is the secret in this matchup and I'd never board it out. Abrade was fine, Echoing Truth always broke the flow of the game. Bouncing 2 Overseers or 2 Hangarback Walkers for 2 mana gave me enough time to draw into real action, as Hardened Scales Affinity is, imho, way slower than expected and b) less scary after turn 5. I also bounced 2 Ballistas at once and a Ravager. I drew one or even both copies in all 4 postboard matches, so it really made a mark. Sadly I didn't draw Shatterstorm at all.
Results:
I'd say I'm a dog preboard, but the matchup feels 60-40 postboard. I just took the control route. Make the game go slow, you can always overwhelm them later. Speaking of slow: Even though I got killed by Inkmoth 3 times preboard, I didn't bring in Fulminator. But Fulminator seems necessary for Tron and Titan, so... what do?
- Which other sideboard card besides Fulminator is good against Inkmoth, Tron AND Titan? Pithing Needle maybe?
- What else could I have done differently? I own 4 Remand, but I don't like the card. It's just a glorified cycler.
- How do you approach the matchup? I expect Affinity to be everywhere in the upcoming weeks as people are sick of Phoenix and Tron - and Affinity stands it's ground against both. We're definitely the control, but for that we need more answers. Shattering Spree maybe?
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/top-stories-from-modern-at-grand-prix-calgary/
2 Cascade Bluffs
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam Vents
2 Tolaria West
4 Island
1 Mountain
Spells (39)
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Desert Cerodon
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Ancestral Vision
4 As Foretold
4 Cryptic Command
4 Electrodominance
4 Living End
4 Remand
2 Abrade
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Fulminator Mage
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Negate
1 Tormod's Crypt
This list looks extremely streamlined. No Izzet Charm, no Chalice mainboard, no Crypt mainboard. Faerie and Wraith main are like a blast from the past. I'm not sure why he decided to play 21 lands with the full 15 cyclers, but it seems to have worked out.
The sideboard... wow. Day 2 in GP Calgary had 11.5% Burn, 9% Tron and 8% GDS, so his sideboard was on point. Kinda. I have no clue how is plan against the 16% UR Phoenix was.
This should be able to cast Living End from the graveyard. Could this mean we run Faithless Looting or 3-4 Izzet Charms instead of Remand now?
How good is that card? On MKM, it's already a 10 EUR preorder. Could this be a 2 of? Maybe in the SB? We don't have many 1 cmc spells right now, should we really water down our deck with let's say Opt to get more value out of this? Being able to cast a AV in the graveyard a second time is nice, but how often will that come up?
I personally think this card is a SB card for control matchups and doesn't have a place in the MB, but I could very well be wrong here.
Check out the rulings for on Containment Priest: "If Containment Priest enters the battlefield at the same time as other creatures, its ability won’t affect those creatures." ... and now read Living End again: "Each player exiles all creature cards from their graveyard, then sacrifices all creatures they control, then puts all cards they exiled this way onto the battlefield."
This means Containment Priest in the GY can't stop a Living End and a flashed-in Containment Priest in response to LE doesn't help either.
Actually it's the other way around. Having Containment Priest in Modern would be amazing for us.
A Containment Priest reprint would give white decks access to a very strong anti-phoenix, anti-dredge, anti-grishoalbrand card, making these decks worse. If these decks became worse, people would switch away from traditional GY decks, and when they become more rare, other people would run less hate like Surgical & Leyline. The less traditional GY decks are present in the meta, the stronger Living End becomes.
tl;dr: Containment Priest doesn't do ***** against us but means fewer GY decks and fewer Leylines will be played.