God, this card is a huge letdown. They got the CMC and loyalty right for a Modern-playable GBx planeswalker but the abilities are far too weak.
+2: Doesn't affect the board, is typically only going to be useful in the later stages of the game when you have excess lands. 6 loyalty might be a lot in Standard, but in Modern it's not really that impressive when you consider that this ability doesn't really "do" anything.
-3: Abrupt Decay has been terrible in Modern for years. This very easily could have just copied the original Vraska's minus of "destroy target nonland permanent" and the card would have actually been playable. Big miss here.
-9: She comes in at 4 loyalty, can plus to 6, and then 8, and then 10, and finally after she has been in play for 3 full turn cycles without taking damage and without affecting the board, now she can produce an emblem that relies on you having a better board than your opponent. You don't play planeswalkers for their ultimates, but the fact that she takes so long to reach it while not setting it up and it doesn't even do anything by itself is a real stinker.
All in all, this card is very disappointing and I'd expect it to see no play in Legacy/Modern and very fringe play in Standard (and what play it sees there will likely be in decks built around the graveyard where the sacrifice ability has upside instead of being a real cost). Can we errata this down to 3 CMC or fix the minus please??
This might be a metagame call. I play on MTGO and the metagame isn't dominated by push-resilient threats. The most common decks seem to be Burn, Affinity and Grixis Shadow (which has some push-resilient threats, but not to a point where Push isn't a decent card to have). Eldrazi Tron seems to have taken a hit in popularity, likely due to the presence of Affinity. The only major deck that regularly packs pro black creatures is mono-white Death and Taxes, which makes up maybe 3% of the field. Mirran Crusader can be held at bay by Lingering Souls for a while and dies to Flaying Tendrils after boarding.
As I said, the only matchups where I actively want Push over Path are Storm and Burn. I think that leaving in Push against GDS is a trap, as the card is super narrow in that it only hits the namesake of the deck, which you should rarely lose to with the sideboard configuration. Perhaps Push vs Path is a, no pun intended, push, vs affinity, but it takes all of one time getting burnt by Welding Jar to not want it to ever happen again
Jund Death's Shadow with the white splash has grinded me out several times when I ran only light graveyard hate. Abzan is also a very tough matchup, with all those Scavening Oozes, Lingering Souls and Spellbombs getting in the way. B/W Tokens is usually a nightmare. These are midrange decks I don't feel favored against with 3 copies of Lingering Souls and no way to get back Snapcaster Mage outside of Tasigur.
If your Jund Shadow opponent has the white splash, the key is to keep them off of resolving a late game Traverse the Ulvenwald to find Ranger of Eos. You should be able to fight through everything else they throw at you if you're not drawing terribly. With Lingering Souls of our own to fight back on that same angle (and to really make Liliana of the Veil atrocious), I'd say that we should be much better off against Abzan than GDS, and they have roughly a 50/50 matchup there from my experience. You're not going to beat BW Tokens, but that's a fringe deck that you'll maybe see once in a dozen tournaments anyways. FWIW, Grixis Shadow isn't going to have any better of a time against them; Snap-Kommand loops don't keep up with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Bitterblossom, and Lingering Souls.
I rarely manage to achieve a sick tempo with my deck, so maybe I'm doing something wrong. In a metagame with so many fast aggro decks, I often end up not being the beatdown deck. Affinity and various Zoo variants seem to be just better at it.
A turn 2 4/5 or turn 3 7/7 backed by 1 mana removal spells and 1 mana counterspells is about as tempo-positive as you're going to get in Modern without filling your deck with badcards. You're absolutely correct in that you won't be the beatdown against Burn or Affinity, however. Even tempo decks need to play the control role against true aggro decks, but luckily we have a lot of very efficient tools for doing that as well.
Most of the current Grixis Shadow lists don't run Lightning Bolt. But I usually do and it's just not the same. Lightning Bolt kills all of their creatures without giving them a land. But the best part is that Lightning Bolt can be turned into a win condition when it is no longer needed as a creature removal. I have won so many games against burn with just a single Death's Shadow attack and a combination of Lightning Bolt, Snapcaster Mage, Collective Brutality, Kolaghan's Command and some help from their Shocklands. With Esper Shadow, I nearly always have to attack twice, which usually means that they have at least one more turn to burn me out.
Yes, Esper has a worse Burn matchup than Grixis. That's fine; Burn is less than 5% of the MTGO metagame per MTGGoldfish. Don't stress about 1 extra Fatal Push in the main specifically for this matchup which, as I've said, is one of the 2 in the format right now where I'd rather have more Pushes than Paths.
I definitely prefer Push against Affinity. It's in my primary color, it does not help them fix their mana situation, and it hits all of their non-Etched-Champion creatures without even requiring a revolt trigger, except for the occasional Master of Etherium, which usually gets sideboarded out. The exile clause doesn't matter in this matchup except maybe against Welding Jar (of which they run 0 to 1), so I don't see any reason to play Path over Push here.
Path is awkward against Titanshift, because giving them an extra land can cost us the game. They sometimes have Courser of Kruphix maindeck and some Rampaging Baloths after sideboarding, which I prefer to handle with Push, because I don't want to ramp an opponent whose primary deck strategy is ramping. I have seen a Chameleon Colossus once or twice, which is the one card that justifies not taking out all Paths in game 2 and 3. My entire game plan focuses on keeping Primeval Titan off the table, so I don't want to have to path it.
Against Death and Taxes, Push and Path seem to be on par. Path works more reliably against their bigger creatures, but on the other hand, it's much easier for them to lock us out of White than out of Black. Turn 2 Leonin Arbiter is no joke when we are on the draw and don't know yet what we are up against (which means, we usually fetched for Watery Grave on turn 1).
Affinity plays a single basic, and the games will typically run long enough that you find and cast multiple paths. You'll also want to be fetching white anyways for Lingering Souls and other sideboard cards at some point anyways. Like I said, it just takes one time getting burnt by Welding Jar
Don't kill Courser of Kruphix unless they're really on air; it's way too slow to actually matter. Obstinate Baloth is also going to be smaller than every non-Snapcaster threat typically, so you often won't need to remove it. Primeval Titan and Chameleon Colossus, however, need to die, and hitting the former with the trigger on the stack renders the free basic land quite irrelevant. Yes, the ideal is to never let them put it on the table, but sometimes it's going to happen and it's much better to have an answer and not need it than need an answer and not have it.
I'm hesitant to buy the Path=Push argument re:D&T. You're not always going to have a fetch to crack (thanks, Leonin Arbiter), whereas Path will always hit the mark. It's definitely close, however, and I'd love to have an extra 2 spot removal spells for 8 total if it were possible.
Against Affinity, I'm usually more concerned with their airborne creatures than with their ground troops. But I run 3 Ceremonious Rejections and keep in some discard to get Etched Champion, so that might be the reason why I don't feel that I need it that much. Vizier Company has always been one of the easier matchups for me, even when I ran just a single sweeper. The games that I lost against it usually involved Gavony Township, against which Flaying Tendrils does not help. Dredge and Elves are tough, but both decks are not particularly popular right now.
Etched Champion is the primary way to lose against Affinity, and Flaying Tendrils cleans up real nice. Really, I don't think you can ever have too many answers to EC and Cranial Plating. Good draws from CoCo decks involve them stalling out the ground with bodies that leave bodies behind, a la Voice of Resurgence, Kitchen Finks, Collected Company. Tendrils knocks out that plan and also beats their Gavony Township plan if you nip it in the bud (which, if you're running triple Tendrils, is more likely than not). Dredge and Elves aren't popular, but swarm strategies in general (which are still a thing when you add up the total metagame shares) will be tough for us without Infest effects since we don't have access to something like a Temur Battle Rage.
Thank you for these details on LotV. I have tried numerous times to warm up to her, but she just doesn't seem to be my kind of card. I liked Liliana, the Last Hope a little bit more, but don't really miss her now that I use her slot for something else.
NP, the LotV isn't written down in pen, but I think it's a reasonable option right now. Things could easily shift away from that, however. Same goes with Last Hope; she's an absolute 10/10 brickhouse when she's good, and if more of the aforementioned swarm strategies pop up I could easily see her winning her spot back.
How much experience do you have playing the deck against Jund Shadow? I usually have problems keeping up with their higher threat density. And they often have Lingering Souls of their own. So I don't really see how this matchup is laughable easy. But maybe there is a trick to it that I haven't found yet.
I consider Jeskai Queller the most important Snapcaster Mage deck in the current metagame. What's your strategy against it and what makes you feel favored?
Jund Shadow has no answer to a delve threat and a very hard time punching through Lingering Souls, of which we'll find more on average because of the high cantrip density (and sweet Thought Scour synergies). Their Pushes will be garbage, and ours will be excellent. We have Snapcaster Mage and library manipulation; they don't. Board in more business spells to answer the board or stack and find a window to exploit them going to a low life total.
Jeskai Queller is a tempo deck, and will often try to pivot into a glorified burn deck when the time is right. Be cautious with your life total and don't treat them like a true control deck where you'd normally damage yourself with impunity. They're very soft to the delve threats and souls, respectively, and if you can punch a hole in their hand they'll have a hard time lining up the correct answers. I'd also point to Goldfish here showing Jeskai with a 1.61% metagame share on MTGO and suggest that Grixis DS and UW control be treated as more likely Snapcaster Mage decks to run across.
Path to Exile feels indispensable 20% of the time and like a necessary evil 80% of the time. I just hate giving my opponent extra lands with this deck. Unlike Grixis Shadow, we don't have access to the Snapcaster Mage + Kommand engine. So, most other midrange decks have a better lategame then us. Giving them extra lands to bring their manlands online and thin out their deck is not helpful. Each time you mention that somebody topdecked against you multiple times, I can't help suspecting some correlation to the free deck thinning by Path to Exile, even though it might not be THAT relevant. However, it certainly isn't completely irrelevant.
Path takes their Snap-Kommand engine off-line quite easily, and having 4 cheap answers to the Push-resilient threats (which are dominating the format right now: this is why Eldrazi decks, delve decks, value decks with cards like Voice of Resurgence, hosers that dodge black removal like Chameleon Colossus and Mirran Crusader, etc., have become so popular) is a huge boon right now. Basically, the format has adjusted to the presence of Push, but Path is still excellent. I also have not found other midrange decks to have a better lategame, since Lingering Souls by itself is tough to answer, and the high density of cantrips, efficient disruption, and cheap beaters makes matchups where the opponent is casting 4 mana creatures very winnable. Finally, I think that people overplay the cost of giving the opponent a basic, as many decks in the format play a limited number of them and early on you don't generally need to path, while later on the land doesn't matter much. Also, our tempo game is sick and we can make up for it by being more efficient at basically every point on the curve!
Burn is another matchup that feels considerably harder with Esper Shadow than with Grixis Shadow. Path to Exile requires mana in the least important color in the deck, for which no basic land can be fetched. Furthermore, Burn decks have a greedy manabase of 19-20 lands and no cantrips. More often than not, they can put an extra land to good use. They also love deck-thinning.
I'd generally agree with most of these points, and it's why I have 7 cards in the sideboard for Burn presently. I will point out, however, that Grixis has a similar problem of fetching for a red source to cast Lightning Bolt, as they don't play basic mountain and red is their off-color. With tight play and ample sideboarding, the matchup is very reasonable however.
The one top tier deck against which Path to Exile is usually considerably better than Fatal Push is Eldrazi Tron.
And Grixis DS, and affinity, and Titan Shift/Breach, and regular tron, and D&T, and Dredge, and I'm sure some other matchups I'm not thinking of. In fact, the only matchups I want Push more than Path are Burn and Storm specifically.
But overall, this is another matchup that feels worse with Esper Shadow than with Grixis Shadow. Esper Shadow has no maindeck answer to a resolved Chalice of the Void and the CMC1 of Path to Exile means that a Chalice for 1 is enough to lock Esper Shadow completely out of creature removal.
The only games I've felt very disadvantaged against E Tron have been ones with resolved Chalice or All is Dust, and I've played the matchup somewhere between 30-50 times. If you're playing ordinary magic, interacting with each other on conventional angles and smashing dudes into dudes, ourcardsaresimplybetterthantheirs.
Another card that I have not been too happy with is Flaying Tendrils, which you have recently up-ed to 3 copies in the sideboard. This might have to do with the cards that get boarded out, though. The three major decks against which Flaying Tendrils is very relevant are Affinity, Vizier CoCo and Dredge. Against the swarm strategies of these decks, Lingering Souls is a reasonable card to have, especially when discarded with Collective Brutality. So I tend to leave a few copies of Lingering Souls in, taking out cards that are worse in the respective matchup instead. Unfortunately, Flaying Tendrils often gets in the way, so I have considered going down to 1 copy from 2.
Those matchups are all tough without Tendrils, and I also want access to the card for Elves, Storm, and D&T where Souls won't shine. Finding the first copy is often crucial to winning, which is why I've moved up to 3 and consider it the most important card in the sideboard aside from the 4th Stubs. Also remember that if you have resolved Souls against a deck like Affinity, you're probably winning already and you can just hold the Tendrils (unless they have an Etched Champion, of course). Against Vizier and Dredge, however, Souls isn't doing very much and Tendrils is likely to win the game if backed up by anything else.
I recently tested Liliana of the Veil in this deck and wasn't overly impressed. I often found myself in the awkward situation of having to discard cards that I would have rather kept in hand while my opponent discarded lands. Liliana is very good against Grixis Shadow, but that is already one of the most favorable matchups. I won against Control with her once, which felt good, but at the same time it felt very cumbersome. The most important Control deck is currently Jeskai Control, which can easily deal with Liliana.
You want broad cards that can come in for a lot of matchups, and LotV is still excellent in midrange mirrors and against control/combo. Burn falls into the category of being near-combo, and she's also very good there (especially postboard, where they're liable to be sitting on Paths and Deflecting Palms).
Did you really cut your dedicated graveyard hate down to just one copy of Nihil Spellbomb? That seems very greedy to me. Dredge might not be that popular at the moment, but Traverse the Ulvenwald and Snapcaster Mage can certainly get out of hand if undisturbed. Maybe your plan is to dodge other midrange decks for the most part.
Dredge is winnable between Paths and Tendrils (though you absolutely have to find those) if you leverage your life total correctly, and Living End is also very beatable with the playset of stubs and a fast clock. Those are the only two common matchups where Spellbomb is a true ace. I feel advantaged against every Snapcaster mage deck aside from UW, and the Jund Shadow matchup is laughably easy and doesn't need more Spellbombs to help out. Additionally, the metagame has shifted and punished graveyard decks pretty hard with a lot of people playing maindeck relics, so you don't need to pack as much hate yourself.
Is Esper Charm really worth it? I considered it several times, but never found room for it. I view it as kind of a worse version of Kolaghan's Command. On the upside, it doesn't depend on the graveyard. So I'm not sure about it and would really appreciate if you would explain your preference for it in a little more detail.
I tried it out for a laugh (like, literally the result of a joke with a friend) and was surprisingly happy with it. Postboard, the cards in your deck tend to line up better and drawing 2 or mind-rotting your opponent can put in serious work. It also provides another out to pesky enchantments like Rest in Peace and Leyline of Sanctity, as well as being outstanding against Burn (they really don't like Mind Rot effects). It's not essential by any means, but I've been reasonably impressed by the card and will likely continue to play the one copy (one-ofs being generally better in Snap-Scour decks than normal, of course).
Alright, I promised a tournament report for the TJ's 5k and I live up to my promises! Sadly, I didn't quite take as detailed of notes as I had hoped; I'll try to take better notes for SCG Syracuse. Heading into the event, I decided to play the same list from the IQ (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=114986) with the slight change of -1 Nihil Spellbomb +1 Disenchant, adjusting to the decline in graveyard decks and the weakness to enchantments and Chalice of the Void. The event had 134 people, pretty small for a 5k, but I recognized most of the people there as being regular grinders so most of the competition was at least reasonable.
Round 1 - Sam, UW Control (0-2, lost die roll)
Mmm, nothing quite like the round 1 feature match first thing in the morning - I've played a lot at the TJ's series and Sam won one of the events (in May, I believe), so I wasn't terribly shocked by this. Sam is friends with a good friend of mine from the Boston area who has been on UW forever, so I know what he's playing before we start, but it sadly doesn't make the matchup any better. I open with a land light hand that gets stonewalled by multiple Spreading Seas cutting me off of black mana for multiple turns as my hand clumps up with multiple delve threats and a Lingering Souls in the graveyard. I end up working him down to 1 post-Verdict and a top-decked Godless Shrine lets me flash back Lingering Souls. At this point, I have 4 total lands, and my opponent double Tectonic Edges me on end step. Considering that there are 2 Supreme verdict left in the deck vs my pair of Souls tokens, but Detention Sphere and Jace, Architect of Thought also beat my current board, I resolve to flash in a Snap with my mana. He topdecks 2nd Verdict and I lose to Colonnade a few turns later (while holding a Fatal Push and a Path to Exile that I can't cast, of which I drew 2 each).
-4 Path to Exile -1 Street Wraith, +2 Collective Brutality +1 Stubborn Denial +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil
I take a mull and see a slower 6 with a delve threat and snap with no spells, but knowing how important total card quantity is in an attrition matchup is, I keep it. I luck out and find some early spells, casting Thoughtseize Snap-TS to take Jace and Gideon. I also cast Esper Charm and flashed it back, and Souls tokens buy a bunch of time vs his Colonnade. I put lethal on board with a giant Death's Shadow and Stubborn Denial as my last card in hand, and his Runed Halo with Cryptic Command backup buys him time as my next two draw-steps are another Shadow and a land. I end up dying to Colonnade after having fired off a Push on one earlier in the game. This isn't a particularly great matchup in my estimation, but I didn't feel like my deck was very kind to me this round
Rd 2 - Grixis Shadow (2-0, lost die roll)
It's hard to remember much, aside from my opponent playing Claim//Fame, Vendetta, and responding to my Inquisition of Kozilek with Stubborn Denial with no creatures on board vs my open mana while he had actual cards in hand.
Rd 3 - Jund (2-0, lost die roll)
My opponent mulls to 5 and has a pair of Tarmogoyf, but Death's Shadow is a more efficient beater, as I intentionally put myself to 1 to put him into the abyss with Stubs and double removal spell backup, killing him the next turn.
-4 Thoughtseize -2 Inquisition of Kozilek, +2 Blessed Alliance +2 Collective Brutality +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil
Game two my opponent has the dream curve of discard spell into Bob into Lili, the last of which sneaks in under my Stubs as I'm forced to Path the Bob before it can produce value. With double delve threats, I set up to throw away both a Tasigur and Angler if I have to in order to get the Lili off the board, but topdecked Souls bail me out. After flashing back Souls and casting the Angler, my opponent topdecks an Olivia Voldaren. I topdeck a Lili of my own and draw Snap that can target both Stubs and a Path for his Ravine to close off all the angles from there.
Rd 4 - Burn (2-1, won die roll)
Uh, pretty standard stuff game one. I'm blind in the matchup and keep a slow one with no delve threat or DS, and Lingering Souls sucks at racing.
-3 Street Wraith -4 Thoughtseize, +2 Blessed Alliance +2 Collective Brutality +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil +1 Stubborn Denial
I really wish that I kept better notes for this game, but I cast a turn 1 IoK to see a grip of fetchland, Goblin Guide, double Monastery Swiftspear, double Eidolon of the Great Revel, Boros Charm, opting to take an Eidolon. I don't remember much of the game, aside from drawing double Blessed Alliance, a Death's Shadow, and at least 1 Stubborn Denial as my opponent curves out flawlessly but dies to a gigantic Shadow.
Game 3 I force trades of resources with Iok, push, and serum off of basic island and swamp in the first 2 turns, and cast my 2nd Gurmag Angler for 6 mana after the first one gets Pathed and finish the game off after my opponent bricks for exactly 1 turn too many. I win at 4 life while my opponent has a known {card]Skullcrack[/card] in hand.
Rd 5 - Titan Breach (2-0, win die roll)
After taking a mull to 6 and scrying top, I opt to Thought Scour my opponent and mill Wooded Foothills and a basic mountain. Passing to my opponent and seeing a basic forest into Relic of Progenitus, I think he's on ponza and choose to fetch basic swamp, which hurts when I draw DS a few turns later. Unable to pressure, and after hitting some timely land drops in spite of my Scour line, he hits his fifth land to Through the Breach a Primeval Titan as I Path to Exile it in response to the trigger. Choosing to get a single Valakut and mountain to bolt my currently tiny Shadow down, he ends up losing the game as he hits land drops, bolting me piecemeal as I find a Shadow at 9 life. He bolts me again and I hit him from 13 down to 4 after shocking myself with Stubs backup. Having sandbagged a fetchland in play, my opponent rubs his hands together and slowly draws off the top. He peels another fetch, puts it into play, and kind of stares at me, announcing "second fetch, I'll crack both of them". Asking him to show me the red sources, he gives a shy look at his library and reveals that he has already hit all of his nonbasic red sources and can't deal damage with valakut. Remember kids - ALWAYS make them show you it.
Rd 6 - BW Eldrazi (1-2, won die roll)
I cast 3 discard spells and tear my opponent's hand to shreds as a 6/6 Shadow comes down and closes the game quickly.
-2 Tasigur -2 Gurmag Angler -3 Street Wraith, +3 Flaying Tendrils +1 Blessed Alliance +2 Collective Brutality +1 Liliana [I put my opponent on the Eldrazi Taxes deck after game one, having not seen any signature cards game 1. I also expected multiple RiPs to compliment 4 Relics].
Game 2 I get put on the backfoot with multiple Scullers disrupting my draw, backed by Souls flashback Souls, and a follow-up Smasher. My cards quite simply didn't line up well here.
Resideboard: -3 Flaying Tendrils -1 Liliana, +2 Angler +1 Tasigur +1 Stubborn Denial [In retrospect, should have only brought in 1 Tas 1 Angler]
My opponent mulls to 5 and I'm feeling pretty great after casting an early discard spell to see a hand of Caves of Koilos, Fatal Push, Blessed Alliance, Tidehollow Sculler. Knowing that I have a removal spell for the Sculler on top, I choose to take the Alliance for the long game once I start putting down threats through his turn 1 Relic. Sadly, my opponent topdecks another Sculler into Eldrazi Temple + Thought-knot Seer as my next two draw steps are my other delve threats left and I have no removal. His next 2 draw steps find him Lingering Souls and a Path to Exile. I really wish I had recorded every draw step in this game, since it felt like a stacked deck situation while I flopped around on a 7 and died.
Rd 7 - Mono U Tron (2-0, win die roll)
Going in blind, I have no interaction for Chalice, so on turn 2 I aggressively Thought Scour myself, to try and find a discard spell, failing to do so. My opponent promptly casts Chalice on 1 for his turn 2. I come very close to scooping on the spot to save time, but I decide to play it out. After flashing in a pair of end-steps Ambush Vipers and sneaking in a Fatal Push on his Spellskite through Chalice with some nifty wording (Attack you, before blocks kill your guy), Souls - flashback Souls after he pops Oblivion Stone somehow manages to clock him out before anything disastrous can happen.
-2 Fatal Push -2 Path to Exile -3 Lingering Souls, +2 Ceremonious Rejection +2 Disenchant +1 Stubborn Denial +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil
Weird game, both of us kind of durdle around not doing much since he has turn 1 Relic. I end up casting Esper Charm to Mind Rot him in response to a Thirst for knowledge to tag his last two cards. I aggressively hurt myself and go to 1 and draw multiple Wraiths, as between a pair of Remand and an overloaded Cyclonic Rift they don't exactly present the fastest clock. Eventually I find a Shadow and my opponent sticks a Sundering Titan to blow up 3 of my lands. Thankfully my 1 mana creature is bigger than his 8 mana one and he's forced to block as I miss free damage for some stupid reason. I also cast a Snap into the Titan leaves-play trigger for literally no reason and let them cash in their last card in hand, a Condescend, to draw to additional outs. Thankfully I don't get punished, but I feel like I generally played like crap in this round. Maybe karma decided to bail me out for the previous round. Or maybe better lucky than good
Rd 8 - Knightfall (2-1, lost die roll) Spell Queller is very good in multiples, tagging a Snap that was looking to hit the other Queller with a flashbacked Fatal Push. I never stabilize against his fliers and die quickly.
-3 Lingering Souls -3 Street Wraith, +3 Flaying Tendrils +1 Liliana of the Veil +1 Esper Charm +1 Stubborn Denial [I was going through the sideboard rather quickly and totally spaced on Collective Brutality]
Game 2 my opponent mulls to 6 and keeps a draw with 4 mana dorks. He draws his fifth one and plays it. I cast a Flaying Tendrils.
Resideboard: -1 Liliana of the Veil -1 Esper Charm, +2 Collective Brutality
I leverage my life total as a resource for a few turns to cast multiple discard spells, to include an escalated Brutality to tag his Unified Will. I miss land drops as my opponent recovers from the discard with Renegade Rallier. After putting an Angler on the table facing his Voice and Rallier, I have the option to cast a Flaying Tendrils, but opt to hold it for an extra turn of value. On the following turn, I block the voice and let him pump an extra 2 damage into the Rallier with Kessig Wolf Run as I take this as a sign that he's on air, casting a Tendrils on my turn for a clean 2-for-1 while holding Push, Path, and Snap to clear the ground the rest of the way. He draws a CoCo but doesn't hit Eternal Witness or Reflector Mage, so I get there. Of important note here is that my opponent had about a billion grindy cards in their 75, but as the archetypes match up, it just doesn't really matter. You can ignore many of the bodies on their creatures until you eventually turn the corner, closing the game within a small window.
Final record: 6-2, good for top 16
Closing thoughts: Deck is still great. The draws vs UW and BW could have very easily shifted my way, and I didn't feel far off of another top 8. I don't think I'll make any changes for SCG Syracuse this next weekend. I promise I'll give some detailed notes for that if you guys are interested.
Thanks for the report. I'm afraid about graveyard hate. May x2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and x2 geist of saint traft help with this grindy matchups? Not enought size on our 15 sideboard for this?
4 mana cards are very expensive for this deck, but a miser's copy of Geist isn't unreasonable. Just be careful not to go overboard with grindy cards, lest you run out of space for the rest of the format. Also, I pretty typically shave a delve threat against decks with graveyard hate, so don't be afraid to do that.
Hey guys, I got convinced to leave the house for an IQ at Tabletop Shop in Newington, CT today. At the behest of the Esper Shadow player I faced in the first round, who mentioned he saw the first write-up here, I decided to do another short write-up (short because I didn't really take notes during the rounds).
Being a smaller event, I expected to play against Burn at least once, so I decided to change the list accordingly. Shaving the 4th Street Wraith lets 3rd Stubborn Denial sneak into the main, freeing up a valuable sideboard slot and making the burn matchup much more manageable. I also decided after having seen a lot more UW and D&T online to move to 2nd Godless Shrine over 2nd Hallowed Fountain. I've had to shift my playstyle slightly, but it's been fine so far. Still can't decisively say if one is strictly better or not. For the sideboard, having more cards for burn seemed prudent, and the local New England scene is generally very into grindy midrange and control decks, so a few extra cards there seemed nice. Liliana of the Veil and a saucy Esper Charm seemed nice to double dip in those two areas, while a couple copies of Blessed Alliance would do double-duty against Burn and the mirror. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Flaying Tendrils has really been pulling overtime, so the 3rd copy moved in while Liliana, the Last Hope got bumped out for being somewhat superfluous. I also moved up an extra copy up Ceremonious Rejection for the rise in E tron and Affinity, cut Anguished Unmaking since it hasn't been coming in all that often, and the Celestial Purge and 2nd Disenchant which I kind of regretted. Here's the list I played:
Round 1 - Esper Shadow mirror (2-0)
My opponent was playing Spell Queller over Lingering Souls. I flirted with the card a bit previously, but didn't like how clunky it felt in the DS mirrors. In spot removal matchups, Souls is a house, but Queller can often just get one-for-oned. That was the case in our match, as his Quellers died and my Souls did not. Of particular note, I got to cast a Blessed Alliance in life gain mode to catch two copies of Death's Shadow flat-footed for a nice 2-for-1.
Round 2 - Mono White D&T (2-1)
Game one my opponent has a nice draw with Arbiter and double GQ. He puts me to 1 and I crack back for 12 with a Shadow, holding up a snapcaster to flash block his guy, knowing I'll be dead to literally anything and I need to close the game before he can find something. He vials in Crusader on end step and I die. Game two we play a game of cat and mouse with the Flaying Tendrils in my hand as I try to set up a nice sweeper. Tasigur chips in for 4 at a time as my opponent never commits more than 1 threat at a time and I play a tempo game, eventually casting Souls to get in the last 3 points of damage. Game three my opponent kept a sketchy one as my discard spells take what little action he has, and a huge Shadow puts him in the abyss early. He does his best to draw out of it with multiple Thraben Inspectors and cycling Canopies, but eventually I set up a turn of Path/Snap Path to attack for 15, finishing him the next turn with a Collective Brutality.
Round 3 - Eldrazi Tron (0-2)
Game one I put my opponent on vizier combo because I thought I had seen him playing it previously (and he had green sleeves, I swear they're connected!) and kept a reactive hand with multiple removal spells and a Serum Visions. I see tronland turn 1 and cast Serum looking for a counterspell, finding a Stubborn Denial on top. Sadly, it's too late and my opponent untaps and slams Chalice. I quickly scoop, having only shown Flooded Strand and Hallowed Fountain, hoping my opponent might put me on UW. Game two I Thoughtseize a Chalice, stub a second one, but can't find my third land for Snapcaster Mage to deal with the 3rd copy. Chalice is... really tough, but the list has 13 answers not counting Snap recurring them postboard. Hard to say if I'm overreacting, but a 3rd Rejection seems like a nice luxury.
Round 4 - Lantern Control (2-1)
Game one I cast discard spells to hit Ancient Stirrings and an Ensnaring Bridge, putting a Tasigur down as a 5 turn clock. At 4 life, dead the next turn, my opponent peels another Bridge and I'm stone dead without any way to close the game out or blow up the artifact. Game two I cast a turn 1 discard spell and see a hand of Opal, some mill rocks, a surgical and some lands. After taking the surgical and putting myself aggressively to 5, Shadow puts my opponent on a two turn clock and he's unable to put anything together. Game three, he plays an early Grafdigger's Cage backed by an IoK/Surgical combo to knock Death's Shadow out of my deck. Fortunately, Tasigur and Snap pulling Ambush Viper duty put my opponent on a 4 turn clock as I find both Rejection and Stubs to deal with any possible Bridges.
Round 5 - Abzan (2-0)
Winning the die roll, I play draw-go for the first few turns and my opponent resolves LotV on his turn 3. Turn 4, I get to cast Souls + Tasigur, and Lili pluses to make me discard a Fatal Push as my remaining hand is Snapcaster Mage and another removal spell. He plays a Goyf and a Tasigur of his own, as my follow-up turn consists of Push the Lhurgoyf, Snap-Path the Tas, kill Lili. He finds a Maelstrom Pulse the turn after I find Stubborn Denial, and a 2nd copy of Thiago stops a maindeck copy of Liliana, the Last Hope from hitting the battlefield. Game two, my opponent beats me down for a few turns before I tap out for Souls. Taking advantage of the open window, he slams Last Hope and eats one of my tokens, putting me down to 10. Knowing I won't be able to adequately pressure the planeswalker with the tokens, I delve away the Souls in the graveyard to feed Gurmag Angler while casting a 3/3 Shadow and holding up a Denial. Resolving a Rhino to put me to 7 and effectively brick-walled, my opponent has no good plays with Lili other than to tick down to get back a Noble Hierarch that chump blocks a Shadow attack. After fetching basic to go down to 3 (a previous turn I fetched shock to go to 4) to enable Push/Snap Push and clearing out his board of untapped Noble and Anafenza, the Foremost, I get to eat his planeswalker inside that window to prevent him from ticking down to get back the Rhino that had been sacrificed to a Blessed Alliance, a healthy swing for 10 puts my opponent in a bad spot. Draw step, I cast an Esper Charm that mind rots the 2nd copy of Siege Rhino and another card and put him back into the abyss with his Nobles. Stubbing the back half of a topdecked Souls and risking him drawing another copy of Souls that might have been lethal with a Gavony Township activation, I hold back a Gurmag in hand to play around Damnation that likely isn't correct. Oh well, I didn't get punished. Postboard, I cut all 6 discard spells and bring in cards that impact the battlefield or stack, and my opponent noticeably left in at least some of his. I thought that this was strange and worth mentioning.
Round 6 - Burn (2-1)
Sadly, I get the pair-down and can't draw into top eight, and have to play the top-ranked Burn player. Thankfully, the changes to the list were largely with this matchup in mind. Rewarded! I win the die roll, fetch basics, and have Thought Scour into turn 2 Tasigur. Sadly, Searing Blaze plus a Wild Nacatl crashing in take my clock off the board, and a few poor draw steps of Thoughtseize and Street Wraith give my opponent the time needed to close out the game. Lingering Souls doesn't race very well, lol. Game two I find a Shadow and protect it with both Stubs and a Blessed Alliance that I never need to cast. Game three I cast an early discard spell and see an interesting grip of Atarka's Command, Lightning Bolt, Rest in Peace, and Ensnaring Bridge along with a pair of Sacred Foundry to go with my opponent's Stomping Ground on the battlefield. Taking the Rip to protect my delve threats, and hoping my opponent walks into a Force Spike, he does so on turn 3 as I drop a pair of threats on the board. Making conservative attacks in the face of his topdecked creatures, I find myself in a spot of being at 8, with my opponent at 11. I have a Tasigur and a Death's Shadow to his Goblin Guide and Wild Nacatl. I know that he still has the Command, along with one unknown, and the 2 Foundries untapped. I take a draw and find Watery Grave, which when combined with the Path and Snap in hand can get across for exactly 11, but loses to Deflecting Palm. That being said, if I wait another turn, an end step Command into Boros Charm to effectively nullify the Blessed Alliance in my hand and any other 3 damage burn spell kills me for waiting, so I opt to go for it, ultimately getting there. Funny that I drew Blessed Alliance both postboard games and didn't cast it, lol. Thankfully, I go into top 8 as the number one seed at 5-1, so there's some reward for being forced to play.
Quarters - the same Eldrazi Tron pilot (0-2)
I suppose I'm a glutton for punishment, since I keep a 7 with no interaction for Chalice of the Void, but Serum Visions and Street Wraith to try to find that action. I can't, and promptly die to Chalice despite a pair of Snaps and a Lingering Souls putting in work until a 5/5 Walking Ballista comes down to ruin my rally. Game two I Thoughtseize away a Chalice and see Smasher x2, All is Dust, Temple/Tower/GQ remaining. After a few turns of playing ordinary magic, most importantly a Thought-knot seer on turn 3 taking my Stubborn Denial, I hit my opponent for 10 with a pair of Shadows as he's on 4 lands with the Seer and the Smasher that can't attack on board. Playing a Gurmag Angler, flashing back a Lingering Souls and hoping that he doesn't peel 2nd Eldrazi Temple, he quickly shows me a door to a horrible future and casts effectively a 5 mana In Garruk's Wake to put the game away.
Closing thoughts - Man, I'd really like a 3rd Ceremonious Rejection, even if it's probably a kneejerk reaction to getting browned by Chalice repeatedly. Other than that, the 2x copies of Blessed Alliance seemed great and will probably stick around moving forward. Burn is predictably popular at smaller events like IQs and PPTQs, and it's very live against GBx and the mirror. Esper Charm was spicy and has put in some real work the last few days. Not sure how real it is, but it might stick around as a replacement to Anguished Unmaking. Definitely merits more testing. As was the case at the end of the Invi, I still feel very good about playing Paths and Souls, and I think that Death's Shadow decks are far and away the best possible thing to be doing in Modern right now. Hope the half-baked report was at least a little helpful, I promise I'll take actual notes for the TJ's Titanium Series and SCG Syracuse coming up
I greatly appericate the time put into this report as someone who likes to consume information. I did however have some questions for you if you dont mind. the first is:
1) i noticed you chose nihil spellbomb over surgical extraction is there a particular reason for this?
2) ive noticed the trend towards 2/2 split of both tasigur and gurmag. did gurmag feel like it was under preforming? Im curious because he feels like he is under preforming and i was debating on cutting the second. In your opinion because you seem to have had much success even with as you put the poor standard choice would you keep the 2/2 split or would you shift the numbers? thoguhts?
Other than that thank you again for the wonderful tournment report and I hope you find much continued success with the deck and thank you for putting this deck into the spot light!
1. Spellbomb is good in the DS mirrors and actually takes cares of the entire graveyard at once, and that's a big deal versus most graveyard decks - also, as a cantrip, it's versatile to come in for places where Surgical cannot. Additionally, almost every deck in the format that was once popular and soft to Surgical effects have either been pushed out of the competitive format entirely, or had their numbers reduced substantially. I also think that Surgical effects are inherently misunderstood for being stronger than they actually are. If your opponent isn't playing a pure combo deck that will be knocked out by it, Surgical generally isn't worth the slot.
2. In the months that I've been playing Death's Shadow, I can think of exactly one instance where I would have preferred to have drawn Tasigur over Angler. The extra point of power is typically worth the extra delved card from the yard, and drawing multiple Tas or flipping the second copy over with his activation is horrendous. Sometimes you can't put the big fish into play on turn 2, but this deck is so mana efficient that you typically have something else to do anyways.
Thanks, I appreciate it! I hope other people start doing well with the deck too; people need to be punished for putting Mirran Crusader in their Modern decks
Thanks so much for the write up! A comment and a question about sideboard strategy;
1. I switched to the two godless shrine/1 unhallowed fountain since I found on turn 2 I much preferred plays like turn 1 serum visions/thought scour, turn 2 thoughtseize/delve threat. I'm not sure how often this is a "misplay" since I'm often leaving a threat undefended for a turn, but it often puts on the sort of board pressure I feel comfortable with. With only 3 paths/2-3 souls in the MD, rarely do I need either double U or double W on turn 2, which seems to be what the Hallowed Fountain builds, and your comment earlier, would suggest. Instead, in my experience (though nothing as high caliber as this, just open games in mtgo), thought scouring away my godless shrine early on has often bottlenecked my early turns more than if my unhallowed fountain gets thoughtscoured away. Do you have any note able situations where the turn 2 watery grave/unhallowed fountain is preferred?
2. Can you explain, or point to any good strategy articles, on when its worth keeping in or boarding out thoughtseize? What cards do you typically think of as the "flex" spots for sideboarding? I've often had a hard problem of figuring out when do I take out my discard suite, do I leave in IoK or TS and take out the other in some matchups, and properly evaluating the value of Lingering Souls in certain matchups. For a while I found myself trying to board it out a lot, then as I played more tried to think of it as a "reach" card and not wanting to board it out as aggressively. You seem to be more in the former camp. I also noticed you completely board out wraith every so often, which I've never really thought of doing, can you explain? Is it just trying to minimize incidental life loss versus aggro decks?
Again, thanks so much, this gave me a bunch of things to think about!
Hey, not a problem
1. I find myself wanting double blue quite early and often, more-so than double black. Generally, turn 3 is where I fetch Godless Shrine with the intention of casting a couple threats. Turn 1 is generally the best turn to cast a discard spell, to hinder the opponent and also build information on what you're looking for in your cantrips. Turn 2, I often like to cast Serum Visions or Thought Scour while holding up removal and/or Stubborn Denial, hence Grave into Fountain. Basically, double U takes priority in game one over double B, which takes priority over double W. This changes sometimes based on matchups (UW with Spreading Seas, for example) or postboard when you need to cast Flaying Tendrils or situationally, like the TS + Tas turn you mentioned, in which I'd be inclined to lead Grave into Shrine. A lot of these differences can be attributed to play style and deck composition, of course.
2. Thoughtseize is generally bad vs the super grindy decks like Jund or Abzan, where the matchup will frequently be dictated by topdecks following multiple instances of one-for-one exchanges. Grixis Shadow isn't in that camp, however, since hitting their delve threats or taking the Kommand/Snap loop offline can really cripple them in the midgame. It's also actively atrocious vs Affinity, since they empty their hand so quickly and the life loss really stings. Burn, however, is a matchup that you counter-intuitively leave it in for, since sniping Path and Deflecting Palm is so important, and worst case scenario it saves you a point or two of life and fuels delve. IoK can come out over TS against decks whose lower costing cards are largely irrelevant (think E-Tron, for example, where you have ample answers postboard to the few cheap cards that matter between your Paths, Stubs, and Disenchants, and you want the tempo positive plays of making them cast them first).
As far as "flex" spots for sideboarding, I'm assuming you're referring to non-essential cards in the sideboard that can be replaced? I'd definitely say that Celestial Purge and Disdainful Stroke were those cards for me, and they were there mostly to hedge against the higher-than-average numbers of Grixis Shadow and UWx Control / Titan Shift I expected to see. The other 13 cards in the board feel quite locked in for me. If you're asking about maindeck cards that are flexible to cut for the sideboard games, I'd tell you that there are no sacred cows in Magic. Everything can be cut, even if it sounds crazy. For instance, I've even cut Death's Shadow completely against opponents who left in 4 Fatal Push against me for game 2.
Lingering Souls generally comes out vs faster decks where speed is security and you're playing the beatdown role, against things like combo. If it lines up poorly with your sideboard strategy of bringing in Flaying Tendrils and isn't overwhelmingly impressive against the opponent (like Affinity) playing something like mono white D&T, for instance, you can also cut or trim on it. So, if you look at how I sideboarded during the tournament, I only cut it vs Elves and Vizier, where I was both bringing in Tendrils and I felt that it wasn't particularly great even in the event that I wasn't casting Tendrils. Street Wraith is an incredible game one card that lets you play a functionally 56 card deck, fueling delve and getting your Shadows online quicker. Postboard, however, the games are often going to slow down as both players get more specific interaction to line up with each other. In these instances, you don't need to come out to a blistering start. It's also important to note that Wraith can lead to flooding out in longer games, particularly against other DS decks. And finally, yes, when playing against the hyper aggressive decks that punish you for putting your life total very low, Wraith is often just a blank - Burn and Affinity definitely fall in that camp. There are no sacred cows; consider the value of each card in how your deck is lining up against your opponent postboard and what role you'll each be playing, or how the game should ideally play out.
Hey guys, that was me. Here, have a long-winded tournament report
I figured since the Esper variants haven't received much press, I'd talk a little about the event and how each round went, complete with inexact sideboarding as I remember it. Going into the event, I'd switched from Grixis Shadow to Esper Shadow about a month prior. I really like Lingering Souls and Path to Exile as a trump card in the DS mirrors, and as a way to sidestep some of the hate that the Esper version has been getting like Chameleon Colossus and Mirran Crusader. As far as the manabase is concerned, I copied Yo*****eru Hosaka's 30th place (from GP Kobe) land suite to include 2 Hallowed Fountains over a 2nd Godless Shrine. This might seem odd when compared to the Grixis lists which only play one Steam Vents, but this deck is much lighter on black requirements and the optimal sequencing is typically turn 1 Watery Grave, turn 2 Fountain. If you fetch Watery Grave on an opponent's end step to cast Thought Scour and you mill over your one-of Fountain, that's a bit of an issue. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong about this and it should be 2nd Shrine over 2nd Fountain though; time and testing will tell. Regarding card choices other people are making, I personally hate Orzhov Charm and planeswalkers in the main. The former is a bad removal spell with a narrow reanimation mode that rarely comes up in my experience, and the latter just isn't necessary in the main. Esper colors are already more than grindy enough, and you should want all of your proactive cards to actively kill or pressure your opponent game one. Souls comes out quite often, but it fills that game one role quite nicely as a substitute to the Kommand/Snap loop that Grixis gets access to. The sideboard should also be maxed out on very broad pieces of interaction instead of narrow bullets. Things like Stony Silence are widely unnecessary from what I've seen, whereas a card like Disenchant can kill Chalice of the Void set to one, a Leyline of Sanctity, as well as being highly disruptive versus Affinity and other artifact-based decks. I played 2 "narrow" cards in the board, one of which (Purge) is very good vs GBx, Death's Shadow, and Blood Moon decks, and the other (Disdainful Stroke) is specifically good vs Titan Shift and control, two decks that I anticipated seeing more of than usual. It's also highly functional vs E-Tron, classic Gx tron, and most of the combo decks in the format, acting as Stubborn Denial number 5. /thoughts
Rd 1 - Matt Foreman, 171st (Dredge) 2-0
Game one I found multiple Paths and Shadows vs a clunky draw and managed to close out the game before Conflagrate could kill me.
Sideboard: -4 TS -2 IoK -1 Push, +2 Stubs +1 Purge +2 Tendrils +2 Spellbomb
Game two I had a Spellbomb on one to slow him down and a Flaying Tendrils later on took care of the rest.
Rd 2 - John Grier, 394th (Abzan Elves) 2-0
Game one I stabilize at one life behind some blockers and put my opponent on a glacially slow 6 turn clock with hardcast Street Wraith getting in due to his Overgrown Tomb.
-3 Lingering Souls -2 Path to Exile, +2 Brutality +2 Tendrils +1 Liliana
Game two I cast Liliana on turn 4 and protect her en route to an ultimate. Path was pretty clutch here as it let me ignore the Chameleon Colossus I saw on an early Thoughtseize. After getting my opponent hellbent staring down said Lili, he peels a Lead the Stampede to draw 4 creatures, to include a Scavenging Ooze and a Shaman of the Pack. Eventually my opponent has a 14/14 Scooze, but a never-ending horde of zombies halts it in its tracks. Shaman of the Pack is able to put me to 1 instead of dead thanks to some nice attacks from my side forcing chump blocks the turn prior, as I crack back with a zombie horde approximately the size of a small city the following turn.
Rd 3 - Ryland Taliaferro, 402nd (4c Jund White Shadow) 2-1
Game one I feel pretty advantaged on board, but my opponent goes from 9 life with a pair of shadows to cycling triple Wraith + Temur Battle Rage at 3 life while I'm tapped out.
-4 TS , +2 Spellbomb +1 Unmaking +1 Lili
Games two and three, things go more according to plan and I'm able to outgrind, even through Ranger of Eos and his Lingering Souls.
Rd 4 - Matt Puls, 67th, also went 7-1 in Modern (Old-school Jund) 0-2
Game one sees me stabilize at 2 life after taking a beating from Raging Ravine and thoughtseizing a Bolt to avoid dying. I get my opponent down to 6 with lethal next turn unless he peels, and he duly obliges me with a Kolaghan's Command off the top. -2 IoK -4 TS -1 Wraith, +1 Purge +1 Unmaking +2 Stubs +1 Lili +2 Spellbomb
Game two I have a nice long-game hand with Celestial Purge, Lingering Souls, double Stubs and a delve threat. My opponent resolves turn 2 Scooze and the graveyard disruption gives me fits. I mill over a Fatal Push that would have been nice to draw, essentially playing draw-go in the hopes of leveraging my life total as a resource, and a Goyf helps the Ooze to punch through my turn 5 Souls + flashback as I can't put anything meaningful together.
Rd 9 - Ken Parson, 98th (Affinity) 2-1
Game one I blind keep a triple Street Wraith draw with a Thoughtseize. Great hand vs most of the field. Not so great against robots.
-4 TS -4 Wraith, +2 Disenchant +2 Tendrils +1 Lili +1 Rejection +2 Stubs (I know this might look strange, but most of the cards you really care about are noncreatures like Plating/Blood Moon/Dispatch/early Moxen and Drums)
Game two my opponent mulls into a nonfunctional hand and never gets there. Better lucky than good, I suppose.
Game three my opponent and I end up in a gummed-up board stall with 2 Etched Champions vs my Death's Shadow, Gurmag Angler, and Tasigur with myself at 6 and my opponent at 8. Ken places a Cranial Plating on the stack, to which I have both the Stubs and Disenchant to answer it. Hoping it will encourage a bad alpha, I give a hard sell "resolves" while looking mildly frustrated. Ken obliges me by attaching the funny hat to his Champ, sending both into the red zone. I disenchant the equipment, kill his last blocker on end step and crack back for lethal while at 2 life. We have a long conversation afterwards about it, and I still think it's correct for him to swing there. Every turn he waits around is another turn closer to finding a Tendrils, and most of the Esper lists are short on answers to a resolved Plating.
Rd 10 - Aaron Barich, 14th (UG Infect) 2-0
Having seen Aaron play Infect before, I anticipate he'll be playing something linear and aggressive with room to leverage playskill. Maybe Affinity, maybe Burn, or something similar. Nope, still playing Infect despite it being a "dead deck". Thankfully, Esper Shadow is probably what you'd draw up if you were crafting the nightmare deck for Infect to face. I don't actually remember how I sideboarded, since the board literally had too many good cards for the matchup.
Rd 11 - Zan Syed, 46th (Abzan Vizier Company) 2-0
Thankfully, being at this point in the tournament means that a lot of my opponents will be name-brand players who play the same decks over the course of weeks, months, or sometimes years. Zan is one of those players, and I correctly place him on Vizier combo and keep an excellent game one hand with double Shadows and ample disruption that put him in the abyss early and the one mana 8/8s swiftly close the game out.
Personally, I treat this matchup, particularly on the draw, to be a game of attrition. You can't be completely threat-light, but speed isn't quite as important as keeping them off value is. -3 Souls -4 Wraith, +2 Stubs +2 Brutality +2 Tendrils +1 Liliana
Game two, I thoughtseize away his Eternal Witness, aggressively fetch shock to put myself to 4 with a triple DS draw, and Flaying Tendrils away both his Vizier and Kitchen Finks that would have surely ran away with the game otherwise.
Rd 12 - Michael Ostroski, 36th (Affinity) 2-0
Both games my opponent has turn 1 Plating on the play, with no Etched Champion to carry it. Both games I find double Lingering Souls and a fistful of removal spells to render it invalid.
Overall, I felt very very good about this deck. Even the matchup that I lost, Jund, should be favorable in the abstract. The flex slots in the board, and the only things I'd consider shifting around are the Celestial Purge and the Disdainful Stroke, with possible/likely replacements being a Blessed Alliance, the third Tendrils, another Spellbomb, or the 2nd Ceremonious Rejection. Flaying Tendrils has overperformed like crazy, and Ceremonious Rejection looks very strong when looking at the other 7-1 decklists from the event. Path also overperformed and makes me very happy to be out of Grixis colors right now. I think that this deck is quite clearly a viable alternative to Grixis or Jund shadow, and should be bumped up at least into the developing competitive section of the forums as a very real, if underplayed, competitor in the metagame.
Sadly, my Standard deck (BG Energy) was incredibly mediocre and I didn't have the luxury of enough time to test Standard much prior to the event. I really wanted to make a custom 1/1 Spirit token for us, but it just wasn't meant to be
Anyways, TL;DR - Esper Shadow is great, and I'm very happy to continue playing it moving forward into PPTQ season and more events at the TJ Collectibles Titanium Series.
I've crushed some local events with a 19 land version I believe threads the needle as best we can. I'll give it one more week of testing with a win-a- sol ring next weekend. Deck has been bonkers vs both midrange and linear aggro, and good enough vs combo, though I miss my Monkeys there (and against lingering souls, which monkey scoffs at). The only games I've lost are ones where I got screwed on lands, or got greedy and dropped the shields vs Veil. Detailed report next week, but here's the list for reference..
Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard
Creatures:13
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Young Pyromancer
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Any deck with Delver of Secrets is inherently going to be a tempo strategy, AFAIC. Your ideal start wants you to commit to the board turn 1 with Delver or turn 2 with Tasigur and try to disrupt your opponent long enough to win with that boardstate. That being said, you have the ability to go long because of Kolaghan's Command and Snapcaster Mage, and Grixis colors often disrupt before committing, so one could argue that the deck falls in some weird, hazy grey area between the lines of "Classic" Tempo and "Classic" Midrange.
won't see that much play because Smuggler's Copter is a card, but it's a fair magic card.
awesome protecting walkers.
This isn't a card that a Smuggler's Copter deck wants to play (Crew 1 vs Crew 3, payoff and synergy with planeswalkers vs payoff for creature decks) but is an outstanding answer to the card itself.
Been jamming a lot of MTGO recently, paid off in a PPTQ win yesterday. Please play blue - your chances of beating combo or control are virtually non-existent without countermagic, and Jace/Coup are huge pay-offs that help beat GB and UW.
Played against RB Zombies (or Madness, or whatever you want to call abusing Prized Amalgam), UR Metalwork Colossus, UW Flash, Shota's Grixis Control list from the PT, GB Delirium, Mardu Vehicles, the same RB list in the semifinals, and the same Grixis list in the finals.
Thoughts moving forward: either the mana base needs to be shifted heavier towards red to play Chandra, Torch of Defiance, or white needs to work its way into the deck for Reflector Mage and Tamiyo, Field Researcher. Arlinn Kord is just actively bad against everything except GB, and the deck needs a replacement 4 drop. Confiscation Coup was also sorely missed against UW, since I lost a very winnable game to a flipped Westvale Abbey, and being able to punish that line or take an Archangel Avacyn is pretty back-breaking against UW.
Highlights: winning on a mull to 5 against Grixis Control after Radiant Flames swept up my double Servant of the Conduit start by going all in on Whirler Virtuoso to make 4 thopters. Jace ticking down 2 turns in a row against GB to bounce Kalitas and Noxious Gearhulk while holding up Shrivel for it on the way back. Dragonmaster Outcast making about 10 dragon tokens to hold off Ormendahl to give me a chance to draw to outs. Cub winning impossible games almost single-handedly.
I have made a mistake, this whole time i thought you were the one whining about no become immense ban, but after looking back i realize i was mistaken. Perhaps my arguments will make more sense if you look at them from the angle of against an infect ban?
Anyways, arguing to improve the highest performing and most played deck in the format will fall upon deaf ears. While i agree with the idea that fsir decks do need a boost, putting all of our eggs in the jund basket sounds miserable to me, not only does that mean i would either need to invest 2 grand or just play aggro to be competitive in the format, but this also reduces the diversity we have worked so hard to obtain. Stuff to improve abzan, mardu, and URx are what i would like to see
Lol, it's fine; I was just getting a little frustrated that you kept thinking I was advocating in favor of a Become Immense ban.
I agree that the other fair decks (I still maintain that Jund is not great right now) need some help to at least compete. I was really hoping for a Stoneforge Mystic and/or Preordain unban personally. I know everyone has not-so-fond memories of Caw-Blade, but I'm fairly certain turn 3 Batterskull isn't unbeatable for most of the linear decks in the format right now. Infect laughs at lifegain, Affinity can attack in the air or kill with Inkmoth, Burn plays a ton of Skullcrack effects these days, Breach very easily goes over the top of the germ token, Merfolk won't give you the chance to block with it, Dredge can blow it up, and Zooicide can Dismember the token or simply overpower it. I think it shares the same fate as Bitterblossom, AV, Sword, etc., in that it was banned because of the bad memories people have of it rather than how good it would actually be.
+2: Doesn't affect the board, is typically only going to be useful in the later stages of the game when you have excess lands. 6 loyalty might be a lot in Standard, but in Modern it's not really that impressive when you consider that this ability doesn't really "do" anything.
-3: Abrupt Decay has been terrible in Modern for years. This very easily could have just copied the original Vraska's minus of "destroy target nonland permanent" and the card would have actually been playable. Big miss here.
-9: She comes in at 4 loyalty, can plus to 6, and then 8, and then 10, and finally after she has been in play for 3 full turn cycles without taking damage and without affecting the board, now she can produce an emblem that relies on you having a better board than your opponent. You don't play planeswalkers for their ultimates, but the fact that she takes so long to reach it while not setting it up and it doesn't even do anything by itself is a real stinker.
All in all, this card is very disappointing and I'd expect it to see no play in Legacy/Modern and very fringe play in Standard (and what play it sees there will likely be in decks built around the graveyard where the sacrifice ability has upside instead of being a real cost). Can we errata this down to 3 CMC or fix the minus please??
As I said, the only matchups where I actively want Push over Path are Storm and Burn. I think that leaving in Push against GDS is a trap, as the card is super narrow in that it only hits the namesake of the deck, which you should rarely lose to with the sideboard configuration. Perhaps Push vs Path is a, no pun intended, push, vs affinity, but it takes all of one time getting burnt by Welding Jar to not want it to ever happen again
If your Jund Shadow opponent has the white splash, the key is to keep them off of resolving a late game Traverse the Ulvenwald to find Ranger of Eos. You should be able to fight through everything else they throw at you if you're not drawing terribly. With Lingering Souls of our own to fight back on that same angle (and to really make Liliana of the Veil atrocious), I'd say that we should be much better off against Abzan than GDS, and they have roughly a 50/50 matchup there from my experience. You're not going to beat BW Tokens, but that's a fringe deck that you'll maybe see once in a dozen tournaments anyways. FWIW, Grixis Shadow isn't going to have any better of a time against them; Snap-Kommand loops don't keep up with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Bitterblossom, and Lingering Souls.
A turn 2 4/5 or turn 3 7/7 backed by 1 mana removal spells and 1 mana counterspells is about as tempo-positive as you're going to get in Modern without filling your deck with bad cards. You're absolutely correct in that you won't be the beatdown against Burn or Affinity, however. Even tempo decks need to play the control role against true aggro decks, but luckily we have a lot of very efficient tools for doing that as well.
Yes, Esper has a worse Burn matchup than Grixis. That's fine; Burn is less than 5% of the MTGO metagame per MTGGoldfish. Don't stress about 1 extra Fatal Push in the main specifically for this matchup which, as I've said, is one of the 2 in the format right now where I'd rather have more Pushes than Paths.
Affinity plays a single basic, and the games will typically run long enough that you find and cast multiple paths. You'll also want to be fetching white anyways for Lingering Souls and other sideboard cards at some point anyways. Like I said, it just takes one time getting burnt by Welding Jar
Don't kill Courser of Kruphix unless they're really on air; it's way too slow to actually matter. Obstinate Baloth is also going to be smaller than every non-Snapcaster threat typically, so you often won't need to remove it. Primeval Titan and Chameleon Colossus, however, need to die, and hitting the former with the trigger on the stack renders the free basic land quite irrelevant. Yes, the ideal is to never let them put it on the table, but sometimes it's going to happen and it's much better to have an answer and not need it than need an answer and not have it.
I'm hesitant to buy the Path=Push argument re:D&T. You're not always going to have a fetch to crack (thanks, Leonin Arbiter), whereas Path will always hit the mark. It's definitely close, however, and I'd love to have an extra 2 spot removal spells for 8 total if it were possible.
Play: -2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang -2 Fatal Push -1 Street Wraith, +2 Disenchant +2 Ceremonious Rejection +1 Stubborn Denial
Draw: -3 Lingering Souls -2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang -3 Street Wraith -1 Fatal Push, +2 Disenchant +2 Ceremonious Rejection +2 Blessed Alliance +1 Esper Charm +1 Stubborn Denial
Mix up the angle of attack on the play and overload their Ratchet Bombs and Relics. Getting underneath them and being able to resolve Souls with a 1 mana counterspell up should be feasible, and the fliers get around their plan on mucking up the ground with annoying blockers like Hangarback Walker and Matter Reshaper quite nicely. On the draw this plan gets a lot worse, and you'll need more reactive elements as you try to grind them down a bit. Alliance gets a lot better here as they actually threaten to outrace you otherwise.
Etched Champion is the primary way to lose against Affinity, and Flaying Tendrils cleans up real nice. Really, I don't think you can ever have too many answers to EC and Cranial Plating. Good draws from CoCo decks involve them stalling out the ground with bodies that leave bodies behind, a la Voice of Resurgence, Kitchen Finks, Collected Company. Tendrils knocks out that plan and also beats their Gavony Township plan if you nip it in the bud (which, if you're running triple Tendrils, is more likely than not). Dredge and Elves aren't popular, but swarm strategies in general (which are still a thing when you add up the total metagame shares) will be tough for us without Infest effects since we don't have access to something like a Temur Battle Rage.
NP, the LotV isn't written down in pen, but I think it's a reasonable option right now. Things could easily shift away from that, however. Same goes with Last Hope; she's an absolute 10/10 brickhouse when she's good, and if more of the aforementioned swarm strategies pop up I could easily see her winning her spot back.
Jund Shadow has no answer to a delve threat and a very hard time punching through Lingering Souls, of which we'll find more on average because of the high cantrip density (and sweet Thought Scour synergies). Their Pushes will be garbage, and ours will be excellent. We have Snapcaster Mage and library manipulation; they don't. Board in more business spells to answer the board or stack and find a window to exploit them going to a low life total.
Jeskai Queller is a tempo deck, and will often try to pivot into a glorified burn deck when the time is right. Be cautious with your life total and don't treat them like a true control deck where you'd normally damage yourself with impunity. They're very soft to the delve threats and souls, respectively, and if you can punch a hole in their hand they'll have a hard time lining up the correct answers. I'd also point to Goldfish here showing Jeskai with a 1.61% metagame share on MTGO and suggest that Grixis DS and UW control be treated as more likely Snapcaster Mage decks to run across.
Path takes their Snap-Kommand engine off-line quite easily, and having 4 cheap answers to the Push-resilient threats (which are dominating the format right now: this is why Eldrazi decks, delve decks, value decks with cards like Voice of Resurgence, hosers that dodge black removal like Chameleon Colossus and Mirran Crusader, etc., have become so popular) is a huge boon right now. Basically, the format has adjusted to the presence of Push, but Path is still excellent. I also have not found other midrange decks to have a better lategame, since Lingering Souls by itself is tough to answer, and the high density of cantrips, efficient disruption, and cheap beaters makes matchups where the opponent is casting 4 mana creatures very winnable. Finally, I think that people overplay the cost of giving the opponent a basic, as many decks in the format play a limited number of them and early on you don't generally need to path, while later on the land doesn't matter much. Also, our tempo game is sick and we can make up for it by being more efficient at basically every point on the curve!
I'd generally agree with most of these points, and it's why I have 7 cards in the sideboard for Burn presently. I will point out, however, that Grixis has a similar problem of fetching for a red source to cast Lightning Bolt, as they don't play basic mountain and red is their off-color. With tight play and ample sideboarding, the matchup is very reasonable however.
And Grixis DS, and affinity, and Titan Shift/Breach, and regular tron, and D&T, and Dredge, and I'm sure some other matchups I'm not thinking of. In fact, the only matchups I want Push more than Path are Burn and Storm specifically.
The only games I've felt very disadvantaged against E Tron have been ones with resolved Chalice or All is Dust, and I've played the matchup somewhere between 30-50 times. If you're playing ordinary magic, interacting with each other on conventional angles and smashing dudes into dudes, our cards are simply better than theirs.
Those matchups are all tough without Tendrils, and I also want access to the card for Elves, Storm, and D&T where Souls won't shine. Finding the first copy is often crucial to winning, which is why I've moved up to 3 and consider it the most important card in the sideboard aside from the 4th Stubs. Also remember that if you have resolved Souls against a deck like Affinity, you're probably winning already and you can just hold the Tendrils (unless they have an Etched Champion, of course). Against Vizier and Dredge, however, Souls isn't doing very much and Tendrils is likely to win the game if backed up by anything else.
You want broad cards that can come in for a lot of matchups, and LotV is still excellent in midrange mirrors and against control/combo. Burn falls into the category of being near-combo, and she's also very good there (especially postboard, where they're liable to be sitting on Paths and Deflecting Palms).
Dredge is winnable between Paths and Tendrils (though you absolutely have to find those) if you leverage your life total correctly, and Living End is also very beatable with the playset of stubs and a fast clock. Those are the only two common matchups where Spellbomb is a true ace. I feel advantaged against every Snapcaster mage deck aside from UW, and the Jund Shadow matchup is laughably easy and doesn't need more Spellbombs to help out. Additionally, the metagame has shifted and punished graveyard decks pretty hard with a lot of people playing maindeck relics, so you don't need to pack as much hate yourself.
I tried it out for a laugh (like, literally the result of a joke with a friend) and was surprisingly happy with it. Postboard, the cards in your deck tend to line up better and drawing 2 or mind-rotting your opponent can put in serious work. It also provides another out to pesky enchantments like Rest in Peace and Leyline of Sanctity, as well as being outstanding against Burn (they really don't like Mind Rot effects). It's not essential by any means, but I've been reasonably impressed by the card and will likely continue to play the one copy (one-ofs being generally better in Snap-Scour decks than normal, of course).
Round 1 - Sam, UW Control (0-2, lost die roll)
Mmm, nothing quite like the round 1 feature match first thing in the morning - I've played a lot at the TJ's series and Sam won one of the events (in May, I believe), so I wasn't terribly shocked by this. Sam is friends with a good friend of mine from the Boston area who has been on UW forever, so I know what he's playing before we start, but it sadly doesn't make the matchup any better. I open with a land light hand that gets stonewalled by multiple Spreading Seas cutting me off of black mana for multiple turns as my hand clumps up with multiple delve threats and a Lingering Souls in the graveyard. I end up working him down to 1 post-Verdict and a top-decked Godless Shrine lets me flash back Lingering Souls. At this point, I have 4 total lands, and my opponent double Tectonic Edges me on end step. Considering that there are 2 Supreme verdict left in the deck vs my pair of Souls tokens, but Detention Sphere and Jace, Architect of Thought also beat my current board, I resolve to flash in a Snap with my mana. He topdecks 2nd Verdict and I lose to Colonnade a few turns later (while holding a Fatal Push and a Path to Exile that I can't cast, of which I drew 2 each).
-4 Path to Exile -1 Street Wraith, +2 Collective Brutality +1 Stubborn Denial +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil
I take a mull and see a slower 6 with a delve threat and snap with no spells, but knowing how important total card quantity is in an attrition matchup is, I keep it. I luck out and find some early spells, casting Thoughtseize Snap-TS to take Jace and Gideon. I also cast Esper Charm and flashed it back, and Souls tokens buy a bunch of time vs his Colonnade. I put lethal on board with a giant Death's Shadow and Stubborn Denial as my last card in hand, and his Runed Halo with Cryptic Command backup buys him time as my next two draw-steps are another Shadow and a land. I end up dying to Colonnade after having fired off a Push on one earlier in the game. This isn't a particularly great matchup in my estimation, but I didn't feel like my deck was very kind to me this round
Rd 2 - Grixis Shadow (2-0, lost die roll)
It's hard to remember much, aside from my opponent playing Claim//Fame, Vendetta, and responding to my Inquisition of Kozilek with Stubborn Denial with no creatures on board vs my open mana while he had actual cards in hand.
Rd 3 - Jund (2-0, lost die roll)
My opponent mulls to 5 and has a pair of Tarmogoyf, but Death's Shadow is a more efficient beater, as I intentionally put myself to 1 to put him into the abyss with Stubs and double removal spell backup, killing him the next turn.
-4 Thoughtseize -2 Inquisition of Kozilek, +2 Blessed Alliance +2 Collective Brutality +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil
Game two my opponent has the dream curve of discard spell into Bob into Lili, the last of which sneaks in under my Stubs as I'm forced to Path the Bob before it can produce value. With double delve threats, I set up to throw away both a Tasigur and Angler if I have to in order to get the Lili off the board, but topdecked Souls bail me out. After flashing back Souls and casting the Angler, my opponent topdecks an Olivia Voldaren. I topdeck a Lili of my own and draw Snap that can target both Stubs and a Path for his Ravine to close off all the angles from there.
Rd 4 - Burn (2-1, won die roll)
Uh, pretty standard stuff game one. I'm blind in the matchup and keep a slow one with no delve threat or DS, and Lingering Souls sucks at racing.
-3 Street Wraith -4 Thoughtseize, +2 Blessed Alliance +2 Collective Brutality +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil +1 Stubborn Denial
I really wish that I kept better notes for this game, but I cast a turn 1 IoK to see a grip of fetchland, Goblin Guide, double Monastery Swiftspear, double Eidolon of the Great Revel, Boros Charm, opting to take an Eidolon. I don't remember much of the game, aside from drawing double Blessed Alliance, a Death's Shadow, and at least 1 Stubborn Denial as my opponent curves out flawlessly but dies to a gigantic Shadow.
Game 3 I force trades of resources with Iok, push, and serum off of basic island and swamp in the first 2 turns, and cast my 2nd Gurmag Angler for 6 mana after the first one gets Pathed and finish the game off after my opponent bricks for exactly 1 turn too many. I win at 4 life while my opponent has a known {card]Skullcrack[/card] in hand.
Rd 5 - Titan Breach (2-0, win die roll)
After taking a mull to 6 and scrying top, I opt to Thought Scour my opponent and mill Wooded Foothills and a basic mountain. Passing to my opponent and seeing a basic forest into Relic of Progenitus, I think he's on ponza and choose to fetch basic swamp, which hurts when I draw DS a few turns later. Unable to pressure, and after hitting some timely land drops in spite of my Scour line, he hits his fifth land to Through the Breach a Primeval Titan as I Path to Exile it in response to the trigger. Choosing to get a single Valakut and mountain to bolt my currently tiny Shadow down, he ends up losing the game as he hits land drops, bolting me piecemeal as I find a Shadow at 9 life. He bolts me again and I hit him from 13 down to 4 after shocking myself with Stubs backup. Having sandbagged a fetchland in play, my opponent rubs his hands together and slowly draws off the top. He peels another fetch, puts it into play, and kind of stares at me, announcing "second fetch, I'll crack both of them". Asking him to show me the red sources, he gives a shy look at his library and reveals that he has already hit all of his nonbasic red sources and can't deal damage with valakut. Remember kids - ALWAYS make them show you it.
Rd 6 - BW Eldrazi (1-2, won die roll)
I cast 3 discard spells and tear my opponent's hand to shreds as a 6/6 Shadow comes down and closes the game quickly.
-2 Tasigur -2 Gurmag Angler -3 Street Wraith, +3 Flaying Tendrils +1 Blessed Alliance +2 Collective Brutality +1 Liliana [I put my opponent on the Eldrazi Taxes deck after game one, having not seen any signature cards game 1. I also expected multiple RiPs to compliment 4 Relics].
Game 2 I get put on the backfoot with multiple Scullers disrupting my draw, backed by Souls flashback Souls, and a follow-up Smasher. My cards quite simply didn't line up well here.
Resideboard: -3 Flaying Tendrils -1 Liliana, +2 Angler +1 Tasigur +1 Stubborn Denial [In retrospect, should have only brought in 1 Tas 1 Angler]
My opponent mulls to 5 and I'm feeling pretty great after casting an early discard spell to see a hand of Caves of Koilos, Fatal Push, Blessed Alliance, Tidehollow Sculler. Knowing that I have a removal spell for the Sculler on top, I choose to take the Alliance for the long game once I start putting down threats through his turn 1 Relic. Sadly, my opponent topdecks another Sculler into Eldrazi Temple + Thought-knot Seer as my next two draw steps are my other delve threats left and I have no removal. His next 2 draw steps find him Lingering Souls and a Path to Exile. I really wish I had recorded every draw step in this game, since it felt like a stacked deck situation while I flopped around on a 7 and died.
Rd 7 - Mono U Tron (2-0, win die roll)
Going in blind, I have no interaction for Chalice, so on turn 2 I aggressively Thought Scour myself, to try and find a discard spell, failing to do so. My opponent promptly casts Chalice on 1 for his turn 2. I come very close to scooping on the spot to save time, but I decide to play it out. After flashing in a pair of end-steps Ambush Vipers and sneaking in a Fatal Push on his Spellskite through Chalice with some nifty wording (Attack you, before blocks kill your guy), Souls - flashback Souls after he pops Oblivion Stone somehow manages to clock him out before anything disastrous can happen.
-2 Fatal Push -2 Path to Exile -3 Lingering Souls, +2 Ceremonious Rejection +2 Disenchant +1 Stubborn Denial +1 Esper Charm +1 Liliana of the Veil
Weird game, both of us kind of durdle around not doing much since he has turn 1 Relic. I end up casting Esper Charm to Mind Rot him in response to a Thirst for knowledge to tag his last two cards. I aggressively hurt myself and go to 1 and draw multiple Wraiths, as between a pair of Remand and an overloaded Cyclonic Rift they don't exactly present the fastest clock. Eventually I find a Shadow and my opponent sticks a Sundering Titan to blow up 3 of my lands. Thankfully my 1 mana creature is bigger than his 8 mana one and he's forced to block as I miss free damage for some stupid reason. I also cast a Snap into the Titan leaves-play trigger for literally no reason and let them cash in their last card in hand, a Condescend, to draw to additional outs. Thankfully I don't get punished, but I feel like I generally played like crap in this round. Maybe karma decided to bail me out for the previous round. Or maybe better lucky than good
Rd 8 - Knightfall (2-1, lost die roll)
Spell Queller is very good in multiples, tagging a Snap that was looking to hit the other Queller with a flashbacked Fatal Push. I never stabilize against his fliers and die quickly.
-3 Lingering Souls -3 Street Wraith, +3 Flaying Tendrils +1 Liliana of the Veil +1 Esper Charm +1 Stubborn Denial [I was going through the sideboard rather quickly and totally spaced on Collective Brutality]
Game 2 my opponent mulls to 6 and keeps a draw with 4 mana dorks. He draws his fifth one and plays it. I cast a Flaying Tendrils.
Resideboard: -1 Liliana of the Veil -1 Esper Charm, +2 Collective Brutality
I leverage my life total as a resource for a few turns to cast multiple discard spells, to include an escalated Brutality to tag his Unified Will. I miss land drops as my opponent recovers from the discard with Renegade Rallier. After putting an Angler on the table facing his Voice and Rallier, I have the option to cast a Flaying Tendrils, but opt to hold it for an extra turn of value. On the following turn, I block the voice and let him pump an extra 2 damage into the Rallier with Kessig Wolf Run as I take this as a sign that he's on air, casting a Tendrils on my turn for a clean 2-for-1 while holding Push, Path, and Snap to clear the ground the rest of the way. He draws a CoCo but doesn't hit Eternal Witness or Reflector Mage, so I get there. Of important note here is that my opponent had about a billion grindy cards in their 75, but as the archetypes match up, it just doesn't really matter. You can ignore many of the bodies on their creatures until you eventually turn the corner, closing the game within a small window.
Final record: 6-2, good for top 16
Closing thoughts: Deck is still great. The draws vs UW and BW could have very easily shifted my way, and I didn't feel far off of another top 8. I don't think I'll make any changes for SCG Syracuse this next weekend. I promise I'll give some detailed notes for that if you guys are interested.
4 mana cards are very expensive for this deck, but a miser's copy of Geist isn't unreasonable. Just be careful not to go overboard with grindy cards, lest you run out of space for the rest of the format. Also, I pretty typically shave a delve threat against decks with graveyard hate, so don't be afraid to do that.
Being a smaller event, I expected to play against Burn at least once, so I decided to change the list accordingly. Shaving the 4th Street Wraith lets 3rd Stubborn Denial sneak into the main, freeing up a valuable sideboard slot and making the burn matchup much more manageable. I also decided after having seen a lot more UW and D&T online to move to 2nd Godless Shrine over 2nd Hallowed Fountain. I've had to shift my playstyle slightly, but it's been fine so far. Still can't decisively say if one is strictly better or not. For the sideboard, having more cards for burn seemed prudent, and the local New England scene is generally very into grindy midrange and control decks, so a few extra cards there seemed nice. Liliana of the Veil and a saucy Esper Charm seemed nice to double dip in those two areas, while a couple copies of Blessed Alliance would do double-duty against Burn and the mirror. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Flaying Tendrils has really been pulling overtime, so the 3rd copy moved in while Liliana, the Last Hope got bumped out for being somewhat superfluous. I also moved up an extra copy up Ceremonious Rejection for the rise in E tron and Affinity, cut Anguished Unmaking since it hasn't been coming in all that often, and the Celestial Purge and 2nd Disenchant which I kind of regretted. Here's the list I played:
4 Death's Shadow
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Street Wraith
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
Spells
4 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
2 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering Souls
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
2 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Flaying Tendrils
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Collective Brutality
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Disenchant
1 Esper Charm
1 Liliana of the Veil
Round 1 - Esper Shadow mirror (2-0)
My opponent was playing Spell Queller over Lingering Souls. I flirted with the card a bit previously, but didn't like how clunky it felt in the DS mirrors. In spot removal matchups, Souls is a house, but Queller can often just get one-for-oned. That was the case in our match, as his Quellers died and my Souls did not. Of particular note, I got to cast a Blessed Alliance in life gain mode to catch two copies of Death's Shadow flat-footed for a nice 2-for-1.
Round 2 - Mono White D&T (2-1)
Game one my opponent has a nice draw with Arbiter and double GQ. He puts me to 1 and I crack back for 12 with a Shadow, holding up a snapcaster to flash block his guy, knowing I'll be dead to literally anything and I need to close the game before he can find something. He vials in Crusader on end step and I die. Game two we play a game of cat and mouse with the Flaying Tendrils in my hand as I try to set up a nice sweeper. Tasigur chips in for 4 at a time as my opponent never commits more than 1 threat at a time and I play a tempo game, eventually casting Souls to get in the last 3 points of damage. Game three my opponent kept a sketchy one as my discard spells take what little action he has, and a huge Shadow puts him in the abyss early. He does his best to draw out of it with multiple Thraben Inspectors and cycling Canopies, but eventually I set up a turn of Path/Snap Path to attack for 15, finishing him the next turn with a Collective Brutality.
Round 3 - Eldrazi Tron (0-2)
Game one I put my opponent on vizier combo because I thought I had seen him playing it previously (and he had green sleeves, I swear they're connected!) and kept a reactive hand with multiple removal spells and a Serum Visions. I see tronland turn 1 and cast Serum looking for a counterspell, finding a Stubborn Denial on top. Sadly, it's too late and my opponent untaps and slams Chalice. I quickly scoop, having only shown Flooded Strand and Hallowed Fountain, hoping my opponent might put me on UW. Game two I Thoughtseize a Chalice, stub a second one, but can't find my third land for Snapcaster Mage to deal with the 3rd copy. Chalice is... really tough, but the list has 13 answers not counting Snap recurring them postboard. Hard to say if I'm overreacting, but a 3rd Rejection seems like a nice luxury.
Round 4 - Lantern Control (2-1)
Game one I cast discard spells to hit Ancient Stirrings and an Ensnaring Bridge, putting a Tasigur down as a 5 turn clock. At 4 life, dead the next turn, my opponent peels another Bridge and I'm stone dead without any way to close the game out or blow up the artifact. Game two I cast a turn 1 discard spell and see a hand of Opal, some mill rocks, a surgical and some lands. After taking the surgical and putting myself aggressively to 5, Shadow puts my opponent on a two turn clock and he's unable to put anything together. Game three, he plays an early Grafdigger's Cage backed by an IoK/Surgical combo to knock Death's Shadow out of my deck. Fortunately, Tasigur and Snap pulling Ambush Viper duty put my opponent on a 4 turn clock as I find both Rejection and Stubs to deal with any possible Bridges.
Round 5 - Abzan (2-0)
Winning the die roll, I play draw-go for the first few turns and my opponent resolves LotV on his turn 3. Turn 4, I get to cast Souls + Tasigur, and Lili pluses to make me discard a Fatal Push as my remaining hand is Snapcaster Mage and another removal spell. He plays a Goyf and a Tasigur of his own, as my follow-up turn consists of Push the Lhurgoyf, Snap-Path the Tas, kill Lili. He finds a Maelstrom Pulse the turn after I find Stubborn Denial, and a 2nd copy of Thiago stops a maindeck copy of Liliana, the Last Hope from hitting the battlefield. Game two, my opponent beats me down for a few turns before I tap out for Souls. Taking advantage of the open window, he slams Last Hope and eats one of my tokens, putting me down to 10. Knowing I won't be able to adequately pressure the planeswalker with the tokens, I delve away the Souls in the graveyard to feed Gurmag Angler while casting a 3/3 Shadow and holding up a Denial. Resolving a Rhino to put me to 7 and effectively brick-walled, my opponent has no good plays with Lili other than to tick down to get back a Noble Hierarch that chump blocks a Shadow attack. After fetching basic to go down to 3 (a previous turn I fetched shock to go to 4) to enable Push/Snap Push and clearing out his board of untapped Noble and Anafenza, the Foremost, I get to eat his planeswalker inside that window to prevent him from ticking down to get back the Rhino that had been sacrificed to a Blessed Alliance, a healthy swing for 10 puts my opponent in a bad spot. Draw step, I cast an Esper Charm that mind rots the 2nd copy of Siege Rhino and another card and put him back into the abyss with his Nobles. Stubbing the back half of a topdecked Souls and risking him drawing another copy of Souls that might have been lethal with a Gavony Township activation, I hold back a Gurmag in hand to play around Damnation that likely isn't correct. Oh well, I didn't get punished. Postboard, I cut all 6 discard spells and bring in cards that impact the battlefield or stack, and my opponent noticeably left in at least some of his. I thought that this was strange and worth mentioning.
Round 6 - Burn (2-1)
Sadly, I get the pair-down and can't draw into top eight, and have to play the top-ranked Burn player. Thankfully, the changes to the list were largely with this matchup in mind. Rewarded! I win the die roll, fetch basics, and have Thought Scour into turn 2 Tasigur. Sadly, Searing Blaze plus a Wild Nacatl crashing in take my clock off the board, and a few poor draw steps of Thoughtseize and Street Wraith give my opponent the time needed to close out the game. Lingering Souls doesn't race very well, lol. Game two I find a Shadow and protect it with both Stubs and a Blessed Alliance that I never need to cast. Game three I cast an early discard spell and see an interesting grip of Atarka's Command, Lightning Bolt, Rest in Peace, and Ensnaring Bridge along with a pair of Sacred Foundry to go with my opponent's Stomping Ground on the battlefield. Taking the Rip to protect my delve threats, and hoping my opponent walks into a Force Spike, he does so on turn 3 as I drop a pair of threats on the board. Making conservative attacks in the face of his topdecked creatures, I find myself in a spot of being at 8, with my opponent at 11. I have a Tasigur and a Death's Shadow to his Goblin Guide and Wild Nacatl. I know that he still has the Command, along with one unknown, and the 2 Foundries untapped. I take a draw and find Watery Grave, which when combined with the Path and Snap in hand can get across for exactly 11, but loses to Deflecting Palm. That being said, if I wait another turn, an end step Command into Boros Charm to effectively nullify the Blessed Alliance in my hand and any other 3 damage burn spell kills me for waiting, so I opt to go for it, ultimately getting there. Funny that I drew Blessed Alliance both postboard games and didn't cast it, lol. Thankfully, I go into top 8 as the number one seed at 5-1, so there's some reward for being forced to play.
Quarters - the same Eldrazi Tron pilot (0-2)
I suppose I'm a glutton for punishment, since I keep a 7 with no interaction for Chalice of the Void, but Serum Visions and Street Wraith to try to find that action. I can't, and promptly die to Chalice despite a pair of Snaps and a Lingering Souls putting in work until a 5/5 Walking Ballista comes down to ruin my rally. Game two I Thoughtseize away a Chalice and see Smasher x2, All is Dust, Temple/Tower/GQ remaining. After a few turns of playing ordinary magic, most importantly a Thought-knot seer on turn 3 taking my Stubborn Denial, I hit my opponent for 10 with a pair of Shadows as he's on 4 lands with the Seer and the Smasher that can't attack on board. Playing a Gurmag Angler, flashing back a Lingering Souls and hoping that he doesn't peel 2nd Eldrazi Temple, he quickly shows me a door to a horrible future and casts effectively a 5 mana In Garruk's Wake to put the game away.
Closing thoughts - Man, I'd really like a 3rd Ceremonious Rejection, even if it's probably a kneejerk reaction to getting browned by Chalice repeatedly. Other than that, the 2x copies of Blessed Alliance seemed great and will probably stick around moving forward. Burn is predictably popular at smaller events like IQs and PPTQs, and it's very live against GBx and the mirror. Esper Charm was spicy and has put in some real work the last few days. Not sure how real it is, but it might stick around as a replacement to Anguished Unmaking. Definitely merits more testing. As was the case at the end of the Invi, I still feel very good about playing Paths and Souls, and I think that Death's Shadow decks are far and away the best possible thing to be doing in Modern right now. Hope the half-baked report was at least a little helpful, I promise I'll take actual notes for the TJ's Titanium Series and SCG Syracuse coming up
1. Spellbomb is good in the DS mirrors and actually takes cares of the entire graveyard at once, and that's a big deal versus most graveyard decks - also, as a cantrip, it's versatile to come in for places where Surgical cannot. Additionally, almost every deck in the format that was once popular and soft to Surgical effects have either been pushed out of the competitive format entirely, or had their numbers reduced substantially. I also think that Surgical effects are inherently misunderstood for being stronger than they actually are. If your opponent isn't playing a pure combo deck that will be knocked out by it, Surgical generally isn't worth the slot.
2. In the months that I've been playing Death's Shadow, I can think of exactly one instance where I would have preferred to have drawn Tasigur over Angler. The extra point of power is typically worth the extra delved card from the yard, and drawing multiple Tas or flipping the second copy over with his activation is horrendous. Sometimes you can't put the big fish into play on turn 2, but this deck is so mana efficient that you typically have something else to do anyways.
Thanks, I appreciate it! I hope other people start doing well with the deck too; people need to be punished for putting Mirran Crusader in their Modern decks
Hey, not a problem
1. I find myself wanting double blue quite early and often, more-so than double black. Generally, turn 3 is where I fetch Godless Shrine with the intention of casting a couple threats. Turn 1 is generally the best turn to cast a discard spell, to hinder the opponent and also build information on what you're looking for in your cantrips. Turn 2, I often like to cast Serum Visions or Thought Scour while holding up removal and/or Stubborn Denial, hence Grave into Fountain. Basically, double U takes priority in game one over double B, which takes priority over double W. This changes sometimes based on matchups (UW with Spreading Seas, for example) or postboard when you need to cast Flaying Tendrils or situationally, like the TS + Tas turn you mentioned, in which I'd be inclined to lead Grave into Shrine. A lot of these differences can be attributed to play style and deck composition, of course.
2. Thoughtseize is generally bad vs the super grindy decks like Jund or Abzan, where the matchup will frequently be dictated by topdecks following multiple instances of one-for-one exchanges. Grixis Shadow isn't in that camp, however, since hitting their delve threats or taking the Kommand/Snap loop offline can really cripple them in the midgame. It's also actively atrocious vs Affinity, since they empty their hand so quickly and the life loss really stings. Burn, however, is a matchup that you counter-intuitively leave it in for, since sniping Path and Deflecting Palm is so important, and worst case scenario it saves you a point or two of life and fuels delve. IoK can come out over TS against decks whose lower costing cards are largely irrelevant (think E-Tron, for example, where you have ample answers postboard to the few cheap cards that matter between your Paths, Stubs, and Disenchants, and you want the tempo positive plays of making them cast them first).
As far as "flex" spots for sideboarding, I'm assuming you're referring to non-essential cards in the sideboard that can be replaced? I'd definitely say that Celestial Purge and Disdainful Stroke were those cards for me, and they were there mostly to hedge against the higher-than-average numbers of Grixis Shadow and UWx Control / Titan Shift I expected to see. The other 13 cards in the board feel quite locked in for me. If you're asking about maindeck cards that are flexible to cut for the sideboard games, I'd tell you that there are no sacred cows in Magic. Everything can be cut, even if it sounds crazy. For instance, I've even cut Death's Shadow completely against opponents who left in 4 Fatal Push against me for game 2.
Lingering Souls generally comes out vs faster decks where speed is security and you're playing the beatdown role, against things like combo. If it lines up poorly with your sideboard strategy of bringing in Flaying Tendrils and isn't overwhelmingly impressive against the opponent (like Affinity) playing something like mono white D&T, for instance, you can also cut or trim on it. So, if you look at how I sideboarded during the tournament, I only cut it vs Elves and Vizier, where I was both bringing in Tendrils and I felt that it wasn't particularly great even in the event that I wasn't casting Tendrils. Street Wraith is an incredible game one card that lets you play a functionally 56 card deck, fueling delve and getting your Shadows online quicker. Postboard, however, the games are often going to slow down as both players get more specific interaction to line up with each other. In these instances, you don't need to come out to a blistering start. It's also important to note that Wraith can lead to flooding out in longer games, particularly against other DS decks. And finally, yes, when playing against the hyper aggressive decks that punish you for putting your life total very low, Wraith is often just a blank - Burn and Affinity definitely fall in that camp. There are no sacred cows; consider the value of each card in how your deck is lining up against your opponent postboard and what role you'll each be playing, or how the game should ideally play out.
Hey guys, that was me. Here, have a long-winded tournament report
I figured since the Esper variants haven't received much press, I'd talk a little about the event and how each round went, complete with inexact sideboarding as I remember it. Going into the event, I'd switched from Grixis Shadow to Esper Shadow about a month prior. I really like Lingering Souls and Path to Exile as a trump card in the DS mirrors, and as a way to sidestep some of the hate that the Esper version has been getting like Chameleon Colossus and Mirran Crusader. As far as the manabase is concerned, I copied Yo*****eru Hosaka's 30th place (from GP Kobe) land suite to include 2 Hallowed Fountains over a 2nd Godless Shrine. This might seem odd when compared to the Grixis lists which only play one Steam Vents, but this deck is much lighter on black requirements and the optimal sequencing is typically turn 1 Watery Grave, turn 2 Fountain. If you fetch Watery Grave on an opponent's end step to cast Thought Scour and you mill over your one-of Fountain, that's a bit of an issue. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong about this and it should be 2nd Shrine over 2nd Fountain though; time and testing will tell. Regarding card choices other people are making, I personally hate Orzhov Charm and planeswalkers in the main. The former is a bad removal spell with a narrow reanimation mode that rarely comes up in my experience, and the latter just isn't necessary in the main. Esper colors are already more than grindy enough, and you should want all of your proactive cards to actively kill or pressure your opponent game one. Souls comes out quite often, but it fills that game one role quite nicely as a substitute to the Kommand/Snap loop that Grixis gets access to. The sideboard should also be maxed out on very broad pieces of interaction instead of narrow bullets. Things like Stony Silence are widely unnecessary from what I've seen, whereas a card like Disenchant can kill Chalice of the Void set to one, a Leyline of Sanctity, as well as being highly disruptive versus Affinity and other artifact-based decks. I played 2 "narrow" cards in the board, one of which (Purge) is very good vs GBx, Death's Shadow, and Blood Moon decks, and the other (Disdainful Stroke) is specifically good vs Titan Shift and control, two decks that I anticipated seeing more of than usual. It's also highly functional vs E-Tron, classic Gx tron, and most of the combo decks in the format, acting as Stubborn Denial number 5. /thoughts
Rd 1 - Matt Foreman, 171st (Dredge) 2-0
Game one I found multiple Paths and Shadows vs a clunky draw and managed to close out the game before Conflagrate could kill me.
Sideboard: -4 TS -2 IoK -1 Push, +2 Stubs +1 Purge +2 Tendrils +2 Spellbomb
Game two I had a Spellbomb on one to slow him down and a Flaying Tendrils later on took care of the rest.
Rd 2 - John Grier, 394th (Abzan Elves) 2-0
Game one I stabilize at one life behind some blockers and put my opponent on a glacially slow 6 turn clock with hardcast Street Wraith getting in due to his Overgrown Tomb.
-3 Lingering Souls -2 Path to Exile, +2 Brutality +2 Tendrils +1 Liliana
Game two I cast Liliana on turn 4 and protect her en route to an ultimate. Path was pretty clutch here as it let me ignore the Chameleon Colossus I saw on an early Thoughtseize. After getting my opponent hellbent staring down said Lili, he peels a Lead the Stampede to draw 4 creatures, to include a Scavenging Ooze and a Shaman of the Pack. Eventually my opponent has a 14/14 Scooze, but a never-ending horde of zombies halts it in its tracks. Shaman of the Pack is able to put me to 1 instead of dead thanks to some nice attacks from my side forcing chump blocks the turn prior, as I crack back with a zombie horde approximately the size of a small city the following turn.
Rd 3 - Ryland Taliaferro, 402nd (4c Jund White Shadow) 2-1
Game one I feel pretty advantaged on board, but my opponent goes from 9 life with a pair of shadows to cycling triple Wraith + Temur Battle Rage at 3 life while I'm tapped out.
-4 TS , +2 Spellbomb +1 Unmaking +1 Lili
Games two and three, things go more according to plan and I'm able to outgrind, even through Ranger of Eos and his Lingering Souls.
Rd 4 - Matt Puls, 67th, also went 7-1 in Modern (Old-school Jund) 0-2
Game one sees me stabilize at 2 life after taking a beating from Raging Ravine and thoughtseizing a Bolt to avoid dying. I get my opponent down to 6 with lethal next turn unless he peels, and he duly obliges me with a Kolaghan's Command off the top. -2 IoK -4 TS -1 Wraith, +1 Purge +1 Unmaking +2 Stubs +1 Lili +2 Spellbomb
Game two I have a nice long-game hand with Celestial Purge, Lingering Souls, double Stubs and a delve threat. My opponent resolves turn 2 Scooze and the graveyard disruption gives me fits. I mill over a Fatal Push that would have been nice to draw, essentially playing draw-go in the hopes of leveraging my life total as a resource, and a Goyf helps the Ooze to punch through my turn 5 Souls + flashback as I can't put anything meaningful together.
Rd 9 - Ken Parson, 98th (Affinity) 2-1
Game one I blind keep a triple Street Wraith draw with a Thoughtseize. Great hand vs most of the field. Not so great against robots.
-4 TS -4 Wraith, +2 Disenchant +2 Tendrils +1 Lili +1 Rejection +2 Stubs (I know this might look strange, but most of the cards you really care about are noncreatures like Plating/Blood Moon/Dispatch/early Moxen and Drums)
Game two my opponent mulls into a nonfunctional hand and never gets there. Better lucky than good, I suppose.
Game three my opponent and I end up in a gummed-up board stall with 2 Etched Champions vs my Death's Shadow, Gurmag Angler, and Tasigur with myself at 6 and my opponent at 8. Ken places a Cranial Plating on the stack, to which I have both the Stubs and Disenchant to answer it. Hoping it will encourage a bad alpha, I give a hard sell "resolves" while looking mildly frustrated. Ken obliges me by attaching the funny hat to his Champ, sending both into the red zone. I disenchant the equipment, kill his last blocker on end step and crack back for lethal while at 2 life. We have a long conversation afterwards about it, and I still think it's correct for him to swing there. Every turn he waits around is another turn closer to finding a Tendrils, and most of the Esper lists are short on answers to a resolved Plating.
Rd 10 - Aaron Barich, 14th (UG Infect) 2-0
Having seen Aaron play Infect before, I anticipate he'll be playing something linear and aggressive with room to leverage playskill. Maybe Affinity, maybe Burn, or something similar. Nope, still playing Infect despite it being a "dead deck". Thankfully, Esper Shadow is probably what you'd draw up if you were crafting the nightmare deck for Infect to face. I don't actually remember how I sideboarded, since the board literally had too many good cards for the matchup.
Rd 11 - Zan Syed, 46th (Abzan Vizier Company) 2-0
Thankfully, being at this point in the tournament means that a lot of my opponents will be name-brand players who play the same decks over the course of weeks, months, or sometimes years. Zan is one of those players, and I correctly place him on Vizier combo and keep an excellent game one hand with double Shadows and ample disruption that put him in the abyss early and the one mana 8/8s swiftly close the game out.
Personally, I treat this matchup, particularly on the draw, to be a game of attrition. You can't be completely threat-light, but speed isn't quite as important as keeping them off value is. -3 Souls -4 Wraith, +2 Stubs +2 Brutality +2 Tendrils +1 Liliana
Game two, I thoughtseize away his Eternal Witness, aggressively fetch shock to put myself to 4 with a triple DS draw, and Flaying Tendrils away both his Vizier and Kitchen Finks that would have surely ran away with the game otherwise.
Rd 12 - Michael Ostroski, 36th (Affinity) 2-0
Both games my opponent has turn 1 Plating on the play, with no Etched Champion to carry it. Both games I find double Lingering Souls and a fistful of removal spells to render it invalid.
Overall, I felt very very good about this deck. Even the matchup that I lost, Jund, should be favorable in the abstract. The flex slots in the board, and the only things I'd consider shifting around are the Celestial Purge and the Disdainful Stroke, with possible/likely replacements being a Blessed Alliance, the third Tendrils, another Spellbomb, or the 2nd Ceremonious Rejection. Flaying Tendrils has overperformed like crazy, and Ceremonious Rejection looks very strong when looking at the other 7-1 decklists from the event. Path also overperformed and makes me very happy to be out of Grixis colors right now. I think that this deck is quite clearly a viable alternative to Grixis or Jund shadow, and should be bumped up at least into the developing competitive section of the forums as a very real, if underplayed, competitor in the metagame.
Sadly, my Standard deck (BG Energy) was incredibly mediocre and I didn't have the luxury of enough time to test Standard much prior to the event. I really wanted to make a custom 1/1 Spirit token for us, but it just wasn't meant to be
Anyways, TL;DR - Esper Shadow is great, and I'm very happy to continue playing it moving forward into PPTQ season and more events at the TJ Collectibles Titanium Series.
You use a deck frame, the same way you would link a card or anything else. [ <<<these things>>> /]
Do you really think 4 Spell Snare is good in a Fatal Push metagame? Also, what's up with just 3 Thought Scour? How are you boarding against Lingering Souls decks?
http://modernnexus.com/pigeonholing-for-profit-modern-era-archetypes/
^^ Pretty good article for understanding archetype lines.
This isn't a card that a Smuggler's Copter deck wants to play (Crew 1 vs Crew 3, payoff and synergy with planeswalkers vs payoff for creature decks) but is an outstanding answer to the card itself.
Here's the list I played:
4 Servant of the Conduit
4 Longtusk Cub
4 Tireless Tracker
4 Whirler Virtuoso
4 Bristling Hydra
Sorceries (8)
4 Attune with Aether
4 Incendiary Flow
Instants (4)
4 Harnessed Lightning
Planeswalkers (4)
2 Arlinn Kord
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
2 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
Lands (22)
4 Aether Hub
4 Botanical Sanctum
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Cinder Glade
1 Wandering Fumarole
5 Forest
2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Radiant Flames
3 Spell Shrivel
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Plummet
2 Natural State
1 Negate
1 Appetite for the Unnatural
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
Played against RB Zombies (or Madness, or whatever you want to call abusing Prized Amalgam), UR Metalwork Colossus, UW Flash, Shota's Grixis Control list from the PT, GB Delirium, Mardu Vehicles, the same RB list in the semifinals, and the same Grixis list in the finals.
Thoughts moving forward: either the mana base needs to be shifted heavier towards red to play Chandra, Torch of Defiance, or white needs to work its way into the deck for Reflector Mage and Tamiyo, Field Researcher. Arlinn Kord is just actively bad against everything except GB, and the deck needs a replacement 4 drop. Confiscation Coup was also sorely missed against UW, since I lost a very winnable game to a flipped Westvale Abbey, and being able to punish that line or take an Archangel Avacyn is pretty back-breaking against UW.
Overperformers: The Boat, Longtusk Cub, Tireless Tracker
Underperformer: Arlinn Kord
Highlights: winning on a mull to 5 against Grixis Control after Radiant Flames swept up my double Servant of the Conduit start by going all in on Whirler Virtuoso to make 4 thopters. Jace ticking down 2 turns in a row against GB to bounce Kalitas and Noxious Gearhulk while holding up Shrivel for it on the way back. Dragonmaster Outcast making about 10 dragon tokens to hold off Ormendahl to give me a chance to draw to outs. Cub winning impossible games almost single-handedly.
Lol, it's fine; I was just getting a little frustrated that you kept thinking I was advocating in favor of a Become Immense ban.
I agree that the other fair decks (I still maintain that Jund is not great right now) need some help to at least compete. I was really hoping for a Stoneforge Mystic and/or Preordain unban personally. I know everyone has not-so-fond memories of Caw-Blade, but I'm fairly certain turn 3 Batterskull isn't unbeatable for most of the linear decks in the format right now. Infect laughs at lifegain, Affinity can attack in the air or kill with Inkmoth, Burn plays a ton of Skullcrack effects these days, Breach very easily goes over the top of the germ token, Merfolk won't give you the chance to block with it, Dredge can blow it up, and Zooicide can Dismember the token or simply overpower it. I think it shares the same fate as Bitterblossom, AV, Sword, etc., in that it was banned because of the bad memories people have of it rather than how good it would actually be.
Preordain please, for real. Serum Visions just isn't cutting it right now.