Nice write ups everyone. I've begun play testing a lot for SCG Milwaukee, here is where my list currently sits post rotation based off spoilers currently available.
Reality Smasher as the closer - after a lot of testing with how grindy the deck is, I've come to the choice to put away my blight herders for now and run smashers, there are too many games where a top deck smasher is GG. If a more controlling meta should exist in the near future this will be revisited.
LtLH vs. LotV - With smasher in play and the meta still being very aggressive I've chosen to move in this direction, this is in a similar bucket to smasher vs. herder, where if control was more present I would consider the switch. Her +1 is great right now, and if they do manage to deal with but not path your TKS or smasher being able to recur them is great in addition to digging for a threat, she also pushes card advantage with souls in the deck and her ult just closes games out.
Dec for CoBr #2 - Dec is a great card with a good amount of upside but CoBr's utility has over performed time and time again its only brought out against a few decks in the meta; escalating pitching souls early or late game TS or Iok to get real value is amazing. With the reduction of herder and great experiences so far the second copy was brought in from the board.
Manabase - With what I perceive to be an uptick in Path to Exile post Kaladesh with Abzan over Jund in addition to Bant eldrazi firmly planting its flag and the current composition of the deck I cut 1 basic plains for 1 basic wastes.
Here are the numbers: 15B symbols with an additional 4 for flashing back souls not factored in, 13W symbols & 8C with an additional 3 for activating displacer not factored in. 14B sources of which 11 come into play untapped for T1 disruption a bit low but I'm willing to concede that for vent's strength, 13WC sources, this falls in line with hitting all three colors for 90% on turns 1 & 2 respectively. I also treat fetid and urborg as just a C&B source respectively not factoring in their upside.
I've previously posted about why I swapped the number of TS & IoK.
Sideboard.
Languish - Eldrazi is the only deck where we lose some percentage points but with our removal suite and own smashers, I'm ok with this, I think we will continue to see an uptick in selfless spirit.
Lost Legacy - The fact that its turn 3 instead of 4 is huge; memoricide was ok but a often a turn too slow, this card is going to help our worst match ups [tron, scapeshift] and even using it on yourself against ad naus if they turn 0 leyline to get rid of your own Thoughtseize is a corner case I can see coming up on occasion.
Aven Mindcensor - Again a card that helps our more challenging match ups.
Fragmentize - 1 less and sorcery is ok by me, i'm ok with losing the ability to hit ink and blink in affinity for blowing up map/vial/seas on the draw or leyline on 1 or t2 if we have vent in our opener.
Shaving cage down to 1 - We're already pre-boarded against dredge and while you have to respect their nut draw, I'm ok with Aven Mindcensor picking up points across the board against chord, tron, titanshift & Nahari in its place.
As the spoilers keep coming out, These are some of the changes I've been play testing with promising results.
4 Concealed Courtyard the new fast lands are going to set burn back quite a bit as I see Abzan being the GBx deck De Jour since they'll have their own blackcleave cliffs as well as Grixis and Delver getting a bump. Blood moon is such a small part of the meta right now that I for one think if you're going to play 15 rounds and you lose a match to it once (maybe) I'm ok with that, you have Path and GQ to help you out if you know its coming down as well, in addition to Blight Herder to turn on colorless for TKS and Displacer activation. My base is the same I posted above
Flipping the number of IoK vs. TS, normally because of burn and lack of fast lands I side on the 3/2 IoK-TS split, but with fast lands and Through the breach as well as Bant Eldrazi on the rise I personally will be playing 3 TS and 2 IoK.
Lost Legacy aka The new memorcide is very promising against our worst matchups and I personally don't mind dedicating 2 possibly 3 (meta dependent) slots for it, the fact that it can be played on turn three in the same situation as Lili against Tron and Scapeshift/titan decks is wonderful. Tron's only money card against us is Karn. Their odds of having tron + karn on the play are as follows: 36.1% and 15.7%. On the draw 45.5% of the time for tron and 22.3% for turn 3 Karn. source. Between Ghost quarter and disruption along with lost legacy this should help us out a lot. Against Ad Naus this also helps if they turn 0 leyline and we've got dead TS and IoK better remove those from your hand in hopes of hitting disenchant and pithing needle.
Damnation vs. Languish - I've personally come across a lot more selfless spirit recently than i would like(elves, UW spirits, Naya Kiki); nullifying damnation. So I've swapped out Damnation for Languish and even against bant eldrazi the goal has always been to clear their scions and dorks since our removal deals with their creature suite very well, I would advise others to try it out as well and if you don't own them wait till rotation when they'll drop even more.
The swing cards in my build remain the following in this order: Sorin, Tidehollow & Declaration.
Going this route and treating fetid heath just as a colorless brings us to the following 14 black & white sources + 12 colorless, which puts us at 90% probability for T1 black & white & T3 colorless while getting an additional edge with fetid heath and urborg, tomb of yawgmoth.
blood moon is a very small part of modern right now and we've got ghost quarter and emergency path to exile if we really need to get a basic plains or swamp. If it becomes that prevalent you can consider adding basic wastes as well.
went 4-0 last night at FNM. Round one I got the bye
Round 2 Jeskai Control with main deck sweepers and a unusual assortment of man lands.
Game 1 Relic and disruption and ghost quarter got there.
Game 2 Endbringer did a lot of work, in addition to blinking TKS with displacer.
2-0
2-0
Round 3 Jund
Game 1 relic forced him to attempt to abrupt decay allowing me draw a card and exile the yards to that point, path his bob, and tks just beats down.
Game 2 Double tidehollow, first taking his K-command then his pulse, he never draws his green source and i'm able to constantly blink my tidehollow that has maelstrom under it to keep his draw steps in hand. Eventually cast blight herder eating both kommand and pulse from underneath the scullers.
2-0
3-0
Round 4 Burn
Game 1 on the play take 2 from godless take another 2 from thoughtseize take his seering blaze, next turn play caves play relic and thoughtseize again, next turn process killing his cat with strangler, and get there going down to 7 total.
Game 2 don't draw a single sideboard card but no big deal, his draw was more creature heavy, souls holds down the fort till I can cast TKS, also at some point in this game i ghost quarter his stomping grounds denying any atarka's commands.
2-0
4-0
These are my current changes, I'm still torn between both Liliana of the veil & Liliana, the last hope. the last hope makes our coin flips better but the veil helps us against our terrible match ups so as it stands now i'm more inclined to play two LotV. Additionally Blessed Alliance is an amazing card but how my 75 currently sits I feel I can move down to 2 copies in the sideboard and reintroduce an endbringer.
Bliking TKS is a great move against so much of the field, IMHO displacer has a place in this deck. If you knew going into a 4-6 round tournament that the field was going to be > 50% linear aggro then yes, but as it stands now I like it as a 2-3 off out of the board. Keep me updated on your thoughts on the removal package.
Last night I took my GP deck to a local mondern night in Chicago and went 4-0, I played Atarka burn twice, boggles once and genesis wave once. Haven't had time to swap out the LotV and Skite yet. Just want to say Collective brutality is a silly silly card same for blessed alliance. In my second match my opponent put himself under a Eidolon lock with me having spellskite out, I just needed to draw lands to activate vents and another creature...I got there.
Thank you, next big event i'll be attending is SCG Milwaukee for the modern open. Yes game three against tron I would agree the top decks delivered but thats why we play three ghost quarter.
Your take on Liliana, the last hope is a similar conclusion I've reached, I'll be picking them up soon to test with. It might just be a 1-1 split or a 2-0 split either way like Igunana originally had; but three planeswalker feels appropriate, and spellskite while great is better served in the sideboard if at all, meta dependant.
I think you reached your own conclusion blessed + PtE, and if you run declaration in stone is more than enough removal. Grim Discovery is is an interesting take, I think the new lili fills a similar role and against the GBx decks they are a very real underdog, we have more ghost quarters, manlands and souls in addition to keeping goyf and flayer in check with a much more consistent manabase. Tidehollow is worded differently than brain maggot and often late game if you have enough mana to double blink you get to permanently exile a card provided you stack the triggers in this order <-Return card <-Take card(placed underneath) <- remove card permanently. Westvale felt win more in my testing.
Thanks DC, getting back into keto will be worth it in the long run, having your blood sugar level instead of spiking pays dividends over long tournaments; me choosing to goto GP indy was a last minute thing and I paid a bit of price by not being at the top of my game as someone who had previously logged a lot of hours and had good success with this archetype.
Dec even as a 1-1 is still great even with giving them a clue, early game that clue is often going to just sit there and if they crack it you've gained tempo while helping turn on processing. The ability to have a blow out is very real especially against most of the linear tier one decks(Merfolk, Dredge, Affinity, Zoo, Burn). Lastly the opportunity cost is so low it makes sense to run it as a one of.
Wasteland I would put at about 70% because I've often relic'd/path'd/dec'd an early threat or something got removed from their yard. Even if wasteland comes down naked with out processing because of Displacer you will often get repeat value time and time again. On Friday for warm ups I went 3-0 in an 8man single elim and took down both a Drowner and Reality smasher by repeat processing against Bant.
Those are some spicy cards and if your meta is ripe with more controling decks you should be able to spike it.
The changes I'm going to make going forward are cutting MD spellskite and Liliana of the veil for two Liliana, The Last Hope. Virtual card advantage with her -2 is great for creatures in your yard or flipping over a lingering souls, her +1 is well positioned in the current state of the meta and her ultimate closes games. Jeskai Flash and boggles are tier 3 right now so if you have to deal with them you have blessed alliance in the board to deal with them in addition to just stripping their hand or racing.
Here is a quick write up, prior to the GP I was focusing on getting back on a ketogenic diet and it showed up during the course of the day, in the form of being super hazy with my decisions & lots of restroom breaks; the brain wants carbs and I was feeding it fat. I finished 10-5 and 227 out of 1987 I believe.
Started the day with an amazing misplay I sat at the wrong table first time in all the years i've played magic dating back to the dark. There was a Steven Doran and myself as the only two Doran's I sat in his seat match one, had a judge come to me confirming i was Mr. Doran....yup....Steven....nope...luckily they were able to fix it, i didn't get dropped or a game or match loss just a very stern warning..I think the GP gods paid it back 5x throughout the course of the weekend with fish.
Round 1 vs Merfolk (2-0), Great OP, he took 4 life for a dismember on displacer even though he had 'swamps' available to him via urborg... MVP: Displacer, Souls & Ghost Quarter
Round 2 vs Affinity (2-1) game one, i kept a more controlling hand on the draw he had an explosive start, Game 2 Displacer, Wasteland relic lock, game three stony silence and dec in stone are sick, talk about flavor win i 3-1'd with dec in stone vs. Ornithopter.
Round 3 vs Elves (1-2) Game one get ranched, game two cage and displacer go the distance, game 3 keep a questionable hand on the draw, 2x temple, gq, urborg, strangler, tks and souls.
Round 4 vs Burn (2-1) lose game 1 with him at 3, game two and three blessed alliance, collective brutality and sorin do work. Turn 2 game 2, CoBr discarding souls and herder to kill his swift spear, take a searing blaze and gain 2, lose 2.
Round 5 vs Kiki Evolution against Jeff Hoogland (2-1) Here is where this diet began to wreak havoc on me, he takes game 1 eventually comboing me out, game 2 displacer and cage do work even after I ghost quarter myself essentially strip mining after i had pitched my second plains to liliana and had both my other basic's on the battlefield, game three i got a liliana ultimate off at 7 and sorin and vents got there in the end, he top decked inferno titan i had damnation at the ready, i was close to 50 life when it ended, throughout the course of the match i would say things like getting a stomping ground or some other nonsense, this diet was kicking my ass. Jeff was a good opponent though even in top deck mode, had a good conversation with him throughout the match. Got some diet coke and coffee in me after that, switched off the lemon water.
Round 6 vs Bant CoCo Spirts (2-0) game one shred his hand, game two one of my favorite plays of the tourney, I have displacer, he had a naked Spell queller he flashed in hes at three life, he goes to path my displacer, i blink his queller to to make him eat his path get a judge call...yup thats how it works, my turn untap with strangler in hand, process the path kill queller and swing in for the win.
Round 7 vs Ad Nauseam (2-0) game one i get a displacer , tidehollow lock with spoils under tidehollow, his draw step i blink tidehollow revealing he has another spoils and grace, i give him spoils taking grace, he tells me hes going to go for it, spoils naming unlife, first card turned over is lightning storm, moving on to game 2 i can smell the leyline in his hand, but my hand is gq, pithing neede and a displacer, godless and TS and something else. T0 he drops leyline and plays a scry land, T1 i play needle naming lightning storm, t2 i play temple and play displacer, t3 i ghost quarter his godless shrine during his draw step, he drew his one plains, and had basic island in hand which he revealed to me. at this point i'm 6-1 and a lock for day 2.
Round 8 vs Merfolk (1-2) Great games overall, game three i'm playing to an out of damnation i have vents and plains in my hand i even mentally tell myself to play the vents...i play the plains, next turn draw damnation, and play it into spell pierce that i knew he had from an earlier TKS.
Round 9 vs Jund (1-2) Game one TKS and Herder with relic get there, game 2 he junds me out, game three is a mulligan to 5, with relic, and i just draw lands and never see a single lingering souls for the whole match.
Losing two in a row of which the merfolk matchup is a bit better than a coin flip and jund is 70/30 in my favor since this deck plays like a better Abzan deck, sucks but thats why the 30% exists, take it in stride and go get some Chipotle (no shell, no rice, no beans).
Day 2
Round 10 vs RG Tron (2-1) Game on on the draw he natural trons and slams karn, we got time so i let him play out his threats to see what kind of build he is on, no use conceding. Game 2, IoK into Sculler into displacer gets there. Game three gets to a point where i have spellskite out he is low on life and i have needle naming Ugin, he's able to kill skite and blow up needle while i'm drawing lands when he casts ugin, he had sanctum out so he grabs ulamog, i was able to GQ one of his power plants earlier, so i need a top deck GQ, tap the top and the GP gods deliver, GQ his other plant on his draw step to keep him off tron, hes at one life, i need a vents soon or a Collective Brutality...the gods deliver again its a collective brutality, mode drain two gain two. MVP Ghost Quarter and Collective Brutality.
Round 11 vs Merfolk (2-0) Game one he lands Kira and while that is a great card displacer is such a great card in general but lets you counter Kira's ability at the cost of tempo. Game two he kept a mutavault / vial hand and i had disenchant and ghost quarter, the match was over quickly.
Round 12 vs Blue Moon (0-2) typically in my testing this is a great matchup, but game 1 i never drew a relic to shut off his snpacaster, even though he was at 3 life, and game 2 i didn't draw a lingering souls, his deck was interesting it had chandra flame caller, batterskull and consecrated sphinx.
Round 13 vs NayaU Kiki Evo CoCo with pestermite and deciver (2-0) Shred his hand and TKS get there, game 2 Cage, Souls and Damnation close it out.
Round 14 vs Merfolk (1-2) Close games all around, at one point I need to stop giving him draw steps and close it I decide to put down Ghost Quarter protection that is keeping his mutavualt at bay and offering blocks if I blow up my 'island' but he doesn't have any island walk so i tap out for blight herder and he draws a island walk lord to close it down. This opponent was kind of a dick game one as i'm clearly tapped out and can't block he goes to attacks and I go no blocks how much, and he shrieks derived information...of course, I then explain I'm just trying to keep life totals appropriate.
Round 15 vs Merfolk (2-1) against Jon Paton, had the pleasure of making his acquaintance in Omaha over wings before he top 8'd with fish last year. The whole match was a blast with a lot of fun banter and just a great feeling in a REL event when both people are genuinely playing for the win but having a blast doing so. At one point i dec in stone two of his Merrow Reejerey. Match ends and I have my first pro point.
Great weekend with great people and made some new friends along the way. Having a sideboard guide was huge and I recommend anyone that is going to be in a long tourney do the same as you only have so much energy to spend and its better spent in game than figuring out the old cliche of "take the bad cards out put the good cards in" that was a huge help during the weekend.
Strongly considering dropping MD surgical for 3rd displacer, and moving up to 2 damnation and 2 zealous while cutting surgical, r-bomb & memorcide while replacing rest for the weary with 3 blessed alliance.
After a hiatus I've returned, great job deaddrift keeping this house in order and again great work RidetheIguana giving this deck even more of a pedigree at the open like phreshtingz before you. I'll be at GP Indy this weekend playing the following list below, I've also included an in-depth side boarding guide. Looking forward to some good discussions.
Creatures
Spellskite - at worst its a wall and 'welding jar' at best it puts the screws to certain decks in the format.
Displacer - the soft lock is real with both TKS and Tidehollow (make sure you stack your triggers right). It already has a solid body but its ability can shut down tons of decks and often make your swings unblockable.
Spells
I personally like the 3/2 split especially since i think there will be a fair amount of bant eldrazi running around
Surgical - its there to mise, provide a g-probe and turn on processing if we haven't drawn relic
Declaration - its been very promising in testing, if you go way back to the beginning of this thread i was testing utter end, but the low opportunity cost of 1W is too tempting to pass up, its whites cheap imitation of maelstrom pulse.
Collective Brutality - Card is a house in certain match ups like burn and infect other times is just ok but it has a lot of play thats why there is a second in the SB, its baby profane command.
Lands
We're at 11 Colorless sources, 15 Black sources and 15 White sources of which 3 come into play tapped. This also gives us a 43% chance to have ghost quarter against GR tron or Valakut, the molten pinnacle by T3. So according to Frank Karsten we're right above curve for everything; 14 sources for T1 @ 90% prob, 13 for T2, 12 for T3 and 11 for T4. Granted we do have 3 tap lands but their utility far out weights their negative.
Sideboard
Most everything is pretty standard except: Surgical, Collective Brutality, Ratchet Bomb & Memoricide.
Surgical - a personal favorite helps in a fair amount of situations and can be skill testing, similar to ghost quarter use it on the draw step.
Collective Brutality - I like 2 in the 75 split between MD & SB, again when its good(Burn/infect) its a amazing other times its so-so.
Ratchet bomb - this could be another damnation or flaying tendrills or even EE. While all those cards are often A+ to B+ in certain match ups this card provides a lot of flexibility while being a C+ contributor.
Memoricide - I wanted to dedicate a pure hate card for some of our worst match ups and the eldrazi mirror.
I played BW Processor tonight at a 26 person Monday Night Modern tourney and went 3-1. I did not play Eye, because I wanted to see how the deck worked without it. I did not miss it that much, in my build. Here is my list:
Round 1 vs. 8Whack, 1-2: In G1 he stalled at one land and I got there on TKS and Smasher. In G2 I Thoughtseized a Blood Moon but he was too fast for me. In G3 I kept a hand with no disruption but a Damnation in the opener; his T3 Blood Moon shut me down. I sided out my singleton O-Ring in this match and did not side in my enchantment hate (2 Disenchant and 1 Ratchet Bomb). Blood Moon crippled me, with no way to cast my BB sweepers. Fast aggro is tough for this deck, and Timely Reinforcements wasn't much help against his Goblin that gives his team first strike, trample, and unblockable-by-tokens. I made a mistake siding in this game, not sure what to do, though, without nerfing my deck's game plan too much.
Round 2 vs. Mono-U Counters Homebrew, 2-0: Not much to tell here, played a 16 year-old at his first-ever tourney. He kept a one-land hand in G2, and after four turns of not drawing a second, I proposed we start over, which we did. So he got to do a few things before I cleaned him up. I like my LGS because it is a friendly, positive (but still very competitive) environment, and I hope to keep it that way.
Round 3 vs. Grixis Delver, 2-0: These games were GRINDY, both because of board state and because the guy could not see his lack of outs and clung on to the bitter end in both games. (I beat him in turns, 2-0.) Both games developed into stalled board states with Delvers, Tasigurs, Anglers, and Young Pyro (plus tokens) staring across the battlefield at TKS's, Herders (plus tokens), and Spirit tokens. In both games it was drawing into Vault of the Archangel that broke parity wide open, and got me sudden life swings to 46-3 in G1 and 30-1 in G2, giving me the win.
Round 4 vs. Jund, 2-0: I destroyed this guy. It was not close. In both games Relic neutered his Goyfs unbelievably well, and my bodies were consistently bigger than his. TKS and Herder were all stars, while Lingering Souls (usually very good in this matchup) did not show up in hand once all match. In G2 I wisely held back on playing my opening-hand Urborg because I could see he had no black mana sources; he eventually had to Ghost Quarter his own Forest to get a Swamp into play. Throughout this match I felt completely in control of the game at all times. One misplay here was that I missed saccing a Scion to activate a tapped Relic in response to him Bolting my TKS, which in turn made his 0/1 Goyf into a 1/2, which was just big enough to kill my Bolt/blocked TKS and draw him a card.
As before, I expect tough match ups going forward to be Burn, combo, fast aggro, and Tron. It seems to me that we could be one of the best midrange decks around. With GQ and Lingering Souls, plus W-flavored hate in the side, we are very strong against Infect and Affinity. Blood Moon is really bad news if it hits and we have no response; I only have a single basic in each of our "colors" in my build, and I may need to change that.
I am looking forward to playing Anguished Unmaking as maybe a one-of main and maybe 1-2 of sideboard. It could replace Disenchant and O-Ring in my build. However I may need to explore more lifegain options due to the existing pain from Caves, Thoughtseize, fetches, shocks, and a generally slow early game. Sorin III is a thing, but replacing any of the creatures is hard... maybe a Herder, which is conditional upon multiple exile effects being online, which doesn't always happen.
Thanks for reading. Feedback on card choices is welcome.
Very nice write up, this is what I'll be moving into shortly.
I think we might be best served just going full on mid range, and for that i've split matter reshaper and wasteland at 2 a piece. Herder is obviously powerful but smasher is still king. I think other variations on eldrazi and this version as well as mid range decks across the pie will be present so keeping a playset of PtE and Dismember at 2 feels good. In the very original iterations I had Utter end but getting to 4 felt like a challenge, Anguished has been a pleasant surprise thus far. Abbey as a late game map target feels great and gives you some semblance of late game inevitability.
The mana base shakes out nicely as well nearly hitting on Frank Karsten's previous research. 23 lands might appear light but remember this deck had previously been at a virtual 23 because of both double eye and urborg. Urborg no longer seems necessary with out eye and oblivion sower.
Other cards for consideration are MD Vault & Sorin and the split of TS and IoK will depend on how you perceive the meta, as always i expect burn to be out in full force right off the bat, so that makes up my split.
As usual, after a key pieces of a deck is banned, the mods and I move the deck to deck creation or lock the thread if it cant exist anymore. We do this because when a deck loses a core piece, the deck is arguably different than what it was before, thus in many cases deserves its own thread or to be reevaluated to see if it can retain its old success. This is still the case here. The ban may have shifted the deck to older stratagies used, or maybe new ones entirely. But we have left the thread open for people to brew.
The OP must, however, be changed to reflect the new outlook of the deck and not give old information.
Thanks everyone,
Lantern
Appreciate it Lantern and yes I don't mind changing the focus of this build with out eye, a new image will be coming down the pipeline and updates accordingly in the not too distant future now that this deck is primed for tier 1 goodness.
I think this deck is back, it was a power house and what often felt and performed like the best midrange deck before mimic and eye broke the format wide open and UW and GR took it to the next level. Abbey with map + souls or herder + feels gross.
2 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Wasteland Strangler
3 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
Spells 21
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Thoughtseize
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Collective Brutality
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Shambling Vent
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
1 Fetid Heath
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Wastes
2 Languish
2 Lost Legacy
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Stony Silence
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Duress
1 Fragmentize
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
To me the swingiest cards in this archetype and in previous builds are as follows: Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Declaration in stone, Tidehollow Sculler & Blight Herder. So I've cut Sorin, Blight and Dec and kept Strangler as the only processor.
Reality Smasher as the closer - after a lot of testing with how grindy the deck is, I've come to the choice to put away my blight herders for now and run smashers, there are too many games where a top deck smasher is GG. If a more controlling meta should exist in the near future this will be revisited.
LtLH vs. LotV - With smasher in play and the meta still being very aggressive I've chosen to move in this direction, this is in a similar bucket to smasher vs. herder, where if control was more present I would consider the switch. Her +1 is great right now, and if they do manage to deal with but not path your TKS or smasher being able to recur them is great in addition to digging for a threat, she also pushes card advantage with souls in the deck and her ult just closes games out.
Dec for CoBr #2 - Dec is a great card with a good amount of upside but CoBr's utility has over performed time and time again its only brought out against a few decks in the meta; escalating pitching souls early or late game TS or Iok to get real value is amazing. With the reduction of herder and great experiences so far the second copy was brought in from the board.
Manabase - With what I perceive to be an uptick in Path to Exile post Kaladesh with Abzan over Jund in addition to Bant eldrazi firmly planting its flag and the current composition of the deck I cut 1 basic plains for 1 basic wastes.
Here are the numbers: 15B symbols with an additional 4 for flashing back souls not factored in, 13W symbols & 8C with an additional 3 for activating displacer not factored in. 14B sources of which 11 come into play untapped for T1 disruption a bit low but I'm willing to concede that for vent's strength, 13WC sources, this falls in line with hitting all three colors for 90% on turns 1 & 2 respectively. I also treat fetid and urborg as just a C&B source respectively not factoring in their upside.
I've previously posted about why I swapped the number of TS & IoK.
Sideboard.
Languish - Eldrazi is the only deck where we lose some percentage points but with our removal suite and own smashers, I'm ok with this, I think we will continue to see an uptick in selfless spirit.
Lost Legacy - The fact that its turn 3 instead of 4 is huge; memoricide was ok but a often a turn too slow, this card is going to help our worst match ups [tron, scapeshift] and even using it on yourself against ad naus if they turn 0 leyline to get rid of your own Thoughtseize is a corner case I can see coming up on occasion.
Aven Mindcensor - Again a card that helps our more challenging match ups.
Fragmentize - 1 less and sorcery is ok by me, i'm ok with losing the ability to hit ink and blink in affinity for blowing up map/vial/seas on the draw or leyline on 1 or t2 if we have vent in our opener.
Shaving cage down to 1 - We're already pre-boarded against dredge and while you have to respect their nut draw, I'm ok with Aven Mindcensor picking up points across the board against chord, tron, titanshift & Nahari in its place.
4 Concealed Courtyard the new fast lands are going to set burn back quite a bit as I see Abzan being the GBx deck De Jour since they'll have their own blackcleave cliffs as well as Grixis and Delver getting a bump. Blood moon is such a small part of the meta right now that I for one think if you're going to play 15 rounds and you lose a match to it once (maybe) I'm ok with that, you have Path and GQ to help you out if you know its coming down as well, in addition to Blight Herder to turn on colorless for TKS and Displacer activation. My base is the same I posted above
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Shambling Vent
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 Swamp
Flipping the number of IoK vs. TS, normally because of burn and lack of fast lands I side on the 3/2 IoK-TS split, but with fast lands and Through the breach as well as Bant Eldrazi on the rise I personally will be playing 3 TS and 2 IoK.
Lost Legacy aka The new memorcide is very promising against our worst matchups and I personally don't mind dedicating 2 possibly 3 (meta dependent) slots for it, the fact that it can be played on turn three in the same situation as Lili against Tron and Scapeshift/titan decks is wonderful. Tron's only money card against us is Karn. Their odds of having tron + karn on the play are as follows: 36.1% and 15.7%. On the draw 45.5% of the time for tron and 22.3% for turn 3 Karn. source. Between Ghost quarter and disruption along with lost legacy this should help us out a lot. Against Ad Naus this also helps if they turn 0 leyline and we've got dead TS and IoK better remove those from your hand in hopes of hitting disenchant and pithing needle.
Damnation vs. Languish - I've personally come across a lot more selfless spirit recently than i would like(elves, UW spirits, Naya Kiki); nullifying damnation. So I've swapped out Damnation for Languish and even against bant eldrazi the goal has always been to clear their scions and dorks since our removal deals with their creature suite very well, I would advise others to try it out as well and if you don't own them wait till rotation when they'll drop even more.
The swing cards in my build remain the following in this order: Sorin, Tidehollow & Declaration.
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Shambling Vent
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 Swamp
Going this route and treating fetid heath just as a colorless brings us to the following 14 black & white sources + 12 colorless, which puts us at 90% probability for T1 black & white & T3 colorless while getting an additional edge with fetid heath and urborg, tomb of yawgmoth.
blood moon is a very small part of modern right now and we've got ghost quarter and emergency path to exile if we really need to get a basic plains or swamp. If it becomes that prevalent you can consider adding basic wastes as well.
Round 2 Jeskai Control with main deck sweepers and a unusual assortment of man lands.
Game 1 Relic and disruption and ghost quarter got there.
Game 2 Endbringer did a lot of work, in addition to blinking TKS with displacer.
2-0
2-0
Round 3 Jund
Game 1 relic forced him to attempt to abrupt decay allowing me draw a card and exile the yards to that point, path his bob, and tks just beats down.
Game 2 Double tidehollow, first taking his K-command then his pulse, he never draws his green source and i'm able to constantly blink my tidehollow that has maelstrom under it to keep his draw steps in hand. Eventually cast blight herder eating both kommand and pulse from underneath the scullers.
2-0
3-0
Round 4 Burn
Game 1 on the play take 2 from godless take another 2 from thoughtseize take his seering blaze, next turn play caves play relic and thoughtseize again, next turn process killing his cat with strangler, and get there going down to 7 total.
Game 2 don't draw a single sideboard card but no big deal, his draw was more creature heavy, souls holds down the fort till I can cast TKS, also at some point in this game i ghost quarter his stomping grounds denying any atarka's commands.
2-0
4-0
These are my current changes, I'm still torn between both Liliana of the veil & Liliana, the last hope. the last hope makes our coin flips better but the veil helps us against our terrible match ups so as it stands now i'm more inclined to play two LotV. Additionally Blessed Alliance is an amazing card but how my 75 currently sits I feel I can move down to 2 copies in the sideboard and reintroduce an endbringer.
2 tidehollow sculler
2 wasteland strangler
3 eldrazi displacer
3 blight herder
4 Thought-Knot Seer
Spells 22
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Liliana of the veil
2 Thoughtseize
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Collective Brutality
4 Marsh Flats
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Shambling Vent
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Godless Shrine
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 Damnation
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Stony Silence
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Endbringer
1 Collective Brutality
1 Disenchant
1 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
Your take on Liliana, the last hope is a similar conclusion I've reached, I'll be picking them up soon to test with. It might just be a 1-1 split or a 2-0 split either way like Igunana originally had; but three planeswalker feels appropriate, and spellskite while great is better served in the sideboard if at all, meta dependant.
Dec even as a 1-1 is still great even with giving them a clue, early game that clue is often going to just sit there and if they crack it you've gained tempo while helping turn on processing. The ability to have a blow out is very real especially against most of the linear tier one decks(Merfolk, Dredge, Affinity, Zoo, Burn). Lastly the opportunity cost is so low it makes sense to run it as a one of.
Wasteland I would put at about 70% because I've often relic'd/path'd/dec'd an early threat or something got removed from their yard. Even if wasteland comes down naked with out processing because of Displacer you will often get repeat value time and time again. On Friday for warm ups I went 3-0 in an 8man single elim and took down both a Drowner and Reality smasher by repeat processing against Bant.
Those are some spicy cards and if your meta is ripe with more controling decks you should be able to spike it.
The changes I'm going to make going forward are cutting MD spellskite and Liliana of the veil for two Liliana, The Last Hope. Virtual card advantage with her -2 is great for creatures in your yard or flipping over a lingering souls, her +1 is well positioned in the current state of the meta and her ultimate closes games. Jeskai Flash and boggles are tier 3 right now so if you have to deal with them you have blessed alliance in the board to deal with them in addition to just stripping their hand or racing.
Started the day with an amazing misplay I sat at the wrong table first time in all the years i've played magic dating back to the dark. There was a Steven Doran and myself as the only two Doran's I sat in his seat match one, had a judge come to me confirming i was Mr. Doran....yup....Steven....nope...luckily they were able to fix it, i didn't get dropped or a game or match loss just a very stern warning..I think the GP gods paid it back 5x throughout the course of the weekend with fish.
1 spellskite
2 tidehollow sculler
2 wasteland strangler
3 eldrazi displacer
3 blight herder
4 Thought-Knot Seer
Spells 21
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Liliana of the veil
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Collective Brutality
4 Marsh Flats
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Shambling Vent
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Godless Shrine
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
3 Blessed Alliance
2 Damnation
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Stony Silence
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Collective Brutality
1 Disenchant
1 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
Round 1 vs Merfolk (2-0), Great OP, he took 4 life for a dismember on displacer even though he had 'swamps' available to him via urborg... MVP: Displacer, Souls & Ghost Quarter
Round 2 vs Affinity (2-1) game one, i kept a more controlling hand on the draw he had an explosive start, Game 2 Displacer, Wasteland relic lock, game three stony silence and dec in stone are sick, talk about flavor win i 3-1'd with dec in stone vs. Ornithopter.
Round 3 vs Elves (1-2) Game one get ranched, game two cage and displacer go the distance, game 3 keep a questionable hand on the draw, 2x temple, gq, urborg, strangler, tks and souls.
Round 4 vs Burn (2-1) lose game 1 with him at 3, game two and three blessed alliance, collective brutality and sorin do work. Turn 2 game 2, CoBr discarding souls and herder to kill his swift spear, take a searing blaze and gain 2, lose 2.
Round 5 vs Kiki Evolution against Jeff Hoogland (2-1) Here is where this diet began to wreak havoc on me, he takes game 1 eventually comboing me out, game 2 displacer and cage do work even after I ghost quarter myself essentially strip mining after i had pitched my second plains to liliana and had both my other basic's on the battlefield, game three i got a liliana ultimate off at 7 and sorin and vents got there in the end, he top decked inferno titan i had damnation at the ready, i was close to 50 life when it ended, throughout the course of the match i would say things like getting a stomping ground or some other nonsense, this diet was kicking my ass. Jeff was a good opponent though even in top deck mode, had a good conversation with him throughout the match. Got some diet coke and coffee in me after that, switched off the lemon water.
Round 6 vs Bant CoCo Spirts (2-0) game one shred his hand, game two one of my favorite plays of the tourney, I have displacer, he had a naked Spell queller he flashed in hes at three life, he goes to path my displacer, i blink his queller to to make him eat his path get a judge call...yup thats how it works, my turn untap with strangler in hand, process the path kill queller and swing in for the win.
Round 7 vs Ad Nauseam (2-0) game one i get a displacer , tidehollow lock with spoils under tidehollow, his draw step i blink tidehollow revealing he has another spoils and grace, i give him spoils taking grace, he tells me hes going to go for it, spoils naming unlife, first card turned over is lightning storm, moving on to game 2 i can smell the leyline in his hand, but my hand is gq, pithing neede and a displacer, godless and TS and something else. T0 he drops leyline and plays a scry land, T1 i play needle naming lightning storm, t2 i play temple and play displacer, t3 i ghost quarter his godless shrine during his draw step, he drew his one plains, and had basic island in hand which he revealed to me. at this point i'm 6-1 and a lock for day 2.
Round 8 vs Merfolk (1-2) Great games overall, game three i'm playing to an out of damnation i have vents and plains in my hand i even mentally tell myself to play the vents...i play the plains, next turn draw damnation, and play it into spell pierce that i knew he had from an earlier TKS.
Round 9 vs Jund (1-2) Game one TKS and Herder with relic get there, game 2 he junds me out, game three is a mulligan to 5, with relic, and i just draw lands and never see a single lingering souls for the whole match.
Losing two in a row of which the merfolk matchup is a bit better than a coin flip and jund is 70/30 in my favor since this deck plays like a better Abzan deck, sucks but thats why the 30% exists, take it in stride and go get some Chipotle (no shell, no rice, no beans).
Day 2
Round 10 vs RG Tron (2-1) Game on on the draw he natural trons and slams karn, we got time so i let him play out his threats to see what kind of build he is on, no use conceding. Game 2, IoK into Sculler into displacer gets there. Game three gets to a point where i have spellskite out he is low on life and i have needle naming Ugin, he's able to kill skite and blow up needle while i'm drawing lands when he casts ugin, he had sanctum out so he grabs ulamog, i was able to GQ one of his power plants earlier, so i need a top deck GQ, tap the top and the GP gods deliver, GQ his other plant on his draw step to keep him off tron, hes at one life, i need a vents soon or a Collective Brutality...the gods deliver again its a collective brutality, mode drain two gain two. MVP Ghost Quarter and Collective Brutality.
Round 11 vs Merfolk (2-0) Game one he lands Kira and while that is a great card displacer is such a great card in general but lets you counter Kira's ability at the cost of tempo. Game two he kept a mutavault / vial hand and i had disenchant and ghost quarter, the match was over quickly.
Round 12 vs Blue Moon (0-2) typically in my testing this is a great matchup, but game 1 i never drew a relic to shut off his snpacaster, even though he was at 3 life, and game 2 i didn't draw a lingering souls, his deck was interesting it had chandra flame caller, batterskull and consecrated sphinx.
Round 13 vs NayaU Kiki Evo CoCo with pestermite and deciver (2-0) Shred his hand and TKS get there, game 2 Cage, Souls and Damnation close it out.
Round 14 vs Merfolk (1-2) Close games all around, at one point I need to stop giving him draw steps and close it I decide to put down Ghost Quarter protection that is keeping his mutavualt at bay and offering blocks if I blow up my 'island' but he doesn't have any island walk so i tap out for blight herder and he draws a island walk lord to close it down. This opponent was kind of a dick game one as i'm clearly tapped out and can't block he goes to attacks and I go no blocks how much, and he shrieks derived information...of course, I then explain I'm just trying to keep life totals appropriate.
Round 15 vs Merfolk (2-1) against Jon Paton, had the pleasure of making his acquaintance in Omaha over wings before he top 8'd with fish last year. The whole match was a blast with a lot of fun banter and just a great feeling in a REL event when both people are genuinely playing for the win but having a blast doing so. At one point i dec in stone two of his Merrow Reejerey. Match ends and I have my first pro point.
Great weekend with great people and made some new friends along the way. Having a sideboard guide was huge and I recommend anyone that is going to be in a long tourney do the same as you only have so much energy to spend and its better spent in game than figuring out the old cliche of "take the bad cards out put the good cards in" that was a huge help during the weekend.
1 spellskite
2 tidehollow sculler
2 wasteland strangler
2 eldrazi displacer
3 blight herder
4 Thought-Knot Seer
Spells 22
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Liliana of the veil
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Collective Brutality
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Marsh Flats
3 Shambling Vent
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Godless Shrine
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 Damnation
2 Rest for the Weary
1 Disenchant
2 Stony Silence
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Pithing Needle
1 Duress
1 Collective Brutality
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Memoricide
Creatures
Spellskite - at worst its a wall and 'welding jar' at best it puts the screws to certain decks in the format.
Displacer - the soft lock is real with both TKS and Tidehollow (make sure you stack your triggers right). It already has a solid body but its ability can shut down tons of decks and often make your swings unblockable.
Spells
I personally like the 3/2 split especially since i think there will be a fair amount of bant eldrazi running around
Surgical - its there to mise, provide a g-probe and turn on processing if we haven't drawn relic
Declaration - its been very promising in testing, if you go way back to the beginning of this thread i was testing utter end, but the low opportunity cost of 1W is too tempting to pass up, its whites cheap imitation of maelstrom pulse.
Collective Brutality - Card is a house in certain match ups like burn and infect other times is just ok but it has a lot of play thats why there is a second in the SB, its baby profane command.
Lands
We're at 11 Colorless sources, 15 Black sources and 15 White sources of which 3 come into play tapped. This also gives us a 43% chance to have ghost quarter against GR tron or Valakut, the molten pinnacle by T3. So according to Frank Karsten we're right above curve for everything; 14 sources for T1 @ 90% prob, 13 for T2, 12 for T3 and 11 for T4. Granted we do have 3 tap lands but their utility far out weights their negative.
Sideboard
Most everything is pretty standard except: Surgical, Collective Brutality, Ratchet Bomb & Memoricide.
Surgical - a personal favorite helps in a fair amount of situations and can be skill testing, similar to ghost quarter use it on the draw step.
Collective Brutality - I like 2 in the 75 split between MD & SB, again when its good(Burn/infect) its a amazing other times its so-so.
Ratchet bomb - this could be another damnation or flaying tendrills or even EE. While all those cards are often A+ to B+ in certain match ups this card provides a lot of flexibility while being a C+ contributor.
Memoricide - I wanted to dedicate a pure hate card for some of our worst match ups and the eldrazi mirror.
Below is the side boarding guide
Very nice write up, this is what I'll be moving into shortly.
2 Matter Reshaper
2 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Blight Herder
Instant 7
4 Path to Exile
2 Dismember
1 Anguished Unmaking
4 Lingering Souls
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
Artifacts 6
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Expedition Map
lands 23
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Shambling Vent
1 Westvale abbey
2 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
1 fetid heath
1 wastes
I think we might be best served just going full on mid range, and for that i've split matter reshaper and wasteland at 2 a piece. Herder is obviously powerful but smasher is still king. I think other variations on eldrazi and this version as well as mid range decks across the pie will be present so keeping a playset of PtE and Dismember at 2 feels good. In the very original iterations I had Utter end but getting to 4 felt like a challenge, Anguished has been a pleasant surprise thus far. Abbey as a late game map target feels great and gives you some semblance of late game inevitability.
The mana base shakes out nicely as well nearly hitting on Frank Karsten's previous research. 23 lands might appear light but remember this deck had previously been at a virtual 23 because of both double eye and urborg. Urborg no longer seems necessary with out eye and oblivion sower.
Other cards for consideration are MD Vault & Sorin and the split of TS and IoK will depend on how you perceive the meta, as always i expect burn to be out in full force right off the bat, so that makes up my split.
Appreciate it Lantern and yes I don't mind changing the focus of this build with out eye, a new image will be coming down the pipeline and updates accordingly in the not too distant future now that this deck is primed for tier 1 goodness.