So I ran through a bunch of mtgo leagues this weekend with Jund DS. probably about 5. I think 3 Friendly leagues and 2 comp leagues. Manatraders is great.
1. 17 Lands was too low. I was getting stuck on 1 and 2 lands sometimes, causing me to lose A LOT of games in my first 3 leagues. I thought having an extra 2 cantrips with Architects of will, and then the two faithless lootings would aliviate this issue. Nope. I switched to 18 lands and it was WAY better. I cut an extra Architects of Will for an 18th land (Wooded Foothills).
2. Since I was only playing Jund colors with no manamorphose, I wanted the extra basic forest to play around Blood Moon. I didn't play against many BM decks, but the basic Forest was still good and I would continue playing it.
3. Whispers of Emrakul out of the board was AWESOME. It's great against control decks, combo decks, Tron, Valakut, and even burn. Since I'm not playing blue for stubborn denial, I really needed an extra push against these types of decks, and Whispers was GREAT. I went up to 4 in the board.
4. Against decks where creature removal sucks: This version has an issue where all your instants are creature removal, so against control and combo decks, you side out most of your instants. This problem is usually aleviated by playing manamorphose and bringing in stubborn denial, but I dont play blue and don't like manamorphose. So I usually keep in 2 tarfire against everything to keep delirium online. I usually just tarfire myself, or discard it to Faithless Looting. I am also changing 1 abrupt decay to a Kolaghan's command, so I can leave that in.
5. Dismember was too taxing on the life, so I changed it to terminate. Terminate was better for me. If there is a rise in green creature decks, I would go back to dismeber, but Terminate is better for now.
6. There were a lot of situations that I could have won if I had a Ghor-Clan Rampager in the deck to traverse for. So I cut the TBR in the board for a Ghor-Clan. It was a solid change. I don't have it junking up my main, but bring it in when I want it.
7. I struggled against Affinity. I was 1-2 against it, and the match where I won, the pilot was awful. So I added an extra Ancient grudge in the board, and changed an abrupt decay to a Kolaghan's OCmmand main. Here's my updated list:
I would like to suggest that you cut x1 Stubborn Denial and move it to the sideboard to get x1 K Command on the main deck
As for the Dismember or Terminate/Dreadbore split for me it has worked like marvels having 1/1 Dismember/Terminate
Cutting a SD for Kommand makes sense, I'll try that this week. As for Dismember/Terminate, I used to play like that a few months ago but I can't bring myself to go down to 0 Dreadbore with the current meta of Jund and blue decks running Jace. As always, I'm extremely overthinking this
Jund and blue decks playing Jace are such a low percentage of the meta. Being able to instant speed your kill spell is super important in a deck like this, more so than something like Jund.
On a side note for the Terminate/Dismember debate, I've been VERY impressed with dismember in Jund Death's Shadow. Being able to move your life total down by 4 at will felt SO powerful. It helps power out fast Death's Shadows, and is great vs blood moon decks. Once there is a blood moon out, it's really hard to alter your life totals with your fetchlands turned off, making DS not as potent. Dismember has swung me a lot of games just by being able to pay 4 life, and still being castable through a Blood Moon. But Jund DS is much more of an aggro/combo deck than Grixis.
Tomorrow I'll have a TOP8 (I q'd playing Jund Shadow the whole season) and I "know" by advance some of my possible matches (the TOP 8 structure follows the one from PT).
The possibles matchs are:
1st Match - Grixis Goryos (Living End + As Foretold + Kiki and Exarch... Goryos and Grisel also) or UR Storm.
2nd Match - Some variant of Eldrazi (the mono brown one or RG haste)
3rd Match - BANT Retreat
4th Match - No idea. Some sort of BURN or TRON...
Of course, is a TOP 8, meaning elimination each round, getting to the finals is already a good spot to be, as this would q'd me to the next big tournament.
Can someone help me to tweak the best list to this "4" matches ?
Hope to hear from you guys !!
If you know for sure about match 1 being one of those two options, I would run 4 stubborn denial somewhere in the 75. Maybe even in the main, because you can't get to the other matches without winning match 1. And then run a few GY hate cards in the board, like Nihil Spellbomb or surgical or a Grafdigger's Cage.
One card that is great against that whole spread of decks is Temur Battle Rage. I would probably run 2 main 1 side, or even 3 main since you know it will be good.
It also looks like you won't be playing against Blood Moon, so I would only run 1 Basic Swamp and no Basic Forest.
I just played two leagues with GB constrictor. It seemed pretty solid, although felt somewhat prone to flooding (especially with Llanowar elves in our list now). With not a lot of fatal pushes around, Winding Constrictor felt really good and you can often keep it around pretty easily but not playing into the tapped creature removal. I was on 4x Jadelight Ranger and 1x Thrashing Brontodon MB, with 3x Brontodon in the SB. Jadelight felt pretty average most of the time, but Brontodon was AMAZING. I bring them in for like literally every matchup. Monored, UW control, any deck with Vehicles, GPG, and even white-based creature decks (they are not the best here but they can at least hit Cast Out and Ixilan's Binding). I would probably cut 2 Jadelight for 2 more brontodons maindeck and keep the 4th in the board.
3 - I miss when Lilly was good but I really don't like the card right now and my list has felt better since cutting lotv from the 75
I agree, I really think LotV is terrible right now in the meta. Like what decks do you want her against? I've cut all Veils form every Death's Shadow list. I also think that's one of the reasons traditional Jund isn't good right now either. Sometimes that deck relies on LotV as a threat or a card advantage engine, and she just doesn't cut it.
They were really good, but were not good in multiples. I think it's because I really wanted to deploy my hand out to get ahead on board, and THEN looting to find what I need to finish the game. So when I had two in hand, I couldn't effectively get a fast deployment. So I think I want to cut down to 2 Looting, and replace themu with 2 Manamorphose. One issue I realized was that by cutting Stubborn Denial, I had trouble getting an instant in the yard when I was up against decks where I cut my removal.
Was your issue with multiples that you didn’t have enough other relevant cards? I haven’t really found multiples to be an issue because you can either discard them to each other if your hand is really good, or just play them otherwise. I’m glad you did well though, did you get to cast Bedlam Reveler at all?
The issue I had was I wanted to use all my mana on T1-T3, and having to cast the looting was like wasting the 1 mana because it didn't advance my board at all, and we all know that this deck doesn't work well from behind. It's weird to complain about a 1-mana spell tying up our mana, but it did. I actually cut the remaining two and went back to manamorphose. Mainly because there's like 5 different blood moon decks every modern night at the place I play at.
I've also been having trouble getting delirium reliably. I think I want to turn my 2 bolts back into Tarfires. It makes the humans matchup a bit worse, but I think overall it's a good change. I'm never really bolting my opponent for lethal, and tarfire kills most stuff we need it to. And in matchups where I need to find a threat ASAP (like blood moon decks, tron, combo, etc) I can just EOT Tarfire myself and basically turn on delirium by itself.
I also think I want to run a single Architects of Will. Just for an extra delirium Enabler. Plus I'm on 17 lands, and sometimes struggle to hit that 2nd or 3rd land.
I went 3-1 at the Modern event last night. Lost to Free Win Red where he got some free wins (t1 blood moon on the play?). Looting felt really good, but there was definitely too many. They were really good, but were not good in multiples. I think it's because I really wanted to deploy my hand out to get ahead on board, and THEN looting to find what I need to finish the game. So when I had two in hand, I couldn't effectively get a fast deployment. So I think I want to cut down to 2 Looting, and replace them with 2 Manamorphose. One issue I realized was that by cutting Stubborn Denial, I had trouble getting an instant in the yard when I was up against decks where I cut my removal.
2x Abrade
1x Bedlam Reveler
1x Hazoret
2x Collective Brutality
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Maelstorm Pulse
1x Golgari Charm
2x Radiant Flames
1x Temur Battle Rage
2x Young Pyromancer
I think with his board against burn, i do:
-4 Street Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Abrade
+1 TBR
The CBs and TBRs are obvious, but I think Abrade is fine because it can kill Ensnaring Bridge. I don't have much to work with in the board against burn. But I guess you can't SB against them all, right?
I played Jund DS at my last modern event, and I didn't really like the manamorphose. It just felt clunky, and made my opening hand keep/mull decisions harder (because of the randomness of the manamorphose draw). I think I'm going to try the Faithless Looting tonight.
I think I'm going to run your exact mainboard, and change up the SB a bit to better fit my store's metagame. I like the two Young Pyros though. I felt like I could never beat a LotV with the list I was running. But cutting the Stubborn Denials makes me feel like I can never beat burn.
The Jund deck that won the MTGO challenge event was on 2x BBE, 1x kalitas, 1x Grim Lavamancer main, with 1x kalitas in the board as well.
Has anyone here tried Abrade in the board yet? I've been playing a bit of Jund Death's Shadow with 2x Abrade in the board, and it's been amazing. Great against Humans, great against Hollow Ones, and you just bring it in for any other matchup where you need more cheap removal, or artifact destruction. It's not a heavy impact sideboard card like what Jund is looking for, but it really impressed me in Jund DS so far so maybe it's worth a shot.
Hey Guys, So I've seen Red Knightfall with BBE do well online recently, and I've gone around and theory-crafted and started to test this deck, and I really like it. Could I get some feedback?
Hey man, I've been playing almost the same deck as you for the past few leagues. It's really fun, and surprisingly good. Courser had been lackluster for me though, so I cut both and now I am playing 2 Thalia, heretic Cathar. The card is SO good, especially with 8 mana dorks. I had a game where I mulled to 5 against Tron on the play, and my first play was Thalia on t3. It slowed him down 2 turns and I won.
The problem I've been having with the deck is lackluster 2-drops, but any bant company deck has always had that problem (aside from Devoted Druid). My 2-drop suite is 4 VoR, 2 Qasali, 2 Scooze, and I was considering trying Meddling mage in the board. But it might just be better main. I also was considering Clique to make combo matchups better, but I think the double Blue is too hard for the deck to cast it consistently.
2-drop Thalia is interesting. I could see it being good.
I really don't want to put any Quellers in the board. It's such vulnerable card, and I don't really even like it in most matchups where it would seem good. That, combined with the non-bo with BBE, makes it an easy cut.
Here's my current board:
2x Izzet Staticaster
2x Stony silence
2x Worship
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Eidolon of Rhetoric
3x Crumble to Dust (looking to replace these. Maybe with a stony silence, or fracturing Gust, or meddling mages, or maybe I will try thalia. Probably dampening Sphere when it comes out. Maybe a bojuka Bog)
If you can get out ahead of the 8rack player, you will probably be fine. Tracker is really good here. If you're on the draw and they T2 smallpox you to kill a land and dork, you're done for. Jace is great in this matchup. If you can ever land him, you basically win on the spot. Also stop playing lands once you hit 4 mana sources to keep your card count up in your hand. Unless you are locked under a Lilly +1 or Raven's Crime. Also Spell Queller can exile a Raven's Crime forever. You did mull to 5, which helps the 8rack deck immensely.
Every deck nowadays is running 4 bolt effects mainboard. Valakut decks, Affinity (Galv blast), RB Hollow One, Burn, Ponza, GR Eldrazi etc. It makes the devoted Druid combo plan hard to pull off (in my experience on mtgo over the past two days).
It's still sort of all-in on the infinite mana combo plan, but you can recharge pretty easily with Trackers, as well as have large Knights. I would look at add an eternal witness or two in there though. Maybe +2 Eternal Witness +1 Duskwatch, -1 Vizier -2 Courser.
I like the way it is set up, although that manabase looks rough. kessig Wolf run and a stomping ground should be in there as a combo piece.
Thanks for the write-up! Your report really resonated with me, as I've had the same experience playing Bant Company since the unbannings as you had during the GP. I played around 400 mtgo matches with Knightfall last year and was happy with it - it used to outgrind and outvalue all other midrange (old Abzan/Jund lists, Death's Shadow decks) and control decks like no ones business, but that is not true to the same degree anymore since new midrange decks have BBE to go over the top. Combo and Tron were always non-ideal matchups, and I feel like there are so many more linear decks nowadays to go under Jund/UW Control. Just look at your matchup list from the GP - Burn x2, Affinity, Storm. Not exactly dream matchups for Jace and KOTR. So, if we can't beat linear aggro, combo OR midrange anymore - what are we doing?
To me, it is super important to have speed. I don't want to durdle around with Voices and Coursers in this meta... unless you join team Jund, it is so important to kill them dead. I've had success in the last month with Vikrams list (12-3 record), normal Counters Company (38-10 record) and 5C Humans (79-26 record), and it feels much better to have a coherent, proactive gameplan instead of playing Jace value or casting Spell Quellers against 12-piece removal decks. I was thinking that a good halfway solution would be Vizier Bant without Knights/retreats a'la Kyle Boggemes' latest lists, but I ran that back to a 4-6 record yesterday and it felt so clunky.
I really want Bant Company to be good, and I'll probably keep at it now and again, but it just feels awful to me at the moment.
Honestly, I really liked Vikram's Devoted Druid combo list. But I didn't like the failrate. I also really like the Counters Company combo right now, but it sucks that the Finks/Seer combo is hard to execute on mtgo. I've had some previous 5-0 comp league success with an all-in devoted druid combo deck on mtgo last year when GDS was huge, so I'm going to try that again. And now that Stubborn Denial isn't as big, it might even be better! Here's the list:
I'm not sure on the split between Chord and Evolution. Chord is usually better overall, but with only 20 lands, it's often hard to make chord live. Aether vial is surprisingly good here. It let's you play around sorcery speed removal. It turns your eternal witnesses and Duskwatch Recruiters into card advantage engines. And then Commune With nature is there to give you more T3 wins by fishing for Devoted Druid on T1.
Again, this isn't just theory crafting. I've played this similar list to multiple comp league 5-0s last year. I think the meta could be ripe for it, especially with Jeskai control, grixis control, and grixis Death's Shadow performing poorly right now.
I took everyone's advice and replaced a 3rd Blessed Alliance with a single Worship. The logic made sense to me. Here are my rounds:
R1: Bye R2: Burn (0-2)
G1 He went 1-drop, searing blaze, searing blaze on the play. Mega dead.
G2 He went 1-drop, searing blood, searing blood, searing blaze. I didn't draw any fetches so my knight couldn't survive the onslaught. great draw from burn. Kind of impossible for a deck like Knightfall to beat. R3: RG Eldrazi (0-2)
G1 I mull to 6 but keep a solid hand of dork, V-Clique, CoCo, 3 land. He's on the play. He goes t-1 Noble, t-2 matter reshaper. I pass on T-2 to V-Clique on his draw step because it was his TKS turn and the only gas in my hand was my lonesome coco. He has more matter reshapers, Stirrings, a smasher, and no TKS.I decide to Clique his smasher because I have no answer to it in hand, barring the possibility to hit a TKS on the CLique draw to strip my only action in hand. He did. Took Coco, and I draw land dork land dork and lose.
G2: Mull to 6 again but keep triple dork, reflector mage, 2 lands on play. I reflector Mage his t-1 noble. Then I draw 3 more dorks and lose. Rough R4: Burn (2-1)
G1: I lose the dice roll and lose to natural burn stuff.
G2: I keep a solid hand with Dork, Knight with fetches, Queller, Scooze, and stuff. Drew into some blessed Alliances and a Worship. I was very far ahead, within a turn of winning, and I made a calculated decision of playing out Worship before my final winning turn. The reason I did this is to scare him into siding in some Destructive Revelries for G3, a card that is basically dead against my deck unless I draw into exactly Worship or my single Courser of Kruphix. Guess what? It worked.
G3: He fetches a Stomping Ground on t1, and plays mountain on t2. I have a solid creature hand, which outsizes his quickly. He never draws another land and I get there. He reveals his hand at the end and it's a bunch of white cards and a restructive revelery. He made the mistake of fetching stomping ground t1 to make sure he has green for Revelery. Mistake by him, although I believe that my Worship play in G2 scared him enough to make that mistake. R5: Jeskai Control (2-0)
Up against a young guy, probably about 14 or so, with a foiled out Jeskai Control deck.
G1: He flashed an electrolyze to me while he was shuffling, so I knew it was some sort of blue control deck. I kept a solid hand with a dork, Jace, 3 lands, and double coco. We trade resources on everything until the last card in hand is Jace. I land him with opponent on like 1 card. jace gets there.
G2: V-Clique, CoCOs, Tireless Trackers, Negates. He can't keep up. I feel like Bant CoCo is ehavily favored in these matchups if played correctly. R6: Affinity (1-2)
get matchup up against a buddy of mine. At this point we are still both alive for day 2 at 3-2.
G1: He does affinity stuff on the play, and I lose. I really think G1 against affinity is almost impossible to win, especially without the combo in my deck anymore.
G2: We trade a lot of resources, he plays a bloodmoon into my basics and birds board. I have 4 mana dorks, but I draw like 3 paths so I hang in there for a few turns until I draw a Coco and get there.
G3: I keep a 6-card hand of bird bird V-cique 3 lands on the draw. Only drew lands and dorks. Out of day 2 contention.
At this point I'm out of day 2 contention and my friend offers me some rum to drown my sorrows with him. I happily oblige and toss some into my Pepsi. Gotta enjoy my last two rounds, right?
R7: Storm (0-2)
Get matchup up against the guy I drove up with. Of course. I know he's on Storm. We are both dead for day 2 and I'm a bit tipsy so we talk a lot of *****, and joke around with each other.
G1: I just get crushed. G1 is almost impossible.
G2: I Clique him, take his win con and leave him with a bunch of rituals. Then he passes. I draw a Unifed Will (thank the lord). I play courser leave up unified Will. He tries to go off, and I counter his gifts after a few rituals so he fizzles and passes. He sees me draw a Queller. I get him down to 2, and he topdecks a gifts. He casts it. I quell it. Then he casts the last card in hand, a Past In Flames. That top-decking bastard. In retrospect, I potentially should have casted the Queller the turn before at his end step to lethal him in combat. But I was drinking. and we were ******* around. it was fun though.
R8: Jund (0-2)
At this point my care level is VERY low. Just having fun.
G1: He's on the play, and goes discard my noble, t-2 Dark Confidant. I have mono 3-drops in hand. Good start for him. he gets some rough flips on Dark Confidant and gets down to 1, but is able to take me out. Bob probably did about 10-2 damage to him.
G2: I keep a hand of 2 lands, double VoR, path, Courser and Knight. Never draw 3rd land. Oh well.
Overall, I ended 3-5, although I don't really count the last 2 rounds because I was drinking. I drew A LOT of mana dorks all day. I think I was pretty unlucky in that regard. Especially against RG eldrazi, which seems like a good matchup, especially with 3 Reflector Mages and 2 Kitchen Finks post board. But that happens sometimes with the deck. I'm not a big proponent of the deck going forward. It just doesn't have good matchups. I think control is favorable, Humans is favorable, and Jund is too, but every linear deck is good against you and winning game 1 is hard. Bringing Retreat back helps though.
That being said, I tried Vikram's Devoted Combo list in two comp leagues and went 10-0 in games in the first league. It felt really good, although I think I got pretty lucky in drawing the combo in a lot of those games. I did another league and went 3-2, and I felt like I got pretty unlucky in a lot of those games. For example, against RG valakut I assembled the infinite mana combo with a Selfless Spirit to defend it, a Unified will to stop titan, and a queller to stop Scapeshift/other shenanigans. I even drew another Queller. All I needed was the final combo piece (Wolfrun, Coco, chord, ballista, buskwatch) to finish him off. I bricked for about 5 turns and lost. Seems like just the way the deck plays though.
I started on this list:
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Death's Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Grim Flayer
2 Architects of Will
4 Street Wraith
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Fatal Push
2 Tarfire
2 Dismember
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Temur Battle Rage
4 Mishra's bauble
3 Whispers of Emrakul
1 Hazoret, the Fervant
1 Temur Battle Rage
2 Abrade
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Radiant Flames
1 maelstrom Pulse
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Golgari Charm
1 Reclamation Sage
Here's some of my findings:
1. 17 Lands was too low. I was getting stuck on 1 and 2 lands sometimes, causing me to lose A LOT of games in my first 3 leagues. I thought having an extra 2 cantrips with Architects of will, and then the two faithless lootings would aliviate this issue. Nope. I switched to 18 lands and it was WAY better. I cut an extra Architects of Will for an 18th land (Wooded Foothills).
2. Since I was only playing Jund colors with no manamorphose, I wanted the extra basic forest to play around Blood Moon. I didn't play against many BM decks, but the basic Forest was still good and I would continue playing it.
3. Whispers of Emrakul out of the board was AWESOME. It's great against control decks, combo decks, Tron, Valakut, and even burn. Since I'm not playing blue for stubborn denial, I really needed an extra push against these types of decks, and Whispers was GREAT. I went up to 4 in the board.
4. Against decks where creature removal sucks: This version has an issue where all your instants are creature removal, so against control and combo decks, you side out most of your instants. This problem is usually aleviated by playing manamorphose and bringing in stubborn denial, but I dont play blue and don't like manamorphose. So I usually keep in 2 tarfire against everything to keep delirium online. I usually just tarfire myself, or discard it to Faithless Looting. I am also changing 1 abrupt decay to a Kolaghan's command, so I can leave that in.
5. Dismember was too taxing on the life, so I changed it to terminate. Terminate was better for me. If there is a rise in green creature decks, I would go back to dismeber, but Terminate is better for now.
6. There were a lot of situations that I could have won if I had a Ghor-Clan Rampager in the deck to traverse for. So I cut the TBR in the board for a Ghor-Clan. It was a solid change. I don't have it junking up my main, but bring it in when I want it.
7. I struggled against Affinity. I was 1-2 against it, and the match where I won, the pilot was awful. So I added an extra Ancient grudge in the board, and changed an abrupt decay to a Kolaghan's OCmmand main. Here's my updated list:
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Death's Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Grim Flayer
1 Architects of Will
4 Street Wraith
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Fatal Push
2 Tarfire
2 Terminate
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Temur Battle Rage
4 Mishra's bauble
4 Whispers of Emrakul
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Abrade
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Radiant Flames
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Golgari Charm
1 Reclamation Sage
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Jund and blue decks playing Jace are such a low percentage of the meta. Being able to instant speed your kill spell is super important in a deck like this, more so than something like Jund.
On a side note for the Terminate/Dismember debate, I've been VERY impressed with dismember in Jund Death's Shadow. Being able to move your life total down by 4 at will felt SO powerful. It helps power out fast Death's Shadows, and is great vs blood moon decks. Once there is a blood moon out, it's really hard to alter your life totals with your fetchlands turned off, making DS not as potent. Dismember has swung me a lot of games just by being able to pay 4 life, and still being castable through a Blood Moon. But Jund DS is much more of an aggro/combo deck than Grixis.
If you know for sure about match 1 being one of those two options, I would run 4 stubborn denial somewhere in the 75. Maybe even in the main, because you can't get to the other matches without winning match 1. And then run a few GY hate cards in the board, like Nihil Spellbomb or surgical or a Grafdigger's Cage.
One card that is great against that whole spread of decks is Temur Battle Rage. I would probably run 2 main 1 side, or even 3 main since you know it will be good.
It also looks like you won't be playing against Blood Moon, so I would only run 1 Basic Swamp and no Basic Forest.
I agree, I really think LotV is terrible right now in the meta. Like what decks do you want her against? I've cut all Veils form every Death's Shadow list. I also think that's one of the reasons traditional Jund isn't good right now either. Sometimes that deck relies on LotV as a threat or a card advantage engine, and she just doesn't cut it.
The issue I had was I wanted to use all my mana on T1-T3, and having to cast the looting was like wasting the 1 mana because it didn't advance my board at all, and we all know that this deck doesn't work well from behind. It's weird to complain about a 1-mana spell tying up our mana, but it did. I actually cut the remaining two and went back to manamorphose. Mainly because there's like 5 different blood moon decks every modern night at the place I play at.
I've also been having trouble getting delirium reliably. I think I want to turn my 2 bolts back into Tarfires. It makes the humans matchup a bit worse, but I think overall it's a good change. I'm never really bolting my opponent for lethal, and tarfire kills most stuff we need it to. And in matchups where I need to find a threat ASAP (like blood moon decks, tron, combo, etc) I can just EOT Tarfire myself and basically turn on delirium by itself.
I also think I want to run a single Architects of Will. Just for an extra delirium Enabler. Plus I'm on 17 lands, and sometimes struggle to hit that 2nd or 3rd land.
2x Abrade
1x Bedlam Reveler
1x Hazoret
2x Collective Brutality
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Maelstorm Pulse
1x Golgari Charm
2x Radiant Flames
1x Temur Battle Rage
2x Young Pyromancer
I think with his board against burn, i do:
-4 Street Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Abrade
+1 TBR
The CBs and TBRs are obvious, but I think Abrade is fine because it can kill Ensnaring Bridge. I don't have much to work with in the board against burn. But I guess you can't SB against them all, right?
I think I'm going to run your exact mainboard, and change up the SB a bit to better fit my store's metagame. I like the two Young Pyros though. I felt like I could never beat a LotV with the list I was running. But cutting the Stubborn Denials makes me feel like I can never beat burn.
Has anyone here tried Abrade in the board yet? I've been playing a bit of Jund Death's Shadow with 2x Abrade in the board, and it's been amazing. Great against Humans, great against Hollow Ones, and you just bring it in for any other matchup where you need more cheap removal, or artifact destruction. It's not a heavy impact sideboard card like what Jund is looking for, but it really impressed me in Jund DS so far so maybe it's worth a shot.
Hey man, I've been playing almost the same deck as you for the past few leagues. It's really fun, and surprisingly good. Courser had been lackluster for me though, so I cut both and now I am playing 2 Thalia, heretic Cathar. The card is SO good, especially with 8 mana dorks. I had a game where I mulled to 5 against Tron on the play, and my first play was Thalia on t3. It slowed him down 2 turns and I won.
The problem I've been having with the deck is lackluster 2-drops, but any bant company deck has always had that problem (aside from Devoted Druid). My 2-drop suite is 4 VoR, 2 Qasali, 2 Scooze, and I was considering trying Meddling mage in the board. But it might just be better main. I also was considering Clique to make combo matchups better, but I think the double Blue is too hard for the deck to cast it consistently.
2-drop Thalia is interesting. I could see it being good.
I really don't want to put any Quellers in the board. It's such vulnerable card, and I don't really even like it in most matchups where it would seem good. That, combined with the non-bo with BBE, makes it an easy cut.
Here's my current board:
2x Izzet Staticaster
2x Stony silence
2x Worship
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Eidolon of Rhetoric
3x Crumble to Dust (looking to replace these. Maybe with a stony silence, or fracturing Gust, or meddling mages, or maybe I will try thalia. Probably dampening Sphere when it comes out. Maybe a bojuka Bog)
I saw this deck in the 5-0 lists today:
3 Birds of Paradise
2 Courser of Kruphix
4 Devoted Druid
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Tireless Tracker
4 Vizier of Remedies
1 Walking Ballista
4 Collected Company
3 Field of Ruin
6 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Plains
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
60 Cards
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
1 Worship
It's still sort of all-in on the infinite mana combo plan, but you can recharge pretty easily with Trackers, as well as have large Knights. I would look at add an eternal witness or two in there though. Maybe +2 Eternal Witness +1 Duskwatch, -1 Vizier -2 Courser.
I like the way it is set up, although that manabase looks rough. kessig Wolf run and a stomping ground should be in there as a combo piece.
Honestly, I really liked Vikram's Devoted Druid combo list. But I didn't like the failrate. I also really like the Counters Company combo right now, but it sucks that the Finks/Seer combo is hard to execute on mtgo. I've had some previous 5-0 comp league success with an all-in devoted druid combo deck on mtgo last year when GDS was huge, so I'm going to try that again. And now that Stubborn Denial isn't as big, it might even be better! Here's the list:
4x Commune With Nature
3x Chord of Calling
2x Eldritch Evolution
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Devoted Druid
4x Duskwatch
3x Vizier of Remedies
1x Selfless Spirit
2x Voice of Resurgence
2x Fauna Shaman
4x Eternal Witness
2x Renegade Rallier
1x Walking ballista
3x misty Rainforest
2x Temple garden
3x Forest
1x plains
2x Horizon Canopy
2x RazorVerge Thicket
1x Stomping Ground
1x Kessig Wolfrun
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Voice of Resurgence
2x Path
2x Fiery Justice
1x Kataki
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Sigarda, Host of herons
2x Lone missionary
1x Burrenton Forge Tender
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
I'm not sure on the split between Chord and Evolution. Chord is usually better overall, but with only 20 lands, it's often hard to make chord live. Aether vial is surprisingly good here. It let's you play around sorcery speed removal. It turns your eternal witnesses and Duskwatch Recruiters into card advantage engines. And then Commune With nature is there to give you more T3 wins by fishing for Devoted Druid on T1.
Again, this isn't just theory crafting. I've played this similar list to multiple comp league 5-0s last year. I think the meta could be ripe for it, especially with Jeskai control, grixis control, and grixis Death's Shadow performing poorly right now.
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
3x Voice of Resurgence
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Spell Queller
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Courser of Kruphix
4x Path to Exile
4x Collected Company
2x Jace. the Mind Scultor
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Flooded Strand
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Gavony Township
2x Forest
1x Plains
1x Island
2x Botanical Sanctum
1x Stirring Wildwood
2x Negate
3x Unified Will
3x Reflector Mage
2x Blessed Alliance
1x Worship
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Stony Silence
Spoiler Alert: It sucked.
I took everyone's advice and replaced a 3rd Blessed Alliance with a single Worship. The logic made sense to me. Here are my rounds:
R1: Bye
R2: Burn (0-2)
G1 He went 1-drop, searing blaze, searing blaze on the play. Mega dead.
G2 He went 1-drop, searing blood, searing blood, searing blaze. I didn't draw any fetches so my knight couldn't survive the onslaught. great draw from burn. Kind of impossible for a deck like Knightfall to beat.
R3: RG Eldrazi (0-2)
G1 I mull to 6 but keep a solid hand of dork, V-Clique, CoCo, 3 land. He's on the play. He goes t-1 Noble, t-2 matter reshaper. I pass on T-2 to V-Clique on his draw step because it was his TKS turn and the only gas in my hand was my lonesome coco. He has more matter reshapers, Stirrings, a smasher, and no TKS.I decide to Clique his smasher because I have no answer to it in hand, barring the possibility to hit a TKS on the CLique draw to strip my only action in hand. He did. Took Coco, and I draw land dork land dork and lose.
G2: Mull to 6 again but keep triple dork, reflector mage, 2 lands on play. I reflector Mage his t-1 noble. Then I draw 3 more dorks and lose. Rough
R4: Burn (2-1)
G1: I lose the dice roll and lose to natural burn stuff.
G2: I keep a solid hand with Dork, Knight with fetches, Queller, Scooze, and stuff. Drew into some blessed Alliances and a Worship. I was very far ahead, within a turn of winning, and I made a calculated decision of playing out Worship before my final winning turn. The reason I did this is to scare him into siding in some Destructive Revelries for G3, a card that is basically dead against my deck unless I draw into exactly Worship or my single Courser of Kruphix. Guess what? It worked.
G3: He fetches a Stomping Ground on t1, and plays mountain on t2. I have a solid creature hand, which outsizes his quickly. He never draws another land and I get there. He reveals his hand at the end and it's a bunch of white cards and a restructive revelery. He made the mistake of fetching stomping ground t1 to make sure he has green for Revelery. Mistake by him, although I believe that my Worship play in G2 scared him enough to make that mistake.
R5: Jeskai Control (2-0)
Up against a young guy, probably about 14 or so, with a foiled out Jeskai Control deck.
G1: He flashed an electrolyze to me while he was shuffling, so I knew it was some sort of blue control deck. I kept a solid hand with a dork, Jace, 3 lands, and double coco. We trade resources on everything until the last card in hand is Jace. I land him with opponent on like 1 card. jace gets there.
G2: V-Clique, CoCOs, Tireless Trackers, Negates. He can't keep up. I feel like Bant CoCo is ehavily favored in these matchups if played correctly.
R6: Affinity (1-2)
get matchup up against a buddy of mine. At this point we are still both alive for day 2 at 3-2.
G1: He does affinity stuff on the play, and I lose. I really think G1 against affinity is almost impossible to win, especially without the combo in my deck anymore.
G2: We trade a lot of resources, he plays a bloodmoon into my basics and birds board. I have 4 mana dorks, but I draw like 3 paths so I hang in there for a few turns until I draw a Coco and get there.
G3: I keep a 6-card hand of bird bird V-cique 3 lands on the draw. Only drew lands and dorks. Out of day 2 contention.
At this point I'm out of day 2 contention and my friend offers me some rum to drown my sorrows with him. I happily oblige and toss some into my Pepsi. Gotta enjoy my last two rounds, right?
R7: Storm (0-2)
Get matchup up against the guy I drove up with. Of course. I know he's on Storm. We are both dead for day 2 and I'm a bit tipsy so we talk a lot of *****, and joke around with each other.
G1: I just get crushed. G1 is almost impossible.
G2: I Clique him, take his win con and leave him with a bunch of rituals. Then he passes. I draw a Unifed Will (thank the lord). I play courser leave up unified Will. He tries to go off, and I counter his gifts after a few rituals so he fizzles and passes. He sees me draw a Queller. I get him down to 2, and he topdecks a gifts. He casts it. I quell it. Then he casts the last card in hand, a Past In Flames. That top-decking bastard. In retrospect, I potentially should have casted the Queller the turn before at his end step to lethal him in combat. But I was drinking. and we were ******* around. it was fun though.
R8: Jund (0-2)
At this point my care level is VERY low. Just having fun.
G1: He's on the play, and goes discard my noble, t-2 Dark Confidant. I have mono 3-drops in hand. Good start for him. he gets some rough flips on Dark Confidant and gets down to 1, but is able to take me out. Bob probably did about 10-2 damage to him.
G2: I keep a hand of 2 lands, double VoR, path, Courser and Knight. Never draw 3rd land. Oh well.
Overall, I ended 3-5, although I don't really count the last 2 rounds because I was drinking. I drew A LOT of mana dorks all day. I think I was pretty unlucky in that regard. Especially against RG eldrazi, which seems like a good matchup, especially with 3 Reflector Mages and 2 Kitchen Finks post board. But that happens sometimes with the deck. I'm not a big proponent of the deck going forward. It just doesn't have good matchups. I think control is favorable, Humans is favorable, and Jund is too, but every linear deck is good against you and winning game 1 is hard. Bringing Retreat back helps though.
That being said, I tried Vikram's Devoted Combo list in two comp leagues and went 10-0 in games in the first league. It felt really good, although I think I got pretty lucky in drawing the combo in a lot of those games. I did another league and went 3-2, and I felt like I got pretty unlucky in a lot of those games. For example, against RG valakut I assembled the infinite mana combo with a Selfless Spirit to defend it, a Unified will to stop titan, and a queller to stop Scapeshift/other shenanigans. I even drew another Queller. All I needed was the final combo piece (Wolfrun, Coco, chord, ballista, buskwatch) to finish him off. I bricked for about 5 turns and lost. Seems like just the way the deck plays though.