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.
I'm pretty locked in on the main and sideboard spell choices. The one thing I'm not quite sure about is the 2 Botanical Sanctum, 1 Stirring Wildwood. I'm not sold on Wildwood, and maybe it should be a Razorverge Thicket. Or maybe one of the Botanical Sanctums should be a Razorverge Thicket or possibly a second Temple Garden.
I'm pretty much dead to dredge, and don't have much game on storm either. You gotta make some concessions when making a SB, and those are mine. Wish me luck!
I've been on this deck for a long time now, but this was the first time playing it with JtMS. Jace was fine in the deck, but not super impressive. Gideon on the the other hand was a beast. More impressive than jace. The whole deck felt really good, although I want to play one more Clique main. Not sure what to cut. Thinking about Courser. I also want to add another Blessed Alliance in the board with all the Bogles decks running around. Blessed Alliance proved to be really good against humans. Their best card against us is Mantis rider, and this can get an exalted Mantis Rider AND/OR kill a phantasmal Image AND/OR gain 4 life. Really flexible.
Before the unbans I played 3 Retreats. It depends on the meta, if there are few interactive decks you should increase the odds of comboing. In the other hand if the matchups are grindy drawing a retreat without a Knight on the board is really painful. Now I`m testing with 2.
I will echo Trasno here and say that the slots are less about "utility creatures" and more about mana curve. 7-8 Dorks. 7-9 2-drops (Scooze, Qasali Pridemage, VoR, Selfless Spirit, occasionally JVP), then 12-14 3-drops. The 'always include' 3-drops being 4 KotR and 4 Queller, and then normally 2 Courser and 2 Tracker, and then some flex spots like eternal witness, Geist of Saint Traft, or Vendilion Clique(looking to make a comeback now). Then you have your 4 CoCo and 4 Path, and usually 0-3 Retreats. I like having 2, but many lists have 1. I have a friend who cut 4th path for a 3rd retreat, and he pushes the combo a lot. He also runs Geist though, so the retreat can come down with a fetchland and tap down a blocker or two.
In general, the land/mana dork split is usually 8 dorks/22 lands or 7 dorks/23 lands. If you're up against a lot of jund and control, I like the 7/23. If you're up against more "ignore what opponent is doing" decks, I like 8/22.
Some quick suggestions after looking over your decklist:
1. I think the proper land/dork configuration is 8 dorks/22 Lands or 7 dorks/23 Lands. You're on 7/22. I would bump that up to 7/23, especially with 2x tireless tracker drawing extra lands is totally fine for you. An active Knight also helps thin your deck once you get to 3 or 4 lands.
2. I just noticed there's no Horizon Canopy. Make that your 23rd land. It's cheap now. No excuse not to have it. It's important with Knight, and always comes into play untapped.
3. 3 Scooze is a lot. It's not as good in this deck as it is in decks like jund. I would just play 1. or 0.
4. I would trim a qasali pridemage down to 1. I don't really like the card, but some people swear by it. It's a personal preference I guess. I would go up to 3 VoR though.
5. I would cut Vendilion Clique completely. It's semi-hard to cast and not always great, so I eventually moved mine to the sideboard. And then once it was there, I realized it's not very impactful so I didn't think it was worth a SB slot either.
That's about it. SB looks fine. I would personally try and add another Unified Will or 2x Negate, but it's personal preference. Good Luck!
Grim Flayer continued to perform, especially with 7 discard spells main, and 1 more post-board. It let's you go T-1 Discard, T-2 Threat even more often, which is what we want to be doing. I want to fit a 3rd Grim Flayer into the deck somehow for testing it more, but I'm not sure what to cut. I'm actually considering cutting one of our sacred cows, Dark Confidant. That way it would be 3x Grim Flayer 3x Confidant.
I went 3-1 with the deck last night.it felt pretty good. The Tron matchup felt basically unwinnable though, even with a total of 2 Blood Moons and 3 Molten Rains in the 75. I'm sure Swiftspear helps a bit in this matchup. I cut them from the list. Overall, it felt a bit like Jund but with more value, and less of a clock. My matchups were:
I recently cut my two 4-drops in Jund because they suck, along with a land (down to 23), and added two Grim Flayers and a Mishra's Bauble for an FNM. Went 4-0. The Grim Flayers actually felt really good. I know it's a small sample size and all, but I will continue to try it in the future for sure.
My matches were as followed:
Storm 1-2: I mulled to 5 all 3 games. Game 3 I punted because he went for an empty the warrens for 8 goblins when I had a negate. I should have just negated one of the copies to stem the bleeding. I had mono-creatures in hand. I would have stabalized around 4 or 5 life if I had negated just one Warrens copies.
Ad Naus 0-2:
G1: On the play I went T2 TKS, T3 Smasher, T4 lose.
G2: On the play again, went T2 Stony Silence, T3 TKS, T4 Smasher, T5 lose.
This guy just drew the nuts every single game. It was kinda tilting considering I also drew the nuts, but his was just better.
Grixis Death Shadow 2-0:
Best possible matchup. I love watching GDS opponents squirm in their seat, trying to figure out how to win. Rolled both games.
Affinity 0-2(Ben Lundquist):
G1: I lose to a nut draw from affinity. Glint-Nest Crane proved to be a problem, because it finds another threat, can't be blocked by Spyspawner, and can't be blinked by Displacer.
G2: I get a big 3 for 1 with a t3 EE, and then land a displacer and a skyspawner. He is hellbent and topdecks a Galv blast, killing my displacer and putting me behind on board. Then he topdecks a Glint-Nest Crane, and I lose. Glint-Nest Crane was really good in this matchup.
At this point, I'm 1-3 but luckily my team is barely 2-2.
Affinity 2-0:
G1: On the play, assemble a quick displacer and skyspawner with like 9 mana available. Quick win.
G2: Basically the same as G1. Quick win
Jeskai 2-0:
G1: On the play with T1 Noble and 2 lands. Noble gets bolted, I get stuck on 2 lands. Ancient Stirrings misses. Luckily opponent has no pressure. Draw land 3 on like T5, I have mono-gas in hand and cavern in play, and win from there.
G2: Get ahead with double TKS, he stabilizes and drops Geist, I rip Drowner and get there.
Jund DS 2-1 (Clay Spicklemire):
G1: I lost to a TBR with no path in hand
G2: I play a RiP but he sets up a nice LotV which kills my smasher and gets us both hellbent. I topdeck a displacer and have 6 mana with his Lilly at 2. He kills Displacer with Lilly. I topdeck another displacer, and win in 2 turns.
G3: He keeps a 6 card hand on the play with Street Wraith, Fatal Push, IoK, Traverse, and no lands. Misses first two land drops. I just play a bunch of creatures and win.
GDS 2-0 (Daniel Fournier):
G1: He gets a fast start with double threat, and TBRs me down to 1 after I chump-blocked with a Skyspawner. I untap, sac sion for mana, play drowner with another in hand. He doesn't have burn spell so I play a second drowner and win.
G2: I play good creatures on curve and win. Again, this matchup is miserable for GDS.
In the last round, our team was 5-2 playing for day 2. Unfortunately our team loses and we wend 5-3 on the day, with my personal record 5-3. Bant Eldrazi was fine, but never really impressive. By SB felt good too, although next time I would opt for 1 more card to bring in against affinity because I had to leave a lot of crap cards in after board in that matchup. If we would see Death's Shadow decks every other round, I would absolutely suggest this deck. But that's not how modern is. Also with Eldrazi Tron on a downswing, I don't like this deck choice because it hurts losing one of our other good matchups. The Ad Naus matchup was somewhat tilting because I basically had my nutdraw both games, and it didn't matter. Maybe the powerlevel of Bant Eldrazi just isn't there anymore.
When it comes to the affinity matchup I think Jund has a clear advantage with K Command and Ancient Grudge VS Abzan's Stony Silence and Lingering Souls.
I'm just gonna throw this statement out there too; Lingering Souls isn't an argument for deck choice anymore when considering Jund or Abzan.
My reasoning; we now have Rabblemaster. The two cards have the same role in both decks. The only difference between the cards is is that Rabble is weaker to targeted removal and can ONLY pressure the opponent. The trade off for souls is a slower clock, but the card can be found with Grim Flayer and portioned out between two casts.
So, as stated somewhere before, it all comes down to play preferences. Do you like to pressure your opponent? Or do you like to play it safe and have them play into their demise?
In modern, I prefer to pressure. And that's why I play Jund instead of Abzan. Just my opinion, man.
Rabblemaster and Lingering Souls do not fill the same role. Rabblemaster is there to clock slow decks. Lingering Souls is there to act as a sticky threat against grindy decks and control decks, and as a roadblock against aggro decks. They might fill the same cmc slot, but they do not fill the same role.
One reason I prefer Jund, which I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, is that it just curves out better. But it's hard to explain. If you look at Jund vs Abzan lists, you will see that they have almost the exact same average cmc. But when you play the different decks, Jund just always feels smoother. And I think it has to do with Lingering Souls. The card can be very clunky sometimes, and doesn't pressure opponents well in the early game. Jund's gameplan in the early game is to go T1 1-drop, T2 2-drop, T3 3-drop(Lilly) OR 1-drop+2-Drop. Abzan's gameplan is similar, but it has less T1 interaction, and more 3 drops. So when Abzan goes T1 spell, T2 spell, T3 souls, the souls might put them behind on board or at least doesn't push an advantage. And Abzan is less likely to have a 1-drop plus 2-drop on T3 since it plays less 1cmc interaction (Path not included here).
I'm not saying Lingering Souls is bad. It's an insane card in many matchups. But it just makes the Abzan rock decks a little less smooth compared to Jund. In a midrange matchup, or against UW control, the clunkyness of Abzan doesn't matter because you don't need to pressure as fast as possible. But in other matchups where curving out is more important, Jund trumps abzan.
1
3
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
3x Blessed Alliance
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Stony Silence
I'm pretty locked in on the main and sideboard spell choices. The one thing I'm not quite sure about is the 2 Botanical Sanctum, 1 Stirring Wildwood. I'm not sold on Wildwood, and maybe it should be a Razorverge Thicket. Or maybe one of the Botanical Sanctums should be a Razorverge Thicket or possibly a second Temple Garden.
I'm pretty much dead to dredge, and don't have much game on storm either. You gotta make some concessions when making a SB, and those are mine. Wish me luck!
1
4x Noblie Hierarch
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
3x Voice of Resurgence
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Spell Queller
2x Courser of Kruphix
2x Tireless Tracker
1x Vendilion CLique
4x Path to Exile
4x Collected Company
4x Windswept Heath
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
1x Botanical Sanctum
1x Razorverge Thicket
1x Stirring Wildwood
2x Negate
3x Unified Will
2x Stony Silence
2x Blessed Alliance
3x Reflector mage
2x Kitchen Finks
I've been on this deck for a long time now, but this was the first time playing it with JtMS. Jace was fine in the deck, but not super impressive. Gideon on the the other hand was a beast. More impressive than jace. The whole deck felt really good, although I want to play one more Clique main. Not sure what to cut. Thinking about Courser. I also want to add another Blessed Alliance in the board with all the Bogles decks running around. Blessed Alliance proved to be really good against humans. Their best card against us is Mantis rider, and this can get an exalted Mantis Rider AND/OR kill a phantasmal Image AND/OR gain 4 life. Really flexible.
1
I will echo Trasno here and say that the slots are less about "utility creatures" and more about mana curve. 7-8 Dorks. 7-9 2-drops (Scooze, Qasali Pridemage, VoR, Selfless Spirit, occasionally JVP), then 12-14 3-drops. The 'always include' 3-drops being 4 KotR and 4 Queller, and then normally 2 Courser and 2 Tracker, and then some flex spots like eternal witness, Geist of Saint Traft, or Vendilion Clique(looking to make a comeback now). Then you have your 4 CoCo and 4 Path, and usually 0-3 Retreats. I like having 2, but many lists have 1. I have a friend who cut 4th path for a 3rd retreat, and he pushes the combo a lot. He also runs Geist though, so the retreat can come down with a fetchland and tap down a blocker or two.
In general, the land/mana dork split is usually 8 dorks/22 lands or 7 dorks/23 lands. If you're up against a lot of jund and control, I like the 7/23. If you're up against more "ignore what opponent is doing" decks, I like 8/22.
1
Some quick suggestions after looking over your decklist:
1. I think the proper land/dork configuration is 8 dorks/22 Lands or 7 dorks/23 Lands. You're on 7/22. I would bump that up to 7/23, especially with 2x tireless tracker drawing extra lands is totally fine for you. An active Knight also helps thin your deck once you get to 3 or 4 lands.
2. I just noticed there's no Horizon Canopy. Make that your 23rd land. It's cheap now. No excuse not to have it. It's important with Knight, and always comes into play untapped.
3. 3 Scooze is a lot. It's not as good in this deck as it is in decks like jund. I would just play 1. or 0.
4. I would trim a qasali pridemage down to 1. I don't really like the card, but some people swear by it. It's a personal preference I guess. I would go up to 3 VoR though.
5. I would cut Vendilion Clique completely. It's semi-hard to cast and not always great, so I eventually moved mine to the sideboard. And then once it was there, I realized it's not very impactful so I didn't think it was worth a SB slot either.
That's about it. SB looks fine. I would personally try and add another Unified Will or 2x Negate, but it's personal preference. Good Luck!
2
R1: Dredge 2-1
R2: Burn 2-0
R3: Infect 2-1
R4: ID
Here's the list I was running:
4x Dark Confidant
4x Goyf
2x Scooze
2x Grim Flayer
4x Lotv
4x Iok
3x Thoughtseize
4x Bolt
2x Fatal Push
2x Terminate
1x Dreadbore
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Mishra's bauble
23 Lands
SB:
1x THoughtseize
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Lilly Last Hope
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Nihil Spellbomb
3x Fulminator Mage
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Collective Brutality
1x Grafdigger's Cage
Grim Flayer continued to perform, especially with 7 discard spells main, and 1 more post-board. It let's you go T-1 Discard, T-2 Threat even more often, which is what we want to be doing. I want to fit a 3rd Grim Flayer into the deck somehow for testing it more, but I'm not sure what to cut. I'm actually considering cutting one of our sacred cows, Dark Confidant. That way it would be 3x Grim Flayer 3x Confidant.
1
Abzan: 2-0
BR Goryo's Reanimator: 2-1
GxTron: 0-2
Grixis DS: 2-1
1
I recently cut my two 4-drops in Jund because they suck, along with a land (down to 23), and added two Grim Flayers and a Mishra's Bauble for an FNM. Went 4-0. The Grim Flayers actually felt really good. I know it's a small sample size and all, but I will continue to try it in the future for sure.
1
23 lands (Horizon Canopy as the utility land)
4 Noble
1 Bop
4 Displacer
4 TKS
4 Smasher
4 Drowner
3 Matter Reshaper
3 Skyspawner
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Path
2 EE
SB:
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 RiP
2 Stony
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 negate
1 Stubbs
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Worship
1 EE
1 Thragtusk
My matches were as followed:
Storm 1-2: I mulled to 5 all 3 games. Game 3 I punted because he went for an empty the warrens for 8 goblins when I had a negate. I should have just negated one of the copies to stem the bleeding. I had mono-creatures in hand. I would have stabalized around 4 or 5 life if I had negated just one Warrens copies.
Ad Naus 0-2:
G1: On the play I went T2 TKS, T3 Smasher, T4 lose.
G2: On the play again, went T2 Stony Silence, T3 TKS, T4 Smasher, T5 lose.
This guy just drew the nuts every single game. It was kinda tilting considering I also drew the nuts, but his was just better.
Grixis Death Shadow 2-0:
Best possible matchup. I love watching GDS opponents squirm in their seat, trying to figure out how to win. Rolled both games.
Affinity 0-2(Ben Lundquist):
G1: I lose to a nut draw from affinity. Glint-Nest Crane proved to be a problem, because it finds another threat, can't be blocked by Spyspawner, and can't be blinked by Displacer.
G2: I get a big 3 for 1 with a t3 EE, and then land a displacer and a skyspawner. He is hellbent and topdecks a Galv blast, killing my displacer and putting me behind on board. Then he topdecks a Glint-Nest Crane, and I lose. Glint-Nest Crane was really good in this matchup.
At this point, I'm 1-3 but luckily my team is barely 2-2.
Affinity 2-0:
G1: On the play, assemble a quick displacer and skyspawner with like 9 mana available. Quick win.
G2: Basically the same as G1. Quick win
Jeskai 2-0:
G1: On the play with T1 Noble and 2 lands. Noble gets bolted, I get stuck on 2 lands. Ancient Stirrings misses. Luckily opponent has no pressure. Draw land 3 on like T5, I have mono-gas in hand and cavern in play, and win from there.
G2: Get ahead with double TKS, he stabilizes and drops Geist, I rip Drowner and get there.
Jund DS 2-1 (Clay Spicklemire):
G1: I lost to a TBR with no path in hand
G2: I play a RiP but he sets up a nice LotV which kills my smasher and gets us both hellbent. I topdeck a displacer and have 6 mana with his Lilly at 2. He kills Displacer with Lilly. I topdeck another displacer, and win in 2 turns.
G3: He keeps a 6 card hand on the play with Street Wraith, Fatal Push, IoK, Traverse, and no lands. Misses first two land drops. I just play a bunch of creatures and win.
GDS 2-0 (Daniel Fournier):
G1: He gets a fast start with double threat, and TBRs me down to 1 after I chump-blocked with a Skyspawner. I untap, sac sion for mana, play drowner with another in hand. He doesn't have burn spell so I play a second drowner and win.
G2: I play good creatures on curve and win. Again, this matchup is miserable for GDS.
In the last round, our team was 5-2 playing for day 2. Unfortunately our team loses and we wend 5-3 on the day, with my personal record 5-3. Bant Eldrazi was fine, but never really impressive. By SB felt good too, although next time I would opt for 1 more card to bring in against affinity because I had to leave a lot of crap cards in after board in that matchup. If we would see Death's Shadow decks every other round, I would absolutely suggest this deck. But that's not how modern is. Also with Eldrazi Tron on a downswing, I don't like this deck choice because it hurts losing one of our other good matchups. The Ad Naus matchup was somewhat tilting because I basically had my nutdraw both games, and it didn't matter. Maybe the powerlevel of Bant Eldrazi just isn't there anymore.
1
Rabblemaster and Lingering Souls do not fill the same role. Rabblemaster is there to clock slow decks. Lingering Souls is there to act as a sticky threat against grindy decks and control decks, and as a roadblock against aggro decks. They might fill the same cmc slot, but they do not fill the same role.
One reason I prefer Jund, which I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, is that it just curves out better. But it's hard to explain. If you look at Jund vs Abzan lists, you will see that they have almost the exact same average cmc. But when you play the different decks, Jund just always feels smoother. And I think it has to do with Lingering Souls. The card can be very clunky sometimes, and doesn't pressure opponents well in the early game. Jund's gameplan in the early game is to go T1 1-drop, T2 2-drop, T3 3-drop(Lilly) OR 1-drop+2-Drop. Abzan's gameplan is similar, but it has less T1 interaction, and more 3 drops. So when Abzan goes T1 spell, T2 spell, T3 souls, the souls might put them behind on board or at least doesn't push an advantage. And Abzan is less likely to have a 1-drop plus 2-drop on T3 since it plays less 1cmc interaction (Path not included here).
I'm not saying Lingering Souls is bad. It's an insane card in many matchups. But it just makes the Abzan rock decks a little less smooth compared to Jund. In a midrange matchup, or against UW control, the clunkyness of Abzan doesn't matter because you don't need to pressure as fast as possible. But in other matchups where curving out is more important, Jund trumps abzan.