I think if you are using permanents to stop kci, you're doing it wrong. I've played vs this deck a lot and they always win through chalice or eidolon. For our deck, I think surgical extraction is the way to go. It also has other applications, like vs storm and dresge, so it's not completely dead in other matches.
Fluffy, how good has glorybringer been? I keep going back and forth between that and eidolon. Dragon is better call midrange and eidolon is better vs control and combo.
The people who have posted the link to the CFB thank you. This has made my day. I’m on mobile at the moment but this has been the best news today!
Raystack your little mountainfolk are growing up!! Are you proud of us dad!?
I'm so excited that Eric decided to write another article about this deck. You deserve it, Fluff. You've put countless hours into this deck, testing all sorts of different things (Charbelcher?) and have been a pillar of this forum with your commentary. More importantly, however, is your dedication to streaming every night on a schedule. That's not an easy thing to do, but you make it look easy. Thanks again for all your work and congrats on getting as article written about your deck and positive results with it.
Dev, Why change something for the sake of changing something? Not saying that you shouldn't change things, but it feel like you are changing things for a reason I don't fully understand? as bad as Eidolon has been for me lately, I still think there's merit to keeping it in. I've played vs all creature decks and that the exact opposite of where its good. If I played vs a lot of tron and storm, I'd be singing a different tune about eidolon.
Has anybody run dire fleet daredevil I often feel like this deck needs another 1-2 low cmc threats and I have thought about running this card.
I've thought about this a lot when jund was popular. I like this card so much, I might even find a home for it in the main instead of eidolon. Problem it that it helps in completely different matches that eidolon, so I might put it to the board and play only three eidolon in the 75 like I used to.
Actually, the more I think about it while typing this response, the more I like it. going to have to test this in a few weeks.....wait, a few weeks? yep. God of War comes out today. probably won't be playing much magic for the next week or two. For those who have never played god of War, it's one of my favorite games of all time (right next to Resident Evil 4, Gears of War, and Final Fantasy). If you have played god of War, then you know what the excitement is all about.
I just wanted to say thanks russ for the advice, it's a delayed post but I won modern on Tuesday night going 3-1. First round I played bant knightfall and won via an early blood moon. I sided out my chalices and all my creatures (except for the one of hazoret I run main) and brought in all my wraths and silver bullets like damping matrix and torpor orb and won 2-1. Next I played against temur moon which I lost to 2-1 although I had some horrible hands (didn't want to go to 5) and still nearly won except for him casting 2 huntmasters both games and just bouncing them up and down gaining life and pinging me for 4 a turn (he couldn't swing as I had bridges in all games). I played bant coco next and won 2-1 (once again siding out my chalices and playing the same strategy against bant knightfall) mostly won through damping matrix/blood moon/bridge and chandra for the win. Last I played jeskai control and won 2-1 mostly through just lots of pressure through rabblemasters, mutavault and chandra, oh and G3 I slowed him down a lot by naming scalding tarn with the spyglass.
Well firstly it must be that saturday was an aberration as the deck was back to performing well tue night.
Things I learnt, I have taken all magus's out and don't really miss them much. Mom and pop actually won me 2 rounds, firstly against bant knightfall when he cast a kor firewalker and I had 2 colorless thopter tokens to trade and protect chandra. I beat jeskai control after he (rather strangely allowed me to draw P&K after fatesealing me) I had a cage, spyglass and 2 thopters and he was at 4 life so I will def keep it now. I know a number of you weren't completely sold on koth but I don't think I have ever lost a games off a koth emblem and that continued tue night. Still not sure about eidolon MB, it seems like there are really only certain matchups I want them and also sometimes it backfires and stops me from casting spells.Lastly ray used to run magma jet and I took this from him and have been running 3 MB and I have found these are amazing( I really wish I could fit in abrades somewhere not sure what to take out unless a straight swap for magma jets), they allow me to take slightly riskier opening hands and also smooth out my draws and help my top decks later in the game, and sometimes the damage can actually be relevant.
Nicely done on the 3-1 FNM! That's what I'm talking about. I happy the new strategy worked for you vs the green company decks. Funny, I bet you never thought to take out the chalices before.
On Magma jet, yes, vs those decks, magma jet is definitely better. Play a few rounds vs eldrazi tron, big tron, affinity, storm, or anything with aether vial then report back. Hell, play vs humans and see how fast their dudes get to three toughness while you stare at magma jet in your hand. Not to mention Hollow-one....My point is....don't let a small sample size fool you. Trust me, the first time you lose to a hollow-one while staring at magma jet or watch your opponent storm off with a boral while you are looking at magma jet in your hand, you'll understand. And I didn't even get to eldrazi displacer.....
Keep up the great work. If you want to get good with this deck, and I mean real good, you have to get on mtgo. crushing fnm is nice, but it's a limited number of games, in a small geographic area, vs the same people week after week. MTGO has players from all over the world playing all types of different decks. You'll learn a lot really fast by jamming some leagues and getting experience in all sorts of different situations. I know its expensive to get this deck twice (paper and online), but if you're serious (and it's cool if you're more of a casual player), then online is where you need to be.
Anyway, keep up the great work. Curious, what did you change in the board to make room for damping matrix? did you pull the molten rains and use boil/matrix like I suggested or did you do something else? Would love to know.
Also congrats to Russ on two 5-0 finishes in a week.
It is, however, unfortunate that this success is making pyro prison more of a known entity, hopefully not to its disadvantage.
Welcome Skirmbot! Please feels free to comment more often, especially if you pick up this deck and give it a try. All ideas are welcome and the more collaboration we have here, the faster we'll be to finding a "perfect" list....that is until the meta changes or a new set comes out!
Is silent gravestone viable enough outside of KCI to make it a sideboard worthy card?
Hmm....It turns off snapcast mage and torrential gearhulk, stops ooze from growing/gaining life, and, of course, completely stops ironworks. Is is better than cage?
Cage also tsops snaps, but that's not revelant since we don't bring in cage for snap decks. The main reason we run cage is to stop CoCo and Chord. Also hitting dredge and having game against hollow-one while also shutting off the back half of ancient grudge (in hollow-one becuase we don't side in cage vs other decks) is also a plus.
It's definitely worth a discussion. Did I missing anything here?
Russ, I'm playing this Sunday for the first time in a while. Do you have an updated list? I don't own Glorybringer, but might be able to pick them up. Local meta includes Death Shadow, Grixis Control, Esper COntrol, Kiki-Jiki, Burn, elves, Zoo, Infect. Thanks.
I'm currently on the list that was posted on mtgo. Given that meta, I would stick wit that list. haven't been a fan of eidolon in the main, but you got control, control, and infect in that list, so it's going to be good for you. Also, it blocks an elf or a zoo dude. No glorybringer. that was for a jund/mardu heavy meta. actually, given that list of blue based decks, you might want to swap out the two molten rain I have in the board for a two boil. or a boil and a walking ballista. use your judgement, but I think the maindeck will be fine for what you are looking at.
R3: U Tron, 2-1. G1 I got stuck on two lands and he had answers for both my ritual into blood moon attempts. G2 and 3 sorcerous spyglass hit and stopped chromatic sphere when he had only tron lands out (tapped at the time, too, so he couldnt crack to draw even).
Nugs I'm pretty sure naming Sphere has no effect. I think that it is a mana ability, therefore Spyglass does nothing. If I'm wrong please correct me, but that was my understanding of that interaction.
Russ! SICK! Can't wait to watch the replay. Congrats man.... way past that chest goal now. So Eidolon's main? I'm sure you'll talk about in the stream
Two eidolon in the main. They haven't done anything. You would think drawing both of them game one vs KCI would have had some sort of effect, but nope. They naturally drew Explosives, and killed the eidolons, then killed me in the same turn. Funny because I was hesitant on keeping that opening hand and said that this hand a amazing vs. KCI. Well, it was KCI and I promptly died. If this deck continues to be popular, then we're going to want damping sphere, or even....dare I say....leyline of the void? I'm actually not a big fan of damping sphere. We already have lock pieces that do exactly what damping sphere wants to accomplish. But Leyline? That would be a HUGE investment of cards to take out in a deck like this. One shot graveyard removal won't do it here. We need to shut down. 4 abrade is not enough. Maybe we make some room and take out the cages for.....what? Tormods crypt is not good enough because one shots will not make this work. it just won't. The only card that can realistically deal with the graveyard that we can play in a mono red deck is the Leyline. Can anyone else give me a suggestion for how to deal with KCI? Damping matrix shuts off explosives, so that's also a thing, but spyglass does that too.
Anyway, been having a blast playing this lately....oh, and the creature domination vs. pyromancer was on full display last night. Rabblemaster was able to race lingering souls...three of them. that's 12 tokens we attacked through, but we got there.
Stickballruss you talked about adding a color to the deck during Fuffly Wolf's match and commented that white was defensive but would not that be what we need? Protect our blood moons bridge and chalice? for example a boros charm guarantees 4 damage, indestructibility to our permanents and even a double blow to the rabblemaster. Destruction of enchantments such as leyline and halo runed are hard to play around.
The black is very aggressive but I at the moment I can only think of using the lilianas because of the ult of them kkk ...so how can we improve the deck to let more overpower? ... maybe the monored version is already overpower by itself.
I was thinking about lily since we have a real problem with tarmogoyf and we are usually empty handed by the 5th turn. tick up only hurts opponent and the sac a creature ability can be really useful. Given that i'm 10-0 in my last 2 online comp leagues (5-0 on stream last night, 5-0 off stream but commented on fluffy's stream earlier this week) I don't think i would change a thing right now. this meta is so ripe for this deck, it's unreal. Counterspeels have vanished, jund is in hibernation. If you're not dropping 4/4's on turn one, playing a bunch of spells with creatures attached to them(humans), or playing slippery dudes that can't be targeted which turn into 15/15 first strike, banding, life link, trample, rampage 2, then you're doing it wrong in modern right now....which is perfect because we beat all those decks. Event he praevalent combo decks like Amulet titan and cheerios are good for us. even storm is 50/50. I think KCI is really the only combo deck that we need to be afraid of.
Should have lost to kci, but there's a timer in mtgo and my opponent took 17 minutes to combo off game.ine....through both eidolons. List should be published again next time mtgo posts them
same list as last time. It's been great. Pyro is back, baby!
Thanks russ for the detailed response it really helps getting the detailed breakdowns for decks, particularly as I only really play locally and don't go to GPs or big tournies regularly.
A couple of queries though is scapeshift a bad matchup or is titanshift a bad matchup. Scapeshift has counterspells whereas titanshift has little MB interaction.
Also you mentioned hollow one is a good matchup whereas I found it quite difficult. I felt like I had to be on the play to get chalice on 1 to shut off the burning inquiry and then I needed a bridge. Post-SB I needed chalice on 1 and a bridge, plus either chalice on 2 to stop grudge or a blood moon and a 2nd bridge.
In my playtesting against bant company and counters company, chalice on 1 on the play was ok but often not great, chalice on 2 was the best but often they would coco in response and just queller the chalice, so maybe you're right about taking out the chalices. I was on a 1/1 split with cage and relic but I'm going to try 2 cages, and a 2nd damping matrix.
Similar to Dev I have found I am not overly fond of P&K. I have it SB and bring in for midrange, ctrl matchups and things like deathshadow but outside of it just feels slow. What matchups do you leave it in for and what do you side it out in?
The ability to create three bodies with one card is where the value of Pia and Kiran come in. also, its two evasive attackers that can attack through bridge. Not a fast clock, but better than no clock. I usually keep pia and kiran in for most matched. Vs combo, it's 4 power for 4 mana. that's a decent rate. Vs control, it takes a lot of one for one removal to deal with. Vs creature heavy decks, it can buy you a turn or two, or keep a planeswalker alive to see one more card or ultimate a koth. Vs jund, it's a house. its good (not great, just good) vs everything. The same cannot be said for the other cards. Some a great in a match and others suck, and there's little in between. Pia and Kiran fill a strange role of being slightly above average all the time,
As far as which valakut deck is harder, they both suck. Titanshift requires you to have all the lock pieces. Bring to light only requires blood moon. If you can sneak one through, then you're in good shape. the problem is the remands, then the cryptics. Repeal is also a card and they can bounce the moon, then untap and blow you out. They both have their own way of negating our plan, so both are hard, just in different ways.
As far as counters company is concerned, those chalices that don't do anything could be cards tat do something. Start with taking out 4 chalice and putting in 2 cages and 2 spyglass. then drop the rabbles for angers, spellsike, and a torpor orb. Rely on the planeswalkers to win this match.
That would be the ultimate hate card. I don't think they can stop that.
I'm so excited that Eric decided to write another article about this deck. You deserve it, Fluff. You've put countless hours into this deck, testing all sorts of different things (Charbelcher?) and have been a pillar of this forum with your commentary. More importantly, however, is your dedication to streaming every night on a schedule. That's not an easy thing to do, but you make it look easy. Thanks again for all your work and congrats on getting as article written about your deck and positive results with it.
Russ
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2018-04-20
I've thought about this a lot when jund was popular. I like this card so much, I might even find a home for it in the main instead of eidolon. Problem it that it helps in completely different matches that eidolon, so I might put it to the board and play only three eidolon in the 75 like I used to.
Actually, the more I think about it while typing this response, the more I like it. going to have to test this in a few weeks.....wait, a few weeks? yep. God of War comes out today. probably won't be playing much magic for the next week or two. For those who have never played god of War, it's one of my favorite games of all time (right next to Resident Evil 4, Gears of War, and Final Fantasy). If you have played god of War, then you know what the excitement is all about.
Nicely done on the 3-1 FNM! That's what I'm talking about. I happy the new strategy worked for you vs the green company decks. Funny, I bet you never thought to take out the chalices before.
On Magma jet, yes, vs those decks, magma jet is definitely better. Play a few rounds vs eldrazi tron, big tron, affinity, storm, or anything with aether vial then report back. Hell, play vs humans and see how fast their dudes get to three toughness while you stare at magma jet in your hand. Not to mention Hollow-one....My point is....don't let a small sample size fool you. Trust me, the first time you lose to a hollow-one while staring at magma jet or watch your opponent storm off with a boral while you are looking at magma jet in your hand, you'll understand. And I didn't even get to eldrazi displacer.....
Keep up the great work. If you want to get good with this deck, and I mean real good, you have to get on mtgo. crushing fnm is nice, but it's a limited number of games, in a small geographic area, vs the same people week after week. MTGO has players from all over the world playing all types of different decks. You'll learn a lot really fast by jamming some leagues and getting experience in all sorts of different situations. I know its expensive to get this deck twice (paper and online), but if you're serious (and it's cool if you're more of a casual player), then online is where you need to be.
Anyway, keep up the great work. Curious, what did you change in the board to make room for damping matrix? did you pull the molten rains and use boil/matrix like I suggested or did you do something else? Would love to know.
Welcome Skirmbot! Please feels free to comment more often, especially if you pick up this deck and give it a try. All ideas are welcome and the more collaboration we have here, the faster we'll be to finding a "perfect" list....that is until the meta changes or a new set comes out!
Hmm....It turns off snapcast mage and torrential gearhulk, stops ooze from growing/gaining life, and, of course, completely stops ironworks. Is is better than cage?
Cage also tsops snaps, but that's not revelant since we don't bring in cage for snap decks. The main reason we run cage is to stop CoCo and Chord. Also hitting dredge and having game against hollow-one while also shutting off the back half of ancient grudge (in hollow-one becuase we don't side in cage vs other decks) is also a plus.
It's definitely worth a discussion. Did I missing anything here?
I'm currently on the list that was posted on mtgo. Given that meta, I would stick wit that list. haven't been a fan of eidolon in the main, but you got control, control, and infect in that list, so it's going to be good for you. Also, it blocks an elf or a zoo dude. No glorybringer. that was for a jund/mardu heavy meta. actually, given that list of blue based decks, you might want to swap out the two molten rain I have in the board for a two boil. or a boil and a walking ballista. use your judgement, but I think the maindeck will be fine for what you are looking at.
Two eidolon in the main. They haven't done anything. You would think drawing both of them game one vs KCI would have had some sort of effect, but nope. They naturally drew Explosives, and killed the eidolons, then killed me in the same turn. Funny because I was hesitant on keeping that opening hand and said that this hand a amazing vs. KCI. Well, it was KCI and I promptly died. If this deck continues to be popular, then we're going to want damping sphere, or even....dare I say....leyline of the void? I'm actually not a big fan of damping sphere. We already have lock pieces that do exactly what damping sphere wants to accomplish. But Leyline? That would be a HUGE investment of cards to take out in a deck like this. One shot graveyard removal won't do it here. We need to shut down. 4 abrade is not enough. Maybe we make some room and take out the cages for.....what? Tormods crypt is not good enough because one shots will not make this work. it just won't. The only card that can realistically deal with the graveyard that we can play in a mono red deck is the Leyline. Can anyone else give me a suggestion for how to deal with KCI? Damping matrix shuts off explosives, so that's also a thing, but spyglass does that too.
Anyway, been having a blast playing this lately....oh, and the creature domination vs. pyromancer was on full display last night. Rabblemaster was able to race lingering souls...three of them. that's 12 tokens we attacked through, but we got there.
I was thinking about lily since we have a real problem with tarmogoyf and we are usually empty handed by the 5th turn. tick up only hurts opponent and the sac a creature ability can be really useful. Given that i'm 10-0 in my last 2 online comp leagues (5-0 on stream last night, 5-0 off stream but commented on fluffy's stream earlier this week) I don't think i would change a thing right now. this meta is so ripe for this deck, it's unreal. Counterspeels have vanished, jund is in hibernation. If you're not dropping 4/4's on turn one, playing a bunch of spells with creatures attached to them(humans), or playing slippery dudes that can't be targeted which turn into 15/15 first strike, banding, life link, trample, rampage 2, then you're doing it wrong in modern right now....which is perfect because we beat all those decks. Event he praevalent combo decks like Amulet titan and cheerios are good for us. even storm is 50/50. I think KCI is really the only combo deck that we need to be afraid of.
Traverse shadow
Burn
KCI
Mardu pyromancer
Humans
Should have lost to kci, but there's a timer in mtgo and my opponent took 17 minutes to combo off game.ine....through both eidolons. List should be published again next time mtgo posts them
same list as last time. It's been great. Pyro is back, baby!
The ability to create three bodies with one card is where the value of Pia and Kiran come in. also, its two evasive attackers that can attack through bridge. Not a fast clock, but better than no clock. I usually keep pia and kiran in for most matched. Vs combo, it's 4 power for 4 mana. that's a decent rate. Vs control, it takes a lot of one for one removal to deal with. Vs creature heavy decks, it can buy you a turn or two, or keep a planeswalker alive to see one more card or ultimate a koth. Vs jund, it's a house. its good (not great, just good) vs everything. The same cannot be said for the other cards. Some a great in a match and others suck, and there's little in between. Pia and Kiran fill a strange role of being slightly above average all the time,
As far as which valakut deck is harder, they both suck. Titanshift requires you to have all the lock pieces. Bring to light only requires blood moon. If you can sneak one through, then you're in good shape. the problem is the remands, then the cryptics. Repeal is also a card and they can bounce the moon, then untap and blow you out. They both have their own way of negating our plan, so both are hard, just in different ways.
As far as counters company is concerned, those chalices that don't do anything could be cards tat do something. Start with taking out 4 chalice and putting in 2 cages and 2 spyglass. then drop the rabbles for angers, spellsike, and a torpor orb. Rely on the planeswalkers to win this match.