It's been a long while but I was previously very involved with the development of U/b living end as foretold. I'm going to stream a little bit of my latest version of it, mostly sideboard changes and a few maindeck changes to reflect the current environment. https://www.twitch.tv/urzatheplaneswalker
I agree with Xexen's insight completely and think it's a great analysis. Mistcaller likely won't see much play and if it does it's definitely not the best card those decks could be playing against us.
Remorseful Cleric is much scarier especially when you consider the decks that can play it against us. I don't think I've ever played against Bant Spirits but I'd imagine that matchup wouldn't be our best, if they are running multiple copies of this it would likely be awful. The other decks that would play it would be company-esque decks. The kind of decks that we have great matchups against. If they run a couple copies of this then it turns those auto-wins into more reasonable matchups.
Hey all, I'm back after a big hiatus. It also looks like the metagame has shifted a bit with the last couple of grand prixs. This shift is both good and bad for us, but regardless definitely requires some sideboard shaking up.
The increase in Grixis Death Shadow and Infect is awful. If those continue to rise drastic changes will be required (if you're stubborn enough to not drop the deck, perhaps maindecking fatal push or splashing white for path to exile is where I'd start). However, they are still rare enough that you can try to dodge those awful matchups. The rise in tron, krack-clan, and control decks to fight them is probably an overall wash for us but you'll definitely want to put back some of those ceremonious rejections, nimble obstructionists, and field of ruins we've been cutting in the past few months.
Urza, I believe that 23 lands is too many.
You are probably right, I upped to 23 as an experiment and have probably 25 games under my belt with it (still likely too few to get a strong significant evaluation) but for all the reasons you mentioned replacing land 23 with a impactful card is seems better. I don't like Fetid Pools at all. You already have a ton of come-into-play tapped lands and adding yet another land that can't suspend a first turn visions is not somewhere I'd want to be. Also, I like keeping zero swamps in the deck. Street Wraith is a popular card and against decks that run him when you Living End you're often at a low enough life total that an unblockable swing-back could definitely kill you.
I'm going to reconfigure my list and sideboard today with the latest results in mind and do some streaming later on.
- Update -
I did two leagues and went 4-1 in both. Here's a link permalink to the stream. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/275056627. For what it's worth both losses were to two decks that are probably 75% or better matchups for us (Affinity and Skred Red).
I've got a little bit of time right now so I'm going to try to stream here around 3:30pm eastern time. If you can't catch it then they should be in the videos section there. https://www.twitch.tv/urzatheplaneswalker
Have you guys played against a fast agro low cmc cost deck? I am curious about elves matchup.
I don't have too many matches against Elves but of the 4 I've played I'm 3-1 in matches and 6-4 in games. I typically try to board in more targeted creature removal, EE, and Dispel and take out spell pierces, spell snares, any nimble obstructionists, a few cycles (a couple street wraiths and/or AoW) and maybe some remands on the draw.
Overall it feels like a good matchup where resolving a living end is likely game over. For that matter. I've found just about any deck that runs Collected Company to be generally a very good matchup. Another similar deck (at least for what As Foretold/Living End care's about) is Boggles, which in a similar vein is a possibly your most favorable matchup.
Humans, Infect, Grixis Death's Shadow, Merfolk, all may seem similar but are vastly different in that in addition to fast low cmc creatures they have anywhere between a little to an abundance of disruption and interaction. Regardless of your build the last 4 decks mentioned are likley to be among your worst matchups.
Would you like to upload the replay on youtube or twitch of matches with this build that you used?
Good idea. Let me see if I can figure out how to setup OBS and I'll try to setup a twitch stream tomorrow when I do a league. If there's a particular match up you want me to go through I can probably find a replay in my history I can voice-over.
Jund can be a bit of an enigma. Discard and fast clocks are definitely not your friend. Don't even get my started on Scavenging Ooze (likely their best card against you). I think the matchup definitely got worse with the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf. Often times the games it comes down to whether or not they hit a discard spell off the elf.
I've been sideboarding in more creature answers and hoping to survive the initial hand disruption onslaught, eventually draw into an as foretold, then typically transmuting into a living end as the likelihood they are still in your hand by that point is low. Obviously the problem is you need 6 mana to do that without worrying about Pulse or Decay.
Obviously suspend Ancestral Visions on turn 1 no matter what, typically on turn 2 as well. Try to save your creature kill for Scavenging Ooze and Bobs. Bojuka bog can be quite useful against goyf.
My sideboard plan currently looks like
+2 Dismember
+1 Fatal Push
+1 EE
+ Sometimes 1 Leyline of the Void, especially if you see Grim Flayers and Liliana the last Hope.
+ Sometimes 1 Leyline of the Sanctity, especially if they are more aggressive. You can always discard it to a Liliana if you draw it later.
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 AoW
-2/3 Street Wraiths (you're able to play a longer game where life/turns can matter more than a fast aggressive start, especially since you have to expect hard disruption on the first few turns so you're very unlikely to "combo" off)
-Sometime nimble obstructionist, especially if they've seen it game 1 and are likely to play around it.
I'm currently trying 23rd land (island) in place of a Street Wraith. It's also worth noting that I SB out the ghost quarter in some matchups, especially on the draw.
So it's funny you point out the mana-base as that's something I've been working on a little lately; specifically I'd like to add a 23rd land. Too large a number of the games I lose is due to not being able to find a 3rd or 4th land. I don't have any metrics tracked of exactly how many that is (especially vs. losing to too many lands) but I feel a 23rd land might be useful especially as you really want to keep nice 1 landed hands on the draw with tons of cyclers.
I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning behind switching Ghost Quarter #1 w/ Field of Ruin #3.
1) Field of Ruin only color fixes blue as you run no other basics. This is only useful in finding the 3rd blue for Cryptic Command as there's no way you'd keep the hand otherwise without a blue source. If you're in such a bind for the 3rd blue to save you from a lethal attack w/ Cryptic Ghost Quarter may actually be better as it can do this with only 4 lands where as if you played the Field of Ruin that turn you'd be dead.
2) It can be useful to be able to Tolaria West and destroy a land the same turn. Typically this is NOT against tron for the reasons you mentioned (although it certainly can be). Most of the times you are doing this you are way behind so buying yourself another turn is typically just to allow you more time to topdeck the last piece to wipe the board. In my experience it is most useful against Jund or in some cases Jeskai or decks with very few basics (humans) where you either need to destroy a man-land or can literally use it as a stone rain (bonus points for destroying cavern of souls).
3) Ghost quarter can hit basics which in edge-cases can be useful against multi-color decks w/ few basics, to keep them off a color.
4) This is a very small price to pay for the upsides listed above. Typically if you don't need the affect it is literally the same as Field of Ruin (a land that taps for colorless).
I'd be curious to hear more about the Mardu matchup and what has lead to such results.
I actually feel like this isn't that surprising. Most creature decks without a lot of interaction and disruption are good matchups. Mardu Pyromancer falls into this category. This is drastically different than GDS as they have abundant discard, counter magic, and cheap efficient threats. I do believe that the GDS matchup is probably not quite as bad as it is showing on the spreatsheet. I haven't played it lately as it is falling off in popularity and I don't believe I have the optimal play strategy down against it yet. They typically run limited countermagic game 1 so I think the strategy game 1 is actually different than game 2. Also I've upped to 4 leyline's which I didn't have for a majority of the matches against GDS so that will probably help.
I noticed that your list does feel more controlling with the Search for Azcanta and the Nimble Obstructionist in the mainboard.
I'm not sure which list you are looking at (perhaps my 5-0 league list from mtgo.com?) but the one posted here no longer runs search for azcanta in the 75 (I replaced the md one with a md EE). Nimble Obstructionist is good against a lot of odd strategies and decent against the decks that you are not good against (storm, tron, humans). It also has a small psychological effect where if an opponent sees it once they often play different from that point on. Therefore, even if you sb it out you can still get a positive effect from it.
I'll give Echoing Truth a try, the reasons you suggested seem fair.
I'm always trying to continuing tuning and finding different solutions. I've tried a lot of different variants and am pretty confident in that the list I have is pretty close to being top notch.
It's worth nothing that the Jeskai control matchups is evolving. They are adding more Vendellion Cliques which combined with Jace is actually a pretty bad combination. Actually Jace in general with any sort of counter magic at all is pretty hard to overcome. I believe that matchup used we used to try to be simply the control player, however it's morphed a little bit to you needing to put a little proactive pressure and to be very careful around their 4th turn.
Probably worth noting I'm a big proponent as playing this as a control deck rather than a pure combo deck. Almost all my matchups involve siding out some number of cycle creatures and I almost always would rather wait a turn to play as foretold w/ counter backup than push it on turn 3 blind. Same with decision between 1st turn suspend visions vs. holding. I typically suspend it, in control matchups even if I have an opening hand as foretold. I win without casting living end for any (or few) creatures probably around 25-40% of the games.
Other (sometimes odd opinions). I honestly think rest in peace is possible the worst sideboard card against me and absolutely love to see almost any opponent play it (it's a discard spell for me, it's a huge tempo advantage, it guarantees all my living ends are wraths, 2nd living end won't give my opponent creatures). I see affinity players play that card against me and honestly I'm bewildered, affinities best card is ravager and rest in peace is literally a card I'd side in if I had access to it vs. affinity.
Maindeck currently looks like...
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Living End
4 As Foretold
4 Remand
3 Cryptic Command
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Striped Riverwinders
3 Street Wraith
3 Architects of Will
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Eng. Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Field of Ruin
1 Underground River
1 River of Tears
1 Sunken Ruin
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Darkslick Shores
4 Tolaria West
8 Island
SB (and a general guide of when to sb in the card)
1 Leyline of Sanctity (Burn, Grixis DS, Storm, Lantern, Ad Nauseam, Valakut variants)
1 Dispel (Burn, U/x control, Jeskai control, GDS, Goryo decks, G/x company, Elves, Ad Naus,
2 Hurkyl's Recall (Affinity, Lantern, Ironworks, sometimes 1 for Ad Naus)
1 Fatal Push (newest addition: Affinity, Humans, other decks where small creature kill makes sense: storm, elves, martyr proc, boggles etc.)
3 Collective Brutality (burn, mardu pyromancer, human, goryo's, some g/x company on play, some ad nauseam, elves, death and taxes, U/x control, Jeskai Control)
2 Dismember (affinity, hollow one, humans, storm, boggles, g/x company, eldrazi variants, elves, etc.)
4 Leyline of the Void (hollow one, 1 vs. u/x control, 2-3 vs. mardu pyromancer, 1 gds, 1 jeskai control, goryo's, dredge, 1 jund, living end, some vs. martyr proc)
1 Engineered Explosives (humans, affinity, mardu pyro, boggles, gds, elves, lantern, jund, eldrazi tron, death and taxes, on draw burn)
- cards to consider based on metagame
ceremonious rejection for tron, affinity, lantern, eldrazi
chalice of the void (amulet titan, 8-rack, burn, affinity, gds, boggles, lantern)
more 1 mana counter spells (spell pierce, spell snare, dispel)
pact of negation (control decks)
4th brutality (burn)
more fatal push (humans, elves)
2nd or 3rd leyline of the sanctity (burn, gds)
Damping Sphere (storm, tron, amulet)
Field of Ruin/Ghost quarter (tron, valakut, u/x control, jeskai control)
Search of Azcanta (control)
surgical extraction (tron, combo)
grafdigger's cage (collected company decks, snapcaster, storm)
First cards I'd cut to tune sb would be hurkyl's recall (your affinity and lantern matchups are already great, ironworks isn't that popular), dispel (control matchups are out of this world already)
As before, play the deck when Affinity, control, mardu pyromancer, and other graveyard centric decks are high). Don't play it when gds, burn, fast combo, humans are high.
Typical sideboard plan for Humans:
+2 dismember, +1 EE, +3 Collective Brutality, +1 Fatal Push.
-2 Spell Pierce, -3 Street Wraith, -1 AoW, -1 Spell Snare (or AoW, depending on play/draw).
You can cut a lot of creatures because typically if you wrath and even get 1 creature out of it you are in a great position to win the game.
I really up the spot removal as they are very weak to it, especially when combined with sweepers as it puts them in a position to choose between overplaying or holding back. The game plan is to sweep as soon as possible but the art comes into which creatures to hold your spot removal for. They only have temporary ways to remove your plan (meddling mage, freebooter) so obviously those are big targets but usually not until the turn you can go off. Trade your life points for time and resources (typically most games I win I'm between 1-5 life). Rarely do I kill a 1 drop unless I really think it will buy me more than 1 turn or if I need a turn 3 or 4 living end to win and that depends on what is in your hand and what they are dropping on turn 2. Typically I'm actually willing to take 1 or 2 damage from the 1 drop on their turn 2 if they haven't played their 2nd turn creature yet to get better information of where to point the fatal push/dismember. EE almost always goes on 2 unless it's getting massive card advantage on 1.
Remorseful Cleric is much scarier especially when you consider the decks that can play it against us. I don't think I've ever played against Bant Spirits but I'd imagine that matchup wouldn't be our best, if they are running multiple copies of this it would likely be awful. The other decks that would play it would be company-esque decks. The kind of decks that we have great matchups against. If they run a couple copies of this then it turns those auto-wins into more reasonable matchups.
The increase in Grixis Death Shadow and Infect is awful. If those continue to rise drastic changes will be required (if you're stubborn enough to not drop the deck, perhaps maindecking fatal push or splashing white for path to exile is where I'd start). However, they are still rare enough that you can try to dodge those awful matchups. The rise in tron, krack-clan, and control decks to fight them is probably an overall wash for us but you'll definitely want to put back some of those ceremonious rejections, nimble obstructionists, and field of ruins we've been cutting in the past few months.
You are probably right, I upped to 23 as an experiment and have probably 25 games under my belt with it (still likely too few to get a strong significant evaluation) but for all the reasons you mentioned replacing land 23 with a impactful card is seems better. I don't like Fetid Pools at all. You already have a ton of come-into-play tapped lands and adding yet another land that can't suspend a first turn visions is not somewhere I'd want to be. Also, I like keeping zero swamps in the deck. Street Wraith is a popular card and against decks that run him when you Living End you're often at a low enough life total that an unblockable swing-back could definitely kill you.
I'm going to reconfigure my list and sideboard today with the latest results in mind and do some streaming later on.
- Update -
I did two leagues and went 4-1 in both. Here's a link permalink to the stream. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/275056627. For what it's worth both losses were to two decks that are probably 75% or better matchups for us (Affinity and Skred Red).
Thanks for the kind words. It was fun to dip into streaming as well. I'm out of town the next few weeks but will try some more when I get back.
I don't have too many matches against Elves but of the 4 I've played I'm 3-1 in matches and 6-4 in games. I typically try to board in more targeted creature removal, EE, and Dispel and take out spell pierces, spell snares, any nimble obstructionists, a few cycles (a couple street wraiths and/or AoW) and maybe some remands on the draw.
Overall it feels like a good matchup where resolving a living end is likely game over. For that matter. I've found just about any deck that runs Collected Company to be generally a very good matchup. Another similar deck (at least for what As Foretold/Living End care's about) is Boggles, which in a similar vein is a possibly your most favorable matchup.
Humans, Infect, Grixis Death's Shadow, Merfolk, all may seem similar but are vastly different in that in addition to fast low cmc creatures they have anywhere between a little to an abundance of disruption and interaction. Regardless of your build the last 4 decks mentioned are likley to be among your worst matchups.
Deckname, Match Win/Loss, Game Win/Loss
Elves, 3-1, 6-4
Boggles, 6-0, 12-2
Humans, 5-9, 13-20
Infect, 0-3, 0-6
GDS, 3-7, 7-17
Merfolk, 0-1, 0-2
Good idea. Let me see if I can figure out how to setup OBS and I'll try to setup a twitch stream tomorrow when I do a league. If there's a particular match up you want me to go through I can probably find a replay in my history I can voice-over.
Latest list:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2018-05-25#urzatheplaneswalker_-
I've been sideboarding in more creature answers and hoping to survive the initial hand disruption onslaught, eventually draw into an as foretold, then typically transmuting into a living end as the likelihood they are still in your hand by that point is low. Obviously the problem is you need 6 mana to do that without worrying about Pulse or Decay.
Obviously suspend Ancestral Visions on turn 1 no matter what, typically on turn 2 as well. Try to save your creature kill for Scavenging Ooze and Bobs. Bojuka bog can be quite useful against goyf.
My sideboard plan currently looks like
+2 Dismember
+1 Fatal Push
+1 EE
+ Sometimes 1 Leyline of the Void, especially if you see Grim Flayers and Liliana the last Hope.
+ Sometimes 1 Leyline of the Sanctity, especially if they are more aggressive. You can always discard it to a Liliana if you draw it later.
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 AoW
-2/3 Street Wraiths (you're able to play a longer game where life/turns can matter more than a fast aggressive start, especially since you have to expect hard disruption on the first few turns so you're very unlikely to "combo" off)
-Sometime nimble obstructionist, especially if they've seen it game 1 and are likely to play around it.
I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning behind switching Ghost Quarter #1 w/ Field of Ruin #3.
1) Field of Ruin only color fixes blue as you run no other basics. This is only useful in finding the 3rd blue for Cryptic Command as there's no way you'd keep the hand otherwise without a blue source. If you're in such a bind for the 3rd blue to save you from a lethal attack w/ Cryptic Ghost Quarter may actually be better as it can do this with only 4 lands where as if you played the Field of Ruin that turn you'd be dead.
2) It can be useful to be able to Tolaria West and destroy a land the same turn. Typically this is NOT against tron for the reasons you mentioned (although it certainly can be). Most of the times you are doing this you are way behind so buying yourself another turn is typically just to allow you more time to topdeck the last piece to wipe the board. In my experience it is most useful against Jund or in some cases Jeskai or decks with very few basics (humans) where you either need to destroy a man-land or can literally use it as a stone rain (bonus points for destroying cavern of souls).
3) Ghost quarter can hit basics which in edge-cases can be useful against multi-color decks w/ few basics, to keep them off a color.
4) This is a very small price to pay for the upsides listed above. Typically if you don't need the affect it is literally the same as Field of Ruin (a land that taps for colorless).
I actually feel like this isn't that surprising. Most creature decks without a lot of interaction and disruption are good matchups. Mardu Pyromancer falls into this category. This is drastically different than GDS as they have abundant discard, counter magic, and cheap efficient threats. I do believe that the GDS matchup is probably not quite as bad as it is showing on the spreatsheet. I haven't played it lately as it is falling off in popularity and I don't believe I have the optimal play strategy down against it yet. They typically run limited countermagic game 1 so I think the strategy game 1 is actually different than game 2. Also I've upped to 4 leyline's which I didn't have for a majority of the matches against GDS so that will probably help.
I'm not sure which list you are looking at (perhaps my 5-0 league list from mtgo.com?) but the one posted here no longer runs search for azcanta in the 75 (I replaced the md one with a md EE). Nimble Obstructionist is good against a lot of odd strategies and decent against the decks that you are not good against (storm, tron, humans). It also has a small psychological effect where if an opponent sees it once they often play different from that point on. Therefore, even if you sb it out you can still get a positive effect from it.
I'll give Echoing Truth a try, the reasons you suggested seem fair.
I'm always trying to continuing tuning and finding different solutions. I've tried a lot of different variants and am pretty confident in that the list I have is pretty close to being top notch.
It's worth nothing that the Jeskai control matchups is evolving. They are adding more Vendellion Cliques which combined with Jace is actually a pretty bad combination. Actually Jace in general with any sort of counter magic at all is pretty hard to overcome. I believe that matchup used we used to try to be simply the control player, however it's morphed a little bit to you needing to put a little proactive pressure and to be very careful around their 4th turn.
Other (sometimes odd opinions). I honestly think rest in peace is possible the worst sideboard card against me and absolutely love to see almost any opponent play it (it's a discard spell for me, it's a huge tempo advantage, it guarantees all my living ends are wraths, 2nd living end won't give my opponent creatures). I see affinity players play that card against me and honestly I'm bewildered, affinities best card is ravager and rest in peace is literally a card I'd side in if I had access to it vs. affinity.
Hardcasting Curator on turn 4 happens a lot.
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Living End
4 As Foretold
4 Remand
3 Cryptic Command
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Striped Riverwinders
3 Street Wraith
3 Architects of Will
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Eng. Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Field of Ruin
1 Underground River
1 River of Tears
1 Sunken Ruin
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Darkslick Shores
4 Tolaria West
8 Island
SB (and a general guide of when to sb in the card)
1 Leyline of Sanctity (Burn, Grixis DS, Storm, Lantern, Ad Nauseam, Valakut variants)
1 Dispel (Burn, U/x control, Jeskai control, GDS, Goryo decks, G/x company, Elves, Ad Naus,
2 Hurkyl's Recall (Affinity, Lantern, Ironworks, sometimes 1 for Ad Naus)
1 Fatal Push (newest addition: Affinity, Humans, other decks where small creature kill makes sense: storm, elves, martyr proc, boggles etc.)
3 Collective Brutality (burn, mardu pyromancer, human, goryo's, some g/x company on play, some ad nauseam, elves, death and taxes, U/x control, Jeskai Control)
2 Dismember (affinity, hollow one, humans, storm, boggles, g/x company, eldrazi variants, elves, etc.)
4 Leyline of the Void (hollow one, 1 vs. u/x control, 2-3 vs. mardu pyromancer, 1 gds, 1 jeskai control, goryo's, dredge, 1 jund, living end, some vs. martyr proc)
1 Engineered Explosives (humans, affinity, mardu pyro, boggles, gds, elves, lantern, jund, eldrazi tron, death and taxes, on draw burn)
- cards to consider based on metagame
ceremonious rejection for tron, affinity, lantern, eldrazi
chalice of the void (amulet titan, 8-rack, burn, affinity, gds, boggles, lantern)
more 1 mana counter spells (spell pierce, spell snare, dispel)
pact of negation (control decks)
4th brutality (burn)
more fatal push (humans, elves)
2nd or 3rd leyline of the sanctity (burn, gds)
Damping Sphere (storm, tron, amulet)
Field of Ruin/Ghost quarter (tron, valakut, u/x control, jeskai control)
Search of Azcanta (control)
surgical extraction (tron, combo)
grafdigger's cage (collected company decks, snapcaster, storm)
First cards I'd cut to tune sb would be hurkyl's recall (your affinity and lantern matchups are already great, ironworks isn't that popular), dispel (control matchups are out of this world already)
As before, play the deck when Affinity, control, mardu pyromancer, and other graveyard centric decks are high). Don't play it when gds, burn, fast combo, humans are high.
Typical sideboard plan for Humans:
+2 dismember, +1 EE, +3 Collective Brutality, +1 Fatal Push.
-2 Spell Pierce, -3 Street Wraith, -1 AoW, -1 Spell Snare (or AoW, depending on play/draw).
You can cut a lot of creatures because typically if you wrath and even get 1 creature out of it you are in a great position to win the game.
I really up the spot removal as they are very weak to it, especially when combined with sweepers as it puts them in a position to choose between overplaying or holding back. The game plan is to sweep as soon as possible but the art comes into which creatures to hold your spot removal for. They only have temporary ways to remove your plan (meddling mage, freebooter) so obviously those are big targets but usually not until the turn you can go off. Trade your life points for time and resources (typically most games I win I'm between 1-5 life). Rarely do I kill a 1 drop unless I really think it will buy me more than 1 turn or if I need a turn 3 or 4 living end to win and that depends on what is in your hand and what they are dropping on turn 2. Typically I'm actually willing to take 1 or 2 damage from the 1 drop on their turn 2 if they haven't played their 2nd turn creature yet to get better information of where to point the fatal push/dismember. EE almost always goes on 2 unless it's getting massive card advantage on 1.