In my field there are a bunch of Burns, some Big Mana decks and a lot of fair decks (such as UW Control). I know the deck might not be the best option on this field, but I'd rather tune this deck to try to beat those decks, than going for something I wouldn't enjoy playing.
Well... not sure how exactly I'm supposed to update my deck. In theory, we should probably thrim the Arbiters, because they don't play very well with SFM. However, if we cut them, we're pretty much giving up the mana denial plan altogether. Paths, Ghost Quarters and even Thalias become much worse without them. Along with that, I expect people to play a bunch of SFM themselves, which also make Arbiters better. How about a surprise Vial Kitty when your opponent goes for a T2 SFM? Not bad huh? So... not sure if we should just cut them. Maybe we should keep them, and just be careful to not let them stop our SFM plays.
Although Flickerwisp might be interesting now, since it pretty much nullifies opponent's Batterskull until turn 5, I think I'll probably need to cut some of them. They're not good against W6, and I think Jund will most likely be a major player now, with Hogaakvine and Dredge (hopefully) gone. Eldrazi Displacer seems very good against Batterskull while also doing his own shenanigans. I used to play two Dark Confidants, and I still like them, but I need to make room for the SFM package, so... for now, I'm cutting them.
That's considering I stick to BW. Monowhite, GW or something else might be better now, actually.
IMO, the Kittyless version seems better at first sight. But I think that Arbiter might be secretly really well positioned right now, and he also empowers Thalia, Paths and GQs. What do you guys think?
Congrats everyone! Personally I think that the deadguy ale list is a better fit for SFM than death and taxes is since you'll have to move away from the taxes aspect, but I am sure we will see it tried here as well.
For my money, the SFM package is:
4x SFM
1x batterskull
1x SoFaI
1x SoLaS
I think so too. Maybe a second Batterskull on the mainboard, but I think that 1 is probably the best bet.
Sword of Sinew and Steel will probably be on a bunch of sideboards as well.
I feel PtE is pretty mediocre against Titan and Hogaak.
An experienced Titan player will most likely search for a second Titan once the first one resolves, since he knows we'll be trying to outgrind him. We won't even be able to try to disrupt them properly, since they can just keep the Tolarian in hand and we can't discard lands. Than the second one is probably searching for a third one, and the third can search the fourth, so... unless you have 3 or 4 PtE in hand, it'll probably not be enough. You'd probably have a much better chance with Blood Moons. Once the first Titan resolves, if you have no Blood Moon or pressure enough to try to kill your opponent on the swing back, you're pretty much dead.
Hogaak plays a lot of recursive threats and mills a lot of cards. You might remove a Hogaak with a Path, but than you're probably losing to a couple Vengevines, Bloodghasts, Gravecrawlers or even a second Hogaak. Not to mention the possibility of them having a Carrion Feeder and just dodge the PtE. Unless they have a pretty crappy start, I don't think PtE would make much difference.
I do think PtE improves our Phoenix match-up by a good amount though.
Nice tip! Also, Molten Rain being a Sorcery seems less appealing now that I won't play Bedlam Revelers. However, Molten Rain still has some appeal, because it triggers Pizzy and hits basic lands, what is really nice along with the Blood Moons.
Probably cutting at least one Molten Rain for a Fulminator though. Maybe two.
I know Kolaghan's Command is not really well positioned, but I still want to keep some, because my field has a lot of grindy and creature decks in which they're very good. Unearth is faster, but not a raw card advantage source, so I'll still try keeping 2 Kommands and adding 2 Unearths for now.
... Obviously Smasher would be pretty impactful on those matches (I wouldn't side them in otherwise). However, I couldn't cast them without giving up cycling my Silent Clearings into something that could make a difference faster.
Did you already crack other Clearings before reaching that point?
I ask because "4-lands out, but can't cast Smasher" is a situation that could happen even if those Silent Clearings were Concealed Courtyards. Having more options isn't a bad thing (unless you're driving yourself insane).
That said, if you found you were cracking lands faster than normal in a typical game, and thus reaching 4cmc-5cmc is a couple turns slower in any given game, that's a different story. Going from ~4xGQ being the only consumable lands up to 7x-8x between GQ and SC might actually be a significant increase.
Basically, I'm wondering if it's a playstyle thing, where you have to sandbag a bit more (instead of cycling) when you've sided in Smashers.
Yeah. I get your point, and in fact, it is pretty relevant.
Well... I don't remember clearly. I think I did Ghost Quarter one of my opponent's lands before get to that point of 4 mana available and Smasher in hand.
On the other match, I believe I didn't sacrifice a land before.
However, I think that it's important to point out that although I had 2 options, both were bad. Firstly, because by playing Silent Clearing instead of a Concealed Courtyard or a Shambling Vent, I chose to deal with the drawback of taking damage every time I needed to generate mana with it, because the draw was supposed to make up for it.
However, in that scenario I had to deal with the drawbacks of playing that land, and couldn't make use of its advantage without giving up playing an important card.
So... all in all, I'd say that Reality Smasher doesn't play well with Silent Clearing. Of course, I don't have a really big sample to make conclusions, but considering that experiences and the fact that I play only 22 lands, while pretty much 40% of them are lands that I'll want/need to sacrifice at some point of the game, a 5 mana creature doesn't seem so reliable.
If I did play Shambling Vent instead of Clearing, for example, I would be really happy to just keep attacking my opponent with the 2/3 Lifelinker or threaten a block with it while I waited for the 5th land. Instead, I had to lose 2 or 3 lifepoints on those games, and couldn't make use of the advantage of the land.
I am currently building into the deck(just need my Blackcleave Cliffs at this point. Right now, I have 58 cards in the main but the list isn't set in stone just yet. I love Young Pyromancer and Blood Moon, even if both are not always good. I scoured the net looking at just about every list for the deck I could and tried to compile a list that suits me. I will have explain some of my choices for some of my cards and have a few questions as well.
I'm not really sure what the last two spots in the main should be. If I were to go to a large tournament, I would probably shore up the main with 2x Surgical Extraction just to be safe.
The 2x Lightning Helix are there to help close games out and gain some life back. I know very few lists play them so if they are not good, I have no problem cutting them. Has anyone else ran them and had success with them?
The 1x Nahiri, the Harbinger just seems like it could be good even if it is slow. It could help to be a answer for somethings, card filtering, and grabbing a Bedlam Reveler in a pinch seems good in theory. I have seen a lot of people say the four mana walkers have been to slow for them. Should I turn Nahiri into Kaya, Orzhov Usurper instead? Or are both just bad?
I have seen some lists jam the Blood Moon plan into their board in exchange for some Path to Exile in the main? This, to me, seems like blasphemy for this deck. Has Moon become to slow now? I asked earlier and never got a answer back.
I plan to grab some Leyline of the Void once they come down in price and slot them in over the Nihil Spellbomb. Right now, they are a little rich for my blood.
Well... these are some of my thoughts:
1 - I haven't played Lightning Helix on my deck to be honest, but I see little point on playing them. In my experience, I usually have much more trouble beating big creatures, like Gurmag Angler or Wurmcoil Engine, than small ones. The 4 Lightning Bolts + 2 Fatal Pushes seem usually enough to deal with small creatures. The W requirement is also not great if you're on the Blood Moon plan. Of course Lightning Helix brings lifegain and reach to the table, which could be reason enough to play them, specially considering we have an awful Burn match-up. However, I still feel like I'd rather just play some hard removals like Terminate, Dreadbore or Angrath's Rampage, or even a bunch of Collective Brutality, that are much more versatile, if I wanted some lifegain and reach. If you have a lot of Burn in your field, however, I think it could be reasonable to play Helixes, but in that case, you should still consider some Brutalities;
2 - Nahiri, the Harbinger seems good on the deck. Every ability she has is useful. And PWs are nice in our deck (obviously in small numbers), because we usually flood the board with tokens, what gives our opponents a hard time attacking them. However, the 4 CMC is high, and she also demands W, what is not that great with Blood Moon. I do play a Chandra, Torch of Defiance on my deck, and I like her. She's clunky sometimes, but she has won me a lot of games by herself. Sometimes I feel like Nahiri would be better than Chandra. She exiles creatures of any size and enchantments, for example. But I stick with Chandra because her ult is more end-gaming if we're not playing Emrakul, and she doesn't require W. I'm probably cutting Chandra now to make room for Seasoned Pyromancer. So... I don't play Nahiri, I'm probably cutting Chandra, but I would never criticize someone who does play them. I would never use more than 1 PW with CMC 4, however, and never use more than 2 PWs on the main deck;
3 - I see little point on playing Path to Exile in our deck. What exactly Path brings to the table? Of course, there are some creatures that we'd rather exile than destroy, but in most cases, Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, Terminate and Dreadbore get the job done without ruining the Blood Moon plan, and I still think Moons are much more important to us because we pretty much can't beat Big Mana Decks without them. Along with that, Blood Moon is also great in pretty much any fair match, since most fair decks have greedy mana bases. I win a lot of games vs UW, Jeskai, Jund, Esper, GDS or BG just by playing Blood Moon. Is Path better than Terminate against Wurmcoil Engine? Of course. But if you're cutting Blood Moons in order to play Paths, you'd still be making your Tron match-up worse anyways. Voice of Resurgence? Kitchen Finks? Both aren't seeing much play for a while now. The only matches I see in which Path would be much better than Blood Moon, are Phoenix, Dredge and Bridgevine, and of all these decks, only against Phoenix I could see Path really making a difference. Against Dredge and Bridgevine, 1 or 2 Paths aren't going to swing the match in your favor anyway, so... I see a lot of drawbacks and almost no gain on making this change;
4 - I play a Kaya, Orzhov Usurper on my sideboard, and I feel like she's really good there. But IMO she belongs to the sideboard. Obviously thinking of a post Hogaak meta. Can't see this Bridgevine deck messing around for long, but if for some miracle they don't ban anything, than Kaya would be pretty useless, and you'd rather just play a bunch of Leylines and Traps or maybe even just play other deck;
5 - Leyline of the Void is a great hate card, but I don't think it's necessarily better than Nihil Spellbomb. Leyline is obviously better against Bridgevine and Dredge, but I would be really surprised if the ban hammer doesn't hit something of the Bridgevine deck really soon. If it does, than both Leyline and Spellbomb could be reasonable choices. Each being better at something. Leyline is better against graveyard decks, and Spellbomb is usually better against any deck that marginally use its graveyard (like Snapcaster decks or BGx) while also being good against greveyard decks, although less potent than Leyline. I also don't like the fact that we must commit with 4 sideboard slots if we want to play Leyline.
I played a tournament recently with 2 Reality Smashers on my sideboard, and I found them really bad now with the Silent Clearings. In 2 Games, I had a Smasher on my hand, had 4 mana available on the battlefield being 1 of them a Silent Clearing, and had to decide between 2 very bad options:
- Not crack the Clearing and wait to top deck a land in order to play Smasher;
- Crack the Clearing and pretty much give up of playing my Smasher;
Obviously Smasher would be pretty impactful on those matches (I wouldn't side them in otherwise). However, I couldn't cast them without giving up cycling my Silent Clearings into something that could make a difference faster.
I'm probably cutting them from my sideboard. Maybe for a 3rd RiP and a Kaya's Guile, or something else.
Im thinking about what is the correct number of giver of Runes/Silent clearing in Eldrazi and Taxes. I think that in mono white taxes we can play 4/4 because we have more density or threaths and we only play white. However, in Eldrazi and taxes I´m testing 3 giver of runes (i think we need the fourth slot open) and 3 Silent Clearing because we need the colorless mana for thought know-seer and displacer.
what do you think about the number of giver of runes and silent clearing?. Maybe we can cut one caves of koilos and take the third shambling or fourht silent clwaring (but i think 4 copies are too much).
I would never cut Caves of Koilos before Shambling Vent or Concealed Courtyard. I'd rather cut all Vents, than maybe all Courtyards before cutting the first Caves of Koilos.
I have cut Shambling Vent entirely. Now that we have more 1 drops we absolutely need the first two lands to be untapped. I also think cutting the 4th Talia for a 4th Giver of Runes is correct. Seeing as multiples of Talia is bad, and having Giver on t1 is good with all of our two drops (My list also runs Dark Confidant for this reason).
I agree entirely. Dark Confidant became much stronger now in my deck, because my mana curve lowered significantly (I cut 2 Blade Splicers, 1 Wasteland Strangler and 1 Restoration Angel for the 4 Givers of Runes) and because Giver protects him herself.
I'm going to try a radical change by eliminating the Leonin Arbiter. I cannot remember when was the last time he was more than a bear.
Arbiter is not going to catch anyone anymore. At soon as they see a Vial at 2 activation they are going to fetch.
The Path without drawbacks is not so increible because you are going to Path really annoying creatures that you need to path inmediatly (Hogaak, Phoenix, Wurmcoil, Shadow, Gurmag...) and you cannot afford to wait for him.
Its like the worst topdeck of any Taxes deck. Without him, we can afford to play the Prismatic Vista to balance the triple color manabase of the Orzhov and Azorius versions and also use Field of Ruin instead of Ghost Quarter to avoid losing a land when destroying a vital land of the opponent.
My mana base will be:
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Silent Clearing
4 Concealed Courtyard
3 Field of Ruin
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Wastes
I will also go to the full grip of Giver.
Not sure about this. Against some decks, Arbiter is just a bear. But against others, he's a real pain. I find him really good vs Tron, Burn, Titanshift, Amulet Titan, GDS and even against Dredge he's good sometimes. I played a tournament yesterday and just beat my Dredge opponent just by playing an Arbiter turn 2 on the play. He had a Mountain, and two fetch lands. Those type of scenarios are more likely to happen now with Giver who either protects the Arbiter or just eat the removal in his place.
Regarding Kaya's Guile: That's good news. I thought about replacing my 2 mb Blood Moon with Kaya's Guile. Kind of going away from free wins with Blood Moon but to a better G1 against GY decks and against Burn?!
I think Snap Chandra might be good enough for Modern, but probably not in our deck. She's pretty much a drop 4 or 5, so you can drop her and imediately cast something from your graveyard. In our deck, I don't think we can reliably cast her on a turn 4 or 5 and get imediate value of her, because we play a really low land count. So... we're not getting to the 4th or 5th land that oftenly, and probably not on turns 4 or 5. But I think she might see some play in other decks that play more lands, like Jund.
I have also been thinking of adding one or two Kaya's Guile to the sideboard. It seems generally better than Blessed Alliance for example, but it costs more (what is super relevant in a Thalia deck) and requires WB, so not sure...
I'll be trying this list:
2 Treetop Village
3 Field of Ruin
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Blooming Marsh
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Nurturing Peatland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Forest
5 Swamp
Creatures
2 Hexdrinker
3 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Spells
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Fatal Push
1 Collective Brutality
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Assassin's Trophy
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Collective Brutality
1 Damping Sphere
1 Weather the Storm
2 Collector Ouphe
2 Ashiok, Dream Render
2 Plague Engineer
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
In my field there are a bunch of Burns, some Big Mana decks and a lot of fair decks (such as UW Control). I know the deck might not be the best option on this field, but I'd rather tune this deck to try to beat those decks, than going for something I wouldn't enjoy playing.
Any tips?
Although Flickerwisp might be interesting now, since it pretty much nullifies opponent's Batterskull until turn 5, I think I'll probably need to cut some of them. They're not good against W6, and I think Jund will most likely be a major player now, with Hogaakvine and Dredge (hopefully) gone. Eldrazi Displacer seems very good against Batterskull while also doing his own shenanigans. I used to play two Dark Confidants, and I still like them, but I need to make room for the SFM package, so... for now, I'm cutting them.
So... IMO, I have 2 alternatives.
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Flickerwisp
3 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Silent Clearing
3 Concealed Courtyard
1 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
Or...
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Flickerwisp
2 Wasteland Strangler
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Silent Clearing
3 Concealed Courtyard
1 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
That's considering I stick to BW. Monowhite, GW or something else might be better now, actually.
IMO, the Kittyless version seems better at first sight. But I think that Arbiter might be secretly really well positioned right now, and he also empowers Thalia, Paths and GQs. What do you guys think?
I think so too. Maybe a second Batterskull on the mainboard, but I think that 1 is probably the best bet.
Sword of Sinew and Steel will probably be on a bunch of sideboards as well.
Without Looting, I can't see it being close to playable.
Now Mardu is just a bad Jund.
I'll probably just sell my cards and go for a Rock (which is also a bad Jund, but probably better than Mardu, IMO), or something else.
An experienced Titan player will most likely search for a second Titan once the first one resolves, since he knows we'll be trying to outgrind him. We won't even be able to try to disrupt them properly, since they can just keep the Tolarian in hand and we can't discard lands. Than the second one is probably searching for a third one, and the third can search the fourth, so... unless you have 3 or 4 PtE in hand, it'll probably not be enough. You'd probably have a much better chance with Blood Moons. Once the first Titan resolves, if you have no Blood Moon or pressure enough to try to kill your opponent on the swing back, you're pretty much dead.
Hogaak plays a lot of recursive threats and mills a lot of cards. You might remove a Hogaak with a Path, but than you're probably losing to a couple Vengevines, Bloodghasts, Gravecrawlers or even a second Hogaak. Not to mention the possibility of them having a Carrion Feeder and just dodge the PtE. Unless they have a pretty crappy start, I don't think PtE would make much difference.
I do think PtE improves our Phoenix match-up by a good amount though.
Probably cutting at least one Molten Rain for a Fulminator though. Maybe two.
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Seasoned Pyromancer
Spells
3 Thoughtseize
2 Unearth
2 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Dreadbore
4 Lingering Souls
2 Kaya's Guile
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Smiting Helix
2 Blood Moon
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Molten Rain
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Wear / Tear
I know Kolaghan's Command is not really well positioned, but I still want to keep some, because my field has a lot of grindy and creature decks in which they're very good. Unearth is faster, but not a raw card advantage source, so I'll still try keeping 2 Kommands and adding 2 Unearths for now.
Yeah. I get your point, and in fact, it is pretty relevant.
Well... I don't remember clearly. I think I did Ghost Quarter one of my opponent's lands before get to that point of 4 mana available and Smasher in hand.
On the other match, I believe I didn't sacrifice a land before.
However, I think that it's important to point out that although I had 2 options, both were bad. Firstly, because by playing Silent Clearing instead of a Concealed Courtyard or a Shambling Vent, I chose to deal with the drawback of taking damage every time I needed to generate mana with it, because the draw was supposed to make up for it.
However, in that scenario I had to deal with the drawbacks of playing that land, and couldn't make use of its advantage without giving up playing an important card.
So... all in all, I'd say that Reality Smasher doesn't play well with Silent Clearing. Of course, I don't have a really big sample to make conclusions, but considering that experiences and the fact that I play only 22 lands, while pretty much 40% of them are lands that I'll want/need to sacrifice at some point of the game, a 5 mana creature doesn't seem so reliable.
If I did play Shambling Vent instead of Clearing, for example, I would be really happy to just keep attacking my opponent with the 2/3 Lifelinker or threaten a block with it while I waited for the 5th land. Instead, I had to lose 2 or 3 lifepoints on those games, and couldn't make use of the advantage of the land.
Well... these are some of my thoughts:
1 - I haven't played Lightning Helix on my deck to be honest, but I see little point on playing them. In my experience, I usually have much more trouble beating big creatures, like Gurmag Angler or Wurmcoil Engine, than small ones. The 4 Lightning Bolts + 2 Fatal Pushes seem usually enough to deal with small creatures. The W requirement is also not great if you're on the Blood Moon plan. Of course Lightning Helix brings lifegain and reach to the table, which could be reason enough to play them, specially considering we have an awful Burn match-up. However, I still feel like I'd rather just play some hard removals like Terminate, Dreadbore or Angrath's Rampage, or even a bunch of Collective Brutality, that are much more versatile, if I wanted some lifegain and reach. If you have a lot of Burn in your field, however, I think it could be reasonable to play Helixes, but in that case, you should still consider some Brutalities;
2 - Nahiri, the Harbinger seems good on the deck. Every ability she has is useful. And PWs are nice in our deck (obviously in small numbers), because we usually flood the board with tokens, what gives our opponents a hard time attacking them. However, the 4 CMC is high, and she also demands W, what is not that great with Blood Moon. I do play a Chandra, Torch of Defiance on my deck, and I like her. She's clunky sometimes, but she has won me a lot of games by herself. Sometimes I feel like Nahiri would be better than Chandra. She exiles creatures of any size and enchantments, for example. But I stick with Chandra because her ult is more end-gaming if we're not playing Emrakul, and she doesn't require W. I'm probably cutting Chandra now to make room for Seasoned Pyromancer. So... I don't play Nahiri, I'm probably cutting Chandra, but I would never criticize someone who does play them. I would never use more than 1 PW with CMC 4, however, and never use more than 2 PWs on the main deck;
3 - I see little point on playing Path to Exile in our deck. What exactly Path brings to the table? Of course, there are some creatures that we'd rather exile than destroy, but in most cases, Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, Terminate and Dreadbore get the job done without ruining the Blood Moon plan, and I still think Moons are much more important to us because we pretty much can't beat Big Mana Decks without them. Along with that, Blood Moon is also great in pretty much any fair match, since most fair decks have greedy mana bases. I win a lot of games vs UW, Jeskai, Jund, Esper, GDS or BG just by playing Blood Moon. Is Path better than Terminate against Wurmcoil Engine? Of course. But if you're cutting Blood Moons in order to play Paths, you'd still be making your Tron match-up worse anyways. Voice of Resurgence? Kitchen Finks? Both aren't seeing much play for a while now. The only matches I see in which Path would be much better than Blood Moon, are Phoenix, Dredge and Bridgevine, and of all these decks, only against Phoenix I could see Path really making a difference. Against Dredge and Bridgevine, 1 or 2 Paths aren't going to swing the match in your favor anyway, so... I see a lot of drawbacks and almost no gain on making this change;
4 - I play a Kaya, Orzhov Usurper on my sideboard, and I feel like she's really good there. But IMO she belongs to the sideboard. Obviously thinking of a post Hogaak meta. Can't see this Bridgevine deck messing around for long, but if for some miracle they don't ban anything, than Kaya would be pretty useless, and you'd rather just play a bunch of Leylines and Traps or maybe even just play other deck;
5 - Leyline of the Void is a great hate card, but I don't think it's necessarily better than Nihil Spellbomb. Leyline is obviously better against Bridgevine and Dredge, but I would be really surprised if the ban hammer doesn't hit something of the Bridgevine deck really soon. If it does, than both Leyline and Spellbomb could be reasonable choices. Each being better at something. Leyline is better against graveyard decks, and Spellbomb is usually better against any deck that marginally use its graveyard (like Snapcaster decks or BGx) while also being good against greveyard decks, although less potent than Leyline. I also don't like the fact that we must commit with 4 sideboard slots if we want to play Leyline.
- Not crack the Clearing and wait to top deck a land in order to play Smasher;
- Crack the Clearing and pretty much give up of playing my Smasher;
Obviously Smasher would be pretty impactful on those matches (I wouldn't side them in otherwise). However, I couldn't cast them without giving up cycling my Silent Clearings into something that could make a difference faster.
I'm probably cutting them from my sideboard. Maybe for a 3rd RiP and a Kaya's Guile, or something else.
I would never cut Caves of Koilos before Shambling Vent or Concealed Courtyard. I'd rather cut all Vents, than maybe all Courtyards before cutting the first Caves of Koilos.
I agree entirely. Dark Confidant became much stronger now in my deck, because my mana curve lowered significantly (I cut 2 Blade Splicers, 1 Wasteland Strangler and 1 Restoration Angel for the 4 Givers of Runes) and because Giver protects him herself.
Not sure about this. Against some decks, Arbiter is just a bear. But against others, he's a real pain. I find him really good vs Tron, Burn, Titanshift, Amulet Titan, GDS and even against Dredge he's good sometimes. I played a tournament yesterday and just beat my Dredge opponent just by playing an Arbiter turn 2 on the play. He had a Mountain, and two fetch lands. Those type of scenarios are more likely to happen now with Giver who either protects the Arbiter or just eat the removal in his place.
I respect this approach. In fact, I also have been thinking of making this exact change: -2 Blood Moon +2 Kaya's Guile.
But I'm really reluctant about cutting the Blood Moons, because I feel like we pretty much can't beat Big Mana decks without them.
-1 Shambling Vent
-2 Concealed Courtyard
+3 Silent Clearing
-2 Blade Splicer
-1 Restoration Angel
-1 Wasteland Strangler
+4 Giver of Runes
So... that's how my deck will look like now:
2 Shambling Vent
2 Concealed Courtyard
3 Silent Clearing
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
1 Swamp
Non-creatures
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Giver of Runes
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Dark Confidant
3 Flickerwisp
2 Wasteland Strangler
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Reality Smasher
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Fatal Push
1 Anguished Unmaking
I have also been thinking of adding one or two Kaya's Guile to the sideboard. It seems generally better than Blessed Alliance for example, but it costs more (what is super relevant in a Thalia deck) and requires WB, so not sure...