Went 4-1 with basically the same list I played a few weeks ago, I'm liking the 2 Looting a lot. Beat Burn x2, Humans, and Jeskai (lost to Jund). Looting doesn't enable starts as fast as Manamorphose, but with a good hand you can still get massive creatures out ahead of schedule easily. It can be awkward but I actually found it less clunky than Manamorphose, and it lets you pitch fetches you can't use or dead cards like Push/Stub in G1's where you won't need them to enable Delirium and dig for a threat or TBR.
When I play it again I'll either try to squeeze a Grim Flayer into the main (maybe cutting Decay) or drop the Tarfires for Bolts just for the extra % of damage. I previously had been running 17 lands with 4 Manamorphose, and I still like those lists but I wanted to drop it and see how Looting would perform. Manamorphose lets you accelerate your busted starts and really helps if you have a lot of Blood Moon around, or if you're on only 1 basic. However I also found it to be pretty awkward getting openers with multiple manamorphose or several cantrips and then cycling into no action. The deck is pretty customize-able and I don't believe there to be a truly "optimal build" because of the # of colors we're able to run, so testing a couple different configurations and seeing what you're most comfortable with is the way to go imo
Back with my match report of the 5-0 from a couple weeks back, since they've been late with the stream for weeks now unfortunately:
Round 1 vs Ponza (2-1)
Game 1: Mull to 6 but multiple discard spells take care of Utopia Sprawl and Blood Moon, Tarfire takes care of Tireless Tracker. Opponent casts BBE cascading into Blood Moon, but at this point I have a huge Goyf out, and a second Tarfire takes care of the BBE after which I just beat down to win.
Game 2: On the draw, have to mull again and have no answer for T1 Utopia Sprawl into T2 Molten Rain. Blood Moon comes down next turn and I can't contend with Tracker/Pia and Kiran.
Game 3: On the play, have the classic curve once again of discard (Utopia Sprawl) into Goyf and then a big Death's Shadow. Had all the answers for his creatures, had Golgari Charm for Blood Moon, and the quick clock was too much for him to handle.
Round 2 vs Bogles (2-1)
Game 1: On the draw, keep a very good 7 with potential for an absurdly fast clock (Shadow, Dismember, Thoughtseize). Opponent plays Thicket and passes, I fetch and Thoughtseize him and see that he's on Bogles. I take his only creature (Ledgewalker) and pass. He tries to find a creature after I cast DS and he is forced to fetch for Dryad Arbor, which I promptly Dismember to make DS a 9/9. I swing, he takes one more draw step and scoops.
Game 2: On the draw, keep an OK looking 6 with some SB cards, but he's just too fast. I Thoughtseize away a Runed Halo and hope that he jams Coronet T3 with only 2 lands (Stub in hand), but he finds one off the top and makes his Scout huge. I'm able to cast and crack Engineered Explosives, but he fetches an arbor, attaches a couple Auras, and ends it.
Game 3: On the play, he has T0 Leyline after I mull to 5 so it's not looking good. My hand is 3 fetches, Death's Shadow, and TBR. He plays his Bogle but luckily doesn't find a haymaker aura, just swinging in with Rancor+Gryff's Boon and another aura I don't recall. I get my Death's Shadow out which stalls him for a little as he does the combat math, and later cast a 1/2 Tarmogoyf. Eventually, he decides to swing in with his Bogle, leaving back an unenchanted Scout to block. I block with Tarmogoyf and go to 4 life, he is at 17. He passes, I crack the fetch I'd been sitting on and shock myself down to 1 to get a Watery Grave. I then untap and swing with Death's Shadow, he blocks with Scout. I cast TBR with counterspell backup (Delay) which he clearly was not expecting, and I get the win.
Round 3 vs RW Blasphemous Act (2-0)
Game 1: On the play, I Thoughtseize him and see mostly lands, with a Stuffy Doll and a Blood Moon. I take the Doll as I have multiple Traverses in hand that I use to get my basic Swamp & Forest. He eventually casts Blood Moon, but by this time I have a big Tarmogoyf beating down, and the Stuffy Doll he draws is hit by Dismember, after which he doesn't draw anything relevant and loses.
Game 2: On the draw, he has T0 Leyline, but I play tight to fade Blood Moon while putting out a massive 6/7 Goyf thanks to removal and drawing engine pieces like Wraith/Bauble. He has a Grandmaster in play he hit me with a couple times, so he's at 24 when he attempts to cast Rest in Peace. I crack the fetch I'd been sitting on to get Watery Grave and Stubborn Denial the RIP. I get an attack in with Goyf and then cast Death's Shadow, then Traverse for another Shadow which I also put on the board. He simply passes the turn with an untapped Plains and Vantage, and I go down to 5 life, swing with everything and TBR the Goyf that he attempts to block for the win.
Round 4 vs Jund Shadow feat. Bomat Courier (2-0)
Game 1: I keep a great hand of Thoughtseize, a couple removal spells, and DS/Goyf. I'm on the play and Thoughtseize his Reveler away, also taking note of a Grim Flayer and Courier. He casts Courier which gets Pushed. I Traverse for Shadow but don't cast it, worried about Bolt. Next turn his 4/4 Flayer is stonewalled by my 5/5 Shadows, and eventually I fetch-shock again and TBR for the win.
Game 2: On the draw, I keep another fantastic hand. I manage to go lower faster with multiple Wraiths, and cast a DS which starts getting in, although I know I won't win the long game since I Thoughtseized him earlier and took an IoK to prevent him from taking my TBR (also saw Traverse, Shadow, and a Reveler). He plays a Ghost Quarter and Dismembers my Shadow, then plays a Shadow of his own. I Traverse for another DS and cast it, and he doesn't have removal so there is a standoff. The pivotal moment comes when he taps out to cast Reveler while at 7 life and passes the turn. I topdeck a Dismember, which kills the Reveler and puts me to 3. I then swing with my Shadow, he blocks with his, and the first strike + trample damage from TBR gets there.
Round 5 vs Humans (2-0)
Game 1: On the draw with discard and 2x Shadow, he casts T1 Vial and passes. I Thoughtseize him and see Meddling Mage and Thalia. I take Meddling Mage, so T2 he casts Thalia. He gets in for 2 and passes on T3, and because of normal Death's Shadow things, I am at 8. I cast 3 Shadows on my T3 and pass with Dismember in hand. He topdecks a Freebooter to strip Dismember, and casts a Champion as well, but when I untap I fetch-shock to make my Shadows 8/8 and force him to block 2 of them, sending Thalia and Champion to the GY. He untaps and passes, and on my draw step Vials in another Freebooter. I reveal a basic Forest and with no cards in hand, he concedes.
Game 2: On the draw again, this time he plays a land and passes. I Thoughtseize him and see Meddling Mage, Thalia, Auriok Champion, and 2 Phantasmal Images. I take Auriok Champ and pass. He casts Mage naming Death's Shadow, and on my turn I Tarfire the Mage and cast my 5/5 Death's Shadow. He plays Thalia the next turn, but I just Fatal Push it and swing for 7 to put him to 12. He casts Thalia's Lieutenant and passes. I decline to attack because of the Images in his hand, and instead cast Faithless Looting, which draws me into a Traverse and Kozilek's Return (binned 2 lands). I Traverse for a second Shadow and pass. He plays a Vial and casts a Phantasmal Image copying my Shadow. I untap and cast Kozilek's Return, wiping his board and then swinging in for lethal.
On the current talk in this thread: 3 color Shadow is still good, but imo you really need Blue in order to protect your threats. It's a disruptive aggro deck at its core, so drawn out resource-exchanging games is generally not where you want to be. Utilizing 2x Looting you're able to pitch Stub in G1 matchups where it's not great, and Looting can also draw you into action to end games before they become drawn out and you lose momentum. If you do go 3 color though, you can run an additional TBR and things like Anger of the Gods more easily.
Lavamancer has been great for me on traditional Jund, but with Traverse it can be more of a balancing act to maintain delirium. It's still a fantastic option against Humans, but the games have to line up correctly (lots of removal or a sweeper into Lavaman to lock down whatever they might play) and multiple Mantis Riders/Reflector Mages are terrible, but with or without Lavaman those are rough for our deck to see anyway.
Thanks! Unfortunately the guy running the camera left after round 4 vs jund shadow (featuring bomat courier), so the finals match against Humans which is probably more relevant to this meta was not on camera. I'll include a match report when they stream it on monday.
The Tarfires were pretty medium; the idea was to go efficient to Traverse ASAP and get some huge Goyfs, but the Tribal wasn't relevant as much as I thought it would be. I can see how it sets up quick Traverses if you want to fire it off, and against Humans I luckily wasn't punished for not running multiple Bolts instead. Other than that match, the 2 damage vs 3 was pretty negligible, but I like having at least 2 direct damage spells somewhere in the 75 as they're pretty flexible. For example in G1 against Bogles, after Thoughtseizing his Ledgewalker and casting DS, he was forced to fetch for a Dryad Arbor. I Dismembered it, Tarfired myself, and suddenly he was on a 2 turn clock. Whether you play those, Seal of Fire, Bolt, even additional Decays etc seems like personal preference, but I enjoyed the flexibility of direct damage with the more low to the ground list than trying to hold up Decays for problem permanents.
Piloted Traverse for the first time in about a month tonight and went 5-0 (beat Humans, Ponza, Bogles, Blasphemous Act, and Jund Shadow). First time I've finished so well with the deck, and while I definitely ran hot with some absurd starts, the topdecks were live all night and I found that I didn't miss Manamorphose as much as I thought. I liked the cards being mostly business outside of the normal engine, and Faithless Looting was fantastic at filtering draws (pitching Stubborn Denial in irrelevant situations, finding the game-winning Kozilek's Return against Humans). Manamorphose is still a great choice for the deck, but the list I decided on tonight felt really efficient and ran like a buzzsaw. I'll definitely keep testing with Looting and updating the removal suite here and there. Decklist here:
It's late but I did take notes and plan to do a write up later on the individual games. Will post it here once I'm through, and when they upload the round I played on stream to Youtube I may post that here as well.
What I have come to ask are good board options against the control decks I mentioned. I've been eyeballing Hazoret as a great topend card that has a lot of versatility. It can 1-shot Teferi, grind past Ensnaring Bridge, stonewall Hollow Ones, and basically force Jeskai to have a Path/Purge or just die. Quickly too. I've been rather unimpressed by Thrun lately. Maybe I've just been drawing him when I'm already too far behind for it to matter. How are you guys preparing your sideboards for the grindfest? Are we bringing in Nihil Spellbombs to counter Search for Azcanta / Snap value? Is anyone playing Golgari Charm as an additional out to Mardu tokens? Are there any cards that you would love to bring in vs both? Are Finks worth the slots vs control?
I have been playing a slightly different build with 24 lands and 3 BBE and loving it, and I agree with you that the 2 Foothills/Forests and 3 Scooze have been phenomenal, if a tad conservative. For the board, I have always been a fan of 1x Golgari Charm, it's versatile and is great against Mardu/Supreme Verdict/Bogles and more. As for Hazoret, I cannot recommend her enough, she's a monster and has single-handedly won me so many games. I've won through a Blood Moon + Rest in Peace with her on the field, and last week a GDS player just conceded once she hit the board (many decks cannot beat a resolved Hazzy). Even against decks packing Path/Purge I bring her in because she's just so good in the grindy matchups. If you're thinking of swapping her for Thrun I recommend it, I have found Thrun too narrow rn although if Jeskai keeps going on the uptick I might try him again.
I second the Engineered Explosives recommendation, it's extremely versatile, solves problems you might struggle with otherwise, and helps grow Goyf.
Just got back from Modern night and went 4-1 with a very similar list to the one I posted earlier, beating Ponza, BW Tokens, Madcap Moon, Grixis Shadow (lost to Jeskai). I'm 12-2-1 in events over the past couple weeks and I'm really digging where the deck is at right now. I wasn't impressed with Grim Flayer tonight so I'm going to try to replace them with a Tireless Tracker, fourth Lightning Bolt, and swapping the Spellbomb out for LtLH to see how that goes. Also swapped a Bloodstained Mire for a second Foothills because I found myself wanting to fetch the basic Forests more often, but there is usually a lot of Blood Moon in the areas I play. One thing I can't decide on: 4-2 split of Bob-Scooze, or 3-3? Is anyone really sold on one over the other?
Delver, I have to echo the sentiments Piney had about your list, I ran a very similar one based off of that and logged my first ever 5-0 at my LGS last night (been playing Modern since December, so I was very excited). The deck feels packed with threats and interaction, and the combo of Flayer and Bob is nuts in terms of finding what you need when you need it, as well as mitigating damage from flips. Here's the list I ran:
I played RW Blasphemous Act Combo, Lantern Control, Bant CoCo, and Infect twice. Some notes on well-performing cards:
- Nihil Spellbomb was great to have in the main, not being able to Witness for Chord in game one let me shut down the Bant CoCo player and it helped against Lantern as well. It's easy to board out for more interaction if you need it.
- Hazoret is a monster, and single-handedly won me games against RW Act (through a Blood Moon + Rest in Peace) and Lantern. It can be a bit awkward to use, but Collective Brutality lines up really well with it and when it's good, it's amazing.
- Kolaghan's Command is pure value, obviously most of the decks I played it was great against, but I loved having 2 in the main, it's the right number imo and a great card to grind with.
- Liliana, the Last Hope is also fantastic for the grind, and I don't believe you lose much going to a 3-1 Veil-Hope split in the main if that's what you want to do. In many cases it was more dangerous than LotV as a must-answer threat.
- I really enjoyed the number of fetches and the 2-2 swamp-forest split, it makes it a lot easier to play around Blood Moon and it's easy to pitch them to LotV if you don't need them (I nearly flooded out in one game against infect, but Bob flips + LotV discarding fetchlands lead to a dominant board position).
- I didn't really miss the Abrupt Decay in the main as much as I thought, and I like it as a catch-all sideboard card for things like Lantern, Merfolk etc. You'll notice I didn't have Fulminators or Spheres, mostly because I still need to pick them up, but also because I'm ironically one of two Tron players at my LGS, and neither of us run it religiously. No Scapeshift either.
Overall, I loved the list, liked how I played and performed, and I think this is what I'll run for Jund moving forward, with some tweaks here and there. I was on camera for the last match vs Infect, so when they upload that to Youtube I might post it here if anyone would like to watch! I'd love some pointers as I'm not an experienced pilot by any means, but it's such a fun deck to play and I think the Bob+Flayer combo with BBE as a finisher has real potential.
Not much to say here, Manamorphose is so good I can't even describe it. The deck feels like a freight train. Not impressed with Liliana TLH or Fulminators at all today, wish I had more sweepers. Onwards and upwards.
Nice finish! How did the Mardu and Eldrazi games go? Those seem like difficult matchups when I've faced them, but certainly winnable. Were you using the same list you posted a while back? I'm playing in an invitational in a couple weeks and I'm thinking of running 4C blue, but I'm still unsure of the number of manamorphose to include as well as the sweepers. Do you think Anger of the Gods is doable with 2 red sources + Manamorphose, or would you stick to something like Kozilek's Return or even Pyroclasm for the speed? What would you replace LtLH with in the board for the grindier matchups? Interested to hear your opinion if you'd be up for elaborating some
Another Ballista is probably a safe bet, they're just so versatile (early removal, lategame mana sink) and can be a "deal with this immediately or lose" threat like Karn is. If you're playing something like 2 Ugin, 3 Ostone and 1 All is Dust, the second All is Dust will be ok but it isn't a threat on its own.
I played Jund for the first time in paper today, expected to get smacked but instead went 4-1 at modern night. Obviously a small sample size, but the deck was a blast to play and felt very powerful. I need a lot more testing and practice with the deck, but it's fun, skill-intensive which helps with improvement at the game as a whole, and the changeup from stabilization to beating down feels very seamless. As far as non-BBE threats, I'd like to try Tireless Tracker at some point, has anyone had experience running it? Not sure if it's right in this meta, but regardless of the top end, the deck still seems quite good and you guys won an excited convert tonight.
Those all sound solid, and the Faithless Looting list is really sweet in particular, I haven't tried that yet. Which versions have impressed you the most? I tried Spooly's list, and while it was pretty good I missed having at least one Grim Flayer and a Bolt. I'm thinking 2-3 Manamorphose is the sweet spot, and 2 Whispers seems to be just enough too. Lingering Souls is fantastic in a lot of matchups, but I did pretty poorly at an IQ recently with a 5-color list running those where my opponents either grinded me out anyway, or had an answer like EE/Anger (playing Burn 4 times after cutting some of the Blue didn't help either). The card has won me many games and seems good against Humans/Hollow one, but along with LoTV, it's a grindy 3 drop and I'm not sure that's what the deck excels at or really wants right now.
Thanks for the replies, I definitely shouldn't discount Crucible over Loam even though I prefer Loam as they both have big upside for helping us recover. I've never played with Horizon Canopy but a card drawing engine with that + Crucible would be pretty insane.
Personally I haven't felt any need to stray from mono green lately. The spell based-combo decks that the black cards help against are at an extremely low ebb right now. Valakut and Ad Nauseam are virtually non-existent. Storm is easy to beat with the 75 mono green has access to, and while Collective Brutality is nice to have against Burn, it's only a slight upgrade and that deck isn't seeing much play right now either anyway. I think GB is a totally fine choice if you want the versatility, but I just don't think it's necessary right now given the variance you add to the manabase, even if it is quite small. At some point the damage from your Llanowar Wastes will kill you, at some point you'll draw the Swamp when you need a Forest, at some point you'll get strip mined because you don't have a 4th basic in g1, etc. Just my experience from tons of grinding on MTGO lately and crushing it with mono green.
I'm glad to hear mono green has been doing well, and it's certainly been putting up the most results lately, I just value the black sideboard options locally and haven't made the jump yet. There's an invitational coming up and I'm thinking of trying it there for the consistency but I'd like to test it some first. Do you run any Dismembers, multiple Ballistas, or any Spatial Contortions? Spot removal is the one area of mono green I can never decide on.
Has anyone else been testing with Whispers/Manamorphose? I've been tinkering with a 4-color list splashing blue and have found that both cards are just bananas. I still need a lot more games to be comfortable knowing when and what number to side out, but adding those cards as well as dropping LoTV and going to 17 lands has made the deck feel super smooth. I find myself getting early delirium very consistently, and something like T1 Thoughtseize/Push followed by T2 Whispers normally leads to a steamroll. I'd love to hear other opinions or about other experiences with this!
1 copy is solid, and it's better than Crucible of Worlds because of the recursion (even though dredging isn't ideal for us). It can't get hit with artifact destruction and it isn't a nonbo with Oblivion Stone either. The only downside to Loam is that it isn't searchable off of Stirrings, but chances are you want another land or a threat anyway.
Last week I tried a pseudo-GB list with 2 Llanowar Wastes main (3 Forests) and 2 Dismembers, along with a basic Swamp and Thoughtseize/Brutality in the side. I liked it a lot and I wanted to see if anyone has tried a list like this, a bit like the list from the relatively recent Hareruya article. You get the mono-Green consistency in game 1 with some phenomenal sideboard cards against rough matchups like spell-based combo and burn in game 2/3. I'm not sure if I want to run Blooming Marsh or not, but the Llanowar Wastes didn't punish me so I'm inclined to stick with those.
When I play it again I'll either try to squeeze a Grim Flayer into the main (maybe cutting Decay) or drop the Tarfires for Bolts just for the extra % of damage. I previously had been running 17 lands with 4 Manamorphose, and I still like those lists but I wanted to drop it and see how Looting would perform. Manamorphose lets you accelerate your busted starts and really helps if you have a lot of Blood Moon around, or if you're on only 1 basic. However I also found it to be pretty awkward getting openers with multiple manamorphose or several cantrips and then cycling into no action. The deck is pretty customize-able and I don't believe there to be a truly "optimal build" because of the # of colors we're able to run, so testing a couple different configurations and seeing what you're most comfortable with is the way to go imo
Round 1 vs Ponza (2-1)
Game 1: Mull to 6 but multiple discard spells take care of Utopia Sprawl and Blood Moon, Tarfire takes care of Tireless Tracker. Opponent casts BBE cascading into Blood Moon, but at this point I have a huge Goyf out, and a second Tarfire takes care of the BBE after which I just beat down to win.
Game 2: On the draw, have to mull again and have no answer for T1 Utopia Sprawl into T2 Molten Rain. Blood Moon comes down next turn and I can't contend with Tracker/Pia and Kiran.
Game 3: On the play, have the classic curve once again of discard (Utopia Sprawl) into Goyf and then a big Death's Shadow. Had all the answers for his creatures, had Golgari Charm for Blood Moon, and the quick clock was too much for him to handle.
Round 2 vs Bogles (2-1)
Game 1: On the draw, keep a very good 7 with potential for an absurdly fast clock (Shadow, Dismember, Thoughtseize). Opponent plays Thicket and passes, I fetch and Thoughtseize him and see that he's on Bogles. I take his only creature (Ledgewalker) and pass. He tries to find a creature after I cast DS and he is forced to fetch for Dryad Arbor, which I promptly Dismember to make DS a 9/9. I swing, he takes one more draw step and scoops.
Game 2: On the draw, keep an OK looking 6 with some SB cards, but he's just too fast. I Thoughtseize away a Runed Halo and hope that he jams Coronet T3 with only 2 lands (Stub in hand), but he finds one off the top and makes his Scout huge. I'm able to cast and crack Engineered Explosives, but he fetches an arbor, attaches a couple Auras, and ends it.
Game 3: On the play, he has T0 Leyline after I mull to 5 so it's not looking good. My hand is 3 fetches, Death's Shadow, and TBR. He plays his Bogle but luckily doesn't find a haymaker aura, just swinging in with Rancor+Gryff's Boon and another aura I don't recall. I get my Death's Shadow out which stalls him for a little as he does the combat math, and later cast a 1/2 Tarmogoyf. Eventually, he decides to swing in with his Bogle, leaving back an unenchanted Scout to block. I block with Tarmogoyf and go to 4 life, he is at 17. He passes, I crack the fetch I'd been sitting on and shock myself down to 1 to get a Watery Grave. I then untap and swing with Death's Shadow, he blocks with Scout. I cast TBR with counterspell backup (Delay) which he clearly was not expecting, and I get the win.
Round 3 vs RW Blasphemous Act (2-0)
Game 1: On the play, I Thoughtseize him and see mostly lands, with a Stuffy Doll and a Blood Moon. I take the Doll as I have multiple Traverses in hand that I use to get my basic Swamp & Forest. He eventually casts Blood Moon, but by this time I have a big Tarmogoyf beating down, and the Stuffy Doll he draws is hit by Dismember, after which he doesn't draw anything relevant and loses.
Game 2: On the draw, he has T0 Leyline, but I play tight to fade Blood Moon while putting out a massive 6/7 Goyf thanks to removal and drawing engine pieces like Wraith/Bauble. He has a Grandmaster in play he hit me with a couple times, so he's at 24 when he attempts to cast Rest in Peace. I crack the fetch I'd been sitting on to get Watery Grave and Stubborn Denial the RIP. I get an attack in with Goyf and then cast Death's Shadow, then Traverse for another Shadow which I also put on the board. He simply passes the turn with an untapped Plains and Vantage, and I go down to 5 life, swing with everything and TBR the Goyf that he attempts to block for the win.
Round 4 vs Jund Shadow feat. Bomat Courier (2-0)
Game 1: I keep a great hand of Thoughtseize, a couple removal spells, and DS/Goyf. I'm on the play and Thoughtseize his Reveler away, also taking note of a Grim Flayer and Courier. He casts Courier which gets Pushed. I Traverse for Shadow but don't cast it, worried about Bolt. Next turn his 4/4 Flayer is stonewalled by my 5/5 Shadows, and eventually I fetch-shock again and TBR for the win.
Game 2: On the draw, I keep another fantastic hand. I manage to go lower faster with multiple Wraiths, and cast a DS which starts getting in, although I know I won't win the long game since I Thoughtseized him earlier and took an IoK to prevent him from taking my TBR (also saw Traverse, Shadow, and a Reveler). He plays a Ghost Quarter and Dismembers my Shadow, then plays a Shadow of his own. I Traverse for another DS and cast it, and he doesn't have removal so there is a standoff. The pivotal moment comes when he taps out to cast Reveler while at 7 life and passes the turn. I topdeck a Dismember, which kills the Reveler and puts me to 3. I then swing with my Shadow, he blocks with his, and the first strike + trample damage from TBR gets there.
Round 5 vs Humans (2-0)
Game 1: On the draw with discard and 2x Shadow, he casts T1 Vial and passes. I Thoughtseize him and see Meddling Mage and Thalia. I take Meddling Mage, so T2 he casts Thalia. He gets in for 2 and passes on T3, and because of normal Death's Shadow things, I am at 8. I cast 3 Shadows on my T3 and pass with Dismember in hand. He topdecks a Freebooter to strip Dismember, and casts a Champion as well, but when I untap I fetch-shock to make my Shadows 8/8 and force him to block 2 of them, sending Thalia and Champion to the GY. He untaps and passes, and on my draw step Vials in another Freebooter. I reveal a basic Forest and with no cards in hand, he concedes.
Game 2: On the draw again, this time he plays a land and passes. I Thoughtseize him and see Meddling Mage, Thalia, Auriok Champion, and 2 Phantasmal Images. I take Auriok Champ and pass. He casts Mage naming Death's Shadow, and on my turn I Tarfire the Mage and cast my 5/5 Death's Shadow. He plays Thalia the next turn, but I just Fatal Push it and swing for 7 to put him to 12. He casts Thalia's Lieutenant and passes. I decline to attack because of the Images in his hand, and instead cast Faithless Looting, which draws me into a Traverse and Kozilek's Return (binned 2 lands). I Traverse for a second Shadow and pass. He plays a Vial and casts a Phantasmal Image copying my Shadow. I untap and cast Kozilek's Return, wiping his board and then swinging in for lethal.
On the current talk in this thread: 3 color Shadow is still good, but imo you really need Blue in order to protect your threats. It's a disruptive aggro deck at its core, so drawn out resource-exchanging games is generally not where you want to be. Utilizing 2x Looting you're able to pitch Stub in G1 matchups where it's not great, and Looting can also draw you into action to end games before they become drawn out and you lose momentum. If you do go 3 color though, you can run an additional TBR and things like Anger of the Gods more easily.
Lavamancer has been great for me on traditional Jund, but with Traverse it can be more of a balancing act to maintain delirium. It's still a fantastic option against Humans, but the games have to line up correctly (lots of removal or a sweeper into Lavaman to lock down whatever they might play) and multiple Mantis Riders/Reflector Mages are terrible, but with or without Lavaman those are rough for our deck to see anyway.
The Tarfires were pretty medium; the idea was to go efficient to Traverse ASAP and get some huge Goyfs, but the Tribal wasn't relevant as much as I thought it would be. I can see how it sets up quick Traverses if you want to fire it off, and against Humans I luckily wasn't punished for not running multiple Bolts instead. Other than that match, the 2 damage vs 3 was pretty negligible, but I like having at least 2 direct damage spells somewhere in the 75 as they're pretty flexible. For example in G1 against Bogles, after Thoughtseizing his Ledgewalker and casting DS, he was forced to fetch for a Dryad Arbor. I Dismembered it, Tarfired myself, and suddenly he was on a 2 turn clock. Whether you play those, Seal of Fire, Bolt, even additional Decays etc seems like personal preference, but I enjoyed the flexibility of direct damage with the more low to the ground list than trying to hold up Decays for problem permanents.
4 Death's Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Street Wraith
Spells:
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
2 Tarfire
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Faithless Looting
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
1 Stomping Ground
1 Watery Grave
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Delay
2 Collective Brutality
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
It's late but I did take notes and plan to do a write up later on the individual games. Will post it here once I'm through, and when they upload the round I played on stream to Youtube I may post that here as well.
I have been playing a slightly different build with 24 lands and 3 BBE and loving it, and I agree with you that the 2 Foothills/Forests and 3 Scooze have been phenomenal, if a tad conservative. For the board, I have always been a fan of 1x Golgari Charm, it's versatile and is great against Mardu/Supreme Verdict/Bogles and more. As for Hazoret, I cannot recommend her enough, she's a monster and has single-handedly won me so many games. I've won through a Blood Moon + Rest in Peace with her on the field, and last week a GDS player just conceded once she hit the board (many decks cannot beat a resolved Hazzy). Even against decks packing Path/Purge I bring her in because she's just so good in the grindy matchups. If you're thinking of swapping her for Thrun I recommend it, I have found Thrun too narrow rn although if Jeskai keeps going on the uptick I might try him again.
Just got back from Modern night and went 4-1 with a very similar list to the one I posted earlier, beating Ponza, BW Tokens, Madcap Moon, Grixis Shadow (lost to Jeskai). I'm 12-2-1 in events over the past couple weeks and I'm really digging where the deck is at right now. I wasn't impressed with Grim Flayer tonight so I'm going to try to replace them with a Tireless Tracker, fourth Lightning Bolt, and swapping the Spellbomb out for LtLH to see how that goes. Also swapped a Bloodstained Mire for a second Foothills because I found myself wanting to fetch the basic Forests more often, but there is usually a lot of Blood Moon in the areas I play. One thing I can't decide on: 4-2 split of Bob-Scooze, or 3-3? Is anyone really sold on one over the other?
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Fatal Push
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
3 Raging Ravine
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
1 Golgari Charm
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Maelstrom Pulse
I played RW Blasphemous Act Combo, Lantern Control, Bant CoCo, and Infect twice. Some notes on well-performing cards:
- Nihil Spellbomb was great to have in the main, not being able to Witness for Chord in game one let me shut down the Bant CoCo player and it helped against Lantern as well. It's easy to board out for more interaction if you need it.
- Hazoret is a monster, and single-handedly won me games against RW Act (through a Blood Moon + Rest in Peace) and Lantern. It can be a bit awkward to use, but Collective Brutality lines up really well with it and when it's good, it's amazing.
- Kolaghan's Command is pure value, obviously most of the decks I played it was great against, but I loved having 2 in the main, it's the right number imo and a great card to grind with.
- Liliana, the Last Hope is also fantastic for the grind, and I don't believe you lose much going to a 3-1 Veil-Hope split in the main if that's what you want to do. In many cases it was more dangerous than LotV as a must-answer threat.
- I really enjoyed the number of fetches and the 2-2 swamp-forest split, it makes it a lot easier to play around Blood Moon and it's easy to pitch them to LotV if you don't need them (I nearly flooded out in one game against infect, but Bob flips + LotV discarding fetchlands lead to a dominant board position).
- I didn't really miss the Abrupt Decay in the main as much as I thought, and I like it as a catch-all sideboard card for things like Lantern, Merfolk etc. You'll notice I didn't have Fulminators or Spheres, mostly because I still need to pick them up, but also because I'm ironically one of two Tron players at my LGS, and neither of us run it religiously. No Scapeshift either.
Overall, I loved the list, liked how I played and performed, and I think this is what I'll run for Jund moving forward, with some tweaks here and there. I was on camera for the last match vs Infect, so when they upload that to Youtube I might post it here if anyone would like to watch! I'd love some pointers as I'm not an experienced pilot by any means, but it's such a fun deck to play and I think the Bob+Flayer combo with BBE as a finisher has real potential.
Nice finish! How did the Mardu and Eldrazi games go? Those seem like difficult matchups when I've faced them, but certainly winnable. Were you using the same list you posted a while back? I'm playing in an invitational in a couple weeks and I'm thinking of running 4C blue, but I'm still unsure of the number of manamorphose to include as well as the sweepers. Do you think Anger of the Gods is doable with 2 red sources + Manamorphose, or would you stick to something like Kozilek's Return or even Pyroclasm for the speed? What would you replace LtLH with in the board for the grindier matchups? Interested to hear your opinion if you'd be up for elaborating some
I'm glad to hear mono green has been doing well, and it's certainly been putting up the most results lately, I just value the black sideboard options locally and haven't made the jump yet. There's an invitational coming up and I'm thinking of trying it there for the consistency but I'd like to test it some first. Do you run any Dismembers, multiple Ballistas, or any Spatial Contortions? Spot removal is the one area of mono green I can never decide on.
Last week I tried a pseudo-GB list with 2 Llanowar Wastes main (3 Forests) and 2 Dismembers, along with a basic Swamp and Thoughtseize/Brutality in the side. I liked it a lot and I wanted to see if anyone has tried a list like this, a bit like the list from the relatively recent Hareruya article. You get the mono-Green consistency in game 1 with some phenomenal sideboard cards against rough matchups like spell-based combo and burn in game 2/3. I'm not sure if I want to run Blooming Marsh or not, but the Llanowar Wastes didn't punish me so I'm inclined to stick with those.