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  • posted a message on The Rock
    Yep, it looks that way. I will say that there are a fair number of common sequences with this deck wherein doing so isn't as punishing as it might seem; but still, I don't think that some of these mana bases are really anywhere close to objectively correct.

    Twilight Mire or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth do seem like necessities in these sorts of builds, that's for certain. Urborg lets you cast T1 discard/Push (and also gives you sweet evasion in conjuction with Funeral Charm, lol), while Mire doesn't risk fixing the opponent's B mana or turning on Swampwalk from opposing Street Wraiths, and it also allows you to filter in the opposite direction, whether you're stranded on G sources or just want another Scooze activation. Either one is very playable IMO, but I still see them as something of a necessary evil brought about by overly greedy choices elsewhere in the list. But time will tell how viable these setups are!
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Taking Turns
    Hey all! Checking back in with this thread and it’s going to be a long post ahead—so, fair warning, lol.

    Firstly, I must admit that I haven’t been tweaking and refining my Turns list at all; since SCG ‘Cuse, I’ve been all-in on Golgari. That said, I was very confident in my Turns list just a month or two ago, but nowadays, when I pick it back up for a change of pace, I’m having significantly worse results than I used to. It seems like the meta has become a lot more hostile, with Infect a significant presence again and decks like Tron and UWC having taken a minor downturn, to name just two factors. While Dredge is not a bad matchup in and of itself, its influence on the meta does not seem to have worked to our benefit. It’s been discouraging to say the least, particularly in contrast to my results on Golgari, which have been consistently stellar.

    I was thinking about trying out some of the maindeck Thing builds—perhaps with Mission Briefing—that I saw a few pages back, but the most recent posts ITT have me wondering whether splashing a color has become obligatory. I sure hope not, but at the same time I don’t wish to deny reality. Any thoughts?

    On a related note, I have no intentions of selling out of this deck or anything, but I maayyyy have been a little overzealous in aggressively beginning to foil it out. Grin I simply don’t get to play paper often enough to justify having two decks filled with shiny cards, and with UMA about to bring us those BGx borderless reprints...well, I think the time has come to part with my foil copies of Turns cards. I mention this here just because I wouldn’t mind giving anyone here who’s interested in foiling their deck a decent hookup. My list can be found here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/combo/768745-taking-turns?page=109#c2186 . Just about everything there is foiled, with a few exceptions (Time Warps, Gigadrowses, Exhaustions, Chalices). PM me if you’re interested! I’ll hold off for a week on listing them elsewhere to give people ITT a chance to get at me.

    Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.

    Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
    Posted in: Modern Archives - Established
  • posted a message on The Rock
    Yeah, great results for our deck lately. We seem to be steadily cementing a strong place in the meta post-Trophy.

    Very interesting 2nd place list from the SCG Modern Challenge as well:

    http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/125203
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on The Rock
    Fantastic job, Delver! Like VidarThor, I’m not having any luck reading some of these sections on mobile; still, what I can read is fantastic, the aesthetics of the layout are on point, and the splitting off of Rock from Abzan in and of itself is great for fostering innovation.

    I’ll get back to you with more detailed feedback once I’m able to sit down at a PC and read it top to bottom, but until then, thanks for all of your hard work.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Abzan
    Quote from FlyingDelver »
    I am excited to announce that I was given the opportunity to write as guest author at MTGRock.com going onward! I am deeply humbled by that offer. As my first article I have a reworked and polished version of my article of "how to build consistant manabases for GBx decks" from reddit to share with you guys. I hope it can be of some help for you!

    Play Patterns: Building A Consistant Manabase for GBx decks.

    Cheers,

    FlyingDelver


    Well done, and congrats! I’ve always liked mtgrock.com. You’ll be a great addition to their stable of writers.

    Looking forward to the separation of the primers as well. If you need any help with this, don’t hesitate to reach out.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)
    Quote from Spsiegel1987 »
    I don't think SFM does much for the format...

    Maybe the meta slows down for a bit, people comment that the SFM naysayers were wrong, and then it speeds up hyper efficiently again.

    I do think seeing Stirrings at that high of a percentage is problematic. I have Tron tucked away as it's a good deck to own so the ban would hurt me. I wonder if the deck could function at tier 1 without it?


    I’d say so. History has shown that Tron is simply here to stay, it seems, no matter what (within reason) pieces of anti-Tron technology are introduced into the format.

    Taking away a core component of Tron is different than printing hate for the archetype, of course, but the salient point here is that the deck’s resilience seems to consistently outstrip the community’s expectations.

    Besides, Oath of Nissa does a reasonable Stirrings impression, and one that could be argued is more in line with the power level of other Modern cantrips, whereas Stirrings is something of an outlier. In fact, Oath is a reasonable enough card that Tron may well be hurt less by a theoretical Stirrings ban than any other tiered Stirrings deck.


    On another note, on the heels of this highly non-interactive GP Top 32 (and assuming for the sake of argument a relatively non-interactive meta game for the near future), does anyone think a deck like Cheeri0s is a good meta call right now? And are there any other under-the-radar combo decks, even if they’re janky or still in the brewing stages, which may fall apart to interaction but can otherwise successfully race the Dredges, Trons, and Storms of the format? I’m an all-in BGx main but wouldn’t mind exploring something in the vein of what I just outlined as a secondary deck, even if it means getting in on the ground floor of a sketchy brew, lol.
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on Abzan
    Quote from Spsiegel1987 »
    Sol's an amazing player, because I really can't follow that deck list. It looks like such a mess and I don't see a lot of rhyme or reason for his choices.


    I have to agree here. All the respect in the world for what that man has achieved over the years, but the list looks a bit all over the place to me.

    Looking forward with great anticipation to the Duke’s take on Golgari. Until then, what does everyone think about UMA? BGx decks are certainly getting more reprint love than any other Modern archetype. Do we have any madmen amongst us who are planning to stock their deck with playsets of the box toppers?

    For me, the new Fulminator art knocks it out of the park—bravo and well done. And the new take on Tasigur is unsettling and well-executed, definitely growing on me. Borderless LoTV and Pulse are obviously sweet as well, but I’m not really sold on the new Goyf art (but, judging from discussion elsewhere, I seem to be in the minority here).
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Abzan
    Quote from HeyDre! »
    Quote from Spsiegel1987 »
    Quote from jubeininja69 »
    How come recent abzan decks have moved away from dark confidant?


    Because Abzan players are experimenting with a deck that's kinda been dead since Shadow was pushed out of tier 1. Until lingering souls becomes a necessary evil again it's incredibly foolish to play Junk over Jund or Rock.

    no, thats because people forgettin how good bob is!
    They just listen to some tireless Tracker priest (which is a very good card), but actually she is more a 1 or 2of in our deck.
    why? because rock and abzan is an outgrinding deck, and the presure has to Start from the beginning and not from t4!
    How many games has this deck won with discard, into bob into lilly? even when he eats a removalspell.. thats one less for your goyf or scooze.
    People sadly forget what this deck is made to.. and believe me, its not t4 tracker into some golgari pw that made us to sac the lands!
    We need to keep our opponents low on Ressources, thats why we don't play path and thats why i personally think assassin's trophy should be a sideboard card in this Deck.
    but this are just my thoughts


    I don’t think it’s quite so black-and-white as this.

    4 Tireless Tracker and no Dark Confidant is a very viable setup, but you need to structure accordingly with a high land count (including a lot of utility from the landbase), a flurry of early interaction, and high numbers of cards like Tasigur and Scooze which can come down as an earlyish, mana-efficient threat while also acting as a powerful mana sink in the mid-late game.

    4 Dark Confidant and 1-2 Tireless Tracker is also a viable setup, but you need to structure accordingly with a curve that includes nothing CMC4+ in the main and almost nothing above that threshold in the side, and probably capping the Thoughtseize count at 2, while having a coherent sideboard plan for the matchups where Confidant can become a liability.

    Personally, ever since I picked up the 25-land 4-Tracker build I haven’t looked back. The deck feels absolutely incredible. Still, I reject the notion that Confidant has no business being in Golgari or Abzan anymore, just as I reject the notion that these decks require Confidant because card advantage must begin on T2.

    As for Trophy in the side, I simply can’t agree. This card has lived up to the hype, in my view. It’s the catch-all answer that BGx decks have been crying out for. We’re no longer cold to big mana payoff cards and huge bombs off the top in certain scenarios against control or midrange; and Trophy remains a very reasonable roleplayer against other archetypes, nicely supplementing our more efficient forms of removal to provide us with a critical mass of kill spells.


    Re: Treetop Village, I played a very amusing match recently (vs Boros Nahiri on my channel) wherein my opponent ripped a frankly ridiculous number of planeswalkers off the top of their deck over the course of an insane G3, while I didn’t have much going on besides a pair of Treetops. My best play was to fire them up and attack over and over and over again, and by the end of the match my two Villages had racked up these statistics:

    - Killed two 2/2 Knight tokens
    - Assigned 38 (!) points of damage to planeswalkers, including kills on Gideon Ally of Zendikar, Gideon Jura, Nahiri the Harbinger, and 2x Chandra Torch of Defiance.
    - Assigned 12 points of damage to the opponent, including the hit for lethal.

    Obviously that’s just a ridiculous game in every way. I’ll play BGx strategies for the rest of my MtG days and I’m 100% confident that my apes will never replicate those numbers. Grin Still, if ever there was an example of Treetop’s usefulness, this is it—and the card more generally has been a standout performer across my games. That said, Delver is right about the manabase in general, but my advice is to play the maximum number of Treetops (usually 2) that your deck can statistically support.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)
    Quote from Grim_Flayer »
    I agree with whoever said several pages back that Dredge was quite strong even before the printing of Chill. While the new tech represents a noteworthy upgrade, the low meta share of Dredge prior to its release was baffling to me. Whenever I looked closely at a Dredge list, ran into one across the table, or took one for a spin myself, the deck has always seemed very, very good.


    At our LGS, we have a player who LOVES Dredge. He played it for so many years in many formats. He qualified for his first Pro Tour during Golgari Grave-Troll Dredge in Modern. I will tell you this. After it was banned, he actually didn't play for a long time. Just last week, I saw him back again with Creeping Chill. I trust his knowledge on the deck more than anyone I know.

    I also played Dredge during Golgari Grave-Troll because it was too good not to play. When it was banned, I just didn't want to play a crappier version of the deck. I tested it a bit at home and it just seemed mediocre at best. So I ditched it. If I can't play my (slightly better than) Tier 1 deck, why would I want to play a Tier 2 version of it? That's my reasoning at least. I assume that many current Dredge players are not dedicated Dredge players, but playing it more so because it is perceived as a Tier 1 deck or even the "best deck" right now.

    I've always been scared of a lot more decks than Dredge, but then I'm not usually playing Midrange or Control. Midrange is the archetype I personally don't enjoy and I've also shied away from Control in order to run proactive strategies instead. The decks I usually play are either faster than Dredge, have a good matchup against Dredge, or do something more unfair than Dredge.


    Heh, by contrast I’ve pretty much always been on some form of midrange or control as my primary deck. Smile I guess that pretty much explains our respective takes on pre-Chill Dredge!
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)
    In Golgari I’ve got 3x maindeck Scooze, alongside a sideboard including 2x Nihil Spellbomb, 1x Surgical Extraction, and 1x Kalitas, and I’m still feeling half-obligated to bring Flaying Tendrils back into the 75...Dredge is a monstrosity.

    I agree with whoever said several pages back that Dredge was quite strong even before the printing of Chill. While the new tech represents a noteworthy upgrade, the low meta share of Dredge prior to its release was baffling to me. Whenever I looked closely at a Dredge list, ran into one across the table, or took one for a spin myself, the deck has always seemed very, very good.
    Posted in: Modern Archives
  • posted a message on Abzan
    Quote from Ayiluss »
    I don't think Flaying Tendrils is good enough. Exiling their creatures is obviously good but it doesn't deal with Prized Amalgam which is a key weakness imo.


    Yeah, that’s always been a big miss, and now it’s even less reliable of a way to slam the door shut on Dredge thanks to Chill.

    Still, if Tendrils is in a decent place across the rest of the meta, then it may be worth considering. My philosophy with this deck is that sideboard cards don’t have to be blowouts, they just have to represent above average efficiency most of the time, so long as they’re wide enough to see a lot of use.

    I've been considering Abzan (or more like GB splashing white than true Abzan) to get access to RIP for this match-up. Creeping Chill has to hit the GY to trigger, so why not prevent it from getting there in the first place?

    The obvious downside though is that it is a NOBO with Goyf/Lingering Souls. Perhaps take those out in this match-up and replace with something less GY reliant? Possibly a terrible idea as I am still new to this archetype. I am not sure I want Leyline of the Void though as this deck doesn't have access to looting effects to pitch it when top-decked mid/late game.


    I would echo the warnings of other posters that advised against running RiP. However, if you do want to try Peaceful Abzan, I’d exclude Souls from your 75 entirely, playing straight BG main with just RiP and Stony in the side. It will still be a pretty rough negative synergy with Goyf, who is often incredibly good against graveyard-centric decks, but at least you’d be giving yourself the best chance to succeed that way.

    Quote from devtin »
    Ive been playing with flaying tendrils as the second damnation and it has been great. In combination with removal it stacks together very nicely. It is also good against other go wide decks as well with three mana being very important


    Yep, the fact that it can be just a three-mana sweeper against weenies is a big deal. I might bring the card back into the fold sometime soon and test it further.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Abzan
    How have people been faring against Dredge?

    Dredge is a matchup that makes me happy I have a Kalitas and a pair of Nihil Spellbombs in my side. It seemed for a little while as though people were moving away from these more value-oriented graveyard hate pieces in favor of options like Leyline of the Void and Surgical Extraction; and, while those are both still fine options (I myself run a lone Surgical), the more “old-fashioned” forms of graveyard interaction seem to shine against Dredge.

    What I’m wondering is whether it’s worth bringing back Flaying Tendrils. The card isn’t as appealing as it used to be due to the printing of Creeping Chill, which allows them to be less all-in on their creature beats.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Taking Turns
    Quote from Gigadrowsy »
    Hey Grim_Flayer, thank you for the welcome! I watched your YouTube video of Turn vs. Affinity and it was very solid. Great commentary and explanation of your thought process/choices. I plan on watching more!


    Thank you so much! It means a lot to hear that.

    This is my current deck list that is testing Mission Briefing. The card's Surveil 2 has performed well so far, allowing me to clear the chaff and dig to what I need. I'm not set on it, but it's always fun testing out new cards in Turns. The biggest weakness of this build is its lack of plays/interaction at the 2-drop slot in the main deck.
    The 2 Gemstone Caverns are a page out of timewalkinonsunshine's UB build. This is my first time posting a deck list, and I apologize if it is formatted incorrectly. How do you link to a user's name when coding a comment?



    This list looks great. I combed over it a few times, and, while I agree that it lacks interaction at the 2-drop slot, there don't appear to be any glaring instances of cards which could be cut to make way for Remand. The 11th turn spell and the Search would be a tad extraneous in a list like mine, but in your build with Opts and Briefings they seem strong. The list is cohesive and synergistic. That said, Remand is a strong performer for me, so after losses I'd ask myself whether Remand could have been a realistic difference-maker. Otherwise, keep at it and let us know how Briefing continues to play!


    @zcowan I like your latest list as well. How have Things been performing in the maindeck? Are they eating a lot of removal G1 from BGx and UWx decks?
    Posted in: Modern Archives - Established
  • posted a message on Abzan
    Quote from devtin »
    i would board out IOK personally and leave the other removal in. You need to slow them down. Also IOK hits too many cards that they actually want to discard like bloodghast or bridge.


    Yep, that’s certainly the safest choice, and I agree that it’s probably the best. Just didn’t know if anyone thought it was worth exploring the riskier tactic of leaving in a couple IoKs in hopes of sniping a Neonate or Looting on T1.
    Posted in: Midrange
  • posted a message on Abzan
    So against Bridgevine, I have 8-9 cards to board in. After making the most obvious cuts of LoTV and TS (3x each), I’m unsure which of the remaining bad cards are the worst. It’s between IoK, Push, and Trophy.

    IoK probably has the highest ceiling (taking a Neonate on T1 and leaving them without a discard enabler, for instance), and the lowest floor (dead topdeck after they empty their hand; or worse, you cast it and have no choice but to take a Bridge).

    Fatal Push has a much higher ceiling and much lower floor. You’re probably just hitting a token or a recursive threat with this, rendering it more a poor tempo play than a real answer.

    Trophy is often a far worse Push, but it has a few noteworthy exceptions that might make it better overall: hitting Greater Gargadon; hitting Leyline post-side; hitting Vengevine (again, as a tempo play) without Revolt needed.

    Any thoughts on what comes out? I don’t actually hate trimming around the edges and dropping one of each or so, but that seems unscientific.
    Posted in: Midrange
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