I basically expanded on one or two of my comments in this thread
Hi spooly, i read your article and reddit post. It all comes off a bit grim regarding the deck. Do you think its time to give up on the deck for the time being?
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
I don't think Souls are that great right now, they just prolong the game but don't really tend to flip the advantage to your end of the board in my experience. I like Bedlam Reveler as a grindy option if you can make the RR work.
@Spooly - I expect you're slam-dunking on the Arclight decks as well as lanternless whir decks? Personally I'm really excited for the meta to shift away from UW and Jund because those are the only consistently impossible match-ups for us. I finally got a new laptop so I'll be able to start grinding out MTGO reps again, and checking out the shifting meta game
I've been beating up on the Arclight decks, yeah. The dredge decks disappeared and Arclight took its place (at least in my leagues), but I'm crushing either way for the most part. The Whir matchup has been more even. I've also been doing pretty well against UW too, just ripping their hand apart, dumping all my threats, and forcing them to find more Terminus than I have counterspells. It hasn't been good, but it hasn't been bad either.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
Nothing really can replace Lingering Souls, but I don't think it's worth it anyway. It's only OK against the control decks, which have lots of wraths, and isn't that good against Mardu, who have way more token generators than we do. It is pretty great against BGx decks specifically though. But it's so hard to gain percentage points in grindy matchups and so much easier to gain percentage points in other matchups. If there's that much grindy stuff running around, the best thing to do is switch to a different deck, honestly. It's too hard to improve those matchups.
But the best nonwhite grindy option is Hazoret, though it's weak to path. As far as the other options: P&K is decent if you can make RR work (probably not worth it), Bedlam Reveler seems like it would be better, but it's actually a bit tough for us to enable even with 4 Manamorphose, Bloodbraid Elf is decent but sometimes it finds you trash (non-delirium Traverse, Bauble, Thoughtseize when you're at a super low life total), K Command is a nice 2 for 1... but not against decks which don't put your creatures in your GY (UWx), planeswalkers can be great but are highly matchup dependent, and so on. I'm inclined to just have 1-2 Hazoret, and try to kill them fast, but really just hope to dodge.
Thanks, both for the elaborate responses. Ill give hazoret a shot for the time being. Pira and kiran naalar would be perfect if the RR wasn't so rough on our mana requirements; Maybe it works best in variants with manamorphose which could cast it even without having R mana available, or after getting one of your R lands blown up.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
After getting some reps on mtgo comp leagues, I don't think Whispers is worth the squeeze. The killer is that i want to side tarfire out against control, but if i do it's a lot harder to turn whispers on quickly.
That said, i'm winning a lot of matches. 3-2, 3-2, 4-1 across 3 leagues. Absolutely destroying dredge (5-0 in matches, 10-1 in games), and doing ok against humans (2-0 in matches, though they were close). The tron matchup feels like we're a hair away from turning it, but I'm 0-3 (including an egregious punt on my part). That last league I added a Fulminator to my SB as a traverse target, but still got donked on by tron, because of running Thragtusks keeping him out of shadow + TBR range by exactly 1 point 3 turns in a row. Lingering Souls has been nice against Jund, hasn't done much against Mardu (when I do bring it in), and my only control match my opponent kept awful hands and died, so idk there. At this point I'm thinking about cutting them and trying 2x Hazoret instead so I can have (SB only!) countermagic for tron, burn, and the anyone else it's relevant against. Hazzy isn't as good against the grindy decks, but it's so hard to get percentage points there that I'm inclined to basically concede that it'll always be bad and never all that close.
Hi spooly,
Could you elaborate on how you play and side vs dredge in general?
I have always had a rough time with this matchup and I have regarded it as a terrible matchup in my experience (on par with UW control). Other than cheesing them out with TBR what is your game plan? I feel our removal does nothing vs their recurring threats and they develop such a large board so quickly. Not to mention they can also cast the death touch dredger to lock you out of attacking.
You have had quite the success so you must be doing something right.
Spooly, how do you feel about a build foregoing the traverses and baubles, into a build with mausoleum of secrets and architects of will?
It keeps the same number of cantrips and tutors. It will be a tad slower for sure but I can see it finding threats more consistently. And mausoleum seems to be easier to turn on, just needing a streetwraith or an architect cycle to be enabled. What are your thoughts?
How do we think assassins trophy will affect this decks viability going forward? I think 4 and 5 color splashes might not be as viable and we might have to stick to maybe 3 Colors. Any thoughts?
Secrets of the Mausoleum 1B
Instant
Undergrowth - search your library for a black card with converted mana cost equal to or less than the number of creature cards in your graveyard, reveal it and add it to your hand, then shuffle your library.
Seems like a nice tutor, can find deathshadow, fatal push, thoughtseize, liliana etc. Can be enablesby street wraith early on.
Maybe architects of will could see a resurgence in order to enable this more often?
Idk if it will replace traverse but its does seem easier to enable, and more versatile that traverse.
Easier to enable than Traverse? I don't know about that. Shadow and Tarmogoyf aren't going to the graveyard unless you're playing against Mardu or Jund, and otherwise we have 4x Wraith as literally the only ways to get use out of Mausoleum Secrets. Architects would certainly help, but how many copies would we play? 1-2 at most?
Don't get me wrong, I was super excited for this card as well. I just don't know if this is the right shell. Maybe if we move closer to Sultai and thus commit to playing a bit of a slower game. It costs 2 instead of 1, but it is instant speed which is nice. It can't tutor Tarmogoyf but it's been rare that I Traverse for goyf (only happened 2-3 times that I recall). Being able to search up Shadow, Push, Thoughtseize/IOK, all with only one creature in the yard does seem pretty attractive. Maybe even Countersquall in the Sultai shell. If only there was a black effect similar enough to TBR for 2 or less mana then we could cut red out of the deck entirely.
Im obviously theorizing here, but it is much easier to turn on than traverse. Given that the only way to turn on traverse is by having Land, Sorcery, Instant AND Creature OR Artifact (im not counting planeswalker as that rarely influences our traverse by the time we need it played). You will always have or need either a creature (wraith) or an artifact in the grave (bauble) to enable traverse. Hence if we replaced all baubles for architects of will, we would still be on the same amount of "Traverse enablers" without having to worry about land, sorcery and instant. Plus we wouldnt need to run bauble if we arent running traverse.
Now I dont know how much it would change or affect the gameplan by trading a 0 mana cantrip into a 1 mana cantrip that could be played late game in a pinch. It would obviously make it more mana intensive since the tutor costs 2 instead of 1 for traverse, and we lose the ability to tutor up a basic land which is important.
Im not saying this will replace traverse but im throwing it out there to hear ideas and thoughts.
On another note, I think the assassins throphy hurts our deck If we run a 5c mana base. The whole purpose of running White as the extra color is to hedge against midrange decks, and this new card could see GBx back up and using it to get rid of our only white source. With our mana base being so fragile and running so few basics I wouldn't be surprised if 4c Maximum becomes the new rule moving forward.
Secrets of the Mausoleum 1B
Instant
Undergrowth - search your library for a black card with converted mana cost equal to or less than the number of creature cards in your graveyard, reveal it and add it to your hand, then shuffle your library.
Seems like a nice tutor, can find deathshadow, fatal push, thoughtseize, liliana etc. Can be enablesby street wraith early on.
Maybe architects of will could see a resurgence in order to enable this more often?
Idk if it will replace traverse but its does seem easier to enable, and more versatile that traverse.
Congrats on the win. Don't take this as bashing, but as constructive criticism.
I think that not playing the full set of traverse is a big mistake. From the whole concept of this deck over Grixis, the point of it is running more threats: traverse being threat 9-12 (or 13-14 if you run grim flayers) vs the single 8 threats from grixis.(yes you make up for some traverses with the grim flayers). But now, by replacing those traverses with faithless lootings, you're basically seeing the same amount of card selection (early game) that grixis sees with serum visions (making the whole point of playing green for threats 9-12 completely moot). Having said that, faithless looting plus traverse has been tested and while it looks cute in paper, I can't say it has had that many positive results. We are simply not a good looting deck in which we cant make full use out of the looting aspect like mardu does. Plus the extra red spell makes the mana base harder to sustain for splashing other colors. In reality, this deck would even try to cut out red completely if it weren't for temur battle rage (which is the main reason we run red) and now bolt which has been having more of a spot because of humans but wasn't even a maindeckable card in traverse shadow before humans took over.
I also disagree on not splashing at least the 4th color, the strength of the deck comes in being able to apply early pressure and disruption while keeping the most valuable card from grixis which is stubborn denial; or the grindy aspect of souls.
I personally still believe in the strength of (having successful results) running all 5 colors since lingering souls gives us the same axis to compete vs other midrange decks which just eat us alive. Mardu, jund, grixis shadow simply will outgrind you if you do not have white. And the logic you use by saying that a kitesail freebooter and humans will laugh at your 1/1 tokens doesn't convince me. If you're in the position where you're casting lingering souls against humans while letting them have a noble and kitesail on board run freely then you're already in a losing spot from the get-go. That's why you run sweepers and so many removal.
Id like to know what matchups you faced, because at the moment this deck has a very 45-55 matchup against most of the field. Having a great match vs KCI and other combo decks; and being terrible against UW control.
Congrats again on your win, and id like to hear your thoughts on what I just wrote.
1-2 vs Eldrazi Tron
2-0 vs Angel Stompy
2-0 vs Puresteel Combo
2-0 vs Dredge
I would have won the g3 against Eldrazi Tron, but I only draw Lingering Souls as my only threat during the first 10-12 turns.. I had ripped his hand apart and hosed his mana with Alpine Moon, but just could not get him down in time..
Solid 75 to my meta, no changes planned currently.
I have a few questions for you.
- How are the Lilianas last hope in main deck doing? Compared to Lotv?
- Do you miss blue counterspells in the 75? What made you decide to run white instead of blue?
- How is k command doing?
@Jund_Em_In : how's your 5c deck against UWx control ? Do you bring in the Lingering Souls ?
Its a bad matchup. I don't bring in Lingering souls. Even though they aren't terrible, I think they are too slow and don't put a clock on our opponent. UW tends to run enough field of ruins, spreading seas and sweepers to take care of either your only white source or simply take a few hits while drawing cards and sweeping the board whenever they want; plus they grind better and if we let them reach the late game we are dead. I prefer to take this match as a tempo game plan and try to mull for hands where I can land a treat t2 o t3 and start going at their life as quickly as possible while disrupting their plan with discard and counters. A well-timed Liliana of the veil can do some serious work and id say is one of the best cards in the matchup. Temur battle rage also nicks off a turn from the clock and is valuable.
I do bring them in against jeskai since they don't have the mana denial plan, and even though electrolyze trades with souls it's still a good grindy value engine they can't deal with cleanly (they run too many 1 for 1 cards).
My sideboard plan against UW is the following: Bring in 5 cards: 2 stubborn denial, 1 Liliana the last hope ( is hard to get rid of, is a must answer and rebuys threats, 1 collective brutality (acts as discard 9 and can drain for 2 in a pinch if you need the extra reach), 1 golgari charm (this is a nice tech, it can regenerate your threats off a supreme verdict/wrath of god etc. It can also get rid of detention sphere, search for azcanta, rest in peace if they bring it in, and in a pinch, it can get rid of the 1/1 tokens from Elspeth and/or timely reinforcements, allowing you to swing for game, this has come up often where they tap out for reinforcements or Elspeth thinking they can chump-block you for days and you catch them with the -1/-1 mode.)
From the main deck, I take out: 4 fatal push and 1 bloodstained mire (against path decks I take out a land)
I don't know if this is correct but I prefer to leave in the single dismember, its better than push as it can easily get rid of any Gideon planeswalker plus worst case scenario you can dismember you own DS on their end step (provided it is at least a 2/2 and swing with a larger DS on your own turn. Most of the time they bring in vendilion or they will try to chump-block you with a collonade if pressured enough, so it's not completely dead.
Having said that, I don't claim to be an expert on the UW matchup and I have a hard time winning it. My win record against UW is like 35/65 if not worse. Id love to get feedback from spooly and whocansay about this as I value their judgment and opinions highly when it comes to this deck.
Thanks for that outline. I also have a few questions.
How did you sideboard against Mardu?
Did you see any Humans players at all? I just say it's lucky to dodge Humans and UW control all day, considering they're the two most popular decks and both hard match ups for us.
Either way, congrats! Other than the match against 8-Rack (i.e. fringe deck) how important would you say lingering souls is for the sideboard? I removed it recently and haven't missed it.
How would you have sideboard if you had played against Humans? And also Miracles? My sideboard is very similar to yours but I use K-Command and increased quantities of other cards (Spellbomb, Brutality) instead of Souls.
1. Against Mardu, I side in 10 cards: Nihil spellbomb, Liliana the last hope, E explosives, golgari charm, kozilek return, 3 lingering souls, 1 godless shrine, 1 abrade or radiant flames (depends if I expect ensnaring bridge)
take out 10 cards: 2 Liliana of the veil, 2 stubborn denial, 1 watery grave, 2 thoughtseize, 2 inquisition (I like to leave in at least 4 discards since they reload their hands a lot in the mid-late game after a flashback looting), 1 temur battle rage
This matchup gets a lot better post sideboard and it feels actually easy, all of their creatures are small and puny 1/1s and 2/1s which you can sweep easily even with a golgari charm. Their largest creature which is reveler is too small even if they grow it. You can grind them on the same axis with lingering souls but they don't even run sweepers, plus they tend to discard their souls while you cast them twice for double value. You have enough sweepers post board to never let them get board presence or even wipe them completely after they make their tokens. And they spend 3 mana on a turn usually flashing back a looting, allowing you to gain tempo and get an advantage.
I approach the match by trying to play the grindy game while keeping the pressure high and forcing them to have removal. I side a temur battle rage out (even tho it goes over their tokens) as it is kind of dead in the early turns of the game and we want to pressure them fast.
2. I saw several human players but did not get matched against any, the majority of the field I saw running around was decks a mix of mardu, burn and jeskai. I wasn't matched with any of jeskai decks either, although I consider it to be a better matchup than UW.
Humans I think is a little harder than mardu but as usual g2 and 3 gets better, I know its considered an uphill but not bad, reflector mage can be a problem, but in general I'm not worried about getting matched with humans. On my personal record, I've been very favored against humans but I don't know how much of that is due to luck or personal bias. UW control, on the other hand, feels very bad and my record against that deck is like 35-65 if not 30-70. So yeah I was definitely lucky to dodge UW for the whole day.
3. Id say White (souls package) is the least important color we run. I have cut it several times and always find myself missing in on the grindy matchups (I'm a big fan of the card so I'm biased). But they are definitely the most cuttable cards in the deck. Id love to find a way to keep good grindy cards in the other 4 colors but none of them have been as good as souls. But yeah they aren't super important, I just like them a lot and I'm never sad to see them in my opening hand.
4. Against Humans id take out 8 cards: Watery grave, 2 stubborn denials, 4 thoughtseize, 1 traverse
And ill bring in 8 cards: 1 abrade, 1 kozileks return, 1 radiant flames, 1 E explosives, 1 godless shrine, 3 lingering souls
Liliana the last hope sounds good on paper but she ´s not really impactful enough and I'm not too excited about it as it only kills noble hierarchs, phantasmal image, small lieutenants and champions and Thalia guardian of thraben. Id rather spend 3-4 mana on a sweeper.
-Funny interaction with radiant flames and thalia guardian of thraben is when you have to pay 4 mana because of the tax and get that extra color in for a 4 damage sweep thanks to converge. That takes care of creatures with extra 1+/+1 counters.
-Similar interaction as above with E explosives.
-Tarmogoyf and lingering souls laugh in the face of auriok champ.
-As I said it doesn't feel like a bad matchup to me, maybe slightly uphill but its very manageable if you play very jund like as the controller.
A nicely timed battle rage is also key in getting a win from an otherwise lost game.
To me it feels like a good-fair deck in any diverse meta. It has game against everything while being weak to only UW control and Dredge, and even then, those matchups are still winnable. It's a hard to pilot deck and it has many intricate lines that come up with practice but in general, it feels good.
It might be a bit weaker than it used to: before the pro tour since mardu and jeskai are at an all high and id say they are slightly favoured 55-45. But this deck wrecks combo and big mana so its a nice trade off since KCI seems to be getting popular.
On another note, im confident in saying this deck is better than grixis shadow (its just less popular and more difficult to pilot). We dont durdle around searching for threats with cantrips such as serum visions. We actually run more threats than grixis: 4 shadows, 4 tarmos and 4 traverse is 12 threats vs 4 delve creatures and 4 shadows of grixis (snapcasters dont count as a threat).
Grim flayer and snapcaster are interchangeable in the deck, I prefer grim flayer as threat number 13, just my preference. But I wouldn't run more than a single snapcaster if I had to, its clunky and it might be better suited for grixis.
If i had to change anything it would be depending on the meta, I could go more towards jund colors and add a few bolts instead of stubborn denials in the main deck, and cut out a color from board and focus on just 4 colors, either blue or white would get cut. I like the current 5c as it gives me game vs combo and vs midrange gindry decks.
Also a lot of people have tested and had success with manamorphose, Its a "free" cantrip and speeds up the deck, giving a bit of safety vs bloodmoon, enables delirium with instant type. I personally didnt have a good time testing the card and it might be clunky against a thalia and it can make mulligan decisions harder as you dont know what card it will be until you cast it. Its a sold choice nonetheless depending on how you build your deck.
Here is my decklist and report for a SCG IQ: http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/122953
I ran a 5c traditional decklist without manamorphose.
I had the option of playing humans over 5c shadow, but decided against it. I havent had enough testing with humans and I feel like I know the ins and outs of 5c shadow, plus its my pet deck since I jumped off jund.
I also ran 2 basics, a forest over the 4th bloodstained mire. (a friend suggested this change due to the sheer ammount of ghost quarters, fields of ruins and paths running around) I will keep testing the 2nd basic but it felt nice to have the option of a second basic. Not 100% sure if this is the way to go in a 5c deck.
Round 1 Boros Burn 0-2
G1 Mull to 6. I was happy once I saw it was burn, as I feel this is a favorable matchup. However, I lost to a very fast start with 3 goblin guides. Once I managed to stabilize I was too low and couldn't make it in time.
G2 Mull to 6. Decent hand with removal and threat in tarmogoyf. His turn 2 was a rest in peace which shut me off the tarmo and managed to swing into a grindy game where I did not find a shadow in time and lost.
Round 2 Grixis Shadow 2-0 (against Dylan Hovey a great jund/shadow streamer I have learned a lot with his streams, recommend you check him out)
G1 Grindy games, in the end, my tarmos are larger than his gurmag angler.
G2 Mull to 6. Same thing, grindy games. I side in the suite of lingering souls. I keep in a few discard spells and I get to see he has an inquisition in hand of his own. I sandbag a pair of streetwraiths in my hand and land a bauble but dont crack it, making my only live discardable card a lingering souls. He casts the inquisition and has to take the souls. Eventually traverse lets me find treats faster than him and the souls tokens allow me to keep back blocks and evasive threats to win. Always crack bauble on the opponents end step to avoid getting your draw discarded.
Round 3 8 Rack 2-0
G1 My opponent floods a bit and I discard/counter him to oblivion before he can resolve anything significant. I swing in with a tarmo and he's chump blocking with mutavaults until I win.
G2 I bring in the Lingering souls package to have some resilience and threats from the grave. I don't know if this is correct. I play a t1 discard and my opponent has kept a really good 7 with 3 smallpox, 1 lotv, and other stuff. I discard Lotv and decide Ill have to grind over the smallpox. I discard him again on t2 and I see he drew and second Lotv which I discard. My opponent hasn't played anything significant as I haven't played a creature for his smallpox to get max value. I resolve a tarmo on T3 while holding up a stub, my opponent has only 3 lands (has to draw his 4th land in order to cast his second smallpox after I counter the first one.) He draws the 4th land and casts 2 smallpoxes after I counter the first one. I discard his 3rd smallpox and land another tarmo and my opponent draws and casts his 4th smallpox. We are both down to 1 or 2 cards but he has no clock on me as he hasn't resolved a single rack. I draw and sandbag a few extra lands in hand and he keeps pitching lands to his ravens crime to discard me. Eventually, he lands a rack and starts going at my life total 2-3 a turn and I land a shadow which gets larger every turn. I swing for lethal in a couple of turns thanks to his rack.
Round 4 Eldrazi n taxes 1-1-1
I also feel this is a favoured matchup
G1 I make the horrible misplay of landing a shadow while Im on 13 life and it instantly dies (I forgot to play the fetch land and shock in my hand) I tild really bad and end up losing a favored game 1.
G2 I bring red sweepers and win easily, my creatures are larger and I grind better against his small bears.
G3 We dont have enough time, just a few minutes. We grind and end up in a spot where were both top decking and Im ticking a liliana up and down taking care of his creatures and topdecks, but I dont have a clock of my own. We get turns and I draw a shadow which would have been lethal if I had an extra turn. We tie.
Round 5 Monogreen Tron 2-0 (he gave me the win)
I think my opponent's name is William, a really nice guy. He tells me he is x-2 and since I am x-1-1 I still have a shot at top 8. He gives me the win and drops but we still play for fun and he beats me. I don't remember much about the games but I mulled a lot and kept subpar hands and a turn 3 natural tron karn is hard to beat.
Round 6 Affinity 2-0
G1 I keep a nice 7 with a thoughtseize, push, stub, tarmo, shadow and two lands. I turn 1 discard one of his two cranial platings, On his turn he plays most of his hand: Memnite, ornithopter, vault skirge. I pass the turn holding up a stub for his second cranial plating and removal. I counter his plating. I drop a tarmo and a shadow on turn 3 and start hitting him, My opponent is at 13 have a temur battle rage to seal the deal.
G2 I side in 11 cards for this matchup including the lingering souls package and sweepers. I side out 6 discards, stubs and Lotv and watery grave.
I start with a good 7 including abrade, kozileks return, lingering souls and a tarmo. My opponent mulls to 6. I tap out to play a tarmo on turn 2 and opponent gets me for 5 infect on his turn 3 while I am tapped. On my turn 3 I have to think hard weather to fetch for red or white and if I want to enable abrade, kozilek return or turn on lingering souls. I attack and pass with a fetchland up and my opponent reads me like a book. he swings with a blinkmoth instead and I have to abrade the plating as Im dead to a galvanic blast if he has it. I land a 4/4 shadow and he galvanic blasts it (I made a good choice in being conservative with my life)
Eventually I play kozileks return and tarmo gets him when he starts to chumblock thanks to temur battlerage.
My record is 4-1-1 and I pass onto top 8 as the 8th seed.
Top 8 Nayaburn with wild nacatls 2-1
G1 My opponent has a fast start on the play in which he lands all 4 goblin guides and gets me before I can stabilize.
G2 This game plays out like the typical burn-shadow match in which we go back and fourth being conservative until I can land a small shadow and bait him with a street wraith and he cant swing with his creatures due to being dead on a large crackback. I land another 2 shadows and that seals the game.
G3 My opponent keeps a semi slow hand and I discard him turn 1. I see a hand of lava spike, eidolon, bolt, firecraft and 2 lands. I take eidolon and I make a mistake and decide to shock and enable blue, instead of fetching a single forest to land tarmo. The game becomes a race in which I swing with tarmo and my opponent casts his burn and has me down to 9 life with a suspended rift bolt and has a boros charm in hand he casts at Eot. Im down to 2 life when riftbolt gets cast (would have been at a safer 4 life had I not shocked). My opponent has to topdeck any burn spell to win and draws an eidolon, I swing with tarmo and he is forced to chump-block to stay alive. he gets another draw to get me but draws a land and I take the game.
Semi finals Mardu Pyro 2-1
G1 Dont remember too much about this game. We grind it out but he has a hard time removing my treats and I can remove his t2 pyromancer and can capitalize on the tempo swings from his lootings cast at 3 mana (which is doing nothing for a turn).
G2 We are going back and forth and get to a miscommunication problem, where my opponent discards to a looting and places an inquisition in the grave on top of the other two cards which he discarded and I understand he discarded the inquisition. When in reality he discarded two cards and casted the inquisition but he shortcut to placing in in the grave. I thought he had discarded and proceeded to untap and draw for turn as he was tapped and as soon as i drew for turn I realized he had actually cast the inquisition. We had a judge call and I got a games rules violation. My opponent got to pick any card from my hand (liliana last hope, Darn! )and shuffle it back into the deck and then resolve the inquisition. I lose this one as I needed the liliana last hope to seal the game.
G3 I keep a good hand with discard removal a kozileks return and a pair of tarmos. I discard my opponent and take some removal, my opponent then discards me taking one of my tarmos. I land a tarmo t2 and my opponent plays a looting and draws another discard spell to discard me further. I draw a discard spell of my own to discard his only removal (fatal push) and a 5 power tarmo starts pressuring his life. He flashes back looting on his turn 3 digging for answers (doing nothing on t3) and tarmo gets in again this time for 6, leaving him at a low life total. He then has to play a pyromancer and tokens to chumpblock on turn 4 but I show the kozileks return in hand for the win.
Finals vs affinity
We decide to split the prize money and since I dont care about the SCG points I let him take 1st place and I take 2nd.
All in all the deck felt great, and I had good to decent matchups all day. There was a lot of UW control that day and Im glad I dodged it. The rest of the matchups feel a good 50-50 or 45-55 to either direction. No free wins except vs combo decks and storm but every matchup feels very winnable.
The side deck feels solid, I personally like a lot of 1 of´s that have several applications vs multiple decks.
Looking back Id like to maybe fit in either a disdainful stroke or another nihil spellbomb in exchange for a sweeper.I might be running too many sweeprs.
I recently won (tied for 1st and 2nd with a prize split) a Star city games Invitational qualifier of around 75 players.
I ran a traditional 5C list (similar to the Spooly build before the banlist) no manamorphose (jumped on that train and did not like it). Ill make a write up in the following days.
Hi spooly, i read your article and reddit post. It all comes off a bit grim regarding the deck. Do you think its time to give up on the deck for the time being?
Thanks, both for the elaborate responses. Ill give hazoret a shot for the time being. Pira and kiran naalar would be perfect if the RR wasn't so rough on our mana requirements; Maybe it works best in variants with manamorphose which could cast it even without having R mana available, or after getting one of your R lands blown up.
Im currently trying to cut white out of my side board in order to have better mana and open up sb spaces. However i dont want to lose the grindy aspect lingering souls can offer. Apart from hazoret is there any other options to make the grindy matchups better? Im considering maybe a pair of young pyromancers and a kcommand or two. Any thoughts?
Hi spooly,
Could you elaborate on how you play and side vs dredge in general?
I have always had a rough time with this matchup and I have regarded it as a terrible matchup in my experience (on par with UW control). Other than cheesing them out with TBR what is your game plan? I feel our removal does nothing vs their recurring threats and they develop such a large board so quickly. Not to mention they can also cast the death touch dredger to lock you out of attacking.
You have had quite the success so you must be doing something right.
It keeps the same number of cantrips and tutors. It will be a tad slower for sure but I can see it finding threats more consistently. And mausoleum seems to be easier to turn on, just needing a streetwraith or an architect cycle to be enabled. What are your thoughts?
Im obviously theorizing here, but it is much easier to turn on than traverse. Given that the only way to turn on traverse is by having Land, Sorcery, Instant AND Creature OR Artifact (im not counting planeswalker as that rarely influences our traverse by the time we need it played). You will always have or need either a creature (wraith) or an artifact in the grave (bauble) to enable traverse. Hence if we replaced all baubles for architects of will, we would still be on the same amount of "Traverse enablers" without having to worry about land, sorcery and instant. Plus we wouldnt need to run bauble if we arent running traverse.
Now I dont know how much it would change or affect the gameplan by trading a 0 mana cantrip into a 1 mana cantrip that could be played late game in a pinch. It would obviously make it more mana intensive since the tutor costs 2 instead of 1 for traverse, and we lose the ability to tutor up a basic land which is important.
Im not saying this will replace traverse but im throwing it out there to hear ideas and thoughts.
On another note, I think the assassins throphy hurts our deck If we run a 5c mana base. The whole purpose of running White as the extra color is to hedge against midrange decks, and this new card could see GBx back up and using it to get rid of our only white source. With our mana base being so fragile and running so few basics I wouldn't be surprised if 4c Maximum becomes the new rule moving forward.
Secrets of the Mausoleum
1B
Instant
Undergrowth - search your library for a black card with converted mana cost equal to or less than the number of creature cards in your graveyard, reveal it and add it to your hand, then shuffle your library.
Seems like a nice tutor, can find deathshadow, fatal push, thoughtseize, liliana etc. Can be enablesby street wraith early on.
Maybe architects of will could see a resurgence in order to enable this more often?
Idk if it will replace traverse but its does seem easier to enable, and more versatile that traverse.
I think that not playing the full set of traverse is a big mistake. From the whole concept of this deck over Grixis, the point of it is running more threats: traverse being threat 9-12 (or 13-14 if you run grim flayers) vs the single 8 threats from grixis.(yes you make up for some traverses with the grim flayers). But now, by replacing those traverses with faithless lootings, you're basically seeing the same amount of card selection (early game) that grixis sees with serum visions (making the whole point of playing green for threats 9-12 completely moot). Having said that, faithless looting plus traverse has been tested and while it looks cute in paper, I can't say it has had that many positive results. We are simply not a good looting deck in which we cant make full use out of the looting aspect like mardu does. Plus the extra red spell makes the mana base harder to sustain for splashing other colors. In reality, this deck would even try to cut out red completely if it weren't for temur battle rage (which is the main reason we run red) and now bolt which has been having more of a spot because of humans but wasn't even a maindeckable card in traverse shadow before humans took over.
I also disagree on not splashing at least the 4th color, the strength of the deck comes in being able to apply early pressure and disruption while keeping the most valuable card from grixis which is stubborn denial; or the grindy aspect of souls.
I personally still believe in the strength of (having successful results) running all 5 colors since lingering souls gives us the same axis to compete vs other midrange decks which just eat us alive. Mardu, jund, grixis shadow simply will outgrind you if you do not have white. And the logic you use by saying that a kitesail freebooter and humans will laugh at your 1/1 tokens doesn't convince me. If you're in the position where you're casting lingering souls against humans while letting them have a noble and kitesail on board run freely then you're already in a losing spot from the get-go. That's why you run sweepers and so many removal.
Id like to know what matchups you faced, because at the moment this deck has a very 45-55 matchup against most of the field. Having a great match vs KCI and other combo decks; and being terrible against UW control.
Congrats again on your win, and id like to hear your thoughts on what I just wrote.
I have a few questions for you.
- How are the Lilianas last hope in main deck doing? Compared to Lotv?
- Do you miss blue counterspells in the 75? What made you decide to run white instead of blue?
- How is k command doing?
Its a bad matchup. I don't bring in Lingering souls. Even though they aren't terrible, I think they are too slow and don't put a clock on our opponent. UW tends to run enough field of ruins, spreading seas and sweepers to take care of either your only white source or simply take a few hits while drawing cards and sweeping the board whenever they want; plus they grind better and if we let them reach the late game we are dead. I prefer to take this match as a tempo game plan and try to mull for hands where I can land a treat t2 o t3 and start going at their life as quickly as possible while disrupting their plan with discard and counters. A well-timed Liliana of the veil can do some serious work and id say is one of the best cards in the matchup. Temur battle rage also nicks off a turn from the clock and is valuable.
I do bring them in against jeskai since they don't have the mana denial plan, and even though electrolyze trades with souls it's still a good grindy value engine they can't deal with cleanly (they run too many 1 for 1 cards).
My sideboard plan against UW is the following: Bring in 5 cards: 2 stubborn denial, 1 Liliana the last hope ( is hard to get rid of, is a must answer and rebuys threats, 1 collective brutality (acts as discard 9 and can drain for 2 in a pinch if you need the extra reach), 1 golgari charm (this is a nice tech, it can regenerate your threats off a supreme verdict/wrath of god etc. It can also get rid of detention sphere, search for azcanta, rest in peace if they bring it in, and in a pinch, it can get rid of the 1/1 tokens from Elspeth and/or timely reinforcements, allowing you to swing for game, this has come up often where they tap out for reinforcements or Elspeth thinking they can chump-block you for days and you catch them with the -1/-1 mode.)
From the main deck, I take out: 4 fatal push and 1 bloodstained mire (against path decks I take out a land)
I don't know if this is correct but I prefer to leave in the single dismember, its better than push as it can easily get rid of any Gideon planeswalker plus worst case scenario you can dismember you own DS on their end step (provided it is at least a 2/2 and swing with a larger DS on your own turn. Most of the time they bring in vendilion or they will try to chump-block you with a collonade if pressured enough, so it's not completely dead.
Having said that, I don't claim to be an expert on the UW matchup and I have a hard time winning it. My win record against UW is like 35/65 if not worse. Id love to get feedback from spooly and whocansay about this as I value their judgment and opinions highly when it comes to this deck.
1. Against Mardu, I side in 10 cards: Nihil spellbomb, Liliana the last hope, E explosives, golgari charm, kozilek return, 3 lingering souls, 1 godless shrine, 1 abrade or radiant flames (depends if I expect ensnaring bridge)
take out 10 cards: 2 Liliana of the veil, 2 stubborn denial, 1 watery grave, 2 thoughtseize, 2 inquisition (I like to leave in at least 4 discards since they reload their hands a lot in the mid-late game after a flashback looting), 1 temur battle rage
This matchup gets a lot better post sideboard and it feels actually easy, all of their creatures are small and puny 1/1s and 2/1s which you can sweep easily even with a golgari charm. Their largest creature which is reveler is too small even if they grow it. You can grind them on the same axis with lingering souls but they don't even run sweepers, plus they tend to discard their souls while you cast them twice for double value. You have enough sweepers post board to never let them get board presence or even wipe them completely after they make their tokens. And they spend 3 mana on a turn usually flashing back a looting, allowing you to gain tempo and get an advantage.
I approach the match by trying to play the grindy game while keeping the pressure high and forcing them to have removal. I side a temur battle rage out (even tho it goes over their tokens) as it is kind of dead in the early turns of the game and we want to pressure them fast.
2. I saw several human players but did not get matched against any, the majority of the field I saw running around was decks a mix of mardu, burn and jeskai. I wasn't matched with any of jeskai decks either, although I consider it to be a better matchup than UW.
Humans I think is a little harder than mardu but as usual g2 and 3 gets better, I know its considered an uphill but not bad, reflector mage can be a problem, but in general I'm not worried about getting matched with humans. On my personal record, I've been very favored against humans but I don't know how much of that is due to luck or personal bias. UW control, on the other hand, feels very bad and my record against that deck is like 35-65 if not 30-70. So yeah I was definitely lucky to dodge UW for the whole day.
3. Id say White (souls package) is the least important color we run. I have cut it several times and always find myself missing in on the grindy matchups (I'm a big fan of the card so I'm biased). But they are definitely the most cuttable cards in the deck. Id love to find a way to keep good grindy cards in the other 4 colors but none of them have been as good as souls. But yeah they aren't super important, I just like them a lot and I'm never sad to see them in my opening hand.
4. Against Humans id take out 8 cards: Watery grave, 2 stubborn denials, 4 thoughtseize, 1 traverse
And ill bring in 8 cards: 1 abrade, 1 kozileks return, 1 radiant flames, 1 E explosives, 1 godless shrine, 3 lingering souls
Liliana the last hope sounds good on paper but she ´s not really impactful enough and I'm not too excited about it as it only kills noble hierarchs, phantasmal image, small lieutenants and champions and Thalia guardian of thraben. Id rather spend 3-4 mana on a sweeper.
-Funny interaction with radiant flames and thalia guardian of thraben is when you have to pay 4 mana because of the tax and get that extra color in for a 4 damage sweep thanks to converge. That takes care of creatures with extra 1+/+1 counters.
-Similar interaction as above with E explosives.
-Tarmogoyf and lingering souls laugh in the face of auriok champ.
-As I said it doesn't feel like a bad matchup to me, maybe slightly uphill but its very manageable if you play very jund like as the controller.
A nicely timed battle rage is also key in getting a win from an otherwise lost game.
It might be a bit weaker than it used to: before the pro tour since mardu and jeskai are at an all high and id say they are slightly favoured 55-45. But this deck wrecks combo and big mana so its a nice trade off since KCI seems to be getting popular.
On another note, im confident in saying this deck is better than grixis shadow (its just less popular and more difficult to pilot). We dont durdle around searching for threats with cantrips such as serum visions. We actually run more threats than grixis: 4 shadows, 4 tarmos and 4 traverse is 12 threats vs 4 delve creatures and 4 shadows of grixis (snapcasters dont count as a threat).
Grim flayer and snapcaster are interchangeable in the deck, I prefer grim flayer as threat number 13, just my preference. But I wouldn't run more than a single snapcaster if I had to, its clunky and it might be better suited for grixis.
If i had to change anything it would be depending on the meta, I could go more towards jund colors and add a few bolts instead of stubborn denials in the main deck, and cut out a color from board and focus on just 4 colors, either blue or white would get cut. I like the current 5c as it gives me game vs combo and vs midrange gindry decks.
Also a lot of people have tested and had success with manamorphose, Its a "free" cantrip and speeds up the deck, giving a bit of safety vs bloodmoon, enables delirium with instant type. I personally didnt have a good time testing the card and it might be clunky against a thalia and it can make mulligan decisions harder as you dont know what card it will be until you cast it. Its a sold choice nonetheless depending on how you build your deck.
I ran a 5c traditional decklist without manamorphose.
I had the option of playing humans over 5c shadow, but decided against it. I havent had enough testing with humans and I feel like I know the ins and outs of 5c shadow, plus its my pet deck since I jumped off jund.
I also ran 2 basics, a forest over the 4th bloodstained mire. (a friend suggested this change due to the sheer ammount of ghost quarters, fields of ruins and paths running around) I will keep testing the 2nd basic but it felt nice to have the option of a second basic. Not 100% sure if this is the way to go in a 5c deck.
Round 1 Boros Burn 0-2
G1 Mull to 6. I was happy once I saw it was burn, as I feel this is a favorable matchup. However, I lost to a very fast start with 3 goblin guides. Once I managed to stabilize I was too low and couldn't make it in time.
G2 Mull to 6. Decent hand with removal and threat in tarmogoyf. His turn 2 was a rest in peace which shut me off the tarmo and managed to swing into a grindy game where I did not find a shadow in time and lost.
Round 2 Grixis Shadow 2-0 (against Dylan Hovey a great jund/shadow streamer I have learned a lot with his streams, recommend you check him out)
G1 Grindy games, in the end, my tarmos are larger than his gurmag angler.
G2 Mull to 6. Same thing, grindy games. I side in the suite of lingering souls. I keep in a few discard spells and I get to see he has an inquisition in hand of his own. I sandbag a pair of streetwraiths in my hand and land a bauble but dont crack it, making my only live discardable card a lingering souls. He casts the inquisition and has to take the souls. Eventually traverse lets me find treats faster than him and the souls tokens allow me to keep back blocks and evasive threats to win. Always crack bauble on the opponents end step to avoid getting your draw discarded.
Round 3 8 Rack 2-0
G1 My opponent floods a bit and I discard/counter him to oblivion before he can resolve anything significant. I swing in with a tarmo and he's chump blocking with mutavaults until I win.
G2 I bring in the Lingering souls package to have some resilience and threats from the grave. I don't know if this is correct. I play a t1 discard and my opponent has kept a really good 7 with 3 smallpox, 1 lotv, and other stuff. I discard Lotv and decide Ill have to grind over the smallpox. I discard him again on t2 and I see he drew and second Lotv which I discard. My opponent hasn't played anything significant as I haven't played a creature for his smallpox to get max value. I resolve a tarmo on T3 while holding up a stub, my opponent has only 3 lands (has to draw his 4th land in order to cast his second smallpox after I counter the first one.) He draws the 4th land and casts 2 smallpoxes after I counter the first one. I discard his 3rd smallpox and land another tarmo and my opponent draws and casts his 4th smallpox. We are both down to 1 or 2 cards but he has no clock on me as he hasn't resolved a single rack. I draw and sandbag a few extra lands in hand and he keeps pitching lands to his ravens crime to discard me. Eventually, he lands a rack and starts going at my life total 2-3 a turn and I land a shadow which gets larger every turn. I swing for lethal in a couple of turns thanks to his rack.
Round 4 Eldrazi n taxes 1-1-1
I also feel this is a favoured matchup
G1 I make the horrible misplay of landing a shadow while Im on 13 life and it instantly dies (I forgot to play the fetch land and shock in my hand) I tild really bad and end up losing a favored game 1.
G2 I bring red sweepers and win easily, my creatures are larger and I grind better against his small bears.
G3 We dont have enough time, just a few minutes. We grind and end up in a spot where were both top decking and Im ticking a liliana up and down taking care of his creatures and topdecks, but I dont have a clock of my own. We get turns and I draw a shadow which would have been lethal if I had an extra turn. We tie.
Round 5 Monogreen Tron 2-0 (he gave me the win)
I think my opponent's name is William, a really nice guy. He tells me he is x-2 and since I am x-1-1 I still have a shot at top 8. He gives me the win and drops but we still play for fun and he beats me. I don't remember much about the games but I mulled a lot and kept subpar hands and a turn 3 natural tron karn is hard to beat.
Round 6 Affinity 2-0
G1 I keep a nice 7 with a thoughtseize, push, stub, tarmo, shadow and two lands. I turn 1 discard one of his two cranial platings, On his turn he plays most of his hand: Memnite, ornithopter, vault skirge. I pass the turn holding up a stub for his second cranial plating and removal. I counter his plating. I drop a tarmo and a shadow on turn 3 and start hitting him, My opponent is at 13 have a temur battle rage to seal the deal.
G2 I side in 11 cards for this matchup including the lingering souls package and sweepers. I side out 6 discards, stubs and Lotv and watery grave.
I start with a good 7 including abrade, kozileks return, lingering souls and a tarmo. My opponent mulls to 6. I tap out to play a tarmo on turn 2 and opponent gets me for 5 infect on his turn 3 while I am tapped. On my turn 3 I have to think hard weather to fetch for red or white and if I want to enable abrade, kozilek return or turn on lingering souls. I attack and pass with a fetchland up and my opponent reads me like a book. he swings with a blinkmoth instead and I have to abrade the plating as Im dead to a galvanic blast if he has it. I land a 4/4 shadow and he galvanic blasts it (I made a good choice in being conservative with my life)
Eventually I play kozileks return and tarmo gets him when he starts to chumblock thanks to temur battlerage.
My record is 4-1-1 and I pass onto top 8 as the 8th seed.
Top 8 Nayaburn with wild nacatls 2-1
G1 My opponent has a fast start on the play in which he lands all 4 goblin guides and gets me before I can stabilize.
G2 This game plays out like the typical burn-shadow match in which we go back and fourth being conservative until I can land a small shadow and bait him with a street wraith and he cant swing with his creatures due to being dead on a large crackback. I land another 2 shadows and that seals the game.
G3 My opponent keeps a semi slow hand and I discard him turn 1. I see a hand of lava spike, eidolon, bolt, firecraft and 2 lands. I take eidolon and I make a mistake and decide to shock and enable blue, instead of fetching a single forest to land tarmo. The game becomes a race in which I swing with tarmo and my opponent casts his burn and has me down to 9 life with a suspended rift bolt and has a boros charm in hand he casts at Eot. Im down to 2 life when riftbolt gets cast (would have been at a safer 4 life had I not shocked). My opponent has to topdeck any burn spell to win and draws an eidolon, I swing with tarmo and he is forced to chump-block to stay alive. he gets another draw to get me but draws a land and I take the game.
Semi finals Mardu Pyro 2-1
G1 Dont remember too much about this game. We grind it out but he has a hard time removing my treats and I can remove his t2 pyromancer and can capitalize on the tempo swings from his lootings cast at 3 mana (which is doing nothing for a turn).
G2 We are going back and forth and get to a miscommunication problem, where my opponent discards to a looting and places an inquisition in the grave on top of the other two cards which he discarded and I understand he discarded the inquisition. When in reality he discarded two cards and casted the inquisition but he shortcut to placing in in the grave. I thought he had discarded and proceeded to untap and draw for turn as he was tapped and as soon as i drew for turn I realized he had actually cast the inquisition. We had a judge call and I got a games rules violation. My opponent got to pick any card from my hand (liliana last hope, Darn! )and shuffle it back into the deck and then resolve the inquisition. I lose this one as I needed the liliana last hope to seal the game.
G3 I keep a good hand with discard removal a kozileks return and a pair of tarmos. I discard my opponent and take some removal, my opponent then discards me taking one of my tarmos. I land a tarmo t2 and my opponent plays a looting and draws another discard spell to discard me further. I draw a discard spell of my own to discard his only removal (fatal push) and a 5 power tarmo starts pressuring his life. He flashes back looting on his turn 3 digging for answers (doing nothing on t3) and tarmo gets in again this time for 6, leaving him at a low life total. He then has to play a pyromancer and tokens to chumpblock on turn 4 but I show the kozileks return in hand for the win.
Finals vs affinity
We decide to split the prize money and since I dont care about the SCG points I let him take 1st place and I take 2nd.
All in all the deck felt great, and I had good to decent matchups all day. There was a lot of UW control that day and Im glad I dodged it. The rest of the matchups feel a good 50-50 or 45-55 to either direction. No free wins except vs combo decks and storm but every matchup feels very winnable.
The side deck feels solid, I personally like a lot of 1 of´s that have several applications vs multiple decks.
Looking back Id like to maybe fit in either a disdainful stroke or another nihil spellbomb in exchange for a sweeper.I might be running too many sweeprs.
I ran a traditional 5C list (similar to the Spooly build before the banlist) no manamorphose (jumped on that train and did not like it). Ill make a write up in the following days.