Hello all, and a belated Merry Christmas to you as well, Fluff!
First off, I have missed a lot while in Europe, so I will recap changes to the format as I take the chance to voice quick responses to Plichow, Dean's Finest, and YJBh33ls, respectively:
The field of ruins were solid, and the basic island was also excellent, but I felt the ghost quarter was unnecessary.
I think it has become clear to me over time, Plichow, that access to Ghost Quarter is not absolutely required in the more aggressive versions of the deck, impeding Emeria activation too much if Field of Ruin can cover similar ground without putting you down a land. When things like Kaldra Compleat and Stoneforge Mystic or Ranger-Captain of Eos and Walking Ballista combine to end things swiftly, these cut off draw steps more directly in the late stages of your gameplan. However, I am still adamant that eventual access to Strip Mine is simultaneously a necessary evil and the best lategame possible for the slower builds that cannot turn the corner with offensive options.
an updated 2022 list (non-Yorion and without Solitude/Ephemerate so far, but updated the lists now again with those)
The banning of Yorion, Sky Nomad has simplified many of the dilemmas you mention, Dean's Finest, by simply taking the 80-card options out of our hands, which I tend to see as a good thing overall as including the Companion was a mixed blessing at best, and its removal has certainly improved the 4-colour Omnath pile matchups by first removing a threat from their sequencing and then by forcing their manabases onto a narrower tightrope with fewer redundancies.
would also love to hear peoples thoughts on Stoneforge vs traditional (creature heavy) versions in the current meta.
I am not sure whether the Stoneforge builds are favoured at the moment,YBJh331s, but I can confidently state that access to new Reconfigure options like Cloudsteel Kirin, Lion Sash and even The Reality Chip add a great deal of flexibility to the strategy, and do an excellent job of enhancing the Spirited Companion that these lists should typically be looking to run over Wall of Omens ever since that wonderful new attacking variant has become available. My feeling is that Emeria itself still passively discourages Stoneforge recursion by naturally extending the game to a point where it draws its its Equipment and runs the Kor Shaman out of targets later in the game, conversely giving a passive encouragement to an 0/4 Defender more by gaining access to its focused blocking power immediately on ETB. This means Control variants can better leverage Sweepers in general as a consequence of less investment in their (primarily defensive) board presence, but in my opinion this is only true in contexts where the Aggro and Midrange elements are more common than the Big Mana and Combo portion of the metagame, whereas a faster clock closing out the game rapidly gains back any lost equity against the latter two strategies.
But as I am myself just back from travel, and have been looking to return to casual tournaments with Emeria, my perspective may be skewed since I have moderate success at a 12-person tournament to point to with a clean 2-1 record only losing in the finals, the quick breakdown being a straightforward 2-1 win versus Izzet Murktide confirming my previous comfort level with the pairing, a well-earned 2-1 win versus 4-colour Wrenn and Six/Indomitable Creativity strongly indicating the viability of a new sideboard strategy, and a tough 1-2 loss versus Amulet Titan after failing to note life totals correctly, leading me to back out of an on-board win and therefore miss out on an undefeated evening. Rust is a real concern once again here for me, but most importantly I have some solid strategic improvements to report in the new configuration of my "classic board control" variant resulting in the following list:
I am once again running my trademark undecided 61 cards at the moment due to the recent overperformance of Elspeth Resplendent, who has impressed me enough to be a serious consideration in the maindeck currently, primarily as a way to find (and even ramp to, plus protecting!) Emeria, the Sky Ruin while digging for singletons or sideboard cards and producing the odd "surprise" Teferi, Time Raveler off of only white mana, all in a package that increases lifegain and turns specifically Mortarpod tokens but also more generally any random board presence into marginally upgraded Planeswalker pressure in resource-intensive matchups. The 12 non-Lesson cards in my sideboard, incidentally, have reflected the twin pressures of Elspeth and the Titans to become 100% 3-mana-or less permanents, which helps focus the post-board plans when making substitutions for games 2 and 3, and situationally boosts the "luxury reset" utility of Tef3ri's -3 ability, particularly by re-establishing ETBs once safely out of the "do whatever it takes to survive" early game.
The most notable gains come in the manabase and in the sideboard directly, though, where in the first instance I have cut Raugrin Triome and Raffine's Tower as too unwieldy to be of use in most matchups, much as it pains me to lose out on the lategame power-level upgrades for Prismatic Ending. I am not certain if cutting both is correct on this axis, since the appeal of 4-mana Endings is extremely tempting, but I am confident in stating that I can currently not reliably get to 5-mana Endings against Control opponents fast enough to prevent Teferi, Hero of Dominaria from activating his matchup-defining Ultimate ability. On the other hand, two-mana Endings are very consistent, and the low opportunity cost of adding a third colour with any Triome of choice seems to make 3-mana versions accessible for the lategame in around 60-70% of matches (which is good enough for me when the 1 and 2 mana modes are so strong generally), but at present the 4-mana version of Converge drops to being available below 50% of the time even in my bread-and-butter extended topdecking situations, and the 5-mana version sits at a highly unreliable 30% or less, with that only a factor in the longer games or in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan powered fetchland recursion - which equates to an almost entirely tapland manabase for the games where I attempt to prioritize maximizing colour diversity in my lands.
This loss of 4 and 5 mana Converge capacity is not a net negative, however, since with the space I am pleased to welcome back Mistveil Plains as a way to recycle my overperforming Lesson sideboard removal package of Introduction to Annihilation and Reduce to Memory. Re-drawing these cards is notably quite valuable against the Control and Prison opponents which most appreciate Converge 4+ on Prismatic Ending, while the Mistveil's return restores my operational confidence against decks featuring infinite lifegain shenanigans. That is not all, however, and I have perhaps left the best for last since a real improvement has come along with the printing of Demolition Field, substantially solidifying my manabase disruption versus the unfair matchups by increasing my absolute "Field of Ruin" count to 5 (though it is also notable that I can now rely on a 3 Ruin and 2 Demolition split to better hedge against corner-case Pithing Needle and Surgical Extraction effects in some matchups). This was a good deal of the reason I got into the winning position against my finals opponent, and definitely helped me take game one against him to even get me into the post-board games in good shape. It is currently crucial to control both the Urza's Saga and the Simic Growth Chamber angles against Amulet Titan, and nothing covers those better than Ghost Quarter effects that do not set turn-by-turn mana development back - preferably activated both early and often. I believe 6 of the effect might be even better, but at that point the plethora of colourless sources begins make for a few too many non-functional hands in the two-colour builds I favour. I will, however, state that Mono-White versions may now have gained a real selling point through their ability to run up to 8 copies of the two "Fields" - an option with huge consequences.
My other real breakthrough comes with the sideboard, where beating unfair strategies has gone from a seriously unpredictable challenge to a legitimately focused - though still difficult to execute - gameplan of delay thanks to a thematic, elegant, and subtle dynamic enabled by multiple copies of Curse of Silence. The improvement touches on all Cascade variants, is currently well-positioned enough against Indomitable Creativity to have won two post-bard games in a row, is flexible enough to pose problems for Tron, and extends to spell-based or Creature-based combo, where the effect of pushing any of these decks two turns higher on the curve translates to two or more real chances at drawing the now-increased manabase disruption which is the most effective strategy when not running countermagic. Losing out on Lion Sash, Blossoming Calm, [EDIT: AND DRANNITH MAGISTRATE] is a pity, but the versatility of these 1-mana enchantments is extremely high against curve-cheating cards as significant compensation. They also streamline decision-making and complement each other surprisingly well in multiples, and include a hidden bonus 2W "cycle" mode when out of danger. Finally, I have not yet had a good chance to examine the Reclamation Sage function of Loran of the Third Path, and she may yet be replaced by a Haywire Mite to hedge against Burn and to keep the substitutions at a low mana cost in a more Emeria-friendly package, but for the moment this is my new configuration of choice.
Speaking of recommendations, the release of Brother's War has also granted us a massive Sideboard silver bullet for those interested in beating Living End by introducing Calamity's Wake to the card pool. (For the sake of completeness, I also think that the following list of white spells from that expansion have possible applications depending on specific builds: Recommission, Recruitment Officer, Lay Down Arms, Tocasia's Welcome, Soul Partition, and Kayla's Command. In the Artifacts, storyline spotlights The Stone Brain and The Stasis Coffin join Platoon Dispenser as new niche options, though the first two are more likely to matter against us by extending the toolboxes of Karn, the Great Creator decks. Finally, in variants splashing Black it is worthwhile to note the presence of Hero of the Dunes and Legions to Ashes as new possibilities, though I will specify that even these are quite unlikely to matter enough unless the build in question is already running multiple Raffine's Tower or some such to legitimately enable stronger funamental options - such as the old powerhouse Necrotic Sliver.) There are also new spoilers currently being released for Phyrexia: All Will be One, so as always I will keep an eye out for any potential new inclusions. Thus far, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and Soulless Jailer appear to be the only two reasonable inclusions, but are at least intriguing ones.
As an end note, I would very much like to thank everyone for continuing on with this thread when so much of the playerbase seems to have fragmented rather badly in the mass move towards Discord and Twitch. The continuity of this ongoing discussion has not been replicated in my forays onto the Discord, where the communication is heavily biased towards addressing shorter-term surface-level problems and therefore loses out on the considered approach which a historical archive such as this one provides. I may be becoming an old man prematurely at 33 years old, now, but even if that is true I have noticed a distinct "casual and generic" attitude to the Discord servers which are the antithesis of what I hope to enable here - namely a sustained interest in documenting the specifics of evolution during what amounts to a long-running experiment. The undeniable ease of use of these chat platforms seems destined to win out on a large scale for many purposes, but as long as there are still people interested in a focused discussion with easy-to-navigate visuals and a clear timeline built in... Well, suffice it to say that I will thank all of you who choose to post here for your investment in maintaining such a culture, where the juxtaposition of interesting ideas stands a better chance of shining through overall.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year for 2023, then,
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S.: In case it might sway anyone into following me in doing the same, I have myself largely abandoned posting on (and literally even signing into) MTG Discords due to the reasons above, and will be staying with this thread as my primary reference for updates and results as long as I will be able to do so. Discord clearly has its place, but I have found it much more rewarding to contribute here on mtgsalvation. If you find the same is true for you, I would recommend posting a quick message sounding off in support of Fluff's stalwart curation work of this much more useful long-term resource!
Lovely to hear from you, and a huge congratulations on your finals appearance! There is a lot to get into here, but rather than get into too many details, perhaps you could just share what the breakdown was, percentage-wise, on your 10 undefeated rounds - (!) - for what caused your wins from among these 5 areas: [EDIT: Ah, I see you lost against Elementals, on closer inspection. So your record for the tournament was 8-2-1, including the finals? Still very good.]
1) tight play
2) breakout card choices
3) favourable/competitive pairings
4) familiarity/opposing unfamiliarity within matchups
5) strong luck of the draw on the day
My general feeling is that these all have some role to play in a positive result, but the specific texture changes quite a lot between individual successes. I am usually running only 10% each on the first two, and can't rely on the fifth, so a good day for me has #3 and #4 overlapping for a good 50% or more of the reason for wins. What about you? I notice you dodged both Tron and Amulet, for example, which goes to #3, but you also dropped only four games total before the finals, so there is evidence must have played very well indeed. [EDIT: Six, in view of the match I had missed above.] Did you feel dialed in? As for #2, I am keen to discuss your massively redundant manabase and how you arrived at your removal suite, as well as the more obvious recent adoptions, not to mention the sideboard numbers, but again these can wait on your more general impressions.
After that, though, I would love to get into your decklist (and hope to do so soon), but I will first unfortunately have to root for this weekend's results remotely to see how you do. I initially signed in today specifically to send you the message that I am behind on work and will unfortunately not be able to come to Calgary as I had predicted after all, but having a result to discuss softens the sting of that blow quite a bit! If there is anything you want to mull over, I will be toiling away near the computer tomorrow and through most of next week, so please do not hesitate to ask if there is anything you were wanting a second opinion on.
Once again, well done, and here's hoping you can build on your recent momentum over the next few days!
Thank you for the information. I will see if I can make it to Calgary in June, then!
As for your breakdown on Ranger-Captain of Eos, I appreciate your preferred uses, though I notice that your most recently posted list has zero Thraben Inspector. I was surprised to see the 3-drop without the 1-drop, as I am a huge fan of cards which can contribute to velocity, would you care to quantify how much that ability contributes to your evaluation of the card? Put another way: how much does your evaluation of Ranger-Captain out of 10 change from when you have an Inspector in your deck to when you do not?
In a different arena, I am indeed a huge fan of Solemn Simulacrum (for both ease of fixing when being cast off-colour and for the cantrip reasons alluded to above), but as pure land utility, I put Kor Cartographer ahead of him in the splash-happy base-white decks I was describing because its trigger can snag tutor targets such as the Triomes or Mistveil Plains if desired. Of the land-search effects available to white, this versatility is only situationally replicated in Gift of Estates or Weathered Wayfarer in Modern, I believe, and is more consistent and actually ramps when compared to either of these latter cards. Wizards' stubborn habit of putting the word "Basic" before "Plains" continues to frustrate me in many other cases.
In any event, I have another list update to post in my Yorion build, which is now the following:
Here, one Plains and one March of Otherworldly Light have been trimmed to reduce the clumping/flooding issues (which seem to occur more frequently in the midgame in the 80-card builds) by adding a third Stoneforge Mystic and an Engineered Explosives. My sideboard has also been slightly modified to include both Lavinia, Azorius Renegade and some old tech in Specter's Shroud; both are massive upgrades in the matchups where removal is dead, and the latter also supplies an actual threatening sequence on turn 3 against Combo decks. These changes came over the Blossoming Calm and the Chalice of the Void which I could not find frequently enough to be worth their non-permanent and non-creature drawbacks, especially since my Burn matchup has improved with the addition of the maindeck Shadowspear.
Thank you for the information. While I am very happy with its suitability in Emeria's wheelhouse, and see it as a situationally strong role-player, I am in agreement with your assessment of The Restoration of Eiganjo and I have removed it from my current testing pool due to its inability to generate board presence immediately. I wonder, however, if you have any reasoning you would care to share on why Abiding Grace has been put on the chopping block. Where is it good, and where it it bad? I also appreciate the breakdown of the 1-drops, and was particularly intrigued by the idea of using Alseid of Life's Bounty to protect from exile effects in the Control matchup. Without Ranger-Captain of Eos, though, I won't be able to justify it. Speaking of which, how has the Ranger-Captain been for you? You also made a lot of other useful comments, but in the interests of keeping this short I will leave them to speak for themselves at the moment.
I am mostly posting today, then, to update my current test list, which is definitely an improvement in many ways over my prior build. Before I do that, however, I had managed to make a fairly glaring oversight in the New Capenna candidates by misreading Elspeth Resplendent Her -3 ability is an immediate item of interest given that it is worded similar to Sun Titan in that it looks at the top seven cards of the Library for "a permanent card with mana value 3 or less" to put directly onto the battlefield, and therefore can find LANDS. This alone pushes it into consideration, and immediately jumps the queue as one of the best "ramp" options in White after Kor Cartographer. Looking seven cards deep is also quite a chunk of cardboard, and represents significant digging power, but as an initial demonstration the card also unlocks lines such as the following:
Turn 7: Emeria is online two full turns ahead of schedule and is ready to return the Titan if it was killed in any fashion, plus if Elspeth is still around she is ready to dig for Ghost Quarter, Court Hussar, or Mortarpod to start the matchup-appropriate endgame.
This sequence is probably getting into the upper range of what she can offer for us, but I took the liberty of assuming two taplands in the line, meaning that this is on the conservative end of what she could enable. It won't get much better, but this particular line doesn't seem all that unlikely because of the extra leeway. As a downside, her ultimate -7 ability is mediocre, but will de facto win some games if she is included. Another mark in the "cons" column is that her "board presence" is limited to whatever you have access to already, but this is potentially a more interesting effect in builds like Plichow's that want to find Skyclave Apparition or Flickerwisp as board control on legs which she can enhance with her +1, not to mention extra access to post-sideboard permanents. While a little overcosted, then, as a 5-mana Planeswalker, she is resilient to a large amount of the common removal in Modern at the moment, and I will note that her +1 gains a lot more traction in the more Midrange rather than my preferred Control versions of Emeria.
Speaking of these versions, then, I have begun to converge on a Yorion, Sky Nomad list, and am looking likely to try out the following:
Consistency issues have been mitigated by the re-introduction of an extremely welcome old friend in Court Hussar, this supplemented on-curve by a new Professor of Symbology target in Introduction to Prophecy. The new target is a reflection of the types of lategames Yorion enables when brought back with Emeria, which turbocharges tutor effects by triggering multiple at once and/or over multiple turns with Mortarpod. Speaking of which, its powerful machine-gun impression with Yorion was something I retained a very strong memory of in my testing of the early 80-card builds, which combined with its proportional reduction and the lack of tutor targets problem to encourage maximising the Equipment and playing small-ball numbers of Stoneforge Mystic for minor value. The fact of being able to tutor for equipment at all nevertheless led me to include Lion Sash and Shadowspear in the main, freeing up a sideboard slot and interacting with certain specific game one problems (Wrenn and Six, Eternal Witness, or Undying loops for the former, Cascading Cataracts, Lotus Field, and Darksteel Citadel abuse in the second). It remains to be seen whether the marginal nature of their other benefits is ultimately worth their card-disadvantage inclusion when drawn naturally, but since the Sash does play to the table, I have hopes that the Spear will frequently "hide" in the larger 80-card environment to join Crucible of Worlds as the only two spells which cannot help stabilize against a lethal attacker.
Aside from these additions, I have found space for a full set of both x-spell removal options, and though they play quite differently they appear to overlap fairly well in terms of coverage. For the record, the fourth March of Otherworldly Light is currently the least secure item. On the other hand, the return of two Ghost Quarter to the expanded manabase also puts me squarely back where I wish to be on the inevitability front, which I am very happy about. The sideboard does still need a little tinkering, since I have now gone up on maindeck removal and need another creature to upgrade my fifth sweeper against Control, Prison, or Combo, and so as minor changes are embraced I will try to solidify what the new overlaps are looking like. If all else stays equal my game one percentages should be rising, which is the natural consequence of having an extra 4/5 flyer with upside on-demand, however I have always found this cause for concern, as it comes at the cost of post-board improvement. We shall have to see how things go.
Hopefully this helps understand where I am at, and I believe strongly enough in my modifications that I think I will very soon ask you to put a new sample list on the primer, Fluff. I will wait until I get some real-world results under my belt, but the final product will probably take the shape of something like what I have listed above. I do think that the curve numbers bothers me in some mysterious way at the moment however, particularly where the Equipment package of 2-drops are concerned, which I will be working on this week.
Hoping you are all doing well,
-Stéphane Gérard
(P.S.: I am sorry I was not aware there was a tournament in Calgary, Brad, I have had my head buried in books for a good long while now. Hopefully you are making me aware of a Modern tournament - thank you for mentioning it! What is the event, and when is it?)
Very good to hear from you, and I am hopeful that we will have a chance to see each other this summer, then!
If you can share your impressions, I have two sections of rapid-fire questions for you before I get to the overall list itself:
-Which are the standout matchups and corner cases you enjoy for your "silver bullet" 1-drops (Martyr of Sands, Hex Parasite, and Alseid of Life's Bounty)? How do you play or sequence into them when they are part of the gameplan? Is Giant Killer primarily just there for consistent access to a slow removal option, or is it better than that?
-How have you found your non-tutorable singletons (Timeless Dragon, Charming Prince) to function in an 80-card construction? Does the variety they provide enable specific lines that you play for intentionally?
Next up, I am intrigued by how your manabase has been constructed. I assume all the extra fetchlands act as functionally "Comes into play tapped" lands for a larger percentage of your manabase, which is why you wouldn't be super interested in the Triome cycle so far as you have no Prismatic Ending; but might that now be open to change given that Raffine's Tower can also help activate Hex Parasite, or is the phyrexian activation cost just negligible in your build?
Speaking of no Prismatic Ending, what have been your impressions of March of Otherworldly Light thus far? How smoothly does it fit in your removal suite, and where is it at its best and worst?
Lastly in the maindeck, how did you arrive at your 2/2/2 split of 3-drops in Skyclave Apparition, Abiding Grace, and The Restoration of Eiganjo? How have each of these been feeling, and how do they fluctuate in value across matchups? In what cases are you looking for each of them to provide a complement to Ranger-Captain of Eos, and how do they play out when doing so? Which of them have you found to behave best and worst in multiples?
The rest of the main seems very intuitive, and I am a big fan of the two swaps you mentioned (both on the card that comes to the main, and on which card it leaves over) so I will now move on to the sideboard by asking a) where and when does the countermagic come in, plus how effective have you found the 3-pack at winning matchups, b) how happy you have been with Dress Down in the use and number you find for it, c) what the function of Jace, the Mind Sculptor is in your matchup strategy, d) how useful you have found Meddling Mage, and e) where and why you have found it of utility to include Emrakul, the Promised End?
Answers to any and all of these would be appreciated, and the more detailed the better!
With the full spoiler now available, I am able to update my previous post's card pool by mentioning the real names of Extraction Specialist and Scheming Fence, the latter of which is starting to grow on me when I think of the difficulty I had in answering the immediate value of Yawgmoth, Thran Physician since losing access to Pithing Needle.
For the record, though, I will begin my testing from the base of my previous build since I do not want to waste the experience I gained balancing my previous iterations. The following list is therefore out of date by the better part of a year, but will serve as the basis for my upcoming experiments:
The maindeck will stay similar for the immediate future, with the exceptions of A) finding space for at the very least for Raffine's Tower and possibly also Spara's Headquarters in the manabase owing to the previously mentioned Prismatic Ending synergies and B) Tailoring some number of sweepers (beginning first with Engineered Explosives and probably continuing with Wrath of God as well) to fit in March of Otherworldly Light at one or two copies then C) temporarily trimming my Crucible of Worlds to test a copy of The Restoration of Eiganjo without breaking the defensive curve. The immediate respective issues with each of these are A) which land to replace, B) overloading on dead removal rather than sweepers against either go-wide or Control, and C) being more susceptible to land destruction long-term and having less recursion for the crucial Ghost Quarter endgame. Perhaps it is finally time to "give up the ghost" there, if you will, and have that card make its way out of the deck to add the second Triome. I fear what this will do, however, and do not look forward to losing inevitability against many different decks. I do like the potential synergies offered by each new option, though, and hope that the pitch spells complement each other somewhat by providing fodder for the opposite card in the appropriate matchups. If this works out to any extent, I would even be interested in trying out a 3-3 split on March and Solitude.
Next up is overhauling the Sideboard, which most recently stood at something like the following:
Here, my priority would be trying to test Scheming Fence as soon as possible, likely first over the Dawnbringer Cleric or the Chalice of the Void, both of which have lost a portion of their intended targets following the departure of Lurrus of the Dream-Den, not to mention considerations based off of the coverage provided by March of Otherworldly Light on both sides of matchups of a similar nature. As of now Containment Priest, Void Mirror, and Damping Sphere are also still on the outside looking in, but all three fighting for a hand on the doorknob based on possible shifts in the immediate metagame.
In a provisory capacity, then, I think that this writing has convinced me that I will be attempting to move towards the following list very soon:
All of this adds up to a whole series of moving parts to keep track of, unfortunately, and so I will probably be moving slowly on all of this.
I hope the logic of my movements seems clear to those who have followed Modern's shifting metagame of late, and encourage anyone to post their recent results so that I can try to hit the ground running as of next week or so.
My final exams are wrapping up, and I will have a brief window to return to Magic before going to Europe next year for my doctorate, so I am delighted to be dropping into a metagame already modified by Kamigawa: Neon Genesis and now being shaken a little more by the banning of Lurrus of the Dream-Den and the printing of Streets of New Capenna.
To recap, then, I believe that the most significant "new" card AGAINST our archetype appears to be Boseiju, who Endures to provide a card-disadvantage answer to Emeria which can create a potentially dangerous soft-lock against us in combination with Wrenn and Six, while the most relevant item FOR us has become March of Otherworldly light as a strong and versatile piece of instant-speed exile-based removal, surely a popular choice due to the critical tempo possibilities when used as a desperation pitch-spell early (or at card parity on Artifact Lands and Urza's Saga) and scaling up very well to the lategame from there. I will have to test with it to see its full potential, but its primary competition would be the slot previously filled by Path to Exile and now covered by a combination of Solitude, Skyclave Apparition, and Prismatic Ending for most people.
The last of these is a MUCH more fragile Wall of Omens analogue which I would nevertheless still recommend highly as a replacement for it to anyone playing the aggressive game more fully, as the Wall obviously has difficulties in contributing to attacking (my own thoughts on the desirability of this angle notwithstanding). It also seems particularly relevant in providing super-set redundancy for the Wall's card velocity in the 2-drops when leading into Flickerwisp in those builds. Next, the Samurai is more or less a questionable-upside variant on Selfless Spirit, should the need for such arise, and the Planeswalker plus the six mana sweeper and the removal Saga are marginal exile effects that offer new options which may someday be relevant - the first having a far more likely eventuality as it likely comes with a permanent bonus, with the second having the advantage of mass-removal with interaction for odd effects tacked on, and the third having upsides with various synergies.
Two of the options in the middle of my list are highly interesting to me, however, based off of their ability to return Lands to the Battlefield for us; an attribute previously found on Sun Titan, and branching out to very few other cards in mono-white. Invoke Justice is the more powerful spell in a vacuum, of course, but at a hefty five mana investment with absolute (and thus to me nearly insurmountable) tempo liabilities against graveyard hate. The Restoration of Eiganjo, however, can convert other advantages even through the same graveyard hate, and even serves as legitimate card advantage should we desire it or have the time to punish an opponent unwise enough to bring in things like Rest In Peace or Leyline of the Void. This is quite attractive to me, and despite its falling in the critical 3-drop "butter zone" for the deck it may push me to include a copy on a trial basis for the next tournament I play, notably because of its Ramp potential in game 1, with extra value on returning sideboard hate for games 2 and 3 (specifically amplifying effects like Seal of Cleansing).
The Kamigawa crop thus having been dealt with rather (too) briskly, it is now time to begin looking at New Capenna, where my prediction of a complete Triome supercycle appears to have come true. This is of great interest where Prismatic Ending is concerned, as adding Spara's Headquarters to my current manabase would allow me to stretch the Sorcery to targeting 4-drops in the lategame, with the option of also adding Raffine's Tower being a possibility, but coming with diminishing returns. This will definitely affect my testing as of the very moment I have time to do so, since the chance of eventually answering such threats as Karn, Scion of Urza, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Omnath, Locus of Creation, or even ultimately Teferi, Hero of Dominaria while not limiting access to Blue mana is highly intriguing to me.
In the "Blink-style" Flickerwisp,Ephemerate, or Soulherder variants, there will also now be the new options of Rumor Gatherer and Raffine's Informant for card quality or selection, which I will leave to the discretion of those whose builds it may concern. Of broader application is the printing of Mage's Attendant, offering a rare (and highly welcome) look at permission in White, linked to its Cursecatcher-like token. If as of this writing Magic: The Gathering design dictates a Colour Pie bleed towards Mana Tithe becoming a more regular occurrence, I for one will consider it not a moment too soon. The monopoly on permission in Blue is an imbalance that has long been outstanding, and the "soft" permission angle seems tailor-made for adaptation to White's "taxing" identity. Beware of believing that day has come with no cost, however; note that the Attendant's Wizard token requires mana to activate. Do not do as I did and assume that it provided disruption on-curve: this would probably not have been possible at Uncommon at the moment.
Moving on to other types of control, a few notable possibilities are found within the new sideboard options so far, with a serious look required by the as-yet untranslated "Cunning Receiver" (which I suspect will soon have its translation upgraded to something more like "cunning receptionist" for flavour reasons). As an odd semi-permanent Detain effect on a 2/3 body, the Pithing Needle slot appears to have opened up a new design space which requires some interesting rethinking of former evaluations. A supplement to Lion Sash is also found in Unlicensed Hearse, which can begin activating and therefore controlling graveyards immediately as of turn 2.
I have saved the best for last, however, and I am currently being seriously impressed by the amount of possibility offered by the 3-drop "Expert Rescuer". Though it cannot return noncreature permanents or creatures with mana value greater than 2, it is a highly intriguing candidate for exploration that comes with potentially immediate ETB value attached to a useful 3/2 Lifelinking body, this last ability being of primary interest to a deck attempting to keep its life total healthy as much as mine does. It will almost certainly not make the cut for immediate testing that The Restoration of Eiganjo warrants in my card economy-conscious build, but its synergy with things like Heap Doll, Hope of Ghirapur, Myr Scrapling, Ollenbock Escort, Selfless Savior, Kami of False Hope, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Judge's Familiar, Remorseful Cleric, Selfless Spirit, Cathar Commando, and the aforementioned Selfless Samurai and others (plus extra-value bonus points on Charming Prince) is only the tip of the iceberg as uncovered in White. There are already Combo players salivating after another infinite loop with Saffi Eriksdotter plus a sacrifice outlet, and Green also provides the timeless classic of Sakura-Tribe Elder as an instant tie-in with Renegade Rallier or Phantasmal Image shenaniganry to get my brewer's nose twitching.
This about sums up my estimation of the state of things as of this evening, and I do hope the links work (or will work) very soon now, since several of the cards mentioned are not yet in the database. Based on prior experience, I believe that card links will automatically update in the future, but just in case I have padded a few descriptions of the most relevant Streets of New Capenna cards to ease the search for a source to my ramblings.
I hope this writing finds everyone well, and please do feel free to tell me if you think I missed out on any important options!
You are most welcome, I hope the advice is of service.
Staying away from the 4-mana sweepers is a choice you can certainly make, I hope it works out well for you. My own aversion to giving value on the token from Skyclave Apparition has led me to cut it from my own lists in favour of enabling Wrath of God analogues, but I have had a very high opinion of 4-mana board control as a means to recoup lost tempo in the early game since as far back as Standard with this deck, so please do let me know how the opposite experiment works out for you in case this has been a significant blind spot for me. The overlap between Apparition and Prismatic Ending has been great enough that the latter is my removal of choice for noncreature permanents these days, but it is so far weaker in Mono-White as to be nearly out of the question for you, and at any rate the drawback of never hitting things such as Omnath, Locus of Creation and Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a real issue that has often needed to be dealt with alternatively via Lessons in my build.
On the recursion front, I know what you mean when you say you "get there on blocking", however I would additionally caution you that this makes cards such as Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void higher-impact as midgame plays against you, while more savvy opponents will avoid attacking into trades entirely before they can present lethal damage if they see you are setting up a Titan or Emeria. All this leads me to recommend extra ways to place permanents in your graveyard so that you are not cut off at the pass by the very players you are most likely to need to best in order to win tournaments (and I do acknowledge that adding Ranger-Captain of Eos does fulfill this function somewhat).
Sadly, the options in White and Colourless are a little limited by their past and current colour philosophies, even if that has gradually begun to encompass a little more utility for us in their more esoteric respective design spaces lately. Though there are often better things to do with it, Professor of Symbology can sometimes do the job with his Rummage mode on the Learn mechanic, but if you do end up playing Stoneforge Mystic (or if you wish to follow my admittedly unpopular lead on multiples of the card) Mortarpod has been an extraordinarily versatile tool for me and I will endorse it with all the anecdotal evidence you could ever want if it interests you. Otherwise, do your own research on what feels good to you, and try to explore new territory if you find something that seems to fit the bill - this thread lives and dies on such consensus as we can come to based off of what amounts to practical experimentation!
Having said this, I will let you digest things for a while; I have tried to cover a large amount in a very short space in these last two posts, but I am aware that adding too much will compromise your vision by making things too granular and bringing in too many of my biases. You should have plenty to go from already, so I will try to hold off on piling anything else on until you ask for more input, report new results, or post a new decklist here.
Good luck on your mono-white build, the ease of turning on Emeria, the Sky Ruin is one big advantage to the shell, and I do think that you have done a good job compensating for the lack of Prismatic Ending by choosing to include the much more synergistic Skyclave Apparition and Path to Exile. If you are truly seeking "the most competitive and consistent Mono-W version, however, I do think that Solitude is an extraordinarily powerful effect to have access to. I had a bias against the card and its exile clause, but successive versions of my list progressively increased its presence from a trial singleton to its present full playset.
As an initial note, please do note the options available to you for showing cards/decklists in the icons in the gray area above where you type - they are a wonderful feature of this site, and greatly benefit discussions by providing context to refresh others who may have forgotten the card text or effects. I tend to use them more heavily than most as a courtesy to lurkers and casual drop-throughs, however it is common practice to at the very least upload the initial decklist you are working from in a viewable fashion so that people can efficiently take note of the details you are bringing to the table (so to speak).
Back to your decklist now, then: your mileage may vary, but I have found the following things to be generally true:
1) Multiple Sun Titan tend to run into each other much more than expected since our gameplan is mostly curve-based (as opposed to Combo, Aggro, or Ramp decks which can get away with redundant copies of what amount to disposable effects), and without any filtering or ways to use excess early copies to survive in some fashion, I would not recommend the full four unless you are very confident your early game is robust enough.
2) 4 Emeria, the Sky Ruin suffer from a similar dynamic (at least in the 60-card versions; more on which later), and also prevent each other from coming online some amount. you say that you have not had problems running your four copies (likely some of this is due to your solid Ghost Quarter count). I believe you, however since the goal is to have eight lands in play amounting to a full third of your total listed lands, you will of necessity have drawn at least seven extra cards from your natural draw steps before needing to "find" a copy unless you plan to accelerate the endgame by ramping (also dealt with in a subsequent point).
3) The Mono-White version of this deck is, however, in my opinion the best able to take advantage of the strongest Companion available to the colours in Yorion, Sky Nomad, and your sideboard configuration including many copies of a smaller range of effects is moreover in the ideal arrangement for the post-board troubles the 80-card lists find themselves in when it comes to finding the desired alternates. The "key" effects of the deck in Titan and Emeria can therefore be run as full playsets much more easily when his restriction is taken into account.
4) Strategically, without the cheaper symmetrical sweepers, not only does the matchup against Aggro become substantially more difficult to stabilize against with this strategy, but the total amount of possible recursion decreases significantly as well. Your specific list has no sacrifice outlets or creatures which put themselves in the graveyard, so your Titans and Emerias will be highly likely (or nearly certain, against some Combo or Control opponents) to have no relevant targets to return.
5) Solemn Simulacrum is a wonderful effect for the deck, and in my estimation one of the very few Ramp options available to us, however I have not found it to be an easy inclusion when slots become tight. I will take this as the opportunity to answer your final question by stating my belief that Ranger-Captain of Eos would be far more likely to matter in the specific list you posted, particularly given some of the reasons above.
That will be all for now, and I will wish you luck tinkering with your build until you have something new you would like to address, though if you I will point you to my efforts on page 76 to recommend a Mono-White shell (updated to include your Ambitious Farmhand, of course), and to combine it with something like the shell I tried out on page 81 of this thread.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on any of these fronts!
I feel very, very foolish right at this moment. You are, on closer inspection, absolutely correct - Emeria, the Sky Ruin contains a "may" in its text box. I have no earthly idea how I could have played so long with the card and never made the realization. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
In other news, feel free to share anything you can remember about your matchups, your feelings about the metagame, and any [EDIT: CARD INTERACTIONS] you are keen on at the moment - every bit of context from an Emeria-adjacent gameplan may help someone make a difficult decision in this relatively unknown strategy!
I am glad you thought I had played well, and I wish you the best of luck with your sideboarding in the future. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
You have my most sincere thanks for the highly unexpected RTFC refresher course,
What follows will be quite an extensive post on four Face to Face events on two separate weekends, and I hope that the effort can prompt you to share your own experiences - I saw you in some fairly epic matches yourself; congratulations on your final win against the Jund Sagavan player!
When it comes to my own results, I will begin by saying that I was quite pleased with my progress in light of these 100-plus attendance number tournaments, and I am confident that my version of Emeria is still a viable choice at the moment. I had two win-and-ins for top 8 out of four seven-round Swiss events, and I did not post a negative record in any of these. My personal play was relatively consistent, and my time trouble issues have diminished slightly, so I feel that if I can continue facing strong opposition in larger tournaments I will be able to tighten up considerably. On to the breakdowns, then!
In the first tournament, I played the following list:
I was trying out a configuration with 4 Solitude for the first time, and though my Sun Titans have suffered as a result, the Elemental has been useful enough that I have reluctantly cut the final copies of Path to Exile from my deck for the set. Their inclusion also provided additional impetus to reduce my non-White spell count, leading to both the second sideboard copy of Reduce to Memory, and the loss of Court Hussar. The first of these ended up being less relevant than the second, and while I was able to regain a sideboard slot later on I am still sorely missing the selection of the 1/3's ETB ability in post-board games. With that said, on to the results:
Round 1 lost 1-2 to Hammer Time, where I was paired against an excellent player who went on to make the top 4, and the matchup still felt extremely competitive. I take this as a very good sign, and in terms of strategy I would say that outside of their pure aggression giving them free wins, the matchup boils down to, essentially, whether Field of Ruin can efficiently deal with Urza's Saga. Hushbringer is sometimes a real punisher as well, so be aware of sequencing around it, but Sweepers give a very good shot at clearing it up profitably unless its tempo edge is turned into a tellingly awkward sequence on our end. In sideboarding, I had removed an Emeria, a Crucible, two Tef3ri, and a Stonecloaker for the Aura, the Seal, the Cathar, the Absence, and the Chalice.
Round 2 I lost 0-2 to Eldrazi Tron. This was an unfortunate immediate second loss which I was never able to gain traction in. I lost the die roll and was trounced by Karn, the Great Creator grabbing Liquimetal Coating, then Mulligans left me unable to stall his Thought-Knot Seer into double Reality Smasher draw long enough to get anything online. In the doomed second game, I had removed the Stonecloaker, a Tef3ri, and an Emeria to put in the Absence, the Commando, and the Aura.
Round 3 I won 2-0 against Grixis Shadow to keep me alive for prizing on a 5-2 record. The maindeck Stonecloaker was a huge asset here in shutting off both Delirium and Recursion for Kroxa and Lurrus plus Kolaghan's Command, and though it has since been removed I would not be averse to running it again. The games were tense and complex, with many details mattering on both sides, though I would say that Dress Down is the most important card in the matchup, and would advise mainphasing Solitude whenever possible to avoid blowouts. Otherwise, the matchup is quite straightforward, and the Crucible plus an Explosives and a Verdict made way for two Soul-Guide Lantern and a Chalice of the Void.
For Round 4 I won 2-0 against Jund. Stonecloaker came up again quite tellingly against Wrenn and Six as well as Dragon's Rage Channeler in game 1, and made him unable to Escape Kroxa for a comfortable win. In game two, however, I still removed the Stonecloaker, the Explosives, and the Crucible to play to the board better against discard effects and K-Command by bringing in Fateful Absence plus two Lantern.
In Round 5 I got my revenge with a 2-0 victory against another Eldrazi Tron player. His draws were the more typical half-and-half games this strategy tends to offer, and the defensive focus of Emeria paid off when I could ignore his Chalices to set up Lessons with Professor of Symbology. Game 2 was closer, but Crucible plus Field of Ruin had me nearly bulletproof by turn six or so, with my sideboard strategy being the same as above.
In round 6 I bested a Titania/Zuran Orb combo deck 2-1. The maindeck Engineered Explosives (a hedge against Crashing Footfalls on the weekend) was instrumental in stopping lethal damage on multiple occasions, and also dealt with his Orb to prevent future combos. In sideboarding, I removed my Crucible, the Stonecloaker, and an Emeria to make the space for two Lantern and a Fateful Absence as more efficient answers to Wrenn and Six and Titania, Protector of Argoth.
In round 7, I conceded to Amulet Titan rather than knock us both out of prizes since time was called for what would have been a 1-1-0 draw as we were shuffling up for game 3. This felt like a very difficult matchup in any event, and I am much less comfortable against the present versions of the deck - the current evolutions mean that they have come around to being very bad pairings once again. For the record, my sideboarding was as follows: removing the Stonecloaker, a Tef3ri, an Emeria, and two Verdict gave me the space to bring in the Absence, the Chalice, the Commando, the Aura, and the Seal, though I am quite hesitant to say if this is correct. There is a great deal of tension in dealing with "wide" Construct boardstates versus Karn openers and Titan combos at this time.
***I therefore went 4-3, with a 4-2-1 unofficial result. For the second tournament, I swapped the extra sideboard Reduce to Memory that had not seemed necessary for an ultimately non-factor Tormod's Crypt as an extra hedge versus several graveyard decks and Living End strategies I had seen. The resulting Solitude plays were still consistent enough without the extra "Professor tutoring a replacement white spell" line that I have now returned to this minimal 3-Lesson package.
In round 1 I lost 1-2 against a very strong Omnath Taking Turns opponent (who eventually fell short on a win-and in for the top 8 himself), where I again had excellent results with the maindeck Stonecloaker to best his active Wrenn and Six and Time Warp or Ephemerate loops with Eternal Witness. Unfortunately, he drew a fourth and final copy of Misty Rainforest on a critical turn in game 3 to make enough mana to push a freshly-cast Omnath, Locus of Creation to combo off, and was able to take the match. I had removed an Emeria, an Explosives, and a Verdict for two Lanterns and the Absence.
In round 2 I defeated a throwback Lantern Control player 2-0. This matchup, a very fun one in years gone by, has now become highly favourable with the new flexibility of Professor of Symbology. Post-board, I removed my three Verdicts to bring in the Aura, the Seal, and the Commando.
Round 3 was another 2-0 victory against Orzhov Smallpox. This was quite close in game 1, but Prismatic Ending eventually exiled all of his 3-mana Planeswalker threats. Game two was an absolute nailbiter, where I had recycled my early Blossoming Calm with Mistveil Plains and was furiously shuffling, thinning, and drawing cards with Wall of Omens and Teferi, Time Raveler in order to find it again as his Kaya, Orzhov Usurper resolved and began to exile enough cards to set up a lethal ultimate ability. I was luckily able to find it in time, and its resolution left me easily able to clean up once his graveyard control was mopped up by a Shadowspear on a Cathar Commando through his Lingering Souls tokens as blockers. I had removed my Verdicts and the Explosives for the Calm, the Spear, a Remorseful Cleric, and the Commando. As a note, it is in these kinds of situations that I miss Court Hussar selection the most: this sequence was very much a gamble to rely on off of cantrips alone, whereas with a recurrable Anticipate body as card selection peeling past undesireable cards the chances of re-drawing a singleton become much higher as the game develops.
In round 4 I lost 0-2 to Boros Burn, both being very tight games. I am not certain if the matchup is currently bad enough for Lone Missionary to come back into the mix, but I definitely would have appreciated it here. As it was in the match, I drew no sideboard cards, and my lifegain was limited to an Environmental Sciences in game one that only gained me a solitary point of life overall since I had led on a turn-one fetchland. My game-winning Solitude on end-step to remove his Eidolon and attack in game two was met by a Skullcrack, and that was that. I had removed my Verdicts, the Crucible, the Explosives, a Tef3ri and an Emeria to bring in the Calm, the Shadowspear, the Chalice, an Absence, the Remorseful Cleric, the Commando, and the Magistrate (though I now believe I may have been mistaken to trim on Teferi).
Playing for prizes once again, I then won round 5 2-0 against a Kuldotha Rebirth/Goblin Bushwhacker Boros Blitz deck. Game one was the best magic I played that day, sequencing and blocking to trade with minute care against his explosive on-the-play start of Rebirth into Devastating Summons with a follow-up Venerated Loxodon, and putting myself to 1 on life support thanks to an Environmental Sciences in order to draw my 1-outer Explosives to clear a meticulously crafted board of Tokens and Memnites only on his side. I managed to dodge the follow-up haste threats, and resolved a Solitude to stabilize and win. For game two, I removed an Emeria, a Crucible, and the Stonecloaker for my Chalice, the Shadowspear, and the Magistrate, the first of which which was enough to take the win when it resolved with 1 counter after an early flurry of trades culminating in a sweeper.
In round 6 I defeated a Mono-Red Prison opponent 2-1 in an epic match that mostly revolved around Professor of Symbology on my side. His Ramunap Ruins often being a strategic concern for stabilizing around Goblin Rabblemaster and Seasoned Pyromancer, I mostly elected not to remove his Blood Moon effects with Prismatic Ending, and even chose to Fateful Absence my own Sun Titan after blockers were declared in order not to remove his chump-blocking Magus of the Moon, following up with another similar attack on the next turn for the match win in game 3. I had removed my Verdicts and Explosives plus two Tef3ri for a Commando, a Cleric, a Magistrate, a Shadowspear, a Seal, and an Aura.
In round 7 I defeated a Hammer Time opponent 2-0 to lock up prizes, after a few scary moments in both games where I had to interact with early combo multiple times in each. Ultimately, a resolved Chalice on 1 locked up the final boardstate in my favour. I had removed an Emeria, a Stonecloaker, and a Crucible plus two Tef3ri for the Chalice, the Absence, the Commando, the Seal, and the Aura.
***This second tournament thus ended with a clean 5-2 and a 17th place finish. In tournament #3, I ran the same list, however with the second Ghost Quarter replaced by an Idyllic Grange for added versatility - thank you for the reminder, Toshenko - and the maindeck Stonecloaker removed to run Wrath of God again. The sideboard lost the unimpressive Crypt and fit in a Containment Priest in its place.
In round 1 I won 2-1 against Lantern Control once again, this time after dropping game one to Discard clearing the way for the lethal Karn, the Great Creator/Liquimetal Coating combo. Sideboarding was similar to the previous tournament, removing sweepers to bring in pressure and utility on recursion-ready permanents.
In round 2 I lost 0-2 to a Mardu Lurrus/Unearth deck which caught me for exact lethal the turn before I was to turn the corner with Solitude both games. My game one hand on the draw proved weak to his Tourach, Dread Cantor after a Mulligan. I then removed my Crucible and an Explosives for two copies of the excellent Soul-Guide Lantern, and felt strong in my plays, only losing to a Bolt after having stabilised the board and activated Emeria following am extremely rare triple Mulligan on the play, so I believe my continued confidence in the matchup is well warranted.
In round 3 I drew 1-1-1 in turns against an Amulet Titan player as we were both still live for top 8 following an epic 45-minute game two in which his final Primeval Titan only searched up a single land on ETB. I wish to dwell on this for a moment, as I take it as a badge of pride: I somehow conspired to make it through to the other side of the deck against Amulet Titan in a game. They had put 100% of their threats on the table at some point, searched out all 32 of their lands, resolved almost all of their Urza's Saga triggers, and I managed to slog through the whole mess the fair way in order to win the game. The matchup still feels terrible, but this one game win counted for a dozen matches' worth of triumph in my mind. Once upon a time, when the world was young and full of mystery, I had ground a mountain down to so much rubble.
In round 4 I won 2-0 against a Jeskai Ragavan player. This was a refreshingly straightforward matchup, where Mortarpod was its usual all-star self agaisnt the titular Pirate monkey. I sideboarded minimally, a Crucible for an Absence, and Wall of Omens did what it does best until sweepers showed up to clear the board. His Prismatic Ending and Teferi, Time Raveler proved much less impressive than mine, giving me a clear edge.
Round 5 was a 2-0 victory against Hammer Time, where I never felt much in the way of pressure in game 1. He had kept a hand of turn-2 double Hammer kill hinging on a turn-one Sigarda's Aid to enable Ornithopter and Memnite with two lands, which ended up weak to my turn-1 Prismatic Ending on the draw. The remainder of the game he was a little too slow to pressure me effectively. For game two, I removed my Crucible and an Emeria plus three Tef3ri to bring in Aura, Seal, Commando, Chalice, and Absence, and picked apart his early Inkmoth kill with a Solitude before mopping up with Disenchant effects and a Wrath.
In round 6 I defeated an Omnath/Yorion four-colour value pile 2-0 on the back of Field of Ruin supported eventually by Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan, additionally led into by Tef3ri and Solitude both games. There are definitely very difficult draws to beat here, but the sheer pressure on their manabase from their own spells makes the matchup boil down to whether Ghost Quarter effects are relevant or not extremely early in the game. If they are value plus by turn five or so, I feel strong. If they are met by a Wrenn and Six or supported by an Omnath before then, things are much more difficult (though still likely competitive for many turns if Emeria can get active). One major anti-synergy was uncovered in this game, however, where a spate of Prismatic Endings on his side had exiled two of my Mortarpod. With these gone, my Emeria forced me to reanimate the Containment Priest that had earlier exiled an Eternal Witness being targeted by Ephemerate, which eventually turned my 2/2 into a weapon for him when he began using Fury to kill my Wall of Omens and Pilgrim's Eye. Emeria was then obligated to target these as the only creatures in my graveyard, essentially leading to backdoor exile-based removal for him off of my own card and progressively costing me more recursion targets as long as my Priest was still in play.
In round 7 I took a very unfortunate 0-2 loss against a Kaheera, the Orphanguard U/W Control player to knock me out of the top 8 (and, it later became apparent, out of prizes entirely). I say unfortunate because in game 1 the only creature I drew was a Solitude, which managed to kill TWO Teferi, Hero of Dominaria through his Supreme Verdicts, but when my Emeria, the Sky Ruin had been active for six turns and I had not found any additional pressure, he was never in any danger and I died a miserable death to his Hall of Storm Giants once he found a Solitude of his own to exile mine. His deck was very interesting, with a new manabase in which only one of his lands (a Triome) could NOT come in untapped to cast Counterspell on turn two if required, and splashing up to five colours with shocklands for his Prismatic Ending, plus extra red sources for several copies of Fire // Ice. Fortunately (or unfortunately in the case), I had showed him so little resistance in game one that he did not even bother sideboarding against Emeria for what he assumed was simply a singleton value card, and I had the opportunity for a much better showing in game two. Alas, I Mulliganed thrice for a total lack of mana for the second time of the day, and my resource-light hand was completely and easily undone by two pieces of countermagic. When his Hall began attacking while I was still on four lands, having drawn multiple Titans, the tournament ended for me with a whimper rather than a bang.
***The third tournament was then a 4-2-1 record for 33rd place out of 127. Based off of the awkward performance of Containment Priest, I switched it for a Glen Elendra Archmage in the fourth and final tournament. It had been meant as a foil to some of the faster Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Undying draws, but if I wanted to gain access to this effect in the future I would look to include Hallowed Moonlight in its place instead. Besides not enabling the disaster scenario of vacuum-cleaning my graveyard of creatures as of the point when Emeria begins putting its mandatory trigger on the stack, the Instant can also catch tokens, and is equipped with the most powerful three words in Magic.
With the previous day's tournament ultimately having been won by a copy of the following deck, I was overjoyed in round 1 to win a straightforward 2-1 against B/R Ragavan. The second game was a blowout victory when his Tourach, Dread Cantor (quite possibly the strongest card in the matchup) hit the sweeper which would have answered it, plus the basic Island to cast any other potential copies of said sweepers off the top, while being immune to the Wall of Omens in play and the Solitude in my hand. In game three, however, Introduction to Annihilation proved a valuable asset in that particular fight - especially with Tef3ri to hold the card up at Instant-speed. Minimal sideboarding here involved removing Engineered Explosives and Crucible of Worlds to put in two Soul-Guide Lantern as interaction for Delirium and recursion of all sorts which could also "store" extra cards in play.
Round 2 was another game against Amulet Titan which I lost 0-2. I made a mistake which might have cost me game one, electing to try to keep my Tef3ri around by killing a Titan and a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove with a sweeper on my turn to shut off Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and he untapped to play a second and a third Amulet of Vigor to turn his newfound Simic Growth Chamber into Tolaria west plus the mana to transmute for a Summoners' Pact and cast the Titan he found off of it for the lethal 20-point swing. Had I simply allowed my Tef3ri to die by activating the plus, then passing into his dryad/Titan/Valakut board, I could have cast the Verdict in combat before attackers in order to cover all lethal threats that turn. Game two was much closer, with an army of Urza's Saga Constructs coming in and distracting my Solitude from his Dryad just in order to stay alive, which then allowed the Enchantment Creature to plink in the last 6 damage with a Bonceland and a Valakut. I had cut an Emeria, three Tef3ri, and a Pilgrim's Eye in order to bring in the Commando, the Seal, the Aura, the Absence and the Chalice. This matchup is a real headache against good pilots, leading me to begin wondering as of this round whether there might need to be more in the sideboard against it in the future.
Round 3 was a very satisfying 2-1 victory against Boros Burn, where I won both post-board games on the back of my day's oddball sideboard choice of Glen Elendra Archmage. Game 1 was a straightforward loss to a turn one Lava Spike followed by a series of different Bolts of many descriptions. With no creatures at all for me to block, even an Environmental Sciences could not keep me alive long enough to attack with a Solitude. Game two had my pair of Wall of Omens lock him under his own double Eidolon of the Great Revel after my Archmage attacked once and then had him take eight damage to deal me zero off of his Suspended Rift Bolt and follow-up Skewer the Critics, leaving him at three life and unable to rid himself of his board while I played lands towards Emeria. Game three the Archmage more literally traded its unpersisted half cleanly with an Eidolon and then protected my lifelinking Solitude plus Idyllic Grange attack from Skullcrack, Searing Blaze, or Deflecting Palm to lock up the match while my Chalice of the Void on 1 held back the rest of his plays.
Round 4 was a strong 2-1 victory against B/R Ragavan again, this time over the previous day's champion. His modification to add a second basic Swamp to his maindeck from the day before caught me off-balance, as I had tried to use information from his published decklist to keep him from casting Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger (and eventually Tourach) with a Ghost Quarter in game two. With the extra Basic, he secured a punishing Escape on the play, and since I was down a land I was then unable to cast my follow-up Solitude to stabilize before he forced me to discard it. Game three went much more according to plan, however, with sideboarding as above and no surprises to speak of - Wall of Omens and Tef3ri did the rest of the damage and an eventual Soul-guide Lantern prevented any chance at Lurrus of the Dream-Den or Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger in the midgame.
Round 5 was a brutal 1-2 loss to Mono-Green Tron, with some extra tragedy thrown in. I was run over by a quick Urza land connection in game 1 when I inexplicably played the wrong land (a Prairie Stream when I had assumed I already had two Basic Plains) to be able to [EDIT: CAST SOLITUDE TO] clean out the Karn Liberated that activated down loyalty to exile a blue source, leaving me wondering what might have happened after I secured the Crucible lock in game 2 on the play, and then lost an agonizingly imbalanced game 3 on the draw after a snap-keep on seven cards from my opponent, who had another turn 3 Karn. Having sideboarded out my four sweepers, an Emeria, and two Tef3ri to fit in the Chalice, the Aura, the Seal, the Commando, the Absence, the Shadowspear, and the Archmage, I had only one card in my deck to prevent turn 3 Tron on the draw, so due to my game 1 misplay I didn't feel more unlucky than usual until the extra salt in the wound when (after having effectively knocked me out of the top 8) my opponent heard a crunching sound as he picked up his bag to leave the table. Peering into the satchel, he asked me if I was missing any cards. A quick count revealed that I had indeed managed to drop the lone Ghost Quarter (my only out to prevent the Karn from the final game) off the side of the table for him to have just mangled when he shifted his chair to get up. Ghost Quarters are not so rare, however that one had been part of my playset from all the way back in Dissension, and I felt a deep wave of loss wash over me on holding its twisted husk in my hands. This was slightly mollified when a very kind bystander (Chris, he said his name was) handed me a Commander-series replacement for the obviously no longer tournament-legal wreck in front of me. If you ever read this; thank you, Chris!
Playing to hold on to my record for prizes, round 6 was unfortunately another concession after a probable 1-1-1 draw versus B/G Yawgmoth in the hands of a fellow Saskatooner. I thought it was fairly clear that I had played the better between the two of us, and asked him if he would concede, but his board was likely good enough to threaten his combo at least once more over the next few turns, so when he refused I conceded instead and wished him luck in the final round. I had taken out an Emeria, the Crucible, and an Explosives for the two Lanterns and the Absence. This matchup is very difficult to assess, and is highly draw-dependent, but the fact of having no way to prevent or control Yawgmoth's card draw through anything other than removal makes me very confident that the matchup is a bad one in the hands of a competent pilot - though Graveyard interaction plus a Sweeper does lead to the odd competitive game at times.
The final round was a 2-1 revenge win over the same Kaheera U/W from the previous day's Round 7, in the hands of a teammate of my final round's opponent from the day before playing 73 of this new 75. Game one was a back and forth affair that he managed to take down, and after removing my sweepers for the Archmage, the Absence, the Commando, and the Remorseful Cleric I had sideboarded in, I ended game two with those four cards plus the Engineered Explosives he had not seen in game 1 in my hand, and disciplined myself not to cast them as of turn six when I realized I was in a good enough position to beat him - in what ultimately became an extremely drawn-out win by decking on my part - by showing him only maindeck cards. This meant that game three was to be a romp as my Explosives destroyed his Spreading Seas, my Commando snuck in to pressure his life total before he untapped from an end-step Archmage's Charm, my Cleric removed his Memory Deluges for value, my Absence killed his tapout Teferi, Hero of Dominaria before he could represent mana for his Counterspell, and my Archmage caused him all sorts of problems. Vindication!
***My final result was therefore another 4-3 showing in 40th place or so, with a 4-2-1 unofficially once again. I would call this a highly consistent set of results, and am looking forward to continuing to play the deck. In the interim between now and the next large tournament worth going to, I will work on the sideboard (possibly by putting Damping Sphere and/or Void Mirror back in to fight the unfair "Big Mana" decks).
Overall, I felt that I had played middling-well in the majority of my games, had gotten a little more unlucky than usual (particularly in the last tournament), and had played against strong opposition, meaning that I am quite happy with my level of play throughout these events. My list has become sharper, and my comfort level with Solitude has increased, and my opinion of Professor of Symbology has continued to steadily improve. My manabase has become a tiny bit cleaner for Emeria as of the provisory inclusion of Idyllic Grange - which has not yet hurt me much and has therefore offered extra lines of play at very little cost (other than the reduction of numbers on Ghost Quarter) - and my maindeck options feel cohesive. My sideboard is still not quite right, I feel, but I have gotten a satisfying amount of coverage from 13 or so of its 15 current options, so I am very hopeful that I am on the road to finding a satisfying mix soon.
If anyone would like clarification on anything in this massive data-dump, please do not hesitate to ask!
I am just looking for a little extra input from anyone who has the time to help me fill out a list of the cards which Blossoming Calm interacts with in Modern in addition to many Mill, Burn, and Discard effects. Thing like Endurance, Gifts Ungiven[/card, the triggers on Grief or Archon of Cruelty and Endurance plus the ultimate or aggressive abilities of Planeswalkers such as Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Ajani Vengeant, and Karn Liberated may not be very important at the moment, but I have not yet had time to fully examine the Hexproof clause for relevance, where the volume of its coverage is increasingly of interest due to my tight sideboard at the moment.
I have two results to share. The first is a 2-1 in a small tournament, and the second is a 4-1 in the swiss of a mid-size tournament, whereafter I lost in the quarterfinals. In the second, following up from my previous post, I decided to try out Drannith Magistrate, which worked out reasonably well. A swift breakdown of my matchups and results follows:
TOURNAMENT #1 (15 people):
Won round 1 (2-0 against Jeskai Yorion Control). This round was tightly contested as I had to sequence very carefully, and I almost lost {EDIT: WHEN] he was able to get a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria on a clear board in game 1, but I had gotten Reduce to Memory earlier to give me an out to it, and sequenced to play the very threatening Teferi, Time Raveler as bait for his countermagic first (which he had) then the Exile effect on the same turn. Game two he was under time pressure to win [EDIT: QUICKLY] since game one had been quite drawn out, and I was simply able to pressure him with small creatures for the clean match win. Despite the nervous moment early on, small Teferi and Emeria make me feel reaonably confident here.
Lost round 2 (0-2 against Jeskai Demilich Phoenix). I lost game one to a well-timed flock of phoenixes, and sideboarded to beat them, then lost an extremely close game 2 mainly to the card I had not seen in game 1 (Demilich). In point of fact, being unaware of its existence I had never seen the card before at all, and would have played differently had I known about it, but such is life. I will be better prepared next time, and I think that should make the difference, as their deck consists of many moving pieces - only a scant few of which can actually do anything to make stabilising any more difficult. Post-board I felt particularly strong, so I would call this matchup favoured if we win game one, and likely no worse than even if not.
Won round 3 (2-1 against Esper Reanimator). This is now the third time I have faced this strategy "in the wild", so to speak, and I am happy with both my configuration and my matchup against it. There are a few scary moments in the early turns - during one of which in game one he managed to sequence a Kaya, Orzhov Usurper on a turn where I could not develop my board because I had to respect his combo - which eventually sealed the win for him, however both sideboard games were very clean, and I am delighted with the combination of Remorseful Cleric pressure plus the Soul-Guide Lantern ETB effect, leaving me very happy with the pairing at the moment. The kicker is that Exile-based removal from the Sideboard can be easily accessed via Professor of Symbology, allowing a fair chance at the game 1 wins which make the matchup strongly favoured overall in my mind.
TOURNAMENT #2 (25-30 people):
Lost round 1 (1-2 against Temur Rhinos). I was on the play in the dark, and managed to take game 1 on the back of a turn 3 Teferi, Time Raveler which I refused to tick down even when missing land drops in the face of possible burn spells. I then lost a very close game 2 with no sideboard cards at all where I chose to spend double Prismatic Ending to deal with a pair of early Rhinos on the draw, which left me waiting on an answer to his follow-up sideboarded Klothys, God of Destiny. I got rid of it a few turns later with a Lesson, but the life loss proved too much and he only had to draw reasonably well to eventually burn me out. I then lost game 3 after what felt like my best draw in the matchup of Drannith Magistrate into Teferi, Time Raveler. I failed to find enough manabase disruption or other interaction to press the advantage, however, and he was eventually able to cast a few burn spells into a pair of Fury which took down my board state when I had no Sun Titan or Emeria to recur either. The matchup still feels bad to me, especially game one, however I am more and more confident in the ability to find the winning sequences overall, and I think it is no worse than around 60-40 for them if both players draw well.
Won Round 2 (2-1 against Abzan Reanimator). I lost game one to an unexpectedly Planeswalker-centric draw on their part of Grist, the Hunger Tide into Liliana of the Veil. I would have had the tools to interact in Prismatic Ending but my three opening lands included an unfortunate Ghost Quarter, and I was unlucky not to find any more lands in the next five draw steps as he found Vindicate then made insects and Lingering Souls spirits to follow up until I perished in agony. Bah. I won the next two games handily, and felt much better about standing behind the comments I made above for the matchup in all configurations I have seen thus far.
Won round 3 (2-0 against Mono-black Prison). This was essentially a bye, since my opponent was quite new to competitive play, but a couple of oddball black Enchantments included Sanguine Bond, so I had to be certain not to expose myself to infinite lifeloss from Bloodchief Ascension and the like. Since Prismatic Ending and the Lessons meant that this never became an issue, there is not much more to say here.
Won round 4 (2-0 against Magda Dwarves). This was an interesting match, but my sweepers gave me [EDIT: A SIGNIFICANT] edge on a 3-for-1 in game one and a 2-for-1 after mutual Mulligans to 5 in game two. He also never resolved a Pyre of Heroes, which might have made things very interesting indeed, but I believe that I am still in the game even if the combo does resolve any given 8-drop. All in all, this is in the end another [EDIT: SORCERY-SPEED] creature-based matchup, so I will always be relatively confident until proven otherwise.
Won round 5 (2-1 against Grixis Shadow Ragavan). Having won my way all the way up the loser's bracket from round 1, I then faced the undefeated player who wanted to win for a chance to be on the play through the top 8. I was able to take game 1 on clean Endings for his Dragon's Rage Channeler and Death's Shadow on turns 1 and 2, then lost game 2 to a timely Dress Down for my stabilising Sun Titan, and ultimately took down the match when I was able to thwart his attempted Dress Down plus Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger plus follow-up Lurrus of the Dream-Den with Lessons to lock up top 8 for both of us now being at 4-1
Lost the Quarterfinals (0-2 against Jund Lurrus/Ragavan/Saga). Sadly, I was immediately and cleanly defeated here on poor draws, when a 6/7, then 7/8 Tarmogoyf went uncontested for three turns in game 1. For game 2 I stabilized behind a Wall of Omens for his Ragavan after resolving an Ending on his Lurrus, then failed to draw any spells. Multiple Field of Ruin meant that I was able to control his Sagas and coloured sources to keep me alive, however I ended the game with Emeria active and my Wall still in play, which I felt was sort of fair, since it had been holding back his monkey the whole time. Based off of this experience, I rather feel that the matchup is better than I showed here. I am, however, still not certain if I am favoured against the new Wrenn and Six builds with Urza's Saga, but if so I do not think it will be by much, and I now look forward to finding out over the next few weeks.
All in all, I have been very pleased with my deck's performances of late, and my piloting skills are becoming somewhat sharp again, so I will call this report a very solid positive set of data points as I look to get back into larger events.
That is all I have for now, and I will hope you are all doing well!
Following my previous message, I have need of outside opinions on which soft-lock piece is a better hate card to include in my 75, primarily as a hedge against Rhinos. Since the matchup is not guaranteed, however, I wish to discuss the relative merits of each. My intention is then to update this post with a running tally of the arguments for and against Drannith Magistrate and Deafening Silence. To set the stage, I will note the things I consider to be relevant to each card:
Deafening Silence has two primary advantages. The major one is its cheapness at one mana, making it possible to find and cast in the early turns off of a cantrip effect before combo has set up, smoother to sequence around taplands/fetchlands or Field activations, and easier to sneak into play around countermagic or interaction after testing the waters with a more expensive spell later on, though relevantly exposed to exile by Force of Negation. It is by the same token maximally susceptible to an opposing Prismatic Ending or the like, but makes up slightly for this with its other major advantage of being immune to most other common removal spells (including my own sweepers). It it a symmetrical effect, but in my list the main thing it would disrupt is Environmental Sciences into Supreme Verdict on turn six and above, with minimal other relevance due to my Creature density and the presence of Teferi, Time Raveler - not to mention the reduced likelihood of this being a concern post-board against such decks as it hates on.
Can any of you see other relevant factors here?
Drannith Magistrate, for its part, has two advantages as well. I will begin again with the major one in the fact that it is a creature. It can therefore be returned with Emeria, the Sky Ruin, but more importantly can block to keep me alive when losing on-board. This means that it does get hit by most of the common removal of the format as well as by Essence Scatter effects, but its secondary advantage is that it can a) attack opposing Planeswalkers, while also b) providing another body to carry a Shadowspear against Burn or the like in setting up a situationally impactful surprise "cast+Equip" on turn 3. On the positive end also, it affects exclusively opposing plays, among them abusive cost-avoiding mechanics such as Hideaway.
Is this breakdown missing any important dynamics?
The overlap between them includes the following cards - against many of which I would consider reaching my next draw step to be a significant accomplishment. Expanding this series is a vital part of the exercise here, for which information I would be very appreciative of any input, addition, or clarification:
My 4-round tournament yesterday went well, despite the seemingly lacklustre 2-2 result, because I am in the middle of gathering data during the significant overhaul I have been mentioning.
My logic on many of the changes has already been discussed elsewhere, so I will note that the maindeck Solitude over Settle the Wreckage is a provisionary switch which may stay at its current singleton status. It is, however, possible that a maximum of one more of the remaining Path to Exile may be threatened with joining it, at which point I am not certain whether I would keep the final copy or switch it to a fourth Prismatic Ending. These are hypotheticals, however, and I was happy enough with its performance that I would likely keep it at one for now, since pitch-casting the Evoke cost was often is highly undesireable for my version. The 5-mana Lifelinking Flash body was solid, and did provide early interaction in absolute desperation scenarios which also eventually allowed Emeria, the Sky Ruin a removal option, but I want to be certain that this is not coming at any other cost first. Path to Exile is much easier to hold up post-Wrath, and its acceleration is still very important.
On to the games, then: I comfortably defeated U/B/W Persist reanimator 2-1 in round one by essentially stress-testing the new Solitude to exile his Archon of Cruelty in our first game, forcing him to come up with more graveyard fodder while I slowly squeezed his mana for the win while doling out lifelinking attacks, then took a loss when the unexpected presence of Serra's Emissary in game two allowed their Snapcaster Mage to attack for lethal through multiple blockers (an almost ridiculously improbable sequence on the whole after my early stabilization with Tef3ri), and finally closed out the match with Remorseful Cleric beatdown tiding me over until Field of Ruin stressed his mana to the breaking point with Stonecloaker as insurance. On this card, I had brought it in specifically for this matchup, because all of my other interaction for graveyards is purely on-board. I was hoping to give them incentive to waste their reanimation spells, however my regular plan against creatures appears solid enough that it may not be necessary in the long-term. I like the Flash 3/2 flying body a great deal for generating value against Control and Combo when the sweepers come out post-board, but it may simply be pressured out due to the Lesson package cramping my sideboard space so much.
Afterwards, I lost a convincing 0-2 in round two to Temur Crashing Footfalls in my most important testing of the day. I now am convinced that I am firmly disadvantaged if I do not resolve Teferi, Time Raveler in game one, since Violent Outburst allows them too much choice at Instant-speed after my initial stabilization. Their deck is full of minor Tempo sequences which reward both representing and resolving it as well, so I was never comfortable in game one (even though Solitude and Supreme Verdict can be reliable answers to most difficult early spots). Shardless Agent being their best typical start, I eventually lost to rhinos 5 and 6 off of their their second copy of Outburst, having dealt with the two previous waves reasonably cleanly. Game two was a resounding loss where I kept a fair hand without sideboard cards, and had my only relevant interaction in Tef3ri countered by Mystical Dispute. More of the same sequences from game one followed for the loss, and I found myself wondering whether the Stonecloaker should instead now become more interaction in the matchup.
I then conceded to G/W Enchantress in round 3 after time was called at 1-1 after teaching a new player how to combo me out since I left myself open to the 15-point Emrakul, the Aeons Torn swing which stole what would have been a 2-0 victory, following an extremely protracted game one win by decking on my part (where Introduction to Annihilation was notably a critical out to the giant Eldrazi). The matchup is indeed favourable to my eyes, but as I could no longer 4-0 after round two I was more than happy to answer questions and give a leg up where necessary as they muddled through what may have been one of their first few tournaments - and was certainly their first with the deck in question.
Finally, I won 2-1 in round 4 after a hugely fun relentless grind against R/W Boom // Bust which used the new Rustvale Bridge to complement their split card and accelerate out Nahiri, the Harbinger and Chandra, Torch of Defiance by using Cleansing Wildfire and Flagstones of Trokair plus Cascading Cataracts. I had taken the play after winning the die roll in the dark, so game one was as simple as finding and resolving my maindeck Crucible of Worlds, which was exiled by a Prismatic Ending using a soft-splash Savai Triome, but had gotten me off the ground to resolving Pilgrim's Eye at will in order to allow my Professor of Symbology to go fetch my removal Lessons for his Planeswalkers. Game two was another slog where my lack of Celestial Purge was telling on the draw, even though I believe my deck improved by much more than his overall. He was able to present too many types of issues at once, in the early game, with Seasoned Pyromancer providing a follow-up threat after an accelerated start had his early Nahiri ticking up towards a quick Annihilator win. The extra awkwardness of his Boil catching two of my lands left him with too much remaining gas after I had to Introduction to Annihilation his Planeswalker, and my Sun Titan would have ignored his Rest in Peace for the win if I hadn't needed it to find another blue source to bounce my Professors with Tef3ri. As it was, I simply tried to stabilize the board and race with the 6/6 body, which came close but ultimately lost to extra chip damage from his subsequent Chandra. Game three was a convincing case for keeping the Shadowspear in the sideboard, where his indestructible Lands became targets for its activated ability while it contributed to offense as I put in an early board presence to start the clock, with Flash threats combining to punish [EDIT: THEArmageddonHALF OF] Boom // Bust by allowing me to dictate who was ahead on board at several important points. Another key interaction was returning his ETB tapped Artifact Land to his hand as a tempo play with Tef3ri, which allowed me extra turns of free development leading indirectly to a comfortable (though fiercely contested) win.
All in all, I was quite pleased with the outing, and will hope to be running the 75 back again at Wednesday's 3-round event, with the exception of the second Solitude and the Stonecloaker which I will have to mull over for a while. If I change the second, it will very likely be for the oddly relevant Drannith Magistrate, but the Magistrate has the drawback of being two mana to cast, whereas its main competition in Deafening Silence is only a single mana besides being harder to kill. I am therefore at the moment debating between the two, with an outside chance of Ratchet Bomb or Engineered Explosives being pressed into service instead if I decide that I need to deal with tokens directly instead. I would appreciate all your thoughts on any of these matters.
I believe that will be all for today, so have a very good evening everyone!
First off, I have missed a lot while in Europe, so I will recap changes to the format as I take the chance to voice quick responses to Plichow, Dean's Finest, and YJBh33ls, respectively:
I think it has become clear to me over time, Plichow, that access to Ghost Quarter is not absolutely required in the more aggressive versions of the deck, impeding Emeria activation too much if Field of Ruin can cover similar ground without putting you down a land. When things like Kaldra Compleat and Stoneforge Mystic or Ranger-Captain of Eos and Walking Ballista combine to end things swiftly, these cut off draw steps more directly in the late stages of your gameplan. However, I am still adamant that eventual access to Strip Mine is simultaneously a necessary evil and the best lategame possible for the slower builds that cannot turn the corner with offensive options.
The banning of Yorion, Sky Nomad has simplified many of the dilemmas you mention, Dean's Finest, by simply taking the 80-card options out of our hands, which I tend to see as a good thing overall as including the Companion was a mixed blessing at best, and its removal has certainly improved the 4-colour Omnath pile matchups by first removing a threat from their sequencing and then by forcing their manabases onto a narrower tightrope with fewer redundancies.
I am not sure whether the Stoneforge builds are favoured at the moment,YBJh331s, but I can confidently state that access to new Reconfigure options like Cloudsteel Kirin, Lion Sash and even The Reality Chip add a great deal of flexibility to the strategy, and do an excellent job of enhancing the Spirited Companion that these lists should typically be looking to run over Wall of Omens ever since that wonderful new attacking variant has become available. My feeling is that Emeria itself still passively discourages Stoneforge recursion by naturally extending the game to a point where it draws its its Equipment and runs the Kor Shaman out of targets later in the game, conversely giving a passive encouragement to an 0/4 Defender more by gaining access to its focused blocking power immediately on ETB. This means Control variants can better leverage Sweepers in general as a consequence of less investment in their (primarily defensive) board presence, but in my opinion this is only true in contexts where the Aggro and Midrange elements are more common than the Big Mana and Combo portion of the metagame, whereas a faster clock closing out the game rapidly gains back any lost equity against the latter two strategies.
But as I am myself just back from travel, and have been looking to return to casual tournaments with Emeria, my perspective may be skewed since I have moderate success at a 12-person tournament to point to with a clean 2-1 record only losing in the finals, the quick breakdown being a straightforward 2-1 win versus Izzet Murktide confirming my previous comfort level with the pairing, a well-earned 2-1 win versus 4-colour Wrenn and Six/Indomitable Creativity strongly indicating the viability of a new sideboard strategy, and a tough 1-2 loss versus Amulet Titan after failing to note life totals correctly, leading me to back out of an on-board win and therefore miss out on an undefeated evening. Rust is a real concern once again here for me, but most importantly I have some solid strategic improvements to report in the new configuration of my "classic board control" variant resulting in the following list:
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
3 Field of Ruin
2 Demolition Field
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Spara's Headquarters
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Elspeth Resplendent
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Shadowspear
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Cathar Commando
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Loran of the Third Path
1 Environmental Sciences
1 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
I am once again running my trademark undecided 61 cards at the moment due to the recent overperformance of Elspeth Resplendent, who has impressed me enough to be a serious consideration in the maindeck currently, primarily as a way to find (and even ramp to, plus protecting!) Emeria, the Sky Ruin while digging for singletons or sideboard cards and producing the odd "surprise" Teferi, Time Raveler off of only white mana, all in a package that increases lifegain and turns specifically Mortarpod tokens but also more generally any random board presence into marginally upgraded Planeswalker pressure in resource-intensive matchups. The 12 non-Lesson cards in my sideboard, incidentally, have reflected the twin pressures of Elspeth and the Titans to become 100% 3-mana-or less permanents, which helps focus the post-board plans when making substitutions for games 2 and 3, and situationally boosts the "luxury reset" utility of Tef3ri's -3 ability, particularly by re-establishing ETBs once safely out of the "do whatever it takes to survive" early game.
The most notable gains come in the manabase and in the sideboard directly, though, where in the first instance I have cut Raugrin Triome and Raffine's Tower as too unwieldy to be of use in most matchups, much as it pains me to lose out on the lategame power-level upgrades for Prismatic Ending. I am not certain if cutting both is correct on this axis, since the appeal of 4-mana Endings is extremely tempting, but I am confident in stating that I can currently not reliably get to 5-mana Endings against Control opponents fast enough to prevent Teferi, Hero of Dominaria from activating his matchup-defining Ultimate ability. On the other hand, two-mana Endings are very consistent, and the low opportunity cost of adding a third colour with any Triome of choice seems to make 3-mana versions accessible for the lategame in around 60-70% of matches (which is good enough for me when the 1 and 2 mana modes are so strong generally), but at present the 4-mana version of Converge drops to being available below 50% of the time even in my bread-and-butter extended topdecking situations, and the 5-mana version sits at a highly unreliable 30% or less, with that only a factor in the longer games or in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan powered fetchland recursion - which equates to an almost entirely tapland manabase for the games where I attempt to prioritize maximizing colour diversity in my lands.
This loss of 4 and 5 mana Converge capacity is not a net negative, however, since with the space I am pleased to welcome back Mistveil Plains as a way to recycle my overperforming Lesson sideboard removal package of Introduction to Annihilation and Reduce to Memory. Re-drawing these cards is notably quite valuable against the Control and Prison opponents which most appreciate Converge 4+ on Prismatic Ending, while the Mistveil's return restores my operational confidence against decks featuring infinite lifegain shenanigans. That is not all, however, and I have perhaps left the best for last since a real improvement has come along with the printing of Demolition Field, substantially solidifying my manabase disruption versus the unfair matchups by increasing my absolute "Field of Ruin" count to 5 (though it is also notable that I can now rely on a 3 Ruin and 2 Demolition split to better hedge against corner-case Pithing Needle and Surgical Extraction effects in some matchups). This was a good deal of the reason I got into the winning position against my finals opponent, and definitely helped me take game one against him to even get me into the post-board games in good shape. It is currently crucial to control both the Urza's Saga and the Simic Growth Chamber angles against Amulet Titan, and nothing covers those better than Ghost Quarter effects that do not set turn-by-turn mana development back - preferably activated both early and often. I believe 6 of the effect might be even better, but at that point the plethora of colourless sources begins make for a few too many non-functional hands in the two-colour builds I favour. I will, however, state that Mono-White versions may now have gained a real selling point through their ability to run up to 8 copies of the two "Fields" - an option with huge consequences.
My other real breakthrough comes with the sideboard, where beating unfair strategies has gone from a seriously unpredictable challenge to a legitimately focused - though still difficult to execute - gameplan of delay thanks to a thematic, elegant, and subtle dynamic enabled by multiple copies of Curse of Silence. The improvement touches on all Cascade variants, is currently well-positioned enough against Indomitable Creativity to have won two post-bard games in a row, is flexible enough to pose problems for Tron, and extends to spell-based or Creature-based combo, where the effect of pushing any of these decks two turns higher on the curve translates to two or more real chances at drawing the now-increased manabase disruption which is the most effective strategy when not running countermagic. Losing out on Lion Sash, Blossoming Calm, [EDIT: AND DRANNITH MAGISTRATE] is a pity, but the versatility of these 1-mana enchantments is extremely high against curve-cheating cards as significant compensation. They also streamline decision-making and complement each other surprisingly well in multiples, and include a hidden bonus 2W "cycle" mode when out of danger. Finally, I have not yet had a good chance to examine the Reclamation Sage function of Loran of the Third Path, and she may yet be replaced by a Haywire Mite to hedge against Burn and to keep the substitutions at a low mana cost in a more Emeria-friendly package, but for the moment this is my new configuration of choice.
Speaking of recommendations, the release of Brother's War has also granted us a massive Sideboard silver bullet for those interested in beating Living End by introducing Calamity's Wake to the card pool. (For the sake of completeness, I also think that the following list of white spells from that expansion have possible applications depending on specific builds: Recommission, Recruitment Officer, Lay Down Arms, Tocasia's Welcome, Soul Partition, and Kayla's Command. In the Artifacts, storyline spotlights The Stone Brain and The Stasis Coffin join Platoon Dispenser as new niche options, though the first two are more likely to matter against us by extending the toolboxes of Karn, the Great Creator decks. Finally, in variants splashing Black it is worthwhile to note the presence of Hero of the Dunes and Legions to Ashes as new possibilities, though I will specify that even these are quite unlikely to matter enough unless the build in question is already running multiple Raffine's Tower or some such to legitimately enable stronger funamental options - such as the old powerhouse Necrotic Sliver.) There are also new spoilers currently being released for Phyrexia: All Will be One, so as always I will keep an eye out for any potential new inclusions. Thus far, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and Soulless Jailer appear to be the only two reasonable inclusions, but are at least intriguing ones.
As an end note, I would very much like to thank everyone for continuing on with this thread when so much of the playerbase seems to have fragmented rather badly in the mass move towards Discord and Twitch. The continuity of this ongoing discussion has not been replicated in my forays onto the Discord, where the communication is heavily biased towards addressing shorter-term surface-level problems and therefore loses out on the considered approach which a historical archive such as this one provides. I may be becoming an old man prematurely at 33 years old, now, but even if that is true I have noticed a distinct "casual and generic" attitude to the Discord servers which are the antithesis of what I hope to enable here - namely a sustained interest in documenting the specifics of evolution during what amounts to a long-running experiment. The undeniable ease of use of these chat platforms seems destined to win out on a large scale for many purposes, but as long as there are still people interested in a focused discussion with easy-to-navigate visuals and a clear timeline built in... Well, suffice it to say that I will thank all of you who choose to post here for your investment in maintaining such a culture, where the juxtaposition of interesting ideas stands a better chance of shining through overall.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year for 2023, then,
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S.: In case it might sway anyone into following me in doing the same, I have myself largely abandoned posting on (and literally even signing into) MTG Discords due to the reasons above, and will be staying with this thread as my primary reference for updates and results as long as I will be able to do so. Discord clearly has its place, but I have found it much more rewarding to contribute here on mtgsalvation. If you find the same is true for you, I would recommend posting a quick message sounding off in support of Fluff's stalwart curation work of this much more useful long-term resource!
Lovely to hear from you, and a huge congratulations on your finals appearance! There is a lot to get into here, but rather than get into too many details, perhaps you could just share what the breakdown was, percentage-wise, on your 10 undefeated rounds - (!) - for what caused your wins from among these 5 areas: [EDIT: Ah, I see you lost against Elementals, on closer inspection. So your record for the tournament was 8-2-1, including the finals? Still very good.]
1) tight play
2) breakout card choices
3) favourable/competitive pairings
4) familiarity/opposing unfamiliarity within matchups
5) strong luck of the draw on the day
My general feeling is that these all have some role to play in a positive result, but the specific texture changes quite a lot between individual successes. I am usually running only 10% each on the first two, and can't rely on the fifth, so a good day for me has #3 and #4 overlapping for a good 50% or more of the reason for wins. What about you? I notice you dodged both Tron and Amulet, for example, which goes to #3, but you also dropped only four games total before the finals, so there is evidence must have played very well indeed. [EDIT: Six, in view of the match I had missed above.] Did you feel dialed in? As for #2, I am keen to discuss your massively redundant manabase and how you arrived at your removal suite, as well as the more obvious recent adoptions, not to mention the sideboard numbers, but again these can wait on your more general impressions.
After that, though, I would love to get into your decklist (and hope to do so soon), but I will first unfortunately have to root for this weekend's results remotely to see how you do. I initially signed in today specifically to send you the message that I am behind on work and will unfortunately not be able to come to Calgary as I had predicted after all, but having a result to discuss softens the sting of that blow quite a bit! If there is anything you want to mull over, I will be toiling away near the computer tomorrow and through most of next week, so please do not hesitate to ask if there is anything you were wanting a second opinion on.
Once again, well done, and here's hoping you can build on your recent momentum over the next few days!
-Stéphane Gérard
Thank you for the information. I will see if I can make it to Calgary in June, then!
As for your breakdown on Ranger-Captain of Eos, I appreciate your preferred uses, though I notice that your most recently posted list has zero Thraben Inspector. I was surprised to see the 3-drop without the 1-drop, as I am a huge fan of cards which can contribute to velocity, would you care to quantify how much that ability contributes to your evaluation of the card? Put another way: how much does your evaluation of Ranger-Captain out of 10 change from when you have an Inspector in your deck to when you do not?
In a different arena, I am indeed a huge fan of Solemn Simulacrum (for both ease of fixing when being cast off-colour and for the cantrip reasons alluded to above), but as pure land utility, I put Kor Cartographer ahead of him in the splash-happy base-white decks I was describing because its trigger can snag tutor targets such as the Triomes or Mistveil Plains if desired. Of the land-search effects available to white, this versatility is only situationally replicated in Gift of Estates or Weathered Wayfarer in Modern, I believe, and is more consistent and actually ramps when compared to either of these latter cards. Wizards' stubborn habit of putting the word "Basic" before "Plains" continues to frustrate me in many other cases.
In any event, I have another list update to post in my Yorion build, which is now the following:
9 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Field of Ruin
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Raffine's Tower
1 Spara's Headquarters
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Prairie Stream
1 Idyllic Grange
1 Island
3 March of Otherworldly Light
1 Shadowspear
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
4 Mortarpod
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Lion Sash
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Court Hussar
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
Here, one Plains and one March of Otherworldly Light have been trimmed to reduce the clumping/flooding issues (which seem to occur more frequently in the midgame in the 80-card builds) by adding a third Stoneforge Mystic and an Engineered Explosives. My sideboard has also been slightly modified to include both Lavinia, Azorius Renegade and some old tech in Specter's Shroud; both are massive upgrades in the matchups where removal is dead, and the latter also supplies an actual threatening sequence on turn 3 against Combo decks. These changes came over the Blossoming Calm and the Chalice of the Void which I could not find frequently enough to be worth their non-permanent and non-creature drawbacks, especially since my Burn matchup has improved with the addition of the maindeck Shadowspear.
I hope all of this is interesting to you!
-Stéphane Gérard
Thank you for the information. While I am very happy with its suitability in Emeria's wheelhouse, and see it as a situationally strong role-player, I am in agreement with your assessment of The Restoration of Eiganjo and I have removed it from my current testing pool due to its inability to generate board presence immediately. I wonder, however, if you have any reasoning you would care to share on why Abiding Grace has been put on the chopping block. Where is it good, and where it it bad? I also appreciate the breakdown of the 1-drops, and was particularly intrigued by the idea of using Alseid of Life's Bounty to protect from exile effects in the Control matchup. Without Ranger-Captain of Eos, though, I won't be able to justify it. Speaking of which, how has the Ranger-Captain been for you? You also made a lot of other useful comments, but in the interests of keeping this short I will leave them to speak for themselves at the moment.
I am mostly posting today, then, to update my current test list, which is definitely an improvement in many ways over my prior build. Before I do that, however, I had managed to make a fairly glaring oversight in the New Capenna candidates by misreading Elspeth Resplendent Her -3 ability is an immediate item of interest given that it is worded similar to Sun Titan in that it looks at the top seven cards of the Library for "a permanent card with mana value 3 or less" to put directly onto the battlefield, and therefore can find LANDS. This alone pushes it into consideration, and immediately jumps the queue as one of the best "ramp" options in White after Kor Cartographer. Looking seven cards deep is also quite a chunk of cardboard, and represents significant digging power, but as an initial demonstration the card also unlocks lines such as the following:
Turn 5: Play Flooded Strand, fetch for Hallowed Fountain, cast Elspeth Resplendent, -3. Place Emeria, the Sky Ruin into play (With a Shield counter on it!), pass the turn.
Turn 6: Play Mistveil Plains, Cast Sun Titan, ETB returns the Flooded Strand to play to search up a Raugrin Triome, +1 Elspeth Resplendent to grow Sun Titan out of range for Unholy Heat and give it Flying, pass.
Turn 7: Emeria is online two full turns ahead of schedule and is ready to return the Titan if it was killed in any fashion, plus if Elspeth is still around she is ready to dig for Ghost Quarter, Court Hussar, or Mortarpod to start the matchup-appropriate endgame.
This sequence is probably getting into the upper range of what she can offer for us, but I took the liberty of assuming two taplands in the line, meaning that this is on the conservative end of what she could enable. It won't get much better, but this particular line doesn't seem all that unlikely because of the extra leeway. As a downside, her ultimate -7 ability is mediocre, but will de facto win some games if she is included. Another mark in the "cons" column is that her "board presence" is limited to whatever you have access to already, but this is potentially a more interesting effect in builds like Plichow's that want to find Skyclave Apparition or Flickerwisp as board control on legs which she can enhance with her +1, not to mention extra access to post-sideboard permanents. While a little overcosted, then, as a 5-mana Planeswalker, she is resilient to a large amount of the common removal in Modern at the moment, and I will note that her +1 gains a lot more traction in the more Midrange rather than my preferred Control versions of Emeria.
Speaking of these versions, then, I have begun to converge on a Yorion, Sky Nomad list, and am looking likely to try out the following:
10 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Field of Ruin
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Raffine's Tower
1 Spara's Headquarters
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Prairie Stream
1 Idyllic Grange
1 Island
4 Prismatic Ending
4 March of Otherworldly Light
1 Shadowspear
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
4 Mortarpod
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Lion Sash
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Court Hussar
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Environmental Sciences
1 Introduction to Prophecy
1 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Blossoming Calm
1 Drannith Magistrate
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Cathar Commando
1 Containment Priest
Consistency issues have been mitigated by the re-introduction of an extremely welcome old friend in Court Hussar, this supplemented on-curve by a new Professor of Symbology target in Introduction to Prophecy. The new target is a reflection of the types of lategames Yorion enables when brought back with Emeria, which turbocharges tutor effects by triggering multiple at once and/or over multiple turns with Mortarpod. Speaking of which, its powerful machine-gun impression with Yorion was something I retained a very strong memory of in my testing of the early 80-card builds, which combined with its proportional reduction and the lack of tutor targets problem to encourage maximising the Equipment and playing small-ball numbers of Stoneforge Mystic for minor value. The fact of being able to tutor for equipment at all nevertheless led me to include Lion Sash and Shadowspear in the main, freeing up a sideboard slot and interacting with certain specific game one problems (Wrenn and Six, Eternal Witness, or Undying loops for the former, Cascading Cataracts, Lotus Field, and Darksteel Citadel abuse in the second). It remains to be seen whether the marginal nature of their other benefits is ultimately worth their card-disadvantage inclusion when drawn naturally, but since the Sash does play to the table, I have hopes that the Spear will frequently "hide" in the larger 80-card environment to join Crucible of Worlds as the only two spells which cannot help stabilize against a lethal attacker.
Aside from these additions, I have found space for a full set of both x-spell removal options, and though they play quite differently they appear to overlap fairly well in terms of coverage. For the record, the fourth March of Otherworldly Light is currently the least secure item. On the other hand, the return of two Ghost Quarter to the expanded manabase also puts me squarely back where I wish to be on the inevitability front, which I am very happy about. The sideboard does still need a little tinkering, since I have now gone up on maindeck removal and need another creature to upgrade my fifth sweeper against Control, Prison, or Combo, and so as minor changes are embraced I will try to solidify what the new overlaps are looking like. If all else stays equal my game one percentages should be rising, which is the natural consequence of having an extra 4/5 flyer with upside on-demand, however I have always found this cause for concern, as it comes at the cost of post-board improvement. We shall have to see how things go.
Hopefully this helps understand where I am at, and I believe strongly enough in my modifications that I think I will very soon ask you to put a new sample list on the primer, Fluff. I will wait until I get some real-world results under my belt, but the final product will probably take the shape of something like what I have listed above. I do think that the curve numbers bothers me in some mysterious way at the moment however, particularly where the Equipment package of 2-drops are concerned, which I will be working on this week.
Hoping you are all doing well,
-Stéphane Gérard
(P.S.: I am sorry I was not aware there was a tournament in Calgary, Brad, I have had my head buried in books for a good long while now. Hopefully you are making me aware of a Modern tournament - thank you for mentioning it! What is the event, and when is it?)
Very good to hear from you, and I am hopeful that we will have a chance to see each other this summer, then!
If you can share your impressions, I have two sections of rapid-fire questions for you before I get to the overall list itself:
-Which are the standout matchups and corner cases you enjoy for your "silver bullet" 1-drops (Martyr of Sands, Hex Parasite, and Alseid of Life's Bounty)? How do you play or sequence into them when they are part of the gameplan? Is Giant Killer primarily just there for consistent access to a slow removal option, or is it better than that?
-How have you found your non-tutorable singletons (Timeless Dragon, Charming Prince) to function in an 80-card construction? Does the variety they provide enable specific lines that you play for intentionally?
Next up, I am intrigued by how your manabase has been constructed. I assume all the extra fetchlands act as functionally "Comes into play tapped" lands for a larger percentage of your manabase, which is why you wouldn't be super interested in the Triome cycle so far as you have no Prismatic Ending; but might that now be open to change given that Raffine's Tower can also help activate Hex Parasite, or is the phyrexian activation cost just negligible in your build?
Speaking of no Prismatic Ending, what have been your impressions of March of Otherworldly Light thus far? How smoothly does it fit in your removal suite, and where is it at its best and worst?
Lastly in the maindeck, how did you arrive at your 2/2/2 split of 3-drops in Skyclave Apparition, Abiding Grace, and The Restoration of Eiganjo? How have each of these been feeling, and how do they fluctuate in value across matchups? In what cases are you looking for each of them to provide a complement to Ranger-Captain of Eos, and how do they play out when doing so? Which of them have you found to behave best and worst in multiples?
The rest of the main seems very intuitive, and I am a big fan of the two swaps you mentioned (both on the card that comes to the main, and on which card it leaves over) so I will now move on to the sideboard by asking a) where and when does the countermagic come in, plus how effective have you found the 3-pack at winning matchups, b) how happy you have been with Dress Down in the use and number you find for it, c) what the function of Jace, the Mind Sculptor is in your matchup strategy, d) how useful you have found Meddling Mage, and e) where and why you have found it of utility to include Emrakul, the Promised End?
Answers to any and all of these would be appreciated, and the more detailed the better!
Thank you for posting the list,
-Stéphane Gérard
With the full spoiler now available, I am able to update my previous post's card pool by mentioning the real names of Extraction Specialist and Scheming Fence, the latter of which is starting to grow on me when I think of the difficulty I had in answering the immediate value of Yawgmoth, Thran Physician since losing access to Pithing Needle.
I will also complete my list of cards to look out for by mentioning Patch Up for builds playing a Proclamation of Rebirth-style version of the game, and adding a general upgrade on Skyscanner in Inspiring Overseer, in addition to supplying intriguing synergy options for various builds with the new spice candidates of Sanctuary Warden plus Citizen's Crowbar.
For the record, though, I will begin my testing from the base of my previous build since I do not want to waste the experience I gained balancing my previous iterations. The following list is therefore out of date by the better part of a year, but will serve as the basis for my upcoming experiments:
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
4 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Idyllic Grange
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
The maindeck will stay similar for the immediate future, with the exceptions of A) finding space for at the very least for Raffine's Tower and possibly also Spara's Headquarters in the manabase owing to the previously mentioned Prismatic Ending synergies and B) Tailoring some number of sweepers (beginning first with Engineered Explosives and probably continuing with Wrath of God as well) to fit in March of Otherworldly Light at one or two copies then C) temporarily trimming my Crucible of Worlds to test a copy of The Restoration of Eiganjo without breaking the defensive curve. The immediate respective issues with each of these are A) which land to replace, B) overloading on dead removal rather than sweepers against either go-wide or Control, and C) being more susceptible to land destruction long-term and having less recursion for the crucial Ghost Quarter endgame. Perhaps it is finally time to "give up the ghost" there, if you will, and have that card make its way out of the deck to add the second Triome. I fear what this will do, however, and do not look forward to losing inevitability against many different decks. I do like the potential synergies offered by each new option, though, and hope that the pitch spells complement each other somewhat by providing fodder for the opposite card in the appropriate matchups. If this works out to any extent, I would even be interested in trying out a 3-3 split on March and Solitude.
Next up is overhauling the Sideboard, which most recently stood at something like the following:
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Drannith Magistrate
1 Dawnbringer Cleric
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Fateful Absence
1 Cathar Commando
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Blossoming Calm
1 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
Here, my priority would be trying to test Scheming Fence as soon as possible, likely first over the Dawnbringer Cleric or the Chalice of the Void, both of which have lost a portion of their intended targets following the departure of Lurrus of the Dream-Den, not to mention considerations based off of the coverage provided by March of Otherworldly Light on both sides of matchups of a similar nature. As of now Containment Priest, Void Mirror, and Damping Sphere are also still on the outside looking in, but all three fighting for a hand on the doorknob based on possible shifts in the immediate metagame.
In a provisory capacity, then, I think that this writing has convinced me that I will be attempting to move towards the following list very soon:
7 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Field of Ruin
1 Idyllic Grange
1 Island
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Raffine's Tower
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Prismatic Ending
2 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 The Restoration of Eiganjo
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Drannith Magistrate
1 Scheming Fence
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Fateful Absence
1 Cathar Commando
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Blossoming Calm
1 Environmental Sciences
1 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
All of this adds up to a whole series of moving parts to keep track of, unfortunately, and so I will probably be moving slowly on all of this.
I hope the logic of my movements seems clear to those who have followed Modern's shifting metagame of late, and encourage anyone to post their recent results so that I can try to hit the ground running as of next week or so.
Hoping you are all doing well,
-Stéphane Gérard
My final exams are wrapping up, and I will have a brief window to return to Magic before going to Europe next year for my doctorate, so I am delighted to be dropping into a metagame already modified by Kamigawa: Neon Genesis and now being shaken a little more by the banning of Lurrus of the Dream-Den and the printing of Streets of New Capenna.
To recap, then, I believe that the most significant "new" card AGAINST our archetype appears to be Boseiju, who Endures to provide a card-disadvantage answer to Emeria which can create a potentially dangerous soft-lock against us in combination with Wrenn and Six, while the most relevant item FOR us has become March of Otherworldly light as a strong and versatile piece of instant-speed exile-based removal, surely a popular choice due to the critical tempo possibilities when used as a desperation pitch-spell early (or at card parity on Artifact Lands and Urza's Saga) and scaling up very well to the lategame from there. I will have to test with it to see its full potential, but its primary competition would be the slot previously filled by Path to Exile and now covered by a combination of Solitude, Skyclave Apparition, and Prismatic Ending for most people.
Perhaps some additional attention could also be directed to the new sideboard options of Lion Sash as an attractive on-colour alternative to Scavenging Ooze with Stoneforge Mystic synergies, plus Lucky Offering in a similar parallel to Natural State and a notable supplement to Fragmentize.
Just to provide a complete account of my outlandish personal tastes, however, I think there is also some amount of potential in the following new Kamigawa-Plane options: Farewell, The Wandering Emperor, The Fall of Lord Konda, Invoke Justice, The Restoration of Eiganjo, Selfless Samurai, and Spirited Companion.
The last of these is a MUCH more fragile Wall of Omens analogue which I would nevertheless still recommend highly as a replacement for it to anyone playing the aggressive game more fully, as the Wall obviously has difficulties in contributing to attacking (my own thoughts on the desirability of this angle notwithstanding). It also seems particularly relevant in providing super-set redundancy for the Wall's card velocity in the 2-drops when leading into Flickerwisp in those builds. Next, the Samurai is more or less a questionable-upside variant on Selfless Spirit, should the need for such arise, and the Planeswalker plus the six mana sweeper and the removal Saga are marginal exile effects that offer new options which may someday be relevant - the first having a far more likely eventuality as it likely comes with a permanent bonus, with the second having the advantage of mass-removal with interaction for odd effects tacked on, and the third having upsides with various synergies.
Two of the options in the middle of my list are highly interesting to me, however, based off of their ability to return Lands to the Battlefield for us; an attribute previously found on Sun Titan, and branching out to very few other cards in mono-white. Invoke Justice is the more powerful spell in a vacuum, of course, but at a hefty five mana investment with absolute (and thus to me nearly insurmountable) tempo liabilities against graveyard hate. The Restoration of Eiganjo, however, can convert other advantages even through the same graveyard hate, and even serves as legitimate card advantage should we desire it or have the time to punish an opponent unwise enough to bring in things like Rest In Peace or Leyline of the Void. This is quite attractive to me, and despite its falling in the critical 3-drop "butter zone" for the deck it may push me to include a copy on a trial basis for the next tournament I play, notably because of its Ramp potential in game 1, with extra value on returning sideboard hate for games 2 and 3 (specifically amplifying effects like Seal of Cleansing).
The Kamigawa crop thus having been dealt with rather (too) briskly, it is now time to begin looking at New Capenna, where my prediction of a complete Triome supercycle appears to have come true. This is of great interest where Prismatic Ending is concerned, as adding Spara's Headquarters to my current manabase would allow me to stretch the Sorcery to targeting 4-drops in the lategame, with the option of also adding Raffine's Tower being a possibility, but coming with diminishing returns. This will definitely affect my testing as of the very moment I have time to do so, since the chance of eventually answering such threats as Karn, Scion of Urza, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Omnath, Locus of Creation, or even ultimately Teferi, Hero of Dominaria while not limiting access to Blue mana is highly intriguing to me.
In the "Blink-style" Flickerwisp,Ephemerate, or Soulherder variants, there will also now be the new options of Rumor Gatherer and Raffine's Informant for card quality or selection, which I will leave to the discretion of those whose builds it may concern. Of broader application is the printing of Mage's Attendant, offering a rare (and highly welcome) look at permission in White, linked to its Cursecatcher-like token. If as of this writing Magic: The Gathering design dictates a Colour Pie bleed towards Mana Tithe becoming a more regular occurrence, I for one will consider it not a moment too soon. The monopoly on permission in Blue is an imbalance that has long been outstanding, and the "soft" permission angle seems tailor-made for adaptation to White's "taxing" identity. Beware of believing that day has come with no cost, however; note that the Attendant's Wizard token requires mana to activate. Do not do as I did and assume that it provided disruption on-curve: this would probably not have been possible at Uncommon at the moment.
Moving on to other types of control, a few notable possibilities are found within the new sideboard options so far, with a serious look required by the as-yet untranslated "Cunning Receiver" (which I suspect will soon have its translation upgraded to something more like "cunning receptionist" for flavour reasons). As an odd semi-permanent Detain effect on a 2/3 body, the Pithing Needle slot appears to have opened up a new design space which requires some interesting rethinking of former evaluations. A supplement to Lion Sash is also found in Unlicensed Hearse, which can begin activating and therefore controlling graveyards immediately as of turn 2.
I have saved the best for last, however, and I am currently being seriously impressed by the amount of possibility offered by the 3-drop "Expert Rescuer". Though it cannot return noncreature permanents or creatures with mana value greater than 2, it is a highly intriguing candidate for exploration that comes with potentially immediate ETB value attached to a useful 3/2 Lifelinking body, this last ability being of primary interest to a deck attempting to keep its life total healthy as much as mine does. It will almost certainly not make the cut for immediate testing that The Restoration of Eiganjo warrants in my card economy-conscious build, but its synergy with things like Heap Doll, Hope of Ghirapur, Myr Scrapling, Ollenbock Escort, Selfless Savior, Kami of False Hope, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Judge's Familiar, Remorseful Cleric, Selfless Spirit, Cathar Commando, and the aforementioned Selfless Samurai and others (plus extra-value bonus points on Charming Prince) is only the tip of the iceberg as uncovered in White. There are already Combo players salivating after another infinite loop with Saffi Eriksdotter plus a sacrifice outlet, and Green also provides the timeless classic of Sakura-Tribe Elder as an instant tie-in with Renegade Rallier or Phantasmal Image shenaniganry to get my brewer's nose twitching.
This about sums up my estimation of the state of things as of this evening, and I do hope the links work (or will work) very soon now, since several of the cards mentioned are not yet in the database. Based on prior experience, I believe that card links will automatically update in the future, but just in case I have padded a few descriptions of the most relevant Streets of New Capenna cards to ease the search for a source to my ramblings.
I hope this writing finds everyone well, and please do feel free to tell me if you think I missed out on any important options!
-Stéphane Gérard
You are most welcome, I hope the advice is of service.
Staying away from the 4-mana sweepers is a choice you can certainly make, I hope it works out well for you. My own aversion to giving value on the token from Skyclave Apparition has led me to cut it from my own lists in favour of enabling Wrath of God analogues, but I have had a very high opinion of 4-mana board control as a means to recoup lost tempo in the early game since as far back as Standard with this deck, so please do let me know how the opposite experiment works out for you in case this has been a significant blind spot for me. The overlap between Apparition and Prismatic Ending has been great enough that the latter is my removal of choice for noncreature permanents these days, but it is so far weaker in Mono-White as to be nearly out of the question for you, and at any rate the drawback of never hitting things such as Omnath, Locus of Creation and Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a real issue that has often needed to be dealt with alternatively via Lessons in my build.
On the recursion front, I know what you mean when you say you "get there on blocking", however I would additionally caution you that this makes cards such as Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void higher-impact as midgame plays against you, while more savvy opponents will avoid attacking into trades entirely before they can present lethal damage if they see you are setting up a Titan or Emeria. All this leads me to recommend extra ways to place permanents in your graveyard so that you are not cut off at the pass by the very players you are most likely to need to best in order to win tournaments (and I do acknowledge that adding Ranger-Captain of Eos does fulfill this function somewhat).
Sadly, the options in White and Colourless are a little limited by their past and current colour philosophies, even if that has gradually begun to encompass a little more utility for us in their more esoteric respective design spaces lately. Though there are often better things to do with it, Professor of Symbology can sometimes do the job with his Rummage mode on the Learn mechanic, but if you do end up playing Stoneforge Mystic (or if you wish to follow my admittedly unpopular lead on multiples of the card) Mortarpod has been an extraordinarily versatile tool for me and I will endorse it with all the anecdotal evidence you could ever want if it interests you. Otherwise, do your own research on what feels good to you, and try to explore new territory if you find something that seems to fit the bill - this thread lives and dies on such consensus as we can come to based off of what amounts to practical experimentation!
Having said this, I will let you digest things for a while; I have tried to cover a large amount in a very short space in these last two posts, but I am aware that adding too much will compromise your vision by making things too granular and bringing in too many of my biases. You should have plenty to go from already, so I will try to hold off on piling anything else on until you ask for more input, report new results, or post a new decklist here.
Good luck with your build!
-Stéphane Gérard
Good luck on your mono-white build, the ease of turning on Emeria, the Sky Ruin is one big advantage to the shell, and I do think that you have done a good job compensating for the lack of Prismatic Ending by choosing to include the much more synergistic Skyclave Apparition and Path to Exile. If you are truly seeking "the most competitive and consistent Mono-W version, however, I do think that Solitude is an extraordinarily powerful effect to have access to. I had a bias against the card and its exile clause, but successive versions of my list progressively increased its presence from a trial singleton to its present full playset.
As an initial note, please do note the options available to you for showing cards/decklists in the icons in the gray area above where you type - they are a wonderful feature of this site, and greatly benefit discussions by providing context to refresh others who may have forgotten the card text or effects. I tend to use them more heavily than most as a courtesy to lurkers and casual drop-throughs, however it is common practice to at the very least upload the initial decklist you are working from in a viewable fashion so that people can efficiently take note of the details you are bringing to the table (so to speak).
Back to your decklist now, then: your mileage may vary, but I have found the following things to be generally true:
1) Multiple Sun Titan tend to run into each other much more than expected since our gameplan is mostly curve-based (as opposed to Combo, Aggro, or Ramp decks which can get away with redundant copies of what amount to disposable effects), and without any filtering or ways to use excess early copies to survive in some fashion, I would not recommend the full four unless you are very confident your early game is robust enough.
2) 4 Emeria, the Sky Ruin suffer from a similar dynamic (at least in the 60-card versions; more on which later), and also prevent each other from coming online some amount. you say that you have not had problems running your four copies (likely some of this is due to your solid Ghost Quarter count). I believe you, however since the goal is to have eight lands in play amounting to a full third of your total listed lands, you will of necessity have drawn at least seven extra cards from your natural draw steps before needing to "find" a copy unless you plan to accelerate the endgame by ramping (also dealt with in a subsequent point).
3) The Mono-White version of this deck is, however, in my opinion the best able to take advantage of the strongest Companion available to the colours in Yorion, Sky Nomad, and your sideboard configuration including many copies of a smaller range of effects is moreover in the ideal arrangement for the post-board troubles the 80-card lists find themselves in when it comes to finding the desired alternates. The "key" effects of the deck in Titan and Emeria can therefore be run as full playsets much more easily when his restriction is taken into account.
4) Strategically, without the cheaper symmetrical sweepers, not only does the matchup against Aggro become substantially more difficult to stabilize against with this strategy, but the total amount of possible recursion decreases significantly as well. Your specific list has no sacrifice outlets or creatures which put themselves in the graveyard, so your Titans and Emerias will be highly likely (or nearly certain, against some Combo or Control opponents) to have no relevant targets to return.
5) Solemn Simulacrum is a wonderful effect for the deck, and in my estimation one of the very few Ramp options available to us, however I have not found it to be an easy inclusion when slots become tight. I will take this as the opportunity to answer your final question by stating my belief that Ranger-Captain of Eos would be far more likely to matter in the specific list you posted, particularly given some of the reasons above.
That will be all for now, and I will wish you luck tinkering with your build until you have something new you would like to address, though if you I will point you to my efforts on page 76 to recommend a Mono-White shell (updated to include your Ambitious Farmhand, of course), and to combine it with something like the shell I tried out on page 81 of this thread.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on any of these fronts!
-Stéphane Gérard
I feel very, very foolish right at this moment. You are, on closer inspection, absolutely correct - Emeria, the Sky Ruin contains a "may" in its text box. I have no earthly idea how I could have played so long with the card and never made the realization. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
In other news, feel free to share anything you can remember about your matchups, your feelings about the metagame, and any [EDIT: CARD INTERACTIONS] you are keen on at the moment - every bit of context from an Emeria-adjacent gameplan may help someone make a difficult decision in this relatively unknown strategy!
I am glad you thought I had played well, and I wish you the best of luck with your sideboarding in the future. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
You have my most sincere thanks for the highly unexpected RTFC refresher course,
-Stéphane Gérard
What follows will be quite an extensive post on four Face to Face events on two separate weekends, and I hope that the effort can prompt you to share your own experiences - I saw you in some fairly epic matches yourself; congratulations on your final win against the Jund Sagavan player!
When it comes to my own results, I will begin by saying that I was quite pleased with my progress in light of these 100-plus attendance number tournaments, and I am confident that my version of Emeria is still a viable choice at the moment. I had two win-and-ins for top 8 out of four seven-round Swiss events, and I did not post a negative record in any of these. My personal play was relatively consistent, and my time trouble issues have diminished slightly, so I feel that if I can continue facing strong opposition in larger tournaments I will be able to tighten up considerably. On to the breakdowns, then!
In the first tournament, I played the following list:
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
4 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Stonecloaker
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Drannith Magistrate
1 Dawnbringer Cleric
1 Fateful Absence
1 Cathar Commando
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Blossoming Calm
1 Environmental Sciences
2 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
I was trying out a configuration with 4 Solitude for the first time, and though my Sun Titans have suffered as a result, the Elemental has been useful enough that I have reluctantly cut the final copies of Path to Exile from my deck for the set. Their inclusion also provided additional impetus to reduce my non-White spell count, leading to both the second sideboard copy of Reduce to Memory, and the loss of Court Hussar. The first of these ended up being less relevant than the second, and while I was able to regain a sideboard slot later on I am still sorely missing the selection of the 1/3's ETB ability in post-board games. With that said, on to the results:
Round 1 lost 1-2 to Hammer Time, where I was paired against an excellent player who went on to make the top 4, and the matchup still felt extremely competitive. I take this as a very good sign, and in terms of strategy I would say that outside of their pure aggression giving them free wins, the matchup boils down to, essentially, whether Field of Ruin can efficiently deal with Urza's Saga. Hushbringer is sometimes a real punisher as well, so be aware of sequencing around it, but Sweepers give a very good shot at clearing it up profitably unless its tempo edge is turned into a tellingly awkward sequence on our end. In sideboarding, I had removed an Emeria, a Crucible, two Tef3ri, and a Stonecloaker for the Aura, the Seal, the Cathar, the Absence, and the Chalice.
Round 2 I lost 0-2 to Eldrazi Tron. This was an unfortunate immediate second loss which I was never able to gain traction in. I lost the die roll and was trounced by Karn, the Great Creator grabbing Liquimetal Coating, then Mulligans left me unable to stall his Thought-Knot Seer into double Reality Smasher draw long enough to get anything online. In the doomed second game, I had removed the Stonecloaker, a Tef3ri, and an Emeria to put in the Absence, the Commando, and the Aura.
Round 3 I won 2-0 against Grixis Shadow to keep me alive for prizing on a 5-2 record. The maindeck Stonecloaker was a huge asset here in shutting off both Delirium and Recursion for Kroxa and Lurrus plus Kolaghan's Command, and though it has since been removed I would not be averse to running it again. The games were tense and complex, with many details mattering on both sides, though I would say that Dress Down is the most important card in the matchup, and would advise mainphasing Solitude whenever possible to avoid blowouts. Otherwise, the matchup is quite straightforward, and the Crucible plus an Explosives and a Verdict made way for two Soul-Guide Lantern and a Chalice of the Void.
For Round 4 I won 2-0 against Jund. Stonecloaker came up again quite tellingly against Wrenn and Six as well as Dragon's Rage Channeler in game 1, and made him unable to Escape Kroxa for a comfortable win. In game two, however, I still removed the Stonecloaker, the Explosives, and the Crucible to play to the board better against discard effects and K-Command by bringing in Fateful Absence plus two Lantern.
In Round 5 I got my revenge with a 2-0 victory against another Eldrazi Tron player. His draws were the more typical half-and-half games this strategy tends to offer, and the defensive focus of Emeria paid off when I could ignore his Chalices to set up Lessons with Professor of Symbology. Game 2 was closer, but Crucible plus Field of Ruin had me nearly bulletproof by turn six or so, with my sideboard strategy being the same as above.
In round 6 I bested a Titania/Zuran Orb combo deck 2-1. The maindeck Engineered Explosives (a hedge against Crashing Footfalls on the weekend) was instrumental in stopping lethal damage on multiple occasions, and also dealt with his Orb to prevent future combos. In sideboarding, I removed my Crucible, the Stonecloaker, and an Emeria to make the space for two Lantern and a Fateful Absence as more efficient answers to Wrenn and Six and Titania, Protector of Argoth.
In round 7, I conceded to Amulet Titan rather than knock us both out of prizes since time was called for what would have been a 1-1-0 draw as we were shuffling up for game 3. This felt like a very difficult matchup in any event, and I am much less comfortable against the present versions of the deck - the current evolutions mean that they have come around to being very bad pairings once again. For the record, my sideboarding was as follows: removing the Stonecloaker, a Tef3ri, an Emeria, and two Verdict gave me the space to bring in the Absence, the Chalice, the Commando, the Aura, and the Seal, though I am quite hesitant to say if this is correct. There is a great deal of tension in dealing with "wide" Construct boardstates versus Karn openers and Titan combos at this time.
***I therefore went 4-3, with a 4-2-1 unofficial result. For the second tournament, I swapped the extra sideboard Reduce to Memory that had not seemed necessary for an ultimately non-factor Tormod's Crypt as an extra hedge versus several graveyard decks and Living End strategies I had seen. The resulting Solitude plays were still consistent enough without the extra "Professor tutoring a replacement white spell" line that I have now returned to this minimal 3-Lesson package.
In round 1 I lost 1-2 against a very strong Omnath Taking Turns opponent (who eventually fell short on a win-and in for the top 8 himself), where I again had excellent results with the maindeck Stonecloaker to best his active Wrenn and Six and Time Warp or Ephemerate loops with Eternal Witness. Unfortunately, he drew a fourth and final copy of Misty Rainforest on a critical turn in game 3 to make enough mana to push a freshly-cast Omnath, Locus of Creation to combo off, and was able to take the match. I had removed an Emeria, an Explosives, and a Verdict for two Lanterns and the Absence.
In round 2 I defeated a throwback Lantern Control player 2-0. This matchup, a very fun one in years gone by, has now become highly favourable with the new flexibility of Professor of Symbology. Post-board, I removed my three Verdicts to bring in the Aura, the Seal, and the Commando.
Round 3 was another 2-0 victory against Orzhov Smallpox. This was quite close in game 1, but Prismatic Ending eventually exiled all of his 3-mana Planeswalker threats. Game two was an absolute nailbiter, where I had recycled my early Blossoming Calm with Mistveil Plains and was furiously shuffling, thinning, and drawing cards with Wall of Omens and Teferi, Time Raveler in order to find it again as his Kaya, Orzhov Usurper resolved and began to exile enough cards to set up a lethal ultimate ability. I was luckily able to find it in time, and its resolution left me easily able to clean up once his graveyard control was mopped up by a Shadowspear on a Cathar Commando through his Lingering Souls tokens as blockers. I had removed my Verdicts and the Explosives for the Calm, the Spear, a Remorseful Cleric, and the Commando. As a note, it is in these kinds of situations that I miss Court Hussar selection the most: this sequence was very much a gamble to rely on off of cantrips alone, whereas with a recurrable Anticipate body as card selection peeling past undesireable cards the chances of re-drawing a singleton become much higher as the game develops.
In round 4 I lost 0-2 to Boros Burn, both being very tight games. I am not certain if the matchup is currently bad enough for Lone Missionary to come back into the mix, but I definitely would have appreciated it here. As it was in the match, I drew no sideboard cards, and my lifegain was limited to an Environmental Sciences in game one that only gained me a solitary point of life overall since I had led on a turn-one fetchland. My game-winning Solitude on end-step to remove his Eidolon and attack in game two was met by a Skullcrack, and that was that. I had removed my Verdicts, the Crucible, the Explosives, a Tef3ri and an Emeria to bring in the Calm, the Shadowspear, the Chalice, an Absence, the Remorseful Cleric, the Commando, and the Magistrate (though I now believe I may have been mistaken to trim on Teferi).
Playing for prizes once again, I then won round 5 2-0 against a Kuldotha Rebirth/Goblin Bushwhacker Boros Blitz deck. Game one was the best magic I played that day, sequencing and blocking to trade with minute care against his explosive on-the-play start of Rebirth into Devastating Summons with a follow-up Venerated Loxodon, and putting myself to 1 on life support thanks to an Environmental Sciences in order to draw my 1-outer Explosives to clear a meticulously crafted board of Tokens and Memnites only on his side. I managed to dodge the follow-up haste threats, and resolved a Solitude to stabilize and win. For game two, I removed an Emeria, a Crucible, and the Stonecloaker for my Chalice, the Shadowspear, and the Magistrate, the first of which which was enough to take the win when it resolved with 1 counter after an early flurry of trades culminating in a sweeper.
In round 6 I defeated a Mono-Red Prison opponent 2-1 in an epic match that mostly revolved around Professor of Symbology on my side. His Ramunap Ruins often being a strategic concern for stabilizing around Goblin Rabblemaster and Seasoned Pyromancer, I mostly elected not to remove his Blood Moon effects with Prismatic Ending, and even chose to Fateful Absence my own Sun Titan after blockers were declared in order not to remove his chump-blocking Magus of the Moon, following up with another similar attack on the next turn for the match win in game 3. I had removed my Verdicts and Explosives plus two Tef3ri for a Commando, a Cleric, a Magistrate, a Shadowspear, a Seal, and an Aura.
In round 7 I defeated a Hammer Time opponent 2-0 to lock up prizes, after a few scary moments in both games where I had to interact with early combo multiple times in each. Ultimately, a resolved Chalice on 1 locked up the final boardstate in my favour. I had removed an Emeria, a Stonecloaker, and a Crucible plus two Tef3ri for the Chalice, the Absence, the Commando, the Seal, and the Aura.
***This second tournament thus ended with a clean 5-2 and a 17th place finish. In tournament #3, I ran the same list, however with the second Ghost Quarter replaced by an Idyllic Grange for added versatility - thank you for the reminder, Toshenko - and the maindeck Stonecloaker removed to run Wrath of God again. The sideboard lost the unimpressive Crypt and fit in a Containment Priest in its place.
In round 1 I won 2-1 against Lantern Control once again, this time after dropping game one to Discard clearing the way for the lethal Karn, the Great Creator/Liquimetal Coating combo. Sideboarding was similar to the previous tournament, removing sweepers to bring in pressure and utility on recursion-ready permanents.
In round 2 I lost 0-2 to a Mardu Lurrus/Unearth deck which caught me for exact lethal the turn before I was to turn the corner with Solitude both games. My game one hand on the draw proved weak to his Tourach, Dread Cantor after a Mulligan. I then removed my Crucible and an Explosives for two copies of the excellent Soul-Guide Lantern, and felt strong in my plays, only losing to a Bolt after having stabilised the board and activated Emeria following am extremely rare triple Mulligan on the play, so I believe my continued confidence in the matchup is well warranted.
In round 3 I drew 1-1-1 in turns against an Amulet Titan player as we were both still live for top 8 following an epic 45-minute game two in which his final Primeval Titan only searched up a single land on ETB. I wish to dwell on this for a moment, as I take it as a badge of pride: I somehow conspired to make it through to the other side of the deck against Amulet Titan in a game. They had put 100% of their threats on the table at some point, searched out all 32 of their lands, resolved almost all of their Urza's Saga triggers, and I managed to slog through the whole mess the fair way in order to win the game. The matchup still feels terrible, but this one game win counted for a dozen matches' worth of triumph in my mind. Once upon a time, when the world was young and full of mystery, I had ground a mountain down to so much rubble.
In round 4 I won 2-0 against a Jeskai Ragavan player. This was a refreshingly straightforward matchup, where Mortarpod was its usual all-star self agaisnt the titular Pirate monkey. I sideboarded minimally, a Crucible for an Absence, and Wall of Omens did what it does best until sweepers showed up to clear the board. His Prismatic Ending and Teferi, Time Raveler proved much less impressive than mine, giving me a clear edge.
Round 5 was a 2-0 victory against Hammer Time, where I never felt much in the way of pressure in game 1. He had kept a hand of turn-2 double Hammer kill hinging on a turn-one Sigarda's Aid to enable Ornithopter and Memnite with two lands, which ended up weak to my turn-1 Prismatic Ending on the draw. The remainder of the game he was a little too slow to pressure me effectively. For game two, I removed my Crucible and an Emeria plus three Tef3ri to bring in Aura, Seal, Commando, Chalice, and Absence, and picked apart his early Inkmoth kill with a Solitude before mopping up with Disenchant effects and a Wrath.
In round 6 I defeated an Omnath/Yorion four-colour value pile 2-0 on the back of Field of Ruin supported eventually by Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan, additionally led into by Tef3ri and Solitude both games. There are definitely very difficult draws to beat here, but the sheer pressure on their manabase from their own spells makes the matchup boil down to whether Ghost Quarter effects are relevant or not extremely early in the game. If they are value plus by turn five or so, I feel strong. If they are met by a Wrenn and Six or supported by an Omnath before then, things are much more difficult (though still likely competitive for many turns if Emeria can get active). One major anti-synergy was uncovered in this game, however, where a spate of Prismatic Endings on his side had exiled two of my Mortarpod. With these gone, my Emeria forced me to reanimate the Containment Priest that had earlier exiled an Eternal Witness being targeted by Ephemerate, which eventually turned my 2/2 into a weapon for him when he began using Fury to kill my Wall of Omens and Pilgrim's Eye. Emeria was then obligated to target these as the only creatures in my graveyard, essentially leading to backdoor exile-based removal for him off of my own card and progressively costing me more recursion targets as long as my Priest was still in play.
In round 7 I took a very unfortunate 0-2 loss against a Kaheera, the Orphanguard U/W Control player to knock me out of the top 8 (and, it later became apparent, out of prizes entirely). I say unfortunate because in game 1 the only creature I drew was a Solitude, which managed to kill TWO Teferi, Hero of Dominaria through his Supreme Verdicts, but when my Emeria, the Sky Ruin had been active for six turns and I had not found any additional pressure, he was never in any danger and I died a miserable death to his Hall of Storm Giants once he found a Solitude of his own to exile mine. His deck was very interesting, with a new manabase in which only one of his lands (a Triome) could NOT come in untapped to cast Counterspell on turn two if required, and splashing up to five colours with shocklands for his Prismatic Ending, plus extra red sources for several copies of Fire // Ice. Fortunately (or unfortunately in the case), I had showed him so little resistance in game one that he did not even bother sideboarding against Emeria for what he assumed was simply a singleton value card, and I had the opportunity for a much better showing in game two. Alas, I Mulliganed thrice for a total lack of mana for the second time of the day, and my resource-light hand was completely and easily undone by two pieces of countermagic. When his Hall began attacking while I was still on four lands, having drawn multiple Titans, the tournament ended for me with a whimper rather than a bang.
***The third tournament was then a 4-2-1 record for 33rd place out of 127. Based off of the awkward performance of Containment Priest, I switched it for a Glen Elendra Archmage in the fourth and final tournament. It had been meant as a foil to some of the faster Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Undying draws, but if I wanted to gain access to this effect in the future I would look to include Hallowed Moonlight in its place instead. Besides not enabling the disaster scenario of vacuum-cleaning my graveyard of creatures as of the point when Emeria begins putting its mandatory trigger on the stack, the Instant can also catch tokens, and is equipped with the most powerful three words in Magic.
With the previous day's tournament ultimately having been won by a copy of the following deck, I was overjoyed in round 1 to win a straightforward 2-1 against B/R Ragavan. The second game was a blowout victory when his Tourach, Dread Cantor (quite possibly the strongest card in the matchup) hit the sweeper which would have answered it, plus the basic Island to cast any other potential copies of said sweepers off the top, while being immune to the Wall of Omens in play and the Solitude in my hand. In game three, however, Introduction to Annihilation proved a valuable asset in that particular fight - especially with Tef3ri to hold the card up at Instant-speed. Minimal sideboarding here involved removing Engineered Explosives and Crucible of Worlds to put in two Soul-Guide Lantern as interaction for Delirium and recursion of all sorts which could also "store" extra cards in play.
Round 2 was another game against Amulet Titan which I lost 0-2. I made a mistake which might have cost me game one, electing to try to keep my Tef3ri around by killing a Titan and a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove with a sweeper on my turn to shut off Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and he untapped to play a second and a third Amulet of Vigor to turn his newfound Simic Growth Chamber into Tolaria west plus the mana to transmute for a Summoners' Pact and cast the Titan he found off of it for the lethal 20-point swing. Had I simply allowed my Tef3ri to die by activating the plus, then passing into his dryad/Titan/Valakut board, I could have cast the Verdict in combat before attackers in order to cover all lethal threats that turn. Game two was much closer, with an army of Urza's Saga Constructs coming in and distracting my Solitude from his Dryad just in order to stay alive, which then allowed the Enchantment Creature to plink in the last 6 damage with a Bonceland and a Valakut. I had cut an Emeria, three Tef3ri, and a Pilgrim's Eye in order to bring in the Commando, the Seal, the Aura, the Absence and the Chalice. This matchup is a real headache against good pilots, leading me to begin wondering as of this round whether there might need to be more in the sideboard against it in the future.
Round 3 was a very satisfying 2-1 victory against Boros Burn, where I won both post-board games on the back of my day's oddball sideboard choice of Glen Elendra Archmage. Game 1 was a straightforward loss to a turn one Lava Spike followed by a series of different Bolts of many descriptions. With no creatures at all for me to block, even an Environmental Sciences could not keep me alive long enough to attack with a Solitude. Game two had my pair of Wall of Omens lock him under his own double Eidolon of the Great Revel after my Archmage attacked once and then had him take eight damage to deal me zero off of his Suspended Rift Bolt and follow-up Skewer the Critics, leaving him at three life and unable to rid himself of his board while I played lands towards Emeria. Game three the Archmage more literally traded its unpersisted half cleanly with an Eidolon and then protected my lifelinking Solitude plus Idyllic Grange attack from Skullcrack, Searing Blaze, or Deflecting Palm to lock up the match while my Chalice of the Void on 1 held back the rest of his plays.
Round 4 was a strong 2-1 victory against B/R Ragavan again, this time over the previous day's champion. His modification to add a second basic Swamp to his maindeck from the day before caught me off-balance, as I had tried to use information from his published decklist to keep him from casting Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger (and eventually Tourach) with a Ghost Quarter in game two. With the extra Basic, he secured a punishing Escape on the play, and since I was down a land I was then unable to cast my follow-up Solitude to stabilize before he forced me to discard it. Game three went much more according to plan, however, with sideboarding as above and no surprises to speak of - Wall of Omens and Tef3ri did the rest of the damage and an eventual Soul-guide Lantern prevented any chance at Lurrus of the Dream-Den or Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger in the midgame.
Round 5 was a brutal 1-2 loss to Mono-Green Tron, with some extra tragedy thrown in. I was run over by a quick Urza land connection in game 1 when I inexplicably played the wrong land (a Prairie Stream when I had assumed I already had two Basic Plains) to be able to [EDIT: CAST SOLITUDE TO] clean out the Karn Liberated that activated down loyalty to exile a blue source, leaving me wondering what might have happened after I secured the Crucible lock in game 2 on the play, and then lost an agonizingly imbalanced game 3 on the draw after a snap-keep on seven cards from my opponent, who had another turn 3 Karn. Having sideboarded out my four sweepers, an Emeria, and two Tef3ri to fit in the Chalice, the Aura, the Seal, the Commando, the Absence, the Shadowspear, and the Archmage, I had only one card in my deck to prevent turn 3 Tron on the draw, so due to my game 1 misplay I didn't feel more unlucky than usual until the extra salt in the wound when (after having effectively knocked me out of the top 8) my opponent heard a crunching sound as he picked up his bag to leave the table. Peering into the satchel, he asked me if I was missing any cards. A quick count revealed that I had indeed managed to drop the lone Ghost Quarter (my only out to prevent the Karn from the final game) off the side of the table for him to have just mangled when he shifted his chair to get up. Ghost Quarters are not so rare, however that one had been part of my playset from all the way back in Dissension, and I felt a deep wave of loss wash over me on holding its twisted husk in my hands. This was slightly mollified when a very kind bystander (Chris, he said his name was) handed me a Commander-series replacement for the obviously no longer tournament-legal wreck in front of me. If you ever read this; thank you, Chris!
Playing to hold on to my record for prizes, round 6 was unfortunately another concession after a probable 1-1-1 draw versus B/G Yawgmoth in the hands of a fellow Saskatooner. I thought it was fairly clear that I had played the better between the two of us, and asked him if he would concede, but his board was likely good enough to threaten his combo at least once more over the next few turns, so when he refused I conceded instead and wished him luck in the final round. I had taken out an Emeria, the Crucible, and an Explosives for the two Lanterns and the Absence. This matchup is very difficult to assess, and is highly draw-dependent, but the fact of having no way to prevent or control Yawgmoth's card draw through anything other than removal makes me very confident that the matchup is a bad one in the hands of a competent pilot - though Graveyard interaction plus a Sweeper does lead to the odd competitive game at times.
The final round was a 2-1 revenge win over the same Kaheera U/W from the previous day's Round 7, in the hands of a teammate of my final round's opponent from the day before playing 73 of this new 75. Game one was a back and forth affair that he managed to take down, and after removing my sweepers for the Archmage, the Absence, the Commando, and the Remorseful Cleric I had sideboarded in, I ended game two with those four cards plus the Engineered Explosives he had not seen in game 1 in my hand, and disciplined myself not to cast them as of turn six when I realized I was in a good enough position to beat him - in what ultimately became an extremely drawn-out win by decking on my part - by showing him only maindeck cards. This meant that game three was to be a romp as my Explosives destroyed his Spreading Seas, my Commando snuck in to pressure his life total before he untapped from an end-step Archmage's Charm, my Cleric removed his Memory Deluges for value, my Absence killed his tapout Teferi, Hero of Dominaria before he could represent mana for his Counterspell, and my Archmage caused him all sorts of problems. Vindication!
***My final result was therefore another 4-3 showing in 40th place or so, with a 4-2-1 unofficially once again. I would call this a highly consistent set of results, and am looking forward to continuing to play the deck. In the interim between now and the next large tournament worth going to, I will work on the sideboard (possibly by putting Damping Sphere and/or Void Mirror back in to fight the unfair "Big Mana" decks).
Overall, I felt that I had played middling-well in the majority of my games, had gotten a little more unlucky than usual (particularly in the last tournament), and had played against strong opposition, meaning that I am quite happy with my level of play throughout these events. My list has become sharper, and my comfort level with Solitude has increased, and my opinion of Professor of Symbology has continued to steadily improve. My manabase has become a tiny bit cleaner for Emeria as of the provisory inclusion of Idyllic Grange - which has not yet hurt me much and has therefore offered extra lines of play at very little cost (other than the reduction of numbers on Ghost Quarter) - and my maindeck options feel cohesive. My sideboard is still not quite right, I feel, but I have gotten a satisfying amount of coverage from 13 or so of its 15 current options, so I am very hopeful that I am on the road to finding a satisfying mix soon.
If anyone would like clarification on anything in this massive data-dump, please do not hesitate to ask!
Hoping this finds you all well,
-Stéphane Gérard
I am just looking for a little extra input from anyone who has the time to help me fill out a list of the cards which Blossoming Calm interacts with in Modern in addition to many Mill, Burn, and Discard effects. Thing like Endurance, Gifts Ungiven[/card, the triggers on Grief or Archon of Cruelty and Endurance plus the ultimate or aggressive abilities of Planeswalkers such as Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Ajani Vengeant, and Karn Liberated may not be very important at the moment, but I have not yet had time to fully examine the Hexproof clause for relevance, where the volume of its coverage is increasingly of interest due to my tight sideboard at the moment.
Any help would be appreciated!
-Stéphane Gérard
I have two results to share. The first is a 2-1 in a small tournament, and the second is a 4-1 in the swiss of a mid-size tournament, whereafter I lost in the quarterfinals. In the second, following up from my previous post, I decided to try out Drannith Magistrate, which worked out reasonably well. A swift breakdown of my matchups and results follows:
TOURNAMENT #1 (15 people):
Won round 1 (2-0 against Jeskai Yorion Control). This round was tightly contested as I had to sequence very carefully, and I almost lost {EDIT: WHEN] he was able to get a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria on a clear board in game 1, but I had gotten Reduce to Memory earlier to give me an out to it, and sequenced to play the very threatening Teferi, Time Raveler as bait for his countermagic first (which he had) then the Exile effect on the same turn. Game two he was under time pressure to win [EDIT: QUICKLY] since game one had been quite drawn out, and I was simply able to pressure him with small creatures for the clean match win. Despite the nervous moment early on, small Teferi and Emeria make me feel reaonably confident here.
Lost round 2 (0-2 against Jeskai Demilich Phoenix). I lost game one to a well-timed flock of phoenixes, and sideboarded to beat them, then lost an extremely close game 2 mainly to the card I had not seen in game 1 (Demilich). In point of fact, being unaware of its existence I had never seen the card before at all, and would have played differently had I known about it, but such is life. I will be better prepared next time, and I think that should make the difference, as their deck consists of many moving pieces - only a scant few of which can actually do anything to make stabilising any more difficult. Post-board I felt particularly strong, so I would call this matchup favoured if we win game one, and likely no worse than even if not.
Won round 3 (2-1 against Esper Reanimator). This is now the third time I have faced this strategy "in the wild", so to speak, and I am happy with both my configuration and my matchup against it. There are a few scary moments in the early turns - during one of which in game one he managed to sequence a Kaya, Orzhov Usurper on a turn where I could not develop my board because I had to respect his combo - which eventually sealed the win for him, however both sideboard games were very clean, and I am delighted with the combination of Remorseful Cleric pressure plus the Soul-Guide Lantern ETB effect, leaving me very happy with the pairing at the moment. The kicker is that Exile-based removal from the Sideboard can be easily accessed via Professor of Symbology, allowing a fair chance at the game 1 wins which make the matchup strongly favoured overall in my mind.
TOURNAMENT #2 (25-30 people):
Lost round 1 (1-2 against Temur Rhinos). I was on the play in the dark, and managed to take game 1 on the back of a turn 3 Teferi, Time Raveler which I refused to tick down even when missing land drops in the face of possible burn spells. I then lost a very close game 2 with no sideboard cards at all where I chose to spend double Prismatic Ending to deal with a pair of early Rhinos on the draw, which left me waiting on an answer to his follow-up sideboarded Klothys, God of Destiny. I got rid of it a few turns later with a Lesson, but the life loss proved too much and he only had to draw reasonably well to eventually burn me out. I then lost game 3 after what felt like my best draw in the matchup of Drannith Magistrate into Teferi, Time Raveler. I failed to find enough manabase disruption or other interaction to press the advantage, however, and he was eventually able to cast a few burn spells into a pair of Fury which took down my board state when I had no Sun Titan or Emeria to recur either. The matchup still feels bad to me, especially game one, however I am more and more confident in the ability to find the winning sequences overall, and I think it is no worse than around 60-40 for them if both players draw well.
Won Round 2 (2-1 against Abzan Reanimator). I lost game one to an unexpectedly Planeswalker-centric draw on their part of Grist, the Hunger Tide into Liliana of the Veil. I would have had the tools to interact in Prismatic Ending but my three opening lands included an unfortunate Ghost Quarter, and I was unlucky not to find any more lands in the next five draw steps as he found Vindicate then made insects and Lingering Souls spirits to follow up until I perished in agony. Bah. I won the next two games handily, and felt much better about standing behind the comments I made above for the matchup in all configurations I have seen thus far.
Won round 3 (2-0 against Mono-black Prison). This was essentially a bye, since my opponent was quite new to competitive play, but a couple of oddball black Enchantments included Sanguine Bond, so I had to be certain not to expose myself to infinite lifeloss from Bloodchief Ascension and the like. Since Prismatic Ending and the Lessons meant that this never became an issue, there is not much more to say here.
Won round 4 (2-0 against Magda Dwarves). This was an interesting match, but my sweepers gave me [EDIT: A SIGNIFICANT] edge on a 3-for-1 in game one and a 2-for-1 after mutual Mulligans to 5 in game two. He also never resolved a Pyre of Heroes, which might have made things very interesting indeed, but I believe that I am still in the game even if the combo does resolve any given 8-drop. All in all, this is in the end another [EDIT: SORCERY-SPEED] creature-based matchup, so I will always be relatively confident until proven otherwise.
Won round 5 (2-1 against Grixis Shadow Ragavan). Having won my way all the way up the loser's bracket from round 1, I then faced the undefeated player who wanted to win for a chance to be on the play through the top 8. I was able to take game 1 on clean Endings for his Dragon's Rage Channeler and Death's Shadow on turns 1 and 2, then lost game 2 to a timely Dress Down for my stabilising Sun Titan, and ultimately took down the match when I was able to thwart his attempted Dress Down plus Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger plus follow-up Lurrus of the Dream-Den with Lessons to lock up top 8 for both of us now being at 4-1
Lost the Quarterfinals (0-2 against Jund Lurrus/Ragavan/Saga). Sadly, I was immediately and cleanly defeated here on poor draws, when a 6/7, then 7/8 Tarmogoyf went uncontested for three turns in game 1. For game 2 I stabilized behind a Wall of Omens for his Ragavan after resolving an Ending on his Lurrus, then failed to draw any spells. Multiple Field of Ruin meant that I was able to control his Sagas and coloured sources to keep me alive, however I ended the game with Emeria active and my Wall still in play, which I felt was sort of fair, since it had been holding back his monkey the whole time. Based off of this experience, I rather feel that the matchup is better than I showed here. I am, however, still not certain if I am favoured against the new Wrenn and Six builds with Urza's Saga, but if so I do not think it will be by much, and I now look forward to finding out over the next few weeks.
All in all, I have been very pleased with my deck's performances of late, and my piloting skills are becoming somewhat sharp again, so I will call this report a very solid positive set of data points as I look to get back into larger events.
That is all I have for now, and I will hope you are all doing well!
-Stéphane Gérard
QUESTION FOR EVERYONE:
Following my previous message, I have need of outside opinions on which soft-lock piece is a better hate card to include in my 75, primarily as a hedge against Rhinos. Since the matchup is not guaranteed, however, I wish to discuss the relative merits of each. My intention is then to update this post with a running tally of the arguments for and against Drannith Magistrate and Deafening Silence. To set the stage, I will note the things I consider to be relevant to each card:
Deafening Silence has two primary advantages. The major one is its cheapness at one mana, making it possible to find and cast in the early turns off of a cantrip effect before combo has set up, smoother to sequence around taplands/fetchlands or Field activations, and easier to sneak into play around countermagic or interaction after testing the waters with a more expensive spell later on, though relevantly exposed to exile by Force of Negation. It is by the same token maximally susceptible to an opposing Prismatic Ending or the like, but makes up slightly for this with its other major advantage of being immune to most other common removal spells (including my own sweepers). It it a symmetrical effect, but in my list the main thing it would disrupt is Environmental Sciences into Supreme Verdict on turn six and above, with minimal other relevance due to my Creature density and the presence of Teferi, Time Raveler - not to mention the reduced likelihood of this being a concern post-board against such decks as it hates on.
Can any of you see other relevant factors here?
Drannith Magistrate, for its part, has two advantages as well. I will begin again with the major one in the fact that it is a creature. It can therefore be returned with Emeria, the Sky Ruin, but more importantly can block to keep me alive when losing on-board. This means that it does get hit by most of the common removal of the format as well as by Essence Scatter effects, but its secondary advantage is that it can a) attack opposing Planeswalkers, while also b) providing another body to carry a Shadowspear against Burn or the like in setting up a situationally impactful surprise "cast+Equip" on turn 3. On the positive end also, it affects exclusively opposing plays, among them abusive cost-avoiding mechanics such as Hideaway.
Is this breakdown missing any important dynamics?
The overlap between them includes the following cards - against many of which I would consider reaching my next draw step to be a significant accomplishment. Expanding this series is a vital part of the exercise here, for which information I would be very appreciative of any input, addition, or clarification:
-The most relevant Bring to Light sequences
-The most relevant Violent Outburst sequences
-The most relevant Underworld Breach sequences
-The most relevant Past in Flames sequences
-Some relevant Ad Nauseam sequences
-Some relevant Expressive Iteration sequences
Can any of you add to this list?
The Enchantment also interacts with some minor Karn, Scion of Urza sequences, the action-critical half of Expressive Iteration, some of Hammer Time's best reach off of a relatively clear board, much of the Serum Visions/Opt/Consider/Chromatic Star/Chromatic Sphere/Expedition Map/Sylvan Scrying flexibility, the worst-case scenarios of Manamorphose and Jeskai Ascendancy, and slows down Burn's plays while making counterwars a very secure bet once resolved. These last two strategies are not reason enough for me to board it in, but must be mentioned for completeness' sake.
Is there any relevant addition to make here?
The Magistrate, on the other hand, while in play prevents half of Lava Dart, the spells off of Light up the Stage, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, Urza, Lord High Artificer, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance, the Suspend mode of Rift Bolt, the creature halves of Bonecrusher Giant and Brazen Borrower - if coming from Adventure, the Cascades of Shardless Agent and Bloodbraid Elf, the value off Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Snapcaster Mage, the resource-critical half of Expressive Iteration, and the card advantage of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, plus Ox of Agonas or Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger.
Does this list miss on any important plays in Modern?
Please weigh in on any of these, and I will assume that the relative abundance of any of the five sections will be able to affect my decision.
Hoping this finds you all well, and thanking you for your time,
-Stéphane Gérard
My 4-round tournament yesterday went well, despite the seemingly lacklustre 2-2 result, because I am in the middle of gathering data during the significant overhaul I have been mentioning.
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
4 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
2 Path to Exile
3 Prismatic Ending
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Court Hussar
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Supreme Verdict
2 Wrath of God
1 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Void Mirror
1 Dawnbringer Cleric
1 Stonecloaker
1 Cathar Commando
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
2 Remorseful Cleric
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Environmental Sciences
1 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
My logic on many of the changes has already been discussed elsewhere, so I will note that the maindeck Solitude over Settle the Wreckage is a provisionary switch which may stay at its current singleton status. It is, however, possible that a maximum of one more of the remaining Path to Exile may be threatened with joining it, at which point I am not certain whether I would keep the final copy or switch it to a fourth Prismatic Ending. These are hypotheticals, however, and I was happy enough with its performance that I would likely keep it at one for now, since pitch-casting the Evoke cost was often is highly undesireable for my version. The 5-mana Lifelinking Flash body was solid, and did provide early interaction in absolute desperation scenarios which also eventually allowed Emeria, the Sky Ruin a removal option, but I want to be certain that this is not coming at any other cost first. Path to Exile is much easier to hold up post-Wrath, and its acceleration is still very important.
The sideboard now features a Chalice of the Void, a Void Mirror, and a Teferi, Time Raveler against unfair decks and/or Control, though these sadly come at the cost of Heliod's Intervention and the second Environmental Sciences to help the sideboard drop my curve post-board. I also switched the excellent third Remorseful Cleric for a Soul-Guide Lantern as a sometimes-cheaper analogue for diversity against "name a card" effects which plays extremely well with Sun Titan, though far less well with Emeria or my common sideboard strategy of creature centered mini-roadblocks instead of Wraths. The Lavinia, Azorius Renegade the Sanctum Prelate, and the Revoke Existence were also casualties of this new configuration in order to fit in Stonecloaker and Dawnbringer Cleric.
On to the games, then: I comfortably defeated U/B/W Persist reanimator 2-1 in round one by essentially stress-testing the new Solitude to exile his Archon of Cruelty in our first game, forcing him to come up with more graveyard fodder while I slowly squeezed his mana for the win while doling out lifelinking attacks, then took a loss when the unexpected presence of Serra's Emissary in game two allowed their Snapcaster Mage to attack for lethal through multiple blockers (an almost ridiculously improbable sequence on the whole after my early stabilization with Tef3ri), and finally closed out the match with Remorseful Cleric beatdown tiding me over until Field of Ruin stressed his mana to the breaking point with Stonecloaker as insurance. On this card, I had brought it in specifically for this matchup, because all of my other interaction for graveyards is purely on-board. I was hoping to give them incentive to waste their reanimation spells, however my regular plan against creatures appears solid enough that it may not be necessary in the long-term. I like the Flash 3/2 flying body a great deal for generating value against Control and Combo when the sweepers come out post-board, but it may simply be pressured out due to the Lesson package cramping my sideboard space so much.
Afterwards, I lost a convincing 0-2 in round two to Temur Crashing Footfalls in my most important testing of the day. I now am convinced that I am firmly disadvantaged if I do not resolve Teferi, Time Raveler in game one, since Violent Outburst allows them too much choice at Instant-speed after my initial stabilization. Their deck is full of minor Tempo sequences which reward both representing and resolving it as well, so I was never comfortable in game one (even though Solitude and Supreme Verdict can be reliable answers to most difficult early spots). Shardless Agent being their best typical start, I eventually lost to rhinos 5 and 6 off of their their second copy of Outburst, having dealt with the two previous waves reasonably cleanly. Game two was a resounding loss where I kept a fair hand without sideboard cards, and had my only relevant interaction in Tef3ri countered by Mystical Dispute. More of the same sequences from game one followed for the loss, and I found myself wondering whether the Stonecloaker should instead now become more interaction in the matchup.
I then conceded to G/W Enchantress in round 3 after time was called at 1-1 after teaching a new player how to combo me out since I left myself open to the 15-point Emrakul, the Aeons Torn swing which stole what would have been a 2-0 victory, following an extremely protracted game one win by decking on my part (where Introduction to Annihilation was notably a critical out to the giant Eldrazi). The matchup is indeed favourable to my eyes, but as I could no longer 4-0 after round two I was more than happy to answer questions and give a leg up where necessary as they muddled through what may have been one of their first few tournaments - and was certainly their first with the deck in question.
Finally, I won 2-1 in round 4 after a hugely fun relentless grind against R/W Boom // Bust which used the new Rustvale Bridge to complement their split card and accelerate out Nahiri, the Harbinger and Chandra, Torch of Defiance by using Cleansing Wildfire and Flagstones of Trokair plus Cascading Cataracts. I had taken the play after winning the die roll in the dark, so game one was as simple as finding and resolving my maindeck Crucible of Worlds, which was exiled by a Prismatic Ending using a soft-splash Savai Triome, but had gotten me off the ground to resolving Pilgrim's Eye at will in order to allow my Professor of Symbology to go fetch my removal Lessons for his Planeswalkers. Game two was another slog where my lack of Celestial Purge was telling on the draw, even though I believe my deck improved by much more than his overall. He was able to present too many types of issues at once, in the early game, with Seasoned Pyromancer providing a follow-up threat after an accelerated start had his early Nahiri ticking up towards a quick Annihilator win. The extra awkwardness of his Boil catching two of my lands left him with too much remaining gas after I had to Introduction to Annihilation his Planeswalker, and my Sun Titan would have ignored his Rest in Peace for the win if I hadn't needed it to find another blue source to bounce my Professors with Tef3ri. As it was, I simply tried to stabilize the board and race with the 6/6 body, which came close but ultimately lost to extra chip damage from his subsequent Chandra. Game three was a convincing case for keeping the Shadowspear in the sideboard, where his indestructible Lands became targets for its activated ability while it contributed to offense as I put in an early board presence to start the clock, with Flash threats combining to punish [EDIT: THE Armageddon HALF OF] Boom // Bust by allowing me to dictate who was ahead on board at several important points. Another key interaction was returning his ETB tapped Artifact Land to his hand as a tempo play with Tef3ri, which allowed me extra turns of free development leading indirectly to a comfortable (though fiercely contested) win.
All in all, I was quite pleased with the outing, and will hope to be running the 75 back again at Wednesday's 3-round event, with the exception of the second Solitude and the Stonecloaker which I will have to mull over for a while. If I change the second, it will very likely be for the oddly relevant Drannith Magistrate, but the Magistrate has the drawback of being two mana to cast, whereas its main competition in Deafening Silence is only a single mana besides being harder to kill. I am therefore at the moment debating between the two, with an outside chance of Ratchet Bomb or Engineered Explosives being pressed into service instead if I decide that I need to deal with tokens directly instead. I would appreciate all your thoughts on any of these matters.
I believe that will be all for today, so have a very good evening everyone!
-Stéphane Gérard