This is where I'm looking for post-unban. Was going to remove the red splash anyway, and then got the news about Visions...so that was pretty easy for me. Got a local on Monday -- actually looking forward to it for the first time in months. It'll be nice to be a tier 2 deck again instead of like...tier 4.
This is my first / rough draft, where I'd like to start. No sideboard drawn up yet because I think it's generally too early to worry about it, but I'd be looking to have a couple extra removal options (including some sweep), a couple grindy tools (probably a second Seasons Past and something else, maybe Chandra #2), and some Natterknolls and Duresses.
deck looks good @arianrhod, i know you mentioned you haven't been playing it al that much but have you found the 3rd colour overly painful on the life total? my biggest question mark is the faerie conclave, it seems like it doesn't go far enough especially in a 3 colour deck, if on playing tap lands id think at least a creeping tar pit would be an upgrade.
Not on the life total, no. Usually the goal is to just run off basics until tangos are live, and then fetch those out. Every once in a while I have to fetch up a dual...usually Blood Crypt...to have Inq+Bolt up vs something like Company where that matters. I've never had that cost me, though.
Tar Pit over Conclave is probably correct. I like Conclave more because of its relevant creature type, but realistically Tar Pit is probably better, yeah. I should swap those out.
//sb
1 Batterskull
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Spell Snare
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Damnation
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Go for the Throat
1 Dreadbore
1 Sower of Temptation
2 Countersquall
Here's my list. I don't really play outside of my local, since I'm mostly a legacy/vintage player. I've played the last two months; took first and then second in a pair of small four-round events.
When deciding what deck I wanted to play in modern, I concluded that I want to play something that had no danger of being banned out, which ruled out all of the tier one decks. I also typically favor decks which are less known or popular, as some may know from my longstanding association with Nic Fit in legacy. I greatly enjoyed Faeries when it was in standard, and then played it on and off in extended thereafter, so it was a natural fit to pick it up again for modern, even if it's incredibly poorly positioned on a regular basis due to WotC's baffling inability/lack of desire to allow control decks to police the format.
I first looked at the traditional UB lists, but concluded that I didn't like their removal suite at all. My solution was to add a red splash, to pick up Bolt and Terminate as superior removal options. This also allowed for me to run a duo of K-Commands, which have been fantastic. Outside of these cards, I am unwilling to add more red to the deck, however.
I'm testing out the Kalitas, I haven't actually gotten to use him yet in this deck. He seems very strong in principle, though, and he plays very well with my upgraded removal suite.
Scions have been fine as a 2-of -- sometimes they're counterspells, sometimes they're pressure. Bolt (and Snap-Bolt, by extension) allows the deck to have a surprising amount of reach in some matchups, which pushes Scion's usefulness a bit compared to straight UB lists.
6 basics has felt like a good number to me. Its very easy to turn on the tangos -- there's still one of each shock just for the times when you really need the untapped X/Y source on turn 1, which does happen, but overall the tangos have performed very well for this deck. 6 basics also helps resist Blood Moon, which is commonly boarded in vs me, I've found, due to the number of manlands the deck plays. Amusingly, this frequently ends up making the red splash completely free.
The sideboard's kind of a cluster**** and changes from event to event. I'm pretty sure it could be better, but I don't tend to put a tremendous amount of time into this deck, since I just grab it and jam it once a month or so.
Anyway, there's some thoughts for everyone to mull over. Probably nothing of value in my list, but I figured I may as well share it in an attempt to contribute to the cause.
I'm not going to States, but I've put in a lot of work on this deck now, and I wanted to share my list and thoughts in the hopes that it may be useful to some of you.
The most important thing is the mana base. When this deck gets to cast its spells, it usually wins. To that end, I came to the conclusion that the mana is not good enough currently to rely solely on fetches+tangos/basics. Everyone seems to think it is, but it's really not. Manlands are sweet, but I found that I was rarely in a situation where I actually needed to animate them, or had the chance to animate them, even. As such, I cut them, as well as a couple of basics, for some trilands. Since I made that change, the mana has been so incredibly much improved. Triland into fetch->basic opens up all of your turn 2 plays, while also making your subsequent turns that much better. It's possible that I have one too many triland -- a 2/2 split (or 3/1 palace/steppe) might be correct. I am 100% convinced that trilands are necessary for this deck to reliably cast its spells, however.
Other individual cards that have impressed...
Greenwarden. I originally had a Silumgar DD in this slot because cleaning up hangarbacks, but my local is infested with white jund and jeskai black, so there's Crackling Dooms everywhere and he just died constantly. When I made the decision to test out Den Protector in the deck, I had the idea of Greenwarden, but I didn't actually put him in immediately. Den Protector overperformed, and as I got in more reps with the deck, I began to understand it.
Bring to Light is a big midrange deck. It's not a control deck beyond the level at which midrange usually is. Its goal is to be the biggest midrange deck, with a tutor engine that helps keep card advantage flowing and provide outs to specific situations. The problem is that without Jace (who tends to die a lot because people know how insane he is now), your card advantage engine fails you. Abzan Charm is good, but too often you need to use it to exile. Ugin's Insight is a solid recall, but you only get to use it once, and three random cards isn't that great in this deck. The recursion package helps so much with what the deck wants to do. It lets you reuse bullets, reuse Charms to draw more cards, or even just the classic "rhino you."
Anticipate. Casting this card doesn't feel that great, but it really does help smooth the deck out a lot. It gives you another turn 2 play, and it sets up your turn 3 in response to whatever they're doing. Lategame it helps you dig for specific answers (or Bring to Light for them), while also pushing useless lands and finding bombs. Despite being a bad card, Anticipate has actually impressed me in this deck -- I went from 1 to 2 to 4.
Nissa. This is a very, very strong Nissa deck. Aside from straight kill spells, we can do a very good job of finding, flipping, and protecting her. Her +1 provides the stream of mana and card advantage that we really crave. I have only made one 4/4 with the card yet -- otherwise she just draws cards and makes land drops until she kills them.
Ultimate Price & Surge of Righteousness. I think I need more Surges in my sideboard, but my local shop is actually sold out of them and I haven't ordered them in yet. These two cards combine to give you a strong removal suite against the decks where you really need it. At comp REL level it may be worth maindecking an ultimate price or two, just off its strengths vs red.dec and GW Mega. For FNMs and such, they're best in the board.
Other observations:
I used to want 27 lands. Putting in the Anticipates fixed that.
I've wanted a second Utter End at times.
Dispel overperforms out of the sideboard, but splitting with Duress is probably correct. Maybe.
Ob Nix has been super weird for me. It seems like it should be really good in theory, but in practice he hasn't been that great.
I kind of want an Arashin Cleric / Ojutai's Command package in my sideboard, but that might be worse than the Radiant Flames + spot removal plan that I have currently.
-------------
Hope that helps. I'll monitor on and off to see if there's any questions and answer them to the best of my ability. The deck is a lot of fun and I don't think that it's as bad or poorly positioned as some are crying after week 2. Configuring it is a mess, and being willing to run trilands is something that I feel not many people are doing -- therefore stranding themselves with bad mana and uncastable spells.
Emo and Az were on Plow during the Dechs wagon and stayed there.
Huntzilla and Seppel were on both the Dechs and Plow wagons.
Arian was on the Dechs wagon, not the Plow wagon.
AE was on the Plow wagon, not the Dechs wagon.
KJ and Kami were on neither wagon.
The Dechs wagon only has 3 unknowns: Seppel, Arian and Hunt. Probably at least one scum in that trio.
KillJoy looks bad for staying away from all the big wagons: not Plow or Dechs but not Azrael either. (I need to look at other votecounts though to see if he indeed never was on any of them)
I need to see if Arian gave reasoning for not voting Plow. Being on Dechs and then not on the next town wagon when it grows to lynch might be a signal.
Huntzilla and Seppel look bad for being on both wagons, but then again so was Generic and he was town.
Azrael voted Plow when the Dechs wagon was getting bigger. I need to look at the other votecounts to see how big the Azrael wagon was at that time.
@KillJoy: why cut the other wagons from the votecount you quoted?
I entirely missed the Plow wagon, since it happened over the weekend when I don't pay attention to mafia. Easy for me to say now with the flip already having happened, but I would not have joined the Plow wagon had I been around.
So, was Generic Dechs's vig target? Does Dech have a vote toDay? I'm super confused by this.
I need to look over this Plowshares wagon closely. The whole thing started -and- completed over the weekend while I wasn't paying attention, and that's very, very unusual.
Except that this game is bastard, so everything is inverted. At the point at which you assumed that, logically, TCM had to be a cop because why else would there be a miller, you were doomed. I actually want to say that I've seen red herring Millers in no-cop setups before (non-bastard games), but not I'm not certain // can't provide proof off the cuff.
Also, some of my relative certainty that I was a red herring was because of my PM. The flavor I had coupled with my claim made me assume that I was supposed to be either lynched or vigged D1/N1.
Also, Rhand, I think that honestly part of the problem with people actually listening to you this game is that you've played a couple of absolutely brilliant scum games in everyones' recent memory.
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Scion of Oona
3 Mistbind Clique
2 Kalitas, Traitor to Ghet
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
2 Cryptic Command
2 Countersquall
2 Spell Snare
1 Doom Blade
1 Smother
1 Go for the Throat
1 Murderous Cut
4 Bitterblossom
4 Secluded Glen
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Mutavault
4 Island
2 Swamp
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Watery Grave
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Damnation
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Go for the Throat
1 Smother
2 Extirpate
1 Sower of Temptation
2 Hurkyl's Recall
This is where I'm looking for post-unban. Was going to remove the red splash anyway, and then got the news about Visions...so that was pretty easy for me. Got a local on Monday -- actually looking forward to it for the first time in months. It'll be nice to be a tier 2 deck again instead of like...tier 4.
4 Deathmist Raptor
2 The Gitrog Monster
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Greenwarden of Murasa
3 Dead Weight
2 Grasp of Darkness
1 Ruinous Path
2 To the Slaughter
3 Pulse of Murasa
2 Read the Bones
1 Seasons Past
3 Arlinn Kord
1 Ob Nixilis, Reignited
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Hissing Quagmire
1 Westvale Abbey
1 Mortuary Mire
3 Cinder Glade
4 Foul Orchard
3 Smoldering Marsh
4 Evolving Wilds
1 Mountain
3 Forest
1 Swamp
This is my first / rough draft, where I'd like to start. No sideboard drawn up yet because I think it's generally too early to worry about it, but I'd be looking to have a couple extra removal options (including some sweep), a couple grindy tools (probably a second Seasons Past and something else, maybe Chandra #2), and some Natterknolls and Duresses.
Not on the life total, no. Usually the goal is to just run off basics until tangos are live, and then fetch those out. Every once in a while I have to fetch up a dual...usually Blood Crypt...to have Inq+Bolt up vs something like Company where that matters. I've never had that cost me, though.
Tar Pit over Conclave is probably correct. I like Conclave more because of its relevant creature type, but realistically Tar Pit is probably better, yeah. I should swap those out.
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Scion of Oona
3 Mistbind Clique
2 Kalitas, Traitor to Ghet
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
2 Cryptic Command
2 Mana Leak
2 Remand
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Kologhan's Command
2 Terminate
4 Bitterblossom
2 Faerie Conclave
3 Secluded Glen
4 Mutavault
4 Island
2 Swamp
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Smoldering Marsh
4 Polluted Delta
//sb
1 Batterskull
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Spell Snare
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Damnation
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Go for the Throat
1 Dreadbore
1 Sower of Temptation
2 Countersquall
Here's my list. I don't really play outside of my local, since I'm mostly a legacy/vintage player. I've played the last two months; took first and then second in a pair of small four-round events.
When deciding what deck I wanted to play in modern, I concluded that I want to play something that had no danger of being banned out, which ruled out all of the tier one decks. I also typically favor decks which are less known or popular, as some may know from my longstanding association with Nic Fit in legacy. I greatly enjoyed Faeries when it was in standard, and then played it on and off in extended thereafter, so it was a natural fit to pick it up again for modern, even if it's incredibly poorly positioned on a regular basis due to WotC's baffling inability/lack of desire to allow control decks to police the format.
I first looked at the traditional UB lists, but concluded that I didn't like their removal suite at all. My solution was to add a red splash, to pick up Bolt and Terminate as superior removal options. This also allowed for me to run a duo of K-Commands, which have been fantastic. Outside of these cards, I am unwilling to add more red to the deck, however.
I'm testing out the Kalitas, I haven't actually gotten to use him yet in this deck. He seems very strong in principle, though, and he plays very well with my upgraded removal suite.
Scions have been fine as a 2-of -- sometimes they're counterspells, sometimes they're pressure. Bolt (and Snap-Bolt, by extension) allows the deck to have a surprising amount of reach in some matchups, which pushes Scion's usefulness a bit compared to straight UB lists.
6 basics has felt like a good number to me. Its very easy to turn on the tangos -- there's still one of each shock just for the times when you really need the untapped X/Y source on turn 1, which does happen, but overall the tangos have performed very well for this deck. 6 basics also helps resist Blood Moon, which is commonly boarded in vs me, I've found, due to the number of manlands the deck plays. Amusingly, this frequently ends up making the red splash completely free.
The sideboard's kind of a cluster**** and changes from event to event. I'm pretty sure it could be better, but I don't tend to put a tremendous amount of time into this deck, since I just grab it and jam it once a month or so.
Anyway, there's some thoughts for everyone to mull over. Probably nothing of value in my list, but I figured I may as well share it in an attempt to contribute to the cause.
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Den Protector
2 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
4 Siege Rhino
1 Gilt-Leaf Winnower
1 Greenwarden of Murasa
4 Anticipate
4 Abzan Charm
4 Bring to Light
2 Murderous Cut
1 Ruinous Path
1 Crackling Doom
1 Utter End
1 Languish
1 Crux of Fate
1 Silumgar's Command
1 Ugin's Insight
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Prairie Stream
1 Canopy Vista
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Cinder Glade
3 Opulent Palace
2 Sandsteppe Citadel
//sb
2 Duress
2 Dispel
2 On Nixilis Reignited
1 Surge of Righteousness
3 Radiant Flames
2 Deflecting Palm
1 Infinite Obliteration
2 Ultimate Price
Specific thoughts:
The most important thing is the mana base. When this deck gets to cast its spells, it usually wins. To that end, I came to the conclusion that the mana is not good enough currently to rely solely on fetches+tangos/basics. Everyone seems to think it is, but it's really not. Manlands are sweet, but I found that I was rarely in a situation where I actually needed to animate them, or had the chance to animate them, even. As such, I cut them, as well as a couple of basics, for some trilands. Since I made that change, the mana has been so incredibly much improved. Triland into fetch->basic opens up all of your turn 2 plays, while also making your subsequent turns that much better. It's possible that I have one too many triland -- a 2/2 split (or 3/1 palace/steppe) might be correct. I am 100% convinced that trilands are necessary for this deck to reliably cast its spells, however.
Other individual cards that have impressed...
Greenwarden. I originally had a Silumgar DD in this slot because cleaning up hangarbacks, but my local is infested with white jund and jeskai black, so there's Crackling Dooms everywhere and he just died constantly. When I made the decision to test out Den Protector in the deck, I had the idea of Greenwarden, but I didn't actually put him in immediately. Den Protector overperformed, and as I got in more reps with the deck, I began to understand it.
Bring to Light is a big midrange deck. It's not a control deck beyond the level at which midrange usually is. Its goal is to be the biggest midrange deck, with a tutor engine that helps keep card advantage flowing and provide outs to specific situations. The problem is that without Jace (who tends to die a lot because people know how insane he is now), your card advantage engine fails you. Abzan Charm is good, but too often you need to use it to exile. Ugin's Insight is a solid recall, but you only get to use it once, and three random cards isn't that great in this deck. The recursion package helps so much with what the deck wants to do. It lets you reuse bullets, reuse Charms to draw more cards, or even just the classic "rhino you."
Anticipate. Casting this card doesn't feel that great, but it really does help smooth the deck out a lot. It gives you another turn 2 play, and it sets up your turn 3 in response to whatever they're doing. Lategame it helps you dig for specific answers (or Bring to Light for them), while also pushing useless lands and finding bombs. Despite being a bad card, Anticipate has actually impressed me in this deck -- I went from 1 to 2 to 4.
Nissa. This is a very, very strong Nissa deck. Aside from straight kill spells, we can do a very good job of finding, flipping, and protecting her. Her +1 provides the stream of mana and card advantage that we really crave. I have only made one 4/4 with the card yet -- otherwise she just draws cards and makes land drops until she kills them.
Ultimate Price & Surge of Righteousness. I think I need more Surges in my sideboard, but my local shop is actually sold out of them and I haven't ordered them in yet. These two cards combine to give you a strong removal suite against the decks where you really need it. At comp REL level it may be worth maindecking an ultimate price or two, just off its strengths vs red.dec and GW Mega. For FNMs and such, they're best in the board.
Other observations:
I used to want 27 lands. Putting in the Anticipates fixed that.
I've wanted a second Utter End at times.
Dispel overperforms out of the sideboard, but splitting with Duress is probably correct. Maybe.
Ob Nix has been super weird for me. It seems like it should be really good in theory, but in practice he hasn't been that great.
I kind of want an Arashin Cleric / Ojutai's Command package in my sideboard, but that might be worse than the Radiant Flames + spot removal plan that I have currently.
-------------
Hope that helps. I'll monitor on and off to see if there's any questions and answer them to the best of my ability. The deck is a lot of fun and I don't think that it's as bad or poorly positioned as some are crying after week 2. Configuring it is a mess, and being willing to run trilands is something that I feel not many people are doing -- therefore stranding themselves with bad mana and uncastable spells.
I entirely missed the Plow wagon, since it happened over the weekend when I don't pay attention to mafia. Easy for me to say now with the flip already having happened, but I would not have joined the Plow wagon had I been around.
I need to look over this Plowshares wagon closely. The whole thing started -and- completed over the weekend while I wasn't paying attention, and that's very, very unusual.
Clever girl...
(ed->in one game currently)
Also, some of my relative certainty that I was a red herring was because of my PM. The flavor I had coupled with my claim made me assume that I was supposed to be either lynched or vigged D1/N1.