I think bring to light improves scapeshifts bad matchups but makes alrdy good ones less good.
I have 7 copies of baloth, 4 shatterstorms and 4 angers vs aggro.
Vs jund u have 4 hunting wilds and 6 chsnces to top deck scapeshift vs 4 before. Since the games are mainly them ripping ur hand and beating u down befote u have scapeshift or enough lands.
Vs combo decks like living end, amulet, tron, mirror, u have 4 slaughtergames which is an insane powerhouse and also wind these matchups by itself.
Bring to light is soft vs remand so it makes ur twin matchup worse but twin wasnt part of our bad matchups anyways its slightly favourable.
This is at the cost of having 4th color ( total 2 lands, 1 shock, 1 basic) in ur deck. I dont play any black cards except slaughter games for thr most consistent deck. I took out the 3rd breeding pool for a watery grave and a basic island for a swamp to play bring to light. Only 2 changes to the mana base.
I disagree with it making your good matchups worse. I did not cut cards that were good against twin for bad ones. I cut cards that were meh against twin (bolts, visions, etc) for slightly better ones. Our advantage against twin is that we run as many counters but we also have a mana advantage. Playing BTL made me play 2 more ramp spells and 1 more land which helps get to a higher mana count faster. Bring to light adds a new dynamic to the MU, instead of waiting to draw a shift and being super careful about getting them countered we can just start jamming shifts with interaction mana up and get them countered. What I really want is a card that punishes them for letting BTL resolve and thinking they can just counter the spell it exiles. If only Teferi was 4...
Glen elendra archmage or a draw spell such as harmonize.
For my decklists. From rug to bring to light version i changed a total of 5 cards. Old rug list. -1 scapeshift. -3 peer -1snapcaster. New list + 1 farseek, +1 hunting wilds +3 bring to light.
Im saying its worse becuz peer is easier to resolve and find things we need then bring. Also the match is usually slow and long so ull modt likely have scapeshift anyways which makes bring worse. Ramp is also not great vs twin, if u cant combo u get flooded with bad top decks
Thats a fair point, I have not played the twin matchup much since the BTL change. When I used to play it I would kill them with manual mode alot of the time.
The card I might have been thinking of punishing them with was thrun. If they let BTL resolve and we get Thrun, they are in trouble.
Thrun might be too slow. They can race u or chump it for a long time or just combo u. If u get glen eldendra on board its hard for them to stop scapeshift, unless they have counterflux which is rare now. They cant interact with glen elendras ability well, unless they burn it twice.
Bring to light scapeshift top 8. SCG 5k iq in philly
You might be right, I wanna give it a shot though. The IQ top 8 was me. I posted what I played against above. I intend to get alot of testing done over the next 2 weeks in prep for GP Pit, might as well try it all.
I think bring to light improves scapeshifts bad matchups but makes alrdy good ones less good.
I have 7 copies of baloth, 4 shatterstorms and 4 angers vs aggro.
Vs jund u have 4 hunting wilds and 6 chsnces to top deck scapeshift vs 4 before. Since the games are mainly them ripping ur hand and beating u down befote u have scapeshift or enough lands.
Vs combo decks like living end, amulet, tron, mirror, u have 4 slaughtergames which is an insane powerhouse and also wind these matchups by itself.
Bring to light is soft vs remand so it makes ur twin matchup worse but twin wasnt part of our bad matchups anyways its slightly favourable.
This is at the cost of having 4th color ( total 2 lands, 1 shock, 1 basic) in ur deck. I dont play any black cards except slaughter games for thr most consistent deck. I took out the 3rd breeding pool for a watery grave and a basic island for a swamp to play bring to light. Only 2 changes to the mana base.
I disagree with it making your good matchups worse. I did not cut cards that were good against twin for bad ones. I cut cards that were meh against twin (bolts, visions, etc) for slightly better ones. Our advantage against twin is that we run as many counters but we also have a mana advantage. Playing BTL made me play 2 more ramp spells and 1 more land which helps get to a higher mana count faster. Bring to light adds a new dynamic to the MU, instead of waiting to draw a shift and being super careful about getting them countered we can just start jamming shifts with interaction mana up and get them countered. What I really want is a card that punishes them for letting BTL resolve and thinking they can just counter the spell it exiles. If only Teferi was 4...
Glen elendra archmage or a draw spell such as harmonize.
For my decklists. From rug to bring to light version i changed a total of 5 cards. Old rug list. -1 scapeshift. -3 peer -1snapcaster. New list + 1 farseek, +1 hunting wilds +3 bring to light.
Im saying its worse becuz peer is easier to resolve and find things we need then bring. Also the match is usually slow and long so ull modt likely have scapeshift anyways which makes bring worse. Ramp is also not great vs twin, if u cant combo u get flooded with bad top decks
Thats a fair point, I have not played the twin matchup much since the BTL change. When I used to play it I would kill them with manual mode alot of the time.
The card I might have been thinking of punishing them with was thrun. If they let BTL resolve and we get Thrun, they are in trouble.
I think bring to light improves scapeshifts bad matchups but makes alrdy good ones less good.
I have 7 copies of baloth, 4 shatterstorms and 4 angers vs aggro.
Vs jund u have 4 hunting wilds and 6 chsnces to top deck scapeshift vs 4 before. Since the games are mainly them ripping ur hand and beating u down befote u have scapeshift or enough lands.
Vs combo decks like living end, amulet, tron, mirror, u have 4 slaughtergames which is an insane powerhouse and also wind these matchups by itself.
Bring to light is soft vs remand so it makes ur twin matchup worse but twin wasnt part of our bad matchups anyways its slightly favourable.
This is at the cost of having 4th color ( total 2 lands, 1 shock, 1 basic) in ur deck. I dont play any black cards except slaughter games for thr most consistent deck. I took out the 3rd breeding pool for a watery grave and a basic island for a swamp to play bring to light. Only 2 changes to the mana base.
I disagree with it making your good matchups worse. I did not cut cards that were good against twin for bad ones. I cut cards that were meh against twin (bolts, visions, etc) for slightly better ones. Our advantage against twin is that we run as many counters but we also have a mana advantage. Playing BTL made me play 2 more ramp spells and 1 more land which helps get to a higher mana count faster. Bring to light adds a new dynamic to the MU, instead of waiting to draw a shift and being super careful about getting them countered we can just start jamming shifts with interaction mana up and get them countered. What I really want is a card that punishes them for letting BTL resolve and thinking they can just counter the spell it exiles. If only Teferi was 4...
Deck just overall felt great, the card that most impressed me was Pia and lumbering falls. I was super high on Pia going into the event and I thought it was kinda cute to play it as a BTL target. Every time I cast it it was fantastic. It beat jund game 1 with lumbering falls, bought time versus boggles and burn, forced Grixis to act (Falls and tokens put him to 5, he needed to play his own pia to live which allowed me to shift him with mana advantage). Never drew it post board with command but I assume its great. Certainly would have helped versus Affinity as I got beat down by a champion with a plating. Going forward I wanna tweak the SB a bit, meta seems mad aggressive which makes me want a 3rd anger.
After this finish I think I wanna make the trek out to GP Pittsburg, which means I am going to start testing the deck extensively on MTGO. I will post updates if I find anything great
Thanks for posting. I'll admit that I've been skeptical of the BtL builds since I feel like they don't really do things better against the aggressive decks in the format. But when I saw this list in the results on SCG and saw Pia & Kiran Nalaar, I immediately thought "Yes, that's the perfect Bring to Light bullet" It seems great both as a stalling tactic against the fast decks in the format, and as a powerful midrange threat to pressure our slower opponents into acting.
Thanks for reading. I was super against BTL at first, I tried it as soon as it was printed and disliked it. After I saw Hooglands list though, I started to be a little more convinced. I decided to give it one last tournament to impress me. Guess what my opinion of it now is
Bring to light is the truth. I Threw this together 10 minutes before the event, never played a game with it before and did not drop a match in the Swiss.
Jund (2-0)
Tron (2-1)
Naya Burn (2-0)
Boggles (2-0)
Grixis control (2-1) [This was Danny Jessup. He was very salty I won, apparently me drawing a land was lucky]
Affinity (2-1) [This was Josh who won the event and beat me in the Quarters]
GR Blitz (2-0)
ID
ID
Top 8
Affinity (1-2)
I should have won the whole thing but I got a DRV (mountains are not islands) and started down a game to the guy who won the event. I still somehow beat him "game 2" but got mooned out "game 3".
Deck just overall felt great, the card that most impressed me was Pia and lumbering falls. I was super high on Pia going into the event and I thought it was kinda cute to play it as a BTL target. Every time I cast it it was fantastic. It beat jund game 1 with lumbering falls, bought time versus boggles and burn, forced Grixis to act (Falls and tokens put him to 5, he needed to play his own pia to live which allowed me to shift him with mana advantage). Never drew it post board with command but I assume its great. Certainly would have helped versus Affinity as I got beat down by a champion with a plating. Going forward I wanna tweak the SB a bit, meta seems mad aggressive which makes me want a 3rd anger.
After this finish I think I wanna make the trek out to GP Pittsburg, which means I am going to start testing the deck extensively on MTGO. I will post updates if I find anything great
@Pokken I'm a fan of the approach you've taken and particularly interested in Hangarback as another reasonable card that we have the potential to abuse with RTC or Dromoka's Command etc.
What decks are you losing to?
From your list I think I'd cut 2 Courser and 2 Spellskite. But I would want the cards to address the weak spots. Maybe Geist to help combat combo and control. Also the Stubborn Denial seems forced given you only really have Goyf and KoTR to activate it, both of which are situational.
Also for those looking for 5-6 drops I do vouch for Sigarda. Play with her before judging ... 5/5 flying hexproof that avoids edicts is unsurprisingly hard to deal with. Another option at 4 is Hero of Bladehold. Can take over a game when your tapping blockers and avoids bolt/ decay. May not be the deck for it but I've run her in the past (with Lightning Greaves and Geist in Bant & BW Tokens) and she's a game ending curve topper.
Look back a bit in the thread, plenty of Geist lists. His list (and mine) are trying to be more midrange/grindy not aggressive (which geist wants).
I do think Hero of Bladehold is good in more aggro geist lists. Can win the game on its own and deals 15 alone with geist.
I want gavony but I think having ghost quarter is better. We only have 2 flex slots really, and they are kessig and ghost quarter. The ghost quarter might even be too greedy. This decks fair game with resto and knight beats is fine enough.
I think I'll cut the ghost quarter for a township and try the courser version.
Check my new version. I would never cut quarter for township, it is way to good versus tron and bloom.
I like woodland bellower a lot! That's a solid idea. But I think the red in that deck is miserable. Dumping Kiki and the manabase sacrifices you make to play him, adding the 4th chord, getting closer to 3-4 paths, and jamming gavony instead of kessig will make a better deck.
If you go off with Knight, he doesn't need Kessig to win, at least in my experience - tapping all their blockers down with fetchlands will do the job, and rogue's passage is just as strong in a pinch.
The velocity increase with chord/resto/wall is really sick, and might be the right way to go. Play like a more controlly deck with resto/wall/finks/courser, 1-2 colonnades, etc.
I agree with Cutting wolf run, never was a fan. Can't we just tap all their dudes and hit them? Cutting Kiki is sad but mostly right, having a 1 of chordable combo is so nice but drawing it or off color lands is miserable. I never even got to go off with Arbor + Retreat + Kiki
I want gavony but I think having ghost quarter is better. We only have 2 flex slots really, and they are kessig and ghost quarter. The ghost quarter might even be too greedy. This decks fair game with resto and knight beats is fine enough.
I think he's more interested in the double digging that happens from coralhelm, which is probably cute and worse than a merfolk looter in the context of the deck except occasionally flashing back a path or something.
The missing chunk of this deck is, if you want to combo off, the level of velocity you get in a Splinter Twin deck, where with electrolyze, serum visions, snapcaster, and remand, you typically get to see close to halve your deck by the end of even a short game.
The problem is that Knight of the Reliquary puts you into slightly lower velocity colors (red brings stuff like electrolyze and sometimes izzet charm, and fast spells like bolt to make snapcaster good enough to be there remand/serum visions). I can see the appeal of Jace Serum Visions as an option there, but I think you need more than that.
Ojutai's command is close to the missing juice there with Jace I think, but probably one mana too slow from a tempo perspective.
Velocity is why I have been digging the Chord version. Wall of omens/Courser/Chord add alot of velocity to the deck.
Been tinkering with Hooglands Kiki version of the deck. I finally got to a list I like. Its so hard to fit stuff, I want a 24th land, a 4th wall and a 4th voice along with more chord bullets but hey, can't have it all. I like that this deck can play a value plan and then just win out of nowhere many different ways.
Even I was not running a chord list I think Woodland Bellower is Absolutely fantastic. With just a mana dork and a retreat you have 6 mana turn 3, which conveniently casts bellows into knight for the turn 4 combo.
Soooooo Bring to Light may give this deck the kick in the butt it needs to be tier 1/1.5. Lumbering Falls is also insane as a way to win the game without scapeshift that also dodges removal. We also can now cut down on Basic mountains AND go up on green sources with Cinder glade. I am getting more and more pumped for BFZ Modern
Timely's may be greedy and Baloths may be better than Knuckleblade. Knuckleblade is just so strong against Grixis and GBX given they should board out most of their removal.
vendilion clique can protect knight against both targeted and mass removal and can be brought in with collected company. Does anyone think it could also be used in the Bant shell?
I greatly dislike the double blue mana cost, it's going to be problematic.
Noble and bird should mitigate that. If I notice a problem the manabase can be tweaked. Clique is very good.
Less Gimmicky midrange version. Disrupt with taxing creatures and beat down. The thing I like about Thalia/teeg/clique is that they are better at protecting the combo. Dryad arbor is adorable with Retreat
You might be right, I wanna give it a shot though. The IQ top 8 was me. I posted what I played against above. I intend to get alot of testing done over the next 2 weeks in prep for GP Pit, might as well try it all.
Thats a fair point, I have not played the twin matchup much since the BTL change. When I used to play it I would kill them with manual mode alot of the time.
The card I might have been thinking of punishing them with was thrun. If they let BTL resolve and we get Thrun, they are in trouble.
I disagree with it making your good matchups worse. I did not cut cards that were good against twin for bad ones. I cut cards that were meh against twin (bolts, visions, etc) for slightly better ones. Our advantage against twin is that we run as many counters but we also have a mana advantage. Playing BTL made me play 2 more ramp spells and 1 more land which helps get to a higher mana count faster. Bring to light adds a new dynamic to the MU, instead of waiting to draw a shift and being super careful about getting them countered we can just start jamming shifts with interaction mana up and get them countered. What I really want is a card that punishes them for letting BTL resolve and thinking they can just counter the spell it exiles. If only Teferi was 4...
Thanks for reading. I was super against BTL at first, I tried it as soon as it was printed and disliked it. After I saw Hooglands list though, I started to be a little more convinced. I decided to give it one last tournament to impress me. Guess what my opinion of it now is
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=94869
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
2 Izzet Charm
4 Remand
2 Worldly Counsel
1 Anger of the Gods
4 Bring to Light
2 Farseek
3 Scapeshift
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Forest
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Breeding Pool
1 Cinder Glade
1 Lumbering Falls
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Watery Grave
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Golgari Charm
1 Jund Charm
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Krosan Grip
2 Negate
1 Slaughter games
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Shatterstorm
The decks I played against were
Jund (2-0)
Tron (2-1)
Naya Burn (2-0)
Boggles (2-0)
Grixis control (2-1) [This was Danny Jessup. He was very salty I won, apparently me drawing a land was lucky]
Affinity (2-1) [This was Josh who won the event and beat me in the Quarters]
GR Blitz (2-0)
ID
ID
Top 8
Affinity (1-2)
I should have won the whole thing but I got a DRV (mountains are not islands) and started down a game to the guy who won the event. I still somehow beat him "game 2" but got mooned out "game 3".
Deck just overall felt great, the card that most impressed me was Pia and lumbering falls. I was super high on Pia going into the event and I thought it was kinda cute to play it as a BTL target. Every time I cast it it was fantastic. It beat jund game 1 with lumbering falls, bought time versus boggles and burn, forced Grixis to act (Falls and tokens put him to 5, he needed to play his own pia to live which allowed me to shift him with mana advantage). Never drew it post board with command but I assume its great. Certainly would have helped versus Affinity as I got beat down by a champion with a plating. Going forward I wanna tweak the SB a bit, meta seems mad aggressive which makes me want a 3rd anger.
After this finish I think I wanna make the trek out to GP Pittsburg, which means I am going to start testing the deck extensively on MTGO. I will post updates if I find anything great
Look back a bit in the thread, plenty of Geist lists. His list (and mine) are trying to be more midrange/grindy not aggressive (which geist wants).
I do think Hero of Bladehold is good in more aggro geist lists. Can win the game on its own and deals 15 alone with geist.
Check my new version. I would never cut quarter for township, it is way to good versus tron and bloom.
I agree with Cutting wolf run, never was a fan. Can't we just tap all their dudes and hit them? Cutting Kiki is sad but mostly right, having a 1 of chordable combo is so nice but drawing it or off color lands is miserable. I never even got to go off with Arbor + Retreat + Kiki
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Gavony Township
2x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Flooded Strand
1x Plains
1x Sejiri Steppe
2x Temple Garden
1x Stirring Wildwood
4x Windswept Heath
3x Birds of Paradise
2x Courser of Kruphix
2x Eternal Witness
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Restoration Angel
3x Voice of Resurgence
3x Wall of Omens
2x Woodland Bellower
Enchantment (4)
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
Instant (5)
3x Chord of Calling
3x Path to Exile
1x Bojuka Bog
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Ghostly Prison
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Meddling Mage
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Spellskite
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Stony Silence
Nope, another nombo
Velocity is why I have been digging the Chord version. Wall of omens/Courser/Chord add alot of velocity to the deck.
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
2x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Island
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Courser of Kruphix
2x Eternal Witness
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Restoration Angel
3x Voice of Resurgence
3x Wall of Omens
2x Woodland Bellower
Enchantment (4)
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
Instant (5)
3x Chord of Calling
2x Path to Exile
1x Bojuka Bog
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Ghostly Prison
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Meddling Mage
2x Path to Exile
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Spellskite
3x Stony Silence
Even I was not running a chord list I think Woodland Bellower is Absolutely fantastic. With just a mana dork and a retreat you have 6 mana turn 3, which conveniently casts bellows into knight for the turn 4 combo.
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Arbor Elf
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Eternal Witness
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Woodland Bellower
3x Primal Command
3x Wargate
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Creeping Corrosion
2x Dismember
3x Obstinate Baloth
1x Reclamation Sage
3x Rending Volley
1x Scavenging Ooze
3x Stony Silence
1x Breeding Pool
2x Cinder Glade
2x Forest
1x Hallowed Fountain
3x Island
2x Lumbering Falls
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Mountain
4x Steam Vents
3x Stomping Ground
2x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1x Watery Grave
2x Anticipate
4x Cryptic Command
1x Electrolyze
2x Izzet Charm
2x Lightning Bolt
4x Remand
Sorcery (13)
1x Anger of the Gods
3x Bring to Light
2x Farseek
3x Scapeshift
4x Search for Tomorrow
Creature (6)
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Creeping Corrosion
2x Dispel
3x Savage Knuckleblade
1x Slaughter Games
3x Timely Reinforcements
2x Vendilion Clique
Timely's may be greedy and Baloths may be better than Knuckleblade. Knuckleblade is just so strong against Grixis and GBX given they should board out most of their removal.
Noble and bird should mitigate that. If I notice a problem the manabase can be tweaked. Clique is very good.
2x Breeding Pool
1x Canopy Vista
1x Cinder Glade
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
2x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Sejiri Steppe
2x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
3x Birds of Paradise
4x Geist of Saint Traft
3x Hero of Bladehold
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Voice of resurgence
1x Scavenging Ooze
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Vendilion Clique
Enchantment (4)
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
Instant (4)
4x Path to Exile
1x Bojuka Bog
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Life from the Loam
2x Reclamation Sage
1x Spellskite
3x Stony Silence
2x Timely Reinforcements
EDIT: Added voice because I forgot that card was a thing