That lists looks pretty sweet for sure. I noticed you also have Scullers in this version. How do you like them so far? Sculler + Copter is my new favorite combo.
I'm not sold on Ruin Raider but I can see how 4 Bob 4 Copter 4 Raider could draw a ton of cards. Raider is a lot worse when you're behind than Blade Splicer or Liliana of the Veil and if you can't trigger it right away then it's a very slow card. I'm not sure more than 1 or 2 makes sense since you can get Bob-flooded with 4 in your deck let alone 8.
I think the card you are missing big time is Collective Brutality. It is amazing against both CoCo and Burn while being serviceable against Titanshift, Storm, Affinity, and many other decks. It's even playable against UW with Wrath / Cryptic and Abzan with Dark Confidant / Grim Flayer. It feels unfair to have 4 Collective Brutality against Burn.
Of the decks you mention, I think Eldrazi Tron and Titanshift are by far the worst matchups. I'm surprised you think Affinity is 50/50 - I think it's closer to 70/30 in our favor. I've decided to mostly give up on Eldrazi Tron but I like Anguished Unmaking and Pithing Needle out of the board.
I don't like Leyline much since our clock isn't that fast, especially when we are down a card, and because decks you want it for all have good answers. Burn will board in Destructive Revelry for Sculler and Copter and Titanshift can Summoner's Pact for Reclamation Sage or just kill all our creatures. Storm can board in Echoing Truth and find it as they combo off. Against Storm and Titanshift my plan is to discard them into oblivion and kill them asap. Brutality is key again because it can hit Scapeshift and Gifts Ungiven.
I don't like Wrath with Sculler and Bob. It would be OK if you were siding those out but Sculler and Bob are among the best cards against CoCo. Liliana of the Veil is the first card I side out, e.g. for Collective Brutality. Wrath is a little better against Eldrazi but once again Sculler and Bob are extremely good as is Lingering Souls. I think Wrath ends up being pretty awkward in this deck.
We definitely have a different sideboard philosophy but your main is within 6 cards of mine
With the man lands, especially mutavault vehicle flood was rarely a problem. Pain seer was excellent often just attack for trigger with the amount of disruption and being able to turn off life loss when needs was convenient as well. Rubbing the deck back a few more times overt the weekend trying sculler over splicer still did good. Water not is an interesting idea mauve in side, but excess discard usually jyst gets pitched to copter. The major budget concern was marsh flats. I really luff the resilience to board wipes and harvester was a huge pain for many decks to deal with aty Guinness zodiac up a boot and helix. And ad mentioned night market lookout e feed up being a key that made the deck work breaking through boosts stalls where attacks are not profitable. Currently I am Teton n a more token centric list with raise the alarm and testing glint-sleeve siphoner to try and hey more life from harvester when needed or use harvester energy for card draw when needed. The vehicle base had proven to me top be I've of the quickest ways to turn the corner as to not lose to top of opponent's deck. But it's going tip the a lot of testing sand tuning to reach max efficiency.
The amount of autocorrect in this post is hilarious.
Yeah it's definitely not doable with 4 Sculler 4 Liliana. Even 4 Mutavault is a little dicey with Sculler. I'm in love with Sculler though. The last time I tried it was after I added Elspeth because I thought it could work well with Angelic Blessing. It wasn't impressive. Copter pushes it over the edge though. Copter is so busted!
Yup. I'm a little crazy about losing to Burn so I haven't yet brought myself to cut the 4th Vent. It makes it so much easier to win if you can find a Vent in game 1. Otherwise you're totally right: I almost never activate Vent.
It might be crazy but what about 0 Shambling Vent and some number of Blinkmoth Nexus in addition to Mutavault? Your Burn matchup gets undeniably worse but then you have no tapped lands and even more cheap manlands, e.g.:
For the record I don't think the new planeswalker rule changes much of anything. Perhaps Gideon Tribal is better than it was before (unplayable) but that's not saying much. I guess it's interesting to have Liliana of the Veil and Liliana the Last Hope in play together. However I have found Last Hope to be pretty underwhelming anyway.
I went 3-1 at a local event yesterday playing this:
R1 BW Eldrazi, L 1-2
R2 Bogle W 2-0
R3 Affinity W 2-0
R4 Mono Red Goblins W 2-1
I'm super happy with this iteration of the deck. Most of all I think the 4 Tidehollow Sculler are great. At first I thought 3 was a good number since they aren't a great topdeck but I was wrong. Tidehollow is pretty much always good if you have a Copter in play, no matter the stage of the game, and the chances to have a Copter increase as the game goes on. It basically ensures that your Copter will both attack and survive, which is perfect.
I think it also plays the best on turn 3. There are a lot of matchups where tapping out on turn 3 for relatively anemic creatures (Souls or Splicer) is just bad. Sculler allows you to interact on turn 3 while crewing the Copter and potentially even casting another spell. It also gives you a good window to play Shambling Vent on turn 3. Vent can be pretty hard to fit into your curve since we have so many plays on the early turns.
Speaking of Shambling Vent, if it wasn't for Burn I would instantly cut the 4th Vent for another untapped land and I might do it anyway. It screws up your curve so much and I frequently find myself with multiple Vents in play and no reason to activate any of them. It mostly underscores how incredibly good Mutavault is as a painless untapped land that only costs 1 to activate.
It's not that hard to beat Titanshift if you want to. Keep all the discard, especially Liliana, and play a bunch of Aven Mindcensor / Shadow of Doubt. You can also play Leyline of Sanctity or Runed Halo naming Valakut. Surgical Extraction is also ok in conjunction with discard, hitting Primeval Titan or Scapeshift. I don't think you need to bend over backwards to beat them.
Ya Sculler is really an incredible card in the combo matchups. Curving Inquisition / Thoughtseize -> Sculler is fantastic.
I agree about the Death's Shadow match and I still like the 24 land main / 23 after board on the draw plan.
I think it's a misconception that Lili makes dead draws better. Discarding to Liliana gets the absolute minimum value out of a card and that option is always available to you. In the case that your hand is so good you don't even want to plus Liliana, it's surely worse to have a dead card to discard instead. You could always plus and end up in the same spot either way. There is no additional value in having bad cards to discard, other than making your decision easier.
One thing I have to say is that I have not been impressed with Blade Splicer. I think I totally overestimated it in comparison to Lingering Souls. Spot removal on the Golem is usually quite good since the 1/1 is close to irrelevant without flying and, of course, there is no flashback. Maybe that would be different in a build with Restoration Angel but I'm still not a Resto fan.
Also - I'm boarding out Liliana against almost all the CoCo decks but Splicer isn't good there either! Flying is the key to our offense in that matchup. The CoCo decks either have Knight of the Reliquary or Kitchen Finks or both and either effectively blunts the Golem offensive.
So here's a slightly tweaked version that I will probably play tomorrow at a local tournament:
I notice you beat Titanshift without Blood Moon OR Liliana. How lucky were you? lol
I went 4-2 for 10th place but I won all 6 (!) die rolls.
R1 BR Control 2-1
R2 GW Value CoCo 0-2
R3 Grixis Death Shadow 1-2
R4 Naya Value CoCo 2-0
R5 Abzan Combo CoCo (Vizier of Remedies) 2-1
R6 UB Faeries 2-1
It sounds like a cop-out but I mostly lost to mulligans and flood in rounds 2 and 3. I also didn't play any live magic for 2 weeks so I was a tad rusty. A fine record but I want the W!
I think I could have won g1 against GW Value CoCo but I screwed up a loot with Copter. I looted into Blade Splicer with Copter in hand with Lingering Souls in the yard and 4 mana available. I could have played Copter + Souls or Splicer and I went with Splicer. Not 100% clear I would have won with the other line but I think it was a pretty obvious error.
I don't think I could have won the Death's Shadow match. I got flooded g1 and his hand was the absolute stone nuts of Scalding Tarn, Thoughtseize, Death's Shadow, Death's Shadow, Serum Visions, Fatal Push, Terminate. In g3 he had a slow start but I got flooded again. Shrug. I boarded down to 23 land in g3 as well
As a bonus I lost all my prize packs playing dice after the tournament. My dice-rolling run good came to an end.
If you play 4 Concealed Courtyard then the WW for Finks isn't so bad. I think what you gain against Burn could outweigh what you lose against the rest of the field by playing Finks over Splicer, as Finks is also better against Death's Shadow even if it's worse against everything else.
The more I think about it, the more I don't like the Redguy Blood Moon plan. Between Wastes and Mind Stone, Eldrazi Tron can still cast its spells under Blood Moon. They can also find Wastes with Expedition Map. It definitely slows them down but it will slow you down too, for one because it costs 3 mana. Eldrazi Tron will also probably board in Ratchet Bomb against Lingering Souls, Golems, and Copter. There are already a bunch of good cards against Titanshift in BW, e.g. Liliana of the Veil, so I don't think it's worth going crazy over that matchup. That's not to mention that the manabase is considerably worse.
This deck is great right now! It has gotten amazing upgrades in the last few blocks, e.g. Shambling Vent in Battle for Zendikar, Collective Brutality in Eldritch Moon, Concealed Courtyard and Smuggler's Copter in Kaladesh, and Fatal Push in Aether Revolt. Copter really pulls it all together and makes a third color less appealing.
I did a few things here - first I cut the second 4 drop for a 24th land. My plan is to board down to 23 on the draw basically every time.
I'm also on 4 Liliana 2 Splicer. After more matches comparing the two, I'm loving Lili. While flooding the board with Golems can be great, Liliana's effect is unique and powerful. For now I'm imagining Splicer as Souls 5+.
I used to have 2 Kitchen Finks over 2 Splicer and I can say the lighter color requirements are quite welcome. I want to test Burn more with Splicer over Finks but I have a feeling Splicer is only slightly worse. Finks is way better if you don't have to shock yourself to get WW though. I think those cards are really close in general. I could see playing a 1-1 split or 3-1/2-2 Splicer/Finks in a deck like Suechtler's.
@Suechtler
You are going into some crazy territory with these Redguy lists. I agree there aren't many red appealing red cards past Blood Moon and Kolaghan's Command. On your latest list - I dunno about the red but I'd like a 4 drop (Resto or Elspeth) over the last Sculler. I imagine Sculler as a back-up 2 drop / pseudo 3 drop since its best use is crewing Copter turn 3. It also doesn't play nice with Mutavault so it can make turns 2-4 a little awkward. Playing 4 is fine but I think the first 4 drop is better than the last Sculler.
I can also see how maxing on Sculler sort of fills in for Liliana since it's giving you more discard. So maybe 4 Sculler 4 Splicer 0 Liliana is genius. Then again Sculler is bad against Death's Shadow whereas Liliana is amazing. Splicer is fine there but probably worse than Kitchen Finks. So many options!
One thing worth mentioning about your calculation is it's the chance to draw 4 or more lands by turn 4, not exactly 4. 23 land gives the best chance (54%) of drawing exactly 3 or 4 land by turn 3. I consider that the sweet spot since I want to play three drops on time but I don't want to draw 5+ lands early in the game. I don't really care about getting the 4th land on time.
Playing 24 or 25 land doesn't change the sweet spot probability very much but it does significantly increase the chance to draw 5+ at the expense of drawing only 2. 2 land hands can still be very powerful with discard/removal and Copter/Bob and our three drops are good at stabilizing even on turns 4 and 5. That's why I usually max out at 24 but think 23 is reasonable.
I'm not sold on Ruin Raider but I can see how 4 Bob 4 Copter 4 Raider could draw a ton of cards. Raider is a lot worse when you're behind than Blade Splicer or Liliana of the Veil and if you can't trigger it right away then it's a very slow card. I'm not sure more than 1 or 2 makes sense since you can get Bob-flooded with 4 in your deck let alone 8.
Of the decks you mention, I think Eldrazi Tron and Titanshift are by far the worst matchups. I'm surprised you think Affinity is 50/50 - I think it's closer to 70/30 in our favor. I've decided to mostly give up on Eldrazi Tron but I like Anguished Unmaking and Pithing Needle out of the board.
I don't like Leyline much since our clock isn't that fast, especially when we are down a card, and because decks you want it for all have good answers. Burn will board in Destructive Revelry for Sculler and Copter and Titanshift can Summoner's Pact for Reclamation Sage or just kill all our creatures. Storm can board in Echoing Truth and find it as they combo off. Against Storm and Titanshift my plan is to discard them into oblivion and kill them asap. Brutality is key again because it can hit Scapeshift and Gifts Ungiven.
I don't like Wrath with Sculler and Bob. It would be OK if you were siding those out but Sculler and Bob are among the best cards against CoCo. Liliana of the Veil is the first card I side out, e.g. for Collective Brutality. Wrath is a little better against Eldrazi but once again Sculler and Bob are extremely good as is Lingering Souls. I think Wrath ends up being pretty awkward in this deck.
We definitely have a different sideboard philosophy but your main is within 6 cards of mine
It might be crazy but what about 0 Shambling Vent and some number of Blinkmoth Nexus in addition to Mutavault? Your Burn matchup gets undeniably worse but then you have no tapped lands and even more cheap manlands, e.g.:
4 Mutavault
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Marsh Flats
3 Godless Shrine
1 Arid Mesa
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
Artifact
4 Smuggler's Copter
Sorcery
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
Instant
4 Path to Exile
4 Fatal Push
Planeswalker
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Collective Brutality
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Celestial Purge
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Big Game Hunter
this also makes Elspeth worse because she doesn't have Baneslayer Angel mode any more and is harder to cast.
I went 3-1 at a local event yesterday playing this:
4 Mutavault
4 Shambling Vent
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Marsh Flats
2 Godless Shrine
1 Arid Mesa
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
Artifact
4 Smuggler's Copter
Sorcery
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
Instant
4 Path to Exile
4 Fatal Push
Planeswalker
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Collective Brutality
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Celestial Purge
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Big Game Hunter
R1 BW Eldrazi, L 1-2
R2 Bogle W 2-0
R3 Affinity W 2-0
R4 Mono Red Goblins W 2-1
I'm super happy with this iteration of the deck. Most of all I think the 4 Tidehollow Sculler are great. At first I thought 3 was a good number since they aren't a great topdeck but I was wrong. Tidehollow is pretty much always good if you have a Copter in play, no matter the stage of the game, and the chances to have a Copter increase as the game goes on. It basically ensures that your Copter will both attack and survive, which is perfect.
I think it also plays the best on turn 3. There are a lot of matchups where tapping out on turn 3 for relatively anemic creatures (Souls or Splicer) is just bad. Sculler allows you to interact on turn 3 while crewing the Copter and potentially even casting another spell. It also gives you a good window to play Shambling Vent on turn 3. Vent can be pretty hard to fit into your curve since we have so many plays on the early turns.
Speaking of Shambling Vent, if it wasn't for Burn I would instantly cut the 4th Vent for another untapped land and I might do it anyway. It screws up your curve so much and I frequently find myself with multiple Vents in play and no reason to activate any of them. It mostly underscores how incredibly good Mutavault is as a painless untapped land that only costs 1 to activate.
Plays well enough with Copter too.
I agree about the Death's Shadow match and I still like the 24 land main / 23 after board on the draw plan.
I think it's a misconception that Lili makes dead draws better. Discarding to Liliana gets the absolute minimum value out of a card and that option is always available to you. In the case that your hand is so good you don't even want to plus Liliana, it's surely worse to have a dead card to discard instead. You could always plus and end up in the same spot either way. There is no additional value in having bad cards to discard, other than making your decision easier.
One thing I have to say is that I have not been impressed with Blade Splicer. I think I totally overestimated it in comparison to Lingering Souls. Spot removal on the Golem is usually quite good since the 1/1 is close to irrelevant without flying and, of course, there is no flashback. Maybe that would be different in a build with Restoration Angel but I'm still not a Resto fan.
Also - I'm boarding out Liliana against almost all the CoCo decks but Splicer isn't good there either! Flying is the key to our offense in that matchup. The CoCo decks either have Knight of the Reliquary or Kitchen Finks or both and either effectively blunts the Golem offensive.
So here's a slightly tweaked version that I will probably play tomorrow at a local tournament:
4 Mutavault
4 Shambling Vent
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Marsh Flats
2 Godless Shrine
1 Arid Mesa
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
Artifact
4 Smuggler's Copter
Sorcery
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
4 Fatal Push
Planeswalker
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
I notice you beat Titanshift without Blood Moon OR Liliana. How lucky were you? lol
I went 4-2 for 10th place but I won all 6 (!) die rolls.
R1 BR Control 2-1
R2 GW Value CoCo 0-2
R3 Grixis Death Shadow 1-2
R4 Naya Value CoCo 2-0
R5 Abzan Combo CoCo (Vizier of Remedies) 2-1
R6 UB Faeries 2-1
It sounds like a cop-out but I mostly lost to mulligans and flood in rounds 2 and 3. I also didn't play any live magic for 2 weeks so I was a tad rusty. A fine record but I want the W!
I think I could have won g1 against GW Value CoCo but I screwed up a loot with Copter. I looted into Blade Splicer with Copter in hand with Lingering Souls in the yard and 4 mana available. I could have played Copter + Souls or Splicer and I went with Splicer. Not 100% clear I would have won with the other line but I think it was a pretty obvious error.
I don't think I could have won the Death's Shadow match. I got flooded g1 and his hand was the absolute stone nuts of Scalding Tarn, Thoughtseize, Death's Shadow, Death's Shadow, Serum Visions, Fatal Push, Terminate. In g3 he had a slow start but I got flooded again. Shrug. I boarded down to 23 land in g3 as well
As a bonus I lost all my prize packs playing dice after the tournament. My dice-rolling run good came to an end.
The more I think about it, the more I don't like the Redguy Blood Moon plan. Between Wastes and Mind Stone, Eldrazi Tron can still cast its spells under Blood Moon. They can also find Wastes with Expedition Map. It definitely slows them down but it will slow you down too, for one because it costs 3 mana. Eldrazi Tron will also probably board in Ratchet Bomb against Lingering Souls, Golems, and Copter. There are already a bunch of good cards against Titanshift in BW, e.g. Liliana of the Veil, so I don't think it's worth going crazy over that matchup. That's not to mention that the manabase is considerably worse.
This deck is great right now! It has gotten amazing upgrades in the last few blocks, e.g. Shambling Vent in Battle for Zendikar, Collective Brutality in Eldritch Moon, Concealed Courtyard and Smuggler's Copter in Kaladesh, and Fatal Push in Aether Revolt. Copter really pulls it all together and makes a third color less appealing.
4 Mutavault
4 Shambling Vent
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Marsh Flats
2 Godless Shrine
1 Arid Mesa
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Plains
Creature
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Blade Splicer
4 Smuggler's Copter
Sorcery
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
Instant
4 Path to Exile
3 Fatal Push
Planeswalker
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Collective Brutality
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Fatal Push
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Celestial Purge
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Pithing Needle
I'm also on 4 Liliana 2 Splicer. After more matches comparing the two, I'm loving Lili. While flooding the board with Golems can be great, Liliana's effect is unique and powerful. For now I'm imagining Splicer as Souls 5+.
I used to have 2 Kitchen Finks over 2 Splicer and I can say the lighter color requirements are quite welcome. I want to test Burn more with Splicer over Finks but I have a feeling Splicer is only slightly worse. Finks is way better if you don't have to shock yourself to get WW though. I think those cards are really close in general. I could see playing a 1-1 split or 3-1/2-2 Splicer/Finks in a deck like Suechtler's.
@Suechtler
You are going into some crazy territory with these Redguy lists. I agree there aren't many red appealing red cards past Blood Moon and Kolaghan's Command. On your latest list - I dunno about the red but I'd like a 4 drop (Resto or Elspeth) over the last Sculler. I imagine Sculler as a back-up 2 drop / pseudo 3 drop since its best use is crewing Copter turn 3. It also doesn't play nice with Mutavault so it can make turns 2-4 a little awkward. Playing 4 is fine but I think the first 4 drop is better than the last Sculler.
I can also see how maxing on Sculler sort of fills in for Liliana since it's giving you more discard. So maybe 4 Sculler 4 Splicer 0 Liliana is genius. Then again Sculler is bad against Death's Shadow whereas Liliana is amazing. Splicer is fine there but probably worse than Kitchen Finks. So many options!
Playing 24 or 25 land doesn't change the sweet spot probability very much but it does significantly increase the chance to draw 5+ at the expense of drawing only 2. 2 land hands can still be very powerful with discard/removal and Copter/Bob and our three drops are good at stabilizing even on turns 4 and 5. That's why I usually max out at 24 but think 23 is reasonable.