I haven't played the deck in a while (you can see the list is from February), but I think it's still a solid choice. If I were to pick up the deck again today, I'd probably try a Crib Swap over something because there's just so many Tasigurs and stuff running around locally.
Mortuary Mire is pretty interesting, and while I'm not sure it has a place in this list, it opens up lots of new options for Loam decks as an archetype in Modern. Creatures like Courser of Kruphix are much more appealing when you can dredge into them! It's also possible that the card's power level just isn't high enough, but it's definitely worth exploring.
I recently decided to build Food Chain on MTGO after playing a proxied version I had for a while against friends. The proxied paper version was the Genesis Hydra/Dig Through Time build, and when I made the jump to MTGO I decided to build the Shardless Agent/Fierce Empath version because regularly generating enough mana to Genesis Hydra for your whole deck would simply take too long within the constraints of the client.
After playing quite a few games with both versions, I 100% agree that the Shardless Agent/Fierce Empath version is much much better. Shardless Agent just feels way too powerful in the deck not to be playing, and Fierce Empath being able to search up Tombstalker when you haven't assembled the combo is MILES better than casting a Genesis Hydra for 2-4. Decks like Shardless BUG and BUG Delver can have a lot of trouble dealing with Tombstalker, especially when it has an Empath to protect it from Liliana of the Veil. It makes racing very easy with a Griffin or two, and overall is a much stronger backup plan than what Hydra provides. I haven't tried Tasigur, the Golden Fang yet, but I really like the flying and immunity to Karakas provided by Tombstalker. I could potentially try running both, but I'm not sure where I would fit it.
I played my first daily event with the deck tonight, and went 3-1. I played against:
I've been playing in various 2 mans and stuff, but this was my first actual event. The deck felt super solid, although I kind of want to add a 21st land or a 5th mana dork because the easiest way for me to lose in fair matchups is to get bottlenecked with mana denial.
One of the basics should be a Misty Rainforest, but I haven't picked one up yet. The sideboard is almost certainly wrong, as it was based on a combination of a bunch of different lists and what I happened to have.
Impressed: Thoughtseize: Our combo matchup isn't great, so obviously this was fantastic. Relic of Progenitus: I really really like this card against Shardless BUG and BUG Delver, as it pulls some pretty awesome double duty. It obviously hinders their Tarmogoyfs and Deathrites, but it also has the hidden mode of going super grindy mode by recurring Griffins repeatedly when you don't have the combo. Abrupt Decay: Some matchups you want the fourth. Engineered Plague: Definitely relevant in enough matchups between Thopter/Sword, Elves, Goblins, and Monastery Mentor (who has been growing in popularity recently).
Not Particularly Impressed: Obstinate Baloth: I wasn't crazy about this card. Even if you manage to "get" your BUG opponent when they plus Liliana, it still just gets outclassed by Tarmogoyf anyway. Thorn of Amethyst: While sweet against jank like Belcher, it also slows me down quite a bit as I try to dig for more disruption. Storm can generally answer it, and I can't play through it enough to bring it in against cantrip-heavy fair decks (where my mana is under attack anyways). If I played an extra land/dork, I might be more interested.
The rest were all fine role-players that I brought in every now and then.
Some cards I want to try:
Disfigure: Cheap interaction is sweet, especially against Delver decks where I want to lower my curve down a little in the face of their mana denial. Carpet of Flowers: This card seems sweet. We generate enough value where we will usually have an outlet to use this on, and the decks where our mana is being restricted are generally blue as well! Would definitely want the Tasigur if I were boarding this. Misty Rainforest: I really like being able to be flexible with my land count between games. This might be a better solution than adding it to the main, as then I can bring it in against faster disruptive decks and/or on the play, while leaving it out against slow decks where drawing gas is more essential or my dorks are more likely to live.
What do other people generally end up boarding out? I usually look at Baleful Strix/Abrupt Decay against unfair decks that don't care about them, Force of Will against grindy fair decks, and in general also look at the 2nd Ponder and 2nd Fierce Empath (and potentially one of the targets as well) when I can't find other cuts.
I've been playing with a Vengeful Pharaoh in my board for a long time (I played with one in a Dredgevine variant for a long time, so I thought I would try it here) and I like it a lot. It makes combat kind of a headache for your opponent, and I've even won a few games by choosing to draw it after using its ability and then casting it, which is reasonable to do in this deck in later turns.
Yeah I remember hearing a few people suggesting it a while ago, and I think in a format where large, expensive creatures like Tasigur and Siege Rhino are very common and graveyard hate is not, it seems like a good time to try it out.
So guys I have a question. I'm rounding out my sideboard and I am looking for some advice. My maindeck is the same aside from -1 Godless Shrine -1 Nameless Inversion +1 Bojuka Bog +1 Crib Swap "testing both". My sideboard is currently
X3 Leyline of Sanctity
X2 Leyline of the Void
X1 Damnation
X1 Darkblast
X1 Abrupt Decay
X1 Tectonic Edge
X1 Ghost Quarter
X3 Stony Silence
X2 Maelstrom Pulse
My question is with Twin being the most prevalent deck at the moment I definitely wana find room for Torpor Orb but not sure how I feel about a x1 of of it... Has a single Orb proven to be enough or should I try and squeeze in 2? Also any suggestions on what to cut for it? For just one Ide most likely cut a Stony Silence but idk what's appropriate to cut for a second "if necessary". Thanks guys!!!
I really like having the one of Torpor Orb in the board. I honestly don't think I would even want more than one against Twin anyway. The first Torpor Orb is usually marginally better than the first Abrupt Decay, but obviously any multiples are dead. Plenty of Twin players don't even leave the combo in game 2 (obviously depends on the player), and it usually devolves into more fights around Blood Moon and graveyard hate than the combo itself. However, the fact that Torpor Orb turns off a lot of the utility of their creatures makes it pretty worthwhile even when they remove some or all of the combo. I do really like having the first copy though, as while you really don't need it, it's a nice insurance policy that lets you confidently spend all your mana attacking their hand and lands rather than having to waste it holding up Abrupt Decay.
How often do you find yourself running into matchups where you want Leyline of the Void? If you're willing to concede the Living End matchup, that could be an easy cut. I think the hype around GGT's unbanning died out a while ago, but your meta could be drastically different than mine.
I really really like having 3 copies of Stony Silence. It can seem excessive at times, but it makes me feel much more confident in the Tron matchups (GR or Mono U), in addition to being obviously insane against Affinity. I've been having a lot more success against Tron recently, and I think at least part of that is due to this change.
How long have you been playing with Crib Swap? I think the meta has shifted to a place where it's a much more reasonable inclusion, and I'm interested to hear how it's been going. I've been playing a copy of Maelstrom Pulse over of the third Nameless Inversion and it's felt fine.
Unrelated, but I think I'm going to try to sneak a Vengeful Pharaoh into my board and see how it goes. I do really like generating value (even if that value is just preventing attacks) without having to spend mana on it. Also, I feel a lot more comfortable boarding in graveyard-reliant cards since graveyard hate is at an all-time low.
I had been seeing a lot of Tron and Affinity online, so I upped the Stony Silence count to 3. I liked having access to that many. Now that I'm starting to experience the new Junk matchup, I'm still not sure how I feel about it or how to board for it. Random spirit tokens make our edicts pretty bad, and Siege Rhino obviously puts a lot of pressure on very fast. Maelstrom Pulse and Damnation are definitely our two best cards in the matchup, as they can either take out all of the opposing spirit tokens at once, while also hitting Rhino. I definitely made the mistake of playing a Knight over a Lingering Souls on turn 3 and letting my opponent get value off their Liliana for no reason at least once. What are other people's sideboard plans against this deck?
The Grixis Delver deck with Tasigur seems to be picking up in popularity quite a bit, and it seems to be a pretty reasonable matchup. Haven't played against it enough to have a strong opinion about it though.
EDIT: Managed to catch the 7:00 one too, and went 3-1 again. played against:
Played in local weekly tournament tonight. Went 0-2-2 lol. Same list as I ran for the GPT since I haven't had a chance to really make any changes.
Rnd 1: I decided to name this deck Bant-er the Battlefield. Snapcaster, Flickerwisp, Voice, Restoration Angel, Obstinate Baloth, Wall of Omens, and a UW control shell around those. Went to time after a really back and forth game 1 that he won. G2 was much more firmly in my control, Torpor Orbs messed his tempo up a lot and he had to use Krosan Grips on them, but it was still a grindfest.
Rnd 2: Burn. 0-2. Didn't get a Leyline or Courser game 2. I was at 12 with a Knight of the Reliquary in play. Ended up taking damage to cast a second one because at the time my hand was dead against anything he had on the board, and I figured my only out would be to draw a land, activate a Knight to tutor for Vault and attack with the other one for lifelink. Instead he hit me for 9 at my end step and Bolt in his upkeep.
Rnd 3: Mono green aggro. This one was surprisingly hard post board. Dryad Militant caused a lot of problems that resulted in me having to burn spells to get her off the table before being able to cast my Dredgers, so the tempo loss hurt. I ended up being stuck dredging and recasting Stinkweed Imp due to a Grafdigger's Cage shutting off the rest of my graveyard, and dredged my Damnation's. Not sure if I was on the right path since he only had 2 creatures in play, or if dredging for the Imp was the right move. Rancor ended up being what did me in.
Rnd 3: Soul Sisters. Game 1 was over very fast. Game 2 I couldn't get enough removal and he was able to keep recurring his creatures from the yard. Eventually he got double Archangel's in play and attack for 2 points over what I was able to gain with the Vault. Game 2 ended right at the end of the round.
Going forward I'm going to add a 3rd Leyline to the sideboard and probably adding another Damnation as well. Leyline of the Void is going to come out for now, and I might cut the Raven's Crime for another Decay or Maelstrom Pulse.
Sorry to hear about your results so far. You seem to be running into at least your share of bad matchups
I completely overlooked your list not running any Damnation in the board. Having access to more copies of that card is pretty gamebreaking in a LOT of matchups. I think 3-4 in the 75 is definitely correct, as having one in your opener allows you to build a very different gameplan against a lot of common decks, and one that our deck is very well equipped to execute. Four feels like a lot, but in some metas it can be awesome.
I'm interested in other people's thoughts about Leyline of the Void as well. I will probably start with 2, but we'll see where I end up.
Now that MTGO finally has its banlist updated, I will be starting to play Daily Events again, and I will keep you guys posted with how that goes. (I might be a little rusty as well)
Is Leyline of Sanctity a necessary evil? I guess its only for the burn matchup. Isnt it win-able otherwise besides getting lucky with creatures and archangels vault and nuking his only land with pox?
It is 100% for the burn matchup, but it is also randomly good against a few less common decks as well.
8 Rack basically folds to it. This is already a very good matchup, but it is possible to lose in games 2 and 3 when they have access to Surgical Extraction.
It is very good against any deck relying on Gifts Ungiven. This is pretty significant because an Iona naming black is generally lights out for us.
It shuts off the Scapeshift combo. This is somewhat relevant, as games 2 and 3 against Scapeshift rarely are about the combo anyway, and are more about trying not to get blown out by Obstinate Baloth or graveyard hate. Plus, the fact that they can simply bounce it with Cryptic Command EOT and win anyway means I rarely bring in more than ~2 copies.
Against Jund (with red), I used to like bringing in a few copies. It shutting off their Thoughtseizes and Liliana of the Veil is somewhat relevant, and not really worth the card slot. However, it also prevents them from sending Lightning Bolts at our Lilianas, and most importantly, shuts off Jund Charm/Rakdos Charm, which that particular flavor of BGx sometimes relies on for non-Scooze graveyard hate. This isn't super relevant anymore with Junk being a pretty clear best BGx variant, but it is something to think about.
It's okay against Storm. It shuts off one of their combo angles, but they generally play Echoing Truth anyway, so it's just a matter of digging to that card or just using Empty the Warrens. The one thing it does do, however, is force them to truly go off rather than just cobble together a kill with some Lightning Bolts and Grapeshots for ~5, which is usually their easiest option when being attacked by Raven's Crime.
The burn matchup is very tough without it, and common enough where it's hard to just ignore it.
It's been brought up multiple times already since its unbanning, I suggest you read the last page or two where several people have described why it is not great choice for this deck.
This leave my with one spot to fill. I may even go as far as doing something as silly as putting Siege Rhino in that slot. There is one more store I just found out about nearby that supposedly has a huge collection of singles, so tonight I'll check there. I haven't played at this shop for Modern before, so going in blind I expect to see Dredgevine, Tron, Twin, and Storm. I'm sure there'll be some number of Junk Midrange as well. I'm hedging a little heavier towards Twin, Tron, and Dredge decks I think.
If you see anything glaring (besides fetchland distribution. Catacombs seem to be harder and harder to come by locally) let me know.
Seems pretty good, other people have already weighed in about the 4th Raven's Crime, and my thoughts are that it's probably fine either way. If you expect a lot of combo and/or control, then I wouldn't fault you for running a 4th.
I'm curious to hear how it goes with the extra colorless source. It's obviously better in the Tron matchup (which makes sense if you expect to see a lot of it), but I wonder how much it will impact you casting your spells on time.
The rest all looks pretty stock, I think cutting the 4th Abrupt Decay from the sideboard is probably okay seeing as how it got worse against BGx as it doesn't deal with the Rhino.
Ok, I keep saying I'm going to post a bunch of stuff and get sidetracked, and now I feel like I owe you guys. I'm here to deliver. Brace yourselves.
...
I'll end it here. But looking forward to playing more!
And deliver you did!
That's some pretty awesome work, and I have tons of comments/questions about some of your findings and choices. Sorry it took me a little bit to actually get the time to put some of my thoughts in a post.
Junk Matchup
That's awesome to hear how much success you had against the deck, and the list you were testing against seems like a pretty stock list that I would expect. The threat count might be a little higher than I would have thought, but other than that the list seems about right.
I have always liked Raven's Crime against this deck, as it really is one of the biggest enablers of us completely outgrinding them. We do a good job of mostly blanking their removal early, but we give it lots of targets when we turn the corner and go on the offensive. Emptying their hand between those two stages ensures that their removal is as ineffective as possible throughout the entire game, and it lets us close out games much faster and more safely.
I agree that Scavenging Ooze isn't that scary in this matchup, it was mostly scary coming from Pod as they could tutor it up at the correct time and recur it, while BGx is forced into just kind of playing it as a dude, often when we have a good way to deal with it. Also the fact that they don't have mana dorks and Kitchen Finks to protect it from edict effects means it is much easier for us to get rid of it.
I definitely agree about trading spirit tokens. Keeping the board clear is a big deal for our edicts which are generally very good against BGx.
Most local BGx players who are used to playing against this deck generally just use Liliana as an expensive edict, and just play her, -2, then leave her. It is pretty awesome how bad she is against us, especially when opponents do use her +1 and we get to discard something like Haakon or Stinkweed Imp.
Other Thoughts
I think cutting down to 2 Nameless Inversion is probably fine. The most common matchup where I wanted to race to find Haakon/Inversion was easily Pod, and now that it's gone, there aren't THAT many matchups where I can have trouble winning without assembling it. The combo is still very good, but there are less situations where it is a necessity. The fact that it grows opposing Tarmogoyfs too can also sometimes be a liability.
I've found that Smallpox is consistently my best card against BGx. I think the main thing holding me back from wanting to play 4 was the fact that it was pretty miserable against Pod. The only time it was really worth casting was turn 2 on the play (where it was very good), but at any other time it was nearly always uncastable. Now that Pod is gone, I think its stock has gone up quite a bit.
Sideboarding
The first thing I noticed that I'm not sure I agree with is how highly you value Smallpox against Affinity. While I think it's fine on the play, at least on the draw I've found that it's actually usually just terrible. The fact that they have manlands to protect their high-value threats means that it rarely hits what you want past turn 2-3 (unless you have had access to a Darkblast all game), and it just sets you a turn back from actually stabilizing with a Damnation. I usually find myself keeping 2-3 on the play, and 0-1 on the draw.
You mentioned that you decided not to cut the Raven's Crimes against Junk, how does your sideboard plan change now? All of our cards in the maindeck are generally already pretty awesome against this deck (minus maybe Darkblast), and so I find myself changing my plan pretty frequently. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are about it now.
I've found that I like going to 26-27 lands postboard against GR Tron. I'm not a huge fan of Haakon in this matchup, as once you can get them under Ghost Quarter/Loam lock it really doesn't matter what you win with. A couple spirit tokens do just fine. The fact that so many of your lands are being played mostly to be sacrificed means that I would rather err on the side of running too many, and any extras end up being Raven's Crime fodder anyway.
Post-ban, I'm not sure I agree with your Scapeshift plan anymore. With Junk expected to be top dog, I imagine Scapeshift will go back to running quite a few copies of Obstinate Baloth. I think this card is such a huge component of postboard games that I like trying to leave in as many copies of things that can deal with it as I reasonably can. Loam+Tec Edge usually does a good enough job at shutting down their combo, that I think it makes sense to focus on the only ways you reliably CAN lose. Also things like Inferno Titan and Batterskull will probably be more popular as well. This is why I generally like things like Maelstrom Pulse, Stinkweed Imp, and Damnation in this matchup.
How often do you find the extra life from Courser or Rhino actually forces your Scapeshift opponent to go off on 8 lands?
Well I spent all day scrambling to pick up the last pieces I was missing to finally be fully un-proxied for a GPT this weekend. And I'm one Haakon short. Unless somebody near Fresno/Lemoore, Ca area has one they just reeeeeeeally wanna loan me? Lol. I might see if I can make this at least 'not' terrible with 2 Haakon's. Either way I'm still playing this weekend to celebrate the absence of Pod and Treasure Cruise, I'll let you guys know how it goes.
That's awesome I'm excited to hear how it goes! Sadly I live on the other side of the country so I can't give you one of the 20+ Haakons I've been collecting... I'm sure 2 Haakons will probably work fine. Can you post the list you will be playing?
1) Affinity is going to come back in a major way, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the top deck with no contention
1b) This is annoying because no/less Delver and no Pod makes Darkblast probably less important, but Affinity almost certainly coming back into the forefront makes it more important -- so it becomes a question of how much. I had upped my maindeck count to 3 with the 4th in the side, and I think I will maintain that under the assumption that there will be tons of affinity, until proven otherwise. Not to mention if people start to play other creature decks (Zoo, Junk) in the absence of Pod, Darkblast may be good still, depending on the creature choices. ...Probably not great against those decks, though.
2) Junk is going to be a big deck. I definitely think the thing holding this deck back was Pod, and now it's going to be the deck to try to compete with Affinity. Before, the BGx decks were all over the place. Jund, Junk, straight BG with Tec Edge, etc. Now, with Rhino, I think we'll see this archetype converge into only Junk.
3) Side note about Rhino, when I was cutting down my sideboard cards, 2 of the 3 last cards to be cut were Siege Rhino. With the metagame obviously shifting, I would not be surprised be able to fit these into my sideboard, now. I saw them being useful against both Burn and Scapeshift, though I wanted to test the sideboarded burn matchup to see how much my sideboarding plan actually mattered to see if it was worth even bothering. I think it might be (especially with burn losing Cruise), but that's a conversation for another post when I go into more detail about sideboard discussion.
I agree about Affinity and Junk probably being the top dogs in the new meta.
The other obvious decks that will be good are resilient combo decks such as Splinter Twin and Scapeshift, and probably UWr Control as well. It helps that all of these decks let ex-Delver players use their fancy UR manabases.
I'm sure GR Tron will be popular to try and prey on the Junk decks (and maybe try out Ugin), but Affinity, Splinter Twin, and Scapeshift have always been pretty mediocre matchups for that deck, and look to be a reasonable portion of the metagame.
I could definitely see some creature strategies such as Zoo and GW Hatebears picking up a little bit, as previously there wasn't much reason to play them over Pod.
There will always be burn.
Something worth noting, all these decks I have listed we have at least a reasonable matchup against, and most (excluding Tron and Burn) I would actually consider favorable. I'm not entirely sure how the Junk matchup will be, and I don't know entirely what the lists will look like. I imagine they will be moving back towards Dark Confidant/Lingering Souls/Liliana of the Veil, and hopefully once the GGT hype dies down, they will be looking to trim Scavenging Oozes to make room for it all.
Any thoughts on making the deck more dredge-heavy? Golgari Grave-Troll is unbanned now, which gives the option for a 6-dredger. Not that he would have much of a role in this plan (not running too many creatures) but he can get thru the deck faster for setting up much of the effects in here. Then again, Stinkweed Imp makes a good case for owning that spot anyway. Might even have the option of visiting an Unburial Rites / huge creature combo.
At a glance, I can't see a way that you get a benefit from running GGT. The Dredge 6 is nice, as is his regenerate. Stinkweed Imp is as good as he is in this deck because of the Deathtouch. There are definitely places in Modern for GGT aside from the obvious choice of Dredgevine, but I don't think Haak-Loam is where I'd start with him.
This.
I've said multiple times in the past that if GGT was unbanned, I wouldn't play it. My opinion hasn't changed. Dredge 6 isn't enough more than Dredge 5 to give up being able to cast it, especially when Stinkweed Imp does such a good job at walling opposing Tarmogoyfs and similar.
Knobobo actually addressed this a few posts up, and I agree that we really can't afford to have any more uncastable cards without making the deck too clunky. Haakon can already be very awkward without a discard outlet, and having more of that is not at all the direction I want to go.
I've messed around with running a reanimator package in similar decks, and you can't run both Unburial Rites and Haakon in this style of deck. They fulfill the same purpose, and if you start putting in too many finishers, you never live to cast them. I much prefer the Haakon approach (obviously ) because it takes up much less slots in the deck for cards that aren't great on their own, while the rest of the package (Knight of the Reliquary and Nameless Inversion) are reasonable-good on their own.
So are there any changes you would make right on the spot if you take the List in the primer as last played list?
The list in the primer is definitely where I would start. The only immediate change I would make is to drop the Damping Matrix in the sideboard for something else (Leyline of Sanctity?) as that card was solely for the Pod matchup
As soon as the announcement showed up, I immediately said to myself "Now I can finish building this deck and get rid of my proxies." Super excited that we get your baby back!
Yeah I'm super excited too! I was getting pretty frustrated with trying to make the deck work post-Khans, and I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I would have to start looking for a new deck if there weren't significant bannings in the update.
Also I would imagine Affinity stands to gain quite a bit from these bannings too.
That was me!
I haven't played the deck in a while (you can see the list is from February), but I think it's still a solid choice. If I were to pick up the deck again today, I'd probably try a Crib Swap over something because there's just so many Tasigurs and stuff running around locally.
Mortuary Mire is pretty interesting, and while I'm not sure it has a place in this list, it opens up lots of new options for Loam decks as an archetype in Modern. Creatures like Courser of Kruphix are much more appealing when you can dredge into them! It's also possible that the card's power level just isn't high enough, but it's definitely worth exploring.
After playing quite a few games with both versions, I 100% agree that the Shardless Agent/Fierce Empath version is much much better. Shardless Agent just feels way too powerful in the deck not to be playing, and Fierce Empath being able to search up Tombstalker when you haven't assembled the combo is MILES better than casting a Genesis Hydra for 2-4. Decks like Shardless BUG and BUG Delver can have a lot of trouble dealing with Tombstalker, especially when it has an Empath to protect it from Liliana of the Veil. It makes racing very easy with a Griffin or two, and overall is a much stronger backup plan than what Hydra provides. I haven't tried Tasigur, the Golden Fang yet, but I really like the flying and immunity to Karakas provided by Tombstalker. I could potentially try running both, but I'm not sure where I would fit it.
I played my first daily event with the deck tonight, and went 3-1. I played against:
Jund NicShift (2-1)
BUG Delver (2-1)
Grixis Midrange (1-2)
Legend Miracles (2-1)
I've been playing in various 2 mans and stuff, but this was my first actual event. The deck felt super solid, although I kind of want to add a 21st land or a 5th mana dork because the easiest way for me to lose in fair matchups is to get bottlenecked with mana denial.
I have been playing the following list:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Fierce Empath
1 Vela the Night-Clad
1 Tombstalker
Instants (11):
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
Sorceries (5):
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Ponder
4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library
Lands (20):
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
2 Engineered Plague
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
One of the basics should be a Misty Rainforest, but I haven't picked one up yet. The sideboard is almost certainly wrong, as it was based on a combination of a bunch of different lists and what I happened to have.
Impressed:
Thoughtseize: Our combo matchup isn't great, so obviously this was fantastic.
Relic of Progenitus: I really really like this card against Shardless BUG and BUG Delver, as it pulls some pretty awesome double duty. It obviously hinders their Tarmogoyfs and Deathrites, but it also has the hidden mode of going super grindy mode by recurring Griffins repeatedly when you don't have the combo.
Abrupt Decay: Some matchups you want the fourth.
Engineered Plague: Definitely relevant in enough matchups between Thopter/Sword, Elves, Goblins, and Monastery Mentor (who has been growing in popularity recently).
Not Particularly Impressed:
Obstinate Baloth: I wasn't crazy about this card. Even if you manage to "get" your BUG opponent when they plus Liliana, it still just gets outclassed by Tarmogoyf anyway.
Thorn of Amethyst: While sweet against jank like Belcher, it also slows me down quite a bit as I try to dig for more disruption. Storm can generally answer it, and I can't play through it enough to bring it in against cantrip-heavy fair decks (where my mana is under attack anyways). If I played an extra land/dork, I might be more interested.
The rest were all fine role-players that I brought in every now and then.
Some cards I want to try:
Disfigure: Cheap interaction is sweet, especially against Delver decks where I want to lower my curve down a little in the face of their mana denial.
Carpet of Flowers: This card seems sweet. We generate enough value where we will usually have an outlet to use this on, and the decks where our mana is being restricted are generally blue as well! Would definitely want the Tasigur if I were boarding this.
Misty Rainforest: I really like being able to be flexible with my land count between games. This might be a better solution than adding it to the main, as then I can bring it in against faster disruptive decks and/or on the play, while leaving it out against slow decks where drawing gas is more essential or my dorks are more likely to live.
What do other people generally end up boarding out? I usually look at Baleful Strix/Abrupt Decay against unfair decks that don't care about them, Force of Will against grindy fair decks, and in general also look at the 2nd Ponder and 2nd Fierce Empath (and potentially one of the targets as well) when I can't find other cuts.
Yeah I remember hearing a few people suggesting it a while ago, and I think in a format where large, expensive creatures like Tasigur and Siege Rhino are very common and graveyard hate is not, it seems like a good time to try it out.
At least in theory.
I really like having the one of Torpor Orb in the board. I honestly don't think I would even want more than one against Twin anyway. The first Torpor Orb is usually marginally better than the first Abrupt Decay, but obviously any multiples are dead. Plenty of Twin players don't even leave the combo in game 2 (obviously depends on the player), and it usually devolves into more fights around Blood Moon and graveyard hate than the combo itself. However, the fact that Torpor Orb turns off a lot of the utility of their creatures makes it pretty worthwhile even when they remove some or all of the combo. I do really like having the first copy though, as while you really don't need it, it's a nice insurance policy that lets you confidently spend all your mana attacking their hand and lands rather than having to waste it holding up Abrupt Decay.
How often do you find yourself running into matchups where you want Leyline of the Void? If you're willing to concede the Living End matchup, that could be an easy cut. I think the hype around GGT's unbanning died out a while ago, but your meta could be drastically different than mine.
I really really like having 3 copies of Stony Silence. It can seem excessive at times, but it makes me feel much more confident in the Tron matchups (GR or Mono U), in addition to being obviously insane against Affinity. I've been having a lot more success against Tron recently, and I think at least part of that is due to this change.
How long have you been playing with Crib Swap? I think the meta has shifted to a place where it's a much more reasonable inclusion, and I'm interested to hear how it's been going. I've been playing a copy of Maelstrom Pulse over of the third Nameless Inversion and it's felt fine.
Unrelated, but I think I'm going to try to sneak a Vengeful Pharaoh into my board and see how it goes. I do really like generating value (even if that value is just preventing attacks) without having to spend mana on it. Also, I feel a lot more comfortable boarding in graveyard-reliant cards since graveyard hate is at an all-time low.
Junk (1-2)
Junk (2-1)
GR Tron (2-1)
Grixis Delver (2-0)
I played the same maindeck that is on the front page, with a few changes to the sideboard. The sideboard I played was:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Darkblast
1 Damnation
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Torpor Orb
I had been seeing a lot of Tron and Affinity online, so I upped the Stony Silence count to 3. I liked having access to that many. Now that I'm starting to experience the new Junk matchup, I'm still not sure how I feel about it or how to board for it. Random spirit tokens make our edicts pretty bad, and Siege Rhino obviously puts a lot of pressure on very fast. Maelstrom Pulse and Damnation are definitely our two best cards in the matchup, as they can either take out all of the opposing spirit tokens at once, while also hitting Rhino. I definitely made the mistake of playing a Knight over a Lingering Souls on turn 3 and letting my opponent get value off their Liliana for no reason at least once. What are other people's sideboard plans against this deck?
The Grixis Delver deck with Tasigur seems to be picking up in popularity quite a bit, and it seems to be a pretty reasonable matchup. Haven't played against it enough to have a strong opinion about it though.
EDIT: Managed to catch the 7:00 one too, and went 3-1 again. played against:
GR Tron (2-1)
Burn (1-2)
Junk (2-1)
UR Twin (2-0)
Sorry to hear about your results so far. You seem to be running into at least your share of bad matchups
I completely overlooked your list not running any Damnation in the board. Having access to more copies of that card is pretty gamebreaking in a LOT of matchups. I think 3-4 in the 75 is definitely correct, as having one in your opener allows you to build a very different gameplan against a lot of common decks, and one that our deck is very well equipped to execute. Four feels like a lot, but in some metas it can be awesome.
I'm interested in other people's thoughts about Leyline of the Void as well. I will probably start with 2, but we'll see where I end up.
Now that MTGO finally has its banlist updated, I will be starting to play Daily Events again, and I will keep you guys posted with how that goes. (I might be a little rusty as well)
It is 100% for the burn matchup, but it is also randomly good against a few less common decks as well.
- 8 Rack basically folds to it. This is already a very good matchup, but it is possible to lose in games 2 and 3 when they have access to Surgical Extraction.
- It is very good against any deck relying on Gifts Ungiven. This is pretty significant because an Iona naming black is generally lights out for us.
- It shuts off the Scapeshift combo. This is somewhat relevant, as games 2 and 3 against Scapeshift rarely are about the combo anyway, and are more about trying not to get blown out by Obstinate Baloth or graveyard hate. Plus, the fact that they can simply bounce it with Cryptic Command EOT and win anyway means I rarely bring in more than ~2 copies.
- Against Jund (with red), I used to like bringing in a few copies. It shutting off their Thoughtseizes and Liliana of the Veil is somewhat relevant, and not really worth the card slot. However, it also prevents them from sending Lightning Bolts at our Lilianas, and most importantly, shuts off Jund Charm/Rakdos Charm, which that particular flavor of BGx sometimes relies on for non-Scooze graveyard hate. This isn't super relevant anymore with Junk being a pretty clear best BGx variant, but it is something to think about.
- It's okay against Storm. It shuts off one of their combo angles, but they generally play Echoing Truth anyway, so it's just a matter of digging to that card or just using Empty the Warrens. The one thing it does do, however, is force them to truly go off rather than just cobble together a kill with some Lightning Bolts and Grapeshots for ~5, which is usually their easiest option when being attacked by Raven's Crime.
The burn matchup is very tough without it, and common enough where it's hard to just ignore it.It's been brought up multiple times already since its unbanning, I suggest you read the last page or two where several people have described why it is not great choice for this deck.
Seems pretty good, other people have already weighed in about the 4th Raven's Crime, and my thoughts are that it's probably fine either way. If you expect a lot of combo and/or control, then I wouldn't fault you for running a 4th.
I'm curious to hear how it goes with the extra colorless source. It's obviously better in the Tron matchup (which makes sense if you expect to see a lot of it), but I wonder how much it will impact you casting your spells on time.
The rest all looks pretty stock, I think cutting the 4th Abrupt Decay from the sideboard is probably okay seeing as how it got worse against BGx as it doesn't deal with the Rhino.
And deliver you did!
That's some pretty awesome work, and I have tons of comments/questions about some of your findings and choices. Sorry it took me a little bit to actually get the time to put some of my thoughts in a post.
Junk Matchup
Other Thoughts
I think cutting down to 2 Nameless Inversion is probably fine. The most common matchup where I wanted to race to find Haakon/Inversion was easily Pod, and now that it's gone, there aren't THAT many matchups where I can have trouble winning without assembling it. The combo is still very good, but there are less situations where it is a necessity. The fact that it grows opposing Tarmogoyfs too can also sometimes be a liability.
I've found that Smallpox is consistently my best card against BGx. I think the main thing holding me back from wanting to play 4 was the fact that it was pretty miserable against Pod. The only time it was really worth casting was turn 2 on the play (where it was very good), but at any other time it was nearly always uncastable. Now that Pod is gone, I think its stock has gone up quite a bit.
Sideboarding
The first thing I noticed that I'm not sure I agree with is how highly you value Smallpox against Affinity. While I think it's fine on the play, at least on the draw I've found that it's actually usually just terrible. The fact that they have manlands to protect their high-value threats means that it rarely hits what you want past turn 2-3 (unless you have had access to a Darkblast all game), and it just sets you a turn back from actually stabilizing with a Damnation. I usually find myself keeping 2-3 on the play, and 0-1 on the draw.
You mentioned that you decided not to cut the Raven's Crimes against Junk, how does your sideboard plan change now? All of our cards in the maindeck are generally already pretty awesome against this deck (minus maybe Darkblast), and so I find myself changing my plan pretty frequently. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are about it now.
I've found that I like going to 26-27 lands postboard against GR Tron. I'm not a huge fan of Haakon in this matchup, as once you can get them under Ghost Quarter/Loam lock it really doesn't matter what you win with. A couple spirit tokens do just fine. The fact that so many of your lands are being played mostly to be sacrificed means that I would rather err on the side of running too many, and any extras end up being Raven's Crime fodder anyway.
Post-ban, I'm not sure I agree with your Scapeshift plan anymore. With Junk expected to be top dog, I imagine Scapeshift will go back to running quite a few copies of Obstinate Baloth. I think this card is such a huge component of postboard games that I like trying to leave in as many copies of things that can deal with it as I reasonably can. Loam+Tec Edge usually does a good enough job at shutting down their combo, that I think it makes sense to focus on the only ways you reliably CAN lose. Also things like Inferno Titan and Batterskull will probably be more popular as well. This is why I generally like things like Maelstrom Pulse, Stinkweed Imp, and Damnation in this matchup.
How often do you find the extra life from Courser or Rhino actually forces your Scapeshift opponent to go off on 8 lands?
That's awesome I'm excited to hear how it goes! Sadly I live on the other side of the country so I can't give you one of the 20+ Haakons I've been collecting... I'm sure 2 Haakons will probably work fine. Can you post the list you will be playing?
I agree about Affinity and Junk probably being the top dogs in the new meta.
The other obvious decks that will be good are resilient combo decks such as Splinter Twin and Scapeshift, and probably UWr Control as well. It helps that all of these decks let ex-Delver players use their fancy UR manabases.
I'm sure GR Tron will be popular to try and prey on the Junk decks (and maybe try out Ugin), but Affinity, Splinter Twin, and Scapeshift have always been pretty mediocre matchups for that deck, and look to be a reasonable portion of the metagame.
I could definitely see some creature strategies such as Zoo and GW Hatebears picking up a little bit, as previously there wasn't much reason to play them over Pod.
There will always be burn.
Something worth noting, all these decks I have listed we have at least a reasonable matchup against, and most (excluding Tron and Burn) I would actually consider favorable. I'm not entirely sure how the Junk matchup will be, and I don't know entirely what the lists will look like. I imagine they will be moving back towards Dark Confidant/Lingering Souls/Liliana of the Veil, and hopefully once the GGT hype dies down, they will be looking to trim Scavenging Oozes to make room for it all.
This.
I've said multiple times in the past that if GGT was unbanned, I wouldn't play it. My opinion hasn't changed. Dredge 6 isn't enough more than Dredge 5 to give up being able to cast it, especially when Stinkweed Imp does such a good job at walling opposing Tarmogoyfs and similar.
Knobobo actually addressed this a few posts up, and I agree that we really can't afford to have any more uncastable cards without making the deck too clunky. Haakon can already be very awkward without a discard outlet, and having more of that is not at all the direction I want to go.
I've messed around with running a reanimator package in similar decks, and you can't run both Unburial Rites and Haakon in this style of deck. They fulfill the same purpose, and if you start putting in too many finishers, you never live to cast them. I much prefer the Haakon approach (obviously
The list in the primer is definitely where I would start. The only immediate change I would make is to drop the Damping Matrix in the sideboard for something else (Leyline of Sanctity?) as that card was solely for the Pod matchup
Yeah I'm super excited too! I was getting pretty frustrated with trying to make the deck work post-Khans, and I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I would have to start looking for a new deck if there weren't significant bannings in the update.
Also I would imagine Affinity stands to gain quite a bit from these bannings too.