Nonetheless I had fun. (I had a bye in round 4.)Match 1, 0-2 vs. Amulet Bloom: My first time playing against this deck. This deck was confusing to me. Lots of lands coming in, leaving, floating mana, etc. In game 1 he killed me on T3 before I saw any disruption. (Apparently this deck can win on T1 with a nuts draw.) In game 2 I held him off until turn 8 or 9--after mulling to 5 cards on the play--using targeted removal against his Titans. In that game I Disenchanted his Amulet on his T2 upkeep which was a big play and slowed him way down. (I also maxed out at three lands
). I didn't really know when to use Fulminator Mage, but after the game he advised me to kill any regular land he had if I ever saw that the other lands were only Karoo lands, b/c it also slows the deck way down. The way I used it was I killed a Slayers' Stronghold to slow him down late game and prevent haste on Primetime to hope to draw more removal. Or a land. Which I didn't get. Sided in: 2 Disenchant, 3 Fulminator Mage, Sided out: 3 Pack Rat, and 2 something else I forget.Match 2, 1-1-1 vs. Izzet Control: G1 went long but he took it. His Blood Moon didn't help him because I had two Swamps and two Plains in play. in G2 I mulled to 5 but won riding Kor Firewalker and Lili the whole game. G3 went to turns and drew, but I might have won with more time, because he was top decking against another Firewalker. Sided out: 5 targeted removal. Sided in: 3 Kor Firewalker and 2 Relic of Progenitus, which did not show up in hand. (Nor did Jötun Grunt. I never see that guy when I need him.)
Match 3, 1-2 vs. Burn: I've played this fella several times now and we both know what the other is up to (or so I thought). G1 was an easy win for him as expected. G2 I IoK'ed his Path to Exile on T1 to make space for my Firewalker. I ended up getting two Firewalkers out against him... which meant that I won. In G3 he sided in his own three Kor Firewalkers, and saw all three during the game! He was so proud to be gaining life from his own spells. I mulled to 4 on the draw in this game (!) and held with 2 Path (both of which killed early Firewalkers from him), 1 Marsh Flats, and 1 something else. In this game I actually got him down to 1 life before he topdecked the final burn spell to finish me off. This was one of the best matches of MtG I have ever played and was a lot of fun. Sided out: my 3 non-Path targeted removal and 3 Pack Rat for 3 Kor Firewalker and 3 Fulminator Mage. Firewalker was key but Fulmie did not appear in hand, and if it had I might have kept him off his own Firewalkers, which ended up winning the game for him.
Kor Firewalker was huge for me tonight. Leyline of Sanctity would not have put pressure on in the same way. Twice I used Ghost Quarter on my own land to do away with Spreading Seas, after first tapping and floating the mana. That worked well as mana fixing actually despite the tempo loss, though both times I was on the play in that game. Tonight I had some bad luck with draws again, but I am starting to think that the Achilles' Heel of this deck is consistency. When the hand and draws come together it works great and is a lot of fun, but I am not having consistent games where I feel like my deck is doing what it is supposed to. (On the other hand, I make mistakes in just about every match.)
I will be paying some intense attention to the sideboard to develop my best options for a meta in which I feel like I might see literally any Tier 1 or Tier 2 deck that is currently in play. I'd love to get some advice and dialog going about sideboarding.
(I also got a tip from the Burn player about watching youtube match videos at 1.5x speed, which sounds like a good way to get a feel for how the other decks play and what works against them, while minimizing time spent. Apparently you can still hear and understand dialog at this speed.)
As always, many thanks to the board for the encouragement and advice.
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On an unrelated note I've been testing 1x infernal tutor and man this card is the real deal. I also love that it effectively gives me "2 copies" of my singleton main deck maelstrom pulse. The only games where infernal tutor has been iffy is when i get it in my opener along with 2 tezz in my first 9 cards. Also I've had lines in testing where whirr for talisman of dominance was an option that made sense so I've been liking having it around. I'm back up to 4 mox, no reason not to play something so broken even if sometimes it's just a lotus petal.
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It's card disadvantage because unless it blanks at least 1 card in your opponents had (no way to tell) you just start the game with 6 cards because your 7th is a 4 mana do nothing enchantment. It's not proactive or synergistic.
I just looked at decks that place top 8 with this card in them. Almost every single deck was either a prison deck(synergy) or a combo deck that loses to a single discard spell(in those decks they run 4). This card neither has synergy nor are we completely useless after a single thoughtseize.
If it did anything proactive at all I'd be happier to get on board but I can't. The variance is way too swingy I want a card that increases my odds 8-12% consistently in a matchup not a card that either makes it a 100% or has no effect at all.
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Reasons I hate this card:
1. Forces you to mulligan normally keepable hands due to feeling the need to start with this in play.
2. This feels worse to draw a second copy of than petty much any card I've ever played.
3. This is pure card disadvantage in your opener (tied to #4)
4. Literally might do nothing vs a deck. Bring it in vs burn? They drew eidolon and 2 guides and a swift spear (while anecdotal, this has actually happened to me before they bolted themselves for prowess to kill me)
5. Dilutes your plan. 3 to 4 of these means less of your attack plan.
All this being said the shell may help with some of the issues but needing double white on a splash color is miserable as well and warps the mana base so hard. Play 100 side boarded games with the leylines in and record exactly what they did in every game and I feel like you'll agree it's just a trap because it's highs are very high but its lows are very very very low.
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Deck List:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hangarback Walker
3 Pack Rat
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Darkblast
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Thoughtseize
1 Victim of Night
2 Zealous Persecution
3 Godless Shrine
3 Isolated Chapel
4 Marsh Flats
3 Mutavault
2 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Pulse of the Fields
2 Rest in Peace
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Stony Silence
2 Wrath of God
Round 1
Opponent: G/R Tron
I lost the die roll here
Game 1: no one got to play magic. my opponent went T1 map T2 crack T3 Karn T4 Ugin I kept a hand with double path and no turn 1 discard. I was hoping he was on wurmcoils after the turn 1 map but I was wrong.
Game 2: We both mulligan and I took his sylvan scrying on turn 1 with inquisition. He had 2 mines on turn 2 then on turn 3 his third land was an eye of ugin. I quickly finished him off while he stumbled on lands.
Game 3: My opponent mulled to 5 and kept forest grove one of his eggs pyroclasm O-stone. he Clasm'd my turn 2 bob as expected and I followed up with lingering souls then a flashbacked souls. He had his o-stone on board with only 4 lands and 1 card in hand that I knew was a wurmcoil engine. I made an awful misplay here by casting liliana to make him discard it instead of allowing the engine to come down with 2 paths in hand. Obviously he top decked a land to punish me and cracked his o-stone killing 4 spirits and a liliana leaving me with path path zealous persecution in hand. I ended up losing the game due to not finding another threat until he already had a karn in play and he followed it with a spaghetti monster. ending hand was like double persecution double path
Loss
Round 2 0-1-0
Opponent: Monowhite Prison
I won the die roll.
Game 1: Dear lord was this a game...This game lasted around 35 minutes and quite frankly I should have scooped a lot sooner than I did but I couldn't remember if liliana's ultimate was targeted or not. My opponent started the game with a leyline in play, luckily I didn't end up having any discard in my opener. I cast an early threat (I think packrat) and he cast suppression field so I got to hit him for 1... He followed up the next turn with runed halo naming pack rat and after that ghostly prison.In all honesty I should have scooped here as I had an active dark confidant and even if I could have survived the prison I would have lost to decking first. He eventually got to the point where he had 2 sigil of the empty throne out and was making more angels per turn than my persecutor + sorin emblem could abyss.
Game 2: I went super aggro here and had a disenchant in my opening hand. I got him to 6 life. he had only cast rest in peace because I took his opening hand suppression field with an inquisition. He stabalized with ghostly prison and a sphere of safety and I finally hit enough land drops to get 1 of my rats through that just happened to be a 6/6 with his next card being a second sphere of safety.
Game 3: We played the first 2 turns of the game and then it was over. He played a runed halo naming packrat then I cast a dark confidant and the game was over.
Draw
Round 3 0-1-1
Opponent: Grixis Control
I loveeeeeeeeeeeeee playing this matchup because I get to watch the absolutely disgusting plays that happen from snapcaster + Kcommand but I also have these insane card advantage engines called Lingering souls and watching them slog through all these tokens is also quite fun.
I lost the die roll here
Game 1: I believe I mulliganed to 5 this game having either double colorless or no lands in all of my mulligans. I started off with an inquisition to see his hand of bolt bolt angler snap kcommand + 1 land. I took the snap caster as I only had 1 removal spell in hand. The second turn I played a bob into his bolt and I started to make a bit of a game out of things however we were trading removal for threats and he just hand enough burn to kill me.
Game 2: I don't really remember much about this game except he mulliganed to 5 and I started with an inquisition into liliana. I drew 2 sets of lingering souls and a persecution and the clock was fast enough that I just killed him as he was bolting spirits just to stay alive.
Game 3: This game was a lot closer but I ended up drawing 3 of my 4 souls + dark blast and it was just too much for him to overcome at one point I cast inquisition and it forced him to bolt a spirit and terminate another.
I guess the moral here is when you're playing against grixis the best plan is to just draw all of your lingering souls.
Final standings: 5th place(tied with 3rd and 4th) 1-1-1
Notes about my list:
Hangarback walker
This was both better and worse than I expected. In the matchups where you want stony silence he's a bit of a nonbo and you should probably board him out(I'm not positive yet though) however hangarback for x=2 is still pretty decent against most decks and will give you 3 blockers to buy time. Also sometimes you just don't draw a stony silence. The pluses this card has over tidehallow scullers are 2 obvious ones for me, Firstly you lose 0 life when revealing it to dark confidant, and secondly I was never afraid to attack with it just because there was a blocker where as sculler would often be giving them back a card that I still might not have an answer for. Against grixis/jund Kcommand is a house against the thopter generator. there was a few times where I got kcommanded killing bob and hangarback then snapcaster -> k command return a snap from the yard kill your thopter. If you can manage to get another thopter out of the deal you're not too far behind as you can still trade off for the 2/1 snapcaster. In other matches like I said it was just there to buy time and was a great top deck at turn 14 (much like packrat) and just aids in the direction the deck wants to go. One thing to keep note of was I never really got a chance to get a HUGE hangarback. It just never ever ever happened. He draws removal a lot which is good for your bobs. This card is somewhat like a combination of packrat (for inevitability and lingering souls in terms of bodies) I will continue trying this card in the next few tournaments.
Abyssal Persecutor
Wow what a magic card. I had played it in standard where I felt it was lack luster because of the ubiquity of Baneslayer Angel and I always thought his casting cost and drawback were too great to justify playing in modern but this deck is the deck for him. One of the biggest problems deadguy ale has had since I started playing it was all of our threats were so small even though we had great removal card advantage eventually we start topdecking with our opponents and lingering souls become goyf fogs. Sometime even rat is too slow to take the game over when we stabalize. This card is a stop sign. It's the king of modern. The only commonly played removal spell that can kill him is path but we already tax the paths with our 2 drops that they want to kill on turn 1 etc. But in all seriousness this guy stabalized multiple games for me and the combination of this into vault or sorin for me was an insane combination that makes racing unbelievably difficult. I don't think I'll ever play this deck without him unless the next set has a 7/7 for 4 with flying and trample with the same draw back.
Go for the Throat
This card seemed so average but I thought it was the better choice over victim as it could kill gurmag anglers and the casting cost is easier. I think it's fine but I can definitely see myself wanting to kill my hangarback in response to a path and having this in my hand and being sad plus it's a blank against affinity. I think we have a strong matchup against affinity so that doesn't REALLY matter.
Zealous Persecution I'm not totally convinced this card is the nuts but it might very well be. I didn't get to play any matchups where it was a sweeper. Usually I just used it as an anthem when attacking to shorten my clock a turn. The original idea was to make a big hangarback then get it killed then have a persecution later to finish off the game and that just never came about.
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@TrappedUnderIce what are you still casting that requires double white? I've consciously been cutting down on double white cards just to aid consistency and when I get damnations over wraths I will have only 3 copies of pulse of the fields with ww casting cost(burn is very prevalent here)
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