Well.. i have to say (AGAIN) that splashing a color is not really something great for the deck, the whole strategy of the deck shakes by doing so (even with Coldsteel Heart and Fetches), it really hurts the deck a lot more than it improves it.
So far mono red is the way to go, and maybe, just maybe Red/Waste but i do not think so at the moment. You see i have said it before "the whole reason of picking up this deck is because it has a great matchup VS Aggro and a good matchup VS Eldrazi and Tron that will be at least 70% of the Meta for now, so if you take away the good things about it you will be taking away the reasons the deck is good.
So lets recap this.
Skred red Pros:
1.- bulletproof manabase
2.- the amazing super power that is starting at 20 life instead of 18 or less cause of the fetchlands
3.- the trump of an effect that is the Koth emblem
4.- and the ability to shut down some decks by a turn 2 or even a turn 1 blood moon via the simian spirit guides and yes this is way you consider playing them instead of Mind Stone, not to mention that maindeck moon also helps ( not wins by itself but helps) vs Tron and eldrazi.
5.- having a relic maindeck helps on those hard to beat matches like tarmogoyf, tasigur, living dead, snapcaster and lingering soul decks
6.- having at least 5 sweepers on your main deck plus 8 one mana removal spells is pretty awesome vs any aggro deck using creatures not to mention that if you run Boros reckoner helps too so, infect, zoo, taxes, merfolk, delver and even affinity to a degree are covered.
7.- The sb helps you nail those 50%-50% matchups to a wall with Crumble to dust, shatterstorm, dragons claw, spellskite etc...
Skred red Cons:
1.- Skred red is bad VS counters and overall non aggro blue decks.
2.- Skred red is bad VS combo in general ( although main board relic, moon and molten rain surely help).
3.- Skred red is awful vs Boggles Auras deck so you need to address this with spellskites and ratchet bombs, or oblivion stones or even perilous vault.
So far those are the weaknesses i see in the deck as opposed to having splashing colors all around. Ill list some of the cons i have seen by splashing white (which i have played in tournaments before) and what i think would happen if we splash some other colors, i wont be addressing the good points in detail of each splash as this post is already long enough and they have been addressed by some of you guys and by the guy on the video.
Skred red splash white:
1.- you can run path to exile to help get rid of those pesky guys that dodge bolt and skred but if you do this you give them basic lands so your blood moon and molten rain are not good at all, very anti sinergy.
2.- You can run stony silence on your sb vs tron or affinity ( that were pretty good match-ups to start with) but then your mind stones and relics are not good at all so you have to take them out or have a very akward game, also anti sinergy.
3.- I first thought about running white for ards like timely reinforcements and or Kor firewalker just because we are a bit weak to burn but it forces you to play in a defensive position jumping through skull cracks and or cracking fetches for double mana, this is also true for lightning helix an ajani.
4.- Ajani seems like a great choice because of the land hate sinergy in the deck.. but again if you run path it goes to the wrong direction, this forces you to think about some other subpar cards like oust or sunlance and they are inferior to skred.
Skred red splash Black:
1.- you do get cards like terminate, murderous cut or doom blade, but you could also run dismember without the splash and murderous cut is anti synergistic with the relic, terminate is ok i guess althouh it makes us weaker to spell snare which is the only counter we are usually bullet proof against.
2.- the point of having stuff like thoughtseize and inwuisition of kozilek, hell even duress for this matter could be great but again.. we will not be capitalizing them as well as a jund or junk deck and they will be terrible to draw them on late game because one of the weak points of the deck is the ability to presure fast and this effect doesnt help for a lot of turns they are just a quick way to defend you or try to race the opponent for 1 or 2 turns.
------- NOTE ----- One really good thing about a black splash would be something like slaughter games becaus eit would really help vs combo decks but i dont think one card merits the whole shakedown of the deck. ------ NOTE ------
Skred red splash Blue:
1.- Blue just gives us counters really so we take an even more defensive stand and although skred is more like a control deck than anything else it has to be very proactive so its again going the other way the deck tries t be going.
2.- Blue doesnt add removal at all so no help there, and although you could use cards like mana leak or remand ther eis not really a good hard counter just splashing this color ( n cryptic command for us)
3.- we cannot use the bet blue card in modern (snapcaster mage) cause of the Relic again anti sinergy.
4.- basically everything this deck ants to do with a blue splash, blue moon does it better and you should play that deck hehehe.. and yeah even keranos is not that great.
Skred red splash Green:
1.- I dont see a point on splashing green to be honest and by going that route i would suggest to build some other deck that could be as wrecking and proactive as skred.
2.- the green splash would help if we could use some sort of acceleration but if you use birds of paradise or any mana dork they will be clash with your sweepers, and if you use search for tomorrow, rampant growth or some other sort of 2 mana ramp to fetch your basic snow covered land ( it has to be for the skred to be good) then ypou have to again tweak and shake the solid mana base.
Skred red splash anything cons:
If you take away what really makes this deck good, you better start building another deck from scratch because as you see...
1.- koth will not be good with another color
2.- blood moon will not be great
3.- skred looses a lot if you play anything but snow covered lands
4.- if you make your graveyard matter to you the relic will not be as good having on check all the decks that make a better use of their graveyard than you.
So as i see it, the deck is pretty good positioned at the moment, and is quite strong and quite solid by itself, there will always be a deck or 2 that we cannot win for instance the through the breach emrakul deck that some people are playing and this makes me wanna go back and pack at least 2 boil on my sb, burn is a problem but 3 to 4 dragons claw often do the trick, and also the auras deck so its 3 ratchet bomb and 2 spellskite for me, but this is true to any format ever and just really worrying on this little of the whole meta is great.
If you start worrying about the deck at this point it is maybe not for you and try to build another one maybe with a similar approach?.
I played the whole weekend of the GP Mexico with this list by the way and so far im still thinking of sing it on the Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch next weekend, but im inclining to those boils and also thinking about kozileks return and taking out the crumble to dust for surgical extractions (mainly cause a molten +surgical is almost the same as a crumbling to dust but surgical helps on another match-ups).
lemme know what do you think, im also trying to fit 1 or 2 outpost siege in there because no i didnt like chandra pyromaster, i also need to test chandra flamecaller, and changing the reckoners for Thunderbreak regents, but so far i still like the reckoner.. albeit im the only one liking it.
Ill try to post some tourney reports later today or tomorrow..
1
So far mono red is the way to go, and maybe, just maybe Red/Waste but i do not think so at the moment. You see i have said it before "the whole reason of picking up this deck is because it has a great matchup VS Aggro and a good matchup VS Eldrazi and Tron that will be at least 70% of the Meta for now, so if you take away the good things about it you will be taking away the reasons the deck is good.
So lets recap this.
Skred red Pros:
1.- bulletproof manabase
2.- the amazing super power that is starting at 20 life instead of 18 or less cause of the fetchlands
3.- the trump of an effect that is the Koth emblem
4.- and the ability to shut down some decks by a turn 2 or even a turn 1 blood moon via the simian spirit guides and yes this is way you consider playing them instead of Mind Stone, not to mention that maindeck moon also helps ( not wins by itself but helps) vs Tron and eldrazi.
5.- having a relic maindeck helps on those hard to beat matches like tarmogoyf, tasigur, living dead, snapcaster and lingering soul decks
6.- having at least 5 sweepers on your main deck plus 8 one mana removal spells is pretty awesome vs any aggro deck using creatures not to mention that if you run Boros reckoner helps too so, infect, zoo, taxes, merfolk, delver and even affinity to a degree are covered.
7.- The sb helps you nail those 50%-50% matchups to a wall with Crumble to dust, shatterstorm, dragons claw, spellskite etc...
Skred red Cons:
1.- Skred red is bad VS counters and overall non aggro blue decks.
2.- Skred red is bad VS combo in general ( although main board relic, moon and molten rain surely help).
3.- Skred red is awful vs Boggles Auras deck so you need to address this with spellskites and ratchet bombs, or oblivion stones or even perilous vault.
So far those are the weaknesses i see in the deck as opposed to having splashing colors all around. Ill list some of the cons i have seen by splashing white (which i have played in tournaments before) and what i think would happen if we splash some other colors, i wont be addressing the good points in detail of each splash as this post is already long enough and they have been addressed by some of you guys and by the guy on the video.
Skred red splash white:
1.- you can run path to exile to help get rid of those pesky guys that dodge bolt and skred but if you do this you give them basic lands so your blood moon and molten rain are not good at all, very anti sinergy.
2.- You can run stony silence on your sb vs tron or affinity ( that were pretty good match-ups to start with) but then your mind stones and relics are not good at all so you have to take them out or have a very akward game, also anti sinergy.
3.- I first thought about running white for ards like timely reinforcements and or Kor firewalker just because we are a bit weak to burn but it forces you to play in a defensive position jumping through skull cracks and or cracking fetches for double mana, this is also true for lightning helix an ajani.
4.- Ajani seems like a great choice because of the land hate sinergy in the deck.. but again if you run path it goes to the wrong direction, this forces you to think about some other subpar cards like oust or sunlance and they are inferior to skred.
Skred red splash Black:
1.- you do get cards like terminate, murderous cut or doom blade, but you could also run dismember without the splash and murderous cut is anti synergistic with the relic, terminate is ok i guess althouh it makes us weaker to spell snare which is the only counter we are usually bullet proof against.
2.- the point of having stuff like thoughtseize and inwuisition of kozilek, hell even duress for this matter could be great but again.. we will not be capitalizing them as well as a jund or junk deck and they will be terrible to draw them on late game because one of the weak points of the deck is the ability to presure fast and this effect doesnt help for a lot of turns they are just a quick way to defend you or try to race the opponent for 1 or 2 turns.
------- NOTE ----- One really good thing about a black splash would be something like slaughter games becaus eit would really help vs combo decks but i dont think one card merits the whole shakedown of the deck. ------ NOTE ------
Skred red splash Blue:
1.- Blue just gives us counters really so we take an even more defensive stand and although skred is more like a control deck than anything else it has to be very proactive so its again going the other way the deck tries t be going.
2.- Blue doesnt add removal at all so no help there, and although you could use cards like mana leak or remand ther eis not really a good hard counter just splashing this color ( n cryptic command for us)
3.- we cannot use the bet blue card in modern (snapcaster mage) cause of the Relic again anti sinergy.
4.- basically everything this deck ants to do with a blue splash, blue moon does it better and you should play that deck hehehe.. and yeah even keranos is not that great.
Skred red splash Green:
1.- I dont see a point on splashing green to be honest and by going that route i would suggest to build some other deck that could be as wrecking and proactive as skred.
------ NOTE ------ go here for this http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/569795-turbo-moon ------ NOTE ------
2.- the green splash would help if we could use some sort of acceleration but if you use birds of paradise or any mana dork they will be clash with your sweepers, and if you use search for tomorrow, rampant growth or some other sort of 2 mana ramp to fetch your basic snow covered land ( it has to be for the skred to be good) then ypou have to again tweak and shake the solid mana base.
Skred red splash anything cons:
If you take away what really makes this deck good, you better start building another deck from scratch because as you see...
1.- koth will not be good with another color
2.- blood moon will not be great
3.- skred looses a lot if you play anything but snow covered lands
4.- if you make your graveyard matter to you the relic will not be as good having on check all the decks that make a better use of their graveyard than you.
So as i see it, the deck is pretty good positioned at the moment, and is quite strong and quite solid by itself, there will always be a deck or 2 that we cannot win for instance the through the breach emrakul deck that some people are playing and this makes me wanna go back and pack at least 2 boil on my sb, burn is a problem but 3 to 4 dragons claw often do the trick, and also the auras deck so its 3 ratchet bomb and 2 spellskite for me, but this is true to any format ever and just really worrying on this little of the whole meta is great.
If you start worrying about the deck at this point it is maybe not for you and try to build another one maybe with a similar approach?.
I played the whole weekend of the GP Mexico with this list by the way and so far im still thinking of sing it on the Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch next weekend, but im inclining to those boils and also thinking about kozileks return and taking out the crumble to dust for surgical extractions (mainly cause a molten +surgical is almost the same as a crumbling to dust but surgical helps on another match-ups).
Deck:
4 Boros Reckoner
3 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Simian spirit guide
4 Koth of the hammer
3 Relic of progenitus
4 Lightning bolt
4 Skred
1 Blasphemous act
4 Anger of the gods
4 Blood moon
3 Molten rain
2 Scrying sheets
1 Mouth of ronom
20 snow-covered mounain
1 Shatterstorm
2 Shattering spree
3 Dragon's claw
2 Spellskite
2 Pithing Needle
2 Crumble to dust
3 Ratchet bomb
lemme know what do you think, im also trying to fit 1 or 2 outpost siege in there because no i didnt like chandra pyromaster, i also need to test chandra flamecaller, and changing the reckoners for Thunderbreak regents, but so far i still like the reckoner.. albeit im the only one liking it.
Ill try to post some tourney reports later today or tomorrow..
1