I just don't have surgicals available on my MTGO account, they are pretty pricey online. Even with 4 pieces of grave hate in the side and 4 terminus, 1 settle, and 2 D-sphere main, I keep getting running over by dredge. This deck is really brutal and has me stumped on how to stop it.
I've been playing on MTGO and dredge is literally 50% of my matches over the last 3 days. I'm up to 2 RIP and 2 Relics in my SB as grave hate and have 4 terminus and 1 settle main to help control the board against this ridiculous deck. I've won 2 out of 8 matches against this deck, so sadly my plan is not working very well. I find that in most games I am able to stabilize the board and deal with the creatures, but between chip shot damage from bloodghast, narcomoeba, and creeping chill they always seem to be able to finish the game with a conflagrate. The current dredge build seems to have almost a 0% fail rate, and I'm beginning to wonder if it is even worth countering cathartic reunion since even when I do it doesn't seem to buy much time. Anyone else having any luck or new strategies against recent dredge builds?
@mtg_ianduke @mtgaaron mtgsalvation - Modern (Link: https://bit.ly/2K4GvFy ). People massively vote for Stoneforge Mystic, Splinter Twin or Preordain regarding unbans and Ancient Stirrings (or none) regarding bans. Just wanted to share this! Thanks!
Aaron Forsythe
@mtgaaron
Thanks. The DCI will be convening this week to discuss such matters.
Edit: I think it's obvious he and Ian Duke at least saw the poll.
I will be tweeting our content out to him before every B&R, since he actually responds to us.
They should know that SFM has reached insane numbers at the unbanning poll by now, and it's either no bans or ban Ancient Stirrings regarding unbans(with some various other results as well)!
Thanks for taking the time to reach out to those who manage the modern ban list, this was an excellent way to connect our conversations here with separate conversations that may be taking place among groups of people that can actually change the format.
On the topic of Green Sun's Zenith, does this card push the consistency of bogles too far? As I understand, one of that deck's biggest problems is its inconsistency in finding a hand with a bogle, lands, and auras. With very little in the way of card draw or card selection, could GSZ be what that deck needs to become a real consistent contender?
Hey all, still lurking here after my 6-3 Open finish last month with the deck. After taking a short break, I want to start grinding the deck a bit more again. I've noticed a few changes recently with some of the higher placing decks, namely:
-Changing land configuration from 12 fetches and 6 fetchable lands to 11 fetches and 7 fetchable lands (minus a Scalding Tarn and plus a second Blood Crypt - is this to help cast Anger more easily?)
-Running 2 Anger of the Gods sideboard (before was zero or only occasionally)
-Running 2 Liliana, the Last Hope sideboard (before was a 1-of)
-Dropping Collective Brutality from the sideboard (was an auto 2-of inclusion)
-Dropping Surgical Extraction in sideboard (was a fairly regular 1-of)
There's some other changes I've noticed recently (a lot more 4-of Angler; 3 Bolt and 2 Stubborn Denial, 2 Fatal Push) but those topics and trends have been discussed at length in the forum. Just curious what you guys think about the above.
I've been on the 11 fetch and 7 mana producing land split for a while. I also play 2 faithless looting which really helps mitigate the flooding that can occur at 18 lands in this deck.
Liliana, the last hope is solid, but I'm not convinced it is the best thing we can be doing. It has utility in a lot of matches, but I feel like it is a really slow card which goes against our usual gameplan of some disruption backed by a fast clock. I've been sticking to 1 copy in my sideboard.
Collective Brutality has always been a very narrow card that was only really good against burn, infect, and coco decks. People see that it has a few relevant modes and assume it's awesome, but for 2 mana it's not what I want to be casting. I'd play 0 or 1 copies in the side depending on how much burn you expect to see.
Surgical Extraction and Nihil Spellbomb are meta dependent cards that I wouldn't play every week unless I expected a lot of storm, dredge, re-animator, or other graveyard dependent decks to show up. Again, like collective brutality these cards are pretty narrow in application and people assume they are good in more match-ups than they actually are.
Just my 2 cents on the items above, and for what it's worth I ended up 6-3 at SCG regionals this weekend playing my more aggressive build (2 battle rage, 3 bolt, 4 mishra's bauble and 5 delve threats). I ran into a bunch of blue control decks (2X UW, 2X UWR, and RUG shift) and no humans or hollow one throughout the day which was a bit of a surprise, but overall the deck felt good.
The strength of infect has always been the ability to quickly execute its game plan and win games before the opponent can stabilize. I don't think there is a way to configure infect to consistently kill on turns 3 or 4 and have a strong late-game with grindy cards. My experience with the deck over the last 3 years is to stick to a build with a consistent and fast gold-fish, but be situationally aware in games and don't walk into blowouts in the face of removal spells.
If you want to try red, I would suggest the cheap double strike spells since any of the +4/+4 pump spells like might of old krosa + assault strobe are lethal. You get some crazy lines in this build like turn 1 glistener elf into turn 2 pump+double-strike for lethal. It's not the most resilient build, but it could have potential if the meta moves away from removal heavy decks and we just need to race every game.
On another note, I've been pondering a G/U build with 4x mishra's bauble. My thinking is that baubles allow us to have some element of selection when combined with fetchlands, play a 56 card deck which just increases our consistency, and they help to get cards in the graveyard to accelerate become immense. The card is somewhat un-intuitive to use, the only reason I have been thinking about it is that I've been using it in Grixis shadow for a while and have been impressed with its subtle effects on the game. It just seems to do a lot for a zero mana commitment.
And I'll add to my thoughts earlier by saying that if you want a deck that grinds out games and wins through card advantage, Grixis shadow is probably not the best option. Sure it has some 2 for 1 plays like snapcaster and k-command (which I don't maindeck anymore due to the CMC-3 being awful for this deck's gameplan), but ultimately the late-game power of this deck is not all that impressive compared to many other decks in the format. We thrive on mana efficiency and seek to end the game before slower strategies can overwhelm us with their more powerful, but more expensive spells.
I've been playing 2x faithless looting for a while. I've found that I am only on the grind plan about 25% or less of the time, so looting maindeck has been fantastic. Grixis DS plays like a tempo deck from my experience and usually needs to disrupt, play a threat, and then hang on just long enough to sneak out a win. Looting has been great for helping me to not worry about flood or drawing dead cards like fatal push against tron or stubborn denial against humans. I prefer to run 18 lands anyway in this deck and that decision plays very well for me when I know I have the ability to dump my 4th or 5th land in the games that go a little longer. It has nice synergy with a lot of the cards in your deck already including thought scour, gurmag angler, and snapcaster mage. Overall, my advice is to test it out and see if it feels good. Some metas may not be a great fit, especially if you play against a lot of jund and jeskai type decks, but in a more open meta with a wide range of decks, looting seems really good and has been for me for a while.
Remand is better in the blue moon shell than it is in other control decks. If your line of play is remand turn 2 into casting blood moon the following turn, there is a good chance the opponent will not be able to cast the spell again if they cannot deal with the moon.
I played a pretty low to the ground list this week with 2 bolts, 2 TBR, and a faithless looting in the maindeck. The looting impressed me in several different situations including:
Discarding extra lands after I already had 3 or 4 in play and finding some action spells instead, we all know about the dreaded flooding that happens with this deck...
Allowing me to cycle some discard spells around turn 5 or 6 when my opponent was hellbent and they were no longer useful
Helping me to get rid of dead cards in game 1's like fatal push against tron
Helping to fill the grave yard and power out T2 and T3 Delve creatures
I just feel like the card is a solid fit in this deck, especially in game 1's where we may have a bunch of cards in hand that don't line up well with what the opponent is doing. (The sad reality of playing an interactive deck) I will admit looting is usually much better from turn 4 onward, so there is a cost to running it as it usually feels weak to see in the opening hand. I played 1 this week, but may move to 2 copies for some more testing. Has anyone else tried faithless looting in the deck?
Side Note - Temur Battle Rage was insane all night and I will continue to use 2 copies in the main-deck with a 3rd in the side. There were so many games where this card was what I hoped to draw the most since it just ends the game from so many board-states. It lets this deck win matches that we have no business winning.
I've been thinking lately how useful Jace's brainstorm ability would be for this deck in any game that goes beyond turn 5 or 6 when we start to flood out on fetch lands or draw discard spells after the window where they are effective has passed. I wanted to ask if anyone had tried a build with 19 or 20 lands and a 2 copies of Jace? I was planning to build and test something like this for my weekly event.
I feel like playing 17 or 18 lands can be a trap forcing you to keep too many 1 land hands that never get there in time. One advantage of the build I'm proposing would be to improve opening hand quality by running a few more land, as well as giving us a way to prevent flooding in the late game. My biggest concern is that we are still a 19 or 20 land deck (with ~12 cantrips to be fair), so getting to 4 lands to cast jace is never going to be guaranteed, even by turn 6 or so. Also increasing the mana curve with a 4-drop will certainly hurt us some amount of the time in the early game.
I'm curious to hear if anyone has tested anything like this or if anyone has any feedback for me that could be useful.
TheAller - Since you need RRR for kiki and UUU for cryptic have you considered if white is really needed for your deck? I've tried to play the kiki build before and have found that the U/R build has much better mana that jeskai. The white spells are good, but there is a very real risk of not being able to cast your spells or having to pay a ton of life for shocks to hit all color requirements in your build.
I played a Kiki Moon list last night at a 14 man modern event and the deck felt really good. I'll just give some details about my matches in case anyone is interested in the game-play of this deck.
Round 1 - Mono-Red Moon + Land Destruction: I'm on the play for game 1. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm on jeskai since I play a flooded strand and scalding tarn early. This information made him comfortable to tap on his turn 4 for a Koth which is immediately punished by EOT deceiver exarch into kiki-jiki, mirror breaker to end the game. The element of surprise is nice, but I don't expect it to last if I continue to play the deck. Game 2 he is ready for my plan with a pithing needle on kiki to stop the combo. He kills some of my lands and I never get enough going to stop his koth from killing me. Game 3 is a bit of a grind, but I get there with some snap+bolt beats and remand delaying his planes-walkers long enough to eat his life total with my 2/1s's.
Round 2 - Grixis Shadow: Game 1 he keeps a hand with a lot of discard, but no threats. He takes some cards, but I eventually just beat down with some pestermite and snaps as he fails to ever deploy a threat. Game 2 he quickly drops to 11 through fetches and wraiths. He attempts to thoughtseize my and I respond with 3 bolts. He goes to 2 life and dies when his spell resolves.
Round 3 - R/G Breach: Game 1 I countered the first through the breach, but he casts a primeval titan that I have no answer for. I kept a hand that did not line up well against him with snaps and bolts being too slow of a clock. Game 2 I have several counterspells in my opener and I keep. My dispels and remands buy me enough time to beat down before he can get anything going. Game 3 we both mull to 6 with him on the play. On his turn 2 he casts a sakura tribe-elder which I counter with spell snare. He misses a land drop next turn and suspends search for tomorrow. He ends up never having enough mana to deploy a threat and my 2/1 beats get there with cryptic command backup. No blood moon in this match-up where it would have been very strong, perhaps I need more than 2 copies!
Round 4 - R/W Burn: We agree to split prize and play for fun. On the play he leads with a goblin guide and my hand has no bolt to answer. The goblin gets in for 6 or so before I can deal with it, which ultimately did too much harm and won him the game. Game 2 I have the bolt for his turn 1 guide, but can't clock him fast enough before being burned out. A searing blaze on my pestermite was crucial to winning him the race by hitting me for 3 and taking out my threat. Going forward I may need a better plan for burn as the match-up felt pretty bad.
Overall the deck feels really good for a first run and I'll continue to work on my list over the next few weeks and see where I end up. I felt like I was short on counterspells in most of my matches so I may look for ways to get a few more into the deck.
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37526_Its-Time-To-Kill-Ironworks.html
She makes some good points for a ban from the deck including similarities to the already banned eggs deck and several other considerations.
Thoughts?
Thanks for taking the time to reach out to those who manage the modern ban list, this was an excellent way to connect our conversations here with separate conversations that may be taking place among groups of people that can actually change the format.
I've been on the 11 fetch and 7 mana producing land split for a while. I also play 2 faithless looting which really helps mitigate the flooding that can occur at 18 lands in this deck.
I tried 2 copies of anger of the gods in my sideboard at SCG regionals this weekend. They were OK, but I'm not sure what the best combination of anti-creature sideboard cards like grim lavamancer, pyroclasm, izzet staticaster, and engineered explosives is. I guess it changes week to week as the meta shifts around.
Liliana, the last hope is solid, but I'm not convinced it is the best thing we can be doing. It has utility in a lot of matches, but I feel like it is a really slow card which goes against our usual gameplan of some disruption backed by a fast clock. I've been sticking to 1 copy in my sideboard.
Collective Brutality has always been a very narrow card that was only really good against burn, infect, and coco decks. People see that it has a few relevant modes and assume it's awesome, but for 2 mana it's not what I want to be casting. I'd play 0 or 1 copies in the side depending on how much burn you expect to see.
Surgical Extraction and Nihil Spellbomb are meta dependent cards that I wouldn't play every week unless I expected a lot of storm, dredge, re-animator, or other graveyard dependent decks to show up. Again, like collective brutality these cards are pretty narrow in application and people assume they are good in more match-ups than they actually are.
Just my 2 cents on the items above, and for what it's worth I ended up 6-3 at SCG regionals this weekend playing my more aggressive build (2 battle rage, 3 bolt, 4 mishra's bauble and 5 delve threats). I ran into a bunch of blue control decks (2X UW, 2X UWR, and RUG shift) and no humans or hollow one throughout the day which was a bit of a surprise, but overall the deck felt good.
If you want to try red, I would suggest the cheap double strike spells since any of the +4/+4 pump spells like might of old krosa + assault strobe are lethal. You get some crazy lines in this build like turn 1 glistener elf into turn 2 pump+double-strike for lethal. It's not the most resilient build, but it could have potential if the meta moves away from removal heavy decks and we just need to race every game.
On another note, I've been pondering a G/U build with 4x mishra's bauble. My thinking is that baubles allow us to have some element of selection when combined with fetchlands, play a 56 card deck which just increases our consistency, and they help to get cards in the graveyard to accelerate become immense. The card is somewhat un-intuitive to use, the only reason I have been thinking about it is that I've been using it in Grixis shadow for a while and have been impressed with its subtle effects on the game. It just seems to do a lot for a zero mana commitment.
I just feel like the card is a solid fit in this deck, especially in game 1's where we may have a bunch of cards in hand that don't line up well with what the opponent is doing. (The sad reality of playing an interactive deck) I will admit looting is usually much better from turn 4 onward, so there is a cost to running it as it usually feels weak to see in the opening hand. I played 1 this week, but may move to 2 copies for some more testing. Has anyone else tried faithless looting in the deck?
Side Note - Temur Battle Rage was insane all night and I will continue to use 2 copies in the main-deck with a 3rd in the side. There were so many games where this card was what I hoped to draw the most since it just ends the game from so many board-states. It lets this deck win matches that we have no business winning.
I feel like playing 17 or 18 lands can be a trap forcing you to keep too many 1 land hands that never get there in time. One advantage of the build I'm proposing would be to improve opening hand quality by running a few more land, as well as giving us a way to prevent flooding in the late game. My biggest concern is that we are still a 19 or 20 land deck (with ~12 cantrips to be fair), so getting to 4 lands to cast jace is never going to be guaranteed, even by turn 6 or so. Also increasing the mana curve with a 4-drop will certainly hurt us some amount of the time in the early game.
I'm curious to hear if anyone has tested anything like this or if anyone has any feedback for me that could be useful.
Round 1 - Mono-Red Moon + Land Destruction: I'm on the play for game 1. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm on jeskai since I play a flooded strand and scalding tarn early. This information made him comfortable to tap on his turn 4 for a Koth which is immediately punished by EOT deceiver exarch into kiki-jiki, mirror breaker to end the game. The element of surprise is nice, but I don't expect it to last if I continue to play the deck. Game 2 he is ready for my plan with a pithing needle on kiki to stop the combo. He kills some of my lands and I never get enough going to stop his koth from killing me. Game 3 is a bit of a grind, but I get there with some snap+bolt beats and remand delaying his planes-walkers long enough to eat his life total with my 2/1s's.
Round 2 - Grixis Shadow: Game 1 he keeps a hand with a lot of discard, but no threats. He takes some cards, but I eventually just beat down with some pestermite and snaps as he fails to ever deploy a threat. Game 2 he quickly drops to 11 through fetches and wraiths. He attempts to thoughtseize my and I respond with 3 bolts. He goes to 2 life and dies when his spell resolves.
Round 3 - R/G Breach: Game 1 I countered the first through the breach, but he casts a primeval titan that I have no answer for. I kept a hand that did not line up well against him with snaps and bolts being too slow of a clock. Game 2 I have several counterspells in my opener and I keep. My dispels and remands buy me enough time to beat down before he can get anything going. Game 3 we both mull to 6 with him on the play. On his turn 2 he casts a sakura tribe-elder which I counter with spell snare. He misses a land drop next turn and suspends search for tomorrow. He ends up never having enough mana to deploy a threat and my 2/1 beats get there with cryptic command backup. No blood moon in this match-up where it would have been very strong, perhaps I need more than 2 copies!
Round 4 - R/W Burn: We agree to split prize and play for fun. On the play he leads with a goblin guide and my hand has no bolt to answer. The goblin gets in for 6 or so before I can deal with it, which ultimately did too much harm and won him the game. Game 2 I have the bolt for his turn 1 guide, but can't clock him fast enough before being burned out. A searing blaze on my pestermite was crucial to winning him the race by hitting me for 3 and taking out my threat. Going forward I may need a better plan for burn as the match-up felt pretty bad.
Overall the deck feels really good for a first run and I'll continue to work on my list over the next few weeks and see where I end up. I felt like I was short on counterspells in most of my matches so I may look for ways to get a few more into the deck.