Magic the Gathering

Aha, so Dig gets the banhammer, seems like I should have traded my excess 5 Digs, here I was hoping they would gain value... On the plus side I can now make a worldgorger deck, I need more graveyard combo decks, dredge, reanimator, and all spells is just not enough.

Losing Dig actually kind of depressed me, lol. It made basically any blue deck really stable, but I guess that was the reason for its banning. I had to alter my favorite deck back to Blue Moon, and readjust the sideboard.
At least that means we aren't forced to have 4 Dragon's Claw sideboard anymore lol.

I'm pretty glad pod got banned, since it was always an annoying matchup, but it felt like such a staple that it feels weird not needing to consider it in the meta game anymore. It's been top tier for years.

Im also glad Cruise is banned in Legacy, too, so my Shardless RUG deck is viable again. That said, I really wanna try the Countertop Stiflenaught deck with Cloudform since that seems superbly interesting. I already was brewing a deck in standard that featured Cloudform, but I was surprised people are trying it out in legacy.

So, won another event and won another Duel Deck Anthology. Traded that one in for 3 Jace vs. Vraska DD so I can get the Remands I needed for a new deck I'm working for Modern.



Since Dig is now banned from Modern, I replaced it with a similar card in terms of searching for combo pieces and filtering through the deck when comboing off, Telling Time. I feel like Telling Time is really good in terms of what this deck wants to do, similar to how Scapeshift used this card pre-Khans. TC was replaced by another draw three spell, Visions of Beyond. This card works well when you are on a constant looting phase of going off, as well as having Izzet Charm and Thought Scour to reach you there. Other than that, it's a nice can-trip even if you are not at 20 in the grave.

It's harder to go off on Turn 3 as consistently without TC or DTT, but with this list, I came up with, it has a bit more of the control element so it can at least have back-ups such as having Remands and Izzet Charms for Counter-Spells, as well as Gut Shot and Bolt to have spot-removal and helpful 1 mana engines if I do try to go off.

The SB consists of changing from a Combo Deck, into a Mid-range/Aggro Deck. It catches a lot of players off-guard due to game 2/3 of adding in combo hate. The Gigadrowse are there to also help enable combo protection if I choose to try to keep in the combo.

Another Legacy tournament? Take it down with dredge again?

Yeah, the non-green version is probably way better since you can play a control game until you decide you want to combo.
You just can't do it super early =P but that feels irrelevant. Comboing off at instant speed is so valuable.

I still personally like having the Gifts Ungiven package in the sideboard, since sometimes it randomly just autowins the game for you. But transforming into Jeskai tempo sounds like a great plan too. It seems similar to the tech in the Standard version: taking out the combo for a bunch of beatsticks and just beating them down that way.

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Alas, my team didn't do too well at the GP I attended last weekend, but it was very fun. It was our first GP, and man, it was like half a convention. All sorts of fun side events, so many places to spend money on...

Our pool wasn't the greatest... There weren't any real bombs, save for the Necropolis Fiend and Citadel Siege in my deck, but there were some good synergies in our colors.
One friend played a very aggresive Mardu deck with a bit of Warrior synergy, and the other played a very blue-based Jeskai deck with tons of tricks. I ended up with a janky Abzan deck that splashed blue for some Sultai cards.



I also managed to get a gigantic chunk of an Abzan deck I was building for Standard. It's a fairly typical list, I'm running the MUCH slower version of Abzan that runs very few creatures and a lot more removal and card draw.
It's more fun than people give it credit for, since there are interesting decisions that come up often that matter. It rewards good play. I've beaten a lot of other control decks just because I'm able to get card advantage out of more things than they are able to.

Removing the Caryatids was a great idea. LSV joked once that "the reason they're in the deck is to be boarded out in every matchup". If that's the case, why are they even in the deck? lol. So I've been running without them and it's been working out spectacularly, especially since Tasigur came out.
That guy is insane. Both in Modern and Standard, it's so damn easy to set up your graveyard to be redundant, so your opponent never really gets a good choice to give you something. I managed to get 3 before they started jumping in price rapidly.

Here's my list:



Sideboard:



Palace Siege has been an all-star in any grindy matchup. I'll only ever call "Dragons", since the Khans ability is barely relevant in my deck, but it's amazing. It's very slow and clunky, but it's also fairly unstoppable. While it's in play, my new wincon is just "don't die". UB control can't beat it if it resolves since they can't lay on the pressure, other midrange decks you can just try to set up parity to start winning slowly, and even against slightly aggressive decks, it buys you the time to get to your answers, then wins the game without needing to draw threats.
I'll definitely be having it in every black deck's sideboard I build from here on. I've been liking it a whole lot.

The Telling Times are great replacements for Dig, they seem to replicate the effect. Obviously it's a lot worse, but it works out well enough. The Visions of Beyond, on the other hand, really underwhelmed me. It actually wasn't active enough. I'm trying to find room for 4 Sleight of Hand, since it's a better cantrip, but I need to figure out what to cut.

I was considering cutting Remands, because they're pretty underwhelming while you're comboing (cus while you're going off, you don't really care what your opponent has anymore), but while you're still setting up, it's amazing for slowing them down. I'm sticking with them for now just because I absolutely love Remand, lol, and it hasn't really disappointed, other than how medium it is when you draw it while comboing.

Went to a PPTQ this Sunday, skipping Game Day for it. Went with UW Heroic. 2-3. Not my favorite of days but, I do feel like it's time for me to start playing UB Control for Standard.

*EDIT*

Changed the Modern Ascendancy List to include 2 Path to Exiles. Removed 1 Gut Shot and 1 Visions of Beyond due to those cards under-performing.

Did pretty medium with that Abzan list I posted earlier at a PTQ. Started the Tournament 0-3, which meant it was already impossible for me to top eight, but then I won 4 matches in a row. If I went 5-3, I think I coulda made Top 32 and at least gotten some cash. Alas, I lost the last round, making me have an even 4-4 record. T'was a good experience though.

I feel like the deck is alright, but not good for spiking a tournament. It's good for making a decent finish like 5-3, maybe 6-2 if I'm lucky, but since it doesn't really go over the top, it doesn't really have that punch to make a deeper run.
If I played something like Jeskai Ascendancy, I feel like I had a better chance of doing better. Lots of slower green decks. That said, it was a more fragile strategy, and I coulda been out of the tourney faster, but it also had a better chance at spiking.

Went 1 W 1 L and 2 Ties with Ascendancy earlier this week. 2-1 against Boggles, 1-2 against Infect, and 1-1 against both BW Tokens and UW Control. Not the greatest, but it'll do. Realized that this deck is a lot harder to pilot than when just soloing the deck.

With that said, I'll be switching again to another new Modern deck, Loam Pox.

Yeah, I experienced the same thing when I played it (this was before the bannings though, lol). Until you set up right, it can be a bit of a grind.

Loam Pox? I only read about that, but never really saw a list. What is that about?

Meanwhile, on my end, I've started playing Splinter Moon. Basically I shuffled a relatively typical Splinter Twin deck with Blue Moon. I've been loving it. Ever since I saw Jelger Wiegersma's deck from PT FRF, I fell in love. Main deck Blood Moons finally made me wanna play Twin, and I gotta say, my results are way more consistent than when I was playing just Blue Moon. I still adjusted some slots to my preferences.

I feel comfortable with my list so far, but I wanna adjust my sideboard to have some amount of Dragon's Claw, given the popularity of Burn. I'm trying to decide how many, though... It's not as urgent as the Delver era just recently where 4 was required, but I can still see a need for at least 2 or 3.

Here's the list I'm going with currently:



Sideboard:

Now I want to do that with my Twin deck. It looks saucy.

Here's my Loam Pox list :

Yeah, for sure. Having Blood Moons main deck wrecks a lot of opponents (something I already knew from playing Blue Moon, lol), but because you have Spinter Twin combo, you now have a much more efficient means to end the game, instead of pecking at them over and over with a Snapcaster or something.
Also, the fact that you tap down their permanents synergizes pretty well with having a Blood Moon. Tap their one basic on upkeep with Pester or Deceiver and REALLY irritate your opponent, lolol.


I'll be frank when I say I don't really understand this Loam deck lolol. It just looks super grindy; kill all their threats, have a bunch of annoying threats, slowly whittle them down with Zombie tokens.
How well does it perform? I haven't really heard much about this deck at all.

Pretty much how you said. Grind them out with Zombies, and re-incur the discard with Loam. Flame Jab and Raven's Crime are also there to get the job done.

I played tested a lot of it on Cockatrice, but nothing against Tier 1 decks yet.

Okay, I have a question:

Let's say my opponent uses a Roar of Challenge on one of his creatures and then plays a second one on another creature(both before the combat phase of course).

How do I block?

Question was answered.

My EDH babies.

sorry picture quality.

i play avidly, and i go to tons of tournys and gps in my area

So... What's everyone playing lately?

Been playing the Bant Megamorph deck in Standard. It's gotten irrelevant ever since the meta shifted and got slightly more aggressive, so I might need to make a switch. Even though it has a huge target over it's head, I think I'd like to play Esper Dragons, but we'll see. I could always just go back to playing Abzan, again, too, though I'll admit, that's a bit boring, lol.
Gonna try to stick with Bant as long as I can, though. I just love how it plays. It feels so smooth against midrange and control.

Still on Splinter Twin and Jeskai Ascendancy Tempo-Combo in Modern. I saw a more all-in version of the Ascendancy combo that also contained Pyromancer's Ascension to help it go off when it starts combo-ing. I like the idea of it, but I still like how you can more easily bide your time with the Tempo-ish version.

Still on Temur Cascade in Legacy, too, lol. No matter what cool thing may pop up, I still enjoy this deck quite a bit, though I still dabble in the Food Chain combo a bit since it's awesome, and the MonoU Matyr deck because it's so troll.

Nice. I really haven't played too much standard, but I did switch back from playing UW Heroic to Jeskai Tokens again. Sure, Tokens isn't as suited for this Standard meta as much anymore, but I still love playing the deck and Jeskai Ascendancy.

Still sticking with Twin as well for modern though. Thought of playing Amulet Bloom for a bit, but I don't have the current money to go and get it.

For Legacy, I've switched from playing Dredge to playing Enchantress. The deck it Control/Combo, and it's a lot of fun, just hard to work with Stack interactions.

I REALLY don't like the Amulet Bloom deck. Honestly, it loses to itself too often, EVEN IF you're a good pilot. And the fact that it's cold to a variety of different combo decks just makes it super unappealing.

Ooh, I've wanted to try Enchantress once before.
Also, I wanted to try the Legacy version of Jeskai Ascendancy, now that I remembered it. It seems like such an upgrade to the Modern variant.

That's because you can run Dig Through Time again, lol.