I still don't have a tournament to tell you about specifically but I have been enjoying Standard a lot more than usual so I'm going to yammer about that.
Nothing too terribly crazy has happened to the format but people seem to be spreading their wings a bit and trying out more decks. GR Monsters had a couple of weeks of dominance there but most recently Mono Black has been on top. All the while we've seen UWx control decks, Mono Blue and various other devotion strategies doing well enough.
The deck I want to tell you about is one that I haven't been brave enough to bring to a tournament yet.
This list sprang from what I'm fairly certain was a large FNM in Japan. It was a 7 round, 90+ person event, in which a Chromanticore deck finished 5th with a 6-1 record.
Here's the original list to blow your mind a little:
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft Sliver
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Sin Collector
3 Polukranos
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Chromanticore
2 Xenagos the Reveler
2 Lay of the Land
2 Peregrination
2 Rakdos's Return
3 Dreadbore
3 Far // Away
1 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Island
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
3 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Triumph
I may be off a card or two but I think this is right. This looks like a horrible pile from the outset, I mean it's playing Chromanticores right, but after goldfishing a few hands the mana felt very, very good. Lay of the Land, despite looking just awful, worked very well to make things castable and the low land count kept flooding to a minimum.
You're working off of a Jund shell which means you're playing powerful cards like Dreadbore, Rakdos's Return, Poly-K and Stormbreath Dragon. You're stretching your mana for Chromanticore, Sin Collector and Far//Away. Far Away is 100% a powerful card. Chromanticore is really the rub and I guess it's really the entire discussion here. Is it worth stretching our mana?
The things I wasn't blown away by were the Sin Collectors and the Peregrinations. Sin Collector is one of my favorite cards in Standard right now but he is decidedly a sideboard card in our current Devotion-fueled format. Peregrination was definitely powerful but entirely too slow at fixing the mana.
I knew 100% I wanted a 4th Courser of Kruphix in the deck and I also knew I wanted Lay of the Land #3 & 4. I also knew I wanted to try out some other 5-drops since Stormbreath, while obviously great, is not at his best here. Blood Baron was my first thought, and he's probably actually the right one, but Archangel of Thune kept popping into my head as something powerful. She pairs up nicely with Courser and, once we adjust the manabase to allow double white to be found through Lay of the Land, plays right into another card I want in the deck: Elspeth!
Here's where I ended up before playing some actual, honest to goodness, games.
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft Sliver
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Polukranos
3 Archangel of Thune
4 Chromanticore
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Lay of the Land
3 Dreadbore
3 Far // Away
2 Rakdos's Return
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
1 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Triumph
I added a Mizzium Mortars kind of at random in one of the spots vacated by the 4th Archangel. Truthfully the reason is that I don't own 4 Archangels at the moment but I think the change is reasonable since I added 2 6 drops to the deck. Mortars is a nice answer to a lot of the strongest cards in the format and conveniently gives us a sweeper effect going long.
I also adjusted the manabase a little to make it easier to cast our new double-white spells. A second plains was obvious but I also swapped 2 of the RG Temples to WG ones. I am far from confident this is enough.
I got to play a set of 5 or 6 games against Mono Black Devotion piloted by a very good player. The deck did VERY well pre-board but I attribute a lot of that to his list running 4 Bile Blight, a card that kills very little in the Chromanticore deck. Far//Away was impressive vs. Pack Rat and bestowing Chromanticore was almost always a win.
After we sideboarded I couldn't manage a win, though most games were pretty close. It's hard to believe that simply removing Bile Blights made that much of a difference but it seems to be the case. Only 1 sideboard card in particular made much of an impact, but oh buddy was it a big one. Erebos won every single game he showed up to simply by shutting down Archangel of Thune, of course I didn't bother to include anything like Revoke Existence or Unravel the Aether so that problem is solvable.
I'm actually pretty optimistic about this shell being a workable one. The way I see it we have the following "essentials" in the deck.
4 Sylvan Caryatid
x Manaweft Sliver
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Chromanticore
4 Lay of the Land
22 - 23 Land
This is sort of the engine that allows the deck to function and cast spells as well as the trump card that we are bending our mana all over the place to use. Because we are including Chromanticore we have access to basically any support spell in the format as long as it doesn't cost more than 1 of any color.
It makes sense to play Rakdos's Return because it's one of the best spells in the format without a home.
It makes sense to play Dreadbore because it's a very efficient removal spell that will never be dead. It's also easier for us to cast than Hero's Downfall and the sorcery speed will rarely be a problem.
Far // Away I am less sure about. When cast for 5 it's great but I think this deck has enough powerful things to do at 4+ mana that we probably want something cheaper and more reliable. I'm inclined to try some combination of Abrupt Decay and/or Golgari Charm.
Polukranos is another card I'm not sure about from the original list. He's obviously a good card but this deck doesn't really make a ton of mana like the Devotion decks. Against most of the good decks in the format he's not even particularly scary! I don't know what else I would want to play though.
I think the next thing I'd like to try is a build focused more on Junk colors.
Something like:
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft
4 Courser of Kruphix
2 Polukranos
2 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Archangel of Thune
4 Chromanticore
3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Lay of the Land
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ultimate Price
3 Hero's Downfall
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
2 Godless Shrine
3 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Silence
Here we're essentially Junk Splash Chromanticore which is....odd to say the least.
I think a list like this would really show us whether or not Chromanticore is worth the effort since we're jumping through all of the hoops possible just to cast it.
I do like the rest of this deck though, it's doing very powerful things and should always be able to cast it's spells.
So now that I've taken you down the Rabbit Hole into Magical Chromanticore'smas Land I want to make a sharp left turn.
I recently got my hands on some sweet Foreign Black Bordered Basic Lands. I've had my eye on these for quite a long time but never pulled the trigger because I couldn't find enough of them that matched and that didn't cost a fortune. Luckily, a kind gentleman on Facebook was able to hook me up with a pile of them for a great price!
I bring these lands up because choice of basic land is very important to me. It's one way to personalize your deck in a sea of people all running similar lists of cards. Is there a type of land that you prefer to use? Am I silly to care?
Let's talk about these pressing issues!
Thanks for reading my blog friends, if you liked it please share it with your friends and enemies. If you hated it please tell me why so I can find you and silence you fix the problems! I'll be back soon with more things.
Hey there faithful reader.
I'm glad to see you didn't give up on me entirely!
I know it's been a while, but if I've learned anything from making these blog things it's that you have to let them flow naturally if you want to maintain good quality.
Tournament Reports got old and I got tired of writing them for a bit so I'm trying something different. I want to try and help people get into Modern.
Unfortunately, Modern is full of $300+ mana-bases and $200 green creatures and that can make it a bit of a tough sell to people without massive bankrolls to peel off of whenever a sweet new deck pops up.
What I aim to do with this article(or series of articles) is present you, my faithful readers, with viable tier 1 or 2 decks that you can build without fetch lands, Tarmogoyfs or any of the other difficult to find staples.
I want any deck I feature to be fully functional and powerful. You're not going to see any Zoo lists with Flinthoof Boar over Goyf. No substituting Pain Seer for Dark Confidant. My hope is to bring you decks that can use slightly worse mana bases without hurting the consistency and power very much or at all.
Now before I go into the list and start typing a bunch of cards I want to suggest you get the add-on for your browser called "Auto-Card Anywhere". I know for sure it's available for Google Chrome and I assume Firefox. It'll make looking at these articles a lot easier for you by automatically pulling up a pop-up of any card I type.
Today's list is going to be Scapeshift a la Prismatic Omen.
First up, the list we're starting from.
Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Primeval Titan $20 each
Enchantments
3 Prismatic Omen $10 each
4 Khalni-Heart Expedition
Instants
2 Izzet Charm
Sorceries
4 Scapeshift $15 each
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Explore
3 Anger of the Gods $3 each
Lands
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest $80.00 each
7 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn $80 each
1 Steam Vents $12
4 Stomping Ground $12 each
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle $2 each
1 Verdant Catacombs $50.00
I'm not going to list the sideboard because it will be very different depending on where you play regularly.
I'm marked the retail prices for each card you're likely to have to buy and as you can see it's heavily loaded in the lands. The core cards of the deck (Scapeshift, Prime Time, Omen and shock lands) are going to cost you around $200, maybe a little less if you shop around. The good news is that a lot of you will already have a lot of these cards, either from Standard or from other endeavors.
My plan to reduce the cost of this deck is to cut blue entirely. In doing this we lose 2 Izzet Charm from the main deck and 4 Swan Song from the sideboard. That's all! Now, these are very strong cards in certain matchups for sure. Being able to protect your spells from countermagic is extremely powerful but it's only relevant against a couple of the major decks.
In cutting the third color we can remove almost $700 in fetch lands from the cost of our deck. We also cut the Steam Vents and the basic Island. This leaves us looking at this:
2 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
We vacated 11 land spots but replacing them is going to be at least a little tricky.
You see, the reason the fetch lands are so good is that they individually represent access to essentially any color or combination of colors our deck has to offer. They also can all find a mountain which is extremely relevant in our Valakut deck.
One thing is for sure: we need a lot more green sources. We also need them to be able to come into play untapped early on when we're doing our early ramping. Copperline Gorge fits this criteria perfectly and is readily available around $5 each.
4 Copperline Gorge
An odd thing about the manabase in this deck is that it largely just wants green mana. 1 Green gets things going, allowing you to cast all of your ramp spells and even fetching your Red mana. In fact the only thing in the deck that actually wants Red mana is Anger of the Gods! We could theoretically just fill the other 7 land spots with Basic Forest and be done with it. Instead, we're going to fill 5 of those slots with Basic Forest and leave the other 2 up for discussion.
In my eyes we have the following to choose from:
Cavern of Souls
Inkmoth Nexus + Kessig Wolf Run
Boseiju
Glimmerpost
I don't think Wolf Run does enough on it's own considering our low creature count so I'm pairing it up with Inkmoth to relive their glory from Standard. Despite their strength in that era I'm pretty sure just getting Valakut and Mountains does more if we're grabbing lands from our deck.
Boseiju is a small hedge that lets us resolve Scapeshift through counterspells and can make up some of the ground we lost dropping Blue. It's not going to be very reliable and we can't afford to play a bunch of copies but I still think including 1 is worth it.
Cavern of Souls fits into the same niche as Boseiju. It can even force in a Titan who then finds Boseiju, good stuff. I'm positive I want some number of these in the main and possibly even more in the sideboard.
Glimmerpost is a nice hedge against aggro but I'm not sure the relatively small amount of life is worth the card slots in modern. We would definitely want to play 4 of these to get the full effect.
So for now I'm setting our lands as such:
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle
2 Cavern of Souls
Lets talk about the rest of the deck and see what's up.
After taking out the 2 Izzet Charm we have 2 empty spots to fill. The obvious candidate is Lightning Bolt and I'm positive that's the right move. While they're not nearly as versatile as the Charms they replaced they are a more powerful card by far.
While nothing else has to change it's worth talking about the loss of the fetchlands and how they reduce the power level of Khalni Heart Expedition. I still think the synergy between Explore, Prime Time and everything else is enough to keep the card in the deck but it's possible that Farseek is better now.
Here is our modified list
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Primeval Titan
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Explore
4 Scapeshift
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Prismatic Omen
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
I feel that our changed deck will function in most games almost exactly the same as the previous Scapeshift list.
My concerns about our changes are as follows:
- Do we have enough Green sources to reliably get the ramping started?
- Do we have enough Mountains in the deck to combo off without Prismatic Omen?
- Is Cavern of Souls worth a main-deck spot despite being neither a Mountain nor a Green source?
Perhaps most importantly, let's take a look at what it would cost us to outright buy the cards for this list.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder $1.49 each / $5.96
4 Primeval Titan $19.99 each / $79.96
2 Lightning Bolt $1.99 each / $3.98
3 Anger of the Gods $2.99 each / $8.97
4 Explore $0.99 each / $3.96
4 Scapeshift $9.99 each / $39.96
4 Search for Tomorrow $0.49 each / $1.96
4 Khalni Heart Expedition $$0.49 each / $1.96
3 Prismatic Omen $14.99 each / $44.97
7 Forest free
7 Mountain free
4 Copperline Gorge $4.99 each / $19.96
2 Cavern of Souls $19.99 each / $39.98
4 Stomping Ground $11.99 each / $47.96
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle $1.99 each / $7.96
Our Grand Total = $307.54
That's pretty good considering our original list was over a grand!
Also, keep in mind that these are retail prices from Starcitygames.com.
If you're patient you can catch most of the big cards for a LOT less on ebay, from local players or on some of the facebook groups where people sell cards. Most of the commons and uncommons should be easily obtainable for much less than what SCG is asking. When you buy from SCG you're paying for the convenience of going to 1 place and getting everything, you can save money if you're willing to work a little!
I know I didn't include a sideboard and that's definitely a cost to factor in. I'm positive I would want Lightning Bolts #3 and 4 as well as Anger of the Gods #4 in there. Beyond that it would defend on what you're expecting to battle.
Let me know what you thought about this exercise and if you have any ideas about other decks to look at let me know. I love talking about Magic so lets talk!
