Dies to Removal

What decks are you wanting to beat with Blood Moon anyway that you can't beat with another card?

That's a fine question, Val. I like Blood Moon for turning off man-lands, hosing Tron and Scapeshift, and disrupting any deck with a shaky mana base.

You're siding out Path against Scapeshift, and getting basics vs Tron is not a huge deal anyway since they run Expedition Map. I wouldn't be bringing Blood Moon in vs Jund either, so I don't see it as a problem.

You make a good point re. the Scapeshift matchup. I did bring in Blood Moon against Jund since he had 4 man-lands in game 2 and I wanted my removal for his Goyfs and ScOozes.

It may be that I should just go harder on assembling my combo instead of trying to play control vs. non combo decks.

I've considered running Temple of Triumph for additional "free" dig. There are often turns where I'm not spending all of my mana, and turns 1 and 3 are usually flexible.

Suddenly getting warm feels about Magma Jet to replace Lightning Helix. Helix can't kill 4 toughness dudes anyway, and most of the stuff I want to kill on turn 2 has 1 or 2 toughness.

Those, plus a few scrylands, would let me keep my 24 land count, maybe going to 23.

Will test, as consistency is important.

I'm a bit biased because small zoo is big in my area, but I think 3 damage is pivotal to kill Kird Ape, Loam Lion, Wild Nacatl, etc.

That's fair. I play online where Zoo is hardly a factor. It's all Twin all day, and occasionally an Affinity player.

I'm still not sure if MJ is worthwhile, but it would have helped over Lightning Helix in every game where I couldn't combo because of missing land drops.

Val:

I did some poking through deck lists on mtgtop8.com to see what creatures I would be unable to kill with Magma Jet that Lightning Helix would kill.

Kird Ape
Loam Lion
Wild Nacatl
Vexing Devil
Flinthoof Boar
Reveillark
Blade Splicer token
Ranger of Eos
Serra Avenger

The biggest weakness seems like 1-drop Gruul Zoo, which Spellskite, Brimaz and Restoration Angel all block without much sweat.

Fatties like Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary and Scavenging Ooze usually don't come out until they can survive a bolt anyway.

Merfolk may be a problem, but they take a while to get started and can't easily disrupt the combo.

Yeah, you run a lot of x/4s so it's probably fine.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.5[/deck]

I tested more with this version and found the scry helpful but still not quite what I'm looking for. It didn't lose me games, but I think it's moving away from my aggro plan A too much.

I'm looking to commit to the board, and Magma Jet / Lightning Helix just isn't the way I want to be spending 2 mana. Lightning Bolt and PtE are great removal, sure, but I think I
can do better with the 4 spots. Cutting them means 25 land, which I'm ok with. FoD likes mana.

I'd also like some extra synergy with Resto/Kiki blinking, so I'm keeping an eye out for creatures with ETB effects (nonlegendary preferably) that I wouldn't feel embarrassed about copying or blinking if I draw a Kiki with no angel nearby.

Blade Splicer is my first choice for the role, Kitchen Rinks 2nd, but I'm also wary of shifting my curve too high with all the combo running wild. With an active Thalia, Finks or Blade Splicer cost the same as a Helix, so #yolo.

Thalia has turned out to be great, I'm running 4 since she's kill-on-sight.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.6[/deck]

Just noticed that Blade Splicer has excellent game against Affinity's Etched Champion. Dat colorless golem. For value.

Tested version 1.6, liked it a lot. Blade Splicer is the nut when I have a Restoration Angel or a Kiki to abuse with it.

Small Naya Zoo 2-0 Win
Naya Pod 2-1 Win
White Weenie brew 1-2 Loss
Storm 2-0 Win
RG Tron 2-0 Win

Didn't see any Twin, quite curious about that matchup.

Splicer is house vs zoo, white weenie and all sort of agro decks.

I suggest some functional lands in stuff like Slayer's Stronghold. It allows swing with hate and uptrade creatures. Very good with first strike. Plus swinging with haste brimaz or haste hero is yolo.

Indeed, I'm cool with tossing in a Slayers's Stronghold.

I'd love to get a RW man-land in one of these sets. This deck would love them.

Btw Here is the list Czech Pro Players (Cifka and Juza were playing on GP). I know it isnt the same deck but you can get some info on manabase or sb cards:


Main Deck
60 cards

4 Arid Mesa
2 Battlefield Forge
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Marsh Flats
3 Mountain
3 Plains
3 Rugged Prairie
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Temple of Triumph
24 lands

4 Blade Splicer
2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Restoration Angel
4 Village Bell-Ringer
4 Wall of Omens
18 creatures

2 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Magma Jet
4 Path to Exile
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Splinter Twin
18 other spells

Sideboard
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Blood Moon
1 Boil
1 Combust
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Pyroclasm
3 Spellskite
3 Stony Silence



Other cards you might be interested:

Flickerwisp
Knight of the white orchid - this one is quite good ramp and card advantage.

I tested for a bit with Knight of the White Orchid but found it lackluster. The first strike was nice, but it's best to play it off curve to get the land trigger. I always wanted to play Brimaz or Finks (now Splicer) on 3. I think Thalia is the best 2 drop choice since I'm not running Twin. She actively screws up so many other strategies, letting me be more aggressive.

Flickerwisp is a sweet card, lots of synergy with Resto/Kiki and a big flying threat. If Brimaz ever becomes underwhelming, I'd look to Wisp first as a replacement.

I like the idea of Relic maindeck as a cantrip at worst and Snapcaster/Storm/Goyf hoser at best. I'll think about that a bit, maybe test it out in casual games.

Went 2-2 in a daily.

Win vs. Soul Sisters
Win vs. Small Naya Zoo
Loss vs. Storm
Loss vs. Merfolk

The loss to Storm was probably my fault, since I failed to crack a Relic of Progenitus on a critical turn. The loss to Merfolk was extremely rough, hard to draw any conclusions from. Not sure I could have played it any differently, falling way behind on board and flooded hard in game 3.

Here's what I played -

[deck]Boros, Beats, Battlestar Galactica v. 1.7[/deck]

Sadly, the Grim Lavamancers are consistently under-performing. 2 damage just doesn't cut it, despite it being one of my favorite cards.

I swapped in Relic of Progenitus to keep my Grim Lavamancers from getting hosed, but if they go out, then Rest in Peace is the better GY hate.

The sword seems unnecessary, and I may just cut Grim and the Sword for some more removal. I'd like to run some Dismembers, which kills everything I want dead immediately. It's also cheap, costing [mana:2g67jxsm]1[/mana:2g67jxsm] when I absolutely need it to, and more when life or mana are at a premium.

Anger of the Gods was great, definitely keeping it in vs. any sort of creature deck. Thalia usually comes out here, since she's marginal in creature matchups.

Blood Moon was a beating vs. a Zoo player and the Soul Sisters guy running too many duals.

You can maybe do something like add Resto Angels and Kiki-Jiki to Dega deck Bahra was running? And go from there?

Grim Lavamancer is stuck in a tough place in Modern with so many creature decks running 3+ toughness creatures. You're not a burn deck so his ability to go upstairs isn't as high impact for you either. Time to cut.

Yeah, Grim is gone from my current build. I ran through a daily but fell to non-competitive silliness (UB Mill, then mono-black discard) after taking down Pod and Tron (aka real decks).

I built the deck to take on the metagame, but that leaves me vulnerable to random rogue stuff.

My creatures don't die a lot, and I'm short on spells, so these Grims usually get 1 activation before reverting to a vanilla 1/1.

I've brewed up another build that's much heavier on control, but very similar to the brew I made before writing the primer. I expect it will be better against Twin, Pod and Affinity, but really quite crappy in game 1 against Storm. Can't beat them all

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.9[/deck]

This one drops Thalia and Path to Exile, replacing it with Auriok Champion and Anger of the Gods for less targeted
removal and better board control. All of my creatures survive Anger except Kiki (but Eiganjo makes him live through it for value).

Auriok Champion might be better as Spellskite, since they both hose Twin while providing a sword-carrying body. Maybe a 2/2 or 3/1 split.

Decent equipment in the swords and BSkull make finishers out of any creature.

Sideboard will need a fresh look to fix the weak Storm matchup and whatever else I'm vulnerable to. Will test the 60 to see if the basic concept is viable. I expect some number of Blood Moon, Path to Exile, Thalia, or some undiscovered hoser. Maybe the saucy Runed Halo tech as a preventative measure against non-interactive combo decks?

Played a few test matches and immediately wished that Auriok Champion was a Spellskite. Naturally I ended up facing hexproof, so maybe results are premature

Crushed Zoo and Affinity though, Anger is the nut.

Lost in an 8-man to Storm (as expected), but beat the pants off of Zoo and Twin in the earlier rounds. I'm not sure what the best Storm hoser is, but I think Rest in Peace + Thalia should do the trick.

2014-03-25 Testing results

1-2 Loss vs. Merfolk (Spell Pierce MVP, blocked my sweeper twice)
2-1 Win vs. U Tron
2-1 Win vs. Big Naya Zoo
0-2 Loss vs. Storm (put Thalia in the board after the match)
2-1 Win vs. Ad Nauseam Lightning Storm (Hide // Seek your win-con? gg no re)
1-2 Loss vs. Scapeshift
2-0 Win vs. Elves

Ethersworn canonist is the obvious storm hoser. It's pretty narrow though (well, now that I think of it it's also pretty good against ad nauseam, I guess I should try it out more), but they need exactly ligntning bolt to get rid of it.

Otherwise I like graveyard hate since it has more applications, and with removal for electromancer, storm should have to spend a lot of time setting up to go off.

I played you once shortly after the release of BNG in the practice room. Cool to see the actual deck list. I personally like that you moved away from the black splash. If you go 3 color bob, I feel you have more to gain from going heavy in black for things like discard and liliana, a lá modern team italia.

Edit: ALSO, almost forgot: Best. Deck name. Ever.

Ah yes, Canonist my old friend! She's indeed a great Storm hoser, but too narrow, I fear. If only I could build a 30 card sideboard, THEN those Storm jerks would have to pay!

I'm pleased with dropping the black splash as well, it was more cute than useful.

What deck did you smash against mine? It's nice to see you here, most opponents don't interact much online, and I usually don't bother to chat either.

Canonist isnt only storm hoser. She also hoses Living End and Ad Nausemum.

Hmm, I didn't consider that Canonist could help me in those matchups as well. I'll certainly test it!

My chief dilemma regarding Thalia in the Storm matchup happens in game 2 when they switch to the Empty the Warrens plan and I'm stuck debating whether to play Anger of the Gods or Thalia on curve.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.10[/deck]

I swapped Anger of the Gods for Zealous Persecution to help with the Storm / Empty the Warrens plan without screwing up my own board and possibly making combat math better in the aggro matchups. It's cheaper, instant speed, and who doesn't love the black splash? I know, everyone else here, but I'm a 3 color hipster

I adjusted the mana base to make playing with Blood Moon easier, and minimize missing [mana]WW[/mana] on turn 2 for Auriok Champion. May put a single Mountain back in if the 4 Plains make me miss on Kiki too many times.

2014-03-27 Testing results

2-0 Win vs. UWR (Thalia makes it very difficult to get value from his cantrips and counters, then Blood Moon locks him out)
0-2 Loss to Mono black Infect (can't stop Phyrexian Crusader, max lulz)
2-1 Win vs. RUG Tarmo-Twin (couldn't win through a single Auriok Champion, kept having to dig for a Pestermite instead while I beat on him with x/4s)
2-1 Win vs. WB Hatebears (destroyed me game 1 with Leonin Arbiter + Ghost Quarter, I misboarded in my Stony Silences thinking he was an AEther Vial deck and degenerated into a board stall, finally
winning at 3 life with Resto + Kiki. Game 3 boarded Zealous Persecution for Stony, blew him out with a timely ZP to kill an opposing Thalia, a Flickerwisp and Burrenton Forge-Tender)
2-1 Win vs. UWR (Path your Colonnades, beat with x/4s. VALUE)

All in on the Spirit of the Labyrinth plan, how'd that work out?

How's Kiki right now? Apart from the obvious combo, you have 8 other targetable creatures, none of which give value? Does a "leveled up" Figure get it's power copied by Kiki?

Spirit of the Labyrinth is above average, it provides an efficient body (3/1 for 2 is good value) that doesn't suck dick in the Zoo matchup. Sometimes it hates on Storm, sometimes it hates on UWR. Most times it just trades in combat or pokes the opponent before drawing removal.

A leveled up Figure doesn't get copied by Kiki, but you could pump it to a 4/4 by then. A repeatable Concussive Bolt isn't terrible when there's nothing else to do with that mana. Copying a Spirit is a repeatable Lava Spike. it's fine, but certainly not my plan A.

I've simply played Kiki as a 2/2 with haste in several games. It's kind of lame, but if they're out of removal from dealing with my Figure, Brimaz, Restoration Angel, etc., why not? I can always top-deck a Restoration Angel and combo off.

I was running more 3-drops but
found that they clogged up my hand too much, even if they had better synergy with Kiki and Restoration Angel. The great tension in this deck lies in the quantity and selection of the 2/3 drops.

If I made any changes in pursuit of greater Kiki/Resto value, it would be to trim Brimaz for some Blade Splicer (but dat 3/4 value... I can't quit you).

Off the top of my head, with mainly the curve in mind, I would make this change -

-1 Auriok Champion
-1 Spirit
-1 Brimaz
+3 Blade Splicer

But part of the reason I enjoy these cards so much is that comboing off is fun and gives me a "gotcha" win condition, but the deck functions just fine with just a bunch of x/4 creatures in the land of the Lightning Bolt.

Ah yes, Canonist my old friend! She's indeed a great Storm hoser, but too narrow, I fear. If only I could build a 30 card sideboard, THEN those Storm jerks would have to pay!

I'm pleased with dropping the black splash as well, it was more cute than useful.

What deck did you smash against mine? It's nice to see you here, most opponents don't interact much online, and I usually don't bother to chat either.

I've been switching decks so much lately that I honestly don't know (to my tix-accounts dis-pleasure). It was probably pod or 8-rack.

Do you ever stream with this deck? You, at least used to, stream sometimes IIRC?

Edit: I tried to build restoration decks a few times, but they always ended upp being a bunch of 3-4 drops.
It is definitely hard to resist dat value in favor of curve

I stream every saturday morning at 10 am PST (UTC -8) in the Modern daily. I'll be running this one, naturally

Also, I hope it was Pod because 8rack is awful!

Its primary win condition is rage quits.

Ran this to 2nd place in an 8-man.

Win 2-0 vs. Affinity (Comboed game 1, opponent rage-tilted after Zealous Persecution wiped his board early game 2)
Win 2-1 vs. BW Tokens (Beat down the fair way game 1, flooded game 2, Zealous Persecution blowout game 3)
Loss 0-2 vs. Naya Pod (Infinite board stall in game 1, ground his clock down to 2 minutes. In game 2, I kept a Blood Moon Auriok Champion hand, but he kept me off tempo for 2 turns with a great draw. Birds of Paradise into Deceiver Exarch at upkeep to tap my land T3, then the same play for a Restoration Angel on turn 4.)

Check this post in the MODO photo thread for a visual of how round 3 went down

Going forward, will play Lightning Helix instead of Spirit and Spellskite instead of Auriok Champion. It was an interesting experiment, but I think extra reach and the numerous matchups that Spellskite helps push them over the top.

There were several situations in the 8man where I could have comboed with a Spellskite in play but only had a Champion, and top decking Spirits was awful against Pod.

Will start working hard on the sideboard now. For one, I dislike having to board out my skites against Affinity when they're doing Arcbound Ravager tricks. I would rather have Hide // Seek for the Cranial Plating, and Stony is an awful topdeck once they've already attached an artifact.

Blood Moon is iffy, it helps vs. Pod and sometimes they just play a Birds of Paradise and combo anyway. I'd prefer something that can establish board presence. Will think on what fits.