Boros, Beats, Battlestar Galactica

[hamfactorial]

High on my list -

Linvala, Keeper of Silence against Pod and Twin combo
Torpor Orb as a straight SB swap with Kiki against both Twin, Pod and maybe Merfolk. Could be loose, would certainly be unexpected.
Isochron Scepter for max transformational lulz.
Angel's Grace for a near-uncounterable way to stop combo decks from winning and getting 1 more turn.
Runed Halo as a Swiss army knife against random degenerate crap.

[Valdarith]

I think you just want Shatterstorm for Affinity. I also think you should trim your number of maindeck Thalia and Brimaz. 4 of each seems excessive.

[hamfactorial]

Ah, Shatterstorm! That's exactly the card I'm looking for vs. Affinity. Thanks Val

I'll certainly trim Brimaz to a 3 (and run Bladehold as the 4th) but I actively want to see Thalia in many matchups. She also dies a lot, and having another copy helps me often.

I have all these 4-ofs generally because I dislike the variance introduced by the 1-of that would necessarily go into its spot after I trimmed it. I tend to go for redundancy in my brews, leading to lists that look clunky but perform consistently.

The new legend rule helps a lot, too.

[hamfactorial]

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.11[/deck]

2014-03-29 Testing Results

Win 2-1 vs. UW Control
Win 2-1 vs. UR Delver
Win 2-0 vs. Mono Red Burn
Win 2-0 vs. RUG Tarmo-Twin

I'm going to play this in today's Modern DE with some tweaks to the sideboard. It starts at 10 AM PST, will be streaming on twitch.

[hamfactorial]

Spoiler alert: I got shit on, didn't win a match in the DE or the 8-mans I entered.

[hamfactorial]

I tested with Knight of the White Orchid and liked it much more this time around. I think I tested it earlier in builds without Thalia. The first strikers make combat a lot more reliable, and the turn 3 free ramp is quite nice, especially if I keep a 2-lander as I'm prone to doing.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.12[/deck]

Testing 2014-03-30

2-0 Win vs. MonoG Infect
2-0 Win vs. Storm
2-1 Win vs. Jund

[Pedros]

Care to test any functional land?

+2/0 vigilance haste is quite good with all the first strike.

Other than that deck looks really solid - great job.

I like this version much more than the ones with 4 spellskites or 4 auriok champions ;P.

[hamfactorial]

Haha, yeah, I like this one more, too. It suffers less from the "sit around, do nothing" that plagued older revisions.

I'll toss a Slayers' Stronghold in place of a Clifftop Retreat (or maybe a Mountain) to test.

[hamfactorial]

Lost my last round of the daily to that retarded mono white prison deck.

What a bunch of horse shit. Why do I play this game?

[magicdownunder]

Was it Soul Sister with Prison or just that weird lock-out deck?

Also yes, I'm slowly starting to believe its either play Cheese, Jund or Pod - otherwise you just get those games you just CAN'T WIN....

[Pedros]

What spis a cheese?

[magicdownunder]

Sorry watching too much SC... when I said cheese I meant resilient combo decks like Twins

[hamfactorial]

It was that weird lock out deck with Ghostly Prison, sweepers and the 4/4 angel token maker.

[hamfactorial]

I'm less tilted now, but it's a waste of time and money to go through a daily and lose to nonsense like that. That's the sort of deck that can never win a tournament, so it's not worth spending sideboard slots on. When I face it, it's basically an auto-loss.

[hamfactorial]

Slayers' Stronghold was fine in the games I drew it

[Pedros]

Glad you like it.

To be honest I really like how this deck looks like. Being able to have "ups, I win" combo is amazing. Other than that Both Resto angel and Kiki jiki have synergy with this deck (Splicer for extra golem, reseting spellskite damage / getting new copy, triggering knight to get more value etc).

What this deck lacks imo is some sort of card advantage. Dunno if u had problems running out of gas, but it might be when you run 4 thalias and 3 brimaz, king of cat land.

I know that planewalkers have anty - synergy with thalia, but both chandra and ajani are quite good as card advantage engine.

Btw you really like playing so many 3 or 4 offs in your sb. Why not ddifferentiate it a little bit?

You can play wear tear, stony silence and kataki for affinity. Plus is that wear tear can also be used vs twin and batterskull decks. Stuff like that. It makes sb looks messy, but you have more cards to
bring vs various strategies. You can bring wear tear vs boogles also for example.

Another supper good sb card vs combo is runed halo, as it can name creature from boogles, half of twin combo, certain removal for you combo (naming path to exile if u have combo in hand) etc.

I would try to squize more from manabase. Only 1 slayers stronghold seems quite sketchy, but I know you dont have man lands. However is there really no good spells lands out there?

[Pedros]

Some intresting sb cards from dega deck that Bahra and Immapwner is playing:

1 Wear/Tear
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
1 Rule of Law
3 Mirran Crusader - awsome against pod, jund
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sowing Salt
2 Batterskull

Hide/seek is just better than wear/tear, you will never fuse this card and hide/seek is better against tron since you can cleanly deal with a wurmcoil and you can use seek to get an emrakul if it's their only out.

I was playing rest in peace for awhile but it directly conflicts with your gameplan. I'm assuming you want rest in peace against pod, but rip stops lavamancer and lingering souls, both of which are strong against pod. Bringing in rest in peace also hurts your clock against storm since you can't flashback lingering souls. I think relic is a better grave-hate card for us since it doesn't hurt lavamancer or souls, it can be just like rip for our opponent and you
can still just cleanly exile the grave if you have to, oh and it cantrips.

I don't like rule of law because I like my sideboard cards to be relevant in multiple matchups, Rule of Law is just for one deck, unless you really really want it against living end. I think we have a descent storm matchup anyway, we have tons of discard, grave-hate, and we have enchantment removal, so it's hard for them to grapeshot us games 2 and 3, and we have slaughter games which can steal empty the warrens, or engineered explosives kills the goblins.

Pillar of Flame: pod, affinity, merfolk, hatebears, anything with a lot of x/2's. This was deathmark for awhile, but I want the exile for pod matchups.
Relic of Progenitus: Storm, Pod, Gifts, Jund. Yes, jund, makes goyf a 0/1 or a 1/2 if used every turn, and pretty much shuts ooze completely off. they are not playng rest in peace as they pla both souls and lavamancer
Hide/Seek: Affinity, Tron, Storm, Pod, Bogles, Twin, Jund (
both twin and jund bring in batterskull), white prison, 8-rack.
Stony Silence is just for affinity, but we need it and it's basically a free win if we get it turn 2.
Slaughter Games: Twin, storm, amulet combo, scapeshift, gifts.
Sowing Salt: Tron, Celestial Colonnade decks.
Fracturing Gust: Affinity, Bogles, White Prison, 8-rack.

Tbh Hide/Seek and Slaughter Games might be a cards that are worth splashing for.

[Pedros]

Other options for sb from Dega Twin that did 3-1:

Baneslayer Angel
Combust
Grim Lavamancer
Lightning Helix

I also dont understand yur reasoning to deck building. Why you are all in on any card or play not at all? You played 4-3 Grim Lavamancers, it is too many. However 1 or 2 is quite good to have different options.

I would also try to fit some amount of swords / batterskulls to the sb as you have quite a lot of token producers to put it on, plus equipment is quite good with first strike too.

Another thing I noticed is the fact you dont really like to play lands that dont produce a colored mana. Isnt playing stuff like tectonic edge almost a free roll? It also helps vs collonades from UWR.

[Pedros]

Ah I noticed nonbo combo with Figure of destiny and lands that doesnt give u colored mana ;/

[hamfactorial]

Hey Pedros, thank you for the comments. I like the way the deck is shaping up, but I have a tendency to just jam 3/4-ofs until I understand what cards I like or don't like. It's a weakness I have as a deck builder, avoiding 1 and 2-ofs for consistency purposes. It opens me up to creating a deck with really big weak spots, because I trust draw percentages too much and feel uncomfortable with inconsistency.

Regarding card advantage, that was why I played Dark Confidant in the first build, and Sword of Fire and Ice in later builds. Running out of gas is a definite issue with this deck (and most decks not running blue/black), and one I'd like to hedge against. I get good virtual CA from 2-for-1 creatures with 4 toughness or token makers like Brimaz/Splicer, maybe that's enough.

My sideboards are a mess, I'm just trying the spaghetti approach (throw stuff on the wall, see what sticks).

Can you link me to the Dega
Twin list?

I've tried Swords, Batterskull, and all sorts of common RW spells (helix, combust, etc) and liked them. If I filled it up with 1 and 2-ofs, it would start looking like a pro SB. And everyone knows looking pro is important

[hamfactorial]

And yes, I try to maximize my colored lands for FoD. If I ran full 3-color (RWB) I'd play Lavaclaw Reaches. I've found that straight RW is powerful but leaves me vulnerable in some areas. With enough fetchlands, the 3rd color is almost free.

I've been playing around with Tidehollow Sculler in the 2-drop spot. It has synergy with Kiki and Resto, and can create a soft lock if they're stuck on mana or drawing sorcery speed spells.

[Pedros]

Dega twin is on last page of slavation dega modern thread.

I am not fan of going all in to 3 colors as you cant play blood moon and or lands without color.

[hamfactorial]

Thanks Pedros, I'll check it out.

[Pedros]

I like your version more, however what I still believe would be best option is to play RW with ups I win combo with either lifelink suptheme or hatebear suptheme.

[hamfactorial]

Hmm, lifelink subtheme. Do you mean Sword of War & Peace / Light & Shadow, or lifelinker creatures?

I looked at the Dega Twin list, it's pretty sloppy.

[hamfactorial]

I had some mild success this morning with Precinct Captain in place of Knight of the White Orchid. In a 24/25 land deck, fetching out more land is nice but not critical. Maybe the token generation from Captain is more relevant in the mid and late game.

They're both [mana]WW[/mana] first strikers, so it's easy to do an A/B test between them.

[LP, of the Fires]

If you stay straight 2-color, you should toy with your manabase more. Messing with things like tectonic edge, horizon canopy, etc.

[hamfactorial]

I was looking around at mtgo-stats.com and realized that I've been doing something backwards. The top decks are Affinity (12%), Pod (9%), then a combo deck, Twin (7%) and a GW Midrange deck (5%). The boogeyman aren't combo decks, they're synergy decks with dudes. I've been maindecking Thalia like a champ, but she's not great against decks full of dudes turning sideways. It's also been leading me to cut maindeck instants/sorceries in favor of creatures.

With that in mind, I tested a build without Thalia and found that it was much more effective vs. aggro and all her friends.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.13[/deck]

Obviously the numbers are off (4 Bonfire? Ham you crazy), but it's an interesting place to start.

To no one's surprise, packing a maindeck sweeper makes me a favorite vs. Affinity, Zoo, Pod and tokens. The longer the game goes, the more likely I will top-deck Bonfire of the Feelbads and win on the spot. I was fortunate to run up against a bunch of aggro decks in testing, so the concept was fairly well tested.

The creatures who make more creatures have been excellent. Even Precinct Captain over-performed, making a small army of chump blockers or Sword/Batterskull couriers.

Testing results for 2014-04-02
2-0 Win vs. Affinity
2-0 Win vs. Zoo
2-0 Win vs. Tokens
2-1 Win vs. Death 'n Taxes
2-1 Win vs. Melira Pod

With aggro fairly well handled by the main deck, I can dedicate the sideboard to beating combo decks with narrower hate. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out the
right mix.

[Valdarith]

I sense a strong token subtheme developing here.

[hamfactorial]

You sense correctly, I'm considering a Spear of Heliod for extreme value.

[Mcdonalds]

4x Leyline of the meek for MASSIVE VALUE

[hamfactorial]

Unban Sword of the Meek plz.

[Pedros]

I would consider Honor of the Pure over Spear of Heliod, however spear might be quite good too as it pumps both golem and kiki jiki, plus getting value in repetable source of removal might be quite good (keep mana for resto angel, they dont swing with creature, EOT cast angel, blink sth, profit?)

While 4 bonfires might be an overkill, however it is degenerate topdeck in late game vs any creature deck. Vs control it isnt at their best, however it can still kill all those goblin tokens from storm.

[hamfactorial]

I picked Spear only because it's attached to repeatable removal. It definitely lends itself to efficiently comboing after turn 3, which is where I want to be with Kiki-Resto.

It might be terrible, but shouldn't hurt me as a 1-of.

[hamfactorial]

During my search for XXXtreme blink value in the 2-drop slot, I considered Mogg War Marshal. With the token sub theme (maybe even a major theme now), he becomes very attractive as a blink target, netting an extra goblin when ETB and on death. Since Kiki copies die at EOT, these two can put dudes on the board indefinitely.

I'd cut some number of Figure of Destiny to wedge in Mr. Mogg, which relaxes my colored mana requirement somewhat. Suddenly, space for Tectonic Edge!

[LP, of the Fires]

Once you add Mogg War Marshall, you're only so far away from Greater Gargadon...

[hamfactorial]

[Toddington]

*jumps through window into discussion*

Did some say Gargadon?

[hamfactorial]

Thread: derailed

[Mcdonalds]

Isn't this just a worse version of cat tribal ?