Pre Edit: Made hour and a half review of my plays and my logic behind choices. I hope this gives more players insight into properly playing the list and decisions we want to be making https://youtu.be/4rOwe9YbQDs Go 20 minutes in if you want to understand Spear Spewer.

Disclaimer: This is a real burn deck in standard. If you don’t feel comfortable counting to 20, if you think you “Bolt the Bird” 100% of the time, please turn away now.

Welcome to my first ever deck breakdown. This deck is currently only being run Bo1 but I have no doubt it is fast enough to win large field events in Bo3 with solid sideboard. I have played basically every red deck for the last 6-7 years, but mainly legacy burn, because nothing feels better than beating someone who dropped 5k on a deck and just expects to beat 16 bolts.

Red was already a solid deck before this expansion, but it just wasn’t real RDW/Burn. It just didn’t play like a real version.

This spoiler season I was surprised that 2 of these cards were even printed with what even exists, and a third card blew my mind the after the first time casting (discussed later). The two cards that blew my mind were, [[Skewer the Critics]] , I mean this is obvious sorcery speed bolt was going to be absurd in standard. But the card that flew under everyone’s radar which is my new favorite card in standard is, [[Spear Spewer]] .

Let me introduce 4 of my favorite Legacy burn cards, [[Price of Progress]] , [[Sulfuric Vortex]] , [[Eidolon of the Great Revel]] and my favorite [[Flame Rift]] . What do all 4 of these cards do? Right they win games…. But what else do they do? They deal damage to both players. Now you may be asking why would I want a card that deals damage to me? Because you built your deck specifically around throwing stuff at peoples faces. You need to accept that if you deal 20 to your opponent and take 19 in the progress, YOU WIN! This may feel dangerous with other red decks, but trust me, none of them are this fast. Now let me introduce you to the deck before I do a breakdown of each card and maybe some tips on how to play burn properly. I fully expect people to pick up this list and not be able to get wins because of just some missed concepts on maximizing damage in red.

1 Fanatical Firebrand

4 Spear Spewer

4 Ghitu Lavarunner

4 Viashino Pyromancer

4 Electrostatic Field

4 Shock

4 Lightning Strike

4 Wizard's Lightning

4 Risk Factor

4 Light Up the Stage

4 Skewer the Critics

19 Mountain

Fanatical Firebrand : This is a 1 of simply because 20 lands are for sheeps, this is Burn, we don’t play creatures just to attack with them, go play white weenie you weenie.

Spear Spewer : This is my bread and butter, my love child, the reason I decided to type up this whole post. How is this guy not being rated? It’s a 1 drop that either draws a removal spell or its dealing 3-5 dmg. This is going to be the bane of people’s existence by rotation, its such a pain in the ass for people to deal with. It blocks 1/1s well and just shoves dmg down their throats. If they decide to remove it with a spell they are wasting valuable resources while I throw bolt after bolt after bolt at their face. [[Settle the wreckage]] don’t look too good when 8 of my creatures don’t even attack. We’ve decided we are going to win the race. We don’t care if we hurt ourselves in the process. This is the red moto. If your using your bolts to remove a 3/3 go play gruul, you don’t deserve bolts in your deck.

Ghitu Lavarunner : I’ve said this before, attacking with creatures isn’t our MO. This is just a solid card to activate Wizard’s Lightning. This card also allows you to keep really greedy 1 landers with the disgusting card Light up the stage.

Viashino Pyromancer : Again attacking face is week but activating Wizard’s lightning is strong. Also any dmg around blockers is very strong. Still a lower power level card in the deck. Its like people playing wizard burn have lost the plot. They are building burn around the least burn cards in the deck. Stop calling your crap wizards deck wizards burn. Its wizards tempo and it belongs in the trash bin.

Electrostatic Field : Now this card has seen play. I first used it with saffronolive’s Punisher Burn list. I fell in love with the card. It’s one of the best blockers in the format. 2 drop 0/4. Haha your Goblin Chainwhirlers suck you net decker. This card is basically always a 2 for 1 or it wins you the game. It turns 3 bolts into 12 dmg on t3. What is that? This is standard. These people have families. They just tapped out to play their 2 drop and they are at 6 health. What happened. This isn’t even magic fairy land this is real this is consistent. I will post proof.

Shock : This says any target right? Might aswell say throw at face. Kindve good with electrostatic field, another bolt? Seems fair. This is probably the only spell I’d say can be considered as removal. But only if it’s going to push 4+ dmg past.

Lightning Strike : Its standard version of lightning bolt. I get it we need to balance the format. Still… Throw this at peoples faces.

Wizard's Lightning : Baby Bolt #2 , we tend to throw these at faces.

Skewer the Critics : Main Phase Bolt, we tend to throw these at faces.

Risk Factor : Draw is a must in this list. This is the coal for the engine. It feels like everytime they pick wrong unless they pick right. I haven’t tested with flame of keld yet but I know for a fact that frenzy will not be in the main list, Ill talk about that farther down. I was originally playing 3 but 4 is probably what is needed I’ve only got punished once or twice.

Light Up the Stage : HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Where did this walk on come from? Its like the pacific islander kid that moves to school and the tight end knows he’s about to lose his spot. For me this card reads R : Draw 2 cards. That is it, don’t look into this. You will almost never be punished for this card unless you use it poorly. I like not playing a land and playing this first. So the chance of this not being R : Draw 2 is basically 0. Playing a Risk Factor off this feels nasty.

Mountain : The best land in MTG. Only color that thinks properly. The goal of magic is to get your opponent to 0 life. Blue, I want to stop my opponent from playing things. White, I want to gain life and to play a bunch of little guys. Black, I like pain. Green, I like big things. Red, I WANT MY OPPONENT AT 0 LIFE. As you can clearly see red is the only color that actually wants to win at magic.

Notable exclusions ////////

Goblin Chainwhirler : Get this crap out of my face. This is not a burn card. You like playing mana intensive things and maybe get a chance to deal more than 1 dmg? GTFO this card doesn’t fit in burn at all, Big red is a subsection of red players but they are the people who thought they were red players but really just aren’t. You know who you are.

Experimental Frenzy : Are you trying to tell me to play a 4 drop enchantment that doesn’t do anything until the turn after in a deck that wants to win on turn 4? I get it this card is cool, we all like throwing our decks around. But this is just too cost intensive, i’ve already won too many games on the turn I want to cast this, for it to seem like a reasonable addition. Though this is 100% a sideboard card, it just doesn’t make my main list. I would try flame of keld main before this.

Flame of Keld : I havent tried this yet. I don’t like that its not a instant or sorcery, so there will be times it doesn’t do dmg. I don’t like that. If you want to go extra budget You could try this over Risk factor. Let me know how it goes.

If there are other inclusions I may be missing, comment below and I will discuss it in the list.

How to play ////////////

We want to deal 20 to our opponent before we take 20. This may seem like an easy concept, but for whatever reason people are playing blue, so I guess it’s not an easy concept. Seriously though, maximizing dmg really isn’t something that is that simple, especially in this meta. Lets say you are in a situation where your opponent has a 3/3 blocker and you have 2 2/2s and a bolt. In this vacuum which is the most efficient way to do dmg? Do you want to bolt the blocker and attack with 4? What if he casts more creatures? To many it may feel obvious to bolt first then attack, but in this meta with this deck youre already too vulnerable with the creatures. Your best bet would be to sac a creature and get 2 to face and bolt the face. The extra 1 is huge and how decks are shaping up there will be more blockers future turns. You have enough bolts and other burn spells where you don’t mind losing a creature. This is why we don’t mind Spear Skewer, these are small sacrifices that we make to get to the end goal of winning, and in our case winning fast.

Here is proof of atleast some success with the list, though its very early on. This is 3 7 win runs in a row. https://i.imgur.com/05Tlg7F.jpg . The huge selling point of this list (other than it having 3-4 rare wildcards) is that time played. 31:21 , 29:50 , 16:59 . This deck is fast. I mean roadrunner fast. I mean, gtfo with your playing shitty enchantments on t2 fast. I’ve also had 7+ game streaks on ladder at platinum. I have no doubt it can make mythic, but to me mythic is a volume based thing, but it doesn’t help to build collection. This deck is perfect for ladder because all games are under 5 min win or lose, unless you slow play.

Matchups ////////

Honestly I don’t know too many of the matchups, I just know most decks aren’t fast enough to get started, lifegain 1-3 is sortve negligible, it’s when it gets more than that where it sorts to become an issue.

In the mirror match, you will most likely win the race if you can drop a field. Their chainwhirlers are sub par. If they try to remove your creatures theyll just lose. Also I haven’t seen any real mirrors yet because people are playing red piles and not burn decks.

The real mirror is rakdos burn but it’s sortve a loss if they get the gain 3 life spell. That 6 life swing is hard to overcome vs a deck that is also trying to burn your face.

I don’t think this meta has developed to the point where this deck is bad. I think its too good right now, people are testing a lot of stuff which makes the format slower. After playing burn style decks for a many of years I have figured, knowing matchups isn’t all that important since most games you are somewhat goldfishing like a combo deck (burn is combo if tendrils is). What is important is knowing specific cards that may be a wrench in your combo, and to try and play around them. If you play around stuff too much with a deck like this, you will get punished.

Here are some game wins to show how fast the list is. https://imgur.com/a/lG3rAPk It even includes a fun lesson on why you should be playing that mediocre abrupt decay on t2. I’m, going to wrap up this essay. I probably have a lot more to say on RDW but people probably didn’t even read this. They just went straight to the 4 rare wildcard decklist. Hopped into comp play and went 0-3. If that’s your experience with the deck, it’s okay, red isn’t for you. Not everyone is a winner.

TLDR : https://youtu.be/Td1HjzUA4U0

Edit : Will answer any question about Red decks. Will also go on podcast to discuss the deck in full.

Bonus : my bag of shiny pennies http://imgur.com/gallery/Ot5RIwh

Edit Edit: Every downvote stings like the bolts you're going to be taking to the face on ladder.

Edit Edit Edit: people asking for ideal hand. https://i.imgur.com/UvQ1pPY.jpg This is a nut . It was no contest https://imgur.com/a/xqyndc5 for esper (wrong order pics)

Edit Edit Edit Edit : So seems yall like the deck. Of the people currently tracking on mtgarena.pro the list has 1014 games tracked. With a winrate of 60.33%. I'm really happy considering a lot of the players have never played burn before. I expect this to drop to 55% maybe lower. Some people won't find success with it. But still a reasonable deck for the larger sample winrates. With the time played it makes a strong consideration for ladder deck. Whoever is playing in Australia and tracking from 1/20 you are currently 1-5 with the list and making us look bad.

https://i.imgur.com/CJGwYPT.jpg We coin flipping ladder bois. Grinding them events. To the person playing Bo3 with 60 cards and going 7-3. Thank you.

Gotten to the point where people are seeing thread trying deck complaining they can't win and blaming the deck. Nah some people aren't meant to play burn. It's a style of life this isn't just grab and go list. If I read another comment that says they are losing to the 4 of wildgrowth walker, I'm going to lose it. BECAUSE YOU LOSE TO WILDGROWTH THAT DOES NOT MAKE THE DECK BAD. YOU PLAYED IT WRONG. NOW WE CAN BE CRITICAL OF OUR PLAY OR WE CAN BLAME THE LIST. It may very well be a bad deck, but the fact it's sitting at 55% wins and people either are really successful or really unsuccessful, means this is a skill gap thing.

It is okay you aren't good at burn you can practice. It's basically the only deck you can sit at a table alone and figure out math +/- x dmg happening each game. Finding how much we can do before x turn. If you believe certain card will increase your winrate, it's not impossible to change card list on your own. This is 2 cards different from my first burn lost, this probably isn't optimal for expansion, maybe? If you find yourself 1-4 off consistently, you are playing something wrong. Some of the best mtg players I know wouldn't be able to count to 20 playing burn. Most people who think burn is easy tournament deck, spent over 1k on foils for their deck and expect people to whimper over their cards.

I love so many of you have found success with the list. To those who don't have success with keep trying, you'll figure it out eventually. I plan to write future articles on playing burn archetype properly. Try to call upon the articles from years ago, that helped me that I now can't find and refer people to.

Fun moment of streamer, MakeThatNoise, hitting mythic with me on the rail. https://clips.twitch.tv/EnchantingRelievedSpindleImGlitch

If anyone is still reading this, I have been setting up my twitch stream (1/23). I plan to make a breakdown of playing the archetype as whole. And show my decision making process. Stream is same username as my reddit one.

Here is a video of me playing Spear Spewer vs RDW. https://youtu.be/YFlO-mw98mI

Here is basically goldfishing vs a jeskai deck for t4 win on play https://youtu.be/1bNuvfhcEMo

Had 5-0 Bo3 run on stream running same list testing sideboards, definitely has potential, I may like it more than rakdos having tried both in comp constructed.

Here is vid of me reviewing my games https://www.twitch.tv/videos/369380639

This offer has been removed at the request of an anonymous party due to legal concerns.

This sub has 40,000 members, yet averages 2-3 posts per day at best. Dominaria is coming out, and is one of the biggest set releases in years with impact across multiple formats, yet the content on here for post-Dom decks and tech is unbelievably sparse. I remember a year or so ago, this sub would be filled with well constructed, creative brews and upgrades to current decks after the set spoiler came out. It was one of the best places to be when trying to adapt and adjust to a new metagame.

So what happened? A vocal minority of people who were constantly criticizing the content creators that would dedicate A LOT of their own time to create posts on here made this sub's culture toxic. A lot of well thought out, well practiced decklists would have their comments slammed with crap like "your winrate against X deck is questionable, so now I think your whole post is worthless" or "this just seemed like a worse version of [insert barely similar deck here]," often with a mere fraction of the amount of thought and analysis as the OP mentioned. Mods never did anything about it, and it seemed more and more frequent to see that people posting here were automatically on the defensive, as if it was some elite privilege to post here. So people stopped posting here.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks this about this sub, and I'd love to see what other people think on this matter. There was a time where this sub was a centerpiece for grinders and pros alike to test new decks and new tech in established builds, and that doesn't happen at all now.

Surely even less than "perfect" decklists and writeups to prepare for Week 1 of a new metagame have to be more appealing to you guys than reading someone who came in 39th place at a GP with a stock Affinity list's tournament report, right?

I won a trophy! Then I almost dropped the trophy. Then I caught the trophy!

I've been trying to convince everyone to play Temur Clover for a long, long time. It didn't really work, but I thought that the most common matchups in the meta -- UW and monored -- were, respectively, almost impossible to lose and quite strong. So I had no compunction about bringing the deck to Dreamhack.

Because I've written so much about the deck elsewhere, I won't go into detail about the playstyle. I changed up the sideboard a bit, adding two counters and an extra Aether Gust to fight Wilderness Reclamation (the only Worlds deck that really scared me), but the core of the deck has been the same for multiple formats now: Play some of the best spells in Standard, combine them with engines that make them better, and go to town.

My info

If you want to see more Temur Clover content, just go play ladder exactly today follow me on Twitch, Twitter, or YouTube.

The deck

Aside from my Reddit posts (linked above, or click through to my profile), I strongly recommend this guide by Ryan Normandin, which is a remarkable introduction to the deck -- it goes through the basics in detail and explains some higher-level matchup stuff very clearly.

Match reports

Note: Some details may be wrong, as I played a *lot* of Magic this weekend. If you played against me or watched a match and have something to add, please let me know!

You can see bracket information, including info on my opponents' decks, here (at least for now)

Round 1: UW Control (1-0 matches, 2-0 games)

This match was pretty straightforward. In the first game, I had an early Clover, applied enough pressure that they tapped out for me to resolve an Escape, then hit two more Clovers off it and Stomped them to death (thanks to Borrower tapping down the Trawler they'd just cast to block with). In the second game, they had a draw heavy on Thirst for Meaning and didn't play to the board early enough to stop my strong curve.

Round 2: Mardu Control (2-0, 4-1)

This was a really interesting, unique deck. Angrath's Rampage and Chandra are both pretty threatening for Temur. However, the rest of the deck was a little too heavy on creature removal to stop the Escape/Fae engine. In the first game, I drew four spells in my top 16 and died; in the other two, I stalled out the six-mana walkers until I drew most of my deck and overwhelmed the minor advantages they'd been able to pull together.

Round 3: Jeskai Fires (3-0, 6-2)

(This match was streamed.) This was my teammate Shoop, so we'd have been happy whatever happened. But the way the match actually went down was disappointing; he missed land drops early in games 1 and 3, while my draw in game 2 was quite poor, so the match wasn't very interesting to watch. When both decks do their thing, the games are tight and interactive; when either comes out slowly, the games tend to spiral out of control.

Round 4: Jeskai Control (4-0, 8-3)

Rei Sato had an interesting Superfriends list: No Fires, just lots of walkers and removal. Unfortunately, Superfriends isn't great against a deck with early creatures and late-game card advantage, and Sarkhan just gets clowned by Brazen Borrower. I bricked out hard and died to Chandra in game 1, but in the other two games, I was able to control his walkers with tokens and Stomps and eventually pull ahead; he didn't have enough 2-for-1s and eventually got forced into topdeck mode.

Round 5: Jund Food (4-1, 8-5)

I should have mulliganed at least one of my openers, as both were mediocre against the cat engine (this matchup demands an early Clover or a bunch of early draw). My opponent had Cat + Oven + Goose + Devil in play by turn four in both games and I couldn't defend myself at all. They played beautifully, didn't lose a Swiss round other than through (I think?) a concession in round 10, and left me terrified for all of Day 2 because I thought they'd knock me out of the tournament.

Notably, they ran four Wildborn Preserver over the usual Agonizing Remorse package, and that looked really strong with Cat/Oven (plus random late-game Geese). I bounced one after it game down, and it attacked as a 7/7 two turns later.

I entered Day 2 feeling weird: I was happy about my record, but I'd been on the draw five times, hit T2 Clover -> T3 Beanstalk zero times, and won my only match against Fires (which was all over the room) because of Shoop's bad luck. Temur just wasn't feeling all that powerful.

Round 6: Jeskai Fires (5-1, 10-6)

I barely remember this round, but I know that one game was decided by Jeskai's missed fourth land drop. I got ran over in the game I lost, and the game where we both "did the thing" was defined, IIRC, by two instances of double Petty Theft that let me get ahead on tempo. But if Jack Kiefer reads this and remembers the games better, I'd be interested to hear his thoughts.

Round 7: UW Control (6-1, 12-6)

(This match was streamed.) Shuhei Nakamura is an incredible player, but this matchup is just heinous for UW, especially the Paulo version with only one Dream Trawler. (If Temur is functional, an early Trawler is just about UW's only way to win a game.)

Interesting decisions from the match:

• G1: My keep was five lands, Beanstalk, and Escape to the Wilds. It was borderline, but I kept because I had a scryland. As long as I hit a cheap creature or Clover in my first couple of draw steps, I thought I'd be able to apply enough pressure to force the essential pattern of "they tap out to answer something, you cast Escape". Going back and thinking about my other UW matches, I'd have mulled the hand, as flooding still feels too risky.

• I cast a non-copied Granted on turn four. Though I had Escape in hand, I went for another one, hoping that Shuhei would counter it and then feel comfortable going shields-down. It was still too early to grab Spyglass (I didn't have enough pressure available), so I wanted to optimize for a very long game. Note also that once Escape landed, Shuhei felt compelled to leave Veto up at all times, which made Bonecrusher much more annoying to deal with.

• Shuhei actually boarded out Dream Trawler, which made winning effectively impossible. Archon just falls apart too easily in the face of Bonecrusher, Borrower, and one-card sideboard answers like Storm's Wrath and Chandra.

• G2: I bounced two removal permanents to get lethal on board, rather than bouncing Archon, because it let me win with Bonecrusher OR Borrower off of Escape (though the choice didn't matter too much by then).

Round 8: UW Control (7-1, 14-7)

Allen Wu was even more frightening than Shuhei, especially because he kept Dream Trawler in his deck. He won the first game by finding his only Trawler early on and defending it vociferously, but the other two games were... well, a lot like the other streamed games you can see. UW's interaction just doesn't line up against Temur's threats. (I probably would also have won the first game had I seen a Clover in my top 30 cards.)

Round 9: Jeskai Fires (8-1, 16-8)

I fought Zapgaze in a preview of the finals. Another match I don't remember too well, though I think the games I won involved one case of a missed land drop and another case of "no Fires on turn four". (Unless cards like Oketra are involved, Temur has a very hard time losing to Fires-less Fires.) We were both locked for top 16 by then; I don't know if that affected the quality of our play, but I felt much looser and happier than I had been feeling. (Zapgaze always seems loose and happy to me, so I'm not sure how he felt.)

Round 10: Jeskai Fires (9-1, 18-8)

PT top four competitor Zachary Kiihne! This was a ridiculously stacked tournament, and my deck responded by giving me my best draws all day to absolutely blow the match away. (I think I had three Clovers and nine lands out by T6 of the second game, and he scooped to a quadruple Petty Theft.) When Temur hits Clover -> Beanstalk -> Fae, there's very little in Standard that can hold a candle to it.

We immediately jumped into the first two rounds of Top 16, just as I began to get a pounding headache. My wife (see "Props", below) brought some Ibuprofen and a can of Diet Pepsi that I pressed to my skull for a minute before the next round.

Round 11: UW Control (10-1, 20-9)

Really weird match. As the higher seed, I had to be on the play, and we selected a "you win the coin flip" option on Arena that left us without a timer for the first game. We made it too far to restart before we noticed, so we played game one without timers (and it was a long one for both of us). Eventually, I ground it out, then died quickly to multiple Dream Trawlers in game two and won equally quickly with the nuts in game three. After that, I immediately jumped into...

Round 12: Jeskai Fires (11-1, 22-10)

Ow, my head. This match is a blur. I think Jeskai missed land drops at least once; I was incredibly lucky not to lose to this deck on the weekend.

I focused on sleep rather than testing before Sunday, and (with help from Trader Darwin's chewable melatonin) got the best night I'd had in a long time.

Round 13: UW Control (12-1, 24-10)

My mulligan in G1 was completely offset by T1 Innkeeper, T2 Clover with a Beanstalk Giant in hand. Allen Wu didn't have Trawler before I had Spyglass, so he didn't have a path to victory as I played three or four spells each turn.

G2 was really rough, as Allen was able to handle Clover early with Veto backup and found a Trawler relatively early on (his having an extra copy after boarding was very good). Trawler and the cards it drew outpaced five different Adventure creatures plus a couple of tokens, until I was down to nothing. There was a turn that I chose to double-Theft a Trawler to play around a counter, which left me open to a Shatter after Allen let the card be bounced. However, since I expected Shatter anyway, there was nothing else I could have targeted -- I'd have just lost the creature I unlocked and given Allen another removal spell.

After Shattering me, Allen chose not to Veto the Incubation I cast the next turn. I think that play is defensible; the only creature he really cares about is Fae of Wishes, which he can counter half of anyway, and I might have had an Escape or Fae I was trying to guard. I'm lucky enough to rip a Fae and wish for the two card-advantage spells in my sideboard (there' s a reason I kept them both in there). I do think that the Granted with Fae on it might have been the right Veto target, since it stops me from being able to block Trawler for a turn, but I also understand why Allen preferred to stop me from casting anything big that turn by Vetoing the Escape that I fetched.

Finally, Allen drew a string of bricks despite some scrying, and I was able to fetch multiple Trawler answers to play around a counter.

Round 14: UW Control (13-1, 26-10)

G1: My hand turned out very awkward when I kept drawing Beanstalk Giants, but I finally lucked into a Clover when I had enough lands for a bait spell. I'm not sure it was right to Absorb the stomp there -- given the Shatter and the Omens, Austin had plenty of potential gas to fight through me as long as I didn't land a Clover/Innkeeper. But of course, it's always easier when you can see your own hand, and keeping Tef alive can be valuable in the long term (plus, it wasn't likely that I had the third Giant in hand, and most other copied spells wouldn't have been too bad). I fetched Spyglass very early; I knew he had no artifact destruction preboard (open decklists) and figured I'd win a long game as long as Trawler didn't come down with zero-mana protection.

G2: This was a good game for showing how weak Archon tends to be against Temur; they have three copies, we have eight ways to interact, and we eventually just plow through it. Dream Trawler almost has to be around for Temur to lose.

Round 15: Jeskai Fires (14-1, 28-11)

I had a lot of advantages coming into this one: I could afford to lose a match, I was on the play because of seeding, and Zapgaze had just finished a tough match to reach the finals.

G1: Oketra just rolled me -- a very interesting one-of, and one of the only ways for Fires to dominate if Temur takes out their namesake enchantment. (The other is Dream Trawler, which I'm afraid might see more play after this tournament.) Looking back, I'd have had a better chance with Lovestruck + token on T4 rather than Beanstalk + token, since I needed to kill Tef to have Lovestruck as a blocker -- but I hadn't expected his five-drop to generate so much board presence after Fires got knocked out. I also think the Escape was a punt -- looking back, I think that no combination of cards off the top could have saved me, so I needed to vomit all my creatures onto the board, lose them all to blocks, and then hit something like Escape -> Clover -> Lovestruck + Borrower to live. But my odds were very low either way.

G2: I went for card advantage over aggro, casting Innkeeper on T3 and hoping he hadn't drawn ways to kill it rather than throwing out Bonecrusher right away. Running Kenrith into Lovestruck was awkward, but perhaps understandable -- he was both trying to set up a Cavalier kill and ensuring he'd get value even after a double Petty Theft (at least, that's my best guess -- we didn't discuss the games much after).

G3: Absolutely bonkers game, tight to the very last turn. The turn after Zapgaze cast Bonecrusher, I chose not to Escape -- not because I smelled Aether Gust, but because Escaping into blanks would've lost me the game and I didn't want to take that risk. Probably the lower-percentage play, but it somehow worked. Some folks in chat proposed that Zapgaze's Teferi should have bounced his own Bonecrusher to throw Stomps at my face -- but of course, I'd have resolved The Great Henge that way, so his play was correct. I certainly should have returned Bonecrusher rather than Borrower with my own Once and Future, and was just clicking far too fast out of panic and anticipation. I think I wasn't a lock the turn Zapgaze conceded, as Kenrith into Cavs could still have been dangerous, but the second Fires was enough of a brick that I was very far ahead.

If anyone has other thoughts on the game, I'd be curious to hear them -- it was definitely the most interesting one I played all tournament, in terms of the number of paths I could have imagined it taking.

And then we all ate steak with Martin Juza! This was a very good weekend.

Props:

• My team, for their support throughout the weekend, even though two of them (Bloody and Shoop) missed top 16 after missing lots of land drops in their final on-camera matches. I was playing for them

• My wife, for lots of logistical support, social media management, and explanations to my parents of how I was doing (even though she doesn't play herself and had to learn the rules on the fly)

• My parents, for driving me to FNM many, many times

• Bloody's fans, who were a wonderful swarm of partisan supporters in chat

• All of my opponents for their sportsmanship and skill

• All of the casters for making me feel at ease in the booth (and for having a surprising amount of knowledge about Temur Clover)

• Wizards and Dreamhack for putting the tournament together and making it a very smooth production. Rounds were announced almost immediately after the last match finished, which helped us all get just a bit more sleep.

• Frank Karsten for taking the time to look at my manabase maybe a minute after I mentioned him in the post-tournament interview

• GiveWell for being an excellent charity: I'm very happy to be snapping off $15k to them after this event.

• Luck, for favoring me all through the week

• Too many other people, entities, and concepts to name

Slops:

• Me, for neglecting to thank my wife or parents in the post-tournament interview

• The fake "trophy base" that led me to almost drop the dang thing

• Anyone in chat who criticized Allen's non-Veto of Incubation because it was an "obvious" play. Now that I've been on that stage, I can tell you that very few things are obvious up there, and that your opponent's unknown cards are extremely frightening.

Notes:

• A few times, I saw chat getting mad at someone for not shaking hands. Everyone shook hands, at least in my matches; this just happens quickly and isn't always caught by cameras after the game ends.

I anticipate this whole thing will be long, emotional and often incoherent, so I divided it in two parts. If you are interested on learning about the deck and how to sideboard with it, please go straight ahead in this “The Cards” piece, but if you are also willing to hear me drag on about feelings, horrible plays on camera, and friends, I'd appreciate your company at “The People”, which I plan to post on the next few days.

First, let me point out that I haven't gotten any offers to write a report for a major website, but even if I did I'd still pass that extra cash for the opportunity to post this as a r/spikes original. I am an old man from a time where tournaments reports where posted on e-mail chains, message boards and The Dojo and I love the feeling of a community of rag tags trying their best to improve and sharing their finds. When playtesting for the PT, it wasn't the major sites and star pros that offered the best ideas and information, it was the effort of this community of aspiring heroes freely sharing their thoughts, such as in the excelent posts by u/NinjaTheNick. I want to keep this flame brightly lit and hopefully inspiere others to do the same.

So, Mardu Vehicles was the very first deck we tried to port from the old format since Heart of Kiran was an obvious replacement to Smuggler's Copter. Back then, we still hadn't found the mana base with Spire of Industries, so we were really stretching the black sources with Cultivator's Caravan. This, in turn, put even more pressure to run 3-powered creatures and planeswalkers for Crew, which posed a difficult deck-building challenge.

Still, our poorly tuned mardu deck felt good overall. After the first SCG Open, we immediately went to play against Brennan DeCandio's aggro BG Delirium deck, but with a tentative 25-card sideboard to fit everything that we figured could be useful. BG was crushing the matchup when it had acess to all the good sideboard cards, and still was doing fine even without over-sideboarding.

So we threw Mardu away and move on to shinier things like Tyler Hill's 4-color saheeli deck with Chandra (that deck was so fun to play with the C-Plan of burning people with Oath of Chandra), which we eventually discarded due to a weak control matchup and inconsistent mana base, and an old-school BG Delirium deck with Liliana and lots of Ishkanah. The theory behind the second was that we could be a bigger delirum deck against DeCandio's aggro version, and we wouldn't fold to Fumigate, which we anticipated as the obvious answer for people to play in the following week in reaction to Winding Constrictor. We also thought we'd found a cool replacement for the inevitabiliy of Emrakul with a plan of maindecking two Scrapheap Scroungers and one Distended Mindbender, plus recurring Noxious Gearhulks.

The list looked something like this:
23 lands
2 Vessel of Nascency
1 Graple with the Past
2 Fatal Push
3 Grasp of Darkness
2 To the Slaughter
1 Murder
4 Tireless Tracker
3 Mindwrack Demon
4 Grim Flayer
2 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Ishkanah
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Distended Mindbender
4 Liliana the Last Hope
4 Traverse the Uvenwald
1 Kalitas

The deck did a lot of neat things that made it look like a good and powerful deck. For instance, having access to Scrapheap Scrounger from self-mill that made emerging Distended Mindebender easier, or having the option of passing turns with mana open against Jeskai Saheeli to threaten disrupting the combo and then using it with clues, Vessel/Grapple, To the Slaughter and Scrapheap Scrounger if the opponent didn't commit to the cat. It also had a potentially great sideboard in the colors, since, like most midrange decks, you could cut the wrong half of your deck for the matchup for the proper high-impact cards.

And yet, after many, many, many games, we couldn't quite make the deck great against anything. Distended Mindebender got Disallowed a lot while Mindwrack Demon just wasn't a good card against the field. We got rid of that package in favor of Transgress the Minds in the maindeck, as a last effort. The deck then stopped looking like a good magic deck, which was confirmed after some more heart breaking losing series against Jeskai and 4-color Saheeli.

We turned to the rest of the team to see what they had in mind. Some were working on 4-color Saheeli with Elder Deep-Fiend (which also looked like a potentially broken option), some on BR aggro, some on Dynavolt Tower control, some on Grixis Improvise, and some on Mardu. I didn't love any of those options for one reason or another and got resigned to learning 4-color Saheeli with Elder Deep-Fiends as it was the deck with highest theoretical ceiling, despite knowing that Saheeli strategies would have a giant target on their back after the second SCG Open.

In case you didn't notice, the surprising thing about the team's options was that no one wanted to run the aggro BG Delirium deck anymore. It was Carlos Romão that said that the deck simply wasn't very good or well positioned since it lost badly to control and all versions of Saheeli, and everybody else agreed. This got me thinking that maybe it was time to take Mardu to another spin, as a gamble in case other teams and players independently reached the same conclusion and decided to not play the deck. I asked Thiago Sapporito and later Pedro Carvalho for a list, and went working on it.

Pedro's list was very good, and I specially liked the sideboard (I would later learn that it was an out-dated verion given to him by Frank Karsten). I ran the 75-card he gave at the end, despite doing my best to screw it up one way or another.

With the proper removal (by that I mean Chandra and Skywhaler's Shot, that always killed Kalitas, instead of things like Harnessed Lightning, like we had on our older version, that only hit the irrelevant cards of the deck) and access to Skysovering, Consul Flagship, the BG matchup didn't even look that bad post-board. Skysovereing might as well read indestructible, while also trumping Ishkanah with minimal support. Added that to the fact that Mardu had a proactive game plan with some unbeatable hands against unknown opponents and, more importantly, didn't need to go out of its way to be good against various verions of Saheeli, I was sold. I tried telling some other members of team about the deck, but since I didn't have enough games under my belt to be really sure, I felt like I didn't sell the deck hard enough, which I will always regret.

Some notes on specific cards:

Main

3 Inventor's Apprentice – it's not a great card by itself, but some of the deck's best hands involve leading with a 1-drop and I wanted to capitalize on that against an open field. Since we had Aethersphere Harvester over Cultivator's Caravan as out additional vehicles, creatures with power less than 3 got a little better in this deck, which ended up justifying the decision in the end. Having more 1-drops It ended up being very convenient against Hareruya's version of Mardu, which I faced 3-times at the PT, since they had Walking Ballista to force me to sideboard out Toolcraft Exemplar.

2 Aethersphere Harvester – the card is merely OK and do an important job of being an artifact, hard to kill, helping with Aether Hub and blocking other Heart of Kirans. It's not high impact enough, though. Without the need a fourth-color, we went with it over Cultivator's Caravan on the main to lessen the demand for crew costs.

Sideboard

2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance – you always bring it in against anything that could have acess to Kalitas and possibly against versions of Mardu with Depala in the maindeck. The deck isn't that great at generating RR for it, so when bringing Chandra you need to remember to bring Needle Spires and Cultivator's Caravan as well.

2 Skysovereign – I like this over other high-impact 5-drops like Avacyn and Fumigate. While Fumigate can steal games from BG out of nowhere, I found the scenarios where I just want a card that double down on my plan of keep attacking into theirs x/5 creatures where more common than trying to out-clever an unsuspecting opponent into overextending into a wrath. Avacyn is worse against the mirror and BG, but is and additional good card to bring against Saheeli.

1 Inventor's Apprentice – Against hard control decks, there is no card I wanted more than the 8th aggro one-drop to put pressure and make them play their Glimmer of Genius and Torrential Gearhulks out of position, since I already had a dozen vehicles and planeswalker to diversify my threats against creature removal.

2 Release the Gremlins – This one showed up in Pedro's (Karsten's) list, but the team already had a couple of them in every deck with red as both insurance against Inspiring Statuary or Metalwork Colossus decks, just in case some team had broken them. It turned out to be completely insane in the mirror as well.

Sideboard plans and matchups

Mardu Vehicles

Let's start where it matters the most, I guess. I faced the mirror six times during the PT and changed the way I sideboard against all of them, based on things I saw during the swiss or after having access to the decklists at the semis. Against Marcio Carvalho, this is what I sideboarded, with some minor variations between games:

Play:
-3 Inventor's Apprentice, -2 Aethersphere Harvester, -2 Thraben Inspector
+2 Skysovereing, +1 Gideon, +2 Release the Gremlins, +1 Needle Spires, +1 Fatal Push

Draw:
-3 Inventor's Apprentice, -2 Aethersphere Harvester, -1 Thraben Inspector, -2 Scrapheap Scrounger, -1 Thalia
+2 Skysovereing, +1 Gideon, +2 Release the Gremlins, +1 Needle Spires, +1 Fatal Push, +1 Skywahler's Shot, +1 Fragmentize

It's the classic plan of going a little bit bigger and running some trump creature that they can't deal with, which was cool in 2007 with Rumbling Slum and is still cool now.

In truth, the mirror matchup is really weird, since almost all of the cards can range to incredible to garbage, depending on when you draw then and what your opponent has played. For instance, even Selfless Spirit, which is smaller than other flyers and trades with a thopter token, can reallistically win games where no other card would, when you use to protect a Skysovereign, or the board stalls and you want to alpha strike.

Figuring out how to play the mirror match and how to sideboard involves mostly trying to make the most out of your cards while avoiding the blow outs, which, after reading this sentence, actually sound a lot like how limited games works.

A very important tip is that when playing defense (like when you are on the draw and have to break serve, which is difficult) it's often times correct to block and trade with your creatures instead of using them to crew a Vehicle, even if it means you would have nothing live to crew it next turn. Playing like this is extremely important in trying to make opposing removal spells weaker and buying you time to execute the “go bigger” game plan. For instance, in a game I felt like a had a very good read against Jeremy Dezani having Shock and then Unlicensed Desintegration, which turned out to be correct. I kept throwing my creatures in front of his while my Heart of Kiran sat on the table doing nothing, but that is what bought me time to draw into Gideon.

I am confident our version is well positioned for the mirror and couldn't recommend it more moving forward. Either play it or figure out something to trump what it is doing. It's not unbeatable by any means, it's just slightly better than other options we saw so far.

BG Aggro

I am grouping here Team Genesis' and DeCandio's versions.

-3 Heart of Kiran, -2 Shock, -3 Inventor's Apprentice, -1 Thraben Inspector
+1 Gideon, +2 Chandra, +2 Skysovereing, +1 Cultivator's Caravan, + 1 Fatal Push, +1 Skywhaler's Shot , +1 Needle Spires

As I said before, the matchup didn't even feel bad post-board during the Pro Tour, but that could change now that BG players know that they can't skip on hate against Mardu Vehicles. So I'd recommend you using that plan for now, but keep an open eye to the changes that inevitably will show up from their side.

Saheeli

Grouping all the versions here as well. Feel free to deviate based on what you see, as no two Saheeli decks are quite the same.

-2 Pia Naalar, -2 Thraben Inspector
+1 Inventor's Apprentice, +1 Gideon, +2 Chandra

I lost to the combo of Saheeli + Felidar Guardian during the draft, but otherwise didn't face Jeskai Saheeli decks, only the 4-color version with deep fiend, once. I can't help but feel the matchup is fine against every version of the deck. The card that scared me the most was Whirler Virtuoso from the 4-c version, for what is worth, so this is why I am recommending cutting Pia Naalar. Against the Jeskai versions with Torrential Gearhulk and other control cards, you want Selfless Spirit in anticipation of sweepers.

My flight is about to board. Next time, it's about to get emotional as we talk about friendships and hilariously bad plays. Thank you for reading and for everyone that cheered for me on the stream.

Lucas WUB Berthoud

Hey everyone,

I wrote an article on some of the heuristics I use almost every time I play that I think can potentially be useful for some people here. Obviously they will not be true all the time, since they're heuristics, but I think following them will improve most people's winrates as a general rule.

https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/six-heuristics-to-make-you-a-better-magic-player/

The article is on starcitygames.com and was originally premium only but it's free to read now.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

• PV

Mono Blue Tempo has been putting up results since rotation. It's shown up in every release of 5-0 decks, it's popped up in big tournament top 8s, it has won its share of PPTQs, and Gabriel Nassif took it to the top 2 of a GP. Despite that, the tone of people posting about success with the deck has been almost apologetic. It's almost like the deck doesn't cost enough for people to take it seriously.

I've seen some good individual matchup analyses and high-level overviews of this deck, but I haven't seen that anybody has written up a comprehensive guide. I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring.

Who am I?

Just a guy. Been playing mtg off and on since Revised. I have a long standing fondness for low to the ground mono-colored decks. My modo fortunes tend to ebb and flow with their quality. I have had a share of the competitive trophy league off and on for these last few weeks, largely on the back of mono blue tempo. Previously I've never even really been on the first page of the trophy results.

At the very least, I'm confident that I've put enough reps in with this deck that I have a decent idea of what I'm talking about.

Why play this deck?

Three main reasons: (1) the nut draw is really good; (2) you can steal more wins than you think; and (3) the deck rewards good play and harshly punishes bad play.

The nut draw of one drop into Curious Obsession into counter everything relevant beats a lot of opposing hands. I'm not saying that you should play the deck just to mise people out when you spike the nuts, but whether you're playing a long tournament or grinding online it's nice to get free wins every now and then.

Even if you don't get Curious Obsession going, it's quite possible to win games. The combination of Tempest Djinn and Merfolk Trickster can outrace more creatures on the other side of the board than you would expect. Especially when backed by a bit of counter magic.

The harsh punishment of bad play isn't necessarily a feature, but it's a result of the fact that you have a lot of choices with this deck. For good or ill, after most games you will feel like the outcome was a result of your decisions.

The one thing you don't have is a reset button. This does mean that when things go horribly wrong you can reach a no-outs situation a little quicker than some other decks. As a result there is a lot of pressure on you to stop things from going horribly wrong in the first place, but you do have a decent suite of tools available to do just that. Sometimes it doesn't work out--it's a competitive game, after all--but the deck doesn't get totally steamrolled all that often if you're on form.

What is the deck?

The various versions of the Mono Blue Tempo deck have coalesced into a core of 48 cards:

20 Island

4 Mist-Cloaked Herald
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Merfolk Trickster
4 Tempest Djinn

4 Curious Obsession

4 Wizard's Retort
4 Dive Down

The remaining twelve cards and sideboard are where you can personalize the list to your tastes. The core is strong enough to win with just about any cheap blue cards, but there are some patterns in how the successful lists usually fill out the deck.

2-4 two drop fliers: 0-4 Nightveil Sprite and 0-4 Warkite Marauder
2-6 card draw effects: 0-2 Chart a Course and 0-4 Opt
2-4 additional counters: 0-2 Essence Scatter and 0-4 Spell Pierce
0-3 tempo plays: 0-1 Sleep and 0-2 Exclusion Mage
0-1 island (usually the extra island comes along with Sleep and Exclusion Mage as they bump up the curve)

The sideboards typically have some anti-aggro cards, some counterspells, some racing tech, and a little spice. Note that the counterspells are more for tuning than for wholesale inclusion. You usually don't go up past 10 total counters after sideboarding.

I prefer a list that is on the more tempo-ish end of the overall spectrum: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1448999#paper

20 Island

4 Mist-Cloaked Herald
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Warkite Marauder
4 Merfolk Trickster
4 Tempest Djinn

4 Curious Obsession

4 Wizard's Retort
4 Spell Pierce
4 Dive Down
4 Opt

Sideboard

2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
2 Exclusion Mage
3 Surge Mare
2 Deep Freeze
1 Sleep
1 Selective Snare

Why four Warkite Marauder? I like having twenty creatures. It helps a ton against flying blockers, and a lot of the meta features flying blockers at the moment. With Chainwhirlers at a low ebb the one toughness doesn't matter that often.

Why four Spell Pierce? It maximizes the chance of a nut draw. It's also a monstrous tempo swing when it's good. While there are matches where it's mediocre, it's never straight up dead the way Essence Scatter can be. I understand if you don't want to go all in on the Spell Pierce, but I've hit enough planeswalkers with them that I'm reluctant to trim on them.

Opt over Chart a Course? Opt is better when we are digging for what we need early. It has the same chance of finding a good card in the top two, it has half the mana cost, and it can be cast using "leftover" mana on the opponent's end step. Chart a Course is better for refueling later in the game. I put a higher priority on the early game with this deck, so I like Opt. Reasonable people can disagree.

Why not have Essence Scatter, Sleep, or Exclusion Mage in the main deck? I like consistency for game one. I'd rather consistently have access to Spell Pierce when I need it than occasionally have the Essence Scatter or Sleep. In my experience the anti-creature suite is usually a nice to have rather than a need to have (and we do already have Retort, Trickster, and Marauder for board management), while when you need Spell Pierce you really need Spell Pierce. Your mileage certainly may vary.

Surge Mare? Every mono-blue sideboard seems to have a few pet cards in it. Surge Mare is mine. I originally added them for the red matchup after Diamond Mare let me down a few times. It's okay there as an 0/5 wall that makes them spend some burn to get their Steamkin and Chainwhirlers through to your face. Where it has really surprised me is in the Golgari and Jeskai matchups. Against Golgari it can block their biggest explore team member indefinitely and threatens to greenwalk in for four at the end of a race. Against Jeskai you can play it on turn two and be confident you'll get to untap with it, as it shrugs off Justice Strike, Lava Coil, and Deafening Clarion. When it has a clear run it makes a wonderful Obsession carrier.

Deep Freeze is so you have an out against Niv-Mizzet. Selective Snare is tentative tech for the 18-land white blitz deck that just popped up. Everything else is fairly straightforward.

How do you play the deck?

Generally speaking, your game plan has three stages:

(1) Apply pressure with cheap early creatures.

(2) Disrupt the opponent's plan with countermagic and Merfolk Trickster.

(3) Play Tempest Djinn with protection available to close it out.

If you have a Curious Obsession going, you can often skip step three. If you don't get a Curious Obsession, the smooth transition into Djinn beatdown is key. If you don't have an Obsession or a Djinn then you need your hand to line up perfectly with the opponent's, or for the opponent to have a bad hand.

The big skill tests involved in playing the deck are: (1) when to play Curious Obsession; (2) when to play Tempest Djinn; (3) when to tap out; (4) when to use counterspells; (5) which counterspell to use; and (6) how to use Merfolk Trickster.

When do you play Curious Obsession?

Rule of thumb: when you are confident you can get two hits out of it. In general it's more important to get it in play safely than it is to get it down quickly.

It's often a good idea to wait until your opponent is tapped out before running the Obsession out there if the opponent runs instant speed removal. Otherwise you risk getting dragged into a big fight during your turn that leaves the door open for the opponent to resolve a bomb on their turn.

Consider the situation where you have four islands in play after making your land drop for the turn. You have a Mist-Cloaked Herald and Warkite Marauder in play, and Curious Obsession, Dive Down, and Wizard's Retort in hand. It's tempting to slam the Obsession, but if the opponent responds with a kill spell you will be forced into using your Dive Down. You'll get to draw a card, but your opponent will get to land their Cleansing Nova or Doom Whisperer or Teferi or Ral or what have you. It's even worse if you get maneuvered into tapping out so the opponent knows the coast is clear.

When do you play Tempest Djinn?

Rule of thumb: when you can protect it. Necessary protection can range from a single untapped island and a Stormtamer or Dive Down to enough mana and countermagic to keep Teferi off the board.

You really don't want to cast a Tempest Djinn only to see it die right away. You really really don't want the opponent to kill your djinn and get a planeswalker in play while you stare at your Wizard's Retort in hand that you can't cast.

The easiest way to lose a winnable game is to get your Tempest Djinn killed when you didn't have to. Obviously there are situations where you don't have a choice and you just run it out there and hope it sticks, but if you have the chance to set up some protection for it you probably should.

When do you tap out?

Don't.

But if I tap out this turn I'll be way ahead and as long as my opponent doesn't do anything too bad I'll be winning on board and I'll never tap out again.

No. Stop.

Your opponent put cards into their deck because they were good. Your opponent kept this hand because it had potential. In all likelihood, your opponent is holding strong cards that have not been cast because your opponent didn't have enough mana and/or was respecting the power of your untapped islands. When you tap out, it gives your opponent the green light to do horrible, horrible things to the board state. Don't turn into one of those people who whines about how the opponent "always has it" after you punt away a winnable game.

So I should never ever tap out?

Well, ok, that's not quite right. Sometimes you do have to take some chances in order to advance the board state. Of course for the first couple turns you need to get your guys on the board to start the beats. After that, the most obvious situation where it's ok to tap out is if you are losing badly on the board. If it's clear that you will lose if you let things continue as they are, go ahead and slam your best cards. Tap out for Tempest Djinn in order to stabilize the board. Tap out for a Curious Obsession or two in order to try and draw out of your situation.

Just be aware that once you enter YOLO mode the most likely outcome is that you will lose. You are gambling on the opponent's hand being worse than it looks. Sometimes it works out and you steal the win. Usually the opponent has some removal and you lose. You want to take your best shot to win in an unfavorable situation, but it often won't work out.

The more murky situation is when things are neutral but you feel the game slipping away. Whenever you play an aggressive deck you should have that clock going in the back of your head. If you're reaching the point in the game where you will be in trouble if the board isn't tilted your way then you can start taking some chances in order to push things in your favor. But, honestly, you should feel bad about tapping out and you should be looking for reasons not to do it. Most of the people that I see piloting this deck against streamers that I follow are way too eager to tap out.

In general, the better your hand, the more reluctant you should be to tap out.

What spells do I counter?

Rule of thumb: If you're winning, counter opposing spells that make it so you are losing. If you are losing, counter anything that makes it worse. If you're winning and they cast a spell that will level things out (in other words, a sweeper), evaluate the context: if you have multiple counters, go ahead and counter it. If you only have one... how many cards are you drawing next turn? How quickly can you close the game out if you counter? Can you rebuild quickly if you let it go? If the game is going to last for a while, you may want to let the sweeper through so that you have a counter available for the next bomb.

Be very careful of picking counter battles during your turn, doubly so against Jeskai control. It's usually not worth stopping their removal if it means letting them resolve Teferi. Now, if you can do it with one mana open and snipe Teferi with a Spell Pierce on the next turn, then by all means go for it.

Which counter magic do I use?

This comes up when the opponent uses targeted removal. You will often have a choice between some combination of cashing in a Stormtamer, using Dive Down, or casting Spell Pierce. This can be a tougher decision than you might think. The obvious point is that using the Stormtamer will cost you points of damage while preserving the mystery of what's in your hand. The more subtle point to consider is what is coming next.

Spell Pierce, in the early to mid game, can counter sweepers and keep planeswalkers off the battlefield. It can't do anything to a Ravenous Chupacabra and it quickly loses its ability to stop cheap removal spells. Dive Down can stop any targeted removal and save a selected creature from a Deafening Clarion, but it can't do anything about Cleansing Nova or Settle the Wreckage. Siren Stormtamer can stop targeted removal and even provides unconditional protection against effects that target you (most notably Settle the Wreckage) but itself is a 1 toughness creature that can die more easily than you'd like.

If the opponent is only on sorcery speed removal (often the case for Izzet Phoenix against a Djinn) and you are tapping out, then the Dive Down will protect your creature for the whole turn while the other two only protect it from the current threat.

Basically, you need to think about how you intend to navigate the game and what you will need protection against in the future before you decide which resource you want to expend in the moment.

How do I use Merfolk Trickster?

As an ambush creature, the Trickster can eat any 1/1 or 1/2 attacker. Most notably this includes Adanto Vanguard, Mist-Cloaked Herald, Ghitu Lavarunner, and small flyers.

As a combat trick, the Trickster can zero out the power of Tempest Djinn, Enigma Drake, and Crackling Drake. If you have one Trickster on the board and another one flashed in fresh, the two of them can take out an attacking djinn/drake and survive the experience.

As a tempo play, the Trickster can save you a lot of life for one turn by tapping down one attacker and chump blocking another. You usually want to deploy this particular trick as late as possible unless the Trickster can trade with an attacker (e.g. a big Branchwalker).

In a pinch, the Trickster can shut off a Wildgrowth Walker in response to an explore creature being cast.

If you don't have any other bodies available, the Trickster does a reasonable job of beating down for its casting cost, although you'll need to have a ton of permission on hand if you want to keep the board clear and actually suit it up with a Curious Obsession.

How about the specific matchups?

Mono Blue Tempo is a deck that really benefits from its pilot understanding the matchup it's in. If you approach each game with an idea of how it's going to go and a plan for victory you'll do better than if you just try to cast your best card every turn. Below I'll walk through the most common matchups that I've run into and give my thoughts. The sideboarding suggestions are relative to my preferred list. Most mono blue sideboards have cards aimed at similar things (tuning counterspells, anti-aggro tech, race-winning tech). If your deck differs from mine in the particulars then just treat the suggestions as pointing towards which area of your sideboard you should at least consider in each matchup.

Golgari Midrange

I find this matchup to be pretty good for us. It gets better the more expensive the spells are in their deck and hand. When they go low to the ground with the Wildgrowth Walker and explore creature beatdown things can get scary. When they try to win by resolving 4-5-6 mana bombs we're usually ok.

Be very aware of the need to protect your key creatures. They will always have something in hand that can kill your obsessed guy or your djinn. Always. The good news is that they tend to tap out in order to forward their own game plan, so you can usually suit up your guy with obsession for a free hit and not need to worry about countermagic until you pass the turn.

Don't get pulled into a grind fest. You want this to be a race. Even if you're losing it in the initial stages, the Djinn and/or Trickster can catch you up in a hurry. Be aware of your djinn math. A turn four djinn hits for 5-6-7, ideally, so if your early creatures can chip in for 2-5 points of damage they have done their jobs and can go to chump block mode. You also need to get out on the front foot so you can race Carnage Tyrant if it shows up.

It's possible to get bombed out of the game if you run out of countermagic before they die. In general, though, an opponent who plays one big spell a turn and can't interact on the stack is our favorite kind of opponent.

Sideboard: -2 opt, -2 spell pierce, -2 trickster; +2 essence scatter, +2 disdainful stroke, +2 surge mare

Tune the counter suite and use surge mare to manage the race. Bounce tech is not good here. You can run sleep if you want, although it's basically just a fog.

Jeskai Control

Patience. Patience. Patience.

The main thing is not to let them resolve the spells that tilt the game in their favor. On the draw against a glacial fortress I'll often keep spell pierce up for Search for Azcanta or Azor's Gateway if I have it. You want to keep them under steady pressure and counter their bombs. If they have a hot hand they can power through and beat us, but usually I think we have a solid chance.

The way you lose this matchup is by tapping out to overextend into a wrath. Don't do that. The spells they want to cast are Deafening Clarion on three, Crackling Drake on four, and Teferi or Cleansing Nova on five. Plan accordingly.

The other way you lose is by casting Curious Obsession into open mana, getting drawn into a fight over it and winning the fight only to see the opponent untap and blow you out. Don't do that, either. Ideally, you want to cast Curious Obsession before the opponent has removal up or after the opponent tapped out in an attempt to cast a bomb that you countered.

You do want to keep them under enough pressure that they can't just casually find and cast a Niv-Mizzet, especially post board. Finding the right balance can be tricky, but that's part of the fun, right?

Sideboard: -2 spell pierce, -2 opt, -2 marauder, +2 surge mare, +2 disdainful stroke, +2 negate

Again, tune the counters. Surge Mare is sneaky good here. It's almost guaranteed to survive until you untap, it's great value with Obsession, and in a stagnant game swinging for two a turn with a loot is pretty solid.

The marauders are better against Lyra while tricksters are better against Legion Warboss. It's a matter of which one you think is more likely. Personally I'm a little more scared of Warbosses coming down while I'm not ready to counter them.

The matchup gets tougher post board. Jeskai has access to all kinds of crazy stuff depending on how they want to approach things (Warboss, History of Benalia, Rekindling Phoenix, Lyra, and Niv-Mizzet are all possibilities). Fortunately, sideboard cards alone aren't enough to switch them completely into a beatdown deck. They still want to control the board. Stick to the basic plan of early pressure + counterspells and you should be all right.

Izzet Phoenix

This one is rough. They play cheap removal and lots of flyers and don't even need to resolve their spells to win. They also have multiple Niv-Mizzets lurking in the sideboard. Gross.

The playset of Warkite Marauders has brought my personal record in this matchup from roughly 0% win rate to a smidge below 50%. It's just impossible to keep all of their flyers off the board. You need the Marauder in order to make clean attacks.

If you're going to win this one, what you need to do is to race their phoenixes with your team while using your counterspells to keep drakes off the battlefield. Spend your spell pierces freely on their cantrips. You need to throw a monkey wrench in the machine and keep them from reaching critical mass.

In all honesty, if they play a turn two Electromancer--especially in game one, and especially especially off an island and a dual land--well, don't concede early, but go ahead and mentally prepare yourself for the experience of a loss.

I always feel like I got away with something after I take a match from the phoenix deck. Objectively speaking, I think the deal is that their best hands will just beat us but in a battle of mediocre hands we have a slight edge.

Sideboard: -4 spell pierce, -2 opt; +2 essence scatter, +2 Deep Freeze, +1 sleep, +1 exclusion mage

Again, you are looking to keep drakes away and race the phoenix squad. In a pinch you can refrigerate the phoenix, but you really want to save Deep Freeze for Niv Mizzet. In a way, our deck's extreme vulnerability to Mizzy P can work in our favor. The Izzet deck will keep bad hands that have Niv Mizzet and will play out the game with the thought that casting Niv Mizzet guarantees victory. That means that any time we can put him on ice we should have a fighting chance to win.

If they untap with Niv Mizzet we do in fact lose, though.

Angels

Bomb after bomb after bomb.

They have more bombs than we have ways to counter them. They also have largely moved Deafening Clarion into the sideboard. You want to keep the pedal to the metal and close the game out ASAP. We actually do a good job racing their cheap dudes. The danger is that the angel squad will take over.

Marauder helps a lot here. It's hard to keep all the angels off the field. Being able to attack through one of them can decide the game.

The trickster also shines in this matchup. Whether its eating Adanto Vanguards, turning off angelic abilities, or clearing the way for the fatal attack, you should be able to get some good value out of it. The Tocatli Honor Guard does shut off the trickster, so be aware of that. The Marauder does work just fine in the face of the Honor Guard, of course.

If they go on the little dudes + Ajani plan it can be correct to ignore Ajani and go at their face as long as you can win the race. The enemy gate is down.

Sideboard: -4 spell pierce, -2 opt; +2 essence scatter, +2 disdainful stroke, +1 selective snare, +1 sleep

The sideboard plan is geared to fend off their bombs. Selective Snare and Sleep can buy us that crucial turn that lets us close out the game. It's also possible some number of Exclusion Mages should be in there, depending on your read of what they're doing with their Honor Guards.

Mono red aggro

The good news is that you aren't going to see this matchup a lot. The bad news is that you aren't going to win this matchup much, either.

Magical Christmasland plan: use Trickster to eat one early attacker and trade with another, then play and protect a Tempest Djinn to stonewall their assault and turn the corner.

Actual outcome: all of your guys die to a flurry of burn while you take damage from a mob of cheap creatures, then the burn gets pointed at your face and you lose.

If you draw a lot of Djinns and they flood out then it's possible to steal game one, but it's rough.

Sideboard: -3 Spell Pierce, -2 Opt, -2 Mist-Cloaked Herald; +2 essence scatter, +3 surge mare, +2 exclusion mage

You are looking to hold the ground until your Tempest Djinn can take over. I find Surge Mare does a better job of preserving my life total in this matchup than the Diamond Mare. You also need to be conscious of either not overextending into a Chainwhirler or keeping a counter ready for the Chainwhirler. As an added bonus, you also have to make sure they don't resolve an Experimental Frenzy and that you can beat a Rekindling Phoenix. Good times.

What if I don't draw a Tempest Djinn? Good question. In that situation you should smile and accept the result with dignity. Remember, it's just a game. Losing builds character.

White-based aggro

We have a much better shot in this matchup than we do against mono red. Their relative dearth of removal and reach make a huge difference.

The basic strategy is to trade creatures aggressively except for your one evasive Obsessioned attacker (if you have one). Try to keep their big three drops off the table. Getting to spell pierce a History of Benalia will help your win percentage. So will eating an Adanto Vanguard with the trickster. Remember when the race is in its final stages that you can trickster the Benalish Marshal to turn off the pump. Tempest Djinn is huge here as a blocker and then as a closer.

If you ever get to pass the turn with countermagic up and a neutral board state after turn four or so then you should win.

The eighteen land white weenie deck presents a more extreme version of the basic problem. They also present the annoyance of flying chump blockers to disrupt our racing math. The good news is that their deck is fairly prone to lose to itself by way of mana screw/flood. The bad news is that their nut draw is pretty unbeatable for us. So it goes.

Sideboard: -4 Spell Pierce, -2 Opt, -1/2 Dive Down; +2 essence scatter, +2 exclusion mage, +2 surge mare, +1 sleep, +0/1 selective snare

Put on your racing shoes. Against the 18 land version you pull a second dive down to make room for the snare. You want to bounce their +1/+1 counter carriers as much as you can.

Be aware that the bigger white(-ish) weenie decks will be wanting to get to Heroic Reinforcements and/or Experimental Frenzy on four. You can't always do anything about it, but if you can protect yourself from those bombs by waiting a turn or so to start trying to get damage in then you should probably do so.

Ramp Decks

This matchup is where we get to be the fun police. Anybody trying to cast Zacama, Omniscience, or Lich's Mastery is obviously trying to relocate too much fun over to their side of the table. We can't allow that. Hang onto your share of the fun by countering their wraths while keeping a counter back for their payoffs. Also make sure to develop the board enough to race Carnage Tyrant, and you'll be fine. Go down opts and possibly spell pierce in exchange for your favorite counters. If you're up against a list that skimps on targeted removal you can also trim dive down. This is the rare situation where 12 counters can be the right configuration post sideboard.

Mirror Match

In the mirror you have a 50/50 chance of a really interesting match with lots of tactical decisions and a 50/50 chance of a stupid runaway.

In general the early game is all about Curious Obsession and the mid-late game is about Tempest Djinn. The side that's attacking is usually the side that's favored.

Merfolk Trickster is a powerful card throughout the game. It can eat an attacking one drop or zero out a Djinn's power. If the opponent has one creature and puts obsession on it, Trickster can try and tap it to make the Obsession fall off.

Warkite Marauder is a beast in the mirror as well. It makes blocking a nightmare. You can get some counter-blowouts out of countering the trigger with Dive Down.

Stormtamer Siren can counter Trickster triggers, Marauder triggers, and Sleep.

The mirror is the one time you are happy to jam Tempest Djinn on turn three. You should be far more worried about the Djinn being countered than the Djinn being removed. Any time the opponent is tapped down go ahead and slam the Djinn. Note that post board you do want to be aware of bounce effects and random tech (Entrancing Melody has blown me out on occasion). I think it's usually more correct to play around countermagic than the other stuff, but if it's possible to play around both then you should.

It's more possible than you might think to win despite a Curious Obsession disadvantage. I have won a game where my opponent had two heralds wearing an Obsession each and I had no Obsessions of my own... because I had two Djinns and a Marauder beating down. Keep an eye out for that transition from when card advantage matters to when life totals matter. Sometimes you want to sell out to stop the Obsession value train and sometimes you want to just ignore it and try to kill them.

Sideboard: -2 spell pierce, -2 opt, -2 dive down; +2 exclusion mage, +2 essence scatter, +1 sleep, +1 selective snare

Spell Pierce is weird in the mirror. Early on it can be your only defense against an obsession. Later it's at best a Dispel. I think you want to keep some around, but I'm not sure that it's right.

Dive Down can be pretty handy. Since blue removal is so weak I think it's fine to trim some but I like to keep a couple copies in. One thing you want to watch out for in the mirror is that blue has some weird tech that can be thrown at your creatures (Selective Snare, Deep Freeze, Entrancing Melody). There's also the bread and butter Trickster/Marauder/Exclusion Mage triggers you may want to stop. Worst come to worst it's a decent combat trick.

Final Thoughts

Mono blue tempo is a good deck. Not good for the price. Not good for a mono colored deck. It's just good.

It's also fun to play. You have a lot of choices, starting early in the game. You get a lot of chances to make mistakes, but also a lot of chances to make good decisions. Once you've played it a few times and start to get a feel for the deck I think you'll enjoy playing it.

I hope this guide was useful. The length got away from me a bit, and I'm sure I got some things wrong. Please share your observations from playing with the deck so people don't get sucked into following my bad advice.

It doesn't mean you can be condensending to other players either.

When I challenge someone for something like this, the response is usually 'this is r/spikes'. Frankly I'm tired of people using that as a scapegoat.

I realise that many consider Magic players to have little to no social skills. Can we try and debunk this?

You're allowed to rip people's decks to shreds, but do it in a courteous, respectful manner; more importantly, do it if you actually know what you're talking about. Which brings me to another point- there is so much subjectively wrong advice in the sub, which is picked up by newer players, repeated, and repeated again.

Let's make this sub a more welcoming place for the New Year.

Edit: just wanted to add, this isn't true of all users, just a select few. Really appreciate the neutral, constructive posters. Keep it up guys.

UPDATE: You can find corrected and expanded versions of these tables in my new article, which you can discuss here.

In Day9's recent stream with LSV, they referenced Frank Karsten's articles on the topic; I hadn't heard of these before (I only started playing MtG about a year ago, just before Eldraine was released). The most recent one I found (that can be accessed without a CFBPro subscription) is "How Many Colored Mana Sources Do You Need to Consistently Cast Your Spells? A Guilds of Ravnica Update". If you, like me, never read this before, I do recommend you skim this before reading on here, especially if you're interested in casting multi-colored cards.

It seems incredibly useful, but I quickly noticed his tables don't cover casting costs with more than three colored pips. Being a programmer, I took a look at his simulation code to see if I could get that data myself, which led me to notice his numbers are based on the Vancouver Mulligan. Out of curiosity to see how much of a difference it would make, I ported his code to Rust, my programming language of choice, and updated that part. As I was messing around with it, I noticed one final thing: the number of lands you're playing matters, irrespective of their color; but his simulation assumes a fixed number of lands for each deck size!

So my simulation not only tries each number of colored sources, but also each land count between 1/3 and 1/2 the deck size, and each combination of those. That generates a lot of data, so I only show the minimal number of colored sources required to reach consistency (using his definition, i.e. 91% chance of casting one-drops on curve, 92% for two-drops, 93% for three-drops, all the way up to 95% for five-drops and above, all assuming you've hit enough land drops). That is to say, each row in one of my tables correspons to a full table of his.

As for the assumed mulligan strategy:

• Keep any 7-card hand with 3 or 4 lands

• Keep any 6-card hand with 2 to 4

• Keep any 5-card hand with 2 to 4

• Keep any 4-card hand

Note that the simulation "bottoms" cards before deciding whether or not to mull again, and will bottom lands if more than half the cards to be kept are land. I also assume that a card, once bottomed, won't be shuffled back in, and is therefore effectively removed from the deck.

You can find my code here if you're interested. Should you want to run this yourself, I recommend first changing the iteration count to like 100,000. At 1,000,000, this took well over two hours to run on my laptop.

Without further ado, here's the results (if this doesn't show up properly for you, you can also find these at the bottom of the page with my code):

Limited decks (40 cards):
                 C |        1C       CC |        2C      1CC      CCC |        3C      2CC     1CCC     CCCC |        4C      3CC     2CCC    1CCCC    CCCCC |        5C      4CC     3CCC    2CCCC   1CCCCC   CCCCCC | 
13 lands:        7 |         7       11 |         6       10       13 |         6        9       11       13 |         5        8       10       12       13 |         5        7        9       10       12       13 | 
14 lands:        8 |         8       12 |         7       11       14 |         6        9       12       14 |         5        8       11       13       14 |         5        7        9       11       13       14 | 
15 lands:        8 |         8       12 |         7       11       14 |         6       10       13       15 |         6        9       11       14       15 |         5        8       10       12       14       15 | 
16 lands:        9 |         8       13 |         8       12       15 |         7       11       14       16 |         6        9       12       14       16 |         5        8       11       13       15       16 | 
17 lands:        9 |         9       13 |         8       12       16 |         7       11       14       17 |         7       10       13       15       17 |         6        9       11       14       16       17 | 
18 lands:        9 |         9       14 |         8       13       17 |         8       12       15       18 |         7       11       14       16       18 |         6        9       12       14       17       18 | 
19 lands:       10 |         9       14 |         9       13       17 |         8       12       16       19 |         7       11       14       17       19 |         6       10       13       15       17       19 | 
20 lands:       10 |        10       15 |         9       14       18 |         8       13       16       19 |         8       12       15       18       20 |         7       10       13       16       18       20 | 

Constructed decks (60 cards):
                 C |        1C       CC |        2C      1CC      CCC |        3C      2CC     1CCC     CCCC |        4C      3CC     2CCC    1CCCC    CCCCC |        5C      4CC     3CCC    2CCCC   1CCCCC   CCCCCC | 
20 lands:       11 |        11       17 |        10       15       19 |         9       14       17       20 |         8       12       15       18       20 |         7       11       14       16       19       20 | 
21 lands:       12 |        11       18 |        10       16       20 |         9       14       18       21 |         8       13       16       19       21 |         7       11       14       17       19       21 | 
22 lands:       12 |        12       18 |        11       17       21 |        10       15       19       22 |         9       13       17       20       22 |         8       12       15       18       20       22 | 
23 lands:       13 |        12       19 |        11       17       22 |        10       15       20       23 |         9       14       18       21       23 |         8       12       16       19       21       23 | 
24 lands:       13 |        12       19 |        12       18       23 |        10       16       20       24 |        10       14       18       22       24 |         8       13       16       19       22       24 | 
25 lands:       13 |        13       20 |        12       18       23 |        11       17       21       25 |        10       15       19       22       25 |         9       13       17       20       23       25 | 
26 lands:       14 |        13       20 |        12       19       24 |        11       17       22       25 |        10       16       20       23       26 |         9       14       18       21       24       26 | 
27 lands:       14 |        14       21 |        13       19       25 |        12       18       22       26 |        11       16       20       24       27 |         9       14       18       22       25       27 | 
28 lands:       15 |        14       21 |        13       20       25 |        12       18       23       27 |        11       17       21       25       28 |        10       15       19       23       26       28 | 
29 lands:       15 |        14       22 |        13       20       26 |        12       19       24       28 |        11       17       22       26       29 |        10       15       20       23       26       29 | 
30 lands:       15 |        15       23 |        14       21       27 |        13       19       25       29 |        12       18       22       26       30 |        10       16       20       24       27       30 | 

Yorion decks (80 cards):
                 C |        1C       CC |        2C      1CC      CCC |        3C      2CC     1CCC     CCCC |        4C      3CC     2CCC    1CCCC    CCCCC |        5C      4CC     3CCC    2CCCC   1CCCCC   CCCCCC | 
26 lands:       15 |        15       22 |        13       20       25 |        12       18       22       26 |        11       16       20       24       26 |         9       14       18       21       24       26 | 
27 lands:       15 |        15       23 |        14       21       26 |        12       18       23       27 |        11       16       21       24       27 |        10       15       19       22       25       27 | 
28 lands:       16 |        15       23 |        14       21       27 |        13       19       24       28 |        11       17       22       25       28 |        10       15       19       23       26       28 | 
29 lands:       16 |        16       24 |        14       22       27 |        13       20       25       29 |        12       18       22       26       29 |        10       16       20       24       27       29 | 
30 lands:       17 |        16       25 |        15       23       28 |        13       20       25       30 |        12       18       23       27       30 |        11       16       21       24       28       30 | 
31 lands:       17 |        16       25 |        15       23       29 |        14       21       26       30 |        12       19       24       28       31 |        11       17       21       25       29       31 | 
32 lands:       17 |        17       26 |        16       24       30 |        14       21       27       31 |        13       19       25       29       32 |        11       17       22       26       29       32 | 
33 lands:       18 |        17       26 |        16       24       31 |        14       22       28       32 |        13       20       25       30       33 |        12       18       23       27       30       33 | 
34 lands:       18 |        17       27 |        16       25       31 |        15       22       28       33 |        14       20       26       30       34 |        12       18       23       28       31       34 | 
35 lands:       19 |        18       27 |        17       25       32 |        15       23       29       34 |        14       21       27       31       35 |        12       19       24       28       32       35 | 
36 lands:       19 |        18       28 |        17       26       33 |        15       24       30       35 |        14       22       27       32       36 |        13       19       25       29       33       36 | 
37 lands:       19 |        18       29 |        17       26       34 |        16       24       31       36 |        15       22       28       33       37 |        13       20       25       30       34       37 | 
38 lands:       20 |        19       29 |        18       27       34 |        16       25       31       37 |        15       23       29       34       38 |        13       20       26       31       35       38 | 
39 lands:       20 |        19       30 |        18       28       35 |        17       25       32       38 |        15       23       29       34       39 |        14       21       26       31       36       39 | 
40 lands:       21 |        19       30 |        18       28       36 |        17       26       33       38 |        16       24       30       35       39 |        14       21       27       32       36       40 | 

Commander decks (99 cards):
                 C |        1C       CC |        2C      1CC      CCC |        3C      2CC     1CCC     CCCC |        4C      3CC     2CCC    1CCCC    CCCCC |        5C      4CC     3CCC    2CCCC   1CCCCC   CCCCCC |        6C      5CC     4CCC    3CCCC   2CCCCC  1CCCCCC  CCCCCCC |        7C      6CC     5CCC    4CCCC   3CCCCC  2CCCCCC 1CCCCCCC CCCCCCCC | 
33 lands:       19 |        18       28 |        17       25       32 |        15       23       28       33 |        13       20       26       30       33 |        12       18       23       27       31       33 |        10       16       21       24       28       31       33 |         9       14       19       22       26       29       31       33 | 
34 lands:       19 |        19       29 |        17       26       32 |        15       23       29       33 |        14       21       26       31       34 |        12       18       24       28       31       34 |        11       16       21       25       29       32       34 |        10       15       19       23       27       30       32       34 | 
35 lands:       20 |        19       29 |        18       27       33 |        16       24       30       34 |        14       21       27       32       35 |        12       19       24       29       32       35 |        11       17       22       26       30       33       35 |        10       15       20       24       27       30       33       35 | 
36 lands:       20 |        19       30 |        18       27       34 |        16       24       31       35 |        15       22       28       32       36 |        13       20       25       29       33       36 |        11       17       22       27       31       34       36 |        10       16       20       24       28       31       34       36 | 
37 lands:       21 |        20       30 |        18       28       35 |        17       25       31       36 |        15       23       28       33       37 |        13       20       25       30       34       37 |        12       18       23       27       31       35       37 |        11       16       21       25       29       32       35       37 | 
38 lands:       21 |        20       31 |        19       28       36 |        17       26       32       37 |        15       23       29       34       38 |        14       21       26       31       35       38 |        12       18       24       28       32       36       38 |        11       17       21       26       30       33       36       38 | 
39 lands:       21 |        21       32 |        19       29       36 |        17       26       33       38 |        16       24       30       35       39 |        14       21       27       32       36       39 |        12       19       24       29       33       37       39 |        11       17       22       26       30       34       37       39 | 
40 lands:       22 |        21       32 |        19       30       37 |        18       27       34       39 |        16       24       31       36       40 |        14       22       28       33       37       40 |        13       19       25       30       34       37       40 |        11       17       23       27       31       35       38       40 | 
41 lands:       22 |        21       33 |        20       30       38 |        18       27       34       40 |        17       25       31       37       41 |        15       22       28       33       38       41 |        13       20       25       30       35       38       41 |        12       18       23       28       32       36       39       41 | 
42 lands:       23 |        22       33 |        20       31       39 |        18       28       35       41 |        17       25       32       38       42 |        15       23       29       34       39       42 |        13       20       26       31       35       39       42 |        12       18       24       28       33       36       40       42 | 
43 lands:       23 |        22       34 |        21       31       40 |        19       28       36       42 |        17       26       33       38       43 |        15       23       29       35       39       43 |        14       21       27       32       36       40       43 |        12       19       24       29       33       37       41       43 | 
44 lands:       23 |        22       34 |        21       32       40 |        19       29       37       43 |        18       26       33       39       44 |        16       24       30       36       40       44 |        14       21       27       32       37       41       44 |        13       19       25       30       34       38       42       44 | 
45 lands:       24 |        23       35 |        21       32       41 |        19       29       37       44 |        18       27       34       40       44 |        16       24       31       36       41       45 |        14       22       28       33       38       42       45 |        13       20       25       30       35       39       42       45 | 
46 lands:       24 |        23       35 |        21       33       42 |        20       30       38       44 |        18       27       35       41       45 |        16       25       31       37       42       46 |        14       22       28       34       39       43       46 |        13       20       26       31       36       40       43       46 | 
47 lands:       25 |        23       36 |        22       33       43 |        20       31       39       45 |        19       28       35       42       46 |        17       25       32       38       43       47 |        15       23       29       35       40       44       47 |        13       20       26       32       36       41       44       47 | 
48 lands:       25 |        24       36 |        22       34       43 |        20       31       39       46 |        19       28       36       42       47 |        17       26       33       39       44       48 |        15       23       30       35       40       45       48 |        14       21       27       32       37       41       45       48 | 
49 lands:       25 |        24       37 |        22       34       44 |        21       32       40       47 |        19       29       37       43       48 |        17       26       33       39       45       49 |        15       23       30       36       41       46       49 |        14       21       27       33       38       42       46       49 |

So the way to use these is to first determine how many lands you need, then consult the appropriate row here.

I hope that's helpful to someone!

EDIT: To anyone looking for guidance on the new MDFCs, I'm sorry if the title was misleading, but all I have to offer on that is hearsay; count Pathways as 3/4s of a source of both colors, spell//lands as 2/3rds, is apparently the rule of thumb given in Karsten's new article, but I can't really verify that.

Hi r/spikes!
We've noticed an uptick in harassing, demeaning, and generally non-spike behavior.
Please knock it off.
Please be excellent to each other.
Thanks,
the r/spikes mod team

Hello, Spikes!

I'm currently the #1-ranked Mythic player on Arena. I've bounced around the top 10 a bit this week, but have never ended a gaming session without being #1 again. My Mythic record is 56 and 16 (a 77% winrate).

I'm playing a deck that got some streamer attention last season, but little serious professional consideration: UG Mass Manipulation (aka UG Theft, aka Simic Steal Your Stuff).

Since I posted an old list on Twitter, I've gotten messages from two other people who started playing the deck. One took it to #20 (that was the last time I saw him online -- I won our mirror match by drawing more copies of Frilled Mystic, the best creature in Standard), and the other hit #6 (last I heard). This is evidence that I didn't sell my soul to Yawgmoth for incredible luck (unless the others took the same bargain).

I've been playing Magic on and off since Onslaught. I've brewed reasonable decks in every standard format since Battle for Zendikar. UG Mass Manipulation is the most powerful thing I've ever played. The deck is so good that I'm thinking of buying it in paper and taking it to some actual tournaments, and I hate shuffling.

Want to see it in action?

Here's a video of me winning five straight matches at #1. To be fair, there was a good chance I'd have lost the last match had my opponent not misclicked, so my record was closer to 4.2 and 0.8.

The Deck:

Here's the current list. It's a work in progress, so I'll talk here about the core and the flex slots.

The main play pattern is as follows:

• Turns 1 and 2: Develop your mana.

• Turns 3 and 4: Gain card advantage through 2-for-1 exchanges and planeswalkers.

• Turn 5 and beyond: Gain card advantage through 3-for-1, 4-for-1, and 8-for-1 exchanges.

Why is this good? The deck looks like a vulnerable pile of nonsense.

I've wondered about this myself. Some ideas:

• Consistency: In a world where most decks play three colors and a motley collection of answers, your mana is fairly smooth, you have a high land count, and you have the same plan in almost every game. You're a lot like Nexus in the sense of having an endgame you build toward relentlessly (but you're much better at fighting over the board).

• Lack of counterspells: Time Raveler has Standard shook, so you don't see many decks try to play at instant speed these days. This lets you resolve Mass Manipulation very safely in many preboard games (for example, you'll win an absurd percentage of game ones against Superfriends.

• Surprise: It's plausible that many decks would do better against UG Theft if they knew what was going on and could prepare for Mass Manipulation. That said, post-board games don't seem to go worse than pre-board games on average, so I'm not sure about this.

Core:

4 Llanowar Elves: You want to have 4 mana on turn 3 as often as possible. Incubation and Paradise Druid help, but Llanowar Elves adds consistency, as well as a slight chance for Nissa or a 4/4 Hydroid Krasis on turn 3.

4 Incubation Druid: The most powerful mana-generating creature Standard has seen for some time. The deck is at its best when you pass the turn to your opponent simultaneously threatening Frilled Mystic/Chemister's Insight and adapting into 8 mana on your next turn. As a 3/5, it attacks and blocks more often than you'd think. Never board it out.

4 Frilled Mystic: Maybe the best card in the deck? This thing is ridiculous, especially when your manabase is built to cast it early with consistency. Alongside Chemister's Insight, it creates dilemmas for your opponents; curving out with two in a row sometimes just lets you kill people with damage before you get anything going.

2+ Chemister's Insight: I don't think I'd ever play fewer than 2 in the maindeck. It's your key weapon against control decks and Thought Erasure, and helps you compensate for the fact that you're only allowed to run 4 Mass Manipulation.

4 Hydroid Krasis: This is a good Magic card.

2+ Entrancing Melody: As long as most of the format's decks play creatures, this card will be powerful. I could see going to 4 in some metagames, or 2 in others.

2+ Mass Manipulation: Since we live in Superfriends World right now, I think 4 is the right number, but that can lead to a lot of clunky opening hands. I think an ideal split might be 5 Krasis and 3 Manipulation, but since that would be illegal, I go 4/4.

2+ Nissa, Who Shakes the World: Our deck is Mana Tribal, and Nissa is the Mana Tribal planeswalker. I've rarely seen games last long enough to use her for giant Krasises, but she enables double-spelling, helps you hold up counters more easily, kills unsuspecting planeswalkers, and generally makes life difficult for almost any opponent.

26+ lands: You have a lot of mana creatures, but you also want to hit your first five land drops, at the very least. You have eight spells that directly convert lands into card advantage. Don't skimp!

4 Thrashing Brontodon: The most flexible card in the sideboard. Fills in a lot of gaps -- playing to the board against aggro, killing Wilderness Reclamation, and pressuring planeswalkers.

2+ Negate: A reasonable substitute for Melody against control, and essential against Nexus.

Flex:

2-5 more mana creatures: Some mix of Paradise Druid and Growth Spiral (or maybe Druid of the Cowl if you expect a LOT of aggro). I lean toward more Druid because it can block and pressure planeswalkers, but Spiral is better in the late game and helps you suffer less from sweepers while spending more time playing at instant speed. Try different things and see what feels right.

Vivien Reid: Not as powerful as Nissa at her base. Great against Nexus and Drakes, good against Grixis and Thief of Sanity. I've found her a little underwhelming in the new format, but she's a good fourth walker (as playing four Nissa can be awkward).

Biogenic Ooze: I've played this in the maindeck before, but it's usually worse than Nissa. Consider this if you expect a lot of aggro or planeswalker-specific interaction.

Cards I've considered but haven't played:

Opt: Gives us a way to set up our curve when Llanowar Elves isn't around, and makes our deck "smaller", which is good. And we do sometimes have a lot of spare mana lying around. I should try this sometime, but I haven't yet -- let me know if you do!

Arboreal Grazer: Apparently good in Nexus, but I just hate the low power level. I want my mana dorks to help me hit 8 mana on turn 6 in addition to hitting 4 mana on turn 3.

Commence the Endgame: Draws cards, is an instant, makes a big creature, is everything we want -- sort of. The fact that it doesn't scale with your mana seems annoying, and a single ground creature can be underwhelming. Still maybe worth a try.

Nullhide Ferox: As a sideboard card against red/control, it's tempting (especially red, since you cut a lot of your noncreature spells anyway), but it seems just slightly too clunky with the rest of the deck.

Bond of Flourishing: Gains life and finds Krasis/Brontodon against red. Might be better than Ixalli's Diviner, though I like the fact that Diviner forces mana use precombat and makes Light Up the Stage more awkward.

Ugin: Flexible answer to a lot of different cards, but low loyalty is troubling and it's never seemed quite important enough to try. One of the most promising potential additions, though.

Cards I tried and cut:

Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor: Seems good against red and removal-heavy control decks, but four mana is a lot against the former, and you don't actually care much about single-target removal from the latter. I didn't give her much of a chance to prove herself, so maybe she'd still be good?

Crushing Canopy: Great vs. Thief and Reclamation, but I've seen very little Nexus and not as many Thieves as I expected. I just wasn't bringing this in enough for it to merit a slot.

Carnage Tryant: Too weak against Liliana and sweepers, and lacks the flexibility of Ooze (since it's slow and only blocks one creature at a time).

Nezahal: See "Carnage Tyrant".

Thoughts on sideboarding:

I won't give an exact "guide", since the current list probably isn't optimal and there are a ton of decks in this format, but here are some thoughts:

Aggro: Cut Chemister's Insight, you don't have time. Cut Vivien unless they're playing big flyers. Against red, cut Mass Manipulation; they're too fast. Against Gruul and white, MM is one of your best cards, since they're slower and play better creatures and planeswalkers. Bring in Brontodon and Ooze and the last Melody. Diviner might be good vs. white/Gruul, but it's mostly in the board for red.

Midrange: If you're keeping Melody, there's really not much to change here -- you're almost pre-boarded. Ooze and Vivien might be a bit better than Nissa sometimes. I cut Insight vs. most midrange decks without Thought Erasure, but it's very good in most Thought Erasure matchups. Keep Melody even if they have Teferi, since it's still a great tempo play even in a bad-case scenario.

Control: Cut Llanowar Elves against Kaya decks or decks that spam a lot of sweepers. Cut Melodies even if you know they'll bring in Thief -- it's just too slow and inconsistent, in my experience, and is a disaster if they don't happen to draw their targets. Add Viviens and Negates and maybe Ooze.

Nexus: They have no stuff worth stealing, and tapping out for Krasis can be iffy. I usually cut 2 Krasis and bring in Ooze instead (alongside Vivien, Negate, and Brontodon, of course), while cutting all the steal spells and Paradise Druid (your weakest mana dork when they don't have kill spells anyway).

I'm happy to answer further questions about sideboarding (or anything else!).

Credit:

• Kaptinkillem for the original idea

• Jim Davis for convincing me to cut Sinister Sabotage

• Jeff Hoogland and Nate Prawdzik for teaching me to be a better Magic player and deckbuilder

Last words:

Please try the deck! I think it deserves to be considered a serious archetype, and I'm curious to see what the "best" version ends up looking like. Also, you'll probably win a lot of matches, unless Standard changes a lot in the next two weeks.

Do you like learning curves? Do you want to play a deck with very few free wins, where many of your games are intricate puzzles? Do you want to use a pile of individually weak cards to scrape together victories?

Do you want to win games with seven cards in your hand? Swift End three permanents at once? Curry Favor people for 15?

(Want a great Standard deck that uses zero Mythic wildcards?)

Welcome to Lucky Clover Knights. 

Why play this deck?

Playstyle: A control deck with zero cards that cost more than three mana. You draw most of the cards in your deck in a high percentage of your games. If the game hits turn 12 or so, you are almost certainly winning. You grind harder than any other Standard deck, at least among decks that don't play Cauldron Familiar. You also get to run people over with cheap creatures if they stumble. And of course, the Clover/Rider nutdraw ends a ton of midrange matches on the spot.

Here's a gameplay video. The audio cuts in and out a bit, and I'm not at my sharpest while recording, but you do get to see me make a lot of decisions in tricky spots and talk through my thought process.

Comparisons to other decks:

• The cards are weaker than those in the standard GB Adventures list, but you aren't forced to out-midrange Oko decks and you have a kill condition in Smitten Swordmaster that totally ignores the board. You also grind much harder.

• You aren't as fast or brutal as GW Adventures, but again, you grind a lot harder. Sweepers rarely bother Lucky Clover Knights.

Results: I hit #7 on the mythic ladder late last season, and have maintained a better-than-70% winrate in Mythic with the deck. Two of my teammates went 5-2 in the last MCQ soon after learning to play the deck, one of whom thought he'd have been 7-0 with perfect play. I'm 14-3 with the current list this season through Diamond and Mythic.

Who the heck am I? The last time I was this excited about a deck, I wrote this post, which became one of the most popular of all time on r/spikes and got UG Mass Manipulation picked up for tournaments and articles by Sam Black, Martin Juza, and a bunch of other pros. This deck isn't quite as overwhelmingly powerful, but it has the same "win out of nowhere" flavor. (Of course, I've also built many terrible decks, but who among us hasn't?)

Matchups: I'll talk more about sideboarding below, but here are my basic impressions of how we fare against current popular decks.

• Oko in all its forms: Slightly to moderately favorable, highly dependent on opponent's playskill. I haven't noticed a major difference in how we play against UG, Sultai, and Bant. My winrate against Oko decks is very positive, though many of my wins were helped along by an opponent's mistake (this is a real benefit of playing a rogue deck).

• BG Adventures (standard version): Moderately favorable.

• WG Adventures: Moderately favorable.

• Ux Flash: Moderately favorable.

• UW Control: Highly favorable, almost impossible to lose.

• Gruul Embercleave: Neutral to slightly favorable.

• RBx Mayhem Devil: Moderately unfavorable.

• Temur Reclamation: Moderately unfavorable.

• Jeskai Fires: Moderately to highly unfavorable.

Decks that want to grind us out with interaction (UW, Flash) rarely succeed. Decks that want to fight over the board (Oko, BG, WG) have a hard time, unless they run a combat trump like Embercleave (Gruul). Decks that can kill an unlimited number of X/1s without spending cards (Mayhem Devil) are painful. Decks that don't fight over the board and kill us quickly (Reclamation, Fires) are very painful.

Note: I am not claiming that this is the best deck in Standard. I personally suspect that the best deck in Standard is the best build of Oko, Reclamation, or Jeskai Fires, if anyone knows what that build might be. I do think that this deck can put up tier-one results in the current format, and has a powerful shell that can be adjusted if Oko goes away (e.g. Reaper of Night against Fires and Reclamation). Innkeeper is a messed-up card, Clover is a messed-up card, and this is the deck that best exploits their natural synergy.

How to play the deck

In this section, I'll explain what I've learned about the deck that wasn't obvious to me at first, since the basic patterns can be seen from the list alone. I'll also talk about some specific card choices and how to optimize their value (because the deck's cards are not individually powerful, you do need to optimize).

1. You are a combo/control deck. As long as your opponents never remove your graveyard and let a Clover survive, you can end basically any game with a sufficiently long chain of Orders, Foulmires, and Swordmasters. You will win almost every long game. This doesn't mean you shouldn't deploy Adventure creatures early, but it does mean that you needn't be in a hurry to kill your opponent if they aren't killing you. Other notes on this point:

   1. Foulmire Knight can often be held until you cycle it.

   2. Edgewall Innkeeper can be cast later in the game if it lets you dodge removal.

   3. You can wrath your own board if you think you'll recover more easily than your opponent.

   4. You don't have to throw creatures away attacking planeswalkers if you have your engine running and your opponent isn't about to Oko-steal a Midnight Reaper or ultimate a Nissa.

   5. You can afford to spend time drawing cards and Once Upon a Timing if it gives you a good chance of casting three knights into a Clovered Curry Favor the next turn (Curry Favor lets you drop to a low life total comfortably in many matchups).

2. You want Edgewall Innkeeper all the time. I've added two Incubation to the deck largely because they increase the frequency of your best turn 2 play: Innkeeper plus Foulmire Knight. Innkeeper with four lands and two Adventure creatures should be an easy keep most of the time. Order of Midnighting an Innkeeper is a fine thing to do on turn 2 if they've killed it.

3. You have a million things to do with your mana. I've seen versions of this deck run 20 lands. No, no, no, wrong, don't. Your cards are cheap, but many of them have spells attached, and you frequently draw several extra cards per turn. It's very important to hit your first 5-6 land drops.

4. You can play at instant speed. Murderous Rider, Blacklance Paragon, Foulmire Knight, and Once Upon a Time give you a bunch of flash options. Remember that you can be patient and react to your opponent if you aren't under too much pressure; Foulmire is especially good for this, since the draw effect is surprisingly easy to sneak in.

5. You need a critical mass of creatures. I'm very deliberate about sideboarding, because removing too many creatures can disrupt the delicate balance of the deck. Cut the Orders, and you can't grind very well. Cut the Swordmasters, and you lose all your reach. You also need Once Upon a Time and Incubation to hit something every time you cast them. As a rule of thumb, having fewer than 20 creatures postboard is a sign that something went wrong (and if you do drop as low as 20, you should probably cut the Incubations, too).

Notes on cards we play:

• Smitten Swordmaster: Remember that this card can just attack. It's always tempting to hold it up, but as a turn 2 play it might gain you 4-6 life before your opponent stops it, which is great in a deck where so many other cards cost you life. Even if it gets Wicked Wolfed or Bonecrushed, you can always get it from the yard later. You also don't always have to wait for Clover in the midgame; it's fine to throw a quick Lightning Helix at your opponent's head if it frees up your mana for future turns (you'll often have plenty to do).

• Blacklance Paragon: The least synergistic card in the deck, but it plays a bunch of roles: Early aggro against walkers, post-Wrath flash threat, cheap removal spell against Nissa lands and Questing Beasts, "gain seven life" against an attacking Wicked Wolf, etc. Trading these off is often helpful for ensuring maximum value from a post-Clover Alter Fate.

• Midnight Reaper: It's more okay in this deck than in most Reaper decks to trade this card off with random creatures -- I'm generally happy to attack into a Paradise Druid with it, or block a Nissa land. It's still a 2-for-1 in those cases, and it's easy to bring it back later.

• Murderous Rider: No matter how many Clovers you have, this can always target just one creature if you want (point the copies at the same creature as the original). As a bonus, it then goes to your graveyard for later recursion.

• Massacre Girl: Yes, we are a small-creature deck, but we have tons of recursion to bring back what we kill, and we play four Midnight Reaper to get lots of value from clearing the board. Massacre Girl offers a lot of flexibility in how we structure turns (for example, choosing where to Alter Fate or cast a Swordmaster with two open mana -- as a bonus, your opponent may not suspect anything if you're using all your mana in the lead-up to Massacre.

Notes on cards we don't play:

• Knight of the Ebon Legion: Appears in other versions of this deck that people have played. Not good at all. It's a 1/2 that forces us to spend three precious mana before it becomes a competent combatant. It was occasionally okay as a curve-filler, but adding Incubation and Find quickly knocked it out of contention. This is a combo/control deck.

• Lovestruck Beast: I played this in a similar deck for a while, and while it was great against aggro, we're already great against aggro. Compared to Blacklance Paragon, it is: (a) not a Knight, (b) vulnerable to Oko, and (c) sorcery-speed. As non-Knights, the 1/1 tokens rarely matter in our current world of combat quagmire.

• Vraska: There are very few cheap permanents we're interested in killing for four mana, given how poor Vraska's +2 is in our deck. We like having lots of lands in play, and we rarely have weak permanents to throw away -- no Food, no Human tokens, etc. She might be good in certain matchups, but I've never really seen situations where we'd want her. (Even against Oko, she's vulnerable to Veil of Summer and comes down after something like two activations on average -- unlike BG with Paradise Druid, we can't ramp her out.)

• Rankle: Again, we aren't eager to sacrifice our creatures. I'm also deeply uninterested in four-drops that die to Wicked Wolf. Keeping the deck cheap and synergistic feels important.

Notes on cards we could play (Vraska is also in this category):

• Reave Soul: Might be better than Legion's End at this point, since End is really only great against Innkeeper and random aggro decks that people rarely play. Meanwhile, Reave Soul kills Mayhem Devil (brrrr).

• Assassin's Trophy. I used to run two copies in the board for Embercleave and Experimental Frenzy. Might be useful if Reclamation continues to flourish.

Fighting Oko

Some notes on how our stupid small-creature deck beats the deck that eats stupid small-creature decks for breakfast (I'm 22-8 overall against them, and that includes matches with cards like Knight of the Ebon Legion cluttering up the deck):

• Blacklance Paragon pressures Oko very well and can ambush Wicked Wolf as it tries to eat our other two-drops.

• Midnight Reaper makes Wicked Wolf much less painful to deal with. Foulmire Knight forces them to keep their food supply low if they want to attack (and they do need to attack, because otherwise you inevitably kill them).

• In game one, they can rarely stop Clover + Rider. In sideboarded games, Veil of Summer often slows them down, and you have so many different modes on your cards that you can often bob and weave around it (or just cast Grasp, then Rider the same target in response to Veil).

• Nissa lands tend to trade off with Paragon and Reaper a lot, leaving them drained on resources if you can get rid of the Nissa (this is how one of my teammates beat multiple turn-3 Nissas on the play in the MCQ: eat a land with Paragon, follow up with Rider).

• You often get enough chip damage from early creatures (especially Order of Midnight) that you don't need too many Swordmasters to end the game. You also get to attack aggressively with Swordmasters late to put them in the graveyard so you can pick them up again. 

• The typical game ends on turn 7-9 somewhere, with a sequence that looks like "Alter Fate with Clover out, targeting Foulmire and Swordmaster, cast Foulmire, Curry Favor for six damage, cast Swordmaster, Curry Favor for eight damage."  

The games are ugly, but usually, things work out. You can watch KanyeBest play several matches against it (with an older list, and my comments in chat) starting at 38:00 in this VOD.

Sideboarding

My sideboard changes frequently and I often try new configurations on the fly, so this guide isn't exact. I'll just note cards that feel meh and good in the matchup.

• Oko: This is an exception to what I said above, because none of your cards are truly "meh" -- they all play roles. I usually trim a Swordmaster, an Order, and an Incubation for three Noxious Grasp. I've considered bringing in the Massacre Girls as well, especially against pure UG (fewer walkers), and might cut the other Incubation and a Find for those.

• BG Adventures: Noxious Grasp (probably not all three) and Legion's End are decent. Paragon is meh if they don't run Questing Beast; if they do, Swordmaster is a bit meh. (Trimming Incubation is a good backup if you're ever unsure of what to cut.)

• WG Adventures: I like all the Grasps, Ends, and sweepers. Clover, Paragon, and Order are meh.

• Ux Flash: Veil is great, as is Grasp if they play Nightpack Ambusher. Incubation is meh (mana is at a premium), and Reaper can be a bit meh (no deathtouch, expensive, these games often don't involve much combat).

• UW Control: Veil is great, mostly because it stops Agent and Mass Manipulation (you rarely mind getting spells countered). Duress is handy to take away exile effects that might hit Reaper/Innkeeper. I add the second Find here. Paragon and Rider are meh, and you can afford to trim a Swordmaster or two (since Reaper and Foulmire are very well-positioned to draw you a ton of cards in this matchup).

• Gruul Embercleave: I cut all the Clovers (you rarely have time for this), bring in all the removal and Massacre Girls, and find a few other random cuts. You really want to focus on killing creatures to keep Embercleave expensive, while slowly grinding ahead with Innkeeper.

• RBx Mayhem Devil: I cut the Epic Downfalls that used to be in the board when I added Massacre Girl (maybe Reave Soul would be better?), so try that. Paragon is quite bad. I often cut Incubations for Veils, since Veil counters a Priest activation or an Angrath's Rampage on Clover.

• Temur Reclamation: Bring in discard, cut Paragons and Murderous Riders, and pray. I don't think Veil is worth it just for Explosion, as they can play around it pretty well, but I might be wrong. Foulmire Knight might be worse than Paragon, but has value as a Knight that is very cheap to recur and cast, which helps you get Swordmaster kills.

• Jeskai Fires: Basically the same as Reclamation, but I want to keep Riders to win horse-riding competitions against their Cavaliers, so I'm open to cutting Swordmasters and maybe a Clover.

If you have questions about another matchup, or want to hear more about how I approach games against any of these, let me know!

Also, given the huge number of options you have on some turns, the deck lends itself to complicated turns. If you have a turn that puzzles you, send me a screenshot and relevant information on graveyards, etc.: I'd be happy to chime in.

Hey spikes Ozmister here. My buddies and I went to Pittsburgh this weekend for the team modern event. I have been playing humans for about a year and love the deck. I don't play a ton of events, maybe once a month or so, but have a pretty solid record of doing alright. I had just top 8'd a facetoface open a few weeks earlier and so was feeling pretty good.

Here is the list I played https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2050916#paper

Round 1 - vs Wurza

My opening hand is one land, 2 hierarchs, champ and some 2 mana dudes. I am on the play so think this hand is fine and lead with noble. My opponent, on a mull to 6, goes snow island, bauble, bauble, opal -tap for red -, opal, aethr grid. He uses the baubles to ping my hierarch and I am sitting there dumb founded. wtf just happened lol. I should have known right from there how the day would go. That game is over quickly from there as I can never play a creature. I side into ouphe and yixlid jailer. The second game is going alright, I name aether grid with meddling mage and he gal blasts it, ok. I am beating him down but then he lands a thopter foundry and a bridge a few turns later to slow me down. I draw ouphe and he is forced to use out his foundry there for thopters. I still cannot attack and so am trying to draw one of my deputies for the win. He then plays a torpor orb and I can no longer win the game. 0-2

Round 2 - vs u/W control

I have a good amount of experience in this matchup and feel like it is ok, the addition of blast zone makes it tougher though. Game 1 is going as expected, back and forth. I have a couple of creatures on board and play meddling mage naming verdict. On his turn 4 he draws, quickly fetches and plays wrath of god(which he said he topdecked and only plays 1 vs 2 verdict XD). I lose the game shortly after and I sideboard in sin collectors and things. He plays some 3 mana walkers that give him a lot of advantage and takes over the game from there. 0-4

Round 3 - vs scapeshift

This matchup is very good I believe. You can put a fast clock on them and meddling mage is a house. Game 1 is going okay, I have a mage on anger and then he plays a fuckin chandra. He kills mage, angers next turn, and scapeshifts the turn after. I bring in sin collectors. i have a couple dudes on the field, he has a search for tomorrow on suspend. He bolts my champ in response and i name search. It gets him but he still plays a titan soon after. I image it and reflector mage it thinking i will have lethal next turn but he untaps and casts scapeshift. 0-6

Round 4 - Izzet Phoenix

I am feeling pretty shit at this point not winning a game lol but we still in there. My teammates are great and very encouraging so I'm trying my best for them. My opponent leads with serum visions off basic island and thinks for a long time. he keeps both on top and next turn in his upkeep he thought skours himself and mills 2 phoenix. He misses his second land drop and i think yes i can win a game! I kitesail him and see a titi, skour, and bunch of red spells he can't cast. I take the only card he can play and he untaps, draws a fetch land and plays titi. I did not have a reflector mage and next turn he popped off. Game 2 I play thalia turn 2 and it basically locks him out of the game as he couldn't find a bolt in time and was just too slow casting 2 mana cantrips. Game 3 I mulligan to 4 after not seeing a land yet. 1-2. THAT'S RIGHT WE WON A GAME BOYS.

Round 5 - Bridgevine

Turn 1 he plays stitcher's supplier and mills bloodghast, bloodghast, and gravecrawler. He was not even fazed by it and I was thinking oh fuck. I said damn that was a pretty good mill and he goes haha yeah looks like it. I play a vial on my turn and pass. He then puts 14 power into play and I die shortly after. Game 2 I play a turn 2 chalice and think i am gonna win this with my strong hand and champ on field. He kills my chalice with wear/tear and then pops off turn 3. 0-2

Round 6 - Tron

Tron is my most hated deck of all time in modern. I hate dying to these huge threats and I have always struggled winning the matchup. They have so many different cards to name with mage that it is difficult. He goes turn one tower map and I am tilted. I mulled to 5 and he got tron online quickly and I could not compete. Game 2 I play a turn 2 ouphe vs his chromatic star and win the game as he does nothing. He shows me his hand of ancient stirrings, scrying and other stars lol ouphe op!!. Game 3 he mulligans to 5! I am sweating thinking this is it. This is the match I am going to win, and it's vs tron! sweet justice. I play a turn 2 thalia to try and slow him down. His turn 3 he plays scrying off forest and 2 tron pieces getting the third. I name walking baliista with mage as next turn he will have 8 mana and can play a 4/4 but cant play ugin vs thalia. He plays big daddy karn and kills mage. The following turn he plays baby karn and gets bridge....... The turn after he gets lattice and I am locked out. 1-2

My final record in games on the day was 2-12. This is definitely my worst performance ever lol. I felt really bad and apologized to my teammates but they were great sports about it. We all had a fun time overall playing magic together and going out with friends that night. I thought this would be a fun little report to write up and laugh about. If you made it this far I hope you enjoyed the tragedy of my magic day 8)

In case you were unaware- Updated as of 3/16, 3:00PM

Wizards of the Coast has announced the cancellation of the PT Finals in Houston, April 24–26.

They are moving and rescheduling a number of upcoming Players Tour events.

The event scheduled for Copenhagen April 30–May 3 has been moved to Prague on May 29–31.

The event scheduled for Charlotte on May 7–10 has been moved to Seattle, June 5–7.

We are actively looking for a replacement venue and date for the event scheduled for Kitakyushu, May 8–10.

See their statement for full details and possible replacements: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/changes-magics-competitive-season-and-event-schedule-2020-03-12

CFB Events has announced the cancellation of the following MagicFest events: Detroit, São Paulo, Louisville, Turin and Palm Beach. The following statement was posted on all affected events website-

"The safety of MagicFest attendees is important to us and we have been monitoring the evolving public health situation closely. Based on additional guidance from government and public health officials, MagicFests Detroit, São Paulo, Louisville, and Palm Beach are cancelled.We regret any disappointment this may cause. If you have already registered for events or packages at any of these MagicFests those purchases will be automatically refunded."

UPDATE - Houston, Copenhagen, Charlotte and Kitakyushu have also been cancelled.

StarCityGames has also announced SCG Baltimore And Syracuse have been canceled. https://articles.starcitygames.com/news/scg-baltimore-and-syracuse-cancelled/

UPDATE- SCG Atlanta (April 4-5), Worcester (April 25-26), and Indy (May 2-3) have also been cancelled

NRG Series Milwaukee and Chicago have been cancelled https://twitter.com/NRGSeries/status/1237878461651247105

CardMarket Series Seville and Bologna have been cancelled https://www.cardmarket.com/de/Magic/News/CM-Series-Seville-and-CM-Series-Bologna-Canceled

Face to Face Games has also now cancelled their various events scheduled in April https://magic.facetofacegames.com/coronavirus-response/

Legacy 20K has been cancelled. https://twitter.com/MissouriMTG/status/1238126397454979072

If you know of any other major event cancellations, please let us know and I'll update the OP.

We talked about this earlier this year and it wasn't too bad so we've been letting this slide, but the past 2 weeks it's been embarrassing. This will be fully enforced from now on and the sidebar has been updated accordingly.

Reminder on reasoning-

1. No win rates or 'I made Mythic with this!' in post titles anymore.

We've frequently seen posts with some questionable information inside them blow up in popularity simply because it promised a high win-rate (despite typically low sample sizes). It also encouraged more jaded posters to then pick apart OP's arguments and while we're not against this, we are against people getting hyperbolic and rude against posters in order to try and make their points feel stronger. What we noticed was if you clickbait the title, you'd get extra inflammatory responses from people who disagreed instead of natural discourse.

It's perfectly fine to make a post and then list the deck's bonafides in the post itself, but we don't feel including these things in the title are worthwhile any longer.

It's Back!

Scavenging Ooze 1G

Creature — Ooze (Rare)

G: Exile target card from a graveyard. If it was a creature card, put a +1/+1 counter on Scavenging Ooze and you gain 1 life.

2/2

Lots of play in all the formats. Really exciting for standard!

Source

Hey everyone,

One of the things people often ask me during coaching is how to get better at figuring out what the opponent has. There are a lot of things that go into that, but one of the most important ones that's super overlooked is land drops. Depending on which land or lands they play, we can know a lot about their hand and that can inform our following plays. It's a concept that all pro players use instinctively but that you have to pay active attention to to be able to learn. So, I wrote an article about it!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/63239953

It's on Patreon, but that's just where I'm hosting it for now (since I no longer write for SCG) - the article is open and you don't need to be a supporter to read it.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback please let me know!

• PV

Throughout last year, I think most of my edge in tournaments came from sideboarding better than my opponents and playing better in postsideboarded games. Last week, I wrote an article for Starcity with some general points/principles that shape the way I sideboard and that I think could be helpful for a competitive player who is struggling with sideboarding past sideboard guides. Since this is a topic that often comes up in the subreddit, I figured some people here might like to read it.

The article was originally premium (as are all SCG articles now), but they become available for everyone after a week, so this one is already open and anyone can read it.

https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/theres-more-to-sideboarding-than-you-think/

If you have questions or comments, feel free to let me know!

• PV

Opt | U

Instant

Scry 1.

Draw a card.

--

Did I really need to write what [[Opt]] does? Anyways, good reprint!

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/august-8-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement

Standard

• Wilderness Reclamation is banned.

• Growth Spiral is banned.

• Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.

• Cauldron Familiar is banned.

Pioneer

• Inverter of Truth is banned.

• Kethis, the Hidden Hand is banned.

• Walking Ballista is banned.

• Underworld Breach is banned.

Historic

• Wilderness Reclamation is suspended.

• Teferi, Time Raveler is suspended.

Brawl

• Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.

Effective Date: August 3, 2020

All Decklists

Lille Top 8

Lille 9-64

Indi Top 8

Inde 9-32

Indi 33-64

Guang Top 8

Guang 9-32

Guang 33-64

Combined Metagame Breakdown

Aggro:

Categorized as decks that bring you from alive to dead incrementally over the course of 4 to 5 turns, and have little to no ability to interact with anything other than creatures.

• 18x Infect (1x B/G, rest U/G)

• 17x Affinity (Very normalized, no suprising lists)

• 12x Burn (1x Mardu, all others Nacatl + Atarka's Command)

• 7x Dredge (1x - 2 Bridge + 2 Garg, all others had neither)

• 6x Merfolk

• 6x Death's Shadow Aggro (2x using Gnarlwood, 1x with some Traverse)

• 2x Burning-Tree Bushwhacker.dec

• 1x Tribal Big Zoo (Gaung - 51st)

• 1x Scapeshift Aggro (Lille - 49th)

• 1x Boggles

• 1x G/W Humans (Lille - 40th)

• 1x U/B Aggro Mill

• 1x Jeskai Giest

• 1x Jeskai Mentor (Gaung - 38th)

Combo:

Categorized as decks that aim to bring you from a winnable position to dead in a single turn without much warning.

• 7x Ad-Nauseam

• 6x Elves (Some w/ Curio, some without)

• 4x R/G Titan (2x w/ Nahiri)

• 4x Storm (2x w/ 4 SB Thing in the Ice, 1x w/ 4 Bedlam Reveler)

• 3x BTL Scapeshift (1x w/ Gifts + Unburial Rites package in board)

• 1x Thing Ascention (Guang - Top 8)

• 1x Grixis Goryo's (Guang - Top8)

• 1x Grishoalbrand (Brave... with all the Dredge hate flying around)

• 1x Amulet Scout (Lille - 9th)

• 1x Living End

• 1x Restore Balance (w/ Nahiri combo. Lille - 63rd)

Control:

Categorized as decks that will almost never be the beatdown in a given matchup

• 11x R/G Tron (3x w/ 3+ Bolt/Sudden Shock in the maindeck)

• 1x Monogreen Tron

• 1x G/W Tron

• 1x Gifts Tron (Lille - 50th)

• 4x Nahiri Jeskai Control

• 2x Nahiriless Jeskai Control (1x w/ Kiki-Angel combo)

• 3x U/W Control

• 2x Mardu Control

• 1x Grixis Control

• 1x Grixis Reveler (Indi - 49th)

• 1x 4-Color Esper Charm Control (Lille - 62nd)

• 1x Esper Bridge Walkers (Lille - 37th)

• 1x Lantern Control (no new cards)

Midrange:

Categorized as... everything else. Decks with both interaction and threats that can take varying roles depending on the matchup.

• 15x Bant Eldrazi

• 1x B/R Eldrazi (Guang, 9th)

• 11x Jund (2x w/ maindeck Blood Moons)

• 4x Junk

• 1x Naya Evolution (w/ Kiki Combo)

• 6x Abzan CoCo (combo focused, 1x w/ With Feeder Combo, 2x w/ SB Mindbenders)

• 2x Naya CoCo (aggro focused)

• 1x 4-Color CoCo (hate bullet focused, Indi - 36th)

• 3x G/W Hatebears

• 1x Esper Spirit Hatebears (Lille - 41st)

• 1x U/W Spirit Hatebears (Gaung - 45th)

• 1x Eldrazi & Taxes

• 1x Bant Retreat (Gaung - Top 8, w/ 4x Spell Queller)

• 2x Grixis Delver (1x delve based, 1x Pyromancer based)

Decks to check out

In order of most suprising / "wow" factor to least interesting.

• Scapeshift Aggro - Lille, 49th - "WTF is going on here??" - Everyone who comes across this decklist. The main combo is landfall creatures + Scapeshift for mountains of landfall triggers. Of course, deck can also just Scapeshift on 7 lands for the normal Valakut kill too. Side combos of Boom // Bust + Flagstones and/or Knight of the Reliquary, or just making an enormous Knight. I'm sure this sort of list been around, but even if it has it is an extremely obscure deck, and I'm sure most of you haven't heard of it (I sure hadn't, and I know a lot of obscure modern decks). No idea how consistent or good it is, but you should at least give it a look, very cool deckbuilding from the pilot.

• U/W Spirit Hatebears - Lille, 41st - What happens when you take 4x Tidehollow Skuller and 4x Spell Queller and throw them in the same deck? Awesomeness, apparently. It looks like this deck is some sort of crazy mash-up of Spirit tribal and Eldrazi & Taxes: Subbing out the normal Eldrazi half of the deck for Spell Queller and other Spirit tribal stuff instead, but still keeping the Flickerwisp + Wasteland Strangler combo. I have trouble believing the deck is optimal with 15 three+ drops, but apparently it works sometimes.

• Esper Bridge Control - Lille, 37th - This is basically a planeswalkers + Ensnaring Bridge deck. Runs a small Trinket Mage package too, as usual with such decks. The big card here is Collective Brutality. Collective Brutality seems absolutely fantastic in this deck, like, I don't know if you could even design a better card for it. Discard 2 cards to get under the bridge, kill your early creature, gain back some life, and take your answer to bridge out of hand... all for 2 mana?? Sign me up! Maybe this sort of deck is worth a second look with Collective Brutality as a key part of it.

• Amulet Scout - Lille, 9th - When Bloom-Titan got banned, a lot of people expected that there might still be a playable build of the deck. After some initial investigation, it seemed like there was no such build. However, now we have something to try working with: This is the first build of an amulet deck that we've seen place well in a big event without Bloom, and the list looks pretty tight, like a lot of testing went into it. I would recommend trying it out if you like that sort of deck.

• G/W Human Aggro - Lille, 40th - Jeez... the players in Europe really like to brew, don't they? This deck is about par for the course of what you would expect in a deck of the given name. Throw all of the best cheap G/W humans you can find together in a deck with CoCo and see if it works... apparently the answer is yes. The key cards here are Mayor of Avabruk and Champion of the Parish, which reward you for playing a human based build. Thalia's Lieutenant may breath some new life into the deck, as it grants it a second pseudo-lord. Between Mayor, Lieutenant, and Champion of the Parish you can build up a ton of power very quickly, Merfolk style. The most interesting inclusions are a full 4x Thallia, Heretic Cathar, and 3 copies of Champion of Lambholt... a card I would have expected to be too slow.

• Restore Balance - Lille, 63rd - "Just Restore Balance?" you say... well, this is not your father's Restore Balance, there is an important new dimension going on here: the inclusion of the Nahiri + Emrakul combo in the deck. At first glance, Nahiri appears to be a much better way to end the game than the old win conditions such as March of the Machines, and is a fine backup plan, not to mention being able to attack hate cards like Stony Silence. This could be a significant improvement to the deck, and might breath some new life into it.

• 4-Color Esper Charm Control - Lille, 62nd - Not too much to say here, other than that this is another successful build of the Wafo-Tappa 4x Esper Charm control shell. That shell has been seeing some limited success recently after he posted several sucessfull MTGO results with it: Esper Charms offer a way to attrition your opponent in the early game. In particular, casting two "Discard 2" Esper Charms on turns 3 and 4 against a slower deck is usually back breaking. The shell also has a very robust win condition in Secure the Wastes, with X > 4 being very difficult for most decks to beat when cast at parity or ahead, while still being a fine card in the developmental turns of the game too. This build adds red for some splashed Lightning Helixes and Kolaghan's Commands, as well as different sideboard choices. It looks like the build is just designed to lose to Blood Moon, but maybe it's worth it over a plain Esper one if you don't expect many Moons.

• 4 Color Company - Indi 36th - A build of CoCo that I hadn't really seen before. This is basically a straight 4-color build of CoCo, with a very high density of 1-drop bullets, and a full 7 one mana dorks. It looks to be trying to maximize the chances of quickly finding a hoser for whatever matchup it runs into, even in game one, rather than maximizing a fast combo. Includes a singleton copy of KikiJiki and Resto Angel for the combo finish, rather than Viscera Seers for the Finks combo.

• U/W Spirit Tribal - Guang 45th - If you thought I would only have one Queller / Mausoleum Wanderer deck for you, you were mistaken. This one is sporting 4x Reflector Mage too. It's basically Monowhite hatebears but splashing blue for Wanderer / Queller / Reflector Mage. Interestingly, zero copies of Selfless Spirit in the 75. Maybe they just didn't have room for it.

• Updated Junk - Indi 15th - Not really an interesting or new deck, other than the fact that it looks like a very tight updated Junk list, using some new cards, by a good player in Paulo Vitor Domo da Rosa. TL;DR: Only 3 Liliana, 1 Shrikemaw, 3 Grim Flayers, maindeck EE, 2 Collective Brutality and 2 Traverse. Collective Brutality seems like the real standout here, and in conjunction with Grim Flayer I imagine it changes how the deck is build significantly. I wouldn't be surprised if the list is very close to the new optimal build for Junk, and if you're a fan of the deck I would highly recommend taking a look.

• Tribal Big Zoo - Guang 51st - TL;DR: Ideally curve Nacatl -> Goyf -> Giest, finish off with Tribal Flames and/or Siege Rhino. Haven't seen a Tribal Zoo deck do well in quite a while, and there's no new cards here, so it may just be a fluke.

• Thing Ascention - Guang Top8 - "Stock" Thing Ascention list... at least as much as a deck which only showed up this month can really be called "stock". If you haven't seen it before, the deck aims to play either Thing in the Ice or Pyromancer Ascension on turn 2, and then "go off" with it on turn 3, though there's no infinite combo (the deck "just" does about 30 damage with Bolts / Helixes / flipped Thing attacks). This top 8 may really put some wind in the sails of the deck. If you pick it up and play it it at least immediately feels like the powerlevel is there. The main question is how well the deck can be built to face off against Jund/Junk/Jeskai/Grixis, as those matchups are, on the surface, extremely poor for it.

• Mardu Walkers - Gaung 13th - I've been waiting for this deck to place well in a big event to see how a "good" list of it gets built. This list is very planeswalker heavy, with the full 4x Nahiri and Liliana, as well as an Elspeth, Sun's Champion and a Gideon thrown in too. Also of note: 4x Wall of Omens, something I haven't seen in the other lists that have done okay recently. The plan here seems to be to use Wall of Omens and Lingering Souls to protect walkers while they run away with the game.

• Bant Knightfall - Guang Top8 - Standard Bant Knightfall (Retreat to Coralhelm + Knight of the Reliquary) midrange+combo deck... oh wait, there's 4 Spell Quellers in here. Looks like Queller is a viable player to try out in Modern after all with 11 copies between the three top 64s, and presumably not that many people even trying the card out yet.

• Grixis Reveler - Indi 49th - Grixis Delve creature midrange, adding 2x Bedlam Reveler and 2x Liliana, the Last Hope. Hard to really see how this deck plays without trying it out, but it is an interesting new build of Grixis.

• B/R Eldrazi - Guang 9 - Hangarback, Thought-Knot, Kalitas, Smasher... wait a minute, what format is this again? In short, if Bant Eldrazi is the Junk of Eldrazi, then this deck is the Jund of Eldrazi. It looks like it plays a bit lower to the ground / better against other aggro but has a bit less staying power.

• Jeskai Mentor - Guang 38th - Very linear Jeskai deck with Pyromancer + Mentor + Cantrips + Burn. No new cards to speak of, but I don't remember the last time that a deck Pyromancer / Mentor deck actually placed. Nice to see one doing well.

• Grixis Goryo's - Guang Top8 - Standard Grixis Goryo's Vengance + Through the Breech list, minus the Jace, Vryn's Prodigies, and adding 2x Collective Brutality. Another deck that might get a significant boost from Collective Brutality. Another spicy card: 2x Quicksilver Amulet in the sideboard, haven't seen that one before in Modern, at least not in the top 8 of an event.

• Bedlam Storm - Lille 46th - TL;DR: Storm... with 4x Bedlam Reveler in the maindeck. Also, 4x Thing in the Ice in the sideboard. Gives some confirmation of what people suspected: That Bedlam Reveler is likely a viable option in some quantity in the storm deck, to make it a bit more robust against disruption.

• Not a deck... but there were zero copies of Burn in the GP Lille top 64. Pretty surprising result, I doubt people were even specifically packing much hate for it (didn't seem that way from my look over the decklist). Maybe just not many good pilots showed up.

New / Unconventional Cards

• 29x Collective Brutality: Talk about a break-out card! This thing is everywhere. Basically every tuned Jund / Junk list (ones that didn't look copied from a stock list) was running at least on copy of the card in the 75. The Jund decks in particular were running 1-2 copies in the main, with some of the Jund decks also doing so. Not to mention it popping up in many other sideboards and maindecks as a fun-of.

• 29x Blessed Alliance: This card is now an established staple of the Bant Eldrazi archetype, many lists runs one or two copies in the board. That accounts for about half of the total copies, the other half are distributed throughout various other sideboards of white decks. Seems like the standard catch-all that a lot of pilots playing white throw into their sideboard to help cover a lot of niche bases at once. There were even a couple maindeck copies of the card in control decks.

• 23x Grim Flayer - Over the last month it's become clear that Grim Flayer is now an archetype staple of G/B/x. The jury is still out on exactly how many to run and how to build the deck around them, but most of the high placing lists were running at least one copy. A fair number of lower placing lists had none, but I suspect that that's just players lagging on including copies / not having any on hand and expecting that the advantage of running them is small / questionable enough that they didn't bother including them.

• 17x Liliana, the Last Hope - Also clearly good enough at this point. About half of the Jund / Junk decks were running a copy in the 75 (some main, some board), a few were running two. Also popped up in some Grixis decks. Looks like it is actually good enough to supplant copies of LotV too, a lot of the lists were cutting a copy of her for it.

• Oath of Nissa - Now archetype staple of R/G Titan. Basically every list plays 3 or 4 copies.

• Selfless Spirit - Where you would expect it (Various decks with CoCo / chord / evolution). It looks like people have landed on one copy being correct, and not playing it in the maindeck being correct.

• 17x Thing in the Ice - Two storm decks were running 4 copies in their board. I'm suprised that they found it a good plan, given that Abrupt Decay is one of the better cards agains them, and it still gets hit by that. Also saw one Infect deck with 4 copies in the board. Pretty inventive sideboard plan for Infect... gets around random -1/-1 effects, doesn't die to bolt, and dumping a few pump spells onto it can easily get a one turn kill as it bounces all the blockers and has base 7 power.

• 14x Thalia, Heretic Cathar - Popping up in various places. Three decks running 2 copies (Eldrazi & Takes, Abzan CoCo, and Bant Eldrazi), and two decks running 4x Copies (G/W Hatebears and G/W Human Aggro). Looks like a card that people are still on the fence on, but is powerful enough that they're willing to try it out.

• 12x Spell Queller - As said above, looks like the card is going to continue popping up, and is on the right powerlevel to be viable in Modern.

• 8x Gideon, Ally of Zendkiar - Showing up in various maindecks and sideboards as a one-of. Good general robust threat that can be a fast-clock if necessary, but expensive enough that you probably won't see more than one copy outside of B/W tokens.

• 8x Eslpeth, Sun's Champion - If your opponent is a slow white deck, you should prepare for a good chance that they will have one in their sideboard as their grindy midrange mirror breaker, as this is absolutely the consensus card of choice for that slot.

• 8x Mausoleum Wanderer - 4x in the two decks above in the decks to check out section. Didn't expect to see any of the card, even two decks was quite the suprise.

• 7x Izzet Staticaster - Not a new card, but, as much as I like the card, it seemed to have fallen out of favor in the last couple months. Seven copies is a lot more than I would have expected... and only two were in the Grixis decks, 5 of the seven were in random places like the 4-color company deck.

• 6x Gnarlwood Dryad - Unless I missed some... just 2/6 Death's Shadow lists played it, and not even as a 4-of. Looks like Death's Shadow is off of the card for now.

• 5x Meddling Mage - Esper Bridge and U/W Spirit Hatebears were running some of these. Cool card, and though it isn't really what you're looking for, I always feel like it's a bit underplayed in Modern.*

• 4x Distended Mindbender - 2/5 Abzan CoCo lists were running a couple in the sideboard. Seems very good in that deck, surprised more weren't.

• 4x Kozilek's Return - An established option in the Jund board. Two decks had one copy, and another had two.

• 4x Rakdos Charm - Ond Jund deck had 4x Rakdos Charm in the board... someone really doesn't want to lose to Drege, but also doesn't want to give up too much vs Affinity I guess.

• 4x Tireless Tracker - One Jund deck had two copies in the main (and zero Flayer), and two Jund decks had one in the board. Probably not better than Courser of Kruphix in that slot, but maybe worth investigating?

• 3x Traverse the Ulvenwald - Unless I missed some in one of the R/G Titan lists, not an impressive showing for the card. (Abzan, Death's Shadow)

• 3x Golgari Charm - 3 Jund / Junk lists had a copy in the board... all respected pro players too. I'm not really sure what the card is there for, someone have an idea? Affinity maybe... but it doesn't seem like it really solves any of the big problems in that matchup. Against Lingering Souls with other utility? Probably not that either.

• 3x Crovax, Ascendant Hero - In an ad-Nauseam board. Forgot this guy even existed. I guess it's to beat Infect and Affinity?

• 3x Valorous Stace - Fun-of in a few creature decks sideboards.

• 2x Languish - In two Jund / Junk sideboards. Damnation is the more popular option by a lot, but as a metagame some people occaisionally opt for Languish instead.

• 2x Kiki-Jiki - One of the Grixis decks had a sideboard into 2x KikiJiki + 3x Deceiver Exarch. Sometimes you just have to gettem.

• 2x Slip Through Space - Only two Infect lists had it as a one-of. I expected the card to be a bigger player in Infect, but it looks like Distortion Strike is still the better card.

• 2x Anguished Unmaking - Two copies tossed into sideboards. Some people like their instant speed catch-alls.

• 2x Secure the Wastes - A couple of Bant Eldrazi lists were playing a fun-of Secure the Wastes in the maindeck. Not sure where the tech came from or what it's for, but both were name players, so it's probably decent.

• 2x Gideon Jura - In a Bant Eldrazi sideboards. Seems pretty good vs Infect / Affinity to give an extra turn for Smasher / Thought-Knot to kill them. I'm guessing that's what it's there for.

• 2x Ulvenwald Tracker - In a Bant Eldrazi sideboard. You have big creatures. It fights them with stuff at intant speed. I get it. Still seems questionable.

• 2x Grave Titan -- In an Ad-Nauseam board. How do you win when they side in a bunch of negates etc? Titan can win all on it's own.

• 2x Olivia Voldaren - In an agressive looking Jund deck with 4x Grim Flayer. Haven't seen her in a while.

• 1x Declaration in Stone - Bant Eldrazi list needed a 5th Path to Exile I guess.

• 1x Vampire Nighthawk - In a Jund maindeck. Interesting inclusion. Card has always seemed pretty close to playable in those decks, if a bit underwhelming.

• Chameleon Colossus - I'm not too up to date on Elves lists, but many of them had this in the board. I don't recall that being the case historically.

• 1x Chandra, Flamecaller - In a Jeskai Giest sideboard. Seems decent... pushes damage real fast and can be a control card.

• 1x Pulse of Murasa - Only one copy in an Infect board. It looks like Infect pilots are off of the card now, while it was picking up a while ago.

• Ranger of Eos - Looks to be pretty standard in the Death's Shadow sideboard. Many were playing a copy.

• 1x Gisela, the Broken Blade - In a hatebears sideboard. I guess dying to Bolt doesn't matter when they already saturate their deck with Bolt targets.

• 1x Bitterblossom - In an Affinity sideboard. Never seen that before. Interesting fun-of.

• 1x Shriekmaw - In PVDDR's Junk maindeck. Presumably a reasonable choice, but not sure what drove it. (Doesn't kill Death's Shadow, Affinity creatures, opposing G/B/x creatures, etc, so I'm not sure why it's there)

• 1x Yixlid Jailer - In the Junk sideboard. Really good choice against Dredge, not sure why more people aren't on it. It turns off Conflagrate as an out too.

• 1x Bribery - In a U/W Control sideboard. Presumably for the R/G Titan decks. Not sure how good it actually is, because it taps you out.

• 1x Tragic Arrogance - In a Bant Eldrazi sideboard. Seems questionable.

• 1x Pharika, God of Affliction - In an Abzan CoCo sideboard. Seems like a cool way to win midrange brawls.

• 1x Teferi - In an Ad-Nauseam board. Protects the combo, doesn't get negated.

• 1x Mina and Denn, Wildborn - In a R/G Titan maindeck. I've seen some lists with Oracle. They both seem on a comparable powerlevel in the deck.

• 1x Emrakul the Promised End - In a R/G Tron maindeck. It was a 4x Lightning Bolt maindeck Tron list, so that helps out a bit, but given the testing I've seen people do the card seems bad in Tron.

• 1x Ephara, God of the Polis - In spirit hatebears. Cool card... I guess the joke is it's a non-creature engine that you can put it in off of Vial.

Thoughts and Observations

• Collective Brutality is in - With 29 copies between the three events, it's very clear that this card is the new hotness in Modern. Not only did it slot into the midrange decks as a value option, even making it's way into some maindecks, but it looks like a good enabler for some more fringe strategies like Ensaring Bridge / Reanimation decks too. It also looks like a massive hit with Junk decks, and may be a new reason to play that deck going forwards over Jund: Junk is much more set up to abuse Collective Brutality. It has both more expensive and clunky top end to discard to it to help out it's curve, and more value discards to make to it, thanks to Lingering Souls. Not only that, but the -2/-2 mode offers an early removal spell that doesn't give your opponent a land like Path, but isn't disappointing vs combo decks like Abrupt Decay. After seeing it in action I wouldn't be suprised if it will be a maindeck staple in Junk going forwards.

• Bant Eldrazi - Breaks out as a tier 1 deck this weekend. There's no denying it anymore, Bant Eldrazi looks like it will be one of the pillars of the format going forwards, filling the role of the midrange creature deck of choice on the more non-interactive end of the spectrum compared to Jund / Junk.

• Grim Flayer and Liliana, the Last Hope are definitely good enough for Modern, and, along with Collective Brutality, will probably shape how Jund / Junk are built going forwards.

• Engineered Explosives continues to be everywhere. If you've seen my last write-ups I've been going on about his for a while, but it still begs re-itterating. Every event it seems like I see more and more of them in sideboards.

• Spell Queller is worth trying out of your deck can support it. I don't imagine many people were running the card to begin with, and it still placed in 3 lists this weekend. I thought it wouldn't make it, but it looks like if you build around it correctly it can do some powerful things.

• Blessed Alliance sements itself as a staple sideboard card, adding to the arsenal of "A+ white sideboard cards" in Modern. Versatility is key in the sideboard slots, and Blessed Alliance does a lot of work.

• Nahiri + Emrakul is an awesome combo, and we probably haven't even found the best place for it yet. It just keeps popping up in so many different places. If your deck can support the colors, it's probably at least worth trying out.

• Right now Naya Burn with Nacatl is the right way to build the burn deck. All but one deck were on pretty similar Naya burn lists with Nacatl.

• Death's Shadow Aggro is a staple aggro deck. Yes, it turns out it can convert to paper after all.

• R/G Tron is in an interesting spot. The Gaung GP had a ton of tron lists, and the others had almost none. I wonder what happened there.

• Thing Ascention might be a real deck. I can't imagine more than a dozen people were playing it, and it still managed to top 8, even in a field with a fair amount of Jund / Junk and control.