Probably the easiest place to start is Chris Pikula's VSL Finals list. The only thing I would say is really metagame specific here is the Chalices; the "stock" lists run Null Rods in their place.
Creature (23)
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Phantasmal Image
4 True-Name Nemesis
Sorcery (1)
1 Time Walk
Instant (10)
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Flusterstorm
Artifact (6)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Chalice of the Void
Land (20)
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
11 Island
I don't really like splashing a color in an aggro deck, even in modern where you can get a ton of lands that won't slow you down, you're going to make your burn matchup miserable.
That's a good idea too. I would have to find a list, but I have a lot of the cards already.
I'd just need the fish and images.
I actually lost a round to that deck in a daily event, I won game one with mentor then got buried in the next two .
There's so many islands around, islandwalk is turned on more often than not.
The first worlds since I started playing magic again was won by Merfolk.
Chalice of the void was good in the deck.
Yeah, it's impressive how scary a Dryad Militant can be when you stick a Rancor on it. Learning how to fizzle a Rancor is an important skill and certainly a more advanced part of the rules.
Splashing Black is another possible option, though I'm concerned that some of those cards would slow down the deck too much. I really want to be dropping creatures rather than disrupting my opponents hand with cards like Thoughtseize. Golgari Charm seems like nice protection against board wipes.
GR Tron is actually not bad against our deck but I feel like we should be beating it really as an Aggro deck. I've never had the Karns to play GR Tron myself but hoping that will change with the reprint in MM2015. It is a very good deck.
I don't know about other people but creating videos for articles is so time consuming for me. I can't record them live (some reason my computer just can't handle it, I guess) so I have to record the replays. That takes me one evening. Then uploading them onto Youtube is a real pain. No joke, it takes me over an hour to upload just ONE of the videos. So there goes another evening. But overall I think it is well worth it to include vids. I wish I could help you in some way so you could put videos into your articles, Joe.
If it helps, I use Camstudio. It's free and seems to work fine (though that may be the reason why I can't record as I play. I haven't really tried any other software.) I also use a microphone called Blue Snowball. It was only around $50-60 bucks at Best Buy. It really helped in cutting out the background noise.
Thanks for reading and watching!
Rancor reads: Enchanted creature suddenly becomes a threat, no matter how insignificant it was previously. I remember when Rancor was first released, and I was forced to learn the rules of Magic better. I asked my friend (who is now a store owner/judge) if there was any way to get rid of a Rancor, and he told me that I could kill the creature Rancor was being targeted with, and it would "fizzle". I didn't know that fact prior to Urza's Destiny.
If I was going to splash a color, it might be black, for Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, and Golgari Charm. Decay is awesome vs Twin, Tarmogoyf, Liliana, and much more. Thoughtseize is your counterspell, and Golgari Charm says "Counter Target Supreme Verdict". I'm not sure if the deck needs a splash or not. Also, Maelstrom Pulse as a one-of that can kill big creatures, walkers, enchantments, and artifacts is pretty good. I had a Mono-black aggro deck that splashed green back in Theros-BTg-Jou Standard, which was a decent deck. Only the temples slowed me down.
Good read!
EDIT I rarely lost a game, let alone a match to the older mono green aggro deck with Tron. It's the Pyroclasms O-stones and Wurmcoils that are so good. I almost want to make tron again, that deck was awesome.
I looked it up, and I can finish Landstill relatively easy. Whatever deck it ends up being, I might not get to write about it until the week after next, because I wouldn't have it ready for the Daily Events this weekend.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to hit me up on Twitter or Facebook.
Wilt-Leaf Mage is not in MM2015, because it is not a card. Wilt-leaf Liege is both a card and in MM2015. My bad.
For some reason I keep calling itWilt-Leaf Mage. When I did the search against both the MM2015 card list, and my folder of hundreds of tournament decklists, I failed to find Wilt-Leaf Mage. Go figure.
Flusterstorm definitely should be the last counterspell you play. The more I played with it, and learned to use it to its full potential, the more I loved it. The real downside to Flusterstorm, is that it won't touch a Jace, Charbelcher, or many other non-instant/sorcery bombs. It's really incredible though, in my opinion.
I'm watching the videos now (sorry for not having time to watch them before) and I started with R4. It looks like you just got really unlucky, only hitting one Draw Spell (Cruise) and one dack in the time that I've been watching. Other than attacking your three tokens into his untapped Deathrite Shaman, everything looked fine. It didn't seem like you were close enough to killing him to warrant sacrificing a token, especially as it just served to even out the board.
The attack on Dack was smart, that was worth a suicide attack.
Nice work! I'm hoping I can start making my own videos soon. I feel so antiquated being text-only.
8) Homeward Path- I hate it when Bribery targets me in Commander, which is why Homeward Path is included in all my EDH decks.
7) Thragtusk- This is the first card I bought in paper, back when I actually played paper Magic. Before buying Thragtusk I got my collection from boosters and starter packs.
6) Delver of Secrets- The blue nacatl.
5) Cryptic Command- This card will do everything you need it to do in a game. Probably the closest thing to a catch-all in Modern.
4) Snapcaster Mage- He does his part in trying to keep the Earth green by recycling.
3) Lightning Bolt- Bolt, Snap, Bolt!
2) Splinter Twin- I enjoy Modern because of all the infinite combos.
1) Brainstorm- When I use this card correctly I feel like a pro doing pro stuff. When I screw up with it I feel like a noob who shouldn't be playing Legacy or Vintage.
I don't want to throw Adam down a well, I wanted to express my desire to throw him down something similar to a well, that being a water slide. But yeah, my constructive criticism would be less "likes" and "you knows."
Owing to extremely trying circumstances at my end, Adam was providing considerably more of the banter than I was for large portions of the podcast. Going solo is exceedingly hard, especially ad lib. I have never, in the approximately three hundred episodes I've been involved in, recorded without a cohost, and my first contributions were very much marked by umming and aahing. I have the utmost respect for, and full support for, my cohost, and I think this particular criticism is somewhat out of line. The underlying issue will improve with time, but I respectfully request that such criticisms be phrased in a more neutral tone in future.
Sorry, I record these on the fly, so I'll just like, ya know, spin your negativity into trying not to say "like" and "you know" too much. Also, AJ was a bit preoccupied and I had to talk a lot more than usual, so I had to come up with filler, which lead to the more than usual amount of space-filling words. Thanks for the constructive criticism, but perhaps we don't need the childish middle school retorts of throwing me down a well? You can try throwing me down a well if you'd like too, but that's only something you'd say to someone hiding behind the veil of internet anonymity, instead of to someone's face.
Oboro is like Pendelhaven/Karakas. "Free" in color and benefits from not getting Boiled over. I don't play Commander but couldn't you toss Oboro in a landfall deck even if you're not blue?
My feelings on Tribal singleton are well known, plus this month is super busy, so I opted to give it a miss last week. I will likely be absent against my will this week due to family, so good luck all taking part.
Unfortunately I can't do it for all the matches, but it's easy enough to do for the first round. Sort of a pauper version of Play or Draw? Based on a very preliminary look, might be much more important to play first in pauper than in standard - 15 of 18 matches so far went to play-first.
Probably the easiest place to start is Chris Pikula's VSL Finals list. The only thing I would say is really metagame specific here is the Chalices; the "stock" lists run Null Rods in their place.
Creature (23)
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Phantasmal Image
4 True-Name Nemesis
Sorcery (1)
1 Time Walk
Instant (10)
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Flusterstorm
Artifact (6)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Chalice of the Void
Land (20)
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
11 Island
Sideboard (15)
1 Flusterstorm
4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Dismember
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Steel Sabotage
2 Null Rod
2 Hurkyl's Recall
I don't really like splashing a color in an aggro deck, even in modern where you can get a ton of lands that won't slow you down, you're going to make your burn matchup miserable.
That's a good idea too. I would have to find a list, but I have a lot of the cards already.
I'd just need the fish and images.
I actually lost a round to that deck in a daily event, I won game one with mentor then got buried in the next two .
There's so many islands around, islandwalk is turned on more often than not.
The first worlds since I started playing magic again was won by Merfolk.
Chalice of the void was good in the deck.
Cast my vote for Merfolk. Outside of the VSL it gets almost no attention and it's a relatively easy point for new players to jump into the format.
Thanks Adam!
Thanks for the comment!
Yeah, it's impressive how scary a Dryad Militant can be when you stick a Rancor on it. Learning how to fizzle a Rancor is an important skill and certainly a more advanced part of the rules.
Splashing Black is another possible option, though I'm concerned that some of those cards would slow down the deck too much. I really want to be dropping creatures rather than disrupting my opponents hand with cards like Thoughtseize. Golgari Charm seems like nice protection against board wipes.
GR Tron is actually not bad against our deck but I feel like we should be beating it really as an Aggro deck. I've never had the Karns to play GR Tron myself but hoping that will change with the reprint in MM2015. It is a very good deck.
I don't know about other people but creating videos for articles is so time consuming for me. I can't record them live (some reason my computer just can't handle it, I guess) so I have to record the replays. That takes me one evening. Then uploading them onto Youtube is a real pain. No joke, it takes me over an hour to upload just ONE of the videos. So there goes another evening. But overall I think it is well worth it to include vids. I wish I could help you in some way so you could put videos into your articles, Joe.
If it helps, I use Camstudio. It's free and seems to work fine (though that may be the reason why I can't record as I play. I haven't really tried any other software.) I also use a microphone called Blue Snowball. It was only around $50-60 bucks at Best Buy. It really helped in cutting out the background noise.
Thanks for reading and watching!
Rancor reads: Enchanted creature suddenly becomes a threat, no matter how insignificant it was previously. I remember when Rancor was first released, and I was forced to learn the rules of Magic better. I asked my friend (who is now a store owner/judge) if there was any way to get rid of a Rancor, and he told me that I could kill the creature Rancor was being targeted with, and it would "fizzle". I didn't know that fact prior to Urza's Destiny.
If I was going to splash a color, it might be black, for Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, and Golgari Charm. Decay is awesome vs Twin, Tarmogoyf, Liliana, and much more. Thoughtseize is your counterspell, and Golgari Charm says "Counter Target Supreme Verdict". I'm not sure if the deck needs a splash or not. Also, Maelstrom Pulse as a one-of that can kill big creatures, walkers, enchantments, and artifacts is pretty good. I had a Mono-black aggro deck that splashed green back in Theros-BTg-Jou Standard, which was a decent deck. Only the temples slowed me down.
Good read!
EDIT I rarely lost a game, let alone a match to the older mono green aggro deck with Tron. It's the Pyroclasms O-stones and Wurmcoils that are so good. I almost want to make tron again, that deck was awesome.
Wilt-Leaf Mage 1GW
Creature - Elf Wizard
If a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard Wilt-Leaf Mage, exile it instead of putting it into your graveyard.
When Wilt-Leaf Mage dies, exile it.
When Wilt-Leaf Mage enters the Exile Zone, you may find a card named Wilt-Leaf Liege from outside the game and place it on the Battlefield.
FT: I would forfeit my very existence to give my people a proper sense of inclusion.
2/2
:)
really digging this build, Oliver!
I looked it up, and I can finish Landstill relatively easy. Whatever deck it ends up being, I might not get to write about it until the week after next, because I wouldn't have it ready for the Daily Events this weekend.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to hit me up on Twitter or Facebook.
Be glad your moniker is One Million Words and not One Million Mistakes!
(In other words, you are entitled to screw up occasionally.)
Wilt-Leaf Mage is not in MM2015, because it is not a card. Wilt-leaf Liege is both a card and in MM2015. My bad.
For some reason I keep calling itWilt-Leaf Mage. When I did the search against both the MM2015 card list, and my folder of hundreds of tournament decklists, I failed to find Wilt-Leaf Mage. Go figure.
Sorry about that.
Flusterstorm definitely should be the last counterspell you play. The more I played with it, and learned to use it to its full potential, the more I loved it. The real downside to Flusterstorm, is that it won't touch a Jace, Charbelcher, or many other non-instant/sorcery bombs. It's really incredible though, in my opinion.
I'm watching the videos now (sorry for not having time to watch them before) and I started with R4. It looks like you just got really unlucky, only hitting one Draw Spell (Cruise) and one dack in the time that I've been watching. Other than attacking your three tokens into his untapped Deathrite Shaman, everything looked fine. It didn't seem like you were close enough to killing him to warrant sacrificing a token, especially as it just served to even out the board.
The attack on Dack was smart, that was worth a suicide attack.
Nice work! I'm hoping I can start making my own videos soon. I feel so antiquated being text-only.
8) Homeward Path- I hate it when Bribery targets me in Commander, which is why Homeward Path is included in all my EDH decks.
7) Thragtusk- This is the first card I bought in paper, back when I actually played paper Magic. Before buying Thragtusk I got my collection from boosters and starter packs.
6) Delver of Secrets- The blue nacatl.
5) Cryptic Command- This card will do everything you need it to do in a game. Probably the closest thing to a catch-all in Modern.
4) Snapcaster Mage- He does his part in trying to keep the Earth green by recycling.
3) Lightning Bolt- Bolt, Snap, Bolt!
2) Splinter Twin- I enjoy Modern because of all the infinite combos.
1) Brainstorm- When I use this card correctly I feel like a pro doing pro stuff. When I screw up with it I feel like a noob who shouldn't be playing Legacy or Vintage.
Hey Joe, awesome article! My vote is Landstill, as well.
I don't want to throw Adam down a well, I wanted to express my desire to throw him down something similar to a well, that being a water slide. But yeah, my constructive criticism would be less "likes" and "you knows."
Thanks for the replies, I haven't noticed an issue in regards to extra card draw with both the Courser, Starfish and Liliana so far.
Sidisi is quite cool, never noticed here before.
Owing to extremely trying circumstances at my end, Adam was providing considerably more of the banter than I was for large portions of the podcast. Going solo is exceedingly hard, especially ad lib. I have never, in the approximately three hundred episodes I've been involved in, recorded without a cohost, and my first contributions were very much marked by umming and aahing. I have the utmost respect for, and full support for, my cohost, and I think this particular criticism is somewhat out of line. The underlying issue will improve with time, but I respectfully request that such criticisms be phrased in a more neutral tone in future.
Sorry, I record these on the fly, so I'll just like, ya know, spin your negativity into trying not to say "like" and "you know" too much. Also, AJ was a bit preoccupied and I had to talk a lot more than usual, so I had to come up with filler, which lead to the more than usual amount of space-filling words. Thanks for the constructive criticism, but perhaps we don't need the childish middle school retorts of throwing me down a well? You can try throwing me down a well if you'd like too, but that's only something you'd say to someone hiding behind the veil of internet anonymity, instead of to someone's face.
Batterskull was the GP promo for a good while.
Oboro is like Pendelhaven/Karakas. "Free" in color and benefits from not getting Boiled over. I don't play Commander but couldn't you toss Oboro in a landfall deck even if you're not blue?
Can we "like" "you know" throw Adam "like you know" down "like" a well?
My feelings on Tribal singleton are well known, plus this month is super busy, so I opted to give it a miss last week. I will likely be absent against my will this week due to family, so good luck all taking part.
In the Torrent Elemental deck, there is no card draw. Maybe a couple of Abzan Beastmaster might fit in well.
Unfortunately I can't do it for all the matches, but it's easy enough to do for the first round. Sort of a pauper version of Play or Draw? Based on a very preliminary look, might be much more important to play first in pauper than in standard - 15 of 18 matches so far went to play-first.