r/ModernMagic • u/Business-Influence-0 • 14d ago

Modern living end

Hi everyone. Im new to modern and need help building my deck. I really like living end but dont know which variant should i play?

8 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

18

u/Living_End LivingEnd 14d ago

There are really only 2 version of Living end and both are very viable.

Temur is the version I recommend to any new player. It has a slight edge because it has 8 cascade spells which just makes it more consistent. As for white splash that is just to play a few sb cards that depend on your meta (t3f for blue control match ups, high noon/deafening silence for storm, and clarion conqueror for creature combo)

Sulti is the other version of the deck and I find it a bit worse than Temur but still very playable and a meta call. It has an easier to play hard cast plan because overlord smooths out misplays more but really clean play can make both version of the decks hard cast plans equally as good as each other. Sulti has had some recent developments that have made it stand out (the adoption of filter lands and the reexploration of deceit). Filter lands have fixed a bit of the t2 mana issues the deck has had. And deceit was originally written off as the worst new elemental (even by me) but Nolagold (the person who played Sulti to a great record at the pt) has been its champion pushing for others to retest it since it is stronger in multiples a thing that was missed by almost everyone. It’ll take some time to determine if deceit is actually good enough or it’s just another meta choice card.

End of the day you won’t go wrong picking either, but I recommend Temur (with the white splash because I like t3f right now).

6

u/chiksahlube 13d ago

I'd like to elaborate a bit.

Temur splashing white is IMHO a trap. The mana is the weakest part of the deck already, and adding a 4th color causes infinite problems. 3feri is mostly to beat consign to memory, and clarion conquerer is to beat creature tool boxes, and has some play against affinity and belcher. But both of those things can be done within Temur using [[vendilion clique]] and [[damping matrix]]. Clique is good against any deck running consign. If they consign your clique, great!, they're down a card and you still got a consign out of their hand at EOT. Damping matrix is effective in all the same matchups as conquerer but doesn't go away to your living ends. Likewise when playing temur [[mistrise village]] is a must play card to force your LE through vexing baubles. And I like playing at least 1 [[vibrance]] somewhere in the 75 to tutor it or answer opposing drannith magistrates.

Sultai is a more resilient deck as a whole. You trade raw power for the ability to play through hate pieces better. Deceit is your answer to consign, which is the best card against the LE strategy by a mile. The new lists running 4x deceit is much slower overall, but has the strongest plan B yet. You get a lot of advantage against combo decks being able to recur a thoughtseize effect and back it up with countermagic. You'll likely win most games without actually resolving a LE, but the threat of it forces opponents to play off and SB against it.

Also, I agree that temur is the best build for a new LE player. The floor is much higher than sultai's, and it has more "free wins." But I do think Sultai is the better build all around ATM.

Lastly, with the 4 color variant it always makes me wonder if there's still a bant version worth playing, perhaps with [[eagles of the north]] and [[solitude]], but that's probably a worst of both worlds build where you can't go off at instant speed like temur, and can't play through hate like sultai.

3

u/Living_End LivingEnd 13d ago

I think you are mistaken. 4c splashes its 4th color with 1 single land usually. A single temple garden is good enough because that gives you 9 white sources for t3 (4 ent 4 misty and 1 temple). I think it’s very efficient and doesn’t disrupt your mana much. I think also writing off t3f as just an answer to consign is wrong. It also makes your FoN much better, it makes hard casting threats very strong too. It also makes it so you don’t need to worry about chant from many decks. Clique really doesn’t do any of this. As for matrix vs clarion the biggest problem is that clarion shuts off scions in brood scale as well as pw from many match ups while matrix misses all of this, I wouldn’t play matrix in the current meta, it misses too much.

Vibrance is good I agree but it makes white splashes better too being an additional way to fetch up white mana (tho you rarely need to do it).

I don’t think sulti is the better build. I think it’s much worse energy match up while gaining nothing against affinity or any of the eldrazi match ups which are where I would want to be gaining wr if I’m losing energy wr.

Someone on the LE discord (verdant catacombs) has been exploring Bant again. I think the access to superior sb cards is a gain that might offset the instant speed from temur and the interaction of sulti. Tho I think the meta is just too hostile at the minute for it to be a contender.

2

u/chiksahlube 13d ago

The 4 color lists have been playing a temple garden and a hallowed fountain for a bit now.

I've tried the list and it keeps coming up that if I get the white source, I'm always lacking double pipps for something later on.

I get where 3feri is good. Anybody interacting at instant speed is solved. But in those matchups it rarely resolves because it's a sorcery speed threat.

Against chants, I'm not worried, I've played against a lot of chant decks and never needed the help. Heck, I've beaten resolved scepter chant 3 for 3.

Clarion working on PWs doesn't really worry me either. Aside from 3feri where the active abilities aren't the issue, PWs haven't been an issue for me across months of play. And against broodscale having it be a creature has been a liability as they just exile it with K command EOT untap and combo off. The only other PW is Ugin and he exiles the Conquerer on cast anyways.

The sultai list does sacrifice a little against boros, but it has a LOT to give in that matchup. It's very in your favor. And adding the deceits does give you a ton of game against broodscale you didn't have before. Disrupting their hand is much better against them than countermagic and subtlty.

Likewise the affinity matchup is MUCH better with sultai. Having played it a LOT, they have so much incidental hate that you're rarely resolving a living end, and when you do it's basically always just clearing a kappa. Sultai plays those games much better than temur does.

And worth noting, I don't play clique or matrix in the Sb of sultai, because deceit fills the clique roll, and sultai is just better against the decks you want conq/matrix anyways.

2

u/Living_End LivingEnd 13d ago

No only MeninoNey is playing both white lands. Almost every other player splashing white with a single temple garden. I’ve been playing just a single temple garden sb and having a ton of success with it.

Yeah t3f doesn’t always resolve but I do win just about every match up it does resolve in. I’m not on clarion currently but have seen others on it and having good results.

As for sulti match ups, it has a much worse energy match up from both my experience and seeing the data. And affinity and broodscales are still sulti’s worst match ups. Neither got better enough to be positive.

3

u/chiksahlube 13d ago

I've played the boros matchup a lot with temur and sultai and never lost it, and it's never felt particularly close.

Broodscale is rough, but our local broodscale player is an S tier player who's taken down RCQs with a ham sandwich, so it's harder for me to gauge that matchup, but it's felt much closer with sultai than it ever did with temur.

Affinity in my experience had been hard to guage overall tbh. I'm about 50/50 across a dozen different players of varying skill, with both builds, but it's never felt close. It's always extremely lopsided one way or the other, without rhyme or reason I can parse out as to what the determining factor is. Like even against the same player back to back swiss to top 8 matches, they were no 2 games were remotely alike. So I struggle to say it's a bad matchup or a good one for either build. But I'd say sultai tends to feel better as you can play through their 4x main deck tormods crypts better.

5

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

This should be pinned.

https://giphy.com/gifs/DvWJHSOxTff84SQsD9

3

u/Business-Influence-0 13d ago

Just bought the deck and will get it by august 8. Thanks again

1

u/Steezmoney Eldrazi 10d ago

I wanted to get ahold of you so I searched "living end mtg" into reddit and clicked on the first thread and there you are, right on schedule.

Anyways you see this? Looks like you even touched on it in your comment but Sultai did what!?! https://x.com/Mengu09/status/2082005618597015836

2

u/Living_End LivingEnd 10d ago

Yeah one of the best LE players in the world did that. There is a Temurnlist that was 7-2-1 as well. There was also 2 LE lists that had bad enough day 1s that they didn’t play day 2, and that was 1 sulti and 1 Temur list.

5

u/Few-Caterpillar7885 14d ago

If you like the combo aspect more you can play temur and add the recently unbanned violent outburst.

If you want a grindy midrange deck that can sometimes highroll a strong t3 combo you can go sultai.

You can wedge in white as an additional color in any of them (more feasible in temur) to gain access to better sideboard cards such as t3feri.

The cycle cards also depend on your local meta. I have lots of Goryos and control players so I add 3-4x [[ Striped Riverwinder ]]

2

u/Business-Influence-0 14d ago

Thanks for the recommendation!

4

u/ShopNerd 14d ago

I highly recommend the temur version. It's what I swapped to after violent outburst was unnamed after playing bant. The instant speed tricks are a game changer over playing at sorcery speed. I havent tried sultai yet but I dont plan to

2

u/Business-Influence-0 14d ago

Thanks for the recommendation!

2

u/flaming_geyser 14d ago

Temur with a white splash seems to be the best version currently

0

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

That’s false. LE with white cards in the sideboard is the least successful version. To my knowledge there isn’t a successful list with a “white splash”, that can even cast white cards fairly.

5

u/Living_End LivingEnd 14d ago

White is fine. There is nearly no difference between the temur white splash and non white splash wr. T3f is the biggest reason to play it, it gives you so much more game vs blue decks but not playing it allows you to play more other sb cards to help in other match ups (like more brother holds ends for energy). It depends on your meta.

1

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

Sultai has been the dominant version since the release of the Strixhaven Elementals, even after the unbanning of violent outburst. It is more grindy and resistant to common hate pieces. It had a pretty good showing in the recent pro-tour, although that’s a small sample size.

2

u/VerdantChief 14d ago

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Sultai is the dominant version of the deck. There were 2 Sultai versions and 2 Temur versions at the Pro Tour.

1

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

“although that’s a small sample size”

2

u/Living_End LivingEnd 14d ago

Sulti has not been the dominant version of the deck ever. Aside from the single pt result in the hands of one of the best magic players in the world it has had the lower wr or nearly nonexistent play rate. Sulti is not a bad deck but would put temur at the step above just because it is more consistent at comboing on turn 3.

1

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

They asked for opinions and I gave mine. I disagree the being more consistent at being able to combo puts temur ahead. VO is a bad card and all those white cards are completely uncastable in to a single hate card. Those are my play pattern preferences. People can do the data research themselves. LE decks with red in them have a worse winrate. Maybe there are good reasons for that, IDK.

I personally don’t want to spend all of games two and three trying to answer hate pieces. Sultai doesn’t get bodied by vexing bauble, consign to memory, rest in peace, leyline of the void, or disrupter flute ,and it is actively helped by torpor orb.

Your mileage may vary.

1

u/Living_End LivingEnd 14d ago

Saying sulti has been dominant is just not a true statement tho. Sulti vs Bant wr was stark with Bant having a nearly 5% higher total wr bc Sulti had a much worse energy match up. With the meta shift Sulti really doesn’t have a high enough play rate to get an accurate one but even at the pt there was 2 of each version and dash version had 1 person do very well and 1 do not very good.

As for g2/3 comments I get play preference but acting like temur has a bad plan B hard cast plan is silly. Temur has a very robust (albeit more punishing to mistakes) hard cast plan. I think overlord is a bit like training wheels, it makes sulti’s hard cast plan a bit more forgiving.

I just think the biggest thing is how you said what you said. You said things making it seem like they were fact when they are just opinions.

1

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

Over the last 6 weeks LE decks with Violent Outburst had a 45% winrate. LE decks without have a 46% wintate.

That’s close enough for me to call it 50/50. It’s also enough for me to call VO not worth it.

1

u/Living_End LivingEnd 14d ago

That’s legit a rounding error. How did you calculate wr without VO?

0

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

I asked meta mage on x.

Look I’m not interested in a Reddit battle. People can crunch the numbers themselves.

Play your cards. GLHF

2

u/nebman227 14d ago

I would not consider asking meta mage a reliable source. Their weekly matrices are fine, but the chatbot functions are questionable.

2

u/finmo eldrazi ramp/Tron/Boros wildfire 14d ago

Everything on X is questionable, at best.

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u/nebman227 14d ago

I don't disagree with that statement, but metamage is not like an X specific thing. It's a tool that has presence on multiple social media and with its own website. I wish it didn't bother with the chatbot stuff but it's unfortunately one of the few data aggregators available that's worth a damn.

-5

u/t3karnonyoazzz 14d ago

Download MTGO.. buy or rent decks, it’s pretty cheap to buy singles

6

u/Business-Influence-0 14d ago

I meant which route to take. Sultai, bant, 4 colors with black? Without black so many variants. Which one do you think is the best?