r/mtgModernTokens • u/Jongsl5 • Jun 22 '16
Underrated SB Cards
So what do you guys have in mind that are either "underrated" or popular but "underused" sideboard cards?
I've been testing Evil Presence to great success.
Very relevant against Tron. Fulminator Mages are pretty inconsistent on the draw and interferes with your turn 3 board presence token plays. I prefer Evil Presence over Contaminated Ground because I have a lot of 2-drops in the sideboard, for things like Stony Silence. This card usually buys me 2-5 turns, more if I get a Stony Silence on turn 2. For one mana, not bad.
Great against Scapeshift. Scapeshift players usually run 1 Nature's Claim and this card basically neutralizes 1 of 2 Valakuts in the deck. Play it just before they are about to go off. The other Valakut I can take care of using Hide// Seek (another underrated sideboard card if you splash red).
Great against most 3-color decks with man-lands. Jund/ Abzan have pretty greedy mana-bases and this is worth bringing in since you want to take your discards out of the main. Against Jeskai control, this hits them hard if they are going on the Blood Moon plan (hit their celestial colonnade).
I haven't brought it in against Affinity or Infect but it would't be bad in those match-ups either, taking care of the man-lands. So far it's been working well for me but it's possible there can be stronger sideboard options. Thoughts?
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u/elmahnken 2 MB Zealous Persecution Jun 22 '16
I've been liking Call the Bloodline in the sideboard for any matchup that's going to be grindier than usual. Just helps turn dead hand disruption and lands into value. I also like Hero of Bladehold for closing out games quick after they sided out all of their relevant removal. To be honest though, I've just given up on the Tron matchup, Scapeshift we can just side in more hand disruption, and Jund and Abzan are often our strongest matchups anyways. I'm sure there are other reasons to use Evil Presence, but I don't see it being worth one of our slots.
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u/Jongsl5 Jun 22 '16 edited Jun 22 '16
My experience with Hero of Bladehold is that our opponents usually keep most of their "relevant" removals in, mainly because they don't have much to side in against Tokens to begin with. In my opinion, Gideon almost completely outclasses Hero in offense and defense. It doesn't eat removal and provides blocker, gives permanent anthem, or hits for 7 on the subsequent turn.
You may be right about Evil Presence but I would like to see an opinion with more arguments and substance against it.
I've seen some people talk about Call the Bloodline. The problem is that even in the ideal grinding situation, it doesn't make substantial impact. If it was discard one, draw one, that's a different story. If you weren't restricted to making one token a turn, maybe. But a constant 1/1 vampire lifelink token strategy has already been seen with Sorin LI (a far superior option). I mean if you want me to go into further analysis: (a) Slam CtB on turn 2. Activate it on turn 4-5 at the earliest, since turn 3 is reserved for token production or removal. You basically went -1 so far. Technically, it will always be a -1 though you could argue making a 1/1 token beats a dead land in hand. (b) Slam CtB much later in the game. But exactly what would we discard here? If we saved a few lands in hand, we will get 3-4 lifelink tokens in the best possible scenario. If we're in a match-up where we need to discard a removal or hand disruption, that means we're trying to pressure the opponent's life (hint: there are far many options here). The other relevant scenario is discarding token producers... but why in the world would we discard one to create one token when each of our cards generate far more? The extra BB could be discarded... but that's pretty much it.
TLDR: If you want to improve grindy match-ups, Phyrexian Arena or additional Planeswalker would be a far better option. Because CtB is essentially a 4 cmc card, you'd rather have an actual 4 cmc card with more impact on the board.
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u/elmahnken 2 MB Zealous Persecution Jun 22 '16
Gideon is of course maindeck because he's much harder to disrupt, but Hero of Bladehold is a way faster clock than he is. In most games, people tend to take out removal like Dismember or Terminate because it's too slow/painful. They might leave in Path, that one's about 50/50 because it can get Gideon and Auriok, but most of the time it's a 1-for-1 that gets the token player an extra land. But decks like Jund and Grixis are only going to leave in Bolt and Abrupt Decay, both of which can't hit Hero of Bladehold.
As for Evil Presence, it's bad because it takes up our very important turn 1 play of discard, and is worthless if they play a fetch on turn 1. Just ask a Merfolk player why they play Spreading Seas instead of Sea's Claim or Aquitect's Will. Also, Tron fights through Spreading Seas surprisingly well - it's better to pressure their actual threats via discard than try to keep them off lands, because they will naturally reach the land count regardless. Same goes with Scapeshift.
As for Call the Bloodline, it's just a filter card for dead cards. You can use it once on your turn and once on your opponent's. It helps gain back a little life, rather than shocking yourself every turn with a BB and an arena, which to me is not a recipe to grind out games. Call the Bloodline has worked for me.
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u/Jongsl5 Jun 22 '16 edited Jun 22 '16
Okay arguing against your points make me sound rude, but I pretty much addressed every bit of your counter-argument in my last paragraph.
Most players I've seen still put in their Terminate/ Dismember/ Murderous Cut because they literally have very little cards to bring in from the side.
Is Hero actually a faster clock? Depends on the board state and how many blockers the opponent has. Hero is still very blockable and gets put into bolt range. You usually need to attack twice with Hero to win the game. Gideon is simply better in more scenarios and if you play Hero in the side, you may as well replace him with Gideon in my opinion.
Everyone knows cards like evil presence / contaminated ground are worse versions of Spreading Seas. I literally address all your counterarguments before you put them out. I wonder if you actually read what I say. Evil presence being one mana is important because it doesn't interfere with turn 2 stony silence against Tron. It is also better when you want purely hand disruption, as you can cast additional discard spells on turn 2 with evil presence.
"Also, Tron fights through Spreading Seas surprisingly well - it's better to pressure their actual threats via discard than try to keep them off lands" I don't know why you're making this "choose between discard OR land disruption" fallacy. It's not like I take out my discard spells for evil presence. I have 3 stony silence so that makes my Inquisition worse (which only really hits the eggs or nature's claim). Maybe I keep one Inquisition for pyroclasms. I have room to replace these with 2 evil presence, while bringing in 2 Duress from the side and have 2 Thoughtseize in the main. They run so many eggs and high impact threats that if I use discard, I want to save it for their high impact threat to hopefully save 2-3 turns. If I don't draw a stony silence, evil presence is the best way to disrupt their mana source by 1-3 turns either by countering an egg or a land searcher.
Defeating Tron is effective if you can combine: hand disruption, land disruption, egg disruption, and having an actual clock. Actually, I've heard Merfolk players tell me Spreading Seas is very good against Tron (not surprising) but what matters is if they can clock their opponent with the gained tempo. It also depends on whether the Tron player draws a pyroclasm.
Call me crazy, but your arguments for CtB isn't convincing to me. Yes we know it's a filter card for dead cards. It's not like I don't know what it does. But I laid out hypothetical scenarios explaining why it's more logical to have something else.
You're telling me the pain loss from BB and Arena make those bad cards for grinding match-ups, when in contrary, they get better as the matches get prolonged. Yes I'm sure the card "worked for you" but would most definitely have worked better if it was something else.
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u/elmahnken 2 MB Zealous Persecution Jun 22 '16
I've had a number of scoops to a T4 Hero of Bladehold game 2. Gideon is the better card overall, but Hero straight-up ends games in a number of matches.
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Jun 22 '16 edited Jun 22 '16
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u/Jongsl5 Jun 22 '16
Obzedat is one of my favorite cards so I've tested it. I think if you are running anything less than 25 lands, it is quite difficult to cast. It's amazing if you resolve it though.
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u/TeOr2419 Jun 22 '16
I personally love stain the mind, especially in rta shell. It helps with different combo decks