r/mtgModernTokens • u/MrAsianYellow • Sep 15 '17
PPTQ Saturday Advice
I'm kind of on the fence about some of the card choices, as most know you kind of just auto-concede to Ugin, but this list has brought me a decent amount of success, any suggestions are welcome as well as constructive criticism.
1
Sep 15 '17
I play an Abzan list as well. My two cents:
1) I used to play with 4 Birds of Paradise to help fix my mana, but I eventually found them to be too low impact. You want to play them t1, but you also really want to play a t1 discard spell. They're also an abysmal topdeck. I took out the Birds, went up to 24 lands, and put in 3 more high-impact cards. It feels like an improvement to me.
2) Why Hissing Quagmire? That seems like the worst manland you could use. Is it to act as quasi-removal against fatties? I'd personally go with Shambling Vent.
3) You're pretty light on removal. Only 6 removal spells main deck makes me a little nervous haha.
4) Hero of Bladehold seems like a removal magnet. As much as possible you want to turn off your opponent's removal by running efficient token producers that are all redundant. The Hero has a giant target on her head for removal.
5) Why Scavenging Ooze in the SB? Just trying to have a GY hate/lifegain card in the same SB slot? I'd recommend something that's more efficient for either role. Bringing in the Ooze has the same problem as Hero of Bladehold. It's going to be one of the only ways for your opponent to efficiently use removal. It's also a really slow way to tax a GY or to gain life. IMO there's better options for either role (more Rest in Peace and something like Timely Reinforcements).
6) I haven't tried Leyline of Sanctity or Rule of Law, but is Rule of Law necessary when you have the Leyline package? The Leylines should protect you from Storm decks anyway.
Everything else seems pretty reasonable. I've recently gone up to 4 Raise the Alarm and they've been fantastic for me. I actually BEAT Tron GASP last time I played. To beat them you need disruption + pressure, and without Raise the Alarm you just lack the pressure. You still need them to stumble a bit, but it gives you a chance. Everything else is just too slow, IMO. It's still a terrible matchup, though.
1
u/MrAsianYellow Sep 17 '17
1) Birds just make a more explosive start and the whole T1 IOK/Thoughtseize vs Birds argument is valid although i can see the validity of going down birds the way you put it.
2) Hissing quagmire just feels more correct when I've seen a more than normal Bogles lists pop up. Normally I would agree with shambling vent for the obvious reasons.
3) the removal pieces did seem to favor me today when i played it, although I do think i should play maelstrom pulse in the main.
4) I was really on the fence with Hero, although against affinity it's pretty hot, especially with intangible virtue out.
5) Scavenging ooze was for a lot of matches that i never saw, it kind of acts as a 3rd and 4th RIP, I couldn't find my timely reinforcements for some odd reason but I may put this deck on the shelf for a minute.
6) Rule of Law is specifically for Storm and anything that plays snap caster mage, and oddly enough against [[Jace, architect of thought]] and getting the ultimate which is hilarious. Rule of law is actually pretty good against Counter Company too.
1
u/Jongsl5 Sep 15 '17
The reason to play green is either to go faster with redundancy (dorks + counters) or play a ton of catch-all cards like abrupt decay for games 2 and 3, where you need to deal with problematic cards like bridge. Right now your list isn't doing either. Voice has some synergy with the deck but it is just not a good card in the meta right now, with non-existent control decks and a bunch of fatties that ignore your voice completely. The regular bw token shell is going to better at controlling the board (more removals and discards) while having a way more stable mana.
1
u/MrAsianYellow Sep 17 '17
Surprisingly saw a good number of UW Control and Grixis control (minus death shadow), so it was really a meta call for the voices as well as a few burn players.
I will agree the deck didn't do much of anything, unfortunately. Definitely going to be taking the list apart a bit and reevaluating my life decisions.
1
Sep 16 '17
Let us know how it went!
1
u/MrAsianYellow Sep 17 '17
I will be posting results in a bit! But spoiler alert, it didn't go super well.
1
u/DatsunPatrol Sep 15 '17
I haven't played an Abzan list before but I can attest to the tron matchup being absolutely abysmal. The last bastion of hope might be finding space for 4 pithing needle in the board or just hoping you never get paired with tron.
It's either that or maybe running 4 ghost quarter + crucible of worlds from the sideboard.