thoughtseize deck modernthoughtseize deck modern

Sure, Thoughtseize can slow Blast down, and Thoughtseize combined with Dauthi Voidwalker to exile the blast is actually pretty good. If they cast Serum Visions or hold up Spell Snare, I dont really care; I probably wouldnt have taken those cards anyway. Compare the number of cards that youll draw in your opening hand (hopefully seven) to the number of cards youll draw off the top of your deck in the course of the game. You lose 2 life. After seeing the outcomes from these basic scenarios, its clear to see that Griefs effects can be devastating, especially when you try to take advantage of it. First, you either need a creature thats being targeted by removal, or you need a sacrifice outlet; second, if the removal is Path to Exile, it doesnt work; third, its a terrible topdeck. By Reid Duke. you cant completely answer it with a discard spell. Now Scapeshift, even though it isnt a top tier deck, has access to Bring to Light, effectively giving them four additional copies of Scapeshift. WebRulings. This is your hand on the play against an unknown opponent: In this scenario, I would play Blood Crypt tapped. September 5, 2013. Rakdos Midrange Modern Decks Like I said, the principles here are the same as they were with the aggressive Jund Deaths Shadow lists. relevant for fair players today. Games of Magic are won and lost on small margins; when you mulligan, when you get two for oned, or when anything else happens to set you behind on cards, the pressure falls on you to do something great in order to pull yourself back to parity. TappedOut.js Blog Widget. Join the crew for part two of their The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth adventure! Its A little later on we saw Hymn to Tourach. This deck is Modern legal. The They have a high number of black cards to evoke Grief easily, but theyre also grindy enough that they wont have an issue just casting it for full retail later in the game. They might have combat tricks or finisher cards like Overrun; they might have utility cards or planeswalkers. This plan has the added benefit of ending the game quickly, further Copyright 2020 Star City Games. Just as one example, consider the difference between a Storm player who casts Duress, sees the coast is clear, and takes their easy win versus one who sees a hand full of counters and knows to be patient and wait for more disruption. Limited expert, Andy "Icky" Ferguson, breaks down The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth's cards that surprised him most, for better and for worse! possible. The Nihil Spellbomb here is preemptive mitigation of their Kroxas. end the game on the spot. I still think a singular Thoughtseize in a game is likely on the underpowered side for Modern, especially since Thoughtseize decks dont often back it up with pressure well. Dredge: the nightmare of Thoughtseize decks everywhere. } But that is a lot to set up, and Scam has a ton of dead cards in the matchup. Modern Tier List: September 3, 2021 Though the card itself has not been legal in every format, the Thoughtseize effect is more or less ubiquitous in cards like Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, and dozens of others. The risk of missing is the main reason why the card Thoughtseize tends to outshine other versions of the Thoughtseize effect. Limited expert, Andy "Icky" Ferguson, breaks down The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth's cards that surprised him most, for better and for worse! Michael looks at why and where it can still fit in. If you target yourself with this spell, you must reveal your entire hand to the other players just as any other player would. and damp from the tears of his many victims. It's not an additional cost. FIRE design, which started with Throne of Eldraine is about as clear a line I can think of to distinguish old Modern from current Modern. This will require TappedOut.js included in your blog. Rather than retread all the details, Im going to point out the ones that have major updates. five-card hand. Gone are the days of Electrolyze, Soul-Scar Mage, and Wild Nacatl. Today, I want to talk about my favorite match-up in all of Modern: Grixis Deaths Shadow vs. Splinter Twin does not have much redundancy because it needs to assemble one copy of Deceiver Exarch, one copy of Splinter Twin, and one cheap way to protect the combo. Ill see everyone back here next week! Hand. Chances are if youve played Modern on Magic Online or in a paper tournament of any significant size recently, youve likely run into Rakdos Scam. Feed the Swarm might seem weird if youre cutting your maindeck removal, but the enchantment part of that card comes in clutch here. All Rights Reserved. Powerful Legal Cards in Magic: the Gathering Cards Target player reveals their hand. Looking at a fairer deck like Izzet Murktide the majority of cards fall into one of two categories, Creatures or interaction. However, without Yorion around, playing resource based games is allowed again. Many players decry the non-interactive nature of these decks as unfun in creative ways to make something that is greater than the sum of their Copied to clipboard. decks, and Legacy is moving in that direction as well, as Deathrite Shaman WebJund decks you need to mulligan to turn 2-3 Terastodon and hope to not get Thoughtseize (Chancellor of the Annex helps). If somehow you know they arent going down that road, you can omit it. Tron is uniquely capable of rocketing through the early and mid-game to start casting seven mana spells on turn three, which goes way over the top of what Scam is trying to do. Thoughtseize struggles here as well because as I mentioned earlier, players have plenty to do with their mana basically all the time now. I think people have finally admitted they should just be playing Humans instead of nonsense decks like Elementals or I guess no one can save the Orzhov Death and Taxes players at this point. Some of us prefer to explore the depths of what the Modern card There is no clear top deck in Modern. The whole low land count, good single threat, cantrips, draw more spells thing Grixis Deaths Shadow based its dominance around in 2017 just doesnt work any more with 2020 cards and the London Mulligan impacting Modern. Other people can view your private deck by using this url, Seems there are no cards in the Acquireboard. The schedule for Magics Historic and Explorer Anthology previews has been revealed! However, it carries a substantial amount of risk with it as well. WebThoughtseize'd Modern Stamina. Thoughtseize You Im here to ensure that youre You need to actually kill your opponent, and this deck certainly does that. Official blog for Card Kingdom, delivering Magic: The Gathering cards and supplies from Seattle to the world since 1999. Copyright 2020 Star City Games. Pl Deck Player Price; 1st Murktide Regent Murktide Regent Murktide Regent: O_danielakos: 440 tix $ 781 - By Ari Lax October 5, 2020 Thoughtseize, illustrated by Lucas Graciano Modern deck Presumably, your answer is something along the lines of feel sorry for myself or mutter curses under my breath. If so, whats the second thing you do? Similarly, it is possible to erase a strong opposing board with Fury combined with out of the Undying Evil effects, which evens out card advantage in a hurry. Path to Exile: No to that. On top of that, killing the creatures in Dredge doesnt do almost anything because they just come back as easily as they went away. This is the most common advice for combating discard spells that is Even if we restrict ourselves to Mono-Green Aggro, decks will still play their creatures on a mana curve starting at one and reaching up to four, five, or six. The schedule for Magics Historic and Explorer Anthology previews has been revealed! But the deck that Ragavan, Wrenn and Six, Teferi, Time Raveler, and Omnath, Locus of Creation, and Murktide Regent usher in a much higher card quality across the board. No matter how good Griefs performance is, this will remain a pillar of the Modern format. After all, Thoughtseize can take any card. Its one of the reasons that Ive never registered Appetite for Brains in a Constructed tournament, and its the reason why Duress is typically relegated to sideboard. Free spells such as the elemental cycle from Modern Horizons 2, or Force of Negation cost a card to cast for free, which sounds like it creates a favorable situation for Thoughtseize, but the decks where these cards are common generate so many raw cards that the downside is much more manageable. These are the matchups where creating a hole is most important. I do not know whether Thoughtseize will go up or down in value each additional turn I wait, so I will make plays that I know are time sensitive (playing creatures) first and will not pay a tangible cost (two life on a shockland) in order to play the Thoughtseize sooner. My secret is that I sideboard out every last Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Duress that I have in favor of cards that are more powerful to rip off the top of my deck. game 1 if its possible. The overhang from the roof adds shade, as does the extended left side of the house. Modern There are a few ways, and Ross Merriam knows them! Drawing Temur Battle Rage while your only creatures are prowess one-drops is fairly common, and when that happens you should be considering how you can get more than just the four extra damage from Temur Battle Rage from something like Lightning Bolt into Temur Battle Rage. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer can easily run away with the game if left uncontested. Feeds | unlikely. the format. Its going to do that, and that means games against heavy discard decks are Soul-Scar Mages ability also comes up, allowing Lava Dart or Lightning Bolt to for sure kill an opposing prowess creature after they commit to triggers. If they can, all of their otherwise dead ramp spells High level maneuvers going on here. Im going to run the numbers with each of these cards, and put them through a standardized scenario to see how they perform. Michael Rapp is a Modern specialist who favors Thoughtseize decks. punishing the opponent for having dead discard spells in their hand. At least you can cash in Ephemerate or Village Rites on your terms, provided that you have a creature in play. Most Modern decks only die once, never to return, but such is not the fate of "classic" Affinity. You also have excellent card velocity compared to the other scenario, as youll have seen 10 total cards in your deck by turn two. The more interesting situation is when youre dealing with reactive problem cards. The Lord of the Rings Tales of Middle-earth Draft Guide, The Ring Tempts You MTG Mechanics Explained, The Lord of the Rings Tales of Middle-earth. In this case, you want to be as patient as possible with your Thoughtseize, waiting until the turn before or the turn youre ready to cast your Titan. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site. transitioning away from it is challenging. I had previously spoken about my belief that Thoughtseize was dead during that period, and you can find those thoughts here. advantage that these discard spells provide. On top of cards like Karn, Ugin, Ulamog and Wurmcoil Engine being just statistically more powerful than the cards in Scam, they also tend to generate advantage. It may be better as a sideboard card against tough combo match-ups, however, particularly if your deck doesnt have many ways to capitalize on the immense speed bump it puts in your opponents way. The effect of seeing the opponents hand is very powerful and can be life or death in certain matchups. Having a Thoughtseize in your opening hand is Magic sates his desire for competition and constant improvement. RGWU. Sideboard it out against decks with redundancy or when the game is likely to come down to topdecks. When one of the previous best decks in Modern gets significantly better, youd better take notice. Complete Comment Tutorial! Limited expert, Andy "Icky" Ferguson, breaks down The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth's cards that surprised him most, for better and for worse! the discard matchups, but rather look to emphasize that part of my deck in If Im playing Jund and my opponent is playing B/W Tokens with the troublesome Auriok Champion, then Im going to make sure that I cast Thoughtseize on turn 1 when Im on the draw and by turn 2 when Im on the play. You see your opponents hand, you consider the game, and then you decide what card to choose. The exception to this rule is land-heavy hands, which are much more of a more apt to keep a risky two-lander or even one-lander than I am to keep a Im no counselor, but we should probably talk about Grief. CMC: 1.68: Tokens: Copy Clone, Zombie 2/2 B: Votes: Ignored suggestions: Shared with: Its worth noting that this approach to card analysis and evaluation isnt perfect, nor will it give you the full picture. However, I found it easy to find a route to victory once all hidden information was laid out before me. The most used in game 1, and having a deck that can implement it while also I always rest a little easier when I have Thoughtseize in my deck because I know that it represents at least a possible answer to nearly anything my opponent can throw at me. opening in Magics early days. 04 of 25. The biggest contributors to that are an overall increase in card quality, redundancy, and how resources are managed. Chromatic Star, Relic of Progenitus, and Ancient Stirrings all dig deeper the battlefield. Yorion, Sky Nomad pushed out all of the other viable midrange decks in Modern because it was impossible to play a resources-matters type of game when your opponent starts with a five mana 4/5 that draws four cards when it enters the battlefield. Corey Baumeister brought his beloved Grinding Breach back from the dead with the power of The One Ring. The innovation of Eldrazi Tron put Tron lands in a deck that doesnt necessarily need them to function, but when the deck has them early, its really difficult to beat. MSN By that I mean increasing your Because players are casting spells for free, double spell turns are occurring much earlier than they have historically. In my experience, such decks are excellent at getting the opponent down to five life but are not the best at actually winning games. Currently a staple in Standard, Duress is the downsized version of the Modern staple Thoughtseize. Void Mirror. liability against discard decks. This is natural because black and red are a likely pair according to Magics flavor and those are among the most iconic effects that each color has to offer. text-align: center; However, when you know the game is going to be played on low resources and Ill be looking at the number of cards in your hand and your opponents hand, the amount of value gained, and the overall impact on the game. applying that kind of early pressure punishes them for not interacting with font-style: italic; Magic and Dungeons & Dragons have tons of design crossover and Ryan Overturf breaks down how his time as a DM influences his Cube building. I could go on and on with examples of proactive problem cards that your opponent could have, but the answer is typically going to be to cast Thoughtseize as late as you can conveniently do so without giving them a chance to cast the problem card. hand on turn 2 or 3. The trend of decks that kill with spells or the graveyard beat up Scam, continues. Modern Having a Thoughtseize in your opening hand is a great recipe for success. Normally, Scapeshift is vulnerable to Blood Moon, but Boseiju, Who Endures and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove do a good job at combating it in game one, while Force of Vigor bolsters that defense in sideboard games. That card is pretty stupid, but in a deck full of red and black one-drops, maximizing the odds you can have all your colors and double-red, double-black for maximum spell flexibility off two lands is better. Theres no need to try to force anything or to get impatientjust take their most powerful card! Since your second big threat isnt graveyard-centric with the swap away from Tarmogoyf, your only exposure to graveyard hate like Soul-Guide Lantern is Lurrus. How many make your list? Thoughtseize. Modern Thoughtseize: I can read your mind. their next two or three turns and make your decisions as difficult as You choose a nonland card from it. Elf is back. Modern These, in my opinion, are the most iconic, most format-defining cards across more than a decade of Modern play. Contact | Yet, Terminate and a doubled up Fury will almost always take down Murktide Regent. opponent takes with Thoughtseize in a reasonable time frame. Chromatic Sphere, Having a Thoughtseize in your opening hand is Privacy statement | Terms of Use | The card is an incredibly powerful tool that all tournament Magic players should know how and when to use. predator in Humans. Life is important, and its not even clear that shock myself, Thoughtseize, shock myself, Dark Confidant will be a great play depending on the matchup. 8 Tarmogoyf This is not the only Lhurgouyf in the game, but it is by far the most powerful and well-known. When this ratio is high, as it is against a fast combo deck, Thoughtseize is more likely to shine. The End of an Era. up in the graveyard. These should be handled case by case depending on how desperate you feel and how much you can afford to be patient. Understanding how to use Thoughtseize will be integral to the success of any tournament player. Ask yourself during deck construction and during sideboarding how likely it is for the game to come down to a topdeck situation; indeed, sometimes its your goal for the game to get to this point (Jund, Junk, Pox, and similar decks frequently have this goal). In Modern, I have a hierarchy of cards that I like to Thoughtseize away against blue midrange or control decks. The trickier situations will arise on turn 5 when you dont have a Titan in your hand but are hoping to draw one or when you have Titan, Thoughtseize, and six mana but no seventh land in hand. This is less common after the banning of Lurrus of the Dream-Den, but Yorion, Sky Nomad makes life difficult for Thoughtseize decks. This wont always be the case, however. Blood Moon also shines against Amulet, Living End, some builds of Rhinos, Creativity, Tron, Zoo and more. Dark Ritual + Hyppie was a common Where Thoughtseize has always hurt the most is when you play a synergy-driven aggro deck, most of which are "fair" as far as Magic goes. Well, this might be a deck that simply has a really hard time beating Dissipate, and needs to sideboard Thoughtseize with the primary goal of stripping a Dissipate and resolving a Primeval Titan. When the ratio is low, as it is in something like a Jund mirror, Thoughtseize is more likely to be a liability. Obviously blue cantrips are the easy way to do this, and there is no It has seen a small resurgence lately, and has moved from its original black base to a blue shell in order to take advantage of Force of Negation. Thoughtseize does not have to be cast at the earliest possible moment unless there is a special reason why you want to play it that way. Join the crew for part two of their The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth adventure! Modern If that Scourge connects, it becomes a 6/6 as long as you are at fourteen, which is trivial. A simple way to weigh the risks and rewards of Thoughtseize is to consider it a card thats excellent to have in your opening hand and poor to draw at any other time. Personally, I scour my sideboard for Naturalize, Solemn Offering, Bramblecrush, or any other method I can find in desperation to get an enchantment off the table! The real key to Thoughtseize follows from the ability to see the opponents hand and is what sets it apart from similar effects like Hymn to Tourach, Cabal Therapy, and Counterspell. Merfolk Merfolk. Modern James Hsu interviews Tori of the Vast and Lua Stardust, the content creators collectively known as the Scrybabies. DMCA requests | Keep this in mind for any other matchup where a Leyline might be prevalent. When you have a high enough velocity, you can replace whatever card your He focuses on affordable decks in Pioneer, Modern, and Pauper, particularly ones that stray from the mainstream. Most of the time, itll just be a decent use of your Aether Vial as you tick it up to five for Yorion, Sky Nomad, but there will be the occasional spot where the free Thoughtseize will come in clutch. As the Modern card pool grows, decks get more redundant. Help | The prowess one-drops that were just fine enough to play before are now critical parts of the deck, since them dealing the first few damage puts Scourge of the Skyclaves right into efficient threat range. 2. The loss of life is part of the spell's effect. possible. dispensed in Magic articles. All rights reserved. Confidant might seem like a strange inclusion, but with Azorius Control being Think ahead about what cards you most want to take with, When in doubt, get maximum value from your. Rakdos Scam, Yawgmoth Evolution, and Grixis Death's Modern Decks If you have the Ephemerate, you can flicker it to fizzle the removal and still take three cards from your opponent (including the effect of Ephemerates rebound). them all. As such, we're letting you know that we've updated our Privacy Policy to reflect the new rule set forth by the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Life is tough for Scam, which is looking to play small ball against a Tron deck swinging sledgehammers. Thoughtseize Pro Tip! Getting yourself to ten is a joke. For example, not enough creature defense and you can lose to a quick rush. This is a classic Modern opening, and one thats the bane of many a combo player. If you see a hand full of top-end finishers, you can strip their one cheap play and push your early advantage. In a longer game youll have time to draw It simply starts high and balances out as opposed to starting slow and ramping up as time goes on. Deaths Shadow decks, despite being similar to Jund, are still going to play Thoughtseize because it is an enabler for Deaths Shadow. I dont think Id be able to overstate how bad it is to miss on a Thoughtseize, particularly in Limited or in a grindy matchup like a Jund mirror. If theres no Snapcaster Mage, I take Cryptic Command, and if theres no Cryptic Command, I take Sphinxs Revelation or some other powerful late-game card. Cards in hand: 2Cards in opponents hand: 3. Snapcaster Mage: Another one. Crash Through replaces Cling to Dust since exiling Uro, Titan of Natures Wrath to gain life is an absolute non-starter, though I wouldnt be shocked if Crash Through was eventually cut since its fairly low-impact here. Cleansing Wildfire cleanly kills their lands since they cant really put a basic land in their deck to find. Ari Lax shares his latest list and sideboarding guide. It adds velocity, generates card Remember the Wolf Run Ramp deck from earlier, which doesnt love the idea of playing with Thoughtseize because it doesnt want to trade one for one? I never take a Mox Opal or Springleaf Drum against Affinity ever. Deck Highlight: Modern Dimir Control By Luis Scott-Vargas / November 25, 2020 Jace, the Mind Sculptor is known for being better than all and sometimes I feel like people forget about that in Modern. the roost for the last year. Youll usually need to make sure that you can reliably cast it for free on turn one, which means you should aim to have at least 15-20 black cards in your deck. This match-up looks Its pretty simple math: twenty minus a number ten or less is always greater than or equal to that number. Your opponent is forced to take notable damage to answer your Turn 1 threat or take notable damage if they dont, which means your Monastery Swiftspear simply existing in your opening hand is the assured damage you need to set up Scourge. Yawgmoth is another deck that uses Thoughtseize well, but out of the sideboard. Copied to clipboard. That player discards that card. Deck Highlight: Modern Dimir Control That player discards that card. The increased focus on prowess also means you are going to target a smaller creature with Temur Battle Rage more often and need to think more in terms of a red deck extracting damage value from your cards. Getting the Most Out of Check out the updates and new events coming soon to Magic Online. and do that thing well. Burn presents a clock that Scam really isnt well equipped to deal with. Since Mishras Bauble is a slow cantrip, that sometimes means you get the most from your cards if you Temur Battle Rage a turn before youre expecting lethal. Anyone who has played Modern for a significant period of time remembers when Thoughtseize was considered a premium interactive spell. WebThoughtseize; META% 2.2% (45) Tabletop $ 1,090 MTGO 488 tix Master of the Pearl Trident. Faeries to Mono-Black Devotion. 9 - 2 Commons. There is no predictable play that my opponent could make on turn 1 that I feel I desperately need to stop. At MTGGoldfish, we value your privacy. Interestingly, if youre on the draw, using Ephemerate on turn 1 is still a powerful and extremely brutal option, even in the face of removal. out of a land light hand, while flooding is a significant issue. Corey Baumeister brought his beloved Grinding Breach back from the dead with the power of The One Ring. Actuallyunfair decks tend to have a lot of redundancy in them or they don't exist as decks and most of the unfair decks crush the decks that play Thoughtseize. After weeks of worrying that Bloodbraid Elf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor Plus, some cards simply cannot be answered after the fact. utilizes this angle of attack the best isnt blue at all. Theres no Dark Confidant to handle or set up, there are no planeswalkers, and the Lurrus is tucked away in their sideboard. Modern That means playing more zero-mana artifacts in Bennie Smith picks out his Top 10 The Lord Of The Rings: Tales Of Middle-earth Commander cards for play outside their precons. Look to sideboard out Thoughtseize against decks like this and in matchups that are likely to come down to topdecks. To recap, be wary of including Thoughtseize in decks that do not want to trade one for one. Cards that generate continuous advantage are more common now than they have been in the past. long as you have a hand good enough to not get run over by a Tarmogoyf or Today, Ive got a blue-black deck for you that leans into Jace and combines him with a ton of cheap removal and interaction. Thoughtseize is probably the best discard spell in the game of Magic. Granted, U/W/R has ways to beat any and all of these cards, but its difficult for the opponent to have them all at any one time. how to apply these principles to playing unfair decks, but if you still best Modern cards in Magic: The Gathering (I insult Sams creativity only in the interest of a simple example). As TitanShift also does this fairly well, so long as they can stick a Valakut, This will require TappedOut.js included in your blog. activation could be critical. Im also unsure if the second Kolaghans Command is too clunky since it isnt assured to be a time relevant two-for-one, but the cards you are taking out arent great.