Carve Your Name In Ice And Wind

 

Crossed the finish line with a list that looks like this. I spent a lot of the beginning of the month figuring things out, but I like where it's turned out.

It's a basic midrange deck with some basic parts. Removal, Thoughtseizes, creatures, utility lands, etc. But building this thing to maximize all of its parts was a tough task. Some of the cards that may look out of place or deviate from the norm are there for a reason, either because of how they work with other aspects of the deck, or because of what Explorer looks like as a format.

Liliana dictates a lot of what you want your deck to look like, not necessarily the individual cards, but the overall mana curve and gameplan positioning that you're gearing your deck towards. I talked about this when she was spoiled, but she works best when you are simultaneously able to be aggressive but have the removal spells to keep her alive. You want your topdecks to be live when you're in Liliana mode, but you also want to protect her to get into Liliana mode. Bonecrusher Giant and Bloodtithe Harvester are great there, of course, but so is Evolved Sleeper, since you can just trade off with opposing attackers early.

You also want the game to be about small edges in card advantage, such that a -2 into +1 into -2 turns into a game winning plan, and at the same time you have a low enough curve to empty your hand and not get punished by her +1 ability. That's where the creature lands come in, since you have extra card advantage built into the deck, but they don't cost any mana to get into play. By the time you've cast Liliana, your threats are already on the battlefield, waiting for you to activate them. And you don't actually have to deal 20 damage with Hive of the Eye Tyrant or whatever, you just have to pressure their planeswalkers and eat a removal spell.

What ties everything together is Riveteers Charm. It simultaneously makes up for the things you are lacking when you build to maximize Liliana, and works best in a deck with the same cards that Liliana works best with. If we're gearing our deck to have all cheap stuff, then we lack late game power. Well, what's better in the late game than Ancestral Recall? R Charm also wants cheap stuff, so we're doing great there, and it helps protect your Liliana with its Soul Shatter mode. Oh yeah, also, what's Liliana not good against? Graveyard strategies, oh look, R Charm solves that too.

I'm pretty happy with the majority of this list, there are a few flex slots that I'm not certain about but are the things that I've been most happy with so far. Unleash the Inferno is a card that happens to answer a lot of the problematic stuff in the format. Fable of the Mirror Breaker is, as its name would indicate, very good in the mirror, so being able to gain card advantage off of one of those is excellent in a midrange mirror. Unleash is excellent in the rest of the format as well, with there being a lot of decks that have both creatures and artifacts and enchantments. Enigmatic Incarnation, Esika's Chariot, Witch's Oven and Oni-Cult Anvil, Wedding Announcement. All of that stuff is excellent in a straight Rakdos metagame, where they have trouble dealing with artifacts and enchantments, and Unleash can deal with it. I like the idea of being able to answer the things that Rakdos can't answer, since if Rakdos is the deck to beat, then those strategies will naturally become more successful. Unleash is versatile and powerful, and not too expensive.

Squee is a weird one in a list that doesn't play Fable or Graveyard Trespasser, but I've found it to do a lot of the things I'm looking for. First, it's another card that plays well with Liliana. You're not afraid to discard it, and it allows you to tick up a Liliana to make them discard a removal spell or counterspell they drew before casting it from the graveyard. Second, it turns out to be excellent in the Rakdos mirror, when you can set up an attack with it. The mirror seems to be a lot about pressuring planeswalkers, gaining card advantage off of your threats, pressuring life totals, and not running out of gas. Squee does all of those things, so I like it quite a bit, and it's a more aggressive and consistent threat than a lot of other cards for that slot. Whether a threat is what we want in that slot is up for debate, nevermind the fact that it's a three mana play in a deck that's already heavy on threes, but I think we can do worse.

I'm not sold at all on the sideboard selections, but The Eldest Reborn is the best choice I can find for a mirror hammer that has extra utility in control matchups. I've tried Workshop Warchief, but it's abysmal against The Wandering Emperor and anything else out of the blue/white decks. But, four big spells to bust up mirrors is something I like a lot, and Kolaghan's Command is useful there too. One thing I will say I'm fairly sold on is Culling Ritual, which is absolutely lights out in the matchups where you want it. It can take setup, but when you resolve it, it's unfairly powerful.

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Quick one today, but just wanted to get something down now that I feel that I've finally figured out how to build this thing. I recorded a video a little while ago and I'm editing it now, hopefully to be released this weekend. It features a list that was maybe one or two versions before the current one, but still had most of the same things going on. I hope you give it a look when I get it live, here's a link to the youtube channel. Thanks for reading.

Extended Thoughts on Evolved Sleeper

I want to go in a little further on why Evolved Sleeper excites me and why I think it will be useful in Explorer and possibly also Pioneer. This may be because I’m on a long road trip vacation right now, but I’ve been thinking about this card a lot and am really excited to play it. I’m writing this on my phone in a hotel room, so, sorry for the bare bones post.

I think it’s important to identify what’s going on in the format and what a card brings to help in expected matchups. Explorer is all about the Rakdos Midrange mirror right now (or pseudo-mirror if you’re playing Jund like me). Typically, your lowest impact cards, and therefore your cheapest cards, are the weakest cards in a midrange mirror, since the games are not usually going to be about tempo and more about card advantage. This hasn’t really been my experience in this matchup, though. The Rakdos decks have a lot of cheap removal and hard hitting medium sized threats to put a lot of pressure on you, and you wind up losing card advantage battles that are tougher for you than they would be because you’re under pressure. So, Sleeper does some things in that matchup that are useful while keeping your deck low to the ground, helping you not get run over early while keeping your top end live as well.

There are a few ways that you lose the Rakdos matchup. First, is just tempo. Bloodtithe Harvester into Trespasser or Fable, then more heavy threats every turn as you try and catch up. Part of what makes the deck so good is that they can just straight beat you up, while still have a good board control and discard element. Sleeper is good here because it’s a cheap spell to cast. That’s really it, it’s just something that gets out of your hand quickly, and if you can trade it off against an opposing creature or removal spell, then that’s great.

The second way to lose is by Chandra. Chandra is both a tempo swing and a card advantage engine. When she comes down and -3’s one of your creatures, the opponent is ahead on cards because Chandra is still around, but if they start netting cards off of her +1 the next turn, then they get a card advantage engine for basically no mana. If you use a removal spell on Chandra, you’re not only down cards, but down on mana usually because of the mana you spent to kill her plus the mana of the creature she nuked. What Sleeper does against Chandra is just exist as an extra body that entered play cheaply to attack a Chandra after she -3s your creature. Sleeper is extra good at attacking Planeswalkers because it can increase its power and hit for more loyalty, leaving you with a bigger sleeper when all is said and done.

Another great way to lose against Rakdos is to force yourself into using spot removal on their Cemetery Trespassers and Fable tokens. Being able to trade with Trespassers and block Fable tokens without spending extra cards to do it is important for getting out of those early turns and having cards left over to battle on with.

Sleeper isn’t going to annihilate Rakdos or anything, it’s not really supposed to. But what it does do is lower the overall mana curve of the deck while not giving up on top end power. That’s going to help your matchups across the board and the effectiveness of the deck without sacrificing too much in the Rakdos matchup.

The deck we’re playing is changing too, and being a sleeker and cheaper deck is going to be critical with Liliana in the list. I’m going to assume that Rakdos decks will pick up Liliana as well, so everything that makes Sleeper effective against Chandra also helps against Liliana. The best way to beat Lili is to have enough pressure so that they can’t untap with her, just like Chandra. But Sleeper also goes well with our own Liliana, getting out of the hand early so you can have it empty and +1 for value, and using extra mana that you’ll have because both players are light on action.

Sleeper also looks like it will be great in conjunction with Riveteers Charm. It’s cheap and proactive, which makes it an excellent card to exile off your library with Charm. Charm is going to be great in the Liliana decks just like it’s been good in the Tireless Tracker decks, so I’m interested in maximizing its strength.

I’m mostly excited about playing Sleeper against UW decks and other matchups where we’re the aggro deck. Sleeper requires an answer by itself, and it’s not that that is super hard to do, but it’s going to open the door for stuff like Liliana or your other bigger stuff to hit. Plus, if you can use Thoughtseize to take away their cheap answers like March and Portable Hole, then they are forced to spend a bunch of mana to deal with your one drop, or you can activate it and draw cards until they have the mana to wrath it.

To touch quickly on Knight of the Ebon Legion vs Sleeper, I think that Knight might be a little underplayed at the moment. It’s a great card, a good draw early and a good draw late. But, it’s a little bit one-dimensional, and that causes it to only get played in a few decks. Plus, black aggro feels like quite an underdog against Rakdos, which is just not where you want to be. I think that Sleeper is going to fit better in midrange decks than Knight, since it ties your mana up less and leaves you with cards after they find an answer instead of just damage, and I don’t think that Knight was that far away from making the cut to begin with.

I’m less confident in Sleeper than I am in Liliana out of this set, part of that is because Liliana is a known entity, part of that is because Sleeper is a style of card that isn’t done very often. Cards like Sleeper have been hit or miss in the past, but there’s potential there. There have been some solid role players and all-time great threats among cards with this design. But mostly I’m excited for Sleeper because I think it’s going to be really fun to play with. It gives the player a ton of options and it looks to be the type of card that gets better with practice. I plan on playing them for a while and finding out just how good they are.

Gimme Five, Still Alive

 

I think we jam four of these in Explorer.

She has her limitations, for sure. Clearly she's pretty bad against stuff like Witch's Oven, but there are a bunch of token decks out there where she's not going to be good. Also, the plus 1 ability can get you into trouble against stuff like Phoenix and Parhelion, but whatever. She's still the queen.

What do we need to build around her? Not a lot, really. In fact, stuff like The Raven Man are kind of a trap with Lili, because they don't protect her well and are bad topdecks. You gear your deck to keep the board clear and get everyone down to zero resources, then topdeck stuff. This is kind of the whole strategy of black midrange anyways, but she pushes that to the max. Your weak topdecks are going to turn into blanks when Liliana is on the board and in cruise control, since a Fatal Push with no creatures just gets binned to her +1, but you definitely need that effect. The cards in the format that I think are going to work well with Liliana are Bonecrusher, Murderous Rider, maybe even Blacklance Paragon, removal spells that you can just cast proactively if you draw them and your opponent doesn't have any creatures. Cut to Ribbons is a neat one as well. Other planeswalkers fit this description too, but they're not going to be your early plays.

Liliana works well with Kroxa, of course, but any escape or graveyard cards get a little bit of a boost from her. I've found Polukranos to be really good in Explorer at the moment, and there's stuff like Tenacious Underdog and a new card that are good too. Not necessarily that it's a great value play to put a Kroxa in your graveyard, just that you've gotta discard something, so it might as well be that. It's nice that she "enables" your graveyard synergies but is a threat in and of herself so if they have the graveyard hate you just win with Lili.

I think you're also just going to want to keep your mana costs down. A pretty common thing in Modern is when your hand is just two copies of Bloodbraid Elf or whatever and you want to tick up your Lili, but you can't. If you can empty your hand quick, then the +1 has no drawback for you.

I guess the only other thing is to make sure you have some plans on what to bring in for matchups where she's not good. In Modern, I'll board out Liliana in a lot of matchups, like basically and deck with Inkmoth Nexus or Mutavault or Noble Hierarch. She's not great against Thalia, either. And of course, Dredge and whatever. If you can figure out what cards are good in the matchups where she is bad, say, Lava Coil, then you'll make sideboarding a lot easier for yourself.

This is the card I'm actually most excited for. It works excellently with Liliana, being a one mana card that empties your hand quickly but is also a fantastic late game topdeck. It plays defense halfway well against aggro decks. It also just gets on the board quick so that you have something on board and can't get blown out by planeswalkers. It kind of does fills the role that Knight of the Ebon Legion does but you get blown out by removal less often because its activations cost less, and it gives you more material advantages so removal spells are too late once you've put your mana into it.

Unlike stuff like Warden of the First Tree (which I like a lot and might play if given the chance), drawing cards is a great way to close out a game, instead of just getting big. If you hit with a big Warden and they rip a Fatal Push, they're right back in the game, but if you've drawn two cards with Sleeper before they find the Push, they might be buried. And it's not like attacking for four or five is nothing, the game will end quickly either through attacking or through the card advantage. 

This is going to require some more black mana sources early, like Blooming Marsh, so maybe we go right up to four Overgrown Tombs and four Blood Crypts. I'll talk more about that later.

I think there might be spots where this is an improvement over Chandra, but the -2 removal ability just pales in comparison to Chandra's -3 so badly. However, I don't think that that's what Jaya is supposed to do, be a removal spell plus a free card every turn. She's supposed to protect herself with the Monk token, then use her -1 five times and be five copies of Preordain basically. If you can make that work, then that's great, because the -1 will be great in late game situations where you're just looking for gas, and if you're setting your deck up to be ahead or even on board in the midgame to facilitate Liliana, then that works for Jaya, too. Again, that's a lot easier said than done. But if you have her in play for one turn and then she gets hit by Murderous Rider, that's usually going to be better than Chandra would have been, so if you expect that to be the case most of the time, then she might be a good choice. Just not sure that that's the format we're living in.

If you're ever playing a list that's got a more aggressive slant, then a Squee or two might not be the worst idea. Haste creatures are excellent against Planeswalkers, which is a lot of what the format is about, and it gives you material every turn, so that's great too. Plus, it's got some graveyard synergy, which is a welcome addition in the Liliana decks. The damage piles up fast, and it's going to be hard to effectively remove. Worth a shot, but I'm not really loving playing 2 toughness creatures for 3 in the Bonecrusher Giant format.

This card has reach and trample, and the ability is 7G: Return from your graveyard to play and exile it if it would die, and it costs 1 less to activate for each land type you control. So for us, it's usually going to be 4G, so that makes it a little like a Seasoned Pyromancer. 4/3 reach trample for 3 are great stats for a card that can be a little bit recursive. You're not sad to pitch it to Liliana, it hits really hard for a three mana card, and it also protects you against flying creatures with Curious Obsession. I like what's going on here, but the three drop slot is just so crowded, and we're trying to trim our mana costs down.

There's a lot going on here, and I don't think that we're going to really be able to grasp everything until we try it. It's got really good size for its cost, and can get you value immediately, even if they have removal for it. It's got a slight graveyard synergy thing going on, but can get around graveyard hate by just being a four mana 5/4. It's got a slight build-around aspect, but can also just do its thing without a ton of help. Five power creatures are a sweet spot in Explorer, since they can attack down a Teferi or a Sorin after they +1, but four toughness is not great against Chandra. Soul of Windgrace seems like the type of card that is going to look really good in the games where it works, but won't get to work very often because the format is a little too hostile for it. For what it's worth, the reason why Evolved Sleeper is good even though it costs a lot of mana to maximize is because it's cheap to start with, Soul of Windgrace is a mana sink that already costs a lot of mana.

This card intrigues me because flying and haste are so good against Chandra and other planeswalkers. The fact that you can just spend two mana and pick off a Chandra, or you can spend 10 mana and win the game, all of that looks great. Probably going to be a lot better in Standard, but two mana to pick off a low loyalty planeswalker and leave behind a flying body is a great split card to put on Thundermaw Hellkite.

I can't really figure out if I like this or not. I think it might end up being a little too narrow, but we're always in the market for cheap removal. Strangle and Bloodchief's Thirst look a little better in my eyes for Fatal Pushes 5 through whatever, but this could do some work.

I wouldn't say that we really missed having these in Arena, but it's another good option. You don't really want to draw two painlands, and you don't want them in decks where you don't have many colorless mana in your costs. Like, say, you're taking one damage for sure if you're casting a Bloodtithe Harvester on two, but not if you're casting a Scavenging Ooze, so lots of RB or BRG costs will end up costing you. I like the idea of playing more turn one black sources, but if the cost is dealing damage to yourself each turn, then it really puts a damper on some of the cheap black cards we're trying to facilitate, like Thoughtseize and Evolved Sleeper.

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I'm going on vacation starting in about twenty minutes from when this will go live, so I'm doing a spoiler season post a little early, and then I'll be back just in time for the set to go live on Arena. I'm really stoked about Liliana, obviously, but the whole set looks great, and I also just love playing Jund mirrors, so I hope more people are incentivized to play Liliana decks going forward. Thanks for reading.

Shotguns Full Of Silver, Bullets Made Of Glass

 

I get a lot of questions about Tireless Tracker when it comes to Pioneer, or like, what my wish list would be for Historic/Explorer and what would be on it. Well, now we have Tracker in Explorer, so it's not a hypothetical anymore. Tracker is at its best in a deck that is built with it in mind, which isn't to say that it needs to be a specific archetype, but more that it needs to exist at a certain part of a curve and for a deck that is geared to utilize it.

Landfall abilities necessitate having a slightly higher than normal land count, which is funny because they usually are proactive abilities, like Kazandu Mammoth or Steppe Lynx. A Boros aggro deck doesn't usually run 26 lands or whatever they did back in the original Zendikar days, but when you have stuff as powerful as Steppe Lynx and Plated Geopede, you want to get those triggers as much as possible. This isn't the hugest problem for Tireless Tracker, because if you have too many lands, then you'll also have clue tokens to spend your mana on. But in the draws that don't have Tracker, you'll find yourself getting flooded too much.

The other thing that Tracker wants is cheap spells to go with it. First of all, your ideal plan is to cast Tracker on turn four and make your fourth land drop. A one mana spell to follow up with is excellent, like say a Thoughtseize to make sure the opponent can't untap and kill it, or a Fatal Push to keep your life total high and utilize your extra card advantage. Bloodchief's Thirst and even Shivan Fire are nice, because they are solid when you're flooded or when you're tight on mana. Additionally, though, all the cards that you draw off of a Tracker cost you an additional two mana, so if you want to be able to actually cast them, you want them to be cheap. I think the other factor here is that Tracker is a pretty slow card and you need to set it up, so you want to make the board as clear as possible before landing it, kind of like a Planeswalker. It doesn't want to be forced to play defense and it doesn't attack and block especially well right out of the gates, so keeping up on tempo is really important, and then let the Tracker take over the game.

So then, we want a deck with lots of lands and lots of cheap spells, sounds like a recipe for mana flooding. You're going to want to play cards that mitigate your land flood as much as possible, like creature lands, cycling lands, and even Jegantha. I like Tenacious Underdog as a mana sink/early play, and Valki as a card that fits the program but can be a good late game topdeck.

What makes Riveteers Charm so good in a deck with Tracker is that it's a removal spell, so that's obviously good at keeping pressure off yourself, but it also excels in a deck with cheap spells and a high land count. Your best three card exile for a Charm is like, removal spell, land, threat, and if your deck is set up with Tracker in mind, then you're likely to be able to cast all of it. I think there's something good here, mixing Tracker with Charm and all kinds of cheap stuff, so that you can keep the cards flowing and out-value people while keeping your curve super low and not getting tempo'd out.

Witherbloom Command is another card that works well with high land counts that can do some work for us. Now that Elvish Mystic is in the format, more ways to pop off little guys for value seems like it's useful, and Witch's Oven is always a problem.

I've gotta say, in the first little while playing with Tracker, I have been impressed. Not floored, but it's better than I had anticipated. You have to get away from the typical Chandra/Fable/Trespasser Rakdos decks that are all over Explorer, so nothing is very set in stone yet, but I think something's there.

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Just wanted to get something down real quick about Tracker, I'll know more soon after more testing. If you're planning on trying Tracker out, those are the things I suggest. Again, not 100% sold that it's the best thing, but I think there's a re-tooling of the current Jund deck that can make it really strong. Thanks for reading.

Sitting Plush With A Royal Flush

This is the deck I crossed the finish line with this month. By finish line, I mean obtained the incredible achievement of reaching the Mythic rank in the game Magic the Gathering Arena, but the run was solid. I went 26-4 through Diamond and Platinum, so there's definitely something good going on here. If I can do that, then you can probably get the clean 30-0.

There's a lot of experimentation going on with this list as posted, so it's not clean at all. It also feels a little clunky with the amount of three drop threats compared to two drop threats, but I can't really argue with the results. If you think of this as a straight Rakdos Midrange deck with a green bonus, then so far I have to say that the splash is certainly worth it.

First is Riveteers Charm, which has been worth the splash purely by itself. Not only does it turn into a late game draw engine, but it deals with whatever the biggest problem you have is at any given time, including times when most other spells wouldn't be able to deal. Planeswalkers, Hazoret, Rhonas, stuff given Indestructible by Selfless Savior or Dauntless Bodyguard, Glorybringer, Elder Gargaroth, Hall of the Storm Giant, opposing Graveyard Trespassers. All of this stuff is tough for you to deal with, and Riveteers Charm handles it.

I think that the reason behind it being so good in this list specifically is that the cards in this deck are able to be defensive or proactive depending on the situation, and Riveteers Charm fits that role too. You get around the classic midrange "wrong half of the deck" problem by having cards that able to play multiple roles. The Act on Impulse ability might not read like an aggressive one, but in this deck you can win with life total pressure or by gaining card advantage in the late game, either one will work. Riveteers Charm translates into life total pressure by drawing you in to creatures to attack, Thoughtseizes and removal to clear their way, and lands to get up to enough mana to activate your Dens.

I also like that this is a Jund list that has the ability to play Den of the Bugbear. Hive and Lair and some of the other creatures lands are also good, but Den is just the best thing going for utility lands, and when you can play it on turn two and still curve out because the mana costs of your spells works with it, it becomes excellent. Den is at its best when you've gotten yourself out to a fast start already, so if you can cast a two drop and a three drop on curve, your Den not only helped you get there but will clean up the job your quick clock started.

Of course, what I'm really saying is that Chevill isn't in the deck anymore, but I think that's okay. Some of the stuff that Chevill is great against in Historic doesn't show up in Explorer, like Gruul and Goblins and Auras. I similarly found that Chevill didn't quite do it for me in Pioneer. That could definitely change, but as for now, I like the more aggressive slant to this deck.

The sideboard is a mess but I should talk about some of the stuff there. Similarly to Chevill, Sarulf is a card that's not present here because it's not quite exactly what we want against this meta. Instead I've got Culling Ritual in that slot to help against some of the Humans decks, where Sarulf is good but liable to get hit by a Skyclave Apparition or Brutal Cathar. No, the Golgari Anti-creature Legend that we've got here is Polukranos, and Big Luke is a card that has been really good at times in the past and is solid enough as a one-of here.

Klothys is nice to have, something that the normal Red/Black decks don't get access to. I like that it's basically a better Graveyard Trespasser in the matchups where you would want to board in extra Trespassers, either to dodge removal when you're trying to be aggressive or to hit their graveyard consistently. I've never been a fan of Scavenging Ooze as a sideboard card, for what it's worth. Also, we just don't have enough green mana to utilize it fully.

I also should mention the Elder Gargaroths. I like them, they seem like they might be the best thing to have in that spot, but I'm not a hundred percent sold and could be easily swayed one way or the other. What I like about it is how well it plays against the removal you're likely to see out of Red/Black, which is usually Fatal Push, Abrade, Chandra, Stomp, or Glorybringer. It beats up on Chandra and Glorybringer pretty nicely, so it beats their best stuff and is hard to stop. Sounds great, but it might not be the best against the field at large. I enjoy the stop sign it represents against Red decks, but it's also a lot of mana to invest into a Brutal Cathar target or Absorb target. Angrath, Glorybringer, maybe even Doom Whisperer could all work as a midrange trump, and possibly the right thing to do is continue up the mana curve and try Liliana Dreadhorde General or Garruk Cursed Huntsman. The next card on my list to test in that slot is actually Workshop Warchief, of all things, which I'm hoping works out because it's a Rhino in suspenders holding a big gold wrench. Gargaroth is really only ever as good as you can expect it to live, so if you're expecting it to die, play something else, because lots of stuff out there actually is great at dying.

Again, the deck has been constantly in flux, but there's definitely something going on here that's working. The good news is that lots of stuff can slot in here if the metagame calls for it and it'll fit right in, like Witherbloom Command, more Kroxa, a higher curve with five drops in the main, a lower curve with more Underdogs, whatever feels right. Riveteers Charm, a solid mana base, and high-rate versatile threats seems to be a recipe for success.

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That's about it for today. Wanted to get something down since it's been a while, but I have been managing to find a little time to stream on twitch most weekends if you're interested. Explorer seems to be a lot like Pioneer but without some of the stuff that makes Pioneer annoying, like Lotus Field combo and Treasure Cruise in Phoenix, so it's been a lot of fun, give it a try if you have a chance. Thanks for reading.

Shame Those Boys Couldn't Be More Copacetic

My personal theory is that the reason the Ravnica sets are some of Magic's best sets is because they create an environment for good games to take place. There is plenty of mana fixing, good utility spells, and lots of different color pairings to build a cohesive deck around. The same can be said of Khans of Tarkir, which might have been the last time that a Standard format was really fun, at least in my eyes. Multicolor sets allow designers and developers to push the envelope on rate a little bit while still being beautiful and simple. And they can get away with it because most of the cool unique stuff they're doing are just utility spells. A card like Lightning Helix is above-rate, but at its core it's just a burn spell, it won't ever destroy a format. These are the kinds of cards that I look for in a set like this, cheap and versatile utility spells. And in New Capenna, there's plenty of that to be had, but maybe a little less of it in the Jund colors.

Riveteers Charm is excellent, above my expectations for sure. I was expecting something more in the way of Void Rend or Endless Detour in Jund colors, and didn't really get it. We did get a lot of cool stuff though, so let's check it out.

I've been trying to wrap my head around this card for a long time and I think I'm just going to have to admit that I have no idea if it's going to be good or not. Well, I mean, it's going to be good, but I don't know if it's a "You're going to need a reason to not play this in a Black and Red deck" type of card or a "If you have the pieces to support it, it will make your main deck" type of card.

Ob Nixilis is a three mana planeswalker that can defend itself, and if we were to stop right there, it's absolutely worth trying out. Beyond that, I like the synergy that Ob Nixilis has with the second copy of itself, and the squeeze that its +1 ability puts you in is going to be helpful either way. It looks like it has good synergy with Bloodtithe Harvester, not only because it's a creature you don't mind using for the Casualty ability, but because the additional pressure put on by cheap creatures will force the opponent to discard cards to the +1 ability more often. It also will have some nice synergy with Fable of the Mirror Breaker, allowing you to sacrifice Kiki Jiki's tokens instead of real creatures. And, it probably won't come up too often, but an Ooze that gets out of control big can be sacrificed and dome the opponent for seven out of nowhere.

The potential is there, but I'm not going to come out and say it's a 10/10 A+ Superstar until I've tried it.

Similarly to Play with Fire, anything that's at least a little close to straight Lightning Bolt needs to be considered. My gut feeling here is that I'm going to have a tough time playing Strangle in a format with Fatal Push or Bloodchief's Thirst, but who knows. It's not only worth a shot, but also worth keeping in the back of your mind for the next time a Narset deck or whatever turns into the best thing to be doing.

Graveyard hate ranges somewhere from Leyline of the Void to, like, Scavenging Ooze, where Leyline is a blunt-object sideboard card windmill slam, and the power behind Scavenging Ooze is that it's a maindeckable card with an effect that's usually not in your deck for game one. Cards like Hearse are in a weird spot where, it's clearly effective against a graveyard deck, but if it's not quite maindeckable, and it's not the hardest hitting graveyard hate you can put in your board, where does it see play? The thing about the Hearse is that, depending on the format you're playing, tapping to exile two cards might be the most graveyard hate you need. It does this every turn, at instant speed, for no mana. It deals with two Phoenixes at once, it keeps their delve food low, it eats Kroxa, it can get rid of a Parhelion, it counters Bala Ged Recovery. If Hearse can play as your go-to graveyard hate, then it's a big deal, because you can get in some outrageous attacks with this thing. Turn two Hearse, eat your graveyard for a while, attack for 20. That's an actual plan against what's probably the number one deck in Pioneer. I think the potential is there, and the vehicle ability makes Hearse a card you might not mind bringing in even if the only thing they have going on is a couple miser's Kroxas or something. I don't think I'd suggest Hearse for Modern or Vintage, but if the Hearse is all the graveyard hate you need for Pioneer, then it could absolutely be an upgrade to Leyline and other straight-up graveyard hate decks.

The Underdog looks like a card that is tailor made to go in a deck that runs Ob Nixilis, that's for sure. Additionally, though, it looks like the kind of card that goes in a deck that is in the market for some early pressure but doesn't mind the game going late. Usually this type of card has an "enters the battlefield tapped" or "can't block" type of clause that makes it really only good at offense and not defense, but Underdog is also totally fine with trading off with an opposing creature and giving you a couple of pseudo-Castle Locthwain activations later on. My gut feeling here is that this is the type of card that we're looking for, but might not be the power level necessary for Pioneer. I don't know though, I've been impressed with Bloodtithe Harvester, just because it's a 3/2 for two with some extra stuff thrown in, and that's a great description for Underdog, too. I think I'll start with two of these and see how it goes, I don't have high hopes but wouldn't be surprised if it worked out.

A card that I was hoping for out of this set was a Jund Siege Rhino or Huntmaster type of card, something that could gum up a board, could swing a race, and also be good against opposing removal. The Envoy looks like a solid enough card, but not exactly what I was hoping for. However, untapping with an Envoy is going to translate into wins a large amount of the time for a four mana card, so it's worth taking a look at. The Blitz mechanic on it is especially exciting, because it works well with cheap aggressive creatures in two ways. First, as Jamie Wakefield says, it's the last fatty that kills you, so if the opponent is under pressure and has to fire off removal spells against your early threats, the Envoy is more likely to survive and take over the game. Secondly, Blitzing in for five burst damage will steal some games that your cheap creatures got started. Because of that, I think the Envoy is well suited for an aggressive-slanted Jund deck. In general, as far as Pioneer is concerned, I'm wary of a card that costs this much and dies to a Chandra, but it's powerful enough to try. There are a lot of good things going on here.

This is an interesting one. The power is certainly there, especially in Pioneer. Most decks will have something along the lines of Oni-Cult Anvil, Trail of Crumbs, Portable Hole, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Esika's Chariot, the list goes on. Tagging a Greasefang plus a Portable Hole or a Winota plus a Fable of the Mirror Breaker on chapter two can turn a game around for sure. At its worst, it's Hero's Downfall. In the end, again, I think it's worth trying out, but four mana is a lot. When it's good it's great, but it might be too hard to engineer the game to a point where this will swing it for you. For what it's worth, Unleash the Inferno might be the sickest card name ever.

I can't really imagine playing this in Historic or Pioneer, but man this makes me want to play Standard again. I just love Thragtusk, and while it's easy to look at this and think of it as a nerfed Thragtusk, there are plenty of cases where it's actually the better card. The token it leaves behind is a 4/4, big enough to crew a Chariot and also big enough to beat serious face. Trample is a big deal on a card like this too, where they can't just chump block it, so they might have to trade, which gives you your value. The Blitz is kind of an afterthought, but six mana to kill a planeswalker, gain three life, make a 4/4, and draw a card, sounds good to me. It's got amazing synergy with Fable of the Mirror Breaker. Also I love the art. It's a rhino wearing suspenders holding a gigantic golden wrench, and in the background is a mural of himself. I really want to bonk some people with a gigantic golden wrench.

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These are the cards that I think have the most potential for Jund in this set. If you think I missed any or my evaluations are stupid, let me know in the comments or harass me about it on Twitter. I didn't do any streaming last weekend due to being away for family obligations, but I'll be rectifying that for this weekend's Pioneer Challenges. Check it out if you're interested. Thanks for reading.

Some Rise Some Fall Some Climb

Let's go.

Mode one is Crackling Doom that hits Planeswalkers but doesn't deal 2 damage. This would be a Standard playable card in its own right, probably wouldn't see much play because of the restrictive mana cost, but a deck in these colors might consider it. It hits Goldspan at a mana advantage, so that's a big deal in its own right. This is likely worse than a Hero's Downfall, but there will be cases where this wins you games where Downfall wouldn't, like against stuff with Hexproof or against Dive Down type stuff. One of the reasons I like Abrupt Decay at the moment in Pioneer is to stop Graveyard Trespasser cleanly, and this does that as well, plus you don't take 2 damage from Bonecrusher Giant.

The fact that this hits planeswalkers is a huge deal. I try to incorporate things like Dreadbore, Murderous Rider, and Bloodchief's Thirst into my decks when I can, so it's very welcome to be an answer to hard to answer things. The decks that run few creatures and your removal is bad against will often have planeswalkers, which can be hard to deal with if you're not getting under them. I lost a game to Jace, Wielder of Mysteries on stream this weekend when I had a Phoenix opponent locked out of the game, so this would put a stop to that. This mode is excellent, about as good as could be expected.

Mode three is just a Tormod's Crypt activation, which seems like it's not worth three mana until your opponent has three Arclight Phoenix triggers on the stack. What makes Dredge and Dredge-adjacent decks so good is not that there aren't graveyard hate options, it's that you actually have to put those cards into your deck. When it's good, it will be really good, and when it's not, the other two modes on this card are flexible enough that you would play it with just two modes.

Mode two is the big one and maybe most important one, because it's the proactive one. The problem with removal spells is that if your opponent doesn't do anything, and all you have is removal in your hand, then you don't do anything either. This mode lets you punish your opponent for wasting their mana by giving you some advantage. It also lets us play it in the main deck and we'll never run into a matchup where it's dead. Also, it's just a lot of cards. Lots of times your opponent doesn't have anything going on with their graveyard, lots of times they don't have creatures or planeswalkers in play, but even if they do, you might use this mode anyways. When discussing Abzan Charm, Patrick Chapin once said that if you're on the fence between exiling a creature and drawing two cards, you should usually draw two cards, and that is likely to be the case with Riveteers Charm too.

I wouldn't say that this effect is restrictive on your deckbuilding, but some cards are going to be better to flip than others. The first thing that comes to mind is Bonecrusher Giant, who can just be cast as a 4/3 if the removal spell doesn't line up. The same is true with Bloodthirsty Adversary, which can either go top rope in the late game or just be a 2/2 haste and allow you to cast multiple spells off one Charm. Kolaghan's Command and Witherbloom Command are great because there are lots of options and you can usually find one that will work. The removal spells you do play will want to be as versatile as possible so they can be useful more of the time, so things like Maelstrom Pulse or Mythos of Nethroi. Also, of course, cheap creatures. I think you're going to want to keep your mana costs down a little bit so you're more likely to be able to cast two cards out of it. Casting this on their end step turn three and flipping a five drop won't work, so four might be as high as our curve wants to go. But that's okay now, because you can get away with cheaper spells when you have card advantage built into your deck. Funny enough, Riveteers Charm itself isn't the greatest hit, but again, you might use the draw mode even if your opponent has creatures in play, then use the edict mode on your turn.

It's also not out of the question to main-phase this in the ultra late game. Similarly to something like a topdecked Inscription of Ruin when you have eight lands in play, this should set up a pretty explosive turn to try and turn the corner.

In Pioneer, as I've mentioned before, the metagame is combo-heavy, which rewards having the right sideboard card at the right time, and therefore digging for those specific cards becomes very useful. Courser of Kruphix, Grim Flayer, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, all these cards get much better when you're not just gaining an extra card here or there or ditching lands and finding action, but you're getting one card closer to your Damping Sphere or Culling Ritual or whatever to put the game out of reach. Riveteers Charm adds just a little bit of extra juice to your sideboard and allows you to lean into the knockout-blow kinds of cards over the general purpose cards, because you're more likely to find them when you need them.

My way too early diagnosis on this card is that you're going to want to play two or three copies in Pioneer and Historic, probably a four of in Standard if a Jund deck is viable there, and I even have a little optimism for it in Modern as a flex slot. The Light up the Stage effect has a pedigree for being strong enough in powerful formats, as Expressive Iteration has shown us. The older the format, the more value an extra card has, and the more likely you are to be able to cast the stuff you hit because it's cheaper. Plus, a Tormod's Crypt can actually steal a game in Pioneer and Modern from time to time, whereas in Standard this is almost always going to be a removal spell or a draw spell, which is totally fine with that power level. All in all, I think this is about the same power level as the Obscura and Maestros Charms, and possibly even better. It feels like the kind of card that's going to take some practice to play correctly and some reps to tune a deck around, but I'm optimistic.

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Still a long ways to go before we actually get to play with this, so I'll be continuing to play the Pioneer Challenges every weekend. My first run was a 10th place finish, but this weekend I bombed out pretty severely. I've been toying with a Jund version of the deck that has Fable of the Mirror Breaker and it's been impressive so far, so maybe I'll try that this weekend if I can tune it up during the week here. I'll see you then, thanks for reading.

Spring From Night Into The Sun

For the last two winters, my wife and I have taken on this little project. We make donuts in our kitchen on Sunday nights, then early on Monday morning, we hand them out to folks driving to work. I live in a very small town in Vermont, so we set up shop on the busiest road in town. The whole ordeal takes all of Sunday and some of Saturday to actually do, so it's hard to really get anything else done during those times. During the week I've been doing a lot of work on the road away from home. Hence, not a lot of streams or blog posts recently.

Additionally, it's been hard to really nail down what I want to be doing. I've dipped my toes into Historic here and there since the Alchemy release, but I still kind of hate it. Part of that is the Alchemy cards, but another part is that I'm more interested in formats that match up with paper so I can practice IRL formats again, anticipating maybe playing in them in the near future.

Modern is okay but there are two problems, one is the Lurrus ban, which is lame, and two is that Ragavan and Urza's Saga cost a lot. I have Cardhoarder rental, which is awesome, but it's not enough to cover all of that. And I think you do want to be playing those cards if you're going to be playing Jund in Modern. I really like what Sanitoeter on twitch has been doing lately in Modern. He writes (and maybe runs?) a website called Greatnessatanycost.com, which is dope.

Anyways, the donuts project is done for the winter now, and I'm looking for something outside of Historic to stream and do. I decided a neat project for me would be to make a goal of winning a challenge on Magic Online at some point this year on stream. Then I put out a poll on Twitter to ask what format people wanted to see me do this in, and the most voted answer was Pioneer. That's cool, I like Pioneer.

This is what I've been toying with lately.

I can't in honesty claim that this build is tuned perfectly, but the engine that's going on here works well in Pioneer. It's a Golgari deck, which means it's going to be a little bit slower and less aggressive than a Jund deck. Instead of cheap removal and putting emphasis on life total pressure, we have versatile removal and put an emphasis on resource pressure. I mean, there's still cheap removal and aggressive creatures, but it's going to be less so.

There's a couple reasons that I've liked this better than a Jund build in this format. The mana in the Jund deck was okay, but there were certain cards that you really couldn't get away with playing. Courser of Kruphix has been worth it by itself, but stuff like Murderous Rider and Liliana the Last Hope are also great in the format. Also, going with only two colors opens up the ability to play more utility lands, like Field of Ruin and Boseiju and Takenuma. Because of that, and because of a couple of 'value' Fabled Passage that I'm playing, Witherbloom Command gets maximized here.

Witherbloom Command has been excellent in most of the formats I've been dabbling in as of late. When the best things going are cheap creature decks and Witch's Oven/Trail of Crumbs/Oni Cult Anvil, and folks are playing stuff like Portable Hole and stuff like that, Command starts to get really, really good. As long as you can depend on getting a land back, you get to play a two mana spell that turns itself into either a card advantage spell, or a race-winning spell with the Lightning Helix effect. I mean seriously, those are the two ways you win at Magic, through tempo or through card advantage, and Witherbloom Command lets you do whichever one you want. When you can reasonably expect to be able to use one of the destructive effects on this card, and the land base of the deck is tuned a little to support it, it's an incredible card. Believe it or not, it's been the stones in Vintage, if that's any indication of how powerful it can be.

There's a little bit of graveyard synergy here to round it all out, with the Command and Grim Flayer kind of combo'ing together, and they both work with Courser as well. It's just where I like my decks, enough graveyard interaction to keep up with some of the card advantage blue decks have, but not enough to get totally wrecked when they have Rest in Peace.

The sideboard is very rough right now, but what I can definitely say is that Sarulf and Culling Ritual do a lot of work. That might seem like a lot of that type of effect, but decks that flood the board with cheap garbage are all over the place in the format. The rest of the board is up in the air, but I would either keep as is or increase the number of Sarulfs and Rituals if you were to take this deck for a spin.

Like I said, the "Win a Pioneer Challenge" goal is probably going to be a year long process, so I should mention this thing. We don't get to play with it for a month, but when it comes out, I'll certainly give it a try. I can't tell you right now whether I'll add red permanently to the deck though. There's a few reasons I'm excited for what this does for us, but I'm trying to be cautious about it. All the things that I said about why I like the straight Golgari build still are true, and this will make the mana better, of course, but a splash is never free.

First, this is a card that has utility alongside Witherbloom Command. However, it's not a ton of utility. You can't really expect to be cycling for three mana very often, but in a late game situation it's bound to come up. Second, it's a Swamp, which means that it might be viable to fit some Castle Locthwains back in the deck. If we're playing four enters-tapped lands, then I like Hissing Quagmire a little less.

Red opens us up to some cards that I miss playing, like Dreadbore, Bonecrusher Giant, and Kolaghan's Command. If Witherbloom Command is great against Oni Cult Anvil etc, so is Kolagahn's Command, so that's a nice one to have. Bonecrusher is a one-card wrecking crew in itself as well. But the cards we'd be replacing, Murderous Rider and Bloodchief's Thirst most likely, aren't exactly bad. That's the other thing about this whole quandry: not only do you have to get the mana to work, but you have to be sure that the red cards you want to play are better than the alternatives you have access to. Like, for instance, I've been impressed with Abrupt Decay in the format for a lot of the same reasons Witherbloom Command has been good. It's a clean answer to Graveyard Trespasser and is great against Greasefang. Cutting it for a red card is a tough sell at the moment.

I think that the deal breaker for me, right at this moment, is Courser of Kruphix. If we can depend on having 1GG on turn four (which is the best time to cast Courser), then it could still work. Or, alternatively, if the format moves to a place where Courser isn't as good as it once was, then we won't need double green anymore. I don't know what that would look like, because Courser is so good. I just can't stop playing that card.

Fable of the Mirror Breaker is a card that went a little bit under my own radar for the Neon Whatever previews, but from what I've seen and played, it's solid. The problem with it is that it's pretty slow, but it's a ton of cardboard, lots of ways to play it, and helps turn your bad draws into good ones. It also happens to have synergy with a lot of what we have going on already. It's an enchantment to help give us delirium, and it loots to help fuel delirium. It lets you pitch lands to help set up a Witherbloom Command. A Courser in play helps you determine whether and what you want to discard. Plus, in a little bit of an Esika's Chariot kind of way, it just has synergy with our plan.

I've talked a little bit about this before, but it's often not enough for a card like this to just provide card advantage, I want to to be actually interacting with the opponent or finding you the cards you need to interact. Compare this to something like Esika's Chariot or Wrenn and Seven. Those cards are more powerful in a vacuum, sure, but when what you actually want to be doing is not just putting a bunch of stuff into play and instead want to be finding your Damping Sphere or Culling Ritual or Go Blank, then those types of cards just aren't enough. Pioneer specifically is a format where you're very interested in drawing your sideboard haymakers, so the digging here is excellent. Dig into the card I need, beat you up with two 2/2s. Don't get me wrong, I love a Chariot, but in Pioneer at the moment, cards like this are more what we're looking for. All the threats in this deck can either dig for sideboard bullets, like Courser, Grim Flayer, and Lolth, or they do some amount of disruption of our opponent on their own, like Scavenging Ooze and Liliana.

Between this and the cycling ability on ZPG, I'm interested in playing a high land count in this deck. Another thing that Witherbloom Command really likes is a high land count, so you can hit blind flips with it more often. That means that our red splash will be easier, since you'll have more sources of each color just because you'll have more total lands. Fable helps you deal with your mana flooding by letting you pitch excess lands and draw new cards. I could definitely see 26 being the right thing to do for a red splash.

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The red splash is all speculation for another time. I'm sure that New Capenna will have a bunch of cool cards to go over, so I'll definitely be doing some work on that during spoiler time. Like, when you think about it, Siege Rhino could just be Jund colored card and still work thematically.

Anyways, I'm going to be trying to stream at least one Pioneer challenge a weekend until I win one. So check me out coming weekend, they start at 5pm Eastern USA time on Saturday and 9am Sunday. Thanks for reading.

Daddy May Drive A V8 Vette

 

I'm enamored with Courser in Pioneer. Just phenomenal. In the same way that Chevill is in that sweet spot in Historic, Courser is in a good place in Pioneer, where you are interested in a cheap-ish creature that gives a little bit of value every turn. An extra land off the top here or there can swing a game, but you aren't out flat if it gets removed.

This is the list I've settled on after the latest Pioneer challenge. Playing Courser in your deck isn't a given, of course, since it takes away your ability to play both Jegantha and Lurrus, so if we're going down that path we have to make it worth it. The key to this deck is that I've cut red, even though I love Bonecrusher Giant and Dreadbore. That way we can afford to play both BB and GG costed cards easier, and we get to have some good tools in the mana base.

Grim Flayer is a card that pairs well with Courser, and also happens to be excellent in the format. Flayer lets you set up the top of your library to almost always hit a land off the top if you want it, plus a Courser in the graveyard is two card types, setting you up for easy Delirium. As far as the format, Grim Flayer has always been one of my favorites when you are expecting combo decks. Every time Grim Flayer connects, it helps you dig for the specific cards you need. Against combo decks, card selection tends to be more important than card quantity, because a single Damping Sphere or Necromentia is priceless in the right matchup. Also, Grim Flayer hits hard if left on the table, and against combo decks, you can expect it to be left on the table, and hitting hard is appreciated, not giving the opponent time to set up their combo. It's been great against Lotus Field decks and other combo decks.

Scavenging Ooze as a four of has been solid. It seems to do something against everyone, including Greasefang, Arclight Phoenix, Cauldron Familiar, etc. Of course, it's also just a creature that is cheap and can be cast early and grows against aggro decks. Not a lot to say about Ooze, it's good.

I like the Witherbloom Command package. To start, straight up getting a land back is always good if you're hitting an opponent's permanent, so the baseline here is solid. Lots of opponents are going to have stuff that Command can hit, like Witch's Oven, Llanowar Elves, Soul Warden, Portable Hole. Beyond that, Boseiju and Field of Ruin turn out to be excellent in the format. Field does good work against Lotus Field, even though the Field itself has Hexproof, Thespian Stage does not. The same goes for Boseiju, which has some extra flexibility in hitting Parhelion and other stuff. So, since those cards are going to be good, fetching one up with Witherbloom Command turns out to be a real solid play, whether you save a Command in hand until you actually pop your Field of Ruin, or you blind flip one of them. There's a little bit of synergy with Grim Flayer and Courser there, but not so much that it's crippling if the opponent has graveyard hate.

To round it out we've got some Planeswalkers. Not having a companion means that we can play whatever we want for Planeswalkers and top end stuff, but that we are also in the market for some late game value. Sorin is at a nice place in Pioneer, where you can expect your average mana cost to be pretty low, a Vampire token has some real value, and four mana isn't too expensive. Lolth is excellent at creating a board stall and then taking over the game, which is what you would expect from a five mana card, but she also has the added benefit of giving you your value even if they have the removal spell. I tried Elder Gargaroth in that slot but Lolth has been more consistent. Vraska Golgari Queen or Liliana, Waker of the Dead could both be okay here too if you wanted to try those.

During the lastest Pioneer Challenge, I had a Chevill package in my sideboard, and I've since cut it for two Sarulf and two Culling Ritual. For one, the Red/Black or Jund sacrifice deck is all over the place and very good. Chevill would be okay there, but Sarulf and Culling Ritual are knockout blows. Also, there are a lot of removal spells in this deck, but not quite as many as Chevill would really like to see. In the Historic Jund lists, for instance, Bloodthirsty Adversary and Inscription of Ruin count as Chevill trigger enablers in addition to our late game value plan. Here, that stuff manifests as Courser and Lolth, where the plan is more to create a board stall. Sarulf and Culling Ritual love a board stall.

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Pretty quick update here today, but I just wanted to get something in because I haven't had time to lately. Expect more frequent updates and streams and stuff when I'm done my latest work project, which should be soon. Thanks for reading.

Pioneer Jund and Some Deckbuilding Theory

I got really excited a week or two ago when I saw Fireshoes on Twitter post a Rakdos Midrange deck with four Bloodthirsty Adversary in it. Extremely my shit. In between rounds of Modern, I copy and pasted my Historic list into Pioneer on Magic Online and switched around some stuff. This is where I'm at so far.

Again, pretty similar to the Historic deck. The formats are quite a bit different, but the whole idea with the deck was versatility anyways, so a lot of the same cards and plans slot in against the Pioneer field. Warden of the First Tree and Mizzium Mortars might not be ideal, but I just like those cards, and I'm pretty happy with everything else in the main deck.

The only real absence from Historic to Pioneer is Maelstrom Pulse, which is a card that I love, but I'm replacing it here with Abrupt Decay and Dreadbore, which are cards I'd probably be playing instead of Pulse in Historic given the chance. Also, since Barren Moor isn't available, I'm not running the Witherbloom Command package, although playing some Canyon Slough and Witherbloom Command isn't the absolute worst idea if you're running into a lot of Witch's Oven stuff.

I'm high on Hissing Quagmire here mostly for the same reasons I like Raging Ravine in Modern. Cards like Lair of the Hydra or Den of the Bugbear are helpful when you're mana flooded, obviously, but they come with a drawback of being unhelpful when you're land light, here in a three color deck. In a game where it looks like you'll never activate your Den, which is a lot of them, it's worse than a basic Mountain, which is a card that wouldn't make your deck here. You'll be more likely to be missing a color when you have two lands and one of them is Lair of the Hydra versus when you have two lands and one of them is Hissing Quagmire. There will be hands where you have to mulligan because you have Lair of the Hydra instead of Hissing Quagmire, and taking a mulligan is bad and you should never do things that are bad.

The deck seems to be dealing with aggro decks nicely. We have 1,000 removal spells and stuff like Warden and Ooze and creaturelands to clean up. There's more of a burn presence is this format, including a bunch of decks that run Monastery Swiftspear, so cutting back a little on Shocklands and running one and two mana removal helps you get out of the early game.

Brad Nelson has a theory that it's a good idea to focus your midrange decks to beating aggro decks in the main deck, then worry about the control and combo decks in the sideboard. I've kind of had that same idea for a long time too, even in Modern, and there's a few reasons for that. First, aggro decks don't give you the time you need to draw the cards that are good against them. If I tell myself that I'm going to add two copies of Languish to my otherwise non-interactive midrange deck, I'd better hope one of those copies is in my top eleven or so cards, because if I don't have some interaction for the opposing creatures, I'll be dead. Conversely, if I add two Kroxa to my deck to bust up control decks, that could work pretty well, because I can expect to see quite a few cards in my deck before the game is over, since they aren't pressuring my life total.

I don't always buy the idea that you should build your decks to maximize your play skill over your opponent, because, you know, you might play someone better than you and have that backfire. Having said that, destructive midrange decks like this require having a little bit of format knowledge and deck familiarity to be piloted well, since all your stuff is so dependent on what your opponent is doing. You can't be a total noob to win with most decks, but there are going to be hands with the most aggressive decks that the Mario Kart 64 AI could pilot to a win. Setting yourself up to not lose to those draws and forcing your opponent to make decisions will win some matches. Again, not huge on this theory, but the more experience you have, the more you might want to try and extend the game, giving you more opportunities to make good plays and your opponents opportunities to mess up. This is probably a bigger deal if you're Brad Nelson, but you're smart too. Only smart people read jundlife.blogspot.com.

Also, when we play against control decks, all of a sudden we are the ones who are looking to shorten the game and compound bad draws from our opponents. A couple of Fatal Push in your hand might turn out to not be a problem if your opponent stumbles on lands or floods out a little bit and you just get them dead with your creatures.

Last point on this, against a control deck, or at least against a slower deck, you're more likely to be okay if you miss a land drop or two. If you miss your third land drop and your opponent just nails you with Questing Beast and Embercleave, it doesn't really matter how well set up your deck is for the matchup. If you're more susceptible to losing a game to an awkward draw to fast decks than slow decks, then I'd rather make sure I'm set up to win all three games against fast decks. If I'm confident that I have a good sideboard plan against slow decks and will be unpressured enough to be able to draw what I need, then it's more palatable to plan on not worrying too much about game one and taking down games two and three.

I've found in Pioneer that this theory works out well, just like it does in Historic. The aggro decks are fast and punishing, but don't always have a go-big plan like you might see in Standard. I have my sideboard set up right now to really punish the aggro decks further, with extra Fatal Push and Chevill in the board, plus Crush the Weak, which continues to impress me. I think that going forward, I'll probably cut back a little bit on that stuff as it becomes clear what cards are effective against the metagame.

One card that's impressed me is Damping Sphere. Pioneer has a considerable combo element, with stuff like Lotus Field, Jeskai Ascendency, and Izzet Phoenix, and Damping Sphere shuts them all down. It's clunky with Bloodthirsty Adversary, but you can always get around that by just casting Adversary as a 2/2 with haste, which isn't bad when you're trying to tempo out a combo deck anyways. Also note that Pioneer Phoenix decks are more combo oriented than in Historic, with no Sprite Dragons or Dragon's Rage Channelers, so Damping Sphere is more helpful than you might expect. I have even been boarding in Crush the Weak to clean up Phoenixes, which is only an okay plan in Historic. They play Thing in the Ice, so you can't just board all your removal out, but it's a little bit different of a deck.

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I have a plan to start trying to stream on Discord instead of Twitch, or maybe in addition to. I've set myself up a server there that you're free to go and check out, though there isn't really anything there yet. I've been doing some Modern Challenges on Sunday mornings but I think I might shift into Pioneer mode here and do that on Saturday evenings. Hit me up on Twitter or where ever to chat. Thanks for reading.