Topic: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

I am looking for some advice for my R/W/U Twin deck. My main deck I am pretty confident with, I could use some Sideboard Ideas. Any and all advice would be appreciated, including on my main deck. http://deckbox.org/sets/1275178

Last edited by davidherlein (2015-12-13 04:20:14)

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

your twin list is a lot different than what I'm used to seeing. 

See link for list.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=10980&f=MO

Creatures - Maindeck spellskite is okay, but I would run 1-2 tops... put the rest in the side.  Umm... no snaps? If you're building budget you should say so... snaps are nearly required to be competitive. Grand abolisher is a weird choice... care to elaborate on it?  Little jace, (Vryn's Prodigy) would be okay too.  Delver can go... if you want to be a twin deck, otherwise load up on burn and get rid of the twin and play delver.

Instants - angel's grace/silence are two other weird choices...  These cards in my experience are not very good. You need the 4th bolt a Cryptic command would be good. It's very versatile. Some number of electrolyze is necessary to make affinity bearable and the mirror match.

Artifacts? - scepter? your plan is to spam silence/grace over and over?  Not a great plan overall... there's a couple reasons why.

1. Grixis will just doesn't care about that and will control you out of the game.  It's very likely that fast decks like affinity will just kill you before you get combo online. 

2. silence and grace only stall for a turn, there are plenty of decks that can just kill you the next turn while dealing with combo at the same time.

Mana - scalding tarns are the better fetch if you have them... over mesa's I would think...  You need a handful of basics or you'll lose to an opposing blood moon.  Also a desolate light house is nice it lets you filter your deck.

Sideboard - swiftspear? get rid of that.  dispel is fine, run at least one maindeck though.  Disperse is bad cut it. So is render silent.  You need a stony silence or 2.  Keranos is nice for the grindier matchups.  Manaleak is okay, but in the matches where you need it negate costs the same and is just a hard counter for opposing spells that matter in those matchups.  Run a couple blood moon/magus of the moon if you can after you work on your manabase some, it hoses tron and bloom titan pretty hard. Otherwise side a couple ghost quarter or something.

You need a solid plan for the following decks. 

Affinity, Grixis, twin, zoo, jund, tron, bloom titan ... have you done any testing?

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

I have not done any competitive testing. Just against non top 8 decks. I have not lost any games against them. I would love to do some deck testing against top 8 decks, there are just very few people in my area that run top 8 for modern. When it comes to snapcaster, he is great and I would love to have him, but I don't wanna spend 350 on 4 cards. I would like to try the deck without him first and if it cant run without him I will get him. Same goes for Bloodmoon. I did end up dropping the delvers after the non competitive deck testing. They were useless and never made a difference. The Grand abolishers seemed to be working very well, and pair that with silence on the start of their turn with a scepter and that was incredibly hard to get around for any of the decks I played. My main fallback, I am ashamed to say, is ignorance. I have yet to play in any modern tournaments, so I know nothing of how the other decks are run. I have heard of Titan bloom I think. That's the first turn kill rarely right? If you can message me from my profile with a way to decktest I would LOVE practice against top 8 decks. I appreciate the input back and would love to practice against you if you know any sites. Just message me or email me with the reply as I do not get notifications for replys on here. davidjherlein@gmail.com

Last edited by davidherlein (2015-12-15 22:15:04)

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

Jace has the same feeling for me as snapcaster. If I can run it without it then I will.

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

I edited my deck more after considering the other top decks in the format you described. I just really feel strongly about the Abolisher, Silence, Scepter combo. If I could get some testing against well played top 8 decks I would know better though, and be able to see if it works.

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

The jace's and snapcasters of the world provide a lot of value.  Why have only 4 lightning bolts when you can have 8? Need to counter a spell again? Good thing you cast one last turn and it's in your graveyard. 
Obviously snapcaster is better, but Jace does a good impression and helps dig a little to find combo pieces or other stuff.  I'd highly recommend at least proxying the cards and testing them.  I think their value will become immediately evident.

Umm, as far as practicing goes, there's cockatrice and a couple other sites/programs that allow you to play test magic.  I don't use them much though.  I would go on google/reddit and ask for more info, there's someone out there that has what you're looking for.  At the very least there's this...

This site allows you to make multiple proxy decks in one set of 60 cards.  I usually just print these out and stick them in sleeves with lands or something... works pretty good.  Have a friend help you.
http://metadeck.me/

Bloom Titan can turn 2 sometimes.  Most people don't play the turn 1 version anymore because it's too fragile.   People complain about it, but really the turn 2 win is pretty rare and it requires both players to have/not have cards that interact with the combo. 

  Think of it this way deckbuilding and card evaluation is a skill, it takes a long time to learn to play the guitar or paint. Anyone can strum a few cords or pick up a brush and slap paint on canvas, but it doesn't make them a musician/artist.  The people that design and test decks for a living frankly just have better decision making skills than you or I when it comes to deck building and they have the time to test all the possibilities.  I have a 40 hr job and married with 4 kids.  I don't have time to put20+ hours a week into testing a deck to see if it works. 

Magic is full of possibilities and any card can "work", and the only way to know is to try.  But in general, you have to consider, the best players and the best decks have access to those cards... why didn't they play them if they were worth considering?

Last edited by elpablo (2015-12-16 13:33:49)

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

Yeah that looks better imo. 

I think your heavy on the ghost quarters, maybe run 1 maindeck and 2 on the side if you're really worried about tron or something.  I'd still have a few more basics imo.  at least 1 mountain and another island, the blue spells are pretty important.  Try a desolate lighthouse.  Even if you have to proxy it.  It's really good.  End of turn lighthouse to pitch a land and dig for combo, is supper good.

Highly recommend the 4th bolt.  Maybe 1 lightning helix if you have them.

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

Fair enough. The lighthouse is very good, specially if you're saving mana for counters and didn't need them. The Snaps if I can get them I'd love them for sure, and I know Jace is incredible, I'll probably end up picking him up once I have all the cards for the deck. It is still in test mode now. This is definitely the deck I want to run for a modern tournament though.

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

The Isochron does an interesting job as a discount Snappy. The only problem I really forsee with it is that it doesn't play nice with already used stuff/serum visions/splinter twin. Sometimes you just have to splinter twin Tiago and ride the value train.

If you're going combo centric I'd look for slots for 2 pestermites at least.  I think trying to buy time with angel's grace will be less useful for you then counter magic/tempo stuff. I'd look into dropping them for tempo (Silence does a good enough job of this especially on a scepter that I can see it.)
Into the Roil does a decent Cryptic Command impression.

Things I think you could drop:
-3 Angel's Grace
-1 to 2 Grand Abolisher/Spellskite (I like it though cool idea for combo protection)
-2 Path/Bolt/Helix (I dont think you need 10 pieces of single target removal. My instinct would be to drop probably 1 bolt 1 path.


Cards you might consider

Into the Roil
Azorius Charm
Electrolyze
Forked Bolt
Anger of the Gods
Radiant Flames
Wrath of God
Izzet Charm
Boomerang
Render Silent
Counterflux

Re: My R/W/U Twin deck(Improves? SB?)

OOOOH! Didn't even think about the Izzet Charm. I really like it. Specially if you put it on a scepter.