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hi-val
01-18-2012, 07:14 PM
In which I make T8 at a 61-person event, while playing 4 Coalition Relics and Godo, Bandit Warlord!

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2012/01/a-modern-top-8-with-coalition-relic-a-gifts-ungiven-tournament-report-and-primer/

I'm happy to answer any and all commentary on the deck. I don't know if I emphasized in the article enough that since counters are so bad in Modern, you're best off just tapping out every turn and launching crazy spells at your opponent.

Amon Amarth
01-19-2012, 03:09 PM
That deck is really sweet. This makes me want to play Modern now. Grats on the T8!

Litorers
01-19-2012, 03:50 PM
This deck looks great! It really reminds me of an evolved form of the braid of fire deck that Chapin piloted at worlds. Gifts is a very potent engine, and I can't wait to see what else comes out of the archetype. The style you're playing with the ability to go "over the top" thanks to Coalition Relic might become just one of an increasing variety of gifts archetypes. Keep on bewing, it's stuff liek this that makes modern special :).

Trentemoller
01-19-2012, 03:55 PM
Awesome deck! It looks a bit weak to combo though, what do you suggest changing up for a more combo heavy meta? Mostly Twin and some Storm?

AriLax
01-21-2012, 12:12 PM
The fact you are casting Gifts Ungiven in this format for four cards instead of two makes no sense at all.

Mr. Safety
01-21-2012, 08:07 PM
The fact you are casting Gifts Ungiven in this format for four cards instead of two makes no sense at all.

I patently disagree. Card advantage is card advantage...digging out the 2 lands + Loam + Crime package is a perfect example of why getting 4 is good. I thought Doug Linn explained well why the Iona + Unburial Rites wasn't what he wanted to do.

I've been on the Gifts/Crime/Loam engine from the beginning of the modern format. It started out too slow (big surprise) and then it became a great way to contain storm combo provided you could have permission and targeted discard to keep them off their key plays on turn 3-4. It also plays the role of control-killer by creating what you call the 'crim lock' against anything relying on a fat hand to win. Twin is still challenging, but Gifts can find the removal needed. I've stalwartly stuck to a 3-color setup in BUG colors, but only because I feared the greedy mana-base would open me up to Ghost Quarter and my own color screw. I never even thought to include Coalition Relic...but I will be including it into my own list pronto.

How do you feel about Kitchen Finks? In BUG colors, I've found that it can be a real all-star against anything aggro. Your deck can obviously play Finks, so I'm curious how you feel about it.

Aggro_zombies
01-21-2012, 09:08 PM
I think what Ari is implying here is that skipping out on the most obviously powerful use for a card because it "isn't what you want to do" makes your motives suspect. Your particular deck may not want to unbury Iona, but that just makes it worse than one that does.

Mr. Safety
01-22-2012, 07:59 AM
Ahhh...makes sense. Why couldn't he have said that rather than just it 'makes no sense at all'?

Trentemoller
01-22-2012, 10:29 AM
I disagree. I don't see this deck losing after resolving Gifts. In some matchups Iona is very powerful and I can certainly see it in the board, but drawing it hurts the deck really bad and in a lot of matchups just getting 4 cards that are likely winning anyway but are also good just drawing them makes the deck a lot more consistent.

I'm certainly gonna work on a similar deck, but I will likely make it straight 5 colors. Path to Exile is such a beating. Rise/Fall seems very sweet by the way.

Mr. Safety
01-22-2012, 12:02 PM
In the sideboard is where Unburial Rites/Iona belongs, and I do think it belongs there. I was fairly well convinced by Doug Linn that Gifts was a powerful way to provide multiple answers to a multitude of decks...and his deck does just that.

I'm going to go 4 colors with white, just so I can use the Crime side of Crime//Punishment. The real nugget I pulled from this article was Coalition Relic...it offers incredible color fixing and ramping potential to a deck that wants to play a tap-out style with bombs. I am testing out 4x Horizon Canopy alongside loam...cycle land it isn't, but I think it can work in it's place. Putting in 4x Kitchen Finks maindeck makes Horizon Canopy that much more valuable (I'm using BUG colors with a W splash fyi.)

hi-val
01-24-2012, 04:04 AM
Let me reiterate: Iona + Rites does not beat Martyr, which is a MONO-WHITE DECK. Martyr will still beat you with Proclamation, Emeria and Mistveil Plains. If you cannot beat a deck, even when you lock out half of its cards, you should be revisiting that lock. Even this deck, with all of its kill spells hovering around Black, can kill Iona in a multitude of ways. Godo can grab a Batterskull and trade or make the race irrelevant. Wurmcoil Engine also races the Angel just fine. A blocking Mulldrifter can team up with some Lightning Bolts. Iona is a castle built of sand and it makes players foolishly cocky about what it can and cannot lock out. By all means, though, try it out. Drawing Iona feels worse than a backrub from Al Gore.

If you're going through the misery of running Iona, please Gifts for all four cards. Make them a Raven's Crime, a Loam and your Iona/Rites thing. That way, you can Crime away your Iona if you have to and you aren't spending four mana and two cards to reanimate a monster with no backup plan. This whole "you can gifts for less than four cards!" thing is preposterous in a format that includes both Raven's Crime and lands. I'm fine casting Gifts for four cards, especially if those cards are Godo, Wurmcoil Engine, Cruel Ultimatum and Rise/Fall. I'm fine casting Gifts for a lot of other cards, too!

Trentemoller, now that cantrips are gone, combo is a lot less consistent. The Mana Leaks go a long way, but if you really fear combo off the board, you have a few options. I like a sort of combined assault with counters and cards like Nezumi Shortfang or Scepter of Fugue. Tarmogoyf obviously makes all your counters a lot more powerful, since you have a legitimate clock. If you don't have Goyfs, I'd try Shortfangs and/or Sedraxis Specter (which I think of as Sedaris Specter...).

I have to advise against running white, though. There are a few cards I'd run white for. Things like Timely Reinforcements, maybe Lightning Helix, maybe better Kitchen Finks support, maybe better Fracturing Gust casting. You just don't need Path to Exile, though! Things that cannot be Bolted can be Shriekmawed, which is just a truism of the format. You don't want to start with four dead cards in your deck against combo since you're already kind of hustling to beat them. In R1, I was able to Bolt the Twin player and win a turn earlier than I otherwise would have been, which underlines that Bolts are never truly dead. Bolts, crucially, kill Planeswalkers a lot of the time, too.

Mr. Safety, I like Finks a lot. They could go where Vendillionaire is right now, for example. I like the idea of having two on the board. Without Grove of the Burnwillows in this anymore, supporting them is a lot harder. I've got a Breeding Pool, two Flooded Groves and my greedy mana from Relics and Reflecting Pools. I don't know if that's totally enough, but it may be. Finks are great against Affinity, since they have no way to profitably remove them and all of their dorks are x/1s, it seems. I'm also thinking of Strangleroot Geist, since that thing is a monster in every way. In this event, it just came down to not having enough space to run all of the hot cards I wanted. If you cut Leaks, you could probably run lots of Finks. If you're going deeper into green, then Eternal Witness is great, but Rise/Fall works out better in this specific list.

I tried out Crime/Punishment and it just didn't get me where I needed to go. EE is a better card and I'm not even running those things...

Mr. Safety
01-24-2012, 07:56 AM
I have been fairly stalwart about always digging for 4 cards with Gifts, too. I played it way back when it was in standard alongside Witness...epic synergy.

I do have a stronger green focus, for sure (my list is below) and it is for the exact reasons you stated: Eternal Witness and Kitchen Finks. Finks in a control setup just sort-of 'fits'...it provides resilience against the faster aggro decks. My experience has been the same as yours: the aggro decks either beat you by turn 4 or the games go for another 10 turns, therefore MAKE SURE YOU GET PAST TURN 4!!! Finks helps in that regard enormously. I used to play only 1, but I'm up to 4. Drawing multiple finks is not a problem at all.


My Gifts piles are much more control oriented because I'm really trying to grind out the late game. If I need threats, I just pull 4 out of the deck with the second Gifts. What has been a little dissapointing is Mana Leak...it is an all-star on the play but it loses so much steam in the late game. I would sometimes want a better counterspell (I have tested Deprive with mixed results...sometimes good, sometimes not just like Leak.) What the deck desperately needs is dig...there just isn't anything I would want to use. I've tried Halimar Depths (alongside Deprive) and it's ok...but entering tapped makes for awkward mana fixing. I usually fetch shock-lands tapped in the early game to preserve my life-total against aggro decks...Depths makes it even more awkward by not providing counterspell/removal mana when I play it. I really wish we had at least ONE decent dig spell in the format to enable control decks to get a little more of a foothold.

Bug-Eyed Control

Creatures - 13
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Tombstalker
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Eternal Witness
1x Shriekmaw
4x Kitchen Finks

Instants - 9
4x Mana Leak
3x Gifts Ungiven
1x Smother
1x Doom Blade

Sorceries - 9
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Duress
1x Raven's Crime
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Life from the Loam
1x Profane Command
1x Crime & Punishment

Artifacts - 5
1x Engineered Explosives
4x Coalition Relic

Lands - 24
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Overgrown Tomb
2x Watery Grave
1x Breeding Pool
1x Golgari Rot Farm
1x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Horizon Canopy
1x Academy Ruins
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Flooded Grove
1x Twilight Mire
1x Island
1x Forest
1x Swamp

Sideboard
3x Trinket Mage
1x Pithing Needle
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Damnation
2x Duress
3x Nature's Claim
2x Ancient Grudge


EDIT: I've switched Mana Leak and Gifts around, now playing 4 Gifts and only 3 Leaks.

AriLax
01-24-2012, 09:06 AM
Let me reiterate: Iona + Rites does not beat Martyr, which is a MONO-WHITE DECK. Martyr will still beat you with Proclamation, Emeria and Mistveil Plains. If you cannot beat a deck, even when you lock out half of its cards, you should be revisiting that lock. Even this deck, with all of its kill spells hovering around Black, can kill Iona in a multitude of ways. Godo can grab a Batterskull and trade or make the race irrelevant. Wurmcoil Engine also races the Angel just fine. A blocking Mulldrifter can team up with some Lightning Bolts. Iona is a castle built of sand and it makes players foolishly cocky about what it can and cannot lock out. By all means, though, try it out. Drawing Iona feels worse than a backrub from Al Gore.


Actually, Iona-Rites immediately demolishes Martyr assuming the other cards in your deck do anything. I've never lost a single game to Martyr after resolving Rites and haven't even been close to it at any point. If you had Gifts on turn four it's likely they just die before Proc or Emeria gets online, and if for some reason things took too long you can just get your Elesh Norn in play and actually hardlock them. Actually, the only one of those they can get to in time is Proc (mostly because the Martyr decks then to run Heights and Tec Edges and can't really natural to 7 Plains that easily), and that is easily dealt with by playing Inquisitions/Thoughtseize.

I agree that just Iona isn't enough to support Rites, but Iona plus Elesh is. Between those two you actually have a lock on every deck except for RUG and Tron. The first one of those Iona on Blue is close enough most of the time, or you can just win a fair game by casting Gifts as double Demonic Tutor instead of double Entomb. The second one of those you are going to lose to regardless so w/e. On the subject of Elesh being a "blank", it is very reasonable to just get to 7 mana and cast it.

This honestly feels like the old Cruel Ultimatum argument back from Standard. Your deck is just treading water with two for ones until it tries to land a six drop and see if that is enough. Mine has some definitively game ending spell that every turn is a downhill race to.

I also have real issues seeing how your deck legitimately beats a Splinter Twin, Blood Moon, or Cranial Plating. The matches you played in the event seem fairly non-representative. (The answer to those from the other deck is 1) make an Elesh/Iona, also the other 52 cards in the deck are lands and actual interaction for the combo, 2) 7 basics, 10 fetch, 3 Talisman and the ability to play a full game off 3(U/W), and 3) make an Elesh Norn, more than enough).

Litorers
01-24-2012, 11:29 AM
What the deck desperately needs is dig...there just isn't anything I would want to use. I've tried Halimar Depths (alongside Deprive) and it's ok...but entering tapped makes for awkward mana fixing. I usually fetch shock-lands tapped in the early game to preserve my life-total against aggro decks...Depths makes it even more awkward by not providing counterspell/removal mana when I play it. I really wish we had at least ONE decent dig spell in the format to enable control decks to get a little more of a foothold.


I have been reasonably impressed with Forbidden Alchemy. Other decks usually assume you have more counters than you do, and alchemy will almost never completely blank and sometimes ends up dumping Life from the Loam, Worm Harvest, or Raven's Crime into the yard. The deck has some cards that are ridiculous in some match-ups and ridiculous blanks in others, so the ability to filter for what you need, as well as feed your yard, with actual card advantage, seems rather nice. It's also not terrible when you end up dredging one off of loam.

Mr. Safety
01-24-2012, 12:31 PM
Alchemy seems decent considering Witness and Loam. I like that it's instant speed and digs 4 deep, too. It also handily feeds the graveyard for my Tombstalkers.

Thanks for the tip! Playtesting shall commence, probalby with 2-3 at the start and moving to 4 if it's good enough. If it isn't good enough, it's back to the drawing board and scrapping the idea.

hi-val
01-24-2012, 02:03 PM
Actually, Iona-Rites immediately demolishes Martyr assuming the other cards in your deck do anything. I've never lost a single game to Martyr after resolving Rites and haven't even been close to it at any point. If you had Gifts on turn four it's likely they just die before Proc or Emeria gets online, and if for some reason things took too long you can just get your Elesh Norn in play and actually hardlock them. Actually, the only one of those they can get to in time is Proc (mostly because the Martyr decks then to run Heights and Tec Edges and can't really natural to 7 Plains that easily), and that is easily dealt with by playing Inquisitions/Thoughtseize.

I agree that just Iona isn't enough to support Rites, but Iona plus Elesh is. Between those two you actually have a lock on every deck except for RUG and Tron. The first one of those Iona on Blue is close enough most of the time, or you can just win a fair game by casting Gifts as double Demonic Tutor instead of double Entomb. The second one of those you are going to lose to regardless so w/e. On the subject of Elesh being a "blank", it is very reasonable to just get to 7 mana and cast it.

This honestly feels like the old Cruel Ultimatum argument back from Standard. Your deck is just treading water with two for ones until it tries to land a six drop and see if that is enough. Mine has some definitively game ending spell that every turn is a downhill race to.

I also have real issues seeing how your deck legitimately beats a Splinter Twin, Blood Moon, or Cranial Plating. The matches you played in the event seem fairly non-representative. (The answer to those from the other deck is 1) make an Elesh/Iona, also the other 52 cards in the deck are lands and actual interaction for the combo, 2) 7 basics, 10 fetch, 3 Talisman and the ability to play a full game off 3(U/W), and 3) make an Elesh Norn, more than enough).

I'll concede that running Elesh Norn makes the Rites combo better, but yuck, another uncastable giant is not what I'd want to be drawing! Of the martyr decks I have encountered, the only non-Plains cards they run are Emeria and sometimes Mouth of Ronom. An early Martyr or a pair of Squadron Hawks ties up time enough to get Forecasting going. Then again, I don't run discard like IoK, so I'm sure a deck with those cards would have less of a problem with Proclamation.

I never lost to a Blood Moon in play at that event, and the decks using it were Splinter Twin and Affinity. I don't know how to make those representative matches if you won't believe that Coalition Relic lets you play straight through Blood Moon. Plating is just about the only thing that Affinity pulls off that matters and you've got things like Bolt to kill the creature they equip it to. I'm not pollyannaing you about killer matchups, but in one of those Affinity games, I beat turn 2 Plating, Turn 3 Blood Moon, and my hand was not stellar. You have basic Forest and Blood Moon makes your Lightning Bolts castable all day long.

I didn't like Iona because the costs outweighed the benefits. I tried it and I cut it. Your results may differ. I got too tired of setting up a big combo and then having Splinter Twin blow me out with Remand : \

AriLax
01-24-2012, 02:45 PM
I'll concede that running Elesh Norn makes the Rites combo better, but yuck, another uncastable giant is not what I'd want to be drawing! Of the martyr decks I have encountered, the only non-Plains cards they run are Emeria and sometimes Mouth of Ronom. An early Martyr or a pair of Squadron Hawks ties up time enough to get Forecasting going. Then again, I don't run discard like IoK, so I'm sure a deck with those cards would have less of a problem with Proclamation.

I never lost to a Blood Moon in play at that event, and the decks using it were Splinter Twin and Affinity. I don't know how to make those representative matches if you won't believe that Coalition Relic lets you play straight through Blood Moon. Plating is just about the only thing that Affinity pulls off that matters and you've got things like Bolt to kill the creature they equip it to. I'm not pollyannaing you about killer matchups, but in one of those Affinity games, I beat turn 2 Plating, Turn 3 Blood Moon, and my hand was not stellar. You have basic Forest and Blood Moon makes your Lightning Bolts castable all day long.

I didn't like Iona because the costs outweighed the benefits. I tried it and I cut it. Your results may differ. I got too tired of setting up a big combo and then having Splinter Twin blow me out with Remand : \

The main issue I see in your Affinity matchup is you never had to face down Etched Champion, which looks fairly unbeatable for your deck. Relic does let you play straight through to an extent, but that is 4 cards in your deck and you are basically Arcane Labbed for the rest of the game (or worse due to charging turns). To draw a comparison, Affinity Blood Moons Jund straight out of games when their mana is basically the same as yours minus Relics.

The targetted discard in the other deck is definitely a huge factor in the Rites plan and a concession that you are basically a combo deck, but it just happens those are fine cards if you just want to grind people.

As for the Remand thing, yeah, the non-Twin Remand decks are a pain to combo against, but Twin only has Remand to interact with Rites. Another part of the issue is that if they don't Remand Gifts you can just Gifts for 4x real spells and wreck them that way. Gifts gives you a legitimate clock because instead of just being a dude your threat locks them, so they have to go off through your 6 removal, 6 counter, 4 discard, 4 Snapcaster deck before you just setup and "combo" them. With just a six drop dude they can afford to set up longer as you have to commit mana on a main phase before the point they die.

hi-val
01-24-2012, 05:06 PM
The main issue I see in your Affinity matchup is you never had to face down Etched Champion, which looks fairly unbeatable for your deck. Relic does let you play straight through to an extent, but that is 4 cards in your deck and you are basically Arcane Labbed for the rest of the game (or worse due to charging turns). To draw a comparison, Affinity Blood Moons Jund straight out of games when their mana is basically the same as yours minus Relics.

The targetted discard in the other deck is definitely a huge factor in the Rites plan and a concession that you are basically a combo deck, but it just happens those are fine cards if you just want to grind people.

As for the Remand thing, yeah, the non-Twin Remand decks are a pain to combo against, but Twin only has Remand to interact with Rites. Another part of the issue is that if they don't Remand Gifts you can just Gifts for 4x real spells and wreck them that way. Gifts gives you a legitimate clock because instead of just being a dude your threat locks them, so they have to go off through your 6 removal, 6 counter, 4 discard, 4 Snapcaster deck before you just setup and "combo" them. With just a six drop dude they can afford to set up longer as you have to commit mana on a main phase before the point they die.

True, I wasn't dealing with Champ, I'll definitely give you that. Champ only gets scary with Plating, though, and that's manageable. There are also a few one-outers like Damnation and Creeping Corrosion from the board that you can bring to bear. If it's just a 2/2 crashing in, though, and you can manage things like Ravagers, then that's easily raceable. The issue of tapping out for a Six is why I brought in Tarmogoyfs, and there are times when you just get to seven mana, tap into a Mulldrifter and hold a Leak. It's not ideal, but it's workable. The other biiiiig thing that you're not looking at is that you don't have to wait for a 6-drop and tap out. You can Gifts up the Raven's Crime combo and annihilate a combo player in a turn or two. I wasn't great about making this point earlier, but Crime/LFTL does a lot of what Iona does, but it's less setup (but also, not a clock like Iona is).

I think the main point you and I are grinding at is that Iona is a fine plan, but you've got to orient a deck such that you have early discard and counters to protect Iona, and you've probably got to make some commitment to white spells. You're interested in that, which is fine - that's a good deck. This is another deck that plays out a little differently, and it lacks the support to really make Iona into a harder lock.

In other news, man oh man do I want 4 Rise/Fall around this deck. Slamming people with Fall was glorious all day long.

Also, if you're on budget constraints and Tarmogoyf isn't in the picture, then take a look at Ludevic's Test Subject.