Given my love for Goyf and Savage Knuckleblade I wanted to play them at FNM for a bit just to get them out of my system. Basically I wanted to make a deck which doesn't care so much about burn spells, because given the permeation of red in the format I think that that's a solid strategy right now. So I made a pretty basic RUG midrange deck. Similar in flavor to delver almost, but just with some bigger threats.
//21 Lands
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Stomping Ground
2 Breeding Pool
2 Steam Vents
2 Island
1 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
//Threats
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Savage Knuckleblade
//Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Burst Lightning
2 Forked Bolt
//Blue
4 Spell Snare
4 Serum Visions
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Remand
3 Treasure Cruise
3 Mana Leak
1 Vedalken Shackles
//Sideboard
SB: 1 Spellstutter Sprite
SB: 3 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Grim Lavamancer
SB: 1 Sun Droplet
SB: 3 Flashfreeze
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Surrak Dragonclaw
SB: 2 Anger of the Gods
In practice it's been pretty fun to play. It's likely not better than RUG delver, but I just wanted to have some fun with some green creatures at FNM for awhile. Any suggestions/questions are welcome. Sorry I don't have much more to say. I just started working on this deck.
I always wanted to play RUG midrange deck with the Ascendancy. Giving your fat men haste while drawing gas seems dope
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Ascendency is only playable if you overload on creatures, but I fear there's not enough creatures you want to run which actually trigger it. What big guys do you really want to play? Knuckleblade, Goyf, and...? Plus, Goyf often will not trigger it. I also find that this deck has to use creatures very defensively at times, at least until you can establish a for sure winning board position via cruise or snapcasters.
I played at a local PPTQ on 1/10/2015 with RUG Midrange and here’s a report of that. I had some sloppy plays since this was the second time I’ve played the deck, but overall I was happy with my deck and look forward to getting better with it going forward. First, the decklist:
//Lands (20)
1 Stomping Ground
2 Breeding Pool
2 Steam Vents
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
//Burn (10)
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Burst Lightning
2 Forked Bolt
1 Magma Spray
//Blue (19)
4 Spell Snare
3 Remand
3 Treasure Cruise
2 Mana Leak
1 Flashfreeze
4 Serum Visions
2 Cryptic Command
//Threats (11)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Savage Knuckleblade
//Sideboard (15)
2 Dispel
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Negate
1 Flashfreeze
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Surrak Dragonclaw
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Pithing Needle
1 Combust
R1 vs. UWR Geist 1-2 (0-1)
G1: I just couldn’t quite get a foothold this game, and due to taking a little damage from most of his critters because I would find answers just a bit too late. I was able to block a geist with a snapcaster fortunately, but just got burned out as the game went on.
G2: I mulled to 6 and kept a kind of shaky hand of Combust, Surrak, remand, and 3 lands. I figured the game would go long and that I couldn’t afford mulling to 5. Fortunately he couldn’t find any threats, so the game was basically draw go until turn 5. I drew the two lands I needed, and some good interaction spells. I dropped Surrak, and EOT he bounced/drew with cryptic. I untap and pass, dropping Surrak again (he still has no threats). Surrak gets in for 6 and then he plays a geist. I EOT bolt him, snapcaster bolt him and swing with snap + surrak. Surrak gets chumped. Next turn he finds an answer for Surrak and snap, but he’s already in a bad situation. I EOT burst lightning him + kicker and it gets remanded. He digs on his turn, but has to pay most of his mana because his yard is not large, and this leaves him with two mana open. I EOT burst lightning + kicker, putting him to 4. I untap, play snapcaster on burst lightning and play it again with kicker, he helixes the snapcaster in response putting him to 3. I treasure cruise into burn and win.
G3: I kept a terrible 1 land hand and then didn’t draw any lands. It wasn’t even close to a good hand, just a bad play on my part.
R2 vs. Summoning Trap Valakut 1-2 (0-2)
G1: I keep an opener with triple bolt, two lands, a remand, and a mana leak. He leads with a search for tomorrow, then plays a sakura tribe elder. He’s stuck on three lands (with a sakura in play) the whole game, and I drew into bolt 4 (!) and a burst lightning. I end up just throwing all my burn at his face, and due to him hurting himself with shocklands and fetches my 14 points of burn cleaned up him up.
G2: I mulled a hand away with no interaction and kept a 6-lander with only remand. On turn 2 I put a shock land into play tapped, and he kills me on his turn 3 with through the breach into primeval titan since he had cast sakura + search. I had no idea what he was playing at this point in time, so I didn’t think I would need to keep remand up that turn, as I was saving it for primeval titan. This was definitely a fatal mistake.
G3: He keeps a hand with visions, clique, cryptic, a burn spell, and some lands. Turn 2 he plays defense grid, so I mainphase a clique on my turn to see his hand of anger, land, boil, boil, primeval, primeval. Since I had drawn a second Clique I actually let him keep his hand, thinking my only out here is to just hope I can ride Clique (and maybe another creature) to victory before he finds enough lands to win. On his turn 3 he plays a sakura tribe elder. My turn 4 is embarrassing, but I fetch for a stomping ground, then cast cryptic to bounce an island to my hand and draw a card. Expectedly he casts boil during his next turn, putting me down to a stomping ground. He goes for anger next turn, killing Clique. I get another island and play my second Clique. He’s at 14 and still on 4 lands. His hand is primeval x2 and boil still, with a second defense grid. Again I let him keep. I put him to 11, and cruise + visions my turn, with visions giving me a knuckleblade on top. He draws and plays land 5, plays through the breach and kills me.
R3 vs. UWR Control 2-0 (1-2)
G1 is mostly draw go. I hold off on playing goyf because of bolt or spell snare. On turn 3 I play knuckleblade which gets leaked, he untaps and plays ajani, keeping a land of mine tapped. I follow up by playing a goyf who’s a 4/5. Next turn he untaps and passes. On my turn I go to attack Ajani and he goes for snapcaster. I snare it, hit Ajani to 1, then burst lightning to kill it. Goyf then becomes a 5/6 and he can’t answer it soon enough, and takes too much damage from it putting him into burn range.
G2: This game went a bit longer, but he was always on the defensive. I try for an early threat, but it doesn’t stick. He goes for Ajani on turn 5, which I try to flashfreeze, he tries to counter freeze, so I leak in response. I untap and play treasure cruise and a goyf. It goes to my upkeep and goyf gets pathed. I don’t have any threats, but I have a ton of great spells. He tries to dig at some point, but I dispel it. With him having a tiny hand, he goes for a colonnade attack, but it dies to a kicked burst lightning. I cruise again and play a goyf, even though only instant/sorcery is in the graveyard. He goes to bolt it, but respond by snapcaster into dispel, and then he plays verdict. I untap and play a knuckleblade, give it haste, and still have 3 up. He goes for another verdict, but I bounce knuckleblade. Then I finish out the game with knuckleblade, with a ton of cards in hand to his almost none.
R4 vs. Mono-white weenie devotion 2-1 (2-2)
G1: He leads with 2x leyline of sanctity, which was fine for me. His turn 2 was a preeminent captain. I followed up with goyf, but it gets pathed and he gets a soldier. I don’t have removal quite yet, so I take some more damage. I find burn for his soldier, but still have to deal with tokens. I take a few more points of damage, but find a forked bolt, am able to cruise, and then close the game out from there.
G2: He leads with Leyline of the Meek. He plays figure of destiny turn 1 figure and passes turn 2 without pumping him. I go to burn the figure, and while I’m tapped out he goes for raise the alarm, which is horrible for me. I can’t find any answers for the tokens, but am able to chain cryptic taps to buy time to kill them. I then cruise and find an anger of the gods to kill his now 3/3s, but he has a spellskite out. He plays angel of jubilation. I misplay hard and try to burst lightning skite, but it’s a 0/5. Oops. I die to angel. I had enough burn to just double burn skite + bolt the angel. Oops, reading cards is hard.
G3: He keeps a one lander, and doesn’t hit land until his turn 4. Unfortunately for him my turn three was goyf + snare backup, so when he went for skite on turn 2, I snared it, making my goyf from a ½ to a 4/5. I follow up with knuckleblade + haste, putting him to 12. Next turn I swing again, but he chumps with raise the alarm. He untaps and tries to go for kor firewalker, which gets snapcaster -> spell snared. I untap and kill him.
R5 vs. UR Delver (2-3)
G1: He’s on the play and leads with swiftspear, gitaxian probe. On my turn 1 I play a fetchland and pass, leaving up spell snare for pyromancer even though I am able to bolt the swiftspear. This was a huge misplay on my part, since I should have read that if he probed turn 1 he didn’t have pyromancer. Of course I get punished by letting him untap, taking 1 for switfspear, trying to bolt it end of his turn and getting it mana leaked. I found snapcaster two turns later, but he had a spell snare for the second removal spell. He plays 2-4 spells every turn following and just kills me with swiftspear. Fun games.
G2: He leads with delver, which I kill. Then he goes for a swiftspear. I take a little damage from it, but stick a goyf. He next turn he attacks with spear again, and I don’t block with my ¾ goyf. He tries for pyro, which gets snared, and plays a delver. He had hurt himself so much already with shocks and probe that I swing at him with my 4/5 goyf and playing a second one. He passes back without attacking. Next turn I crash in with both goyfs and he chumps one of them with swiftspear, keeping delver up. He has no hope, and loses to my goyf army.
G3: He passes turn 1 without a play, so I put a steam vents into play tapped. He plays swiftspear + thought scour, hitting me for 2. I bolt the swiftspear and put a breeding pool into play untapped, paying 2 to keep snare open. He attacks for 1 with swiftspear and thinks for a little while, but ends up playing pyromancer anyway and I hit it with snare. He was hoping that I was bluffing, and I think he’s right to play it anyway since spell snare isn’t going away. I’m able to untap and play a goyf, but don’t have removal for swiftspear. In a few turns he was at lowish life and I had a pretty good board state, with several cards in hand and him on one card, he topdecks a treasure cruise and draws into double bolt and kills me, despite me having the game on my next untap. Such is life.
R6 vs. Affinity 2-1 (3-3)
G1: I’m on the play and keep a hand with serum and some bolts. He leads with double ornithopter, springleaf. I play a land and pass, and he plays a chalice, so I decide to double bolt the ornithopters. I untap and play a 4/5 goyf, but he plays ensoul artifact on chalice and hits me for 5. I untap and cruise, making my goyf a ¾ without instant or land in GY. He goes for a etched champion which I remand, and attacks with chalice. I fetch a land and block with goyf (derp). This activates the vision and burst lightning in my hand. I swing with goyf and he plays an etched champion. In a couple turns I find a cryptic, tap his team and kill him.
G2: This was a close game, but he got in a bit too much early damage and gets two etched champions in play. I have a destructive revelry for his plating, and then clear most of his creatures besides two etched champions and an ornithopter. With his champions tapped, I play a knuckleblade, give it haste, and swing for 8 with him at no cards in hand. He draws ravager and kills me. It was unfortunate, but I had to make the aggressive play here to get him down so that a cryptic command tap or burn could finish up the game later through the double champions.
G3: He plays T1 vault skirge and a mox opal, and I bolt during his turn. I untap and pass. He draws and passes. I untap, play goyf with snare up. He draws and passes again. I play knuckleblade + haste and put him down to 12, and the game was basically done at that point.
So, there was my report. I made some severe misplays, but I just started playing this deck and given that most of my experience in modern right now is with Utron it takes awhile to adjust. I was very happy with how the list performed overall, and I will be sticking with it for awhile to get better with it. It’s somewhat tricky to play though, as it takes a lot of patience and good timing. Knowing when to tap out for creatures can be hard sometimes.
Burst lightning highly overperformed. I will be replacing the magma spray with the 4th burst lightning for sure. I would have done that anyway, but I just couldn’t get ahold of the 4th one for the tournament. The kicker was incredibly relevant. Both in the tourney and testing there were so many times 4 damage was relevant: Killing Exarchs, spellskites, archangels, colonnades. Plus 4 damage to the face, snapping it back for another 4 damage to the face is highly powerful as well.
Knuckleblade was very powerful, as I had hoped and anticipated from my limited testing so far. A lot of times just being a 4/4 with haste is relevant enough, since having enough bodies that can’t be burned out is very relevant. The size and haste gives you the ability to switch between control and aggro very quickly—Gofy gums up the board, you use your spells to control the opponent for a bit, then you drop a knuckleblade, give it haste and swing for 8, threatening 10 on the next turn as well. Bounce has not been irrelevant either as it lets you scale into the late gam even better.
Snare was great. 4 seems heavy at first glance, but it was a card I always wanted to see. It hits a lot of problem permanents and helps your games on the draw immensely. Additionally on three mana it’s a lot safer to play goyf and leave snare up, which helped me a lot to find windows to play goyf.
Cryptics were very nice. I made a last minute swap to put them in over a shackles and huntmaster because I just never wanted to tap out. You’re bound to drag most games out, and being able to cryptic counter + draw, untap and play a cruise breaks open so many matches. Tapping the enemies team is very powerful with big creatures too, and the extra counterspells are sorely needed for some matches.
I was unsure about my manabase, but it’s been pretty good so far. I will keep watching it though to see if being mana flooded/screwed tends to hurt me more often. I’m unsure what I’d replace with it.
For the most part my SB was fine. I need more concentrated testing before I decide specifically what I want to do with it.
Let us know when you have an updated list for the new format!
Unsure what to fill the cruise spot with. A list of cards I'm interested in:
Vedalken Shackles
Surrak Dragonclaw
Grim Lavamancer
Huntmaster of the Fells
Cryptic Command
I'm really not sure what fits the role best. I will probably have to increase the land count by at least one or two without cruises. Surprisingly, they helped the deck be a bit land light because most everything was castable on low mana and it was easy to cruise into land 4-6 later in the game.
+1 Cryptic +2 Lands? 21 is indeed VERY light
Surrak always struck me as more of a SB card for the U matchups
After doing some thinking and a small bit of testing, this is the list that I'm going to go forward with testing:
//Lands (23)
1 Stomping Ground
2 Breeding Pool
2 Steam Vents
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Raging Ravine
//Threats
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Savage Knuckleblade
2 Surrak Dragonclaw
//Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burst Lightning
//Blue
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Spell Snare
4 Serum Visions
4 Remand
2 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
//Sideboard
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Flashfreeze
SB: 2 Anger of the Gods
SB: 2 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Negate
SB: 2 Dispel
SB: 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
SB: 2 Spreading Seas
23 lands is a little light maybe, but I think it's okay given 4 remand and 4 visions. The main changes I made with the loss of cruise was to trim back on burn a bit and to put in Surrak + ravines. The idea here was to try and add some more high impact cards with the loss of cruise, and in the new meta I don't think a lot of burn is needed--the 8 I have might even be too much right now. I'm not entirely sold as Surrak as my "high impact card," but I think he has a lot of value in this type of deck. The sideboard is pretty untuned at the moment. Given the volatility of modern, I don't think there's too much fine tuning that can happen at the moment.
I'll be bringing this to FNM for awhile I think and tuning it depending on how it feels appropriate. Not sure if this concept is better/worse than RUG twin right now. I think the loss of dig through time hurts twin a lot, but random wins are still random wins.
list looks fun - 4 spell snare is without question, at least, two to many.
I disagree. I have always played 3 snare in uwr and I could easily argue for 4. The relevence of snare in modern will always be high, and I don't feel the need to list the 20+ tier 1-2 cards it deals with.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Snare has always been a great card for me. There are very few cards which are good against aggro, combo, and control, but spell snare is one of them. It's this flexibility that has caused me to greatly appreciate the card. Additionally, it greatly increases the decks power on the draw. For example, snare into goyf is a very common line and puts me in a pretty good position for the game. I agree that 4 might be a bit too heavy, but would not run less than 3.
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