Titanic Greed Episode 8

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Welcome back to Titanic Greed, everyone.

[00:00:03]We are re-recording this episode because of audio problems last time. I'm Reed or Reed Q7, your host. Um, George, my regular co-host, is currently taking a break from Magic. Um, which I mean, we all need that sometimes. And I have with me here Alice. What's up, Alice?

[00:00:23]>> Hello. It's It's great to be back. Um, it's always a pleasure. So, >> all right. Um, so we got, you know, some big news. Uh, Lotus Field is banned. Uh, Violent Outburst unbanned and Fage banned. So, uh, you know, the one that's pretty relevant to us is Lotus Field. We don't need to harp on it too much, but uh, any thoughts on the bands?

[00:00:50]>> Um, mostly that like we desperately needed a ban in our deck. It was like ridiculous how >> it was absurd how high the window was.

[00:01:02]>> And what's like really interesting about this is I think that this is going to end up being it's it's going to get end up going down as like one of the least impactful bands. Um we'll we'll get into that in the rest of the show, but >> sure.

[00:01:15]>> Uh there have been some like unimpactful bands in the past like when they banned Bridge from Blow to try to stop Hogak. I suspect Lotus Field is is going to end up being like that. Um, but you know, time will tell. So, >> I here's my suspicion. I think the deck will get slightly weaker and we won't quite hit that 58% win rate, but I think we're still very capable of developing a deck list that'll be like 53 54% and just perform pretty well. Like definitely above average still like maintaining the old Titan stuff.

[00:01:54]uh just not quite the absurdity of oh I for landscape shifted win out of nowhere that we used to have you know >> well I agree with that completely um for one that will be incredible having a 54% win rate in a deck is like that means you're fire firing on all cylinders you know >> um but the other part of that is um they continue to print new cards and the amount of uh lands they print you know they print lands all the time so >> they're never going print another land though that makes three mana entire format I think. I don't know.

[00:02:28]>> Sure. Sure. But there's lots of lands they can print that make the deck busted again, you know. Um so uh or green creatures as well.

[00:02:35]>> Or green creatures. Yeah. Yeah. They pushed Cub. So I mean if they print anything like that in the near future, then we'll be fine. That works like better for Titan.

[00:02:46]>> Cub is an interesting one. I I expected it to to see play in amulet and then it just like didn't work. I drew it and it was terrible every time. So >> yeah, I mean in our deck it's a silven carotate or whatever. Like it's a slow slow ramp unfortunately.

[00:03:03]>> When you earthbent a Lotus Field, my god that was that was some crack. But >> or you Lotus Field did your Earthbent stuff. Anyway, um >> yeah, >> V out Albert got unbanned. So Living End and Rhinos are back on the menu. People have different opinions of how busted that's going to end up being. I started out thinking it was going to be the absolute piss nuts and that was the only thing you can really play. However, after playing them, and maybe it was a skill issue, but after playing them, I I did not feel like they were, you know, that good into quite a few decks. Um, the meta feels very wide open and you can pretty much run into anything. And if your deck isn't uh proactive, I feel I think that you're not going to get very far in the current uh postb meta. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:03:54]>> I think that's actually a great point. I actually, this is like my entire philosophy around modern. Um is you should be playing the proactive deck.

[00:04:03]You need to be asking your opponent the question like, can you beat me? Um, and if you're not doing that, you're probably just making a mistake. Like, you know, I think Jess Sky Control is like a laughable deck because, you know, you you get to ask them the question, you know, are you going to beat me almost every single turn? And the only way they can do that is if they somehow draw Nars plus their one days I'm doing, you know.

[00:04:28]>> Yeah. Exactly.

[00:04:30]>> Yeah.

[00:04:32]Um, and then Fage being banned, it means that Boros is uh a little weaker.

[00:04:40]However, I think Fage was one of the best cards against Boros itself. So, you know, it gains some, it loses some. I think it probably loses more than it gains, but I think it's still a viable deck. Uh, it just might not be 20%.

[00:04:55]I think that on the whole when people figure out the correct list, Boros's win rate is going to be roughly the same.

[00:05:03]>> Yeah.

[00:05:04]>> Um that's because win rate is a sum over your like matchup spread.

[00:05:10]>> And Boros has certain matches that it like lost heavily in, but by not playing Fage, you get to play these other cards that gain you a lot of equity in certain matchups. And so like the primary thing I'm thinking about is Ranger Captain.

[00:05:27]Ranger Captain is a truck against our deck, you know, like I don't want to see that card, you know. Um >> against particularly us, Fage is really bad and the other cards they're going to bring in are going to be a lot better.

[00:05:38]So it might just become a harder matchup.

[00:05:41]>> Um it was already a hard matchup. Um >> yeah, >> but of course, you know, they lose terribly to um uh to blue eye control, right? Because what blue eye control is going to do is just like, you know, they galvanic discharge your ranger captain on your turn and then they untap and cast wrath of skies, right? And what is Boros going to do against that? You know, they they're just going to fall over. So, >> um >> yeah, I I here's what I think. I think the previous version was really really skill rewarding and it made it so that, you know, really strong players could do well in tournaments. um and that the overall win rate there were so many people playing it that it was all sort of a wash and it was going to end up 50%. However, those select few were going to be absolutely insane on the deck. I wonder now if you know those really good players are going to stick with the deck and if it's going to be as skill rewarding without having fage in the deck. I don't know.

[00:06:39]>> I think it will be even more skill rewarding. Here's the thing like Fage is not a complicated card, right? Like I guess >> you do the Fage thing or you don't. the sequencing around flage might be complicated is what I was trying to get at. But yeah, >> uh I don't really think it is. Um I I I completely agree with you that I think Boros is an extremely high skill deck, but the skill is is more around how you sequence your one one twos and threes, how you combo the various effects in your deck. And Fage was none of those things. Fage was just like I you have this thing I need to remove. I remove it. Um yeah.

[00:07:17]Um, I guess this also weakens Jess Blink or sorry, Jess uh yeah, Blink as well as uh Domain Zoo. I still haven't been seeing Domain Zoo around.

[00:07:32]>> I know.

[00:07:33]>> I I loved both of those matches. Like I just felt like, you know, I I don't know if I've said this in the Titan Discord, but I had a 31 win streak into Jess Sky Blink. 31 matches in a row. Um, and like h I'm really sad that I don't get to do that anymore.

[00:07:55]>> That's actually crazy. I don't I don't know how you pull that one off.

[00:07:59]>> They their deck can't do anything. You You just cast your cards, right? And as long as you like play around, consign solitude, you know, back when Lotus Field was there. Now, you know, if Fage was around and we didn't have Lotus Field, I would be pretty worried about the matchup, but they don't have Fage anymore. So, um, >> all right. So, I'm going to present some thoughts I've been having. So, Lotus gets banned and I am at my team testing house for Cincinnati and everyone in the house is still asleep cuz it's like the Monday of everyone's going to get on their flight and I I just like, you know, yell from downstairs like some somebody's like, "Are you okay?" I'm like, "No, Lotus is gone." Oh, it was the worst. And um and largely my mindset around this at the time and before was the deck is gone. Um without Lotuses and without Lotus' turning scape shift into a viable and useful card in our deck, um I can no longer play the deck Amulet Scape Shift, which is really what I have always thought of it, you know, in recent times in my head. I think Titan is a misnomer at this point and that scapes shift is largely what I want to be centering myself around. Um, and this was a lot of other people's mindsets too is like, all right, what's the next best thing? The next best thing is going to be Dryad Valicut because that's what we always played before.

[00:09:28]That's what was good in the past. Um, I think that putting four or you three or four D of the Elian Grove in my deck is going to be the proper future for how to build this deck and and so a lot of people tested that, you know. Uh, I think there was a canister stream. I didn't watch the canister stream, but I streamed later that day and did a whole league. I went like 04 or something absurd. 14 maybe. And I think Canister had a similar situation where he just did absolutely terribly.

[00:10:00]We were both feeling uh I don't know how Canister was feeling, but I was not feeling good about it. Uh I don't even think you tried testing it is what you had said, right?

[00:10:10]>> Oh yeah. I thought there was absolutely zero chance that that dryad would be relevant. I can like get into my theory on this. So, my rough theory on deck building in modern right now is that every card you play needs to either replace itself or win the game. Um, and you know, there's lands. Um, and so if if you're not doing that, like you cannot build your deck that way. And Dry of the Allesian Grove is a card that does not replace itself. none of the text on that card is good. Um, you can get that effect by playing Arboral Grazer.

[00:10:53]And on top of that, your combo dies to Fatal Push, Galvanic Discharge, and Solitude, the three best removal spells in Modern. You're not allowed to build a combo deck that dies to those cards. um you will just never be Boros if um Boros or you know and any any mid-range pile and you know I would like watch people stream the the Valica decks and they would like die to their mid-range piles and it's like yeah that's exactly why um and uh on top of that like Boros can just gain life out of the range of Valut a lot of the Valut lines like it just gains life out of the range of them by existing and that is just not an acceptable position to be in. You need to be able to beat the card slot pride.

[00:11:45]So >> yeah.

[00:11:46]>> Yeah, I'll slot pride's a house.

[00:11:48]>> So um I like to put as few bad cards in my deck as possible and uh I think different people have different opinions of what bad cards are. I think I think Titan's a bad card. I I think orb's a bad card. Um I think all the bounces are bad. in tandem, these things work together very well. However, when you put a four of that, you know, is a nonland, right? So, it's filling these like very precious non-land slots and you're playing four of them or three of them. Um, and you have to have it to win and it doesn't replace itself like you said. Like, that's just such a big deal.

[00:12:28]All these um, you know, non wincons basically replace themselves.

[00:12:32]Spelunking, Rumble, uh, what have you.

[00:12:35]Green Sun Zenith. Um, and this is just a two four body.

[00:12:43]>> Yeah. Sorry, what' you say?

[00:12:46]>> It's ridiculous card advantage. Like in the mid-range grindy battles, the fact that it shuffles back in is so stupid.

[00:12:51]Yeah. Um, like you you really feel it in those in those battles. Um, and yeah, it really it fills Dryad fills the splunking slot. And Splunking is such an absurdly better card than Dryad is. I I can't believe that people want to play this list. And like listener, if you're listening, please just you got to stop playing Dryad Valican. It It's not going to get you anywhere. Um, it was viable once and modern, they have printed so many more cards, right? Like um >> I think it's like the old Gab Nif saying or whatever. He always talks about like ah if only we could play all the good three drops, we'd have a we'd have a we'd be able to do anything, you know, but you really can't, you know, you can't fill that three drop slot with just bad card. And once you hit three again, you want something that's like really threatening to win the game, like spelunking. Spelunking is terrifying to your opponent every time you put it down. If you put down a dry of the Elles and grove and you don't have like two to three lands in hand, it is embarrassing.

[00:13:53]It is just not going to be useful whatsoever. So, these are my thoughts on dry >> etbed and drew a card. I think it would be like great.

[00:14:02]>> Oh, it would be ideal. Yeah, >> you would probably play quite a bit of it, but um it doesn't do that. So, >> yeah. Unfortunately, we've moved out of um the Age of Modern where all the cards sucked. MH3 got printed and Dread just can't keep up. You might think like, oh, but you know, it kept up in the past against all these hard metas, but we had the one ring at that point, so things were different, you know, like you could just draw an insane amount of cards and live far too long, and we can't do that anymore.

[00:14:30]Um, >> I also think that the one ring era decks were actually like hilariously misbuilt.

[00:14:37]Um, and no one noticed because the one ring was so centralizing that like you didn't need to innovate. Um, >> I actually defer in this opinion. A lot of people a lot of people say this and that we should have been playing like Lotus Field or Spalunking or you know all these different things. I I don't necessarily agree because the one ring was so warping that the deck functioned better the other way I think. But maybe maybe that is right, you know. I don't know. But it you could you could do really anything you wanted during the course of the game and you would win. So like um your main goal was just to dump a lot of lands on the field and D was really good at that at the time and spelunking was like okayish at that, you know, but D was a little better. I think during those >> I think people hadn't figured out the lines and so >> they didn't realize what they were missing. Um like anyway I I have a couple more points I want to say about this.

[00:15:36]>> Um >> so I recently started playing Magic.

[00:15:40]Like I've only been playing Magic for two years so I don't have the like nostalgia biases that a lot of players have. Um and I think they're like really pernitious. Uh, a big like nostalgia thing that people have is for Fable of the Mirror Breaker. Like they put it in 2026 modern decks. And that card is embarrassing. That card could not even be played in standard I suspect. Um, and Dryad and Valet are those kind of cards.

[00:16:09]And I love killing my babies. Um, everyone else should as well. Uh, the only baby I won't kill is Mr. Beast. So, um, >> I was happy to kill Mr. Beast every time. I'm happy to kill anything in this list. I look at the all the cards way too critically. I don't know. Is there anything that I like hold on to too dearly? Scapeshift probably. That's my baby.

[00:16:34]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the best card in the deck. Yeah.

[00:16:36]>> Um, there's another thing about the Dryad Valket lists, which is um, Shifting Woodland is one of the most busted cards ever printed. It is like absurd how stupid this card is. It is so uninteractable. Why is it instant speed?

[00:16:52]Why does it not tap? That's crazy, right? Um I have so many wins against so many decks where it's just like well uh I make a copy of Splunking with Shifting Woodland and you are dead. Or I make a copy of Titan and I swing with Titan.

[00:17:06]Like I there were no slots to put a Shifting Woodland the Dryad Valet builds. Sad. Um, okay. I think we've beaten the dead horse.

[00:17:15]>> Beaten the horse. Uh, so moving on. So the progression, I want to talk about the progression a bit of how we got to where we're at. So we test the dried list. They suck. So we're like, okay, let's go back to a list that plays scape shift. Because in most games when you get the four mana and you look at the board state and your opponent's about to win, you have to have the scape shift. That's how you win. It's it's um the card that makes this deck viable in 2026 modern in my opinion. And you kind of have to put some uh bad cards in your deck to be able to play Scapeshift nowadays. I I would like to make the maybe it's a good maybe it's a bad argument that Lotus Field kind of was a bad card to draw a lot of the time. It was bad in your openers. Um, it was really nice when you like spelunking in a Lotus Field to be able to titan early or like scape shifted away two lands to be able to titan early, but in most normal scenarios, Lotus Field was a bad card to draw. And so, I think that drawing Zern Orb or Safekeeper in the early iterations of this build, um, it's pretty bad. Like you don't really want to see it in grindy games, but you also didn't really want to see Lotus Field in grindy games. I don't know. Is this a decent argument?

[00:18:40]>> Oh, yeah. I would have a hand that would like beat Blue White Control and then I would draw Lotus Field and it was like then the hand was ruined. Um, this being said, I was actually thinking about going to a third copy of Lotusfield like a week before the ban. Um, I wish I had posted about it in the Amulet Discord. I could have been such a prophet, but um I I was just thinking that like lately I had been turning Lotus Field into winds.

[00:19:07]Like instead of viewing it as like, oh no, I drew a lotus field, it was like, ooh, I drew a Lotus Field, you know, like I'm gonna this is the exact amount of like bridge mana I need to pull off some [ __ ] And on top of that, like I'd been getting better at like sequencing my lotus fields before my scape shifts, but like still managing to cobble something together. The the card was hilarious. Um I don't know. I I I I don't know. I I think most of the time Lotus Field was a good draw.

[00:19:40]Something like 85% of the time you drew it and it was good.

[00:19:44]>> Um and then there were 15% of the time you just like instantly lost the game. I think the margins were a bit higher on the bad side of it for me, but I I loved it. It was beautiful.

[00:19:54]>> I'll miss it. But my main point here is like I think that we're still pretty dang viable and we get close to what we were before um without losing too much of our equity as long as we play escape shift build. And I think we can still try and hit that 54 potentially.

[00:20:15]By the way, one little point about that.

[00:20:17]Now that we don't play Lotus Field, oh my god, our like blue light control matchup is so good. Like our lands say draw a card on them. Um >> why is that?

[00:20:28]>> That's what bounce lands do. They're a land that says ETB draw a card.

[00:20:31]>> Of course.

[00:20:32]>> Um >> yeah. Anyway, um so yeah, with that being said, you know, Zuranorb is an interesting card. I I don't think this is the case, but like I wonder if there is an argument that like we should have been running it all along. Like I have been loving running this card. I have been I've had a lot of scenarios lately where like I draw Zern Orb and I'm like, "Wow, that's like the best draw in my deck." Um it's really bad in your opener, but as the game progresses, you like drawing it. Um I >> I haven't been liking drawing it as much. However, what I like about Zern Orb is so so in the early builds, people were playing the safekeeper, the Zorn orb.

[00:21:18]They'd add like random stuff like the tomb of Arammy, which um I did the math on and it turns out it takes way too much setup for that. Uh then they found Sephilid Coliseum and they found some really cool lines for that. Um, I worked through that and I determined I think I would rather just get the analyst, you know, so like scape shift T West packed analyst. T- west is now in the graveyard. You return it back to the battlefield, bounce it to your hand, and then transmute for orb. This is like a this is like a three mana setup, you know, for for the sack. Whereas Steph coliseum, that's like a two mana setup.

[00:21:59]um that requires threshold to start. So I I am happy enough with just analyst returning the T- west and then getting the orb and it makes things super easy.

[00:22:10]We were playing safekeeper. I was largely playing safekeeper cuz I was thinking well what if I can't access the orb at some point but pretty much in every scenario where I could have gone to get a safekeeper I also could have gotten an orb in that same exact scenario just by using the T- west. So, I really don't think the safekeeper is that necessary and that if you have a green suns or a packed in hand that you were thinking you were going to go use to go get safekeeper. There was probably just a better target in your deck post analyst. Uh like um I don't know, Colossus, Titan, any of the above. You just have better targets >> most of the time. Like you're it's Colossus that is like the good target there.

[00:22:54]>> Yep. I I think that safekeeper is very good into a deck that does not exist right now, which safekeeper is just like a goated card into just sky blink. Um, but that deck doesn't exist and mostly safekeeper is a card that makes your like your escape shift lines completely resilient to consign. And I mean, if a Jess Sky Blink deck appears, I'll probably consider Safekeeper.

[00:23:24]Again, one of the the pluses of Safekeeper is if you have a GSC in your hand, you can um you can uh like cast your GSC before you scape shift and then, you know, all the bounce triggers go on the stack and you sack all your lands and then the bounce triggers fizzle. So not we do not have access to that line in the current lists but I have not been finding that it's necessary and we will we will see how >> time tells >> I've been feeling the same way >> discuss the um double amulet line. Do you want to you want to get into that? I want to I want to quick frame scape shift for a bit um >> for people listening >> because I think it's important to understand the difference between a four five six landscape shift scape shifts with one amulet and two amulets etc. So um going back to the point I think this deck is amulet scape shift um and that the deck should largely be built around scape shift functioning properly. The rest of your deck can do what it needs to do. You'll have nut draws. You'll have Saga Amulet into Titan. That's just going to happen. You don't need to set up your deck too much for that to happen. The things you do need to set up are how you can properly scape shift to win. Some people are saying we should be playing two Tallario Wests.

[00:24:47]And the reason for that is you can scape shift for you know six lands and one of your west goes and gets packed for analyst and the other goes and gets certain orb and that produces the loop.

[00:24:59]I think though an important thing to keep in mind is the difficulty of getting a four, five or six land scape shift goes up exponentially. Um it's not a linear thing. it it is exponential like uh your opponent is very likely to win before you can get five or six lands on the battlefield. I just think it's very unrealistic largely because if you have a five landscape shift, the best line in that case is always to go get cultivator colossus. Like it will win you the game.

[00:25:33]Um maybe uh like I don't know 99% of the time more like it it's just going to win um as opposed to doing a six landscape shift for the other thing. So, every time you think of a new line with scape shift, your first question should be, is this better than a five land cultivator colossus shift? And the answer is pretty much always no. So, um the and then after that you may ask, okay, why are we still playing analyst? Why are we trying to do graveyard stuff? Why not just play Colossus? And the answer to that is once you do land Colossus, where do you go from there? Like, right, >> your opponent's about to kill you.

[00:26:11]They're like a Boros or Ruby opponent.

[00:26:14]um you're going to put two titans on the battlefield and haste them. Are you gonna win from there? No. You need like something that's really truly going to get you through anything. And that is where analyst will come in, which I just accidentally took out of the deck. Um that doesn't matter. That's where analyst comes in and analyst is going to give you the full loop for the win. As well as scape shift with like a green sun zenith in hand. having analyst in your deck. Um, you scape shift for a particular amount of lands, you go get the analyst, you return everything, you orb, you win. Um, so we've been working through lines with this particular build, and the really hard one to find for a while was how does Titan win off of the old two amulet line? Like, we don't have Alicut in our deck. we don't have uh Lotus Field to make um to make the analyst a kill right away. Like how do we make this a kill?

[00:27:15]And nobody had found the line for a long time. Um and then people were like tinkering tinkering around with Sephid Coliseum and someone posted a line in the amulet discord about Sephid Coliseum and they said, "Okay, um this is a post combat win and you have to have exactly two amulets. You cannot have a spelunking involved in this line. Um, the setup for that line was to copy your Titan and attack with both Titans. You don't make a third Titan uh before combat. So, you just attack with two Titans. Um, you go get a Micros Gardens, which turns itself into an a third amulet. And then you also go grab an Odawara with the other Titan attack trigger. You leave up enough mana for post combat that you can odor your so you odawar your titan during combat so it never connects and post combat you leave up enough mana that you can recast your titan and from there you can grab uh bounce line to west make nine mana get analyst win the game um >> get analyst into zerord >> yes and we're so people were doing this with sephid coliseum like oh this is how you win a sephid but it turns out there was actually just a win the whole time by transmuting for these earn orb and uh even tide Alex in our chat figured that one out. Uh we were all like disbelieving or at least I was. I was like, "Ah, there's no way we could do that without like, you know, some bad card in our deck." But it turns out it was there the whole time. And so I post it in the amulet discord. I say, "All right, does uh I I put it in find the line because I want to see if anyone can solve it. Uh because that's just exciting for me." Um, and I post it in like 30 minutes later. Bill, I don't know if anyone knows Bill from the Discord, but Bill just like posts this like beautiful cave line that uh requires one less bounce than we had before. And it's just it looks so much cleaner. And I'm like, okay, I'm glad I I'm glad I was able to, you know, put it out there to the community and someone was able to find an even better solution than what what we found. Um, I don't know. Uh, I've been talking a while. What do you have?

[00:29:27]>> Um, yeah. So, I I think that this is one of the most important like discoveries we've had in a long time where I was watching a canister stream the other day and he got to two amulet titan and then he lost cuz and you know they didn't have interaction like he would have won if he had known this line. This is a thing that like especially against the race matchups is just like absolutely critical like against prowess they don't have any way of interacting with us and if you do not win they are going to kill you right um and uh I was actually like because of the lack of this line I was dooming about Titan like I was like Titan is dead I even posted in the the amulet discord like you know we're not going to be able to to like put up results Um, and um, the second that this line was invented, I was like, we're just back.

[00:30:25]Um, I, you know, this line has almost all of the same properties that the previous line had. You know, it dies to consign in Solitude, but that's fine.

[00:30:35]Like, you're not doing this line against those decks. you you're waiting uh you you wait against those decks but against the fast decks storm prowess uh Boros game one you know this is how we win um the other big innovation that I think uh was was part of why no one had found this line was this line is very reliant on micin gardens um it's reliant in like more ways than you think like the micin gardens helps you get to double amulet so you're getting to double amulet a lot more than the previous list did um And then in the middle of the line, you need to make you need to get to three amulets. So, um yeah, I once we like adopted Mason Gardens, all of a sudden my like win rate just like went back to what it was before. Um >> and I think a large part of that was uh at least in my mind or landscape shift was so huge in the past to us being able to win fast enough to beat our opponents in modern. Um, >> yep.

[00:31:34]>> That we needed to like recuperate some of that speed somehow. And since we have so many open land slots now, uh, with, you know, Lotus gone, Mico really does a nice job of of accelerating us to that point to where we just win faster. And I Michael has been great for me as well.

[00:31:51]>> Oh, also, uh, like as you said, the land slots, we're only playing two Kremling vestage because unfortunately, you know, Kremling Vestage was like the most broken land in the Lotus Field era. like you wanted you wanted two of them in every one of your hands pretty much. And unfortunately the the card just like doesn't it doesn't bridge like it used to. Um and I was having a lot of hands where like I would just draw two crumbling vestage and in the past that was a win and in this in you know without Lotusfield I was just losing.

[00:32:21]Um, yeah. I also think that there there's another line that I think is like very relevant that um we found only a couple hours later, which was a two amulet um for landcape shift. Um I think this is is actually like the same level of importance probably. Um that is a thing that happens a lot where you have two amulets and and four lands and um it's it's somewhere in here I think a little bit.

[00:32:49]>> Oh, here we go. two points.

[00:32:52]>> Previously, people had been running two T- west in their in their deck, and every time I saw someone do that, I was like, that's crazy. There's no way that's right. There has to be a way to win um with with two amulets and four lands. Like, you have two amulets. You know, anything is possible when you have two amulets. Um and uh it turns out that there is a win. It's just really convoluted. And uh we're not going to describe it for the the the chat, but um we'll >> win. Yeah, we'll link it's like a GitHub uh post where we're trying to condense some of the more common lines on there.

[00:33:26]>> Um >> um and this line does not require you to uh run two copies of T West. It only requires you to run good lands like Cave and Woodland and Zuran Orb and T West.

[00:33:38]>> Just making sure though it's not spelunking proof, right? Not a spelunking proof line.

[00:33:42]>> Uh no, I'm pretty sure it is. I don't think we care about We don't actually haste. So, um, >> yeah. So, it's not as important. Maybe micoent, though, >> cave.

[00:33:51]>> No, no, it it doesn't matter. This is completely spelunking. Um, >> nice.

[00:33:55]>> The It is very notable that the Titan 2 amulet is not spelunking proof. Um, so in my mind, it's like it's honestly more of a corner case line, you know, but >> because I just have spelunking on the field so much. I guess with Micros now, it's less of a corner case.

[00:34:11]>> Yeah, it comes up a lot. Also, like if you have a grazer, you like the the line still works because you get gr turf and then you know you you make two red and then you the gr turf bounces handwware and you you grazer in the um the the handwear. So like I I really think it's fine. Like if you have any amount of extension, you still win even if you have splunking. And truthfully, I think it is just a matter of time until they print a tap taster. Like and the second they do that, this, you know, this line becomes splunking proof.

[00:34:42]>> Flame village, please save us. Uh >> please come to the format.

[00:34:49]>> Um yeah. Yeah. So Spawn King, um we've determined is just still good. like it's still just really powerful despite blocking some of these lines. Um, a lot of the time you're going to win regardless and you will have a lot of games where you get your amulet removed or you don't draw your amulet and spelunking is just one of the best possible effects in that it replaces itself, puts another land on the field, and it provides the effect that you're desperately digging for in your deck. So, we did cut one just because um very complicated reasons. I guess we just cut one, but uh but I still think it's really powerful in the deck despite blocking some of the double amulet lines.

[00:35:36]>> So, I think I've wrote this sentence in the amulet discord like 10 times over the last two weeks. You know, people have been saying like, "Oh, we should cut splunking. We should cut splunking."

[00:35:46]And it's like, no. Like there there's a bunch of reasons to not cut splunking.

[00:35:51]One, splunking into five land scape shift for Mr. Beast is still hilariously game-winning, right? Like Yeah.

[00:35:59]>> And uh five landscape shift is very achievable. Modern has slowed down a bit. Um and uh on top of that, we're not a bizarre deck. Like we're not running, you know, uh, Bizaar Baghdad where like we mulligan until we have the one card in our hand that makes our deck work.

[00:36:19]Like we can, you cannot build a deck like that in modern. Um, in fact, there is a deck like that in modern and it's like hilariously terrible. Cosmo combo.

[00:36:26]Um, >> and uh we because of that you just need redundancy in your effects. Um, so uh spunking is that >> spunking does. Yeah.

[00:36:40]>> And largely what I've been thinking is like double amulet lines are great and they're important, but they're not like what makes or break the deck for me. I find that, you know, in almost all my games, I am in a single amulet scenario or a spelunking scenario. And being able to have lines open to me that are single amulet uh strengthened is just like the most important possible thing to me. And so having having lines where it's not that different from the past when we could like forland shift, you could forland shift if you have a green suns in hand. You can forland shift probably if you have a grazer in hand or something or just like any piece of uh extension uh which is just like a term for, you know, an extra creature, an extra piece that you're missing. Um you will still have the same effect that you used to have in the past. You just might not be as good if you're like on exactly four lands and you exactly top deck escape shift. You might not be as good in that scenario, but you still, you know, maybe have outs from there depending on your graveyard.

[00:37:45]>> I really don't even think that came up that much.

[00:37:48]>> It didn't come up that much. Yeah, it that was a very rare scenario.

[00:37:53]>> And then, you know, a lot of the times you wouldn't even click the button because you would be worried about them having interaction, right? Yeah. um you'd wait until you you drew more lands to make it even more deterministic. Um I I also think that um like mumble is a great extender because it fills the graveyard with lands and a lot of the lines if you just um in fact you can go and read the GitHub gist. And uh a lot of the there are a lot of low land count shift lines uh with one amulet where um if you have lands in your yard, the lines just become like trivial and you're just like back to exactly the the exact same um situation, you know, pre-Lotus Field Band. So, um especially like if you have two bounce lands in your yard, um all of the lines are like just easy. Um, >> yeah.

[00:38:45]>> Now, of course, like this is a lot more conditions that you need to satisfy.

[00:38:49]Like roughly my philosophy on this GitHub gist is we're making like an endgame book like in chess where you're going to memorize a bunch of lines here and you're constantly scanning the game state for like am I in one of the lines?

[00:39:05]And the more lines you like you learn, the more ability you'll have to win games. I'm just going to quick read out what the lines are on here for audio only listeners. We have the Titan 2 amulets. Know the resources. Amazing.

[00:39:16]Great line. Titan two amulets four floating. Uh that seems very rare. I'm going to skip that. Escape suit with one amulet, five lands. Zern orb in hand on board or silven safekeeper already on board. Uh that seems pretty reasonable.

[00:39:30]Uh if you have a Zern orb on the board, one amulet, six lands. I think though that this one amulet, five land shift is also possible if you have like two floating, which if you have five lands on the board, you probably have two floating in most scenarios, I believe. Um, so I think of it largely as a five land shift most of the time.

[00:39:51]>> Escape shift to two amulets, four lands, and yeah, that's what we got here. Oh, and scape shift with two amulets, three lands to do. Okay, that's coming up.

[00:39:59]That's here. We we found a bug in that line and we have a solution. We just No one's bothered to write it up.

[00:40:05]>> No one's bothered to write it up. All right.

[00:40:07]>> Um and then where I think we should go from there uh in our discussion is sort of how we developed our deck list to satisfy all the conditions and satisfy all the lines that we found to be viable in this list. Um I'm trying to figure out where to start with that. I guess I'm just going to start by saying we put Mico since in cuz it makes deck go faster and then we added up to eight bounces because we want soul lands and we're losing the lotuses. Um, eight bounces has felt great for me. I actually wanted to >> Yeah, I think eight is correct.

[00:40:46]>> I wanted to take a quick tangent.

[00:40:48]Mistake did 50 with six today which I was uh shocked by that there were so few. But I wonder if Correct.

[00:40:57]>> Tinkering and messing around with that could uh >> improve anything.

[00:41:03]>> Maybe it is.

[00:41:04]>> There's no way.

[00:41:04]>> Like I you every one of your mumbles needs to hit a bounce land like >> Yeah. Okay. And then you you come up with a good point here. We need bounce lands and we need lands in general um to come to our hand and that is why Rumble has been put in the list. We started off by playing three explores for a while.

[00:41:26]Um, it was really cool when it was cool.

[00:41:29]It really did its job well in certain scenarios when you had lots of lands.

[00:41:33]However, um, I just ran into it like hitting bricks so often. Um, and I can't exactly describe why perfectly, but I just felt the rumble's been better. Um, I've been liking it a lot more.

[00:41:48]>> I think explore is an incredibly strong card. I'm a I'm a big explorer lover, but the problem in this version of the list is that you don't want your bounce lands on the board. You want them in your hand so that you can bridge the final mana gap at the end. Sometimes you have two amulets and you really want it in your hand, but sometimes you just need a soul land. And if you're like bounce lands on the board, it's not doing it its job. Um, and mumble is ramp. Like is it as good of ramp as explore? Hell no. But um you know it also digs so much deeper. Um and we should also say that we both want the listeners to experiment with other bridge cards. Like when you're building a deck in in any format, you need to fill your curve and there's lots of options for filling your curve in uh 2026 modern. That's one of the best parts about it. Um you can run explore, ancient stirrings, malevolent rumble.

[00:42:47]Um, we were actually trying ancient stirrings for a while as like a theory of, you know, hit amulets. I am pretty convinced that ancient stirrings is not viable, but I encourage people to try.

[00:42:57]Um, and I I've pretty much settled as, you know, mumble is still broken. I think uh it it is ramp and it is often a draw for and boy howdy when it's a draw for um it's like the most powerful card in all of modern.

[00:43:14]>> Yeah. Um >> Yeah. And by draw four you mean like you're putting extra lands in your yard and you're achieving you know extra ramp and you find the piece that you need. Um my thoughts here are um again so we post we find the line for double amulet titan and then we post it in the discord and someone finds a better line. I think that if um you know, if everyone just starts playing only this list, then we're not going to have a ton of creative differences and we might just miss things that are important um by settling on what we're comfortable with. So, I do very much encourage people to be testing all sorts of crazy stuff right now, but we're just trying to release this to be like this is what we think is best right now, but um come, you know, 2 to 3 months from now, we'll probably just be dead wrong on some things. And um being able to have differences is going to be pretty important for that, I think.

[00:44:13]>> Yeah, for sure.

[00:44:15]>> Um and specifically with bridge cards, as you mentioned, so we're talking about stuff like explore or rumble. Um, I had said something along the lines of like, "Oh man, I just want to cut all the explorers and put in like, I don't know, an extra scape shift, extra Titan, extra bounce land, just call it a day."

[00:44:33]And you said like, "Hey, you know, you're a limited player. You should know how to build like a responsible curve.

[00:44:40]Like that's pretty important, you know."

[00:44:42]And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I am a limit limited player. I do want a good curve, you know." So, two drops key. Two drops important. um do recommend playing those and just having a a consistent deck that can fight through, you know, stuff like interaction, like your opponent interaction on your amulet on one, are you really going to wait till turn three before you do anything? Like you should have some sort of two available to you.

[00:45:05]I think >> one of the things is when Lotusfield got banned, I cut mumble because we didn't have the the lines, right? But now that we have all these lines, especially where like when you have yard lands in your yard, you can you can do low landscape shift lines, I I'm just like so completely back on mumble. Um I was a lot less certain about this like two days ago, but you know, the more lines you develop um the more powerful this version of the deck will be. Um >> we were playing only one pack for a little while as well, um which was viable. I think it was really good. I definitely got caught in a lot of corner cases and Dom Har was making fun of me on stream the whole time. He's like, "Well, if we had two packs here, we'd be fine." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

[00:45:53]But, uh, I did hit a lot of corner cases there. I think, especially now that we've added back rumble that we should probably be playing two, but I I do not think it's inviable to only play one.

[00:46:03]The reason for that being you can go get your analyst. you can um return your Taria West that you use to get your analyst and then use that Toaria West to get orb and then you win the game. You don't need another pack. You don't need to find uh your six mana uh primeval titan or anything. That's not important. You have infinite life.

[00:46:22]You have um the you know if you have infinite life, you you are going to win against most decks.

[00:46:30]>> Yeah, there there's very aren't very many decks that can beat infinite life.

[00:46:33]It's pretty much brood scale and stam combo. um Mill, but Mill is not a real deck.

[00:46:38]>> Yeah.

[00:46:38]>> Um >> against Yeah, I think that's another reason why I think Zeronorb is like clearly better than Safekeeper is that in its it is a windcon in its own right.

[00:46:50]Um I have been loving Zuranorb. I don't know. I love I love that card. So, um it's worse than Lotus for sure, but um >> other main board considerations to look at. Um, you cut Vuba and I also cut Vuba. Um, I have not been Vuba often for me was to copy Lotus Field and I don't often find other things that I would like to copy. Um, sometimes I want to copy like my opponent's surveills or something, but that's just so rare that I don't think it's worth playing yet another colorless card in your deck when you already have cut vestigages, which used to be turn one green, and put in micro sense, which are not turn one green. Um, so I'm trying to maximize on turn one green and just good cards to draw and vuba is not one of those. Um, unless you really want to copy like a handwir to hast your titan cuz you already have one on the field or something. But like in a lot of you know matchups it's not correct to hast your titan anymore. So um I I have not been seeing it as that important. Maybe it comes back at some point but for now we're experimenting and I have been liking not playing it.

[00:48:01]>> The thing about is like vuva is the best land to draw on like turn four but like it's like almost always just like oh yeah this vuva is going to win me the game. But on turns one to three, Vuba is often game losing. Um, and those are the important turns of the game. So, um, I I think that Vuva was mandatory in the Lotus list because, you know, the text on Lotus sacrifice two lands was a serious cost and Vuva was just like a Lotus field that didn't have that text.

[00:48:36]So, >> um, >> yeah. Uh, but but now there's just like almost no point in running it, I suspect. I'm just going to go I'm going to rewind a bit because I'd forgotten to mention something about explore. Um I I think explore is a lot more viable now because we are not playing lotuses and we are playing more bounces. Explore and bounce go together super well. Um I so it's way more viable now. However, I don't know if that's viable enough to outclass Rumble, which um is a hard cl a hard card to outclass nowadays. But yeah, I just wanted to make that point real quick.

[00:49:12]Um, let's see. With the main deck, any other like real considerations to to think about or like questions you've been getting? Look at old list.

[00:49:21]>> Um, I think people have been asking me a lot about like four GSSE. This is a thing that comes up quite a bit. Um, I feel quite strongly that you need to be playing three. Whether or not the fourth is correct is up in the air. Um, I just think that like one of the biggest innovations of the last six months was everyone putting Diad Arbor in their deck and realizing that, oh wow, now we have, you know, uh, 12 turn one plays, which, you know, you have to curve. Um, >> especially now that we're shooting for five lands, right? Like, dread armor just becomes all the more important.

[00:49:59]>> Um, I'm a big like I I think Greenstone Xenith is just like hilariously broken.

[00:50:04]And um one of the one of the things about green sun zenith is it actually combos with bouncelands pretty well in a way where like it did not combo with lotus fields. Um the a very common play pattern is put in a bounce land spend one mana put in grazer bounce land and that that's exactly seven mana. That's that's titan. So um I I will be playing four for the foreseeable future. Also, we need to find cultivator in a lot of scape shift lines, and green zenith finds cultivator. So, >> yep, >> seems fine. I am not green zena's biggest fan, but I see it as a necessary evil for grabbing uh the dried arbor and also performing proper scape shift lines nowadays and emphasizing the power of scape shift.

[00:50:54]Um, I think that having the green sun zenith is pretty important.

[00:50:58]Um, we've got three Titans. A lot of people ask about that. Um, my thoughts on on having three Titans as opposed to four.

[00:51:07]I I don't think it's a big difference.

[00:51:08]Like, I'm fine playing three. I'm fine playing four. I'm not dead set. Oh, wow.

[00:51:13]Dead set on one or the other. I'm going to have to edit that out. That was loud.

[00:51:16]Uh, is that three titans? Um I I really think like think about this in a vacuum or like in Vintage Cube. Prime Titan is not a high pick. It's just so much mana.

[00:51:30]It you have so many other things you can do in your deck. Um such as scape shift or you know having the greens, but it is a lot of mana to cast a primeval titan.

[00:51:41]Um I don't feel the need to have all four and I don't like flooding out on titans in my hand. And I think that this build is really good at making it so you will always have access to a Titan even if you don't specifically have one in your hand right away. Like you have Rumbles, you have uh you know Spelunkings that redraw, you have the Green Suns, and you have two packs. Like you have so many tutors for Titan. I don't feel that you need to always have one in hand. So I'm fine not having it in hand, and I am happy playing three.

[00:52:10]Uh it just makes your deck a little smoother.

[00:52:16]It's just like what would be the cut?

[00:52:18]That's always the thing, right? Like let's say you're playing the fourth titan. The cut is green sun zenith. And green sunson zenith is basically just titan. Um like I know it costs one more mana. I get it. But um greenson zenith you can cast on turn one and primeval titan you can at best you know cast in turn two in a Christmas land. So most of the time it's like turn three or four.

[00:52:38]>> Yeah. The time old question about how to build your titan main deck has always been optionality versus speed. Um, and you know, green suns is a slightly more optional card, which I'm a speed person.

[00:52:49]I like speed. However, we are in a slower meta and um, optionality is pretty important.

[00:52:56]>> Um, >> well, I also think green zenith is speed as well. Greens and zenith fights grazer and you know, grazer bounce land is extremely important right now.

[00:53:03]>> That's a good point. That's a good point.

[00:53:06]>> Um, I I I don't know. I I I I have always kind of disagreed with your with your framing of Titan as a bad card. Okay.

[00:53:18]>> I think there are lots of matchups where Titan is like so hilariously dominating that like it, you know, it completely trivializes the matchup. Almost any mid-range fight.

[00:53:30]>> Yeah.

[00:53:30]>> Any mid-range fight you cast Titan, the game's over because like you you get a 66 and then you get the two best cards in your deck pretty much.

[00:53:38]>> But didn't mid-range just die? Mark like >> well yeah I mean there there's a reason that we're playing three >> but you know there it's not always like the worst card in your deck. Um also like control style decks you cast a Titan you put them in a really tough spot you know where like they need to start having answers immediately or they're going to lose.

[00:54:00]>> That's very >> if you swing with Titan like control just loses. Um >> um yeah. So, with the main deck, I think we've covered everything that's uh important to it. So, we could probably move on to um the sideboard, which disclaimer, we have no idea what we're doing really at the moment. The meta is wild. It like I have played against just like endless panza and random creature combo decks and stuff I've never seen before. Devoted druid stuff like nothing makes sense, at least online. Maybe in paper you will have a more organized meta, but online it's been crazy. Um, >> one one of the things to keep in mind with that is the main reason that the meta is like this is that no one has figured out a viable Boros list yet. But here's the thing, nothing about Boros's a plan has changed. The deck is still hilariously busted. Ocelot Pride is such an insane card. I cannot believe they printed it. and someone will figure it out and the second someone figures out a good you know Oscot pride deck all of these like slop decks will be slaughtered. Um so I you know I'm just waiting for that to happen. Um >> yes in the current meta I am seeing lots of frogs. They're pretty much everywhere. So cards good against frog um should be played. for a while. We were playing two six uh two seal and this was your thought. Um what uh prompted you to do that?

[00:55:38]>> Um so six plus seal is just basically like a hard lock against frog style decks. You if they're like frog gaming, you just bounce the frog every turn and frog sure doesn't do anything when it enters. Um and uh it also bounces harbinger. I've actually stopped doing this. I've I've cut seal from my deck because the frog decks are just gone. I suspect that you know frog decks die to Boros. You know what card Frog can't beat? Ocelot Pride. And you know, Boros is coming back. Um so I I don't know. I I don't really care about Frog. I've never respected the Frog Gamers. I think their deck is terrible. Um I think Frog is a terrible card, but that's a hot take. Um, >> I've been enjoying having Odawir in the sideboard uh for frog. That's been really nice.

[00:56:28]>> And yeah, >> it also is like an extra blue that cast stock up. Another thing to note is uh Mosin helps you with your stockups a lot more than Lotus used to. So, I've been enjoying that. Well, I guess we cut vestigages, so kind of a net nothing right there. But, >> um, but casting stock up still pretty easy.

[00:56:48]>> Permanent blue, right? Vestage is like like now you play your mics and you might have blue in future turns.

[00:56:54]>> That's fair.

[00:56:55]>> I've been finding stock up like remarkably more castable. Like I I almost never have problems casting it.

[00:57:00]Um and uh another thing is is now that Otawara is part of the combo loop like um putting one on your sideboard is like even less of a cost because at any moment it can turn into the win. So >> yeah, I had a run today where I was against Boros. My Boros opponent like keeps putting down threats and has like a ton of energy with guidels. So just keeps like pumping creatures and I was able to like Odawara um find an analyst, bring back both my Odawaras like you know steped somehow.

[00:57:37]So I was able to return like three to four items during that game which won me the game cuz it was going kind of slow.

[00:57:44]Uh, it was really nice.

[00:57:47]Um, >> don't you enjoy making making choices?

[00:57:49]>> I love choices. It This really is much more punishing um this build.

[00:57:56]>> Yes. Oh my god.

[00:57:57]>> Like uh you used to just be like, "All right, I need to jump through this hoop that makes nine mana and then I definitively win the game." Now it is um I do I should definitively win the game, but I have to choose the right line. And that line is hard sometimes, but you what I found is like I'll lose games and then I'll be like, "Oh, I had this line available to me. I just didn't think of it." Um, I should have won that game, which is a testament to how good the list is and also a testament to how washed I am in just actually thinking uh nowadays. So, >> I've lost my last three matches against strong players, and in every single match, we sat down after the game and realized that I just had like a completely like a a complete win that played around all of the possible interaction. And the thing was it was like a 20step line that required to like see into the matrix. And, you know, I feel I will get there someday. I think it's going to take a month or two.

[00:58:58]>> It It'll take me a little bit. Yep. Yep.

[00:59:01]Um, but you know, I'm looking forward to the personal growth. So, >> the the barriers to entry are going to get a little higher on the deck, I believe, which, you know, might be good.

[00:59:10]>> I think the deck will be safe from future bands. So, >> yeah.

[00:59:16]>> Um, >> oh, I would like to discuss the lack of dismember.

[00:59:20]>> So, this is a thing that I have been noodling on for a while where I kind of think dismember is like pure copium. Um, I think it against the Harbinger decks, you just like are so unlikely to resolve your dismember. Um, they are have a bunch of counter spells and um, so like if you don't have it the second the harbinger comes down, you're just probably never resolving that dismember to begin with. Um, and I don't think dismember really lines up into the rest of the meta. Um, dismembering anything in Boros is like the purpose of their creatures is to deal you damage and you just discarded a card to deal yourself damage. Cool. That's what they were looking for. Um, so I've been experimenting not running dismember. Um, and what do you think about this? Um, >> so I and we recorded this already once, but uh I agreed with you last time. Now I am seeing a lot more brood scale uh actually and I feel like dismember is really good into brood scale. I also think um dealing with Harbinger, dealing with Frog is is nice. I I personally think it's a two of at this point, but I don't fault anyone that's not playing it cuz if you have other cards that act as um removal or temporary removal like Odawara, I think that those um slot fine into those slots where I would be playing dismember, but I just I personally I think brute scale is going to be a big contender in the upcoming meta.

[01:00:51]Unless direction.

[01:00:54]>> Yeah.

[01:00:54]>> Um I've been seeing I think I think brood scale like it has a problem where it just like cannot beat the card sacred foundry >> and uh you know uh now the Sacred Foundry decks are gone. So um we will see. I again I my prediction is Boros will come back uh with full force.

[01:01:16]>> How's uh six been performing for you?

[01:01:20]Oh, six is the goat. I mean, I'm never cutting it for my deck. Like, I It's like the one sideboard slot that I feel is just like so locked in my sideboard right now. Um, there's just like a bunch of decks where you just like they've done, you know, they have like one threat and they have five removal spells and six just invalidates that as a archetype.

[01:01:42]>> Yeah.

[01:01:44]>> Um, I have not been liking Trinosphere lately. I have not been fighting combo that dies to trosphere. Like Sam combo, run brood scale. These are just just decks that can power through a trosphere. Like your Sam combo opponent plays a three mana birthing ritual and you're like I sure have a trosphere on the board. Um >> I don't think I'd ever bring it in there. Trphere is exactly for ruby and prowess for me. Those are the only >> right >> um and I like him there a lot.

[01:02:13]>> Yeah, >> I've been seeing a lot of prowess. Um, and which is going to punish all the dinky stuff people are playing online and make sense that it would be around.

[01:02:22]Maybe in a more developed uh post pro tour meta, we'll see less of Prowess and maybe I'll cut Trinisphere at that point. But for now, I've been I love when I pair the Ruby or or Prowess and I have Trinisphere. So, I've been liking it, but I could see cutting it. It's not it's not locked.

[01:02:40]Something I've been thinking about with the sideboard, I think it's a little overindexed into beating control. I have just been destroying control lately.

[01:02:48]Like it it is not even remotely close.

[01:02:51]I've won my last two Simic ritual matchups. Like what? That is not how that's supposed to be. Um so I I think I might go down a vexing bobble. Um I don't know.

[01:03:05]>> So walk me through and that makes sense.

[01:03:07]I I kind of agree with that. walk me through your mindset. Um, first with civic ritual, then with uh classical control >> um I guess like what you're bringing in, what you're taking out, and uh your your theory behind it, I guess, is the more important thing.

[01:03:22]>> Yeah. So, against classical control, I think siding is pretty easy, weirdly enough. Um, you bring in six, three, stock up and Ottawara, and then you cut three saga, vexing bobble. I know, weird. Cutting Vexing Bobble against the the counter spell deck. Um, yeah, three saga, Vexing Bobble, and Graaser. And like that's just like a very clean mapping. When you do this, your entire deck is uninteractable garbage.

[01:03:52]Like you you just every single turn you're drawing cards. Um, you cast a stock up and you know, they're devastated. Like, right. Um, and eventually like you're just going to you're just going to basically imitate Eldrazi ramp where you just like get to six mana and start casting titans and um unless unldrazi ramp is emer kind of a combo card like you know they cast emer and then they play a combo turn on your turn basically it's like how how the the deck works. We also have that. So like as you're playing blue-ey control, you're mid-ranging into the combo.

[01:04:35]>> And if you're playing like dry valet, you don't have that option, right?

[01:04:38]They're never going to let you resolve your combo, right?

[01:04:42]>> But the analyst combo is uninteractable garbage. And um >> yeah, they you you can just mid-range into into that.

[01:04:50]>> How does on the civic ritual?

[01:04:51]>> Yeah, go ahead. You know, go ahead.

[01:04:53]>> That was what I was gonna ask. Civic ritual.

[01:04:55]>> Yeah. So, on the Simic Ritual front, like um our deck is really good at jamming now. Um this was something that I was really struggling with with the Lotus Field deck is like Lotus Field when you jam it into like Simic Ritual Blueey Control is so devastating, you know, if they have the counter spell. But now, like you can jam and be a lot less afraid that you're just going to have zero lands on the board. Um, I uh I turn twoed my Simic ritual opponent and or no I I sorry I turn three. I cast Saga Amulet and then I cast Mason's gardens on their endstep.

[01:05:35]I made a copy of Amulet and then my Saga found vexing bobble. I was like silence.

[01:05:43]>> That's beautiful.

[01:05:43]>> And the thing is that like against their deck if you I just made three copies of Titan and hasted two of them. Like if you if you do that they should lose. So then what are your I mean your ins would be right stock up six and the two bobbles odoir as well. So that's one two three four five six cards that I'm counting. What are you >> I'm counting all of the sagas in that matchup because they're like for some reason they get to play three Force of which is just like god why do they how do they get to do that? So yeah you you cut four sagas I cut a grazer and escape shift.

[01:06:18]>> Makes sense. Yep. I like it. Yeah. And then I have to cut something else. Oh, I also cut a packed. Um, >> okay.

[01:06:25]>> Notably, this is very counterintuitive.

[01:06:27]Do not cut cultivator colossus. Very weird, but there are lots of niche scenarios in Simic Ritual where they have run out of counter spells because they actually like they don't have that much draw in their deck if they don't have um ritual. Um, so like say you like besade their ritual and they like don't find another one. Um, you can get into these board states where you just cast a green sun zenith like almost every turn and eventually you're gonna get cultivator colossus and like they can have a harbinger. You have one forest, but like you you you draw into you you play cultivator colossus and it's like a 2020. Um, this is a thing that happens to me enough that like I feel like I should be talking about it. Um, and I don't know. I I feel like it comes up in like roughly 30% of the games I win in December Ritual. Something like that.

[01:07:17]Um, >> now don't let me saying this warp your opinion, but my opinion of cultivator colossus is I've been having a really hard time cutting it in any matchup.

[01:07:24]Like, um, >> oh yeah, >> in the new build, I just feel like it's so important to have it as a reliable backup or or, you know, plan A to be honest. Cold Fator is insane.

[01:07:36]>> Um, that what like what matchups would you want to cut it in where you'd be like, it is so bad here. I cannot play this card.

[01:07:44]>> Um, frog. I cut it. Oh, I I cut it into Oh, I guess I didn't cut it in my mapping there. You probably if if if you're playing against blue white control with the like, you know, four naret build, you probably have to cut cultivator.

[01:07:57]>> Yeah. Yeah, probably.

[01:07:59]>> Um and yeah, frog. Any deck that is like I have four consigns and the rest of my deck is draw spells like you can't play cultivator into that kind of >> your goal with cultivator is to run your opponent out of resources and slam a cultivator, >> right? Yeah. I I have been doing that a lot. You know, you can run your opponent out of consigns. You know, our deck is a deck that requires you to cast consign like almost every turn if you don't want to lose. So, um yeah, I I also have not been cutting cultivator in like almost any matchup. Um >> all right. Um I don't have too much more. I guess we could talk about like the difference between the the sweepers and our thoughts on that.

[01:08:41]>> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you your options are for a second we're playing toxic deluge cuz like uh rhinos 44s and that makes sense because you get to target the the boros opponent and the you know yogm moth opponent and what have you.

[01:08:56]However life loss is pretty important.

[01:08:59]Playing black is pretty rough because you want your gr turfs to also be able to haste you know random stuff you have on your board. Um, so having red, you know, grill turfs has been pretty important and playing red cards honestly just gives the deck a better vibe all around. Playing Golgari rot farm just sucks.

[01:09:18]>> Uh, so I I think that's a really important point which is the combo is now dependent on you having a hasteland and you just can't play the raw farms.

[01:09:27]You need to have like what if you've drawn your your rule turf and it's on the battlefield like what are you going to do there? you know, you drew you drew raw farm, you have raw farms in your deck, like how do you um >> and then uh so the two options being firespot and fire magic, Boros has been on a they have to rebuild, right? So, a lot of the initial Boros builds and what I thought, you know, as a ever so rare Boros player was I'm just going to throw a bunch of uh Voice of Victories and Ranger Captain of EOS's in and then we fill the the slot that Fage used to fill. Um, who knows if it'll stay that way, but at the moment there are a lot of X3s and so um fire spout was a thing we were playing for a little while. Um, but since then, since like what yesterday, you've changed over to fire magic. What was your thought there?

[01:10:20]>> Yeah, so we've had a bunch of team members like face Boros and just be like, "Fire spout is not cutting it.

[01:10:26]They have too many ranger captains. They lock you out of casting your board wipes and they kill you." Um, and you know, back before Tacoma, uh, Boros was playing a bunch of Ranger captains, and the only solution that our testing panned out was if Boros is running a bunch of ranger captains, you just have to play fire magic. Your your plan turns into um, ramping to Titan and uh, you know, winning via via that, you ramp into fire magic and it's like your six mana win the game button. And the thing is that Boros doesn't run X Force, right? Not right now. So if you play Fire Magic, you do just win. They don't have Rebuild. Like they are going to absolutely struggle um if you do that.

[01:11:11]Especially if you do it on their turn.

[01:11:12]That is brutal. Um so I don't know. I I could be wrong about this. We could be forced to play Fire Magic. One of the things is Fire Magic lines up really poorly into Voice Victory. Mhm.

[01:11:24]>> And um they're currently playing like two of them, but if they start bumping those numbers up, uh Yikes.

[01:11:30]>> Yeah.

[01:11:31]>> Um I don't know. I encourage people to test various sweepers. I might be wrong.

[01:11:37]>> Or or test no sweepers. I I really don't know what the right answer is there.

[01:11:42]>> No. No.

[01:11:43]>> I I'm not against it.

[01:11:45]>> I I played no sweepers for a long time and it was fine.

[01:11:48]>> Well, one of the things about sweepers, they're really good into SAM combo.

[01:11:52]>> That's fair. And that's a deck that is getting really popular. Like my plan against Sam combo is I like take like 10 cards from my sideboard into the main deck. Um and just turn into like teamer control. So um >> what would I even do in that matchup if if you don't have that plan? Like you would just lose.

[01:12:12]>> Dismember. No. Uh >> dismember does not beat Sam combo. They they have too much rebuild.

[01:12:17]>> They have too much rebuild. It's pretty rough.

[01:12:19]>> Yeah.

[01:12:20]>> Um okay. So, let's let's try and wrap things up. I think we talked really extensively about the list and hopefully these are good concepts. We'll be trying to record more often in the near future.

[01:12:32]Um, I wanted to sort of like talk about my records, I guess, over the past few days and how I've been feeling while I've been playing the deck. So, I've gone 32 three different times in my leagues and then I played a challenge today and I went one and three.

[01:12:50]However, all of these losses, pretty much all these losses are two things I expect to lose to anyway. You know, like I would have lost on the old builds to these decks. The meta is pretty hateful right now. It's hard to really get through. Ideally, I don't think there's going to be like, you know, an instant situation where we're just like top baiting all the time. However, the matchups where we used to just play, you know, our normal game and we had some likelihood of winning, uh, eg not living end or simic ritual, stuff like that.

[01:13:22]Um, I I have been winning or I've been missing lines where I should have won and that's just cuz the deck is a little harder or maybe I go to time or something with Zeronorb pressing. But I feel very strongly that this deck mimics um the old deck or or is almost synonymous with it. I think it's really close and we're going to lose a couple of win rate points because we don't have the four landscape shift, but that's pretty much the only thing we've lost.

[01:13:52]Everything else is still there.

[01:13:55]>> I I think mostly the matchup spread stays pretty comparable. Um the biggest loser is Prowess. Um the prowess matchup has gotten way harder. Lotus field was really critical for for that matchup. So >> yeah, forces shift was huge.

[01:14:11]>> Yeah, that that too. But but also just like the the Lotus Field always making you have a Titan. Um that was very like important.

[01:14:18]>> It was really good.

[01:14:20]>> You know, we'll we'll see what ends up happening. Um >> Trinosphere Trinosphere is a card that you can use to beat uh Prowess more.

[01:14:28]>> Yeah, unless they have Consign. Yeah, >> they have Consign. Uh, they always have Consign. How do they always do it? They have so much draw. That's the thing.

[01:14:36]Like their deck is like it's like the most consistent deck in in moder. But anyway, >> how do you feel like your record has been and or should have been had you been playing perfectly?

[01:14:46]>> So, properly I think my win rate is like 65 to 70%. If if like if I was finding every single line like it's it's definitely still in the like completely busted range. I will say I've been losing a lot, but you know the losses are should all be wins. So I and you know every loss is another line that you get to add to your you know um every loss where you realize you could have won is a line that you get to add to your own personal endgame book. Um and so really I have not been like tracking the win rate that well. I'm mostly just like, you know, >> yeah, mostly experimenting with new builds and how do we >> get this proper?

[01:15:32]>> Yeah.

[01:15:33]>> All right. Well, >> I have not been able to play a challenge, but I will soon. And I'm I'm excited. I'm a little worried. Like the deck is really hard to play in terms of clock. Um, but >> sometimes my worry is that I'm playing it in leagues and I'm just playing against either bad decks or bad players and that maybe it's not as rigorous as we thought. So, I will continue to test.

[01:15:54]Um, we have no like set in stone answers, but hopefully you guys enjoyed this um discussion and thought into the list. And, uh, if you want to support me and the show, uh, sub to the Patreon.

[01:16:10]Um, it has a sideborg guide on it, but yeah, if you want to just support in general, feel free to sub to that. It is 15 a month. And uh you got anything else?

[01:16:22]>> Um the only thing I want to end with is if there's only one thing you take away from this, it's please don't play Dryad Valet. Um I beg of you. Um >> don't play Dryad Veloc. We don't need to go down that road. It just doesn't exist anymore. All right. Thank you guys for listening. Stay greedy. Peace.

[01:16:41]>> Peace.