Boros, Beats, Battlestar Galactica

[hamfactorial]

Ran a few in the sideboard for lulz, didn't really test them enough to know if it was good or just cute.

[Valdarith]

Too cute with only 12 spells.

[hamfactorial]

You're too cute

[Valdarith]

Careful now. Khaos may get jealous.

[hamfactorial]

He only has eyes for Storm, don't worry about him!

[Mcdonalds]

This thread has taken a turn for the homoerotic

[hamfactorial]

Especially with you here!

[Mcdonalds]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvhwMeHp1Yg

[hamfactorial]

I've made only small adjustments to the deck this week.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.23[/deck]

I trimmed 1 Helix and 1 Dismember to play an extra Hero of Bladehold and a Batterskull to help in the really grindy games.

I'm tempted to play 4 Lightning Helix and 3 Finks instead, for easy boarding against graveyard decks (-3 Finks +2 Grafdigger's
Cage +1 Rest in Peace).

The 4th Hide // Seek in the SB is probably unnecessary and could very well be the 4th Helix for aggro matchups.

EDIT: Ah, and Temple of Triumph. I forgot that I swapped them in for Clifftop Retreat. With the free scry, I may drop to 24 land.

[hamfactorial]

Ran this on today's stream -

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.24[/deck]

Match Results -

8-man warmup
Win 2-0 vs. Affinity
Loss 0-2 vs. UWR (punted by fetching unnecessarily in game 2, giving him a line of 4 damage from Collonade + double Bolt)

Daily
Win 2-1 vs. UR Twin
Win 2-0 vs. Merfolk
Win 2-1 vs.
UWR
Loss 0-2 vs. Bogles (dude had insane draws, and I'm not really equipped to fight against these guys)

8-man follow-up
2-1 vs. Melira Pod
2-1 vs. Melira Pod
2-0 vs. UR Pyromancer Tempo

[Valdarith]

I saw your game against the UWR guy with Desolate Lighthouse. Resto Angel and Brimaz FTW!

[hamfactorial]

Good cards are good

[hamfactorial]

I'm going to try cutting one card so I can run the 3rd Hero of Bladehold. Those fools keep winning me games. Maybe the 3rd Brimaz or the 4th Finks. I'm loath to move BSkull back to the board because that card is turbo value.

The Slayers' Strongholds were doing God's work today. I enjoyed having 2.

[Valdarith]

I say cut 4th Finks. You already have a lot of value in the deck and Hero has great synergy with Brimaz.

[hamfactorial]

That sounds like the way to go, I'll start trolling nerds with it tomorrow.

[hamfactorial]

I ran the same list from the daily, minus 1 Finks, plus 1 Hero of Bladehold, in a few practice matches last night after I got home from my lady's birthday party. She and the dog passed out on the guest bed while I played, didn't lose a match for 3 hours.

I didn't take notes on what I played, but damn it feels good to be a gangster.

I put a few Spellskites in the board, with the thought that they help me in the Scapeshift, Twin, Bogles, and Infect matchup enough to be worth inclusion. I dropped the Slaughter Games, 1 Hide//Seek and 1 Relic, then traded the other Relic for a Rest in Peace.

If the SB is good enough to beat Ad Nauseam and Scapeshift without Slaughter Games and Seek, I can drop the Blood Crypt and run something like Fracturing Gust for artifact / enchantment removal instead.

Small tweaks, at least. We're getting somewhere

[hamfactorial]

I played in an 8man this morning and went up against 2 nearly identical Jund decks. I pounded the first one, but lost to the second one in a battle with epic variance, stuck on 3 land until turn 10 with a hand full of Restoration Angels and Hero of Bladehold.

skill game!

I've been testing Wheel of Sun and Moon as a fun sideboard piece that hurts GY decks without screwing over my own Kitchen Finks. So far it's been effective against Storm and Pod, but doesn't give me the same game against Goyfs (which were out in force this morning)

[Abomai]

Wassup, Ham. It's "Socanelas" here. Man, I'm really feeling like putting maybe 1 or 2 Blood Moon in Main Deck. It gives a free win in a lot of games, including jund. I'm playing 3 SB right now. What would you change in the manabase to put Blood Moons at least in SB? switching 1 mountain with 1 more plains?

[hamfactorial]

Hi Abomai, it was fun talking with you this morning on MTGO, better to have you on board to help brew

I wouldn't run Blood Moon in the maindeck since there are a number of popular decks where it's completely dead (UR Twin, Storm, Merfolk, Affinity). If you're looking to abuse Blood Moon, I think that 3-4 Plains gives you a good chance of finding 2 to cast your white spells without significantly impeding Kiki-Jiki.

It's a powerful sideboard card, one I should consider more strongly given how many matches it can break wide open.

I'll see where I can make changes to the SB to make for consistent Moon blowouts.

[Abomai]

But it also hurts UWR, Jund, Pod decks. But I guess it would be ok to put in SB.

[hamfactorial]

Certainly, Blood Moon can be amazing in the right matchup. I am ok running a card that is dead in certain matchups maindeck, provided that:

1. If it has no good target, it can still hit the player (Bonfire my opponent)
2. If it has no good target, it can still help me (path to Exile on my guy to ramp)
3. I don't have too many, making for dead draws in the mid/late game (4x Blood Moon vs a basic land deck? I may as well have mulled)

I like putting my situational stuff in the SB, and bring it in where I know it will swing the matchup wildly.

[Abomai]

Sorry, but I just need to post this:

[hamfactorial]

Inquiring minds want to know: do you want to use this ability?

[Toddington]

Trolololololololol

[Valdarith]

Ham, is this thread only for your value-based strats or any RW aggro deck? I have some things in mind for Boros when JOU hits.

[hamfactorial]

This is the brew thread for my Boros midrange deck, but I'm happy to hear ideas for post-JOU improvements and archetypes. Post them here if you like, or start a new thread. I'll join the discussion.

[Abomai]

What do you guys think about switching bonfire to pyroclasm? The thing about Bonfire is that most of the times I topdeck or I don't have enough mana to use it (beginning of the game) or the opponents dont have any creature in the battlefield. So most of the times I use bonfire is as a 5 mana pyroclasm.
I thought about anger as well, but the problem is that it hurts finks and splicer too much.
Pyroclasm doesn't hurt most of our creatures, doesn't hurt finks thaaat much and we can use as a 2-mana drop before starting to cast our creatures in the following turn. And I think the deck really needs something to deal with an early geist of the saint traft (as well as bogles)
The thing about Blood Moon MD also is that it hurts most of the non-creature combos, which I think is kinda of a bad match.

[hamfactorial]

One of my early versions ran Volcanic Fallout as a sweeper, along with Auriok Champion and Spellskite in the 2-slot and the usual cast of big dudes who could survive it. It was fine, and I liked the ability to do instant-speed tricks with my Finks trigger on the stack. I would pick Fallout over Pyroclasm because it hits players, too.

Geist of Saint Traft / Bogles are currently a small portion of the meta, so I don't worry about them much. The GoST versions in particular are easy to race if I get a hand with a Finks and a Brimaz, then maybe a Restoration Angel. If they suddenly surge in popularity, I'll run Celestial Flare in the sideboard and continue to troll the all-my-eggs-in-one-basket players.

You mentioned Pyroclasm as something to play in the 2-drop slot before we start playing out our creatures. There just isn't that much that I'm scared of in the 1-2 CMC
range in Modern. Affinity can flood the board with a bunch of free/cheap dudes, but they're all fragile as balls and the whole deck folds to a Bonfire for 1 or 2. Also, there's only so much that a given player can do with 3 total mana. Best case scenario? A pod player plays a mana dork, then 2 more mana dorks. Bonfire for 1 takes care of that (this happened on stream this weekend, cleared out 3 Noble Hierarch). If they go mana dork into 3 drop, neither Bonfire nor Pyroclasm are going to 2-for-1 them.

Sure, there are games where I keep a 2-lander and draw both Bonfires and just die before seeing my 3rd land. I can't stay up at night trying to hedge against this sort of variance

The reason I've built the removal package this way is because I have the luxury of sitting back and committing to the board when the mana allows it, while holding cheap single target removal. In games where I'm the
control deck (read Flores' excellent article Who's the Beatdown? for reference), I simply sit on my 12 instant speed removal spells, trading 1-for-1, playing out an efficient threat when I'm able, then mopping up the game with a big Bonfire or accruing advantage with creatures that make other creatures. The longer the game goes, the better my deck becomes.

If you want to run Blood Moon maindeck, go for it you'll find that the two most prevalent non-creature combo decks (Twin and Storm) don't care about Blood Moon at all. Dedicating too much of the maindeck to fucking with your opponent will dilute the plan A, which is attacking with sweet dudes and winning.

[magicdownunder]

OFF-TOPIC: Would you happen to own 3x Blood Moon and 3x Past in Flames?

Once rotation happens and standard becomes a dull creature fest again - I'll love too give Modern Storm a shot.

[hamfactorial]

I only own paper PiFs, but I'm making it rain digital Blood Moons. Assuming I'm not running them by then

[Abomai]

But as I said, Blood Moon also hurts Jund, UWR, Scapeshift, Pod, GW Hatebears (which has being seen a lot of play lately because of twin) and even Tarmo-Twin a little (By the surprise effect in g1, but probably would side em out in g2 and g3). But I still undestand your thought about using it in the Sideboard.

Bonfire hurts Pod, ok. But against most other combos it is kinda useless, specially Twin and Scapeshift. Without topdecking it, unless you use it to kill mana dorks or UR delver creats (which I do think it's good), you're probably only going to see use for it at 5-mana. And in a deck with only 2 Bonfires and no serum visions or magma jet. I find it really random for it to come at the right time, even with the scrylands.

[hamfactorial]

I picked Bonfire because it poops on Pod and Affinity, which are both a large chunk of the MTGO meta, and vs. a non creature deck can still do damage if I have no other creatures to play.

We can't have a strong game 1 against everything

Funny that you mention Magma Jet, I've been testing it in Lightning Helix's place as removal with upside. Most of the stuff I'm using Helix on has 1-2 health, and digging through my deck has been high value.

[Abomai]

But the damage it can do, most of the times is minimal. Affinity I think the match is really ok with 12 removals, and it gets even better in g2 and g3 when we side stony silences and hide/seek in.

I said about magma jet when it came to bonfire, but I do think Helix is a lot better, the thing I liked a lot of your RW is that it has massive lifegain. When I play with Team Italia, I alone usually chumps a lot of my own life, even playing helixes and ajanis I still lose a lot of life, but with this deck there were a lot of matches that I finished with 25-30 life. Finks+Restorations+Helixes do the magic .

[hamfactorial]

In an effort to be flexible and adventurous, I removed the Bonfires and jammed two 8 mans this morning to see if they were really as unnecessary as Abomai suggests. I ended up getting knocked out of both in the first round by an awful BW token deck and then another awful UB Faeries deck.

forgive me, Bonfire, I'll never abandon you again. Losing to swarms of x/1s? Shameful.

I put Blood Moon back in the sideboard and it was trolling kids hard. Thumbs up!

[Abomai]

So are you leaving Bloods in SB now? How many?
Tokens and faeries aren't seeing that much play, I was thinking about leaving bonfire, pyro or anger in SB. I still need to play more games before I decide which I like most in MD.

[hamfactorial]

I always test with 4, so I can get into lots of situations where I draw the card and see how it does.

It would have been a blowout against Fae, but he had the VClique on my 3rd turn upkeep in both sideboard games. Fuck that guy.

[hamfactorial]

Currently in my 3rd 8-man for the morning, having been knocked out of the first 2 by FUCKING BOGLES. I dodged them in this one, though, waiting for my finals match to start.

skill game

According to mtgo-stats.com, Bogles has surged back to 4% share of the MTGO meta (vs 7% Pod, 6% Twin, 6% Affinity). The sideboard card that hoses the biggest chunk of these guys is Spellskite, so it's coming back to the SB.

Blood Moon is also big game against 3 of those decks (not great vs. Affinity, but turns off man-lands), so I think the overlap will handle the shift in meta. Plus, Tron is back at 5%? WHA? Oh, right, Blood Moon.

[Valdarith]

y u no stream?

[hamfactorial]

I stream on Saturday mornings when I'm not under time pressure. If I didn't have the puppy constantly underfoot and trying to play with me, I'd stream more

[hamfactorial]

Though, thinking about it now, an 1/2 hour stream every few days would be fun and get lots of eyeballs on the deck. I'm convinced!