Snakerunners

Well without the fetch lands, and bitterblossom you don't have the luxury of running as much control because you don't have the thinning and constant threat generation.

Dismember, Path to Exile, and Inquisition don't require too much money; thoughtseize, bitterblossom, and the lands are the expensive part.

20-22 land is probably where I would go if it isn't possible to get fetch and shocklands, 2-3 Vault of the Archangel still.

I'd cut Honor of the Pure down, or completely out in favor of some of the control options.

Midnight haunting isn't a bad card, but I don't know if I can see the point of using it in place of any of the current options in the deck. Raise the Alarm is cheaper, Beckon apparition will help with graveyard control, spectral is 3 for 3, souls has flashback; the only card I could see it replacing would be the Doomed Traveler because he is a 1/1 creature and without Paragon, and Honor of the Pure he won't have the same relevance in power.

Keeping the deck list closer:

-4 Paragon of New Dawns
-4 Honor of the Pure
-4 Doomed Traveler
(-12)
+1 Vault of the Archangel
+4 Path to Exile
+2 Dismember
+3 Inquisition of Kozilek
+2 Midnight Haunting
(+12)

Cards I just want to throw out there:

Doubling Season, Primal Vigor, Corpsejack Menance; each can help with +1/+1 counters and the first 2 will help get extra tokens if you ever went with something like White Sun's Zenith, Increasing Devotion, Army of the Damned, Mycoloth, Avenger of Zendikar etc.

Decree of Pain and Life's Finale are both good board wipes; Decree will draw you cards, Finale will allow you to target out a few cards in an opponents deck (creatures) to say "No you don't get that" to.

Sun Titan and Eternal Witness together can be a pain for everyone else as they infinitely recur cards from the grave, especially if you find a way to get Witness to the grave on a regular basis while keeping Titan. Wood Elves and or Yavimaya Elder are also good targets for S.T. as they can help ramp and thin lands.

Vorinclex, Sheoldred, and Elesh Norn are just huge must deal with threats in EDH as they generate a ton of advantage.

Mirarai's Wake will give your creatures a buff while also doubling your mana effectively.

Ashen Rider can make a mess of things as it can deal with anything (without Hexproof or Shroud of course) but it can deal with Gods.

Terastodon, like an Ashen Rider sort of but it is a big guy who can deal with many pesky permanents, other than creatures.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, I'm honestly surprised to not find this in the deck. I mean with any sac outlet and Triskelion you have an infinite combo which is kind of fun. Past that he is very solid as he gives (most) of your creatures a buff and undying.

Greater Good, great sac outlet that will help filter cards and generate card advantage (Might consider doing Unburial Rites with this one).

Aura Shards, because dealing with Artifacts and enchantments is really nice to have.

Genesis Wave, dumb mana, get HUGE advantage.

The three on color zeniths, they are advantage engines as they can be reusable considering they shuffle back in, as well each has a solid effect, that should be useful.

Sol Ring, Commander's Sphere, Darksteel Ingot, Skyshroud Claim: Mana ramp and such is usually really important. Darksteel can't be killed, Sol Ring is 1 mana for 2 mana every turn, Shyshroud will grab 2 forests (not it doesn't say basic; if you have temple garden, overgrown tomb, savannah, bayou). Sphere will let you draw a card, and with Sun Titan you can recur it.

Avenger of Zendikar, Craterhoof Behemoth; these two alone are solid advantage in creature form. Behemoth and blow out games, Avenger can make a ton of blockers or attackers later in the game after you get some land drops. Add birthing pod to make them ridiculous as you can pod Avenger into Behemoth and win right there.

I'm guessing that this is going to be a budget or at least semi-budget list.

Otherwise I would say; You are too heavy on just creatures and token generation in general, you need to play the token generators that will be big impact and then add in some board control and hand control elements such as Thoughtseize, Path to Exile, etc. Also to fix the mana base to have 23-24 lands with 7-8 Fetch lands (a high land count with fetches will guarantee that you will have enough land as well as eventually thin the land from the deck so you draw more relevant cards later in the game).

Tokens: 15
4 Lingering Souls
4 Spectral Procession
3 Timely Reinforcements
4 Bitterblossom

Board Control: 15
3 Dismember
4 Path to Exile
1 Zealous Persecution
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

Planeswalker: 3
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Buffs: 4
4 Intangible Virtue

Land: 23
4 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Godless Shrine
3 Windbrisk Heights
1 Isolated Chapel
2 Vault of the Archangel
1 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Fetid Heath

I'm not sure exactly what to think, it is interesting. I think it is a little hard to comment on because of how unique this deck would be to modern.

A few things though:
I would try to start collecting some of the more expensive lands: Verdant Catacombs, Windswept Heath, Marsh Flats, Godless Shrine, Overgrown Tomb, Temple Garden, to name a few at least.

Birds of Paradise would probably be better than Chromatic Lantern in terms of being able to ramp up. With a 3cmc "ramp" like Lantern you are looking forwards to 5+ cmc instead of 3-4cmc which would be better.

Cut 6 cards keeping 22 land at least and 3-4x Rampant Growth (Farseek once you get the Shocklands -Shrine, Temple, Tomb-)

You never want to play above or below 60 cards in your deck (unless you are playing EDH).

Think about and explain the synergy in the deck. A pile of planeswalkers isn't going to win you the game without have a reason for each and an idea of what you are trying to pull off with them. (Example Garruk Wildspeaker and Lingering Souls-- T3: Play Lingering Souls; T4: Play Garruk Wildspeaker use his +1 to untap 2 lands, flashback Souls; T5: Use Garruk's ultimate giving each of the 4 souls +3/+3 and trample. This would be an attack for 16 in the air with just a few token creatures)

5 hard CMC (aka something without Convoke or Delve) is pushing it a little bit in a tempo/midrange deck like Junk (Abzan). Sure some decks play higher but it is usually either Pod decks (no longer), Tron (mana ramping), True Control (counter and kill until late game where 1 Fat Fatty drops on the board), or Grave-abuse (Unburial Gifts; Gifts Ungiving a Unburial Rites and either Iona or Elesh Norn into grave, 4 mana into Rites flashback get out a big 7-8cmc monster onto the field that almost wins outright)

Yeah I use this website primarily to document thoughts so I end up making a ton of decks that all look primarily similar to each other just a few variations on the idea.

This deck is quite old, and the idea never really shot off, the whole using Varolz in modern for a scavenging ability to turn 1-2 creatures into big scary, scary monsters.

I'm not sure what I think is the most complete. If I had infinite money I would play something with 4x Tarmogoyf and maybe (maybe) a few Dark Confidant. But with Rock as of now it seems as though D.C. is making his way out in a few different builds that are focusing on trying out Tasigur, and a few Rhinos that up the CMC costs a bit much for D.C. to be the best thing to have around.

I'm constantly on a quest to build without those two aforementioned creatures cause well, I'm too broke to spend $1000 on 7-8 cards.

My current build is going to be something like:
2x Anafenza
3x Rhino
2-3x Finks
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
2x Voice
1x Resto Angel
3x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisiton
2x LotV
1x Garruk Wild
2-3x Lingering Souls
handful of kill (Decay, Path, Dismember, Maelstrom Pulse)

I love Abzan colors (Junk/ B/W/G / Abzan / Rock) I have a decent collection of cards focusing on those colors more so than Jund for example.


I haven't really done much with the decks ideas as I was a Melira Pod player (bye bye Pod) so the above (deck in comment) I can actually put together for very little extra money (~$50) so I'm hoping it works well enough I can play with some hope of winning.

I'll likely be deleting a handful of the random Rock decks that I have just sitting in my list (the number you see now isn't barely a representation of the number of decks I've posted on this website).

Well per request: http://www.mtgvault.com/snakerunners/decks/modern-abzan-midrange-2/

I changed it up more and more as I went. I wanted Ooze, didn't think Courser was too much of an impact on board. Harmonize is a cool card but at 4cmc and sorcery speed I just thought it would be too dead without either ramp, instant speed, or late game where you should still be keep tempo.

Each card in a modern deck should be strong enough and make a large enough impact where you don't need draw power really, unless you are a storm, control, or combo deck of some kind where you are trying to grind out some card advantage. For something midrange/tempo the draw isn't really as important as just having a card to play. Hence also taking advantage of a few man-lands. I'm also considering the idea of playing some Razorverge Thicket(s) and/or more Stirring Wildwood(s) especially with Liege around.

As of this comment I noticed 2 things.
1: 53/60 cards
2: Only B/G (Really, Kitchen Finks split cost is making the deck cost show up white; and 2 Lingering Souls in the Side)

Junk:
+1 Stirring Wildwood
+1 Temple Garden
+1 Godless Shrine
+1 Windswept Heath
-2 Treetop Village
-2 Swamp
+1 Forest
+1 Plains
(+2 Lands)
+3 Siege Rhino
-1 Inquisition of Kozilek
+1 Garruk Wildspeaker
+2 Lingering Souls

Consider:
Path to Exile in place of some Putrefy / Dismember, in general given the opponent land isn't the greatest but a 1cmc exile answer is usually helpful enough to make up for it.

Jund:
1 x Bloodstained Mire
2 x Marsh Flats
4 x Verdant Catacombs
2 x Stomping Ground
1 x Blood Crypt
2 x Overgrown Tomb
3 x Blackcleave Cliffs
2 x Raging Ravine
2 x Treetop Village
1 x Twilight Mire
2 x Swamp
2 x Forest
(+2 Land in total)

The rest of Jund gets tricky to comment on: Scavenging Ooze, Anger of the Gods, Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, Jund Charm, Dark Confidant, Olivia Voldaren, Obstinate Baloth, Huntmaster of the Fells, Thrun the Last Troll, Chandra Pyromaster, Garruk Wildspeaker, all can be inclusions, it sort of becomes up to you. Though the highest considerations go to, in my opinion, Lightning Bolt, Maelstrom Pulse as a 1-of, probably a 2-of Terminate, and 2-of Scavenging Ooze.

-2 Putrefy
+2 Terminate
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+3 Lighting Bolt
-1 Inquisition of Kozilek

I'd also considering dropping 1 Dismember to the sideboard for another Liliana of the Veil (3 or 4-of is usually best for her)


These will not be perfect answers but I feel like these suggestions should help get you along better on the path to figure out the deck.

Good choice I think, play testing whip instead of read the bones.

Yeah I think Ruric puts you ahead in many match-ups I was just suggesting that it another potential source where you can hurt yourself. Ruric Thar could be pretty intense with whip also gaining 6 life each turn, given he has to attack.

Good thoughts on sideboard. Though I don't think I would put in slaughter games for creature heavy match ups unless you are really worried about blood baron. Slaughter Games is usually, in my experience, better against control naming sphinx's revelation or aetherling, as it tends to be their ONE real win condition.

I try my best to give constructive criticism.

While I see the potential for slitherhead I can't help but feel it is still kind of lackluster. I suppose with Kalonian Hydra and Exava I can see reasons for keeping it.

Slitherhead is not really the reason for my reply though.

I'm noticing something that would frighten me if I were the one playing this deck. You seem very well suited to kill yourself in a few ways.
1) You are going for a three color deck, three colors decks currently are a considered to be "greedy" for a lack of a better term. Not to toot my own horn but I think it is one of the things I balanced well with my deck, be it Junk and therefore having more options (you'll see what I mean later). But with with three color, no less a midrange kind of deck, you are going to find, I feel, situations where you end up shocking yourself with lands, maybe even a lot.
2) Tying into the first point, above, you are looking a little midrange-y. You are relying on 4 caryatid to block and ramp early, and there will be hands without them. Other than that you plan on kill spells and draw spells to define your early game. If you get pressured you may start shocking yourself to get mana up to "downfall" a creature. Then you need to keep doing that to make sure you have mana to play everything on curve to rebalance the field.
3) You are playing "Read the Bones" and "Underworld Connections" which are great but will be eating some of your precious health up alongside your shock lands.
4) You are playing Ruric Thar in Jund which is very strong in it's array of spells. You may find a situation where you take 6 to play a "downfall"

The three points above all have to do with lifegain, as you may have started to pick up. All of these things considered, you are very well set to take damage from your opponent and from just playing your own deck in general. I think you would do very well adding in some lifegain somewhere, whip of erebos for example could be great as it both gives you some life and also allows some recursion. Being able to whip in a Kalonian Hydra could be AWESOME! swing for 8 and gain 8 immediately. While it maybe a little less exciting with some, whipping a creature it, it may very well still be the reason you stay alive in a game.

Anyways again best of luck to you with the deck, and besides that concern I like the deck now more than ever. Cheers!

I think you would be better off adding in 2 scavenging ooze, 2 more Fanatic of Xenagos instead of slither head, and 3 elvish mystic instead of the 3 lotleth troll.

Then I would switch the 2 golgari charm for 2 abrupt decay main, sideboarding the 2 golgari charm possibly even making it a 3 of in sideboard.

Other suggestions for sideboard, dreadbore, mizzium mortars, increase slaughter games to 3. Mizzium Mortars is a big thing, if you run enough mana dorks you can reliably overload it and wipe out opponents many times, not to mention it is probably the best way to deal with Blood Baron of Vizkopa.

Domri, either you'll get lucky and she will work or you won't and she will be useless. I'd suggest either dropping out the following: bow of nylea, underworld connections, read the bones and then adding in more creatures or dropping Domri for another underworld connections and maybe another kill spell. I'm leaning towards Domri drop because your sideboard would probably involve adding in more spells main deck making Domri worse; unless you sided her out, but even still mainboard she isn't the best thing ever.

Other than just a few things it looks pretty fun, and I wish you the best of luck with the deck.

Trollking is honestly one of the more knowledgeable individuals I've run across, if not the best guy on this site, and I agree with him as always. Master needs a spot eventually. You don't need a 4-of or even a 3-of, I've seen several lists that just run 2 and it works well.

I wouldn't drop the darksteel citadels. While you would be better off getting the mox opals if you go more color heavy you shouldn't have to much of a problem with the springleaf drums and the islands you have to be able to cast a master of etherium or two. The citadels are out right artifacts which comes in handy with the cranial plating.

I would say that when I commented yesterday the deck looks a little more powerful. I guess I'm just used to my friends list and the other pro lists. I'm not sure that myr enforcer is the best card to run. While you might be able to get it out fairly consistently I'm not sure that a 4/4 in a deck that is all based off of utility and card interaction in the right route per se especially when it's 7cmc even considering affnity. I would think you should have 3 etched champion, I suppose 2 isn't terrible, but even more so you really really should keep at least 3 arcbound ravager. The sacrifice ability makes most kill spells really awkward for your opponent not to mention some explosive finishes. Say your opponent is tapped out you can sac off all of your artifacts and then modular onto a connected inkmoth or whatever and win out right.

Steel overseer though is a good addition!

http://www.mtgvault.com/snakerunners/decks/modern-affinity/

That is sort of what I think you should aim for at least short term. I believe it is a little overpriced because it has 2 master, 3 arcbound, and 2 overseer. However it is a little more expensive with some of the card printings etc where you could make a few cuts on the price by changing the sets and possibly start out with just 2 arcbound or no overseer but either of those should probably be the first thing you pick up next chance. Then finish inkmoth, opals, glimmervoid, ending with blinkmoth.

I must have just kind of read relic too quickly assuming that target ... was target card or something like that. Even still I would say that it is better than tormod because you can get more utility out of it. I suppose it doesn't inherently work as well as I thought but the exile and draw a card is kind of nice. I know that many decks run the card, I don't have a deck that does though.

Anyways I hope the deck goes well for you and that eventually you get everything to make a completed affinity deck.

Honestly this seems like a pretty good version of a budget affinity deck. I don't think I would change it from what you currently have. But I would think you should start trying to pick up the non-budget cards overtime. I would start with trying to pick up 2 master of etherium; then start going for the inkmoth nexus; then go for the steel overseers; then the mox opal; finally pick up the remaining glimmervoid and blinkmoth nexus.

Don't remove arcbound because he is arguably the best creature to have. My friend has pulled off some crazy wins because of arcbound. While the white "quest for the holy relic" deck is a cool idea and powerful if it works you need to make it happen or else you are kind of screwed. The mulligans would be terrible trying to get to a point where you can get land, creatures, and the quest in a manner where you can then win. Thoughtcast and galvanic blast are HUGE, you can get badly shut down by a few things if you don't have some contingencies. Cards like Linvala can ruin your day if you aren't prepared with a galvanic blast to blow her up.

Sideboard; grafdigger's cage can be a big one against pod decks, I would aim for relic of progenitus over the tormod's crypt. Relic can full wipe but also can be more useful because it can be utilized more just doing single targets; Snapcaster Mage targetting mana leak... relic the mana leak. Crypt would have to be a full wipe and then you could get screwed later when you need to remove a graveyard and can't.

You really jumped on me, and for really no reason. I was trying to construct a simple, respectful, and professional response.

Again I see your point, yes many G/R monsters deck use 4 polyk, and then something like 45-50% running 3 polyk. However what is something we can take away from my original statement that still tends to hold true in G/R? You tend to be less reliant on each creature because they have more of them; the lists I was looked at were roughly 28 creatures and several copies of Domri. Alone the number of creatures in comparison to a deck with 18 (20 with xenagos the god) is enough to support the minimal loss in efficiency and power for them where it could mean a more substantial impact here. If you have 18 creatures, 4 polyk and you end up with a polyk in play, 1 caryatid, and draw 1 polyk you are worse off than an opponent with a polyk, burning-tree, domri in play and a polyk in hand. This is a possibility when you are relying on less creatures and need pretty much all of them to make the impact necessary; think of Jund Mid-range prior rotation you could end up with 2-3 thragtusk in play, and 2-3 huntmaster in play, now if they were legendary it would have been a huge issue and the deck would not have preformed the same. Now if you go "well Olivia was a legend" I would say "Yes, but she was typically a 3 of and the biggest target because 1 hit removal dealt with her not to mention if she survived you more or less won". This of course is still without the mention of Domri providing fairly consistent gas in the form of creatures which isn't something as easy to do with this deck; please note this isn't G/R monsters even if the initial idea came from that direction. Further we should investigate the ability of this deck to keep polyk alive vs G/R monsters; while this isn't a huge factor it's worth some consideration. Jund will have thoughtseize, and possibly slaughter games and/or golgari charm to protect a resolved polyk better than G/R can, cause as far as I know G/R doesn't really have protection like G/B/x does.


So I'm not saying 4xPolyk doesn't have a place, I'm saying the difference in styles of decks can make a difference in how you need to evaluate things. Just because Jund Midrange (of old) used 4x bonfire doesn't mean that any deck running red, even something as close as jund aggro, needed to run even any copies of bonfire. Your argument seems to be based on the capability of a deck to cast a card in turn rendering that card as immediate addition and likeness to a deck that could be fairly different.

I think the issue with looking at this deck (the one you posted a link to) and then abstracting that 4x Polukranos is good is probably not the best way to look at it. Looking at the number of creatures (26) and then Domri (4) he should actually be getting some benefit from Domri's +1, with the additional gas of creatures pulling an extra polyk isn't a huge deal. Here you need to be drawing relevant threats and answers consistently. While the Underworld Connections help to smooth out minor errors adding into the the negative factor is probably not a good idea especially in regards to what needs to come out for more room. Land?: Probably going to cause more inconsistency than need be aka more likely to do harm than good in the long room. Other creatures?: only makes the factor of not having relevant cards to use a bigger issue. Kill? Sure it can kill something on it's own the kill here has valid reasons for existing and polyk will add to making the deck more mana heavy and less effective at board control.

In whole I believe 3 of would be a maximum for this deck in particular (and 2 is probably just fine); further add on that the posted deck is a "test deck" aka doesn't really have any solid results to back up the choices or anything. I've seen pro decks flop that are decks like this, ones posted in theory but without real evidence of how they work in true practice.

As far as sideboard cause I feel like just throwing it out there: Golgari Charm (HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE AGOADIGHADOGASI GHAEO; stopping wrath, killing master of waves, kill d.sphere, whip, spear, any weapon, killing some "enchant creatures".), Slaughter Games (taking out sphinx's rev). There are probably others but now I'm forgetting what else I was going to suggest or whatever

Like the way the deck is shaping up though, keep it up

Thanks, and before someone points it out, I said pro green on Mistcutter, I think we all know it is pro blue. I can make some really dumb mistakes when I let my fingers start do the talking while I do the thinking.

Many fail, such wow!

Not hating or anything though

I feel like if you went Cerberus route you end up hugely in a different direction and would be a total rewrite on the deck.

3 Mystic (ramp)
4 Caryatid (ramp)
3 S.Ooze (3 because of cerberus)
3 Thoughtseize (deal with threats you otherwise couldn't if resolved)
4 Hero's Downfall (best kill for creatures and planeswalkers)
2 Abrupt (good filler kill, deal with d.sphere, domri, etc)
2 Mortars (blood baron hate)
2 R.Return/Sire (One or the other, good hand hate and power)
2 Mogis (b/r god, dmg or sacs, more likely to get devotion than Xenagos)
2 Vraska (for whatever reason, I'm still not big on vraska but it seems she has a purpose)
3 Stormbreath (good power, and haste in the air)
2 Underworld Connections (help fuel the deck)
2 Cerberus (kind of the fun power in the deck that could make a big impact)
1 Whip (lifegain and recursion)
25 Land

I said this in my comment but I don't think that Domri is the best card. Domri may provide some support here but typically you want to have something like 22+ creatures (at a low) and this is typically in G/R decks that don't have the kill control (while he fight ability can be more useful in other decks) and using a walker for their ult in general is just a bad idea.

Xenagos could be a decent walker here but again you still don't get a ton off of the ramp ability to make it worth it. Underworld Connections, Whip of Erebos, Rakdos's Return all stand to make more of an impact.

This brings up something I forgot was lacking. I wouldn't want to run Jund without R.Return (personally cause I love the card A LOT)