Hey, how aggressively can this deck mulligan, it runs a low land count, so 6 might be max, but I could see 4/5 if you have traverse? How do you play it out?

SynergyBuild

Yeah mulligan to 6 is probably best. 5 and lower gets kinda scary, which goes for pretty much any deck. But I have a low enough curve that you can keep a low land count in hand on a mulligan. Then kill/counter all your opponent’s stuff and then they will draw more lands and that will give you a window to get a Gifts off to stabilize. Search for Azcanta and gifts help you catch back up off mulligans.

Hope that answers your question! Let me know if you have anymore.

It seems like if you know the opponent's deck, resolving a Gifts Ungiven with the right pile wins the game. Am I wrong in that assumption? It appears to me it is the sultai player's Cryptic Command (Which is normally the win in jeskai/azorius control decks, as the tempo it gives is insurmountable by most decks).

Would you consider running more of Cryptic Commands?

Also, a card I run as a one-of for delirium, and because of it's interaction with Mishra's Bauble, would Crop Sigil do work here? I have found it is easy to use it as a bad Search for Azcanta  ^Flip, that can later be both halves (minus the lifegain) of a Pulse of Murasa, below is my list:

Sultai Toolbox

Modern SynergyBuild

4 VIEWS

Hello! I've been testing this deck online, and I was wondering, do you have a sideboarding strategy written out? No problem if you don't, thanks.

SynergyBuild

Gifts doesn’t always win the game on the spot. It for sure puts you in the right direction. It’s the turns before gifts that win the game. The goal is to get to a safe spot where you can get the gifts off without dying to combo or big swings. So if you are able to get the correct answers leading up to gifts then I usually win the game...unless I punt the game somehow haha

Cryptic is good at one I found. Really helps the mana and also your life because you won’t need to search for shocks as much early. I talk about cryptic at one in my video.

Thanks for the questions!

Leafbladefighter

I don’t have a guide! that may be something I’ll have to work on. It’s just because I usually change my side 2-4 cards every event I play just to do testing and such. But since you are playing online please tell me your results and what you think. I’ve had one person get ahold of me and play at one Fnm with the deck and gave me some great feedback and it helped me do some key changes. So I’d love to hear what you think. I don’t have magic online so I don’t get much testing besides the few paper tourneys I can make.

Are there any specific match ups I can help you with for sidebaording?

I’m not playing on Magic Online, I’m testing it on a website similar to Cockatrice called Untap, because I wanted to test the deck before I invested in it. That being said, I’ve defeated Burn, Humans, Abzan, and KCI with this deck, and I only lost to Ponza due to my own personal errors.

Leafbladefighter

Good job! Yeah I haven’t beat ponzu yet. It’s really hard to answer everything of theirs, especially if they are on the play.

For siding in general I just look how fast my opponents deck is. If it’s super fast I tend to take out Azcanta And even sometimes some amount of gifts. I side out spellbombs vs non graveyard decks. Side out certain academy combos that don’t really work for the given matchup. Vs merfolk or cavern decks I side out all my counters and just side in all my removal.

I’d love to hear if there is anything you would add or change to the deck? Or what you thought worked about the deck. It really helps out.

The deck is really good, the few things I might’ve cknside is one Tireless Tracker as a tutor target, because it acts as both a finisher if you need something to quickly close out the game and a card advantage engine if you are low on cards, that can be found with a Traverse. Basically the Traverse package is decent I just want one more finisher/card advantage card. Also I’d cut a Decay or Spellbomb to bring the deck down to 60 cards.

Leafbladefighter

Glad you like it. Yeah 61 cards is kinda my thing lol always run one extra. But yeah I noticed that it does need a finisher main board besides locking out opponents. I had tireless in the original list but the fact that our creature count is so low they always had an extra removal to kill it. If you notice on my last “update” I talk about winning some games with a main board batterskull (I took out countersqual for it). It works great with academy and also doesn’t matter if they have removal. You can always bounce it or equip it to a witness/snap. So I really liked that. But also to make traverse a finisher I just added Ishkanah, Grafwidow. I haven’t got to play at a locals with it yet. But it seems pretty sweet because it can kinda stabilize the board while also great to recur with lily, pulse of murasa, or witness. Maybe test that out and let me know how you feel.

Let me know anymore if you have questions!

Yeah I mean Batterskull is really good, it’s quite the beating, especially against Aggro decks. I loved when I windmill slammed it against burn. The only problem is you can’t find it with Traverse the Uvenwald, if you don’t have a gifts. I’ll try Ishkanah and see how that does in the same slot.

You know, that 61 card thing is the worst thing I have ever heard, I feel so bad for you, were you born with this?

i cri ery tim!

Awesome +1

I tested with Ishkana, and was underwhelmed. I beat Infect and a bad mill brew, but cast the giant spider neither game. I do think cutting one Abrupt Decay is the right choice if you want 60 cards. I still love the deck. It hits the right balance of competitive and totally unique.

Leafbladefighter

Yeah I haven’t got a chance yet to test ishkanah. I just like the fact that is spams the board. 4 blockers to me is going to be at least two more draw steps that can help get me back into a game or maybe gives me a turn to chump block and cast a Gifts or activate Azcanta for an extra card. I’m just too grindy of a player sometimes I’d admit that. lol but also I like ishkanah to help me win a game (activating effect) when I side in my ensnaring bridge that I’ve been testing out.

I don’t know if I’d take out decay. It really helps in the lantern matchup and any deck that runs Lilly. It’s hard to pressure her in the deck because of the low creature count. I’d probably cut a Spellbomb like you originally said. But I’ve been super impressed with the spellbombs over baubles.

Another creature that I’ve been thinking about testing is v-clique. I think it’s a great piece of disruption or helps fix your hand (that is fine if the remove because I already got value off it) that can also clock an opponent.

Please feel free to tell me any updates from your time playing the deck. It’s really interesting to hear!

I've been testing out Wurmcoil Engine in the Ishkana/Batterskull slot. It's pulling it's weight so far. I like v-clique, but this deck is really tight so I'm not sure what I'd cut. Btw, in the past few days I've beaten a lot of really kind bad decks that aren't worth reporting about, as well as UW Control (looping Ghost Quarter was exactly my kind of fun) and Infect (turns out removal spells.dec is bad for the creature combo deck, who knew).

Leafbladefighter

Wurmcoil is one that I actually haven’t thought about! Seems great with the academy too. The only 6 drop creature that I’ve thought about running is Torrential Gearhulk because it can also be looped with academy and anytime I can add some instant speed game to the deck it really further sets itself apart from the Jund midrange strategies.

Just a quick thing that I think I may test out is a trinket mage in place of the baby Jace. Jace is really slow to set up and I rarely find myself tutoring for it or even having it survive. I think I would tutor for trinket mage a bit because it will add the artifacts to my hand that I need for certain matchups. With the addition of a trinket mage I can add graf diggers cage and a pithing needle to the side. With 3 traverse and 1 trinket mage it like I have 5 copies of the hate artifacts that I side in with only taking up two slots in the board. Idk...seems interesting. Also turn 5 trinket fetching hangarback casting it for 1 counter seems like a nice little line to buy a couple turns with chump blocks.

I agree with cutting Jace for Trinket Mage - I’ve been sideboarding out baby Jace a lot of games with the thinking that “Oh it’ll just die before I can flip it.” Trinket Mage works really nicely with the mini artifact package you have, especially because the only tutor you have that can get artifacts is gifts.
Torrential Gearhulk is also a good card for the big creature slot. I like Wurmcoil Engine because it improves Aggro matchups. Getting to turn six isn’t all that hard, so dropping a big lifelinker generally stonewalls them. On the other hand, being able to have a big body and cast another removal spell might have the same effect. And it might be more versatile. It requires testing. I’ll do some of that and come back to you.

Leafbladefighter

Awesome! I updated to list to have trinket mage in it.

Also another idea that isn’t on the list yet is cutting one search for a Jace the mind sculptor. I think Jace is pretty bad in modern right now but if I could get him on an empty board with this deck he is pretty insane. I think this deck makes him a little better. His minus getting a witness back to hand. The many many ways of shuffling the deck after a brainstorm. Being able to loam back 3 lands and then brainstorm exchanging to two of them for real cards. Brainstorm putting two bad in top and then minus lily last hope getting the two out of the way. Idk search has been really good for me but it’s bad when you draw the second copy and I tend to never search for search lol I could see me throwing a Jace in a Gifts pile as an additional win con to the deck while also filling the role of a card advantage machine. But Jace may just not be right for modern lol

Just a gift pile of JTMS, lily last hope, traverse (or pulse of murasa), eternal witness seems like a great card advantage/grind pile because I can get a board of both the walkers looping the witness.

Leafbladefighter

Also I am curious on your thoughts on the ensnaring bridge in the side? Have you had a chance to use it? It’s obviously for nearly any creature heavy matchup. But I thought it would be good for Bogels and Eldrazi. I’ve only got to use it at one FNM and it did win me a game.

T12H
Yeah I haven’t ever sided it in, I just never thought to. In theory it seems amazing. I’ll be sure to try it in my testing.