Ways to STOP T0 GRIEF/FURY - List your ideas!
Modern forum
Posted on Nov. 23, 2023, 6:55 a.m. by sergiodelrio
Good day fine people of Tappedout.
Today, without going into a rant because it has all been whispered into the wind 1000 times, I would like to Brainstorm with all of you ways to defend against the aggression in-game, for I believe in an MTG universe where the Johnnies/Jennies can handle any oppressive strategy that chose to infest their meta.
In case your memory is rusted, the SCAM deck uses Grief and Fury alongside multiple Not Dead After All effects for extra value to pick your hand quickly and/or killing your small creatures and PWs but they get to keep their evoked creatures anyway.
What I ask for in this thread are either specific cards and/or combos that can negate their 2for1 lines of play, preferably on our own T0 or T1. Another option could be describing a shell that could have the potential to entirely nullify their strat for one reason or another and does itself need not be reliant on quick execution (T0/T1) by default.
I'll start:
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The reason I even included T1 and not just T0 is Gemstone Caverns. This card, however inconvenient to work with, opens up 1 mana of any color in case they go first so for example Mana Tithe, Spell Pierce et al could counter their Not Dead After All (and yes, I see how that is absoluely not optimal, we're just putting any idea on the table) or maybe a Stern Scolding can counter at least a Grief.
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Chancellor of the Annex is like a conditional one-shot leyline Mana Tithe but comes with obvious drawbacks.
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Leyline of Sanctity prevents them from targeting you alltogether, which is nice, but that card is a really bad topdeck.
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I guess there are multiple ways to exile their GY with the undying trigger on the stack, but that also just solves half the problem. Leyline of the Void stops the reanimation part.
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Then there are cards like Loxodon Smiter that just GOTCHA discard strats, but what would the rest of the deck look like? Kinda meh?
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Disrupting Shoal is pretty interesting imho and has always been a secret weapon of mine. Sure, it is still 2for2 but we're not losing tempo? Hard to judge.
EDIT:
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Surge of Salvation, Silence and Hushbringer style cards have been suggested
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Sanctifier en-Vec, Defense Grid and Void Mirror have been suggested
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Cheap MADNESS cards might be an option as well Big Game Hunter, Blazing Rootwalla
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Cast or recast from GY like Bloodghast and cards with flashback Lingering Souls
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Veil of Summer is a "well rounded" hate card for many situations
So I'd like to hear your thoughts and ideas on this, please!
If you want, in addition to mentioning cards and shells, it might be interesting to also discuss what the rest of the deck would look like, or a general strat of that deck, since obviously a pile of removal spells and hate cards still need a way to close the game.
sergiodelrio says... #3
nbarry223 fine contributions, thank you!
Silence and Surge of Salvation are indeed interesting options. As you mentioned with Elesh Norn, there are multiple of those Hushbringer style cards that actually shut down a plethora of nonsense flying around in the meta.
November 23, 2023 8:17 a.m.
Veil of Summer is a decent candidate for an anti-Grief. There are several MV 1 ways to prevent Fury damage; Surge of Salvation is probably the best, but Ethereal Haze is another option.
I'm pulling from my turbo fog days for inspiration, so these suggestions are definitely reactive, rather than proactive.
November 23, 2023 11:41 a.m.
wallisface says... #5
Scam can’t realistically T1 Fury if you’re playing an interactive deck (cause you’ll just kill it before it gets too oppressive).
Leyline of Sanctity is imo a great Grief counter. Leyline of the Void prevents them doing any recursion with either Grief or Fury.
^ but I think outside of those 2 cards, anything you’re doing where the Scam deck is on the play, is likely going to be suboptimal. There are loads of strong options once you have 1-2 mana, and a bunch of decks that just naturally play well against Scam even after being Grief’d/Fury’d. But I think most of the other turn-0 options fall increasingly into the “jank-desperation” bucket.
November 23, 2023 2:06 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #6
legendofa completely forgot about veil. A+ hate card
wallisface Jank-Desperation is my middle name xD
November 23, 2023 4:28 p.m.
I played this deck against a friend who got the shits if he didn’t win every game, and would run the most OP stuff.
He got very annoyed.
November 24, 2023 12:06 p.m.
wallisface says... #8
Argy that is not a Modern deck, has nothing to combat Grief/Fury, and is completely off topic for this conversation.
November 24, 2023 12:52 p.m.
CandiedRats says... #9
Or the poor mans higher casting cost version.
These are normally auto includes for me in this current meta. They have the bonus of stopping cascade triggers as well.
November 24, 2023 3:05 p.m.
wallisface says... #10
CandiedRats Note that while Void Mirror will stop Grief/Fury being free-cast, Chalice of the Void won't, as the cards still have a mana value - although I assume your intention with Chalice is to play it where X=1 to prevent them reanimating their Grief/Fury (but by the time you can do that it's probably too late?)
November 24, 2023 3:18 p.m.
psionictemplar says... #11
I think most of the viable options at this point have been included, but I will toss in Sickening Shoal, Shining Shoal, and Disrupting Shoal as possible reactions to the turn 1 scam. However, I do think your personal deck choice makes a greater impact on which options you should be pursuing such as being able to cast your hate pieces if not in your opening hand (looking at you leylines). In addition you also have to consider which between grief and fury is the greater obstacle for your deck. If you are a combo deck for example needing to assemble many pieces, planning against grief would probably be better. If you are aggro, I'd say fury would be the better choice to combat. The ultimate point being your hate of choice should combat what hurts you the most and gives you the most freedom throughout the game instead of trying to find a 1 size fits all winning solution.
November 24, 2023 10:36 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #12
I guess if we made an all-lands deck that would do the trick xD
If at least there was a more effective way to fight triggered abilities the format would not be pants-down like that. Those are a real bottleneck. I know there are ways but they also cost more than 1 mana.
November 25, 2023 10:39 a.m.
wallisface says... #13
Wotc printed a nice article today which pretty heavily counters Fury
nbarry223 says... #2
While not a t1 or t0 answer, I’ve always liked copy creatures like Phyrexian Metamorph to answer Fury, letting us 2 for 1 on the backend essentially.
As far as answers, the best I’ve got is Surge of Salvation or Sanctifier en-Vec/Defense Grid/Void Mirror/Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines if we can ignore the turn premises.
As far as other cards, there’s things like Silence that stops them from casting further spells if played before they resolve, otherwise the reanimate effects can just be used in response.
There’s also all the various 1 mana counters. I don’t really know of a good answer to the turn 1 double Grief - it is pretty suppressive honestly.
November 23, 2023 8:09 a.m.