So this is my first brew. I spent a lot of time arguing towards and away from five colors, but when I accepted the fact that I couldn't decide which colors to actually play, it got to be all five. I would love some constructive criticism on this list, as well as tips on which cards I missed, and why they should be in there.
I don't think having Crime // Punishment and Boom // Bust work since they get in the way of cascading Restore Balance. I also don't see the use of Mindbreak Trap in Modern, it's honestly a Legacy card. The Planeswalkers also feel questionable, especially Tezzeret since he mostly just fetches for Borderposts. I believe that Assemble the Legion is actually an excellent win condition that also happens to be strong versus control, can be sacrificed for Gargadon, and can be tutored with Idyllic Tutor.
I honestly don't think your mana base is good enough for 5 colors since you're not running any of the basic fetches. Unless you up the total number of lands or Borderposts, it'll be difficult to have the right mana every game.
Quick question about this, since it came up on MWS today...
I was playing against Gargageddon, and my opponent cast Violent Outburst. He obviously found Restore Balance, which he cast, with no cards in hand. Now, on the field I had a Predator Ooze enchanted with a Rancor, and four cards in hand. My question is, what are the timing rules on when creatures are sacked and cards are discarded? In other words, am I supposed to get the Rancor back?
We assumed that I was, and with that in hand and four lands in play, I topdecked another Ooze. He then was able to balance again after a couple turns, but I had held back a Dungrove Elder. I may have still won without the Rancor, but it certainly helped, and I would like to know for future purposes.
Quick question about this, since it came up on MWS today...
I was playing against Gargageddon, and my opponent cast Violent Outburst. He obviously found Restore Balance, which he cast, with no cards in hand. Now, on the field I had a Predator Ooze enchanted with a Rancor, and four cards in hand. My question is, what are the timing rules on when creatures are sacked and cards are discarded? In other words, am I supposed to get the Rancor back?
From what I understand, the Rancor trigger can't go on the stack until Restore Balance has finished resolving. So it looks like you handled this right. But I might be wrong on that one.
From what I understand, the Rancor trigger can't go on the stack until Restore Balance has finished resolving. So it looks like you handled this right. But I might be wrong on that one.
But that will slow the deck down one turn, I feel like it is really important to get a borderpost out at turn one. And because Terramorphic and Evolving Wilds lets the land enter the battlefield tapped, that is not possible.
Terramorphic and Evolving Wilds are O.K. because they do allow a T3 Cascade.
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My Modern decks: B/R/G Living End G/R/B G/R Tron R/G U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Many elements in this list look pretty suboptimal. The lack of Nihilith is, I can only assume, for color reasons. I have also tested Halberdiers and found him to be fairly weak. The bolt vulnerability is a big issue. Ephemeron solves the bolt problem but can't start clocking until turn 6, at which point he still needs another 4 turns to end the game. Nihilith, on the other hand, will often come online on turn 3 or 4 instead of 5 or 6. Those extra turns are critical.
The 4 Beast Within seems strong, but I can't envision this deck beating any aggro opponent with any consistency using only 8 cascaders and no cyclers (Living End gets away with a lower cascade count through its cyclers).
Congrats to Dustini for the finish, but I wouldn't be taking this list to an event.
Many elements in this list look pretty suboptimal. The lack of Nihilith is, I can only assume, for color reasons. I have also tested Halberdiers and found him to be fairly weak. The bolt vulnerability is a big issue. Ephemeron solves the bolt problem but can't start clocking until turn 6, at which point he still needs another 4 turns to end the game. Nihilith, on the other hand, will often come online on turn 3 or 4 instead of 5 or 6. Those extra turns are critical.
The 4 Beast Within seems strong, but I can't envision this deck beating any aggro opponent with any consistency using only 8 cascaders and no cyclers (Living End gets away with a lower cascade count through its cyclers).
Congrats to Dustini for the finish, but I wouldn't be taking this list to an event.
I think it's crazy that sub-optimal lists can top DE's. We know that the deck needs a lot more work as it's not even defined as to what's the optimal build yet between Postless and Posts. Part of that may be because it's a rogue deck, but it really goes to show how powerful the interaction is between Greater Gargadon and Restore Balance. I'm super excited as to what 3CMC Enchantments that Theros has to offer.
It's basically the postless version from a few pages back, the one using Nihilith (good), cyclers (mixed reviews), and Keyrunes (awful). To echo what fyawm said, this definitely underscores the synergy between Balance/Garg as a viable combo in this metagame. I know that one enduring problem with the deck is the lack of compelling win conditions. At least with Living End you get a horde of 4/4+ beaters. With our deck, you get either a single 9/7 with no protection or evasion, a lone 4/4 with a limited evasion, or a small squad of 3/3 Post beaters. There have definitely been games that I can't close out after having Balanced, and that's true with both the Post and the no-Post versions. Here's hoping for the eventual return of Suspend!
Edit: Guys, I think I broke the deck. If you've played all the Restore Balance in your deck and have Mistveil Plains in play, you can essentially cascade into Restore Balance every other turn. Not only that, but you can set up your draw such that the card you want to draw is the card after the last Restore Balance, meaning you can draw any card from your graveyard. There are six ways to draw Mistveil Plains via 3x Arid Mesa and 1x Marsh Flats.
Edit: Guys, I think I broke the deck. If you've played all the Restore Balance in your deck and have Mistveil Plains in play, you can essentially cascade into Restore Balance every third turn by ordering the bottom of your library to be Cascade, Restore Balance, Cascade, blank, Restore Balance. Not only that, but you can set up your draw such that the card you want to draw is the card after the last Restore Balance, meaning you can draw any card from your graveyard. There are five ways to draw Mistveil Plains via 3x Arid Mesa.
That's an interesting synergy. I'll have to test it. Seems strong against control in that you can keep cascading until you overwhelm them with threats and advantage. The biggest problem I see with that strategy is that it forces you to already have cascaded 2-3 times before you can start to see the value from Mistveil. On the first cascade, you hit your first Balance and haven't gotten to the bottom of your deck. Same on the second cascade. It isn't until the third cascade that you get to the "infinite cascade" point, and that's assuming that you cut your Balances down to 2. Now, on the third cascade, you can drop Balance on the bottom of your deck followed by whatever draw you want and then start the whole thing over again. But by that time, I'm not sure if any of our builds really needed that advantage.
That's an interesting synergy. I'll have to test it. Seems strong against control in that you can keep cascading until you overwhelm them with threats and advantage. The biggest problem I see with that strategy is that it forces you to already have cascaded 2-3 times before you can start to see the value from Mistveil. On the first cascade, you hit your first Balance and haven't gotten to the bottom of your deck. Same on the second cascade. It isn't until the third cascade that you get to the "infinite cascade" point, and that's assuming that you cut your Balances down to 2. Now, on the third cascade, you can drop Balance on the bottom of your deck followed by whatever draw you want and then start the whole thing over again. But by that time, I'm not sure if any of our builds really needed that advantage.
As I said, I'm interested to test it.
It definitely improved the control matchup a lot since there's no way for opponents to counter the cascade trigger. The Restore Balance will hit the stack, it's just a matter whether it'll be Spell Pierced, Remanded, or Mana Leak, all of which forces the card out of the library. I'll upped the number of Cascade spells to 12 so that there's more consistency in pressuring the board every turn.
Because they'll be so busy trying to keep your cascades in check, there won't be much aggression coming out other than the occasional Snapcasters. Control isn't nearly a difficult matchup as tempo which doesn't just counter our spells but also puts out pressure via Delver of Secrets, Goblin Guides, Vendillion Cliques, etc.
That being said, we're likely to be time walked here and there on the second and third turn via Mana Leak and Remand, so it's important to run out that first or second Borderpost on turn 1 and turn 2 on the play, and then if possible just drop lands until we can hit 3 mana. The goal is really to impede their land drop via Restore Balance because control without lands is easy to abuse.
I still hate the Jund match up and feel that it's basically not possible to win game 1, hence the 4x Leyline of Sanctity on the sideboard.
Here's a brief history of my version that raised recent interest. This is the list spanky_kc played the following day to 4-0 the DE.
Kaas' cascade balance list from Magic-League is the inspiration for this borderless version. His list isn't built to focus on the armageddon aspect. Rather, it attempts to mind twist the opponent so that they're left in topdeck mode to find an answer to a threat on the board.
From his comments:
"for the 'easily recovering' part. I think you're better off when your opponent is in topdeck-for-removal-mode than topdeck-for-land-mode. Because removal is very cheap nowadays. if you're opponent can keep 1 path to exile in hand, and only needs to topdeck 1 land, then you're *****ed if you don't have more than 2 creatures. Topdecking removal is harder to do, takes longer, and gives you time to recover as well, which is not so difficult if you already have 2 land or something or a suspended search for tomorrow, or a coalition relic."
For further commentary, I also found this interview a few days ago, which may be an interesting read for anyone interested in his take.
Sometime around RTR's release, I decided to take play around with Kaas' template to port it to a jund manabase. The keyrunes seemed like an upgrade to the coalition relics and cutting the 5-color manabase to 3 provided the room to add man lands. This added 5 additional threats that didn't count towards having a creature in play, increasing the opportunity to capitalize on damage after a balance. In the control match ups, it also punished players for wasting a turn on counter spell mana (or in the case of key runes, wasting counters on irrelevant spells or risk losing tempo and invalidating tax counters). Always consider using a Simian Spirit Guide to play a turn 2 keyrune. Decreasing your hand size pre-balance is a good thing in most matchups.
Despite having access to 11 cascade spells and a more consistent ability to suspend balance if drawn, I didn't like the idea of using gemstone mines. True, they do whittle down your land count when you balance, but in the control match ups you often wanted the land in play for the reasons above. 3 lands in play and a suspended Nihilith quickly puts a lot of pressure on rwu players. 6 in play and a Nihilith coming off suspend threatens to pay for the counter and potentially follow up with a more lethal cascade spell.
In my initial versions, I did try Liliana. The discard ability seemed good, but it wasn't the greatest since it was another symmetric effect. After all, if you're going to balance, you want to come out ahead on at least 2 of the 3 cases. Both players having empty hand sizes when balance resolved happened more than I would have liked. In addition, Liliana as removal was just that - a 3 mana removal spell that maybe fogged some damage. In both cases, balance is trying to do the same thing. Versus Jund, it was nice being able to wipe their Liliana but also annoying when your option is to let them sac a Bob or Deathrite and letting the 'Goyf in play gain an additional +1/+1.
Beast Within was also tested, naturally, given the proven synergy with the jund suite of cascade spells. However, similar to Liliana, it targeted card types that Restore Balance was supposed to handle. Vs. Aggro, trading an early drop for a 3/3 didn't give you the time that you wanted to draw into a cascader, and hitting a land vs. control pre-cascade came up less frequently than getting jammed with multiple Beast Withins in hand.
It was because of these constant awkward hands that I tried adding the cyclers. Having played Living End enough times to know the limited choices of cmc 3 or more spells and that plan 'B', which is playing them as threats, is a valid option for wins, it seemed like a good idea. Misleading the opponent to deck archetype is a bonus.
I'll try to follow up with a post about match ups later. I've had better results playing vs. rwu than what's discussed here and a few other discrepancies that's worth noting, but I've run out of time. Anyway, I thought bringing up the path to this version was worth adding to the thread.
Thanks for the post. It's definitely nice to hear some of your rationale behind many card choices. Although we disagree on some points, we agree on others, and I am finding myself convinced by others still. One interesting point you bring up is about the Relics. Having tested Relics in a lot of matchups, I can say that the worst possible thing to draw after a Balance is yet another Relic if you already have one in play. You get lots of mana, sure, but we don't really have any big plays with that mana. Relic is also the exact opposite of an active threat for an opponent. Keyruns are a low mana cost solution to that problem, even if I was initially very skeptical of them. Rakdos Keyrune seems like the best of the lot because it is very hard to chump it, it clocks at 3 power, and it gives the best colors. I am going to try 3 of them and, maybe, a Golgari Keyrune for some deathtouch deterrence against big early attacks.
I must disagree about Beast Within, however. That card is just so helpful in so many matchups, the most notable of which is Affinity. Inkmoth Nexus can be a nightmare. So can Plating. Heck, Blinkmoth too can be a big pain. Beast gives you game 1 options against all of those cards, while also giving you a bullet against certain cards in decks like Pod, Twin, and Jund.
Overall I am happy to see the no-post version doing well because I think it addresses fundamental weaknesses of the post version without losing either too much consistency or too much raw power.
I have been playing around with the deck quite a bit and have finally arrived at a list I feel comfortable posting. It seems odd, but honestly, I really like the Borderposts. Here is what I am currently playing:
The list has tested VERY well and is quite resilient. Belcher is a complete monster in this deck. Most importantly it avoids dying to random crap, avoids Abrupt Decay and kills all threats your opponent's can manage to drop after a Balance. Randomly it will also just deal 20 to the face in one turn (10 cards + mountain) and is an immediate threat. I know the first response is "well you play 12 lands" ... and, Belcher is just simple odds. Everytime activated, it deals an average a 3-5 damage. Occassionally you whiff, but ... not often, and especially with 6 fetches, helping thin out the basics. I highly recommend testing this as a kill source.
Everything else is pretty standard and I LOVE having Beast Within in the main. Most of the time it kills Planeswalkers/BIG dudes. But with this card and Belcher, if you opponent has a slow start, sometimes you can actually control the board with these 2 cards. It adds a really weird dimension to the deck. Lingering Souls is flat out awesome. If you have not tested it, please do. The card is so solid. It really helps mulligans in that, it buys you time, and is a relevant threat after the first balance. It also speeds up GG.
In the next few days I am going to start testing the cycler version but I don't have the highest hopes for it. Running just 8 cascaders scares me in a deck like this. However, I do like it and am going to put some time in to see if i is worth pursuing. Thoughts?
I have been playing around with the deck quite a bit and have finally arrived at a list I feel comfortable posting. It seems odd, but honestly, I really like the Borderposts. Here is what I am currently playing:
The list has tested VERY well and is quite resilient. Belcher is a complete monster in this deck. Most importantly it avoids dying to random crap, avoids Abrupt Decay and kills all threats your opponent's can manage to drop after a Balance. Randomly it will also just deal 20 to the face in one turn (10 cards + mountain) and is an immediate threat. I know the first response is "well you play 12 lands" ... and, Belcher is just simple odds. Everytime activated, it deals an average a 3-5 damage. Occassionally you whiff, but ... not often, and especially with 6 fetches, helping thin out the basics. I highly recommend testing this as a kill source.
Everything else is pretty standard and I LOVE having Beast Within in the main. Most of the time it kills Planeswalkers/BIG dudes. But with this card and Belcher, if you opponent has a slow start, sometimes you can actually control the board with these 2 cards. It adds a really weird dimension to the deck. Lingering Souls is flat out awesome. If you have not tested it, please do. The card is so solid. It really helps mulligans in that, it buys you time, and is a relevant threat after the first balance. It also speeds up GG.
In the next few days I am going to start testing the cycler version but I don't have the highest hopes for it. Running just 8 cascaders scares me in a deck like this. However, I do like it and am going to put some time in to see if i is worth pursuing. Thoughts?
I'm wondering whether Fabricate would be better than Idyllic Tutor especially with the addition of Goblin Charbelcher as a creatureless win condition. Fabricate also lets you search up the right color Borderpost so that you can have access to any color mana.
I love the Lingering Souls here because it's just such a powerful card. I would highly advocate the 2x Arid Mesa, 4x Terramorphic Expanse, 5-6 basic lands, 1x Mistveil Plains because having a land as a win condition that also happens to searchabe.
I'm also pondering the possibility of lowering the land count and upping the Borderposts count as Borderposts provide better mana coverage, and excess lands in hands have no real use. I know 13 to be the standard, but you're running 12 which I feel is closer to the correct number.
Upping the Greater Gargadon to 4 would be good as it's our primary win condition, and in its place take out a Beast Within because 4 is too much.
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I don't think having Crime // Punishment and Boom // Bust work since they get in the way of cascading Restore Balance. I also don't see the use of Mindbreak Trap in Modern, it's honestly a Legacy card. The Planeswalkers also feel questionable, especially Tezzeret since he mostly just fetches for Borderposts. I believe that Assemble the Legion is actually an excellent win condition that also happens to be strong versus control, can be sacrificed for Gargadon, and can be tutored with Idyllic Tutor.
I honestly don't think your mana base is good enough for 5 colors since you're not running any of the basic fetches. Unless you up the total number of lands or Borderposts, it'll be difficult to have the right mana every game.
I was playing against Gargageddon, and my opponent cast Violent Outburst. He obviously found Restore Balance, which he cast, with no cards in hand. Now, on the field I had a Predator Ooze enchanted with a Rancor, and four cards in hand. My question is, what are the timing rules on when creatures are sacked and cards are discarded? In other words, am I supposed to get the Rancor back?
We assumed that I was, and with that in hand and four lands in play, I topdecked another Ooze. He then was able to balance again after a couple turns, but I had held back a Dungrove Elder. I may have still won without the Rancor, but it certainly helped, and I would like to know for future purposes.
From what I understand, the Rancor trigger can't go on the stack until Restore Balance has finished resolving. So it looks like you handled this right. But I might be wrong on that one.
You're right.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Terramorphic and Evolving Wilds are O.K. because they do allow a T3 Cascade.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
1 Breeding Pool
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
4 Errant Ephemeron
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Keldon Halberdier
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Spells: 16
4 Ardent Plea
4 Beast Within
4 Restore Balance
4 Violent Outburst
4 Boom // Bust
3 FAerie Macabre
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Ricochet Trap
Many elements in this list look pretty suboptimal. The lack of Nihilith is, I can only assume, for color reasons. I have also tested Halberdiers and found him to be fairly weak. The bolt vulnerability is a big issue. Ephemeron solves the bolt problem but can't start clocking until turn 6, at which point he still needs another 4 turns to end the game. Nihilith, on the other hand, will often come online on turn 3 or 4 instead of 5 or 6. Those extra turns are critical.
The 4 Beast Within seems strong, but I can't envision this deck beating any aggro opponent with any consistency using only 8 cascaders and no cyclers (Living End gets away with a lower cascade count through its cyclers).
Congrats to Dustini for the finish, but I wouldn't be taking this list to an event.
I think it's crazy that sub-optimal lists can top DE's. We know that the deck needs a lot more work as it's not even defined as to what's the optimal build yet between Postless and Posts. Part of that may be because it's a rogue deck, but it really goes to show how powerful the interaction is between Greater Gargadon and Restore Balance. I'm super excited as to what 3CMC Enchantments that Theros has to offer.
Against aggro, I would almost side in Heroes Reunion alongside Balance...
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1287
It's basically the postless version from a few pages back, the one using Nihilith (good), cyclers (mixed reviews), and Keyrunes (awful). To echo what fyawm said, this definitely underscores the synergy between Balance/Garg as a viable combo in this metagame. I know that one enduring problem with the deck is the lack of compelling win conditions. At least with Living End you get a horde of 4/4+ beaters. With our deck, you get either a single 9/7 with no protection or evasion, a lone 4/4 with a limited evasion, or a small squad of 3/3 Post beaters. There have definitely been games that I can't close out after having Balanced, and that's true with both the Post and the no-Post versions. Here's hoping for the eventual return of Suspend!
Garga Geddon sounds like I've a phallic object in mouth while I'm trying to talk.
"Dude can I see your deck?"
"Yeah it's Garga Geddon"
"That's so immature. I said 'deck,' not 'dick'"
"That's the name of the deck!"
I'm thinking Post Balance or Postless Balance.
The Posts are colored permanents so that we are able to quite easily activate Mistveil Plains to create an infinite loop of Restore Balances.
It might seem gimmicky, but I think with a 14 land base and 17 Borderposts, it's doable.
See here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/restore-balance-20-07-13-1/
Edit: Guys, I think I broke the deck. If you've played all the Restore Balance in your deck and have Mistveil Plains in play, you can essentially cascade into Restore Balance every other turn. Not only that, but you can set up your draw such that the card you want to draw is the card after the last Restore Balance, meaning you can draw any card from your graveyard. There are six ways to draw Mistveil Plains via 3x Arid Mesa and 1x Marsh Flats.
That's an interesting synergy. I'll have to test it. Seems strong against control in that you can keep cascading until you overwhelm them with threats and advantage. The biggest problem I see with that strategy is that it forces you to already have cascaded 2-3 times before you can start to see the value from Mistveil. On the first cascade, you hit your first Balance and haven't gotten to the bottom of your deck. Same on the second cascade. It isn't until the third cascade that you get to the "infinite cascade" point, and that's assuming that you cut your Balances down to 2. Now, on the third cascade, you can drop Balance on the bottom of your deck followed by whatever draw you want and then start the whole thing over again. But by that time, I'm not sure if any of our builds really needed that advantage.
As I said, I'm interested to test it.
It definitely improved the control matchup a lot since there's no way for opponents to counter the cascade trigger. The Restore Balance will hit the stack, it's just a matter whether it'll be Spell Pierced, Remanded, or Mana Leak, all of which forces the card out of the library. I'll upped the number of Cascade spells to 12 so that there's more consistency in pressuring the board every turn.
Because they'll be so busy trying to keep your cascades in check, there won't be much aggression coming out other than the occasional Snapcasters. Control isn't nearly a difficult matchup as tempo which doesn't just counter our spells but also puts out pressure via Delver of Secrets, Goblin Guides, Vendillion Cliques, etc.
That being said, we're likely to be time walked here and there on the second and third turn via Mana Leak and Remand, so it's important to run out that first or second Borderpost on turn 1 and turn 2 on the play, and then if possible just drop lands until we can hit 3 mana. The goal is really to impede their land drop via Restore Balance because control without lands is easy to abuse.
I still hate the Jund match up and feel that it's basically not possible to win game 1, hence the 4x Leyline of Sanctity on the sideboard.
Kaas' cascade balance list from Magic-League is the inspiration for this borderless version. His list isn't built to focus on the armageddon aspect. Rather, it attempts to mind twist the opponent so that they're left in topdeck mode to find an answer to a threat on the board.
From his comments:
"for the 'easily recovering' part. I think you're better off when your opponent is in topdeck-for-removal-mode than topdeck-for-land-mode. Because removal is very cheap nowadays. if you're opponent can keep 1 path to exile in hand, and only needs to topdeck 1 land, then you're *****ed if you don't have more than 2 creatures. Topdecking removal is harder to do, takes longer, and gives you time to recover as well, which is not so difficult if you already have 2 land or something or a suspended search for tomorrow, or a coalition relic."
For further commentary, I also found this interview a few days ago, which may be an interesting read for anyone interested in his take.
Sometime around RTR's release, I decided to take play around with Kaas' template to port it to a jund manabase. The keyrunes seemed like an upgrade to the coalition relics and cutting the 5-color manabase to 3 provided the room to add man lands. This added 5 additional threats that didn't count towards having a creature in play, increasing the opportunity to capitalize on damage after a balance. In the control match ups, it also punished players for wasting a turn on counter spell mana (or in the case of key runes, wasting counters on irrelevant spells or risk losing tempo and invalidating tax counters). Always consider using a Simian Spirit Guide to play a turn 2 keyrune. Decreasing your hand size pre-balance is a good thing in most matchups.
Despite having access to 11 cascade spells and a more consistent ability to suspend balance if drawn, I didn't like the idea of using gemstone mines. True, they do whittle down your land count when you balance, but in the control match ups you often wanted the land in play for the reasons above. 3 lands in play and a suspended Nihilith quickly puts a lot of pressure on rwu players. 6 in play and a Nihilith coming off suspend threatens to pay for the counter and potentially follow up with a more lethal cascade spell.
In my initial versions, I did try Liliana. The discard ability seemed good, but it wasn't the greatest since it was another symmetric effect. After all, if you're going to balance, you want to come out ahead on at least 2 of the 3 cases. Both players having empty hand sizes when balance resolved happened more than I would have liked. In addition, Liliana as removal was just that - a 3 mana removal spell that maybe fogged some damage. In both cases, balance is trying to do the same thing. Versus Jund, it was nice being able to wipe their Liliana but also annoying when your option is to let them sac a Bob or Deathrite and letting the 'Goyf in play gain an additional +1/+1.
Beast Within was also tested, naturally, given the proven synergy with the jund suite of cascade spells. However, similar to Liliana, it targeted card types that Restore Balance was supposed to handle. Vs. Aggro, trading an early drop for a 3/3 didn't give you the time that you wanted to draw into a cascader, and hitting a land vs. control pre-cascade came up less frequently than getting jammed with multiple Beast Withins in hand.
It was because of these constant awkward hands that I tried adding the cyclers. Having played Living End enough times to know the limited choices of cmc 3 or more spells and that plan 'B', which is playing them as threats, is a valid option for wins, it seemed like a good idea. Misleading the opponent to deck archetype is a bonus.
I'll try to follow up with a post about match ups later. I've had better results playing vs. rwu than what's discussed here and a few other discrepancies that's worth noting, but I've run out of time. Anyway, I thought bringing up the path to this version was worth adding to the thread.
I must disagree about Beast Within, however. That card is just so helpful in so many matchups, the most notable of which is Affinity. Inkmoth Nexus can be a nightmare. So can Plating. Heck, Blinkmoth too can be a big pain. Beast gives you game 1 options against all of those cards, while also giving you a bullet against certain cards in decks like Pod, Twin, and Jund.
Overall I am happy to see the no-post version doing well because I think it addresses fundamental weaknesses of the post version without losing either too much consistency or too much raw power.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
It looks like OP hasn't made a post since December of 2012, any chance one of the mods can help out here?
I talked to Lantern and am working on an update to discuss the post and no-post versions of the deck. Will hopefully be ready to go soon.
16x Borderposts
4x Ardent Plea
4x Violent Outburst
3x Demonic Dread
4x Lingering Souls
3x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Beast Within
3x Greater Gargadon
3x Restore Balance
3x Teramorphic Expanse
3x Evolving Wilds
2x Mountain
1x Island
1xForest
1x Plains
1x Swamp
The list has tested VERY well and is quite resilient. Belcher is a complete monster in this deck. Most importantly it avoids dying to random crap, avoids Abrupt Decay and kills all threats your opponent's can manage to drop after a Balance. Randomly it will also just deal 20 to the face in one turn (10 cards + mountain) and is an immediate threat. I know the first response is "well you play 12 lands" ... and, Belcher is just simple odds. Everytime activated, it deals an average a 3-5 damage. Occassionally you whiff, but ... not often, and especially with 6 fetches, helping thin out the basics. I highly recommend testing this as a kill source.
Everything else is pretty standard and I LOVE having Beast Within in the main. Most of the time it kills Planeswalkers/BIG dudes. But with this card and Belcher, if you opponent has a slow start, sometimes you can actually control the board with these 2 cards. It adds a really weird dimension to the deck. Lingering Souls is flat out awesome. If you have not tested it, please do. The card is so solid. It really helps mulligans in that, it buys you time, and is a relevant threat after the first balance. It also speeds up GG.
In the next few days I am going to start testing the cycler version but I don't have the highest hopes for it. Running just 8 cascaders scares me in a deck like this. However, I do like it and am going to put some time in to see if i is worth pursuing. Thoughts?
I'm wondering whether Fabricate would be better than Idyllic Tutor especially with the addition of Goblin Charbelcher as a creatureless win condition. Fabricate also lets you search up the right color Borderpost so that you can have access to any color mana.
I love the Lingering Souls here because it's just such a powerful card. I would highly advocate the 2x Arid Mesa, 4x Terramorphic Expanse, 5-6 basic lands, 1x Mistveil Plains because having a land as a win condition that also happens to searchabe.
I'm also pondering the possibility of lowering the land count and upping the Borderposts count as Borderposts provide better mana coverage, and excess lands in hands have no real use. I know 13 to be the standard, but you're running 12 which I feel is closer to the correct number.
Upping the Greater Gargadon to 4 would be good as it's our primary win condition, and in its place take out a Beast Within because 4 is too much.