🙂

“I’m not certain that they are better than mono-white anymore thanks to Thraben Inspector, but it is worth investigating.”

I see what you did there!

I remember trying those lists. They were very good and better than the mono-white versions of the day, the problem was that when you didn’t have Dark Confidant all the discard left you resource light and you frequently lost to more impressive top decks. As a result I recall them being terrible against creature decks. I see the current plan using the Eldrazi to be an effort to make up for this weakness. I’m not certain that they are better than mono-white anymore thanks to Thraben Inspector, but it is worth investigating.

I’ve tried it and it was very cute. It was in fact a hard lock when your opponent was hellbent, but otherwise it was mildly annoying and often my Spirit just died. The problem was that it only came together when you were already winning and neither Sanitarium or Spirit are that good on their own. There aren’t enough cards that say Draw a Card getting played in Modern for me to play Spirit as anything but a sideboard card against control. I think if you want a land that draws you cards Sea Gate Wreckage or Horizon Canopy will be better more of the time.

Simard’s list is really interesting. He has essentially hybridized DnT with Eldrazi and taxes. I believe that was only running two Wisps because that was where he cut for Displacer. That is a perfectly fine thing to do, but if I was going that route I would have played another Displacer and cut the Mindcensor because it looks like his deck is really intended to maximize that kind of value play. I can’t imagine not running Vials except as a problem of space. He really needed the extra land and then he’s running Shining Shoal. In that context he can’t afford the space for artifacts.

I think the Windbrisk Heights are a little greedy but apparently it worked for him.

The really overlooked advantage of 1cc discard is the information that it gives so early in the game; telling me how to sequence plays, whether to go for the LD plan, if I’ll have to race, etc, etc. Without Eye of Ugin, WB Eldrazi & Taxes has treated me horribly .

I would like to say that you’ve made a mistake in your conclusion in the SFM testing article. You produced evidence that supported your hypothesis, but then convinced yourself that factors outside the experiment would render it invalid.

This is a mistake for two reasons. Firstly, assuming SFM is just better than BGx when you failed to test the Jund matchup is a mistake because the best answer for SFM is commonly played (kolaghan’s command) in that shell. Moreover, you didn’t test grixis either, another test you could have based that assessment on. So you missed testing the confounding factor you used (in part) to disregard your results. This is obviously mistaken, although one that is easier to identify after the conclusion.

Secondly, you are underestimating the pressure on deck to stay low as it is. The existence of tron has put way more pressure on decks to stay lean, fast and low to the ground than SFM ever could. The only thing SFM does is give a threat that is consistent against aggro, while being flash which lets you hold interaction against combo/ramp.

This article even illustrates why SFM is needed for white. There is no other threat that permits the gameplay needed in that colour: be proactive on the board against aggro, and be flexible against combo/ramp via flash.

SFM is exactly what we need to help Uxx improve their matchups across the board by a small margine, while also helping DnT in the same way.