I think Scavenger Grounds is almost necessary because of the utility it grants in Game 1’s, being able to have recursion for your Scourges in Game 1 and still have game against graveyard decks is such a huge benefit.

Ruin sucks, just play another Bomb. Thanks for the feedback, I will definitely continue this series!

Nothing is ever always correct 🙂 I have been very happy without it post-board though. It sucks to draw into Relics and Guts that you can’t cast but need to. Keeping all our draws live blanks their discard effects. Harder to kill them fast when we’re boarding out Mimic, and if you’re keeping Chalice/Guide/Mimic what are you cutting for the matchup all-stars like Relic and Bomb?

Push makes it a liability and running so many Reshapers insulates us against the interactive decks enough that we don’t need to dedicate much sideboard space to them. MR also better when we’re on defense which is true against a lot of aggro decks in the format that are less interactive on the spectrum (i.e. Hollow One). Endless is mainly good against linear combo and there’s very little of that right now.

Mardu Pyro matches are very grindy. Game 1 if they land an early Pyromancer and you dont find Dismember we can easily get overhelmed by its tokens (assuming that Smasher does not show up or get killed). Post board we are a little favored due to multiple hate cards but the games I played were close. I lost to an Ensnaring Bridge not able to find my third ratchet (one discarded / one powder to exile) I bevause of that I’m thinking to add Buried Ruin land to get back our hate cards. I was not impressed by the singleton Cavern of Souls I played neither Scavenger Grounds so I have a slot to test Buried Ruins, what your thoughts on it?

Keep up with your good articles, It would be nice as the modern PPTQ season begins to see more matchups guides, specially for Humans, UW Control and Hollow One. Drop me a message here or in reddit if you want to share thoughts and discuss more.

I have a question and a comment.
I’ve played the deck a tiny fraction of what you hav, but played the Mardu matchup a lot, and chalice always seems great. Sure they spend a card to break it up but they are stuck with 17 dead cards til they dig into an answer, and that’s often enough time to get lethal tempo.
Is boarding them out always correct?

‘And a comment:! There is no possible way guide- chalice on the play isn’t correct. Taking them off discard or looting on turn 1 is just amazing, and
Let’s you open the game cleanly.
On the draw it seems less exciting, they’ll usually take the chalice when they see it.

I’m still running the 3rd Caverns in my online list, I’ll start up another league tomorrow and see how it goes.

I would run another dataset after with it back in the board. That’s what I did, and after many games with only 2 in the 75, I was blown away by having the extra mana back post-board.

Oh wow, and I’ve even seen this happen. Looks like my brainfart! Guess I’m a little too used to protecting Chalice from EE against fetchland decks. So, best to have a single Chalice out at a time (always on 1). Post updated to reflect that.

Sorry, brainfart–I meant say that EE is amazing against Chalice because they can always cast it by paying extra mana. EVEN IF you have a Chalice at 0, 1, and 2, they can just pay three colorless so X=0, and get all of them at once.

I am still interested in the 3rd Gemstone Caverns in the board over another card. I’ve been playing paper without it for a while now, and I’m not sure if the additional ramp in post-board games is worth the slot, but I need a few more dozen games under my belt to be more sure of my thoughts.