Against the Odds: Swords and Strip Mines (Games)

What are the odds of winning with Field of Ruin, Trophy Mage and a ton of Swords in Modern? Let's find out!
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[@Janshevik]

> fetchlands aren't in the deck because with arbiter can't search > plays trophy mage who searches the library classic seth jank

[@MTGGoldfish]

Well, Trophy Mage searched for a Sword, so she gets an exception :)

[@NickK1291]

Path also seems like a non-bo when you're trying to keep your opponent off lands...

[@erykweber3808]

That is why aven mindcensor and leonin arbiter are in the deck. If you can't search effectively, you can't get land off Path.

[@NickK1291]

Yup you're right. I guess I was just cringing the few times he had to use it when he couldn't stick one of those two.

[@Atmapalazzo]

yeah, there are issues with the deck, but its super sweet

[@sirpancreasjr3362]

New drinking game: Take a shot every time Seth forgets about his own Arbiter not letting him search with Trophy Mage because he didn’t leave mana up. You’ll be drunk in minutes

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Well, of course minutes. What else? Hours? The video is only 46 minutes long ;P

[@firstandlast.1254]

37:42 The classic 'attack for 0 with Ornithopter, concede' line. Bless you, modern.

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761]

MTJ503 - I attacked for 800 and before blockers conceded. The opponent had a settle the wreckage in hand.

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

For 800? That is a lot. How'd ya do it?

[@TheUrbanPope]

God I feel for your last opponent. He probably didn't forget about your arbiter, he just couldn't figure out how to pay on the mtgo interface. The worst functioning card on mtgo in my opinion.

[@carter9449]

Yeah they probably thought it was bugged, I wouldn't feel right taking advantage of that. The ability should be written as an activated ability that any player can activate because the way it's written implies it will prompt you when you go to search. That's not even really a punt on their part

[@EvonyBasics]

It actually works exactly as it should on MODO. If you forget in real life you don't get to fetch either. The ability is not an activated or triggered ability so it does not work like one

[@TheUrbanPope]

Daniel Farrell It is true arbiter doesn’t use the stack. But there should be some sort of pop up window as you fetch, or some sort of box that is always present that says “would you like to pay 2..” Clicking on the arbiter and then paying two is very non intuitive on a digital interface.

[@lostnearhell]

On his stream he mentioned this video had a super epic punt but assuming this is it, it's not a punt at all just lack of knowledge on how to pay for arbitor correctly

[@nickstelzer]

I thought he was talking about the trophy mage punts in the first few games lol.

[@robertromero5930]

"Do you believe in life after lock?" -Cat jesus.

[@matthewloser7567]

Somewhere, in the internet, PleasantKenobi is loving this video.

[@richardadams7667]

Cat Jesus IS doing what Cat Jesus do!

[@matthewloser7567]

making people sad, and jeff hoogland salty

[@richardadams7667]

Oh you know it! That was some hilarious editing there!

[@matthewloser7567]

I want to see seth play dragon ball bees

[@Downfall24]

best against the odds i`ve seen in a while.

[@SheonEver]

Seth, better known as Saffronolive, doing his best impression of the Yagami Light laugh.

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761]

Shion Kreth who gave seth a death note book :)

[@bryantan4228]

Should be named Sword of Stripping and Mining. ...or Swords Mining for Strippers

[@MTGGoldfish]

I think that last one might get me in trouble...

[@EffinChat]

MTGGoldfish swords stripping for miners would be worse

[@felicitymac9577]

You can poke with swords. Could be called Strip Poker

[@mouse2588]

Bryan Tan you, sir, are a genius.

[@omegagaming609]

Come on seth, getting demonetized is fun!

[@chemset475]

I love me some mean Seth. I feel like if he wasn't thinking about viewers and peoples' feelings all the time he would be brewing the most dominant, brutal decks haha. Screw em Seth, run everyone into the ground! :D My favorite mtg content

[@marcokim5378]

That double crack with the arbiter... Like poetry.

[@carter9449]

Them doing it twice with the mana up makes it pretty clear they don't know that you have to click on arbiter to ignore it. feelsbadman

[@Gingerbreadley]

Oh man that shame scoop. Just modo things

[@peacechan4500]

What we learn in this video? Seth is evil

[@daniellee5525]

One of the most entertaining decks in a long time

[@coralinekozun7325]

God I fucking love land destruction B3

[@ericw1049]

Ever time Seth laughs, I get more and more convinced that he is the offspring of the Wicked Witch of the West. Keep up the good work man

[@Shivaess]

Sooo loose you’re killing me Seth. Thank you for running the deck!

[@Bradyoungbass]

Do this in legacy with stoneforge and jitte.

[@robertharrison4748]

I mean, that's basically just legacy death and taxes.

[@Bradyoungbass]

Dnt isn't the only deck that runs a stoneforge package.

[@jondubois5347]

But it is the stoneforge deck with mana denial in it

[@hikeeper4271]

I'm just happy to be here

[@SilverFoxPlays87]

Tron lands + Ugin Spirit Dragon + Painter's Servant. X = 0 on ugin. Blow up lands. Thoughts?

[@turn1solring518]

Silver Fox you are disgusting XD

[@SilverFoxPlays87]

Turn 1 Sol Ring yes, yes I am.

[@Killerlocust49]

My only thoughts are that 1)servant is banned in modern 2) you blow up your own lands/other permanents = to or > X

[@SilverFoxPlays87]

1) Servant isn't banned in modern. 2) And while they rebuild lands you plus ugin to bolt face/board. Plus tron hits mana faster. Also you can float mana before blowing up the lands.

[@anosmianAcrimony]

You have an Ugin. You've already won. Adding Painter's Servant is a hat on a hat.

[@_mellosine]

I just have a question to posit, considering I am an intermediate Affinity player, and have some things I wonder about: At the 1:30 mark, when the opponent blocked Seth's Arbiter, could they have not tapped their Ravager and Drum before damage was assigned, to turn their Inkmoth Nexus into a creature, then sac'd their Ravager to give the counters to their Blinkmoth creature? If it works the way I am thinking, that would have been a really nice trick, but since I haven't played with my only playgroup in a while, I may be forgetting some rules.

[@swiftmage]

Jon Young that does work, but not a good play since Seth is playing a deck made to destroy lands.

[@_mellosine]

Sweet. I figured it wouldn't be a good move, considering the opposition, but I just needed the information for my own sake, lol. Thanks for the affirmation!

[@elmaestroalberto1786]

Saffron i wanna play against you! Bless me senpai

[@MTGGoldfish]

If you play enough games on MTGO we'll probably run into each other eventually :)

[@elmaestroalberto1786]

Oh dammit you answered me #heartattack

[@brazilianh2759]

I played him once and he conceded turn 3. Hopes and dreams. Gone.

[@absolutfx]

Wow that was a loose keep against Breach..

[@poipoi9816]

I'm really sad that we didn't get to see sworded up crusader hit the fish opponent.

[@D4rthridiculous]

“Good times were had by all, except for our opponent.” LoL!!!!

[@jesselaplante1040]

this is the most fun I've had watching you play something in a long time! cheers! love ur content saff!

[@Bleskojd]

Modern players getting reminders about their greedy manabases by officer Seth.

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Oh man, Seth, that glee of yours in game 2 against faeries. Diabolical! I remember when I first learned that you have to pay for Arbiter and THEN crack the fetch. MODO should have a disclaimer printed on it to avoid that silly confusion.

[@petermitchell545]

I love how excited Seth gets from winning haha:p

[@CSDragon]

For a deck that's about blowing up your own lands, it feels like there's way too few lands in this deck. You lost to mana drought WAAAAY more often than your opponent actually doing things.

[@D4rthridiculous]

This fuggin’ guy is my type of twisted mtg humor!

[@ZincZirconium]

Would like to see more of this deck. :)

[@MrGelflin]

New drinking game: take a shot every time Seth says: WOW

[@patrickbuerke1390]

This is a good deck. I have a mono-white deck that runs swords, Relic Seeker, and Mirran Crusader.

[@GeorgeAlone2277]

I play D&T in legacy. Mirran crusader with an equipment is one of the reasons I play the deck

[@Tymon0000]

Cat Jesus getting you every time.

[@liampake8545]

A little surprised you didn't have a copy of War and Peace in the sideboard to hose burn. Gains life, pro red, protects against path. It just seems really good

[@MWorl91]

What I don't like about the deck is the nonbo of Trophy Mage with your own Leonin Arbiter on the field. The deck counters itself and we saw that a couple of time in the match ups. Other than that it's super sweet and seems super fun

[@evancuyuch9260]

@13:23 it was at this moment seth knew, he fucked up

[@petershipman8391]

"JEEZUM" sounds a lot like something else, Seth xD

[@stephenlofton5403]

God it's satisfying to see someone go strip mine strip mine then get their lands exiled by emrakul through the breach. Too bad it wasn't the opponent !

[@OctobearBoy]

Take a shot everytime I guess we keep this cause we have aetherviel

[@Juppe123]

Love it! Definitely ging to try this out in MTGO

[@hectorfabricioaguilararias6066]

The only problem over here is that seth probably know as saffronolive didnt match up against tron...that would be tje dreamed game

[@MTGGoldfish]

I usually hope I avoid Tron, but I would have loved to play Tron this week :)

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Maybe you can play this deck again in the future, perhaps on stream and then trounce Tron that time (woah, alliteration).

[@carter9449]

You missed a lot of the good matchups, valakut and GDS too

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

I don't know about Titanshift. Their ramp might outpace the GQing. But nuking the few lands that GDS plays might be fun.

[@carter9449]

BrewBrewBrewTheDeck depends on the draw I guess, they still need to get to 5 lands, they also need so many lands in their deck to combo. Even just blowing up valakuts could buy some time

[@anosmianAcrimony]

Crusader with SoFaI works so well - pro black, green, red, blue is not half bad!

[@midimachine]

me, absolutely twisted, coming home with a load of swords

[@cbrsdf1]

That was.... so.... beautiful

[@paulm2163]

Aren't you supposed to vial in Cat Jesus at times like 12:55 and make them either tap out or have Bolt? If they tap you can get 'em with GQ. Also, 28:11 why not Mirran Crusader at end step? You can equip and go HAM with it.

[@_Niffum]

The can't search and the trophy mage seems like a nonbo

[@invictus_Vi]

That 2nd game against goryo's you should have vialed in arbiter when he went to fetch, it woulda blown em out from finding important mana lol

[@endermeap6488]

There are so many non bos in this deck it’s incredible

[@SparTadepT]

Leonin Arbiter was a real Knightmare for your last opponent.

[@arnonym4060]

SparTadepT oof

[@robertraffensberger9051]

More of this deck

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Could be cool to see it again on stream and then encounter Tron :)

[@AmazingAlec93]

I feel like a green splash for runnap excavator would help so you can vial in a crucible. Or a green splash for an azusa with excavator for the combo

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761]

AmazingAlec93 remove the swords package and throw that in instead. Mage is a non Bo with mind censor and co

[@patrickbuerke1390]

Louise Drake Mindcensor is only opponents' searches, but yeah, Mage and Arbiter are suboptimal together.

[@ravensman49]

It's beautifulllll

[@svendphillips6126]

Is there an uncut version of this series? I like watching it but since I'm not familiar with all the cards it goes way faster than I'm used to.

[@guywithpc7069]

Damn, I thought I was supposed to root For Seth not Against him.

[@Omegashotgun]

AGAINST the odds?

[@stephenhousman6975]

Against the Eldrazi and taxes, why not light and shadow your opponent was playing white and black you then didn't need to worry about removal.

[@Visteus]

So confused at 12:56 why he didn't vial in arbiter and ghost quarter the temple in response to the fetch land

[@gamby6253]

Visteus so if he put out arbiter, the opponent can easily bolt in response

[@vincentbruening2723]

I love when Seth plays unfun decks

[@UnheatednoProblem]

i learned the power of trophy mage in commander theres so many good hits at 3mana

[@RappingRain]

Should've vialed in your Arbiter in response to the fetch.

[@ViralThing]

The fun is at 43:56

[@AlexanderQ689]

27:40 Flash in Mindcensor + use Ghostquarter?

[@elijahkleinman1332]

When I saw RB VEngeance I was hoping really badly for Burning Vengeance...

[@nietrelevant3338]

i love the deck but there are some wierd card amount balancing in in there. Etched champion when you almost never get 3 artifacts ( i get its tutorable but still..) 4 aven mind sensors seems a bit over the top. 2 or 3 should be enough. only 2 spell quellers when they are super good in the current meta. i also feel like judge's familiar could be replaced by thraben inspector since it's active doesn't really do that much in most matchups. i'd also take out sword of feast and famine, protection from green isn't really usefull most of the time since you can put your swords on flyers and evade green creatures anyway. that way you could leave in etched champion and replace sword with something else. Thraben inspector would also allow for easier activation of edged champion. Edit: also no trinisphere in the sideboard? it's extremly OP with this much storm in the meta.

[@GeorgeMaj15]

I want this. I want all of this.

[@HinderYourGeneral]

[@ChrisPhelior]

Praise Cat Jesus!

[@androkguz]

Seth never tutoring for the Crucible

[@shawndiaz7528]

Leonin Arbiter is such a nonbo with Trophy Mage. Other than that, sweet deck.

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Eh, still worth it. Although maybe we could go down one for a second Crucible so that killing the first doesn't take that plan off the table completely.

[@signisakanades1329]

You don't need to find something with Dark Petition IIRC, you can just fail to find.

[@Killerlocust49]

I was disappointed to see quicksilver fountain in SB but no Orboro in the deck

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

With GQ and Crucible that is kinda unnecessary. You can just GQ your Island-ified lands and fetch up a basic.

[@Killerlocust49]

BrewBrewBrewTheDeck fair enough, didn't really consider that

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

With Crucible this becomes even easier and you don't even need to destroy your own lands. You can just choose to put the counter on GQ (or Field of Ruin) and the sacrifice it in response to the trigger, targeting an opponent's land. Destroying your own is the plan B if no Crucible is to be had and you need Tron to be offline one more round or something.

[@boiledegg2821]

Hi

[@noahborthwick3231]

Second

[@MTGGoldfish]

Hi!

[@bmb1352]

I was really hoping that this would be legacy by the title

[@tenebrisignis9976]

I have a few decks ID like you to look at...

[@alleertmen3]

40:05 this is makes you a bit of a miserable person saffron XD

[@shwift8789]

WU death and taxes never looked so fun

[@BentTimeAndSpace]

“Violin mindsensor, violin violin”

[@mattyrellu]

This is disgusting, I love it

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Nice deck and cool games so thanks for this video! But Seth, you really only have yourself to blame in that Eldrazi & Taxes match-up :/ Not throwing all your blockers in front of that Smasher for some reason, not leaving open Path mana, trading an Arbiter for a Mutavault that you could have killed with Field of Ruin instead etc. ...

[@MTGGoldfish]

Maybe the Smasher block was too greedy.The blocks we made would play around one removal spell and leave us with an extra creature. Blocking with everything would play around two removal spells (basically make sure Smasher was dead) but also put us down another creatures.

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

Well, I mean this is a matter that you can analyze logically (logic as in the field of study). This is gonna seem a bit long-winded but to be thorough it has to be. Look at it this way ... if you block with three creatures the following can happen: 1) You get blown out by two removal spells and lose all three creatures without killing Smasher. 2) You fizzle one removal spell, kill Smasher and lose all three creatures anyway because Smasher hits for 5 and you put 5 toughness in front of it. 3) No removal spells at all, you kill Smasher and still lose all three creatures. With four creatures blocking we have the following scenarios: 1) You fizzle one removal spell, get hit by the second, still get to kill Smasher but lose four creatures in total. 2) You fizzle one removal spell, still get to kill Smasher and lose three creatures in total. 3) No removal spells at all, you kill Smasher and lose three creatures in total. So with all the possible outcomes listed we can now compare them and decide which action (three blockers vs. four blockers) is more likely to be profitable: 1) If our opponent has two removal spells, we lose four creatures with four blockers but get to kill Smasher. With three blockers we lose three creatures but don't kill Smasher. Four blockers are preferable here since that one extra creature is likely irrelevant with a Smasher that is still alive. 2) If our opponent has one removal spell that we then fizzle, we kill Smasher in either case and lose three creatures either way. Both blocker options are thus equally profitable. 3) With no removal spell, we kill Smasher in either case and lose three creatures either way. Again, both blocker options are thus equally profitable. So as you can see, Seth, there is no possible scenario where blocking three creatures is actually more profitable for us than with four. So strictly logically speaking we have no reason not to block with four. Or am I missing something here? Oh and sorry for this being so long but I got excited that I actually got to apply something from my university philosophy study :P

[@luliby2309]

Is your demonic bloodlust sated yet? Those poor opponents...

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

They all were guilty and deserved judgment in the form of Arbiter + Ghost Quarter.

[@luliby2309]

May God have mercy on their souls.

[@shangman589]

SHAMESCOOP

[@fortunecookiepalace]

ahhh seth...... that blowout against eldrazi and taxes..... should have just tutored the sword of light and shadow :/

[@stretchmcgee]

I forgot that Vial only brings in creatures, and several times was thinking you were a blithering idiot for not using Vial to bring in your swords. Had to google Vial to see if I'd gone and completely forgotten a crucial bit of rules text on a card. This happens to me way too often.

[@ToxicallyMasculinelol]

double emrakul, double through the breach, fuck my belly button

[@VeronicaFernandez9109]

How is Aether Vial not banned? It is obviously ridiculously OP. But what do I know....

[@gamby6253]

It's how aggro players deal with blue decks

[@mad_max21]

Woooooooooowwwwww the deck.

[@andreazampollo6726]

43:54 what was that?

[@mouse2588]

@43:31 RIP headphone users.

[@xavisimon3095]

trophy mage in a tutor hate deck ... I whas sure will be punt incoming.

[@qwerty60000]

4 Leonin arbiter 4 trophy mage???

[@bosstsuna114]

Why was that E&T playing windswept heath?

[@bosstsuna114]

And aether hub...

[@bosstsuna114]

Answer: they're bad

[@rafaxik]

That wasn't eldrazi and taxes. That was a straight BW eldrazi

[@edenoniel3541]

WP means Well Played.

[@hwago123]

ohhh the misplays

[@brewbrewbrewthedeck4138]

As per usual.

[@asiandragon468]

Doesnt this count as a uw dnt/hatebears

[@MamaShawama]

at around 29:52 you concede because you had no extra card to discard to reality smasher, even though you had a sword of fire and ice that lets you draw a card, and kill his strangler. You would have been ahead on board and probably would have won that game

[@MrCricket1990]

I don't see a sword of fire and ice, I only see a sword of feast and famine. He is bad... not that bad!

[@MamaShawama]

Ah my bad, I guess i'm the one who's bad :P

[@MTGGoldfish]

We have Sword of Fire and Ice in our deck, I don't think in our hand though.

[@thecrazycapn]

Here's a comment so that KZbin knows I'm engaged and interested.

[@martintrabichet1606]

I feel this needs sorcerous spyglass somewhere

[@johnkapp849]

you are playing blue but no spreading seas? it's a sinkhole that cantrips

[@MTGGoldfish]

We have so much land destruction I'm not sure Spreading Seas is really necessary.

[@johnkapp849]

But weren't you bemoaning not having enough LD in your losses? It also allows you to strip a Darksteel Citadel without going down a card.