Channel GFabs - Modern Sultai Midrange (Deck Tech & Matches)

[@typhus733]

Gfabs showing the true technical skill of a pro in round one. The tightest playing I've seen in years

[@MegaLaban12345]

Gerards are some of the best magic commentary videos out there. Next level breakdowns of every decision.

[@solotopp]

I liked your explanation of the deck and its advantages in the beginning.

[@couchpotatoe91]

yeah, that was some really cool analysis!

[@nvs3221]

Gerard, you provide really great commentary, both entertaining and insightful. Good work dude!

[@ccoopplay1]

Gerard I have to say you are becoming one of my favorite content creators. Not only do u play super sweet decks, but you are also very informative about why a deck is built the way it is and why u make different plays. Please keep up the great work!

[@Darkside3123]

I just waited over two years for my favorite BUG Player GFabs!!! #hyped

[@ondrahruby6325]

Classic Jeff Hoogland on tilt :D

[@couchpotatoe91]

yeah, I thought exactly the same. He might be a decent player and a good deck builder, but everytime I watch something from him he's making excuses about how he draws bad, how his opponent is lucky and so on. This mulliganing was probably some self-centered "I told you so, chat!" about how unlucky he is while binning perfectly decent hands just because they weren't "the nuts".

[@juggalojak3]

I hate Jeff Hoogland with a burning passion

[@Deth410]

I can hear him beeing salty as fu** :) „This is great, Modern is great. Turn two Tassigur? Sure, Modern is such a fun format.“ I like his Decks and respect his achievements, but he is not really a good person

[@magimagimagi8820]

Swaggen Hawdcoh for real, dude is always upset about something. Really negative attitude.

[@the_snakelicious]

He complains about turn two Tasigur while playing Dredge? lol

[@EvonyBasics]

I'm pretty I watched your match vs Jeff Hoogland on his stream. It was right after we went on a rant about how you should mulligan aggressively with dredge. The most amazing sequence of events

[@JeffHoogland]

Daniel Farrell the results of one match doesn't change that dredge mulligans well and you should mulligan aggressively.

[@SpellMasteryGaming]

Awesome upbeat commentary man. Sweet decks too. Keep up the Fab ulous work

[@hoagie911]

I really appreciate the effort you put into building your deck and explaining it and your choices to us. It's just not quite the same when someone has just netdecked something which 5-0ed and doesn't understand any of the cards, interactions or matchups.

[@acr04cr]

I'm impressed about his capacity to take reasonable and well thought decisions regardless his game disadvantage. That is what defines a good magic player

[@johnstark7060]

Lets Go Fabs!! You should give this guy a raise. Fabiano and Reid are the only reason I go to your website and buy cards.

[@justinclean7954]

Great video Gerard, love the commentary, deck looks sweet

[@dasvoid1]

You're the best Gerard, best play commentary on the channel IMO

[@chan5586]

Love your content, almost as much as I love sultai. Seriously would love an update on this deck down the line as you test it.

[@ravnos18]

Gerard has some of the best content for mtg out there right now

[@Gernardi]

james thomas thank you

[@CodeProvider]

Gerard you have the best vids! I played your bug midrange back when twin was legal :)

[@CodeProvider]

can you explain why you're NOT playing certain cards tho? like why no brutalities? I fail to see how thragdaddy is good enough but brutality didnt make the cut

[@thatvietnameseguy2468]

Ayy code provider

[@noahzach2324]

58:00 You’re supposed to Bolt the bird.

[@andrewlazar4804]

I have a friend who watches hoogland religiously and screams that legacy is the greatest thing to ever happen. He is selling his modern decks to buy more of his legacy deck. Gfabs makes me want to sell edh Staples and my bass and buy sweet modern brews like this one and temur moon. Keep up the insanely detailed videos my dude.

[@the_snakelicious]

The existence of Hoogland doesn't make Legacy a bad format though, it's in a pretty awesome place right now.

[@Nightwishmaster]

Modern is great right now IMHO, I don't get a lot of the complaints. BTW, sweet avatar!

[@Char12403]

Boohoogland doing what he does best!

[@bluesmanshoes]

Ranting about modern while loosing? :D

[@Inmate005]

exatctly what i thought xD

[@andreyuvarov254]

well, actually, intensive mulligans and the Copperline Gorge can signal that your opponent is on the dredge deck.

[@Nightwishmaster]

Yeah it was kind of a dead giveaway, I just think he was surprised Jeff wasn't playing something like Kiki Chord (kind of his pet deck he's pretty famous for piloting even though it's terrible lol) or his new Saheli Cobra deck or something janky like that. Jeff is very well known for streaming janky meme decks (when his viewers are donating for him to burn money and throw it out the window anyways) often, though when he's playing on his own dime it's usually Legacy grixis delver or very powerful modern decks like GB Tron or Grishoalbrand, etc but Jeff has been playing a lot of Dredge and other decks lately that are well outside of his usual wheelhouse. If this were a stranger G probably would have caught it, but I wouldn't have expected Jeff to be playing Dredge (it's a sweet new version of Dredge with spirit guides and stuff to make it faster) Jeff is easily one of my favorite streamers to watch, he's very entertaining, plays hilarious decks (especially a ton of Legacy memes like Belcher, Spanish Inquisition, Land Nauseam, etc) and has a quick trigger finger when it comes to banning and timing out morons (and boy are there plenty of them out there) which is hilarious to see.

[@seanmcdonald1111]

Noah have you considered that there's a good number of cancer patients out there that would not apprieciate small tiny inconvieniences being likened to the disease that's quite literally destroying their lives? Yeah there'a probably cancer patients who dont care but the point still stands. And the owl costume cracked me up I mean he was playing owling mine at a tourny there's levels to that joke.

[@ivanvicario3091]

I like the Liliana play for the reason you said. Can't expect opponent to win on turn 3 even after losing their electromancer.

[@adamcoussin7080]

Hey Gfab, I love your content and you always explain your thought processes so well, but I have a question because I see many people do this. At 1:02:35, what’s the value of clearing out the graveyard when you could pay the extra mana and keep the graveyard full for another delve card or a tarmogoyf? Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!

[@JacintoVG]

Adam Coussin He couldn't cast an angler either way and opponent had plenty of card types for goyf, but I agree. I think he should've left the abrupt decay in case he drew a snapcaster mage. The advantage of doing it is very slight, but there wasn't any reason to leave up more than 2 mana in case he wanted to crack explosives.

[@JacintoVG]

He might be also wanted to leave angler in the yard to eat with ooze which he ended up drawing. I think itd be a better play to use all the lands and leave stuff in the yard. The likelihood of needing to crack explosives is very low. Maybe he thought pulse was an instant?

[@Nic1700]

Thank you Gerard for reminding me about that Conley Woods video. lol

[@Gernardi]

Nic1700 lol what time stamp his here I need a good laugh

[@dylanfalk3243]

“Seer’s visions” “Engineer’s explosives”

[@iamtib]

hey Gerard very sweet deck. One question though: 1:34:54 you know your opponent has 2 lands, Serum Visions, Tasigur after taking away the Shadow with Inquisition of Kozilek. I would have activated the Spellbomb right away to clear his graveyard, denying him the Tasigur play. Sure you don't get to draw a card off of Spellbomb, but I think the upside of dodging the Tasigur this turn is pretty high. Thoughts?

[@belphegor1337]

Just shows you the importance using IoK first. Another possible line could then have been IoK, spellbomb+draw. Then you could have scooze+activation up for next turn, keeping tasigur away further. Given the state in the video I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning "I'm gonna have to face tasigur eventually" when you have a scooze in play with three possible activations next turn.

[@MysteriousLoppan]

ChannelFireball, please attach the decklists as Text for import on MTGO!

[@cianh2263]

Are Gurmag Angler and Tasigur the only viable delve threats?

[@Atanar89]

Isn't the primary reason to play abzan the strong white sideboard cards?

[@doomkid567]

chirp chirp, chirp chirp, YOUR TEARING ME APART!!

[@jameshansen2668]

why fulminator mage over something like rain of tears? With no kolaghan's command in the deck and snapcasters and jace, it seems preferable.

[@the_snakelicious]

Probably because Fulminator has the flexibility of being a beater, which is relevant some times, and you can play him whenever and let him sit there until you need to sac him, plus it can be picked back up by Lili the Last Hope.

[@ryan6865]

You recur it with Liliana, the Last Hope -2 ability.

[@motleyslayer]

I really liked this commentary. now that JMTS is unbanned what are your thoughts on him in Sultai? sorry if I missed any newer videos you've done with the deck

[@guybrushthreepwood8174]

Another great modern series. What is your view on the blue red through the breach deck?

[@Gernardi]

i used to play it it might be good not sure to be honest i stopped because your match against grixis shadow is really bad

[@wolffangdavid]

i have a question. in the match vs death's shadow, you made inquisition of kosilek and saw your oponent had tasigur, 4 cards in graveyard and two mana. why didnt you used nihilspellbomb?

[@christopheranderson5963]

Have you considered a traverse the ulvenwald in this deck? It seems that you get delirium pretty easily and the deck has great tutor targets like jvp, snap and fulminator mage. Also have you tried Thrun in the sideboard?

[@Gernardi]

I did not and you may be right ty

[@Dispensational]

bro do you ever stream? you build the decks that i love playing in modern

[@legendaryrat]

You shaved a Search in almost every matchup. Have you considered taking one out and moving Ashiok into the main?

[@Borkybaby]

Gfab, some whiskey and some chips.... I mean.... is this love? That I’m feeling? Hahahahbut serious this is awesome.

[@reekhadol]

Shoutout to GFabs for being the best content producer on ChannelFireball

[@DavidHernandez-yc3cq]

pretty sure jeff was on some sort of narset canon deck, only thing that can explain the aggressive mulls

[@zackestin1368]

Always hyped for ashiok decks

[@IntegralKing]

My analysis of the Storm game was: Storm doesn't play out their cost reducers against a deck like Sultai without having the win in hand. If they were against someone non-interactive like Tron, Storm, Humans or even UW control, they would want to get down a reducer ASAP, because that leaves up the risk of going off the next turn With the clock you were presenting -- 4 turns with a 4/5 goyf, you weren't taking away too many outs. Liliana ticking down sometimes hurts storm, sometimes doesn't, especially in game 1 because their graveyard is a resource. Game 2 and 3 there could be hate, but in game 1, everything discarded comes back. It comes down to: Storm knows that Sultai and Abzan might be the most interactive decks out there, running up to 10 maindeck pieces of removal, between push, path, decay, pulse, liliana, so they have to make damn sure that whatever they do sticks. Additionally, by delaying the liliana, it's not like you're never playing lily. You can play her on turn 4 instead of turn 3, to continue your hand-shredding plan. You could argue that starting the hand-shredding early would help since: 4 + 4 + 5 + 5 = 18 and 4 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 17, a fetch would mean the same clock.

[@memeyanddreamy2681]

37:20 “what turn is it?”

[@alexsanzphoto]

Deck tech nearly as good as Lepore's :) (kidding) this is a proper deck tech, thanks!!

[@AllOutPsycho]

no way I love you gfabs. i fucking love sultai

[@Moethelock]

was Jeff on stream when that happen?

[@mymmy]

The only large weakness I think this deck has is weakness to graveyard hate, what's your opinion on this? Is it just something that has to be accepted? RIP seems impossible to beat

[@notorioezz]

Andrea Metagucci ^^ I laughed so hard !

[@williamtapio7799]

Why did he say "large tournament?" Was he by CFB to not mention SCG? Or was it a different TO?

[@drewcochran4197]

This guy is cool. I like his thought processes. Moar magic philosophy please

[@georgekrithinithis8416]

I don't see it as a correct or incorrect decision in the bonus round it just seemed like a close judgement call based on preference and you got burned as easily as you could have been rewarded. Tough choice I probably would have chosen the same line as you tbh. [this being the Lili line]

[@mark5617]

Ive played abzan and on rabble jund now, and toyed with the idea of sulti but couldent figure out anything the worked so with the printing of search for azcanta the idea is stupid now with how good that card is. So im excoted to see how well you do.

[@nikmidclayton5933]

BUG is love!

[@wujo4443]

This looks like a wicked Gifts deck, where everything is 2-of... xD

[@IslandLimer]

I think the strongest reasoning for playing liliana in that bonus match is if you thought they wouldn't have another creature the next turn, but want to keep as much instant speed removal in hand as possible to deal with future creatures so they can't drop them then go off. Personally I would have used the decay.

[@jaydoyle2596]

If you're trying to play Sultai to maximize your ability to sculpt your gameplan around your opponent's gameplan, why not run Collective Brutality? It feels like one of the perfect cards for that type of gameplan. Edit: Also, I see that you're approaching a turbo xerox gameplan with the low curve. I understand key advantages of that to be greater abuse of fetchlands, more consistency, and even resistance to hate. In addition, a turbo xerox style bgx deck is a perfect use of blue. Have you tested a deck going more all the way in that direction? While your deck's theory fits that style, some pieces of the execution, like the Maelstrom Pulses, and relatively measly 6 cantrips, don't.

[@robh9075]

Great deck I love your content and I always enjoy watching you play at events.....................NOT taking the lili wasn't the right move though I might of screamed more than was reasonable at you for taking the serum visions instead :P

[@rapier1986]

I think there was a sketchy line when you didn't block the swiftspear in game one against burn, if they burn the angler they aren't burning your face. it didn't matter overall as you won that game just thought worth mentioning.(you may have said that I'm watching without sound though)

[@Gernardi]

andrew patience searing blaze was my reasoning

[@rapier1986]

maybe but you'd of still killed the swiftspear without minusing lili

[@jokul_]

lol the opponent's thoughtscour rip in m2g2 was classic bm.

[@esdawt6900]

That opponent top decked like a god more than once.

[@iridanoirix]

Jeff Hoogland channel to the ones that didnt understood the mulligan to 1 kzbin.info/www/bejne/opXUmqh-lL2ejMk at 18:05

[@Igor6662012]

[@bmatth06]

GFab and Frank are the real stars for CFB.

[@TaiwaneseEvelynn]

was there a statement about this? wasn't the biggest Frank fan myself but I didn't even notice his last video was in nov.

[@ianmcabee8036]

brandan matthews LSV is also a real star but already receives recognition

[@the_snakelicious]

Are you talking about Frank Lepore or Frank Karsten? Because one makes sense in your statement, the other doesn't, lol.

[@bmatth06]

Felipe Rodrigues Yall need to chill with ur shit. Why are magic players always looking to point out other ppls mistakes. Franks used to be part of cfb, and still posts regularly on his channel. I watch his videos almost always but never noticed he wasnt on the cfb page anymore but instead his own. So yes, i made a mistake. U got me, nerds! Good win. Now go do somthing else, jesus.

[@billyboy7596]

Why the fuck did you get so tilted off of this dude's correction?

[@Mikkjel1]

What kind of bird(s) do you have?

[@Gernardi]

a parakeet :)

[@brandonkruse6412]

In that match against Crisis Shadow, you could have pushed the Street Wraith after combat when your creatures died, leaving Liliana open the next turn.

[@Gernardi]

Brandon Kruse push only hit 4 or less

[@Alkoholwioslaidziwki]

I recently decided to actually calculate what is the optimal number of lands to play in a 60 card deck. So for a low to the ground curve like this I assumed that best case scenario is to start with 2 lands. The highest probability of drawing exactly 2 lands in the opening hand is when you play 17 lands. The issue with that is you also have a pretty high chance of drawing exactly 1 land which is IMO too risky for a non-burn deck. If you take the difference of those probabilities you can find the spot where the relative chance of drawing 2 vs drawing 1 is the highest and that's at 25 lands. Well that's also no good because at that point you are more likely to draw 3 or more lands than to draw 2. If you chart all those probabilities you can easily find the sweet spot (highest chance of drawing 2 vs drawing exactly one or 3+) which is at 21 lands. You can go up or down from that number depending on what is more important for you. Hope someone finds this useful.

[@marcoliguori9553]

Serumz Visionz

[@luivis7]

also Search for Azcantaz

[@Amlorian]

after g1 "we are 1:0, which shoes the power of the sultai midrange deck" that was hilarious

[@seb_yt6695]

Hoogland Ragemüll?

[@brucegray2614]

Classic sultai Fabiano!!!

[@MTGMitch]

wow im surprised there was even a discussion about the line in the storm match. snap lily minus every time.

[@milesrodi1668]

Alright, I think the storm line was incorrect. To kill you, he needed: dork, ritual, manamorphose, gifts. However, his shock of steam vents (as you mentioned) suggests he did not have any more lands. Furthermore, he saw that you were in removal heavy colors, but chose to play out his first dork anyway. To me, this STRONGLY suggests he has another dork. The rituals are as likely as not, and again, I think the brazenness of that first mana dork just implies a strong hand. Liliana is a "high upside" play, but it's also a very, very low downside. If you Push the first dork and hold up Abrupt Decay to play through a Remand, you CANNOT die that turn. Your opponent ends their turn having burned through 2 dorks, and you get to begin attacking their hand immediately. Does that mean you will win? Likely not - they can still gifts pretty quickly, and your clock is slow, but at that point you're looking for discard and other disruption which you're not unlikely to find. A Scavenging Ooze would also secure your position quite a bit, letting you eat away a win condition, Past in Flames, etc. You have outs, and a Liliana taxing their resources. A Liliana a turn later is not that much worse than when you played her - in fact, you're forcing them to discard the same number of cards, because if you play her on turn 3 when you did, then she has to edict your opponent first.

[@stephendugas3405]

Great gameplay love Sultai and B/G midrange decks. I think Liliana was the right play for sure. Why no Grimflayers?

[@strangemolars]

"Wanted tarmogoyf to be as good as It can be" Plays It alongside 3 delve cards and only 2 scours. *Shruggs*

[@aidanbergin2504]

Beating an opponent who cast 1 spell during the entire match really does show the power of Sultai midrange.

[@mk1533]

When playing against any esper goryo deck, it is always better to remove their discard outlet if they only have 1 in hand as opposed to the goryos vengence itself, especially if they have their reanimation target in hand. it turns their bomb into an unplayable card. you only get rid of goryo if they have their target in the yard

[@Gernardi]

mk1533 why though? They have more discard outlets then goryos in their deck correct? Also ty for watch and comment

[@iTiago98]

Very in-teresting

[@Tehnameless1]

"you can't think 'if only I had kept my 7 card hand' you can't think about that at all" "Given our opponent's hand, keeping our 6 card hand would have been better" :/

[@escioe]

Good old Sultai Binder.

[@couchpotatoe91]

About the storm matchups: In the first match I definitely would've gone for decay now holding up push, then liliana with potential push next turn. Even if he counters the liliana you still get to cast a fatal push so I really don't see the downside to it. In the second match I wouldn't have cast Jace, but would've kept open spellbomb + stroke to negate his big cards (PiF and Gifts). It's unlikely he can go off there and by not playing Jace you have to option to snap push eot should the opponent not go for it. Without a discard spell in the gy I don't think jace had much value.

[@EvonyBasics]

Its like you see all the decks I think are great but am afraid to play in competitive leagues. Temur, Sultai, Plz make Bant Midrange next

[@EvonyBasics]

I've found Tasigur/Angler and Tarmogoyf in the same deck can be tough though

[@KurtleTheTurtle907]

"Serums Visions"

[@goat666db]

Kurt Simmons Is it a Jersey thing? I.e. "Yous guys" vs you guys? Idk

[@KurtleTheTurtle907]

goat666db Perhaps, that very well could be it. I didn't mean for my comment to sound harsh towards him.

[@goat666db]

Kurt Simmons It didn't. Just a funny observation lol we all love Gfabs :)

[@alexanderespinoza]

Only 3 fatal push Ö you really want game against every deck!

[@ColossusCo]

Hoogland had to have mulliganed to Oblivion to keep a deck out of the spotlight to make sure it stayed a secret. That's my guess anyway..... Dredge usually Mulligan's very well

[@RagingPoo]

The red/green deck was likely a Genesis Wave brew. One that drew pretty poorly.

[@alexstef6965]

Serums visions into searches for azcanta into engineeres explosives for 3 plus farest...

[@the_snakelicious]

The literal nuts :)

[@Saccromycaes]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/opXUmqh-lL2ejMk for round 1 from the other side. Starts at 49:30

[@bustercasey3806]

GET THE BIRD!!

[@whynot131313]

Pretty strongly disagree with the lili vs decay/push line in the storm matchup. I think that you're likely to win games of medium length, with lili in hand. If it goes too long, they can get too many redundant pieces in hand. But playing around the t3 win is important. If they don't go off there, I think they're at a very low percent to be able to go off in the future - as you're holding two removal spells up for the rest of the game*, while pressuring with goyf and plussing lili. I think that your play was too greedy - sure, you get lili down a turn earlier, but in the end the difference is *maybe* a single uptick. (If you push, they don't remand, then you drop lili, you even have the same amount of upticks for our demon girl). tldr: I think you were scared of playing scared, and had a very high win probability if they didn't get you turn 3. *(or trading up on mana to basically time walk them, whether they remand the push or not)

[@moephileo63]

Red green devotion

[@rodneybrown2364]

Back in 2015 when they stopped supporting legacy in any form to shove modern down our throats... modern became the most popular!

[@shenGaoren177]

YES SULTAI!

[@anton_sfq]

Classic jeff

[@TreyVaswal]

In the current meta, Copperline T1 = Dredge like 85%. But that match was bizarre. Like, someone needs their meds updated bizarre...

[@the_snakelicious]

High quality content as usual GFabs, but please get some new basic lands with old frame, I'm begging you.

[@DuffyElmer]

#BooHoogland

[@neindanke1427]

serum visions serum visons SERUM VISIONS!!!!!!!!! not serums vison

[@dmacluvin8088]

nein danke lol he throws a lot of extra s’s like engineers explosives and obstinants baloths great content producer though. A bit wordy, but it’s still great 👍🏼

[@codetaku]

21:00 "I think trading resources is okay here" It's the most obvious reanimation plan I've seen in my life, the opponent's plan was supposed to be thoughtseizing themselves, I'm both shocked you didn't snap-take thoughtseize and that the opponent abandoned their game 1 gameplan of t1 thoughtseizing themselves. They only need to be careful in game 2. Or maybe they were netdecking and didn't know how to play it? idk. Not to say you would've won by taking thoughtseize. But like... the fact that you didn't even vocalize the t1 thoughtscour-self option was incredibly disconcerting.

[@codetaku]

38:30 most obvious trick ever.... "They obviously have a spell" my ass.... If opponent drew a land there's no point in playing it because if the next card is a spell they can just play their land at the same time. This is where I gave up on the video. Don't understand everyone talking about your insights. I'm honestly *not* trying to be mean, but these comments got my hopes up really high and it just seems to be a bunch of people that... don't play the game.

[@MattPMB]

Deck should be called "Rock Sult"

[@wardog995]

Man great video as always. I feel like I'm in a master class when you play. However I think I disagree with your keep in game 3 against death shadow. A wins, always a win, but seeing the amount of discard from your opponent. Your hand was basically just lands and a push witch isn't as good in this match up. Don't know just my point of view. Side note thrag daddy so good in most match ups.

[@Gernardi]

what time stamp ill re watch ty

[@wardog995]

1:46:48 like I said you won so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's how I view mulls in this match up. I always look at it as can I have a better 5 card hand in this match up assuming that my six card hand will be hit with a discard spell from my opponent. I think the keep is almost always right. However I see the hand with no interaction against an aggressive deck and I think it was one of the rare times you put them back and hope for better. Anyway that's for getting back to me. I want to say I always speak highly of you to fellow players because you seem down to learn as well as teach. I think you've messaged back to every comment I've made over years of videos. Big props to you man.

[@grizzlymanverneteil4443]

Sultia looks a lot like BUG.