Against the Odds: Arcades (Modern)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.พ. 2025
- What are the odds of winning with Arcades, the Strategist in Modern? Let's find out!
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Games: 9:23 - เกม
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"We've played many walls." Sums the deck up quite succinctly.
"Arcades, what's your great strategy?" "Hmmm how about if we hit them with our butts?" "Brilliant!"
**Tapping and Untapping intensifies**
Spicy brew, enjoy the video! Love it when you say "Search for Azcantaaaaaa"
If I would change this deck, i would probably take out the infinite combos and have Assault Formation as a four-of and Ensnaring Bridge as at least a three-of in main/side. Your Battlements and Axebane tap all the mana you need for Formation (one green for each defender :D) and Bridge practically has no downside in the deck. Only having 5 win-cons, albeit with roundabout ways to tutor them, is not really the best way to win the game (especially when four of them need three colors in a format of Blood Moons and 4-7 mana depending if you're Chord of Calling). Sylvan Caryatid might be a replacement for Wall of Roots because it taps for any color plus has hexproof, and Wall of Denial seems awesome being a huge flying shroud attacker, maybe try sqeezing one or two more in there idk
Agreed, and I don't understand why he has drift of phantasms in there either considering it can't tutor up Arcades or assault formation, I would put in wall of frost or hover barrier instead. Along with that add wall of essence to the sideboard for burn, considering the match-up looked godawful.
Yeah, i agree. I would go all out beatdown, no combo. Maybe from the SB as transformation/surprise sideboarding.
Andrew Mayers i can see drift because it can be a flying attacker and tutor chord worse-case scenario
It should be treated as an argo deck. IMO
Even if drift of phantasms could only tutor bridge, I think it would be good enough for the deck, because it is also a 5/5 flyer. Being able to tutor chord of calling and sideboard cards is also good.
Yes! Beating Boggles was sweet!
Is it just me or does the intro make it sound like Seth is going to crawl out of the screen and slaughter me with panharmonicon?
Hex looks behind...
HELLO ITS SETH PROBABLY BETTER KNOWN AS SAFFRON OLIVE
Hex And then he beats you to death with an REP gaming products steel deck box filled with 100 foil copies of panharmonicon.
Owen Masur And marking your grave with a single Blood Moon
And squezing everything that's left of you into a rigewallet!
Because that'd be a better fate than having to listen to his fucking voice for 49 minutes.
Why are you playing Wall of Roots and not Sylvan Caryatid? Sure it has to tap for mana, but it is also hexproof and won't eventually kill itself while also lowering it's "power" over time. It also taps for ANY mana in your 3 color deck.
Colin Brown chord of calling
Boss Tsuna but sylvan caryatid can also be tapped for chord it has hexproof not shroud
Ciel PhantomHive wall of roots produces double mana for chord
TheJannis1994 true but running a easily killable Wall just for chord I think is not good but I could be wrong
Wall of Roots is really good with Chord of Calling. Also, on the beatdown plan Wall of Roots is a lot bigger (5/5 vs 3/3).
"Alright, pass the turn. Opponent...
SEARCH FOR AZCANTA"
I've been trying out something similar to this, except included a pair of Doorkeeper (2U, T: Mill X equal to defenders you control). It's been really fun and not done half bad
Andrew Klein YES!😆 I'm currently running 3, up from 1, in my Defender deck and I'm just itching to test it out😏
Feels like a commander deck vs modern decks.
Love the thumbnail, Pink Floyd, the wall, quite flavorful I'd say
You beat me to commenting on the reference :(
haha I knew it seemed familiar
Ok, so at 6:28 hidden teaser of old arcades sabertooth for flavor. Not in modern but worth. Love it Seth.
Read the article. I've tried this in standard but used Planeswalkers as an alternate win condition and as a way to draw Arcades (Dovin, Tezzeret)/get it back if necessary (Nissa) as well as defend in general (Gideon). It's not bad. If you don't get Arcades, you've got plenty of walls to hold out and protect your Planeswalkers with cheap relatively mana efficient defenders. It's not the most fun you'll have and there's far better things you can do but it's not bad and doesn't automatically lose if you don't get Arcades.
Ensnaring Bridge seems both amazing and terrible in this deck. I think we've hit the ultimate paradox here, and I love it.
Why does it seem terrible?
the deck isnt great at getting empty handed and typically you're going to be able to use your walls for decks that lose to bridge
35:44 Seth has 6 life, and bolt causes 3 damage... What am I missing?
Diogo V. Kersting tasigur, get back snappy, bolt face.
We chose the nonland card that we'll be returned for tasigur, right? Just choose thought scour, or something else.
Dead to Creeping Tar Pit (manland ub)
Yeah, Tar Pit was the issue.
MTGGoldfish empty hand for bridge?
19:26 Why not attack with Arcade?
Zosh I was looking for this comment!
And why playing arcades after the damnation instead of more walls? Super punts
Oops!
Still super good content Seth!
Zosh 😮😅
Needs Jaddi Offshootin the side or main. It can at least offset some of the shock and fetching, while blocking. Plus being a turn 1 defender helps with the overgrown battlements.
Built this as more of an aggro deck with stalwart shield-bearers, sylvan caryatid, carven caryatid and wall of denials. Deck is so fun to play, especially when stalwart and arcades make your wall of denial an attacking 10/10, flying, shroud creature. Also you should try eldritch evolution, can be found by transmute and can turn 3 arcades.
Someone at my lgs has played a similar deck for a while, and they generally win off of hornet queen. Also, they run a one of wild pair to get hornet queen off of wall of omens
One of my favorite decks you’ve ever played.
Thanks!
Personally I would run a full set of brigges, more assault formations and go full on the wall aggro plan with a touch of prison. The combo aspect feels like a win more, and while having access to it is fun, everytime your walls were attacking the opponent was dying quickly and bridge was stellar. Maybe leave in an staff of domination for a one card infinite combo with lots of walls?
I'm noticing a lot of artifact defenders in standard. It might be sweet to combine Arcades with an artifacts matter sub-theme with some Tezzerets, Sais, Anointed Processions, Karns, etc. Maybe go four color for Moaning Wall and a Psychic Corrosion or two? I'd love to brew it or check out a list if someone already has it drawn up.
Seth, why no Staff of Domination??
It’s the only card you need to go infinite
Kevin Hauck How would that combo work?
You have an Axebane Guardian or Overgrown Battlement with 5 or more defenders on the battlefield. Tap one of the mana producers to make 5 mana. Use 3 of that mana to tap Staff and untap the creature. Use another mana to untap Staff of Domination. You now are in the same place floating a mana and can continue the loop. With infinite mana, you can use the other abilities of staff of domination. You can draw a card, untap staff, draw a card, untap staff... to draw your deck. You can gain a life, untap staff.... to gain infinite life. You can tap all of your opponent's creatures etc. All you need to win is anything that kills your opponent with infinite mana / lab maniac
JB Edwards If you have 5 or more defenders in play, one of them being a big mana producing one, you can keep paying to untap both the mana producer and the Staff. From there, you can use the infinite mana to draw your entire deck, also with Staff.
Staff of Domination (3)
Artifact
(1): Untap Staff of Domination.
(2), (T): You gain 1 life.
(3), (T): Untap target creature.
(4), (T): Tap target creature.
(5), (T): Draw a card.
DrHackenslasher Oh, I don't disagree. I'm just explaining what the idea is.
Sounds like the time out special on mtgo
I feel like cutting the infinite combo and some axebane guardians to make room for more assualt formations and wall of denials would really help the decks problem with removal.
Can you try Grixis Midrange with the new Bolas, lets see if it's any good or not.
Treat it as a semi Thought Not Seer in a grindy/aggressive Grixis shell and you are good to go, the discard is semi protection by itself!
William Kienzle he's really good. The discard is good, but it's the above the curve body that's good. Some games I've honestly considered not flipping it, as he's just repeatedly beating the opponents face in.
Grixis Midrange is a bit tame (but Five-Color Elder Dragons is coming Sunday for Much Abrew).
William Kienzle Bolas is insanely good. Are you crazy? It dodges abrade, shock, and a lot of other removal spells in Standard. On top of that, it is a 4/4 flyer that makes the opponent discard a card and if you get a flip you basically won.
MTGGoldfish thank you Seth, you never disappoint, Nicol Bolas is my favorite planeswalker, so when I heard he was getting a 4 mana card, the cheapest he has ever been, I was understandably hyped, then I saw the card, it's a good card, it's just you need to build around that card if you want a deck to support it and use it. 4 mana 4/4 discard a card is good, but that is almost all the value your gonna get out of it unless you get 7 mana, which by that point you should be able to win the game.
that drift for ensnaring bridge was so sick
methinks the deck wants to go HUGE and just play around only the biggest of walls, Wall of Omens aside, and maybe some counterspells. There's ironically very little defense in this deck.
why didn't you build the deck with wall of blossoms instead of wall of omens? That way the mana base doesn't suffer as much because it puts it back into green a bit more.
Wall of Blossoms isn't legal in Modern, unfortunately. It would be perfect for the deck.
If one of the problems is to keep arcades alive, won't it be a good idea to ditch the combo and replace the pieces with defensive and counter spells? I mean you already work with blue so it's not like you need to splash for an all new color. Its can also help you stay alive in the early game (I play a lot with counter - burn and my counters really save me sometimes)
You should build a version of this deck with Tree of Redemption, that would be fun to watch!
Can u get that scapeshift list. I've been thinking of making rug scapeshift but that build is souch sweeter with bring to light!!
Yup exactly as I thought super weak to anything but creature decks, So I think more resilient threats like Sylvan Caryatid with Wall of Denial. Not running out your board and playing into sweepers. Combo with Wall of Roots and Eldritch Evolution to slam your Arcades, and Collected Company to power through sweepers and Kill spells. Also Id consider Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo to redirect damage from burn spells and Perimeter Captain for some life gain. Stalwart Shield Bear-ers are a good Wall Lord +0/+2 to all with defender. Cathedral Membrane are really good blockers 6 damage to blockers when it dies. And Wall of Shards to hose Deaths Shadow.
How come we still took 3 from searing blaze, even after pathing our wall? Should the entire spell not fizzle? 🤔
Upping the amount of Assault Formation in the deck solves the dependency on Arcades. Honestly, having some way of protecting Arcades would be nice. Also how would Golden Guardian do in this deck? Having it fight an opponents' creatures as additional removal and a source of additional attackers seems sweet.
Or perhaps Blossoming Defense to stay on color and pull the occassional combat trick?
Golem only fights your creatures sadly.
I'd honestly remove Overgrown Battlement for Plumeveil (which incidentally remains in color) and some number of Golden Guardians. Up the Assault Formations. Block and activate Guardian vs Plumeveil, use the crazy mana to pump out tokens
37:27 Why didn't you dispel the second bolt?
This deck needs an ensnaring bridge. Arcades totally breaks the symetry.
You're in luck
We've got on to tutor up!
I'm really digging the Pink Floyd reference in the thumbnail art. ❤
by the way 5 mana 5 damage burn spell is lava Axe
I would like to see a aggro version of this deck now that we have high alert. Playing 3 Arcades and 4 high alert with a little ramp
So if you go 0/5 with this deck does it count as 5/0?
Yes
U should try this on commander clash
Commander Elder Dragons are coming Friday (although I'm not playing Arcades).
36:46 Did anyone die a little inside when he chose an Island immediately after getting Spreading Seas?
Can someone please explain why the card draw triggers from Arcades (in the game when he went infinite) didn't force him to draw a card from an empty library forcing him to lose? (Relatively new to MTG) Thanks in advance!
He sounds happy to have gotten his voice back 15:55 onward lol
Seth one thing about this deck you did not realize while playing is that the elder dragon has vigilance and that you should be hitting for 5 every turn
Hmm, maybe true.
When you put multiple Arcades on the battlefield at the same time as multiple walls, do you get draw triggers from all of the Arcades before you legend rule them, or does that happen first?
Josh Hess since they enter simultaneously the draw triggers still happen when all of the arcades are on the field, and then you sac the arcades
I believe the answer is yes.
Why didn't you Genesis Wave for your entire deck G1 vs Tron? If Lab Maniac had been in the bottom three you would have lost, right?
Hmm, yeah, I guess that's true. I was mostly just tried of tapping and untapping.
pretty depressing start, but seth beating tron with a tier two or lower deck is one of the greatest joys in my life =)
Take a shot everytime Seth says "Arcaiiiidiiieeessss"
I tried a different version of this deck and it runs out pretty well. I remove the infinite combo pieces like axebane, maniac, genesis, ext, and i add 2 more copies of path, sylvan caryatid, 1 more of bridge and most important collected company.
I find it good and well mixed cause of course collected cannot tutor arcades, but with cord used just for him i did not find any downsides running company.
26:25 the happiness with bugles.
Sweet deck man
Thanks!
hey Seth, do you think you could try this again during a stream but with slaughter the strong?
a list a made as soon as Arcades was spoiled involved 2 Slaughter the Strong and 1 Detention Sphere. I did not have the bridge though. Drift being able to tutor for so much is insane, I feel like the best way to find success with this deck is to abuse that as much as possible.
What about paradox engine?
Why no Souls of the Faultless in the side? :)
they would be great against Burn and Bogles
Hmm, good call.
MTGGoldfish i run a pair in Esper Spirits in the side and they just brickwall the ground sooo hard, especially with the lord boosts.
spit out my coffee when he beat boggles lol
Hi Seth did you ever put more consideration into cube videos?
Imagine if wizards let Seth make the next online cube. It would be so much fun.
720 copies of panharmonicon
A ton of pans, creatures with etb-cardraw, emeria... to get them back for even more value and tutallage as finisher.
37:30 why not Dispel Bolt? You get to kill snappy or Jace.
The following Cryptic did explain it to me.
Nice The Wall reference on the thumbnail.
I said somewhere on here. This in my opinion should be treated as an argo deck not what you have going on. More bridge because of Modern. Also would like to see this in Standard.
love the pink floyd inspired thumbnail
Me too!
The Freed From the Real combo seems a little to cute to me, its a bit win more. Quite awesome but also silly.
Staff of Domination is probably better, it does the job of both Freed and Genesis Wave. But if you have that many defenders then you should just be winning with either Arcades or Ass Form. On the other hand I guess if you are in that position Staff combo actually gets you Arcades and lets you cast it...
Ensnaring Bridge also seems super strong in this deck, provided you can empty your hand.
There are also a few one sided board wipes you can run like Slaughter the Strong and Duck//Dawn?
I think there is a better version of this deck out there
Am I the only one wondering if four Arcades are necessary when there's eight ways to search for it and generally you very much would like not to have the dragon in your opening hand?
Ogni volta porti dei mazzi interessanti ma li provi contro mazzi fuori dal meta, anche vero che solo online si trovano certe cose strane, per una volta gli scontri erano contro i mazzi top meta
Bello ! Sempre nuove idee sto cazzo di drago domina muri è interessante
24:25
yes it does; despite beeing unusual... Thunderous Warth
16:24
Search for Azcanta, doing its thing. I mean: Search, For, AzzCaHhnTahh!
What about running Bring to Light instead of Chord
Dear Seth, I don't know how you stay positive. That first round made me salty just watching it. It makes me want to pull the teeth out of Ponza players, especially with all the land destruction.
Seems like spell skite might have been a good fit for this deck. Atleast as a sideboard option.
Protagonist Agreed, but not a defender so doesn’t help with Arcades aside as protection
Oddly Arcades only works with Defenders :(
Still could be worth it for burn/infect production, but it can't really attack with Arcades.
Canuyerdome Oh ya, completely forgot about that.
MTGGoldfish Whoops, that explains it.
I was hoping for more of a focus on control/beatdown, but oh well. There are plenty of ways to build around Arcades.
Am I going crazy or was there totally a missed attack for 7 free damage in game two against scapeshift? The turn after Arcades lost summoning sickness.
Lol in other news tho: "Forest for our opp-oh my god it's boggles".
I would love to see this archetype in Standard
It's a tough one right now. I'm hoping we get some more defender stuff in Guilds of Ravnica.
MTGGoldfish Hey Seth! I think is playable because of the fact that right now there's a lot of artifact walls which combines good with new Tezzeret as a backup finisher and/or card advantage. Maybe trying a more controlish style of the deck?
Anyway I don't know how good this deck would be in the current meta, probably better after rotation?
Your knowledge of Magic is higher than mine FOR SURE, and it's true that walls we have in Standard are not exciting even when some of them are a good 1 or 2 drops... but think about it.
This kind of deck is so unique that I feel it deserves a chance ;)
Regards dear SaffronOlive :)
Would Meekstone work well with this?
What was with the random Arcades Sabboth?
Just for fun :)
MTGGoldfish Nice Easter egg. ;-)
Are there any budget against the odds?
Seth can you put the price down with lands and without lands?
Hmm, I'm not sure that's easy, but I'll look into it.
If anyone wants to see this in Standard, check out Merchant. I personally think that it’s plenty playable. Just gotta have faith that you’ll draw Arcades and beat those Standard opponents out of nowhere. When you throw down Arcades you go from Standard to extraordinary.
honestly I'm disappointed that this won the poll... I played against 3 different Arcadies decks at my LGS on Monday. Thankfully the deck scoops to Maindeck Blasphemous Act and Ugin.
Deck is pretty sweet like always Seth, too bad I can go to fnm at my lgs anymore, thinking about selling my collection or going to play another tcg
Rayman_ 2000 why not?
Drake the troll because I had went to this shop called *A store of fire and dice* for the longest time, and because of the current state that wizards is in, and because of Seth putting his nose where it shouldn’t, it took a turn for the worse and got my lgs’s wpn status ripped from them
Fuck off
It wasn't even Seth's fault, go complain to the subreddit instead
Rayman_ 2000 seth made a valid criticism, and reddit overdid it. Look at the facts instead of just watching jeremy, who has his own agenda to push.
Mayb if we try with CoCo? no infnite combo
This made me think of a home for one of the worst creatures in magic - Zephyr Spirit in an Arcades commander deck.
He's an Elder Dragon with a name like the place where we used to play video games, he is not 'Arkady', a shady Russian dragon from Northeast Philly or Brighton Beach who drives a Nissan Maxima.....
Best art ever
I was wondering why wall of blossoms wasn't in the deck, didn't know it wasn't legal in modern XD lol
You give me a reason to live every night I get to fall asleep to sweet sweet Seth.
Why do you not use eldritch evolution instead of Chord of calling
THIRDEYE why would you do that? You make so much mana, and you don't want to lose your creatures. Makes zero sense.
Why sacrifice a Wall if we don't have to?
Seth, looks like you should run 4 bridges.
Could've Dispelled the Bolt and killed Jace thereafter. Am I missing something?
rockgod227 snap blocking, but I think that’s preferable to him keeping snap? That’s a hard line vs a k command deck
Yeah, Snapcaster was getting in the way. Still might have been worth it though.
GR Ponza just absolutely punishes greedy manabases, damn!
Now *that* is a title card.
Very sweet infinite mana win against Tron! Tiny note as a Tron player. We Tron players like it when you target our Tower while trying to keep us off Tron because it gives us the most mana when we tutor to reassemble it. If you have a choice target any of the other 2 in those situations.
I feel that I like wall of roots better with Eldritch Evolution. Wall of Roots pays for Eldritch Evolution and you trade your wall for an Arcades in play.
lil audio glitch at the beginning
@MTGgoldfish ... arcades or Doran???
Jesse Tomlin arcades, definitely. Doran has no way for your walls to attack.
Drake the troll you wouldn’t play mono-defender in Doran
That Genesis wave for less than your entire deck was risky. If labman was in one of those las couple of cards it would have been game over.
Arcades can attack 19:00
Is this arcades deck better than abzan Doran ?
Seth just play a playset of the on color fetches they are the best lands in your deck
But what about Surgical Extraction?
(Actually, you are probably right).