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FoolofaTook
11-29-2007, 11:22 PM
I put this together about a month ago and it has been doing very well, although with occasional inconsistencies.

// Lands (20)

4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
4x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Mountain
2x Swamp

// Creatures (32)

4x Mogg Fanatic
2x Flailing Soldier
4x Emberwilde Augur
4x Augur of Skulls
3x Keeper of the Dead
2x Storm Entity
2x Dwarven Miner
2x Nezumi Shortfang-Stabwhisker the Odious
4x Simian Spirit Guide
3x Big Game Hunter
2x Lava Zombie

// Spells (8)

4x Aether Vial
4x Magma Jet

// Sideboard

4x Leyline of the Void
4x Yixlid Jailer
3x Bloodfire Dwarf
2x Hammer Mage
2x Contagion

The deck plays a little bit like classic Goblins, however it's more controlling and methodical in its approach and consequently slower but more resilient, particularly against cantripping control decks like Threshold.

The ideal turn one play is of course Aether Vial and the deck generally wins if it lands a vial on turn one or two. The other path to victory that happens fairly often is the mana denial draw with some combination of 3 of Wasteland and Rishadan Port.

The creature mix seems a bit esoteric on first glance, with a lot of two-ofs and three-ofs, however everything has its uses in the context of the current Legacy meta.

The 4-ofs are mostly designed to be uncounterable spells for effect off of an Aether Vial.

Mogg Fanatic is to kill Dark Confidants, Pump Knights, Goblin Lackeys, Quirion Dryads, and other early threats.

Augur of Skulls is a discard two device to dig cards out of the hands of Threshold, Landstill and combo before things get too ugly. Once in a long while it actually blocks but generally it pops off a vial during upkeep and is immediately sacrificed for effect.

Emberwilde Augurs are an uncounterable bolt to the face and used the same way, although at 2 power they can also beat if the situation allows it.

The Simian Spirit Guides are used primarily as surprise mana and they can win games by offsetting a Daze allowing Aether Vial to land unexpectedly. They also function very well to power Rishadan Ports when you want to shut down two lands or waste a land and shut down another early on.

The 3-ofs are mainly to kill Goyfs, Dryads, Exalted Angels, Jotun Grunts and the like and they function fairly well in that regard.

One of the hardest choices to make early on is whether or not to freeze Aether Vial at 2 counters or bump it up to 3 for the Big Game Hunters. A control player relying on Goyfs or Nantuko Monasteries backed by counterspells or counterbalance is made miserable when his big beater is removed at instant speed.

Keeper of the Dead is the weaker of the creature control mechanisms due to the fact that he doesn't function immediately, however once he is established he can lock a deck out of its big killers and control things for you.

One of the major effects in the deck is that there are so many things that are irritating to the average opponent and they have nowhere near enough removal to handle all of them. An opponent who has blown removal to get rid of Mogg Fanatic (to save the Dark Confidant he wants to drop as an example) and then taken out a Nezumi Shortfang or Dwarven Miner finds themselves confronting much worse things just a turn or two later, but with no recourse in hand.

The 2-ofs are designed to create an aura of unpredictability about the deck that makes it very hard for people to respond accurately to the threats they perceive as likely to emerge.

The Dwarven Miners would be too slow if not for the fact that they can land at the end of the opponent's 3rd turn off of a vial and then be used during your turn. They can also land after a Wasteland, Rishadan Port opening that has the opponent already staggering.

Similarly the Nezumi Shortfangs can be used effectively early and complement the Augur of Skulls.

Lava Zombies are the creature I'm most conflicted about in the deck. Not because I don't like their effect, because I do, but because they tempt me to bump the vials to 3 counters too often and I'm fairly sure that this is a weak move for anything but a Big Game Hunter. I have considered using Tombstalkers in this slot and may yet make that switch. The one thing that keeps me from doing that is that I can save a critical asset that is being targeted, at instant speed if I have a vial with 3 counters on it. It's still very iffy.

The Storm Entities come in off of vials most of the time and they land as a 3-3 or 4-4 blocker often when somebody has cast a creature for effect and then cast a removal spell and I've responded with my own removal.

The Flailing Soldiers frequently are good for four early damage off of one mana and they make the opponent think too much about how to use his early mana. It's not unusual for an opponent to tap two land to kill a Soldier and then never recover the tempo as a Wasteland drops him back to critically low mana and then a Rishadan Port lands. I started with four of the Flailing Soldiers in the deck, however they are not a good mid game draw for obvious reasons, and I cut it back to two.

The Magma Jets are there just because they are too good in a context where a little damage can put you over the top and there's always something good to scry for. They are great for provoking a counter before something really annoying is going to land and they can be cast during the opponent's turn to pump up a Storm Entity that's about to land off a vial. Counters tend to pile up in an opponent's hand because of the uncounterable nature of a lot of what the deck does and so the Magma Jets do tend to draw blue.

The sideboard is basically designed to handle combo and particularly graveyard based themes. The Leylines of the Void and Yixlid Jailers are about as much protection as you can hope to have given the main theme of the deck. The Bloodfire Dwarfs are to kill Empty the Warrens.

The Hammer Mages are for artifact-based themes, and individual headaches like Pithing Needle and Sensei's Divining Top and other annoying small artifacts, however the Aether Vials suffer from their presence and I find myself rarely tuning them in. There were two of them in the main deck originally and two in the sideboard and I found the two in the main deck to be largely irrelevant so I removed them.

Contagion is designed essentially to be used against control-based themes that are carefully guarding a True Believer or something similar. It's nice to have an answer that comes completely out of the hand so that they can't win based on reading the board. Combine Contagion with Simian Spirit Guides and you can make a dedicated Dr No absolutely psychotic now and then.

I have looked at Grim Lavamancer for the deck and it's a very strong card, however I wanted more immediate impact and so I substituted the Mogg Fanatics instead.

I also looked at Pyre Zombies as a graveyard recursion mechanism with a vial set at 3 to get them back in play quickly. The problem is the deck really prefers to have the vial at 2 counters for any number of reasons, most notably that it's a lot easier to replace a vial at 2 than to get a vial back to 3 again.

Withered Wretch was in the original deck as an anti-Threshold device which could also spoil recursive graveyard combo. In testing it was just too narrow and it didn't have the impact that I wanted. If the meta became even more heavily graveyard oriented I suspect the wretches would find their way back into the deck somehow.

The last card I looked at seriously was Ashling the Pilgrim. Great effect, but he did not work all that well with the Rishadan Ports and I found him to be not as impactful as I thought he would be because I was choosing to ignore him in favor of shutting down the opponent's mana.

Anyway, I'd be very interested in feedback on the deck. It looks fairly promising to me at this point although it needs tuning.

Cavius The Great
11-30-2007, 06:27 PM
Radley would be fond of this deck. :wink:

I'm also not sure why you aren't running Lightning Bolt and thoughtseize which seems to be some of the strongest cards of that color. Terminate and Rakdos Augermage also come to mind as some solid inclusions.

FoolofaTook
11-30-2007, 07:28 PM
Radley would be fond of this deck. :wink:

I'm also not sure why you aren't running Lightning Bolt and thoughtseize which seems to be some of the strongest cards of that color. Terminate and Rakdos Augermage also come to mind as some solid inclusions.

It's a permanent rich deck designed to be relatively uncounterable and to stand up to things like Threshold, Landstill and 43 Lands by virtue of drawing and deploying diverse permanent solutions. It also needs to be able to stand up to Goblins and decks that run 25-30 creatures.

I included Magma Jet because the deck needed some mechanism to untangle long mana skeins in the early to mid-game and the facial damage they presented worked well with the Emberwilde Augurs.

I could be wrong, but I believe that replacing 8 creatures with 8 spells would weaken the deck's ability to stand up to most comers. The original list I worked off of actually had 36 creatures in it and as I dropped the less effective of them I worked the Magma Jets in. This was primarily because the deck will die to a 4 or 5 strong run of mana lands and that happened occasionally before I put scry in.

Rakdos Augermage is a very interesting idea. I'm trying to hit the right mix between 2CC and 3CC creatures for the Vials. 3 counters is a large investment in terms of what can't be played after you make the bump. At the moment I'm trying to hang at 5 to 7 3CC creatures tops. It's not clear that I'll be able to do that though because I'm already considering tuning two Pyre Zombies back in. The perma-block they represent with a 3 counter Vial in play is appealing, as well as the DD they can produce. If I decide to make a real change in the current 17 to 5 ratio between 2CC and 3CC creatures I will probably also include an Augermage or two.

xsockmonkeyx
11-30-2007, 09:25 PM
Smother?

FoolofaTook
11-30-2007, 09:31 PM
Smother?

The creatures that give the deck the most trouble at the moment are the ones with Shroud. The single creature that does the most damage to me is the Nimble Mongoose of all things.

Is there an effect that I could deploy off of an Aether Vial that would kill green creatures with a power of 3 or less? Like a Dystopia type effect?

The big creatures rarely cause problems. I think I may have taken damage from Goyfs a few times but they've never been the thing that killed me.

Cavius The Great
11-30-2007, 09:37 PM
If you're concerned with Moongeese, I'd suggest something along the lines of Abyssal gatekeeper. Gatekeeper is cheap and not only gets rid of untargetable creatures but also helps feed your graveyard to take advantage of Keeper of the Dead. It's also really neat in a deck that runs a massive amount of creatures such as the innovation that you call Aether Vile.

xsockmonkeyx
11-30-2007, 10:07 PM
The creatures that give the deck the most trouble at the moment are the ones with Shroud. The single creature that does the most damage to me is the Nimble Mongoose of all things.

There is always Diabolic Edict. THoughtsieze would also preemptively take care of Mongoose, Enchantress.


Is there an effect that I could deploy off of an Aether Vial that would kill green creatures with a power of 3 or less? Like a Dystopia type effect?

Not that I know of, that is, not like the way you are thinking. I think you might want to just play Dystopia or maybe Perish out of the side if it's that big of a problem.


The big creatures rarely cause problems. I think I may have taken damage from Goyfs a few times but they've never been the thing that killed me.

Even more reason to run Smother. :P

FoolofaTook
11-30-2007, 10:32 PM
If you're concerned with Moongeese, I'd suggest something along the lines of Abyssal gatekeeper. Gatekeeper is cheap and not only gets rid of untargetable creatures but also helps feed your graveyard to take advantage of Keeper of the Dead. It's also really neat in a deck that runs a massive amount of creatures such as the innovation that you call Aether Vile.

Abyssal Gatekeeper looks like a real possibility. I'd have to add Volrath's Stronghold also to get back the Big Game Hunters that I bounce to my hand with Lava Zombie under the current system.

I'd also need to work out a logical solution/progression that protects the Dwarven Miners, Nezumi Shortfangs and Keepers of the Dead, so that they did not become frequent collateral casualties. Maybe Safe Haven, which I have not looked at in literally a decade.

FoolofaTook
11-30-2007, 10:38 PM
There is always Diabolic Edict. THoughtsieze would also preemptively take care of Mongoose, Enchantress.

Anything that is cast from the hand is a real liability, due to the fact that it takes the opponent's otherwise useless counterspells and counterbalance and gives them value. Thoughtsieze however might well be acceptable, since it casts in the same timeframe as Aether Vial. It'd replace Magma Jet and I'd have to think about that.




Not that I know of, that is, not like the way you are thinking. I think you might want to just play Dystopia or maybe Perish out of the side if it's that big of a problem.

There are no Dark Rituals in the deck and Dystopia would never land against a counter deck.




Even more reason to run Smother. :P

Thoughtsieze is probably the better answer given it's wide range of applications.

FoolofaTook
12-01-2007, 01:47 PM
Thinking about removing the 2 Flailing Soldiers and replacing them with either Undead Gladiators, Rakdos Augermages, Pyre Zombies or Abyssal Gatekeepers.

Undead Gladiator - Pros: Allows a recursive beater/blocker mechanism with a vial set at 3. Beats well at 3. Kills Nimble Mongoose as a blocker. Cons: Another 3CC creature that increases pressure to bump a vial.

Rakdos Augermage - Pros: Good beater that overmatches a Nimble Mongoose. Seems likely to synergize well with Augur of Skulls and Nezumi Shortfang although limited by the need to not expose Big Game Hunters and Keepers of the Dead to discard. Cons: 3CC and vial.

Pyre Zombies - Pros: Recursive direct damage possibility and blocker with a vial set at 3. Cons: 3CC and vial. Does not synergize well with Rishadan Ports due to 3 mana activation costs.

Abyssal Gatekeepers - Pros: 2CC. A blocker that always removes something of substance, although not necessarily what you want to go. A removal mechanism for a lone untargettable creature who is beating the deck down. Cons: Tricky to use with so many other permanent creature solutions in the deck.

Not sure which way to go, although I am leaning towards the Undead Gladiator or Rakdos Augermage.

The balance of effective 2CC vs 3CC creatures will move from 17 to 5 to 17 to 7, a ratio that I think will keep pressure on the vials low enough to be manageable.

The other change that is going to get made is the addition of 1 or 2 of Volrath's Stronghold, probably at the expense of a Mountain and/or Swamp. Thoughtseize requires a proactive solution to avoid having the creature removal taken out of hand before it's needed.

Cavius The Great
12-02-2007, 02:09 PM
What happens if you don't draw an Aether Vial in your opening hand? Do you just hope to mulligan into one or what?

Jaynel
12-02-2007, 02:20 PM
Oath of Ghouls seems AWESOME in this type of deck. It's like a free Pyre Zombie effect stapled onto every dead creature. With the cards you're running, you WILL have more creatures in your yard then your opponent.

Cavius The Great
12-02-2007, 02:35 PM
Oath of Ghouls seems AWESOME in this type of deck. It's like a free Pyre Zombie effect stapled onto every dead creature. With the cards you're running, you WILL have more creatures in your yard then your opponent.

I agree. oath of ghouls was a very powerful card when it was legal in Standard. I think that this deck can benefit greatly from it. I also think that Cabal Therapy can be used as well, not only in conjuntion with Oath of Ghouls but with the massive amount of creatures this deck runs, they'll be little to no setbacks.

FoolofaTook
12-03-2007, 01:10 PM
What happens if you don't draw an Aether Vial in your opening hand? Do you just hope to mulligan into one or what?

When I don't draw an Aether Vial I rarely mulligan unless the draw is subpar in other ways.

Normally an Aether Vial-less opening hand either has the mana denial present or has a bunch of creatures in it.

If it has the mana denial then I run that and wait to see what developes. Against Goblins or any mono-color theme this turns into a fast loss, but it's manageable against most decks.

If it has a handful of creatures then I begin playing them out to exhaust the opponent's removal and counters. This can be a bad opening against some decks also, but it's manageable against most decks including Goblins and the mono-color decks that kill the other case.

Having played about 75-80 live games with the deck at this point it's breaking down sort of like this:

With Aether Vial present in the opening hand I win about 70-75% of the games.

With Aether Vial not-present I win about 40% of the games, maybe as few as a third - but it feels like more than that.

After tuning I win more often than I lose. This is primarily because people's answers to Vial-Goblins, which include Engineered Plague and Engineered Explosives primarily, are much less effective against this deck but they see Vial and Rishadan Ports and they blindly go to the anti-Goblins tune.

The Leylines of the Void are just a house against Threshold and so I'm probably winning 45% of the game ones there but winning 80% of the game twos.

FoolofaTook
12-03-2007, 01:17 PM
Oath of Ghouls seems AWESOME in this type of deck. It's like a free Pyre Zombie effect stapled onto every dead creature. With the cards you're running, you WILL have more creatures in your yard then your opponent.

Yeah it does seem like a very powerful option. It'd have to replace the Magma Jets but it would also draw the counters and removal that I worry about being directed against Aether Vial. It also has the benefit that it is not removed by the same Engineered Explosives that gets rid of Aether Vial.

I'm definitely looking at it now.

Cavius The Great
04-21-2008, 10:37 PM
@FoolofaTook - What do you think about Fulminator Mage? I came across the Shadowmoor spoiler and instantly thought of this deck.

FoolofaTook
04-22-2008, 03:33 AM
@FoolofaTook - What do you think about Fulminator Mage? I came across the Shadowmoor spoiler and instantly thought of this deck.

TES destroyed this deck so consistently that I put it away and tried a BU version. Fetchland Tendrils would be about as bad at this point. It's good against Threshold and ok against Landstill however it is basically a bye for Storm-based combo and Ichorid.

If I was to pick it back up I would add Oath of Ghouls, as suggested above, and run maindeck Leyline of the Void. That would cut the creature count from 32 to more like 25 or so. Fulminator Mage would fit well into that construct because it could be recurred when the situation warranted that.

The BU deck that I ran used Oath of Ghouls and Aether Vial but not maindeck Leylines and it was very hard to win a match against a fast combo deck. It dominated Dragon Stompy and had very good matchups against Goblins and Threshold but it was an almost auto-loss against Storm-based combo and Landstill so it got put away also.

J.V.
04-22-2008, 04:07 AM
TES destroyed this deck so consistently that I put it away and tried a BU version. Fetchland Tendrils would be about as bad at this point. It's good against Threshold and ok against Landstill however it is basically a bye for Storm-based combo and Ichorid.


Well as you know we consider a ;ot of match ups byes. :wink: That is of coarse unless you start with T0 Leyline, then drop Chalice for 0 and Then build up a hand full of counterspells... :cry:

mujadaddy
04-22-2008, 11:36 AM
Plague Spitter... just sayin'...

emidln
04-22-2008, 12:10 PM
Well as you know we consider a ;ot of match ups byes. :wink: That is of coarse unless you start with T0 Leyline, then drop Chalice for 0 and Then build up a hand full of counterspells... :cry:

Incidentally, if you're doing that you have no clock, and we can beat that too. :cool:

It seems that a blue splash yielding Stifle, Brainstorm, and Ponder would be a lot better. Stifle's utility ranging from mana denial to annoying ability stopper seems like a perfect fit for a deck already playing 8 mana denial.

morgan_coke
04-22-2008, 02:02 PM
Hearth Kami and Goblin Tinkerer both seem > Hammer Mage since they don't hurt your own Vials and deal effectively with small artifacts.

FoolofaTook
04-22-2008, 02:12 PM
The blue splash I tried was for Kira, Great Glass-spinner and Echoing Truth. I had Leyline of the Void and Yixlid Jailer in the sideboard for GY-based combo, Back to Basics for land based control and Engineered Plague for Ichorid and Goblins, as well as to have something to nail Dark Confidant with if it was beating me.

Stifle would have been a real possibility, although the problem I had was it was going to be useless against Orim's Chant in TES (and now FT.) I think Phyrexian Dreadnoughts would also have to be there somewhere in a deck that had a Stifle option and Aether Vial.

The real problem the deck had was that the meta is just too varied not to be playing very fast aggro-control, aggro-control with counters, Landstill variants or resilient combo. Mid-range aggro-control without counters just does not cut it at the moment.

Media314r8
04-22-2008, 05:14 PM
I think a RUB aggro build might be possible with the addition of Sygg, river cutthroat. My goal would be to keep vial in, and end your curve at 2. Dark confidant, and sygg along with bolts and perhaps chain lightnings will give the deck the gas it needs to aggro and burn out the opponent. Blue also gives you MB stifle and sb submerge. (on an opponent's goyf in response to cracking a fetchland) That or you could go with an aggro/disruption deck (I don't say aggro-control as its not close to thresh)

3c Aggro-Mana Denial
// Lands
2 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 [B] Underground Sea
2 [B] Badlands
2 [B] Volcanic Island
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [B] Mountain (3)

// Creatures
3 [SHM] Sygg, River Cutthroat
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [10E] Mogg Fanatic
4 [SHM] Tattermunge Maniac
3 [TO] Grim Lavamancer

// Spells
4 [NE] Daze
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [B] Lightning Bolt
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [UD] Encroach
3 [B] Sinkhole

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [NE] Submerge
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [MM] Hammer Mage

RB Sygg beats

// Lands
4 [TE] Wasteland
2 [MM] Rishadan Port
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [B] Badlands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [B] Mountain (2)
2 [B] Swamp (2)

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [10E] Mogg Fanatic
4 [FUT] Emberwilde Augur
4 [FUT] Augur of Skulls
4 [SHM] Tattermunge Maniac
3 [SHM] Sygg, River Cutthroat
3 [TO] Grim Lavamancer

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [B] Lightning Bolt
3 [FNM] Terminate
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 3 [SHM] Smash to Smitherines

Media314r8
04-22-2008, 05:35 PM
I've been testing the RB sygg beats deck (with -1 mountain, -1 swamp, +2 wooded foothills) and it's been performing really well. I want to change the hymns to thoughtseizes MB to make them more castable, but hymn is such a raping, and I need the two cards to make any kind of a dent in storm combo.

n00bas4urus_r3x
04-22-2008, 05:40 PM
I'm not exactly sure he fits, but has Fulminator Mage been considered in a LD build?

Media314r8
04-22-2008, 06:21 PM
@fulminator mage:

The guy will be a powerhouse in extended and T2 for years, but grey ogres are not what an aggro deck wants to be casting, and if I had incorperated vial intending it to move up to three, it would defiantly be for countryside crusher before a grey ogre/wasteland. The deck has access to sinkhole for :1: less than mage, and it can kill basics. /rant

Cavius The Great
04-22-2008, 06:28 PM
@FoolofaTook - What do you think about Fulminator Mage? I came across the Shadowmoor spoiler and instantly thought of this deck.


I'm not exactly sure he fits, but has Fulminator Mage been considered in a LD build?

Read the thread and you will achieve enlightenment. :wink:

FoolofaTook
04-23-2008, 02:15 AM
The RB Sygg Beats looks interesting. I'd probably try it with Diabolic Edicts instead of Terminate and I'd find some way to work 3 Oath of Ghouls in as well. I'll admit I don't see an obvious swap out for Oath at the moment. The ability to cast an Augur of Skulls and then sac it the following upkeep to make the opponent discard two, then return it to hand and immediately deploy it via Aether Vial and sac it again happens more often than you'd imagine mid-game and it makes both control and reloading combo very unhappy when it does.

I'd go for your idea of swapping Thoughtseize for Hymns. Much easier to cast and great protection against somebody comboing out on you on the draw. I wouldn't replace that discard element with Oath of Ghouls, it'd have to be something else and I'm having trouble visualizing what would come out.