I am going to disagree with Whitefaces on this one. I had the most success with the deck while running 7 dorks. 7 is enough to regularly have a mana boost. If you are inclined to go that way give it a try.Originally Posted by mike1987
A new primer would be really awesome!
Fair enough, I just always feel like the deck is a lot worse without one on turn one (to point out the obvious). Seven is the accepted number of dorks to reasonably have one on turn one iirc, Frank Karsten crunched the numbers.
If you do cut a dork I'd recommend it be a DRS, without Ponders to find the necessary fetches he's not as reliable as Noble is to curve out. That's my experience anyway.
This I agree with. Getting consistent mana is extremely important to this deck.
I've gone back and forth between 7 and 8 dorks, but the true reason why it's correct to run 8 is that you get roughly a 6% increase in having at least one mana creature in our opening hand. Since the deck is built around access to a mana advantage early- and since the loss of miracles makes hierarch better- I think we definitely want 8.
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I have to agree. I starting playing this deck since the top ban (Equipping TNN is really where I want to be). It's so busted to have a turn 3 TNN or Leovold that I always want to increase my percentage of having a mana dork in my opening hand. I went down to 3 stoneforge mystics. I figure they're not a threat and mostly just a tutor. SFM seems to be the last card I play out of my hand. Again, I just started to play the deck so I don't quite know the ins and outs, but so far it feels right.
You bait the counters with the sfm. The tnns are their to end the game.
You dont want your tnn to get countered. If you drop a turn 2 sfm, their turn will consist of them removing that threat.
Thats how you waste their turn for you to drop thr tnn. Dont go lower than 4 sfm. Its straight card advatange with brainstorm and jace
What I like most about SFM is that it helps increase the probability of having a high impact turn 2 play. Sometimes, you don't have a turn 1 mana dork. Sometimes, you're turn 1 mana dork gets killed. SFM helps improve your curve; SFM helps reduce the games where you do nothing impactful until turn 3. When you do stick a turn 1 mana dork, it's nice to be able to Daze turn 1 when you have to, and still have a turn 2 play. So on and so forth.
Trimming to 3 on Hierarch or SFM is most certainly possible, but maxing out at 4 increases consistency.
I don't really know if I understand your logic since TNN blanks their removal spells. Leovold allowing card advantage because it replaces itself if it gets removed. You also have permission as well to ensure that your threat sticks. I don't even mind spending turn two playing two more mana dorks (unless you suspect Toxic Deluge), because it puts you so far ahead and basically makes their soft permission dead cards. Especially with terminus in the trade binder, I feel like I want to jam TNN out ASAP to start a clock and then later equip it with Jitte or SoFi to finish out the game. I guess I am taking a more Mid-Ranged approach to the deck rather than a control approach to the deck.
You can use the SFM to bait fow or daze from your opponent, or have them spend a turn answering the sfm before dropping your tnn with an extra land drop out of daze range. Also- some of the time you will have a dork turn 1, but no 3 drop- sfm fills the void in your turn two after you brainstorm to sculpt your hand further as well.
T1 Dork, plus T2 Wasteland SFM is great too.
Played Gideon a bunch at FNM. He is fine. I could see some decks that are super soft to combo liking him. I would liked to have played him against delver as I think that is probably where he would shine, but I didn't get that matchup tonight and he just doesn't seem as good for me as clique or Leo or Snapcaster or Jace. I will bring one with me tomorrow (GP legacy side events all day) but I suspect he won't make it in. Decided to go with a pretty lean main deck and a bit of spice in the board.
Played different versions of the deck a lot this weekend:
Friday FNM: I added a savannah and played two gideon of the trials, 3 wasteland (20 land), 1 ponder, 3 mystic, 1 snapcaster
Saturday GP event 1: no gideon or savannah, 4 wasteland, 1 clique, 1 Leo, 1 jace, 1 snapcaster, 4 mystic.
event 2: I played Aluren but got paired against a pretty stock looking bant deck in round 2 and lost to his T2 Leo G1 and T2&T3 TNN in game 2. I think BUG Aluren is favored in this matchup, but the fast three drop is the way for Bant to win.
event 3: Bant with 3 Leovold, no ponder, 3 wasteland, 2 sea and 1 scrub (20 land), 2 jace, normal everywhere else.
I had some flooding issues without the ponder (and library I use to also run). It is a small sample size but I like having the 5th can trip. I am never sad to see Leovold and throwing one out into removal or a counter with a second in hand (like most of our threats) is fine. I didn't see my one of sideboard divert at all throughout the weekend. That was a bit disappointing, but saw lots of moments where it would have been outstanding, so I am keeping it for the time being.
Edit: Also of note, I lost games to Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Choke in my 8 rounds on the deck yesterday and decayed 2 BtB and one blood moon. It might be worth going back to the forest, green fetches, and KGrip (board). The UW stoneblade decks I played both had BtB in the main. With that in mind, two decay main is very reasonable, so at least from my experience yesterday my 4 plow, 1 decay was wrong.
Went 3-1 yesterday, despite 4 of my cards I replaced Elspeth, BSK, and 2 Ponders with a terrible experiment. I won't talk about those cards here.
Esper control - 0-2
Patriot Control - 2-0
Aluren - 2-1 [white BUG version]
Infect - 2-1 [mulled to 5 G1, the first being because of Dryad Arbor. probably could've won with my original hand were it 2 DRS instead of GSZ Arbor.]
Highlights:
* Tried a 1 of Spell Queller. That card is amazing. Holy crap. Won me a game against Aluren because when he went to decay Canonist and go off, I munched the decay. He quickly said "can't be countered" and then had to read the card. Good times. Flying for 2 won that game (and him dumping life into sylvan thinking he'd go off.)
* * Also played a huge role against Infect in a game as another removal spell essentially. Equip + Flying was essential to that game and he did that as well.
* * I will be moving to 2+ in the main I think. It's a house.
* KotR wasting Inkmoth nexus's and Pendlehaven multiple times.
* Clique causing a lot of awkwardness for Aluren and ultimately winning the game by making it so he couldn't go off without another answer.
* Holy shit, is canonist amazing against Infect, and was game-winning useful against Aluren. Swapping Teeg back to a second one seems way better.
* Brought 2 Submerge in the side to deal with Infect and the ever-present Goyf/BUG decks, helped win me G2 against Infect. I think it'd be useful against Aluren on the combo turn while Harpy is on the stack; but I only sided it in G3.
Notes:
* I think I'll swap the 2 GSZs, Haunt, and Arbor for 3 DRS/1 USea. I like GSZ for versatility, but that can be mitigated with cantrips. The main issue is arbor only tapping for green does occasionally come up [especially since it requires green to cast], as well as -1/-1 effects. DRS blocking opponent's DRS activations also seems like something I'd like to be doing again. Between Elves, BUG, etc. blocking a mana activation seems quite good. Obviously DRS eating things when you don't use the mana and can't attack is also a thing. The 2 toughness will come up quite a bit with Exalted too.
* The match I lost was a grindy Esper control deck; predictably to JtMS after we hosed loads of cards from each other. Unfortunately I removed the grindy cards that would've helped (and had been seen) for this MU. I am back to debating Elspeths.. [note: I bought a pair of jaces a couple years ago, but they were either stolen or.. more likely.. put somewhere stupid and I haven't found them.]
* The 3rd ponder vs. the 4th wasteland is a current predicament. I haven't yet needed the 4th Waste to seal the game, but I've needed the 3rd multiple times in my [only] two locals.
* I moved to 3 Daze a little bit ago and it feels pretty ideal. With 4 you're often stuffing it back in. Dazing late game has often become a lot better for me too. I find myself dazing 4-mana spells and spells that
* Screwed myself G2 with Aluren when I Brainstormed, had a Teeg on the field, and was going to use my GSZ as a shuffle effect and to get mana I needed. My opponent noted that that didn't work. Sad times. I knew the tension was there, but the slowdown there cost me the game I think.
Between KotR, Queller, and Clique; I feel the combo MU is getting really good. I'm winning a lot of G1's confidently and then getting a couple chances to really dig in on the following games.
I know people here are all in on the TNN plan but the reason I'm in the more classic bant style is the Combo MUs. KotR + Clique solves a lot of issues. I've also been quite happy to reliably triple-waste people a couple times now. People aren't used to it anymore I don't think, or they're new enough that they didn't actually play against Mav/Junk lists of old.
Thanks for trying out a bunch of different things!
I'm going to try 3 Leovold myself again soon, the card seems even better positioned in the meta now. Probably in the slot of a Stoneforge Mystic.
Your event 3 sounds exactly like the deck I'm playing.
And yeah, on Moon, B2B and Choke, I've been discussing these cards with a friend and we've said if they start to be played more and more the basic Forest + K Grips is the way to go.
I'm still on 2 decays md, with 3 stp.
I've found that there are more bolts/pushes running around because of grixis Delver- 3 leovold might be too much.
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I think one or two clique over leovold isn't gaining major percentage points against combo- and anyone who sees an active kor is going to get basics if they have them. The Karakas toolbox package could be a reason to run it but unless things like hex Depths take over the meta I don't currently see a reason to. I think TNN is the whole reason you want to be running the deck right now- and moving backwards from that significantly weakens the deck.
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Spell queller is still probably trash even with decay losing some presence- its still around and lightning bolt is seeing a lot more play.
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By all means, I could be wrong. I'm just reporting. Spell Queller won me the only games I saw it in, one in a manner that no other legacy card can [specifically protecting me from decay.]
I admit I lose some fair MU points with the grindy decks. I'm still looking for how best to deal with that without overloading on three drops.
To counter the TNN point; I don't know why you'd be in Bant to run SFM+TNN. Bant gets you a couple of Hierarchs I guess, but the Trop/Bayou you'd run in Esper can cover a 2-of if you're desperate. They get Lingering Souls for the Grind if they want, as well as Gurmag/Stalker/Strix. I'm not sure what you gain in WUgb that you can't have in BUwg. There's less CA here than there is in Esper, less sword holders, little/no token possibilities. It's literally just for hierarch?
I'm in G specifically because KotR shores up Reanimator/Sneakshow/Infect/Lands (mostly Karakas, but wasting Inkmoths is good.) I get that I could do the TNN+KotR route, and I might.. I'm just feeling around the build space in an evolving meta. Fact is, in my meta right now, usually about 15-20 twice a week, there's 2+ infect, 1+ reanimator, 0-2 sneakshow, 1+ lands; and a SneakFit who's dropping T3 Emmy's on people. There's also a couple of very experienced storm and elves pilots. My money is not on grinding.
I know I *probably* dropped a game or two in the fair MUs in the couple of locals so far that are due to [x] being in TNN's slot. But that banks on the opponent not having answers, one of which had -1 effects, the other (who may have had that as well) had Judgement/Snaps. TNN is a reasonable card, but we're in a meta filling itself with -x/-x hate, combo, and delver. I sold my Leo's because I think he's got a limited time on his head and he hit his ceiling. I could be totally off, but I find it hard to believe he's not saturated.
So rather than play known quantities and tell you about how cards you already know are good are in fact still good; I'm giving you a perspective of "I realize this isn't what you guys are doing at the moment, but over in my oft-combo infested meta, this is performing [x]." This may well be annoying to you.
Lastly, my perspective is usually focused on how to make combo MUs sterling, while being bigger than Delver. Grindy MUs feel like the pilot's fault, or that a minor tweak could fix the deck, or that getting [x] online T3 would've gotten you there. Combo often feels like "my deck sucks." So I'm willing to slog it out with fair decks and take a couple points off while gaining a few points against combos; in part because fair games are so much more varied in how they play out that it's hard to tell when it's deck, pilot, or opp's draws.
Anyway, now that I've crapped a load of text, time to get to work :p
In response to the spell queller/decay reporting- obviously there are some cards that people play that win them games they wouldn’t have been able to win otherwise- but spell queller wasn’t good enough in an abrupt decay infested meta and now more efficient spells that remove it (bolt) are more abundant.
The green is to be able to play more mana creatures while accelerating the deck to be able to play daze and wasteland more efficiently. Without the dorks- you can play a stoneblade game with high impact spells and counter backup- but dark bant is far smoother and more tempo oriented than the midrange/controlling blade variants. I think Knight is a far more grindy card than true-name nemesis. The splash 4c deathblade decks with 7+ dorks are also super proven in the meta game and have shown over the last year that they are more than likely the best variant of stoneblade (this is arguable)
On the point of KoR vs Reanimator- I think that KoR is far too slow for the BR Reanimator matchup- and even if you can naturally draw the karakas for grisel- they will more than likely draw into an entomb for Tidespout or Sire. I would also argue that playing more mana dorks in a daze shell gives you a better matchup against combo than the traditional esper deathblade.
It’s obviously fine to say what happened at your local- but posting things like:
Are just asking to be commented on.Highlights:
* Tried a 1 of Spell Queller. That card is amazing. Holy crap.
I should also get back to work!
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