Cradle is certainly not win more. It helps break an even board stall and allows you to cast things nicely through a Thalia. Plus like you said, you have to give up a lot of cards to run Depths combo. Without it I'm able to play multiple decays and bring in many things post board in games. Plus getting Library is huge in the fair match ups. Also cradle is fucking insane with a Scavenging Ooze. And for those not running it, Rogue's Passage is an excellent card for punching through a ton of damage with an active Knight. Also, unlike Depths it taps for mana so it makes hands better. It also does something without needing an active knight. Also Cradle with Tracker is pretty nutty.
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
@TMagpie:
Usually I'm on the same page with you but I disagree with your recent post.
I agree the DD/Stage plan is run in Maverick for 2 reasons. However, I disagree with your conclusion. Maverick runs DD to 1) have a clock towards inevitability and 2) to surprise the opponent.
I will not delve into whether DD/Stage > 2 misc lands. There are a lot of good points in the theory-craft world.
Maverick, like every creature-dependent mid-range deck, has next to zero inevitability. Maybe if you had several large KotR with Mom support vs their "nothing on the table" board-state, we can concede there's an inevitable win in our favor. But I'm taking a more global position: against a decent legacy deck, you have no way to reach a high % chance that you'll be the victor. In my experiences, DD/Stage actually gives me clock. A clock that says "you'll likely end the game by pulling this off". It's never been an automatic win, but it's certainly been overwhelmingly in my favor. If the opponent lets me bullshit for a few turns, all the better because my DD clock is ticking. The surprise factor is also something you cannot gloss over. Large-scale events you can be sandbagging the combo. If KotR isn't tutoring up wastelands (the main strategy) or fetches (beat-down and math tricks), you can bet I'm setting up the DD combo. Hell, I've won rounds I really shouldn't have because my opening 7 had the natural combo. I still think DD shouldn't be the main strategy of Maverick. The combo simply lets you meander into a decision tree of "sudden finisher" that catches many opponents off-guard. When you have 2 KotR or 1 Kotr + a playable Scryb in hand, you have the advantage of "oops here's a 20/20".
I won't speak on the GSZ/Cradle comments except that "GSZ is the reason to run Maverick in the first place"....I think you're searching for negative situations.
@Luthiereisfun: SFM is insane. I have no idea what your meta is, but she's a staple for the foreseeable future.
I did not mean to sound so harsh--I do not believe Dark Depths is meant to be a primary plan for Maverick, ever. I am simply saying that when you are running Dark Depths you *have* to think of your cards differently from a philosophical level.
Depths is a card meant to give you an out when you *should* be dead. Sometimes there are openings to use it proactively to get "free wins," but I often find that doing so outside of game 2 or 3 hurts in the long run more than it helps. The combo is meant to be leaned on when your opponent is able to get into a winning position. Most often, when opponents are in a winning position, it becomes almost impossible to even keep more than 1-2 creatures on the board if any at all. Depths shines the most in those matchups since resolving a KotR means you could theoretically stabilize and, so long as KotR holds the fort to keep you alive, you can assemble the combo and win the game you were supposed to lose.
To be okay with that, Thespian Stage hurts your mana base, Dark Depths does nothing on its own, and if you keep a Maze of Ith and Batterskull in your list (like I do) you will quickly find you have little to no room for much else outside of the skeleton crew of the Maverick deck. In other words, the Depths combo is a much BIGGER commitment than just 2 lands. The only real way to be okay with running it is if you believe squeezing as many "outs" to Maverick as you can is a net boon for the deck as a whole.
Cradle is a very powerful land. I have lost to it MANY times be it from Elves or Maverick. The reason I talked down about it is because its a deck that really wants you to already have a board. The card is fairly bad after a Toxic Deluge, or a Terminus, or a Supreme Verdict, or a Pernicious Deed, or an Ugin. When I say that it "wins more" what I mean is that it does not help much if the opponent is easily killing most all of your creatures. It neither protects your threats, makes threats, or is a threat itself. I have sided out Dark Depths and have the opponent cast a Pithing Needle for Thespian Stage on the first turn of the game because they want to neuter the threat of a Marit Lage token. I have forced a standstill deck to crack its own standstill because I simply played 3 lands and a depths and started thawing. People actively change the way they play against you when they see the Depths Combo; because it's proactive, and because it is often a way for your to win the game even if they are killing everything else on the table.
it comes with HEFTY drawback, and comes with some of the deadest draws in Maverick. So if you feel brave enough to run Depths accepts that you will make a lot of cuts to fit it. I don't recommend it for people who likes running fun cards, flexible cards, or non-threat cards like Sylvan Library. You just don't have room in the deck to run that many cards that don't kill the opponent.
Interesting decision at a tournament this weekend. Game 3 on the draw against Sneak and Show and he plays Show & Tell turn 2. I have to decide between Rec Sage and Knight. I chose Rec Sage because if he puts an Omniescence or Sneak Attack in play I have a huge advantage but if I put Knight in and he goes Omni into Emrakul its instantly game over. He ended up putting a Grizelbrand in play, so the Knight would have ultimately been the better choice
As Maverick players, we often have this choice.
There is a small guide that I've came with, which helps.
1) have you seen red sources? If opponent has only 3x Islands in play, chances that she plays pure Omni-Tell. Should there be a Volcanic, that is either a pure Sneak Attack or a merged one. Keep an eye on whether they have a red mana open. Pure Omni-tell doesn't care about a Sage, they win with a trigger on the stack.
2) which turn is this? Sometimes they have those perfect hands: S&T, Omni, Emrakul. But oh well, not so often. Unless it's turn 5 of constant pondering/brainstorming, chances of them having everything are low.
Summing up all the above said, it's almost always better to go for a Knight than for a Sage. Should they have Sneak into Emrakul, this choice probably won't matter much. Omni into Wish - choice doesn't matter. Should they have Omni into Emrakul/Grisel (hard to obtain all pieces) - now, Sage would save you. In all other cases, Knight is the way to go, and he is a faster finisher too.
To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, a bee, and revery...
Not saying you were necessarily wrong, but I think I put in knight most of the time. It's easier for them on turn 2 to have Griselbrand. They're more likely to anyway just by a numbers standpoint right?
In the end, its really about making gut calls based on your read of the opponent over a bo3--BUT, here is the guide I use when making that call without context..
For reference:
Show and Tell
2Card Combo:
If Griselbrand => Knight
If Emrakul => Knight
If Omniscience + Instants => Either
If Omniscience + Sorcery => Reclamation Sage
3Card Combo
If Sneak Attack + Griselbrand (No Mana) => Either
If Sneak Attack + Griselbrand (With Mana) => Either
If Sneak Attack + Emrakul (No Mana) => Reclamation Sage
If Sneak Attack + Emrakul (With Mana) => Either
If Omniscience + Emrakul => Reclamation Sage
If Omniscience + Griselbrand => Reclamation Sage
The shorthand is simple. If you have been pressuring them. Destroying lands, resolving hatebears, all that jazz--then you should choose KotR because 3/4 of the time it is the correct play.
If it turns out you have not been pressuring them hard enough, and they actually have the 3card combo of Show and Tell + Enchantment + Fatty, 50% of the time Knight of the Reliquary would have been as effective, albeit Rec Sage is "technically" more effective.
Hey guys/gals,
I recently have noticed that my matchup vs 4c delver (not the grixis + green one, but the one running lots of creatures) is really bad. The cards they play (bolt, decay, shaman, delver, true-name, leovold, snapcaster etc.) are sort of a collection of cards that we never wanna see in one deck as Maverick. And those kolaghan's commands usually send me to oblivion, e.g. destroying a sword + creature. There is literally no card in their deck that would be bad or ignorable for us.
I start with siding out vials, but MU is still incredibly bad, even after sb (they bring even more nasty stuff like golgari charm, needle, dread of night, sulfur elemental, diabolic edict). One might think that Wasteland is a MVP in this matchup, but my opponents somehow always find a way to get out of Thalia/Wasteland situation and flood the board with lots of lands, they probably just play a lot of them (or, possibly, 4 Ponders/4 Brainstorms is the issue). At the same time, many of their cards trade 1-to-2 or 1-to-many vs ours. Does anybody have any ideas how to improve the MU? Or tips how to play against 4c delver? Or it's just our nemesis MU?
My current list can be found here.
To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, a bee, and revery...
Play Green Sun's Zenith.
Jokes Aside, even though you're playing a vial version your list looks really heavy on three drops. You're currently playing 10 three drops which although vial may mitigate, the games you don't have vial seem like they could be clunky again delver decks that can pressure your mana. I currently run the GSZ version so it's not the best comparison, but I'm running functionally 9 ways to accelerate my mana turn one, but i'm only running 5 three drops (including Sword of Fire and Ice).
Would something like Sigarda in that matchup be good? I don't know how reliable that would be without GSZ but you do have cradle. That said it seems most list now don't run the big 5 drops. I also wouldn't want to run Sigarda against a delver deck where you want more early interaction but what your describing sounds like it might be going to a more midrange grind scenario.
Sigarda doesn't really go that well with Vial :p But yes, for GSZ versions of the deck she will probably help a lot.
When playing vials, you have to compensate for the lack of gas from GSZ, and playing more 3-drops is inevitable if you want to keep doing smth after turn 3.
And no, it's not the too many 3-drops that's the problem in the matchup :p When vial is up for 3, putting 3-drops every turn (and using mana to draw cards from Tracker) is quite crazy. But they manage to kill all my threats in a very fast pace, while keeping landdropping.
I do of course agree that in this particular matchup GSZ version is better, and it is certainly so it is for 2 more matchups: Jund and Pox. But after sb vs those 3 decks I side out vials and become some kind of midrange maverick without gsz, which is fine given the number of late drops. Sure, I become slower, but they side out Dazes and Forces vs Maverick. Probably, the real problem is just incredibly high quality of their cards.
I was even thinking of some extreme ideas like siding out all cards that don't do stuff on their own, e.g. Mother of Runes (it will die to some kind of -1/-1 sweeper or Dread of Night anyways) & Scryb Rangers, and filling these with discard, Garruk and removal, trying to play their game, so basically becoming an Abzan Rock deck with Thalias post-board (Knights roleplay Tarmogoys here :p). Example sb:
+2 Abrupt Decay
+2 Zealous Persecution
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Council's Judgement
+1 Garruk Relentless
-4 AEther Vial
-2 Mother of Runes
-1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 Scryb Ranger
I will give it a try.
P.S. What might actually help is a sb Chains of Mephistopheles: those decks draw a lot of cards. But it's not really viable in my case because of 3x Trackers.
Last edited by aspsnake; 03-17-2017 at 12:47 PM.
To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, a bee, and revery...
I play a GSZ version of Maverick. I have little to no problems with any version of Delver. However, and I do wish to emphasize this, often times its simply because I run them out of removal. This is done by way of Knight of the Reliquary and Mother of Runes. Against the removal heavy versions, it is usually the 3rd time I resolve a Knight (possible because of 4 GSZ) that breaks them. If I played a list without GSZ, I can see how the matchup would feel really bad.
Scryb Ranger is just the best. During a game today I realized you can get Rallier triggers off bouncing your forests back. It wasn't apparent to me at first (I am also new to Rallier but liking him) so I thought I would share.
I love that Scryb, Deathrite, and Maze of Ith is 6 damage a turn
4x Displacer with 4x Rallier, combined with 3-3 Wasteland/Ghost Quarter. Savage.
13 cards that are 3+ mana. I think it'd be better off going with a few Cradles or some Birds (drop Batterskull), but seems like a potent combo.
It's important to remember that even a deck with 59 Islands and 1 Frost Titan has chances to enter top8, given perfect hands, right matchups and lots of luck :)
On a serious note, Smugglers can be devastating in a Maverick/Delver/D&T meta: colorless flying creatures with a good equipment are pain for either of the decks. But in the majority of other metas, they honestly won't do that much.
I also absolutely agree that this conversion of Modern Eldrazi into Legacy Maverick is bizarre at the very least. It's just too slow for whatever they were trying to do. There is not even a way you could possibly play TKS before turn 3 in the deck (it's very crucial for playability of Eldrazi Stompy to be able to play TKS on turn 2).
To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, a bee, and revery...
I've played copter before and even though that deck has no Green sun, fetching up Dryad arbor to crew a copter is pretty sick
In my playtest with compter, my favorite play has always been Deluge the board, fetch an arbor, then attack with copter.
My second favorite was activating scryb and discarding the bounced lands to the copter to draw cards while vialing out the threats I drew.
Overall opinion on copter has been bad--but it has led to sweet sweet plays
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post995968Holy moly today's deck was fun! I really liked the prison-y aspects of it. I thought I was going to miss having Green Sun's Zenith in a maverick build, but having every creature be great value made up for it. I honestly am not sure what I'd change about the list, other than maybe cut an eldrazi displacer to make room for something else. I realize displacer + most of the creatures in the deck = super great value, but honestly I never even cast a displacer, and didn't feel like having one in play would have made much of a difference in most games. It's a little slow, and there's probably another card that could take at least 1 slot of it. Conclusions made from playing this deck: 1) Palace Jailer is amazing! 2) Renegade Rallier has some serious value. I recurred wasteland and ghost quarter several times by casting this dude, and the tempo swing was generally enough to put at least one nail in the coffin.
Worth considering...
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