Have you ever think about add a couple of Enlightened Tutor, I know there's the omnipresent problem of " what to cut?", and probably T1 is better going with veteran or therapy but a T2 E.Tut will be good to me especially because it can tutor everything i need: R. Nightmare, Pod, Deed, Metamorph(If you're fighting against Emrakul or Prog deck). And now that MM is gone maybe we can give it a try(I'm just asking before buy them).
The first time I took the wrong way trying to use fauna shaman as a tutor, tutorable via GSZ, and like most of the creature of this format she die under every lavamancer-bolt-swords/path...but on the other hand artifacts and enchantment have a lot less hate but i don't find any other tutor for it.
For the "what-to-cut" problem i will probably take out 1(of the 2) Academy rector and some GSZ; in the end most of the times GSZ to me is a veteran explorer n° 5-7 or a "looking for a finisher and I'm too lazy to sacrifice something to pod"(if your finisher is green) while E. Tut can be Pod 5-X, Deed 4-X...
Been a while since I've posted here, but I'm still working on the deck. I've gotten my list about to where I'm comfortable with it, and I figured I'd share the near-endpoint list. It's come a long, long way from the first lists I posted ten-odd pages ago.
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Kitchen Finks
2x Eternal Witness
3x Academy Rector
2x Sun Titan
1x Yosei, the Morning Star
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Debtors' Knell
2x Garruk, Primal Hunter
2x Liliana of the Veil
3x Gifts Ungiven
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Path to Exile
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Thoughtseize
3x Forest
2x Plains
2x Swamp
1x Island
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
1x Tropical Island
2x Phyrexian Tower
1x Dryad Arbor
//SB
3x Enlightened Tutor
1x Choke
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Leyline of the Void
1x Stony Silence
1x Runed Halo
1x Circle of Protection: Red
2x Duress
3x Natural Order
1x Progenitus
I do want to squeeze in a singleton Kokusho again...he was in the earlier versions of the deck, and I liked him a lot when he was in. Like Yosei, he can win games nothing else can, especially with either the Nightmare or Knell engines going. Every time I want to say that Yosei can be something better, he bullshits me a win out of nowhere, and I am forced to rethink my stance on him.
In my particular version, Liliana of the Veil is absolutely stupid. She has amazing synergy with Sun Titan, and is completely backbreaking when she lands on t2 after an Explorer being set off.
My maindeck can handle a lot of things, and the sideboard is built strictly to deal with specific problems that the main can't as well. The deck abuses the graveyard alongside enchantments, which means that most decks have to board in a lot of cards and weaken their own plan accordingly. No/Pro comes in when the opponent brings in graveyard hate, while the deck can play through enchantment hate just fine. Grip is mildly annoying, but it's also a pretty good Therapy target g2/3 vs green decks, depending on what you beat them with g1.
This version isn't necessarily for everyone...a lot of the card choices are different from what seems to have been agreed upon in the thread now, but it suits my playstyle perfectly and does pretty good work for me. Also, I have yet to drop a single game to Zoo, out of ~6 matches. We'll see where the meta shifts, but at the moment, I'm very content with this list. It's incredibly hard to play, but it's also brutally unfair. You just need to know what your line of play is at all intersections.
RE: Pod.
In my humble opinion, I don't think that the Pod lists will work as well as the non-Pod based lists. Pod is a pretty powerful engine, and I'm sure that if/when it does get broken, Explorer will be there somewhere. But in testing, I felt that Pod was a little too clunky, even with Explorer ramp. It also mandates that you play a lot of creatures, which is something that I think that this deck does not want to do. Deed, discard, spot, and 'walkers are all very important in this deck, because you have to be prepared for your opponents' bombs. Usually, due to the sorcery speed Therapies, you will need to react to your opponents' plays before you can deploy your own, and I'm unconvinced that Pod is a serious -enough- threat that it will trump whatever stupidity your opponent is doing. Granted that sometimes you get to do stuff before they do, depending on the turn Explorer sets off and the hand/board state in question...but if you use your Explorer mana to play Pod, with no creatures left in play, and then they drop 2-3 dudes, it seems a little unfortunate to me. I'm far from opposed to Pod -- I play it in standard. But I'm unsure that the tools are all there at the moment for it to work in legacy.
I'll reiterate, though, that when it does work in Legacy, Veteran Explorer will be played alongside it, no question.
RE: Top.
I actually think that Top is unnecessary, and those spots would serve you better as more removal/bombs. Here's my rationale: the deck already topdecks like a champion. As a result of Explorers, we thin our deck out much faster than other decks in legacy. Late-game, there are literally no bad topdecks (at least in my version). Explorer can be a little iffy sometimes, as can discard, but the discard can still be useful if they are holding back removal or counter, and Explorer, if nothing else, can thin your deck out even further, or be a sac outlet for Nightmare. Such are my thoughts, unpopular as they probably are.
RE: List sorting out.
A page or so back, someone was saying that they hoped the lists would sort out and have an "accepted" list. I don't believe (and I certainly don't hope) that this will ever, or should ever, happen with this deck. It's very much in the same deck archetype as Survival, pre-Vengevine. Everyone who wants to sleeve up Veteran Explorers, IMO, should build and tune their own lists that are best suited to their playstyles. Threads like this should exist so that different people can share their ideas and toss out cards that others may not know exist (hi, Tendrils of Despair), or are legal (hi, Academy Rector). But hoping for an accepted list that can just be netdecked just seems to violate the nature of the deck.
I think you misunderstood my hope for an accepted "list", it was more an accepted "base", and I think we are getting there!
So far I've seen:
Gifts-Explorer
GBw Pod/Zenith
GB Controllish
BUG NO-explorer.
These are bases which you can build upon, but they all play out rather differently, are you getting where im coming from? :)
I really do like your list but I think I'd need shitloads of time to get into a Gifts/Rector-build (and IF I'm going to Amsterdam, that's rather soon).
I surely will steal some ideas from it, though! I agree that Liliana must be bonkers and since I'm already playing here in standard, here we go!
Yeah, I get you now. Sorry if I came down a little too hard -- I'm pretty firmly anti-netdecking, especially with a deck like this. My bad.
I do think that this archetype would benefit from having a few separate threads, since with the four archetypes you pointed out above all crammed into one thread, it's hard to get any serious debate for any one version -- that is one reason why I stopped posting here.
The Gifts/Rector style that I endorse isn't really THAT hard to get into, but it's hard to master. The deck's strengths can guide you through a lot of mistakes while you're learning the deck. I don't know when Amsterdam is, since I'm on the other side of the ocean. But I'd definitely recommend at least trying it and seeing if it meshes with your style. If you play Vintage (not MUD or Dredge), then you'll probably have no problems sliding right into it. Alternatively, if you have Cockatrice, I could get in some testing with you over that sometime and try to help you get ready.
Welcome back :)
I guess I have to get some Lili 2.0 now. Today was a quiet day at work and I've been brainstorming how to abuse the Lili/Sun Titan interaction best.
What I really like is that she is basically a discard outlet for Titan too, if you haven't got the mana yet. It happened a few times during testing that I want -> Activate Liliana -> Discard Sun Titan -> Drop Rec. Nightmare. Hot.
Judging from the decks I have been seeing locally as well as watching SCG events, it might be necessary to have 2 maindeck Scavenging Ooze in conjunction with X GSZ's.
I have been increasingly impressed with its utility in the format.
Hey guys -- I'm going to be participating in the Jupiter Games event tomorrow. I'll post a report after the event is over (translation: probably Sunday pending how early we get back). My list will be the same as posted a page back, with the following changes:
Main:
-2 Thoughtseize
+1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
+1 Scrubland
Sideboard:
-3 Natural Order
-1 Progenitus
+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Surgical Extraction
I would love to have the Thoughtseizes main, as well as probably like an Innocent Blood. I just don't see the room there at the moment, though...I want another land, and I never should have taken Kokusho out in the first place. I looped somebody with Nightmare for 15 in one turn a few days back in testing. I was having trouble actually killing people sometimes, so I figure that another bomb is probably a good idea. I took the Volrath's Stronghold out a few versions back, since I was never using it, and with Liliana, the interaction between Stronghold and Fleshbag was no longer in place. I think that the event tomorrow is -probably- going to show that the spot would be better served by an Urborg for more advanced Nightmare looping, but I'm going to try it with the Scrubland and see how it goes.
SB is fairly simple...Extraction seems good vs the format in general, and I think that I like it being free more than I like it being uncounterable. My reasoning specifically is High Tide...I'd like the ability to do something at least while my opponent is masturbating. If I do put the Urborg in, I'll probably switch this with Extirpate. We'll see how often it gets countered tomorrow, I suppose. Natural Order is terrible right now, and people are probably going to want to bring in their Metamorphs/Images against this deck anyway due to Titan triggers and legend ruling the double dragons. I see no reason to open myself up to this line of play even more than I already am, and that gives me the four spots for Thoughtseizes and Surgicals.
So yeah, we'll see how she goes. Here's hoping I hit Zoo every round =D
It seems to have double posted for some reason. Sorry.
I think the deck deserves a spot in the established section. TheCouncil already appreciated that this with a new section created (Nic Fit) http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/tip...&format=Legacy . Also the deck is putting up good results lately.
. Delete .
New to this thread !
I really love this deck and tested some builds online.
My final Version is GBw with Zenith, without Pod. Pretty standart build ;)
Some questions:
1. How good is Reveillark, Fleshbag Marauder, any nongreen silverbullet without Pod ?
2. Are there any ways to beat combo constantly ? (Ichneumon Druid doesn't seem right to me :D)
Thanks for your help !
So, I played yesterday in the first major legacy event at a local store, Jake’s Cards and Games. JCG was just opened fairly recently by a member of the community, so I definitely wanted to support him. He’s hoping for the store to evolve and grow along a similar path to Jupiter Games, so best of him to him there.
Now, the deck. It’s changed a good bit since I posted previously, after running it at both SCG:Baltimore and the last two Jupiter events. I realized some things weren’t as good as I thought they were, and others were much better.
4x Veteran Explorer
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
1x Master of the Wild Hunt
3x Academy Rector
1x Yosei, the Morning Star
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Sun Titan
1x Adarkar Valkyrie
1x Debtors’ Knell
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Moat
3x Pernicious Deed
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Green Sun’s Zenith
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Garruk Relentless
2x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Bayou
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Phyrexian Tower
3x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Plains
//SB:
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
3x Kitchen Finks
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Choke
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Krosan Grip
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Swords to Plowshares
Round 1: Adam with Combo Elves*
*Note that this build of combo elves is a little different. Adam was playing a good friend of mine’s deck, which I knew was built with the Eldrazi Green archetype in mind. As such, it was sporting Summoning Traps, multiple space monsters alongside Priests of Titania and Archdruids, with GSZ, Fauna Shamans, and Empaths serving as tutoring (and a singleton Primeval -> Eye of Ugin).
He makes some elves while I assemble a board, hitting Therapy on turn 2. He’d kept a business-light hand with a bunch of dorks and a pair of Harmonizes. I flashback on my Explorer, taking them. This eventually resulted in the situation of Moat + Kokusho + Recurring Nightmare for the win.
(In: +2 Swords, +1 Teeg, out: -2 Liliana, -1 Hymn)
Game two sees Adam spew his hand on to the field as only Elves can really do. Unfortunately for him, Pernicious Deed happens, and wipes it all away. I believe that I Zenithed out the Master, and wolf beats got there.
1-0.
Round 2: Bryce with Speed Goblins
Before this round, I had talked to a friend who was playing TES. He told me that he’d just lost to Raging Goblin followed by a bunch more quick, small goblins. As I sat down, I recognized my opponent as the same guy that my friend had just played. Time for a little revenge.
He comes out Raging, while I make an Explorer. He drops a Balloon Brigade and another Rager, but doesn’t attack. This makes me a little curious, and I tried to think of why he wouldn’t want to lose a goblin. I think I have an idea, and I Therapy him naming Goblin Grenade. His hand was two Grenades and a Mountain. Welp. He stalls out on land while I drop Sun Titan and Yosei.
(In: +3 Finks, + Sanctity, +2 Swords, out: -2 Liliana, -4 Hymn)
I open with my singleton Leyline in my opener, alongside a lot of lands and a Moat. I decide to keep it. Bryce gets very sad when I drop the Leyline, and I learn later on that he also ran Bolts and War Strikes alongside his Grenades, and had in fact kept a very burn-heavy hand. He hits me down to 15, and then I drop the Moat and proceed to do obscene things to him involving Debtors’ Knell, Nightmare, and Dragons.
2-0.
Round 3: Zach with Burn
The aforementioned friend who had loaned Adam the elf deck. Zach and I have played this matchup many times over many different iterations of both of our decks. We both know it’s a coin flip, which is a little unfortunate since the winner can double ID into the top 8, and I was hungering for some EDH action.
Game one is pretty standard stuff. We’re racing each other as hard as we possibly can -- I drop a Sun Titan and start beating him down, but he finds the Bolt he needs and we’re on to game two.
Note: I forgot to keep track of my sideboarding exactly at this point. I’ll try to recreate it as possible. (In: +3 Finks, +Sanctity, + 2 Krosan Grip, out: -Moat, -Knell, -2 Liliana, -Yosei, -Titan). Not sure if I boarded out the two 6‘s...I usually board out some number of them here to lower my curve, but that doesn’t feel right to me for some reason.
Game two, Zach keeps a slowish hand with a few pieces of graveyard hate, and is punished for it. I Zenith out a Finks, and he manages to get me to a whopping 16 by the time I kill him.
Game three is tight. A pair of Zeniths find me two Finks, and Rector digs up my Leyline of Sanctity. I’m back up to 9 life and have lethal on board, with Sanctity up, so I’m feeling pretty good. Then he rips a Price of Progress (the one he left in his deck), hitting me for 10. Usually I don’t have that many non-basics, but my hand that game was weird. I also probably should have stopped playing land at some point, but unfortunately this deck is mana-hungry enough that I tend not to think about that option, and it costs me here.
2-1.
Round 4: Harold with Esper Control
Harold loves some Dreadnaught, so I figured I’d see at least one of them by the time the game was over, and I was right. His brew of the day sported Snapcaster abuse alongside multiple planeswalkers, Counter/Top, and a ton of counter and removal.
My notes are terrible for this matchup, but I do remember that Harold mulled to an amazing 5 game one. He had answers for my first three or four plays, while slowly digging himself out of his mulligan. My turn one Veteran beats him down to 13 by itself, at which point it’s joined by a few other weenies. He takes a big hit just before he dies -- I think from a Sun Titan, but I don’t remember for sure.
(In: +Choke, +Chains, +Teeg, out: ?)
Game two, he hits his Dreadnought. Unfortunately for him, I have a Deed ready and waiting. We dance around for a while. Eventually he drops a Jace and starts trying to brainstorm his hand back, while I proceed to beat at Jace with an Explorer and a Rector. I finally land a Garruk, which blows up my Rector and transforms. That grabs the Knell, and starts doing stupid things. I draw in to Choke naturally, and although he bounces it once, he can’t answer it a second time, and dies to beatdown.
3-1.
Round 5: ID with Eric, High Tide.
3-1-1.
Top 8: Tony with TES
Good friend and member of my car -- was not looking forward to this. TES is one of the decks that I am always afraid of because they can win literally out of nowhere. You can think that you’ve got it all you want, and then they topdeck an Ad Naus or a Tutor and go nuts.
Game one, he mulls to 6. I Therapy turn one, naming LED -- he reveals Petal x2, Rite of Flame, Ritual, Gemstone Mine, and Burning Wish. He’s a little short of whatever he wants to do, and I proceed to rip his hand apart. He floods into Duresses, Moxes, and lands, while I drop bombs and kill him.
(In: +Chains, +3 Surgical Extraction, +Teeg, out: -Moat, -Knell, -2 Garruk, -Valkyrie)
He mulls to 5, and I’m feeling a bit better about my shaky two lands, Chains, business keep. Then he kills me on turn one. Awesome.
Game three is a nail-biter. I have an early Therapy again, which again I miss on. He reveals 2 Ponder, 2 Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Gemstone, Scalding. Scary shit. He uses some Ponders, I Hymn away some stuff. I Witness back my Hymn, and then flashback Therapy. He brainstorms in response. I know that he’s going to hide his Infernal Tutor, because I’d love to get that. I name Dark Ritual, and find that he hid one of those, too. I still take away one, though. With the fear of the Hymn in my hand, he tries to go off. The mana isn’t there, though, without his second ritual. He concludes by Burning for Thoughtseize, taking my GSZ. I start to beat down, and get him to 13 when he topdecks Ad Naus with mana to cast it. However, in the process of going off, he hits both the 2nd Ad Nauseum and the maindeck Tendrils, putting him to 1. He mini-tendrilses me , putting himself back to 15 and me to 4. I know that he still has a Burning in hand from the Ad Naus, which means that he can Wish for Tendrils #2 and kill me next turn. Luckily, I have a Therapy, and take his last chance of winning.
Top 4: Eric with High Tide.
I never look forward to this, although at least Surgicals make me feel like I can interact somewhat.
I’m not even going to say anything about game one. Never of us were happy with that game -- our decks both punted on us very hard, and I managed to beat him down and take it. But it was very unsatisfying.
(In: +Chains, +Choke, +3 Surgicals, +Teeg, out: -Moat, -Knell, -more expensive things]
Game two represents a Herculean effort on his part. I disrupt him as much as possible, but he eventually Time Spirals anyway, and we’re off. He doesn’t find what he wants, and shapes his second hand a little before shipping. I Surgical his Preordains, which proves to really slow him down. Tons of discard and counters later, he Spirals again. And again. And AGAIN. After the fourth Spiral, he almost whiffs, Snapcastering a Brainstorm as a final shot. The bottom card of his Brainstorm is a Scroll, which gets Wish, which gets Freeze for about sixty times the necessary storm count.
Game three, I see an opener with several pieces of discard and a Surgical. He starts to sculpt again, and I waste no time Surgical’ing his Brainstorms. I draw into another Surgical, and use that one to take his Ponders, too. I eventually Rector in Chains, and, coupled with my clock, that signals the end for High Tide.
Finals: Tom with Punishing Zoo
To this day, I have yet to lose an individual game to Zoo, let alone the match. I lean back and relax after surviving two combo decks.
Game one he comes out stupid fast and drops me to 1 before I can stabilize. Part of it is my fault, because I kept a shaky one-lander with some disruption and an Explorer, which turned amazing beyond that. After a few turns, I hit a green source, which lets me get mana before I go to 1. This results in a Pernicious Deed, which clears his board. Deed is quickly followed by Sun Titan, and he can’t manage to find a burn spell to do the last point of damage. Phew.
(In: + 3 Finks, +2 Swords, out: ? I need to remember to write this shit down better)
Game two is textbook Zoo stomping. He makes dudes while I make a Moat, which protects me while I assemble Veil-Cursed Garruk + Rector + Master. He finally finds a Qasali and nukes the Moat, but then realizes that he can’t do anything anyway. I kill my Rector with Garruk, finding Debtors’ Knell and another Rector. He tries to actually do something before he dies, which results in his army getting wiped out by deathtouching wolf tokens. I Master my Rector, finding Recurring Nightmare, and set up a loop with Kokusho which results in a one-turn clock. He can’t find anything to do about it and dies easily.
-----------
The deck is, I feel, very close to where it needs to be. I believe firmly that there is an Explorer deck somewhere that can break Gifts Ungiven in half, but honestly, I realized that I was splashing blue for two cards, and it’s been running a lot smoother since I took that out. Valkyrie was my experimental replacement for Grave Titan, which I wasn’t happy with. I wanted a third flyer for Moat purposes. Valk was okay, I guess, but I didn’t really have a chance to use her at all. She just came down and swung Vigilantly in one or two games. Liliana is amazing, sometimes. I’m thinking at this point that the way my deck is evolving, she’ll probably get cut, along with the Valk spot. I think that the double dragons are probably enough for Moat, since they’re pretty hard to effectively solve. They pretty much demand a Swords, and by the time that matters, my opponents are either out of Swords, or they’ve been discarded first, or my dragons are safely in my graveyard, Nightmare looping -- at which point they never get priority to swords in the first place. At this point, I’m thinking that the 3rd Garruk is probably going to happen, and the two Liliana spots will probably become either like a pair of Vindicates or a pair of Baneslayers. I can’t Empath or GSZ for Baneslayer, which is kind of a problem, but I think that with the 3rd Garruk, I’d probably be okay to put them in. Otherwise, though, the deck feels amazing.
Hi,
thanks a lot for the report.
As for the 2 Slots you wanna open up: No love for Qasali Pridemage? I think you should really consider him in one of those slots ;).
So, I took Arianrhod's list (with his proposed changes, 2 Vindicates in those free slots) to our sunday legacy tournament in Vienna and failed horribly to a 2-3 record.
I played against:
UWB Esper Control 2-0: G1 he gets a gameloss for wrong decklist, G2 I open a strong hand involving some discard and double Garruk, first one gets forced, I easily control the board with the second which resolves until I seal the game with recurring Kokusho.
Team Portugal 0-1: There the downfall begins. We just finish one game, which is a ridiculous long grind where we trade back and forth, unfortunately he has his singleton Riptide Laboratory pretty early and gets ridiculous use out of his Snapcasters. Midgame I have him locked down with a Moat with lethal on his side, but he has Lili 2.0 online. I topdeck just lands for a few turns and eventually Lili ultimate seals the deal. This match was pretty exhausting and puts me on tilt.
Reanimator & Hive Mind both 0-2: I get thrashed pretty hard both games, as I keep loose hands in post G2s.
GW Maverick 2-0: Nothing much to say here, an easy win as he plays it out pretty weak. Ridiculous trashtalk going on next to me. I guess that's what I get for playing with a rogue deck.
Overall I have to say that I for sure didn't do the deck justice, as I'm pretty out of the loop concerning magic and legacy in the post misstep era. I've made several slight to major play mistakes and kept ridiculous loose hands both against reanimator and hive mind, I've got no clue what I was thinking.
So, now some points about the deck itself:
Changes I'll try for sure:
-Urborg +Phyrexian Tower: I was always short for sac outlets, and Urborg wasn't really impressive.
-Fierce Empath +Senseis Divining Top: Decks like this really want their manipulation to work properly in long grinds. I'm pretty sure I would have won against team portugal had I drawn a top. Fierce Empath did never matter as a GSZ target.
Changes I'll probably make:
-Debtor's Knell +Oblivion Ring: Knell is impressive for sure, but my first Rector activation usually fetches Deed or Moat cause Knell is too slow or has no targets at this point, and for later activations Nightmare is often as good as Knell (immediate effect and more uses per turn). The ring gives me a tutorable out for walkers, which I really felt I need.
Changes I could try:
-1 Garruk + 1 Elspeth: While the tutor/killing ability of Garruk was great all day, I feel that 2 of them are enough, since Elspeth stalls the board just as well, while turning my smaller dudes into respectable clocks, and more importantly, gives me another "flier" when I have a moat down. (moat was sick all day!)
@Phillip --
Perhaps my luck is just terrible, but I always find ways of drawing the 2nd Tower when I have it in my deck. I don't disagree that having the increased chance of nut openers is good, to say nothing of the general utility of the sac outlet throughout. The nice thing about Urborg, though, is that it can often let you Nightmare loop mid/late game and blow someone completely out of the game. Otherwise, I usually find that I have trouble getting enough black mana to loop it sufficiently to win then and there.
How were the Vindicates for you? I've been testing 1 Qasali (per your recommendation) and 1 Finks from the SB as an additional way of annoying aggro...and also the two burn decks in my local meta. I'm a little questionable on the Finks -- I may make it a singleton Elspeth. The problem with her that I've always had in this deck is that you very, very rarely want to be fetching early plains with Explorer. In a G/B deck where white is more of a splash than anything, fetching WW unless it wins you the game (See: Leyline of Sanctity, Moat, Titan + stupidity) is risky. I used to run it much more pure tri-color, and I often found that even with Explorer assistance, I would have mana issues. Granted that I was also stretching even further for Gifts at that point, but still. I definitely like the idea of the extra "Flyer" that Elspeth provides.
I'll also defend the 3rd Garruk. I've been nothing but impressed with him, and although I'll grant that there are a few matchups where you board one or two copies of him out, most of the time he's an amazingly solid card which happens to have some of the most bonkers symmetry with the deck he's housed in that I think I've ever seen. One of the nicest things about having the 3rd copy, too, is that you don't have to be afraid to blow one or even two just as pure removal. You can afford to let one go, knowing that you'll draw more. My Garruks have killed quite a few flipped Delvers and Cliques now -- things that just so happen to be able to fly over the Moat that kolds everything else. I'd look to the flex spot that's currently occupied by Finks (in my list) before I took out the 3rd Garruk, for sure.
The Knell has been in and out of my build a few times. I'd recommend Faith's Fetters instead of O-Ring, if you want to go with removal route -- it makes Jaces look really, really stupid, and oftentimes it's just better than O-Ring since it's less likely to get Deed'ed out. I personally prefer the Knell because it gives me a default go-to enchantment for when the board state doesn't demand something of Rector. I'd like something different...but frankly, after looking through the entire list of enchantments in the game, nothing suits my fancy. Hopefully the next few sets will bring us something good on that front. I might put the Fetters back in. I dunno. One of the best things about Knell is that once it's out, it's pretty much lights-out for blue-based control. They don't have the ability to deal with that kind of attrition.
RE Empath: I've enjoyed having him around, since it lets you Zenith for Dragons...he also leads to some very dirty lines of play if you have Nightmare around...you can easily chain him into all of your sixes and just brute-force your opponent down. I tend to agree that a third top would be nice, but then, I also have a tendency of drawing multiples of those as well. Since we're not running Bob, I'm not sure that 3 Tops is really necessary. Empath is a card that, like Knell, I consider important to the deck; BUT, I can see arguments for cutting them for other things. This list is very tuned to me personally, and isn't necessarily the friendliest list to just pick up and play. Oftentimes the Empath isn't necessary and gets cut for sideboard stuff...but when you want him, he'll win you games by himself.
I'm sorry that you didn't do well with the deck -- I will confess that she's a particularly hard one to play, and it also doesn't help that you went up against Reanimator, which I personally hold to be the deck's worst matchup. It's certainly winnable, but it is definitely not fun. I'll admit that I haven't had the pleasure? of playing against Hive Mind -- it's pretty much died out over here since Misstep went away. As such, I can't profess to know how the matchup there would be. I wouldn't think that it would be the best -- but, we also run a -lot- of discard, and Surgicals out of the board to extract any combo pieces we hit (hi, Show and Tell). I've also filled the 1 Finks spot and the Thrun spot (I never boarded it in, even against blue!) with a pair of Memoricides in the board. Yes, I'm being completely serious. It provides a devastating way of closing the game against combo. I've found that we can slow combo down enough to win pretty easily -- the problem comes in actually killing them before they've reassembled enough crap to go off anyway. Memoricide fixes that quite nicely -- especially on a Time Spiral or [target annoying storm card]. ANT really loves it when you hit your Tendrils of Agony =)
Im not playing with W, my deck is BG and i like it, the list is:
// Lands
4 Forest
3 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
3 Bayou
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
// Creatures
4 Eternal Witness
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Wall of Blossoms
1 Shriekmaw
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Grave Titan
1 Viridian Shaman
// Spells
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Beast Within
2 Harmonize
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Chord of Calling
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Beast Within
SB: 1 Spike Weaver
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Phyrexian Metamorph
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
What do you think?
My meta is:
-Goblins
-BG dephts
-Reanimator
-UW grindstone
-UW stoneblade
-Affinity
-Zoo
-Maverick
-The gate
-Dragon stompy
-Agro elves
I hate to admit it but in the current format the deck seems underpowered. Not by a lot but I tried to fix it and couldn't get it done. Snapcaster is just a joke in a deck with Brainstorm, in both the Aggro and the control version. Add Removal and you get overrun by Delver/Stifle/Snapcaster+Bolt, add late game and you get outdrawn by Jace,Snapcaster and SFM. Mix it and you are 45% against both.
If I were to play something controlling I would currently not touch a deck without a blue base.
Actually i do have the feeling that the BG and BGW threat dense versions are amazingly strong in a blue meta if you add 3-4 Summoning Traps to the board.
Stifle is admittedly annoying, but I feel like the various blue decks in the format at the moment have some problems keeping up with this deck. It might be because I run the Rector engine -- of all the matches where it's good, Debtors' Knell is an absolute -BEATING- against those types of decks. It just massively out-attritions them, which is usually what these types of matches are about. Along with the usual hand disruption and some help from the sideboard, I don't usually have much trouble against these kinds of decks. Also, Chains just WRECKS Brainstorm. If you're having trouble with Snapcaster-based decks, run a couple Chains of Mephistopheles in your sideboard. They're strong against combo as well as control, and once you strip a Snapcaster deck of its draw engines, they're actually pretty horrible -- we topdeck a million times better than they do.
I'm not sure about the usefulness of Summoning Trap. It is an interesting idea, for sure, but a lot of this deck's threats are non-creature -- planeswalkers of varying types, powerful enchantments, Birthing Pods, etc. Sure, Trapping into a Titan after they Force your Rector would be a savage beating, but I find myself doubting that the situation would come up too often. It certainly merits testing, though, especially for versions that are a little heavier on creature threats.
Traps is nice in the BG versions with 4 Witness, you basically chain through your deck until you find the eater you need ;)
BGW seems strong enough on it's own, might give it a try tonight.
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