I like the build, hence catching my interest and picking it up. I still got lots of stuff to do (job, final exams, etc.), so still only limited testing.Originally Posted by Mantis
Trying out -1 Mask of Memory, +1 Elspeth now. That gives one flex spot to the SB.
What are your thoughts on Mentor of the Meek? Could it take Hawk's spot, despite the extra mana investments and lacking flying? The Elspeth engine does look pretty sweet.
Soldiers is more effective against Combo decks than Goblins due to their ability to play both Chalice and Thalia maindeck, obviously, and additional hate such as Suppression Field and Winter Orb, which really slow down Combo and Control decks. The combination of Chalice + Thalia maindeck without any kind of drawbacks (because Thalia is a Soldier that can be made uncounterable by Cavern, which Goblins will always set to "Goblin" instead, and can be drawn by the Soldier ringleader) is obviously very potent vs. Combo whereas Goblins will usually struggle vs. Combo decks. Thalia in Goblin decks is often just shoe-horned in and it plays that way. Whereas in a Soldier deck, she is a core piece of the puzzle and fits in perfectly.
Soldiers have the same explosiveness with the Lackey due to Preeminent Captain. They also have similar late-game inevitability with their own Ringleader in Enlistment Officer. In general, Soldiers are bigger creatures and the Lords have better pump ability, as well, which results in a faster clock most of the time.
The question to me here is, how is the non-Soldier creature base in these decklists posted in this thread any better than the Soldier creature base? As far as I can tell, the only advantages to going non-Soldiers is playing Stoneforge Mystic. I mean, both lists play Thalia and Chalice, which are the main disruption elements. Soldiers can actually "draw" Thalia with their Ringleader (Enlistment Officer), and put her into play for free with their Lackey (Preeeminent Captain), and also make her uncounterable with Cavern of Souls.
Right now, the non-Soldier lists basically play the same Stompy shell (Chalice, Sol-Lands, etc) but play slower, less powerful creatures such as Blade Splicer or Aven Mindcensor. In addition, Restoration Angel is a nice trick on some creatures, but at 3W that can never be reduced like the 4cc+ Soldiers (that are made cheaper by cost-reduction effects or put into play for free with Preeminent Captain) that ability really isn't anything more than cute. Blinking a Blade Splicer to create another 3/3 Golem? A Soldier Lord can give +1/+2 to all creatures in play and take effect immediately. That is far more powerful than merely putting another 3/3 token into play and then waiting another turn for both the Angel and the token to attack.
You can make the argument that playing weak creatures like Aven Mindcensor and Glowrider for their disruption abilities is worthwhile, but if you have 4 Chalice and 4 Thalia maindeck, that is often enough to slow down combo if you have a faster clock (which Soldiers does - much faster than the non-Soldier build). However, against many decks that primarily play creatures, Glowrider will be completely useless and a weak 2/1 body forever, whereas a Soldier in that slot would be a far bigger body (on average they get pumped at least +1/+1 in every game) and a faster clock. Mindcensor is a cute trick against fetchlands, but again, if your opponent successfully plays around the effect or is simply not bothered by it, you are stuck with an incredibly weak body. And of course, post-board Soldiers has access to more hate if need be - you can fill your board with Thorn of Amethyst, Winter Orb (if it's not maindeck), Suppression Field (if it's not maindeck), Cursed Totem, Rest in Peace, etc. I'd much rather play additional Thorn of Amethyst in the sideboard than play Glowrider maindeck.
Soldiers makes giant creatures and has similar levels of disruption to beat combo and control alike... Instead of using counterspells, Soldiers uses Chalice of the Void, Thalia, and either Suppression Field or Winter Orb all maindeck (with one of the latter two in the sideboard for additional hate against control).
Soldiers shares some of the Goblin card advantage because they both play Ringleader creatures. It also plays a Lackey creature to create tempo gains. Soldiers also has anti-control mana disruption in the form of Suppression Field and Winter Orb (one of which is in the sideboard, depending on your preferences), which in combination with Chalice and Thalia and a fast clock make the matchup rough for control decks.
It's not "slow" at all, in fact, it's at least 3x as fast as the clock provided by the non-Soldier decklists in this thread.
I tried the soldier build with winter orb, but I didn't really like it. I feel like thalia and chalice give you enough time to win games. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know what i'd cut from my list for winter orbs.
Here's the list i'm trying at the moment. I'm curious to know what you guys think.
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Karakas
4 Plains
4 Ancient Den
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Preeminent Captain
4 Enlistment Officer
3 Captain of the Watch
3 Daru Warchief
4 Ballyrush Banneret
3 Etched Champion
3 Field Marshal
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
1 Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior
SB: 2 Disenchant
SB: 3 Rest in Peace
SB: 4 Oblivion Ring
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 2 Intrepid Hero
Nice list.
I personally like Winter Orb because it is a HOUSE against control decks. It makes them operate on one-two mana a turn, which is very hard for a control deck to do, whereas you are playing creatures for free with Captain and cost reduction effects like Ballyrush Banneret and Daru Warchief.
However, it is not that good vs. RUG Delver or any AEther Vial deck. If you don't like Winter Orb maindeck, or you just don't see enough control decks, I'd play Suppression Field as a 4-of in the maindeck, or even Thorn of Amethyst. I'd also keep Winter Orb in the sideboard.
What do you think I should cut for suppression field? Besides the single zhang fei (lol), I feel like all the slots are kinda necessary.
I personally would cut the Etched Champion just because I played with him for a long time and found that Metalcraft is too hard to consistnetly maintain, especially with all of the targeted removal in the format.
Without metalcraft, he is just a plain 2/2 obviously.
I would also cut two of the lands. If you play 4 Chrome Mox, you don't really need more than 18 lands, and you could actually go down to 16 lands if you are brave.
I would do:
-4 Ancient Den
-3 Etched Champion
+2 Plains
+4 Suppression Field
+1 Jotun Grunt (nice to have maindeck vs. Tarmogoyf decks)
Soliders also gets Dryad Militant. I find that to be a great addition to the deck - Rest in Peace with a body, and unlike Grunt it goes into effect immediately (Grunt needs several turns to be disruptive, and if that's all you have, they can just wait out the Cumulative Upkeep)
@Barook: I would not cut Squadron Hawk from the deck. He fulfills a number of important roles in the deck.
1) It's pure card advantage to help out with Chrome Mox and deal with Liliana of the Veil and Hymn to Tourach (he's also great against Terminus).
2) He allows us to put pressure on, even when the board state looks grim. If mana is not an issue, it's a 4/4 flyer, nothing to scoff at. But then, it can also hold off other huge Goyfs and Knights while still maintaining pressure and allowing Restoration Angel to swing in as well.
3) It's a great equipment carrier. Now I know every creature is great with equipment, but more specifically it's not a terrible deal to have it StPed or Bolted when attaching an equpment since you have three others waiting. While the opponent can thus still gain tempo out of their removal spells, at least not card parity. For example, having a Mirran Crusader with Jitte equipped StPed or Bolted is just a terrible situation since they gained a ton of tempo and also kept card parity.
Mentor of the Meek looks appealing, but it's 2/2 body is really fragile and if he dies you are left with nothing. With this assumption, you need 1 draw to at least have card parity and 2 draws before you gain advantage. That's 5 mana spent already! With Elspeth and random creature out, I feel as if you are in a fairly good position already and the Mentor/Elspeth engine is just win more. I generally think it's a tad too slow in a format where everything revolves around tempo and not necessarily card advantage. These conclusions came from a minimal amount of testing and a lot of theorycrafting, thus perhaps it deserves a second look. Let me know how it works out for you guys if anyone plans on trying it out.
Team R&D
@Mantis: Thanks for the insight.
How do you feel about the Sneak & Show matchup? It doesn't feel like a bad matchup, but more like an arms race since they have their stupid "I win" cards (especially when they're on the play) and I'm always on the edge of my seat while playing against it.
What are bad cards/matchups in general for the deck? What decks does it perform good against?
On a different note: Elspeth is the real deal. 3 copies would probably push it, but 2 copies are definitely a keeper. When she resolves, it normally comes down to this:
a) You win the game within a very few turns or
b) you lose because your board position was already fubar anyway.
Flinging Batterskulls at your opponent is just great.
On the topic of Batterskull:
I feel there might be a need for a second one, at least in the SB. It just hurts in certain matchups when they dealt with it e.g. via discard and you're not able to get a replacement, despite a ridiculous amount of search options.
Sneak and Show is just an absurd deck that can randomly win against every deck out there. Not much we can do about a turn 1 Show and Tell into Griselbrand for example. That said, I feel as though we have the tools to beat it. Phyrexian Revoker can name both Sneak Attack or Griselbrand and can be reset by Restoration Angel. Show and Tell is quite risky for them to resolve because there is a good chance we are sandbagging Karakas or Mangara. Thalia, Wasteland and Chalice can slow them down a bit too. Postboard Thorn comes in and that together with Thalia and Chalice makes it really difficult for them to sculpt a hand with enough mana to resolve Sneak Attack/Show and Tell, have the combo pieces in hand and fight off your potential hate (Mangara/Karakas/Revoker).
Jund appears to be our most difficult matchup. Every card they have is really good against us. Goyf is huge and pretty much makes our non flying creatures obsolete. Recurring Punishing Fires deal with SFM and Mangara. Hymn can be backbreaking and if Dark Confidant sticks around we will be buried under card advantage. Then they have Abrupt Decay which can either target Chalice if they have a lot of 1 CMC spells or hit SFM/Mangara/Jitte. Postboard they usually have singletons of Deed, Maelstrom Pulse and Ancient Grudge which hurt. Squadron Hawk is essential in this matchup as it provides chump blockers and negates Lili and Hymn to some extent. I think the correct way to sideboard against them is actually to get rid off Thalia and Chalice and bring in STP and Rest in Peace. I recently added a Relic of Progenitus over the fourth RiP as it decreases the chances of having multiple dead RiPs. If sideboard space weren't as tight I'd probably include a couple of Leyline of Sanctities to negate their discard and Lili's.
I always thought EsperBlade was a walk in the park untill I sat down and tested against a good player and he demolished me like 4-1 in games or something. It felt like whoever could stick Jitte would end up winning the game and they have plenty ways to negate our Jitte and have Brainstorm and SFM to search up theirs. This observation prompted me to add the 3rd Jitte and Phyrexian Revoker to have additional ways to win the Jitte war. The addition of Elspeth probably shores up both bad matchups quite a bit; I am going to cut both Mirran Crusaders to add 2 copies.
Merfolk could be quite a problematic matchup as well but that deck is virtually dead and I haven't playtested against it all that much so I'm not sure.
I feel pretty confident going up against any other deck though and as my tournament report shows I actually beat a Jund player. The reason I favor myself against decks like Elves, Affinity, Goblins and Maverick is that the deck is built around getting a fast Jitte active. RUG Delver is a pretty easy win because there are quite a few cards in our deck which straight up kill them if they have no way of dealing with it (Chalice, RiP, SFM). Combo is easy because of the plentiful lock pieces. Miscellaneous decks can be beat by virtue of Mangara (Enchantress, WalkerStax, Cloudpost, 43 Lands etc.). If there are a lot of BUG decks present, packing a couple of Mirran Crusaders is advisable as Mirran is GG against them.
Team R&D
The problem I have with cards like Aven Mindcensor, Glowrider, and Phyrexian Revoker is basically that: in the majority of your games, they are nothing more than overcosted 2/1s. First of all, to be effective, each card has to be playing against a deck that plays the type of cards these creatures react to. Glowrider is all but useless except as a 2/1 body against most aggro decks, for example. Aven Mindcensor is nothing more than a 2/1 flier against a deck with a minimal number of fetchlands.
And even against decks they do affect heavily, the situation has to be right, and the timing has to be right, for them to avoid irrelevancy as disruption elements. For example: Aven Mindcensor is disruptive vs. decks packing fetchlands, but if you play Mindcensor on turn 4 after opponent has already played several fetchlands and built his manabase, often times the ability will not be relevant enough to affect him. Similarly, Glowrider can tax a control player but if you are topdecking him onto a mid/late-game board in which the control player has quite a bit of mana on the board, he can be nearly irrelevant even in a matchup specifically made for his appearance.
Thalia has this same problem, but A.) she is more efficiently costed at 1W instead of 2W for Glowrider and B.) she has a more relevant combat ability. And in a Soldier deck shell, she is often 3/2 or bigger on the battlefield due to Lord pumps, whereas in the non-Soldier shell she is always a weak 2/1, and nothing more than a 2/1 against most aggro decks.
In Vintage, creatures such as Glowrider and Mindcensor are automatically better than anything Soldiers can play simply because disruption is king in that format. If a creature isn't A.) a draw engine or B.) disruptive in some way then that creature is practically irrelevant in Vintage. However, Legacy is not nearly as overrun by fast mana and powerful spells. Aggro has a much stronger presence in this format. Thus, weak creatures with disruptive abilities can be good, but can also be big liabilities. Glowrider and Mindcensor are exactly these types of creatures. Thalia is not this way in a Soldier deck because even when her ability is irrelevant, she is pumped by Lords, and drawn by Enlistment Officer, and cheated into play by Preeminent Captain.
Lastly, in Legacy, there is not such a great premium on heavy disruption of the opponent. Even against Legacy combo and control decks, 4 Thalia and 4 Chalice maindeck, alongside either Suppression Field or Winter Orb, is often enough to slow down control and combo in G1, especially with a fast aggro clock. In Vintage, ALL of a creature decks' resources must be funneled toward disruption of the opponent. In Legacy, it is not necessary. Mindcensor and Glowrider are often overkill in the relevant matchups, and severe liabilities against those decks that don't care about their disruptive abilities.
Similarly, cards like Blade Splicer and Restoration Angel appear to be good on the surface, but upon second glance, are overcosted for their abilities.
Blade Splicer is a functionally a 3/3 for 3 mana unless you can blink him with the Angel, when he duplicates himself. But in most games, you won't be blinking him. So he's just a pretty mediocre body for 3 mana, and is outclassed by what Soldiers offers in terms of creature beef.
Restoration Angel is only truly effective if you are blinking a creature with a CITP ability. If you are not doing this, then she is a 3/4 flier for 4 mana, which is mediocre at best in this format. To really use her effectively, your entire creature base has to be filled with CITP creatures that do powerful things with their abilities, but in this deck, you can, at most, have guys like Blade Splicer and Stoneforge Mystic. That's 8 out of 60 cards in the deck. Those situations in which Angel becomes more effective than a 3/4 flier for 4 mana are not as common when you do not devote your deck to CITP creatures. And even when she does blink a Blade Splicer, for example... that play is the pinnacle of Angel's existence and yet you are left with a 3/4 flier and a 3/3 for 4 mana. Good, but not game-breaking or even a stellar play.
Unless you want Stoneforge Mystic -> Batterskull, or you expect to see almost nothing but combo in your metagame, I don't see why you'd ever want to play the Glowrider/Mindcensor/Blade Splicer/Restoration Angel package on top of the other stuff (Chalice, Thalia, etc) instead of the Soldier creature base. Soldiers give you A.) a faster clock against control and combo and typically *enough* disruption through the use of Chalice, Thalia, and Suppression Field or Winter Orb and B.) more / better game against aggro decks.
Restoration Angel has flash. You can save your guys from targeted removal and ambush-block smaller attackers to gain card advantage.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
That's good, but not great. If you are paying 4 mana to give temporary shroud, and all you have left is a 3/4 flier, then that is still a pretty average play. You are effectively casting Mage's Guile for 3W and getting a 3/4 flier. Even if you ignore that Guile is vastly overcosted at 1U, that leaves you with 2 mana for a 3/4 flier. Good, but not great in this format. Compare that to Serra Avenger which is barely played.
In this format, "smaller attackers" is often a 3/4 Goyf instead of a 4/4 Batterskull...
Avenger dies to Bolt and Mongoose, among other things, while Restoration Angel survives. Big difference.
That said, why don't you open your own thread for the soldier build? The builds are different enough to justify a own thread. No need to for pointless arguments.
He already did: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...soldier+stompy
Team R&D
Elspeth is really strong in testing, I think 3 is the right number. 4 is probably pushing it.
Parallax Wave seems like an interesting card to mention. Not sure if it's good enough, but it has a few interesting synergies with SFM, Mangara and Rest Angel. Then it also protects your board from removal, even mass removal and can stall the opponent for a while. I will probably give it a whirl.
Team R&D
What does your current list look like?
// Lands
3 [LG] Karakas
4 [TE] Wasteland
12 [RAV] Plains (4)
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
// Creatures
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
4 [AVR] Restoration Angel
3 [DKA] Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 [FNM] Squadron Hawk
2 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
3 [TSP] Mangara of Corondor
// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [NPH] Sword of War and Peace
1 [NPH] Batterskull
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Parallax Wave
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DKA] Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [RTR] Rest in Peace
SB: 4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [A] Armageddon
SB: 1 Parallax Wave
Did not change much, -1 City of Traitors +1 Plains, -1 Exalted Angel, -1 Revoker, -2 Mirran crusader, +3 Elspeth +1 P Wave, SB -1 RiP, -1 Revoker +1 Wave, +1 Relic
Although the deck definately has some good matchups, I'm worried about Jund and EsperBlade which appear to be the most popular and best performing deck choices at the moment. Merfolk also appears to be making a comeback and that is just an uphill battle with so little creature removal. Despite a lot of good matchup, the deck seems rather poorly positioned right now.
Team R&D
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