I hear turn 1 blood moon in a meta where decks run 0 basics is good.Originally Posted by wcm8
Plus alot of this midrange/controldecks drop Force of Will in order to win the grindy attrition battles! Even better :D
Greetings
my issue with aluren is that it requires so much slots to support the combo that the design is pretty much locked and there is no flexibility in the deck.
Aluren gives flash to dudes, too. I only remembered it upon looking it up. Presumably, you let them activate Grizz once, then when they pass priority, you play out your Recruiter. They have to pay 7 more life and pray for FOW or you win in response. S&T looks a lot dodgier to play when the opponent can do that.
The fact that Emrakul is everywhere makes me a little worried about Grindstoning people. Mindcrank gets past that, but... eh.
Blood Moon.dec is still an inconsistent strategy. Blood Moon and Chalice of the Void aren't particularly exciting when decks are packing Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman. I'll grant that Grindstone is a better deck than Dragon Stompy, but if you're hoping to 'win' on turn one, why not just play Belcher or other similar all-in combos?
You can win on turn 2 as well. Abrupt Decay is sort of hard to cast when you need green and black and only produce red.
Aluren is probably the best card in the format to drop with an opposing Show and Tell. However, you're also right when you say Recruiter is terrible there. Food Chain is the way to go.
Shardless Agent and Abrupt Decay have taken Aluren much farther than Recruiter will ever do.
Could you elaborate on this? Do you mean that BUG Agent decks are containing things? Or do you mean Aluren decks with Agent and Decay are an Actual Thing?
Sorry, I forgot that these decks don't play a plethora of Discard, Counterspells, or have the capability of floating mana while Blood Moon is on the stack. Or just lay a turn 2 Tarmogoyf that doesn't give a fuck.
Hardcast Simian Spirit Guide is so OP, it should be banned!
I'm not sure why you're trolling so hard. I can cast a Magus of the Moon through Cavern of Souls or drop a moon effect when I see that my opponent just tapped out to play a threat. The fact that decks play discard doesn't mean you shouldn't run a certain card. The fact is that BUG variants with Deathrite Shaman now run 10 fetch, 4 wasteland and a bunch of dual lands. They don't run basics anymore and Blood Moon is the best way to take advantage of that, together with Price of Progress. When fetchlands and wastelands don't crack to feed Deathrite Shaman, their ability to produce 2 non-red colored mana is hampered strongly.Sorry, I forgot that these decks don't play a plethora of Discard, Counterspells, or have the capability of floating mana while Blood Moon is on the stack. Or just lay a turn 2 Tarmogoyf that doesn't give a fuck.
Hardcast Simian Spirit Guide is so OP, it should be banned!
I can't talk about BUG Agent decks properly due to lack of experience, so I won't.
Abrupt Decay is what Aluren has been long waiting for. Counterbalance and blue tempo decks (Merfolk when they were omnipresent, now anything with Delver of Secrets) are two of Aluren's worst nightmares. Now you have a cheap and versatile answer to both archetypes where you had to pack Go for the Throat and Krosan Grip before.
As for Recruiter:
- 4th color
- Slow (3cc)
- Requires bad creatures around him (Dream Stalker)
- Doesn't help find Aluren
- Doesn't help find Force of Will / Cabal Therapy to protect Aluren
Raven Familiar is miles better than Recruiter for this purpose, except for the slow part and an added echo cost.
Shardless Agent doesn't dig the way Raven does, but can have a bigger impact on the board if he cascades into another creature, which is usually better given the format's current speed. Sensei's Divining Top is the perfect partner for him, both to decide what to cascade into (and in which order) and to throw unwanted lands to the bottom (to dig deeper and refresh Top without shuffle effects).
Is Aluren with Agent and Decay a real thing? Maybe, or maybe not, but Recruiter pales in comparison to what these cards can do for the deck. IMO as long as Cavern Harpy is the only way to go infinite, Recruiter won't have a proper place.
When they print a
Harpy, things will change dramatically for Recruiter. Until then, Food Chain has a lot of untapped potential for him.
Who's Nick Flannel? What's in the Vault? Are we to die in our beds, Hagar?
That is but one variant of BUG you're describing. Plenty of them veer more towards the control side of the spectrum and run a number of basic lands. But the point still remains that Dragon Stompy is a Bad Deck, has always been a Bad Deck, and likely always will be a Bad Deck. The number of decks that largely ignore Blood Moon far outweighs the number of people actually playing decks that completely fold to it in a given tournament. For every time you feel like some sort of super genius by going Sol Land, Chrome Mox, Blood Moon -> Win, you're just as likely to walk it into Daze/Force of Will/Spell Pierce or face off against Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, Maverick, or whatever. And then you're stuck playing a deck with 4-8 dead cards in the main deck, with no way to mitigate your topdecks because you're playing mono-Red.
Also what deck are you describing that runs both Price of Progress and Blood Moon? Burn? Another Bad Deck. UR Delver? Okay, I'll grant you that one. We're nearing the point of decency once a deck starts playing 4 Brainstorm.
The power and versatility of running 2-3 colors FAR outweighs the power of running a narrow hate card. This isn't Vintage where you can easily herp-derp your way into a hard lock against Blue decks.
I'm describing the fact that Deathrite Shaman is immensely popular but requires running an aweful manabase. Those manabases can be attacked through Blood Moon. Also, I never said dragon stompy was a deck. I don't believe you need to drop Blood Moon on turn 1 for it to be a great card, so I would personally never play with Chrome Mox, SSG or Lotus Petal and pray I'm ripping the cards on t1 and being on the play and dodging force of will, but that does not mean that Blood Moon isn't a perfectly decent card and is probably at the height of its strength historically now. It's not played in the sideboard of UWr control decks for nothing. Blood Moon blanks both Deathrite Shaman as well as all the other mana production capabilities of BUG decks with Shaman. If they are running Shaman and do not have 10 fetch + 4 wasteland, their Shamans will be inconsistent.
Who's Nick Flannel? What's in the Vault? Are we to die in our beds, Hagar?
That is but one variant of BUG you're describing. Plenty of them veer more towards the control side of the spectrum and run a number of basic lands. But the point still remains that Dragon Stompy is a Bad Deck, has always been a Bad Deck, and likely always will be a Bad Deck. The number of decks that largely ignore Blood Moon far outweighs the number of people actually playing decks that completely fold to it in a given tournament. For every time you feel like some sort of super genius by going Sol Land, Chrome Mox, Blood Moon -> Win, you're just as likely to walk it into Daze/Force of Will/Spell Pierce or face off against Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, Maverick, or whatever. And then you're stuck playing a deck with 4-8 dead cards in the main deck, with no way to mitigate your topdecks because you're playing mono-Red.
Also what deck are you describing that runs both Price of Progress and Blood Moon? Burn? Another Bad Deck. UR Delver? Okay, I'll grant you that one. We're nearing the point of decency once a deck starts playing 4 Brainstorm.
The power and versatility of running 2-3 colors FAR outweighs the power of running a narrow hate card. This isn't Vintage where you can easily herp-derp your way into a hard lock against Blue decks.
First off, Painter runs 6+ blast effects maindeck to fight counterspells. Simian spirit guide pays for Daze. Blood Moon is not dead vs those latter decks. Maverick has been running 4-5 basics total. It stops wasteland, mutavault, and rishadan port out of goblins and merfolk. Many elves decks are splashing for white/black nowadays. Painter runs 2-4 Sensei Tops. I personally run 2 faithless lootings. That easily filters the chaff.
I hope more players follow your advice and run 3 colors. Good luck answering every welder, every combo piece, every blast and every moon.
BG elves runs Deathrite Shaman and therefore a sucking manabase so the same things apply. Crop Rotation for Gaea's Cradle is something you want to Moon away. The best opening for elves is a turn 1 llanowar elves in the face of blood moon.
Isn't anyone upset with the obvious abuse of insider information to fcuk with the market on this scale?
God bless us! Every one!
I think Painter is a fine deck. However, this thread of discussion was prompted by comparing Aluren to Painter, not arguing the merits of a linear mono-Red control/combo deck. If the reprinting of Recruiters suddenly increases the presence of Painter decks, the meta will quickly adapt to it -- it's not a particularly hard deck to hate out. Every deck has access to stuff like Pithing Needle and Surgical Extraction, most play fast removal, and generally speaking, other combo decks have a faster fundamental turn.
The point remains that once you aren't paired against tri-color blue decks, the disadvantages of running all of that hate quickly becomes apparent. Without Painter, REBs are largely useless against non-Blue decks, and even though Blood Moons can shut down other non-Basics, the card is incredibly underwhelming against decks built with solid mana bases.
Yes, SDT and Faithless Looting are fine filtering effects, but they don't really approach the power level of Ponder, Brainstorm, Jace, or Sylvan Library. A lot of the non-Blue decks also run tutoring effects of some sort (Goblin Matron, Green Sun's Zenith, etc.) -- whereas Mono Red is often going to be stuck playing off the top of their deck. It's this inconsistency that keeps Stompy decks from being true Tier 1 contenders.
Agreed. It makes me all the more curious who knew about it and when.
Reminds me of the New Phyrexia godbook, and Scalding Tarn/Misty Rainforest/The Abyss buy outs from starcitygames.
I'm really not sure why you are referring to Dragon Stompy (I assume you aren't referring to Faerie Stompy).
I'm running Blood Moon and Chalice of the Void in MUD and they have both been amazing. Granted, Chalice of the Void is not well positioned against Abrupt Decay. Then again, the 16 threats immune to Abrupt Decay rip BUG a new one. As far as Imperial Painter goes:
-Sylvan Library is played in decks that are prone to Blood Moon as well as Blasts (BUG)
-Jace is vulnerable to the 6 blast effects game 1, even though Blood Moon is sort of bad against UW miracles / Stoneblade.
-Ponder and Brainstorm are vulnerable to blasts as well. Blood Moon is great against RUG because the only thing they can cast is Lightning Bolts and Forked Bolts. Their creatures (delver/goyf/mongoose) can't be cast with red mana.
If there's anything Imperial Painter dies to, it's chalice at 1 because it shuts off Grindstone, Welder to recur it and Blasts to fight it.
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