Originally Posted by sdematt
@Both of these: You guys know Diabolic Intent is one of my most beloved pet cards. The sad truth is that it's card disadvantage (yes, in return it can be an "I win"-button), which is something the SE Fit isn't designed to deal with.
No, matt's right. You either cast Intent to bait a counter (b/c you already have what you need in your hand) or you clear the way with Cabal Therapy first. That's how you do it. I've been doing this for years with a build that ran 4(!) Diabolic Intent. Intents' value increases as its pilot gets more experienced in when and how to use it. It certainly should affect your playstyle.
Your counting seems to be spot on, my good sir.
Would love to, but can't. It doesn't fit in the manabase, I can't tutor for it and it dies to Wasteland (which at the moment I can mostly ignore).
Fierce Empath into Tasigur or Gurmag Angler. That means you just cast your Diabolic Intent for free (2 mana, +2 cards in the graveyard = +2 Delve for Tasigur/Gurmag). Oh, and fetch into Dryad Arbor (yes, this again).
Fierce Empaths into Karador, Ghost Chieftain, Summoner's Eggs. That type of stuff(I'm not kidding, by the way). I miss my pet cards!
Yeah, it is. I just fear we can't fit all of them though.
@everyone/Brael in particular: I may have found the answer for SE Fit. Mirri's Guile, 3 of them (4 might be too much. Although, keeping in mind we aim to mirror the number of Brainstorms + Ponders any given deck runs that might call for Guile no. 4). To start the filtering process as quickly as we can and look for Top as quickly as possible. After we've found a Top, we do not have to care about what happens to our Guile anymore. Bear with me. To explain why this can be I'll dip into some more Systems Engineering by way of use cases.
Use case no. 1: You start with 1 Guile in your opener
This means that, if we get to resolve it, we turn our draw step into a free almost-Ponder every turn. Ponder as a 1-shot card is good enough to be played. Deed won't wipe Guile away until turn 3+, meaning we've had "Ponder" for our turn 2 and 3 draws. That's quite some value for 1 mana. I'm fine with that. Heck, as long as it triggers at least just once before we blow it up, we've just cast Ponder (which is a perfectly valid thing to do). As long as you have a Guile on the field, you will most likely not draw additional copies of it.
Use case no. 2: You start with >1 Guile in your opener
This means that use case no. 1 applies and you can use the extra copy to bait a counter. If the first resolves, you're stuck with the extra copy in your hand. Now, if we have an extra copy we don't need to care about the first copy being blown up by Deed, do we? Another option is stacking Guile triggers and cracking a fetch between them. If none of these options are valid, we've essentially mulliganed to 6.
Use case no. 3: You start with >0 Guile and >0 SDT in your opener
Both use cases no. 1 and 2 apply. After you get your mana going (and maybe have blown up your Guiles) you drop SDT. The good thing about SDT is that it can help you get rid of it.
What I forgot to say yesterday - the amount of ramp we run is one of the things that allows us to power out SDT more quickly and lets us use it more often without costing us too much tempo.
For quick reference, we'd be talking about the following list, sorted by card type and CMC:
Creatures (14)
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
Artifacts (4):
4 Sensei's Divining Top
Sorceries & instants (14):
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Path to Exile
3 Abrupt Decay
Enchantments (6):
3 Mirri's Guile
3 Pernicious Deed
Planeswalkers (1):
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Lands (21):
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
A lot of potatoes, very little meat. Perhaps I should give the entire list a overhaul so it matches again with the requirements we set out for it.
I had to reduce the manabase to 21 lands and had to cut 2 Siege Rhino and Meren. Perhaps Sorin should be cut for another Rhino, I don't know. Let me make this clear: This is not the list as I would want to play it, but this is the list we would have to play in order to perform just as consistently as the blue decks we have to compete with. Using this as a base would allow you to more consistently find Slaught Games (or the Sorin we run anyway) to deal with Miracles, for instance, and so on. Mirri's Guile also increases the need for 10 fetchlands.
This'll probably require us to change our playing style a bit.
Last edited by Echelon; 05-02-2016 at 05:01 AM.
Hey that was me! Been lurking these forums for ages, finally got around to actually registering. I went 3-4, played against a lot of combo over the day.
I'll post my latest list and thoughts later in the week. Preview: Meren is indeed sweet in BUG Pod.
You guys probably know already, but I'm going to come out the closet here. I'm currently a rhino none believer. There I said it.
And seeing you all hype on about our lord and savior makes me think I'm crazy or you all are.
But I've tried rhino, I really have! And that's why I think you're all delusional. Hear me out and then try and help me please.
When rhino was first spoiled, I was hyped. We ended up living in a treasure cruise blue red metagame filled with pyromancer tokens, delvers, true name nemises and lightning bolts. Rhino was pretty damn fantastic at stabilising and turning the corner in those days. Rhino was great, and I was sold.
Then cruise was banned and things changed. Now we live in a world of goyfs, gurmag anglers, baleful strixes, reality smashers and others! Swords to plowshares and terminus! Rhino is no where near the biggest kid on the block anymore and he doesn't generate value when he enters the battlefield against white removal (draining them for 3 isn't worth a card)
I know we play removal to deal with those opposing creatures but after a deed or path to exile or two, one of those commonly played creatures can come down and make our rhino look like a joke. And that's why I started cutting them and suiting it up the last one with sword of fire and ice or Batterskull, to dominate the creature decks and to turn all our other creatures into must answer threats against white removal decks.
My point is, the metagame has changed and every time I've tried the 4 rhino builds posted here (and I have, I really want to believe!) I end up getting stonewalled/overpowered or out card advantaged by these other midrange/controls decks.
Is no one else experiencing "my rhino is too small" syndrome? Am I alone? How do you fix it?
Overloading on PtEs (i.e. run the full set) is one of the things that help. They let you answer whatever is bigger than your Rhinos. Adding Diabolic Intent(s) and Eternal Witness expands the number of PtE at your disposal. Silly little things like Dryad Arbor allow you to trade your Rhino 1-on-1 with an Angler or Smasher. After that, you are the only of the 2 that runs GSZ so you have 7 (or 8/9 if Diabolic Intent is in the mix) Rhinos left to topdeck to their 3 (or in case of Angler probably 1/2).
Don't be afraid to turn your Siege Rhino into a removal spell.
So you're saying you don't experience your rhinos being too small to be productive/relevant? Or you are saying that you do, but you doing those (obvious) things mitigates it?
The second thing. It's a problem, so I aim to solve it. Doing the obvious turns out to be a fine solution
All it takes is a few slots and a flexible playstyle. A good thing to do is to keep track of who's the beatdown. Very often it isn't until your opponent is in topdeck mode that you get to be the beatdown. As soon as you get your opponent into topdeck mode, you should prepare to turn the roles in a heartbeat. Misjudging ones role in a game is one of this decks biggest pitfalls.
Especially for a deck like ours which is full of control elements but has also creatures like rhinos and ooze that could incentivise a new player to always play the aggro role. I agree with everything you have said.The second thing. It's a problem, so I aim to solve it. Doing the obvious turns out to be a fine solution
All it takes is a few slots and a flexible playstyle. A good thing to do is to keep track of who's the beatdown. Very often it isn't until your opponent is in topdeck mode that you get to be the beatdown. As soon as you get your opponent into topdeck mode, you should prepare to turn the roles in a heartbeat. Misjudging ones role in a game is one of this decks biggest pitfalls.
Spot on, my good sir!
Congratulations! I will admit you almost caused a crash when I saw you in the results as I was pulling into my driveway.
MTGO: Ricardio
Nic Fit: legacy's magical EDH deck
I came here to party and resolve prime time triggers.
"Well, I ain't calling you a truther." -Josh
IMGUR:http://ricardio69.imgur.com/all/
This is why I've been tinkering with Thune so much lately. Rather than play the ground-pounder war in a fight that we won't win without more spot removal than I personally am comfortable playing, just take to the skies with angels.
There are times I feel Rhino himself doesnt get there, but the deck does. If youre in that kind of meta, running more Baneslayers or Equipment is just fine. But, the Helix itself isnt bad, either.
I think if youre okay running a more SFM based list or a Thune list, I dont think youre wrong. But, I also agree that this deck was nuts during Cruise, even if we werent at peak tuning.
I have not come across the same issues as you I appears but I can say that if you don't feel like rhino is good enough, you don't have to. Play what suits your playstyle and comfort level. I know you have been an advocate of SFM so maybe rhino is not where that deck wants to be. I wouldn't force rhino too hard if you aren't feeling it because feeling forced is awful and nic fit is all about comfort. I pay 3 path to deal with various things but 4 rhino and a sigarda aren't super race-able imho. I would say make changes that feel comfortable and test that.
not being gsz'd is a major turn off for me but I want to believe in the angels, I just wish they weren't 17 tix a piece albeit maybe some form of 4 baneslayers is where I should be. Lord knows its where I want to be. haha
MTGO: Ricardio
Nic Fit: legacy's magical EDH deck
I came here to party and resolve prime time triggers.
"Well, I ain't calling you a truther." -Josh
IMGUR:http://ricardio69.imgur.com/all/
Helix is still good though, and angler tombstalker etc are not cards that are played as a 4of so I wouldn't be scared of them that much. Path n. 3-4 or thoughtseize deal with that kind of cards; I prefer ts to gain % against combo and control.
Rhino is green, flyers are not. Without the gsz engine we are the angel deck without stompy elements or a worse non blue non Maverick stoneblade deck. And at that point we would have to play intent, a card that I dislike and I know I am the only one to think this, pretty much.
But as you all know this deck has never been set in stone in regards to the deck building choices , so if you feel that way more power to you all
Thank you. All of this is correct IMO (even if we can win with Rhino through it all, the odds of that happening depend upon the meta).
I think the most important feature of a finisher/attacker is evasion and reach (not spider reach...but bolt-you-to-the-face-GG reach). I go back and forth with Rhino. Ultimately he's incredibly strong 4. goddamn. mana. Pretty much meets the evasion and reach criteria. However, there are numerous experiences where lord rhino fails. Sometimes the deck does its thing and Rhino can't close games out. Am I being unfair towards Rhino? Probably. This situation is almost equivalent to how I view Vindicate's power-level for legacy (I'm alluding to why Vindicate, despite being amazing, still isn't "good enough" to go more mainstream in the format). Lord Rhino needs to be among the biggest things in the room for you to have a good day with him. As others note, Eldrazi laughs him. And more recently, I'm having Goyf problems (but Goyf dies to basically all removal we run....so I can mentally handle a 4+/5+ goyf). If the opponent can assemble a team of weenies to gang-block Rhino, we're also in trouble.
So if we don't run Rhino, what do we run? Planeswalkers are an option, but I won't delve into that concept. Another post perhaps. In terms of creatures, what I want doesn't exist beyond Sigarda. Green needs a playable flyer. The only issue with Sigarda is that she costs a fair amount of mana. In my experience, when Sigarda sticks I proceed to win more than 70% of the time (I HAVE lost games because she came out too late). Kev suggested spider-bro (pages back), but he will never go on the aggressive like Sigarda can. RG big things are also not mid-range either. That leaves us with white. White consistently makes strong fliers. From Avenger to Resto to Baneslayer, white has you covered in the air (Avenger to highlight power-to-cost ratio). Black is also strong in terms of playable flyers. Tombstalker, Abyssal, and even Nighthawk can finish games (Nighthawk to highlight power-to-cost ratio). But with any non-white aggro flyer, you run into "I can't Zenith for it" territory. I guess that's the risk you have to take.
*Alternatively, you could take what I'm saying as fuel for running SFM. As the equipment transforms any creature into a "finisher" with potential reach (pro-colors, added effects, CA). It's also hard to race equipment, should you get going. But the counter-argument to SFM is that it's...well...SFM. This leads me to the last point. Maybe we're all head-cases about "We could be doing so much more" for the mana. We're not happy if shit costs too much mana. Not happy if it costs too little. Nothing in midrange is good. LOL we can't have it all.
Miracles have a hard time to deal with P.Fire. D&T is hard if they play Mirran C., and he dies on P. Fire.
It's not only a strong 4 mana guy, but I am always happy to draw it after the early game (so bar the triple rhino opener or hands that have low mana so you only want to draw lands, but these situations are random and apply to pretty much any deck beside lands?). If you find that 1 rhino can't do anything against an angler, what about 2 rhinos then? I'm fully aware that this last sentence sounds really really stupid, but I can say that countless times 2 rhinos alone have stalled the board long enough to survive/draw that last piece of removal/draw sigarda or meren-->win.
I feel that 4 is the magical number for our lord, because he really IS good in multiples in my experience, and not only for the helix effect.
@SFM: Suiting a rhino/sigarda with a sofi and even a sobam (my fav. sword) is an amazing feeling, but the problem with SFM comes in the deckbuilding imo. It is already hard as hell in deciding my final 76 with the normal version, I've established long ago that trying to make space for SFM and swords is an impossible task. Too many card I absolutely need to have in the deck, there is so little space for anything else.
Yeah I know, I mean the Eldrazi matchup needs to be improved significantly without affecting these other matchups too much. So, as an example, just adding 4 Diabolic Edicts to combat Eldrazi won't do it because they suck against Miracles.
I mean, that's basically the theory behind my Thune list. Yes, the various angels aren't all Zenithable (Sigarda being the exception), and yes, that's a pretty big drawback. But if you run four of them (still props to Warden for pushing me into the full angel suite over two vestigal rhinos), you're GOING to draw at least 1, probably 2 per game...especially with Tops, Tracker, Painful Truths, etc. You can't bury your opponent in angels by just running back Zeniths three turns in a row, but really, do you need to?
The whole point of Thune is to live long enough to draw into and slam angels. That's one reason (along with just adding an interactive side to Zenith) that I'm pushing for the Recluse. One of two things will happen: they'll burn a removal spell on it and be extremely salty about it, or they'll stop attacking. Either way, we're happy. Remember: against 80% of the deck archetypes in any given room, we're favored in the long game. We're still ironing out the wrinkles with Miracles, obviously, but the goal is to be favored postboard there as well. The goal is to not die to stupid shit, and then play something that people can't deal with that closes the game effectively. Don't be afraid to use the draw step to your advantage -- Zenith is one of the best cards in the deck, absolutely, but once you fulfill a certain green core, you don't need to keep piling on additional green creatures or excluding other creatures just because they aren't green.
It's possible that 4 Baneslayers would be just fine (probable, even) -- I still like keeping the Thune combo around, though. The Spikes actually always overperform for me, and it lets me feel comfortable playing 3 Painful Truths.
I'm not so sure, I think it takes too many deck slots. In order to include these you need to give up manipulation elsewhere which in turn lowers your threats and worsens your ability to overload the opponents removal. Maybe as a SB option if there's a critical piece of interaction you need on turn 2 such as if you're against Storm.
I think this is giving up too much CA in order to get more manipulation, and way too few threats, your above deck looks pretty weak to removal for example with only 11 real threats including GSZ.For quick reference, we'd be talking about the following list, sorted by card type and CMC:
Creatures (14)
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
Artifacts (4):
4 Sensei's Divining Top
Sorceries & instants (14):
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Path to Exile
3 Abrupt Decay
Enchantments (6):
3 Mirri's Guile
3 Pernicious Deed
Planeswalkers (1):
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Lands (21):
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Phyrexian Tower
Not really, Rhino is really only too small against Angler and you can double block Angler while still going 1 for 1 with any creature plus Rhino. And we get more Rhinos than they get Anglers. Plus, I don't even mind trading 2 for 1 if I have to, the build I've been using lately has a lot of CA. I do feel like my guys are too small against Eldrazi though, and it doesn't help matters that they dodge Deed and Decay so I have much less removal.
But I agree - facing down 5/6 Goyf with no removal can get awkward for us, yes. So, when they attack, just don't block. Attack on the backswing, you'll have more life than them ;)
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