I think the best thing going for it is that it has certain enchantments that can really take over the game and shut down a lot of decks. Lot of stuff folds to either Humility, Curse of Death's Hold, Doomwake Giant, or simple Pernicious Deed recursion thanks to Starfield. There are not many legacy cards that remove high cmc enchantments. I like the idea of shutting down Sneak/Show just with Humility, instead of relying utterly on hand disruption and surgical extraction effects. The deck can pretty quickly either get lands into play to hardcast them, or tutor them up with Rector. So far my real issues with the deck is just getting familiar with it, seems like a very different twist, and it has by nature some odd interactions.Originally Posted by TLK
One downside is that it is a very grindy version, moreso than other variants. I don't think you'll be able to be aggressive enough to stop 12Post before they setup shop, and Burn can be problematic (although I think Burn is tough if you don't either have SFM with Batterskull/Jitte, or 4 Rhinos to come down asap). But dang is this deck the king of grind. SFM or Rhino versions can probably race to lethal much faster against a stumbling opponent.
Probably weaker to graveyard hate, but that is small.
I'm unsure yet on the Miracles matchup, but Ulysses is having a good time, I think, with it. It seems pretty good on paper.
Access to GSZ, Rector, and Sterling Grove mean that you can pretty reliably find what you need, and Eidolon of Blossoms provides some mid/late game drawing power (I'd say similar to Tracker, perhaps stronger, but Tracker can work "alone" if you will).
It may not be my place to suggest new cards, but Sanctifier of Souls actually seems good in our deck. We can get more value out if our dead creatures then Scooze does.
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I think that the biggest thing that we are on the lookout for is a GSZ'able creature that has some sort of removal attached to an ETB trigger. Basically a green Shriekmaw. This would go a long way in increasing our toolbox. Especially if it can kill annoying stuff like Emrakul or Griselbrand as well as ground beaters..like an enhanced and cheaper Stingerfling Spider. I really doubt we'll see anything like that, but hey, they are trying to increase the power of creatures...so who knows.
For those curious:
Sanctifier of Souls 3W
Creature - Human Cleric [Rare]
Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, Sanctifier of Souls gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
2W, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: Put a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
2/3
I don't like this guy, 3W for a 2/3 seems very very poor, and 2W is a steep price to pay to only exile creatures from your own grave and make tokens. He also ins't GSZ'able. There are better token producers by far, I also don't think we can really make use of his temporary pump, unless you are specifically playing with big Elspeth and other enablers. And he doesn't have evasion to help carry that through at all.
Compare it to Scooze. You can GSZ Scooze into play for 3 mana, and still have a mana left over to activate to eat -anything- from -any- graveyard, for the same cost to simply play this 2/3. Eating a creature immediately grows Scooze to 3/3 which is bigger than the 3W guy. Scooze is cheaper to activate next turn and remove a ton of annoying stuff from the opponent's grave.
I thought he was 3 mana. Yeah the 4 mana is really bad and I didn't realize GSZ was only green creatures.
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If it wasn't, we'd play so much crazy shit. And every single deck in the world with access to green mana would run GSZ.
The closest thing to a green Shriekmaw is Acidic Slime, but it doesn't hit creatures. And at that point we could just run Reclamation Sage maindeck.
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Sanctifier of Souls isn't really worth playing, 4 mana for that body and 3 mana for that effect just isn't good enough, especially since anything that can't be tutored has a higher threshold to see play while we already have Scavenging Ooze.
When Shattergang Brothers was spoiled a few years ago, I half-expected to see it in the list of some optimistic Jund Nic Fit player.
The thing I'm looking for is pretty specific. A green 2 drop creature source of card advantage. STE is the best we've got, which is advantage paired with Tracker, or SFM/Bob if you go out of green.
Rule of thumb is that CA creatures normally cost 3 mana and upwards. Stuff like Elvish Visionary are the exception, not the rule. I wouldn't hold my breath.
For a full card yes, but I'm not looking for something that's necessarily a full cards worth of value. Half a card which can be manipulated into more through SDT would be more than sufficient.
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In other news, I think I'm done with the PW builds, not going to condemn SFM yet although I haven't been liking it. The PW's just aren't pulling their weight though, I think I'm going to leave some Sorin LoI's in the board for Miracles but that's all. I did manage to win a 7 game set against Reanimator earlier going 4-3 with a SFM/PW build but it was more due to bad draws on their part, and I did take 2nd at a small event this past Saturday with the build but it's just not there. GSZ just feels too weak when it's watered down that much, and I didn't feel like I had access to the answers I needed.
I think I've given the build something like 13 or 14 rounds across 4 events at this point plus some side games and I just don't like how it performs.
Elvish Visionary wouldn't be bad in a Pod chain.
Pod Veteran Explorer -> get Visionary, draw a card.
Pod Visionary, get Eternal Witness, reclaim Visionary.
Replay Visionary, draw a card, pod Witness into Meren, reclaim Witness with Meren.
Pod Meren into Sigarda, cast Witness, reclaim Meren. Cast Meren, reclaim Veteran Explorer, start another chain.
That would work pretty well, I'm looking for something non pod though, possibly worth noting is that DRS, Elvish Visionary, and Eternal Witness are all Shaman so there might be something interesting there. But what I'm really looking for is something like SFM or Bob where I can just play it and get some advantage. The closest to that in green right now is STE where I can use it for land early with a block, and late game it feeds well into Ooze and Tracker, and even some marginal utility of resetting Top.
I'm not sure what I want though. The way it has seemed to me so far is that SFM is slightly too much of a mana sink with the way I've been playing. It saves mana if you're getting Batterskull, but assuming the 1/2 body isn't doing anything for you SFM means spending 4 mana to get your Sword/Jitte then 2 more to equip for 6 total where I can cast/equip for 4 or 5. Of course for that 1 extra mana you're bypassing counterspells and getting a tutor so it's not like it's without value but I think I have the library manipulation to draw into what I want. Over the past couple weeks my equipment has actually been at it's best when I've just drawn it vs when I've gone out of my way to tutor for it excluding Batterskull of course.
I'll probably play with it some more over the next day and see if I can come up with another configuration I like. Sword of Feast and Famine has felt low impact because I haven't been able to burn all the extra mana with a PW setup. Jitte is very hit or miss and doesn't really feel like it's good in the matches I want it for.
I'm pretty sure I'm going back to a creature package though, it just gives so much more board presence. Or maybe I'm just not seeing what it's actually been doing for me, because my combo matchup has been pretty nice lately. The last few combos I've played against have been Show and Tell, Reanimator, and Elves and I've beaten all 3.
Queation: so this last weekend I played a small local event going 2-2, wins against 4c loam and drazi, losses to storm and drazi. I was playing a slightly Walker'd version that was essentially rhino fit plus big sorin and flip garruk. What I'm wondering is, what is something that is tutorable that acts as an answer, or even a road block, to eldrazi? I'm going to be moving away from the walkers until the next open because miracles is unheard of in this area (thank nylea for that), but drazi is rampant. I figure having more main deck game against them would be super helpful. I'm probably going to be keeping the flip walkers in the main because they're awesome card advantage whenever I see them, but Elspeth, sorin and ob nixilis have got to be replaced.
@Vestige: Glissa, the Traitor. Yes, she can be Dismembered, no she does not have abilities past first strike and deathtouch.
Thragtusk, Gitfrog, Master of the wild hunt and Dromoka.
Another League, another 4-1.
Lost to burn in 3. Meh
Beat Maverick in 2.
Beat Grixis Pyro in 3. A bolt and a dismember killed my dromoka. :(
Beat Storm in 3.
Beat Grixis Omni in 3. Double Canonist was huge.
Carpet continues to shine.
Current Build: Punishing Rhinos http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post927726
@rubble: He still has to be alive by the time he can cast those... And Master of the Wild Hunt takes a long time before it's able to deal with Reality Smasher. And also folds to Dismember. Same goes for Thragtusk, by the way. The 3/3 Thragtusk leaves behind isn't something Eldrazi is really bothered with.
I was testing tutorable sideboard cards for Eldrazi yesterday, and hilariously, the most effective one so far has been Hornet Nest.
After your suggestion, and me moving away from the red splash, I have started to play carpet again and it feels good. It's one of the only cards, if not the only one, that comes in both in the delver and miracles match ups.
I have changed Arian's list a tiny bit:
-frog: good against shardless and eldrazi, mediocre against other decks. 5 mana is a lot since I play Sigarda the 2 types of elspeth, Dromoka and tusk already.
-3 pws but small elspeth instead of Sorin. I feel the +3+3 flying is underrated. Can be activated as a surprise blow out effect as soon as she hits the board.
-master of the wild aunt: I love this guy but he is too slow, and he only is game changing vs eldrazi. And we have plenty of tools for them. 4-5 mana sorcery speed spell that dies eot to bolt (grixis delver is omnipresent), feelsbadman.
-I run 3 obstinate baloths and I do absolutely like them a lot. 1 mb 2 sb. I know this is going to be a controversial choice, but listen me out: as I said we really need more lifegain in this pw oriented list, and while thrag is awesome he is still a 5 mana bombs, I don't want to have a second one. Baloths is good because:
a. shines against all the bug decks with hymn or liliana: cards that are otherwise a very BIG problem for us. Master (the card that baloth replaced) is very good as well here but it is very slow, while baloths (3 in g2-3) creates blowouts scenarios that change the game instantly.
Master is better in g1, but in g2-3 three baloths basically negate liliana of the veil and hymn and creates mind games situations that allow to cast the heavy weights of the deck (often discarded otherwise). We are the unfairest fair deck, but still fair: discard is so good against us.
b. It is better than master against burn (a mu that gave me problems with Arian's list, and never did with rhino time. Dec) and delver. 4 life gain is a lot. Cannot be bolted eot.
C. Against miracles both cards are mediocre, master can be better if he gets to stay alive for a couple turns, but let's face it: they always have terminus plow snapcasters so that's never happening. Always unlucky.
Having 2 baloths in the sb is going to be a controversial choice and I know it, they replace celestial purge and grip, which were low impact almost always. 1 grip is not enough vs miracles, and after that the card is only amazing against batterskull. I am not seeing a lot of bsk online these days, and we have bigger threats anyways.
Those 2 additional baloths replace the 5-6 mana guys in match ups where we board in a lot of stuff and the goal is not to win but to survive: omnitell storm Ecc. Having a 4 mana dude instead of planeswalkers or 5-6 mana guys is good. This is not the main reason to play this configuration of course, it is just a small bonus.
My 2 cents. I have been silently reading your suggestions and developing my own list, and so far I find that the card is good enough to be played outside a 4 rhino deck.
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