[Primer] Maverick 2.0 - GW/x

[Stuart]

Question, while we're on the topic of Punishing Maverick: how does Thalia, Heretic Cathar fit in the deck? I haven't seen Punishing lists with her.

I think in this deck you prefer BoP to Hierarch because of the red mana. You need a ton of red mana, and Hierarch doesn't do it. You can still play one or two Hierarchs if you want

Curious if other people agree with this; most Punishing lists I've seen have been the standard 1 Bird, 3-4 Hierarchs, but Birds does sound better to me.

[Fatal]

Question, while we're on the topic of Punishing Maverick: how does Thalia, Heretic Cathar fit in the deck? I haven't seen Punishing lists with her.



Curious if other people agree with this; most Punishing lists I've seen have been the standard 1 Bird, 3-4 Hierarchs, but Birds does sound better to me.

With good mana base it's not a problem. Exalted is really good, if you stack exalted every creature will be a thread, with proper tempo, you can press opponent life point from early turns, so in late game you can just burn him with PF.

I was thinking about different approach in Punishing Maverick - does anyone tried more mix with Aggro loam - (1-2 loams MD, Excavator) and ... Exploration in in place hierarch and bop ?

Toying with this list:

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Centaur Vinecrasher
1 Sylvan Library
3 Exploration
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
4 Wasteland
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Taiga
1 Plateau
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam

//SB
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Pyroblast
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Crop Rotation
1 Boil
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

No Hierarchs, No MoR, 3 x Exploration, 1 Loam,GQ MD, Vinecrasher as additional finisher (testing). 5 creatures with X/1 (3 Thalia, Scryb, BoP)

[Mr. Safety]

If you look above a few posts, I asked a similar question about a 4-color list. The feedback I received is that without Mox Diamond holding it together it can be very difficult to have stable mana. I think once you go down the path of Exploration you'll notice you want lands that perform as spells to go along with mana-producing lands, which naturally drives you towards an actual Lands list.

It might be interesting to do a Lands hybrid with Knight of the Reliquary. The slots that would have to give would be Gamble and Crop Rotation, which is fine if you're playing functionally 5+ copies of Knight. The same issue applies though to both decks: combo, especially fast combo, will eat you for breakfast. I imagine a core of something like this:

4x Knight
1-2x Excavator
2-3x GSZ
2x Depths
2x Stage
1-3x Loam
4x PFire
4x Exploration
4x Mox Diamond
27+ lands

[Stuart]

Cheers Fatal! That makes sense to me - 3 Grove, 2 Taiga, 1 Plateau, and 1 Birds seems like enough Red to allow for Hierarchs.

As for your idea, this list from a December MTGO Challenge might be an interesting starting point:

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20731&d=336833&f=LE

[menloe]

Question, while we're on the topic of Punishing Maverick: how does Thalia, Heretic Cathar fit in the deck? I haven't seen Punishing lists with her.



Curious if other people agree with this; most Punishing lists I've seen have been the standard 1 Bird, 3-4 Hierarchs, but Birds does sound better to me.

I don't know that I've seen very many GW or GWb Maverick lists running her either.

It should be easy to slot her in depending on the one-ofs you run. I've slotted her into Punishing Maverick in place of a third SFM, a singleton Aven Mindcensor, Batterskull, etc. I loved her against Elves, which was played locally by someone I hated losing to so I probably tried harder to fit her in. (Nice guy FWIW but he liked to talk about how he beat you as if you didn't just play the fuckin game.)

I think the argument against Birds is it's a sad late game draw and bad in multiples whereas Hierarch gives you that pump no matter when you draw it. Probably no more than 2 Birds is where you want to be.

[Mr. Safety]

I don't know that I've seen very many GW or GWb Maverick lists running her either.

It should be easy to slot her in depending on the one-ofs you run. I've slotted her into Punishing Maverick in place of a third SFM, a singleton Aven Mindcensor, Batterskull, etc. I loved her against Elves, which was played locally by someone I hated losing to so I probably tried harder to fit her in. (Nice guy FWIW but he liked to talk about how he beat you as if you didn't just play the fuckin game.)

I think the argument against Birds is it's a sad late game draw and bad in multiples whereas Hierarch gives you that pump no matter when you draw it. Probably no more than 2 Birds is where you want to be.

Just 2 small benefits of playing birds over hierarch: as a flyer it holds sofi/bskull better in combat and it blocks Marit Lage, which i see a lot of locally. It doesn't mean its better than nobles but its a couple things to consider.

EDIT: I have a 1K coming up on April 13th, which I am going to try like hell to attend. I'm torn between taking Pun-Mav and Turbo Depths; I could compromise and sideboard Depths combo in the Pun-Mav list, but I'm not sure I have enough time to learn lines of play. Three weeks isn't really that long, especially considering my testing wouldn't be the most productive (Magic Workstation is my only testing grounds besides goldfishing.)

So my question is: how difficult are the lines of play in this deck to learn?

[Fatal]

Cheers Fatal! That makes sense to me - 3 Grove, 2 Taiga, 1 Plateau, and 1 Birds seems like enough Red to allow for Hierarchs.

As for your idea, this list from a December MTGO Challenge might be an interesting starting point:

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20731&d=336833&f=LE

Thanks a lot - I came to similar conclusions as a autor, even more Explorations (4 and 1 Burgeoning) and Trackers as a mana sink.

Next Evaluation:

3 Tireless Tracker
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Centaur Vinecrasher
1 Primeval Titan
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
4 Exploration
1 Burgeoning
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
3 Wasteland
2 Savannah
1 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Taiga
1 Plateau
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Gaea's Cradle
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Life from the Loam
//SB
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Council's Judgement
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Boil
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Nissa, Vital Force


I also added one more Bomb as a finisher - Green Titan which fits good here, other option are Titania or a Horror Frog :-)
Still looking for a place for crop rotation on sb.

[menloe]

lookin mighty good there tomick

Edit: I don't know why the link broke.

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
2/3 Flying
Lands on the battlefield and land cards in graveyards can't be the targets of spells or abilities your opponents control.
Your opponents can't play land cards from graveyards.
"Some bend the law. I tie it into knots."

Is it just me or is the flavor text getting worse and worse? Puffed up dog shit.

[Cpt-Qc]

I'm not sure if you're trolling or not but I'm going to assume not.

This card is useless for us. Yeah it shuts down lands based decks but those are usually already favoured for us. That and it's also white so it cannot be played as a 1of.

Even DnT will rarely use it because their recruiter cannot get it and it looks inferior to Serra Avenger most of the time (maybe in a LGS that's swarmed with lands and depths players). They would never play it in a big event.

[menloe]

This card is useless for us. Yeah it shuts down lands based decks but those are usually already favoured for us. That and it's also white so it cannot be played as a 1of.

I appreciate the part of your response quoted above. I was hoping to get this kind of feedback from the more experienced players.

[Megadeus]

I think WW casting cost is the real killer at least for me personally. It's certainly a powerful effect, but like was said, most of the matchups this card shines Maverick already seems favored. The actual best part of this is that it flies and therefore can trade with a delver imo. If it were GW I could see it being a one of in heavy depths metas, as is I don't think it's even worth being in the Maverick box

[KobeBryan]

if its not GSZable, then you would need 4...pass.

[Hanni]

if its not GSZable, then you would need 4...pass.

Why? There are plenty of non-green threats that get ran at less than 4-of in almost every Maverick list I've ever seen. I've never seen any lists running hatebears in the sideboard as 4-of's either. Your post adds literally no value to the discussion.

I agree with Mega that the WW cost is pretty prohibitive for Maverick. Still, the body size is nicely costed and the text is relevant against a number of common matchups, so I'm not sure it should get completely written off. It likely isn't good enough here, but I do think it will see some play in D&T.

[pettdan]

The issue here is that what Tomik does, KotR already does, allthough that is a slight oversimplification. Tomik doesn't replace KotR. There are 4 GSZ to get extra KotR's, you already have plenty of this type of functionality. Tomik's effect is certainly useful, but not useful enough to motivate several copies. If Tomik was GSZ-able, that might motivate using him as a one of in the sb. Because a relatively low impact can be traded for high availability. When choosing to play other non-green bears, or other permanents, they have lower "availability" by not being GSZ-able but much higher impact on your bad matchups. Like Heretic Cathar, helping vs Elves and Sneak attack. (this example is still too low impact to see regular play)

[Mr. Safety]

Why? There are plenty of non-green threats that get ran at less than 4-of in almost every Maverick list I've ever seen. I've never seen any lists running hatebears in the sideboard as 4-of's either. Your post adds literally no value to the discussion.

I agree with Mega that the WW cost is pretty prohibitive for Maverick. Still, the body size is nicely costed and the text is relevant against a number of common matchups, so I'm not sure it should get completely written off. It likely isn't good enough here, but I do think it will see some play in D&T.

Flying is likely the best text on the card, and what makes it borderline playable. In testing I have really liked Aven Mindcensor, which has an arguably better ability, but the reason for playing things like AM and Birds of Paradise is the same reason you would want this: a flying blocker. This happens to also have an ability that affects the Marit Lage decks; opponent's can't even combo with Stage/Depths. Add to that a laundry list of abilities that it stops from Lands like Wasteland, Ports, Stage copying lands, Ghost Quarter and you have pretty decent tech against that particular deck. I'm not saying it's a shoe-in or a 4-of, but it's definitely a consideration due to flying. If you're banking on Knights getting Maze/Karakas to deal with Marit Lage but Lands has found a line to deal with those cards (not unlikely) you now at least have a flyer that needs to be dealt with that is out of PFire range. I think the cost is prohibitive if you are on any splash color but on straight GW I think it's doable.

With all that said, I still don't see it as a likely candidate for Maverick. If zoo were still a deck I would say it would be fantastic as a way to fight Lands, but I haven't seen zoo in ages. Death and Taxes already has like 20 maindeck ways to interact with Lands/Depths already. I think its pretty hiliarious in the D&T mirror match, most likely a way to break the matchup wide open for the first one to land it.

[Megadeus]

Is there an argument in less blue metas and more non blue to play that guy over say, Thalia in the main deck? Fortunately it's WW so blue decks can't adopt it, but it does make it a bit harder for us

[pettdan]

Maybe I was too categorical in my last post, trying to explain the perspective provided in an earlier post. If there's a lot of Lands and Turbo Depths in your area, maybe you can motivate one md or sb or even two, though I think there are probably better options with wider application. Like for example adding Rest in Peace/Scavenging Ooze to battle Loam and/or extra Path to Exile to answer Marit Lage. These can also be used vs Reanimator, Phoenix and Eldrazi.

Furthermore, I think Maverick is usually pretty good vs non-blue decks, so I'm not sure how a list should be updated based on that. And if it's a fair non-blue meta I guess it's just a matter of time before someone puts together a combo deck to benefit from that..

[Rascalyote]

Won a 5 round legacy 1k here in Vancouver. This was my list.

4 Mother of Runes
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Palace Jailer

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
4 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
4 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats

2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Qasali Pridemage
4 Assassin's Trophy
1 Path to Exile
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb


Not a fan of Ramunap atm and postboard I usually throw the mana denial plan out the window (also why there's 0 chokes). Stoneforge + Skull and Marit Lage were MVPs. Really enjoying the 4 SFM at the moment. I rolled a die to determine if my last slot should be library, jailer, or sigarda. Jailer won but it didn't matter as I never drew it. Don't own a 3rd Lor Foil Thoughtseize so I played an IoK and it almost lost me the finals as it whiffed a sneak attack. Didn't really take notes so don't have much of a tournament report but in swiss I beat lands, UR Delver with 4 TNN main and splashing black for SB Bitterblossom, and mono red storm. Then I was able to draw draw into top 8. The top 8 was pretty clowny, it was-

Maverick (me)
DNT
Lands
Elves
That UR Delver deck (different player than I played in swiss, same 75 though)
Sneak and Show
Manaless Dredge x2

In top 8 I beat Manaless, Lands, then Sneak and Show. I felt the benefits of playing the 4 trophy over any decays when I played vs lands twice.

[Fatal]

@Rascalyote

Question how was 4 x Assasin's Trophy in SB - looks like a lot, specially with 1 x Path to Exile, in which case you side in those. I think it's bit too much specially that you use only 1 real answer (Zealous Persecioution) vs TNN. What was a propose in this SB plan ?

[Rascalyote]

@Rascalyote

Question how was 4 x Assasin's Trophy in SB - looks like a lot, specially with 1 x Path to Exile, in which case you side in those. I think it's bit too much specially that you use only 1 real answer (Zealous Persecioution) vs TNN. What was a propose in this SB plan ?

You get to bring Trophy in vs more decks than decay and have it be better. Like lands, sneak, depths, reanimator, 4c loam, etc. There's trade offs with decay in the sense that if you go trophy target mentor and they counter it you can pretty much just scoop, but the alternative is they walk all over you with Jace as you stare at decay. I've heard "Trophying Jace is bad as they already brainstormed and now get a land, so are up cards" yeah sure, but again the alternative is to just die to their active jace.

The path slot was originally Liliana of the Veil (I've tested Last Hope as well), it was very good and filled holes in some matchups, but BB was just too greedy esp when you needed her vs decks with either wasteland or b2b. It could've been ZP #2 but while it hits TNN it misses -most- of the other stuff out of delver. I'm already favoured vs DNT, and I'd still be unfavoured vs elves so I'd rather just dodge it. Vs Delver I pretty much just want to survive until I can get my much more stronger threats online and one of the main ways I die is an uncontested delver, so I board out my Thalia's and bring in a bunch of point click removal most of the time. Decay would be better than trophy in this specific matchup at executing this plan as I'd have an uncounterable way to kill delver but decay is just such a weak card in a lot of matchups that Trophy is strong in. As for TNN I played against Delver with 4 TNN in the main and beat 2 TNN game one and a TNN game 2. Dark Depths goes a long way in outracing TNN and makes your knight a real threat again, SOFI and mother help as well as maindeck ways around it.

The path is def. the flex slot in the SB though.