[Primer] Maverick 2.0 - GW/x

[Cpt-Qc]

This is a very interesting case indeed. Setting up traps like this is a good way to trick opponent in giving us a chance. Even tho we are favored in the matchup, this kind of starting hand happens from time to time and there's nothing a non-blue deck can do about it.

[Skizz]

As Skizz said - it's Magic sometimes combo decks have everything and you can't stop them - like turn 1 AdN on draw, Belcher canon or Dark ritual thoughtsize, entomb, reanimate... BUT it is narrow best way to deal with those combo decks is to practice a lot, sometimes we just didn't saw window in time to break sequence of their plan.

.. the good thing about combo decks is that you have TIME to think about the situation a little bit longer then playing grindy matchups.

SCD: Steal Leaf Champion - i think this is an interesting card/beater - kinda unblockable force against grixis-army, elves, strix...
especially when protected by mother of runes/safekeeper
i think i will test one when its available - what do you think about it?

[lavafrogg]

Scenario from game 1 is interesting:

Turn 1:
Forest -> Safekeeper

Turn 2:
Urborg, -> Crop Rotation (from Forest) - so urborg stays inplay. - in this moment (while Crop is on stack) you have window to cast removal and opponent have to choose - losing Safekeeper or slowing down his combo by turn. Poper line is to cast that removal since on longer game you won't resolve any removal with safekeeper in play in row (mostly no mana, and first is blocked by Safekeeper).

Alternative good line is to cast removal on safekeeper right away in turn 1. It's depends on two factors - first factor does you have mana dork (if not you should cast removal turn 1, even if it only mean 'stone rain') second factor is draw/play situation - on draw this line is much more risky since you don't develop your board.

As Skizz said - it's Magic sometimes combo decks have everything and you can't stop them - like turn 1 AdN on draw, Belcher canon or Dark ritual thoughtsize, entomb, reanimate... BUT it is narrow best way to deal with those combo decks is to practice a lot, sometimes we just didn't saw window in time to break sequence of their plan.

I mulliganed the first game and had a turn 2 knight as interaction, game 2 my starting hand was Karakas, Thoughtseize, Swords, Thalia, Knight and he drew gas while I never saw a Wasteland or second GSZ. I should have easily won the second game but random acts of magic happen.

[Fatal]

I mulliganed the first game and had a turn 2 knight as interaction, game 2 my starting hand was Karakas, Thoughtseize, Swords, Thalia, Knight and he drew gas while I never saw a Wasteland or second GSZ. I should have easily won the second game but random acts of magic happen.

Second hand looked like godlike - t.size discard needle/answer to karakas, then karakas with thalia to clock his turns, then just close game with Knight which probably will be discarded.

Steel Leaf Champion I dislike it is next 3CMC beater which doesn't bring any value except conditonal unblockable - I would put Loxodon Smiter much before. It's much better to fight today meta - good vs Tempo (can't be dazed/fowed), can't be discarded and good protection against K.Commands and Lilianas.

[lavafrogg]

Second hand looked like godlike - t.size discard needle/answer to karakas, then karakas with thalia to clock his turns, then just close game with Knight which probably will be discarded.

Steel Leaf Champion I dislike it is next 3CMC beater which doesn't bring any value except conditonal unblockable - I would put Loxodon Smiter much before. It's much better to fight today meta - good vs Tempo (can't be dazed/fowed), can't be discarded and good protection against K.Commands and Lilianas.

Yeah.... game 2 was rough for me. His sequence of drawn cards while hellbent was: thoughtsieze, took Swords, map for stage, map for quarter, kill Karakas, crop rotation for steppe, I had mom+Ranger....

I was locked into a Knight list but I went 5-3 and missed top 8 so I am going to put more effort into a Tracker+Crop Rotation list.

[EventHorizon]

There's also Pride Sovereign which works well with Scryb Ranger. I didn't try it yet, I have usually been playing Titania which is great for pushing through in such grindy matchups, and I've sometimes played Bitterblossom but not too much results with it, maybe because it's not GSZ-able..

I somehow really like the idea of flooding the board with lifelink kittens. Here is a list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Mother of Runes
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Pride Sovereign

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Windswept heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Horizon Canopy

SB:

3 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Choke
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Containment Priest
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth

Okay, maybe I went overboard with the kittens, two are probably enough. Exert is really good with untap effects though; Blessed Alliance fits in well. And going really wide beats Baleful Strix and True-Name Nemesis.
Bad news:
- The cat dies really fast. Even to Kolaghan's Command, which is painful.
- Boardclears a la Infest or Pyroclasm always get the big cat as well, since it shrinks back
- a lot of kittens are going to have to die

If you want to get even more cute (you are playing kittens, after all):
- Gideon or Zealous Persecution in Mainboard
- Brimaz, King of Oreskos
- Gavony Township
- Wilt-Leaf Liege

[Cpt-Qc]

I don't think the deck needs any help vs Stoneblade since we are well equiped for it, but if you want to make your pile matchup better you can always play a creature they cannot get rid of instead of a tokens generator. You literally cannot lose once Rhonas hits the board vs a grindy non-white deck. But then again, we already have marit lage for that role so having both might be overkill...

[Milo687]

Playing at GP Seattle this weekend with this list. Will post a report after Day 1.

Punishing Maverick

MB:
Creature: 21
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Mother of Runes
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ramunap Excavator

Non-Creature Spells: 14
4 Swords of Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Punishing Fire
1 Sylvan Library
1 Swords of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands:25
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Wasteland
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Plateau
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Plains
1 Forest

SB:15
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Containment Priest
2 Thoughtseize
1 Bayou
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Crop Rotation
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Reclamation Sage




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[Skizz]

offtopic: is there a facebook group for maverick-players?

[pettdan]

offtopic: is there a facebook group for maverick-players?

I don't know but there is an active Discord (linked in the Discord thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...iscord-Servers).

Edit:
@ EventHorizon: sweet to see a new poster, welcome! I think the cat has some potential, with a scryb ranger around you get 4 1/1 lifelinkers and a 6/6 cat after one turn and can make that 6 tokens and an 8/8 after two turns. Though it's hard to compete at the 3-drop slot for sure. Probably it's not going to be strong enough, but who knows. I think playing 3 copies is ok when testing it, but probably it's not going to turn out strong enough to have such a presence in the deck. Just imagine the situations when a KotR is gamewinning and when the cat is, for sure the KotR going to be instrumental in more situations so you probably don't want to stay at 3. But what do I know.. Good luck and report back! :)

[Stuart]

Fuck yeah Miranda Keith

[lavafrogg]

Fuck yeah Miranda Keith

That's a big deal! I wish she,?, would have made it past her first round delver opponent as that usually is a good matchup overall. Other than that this obviously means a spike in Maverick players for the next month or so.

For the list, it doesn't run the combo, which I have been moving towards, and she runs the Gideon and the Sigarda in the board to help fight control decks... which happened to be everywhere.

Just love it all.

[Schryver]

Miranda actually said Sigarda was bad but I'm not sure what all the matchups were

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[haganbmj]

Miranda actually said Sigarda was bad but I'm not sure what all the matchups were

She said on Reddit that they just didn't have a matchup to bring it in for. Whether that's a sign the card just doesn't deserve the slot right now is debatable.

I didn't actually get to bring in Sigarda at all, but she's been incredible when I've played her in the past and I just generally absolutely love the card. She's also fantastic with Gaea's Cradle.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...top_8/dx0blpb/

[NegatorITA]

That's a big deal! I wish she,?, would have made it past her first round delver opponent as that usually is a good matchup overall. Other than that this obviously means a spike in Maverick players for the next month or so.

For the list, it doesn't run the combo, which I have been moving towards, and she runs the Gideon and the Sigarda in the board to help fight control decks... which happened to be everywhere.

Just love it all.

Yup here I am
Ready to pick up the deck again after some disappointing results with the punishing list. :)
Isn't 23 lands a bit to much without the combo?

[menloe]

Yup here I am
Ready to pick up the deck again after some disappointing results with the punishing list. :)
Isn't 23 lands a bit to much without the combo?

Not too much. It just depends on how good you think Maze of Ith is vs. a spell you would run in lieu of.

[lavafrogg]

Not too much. It just depends on how good you think Maze of Ith is vs. a spell you would run in lieu of.

Currently I think the Cradle/Maze is the better plan as the stage usually only wins when you have an active knight, which means you should be winning anyways...

I like the Maze because it can be used offensively, attack untap search, or defensively, as intended. The Cradle allows for explosive played and huge tempo gains.

[Cpt-Qc]

Currently I think the Cradle/Maze is the better plan as the stage usually only wins when you have an active knight, which means you should be winning anyways...

I like the Maze because it can be used offensively, attack untap search, or defensively, as intended. The Cradle allows for explosive played and huge tempo gains.

I'm actually kinda sick of hearing that if kotr is active you should be winning already. It might be a bit of an exageration: She gets chumped for days, gets killed by most removal and opponent doesn't usually have only nonbasics in their deck so you need something to make opponent scared of her. If you're staring at a TNN or a Strix, you want to do something else than just getting more mana (would you really play a 3cc mana dork, even if it generated 4 mana by itself?)

TLDR, most decks have ways to deal with her, she's "just a creature", even IF she is big (with that many DRS around she doesn't get much bigger than 5-6 lately). That's why you either need craddle + something to dump lots of mana into, the DD combo or a land that allows her to hit face.

[menloe]

Currently I think the Cradle/Maze is the better plan as the stage usually only wins when you have an active knight, which means you should be winning anyways...

I like the Maze because it can be used offensively, attack untap search, or defensively, as intended. The Cradle allows for explosive played and huge tempo gains.

I run Maze for those reasons too. I'm also on the DD combo though, which brings me to a total of 23 or 24 lands. (My entry into the format was a Punishing list with 26 lands so I'm not squeamish about a higher land count.)

Gaea's Cradle is one of my favorite cards. The art is incredible. The ability is incredible. The nostalgia for that time period is real. It was one of a few very successful Puca trades I made and I ended up bonusing about 30% to get it (it was time to get out anyway so NBD). Came from Germany smelling like cigarette smoke but I happily added it to my vault of expensive cardboard, which I swim around in from time to time like Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales (for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPX5mRSQ3pw). I regret not playing it for all of those reasons, but the combo is just too good not to run.

[Cpt-Qc]

I run Maze for those reasons too. I'm also on the DD combo though, which brings me to a total of 23 or 24 lands. (My entry into the format was a Punishing list with 26 lands so I'm not squeamish about a higher land count.)

I'm on 23 mana producing lands atm so 1 more than you but I was thinking that we might not even need 2 forest anymore and going down to 22 mana producing lands might be enough.. The most efficient way to trim would be to shave 1 basic or 1 bayou. Do you run 3 black sources or 3 basics?

I'm trying to make my land package a little more attractive by adding maybe maze, cavern or even cradle in addition to the DD combo.

Edit: Or I could also play the 8th fetch...