(Anecdotally again) i think an artifact might just be the thing? These games go long and ive found over and over again that you can attrition way better with equipment. kolaghans command is a 2 of? On occasion a snapcastet target? I'm not overly worried about that 2 of 2for1.
If they're shooting my sword they're not killing my vial, if they're killing my vial then my creature is getting suited up.
Maybe it's just win more.
I guess I'm just hoping for more people tested input
Well I don't know if it's win more as much as 'not always win'. I think you want to present threats that are naturally hard to answer with 1 for 1s - RiP, Gideon, Cataclysm, Fiendslayer Paladin and P/K are all things that they can't easily deal with. If they don't answer SoLaS you win, but they have more answers to that than they do to the rest of those cards. Also "kill all your creatures so you can never even equip SoLaS" is another answer to SoLaS.
Mangara comeback time? Just 5-0'd in my first run with 1 (and 2 Recruiter of the Guard) and he was absolutely crucial in several of my games.
While I think Mangara is worse than he was during Miracles/Eldrazi era, I never bought the idea that he's stone-unplayable either, I'm mostly not playing one because I don't have room rather than because I think the card doesn't have value - having a copy around allows you to get out of a lot of weird situations. I think he's more of a sideboard card than a maindeck card these days, though.
Bahra, if you feel like making a quick tournament reports of your 5-0 run, it would be of great value =D
And nice run
no sanctum prelate?
If you try, you will find that you can't really use Mangara out of the board. He is a generalist sort of answer that comes out in many games for more specific hate in games 2 and 3 if your board is correct for the event.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
I mean, I've tried and I've found that I could. Council's Judgment is a generalist answer card too. Mangara doesn't hit TNN but it's tutorable + doesn't cost 4 mana with a Thalia in play + and it hits lands. The reason why he's not an amazing sideboard card at the moment is that decks that he's particularly good against (Miracles/Stoneblade/Eldrazi/Weird Enchantress/MUD crap) just don't make up enough of the meta anymore.
I'm going to Eternal Weekend and am finalizing the list i'm taking. Opinions?
// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
// 26 Creature
4 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Flickerwisp
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 23 Land
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
10 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy
// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 1 Sword of War and Peace
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
// 8 Creature
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
SB: 1 Banisher Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Mirran Crusader
// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
// 1 Instant
SB: 1 Path to Exile
// 2 Sorcery
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
I'd play the mirran crusaders main instead of spirit of the labyrinth and the two thalia. I'll add another phyrexian revoker also.
In the SB you can play more instant removal then (+1 path), and one more containement priest maybe? (Sneak and show is prevalent in my area).
Ignoring the fact that THC is not very good, putting extra legendary creatures in your deck and then taking out copies of Karakas is not a strategy with internal consistency.
Zombie fish? What do you mean?
That's fair. I changed it up some:
// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
// 26 Creature
4 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Flickerwisp
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
2 Mirran Crusader
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 23 Land
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
10 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy
// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 1 Sword of War and Peace
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
// 8 Creature
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
SB: 1 Banisher Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
// 1 Instant
SB: 1 Path to Exile
// 2 Sorcery
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
I'm also trying to put in a 1x Aven Mindcensor but I can't figure out what I would want to remove.
Gave R/W taxes a try today at a 46 player tournament. 11th place with 4-2.
G1: 0-2 Grixis control (with therapy).
-Game 1 probe and therapy eats everything good from my hand, allowing him to take over.
-Game 2 I miss a land drop turn 3 which allows him to take over with pyromancer despite my rest in peace, killing every creature I draw.
G2: 2-1: Grixis control (with hymns and wasteland).
-Game 1 I face 5 K-commands (2 with snapcaster) in turns 3-7, one of which I manage to counter with familiar but to little avail.
-Game 2 I manascrew him with mother into thalia + wasteland and seal the deal with magus as he had no swamps.
-Game 3 he mulls (I do too), fows my vial and then fails to make any card advantage play because of my rest in peace he couldn't counter.
G3: 2-1: Eldrazi.
-Game 1 he has an unbeatable godhand (on the play chalice -> TKS -> smasher -> endbringer).
-Game 2 he has a slow hand, punished by double waste, allowing me to eventually land batterskull. Thalia was actually relevant in forcing him to waste another spirit guide on warping wail to allow him to (hopefully) get a mimic with jitte hit in (I had path and vial->wisp backup anyway).
-Game 3 is sort of the same, with jailer sealing the deal. The two paths in the side really helped here a lot, although I got lucky he drew his one-of wastes both times. Never saw a magus nor did I ever have the window to recruit for him.
G4: 0-2: U/G enchantress.
-I have little hate against this deck with my current build (no cataclysm, no spirit of the labyrinth, only one canonist, only two revoker, no pontiff or kambal). Both games I have a single hatebear which he manages to address long before my clock is even remotely threatening. There were some mana issues too, but I don't think this was ever winnable.
G5: 2-1: Lands.
-Game 1 he dies to sanctum prelate on 2 after a rather slow start without exploration but with punishing fire and gamble -> loam.
-game 2 he draws into an answer to prelate in the form of molten vortex while my clock is shit because of maze and my mana being tied up in preventing a Marit lage token from appearing.
-game 3 I have double RIP and double magus off of vial. Without the second magus I would have died to the interaction with Dark Depths, so the power of magus in this match-up really took a hit with the rules change.
G6: 2-0: Burn.
-Game 1 he gets me to 2, but only after I got some thalia beats in and he cast flame rift twice, so he's also at 6. He had a slow hand with double eidolon (both were plowed) and double flame rift. One turn he missplays hard when he bolts thalia while I have karakas open (well, might have won him the game if he hadn't, but it cost me two extra mana to recast as well so who knows). While he's tapped out after suspending a lethal rift bolt, I have enough mana to hardcast sword of fire and ice (through thalia) and equip for the win.
-Game 2 we both mull, my mother survives into thalia, stoneforge for jitte, prelate on 2 and sfm->jitte + equip for the win.
Overall, I wasn't very impressed by the red splash in this tournament. It was better during testing, so I'm not giving it up, but I'm leaning to going back to black, especially because (despite my games) true-name really was all over the place (7+ delver and they were all packing, and that's not counting blade decks). Magus seems quite easy to play around if you know what you're doing and too often a double-edged sword (against lands, shutting down your karakas and port, restricting your white sources). Plus, grixis control is waaaay more of a threat to us than czech pile. Pia and Kiran are often too expensive or uncastable with double red.
Lands(24):
5 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
Creatures(26):
3 Mother of Runes
1 Judge's Familiar
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Vryn Wingmare
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Other(11):
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Equipment
Sideboard(15):
2 Rest in Peace
2 Council's Judgment
2 Path to Exile
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Manic Vandal
1 War Priest of Thune
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mirran Crusader
Scrubbed out of a 40-ish man tourney over the weekend, basically over mulligan decisions (kept most sevens I had, only saw Vial twice all day).
Elves, Mirror, Jund, Turbo-Depths, and Burn before I dropped. Mostly just wanted to test anyway.
My All-Stars were Cloudchaser Kestrel and Eldrazi Displacer, and the usual suspects. Displacer held the fort vs the mirror for what felt like eternity until getting revoked, and Kestrel was irreplaceable vs Burn.
On another note, I've been eyeballing Scavenger Grounds for some time now. Thoughts? I've heard grave hate is good.
There are currently 4 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 4 guests)