Yea, I would intend to board 4 Leyline. That has strategic problems overall, but the combo match-ups are generally bad enough that over-committing to the GY ones (which isn't really possible to do in the same way with Storm or Elves or SnT) puts me in a position to hit some lucky match-ups and do okay.
What does your list look like?
Leyline isn't only a good call for Griselbrand, but for Lands too (which I imagine is a disaster for this deck).
It may be worth jamming all the Mindbreak Traps alongside Leylines for a GP. All sorts or random stuff goes down in the first few rounds.
Stockish Something like:
22 lands (probably 2 basics, either 3 Grove or 2-3 wasteland)
4 drs, goyf, shardless
2 TNN, bbe, strix
1 Jace, leovold
4 brainstorm, 4 for, 3 visions
2 bolt, 3 decay, 3 p fire (or like bolt, jitte, k command)
Flexing on the p. fires, 4th agent (if too many 3-drops), 0-2 TNN, 0-2 Leovold, 0-2 main deck jitte, 3rd strix, removal
Hello y'all, I've been working on some changes to my list in the post-Miracles world and have done pretty well at my local Legacy nights (3-1s and a 4-0 here and there). This is what I've got:
3x Baleful Strix
2x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Deathrite Shaman
2x Leovold, Emmisary of Trest
4x Shardless Agent
3x Tarmogoyf
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Ancestral Vision
4x Brainstorm
1x Collective Brutality
4x Force of Will
1x Kolaghan's Command
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Punishing Fire
1x Badlands
1x Bayou
1x Forest
3x Grove of the Burnwillowsfoil icon
1x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
2x Volcanic Island
SB:
1x Collective Brutality
2x Echoing Truth
2x Flusterstorm
1x Golgari Charm
4x Leyline of the Void
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Toxic Deluge
I'm trying to find a spot to jam a second Pithing Needle into my board since I'm stone cold to a lot of Marit Lage decks, any thoughts?
Echoing Truth hits ML too. Otherwise, could you swap Leylines for different grave hate and only play 3 Grave Hate cards instead of 4? Surgical Extraction or something?
I've definitely considered Surgical, but it's significantly less of a beating against decks like Storm (very popular in my meta) and 4c loam. Might be worth trying out for a night or two.
I would highly, highly recommend Kolaghan's Command. I've been jamming 2 copies of the card in a Grixis Delver list, and it's pretty much always been nuts in a wide variety of matchups. Even against combo decks with no good targets, it at least Shocks for 2 and forces a discard.
I would start testing something along these lines:
22 lands:
10 Fetches (4 VCatacombs; 4 MRainforest; 2 PDelta)
3 Basics: Island, Swamp, Forest
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
14 creatures:
4 DRS
4 Shardless Agent
2 Blood-Braid Elf
2 Leovold
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
24 spells:
4 FoW
4 Brainstorm
4 LBolt
4 AVision
2 KCommand
3 As Foretold
1 Sylvan Library
1 Jace TMS
1 Wheel of Fate
Blue count = 23
I think the main 60 should be designed to beat up on fair decks -- you win by simple virtue of card advantage. Almost everything is a 2-for-1 and/or yields a high return for its relative mana cost. The advantage this has over Jund is access to Force of Will and the various Blue cards; the advantage over straight BUG Cascade is that you can use Burn to win quickly and/or against a stalled board position. BBElf and KCommand alone practically make the Red splash worth it for this style of deck.
An example of a 'singleton' sideboard (a work in progress, to be adjusted further as the metagame develops):
1 REB
1 Pyroblast
1 BEB
1 Hydroblast
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Fire Covenant
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
As Foretold helps solve the problem inherent with playing 4 colors as well as combos with Suspend cards. Early testing is promising. Along with the cascade creatures, the deck is fairly good at being able to chain together draw spells in order to continuously chuck more cards at the opponent than they can deal with. I definitely want to tweak it some more, but I think there's a valid strategy here.
Last edited by wcm8; 05-08-2017 at 04:51 PM.
I see no posts already for a year here, but I wondered if banning of Deathrite shaman changes anything. I was brainstorming (pun not intended) a build without black. Did not work on sideboard
Waterfalls
Main:
2 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
1 Dack Fayden
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Punishing Fire
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard:
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Flusterstorm
1 Naturalize
3 Surgical Extraction
I have not played this deck but it seems ... ambitious to hope to land shardless agents (much less bloodbraid) early enough to matter (or at all if RUG Delver is as prevalent as it seems it might be) without replacing DRS with some kind of dork.
Hierarch seems like the obvious candidate here, although inferior to DRS in many matchups.
The original list in the OP was pre-deathrite and pre-TNN. It played Nobles, Cliques, and Fire // Ice. DRS allowed the deck to be competitively viable with discard spells and Deluge. Without discard, the deck suffers a lot against combo. Izzet Charm was played in the original RUG versions as added disruption and some splashed white for Meddling Mages in the side.
I am afraid that without DRS, Waterfall loses all of its competitive tools (Thoughtseize, Decay, Leo) and BoP or Noble won't cut it either.
Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
Get it...? Ass, u, me?
... ffs I was trying to be funny...
So with the printing of both Dreadhorde Arcanist and Crashing Footfalls, is anyone here taking a second look at the archetype? I just saw Hoogland play a pretty sweet looking version and I'm considering picking this archetype up. But I'd love to see a discussion of what it might look like these days.
Here's the link to the stream and his list:
Games: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/441665548
List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2028123#paper
Oh, that's my list. (Also, the link is to Ethan's stream -- did Hoogland also give it a whirl?)
A couple of other folks have been messing around with the archetype. I got the original idea from Maraxus_of_NL/@PVDH_magic and a Japanese player, DJIZMA, 5-0ed with a similar build before Ethan did. The deck has felt pretty competitive to me, mostly getting 4-1s in leagues online. Like most RUG decks you're weak to stuff that dodges Lightning Bolt. Gurmag Angler and big Eldrazi are problems. TNN isn't as much of an issue since your rhinos can trample over it.
I'm not sure how well positioned the deck will be now that the London mull is active online. You're a dog to combo game one with only Forces for interaction. The deck basically preys on Grixis Control, so if the meta transforms into an uncontrolled mess of combo it might be better to play something else.
The main differences I've noticed between the various builds:
- Whether to run Force of Negation main. If you do this you obviously can't play BBE. I think you want as many cascaders as possible just to give you more opportunities to hit your suspend cards and BBE is the best option after Shardless Agent.
- Land count: 20 lands is on the greedy side even with two Wrenn and Six. I think I've seen lists with as many as 23 lands. 21 is more usual.
- Punishing Fire and/or Dack. Four Lightning Bolts is pretty important right now to answer Dreadhorde Arcanist, but you can easily run P Fire as additional removal. However, Wrenn and Six sort-of takes the Punishing Fire slot -- a lot of the things you want to P Fire have one toughness -- and is a lot easier on the mana. Dack is hard to protect and the deck doesn't really need to eek out value through a slow engine like Dack/P Fire when it can just Shardless into Ancestral Vision.
- Snow package with the UG strix. I'd personally just rather play a Goyf to answer my opponents' Goyfs.
- As Foretold. I prefer this to Dack -- both are ways to put late-drawn suspend cards into the graveyard for Arcanist, but As Foretold does so via the stack and doesn't need an Arcanist in play to generate value. (On the other hand, AF frequently does nothing.)
- Most people run 4 Arcanists. I like three because it's a bad cascade, there aren't that many low CMC spells to feed multiple Arcanists, and it's a removal-magnet in a deck that spot removal is otherwise poor against. The upside of flashing back a suspend card is insane, though, and it's a great late-game threat when you have a stocked graveyard and both players are low on gas.
Wow! Thanks for the comprehensive response. Sorry I mislabeled the link.
Fortunately I (a) play in paper where combo is a little less rampant, and (b) I’m primarily concerned with what is the most fun to play vs which deck has the best win %. So this deck looks fantastic to me! I like your list a lot compared to other lists I’ve seen and I think I’m going to start with it as a baseline to see how it feels. It’s only thin I’m lacking is a Jace; any thoughts on a placeholder til I pick one up?
I’m looking for some thoughts and feedback on my list.
Thank guys.
Waterfall Cascade:
Maindeck (61)
3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Wrenn and Six
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Crashing Footfalls
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
1 Sylvan Library
1 As Foretold
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Prismatic Vista
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard (15)
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Abrade
2 Fry
3 Force of Negation
1 Magmatic Sinkhole
1 Pithing Needle
2 Cindervines
4 Leyline of the Void
I propose a better name for this deck archetype: Dreadhorde Agents
It better sums up the nexus of the deck's mechanics and this deck is the real deal, not chasing waterfalls.
Here's a list I've been enjoying. The Force of Negation seems necessary to maintain interaction when you're not smashing with rhinos.
I really like the 1 As Foretold for the narrow set of circumstances in which you get suspend cards stranded in your hand or other mana constraints or when in topdeck mode.
Wrenn and Six is really good, most of the time. The emblem is crazy strong in this deck, and no, you cannot cast Ancestral Visions or Crashing Footfalls with retrace, but you can cast everything else.
This deck needs to be low to the ground in order to compete. I have a strong game against Delver and Burn. Card advantage buries Miracles, while the 7 zero mana costs counterspells are needed to shore
up the potential terrible combo matchups such as Storm and Reanimator variants. Watch out for Narset, Leovold, and Notion Thief though!
// 60 Maindeck
3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Shardless Agent
2 Tarmogoyf
1 Sylvan Library
1 As Foretold
2 Wrenn and Six
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Crashing Footfalls
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Negation
// 21 Land
2 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Cindervines
SB: 1 Force of Vigor
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Magmatic Sinkhole
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Abrade
SB: 1 Dead // Gone
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
Any reason for not going full 4 Rhinos? Also, do you find the full set of wastelands crimps your manabase? This deck looks like it actually regularly uses all 3 colors, so it could get awkward when you have a wasteland instead of something that produces colored mana. Have you felt that 3 FoN is the right amount? Seems like a lot for the maindeck. Sorry for all the questions scattershot.
Separate note - is there something to be said for trying a weird 4 color variant of this that plays a little more midrange and splashes black to have discard and abrupt decay? It would be a different kind of deck at that point, but given that 4 color delver monstrosities that W6 is enabling, and the fact the W6 is already great in this deck, I could imaging going up to 3 of them and dropping a few thoughtseizes and decays in the maindeck and having access to more black cards in the board. The fact that we have the ability to As Foretold or cascade into the black spells means that a single Sea might be good enough (and with W6 to be resilient to opposing wastelands). Maybe?
Hi.
I'm testing with this deck. Curently I get at this point:
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Shardless Agent
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Sylvan Library
2 As Foretold
3 Wrenn and Six
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (this one is going to be changed for something else - Tarmogoyf/Ponder/A. Vision/Narset)
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Crashing Footfalls
3 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
2 Force of Negation
// 20 Land
2 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
2 Volcanic Island
1 Fiery Islet
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Cindervines
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
+3 more
As Foretold is incredible good. Dreadhorde Arcanist is the bomb. It's ncessary to be played in 4 copies - Bolt is everywhere and is annoying.
Sideboard is for me little bit clunky.
Honestly I'm not sure how to sideboard correctly and beat the Miracle match up.
Any suggestions?
I know how attractive of a mechanic cascade is but it feels like a trap.
Playing it means we lose on quality blue interaction, spell pierce, daze, stifle.
Up to 8 forces is nice but it you don't want to 2 for 1 yourself at every decision point.
If miracles is a hard match up try more walkers. Narset or pfire/dack are hard to answer.
You could also try the cephalis coliseum lock with Narset and W6. Those 3 are lights out for most decks if you can make it to the late game stage of things.
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