Ruric,Cratherhoof and Friends(3rd Place Maritimes Magic Tour w/ ELVES!)

[Kayradis]

So.
Some of you are aware that I called a full audible on my decklist about 4 hours before the tournament.
Made some changes from my usual build based on my understanding of the metagame and what I was expecting to see.

Let's start with the meat:

Lands // 17 :

4 x Gaea's Cradle
2 x Bayou
1 x Savannah
1 x Dryad Arbor
2 x Forest
3 x Verdant Catacombs
3 x Windswept Heath
1 x Wooded Foothills

Spells // 13

1 x Crop Rotation
4 x Green Sun's Zenith
4 x Natural Order
4 x Glimpse Of Nature

Creatures // 30

2 x Quirion Ranger
4 x Birchlore Ranger
4 x Heritage Druid
4 x Nettle Sentinel
4 x Deathrite Shaman
4 x Wirewood Symbiote
4 x Elvish Visionary
1 x Multani's Acolyte
1 x Ruric Thar, The Unbowed
1 x Regal Force
1 x Craterhoof Behemoth

SB //15

2 x Thorn Of Amethysm
1 x Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben
1 x Meekstone
2 x Abrupt Decay
4 x Cabal Therapy
1 x Progenitus
1 x Gaddock Teeg
1 x Harmonic Sliver
1 x Qasali Pridemage
1 x Scavenging Ooze


Some of you might contest my choices, but overall the list has proven itself in my eyes. I've been playing with Ruric Thar MD for a couple of months now and everytime I want to cut it, I miss the power he brings to the board.

RD 1 vs Doug McGuire (Grixis Delver/Pyromancer)

Game 1: Doug is a T.O. in the same shop where I run events here in Halifax. He's a good player, participated at 2 PT and got an habit of money finishes. I expect him to be on ANT or TES. The first game was pretty fast. I quickly assembled the super friends team to generate card advantage and blockers. He casted Bob. Used Glimpse as a chaff for the counterspells I know he's holding. Let it resolve, create a good board state then pass turn. Bob flip a Force of Will, the he plays Young Pyromancer and start creating his own little army. I chaffed the Counterspell then NO for Ruric Thar. Scooped.

Game 2: I don't remember too much of G2. I remember it was quick as well. He ended up winning. Long story short.

Game 3: I quickly assembled a good board presence then T3 NO into Hoof for lethal. Gotta love stomping opponents!

1-0 (2-1)

RD 2 vs Sheldon Macarty (Punishing JUND)

My lifetime record against Sheldon's JUND is 0-X. Didn't had great expectations. My notes are missing from that one.
Won game 1, lost 2 and 3 to punishing fire.

1-1 (3-2)

RD 3 vs unknown Opponent (Mono-R Burn)

I fairly believe the guy had no clue what was happening. He probably borrowed the deck from someone. For the sake of respecting all the bad plays he made, I'll refrain from reporting that match.

2-1 (5-2)

RD 4 vs unknown Opponent (JUND)

I've seen that guy play weird brews over the past weeks, so I dont really know what to expect of him. This match his hilarious since I've pushed the limits of bad plays to a whole new level for the sake of trolling and unlocking achievements.

Game 1: Alright. I had one secret goal today. I wanted to assemble the Ruric Thar/Behemoth duo. I created a board state while he played goyfs and friends. I wasn't stressed at all since I had the superfriend combo active for blockers. NO'ed for Ruric Thar when I was at 18 life total, the GSZ for 8 for Behemoth, going down to 12 but killing him in the process. The whole event created a good laugh in the room.


Game 2: Long story short, T2 NO into Hoof, Swinging w/ Dryad Arbor and Hoof for 15. Played Ooze, cycled cradles passed turn. He played goyfs. Swung with the ooze and Hoof, removed all his creatures then finished him w/ DRS activations.

3-1 (7-2)

RD 5 vs Matt Holland (Merfolks)

Matt is a good friend of mine and we playtest together a lot. He knew it was a bad matchup.

Game 1 : T3 NO into hoof for lethal.

Game 2 : Mulled into oblivion. Enough.

Game 3 : He got stuck on 1 land, played Ruric Thar, he bounced it, replayed it then he scooped.

4-1 (9-3)

TOP 8
RD 6 Vs Carlos Locsin (Meathooks)

Game 1 : T2 Hoof. BOOM!

Game 2 : T4 Hoof. BOOM!

5-1 (11-3)

Lost in the top 4 against Neil, a friend of mine playing U/R Standstill.
Walked away with 100$ in my pockets. Not a bad Saturday.

PROS:
-Good crowds and friends
-Ruric Thar For The Win!
-Hoofing people Turn 2
-m1n1l337 being the first one to sign my MTGTHESOURCE playmat. (If you're active on the board and wish to sign it during GP Washington, lemme know!)

CONS:
-Bad chairs, my back hurt like never before
-Lost in Top 4(I WANT MORE MONEY!!!)


-Gabe

[Dice_Box]

Ok very nice. I like that Hoof pulled its weight. I am feeling that it should be main or not at all.

How did Acolyte treat you?

[Kayradis]

Acolyte as the 5th visionary was great. As a 1 of he is perfect. Looming forward to test more with it.

[Lemnear]

I'm not sure if the 9th Visionary is worth more than the 3rd Quirion :/

[pandaman]

What amazes me about this deck is how darn consistent it is! And I love the main deck Ruric Thar, awesome fun!

Also, could you ask your friend from the top 4 to post his Ur Standstill list? I would love to see it.

[mini1337s]

Neil Martin's list was:

Maindeck:
3 Standstill
3 Spell pierce
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Stifle
4 Snapcaster Sage
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Brainstorm
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Faerie Conclave

Sideboard:
3 Relic of progenitus
2 Surgical extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wear/Tear
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pyroclasm

He X-0'd the event. 36 people if I remember correctly.

[Kayradis]

Thanks Tosh!

[Lemnear]

Reads that Regal Force was completely unnecessary as expected

[Kayradis]

It was. Going back to 2 Hoof.

[andrebonotto]

I was going to ask about Multani's Acolyte and Regal Force, but it seems that I'm late on this.

Anyway, congrats on your finish!

[Kayradis]

Like I said earlier, Multani's Acolyte was great. He filled in as the 5th Visionary and hold his ground all day long.
Haven't seen a single occasion to play regal force. Ruric and Behemoth as NO targets are good enough.

Overall?

-1 Regal Force
+1 Behemoth (will now bring the count to 2)

[Survex]

What amazes me about this deck is how darn consistent it is! And I love the main deck Ruric Thar, awesome fun!

Also, could you ask your friend from the top 4 to post his Ur Standstill list? I would love to see it.

Hi there,

I'm the guy who played the landstill list, originally I had just copied xshockwavex's U/R Landstill list which has gone through many changes over the past few years, before it used to run maindeck relic, and have access to disk lock, etc.

U/R Landstill

3x Standstill
3x Spell Snare
3x Spell Pierce
3x Counterspell
4x Force of Will
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Brainstorm
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Stifle
1x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Ratchet Bomb or Engineered Explosives

4x Wasteland
4x Volcanic Island
3x Island
1x Mountain
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Faerie Conclave
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Misty Rainforest

After playing with the above list for a while, I found that sometimes I just wish I had some form of solid removal and decided to splash white for swords and wear/tear in the board. Deck is pretty straightforward, you want to aggressively throw out the standstills when you have the advantage and the deck does play a huge tempo game with stifles/wastelands/bolts. At the moment, I heavily prefer the URw Landstill version although I did just throw together that manabase. I feel like both decks have game vs anything in the format. Both versions do get trounced by Thrun though, and URw version obviously can't beat a resolved Bloodmoon or Back to Basics. Anyways sorry to take away from Gabe's post. Enjoy.

[Kayradis]

No worries Neil.
Glad you joined the forum!
Was the playmat the main thing that brought you here? :P

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

Thanks so much for posting the list and descriptions of the games. I'm wondering specifically about Multani's Acolyte; I would assume that, in most cases, if you didn't win the turn you cast it that you did not pay its echo cost the next turn. Maybe I should just say, did you ever pay its echo cost? I'm also wondering if you noticed any problems running fewer Quirion Rangers? Finally, as we've all noticed, Reid Duke had some success running a Birchlore Rangers-free deck. I have always liked Birchlore Rangers in this deck but was wondering about your thoughts on them.

Many thanks, LoR

[Kayradis]

I see multani's acolyte as a back up plan.
He's usually only cast when I have a symbiote(or more) on the field and will always be the first one bounced off the symbiotes. If I have the kill, it will only be sac'd to NO.

Quirion Ranger is great in your opening hand, and great late game, but I think I ran the right number based of my meta.
Im not saying that more would be wrong, but I'd never go lower than my actual count.