Kich867
09-28-2011, 02:53 AM
I recently posted a list called USAF, a B/w/r tempo deck that relied on stifle/wasteland to disrupt the opponent early. However daze and force weren't always keeping me alive, stifle was performing less than stellar, hitting far fewer fetches than anticipated and was more often than not used defensively VS cliques / planes walkers or whatever than to hit what I intended them to hit.
Overall, the deck actually performed very well, but it won a lot slower than I had wanted, the mana denial package, while occasionally potent, was more often than not used for things other than mana denial and the deck ended up playing more like a control deck with a lot of draw-go but with bad counterspells. It's not to say that winning later than expected was a bad thing though--it was fine and I enjoyed it, but it seemed obvious to me that being blue-centric with how I wanted to play, it didn't fit terribly well.
So I kept r/w, threw black in, and so far the deck has been performing very well. I got a lot of influence from the deadguy ale lists, but their lists run way more creatures and are far more aggressive, whereas this runs more like aggro control? It can be very aggressive early game or sit back and control the board / the hand very hard.
//Creatures: 14
4x Dark Confidant
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Mother of Runes
3x Grim Lavamancer
//Spells: 17
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Swords to Plowshares
4x Duress
3x Hymn to Tourach
4x Vindicate
//Artifacts: 7
2x Engineered Explosives
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Body and Mind
//Planeswalkers: 3
3x Elspeth, Knight-errant
//Lands: 22
4x Wasteland
3x Badlands
3x Scrublands
2x Plateau
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Marsh Flats
1x Arid Mesa
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
1x Plains
//Sideboard: 15
2x Wrath of God
2x Ghostly Prison
3x Engineered Plague
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Pithing Needle
3x Pyroblast
I've been playtesting the deck for awhile and so far it's been performing very, very well. Against dedicated control it pretty much rolls them over, against aggro it has enough removal to run them out, combo isn't the greatest match-up however. I find that combo is very sketchy for it. Duress and Hymn help, I should probably bring things out of the sideboard that are kinda redundant with what the mainboard does though--ghostly prisons and WoG could go for mindbreak trap's probably.
So far, I've been loving the results. The deck can win quickly with the right hand (Something like Duress > Hymn > SFM into whatever), but generally the games go into the mid game, I use Serra Avengers with equipment as a win-con more than anything, but I'm trying batterskull out for now. If I don't like it, I'll drop it for more removal.
The Serra Avengers are absurdly good. I lost Vendilion Clique for the Avenger, and while losing the utility from Clique sucks, Duress just about does the same thing. Overall, Avenger is a superior beater with higher toughness and vigilance. A lack of flash hurts, but when you put a Sword of Light and Shadow / Body and Mind on her, she's a 5/5 flying vigilance with prot who does something.
I'm generally not concerned about any control / aggro / aggro/control matchup, as I feel my list can deal with those strategies (the worst I've done yet vs aggro was having to race a goyf with an avenger + SoLaS--which isn't much of a race when they can't hit you). Combo is definitely on the harder side, but I think if I fix my sideboard up it'll deal with it just fine. Dredge felt the worst.
If I can fit 2 more EE's into the sideboard, putting an EE at 0 and tormod's out turn 1 should solidify a victory. Engineered Plague on Horror hoses Ichorid as well. Against elves, EP on elves / EE @1 + mass removal will hose them, high tide will probably be hard unless I can get some choice discards off, belcher I think I hose pretty well, so maybe combo won't be as bad as I thought it would be with some tweaking to the sideboard, WOG feels super redundant and ghostly prison feels unnecessary when it's more direct to just EE the board of 40 zombies. So I'll try and fit more EE's and squeeze like 3 mindbreak traps in there for playing storm combo.
Questions I have:
Would Mirran Crusader fit the slot better than Avengers would? I find it entirely plausible that flying isn't that big of a deal given how absurdly hard he hits and his natural protections for only 1 more mana, if I brought MC in though I would most likely drop LaS for Fire and Ice.
Given that the deck runs 12-14 removal spells, is thoughtseize really worth it over Duress when the one thing Duress can't hit is what my deck handles best? I suppose it's possible there will be points when my hand will have no removal and I need to get rid of their creature but, it seems less than likely and has performed as such so far.
-- Edited decklist, trying out new build over the next couple days with Elspeth's to see if she'll bump up my late-game, dropping Avengers for Mom for some protection.
Overall, the deck actually performed very well, but it won a lot slower than I had wanted, the mana denial package, while occasionally potent, was more often than not used for things other than mana denial and the deck ended up playing more like a control deck with a lot of draw-go but with bad counterspells. It's not to say that winning later than expected was a bad thing though--it was fine and I enjoyed it, but it seemed obvious to me that being blue-centric with how I wanted to play, it didn't fit terribly well.
So I kept r/w, threw black in, and so far the deck has been performing very well. I got a lot of influence from the deadguy ale lists, but their lists run way more creatures and are far more aggressive, whereas this runs more like aggro control? It can be very aggressive early game or sit back and control the board / the hand very hard.
//Creatures: 14
4x Dark Confidant
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Mother of Runes
3x Grim Lavamancer
//Spells: 17
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Swords to Plowshares
4x Duress
3x Hymn to Tourach
4x Vindicate
//Artifacts: 7
2x Engineered Explosives
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Body and Mind
//Planeswalkers: 3
3x Elspeth, Knight-errant
//Lands: 22
4x Wasteland
3x Badlands
3x Scrublands
2x Plateau
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Marsh Flats
1x Arid Mesa
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
1x Plains
//Sideboard: 15
2x Wrath of God
2x Ghostly Prison
3x Engineered Plague
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Pithing Needle
3x Pyroblast
I've been playtesting the deck for awhile and so far it's been performing very, very well. Against dedicated control it pretty much rolls them over, against aggro it has enough removal to run them out, combo isn't the greatest match-up however. I find that combo is very sketchy for it. Duress and Hymn help, I should probably bring things out of the sideboard that are kinda redundant with what the mainboard does though--ghostly prisons and WoG could go for mindbreak trap's probably.
So far, I've been loving the results. The deck can win quickly with the right hand (Something like Duress > Hymn > SFM into whatever), but generally the games go into the mid game, I use Serra Avengers with equipment as a win-con more than anything, but I'm trying batterskull out for now. If I don't like it, I'll drop it for more removal.
The Serra Avengers are absurdly good. I lost Vendilion Clique for the Avenger, and while losing the utility from Clique sucks, Duress just about does the same thing. Overall, Avenger is a superior beater with higher toughness and vigilance. A lack of flash hurts, but when you put a Sword of Light and Shadow / Body and Mind on her, she's a 5/5 flying vigilance with prot who does something.
I'm generally not concerned about any control / aggro / aggro/control matchup, as I feel my list can deal with those strategies (the worst I've done yet vs aggro was having to race a goyf with an avenger + SoLaS--which isn't much of a race when they can't hit you). Combo is definitely on the harder side, but I think if I fix my sideboard up it'll deal with it just fine. Dredge felt the worst.
If I can fit 2 more EE's into the sideboard, putting an EE at 0 and tormod's out turn 1 should solidify a victory. Engineered Plague on Horror hoses Ichorid as well. Against elves, EP on elves / EE @1 + mass removal will hose them, high tide will probably be hard unless I can get some choice discards off, belcher I think I hose pretty well, so maybe combo won't be as bad as I thought it would be with some tweaking to the sideboard, WOG feels super redundant and ghostly prison feels unnecessary when it's more direct to just EE the board of 40 zombies. So I'll try and fit more EE's and squeeze like 3 mindbreak traps in there for playing storm combo.
Questions I have:
Would Mirran Crusader fit the slot better than Avengers would? I find it entirely plausible that flying isn't that big of a deal given how absurdly hard he hits and his natural protections for only 1 more mana, if I brought MC in though I would most likely drop LaS for Fire and Ice.
Given that the deck runs 12-14 removal spells, is thoughtseize really worth it over Duress when the one thing Duress can't hit is what my deck handles best? I suppose it's possible there will be points when my hand will have no removal and I need to get rid of their creature but, it seems less than likely and has performed as such so far.
-- Edited decklist, trying out new build over the next couple days with Elspeth's to see if she'll bump up my late-game, dropping Avengers for Mom for some protection.