[Deck] Angel Stompy [Archive] - Page 2

midnightAce

05-02-2005, 11:48 PM

I have tested with the Jitte as well, but my changes are much more drastic.

- 2 SoFI
- 2 Mask of Memory
+ 2 Jitte
+ 2 Steelshaper's Gift

I know this only leaves 1 SoFI and 1 Mask left, but the Jitte has all around purposes that are too good to change.

I run 4 True Believer in place of the Lions, the Jitte makes all my 2/2 creatures 4 turn clocks.

It removes multiple mana producers/Goblins.

They make my Silver Knights able to combat Baloth, beefed up Trolls, Blasterm, pretty much the entire aggro creature core.

The best thing is that no creature needs to be equiped to use the other two abilities, making Disenchant effects less hurting.

It often comes down on turn 3 and equip on the same turn so that opponent has less time to respond to it.

6/5 Shadow means that it'll rarely be a stalemate.

Passing the Jitte to blockers will often prevent the other person to attack.

Jitte on Angel means 8 life gain for you and 8 life loss for them, that's 16 points of life total difference it creates.

Of course the biggest problem with the Jitte is the fact that it's Legendary, but with only two copies mainboard and two Gifts to fetch it out, they don't clog up the hand at all.

The Gifts I tested, and I've been pretty happy with them so far, land heavy hands I'd go for Mask for some raw drawing power, often draws into another peice of equip, SoFI is usually fetched after I resolve a shadow guy for sure, knowing that the combat damage will go through for sure.

The Jitte although does not draw cards in any form way or shape, but it allows you to conserve resources. You can hold back the StP and Wave for something really problematic, (opposing Angels, renanimated fatties, manlands, (Crusible in play) Eternal Witness, etc. )

Jitte is also very helpful in getting rid of the Spore Frog lock, I've found that to be very helpful.

These are just some of my observations and thoughts after testing out the Jitte, perhaps there are better cards to drop than the initial equip set, any thoughts?

NoGameShow

05-03-2005, 02:04 AM

I have yet to test this new addition but before I do I have a few questions. First of all do you find the legendary status of the Jitte to slow you down at all? Secondly how does the Jitte do against survival variants? Thirdly do you find yourself suffering from card disadvantage due to the lack of draw engines? I look forward to your answers and to test this out myslef.

matxer

05-03-2005, 04:59 AM

Thanks to your help, I've made up my mind.

I'll replace 3 decrees of justice by 3 defense grids in the sb and I'll play 2 True believers main deck.

I insist that AS has a very bad matchup against some sligh / burn deck. This decks runs no creatures, no cursed scroll. He did direct damages to me, generally not even bothering to burn my creatures. Average damage was no less than 4 per turn, even more. At turn 4 or 5, I was dead. I played 5 or 6 games and lost them all. That's why Warmth or a similar card is a must in sb, IMO.

As for Jitte vs SoIF, SoIF rules if you have many shadow creatures because evasion is important for SoFI to outmatch Jitte.

I use 2 SoIF and 1 Jitte.

One question about Enchanteress : disenchant and armageddon are good to side in. That's 7 cards for me. What can I side out ? Removals (sword to plowshares and Parallax Wave) ?

NoGameShow

05-03-2005, 11:23 AM

I like pariah in the board against burn and goblins. Throw it on a pro red creature and they need to find a colorless solution if they don't have one it's pretty much scoop phase. As for the enchantress match I am still a supporter of Aura of Silence.

matxer

05-03-2005, 11:39 AM

Pariah + creature protection from red is a combo and thus slow. That's why I prefer Warmth.

Aura of silence against Enchanteress, sure, but what do I side out ? Creature removals ?

GRAH

05-03-2005, 01:07 PM

First of all do you find the legendary status of the Jitte to slow you down at all?
You shouldn't be playing more than 2 of it, and therefore, likely won't draw 2 in the same game.

Secondly how does the Jitte do against survival variants?
No worse than SoFnI. The lack of protection isn't quite as good versus Survival, but the Jitte can also spread out to take out Rofellos, BoP, Quirion Ranger, etc., at once.

Thirdly do you find yourself suffering from card disadvantage due to the lack of draw engines?
I don't know about him (because my build is less equipment-centric), but it hasn't hurt me. I wouldn't follow ace's fixes though, because Mask is an integral part of the deck and I don't think it can afford to go down to 1.

midnightAce

05-03-2005, 04:18 PM

First of all do you find the legendary status of the Jitte to slow you down at all?

I draw Jitte in opening hand about 10% of the time. As long as there are sufficient mana source in my hand, (Tomb + white source, or white source + Tithe) I will keep my hand regardless of my creature counts. Drawing another Jitte when there is one in play is not that often, simply because as GRAH stated, I now lack the standard draw engine. So the legendary effect here is always non-existent.

Secondly how does the Jitte do against survival variants?

Awsome. I have done crazy things with Jitte on the table, even swinging with Mother of Ruines when I had no other creatures on board, simply to take out their mana producers, most importantly Reffelos. I will explain more in detail at later part of the post.

Thirdly do you find yourself suffering from card disadvantage due to the lack of draw engines?

With 8 creature of evasion, (Angel, Priest) and 8 creature without, (Knights, True Believers), and not counting MoRs are combatents, the creature core of the deck is pretty evenly split. In most cases, Knights and True Believers comes down first, Angels often gets countered, StPed, burned while face down, etc. That much I believe everybody can agree on. With that in mind, most creature based decks will have chump blockers, that means a lot of times, (not always, but often) the combat damage will NOT go through to the players. I admit that I do miss the fact that I can dig hard into the library and find more StP, Wave, threats, but technically, I DO still have 3 Mask of Memories. (Mask itself + 2 Steelshaper's Gift, that is equal to the chance of drawing 3 Masks.) Almost 90% of the time, your opponent will try to kill the Jitte and not the Mask should you have both on the board.

All that being said, Jitte has treated me well in most of my testings. Here are some more specific breakdowns concerning Survival based decks:

ATS
Their mana producers tap for mana when needed, and taps for Tradewind when lock, so they are the first to go. (Rofellos, BoP, Rangers) Wall of Roots got nothing on you. :D So while you are doing this, the other guy, (assume SotF is down) will be searching for artifact destructions such as Uktabi Orangutan, use the counters to kill as many creature as possible, clearing a way to attack for damage the next turn. ATS decks are often land light, killing their mana producers slow them down enough for you to sneak damage through, Unfortunately, it's also packing counters, so resolving a Jitte might not be that easy. I often save a counter on the Jitte just for Spore Frog locks, those are anoyying.

RG Survival
Definately lots of critters, but other than Baloth, and possibly Shivan Wurm or Duplicant, Silver Knights pretty much owns everything else. Keep swinging with it with Jitte, after killing off Rofello, I tend to save up the counters to force my opponent to keep on blocking. (When my Silver Knight potentially turns to 6/6, 8/8 first strikers, they tend to block. Putting aggro on the defence is excellent advantage for you. Once your Angel is online, kill off the BoP and switch Jitte onto Angel for the win. (-8 life for opponent, +8 life for you)

Welder Survival
As most Welders comes down with haste, that one single activation can often means giant creatures. I often swing with my True Believers to gain counters, and then switch the Jitte back to my Silver Knights for defence, remember that a Silver Knight with Jitte with 2 charge counters can kill off an 8 toughness creature and life to tell the tale. That will slow down Welder Survival a turn or two, hopefully your Angel will be online then and start the damage race.

With all that said, in all three cases, if a shadow or my Angel comes online early, and I have Gifts in my hand, I have A LOT of flexibility to seach for 1 of 3 peices of equipments depending on the board situation, I just believe that the added flexibility is greater than have redundancy in numbers of equips.

I'm very glad that GRAH sparked off this discussion. I hope to see a lot more testing results, as I know I'm in a very different meta than all of you, (Vacouver, BC) so I look forward to a lot more results.

I do miss the hotness of double SoFIed Angel swinging in for the win. :laugh:

GRAH

05-03-2005, 04:33 PM

The Silver Knight needs 3 Jitte counters to block an X/8 unscathed. =/

I still stand by the argument that Gifts doesn't belong here. It forces you to go toolbox-style, and with this kind of toolbox, when one is countered, you've just lost it for good.

By the way, I mismentioned earlier, I had actually taken out Wave and Disenchant, not Wave and SoFnI. This is because I'm in a scrubby meta filled with netdecked Sligh and Gro.

midnightAce

05-03-2005, 05:16 PM

Um, I might have misunderstood the damage steps, but I thought this was legal:

2 counters pump Silver Knight to be a 6/6 First Striker, apply first strike damage, get 2 counters, remove 2 counters to give the creature -2/-2, and killing of an 8 toughness creature, no?

Anyways, while we wait for some rules people to sort that out, let me just say that I have been tracking the T4 and T8 threads lately, and I understand in a meta filled with DTB, toolbox-style is fragile and often gets hated with ease, however the meta here are full of random aggro with very little draw engine, zoo type of deck and goblins runs rampant through the streets, so perhaps in a meta such as this, my Gifts tech aren't so bad. Being able to search out Jitte asap and shoot down as many critters as possible while they dig hard for an answer. I guess it varies by meta a great deal.

noobslayer

05-03-2005, 07:15 PM

Well, my sligh deck certainly isn't netdecked. But to the point, is it me or do none of these builds run fetchlands? It seems to me those and tithe can trim the deck to nothing but needed draw in no time flat. Also I think this deck should seriously consider running Meddling Mages. They are an effective beater, with so many ways to get a specified land one blue isn't a big deal, and they seem to dismantle decks thatrely heavily on one card.

midnightAce

05-03-2005, 07:35 PM

@noobslayer

The splashing blue for Mage was brought up before on page 7 or 8 of the thread. The general consensus then was keeping the deck mono white will increase its consistency in mana base and tempo. The deck often craves for WW 2, 3, 4 turns in a row.

As for fetchlands, personally I believe Tithe is doing its job nicely, generally after resolving a Tithe, I will not have any mana troubles for the entire game. I often take A LOT from Ancient Tombs, so take addtional damage from fetches are not really that hot.

Zilla

05-03-2005, 11:26 PM

@Red Hate:

If you find yourself in a metagame where red is giving you trouble, I personally would choose Pariah over Warmth. The reason is that Sulfuric Vortex negates Warmth completely, and is a common SB card for red in this environment. Pariah is a combo, yes, but it's not slow. You have 8 Pro:Red Creatures, another 4 if you count Mom, and another potential 3 if you count SoFI. Finding a Pro:Red creature to enchant with Pariah is not difficult ever. Against many red builds, Pariah + Pro:Red creature = hard lock, unless they're playing disenchant effects (unlikely), or colorless damage. In the end, though, this choice is largely a meta consideration, depending upon your red opponents' SB choices. When it comes to reliability of casting, Pariah is essentially identical to Warmth for practical purposes.

@Fetchlands:

They've been tested. They're bad for two reasons: One, they deal damage to you, which combined with Tombs can cost you dearly. Second and more importantly, with only 11-12 Plains in the deck, 4 Tithes and 2-3 Masks dig so deep that they're unnecessary. In fact, in several games of testing with Fetches, I found myself casting Tithe and realizing that there weren't any Plains left to get. Simply, fetches are unnecessary and redundant.

@Jitte:

I haven't tested it, But everyone else's results have seemed favorable thus far, and at a glance I'd say they look good on paper. Creature removal is highly beneficial to the deck, particularly if it helps you work around Frog Lock, which is far and away the deck's biggest problem in beating ATS and RGSA. Given the inherent strength of SoFI, I don't know that I'd replace them with Jittes... not more than one of the Swords, anyway. I'd likely drop Masks before I dropped Swords for the Jitte, but I couldn't say what the perfect mix is without some testing, so I'll do that and let you guys know what I think.

@Stealshaper's Gift:

No. See the first post's explanation against Enlightened Tutor. The majority of it applies to Gift as well. We want threats [i]now[/], not a half-assed toolbox approach that costs us tempo. The deck functions on redundancy, and it should stay that way.

Solomox

05-03-2005, 11:28 PM

I thought I'd chime in on the Jitte discussion.

Regarding the Frog lock, even if you nuke the frog, they can dig up a Witness and an Orangutan in successive turns to recover fairly quickly. Unless you've built up a considerable amount of counters on the Jitte and have gotten rid of Survival, they can still bounce back pretty easily. However, if it is the tempo boost you are after then you will have accomplished your mission.

This is not to say Jitte is a bad option, just that you may be overestimating its potential.

GRAH

05-03-2005, 11:58 PM

This is not to say Jitte is a bad option, just that you may be overestimating its potential.
Not really. ATS is probably ALWAYS going to have an answer to EVERYTHING, so you can't really argue that. If ATS has set itself up already, then you're in bad times anyway.

Ace: I completely forgot about that, and you're right.

All of my testing with Jitte has been positive, but I haven't tested vs. ATS lately. I don't think it's a great matchup to begin with, and I don't think Jitte impacts that matchup much anyway.

Solomox

05-04-2005, 12:24 AM

What's the point of Jitte then? The removal is inconsequential versus most aggro which you probably beat most of the time. Against combo, you have a potentially faster clock/prolonged lifespan but that does little to affect their inevitability. Against control, again you have a slightly faster clock but wouldn't you rather be drawing more threats to combat their removal? The only archetypes remaining are aggro-control (which aren't especially troublesome) and prison (which are mostly SotF decks anyhow). The Jitte is solid, that is for certain. The question is whether or not it strengthens problem matchups via its abilities. Cracking the Frog lock is good no doubt, but if they have it set up they most likely have SotF up and running as well. If that's the case, you're facing an uphill battle anyhow.

My question is this: does this card do anything obviously beneficial or does it provide mostly superfluous functions (i.e. taking out an X/8 creature) ?

HedleyKow

05-04-2005, 02:02 AM

@midnightAce

Yes, that does indeed work. Also, it's worth noting that killing a creature in this method also prevents it from being regenerated.

Also, I too think Jitte warrants testing, as does steelshaper's gift if we are going to be running three different equipment cards. Obviously we don't want to be running too much equipment as having all equipment and no creatures to attach them to is bad, and running say two copies of each makes which one you draw rather random.

So, then, the question is; does the added flexibility and consistency provided by steelshaper's gift outweigh the loss of speed? It's difficult to say without extensive playtesting, so I'm going to test both.

CavernNinja

05-04-2005, 03:43 AM

@Kow

Ok, I want to stop all the foolish rules nonesense going on about Jitte.

Reneration does a couple things, it removes the creature from combat, prevents it from dieing to a destroy effect (Lethal Damage or a thing that says destroy) and removes all damage from it and then taps it. If you give an 8 toughness creature -2/-2 and it is regenerated then it will be in play tapped, as an X/6 with no damage on it. Jitte does give counters before normal damage if you have a first striker, this lets you save yourself from lethal damage if you can't block everything, it lets you take creatures down a couple steps in toughness if necessary and it also allows you to pump your guy if you need to for some reason.

As for the debate about Jitte vs. Sword and their comparative clocks, Sword is just as fast if you are swinging freely for a few turns. Sword also gives some form of evasion in the pro: Blue, pro: Red thing against certain decks. The Sword also draws cards if you hit with it. Where Jitte is really good is when you are consistently hitting blockers and removing opposing threats, so the real argument should be whether or not you run into blockers often enough to make it worth playing. The other argument, though significantly deminished is the life gain aspect. Combined with Exalted you are gaining two more life a turn, but not dealing any more with the Jitte, combined with any other creature you take your clock down significantly but you can the four life a turn which against red could be big. Now Jitte can also take down hasted creatures like Piledriver and Warchief and such better, however the Sword in all my playtesting practically says GG for goblins due to Pro: Red and the removal of a critter while still dealing an extra two damage.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

05-04-2005, 04:44 AM

After thorough testing, I've found Loxodon Warhammers to be much more solid replacements for both Jitte and Swords to Plowshares. Why do you need to destroy creatures if Exalted Angel is gaining you 14 a turn? It also has savage synergy with the Well of Lost Dreams in the sideboard.

Zilla

05-04-2005, 04:45 AM

matxer

05-04-2005, 07:00 AM

Don Juan-Suave

05-04-2005, 03:01 PM

I tested the same thing. He's right. Warhammer is completely savage.
Are you serious? What difficult matches does Loxodon Warhammer improve?

By the way Godzilla, would you please provide a decklist you would use? Some people have replaced the Savannah Lions with two-drops (e.g. True Believer, Samurai of the Pale Curtain). What do you think about that?

Zirilian

05-04-2005, 03:03 PM

I'm pretty curious too.

Btw,what would you cut for loxodon warhammer?

Zilla

05-04-2005, 03:24 PM

Are you serious?
As a matter of fact, I am not. Before this thread gets too off track, IBA and I are both kidding about Loxodon Warhammer. He (jokingly) mentioned while we were playing last night that I ought to be running Warhammer in place of Jitte, to which I replied with a triple dog dare to post that sentiment in the thread, which he did.

That said, my premiliminary testing with Jitte is very positive, and I agree with others who have tried it and said it was working well for them. At this point, the question is not whether or not to play Jitte, but what exactly to pull for them. I was testing -1 Wave, -1 Mask for them, which seemed decent, but needs more thorough testing to be sure.

I also tried running True Believers in place of Savannah Lions, since a lot of people have been trying that lately. I have to say I'm thoroughly against it. The Lions may be somewhat weak on their own, but they are very very important to the deck's curve. They also provide turn 2 targets for equipment, which is very very important. Without Lions, the earliest you'll be attacking with an equipped creature will be 3, which is a full turn slower than a build with aggressive one drops. (Note here that I'm assuming you will typically not be attacking with Moms, as they are primarily a defensive tool.)

So in short, 2 Jitte yes, MD True Believer no.

I still have more testing to do before I update the list in this thread, but it will not stray very far from the decklist posted there now. I may or may not make room for a 12th Plains, and I will certainly make room for 1-2 Jitte.

GRAH

05-04-2005, 04:45 PM

I'd move to drop a Disenchant or an SoFnI for the 2nd, rather than Mask. Mask is one of your main accelerants. You really can't afford to let it go below 3.

matxer

05-04-2005, 05:02 PM

If we stick to Savanah lions for mana curve's sake, then we might replace soltari priests (2 mana) by True believers or Samurais or Soltari Visionnaries.

2 Soltari Visionnaries could free 1 disenchant slot.

GRAH

05-04-2005, 05:05 PM

Soltari Visionary pales in comparison to Soltari Priest, and that 3 mana is much better spent on a certain morph. Who, you may ask?

...Whipcorder!

midnightAce

05-04-2005, 05:22 PM

Since a lot of testing done by quite number of people on The Source as well as GodzillA himself, the inclusion of Jitte is almost certain. Even PR was commenting the Jitte in this deck (http://mtgthesource.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=31;t=8).

Now I would like to defend my "half-assed toolbox approach". :D

Enlightened Tutor: Yup. I know the question is on your minds. Testing with Tutors was not positive at all. First, it is inherent card and tempo disadvantage, which this deck hates. Second, all of the threats you'd use it to search for you want in multiples, meaning that replacing some of them with Tutor isn't a strong strategy. Third, with as many card advantage engines already available, you typically see at least one of whatever you'd be searching for relatively early in the game. Tutor is a no-go. Don't ask.

I read this paragraph more than the number of pages of this thread before daring to try Steelshaper's Gift. The only reason it seemed playable was the fact according to my original changes to the deck:
-1 SoFI
-1 Mask of Memory
+ 2 Jitte
I could never draw the Jitte. What's the point of including a peice of equipment that can swing the game in your favour if 8 out of 10 games you can't even draw it?

I admit that dropping down 2 SoFI and 2 Mask is a bit drastic, and probably will change to
- 1 SoFI
- 2 Mask of Memory
- 1 Wave
+ 2 Jitte
+ 2 Steelshaper's Gift

The reason I stand by Gift is beacuse

a) It effectively ups my Jitte count in the deck to be 4'ofs, without the need to actually include 4 Jitte and have the legendary rule eating the deck alive.

b) The Gift still allows for the search of other equipments, and I DO SEARCH FOR THEM when the situation is right. ie. Shadow/Angel guy about to go through or Jitte already in play.

c) It does not cost card disadvantage or tempo, at least not as much as E.Tutor. For one white mana, I get to cycle it to be the equipment of my choice given the board situation. It comes directly in hand, not on top of my library that I have to waste a draw to get it.

d) During most matches against Tendril based decks, I Gift for Jitte and swings with everything. Every swing with Jitte means 2 more spells that they have to play, I go for Jitte over SoFI despite the absence of blockers is because
i) Jitte comes down faster
ii) You can race them and put them at 6, 4, or even 2 life, but chances are, in the process you've tapped the Tombs enough times to make their combo much easier. (less spells needed for lethal count) So Jitte coming down fast is essential, and Gifts to assue that is essential.

e) I have not changed any of the creature core when I added the Gifts, the threat density have not changed, and it does NOT affect the basic game plan of Angel Stompy.

f)

The Sword also draws cards if you hit with it. Where Jitte is really good is when you are consistently hitting blockers and removing opposing threats, so the real argument should be whether or not you run into blockers often enough to make it worth playing.

CavernNinja summed it up really well. Even control decks evetually relies on creature to kill and win the game. Sometimes ATS is within alpha strike range, and they tutor up multiple BoPs to block the Angel and to gain turns to set up board position. The same holds true for every deck that top decks chump blockers to gain turns and staying alive. Jitte coming down ASAP ensures that these things don't happen. Again, to ensure that Jitte comes down fast, adding additional Jitte is not the way to go, and the only way I can think of would be to add in Gifts.

These are my points on my inclusion of Gifts. I encourage everbody to test them, see if they like the change. If not, no problem, because I'm not saying inclusion of Gifts is the way to go, I'm suggesting it as a path that is possible. We are all working towards the common goal to improve the deck and fine tune it to the best. :D

Now a few points of Jitte that has not been mentioned previously.

The biggest difference between Jitte and the other equipments the deck is running, SoFI and Mask, is the fact that it makes blocking so much more attractive.
A lot of times, I swing with my Jitted guy, switches Jitte onto my newly summoned Silver Knight or whatever, and laughs at my opponenets creatures. Mask does nothing on blocking creature, and the best part of SoFI (Fire/Ice effect) does not trigger while it's on a blocker. That's one of the things I want to bring up.

Against ATS, if you have managed to wreck their mana critters early enough with Jitte, then all your StPs are saved in your hands, in response to that hasty Tradewind activation, plow it, I have gotten out of the lock by having multiple StPs in hand, simply because I no longer have to commit these resources are killing off early Rofellos.

Also I want to clear up something on the previous post. I said a Silver Knight with Jitte and two counters can kill off a 8 toughness creature without killing himself. I never mentioned anything about regeneration. Thanks CavernNinja for clearing that up.

Zirilian

05-04-2005, 06:06 PM

I like your changes :)

I'll try them,too and see how it works out.

Also,my testing with the SoTPC has proved it too slow,unfortunately :(

GRAH

05-04-2005, 10:08 PM

I still say that putting Mask at anything below 3 is a ~bad~ idea, as it IS your main draw engine. I'd prefer at least -2 SoFnI -1 Mask.

I strongly disagree with Gifts, as well. For me, the Mask/SoFnI draw engine combined with the Tithe deckthinning has made Jitte pretty common to draw for me. These are the fixes I'd make to include Jitte:

-1 Sword of Fire and Ice OR Disenchant (I'd say this strongly depends on the metagame.)
-1 Parallax Wave
+2 Jitte

Zilla

05-05-2005, 04:28 AM

If we stick to Savanah lions for mana curve's sake, then we might replace soltari priests (2 mana) by True believers or Samurais or Soltari Visionnaries.
Negative. I'd run 8 Priests if I could. Behind Angel I consider them the most important creature in the deck. Because of the high equipment count, their evasion is insanely strong. Frankly, while True Believe is somewhat useful in certain combo matchups, I feel strongly that they don't warrant maindeck slots, unless your meta is 100% combo. And of course, if that's the case, you're playing the wrong deck.

@Steelshaper's Gift:

I continue to have extreme doubts, but I'm not one to decry a card without at least testing it first, so I'll give them a try and let you know what I think. I'm sceptical though.

@Mask of Memory:

Technically speaking, Mask doesn't give you any more card advantage than SoFI does. It lets you dig deeper, yes, but it still only gives you one extra card. The bottom line is that while it may be your strongest draw engine, that's all it does. SoFI provides a faster clock, protection, and removal, as well as card advantage. In my testing, I almost always felt like mutiple Masks was win more. As I said earlier, once I have one Mask in play, the others sit in my hand until I've played out everything else I've got, because they don't actually speed up my clock any. 2 is solid for the sake of redundancy and draw percentage, 3 means you often draw them in multiples, which you don't really need. That's been my experience, anyway. I wouldn't cut them completely, but I'm comfortable going down to two.

matxer

05-05-2005, 12:26 PM

GRAH

05-05-2005, 05:49 PM

Zilla, it might just be me, but even with 3 Masks I don't run into multiples beyond the occasional second one. It's also significantly (i.e., turn 2) faster than SoFnI, which is why I'm lax to cut so much of it. 2 is somewhat reasonable, but 1 (which is what Ace suggested) is too little, even with Gifts. One of the weaknesses of the Tutor/etc. toolbox is that you still only have ONE meta piece.

Don Juan-Suave

05-05-2005, 06:43 PM

What do you think of Mystic Penitent replacing Savannah Lions. In the early game, Mystic Penitent will be a 1/1, but it will not tap to attack. In the late game (with the help of Mask of Memory), it will be a 2/2 flyer (evasion) which does not tap to attack. With Umezawa's Jitte, Mystic Penitent will be crazy. Even with Sword of Fire and Ice, Mystic Penitent will still be quite good.

Pros of Mystic Penitent:
- attacker and blocker
- better late game: flying (evasion)
- awesome equipment target

Cons of Mystic Penitent:
- weaker early game
- more reliance on graveyard (affected somewhat by graveyard hate -- e.g. Tormod's Crypt)

For the sideboard, what do you think of Uba Mask. It makes counters useless. Survival decks cannot discard a card that has been removed from the game. Of course, they can still play around Uba Mask. I also believes it would allow you to "draw" 2 cards with Mask of Memory without discarding. The downside is you have to use the cards this turn or they're gone.

GRAH

05-05-2005, 07:11 PM

Mystic Penitent isn't so good, mainly because getting Threshold with this deck really isn't ~that~ easy.

Uba Mask's ability to hurt Survival and Landstill was discussed in a separate topic, but either way, I think it's a bit overcosted to be useful enough for this deck. Also, it's not entirely offensive, an this deck thrives on offense.

Zilla

05-05-2005, 08:17 PM

@Mystic Penitent:

GRAH is right. More to the point, Lions are really early game cards. They're there mainly to give you a turn 2 equip target. In the late game, they're often to small to be useful on their own, and by that time you'd rather be quipping Angels or Priests with your equipment. At that point, Savannah Lions tend to become chump blockers or Mask fodder. Basically we want the biggest bang for our 1cc buck in the early game, and the best options we have there are Isamaru (as a one-of) and Savannah Lions.

Zirilian

05-06-2005, 04:51 AM

Once portal becomes legal,how about alaborn zealot/loyal sentry?

They seem pretty nice,how do you feel about them?

Solomox

05-06-2005, 10:09 AM

Um, does this deck block a lot? I would assume attacking > blocking in most cases, and therefore Lions are still superior to pretty much anything else.

midnightAce

05-06-2005, 02:30 PM

I'm just wondering, since we are on the subject of 1 drops, did anybody ever consider 1cc 1/1 fliers? (Suntail Hawk and the like...) Or even go as far as Soltari Foot Soldier? The only reason I mention them is because their abilty to force through early beats with equipments, making the most out of the equipments. I fully understand that Isamaru and Savannah Lions are the best mana/power ratio creatures, but from the previous readings, the lack of evasion seems to be pretty negative. (Even Silver Knight has "evasion" when against Goblins and such.)

Zilla

05-06-2005, 03:24 PM

Actually Midnight, yes, I've been very strongly considering Suntail Hawk over Lions. My current build is running 7 pieces of equipment (3 SoFI, 2 Jitte, 2 Mask). An evasive one drop could give the deck a stronger late game, particularly in drawn out matchups with control. I'll give them some testing and let you guys know what I think.

With regards to Alaborn Zealot, Solomox is right on target here. The deck doesn't really care much at all about blocking; it cares about attacking, and much of its creature removal is centered around attacking (Jitte, SoFI). Zealot doesn't really fit the bill.

Solomox

05-06-2005, 03:39 PM

Suntail seems like a half measure compared to the Footsoldier though. Suntails can be chumped by BoPs and whatnot, where as the Footsoldier can't really ever be blocked. Unless Earthquake becomes particularly prevalent, why play the Hawk over the Soltari?

Zirilian

05-06-2005, 03:44 PM

I agree with solomox.

You said you'd play 8 shadows if you could,well,now you have the chance!

GRAH

05-06-2005, 04:58 PM

Quite. Hawk and Lantern Kami are good in t2, where fliers aren't common, but here, we've got mirror-matches, Tradewinds, etc., etc.

As for Foot Soldier...I'm not sure. I'm partial to first-turn Lions, because it can be a threat and block if need be. Foot Soldier's inability to block makes me a little wary.

midnightAce

05-06-2005, 05:51 PM

I'm heading towards a local tourney right now, so not much time for points, but let me clearify a bit.

The whole point of Suntail is that it comes down early. I believe, RARELY, would an ATS player sacrifice early BoP for blocking duties.

Suntail is also a better top deck later on with multiple peices of equipments lying around, it can pick them up and start to stalemate with opposing Angels or other faties, (Baloth etc.) The option of being able to block and attack through most of the decks is more attractive than shadow. I think... ??? Testing shall reveal the truth.

Zilla

05-06-2005, 11:59 PM

Yeah, Midnight hit the nail on the head with this one. The reason I'd considered Suntail over Footsoldier is because of its ability to chump in the late game, which can occasionally be important. The only fliers you really need to be concerned with in an idealized meta are going to be Birds, Tradewinds, and Conclaves. The Birds is a trade you want to be making, particularly because it's a 0 for 1 trade in your favor. As for Tradewind and Conclave, you're fairly likely to have an equippable SoFI by the time they become an issue, meaning your Hawk will have Pro:Blue.

All of this bears testing though. I have a feeling that the Footsoldier vs. Suntail argument will be largely a meta concern. The more important question is whether you really want to replace Lions. I'll test both and let you all know what I think.

Solomox

05-07-2005, 11:13 PM

True enough. Footsoldier is better vs ATS in my opinion because BoP + Tradewind doesn't ever care how big your Hawk is. That was the basis (albeit unwritten) of my arguement for the shadow dude. I still say winning > blocking, but perhaps I'm just too aggressive :p :p :p

EDIT: editted for legibility and so PR doesn't beat me over the head with a grammar book.

matxer

05-08-2005, 08:42 AM

During an MWS tourney vs an artifact deck, I have discovered that Chrome Mox is of little use if you side in null rods. :)
That means you have to side out 9 cards (3 Mox + 6 equipements) which is huge. However, if you can play null rod turn 2 and Aura of Silence turn 3, the party is over.

So far, the most difficult matchups I have encountered are Solidarity and Goblins.

Golins with the broken Piledriver is so fast that even with Pariah sided in, it's difficult to survive.

midnightAce

05-08-2005, 04:41 PM

Goblins? Could you please elborate on that? Which particular version of Goblins are you having trouble with and which particular aspect of the deck...

You have Mother of Ruins and Silver Knight to block Piledriver and not losing anything. You have Wave mainboard to prevent multiple Piledriver haste attacks, and you have SoFI or Jitte to kill off problematic creatures, Warchief, Lackey, etc.

Postboard, if they are going Anarchy style, leave the Waves in and slap it down early to act as protection against Anarchy. Your deck should be faster, more hard hitting and more life gain than Goblin decks, it should be a really favourable match up. ???

Post more details on the Goblin matchups and we'll see exactly what the problem is.

As for Solidarity, yea, it's pretty hard. I've changed my SB to include 4 True Believer and 4 Ruler of Law before, 8 slots for storm based combo decks... LOL, that was kind of exteme, but it worked for a bit, so you could try that if your meta is truely infested with those types of decks.

KrzyMoose

05-08-2005, 05:16 PM

I'd go with 4 True Believer, but 4 Ruler of Law is a little overboard. If you truly see that much combo, then I guess it's alright. But dedicating over half of your 'board to anything is a little dangerous.

As for the Goblins thing...a little more specific. AS can usually(and is supposed to) deal with Goblins like they were ants. What exactly are you having trouble with?

midnightAce

05-08-2005, 05:23 PM

I'd go with 4 True Believer, but 4 Ruler of Law is a little overboard. If you truly see that much combo, then I guess it's alright. But dedicating over half of your 'board to anything is a little dangerous.

Yes, of course. LOL. At one point in time, for couple of weeks, we had about 16-20 people attending casual 1.5 tourney, and 7 regulars packed storm combo of some kind, factor in all the burns that little kids like to play, (it was during Spring break) I made the decision to hate them all out with 50% of my SB hating them. So, yea, only do that IF AND ONLY IF your meta is truely, truely infested.

Zilla

05-08-2005, 08:16 PM

So far, the most difficult matchups I have encountered are Solidarity and Goblins.
I can only respond to this statement with DOUBLE TEE EFF. Solidarity's a bitch, yes, but Goblins is a cakewalk. MidnightAce already explained in depth why, but to simplify, your strategy is Silver Knight for teh win. One Silver Knight can hold back essentially all of their important threats. Early Piledriver? Who cares? Same goes for Lackey. If they're playing SGC, you have Wave to remove their tokens permanently, and to protect your dudes from Anarchy. You have Mom and SofI to further protect your forces from removal, and an unblockable unkillable damage dealer in Soltari Priest. You should be winning at least 8 out of 10 games against Goblins.

matxer

05-09-2005, 05:12 AM

Goblins? Could you please elborate on that? Which particular version of Goblins are you having trouble with and which particular aspect of the deck...

You have Mother of Ruins and Silver Knight to block Piledriver and not losing anything. You have Wave mainboard to prevent multiple Piledriver haste attacks, and you have SoFI or Jitte to kill off problematic creatures, Warchief, Lackey, etc.

Postboard, if they are going Anarchy style, leave the Waves in and slap it down early to act as protection against Anarchy. Your deck should be faster, more hard hitting and more life gain than Goblin decks, it should be a really favourable match up. ???

Post more details on the Goblin matchups and we'll see exactly what the problem is.
Well, I don't remember all the details but, in no time he had 3 pile drivers attacking plus a couple of other goblins. I blocked on of them with a Silver Knight but I took more than 16 damages.

I lost another round much the same way.

Maybe I was just unlucky. Or I didn't play well. However, it's not too difficult to play and yes, I know about Wave and Sword to Plowshares :)

danyul

05-09-2005, 12:18 PM

[color=#000000:post_uid9]If your opponent has 3 Piledrivers out and you havent drawn an STP/Wave by then, I think you suffer from teh luck of badness, and yes, it is entirely possible that you, good sir, did not play very well (not to be condescending or anything). A triple Piledriver draw [i:post_uid9]is[/i:post_uid9] difficult to stop if you draw no removal (or multiple Silver Knights), but I would not go so far as to say that the potential for goblin brokenness makes the matchup unwinnable.

Hell, half the time I go into control mode against Goblins/Burn. You dont always have race them, perse. Usually I will try to tease out their burn with MoR's, Lions, etc. (and if you drop an SK or two you can stall for a bit). Then I will try to play a Wave and a morphed E.Angel next turn. If they burn it, just remove it from play. It will come back in all it's 4/5 goodness. And that's assuming that they were smart enough to burn your MoR(s). Sometimes you dont even have to play carefully with your Wave+Angel because once they see that first ProRed dude they will start trying to empty their hands to overwhelm you, usually tapping out in the process. Once their tapped out you can play and equip random beats without fear of having your creature burned in response to an equip.

And so what if Goblins is capable of broken draws? Playing Angel Stompy, so are you. I wont go into all the stupid things you can do because you should already be familiar with them by now.

In short, if you are consistently losing to Goblins then you are either playing incorrectly or lucking out like an ugly red-headed stepchild. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you simply lucked out.[/color:post_uid9]

quicksilver

05-11-2005, 12:10 AM

Has anyone thought about Skyhunter Skirmisher. In my opinion he is a little better than savanah lions because he flies, which I think in the long run will make up for being a little slower. But the main reason is when you equip him now he get's utterly insane. With a sword or a jitte he can deal 20+ in 2 turns just by himself. And mask of memory is pretty good too, and the evasion helps out a lot with the equipment. He is essentially a 2/1 flier that when is equiped you get another free copy of the equipment(2 jittes!!)!

midnightAce

05-11-2005, 12:21 AM

I have at one time considered the card. I even mentioned it in the Jitte discussion thread.

However, I'm having a terrible time trying to figure out what to cut, the WW1 restriction means that I can't go Plain, Tomb, play it.

The card itself is a 1/1, coming down on turn 3 often means active Sharpshooter, Fire/Ice mana online, burn of every single kind, etc. Without a MoR to back it up, it rarely lives long enough to pick up a piece of equipment. Without any piece of equips, it deals 2 damage at best, WW1 for 2/1 flier is very much above the deck's mana curve.

I don't know if GRAH or GodzillA had considered it before or not. Personally I believe Skyhunter Skirmisher would be played in some low cc creature deck that is designed to abuse equipments.

Zilla

05-11-2005, 02:46 AM

Has anyone thought about Skyhunter Skirmisher. In my opinion he is a little better than savanah lions...
The bottom line is that if anything is going to replace Savannah Lions, it's going to have to be 1cc. Repeated testing with anything other than 1cc creatures in this slot has invariably proven to hurt the deck's mana curve. Like I said a few posts back, without a 1cc creature in the Lions slot, you have no options for turn 2 equip targets aside from Moms, which for obvious reasons aren't ideal creatures with which to be attacking. You want 1cc creatures for this purpose, since you want your draw/creature removal engines online as quickly as possible. As I see it, the only viable replacements for Lions/Isamaru would be Soltari Foot Soldiers or Suntail Hawks, because of their built-in evasion.

GRAH

05-11-2005, 09:22 PM

I don't know if GRAH or GodzillA had considered it before or not. Personally I believe Skyhunter Skirmisher would be played in some low cc creature deck that is designed to abuse equipments.
I had though about it, yeah. For all of about two seconds. It's defunct in t2, and was never good here. It's 1WW for what is essentially a 2/1 flier, and that's not so good. Even though it can abuse equipment, it's not worth putting in just for that. And, like you said, Sharpshooter, along with every piece of spot-burn under the sun roasts it. This deck thrives on the CMC =< power creatures. Something that's ineffective without other cards doesn't deserve a place in this deck.

Not being able to Plains, Tomb, play is a huge weakness, as well.

On a sidenote, it's nice to have my name seen alongside Zilla's, seeing as I'm not at all considered a 1.5 pro and I haven't been around for that long.

1aZe

05-16-2005, 06:07 AM

Sorry for coming out of nowhere and changing the subject...but
I've been doing some testing (with the cards, not with mws) and thinking about the exclusion of Cities for Moxen and now begin to question the change. Excluding 3 Moxen and replacing them with 2 City of Traitors and 1 Plains doesn't necessarily slow the deck down and, considered from another perspective, leaves you with two more cards in your hand than if playing Mox!
Just a thought
//1aZe

midnightAce

05-16-2005, 06:24 AM

The problem with that is the deck often wants WW by turn 2, by removing the Moxen, a hand such as Plain, Tomb, City, is often not desired, as opposed to Plain, Tomb, Chrome, where you know for sure you can play off a Siver Knight or Soltari Priest.

I usually find enough to pitch to Chrome to make it worthwhile, and the Angel often negates the Tomb damages. The inclusion of Cities will also make the deck more prone to Wastelands, the early turns are where you establish board control and play threats, having your mana base disrupted like that will usually set you back a few turns. If the opponent was holding Disenchant effects, most likely they'll aim for the equips you play and not the Chrome Mox.

1aZe

05-16-2005, 06:33 AM

What you say is all true.
However, one must also consider the effects of the diffrerent builds in later stages of the game, say turn 3-4 where a topdecked mox is just awful while a City is actually a rather desireable draw since, after playing it, more lands will usually not be necessary and thereby nagating its bad side effect.

Greetings from Sweden!

midnightAce

05-16-2005, 06:44 AM

I just noticed it's your first and second post, welcome to The Source. :D

Generally, after resolving a Tithe for 2 Plains, and after the 3/4th turn, I usually don't want to see another land or mox, Cities or Chrome are all terrible topdeck late game, that is true.

However, with only 11 to 12 Plains in the deck, the math usually works out to be that you draw one Plain opening hand, another white source must comes from Chrome Mox or Tithe. If I kept a hand full of equipments with only one white source, (a Mask and a SoFI for example,) first turn Tomb, Mask, second turn Plain, SoFI or Angel face down, then I need desperately to topdeck another white source, in such instances, Chrome would be better than City. These are just some of my experiences with the deck after playing it a great deal. Sometimes, getting that second W is so important that I would remove Angel or StP for Chrome Mox, just so the deck doesn't suffer any tempo disadvantage.

1aZe

05-16-2005, 09:31 AM

You are assuming that a hand with only one white mana source is kept. I would strongly discourage you from doing that. At least that is how I play with my deck, but then again, since you use more white sources you have a greater probability of topdecking one than I have...
I agree that mox is superior in the tempo aspect, but I'm not sure about the overall picture.

Bongo

05-16-2005, 09:35 AM

The following set-up has worked very well:

//Legacy Angel Stompy

// Mana 24
13 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox
4 Tithe

// Beats 20
4 Mother of Runes
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest
4 Exalted Angel

// Control & Draw 16
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
2 Mask of Memory
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Parallax Wave

1. 13 might be an unlucky number for the superstitious, but in this deck greatly helps to reduce the number of mulligans. There are now 24 mana sources in total, and it is much easier to reach WW now. I recommend this manabase for anyone who has had problems having enough white mana.

2. Suntail Hawk has been better in this deck than Savannah Lions. Except when there are no blockers, Suntail is superior. It provides another evasive target for the Equipment and can chump flying Wurms, Exalted Angels, Conclave and other nastiness in a pinch.

3. Umezawa's Jitte is pure gold, as has been discussed before and in the open forum thread. Is usually equipped a turn earlier than Sword.

Have you arrived at similar conclusions?

-Bongo

1aZe

05-16-2005, 01:41 PM

What about Isamaru? There is really no reason not to include it....

1aZe

05-16-2005, 01:45 PM

And another thing, are you really sure 2 Jitte is superior to 3 Masks?
Imo, mask has better synergy with the deck, especially now when you play hawk for evasion instead of lions.
You also run the risk of drawing 2. Just some thoughts.

Elvenwish

05-16-2005, 02:04 PM

Isamaru is excluded because he feels Suntail Hawk is superior due to its evasion so Lions/Isamaru is excluded. Concerning the Mask vs. Jitte numbers, one may never come to a proper conclusion on the debate. Mask is the decks main card draw engine when running properly but SoFI, if equipped on a Soltari Priest works jsut as well, though you are not seeing as many cards. I personally run 2 Jitte, 2 Mask, and 3 SoFI, though argument might be made to run 3 Mask and 2 SoFI. (I drop one Parallax Wave and one Plains from Bongo's list.)

The fear of drawing 2 Jitte when only running 2 in the deck is nominal at best. With the amount of artifact/enchantment destruction in the environemnt, the second Jitte is not such a bad idea. Further, if the card increases in popularity, the Legend rule essentially doubles your "Jitte" removal. Heck, I run three is my Super Green build and have never regretted drawing the second Jitte. (Opening hand is another story!)

1aZe

05-16-2005, 02:30 PM

If keeping with the evasion theme, mainly to provide good equippers for masks, then why lower thier count from 3 to 2. Seems completely illogical to me.

In any case, (especially this case) I think Isamaru is superior to hawk. However, if you disagree, you must consider that the number of 1cc beats dropps from 9 to 8. It might not look much but I think Godzilla is right about including 9.

bigredmeanie

05-16-2005, 02:46 PM

In any case, (especially this case) I think Isamaru is superior to hawk. However, if you disagree, you must consider that the number of 1cc beats dropps from 9 to 8. It might not look much but I think Godzilla is right about including 9.

Since when is Mother of Runes considered beats?

Also, if all the Suntail Hawk is doing is evade, than consider Soltari Foot Soldier. It has shadow. Also, as was previously mentioned, I would prefer for there to be something else that can block as well as the inclusion of another Mask. 3 is the correct number.

GRAH

05-16-2005, 04:07 PM

I think we already went over the Suntail vs. Foot Soldier argument. The main argument for Suntail over Foot Soldier is that their evasion is pretty much the same, except that Suntail can block. I don't think that's an argumentative point, and I don't think one over the other particularly matters.

Here's my current build:

11 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox
4 Tithe

4 Mother of Runes
1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest
4 Exalted Angel

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Disenchant
3 Mask of Memory
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Parallax Wave
2 Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard:
1 Disenchant
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Null Rod
2 Decree of Justice
3 Armageddon
2 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Rule of Law

First thing I'll note is that the meta I play (M-L) is completely crappy, so I have to SB in stuff like third Jitte, COP Red, etc.

Next, lowering Parallax Wave down to 3. The huge problem with Parallax Wave is the cost. 2WW can be hefty in this deck, especially for something which doesn't necessarily help all the time.

Next: Suntail Hawk over Savannah Lions. I left the Isamaru in there from preference.

Next: Equipment count. I have 7 equipments. I think that you can't go anywhere lower than 3 Masks with this deck, because it's an integral tool, and you pretty much ALWAYS want it early-game.

Last but not least, I created this. It's a skeleton of what I believe any competitive Angel Stompy deck MUST have. Obviously, some of the numbers change based on preference and meta, so some of the card quantities are changed for different people. This doesn't add up to 60 cards.

11 Plains
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox
4 Tithe

4 Mother of Runes
4 Exalted Angel
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
2 Parallax Wave
2 Mask of Memory (I'd put 3, but I don't think it's the general consensus)
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte (General consensus is that at least 1 should be here. The boys who cry "Legendary!" can argue against multiples however they want.)

That's 50 cards total. The other 10 spaces are completely preferential, I think.

midnightAce

05-16-2005, 04:18 PM

My build is identical to GRAH's by one card, I took out a Disenchant for another Plain, up the count to 12 Plains, this is a meta game call as there are now a lot of Sinkhole and Vindicates being played at my meta, if I can't resolve a Tithe asap, I am often trapped with one white source. The added Plain can usually increase my topdeck white source enough for me to slide by those landD permentD spells.

The Isamaru can be left in there for the purpose of additional 1 drops, the 2/2 body means it can trade with Lackey or Decree tokens and such, and not suffer the fate of the Lion, that ups the creature count to 21, with 7 piece of equips, it's a nice 3v1 ratio, so everything works out pretty well.

1aZe

05-16-2005, 04:20 PM

Nice job creating the skeleton GRAH! Will help out a lot.

Bastian

05-17-2005, 01:42 AM

Out of pride I've NEVER played this deck until now, mostly because I'm a white weenie purist who hates to see it morphing into something a bit more different than that what I was used to play...

...in the end I must say this is one HECKU'VA DECK! Wow, equipping Sword of Fire and Ice on turn three on my Suntail Hawk sure rocks.

moral: never be too proud to experience something new... (now just be careful to not carry this on to some other areas *grudge*)

After some testing I'm considering replacing Rule of Law out of the SB for something else. If you get Rule of Law but you don't have Ancient Tomb or Chrome Mox in your hand you won't cast it until the third turn, and by then you might be dead... I don't want to risk a game like that so I should be testing something else instead of it...

matxer

05-17-2005, 03:37 AM

GRAH

05-17-2005, 06:13 PM

After some testing I'm considering replacing Rule of Law out of the SB for something else. If you get Rule of Law but you don't have Ancient Tomb or Chrome Mox in your hand you won't cast it until the third turn, and by then you might be dead... I don't want to risk a game like that so I should be testing something else instead of it...
If Rule of Law is to be played vs Solidarity, I would suggest instead True Believer which is a versatile sideboard card.
I'll quote Di in the ATS thread...

Has anyone tried true believer? It seems like it has potential, but the manacost, like that of so many interesting cards, appears somewhat prohibitive.

Why? True Believer doesn't stop or slow down Solidarity at all, considering they just go nuts the Cunning Wish-> Chain of Vapor, and Belcher can just hit Believer eoT and then Belcher your face on their turn and win. It's only purpose I see is against long-esque combo, which is awful in the format.

This deck pretty much scoops to Solidarity anyway, unfortunately.

midnightAce

05-18-2005, 12:08 AM

I posted on page 16.

Quoting myself for emphesis.

As for Solidarity, yea, it's pretty hard. I've changed my SB to include 4 True Believer and 4 Ruler of Law before, 8 slots for storm based combo decks... LOL, that was kind of exteme, but it worked for a bit, so you could try that if your meta is truely infested with those types of decks.

At one point in time, for couple of weeks, we had about 16-20 people attending casual 1.5 tourney, and 7 regulars packed storm combo of some kind, factor in all the burns that little kids like to play, (it was during Spring break) I made the decision to hate them all out with 50% of my SB hating them. So, yea, only do that IF AND ONLY IF your meta is truely, truely infested.

Other than these Believer and Ruler of Law, some other possible considerations are Gilded Light, Orim's Chant, and Abeyance. They all have their own merits against storm based combos, and Gilded Light can buy you at least one turn vs Belcher, so simply SB accordingly, and hope the damage race is fast enough.

Bongo

05-18-2005, 01:00 AM

11 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox
4 Tithe

Next, lowering Parallax Wave down to 3. The huge problem with Parallax Wave is the cost. 2WW can be hefty in this deck, especially for something which doesn't necessarily help all the time.
I have found Parallax Wave to be an integral part of Angel Stompy, and would be very reluctant to cut one of these. Instead of cutting Waves because you don't have the mana, it is better to increase your mana so you can cast Parallax Wave.

The two additional plains in my build do make quite a difference, both in terms of mulligan rates and mana consistency. Try it out.

2 Masks: The Suntail argument for including 3 is a valid one, however, one should consider that SoFI also should be equipped on Hawk or Priest. In my build I've got 2+2 equipment on 8 evasive early game creatures, which seems to be a pretty good ratio.
Another reason why I don't run 3 Mask is that drawing the second copy is something I want to avoid. Mask also tends to get useless in the lategame. I still draw enough cards with 2 Masks, especially since Tithe and SoFI also provide card advantage.

-Bongo

Zilla

05-18-2005, 04:17 AM

Decklist and stuff.
My current list is fairly similar, with a couple minor differences:

1. Drop Isamaru for a Plains. Most people agree that 11 Plains is just a little bit too few, and in my testing 12 has worked very well.

2. I'm inclined to agree with Bongo here: I've been testing 3 P. Waves and I really miss the 4th. It's an integral part of the deck. If you can find room, you should.

3. I agree with Bongo - 2 Mask of Memory is solid in conjunction with the other card advantage present in the deck, and on its own it does nothing to speed up your clock. If you're going to run 3 or anything, it should be SoFI or Jitte.

4. I go back and forth on Hawk vs. Foot Soldier. In the end, it really is a meta choice. Foot Soldier is better if you expect to see the mirror, because it provides blockers for opposing Priests, and can't be blocked by Angel. Just a thought. Overall, though, I don't feel that either is definiteively superior.

Bastian

05-18-2005, 11:44 AM

When I used to play White Weenie in type 1 (yeah, I was #that# naif (or do you spell it naive?) well, either way...

I started to play Soltari Foot Soldiers because, obviously, they couldn't be blocked by either Morphling (yup, LONG time ago) and because, unlike Savannah Lions they have more potential to deal more damage in the long run.

In the end I think that Suntail Hawks do exactly the same and are better because you're probably going to find more creatures without shadow than creatures with it. This makes Suntail Hawk > Soltari Foot Soldier. It also makes Suntail Hawk > Savannah Lions because of what I said.

Here's what I'm testing:

ANGEL STOMPY
12 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Tithe
3 Chrome Mox

1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Exalted Angel
4 Mother of Runes
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Mask of Memory
3 Parallax Wave
3 Disenchant

I was wondering though... what do we have Mother for? Protection fro blue? Protection from green? Green doesn't currently see much play and Mom is more of a defensive creature than an agressive threat.

I was wondering if now that we have Pithing Needle if we may consider making some changes to make the deck more aggressive?

Something like this:

ANGEL STOMPY
12 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Tithe
3 Chrome Mox

1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Exalted Angel
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest
3 Soltari Monk

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Mask of Memory
3 Parallax Wave
3 Pithing Needle

With Pithing Needle maindeck I feel that worrying so much about enchantment/artifact destruction for Deeds, Kegs, Explosives, Disk and Survival since Pithing Needle acts as a permanent solution to them all!

Zirilian

05-18-2005, 12:14 PM

Nice idea,but I think the needle would just get blown up,and it's pretty hard to blow up a disenchant.
Furthermore,you have to know what they play (and what poses a threat to you) in order to use it effectively,unlike with disenchant,where you can blow up what you don't like at the moment.
Thus,I think it'll serve us best in the board.

Also,it's not pitchable to a Chrome Mox :(.

midnightAce

05-18-2005, 04:52 PM

The Needles will be a good addtion to the deck, as pages and pages ago, the inclusion of Meddling Mage was debated hard.

To keep the deck consistent in terms of mono white, the Mage was discarded, however, now that we have Needle which acts as a semi Mage, it is worth the inclusion. However, mainboarding them is another story.

The Needle in its aibility is awsome, but it can be Stifled when it comes into play. EDIT: Upon further reading, "As it comes into play" is not the same as "When it comes into play", so it cannot be Stifled? Can somebody confirm this please? Thanks. Postboard, the opposing deck will more likely to SB in more Disenchant effects in the first place, (vs the equips) and as far as I understand, the Needle doesn't work against Crusible, which is a pain in Landstill matchups, I much rather have Disenchant to blow it up than casting Needle and call Decree. A lot of testing will be done to test the viability of mainboarding Needles.

In regards to Mother of Ruins, upon first turn drop of Mother serves as anti-StP/bounce. It's an important asset in mirror match, and it improves the aggro matchup before either Angel or Shadow comes online. It also forces combo decks to cast expensive spells such as Evacution instead of Chain of Vapour once you get Mother/True Believer down. SoFI takes care of red and blue spot removal spell/abilties, MoR takes care of the rest. Being able to block Trolls/Baloth/FtK all day long is awsome. Its 1 cc is also important to the deck's mana curve, sometimes, even swinging with MoR with Mask is worth the card advantage. Besides, if you honestly believe MoR is dead in certain matches, you can still pitch them to Chrome.

Solomox

05-19-2005, 01:00 AM

Nope, can't be stifled. It's just a choice you make when it comes into play. Nothing goes on the stack.

GRAH

05-19-2005, 06:01 PM

1. Drop Isamaru for a Plains. Most people agree that 11 Plains is just a little bit too few, and in my testing 12 has worked very well.
Probably a good idea. I'll take that into account.

2. I'm inclined to agree with Bongo here: I've been testing 3 P. Waves and I really miss the 4th. It's an integral part of the deck. If you can find room, you should.
Really? I rarely find it useful, even versus Aggro decks, and I ALWAYS draw them in multiples, even when playing three.

3. I agree with Bongo - 2 Mask of Memory is solid in conjunction with the other card advantage present in the deck, and on its own it does nothing to speed up your clock. If you're going to run 3 or anything, it should be SoFI or Jitte.
I think SoFnI and Jitte are simply too expensive to run in 3s. Mask is not. Dropping a Mask is a maybe. I don't know what to replace it with, though.

1aZe

05-20-2005, 11:29 AM

I'll back GRAH up on the Mask issue, it's just awesome to attack with "masked" hawk/lion on turn 2.

Elvenwish

05-20-2005, 01:56 PM

I have always viewed this deck in three ways: Card Advantage, Evasion, and Removal. Mask of Memory, while a bit faster, only falls into one of these categories. SoFI falls into all three cateories. I believe this is why people are pushing three SoFI over three Mask. I tend to agree with this choice.

Also, I fail to see how one would not find Parallax Wave useful unless you are playing combo all of the time. The card has so many uses, not just removing your opponents creatures for a time.

Solomox

05-20-2005, 03:01 PM

But what you need to understand is the quicker a CA engine comes online, the more threats and/or solutions. SoFaI is a stronger card no doubt, and fits into your three criteria but it takes 5 total mana initially while Mask only takes 3. Drawing turn two off of a Mask lets you see three times the cards you normally would. The damage at this point is largely inconsequential at this point, but options you now have help you put tremendous pressure on your opponent.

Case in point ->

T1: Land, Hawk.
T2: Ancient Tomb/Plains + Mox, Sword, swing (-1).
T3: Land, Equip, WW up, swing and draw (-5).
TOTAL CARDS DRAWN: 3 if going first

or

T1: Land, Hawk.
T2: Ancient Tomb/Plains + Mox, Mask, equip, swing and draw (-1).
T3: Land, WW2 up, swing and draw (-1)
TOTAL CARDS DRAWN: 6 if going first.

In the second scenario, you've seen twice as many cards and on T3 you have 4 mana available. I do realize 2 of the six cards have been discarded, but they will be the weakest and therefore of little consequence (card quality is improved).

Both of these plays are strong, but the second is stronger vs any deck where you need to find answers or a steady stream of threats (ie Control, Combo, or Lock.)

midnightAce

05-20-2005, 03:01 PM

The addition of Suntail has increased the number of evasion creatures from 8 to 12, and 8 of them are 1cc and 2cc. Due to that change alone, SoFI has become even more viable than before. A SoFIed Suntail is a 4 turn clock, and that's just the Suntail alone. Between the choice of punching through damage, most people will probably prefer SoFIed damage instead of Masked damage, as SoFIed damage offers more choice, (draw + damage) as oppose to Mask (draw + discard).

On the issue of Wave, it's actually a bit meta game dependant. Against control, you can cast one and hope it resolves, then use that to fight board resets, but if you are packing 4ofs, drawing multiples against control instead of threats are bad. Against aggro, it acts as a semi Wrath, allows you to clear the way for attackers, and stall their counter attack wave, but then again, with so many envasion creatures, there is no such thing as "blockers" anymore, fly over, shadow through, the only viablity of Wave now is to stall their board development by taking out key mana producers and remove fatties (Baloth, FtK), but once your Angel is online, it races these fatties unproportionally to your advantage. With added Jitte to give you PERMENENT removal of these mana critters, the Wave's viablitiy has gone down some, not a lot, but some, so 3 does seems to be pretty optimal against a field of unknown meta.

EDIT: Apparently Solomox posted at the same time as I did, let me just quickly address something. Mask is awsome, SoFI is awsome. If there is some twisted universe where I can managed to fit in 4of for both, I would. The situition you described are correct, but look at it from a late game point of view, (turn 6, 7 etc vs Control/Lock/Combo), your creatures have no haste, against control, you top deck a Suntail after Wrath, Mask on the table, you equip, next turn you swing for ONE damage and draws 2 and discards 1. Now what? Do you play the threat you just draw and hope they don't have another Wrath? Or do you keep everything in your hand? With SoFI, later game, equip swing, if no StP, that's 5 to the dome and draw a card, if you draw a threat, you can keep it your hand for sure, because you know that SoFIed creature will finish the game quickly. That's another difference you must take into consideration.

Solomox

05-20-2005, 04:35 PM

Certainly so. I'm saying I would go no lower than 2 Masks and would prefer 3. I like the 7 equipment builds better (3 Mask, 2-3 SoFaI, and 1-2 Jitte). My post was in response to Elvenwish.

EDIT: To further my position, the 3 masks help you dig early to find the 4 pieces of mid/late-game equipment. Certainly there will be situations where you want to go all in with a SoFaI to make individual threats more... threatening. But w/e, smart people should be able to figure out which situations that would be appropriate in.

GRAH

05-20-2005, 04:42 PM

It'Also, I fail to see how one would not find Parallax Wave useful unless you are playing combo all of the time. The card has so many uses, not just removing your opponents creatures for a time.
It's mostly situational...I happen to play against a lot of scrubs where removing their creatures temporarily doesn't do much, since they barely know how to use them anyway. Also, Wave isn't so hot versus ATS.

I really think the 3-2-2 is the best way to play the equipment as of now. Yes, Sword is good. However, a huge part of this deck is its curve. Sword tends to hurt the curve if you draw it in multiples. I rarely ever want to draw more than 1 Sword or Jitte.

Zilla

05-20-2005, 06:42 PM

[Examples]

In the second scenario, you've seen twice as many cards...
Yes, but that's not really relevant. Because of the deck's overall redundancy, the main purpose of card advantage is to give you gas in the late game, not to be drawing as many cards as early as possible at a detriment to your overall clock.

As Elvenwish so astutely pointed out, SoFI fits into all three of the deck's overall goals (damage, control, card advantage), where Mask only fulfills one role. Yes, it's faster, but it doesn't further your gameplan the way SoFI or Jitte do in the long run. The deck's true focus is aggro backed by some control elements, not vice versa. If it were more control oriented, then Mask would play a more integral role in the deck's strategy. As it stands, it does not.

In many ways we're picking nits here. You should be running 2 each of Mask, SoFI, and Jitte, making a total of 6 equipment. You may or may not want to run 1 more of one them, making for 7 equipment total. Any more than this and the ratio between equipment and equippable creatures becomes too unstable. Further testing is required to determine which you should run a 3rd of, but my inclination is to say SoFI.

@GRAH:

I don't understand how you can say that Parallax Wave isn't that important. With the exception of combo matchups, it is by far and away one of your strongest defensive/control elements. The hidden synergies and tricks it allows for are too myriad to name in full.

It may be that the fact that you're playing against scrubs makes it seem unnecessary, or perhaps you're not using it as aggressively as it should be. As for its not being useful against ATS, I disagree completely. First, it can be used to temporarily remove ATS' early mana producers, which often keeps Tradewind off the table for 2-3 extra turns. (Note: These would be the turns where you're winning the game.) Further, if they do resolve Tradewind, it doesn't nullify Wave.

For example, you attempt to remove Creature X. ATS responds by bouncing Creature X with Tradewind. You respond by removing another counter from Wave. You will commonly have more counters on Wave than they will have creatures to tap down to Tradewind. It keeps their key creatures off the table for a couple of vital turns while you're finishing the job. This strategy is particularly strong when backed by multiple Waves, which is why I'm so retiscent to play any less than 4. You absolutely want them in multiples.

GRAH

05-20-2005, 07:12 PM

I think it's definitely just the fact that I play against scrubs. I'm fully aware that Wave is a good card, and I really don't care to argue that. However, I prefer playing 3, because I: 1. Rarely find myself wanting it; and 2. Think that its cc of 4 can really hurt. The Mask over Wave is a preference. Whatever.

Drake33535

05-20-2005, 08:59 PM

I've been playing AS for some time now and I have to agree with Grah on the number of waves. Too many times I've drawn multiple waves when I was wishing for threats. I've personally dropped my third wave for a MD geddon. This may not be the best play but it has worked for me in many a match.

Boogy_Boy

05-21-2005, 08:14 AM

Hi, I am new to Angel stompy, and I have a question:

This deck from what I've played so far is actually quite double W intensive. It needs double W to cast SKnight, SPriest, morph angel, and the wave. While the Mox do increase the consistence of the white source, why not add fetchland? That would increase the land count, and thin the deck down as it goes. I know there's also Tithe, but I just thought that using fetchland to increase the land count at the start, and thinning out the deck later on has always been a staple amongst the Aggros.

Also, isn't 4 StP and 4 Wave a lil' excessive creature removal? ???

GRAH

05-21-2005, 12:02 PM

why not add fetchland?
They're unnecessary. They can get Stifled, cost you a point of life, and you really don't need the deck thinning since you have Tithe.

Also, isn't 4 StP and 4 Wave a lil' excessive creature removal?
Not really. Think of what decks are popular: ATS, RGSA, UGM, this...there are definitely a lot of targets. I've argued slightly for turning Wave down to 3, but 8 pieces of removal isn't going overboard.

Zilla

05-23-2005, 12:52 AM

1aZe

05-24-2005, 02:15 PM

Is it "officially decided" now that hawk should replace lion when playing 6 equipments?

GRAH

05-24-2005, 09:14 PM

It's been the general consensus that Hawk should completely replace Lions. You aren't playing 6 equipments anyway?

Zilla

05-25-2005, 01:19 AM

It's been the general consensus that Hawk should completely replace Lions. You aren't playing 6 equipments anyway?
He may mean if you're only playing 6 as opposed to 7...

In any case, I'd say that either Hawk or Soltari Foot Soldier is a safe bet for Lion replacement. It's panned out well in testing, with minimal drawback.

1aZe

05-25-2005, 04:15 AM

Yep, I meant when using 3 sword + 3 mask. I Don't use jitte, my friends complain :(

urza_insane

05-27-2005, 03:48 PM

Something i've been thinking about is the inclusion of Preacher (from the dark). Tap to gain control of a creature of your opponents choice. Angel Stompy is a deck focused on winning as soon as possible, which often makes it loose sight of the long game (which may or may not be a bad thing). But Preacher is a very strong option for the long game, basically getting you a new creature each turn (after you kill the first in combat). Another reason I thought about Preacher in this deck is because of its awesome synergy with Prallax Wave. Remover their crappy creatures and get the best, so so fun :laugh: . Any ideas on this?

midnightAce

05-27-2005, 04:09 PM

Even if the deck packed Lightning Greaves, I probably still wouldn't consider Preacher. Simply beacuse it does NOT conform with the deck's primary strategy. From turn 1 to 5, all I ever do is drop threats, equip them, swing to draw more cards, and drop more threats/equips.

1WW for a 1/1... is extemely less than optimal. Against control, he's pretty bad, (Fire/Ice from URLandstill, cycled Decree from UWLandstill, no point getting a token.) Against aggro, without Mother to back him up, FtK, Lavaman. Compare him to Suntail, at least Suntail can swing damage across with equips, if the opponent had Baloth, Troll, fatties like those, Preacher is almost pointless. Even worst in ATS if they managed to Drake up your Preacher, then YOU are in BIG trouble.

I think the point of the deck, or rather the control aspect of the deck comes from many places. The 4 StP and x Wave for creature control, the Mask/SoFI puts you in card advantage slots, and the Jitte/SoFI puts to stop the other deck's early development of mana critters to really put you ahead in the tempo advantage. Combine all that with effecient beaters with inherant evasion to deliver the equips advantages, (Suntail and Priest) and the life total difference via Angel and Jitte and SoFI is really what the deck is good at. Not to mention, a SoFIed Angel can usually handle most fatties. (Akroma? flying Wurm token? SoFIed Angel's got a nice sexy 6/7 body with spirit link ability... good game indeed.)

Zilla

05-27-2005, 08:30 PM

I agree with midnightAce re: Preacher. Right now, the deck is extremely strong against aggro decks. It really needs no help there at all. If it stands to improve anywhere, it would be against combo (most notably Solidarity), and to a lesser extend some control builds. Preacher is totally useless against combo and is rather subpar against most control. Stated simply, it doesn't fit the deck's strategy, and doesn't shore up any of the deck's weaknesses.

noobslayer

05-27-2005, 11:22 PM

Could Solitary Confinement help the solidarity match-up? Mask of Memory should more than compensate for the cards needed.

GRAH

05-27-2005, 11:46 PM

No. It's got the same problem as True Believer (Cunning Wish-Chain of Vapor). Rule of Law is significantly better.

midnightAce

05-29-2005, 01:57 AM

The combo decks that I face normally is usually storm based. With an odd Belcher here and there every so often, but not significant.

Against storm based decks, two kill condition is usually most viable. Brainfreeze and Tendrils. Other than True Believer, Ruler of Law, other possible SB cards includes Orim's Chant, Abeyance and Gilded Light.

They all have their own uniqueness to the deck. Believer can swing, and once protected by MoR or SoFI, it's harder for them to bounce. Ruler of Law prevents them from going off until they have an answer, and limits their card digging abilties. Orim's Chant is cheapest to cast, and can "waste" their previous storm spells. Abeyance pretty much cycles, so lmited card disadvantage, it does the same as Chant to "waste" their spells. Gilded Light can be cycled away like Abeyance, never a dead draw, and have potential SB applications against discard/burn heavy decks.

Which one or a combination of which ones to use to combat combo and control is pretty much meta oriented. At this point, I too, am at a loss as to which is the best combination of cards to put in SB to allow for max flexibility, feel free to post up your SBs for discussion.

Solomox

05-30-2005, 12:01 PM

Wouldn't some combination of Abeyance and Rule of Law be good? They work rather well in tandem and screw with combo a bunch on their own.

Drake33535

05-30-2005, 10:13 PM

Has anybody considered Defense Grid in the board. It kicks Solidarity in the balls and also severely hinders U/w Landstill in the early game which is where AS really needs to resolve threats.

SpatulaOfTheAges

05-31-2005, 05:29 AM

Glowrider?

matxer

05-31-2005, 06:13 AM

Has anybody considered Defense Grid in the board. It kicks Solidarity in the balls and also severely hinders U/w Landstill in the early game which is where AS really needs to resolve threats.
I have already lost to Solidarity with defense grid in play. My opponent just played his storm stuff during his turn. It was more difficult for him but feasible.

I even lost to Solidarity after an Armageddon ! He had Thawing Glaciers.

Rules of law or true believers help but they are bounced by Echoing Truth.

Solomox

05-31-2005, 09:37 AM

Defense Grid is no good I'm afraid. EOT on their own turn they can bounce it and go off during your upkeep.

asturias

06-01-2005, 07:07 PM

I saw you replace lions for hawks... And i think, why don't replace isamaru por lantern kami? the kami is the 5º hawk.

I was testing the deck with jittes and I loose consistence but i don't test enough to discar this good equip.

Sorry for my bad english

GRAH

06-01-2005, 08:42 PM

W for a 2/1 is no longer good. W for a 2/2 still is.

midnightAce

06-01-2005, 10:20 PM

Isamaru, Hound of Konda can be still left in the deck simply due to its 2 toughness. It's a solid turn 1 drop that can stop opponent's first turn Lackey cold in its tracks, (without losing any resource yourself.) It does not suffer the Lion's disadvantage of getting Fire/Ice. (The Fire part, wiping out another Lion, causing opponent to two for one you.)

If mirror match is heavy in your meta, Isamuaru also becomes a removal spell due to the Legend rule, now you can kill opposing equiped Isamaru with ease, instead of commiting heavy resource to combat opposing SoFIed Isamaru, etc.

matxer

06-04-2005, 01:27 PM

I have a question regarding the tricky art of mulligan.

I play 12 plains, 3 Moxes, 4 tithes and 4 ancient tombs.

My opening hand has 1 plain, 1 ancient tomb, no mox, no tithe.

Should I mulligan ? I have kept the hand several times and lost because I didn't draw any more land / tithe / mox. And the deck really needs 2 white mana to run.

What do you think ?

NoGameShow

06-04-2005, 02:23 PM

For me it would really depend on what else is in my hand if I could get a morph or a one drop down and the hand had a mask of memory I would keep it becuase odds are you will draw into another white source.

Zilla

06-04-2005, 03:33 PM

Yeah, NoGameShow's answer is correct, matxer. You're playing the identical manabase that I am, and I'll keep that hand often, if there are significant threats in hand. If I've got any equipment (particularly SoFI), Exalted Angel, and 1cc threats in hand to go with them, I'll keep the two-land hand. You're running 23 mana sources; the likelihood of drawing into a third mana by turn three is very good.

Note that I might reconsider keeping the two-land hand hand if I'm playing against a deck packing 4 Wastelands, or a dedicated disruption deck like Pox.

matxer

06-04-2005, 03:58 PM

Keeping the hand having mask or SoIF makes sense.

But with exalted Angel I'm skeptical. You cant morph it with 1 plain and 1 ancient tomb. And if you dont draw a plain / mox / tithe on turn 3 or 4, you're dead.

Elvenwish

06-04-2005, 04:46 PM

But when playing this game you have to understand your odds of drawing that third mana source. Having 23 mana sources in the deck, and having drawn 2 of them in the opening hand (Ancient Tomb and Plains), your odds of drawing the third mana source by turn three is 83%. Heck, the odds of drawing the third mana source by turn two is 76%. The chances of that third mana source being an Ancient Tomb are small in comparison. All in all, the hand is one I would tend to keep. Heck, a morphed angel on turn two with atached SoFI on turn three due to the second mana source being an Ancient Tomb isn't even "that" bad, though obviously not optimal.

I also wanted to run some match-up analysis by you guys. I have been testing the deck quite a bit over the past month and have the following numbers for my matchups. I have rouded to the nearest 5% so some of them are actually 67%-33% etc. What I want to know is if they seem to be falling in line with what you guys are experiencing.

Matchup Percentages:

RG Survival

Game 1 55%-45% in favor
Games 2 & 3 60%-40% in favor

ATS

Game 1 40%-60% against
Games 2 & 3 40%-60% against

Landstill

Game 1 50%-50%
Games 2 & 3 40%-60% against

Goblins

Game 1 75%-%25 in favor
Games 2 & 3 70%-30% in favor

Sligh Variants

Game 1 70%-30% in favor
Games 2 & 3 75%-25% in favor

Solidarity

Game 1 15%-85% against
Games 2 & 3 20%-80% against

Nausea

Game 1 35%-65% against
Games 2 & 3 40%-60% against

Belcher

Game 1 20%-80% against
Games 2 & 3 25%-75% against

Mono Green

Game 1 60%-40% in favor
Games 2 & 3 50%-50%

I have tested against other decks but not enough to justify the results. The above results consistute percentages of games one in a minimum of thirty matches against each deck.

GRAH

06-04-2005, 06:00 PM

I think you're wrong about the g2/3 matchup with Landstill: it doesn't get worse, it stays the general same.

Otherwise, seems pretty accurate.

Elvenwish

06-04-2005, 10:08 PM

Thanks Grah. That is the feedback I need. I want to make sure that I am playing the deck as well as possible. I must be doing something wrong. What are you boarding in against Landstill? DoJ?

GRAH

06-04-2005, 10:10 PM

I usually board in Geddons, DoJs, and Disenchant #4 over STPs and Waves. It decreases the dead card quotient.

Also, the RGSA is at least 5% better than what you said. It's really good.

Lord of the Pit

06-05-2005, 02:12 AM

I'd like to draw more attention to Kami of Ancient Law. Obviously, he's a solid, though not spectacular, bear at 2/2 for 1W.

It's well documented that he can wreck havoc on certain enchantment based decks with his ability to destroy enchantments. However, it seems that even if he would otherwise be a dead card in certain aggro matchups, he can still be useful.

Consider if you have Parallax Wave on the board, you can stack the creature removal abilities and then sacrifice the Kami to destroy the Wave. The Wave will be destroyed, and the return creatures to play effect will trigger. The opopnent's creatures will then be destroyed. It makes for a potential two-for-five.

GRAH

06-05-2005, 02:19 AM

He's sorcery speed. That's why he's unplayable.

Lord of the Pit

06-05-2005, 03:09 AM

He's sorcery speed. That's why he's unplayable.
I'm not sure I'd make a blanket statement like that. Sure, he's not Disenchant speed, but Seal of Cleansing does see a lot of play.

Perhaps that isn't even the apt statement. All 20+ creatures in the deck are sorcery speed. He just happens to have a sweet ability.

Of course, replacing other creatures might not be justified, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Kami just because "he's sorcery speed".

matxer

06-05-2005, 04:56 AM

Matchup Percentages:

Sligh Variants

Game 1 70%-30% in favor
Games 2 & 3 75%-25% in favor

Belcher

Game 1 20%-80% against
Games 2 & 3 25%-75% against
Sligh: some variants are much more deadly at least on game 1. On game 2 with pariah sided-in, it's OK.

Belcher: on game 2, with proper sideboarding (3 aura of silence and 3 null rod), the matchup is in favor of AS, I think.

kirdape3

06-05-2005, 07:58 AM

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-05-2005, 08:07 AM

He's sorcery speed. That's why he's unplayable.
He's not Sorcery speed. In fact, this came up recently in a debate of whether or not he'll be replaced by the White Onna from Saviors in ATS. Kami can activate at Instant speed, it's just the preemptive requirement that makes him a hassle. Saying he's sorcery speed is oversimplifying it enough to be totally inaccurate.

He's also a 2/2 for 2 with a strong ability. Labelling him unplayable is unjustified and way premature.

matxer

06-05-2005, 09:59 AM

I doubt that last. Belcher is going to win incredibly quickly or not at all in that matchup - but AS has little to no disruption that's fast enough. They're just liable to kill you the turn before you drop Aura of Silence.
I remember 1 match vs Belcher.

On game 1, he killed at the 1st turn !!
Then I sided in Aura, null rod plus Armaggedon. And I won the games 2 and 3.
Aura, you can play it at turn 2 with mox. That's generally fast enough.

Belcher is unstable and unreliable. Sometimes it's pretty but often it fails.

GRAH

06-05-2005, 10:39 AM

He's also a 2/2 for 2 with a strong ability. Labelling him unplayable is unjustified and way premature.
Admittedly premature, but he isn't that good. He's not very versatile, and he DOES come out at sorcery speed. Seal of Cleansing at least blows up both artifacts and enchantments.

Also, does this deck really need bears? It's got no evasion, which is the main problem. This deck really loves cards with evasion.

And he doesn't blow up artifacts. That makes him a bad maindeck versus Landstill, and Landstill is a shaky matchup as-is.

If you meant putting him in the sideboard, then I take this back, as he could have use there.

Lord Bun Bun

06-05-2005, 03:01 PM

Hey, I'm new, and while I haven't tested this deck a great deal, I really like the look of it. I've read the whole thread, so I'm hoping I won't sound like too much of an idiot.

Anyway, it just doesn't seem to me that Kami of Ancient Law is all that much better than cards like Disenchant or Seal of Cleansing. The normal advantages of having a creature with an ability usually contained in a spell seem to be nullified. Against SotF you'll probably cast and sacrifice him within a couple of turns, limiting his use as far as damage is concerned. Also, the Kami has significantly less versatility than Disenchant or Seal of Cleasing. It doesn't seem to me that Kami of Ancient Law really improves difficult Survival match-ups. Because this deck does not run Æther Vial and because (though this is more conjecture than anything) the Kami probably won't be making his presence felt before he dies anyway there are no significant advantages to his status as a creature. That, and the fact that he lacks versatility, leads me to believe that while the Kami could do mostly the same job against SotF, it might also make other match-ups worse because he would replace better, more versatile cards.

midnightAce

06-05-2005, 04:48 PM

Comparing Kami with Seal would be the closest comparison. I have at one point tried Kami, there are a few things I discovered.

The difference between being able to blow up both artifacts and enchantments is huge depending on the meta. Of course, if all you ever see are SotF and no Cruicible or any other artifacts, then running Kami might be justifiable, as you can argue it comes down on turn 2 and can be equipped with things to deliver damage.

The second thing is that Kami is by far easier to deal for your opponent than Seal. I think it comes down on human nature. VERY few players are willing to throw a Disenchant effect at the Seal, usually saving them for equipments... where as Kami, being a creature able to pick up equips, are usually dealt with if the opposing deck runs some important enchantment. (Deed, SotF, etc.)

I think Kami can be considered, but the meta must be heaviely infested with enchantment reliance to justify him in the deck. (Also due to the fact that 2 cc slots is kind of packed...)

Lord Bun Bun

06-06-2005, 04:55 AM

To me it just seems like a more easily "killable" Seal of Cleansing, only with less versatility. If we were talking about a different ability (like Soltari Visionary's or Devout Witness', not that either of those cards are really in contention) then consideration might be deserved, but it just doesn't seem like the Kami improves problem match-ups and it seems to dilute the deck's match-up against other decks. The body of the Kami is not impressive, given that it is in range of all red removal, and has no evasion and/or protection. In my opinion it is a clear cut choice that the Kami should not be included.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-06-2005, 05:07 AM

I don't get this. Kami of Ancient Law clearly has more versatility than Seal of Cleansing; for instance, just by tapping ten times, it can theoretically kill any deck in the game. It can also carry a Sword or Mask of Memory over for lethal. In a metagame where you're mainly concerned with Survival, Kami should be considered for maindeck inclusion. Otherwise, he's probably worse than Seal, especially against Landstill.

Lord Bun Bun

06-06-2005, 06:00 AM

By the logic that the Kami can "by tapping ten times" theoretically kill any deck, any 2/2 creature without a drawback is good enough to be included in this deck. The Kami however:

- Does not have inherent evasion
- Does not have inherent protection
- Has a Power/Toughness in range of every Red damage spell

I can slap a Sword of Fire and Ice on a Glory Seeker and, as far as damage dealing is concerned, it would be functionally identical to Kami of Ancient Law with a Sword.

The Kami can be killed by any deck running direct damage including RG Survival via Sharpshooter and FTK; and ATS via Masticore. Though the chances are that SotF will be out if these creatures are out, it is still a possibility that SotF decks could make you sacrifice a Kami too early to do any good. That problem is less worrisome with Disenchant or Seal of Cleansing. Also, even if your metagame is dominated by SotF, there will almost always still be people playing Burn or Goblins, and having main-deck Kami weakens that match-up, while not significantly improving the SotF match-up, in my opinion.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-06-2005, 06:28 AM

Also, even if your metagame is dominated by SotF, there will almost always still be people playing Burn or Goblins, and having main-deck Kami weakens that match-up
Not as much as running Seal of Cleansing/Disenchant in the same slot.

Try to understand that that is the entire point of the card. You can't dissect the two halves and analyze them seperately, because then you're ignoring why people are bringing the card up as a possibility.

Kami of Ancient Law can go into the same slot as Seal in many metas and have the advantage of not being dead if no Disenchant targets provide themselves. Glory Seeker can't kill Survival of the Fittest. The flexibility of Kami is the point.

Zilla

06-06-2005, 07:49 AM

Also, even if your metagame is dominated by SotF, there will almost always still be people playing Burn or Goblins, and having main-deck Kami weakens that match-up
Not as much as running Seal of Cleansing/Disenchant in the same slot.
Is it possible that he means that it weakens the Sligh matchup in that Kami is unable to answer Chrome Mox, Ankh of Mishra, Tangle Wire, Mishra's Factory, Cursed Scroll, Aether Vial and whatever other whacky artifacts people are throwing into their red decks these days? If the Kami answered artifacts as well as enchantments then it would be strictly superior to Seal of Cleansing, barring a Humilty on the table or something. I think when he says it has less versatiliy he means its ability only to answer enchantments.

Lord Bun Bun

06-06-2005, 09:10 AM

Yes, I was commenting on its versatility as far as targets were concerned. Also, when I thought about main-deck Kami, I was thinking of it replacing a 2cc creature, which would mean one of the creatures with Pro-Red. I felt that, because we were discussing anti-Survival measures, it would be more likely that the Kami would be meant to be redundant enchantment removal. However, you obviously meant it to replace Disenchant. I don't remember reading a post where it specifically stated that, though it may well be that it was stated, or that it was assumed by everyone else that such was the intent. If so, I apologize for misunderstanding.

Unless your metagame is completely dominated by SotF, which I accept as an intellectual plausibility, Kami does not seem to be that much more impressive than Disenchant. Even if your metagame is dominated by SotF, and you remove the Disenchants for it, what have you done? You've ditched a card that can potentially destroy some threats (Masticore) in addition to SotF and replaced it with a card that has the same applications, but probably won't really be able to exploit its biggest advantage. Given how early Survival comes down, and the possibility of repeatedly recurring it with Eternal Witness, you will probably lose even multiple Kami before they does a great deal. Because it didn't exploit its unique advantage the Kami would be identical in value to Disenchant or Seal of Cleansing. Given that Disenchant is superior to Kami in match-ups like Charbelcher, Welder Survival, and Ravager Affinity, it just doesn't seem like Kami has enough advantages to give it Disenchant's spot.

Also, this is a bit of a digression, but is anyone thinking ahead to October? I've been looking at Gift of Estates, and I'm not sure it is better than Tithe in this deck. What do others think?

jmorgue

06-06-2005, 01:15 PM

Consider if you have Parallax Wave on the board, you can stack the creature removal abilities and then sacrifice the Kami to destroy the Wave. The Wave will be destroyed, and the return creatures to play effect will trigger. The opopnent's creatures will then be destroyed. It makes for a potential two-for-five.

This doesn't work. The current text for Parallax Wave:

Remove a fade counter from Parallax Wave: Remove target creature from the game if Parallax Wave is in play.

When Parallax Wave leaves play, each player returns to play all cards other than Parallax Wave he or she owns removed from the game with Parallax Wave.

If you destroy the wave before the ability resolves, nothing happens.

GRAH

06-06-2005, 04:06 PM

Should we make another topic for this? Zilla's first post is good, but it's definitely a bit outdated, and therefore kinda misleading.

Zilla

06-06-2005, 04:24 PM

I'll edit the opening post to reflect modern changes to the decklist, etc.

GRAH

06-06-2005, 08:15 PM

Did you plan on doing this soon? >.>

Yes. Keep this kind of thing to PM. -Zilla

Boogy_Boy

06-07-2005, 01:54 AM

Consider if you have Parallax Wave on the board, you can stack the creature removal abilities and then sacrifice the Kami to destroy the Wave. The Wave will be destroyed, and the return creatures to play effect will trigger. The opopnent's creatures will then be destroyed. It makes for a potential two-for-five.
I don't think that works cos (and I quote)

"Remove a fade counter from Parallax Wave: Remove target creature from the game if Parallax Wave is in play"

So if you anounce removing 5 creatures on stack, and add Kami's ability on the stack last. The Wave will be destroyed, and the creatures won't be removed from the game cos the wave is already not in play.

:(

Lord Bun Bun

06-09-2005, 01:33 PM

Was there ever any general consensus on removing Seal of Cleansing from the sideboard in favor of Aura of Silence? It seems to have an excellent additional benefit for that one extra white. Getting it down second turn and possibly delaying the drop of a Survival looks like some good.

GRAH

06-09-2005, 03:26 PM

Does anyone still even play Seals in the SB? I took them out a while ago.

Zilla

06-09-2005, 04:29 PM

With Belcher almost completely out of the picture these days, the only thing you're really going to pack 4 Seals in the board for would be an extremely Survival-heavy metagame. Under those circumstances, I'd still prefer Seal over Aura of Silence, because the only enchantment in Survival you care about stopping is Survival itself. Making Survival cost one more for your opponent isn't going to slow them down any more than, say, the one more your Aura of Silence is going to cost you because you're not running Seal.

A metagame with a lot of artifact heavy decks like Ravager and Legacy Stax (if such a metagame exists) could warrant Aura over Seal in the board, but I haven't seen much of those decks around at all in the last couple months.

Lord Bun Bun

06-09-2005, 05:02 PM

I apologize for my ignorance, but I honestly don't remember any kind of consensus on what the sideboard should look like as a framework, in the 21 pages of this thread. I've tried to state as often as possible that I'm working mostly from theory in previous posts. If there's no post about what the general sideboard has changed to, I have problems keeping up.

Anyway, what would people say that the current "skeleton" sideboard looks like right now? This may be a stupid question if the sideboard is entirely metagame-dependent, but I honestly don't have a clear idea of the sideboard except the one on the first post. I gather that it includes some anti-combo elements like Rule of Law, but, once again, I'm a little lost on the sideboard if no one seems to run Seals or Auras. Did people remove the 4th Disenchant while I wasn't looking as well?

Zilla

06-09-2005, 05:56 PM

Bun Bun:

There's no concesus because it's so widely meta dependent, and the opening post is really the closest you'll find to a concensus. I'll be giving that post a major overhaul in the next couple days to reflect the deck's recent changes. In the meanwhile, I'll give you the best idea of a "skeleton" SB:

1 Disenchant: Rounds you out to a full 4 if you need them.
2-3 Decree of Justice: Strengthens your Landstill matchup, and allows for additional threats to replace dead cards in other matchups (e.g., Disenchants against UG Madness).
2-3 Armageddon: Bolsters your control matchup, as well as providing additional disruption against Solidarity.
4 Rule of Law: Anti-Solidarity and Tendrils.
3-4 Cop:Red/Pariah/Worship: Arguable which is the stronger anti-red card, as the first requires repeated mana investment, but the others are somewhat conditional. Obviously these are for the Burn/Vial Goblins matchups.

Other SB options of note are:

Seal of Cleansing: For an extremely Survival-heavy meta.
Tempest of Light: Anti-Enchantress, if you see it in your meta.
Aegis of Honor: Anti-Burn, if you see it but not Sligh or Goblins.
Aura of Silence: Against Belcher, Stax, Ravager.
Sacred Ground: Against Land Destruction strategies.

A hard and fast SB is hard to determine, given the tumultuousness of the relative lack of metagame definition right now, but cards listed as the skeleton are the most versatile and least specialized, giving you the strongest game against a relatively unknown meta.

Zilla

06-09-2005, 08:25 PM

Moved by popular vote to Open. While the deck is perfectly viable and in fact very strong, it simply isn't seeing enough play to warrant its DTB status at the moment. Should it start placing consistently in T8's, it will return to the LMF. -Zilla

MasterBlaster

06-14-2005, 05:03 PM

I am a big fan of Angel Stompy. I have been playing this deck frequently the past few months, but without the tithes. Yesterday I was playtesting with a friend and decided to proxy tithes to see how they helped the deck, and I was far from impressed with the card.

Every time I played a tithe it was at the expense of not dropping a creature that turn. Also with the deck's low mana curve and card drawing equipment it further seems unnecessary to me.

The way the deck works for me: is cast weenie creatures to put opponent on the defense, cast SoFI or angel for serious beatdown, win turn 5 or 6. Tithe just seems to disrupt the usual strategy of the deck(godzilla said himself tutors shouldn't be in the deck).

So am I crazy, playing tithe at the wrong time, or what?

GRAH

06-14-2005, 05:14 PM

(godzilla said himself tutors shouldn't be in the deck).

So am I crazy, playing tithe at the wrong time, or what?
First off, he said ENLIGHTENED Tutors shouldn't be in the deck.

Next, you probably are playing the Tithes incorrectly. They're worth not playing a creature first turn.

MasterBlaster

06-14-2005, 05:48 PM

I am aware of what tutor it was he was talking about, but wouldn't tithe be bad for the same reasons. Such as card and tempo disadvantage, which is the thing that is troubling me so much about tithes.

Anyways, its an honor to be called wrong by you Grah!

midnightAce

06-14-2005, 06:10 PM

offtopic: Grah, what's wrong with you? You don't seem so vicious today... :D Lol... j/k

Okay, let's address the Tithe issue.

MasterBlaster:

First of all, you said you were running the deck without Tithe for sometime, how does your mana base look? Were you able to consistently obtain WW by turn 2? What were in place of these Tithe in your deck? These informations will help us determine better as to what is really going on.

Also, I can't imagine the whole situation where Tithe can cost a creature drop. For example, turn 3, you have WWW avilible, you can cast a Silver Knight and still Tithe at the end of your opponent's turn, (hopfully he's got 4 lands, etc.) So describe to some situations where the Tithe has costed you a creature drop, and then we can work from there.

Lastly, E.Tutor is card disadvantage because it takes you TWO cards to get whatever you need. One is the E.Tutor itself, and second is the card that you were suppose to draw off the top of your library. For this reason, E.Tutor is card disadvantage. Tithe is different. The reason that the deck can have a streamline of threats and stable mana base is because the Tithe thins all the lands out of the deck, leaving a juicy core of threats and equipments, and supplemented by the raw draw power of Mask and SoFI, that's what makes the deck runs smoothly and out race 90% of the aggro fields out there.

GRAH

06-14-2005, 06:32 PM

offtopic: Grah, what's wrong with you? You don't seem so vicious today...
Really? I better go sodomize a couple puppies to make up for it.

I didn't know me insulting people was such an honor. I should do it more often.

Anyway, Ace, he didn't say to play E Tutors. He just misquoted Zilla.

The reason Tithe is so good is that it assures you a Plains (and usually two) in a deck where you want 2-3 Plains to cast your major players. You have 9 1-drops, but none of them are more than army bolsterers and don't matter anyway. Remember, you're (probably) only playing 15-16 lands.

Also, Chrome Mox-Tithe going second is an incredibly fun play.

MasterBlaster

06-14-2005, 07:38 PM

Obfuscate Freely

06-14-2005, 07:47 PM

I've tested this deck enough to know that Tithe is stupid. It's a Plains that costs W and can be countered or Duressed. It's only real benefit over Plains is that it's imprintable on Chrome Mox.

You can cry "card advantage" at me all day, but even when Tithe does give you the extra card, it will almost always be superfluous. This is because a playset of Tithes doesn't really let you skimp on mana slots in your deck. Angel Stompy is built so that you can expect to draw enough mana sources without resolving a "successful" Tithe; therefore, most of the time Tithe should only need to be a single mana source. And unnecessary mana sources, no matter how many more of them you have than your opponent, don't win games for aggro decks.

What Tithe does do is allow you to keep otherwise mana-screwed hands, and it gives you resilience to some kinds of mana disruption. It also gives you unkeepable hands with Tithes instead of real white sources, and lets you lose to Duress every now and then.

There's also the point that Angel Stompy is one of the most mana-hungry non-control decks in the format. Would you try to run Land Tax if it were legal?

Oh, I almost forgot about the deckthinning that Tithe provides! Surely that makes it insane, right? Surely the fact that I can make it ~1.2 percentage points more likely that I draw a nonmana card (2.4 if you get 2 lands!) makes Tithe the nuts, right? Certainly this makes it "worth not playing a creature first turn," right?

No fucking way. If you work it out, this means that if you open with a Tithe for 2 Plains 40 times, you'll change your following draw from a mana producer to a threat once.

Once.

You can run fetchlands, anyway, without any threat of tempo loss. 4 Flooded Strands and 4 Windswept Heaths can thin out the same number of Plains as your set of Tithes on a good day, so why don't you run some of those if thinning is so important?

Zilla

06-14-2005, 08:49 PM

If you want to know the truth, the Tithes are a carry-over from the build as it was before last September's B/R changes, when the deck was much more controlling, and maindecked Eternal Dragon and Decree of Justice. Long, protracted games were much more commonplace, and the extra Plains you got off of Tithe was mucho important in the long game. In the deck's current incarnation, being more aggressive and relatively less mana-hungry in the late game, they might not be necessary. Honestly, I haven't tested it, and it could very well be the way to go. If I did test it (which I guess I will), my manabase would look like:

16 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox

Boogy_Boy

06-14-2005, 08:54 PM

Well, you are not alone M.Blaster.

When I play on MWS with this deck, I also cut one tithe. 2 Tithe in the opening hand is NOT pretty.. :(

But it allows you to hit the land drops consistently for the first few turns.

Can someone care to explain and justify the uncontested-till-now 4-tithe thingy or watever it is?...
EDIT-uh... just seen zilla's post above me... is that why?

So far:
Pros
-keep low land hand
-card advantage
-deck thining
Cons
-tempo loss
-not a threat
-stuffs up hand with 2 opening hand tithe

Now to tell you how tithe cost me a creature drop. I had a hand with chrome mox, plains, and tithe as far as mana goes. I could have gone mox, plains, turn one silver knight. But Instead I played mox go, and I planned on tithing for two plains on the opponents turn(I hear thats a good play). He ended up not playing a land and played a creature for its madness cost at end of turn(DAMN!!!).

Was there a better way to play that hand?

I'd have played:

Turn 1: Land, Mox, Knight
Turn 2: Tithe, Land, (2 mana open) play something else.

Or chuck Tithe to mox if you have 2 lands in hand. It's bad enough as it is getting 2 mana-fixing cards in opening hand...

Hitting land drops are more important IMO

Don't fret too much about getting one Plain with Tithe IMO.

Zilla

06-14-2005, 08:59 PM

Cons
-tempo loss
-not a threat
-stuffs up hand with 2 opening hand tithe
Not a threat is irrellevant. If they weren't Tithes they'd be Plains, which aren't a threat either. The other two points are relevant though. Basically it's a minor tempo loss in exchange for minor card advantage, which was definitely a worthwhile trade in the deck's early incarnations. Now, maybe not. It deserves testing.

GRAH

06-14-2005, 09:03 PM

I still think the Tithes are needed, because they're essentially Plains that can be imprinted on Chrome Mox.

Also, they do make some unplayable hands rather playable.

They really aren't that weak to Duress, either. If I'm going to keep a hand with only a Plains and a Tithe, an opponent will often still pull the StP or Jitte out of my hand over it.

And yes, I would run Land Tax if it was legal.

WiLdFiRe

06-14-2005, 09:04 PM

I definitely won't be removing my Tithes. Maybe it's just me, but I like to be able to keep 1 land hands with Tithe going second, knowing that I will be able to hit my first 3 land drops. I've also been thinking about sideboard options, and has anyone considered Kataki, Wars Wage? It seems to me that it could be an effective sideboard card, even if it does shut down your moxes. Maybe it's just me, but I've been running into a fair few artifact based decks on MWS recently, mostly Ravager but sometimes others.

midnightAce

06-14-2005, 09:56 PM

The manabase for my deck currently is
4 ancient tomb
2 chrome mox
17 plains, I think.

Now to tell you how tithe cost me a creature drop. I had a hand with chrome mox, plains, and tithe as far as mana goes. I could have gone mox, plains, turn one silver knight. But Instead I played mox go, and I planned on tithing for two plains on the opponents turn(I hear thats a good play). He ended up not playing a land and played a creature for its madness cost at end of turn(DAMN!!!).

Was there a better way to play that hand?

Tithe did hurt the speed of the deck during other games(there were times where i desperately wished tithe was a plains that turn and not two plains the next), but thats the only instance I completely recall.
That only happens may be once every 200 games, and the madness player who did this will be kicking himself in the nuts because chances are, he lost that one.

@Obfuscate Freely

Tithe is not the core of the deck, it doesn't make or break AS, but what it does do is that it interacts well with the rest of the cards in the deck, ie. Mask of Memory. Once you stablize mana source, it's always nice to start discarding Plains instead of business spells, Tithe makes that easier, both stablizing your mana source and help getting extra Plains to pitch.

Tithe also interacts well with your SB plan. Those Armegedons will hurt you, but Tithe is a very good way of recovering.

Opening hand such as Tomb, Mox, Tithe is much better than Tomb, Mox, Plain. As Tithe provides the third white mana source for backup in case of Mox destruction, it overall helps to strengthen the mana stablitiy.

The points about Duress is almost irrelevent. Nobody here is suggesting keeping hands such as Tomb, Tithe only, while first turn Duress might hurt a hand with only one white source and Tithe, it's a risk that I feel worth taking. It's by no means an easy choice on your opponent either, choosing Tithe over StP, equipments, Disenchants and Waves sometimes is harder than you might think.

The same applies to counters. Unless they saw your hand, would anybody devote the resource of FoW + blue card + 1 life to stop Tithe first or second turn? Regardless of # of white sources, the AS player is going to Tithe, if everybody does indeed jump at countering Tithe, all the better, now you can cast threats instead of mana sources.

As for the argument of fetches vs. Tithe. Well, in my meta, Stifles are everywhere. I also do not like the one point of damage. As that added up with repeated Tomb activations, my life total will wither away if I don't have an active Angel or Jitte. The thining effect might be insignificant on paper under a pile of satistics, but it matters to me. Human shuffling methods are not perfect, it does have the tendency to pile, and sometimes after I Tithe, I often find my self stablized and drew 5, 6 cards before I hit another land, I like that.

At worst, Tithe turns into a Plain with the cost of W, on turn 3, most of your threats are 2 cc, that third W can easiely turn into 1 or 2 Plains. While I am not arguing that the inclusion of Tithe is a must, I am arguing that the inclusion of Tithe is not as bad as you make it out to be, that's all.

WiLdFiRe

06-14-2005, 10:25 PM

Besides, there isn't much that you can do if they go Swamp, Duress anyway. I also disagree with the choice of Fetches ober Tithe - Against aggro decks, I seem to be stabilising on scarily low life totals (5 or less life) and I can slowly regain that with Angel or Jitte, but the fetches would just hurt more. I probably take around 6 damage or more from Tombs in any given game that I draw them, which is more than a quarter of an aggro decks job done for them - I don't want fetches added to that.

Obfuscate Freely

06-14-2005, 10:37 PM

The insignificance of my points about Duress and counters is counterbalanced by the insignificance of your points regarding Tithe's mana stabilizing and deck thinning.

A lot of the synergies Tithe enjoys in Angel Stompy seem to come up only if you are already successfully executing your strategy. If you are drawing cards with Mask, or resolving Armageddon, any little bonus you get from Tithe should be win-more.

Not that Tithe sounds that hot after Armageddon, anyway.

WiLdFiRe

06-14-2005, 10:55 PM

That's because you Tithe before you Armageddon... Tithe is important, because you're playing an aggro deck with ~19 mana sources that wants to hit 4 mana by turn 4 every game, including WW. This is made much easier with the inclusion of white in the deck.

midnightAce

06-15-2005, 04:52 PM

Yes, mathmatically, the thining is insignificant, but when both of us is top decking, I'll take any percentage I can get my hands on.

The other thing that's often overlooked about Tithe is the fact that it can be imprinted on Chrome to reduce the number of business spell that you have remove. For example, against a field a deck that you have no knowledge against, depending on your hand, Tithe sometimes becomes the best canidate for first turn Chrome, you need not use Tithe to the best of its ability and do things like intentionally miss land drop and such for it to be good, the flexibilty in this case is something that a simple Plain pales in comparison.

Tithe, IMO, is also an intergral part of the deck's mana curve. Other than 4 MoR and 4 Suntails, the deck has no first turn drops. (I do not consider StP to be first turn drops, in extremely rare cases, StP creature first turn is needed, but in general, it's not used on the first turn.) 8 first turn drop does NOT provide a consistent drops. Granted, Tithe does not beat nor accelerate, but it can potential fetch out 2 Plains, or at least cycles into 1 Plain does provides the deck with the consistency it needs. IMO, the deck's mana base is considered stablized after it has in play either:
a) 3 white producing source + 1 Tomb
b) 4 white producing source
This realization comes from countless testing sessions that often comes down to, can I StP EOT or can I Disenchant EOT? Basically, Tithe evens out the math, making turn 4 more attractive, cast SoFI for 3, and have W for EOT effects, might it be Tithe or StP, that creates a situation where mana is not wasted. I don't know if this particular section makes sense to a lot of you, but it makes sense to me.

A lot of the synergies Tithe enjoys in Angel Stompy seem to come up only if you are already successfully executing your strategy. If you are drawing cards with Mask, or resolving Armageddon, any little bonus you get from Tithe should be win-more.

I understand that, but from my POV, just because a shadow guy is going through loaded with a Mask does not mean I'm winning. Until the opponent is in alpha-strike range with no possible way out, then I'm happy. Particularly against control, a single top decked board wipe will set everything back many turns. These little things I mentioned in my previous posts all ADD UP to help me maintain a best quality hand, and therefore able to recover any sort of couter attack/couter wipe.

For example, I Tithe for two Plains, that means the next two swing with Masked shadow guy will net me 4 business spells, (assume I'm lucky and draw goods), instead of 3 business spells if the Tithe was simply replaced by a Plain. While the number is almost insignificant, but as the game drags on, all these insignificant advantages will eventually add up and overwhelm the opponent. The same applies for Armegedon. Since post SB, most decks will be prepared for it, then they are either holding back lands or holding Crucible, you can either Tithe before Arm or Tithe after, depending on which one will net you the 2 Plains, and have consistent land drop for 2 turns after that so that your recovery rate would match your opponents. One must remember that sometimes when you are digging with Mask or casting Arm, it's not because you are winning, but rather losing, and you want to even out the fields and bring the tempo back to your side, and Tithe assists with that quite well. Examples would be digging for Orim's Chant post SB vs combo, or Arm against Landstill who already have a Crucible out, but you want the Silver Knights to get through.

Overall, I think we probably roasted this particular topic far beyond well done, :p Now I had some inspiration that will probably get flamed by Zilla himself, but hey, ideas are ideas. :D

As all of you know, the weakest matchup for AS is combo, and the natural enermy of combo is Duress and his minions. I know splash sucks for this deck, but I'm still thinking about black splash.

I've been tracking the Pox thread, one of the most important thing that everybody agrees on is that Vindicate is a really good socery. I'm currently trying to fit in 4 Duress and 4 Vindicates into the deck, but is having huge headaches everytime I pick up the deck and tries to decide what to cut. I would like suggestions on the viablity of this colour splash, if anybody have tried it before, please post your changes for dicussion. If it's just simply not do-able, then please also post some insights on that. Thanks.

Ace

WiLdFiRe

06-15-2005, 08:29 PM

We need to consider what each splash adds to the deck:
Black:
Well, I think the main card here is Duress - it's a great card in almost any matchup except heavy creature decks. We also get Vindicate, which can remove almost any troublesome permament. Hymn is a possibility, but I really don't like the BB with all the WW's in the deck already.
Green
This baby adds more efficent little creatures and Rancor - It makes the deck faster, but is probably not worth stuffing up the mana base for.
Blue
FOW. This would be the only reason to splash blue, but this isn't a good idea because to support that you need at least 16 blue cards to pitch which isn't a splash, it's half the deck.
Red
I really can't see much of a reason to wreck the manabase to add this. Goblin Legionnaire?

I think that the black is probably your best bet for a splash, but I'm not sure that it's worth ruining the manabase for it - We'd have to take out Tithe and most probably Ancient Tomb which really hurts. If we were to cut something, I would most probably do something like this:
-4 Tithe
-4 Ancient Tomb
-2 Disenchant (Vindicate can serve the same purpose as these plus is more flexible. The only thing is the whole Instant/Sorcery thing, so I'd keep 2/3 in the board. This still leaves 1 maindeck in my build
-2 Plains
-3 Parallax Wave (I'd rather have Vindicate)
-1 Soltari Priest (I don't like to cut a creature, but I'm having a hard time finding space.
+4 Swamp
+4 Black Fetch
+4 Duress
+4 Vindicate

This is untested, but with my changes this is how I think the build should look. Criticism (sp?) would be great.

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
10 [B] Plains (2)
4 [A] Scrubland
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire

// Creatures
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [8E] Suntail Hawk
4 [SC] Silver Knight
3 [TE] Soltari Priest
4 [ON] Exalted Angel

// Spells
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [MR] Mask of Memory
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
1 [B] Disenchant
4 [US] Duress
4 [AP] Vindicate

I'm sure that the sideboard could add some black stuff in if needed. Don't forget that Moxes can be mana fixing too.

Solomox

06-15-2005, 08:45 PM

Slay

06-15-2005, 08:53 PM

In terms of a splash, if you want to do well against combo, splashing blue for Meddling Mage and Arcane Lab sideboard makes your combo matchup far more bearable.

All you need to do is play fetchlands combined with 2 tundras.
-Slay

WiLdFiRe

06-15-2005, 09:05 PM

This deck will not support a splash. The deck you created there, while based upon this one, ends up having a different (slower and more controlling) gameplan.

Also... no Tithe? It gets your black duals too like the old 3-5 color white decks from the Extended of the last decade.

Lastly, cutting Soltaris is a retarded move. No other played creature in this format will block it.
Ah, you're right about Tithe, I'm an idiot. I'm not sure that we really need Arcane Labs from the sideboard - we already have Rule of Law, so do we need 5+ Labs? I like Meddling Mage though.

GRAH

06-15-2005, 10:05 PM

Wasn't Meddling Mage discussed and rejected a while ago? It's not enormously good, as it can easily be Cunning Wish-Chain of Vapored during the combo. The black splash for Duress/Therapy would be superior.

midnightAce

06-15-2005, 10:09 PM

In terms of a splash, if you want to do well against combo, splashing blue for Meddling Mage and Arcane Lab sideboard makes your combo matchup far more bearable.

Yes, that is a much lesser change than what I'm proposing right now, but the problem with Mage is that it suffers from the same problem as True Believer. It gets bounced before or during the combo. Even with MoR or SoFI protected against targeted bounces, most well constructed combo deck does run a Wish board or have extensive spells such as Evacuation to really mess AS's protection plan. Duress on the other hand is an active spell. Like what I said in my earlier post, the deck runs 8 1 cc drops, since StP are dead in combo matchups, removing them for ADDITIONAL discard such as Therapy in conjunction with Duress can really rip apart the combo player's hand. However, it does pull the deck rather far off its primary playstyle, and might weaken the deck to disruption heavy decks, as the deck now splash for a second colour, much more prune to Wasteland. Heavy testing is absolutely needed.

PS: Zilla or other mods, I apologize to pulling this thread rather far, if any of you feel that a AS w/ colour splash should be discussed in a new thread, then please seperate the lists. I personally believe it's better to stay in the AS thread as there is a lot of good referencing informations in the pages before.

EDIT: Sorry, Grah, didn't see your post while I was typing my own. Yea, also active hand destruction allows the deck to have a much better game against Landstill, now having the ablity to determine number of counters and rip out their board wipes. Mage would be too narrow, as most Landstills runs Wrath/Vengence/Disk combination of board resets, a single Mage is simply not enough to defeat them all.

Slay

06-15-2005, 11:28 PM

Meddling Mage naming Cunning Wish, Arcane Lab. Good game.

Meddling Mage naming Cunning Wish, True Believer. Good game.

Meddling Mage naming Cunning Wish, Rule of Law. Good game.

Mage should be naming their out, because if you pack enough combo hate, you can mess with their head before they can deal.
-Slay

Zilla

06-16-2005, 01:11 AM

@Tithe: Until someone does hours and hours worth of testing with both builds and has hard data to back up their claims, there's no reason for this conversation to continue. ObFreely is correct that Tithe's synergies and advatages are fairly minor, but there are lots and lots of them. What seems to be going overlooked is that the tempo setback is also very, very minor. It's a trade. Is it a good one? So far it's treated myself and others pretty well, but without extremely thorough testing I won't rule out the possibility that it's not.

@Land Tax: Not no, but fuck no. IBA asked me this question on AIM awhile back, and my answer was the same. Land Tax and Tithe are extremely dissimilar. Land Tax absolutely requires your opponent to allow you to gain benefit from it. It can be played around. It's entirely possible that you will play it and gain nothing from it whatsoever. Assuming it goes uncountered, Tithe will always get you a Plains. Sometimes it gets you two. In a deck without cards to abuse it (e.g., Mox Diamond, Zuran Orb, etc.), Land Tax is crap.

@Splash: Actually, I'd been considering the black splash recently. Duress and Cabal Therapy would significantly improve the Solidarity matchup, as well as the Landstill matchup. Incidentally, this is why I think the blue splash is not as good an idea as the black splash; blue only improves the combo matchup, where black improves both combo and control. In the end, I have strong doubts that either splash is truly worth the destabilization it would cause in the deck's underlying structure. The deck is extremely tight on threats, and at first glance I don't see a feasible way to make room for 8 cards in the main. I also worry about the somewhat diminished mana stability. If someone wants to try the black or blue splash and provide hard data based on thorough testing, I'm all ears. Without a specific build and test data to reference, I don't see any reason to discuss it further.

Boogy_Boy

06-17-2005, 09:43 PM

Zilla

06-18-2005, 12:36 AM

You absolutely test Plains in their place. For all intents and purposes, Tithes are Plains in this deck. There's no way the deck will function with any less white sources than it currently has.

TheDrunkDwarf

06-20-2005, 12:19 AM

First off, I love this deck.
Alot of players I know roll their eyes when I bring a "white weenie" deck to the table, only to have their faces smashed in by an angel and a jitted-up hawk thats runnin circles around their creatures :p

OK, I'm not nearly as experienced as probably anyone on this forum, but I was wondering about a few cards and why/why not to include them in the deck. I realize the deck is packed pretty tight as it is, but I'm still gunna ask:

First, Skyhunter Skirmisher. Alot of peeps look at it 3cc cost and 1 atk, and toss it aside. However, the double-strike mechanic and the acceleration in angel stompy IMO makes it playable. I've tried it out a little, and the hit twice is amazing with jitte (netting 4 counters) or mask (4 cards, 2 discard). Just a thought.

Second, Promise of Bunrei. Seems pretty powerful to me. probably sideboard, works great vs. sweeping affects like WoG. Also, it could be included MD for the same reason someone might MD pithing needle. It also prevents massive board position swings.

Lastly, I was wondering what this deck can do vs your typical blue-based control deck. Since its number of threats is reduced by the inclusion of equipment, and the threats themselves are not quite as fast as goblins (with the exception of hawk), the deck seems pretty vulnerable vs. counterspells, etc. The only SB inclusion I could think of would be defense grid, and a first turn grid via mox or tomb would be nice, but its pretty unlikly to happen...

OK, let me get out my shield and gulp down this fire resistance potion :)

GRAH

06-20-2005, 01:26 AM

First, Skyhunter Skirmisher. Alot of peeps look at it 3cc cost and 1 atk, and toss it aside. However, the double-strike mechanic and the acceleration in angel stompy IMO makes it playable.
No, it doesn't. It's still a 1/1 for 3, and that's really, really weak and inefficient.

Second, Promise of Bunrei. Seems pretty powerful to me. probably sideboard, works great vs. sweeping affects like WoG. Also, it could be included MD for the same reason someone might MD pithing needle. It also prevents massive board position swings.
We're not MDing that or Needle. This isn't KBC. Promise of Bunrei is overcosted for a reactive effect. This deck always wants to be proactive.

Lastly, I was wondering what this deck can do vs your typical blue-based control deck. Since its number of threats is reduced by the inclusion of equipment, and the threats themselves are not quite as fast as goblins (with the exception of hawk), the deck seems pretty vulnerable vs. counterspells, etc. The only SB inclusion I could think of would be defense grid, and a first turn grid via mox or tomb would be nice, but its pretty unlikly to happen...
You're really stuck in t2 with your tech. Defense Grid? Ew.

This deck can swarm out control decks. A single equipped beater can be game over.

TheDrunkDwarf

06-20-2005, 07:58 AM

GRAH

06-20-2005, 12:05 PM

Alright, thanks for the help. I didnt get all the flame I was expecting...

What does the SB look like for this deck? I havnt seen the lastest post yet.

I honestly dont think that splashing in this deck would be wise. The deck's main problem by far is its not-too-reliable mana base (and its combo weakness apparently). If you were going to splash, I'd do somthing like this to the mana base:

4 Tithe
4 Dual
3 Mox
3 Tomb
8 Plains
2 Fetch

I think the fetch lands are a must if your gunna splash. Yes, it puts you even more behind vs aggro decks, but you could SB em and use them vs combo only...

What about Gilded Light SB? Doesnt that stop some combo decks like tendrils?
I'm not going to flame newcomers to this deck. :(

My current SB is:

3 Armageddon
2 Decree of Justice
1 Disenchant
1 Gaea's Blessing
3 Gilded Light
3 Rule of Law
2 Worship

It's probably not the best, but yeah, I already thought about Gilded Light.

As for the splash, fetchlands aren't necessary. Tithe can fetch out duals.

Solomox

06-20-2005, 04:46 PM

Musings on the black splash:

It will be hard to fit the full complement of disruption. I would opt instead for 4 main and 4 SB'ed. Any matchup in which the extra four would come in, Swords can assuredly come out in its place. As far as squeezing in the initial four (most likely Therapies), the Disenchant slots come out and then Isamaru or Parallax Wave.

The manabase is the trickiest part of all this. This deck wants all white mana, all the time, excepting colorless for equipping, so basic swamps are absolutely not an option. Additionally, the presence of black cards in the build turns the Moxen into W sources *sometimes* which is something to consider. Finally, actually getting your Scrublands on the table is a challenge. Yes, Tithe gets them, but it may be necessary to dip into a couple of fetches as well to ensure access.

(Grah's last list quoted for reference, cuz it was the first recent rendition I saw)

11 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox
4 Tithe

4 Mother of Runes
1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest
4 Exalted Angel

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Disenchant
3 Mask of Memory
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Parallax Wave
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Zilla

06-20-2005, 05:27 PM

If you were going to try the splash, the correct manabase would be as follows:

6 Plains
4 Duals
2 Fetches
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox

First, GRAH's list is running too few white sources. It would benefit him to drop Isamaru for the 12th Plains. Aside from that, the only difference between his list and mine is that I run 2 Masks and 3 SoFI's, where he runs 3 Masks and 2 SoFI's. The original post was updated awhile ago with the most current list.

Now, the reasoning behind the manabase with a splash:

In my experience, in order to consistently get at least 1 mana producer for your off color in your opening grip, you need at least 10 ways to get it. In the build above, you have 4 Duals, 2 Fetches, and 4 Tithes to get your off color, which is a full 10 ways. You don't want any more than 2 Fetches in this strategy, because it can negatively impact the effectiveness of your Tithes, if you get multiples of them. There have been games where I've run out of Plains to fetch with Tithe even without Fetches in the mix. You want to keep as many Plains as possible, while maintaining 10 ways to get your off color, so 2 Fetches is the right number.

That said, I have doubts that 4 Duress or Therapy main with 4 of the otehr in the side are going to significantly improve your combo/control match, and I think it may harm your more difficult aggro matchups (most notably Vial Goblins), but I could be wrong.

Solomox

06-20-2005, 05:37 PM

Yeah, possibly, but that's why I suggested Therapy main instead so you can hit PDs and Warchiefs, too.

Anyhoo, I lack the means to test against something other than casual shit which obviously will do nothing.

I'm still fairly certain a splash is a bad idea and that a combination of white cards will serve you well in the SB to combat combo. Fact is, this deck is set up to stomp on anything running creatures for the win and natually will have a disadvantage vs combo, with various forms of control stuck someone in the middle (Steve Miller anyone?:;): )

Eldariel

07-09-2005, 06:23 AM

If you did try to make the deck beat combo, what would be the changes? Making Armageddon a maindeck-card? Adding Enlightened Tutors to main so sided Rule of Laws could be found more easily? Making conversion-SB into a Scepter-Chantish approach (with Abeyance and Orim's Chant making 8 Chant-cards on the side against combo)? Running a single Rule of Law in the main with Enlightened Tutors to fetch for it in combo match-up and else using it as a Mask-disc or Mox-imprint? Perhaps running Devoted Caretaker side to protect Rule of Law from bounce?

Also, I've been considering Abolish instead of Disenchant in the deck, do you think the idea would have any merit? I like free spells, and the deck seems to get quite enough Plains to be able to play it for it's alternate casting cost quite often, and in a format with decks like Survival and Vial Goblins, it looks to be pretty effective a way to gain tempo. Also, Shining Shoal? Fitting couple to the main could make your opponents fear them, and they could help to make many aggro match-ups better. Heck, thanks to Ancient Tomb, it could even be used as a burn-finisher if opponent stabilizes at low life or if an all-out attack brings opponent to 2 or 1, and you want him dead NOW. And of course, the fact that it's a free spell is always nice, especially against a deck like Vial Goblins, which relies on quite accurate calculations to finish the game in one turn.

I'm probably completely out there, but just trying to come up with some ideas on how to make combo a winnable match-up while still not losing to the field.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one thing I've been wondering; why doesn't the deck run 4 Chrome Moxes? Has it been deemed to cause too many bad draws where Plains instead would've won the game? To me it seems like intentionally shooting oneself in the leg and giving the opponent a mile ahead in addition.

Zilla

07-09-2005, 05:53 PM

All good questions, and you're not actually out there too far with your ideas. If you really wanted to beat combo, you'd probably splash blue for Meddling Mage. MD Armageddon is actually a decent choice because it's also strong against Landstill and other control. In the board you'd want Glowrider, True Believer, or Rule of Law as additional anti-Solidarity hate.

About Chrome Mox, 3 is really the furthest you'd want to push it, for the reason that you assumed. It is inherent card disadvantage, and while it provides for broken starts, it can also affect the consistency of your manabase negatively. With MD 'geddon, however, 3 is still a great number to be running.

As for Abolish, They used to be in the deck's SB way back when as anti-Mud tech. They were good then, but not better than Disenchant in most other matchups, because the freeness doesn't change the fact that it's card advantage if you're not paying mana for it.

I tested E. Tutor in the deck again and I simply didn't like it. It's slow, it's card disadvantage, and it hurts tempo. One thing I've been testing that I really do like is dropping most of the equipment down to 1-ofs and running 4x Steelshaper's Gift. It gets you the equip you need most, when you need it, and is not card disadvantage. It also prevents you from drawing Jittes or or SoFI's in multiples when you don't need them. Also, because Jitte fulfills a similar role, and is insanely strong against aggro, you can drop Parallax Wave entirely.

Because it's an ideal first turn drop, however, I've dropped Tithe, because I found it to be too negatively impacting my tempo with Gift's inclusion. Therefore, they've been dropped for basic Plains.

If anyone is interested in the updated list, Angel Stompy now looks something like this:

//Angel Stompy 2.0

//Mana
15 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox

//Creatures
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Mother of Runes
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest
4 Exalted Angel

//Disruption
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
3 Armageddon

//Equipment Toolkit
4 Steelshaper's Gift
1 Mask of Memory
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow

//Sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
2 Disenchant
4 True Believer
4 Rule of Law
1 Armageddon

A few notes about this list: I'm running Sword of Light and Shadow as a Gift target, as it can protect your threats from StP, as well as recur them, and also gives you the benefit of lifegain in the aggro matchup. It has been very very solid in testing.

Double Jitte is there because it is the single most important piece of equipment in the deck, and I want to be able to get a second if the first is removed. It strengthens your Goblins matchup immensely by removing their threats more efficiently than Parallax Wave ever could. It strengthens your Burn matchup because it can turn any attacker into an Exalted Angel by gaining you 4 life per turn. Burn simply can't race that.

This build does not run Meddling Mage because there's no Solidarity in my meta. If there were, I might try the following changes to accomodate:

-10 Plains
-4 Soltari Priest
+4 Flooded Strand
+2 Windswept Heath
+4 Tundra
+4 Meddling Mage

and I'd free up 4 of the SB slots currently dedicated to beating Solidarity to something else, most likely.

Also, I haven't tested them yet, but Glowrider, Sphere of Resistance, and Trinisphere all probably deserve testing against Solidarity, because they're not as narrow as Rule of Law and True Believer, and could strengthen your game against other decks. I haven't had the time to test them yet, but I intend to.

More updates and matchup details when I have them.

midnightAce

07-09-2005, 06:24 PM

:D Zilla's using the super secret Gift tech? I KNEW IT!!!

@Zilla

I know I'm the one who spent a lot of posts convincing people of Gifts, so this will sound a little odd coming from me, but 4 Gifts is a little high, even for my taste. I would actually suggest dropping a Gift for a second copy of SoLS. My reasonings are:

Most aggro decks can be easiely disruptted by Jitte, it comes down faster than SoFI and more verstile in terms of function and chance of activation. (One being triggering upon hitting player and the other being either player or opposing blocker.) But most of your creatures pack built in Pro Redness, and the Pro Blue portion is not that relevent since combo is not a big part of your meta. (Pro Blue becomes important if anybody is boarding in True Believer constantly against combo decks.) So in that sense, (I will probably get BBQed for this.) SoLS is much much more important than SoFI. The Pro White portion can really make Landstill unhappy, and the worst part, the recursion.

In a Green.dec, Genesis/Troll makes Landstill cry, in AS, SoLS/any of the 12 evasion creatures makes Landstill cry. Constantly recuring dead Angels will make the game swing in your favour, StP is also useless against SoLSed creatures, which in turn, FORCES Landstill to pull out Wrath/Vengence/Disk 1 for 1 (In terms of creatures.) That's where the second SoLS comes in. Landstill can stabalize at low life, and based on some of the discussions, Pulse of the Field is a popular SB choice. SoFI sometimes simply cannot get the job done, but a fleet of Angel will. SoLS's recursion ability outshines the SoFI damage and draw, Simply because SoLS provides a creature for sure, (Your yard will be full of them, if not, you are winning.) where SoFI might just net you another land off the draw. The problem with only running 1'of is that either you or Grah pointed out that if the equipment dies, you are left with nothing, no more of that copy in the library anymore. SoLS is important enough to warrent two spots in the deck for reasons stated above.

I've been running SoLS in conjunction with SoFI for sometime now, but was reluctantly to post it due to the fact that my Gift idea was not concieved as popular last time I suggested it, but now that I see Zilla is actually running a very similar list, I'm quite ecstatic.

EDIT: I don't have my list handy, but one of the most obvious difference I spot is that I run Tanglewires in place of your Armageddons, I find Jittes and Masks to be savage with Wires, and even dropping Wires on turn 5, 6 can often slow down combo just enough to make the final damages through.

Zilla

07-09-2005, 07:12 PM

Wires could be a good call. I like Armageddons for the Control/Combo matchups, but Wire deserves testing there too, so I shall. I'd also considered dropping the 4th Gifts, but I'm not entirely sure on that one yet, because more equipment = more winning, particularly when you want Jitte online as quickly as possible in the aggro matchup.

I'll give the second SoLS a shot, although my strategy against Landstill has typically involved getting any non-SolS equipment on a significant beater, forcing them to make trade with Disk or Vengeance, then dropping a reserved threat and a SoLS, following up with the strategy you described, typically negating the need for a second SoLS. Without an active MoM, early StPs can be slightly difficult with that strategy though, so I'll give it a try.

Eldariel

07-09-2005, 08:02 PM

From the testing I've done with Gift-versions in general (I've played WW in T1, 1.X, 2 and the 2 most recent block seasons, as well as in casual, so I've had my share of testing Gift-builds), I'd strongly suggest against running more than 3, since drawing multiples is a tempo setback. I'd also suggest perhaps dipping into fetches for a bit, since now you lack the deckthinning, Tithes provide and may therefore encounter too heavy landdraws.

Tangle Wire I considered myself, but I realized that against Solidarity, it stalls for exactly one turn and even then they don't need to waste the turn, but play what they play in response. Next turn, they have 5 lands and have to tap 3, with a decent hand, they'll be able to reset, high tide and go off from there. In many match-ups, Wire is sure to be excellent, but in the single match-up which makes me want to run Arma in the main in the first place, it's weaker by 3 turns. Damn Solidarity and its consistency. Glowrider is an interesting option, especially in that it impacts us very little. It definately means a no-Gift build though, since paying 7 mana for a sword isn't very alluring for a tempo-deck, especially when 5 of the 7 has to be paid in one turn. But Glowrider is very strong against many of the problem match-ups and would be what I'd side in against Solidarity instead of True Believer (since True Believer doesn't hinder the opponent, only protects us. It's passive, not active. It doesn't really help against Solidarity at all, since when they go off, unless they're going off small, they can just wish for Evacuation and go past it even if it's pro-blue. It's technically a card that could be run in the main, if it weren't so tight already, but I believe it's waste of sideboard space, since even if you resolve it with Mother of Runes-backup, it's still not GG for Solidarity).

Also, dropping MD Disenchants to 2 hurts Survival MU, no? Also, looking at Gifts-build, it looks like it either needs a second Mask of Memory or none at all, because you'll never be gifting for a Mask, you'll be gifting for the card that will win you that game. In other words, I believe the deck wants to draw a Mask instead of Tutoring for it and use that Mask to get the Tutors/threats/whatever (it has quite a lot to discard in many match-ups too).

midnightAce

07-09-2005, 10:29 PM

I do admit I rarely Gift for Mask, but on occasions I would, simply because I'm still running Tithe and I usually have more than 1 spare Plains in my hand, I want to max my card quality. That being said, each other peice of equipments can be said to be the silver bullets against certain matchups, while the Mask is more of "Jack of all trades, excels at none" type of equipment.

I am leaning towards dropping the Mask, but I have no idea what to replace it with. I'm open for suggestions.

Zilla

07-09-2005, 11:12 PM

Actually I've been considering dropping the Masks entirely myself. The only reason I was running it is because it's a decent first turn Wish target along with Chrome Mox and a 1cc threat, meaning you're equipping and drawing with it by turn 2. When it happens, it's great, but it happens rarely enough that it may not be worth the trouble. As for what to run in its place, the 3rd Disenchant is probably a decent bet, since you'll have less draw power to draw into a 2-of anyhow.

With regards to the True Believer as Solidarity hate, it is not in itself a enough of an answer. However, with an active Mother of Runes, it means they need to get enough mana to Wish for and cast Evacuation, since they can't target it directly with Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth. This often takes until turn 5 or six, by which time you should have drawn into your secondary hate in the form of Rule of Law, Glowrider, or whatever. Once you have two pieces of hate on the board, you will nearly always have the time you need to go off. Basically Believer is a redundant form of hate, but won't get the job done on its own.

That said, Glowrider or one of the Spheres is probably more versatile and effective. Since you're running 8 pieces of Solidarity hate anyway, you can always side out the equipment toolkit completely (leaving in a single SoFI or Jitte, perhaps), and rely on your beats to win you the game. Just tossing out ideas.

Lt. Ripper

07-10-2005, 02:37 AM

What about Samurai of the Pale Curtain? I think that's a much more suitable choice then Suntail Hawk.

WiLdFiRe

07-10-2005, 02:42 AM

Samurai of the Pale Curtain is a hugely inferior choice compared to Suntail Hawk, mainly because the Hawk is a cheap evasion creature that comes down turn one, doing something like:
T1: Plains, Hawk
T2: Tomb, Mask of Memory, Equip and swing.
Samurai is a decent card, but Hawk is a much better choice for this build.

Zilla

07-10-2005, 02:47 AM

Wildfire called it. It's about tempo and your overall mana curve. If you were going to replace anything with Samurai it would be Priest, but Samurai has no evasion.

WiLdFiRe

07-10-2005, 04:43 AM

Plus priest is insanely good vs Sligh - You drop him, randomly put a SoFI on him and burn those Jackal Pups into the ground. He's a good choice, but not enough to warrant dropping something else from the deck.

GRAH

07-10-2005, 03:13 PM

I'm going to play devil's advocate and hate on the Gifts toolbox. Like I said before (which Ace referred to), if the one piece of the toolbox is destroyed, it's gone forever. This makes it terrible in the control matchup and plain awful versus Landstill, which can blow it up six different ways before Sunday (hey, it's Sunday today. huh.)...or just counter it anyway.

I still stand by the 3-2-2 Mask-SoFnI-Jitte equipment setup. Gifts takes up too much space for a minimally-useful card.

That said, AS 2.0 looks pretty damn good to me beyond the equipment setup. I know I've been wanting Geddon in game 1 versus quite a few matchups, and Dis-E has often been a dead card.

Zilla

07-10-2005, 03:56 PM

midnightAce

07-10-2005, 06:27 PM

Breif Intro/Summary:

Combo deck is extremely rare in my meta, because there was a period of time where a lot of people came in with StormBaseCombo.dec and everybody started packing hate, A LOT of hate. So after that rush of combos, combo players started to fear hate and naturally switched to aggro and control. Then around the time Jander started the new Landstill thread, Angel Stompy started to gain popularity, (I was the only one consistently play AS, and suddenly, different variations of AS came, all at the same time.)

While nobody had an optimised list of AS, I took a look at all of the other decks in hopes for some inspiration, old school tech or post banning brokeness, here are my findings.

Razor Golem: His particular version operated much like White Lightning (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1459). Spotting 4 Tithe and 17 Plains main, this guy consistently comes down on turn 3. The "attack does not cost to tap" is GODLY with Jitte, as it's like a beating Moat against aggro decks, and it circumvents the most popular hate for AS, Anarchy. However, upon further testing, it's not an optimal inclusion in AS based on the current setup.

Tangle Wire: Over 30% of the builds I looked at worked Tangle Wire and Armageddon into main. The problem with those builds is that there is no guarantee that Mask and Jitte will come down before the Wire, and if the other aggro deck or mirror match manage to get equipments down before you, then Tangle Wire pretty much is useless. The threat base is often diluted too much to have a consistent clock on control decks. I believe that only either Tangle Wire OR Armageddon should be in main, not both.

Manriki-Gusari: For those of you who are going, "Huh? WTF is that?"
Manriki-Gusari
2
Equipment
Oracle text: Equipped creature gets +1/+2 and has Tap: Destroy target Equipment. Equip 1
Yes, first impression says it's junk. I agree. However, this card is applicable to MY meta. Pretty much any aggro.dec who can support SoFI/Jitte is doing so, and with my Gift box approach, I dropped the Mask for this. Again, this card is very narrow, I know that, but this thing wins me mirror matchs and 90% of other aggro decks all pack equipments of one form or another.

Pteron Ghost: Again, another "WTF is this?" card.
Pteron Ghost
1W
Creature - Spirit
Oracle text: Flying
Sacrifice Pteron Ghost: Regenerate target artifact.
1/1
Two mana 1/1 flier, that pretty much keeps your equipments on the table no matter what. Deed, Disk, Vengeance, etc. Build in easion, and one crappy cost/power raitio. And the line that will get me flamed for the day: I switched out the Priests for these things.

Orim's Chant: Not as a SB card, but mainboarding it. I was impressed when I saw his matches. Chant with kicker stomps aggro decks in the face. It pretty much acted as a pseudo Time Walk. Remember that all of your creatures have evasion, you could care less if that Troll is tapped or not, since the Suntail, Ghost, and Angel will all fly over. It also has a great application against Landstill since it buys turns to deliver those final damages.

After some grusome testing, (I will tell you at the end how gruesome it is.)

//Angel Stompy Evolution Test Version 1.3

//Mana
14 Plains
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox
2 Tithe

//Creatures
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Mother of Runes
4 Silver Knight
4 Pteron Ghost
4 Exalted Angel

//Disruption
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
3 Orim's Chant

//Equipment Toolkit
3 Steelshaper's Gift
1 Manriki-Gusari
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Sword of Light and Shadow

Changes:

No matter how hard I try, I could not bring myself to cutting the Tithe completely, because at odd times, those are the best spells to get imprinted on Chrome. However, I did cut a Tomb because the deck is no longer running higher end curve spells such as P.Wave, and personally, I always seems to draw 2 Tombs early on in the game. Perhaps just luck or shuffling.

The Ghost took the spot of Priests, the Chant took the spot of P.Waves, and the Manriki-Gusari took the spot of the Mask. I also run 2 SoLS like I mentioned previously in my posts.

So far, this version is proven well in testing. It crushes aggro.dec. However, the Manriki-Gusari is not working out as well as I thought, it is TOO narrow. The version that I plan on bring to GenCon would be the above, - Manriki-Gusari, + Lightning Greaves. (Haste Angel is so sexy. :p ) It has good games against Landstill, the Chant buys time as well as improving game 1 chance against combo decks. (They wouldnt' expect to see Chant in game 1, that might just be enough element of surprise to get down game 1.)

Anarchy is proving to be a slight headache in Vial Goblin matches. I'm currently thinking about putting 3 Second Sunrise in the SB to fight against Anarchy, Wrath and Vengeance. (Most Landstill seems to run Vengeance over Disk, so Sunrise works well in that aspect.)

Here is the problem we faced during testing. (It should be in the Card Interaction Forum, but since it's extremely relevent to AS, I've decided to post it here.)

Opponent playing Landstill, no creatures on board, Humility in play. I play a Mother, equip her with SoLS and Jitte, next turn, I swing. Is she a 3/3 Pro White/Black, or a 1/1? That's my first question. Then, she hits, since the trigger ability comes from the Sword, I return an Angel, gain 3 life. Same with the Jitte, I put two charge counter on it. The next turn, I swing again, before damage goes on stack, remove two counters from the Jitte to pump, so the second question is, how big is the Mother of Ruin now? Still 1/1? or 3/3? or 5/5? or 7/7? Thanks in advance to anyone who can clear this up.

PS. Zilla's version is enduring and has weeks of solid testing behind it, if anybody is planning on playing AS in GenCon or BA2, I highly recommend AS V2.0. My version is being tested and tailored to a much more specific meta, and should be only played in an aggro heavy environment. That being said, I do reommend you guys give that 1/1 flying Ghost a try, keeping any peice of equipment on the table after a boardwipe is a nightmare for Landstill, as your next creature will pick it up and start swinging.

Eldariel

07-10-2005, 06:50 PM

Here is the problem we faced during testing. (It should be in the Card Interaction Forum, but since it's extremely relevent to AS, I've decided to post it here.)

Opponent playing Landstill, no creatures on board, Humility in play. I play a Mother, equip her with SoLS and Jitte, next turn, I swing. Is she a 3/3 Pro White/Black, or a 1/1? That's my first question. Then, she hits, since the trigger ability comes from the Sword, I return an Angel, gain 3 life. Same with the Jitte, I put two charge counter on it. The next turn, I swing again, before damage goes on stack, remove two counters from the Jitte to pump, so the second question is, how big is the Mother of Ruin now? Still 1/1? or 3/3? or 5/5? or 7/7? Thanks in advance to anyone who can clear this up.
Well, I won't swear about Jitte. I'd imagine removing Jitte-counters gives the bonus as normal, since they give the bonus the moment the ability resolves, but since the source of the ability is the Jitte, it might be applied at Jitte's time. Anyhow, for Swords, the question is of the order, in which the cards came into play. If swords came into play before Humility, Sword-effects are nullified, if they came into play after Humility, they remain unaffected. I'll have to check about Jitte with some higher-level judge though. Humility causes headache.

Solomox

07-10-2005, 07:07 PM

Any equipment equipped post-Humility CITP gives the bonus. The Jitte bonuses are applied as normal, a la Giant Growth effects.

Judges hate Humility.

As far as cutting Tithe... do it. I think the slots are far better used as actual Plains, given that control can grab some SAVAGE tempo by countering a Tithe you were counting on.

Zilla

07-10-2005, 10:33 PM

midnight:

You didn't go into your testing experiences with Chant in the main. Is it as good as you thought it might be? Are you not missing Armageddon in the main? Particularly I'm wondering how your Landstill matchup is with them isntead of 'geddon. As for Greaves, I'd almost forgotten they exist. I'll have to test that out myself.

midnightAce

07-11-2005, 01:54 AM

Chant in Landstill serves two functions.

a) While I have control of the board, I throw every Chant I draw asap in hopes of delaying their WoG and Vengeance. This often means that Landstill usually gets to stablize at 1-5 life points. Very very low life makes fetchlands very unattractive for Landstill, and they are often forced to 1 for 1 trade with a beater with equips.

b) If Chant is topdecked at a later game, I save it up and Chant out a significant beater. (I don't waste Chants to resolve 1/1s, I would usually save it up for the Angel, if not, then Silver Knight.

Overall, I feel they are solid inclusions, as I was able to steal games from Landstill simply by resolving Chants and sneak in more damage. However, post board, Pulse of the Fields will slow AS down enough that the Chant might not make a difference, then perhaps Armegedon is still a better choice. I'm haven't decided yet.

rhino408

07-11-2005, 04:38 AM

Hello,

First off GodZilla is the man on these forums, second I'm not sure why you guys dismissed Tithe. I really like the original Angel Stompy list with tweakings.

GodZilla-Do you have some sort of updated list for a more agroy Survival deck meta?

Thanks,

Rhino408

Eldariel

07-11-2005, 09:16 AM

Wouldn't Abeyance generally do a better job in those match-ups? I mean, the same card, except cantrip, so you can cast it even if you don't specifically need it. Of course, it's worse in aggro-match up, but there you'll just be imprinting or cycling it. It's still deckthinning.

GRAH

07-11-2005, 11:12 AM

The problem is this. You're running Geddon in the P. Wave slot. Without any way to consistently tutor Jitte to make up for the lack of Wave, it's not practical to run 'geddon in that slot, because weenie hordes will smash in your face. As for losing a piece of equipment once it removed, who cares? The ones that are most important to your strategy can be run as a two-of (e.g., Jitte, SoLS), thus giving you redundancy. Without a way to tutor for equipment, you're only likely to see one of any given piece anyway. Functionally speaking the two approaches are mostly identical, except that with the tutor version you're getting the equipment you want the most, when you want it.
I rarely find P. Wave useful anyway. However, I have a tendency to face either Pox, Landstill, or Solidarity, or decks whose creatures are so useless that you'd never care enough to Wave out anyway.

Maybe a single Gifts in the main...but a toolbox ends up screwing you over vs. Landstill and its many ways of fucking you over.

Zilla

07-12-2005, 06:19 AM

I rarely find P. Wave useful anyway. However, I have a tendency to face either Pox, Landstill, or Solidarity, or decks whose creatures are so useless that you'd never care enough to Wave out anyway.
We've had this conversation before, but I'll point out again that there's a fairly high likelihood that you don't find P. Wave useful because you're not using it correctly. The matchup in which I miss Wave the very most is Landstill. This is because Wrath of God, Disk, and Vengeance become the loss of one attack phase as opposed to my entire board. It's a pretty decent way to dodge Pox as well. Wave is not an offensive tool. It is a defensive one. Start using it as such and you might find it to be much more useful than you think.

GRAH

07-12-2005, 11:12 AM

Oh, I understand how good it is. We had this conversation. A while back, in fact. But that's not the point.

Anyway, Geddon is probably better for this than Wave. I think we can afford the loss for the better matchup versus combo, which I've found to be a 90-10 matchup in their favor. Landstill can be totally blown apart by a well-timed Geddon, whereas P. Wave really isn't going to do much. Proactivity is definitely key in this deck.

That said, it could go in the SB. From your current, -4 True Believer (this has yet to truly help me vs. Solidarity) +3 Wave +1 Worship (or some extra Gifts tool, though I totally disagree) could help.

Mr.B4bYcAk3S

07-12-2005, 01:29 PM

Thou it may be off the current topic but something GRAH said a few pages back has been really irking me.

This deck can swarm out control decks.
This is the absolute last thing you would want to do against the control matchup. You would want to play out you threats one at a time, because generaly you have more threats than they answers. And if they wrath, pop the disk, deed etc. your board away, 98.9% of the time you will lose.

and now for something completely different.

//St0MpY
exalted angel x4
soltari priest x4
silver knight x4
pale curtain x4
mom x4
hound of konda x2

//NOT St0MpY
stp x4
p.wave x3
mask x2
SoFI x2
jitte x2
disenchant x3
aura of silence x1

//Mana
plains x11
ancient tomb x4
chrome mox x3
tithe x3

SB
pithing needle x4
tormods crypt x4
armageddon x4
aura of silence x3

you should be running pale curtain if there are any survival based decks in your meta.

oh and, <span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>THIS DECK CAN'T BEAT SOLIDARITY</span>, that is of course you go turn one angel without having them fow it or bounce it for 6 turns and if they dont feel like comboing out.

Silverdragon

07-12-2005, 01:57 PM

Samurai of the Pale Curtain only affects permanents so it won't do much against Survival except stopping them recurring their killed creatures.

GRAH

07-12-2005, 02:02 PM

Zilla

07-12-2005, 03:01 PM

Mr.B4bYcAk3S

07-12-2005, 05:46 PM

Silver Dragon's right. Samurai only affects permanents going to the yard from play. This means that all it's likely to shut down successfully is Frog lock. Which, in certain circumstances can be a good thing, but not nearly enough so to be running it in the main.

As for beating Solidarity, it can certainly be done; it simply requires a dedicated SB to do it. It's not easy, but I've done it plenty of times before.
first thing- i know what the pale curtain does, but its a very very good thing to have against the survial player. you under estimate the power of genesis, the last thing you want them to do is stabalize, sure frog sucks but there are other thing like recuring baloths, and sqee beats (that was a joke but still, eeewwwwwww). and besides that i'm sure you can think of other matchups when you don't want their permanents going to the yard, like the zubera matchup (again another joke), plus it sure as hell beats the shit out of suntail hawk.

oh and tell me, how do you manage to beat solidarity, or rather-how do you think you can manage to beat solidarity? A-stompy has alot of auto wins, but guess what, for solidarity a-stompy is an auto win.it's just the sad truth

Did I say that?

Quote (TheDrunkDwarf @ June 19 2005,11:19)
First, Skyhunter Skirmisher. Alot of peeps look at it 3cc cost and 1 atk, and toss it aside. However, the double-strike mechanic and the acceleration in angel stompy IMO makes it playable.

No, it doesn't. It's still a 1/1 for 3, and that's really, really weak and inefficient.

Quote
Second, Promise of Bunrei. Seems pretty powerful to me. probably sideboard, works great vs. sweeping affects like WoG. Also, it could be included MD for the same reason someone might MD pithing needle. It also prevents massive board position swings.

We're not MDing that or Needle. This isn't KBC. Promise of Bunrei is overcosted for a reactive effect. This deck always wants to be proactive.

Quote
Lastly, I was wondering what this deck can do vs your typical blue-based control deck. Since its number of threats is reduced by the inclusion of equipment, and the threats themselves are not quite as fast as goblins (with the exception of hawk), the deck seems pretty vulnerable vs. counterspells, etc. The only SB inclusion I could think of would be defense grid, and a first turn grid via mox or tomb would be nice, but its pretty unlikly to happen...

You're really stuck in t2 with your tech. Defense Grid? Ew.

This deck can swarm out control decks. A single equipped beater can be game over.

and to quote GRAH yet again.

You do typically want to beat down with 2-3 equipped sticks.

nope only 1 does it. and if they wrath/disk away more than one thats what you call card advantage, and typicaly thats a bad thing for your opponent to have...

And now for something completly different...

http://x3.putfile.com/7/19215570367.jpg

i got my 19 in team slayer

midnightAce

07-12-2005, 07:53 PM

I will reply as objectively as possible despite Mr.B4bYcAk3S's second rate sarcasm.

@Your list:

You have one Aura main, what matchup does that improves significantly to deserve to waste a slot on? You run 11 Plains but only 3 Tithe and needs WW on the second turn EVEN MORE SO than all of the previous AS list, could you explain how you were able to pull off the mana consistency there?

SB
pithing needle x4
tormods crypt x4
armageddon x4
aura of silence x3

oh and, THIS DECK CAN'T BEAT SOLIDARITY, that is of course you go turn one angel without having them fow it or bounce it for 6 turns and if they dont feel like comboing out.

Of course it can't beat Solidarity if you don't try. You, for a fact, knows that Solidarity is the deck's weak matchup, yet, you run no SB cards to at least TRY to beat the deck. If you just want to roll over and die to combo.dec, that's your own concern. Last time I played Magic, other players told me SB is used to improve my bad matchups, not just throw a bunch of "tech" cards together and look pretty. It's clear that your list is devoted to fight in a SotF environment, but if you need to devote your close to your ENTIRE SB plan to fight off some SotF deck, then I don't think you are playing the deck right.

first thing- i know what the pale curtain does, but its a very very good thing to have against the survial player. you under estimate the power of genesis, the last thing you want them to do is stabalize, sure frog sucks but there are other thing like recuring baloths, and sqee beats (that was a joke but still, eeewwwwwww). and besides that i'm sure you can think of other matchups when you don't want their permanents going to the yard, like the zubera matchup (again another joke), plus it sure as hell beats the shit out of suntail hawk.

I hate repeating myself.
a) Suntail is an intergrated party of the deck's curve, but seeing how you have the ability to rip off WW from 11 Plains conssistently while cutting down Tithe, this whole curve concept probably does not apply to you.
b) Suntail vs. SotP? Sure, Suntail says I do damage by flying over Baloth, or chump it for one turn. (Relevent to your meta, since it's suppose to be filled with SotF of all forms.) SotP says... I... chump for one turn and remove myself from the grave. 'Nuff said.
c) SotP removes your own creatures from the grave, it might not be relevent to your list, but it is relevent to mine. SoLS recursion is a strong concept and should not be dismissed without testing for yourself first. Your Angels, while big and sexy, is not Godly and they do die often. FTK + Sharpshooter, Silklashspider, or the new one, (my favourite) Arashi, the Sky Asunder, Counterspell, FoW, Anarchy, Wrath, Disk, Vengeance, Deed, etc etc.
Ex.
You are in topdeck mode. You have a creature out with Mask of Memory, you managed to swing with it twice successfully, your draws might be relevent, but can you really say that you are confident that the next 4 cards you draw contains a beater? You can't, but with SoLS, whatever creature that is in your grave is your new library. They got Genesis/Baloth? You got SoLS/Angel.

oh and tell me, how do you manage to beat solidarity, or rather-how do you think you can manage to beat solidarity?

That's just down right insulting. It's like saying that all Aggro.dec prebanning had no chance vs. Dragon.dec, that simply is not the case. Like I said, you devoted NO SB slots to even ATTEMPT to fight Solidarity, you should auto lose. A combination of True Beliver/Rule of Law can sometimes be enough to stop Solidarity. My version has Orim's Chant mainboard, post board, I swap StP for Glow Rider, 2 SoLS and 2 Silver Knight for 4 True Believer. Six mana Evacuation hurts, then in response to their High Tide, you Chant your hand away. If the meta is truely infested with Solidarity, I wouldn't even hesitate to put 4 Gaea's Blessings in SB. I don't care if it's off colour, if it means I can beat Solidarity in a Solidarity infested meta by SB in 12 cards, I will, because it means I probably win the tournement, it's that simple.

nope only 1 does it. and if they wrath/disk away more than one thats what you call card advantage, and typicaly thats a bad thing for your opponent to have...

They do run spot removals, aka StP. Oh, by the way, with only 8 evasion creatures, recuring manland chumps all day long until they decide to hard cast x number of 4/4 Angel tokens to beat you down. Doesn't recurring your Angel from your grave sound good right now?

Carlos El Salvador

07-12-2005, 08:00 PM

A few things:
1) Anti-solidarity SB:
4 Rule of Law
4 Ivory Mask
4 True Beleiver
3 other cards

Those are twelve cards, but it is possably this decks' worse matchup.

Another thing I wanna bring up is the fact that people are not using enlightened tutor in this deck. I find that bizzare as all hell. Yes, it's not redundent, but it can make up for it by fetching things you need.

Possable targets I've seen in the deck
Chrome mox... (Yeah, move on.)
Jitte
SoFI
Wave
Ivory Mask
Rule of Law
other equips

Yeah, guess what, that makes the slight disadvantage better in the end due to card selection. And here are a couple ways to beat solidarity
1: Rule of law + True Beleiver with SoFI: This requires the solidarity deck at least 3 turns to get all this crap out of the way.
2: Speed. This one is probibly the worse
3: Rule of Law + Ivory mask + True beleiver
4: Money bribe.

Zilla

07-12-2005, 08:07 PM

oh and tell me, how do you manage to beat solidarity, or rather-how do you think you can manage to beat solidarity? A-stompy has alot of auto wins, but guess what, for solidarity a-stompy is an auto win.it's just the sad truth
I triple dog dare you to read the thread you're posting in. The Solidarity matchup is obviously of concern, and you might be surprised to learn that several solutions to the matchup have been discussed here, within the last couple of pages in fact. Educate yourself.

With regards to Samurai: if they had evasion I'd agree with you. Since they don't, I don't. I've tested them in the maindeck and they simply harm your non-Survival matchup too much to be worthwhile. Evasive threats are absolutely key to the deck's proper function, and Samurai ain't that. In certain metas I can see it as an SB choice against Survival and other decks that abuse the yard. In certain metas I could even see maindecking him (read: all Survival), but not in an "optimal" meta consisting of the majority of the upper tier.

Another thing I wanna bring up is the fact that people are not using enlightened tutor in this deck. I find that bizzare as all hell. Yes, it's not redundent, but it can make up for it by fetching things you need.
It's not a matter of redundancy, it's a matter of card disadvantage and tempo loss, which E. Tutor is. Every time I've tested it in A. Stompy I'm disappointed with it for these reasons. The only place I miss it is the Solidarity matchup, where you can use it to search for Rule of Law. In every other matchup, I'd rather have Steelshaper's Gift, because it's not card disadvantage.

GRAH

07-13-2005, 12:10 AM

You do typically want to beat down with 2-3 equipped sticks.

nope only 1 does it. and if they wrath/disk away more than one thats what you call card advantage, and typicaly thats a bad thing for your opponent to have...
Except if you go in with only one, you're going to be way too slow. 3 implies 2x of something like Suntail Hawk and/or Mom.

Geddon is definitely an ace in the hole vs. Solidarity.

I so wish there was a white Parallax Tide. :(

I still disagree with Zilla's Gifts toolbox. I'm running

1 Isamaru
3 Mask of Memory
2 SoFnI
2 Jitte

instead.

midnightAce

07-13-2005, 02:08 AM

Well, one build relies on toolbox strategy and the other build relies on the good old redundency, I personally accept both as two branches of general AS archtype. Which one to play largely depends on meta as well as personal comfortability with each builds.

The most significant difference in the two builds, IMO, is not the inclusion of Gifts. Rather, it is the removal of Mask and the addition of SoLS. The version running Mask is running on sheer raw card draw, where as the SoLS version is relying on recursion. The former suffers more from boardwipe, (Often needs to top deck more), and the latter suffers more from grave hate. (Splash damage from SotF hates.) They both have disadvantages, so choose wisely and testing throughly before bringing to a big tournement with a established meta game. Don't dismiss either versions, they both got month and month of testing under their bellies, I do intend to T4/T8 some tournements with my list.

Mr.B4bYcAk3S

07-13-2005, 10:15 AM

You have one Aura main, what matchup does that improves significantly to deserve to waste a slot on? You run 11 Plains but only 3 Tithe and needs WW on the second turn EVEN MORE SO than all of the previous AS list, could you explain how you were able to pull off the mana consistency there?

um...um...any opponent who plays artifacts and enchantments, mainly solitair. and besides it helps the feng-shui of the side board configuration. maybe i'm just a lucksack cause i don't have any problem getting ww (mabye i'll swap the aura for a plains or tithe, just in case karma catches up to me.)

Of course it can't beat Solidarity if you don't try. You, for a fact, knows that Solidarity is the deck's weak matchup, yet, you run no SB cards to at least TRY to beat the deck. If you just want to roll over and die to combo.dec, that's your own concern. Last time I played Magic, other players told me SB is used to improve my bad matchups, not just throw a bunch of "tech" cards together and look pretty. It's clear that your list is devoted to fight in a SotF environment, but if you need to devote your close to your ENTIRE SB plan to fight off some SotF deck, then I don't think you are playing the deck right.

I'm not saying its imposible im just saying this auto loses to solidarity game one , and no matter crap you filled up your side board with, solidarity with beat you game two, all they got to do is bounce your rule of law and combo out.

my meta consists of landstill, Macguyver, some random crap ben lucas (forceofwill) plays, solitair,solidarity-in that order.

if i do end up playing solidarity ill board in arrmagedon and hope they dont draw FoW.

They do run spot removals, aka StP. Oh, by the way, with only 8 evasion creatures, recuring manland chumps all day long until they decide to hard cast x number of 4/4 Angel tokens to beat you down. Doesn't recurring your Angel from your grave sound good right now?

you run spot removal also, aka StP. Oh, by the way SotPC stops recuring manland chumps all day long. hmmmm... an x number of 4/4 angel tokens, sounds scary if only this deck had some sort of enchantment, maybe one that removed creatures from the game, ooh, ooh, and it used fading counters, stupid R&D for never making such a card.

With regards to Samurai: if they had evasion I'd agree with you. Since they don't, I don't. I've tested them in the maindeck and they simply harm your non-Survival matchup too much to be worthwhile. Evasive threats are absolutely key to the deck's proper function, and Samurai ain't that. In certain metas I can see it as an SB choice against Survival and other decks that abuse the yard. In certain metas I could even see maindecking him (read: all Survival), but not in an "optimal" meta consisting of the majority of the upper tier.

does silver knight have evasion, no. then why is it in the MD, because it helps you sligh match ups.
does pale curtain have evasion, no. then why is it in the MD, because it helps your SotF match ups, which are much more prominent than sligh.

Except if you go in with only one, you're going to be way too slow. 3 implies 2x of something like Suntail Hawk and/or Mom.

speed doesn't matter, its not like your trying to race the landstill player. id like to see the look on you face when they wrath/disk away your board, leaving you with an empty hand.

Geddon is definitely an ace in the hole vs. Solidarity.

thank you for thins useful peice of knowledge.

ps-this http://www.sighost.us/members/comic/mkr14.jpeg really freaks me out. it sorta reminds me of wacko-jacko.

GRAH

07-13-2005, 11:05 AM

Ace: I'd say the most significant difference is the lack of redundancy but (slightly) increased reliability in equipment.

I'd prefer the redundancy, especially vs. Landstill. SoLnS doesn't seem worth it to me.

midnightAce

07-13-2005, 03:14 PM

I will address SotP and Landstill matchup first, then Solidarity.

SotP is a meta game call made by you. I have no first hand expeerience testing in a SotF filled environment. The only testing that I have done is in my meta which contains 40% aggro, 40% control and 20% combo. I believe it's a fine call in the right meta, but does not deserve any spots in general AS builds.

As for the point of Silver Knights not having evasion yet the list contains him. Well, that's easy. Short of StP, the common removals in this format are: FTK, Lavamencer, Bolt, Pyroclasm, Sharpshooter, Gempalm Incinerator, etc... mostly red. Having Pro Red really shines there, the first strike interacts well with Jitte counters, and the field of red critters means the Silver Knight charges right through. If for some bizzare reason that Necktie and Bone Shredder sees more play, Terror and Dark Banish sees more play, then the Silver Knight can come out to be replaced by White Knight, but the point remains that red is a dominent colour in the current meta. Red, as a whole colour, have trouble dealing with Silver Knight, not just Sligh archtypes. Everything from Kird Ape to Piledriver have headaches over this guy.

Playing this deck against Landstill, (either list), is pretty much a game of math. You hold back as much as humanly (hand size allowing, of course) possible. But you need to have enough damage on the board to pressure the Landstill player as well. That damage count, sometimes is capable of being delivered via one creature with equipment, sometimes not. There is no "fixed" plays against Landstill, if that creature was a Mother of Ruin with a Mask of Memory, of course AS player will be forced to play additional creatures. If that creature was a face up Angel with SoFI, then of course you hold back as much as possible. It comes down to specifics, and there is no point in argueing the creature count. Grah was simply pointing out that in most general cases, 2-3 critters are prefered, often with MoR backing up to further eliminate Landstill's option of StP.

With regards to Solidarity, the SB options are there, you can look at them for yourself. It is true that Solidarity will most likely roll over AS in game 1, that's why various mainboard options, (Orim's Chant and Armegedon) are being worked into the mainboard list. No deck has perfect matchups against everything. If here on The Source we managed to a build a deck with strong matchups against every other deck type, we all would be going to BAII with our SuperPerfection.dec.

You can flame me all you want, but here are the facts stated by you:

a) Solidarity rolls over AS in game one.
b) Things like Rule of Law is not enough SB.
c) This deck simply does not beat Solidarity.

Okay, we get that. This forum exists for a reason, to improve a deck's weak matchups and make it more viable in a general or specific meta, and to test variations to the mainboard list to draw up a most general acceptable deck list. So far you haven't done much. You put SotP in the mainboard in hopes of stopping SotF, that's not anything new, it was discussed in the first 10 pages of the thread.

If you are playing casually, you can run whatever you like. If you are playing for ratings and tournement prices, then you look at the meta game. From what you described, AS doesn't seem to be a suitable deck for your meta, then don't run it. If you truely love the deck and wants to T4 with it in a meta that is full of weak matchups, then help improve the deck, offer suggestions, offer testing satistics, offer play strategies. I honestly don't see the constructiveness of this:

THIS DECK CAN'T BEAT SOLIDARITY

PS: If Zilla and the Mods think this is too much, then feel free to delete my rant at the end. But this is how I feel, and I know some of you feel this way too. The forum was designed to help a deck, not whine about its weak matchups.

Now onto something actually constructive:

Chant in Landstill serves two functions.

a) While I have control of the board, I throw every Chant I draw asap in hopes of delaying their WoG and Vengeance. This often means that Landstill usually gets to stablize at 1-5 life points. Very very low life makes fetchlands very unattractive for Landstill, and they are often forced to 1 for 1 trade with a beater with equips.

b) If Chant is topdecked at a later game, I save it up and Chant out a significant beater. (I don't waste Chants to resolve 1/1s, I would usually save it up for the Angel, if not, then Silver Knight.

Overall, I feel they are solid inclusions, as I was able to steal games from Landstill simply by resolving Chants and sneak in more damage. However, post board, Pulse of the Fields will slow AS down enough that the Chant might not make a difference, then perhaps Armegedon is still a better choice. I'm haven't decided yet.

This is my experience with testing Chant mainboard that Zilla asked for. I quote it here in case it got lost in the sea of debates.

As you can see, Geddon often outshines Chant in late post SB games vs. Landstill. Pulse of the Field is a huge problem, because per every Angel swing, the life total difference it creates is 8, with such a huge life difference, Landstill can abuse Pulse to the max of its potentials. Of course, I'm not saying that Angel is bad, but I am saying that Pulse is one troublesome card, and the only way to prevent Pulse from slow down AS would be to kill off Landstill's lands. However, with no form of disruption whatsoever, it's hard to force through a Geddon. It is also unlikely that AS can cast multiple Geddons... so this is really a headache. One of my friend suggested Boseiju, Who Shelters All, I rejected it right off the back. It's too situational, (only for Geddon), Wasteland-able, and worst of all, it comes in tapped. How does everybody feels about their Landstill matchup? Is everybody able to push through Geddon regularly? If so, then perhaps I need to seriously take a look at my playing methods. Thanks for any feed backs in advance.

Zilla

07-13-2005, 04:08 PM

I'm not saying its imposible im just saying this auto loses to solidarity game one , and no matter crap you filled up your side board with, solidarity with beat you game two, all they got to do is bounce your rule of law and combo out.
If you make one more post about the Solidarity matchup without reading the last few pages of this thread first, it's getting deleted. There's thorough discussion there about how to gear the deck to beat Solidarity. Feel free to add to it, but ignorance of it is unacceptable.

Mr.B4bYcAk3S

07-13-2005, 06:44 PM

Um, yeah. That was stupid. I'm not even sure what you were aiming at.

Enjoy your banning.

Peter_Rotten

t3h.sWaRm

07-22-2005, 01:15 PM

Hey guys, I was wondering how the Gifted AS does against U/W Fish? Does Standstill ever prevent a problem for the deck? It seems like a race to get an active Jitte because most or both deck's creature can be killed by it. Also, how have the SoLS been doing for you guys? I'm not sure if 2 is too many but I have never used the card so I can't be sure how good they are in this deck.

midnightAce

07-22-2005, 03:34 PM

I have tested more against UR Fish varients than UW, simply because that's what being played more in my meta. Things like Lavamencer and Fire/Ice got nothing on this deck. :D

Against UW, there is a lot of cards that's a hard call for Mage. Things like StP, Jitte, or even SoFI are common components for both of the deck. They are also the strongest control element of both decks. If FIsh/Gro varients keep peaking up, it is entirely possible to tweak the mainboard again to fit in Wave to slow down the opposing deck's flier slaughter. As for speed, as long as you are willing to tap those Tombs to pay for those Daze and such, you can stay ahead in the race. Essentially you have 5 Jittes in your deck, multiple mainboard Disenchant effects. Worst comes worst, that equipment that kills eqiupments could be brought in as your super secret tech answer. (I have done it on many occasions. 3/4 first strike Silver Knight is nothing to laugh about, especially when I turn it sideways, I can kill any equipment of my choice.) If the Mage comes down and calls Gifts, I usually go all offensive, forcing Fish to block, coupled with some StP, the Mage should die relatively fast. Even without Gifts, chance of drawing 1-2 equipments on its own is still relatively high.

SoLS shines both in Landstill as well as Fish matchups. Most UW Fish builds I have tested against supports very little in the department of spot creature removal. Other than StP, there is virtually nothing else played. Which means a SoLSed creature can pretty much go all the way. Once SoLS is active, I cast my Angels without fear... over and over again.

If you are having problem with Fish varients, PM me some deck lists, and I will test it for you. The problem with testing against Fish is that there is about 409832409328 builds out there, and some innovative decks does pose some threats, but I have no solid list to test against. So you could either PM me lists that I'll test for you, or you can post individual cards that you seem to have problem with, and we can work from there.

Ace

Eldariel

07-22-2005, 07:08 PM

On the matter of Enlightened Tutor, I find it an interesting option, actually. Jitte should quickly make up for any lost card advantage in aggro-match and a single Rule in the main would make Solidarity so much better + the ability to fetch Aura of Silence/Seal of Cleansing would help Landstill, Enchantress and Survival quite a lot. It also allows for silver bullet sb like single Worship, Wave, Scrabbling Claw, etc.

Zilla

07-22-2005, 07:43 PM

One would think... except every time I test it, it sucks. Try it yourself and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's slow, it hurts your tempo, and it's card disadvantage, in a deck that's already very very tight on each of those things.

t3h.sWaRm

07-25-2005, 12:43 AM

Zilla or anyone else that plays Gifted AS, how often do you search for a Jitte only for it to be countered? This happens to me quite often and I can almost never find another Gift or Jitte in time. Another Steelshaper's Gifts seems like it would benefit the deck but I'm not sure if its worth it or what to take out for it. Do you guys ever think about adding another Gift? If so, what would you take out? I was thinking -1 Disenchant but they can be extremely helpful in some matchups.

Zilla

07-26-2005, 04:32 PM

Against decks packing counters, the equipment I'm usually looking for isn't Jitte. Jitte is strong in the aggro matchup more than the control matchup. Against control, I'd rather have Sword of Light and Shadow or even Mask of Memory in most cases. The point is moot though, I guess. Control will always be able to counter important threats. I don't think the 4th Gifts is necessary to combat this problem. As a matter of fact, I think the better way to beat control is with more threats (actual creatures) in the deck, not more ways to get equipment. The only way to win against decks like Landstill is to always be able to play another threat after the last one gets removed. It's a war of atrition. The more threats you have, the better you'll do. If I dropped a Disenchant for anything in the Gifts build, it would probably be an Isamaru.

Anonymous

07-30-2005, 12:34 PM

Has anyone tested Cataclysm in Angel Stompy? It seems pretty good because its pretty much a combination Disk, Geddon.
To most decks Cataclysm with a decent threat out usually means game over.

midnightAce

07-30-2005, 05:14 PM

I haven't done any testing on it yet, but I think it was mentioned at the earlier pages of the thread and deemed too situational.

To fully abuse Cataclysm, you'll need:
a) creature with evasion
b) a peice of equipment
d) no Crucible on the other side of the table
e) Tithe or Plains in hand to AT LEAST ensure 2 drops later on
f) opponent not playing White... StP ruins your entire plan, by a lot...
g) opposing deck not running creature/equipment set up like yours...
h) opposing fatty is smaller than your equiped critter...

Well, may be not that extreme, but you get the idea. Cataclysm requires a pretty nice setup on the board to be the "I WIN" card, but chances are, if you have a nice setup on the board, you are already in a "I WIN" situation. Personally, I think it's a win-more card.

Borg

07-30-2005, 09:14 PM

I haven't had the time to read through these 25 pages but I take it that the Decklist in the opening post is the most current one.

I understand that the Flying ability is important on the Suntail Hawk/Lantern Kami for the reasons you mentioned
but have you considered replacing one of them or maybe Isamaru with a Bushi Tenderfoot.
Tenderfoot has no evasion by himself, but you actually are seeking for some contact with this guy so you can flip him.

Potentially this is a very serious beatstick :
3/4 with Bushido 2 , double strike, add a Sword of Fire and Ice to him and he becomes insanely big ...... and all this for 1 white mana :;):

GRAH

07-30-2005, 10:21 PM

Tenderfoot is awful because it's a 1/1 for W that needs to kill something for anything special to happen, and it's really hard for it to kill anything.

As for Cataclysm, I agree with all that Ace said.

Borg

07-31-2005, 04:47 AM

t3h.sWaRm

07-31-2005, 05:01 AM

This may be a dumb question but I can't find the answer. If a 1/1 blocks Bushi Tenderfoot, does it get to flip before it dies?

Eldariel

07-31-2005, 05:09 AM

Tenderfoot is awful because it's a 1/1 for W that needs to kill something for anything special to happen, and it's really hard for it to kill anything.
Equipped with a Sword of Fire and Ice it may not be so difficult to kill anything as you make it sound.

Equipped with a SoFaI your opponent is put in a difficult spot.
Do you allow Tenderfoot to go in unblocked, thus not triggering his "flip" ? But that means you take potentially 5 damage and the SoFaI triggers giving the Tenderfoot the opportunity to kill a Creature and arrange his flip anyway.

If you decide to block Tenderfoot your blocker better have 4+ Toughness or you may trigger his flip as well.
Add Mom into the equasion to give Tenderfoot protection for the attack and you can see that this is a very dangerous creature to deal with even when he's still a 1/1.

When he's flipped he really becomes huge .... and is a must block every turn or he'll end the game quickly, which might pave the way for your other attackers.
7 Damage hit potentially is nothing to sneeze at. That's Verdant Force range.
Yes, but a smart player won't block him with 1-toughness creature. Since the deck lacks Shining Shoal, you have no way of saving him when he's outmatched. He's basically a 1/1 evasion for 1, but the evasion is conditional, unlike that of Soltari Foot Soldier or Suntail Hawk. Unless you're able to fit Shining Shoal, he isn't really worth the trouble. If you do include Shoal, your opponent will let him through out of fear, or even worse for him, block, get the blocker Shoaled and see Kenzo, The Hardhearted. However, as I said, without Shoal, he isn't worth it.

Swarm: The flip-ability triggers after combat damage, so Bushi is long dead before flipping if he fights a 1/1

GRAH

07-31-2005, 09:48 AM

There's no "if you include Shoal," and Tenderfoot is bad even with it. It's still open up to removal of all sorts, and unless you can somehow trick your opponent into blocking the Tenderfoot equipped with the SoFnI, it's never going to flip. And in a deck without combat tricks, I'd like to see you try.

kirdape3

07-31-2005, 11:02 AM

midnightAce

07-31-2005, 04:46 PM

Wait.

ANY creature with a Sword of Fire and Ice on it is automatically pretty damn silly. Why bother making the rest of the cards in your deck suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck to take advantage of the one guy with double strike (that isn't Skyhunter Skirmisher) that you might ever see?

Quoted for truth.

Let me address some of the points in detail.

@Shoal
With exception of Angel, the deck doens't run ED or any other high casting creatures. Wave and/or Geddon is needed against Fish/Gro/Landstill decks, much too valueble to remove for a couple of points of damage. In essense, Shoal doesn't improve any of the deck's match ups that are already awsome. (ie. Goblins... Silver Knight + Jitte > Red.dec) If you are adding Shoal for the purpose to flipping a Tenderfoot, then that's a serious waste of slot.

@Tenderfoot
While the double strike aspect of it is alluring, let's take a closer look.

A) Equipment Activation

Equipped with a SoFaI your opponent is put in a difficult spot.

With the exception of Jitte, all the other equipment triggers when you hit the player. With this deck, you do NOT want to give them the option of choice. With Suntail, you have guaranteed SoFI activation the moment you hit, (Note: most "Fish" are blue... pro blue...) not giving your opponent the choice of chumping it for a turn while they drew more answers.

B) Creature Quality
Top deck a Suntail, you might get a few points across before they draw a removal. Top deck a Tenderfoot after a Disk/Deed, etc, well, not much there. Once it is flipped, it is Legendary, which makes the subsequent Tenderfoot terrible cards.
Looking at current meta trend, a rise in popularity of Gro, Werebear is Gro's earliest heavy hitter to come online. A hefty 4/4 after threshold, a SoFIed Tenderfoot can't smash through that. If you argue Mother of Ruin will offer protection, then you just turned this deck into a poor three peice combo deck. Landstill will trade Factory for Tenderfoot w/ SoFI, you don't get to flip either. 90% of other green aggro decks runs Troll, regenerative blocker is something we don't want to see. A Suntail in all these situations are better choices than the Tenderfoot.

C) Verstility
With Gro comes Fish, with Fish comes cheap fliers and their own Jittes and SoFI. While AS is aggro control, there are times that the deck too, has to play defensively. Having cheap fliers that comes down on turn 1 as oppose to turn 4 gains a lot of advantages.

D) Consistency
Despite popular belief, there are times where the deck plays out the whole game with NO EQUIPMENTS on the board. In those instances, Tenderfoot is about as terrible as they come.

@Isamaru
Isamaru is a solid one drop that gives AS another answer to first turn Lackey, at no card loss. This guy is solid because you can't Mogg Fanatic him or Gempalm Incinerator him on turn 2, which slows down Goblins immensely. Late game, it's a decent top deck, capable of trading with attacking Factory. (Pro Artifact was never something that Mother of Ruin was good at.) By playing one of him, the whole Legendary drawback is also eliminated.