GingaNinja77
07-13-2014, 12:12 AM
I have been working on the deck on and off for the better part of 3 months trying to find the most optimized version. The decklist below is what I believe to be the best, with the exception of the mana base, collection of 60 cards that I have tested thus far. The deck has been testing very well, having positive match ups against just about every fair deck in the format. Against almost every non-combo deck, with the exception of lands, I have observed an approximately 60/40 win percentage both pre and post-board. What this deck is doing a lot of others can't keep up with, between the creatures, all the removal, the equipment and planeswalkers most fair decks get buried in advantages of almost every kind. The deck is very hard to tempo out, to the point where I consider every delver deck excluding UR very good match ups. The only decks that I feel at a very clear disadvantage is against any sort of combo deck game 1, Lands, and Burn.
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savannah
3 Taiga
1 Bayou
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Wasteland
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Prophetic Flamespeaker
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Sylvan Library
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Punishing Fire
Manabase:
On the manabase, I don't know if the deck is actually interested in the card Plateau. I have omitted it from the current build, though have played it in previous iterations and the exclusion or inclusion of the card hasn't changed anything perceptively enough for me to notice. I have loved the 2 Wastelands and they have been very valuable pieces of utility. From killing random Glacial Chasms and stopping Karakas shenanigans it has proved very useful. This deck plays Wasteland a lot similarly to something like Shardless BUG or Deathblade, in that you can't wasteland aggressively a lot of the time since you are trying to play a longer grindy game. 3 Grove of the Burnwillows has been fine and I haven't had any desire to change the number, and haven't wanted to change much in the mana base as a whole, though I do think it is the most unrefined part of the deck.
Creatures:
4 Deathrite Shaman-Everyone should realize its power level by now, is it ambitious to add it to the deck? Probably. Is it worth it? Most Definitely.
4 Wild Nacatl-Nacatl has been a fine card, it basically functions as the decks Delver of Secrets. In testing the deck has reminded me a lot of BUG devler, Nacatl gives you the tools to play a short game if need be. It has helped me to steal games against storm, high tide, and burn game 1, though Nacatl's main purpose is to function as a lightning rod for the other creatures. While Nacatl doesn't dodge True-name Nemesis, it does allow you to play under it to an extent. There have been games where I got enough early damage in against Deathblade to allow for me to burn him out with punishing fires a couple turns later. While Nacatl is far from the best 1 drop in the format, it is a critical roleplayer in the deck.
3 Qasali Pridemage-Pridemage has always been a fine card, it's almost never great, but it's almost always fine, which is the main reason I found room for 4 copies in the 75. It is a very flexible card and allows the deck to cheat sideboarding to an extent, as you already have a solid card for other stoneforge mystic decks in the main. At best the card is killing a Batterskull or Sneak Attack, and at worse it's a 2/2 that can pump the Flamespeaker. The card is instrumental in the gameplan versus TNN in game 1, if you can deal with the equipment True-Name is a Vendilion Clique that can block well. The card is a very flexible and critical card to making the deck work at peak level, even if its inherent power level is lacking.
4 Stoneforge Mystic-Do I really need to explain the inclusion of this card? Moving on.
4 Prophetic Flamespeaker-This is the one that is bound to raise some eyebrows. The card is very powerful, what is probably holding it back form becoming a Legacy and Modern staple is the fear of lightning bolt, and the mana cost is not always what you want to be doing in legacy. Let me tell you upfront, the card is insane. It is very good, when it connects you effectively draw 2 cards, when it connects wearing a Jitte or sword, the game is all but over. The problem that the creature has is that it has to deal damage to a player in combat to trigger. This is alleviated to an extent with the inclusion of the equipment package. Jitte makes trading up, or eating a Tarmogoyf very possible, you just attack, they block. First strike damage happens, get 2 counters, pump twice, and you might even trample over to get a free card out of the exchange. It doesn't really get around TNN very well, but that is what Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Sword of Fire and Ice are for. Elspeth is a particularly potent card at getting around TNN, as it allows 1 of your creatures to take to the skies and pressures the TNN to attack, opening up the window for more creatures to get in. And if he connects while wearing a SOFI, you are effectively draw 2 cards, on top of actually drawing 2, and dealing 6+ potentially up to 4 damage. The card is very good and I feel like its application in both Modern and Legacy has been largely unexplored.
Removal Spells:
4 Lightning Bolt-Pretty straightforward, it kills almost everything and you can always send it upstairs.
4 Swords To Plowshares-Again, kills almost everything, and hits stuff like Tarmogoyf, and in a pinch can be pointed at your creatures for the life gain in the most dire of situations.
4 Punishing Fire-One of the main reasons I wanted to play red, and to a certain extent green. Card advantage engines that effect the board are usually some of the most powerful, and Punishing fire is exactly that. It does a great job at polishing off planeswalkers, and in the most grindy of affairs you can always work toward burning someone out with it. If anyone has ever seen Jund winning then they probably already know the power of the card.
Other Spells:
1 Sylvan Library-I think this card is criminally underplayed. It is a Sensei's Divining Top that actaully allows you to draw cards, instead of just filter. Paired with Batterskull the card is particularly potent as it allows you to draw a lot of extra cards per turn, and it does a great job at setting up ideal flips for the Prophetic Flamespeaker, and Flamespeaker also helps a lot at clearing the top 3 so you can see even more cards.
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant-Our trump card in the BGx match up as well as miracles. Jund has a really hard time if you can just shit out a bunch of guys and Elspeth really just allows you to take over games in those match ups. Planeswalkers are also a great way to combat miracles, they can deal with creatures really well but have a tough time answering a resolved walker. The +3/+3 and flying ability is great at forcing through some damage and really pressures opponents to act in a stalemate.
1 Batterskull, 1 Umezawa's Jitte, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice-These have been the go-to equipment for awhile now, there isn't much room to explain these cards that hasn't already been said. Sword of Fire and Ice is very good, it draws you cards, always great, and clocks the opponent and contains the board reasonably well. The protection colors are also very relevant and pushing through a TNN that has decided to play the role of Moat for the opponent. I have found that I have been searching for SOFI a lot more than the other 2 since the upside if you get it online is generally much higher. It contains the board just as well as jitte at times, and helps clock the opponent and draws cards, something the other equipment don't allow.
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rest in Peace
1 Sylvan Library
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Council's Judgment
Sideboard:
With the sideboard I wanted as much hate for combo, that also had utility in other match ups, which is for the reason for the 3/1 split of Gaddock Teeg and Ethersworn Canonist. I also never try to build a sideboard without enough graveyard and dredge hate. Ratchet Bomb and Enlightened Tutor qualify as enough hate that I feel like the dredge match up is very good post-board, as bomb sweeps up zombies and the tutor finds the actual graveyard hate. The only combo match up that feel particularly weak is Reanimator and Sneak/Show. Luckily those decks see no play in my area so I'm fine with the strategy of dodge those match ups but it is a concern that will have to be addressed at a more open field. On another note I excluded Red Elemental Blast from the sideboard for a couple reasons. 1, this deck can't really play a reactive game at all, the deck really wants to be using all its mana each turn if possible. There are only a few blue spells the deck cares about, Show and Tell, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and True-Name Nemesis. For show and tell, they probably have a counterspell of their own and holding up a red blast can sometimes stifle your pressure significantly. For TNN, Council's Judgment is just a more flexible card, it even answers another blue problem card, Jace, very effectively. For the rest of the sideboard, Sword of Feast and Famine, is good against combo, goyf, and control decks. Sylvan Library is just very good, and I wanted access to the 4th Pridemage in a lot of games. Teeg is very good against storm, and is also good against miracles, which is why it is a 3 of compared to the 1 Canonist. Pithing Needle is just a very flexible card and Ratchet Bomb is almost always a reasonable card in a lot of match ups. I chose to play the 1 Enlightened Tutor mainly because I wanted access to more graveyard hate but wanted something more flexible, from there it was a fairly easy inclusion when I considered the card.
In conclusion I feel like the deck is in a vey good place, though sideboards always need work. The deck is very good, and it allows for very flexible gameplans, you cam shift from the aggressor to the control role and back to aggro almost seamlessly and very well. I would love to get some more seasoned, and just overall better deck builders working on the deck, I'm not a great, or even very good deck builder as it is so I feel if others better than myself started working with this it could become a very solid tier 2, hopefully even tier 1/1.5 strategy.
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savannah
3 Taiga
1 Bayou
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Wasteland
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Prophetic Flamespeaker
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Sylvan Library
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Punishing Fire
Manabase:
On the manabase, I don't know if the deck is actually interested in the card Plateau. I have omitted it from the current build, though have played it in previous iterations and the exclusion or inclusion of the card hasn't changed anything perceptively enough for me to notice. I have loved the 2 Wastelands and they have been very valuable pieces of utility. From killing random Glacial Chasms and stopping Karakas shenanigans it has proved very useful. This deck plays Wasteland a lot similarly to something like Shardless BUG or Deathblade, in that you can't wasteland aggressively a lot of the time since you are trying to play a longer grindy game. 3 Grove of the Burnwillows has been fine and I haven't had any desire to change the number, and haven't wanted to change much in the mana base as a whole, though I do think it is the most unrefined part of the deck.
Creatures:
4 Deathrite Shaman-Everyone should realize its power level by now, is it ambitious to add it to the deck? Probably. Is it worth it? Most Definitely.
4 Wild Nacatl-Nacatl has been a fine card, it basically functions as the decks Delver of Secrets. In testing the deck has reminded me a lot of BUG devler, Nacatl gives you the tools to play a short game if need be. It has helped me to steal games against storm, high tide, and burn game 1, though Nacatl's main purpose is to function as a lightning rod for the other creatures. While Nacatl doesn't dodge True-name Nemesis, it does allow you to play under it to an extent. There have been games where I got enough early damage in against Deathblade to allow for me to burn him out with punishing fires a couple turns later. While Nacatl is far from the best 1 drop in the format, it is a critical roleplayer in the deck.
3 Qasali Pridemage-Pridemage has always been a fine card, it's almost never great, but it's almost always fine, which is the main reason I found room for 4 copies in the 75. It is a very flexible card and allows the deck to cheat sideboarding to an extent, as you already have a solid card for other stoneforge mystic decks in the main. At best the card is killing a Batterskull or Sneak Attack, and at worse it's a 2/2 that can pump the Flamespeaker. The card is instrumental in the gameplan versus TNN in game 1, if you can deal with the equipment True-Name is a Vendilion Clique that can block well. The card is a very flexible and critical card to making the deck work at peak level, even if its inherent power level is lacking.
4 Stoneforge Mystic-Do I really need to explain the inclusion of this card? Moving on.
4 Prophetic Flamespeaker-This is the one that is bound to raise some eyebrows. The card is very powerful, what is probably holding it back form becoming a Legacy and Modern staple is the fear of lightning bolt, and the mana cost is not always what you want to be doing in legacy. Let me tell you upfront, the card is insane. It is very good, when it connects you effectively draw 2 cards, when it connects wearing a Jitte or sword, the game is all but over. The problem that the creature has is that it has to deal damage to a player in combat to trigger. This is alleviated to an extent with the inclusion of the equipment package. Jitte makes trading up, or eating a Tarmogoyf very possible, you just attack, they block. First strike damage happens, get 2 counters, pump twice, and you might even trample over to get a free card out of the exchange. It doesn't really get around TNN very well, but that is what Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Sword of Fire and Ice are for. Elspeth is a particularly potent card at getting around TNN, as it allows 1 of your creatures to take to the skies and pressures the TNN to attack, opening up the window for more creatures to get in. And if he connects while wearing a SOFI, you are effectively draw 2 cards, on top of actually drawing 2, and dealing 6+ potentially up to 4 damage. The card is very good and I feel like its application in both Modern and Legacy has been largely unexplored.
Removal Spells:
4 Lightning Bolt-Pretty straightforward, it kills almost everything and you can always send it upstairs.
4 Swords To Plowshares-Again, kills almost everything, and hits stuff like Tarmogoyf, and in a pinch can be pointed at your creatures for the life gain in the most dire of situations.
4 Punishing Fire-One of the main reasons I wanted to play red, and to a certain extent green. Card advantage engines that effect the board are usually some of the most powerful, and Punishing fire is exactly that. It does a great job at polishing off planeswalkers, and in the most grindy of affairs you can always work toward burning someone out with it. If anyone has ever seen Jund winning then they probably already know the power of the card.
Other Spells:
1 Sylvan Library-I think this card is criminally underplayed. It is a Sensei's Divining Top that actaully allows you to draw cards, instead of just filter. Paired with Batterskull the card is particularly potent as it allows you to draw a lot of extra cards per turn, and it does a great job at setting up ideal flips for the Prophetic Flamespeaker, and Flamespeaker also helps a lot at clearing the top 3 so you can see even more cards.
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant-Our trump card in the BGx match up as well as miracles. Jund has a really hard time if you can just shit out a bunch of guys and Elspeth really just allows you to take over games in those match ups. Planeswalkers are also a great way to combat miracles, they can deal with creatures really well but have a tough time answering a resolved walker. The +3/+3 and flying ability is great at forcing through some damage and really pressures opponents to act in a stalemate.
1 Batterskull, 1 Umezawa's Jitte, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice-These have been the go-to equipment for awhile now, there isn't much room to explain these cards that hasn't already been said. Sword of Fire and Ice is very good, it draws you cards, always great, and clocks the opponent and contains the board reasonably well. The protection colors are also very relevant and pushing through a TNN that has decided to play the role of Moat for the opponent. I have found that I have been searching for SOFI a lot more than the other 2 since the upside if you get it online is generally much higher. It contains the board just as well as jitte at times, and helps clock the opponent and draws cards, something the other equipment don't allow.
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rest in Peace
1 Sylvan Library
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Council's Judgment
Sideboard:
With the sideboard I wanted as much hate for combo, that also had utility in other match ups, which is for the reason for the 3/1 split of Gaddock Teeg and Ethersworn Canonist. I also never try to build a sideboard without enough graveyard and dredge hate. Ratchet Bomb and Enlightened Tutor qualify as enough hate that I feel like the dredge match up is very good post-board, as bomb sweeps up zombies and the tutor finds the actual graveyard hate. The only combo match up that feel particularly weak is Reanimator and Sneak/Show. Luckily those decks see no play in my area so I'm fine with the strategy of dodge those match ups but it is a concern that will have to be addressed at a more open field. On another note I excluded Red Elemental Blast from the sideboard for a couple reasons. 1, this deck can't really play a reactive game at all, the deck really wants to be using all its mana each turn if possible. There are only a few blue spells the deck cares about, Show and Tell, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and True-Name Nemesis. For show and tell, they probably have a counterspell of their own and holding up a red blast can sometimes stifle your pressure significantly. For TNN, Council's Judgment is just a more flexible card, it even answers another blue problem card, Jace, very effectively. For the rest of the sideboard, Sword of Feast and Famine, is good against combo, goyf, and control decks. Sylvan Library is just very good, and I wanted access to the 4th Pridemage in a lot of games. Teeg is very good against storm, and is also good against miracles, which is why it is a 3 of compared to the 1 Canonist. Pithing Needle is just a very flexible card and Ratchet Bomb is almost always a reasonable card in a lot of match ups. I chose to play the 1 Enlightened Tutor mainly because I wanted access to more graveyard hate but wanted something more flexible, from there it was a fairly easy inclusion when I considered the card.
In conclusion I feel like the deck is in a vey good place, though sideboards always need work. The deck is very good, and it allows for very flexible gameplans, you cam shift from the aggressor to the control role and back to aggro almost seamlessly and very well. I would love to get some more seasoned, and just overall better deck builders working on the deck, I'm not a great, or even very good deck builder as it is so I feel if others better than myself started working with this it could become a very solid tier 2, hopefully even tier 1/1.5 strategy.