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Right now I'm 1-1 at my Wednesday night legacy... With a bye lol. Lost to Miracles. Man that match up is just impossibly difficult. I just have no way to beat entreat. Game 1 I had liliana and Garruk out and won. I just think Liliana is one of the better cards in this deck.
Ended up 2-1-1 in the Swiss. Beat Tezzeret control to be able to draw into the top 8. He basically played a bunch of artifacts that locked me out for a few turns, crucible with wasteland to take out 2 of my 3 groves, an ensnaring bridge with no cards in hand, a chalice at 1, and a smokestacks at 1. Naturally I rip deed and crack it for 4. Game 2 I drew my singleton SB Ancient Grudge and just annihilate. It actually made me feel bad. I got all the sick rips.
Then I beat a Jund Zombie list built to abuse Vengevine. Very awesome list that I would love to get from him. But Deed does work. G2 I drew my singletons Extirpate and Surgical. Deed wrecks so many decks. I think I want a 4th one in my SB.
My big issue was UW Miracles. I just cannot beat Entreat for any number. At one point I Lily ultimate and had Garruk out and the game was still in doubt despite him only having jace and a top. Just a tough match up I guess. Anyone got sweet anti entreat tech?
Also finally got to use Garruk Primal Hunter tonight a few times. Amazing. 3/3 every turn and then refill the hand? Sweet. I tried out a one of Punishing Fire and Grove in the SB. Only used it once.
Also I will be putting Wickerbough Elder back into the deck. Just a few random times I wished that I had him.
@Megadeus:
Gaddock Teeg should be your main card against U/W Miracles. Also, try the Ifh-Biff Efreet. Raking Canopy is also very hard to answer card for U/W Miracles, but it may be hard to find without Rector or intuition/gifts.
@Planeswalkers
I really don't think that planeswalkers are good right now, unless they are Karn or anything else with very high loyalty. Flash creatures are everywhere (Snapcaster, Vendilion Clique, EOT Entreat's) and they just beat planeswalkers. Also, lightning bolts are everywhere. The meta is not right for planeswalkers right now imo. I would cut those for cards that interact at instant speed. One of the cards I'm currently testing is a singleton Chord of Calling. That card has a lot of utility in this deck. I won't bother listing out every interaction, but Chord of Calling for Eternal Witness, bring back Chord of Calling, chump block with Eternal Witness can provide a bunch of value right there. It's kind of nice to have a GSZ that goes to the graveyard and works at instant speed.
@Academy Rector price
I bought 4 foil Academy Rectors on top of the 4 regular ones I have, which I plan on trading away. I had been looking for the foil version for a long while but nobody seems to have it and the price was already rising. It's an Urza's Destiny rare, which is already hard to come by. When I compare it to foil Mother of Runes (also reprinted as FNM foil), the current price for Academy Rector seems low even though Mother of Runes is much more of a staple. Rare versus uncommon and EDH playability are important factors imo. Rector was already slowly climbing due to the fact that it's an old foil casual / edh staple. The Pattern of Rebirth deck also plays it. This is one of those cards that I really wanted to trade for, but it took me so long to find it that I eventually just bought it out when I had the chance. I don't feel like catching up the way I did with with foil Grim Monolith. It also gives me an incentive to play around with rector versions, so hopefully I can provide some good insights into the build in the future :) (for reference, I paid 55usd each including shipping/transaction, the cheapest alternative was 1 for 55 euro, and 4 for 240 euro on MCM both excluding shipping/transaction).
@Megadeus -- Miracles seems like it would be particularly rough for the PFire version that you run. As Bruizar noted, other versions have some weapons that they can bring to bear, but the red lists can definitely have some issues. What does your sideboard look like currently?
I also agree with Bruizar that most planeswalkers are bad right now. Elspeth and Primal Hunter are exceptions, I feel -- they have beefy enough loyalty that they can take a hit from a Clique or a Bolt, and they clog up the ground so Snaps can't get through. PFire's synergy with Liliana notwithstanding, you might want to trim out the Lilys for the moment, or at least relegate them to the sideboard. The meta isn't right.
I don't recommend Teeg since you aren't in white at all, but Ifh-Biff is worth a shot in the matchup. Otherwise, you pretty much have to lean on your extraction effects. Always call Top when on the play with Therapy. If they land a Top anyway, wait for them to activate Top, then Extirpate literally anything in their graveyard to force them to shuffle their deck. Cranial naming Entreat. Etc.
@Rector price -- I definitely agree that the price increase was due to happen eventually, but I think that the primary reason is because of the printing of Omniscience. Everyone suspects that there is something to be broken there, so I have a feeling that's the reason for the sharp increase in their non-foil price. Foils I think have been creeping up slowly for a while due to the reasons Bruizar already suggested, and I just didn't notice. Guess I should prioritize getting my jap foils while I can -.-
In other news, Caleb Durward has continued brewing on his end. He took the BUG list that I sent to Caffrey and made some changes:
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
2 Island
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Baleful Strix
2 Coiling Oracle
3 Shardless Agent
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
//Sideboard
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Counterbalance
1 Darkblast
1 Engineered Plague
2 Negate
1 Thragtusk
1 Umezawa's Jitte
I sorted the list for your viewing pleasure. I feel like it's an interesting take on the non-Gifts BUG list, but I'm not sure that the tradeoff for running Shardless (not running GSZ) is worth it. Shardless main does up the blue count high enough for maindeck Force of Will, which is pretty hot. However, looking at the list, I feel like it doesn't have enough ways to actually end the game. Sure, it'll drown the opponent in cards, but somewhere in those cards there has to be a way to actually win. I'd probably try to find a way to put in a pair of Thragtusks main, and lean on them+Sphinx+Jace+Clique+2/2 beats. That still isn't an "impressive" wincon, but it's probably "enough" considering the card advantage. While I agree that 3 Witnesses is a little extreme, there's no way 0 Witness can be right. I'd try to get a pair of those back in as well, probably in place of the misguided spot removal options. That also makes it more likely that cascade will go into something you always want. I guess there are times you want to flip a removal spell, but it seems poor most of the time...especially with Mother of Runes' prevalence in the format
I also vehemently disagree that Fierce Empath should just be "another titan." The strength of Empath is that it allows for Green Sun to fetch the strongest 6-drops, which are traditionally NOT green. If you substitute Empath with another Titan, you have another 6-drop, which can clog your hand, and you have effectively 3 6-drops in deck. With Empath, you have effectively 7 6-drops in deck, thanks to Green Sun. I fail to see how this is better ever, and I wish that Caleb still checked the thread as he used to periodically. Maybe I'll give him a poke in the comments on his article.
If anyone wants to read it, here's the relevant article -- http://www.channelfireball.com/home/...nce-of-shards/
@Bruizar -- Chord of Calling is interesting. How has it been in testing so far, as far as castability goes? I have no doubt that if you resolve it, it's amazing. But I worry about its mana intensity.
RE: Entreat
In my (limited) experience against miracles the way to deal w entreat is to stick a deed and sit on it. They won't cast entreat as long as there is a deed on board. They don't have many other threats, so you can wait on it. Thragtusk also does good work. His cc is pretty good vs counterbalance (just FoW) and the token survives terminus.
I'm not sure yet. One interesting interaction that comes up is that I can fetch my 1 off dryad arbor and use it for convoke, essentially disregarding the summoning sickness of arbor so it taps for mana. It's also nice that I can theoretically ramp with Eternal Witness over multiple turns, even if I don't hit lands because of this sequence:Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Chord of Calling x=3 -> Eternal Witness, grab Chord of Calling
Chord of Calling x=4 (convoke witness) Eternal Witness#2, Grab Chord of Calling
Chord of Calling x=5 ... etc.
I understand this is going to be way too slow most of the time, but sometimes when you really need to, you can set up enough convoke to get the correct creature the next turn.
Another great thing is that you can find non-green creatures with it, such as Phantasmal Image/Palinchron (yes, 10 mana), Academy Rector or even Baneslayer Angel depending on the list you are playing. It grabs sideboard Meddling Mages too, though you should already have some hate before that time or you're going to be in troubles.
Another very cool application, more so for the intuition/gifts builds than for other builds, is the fact that you can use it end of turn. If they resolve a Jace, just EOT get a creature and kill it immediately before he takes over the game.
I'm not sure if the mana cost is going to make this card unplayable yet, but I feel like the Convoke ability and Eternal Witness are two factors contributing to its success the most.
The problem with this is that Sneak Attack is in no way vulnerable to Pridemage. When they land Sneak, they'll win unless they're a horrible player. I've tested against Sneak Show almost to the point of obsession, and its very, very rare that a Sneak will just sit out for you to ping.Quote:
The big thing Pridemage kills for me is Sneak Attack honestly. That ends the game out of nowhere and is too high CC for deed. The rest im not worried about. But putting it in the SB seems fine since people are starting to eschew sneak now or might.
Ooze is great in theory, but he's a massive mana sink for not a lot of board impact. You can marginally shrink Goyfs/Knights (remember, you're a 3 color deck and we can't afford to fetch all duals), but meanwhile you still have to deal with the self-pumping Knights and Goyfs crashing on your dome while you're busy eating lands in the graveyard. Ooze is good against RUG, but by the time you get him online you've taken 9-12 damage from Delver and have Goyf or Mongoose still crashing your castle - good luck spending GGG to try and shrink a mongoose and still win.Quote:
I would never cut ooze unless my meta was full of tendrils and such. He is great against RUG, Maverick, Dredge, Reanimator. Even against Stoneblade he can turn off snapcaster or just get big. And even if my meta was full of tendrils this deck would not be good at all. Having an ooze to green sun for is just amazing.
Spending massive amounts of mana to clear out a graveyard to "turn off" 4 cards out of the deck isn't the best plan. It's still a 2/1 that will kill your Ooze who hasn't eaten any creatures.
That's right, something is wrong. With the meta. There are not many situations now where an Ooze is truly the best play you want, and if you're the beat down role then searching up vanilla 2/2's isn't going to get you there, especially since there's probably no creatures to eat from the control deck. Or if you're searching it against combo, then, well, Ooze was a timewalk for your opponent. I deleted your analogy to save you some face.Quote:
Scavenging Ooze: If you aren't searching him up main deck something is wrong. I search him up all the time. He is the go to low cc aggro creature. GSZ for 1-3 doesn't get any better. ... What else are you going to do with 3 mana when you are on the beatdown or facing no threats? Play witness into an empty GY?
I say this stuff out of experience and testing. Overall, our deck is more than well enough equipped (Deeds, Pulses, Titans) to deal with situations where Ooze was tangentially applicable until we can get our game-ending bombs online. However, he's a very strong card still so I keep him in the sideboard for matches where he is applicable.
------
I used to play x1 Chord of Calling for the same reasons, being able to search out off-color creatures, but eventually cut it. It was phenomenal with Deranged Hermit (yay convoke), but overall was too expensive for mediocre effects. I loved the fact you could do it instantly, which saved me in a game, but it also lost me my top 8 RUG match where I needed a top deck, drew it, and couldn't cast it.
I've been reworking the deck, so it may be worth another shot.
@Arianrhod
Would you mind sharing your latest rector build with us?
I'm playing 1 scavenging ooze in my rector build and it's been awsome. Early in the game it's a decent beater and late game it can eat graveyards like no one else. The most interesting part is that he can win very tough matchups like reanimator. ( wich is heavily represented in my meta)Quote:
Originally Posted by Claymore
I love the Ifh-Biff Efreet tech, LED into scavenge yay.. Who knows.
Further more I expect Chord of Calling to be more of a staple in the return to ravnice cycle. Populate tells us that there will be quite some tokens.. I keep an eye out for just that. Then tokens will transform from cannin fodder to mana ramp with the chord of calling.
On paper much to mana intensive though chord of calling allows for neat interactions with Aven Mind Censor or true believer. It has potential for sure so great find
@Chord of Calling
In that regards, Lingering Souls / Intuition / Chord of Calling is also something to keep in mind.
Oops, sorry. I was going to do it last night and I completely forgot =(
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
3x Academy Rector
1x ThragTUSK
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
2x Baneslayer Angel
1x Sun Titan
1x Yosei, the Morning Star
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Moat
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Faith's Fetters
1x Recurring Nightmare
3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Vindicate
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Bayou
2x Savannah
1x Scrubland
3x Forest
3x Plains
2x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
2x Phyrexian Tower
//SB
3x Extirpate
3x Carpet of Flowers
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Memoricide
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Darkblast
1x Nether Void
1x Raking Canopy
1x Humility
1x Curse of Death's Hold
This is what I played at my local Tuesday night. I like the Ooze in the board currently. I don't like the two Darkblasts particularly, but I'm not sure what else I want. I THINK I want a pair of sweepers that are not named Pernicious Deed, but I'm not sure what option I want to use, and I'm not sure that's what the deck needs at this juncture anyway.
As mentioned previously, I could see +1 Sakura-Tribe or -1 Sakura-Tribe. Since I don't think I'll be able to open up one more slot main for the 3rd, I suspect it'll be -1 Sakura-Tribe, which leaves the last spot as a hopefully soon to exist GSZ-able sac outlet that does not cost mana to sac. Or something with Scavenge. Or who knows what. I'll probably be leaving it at 2 for the moment....my opinion might change by Ravnica, and there's nothing else I really want to put in at the moment.
Note that putting the 3rd in would be preferable. I just don't know what I'd cut to make room =|
@Arianrhod
Thank you for the list. As a newbie I have a few questions.
How usefull is the Fierce Empath since you run only 2 six drops and the are in the right colour. Will the info to your opponent not make them keep counters?
I read some comments about Swords to Plowshares but don't you miss it. I even considered running 2 of them.
I added one ooze main but still not sure how usefull it is maybe the extra sakura is better?
My current SB
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
1 Humility
1 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Memoricide
1 Choke
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Raking Canopy
I was actually starting to think of a deck very similar to this. I too question the removal of GSZ for the value of shardless agent, but I'll try it. I also agree with both you and Caleb that this version needs an I win button, and further I am not sure about the clique in there. I'd like to make a version like this, but take out the agents and run GSZ + empath, and also make sure to up the blue count enough to support FOW,. What about Keiga, the Tide Star as anti SNT tech (also seems good in the mirror), chumps and steals kotr, large goyfs, grizzy, wurmcoil engine, emrakul (even gets past anihilator--sort of)Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
In other news:
I dabbled a little in Kung Fu's BGw list on MWS last night. Got clobbered by show and breach (o_o), enchantress (o_O?) and pox (O_O?). Apparently Leyline of the void shuts off every meaningful interaction we have, and sinkhole can target basic lands. Who knew?
@Cire_DK
Empath is the shit. His purpose is to make my non-green 6-drops Green Sun-able. Having a go-between so that when you draw a Green Sun and can grab a 6-drop is awesome. I DO think that at SOME point in the future he'll get cut, as the 5-drops Wizards is printing continue to evolve to be better and better. After testing without Empath/Titan/Yosei, however, I feel we're not there yet. I'm not worried about the information. Usually my opponent is out of answers by the time a 6-drop happens, and if they aren't, they will be afterward.
I'm not quite as anti-Ooze as Claymore is, but I'm close. I think that the correct place for him in a tricolor Nic Fit deck is in the sideboard. There's too many matchups where he's just marginal at best. I fully grant that he's a good card -- but he's a good card for Maverick more than anything else because they have an abundance of green mana to pump into him. Straight G/B Nic Fit loves him, too. But tricolor....I can find better things to do most of the time. I'll grant that he's an amazing sideboard card, but I won't go beyond that.
I had a 1-of Swords in the main deck for a very, very long time, and it was "okay." I wouldn't rank it more than that, though. The deck wants more powerful effects as opposed to more efficient effects. I'd rather blow up the world with Deed as opposed to remove one creature with Swords....especially with the prevalence of Mother of Runes, Mongoose, and so on.
For your board, I'd definitely recommend switching to all Extirpate as opposed to Surigcal. Split second is hugely relevant in the matchups you'll bring it in vs (Miracles and Sneak/Show/Omni, Reanimator). Otherwise it seems fine. Whether or not you have more discard in the board is largely a personal choice. I have both had more discard and not had more discard at various points in the history of the deck...right now I'm not feeling it, but that's always open to change. Some of it depends on your local meta, too.
@All -- is anyone going to SCG MN? I seem to remember a few people talking about it a while back. If you're going, what version are you running, what do you expect, etc. Let's get some discussion going for those people so they can be as prepared as possible.
What do you people think about this card:
Korozda Guildmage
Creature - Elf Shaman
(3cmc): Target creature gets +1/+1 and gains intimidate until end of turn.
(4CMC), Sacrifice a nontoken creature: Put X 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens onto the battlefield, where X is the sacrificed creature's toughness.
unblockable for planeswalkers / extra sac outlet / token'mana ramp'generation
I guess I'm still on the boat that this is a green sun control deck. Ooze is a green sun target that can hate the graveyard, just like despite how bad he is wickerbough elder is our green sun enchantment and artifact hate. My meta is full of fair decks and a lot of creature strategies where him getting big, and gaining life is very relevant. Plus resolving an Ooze against Dredge on T2 or 3 against dredge they just can't win.
The problem with the guildmage is that his abilities are freaking expensive. 2BG to sac a creature is painful...especially when most of the creatures we'd want to sac (ie Rector and Explorer) are 1/1s or 1/2s, so we'd barely get any value out of that. You'd be spending 6 mana to give something Intimidate for a turn after GSZ the Guildmage out, or 7 mana to sacrifice something. That's way too spicy. And if you let him sit there for a turn and then play a Rector, it'll just get Sworded in resp.Quote:
Originally Posted by KMS
No, we are still a GSZ control deck. But you have to be intelligent with your choices, is all. I don't run a Qasali or a Wickerbough main, although for major events I've been running a Harmonic Sliver in my board for a while. There just isn't enough stuff that we want to kill anymore. Sure, there are corner cases where we want it -- but then why not run Ichneumon Druid maindeck? What about Ifh-Biff? Or Willow Satyr? There's tons of stuff we can run in almost every category imaginable for GSZ, that can all fulfill separate roles. That doesn't mean we need to run all of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
For what it's worth, I think that the PFire build is one of the few tricolors that actually wants an Ooze maindeck. Grove gives you a lot of extra green sources that you wouldn't have otherwise.
@Arianrhod Caleb zinged you pretty good in the comments. :laugh:
@Durward's latest blue list: Huge fan of your work, started playing the straight GB list as an alternative to Maverick when everyone else at my local shop started playing the same list. The best part is the fact that there are so many opportunities to interact with my opponent, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling every time I drop a Deed and wipe away someone's entire board.
Question: why does a deck splashing blue have to run 4x Force of Will? Why not just splash it for awesome value guys like Baleful Strix and Coiling Oracle?