can someone explain to me why rhox war monk is even in the deck?
Printable View
can someone explain to me why rhox war monk is even in the deck?
There are way too many Thresh threads. I am playing UGwb Baseruption, and I'm not sure where to post about it, so forgive me if this is out of place.
So far some number of Coatl greater than two has been good. The question on my mind, though, is should I run four or make room for another utility creature or two? I don't like playing only two snakes, so I can't just cut two of them. And the rest of the main deck is pretty tight already.
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
3-4x Lorescale Coatl
0-2x Sower of Temptation*/Trygon Predator/Vendilion Clique(?) I guess this would be the metagame slot?
2x Vedalken Shackles
0-1x Krosan Grip(?)
2x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Counterbalance
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
4x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
3x Tundra
2x Island
So I guess some explanations: I was simply playing UGW Thresh before I switched to this build, and I kept noticing the lack of any kind of card advantage. I added black solely for Dark Confidant and have been pleased greatly by it. The synergy with top is insane. It also helps you dig into more cantrips to grow your Coatl, and the black mana lets you blow more stuff up with your post-sideboard Explosives! IMO, the black splash is the way to go.
*Sower of Temptation: This is a card about which I am on the fence. Sometimes it is just a blowout, but other times it is just a timewalk for your opponent when they Snuff Out/Swords/Infinite Creature Removal it. Does it even have a place in the deck anymore since we've already got Shackles?
They're a big body for three mana that is great for racing and makes many games versus decks that rely on swinging with goyf or small dorks almost unwinnable when they come down with a hierarch on the second turn and are protected with a few counters or a CB. They're obviously very nice against burn and zoo as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by sauce
On more than a few occasions, I have ignored a punched through a goyf/tombstalker that got on the table and proceeded to gain five life a turn and whenever I connected make a ten point swing.
Maybe I am missing something else, but that answer seemed pretty obvious to me.
As a player in some ways "new" to the archetype, I'm atm testing different builds to taste with which I feel more comfortable. FInished my swiss turn on sunday's tournament, I was spying other's game, and saw an interesting list, which I asked the player to see. Here's the list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
4 windswept heath
3 flooded strand
3 tundra
3 tropical island
1 plains
1 forest
4 island
4 noble hierarch
2 kitchen finks
2 vendilion clique
2 rhox war monk
1 jenara, asura of war
3 qasali pridemage
3 lorescale coatl
4 force of will
4 brainstorm
3 counterbalance
4 swords to plowshares
3 sensei's divining top
2 engineered explosives
2 umezawa's jitte
2 vedalken shackles
Side:
2 ethersworn canonist
1 gaddock teeg
2 blue elemental blast
1 hydroblast
2 path to exile
2 tormod's crypt
2 relic of progenitus
1 engineered explosives
2 krosan grip
The deck has obviously some things that do not work (19 lands + hierarch is too much, the cc2 curve is not at all covered, the side has to be re-arranged, jenara sucks, i want a full set of counterbalance, etc.). I've made some changes to the list (+1 oring +1 etutor +1 trinket mage +1 cb -1 lands), and some others are still to test. Some points to underline on this interesting (ihmo) conception of the deck. Also, it resemble more of what in these days it's called bant aggro/aggrocontrol, and in some ways the deck is concieved to have a positive Mu against "classic" threshold.
Hierarch is a card about which I have mixed feelings. If it comes down on turn 1, and accelerates into a t2 monk, it's absolutely insane. However, if it doesn't come down on t1, it's almost useless, so maybe those 3 slots better serve as a ponder or another beater.
The deck has no tarmogoyf!!! Besides the first negative impression a thing like this may cause, there are few words i want to spend in addiction to DIF and Tacosnape.
Thresh players (and not only them) love tarmogoyf for its advantageous cost/power ratio. A cc2 creature that can come in play as a very huge creature is something everybody dream, and tarmogoyf realizes that dream. However, tarmogoyf has an annoying "serra avenger-like effect": if it comes down on t2-3 it's usually no more than a 2/3-3/4 (the latest option being very respectable, the first being no more than a elvish warrior). Coatl can come down t3 as a 2/2 and can grow larger at a decent speed. Obviously tarmo has a point in early game: comes down as a beater and leaves an open mana to manage with cantrip/counterbalance as well. On the other hand, tarmo is a decent target for an early spell snare, while coatl obviously doesn't. Again tarmo can apply a lot of pressure on t4, while coatl simply doesn't if not helped by some exalted guy. Yet coatl grows independently from the grave, while tarmo can stay a 3/4 for the rest of the game (does not happen too often, truth be told).
It is well known what are the strenghts of tarmo over coatl. People simply tend to "forget" the obvious weakness. I premise that whit this topic I aboslutely don't want to state that tarmo is better that coatl in any case, or the contrary. I simply like to advance a difference perspective to which coatl can be seen as another anti-tarmo, and that he sucks while paired with him, while he simply can (must?) replace tarmo and helps us to build a deck against the most used creature of the format. The list i've posted is inf act conceived as a aggrocontrol deck which tends to smooth the cc2 curve in favour of the cc3 curve, abusing of the full power of engineered explosives on that curve: that means, clearing the board off tarmogoyf without losing our pressure on the board, as a single-sided wrath of god. I don't want to claim this is a revolutionary build or something else, I don't really care. I just want heading of the choir and shift the discussion to "coatl is a good card as a beater, along with tarmo?" to "coatl is a solid card by itself, that can replace tarmo in new lists intended to shift away from the cc2 curve which is one of the major fields of battle between magic players?". Discussion of the tone that "coatl sucks because we have tarmo" are repeated over and over. Just try to see things in a differente way. Maybe coatl still sucks after that.:wink:
Thanks for your comparison of Coatl and Goyf, Gustha. I think the better question is: Is Goyf better then Rhox War Monk? yes he is (you obviously stated the reasons: it's 3/4 forever). Is Goyf better then Kitchen Finks? yes he is. I can't understand why this/your list is better than a list with Goyfs. It seems like a poor man solution, and not the optimal.
I've been testing the following list:
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
3x Lorescale Coatl
2x Vendilion Clique
3x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
3x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Counterbalance
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
2x Spell Snare
2x Vindicate
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
2x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Island
1x Plains
1x Swamp
Your question is indeed misleading, as I tried to point out in the post above. Someone pointed out (maybe DIF, I don't remember) there is a difference between "mere" beaters (tarmo and coatl, in this case) and "utility" beaters (pridemage, clique, trinket mage, hierarch, trygon, confi, etc. etc.). What I was trying to underline is that people usually ask if tarmo and/or coatl are better than RWM or something else. This is not, I think, a correct question, since the only significative comparison one can state is between cards that cover a similar role. Tarmo and coatl cover a similar role since they are "mere" beaters: they have no relevant abilities but their huge bodies. That's because, I think, DIF states that coatl + tarmo sucks: we don't need 7-8 "mere" beaters: 3-4 it's just enough; then we need utility beaters that impact in some ways on the board. Imho there's no way to pair tarmo and coatl, each one excludes the other as redundant. Asking if coatl is better than RWM or others is a wrong question, since it's the same as asking if tarmo is better that RWM or others (as you did). It's misleading, since RWM is an "utility" creature, that has something to do beyond being a 3/4 all the time (i mean his lifelink ability); the same is true for clique trinket or whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elf_Ascetic
The only card we can compair coatl to is tarmo. So the only question is: is coatl better than tarmo? I don't have an answer to this question, but I am sure that, if arranged properly with some regard to the key role EE can assume in this deck, coatl CAN be better than tarmo, in the sense that it evades some countermagic usually related to tarmo, and that is cc evades some of the more often used mass removal (EE), which wipes away tarmo but usually has harder life to wipe away cc3's.
To summarize:
- threshold does not need more than 4 "mere" beaters, so coatl + tarmo will always suck, as many of you from a different point of view have already discovered;
- one can't compair tarmo or coatl to utility creatures: it's simply misleading;
- the significative questions one may pose are: is a #mere beater name# better than another #mere beater name#?; is that #utility creature name# better than the other #utility creature name#? (e.g.: is tarmo better than coatl? is qasali pridemage better than trygon predator?) It's properly a "philosophical" question.
Finally, I don't claim this list is better than those with tarmo's (not yet, at least); simply, that it provides an effective "mere beater" while trying to gain control of the cc2 curve not only via counterbalance, but also via EE, that works in most case as a single-sided wrath of god, since most of our creatures has higer cc's. At least, it shows that not only a non-graveyard-dependant threshold can be thought and built (as qasali pridemage teaches us), but even a non-goyf-dependant one.
Maybe I've been missing something, but I've always argued that Rhox War Monk was terrible. 3 mana for 3 power is slow in Legacy, and 3/4 is by no means big in Legacy. In addition, he can't be cast if you're shut off either color, and just generally doesn't do enough. Additionally, lifegain is worse in this deck than almost any other non-combo deck, as you typically want lifegain most against Zoo/Sligh/Burn/Aggroish decks, and for most of those we can just get out Countertop and shut off a large portion of the burn spells aimed at our faces.
I like Goyf, and I like Coatl. And in a deck with this much cantrippery, eight guys dedicated strictly to face beating is probably the maximum you want, so anything else I'd run maindeck would do something sneaky (Pridemage, Trygon, Meddling, Sower, etc.)
Although I understand your line of thought, I can't agree with you, Gustha. This deck has is dependant on more then four "mere" beaters. Rhox War Monk is cute (wow, I never thought I would state that anywere), but is nothing more then a "mere" beater with a conditional benefit over a card as Goyf. Apart from that, I would like to say that this decktype needs at least 6 to 7 powerhouses. Tarmogoyf is one, Coatl is the other. Goyfs become better in multiples. So do Coatls.
I agree with your seperation of utilitycreatures and beaters, but I think some assumptions have to be adapted:
First of all: Threshold needs 6-7 "mere" beaters, running less drops your consistency in beating Agro or the mirrormatch.
Secondly, Rhox War Monk is no utility creature. I don't want to go as far as Tacosnape, but I think RWM isn't very suitible for the current metagame. If you're in a meta were Sligh, Burn and Goblins are abundant, by all means, run 4 of them. But in this CounterTop-mirrormeta, I think RWM is just a 3/4 for 3 mana. And that is bad.
I do get the point. My meta changes every tournament, usually is full of gobbos, zoo and things like these (so war monk is good), last sunday was full of black based decks (RWM can be good there too). I treated it as a utility creature since I agree with you it's not nuts as a "mere" beater (a 3/4 for 3...), and so I tried to give him a reason this way. Also, finks cover the same role (in the list above), so I considered them paired with monk for a consistent life gain (and finks survive wrath/deed/explo, and it's good to have something on the table to equip jitte after a mass removal). Also, they help to recover the loss of life due to 8 fetches and the turns we employ to stabilize, like every control deck: in this sense the may be not metacall, but serve a purpose which a "mere" beater as coatl can't serve. (But maybe those 4 slots are better tarmogoyfs.) So the question raises again: it seems to me that you think coatl is clearly superior than monk, for you assume that the lifegain ability is secondary to the aims of the deck, and all in all what makes the difference for an auto-inclusion in this deck is "a matter of size". I interpreted correctly what you mean? And if I did, why there are many people who don't agree, and about what points?
Well, I believe size has its benefits. Coatl grows so absurdly fast when played right that it forms a huge threat to any deck with an empty board. Rhox War Monk is different, he is better in a metagame with burn. An argument against the Coatl is that "it's a bad topdeck". I fail to see why. If you make the correct choices while cantripping, you never have a dead draw or a bad topdeck. You always shuffle away the cards you don't need, etc. If you draw Coatl in turn 1-4, it's perfect. If you didn't find Top or can't continue the stream of cantripping after those turns, you've been playing wrong.
The build of choice depends on the meta. Here a lot of blue is seeing play, and that's the reason why I've chosen for another build then you have. I run a package of 4 Confidant en 2 Clique to gain superior cardadvantage and quality, next to 4 Goyf and 3 Coatls. More then 13 creatures in Threshold is suboptimal, I think less is even better, but I've done not enough testing to conclude that.
i think serendib efreet is better as a beater than rhox war monk. he is easier to cast, has evasion (but loses you life.)
i don't think rhox war monk is necessary, life gain is not something this deck needs.
if the bad matchup is sligh/gobs/burn, why not run aegis of honor/cop:red in the sb and just bye them.
i understand it is a metagame choice, but if youre playing vs gobs, how are you going to get 3 colors w/ wasteland/rishadan port going for the rhox war monk?
sligh should get shut down by cb/top and same w/ burn.
i would almost rather run a burrenton forge tender main than rhox war monk if my metagame was red infested.
he comes down turn1, blocks lackey and lives on, protects you from PoP and even a fat countryside crusher.
now for coatl, is he better than chlorophant? chlorophant grows by +2/+2 every turn after thresh, its a bit harder to cast, but you don't have to keep cantripping to grow him. i don't see any thresh decks running him.
i think if unanswered goyf is way quicker than coatl, so the whole conversation about coatl vs goyf is mind boggling.
goyf comes down as 2/3 or 5/6 depending on the matchup.
look @ ichorid, if they did not win on turn 2, you got a 5/6 beatstick on t2 vs a 2/2 on turn3...?
coatl almost encourages you to play bad by using your brainstorms to grow him. this is not what the deck is about. you're not the aggro, youre the control deck.
only two things i like about rwm, 3cc and he is blue. but so hard to cast, its hardly consistent and usually just a pitch to FoW in my opinion.
While Coatle encourages you to play bad, if you play good Coatl can be a very valid beater. Just play Brainstorms as usual and not "w00t it's like a Giant Growth!11"Quote:
Originally Posted by sauce
This. As long as you are just playing your deck he gets frikkin huge. You're still going to use your brainstorms while he is in play. Just use them smartly and not like some stupid combat trick.Quote:
Originally Posted by johanessen
He isn't only a Disenchant guy, he's also a good beater. Also, with that many powerful Artefacts/Enchantments out there, which can all single-handedly ruin your day, why would you not want to maximize your outs against them?Quote:
Originally Posted by johanessen
Pitching to Force of Will is a non-issue seeing how you still have a billion blue cards left in the deck. Costing three (and therewith maybe being better against Counterbalance) is an issue I addressed here.Quote:
Originally Posted by sauce
They are pretty good, however, they are also slow: a Vedalken Shackles is not going to do much against a horde of Elves/Goblins/Fish or against Goyf Sligh's burn. They are a totally valid inclusion though and I had them in previous builds (starring 19 lands, with Shackles being split with Rhox War Monk and Trinket Mage).Quote:
Originally Posted by johanessen
Ignoring the fact that against half of the decks out there playing Counterbalance on turn 2 is downright wrong (i.e. against the decks packing Daze and against those packing other sorts of permission [but no relevant clock]), and that against the other half, second turn Counterbalance is also only conditionally good (i.e. against the aggressive decks where Counterbalance turn2 is only the correct play if you have a Top/Brainstorm in hand and/or nothing else to do), having access to off-colour basics lets you win more games than it makes you loose due to not having double-blue early: being able to ignore all kinds of hate (recurring Wastelands, Blood Moon, Back to Basics etc.) and therewith create virtual card advantage against loads of decks translates into more easy wins - at the steep cost of having to be able to build/play your deck correctly.Quote:
Originally Posted by johanessen
Play Gaddock Teeg. He helps more than Meddling Mage in the matchup where you'd want any of the two: against Control he prevents Engineered Explosives, Wrath of God, Elspeth and Humility -all of which you'd want to name with Meddling Mage- at the same time. Gaddock+Counterbalance is also a sort-of-lock you're asembling more often than not against Control.Quote:
Originally Posted by johanessen
Against Combo he prevents all of their means to go off while people can play around Meddling Mage if need be.
This is simply untrue - the matchup still comes down to who gets Counterbalance down first and not much else. They don't have more tools to do so than you have, especially not with you having access to Spell Snare and Qasali Pridemage.Quote:
Originally Posted by johanessen
How is Rhox War Monk hard to cast? The only time you can't cast him (but could cast Lorescale Coatl or similar), with three lands, is if you drew your two basic Islands or three out of the four white mana sources in the deck. Not very probable. As long as you aren't facing mass-Sinkholes, manabase problems are a non-issue with this build and mainly result from insufficient experience anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by sauce
To address your other point: I don't put my builds together with any metagame in mind because such a thing does not exist in Legacy; I rather aim to have as few bad matchups as anyhow possible. That's where Rhox War Monk comes in: he greatly improves your bad matchups (which most notably are anything putting you on a clock [i.e. stuff like Goyf Sligh or Tribal Aggro]). That is a good thing, especially since your other matchups are already decent. For sure you do also already have some tools to beat the aggressive decks out there (Tarmogoyf, Swords to Plowshares, early Counterbalance+Top), however, even if you draw any combination of these (which is already only so-and-so likely due to your outs being limited), said aggressive decks/bad matchups still have good chances to win: I've seen Goyf Sligh/Goblins/Elves/etc. win through CounterTop/Goyf-spam/a-spot-removal-here-and-there (or any combination of these) often enough. However, Rhox War Monk, rids your opponent of the possibility to just sit back and amass stuff and then overwhelm you (which is how they win against Goyf-spam or CounterTop) as he allows you to stabilize and race better.
Also, he isn't terrible against anything else either: he stops most guys from attacking, creating stalls which are favourable to you - from my perspective, the longer the game goes (i.e. the longer I don't loose), the better are my chances to win due to superior deck construction/knowledge/experience (and due to Legacy players always screwing up at one point or another).
Tarmogoyf or Trinket Mage (because he stops your top-deck-mode right there by fetching a Sensei's Divining Top) or any cantrip. I'd probably prefer Qasali Pridemage in most cases too because he only takes a little longer to kill the opponent but also acts as an insurance against the random blow-out-draw of your opponent (e.g.: topdeck Vedalken Shackles, or Counterbalance, or similar) - this basically comes down to preferring utility guys over mere beaters and to play-style (see above comment on how stalls are favourable for you).Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
If a Top is involved, you're already ahead - it therewith doesn't really matter which beater you just drew. Same is true for a cantrip-heavy draw (on that behalf, do also see what I linked in that post you were responding to).Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
I'll have to disagree with this statement: in the mirror-match, Coatl is pretty irrelevant in the face of the big players (Counterbalance, Engineered Explosives, Sensei's Divining Top etc.), and even if it boils down to a creature stand-off (which it doesn't very often - creatures are just not the thing that win you the mirror), chances are that Coatl is at most going to make as big an impact as any other semi-relevant creature, (Tarmogoyf, anything with flying, Dark Confidant etc.) - he's going to eat a spot removal before doing anything relevant (especially true post-board) and/or die off Engineered Explosive splash-damage. Au contrary to aforementioned creatures, Coatl is going to give your opponent more time to find a solution though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elf_Ascetic
Against Aggro, Rhox War Monk can fully qualify as one of the 'mere beaters' you're looking for.
In 'this CounterTop-mirrormeta', you shouldn't be playing Lorescale Coatl either according to your logic - he still gets hit by Counterbalance and isn't a relevant enough clock to seriously put your Counter-Top wielding opponent under any stress (Dreadnought would be such a clock, not Coatl who takes some turns to grow to relevant sizes). Play something like Zur the Enchanter or Mystic Enforcer, Krosan Grip or fucking Ichorid. Here's why you don't do this: even if Counterbalance is the dominant strategy right now, you're not going to face it a relevant amount of times over a tournament to warrant over-metagaming against it - that is the nature of Legacy with its many viable decks and its more casual player base.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elf_Ascetic
But then again, seeing the last few posts, I probably don't have the right skill-set to play this deck anyway (i.e. the ability to always draw the right mix of cantrips and business cards + have CounterTop on-line and hitting by turn2). Also, I'm totally talking theory here.
The reason I insist to be able to land CB on turn 2 is that 10% of my meta is Combo (ANT, Iggy-Pop, mainly) where CounterBalance means games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Der_imaginäre_Freund
Anyway I finally went to your proposed mana base but playing 19 lands. 4 Flooded 4 Heath 4 Tropical 3 Tundra 2 Island 1 Plains 1 Forest
So, I did some testing with snakes and had taken out hierarchs. My creatures loked something like this:
4x goyf
3x wisecale coatl
2x RWM
4x Qasali Pridemage
1x Mystic Enforcer
I wasn't really pleased with the results. The snakes might have been okay, but over the course of six matches, mws was giving me lots of trouble in drawing or keeping a third land on the table long enough to actually play the snake. There were a few games where he got pretty big and it was pretty cool to have a 9/9 on the fifth turn, but more often than not, I was stuck growing him with my draw phase when he finally saw play because I had been using my cantrips to try to draw a fucking land.
I'm sure this is mostly a symptom of me seeing nothing, but pox or deadguy decks on mws...in about eight games, the snake could have been a clique, serendib or rmw and it wouldn't have really mattered too much. In any event though, I learned something about hierarchs and how much they help me.
They may be weak draws late in the game, but the fact that they prevent me from needing to use cantrips on land drops and also serve to ensure that I make my drops early despite wastelands and such is awesome. I also get my countertop online a turn earlier with them and they also contribute to the redzone. One damage extra damage may not seem too deadly, but with just one exalted guy out(unlikely) a 4/5 goyf turns into a four turn clock, a rwm generates a eight point life swing instead of six and does so a turn earlier.
Hierarchs might seem cute, but they help me out lots. When it comes to landing a CB a turn earlier in the mirror, ignoring an early wasteland and playing a three mana beater a turn early...plus the exalted benefit, which becomes quite cumulative with three pridemages and four hierarchs, I do not see a conditional card.
I completely understand why some people are liking snakes, but I am a person that tends to have anything that can go wrong with mana go wrong and for me, they were quite unspectacular.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Der_imaginäre_Freund
I am not comparing the RWM to the snake, I think the snake is not an optimal creature for Thresh.
Our metagame has a fair amount of Wasteland and some Stifle/Sinkhole as well. I really don't see the benefit of RWM vs my metagame's worst matchups: elves and suiblack. Elves forest walk all over the monk.
I feel like CB/top is a way better strategy to win any matchup than RWM.
You have to survive til t3 w/o giving an opponent a board that can crush you until you can land some dudes vs aggro.
Forest/Plains in the mana base prevents the plan of T2 CB which I consider key vs a lot of aggro matchups non packing Vials.
Forest/Plains is great vs decks packing Wasteland but not good vs decks packing Sinkhole as they do not help you cast spell snare or divert.
RWM comes down too late, t3 if you're lucky w/ land drops and are not playing vs daze... and even then he can just get sworded - netting you 3 life for 3 mana and a card. This seems like a poor investment to me.
There may be some, but I do not recall seeing a single fuckin' UGw CB deck that runs RWM without running hierarchs as well. Deckcheck for the win. The hierarchs are also helpful for dealing with decks that attack your manabase for obvious reasons. I know this from practical experience because the vast majority of my matches with my Bant CB/thresh deck are against Eva Green, Deadguy and pox.
RWM also comes down on the second turn more often than not and third turns are almost guaranteed(regardless of a wasteland or stifle generally) with cantrips and tops.
Really? Hmmm. I guess running both is a bad idea then?Quote:
I feel like CB/top is a way better strategy to win any matchup than RWM.
You mean Deckcheck for the lose?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mordel
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=25936
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=25041
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=24764
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=24763
And others with less than 33 players that shouldn't be cited. Or should they?
@ Mordel. From your last posts it looks to me that you have somehow same view of how to build NQGw. Could you please post your most recent list with some short reasoning for the not so obvious card choices (namely: non-Goyf, non-FoW, non-BS cards..)
Thanks a lot.