I'd to see you Debtor's Knell yourself a win vs Canadian Thresh, i.e. These are the kind of decks I'm fairly sure Tao is talking about - oh, and the monoblue splash for 4 plows main 4 paths board? That's exile your creature, 12 times.
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I'd to see you Debtor's Knell yourself a win vs Canadian Thresh, i.e. These are the kind of decks I'm fairly sure Tao is talking about - oh, and the monoblue splash for 4 plows main 4 paths board? That's exile your creature, 12 times.
Doesn't Extirpate do a pretty good job of stripping out the problem spells in a Snapcaster deck? Isn't Phyrexian Tower an excellent way of protecting against your creatures getting exiled? If that's a problem matchup in your meta, it's pretty easy to tweak to compensate. Maybe you could add in some more shroud dudes for beats.
waSP's points are excellent, though!
I think this decks needs a faster start. Garruk ist good, but you need 5 mana for it. At this time, you want to play a Gifts and just turn the boardposition in your favor.
I would'nt play much bombs.
- Recurring Nightmare
- Lilliana of the Veil
- Deed
- 1-2 big creatures (aka Titan or Yosei)
- 3 Gifts
With Kitchen Finks, Witness and maybe Rector you have enough little beats, so that big finishers are not necessary most of the time.
Instead of this cards, I would play more acceleration to keep track with Wasteland, Stifle, Daze etc.
I don't want to flashback a Threapy on Explorer just to get my Garruk or Debtor's Knell dazed.
Phyrexian Tower, Volrath Stronghold, Witness, Recurring Nightmare are enough cards to get everything returned you want to (Tower against StoP ;) ). So we don't need much bombs, but more cheaper good cards.
Thrun, the Last Troll is still a huge pain in blue player's ass.
Hey,
I've been testing this deck for quite a while now.
I think I had ca a billion builds with GB or GBw. I got to say, that I liked the versions with white a bit more because of Swords to Plowshares and good sideboard options against combo.
My actual list looks like this:
Creature [16]:
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Eternal Witness
2x Wall of Blossom
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Ghave, Guru of the Spores
1x Loxodon Hierarch
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Grave Titan
1x Sun Titan
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Spike Weaver
Enchantment [4]:
1x Recurring Nightmare
3x Pernicious Deed
Instant [6]:
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Beast Within
1x Skeletal Scrying
Sorcery [10]:
2x Maelstrom Pulse
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Cabal Therapy
Artifact [2]:
2x Sensei's Divining Top
Land [22]:
3x Windswept Heath
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Savannah
2x Bayou
2x Plains
3x Swamp
4x Forest
Sideboard:
4x Duress (No money for Thoughtseize atm)
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Gaddock Teeg
2x Diabolic Edict
2x Tormods Crypt
2x Extirpate
The MD might look a bit random but in testing it was great !
I give you some explanation on the 'weird' choices I had:
Hierarch is a huge beater and brings some life. The regeneration ability wasn't relevant yet.
I don't know if i should play 2 MD Kitchen Finks or the Hierarch/Finks split. Did someone tested with Hierarch and got any results ?
Ghave, Guru of the Spores is the latest addition. In the few games I played with him he was great ! Sadly better then Deranged Hermit which I really love :/
He brings a 5/5 body, another sacrifice outlet if you need one, pumps creatures and offers nice combat tricks.
Skeletal Scrying found its way in this list after I've read that CalebD tested it and on paper in theory and in practice this card is awesome. I started testing with 2 Scryings but cut it down to 1 right now. The reason is that you often don't want to remove that many cards when you are playing with Witness, Sun Titan and Recurring Nightmare. And often i couldn't afford to cast the 2nd Scrying even if I had it. Instant card draw (usually 3-4 cards at end of turn) gives you the gas in the late game you need to get full control of the board.
Beast Within replaces the 3rd Maelstrom Pulse. As instant it can be very useful. But 3rd Maelstrom Pulse would also be ok I guess.
Sensei's Diving Top didn't convince me yet. But I think it is a really great card and can't be kicked of the list after testing 5-6 games.
Sideboard options are obvious:
4x Duress -> Only vs combo
2x Ethersworn Canonist -> Vs Combo
1x Gaddock Teeg -> Vs Combo
2x Extirpate -> Dredge, Reanimator, 'graveyard based decks'
2x Tormods Crypt -> Dredge, Reanimator, 'graveyard based decks'
1x Thrun, the Last Troll -> Vs. 'blue based controll decks'
1x Qasali Pridemage -> Vs. annoying Enchantments/Artifacts
2x Diabolic Edict -> Show and Tell decks, NO decks, sometimes vs Reanimator but not that often
With Swords to Plowshares in the MD I don't think that additional stuff vs Aggro is needed.
I'm pretty happy with this list and the only thing I would change is the Sun Titan. Sometimes he is really great but often he just brings back an Explorer or Land which I don't need at that point of the game.
Did someone test Sun Titan and had the same feeling about this giant ?
Perhaps I am going to play this list with slightly changes at a tournament on sunday !
A short report will follow :D
@Fjedsen
Sometimes Sun Titan is indeed rather meh. Other times, though, he's bringing back Deeds or Witnesses and breaking the game clean in half. Vigilance is also surprisingly relevant sometimes. I definitely would not cut him if you're in white anyway.
Other thoughts --
Since you're running the full four Zeniths anyway, I'd suggest Fierce Empath. Some people like him, some don't -- I personally think he's great, but you should at least test him and see what you think. Enabling your zeniths to grab your titans is pretty awesome.
I've thought about Ghave several times, but I could just never bring myself to do it. Glad he's doing work for you.
Hierarch is interesting, but he seems like he'd be a little ... ehhhh. Most of the time Finks is just better for that purpose.
Why no Hymn to Tourach? It's one of the most devastating ways for this deck to remove your opponent's options -- t1 Therapy -> t2 Explorer, flashback, Hymn = your opp doesn't have a hand. Some decks can actually take advantage of the Explorer mana, so having ways of punishing them for wanting to do stuff with that mana is good (Deed is the other primary one).
Your list is a lot more Rock-based than mine is -- you have a ton more removal, for example, whereas I have Moat and Garruks (Relentless). I'd still consider a Garruk or two if you can find the room for him .. probably not the full three I'm running, though, since you don't have Rector.
The Edicts look weak in the board to me. I'd consider either Krosan Grip or even just more grave hate -- maybe Surgicals. I tend to prefer Surgical with this deck, because it shores up the High Tide matchup a bit. If only so far as you can still do things and tap out, while their Spirals draw you into Surgicals so you can still interact....or at least you feel like you can.
I'd also probably take out the 4th Verdant for a singleton Scrubland -- sometimes, it's just nice to have that color option -- Therapy + Swords is one easy example.
Skeletal is a card I've wanted to try out as well, but I feel as though it's better in a version with a little bit of a life-gain focus. Such a list would probably include other cards that I've toyed with the idea of: Bitterblossom and Greed come immediately to mind...even Phyrexian Arena. Just one is probably okay, though, and you do have Finks + Hierarch (or double Finks depending on what you decide) to recoup from the life loss.
Hmmm ... I think in my white based version of the deck will always be a Sun Titan :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Yeah Ghave is awesome. He's just too good. With enough mana (which should be on the battlefield) he can never be removed with StP, he helps pushing damage through and no other creature will be removed via StP. Give him a try ;)
Hymn is awesome. It's awkward but I always thought, that in a white based version it is too difficult to cast Hymn regularly on turn 2-3.
I first started my testing with the GB list of Tao and even in that version I had difficulties to cast Hymn. Perhaps I try this out sometimes with another GB version or GBsupersmallwhitesplash version.
In theory the start with Explorer, Therapy into Hymn is neckbreaking for your opponent but if I did the math right the chances of getting this start is about 10% per game. That's not a number I want to rely on.
Personally I like the rock version a bit more than the combo approach. It hat nothing to do with the combo version it is just fits my personal style of play way better ;)
And Garruk needs a place in there too ... It's just not enough space for such great cards :D
And thanks for your hint with the Surgical Extractions. Now I like them more than Extirpates :)
Hmm...I almost never have issues getting Hymn online t2. My first fetch/land drop is usually a Bayou (I run 3 in case of Waste/to increase chances of having them). Then usually either an Explorer is fired off from Therapy/Tower (which adds BB by itself) and I grab black for Hymn, or I fetch for a Scrub and go from there...or have a natural Swamp. I think there have been like three times in six months where I haven't been able to hit Hymn turn two -- maybe I'm just lucky.
I'm not going to do a full report on Jupiter yesterday -- I scrubbed out pretty hard. I started the event on tilt from getting a speeding ticket on the way up (when I was accelerating up a very steep hill, so I kind of needed to be speeding a little to make it up), so I knew things weren't going to go well from the start.
Round one was Past in Flames combo -- he raped me game one, I drew well out of a mull to five game 2 and double Surgicaled his Rite of Flames and his Grapeshots (he tried to Intuition for triple Rite at the end of my turn, which I know means death). Then game 3 I had Leyline out, Memoricided his Past in Flames and his Empty the Warrens, and just couldn't kill him before time ran out. Unfortunate.
Round two was Sneaky Show, which, along with Reanimator, I consider the deck's only bad matchup. Joy. Game one I flash/Therapy'd him and saw a pair of Progenituses with a active (but mana-free) Sneak Attack out -- and then proceeded to drop Moat. We durdled for a turn or two until I landed Kokusho...he then topped an Emrakul, and hit me with it. I sacced all 6 of my lands and went to 5, and then proceeded to kill him with Kokusho. Weird. Games 2 and 3 he just raped me as he's supposed to.
Round three was vs CB:Thopter...he had Cb/Top online, and then I had Sun Titan, and then he had an Ensnaring Bridge, and then I had a Pernicious Deed and a Master of the Wild Hunt. It was over pretty quick from there. Game two I Surgical'd his Sword of the Meek, and then Memoricided Jace TMS. GG.
Round four was Canadian Thresh (no Mongoose...saw Delver, Goyf, Lavamancer). Game one he had an aggro hand with Goyf and Lavamancer, accompanied by a daze or two and a bolt. I got something dazed early and then proceeded to resolve Moat. We sat there for a while...I attempted to hardcast Debtors' Knell, which sucked the Force of Will out of his hand and allowed me to resolve Yosei the next turn. I hit a few times, then he eventually found a Bolt and Bolt/Lava'd Yosei. Then I tapped him out and resolved Recurring Nightmare, and the game ended. Game two he had the Delver-go-then-counter-everything-you-do hand, which was annoying. Game three was a grinder...it lasted probably 20 turns at least...he was pinging away with a Lavamancer and sixty bazillion counterspells while I had both of my Kitchen Finks to undo his Lavamancer. Unfortunately I failed to draw anything at all relevant besides the Finks, and eventually died to a 6/7 Goyf.
Round five: reanimator. Why the hell not. I knew he was on the deck from watching one of my car play against him earlier, so I blind called Exhume on a turn one Therapy and got lucky, hitting two of them. That slowed him down enough that I managed to Rector in the Knell, which then sufficiently scared him that he had to wait several more turns to actually get a dude online -- he couldn't just Careful Study and hope to hit business/discard a dude, because then I would reanimate it instead. Sun Titan happened shortly thereafter, bringing back land after land, to go with the Deed I had on the table, just in case. Eventually he dropped a Jin, which I swung into with Explorer/Titan. He blocked the Explorer, and then I proceeded to drop Garruk and shoot it for the other 3 damage to kill Jin. He tried to go balls-deep at that point, but it was too late and I killed him. Game 2 saw him god-hand me, and game 3 I kept a shaky hand off a mull that had a land, a Top, and a pair of Therapies. I bricked my first Therapy, took a reanimation spell with the second, and then failed to draw an answer before he found a second reanimation spell.
So yeah -- being on life-tilt didn't help at all, and neither did running into both of the deck's bad matchups. To be fair, Reanimator was frelling everywhere yesterday for some reason. As for the deck -- it did stuff. I can't really complain about anything at this point. I tested out switching the maindeck Finks for an Elspeth (K-E)...it did really good work for me and definitely earned its place in the deck. Locally I might still run the Finks, since I've got two local burn decks in my meta, but for any bigger event, Elspeth is better in that slot for sure. Memoricide is amazing, and watching Bryant Cook wince as I resolved it against the PiF player round one was hilarious. I took out the pair of Krosan Grips from my sideboard for this event, and put in a 2nd Leyline of Sanctity and the Faith's Fetters instead. The 2nd Leyline I had no problem with, and I didn't miss the Grips once all day. Fetters didn't cut it for me -- when I boarded it in (SneakyShow, for example), it got Echoing Truth'd anyway. Might make that slot the 3rd Finks, or if I can find a bullet that could help against Reanimator/Emrakul, that might be useful too. I've considered things like the Abyss, Leyline of the Void, and Ground Seal -- but Seal hurts me as much as it protects me from Surgical (not that I had a problem with this all day anyway) and annoys Reanimator, Leyline does nothing to Show and Tell, and is usually expected anyway, and the Abyss does nothing to Sneak Attack or the artifact reanimator targets. I'm pretty sure that I just have to concede that those are bad matchups and focus on improving other things, like the various Thresh decks -- perhaps City of Solitude should find its way back into that spot.
So here is my report from the weekend.
It was a small tournament with 13 people and I played pretty much the same list I posted earlier (Only change: -2 Diabolic Edict, +2 Choke; Because I expected more blue-control decks than NO, Show and Tell, ...).
Decks that were played: Merfolk, BUG Counterbalance, Smallpox, UW Stoneblade, The Rock, 2x Candian Thresh or RUG Tempo, Goblins, 5cLastStand.dec, GW Maverick, Manaless Dredge, BW Discard and the last deck I don't remember.
Round 1 - 5cLastStand.dec
Game 1: I was a bit confused by his manabase: He played 1st turn Foothills, 2nd turn Tropical Island, 3rd Turn Plains.
My start wasn't that fast. As I remember it correctly I got Veteran on turn 1 and Therapy on turn 3. I see: Etched Oracle, Eternal Witness, Evasive Action, Last Stand. I flashback Therapy on Witness.
On the following turns there is some ramp action. I play some creatures. He has Deed. He uses Last Stand. I have Deed. And so one.
2 min before turns I have an Thrun, Deed and Top on the board and him on 12 or 13 life. He uses Last Stand to drop me to 5 life. Then fires of Tribal Flames for 5. I use top in response and find a Swords to Plowshares. I use StP to gain some life of my last troll. But he plays another Last Stand with 3 Swamps in play.
SB: -4 StP, +1 Gaddock Teeg, +3 Duress
Game 2: Nothing special. Neither him or me can win on extra turns.
0-1
Round 2 - Goblins
Game 1: I know what my opponent plays. I kept a shaky hand with Thrun, Deed, Finks and 4 land. He has a very fast Start with Lackey into Goblin Chieftain + Piledriver. Followed by Warren Instigator. I am one turn to slow and so I die to the horde.
SB: Nothing
Game 2: I start with Therapy on Lackey. I rip 2 Lackey and see a hand of Vial, Warchief, Warchief, Siege-Gang, Land, Land. He plays Vial. I have another Therapy for the Warchiefs and follow this with a Zenith for Explorer to get rid of Siege-Gang. He scoops in response.
Game 3: He has the classy "Land, Vial, Go" start. I have the classy "Land, Explorer" into "Therapy + Flashback" start. Overall his hand was pretty slow and I stabilize with Swords + Witness (getting Swords back). I trade with his dudes and a Zenith for Loxodon Hierarch helps me to hold his forces at bay. A late Sun Titan -> Witness -> Sword seals the deal.
1-1
Round 3: Smallpox
Game 1: He gets me cold with T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Smallpox (him discarding Bloodghast), T3 Confi and T4 Liliana of the Veil.
I can't do very much about it because I am heavily mana screwed with 2 lands and 3 mana spells.
SB: Nothing
Game 2: I have double Veteran which pretty much denies his Smallpox. I win by beating him with witness and Kitchen Finks. This time he can't do much about it because he is screwed on 1 land.
Game 3: This time we play a real game with no screws ;) He thoughtseizes me seeing a Pulse, Deed, Finks, Recurring Nightmare and 3 lands. He choses deed. I topdeck like a boss and cast an Explorer. He casts a Bloodghast. Explorer helps me to power out the Finks and I use a small Recurring Lock with Finks+Explorer to get life and lands. Meanwhile he has Confi on the field which helps me to race his Bloodghast with my Kitchen Finks. He adds a Jitte to his board and get in with a Ghast+Jitte. He kills he Finks. I find Zenith and tutor up a Spike Weaver which denies his Jitte.
Confi helps me further more to keep him under pressure and after he leaves Confi+Jitte back to protect his life total (at this point: 5 life) I topdeck Swords and remove the Confi and got in for total 4 dmg. He scoops after not finding a solution.
2-1
Round 4: UW Stoneblade (I don't remember this one exactly)
Game 1: I loose to a "nut" draw. He has full control of the board with Jace, Stoneforge + Sword of Feast and Famine and Counter/Carddraw
SB: -1 Swords to Plowshares, -1 Kitchen Finks (I guess), +2 Choke
Game 2: I start with Explorer and T2 Therapy for FoW. After the path is free I resolve T2 Choke. Choke holds him at bay and I am able to beat him down with Finks and Witness. He concedes to Thrun.
Game 3: This game goes back and forth and we can't finish it in turns. We play it to an end for fun and he wins on the 9th extra turn.
2-1-1
So ... thats all. I am pretty happy with the performance of the deck. Every single card was great. Except the titans ... because they didn't show up often to do cool things ;).
Perhaps I am cutting 2 Tops + X to try out 3 Hymn to Tourach.
The deck was highlighted today at SCG's invitational:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...h_caleb_d.html
Why is this Deck still new and developmental?
If I had to guess, I would say that it's because of two reasons primarily:
1) Lack of (American) high-place finishes. It always does well, putting pilots into the top half, but it has yet to field a top 16 or top 8 at a major event on the American side of things, to my knowledge (disclaimer: I just haven't heard of it...there may be one or two that I miss).
2) Sheer variation of lists. As quantified earlier in the thread, we have at least four completely different variations of the deck at work here: Birthing Pod, GBW Rector, GBW no Rector, straight GB. For a deck to make Established, I believe it has to be refined and "finished" -- which would imply a "best version" or at least a "best list." I believe the closest analogue to this deck is Aggro Loam, which also has a lot of variations -- in terms of color, and whether or not one runs Burning Wish. However, while Aggro Loam has a lot of variation in its lists, it also has several lists (of each type) that have fielded top 16s and top 8s.
As for Caleb's list, I don't really like it. Note that that's personal preference speaking. I understand why he made the choices he did, and I've actually been eying the 2nd Scav Ooze myself -- it's just so good, and so much of the wider meta abuses the graveyard in some way right now. At the end of the day, though, it is a completely different version operating within a completely different paradigm from what I prefer to play. That doesn't mean it's not good, but I personally wouldn't play it. I will be very interested to read his inevitable article on the deck that will come from playing it at the Invitational -- I would love to hear why he cut Recurring Nightmare. It's such a powerful card, even as a one-of.
As an aside, I do enjoy the fact that he referenced not liking the Nic Fit name, which is something I grimace about every time I have to talk about the deck as well.
I would recommend that you try out a 2nd ooze. I did and posted about it a few months ago and have never looked back.
I was excited to see a new list from SCGs coverage, but I admit I am not thrilled with some of the choices and numbers. However, I would have to sleeve up the exact 75 to get a better feel for the interactions.
It seems that Caleb's deck is more built around abusing the Veteran Explorer/Therapy to power out bombs while still disrupting your oponent and less about abusing other interactions/engines. I think he made top 8 in the invitational, but haven't heard anything about his final legacy score, does anyone have more infos about that.
Oh yeah, agreed on the 2nd ooze.
I have been trying to figure out the format for this invitation. I believe legacy was the first 4 rounds, and Caleb went 3-1 looking at the standings after 4. I also think up to 2 byes were able to be earned for the start of this event. I could be wrong on some of this information.
GB Vet is being featured live: http://www.justin.tv/scglive?utm_cam...rcitygames.com
Caleb is on the good way ^^
nice to see this deck perfs:tongue:
Round 14 Pairings
1 Duke, Reid
1 Durward, Caleb S
Duke is playing http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...ox_with_r.html
Caleb can board into 3 liliana's to match Dukes 4.
Edit-> his esper control lost to solar flair in standard of the top 8. So it seems we won't get to see nic fit (assuming they switched to legacy for part of the top 8, though I have no idea how this invitational split format works).
This should be easy for Caleb. Pox's gameplan thrives on mana denial, and Explorer is amazing for that. Also, in my experience fighting against Pox, they can't really deal with Kitchen Finks at all. He's just better than their deck.
...And Caleb is in the top 8. No idea if we'll see more of Explorer in the top 8 or not, though, given the split nature of the invitation. I certainly hope so, though.
Veteran Explorer vs Smallpox never happened, as 1st/2nd seed we drew in. I wouldn't have bet on pox had we played.
Went x-1 in legacy, deck was very strong and my loss was punting vs UR burn (not playing around the second pierce.)