Well... Siege Rhino. But is seems our lord and savior is down in the dumps at the moment.
Printable View
Well... Siege Rhino. But is seems our lord and savior is down in the dumps at the moment.
If you are talking about Daddy Sorin, he is just cute.Quote:
Originally Posted by uncletiggy
Just try Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and see the difference by yourself.
In a Junk Walker Fit build I'll go with:
- Nissa, voice of Zendikar
- Liliana of the Veil
- Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
I'm not sure we can afford playing a 4th PW but Garruk, relentless would be the 4th.
Edit:
Something like that
1 Plains
3 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Verdant catacombs
4 Windswept heath
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Veteran explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Empty the Pits
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
3 Sensei's divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
4 Innocent Blood
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal therapy
4 Green Sun Zenith
1 Toxic Deluge
Never tried Groundbreaker, but did try the ever janky Timbermare and got meh results. I imagine Groundbreaker may be similar, though it can take Jace down and multiple blockers if needed. Strangleroot geist was also a consideration.
Also, I remember the hype for Siege Rhino ... and never understood why it was used over Thragtusk outside of trample and the immediate siphon effect.
Anyhow, Eternal Masters has brought to my attention a certain card we may benefit from in Junk versions: Karmic Guide. Granted it is piss poor by itself, but it does offer a body that can trade with Delver (which, outside of combo, I remember having the most difficulty against evasive beats) while maintaining value.
It does about the same for 1 mana less and kill the opponent through a number of scenario's where Thragtusk can't. Not having to attack can be crucial, just like the 1 mana difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner
Karmic Guide is alright but has the eternal problem of being not tutorable. I've been trying to brew up a Protean Hulk build but it's pretty awkward to get going without running four colours, because you need W for Karmic Guide / Reveillark and you want Blue for Body Double and Intuition.
In such a tokens build, would you just skip the deeds? It seems like they would be 3 very dead cards for such a buildQuote:
Originally Posted by Ralf
Not the "But Deed blows up my shit too" crap again. Your PWs are token factories. You blow up Deed at your opponents' EoT, then start rebuilding on your turn. You don't have to care about your shit getting blown up - there's more shit where that shit came from and after blowing up Deed you're ahead in the who-has-shit department anyway. After blowing up Deed you have more and bigger shit than your opponent does, that's all that matters. If you find that that just doesn't happen when you play Deed, you're doing shit wrong.
Seriously, if that's something you can't wrap your head around you should stop playing this deck altogether.
I wouldn't really dismiss instantly that kind of consideration calling it "crap"..it makes sense because while in an ideal world you are right, it cannot be denied that often "being forced to deed" a board full of tokens generates feelsbadman moments. In my humble opinion if you are going the full tokens route, you are playing a very different deck imo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
Your thought process makes sense, but it doesn't consider the fact that it's not Christmas everyday, and it isn't always possible to generate " more shit where that shit came from". Thats junk midrange with lingering souls liliana and hymn right?
If you experience Pernicious Deed as the creator of feelbad moments, you should befriend a honey badger. It'll set you straight.Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
If you need to blow up deed, while having a bunch of tokens and PW's out then there must be something forcing you to blow that deed. Hence, not blowing deed would probably result in a gameloss even with that boardstate. So ask yourself again, does it matter losing these tokens?
Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G900F met Tapatalk
Yeah, shit happens sometimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by emesyu
But if you have to blow your deed, it means that your tokens would not have helped you out anyway.
Nonetheless, going down to only 2 deeds + 1 toxic might be the way to go.
I have posted a list above that might be worth exploring.
You are making the wrong questions my friend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
The correct one, imo, would be: is it a poor deck building choice to play that kind of MAIN strategies (not talking about the singleton elspeth in the sb) together in the same deck? My personal answer to that would be yes. Why not preventing that kind of situation in the first place? This is common sense after all.
DING DING DING, we have a winner!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
Blow that Deed, channel your inner Taylor Swift or Elsa, shake it off/let it go and proceed to smash face.
@rubble: It's as close to a 1-sided sweeper as we'll get. Crack some eggs to make that omelette, man! Tokens aren't real cards, so what do you really lose..? Especially if the factory keeps producing more #consumerism.
No, I think you "Seriously???"Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
I'm continually perplexed by people like you who either think it's cool to shit talk people on the internet or who lack the self awareness to sense that what they're saying is needlessly rude. As always, it's not that you don't have thoughts to contribute, it's just a shame that it's wrapped in such a flaming pile of being shitty.
So why? Really ask yourself. This is a thread that people on and on talk about how great and constructive everyone is, and yet in my experience, you have been one of the thorniest presences in this board. You can't claim ignorance either because other people have called you out about this in the past. Literally your only defense would be (and has been!) "that's just how I am", but is that really who you want to be? An ornery forum goer who dismisses other people's contributions if they don't fit with your views? You gain nothing other than maybe making your dick hard and contributing to a toxic environment and echo-chambering. You want to work on innovating the archetype? Great, why don't you silence newer voices that are just getting into the conversation.
So more than the efficacy of a certain card in a card game, I'm more having trouble 'wrapping my head around' what stick has gotten so far up your ass that you have trouble just interacting with others as a well-adjusted human.
an edit: If you need a model for how to make a point similar to yours but in a way that also says "I am a person who understands how to interact with others in a positive way" there are *already* multiple examples above. It is just baffling and there really is no excuse.
I dismiss the contributions of others b/c they keep falling for the same mistakes over and over again and because of that I'm purposely rude. I don't think it to be cool, I'm not unaware of what I'm doing, I don't even like doing it, I knowingly deem it necessary. If that makes me the thorniest presence on the board, so be it. If this is all it takes to piss you off, good luck to you. For your sake, I hope you never run into Lemnear.Quote:
Originally Posted by emesyu
A word of advise though - the next time you see a post riddled with the word shit, don't take it too seriously.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
You misconstrue me. I am less pissed off than deeply confused.
While is it interesting to me that you apparently intentionally choose to be rude, I fundamentally disagree that it is "necessary", again as demonstrated by so many in this thread.
If you are frustrated that a rapidly moving forum has some measure of redundancy in its discussion, good luck to you. I don't think it's something you will ever fix, even if you tried to scale up on the personal attacks.
I also have to point out the deep irony of trying to foster innovation while actually fostering exclusion. Your cavalier attitude and faux-martyr stance of doing what is 'necessary' for the board is farcical. You make yourself out to be some kind of sentinel of productive conversation in the thread which is a position to me that seems profoundly misguided at best and supremely neckbeard-y at worst.
And again, you miss the point. It is not the word "shit", it is "Seriously, if that's something you can't wrap your head around you should stop playing this deck altogether." The clear implication that I am not wanted here. It is the laughably condescending phenomenon of starting any sentence with "a word of advice - ". I am really just not sure what to make of you, but I feel safe in saying that this kind of attitude does not foster better discussion - an outcome you claim to be motivating you - which again leads me to question your self-awareness in terms of interacting with others.
The implication is that something should be perceived in a drastically different manner, which has nothing to do with you as a person or if you're wanted here or not. You're as welcome as anybody else, why wouldn't you be?Quote:
Originally Posted by emesyu
Your problem is with my indifference, not my self-awareness. Anyways, keep at it. You're doing a wonderful job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
No, it is an awareness problem when you say you want one thing but are actively working toward another.
You can call things whatever you want to try to backpedal, but everything you wrote is right there for anyone to read.
In any case, best of luck, forum-hero. You are doing a wonderful job.
Backpedalling. I lol'd.Quote:
Originally Posted by emesyu
"The implication is that something should be perceived in a drastically different manner, which has nothing to do with you as a person or if you're wanted here or not"
from
"Seriously, if that's something you can't wrap your head around you should stop playing this deck altogether."
no, pretty sure I used the word correctly
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
You are absolutely right. The issue here is two-fold. In the first place there is no perfect build/concept where everything is in perfect synergy with eachother. Deed is a symmetrical card, you always have to think it trough. Both in design as in excecution. But being able to drop Planeswalkers and empty the board with Deed is already freaking powerfull on it's own. Imagine an empty board with PW's on your side. If theres anything in synergy with Deed then it is a planeswalker. "Greatness at any cost".
One the other hand, this archetype has been the only archetype that can succesfully use Pernicious Deed to it's full potential. Imho, Pernicous Deed is one of the core cards that make this deck great and stand-out comparing to other decks. Not running it because it kills your own board or not running others cards because deed kills it is a flaw, not in design, but in thought. Not playing Terminus, because it can remove your Mentor? Not playing Show and Tell, because your opponent can drop an Emrakul? Nothing is perfect, deeding your stuff is realistic.
DING DING DING, he wins again! So far he's won the toaster and the fridge. Will he go on to win the Ferrari..!?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
I'm going to echo this. Part of the reason I've stopped posting in this thread, a lot of self-awareness issues for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by emesyu
Arianrhod and Ralf, among a couple of others, are still making some great contributions, but for the most part it's a lot of tooting horns.
I think every card can and should be questioned. When the goal really is to kill Miracles through damage and life loss instead of outcontrolling them, you have to streamline your deck a lot to accomplish this. I find that an interesting challenge. Not playing Deed or reducing the number to 1-2 makes a lot of sense in theory for that plan. I was thinking of a build with something like 3-4 DRS, 2-3 SFM with Jitte and BS, 1 Strangleroot Geist, 3-4 Lingering Souls, 4 Rhinos, Sigarda and 2 Sorins as card that can deal damage to them that is hard for them to prevent. Could Sword of War and Peace be a thing?
Seems like a basis for some kind of Big Maverick, or Abzan Stompy. Could be fun. It's certainly a new take on the deck and gives us some room to explore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tao
If he only plays 1 Sorin in the main it's fine, heck I am playing garruk at the moment. I thought he played the full amount of token factories. My bad!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobmans
Hello,
I apology for the incoming wall of text.
I had a couple of questions about my BUG builds and I know some of you have already discussed about it.
Anyway, here is a not so quick sum up so that anyone could jump in.
BUG Wish Fit
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Wall of Blossoms/Baleful Strix
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Echoing Truth
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Cunning Wish
3 Negate
4 Brainstorm
1 Innocent Blood
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ponder
SB: 1 Empty the Pits
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Beast Within
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Crypt Incursion
SB: 1 Hatred
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Consume the Meek
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
Deck history:
Since the print of "Empty the Pit" I have been working on a list to make that game ending spell "legacy playable".
1) I mentioned it the first time in this thread here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post851242
2) Then, after a good testing period:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post854002
3) Here is the first iteration including Cunning Wishes:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post856127
4) Here is the first time I have included "Hatred" as a faster win condition against decks where you are playing the "aggro" role:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post859699
This list is a very good starting point as I spent the whole Christmas holidays playing against my team and tuning the deck.
5) The first list I played in a local tournament:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post866754
Here is a list of SB instant spells that have been used/dismissed/put aside depending on our meta:
- Pact of Negation
- Ravenous Trap
- Slaughter Pact
- Meditate
- Krosan grip
The list might be not comprehensive at all, but at some points, those cards were heavily tested.
I used to be playing "ravenous trap" as another gravehate spell but with the recent inclusion of Scavenging Ooze, the card no longer feels necessary. Too much redundancy will get you. Yet, it is a total blowout in some MU (Dredge / Storm namely). As a matter of fact, I would not dismiss "crypt incursion" too hastily. Although the card can seem "poor" at first sight, I found it has a much broader application than the say "ravenous trap".
I've won games with Crypt incursion against dredge like I would have with ravenous trap. But I've also managed to get very far ahead against Aggro or Tempo decks where no other card could have saved my butt. Gaining 15 life points on average is no joke. It is even better in a control shell buying you more turns to crawl back into a dominant board position.
We went back & forth wondering with my team whether the deck really needs a big draw spell as a wish target. We believe it does not, even more when we had to reduce the number of main deck wishes down from 4 to 3. I might be proven wrong here, that is the main point of sharing the list in this thread.
Furthermore, we stuck to the initial plan: play as many spells as possible that grow the graveyard without letting know your opponent you are advancing your game to the point you will be able to instantly kill him.
Therefore a few cards got the axe:
1) Sensei's divining top is a huge asset but it does not grow the grave. As the mana base was stretched to the point it is now, sensei was slowing us down (as also the game's path). Furthermore, sensei was also adding an unnecessary heavy branch to a decision tree already complex. It got the axe.
2) Once Sensei was gone preventing the deck from being played out of the top of your library, Liliana +1 effect was more a liability in a reactive deck than anything else. She got the axe.
3) At some point the creature package was including one or a pair of Vendilion Clique. This might be the creature I miss the most but the UU cost made it very difficult to include when you first goal is to reach UBG as fast as possible.
4) At some point, the disrupt package was including FOW. It has since been replaced by Negate.
5) Wall of Blossoms/Baleful Strix. I have not drawn any conclusion about them. We all know the pros & cons of both. Yet I have sticked to Wall of Blossoms.
By no mean this list should be considered as a "set in stone" 75. If I had to set some core cards in stone it would definitely be:
- Cabal Therapy
- Veteran
- Glen Elendra Archmage
- Abrupt decays & sweepers (PD, Toxic, etc)
- Blue cantrips (BS & Ponders)
Therefore, I invite anyone interested in such a shell to test it and draw its own conclusion and share it.
It is completely "off the radar" and you will get a lot of wins just because your opponent is not ready to face such a "weird" Nic Fit build.
Anyway, you will win many games just through the "good old aggro route" punching faces with GLE, Vet & Ooze. Otherwise, you'll get to punch some faces out of nowhere.
BUG Walker Fit
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Island
3 Swamp
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thragtusk
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Wall of Blossoms
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Sensei’s divining top
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Pits
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
3 Negate
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Cabal Therapy
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 3 Deathrite Shaman
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
Deck's history
1) I mentioned the very first build here with some comments here
2) Here is my first local tournament with the deck.
Since the deck has evolved quite a bit.
A) The first versions were basically too slow (and I had issues clock wise). In any competitive environment, being able to finish 3 games in 50 mins is key. If not, you will only chain draw in draw. The amount of PW has been reduced to 6 and I have basically added an Empty the Pits to nail the coffin.
I won't go too much in details but you'll face opponents that do not want to concede with an empty board while dealing with Jace + Liliana...
B) Reaching GG was hard when your goal is to reach BB for Liliana and UU for Jace. Unfortunately, Witness had to be cut and Snapcaster took her place.
C) Grave & Manlands strategies are evil for any PW builds. 2 Ooze have been amazing to fight back any recursive engine that shall ambush you during your journey.
D) Only one SDT. The card is bonker, but alas it is slow as hell.
E) Pulse and Echoing Truth were added for the extra value they offer against aggro strategies and for the tools they provide with Snappy. Echoing Truth also has the potential to turn alive a midgame drawn cabal therapy (so does Jace).
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot.
Have fun,
Ralf
Edit: Grammar
Maverick is already exploring The Gitrog Monster, and it is scary when it gets going!Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
I feel the concept of "Abzan Stompy" is very under-explored. If you can shave Vet Explorers, Therapy's, and other 1-drops, then you can drink Miracle's tears from the Chalice of the Void. I've been working on a SFM version for quite a while with Chalice as the only lock piece (Trinisphere is just clunky with SFM) and it can be powerful at times. I mean, I've started tweaking the build to reduce Storm and Miracles sideboard slots because I've taken a look at my match history and noticed that they aren't that much of an issue.
Haven't figured out how to handle some clunkiness in the manabase though. 4 Mox Diamonds/2 Life from the Loam can be awesome - Wasteland locks or turn 1 Chalice or SFM...but can also be really annoying to topdeck those Moxes or stumble on lands early. I've been willing to have 1 DRS, but have not yet tried Vets+Diabolic Intent...there may be some other ways to accelerate or a better land configuration out there for it.
Let's take a look at some of our sacred cows.
Vet & Therapy: the core of the deck. I see no reason why these shouldn't consider to be at the heart of the archetype. Vet's actually better positioned at the moment than he has been at other points in time, which is one reason why I think we all feel like we should be doing better than we are.
Pernicious Deed: Deed is the primary reward for Veteran Explorer: it's how we break symmetry. We say hey guy, here's two lands for you. Happy birthday! Guy untaps and plays some stuff and is really happy because we just accelerated him two turns in advance. Then we play Deed, break it along with all of his shiny new toys, and he's sad. He plays something else, we either ignore it and drop our own thing (likely bigger than his) or spot remove it and play a Top or some nonsense.
The problem with Pernicious Deed is twofold: it doesn't kill Planeswalkers (a particular symmetry that we've never broken /ourselves/, when our deck is the literal master of that), and it doesn't match up very well against Revoker and Pithing Needle. Revoker we've kind of handled for a couple years, either with spot removal, KGrip, or Deluge/Golgari Charm as backup sweepers. The problem /now/ is that Pithing Needle, which is harder for us to interact with than Revoker, is EVERYWHERE because its a flex card between Miracles and Lands, while also hitting a couple other annoying things in the meta (Painter). I mean, hell, we've been running Needles ourselves, alongside Deeds. This suggests that Deed is actively detrimental postboard.
Needle is annoying for us in another way: killing it doesn't interact meaningfully with the board state. Consider Grixis Delver, which is now sideboarding 2-3 Needles. Sure, we can Abrupt Decay the Needle. But then we're still getting hit by Delver, or poked down by Deathrite, and we still need to try to dance through their wall of Dazes/Pierces/Stifles/Forces/Therapies. Answering Pithing Needle is as big of a problem as them playing it in the first place, due to the raw tempo loss it inflicts on us. RecSage/Qasali are better answers since they still interact with the board state, but they're still not good enough. They can (and will) be Stifled, and they can't interact well in combat with the Grixis board -- best case they can chump a Gurmag on the way out or take out a Young Pyro token.
Conclusion: Deed is still fine game one, but we either need to come up with a better answer to Pithing Needle or we need to board some number of them out and bring in ancillary sweepers. Note that this means dedicating sideboard space to sweepers, probably upwards of 2-3 slots. G.Charm flexes, but Deluge doesn't (despite being better vs Elves). It's possible that we should consider Gaze of Granite. Note that Gaze does take out planeswalkers. For Colorless builds, some number of All is Dust is actually not a bad idea (credit: Barook). It'll never be /as/ good as it is for Eldrazi, but even just wrathing them while keeping a Thought-Knot is fine.
Green Sun's Zenith: This is the only other 4-of card that we typically run (sometimes Decay or Path, but, hush). I'm curious about this hypergeometric math that was talked about (Brael, I think?). Someone should dig into that and actually do the math on how many Zeniths it is correct / optimal to run. If we can shave 1 Zenith to give us another deck slot while only losing a <1% chance of drawing a Zenith, I'm fine with that, for example. I'll yield to Elves being a big better of a Zenith deck -- but I think we're still a better "fair" Zenith deck. The best they can do -- fairly -- is assemble Symbiote + Visionary.
On that topic: one thing that is perhaps an evolutionary oversight is that we're not using Zenith to assemble any engines any more. We're only really using it to grab fatties -- sometimes that's correct (Sigarda vs BUG / Jund, etc). But somewhere along the way we lost sight of using Zenith to generate even more advantage. Things like Master of the Wild Hunt, for example -- probably relevant to bring him back into the discussion if we're talking about Garruk Relentless, because Master was always fantastic for me, in particular with Garruk.
The culprit of this is likely our lord and savior. While Rhino is one of the best beatdown options available, Tao's right: we've never been a beatdown deck. I think that at some point after Rhino came out, we transitioned to being more aggressive in an attempt at going under the meta, since we felt we couldn't tank the metagame's hits anymore -- and there is some merit to that thought. Merit Lage, for example, can't really be dealt with. All you can do is kill the player controlling Merit Lage.
The best crowd control is death.
Being more aggressive and trying to go under the meta just puts us squarely in the firing range for Miracles, though, which is how we ended up in our current mess. So, the question that we need to be asking is: what happens if we return to our pre-Rhino roots? We lose a lot of ground in the Lands and 4c Loam matchups, for sure, in particular -- but is that an easier set of problems to handle than trying to beat Miracles? It very well might be. Rhino as a card doesn't match up super well vs Eldrazi anyway, and Eldrazi is really the only new deck in this metagame. We've dealt with Delver before -- admittedly not this version, which is far more powerful than the old RUG Delver lists, in my opinion -- and we've dealt with Shardless before. Death and Taxes is our jam. Infect is obnoxious, but we can handle it.
The more I think about it, the more I think we don't need Siege Rhino. Maybe at the point at which Miracles gets Terminus banned or something similar -- but right now, I think that Siege Rhino is actually the root of all of our problems. It puts us in a very unwelcome place tempo-wise, and honestly the 4/5 doesn't match up that well anyway. We like the Drain effect, but we can run other things for that if we really want to. Hell we can run Tendrils of Agony and loop Sensei's Divining Tops if we want to.
So, back to Zenith: conclusions: we need to use Zenith to leverage card advantage engines rather than just grabbing fat. Maybe we should look into Symbiote+Visionary? Probably not, but it's a thought. Most of the times that our deck feels fucking stupid is when we're drawing multiple cards a turn, because we unlike other decks in the format, we have the mana to leverage those cards into physical board advantage, rather than just nebulous hand size advantage. Colorless needs to figure out if it even should be running Green Sun. Green Sun is one of the sacred cows that I'm actually not sure if it should be -- not across multiple versions, anyway. The biggest single advantage of Zenith is that it serves as Explorers 5-8 on turn 2 after a Therapy on 1. After that, yes, getting to cheat on deck space is wonderful -- but Green Sun has several severe costs, too, perhaps most notably that it doesn't interact with non-Green creatures, which is a category that includes some of Nic Fit's best options. It may be that Diabolic Intent needs some more attention.
Abrupt Decay: This is "the" G/B removal spell. But, should it be? Yes, it's uncounterable, which is nice in a world of Miracles and Delver. For 2 mana, it takes out anything <4. Noteworthy dodges of this include Jace TMS, Nahiri Harb, Batterskull, Venser SS, Gurmag Angler, Humility, Sneak Attack, Thought-Knot & Reality Smasher, and basically anything in a Nic Fit mirror. Lately, Decay just hasn't felt that too to cast. It's a decent way to clean up Counterbalances in game 1, and it's...fine? against Grixis. It's best against Shardless BUG, where it can take out abnormally large Goyfs and Liliana of the Veils.
What I'm drifting towards is asking if it's correct, in GBW builds, to run Path to Exile and Maelstrom Pulse / Vindicate / Anguished (some mix thereof) as our removal suite. We would likely need to bring the Qasali / Rec Sage back in to help clean up Counterbalances off of Zenith, but I'm really wondering if the bigger removal is better than Decay at this point, especially for the expected metagame that I laid out yesterday for Columbus. Decay still has its place, certainly, but I'm not sure that it's /as good/ at the moment as combining Path (cheap, fast, exile removal) with the 3s (universal removal, but slower). Running some number of Vindicates also helps push Gitrog and Meren back into the picture, which are both places I want to be with Green Sun Zenith (admittedly Meren might still not be good enough, but she's the type of thing I want to grab), and Vindicate gives us a valid land destruction plan in conjunction with sideboard Tsunamis, which is an axis that I like to attack Miracles on.
Sensei's Divining Top: How many Tops is correct to run at this point? Top has an enormous target on its head going into CBus -- as mentioned, Pithing Needle is everywhere, and I expect to see a fair number of Null Rods and similar effects as well. Probably Grips out of the green decks. Top plays well with Sorin, Death Metal God of Innistrad, but so does Sylvan Library. Painful Truths is absolutely fantastic for us (assuming we have the removal to keep our life total healthy, coupled with some lifegain). Do we really need or want more than 1, maybe 2 Tops at this point? We can refocus around Sylvan and P.Tizzle, run Tireless Tracker, maybe Nissa, Gitrog, etc, and then dodge an entire swath of hate. Just a thought.
---------------
Overall conclusions:
Vet/Therapy engine as as good as ever.
Deed is losing ground unless we force it to regain said ground (more planeswalkers). Backup sweepers are needed at this point.
Zenith lost sight of what made it good for our deck. Need more engines and advantage, less Rhinos to force us into a tempo/beatdown role that we're ill suited to occupy.
Decay might be worse than 3cmc removal, specifically when backed up by Path to Exile.
Top might be correct to scale back on, or even cut, in favor of better Zenith engines, Sylvan Libraries, and Painful Truths.
so we should rebuild from the foundation to reevaluate where we are and where we need to be starting with the cards that make this the archetype and then building off of there. As far as mandatory goes, I can only see 4 therapy and 4 vet as the 8 we start with, from there it is anyone's imaginations, so where do we start?
Re: the PWs/deed discussion and to rubblekill's point last page, it could be that if you choose to commit to the PW/token generation plan, we are just talking about a different deck or at least a decently different approach. To Bobman's point, if you're deeding away your board, there must be a reason. The deckbuilding question behind this insight would be 'is there a card that can remove what I want to deed away that doesn't also wipe my board presence?' or at least something that is as asymmetrical as possible, since it's true that drawbacks exist and they make for better design/more interesting gameplay anyway. I think a relevant question then would be what threats are causing us to deed away the board.
Also, speaking specifically about the situation of deeding into an empty board with PWs on your side, is it possible that Ally Gideon is just better than Sorin, Lord of Innistrad? The WW is not exciting but otherwise it's the same CMC and the tokens it produces start applying pressure after a putative board wipe better than Sorin's 1/1 lifelinkers. Such a deck would have a lot in common with the one that just won the PT, funnily enough... :eyebrow: I also like Garruk R though, who interacts with Master of the Wild Hunt Arianrhod brought up above incidentally
I believe a token pw version of nic fit is entirely viable. Cutting most gsz and most targets in favor of a casual-looking superfriends finisher team. I agree with rhod that vet is better than its been in a while and I believe exploring, dare I say, a non-rhino build may be the best option at this point in time for the archetype.Quote:
Originally Posted by emesyu
Deed would be the card we lean on or humility if we want to go with the tokens ride or die anthem yolo plan. At that point we can even go deeper down the rabbit hole and play sfm with lingering souls but I may just be tightening my pants for no reason.
In this new deal in which we are questioning the legitimacy even of the sacred ~rhinos~ cows, shouldn't the first question be: "how do we want to win with the new deck?".
You guys have my attention, I am entertained.
We would become dedicated control with pws and tokens as finishers. Some combination of sorins, elspeths, etc. Ramp, removal and win cons because card advantage is built directly into pws.Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
Interesting. And at that point wouldn't this process lead to the old Mc Darby's bug PW list featuring vet\therapy + lili jace (and Karn? I don't remember very well)?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ricardio
Maybe karn and or ugin should be considered?
Or the token route is The chosen one?
E: link
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...n-Walkers.html
Some GSZ math for you guys to look at.
4 Zeniths
Odds of a zenith in opening hand: 39%
Odds of a zenith in first 10 cards: 52%
Oddz of no zenith in first 15 cards: 31%
3 Zeniths
Odds of a zenith in opening hand: 31%
Odds of a zenith in first 10 cards: 42%
Oddz of no zenith in first 15 cards: 42%
2 Zeniths
Odds of a zenith in opening hand: 22%
Odds of a zenith in first 10 cards: 30%
Oddz of no zenith in first 15 cards: 57%
1 Zenith
Odds of a zenith in opening hand: 11%
Odds of a zenith in first 10 cards: 16%
Oddz of no zenith in first 15 cards: 75%
----
IMO Zenith isn't something we should consider removing. We are (apparently) happy to play 4 copies of Veteran Explorer, and Zenith is usually just straight up better. We sometimes have relatively few targets (say, 12) but that's not necessarily a problem.
We want our Zenith to always have reasonable targets. There are these scenarios where we might need something:
- We need ramp to get to play our cards
- We have ramped but need to stabilise
- We aren't under immediate pressure but our opponent is probably holding answers
- We need to pressure our opponent's life total asap
- Our opponent has a specific threat we need an answer to
- We need to threaten to end the game asap
Zenith is the best card to have in a large percentage of these scenarios.
- It finds us ramp
- We can build to stabilise, but don't generally. Glissa counts here, but otherwise we're out.
- CA creatures like Meren/Tracker/Gitrog (or unanswerable ones like Sigarda) work here.
- The deck is generally pretty bad at this but Rhino works, or Solifuge if we need to.
- Teeg, Reclamation Sage.
- Sigarda, Titania, etc.
Obviously some of these can be cut. The thing to remember is that even if we have no GSZ targets other than, for example, a Tracker, Sigarda, Witness, and Vets/DRS, that could be as low as 8 creatures. But in that scenario, GSZ is still a modal spell which can be Ramp, Finisher, or CA engine - which is better than most of our other options in any of those categories.
We need a reasonable number of ramp creatures to actually execute our game plan. The only ones that are actually good are Vet, DRS, and STE at a pinch. We really don't want to run lots because they are universally garbage to draw late (bar DRS) but we want to draw one early in 99% of games. Zenith is by far the best way of solving this problem, and I don't think there is any way of solving this problem better unless you are willing to accept that you only have 8 ramp cards in the deck, so in some percentage of games you're probably going to be unable to cast all our payoff cards like Deed, walkers, and actually good creatures.
What about keeping 4 GSZ and cutting down to 2 or 3 Vet Explorers? Sure, having a Vet in opening hand is nice, but drawing one late can suck. T1 Therapy or Top into T2 GSZ->Vet is still a nice line. I don't think we need to necessarily start with full 4 Vet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ricardio
Therapy, though, I would be highly surprised to see less than 4. Card is just bonkers.
@ Thread:
The problem with a non blue PW shell is that you just cannot BS away PW that rot in your hands.
This is a major con of any non blue PW shell and one that anyone should be aware of.
To avoid such things:
- Play PW that are castable (=< 4 or 5 cmc maximum)
- Play many different PW instead of only Jace & Lili in the blue shells
@ Emesyu
Sorin's ultimate should not be overlooked... It has turned many many many tides of games...(And here you can put your trust in my experience).
My question was due to my ignorance and lack of experience in the only pw.dec department. So: for a PW-only deck, what's the strongest colour combination in your experience: junk or bug? I'm curious.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralf