[Primer] Maverick 2.0 - GW/x

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Originally Posted by Cpt-Qc

The combo gives us a chance in games we were not supposed to win.

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I can attest to this, the DD combo can win out of nowhere too, I managed to pull off a sick interaction between crop rotation, lotus cobra and the DD combo against elves.

I have new Thalia, cobra, dryad arbor and 2 other lands in play.

They cast a tapped hoof and swung with their other creatures for 10, I'm on 16.

Before blocks I count my mana (several times) to make sure I have enough and do the following:

Tap dryad arbor and a wasteland for mana, sac the wasteland to crop rotation, get stage and add green from cobra, tap another land and sac it to a 2nd crop rotation. Get depths add a green and use the floating to make Marit Lage and win on the crackback.


I am a great believer in the stage combo, it has caused me to win so many games when I was playing UG cloudpost it's insane.

Hello everyone, I want to build Mavrick but I'm not sure what version of the deck i want to focus on. what you all think of the punishing fire version compared to the popular GWb build?


thanks

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Originally Posted by IanCHarding

Hello everyone, I want to build Mavrick but I'm not sure what version of the deck i want to focus on. what you all think of the punishing fire version compared to the popular GWb build?


thanks

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Punishing has a better matchup into control decks (Delver variants, Czech Pile, etc) or any grindy matchup since they tend to be heavily advantage-based and having a recurrable way to kill deathrites is super nice. GWb tends to be better against combo decks since you get to run Thalia maindeck and targeted discard.

sort of depends on what your local meta looks like, but either choice is fine. I've been on Punishing for a while but that doesn't mean much since I don't really get to play often. However I will say that out of all the variants I've played (straight GW, GWb, Punishing) I've probably enjoyed Punishing the most since Grove and Pfire make grindy matchups where I have to kill a bunch of strix/deathrites/whatever a lot less stressful.

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Originally Posted by Cpt-Qc

The combo gives us a chance in games we were not supposed to win.

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The amount of undeserved wins I've gotten off of stage/depths is absurd.
That being said it can be easy to tunnel vision to lage without realizing it. Can be sort of tricky to differentiate between the times its winmoar and when you really do have to go for it early to close out a game.

I'm still super hyped on a straight GW list with 4/3 Thalia/Big Thalia as major disruption cards. I don't think DD or punishing fires help you in anything but the long/grindy game, when you can win early a lot easier with Maverick... which is at its core an aggro deck.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

I'm still super hyped on a straight GW list with 4/3 Thalia/Big Thalia as major disruption cards. I don't think DD or punishing fires help you in anything but the long/grindy game, when you can win early a lot easier with Maverick... which is at its core an aggro deck.

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I have found that the synergy with cobra and crop rotation makes the DD package a lot more aggro.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

I'm still super hyped on a straight GW list with 4/3 Thalia/Big Thalia as major disruption cards. I don't think DD or punishing fires help you in anything but the long/grindy game, when you can win early a lot easier with Maverick... which is at its core an aggro deck.

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Decks like Grixis, Miracles, Czech Pile, etc. are going to force you to play the grindy game whether you like it or not

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

I'm still super hyped on a straight GW list with 4/3 Thalia/Big Thalia as major disruption cards. I don't think DD or punishing fires help you in anything but the long/grindy game, when you can win early a lot easier with Maverick... which is at its core an aggro deck.

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Maverick is as much an aggro deck as Death and Taxes: that is, not at all. Winning with creatures an aggro deck does not make.

Eldrazi Stompy is aggro, Merfolk is aggro, Burn (in its current iteration) is aggro. Grixis and RUG Delver are aggro compared to Maverick. Even combo decks have to race your prison elements before they come down.

Miracles is one of the few match-ups where Maverick actually assumes an aggressive role. Trying to grind that match out is a mistake, as they'll inevitably grind better than you.

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Originally Posted by bakofried

Maverick is as much an aggro deck as Death and Taxes: that is, not at all. Winning with creatures an aggro deck does not make.

Eldrazi Stompy is aggro, Merfolk is aggro, Burn (in its current iteration) is aggro. Grixis and RUG Delver are aggro compared to Maverick. Even combo decks have to race your prison elements before they come down.

Miracles is one of the few match-ups where Maverick actually assumes an aggressive role. Trying to grind that match out is a mistake, as they'll inevitably grind better than you.

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I completely disagree.

We do not have the Prison elements of DnT. The fact that we can play a little control/prison against the decks that are faster than us is a testimite to the strength of Thalia and Knight. That doesn’t change the fact that in a perfect world we play a turn 2 knight and beat the hell out of the opponent with it.

Most of the time we are playing outlets 1 of silver bullet and hoping we can get there before the opponent finds the answer and kills us.

Knight is absolutely a lock piece. The default is Knight->chain Wastelands->kill once they can't deploy threats. That may play out differently depending on the board state, but frankly, Knight often isn't a great beater in a world filled with Deathrites.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

That doesn’t change the fact that in a perfect world we play a turn 2 knight and beat the hell out of the opponent with it.

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In a perfect world DRS isn't the fourth most played card in the format.

The best part of Knight is its utility. If it weren't for that we'd just play Goyfs at which point we might as well just play Zoo

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Originally Posted by bakofried

Knight is absolutely a lock piece. The default is Knight->chain Wastelands->kill once they can't deploy threats. That may play out differently depending on the board state, but frankly, Knight often isn't a great beater in a world filled with Deathrites.

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Also with knight once we have one active against lands we are in the dominant position, only when we get a second active knight can we start beating in with one.

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Originally Posted by SellaNona

In a perfect world DRS isn't the fourth most played card in the format.

The best part of Knight is its utility. If it weren't for that we'd just play Goyfs at which point we might as well just play Zoo

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Mav doesn’t play goyfs because the deck doesn’t put anything except lands in the graveyard.

Maverick is first and foremost an aggressive deck. It could be classified as a midrange deck but the main game plan is to protect a bomb long enough to win the game.

The bomb can be a knight, a teeg, a scooze, SFM, whatever, but the deck is not looking to take games late and lock players down ie DnT or Czech/Miracles.

That being said: you can play the deck however you want and build it shifted either more aggressive or more controlling. If I was playing a more controlling list I would be in an sdematt GSZ rock/junk list with Liliana. Since I think that deck is not well positioned right now I have been going more aggressive with big Thalia and only an excavator as a late game value engine.

I am 16-2 against blue.dec with this configuration with 1 loss being to miracles and the other being a god draw Delver.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

I am 16-2 against blue.dec with this configuration with 1 loss being to miracles and the other being a god draw Delver.

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Care to share an updated list? Big Thalia seems better with more DD combo around.

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Originally Posted by oSeabass

Care to share an updated list? Big Thalia seems better with more DD combo around.

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4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia Guardian of Thraben
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 SFM

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Ranumap Excavator
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Maze of Ith
1 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas

Sideboard
3 Thoughtsieze
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Bitterblossom
1 Choke
1 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sylvan Library
1 Tireless Tracker

It has very good game against a lot of problem matchups where they cannot be allowed to free-roll. Fetchlands are a major pain against Thalia and and she can buy valuable time against most matchups.

Having 2 first strikers is huge against all of the baleful strix around as you can attack through anything Czech has and have Karakas protection for both of them against spot removal.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

It has very good game against a lot of problem matchups where they cannot be allowed to free-roll. Fetchlands are a major pain against Thalia and and she can buy valuable time against most matchups.

Having 2 first strikers is huge against all of the baleful strix around as you can attack through anything Czech has and have Karakas protection for both of them against spot removal.

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Looks a lot more like the traditional older GW lists I used to run, just with the black splash for DRS and sideboard stuff. The one thing I question is the Bitterblossom in the board. How well has that worked, what do you bring it in against? Miracles? Grindy matchups?

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Originally Posted by oSeabass

Looks a lot more like the traditional older GW lists I used to run, just with the black splash for DRS and sideboard stuff. The one thing I question is the Bitterblossom in the board. How well has that worked, what do you bring it in against? Miracles? Grindy matchups?

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The Bitterblossom is a new addition from playing Depths.

It gives me 2 very impactful enchantments out of the board in Grindy matchups especially where decays will be taxed and judgements can’t hit everything. I really enjoy forcing decks to have a variety of answers to all of my cards. Bitterblossom is just amazing in the Miracles matchup and helps make terminus not a big deal.

I love the straight GW feel because legacy is currently very combo heavy and you need a way to slow down the combo decks while still punishing the 4c manabases. Getting 1-2 turns off of combo while swinging for 5 with both Thalia’s is all you can ask for, especially with seize out of the board.

What are your tips and tricks when you are playing against miracles? Whenever I play against them they always seem to have the answers and stall out long enough to win.

What are the matchups for Gideon, AOZ and is Bitterblossom just better in the same spot?

I assume any grindy deck like 4c Czech, Punishing Dack, and Miracles. 4 mana is probably too much for Delver but the lifeloss from Blossom is probably bad as well vs them.

I just see Gideon is fairly standard at this point and not sure why Bitterblossom isn't.

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Originally Posted by delfam

I just see Gideon is fairly standard at this point and not sure why Bitterblossom isn't.

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Ive been using Bitterblossom in the sb for the past 3 years, sometimes, even maindecked occasionally, and I think it got better over the past 12 months. It's individual, I'd say, if it's played or not over a planeswalker. Planeswalkers seem to be more popular for sure, but I'm not sure why.

I made Top8 at the the Giga-Bites Legacy Quarterly over the weekend. List:

Creature Spells (21)
4x Mother of Runes
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scryb Ranger
4x Knight of the Reliquary

Noncreature Spells (15)
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Punishing Fire
1x Sylvan Library
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull

Lands (23)
4x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Savannah
2x Taiga
1x Plateau
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Karakas
3x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy

SB: 2x Surgical Extraction
SB: 2x Choke
SB: 2x Crop Rotation
SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1x Bojuka Bog
SB: 1x Reclamation Sage
SB: 1x Voice of Resurgence
SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1x Wear / Tear
SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant


There were 91 players so 7 rounds of swiss. Here's how my matches went:

Round 1: Oops, All Spells! (W 2-1)
Round 2: BUG Control (W 2-1)
Round 3: Grixis Delver (W 2-1)
Round 4: Czech Pile (W 2-0)
Round 5: MUD Post (W 2-0)
Round 6: ID
Round 7: ID
Quarterfinal: Czech Pile (L 0-2)


Both games of the QF were winnable had I played better, but oh well.

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Originally Posted by Seraphix

I made Top8 at the the Giga-Bites Legacy Quarterly over the weekend. List:

Creature Spells (21)
4x Mother of Runes
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scryb Ranger
4x Knight of the Reliquary

Noncreature Spells (15)
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Punishing Fire
1x Sylvan Library
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull

Lands (23)
4x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Savannah
2x Taiga
1x Plateau
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Karakas
3x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy

SB: 2x Surgical Extraction
SB: 2x Choke
SB: 2x Crop Rotation
SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1x Bojuka Bog
SB: 1x Reclamation Sage
SB: 1x Voice of Resurgence
SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1x Wear / Tear
SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant


There were 91 players so 7 rounds of swiss. Here's how my matches went:

Round 1: Oops, All Spells! (W 2-1)
Round 2: BUG Control (W 2-1)
Round 3: Grixis Delver (W 2-1)
Round 4: Czech Pile (W 2-0)
Round 5: MUD Post (W 2-0)
Round 6: ID
Round 7: ID
Quarterfinal: Czech Pile (L 0-2)


Both games of the QF were winnable had I played better, but oh well.

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congrats on the top8 but i was wondering why the split with noble/bird and why not 4 wasteland?

thanks

Hey all, long-time Maverick player popping my head in. Been off Legacy for a while since there's less activity/tournaments/FNMs these days. I noticed that for a while Maverick was splashing 4c for Leovold (with decent success), and now suddenly I look and I don't see him in lists any more. What changed? I thought he was a nice addition to the deck to combat Elves - our worst MU by far - and make Blue decks play fair against us.

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Originally Posted by IanCHarding

congrats on the top8 but i was wondering why the split with noble/bird and why not 4 wasteland?

thanks

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Noble doesn’t add red and birds fly. The exalted trigger is more important in multiples but sometimes you just need your dork to add red or pick up a sword.

In old school straight GW is was noble all the way, but with she splash for fires red is sometimes needed.

You also mana constrain yourself with the groves package so you usually have to cut utility lands ie wastelands in this case to make room.

I have seen lists with only 2 groves or no other utility lands but a 3/3 split seems nice as well.

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Originally Posted by Valleysdai

What are your tips and tricks when you are playing against miracles? Whenever I play against them they always seem to have the answers and stall out long enough to win.

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This is from Julian Knab with his elves list, but the idea is to prey on the fact that Miracles doesn’t actually run that many real cards anymore.

Bring in your black cards with the goal to extract either terminus or swords and they will not have enough actual spells to kill your team. Extract swords Mom+Teeg, Choke, Thoughtsieze, Bitterblossom, Tracker, Library plus equipment and everything else you want to do.

They don’t have a real way to punish us enough or lock us down anymore without Counterbalance. A quick Jace can be an issue but if he doesn’t have removal to find then what can he actually do?

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Originally Posted by Seraphix

I made Top8 at the the Giga-Bites Legacy Quarterly over the weekend.

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Congrats on the finish, it was nice to see Maverick do well - I chickened out of playing Maverick in the days leading up to the event.

The recording of your quarterfinals match is going up on Youtube, if it ever finishes "Processing".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaIfYZEj9L4

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Originally Posted by Seraphix

I made Top8 at the the Giga-Bites Legacy Quarterly over the weekend. List:

Creature Spells (21)
4x Mother of Runes
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scryb Ranger
4x Knight of the Reliquary

Noncreature Spells (15)
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Punishing Fire
1x Sylvan Library
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull

Lands (23)
4x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Savannah
2x Taiga
1x Plateau
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Karakas
3x Wasteland
1x Horizon Canopy

SB: 2x Surgical Extraction
SB: 2x Choke
SB: 2x Crop Rotation
SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1x Bojuka Bog
SB: 1x Reclamation Sage
SB: 1x Voice of Resurgence
SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1x Wear / Tear
SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant


There were 91 players so 7 rounds of swiss. Here's how my matches went:

Round 1: Oops, All Spells! (W 2-1)
Round 2: BUG Control (W 2-1)
Round 3: Grixis Delver (W 2-1)
Round 4: Czech Pile (W 2-0)
Round 5: MUD Post (W 2-0)
Round 6: ID
Round 7: ID
Quarterfinal: Czech Pile (L 0-2)


Both games of the QF were winnable had I played better, but oh well.

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Nice! I need to get out to the quarterly but am not on Facebook and don't know when anything is happening ever.

Started looking at what I am missing to do Maverick possibly for Richmond, and turns out I have no Bayou...

Then I looked at the price of Bayou... (online player mostly now a days)

AAAANNNNNNDDDD I am not going to be playing B splash :(
Looking more, Grove has gotten cheaper so maybe I can do GWr Punishing. Does that still need a Bayou for DRS or is it something I can just swing with BoP, Grove, no DRS, no Noble?

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Originally Posted by oSeabass

Started looking at what I am missing to do Maverick possibly for Richmond, and turns out I have no Bayou...

Then I looked at the price of Bayou... (online player mostly now a days)

AAAANNNNNNDDDD I am not going to be playing B splash :(
Looking more, Grove has gotten cheaper so maybe I can do GWr Punishing. Does that still need a Bayou for DRS or is it something I can just swing with BoP, Grove, no DRS, no Noble?

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What's the rest of your deck like? You can run scrubland, overgrown tomb or basic swamp for the black splash

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Originally Posted by oSeabass

Started looking at what I am missing to do Maverick possibly for Richmond, and turns out I have no Bayou...

Then I looked at the price of Bayou... (online player mostly now a days)

AAAANNNNNNDDDD I am not going to be playing B splash :(
Looking more, Grove has gotten cheaper so maybe I can do GWr Punishing. Does that still need a Bayou for DRS or is it something I can just swing with BoP, Grove, no DRS, no Noble?

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You can play Naya with just the 4 Birds. If doing this, make sure you play 3 Equips, and check out :r::r: spells since you'll be able to consistently cast them.

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Originally Posted by Seraphix

You can play Naya with just the 4 Birds. If doing this, make sure you play 3 Equips, and check out :r::r: spells since you'll be able to consistently cast them.

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Yea playing Naya is tempting, lets me look into GR fun things to splash for GSZ. Also I don't know WHAT I have, I need to take better inventory to see what I have and what I am missing. If I don't have SFM then it is probably out of the question.

The fallback is RUG Delver, which is... fine... just... not my baby.

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Originally Posted by oSeabass

...no DRS...

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No more forever

So Wasteland gets a lot better now. Those three color decks are losing a mana fixer.

My best guess is the 4c Leovold, Punishing Dack, etc. style decks all need to cut colors. Maybe U/R Delver is not the most popular deck?

Reanimator decks probably get a lot more popular now, so that should be interesting.

Do we just replace DRS with Birds and move on as normal?

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Originally Posted by delfam

So Wasteland gets a lot better now. Those three color decks are losing a mana fixer.

My best guess is the 4c Leovold, Punishing Dack, etc. style decks all need to cut colors. Maybe U/R Delver is not the most popular deck?

Reanimator decks probably get a lot more popular now, so that should be interesting.

Do we just replace DRS with Birds and move on as normal?

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KotR als doesn't get nerfed by hungry DRS anymore. That's pretty huge.

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Originally Posted by delfam

So Wasteland gets a lot better now. Those three color decks are losing a mana fixer.

My best guess is the 4c Leovold, Punishing Dack, etc. style decks all need to cut colors. Maybe U/R Delver is not the most popular deck?

Reanimator decks probably get a lot more popular now, so that should be interesting.

Do we just replace DRS with Birds and move on as normal?

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I am playing punishing M. right now...my initial thought was to replace DRS with Birds...

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Originally Posted by swordoffireandice

I am playing punishing M. right now...my initial thought was to replace DRS with Birds...

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You can replace DRS with BoP or go up to the full four NH. Two out of three colors ain't bad and the trigger is relevant.

Others have tested which of the two dorks is better. My recollection is that NH>BoP, but it's going to be a matter of preference.

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Originally Posted by menloe

You can replace DRS with BoP or go up to the full four NH. Two out of three colors ain't bad and the trigger is relevant.

Others have tested which of the two dorks is better. My recollection is that NH>BoP, but it's going to be a matter of preference.

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For me it's going to be 2-3 birds, a lotus cobra and maybe a crop rotation. But the 4th GSZ may be needed to grab scooze

So Maverick’s probably solid moving forward, but I assume we’re gonna need to load up on grave hate in the board. What do you all like? Some options:
- Bog
- Tormod’s
- Leyline
- RIP
- Surgical
- Scooze

(I’ve been on 4 DRS main, with 3 Surgical and 1 Scooze in the board. I’m personally gonna start by adding 1 Bog and 1 Tormod’s to the board.)

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Originally Posted by Stuart

So Maverick’s probably solid moving forward, but I assume we’re gonna need to load up on grave hate in the board. What do you all like? Some options:
- Bog
- Tormod’s
- Leyline
- RIP
- Surgical
- Scooze

(I’ve been on 4 DRS main, with 3 Surgical and 1 Scooze in the board. I’m personally gonna start by adding 1 Bog and 1 Tormod’s to the board.)

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Currently I have 4 Drs, 1 scooze, 1 bog main and 3 leyline and 1 surgical side (I will probably leave it as is minus the Drs). My benefit is that I run crops so have instant gy hate when needed.

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Originally Posted by Valleysdai

For me it's going to be 2-3 birds, a lotus cobra and maybe a crop rotation. But the 4th GSZ may be needed to grab scooze

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Just bought the three NH I needed to complete the set ($60 each, natch.) Probably 2 BoP and 4 NH for me. Really looking forward to stacking multiple exalt triggers honestly.

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking about the future metagame now that DRS (and probe) is banned. These are my brief initial thoughts:

Losers
Grixis Delver - this deck should be dead after losing up to 8 main deck cards.
4c Pile - no deck can be this greedy with its mana now. Wondering if players might turn to 3-color controlling shells instead.
Elves - a slight hit, as DRS provided some reach and resilience against -1/-1 effects.

Mixed
Maverick - KotR just got way better, but losing our only source of reach hurts
Storm - Loss of probe hurts, but not having to face casual GY hate from DRS somewhat mitigates this
Mono-Red Stompy - fewer decks with t1 mana creature helps, but maybe fewer greedy manabases

Winners
Miracles - I think Miracles will now retake its place as the top deck in Legacy without Pile decks to grind it out so effectively
Lands - Now they can dredge loam, rebuy their lands, and have PFire sit in the GY unmolested forever
Aggro Loam - Same thing as Lands
Dredge, Reanimator - duh, even though DRS was hardly sufficient to combat these stupid decks
Goblins - DRS will no longer just stonewall Lackey

Decks that may become decks again
RUG Delver might come back, as threshold will be way easier to achieve
U/R Delver seems reasonable, though maybe not in a world without Probe
I could see more people picking up something like Bant Stoneblade, with TNN (and less likely Leovold)

Other thoughts
-I think the obvious initial direction for Maverick is just to swap in Nobles. This would make us more of a beatdown deck with exalted triggers.
-Swapping Nobles for DRS is going to make -1/-1 effects hurt way more.
-Cavern of Souls might be a thing for us now.
-It's possible that Stoneforge Mystic gets a lot better in a world with fewer K-Commands in it.
-It's possible we will want to start running a few extra GY hate spots in the side. I've always been partial to RIP, but it felt bad being in a DRS/knight deck.
-That new dino in the upcoming Core set probably isn't good enough for legacy without DRS around, but who knows?
-It could be reasonable to eliminate the black splash entirely without DRS. The mana would get way easier, but the combo matchups would likely suffer .