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I ran one in the SB of Imperial to deal with Elves!, and it turned out to be too slow. They consistently blew me apart the turn after it hit the field - if Sharpshooter doesn't have haste, it's not going to be good enough I'm afraid. Cunning Sparkmage is the better alternative, although it looks much weaker on paper. It also scores bonus points for having the correct creature type in mono-W.Quote:
Originally Posted by tarmogoat
Peacekeeper could theoretically help you against Elves and Sneak but even then it's a Hail Mary play that allows them to still find a slow method to win.
I still believe 1 Canonist could be main deck. That's the proactive answer I'd go for. Creatures that ping or give -1/-1 come out too late. Elves also have a decent chunk of x/2s.
The obvious MD-able answer to Elves! in a tutor-heavy build with Cavern of Souls is Orzhov Pontiff. You won't find a better solution than this one.
fixedQuote:
Originally Posted by colo
If you get to three mana, you want this card instead of a narrow solution. The Elves deck I test against is not quite the standard build, but I have won maybe four games with THC otb and lost exactly one. Elves must remove her unless they get lots and lots of elves or they are running Progenitus. If you get her out with Mother of Runes, you are heavily advantaged because even Abrupt Decay won't save them.
Oh, no, no. I suppose this is the sort of thing that testing is for. I tested against Miracles and found myself calling "one" instead of "six". That essentially turned off StP and Terminus at the same time (because I had either dealt with Top in some way or he did not have one yet) and Brainstorm too. But then I had a hard time dealing with his two Mentors because I was myself holding StP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrjumbo03
Something similar happened against Grixis, except I actually lost to Abrupt Decay the one time it happened. So, you need the Banisher Priest as an option to fetch. I have been looking for 2-mana solutions such as Soul Tithe in the vein that iatee focuses on with his Paths to Exile in the board. But I do not like anything so far.
So, do you mean that because he didn't have Top, Terminus was essentially turned off? Because, even cast for Miracle, Terminus is a 6 CMC. Just trying to clarify.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
My experience has been that Mentor doesn't really do much of anything as long as there's a prelate on 1 on the battlefield. In fact, even though my initial expectation was that we'd use Prelate mostly as a terminus stopper, the more I test, the more I realize that jamming it on 1 is probably going to be the best play in most board states.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
To second Finn, Banisher Priest is really great as a tutorable target, and THC is the nuts against Elves. I've been on both sides of that matchup, and THC was the game-breaker in every case. I lost to D&T and white Eldrazi while playing Elves at Gen Con solely due to the power of THC, and I also beat Elves there while playing D&T.
Regarding Santum Prelate in the Miracles matchup: You'll want to name what you most care about at a given moment. In the early stages of the game, naming one will likely do a considerable amount of damage to your opponent's ability to develop and create a board presence. In the later game, you may just need to shut off Terminus as an out if you are ~1 turn away from a lethal swing. Keep in mind that naming 1 also really decreases the value of Snapcaster Mage.
I'm working on getting some of my thoughts together, and I'll be writing up a sizable article on Monday or Tuesday. I'm playing something interesting in Baltimore.
as a Miracle player: welcome back Izzet Staticaster and Pyroclasm
Yes. I am saying that. I really want Prelate on one. If I have it on another number I find myself wanting to reset it.Quote:
Originally Posted by dorvaan
I have just one problem with Prelate on 1. StP costs 1, and they can still cast creatures. This seems like nonbo city. Any suggestions for how to "play around" this unfortunate situation?Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
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If it is shutting down our ~4 Swords to Plowshares and Vials should we not already have cast them, but it is shutting down bolts, swords, brainstorms, ponders, tops, etc, etc, etc from our opponent we are likely still favored there. One way to mitigate shutting down our own swords is through creatures like banisher priest or fiend hunter as some additional removal as well as using Flickerwisps at the right moments to act as temporary removal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
I played against miracles tonight with three recruiters and two prelates. Prelate on 1 was always better than 6. If I set her on 6 she'd eat a swords and then I'd get hit with Terminus afterwards.
I'll write a better report tomorrow about my matchups, but I must say I was in love with both new cards, especially recruiter.
While I do not entirely agree, I guess it's not like you can't just hold the Swords to Plowshares until they deal with the Prelate or lose, or you block with it. Dropping one for a banisher priest a terrible idea? I'm out of room otherwise...Quote:
Originally Posted by mykatdied
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I'm still busy with moving to my new apartment, but even without testing, I'm not suprised that Prelate @1 would be better in most cases vs Miracles than just blocking Terminus. They have way more 1 CC spells, including several ones that set up Terminus. Recruiter into Flickerwisp should also weaken Terminus as a whole, too. Besides, wouldn't an active Prelate hinder Mentor alot in terms of token production? No StPs, no cantrips, no double Top shenanigans.
As for builds running 4 Caverns: Isn't the white mana for SFM and StP more problematic now? That's my main concern with running that many Caverns.
I find that I have a variety of tools to limit the power of Terminus now. The Miracles matchup has definitely swung considerably in our favor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
I had four Caverns for about a day. Could not hardcast a Flickerwisp for shit. I'm at two now, and likely to stay there.Quote:
As for builds running 4 Caverns: Isn't the white mana for SFM and StP more problematic now? That's my main concern with running that many Caverns.
At some point soon, we really need to gather ideas for sb options designed to counter hate and for the mirror. I have Veteran Armorer and Leonin Relic-Warder, but I am certain that is not enough. In fact, Armorer dies to Pyroclasm and Massacre. As soon as he does, everything does as well. I'm not sure the card does anything at all except against Golgari Charm and Dread of Night. And I guarantee our opponents will know this.
Unfortunately, anything with a bigger butt is unfetchable. We need something with counters or X or something or else we are back to Honor of the Pure.
"Hate" is a pretty broad term. First we need to determine what kind of cards might show up to really hurt us now, then find appropriate counters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
Thalia's Lieutenant? Not the greatest, but we could flicker it a couple times for the rest of the team, then if we continue to play dudes, he gets bigger.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
I played a 3 round FNM last night and this is what I was running:
9 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Flickerwisp
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Round 1 - Miracles with Mentor and Snapcaster Mage
This is where I found Prelate on 6 was useless. He hit it with Swords and then went nuts with double Top and Mentor. 4/4 Monks are hard to deal with. However, the monks were the only time THC was any good as it didn't produce chump blockers as well as normal.
In the sideboarded game he brought in two SFM, Batterskull, and Jitte. I Revokered his SFM without drawing my own, thankfully, and applied some pressure with SOFI equipped creatures until he Terminused, then dropped Jace. Jace bounced one creature, then I dropped Recruiter which he did not bounce. More pressure applied and a bunch of Jitte counters on my side kept his Monks in check until he was forced to chump with Mentor, and I won the next turn. SOFI was MVP in this matchup. Prelate is good on 1 but make sure you can protect her. Recruiter and drawing off SOFI also helped me sandbag creatures in my hand that I could cast after a Terminus, which kept the pressure going
Round 2 - BUG Loam - Dark Depths combo with Jace and Liliana for alternate wincon
Game 1 I applied tons of pressure and got him down to 4, but I got greedy and fetched Mirran Crusader with a Recruiter instead of Flickerwisp when I had a vial on 3. Died to Marit Lage next turn. Pretty sure I had a Prelate on 2 in this game to shut off Life from the Loam and Abrupt Decay, which is why I lasted so long, but he still was able to use Crop Rotation to set up the lands combo.
Game 2 I kept a 1 lander and was punished for it. Turn 1 Vial was Abrupt Decayed, and the only other land that I would have seen over the next 8-10 turns was fatesealed to the bottom with Jace. Bad luck is really all it was, although I typically have a hard time post-board with him anyways because he brings in Golgari Charm, Toxic Deluge, and Darkblast that he can dredge back again and again.
Round 3 - Mono Red Sneak Attack
Game 1 he wins the die roll, drops Chalice on 1. My turn 1 I drop Cavern on Humans into Mom. Turn 2 he drops Sneak Attack. Turn 2 I drop Revoker on Sneak attack, and just apply pressure from there while he can't really do anything.
Game 2 he gets a slow start, I once again Revoker on Sneak attack. Turn 3 he drops Lotus Petal, I top deck a Revoker and get his Petal too. The only threat he managed to drop was Batterskull, but I sent the germ to plowshares immediately. I drop Prelate on 5 to stop Through the Breach (which he ended up having in his hand - yes!) then beat down with tiny white creatures and equipment.
I will say I'm convinced Recruiter is absolutely amazing, and I actually didn't find myself missing Serra Avenger at all. I'm still not sure what I want for the "toolbox" suite of creatures. Mirran Crusader is amazing most of the time, Prelate was great when she stuck, and I actually didn't find myself wanting THC very often at all. I did dodge Delver and Eldrazi matchups, I think she'd be much better in those.
3 Caverns was absolutely fine, and even if I did drawl multiples I always have the option of naming Kor or Elemental in a pinch. As a result of this I dropped to 3 Flickerwisps, as it becomes the hardest creature to hardcast but I also have effectively 6 of them with Recruiter. I was happy with that choice. I don't think I'd want 4 Caverns, though.
I have a tournament next weekend and all I'm contemplating now is do I want 4 Recruiters or do I want to sub the second Crusader for another toolbox creature?
Sideboard is also a work in progress; the only sideboard card I ever drew last night was Pithing Needle so I don't know what's really going to be good.
Pretty sure that if a crusade critter is gonna end up being playable, it's this one. But I doubt it.Quote:
Originally Posted by mykatdied
Yeah as far as effects like Pyroclasm, kozilek's return and massacre are concerned it is likely the best option to be able to get your creatures over 2 toughness. At the very least it can build up to a large creature with further humans playedQuote:
Originally Posted by Luca Grease
the main pro is that the counters stay even when it dies, which has always been the problem with Lords in DnT. On the other hand, only pumping humans already on the battlefield when it comes into play means this is still not gonna do its job reliably. Imo, Crusade effects are not, and have never been, a truly effective way of fighting hate. Incidentally, Prelate (and, to a lesser extent, the new Thalia) have provided us with a much more functional solution, by 1) allowing us to up our X/2 count and 2) preventing -1-1 effects from being cast.Quote:
Originally Posted by mykatdied
Also Thalias Lieutenant is good way to play around punishing fire if need be. But it might be too narrow for the meta right now, might have to wait to see if pyro or return gets played more in miracles.
Any black deck can likely play Dread of Night safely without affecting their creatures (I know I have one in my Grixis Delver sideboard), but what decks can afford to play Massacre? Storm and Reanimator? I haven't seen it in anything else before.
The extra 2 power creatures (Prelate, THC) will survive Dread of Night and Golgari Charm, but not Massacre.
The purpose of this discussion is to get out in front if the hate which is certainly coming.Quote:
Originally Posted by commonenemy
Opponents are going to recognize the increased number of 2-toughness creatures and adapt. Massacre and Pyroclasm are coming.Quote:
The extra 2 power creatures (Prelate, THC) will survive Dread of Night and Golgari Charm, but not Massacre.
Perhaps, but don't you think Kozilek's Return will be Miracles' answer to it rather than 'clasm? Or even Devastation Tide?
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Miracles might be able to get away with Kozilek's Return, but lots of people will be on Sudden Demise, Rough/Tumble, and Pyroclasm too. Black has even more varied options.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
Black decks will also consider Virtue's Ruin and Toxic Deluge -- ignoring P/T altogether.Quote:
Originally Posted by RobNC
@RobNC thanks for the FNM report!
Good point, Warden. Deluge is a lot less narrow. I can see a strong case for maindecking it even, as the guys in my meta do. I don't think we have an especially good answer for it. But I do think that we are even better at bouncing back from it than before.
Burrenton Forge-Tender is often used in Modern to protect from Pyroclasm and Anger of the Gods, but I don't know if it would protect us from much else. Kozilek's Return is colorless (Mom doesn't help either). Would be a cool trick with Vial on 1, though. Absolute Law is a more permanent answer but again really only helps with Pyroclasm/Anger.
Deluge is common in my meta, too. Prelate on 3 is probably the only way we're going to be stopping that.
(Side question: how do I get card names to be a link that shows the card when the cursor hovers?)
Put the word "cards" inside brackets, then type out the cards you want, then, "/cards", inside brackets.Quote:
(Side question: how do I get card names to be a link that shows the card when the cursor hovers?)
Some thoughts:
3-4 recruiter is imo definitely the way to go. It smoothly fixes the main issue we have: card selection. This, however, weekens us against tempo oriented decks, as we're mostly forced to cut most beefy beaters (avenger/crusader/brimaz) to make space for recruiter.
To consistently drop a recruiter as early as possible, we need cavern of souls. Getting our turn 3 recruiter dazed in said tempo matchup will most likely end in losing us the game. Cavern virtually speeds us up as we can play around possible (soft) counters. With recruiter and prelate and the exclusion of avenger, we play even more humans than before, making cavern less clunky. I think playing 3 caverns is the right number. It's also insanely good vs miracles.
Thus, this leaves us with a problem: Flickerwisp, undoubtedly one of the greatest creatures in our deck, costs WW and is no human. Shortening the pure white sources for cavern makes flickerwisp pretty hard to cast, especially because we dont have access to the likes of brainstorm etc. Yet we don't want to cut it. With more ETB effects on our creatures (eg recruiter) flickerwisp seems stronger than ever.
At this point, we probably have to decide between wisp and cavern. Wisp helps us a lot vs tempo decks, eg by blinking delvers. But so does cavern.
I came to the conclusion to play 3 of both. While this is pretty damn greedy and leaves us with pretty bad draws, it also pays out a lot. This is just my point of view, i also understand playing 2 or less caverns for more consistency.
This leaves us with only 3 flyers. I chose to both play 1 stonecloaker 1 kor skyfisher in addition. This helps us force through some damage over the air, trade with delvers and bring more card advantage with the rise of ETB effects. Both require only W and are therefore easier to cast. Still, they are both worse than wisp: stonecloaker is clunky most of the times, skyfisher cant be recruitered and requires vial on 2 which we dont really want to keep. However, it only costs two, which smoothens out our curve, and bounces a land which we can then replay at its worst (note: possible cavern reset!) This helps a lot in tempo matchups.
I also think maindecking 1 thalia got 1 banisher priest are a must.
This way, we still keep a good g1 vs tempo decks despite giving up tempo/ beef due to recruiter.
Orzhov pontiff is a beast in the mirror and vs elves, so i really want 1 in my board. 3 caverns make him castable as well. 5 resets make him even better.
Magus of the moon is also something i enjoy.
All in all, I'm playing a greedy list, but testing so far has shown good results.
Skyfisher and cloaker might still be cut, but i like both - at least atm
Thanks for reading my thoughts, hope you dont consider them complete garbage :)
I know it's a while yet, but perhaps a Vehicle will allow for the playing of a tutorable flying creature for the delver matchup. There's that 2cmc 2/3 flyer, Crew 1 that recently got spoiled.
Edit: Sky Skiff is the card.
Edit 2: never mind, it's a 2/3
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How about Mark of Asylum to avoid all 'damage' sweepers? No matter color or amount.
It still doesn't solve Virtue's Ruin, then Selfless Spirit solves that, but it's a one-off use card.
None of those solve Toxic Deluge from BUG and other black control-ish decks, nor the Marsh Casualties from Elves, but toxic deluge paired with a couple hits from dudes makes it risky sometimes.
Maybe the actual solution is Vryn Wingmare to make any sweeper un-castable? Or maybe the solution is just not care about the hate and go straight up for Sanctum Prelate for the CMC that will wipe us in each MU.
I don't think that I would want to lean heavily on cavern for tempo match ups. It means we are much less resilient to wasteland which sets us back mana allowing daze and force to become live again. Which also means the tempo plan works better now that they can waste us off a land and stifle a trigger of recruiter. If we are stuck on a 1/1 for 3 mana before being wasted and then having recruiter potentially removed, that is what tempo wants us to do. The 1 or 2 of cavern was nice to at least commit a thalia to the board to return the tempo loss by taxing their spells. I'm not going to say it is the worst idea, but trying to consider cavern a perfect answer to tempo and running more just means we are less resilient to wasteland and also more likely to die to a delver while we have swords to Plowshares stranded in hand.
I've been trying to solve this problem with Imperial for a while now.
Cavern is good against tempo, as it lets you play 3 drops past Daze. It doesn't solve the tempo issue on its own - you still have to deal with their Delver/TKS/whatever. So the answer is...just play more removal. Playing a bunch of Path to Exiles has worked out great, I lose very rarely with Imperial vs Delver (and even Infect) when I'm playing 3 Path in my SB. I don't even think 4 is crazy.
We generally don't die to Delvers (or Young Pyro, or Reality Smasher, or Blighted Agent) because we can't cast STP, we die to them because we only have 4 STP and no search effects for them.
Im with MYkatdied on this one. I just this week dropped Horizon Canopy for Cavern of Souls. I never felt that I was losing matches to countermagic. Force of Will is weaksauce against this deck and Spell Pierce really only gets the turn 1 Vial anyway. We now crush Miracles and (apart from infect) anything that wants to use Daze, which is itself terrible against this deck. Caverns really feels win-even-more to me now. I'm tickled at the idea of stranding Force of Will in someone's hand, but I'm usually happy to see someone cast it anyway.
Also, -x/-x effects circumvent indestructible, so as much as I like Selfless Spirit, I just don't see it having much application. I bet there is no particularly good way out of the sweepers. But honestly, the decks that will run these sweepers are going to be miserable against D+T unless they contort themselves considerably. The one guy popped in here to say that he was going to go red in Miracles for Pyroclasm and Izzet Staticaster. Sure. Go three colors in Miracles, please. THC is going to buttfuck you. Just ask the Shardless guys and the RUG guys what she does to greedy manabases. (I'm dying to go to three of these, btw.)
What I would fear is a value Jund deck that found a way to profitably play Toxic Deluge main with Gurmag Angler while keeping their manabase reasonable. THC gapes current Jund decks without lube, but I think it can be done if they play Sakura-Tribe Elder and Rancor. Those cards hurt.
Nobody needs to worry about Jund. Jund's a pretty fringe deck and it's probably gonna stay that way because it has so many bad matchups. Shardless is what you get when you turn Jund into a legacy deck.
Also I think people might be a little too concerned about beating DnT hate before we first solve the first level 'what's the strongest g1 deck' question w/ the new toys. Looks like there were a grand total of 0 DnT decks in the t16 of the Legacy Classic this weekend, so it might take a little bit longer before everyone is playing 4 Dread of Nights in their main.
I'm thinking we should likely stick close to what we know and slowly develop and build the deck to what we need to react to. If we are seeing a bunch of massacres then maybe our prelates should just be naming 4. If we are seeing a bunch of pyroclasm, kozilek's return etc then maybe some selfless spirits that we can tutor for. If we see a bunch of dreads then we can prelate for 1 or get some armorer to deal with that. I think what is important in this new design is to try and keep it simple, then react SD the hate comes. If you spent the last 1-5 years running roughly the stock list, then basically completely redesign the deck because you're worried about hate that may not exist you're likely going to pick up losses.
I haven't post much recently because I was testing something a little different. Here's my write-up from Richmond.
Worth noting that kavu is tutorable off recruiter! Nice article. I love kavu. One thing in the section about that is if you somehow have the mana up on an opponents clear board if you have displacer online and mana to drop kavu you can play kavu targeting another creature you control then displace the targeted creature to apply additional pressureQuote:
Originally Posted by Medea_