[Deck] GW/x Maverick

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Wasn't maverick built to beat stoneblade and RUG Delver? You must be doing something wrong. ..

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Meant to beat stoneblade? Please, explain how. Rug delver, sure, that's no problem. But stoneblade? Let me show you how the average game against stoneblade goes. Turn one they thoughtseize or inquisition you and take your knight or green sun zenith. On your turn you play a mother of runes. The stoneblade player untaps and swords to plowshares your mother of runes. On your second turn you play a stoneforge mystic and it gets spell snared. On the stoneblade player's third turn they play stoneforge mystic fetching batterskull. On your third turn you play knight of the reliquary, which is only a 3/3 from the one fetch you used. The stoneblade player doesn't care, he has a batterskull. You have a pathetic board position as he drops batterskull in on turn 4. If you're lucky enough to have a sylvan library, at this point it would most likely just meet a force of will. Even if you establish a decent board position they can chump block with lingering souls tokens all day. From there all they need to do is attack with batterskull or a v-clique a few times to lock up the game. Let's imagine another game against stoneblade. You get lucky, and have a mother of runes and knight of the reliquary on the table. You play a gaddock teeg and he forces it. Next turn he untaps and plays supreme verdict. Game over. Card for card, stoneblade has answers to everything maverick can possibly throw at it.

Now, I'm not the best pilot of this deck by any means, but I have been playing maverick for close to a year, and the only round I managed to beat stoneblade was when I played choke when my opponent had 3 tapped islands. That's pretty pathetic at best. My meta is filled with very very good players. How have your games against stoneblade been?

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Originally Posted by Ecstatic_Conch

Meant to beat stoneblade? Please, explain how. Rug delver, sure, that's no problem. But stoneblade? Let me show you how the average game against stoneblade goes. Turn one they thoughtseize or inquisition you and take your knight or green sun zenith. On your turn you play a mother of runes. The stoneblade player untaps and swords to plowshares your mother of runes. On your second turn you play a stoneforge mystic and it gets spell snared. On the stoneblade player's third turn they play stoneforge mystic fetching batterskull. On your third turn you play knight of the reliquary, which is only a 3/3 from the one fetch you used. The stoneblade player doesn't care, he has a batterskull. You have a pathetic board position as he drops batterskull in on turn 4. If you're lucky enough to have a sylvan library, at this point it would most likely just meet a force of will. Even if you establish a decent board position they can chump block with lingering souls tokens all day. From there all they need to do is attack with batterskull or a v-clique a few times to lock up the game. Let's imagine another game against stoneblade. You get lucky, and have a mother of runes and knight of the reliquary on the table. You play a gaddock teeg and he forces it. Next turn he untaps and plays supreme verdict. Game over. Card for card, stoneblade has answers to everything maverick can possibly throw at it.

Now, I'm not the best pilot of this deck by any means, but I have been playing maverick for close to a year, and the only round I managed to beat stoneblade was when I played choke when my opponent had 3 tapped islands. That's pretty pathetic at best. My meta is filled with very very good players. How have your games against stoneblade been?

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I've played against Stoneblade the last couple tournaments I've been to. One of the rounds I beat him out even facing Thoughtseizes and the like. We had a rematch the next week and the match went 1-1 before going to time. He already wasn't doing too well and his wife was 0-2 so he gave me the win and went on his way. So far it hasn't been too much of a problem. I honestly feel like it's a pretty interesting matchup myself.

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Originally Posted by Ecstatic_Conch

Meant to beat stoneblade? Please, explain how. Rug delver, sure, that's no problem. But stoneblade? Let me show you how the average game against stoneblade goes. Turn one they thoughtseize or inquisition you and take your knight or green sun zenith. On your turn you play a mother of runes. The stoneblade player untaps and swords to plowshares your mother of runes. On your second turn you play a stoneforge mystic and it gets spell snared. On the stoneblade player's third turn they play stoneforge mystic fetching batterskull. On your third turn you play knight of the reliquary, which is only a 3/3 from the one fetch you used. The stoneblade player doesn't care, he has a batterskull. You have a pathetic board position as he drops batterskull in on turn 4. If you're lucky enough to have a sylvan library, at this point it would most likely just meet a force of will. Even if you establish a decent board position they can chump block with lingering souls tokens all day. From there all they need to do is attack with batterskull or a v-clique a few times to lock up the game. Let's imagine another game against stoneblade. You get lucky, and have a mother of runes and knight of the reliquary on the table. You play a gaddock teeg and he forces it. Next turn he untaps and plays supreme verdict. Game over. Card for card, stoneblade has answers to everything maverick can possibly throw at it.

Now, I'm not the best pilot of this deck by any means, but I have been playing maverick for close to a year, and the only round I managed to beat stoneblade was when I played choke when my opponent had 3 tapped islands. That's pretty pathetic at best. My meta is filled with very very good players. How have your games against stoneblade been?

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I... Dont play Maverick... I was just asking. And you go T1 Noble Hierarch into T2 KOTR or something. I dont think Stoneblade plays Spell Snare btw... Also you have Qasali Pridemage as a MB Tutorable way to kill off their BSkull. Again my question was a legitimate one. Maverick became popular in the states around the time that the Meta was a lot of RUG and Stoneblade if I remember correctly. Also I havent seen a stoneforge list for Maverick in awhile either...

Hello,

I'm going to go to a regional tiuournament in a few weeks.

There are many Midrange Decks, like RUG, BUG, Jund and ComboDecks like SnT, TES and ANT.

Would you recommen to play straight GW Maverick or splash red for punishing Maverick in this Meta.

My Sideboard looks like this:

3 Ethersworn Canonist (Storm, maybe goblins)
3 ORing ( SnT, multiremoval -> Planeswalker, Creatures of Midrange Decks)
2 Surgical Extraction ( GY Hate -> Fetchlands, Dredge, Reanimator ...)
1 Bojuka Bog ( Tutorable gy hate)
1 Gaddock Teeg ( Combo, PW,)
..

The last 5 slots are for 3 Natural Order and 2 Progenitus. It seems to be good against the fair Decks.

What do you think about my sideboard?

I dont play many tournaments, so with your tips i feel better :D

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Originally Posted by kai_nsane

Hello,

I'm going to go to a regional tiuournament in a few weeks.

There are many Midrange Decks, like RUG, BUG, Jund and ComboDecks like SnT, TES and ANT.

Would you recommen to play straight GW Maverick or splash red for punishing Maverick in this Meta.

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Of the fair decks, which is the most prevelant, if you expect a lot of rug, G/W is a better, it's mana is more stable and thalia is a beating for that deck, if it's Jund, Punishing is abetter, punishing fire straight kills everyone of their creatures (except goyf, whom you should just simply ignore), punishing jund, not too familiar with the matchup, my gut says punishing maverick though.

As for combo, G/W is usually a bit better as your using 3-4 thalia mainboard (instead of out of the board, if at all for punishing maverick), and punishing fire is really dead in these matchups. Though you don't have access to pyroblast.

In general, g/w is probably better but if you expect more BG/x midrange, punishing maverick is a solid choice.

Personally never cared for the Natural Order plan, but it's a way to go I guess. Seeing your list would make things a tad easier (or prospective list/s) to comment on.

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Originally Posted by Ecstatic_Conch

Meant to beat stoneblade? Please, explain how. Rug delver, sure, that's no problem. But stoneblade? Let me show you how the average game against stoneblade goes. Turn one they thoughtseize or inquisition you and take your knight or green sun zenith. On your turn you play a mother of runes. The stoneblade player untaps and swords to plowshares your mother of runes. On your second turn you play a stoneforge mystic and it gets spell snared. On the stoneblade player's third turn they play stoneforge mystic fetching batterskull. On your third turn you play knight of the reliquary, which is only a 3/3 from the one fetch you used. The stoneblade player doesn't care, he has a batterskull. You have a pathetic board position as he drops batterskull in on turn 4. If you're lucky enough to have a sylvan library, at this point it would most likely just meet a force of will. Even if you establish a decent board position they can chump block with lingering souls tokens all day. From there all they need to do is attack with batterskull or a v-clique a few times to lock up the game. Let's imagine another game against stoneblade. You get lucky, and have a mother of runes and knight of the reliquary on the table. You play a gaddock teeg and he forces it. Next turn he untaps and plays supreme verdict. Game over. Card for card, stoneblade has answers to everything maverick can possibly throw at it.

Now, I'm not the best pilot of this deck by any means, but I have been playing maverick for close to a year, and the only round I managed to beat stoneblade was when I played choke when my opponent had 3 tapped islands. That's pretty pathetic at best. My meta is filled with very very good players. How have your games against stoneblade been?

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That is just poor draw and sequencing. Imagine the same scenario but it plays out like this instead. He looks at your hand and it shows 2 lands (1 cavern + 1 fetch), 1 mom, 1 zenith, 1 hierarch, 1 knight and something random but a threat). Now he has the option of taking the zenith to protect his batterskull, take the knight because it will outgrow his batterskull in 1!!! turn or take the mom that will protect all your creatures. He has the swords to plowshares in hand but it is not all that obvious what to do with it. He decides to take the knight and try to counter the zenith when you cast that. Mind you, he cant have all the answers in hand and probably he has more than 2 lands in hand. His hands cant all be that dreamy and contain removal, stoneforge, fow+blue card in a list with 20 (max) blue cards PLUS three lands that lets him navigate around wasteland.

On your turn 1 you cast uncounterable mom OR you go for hierarch to set up something bigger on t2. We draw a land. We go for mom and passes. He plays land and now he needs to kill your mom directly, if not, its probably over. If he didnt find the three basiclands hand he now has probably an underground sea + tundra or plains out. He plows the mom and he sure as hell doesnt have spell snare in hand since that is almost unplayed in stoneforge (they are all copycats and run vidi's list).

Turn 2 we untap, draw a threat (if its a hierarch it changes things around a bit) and play our second land. IF we have found a wasteland instead of a creature from the two draws we now probably win the game by wasting and casting hierarch into t4 threat (if its human its uncounterable). But lets for argument sake say it is not a wasteland so we go hierarch and pass turn. Maybe we drew another mom or another zenith, then we can ramp into dryad arbor or win from there if he doesnt find the second swords to plowshares.

So on turn 3 he either looks down at 1 land or at a mother of runes or at 3 lands on my side and he has nothing in play. He plays a land and goes for stoneforge mystic, gets Batterskull, passes turn.

We draw a knight. Cast knight with our three mana uncounterable.


This game is all up to the player and the draw. It is by far not unwinnable. He has 1!!!! Supreme Verdict, he has 1!! Perish and 1 Zealous Persecution. He rocks 1 Umezawa's Jitte and some snappys to enable his swords. I'm just saying, if he doesnt find any of those cards we will have an easy game. Even if he resolves them it will not be that easy for him to win since we can come back from a board wipe if we dont slam down all our threats at once. I play Aven Mindcensor to screw with their stoneforge and landfetches. They have a very weak mana base, remember that. If they cant fetch into basics and we have a knight out, should be game over from there. Just get your mother of runes out and keep it alive until you find your scryb ranger, knight of the reliquary or similar threat.

Sorry for the rant, just trying to explain the matchup. Oh btw, try playing stoneblade against maverick to learn the matchup better.

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Of the fair decks, which is the most prevelant, if you expect a lot of rug, G/W is a better, it's mana is more stable and thalia is a beating for that deck, if it's Jund, Punishing is abetter, punishing fire straight kills everyone of their creatures (except goyf, whom you should just simply ignore), punishing jund, not too familiar with the matchup, my gut says punishing maverick though.

As for combo, G/W is usually a bit better as your using 3-4 thalia mainboard (instead of out of the board, if at all for punishing maverick), and punishing fire is really dead in these matchups. Though you don't have access to pyroblast.

In general, g/w is probably better but if you expect more BG/x midrange, punishing maverick is a solid choice.

Personally never cared for the Natural Order plan, but it's a way to go I guess. Seeing your list would make things a tad easier (or prospective list/s) to comment on.

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Thank you very much. I guess that i play straight GW. My List look probably like this.

3 Mother of Runes
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scryb Ranger
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
4 Green Suns Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sylvan Library
2 Umezawas Jitte

1 Karakas
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gaeas Cradle
1 Maze of Ith
4 Savannah
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Forest
1 Plaines
2 Cavern of Souls


If i would play Punishing fire, i would put Thalia into SB and Change the Manabase a little bit -> 3 Groves, 1 Taiga, 1 Plateau / - 1 Wasteland, 1 Savannah, 2 CoS, 1 Canopy.

A little explanation to the choices:
1 Sylvan Safekeeper: He is my 4th MoR. I think instant protection is not bad.
2 Mirran Crusader : I read in other Forums, that he is great. I want to test him over the SFM.
1 Sigarda: With Cradle a castable Fattie against the Midrange Decks. Also good against SnT -> negate annihilator.

The SB looks like this:
3 Ethersworn Canonist (Storm, maybe goblins)
3 ORing ( SnT, multiremoval -> Planeswalker, Creatures of Midrange Decks)
2 Surgical Extraction ( GY Hate -> Fetchlands, Dredge, Reanimator ...)
1 Bojuka Bog ( Tutorable gy hate)
1 Gaddock Teeg ( Combo, PW,)
3 Natural Order
2 Progenitus

What are your opinions about, Loxodon Smiter/WLL, Ulvenwald Tracker? Are they worth to play?

What do you think od my build? I am open to changes, to get better :)

@Carllos - Yes sometimes it was an issue probably one Bayou would fix the problem - but I wanted to have Bojuka MD to fight opposite KtoR's with Punishing fires.

how about charms? (boros or selensya) are they worth adding to the deck list?

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Originally Posted by diakocjay

how about charms? (boros or selensya) are they worth adding to the deck list?

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The only thing I'd even consider running Selesnya Charm for is giving your KOTR a buff with Trample, but even then, there's better options, like Sejiri Steppe, that you can play in order to get around your opponent's creatures. Boros Charm might not be terrible in a Punishing Maverick build, but I also don't think it's really necessary. Double Strike doesn't do anything if they just chump block away, Indestructible might be okay if your attack actually did something to their board but most of the time it won't, and with the ping 4 I'd rather just go Lightning Bolt at that point for being less mana intensive and because it has more versatility in that it can also nail creatures.

In my experience, I would say that we were favored 60-40 against U/W stoneblade, but the inclusion of black has dropped the bearing down to about 50/50. If you have an active knight, keep them off of four lands. Jace is truly what leaves you in the dust. As well, running a couple of sylvan libraries helps excellently in grindy miracles/esperblade matchups. In those matchups, don't be afraid to take 8 damage (or more) from the Library to put more pressure on control players and force them to stay on their toes and play defensibly.

Also, the stoneforge package is way too great of a resource investment to justify running anymore, in my opinion. Especially with decays abound in the format.

Just practice the matchup.

How important is Scryb Ranger for this deck? When do you tutor for it with GSZ? Is it needed to win against Delver decks?

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Originally Posted by Sigar

How important is Scryb Ranger for this deck? When do you tutor for it with GSZ? Is it needed to win against Delver decks?

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It's a useful tool, and helps to beat Delver decks by a long shot. It's useful for starting the aggressive line with the deck. It maintains zero Forest in play vs deck that play Submerge. It flies and carries equipment like a boss. It's tutored for when you have an opportunity to use one of your attackers/activated ability dorks/need mana. It's a swiss army knife.

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Originally Posted by kai_nsane

What are your opinions about, Loxodon Smiter/WLL, Ulvenwald Tracker? Are they worth to play?

What do you think od my build? I am open to changes, to get better :)

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I would play WLL if I had access to a few. it's a great way to boost the team and make each creature a threat against Black decks. Watchout for Perish however.

Tracker is pretty weak. I prefer to play another Path to Exile in its place.

As for your build, it looks 1-3 cards different from mine when I was still playing it. Consider adding a 2nd Forest, likely swapping out a Cavern of Souls. Activating Scavenging Ooze actually matters a lot of times, and having less Forests/plains means KotR doesn't work as well.

Thank you Koby!

I would add WLL to the Sb.

What do you think about NO Sideboard? In my meta are many URG, Bug, jund and Storm Decks.

Hi all,

I just wanted to post the list I have used last tournament (Danish Legacy Master 2013) that got me to the 16th place

4 Wasteland
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Karakas
3 Forest
1 Plains
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Eiganjo Castle

4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Thrun, the Last Troll


SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Oblivion Ring
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Rest in Peace

Matches:

Affinity 1 - 2
Charbelcher 0 - 2
High Tide 2 - 1
Esper 2 - 1
Maverick 2 - 0
Death and Taxes 2 - 0
Esper 2 - 0

Few thoughts:

Aven Mindcensor and Sylvan Safekeeper did a really good job

I found the 2 Krosan grip too much, they are not tutorable and they cost 4 with Thalia on board so I m planning to switch one with 1x Engineered Explosives (which could have saved me against both Affinity and the 16 tokens of Charbelcher)

I have a question: Is NO Package still viable today?
In my meta I have a lot of dredge, gobs, fish, rug, mav and bug.
I want to know, cause I wanna buy the NO package and replace my Fauna-Loyal-Elesh Combo (deathrite simply kills me)

Thank you in advance. :)

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Originally Posted by diakocjay

I have a question: Is NO Package still viable today?
In my meta I have a lot of dredge, gobs, fish, rug, mav and bug.
I want to know, cause I wanna buy the NO package and replace my Fauna-Loyal-Elesh Combo (deathrite simply kills me)

Thank you in advance. :)

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In a meta without a lot of Liliana and mass removal I think it is fine. I wouldnt want to play it against RUG or Miracles but the rest is fine. It is a bit clunky and do not try to play any more expensive spells than NO-package. I would pack 1 fauna shaman though in the 60.

Hi Team,

How about adding rancor to your MD?

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Originally Posted by diakocjay

Hi Team,

How about adding rancor to your MD?

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It makes you vulnerable to 2-for-1's from your opponent.
It isn't a threat in itself.
It's purely aggro where Maverick usually needs the option to play the controllish role.
I think Rancor doesn't belong in normal Maverick lists.

I'm building a Punishing list right now. Any tips? It looks like this so far:

PUNISHING MAVERICK

1 Dryad Arbor
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Mother of Runes
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Scryb Ranger
4 Knight of the Reliquary /21

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant /17

4 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Plateau
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland /22

Side:
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Path to Exile
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Gaddock Teeg /15

The deck is tuned to beat fair decks right now. Unfair stuff will always be a problem for Mav, so I decided not to waste too much space to try and beat that.