If you want clone mainly to get rid of Progenitus I would recommend considering Llawan, Cephalid Empress instead, since it is also game against Merfolks. Obviously Clone deals also with Iona and the likes though.
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If you want clone mainly to get rid of Progenitus I would recommend considering Llawan, Cephalid Empress instead, since it is also game against Merfolks. Obviously Clone deals also with Iona and the likes though.
The problem with Llawan and Clone is that as a one off you need Survival to use it, otherwise you'll nearly never draw them when you need them. And if you have survival most of the time you'll not search them because you can finish them off with VV if you have 4 mana. If i would play Llawan in the SB as a 2 or3 off but it's not as good as it should be when it takes that many sideboard slots.
Concerning the GW build in particular, what would a standard list look like? Might starting picking up pieces for it, but I've noticed some variations between builds and colors. Thanks in advance.
Well I would say the rough shell is:
21-23 Lands
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mother of Runes
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2-4 Qasali Pridemages
From there one you can add whatever suits your taste/meta, ranging vom VV-Package, Iona-Package,Fauna Shamans, Squee, Finks, Witnesses, Teegs etc etc.
@ conboy31
For your loss to bant, you could have probably fetched for a karakas instead of horizon canopies to be able to deal with Vendilion Clique. I used to do this before to be able to deal with Vendilion. Its not the best solution but it does help delay till you find that swords to plowshare.
@ Tao
Is oust still a good anti aggro solution now that vengvine is on the rise? I think instant speed like path to exile would be preferred.
So recently I've been playing Tao's list and was absolutely happy with how it did in my testing. All the maindeck numbers seemed to be right and it did pretty well against the decks I consider to be relevant right now. I even had quite some game against combo decks (while it was definitely a bad matchup) by being able to consistently search up hatebears at turn 3 and locking them out with Iona soon afterwards if I got that far.
However I was a little bit unhappy with some cards.
Wasteland was underwhelming in my testing, being more problematic to myself than to my opponents. It is definitely needed in here, but it was not very strong for me up to now and made me mulligan otherwise perfectly good hands way too often. The same was true for Gaea's Cradle, which could be amazing sometimes, but actually was win more most of the time, while otherwise it caused me severe problems by being the only land in my hand. I just prefer consistency over the land toolbox, as for me Knight of the Reliquary is searching 1- 2 times at most per game, because then swinging with him becomes more valuable due to the enormous power he has usually grown to by then. I either search for 1 Wasteland to handle either utility lands or Mutavault/Factory or for Horizon Canopy if I am somewhat flooded and got the time to do so.
How about this manabase:
4 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Wasteland
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Taiga
It has been good for me due to its great consistency for now. But sure Knight of the Reliquary loses some power (while he still is insane in here) because he can't screw your opponent, ut actually this wasn't an issue very often.
Concerning the sideboard, does anyone else like a 1off Squee in the board as a way to fight graveyard hate? I am yet not sure whether he is really needed here, but most of the time he is a pretty efficient and cheap way to make your opponent fire off his crypt / extirpate at him and opens the way for some Vengevine / Iona madness.
Then for the sideboard, especially in those builds running the Enlightened Tutor engine (which I like to fight combo, but is rather weak otherwise) is there no love for Choke? It seems to be really strong in here to shore up all the CB and control matchups by being the "I win" card here.
I had problems against Rb(g) Goblins in testing. As it was stated earlier in this thread it is a total blowout all the time, no matter who wins. However they win more often, especially postboard, when they get Relic of Progenitus, Perish and sometimes Krosan Grip. I can hardly manage to win any postboard games without survival due to their access to 3-4 Warren Weirdings combined with Perish wiping out all of my strong threads.
Path to Exile was not very strong here (gives them free lands ( and Goblins is a defining factor in my metagame. I have gone so far and added 1 Taiga (for the 4th Forest) in the manabase to support Firespout postboard. This doesn't seem optimal however, but helped me to shore up the Goblins and especially Zoo matchup a lot by being rather unexpected and absolutely devastating if played carefully. I didn't have much problems with killing my own guys, as with some tight I could make them overextend without killing my own creatures with Firespout.
However Firespout seems suboptimal in this deck, but so far I couldn't come up with anything better. It is great against Zoo, Merfolk and Goblins, which is actually not too shabby as they most of the time don't see it coming.
@Muradin
Have you ever tried ghostly prisons in the sideboard?
First off ghostly prisons are good paired with wastelands (if you run it). It makes KotR much stronger/and more useful defensively just by fetching a wasteland..
Ghostly prisons are also good against most tribal decks and aggro decks. Goblins, Merfolk, and zoo.. Not only is it good against those decks, it is also good against Dredge, vengvine decks and some other decks. I beat a vengvine deck with a single prison last week.
Ghostly prisons are also tutorable by enlightened tutor.
It forces some people to make slow plays and buys you enough time.
As my metagame is quite aggro in nature so I normally choose to have around 3 of these in the sb. I have also considered Firespout in the sideboard if I do splash red. However, Red elemental blast and anger is what I am really interested with the red splash. As for aggro problems I think ghostly prisons do the job quite well. I don't think you really need to splash red just for Firespout.
@ GW survival
Generally speaking however, I don't understand why people seem to lose vs dredge,as I always saw it as a positive match up after boarding.
Although I run quite a different build of survival(I splash a 3rd color for certain cards and usually run vials), the game is basically the same since my skeleton is still GW.
My sideboard /depending on color splash as well : (metagame is more aggro)
3 Krosan grip
2 gaddock teeg
1 ethersworn cannonist
1 enlightened tutor
2 tormods crypt
1 wheel of sun and moon
1 faerie mcabre
3 ghostly prison / path to exile
1 dueling ground or something else.
I usually bring in around 7-9 or even more cards from the sideboard against dredge and goes quite positive from there.
The real question to ask yourself is whether it's really better than dueling ground. I would say probably not.Quote:
Originally Posted by f|i[p]
@ Maelig
The truth is it varies from case to case. Being able to tax your opponent early on is really crippling for his game plan. Having dueling grounds early would still let zoo push through with a creature and cast a removal spell at the same time. Dueling grounds would also let merfolks and other goblins pump their creatures with another creature while attacking with one. While ghostly prison really hampers aggro decks progress early on. It stops zoo from producing mass amount of creatures and casting spells for removal, they will end up choosing, progress, removal or attack. This is considering they don't have a huge amount of mana. Dueling grounds however is usually better late game, where it ensures only one creature can attack. Having wastelands in your mana base would benefit ghostly prisons but not dueling grounds. At rare times, ghostly prisons can also shut down progenitus and emrakul, while dueling grounds does not. Hence I still think ghostly prisons are better for Gw survival since we do capitalize on midgame and try to finish off with vengvine or iona. Imagine zoo, killing fauna shaman and attacking at the same time with dueling grounds. While ghostly prison would probably make them choose between attacking and killing shaman, which saves you around 3-4 life. (this is significant vs zoo).
Depends on your own plan. Dueling Grounds conflicts with the Vengevine plan somewhat, whereas Ghostly Prison does not. Haven't tested Grounds too much, maybe just blocking with 'Vines and having access to ginormous Knights to attack with is enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maëlig
I like the Ghostly Prison suggestion a lot. I'll try it out instead of the 1 Dueling Grounds I'm hesitant to add.
Isn't the question: Do we really need an answer for these aggro decks? I never really felt the need for dueling ground or ghostly prison myself.
As you can see, some people are still having trouble with zoo, goblins and merfolk. I even get problems against Madness vengvine decks because of the sheer speed of mongrel.. So if your asking if we need an answer, I think yes. Ghostly prisons will help those match up enough for us to be able to set up. Most of the games I play against zoo, gobs and sometimes even merfolk, I end up playing defensively, unless they have a crappy hand or until I get a vengvine set up or iona.The side board is always metagame dependent, and if your metagame is full of aggro decks and tribal decks, I would highly suggest having ghostly prisons in the sb.
This is the deck im running currently:
// Lands
3 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
3 [TE] Wasteland
1 [LG] Karakas
3 [A] Savannah
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [US] Gaea's Cradle
3 [M11] Forest (3)
1 [M11] Plains (2)
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
// Creatures
3 [ROE] Vengevine
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
3 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [TO] Basking Rootwalla
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
4 [M11] Fauna Shaman
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 [P3] Loyal Retainers
// Spells
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
4 [A] Swords to Plowshares
If the meta indeed consists of all these aggro decks and I'm worried about them I'd show up with:
-4 fauna shaman -2 iona / retainer
+3 stoneforge mystic +2 jitte/SofI +1 scryb ranger
Sideboard will always consist of a number of path to exile / oust / condemn whatever. And this has been doing just fine for me.
Did anyone ever try Glory? It does someting comparable to Mother of Runes, so in itself it's an effect you'd want in this deck.
not for that cost.
Hi,
i've been playing this deck for some time now, and i like it a lot. I don't play tournaments, and therefore i do not own any goyfs. I'm trying to find a proper beatstick as a replacement. At the moment, steppe lynx is really powerfull. It often does 6+ damage in a game, and often swings for 5 in the second turn. It seems really good (especially in combination with KotR). An other possibility is kitchen finks. But then i like steppe lynx beter.
Isn't steppe lynx a solid play anyway? With 8 fetch and 4 KotR, it often stomps really hard.
@Waikiki: I run nearly the same deck, a little different manabase and the 4th Vengevine instead of the Witness, just one question, how has the Witness been treating you.
Finished 3-1 today, beating Ub Merfolk, Day of Disease (kinda Aggro Pox) and Supreme Blue each 2:0, and losing in 3 really close games 2:1 vs burn.
The witness has been really strong for me getting back loyal retainer a stp or starting some recurring vengevine chain again by returning basking rootwalla.
I have another question:
is fauna shaman still needed if you are not playing iona/retainers? Retainers does not correspond well with my budget. Without playing it, is fauna shaman still worth the 3-4 slots?
Imo she is not. I have been running a build like posted above and one with weathered wayfarer's and scryb rangers.