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I've never liked abyssal persecutor because for the mana natural order seems way better, but for :3::b::b: Bloodgift demon seems ok. On the finisher note has anyone had much experience with Iona, shield of emeria in a white splash list? She seems like a house against combo.
@John Cox
Do you suggest we cast Iona? Or try to reanimate her?
Even with Explorers, if you make it to the point where you're casting Iona against combo, they've got to be doing something wrong.
Bloodgift Demon actually looks pretty decent. I'm currently trying to figure out what to run over Sun Titan, as I just haven't been super thrilled with him so far in testing. Right now I'm thinking Elspeth, but since BB is probably easier for me to hit, Bloodgift might be worth a shot.
I feel like Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is usually gonna be more versatile than Bloodgift. Plus he's cheaper and harder to remove. The thing I don't like about Bloodgift Demon, vs. for example Sun Titan/ Grave Titan/ Deranged Hermit, is that he has to not eat removal in order to do anything. I feel like if you're dropping 5-6 mana on something, it really behooves it to either have some sort of shroud, or a comes-into-play ability. It doesn't help that Jace the Mind Sculptor laughs at Bloodgift super hard. And this is a really minor quibble, but he's not tutorable with Fierce Empath (although I haven't been loving Empath, frankly-- agree/disagree?)Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Meanwhile, I'm curious if anyone is still running Glissa, the Traitor in the GSZ package these days. She seems pretty spicy in most aggro-esque metas (although she does die to Bolt pretty hard.)
Yeah but I feel like Sorin's first two abilities really don't do much for this deck. I'm not running Hermit Druid or any other token factory, so the -2 is mostly worthless, and I guess a 1/1 lifelinker could have some utility, but when I've already got BSkull and Ooze, also not particularly necessary. I'm also looking at both Lilianas, 2.0 mostly for the sac effect, 1.0 for asymmetrical discard and tutoring. Or I could just run another piece of equipment, something silly like Argentum Armor.Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
I was getting a PM with a Punishing Fire list so I went ahead and tested it. I changed the list a bit and played it in the trial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipp2293
Punishing Fire works out quite well. Like GSZ it lets you do stuff early on and sink Mana into it later. It is good vs. Jace, Snapcaster, Vendilion Clique, Delver, Maverick, Dredge and Tribal. It can trigger Explorer if you really need it and it has nice synergy with Liliana of the Veil (discard the Fire and get it back. The belcher matchup is probably atrocious but at least you can clear EtW tokens if you get to 3 Mana. Vs. other Combo you get Leylines (though they don't do that much) and a few Red Blasts and Reanimator is winnable post board.
I think it's fairly safe to say that the entire archetype has a fairly atrocious belcher matchup, haha.
I also thought of Fires a while ago, but I didn't think to try to segue it into the main shell...I was experimenting with non-black builds, using Fires as the primary enabler. It failed pretty miserably and I gave up on it. The synergy with Liliana is pretty hot, and it seems like having access to the various burn spells and REBs would improve the blue matchups. I do worry about how it fairs against everything else, though. Fires is a hell of an engine, but something like Zoo usually laughs at it (granted Zoo is usually a bye anyway, but I wouldn't want to lose that free, common matchup). Losing white seems largely inconsequential for non-rector versions. Have you done any more work on the Trinket Mage version, or did you give that up as just too unstable?
Also, to other things: I intend to test a Sorin. At this point I rather doubt that he's going to stay for long. He's more diversification of planeswalker threats, he's a proactive answer to Jace, S/T Emrakul, and other various frightening things once his ult is online, and the lifelink tokens don't seem like a bad thing considering that I'm running two Phyrexian Arenas now. That said, his -2 is basically a dead ability, his vampire tokens don't fly, in a set where most of the vampires do fly (sadface), and he's $60 out of the gate when he's definitely not worth that much.
I also agree RE Bloodgift Demon. He's a pretty solid dude, but if you want him for the utility, just run Arena instead. As others have already said, Iona is vastly too expensive, and our reanimation engine isn't consistent enough by far to reliably get her out that way.
Carpet of Flowers is interesting. It seems to me that it would be good in a meta infested with Thresh tempo decks...the ones that wasteland us and stifle us into the stone age while punching us to death with a 1/1 the whole time (no anger here, clearly).
Has anyone tested Mystic Enforcer yet? I just picked one up as a throw-in on a trade a few days ago, so I'm good to go if nobody has yet (or it has proven good).
Kind of a minor quibble, but I feel like between Deranged Hermit, Master of the Wild Hunt, and Garruk Relentless, there could potentially be a version of this deck that takes good advantage of Sorin's +1/+0 to all your creatures ability. Whether or not it's actually worth building around that extensively is an entirely different question though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
I dont think the token route is way to go. I have to say the best card in this deck is Pernicious Deed, it just takes a giant dump on the format. If this decks gameplan is going to rely on tokens deed stops looking so good for us. We want deed to read "(3): destroy all non-land permanents your opponent controls."
I think deed is the best card in this deck too. It give massive board advantage against so many decks, and allow nice fit to beat decks like maverick that you really wouldn't be able without.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
back in alara standard (just after M11 came out) i started playing esper sun titan control and i loved these kind enters/leaves the battlefield sinergies so i decided to build this deck.
im using the BGw version with academy rector, swords to plowshares and singleton sun titan as finisher (along side a singleton grave titan) and im still learning how to play the deck against all archtypes out there and i just cant deal with UWx tempo/control and Burn.
i know burn is all about luck (luck that they dont topdeck something awsome) and discard, i have 4 cabal therapy + 2 duress sideboard but i still lose more than i win, what cards should i discard first? what about creatures, should i just play kitchen finks asap? does Ethersworn Canonist help at all? maybe gaddock teeg (for that stupid fireblast)?
now the hardest (at least for me), UWx tempo/control decks that run jace, the mind sculptor and stoneforge mystic. you want to play a threat? they remove it. you want to remove their threats? they counter it. you wanna discard them? they'll just counter or snapcaster mage the card back..
how should i play against these decks? by the time i stabilize the board its already too late and any top deck will kill me.. what creatures (for green sun's zenith) are priority against this matchup? its driving me crazy! pernicious deed doesnt work on jace, the mind sculptor and its too expensive to attack a batterskull. i can try and maelstrom pulse it but they'll just counter or return it to hand. choke helps.. if you can manage to play it and if they dont just remove it.. its so annoying the amount of options (and overpowerness) UWx gives.
since i run academy rector im thinking in running a singleton oblivion ring + 2 pernicious deed instead of 3 pernicious deed. kills jace, the mind sculptor and can be returned with sun titan in case they remove it (also good with eternal witness).
anyway im loving this deck, it can perform real awsome, game changing plays. a really fun deck to play.
First of all play 1 Faith's Fetters in the maindeck in the Rector version. It will improve your Burn matchup a bit as well as being a great solution for Planeswalkers. They usually don't have Enchantment Removal and if you put it on a Jace they can't just play a second without killing both. It is also solid on Batterskull (if they let you search with Rector they can't return Batterskull anymore once you showed Fetters) or Riptide Laboratory and of course it can always stop a creature if you draw it.
Against Burn Canonist does not help a lot. Teeg for Fireblast is a nice idea. I never thought of it but it should help a bit. You want one anyway for GSZ against Storm Combo so bring him in. Won't win on his own but every little bit helps.
Maybe I misunderstand your question but the cards that you want to Discard are of course those that deal the most damage^^ Their biggest threat is Sulfuric Vortex. Keep Pulses in for G2 because of Vortex. Try to minimize the number of nonbasics if possible to reduce Price of Progress damage. There is no point in waiting on Finks. Just run them out as soon as you can. Sac them to Therapy or Tower and start recurring them with Witness, Recurring Nightmare or Sun Titan. Ooze can gain a few life and in the white version with Swords you can gain some life back by swording one of your own guys if absolutely needed.
The best SB plan against against Burn for a Rector version is probably a singleton Leyline of Sanctity and of course as many Finks as you can find room for.
The matchup vs. Jace/Stoneforge control is very hard for non-Punishing Fire versions (and still hard for those with P. Fire). The best SB plan against UW Stoneforge for nonred decks are Pithing Needles (I have 3 in SB). Play Deeds maindeck and switch them with Needles for G2. You won't need Deed anyway G2 against them and most of their threats can be needled, like Jace TMS, Elspeth, their Equipment or Riptide Laboratories.
Well burn and UW control are probably this decks two hardest matchups so that is to be expected. You might want to consider a etutor board, something like:
2-3 Etutor
1 choke
1 ethersworn (for combo, doesnt help much against burn, they just kill it or ignore it)
1 circle protection red (nothing will hose burn harder than this, and you should have plenty of mana to invest in it)
2 GY hate
1 Oring
1-3 pithing needle (batterskull, jace, sfm, elspeth, lavamancer, etc)
Against burn, you want to rip apart their hand asap. Hymns and therapys will win you this matchup. For therapys, keep in a mind a good burn player plays their less efficient burn first (so if they tap out for lava spike, they probably have lightning bolt in hand still). Kitchen finks is also a champ here, have an extra sided if your really worried about it.
Im going to do some testing against UW with gaea's revenge. For now at least, Im using a B/G list so I wont have access to the Etutor board, or I'd go with that probably. Against UW the game almost always gets to the point where you have 8ish lands out. I feel like gaeas does everything we need it to against UW except fly and gets hit with wrath. But it cant be countered, swords proof, has haste, and trample to get over bskull and hit jace.
Against burn, Finks is fine, but you need something to nail them such as: Witness, Hymn, CoP: Red, Gerrard's Verdict or some form of lifegain equipment because we don't put out much a clock and they have all the time they need to build up enough burn to kill us twice.
As far as U/R burn goes, it's an entirely different story. Finks are worthless in that matchup and they can pick appart your survival cards with counterspells. The U/R Delver/Burn matchup is difficult because Explorer accelerates them enough to drill us even harder with Cliques and Snaps. My advice on this matchup is to try and discard as much as possible early, pack lots of 1 CMC removal (Bolts, StP, REB, Pyro, Darkblast), play and protect your Ooze, and if U/R Delver is popular in your meta, pack a single Sporecap Spider in your sideboard, it is much better than Finks for that matchup. they generally don't pack enough burn to take away 20 points of life fast enough, they need a Guide or a Delver to dish out at least 6 points of damage. You need your removal to be 1CMC because you have to play around Daze, and Spell Snare.
For U/W Jace.dec, all you really need to lookout for is Jace. We have the better cards, we just need to keep tabs on the number of cards they have. They have SFM and Snaps which will inevitably net them card advantage, but we have Hymns, Witnesses, and we can force them to FoW us. Playing cards like Duress don't amount to much unless you intend to follow up with an insurmountable threat that targeted removal cannot clean up completely such as Titan, Druid, Garruk, etc... Hermit gives them a heart attack.
As for tokens with Pernicious Deed, yes, it sounds like a bad idea at first. Although, the Planeswalkers that generate tokens are token generators, and those are great with Deed. It doesnt matter if you have to blow up 5 tokens to get rid of 2 KotR with Deed as long as you keep that Sorin/Garruk/Elspeth alive, you get to rebuild the turn after, and thats a lot of pressure for your opponent to deal with. You are not losing 6 cards to get rid of 2, you are losing 5 virtual cards that you can regenerate just as easely and trading a Deed for 2 KotR. It is more about your production capacity post-deed versus your opponent's instead of raw number exchanges.
P.S: What is Nic Fit? And why am I seeing people saying Nice Fit now?
@ Qweerios -- I agree RE name. Can we please have a better name for this deck? I mean, I grant that "Explorer Rock" isn't necessarily any better, but at least it doesn't make one cringe to announce your deck as.
The tokens approach is intriguing, and might be worth trying out -- although I think that it has to be focused around the planeswalkers, as Qweerios noted. Even if you have a respectable board presence, cracking a deed and then spewing out a few tokens from one of the many possible walkers seems like a decent plan. Also, Bitterblossom is a card that would probably fit into this style of deck reasonably well....although at cmc 2, it's right in the prime firing range for Deed.
I'll mostly echo what others have said here, although I don't have much trouble with burn at all. I also have 2-3 burn decks at any given local event, so I need to be able to fight them. With that in mind, I have two Finks split between maindeck and sideboard, along with a pair of Leyline of Sanctity's. For the Rector version, this is usually sufficient hate -- you can get to the Leylines naturally, in opening hand, or via Rector. My plan vs Burn is almost always to set up Recurring Nightmare with Finks -- ideally with double Finks postboard. I have also run a CoP:Red in the past, although at the moment with NO:Pro at a low point, I don't see much point in it. Being able to hit with Therapy is an important skill, and it definitely helps against burn -- oftentimes, their hands have duplicates or even triplicates in their hand, due to the 4x nature of their deck. If you can get a good read on their hand, a lot of the time you can cripple them on the spot.
Counterburn is definitely a different animal, and Qweerios' suggestions are pretty much spot on.
As far as U/W Jace.dec, Jace is usually the only card that matters. Have you tried out Cranial Extraction/Memoricide? Usually they have to blow their hard countermagic on some crippling threat early, leaving them vulnerable to a Cranial stripping their Jaces. Without their Jaces, their deck becomes significantly weaker. Along the same line, -definitely- run a Faith's Fetters if you have Rector. I've successfully Rector'd in a Fetters on a Jace, and let me tell you, damn does it feel good. They just stare at you in a daze...sometimes it can even put them on full tilt once they realize that they need to find two more Jaces before they can stick one.
My list
1 Savannah
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Eternal Witness
1 Wickerbough Elder
2 Grave Titan
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Deranged Hermit
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Go for the Throat
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Dismember
3 Pernicious Deed
Sideboard:
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness
3 Thoughtseize
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Damnation
3 Pithing Needle
3 Extirpate
So basically my list is close to CalebD's list. I added a Savannah to be able to cast Gaddock Teeg should i draw it. I play in a combo heavy meta (lots of elves, a belcher, reanimator, dredge, high tide, hive mind) with a dash of merfolk, pox, maverick, zoo and some U/W Stoneforge as side dishes. I know this isn't the perfect meta for this deck, but i do like the deck. I'm thinking that my sideboard might not be good enough. Skeletal Scrying seems sick against U/W Stoneforge and i'm thinking of cutting the Wall of Blossoms as it only seems to stop Zoo creatures. Any thoughts on how to change my sideboard to combat jaces, elves and other combo decks?
The Wall should become a third Top. One Ooze should be enough, better run a second Witness.
the SB could look something like this:
- 2 Engineered Plague: Lots of Elves? Plague them. Also good against Dredge and Maverick (name Human for Mother of Runes and Hierarch) and useful against Belcher and Merfolk.
- 3 Pithing Needle: Bring in vs. Jace, Pox and Belcher.
- 3 Thoughtseize: for the many Combo decks, and 2-3 against SFM/Jace decks.
- 4 Surgical Extraction: In your odd Meta I think that is the correct choice. Imo just a better card than Extirpate. Vs. Reanimator it gets around Daze, vs. Dredge and other Combo decks Split Second doesn't matter much while the speed could matter a lot.
- 1 Gaddock Teeg: GSZ for Combo
- 2 Innocent Blood: Just so you have something to bring in should you run into Zoo or Delver
No Massacre for sideboards? Card is the nut right now imho. Work also as a 0 mana cost sacrifice outlet.
I thought it was about time i stopped lurking and started posting on the source so I thought Id share my Nic Fit (hate the name) with you guys. I view it as a work in progress and I really enjoy playing it (the deck can do so many things!) but I tend to change stuff alot beacuse there are so many good cards the deck can play.
The list:
4 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Academy Rector
1 Reveillark
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Grave Titan
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk Relentless
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Birthing Pod
SB:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Extirpate
2 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Plague
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Massacre Wurm
I play in a meta that shifts alot (one week 3 burn show and the next noone plays it etc), most players change decks like they change underpants. Therefore I find it kinda hard to construct a sideboard that suits the metagame. Massacre Wurm is mainly in there for testing.
I really like Birthing Pod but lately Ive been thinking if i should try playing 2 copies. Mabey swap one for a 2nd Grave Titan since he just ends games. I have also been thinking about cutting the Wall of Blossoms (especially if I end up playing 2 Birthing Pod) mabey for a 2nd Scavenging Ooze.
Thankful for any help/opinions/insights on the deck.
Played a bit today. Played against Elves, The Gate, Deadguy Ale. Elves was pretty close but it seemed in their favour. I did cut the Wall of Blossoms for the Eternal Witness midgame, and was pretty impressed with it. Eternal Witness was the card i wanted to tutor for everytime all day long. Ooze was not very good against these matchups but apparently someone is bringing dredge as well, and i liked that card against them a lot. But one Ooze might be enough, it's just so stupidly good in some matchups, spesifically UW Stoneforge and Punishing Maverick.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tao
My list atm is now; -1 Wall of Blosssoms, +1 Eternal Witness. Sideboard will probably be as you suggested, but making room for 1x Skeletal Scrying, as i really want to try it out in some matchups.
Deadguy Ale was the deck that gave me the most trouble today. The Gate and Elves seemed fine. (We only played preboard today though).