I know that those cards are great. Vague card ideas do not constitute a plan. That's like answering the question, "What deck should I play?" with "Force of Will and Tarmogoyf are both good cards."
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I know that those cards are great. Vague card ideas do not constitute a plan. That's like answering the question, "What deck should I play?" with "Force of Will and Tarmogoyf are both good cards."
His post was shorthand for "Don't die while you resolve Llawan, start activating jitte, or setting up an uneven exchange with e truth". I think that constitutes a game plan, especially in a deck that can't manipulate its hand outside of mulliganing decisions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malakai
The plan is to have move creatures that can swing. LoA is only good if you have that advantage, else it might just get you killed. I like to board out force on the play, daze on the draw, but I know some hate boarding out force.
You asked for plans "in the 75" for the mirror. Sounds like you want to know which cards in the 75 are going to be good in the mirror. The answer is LLawan, Jitte, and echoing truth if you're running it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malakai
Cards that are bad in the mirror are LOA
Sorry I wasn't succinct enough.
I don't entirely agree with this. You can do the math and realize that the counteralpha strike won't be enough for lethal sometimes, and you can just kill them in 2 attack steps. But yeah, it is the creature I don't want to see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Star|Scream
Fair enough. It can also be fun to vial in when you can amass lethal. Just beware of opposing truths \O.O/Quote:
Originally Posted by Tammit67
Also remember that jitte can kill an opposing kira if you have 3 counters on it, and then you can go to town.
Still overlooked in the mirror is the monster Sower of Temptation, which I think gets ignored far too often in this matchup. It and Umezawa's Jitte are both complete monster beasts with a scope of use much broader than that of Llawan, who only helps in the mirror and against a couple other random things, like Progenitus and rogue decks.
That said, Llawan is still the queen of the mirror match, and if the mirror match is -the- important thing to you, it's a behemoth.
For those that have been running maindeck Kira, do you still think it's necessary post Misstep? I'm finding that I would rather have some other card instead in that slot now, such as more lords, against most decks.
After playing Goblins for a while I'm gonna try Merfolks. This is the list I put together. What are your thoughts? What to put in the flex slots? I am not a big fan of Standstill.
Artifacts
4 Aether Vial
Creatures
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
(2) Sower of Temptation / Merfolk Sovereign / Kira, Great Glass-Spinner ?
Instants
4 Mental Misstep
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
Lands
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
14 Island
Seriously? You bring it in against aggro decks, stoneforge decks, and maybe burn...essentially any time you want to gain life or win the creature war.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sploid the Noid
As for the mirror discussion I would plan on seeing fish a lot. I'm thinking 1 kira comes out of the main since it is pretty bad in the mirror and some jitte go in. Jitte helps against zoo which may see an increase in popularity since MM does not slow them down much and they have a solid fish match up. Llawan in the SB is a must and some sowers will probably help things out as well.
I've also used vedalken shackles in the past against the mirror, it proved to be effective but sometimes I felt it was too slow.
I'd maindeck the Sower of Temptations or the Jittes in the Kira slots. Probably Sower, as I -think- it's a hair better in a wide open metagame, can be snuck in under counters, and can be pitched to Force if it's weak as all get out. Right now I pick Sower. Incredible in the mirror, and I like the fact that I have four extra free counters for most of the cards that punish you for playing Sower.
The Sovereigns might also be a very solid option, and what I'm trying next.
Here's my current list.
13 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
1 Mishra's Factory (Trying it.)
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
3 Coralhelm Commander
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Merfolk Sovereign
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
SB:
4 Submerge
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Energy Flux
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
What do you mean snuck in under counters? Do you mean opposing counters? Technically you can do that, but then you invalidate your vial, and it's not exactly a surprise when you tick it up to 4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
Kira pitches to force too and can come out a turn earlier, keeps vial on track, and counters most of the cards that punish you for playing sower as well.
Not saying sower isn't a better choice, because I really don't know, but those arguments aren't the greatest for it vs. kira. That being said, an instant speed answer to cards like emrakul isn't something to scoff at either.
Does it -need- to be a surprise? If your Merfolk opponent's been holding a card or two all game and you fear Force and Daze, and you both have a couple lords on the table, why would you not just tick the vial up to four here? Getting a 3-1 Lord edge and dropping a flyer on the board in the process seems like a huge enough boost to me here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Star|Scream
Similarly, if your opponent's playing, say, Junk and you've managed to shut his manabase down with a couple Wastelands, but his removal's put you in a situation where it's your Reejerey against his Tarmogoyf, selling out the Vial here to 4 to drop a Sower makes the board state absolutely ludicrous.
In the "Pitch to Force" example, I was using this as an argument to maindeck Sower over Jitte, not Sower over Kira. I should have been more clear.Quote:
Kira pitches to force too and can come out a turn earlier, keeps vial on track, and counters most of the cards that punish you for playing sower as well.
As for Kira punishing the same cards that punish you for playing Sower, that's my point. You now have Mental Misstep. If you play Mental Misstep and Kira, you aren't -playing- Sower, so you aren't taking advantage of the situation. My point here was that Mental Misstep makes Sower better, just as Kira makes Sower better.
@TacoQuote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
In the past, before the arrival of Mental Misstep, I used to play a very "similar" version of what, i think would be, you're guess with the Sovereings:
13 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Coralhelm Commander
3 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Aether Vial
SB:
2 Mind Harness
2 Echoing Truth
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Energy Flux
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Blue Elemental Blast
It's a 61 maindeck built to improve the zoo matchup. Other than the obvious Kira and Sovereing (adding lord treats is, in my opinion, a way to improve the zoo matchup since it lessens the impact of their removal), the main inclusion of Spellstutter Sprite helped a lot, countering mainly the removal targetted to the lords.
The sprites covered basically the same role of Mental Misstep with the following pro
- provide an evasive body (although tiny) to race the opponent that on game two can carry Jitte
- the sprite stacks with each others AND with Mutavaults, countering also stuff like Tarmogoyf, Counterbalance, Knight of the reliquary and the like (though 3 CMC are not so common to counter)
- can be used as a combat trick for chump blocking or for playing as an "hasted" creature, thus is never a dead card
- can be cheated into play with Aether Vial, thus being an incounterable and "free" hard counter
and cons
- it's CMC of 2 make it considerably slower in respect of Mental Misstep (CMC 1 or 0), thus forcing you to route a different and often more complex game plan instead of the easy "drop lord - counter removal for free Misstep" (this statement comes mostly by my own judgment and it's not tested yet)
- the P/T are pretty low for the CMC and doesn't scale with lords
- in the occurence that the opponent kills all our faeries before the resolution of the trigger, the ability can lose the impact (that's it, not countering anything)
That said, Spellstutter Sprite proved very useful in other matchup as well, like CounterTop (so many 1CMC to counter and more time than Zoo to setup), mirror (1/1 flyer with Jitte can get there) and combo (so many 1 and 0 CMC to counter), while is quite poor against Affinity and MUD (and similar deck).
I've taken the deck to many tournaments, including 60+ people, and did quite well: always top8, some wins and a third place (in the 60+).
For now, i'm gonna test the deck replacing Spellstutter with Misstep and see how it goes (I don't exclude to bring back the faeries, maybe with a split: have to work on this), but I feel from my experience of playing them that having more Lords (sovereings) in comparison to stealing a creature (Sower) is better because is more synergic with the rest of the deck. However, I plan to try, as someone suggested, Gilded Drake as an answer to Emrakul/Tombstalker/Goyf/etc since a like that
- the exchange is permanent
- I don't have to protect the drake, as I should with the sower
- it's 2 CMC makes it faster and doable without invalidating a vial
I'm open to your criticism.
Yes you do have to protect what you steal with Gilded Drake. Here's why.
Case A: You Sower their guy. They remove your Sower. The end result is that you both spend a card, and they have a guy.
Case B: You Gilded Drake their guy. They remove the guy you just stole. The end result is that you both spend a card, and they have a guy.
The benefits of Case B are that you get to control how big their guy is (He's always 3/3 and flying), and that on the occasion you steal an Emrakul, the same removal they had for Sower of Temptation probably isn't going to work.
However, when you look at the cases when they don't have removal or that you can stop it, Sower of Temptation FAR outshines Gilded Drake. The best case for Gilded Drake is that you have a big guy and they have a smaller, flying guy. The best case for Sower is that you have a small flying guy -and- their big guy. And Sower's better in worst cases, too. The worst case for a Gilded Drake is that you can't really use him because they don't have a big guy out. The worst cases for Sower are either you hardcast an overcosted 2/2, or you steal a small guy from the opponent. These are both significantly better than a card rotting in your hand.
Your making some good points: basically, once Sower or Drake hit the table, if opponent has a removal (apart Lightingbolt in case the stolen creature is */4+) the situation is almost even, since
- in case of Sower they'll get their original creature
- in case of Drake they'll get a 3/3 flyer
At this point I would like to analyze the matchups in which we would like to side in Sower or Drake.
ZOO: the only creature worth stealing here is Tarmogoyf, since Knight of the Reliquary would be a 3/3 or a 4/4 at most on our side. I wouldn't side in here.
COMBO: obviously no.
MERFOLK: we can steal a lord, thus granting us an effective bonus of +2/+2 to all of our other creatures, which is huge. The question here is if it's more valuable having a 2/2 flyer but waiting to have 4 mana (or 4 counters on Vial) or giving them a 3/3 flyer but exchanging at 2 mana (or 2 Vial's counters which could be the reused), since there aren't removal here.
BANT: same of zoo, maybe with the addition of Warmonk. I wouldn't side in here too.
GOBLIN: kind of same of merfolk, with the exception that the stealed creature will be of very small use for us. In thi matchup i think Sower is better than Drake, but I fell that both aren't needed.
DECKS USING EMRAKUL: I think that Drake i fairly better here, since we don't mind having a 2/2 flyer or giving them a 3/3, but having to spend only 2 mana is huge.
AFFINITY: this is a very fast deck against which we have to find fast answers, so the initial feeling would be that Drake is superior. But giving them an evasive body to equip with Cranial Plating may not be wise. I don't think I would side in here.
MUD: this deck can drop bombs very fast but, instead of affinity, it doesn't have equips to pump them. I think that Drake here helps a lot and that is better than Sower.
I cannot think of other matchups right now: feel free to criticize and to add element to the discussion.
@Taco
PS: in the end, I think that maybe more lords (sovereign) are better than stealers
Greetings.
What would happen exactly if your opponent played a Llawan and in response with the Llawan's trigger on the stack, you vial in a gilded drake or sower? Who's blue creatures get bounced exactly?
With Sower:Quote:
Originally Posted by landwalker000
- Llawan comes into play (player A)
- Llawan trigger goes on the stack
- Vial activated (player B), resolves, puts Sower into play, trigger on stack
- Sower trigger resolves, Llawan gets stolen
- Llawan trigger resolves, all of player B's creatures return to owner's hand (i.e. normally everything goes to B's hand, except Llawan returns to player A)
- Player B cries
With Sower:
- Llawan comes into play (player A)
- Llawan trigger goes on the stack
- Vial activated (player B), resolves, puts Drake into play, trigger on stack
- Drake trigger resolves, Llawan gets stolen, Drake goes to A
- Llawan trigger resolves, all of player B's creatures return to owner's hand (i.e. normally everything goes to B's hand, except Llawan returns to player A). Drake is also under the control of A.
- Player B cries and probably also slashes his wrists
If you vial in a Gilded drake first it's ability resolves exchanging it with Llawan, Cephalid Empress and then Llawan's ability resolves returning her to her owner (the opponent) hand. So you will have zero creatures in play and the opponent will have your Drake along woth his others creatures.Quote:
Originally Posted by landwalker000
If you vial in a Sower of Temptation first it's ability resolves granting you Llawan's (or any other creature) control, then Llawan's ability resolves bouncing back all of your creatures to your hand and Llawan to your opponent's hand. So you will have zero creatures in play and your opponent will have all of his creatures in play except Llawan (or the one you stole).
How do you side, Taco? The 4 Submerges seem interesting to me; most people cap them at 3. What changed that wanted 4 in the side?