You seem to forget the 2 Pridemages and the 4 GSZ to fetch them...Quote:
Originally Posted by ET1
Printable View
You seem to forget the 2 Pridemages and the 4 GSZ to fetch them...Quote:
Originally Posted by ET1
I would say that the key cards to these matchups are not Stoneforge or Jitte, but Mother of Runes and Knight of the Reliquary.Quote:
Originally Posted by nicoleptik
What Stoneforge & Mystic do is killing Mother with Jitte and plowing the Knight (not the other way around, no jokes here).
Then, Qasalis and Abrupt Decays can destroy Jitte, but Mom(s) will be already dead, and you gain an upper hand.
They're all important--the key part is to know which one of the packages your opponent is preparing against, and then leaning on the other aspects.Quote:
Originally Posted by aspsnake
For example--if they go equipment hate focused, then shift the focus to be about moms and fatties. If they don't run heavy hate--punish them with Jitte.
The matchup usually follows a similar script.
Early build up of mana and moms.
A threat resolves on both sides--followed by a board stall as neither is able to push through.
A player is then able to find a way to push through for damage--and if an equipment is involved the match ends quickly after.
Figure out how you plan to break the stalemate, setup your hand to fit that scenario, look for your opening, and when you think you've got it you overextend and pounce.
So I'm running 4 drs and thinking about the fifth dork to run. Is it a consensus that Noble is strictly better over birds?
I wonder how often exalted vs producing black mana matter in the end since I run 2 decays main...
How many black producing lands are you running? I ran Noble Hierarch because I had two Bayou and a Scrubland I could fetch, black mana was rarely an issue except the games where I had to sideboard a lot of black cards (such as Infect, for Thoughtseize and Zealous Persecution). I don't think I used Exalted very much though; I only ran it because I already owned it, and had I not owned it I would've happily run a Birds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cpt-Qc
I run the same black lands as you do and I do not own a noble, hence my pondering..
I would like not to spend 50$ on the card only to find out it's not even optimal.
In that case I'd stick with a single Birds of Paradise. You still have Qasali Pridemage for exalted if you want it. The majority of the time you're going to GSZ you'll want a Deathrite Shaman anyways; I only ever fetched a Hierarch when there was no chance of a land in the graveyard the first few turns of the game.
I run Birds of Paradise in my list specifically over Noble Hierarch (I already own 4)Quote:
Originally Posted by Cpt-Qc
Although my black sources are less than yours (1 Scrub 1 Bayou, 1 sideboard Bog) I find that I rarely need the Birds for black mana specifically except against Death and Taxes.
However, the flying has been super essential in everything from blocking Griselbrand (with the help of Mother of Runes) to being able to use SOFI against elves after they've decayed the Jitte. It was from a friend's suggestion when I complained to him that I wanted another mana dork but I also needed more evasion (I had cut Scryb from my list at this point and was feeling the pain of no flyers) in which he suggested Birds of Paradise. I've sworn by it since.
In a more combo heavy metagame where damage is more important than evasion I would replace it with Noble, but if you're a more midranged meta where evasion is a premium--Birds is great. Also great against Bloodmoon/Taxes/RUG type decks where you can't guarantee the black mana game 2 and 3 from the non-basic hate.
Short tournament report, went 3-3 (Started 3-0 :frown:) in a 60 man tournament this weekend.
My list:
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Mother of Runes
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Sylvan Library
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Swamp
1 Horizon Canopy
SB: 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Banishing Light
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless
SB: 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
Round 1: 2-0 vs Miracles
Not much to say, I don't think my opponent did a great job of piloting the deck against me.
G1 he kept one land + top, and whiffed for a while, and I had wasteland ready when he hit another land.
G2 I surgical terminus, and land a stoneforge with Sword of Light and Shadow and beat him down from there. From the surgical I knew he had a council's judgement in hand the whole game, but he never cast it. Maybe he thought pro-white stopped it?
Round 2: 2-1 vs Eldrazi
Knight is so good in this matchup, churns out wastelands and gets way bigger than their threats.
I lost G1 by forgetting about eye of ugin's ability, and he got ulamog and exiled two giant knights on my side, opening up the way to beat me down.
G2-G3 I get knights online early and make sure to keep his mana base down this time...
Round 3: Landstill
G1-G2: I get a thalia down early in the face of a top, and get wastelanding. My opponent never got to get going either game. I thought I was playing against weird miracles with lots of non-basics. Had to ask my opponent after the game what he was up to.
Round 4: 1-2 Miracles
Really exciting and close games came right down to the wire in G3.
G1 I assemble gaddock teeg and mother of runes, and have enough removal to blank monastery mentor. This game was quite long maybe 30mins?
G2 Game goes for a while, but he has all the answers and finally I lose to mentor + double top.
G3 Is very fast, we only had 6 minutes to play it. I get some early threats into play and start beating down, they get terminused, I redeploy, keep going and draw a surgical. I decide to proactively surgical the terminus, but in response he activates top and draws the terminus that was right on top! He then kills me on turn 5 of extra turns with a mix of mentor and entreat.
Learned my lesson there, if I'd just waited for him to go for a terminus I could have responded to the trigger with surgical for a pretty big blowout. I had a deathrite on board, so blockers would not have cut it for him, he finished the game on 5 life.
Round 5: 0-2 RUG delver
G1 keep a slow reliable hand in the dark. He goes turn 1 delver, flips on turn 2 and it's all downhill from there, I get killed very fast, and all my threats get bolted/dazed.
G2 I keep scavenging ooze thalia jitte deathrite, which I thought was pretty good, but he had the ancient grudge, blows up the jitte, and I don't draw any other form of interaction, so similar story to g1, lose to flipped delver + TNN. At least the mongoose never got to attack because of the scavenging ooze :frown:
Round 6: 0-2 Eldrazi
G1 he gets the beatdown on and I never got to do much, thoughtnot discarded my knight in hand, and I only drew another way too late.
G2 I'm kicking myself about. I have two giant knights brick walling him + a scryb ranger, have the potential to wasteland him to oblivion but want to keep my mana base somewhat alive, as I had batterskull and another knight in hand. Too late I think of all is dust, which he drew the land for that turn, and wrecked my board. My lands were savannah, cradle, dryad arbor, so I went from 6 mana to 1 mana, so I could never deploy the knight. I then died very fast to two reality smashers.
Overall I felt like I had outs in every game, and the deck is a blast to play, so quite happy with my weekend even if I made some mistakes that cost me a shot at top 8 (I had the best breakers in my bracket so I think something like 4-1-1 might have been enough). Live and learn right?
Exactly!Quote:
Originally Posted by DoomRabbit
Did you play in Mol, Belgium as well? :D I saw one guy playing Zenith Maverick 3rd game against Miracles, maybe it was you.
I've been playing a 6-round tournament and went 3-3 as well. Won vs Storm (2-0), Elves (2-0) and UR Delver (2-0), while lost to Pox (0-2, OMG that Collective Brutality), Dragon Stompy (0-2, WTF is this xD, Chandra, Torch of Defiance is literally insane) and BUG Delver (1-2, my mistakes, exposing to Daze & keeping bad hands).
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...4380&type=card http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...7683&type=card
I think I could make it a 4-2 if I played a bit better, but 5-1 and top8 was probably beyond my reach given the matchups.
Decklist:
// Recruiterless Vial Maverick
// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
// 28 Creature
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
3 Qasali Pridemage
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Scryb Ranger
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Mirran Crusader
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 21 Land
1 Bayou
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Gaea's Cradle
// 15 Sideboard
// 5 Creature
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Tireless Tracker
// 1 Enchantment
SB: 1 Choke
// 6 Instant
SB: 2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
// 3 Sorcery
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
Lessons learned:
1) There's much fewer BUG decks in our meta than I have expected and there are quite a lot of fair decks, including D&T, Maverick, various Delvers and Miracles. So, I will drop 2x Mirran Crusaders towards 2x Tireless Trackers (still need to be tested, but first tests showed them to be decent for CA while being rather okay in combat, especially when pumped).
2) Whatever we do, we have quite some matchups that are very hard to beat, like Nic Fit, Pox or Stompy. Winning tournaments is directly connected to not facing those on the way, or having good hands while our opponents don't :p (Pox is quite doable for the Zenith version though).
3) Damn planeswalkers :D I think of adding something (1x) that gets rid of them to the sideboard. Currently deciding between Council's Judgement, Maelstrom Pulse and To the Slaughter.
Hah! Yes, I saw someone was playing vial mav, must have been you!Quote:
Originally Posted by aspsnake
I've been testing out banishing light in the side for show and tell and planeswalkers, and I brought it in each time it had a target and never saw it, so I'm not sure if it's any good.
I'm pretty sure I've been the only one playing Vial Maverick, so yes :)Quote:
Originally Posted by DoomRabbit
I don't really like Oblivion Ring/Banishing Light because of popularity of Abrupt Decay (and Wear//Tear & Council's Judgement for Miracles, Qasalis for Maverick and so on and so on). I like to get rid of things like ones I mentioned above forever :D
P.S. I was standing behind the Miracles player and saw his hand when you went to turns in the 3rd game. It was really impossible to beat him with such hands (he had loads of lands, Brainstorm, Swords and Terminus in hand, then topped and saw Entreat + Mentor). And you didn't even draw a 3rd land :p
I figure at least against miracles that there's only so many things they can wear/tear/judgement. With equipment, needle, sylvan library, and banishing light (+ the two walkers for council's judgement) there has to be a limit to what they can deal with.Quote:
Originally Posted by aspsnake
Truth is a draw would have been good and probably the correct thing to play for, but a win would have sealed top8 and I didn't think he could kill me in time so I went for it. Hindsight ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by aspsnake
I went with 5-3 with Levold's Maverick this past weekend at SCG Baltimore Legacy Classic. Will write tournament report later.
Wins: Tin Fins, Miracles, BUG Delver, Jund, Reanimator
Loses: Storm, Burn, Shardless.
With Rallier, could Ghost Quarter see some inclusion here?
Was watching modern during the SCG Team Open and a player was mana screwed, but ended up GQ'ing his own land, got a basic, Rallied to get a fetch back, and got a little back in the game from there (he did this like 3 turns too late and lost anyway).
It's a corner case for mana fixing and not particularly a good one, but the Rallier does give the GQ a little extra utility. Extra card to hit the yard, not a negligible effect against something like Shardless, Delver, or Sensei's Top, and with Rallier you can recur the one copy you have.
I don't think that Ghost Quarter is that amazing here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Claymore
Our favored matchups (Delver, Eldrazi) become even slightly more favorable, while our bad matchups (Elves, Miracles, Dragon Stompy, Pox) couldn't care less.
How necessary is Batterskull? Being that we are a Knight of the Reliquary deck, how essential is having a 4/4 lifelink vigilance in our maindeck?
For a while most lists didn't run it, I believe most green sun's lists still don't run it. I don't run it and haven't really felt a huge need to run it.Quote:
Originally Posted by TMagpie
I loved it against Eldrazi but that was about it. It was a sideboard card for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by TMagpie
My personal meta is getting a bit overrun by BUG decks so I'm breaking out NOverick. Prog and Wurm the best two targets probably?