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Youre probably right. My issue with Recruiter is the speed. Recruiter can be great when you have mana up and an Aether vial ticked up to where you need it. If not, it can be just too slow. And Prelate is probably a total meta call. I have been playing only one for a while and want to try running two just to feel it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ayiluss
Yeah I was definitely guilty of this; in fact exactly I went up to 3/2 and cut down to a single crusader and 0 avengers; went down to 2/1 and brought back up the beaters and have been happier overall.Quote:
Originally Posted by Medea_
In truth I sometimes feel that the presence of Recruiter could/should allow me to cut some number of SFMs and revokers. I particularly think 2-drops are the best targets for this as it allows you to recruiter on T3 (off of lands) and have a vial set at 2 ready to deploy the newly tutor'd 2-drop.
I will say that when I played 2 Prelates (and so she showed up a lot more) the number of opponents who visibly groaned when she hit the table was really high... I think people underestimate just how disruptive Prelate on 1 is to many many decks; most importantly most decks answers to problematic permanents/creatures such as prelate are CMC 1 and so suddenly they are in a bind to find their higher CMC answers; but without brainstorm/ponder/etc to find them....
it slows the game down and I think given that we are a deck full of 3-CMC spells and a lot of 2 and 3 power creatures is a good thing.
I still remember running into a UR delver player at a GP (running in legacy side events), we played twice over the weekend.. and he was packing maindeck sudden shocks, roast, and a fire/ice specifically because "I have to have an answer to the prelate"
I've been playing a 1/1 split of prelate (mb/sb) for the past few months; and it's been fine. but I miss the groans of my opponents and the bitter teras.
Maybe something like this
Code:4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Serra Avenger
4 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of War and Peace
9 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
I'll also point out; assuming that you hit your land drops... that the curve of Recruiter into vialed-SFM on turn 3 is about as efficient as SFM on 2 simply because you can never deploy and equip on Turn 3 off SFM anyways; whereas you can on T4... especially since I've moved batterskull to side so I only have "true" equipment left in the deck.
e.g.
Turn 1: land, Vial
Turn 2: land, 2-drop disruption
Turn 3: land, cast Recruiter (for SFM). EOT SFM for equipment
Turn 4: land, SFM->Equipment, Equip
This example of tempo only works when drawing a vial in your starting hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by AsmodeusDM
If you don't have a vial t1 you get a scenario with sword equipped one turn later and only if SFM survives long enough to put the sword on the battlefield or if you hit all 5 land drops.
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Just saying the traditional curve would still be
T1: Land
T2: Land, SFM
T3: EoT, put Equipment into play
T4: Equip, swing
So you are still aren't connecting with the equipment until T4.
I took DnT to a 77 person quarterly near me and top 8d with it. I was first seed going in, but lost to Sneak and Show on camera during the quarterfinals. My list:
Creatures: 26
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Flickerwisp
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Serra Avenger
Instants: 4
4 Swords to Plowshares
Artifacts: 7
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
Lands: 23
10 Plains
3 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
Sideboard: 15
2 Pithing Needle
2 Path to Exile
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Council's Judgement
3 Rest In Peace
My matchups:
Esper Stoneblade brew: 2-0
lots of fast mana, Thalia's and other disruptive permenants. Ended in a quick 2-0 when he ran out of gas quickly each game
Lands: 2-0
Game 1 he lost to keeping a hand that needed to Gamble for its second land. The Taiga hit the bin and he got overrun. I sided in 3 RIP 2 Needle 2 Path 2 CJ, out 2 Plow 2 Crusader 2 Thalia 1 SFM 1 Jitte 1 Mom I think. I ended up dropping a RIP and then beating down with a mom and a Thalia until he blew a Kozileks Return on them. Ended up needling Molten Vortex and finishing him off with a Prelate on 2 after Pathing 2 Tireless Trackers.
Eldrazi: 2-1
Game one he has an explosive hand that drops 4 power on turn 1, and he keeps deploying threats until I'm overrun. Game two I take off the back of a Batterskull backed up by a plow and a Path. Game three he has a really slow draw, playing a cavern and a wasteland as his first land drops. By the time he starts deploying threats I'm far enough ahead for it not to matter.
UWR Blood moon Stoneblade 2-1
We have some very grindy games. He takes game one off a true-name with a Jitte. I board out 2 plows and Crusaders among other stuff for Needles, CJs and a Gideon. I take game 2 off Prelate with a SoFi shutting off his hand, then game three to a Thalia with a timely topdecked SoFi outracing a TNN
UG Post: 1-2
I lose G1 to myself by playing way too conservatively with my mana denial instead of going for the throats. I board into Containment Priests, and take G2 to a greedy keep on his part. G3 he's able to Show in a Prime Time and it's pretty much game over.
Ur Sneak and Show: 2-1
Game 1 I take off Port/Thalia shutting down his whole game plan. G2 he beats me with an Omni into Emrakul. G3 he's never able to get anything off the ground.
Burn: 2-1
G1 I lose to double Fireblast the turn before I win. I board out 2 Crusader, 2 Revoker, in 2 Path 2 CJ. Game 2 I take off mom protecting a Stoneforge into Batterskull. Game 3 I end up mulliganing three hands that are super mana Flooded to a 4 card hand that hand a mom and Thalia. Thalia is able to hold off Goblin Guide while I topdeck Stoneforge. Batterskull gets one hit in before he drops an ensnaring bridge. I'm able to eventually Flickerwisp it to get in a second hit, and he ends up dying to his own Eidolon in order to keep me under the bridge.
QF match is against the same Show and Tell player. Game one I keep Karakas Vial double Revoker, but lose to Show and Tell Omni into Emrakul. G2 I take off the back of a Prelate, but he Omnis me again game 3.
All in all the deck did well, and i wouldn't change a single card in my deck if I had it to do over.
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I played 3 sideevents at GP Utrecht with basically the GP List (only difference is I'm playing 2 Avenger, 0 Spirit in the main and 2 RiP, 0 Relic in the board). They were all capped to 4 rounds, with a shot for a 5th if you go 4-0.
1st Tournament:
Miracles 2-0
BG Dephts 2-0
OmniSneak 2-0
TNN BUG I.D. with a friend since there won't be a 5th round for mainevent byes because we were 1 person short
3-0-1
2nd Tournament after the mainevent drop:
Manaless Dredge 2-1
TNN BUG (my friend from the 1st tournament) 2-0
TES 2-1
Grixis Delver 2-0
4-0. I am the only 4-0 person and don't need to play a 5th round, I get bonus points and a playmat on top.
3rd tournament on Sunday
SneakShow 2-0
Mirror 0-2
Lands 2-1
Mirror 2-0
3-1
So overall that would sum up to a 10-1-1 record over the weekend.
The mirrormatch I lost was against another friend, so we both kept good hands and it turned out his was better and he has a few crucial topdecks more than me. g1 I have Mom, he has Vial, but I can only fetch SFM via Recruiter whereas he had it directly, so his Jitte was live before mine... there were a few nuances that really decided the game here. And g2 I got rekt by Manriki Gusari. That card is uncomfortable to play against in the mirror.
In the tournament that I went 4-0 in I got lucky in the last round, it was possible to get paired against Grixis Delver (a MU I am very confident about by now), against Elves (where I put too many hope into the 10% I have here) or get paired down against Belcher. So the Elves guy got paired down against Belcher, got blown away and I got to play a very interesting match against Grixis Delver. I was basically dead but still won thanks to a Batterskull-wielding Mirran Crusader running through 2 DRS and a Gurmag Angler. g2 I won against Dread of Night thanks to Palace Jailer on Young Pyromancer into infinite gas.
Against my friend I tried the approach discussed one or two pages before:
Out: - 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, - 1 Umezawa's Jitte
In: + 2 Council's Judgment, + 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, + 1 Pithing Needl
It worked very well. Having 4-5 cards against Jitte (Revoker, Needle, Prelate) and 4 cards to deal with Dread of Night feels very powerful. Especially since Gideon is hard to deal for him, he can be attacked with TNN but usually there's a big backswing ahead as soon as he taps TNN to do that. In a way Gideon feels like having additional Batterskulls against TNN. I don't feel any need to dedicate specific slots to that matchup and play Sword of Body and Mind nonsense.
Last night against Reid Duke BUG I kept a hand on the play that was:
Plains
Wasteland
Wasteland
Wasteland
Aether Vial
Mother of Runes
Stoneforge Mystic
His T1 was Thoughtseize off a Bayou, taking Mother of Runes. My T1 play after drawing another Mom was Vial, hoping to be able to build pressure while Wastelanding the next three turns. Instead his T2 play was Pithing Needle on Wasteland and we were off to a slow start!
Was attempting pressure the correct play, or should I have just Wastelanded him into oblivion before working on pressure?
Any opponent whose name I recognize would give me great pause if he Thoughtseized Mother of Runes when he also saw a Vial. I would have expected him to take the Vial and Needle the Wastelands in that scenario. What did he have that he feared Mother of Runes so much?
My guess Is that the opponent had only 2 lands and a Decay and felt compelled to take Mom so they could Needle Wasteland without letting her turn on. That lets you Decay Vial before it gets any counters or kill/counter the Stoneforge Mystic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
He didn't have much pressure, I was very surprised he didn't take Vial. By the time he found his TNN I already had a Batterskull in play and they were just staring each other down, and that Vial survived the whole game.
The game ended up being a long grind with a huge board state, much like our first game. He got lucky one turn Brainstorming into a Fatal Push and Abrupt Decay, thus being able to take care of one Flickerwisp (who had flickered Recruiter that turn) and my Revoker naming Jitte, then using a Jitte counter to take care of the other Flickerwisp. When my Recruiter came back into play at EOT I fetched up another Revoker instead of Flickerwisp because I knew if I couldn't handle Jitte then it was game over (and eventually ended up that way when he found another Decay the next turn). Never saw my Council's Judgments at all, as this was game 2.
Everything is contextual, so it's a little hard to tell, but it's also possible that the BUG player didn't have good sideboard cards against you. If your opponent doesn't have things like Dread of Night to sweep the field in their 75, answering the Mom might actually be important in the long run.
Faced another similar Wasteland situation against Shardless BUG yesterday. His T1 drops Bayou (and maybe Thoughtseize me?), my T1 I waste. His T2 he drops a land and suspends Ancestral Vision, my T2 I draw another Wasteland and waste. T4 or T5 I draw a third Wasteland and waste again. He managed to resolve two Ancestral Vision but I was still ahead, even though I effectively took off a few of my first few turns, because I was preventing him from doing anything and then dropped a Thalia to make it even harder for him to come back. It ended up being a long (and fun!) game where I eventually beat him down. Makes me think in the Reid Duke BUG situation the other night I might've been better off using Wasteland T1.
Unrelated to Wasteland, my opponent had a Liliana on board and I had a Vial on 2 with empty hand. Draw for turn - Plains. I look at my Vial, start to turn Vial sideways, then very obviously glare at Liliana, turn Vial back untapped. Opponent's next turn he refused to -2 Lili to get rid of Mirran Crusader because he was afraid I'd just vial in a 2-drop in response. Vial bluffs are so much fun.
I've always found that going all in on mana denial to be a great way to lose to Shardless and TNN Bug, particularly on the draw. If they kept a mana light hand, you probably win. but if they have a couple lands they can keep deploying threats and pull further ahead every turn, then you lose.
That being said, you kept a hand that was all in on Wasteland. You might need to take a higher risk play with a weak hand like that.
Thoughtseizing Mom over Vial makes a lot of sense to me. Without Mom, they can turn your hand into basically all mana. There's no reason to take the mana rock over the biggest threat in your hand.
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In attrition based match-ups I often hold onto Wastelands until it becomes opportunistically viable to color soft-lock like in the Delver or BGx match ups. Its also the case that in match ups like those you often pay for equipment costs most often. Its usually often the case that if those match ups play any creatures on turn 1 and proceed to continue developing a board presence it becomes increasingly difficult to Wasteland and Port them until you have a slight edge over them. Unless they opened with turn 1 Ponder/Thoughtseize. If I have 3-4 lands in hand after a draw step I will fire off a Wasteland usually.
Also I have a thought puzzle for us all that I never really thought about.
Let's say we are on the play and we had opened with Wasteland. Our hand looks like
1 Thalia
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Plains
Our hand is obviously very, very good. Question is how do we proceed based on our opponent's turn 1 play. Maximizing percentage points is a skill and a question I often ask playing this deck when ahead.
So let's shortcut the easy ones:
Any land into Ponder, SDT or passing the turn we play Thalia.
Land into DRS will probably prompt a Revoker from us because of the fear of 2nd Turn Liliana of the Veil.
On the flipside if the BUG deck opens Noble Hierarch off a Bayou we actually jam the Stoneforge because we can hopefully buy tempo back to us if they insist on playing True-Name and the threat of Liliana of the Veil is nonexistent from this deck.
So real questions become
What if its Tropical Island into Noble Hierarch?
What if its Trop into Delver
Ditto, but Volc into Delver
Sea into Delver
Tundra into Delcer
This is all on the play so only Tropical Island and Turn 1 Delvers (imo) are difficult to evaluate.
Let's make it interesting by being on the draw and we had just mulliganed into a very strong 6 card hand and the Wasteland in play was our draw step. We will probably open with Plains because it is safe vs every turn 1 play our opponent made. Moving forward based on archetypes and opening plays I think the idea is to jam Thalias if our opponents play Ponder and we try and jam back to back Stoneforge Mystics because the threats they presented on the play are powerful enough to force me to try and get a pay off of Stoneforges.
My main question is what do we need to see before we can remain calm and just jam Thalia over every other two drop in our hand in the face of a board present threat.
If you aren't sure what to play, just jam Thalia. It's right more often than not. There is very little difference between playing a SFM on turn 2 vs turn 3 due to the mana requirements of both putting in and equipping a piece of equipment. There is a huge difference between Thalia coming down on turn 2 vs turn 3.
Also, keep in mind that if you fear Liliana, both Revoker on a mana dork and Thalia will prevent Lili from hitting play for a turn.
Against most Delver decks I'd like to lead with a Thalia if they start out with a Delver. Going for a quick Stoneforge is also a possibility, but it requires you to burn your Cavern. The upside is huge if they dont have two removal spells.
If they lead on Noble Heirarch, I'm more likely to want to get the Stoneforge into play. Most Noble Heirarch decks are fundamentally Green, so the taxing effect can be minor, while getting a fast Jitte or Batterskull online can be really powerful. Revoking the Heirarch would probably the strongest play for cutting them off the most possible mana, as I'm expecting creatures out of their deck so Thalia may have no effect.
hi guys, i just built this deck and played my first legacy tourney. here the report:
1 round - lost 2-0 vs uw control
at first i thought i was playing vs miracles because he started with top so i used my revorker on it but he played thopter foundry combo (:confused:) and he overwhelm me with tokens. honestly I have never heard of this deck and i didn't know how to play against it :(.
2 round - win 2-0 vs bug aluren
game 1 he played aluren too early (he had only 1 creature in hand) and I have taken advantage of his aluren playing all my creature.
game 2 again he played aluren turn 4 and he tried to find the other piece of his combo with 2 shardless agent but he found only brainstorm/ponder with prelate on 1. i closed the game next turn playing recruiter + 4 flickerwisp.
3 round - win 2-0 vs 4c delver.
both games were developed in the same way. wasteland+thalia and he could't play magic.
4 round - win 2-0 vs shardless bug
the mvp in both games has been (obv xd) mirran crusader.
g1 crusader equipped with batterskull closed the game with 2 attack.
g2 very grindy game and I was able to win only thanks to crusader again.
top 4 - win 2-1 vs eldrazi.
g1 i had all i need to fight vs it ( double wasteland, vial, stp and mistyc)
g2 he started with chalice on 1 locking my 2 stp in hand + vial. turn 2 seer and turn 3 smasher is enough to close the game
g3 he had a slower hand and i could do my mana denial plan. i closed the game with serra+jitte.
final - i had to play vs the guy that i lost the first round but we decided to split cause it was really late.
p.s: sorry if i did some mistakes... it's not my first language :)