[Deck] GW/x Maverick

Ok, so if I decide to play maverick this weekend at the gpt, I am thinking something like this:

Creature (21)
1x Birds of Paradise
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Gaddock Teeg
3x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Mother of Runes
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scryb Ranger
1 renegade rallier
2x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Sorcery (11)
2x Cabal Therapy
4x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize

Artifact (2)
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte

Instant (4)
4x Swords to Plowshares

Land (23)
1x Bayou
1x Dark Depths
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Forest
1x Karakas
1x Plains
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Thespian's Stage
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
3x Windswept Heath

Sideboard:
3 orim's chant
2 sanctum prelate
2 surgical extraction
2 ethersworn canonist
2 zealous persecution
1 pithing needle
1 batterskull
1 stoneforge mystic
1 toxic deluge

Been playtesting the orim's chant, and I absolutely love that card. Been using it in parfait, and after seeing it in another sideboard on here, I decided to try it, and I glad I did.

I am trying to speed up my deck a little with some turn one hand disruption. Hymn hurts a lot on turn two. Cabal into dryad arbor is a great line, and if I add the renegade rallier back, I can get the dryad arbor back with it's ability. In my meta, I have been dying a lot to fast decks lately, like stated above, and I am always finding myself saying "if only", so why not add the disruption and by myself a turn two for a thalia or similar.


I am still undecided between this deck and the Spiritblade deck, but I keep finding myself wanting to make this work.

Thoughts?

Personally I brewedup something that turned out to be similar to "Spiritblade" style deck but instead of bad 1-drops I'm running Spellstutter Sprite as Queller 5-8 and otherwise am a regular Deathblade deck. I'm not running Thalia (running Daze) but I've considered a swap there. Stutters are supported by Blossoms to keep them relevant and add grindy power for fair MUs.

I was quite happy with it in initial testing. Flash-Equip dudes who counter the removal or threats of your opponent. I haven't posted much about it because it's janky as hell and I don't have much in the way of results yet. Once I have enough "oomph" against Fair decks however, I expect to not be able to shut up about it. I got live the dream of "Spellqueller on Decay" to an opponent, then "Spellstutter your Plow" (might have been a brainstorm, can't remember) and was sitting with dudes, carrying equips, flashed in, after timewalking the guy. It's a great feeling and I think it has some real potential with some refinement. I do think that Daze/Force/SFM/DRS or other dorks are mandatory though. Opening up Queller on T2, and being able to obscure your Queller/Sprite with an SFM->BSK threatening activation can potentially bait opponents into casting something. If they don't, you just spend your mana on DRS or SFM activations EoT and move on with your life.

IMO, the deck will work best when you have enough activation costs that you don't look like you're only holding it waiting for your opponent, and it requires you to "lean forward" and be aggressive since you want your opponent to get stuck on their back foot.

I think the 1-drop heavy Judge's Familiar and other spirit guy are garbage though. Sprite has *real* CA attached to it, T2, no strings attached. No "pay 1" nonsense either.

That said, this thread should probably quit talking about Spell Quellers ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tescrin

Personally I brewedup something that turned out to be similar to "Spiritblade" style deck but instead of bad 1-drops I'm running Spellstutter Sprite as Queller 5-8 and otherwise am a regular Deathblade deck. I'm not running Thalia (running Daze) but I've considered a swap there. Stutters are supported by Blossoms to keep them relevant and add grindy power for fair MUs.

I was quite happy with it in initial testing. Flash-Equip dudes who counter the removal or threats of your opponent. I haven't posted much about it because it's janky as hell and I don't have much in the way of results yet. Once I have enough "oomph" against Fair decks however, I expect to not be able to shut up about it. I got live the dream of "Spellqueller on Decay" to an opponent, then "Spellstutter your Plow" (might have been a brainstorm, can't remember) and was sitting with dudes, carrying equips, flashed in, after timewalking the guy. It's a great feeling and I think it has some real potential with some refinement. I do think that Daze/Force/SFM/DRS or other dorks are mandatory though. Opening up Queller on T2, and being able to obscure your Queller/Sprite with an SFM->BSK threatening activation can potentially bait opponents into casting something. If they don't, you just spend your mana on DRS or SFM activations EoT and move on with your life.

IMO, the deck will work best when you have enough activation costs that you don't look like you're only holding it waiting for your opponent, and it requires you to "lean forward" and be aggressive since you want your opponent to get stuck on their back foot.

I think the 1-drop heavy Judge's Familiar and other spirit guy are garbage though. Sprite has *real* CA attached to it, T2, no strings attached. No "pay 1" nonsense either.

That said, this thread should probably quit talking about Spell Quellers ;)

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Hate Drakes are always welcome :)

What's everyone's ratio of Zealous Persecution to Toxic Deluge in the sideboard?
I finally got around to getting a couple of TDs so now I have to figure out how to use them.
I've seen 2 ZP 1 TD, and 1 and 1 in lists that run both.

I'm currently leaning towards the 2 ZP and 1 TD config, is 3 sweeper effects too many?
This is a pretty unknown meta, but they're coming in mostly vs TNN and Elves which I feel are likely to be prominent.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DoomRabbit

What's everyone's ratio of Zealous Persecution to Toxic Deluge in the sideboard?
I finally got around to getting a couple of TDs so now I have to figure out how to use them.
I've seen 2 ZP 1 TD, and 1 and 1 in lists that run both.

I'm currently leaning towards the 2 ZP and 1 TD config, is 3 sweeper effects too many?
This is a pretty unknown meta, but they're coming in mostly vs TNN and Elves which I feel are likely to be prominent.

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I've ran a 2zp and 1td split before and liked it quite a bit. I was using ZP mainly vs TNN with upside vs DNT/Elves/Infect etc.. and TD as the haymaker against Elves and other decks where board wipes are good. I think in an unknown meta 2-3 sb sweepers are reasonable since they're good against some of our worst MU, handle TNN, and applicable elsewhere. If you go to 2 sweepers I would cut the 2nd ZP, just to have a more diverse sb plan.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Luthiereisfun

I've ran a 2zp and 1td split before and liked it quite a bit. I was using ZP mainly vs TNN with upside vs DNT/Elves/Infect etc.. and TD as the haymaker against Elves and other decks where board wipes are good. I think in an unknown meta 2-3 sb sweepers are reasonable since they're good against some of our worst MU, handle TNN, and applicable elsewhere. If you go to 2 sweepers I would cut the 2nd ZP, just to have a more diverse sb plan.

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What's so good about TD in sb? I understand that in matches where it shines we side out thalias, but I really don't want to lose my moms, even against Elves...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aspsnake

What's so good about TD in sb? I understand that in matches where it shines we side out thalias, but I really don't want to lose my moms, even against Elves...

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losing moms > losing game. ZP can be quite awkward since they keep their DRS (when your best hope is for them to block an attacking mom you know you're fucked). TD whipes everything AND makes sure their cradle taps for 0 while still leaving kotr or the equipped creature alive.

Also it's a little more flexible, allowing you to clean a board with equipped creature and/or opposing bears.

2 zealous & 1 toxic it's probably the best option, vs elves u have canonists / jitte / orim's chant (if u play it) too.
right now i am trying to play side with 1 path to exile and 1 maelstrom pulse instead of 1 toxic, but probably i agree adding the third side global removal with 1 toxic

Just played at a Channelfireball 3k that got bumped to a 4k when 98 players showed up.

Under-performed overall, but them the beats.

It was seven rounds and I went 5-2, ending at 17th.

Round One: D&T 2-0

This was a fairly straight forward matchup and I won easily. He ran at least 2 Mirran Crusaders maindeck but without support they're just 2health victims to Jitte.

Round Two: D&T 1-2

Lost game one and three to a timely Palace Jailer. We traded cards early both games and I resolved a 4th turn Knight as the only card in play both times--but a turn 4 Jailer on his end simply put the game out of reach as summoning sickness kept preventing me from gaining back the tempo needed to beat his card draws.

Round Three: Elves 2-1

Hatebears into Dark Depths made this a super quick and easy match.

Round Four: Shardless 2-0

He never resolved Shardless Agent or Ancestral Visions, so even though I ended both games with no lands in play and only 2-3 creatures on board--it was more than enough to break him.

Round Five: Grixis Delver 1-2

Both games one and three were fast delver draws that I was a turn away from turning around. Missed three land drops game one while game three was ended by early double bolt + double delver before I could resolve Jitte.

Round Six: Abzan Nic Fit 2-1

Game one he resolved an early tracker and then Junded me to death, killing my guys while drawing cards. Games two and three I was able to untap with Knights and Prelates and the game was laughable.

Round Seven: Goblins 2-1

Dead on board and saved by Marit Lage game two, Revoker (on Aether Vial) wearing a SOFI ended game three.

In Review:

Little bummed my losses were favored match-ups, but that's why you practice and never take any opponent lightly. I was able to win my rough matches, but I feel like I'm under-prepared for my favored matches. Toxic was a house all day, but so was Abrupt Decay. There seems to be a massive dive in Shardless style slow BUG decks and a steady rise in more tempo oriented Delver strategies along with Death and Taxes starting to spike in popularity; might have to change the maindeck to adapt.

The List:

Creatures: 26
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dryad Arbor

Spells: 13
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dark Depths

Lands: 22
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Thespian's Stage

Sideboard: 14
3 Orim's Chant
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg

I cut the 15 sideboard card so I can side down to 60 games two and three versus Delver/Tempo/Burn strategies. The sideboard definitely needs tweaking and I will be doing so a lot before Vegas. Still, 17th out of 99 is not bad and losing winnable matches means that the issue was me, not the deck--and I am fixable. Just need to make less mistakes and get luckier.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aspsnake

From your report, it doesn't seem that depths were doing whole a lot [emoji14] Also, was Maze that useful outside of the Infect matchup?

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maze did well on infect but it was a wasteland target...
will probably board it if i go to the below route...

there were alot of times that depths was just a dead card, or thespian was there but no KOTR...
and would rather have a decay or a thoughtseize than that...haha
will try it without DD/TS combo...and will probably get a cradle and horizon if ever

(",)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by montoy

maze did well on infect but it was a wasteland target...
will probably board it if i go to the below route...

there were alot of times that depths was just a dead card, or thespian was there but no KOTR...
and would rather have a decay or a thoughtseize than that...haha
will try it without DD/TS combo...and will probably get a cradle and horizon if ever

(",)

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The slow decline of slow BUG decks is having me think the same thing. Right now its essential in the elves matchup for me, winning me essentially all my games against Elves.

But it used to also give me wins vs the various Shardless/Leovold/BUG decks that used to keep Miracles on its toes--with those disappearing it becomes harder to justify percentage points wise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TMagpie

Just played at a Channelfireball 3k that got bumped to a 4k when 98 players showed up.

Under-performed overall, but them the beats.

It was seven rounds and I went 5-2, ending at 17th.

Round One: D&T 2-0

This was a fairly straight forward matchup and I won easily. He ran at least 2 Mirran Crusaders maindeck but without support they're just 2health victims to Jitte.

Round Two: D&T 1-2

Lost game one and three to a timely Palace Jailer. We traded cards early both games and I resolved a 4th turn Knight as the only card in play both times--but a turn 4 Jailer on his end simply put the game out of reach as summoning sickness kept preventing me from gaining back the tempo needed to beat his card draws.

Round Three: Elves 2-1

Hatebears into Dark Depths made this a super quick and easy match.

Round Four: Shardless 2-0

He never resolved Shardless Agent or Ancestral Visions, so even though I ended both games with no lands in play and only 2-3 creatures on board--it was more than enough to break him.

Round Five: Grixis Delver 1-2

Both games one and three were fast delver draws that I was a turn away from turning around. Missed three land drops game one while game three was ended by early double bolt + double delver before I could resolve Jitte.

Round Six: Abzan Nic Fit 2-1

Game one he resolved an early tracker and then Junded me to death, killing my guys while drawing cards. Games two and three I was able to untap with Knights and Prelates and the game was laughable.

Round Seven: Goblins 2-1

Dead on board and saved by Marit Lage game two, Revoker (on Aether Vial) wearing a SOFI ended game three.

In Review:

Little bummed my losses were favored match-ups, but that's why you practice and never take any opponent lightly. I was able to win my rough matches, but I feel like I'm under-prepared for my favored matches. Toxic was a house all day, but so was Abrupt Decay. There seems to be a massive dive in Shardless style slow BUG decks and a steady rise in more tempo oriented Delver strategies along with Death and Taxes starting to spike in popularity; might have to change the maindeck to adapt.

The List:

Creatures: 26
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dryad Arbor

Spells: 13
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dark Depths

Lands: 22
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Thespian's Stage

Sideboard: 14
3 Orim's Chant
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg

I cut the 15 sideboard card so I can side down to 60 games two and three versus Delver/Tempo/Burn strategies. The sideboard definitely needs tweaking and I will be doing so a lot before Vegas. Still, 17th out of 99 is not bad and losing winnable matches means that the issue was me, not the deck--and I am fixable. Just need to make less mistakes and get luckier.

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How do you like the full play set of stoneforge mystics? I've at times thought about going up to 3 given the awesome card advantage they provide.

Hi all,

I've been thinking why does Maverick go down in rankings on mtgtop8.com and found out that this is very possible due to combo & heavy CA control decks rising.
Therefore, I've decided to check the leading decks (5% of meta & more). These are: Grixis Delver (11%), Show&Tell (8%), Storm (8%), UWx Control (7%), BUG Midrange (6%) and D&T (5%). These are also the decks that we can be highly expecting to meet in top-8.

With the exception of D&T (which we have a positive matchup against), literally all or almost all of these decks run 8+ cantrips and are blue. This means that the following cards should normally be exceptionally strong right now:

- Spirit of the Labyrinth
- Chains of Mephistopheles
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (check)
- Choke (check)

What do you guys think of running 2 Spirits & 4 Thalias mainboard and 2 Chokes + 1 Chains in sb? This should help a lot. Chains screws us only on a Library (could be even dropped) and blue-red sword's drawing ability (not critical), but decks with Brainstorm and no Abrupt Decay (Grixis Delver, Show&Tell, UWx Control) are rather screwed unless they manually draw the right answer.

Alternatively, we could also splash blue for Leopold instead of running spirits (zenithable), but it seems clunky and then Chokes will probably go out.

Thoughts?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aspsnake

Hi all,

I've been thinking why does Maverick go down in rankings on mtgtop8.com and found out that this is very possible due to combo & heavy CA control decks rising.
Therefore, I've decided to check the leading decks (5% of meta & more). These are: Grixis Delver (11%), Show&Tell (8%), Storm (8%), UWx Control (7%), BUG Midrange (6%) and D&T (5%). These are also the decks that we can be highly expecting to meet in top-8.

With the exception of D&T (which we have a positive matchup against), literally all or almost all of these decks run 8+ cantrips and are blue. This means that the following cards should normally be exceptionally strong right now:

- Spirit of the Labyrinth
- Chains of Mephistopheles
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (check)
- Choke (check)

What do you guys think of running 2 Spirits & 4 Thalias mainboard and 2 Chokes + 1 Chains in sb? This should help a lot. Chains screws us only on a Library (could be even dropped) and blue-red sword's drawing ability (not critical), but decks with Brainstorm and no Abrupt Decay (Grixis Delver, Show&Tell, UWx Control) are rather screwed unless they manually draw the right answer.

Alternatively, we could also splash blue for Leopold instead of running spirits (zenithable), but it seems clunky and then Chokes will probably go out.

Thoughts?

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Aren't all of those favorable matchups for Maverick?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ET1

How do you like the full play set of stoneforge mystics? I've at times thought about going up to 3 given the awesome card advantage they provide.

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I'm a huge fan of 4 Stoneforge on the blind, and I'm a bigger fan of it in BUG heavy metas. Oftentimes turn 2 stoneforge for Batterskull gives you an instant read on how much the opponent cares about life totals, the red zone, and his ability to deal with x/4 creatures. More often than not being able to bait removal early, followed by KotR can quickly end the game, but if they trump your Knight you just use it to ramp into the Batterskull anyway.

Saying that, I also do side out the package (2 SFM 1 BSkull) vs a lot of decks.

The other reason I love the card is because vs Belcher/TES/etc... where more often than not their kills are actually with Empty the Warrens, 4 SFM gives me a high chance of resolving a Skull on turn 3 to turn the tide of the goblin beats.

Definitely a fan of the higher sfm count. I feel like equipment has really become one of the key aspects to winning with Maverick in fair MU for me. If I can get that jitte online vs DnT/Elves/Infect its game over. If I can get SoFi online vs control or TNN it's game over. I used to see SFM just as extra copies of equipment for whatever the situation called for but I think it's more than that.

I run 3 equipment so the higher chance I have of having a sfm stick to start cheating in equipment the better. Currently at 3 sfm.

I ran three SFM in a GPT yesterday and being able to reliably fetch Jitte (even if the SFM died before dropping it) single handedly won me games against Infect and Burn that I otherwise had no business winning. SOFI helped me out against a BUG deck too. Batterskull came out pretty much every game and the few times I actually had it in hand it stayed in hand til the end, unfortunately.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RobNC

I ran three SFM in a GPT yesterday and being able to reliably fetch Jitte (even if the SFM died before dropping it) single handedly won me games against Infect and Burn that I otherwise had no business winning. SOFI helped me out against a BUG deck too. Batterskull came out pretty much every game and the few times I actually had it in hand it stayed in hand til the end, unfortunately.

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Honestly, I was (in blue) running an Elspeth, Knight-Errant and after playing a bit the other day replaced her with SFM #4. I think any time I saw the card I would've ended the game faster, had an easier time casting, etc.. the SFM, and would probably have gone 4-0 instead of 3-1 since I lost to BUG Delver via my own Blossom. Fact is, Jitte/BSK are such giant life-gain pools that you can turn the game on a dime.

Jitte has even been good for me as a clock against unfair decks like Lands. Swinging as a 5/5 or bigger can really bring the 20 life you gave them back to lethal in a hurry with some help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TMagpie

Aren't all of those favorable matchups for Maverick?

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Grixis Delver: not really, with Cabal Therapy and tokens they can give us a bad day. And in sb they have some nukes, which doesn't help either.
UWx: nowadays there is a new trend to play with Thing in the Ice, which not only forces us to keep Swords in mainboard, but also can be quite nasty when you don't draw one. I think while it's obviously not Miracles, it's still a bad matchup.
Storm: I think it's mostly favorable, but there are hands sometimes that you just cannot beat.
Show&Tell: quite unfavorable.
BUG: Depends on the build, some are favorable, some (e.g. Delver with Hymns) are quite sloppy.

I wouldn't say that the meta is so Maverick-friendly atm, and statistics quite prove my point :p
But I've not been playing for a couple of month, I need to come back and check everything myself "in the field".

Hello,
i wanted to post a punishing fire list which im durdling around since the last 2 weeks now.
i have tested it against elves, grixis-delver, deathblade, esperblade and aggro loam lately...
and it felt very cute! (love Mindcensor, Ajani and E.Witness as cards in general)

in my opinion gw/b is strictly better - but i wanted to give pfire a try in our local meta.

are there any Red Mages out there?^^

1 Forrest
1 Plains
2 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Plateau
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bayou
1 Karakas
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
6 Fetchlands
3 Wastelands

1 Dryad Arbor
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Tireless Tracker
2 Qasal Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scrybranger
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Eternal Witness

4 Green Suns Zenith
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
1 Ajani, Vengeant
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Umezawas Jitte

Sideboard:

1 Sudden Demise - Swarmdecks
2 Pyroblasts - antiblue
1 Ancient Grudge - anti Equipment
1 Wear/Tear - Anti Equipment/Enchantment
2 Ethersworn Canonist - Anticombo
2 Blessed Alliance - out to Nemesis,Progenitus, etc.
1 Councils Judgement - Anti Everything
2 Choke - fuck Islands!
1 Pithing Needle - allrounder
1 Phyrexian Revoker - allrounder
1 Engineered Explosives - another catch all