It's over here in the Tournament Reports section:Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlatan
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=13357
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It's over here in the Tournament Reports section:Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlatan
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=13357
I' ve spent some test on this decklist, but i' ve never had the chance to play it in real tournaments. That sounds bad, but it was a metagame choice, and most of the times i' ve preferred some other decks. Btw, the decklist looks a little different from other posted before, and even if it isn' t THE decklist it could probably give some good point of discussion. Maybe Coal Stoker could be more interesting here, but i rarely found situoations were i couldn' t cast Demigods, and most of the time i was simply screwed and not color screwed; 7 or 8 Moon effect maindeck allows us to play Demigod most of the times, and i' ve decided to run Siege because of Goblin Assault. Assault too is a decent card, provides a great number of attackers, is a great call against Standstill, and a powerhouse to have an out from a Smockestack too.
// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
10 [CS] Snow-Covered Mountain
// Creatures
4 [SHM] Demigod of Revenge
4 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
2 [DIS] Rakdos Pit Dragon
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [PLC] Sulfur Elemental
2 [10E] Siege-Gang Commander
// Spells
4 [MR] Seething Song
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [9E] Blood Moon
4 [ALA] Goblin Assault
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 2 [TE] Boil
SB: 3 [AL] Pyrokinesis
I saw this idea on the Elephant/Natural Stompy thread - but what about Rosheen Meanderer?
She could be useful with Chalices, Sigils, and Bane/Demonfire?
Truth be told I'm not perfect. I'm trying to give some good input though, which is why I tried to go over a lot of ground with the tournament report. I love the deck- which shows that even if you're not the perfect player you can still do well with the deck. I especially wanted to give back to this thread, considering this is where the Maulers came from.
As far as the deck goes however, there are some good directions for the deck to go-
The main deck seems pretty solid. I wouldn't want to try to change it by adding colors- like with Demigod, etc. The same problems for Banefire/Demonfire exist too, as though you often get to 5 mana quickly, I'm often left without more than 3 or 4 lands by the end game. Keeping it simple seems to work best for this archetype.
Goblin Assault seems to be pretty interesting as far as the deck goes, and could probably go with an equipment strategy (especially in certain matchups that use Wrath effects/Swords to Plowshares to kill your fatties).
As far as SoFI goes, I believe the idea still remains the same- another 5 mana to cast and equip can sometimes ruin your tempo.
Anarchy does seem like a great SB card as well.
Pithing Needle is still great obviously, even if it can't hit a LED, lol.
Siege-Gang >> Demigod of Uncastability, and I've actually tinkered around with the Siegester a few times, but is there any reason on God's Green Earth that list doesn't run Arc-Slogger?
Mink's report is great, and believe i'm a not a brown nose, i even know where he lives...Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe_C
His report is a great article about this deck, even if needle doesn't hit LED or anything like that...
I think that all cards that he used as SB have a meta call or to handle with weaknes from tyhe deck...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
As i sayed, i' d rather go on Siege-gang rather then Slogger because of Assault synergies. Slogger is certainly a powerful card, but consider that i' m running 4 Demigods, and i want keep a maximum number of 5cc slots to 6. However, each time i' ve played Demigod it have been castable and efficient, especially against Landstill, Rock based decks that runs Pernicious, and MUC variants. If i get screwed to play Demigod, then i will be screwed to play Siege or Slogger too, so the few games where we' ll be unable to cast it will be some rare games where we don' t saw any Moon effect, or Seething, or we'll get completely screwed, probably with 1-2 red mana and some colorless land. Btw, Slogger is always one of the best card to play, i' ve simply run something different, and tests was positive.
isnt demigod hard to cast?
That's not "completely screwed" for builds that are smart enough not to run Siege-Gang and Demigod. That's "Being able to cast everything in my deck." That's the difference between builds that run the correct threats and ones that don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
This isn't extended. We don't run Rite of Flame and Desperate Ritual. We aren't All-In Red. And Force of Will exists in this format, so trying to be anything close to that is a horrible plan. Demigod says byebye.
The problem with Siege-Gang is that is it only a 2/2, which is hard to put lots pressure on opponent with attacking. If there is a tarmo on the board, Siege Gang would be a lot less efficient then Slogger, because you will need to wreck the tarmo (Often 4/5 or 5/6), and it will cost you three tokens, and there will only be a 2/2 on board instead of a 4/5. Not to mention that Siege Gang ability cost 2 mana instead of one.Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
I find slogger really more versatile, especially that you can kill tarmo, and still do like ~4 damage to the player with it.
Although Siege Gang might be better in late game situation, you don't want to go end game anyway ;p
Also, if you run Demigod and Siege Gang, the two of them might be hard to cast expecially in a format with Sinkhole, or if you don't find your Seething song.
By the way, shouldn't you just run 1 Akroma versus landstill for a Wincon? (Can't be countered or sworded, can't be defended by elspeth's tokens..)
One question:
Isn't firespout better then pyroclasm?
Why not? (if you think that "No" :tongue: )
Personally, I like pyroclasm better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlatan
The extra damage of firespout will most likely kill your rider, and will kill your Rakdos pit (except if you make him flying, but it would cost you 3 red mana, which is sometimes really hard to get )
Pyroclasm kills Sower of temptation.
It cost one more mana. And you don't need the 1 extra damage versus deck with lot of creatures most of the time.. (Except if you play agaisnt merfolk and there is two Reejerey or lord of atlantis)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
One of the best side of Demigod is that if you' ll saw it in multiple copyes, it owns Force of Will. Force of Will works on each other threat or card in the deck, so saying that Demigod is couterable by Force is pointless. Saying that we can' t play it in this format because that' s not an extended deck is pointless too: that was the same when someone tryed first to play Sower in Legacy, and everybody laught at it. I' ve played several games with this decklist, and obv sometimes i lost games with an uncastable Demigod in hand, sure, but i think that you lost many games with some uncastable Arc-Slogger in hand too :tongue:
I found that with 4 Seething, 4 Moxes, 4 SSG, and 7 maindeck Moon effect, the RRRRR in Demigod manacost is not a problem as it could appear by a first sight. Give it a chance in your playtests, i'm not assuming that it is the solution or the best card ever printed for this deck, but that it is a good threat and a playable card, and it gives the best against counter-based decks and deck that runs Pernicious, WoG and other board sweepers.
The odds of us seeing Demigod in mulitples and having the RRRRR to cast them both is incredibly low. How do you not realize this? Do I have to crunch numbers for you?Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
Force of Will actually does a pretty good job of stopping Demigod. A smart player will let you play your Demigod, let the trigger resolve and then Force the Demigod. If you have no Demigods in the yard, Force of Will will stop Demigod cold. We have one way to put Demigods in the yard --- Gathan Raiders. Do the words 'danger of cool things' mean anything to you?
If you're running Demigod because of its resiliance against countermagic, (I can't think of why else you'd want to run a nearly uncastable card) it's relevant that Force of Will will shut it down nearly every time you cast it. It would be different if we ran something like Intuition, but we don't.
The bottom line is that we need a Seething Song or a combination of cards resembling Rube Goldberg contraption to cast it. That's why it's bad.
So because some people were wrong about Sower of Temptation, we're wrong about Demigod?Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
Yeah, I've lost games to an uncastable Slogger. How does replacing Arc-Slogger with an even harder to cast card improve the situation?Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
Tell you what: I'll playtest Demigod when you form a coherent arguement for why it's better than any four cards from the standard list, if you crunch some numbers and show that it's not too hard to get RRRRR, and/or demonstrate how Demigod kills your opponent faster than an Arc-Slogger when cast early.Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
I'd rather have Pithing Needles than Demigods against Pernicious Deed, because I can reliably cast Pithing Needle. And nobody plays Wrath of God anymore.
I like the idea of demigod, new ideas.
What rock player doesn't expect needle? They will have some sort of artifact hate vs. it as vs. all our other cards. Cards like demigod can make for a surprise.
This deck is in bad need of new ideas or it will be Tier 1.5 at best.. forever..
Needing :r::r::r::r::r: kinda goes way beyond the "new ideas" label, though, doesn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by mercc
I don't know what to say..Quote:
Originally Posted by mujadaddy
Read the thread. This deck is Chalice/Tomb/Red, not Red Aggro.Quote:
Originally Posted by mercc
Wow, merfolk has become popular in my area!
Best SB against it?
Clasm? Flametongue? Pyroblast? Keg? Pyrokinesis?
Boil the fishmen? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by mercc
But boil comes late and they have lots of manlands, with vial in play you will lose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Esper3k
Would Spinal Villain be useful against merfolk? It's going to be taking out 1 guy a turn for 0 mana. With less and less stifle being played in merfolk, I think it's something to consider. Bit of a shame it can't hit mutavault, though. 1 Power is only ok though, so you might consider Slingshot Goblin instead.
I know - I'm just amused by the thought of Boiling Merfolk :)Quote:
Originally Posted by mercc
Pyroclasm wouldn't be too terrible, but if they have 2 Lords out, it's dead. Kinesis is ok too since many of them are 1 toughness. Even with a Lord out, you can always do 2 to the Lord, then 1 apiece to two others and get a 3 for 2.
Really, your Chalices and Trinispheres I think would work well since that deck tends to be fairly low costed anyways.
I don't believe chalice and trinisphere will "lock them out of the game".
My Turn 1: Trinisphere
His turn 1: Island
My turn 2: Taurean mauler
His turn 2: Mishra's factory
:confused:
Then it just keept going. He played mutavault then. And then got to play essential dudes for 3 mana. Reejerey and Thrasher cost 3 anyways.
Chalice for 1 will only lock out vial and cursecather. I know its good, but it's not backbreaking. He will pitch cathers to FoW then and then played dudes for 2 and 3 mana.
I want a good SB card, like flametongue, since i believe going into an attrition war instead of stax-locking them which will not happen.
A combination of pyroclasm and pyrokenesis make the cut...
and if u don't run jitte in your MD, bring it on!
Ahoi,
perhaps Martyr of Ashes could be an option ... come down early, could be equiped and has a variable baord cleaning damage option ... ;)
salute
TimeTwister
my first thought about martyr was wow!
but i was hoping that the SB-card for merfolk would be good for slivers as well.
powder keg is pretty universal and good vs. both. but i think it is kinda slow, and i've had bad experience with merfolks playing stifle :/
Martyr of Ashes is horrible. It trips over Chalice, costs 2R total to play and use, requires red cards in your hand in a deck that wants to dump its hand, and can be Stifled.
Run Pyroclasm instead. You'll probably never activate Martyr for more than two damage anyway.
A sideboard of four Pyroclasm and four Pyrokinesis kicks Goblins' teeth in and should do the same thing to Merfolk. It's also great versus the random jank that gives us trouble.
Boil is another option if your metagame is really blue heavy, but it's not your best option against Merfolk.
Trinisphere is garbage against Merfolk. They run Aether Vial, plenty of lands, manlands, and Wasteland. Should they not have any of those cards they can Force or Daze it.
You: Turn one Ancient Tomb, SSG, Trinisphere.
Them: Wasteland
You: @#%^!#
but pitching a card for pyrokinesis when they can just tap U and counter it with hydroblast seems no good.
You might get two-for-one'd. Or you might wipe their board and kill them. Let me put it this way. If you resolve a Pyrokinesis with your own creatures on the board, you will almost certainly win. If you don't, you might lose. They aren't always going to have the blue blast with the mana to play it, and sometimes you'll have Chalice at one to protect it.Quote:
Originally Posted by mercc
You act like a -1 card advantage in Dragon Stompy is the end of the world. Maybe we should cut Seething Song, Gathan Raiders, and Chrome Mox too --- they're all -1 card advantage.
@SB for Merfolk-Slaying = any combination of Pyroclasm, Pyrokinesis, Powder Keg, and Flametongue Kavu.
Clasm is Wrath as long as they don't have dual pumpers. Powder Keg is great in this match both against their threats and against their Vials. You can often get 2 for 1's off Keg.
Other than that? Just resolve a Slogger, for god's sake. Slogger d. Merfolk.
@Spinal Villain: Cute, but there aren't enough targets in the game and it doesn't do enough. And if you want a card that owns blue, you're running Boil.
@Mercc's Trinisphere vs. Merfolk scenario: And if you follow with Turn 3 Magus or turn 3 Blood Moon, you're still in dominant position. Trinisphere doesn't always shut out Merfolk, but it can definitely help, especially given that they're land light and don't always hit three land by their third turn.
@Martyr of Ashes: Ew. No.
@Firespout: I went through this same question, actually. I love Firespout. Love it love it love it. I run it over Pyroclasm in Survival's sideboard due to the awesome Birds of Paradise synergy. But here? It's a bad call. Unhellbent Raiders and Dragon both have toughness 3. There aren't enough other threats in the format with an exact toughness of 3 to make this worthwhile. And you don't have the green to make this hit flyers.
If you see Demigod in multiple copies, it blows against Force of Will, because you won't cast it in multiple copies. You need a Seething Song or a Moon and five mana sources for each one, in a deck that has no draw. It isn't happening. And the worst side is that if you see Demigod in multiple copies, you lose Hellbent.Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
I'm sorry, but why not Firespout over pyroclasm? Have I missed something here?
Spout kills your own unbent raiders and your Pit Dragons. Clasm does not.
I'm just brainstorming....
How about Rolling Thunder?
I wouldn't recommend getting too cute with that slot. You want to cast your sweeper against decks that are often playing some combination of Wasteland and Port. I've often had to clasm Goblins with nothing but a mountain and a SSG pitch. This is why it's tempting to just run Pyrokenesis in the board, though I'm fairly sure that's the wrong call.
For what it's worth, that's not why I ran/run Pyrokinesis, though I agree with your assessment that Pyroclasm's probably the best sweeper compared to anything else. It's certainly the cream of the crop against Goblins.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantom
Pyrokinesis I ran as a combination sweeper and anti-combo piece. It can randomly tag stuff against Painter, Ceph Breakfast, Elf combo, and other random little creature-based combo decks that pop up from time to time. It did this better than Pyroclasm, as I could still be dropping my threats and disruption, increasing my clock, etc. Pyrokinesis also facilitates Hellbent, and Pyrokinesis is free, leaving your mana open to commit to a purely aggressive strategy. Pyroclasm also doesn't kill your Magus of the Moons, which actually became relevant when tribal decks besides Goblins started existing. What I also like about Pyrokinesis is that on games where you're on the draw and Trinisphere can sometimes just blow, Pyrokinesis isn't bad just to bring in for tempo.
I'm less sure than you that it's the wrong call, and I leave both Pyroclasms and Pyrokineses in my deckbox to shift it at a whim. That said, it's really hard to go too wrong with Pyroclasm.
why not run Volcanic Fallout? It performs very well against dredge and goblins
...because of the casting cost
when the casting cost would be something like 2R it would be much better for Dragon Stompy
In an meta with ichorid and blue based aggro decks (merfolk & fae) can it replace pyroclasm?Quote:
Originally Posted by idraleo
I think its advantages (instant speed and incounterable) make it better option than pyroclasm despite its casting cost.
On the question of board sweepers, it's really about what you're trying to pinpoint with your removal.
Pyroclasm- one of the most efficient red sweepers available. And, yes, being 1 red mana does matter for this deck. The fact that you don't have to pitch a card does help as well, because you most often are able to get hellbent in most cases. Also, aside from not killing your dragon and raiders, being able to kill birds mattered in the survival matchup.
Pyrokinesis- another great spell. But for different reasons. That being of tempo, with the capability to eat an early goyf. It has anti-synergy with Trinisphere, but I'd only play these if Trinisphere's were taken out during sideboarding. Lets your Magus live.
Powder Keg- Our "instant" answer. It deals with those dredge tokens (although with Trinisphere main, this matchup is already decent), man-lands, and of course, tarmogoyf.
Other, less efficient "answers" that don't really pinpoint the problem that you're trying to deal with:
Firespout?- Tacosnape already answered this, but consider that against merfolk they also have cursecatcher. 1 Mana really does matter.
Volcanic Fallout- Waiting for the extra "r" will just lose you the game. Oftentimes, you'll only be on 2 mana turn 1 as well.
Things that stick out in my mind as better possible "answers" against merfolk:
Umezawa's Jitte
Pithing Needle- Hits Vial, Man-Lands.
Pyroclasm
Pyrokinesis
Pyroblast/REB- efficient removal can be a possible answer as well.