Paying 3 mana for what amounts to a decent wall isn't that exciting.
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Paying 3 mana for what amounts to a decent wall isn't that exciting.
Yup, I think the focus is now lost. xDQuote:
Originally Posted by Augustas
I'd rather reserve my judgments until after this weekend. If he does well with a list w/ Dark Rits, then what does that say?
I understand that the inclusion of Dark Rituals SEEMS contradictory to the spirit of the deck--that a methodical approach with constant card advantage (Hymn, Gatekeeper, etc.) will set us up for a stronger mid-game. Dark Ritual reeks of a suicide-like playstyle--to dump your hand so that you can win on the 3rd or 4th turn.
HOWEVER, dark ritual in the gate serves another purpose. It serves to accelerate the gate in the first few turns of the game, to add explosiveness to the gameplay. Dark ritual opens up more avenues for first turn plays other than innocent blood/duress/cabal therapy. Now, we can play spells up to 3cc on the first turn, enabling a large portion of our card pool in the beginning of the game. The differences between the gate with ritual and black suicide are the cards that the gate uses. Cards like Phyrexian Arena, Bob and Hymn are cards that provide us with card advantage. Bitterblossom and Engineered Plague provide us with pseudo-card advantage.
Through the timeline of the game, we are generating some major card advantage--enough to cover the initial card disadvantage of dark ritual. But what we get out of it is speed, the ability to get those cards mentioned above online as soon as possible, before the opponent has time to counter/find and cast removal. In that sense, if we can get a card like phyrexian arena out, it will more than pay for itself by the time your opponent gets removal (EE) online is just one example.
So as a summary of the deck choices, we are caught between a third percy and a fourth bb? There was also some debate over maindeck Engineered Plague? (a meta-call if I ever saw one).
I've changed some cards here, but I kinda like this build. What I'm not comfortable is only 18 lands. I don't want to keep one landers , I don't want to sit on two mana for a few turns and i really don't want to get mana flooded. Goldfishing is just making me nuts, 18 lands - lots of mana screw, 19 lands - lots of mana flood.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hencules
Anyway, I wanted to bring the older list this saturday,but I decided to use something like this *new* list just to contribute to building of the deck with some tournament expierence.
A million times this. Fuck Richard Garfield in his stupid ass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Augustas
I was reading the DTB threads, and I noticed something that is relevant to the innocent blood / go for the throat discussion. Apparently, the Merfolk players are concerned with Rock style builds, and are looking to board Kira, Glass Spinner to put a stop to StP and the like. This is another point in favor of Blood, and against targeted removal like Throat.
That is some good advice. Something tells me there is going to be an abnormally high number of artifact-based decks at this event. This would, of course, make Go for the Throat less than spectacular. I think Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is going to have a big showing, too. My sideboard right now is a configuration consisting of the following cards:
Null Rod
Ratchet Bomb
Dystopia
Thorn of Amethyst
Nevinyrral's Disk
(There are other cards like Relic of Progenitus that I've been toying around with to determine if they are necessary or not.)
Everyone has to remember this archetype has some match-ups that are relatively difficult to deal with. I really feel as though Dark Ritual gives us our best chance to win the game. Without it, we're not beating turn one Lightning Greaves into turn two Metalworker. Additionally, dealing with Aether Vial-based decks is a priority. The truth is right now in today's meta we need to deviate just a tad from the way this deck usually plays and play a little more aggressively - which is why I am running four Abyssal Persecutor again (yes, with four Cabal Therapy). Big Daddy wins us games, and I want to be able to match forces against these decks like Merfolk and Affinity by powering out a massive threat fast, burying them with attack after attack, and just Cabal Therapy for the win.
We have to be able to match these decks' intensity, because that is the defining weakness of this deck and it is one of the most prevalent issues dictating the format at the moment - fast, cheap creatures that grow and grow. I won't try and sell anyone on Ritual anymore, because frankly I have to actually interact with opponents this weekend to see how the deck truly performs. I'm sure I'll have a judge called on me at some point during the match to ensure Plague is main-deck (I've had it happen before with Deathmark). Hopefully, the deck's consistency isn't tarnished too much. All I've done essentially is replace Wasteland with Dark Ritual - which could be very dangerous - but again I really don't feel Wasteland is going to be relevant at all here anymore.
I've also been tinkering with this old favorite from my childhood, and it seems to be working relatively well with Bitterblossom and a sacrificial outlet to Persecutor:
Ritual of the Machine
I never said I was 'playing' it, but it certainly has promise. I'm trying to determine how narrow it really is, because at first glance it seems that way. However, stealing an opponent's signature win condition when you're staring it down with a Faerie token actually seems better than killing it. I think this card could be deceptively good in this deck as a one-of main and one-of in the board.
I won't have a deck list posted until Friday night, but rest assure I'll make sure you all know what I'm playing.
don't give yourself away. what if someone in ur meta sees ur deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
I'll be attending a 200+ person tournament. I highly doubt anyone will care. And even if they do, that doesn't change anything; I plan on doing well (hopefully).Quote:
Originally Posted by bracer028
@hollywood: looking forward to your report:cool:
If we can't get our hate in Affinity, we're screwed. Did a couple of MU's last night, though the deck did rather shit on my face (The Gate, that is).
[cards]Phyrexian Revoker[cards] in the main. He's that good. Trust me.
To be honest, I'd much rather have Pithing Needle than Revoker. Even if we named "Aether Vial" off him, Goblins has so many degenerate ways of killing him, be it Warren Weirding, Goblin Sharpshooter, or Gempalm Incinerator. Against other archetypes that run enough creature removal to dismiss him as being irrelevant, it just seems like the evasion of Needle would work so much better.Quote:
Originally Posted by dropkickdude
Yes, we do get a 2/1 body. Yes, we do get to name Lion's Eye Diamond. But I'm looking at Null Rod in the sideboard to take care of what discard should be able to help us with in the first game and into the second. Pithing Needle does what it needs to in those circumstances as well.
Another reason why Needle is so huge is because it hits lands that we wouldn't otherwise be able to name with Revoker, such as Maze of Ith and Rishadan Port, which can be awkward due to the removal of Wasteland. Dark Ritual is another reason why we are able to momentarily side-step Port and it gives us the ability to power out cards when we're faced with a situation of being "locked down."
Right now I'm considering playing Innocent Blood as a definitive four-of over Go for the Throat. The sacrificial element has been very important and it gives us an out to Lackey on turn one on the draw. It also nails Progenitus and Emrakul, while simultaneously working wonders with Bitterblossom tokens and Abyssal Persecutor. It's so damn hard to admit it, but in this deck, I find it so ironic that 'Blood is actually better than Go for the Throat in most instances - and 'Throat is probably one of the best spot-removal spells ever printed.
For anyone who is playing Phyrexian Crusader, you might try Inkmoth Nexus along with it. Nexus taps for mana, gives poision counters, picks up Jitte, has evasion, and will usually survive "sweeper" effects. Including Nexus makes Crusader stronger because it increases your chances of getting the opponent to 10 poison counters. The only weakness is that it taps for colorless. You could run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to deal with that.
There are several deck lists that I have been leaning towards for this weekends Open Series. What I've essentially been trying to do is evaluate what decks give The Gate problems and attempted to correct some of those issues with the sideboard. Most of these lists wind up extraordinarily tight, as some things make sense at first glance and then don't later on and vice-versa. I am quite certain this weekend will be filled with a great deal of parity, so I'm going to cut to the chase and attempt to go directly into what has been working and what hasn't. This is an extraordinarily difficult to build, but relatively easy to play once you get going with it. When it gets hot, there is little stopping it and that is what turned me on so much about the way it plays as opposed to other stereotypical brainless Suicide builds that completely gave the color "Black" a bad name. Thanks to The Gate, most people don't associate Suicide anymore with Mono-Black (at least no one I've spoken with).
Hopefully, we can continue this trend.
The Gate - Current
[4x] Abyssal Persecutor
[4x] Gatekeeper of Malakir
[4x] Dark Confidant
[4x] Vampire Nighthawk
[4x] Duress
[4x] Innocent Blood
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Dark Ritual
[3x] Umezawa's Jitte
[3x] Bitterblossom
[2x] Engineered Plague
[2x] Phyrexian Arena
[18x] Swamp
//Sideboard
[4x]Thorn of Amethyst
[3x]Null Rod
[3x]Dystopia
[3x]Ratchet Bomb
[2x]Engineered Plague
As of this moment, this is the deck list I am leaning most towards. Notice the four Innocent Blood being utilized to full capability here. This particular variation focuses more on Dark Ritual's strengths as opposed to its mid-game lack of utility, which can be more than made up with cards like Phyrexian Arena and Dark Confidant. These cards give the deck a much needed level of stability and allows it to generate some explosive turn one plays. Blood also hits Argothian Enchantress too, which believe it or not is actually quite relevant.
There is, however, the glaring omission of Hymn to Tourach, which was difficult to cut. Hymn is the definitive card-advantage discard spell in this format, and it was hard imagining cutting it from the list. However, the more and more I played this deck, the more and more I noticed how good Cabal Therapy really is. Hymn, while very effective in its own right, also looked as though it might be overkill with four Duress and four Cabal Therapy. Duress was the one card I was looking to eliminate and actually give the deck some much needed breathing room, as that would allow us to work with four available slots. Dark Ritual, however, becomes key with the Duress strategy as being able to strip an opponent of a key removal or counter card (without having to guess) and subsequently dropping a Dark Confidant or Bitterblossom is a very powerful opening play. I see this as being where Duress is most effective, but I'm not quite sure of it right now. I think Cabal Therapy is pulling double-duty here providing an additional outlet for Persecutor, and it really serves purpose protecting a card off Ritual - if you name something correctly. Duress doesn't have that drawback of worrying about the unknown, but in naming the most obvious choice Therapy can become a Hymn to Tourach itself if it hits the right card.
You want to name the correct cards off a Ritual-Therapy start, depending on what your two-play becomes. For example (on the play):
If your goal is to drop Dark Confidant, name: Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, etc.
If your goal is to drop Bitterblossom, name: Force of Will, Qasali Pridemage, Engineered Explosives, etc.
It's important when doing this because we need to be able to read an opponent correctly. What cards legitimately are bad for the final card you play off the Ritual? As you can see, there is a whole theory behind playing Cabal Therapy, and I think it is necessary to understand what works best with whatever the play ends up being. At worst, you can wait a turn and see what an opponent has. With this information, a second Therapy becomes even more dangerous for an opponent. Hymn to Tourach is a card I would replace Duress with in the main deck. I wouldn't go four, but rather stick to three as that seems effective enough without overdoing it too much. I would replace the fourth Duress with a fourth Bitterblossom, as the only real trouble we'd get on the first turn is a turn one Lackey. If an opponent drops Top turn one, we follow it up with a Therapy resolving on Counterbalance.
Duress, while creating an awkward situation for an opponent early, can be a bit redundant here as we're not entirely trying to go a "combo" route to victory. We play threats and an opponent has to deal with them. The key is evaluating how good Therapy is in this deck, which is to say, truly amazing due in large part to its ability to work twice. This in essence gives us eleven discard spells (as originally used), and an ability to strip multiples of cards at certain times. I think at this stage if there were one card I would cut, it would be Duress. It just feels out of place here and it is possible there are other spells that could be of better use in this slot. That configuration is still up for grabs, but I would highly consider going the way of Hymn as opposed to Duress. Brainstorm is far too prevalent right now and it does nothing in the way of Goblins and Merfolk unless nailing an Aether Vial, but between you and me, I would name "Aether Vial" blind with a Cabal Therapy on the play if a hand ever came to that. This is why Dark Ritual becomes more powerful as it opens our first turns to become more explosive and capable is dealing with plays much like a turn one Vial that almost becomes irrelevant as we can power out threats in a hurry as well.
Potential Changes
-4 Duress
+3 Hymn to Tourach
+1 Bitterblossom
or...
+4 Nevinyrral's Disk
or...
+1 Engineered Plague
+3 Hymn to Tourach
or...
+4 Wasteland
or...
+2 Hymn to Tourach
+1 Bitterblossom
+1 Ritual of the Machine
...etc., etc., etc.
Each of these cards we would be including generates card advantage in their own, unique way, which is a step in the right direction if we want to generate more advantage. It's possible to run four Duress, four Therapy, and three (or four) Hymn, but that all depends on how confident we are that decks like ANT, mid-range combo, and Control variants will have a large impact on the meta we choose to play in. I for one am putting my chips in with Goblins, as that has taken two out of three Open events. I expect to see a lot of Affinity, which is why I'm loaded up with Null Rods and Ratchets in the sideboard. I have been teetering on including Deathmark again, as I feel it could be solid. Consider this (old-school train of thought; assume there is no discard):
Opponent: Flooded Strand, go.
Me: Swamp, Go.
Opponent:Tropical Island, Fetch, Tarmogoyf, Go.
(Okay, stop. At this instance, we know an opponent is either representing Daze, Spell Pierce, or Force. Back to the game.)
Me: Swamp, Go for the Throat.
Opponent: Daze.
Now I've just lost a serious situation where I've allowed my opponent to not only stick a Goyf, but pumping it up in the process. This line of play doesn't work in the deck, and it is due in large part to the fact that the deck doesn't want to get blown out by Daze. Deathmark not only lets us play around Daze, but statistically it lets us cheaply remove the threat early. If an opponent is keen on Forcing Deathmark, he or she obviously doesn't have another threat in hand and is doing everything they can to support it staying on the battlefield.
Congrats, you have just won a small battle of card advantage. I've read about Gerry Thompson and how he likes the idea of having Force of Will in the sideboard as protecting a vanilla creature and trading card advantage for it is a terrible idea, and he is right. That is why our cheap removal becomes more effective when dealing with narrow, tempo-based counter-magic.
Chances are, it still won't stick around for more than a few turns, but remember wherever 'Goyf is, Noble Hierarch usually precedes or follows, so we need to keep them down. To me, 'Throat is just a better Terror and we don't need the headache of worrying about walking into cards that we shouldn't have to worry about anyways. Granted, Innocent Blood kills Tarmogoyf, which is good, but Deathmark lets us keep our own creature on the battlefield if the situation calls for it. The comparison here is between Deathmark and 'Throat, not either with Innocent Blood which is a main-stay in my eyes.
I'm still teetering on several choices, but for the most part this is how it looks heading into this weekend. I'm sure some things will change.
I actually would never think of cutting Duress. Its such a good card that can disrupt an opponent so fast while at the same time giving us an overload of information about what his capabilities are PLUS it opens the way for a perfectly placed Cabal Therapy.
In a vacuum, i would never play Dark Ritual without the classic Hymn+Duress option...
But i see that your leaving the discard route in favor of catching up with tribal, which opens you even more to combo. I could see cutting Hymn to Tourach, because even though it generates CA - let's face it - it says "random". So essentially you roll a die and hope that it hits the table in your favour. It can be very powerfull, and up till now i have allways been playing 4 Hymn, but in somewhat way i am doubting that there could not be something better taking this 3-4 slots....
At the moment, i reached a dead end with TheGate, because i can't really decide how TheGate can on one side keep its strength of beating all those UGx builds and on the other hand have a better matchup against tribal and combo....
This is, what i am thinking about right now:
4 Abyssal Persecutor
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Dark Confidant
3 Bitterblossom
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Innocent Blood
2 Go for the Throat
17 Swamp
4 Wasteland
SB:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Extirpate
3 Engineered Plague
I'll just leave this open for discussion with the hint on the following ideas
Versus Combo i will swap in 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Thorn of Amethys and maybe 2 Extirpate for 4 Innocent Blood,2 Throats and 2 Jitte
Versus Goblins i will swap in 4 Dark Ritual, 3 Engineered Plague for 4 Duress and 3 Hymn
I don't loose any strengths against the matchups that are good before the ritual and stuff thought process, i try to go a transformational route with this sideboard.
I have to give you the info, that in my meta there is a lot of diversity, the only thing showing at a very recent rate is ugx tempo stuff//canadian//team america and combo and lately more tribal.
I know many ppl will rant about those 2 Divining Top's, but after beeing screwed/flooded or just unable to find what i need, i will try this out. Yes i know that TheGate is full of card quality, but let's stop here for a moment and consider the following 2 things:
Confidant plus top makes a pretty disturbing situation for the opponent. Either he handles it, or he will pretty much go down.
Divining Top can manipulate your draw, something TheGate in my opinion lacks. Everytime i topdeck "swamp, swamp" i wish for something to eleminate that. Also, on the other side, you can fix mana with it, because u can dig for a swamp, or you can deny mana by digging for a wasteland.... well.... i better stop telling you that Divining Top in a vacuum is a good card.
I really like your list, sporenfrosch1411, very solid, even the 2 Sensei's, they make a lot of sense to me. I mean, this deck kind of lacks a way to dig that extra swamp sometimes, and SDT along with Bob, or even by itself, is pretty good at this.
One question: have you considered just increasing 1cc disruption (4th Hymn and IoK) against combo, instead of Thorn? IoK can be used against tribal and zoo as well, and your chance on double-disruption with ritual will increase. Not to mention that the combo player usually has better ways to deal with an artifact than to deal with disruption...
The new list looks very well focused and is close to a mono black build I've been playing a lot. The lack of Hymn is a shame, but Persecutor makes you run Cabal Therapy which I consider to be inferior to Hymn in the vacuum. Dark Ritual is very powerful and helps you a lot in playing arround Daze, while its definitely a combo with discard and Dark Confidant.
I am especially happy that other people have also come to the conclusion that Wasteland is simply not worth it if not supported by other LD spells if you are running Gatekeeper. I haven't gone so far to run Plague in the maindeck, but 4 Plagues are my best SB cards for sure.
Nice work on that one.
Me and a buddy of mine have been playtesting for a local tourney next sunday. He tested at lot with goblins, me with the gate.
I had actually very little situations in which i prefered an innocent blood over an 'Throat. I noticed that the difference in number of creatures is quiet essential. I almost never want to sacrifice creatures mid game. So the only possible play that makes sense for innocent blood is his T1 lackey, my T1 innocent blood. And this only works out if he starts. Otherwise i'm stuck playing innocent blood while i have two swamp availlable.
I'd rather solve lackey-trouble with discarding his important goblins early.
Also, phyrexian arena was awesome. Like many other people here, i have cut phyrexian crusader. It does have multiple nice uses, but i prefered an extra swamp and an extra abyssal persecutor. Now i play 19 swamps.
So i prefer 'Throat over 'Blood. Any other opinions?