[Deck] GW/x Maverick

@SB: I'm currently playing without tutors.

Also I'm playing without Tarmogoyf and the third Stoneforge Mystic. For those I play the second Scavenging Ooze and the third Aven Mindcensor. I don't think Maverick should not play less than 3 Mindcensors, Flash and Flying are such useful abilities, also is his ability to deny tutors is useful against many decks in the format (Blade Control, Mirror, Nic Fit, almost every Combo Deck).

My current Sideboard:
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Pyroblast
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
2 Garruk Relentless
2 Krosan Grip

It's pretty safe to board out Swords to Plowshares against UW with Punishing.

You get 3 or 4 REB which can fulfill the same role in that matchup while being able to Force through a Choke or kill Jace.

SB:

Needle is awesome when you see a lot of Deeds as well as Lavamancers, comes in Handy in other matchups as well.

Kitchen Finks - maindecked or board, awesome against Zoo and Burn (UR)

Cataclysm - against Nic Fit and heavy control lists, stronger in lists with 2 Sylvan Libraries, easily breakble symmetric effect



Strategy:

How do you guys play against UR Delver Burn, lost 3 Times out of 7 Matches the last week, each 1-2 with the win in game 2 then losing again on the draw, mostly because of Lavamancer. Those where the 6 games i lost in the last 4 weeks, and it should change ;)

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Originally Posted by BlackStarDeceiver

How do you guys play against UR Delver Burn, lost 3 Times out of 7 Matches the last week, each 1-2 with the win in game 2 then losing again on the draw, mostly because of Lavamancer. Those where the 6 games i lost in the last 4 weeks, and it should change ;)

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The key is to not be tempted to play the control role. You are the beatdown in this match, and you need to overload their board with creatures.

Don't bring E.Tutor vs UW - its card disadvantage, much better is Gaddock blocking Elspeth/Jace/WoGs

Yep thats clear, the longer the game goes the more burn they'll get. Maybe hitting only one StP and always sitting on Canopy adds to this. I guess i'll play Finks in the Terravore slot as well.

Any thoughts on Abolute Law in the GW Sideboard? Helps with UR Burn and Punishing Fires.


UW: Another nice play is GSZ x=3 and pick Teeg if you set em on Wrath in hand, as they won't counter is most of the time.

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Originally Posted by BlackStarDeceiver

Yep thats clear, the longer the game goes the more burn they'll get. Maybe hitting only one StP and always sitting on Canopy adds to this. I guess i'll play Finks in the Terravore slot as well.

Any thoughts on Abolute Law in the GW Sideboard? Helps with UR Burn and Punishing Fires.

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Your ideal line of play is turn 1 Mother of Runes, turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic. They have to answer both of those creatures immediately or they just lose. Usually this buys you enough time to go for Ooze -> gain life and get huge, or Knight of the Reliquary -> shenanigans. Either way you want to get a huge guy that they can't burn away with one card.

At any rate, if they don't answer either Mom or SFM, go for Batterskull and just win (game 1). If they answer Mom, get Jitte or Sword of Fire and Ice (if you play it), as they might be able to trap Batterskull in your hand by killing SFM after you tutor.

Game 2 is a little trickier as they can bring in Smash to Smithereens for your equipment. If you must go the equipment route in this game, Batterskull is what you want, as long as you can keep returning it, although the Ooze plan is probably just your best option.

Hi, I take a look at Prime but could not find a SB plan(for GW and GWr versions) against Uw Stoneblades lists, someone can post it for me?

Thx.

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Originally Posted by Shimi

Hi, I take a look at Prime but could not find a SB plan(for GW and GWr versions) against Uw Stoneblades lists, someone can post it for me?

Thx.

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The sideboard won't win you the game, but it is a pretty easy matchup if your play is tight. Don't overextend into Wrath of God unless you have to. Kill Stoneforge Mystic on sight, and don't run your important cards into Spellstutter Sprite.

Don't blow your creature spells when they have counters available if you can help it. If at all possible, bait them with GSZ and then play the creature when you've run them out of cards, especially if it's something like Knight or Pridemage that provides a utility role. You may have to offer up a lesser creature to get countered if there's something you really want to push through. Pretty much everything is a threat to them in your deck, so if you apply enough pressure, it's pretty easy to force their hand when it comes to countering your spells.

If they are sitting on fetchlands, try and use Wasteland on their available mana to force them to crack them, and then troll them with Mindcensor.

Also, Thrun.

And I guess you can side in some Chokes or whatever, but a lot of players see that coming now.

ALTHOUGH, you can get value out of it if your balls are big enough to run out just one too many creatures to force a Wrath, and then Choke them when they're tapped out.

Anyone going to take a little look at this list?
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=43748

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

This is the version I've come to after some testing:

4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Horizon Canopy
3 Wasteland
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith

4 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Eternal Witness

4 Mental Misstep
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Sylvan Library
2 Parallax Wave
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow

+2 flex slots I'm varying between the third Witness/Library/Pridemage/Wave, the fourth KotR, a Scavenging Ooze or 1-2 Elspeth.

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You mean this Jack Elgin list? (circa July 2011) It's definitely unorthodox for the archetype, but the choices are well justified. I'd be interested to hear from IBA how Parallax Wave performed in the tournament, as well as the SB Armageddons.

Essentially, haha. I just didn't know if anyone was going to bring it up; it was the only GW "Maverick" deck in the top 32 (I believe?). Some of the changes are interesting. Has anyone tried out a list looking like that before?

Parallax Wave is just bonkers when there's a lot of UW Stoneblade, as well as the mirrors.

You can do some neat stuff with it in combination with Witness and Pridemage.

Top 32:

The Bant Stoneblade list is essentially Mav + BS and Geist and Naya Stoneblade is Pun Mav.



Maybe IBA will give us insight on what played out well and what didn't.

I was the Punishing Fire deck in top 16. I decided just to keep the NO package after DC, but pyroblast wasn't that great so I cut it for Flusterstorm to wreck combo and then put a War Monk in the main instead of a COP: Red (COP: Red can also stop Progenitus) in the board. The only things I lost to were a reanimator nut draw twice in a row (T1 Entomb with FOW back up and the reanimation spell) and the burn guy who won. I won game 1 with Jitte, but lost the other 2 even after I got War Monk because he drew vary well and had all the burn.

I really like Natural Order in the board of this deck. I bring it in against RUG and just auto win those matches as well as any other creature deck. The only card I did not like in the deck was Punishing Fire. With UW stoneblade on the down swing it isn't as good and that's really the only deck that it truly shines against. I didn't actually ever board in the flusterstorms yesterday, but I still feel like they are the best combo hate available and I just didn't get paired against combo so I still believe it was worth the slots.

Now that I know I am going to cut red I think it is probably best to go Bant for Geist and sideboard Flusterstorm or spell pierce. Oddly enough if I decide to go Bant than I think I would cut the NO package because Geist is pretty good against the decks you want NO against. Now the only choice I'm trying to make is whether I want to cut the Maverick shell and play traditional Bant in which I would keep the NO package or try and just kill people with Mom and Geist.

Hi, yeah. I have to run off to class in a few so I don't have time to type up a full tournament report; my losses all day were one to Ben Friedman's UW Stoneblade and one to Josh Cho playing RUG Tempo. I know the Hatfields' numbers have shown differently, and it may be the changes in the list, but the latter certainly felt like an anomaly; I crushed Cho game 1 and games 2 and 3 involved some really bizarre circumstances, short version being that game 2 I went 18 cards deep with active Top without being able to find an answer to a lone Delver plunking away at my life total, and game 3 I ended up doing ten damage to myself with Canopies (even then I would have won except I misplayed, more details on that later.)

Blade control seems like less than an ideal matchup by any means, on the other hand. Infinite StPs + Wraths out of the board are just a very good game plan against you.

Anyway, this list itself has been really powerful, the SB needs retooling; if Armageddons had been Chokes and everything else held equal I probably wouldn't have lost a round. The reasoning behind Geddon was to compliment Thorn as an anti-combo card but it would probably just be better to go back to 1 Teeg 3 Canonist, or just abandon the combo matchup entirely. My one win against Charbelcher round 1 was a fluke as a result of him walking a Belcher out into a Pridemage and then losing g2 because he realized he misregistered his sideboard. And that's about the only way I could win that matchup regardless of the sideboard so yeah.

The basic theory behind this list was to cut independently weak cards and increase the card filtering to just get a more consistent list that can, especially, survive mulligans and disruption. I won one game after mulliganing to four on the draw, which I just can't see a lot of these lists floating around doing.

The deck's secondary plan aside from Knight-beats is Troll-stick: get a Thrun active with Jitte and most decks seem to just die to that. I was running SFM but since you want Jitte most of the time anyway it seems better to go with that. Also cleared up room for the 4th Library, but since drawing multiples sucks I went with a 2 Top/2 Library split so you can shuffle the extras back. Top's better against very aggro decks anyway since you can't really afford to Flame Rift yourself.

Wave and Elspeth were bombs all day. I got to use Wave in most of its major functions; to remove a bunch of blockers and kill them, to protect my own guys from targeted removal, to hit three guys at once and then Pridemage it before passing priority to permanently exile them; and to use the last counter to exile a Witness and immediately get Wave back. There was nothing really about the maindeck I feel compelled to change at all, except maybe -1 Canopy for +1 Wasteland? I didn't really have any mana problems except that one game where double Canopy killed me. I did have a few times where another Wasteland might have helped.

The Witness spread is amazing, the two in the board let you basically copy the Snapcaster/StP plan in the mirror and against other aggro-control decks of casting StP infinite times, against graveyard decks being able to recur Crypts just makes the card even that much stronger at hosing shenanigans, and it's one of the best cards generally against Blade Control. I'm pretty sure 4 Witness/3 Choke would have been a lot harder for them to deal with.

Quick note:

If burn keeps seeing more play and you are playing with tutor board like me, maybe we should consider Aegis of honor.

• If we have tutor, we can play it on turn 2
• Red does not have any enchantment removal (as far as I know)
• This one's little more farfetchd but it might help versus tendrils

Tendrils is life loss not damage.

I don't know about burn, when ever I played it I always ended up top decking lands after I blew my load and they were at 2-5 life. Maybe it is better with the 4 fireblasts and price of progress, but 19 lands and no card draw/fetches never worked for me. Is Maverick really that worried about burn? Is the manabase just the issue?

Tendrils causes loss of life, it doesn't deal damage, so that won't work.
But otherwise I kind of like the idea.
Costs less mana to cast and sends the damage to your opponent, which is nasty. :wink:

Lol someone else was a bit quicker.
I score about 50% against burn. Getting Cop: Red means instant win, not finding it means 60% chance of losing.
Batterskull and friends get Smashed to Smithereens and creatures are usually too slow. Still it's winnable.
Kitchen Finks is a must when you are not packing Tutors + CoP: Red, Warmth or that thing which was just suggested.

Hey guys, what you use against zoo?

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Originally Posted by maktus

Hey guys, what you use against zoo?

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Path to Exile, Equipment, Mother of Runes, KotR, StP, Sylvan Library, planeswalkers.

In short, all the usual tools we already have in our disposal. Batterskull is really good in this matchup to pad the life total. A typical metric as to whether you'll be winning the game is whether you can survive to the mid-game with a life total above 10. The biggest challenge against Zoo is dealing with the first 3 turns of their aggression.

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Originally Posted by maktus

Hey guys, what you use against zoo?

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Knights/Goyfs/Jitte/Thrun + Wave. StP + Witness is about as good as Snapcaster; sometimes better. Postboard I'm running 6 StP effects + 4 Witness so it's pretty easy to seize the early game. Scavenging Ooze also helps a bit in having lifegain that's not Grudgeable.

Although the different builds of Zoo play very differently, generally big guys + spot removal is your best bet which happens to be the deck's strategy anyway. I mean the entire deck is built pretty much to play with decks like Zoo. Not to say that you can't lose or that there's not a build of Zoo that's a bad matchup even, but you shouldn't have to go out of your way to interact with them.