Idk how much more play it will see vs the options already available. Theres already Infest and Perish for black sweepers against us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eternal
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Idk how much more play it will see vs the options already available. Theres already Infest and Perish for black sweepers against us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eternal
Wrath will be more present now with the new merfolk. It's an evidence :/ This Wrath is an "anti-Nemesis" and in the same time an anti Elves deck...Quote:
Originally Posted by 264505
It's going to hurt, but we will live. Times change, we adapt and change with them. I am sure we will be just fine.
Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.
Yes, regal force is pointless if they terminus with the trigger on the stack. Anyway I'm not claiming that force must be played, I'm 100% sure that 2 behemots are better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Can you explain why you prefer maindeck ruric thar over Progenitus although Prog is almost always the better NO target versus fair decks?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayradis
Because you can cast it? A lot of combo in your meta?
I understand the question is aimed at Kay, but I run Thar main as well and in short, yes to both questions. With the rise of decks running Young Pyromancer and Cabal Therapying my hand, having an option that means they take 6 damage per token is too strong.
I have a strange meta, it is in the middle of a big change up due to Tax Return time. But I have seen the rise of Burn, Delver and Pyromancer. Thar helps against each.
Thar main I feel is a Meta choice though and should not be pushed on others. He is a choice you make not because he is the best card in that slot, but because he does the most damage locally. If I was walking into a new location blind, Thar would be in the side unless the changes I have mentioned become the norm. If Thar was not so easy to remove though, he would be an auto include.
Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.
I agree with that. Thar/Hoof2/Prog is very much a meta thing. Regal is wrong in any case, 1 Hoof a must in any case. I don't think the second fatty slot has any absolutely correct options, though. I'd kinda lean towards Ruric in an unknown meta, though. We have a ton of slower tools that do the Shardless thing of drawing a crapton of cards and we have Hoof against them too. Against combo, less so, and Delver is a hard matchup and Ruric is a beast there. Plus it's often not that much worse than a Hoof for "not much" (which is what Hoof 2 is there for anyway, "Hoof for a lot" = Hoof 1).
Against any fair deck, the marginal benefit of having Progenitus is very low, compared to not having it. You win game1 against fair decks the overwhelming % of times and having access to Progenitus adds very little +%.Quote:
Originally Posted by catmint
Ruric Thar however, greatly increases your outs against Combo in game 1, providing a very big marginal benefit. Having or not having it, is a huge relative difference in win%.
Won our 52-man Legacy tournament at Nuremberg today. Just writing a short report from memory:
Round1 vs Jund - 2:0
Game1: I lead with Symbiote, my opponent Bolts it on his turn and I continue to develop my board while all he has is some more removal and Tarmogoyf. I believe I NO away all his hope of actually getting into this game on turn4 and he just conceedes.
Game2: My opponent keeps a slow hand, I believe 2-3 Abrupt Decays, some Tarmogoyfs again and Inquisition. He takes a random Elf while I start grinding with Symbiote and Visionaries. He Decays one of my two Symbiotes but thus fails to develop his own board. On turn5, I NO for Progenitus with two other (tapped) Elves on the table to ensure the Hydra lives thrugh Liliana. Turns out he sided out all his Liliana.
1:0
Round1 vs UW Faeries- 2:0
Game1: My opponent leads with Flooded Strand and cracks it eot to StP my first-turn Symbiote. So far, so good. On his turn he plays a Mutavault, Aether Vial and passes the turn...so I'm like "UW Merfolk?". When he Forces a Heritage Druid (really dude, a stupid Heritage?!) pitching Jace I'm completly set off. He proceeds to play a 2nd Mutavault and passes once more. I try for another Symbiote and he Spellstutter Sprites it - finally I know what he's up to! I drop Cradle and cast my misers Viridian Shaman to get rid off his Aether Vial. I also offer the trade of his Mutavault vs. Nettle Sentinel which he happily accepts. So do I. Needless to say, his mana never works out and I run away with the game.
Game2: I lead with Deathrite, while he just plays a Tundra and passes. On turn2 I miss my landdrop but drop a Nettle Sentinel. He just plays another Tundra and passes. I topdeck a Fetchland, crack it and could try to resolve Choke, which seems like a very bad move though. Not only were his both lands untapped, this plan would also fall victim to Daze. So I play out some random Elves and act in a way that I really, really didn't want my last Elf countered - he Dazes a useless random Elf once again. On his turn he plays a Mutavault, a Stoneforge Mystic for Jitte and passes. I Choke one of his lands aways and continue to force him into tapping lands so he never gets Jitte online. Choke just goes the distance while I eventually NO into Progenitus and finish him.
2:0
Round3 vs Marius Hausmann with Imperial Painter - 2:0
Game1: I'm on the play which is a huge in this matchup as otherwise Blood Moon gets us pretty good. After a mulligan to 6 I fetch for a basic Forest and cast LLanowar Elves. He goes for City of Traitors, SSG and drops Magus of the Moon - dodged a bullet here! On his second turn he goes for Faithless Looting and drops Painter + Grindstone on the third tun. I move all in on a Glimpse on turn4 with only 1 creature in hand but Symbiote in play. He doesn't monkeyblast the Glimpse and I eventually get there. After drawing 3 cards off Glimpse I realize that even if I where about to fizzle, I could still easily GSZ for Viridian Shaman and devastate his board. Instead I GSZ for my 1st Nettle Sentinel, draw into my 2nd one soon after. He scoops when the 2nd Glimpse resolves.
Game2: On the draw this matchup is a nightmare. I mulligan to 5 in search for a basic Forest but eventually settle with a Fetchland, Deathrite, Abrupt Decay, Visionary and Therapy. He plays Goblin Welder on his first turn and passes. He then spends turn 2 and 3 casting and flashbacking a Looting. Since he also had a mulligan to 6, he's only got 2 more cards left in hand which I read to be Grindstone and Painters Servant looking at what he had discarded to Looting. I Therapy his Grindstone, then flashback on Painter and drop some more dudes. He untaps, doesn't draw an artifact and passes. NO into Behemoth gets there.
3:0
Round4 vs Sneak Show - 2:1
Game1: My opponent complains about having no idea what to do vs Elves and figures this might be a very bad matchup for him, lol, fine with me. I take advantage of his insecurity and mindgame him into Forcing the most random cards, e.g. my 1st turn Symbiote. Fine with me, I've got a backup one...not that I really want one in this matchup anyways, lol. This guy was completly out of control, throwing Forces and Flusterstorms at the most random spells all the time! After the early card-disadvantage has settled, he does some cantripping and later hardcasts Force of Will on my potentially lethal GSZ=8 on turn5. He still doesn't draw into anything other than Cantrips and Counterspells. I go for a hardcast Behemoth on the next turn to which he responds with Intuition, targeting me. He gets FoW, Flusterstorm and Misdirection. I happily give him Misdirection and he conceeds. Turns out he didn't have a pitch card anyways and was hoping I would screw up. I don't.
Game2: He goes for Show and Tell on turn2 and I consider dropping my Harmonic Sliver. He seems really inexperienced and I genuinely believe him when he tells me he doesn't have Omniscience. Still, he might have Sneak Attack, in which case I could easily just hardcast the Sliver on the next turn BUT he might be able to then FoW it. So I select Sliver (other option was Visionary) but he turns over Griselbrand. He does some pretty bad sequencing, drawing his 7 cards at strange moments and not trying to assemble the kill before attacking on the next turn, but he eventually still gets there. At least I get to see his sideboarded Pyroclasm. First loss game of the tournamnet against turn2 Griselbrand seems fair.
Game3: I Cabal Therapy on turn1 hitting Show and Tell and see a had of 3 lands, Daze, Ponder and Intuition of which I also strip the the later on my next turn, sacrificing Dryad Arbor. One turn later he taps out to cast Sneak Attack (seriously, whats up with all those Lotus Petals he kept drawing?!) and I have perfect information about his hand at this point (Griselbrand, Ponder, Daze and a land). I'm shitting my pants when I realize that I'm still 1 mana short of resolving Harmonic Sliver to unimpededly kill the red enchantment...He of course rips the red mana he was missing at this point from the top; to be fair, he still knew about it from a previous Ponder, now that I think about it. Griselbrand hits the battlefield but because of his excessive use of Ancient Tomb and 2 Nettle Sentinels withering away on his life total, can only draw 7 cards after attacking. On my turn I manage to attack and DRS him down to exactly 1 life but have to give him one more turn to draw into Emrakul ftw since I was already at under 15 life from the Griselbrand hit and several Fetchlands. He bricks and I figure he might Sneak in a Griselbrand during blockers to stay alive, so I just mainphas DRS him. Get's there and I win probably the most exciting match of this tournament.
4:0
Round5 vs I-kid-you-not POX - 2:1
Game1: He laments about standing no chance in this matchup. His first turn Liliana (off Dark Ritual) on the play says otherwise...2 Hymns and several Lilana activations later, we're off to game2.
Game2: I just run him over with a neverending stream of Elves off Symbiote and Visionary. He seems completly inexperienced with what he's actually meant to do to win and just randomly plays discard spells while behind on board and forgets Bloodghast triggers left and right - not that it would have mattered but it tells you a lot about his mindset. On 4 life and a Liliana at 2, I attack him with Nettle Sentinel while Symbiote and Dryad Arbor attack his planeswalker. He tries to Cabal Pit the Nettle Sentinel which is of course to be rescued by Symbiote and he randomly loses Liliana. He tries to topdeck Infest. He doesn't. Even had drawn it, Nettle Sentinel (saved by Symbiote) would have just come down on the next turn.
Game3: He's once again on some pretty bad sequencing and also misses my NO with his Hymn. I try to hide my intention of setting up the Natural Order on the next turn when I pass with just Forest, Fetch and Quirion Ranger in play. He falls for it, taps out for Ratchet Bomb. I draw Cradle, play Visionary, tap my legendary land for 3 mana, use Quirion Ranger on Dryad Arbor and summon the-one-and-only Progenitus to the battlefield. He doesn't run Perish and even Infest into Liliana does/would not get there as I have another Fetchland online on the next turn.
5:0
Round6 vs Sebastian Bartl with Jund - 2:1
Since I'm the only person at 15 points, I actually have to play out this round. My opponent is no Jon Doe to me and has been doing incredibly well in 2013 thus far with Jund.
Game1: He goes first and handles my early Elves with a Punishing Fire and Abrupt Decay off Bloodbraid Elf. I randomly topdeck Heritage Druid with DRS and Visionary in play. Since I've only got 2 Forests, I have to unfortunately tap all my Elves so it's likely a Behemoth wouldn't get there over time. Instead I NO for Ruric Thar which then closes out the game as he's unable to draw the Tarmogoyf which was basically his only out of ever getting rid off Thar ever.
Game2: Turn1 DRS for him. Turn2 Hymn. Fine. Turn3 Hymn + DRS. It's getting old, you know? Turn4 Hymn and double Tarmogoyf. Ok fine, let's get into the next game.
Game3: I keep one land and run out DRS which he Bolts on his turn. I brink on land for a turn but manage to eventually get some 1 mana dudes into play while his two Hymns eat 2 of my three NOs in hand. Just as he taps out to lay down Dark Confidant and another DRS, I say to myself "Cradle would be pretty boss here". What do you know, it actually was. Ripping it from the top, I summon my favorite Hydra Avatar onto the battlefield with 2 more Elves left as vanguard protection. GREAT SUCCESS! :-)
6-0 in matches, 12-3 in games.
1st place of 52 players and after a day's work I collect my foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor!
My list for reference (61 cards, yeah, it rocks; added Ruric right before the event to the main).
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Natural Order
4 GreenSun's Zenith
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Birchlore Ranger
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
4 Gaea's Cradle
2 Forest
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Dryad Arbor
Sideboard:
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Choke
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
1 Harmonic Sliver
2 Pithing Needle
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Surgical Extraction
Thanks for posting this report. Congratulations. All that practice pays off.
Did you cast Ruric Thar other than in that one game? Would you keep it in the MD in the future? Did you ever have it in your hand wishing you could cast it?
Might have a shot at your list, see where it gets me. But I will do that in two weeks. I am taking a break from elves this week.
How do you find the 9 fetches? I like the two basics a lot. Also, why not try and fit in a Taiga?
Nice report Julian. I wanna see more!
Woo! Won the local GPT for DC. Only 10 people showed up, but that still meant 5 rounds then top 4 (making 7 rounds total). Made an adjustment based on the suggestion since I always take out 1 birchlore when siding and bring in a 4th NO that I just permanently made the switch. That means I added a 3rd Abrupt Decay to the sideboard and loved it.
R1 - Esper counter-top w/stoneblade 2-0
R2 - Slivers 2-0
R3 - BURG 2-0
R4 - D&T 2-1
R5 - Nic Fit 2-0
Semi's - Nic Fit 2-1
Finals - TES 2-1
Overall 14-3.
I had some great draws and some of my opponents had poor. I'll try and do a writeup sometime tomorrow.
GL in Top 8, man. Just saw the bracket for SCGSea. Live now.Quote:
Originally Posted by danyul
I've also been on board with 1 Craterhoof/1 Ruric as my maindeck NO targets. The redundancy of 2x Hoof is marginalized by the ability of Ruric Thar to give us a singular threat that gives us very good game against Storm game 1, as well as being very good against other decks such as RUG.
I mentioned it several times in this thread and do it again: discussing 4cc+ cards against a deck that kills within a range of 3 turns is off. RUG can just Daze, Pierce, FoW your NO, Fork Bolt your Elves and/or Submerge your Ogre, aside from denying your initial mana with Stifle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Absolutflipz
Hoof has no MB application unless your meta is 30%+ combo (like in Berlin)
That's part of the reason Ruric is better than Craterhoof against RUG. You need multiple guys out against RUG in order for Craterhoof to be meaningful, and with all their removal, dazes, etc, it's difficult to get Hoof out with friends. Ruric is a solitary threat that you can out off of a single guy. This speaks to what you're saying...Craterhoof is not good against RUG (stifle, multiple guys needed, etc..)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
This is in the same vein where Hoof comes out against RUG in sideboarded games, and Progenitus comes in. The games are grindy and having multiple creatures out is difficult, but NO for a single threat: #1 Prog, #2 Ruric in most cases, is very do-able.
And Storm is a top tier deck that you're going to have to get through, and being basically completely cold to it game 1 isn't a place I like to be, when I can make a reasonable switch of 1 card (-Hoof +1Ruric) gives you a pretty good shot at winning game 1.
I don't see other matchups where you would need 2x Hoof to win where 1x Hoof/1x Thar wouldn't get the job done. Thar adds a lot of versatility at very little opportunity cost in my experience.
**I'm assuming you meant "Thar has no maindeck value...**
HUGE misplay with not playing around daze there.
And playing out random 1/1s with an active Jitte -- here, eat my guys for free.
I'm at a diner eating away my sorrows. But I super punted my top 8 match due to not really caring if I won or lost. There was some drama in the swiss that carried over into the top 8 rounds and I wasn't really focusing on the game. Also that guy who beat me was the only one to do so all day so whatevs. I'll have a report up when I can.
You are a wild and cuh-razy guy.Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Nilla Pac