Originally Posted by
Arianrhod
I very strongly despise Rhinoás positioning at the moment. Most of this is because of how the metagame has developed. Grixis, the lead Delver deck, as well as BUG, the second-runner, has Fatal Push, which allows them to actually have a removal spell for Rhino and thus not need to Force it. They also have Gurmag and, increasingly, Tombstalker, which can just ignore it. Stoneblade and Neo-miracles are running upwards of 4x Snapcaster with 4x StP and frequently a Councilás Judgment. They can also just ignore Rhino, let it resolve, sure you have a 4-mana Drain-3, and then nuke it and go on with their day.
This is problematic because Rhino isnát the card that wins you those matchups usually...or if it does, it comes after a long period of time when both players resources are drained (although the blue control decks arenát losing resources as quickly as they used to due to deeper snapcaster usage). You need Deed or Deluge to X-for-1 Delver and reset the board to a favorable position (I am aware of Deedás problems vs delve creatures, but you can usually answer those in other methods, like going bigger than them). You need planeswalkers like Nissa VF to help keep up with Jace vs Blade/Miracles/Czech, or some other kind of value engine. All of these things, the blue deck will now have Force for where they wouldnát have before, because Rhino is no longer sufficiently a threat to these decks.
I think that white builds going forward need to look increasingly towards Stoneforge options (more on this later, it has to do with Tracker), or towards superfriends with a pile of Lilianas, Gideons, and Nissas and a skeleton crew of GSZ targets, mostly ramp and recursion based. I donát have the resources to test either of those things on MTGO due to cost (Liliana, Last Hope is like 45 tix apiece, screw that). This is just my impressions.
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-) Dryad Arbor
Arbor is fine if youáre on Intent, but otherwise Iám still kind of soft on it. I have been impressed by the number of utility functions that Iáve found for the card -- surprise blocking, fetching for Therapy flashback, EoT making a 1/1 to hit a planeswalker with....all of these things have come up. I know Sam has had success Zenith for 0, but for me, I tend to lose games I Zenith for 0. It feels like throwing away a Zenith, which is usually one of our best cards. I hate having Arbor in my hand. I absolutely detest it. I would rather just not play it than have it in my hand. When itás in the deck, though, itás fine. With Intent, I think itás a necessary evil, and Intent is really good in Sneak, so Iám begrudgingly fine with it.
I mostly just want to caution against Dryad Arbor being too highly regarded. Itás fine in some builds, it serves a purpose, but you really need to have that purpose in mind before putting it in your deck.
-) Lost Legacy
Not a fan anymore. The combo decks have diversified themselves too much. It might be different for Brael with his 4x copies and Deathrites to help achieve LL on turn 2, but for me with a pair of them and no Deathrites, itás not good enough. Storm is running Empty and Tendrils main, and donát even get me started on OmniSneakShowBreachTell.
-) Deathrite
Speaking of this guy, I still donát like it -- but Iáve refocused on the narrative of being a Pernicious Deed control deck, as opposed to being a midrange value deck. I was only ever running 1 or at most 2 copies, and we are ill equipped to fight against Delver or Deathblade -- decks that are literally built, ground up, to fight and win against other Deathrite Shaman decks. They have the selection, removal, and tempo to effectively fight opposing Shamans. We donát...or at least, I am unwilling to take the steps necessary to change that.
