Do you understand how Rangers works? He does give you extra mana. You return a Forest/Savannah/Bayou etc. to your hand, untap Noble Hierarch, then you can replay the forest +2 mana. Thats more than Avacyn Pilgrim can produce with synergy. Without Synergy, you can produce +1 mana if you haven't played a land because you can tap the land, bounce it and then replay it for the turn.Originally Posted by k2thej
Rangers not being playable off Cavern is usually going to be irrelevant most of the time when you play 22 lands and Noble Hierarch.. though I'd cut it down to 20 lands and play more mana dorks instead because Quirion Rangers is way too good to leave out of this list.
I'm not sure you've played with Quirion Rangers and Mother of Runes in the same deck. Sometimes, Mother of Runes gives a creature protection from red in response to a Bolt or Chain, then it gets killed by a Bolt and all your creatures are vulnerable. With Quirion Rangers, you make them have to work a little harder to kill your team. Not only can you use Mother of Runes to make fatties like KoTR and Scavenging Ooze unblockable but then you can untap them on your turn, replay your land, and pass to the opponent with an untapped fat guy and a Mother of Runes activation still available. Its completely nuts, especially with equipment. Mother of Runes + Quirion Rangers and a Jitte gets there, especially when you can untap the Rangers to block and acquire more Jitte counters. Just sayn those who think Mother of Runes is insane hasn't run into Lightning Bolt + Snapcaster Mage. No card disadvantage there and it happens all the time. Rangers + Mom stops that shit and then some.
I'd actually try a much tighter manabase. 22 lands is too many. Your curve stops at 3 as you can Stoneforge your equpiment into play. Try going down to 20 lands and run both Avacyn Pilgrim and Quirion Rangers so produce a faster mana base thats not as dependent on lands. The synergy between Quirion Rangers and a single mana dork produces quite a bit of mana. Say all you have is a Savannah in hand when you start the game. You play it, you play Avacyn Pilgrim. Next turn you play Quirion Rangers with the Savannah, tap the Avacyn Pilgrim for W, bounce and replay the Savannah, and tap both again to produce an additional WG, leaving you at the end with WWG. That means 2nd turn Glow Rider, 2nd turn Knight, perhaps Mother of Runes + Stoneforge. Powerful plays. It can make the deck really explosive because its kinda like having a manadork with haste. If you wanted, you could also play a different land after bouncing the Savannah, like Cavern of Souls, and then cast a Glowrider/Thalia with the Cavern to protect it from countermagic.
Quirion Rangers also protects your manabase from Wasteland so you have natural protection each turn, not to mention the manadorks. Though I don't think the opponent will sac Wasteland against you often if they see you are playing both Glowrider and Thalia.
KoTR + Rangers gives him +4/+4 per turn as you can play fetchlands to find 2 lands per turn. If you already are sitting on a lot of lands, it could be as much as +6/+6 if you also activate Rangers on your opponent's turn. That means you can surprise an opponent by turning say, a 4/4 Knight into a 10/10 Knight after you pass back to your turn. This combo also enables double Wasteland on your turn, as well as finding the 3rd on your opponents turn before the drawstep. Pretty brutal if you already have Thalia/Glowrider in play.
Also, he's a much better topdeck than what you want to run in its place. If you are trying to race, say, a bunch of Merfolk lords with a single fat Ooze or Knight, an Avacyn Pilgrim mid to late game does no better than produce +1 white and chump block some dudes.. while Rangers can give your fat guy vigilance that way you have something to block with. Also, when you only have Mother of Runes in play, its not quite as good compared to when it has something to protect or make unblockable. Otherwise its just a chump blocker that can give itself protection. Topdecking a Quirion Rangers, however, basically gives you +1 Mother of Runes and then you have 2 chump blockers that can have protection. Another mishap you can run into is Crucible/Loam lock with Wasteland. Quirion Rangers can bounce the land they target with Wasteland meaning they'll have a much harder time getting rid of your lands, especially since if you want to respond to Rangers ability, returning the Forest is part of the cost. In this case, Pilgrim would be +1 white mana, but Rangers would save your entire mana base as well as combo with a mana dork if you draw one to leave you with 4 mana each turn. ie. tap land/dork, bounce land, untap dork replay land for turn.
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Given the Rangers interaction, could it not perhaps be better to use Ghost Quarter to reduce your opponent's capacity to play?
I don't get your point.
@Vacrix- Yep. You win haha. Epic post. I'll include ranger in the primer instead of Pilgrim.
No love for my input? ... makes me a sad panda pup.
Edit: no offense, but to make the OP "primerish" you'd have to invest a couple more analytical paragraphs.
Still catching up on the posts! I love your input too<33333333
Will add more to primer soon.
@Klaus- Taking out confidant is a big change, I gotta think about it. It certainly makes the mana base more stable (and saves me some money!). I'm just worried that the deck won't have the staying power against control. Uncounterable confidants from cavern are preeeetty good.
I haven't tested scavenging ooze enough. Better than crusader?
200%. There's a reason Maverick lists run multiple Ooze copies and hardly ever Crusader.
Alright I do like that that lowers the curve, but the double strike with equip is so good...maybe it's win more? Sigh, I suppose I'll put ooze in over crusader haha.
Edit: I forgot about the other thing I like about Crusader: He is a human! Cavern is so good and I think keeping as many humans as possible is a very good idea.
Also do you think revoker is better than meddling mage given that mage is a human? The reason I mage could be good in this deck is because since we are taxing all noncreature spells, we can focus on naming the key creatures of the opponent's deck.
For sure. Also getting blue exclusively off Cavern and Hierarch is not sufficiently reliable. Don't get caught on the "danger of cool things train".
Cavern + humans = definitely nice, but limiting yourself to humans is not wise if there are (some) better guys around.
Edit: I like that Revoker deals with resolved permanents (i. e. Top, Jace, Deed and the likes)
This is a good point.
If I'm going to take out confidant I'd like to replace him with things that are going to win the game. I don't like the idea of having only 8 finishers (4 stoneforge+4knight) without the card advantage he provided. Moreso since I took out crusader. Thoughts?
Keep Confidant. Once you stabilize against more aggressive decks, he simply wins the game. He terrorizes control. Ensures you hit your Thorn cards and SB cards against combo. He is amazing. Don't cut him.
Referring to the art on Stasis:
Ya he is super good. Just thinking about the stability of the mana base though...I guess it's worth it to keep him.
To me "Golden Age" is based on a blend of Maverick, Death and Taxes + Thorn.
None of these decks need "Oops I win" cards, since they're based on complex/straight forward synergies. With G.A., being an even more dedicated prison deck, you'll have to think less in a vacuum more like a Stax player.
At the end of the day it's all about optimizing your Prison+Aggro strategy.
Edit:
Then why doesn't Maverick run him?
Because they have GSZ. Golden Age can't run it because we have too many nongreen creatures and it is a noncreature spell. We need creature-based card advantage because of the nature of the deck, so confidant (and storyteller in the board) is the obvious choice.Edit:
Then why doesn't Maverick run him?
Bob & GSZ fulfill completely different purposes, namely CQ VS. CA.
You could compare Bob to Sylvan Library, but then they only run like 1..
Not really-in Maverick GSZ gets the deck the creatures it needs- thats what bob does here.
Your logic is flawed: every kind of card advantage will obviously give you a wider selection of choices, but Bob is raw CA in the first place and GSZ is a tutor (raw CQ).
Anyway if your meta is Wasteland light, you might get away with relying on a more fragile mana base.
Some more input on the win-more argument:
- against Control he tends to improve an already positive MU
- against Aggro he'll be problematic since you'll find yourself low on life with a hand full of creatures you cannot cast in time (partly due to the lack of Vial)
- he's cool VS mid-range decks, but there are superb alternatives in a straight GW version.
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