In my brief experience with the deck this is what I'm thinking. I often feel "unprotected" against what the opponent is doing, because he is doing it faster than I'm assembling my pieces. This may be the version that needs brutality the most for this exact reason (the sinergy with LS is the gravy on top). 4 CT don't feel enough discard in my opinion, but I might very well be wrong.Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Innocent blood is nice because is T1 interaction AND can help against unfair decks like reanimator or chimp and show. It acts both as a removal spell and as a card to use to get the rector trigger.
Indeed, can't recall why I haven't tried Innocent Blood yet. Will have to give it a go. -Marit lage protection +Emrakul protection (/shrug).
Do you remember the configuration of lockpieces in that list? I think Sandwurm + Cruel plus the others was a bit much.
It isn't as bad as you'd think, so far it has felt similar to Sneak Fit days when you have Emrakul or a Titan stuck in hand. Dovescape = 6, Cruel Reality = 7, Splendor = 8. Those are the only things in the list above 5 cmc, and even getting one of them stuck in hand means that you still have the others to Rector and hold down the fort until you get the required mana online. I used to run Cast Out in place of the Cruel Reality, leaving only 2 cards over 5. That spot definitely needs to be something to handle Jace though.
Including Starfield does further reduce this issue, since you can safely pitch stuff to Brutality and then get it back easily.
Cruel reality to me seems a sb card that gives protection against big cheaty guys like emrakul or planeswalkers like jace. In all the other match ups the other bombs seem enough.
Sorry for the double post, but this deck is intriguing me and I have been playing seriously with it today for the first time.
Why don't we go for the max consistency route? (22 lands + 1 arbor), 4 Zeniths, 4 Leaps, 4 Souls, 4 Vets, 4 CT, 4 Rectors and a singleton witness (and 0 sigarda/finks as other creatures, because they disrupt the leap chain)? Beside this main core, one could play the removal suite he prefers the most.
A couple first impressions about the enchantment suite: you guys are the experts, but starfield seems a maindeck card for the reasons Arian enumerated earlier. The sinergy with brutality makes the high cmc bombs in hand do something before being recurred by starfield.
After having played online all day, this is what I'm liking at the moment. I'm new with this deck so I might very well be making deckbuilding mistakes, you guys are more experienced than me with this deck, but what do you think?
Maindeck
-Starfield of Nyx: value enchantment that's good for the reasons we all know. Recurs deeds every turn, puts cast outs into play after we have cycled them in the early game, adds redundancy to the deck and is good against discard and counters.
Speaking of cast out, it seems you guys have ditched it and play more decays, plows, brutalities. Is the cast out interaction just cute in practice? Tell me about it. As Square mentioned, cast out deals with Jace and gurmag and it's nice to have in the maindeck in my opinion.
-Overwhelming Splendor (this is usually the go to enchantment against creature decks, right?)
-Curse of Death's Hold (combo with splendor, it sometimes is good on its own)
-Curse of Misfortune: both the above enchantments are curses, so this seems a value enchantment to chain curses. At 5 mana it can be casted naturally and can start the chain without a rector if need be. After sideboard Cruel Reality is another curse to chain. Basically the card is a ramp spell that acts like a bridge between 5 mana and 7-8 mana (Splendor and Cruel Reality).
Sideboard
-Dovescape
-Cruel Reality
The reason why I feel like those 2 belong in the sideboard is because against the most popular decks ( grixis delver and pile) all we need is a bunch of enchantments to deal with creatures and those 2 don't quite do that immediatly.
Dovescape can come in against control decks and acts like a pseudo sterling grove that negates their noncreature spells. It can come in against combo even though additional discard spells and hate bears are the main way to survive until the first rector trigger.
Cruel reality comes against all the unfair decks like reanimator, chimp and show and against planeswalker decks. Maybe against lands as well?
Does anything of this pile of letters make sense? Navsi, Square, Arian?
Again, I'm not the most knowledgeable person on this particular subject, but that all makes sense to me. I'm not sure Curse of Misfortunes is necessary (Overwhelming Splendor isn't a curse unless I'm missing something), though.
I do very much agree with Cast Outs probably being very important (especially with Starfield) -- possibly up to a 4-of, just to increase consistency. They help you draw into lands, gas, or disruption, and they help keep you alive either by themselves , vs Show and Tell, or via Starfield.
But I'm also a sucker for trying to build from scratch without Top, and I'm down for basically anything that draws a card cheaply or tutors for a reasonable cost at this point.
It is a curse! Magic online doesn't make mistakes (most of the time :D)! I agree on the cast out bit.
I don't know if this deck is the moral successor to sneak fit, but today I beat miracle and pile players. Might mean nothing, but it's at least something.
Leap is a hell of a card and mitigates a lot the loss of top in my opinion.
Very glad to see you enjoyed it and testing with it. I plan to get some more work on it done as soon as I get home tonight.
I think the 4 Leaps was intuitively felt to be too much. You -do- have good chances to naturally draw into Rector (it is a 4-of after all). Multiple Leaps in hand really does stink.
As far as Sigarda, you do not want to be royally screwed as soon as your opponent Surgical Extracts your Rector (gawd that sounds painful) in games 2 or 3. Sigarda is a powerful plan B on a separate axis and the opponent won't be able to board in both graveyard, enchantment, and edict/wrath type hate. She continues to be solid against Jace, although more Cast Outs could be just as helpful. Removing E Witness could be viable, especially if you go up in C Brutality (since she does great work at buying back Therapy/Thoughtseize/Brutality against combo). If you get rid of E Witness AND Sigarda, then no way I'm playing full 4 GSZ. Late game I do not want to draw a Veteran that costs 1 more and then shuffles back into the deck.
If anything, I feel that Starfield is a sideboard card. Who's going to be destroying big-ass enchantments in game 1? Regardless, it has the same problem that Curse of Misfortune has, in my mind: they both do nothing the turn they hit the board. I'm going to continue to have Dovescape in my main because of how often it has let me sneak out game 1 wins against storm and other combo, and how beautifully it works with Leap. Maybe I've just had good luck with it? Dunno, but even against stuff like Moon Stompy, it's been good to help avoid getting burned to death by Chandra/Fiery Confluence.
Cast Out vs other removal = I mean, 4 cmc is a LOT to pay for single target removal. That's the only negative...I'd be open to trying like, -Cruel Reality, -Eternal Witness to fit in an extra or two. That or an extra Souls...Lingering Souls is certainly fine as a 4-of here.
Edit @rubblekill - when I first started doing Nyx Fit online, Rector trigger would not allow Curses to be attached to players. It's one bug I'm very glad they fixed after I submitted a ticket for it. Hence earlier builds with Doomwake Giant.
If you think that starfield is a sideboard card, then it's intuitive that cast out becomes mediocre at best.
Starfield is here (I think? I'm the noob..) not only for the enchantment hate, but to buy back enchantments that were discarded or countered in the early game.
Today the games I dominated against the top decks were the game where I had the leap engine going. Even in the sneak days 4 sneaks were considered a necessity, even though the 2nd sneak in hand was always sad to have. This is what makes me want to maximize the chances to get the engine going. Speaking of engine, additional sacrificer like innocent blood make the ramping and the cheating very consistent.
I think all this deck needs is consistency, to streamline its plan and execute it.
Speaking of Sigarda, what you say makes sense. But if we want to have a plan B against surgical, why don't we play her in the sideboard? This way we have a more streamlined leap engine in G1 when they don't have gy hate.
Yeah, I missed the curse line on Splendor for some reason.
If you're not interested in Starfield, you could consider Ground Seal as a way to protect Rector from DRS or Surgical. You do need to be worried about Deed at that point, but if you can reliably fire off Splendor + Death's Hold...Deed probably doesn't matter. I dunno, just a thought.
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E: Upon a little more thinking, it looks like there are two different roads you can go down: Brutality + Starfield (plus Entomb, maybe?), or Innocent Bloods etc.
Do brutality and innocent blood exclude each other? I don't think so, right?
Probably not, but I see them as moving in different direction; there are complementary packages with each, I think, that aren't necessarily the same.
I could also be crazy.
I have played Ground Seal in the sideboard to protect rectors (and as Snap/DRS/Reanimator hate) to reasonably good results.
When I tested it Innocent Blood was terrible - might have just been chance, but not dealing with Marit Lage and being uncastable through Chalice are downsides I don't like to both have on the same removal spell.
The problem with cutting Cruel Reality is that JTMS is not an uncommon card to see in the opponent's list. Cruel Reality is also a way of actually ending the game with a rector trigger which is a nice benefit to have. If your opponent makes Jace and you don't have CR, there is nothing you can Rector for that deals with it other than by trading 1-for-1 and not presenting any persistent board presence - Cast Out not only gives your opponent until you resolve another recotr trigger before actually threatening them, but also means anything like Council's Judgment also gets their Jace back.
Sigarda is in the deck because the main strength of Zenith is that it finds Vet early and is a haymaker late. Cutting sigarda means it does nothing lategame which is really awkward. If you were doing that I would be tempted to swap Zeniths for Recruiter of the Guard or something similar. Having a backup plan is nice, but IMO that's not the main reason.
You 100% want either Dovescape or Nether Void in the main. Otherwise you are completely conceding game 1 to spell based combo and control, which is not acceptable.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dovescape is also a way to win the game via Zenith, correct? You just Zenith for a million and get a pile of birds to beat them over the head with?
It's one way. Keep in mind that Lingering Souls under Dovescape makes 6 birds :)
On a small side note - Sigarda cares very little about edict effects. It's wrath or broke.
What's the thought process behind the decision to play dovescape over nether void? Is the latter too soft of a lock compared to the first one in your experience?
4 cmc without WWW in its mana cost seems a very good upside for nether void.
And come on, who doesn't want to play nether void? I know I do.
I've played Nether void just because it's an awesome archaic beautiful card. Unfortunatly it hasn't been good enough IMO. Dovescape is disruption AND a wincon given that most spellbased decks run a bunch of low CMC spells. Nether void in my experience creates a stalemate where neither player can do anything useful until we draw a wincon or they draw an out. Void is also dangerous if theres a unfavorable boardstate, like a delver. At least dovescape gives you access to a bunch of blockers.
Finally dovescape nullifies almost all of the hate-cards out there.
I was reluctant to replace Nether Void with a ugly looking dovescape, but in game-play it has been the right decision.
About the discussion above: I'm pretty sure that Sandwurm convergence is better than Cruel Reality. I like the plan of further streamlining the deck. I've been trying to diversify it instead (cutting Evo leap for more GSZ targets) and that just went bad.
Something I would like to point out: we might be in a position to benefit from the planeswalker rules change. I tried Captain Sisay as a card advantage engine a couple years ago and it was 'ok'....but now that Sisay can tutor for planeswalkers, they MIGHT be worth another look. Not sure, just a thought I wanted to toss out.
It's a 2 toughness 4 mana creature that needs to survive a turn before it can start generating CA
Think simpler. Nissa, Vastwood Seer just got a lot better now that we can run her alongside Vital Force.
Liliana has also improved.
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