I'll admit, I actually tutored it both SB games against Turbo-Depths last time as my best tutor target even with Lage on the field. I handily won both games
Two is a comfortable number if you're dead set on being worried about drawing a second one. I've always played three when I'm in black for those couple years. I did it in Junk, Esper, BUG. IMO, if you have DRS, BSK, and Jitte, you probably have enough life gain to not care. Adding a SoLaS if you're worried is fine too.
Two mana is a big deal. It allows much more aggressive Vindicating/Wastelanding your opponent because you're not paying 5 mana for your dudes. It lessens the 3-drops in your deck, so you can potentially play more powerful cards or keep your curve lower. You can run it next to Thalia if you so desire, since it's 3 instead of 7 mana.
I ran it next to Bob in Junk, and it *will* kill you some games. But.. it can't be Charmed/ZP'd/Deluged/Terminus'd to good effect either, and if you get locked out (as I mentioned against Moon decks) it will happen to win you the game a non-trivial amount of times there too haha.
Originally Posted by Nestalim
Speaking of 1/1s, has anyone ever tried smugglers coptor? If so how did it go?
Last edited by Jain_Mor; 06-22-2017 at 03:11 PM.
Junk and Stoned Rhinos.
Some of Hooglands previous lists ran it and I tried it out for a bit as a one-of. I loved it in the dnt matchup because it makes mom/Thalia a lot less scary in combat. It helps keep pressure after a terminus as well. That said sometimes it gets "turned off" by them killing your creatures which let's opponent's semi 2-for-1 you with removal which can hurt. I think it's fringe playable depending on your style but have cut it from my own list with some hesitation
I'm pretty sold on BB as anti-lands tech. I'm used to the prospect of killing myself with damage, as I've played double Bob any number of times which makes BB seem quaint by comparison.I'll admit, I actually tutored it both SB games against Turbo-Depths last time as my best tutor target even with Lage on the field. I handily won both games
Two is a comfortable number if you're dead set on being worried about drawing a second one. I've always played three when I'm in black for those couple years. I did it in Junk, Esper, BUG. IMO, if you have DRS, BSK, and Jitte, you probably have enough life gain to not care. Adding a SoLaS if you're worried is fine too.
Two mana is a big deal. It allows much more aggressive Vindicating/Wastelanding your opponent because you're not paying 5 mana for your dudes. It lessens the 3-drops in your deck, so you can potentially play more powerful cards or keep your curve lower. You can run it next to Thalia if you so desire, since it's 3 instead of 7 mana.
I ran it next to Bob in Junk, and it *will* kill you some games. But.. it can't be Charmed/ZP'd/Deluged/Terminus'd to good effect either, and if you get locked out (as I mentioned against Moon decks) it will happen to win you the game a non-trivial amount of times there too haha.
I'm not as heavy on the land destruction plan as some , and don't run vindicate, instead opting for councils judgment. I also don't run DRS in my list so my life gain is relegated to jitte and batterskull. Might add solas to the list if I go the bitterblossom route .
Either way BB definitely needs to be in my 75 somewhere in some quantity
I've considered it as a way to make sick SFM/DRS/Blossom tokens better; but I don't like that it's not really a threat. I think I'd rather have Lightning Greaves in it's place, because Greaves has brutal combos by itself too and makes all those guys active/protected.
Coolest Greaves interaction IMO: SFM->Tutor BSK, attach greaves, drop BSK, attach greaves to BSK, swing.
4-mana in a single turn, but not vulnerable to Daze, and a hasted skull comes out of nowhere. This is actually the fastest you can get a BSK swinging without Moxen. (DRS->Greaves or SFM->SFM or Greaves and attach to skull)
The biggest issue with either of these is that it requires a dude on board, and 3-equip-thingys seems to be a good limit to stop because they are practically mulligans you didn't take. Because of that, I'd rather run SoFaI. While Copter is very mana-mild and can maybe go in the old SDT slots, I'd be wary of having too many and I'd probably be wary of your equip numbers at that point.
Cool thanks guys, you're right I should think of it as a very cheap equipment that can't be found by SFM.
Also, I haven't played enlightened tutor in years. What's a typical sideboard with that look like these days?
Junk and Stoned Rhinos.
It's pretty meta dependent but my personal choices are ethersworn canonist, story circle (should really just be cop-red but I have a nostalgic fondness for story), rest in peace, phyrexian Revoker, engineered plague, as of this thread possibly a bitterblossom.
Rest of the board is 3x surgical, 2x zealous Persecution, 1x toxic deluge, 1x sword of fire and ice.
Depends on what you're looking to beat I suppose
Small note: I've been floating mostly in Esper at the moment, so YMMV. That said, I would only alter this by 2-3 cards if I was in Junk/DGA, and it was almost identical when I was in Bant. I've been very happy with this Sideboard only making the noted adjustment and playing with the two "fair deck flex slots."
2 Containment Priest
1 Darkblast
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2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Pithing Needle (was original 1/1 Split with revoker, but I want needles vs. Lands more than I want Revoker vs. LED/Heritage/etc.)
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Rest in Peace
1 Humility
1 Chill
1 Dread of Night (recently added as I saw a large uptick in D&T a couple weeks back, and the GP confirmed suspicions)
1 Engineered Plague
The flex slots at the moment are the second Needle, DoN, Darkblast, and Humility. I think it's probably mildly weak to BR reanimator, but I'm in a deck with Forces/Plows/DRS/Blossoms (which are relevant if it's not Elesh Norn), so I don't care much if all my "you lose" hate is T2. I haven't seen the deck *ever* in my history of legacy, so I'd rather have cards that shut down Elves/Goyfs/Dredge/etc than cards that still lose to a Chancellor of the Annex. My meta just contains maybe one player on it and they're new; every other time I've faced Reanimator it's been UB (and mot of them have moved away or moved to other decks.)
That big disclaimer out of the way, this has treated me very well. I feel like Fair games are often high variance* and you have a long time to do your fair-game good-stuff. I want to tear combo in half every time I meet it and win fair MUs on the back of good play; so I don't have much for fair decks (just DoN) that isn't also applicable elsewhere, and DoN shuts down mentor, so is still relevant there against Topless.
*[High Variance in how they play out since your opening hand only somewhat influences the game. Combo MUs are much more about your opening hand, so I cram everything I can so i don't have to mull to oblivion. It's true that a Combo MU is actually higher variance since you draw less cards, blah blah. But what I mean is how the game actually plays out. If your opener is good, you probably win or have at least a competitive game. Having a bad opener in a fair MU is hard to judge, because Plow Plow Fetch, Basic, 3-drop 3-drop is basically just as good as DRS, 3-drop, fetch, fetch, dual, Brutality. It plays different, but in all likelyhood you'll both be at an empty board ~T3 and topdecking. ]
DoN is in part because since I'm running Blossom and the main way fair decks successfully grind with me is Souls/Mentor, may as well also screw D&T at the same time :D. This should be something like a ZP or EE for you.
I had grafdiggers until I decided to add bitterblossom today. Might keep it and drop to 2x surgical. Humility is one of my all-time favorite cards and I only don't run it because in a deathrite-less build 4 Mana is a lot. That said it's super cool with scullers once they've eaten a card because if they die under humility the card doesn't come back. Also just hoses sneak-show , elves, and reanimator if you can resolve it in time. Think it's best in Deathrite/chrome mox builds but when it's good, it's really good in an equipment deck.
Dread of night is great if you run BB and no lingering souls, but I prefer Zealous for the flexibility, and especially the ability to wipe true names and young pyro armies off the board.
Yeah, I mostly have it so I can tutor it up and "turn off" show and tell. Between that and EDIT: [Needles] you can put them in a very narrow "Through the Breach" area. Priest of course shuts everything down, but if you have no better T1 or T2 play, tutoring humility before your next draw step isn't the worst; especially since Priest doesn't work well with S&T unless you have mana open.
I also used it against Czech Pile a bit to good effect, and it's probably fine against any durdley deck. It's definitely the most fringe of the cards in the side, given that I only bring it in in very rare MUs, where most of the others come in a lot.
Last edited by tescrin; 06-23-2017 at 11:20 AM.
I usually lean on heavy discard, Karakas, and councils judgment to stop sneak show. T1 show and tell is a problem that humility definitely fixes, but outside of the nut draw the deck is manageable. Czech pile is a pretty neat use for it. Leovold is less scary as a 1/1 with no ability. I've always enjoyed the synergy of jitte and humility because it breaks all but the craziest ground games wide open. It also makes elves a slam dunk win most times when it resolves
I want to find room for it but need to see how my current list fares for a bit before I swap it in for something. Anything that makes leovold less awful is worth a look though.
These sound a lot like Joe Bernal's DGA list from way back in the day.
I'm still not buying the no DRS argument. Imo DRS does exactly what this deck wants/needs. She fixes your mana (somehow this deck still has the worst manabase out of any 2.5 color deck) while ramping you allowing you to do tempo plays such as turn 2 kill drs -> hymn/wasteland/deploy threat and is also a not so clunky threat. There are going to be games where you run into the more creature based decks where you won't have cards to eat in the yard but that seems like such a bad reason not to run the card. I guess I can see cases where more removal or threads like scullers is better but in my experience you have enough removal/discard to take care of things and sculler is basically a 2 mana peak.
So my particular take on DGA is pure 2-color, so manafixing is less of an issue. While t2 waste+hymn is great, in such a fast format I find t1 thoughtseize/Inquisition is often invaluable game 1, especially on the play (if I had space I'd board Deathrite in on the draw). I occasionally need WW for Gideon and councils judgment, or BB for Lili, but everything else in the deck requires a single mana of any color so I can run pretty smoothly on plains, swamp, (x) where I slightly prefer x to be a white source. That makes my Manabase pretty resilient to waste/blood moon effects already. Where I play, Deathrite is super prevalent so leaning on it to smooth my own Mana curve out is risky and I'd rather just build the deck in a way that doesn't rely on DRS.
Deathrite is clearly one of the most powerful creatures ever printed, but I find curving out naturally with this deck t1 thoughtseize/plow/Inquisition into t2 stoneforge/sculler with near perfect information about your opponent's hand works just fine. If I know what lands they have in hand/on the battlefield I can decide to waste to keep them off a color or Mana screw them, or I can play another card that disrupts their plan better if they have a lot of Mana and/or one drops on hand. Deathrite-> waste/hymn VS thoughtseize/Inquisition -> sculler/SFM/collective brutality both have merits, dunno for sure if no-DRS is right yet, but so far the deck runs really well for me and I haven't run into Mana issues. No Deathrite is more geared to stopping fast combo like elves, ANT, sneak-show while Deathrite versions are probably better vs death and taxes, miracles, burn (although this matchup isn't bad in general) etc. Think both versions are great vs delver decks so I think it depends on which decks you're hedging against as to which form you'd prefer
The biggest issue with Copter I had it was the worse two drop in the deck. I would rather play Bob, Stoneforge or Tidehollowsculler on turn 2. Copter don't make any boardpressen like the other two drops.
Deadguy ale Primer: http://articles.mtgcardmarket.com/br...n-deadguy-ale/ (Jeff did it before me)
It was a situational card for sure, is only play it if I had 2+ creatures on the board. It was most useful in situations where I had to deluge the board clear since I could drop a creature and crew immediately after to maintain pressure, but early game it costs you pressure and that's something this deck can ill afford to do given it's already slightly anemic clock at times.
A big pull to DRS is that I want a high density of unconditional turn one plays. With SDT banned (2 slots) I went up from 4 to 5 one mana discard (3TS/2IoK from 4TS) to go with 4 DRS. The 9 still seems like enough, and of cource we have 4 STP, but you can't plow a ponder. Leaving that first mana to go fallow feels bad. Maybe it's insignificant in the long run of a game but grinding out of a tempo hole feels way harder than when I keep pace early.
Sculler can be nice tempo as well. I get a strange looks on occasion when I take a two drop and leave the removal spell but that one turn speed-bump lingers. I almost always would rather them spend an answer on sculler now than keep an answer in the bank for them to get back later.
I disagree on both points, but it depends on the 2-drop. If you're letting them kill your sculler to get their Goyf back, that's just bad I think; but you're letting them pump their goyf and cast it. Instead I'd take the removal because you both net board presence but you know that they have to dig for removal or let you be a card ahead.
Sculler, just like Queller (a card I use 4 of right now), is Temporal-CA. If you win while he has a card, he had net CA. You want CA. Therefore taking removal to gain CA until your opponent finds a (potentially nonexistent) answer, is very good. Queller is *a lot better* (counterspell vs. discard, except this is better than a normal counterspell, evasion and 3 toughness are both big too) but I still like Sculler quite a bit.
Regardless; without being able to take high advantage of the tempo play (such as landing Liliana and garnering a soft lock due to an empty board) you take the "temporary CA" route every time. This is why he's so good against Combo (because he's CA) and why people are meh on him in normal decks (same thing.)
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All that said, I'm not sure that Sculler is good if you have a Leo meta-game. It's not a "may" ability and thus he'll actually grant negative CA if Leo is on the field, meaning he's either a dead card in hand or that he's actively bad.
Also, I do think it'd be reasonable for people to try out Wasteland Strangler again. I tried him next to Queller and my only issue was that he was sorcery speed, which screws up the way my deck works; but in a WB deck; I think it's quite good. Plow + DRS + 2-3 Sculler is enough, and you can go heavier if you want.
I've played with strangler before, and it's great if you have a lot of dnt , Maverick and the like in your meta. It's an excellent follow up to sculler and plow (even without DRS). My meta is just less creature heavy so I'm not running it right now but I agree it's a solid card .
Leovold is definitely annoying. The only plus is they draw before scullers ability resolves so if they're hell-bent you get to mill them for one and it's still a 2/2 body. Overall though leovold eats removal at all costs as fast as I can find it. That card is bad news.
Yea, maybe I got carried away with "almost always" regarding leaving them removal in hand to kill sculler. I get the card advantage arguement but the extra card you get is a 2/2 with the special ability of drawing them a removal spell when it dies. There are situations where that's a fine card to have, but in the early turns of fair matchups I'd just as soon get the predictable one for one out of the way rather than have the swing back hanging over my head. I expect having blue cards to forstall or prevent that eventuality makes a difference.
I'd say if you're going to do that, running Mom is prudent. Mom + Sculler is pure gas imo
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