[Deck] Rabid Wombat - Mono-White Control

[Xero]

I would rather bring in Needle against Wombat than leave Humility in. Humility is almost always dead. I didn't expect so much creture kill to be left in, so the creatures could have beaten down for the win.

I. Plus you did make several play mistakes including hard casting decree into a humility?

I did have a Disenchant plus another Decree in hand. It would have been enough to swing for 20 in two turns.

[ookus2]

Xero: I still think that you are missing the point. So let's try this. What are your win conditions? Creatures (decree, dragon) or to wait till they deck themselves. So why would I remove any of my cards that get rid of your win conditions? Your suggestion was to bring in needle. What would I stop with that? Decree? Dragon? Those are my win conditions too. Take a look at a rifter build and then you might have a better idea what you went up against.

[TheMagicWizard]

I see the rifter matchup at 50/50 maybe with a little advantage for Wombat. Rifter has of course some dead cards more. A big advantage of Wombat is the draw, so you can have much earlyer have a decree. The point is: You can protect your tokens: He cant! Gogun Grunt against dragon in this Matchup?

[Xero]

No, the Rifter match-up is overwhelmingly in Rifter's favor. They have the same weapons you have, but also Lightning Rift. Rift can kill you pretty quickly, especially when you can't apply pressure. Its almost unwinnable.

What would I stop with that? Decree? Dragon? Those are my win conditions too. Take a look at a rifter build and then you might have a better idea what you went up against.

If you Needled Decree and Dragon, I would have zero win conditions. You'd still have Rift. Its pretty much moot anyways, whether I had boarded differently wouldn't have made much difference.

[bigbear102]

Rifter has a huge advantage over Wombat, although it is not overwhelmingly in Rifter's favor. It all depends on the build of Wombat. If you play enough disenchant effects, then the game is about even, if not, they'll rift you out. You have to be careful of how you try to win, cycle decree eot so they can't pyroclasm, and try to Abeyance during their upkeep. They have more ways to deal with soldier tokens than we do (Clasm + Wrath vs. Wrath).

[torgar]

I agree. Rifter's only advantage vs Wombat is the Lightning Rift. While Rift makes a huge difference, it seems the meta is pushing Wombat towards more disenchant effects.

Especially since I think Stax is on the rise. In particular, Sun Tower has the potential to become a pretty powerful Tier 1 deck.

I've been playing x2 Disenchant main, an Abolish in the SB for Chalice, and I'm considering going up to a third Venegence.

Come to think of it, Flagstones would help in the Stax MU, x4 is just too much though.

[Lego]

Rifter has a huge advantage over Wombat, although it is not overwhelmingly in Rifter's favor.

I just found this funny... which is it? I don't feel like Rifter has any sort of meta presence right now (I may be wrong :shrug:) so I wouldn't be worried too much about the matchup. Play, um, Scour? Yeah, that's the answer.

[Slay]

it seems the meta is pushing Wombat towards more disenchant effects.

It is? None of the top 3 decks have anything worth disenchanting that can't be dealt with by Abeyance -> Vengeance whenever you feel like it.

And Stax has exactly the same presence in the metagame as Rifter.

[Citrus-God]

Well... you guys could try Pithing Needle MDed as well. In the mirror, DoJ is very imporant. WHat you want to probably do is Needle Slice and Dice or Dragon, or even DoJ for that matter. So your best bet is to Needle SnD, and then trade tokens and such. I'm not completely sure, but it works.

[torgar]

It is? None of the top 3 decks have anything worth disenchanting that can't be dealt with by Abeyance -> Vengeance whenever you feel like it.

And Stax has exactly the same presence in the metagame as Rifter.

The stuff I'm more worried about is not in the top three but in newer developing decks which are Tier 1.5 or just below the "Tier 1" decks. Typically, these are problem artifacts which arise before I have 8 mana (or 6 for that matter) for Abeyance-> Venegeance, of which I run but two. Also I think SunTower is good enough that it's going to become more popular. Much more than Rifter, I'd expect.


Smokestack is the #1 reason I'm using/advocating more disenchant effects.

Belcher is still around.. and responding to it with Gilded Light, Abeyance doesn't help unless you can then kill it before then have another chance to shoot you.

Chalice on 1 + SoFi in FaerieStompy, can be problematic and by the time you can Shards w/ storm support to avoid counters you might be dead.

Cursed Scroll in BW confidant. Meh, I usually cycle my Venegeance early if I see them to stop the early rush since they can keep me off 6 mana for a while or they get discarded away... and some of the lesser common problems, like Scepter-Chant, Survival, Ankh of Mishra in burn, and random Mishra's factories

[torgar]

Ok.. so I'm going to some big tourney tommorrow, any if I don't finish building SunTower.. then I'm rolling with my steady MWC..

Soooo.. shout out to anyone who can advise me on a couple final slots.
Here's my list:

The Land Tech:

18 Plains
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Darksteel Citadel

Kill//
3 Eternal Dragon
3 Exalted Angel
3 Jötun Grunt
2 Decree of Justice

Utility//
4 Abeyance
4 Bandage
3 Orim's Chant
2 Rune of Protection: Red
1 Shining Shoal
1 Festival of the Guildpact

Control//
4 Wrath of God
4 Wing Shards
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Akroma's Vengeance

// Sideboard:
SB: 4 Gilded Light
SB: 4 Glowrider
SB: 3 True Believer
SB: 1 Shining Shoal


Couple explanations:

I've always advocated the Angel. She's a winner in my experience. And if nothing else, she'll eat swords for my dragons.

I took out Gilded Light, since it's only really good vs Tide, where it shines. However, since the theory is lose G1, come back hard G2-3 with the hate, I decided to put them in the board and use Orim's Chant main.. good vs Gob&Solidarity. Chants insure no one messes with a good Wing Shards.

Since there's no Claws/Furnace left to speak of, I decided to include Jotun Grunt as the first in from the board.. He beats, eats threshold, and prevents you from losing the long G1 to decking yourself.

Although, here.. the plan is NOT to deck. It's to beat with Angel after you get and opening.. or recurr Dragon in long matches.. or win of the back of Decree.

Venegeance is at three to be a clear-all w/o relying on dead Disenchants that can't cycle sitting in my hand. While cycling often finds us the right card, sometimes just pitching occasional useless card to the Shoal can save you. Shoal is the nuts... If they're trying to kill you by dmg.. It's never dead. And it's always fun to spank a big reanimated Spirit of the Night or whatever with an Angel to the face.

If it wasn't for Lackey, I'd go all Festival G. over Bandage.. but sigh.


I have three slot left in the board. Possibly options are...
Planar Birth / Sacred Ground vs Armageddon...
More Solidarity hate / fat cheap Creatures.. Maybe Juggernaut, Hunted Lammasu... too bad Calciderm isn't legal. don't laugh, I'm looking for faster ways to win while not losing.
4th Venegeance.. (I HATE playing against Stax.)
Pithing Needle.. random catch-all
Claws/Furnace... Grunt > Threshold ... but sucks in every other sense vs graveyard tricks.



Suggestions are welcome!

[torgar]

Oh.. and not to double post, but it is completely ridiculous for me to want to put some Shahrazads in there in case I win Game 1? Clearly it's not going to help me WIN that game...

Bwahaha.. I don't love playing this deck so much for no reason!

[torgar]

Tournament Report!! Ok, so I drove 5 and half hours up to Genosa to play in the Legacy Tournament today.. yesterday. Bringing my build of Wombat I posted about. I added two Sacred Ground to the board, plus a Shahrazad just for fun in case I won G1. And my results were ok, mixed but not terribly disappointing. For this being my first showing at a real big event.. 56 people, I'm glad I succeed at my goal: Don't lose to combo!!


Round 1: Bryant (wastedlife) playing TES.

Game 1: Game starts out as kinda a blur.. I get hit with an early Duress to to which I respond with my Abeyance, knowing it's going to get picked regardless... I have StP, Wrath, nothing relevant, so I can preserve my safety that turn and dig alittle deeper.. so... what do I draw off the Abeyance?? Orim's Chant!.. buh bye. :-( I drop a Grunt, try to beat, but end up putting my own graveyard under my library. Big mistake.. err.. I seem to forget that this deck plays IGG... which means I like have Chant, Abeyance in the yard. I get Tendrils-ed out next turn.

Game 2: Confident in my board's ability to destroy combo... I hunker down with my new-found hate.... Have learned in the past siding out Wraths is a mistake, I go -4 Wing Shards, -2 ROP Red, -2 Decree, -3 Venegeance. 4 Glowrider, 4 G-Light, 3 Believer. I'm suprised when he leads with a Dark Confidant. I get hit with a Duress, he sees Glowrider, Grunt, two Wraths, StP. He takes StP, and then I'm pleased to see an Empty the Warrens get imprinted on a mox. Kudos to me for good boarding!! I drop Glowrider, then he follows with another Confidant... Sheesh.. we trade beats for a turn or two and then I play Grunt, with two open to show the countermagic I don't have. Grunt swings in next turn while Glowrider sits tight and does his job. From his painlands + Confidants + Glowrider beats, he's down to seven on his turn and he passes the turn without attacking. At this point I decide to sit tight and hold back and watch the Confidants kill him since Grunt now is just going help him get rid of them.... which next turn hits... Tendrils.. down to 3.. Then next part is blurry, but it involves a Plunge into Darnkess choosing to sac Confidants for some life... another Confidant.. Grunt beats and an Abeyance.. Anyway, he ends up at 1, on then on the his next turn.. Confidant.. hits..... City of Brass!! heh.. I guess the best zero CC I could ask for. Try to go off using CoB with the ping on the stack, but to no avail.

Game 3: Wow.. he's on the play..
Turn 1: No duress thank god....
Turn 2: He starts to go nuts with two Rituals. Then he plays Petal thankfully.. to which I play Chant. He burns for 5. I drop a True Believer.
Turn 3: Beats.. @ 13.
Turn 4: Beats.. @ 10 Play Grunt.. holding Abeyance and two open.
Turn 5: Beats.. @ 4
Turn 6: Diminishing Returns.. I abeyance... But I'm going to be short on the Grunt upkeep... so my turn.. Upkeep.. bandage, cycle Decree for zero, pay the upkeep and swing for the win.

Awesome! The hate is playing off..


Round 2: Jeff Folnis with Goblins.. (sp)?

Ok.. this is where it all goes wrong. Here's the synopsis.
I drop a turn 4 Moat. Sharpshooter--> swords. SCG --> swords. SCG --> Wrath. I stablize with an Angel, and hit once bringing me to nine. He's where I'm not sure if I made the right play. He's got a couple Goblins in play, four cards in hand and a vial set to 5. I decided.. not to cast Akroma's Venegeance.. which would leave me sans Angel sans Moat and tapped out and open to an easy Warchief-Piledriver death next turn. I can make it another turn, hit once more and really put it out of reach.

So next turn... Matron -> SCG through the Vial.. 8 pts of Goblins at my head plus a Fanatic. WTF OMG.. how did I lose this?!?!? I'm so distraught into the next game my concentration sucks.. ugh. I correctly bring in Sacred Ground and cast it. but it doesn't matter. my Rune gets Disenchanted, and get Port-ed off of Wrath and die. Ok.. wtf... this is the good matchup right? He ends up T8-ing, so I don't feel TOO bad. (Strike that. I still feel terrible about this)


Round 3: Some guy playing Mages, Silver Knight with discard.

This is where it goes to shit.. I get Duressed snatching Wrath leaving me with two Shards. Mage naming Shards. I hit something like 8 lands in the first thirteen cards and promptly die. Game 2 happens much the same except this time he grabs a Swords and leave me with a Wrath, Mage on Wrath.. so my turn... I draw...... a Wrath.. hooray.. I'm still fuming about last round.


Round 4: Leif playing Show and Tell

This is ALOT of fun. First of all, this guy is really cool and we end up kickin' the hackysack around later. Coincidently, we met earlier and between Round 3 and 4, decided to play each other for fun. So I know what's coming. Creatures that are much, much, much bigger than mine. DS Colossus, Simic Sky Swallower, Akroma and such.

G1 I hold him off for a while, but even dropping Dragon doesn't stall for long against these creatures. I swords and shards some stuff but he eventually knocks me out with SSS and Akroma backed up with counters.

G2 and G3.. Both very similar. I save the StP for Akroma, Shards for SSS, and Moat/StP the Colossus. One game he hits a Rush of Knowledge off a SSS for 8 cards. sheesh.. but through careful use of my Abey/Chant and hold him off long enough. G3 I never hit the danger zone... same plan except and I'm holding Shoal/Venegeance for the emergency backup in case my hate doesn't go through, but luckily he uses two of Arcane Denials on his own Petals for draw, so it's never an issue. (Damn, I really wanted to spank Akroma in the face with her own Venegeance.. That would have been the highlight of my day... even better than the Techy MVP play in Round 6) Double Dragon finishes the game. Cheers to Leif, my favorite opponent of the night.

Round 5: More TES.

I almost felt bad, actually winning G1 off early Chant/Abeyance and after I flip an Angel he scoops. G2 is even worse. Glowrider is the man. He gets off an expensive IGG, but I've got x2 Gilded Light, cast one.. and seeing as I can bring back Gilded Light, Wrath, .... and something good.. he scoops.

This is build is just wrecking the combo. TOO BAD I LOST TO GOBLINS.


Round 6: I'm in 12th at 4-2, get paired up and have really no chance at making T8, but hell, I drove over 5 hours. I'm playing this out.

Unfortunately, I never really have a chance here.. I'm playing Survival which leads with Duress, Cabal... I stablize off the back of Grunt... GO GO gadget graveyard shrinker.... then a moat, which gets stomphowlered.. Vengeance.. witness chain... Survival's back.. Vengeance.. witness chain.. why am I not playing Scrabbling Claws again? Grunt's good.. but really, here's where stuffing the shit back in the library really just means.. a speedbump in the form of ummm.. tapping Rofellos ONCE to undo all my hard work. Where's the fear of Pithing Needle I find myself asking him? He's say response for Tin-Street is the answer, but I have my doubts.

Game 2 is similar. Except I REALLY have no chance when he Cabals blind on T1 and hit TWO of my angels... ?!?! I guess my opponents don't dig the Angel.. (C'mon, even more reason that this bitch is good!) The #1 awesome tech-y play(s) of the day go here to this match, where TWICE my Grunt is saved from an untimely death at the hands of a Flametongue Kavu by none other than ... our hero ... Bandage!! I got some incredulous looks and some laugh for these plays at the top table.

There was just too much selection/recursion for me, I didn't mind losing here. No Humility, No Needle, No Claws.. I really have no outs..


So all in all, I'm quite pleased.. except for the fact that now you'll be seeing Tivadar in my new builds.. man.. seriously, I'm only half joking. After wrecking combo so hard.. (I felt like I was just repeated kicking these Combo players in the nuts. If I didn't hate the archetype so much, I'd almost feel bad. Too bad I didn't get a chance to try my hand against Solidarity there.. That'd been the ultimate test.) Hope this is informative!!

[Jak]

Great report Torgar. LMAO of losing to Goblins, but beating combo twice. So I think you need Renewed Faith. People underestimate the card, but it helps so much against goblins. If you are holding them off, you can just cycle it. But if you need extra time play it for 6 extra life. I also have a question. How many times did angel help versus TES? Because since your combo MU looks alright, I would like to copy it, but am reluctant to put in angel. So my list is the same, but I like Glowriders, so I put them in the board.

Lands
20 Plains

Creatures
3 Eternal Dragon

Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wrath of God
4 Wing Shards
2 Akroma's Vengeance
2 RoP: Red
4 Renewed Faith
4 Bandage
2 Disenchant
4 Abeyance
4 Gilded Light
3 Decree of Justice

Sideboard
3 Jotun Grunt
4 True Believer
4 Glowrider
4 Orim's Chant

[torgar]

Great report Togar. LMAO of losing to Goblins, but beating combo twice. So I think you need Renewed Faith. People underestimate the card, but it helps so much against goblins. If you are holding them off, you can just cycle it. But if you need extra time play it for 6 extra life. I also have a question. How many times did angel help versus TES?

It's ToRgar :-)

In fact, Angel never did anything. Only once vs TES did Angel hit upon which they immediately scooped. They either scooped to the disruption or because of Grunt/Glow beats.. upon which I began to consider if I could sacrifice the power of Grunt for the catch-all of Tivadar/Silver Knight. Razor Golem is still in the discussion here.

I have been thinking along similiar lines... As far as life gain.. I was considering Pulse of the Fields. Most Goblin decks are moving towards x4 SCG. This merits the consideration of Pithing Needle. (as I also lost to Survival.)

I'm actually considering a more aggressive route with Honorable Passage / Shoal / Tivadar (it's a great 2 for 1, I'm serious)
[ I want to circumvent Disenchant effects ruining our plans ]

[Jak]

My bad man. I guess I was tired and spaced out. I fixed it.

Anyways I am personally glad angel did not do anything because making room for her in my list would kill me. I suck at cutting cards from decks. For the life gain Pulse is great, but I would still keep renewed faiths because of the cycling power. To be able to just get chains going of cycles is great and this deck really needs draw. And finally I wish I could find room for needle because it is real good all around, but I feel I could not cut anything. The only slots I am still testing are in the SB with Glowrider. I would like to see your aggresive build too.

[Eldariel]

So, you don't suppose you could fit Humility anywhere between SB and MD? That's the one card, Goblins really fold to if it sticks. No more Ringleaders, no more SGCs, no more Matrons. And that rapes Survival too. And Thresh. Basically, it was the card all the decks feared from MWC and what made the deck so succesful against creatures in the first place. Any way you could fit it back, at least on the SB? I mean, post-SB, it's not like you really need Grunts to do more than they already do. Also, something to consider in few Last Breaths on the SB. It's a fine removal-spell against Goblins and most importantly, gives you some versatility in terms of threats against their Mages. You only play 3 different removal-spells (+Vengeance, which is usually too expensive to count against Mage-playing decks), so between discard and MM, it'll be commonplace for them to be able to shut you off removal entirely and you need some good topdecking to be able to do anything about it. Humility or such could also diversify your answers a bit more. Also, don't you think you're hurting the engine of the deck a bit by playing so many non-cyclers? How often were you unable to find something you needed?

As far as Survival goes, if they play 4 Tin Streets, chances are they don't need to fear Needles. They will fold to Humility still though, as it also shuts down their enchantment removal.

[Jak]

I liked Humility, but when I first started playing the deck I usually just went with what was said. I think it could find a place. The thing that people didn't like about it was Mishra's Factory and Equipment, but now I don't think those are much of a problem with the disenchants and just a swords. What would you cut in my list for it though Eldariel.

Oh and Torgar if survival is played a lot around you, you should really stick a few disenchants in there. They can really screw them up bad.

[Eldariel]

A Faith, a Light and a Decree or something to that effect. If you expect lots of Stifles, cutting Decree isn't really an option though as you need to get more Decrees off than they have Stifles for. I really prefer it as an SB-card though, seeing that it's strong against aggro-decks only (against manlands, it's the last thing you want, and against combo, even less so). You might want to try something like MDing some Grunts or Chants over stuff and SBing Humility in its stead.

[Bryant Cook]

It's ToRgar :-)

In fact, Angel never did anything. Only once vs TES did Angel hit upon which they immediately scooped. They either scooped to the disruption or because of Grunt/Glow beats.. upon which I began to consider if I could sacrifice the power of Grunt for the catch-all of Tivadar/Silver Knight. Razor Golem is still in the discussion here.

I have been thinking along similiar lines... As far as life gain.. I was considering Pulse of the Fields. Most Goblin decks are moving towards x4 SCG. This merits the consideration of Pithing Needle. (as I also lost to Survival.)

I'm actually considering a more aggressive route with Honorable Passage / Shoal / Tivadar (it's a great 2 for 1, I'm serious)
[ I want to circumvent Disenchant effects ruining our plans ]

You played Angel against me game one... and I won that game.