They're all really close. Sulfur Elemental's flash is very nice as a pseudo-removal spell. Akroma's a game-breaking threat when you can flip her. And Mauler's just nice and consistently mediocre-to-good. There are situations where it's fairly logical to want any of the three of them.
However, the less equipment I run, the more I find myself wanting the removal of Sulfur Elemental or the evasion of a flipped Akroma. I need to do some serious testing with Mauler over the next week or two to get a better feel for him, though.
Originally Posted by majikal
My Meta has a lot of Thresh, some Goyf Sligh, Angel Stax, Cephalid Breakfast, some MBA, 1 Faerie Stompy, a few Goblins, 1 Meathooks (Mauler has fun agains't this deck...) , a few Ichorid Decks, landstill, storm variants, and some random. Also to add to this my build has been cut down to Just 3 Umezawa's Jitte for equipment which makes Sulfer Elemental and Akroma less appealing.
Team Hammafist
How does this look for a list. It has alot more denial then normal builds, running 7 moons effects while still running 4 chalice and 3 3sphere. This is a big reason as to why i dont run taurean mauler. Akroma is pretty good but its extremely expensive so i run 1.
4 Chrome mox
4 City of traitors
4 Ancient tomb
10 mountain
4 Seething song
4 Magus of the moon
3 Blood moon
4 Chalice of the void
3 Trinisphere
4 SSG's
4 Gathan raiders
4 Rakdos pit dragon
3 arc slogger
3 jitte
2 Sulfur
1 Akroma
Call me Ishmael
I honestly don't like sword less build's anymore... Swords of Light and Shadows helps against the Burn, Angel Stompy, and MBA match ups, while Sword of Fire and Ice helps against Burn, Dragon Stompy, MUC, and numerous other match ups. Honestly I think that decks that don't use one or the other (possibly even both) are asking for trouble. Meanwhile Decks that don't utilize Jitte's are also asking for trouble. Which is one more reason for taking out the 3sphere's as it allows for people to load up on more equipment cards.
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
To add something to this discussion about metagame calls and creature selection - why is Flametongue Kavu neglected?
I mean, it's a great card. I'm thinking of running it as a 2-of, perhaps a little because my meta has quite a lot of fairie stompy and it is obviously good against it. But still, if you have no targets for it you can do the usual hide under mox/feed raiders thing, but when you have targets... Yay, we have "board control elements".
If pyrokinesis is discussed as maindeckable I think it's time to reconsider ftk.
Or am I missing something obvious? ( Besides Tarmogoyf. )
Last edited by deviant; 02-04-2008 at 03:13 AM. Reason: 'Goyf.
I tried FTK early on in my testing of the deck as it seemed really solid but it is not that impressive. I could see him in the board as Faerie Stompy is probably where he shines most though. The problem I saw was that getting a 2 toughness guy for 4 almost always set you up to trade him for their 2 drop, which is really bad for this deck.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
As a former Thresh player I never really had to mulligan. The once-in-a-blue-moon mulligan I had to take with Thresh was basically the no-land hand. DS, however, forces me to consider it quite often, and I go down to six, even five quite a lot. But due to the fact that I like turn 1 lock (be it chalice or a moon effect) backed up by turn 2-3 threat, and taking a mulligan reduces the odds of getting that play, I was wondering what kind of hands you guys usually mulligan? I typed up some examples below. What would you do with the following hands:
(I know it depends on what you're playing against but just try to consider these hands in general)
1) CotV, Mountain, SSG, Mox, Mox, Blood Moon, Seething Song
This hand offers a powerful lock early game, but lacks in threats
2) Tomb, Mountain, SSG, Raiders, Raiders, Seething Song, Mox
This hand offers threats and pressure early game, but has difficulty enabling Hellbent (unless you want to waste the cards in your hand). It lacks in locks, and a deck with removal might take advantage of this fact.
3) Tomb, City, RPD, Seething Song, CotV, MotM, Jitte
This hand is pretty powerful if you draw a red source. Do you wait and hope to draw that red source, as you have eighteen in your deck, and have not yet drawn a single one?
4) Mox, Mox, MotM, Blood Moon, Mountain, SSG, Trinisphere
This hand might be worth playing, but how much of your hand do you want to contribute to speed? Turn one Magus, Moon or Trinisphere is doable, but eats up a lot of your hand. How to play this? Mountain --> go?
Also: if you do not know what your opponent is playing, do you drop turn1 Blood Moon or turn 1 Magus?
5) Mountain, Mox, SSG, Slogger, RPD, MotM, SSG
This is a similar example; it offers an explosive start at the cost of almost your entire hand. Without amana land it's often possible to make that 3-drop turn one; is it worth it? Do you wait?
Do you drop turn one MotM or turn one RPD? Dropping MotM means cutting yourself out of turn 2 RPD.
Consider this hand if it were:
6) Mountain, Mox, SSG, Slogger, RPD, MotM, CotV
Would that change it?
And finally:
7) Tomb, SSG, MotM, RPD, Trinisphere, CotV, Blood Moon
I get this quite often; in general number 7 is basically a hand that nails you a three-drop turn one, but leaves you at two mana turn 2 (if you drop trinisphere), or more often: at one mana if you drop MotM or Blood Moon as they turn the
For all of them, I consider that I'm g1 on the play so that I have absolutely no information on my opponent's deck.
I keep. I play mountain mox on Song chalice@1, pass.
Turn 2 depending on my draw, and on my opponen't play I would play (more probably) moon or (less probably) SSG, by imprinting the other one under the other mox.
I would not keep. No lock = no way.2) Tomb, Mountain, SSG, Raiders, Raiders, Seething Song, Mox
This hand offers threats and pressure early game, but has difficulty enabling Hellbent (unless you want to waste the cards in your hand). It lacks in locks, and a deck with removal might take advantage of this fact.
I don't keep because Chalice is a too weak lock element. If there were trinisphere instead of jitte, I would have kept though...3) Tomb, City, RPD, Seething Song, CotV, MotM, Jitte
This hand is pretty powerful if you draw a red source. Do you wait and hope to draw that red source, as you have eighteen in your deck, and have not yet drawn a single one?
Turn 1 trinisphere of course! (mountain, moxSSG, moxBM, turn1 trini).4) Mox, Mox, MotM, Blood Moon, Mountain, SSG, Trinisphere
This hand might be worth playing, but how much of your hand do you want to contribute to speed? Turn one Magus, Moon or Trinisphere is doable, but eats up a lot of your hand. How to play this? Mountain --> go?
Also: if you do not know what your opponent is playing, do you drop turn1 Blood Moon or turn 1 Magus?
Turn 2 magus.
Then beatdown hope of death from your opponent and topdeck from you. It may be very riskey though.
Turn 1 Magus with slogger under the mox. If I play against gob or burn I'm clearly ...... up but against the rest of the meta, it's very strong.5) Mountain, Mox, SSG, Slogger, RPD, MotM, SSG
This is a similar example; it offers an explosive start at the cost of almost your entire hand. Without a
With my play, if I draw a land I can play RPD.Do you drop turn one MotM or turn one RPD? Dropping MotM means cutting yourself out of turn 2 RPD.
Clearly chalice turn 1 with slogger under mox. Then probably turn 2 magus. And wait to topdeck mana.Consider this hand if it were:
6) Mountain, Mox, SSG, Slogger, RPD, MotM, CotV
Would that change it?
This hand is not that poor because of chalice. after chalice@1, you can check what your opponent plays. Usually you'll want to play magus on turn2. But be careful because wasteland is a huge threat to this kind of hands. I'm really unsure of what I would do.7) Tomb, SSG, MotM, RPD, Trinisphere, CotV, Blood Moon
I get this quite often; in general number 7 is basically a hand that nails you a three-drop turn one, but leaves you at two mana turn 2 (if you drop trinisphere), or more often: at one mana if you drop MotM or Blood Moon as they turn the
just a quick question, and keep in mind i haven't read every single post in this thread so if the answer is somewhere here already just point me to the relevant post.
Are we sure that zero is the correct number of fetch lands to play in this deck? I've seen many DS lists and never a single fetch land.
I think zero is the right number. Thereīs no sense of fetchlands in DS. You lose one life. Yeah, sounds great. Especially in addition to the lifeloss of the tombs. You donīt gain any advantage of shuffling your deck and you donīt splash any colours. So, what is the sense of fetchlands in DS?
this deck is 61 cards.
*********
I think that we don't need fetchlands, 10 mountains are very few and if we topdeck a land we can drop it and mantain hellbent even if mana is low (as sometimes is, when we used up our SSG or seething songs)
Flametongue Kavu is bad:
Killed by a Mongoose and must be played after an opponent plays a creature.
we want to LOCK our opponent, so we hope he does not have any creature on board.
If you want to test some stuff,
try Pyrokinesis, Char or Fireblast.
Excuse my errors, English is not my native language. I'm Italian.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
playing fetchlands, even when you don't need access to more than one color, still thins your deck and increases your threat density thereby improving your draws - the only real reason not to play any at all is if you actually want to draw lands in the mid to late game (yes, there is life-loss as well but one point is hardly relevant).
I guess this means the question really is how often do you find yourself actually wanting to topdeck lands? I've never played this deck outside of a testing session.
first time poster.
i been playing w/ dstompy and proxying the mauler in.
My thoughts:
Taurean Mauler is really solid if you can get out first turn on the play
(SSG/Tomb/Traitors, however you get him out)
Opponents have to deal with him early on it just grows out of hand. Had it up to 6/6 and so forth.
The mauler is relateivly weaker in the late game. usually not as a strong impact in the long game. My take is that mauler is good early and average mid-game.
My fave decks to run:
Death & Taxes
Aggro Loam
Mono Blue Control
Enchantress
Maveric78f I quote: "You should play it like an aggroish Stax" which is how you said you'd play Dragon Stompy.
I've heard other people disagree on this, saying Dragon Stompy is thé most aggressive deck in the format right now, and should be played as such.
There has already been, however, a warning on posts about the deck's archetype, so I will leave it at that.
However I do want to ask to the players who seem to play this deck very aggressively (like Tacosnape if I'm not mistaken), how they would play hand like:
2) Tomb, Mountain, SSG, Raiders, Raiders, Seething Song, Mox, along with other hands that sport several threats (exluding MotM) but no locks.
Maveric78f: Comparing hand 1 to 3, you keep hand 1 with the option of hardcasting SSG as a 2/2, but mulligan hand 3. If I understand correctly, you consider Chalice of the Void a powerful turn 1 drop if backed up by a threat turn 2, but can a SSG be considered a threat in this situation?
Chances are, you draw a red source; and can go for the MotM/Jitte equip with hand 3. What's the difference that makes you keep hand 1, and mulligan hand 3?
Hand 5: My first thought was also that turn 1 MotM is better than turn one RPD anyday. So in this situation you would wait for a red source, agreed
Hand 7 is, in my opinion, one of those really difficult ones. It can go explosive if the topdeck works for you, but you could be completely screwed over if it doesn't. A lot of times it's quite difficult to decide if turn 1 MotM/Blood Moon is worth cutting yourself out of the mana. Perhaps the right way to go is indeed Chalice for 1 turn one, so that you get at least one topdeck to shoot for three mana at least once without using SSG.
With this specific hand I would probably go for turn 1 Trinisphere (and pray the opponent doesn't have Wasteland) to buy myself some time to topdeck that Mountain or Mox, instead of CotV 1. Turn 1 MotM would be the way to go I guess if you know you're playing an opponent who can't handle it (like Fetch-reliant decks, Landstill, Threshold most of the time).
Hand 7 is also a strange hand, being the only one that gives you acces to any of your locks turn 1. Be it Trini, Moon or Chalice. How do you decide which one you play first, if you don't know what your opponent is running?
Hand 7 becomes even more difficult if you get it on a mulligan and you don't have Chalice or Trinisphere. Meaning, you get the same mana-problem situation but with a Lockpiece less.
How do you guys handle situations like this?
What's the most powerful lockpiece when you're up against John Doe?
On the play, I'd have to go with Trinisphere unless you're facing another Dragon Stompy deck. While Chalice and Moons are stronger, if you're facing DS, Deadguy Ale or another deck packing high disruption with basics those cards come up dead. Chalice for 1 is usually a good play, BUT a Trinisphere will almost always give you time to create a game plan.
1. Probably keep on the play, maybe or maybe not on the draw. Your opening play is Mountain, Mox-imprinting-Song, Chalice for 1. Hold back the SSG and the Moon, as you don't know what the correct thing to imprint is yet. Keeping either the Threat or the Moon back for a turn may help you win the game.(I know it depends on what you're playing against but just try to consider these hands in general)
1) CotV, Mountain, SSG, Mox, Mox, Blood Moon, Seething Song
This hand offers a powerful lock early game, but lacks in threats
2) Tomb, Mountain, SSG, Raiders, Raiders, Seething Song, Mox
This hand offers threats and pressure early game, but has difficulty enabling Hellbent (unless you want to waste the cards in your hand). It lacks in locks, and a deck with removal might take advantage of this fact.
3) Tomb, City, RPD, Seething Song, CotV, MotM, Jitte
This hand is pretty powerful if you draw a red source. Do you wait and hope to draw that red source, as you have eighteen in your deck, and have not yet drawn a single one?
4) Mox, Mox, MotM, Blood Moon, Mountain, SSG, Trinisphere
This hand might be worth playing, but how much of your hand do you want to contribute to speed? Turn one Magus, Moon or Trinisphere is doable, but eats up a lot of your hand. How to play this? Mountain --> go?
Also: if you do not know what your opponent is playing, do you drop turn1 Blood Moon or turn 1 Magus?
5) Mountain, Mox, SSG, Slogger, RPD, MotM, SSG
This is a similar example; it offers an explosive start at the cost of almost your entire hand. Without a
Do you drop turn one MotM or turn one RPD? Dropping MotM means cutting yourself out of turn 2 RPD.
Consider this hand if it were:
6) Mountain, Mox, SSG, Slogger, RPD, MotM, CotV
Would that change it?
And finally:
7) Tomb, SSG, MotM, RPD, Trinisphere, CotV, Blood Moon
I get this quite often; in general number 7 is basically a hand that nails you a three-drop turn one, but leaves you at two mana turn 2 (if you drop trinisphere), or more often: at one mana if you drop MotM or Blood Moon as they turn the
2. Keep every time. This is a fantastic hand. Lead with Tomb, Mox-Imprinting-Song, Raiders. You should be able to drop the second Raiders and go Hellbent next turn.
3. Eh. Hands without red aren't generally good, but if you draw one Source, the Magus can fix that. You do have the Chal-1 play, but you don't have any morph guys to function off colorless, so I'd only keep this if I knew that Chalice-1 would be very devastating and they couldn't stop it.
4. Hands like this are why I -hate- Trinisphere. You're basically forced to go the Trinisphere route if you keep this hand, leading Mountain, Moxes imprinting SSG and Blood Moon, Trinisphere. Second turn is the Magus, and hope you're playing against something that only has Force/Daze as an answer to Magus.
5. If you keep this, and I probably would because it's better than a random six, you have to risk the big assault, because you don't have enough permanent mana sources to afford to slow-play it. Imprint the Slogger on the Mox, power your way into the Dragon, and hope for the best. If your Dragon gets stopped, you can always topdeck a land or SSG and get your Magus out the next turn, so all isn't lost.
6. This is a completely different hand from 5. Five is Rakdos Pit Dragon combo. Six is a disruption hand. Again, imprint the Slogger on the Mox, but this time lead with Chal-1. Next turn, if you don't get a land, you can SSG into the Magus if you have to. If you -do- get a land, you can drop the Dragon, followed by the Magus the next turn, and you're in pretty good shape.
7. Toss it, period. It sucks on the play, and you scoop if they Thoughtseize your SSG on the draw.
In short, keep 2, 4, 5, and 6. Ditch 3 and 7. On 1, use what information you have to make the decision.
You have to know your metagame... but in a more generic, but serious tournament, where you're expecting like 40% of the decks to be Thresh variants, the Blood Moons become critical if your opponent doesn't know what you are playing. Game 1, when your deck is as much a question mark as theirs, they will look at their hands with no consideration of fetchlands becoming negated by a quick Blood Moon... save the mirror match, burn, or Goblins. They may end up fetching non-basics, only further entrenching them before you play the Blood Moon. If you don't have a turn 1 play, I'd rather drop a mountain than an Ancient Tomb to conceal what deck type. 1 Red with no immediate drop can mean any number of things, but an ancient tomb really makes your opponent zero in on deck types and prepare for them.
However, if I do not know what my opponent plays, I'd rather drop down the Chalice for 1 ASAP, being as it protects against the most prevalent forms of active removal and is somewhat of an orim's chant against many a deck. Rather than going for the 'absolute win' against certain decks with Blood Moon, Chalice for 1 buys you time against almost every deck save mirror matches... as it prevents, for example:
Swords to Plowshares
Lightning Bolt
Duress
Thoughtseize
Extirpate
Cabal Therapy
Aether Vial
Goblin Lackey
Mogg Fanatic
Careful Study
Rite of Flame
Dark Ritual
Nimble Mongoose
Manabond
Exploration
Brainstorm
Pithing Needle
Phyrexian Dreadnought
Berserk
Hardly. Although there is a slight better chance to draw threats, it's minimal and doesn't justify fetchlands in this deck.
Source
Playing fetchlands also opens you up to cards like Stifle and Suppression Field, as well as lowers your life total in a deck that can easily deal 6-8+ damage to itself and has to still be relied upon to win a damage race. Bad idea.
What do you think of burn spells like Fireblast and Char?
can they be used as finishers or to control the board removing serendib efreet, tarmos and jotun grunt or they are just useless in this deck?
I just wanted to think about a red card to be used as a threat and I thought "ok maybe a non creature spell is fine too".
Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe after testing some burns they'll shine more that akroma / sulfur (or silly mauler)
Another card worth testing: Jaya ballard.
We can use it to eliminate counterbalance or a standstill, we can burn our opponent and she just help us going hellbent in zero time, even if we have 1 land and 1 mox.
I think she deserves a test, maybe replacing sulfur elemental.
Only problem: casting cost.
Excuse my errors, English is not my native language. I'm Italian.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
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