Survival itself wasn't the entire reason for clunky draws, it was moreso on Squee, Anger, and to a lesser extent Viridian Zealot (just a weak creature despite lord buffs). Opening a hand with either of those red cards essentially turned it into a mulligan, and they were terrible topdecks. Running only 1-2 of Survival won't really add much to the deck as you still need to add the additional red cards to supplement it, and it won't be consistent enough to have much of an impact. Worse of all, with only 2 Survival you'd have fewer outs to do anything with a drawn Squee or Anger, which was the issue in the first place. Right now it just doesn't offer anything that we don't already have to improve our bad matchups, so it isn't worth running.Originally Posted by Valtrix
Elvish Champion is easily the weakest lord in the deck, no argument there. Forestwalk is decent but isn't gamebreaking compared to the abilities of the other two. I myself went down to 3 in favor of the 8th Llanowar Elf as I wanted more consistent turn 1 accelerants, and I've been liking it a lot. Wren's Run Packmaster is a solid replacement as well. It can be a bit slow because of its high casting cost and occasionally be a bad topdeck, but I can contest that it's amazing at virtually all aspects of the game. I'm a bit wary to run them as I've been trying to keep the curve as low as possible and these are more expensive than their replacements, but it's a solid card, much better than Vanquisher imo.
Your analysis on the weakness of Survival is also echoes my statements pretty much verbatim on the subject. I found it to be great in matchups that were in my favor or I was already winning, but in the tough, fast matchups it was far too slow to make an impact, thus I cut it in favor of a much faster, more aggressive card engine, and the deck's worked much, much better as a result.
The issue with mulligans and keeping potentially risky hands comes down to experience with the deck. It's just a matter of testing the deck enough to be aware of what you can do in certain situations, such as open a one-land hand, or open a hand without a turn one play, and calculate odds on what you can draw to help the situation out within the next 1-2 turns. If it isn't in your favor, then it's probably best to ship it back. Just play with the deck more and more to figure out exactly what to do in these situations, and it'll eventually come natural to you.
The Wren's Run Packmaster concern with CC is an issue I've mentioned a bit without it even in the deck. The deck can occasionally open a hand clogged with lords, Messengers, and Orders and be forced to ship it back because it won't have a turn 1-2 play. Adding another expensive threat can potentially add to this problem, but testing the deck a bit more will tell us what we can do. However I will add that in a build featuring Packmaster, I'd be inclined to add another mana source or two to make up for the additional weight in casting cost.
Chalice of the Void can be an issue, but it is really only strong against you if it's @ 1 on turn 1 when they're on the play. If they get it down before you have a turn 1 mana elf, then it could be an issue, but if you have one down before that, then you'll be ok because you can still hit 3 mana by turn 2. Otherwise, it can only be an issue if you happen to have a hand cluttered with 1cc cards, which can happen given 1/3 of the deck is them, but the important thing is that you still have access to 3cc. As long as you hit 3cc against a Chalice deck, you're in good hands. Plus if it's that big of an issue, you can always sideboard Krosan Grip to help deal with it.
Regarding my list changes, the only maindeck change I've really worked on and like is +1 Llanowar Elves -1 Elvish Champion. It frees up some of the lord-clogged hands, while giving me more consistent turn 1 elves. The power decrease from losing that elf is really minimal though, so it isn't something to worry about. The sideboard, as always, is still in a state of flux. It's changing around to tailor what I predict the metagame to be like, so I don't really have any comments regarding that.
I've been going through the different scenarios in my head over and over... Yet I come to the same reasoning... Either you go with 12 lords and hope that something sticks so that you can swarm them, which is very unlikley if you play against a good player or especially decks like Tempothresh or Zoo (I never been able to swarm a good tempothresh player or a good Zoo player). Tempothresh only has to concentrate the counters towards Priests and Archdruid, this holds your mana generation back and you won't be able to cast more than a creature a turn if you're lucky. I've been in situations where I'm at two lands (after been wasted/stifled) and have two llanowar/fyndhorn out... This is very shaky since all they have to do is get a bolt or fire//ice to cut you back on mana even more. Don't talk about Zoo that has the upper hand against this deck due to the fact that they pack bolts, meanwhile the elf deck has no removal what so ever. If you would be able to resolve a packmaster against Zoo, you can take down their creatures one by one and even put your mana into pumping out wolves. You have to be careful though and not missplay here since it's crucial to survive.
That's why I feel that the packmaster is more appealing to me rather than playing the 11th and 12th lord, since they often don't matter in the matchups I desperatly need to win. I know that Packmaster requires other creatures in play, but that's hardly a problem when playing elves. You will most likely have a llanowar elf or something against the problemdecks, then I rather topdeck a packmaster than a champion.
And besides, we need something to spend our mana on when we can't recur or do our shinnanigans with Sylvan Messenger. I rather make wolves to chump/attack with than just sit there and wait for Sylvan Messenger to stick or to be topdecked.
Just want to let you guys know that I will try my list out on a online tournament. The list I will be running will be:
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Savannah
3 Bayou
3 Wasteland
4 Forest
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Imperious Perfect
2 Elvish Champion
4 Sylvan Messenger
1 Progenitus
2 Wren's Run Packmaster
4 Natural Order
4 Cabal Therapy
SB:
3 Absolute Law
4 Krosan Grip
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Woodfall Primus
3 Choke
1 Acidic Slime
I will report my results and thoughts, although the tournament is an elimination tournament. So I hope I'll do good. I expect to be up against a lot of bluebased tempodecks, Countertop and Zoo aswell. They are quite popular in my meta.
There might be some ANT or TEES decks but I'll hope that I don't have to face them.
Now I get to try out the Packmaster and see if it fits. Might bring it down to 1 if it clogs up too much and add a fourth Fyndhorn.
I've been thinking all night of how to add more sources of mana (lands), but it's difficult to touch the list. Might have to go up to 19 lands since the addition of packmasters?
I dunno... I will get back to you.
I would cut at least one packmaster for another Champion.
Team Unicorn: We're horny...get it?
Due to workrelated issues, I had to turn down the tournament...
Although I will test the same list on MWS on friday/saturday and will come with the results from that. I'll be playing against a wide variety of decks and hopefully get some good statistics to report.
With the Survivalless version, I've been messing around with Bramblewood Paragon and playing Wren's Run Vanquishers (I even experimented around with Talara's Batallion).
Paragon has been interesting so far - it's almost like another lord out with Imperious Perfect and Vanquishers, but the nice thing is that the guys it boosted keep their pumps even if they kill the Paragon.
I tested the paragon as well and ended up cutting him. On its own is just pretty weak and the deck does not run enough warriors to be able to give it a proper boost. Only advantage is the mana cost of 2.
Just dropped out of a tourney (30 ppls), my limited report:
I played Di's list with +1 llanowar and -1 champion (as he does/did), however, i played another 3 forests instead of the wastelands (i found myself to manascrewed sometimes and the wastelands never made me win a game that i would have otherwise lost).
SB something like:
3 krosan grip
3 tsunami
3 absolute law
1 teeg
1 loaming shaman
2 jitte
2 progenitus graveyard hate (cannot get the name atm ...)
1st opponent, a friend of mine who playes merfolk, we are already laughing that i will win this game.
game 1: i do not go very hard and by turn 3/4 he has 3 lords and wakethrasher and pounds me
game2: I go crazy with messenger bounces and lots of mana and he scoops
game3: i see 2 tsunami's, nothing much else (neither does he) but he has a waketrasher that eventually kills me ...
2nd opponent: enchantress (yesterday i was thinking about siding 1 simic skyswallower for this matchup, but in the end, didn't because i didn't think i would run into it ...) there was 1 enchantress deck so it was my luck
game 1: i cabal therapy him, see nothing special, beat him to 10 or something and then he drops moat ... scoop
game 2: i open with a good hand including a krosan grip. he tutors for a drop of honey which he plays on his 2nd turn. i go rather fast and beat him to 11, in his fourth turn he fetches to 10 and casts moat. in my turn I grip the moat and beat him to 1, in his turn he plays his second moat (he only played 2 and got them both in his opening hand...)
I cannot find a grip the next turn, and he gives all his enchantments shroud ... good game ...
next round i get a bye and go home ...
all in all, i was rather happy with the deck. in my opinion, the 3 extra forests provide more consistency
changes to the deck: main: nothing much
side: +1 simic skyswallower, +1 tsunami, +1 absolute law
Yeah man, Champion sucks so much, I hate playing it against Thresh, its so win-more. Having your dudes pumped out of Fire/Ice range, and become unblockable isnt gamebreaking at all.
Does your meta really not consist of atleast 50% Thresh?
No. However, if you're honestly worried about sitting across from a deck with 8 creatures with your 30 creature, 11-12 lord, 4 Natural Order deck then maybe you're just doing something wrong. I'll at least let your sarcasm be dully noted.
You're an aggressive deck; aggro-control strategies are easy for you to prey on because you swarm them very quickly. Just because forestwalk is great against Threshold doesn't make it any better compared to the other lords. Imperious Perfect is the strongest card in the deck besides Natural Order. It's token-generating ability is by far the most useful of the lords because it creates an army by itself, and with a Ranger or Symbiote it gets insane. Archdruid increases the speed and consistency of the deck and puts the deck over the top if you're able to untap with it in play on turn 2-3. Compare that to Elvish Champion, with the ability that is limited to being good in selective matchups. I'm not going to denounce Elvish Champion as bad because it's still an amazing card, but it isn't amazing in every matchup where the other two retain their full potential. As far as cutting down the number of lords go, I'd cut it before the others for that reason alone.
Why are you running a second Natural Order target? And why the heck is Simic Sky Swallower better than a second Progenitus?
"Casual sex, NO Touching/Licking/Sucking/Groping/Fondling/Riding/Tickling/Binding/Quitters/Italians. Play Fast, Be Polite, Have Fun."
Sure as hell sounds like fun.
Moat?
Without a flyer, moat is game ... (especially if it gets shroud ...)
That's why I think Empyrial Archangel is better since it comes in against Zoo aswell, which is better than Simic Skyswallower imo...
Empyrial + Absolute law makes all bolts to the dome worthless and combined with Wirewood Symbiote/Quirion Rangers, you can block the goyfs all day long while you swing with your team for the win.
yeah, i'm still doubting between skyswallower and archangel.
For the enchantress matchup, i guess the skyswallower is better, for zoo/gobo's, archangel is indeed better, so i figure in my meta, archangel is indeed the better choice ;-)
Just to note - you can't actually untap the Empyrial Archangel with Wirewood Symbiote/Quirion Rangers due to its shroud.
Wasn't implying that you untap the Archangel with the symbiote nor ranger. Was implying that you could block the goyfs with Symbiote/Ranger shinnanigans at the same time that you have prot. red and Archangel on your side which makes most creatures in Zoo, Aggro Loam etc. not that scary.
If you have to worry about moats in your meta, why don't you try to play a couple of zealots?
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Oh ok. How do you block Goyfs all day with a Ranger though? I understand Symbiotes bouncing elves, but Ranger?
Untap a token, chump. Ofc you need to have made tokens before. But we always talk hypothetical.
Ok, you left the Perfect out of your previous post, which was the source of the confusion. :)
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