I would imagine its not that easy for people to get iona in play against the Gate. he already said he is crushing reanimator in testing. If they go for the graveyard route then they can't stop faerie macabre and he's running 3 of them. Most decks don't run show and tell maindeck either, I don't even know how many really use show and tell.
Here's my current list:Originally Posted by Teumie
// Lands
16 [A] Swamp
4 [TE] Wasteland
2 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
// Creatures
4 [WWK] Abyssal Persecutor
4 [ZEN] Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
3 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
4 [ZEN] Vampire Nighthawk
// Spells
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
3 [CS] Deathmark
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [US] Duress
2 [MOR] Bitterblossom
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [WL] Spinning Darkness
SB: 3 [B] Nevinyrral's Disk
SB: 4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach
SB: 3 [ZEN] Sadistic Sacrament
I think the better question is, what does my opponent do when Iona gets exiled with a Faerie Macabre out of the blue or a Bojuka Bog following up a Careful Study? Or better yet, how about dropping a Vampire Nighthawk before it even hits play? This is all Game One Theory. When you evaluate the list, you'll notice the deck has a very good match against Reanimator in the first game. I also previously mentioned that I tested against konsultant and won a vast majority of pre-board matches. The surprise factor of Macabre in the first game can just flat-out win you the game.
Game two, I have Relics, Disk, and Sacraments to supplement my Faeries and Bogs. Disk is just amazing and as we all know it is a high probability that the Reanimator player will bring in Show and Tell games two and three, making it even that much better. I've also considered Arena of the Ancients.
Again, in my opinion, white adds nothing to the table anymore than Swords and maybe some miscellaneous artifact or enchantment spot-removal. This is really irrelevant when you consider the hate you already have for creatures anyways. Is Deathmark situational? Sure. But you also have to think to yourself and rationalize that there are dead cards sometimes in certain match-ups with just about every deck you could think of (barring combo, perhaps). I like Deathmark and it works for me. It eliminates a vast majority of problematic creatures in the format without having to commit to a second color (which is really all you'd need it for anyways; this isn't "Deadguy Ale").
Have you considered running Recurring Nightmare?
Its card advantage is pretty good, and I'm thinking... say you have Abyssal Persecutor out and crush your opponent's life to 0, you could use it to sac him and bring back, say Macambre or one of your creatures ftw for when Therapy isn't present. Or do you think innocent blood & therapy are enough atm
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
I think the problem with Recurring Nightmare is that it is not so strong in most of the other cases. In a regular game situation the other creaures are not really worth getting sac. for something other then Abyssal Persecutor, who happens to almost never be in the grave.
I have been playing the Gate (just copied Hollywoods list) but now I will drop the two bitterblossom for a pair of Bloodghast.
Once I was in topdeck mode it's a pain to wait for a creature that you can attach to jitte and only getting swamps or wastelands.
I know he cant block and it makes him a bit weaker but he is much nicer to sac. He's a reappearing guest who trades with innocent blood for other creatures. I love drawing lands in the Midgame with him.
(Maybe I just wanted to get rid of bitterblosson after I lost two games for a bunch of 1/1 flyers who didn't inflict much damage)
Since I Love Black I Had Been Waiting For A Deck Like The Gate !
This. For some reason, ever since my Necropotence deck of yore, playing mono-black has always made me feel like a pimp.
On an actual content note related to what you're bringing up, I can see Bloodghast being ok potentially. It still seems a little lackluster though, compared to Bitterblossom.
I still haven't gotten around to testing, but it seems that Bitterblossom might not be as good as it seems in this deck?? It looks like an amazing card on paper to me, since it gives non-stop chump-blockers, it gives a little bit of a clock on its own, and it's sexy with Jitte. But is the life loss too much of an issue? Has it just not been pulling weight for y'all? If so, I feel like there has to be some sort of mono-black bomb that we haven't thought of yet that could take that slot...
For example, do y'all think Big Game Hunter is garbage in this deck, or might he be worth a shot? That's the only obscure black card I can think of off the top of my head that seems playable, but I'm sure there are oodles more.
(EDIT: /rant) Blargh... I can't wait to start testing this deck. I'm thinking about buying the cards I'm missing, because I have most everything besides Persecutor and Blossoms. Just need to take it for a few test spins before I purchase, if you know what I mean. I gotta call my computer-savvy buddy and convince him he wants to make MWS work on my Macbook.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Follow what this guy says in his blog. It worked for me (there's a couple bugs, it crashes sometimes, but I can generally get matches in at least 90% of the time I try). I had a couple issues setting it up but I eventually figured it out:
http://richshay.com/posts/70
nice thanks man. i saw your post before actually, but i've been too lazy to fuck with it... until now! i'm gonna take a crack at it, and if that shit works, i'm testing this deck. Lol
EDIT: I know this isn't really the thread for this, but since there's someone in here trying to help me out...
Apparently Darwine is no longer available, so I downloaded some thing called Wine Bottler that it linked me to...?
I'm trying to follow the steps in that dude's blog, but it makes no sense to me so far. I'm trying to install the fonts and rendering packages, and Wine keeps giving me an error that I don't even begin to understand because that's not my parlance at all. Help anyone?
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Same thing that happened with me. I had to search on google for Darwine and found it somewhere. I'm not exactly sure the steps I took to do it, but it roughly followed his post once you find Darwine on another source. Winebottler was more than useless to me.
It should work for a Macbook. I have a Macbook Pro, so I don't know if that makes a difference, but I tried to get it to work on my friend's Powerbook G4 and I couldn't do it for the life of me, and I don't know why.
"Wine" stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator," because it isn't. It is a native code translation layer. It cannot translate x86 -> PowerPC code. All varieties Macbooks have Intel processors, but the old Powerbooks have PPC.
(sorry for offtopic)
Update: So I (sorta) got MWS to work with Wine Bottler. Not really though. I'm as far as being able to open it successfully with the Wine client (or something like that), but the only way for me to successfully open the program is to have Wine reinstall it each time I want to open it. So I can't load the card info/ pictures databases, because there's no way I can figure out to open the same copy of the MWS program twice.
I'm gonna see if I can find this Darwine thing. If you still have a link or something, it'd be helpful.
Sorry to waylay the thread with all this bullshit. I'll switch to sending you PM's after this post, if I still need help. Thanks, by the way.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Okay, my newest rant: Bojouku Bog
I'm running two in a deck much similar to this one. I finished a tourny today, I did well, but that's not really the point.. I literally found the card not useful in all my particular matchups.
Now, none the decks were of the Dredge, Aggro Loam, Stax type.. but it was BOTHERING me. Just about every time it came up early or opening hand I'd hold off as long as I can and end up having to drop it on turn3 or something, too early to be useful even if it mattered. It too often set me back not being able to play that 3cc spell or 2cc/1cc play I wanted.
I'll probably be taking it out, or SB at best. I think it's a misconception that it "shrinks goyf" (possibly shrinks it by 1, for a turn maybe) since you also have to factor your gy, and reanimator is unphased, it can drop a creature and reanimate it one motion np. I think it's unpredictability of when it shows up and slowness outshine its benefits from when I used it.
I think the thing to consider is "randomly good" can also be "randomly bad" much of the time.
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
I've had a little doubt about Bog or no Bog myself. I really like Faerie Macabre, since you can use its ability for free and at instant speed, and it's a mediocre creature if you don't need grave hate. On the other hand, Bog is just a CIPT swamp that bites it to Wasteland, and sorcery speed can be important. I'm just theory-crafting here, but I'd like to hear some feedback from more folks who've been testing on how Bojuka Bog has been for them, because I'm a little dubious.
Honestly, I think Volrath's Stronghold could be good in Bog's slot. There's also Phyrexian Tower as an additional outlet to sacrifice Persecutor, but this is probably just too cute since the deck doesn't have much need for a conditional tap-for-, and its normal ability produces colorless mana unfortunately.
Seriously though what's with no one running Stronghold?
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
I run as a 1-of in a Mono Black Stax deck. I wouldn't consider playing more than one in a deck like this at most; you have to consider the mana costs in the cards like Hymn & Gatekeeper, which could potentially set you a turn back. What is one turn, though.. sometimes winning/losing unfortunately :/
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
Obviously Stronghold is a one-of card, unless your whole deck is based around it (and obviously such a deck would suck.) It's a late-game card though, and it's pretty awesome at winning attrition wars. I don't see what harm it could do as a one-of if people were to cut Bojuka Bog or move it to the sideboard. And I can see how it would be awesome, since Nighthawk, Gatekeeper, and Dark Confidant are all pretty good creatures to be able to recur. As is, I don't think the deck needs more than six non-basics, but I'm wondering how good Bog actually is in a deck that can't search for it as an instant (ie Crop Rotation or Knight of the Reliquary.)
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
What happens if you just don't draw Faerie Macabre against Reanimator and they're on the Iona plan? You'll see it something less than 50% of your games.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Seeing as how very few (if any) decks in the format currently run some aspect of unstoppable graveyard hate main-deck, running three Macabres and two Bogs is still effective enough game one that if I draw either, they could potentially win me the game.
Running Duress is also big because it can help stall a turn or two and nail a key spell from their hand. In fact, it isn't even stalling; I can just drop creatures the next few turns and go beatdown. There are some other variables involved such as who is on the play, what turn it is, etc. Being realistic, I have a decent opportunity to stun an opponent with uncounterable graveyard removal game one, which is more than a lot of other decks can say. Now granted, I am playing a single color, but Iona herself can simply shut off white and more often than not that is just as effective as naming "black" against me; it would just win them the game like it would if they named "white" against the opponent with two Swords or Paths in hand.
We'll see it in <50% of our matchups? Seems a little excessive, I dunno if that many players run survival or reanimators, especially based on budget. And of those, Iona is generally a 1-of, maybe 2, your chances of accidently having them discard it are slim. And what does Bog do in either of those matchups? Very little. If your opponent gets survival out, in one scenarion, he will most likely survival at the end of your turn not giving you the chance to bog anything pertinent unless he's an idiot, then loyal retainers and go off on his turn. Reanimator is much the same. Faerie is good in those situations, Bog is slow and clumsy like a volcanic hammer. :P
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
I'm pretty sure he meant that we would draw the card in <50% of our games.
Ah, my mistake with the interpretationI thought "it" was referring to Iona
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
Just bumped across this little gem. Lolz.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
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