@mercs
Was Fortune Thief really that good for you?
yeah, I am also interested a lot...
Tested her around 1 - 1 1/2 years ago, with 4 Gathans, 1 RAkroma and 2 Thiefes, but has kicked them after 1 week, because they were too bad, imo
maybe she is better nowadays?
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
Kenjawn, Mutator of Cells
:16:- (See, now Erratic Explosion's a deck)
Legendary Creature - Horror
Haste, Hexproof, Double Strike, Trample
Kenjawn, Mutator of Cells is indestructible.
Permanents you control can't be sacrificed or copied.
Whenever Kenjawn, Mutator of Cells attacks, defending player gets liver cancer (This effect doesn't end at end of turn.)
13/13
I definitely agree. Periodically I would give fortune thief a try with very disappointing results. 1-2 years ago, the big decks were things like:
Can thresh, Zoo, Tempo faerie (in my area at least), Stax, ANT, Eva Green, and Dredge
But for me, the meta has changed quite a bit. most decks can't handle massive problems from vengevine, emrakul, and jace, merfolk has emerged as the premiere deck simply bc of it's well rounded aggro and control.
The meta now in my area has become filled with merfolk, ug survival madness, oozevival vengevine, and landstill.
With the majority of the strongest preformers playing the first two, fortune thief just made sense to me as a great option to tech them with.
Am I going to say that fortune thief single handedly made me undefeated in swiss yesterday? Definitely not. I was lucky and my sb was very good to me. Moreover, every guy i faced was a top8 guy from a previous tournie, so I've already prepped for their decklists for a while now. What I did was a meta tech that doesn't have to be duplicated. It didn't win me every game, but on 3-4 of them, fortune thief massively turned the corner or secured a good safety net i needed to make more aggressive plays. Plus, it played as bait a lot.
What's the problem with Survival decks? These types of decks are not as strong as you think...because Moon effects disrupt it easy... The players wich piloting it just spent one or two times to activate Survival and when they have in table avaiable lands (i mean basics)... Moreover we can board Needles, but IMO Moon effect is the best way to beat
As I said earlier Merfolks and Goblins is a little more difficult to handle... Doesn't matter haw many Slogger we have.... Slogger's ability can be activated only four times... open our way a little...while the opponent play again creatures and more creatures....
Survival is bad because if we don't have moon, or moon gets countered (G/U), or destroyed, or they get basics/heirarchs, or they get one turn with it before we get moon (yes, that is a lot of ors) we are not going to win. Post board we may get needles as well, but they will also bring in hate on a stick. While we can mull aggressively for needle - a bad idea - they have 8 tutors for their hate pieces.
Red Wizard needs food badly!
Yes, moons are good, but if u let them open up one forest, they will bring out elves and birds to power out what they need. Also, they only need one green source to power out 3 vengevine with LED. In the end, the most powerful play u can do is a 1st turn moon, but if u don't get it, dropping moons isn't too strong anymore.
Against ooze list, the moons are much stronger.
Against madness list, the moons are noticeably weaker.
To be honest, I'm not sure what your post is arguing for. If you like your survival matchup, that's good. If you don't like your merfolk matchup, I just beat 3 merfolk in the mox tournament yesterday, so if u wanna read my list and what i did, u can (posted yesterday). Right now, your arguing what i shouldn't do/think, so it's not that constructive. I'm standing firm on not removing my sloggers right now, so let's not bring up the old "slogger/no slogger" debate. It just ends with ppl doing what they prefer.
I really enjoyed your list! Very nice :D Congrats!!
I see your point and I agree with you. My point is:
Yes, run Arc-Slogger. It is good, but not the right answer or the amazing weapon. Actually we have no option nowadays. I like it, but imo I like to run also a cople of Firespouts.
Against Survivals: yes, Hierachs sucks... :( I forgot... Qsalis can destroy our Pithings...and still isn't the right piece to shut down Survival...just delay it a little...
Can anyone suggest something against Survival much more agressive? I believe the meta nowdays is face G/W decks :S (Wizards...please ban Vengevine lol)
Or we could say: Wizards, please take some time from the arduous task of making Planeswalkers, and give red some love. =(
The VengeSurvival MU is definitely annoying. My meta is swarming with Aggro decks, so I've had to alter my SB to suit my meta. Currently I'm running:
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyroblast
3 Pithing Needle
3 Flametongue Kavu
4 Pyrokinesis
How I see it, one of the deck's biggest weakenesses is that we have no targeted removal. Sure, in an ideal world we'd get a Chalice @ 1/2 and a Trinisphere by T3, but in reality there are quite a few annoying creatures which we can't always match with ours (Esp. in MU like Veng and Merfolk), so I've tailored my SB more to dealing with creature-heavy decks. I'd like to run more Relics, but the Pyroblast help me deal with Jace 2.0 (They don't even need to Fateseal; Unsummon just ruins our day). The Kavu's are definitely a favorite of mine to use, however the 3R can be annoying on ocassion, and it's important to remember when playing him that his ability is not a "may," effect, so only drop him if the opponent has a creasture.
I've long since removed the Slogger as I felt he was A) Primarily being cast via Seething Song and B) Forcing me to choose between either casting a spell or keeping mana open to shock if needed. True, his ability has always helped closed up that last 6-8 damage nicely, but at the same time I don't always have the extra mana to spare to cast him, and until I get a song or it's 6-8+ turns down the line, I don't exactly have the ability to cast him, nor do I always choose to since I opt for Rakdos/Gathan or a lock piece over Slogger when I draw them.
The Thief is definitely something I'm going to have to consider as a 2-of in the deck (also testing Koth, although I'm not liking him too much right now).
I'm also currently testing out Lightning Dragon and Covetous Dragon. RPD is always a solid beater, but the fact that I have to invest so much mana to make him useful sometimes slows me down. I'm not too fond of Lightning as his echo cost is similarly annoying, but Covetous is testing nicely as a 2-3 of.
Forlorn Egoist
In defense of Fortune Thief, his metagame seemed to be made of Merfolk and UG Vengevine Survival. Fortune Thief is ridiculous against decks with limited removal. Or with decks that all their removal has the same CMC when you can Chalice.
That said. Fortune Thief? Really? I appreciate the Morphability of him, meaning he can at least still beat face and get out of your hand pretty nicely (And bluff into being a Gathan Raiders), but that still seems a little weak to me. Bizarre tech though.
Yea, I'm definitely not advocating everyone to start maindecking thiefs. My success with it came from the fact that 2 of the 3 last 50+ tournaments were full of merfolk, elf, elf survival, ug survival, and oozevival lists. I'm not hoping to do to Dragon Stompy what Saito did to merfolk. I'm just keeping some ideas allive in case someone finds themselves in a similar meta.
So if anyone's wondering, don't bring the thief's in if you got a lot of zoo, goblins, eva green, show and tell, tempo faeries, or even oozevival. :)
In general, I have a lot of dumb tech ideas, but i won't annoy this thread unless I've had a little success.
Ugh, just went to a tourney tonight and had one of those nights where I was proven yet again why no-one plays Dragon Stompy: it loses to absolute jank.
I went 1-3 tonight.
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
10 Mountain
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
4 Trinisphere
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Seething Song
3 Blood Moon
4 Taurean Mauler
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Rakdos Pit Dragon
4 Gathan Raiders
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pithing Needle
3 Pyroblast
3 Flametongue Kavu
4 Pyrokinesis
Game 1- Goblins
The deck itself was a standard Gobs list, however the person piloting it was a 10-year old kid who borrowed 1/2 the cards from his older bro. He had no SB. I lost G1 because I mulled to 5 and he got a Vial-->Lackey--->Instigator---->2 Piledrivers. I won game 2/3 w/o incident.
1-0
Game 2- B/W (Looks like Deadguy Ale from what I saw)
Round 1: I mull to 5. He T1---->Thoughtseize/Hymn (He saw a Tomb/Chalice/Simian/Seething and he assumed I was Belcher. lolz). I pass. He T2---->Dark Rit---->Nyxathid.
I sided out 7 Moon effects for 3 Kavu/4 Pyrokinesis
Round 2: I mull to 4, and keep the hand because I have no other choice. I T1 Mountain/RFG 2 Simian---->Trinisphere. I draw nothing for 2 turns. On T3 he casts Nyxathid. I lose.
1-1
Game 3- Fairies
No point in mentioning how I lost game 1. I mull to 5, got stuck on 2 lands.
I only know he was fairies cuz I saw him playing during my Gobo's match: - 7 Moon effects, -2 Trinisphere, -1 Mauler. +3 Pyroblast +3 Pithing Needle +4 Pyrokinesis
T1 I Chalice @1. He counters via Daze, I remove Simian, He FoW->FoW. T1 He drops a Hierarch. T2 I drop a 2nd Chalice @1, it resolves. He flashes in a Spellstutter EoT (so he could atk next turn). T3 he atks, it gets through, and he Ninjutsu's in the Ninja of Deep Scroll. He atks for 2-3 more turns before I manage to drop a Rakdos w/Jitte. He drops a Trygon, however I have 2 Counters on Jitte. Here's where I'm stupid. I have 2 Pyroblast/Pithing Needle on hand, but can't cast them. During declare attackers, I opt not to weaken Predator to 0 in hopes he'll destroy Chalice, because if he does then I can kill off Trygon/Ninja w/Pyroblast and then RPD will have Hellbent. He hits Jitte, then drops A goyf this turn + next turn. Yeah, that was smart of me. ><'
1-2
Round 3- Artifact jank
I won't describe the entire match because I'm too embarassed that I lost to a newb piloting a jank artifact deck. He was using Myrs/Urza lands (Tower/Power Plant, etc.) Nim Shrieker and other stuff that used to be bawler in Standard back in the Mirrodin block. He repeatedly tried to cast spells with Affinity/artifact lands and I had to keep reminding him their just mountains. Same deal with 3Sphere. He finally wins Game 1 due to Razarmane Masticore. I was stupid first game and asked: "you gunna keep it?" Forgetting, of course, that it is a MAY effect. Yeah, that was smart.
Game 2 was pretty much a repeat, only this time I didn't remind him of the Masticore and he lost it. Right when I was 2 attack away from killing him (had a RPD w/Jitte, 1 Gathans and a Magus AND I was Hellbent) he topdecks Myr Incubator and on his next turn gets 21 artifact tokens. I'm at 3.
1-3
Yeah, tonight made me very sad.
Some changes I plan to make:
Trinisphere is not something to run 4-of, and Blood Moon's, while amazing on T1, lose their value later in the game, particularly against aggro decks who are able to fetch basics or, in the case of Gobs, run very little nonbasics. Also I noticed how easily I got swarmed. My deck can handle 1 or 2 biggies no problem, but when there's 4 or 5 guys sitting on the field I'm left thinking: "Well, a whole lot of good this 1 5/5 Raider will do me." Also I've noticed time and time again how often Jitte has saved me from the brink of death, or enabled me to hold of an opponent until I can make a stronger board position. So, here are the current edits I'm planning to make:
-1 Trinisphere
-1 Blood Moon
-1 Taurean Mauler
+2 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
+1 Umezawa's Jitte
After tonights matches, I also have to say I'm loosing more and more love for RPD. Yes, Hellbent is amazing. However, in order to make him connect with an opponent I always have to reserve 2R, something which I rarely can spare, since each turn I'm trying to empty my hand of cards. So, I think I definitely will be playtesting other options in his slot. Still looking at Lightning Dragon/Covetous Dragon.
Forlorn Egoist
---Sorry to hear, there are some things I'd advise though. And yes, unfortunately, this deck does lose to jank quite often. :(
---Gj. Nothing much here to say.
---This deck doesn't actually sound like jank to me. And with it's good mu against merfolk, a lot of ppl are running BW, BG, and BGW, so don't worry. I'd board out magus, but I'd keep moons in personally. Moon's + ratchet bomb help a lot in this mu. Overall, it's a bad MU for us, so no shame in losing to it.
---One thing with DS, always remember to evenly distribute ur lands b4 u shuffle. Not sure if you do this or not, but mulling out is always a big problem. After a DS player faces a control deck, if he takes his permenents, clumps them together, and power shuffles (or even worse, simply rifles) it's guaranteed there will be large clumps. There's some math on it that I won't get into. So in the end, distribute, shuffle, and even ask ur opponent to shuffle. :P
---Sounds like a lot of misplays, but also, a little bit of mis-siding. I don't really suggest ever running playset chalices w/6 1cc boardded in. I'd run tormod's crypt or faerie macabre for the same reason. I know you don't like slogs, but in this matchup, he's pretty beastly. Still winnable w/o him though.
As for SB, it seems like ur main trible removal is pyrokinesis. Although good, I found Volcanic Fallout to be too invauable in this mu. They're focus is on major card advantage and elusiveness, so even trading w/ them sucks. Faeries is the only true reason I prefer VcF over firespout and pyroclasm. It's also good against EtW and that myr incubator situation u discuss later. All in all, at least some type of massive removal in the form of ratchet bomb, powder keg, firespout, or VcF is pretty vital.
One thing confused me though. You said G2 u chalice @1 on T1 and he dazes, then u ssg and he fow's. Did you actually choose to go on the draw for G2?
I won't get into the jank matchup except for the fact that your opponent is actually right on the affinity thing. Moon only changes the subtype of lands, not the supertype. Artifact lands will become artifact land-mountain. You can google a more in depth explanation if your not satisfied. In the end, I found the only way to beat jank is to avoid it. Win ur matches, and keep winning. If we're facing jank late in the rounds, we're probably not t8ing anyways right?
On the last notes, I agree with the Rakdos comment, that's why I go 3 of w/sloggers and akroma.
On Covetous, he's been heavily tested in earlier years with razormane masticore and was found not to be good enough, but things always change, so good luck with that.
On lightning dragon, In my testing, he was very underwhelming.
Finally, I noticed that your mana curve is actually really really low. Basically it's on par w/ consistency DS standards. If you wanna go with a low mana curve, I suggest subbing the seething songs for another threat.
I tried to touch on all the issues u talked about, but not sure if I got it all. Hope this helps
mercs
What you are suggesting is actually deck stacking (cheating). If "evenly distributing" lands before you shuffle is intended to somehow make your land draws more consistant (and lessening your deck randomisation), then that really isn't at all cricket. The purpose of shuffling is to achieve randomisation of your deck - stacking lands or 'mana weaving' should be un-needed if you are interested in genuine randomisation (as you should be - it's the rules), unless you intend to shuffle poorly/shifty.
Surprises me how many people still practice this.
My tips:
1) Learn to shuffle a deck is as important as learning to pilot it (I'm not saying necessarily this case your shuffles was bad)
2) Practice constantly against a lot of other decks do our thinking get better aways...
3) Learn board is very important too... And your mana curve is weird IMO. The other Dragons isn't a good choice. Slogger and RAkroma (compared with them) is MUCH better! Test all of them and you will see the results.
4) Aggro meta (merfolks, goblins, elfs...) is hard to handle with but is not a nightmare...however, we MUST to run Sloggers, Kavus and Kazuuls for now (because we have no options nowadays...).
5) I just didn't understand why u run Pyroblasts... a) Conflits with Chalice 1 and is good above all against control decks/ landstills and many others... (justly the favorable match decks for us IMO)
6) Try: -3 Pyroblast replacing for another stuff (Bombs, Akromas and even Anarchy)
I hope I was helpful :]
~Masamune
Hate to be this guy, but you wouldn't lose nearly as badly to Goblins, Faeries, or random things like Nim Shriker if you'd RUN ARC SLOGGER.
Seriously. I think a lot of you are missing the point of Dragon Stompy. Dragon Stompy is a deck with absolutely no card advantage, no reactive disruption, no deck manipulation, and terrible recovery. The ONLY THING this deck has going for it is that it plays more cards that can singlehandedly win a game than any other deck in the format. That's the point of it. You can't try to make it consistent to the point of power dilution because you're going to end up with a weak, semi-inconsistent deck when there's a ton of better options in the format. You HAVE to play game-winning cards.
Trinisphere is the perfect example. I hate Trinisphere. I hate the card. I hate playing with it. I hate playing against it. I want to cut it from Dragon Stompy constantly. But you can't. Because any time it's ever correct to cut Trinisphere from Dragon Stompy, you should be playing a different deck. Same thing for people who are cutting Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon.
Playing Taurean Mauler and not Arc-Slogger is a mistake. Mauler's more consistent. Mauler's solid. Mauler won't clog your hand. Mauler's never just awful. But Mauler doesn't win you near the games Slogger will. When you end up staring down a freshly played 4/4 Knight of the Reliquary, Mauler's going to lose that race. Slogger can at least spend 20 cards to nuke the thing. Or 30 if it's a little bigger. Dragon can fly over it. Magus can prevent it from being played on occasion, and keep it from getting Mazes or other annoying things. Even Kargan Dragonlord can work it's way up to 8/8 flying and give it a run for its money.
Taco, out of curiosity could I ask for your current list if you were to not be running some form of Survival variant?
For reference, my current list:
11 Mountain
4 Tomb
4 City
4 Chrome
4 SSG
4 Seething Song
4 Blood Moon
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Chailce
4 Trinisphere
4 Gathan raiders
4 RPD
3 Slogger
2 Koth
SB//
2 Ratchet bomb
3 FTK
3 Pyrokinesis
3 meta slot (more bombs/ftks/kinesis, grave hate, whatevers)
4 Pithing Needle
I don't like running all 4 Sloggers personally, but I also don't always like running all 4 Trinisphere... the 4th Trini could be the 4th Slogger based on player preference....
Usually when I play in my metagame with this deck I tend to crush souls and dreams, but I'm always looking for ways to improve or meta-choices i didn't think of before. So what are peoples opinions?
Team Albany: What's Legacy?
You cannot know the sweetness of Victory, without first dwelling in the agony of Defeat.
I'm not saying stack and not shuffle. I'm saying stack and shuffle MORE. It's been cleared by every judge I've come across, as long as you keep shuffling. If you stack, rifle like once or twice and present, then yea, it's cheating. The judges in SCG LA, and all of the local tournaments never had issues as long as you ACTUALLY KEEP SHUFFLING.
For example, If you have a random deck check, or deck check for top 8, your deck is organized to be compared to the list. Now say you have 18 lands and want to 7 card power shuffle. Let 1 = land and 2 = nonland
pile 1: 111222222
pile 2: 111222222
pile 3: 111222222
pile 4: 111222222
pile 5: 11222222
pile 6: 11222222
pile 7: 11222222
pile 1: 212221122
pile 2: 211222112
pile 3: 221222211
pile 4: 221122221
pile 5: 22212222
pile 6: 22211222
pile 7: 12221222
After the second powershuffle, The last 3 piles aren't even, so if you don't encourage your opponent to shuffle, and he cuts once, you've got one land hands set up everywhere. In the end, judges look for your intent to cheat, but they never care if u spread ur lands around first and shuffle a lot. I've had a random guy try to DQ my friend at a tournament for cheating by spreading his lands around, but the judge said as long as he keeps shuffling, he's fine.
That Jank Artifact/Fairies/Goblins decks were newer players who just started coming to my local store last week, so I was in no way familiar with their decks, nor did I expect them. The only other tribal in my meta is Merfolk. Everything else has switched over to Aggro Loam or VengeSurvival. In this instance, while I do have VFallout/Firespout/Pyroclasm/Powder Keg available to me, I felt it was more important to be able to remove bigger threats than a bunch of small ones. Obviously, this has changed, so I guess I'm going to have to alter my SB. Of course, it'll be a week or two before I play it again, as I'm feeling particularly bad about the deck right now, so I think I'll get my ego-boost and play Enchantress next week so I can go 4-0. Then, once I'm feeling a little bit better about myself, I'll definitely try out DS with several of the improvements you suggested.
The Pyroblast we're in there because last week I actually saw (and played) against several decks running Jace 2.0 and I got just raped by him all day, and since my Burn in the SB only deals with creatures I felt I needed an extra slot to deal with him. This week, however, the only semi-control deck that played was Enchantress. Every other deck playing was either Combo or Aggro. So... yeah.
I've tried Slogger time and time again and he's never worked out for me to the extent he appears to of worked out for other people. With all the Aggro I'm seeing I may switch over to him simply for the luxury of an extra burn slot, but at the moment I think I'll stick with Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs.
As for RAkroma, the times I've morphed her she has literally won me games, however there have been a greater number of times where I couldn't flip her because that 3Rwas too hard for me to get. Regardless of the 10 mountains/4 Moxes/4 Simians/4 Song I do still have problems getting 3 red sources unless we get much later in the game. Based on what I've experienced I think I may just end up removing Mauler entirely from the deck. He's just lackluster unless you drop him T1-2, and even then he dies to removal insanely easy.
I also have to say I'm becoming a fan of Koth of the Hammer. His first ability is moot, however the 2nd and third abilities have definitly proved themselves useful to the deck. The 2nd ability helps me recover from a lack of mana, and in games where I've stalled it out to topdeck mode and I keep drawing unwanted land, the 3rd ability provides me with an extra way to finish the game, or remove pesky critters.
So, yeah. Thanks for all the suggestions, guys.
Forlorn Egoist
Question: Are you spreading lands before shuffling to improve your odds of drawing a balanced amount of lands/spells? If the answer is yes, then you're cheating (or, being pretty shifty). However, if you are spreading lands, but then shuffling enough to properly randomise the deck, well you just wasted your time with the land spread. This is the reason a (competent) judge would say that it is fine to spread: he witnessed you shuffle enough that it invalidated all your hard land distribution work! I would say this would be somewhere in the ballpark of 7-10 good riffles/mashes.
The fact is this: A MtG deck is shuffled to achieve a random spread of cards. Land distribution is in opposition to the idea of randomisation.
Promise me you'll read this article - it's more specifically about pile shuffling, but there is some relevance to this discussion: http://fivewithflores.com/2009/05/how-to-cheat/
Either way, enough thread hijacking from me... gogo Dragon Stompy!
Hey outercrow. Good read. i think are opinions are actually the same. My previous post was about the math on power shuffling (or table shuffling as the link calls it). The double nickel is pretty interesting, but again, if DS were to do it, the bottom half of our deck is filled with one land hands. Therefore, a generic medium cut from the opponent was to lead to mana screw.
I'm guessing ur a big riffling guy. I guess I was being paranoid about the riffling's efficiency to randomize bc I didn't think it broke down the clumps well enough before. At the end of the day, we're both advocates of lots of shuffling. Hopefully this is the end of the issue so we can keep expanding the DS thread.
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