[Deck] The Gate

[Hencules]

Nah, when i think of it, it seems stupid. I allready hate drawing dead cards midgame.

I still don't like innocent blood. It just destroys to much of my own stuff. I think i'm getting rid of it

[bracer028]

with the influx of more combo related decks, such as the new forgemaster and high tide, its better to run eva green than the gate at this point.

if your meta is filled with aggro, go the gate.

[bakofried]

Innocent Blood has such strong synergy with the deck I don't know why you would cut it. You shouldn't be playing threats until after you've played out your removal and disruption. This deck kills with power, not speed.

[Augustas]

If you have an idea, go to something like cockatrice or mws, play atleast twenty games with that modification, then come here and express your expierence, this will be alot more helpful rather just posting things that are completely untested.

Recently I've decided to try out Bonehoard. Mixed feelings about it. Against aggro it's a beast, mid-game atleast 5/5 unconditional beater who later on is capable of pumping blossom tokens or whatever for lethal. And I was abusing that token alot. Even though therapy loses a lot of it's value mid-game, it still can get rid of opponent's bombs or tutored things, so that token token often was fed either to therapy or Innocend blood, or was just sitting either quite small or rather huge. My meta is mostly aggro, so this tech might actually work out.

[Gui]

If you have an idea, go to something like cockatrice or mws, play atleast twenty games with that modification, then come here and express your expierence, this will be alot more helpful rather just posting things that are completely untested.

Recently I've decided to try out Bonehoard.

...

I agree, changes must be tested to be proven, unless you are asking for opinions about it. (dunno if this made sense to you, it did to me)

I'm not sure why and instead of what you tested Bonehoard, but I don't think it fits very well... it would be enlightning to know your reasons.

[sporenfrosch1411]

Bonehoard was relevant to my interest in synergy with Stoneforge Mystic as a 1-off....but in TheGate i don't know if this is a good idea.
How many would you play? And what makes it worth more than let's say.... Sword of Fire and Ice (or Light and Shadow) ?

[Augustas]

It's kinda awkward for me to post here after my fail-post after that awful tournament expierence and i will blame myself forever for it heh, but oh well. This is what I've been testing online and that's what I supposed to bring to that tournament. Next tourney will be on March 16th, hopefuly it won't be so miserable.

3x Abyssal Persecutor
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Dark Confidant

4x Bitterblossom

3x Cabal Therapy
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smother/Go for the Throat (I use Smother, because my meta has mighty quinn and i often run into imperial painter online)
4x Innocent Blood
2x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Flex slot

19x Swamp

So, the philosophy behind Bonehoard is that it works with the whole deck. Sure it sucks in opening, it sucks against 50% decks in legacy, but most of the deck sucks against stuff like burn or combo. So, since decklist has maxed out removal spells, Bonehoard becomes a nice beater, can eat that inconvinient Innocent Blood, can be therapied out and then pump blossom tokens or nighhthawk. So, the main reason why I think it's good because it's like a swiss army knife and by all means isn't a narrow card. But i use it only as a tech card and it has some kind of surprise buttsex effect :]

And what I don't like about my list is 19 swamps. Sometimes works kinda smoothly, sometimes it's just impossible to get that third land drop because keeping that bob on the table is harder than it looks heh.

[bakofried]

Eh, don't worry about it. We need any serious testers for the list, so don't feel unwelcome.

I like Bonehoard. It's a strong card; the only "downside" is that it's much stronger when in conjunction with Mystic - which isn't an option here. But if you have a flex slot (lucky) try it out and let us know if it improves any MU's by a significant margin.

[sporenfrosch1411]

I personally felt that 2 mana for GftT is too much to be a full replacement for Deathmark, but that may be due to me playing "only" 19 Lands.


Here is my most recent list for reference.

4 Abyssal Persecutor
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Dark Confidant

3 Bitterblossom
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Deathmark (maybe will go for 2 more Throats + 1 more Blood)
2 Go for the Throat
3 Innocent Blood
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sensei's Divining Top

19 Swamp

SB:
4 Duress ( Combohate, im scared of combo here)
4 Thorn of Amethyst ( Combohate, im scared of combo here)
3 Extirpate (very versatile, can do combo, can take win cons and so on. kind of half assed plan versus dredge...)
3 Disfigure (Merfolk, Goblins, Affinity)
1 Umezawa's Jitte (Merfolk, Goblins, Zoo.... well, everything that tries to go for creatures. It's the edge with all the removal to have 3 Jitte)


I dislike the 3 Extirpate, not sure what to cut yet, most likely a Duress to go up to the full Playset of Extirpates.

[Augustas]

I don't know what you're trying to say here really :/

[sporenfrosch1411]

I personally felt that 2 mana for GftT is too much to be a full replacement for Deathmark, but that may be due to me playing "only" 19 Lands.

PS:
I also edited my post for your service.
Maybe italic and bold can give you a hint :P

[Augustas]

Have you tested this list a lot? Because lack of Duress litteraly scares me and without it Therapy loses a lot of it's value. And using Deathmark.. Well, it's highly a meta-call, but if you will keep running into goblins, merfolk or artifact decks I much rather have that Smother in my 60 :]

[sporenfrosch1411]

Deathmark is a meta call, and if you read my last post you can see that i am also considering Throats instead.Postboard you swap out Deathmark for Disfigures.

Therapy does not loose any value, seeing that Inquisition also reveals his hand.
Versus Goblins, Merfolk and Zoo Inquisition is way better than Duress because you are more versatile, plus there are few things that Inquisition won't hit in general. I often find myself not wanting to let my opponent discard Force of Will for example, i rather want him to fuel out 2 of his cards for 1 of mine. Besides Force, there is Moat/Humility which i both haven't seen for a long time; Jace/Elspeth which in my opinion die to our creatures or can be discarded by Therapy, Natural Order that should not be a real concern seeing our untargeted sac-outlets and also the discard capability....and thats pretty much it. I think Inquisition is superior here.
Haven't you tried Inquisition? Because from what i have played, Inquisition did perfectly well.
Btw: I played Duress all from the start allways thinking "what would IoK now do, that Duress can not, and vice versa", its a long way decision that Inquisition is better for me.

[Augustas]

Forgive me, I didn't see inquisition for some reason heh

[Gui]

@sporenfrosch1411

When you ran 17 Swamps + 4 Wastelands, didn't you ever feel that 4 persecutors were too much? How do you feel now that you run less lands, but more and better filters?

[sporenfrosch1411]

When i ran wastelands, i often had to make the decision whether to destroy an enemy land and maybe get stuck at 3 mana or not having BB or BBB, while now i lost the option to destroy a land for the upside of having the most stable manabase imaginable. I often got a wasteland wasted, because good players realized very fast that my deck does rely on dropping a land every turn. While they could fetch the color again i tried to cut them off, i sat there not drawing another mana and unable to play Persecutor (or sometimes even Nighthawk) - now that just can not happen anymore.I found it interesting to have a manabase that is in practice unattackble and since i have not in any case missed Wastelands yet, i will keep this for now.

4 Persecutors may seem like too much, and i myself had some doubts over the time, because i agree that you just don't want to have a Persecutor as a dead card in your hand for the first few turns. But over time i realized that Persecutor just is the best win option in the deck and it is unnacceptable not to put a persecutor on the field, once you destroyed his hand with discard, his creatures with your removal and suck out his removal with all the other threats you play. Now that i play Divining Top, i can just keep the extra persecutors that i may draw throughout the game down safe in between the top 3 cards and draw something else instead, keeping them as a backup if the first Persecutor gets removed or destroyed.
What sometimes happens nevertheless, is that i have a Persecutor on the board and one in my hand and feel the urge for attacking or blocking purposes to drop another one. But when this happens, i normally won't do it, because i scare not to be able to get rid of 2 Persecutors.
This is where i (also) see a good upside about GoForTheThroat - as another outlet to get rid of Persecutor.
One might say, that with Therapys and Bloods and Gatekeeper (and Jitte) you will never have the problem, but to be honest, it happened to me more than once. I don't hold back a removal for a threat or a discard flashback just because i might be having 2 Persecutors later on.
And in reality i often found myself flashbacking therapy on another creature to prevent my opponent's gameplan or pulling a Gatekeeper on a Tarmogoyf or playing a first turn Blood because of Lackey or so.
This is why i will actually try out 4 Throats now, even though i still think that Deathmark is amazing and fits perfectly as a removal, Throat just enables me not to worry about dropping Persecutors. I really dislike spending 2 mana, but nevertheless the versatility can not be ignored in oppose to the stiffness of Deathmark.

[maximumcarnage]

I agree about 'Throat over Deathmark. I'm yet to run into a match-up where 'Throat didn't have a target. It hits everything that Deathmark does, plus almost everything that it doesn't. That coupled with instant speed is more than well worth paying 1 more to cast it.

[Lichking616]

Well, I tried maelstrom pulse to remove multiple persecutors simultaneously and it worked. What do you think?

[Gui]

I agree with Go for the Throat over Deathmark, and I'm currently running 4 Inocent + 4 GftT without marks.

I think that deathmark was unable to put Tribals in check, and that is pretty bad for a removal right now. Even because the common matchup where you want your removals to be faster, as Deathmark is, are usually tribals, where Deathmark is useless (besides elves, ofc).

@Sporenfrsch, I'd run -1 Persecutor +1 Jitte at your list. Jitte reduces the dependancy on Persecutor, and can actually be used with him without problems.

[sporenfrosch1411]

I ran 3 Jitte for a long time, but found Jitte to be less usefull in matchups besides Tribal and Zoo, but i will try this out anyway just to know where it puts me :)

Well, don't forget that Deathmark also is a house versus Zoo and those GW Maverick lists. Still, i agree that Throat is worth more, as i allready stated above. And yes, you are somwhat right about the speed thing against tribal, and this is exactly where my disfigures shine from the sideboard ;)



Can we get some flameless discussion/ thought process about a Sword of X and Y instead of the third jitte?
What do you think are the pros and cons of which and why :) Lets go for some facts and well thought opinions to deny or approve of this.
And some discussion about Bitterblossom. I see 4 in some lists, personally play only 3 and found it to be a very very slow card and often a bad topdeck in mid/lategame