[Deck] GW/x Maverick

[TarmoX]

I thought I'd shift gears a bit and talk about playing the deck, rather than what cards should fill out a particular list. One thing, in particular that I was thinking about is whether to play Noble Hierarch or Mother of Runes on turn one if you have both cards in hand with a Savannah. On the play, against an unknown deck, I always drop Hierarch first because I feel that early mana acceleration is more valuable than protection. However, with more information there are instances in which I prefer to drop a turn one Mother, even with Hierarch in hand. One example, is when I have a Thalia or other "hate bear" in hand that will really punish an opposing deck (such as Storm Combo). Another example, is if a deck is playing a card like Fire/Ice or Forked Bolt. It's better to play Mother first to draw out the removal spell as a 1 for 1, instead of playing Hierarch followed by Mother and getting two for oned. If I'm on the draw and know the opponent is playing Daze. I'll cast the spell that I least mind seeing countered on my turn one. Are there any other tips that people can add for playing properly on turn one? What decks do you favor casting a turn one Mother over a Hierarch when you have that choice?

Different situations require the better choice; in general depends by starting 7 if i need to accel on turn 2 for huge threat (cast Hierarch) or opt to defensive creature play (cast mother). Mother and Hierarch may be used to bait counter if you have other bullet to cast later and left behind your opponent!
I see Mother turn one better vs deck like:
Burn
Goblins
Mirror
Zoo

Hope i wrote in good English ;)

[door]

If your meta is full of combo and burn, thalia is a nice choice. I just side in agasint this kind of decks.

As kevintrudeau said, fourth savannah is much better than the second forest, we dont need it.

I havent tested eldamri´s call, perhaps it is a good substitute for the second eternal or scryb ranger, but remember we dont play GSZ, so we cant look for these cards. The same for gaddock, 1-of is not enough, so i play many of them on sb in the match ups that I need.

the most important thing. Play sowrd of X/X over batterskull. I like F/I. Is kinda better.
On burn or UR MUs the sword is also very good, and much better in all other pairings.

Try also the third revoker. Is incredible agasint all decks, but RUG

Yesterday played a tournament with some judge foils in prizes.
The list stayed the same, though I understand all the drawbacks of having singletones. Except that I turned 2nd forest into 2nd plains (I own only 3 savannas).
Sb:
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Choke
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Krosan Grip
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Dismember
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Enlightened Tutor

I was extremely unlucky with my pairings but fought my way into t8:
round 1: 1-1-1 against Junk
round 2: 1-1-1 against elves
round 3: 2-0 against UR painter
round 4: 2-0 against Solidarity
round 5: id after carefuly counting my chances

Playing against elves was like running from hell. In g1 I kept these 5: Gaea's Cradle, Wasteland, Vial, Mystic, Wayfarer. Opp fizzles in his turn 2. My next turn wayfarer with jitte crushes him and I win g1 with this weird hand. After sb it was 50/50 and I would win g3 unless time ended.

In top8 I was unfortunately paired against my friend and teammate, who was also playing Vial Maverick founded on M@verick's list from this topic. The day before we were preparing together. He was playing a slightly different list and a completely unusual sideboard. As a result he played 3-1-1 in swiss.
His list compared to mine:
4 birds
3 revokers
3 thalias
2 scrybs
2 witness
3 kotrs
1 rishadan port
- e-call
- 2 sylvans
- gaddock
- 1 fetch
His sb was full of surprises including 2 crop rotations, the tabernacle and some other stuff...
I decided to concede as he had more chances against dredge and nic fit which also featured in t8. As a result he split the finals.

A nice trick I found playing with wayfarers when you have equal number of lands with your opponent: Take mana into pool, activate scryb targeting wayfarer, activate wayfarer with the mana, search land, resolve scryb's ability untapping wayfarer.

@@ regarding strategies: I may say an obvious thing, but besides your opponent's deck it always depends on what else you have in hand - see your local game plan. Whether you need to lure stp/counterspell on your mother to protect your next turn KoTR, or play non basics to give them to opponent's wastelands because you are flooded and hope to slow down his developing in such a way, or smth else..

I once had such situation against bant: my starting hand (zenith build): mother of runes, stp, hierarch, wasteland, gw fetch. My opponent opens with tropic -> hierarch. How would you play? I played fetch into plains, stp his hierarch. My decision was that the next turn I play wasteland, mother, waste his dual land, and hope that I have enough time to find a green source before he can stabilize. So my local game plan was to screw him and obtain mother of runes which would protect my future hierarch, thus keeping him from screwing me. I believe that all the mirror and pseudo-mirror games depend mostly on winning the resource race (like it always was in good old Warcraft2). From the other side a single daze would ruin all my plans...

[Mkr]

What do you guys usually board vs Miracles? Went to a 65-ish player tournament yesterday and I wasn't able to reach the T8 because of two blowouts against UWx Miracles.

My current SB is as follows:

3 Surgical Extraction
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg (1 in MD)
1 Thrun, the Last Troll (1 in MD)
1 Path to Exile
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam
1 Harmonic Sliver

Thinking of putting 2 Krosan Grip in. Should I bring back Choke?

[Koby]

What do you guys usually board vs Miracles? Went to a 65-ish player tournament yesterday and I wasn't able to reach the T8 because of two blowouts against UWx Miracles.

Thinking of putting 2 Krosan Grip in. Should I bring back Choke?

They anticipate Enchantments/Artifact hate. Try Tsunami or Armageddon.

[Esper3k]

What do you guys usually board vs Miracles? Went to a 65-ish player tournament yesterday and I wasn't able to reach the T8 because of two blowouts against UWx Miracles.

My current SB is as follows:

3 Surgical Extraction
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg (1 in MD)
1 Thrun, the Last Troll (1 in MD)
1 Path to Exile
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam
1 Harmonic Sliver

Thinking of putting 2 Krosan Grip in. Should I bring back Choke?

Choke is great against those blue control decks, especially ones that have to durdle around with Top.

[Einherjer]

Choke is nice, but not the real answer. Let me tell you how to beat Miracle ( I play both decks, Maverick and Miracle )

Firstly you have to play 2 Cavern of Souls as a minimum. 3 might be the better choice in an UW Miracle-infected Meta. Obviously you name Human. Secondly you have to play Planeswalker. Not out of the Sideboard, mainboard them. My current list plays 1 Garruk Relentless and 1 Elspeth, Knight - Errant mainboard, those are boss against Miracle.

Out of the Sideboard Pithing Needle sounds like the best choice, obviously Chokes come in, but you will rarely win a game with them ( I hardly lost to Choke with my UWr version of Miracle ). You can board Armageddon effects and stuff, they are very strong if they resolve, but I do not have space in my sideboard for them.


Greetings

[dsck]

They anticipate Enchantments/Artifact hate. Try Tsunami or Armageddon.

This. Planeswalkers seem quite good too, but then you should have some plan for entreat (engineered explosives?).

[Einherjer]

This. Planeswalkers seem quite good too, but then you should have some plan for entreat (engineered explosives?).

Maverick does not have a decent plan against Angels. It does not need to have one. Angels is only good if the Miracle-player can set it up while being safe. When we force him to spend all his ressources on answering our Planeswalkers or playing around our Caverns Angels shouldnt be a real threat any more. And if they have the lucky Angel in Turn15 we die. That's fine. Bad MU is bad, but it gets alot better with Planeswalkers/Cavern Mainboard.

Greetings

[Esper3k]

Really, our main plan against UW Miracles should be:

1) Resolve Gaddock Teeg
2) Protect him
3) ???
4) Profit

[Einherjer]

Really, our main plan against UW Miracles should be:

1) Resolve Gaddock Teeg
2) Protect him
3) ???
4) Profit

Correct. But this plan is...not very realistic. Miracle is aware of this fact and will try to get rid of Teeg or make sure he doesn't even enter the battlefield. If this stays your only way of victory vs Miracle - good luck.

Greetings

[Koby]

"One of my main concerns going into this tournament was making the deck better against Stoneblade and U/W Control. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how to go about doing that. Fortunately, I was able to briefly talk to two of the best pilots around to get their take on the matchups. Reid Duke said that the cards that were hardest to play against out of Maverick for Control were Gaddock Teeg and Armageddon. Ben Friedman echoed those cards for Stoneblade, although with less emphasis on Teeg. With their feedback, I was happy to slot one Teeg for the main and two Armageddons for the board."

As written by Orrin Beasley in his SCG DC tournament report. He writes about how to improve the UW control/Stoneblade matchup.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

"One of my main concerns going into this tournament was making the deck better against Stoneblade and U/W Control. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how to go about doing that. Fortunately, I was able to briefly talk to two of the best pilots around to get their take on the matchups. Reid Duke said that the cards that were hardest to play against out of Maverick for Control were Gaddock Teeg and Armageddon. Ben Friedman echoed those cards for Stoneblade, although with less emphasis on Teeg. With their feedback, I was happy to slot one Teeg for the main and two Armageddons for the board."

As written by Orrin Beasley in his SCG DC tournament report. He writes about how to improve the UW control/Stoneblade matchup.

This can't be right. Your name isn't listed anywhere. Don't they know you're the grandfather of Maverick?

Gaddock Teeg + Sylvan Safekeeper.

[rnightingale]

Green Sun for Gaddock Teeg is good against UW miracles with Counterbalance in play

[Deckerator]

Is it possible to play a deck like this? I know a few changes had to be done.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
3 Vengevine
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Gaddock Teeg

3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Savannah
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
2 Plains
2 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor

[Esper3k]

If you're going that heavily on the Fauna Shaman plan, I'd probably just cut the SFM package for the 4th GSZ, Vengevine, a Basking Rootwalla, and a Scryb / Quirion Ranger.

[Koby]

Cool! You took out the best card, added useless Goyfs and make it possible to blow you out with Surgical. Its playable, but its terrible.

[Deckerator]

This is an old Version.

Changes:

-4 Tarmogoyf
-1 Sword of Firee and Ice
-3 Horizon Canopy

+2 Knight of the Reliquary
+1 Scryb Ranger
+1 Green Sun's Zenith
+1 Basking Rootwalla
+1 Lightning Greaves ?
maybe 2 Sylvan library and the fourth Venevine?

@ Koby: What is the best card?

[Tammit67]

@ Koby: What is the best card?

My money's on Thalia. She's insane

[Deckerator]

I domt know why but im not a real fan of thalia. It is often that i hope more than she really does. I play only in a small tournament with ~40 players.
A lot of them playing G/W. There is really less Combo. In my opinion Thalia is only good in Combo. In other match-ups she is...mhm let's say...ok but nothing more. The opponent doesnt really often cares about this 1 mana he has to pay more. I think i can add more useful cards than Thalia to this deck. Cards like Stoneforge Mystic, Thrun, Eternal Witness. Or play with the Punishing/Grove combo.
I never had the feeling that Thalia feels really good for me.

[Tammit67]

I domt know why but im not a real fan of thalia. It is often that i hope more than she really does. I play only in a small tournament with ~40 players.
A lot of them playing G/W. There is really less Combo. In my opinion Thalia is only good in Combo. In other match-ups she is...mhm let's say...ok but nothing more. The opponent doesnt really often cares about this 1 mana he has to pay more. I think i can add more useful cards than Thalia to this deck. Cards like Stoneforge Mystic, Thrun, Eternal Witness. Or play with the Punishing/Grove combo.
I never had the feeling that Thalia feels really good for me.

She is very good in matchups other than combo though. She really hurts RUG in thresh's capacity to cantrip to answers or tap out for a threat with either daze/force for protection. She slows down swords+snapcaster+swords chains, and is in general a kink in the works for a lot of control cards (miracles not withstanding). Dredge similarly can't muscle through her, in both due to the taxing effect and the first strike.

She is just incredibly solid and disruptive to your opponents while having little impact on yourself. I think you'll regret it in the long run should you ever move out of this 40 player scene you describe.