I think if Burn is a problem, playing more Jittes in the board is never a bad thing. Plus, it puts you in favour against other Equipment decks and midrange mirrors (Deathblade and Jund, etc.).
-Matt
This is interesting...could Hexmage be a replacement for Pithing Needle in my sideboard? I board it in for planeswalkers most of the time, but it does do the occasional extra work against random cards.Originally Posted by sdematt
On a philosophical note, I've been trying other decks lately and been dissapointed. I realize this is my deck. Nothing is as customizable and fun as this deck for me. I have recently made the switch to Cabal Therapy over Inquisition of Kozilek (because I have 3 maindeck Lingering Souls) and I'm not feeling the Jitte or Knights lately. I'm down to one copy of Knight, and that only because I don't have Goyf #4, and I am picking Batterskull from Mystic 90% of the time, easy. I'm also torn on whether to have the 3rd Liliana in the board, which has been useful in the past.
Current list:
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tarmogoyf
2x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Thoughtseize
2x Cabal Therapy
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Vindicate
3x Lingering Souls
2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Batterskull
4x Wasteland
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Arid Mesa
1x Wooded Foothills
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Treetop Village
Sideboard
2x Pithing Needle
2x Zealous Persecution
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Gaddock Teeg
4x Surgical Extraction
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Life from the Loam
This Hexmage idea intrigues me, because it can kill planeswalkers while attackign for 2. First strike is gravy. I don't want to go the Crop Rotation into Depths route; I've tried it, it was distracting.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Vampire Hexmages have been working out VERY well.
-Matt
Matt, are 2 gsz really enough (you said you cut 1 ooze and 1 gsz for the hexmages)? Would it be the case to abandon the zeniths and add a sixth discard piece or something like that?
I'm asking that because when I finally got to play again a few weeks ago, I even replaced one land for a third copy of zenith (i was playtesting with 2 back then, but flooding a bit), that means, 3 was really good, 2 couldn't make that much of a difference for me. What do you think?
I mean, this is just testing. I still saw GSZ in my games even cut down to 2. I may also cut something else to bring GSZ back to 3. However, I feel like Hexmage is a solid proactive plan not only in creature combat with small guys like Confidant and such, but also a preemptive answer to Jace/Liliana.
-Matt
I've been running 2 GSZ for a while now, and it seems to be enough. I see them a lot because the deck has 4 Confidant 2 Sylvan Library and a whole bunch of ways to stall the game. Hexmage is interesting. I will try them when I can. They should be even better in a deck with Depths. Probably gonna run 2 Hexmage and cut 1 Crop Rotation for it.
i used a hexmage depths list about one and a half year back... it was quite intresting to play with... i often felt that the combo was a bit winmore though, but the hexmages were quite good on their own
he is an answer to out biggest problem,... planeswalker, plus he cost 1 mana less then vindicate/pulse and is a threat
the moment someone suggested hexmages again i was somehow even a bit happy :P because i allways liked them, specially since even thought the general consensus is to play lingering souls i still do not like them
for my next tournament i will try something a bit different though:
i was thinking of a Glissa- Package.
i do have a lot of problems with deck that run punishing fires, and she would not be hit by it. and could be a CA-engine in some way, with EE and Jitte.
Now that jitte got better this could be a viable route as well..... i would just wish that we had a really good Artifact-Creature as well to take advantage of (baleful stix in our colors would be just to awesome)
for the list i will be testing i thought of something like this
23 lands (3 wastelands, 1 karakas, 1 maze of ith, 1-2 horizon canopy, 3 basics, 8 fetches, 5 duals, 0-1 dryad arbor)
4 deathrite shaman
4 dark confidant
4 tarmogoyf
3 knight of the reliquary
2 glissa, the traitor
4 swords to plowshares
3 abrupt decay
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 seinseis divining top
1 umezawas jitte
4 thoughtseize
2 cabal therapy/hymn to tourach/inquisition of kozilek
my problem here is that i allready run 61 cards, but i would really like to get 2 copies of GSZ in there and a dryad arbor... in this way i could still use cabal therapys, if not i probably have to switch to hymn or inquisition
what would you suggest?
SB for this build
3 extirpate (i prefer uncounterability, could also be 1 nihil spellbomb 2 extirpate)
2 gaddock teeg
2 golgari charm
2 pernicious deed (a staple, but with MD EE a possible cut)
3 tidehollow sculler / thalia/ canonist
1 jitte
1 life from the loam
i would love to hear all of your thoughts
the expected meta consists mainly of rug/show and tell variants like hypergenesis and omni/ and some grindy matchups like jund, deathblade, punishing maverick and maybe a goblin-player
thx
@aggro steve
to add gsz and dryad I suggest you take away 1 top, 1 seize and 1 land. Gsz will do a part of top's work (will find a threat/key creature), and 5 discard spells (with 2 being recurring) might be enough. Since you run "infinite" EE (and shaman only makes it better) you COULD cut 1 stp if you like it. But i feel you're not running enough artifacts MD to get the maximum from glissa... Tidehollow main could be a nice thing maybe?
I recently posted 2 lists, on the first one, you can take away the sfm and lingering souls stuff and use the rest as an idea for a core... I liked your idea and will do just that this afternoon
My thoughts on depths were: it's a win-more. We can't protect the combo and if we stop the main strategy to attempt it we can get put far behind if our opponent has an out.
Still can't find nice artifacts to run with glissa...
The best I can think of is Engineered Explosives, but I find that playing a mediocre creature (Glissa) for the sake of possibly getting a second use of it is rather weak. With Abrupt Decay, Vindicate, and Maelstrom Pulse pulling their weight so well, I feel it's unneccessary. It's good in esper where they don't have the availability of Deed/Pulse/Decay (althought the deathblade decks are splashing for Decay.) Game plan is the same: make sure your cards are efficient and let Bob draw you more cards than your opponent.
Hexmage is a different story, Jace and Liliana are everywhere (including in our deck, usually.) I find the idea of using Hexmage instead of Pithing Needle really appealing for a few really good reasons:
1) Needle shuts off MY Liliana at the same time if I need to name her. Hexmage just kills theirs, either by attacking into it with another threat or simply popping off the ability for the insta-kill.
2) Hexmage going into the graveyard feeds Tarmogoyf and Deathrite Shaman, which seems relevant considering the go-to removal is Swords to Plowshares, making it hard to get a creature in the yard on occasion.
3) It profitably blocks dorks in tribals (Goblins/Merfolk) and can be one more way to hose Aether Vial
4) At the very least it increases threat density against some decks, ensuring you have fewer dead cards.
Those are reason enough to try Hexmage out in my sideboard, will be trying 2 for now in place of Needles.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I do not think of glissa as a mediocre creature, actually in my opinion she is quite good because against any creature deck she gets us ahead in board presence because our opponent can neither attack or block profitably, and thus she might not even get blocked. Combined with a maze of ith we can start to race an opponent until they find a removalspell
the next thing i like a lot about her is that she can even be saved from removal with a karakas for additional value
and she gives us the option of recurring removal which compared to a jund deck we allways lacked
i think its worth a try... Maybe it proves to be very effective
i was wondering if someone else did allready test glissa..... Some insight from them would be much appreciated
Played against Deathblade today and it was very interesting. Hexmages were really great, but it's also nice to play games where you draw removal spells (which in two of the games, I saw zero).
The versions with Force are way better, just an FYI. I would have completely stomped all over him if not for some key Force of Wills throughout our games. It's a good deck, but Lingering Souls gives a nice edge, and there were times where had I had a Dark Depth in the deck, I would have won out of nowhere. Dark Depths is essentially a straight swap for Maze of Ith.
-Matt
i was wondering if the depths combo could even come from the sideboard to surprise the opponent
just tinkering in my mind with the new list i want to try where i could open ups 2 SB-slots because of MD EE
because of this i would need to know in what matchups the combo works best, because i was thinking of replacing my deeds with hexmages in the sideboard against planeswalker but also for the firststrike (in theory they should be very good against esper and deathblade)
actually i think this might be a possible route for this deck to take. out there are a lot of good first-strike creatures (thalia, hexmage, glissa,.....) maybe we could be able to use that to our advantage
I wouldn't be opposed to just running a team of beaters and value first-strikers to dominate the midrange matchups.
Let's get brewing.
-Matt
Run Depths, guys. There's very little risk to running Depths / Stage and so much gain. The risk/reward ratio gets even better if you're running some Hexmage. If the opponent can deal with the combo then don't activate copy Depths, big whoop. If the opponent can't deal with it at instant speed, you straight up win the game.
And even if they STP it, that's cool. Going up 20 life in, say, the Esperblade match is totally fine with me.
This is the list I've been thinking about running:
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reqliquary
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
2 Vampire Hexmage
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Lingering Souls
3 Sylvan Library
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith/Dark Depths
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
2 Savannah
------
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Golgari Charm
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Thalia
1 Tower of the Magistrate
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Life from the Loam
1 Ooze/Cabal Therapy
1 Open/Cabal Therapy
I'd love to fit in a Glissa the Traitor though to help out with bigger creatures that Hexmage can't kill, like even just stalling up the board. I don't care if I don't use the artifact ability: the first strike and Deathtouch is good on its own. It may replace one Souls. I'll try it and see. As you'll notice, the maindeck Pulse is gone, but I don't really miss it. It's one piece of "Jace" removal gone, but I'm okay with that. I already have the Hexmages and the Lingering souls to battle them Jaces.
Board is tweaked to pound the midrange decks and to fight Esperblade and combo. RUG might be a bit tight, but that's okay.
-Matt
why no thespian?
You can scryb ranger the knight to do two fetches at the end of opponents turn
I'm still not sold on depths+stage BUT I playtested a few matches with glissa (even w/o artifacts) and it's simply fantastic. Besides being a threat that's not gy-dependant (a thing only possible with sfm) most aggro/midrange opponents go nuts - the even kill it and leave our bob on the field. Of course it needs more testing, but it appears to be very promissing.
He has the Vampire Hexmages for the Dark Depths
can't fetch it.
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