I see more than others do because I know where to look.
The combo is essentially an endstep combo. So it should only be vulnerable to swords to plowshares, wasteland, and stifle (and apparently through the breach). I try to avoid using it when there are available blockers, but flying is very relevant evasion for that. If they are able to block, you expose yourself to jace. I try to always search thespian stage first, and if I have the extra mana at endstep, consider using the ability, having a stage canopy/wasteland doesn't hurt.
@fatal
I mulliganned I believe three times, and I know I won two of the games. I did not have any mana issues, but only played against one stifle deck. Stifle can be played around, and if they are not putting pressure on the board in the first couple turns then you are increasingly likely to win each turn as your threats become bigger, and once knight is around, they are more vulnerable to wasteland (I did not in round nine, but in testing I have brought in surgical for the express purpose of hitting a wasted duel land and take them off red or green).
I was never unhappy with verdant, but would prefer heath to marsh flats, I want each fetch to be able to hit forest, plains is not as important. If you expect a lot of blood moon, then it might be.
On the play if I had a one lander with at least 2 mana dorks or one dork and one gsz I would keep. Heavy land hands I was also able to keep because of the strength of knight. I was very aggressive in getting the dryad arbor with green sun zenith, and I was not punished with removal.
@barook
I will test with feast and famine, and if not satisfied then 2 jittes.
I will probably test a e tutor sb package. The difficulty with the combo is it is in essence a two card combo that is resilient against removal and against hand disruption. It uses legends but karakas doesn't actually beat it. It uses a 4 drop but teeg doesnt stop it. I think the best answer against it is humility, so e tutor is probably the right call. Peacekeeper may be another option to consider.
Anybody have a list with vials? Like the one that top 8ed the BOM?
I've seen some people running 2x Lingering Souls MD. That seems pretty sweet against Miracles and Planeswalkers - stuff Maverick struggles against. But how does it play along Thalia? Discodude ran that single Sorin, too, which looks like an another outlet against PWs.
How would you think the new card in theros affect our beloved maverick?
http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/item/191315
Jeez what a big mistake sunyveil did against elves by tapping both his mums leaving his canonist unprotected!! He still could've got 2 damage in because of exalted
Meh, everyone makes mistakes I guess hehe. This one is gonna stick around though.. for a while..
Even if the Canonist had stuck around, the Elves player could have cast Abrupt Decay on Jitte.
The Sisay Maverick he's running seems pretty cool, although I'm still sceptical if it's smart to make yourself more vulnerable to combo, considering how infested with bad match-ups the MODO meta currently is. If I had played in that event, I probably would have faced combo/Miracles all day long.
Has anyone tested thoroughly vs 4 color aggro loam? I am having trouble with that matchup.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Played the same brew of Maverick that I've been playing for months at the SCG Atlanta Open to a 6-3 finish.
Sadly I didn't take the most detailed notes, but I'll try and provide at least a bit of information.
Creatures (22) Spells (11+3) Lands (23+Maze) Sideboard 3 Mother of Runes 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Dryad Arbor 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Sylvan Safekeeper 4 Green Sun's Zenith 1 Horizon Canopy 2 Surgical Extraction 4 Noble Hierarch 1 Life from the Loam 1 Karakas 2 Path to Exile 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Sylvan Library 1 Rogue's Passage 1 Crop Rotation 2 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Plains 1 Ulvenwald Tracker 1 Scryb Ranger 1 Umezawa's Jitte 3 Forest 1 Umezawa's Jitte 2 Scavenging Ooze 1 Sword of Light and Shadow 1 Verdant Catacombs 3 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Batterskull 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Gaddock Teeg 2 Qasali Pridemage 4 Windswept Heath 2 Oblivion Ring 4 Knight of the Reliquary 1 Maze of Ith 4 Savannah 1 Krosan Grip 4 Wasteland
Some Notes on the list.
- I've found lately that the Stoneforge package gives you an edge in matches where you really need it.
- The sideboard is fairly inbred, pulling from different eras of the deck. Surgical has been fine locally where we have a fair amount of Punishing Fire, but overall is probably not the best card for the deck.
- I opted for 2 Path to Exile this week with the expectation of seeing more tribal locally at the open and having to deal with more Deathrite decks.
- The Rogue's Passage is a bit of a local joke. I was originally running 5 basics, but decided one week to go with Rogue's Passage. People have suggested I just run a Sejiri Steppe or something in its place, but it's been fun for the time. It's been fine locally, winning me a few games I wouldn't have otherwise (like against D&T when he had Mom + Revoker on Light/Shadow) and being generally alright against the endless Knight of the Reliquary decks around my area.
- I'm down to 2 Thalia because combo has been on the decline locally. The 3 Canonists in the sideboard help to make up for that. Both are good against Omni-Tell and Storm decks. I should probably have 1 Thalia and 2 Canonist in the board though for Sneak/Show help.
- Sword of Light and Shadow over Fire/Ice because I expect to have to run through Deathrite Shamans all day long and expect my other matchups to be packing 4 Swords to Plowshares.
Round 1 (0-2) v Burn
Round 2 (2-1) v UWR Stoneblade
Round 3 (1-2) v Shardless BUG
Round 4 (2-0) v Goblins
Round 5 (2-0) v Fish (I think he cast 1 lord this entire match)
Round 6 (2-1) v Goblins
Round 7 (2-1) v UG 12-Post
Round 8 (0-2) v Goblins (drew 8 lands out of 9 cards g1)
Round 9 (2-0) v RUG Delver
Details
I need a spoiler tag.Round 1 (0-2) v Burn
He wins the die roll and leads off with a fetch into Mountain into Rift Bolt. I fetch a basic plains and drop Mother to try and coax the bolt, he obliges the lays another fetch and plays Grim Lavamancer. I fetch again (18) and play Pridemage. He thinks for a bit then fetches end of turn and Lightning Bolts my face (15). On his turn he plays another land and a Grim Lavamancer into a Flame Rift (11). On my turn I play land, Scavenging Ooze and Noble Hierarch, needing that fourth land to try and equip Jitte next turn to draw some action from his Lavamancers. He Lavamancers me end of turn (9) then untaps and goes Chain Lightning (6) -> Lavamancer (4) -> Fireblast (0).
Game two on the play I keep a hand with Savannah, Wasteland, Pridemage, GSZ, Knight, and Jitte. He leads on Goblin Guide and I fail to find a another land, I'm forced to GSZ for Noble Hierarch on turn two and he takes the opportunity to Price of Progress me for 4. Pretty sure he kills the Hierarch and I GSZ for another one to try and get the Pridemage and Knights out of my hand. I die shortly after with a Jitte and a Batterskull stuck in hand. I think I probably should have GSZ'd for Dryad on turn 1 since the GSZ is probably too slow for this match if I plan to curve out with this hand.
Round 2 (2-1) v UWR Stoneblade/Delver-whatever
Local guy, I win the roll and lead on Hierarch. He lays a Flooded Strand and passes back. I go for Ooze but he Spell Snares it. The game grinds out for a bit, him finding a Stoneforge -> Batterskull, which I have the swords for to lock the Skull in his hand. I win the game off a Knight that's able to Waste his manabase.
Game two he leads on delver and protects it pretty well. He has a number of counterspells and a swords to keep my field clear then plays a Geist of Saint Traft to hit hard.
Game three he mulls to 5 and I lead on Hierarch. He lays a Tundra and Brainstorms. I waste the Tundra, move to second mainphase, then cast Stoneforge which he Force of Wills pitching Submerge. He misses his land drop so I play a Knight of the Reliquary which he again is forced to Force. He misses his land again so I GSZ for a Knight and sit back. He misses another land and scoops it up.
Round 3 (1-2) v Shardless BUG
Game 1 I wasteland lock him after leading on Savannah + Hierarch. He continues to play a land every turn while I dredge my Life from the Loam. I cast a Thalia the turn he misses his land drop and continue to dredge. Once I go through 6+ lands of his he scoops to game two.
Game 2 he leads on deathrite and I take a risk to mainphase Path to Exile it assuming he's on the 0 basic land lists (he had fetched g1 and only found duals). He finds a swamp and we chuckle a bit. He later in the game plays a basic forest and tells me that he sideboarded in two basic lands (for blood moons and wastelands apparently). We play a close match, but his triple Goyf + double Ancestral Vision gets there.
Game 3 I mull to 5 and lay a land, He thoughtseizes me and takes a Thalia. I rip a Sylvan Library and play it. He Abrupt Decays the Library. I miss my third land and he Hymn to Tourachs me. He lays a goyf while I struggle to rebuild a hand.
At this point I'm 1-2 and looking forward to losing another round so I can drop and get food. Chipotle is sounding super nice.
Round 4 (2-0) v Goblins
My opponent is playing in his first non-testing legacy tournament and we chat about the format and his experience so far.
He's on the play and leads on Lackey. I have the option to GSZ for Dryad Arbor or Swords the Lackey. I opt to swords the lackey because he kept on 7 and all my recent testing has been with a high removal build of Goblins, which runs Tarfire, Warren Weirding, Stinkscourger, Gempalm, and Wasteland to punish me in this situation.
He misses his turn 2 land drop, buy lays an AEther Vial. I take the opportunity now to GSZ for Arbor and play a Mother of Runes. He finds a second land in the form of Plateau, then Tarfires my Mother before passing back. I Wasteland his Plateau and play a Pridemage, opting to destroy the vial as he clearly has a hand full of 3s and 4s. I continue to advance my board and he can't recover from the loss of tempo.
Game two goes in a similar direction with a vial on t1 and I get an active Jitte on t4 to seal up the game.
Round 5 (2-0) v Fish (I think he cast 1 lord this entire match)
Dissapointed that I'm not at Chipotle now I sit down for round 5 and my opponent cracks a joke about my Powerpuff Girls playmat. Hell yes. He wins the roll and lays a t1 Mutavault, then a t2 Mutavault and attacks me with the first while I'm tapped out. Clearly he's stuck off blue? I play a Scavenging Ooze and a Knight of the Reliquary and he fails to find two islands before I have the game locked up. Game two he leads Mutavault into AEther Vial. He plays a second Vial on t2 and starts to advance both of them. Again though he's missing his second blue land. My board gets more solidified before his slow Vials can do much. He has a Rejeery in play to my Knight, and I'm certain I've got him dead in a few turns because he's on full on chump block mode. Luckily, I topdeck Rogue's Passage and put him out of his misery - chuckling a bit.
After the match he tells me that he kept a double Vial hand with Submerge and drew the third Vial for his first turn.
Of Note: The two tables to my left both featured Fish, as did the table to my immediate right. So much tribal at this event.
Round 6 (2-1) v Goblins
He gets a game where I have triple Knight of the Reliquary and he has double Stinkscourger. Not much to say.
Game two I take when he leads on mountain then Wastelands me twice while I have a Hierarch and a developing board. He doesn't do much otherwise?
Game three is rather close, but I get a Batterskull down and keep my lifetotal high.
Round 7 (2-1) v UG 12-Post
My opponent leads on Tropical and lays a Sensei's Top. He tops during his upkeep then plays a Glimmerpost into an Expedition Map. We know where this is going. I play a Stoneforge Mystic and a Knight of the Reliquary and my opponent reads it. He then casts Show and Tell on his third turn putting a Kozelik into play. I place the Batterskull that I tutored for. I'm a bit confused at this point, but when I tutor up a Karakas on my turn my opponent says something along the lines of "oh you can tutor ANY land?" I take over the game quickly by tutoring for Wastelands every turn while beating with the Skull. He plays a Oblivion Stone but I keep him off the mana to activate it.
Game two I'm looking forward to Surgicaling some Cloudposts. He leads on Tropical again and cantrips, his turn two he plays a Pithing Needle on Wasteland.. then another on turn 4. He quickly builds up enough mana to cast Primeval Titan, untap some lands with Candelabra and cast Emrakul in the same turn.
Game three I get a Thalia down and Wasteland lock him with Life from the Loam.
Round 8 (0-2) v Goblins (drew 8 lands out of 9 cards g1)
He mulls to 5. I keep a 7 that is... Ooze, Pridemage, Sword of Light and Shadow, Windswept, Misty, Wasteland. Nothing too exhilarating, but it seems reasonable.
I draw a land, then a Hierarch on my second turn, then a land, and a land, and a land (repeat until I have 8 lands in play). I have a healthy life total thanks to him chumping with War Marshal tokens, but he builds up a board with Skirk Prospector then finds a Siege Gang off a Ringleader. During this time I do topdeck Rogue's Passage as one of my lands and am able to get in another hit with my Ooze+Sword to knock him to 5 life - sadly he has the Wasteland and I'm unable to keep the Passage on the table.
Once he plays Goblin Sharpshooter I know we're going to have a problem. He attacks me then sacs his board to the pair, clearly not the most aware at how to stack his Sharpshooter triggers and announce what's going on properly. I let him continue hoping he'll screw up with the summoning sick Sharpshooter and his Warchief. He sacs his whole board, then does mess up with me at 1 life, but quickly revises his ordering to a sequence that does work when I note that the Shooter is sick. I let him have it even though I shouldn't have.
Game two sees me mulligan down. He has a quick start and I'm stuck GSZing for Noble Hieararchs to replace my missed land drops.
Bleh. I'm 5-3 now going into the final round. My tiebreakers are roughly 51%, which is about middle of the barrel for my bracket. I'm playing the final round regardless since we've already scheduled to go to dinner (which is not Chipotle), but my breakers don't leave me too confident.
Round 9 (2-0) v RUG Delver
He opponent leads on Tropical Island and passes the turn. Should I put him on 12-post? hah nope. I lead on t1 Noble Hiearch off a fetched Forest. My opponent thinks for 20 seconds then takes a minute and a half to resolve a Brainstorm. While I'm staring at him he says "It's actually a tough one" before he Dazes my Hierarch. He replays his Tropical then passes back. I go for an Ooze which he Spell Snares after some deliberation. Fine with me. His turn 3 he plays a Wasteland and hits my Savannah. Sure. I go to fetch on my turn and he Stifles me. Sure. At this point I'm putting him on RUG Delver or some crazy UG control deck. He shuffles a Ponder then misses his land drop. I get a Sylvan Library on the table with another land. He asks me about the Oracle text on Library and I suggest we just call a judge to help explain it. After the judge walks away he turns to me and states that we should have gotten a minute extension. It's fine I say, "we just need to play a bit quicker" - he gets a bit pissy thinking I'm calling him a slow player. While cutting my deck he flips a card then flips it back shuffles my deck and hands it back to me. I say "I'll cut then" - he gets even pissier and tells me that he needs to have the last cut, yada yada. I just let him do his thing...
Back to the match and he finds a Wasteland to go with his Tropical Island and play a Tarmogoyf. I swords the Goyf with no creatures in hand to follow up with thanks to his first two counterspells. He plays another Goyf a turn later still missing his land drops. I take some lumps from it and go to 1 life before finding a Stoneforge into GSZ for Knight of the Reliquary. I Wasteland his Tropical Island, drop Batterskull. He misses another land drop and scoops to game two saying "I don't know why you think I'm playing slow" - so we're still on this.
Game two he floods, hard. He even has a Life from the Loam on turn 3 getting back two fetches. On the plus side he finally shows me the Red in his deck. He makes a remark to the effect of "I didn't know anyone still played Maverick. This is a good matchup for me" - Megadeus, who is watching the match now after drawing into top 32, and I chuckle a bit saying we're pretty sure that it's in Maverick's favor. He remarks that he has never seen me lose a matchup against RUG, which I acknowledge, but don't expand on trying to avoid further pissing off my opponent. He doesn't do much this game besides play out every dual in his deck. I slam a Knight and smash his face while he casts 2-mana Ponders through my Thalia digging for action. I'm content not to walk into Submerge and just beat him for 6 a turn.
Last edited by haganbmj; 09-17-2013 at 09:31 PM.
Surgical, no. It's low impact card against a deck with a variety of threats. Ideally you want to hit Burning Wish, but that never goes to the graveyard in practice.
Bog is a good value play against a decently sized or stocked graveyard. If you run Life from the Loam, you want to bring that in too, as well as any Thorn of Amethyst and any additional Scavenging Ooze.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Thanks Koby, your insight is appreciated as always.
@ haganbmj
Nice job on the money finish!
Hi haganbmj,
Great report and congrats on a respectable finish!
I've been lurking this thread (and ONLY this thread) for a while now and finally decided to register and contribute.
I have some questions on your games:
1. I've noticed a small debate some time back on 4 moms and how an Olle Rade (Safekeeper) fits in. I noticed that your deck contained 3 Moms and 1 Olle, which is also the setup i've always had for the longest time. I can imagine that Safekeeper performs well on BUG matchups, but poorly on some others. How did your configuration of 3+1 work for you?
2. Why did you choose to go 2 Sylvan? Did you expect this to be an auto-counter and thus go for a second one? The reason I ask is I have a fellow Maverick player in my community who swears to 2 Sylvans, while I have always gone 1 Sylvan. The card performs, but I've always chosen to have only 1 of it in my deck as I'd prefer to draw more business cards in most other occasions.
3. Your Rogue Passage tech raised me an eyebrow, and I have been thinking about this card ever since it came out (like how most Maverick players think when lands are revealed in spoilers). Given it's limited, but impactful presence when you need it the most, how did you feel about drawing in other scenarios? I use 1 Cavern in my build but have been debating whether i should put two instead or, given the success you've derived off of it, 1 Cavern and 1 Rogue.
4. Given that you play the traditional GW Maverick build, why did you choose to not put Gaea's Cradle seeing that you had Batterskull mainboard and Life from the Loam as a way to recur it from removal?
Thanks in advance and congrats again!
So.. we're a DtB now again
Wow. DTB?
Do I spy four monoish colored decks that are DTB? Five decks without brainstorm? The format seems VERY healthy at the moment. What I also see is a lot of decks that are soft to Burn. Considering that a Burn deck did well recently, we should anticipate more Burn decks.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...election/page3
Never forget.The threshold is 114 points, which this time makes for a neat DtB:
Maverick
Threshold UGR
Blade Control
Burn
Reanimator
Sneak Attack
Nic Fit
(Burn is in the DtB, go take a shot of your favourite liquor, it's the rules.)
Thanks a bunch! Appreciate it.
I began running the 3/1 split when UW Miracles became the hot new thing. I needed a Green Sunable target to help me establish a Gaddock Teeg lock against those decks (since most ran 0 outs). Miracles has been on the decline, but I often find that with all the abrupt decays running around I need that same insurance on a GSZ to protect my threats. It has worked out rather well for me so far.
I chose 2 Sylvan Library because it's your game against Brainstorm, Jace, and Ancestral Visions (and even Shardless Agent to a degree). Library finds you what you need and allows you to draw cards in the control/stoneblade matchups where you might otherwise fall behind their Card Advantage. I play the two because I want to see the card in almost every matchup. I think the card is very important and haven't run less than two in months.
Playing two helps me find the business too. I'm on 7 fetch lands, which is a bit high for most straight GW Maverick decks I believe, but it works well to keep my Sylvan Library's fresh.
The Rogue's Passage is a bit of a joke, but I've enjoyed having something unique that catches people off guard. I ran Gaea's Cradle back when I first started playing Maverick and didn't really need the mana aside from the 3 mainboard Scavenging Ooze I ran, it often screwed me out of an early green source back in that list.
With my current list, I would have no objections to running a Gaea's Cradle. The card allows you to keep the pressure on with Wastelands while still having relevant mana for equipment and GSZ. It would also allow me to consider a sideboard Sigarda, Host of Herons to further improve the BGx matchups. I'll certainly have to look into borrowing one or finding one to test with.
The Life from the Loam that I run is more of a meta call. We have a ridiculous number of wasteland decks in my area and having those extra land drops help. Further, waste-locking the greedy manabases of this formats tempo decks can be a gameplan in its own right.
I've experimented with black splashes and blue splashes, extra Scryb Rangers, Aether Vials, Punishing Fire, etc... but GW Maverick has been the most consistent for me. The deck is to the point and forgoes a lot of the gimmicks that an extra color provides. By keeping my numbers of Pridemages and Scavenging Oozes, I'm able to save my GSZ's for the times I need them and make the most of the deck's resilience. I've been pleased with it.
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