[Deck] UBW Chalice

[Finn]

I'm not sure if I like the Hussar or not. On the one hand it's draw + creature, but he isn't exactly big and does nothing without Jitte.

Chalice + Vial is not that good either as we should avoid cc1 cards. Chalice without Tomb is only half as strong, too.

Yeah. Frankly I am not particularly experienced with the Chalice. I would consider cutting it entirely since Vial and Winter Orb is so butch. But since I am not certain how important it is yet, I am going with this bastardized version.

I wanna mention how good Court Hussar has been for me. With Augustin out, he is only two. At two, he is simply amazing, often chaining into the next. But vigilance with Jitte has really good implications as well. Please don't make the mistake of thinking this card is not good without Jitte. At the very least, it is an Impulse with a body that does not cost extra with Glowrider out.

What about Trinisphere instead of Chalice? Is that even a reasonable switch?

[GoTreK]

The problem with Orb is imho that by playing it we'd do most aggro-decks a favour because they have a stronger board position most of the time and we'll slow ourselves down in establishing our own game which could be lethal.

Against control and Combo that's a different matter of course.

edit: Court Hussar might actually be better than I thought. Btw what do you think of running Jitte as a 4 of as in Zilla-Stompy?

Mind that without Chalice we absolutely need some cc1 drops in addition to Vial.

[Finn]

STP and Mother of Runes come to mind, but I do not wish to hijack the thread.

EDIT: Cloud of fairies should be really good

[Pinder]

At the very least, it is an Impulse with a body that does not cost extra with Glowrider out.

On that same note, what about Azorius Herald? At worst he's a 2W gain life spell that doesn't get hit by Glowrider. At best he's a sexy 2/1 unblockable beat stick that stalls Aggro like a pro.

What about Trinisphere instead of Chalice? Is that even a reasonable switch?

I don't know. Trinisphere would probably wreck everything just as much as Chalice (between 3Shpere, a Glowrider, and Augustin, it's pretty much impossible for your opponent to play anything for less than 5). The only thing is, most of your spells are 2cc, which means it wrecks you a lot too. And if I read the cards right, having Augustin doesn't even help (it makes your dudes cost less, but then 3sphere makes them cost 3 again :( ). Could someone verify that?

Cloud of fairies should be really good

I completely agree. Between Vial and Augustin, it will make for some sick mana accel. And they fit nicely into another 2cc slot for Vial.

The problem with Orb is imho that by playing it we'd do most aggro-decks a favour because they have a stronger board position most of the time and we'll slow ourselves down in establishing our own game which could be lethal.

If the deck ends up being slow, you could be right about that, but if we can get out an Orb under 3sphere or Augustin or Glowrider, they won't be able to play their threats. That's shaping up to be the point of this deck, it seems.

Of course, that's assuming we even start running 3sphere, Augustin, Winter Orb, etc.

How about it, Klaan? Throw 'em in, and we'll play a couple of games.

[Tosh]

How about it, Klaan? Throw 'em in, and we'll play a couple of games.

I know you're at work but can u spare an MWS game or two?

and by 3sphere u mean Trinisphere right?
Augustin and Cloud of Faeries seems like good ideas. Lets see how it plays out.

P.S. I forgot your email pinder but I have a program to send you.

[Finn]

I ran this against 3 random/decent control decks this evening:

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Glowrider
3 Augustin
4 Court Hussar
4 Cloud of Fairies
3 Sea Drake
4 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Winter Orb
4 Aether Vial
4 Tangle Wire
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
5 Island
5 Plains

sb:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Man-o-War
3 Capashen Unicorn

The results were predictable. It performed well. A chalice would have been really nice in the main though. I don't like the prospects against aggro, either. Just the same, there is enough synergy in this setup to warrant a lot of testing.

[Pinder]

I know you're at work but can u spare an MWS game or two?

and by 3sphere u mean Trinisphere right?
Augustin and Cloud of Faeries seems like good ideas. Lets see how it plays out.

P.S. I forgot your email pinder but I have a program to send you.

Yeah, 3sphere means Trinisphere. Hence the '3' :P. Anyway, I don't have enough time on lunch (which was when I made my last post) to play MWS. And I don't have any time right now....but this sort of conversation is best left to PMs, lest the mods get restless. This thread is for Glowfish discussion. As such, I'll PM you my e-mail address.

[Pinder]

3 Sea Drake

How are Drakes in the main? I don't think they would be as great as they are in FS (with its crazy mox tricks), but they do provide a clock, I suppose.

I'm not sure I like moving Meddling Mage to the board though. He's just that good first turn off a chrome mox.

[Finn]

I "may" have something significant here. We could use Hokori Dust Drinker in place of the Tangle Wires or Winter Orbs. If you also include a Karakas or three, you have a pretty nasty soft lock.

You can Aether Vial out Hokori on your own turn and Kaakas him back to your hand at the end of the opponent's turn thus enabling your own lands while preventing his.

After some experience with the deck, I think that Hokori (at 4) will be roughly as expensive as Winter Orb (at 2) considering the cards in the deck that alter costs.

Also, Hokori does not work quite the same way as Winter Orb. There may be a way to sleaze these cards when using both. I am just brainstroming here.

[Finn]

double post - sry.
Drakes worked well so far.
Well, that is all true, but I took the moxen out as well. I suppose they should be put back in, though. They work poorly with Glowrider but well with Winter Orb/ Hokori. The Mox should certainly be in.

I just think the game vs. storm and salvager combo will be fairly good game one anyway. Glowrider is kinda hard for them to get around. And Tangle Wire hurts them as well. More tests are in order.

[Alfred]

Hey, why not add Zur the Enchanter? It only costs 4, is in all of the colors you control, and can get some really useful enchantments from your library into play.

Absolute Law
Ghostly Prison
Arcane Laboratory
Phyrexian Arena

Just some that spring to mind. It also has a fat behind, so it can dodge a lot of removal. You can also cast all of these things.

EDIT: Also, Engineered Plague. That seems like a good idea.

[GoTreK]

Azorius Herald seems like a decent addition to me. He is very nice with Jitte and helps the aggro MU as well.

I don't think Winter Orb, Sea Drake and Tangle Wire belong here, to be honest. At any rate I'd definately run Serendib Efreet over Drake.

I'm also not sure if Augustin is good enough - I'm afraid he isn't. His ability to make our spells cheaper is hardly of any use in this deck and he is manaintensive. His only useful ability won't be that relevant as he'll hit play too late anyway.

Finn I think MM and Confi should definately be run. Without Chalice we could add some cc1 drops which suits Confi even better.

If we want to imrpove the deck we should agree on a certain direction at first, otherwise we won't get anywhere - everyone is sort of working on his own deck right now which I think is quite inefficient.

[Finn]

Agreed, gotrek.

I think that should do this independently since I appear to thinking about a slightly different deck.

[Tosh]

I thought I'd post what I have in mind at the moment. So here is what it is looking like:
// Lands
4 [B] Scrubland
4 [B] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
1 [7E] Swamp (4)

// Creatures
4 [LE] Glowrider
4 [PS] Meddling Mage
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
2 [LE] Withered Wretch
2 [DIS] Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
3 [UL] Cloud of Faeries

// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [5E] Winter Orb
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [ON] Smother
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [LE] Withered Wretch
SB: 1 ??????
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 4 [NE] Seal of Cleansing
SB: 4 [TE] Diabolic Edict

I really like the controlly aspects of Glowrider, Meddling Mage, and Chalice. Chalice is one of the best cards in this deck, it slows down gobs soooo much (which is rampant in my meta) and also stops those mongoose in Thresh (also rampant in my meta).

[GoTreK]

I'm not yet satisfied with your creaturebase. You simply have NO clock at all and when it comes to the pure body you got Glowrider, who is at that point a 2/1 for cc3 (dreadful) and a 2/3 for cc4 (same here). The rest is solid 2/2 for cc2, but isn't enough by half to keep up with aggro or to kill control/combo fast enough. Do you already have some test results that prove my "theories" wrong?

I also think 4 Vindicate + 4 Smother is an overkill. 3/3 or 4/2 seems more appropriate to me.

Are 4 Moxen really necessary?

[Tosh]

You say its too slow to compete against aggro and then ask why 4 moxen are in there... Moxen help speed up the deck, enableing for 1st turn almost anything in the whole deck. Vindicate and Smother are 4-ofs to destroy their creature base letting my 2 power creature run rampant.

[Pinder]

I'm more than satisfied with the clock at this point. If your opponent cant't play spells, 2 or 3 2/2's (or 2/1's, whatever) are more than enough of a clock. If you want to speed up the clock, I'm sure that Serendib Efreet is a decent enough include. It certainly warrants some testing. My only problem with it is that it's just straight up fat, it doesn't do much to help your gameplan (except speeding up your clock, I suppose).

I'm afraid I don't really like Augustin anymore, however. The benefit he gives to a whopping 2 of your spells just doesn't account for his huge cost and tiny body, even if he does make their spells cost 1 more. Add to that the fact that he's legendary, and suddenly you have dead cards in your hand. Stormscape Familiar (despite what I said earlier) seems like a better choice to me, since it still makes all your spells cheaper, is cheaper, and has evasion. Of course, we could always try the aforementioned Efreet in the Arbiter slot.

I agree with GoTrek that Azorius Herald needs to be in. I realize that he costs 3, but in all fairness under a Familiar he turns into a Life Burst with a warm 2/1 body. Even more importantly, it's an unblockable body that can carry a jitte, which turns into more lifegain in a pinch, creature removal if you need it, and absolute beatstickery when you don't. I'll take 4, please.

Based off of Klaan's earlier list, it could turn into something like this:

//Land
4 Scrubland
4 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Swamp
1 Island

// Creatures
3 Glowrider
4 Meddling Mage
4 Dark Confidant
3 Azorius Herald
2 Serendib Efreet
3 Cloud of Faeries
2 Stormscape Familiar

// Spells
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Winter Orb
3 Vindicate
3 Smother
4 Chrome Mox
3 Umezawa's Jitte

I left the Winter Orbs in for now, but if we're not running Aether Vial, I'm tempted to agree with GoTrek that they might need to come out, seeing as they hurt you too. I squeezed in a couple of Familiars because I like how they interact with Glowrider, Smother, Vindicate, Azorius Herald, and Dark Confidant. I took GoTrek's advice and dropped the Vindicate/Smother to 3/3 to fit in the Familiars. The only problem there being that currently they're a 2-of, and as fragile as they are at 1/1, it might need to be either 4 or zero. I might end up cutting either Efreet or the Familiar to bump the other to 4. Only further testing will tell.

Also, I think that between Chalice and Jitte, Finn was right about Tangle Wire. It's definitely better for this deck than Winter Orb, at any rate.

EDIT: After some testing, I have concluded that Winter Orb is teh sux. It's not that great early game, and it's a horrible topdeck. I'm not sure what to put in instead, but I would up the Vindicate/Smother count back to 4 each, and we should probably look into maindecking more cards to help with the Aggro matchup, as that's the only thing I seem to be suffering against with the above list.

Oh and Azorius Herald is the shit. I can't begin to tell you how many times this dude lets you stabilize against aggro. He's just fantastic.

EDIT SOME MORE: I think I just had an epiphany. Sort of. This deck is all about keeping them from playing their noncreature spells via Glowrider, Chalice, and mana denial, right? The main problem I keep dealing with is that there's not too much we can do about the creatures they do cast, since they aren't any more expensive. On that note, I think we need a lot more creature removal. Well, not a lot, but perhaps some sort of mass removal that doesn't wreck us? I think that if we can keep their spells in their hand, and their creatures off the board, this deck will do a lot better. Thoughts?

[Tosh]

//Land
4 Scrubland
4 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Swamp
1 Island

// Creatures
3 Glowrider
4 Meddling Mage
4 Dark Confidant
3 Azorius Herald
2 Serendib Efreet
3 Cloud of Faeries
2 Stormscape Familiar

// Spells
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Winter Orb
3 Vindicate
3 Smother
4 Chrome Mox
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Couple thoughts here:

First of all, I'd run 4 Glowriders and 3 Bob over the other way. Reason being: 2 Glowriders is awesome; 2 Bobs is gonna kill me.

Second, Tangle Wire... hrm not bad.

Third, There is a reason why I'm running Vindicate AND Smother. (If familiar worked the way I thought it would I was considering mortify) I have no idea other than maybe Engineered Plague (only hitting a couple of their creatures) as mass creature removal for only their creatures in our colors (and WoG is a BAD idea).

Fourth, Lets keep it at 4x Flooded Strand 2x Bloodstained Mire because that's what I have

[Pinder]

Couple thoughts here:

First of all, I'd run 4 Glowriders and 3 Bob over the other way. Reason being: 2 Glowriders is awesome; 2 Bobs is gonna kill me.

Okay, I agree with you there.

Have you considered Loxodon Gatekeeper? I know he'd push your curve all the way up to four (gasp!), but between Familiar and Chrome Mox you should be able to get him out fairly quickly anyway. Glowrider followed by Gatekeeper should effectively lock them out of the game for a fair while. You could Smother/Vindiate the dudes they get untapped and swing past the ones they don't. I haven't actually tested him yet, so I might just be blowing smoke, but he seems pretty good. The only mark he has against him would be his hefty CC, it seems.

[GoTreK]

You say its too slow to compete against aggro and then ask why 4 moxen are in there... Moxen help speed up the deck

Oh, thanks, I didn't know that... oO

I said indeed that it's too slow and I absolutely stand by that. Pinder's results prove that - even if he at first made the mistake to think Glowrider would slow them down enough, completely neglecting the fact that creaturespells aren't affected at all by Glowrider. Therefore we need the Efreet or something similar.
As to the Mox, yes, we do need a clock and we do need to speed up the deck but not at any cost! The carddisadvantage just sucks and you never ever want to have two of them in your openinghand.

@Pinder
So I was right about Orb and Herald?! ;)