The really sick part? I was putting my Winter Orbs back in my Revised last night and saw Meekstone, thought "This would be awesome in Deadguy because it shuts off alpha striking with creatures Deadguy can't handle, but, alas, goblins don't care about it." and dismissed it. Tivitar's Crusade would be awsome here, if we could get to WW easier (I run 8 fetches and still sometimes have a problem getting one white mana), as Plague has been made obsolete by Dralnu's Crusade.Originally Posted by Tacosnape
I've been running Perish and Virtue's Ruin in my SB to some pretty good success. The problem I've had in the past with Dystopia is that it's only hitting one creature at a time. I suppose that's ok against decks that rely on only 2-3 green creatures to win the game (Thresh), but I've also had people just continue to play out another creature and then beat in. That's why I've been enjoying just sweeping the board of whatever color is ailing me. My board at the moment is pretty much just global hating.
3 Perish (Hate on Green)
3 Virtue's ruin (Hate on White)
3 Infest (Been running this over Plague due to the absence of Goblins)
2 Swords to Plowshare (Might cut 1)
2 Serenity (Almost wanting 3 in here, it just seems that good)
2 Warmth (Random Burn and other red related whatnot)
As per Clark Kant's reply, I can see the statement of "...threats are always better than answers." in 2 ways. But thinking about that, and the aforementioned cards would almost be, if not completely, worthless against combo. Would a SB of True Believer vs combo or a forcefield against bigger threats work? I've tried the forcefield, and it seemed to work against the bigger creatures, but come against goblins or a mongoose and the like, its virtually pointless. I've even gone as far as using zombie infestations to rid my hands of seemingly dead cards and to just put more pressure on the opponent with a fairly good success. I have yet to try out the meekstone idea, but I'll make sure i try that next. Maybe my concept/ knowledge of the finer details of this deck are off, but with guidance and some feedback, I hope to gain as much as I hope to contribute to this deck and board. Ciao !
I actually did some playtesting with the following list:
Deadguy Ale v1.2 (my second modified version of this)
Manabase: 24
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scrubland
1 Godless Shrine
9 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
Creatures: 16
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Nantuko Shade
3 Jotun Grunt
2 Withered Wretch (just for the last 2 cards I couldn't decide on, I didn't want only 2 Wasteland MD)
Disruption: 20
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
SB:
4 Mutilate/Cursed Scrolls (to test viability against random aggro)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Withered Wretch
3 E. Plague
2 (missing....due to Wretch's being split between maindeck and SB)
I played about 15 games last night, all against a pretty typical Raffinity deck, just to see what a fast aggro deck with no control elements can do.
Sad to say, Affinity vs my build was not even a matchup. His maindeck vs mine was hitting probably 80/20 in his favor. The pure speed of an aggro deck that can just win in the middle of combat coupled with a possible combo outlet via Rav+Disciple is nothing short of the best matchup vs this deck.
Post sideboard, I found that Mutilate shined like mad in this deck, especially going along with StP. Nearly every time I cast Mutilate it was a 4-for-1, one time I even hit a 5-for-1 taking otu 3 of his creatures and 2 Glimmervoids. Jotun Grunt loved that.
Current thought process: Mutilate is a must in sideboard. Stuff that hurts some of our bad matchups like Thresh, Raffinity, and other random aggro/aggro control are too selective. Mutilate easily does the same thing, and typically will kill off some things otherwise left behind. Never was I short of the 4 swamps when casting it, and it never hit less than 3 creatures on the opponents side of the board, to a maximum of 2 of mine.
Jotun Grunt, absolute garbage without something like Jitte or Sword of Fire/Ice to back him up. If you can't kill their creatures fast enough, or pack high enough disruption, he won't survive that 3rd upkeep counter. Trust me, I was throwing cards in the graveyard on both our sides, but hitting 12 by turn 5, that's a bit farfetched. Typically he swings twice, and dies.
In this particular instance, and I know the same goes for Goblins and R/G aggro decks, Nantuko Shade shined. Following a Mutilate, he's pretty much guaranteed to beat out anything your opponent will drop, because he'll typically swing for 7+ next turn.
So at this rate, I may end up testing the Jitte. Taking out the 2 Wretch back to SB and putting them in the place, 14 creatures SHOULD prove useful enough to pack this, and after seeing all the rediculousness I could have been pulling against Goblins and Raffinity with that card, I see that it could quite possibly pull wins vs Thresh as well.
12 Disruption + 8 Land destruction: A solid number between the two. Against Raffinity, I wished I had Wasteland, but at the same time, it's not really much of a question against the remainder of the field, as they pack many more basics than Raffinity does (at 0). I could easily change the deck back to -2 Swamp -2 Verdict +4 Wasteland, so testing that will also come about.
Still, the Grunt seems to be a viable card, though Rotting Giant is seeming stronger for the staying power. Grunt + Jitte should pack good speed, and Grunt is way more useful than Giant later in the game (mainly because he can last more than 2-3 turns), and getting a Jitte on a Confidant or Hyppie seemed to be worth possibly losing them in a battle.
I've pretty much completely lost interest in Cursed Scroll. It's good, being colorless damage, a good early drop, and recurring, but it's just too damn slow, and not enough damage late game to kill off threats.
As for combo, I still need to test that out. I think this build will be much more viable, as it has 7 good sized beaters + 12 Hand Disruption + 8 Land Destruction spells. That seems really good against both Solidarity and IGGY Pop.
I think that the logic that there are never wrong threats was debunked a while ago. The entire problem with this deck is that it's full of wrong threats; it's guys can't really beat up on any other deck's guys in the entire format. Goblins will overwhelm you and pinpoint destroy creatures, whereas Thresh and whateverStompy's bigger, better equipped creatures will stomp over yours. As an aggro deck, the archetype seems to fail again and again when running up against other aggro decks; it's strictly worse in this regards than Red Death, basically. I think it's time to consider how to make either the aggro or the control part of this aggro-control deck stronger. You could try actually testing cutting some of your current disruption suite for creature- hate, losing either LD or discard, or some combination thereof. -4 Sinkhole, -4 Wasteland, -4 Vindicate for +2 Color-producing land, +4 StP, +3 additional threats, +3 Jitte, for instance. Or, if you're like Pikula and just like destroying lands, lose the Hymns and Duresses. As the deck plays right now, it's Threshold at Sorcery speed with less optimization and no line of text on your creatures that begins "Threshold-".
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
The problem is this isn't an aggro control deck. The creatures are just as much utility as they are damage, typically more utility. This is the main reason people can't call this Suicide Black anymore, we lost the suicide build when we put in white for control elements. The way it's built now is more along the lines of a slow control deck, that's not very good at keeping control, because the format gets past it's two key elements: discard and land destruction. After the first few turns, both LD and HD start losing their effectiveness, mainly because the solid decks in the format are all stabilizing at the same time we are.
None of the creatures have shadow. Even if any did, they'd be useless without backup, or mostly dead (because the "good" shadow creatures all have 2 or less toughness). This makes the core of Sui useless here. Also, we've come to the conclusion Negator is pretty bad here, because unlike Red Death, our removal of resolved creatures is usually clunky or too mana intensive to support him swinging every turn, and our permanent count isn't that high either.
Looking over our lists of "threats" through Gatherer, it honestly comes down to Grunt or Juzam/Grinning Demon for our beatsticks, in addition to the Shade. The Juzam vs Demon may need to be tested though, as 6 usually = a 3 turn clock now, with pretty much every deck playing a minimum of 4 fetchlands, and 5 would still most likely be 4 turns. However, in a slow game, that additional life loss coupled with Bob may be bad.
If we went with this style, I'd advocate putting in more creature destruction maindeck, and taking out some of our disruption.
This may be the new way to go with the deck.
Here's a build I've been testing out recently:
Lands
4 Wasteland (I actually tested 3-Waste 1-Stronghold-build but noticed that the problem isn't really getting a guy to stick, it's getting a guy, period)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Tomb of Urami
4 Scrubland (I play Tomb and Grunt, hence I really want my white mana and I don't like mana instabilities, so I play 4/4/4 Scrub/Mire/Delta to get it with some consistency)
2 Swamp
Creatures
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Jotun Grunt (experimental card #1, I find it to be awesome here, it usually sticks around long enough to pay for itself and against graveyard-strategies, it's naturally great)
4 Dark Confidant
3 Bane of the Living (experimental card #2, I was analysing the list and came to the conclusion that Nantuko Shade is a problem-card since it has no role other than to beat, so I'm testing a sweeper-creature in its stead. So far, I haven't run any actual testing, just played it on MWS and the MWS-players don't like their creature-decks for a reason or another so I haven't really gotten to test it out. The fact that it's a 2/2 when Morphed is a problem, but the fact that it can be blown for 2 and it still survives makes it awesome for killing Goblins. I'm also considering Masticore, but I like how cheaply this guy can sweep the board and also be a legimate beatstick against combo)
Spells
3 Funeral Charm (experimental card #3, I try to attack the opponent's hand so just discarding a card is great as I can then go for the throat with Hymns and Verdicts to empty him. Also a Lackey-answer, a clock-speeder and occasionally allows me to 1-for-2 with a big guy (which is better than having 'em go about unanswered))
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Duress (only 2 to have less dead cards game 1 against a lot of decks and because of the fact that in Type 1.5, the card power doesn't fluctuate as widely as in T1, so nailing a specific card isn't quite as necessary that often)
2 Cursed Scroll (I've found 'em awesome still, clock combined with repeatable removal=superb against both, control and aggro. I actually played a mirror where my opponent played Jitte and I played Scroll. I won the game through equipped Jitte as I got the second Scroll active and just went to the town. The amount of artifact-removal and Needles is still surprisingly low MD)
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
2 Chrome Mox (experimental card #4, I really like the fact that it allows turn 1 Sinkhole on the draw without Ritual. I can also occasionally pitch Ritual to it in a mana-heavy hand. I really find this card heavily underused in the format, I think it gives this particular deck just the added speed it needs to make its disruption effective in this format)
4 Dark Ritual
2 Gerrard's Verdict (I like the added mass discard, helps Grunt and all that)
Sideboard
1 Jotun Grunt (duh)
1 Funeral Charm (I want 8 1-cost removal-spells, 4 Plagues, 2 Scrolls and beats against Goblins. Comes in also against combo or control if I have nothing better)
2 Duress (duh)
4 Swords to Plowshares (duh)
4 Engineered Plague (1-shot removal just isn't enough against Goblins, I find the permanent removal from Plague to be the best shot)
3 Serenity (artifact- and enchantment-removal of choice for me. Blows up Moxes, too bad, but I want to have an answer to those random Stax- and Affinity-decks that are around, as well as to Survival, Humility, Scepter, etc.)
The build is just to test a few cards, I really like where it's going though. I'm very happy with Moxes here, the deck makes up for the lost cards the first Hymn or Verdict it casts and if I can manascrew the opponent, all the better. Also has a decent removal suite even before board. Then again, I haven't gotten to test it thoroughly enough to really say anything conclusive. I might want an additional land though, the deck is very manahungry and 1-landers are almost invariably unkeepable.
Interesting list. Bane of the Living certainly does help out. He also kills goose, granted he goes down too, but at least you can sweep them off. I used funeral charm in my pox deck when I played it at Philly, and oh man, that card is sooooooo sweet against Goblins. It can either 1. Rip a card from hand, 2. Kill Lacky, or 3. Help in the mirror when it comes to doing those last points of combat damage. Chrome Mox is an interesting choice too. The extra speed seems to outweigh the card disadvantage for this deck thanks to Bob. It seems like a solid list. Jotun Grunt seems kind of automatic since he's currently the hottest card in this format. Tell us how you do with it.
Team Solo
Feeling slightly retarded for forgetting to look at artifact creatures when looking over possible beatsticks, Masticore might just be a really useful addition. At worst he's 4 for a 4/4, which is still solid. If there's no Needle's, he becomes instant speed spot removal, and an eternal blocker. He just might be the 2 card replacement for my Cursed Scrolls that went SB.
As for Wasteland, I'm still not completely sold on them. The only decks so far that they've been good against have been Affinity and on occasion Thresh, and to be honest, they're really not good against either of those. Your helping Thresh achieve it's goal, and not slowing it down nearly enough without hitting them with Sinkhole and Vindicate to keep them off 2-3 mana for a while, and Affinity really just doesn't care. The only thing I ever really kept my opponent from casting when hitting Affinity's lands was Cranial Plating, and honestly it was merely just buying time, I was hardly in control of that matchup, ever.
Tomb and Stronghold I'm still working on playtesting, though I think with a heavier threat base, Stronghold will be a much more solid choice. Especially being able to discard additional Bobs to 'Core and then put them back on top of the library before draw step. Seems like a good "reserves" way to play around his drawback.
I think I'm gonna stick with SB Mutilate over MD Bane, I really dislike the idea of requiring so much mana to attempt a -x/-x on a single turn if I really need to draw into him, as opposed to just nuking everything whenever I topdeck a Mutilate, which is always at minimum 4. E. Plagues + StP in the SB means Goblins really aren't a problem after game 1.
Never forget that Stronghold only produces colourless, and increases mana inconsistencies if played over a coloured land, the reason I opted not to ultimately run it. In my experience, Wasteland is awesome against anything, allowing me to conditionally fill up on my LD-suite if I've got sufficient LD going on anyways (against Iggy, all kinds of Tomb-decks, Thres, Gobs, etc.) and produces mana if I don't have the tools to hit the landbase.
SB-option is definately Mutilate, but I don't like trying to win games 2 and 3, I want a shot at game 1, Bane gives me the means to kill hordes pre-board. I'd really like one that did it when it comes into play. I actually considered Kagemaro, but 5 is a lot to flip from Confidant and it costs tons to get on board (for 3 mana, Bane can be Morphed and sweep for 1 the next turn).
Going second, I've noticed that the deck REALLY wants a Ritual or a Mox-opening unless you're up against combo since you need to get your Sinkholes and Hymns online before opponent drops his hand rendering them useless.
Have you guys tried adding Pillor of Sleeplessness or Soul Link? A Soul link on your bomb creature (like Kezzerdrix) would be pretty good and the -4 life if opponent has no creatures wouldn't hurt as much.
Actually, there are at least two scenarios worse than him being a vanilla 4/4. 1) He's stuck in your hand because you never hit 4. 2) You're forced to discard your disruption to him instead of using it to win. Heck, Juggernaut is probably better than him.
No offense but Juggernaut is a horrible suggestion. It dies to a Nimble Mongoose or much less a lightning bolt.
I assure that Masticore is exactly what this deck is looking for. Your disruption is just to throw off your opponents initial plan. Cards like Dark Ritual, Duress, Hymn, Sinkhole or any of the 22 lands this deck runs start sucking it up in the mid and late game.
Masticore on the other hand serves many different functions, all of which this deck is lacking in. It's a resilient blocker that survives everything sans Swords (which you have Duress and 12 other potent threats to deal with), it's a solid threat, it's an extremely fast clock and it's a potent instant speed repeatable removal. Best of all it lets you run Jitte, the other card that serves a bunch of different functions that are precisely what this deck needs. Removal, clock, saving your creatures and lifegain.
Last edited by Clark Kant; 09-18-2006 at 12:21 PM.
After speaking with a friend of mine, I'm thinking a really good idea against most of our bad matchups (typically aggro/aggro control), would actually be Engineered Explosives. Nearly everytime you're going to set it down @ 2 counters, which is enough to blow away any main threats of Thresh, Goblins, Affinity, and most of the remaining aggro based things, as well as randomly hating against Iggy (artificial manabase), and things like Survival (and most of it's utility/accelerants).
I'm considering running 2-3 in the SB now in place of E Plague, which is honestly only a solid thing against Goblins, and only if you find 2 fast enough.
Definitely keeping Masticore as a 2 of in the deck, after playtesting I never found myself running short, especially since all of us agree that random pieces of discard late game is almost always dead.
Volrath's Stronghold is still being tested in my build. Still don't have Wasteland, as I typically see Affinity, Rifter, Solidarity, IGGY Pop, Thresh, Control Slivers, RGSA, or anything else that doesn't run more than 4-8 non-basics, plus way more basics or acceleration to win around Wasteland without tempo loss.
Here's what I'm at so far:
Lands/Mana:24
2 Volraths Stronghold
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scrubland
1 Godless Shrine (or Tainted, your choice)
7 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
Disruption:20
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Gerrards Verdict
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
Creatures:16
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Nantuko Shade
3 Jotun Grunt
2 Masticore
Sideboard:
4 Withered Wretch (may just use Crypt, with so many maindeck creatures now)
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Mutilate
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Umezawa's Jitte
Still working on getting Jitte into the maindeck (may take out something like 1 Hymn and 1 Duress/Verdict), and if more aggro decks start showing up, I'm definitely going to replace 4 discard for 4 StP maindeck. For now, this seems to be a very solid run, though I'm still worried certain decks will just literally outrun me.
I'll be doing more testing over the week, and give some insight to what's going on, and any changes.
Edit: @ Lego- Both of those cases you would lose regardless of if he's in the deck or not. At the point that after turn 4 (our average for casting Masticore, without Ritual) you're afraid to pitch your discard/disruption because it's more needed than a 4-5 turn clock, you're already far behind. Same with the lacking of 4 mana, especially allowing colorless sources to cast him. Rarely will I run myself short on mana, and I cut myself back to 20 lands, 6 of which are fetches.
I think that any build that wants to run 4cc creatures, such as Masticore, pretty much has to run 22 lands atleast. Pikula's original build ran 23 lands, and his curve topped off at 3.
I can also say for certain that Jitte is worth it's weight in gold, hence why I'm running 3. Every one of it's abilities is insanely useful in this deck esp.
Unfortunately, if you want to run Jitte, you are pretty much forced to make sure that all your threats stick around for a couple of turns, hence forcing that you run Rotting Giant over Jotun Grunt.
Hey guys. Wizards of the Coast is going to print (in Time Spiral) a 4cc (2BB) 5/5 Sliver. The only catch is that it reads "all slivers gain 'during your upkeep this creature deals 1 damage to you.'" Do you think this guy is going to see play in the deck?
Probably, if they cant afford Cursed Scrolls, Jittes, or Juzam Djinn.
Better than Juzam, hoses enemy slivers.
But this deck dosn't need Juzam
There is a chance the sliver could be used in this deck, but the problem of his constant life loss could be an issue in a standoff. 5 really isn't much better than 4 at this rate, it's still 4 turns to swing (average life loss of most decks by the end of the game is 4 due to fetches, and even more with things like Thresh running FoW in addition). Plus, it only really beats out thresh'd Werebear, whereas Masticore can block and regen, and possibly kill off something in addition with extra mana in the late game.
I would say at this point, the big difference is whether or not you see Pithing Needle. I personally consider a 4 colorless 4/4 with utility that requires colorless and has regeneration over a 2 and 2 core black 5/5 vanilla that hurts you every turn.
That's the problem with the deck: in both of these situations you would have already lost. My point was supposed to be that he seems win-more to me. By this I mean that for him to be good, you have to be already winning the game. If you've hit 4 mana, and have consistantly kept your opponent off of threats, then any creature will win you the game. If you haven't hit 4 mana, or haven't properly kept your opponent off of threats, they are going to be able to deal with Masticore, and he's simply going to slow down your game plan. What the deck needs is some way to win in these situations. I find that often on turn 4 your opponent is beginning to recover from your disruption, which is why a creature like Confidant is great because he allows you to keep disrupting while beating down. It's why Nantuko Shade is great because you can disrupt, disrupt, disrupt, and then win all at once. When you play Masticore, it seems that instead you are giving up on the disruption, going "all in" and allowing your opponent ample time to recover and deal with him.
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