So vs. what MUs did you want to run Ruric Thar..? And when did you plan to drop it on the field..?
Originally Posted by cavalrywolfpack
Original plan was for storm and similar combo decks, where you can disrupt them early, and a few turns later they save up more gas and still go off. So disrupt then race to ruric, they literally can't win.
Additionally he comes in vs miracles, where if he doesn't get countered it's at the very least 6 damage (also legendary, keep karakas up for removal)
And against fair decks. Jund, mirror, hate bears. Big dude, tough to kill, blocks fliers.
Brought him in vs aggro loam. They're not punishing firing that.
Would probably bring him in vs shardless too. Late game ender.
And you think that 6 discard spells and a Gaddock Teeg is enough to keep you alive until you have the 7 mana you need to GSZ for Ruric Thar vs. ANT/TES..? Or do you plan to pop Veteran Explorers vs. ANT/TES..? We've already established that Slaughter Games, a 4 mana card, is too slow vs. ANT/TES, why would a 6 or 7 mana card be quick enough? I'm really curious about your train of thought here.
Vs. Miracles - 6 damage as best case scenario, big whoop. It's a creature, it isn't something they have any difficulty dealing with.
Do you actually play magic? Or you just enjoy being a contrarian?
Yes, slaughter games is too slow on it's own, but not if it follows up a disruption or 2 and/or a surgical.
Yes I plan to pop veterans against ant/tes.
Yes I'll ramp to 6/7 for ruric and win rather than trying to drop and army of various dudes that won't kill them before they draw into a win.
Yes going card for card with miracles and dealing them 6 in the process is something I'm happy to do.
I'll also use slaughter games against miracles/elves/nicfit and even decks like sneak and show to follow up other disruption
Oh, this isn't the Pokemon board? Hmm...
Lol I'll stop feeding the troll now. Enjoy popping Veteran Explorers and trying to ramp to 6/7 mana vs. ANT/TES. You crack me up. Let us know how that works out for you.
Don't forget to put on a coat when going outside though - it might be nippy in Magical Christmas Land.
I wouldn't use him against Shardless. All you need to do to beat them is out value them, that's their biggest weakness. I've literally never lost a round to Shardless and only infrequently one to Jund (very similar decks). Maybe it's my approach, but really I think it's just the fact that this deck plays the attrition game very well, especially when you focus on it. Living the dream for control decks is to draw 2 cards a turn and make land drops. Properly set up we can draw 3 cards a turn, make land drops, and drop 2 creatures per turn. When things get really crazy, I've been known to draw 5 a turn, multiple turns in a row, while still playing cards. It is Shardless BUG's literal worst nightmare. If you draw enough cards that do things, their whole deck falls apart.
That said, I find it pretty difficult to get to 6 to GSZ a Sigarda, trying to cast Ruric or worse, GSZ him in seems less than ideal. Rather than trying to race to get a Ruric Thar down against Storm (which they can in theory bounce) I would rather hit them enough that they don't have the life total to Ad Nauseam. It's not a great plan, but I think it's better than relying on a 6 drop you can't cheat in.
Try looking at Pod back in the glory days of Modern. Fuel your mana with Vet/DRS, T2 Pods, and A LOT of creatures that have 2 lives. Then pay the format tax that says you must be able to deal with fast uninteractive decks in order to be successful.
I've done a lot of theory work on Pod and what you need at each spot on the curve. I would aim for more value and less toolboxing, because in this format you won't have room for both. Remember, you have to be able to function without a Pod on the board.
I would aim for a general deck skeleton of:
22 lands
19 spells (including Pod)
20 creatures
And run 61 cards. Lands are simple enough so I'll skip them. In your spells it probably looks like
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Birthing Pod
2 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Misc tutor (GSZ, Altar of Bone, Chord, Intent, etc)
4 Extra removal/discard (Path, Decay, Golgari Charm, Deed, Thoughtseize, etc)
Creatures probably looks something like
1 - 7
2 - 4
3 - 4
4 - 3
5 - 2
Given that skeleton, coming from someone who played Melira Pod from start to finish in Modern I would play this for my creature suite
4 Vet
2 DRS
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Voice
1 Pridemage
1 Ooze
2 Finks
1 Witness
1 Spike Feeder
1 Rhino
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Resto
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thune
I'm not saying you have to copy my list 100% or even at all, just trying to give some indication of where your choices in card slots are competing if you want to have something functional in Legacy.
@Brael: Wouldn't Reclamation Sage be preferable over Pridemage in a Pod-list since you can Pod it into a 4-drop after you've resolved the EtB trigger?
It depends on your curve. Sage is better in that it sticks around after doing it's thing, but it's worse in that you only have so many 3 slots. Less noticed though is that Pridemage gives exalted, that's actually something worth having at times (and Ranger provides it as well if you make some dorks Hierarchs). If you stack exalted, your medium sized guys are suddenly able to go toe to toe with Anglers and Rhinos. and it makes your battlefield much stronger. Another issue is that, if you're willing to give up the pod Chain you can get Pridemage down preemptively and have him swing a bit, then activate him later, or pod him out if the threat has passed.
For example you can have him on the board threatening to disrupt some Chalices, Blood Moon's, Counterbalances, etc... while you work on getting to 5 for Angel. Once you don't need the threat you can turn him into Feeder and win the game. With Sage it's all reactive.
We're running with a very different land count and focus.
Gsz into titania is my typical turn 4-5 play. Struggling to Gsz for 6 only happens against decks like grixis delver with wasteland/stifle/daze shenanigans. Perhaps hate bears and such.
There also feels like there is this idea that if something isn't the perfect magical card it's not worth mentioning. Rather than saying this is a card that's better than the stuff you're taking out against a variety of matchups.
Sure, ruric isn't ideal vs shardless. I'd still rather it then spare witnesses that wouldn't return anything over the shamans, the recurring nightmare, half the crud that gets hit by their abrupt and so on. In terms of what goes in and out vs certain decks, having an extra bit of top end is what I'm after. Where others may run sigarda or dromoka, I'm testing ruric
@Square_two or 45545451515, can you explain to me what exactly happened here?
"G3 a bit of disruption and turn 5 he shows in emrakul, I show in titania. He swings, I sac lands, make dudes, counter swing."
He shows in emrakul, how does he get to attack before you? If he swung how did you get to sac lands to the anihilator trigger and to titantia? Did you just miss type? It make sense if he shows in emrakul and you Titania and then eot you make lots of dudes and attack on your turn before he gets to attack. Which is still really sweet. Apologies if I'm missing something.
@Echelon, lol, I think you try and cultivate that reputation you want for yourself a bit too hard. Also, you sideboard out veterans against storm?
Junk and Stoned Rhinos.
How do you beat storm?
Yes, I'm an asshole for pointing out that a 6/7 mana answer to deal with something as fast as Storm is a stupid idea. How dare I suggest that it wouldn't work!
I board out 3 Explorers out of 4. Giving ANT/TES 2 extra mana isn't something I want to do on a regular basis.
Barely. My record vs. Storm sucks balls. Postboard I've got 7/8 discard, 3 (2 mana) hatebears, 2 Surgical and 3 MD DRS. I suppose 4 GSZ could be counted as hatebear/GY hate. It's still nothing more than a hail Mary though.
Last edited by Echelon; 07-27-2016 at 08:10 AM.
I'm assuming that the S&S player cast Show and Tell, putting in Emrakul while our Nic Fit guy put in Titania, then passed turn. Nic Fit doesn't have to attack, just make sure that he's got plenty of land to sacrifice. Show and Tell player doesn't understand Titania properly, and swings out with Emrakul, which leads to many lands going into the grave and a crackback lethal attack with the reslulting 5/3 army. Definitely a missplay on the Show and Tell player's part. It's nice having a green creature capable of keeping Emrakul at bay that is also just decent in general (unlike...Stingerfling Spider).
I think the main thing people don't realize about Storm is that you need both disruption + clock. Heck, I've had both Teeg and Chalice out, and Storm has proceeded to go off - only thing saved me was a sandbagged instant in my hand. Smart Storm players can play through a LOT of hate.
Probably a reason why I've been seeing more Spirit of the Labyrinth in sideboards. Creatures that have built in disruption like her, Teeg, Thalia are the best you can have on board.
Oh yeah, and if you screw up a Cabal Therapy, you are probably screwed
Personally I've found that a Teeg with a Sword of Fire and Ice is quite effective.
@Square_two, ha yea my bad, sorry. I misrememebred what Titania does. That makes perfect sense and is hilarious.
@Echelon, lol, maybe I misinterpreted you, maybe you aren't trying XD
I have a pretty good 50/50 or better matchup against storm, and I've played it quite a lot online. The way I play it is they can beat you by generating an early mana advantage with rituals before you can interact enough and by comboing you out with a lethal combination of cards (duh).
So I want to therapy as much as I can and interact as much as I can and establish a clock (duh), to do that you need mana. Veteran aids two of those fronts giving you something to turn your cabal therapies into double discard (while being mana efficient at only one mana as opposed to two) and gives you mana so you can interact plenty of times in the first 2-3 crucial turns of the game.
Giving them mana doesnt change the dynamics much, they still need the rituals in hand to up their storm count with or without extra lands.
So I guess I question what you are sacrificing to your therapies against them if you only have 4 Gsun's and one vet (and no sfm?)? It seems preferable to make that aspect of the game plan more consistent so you can therapy them turn 1, land a vet and sac turn 2 and then play more discard or a hatebear or both and pass the turn.
My sideboarding usually looks something like
+2 TS (two are main deck)
+3 surgical
+2 Spirit of the Labia (or some other anti combo bear)
+1 Gaddock teeg
+2 engineered plague
-4 decay
-4 stp
-1 Sigarda
-1 Tusk
Keeping in SFM to sac to therapies, turn bears into large clocks and BSK can be top end and also out race goblin tokens.
Junk and Stoned Rhinos.
I think that SFM builds probably fare better against storm than other non-BUG lists (cause BUG gets some sweet tools) thanks to this. When you can equip Teeg or Spirit of the Labyrinth, it changes the whole dynamic of the game and puts you way ahead. I have way less experience than Jain_Mor here but I feel like I board similarly and have comparable results.
I don't try, I just do.
@Echelon, Those paragraphs on storm sideboarding and their respective questions were directed at you :)
Junk and Stoned Rhinos.
I know. No time now, answering that tomorrow :)
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