My ratings for the Maverick matchup would be as follows:Originally Posted by Morzas
- Aven Mindcensor is at least a 7 (or more) because it shuts down their main engine of Green's Sun Zenith
- Phyrexian Revoker is at a 7 as well because it is a tutorable answer that can shut off Deathrite Shaman and Quasali Pridemage (or even the Noble Hierarch if you sense they're on that kind of build)
- Postboard: Rest in Peace is a 6 because it hits Deathrite Shaman, Knight of the Reliquary, and--most importantly--their Life from the Loam
- Postboard: Pithing Needle is a 5 because it can hit utility lands and the occasional active creature on their side
@Finn
I'd rate Vial a 9/10 against Miracles. It is absolutely the card you want in your opening hand, especially if you are not playing Cavern of Souls. While it is a little weak in the end-game, you are fine having two of these in play as a way to largely invalidate Countertop lock. With Karakas and a Legendary creature, it becomes a very difficult obstacle to overcome. While Vial doesn't really end the game on its own (especially post-board), it is extremely strong.
Aether Vial vs. Miracles 9/10
Only because if you don't have it in your opening hand or on the next turn, it is pretty bad to draw into. On the other hand, I am fine with 2 in my opening hand against Miracles.
I know it's not that popular anymore, but maverick can't beat displacer + mom.
So how many Prelates have people been running and how have they been performing for you?
I feel like I'm alone in that I feel like I want one on t3 in almost every game (save eldrazi and dnt mirrors); to that end I've been playing 3 and even sleeved up all 4 MD for one tournament.
I suppose I could get behind playing 2MD + 1 SB (for spell-based matchups).
I just feel like this card comes down and locks the game out for so many of my opponents; but it feels like the rest of you don't agree.
@AsmodeusDM
Until I see a list win a large event (150+ people) or several Top 8 placements in similarly large events, I don't see anyone being able to claim that they have figured out anything like an optimal, tuned build using the new cards, so I think you should feel free to experiment with 3-4 MD if it feels like the right thing for you. My only question then is, what does your overall list look like? DnT is an increasingly tight deck and the list of optional cards feels narrow, but at the same time, extremely up for grabs, if that makes sense.
In other words, the number of cards that have been up for debate in terms of number in the MD are large and have included hitherto untouched staples:
Mom: 3 or 4
Stoneforge Mystic: 3 or 4
Flickerwisp: 3 or 4
Phyrexian Revoker: 2-4
Serra Avenger: 0-2
Mirran Crusader: 0-2
Mangara of Corondor: 0-1
Banisher Priest: 0-1
Spirit of the Labyrinth: 0-1
Thalia, Heretic Cathar: 0-3
Sanctum prelate: 0-4 (since you raised 4, although typically 0-3)
Recruiter of the Guard: 2-3
At the same time as there are all these decisions, there is the problem of how to fit stuff in where the following is pretty much set in stone:
Lands 23
Spells 11
Creatures 17
4 T,GoT
3 Mom
3 SFM
3 Flickerwisp
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
Technically we have 12 slots, but we have 12 cards and 20 copies looking to find a place. Honestly I feel like a lot of people are returning to Mom and SfM as automatic 4-ofs, as well, which would mean 19 creatures pre-given, leaving 10 open slots, 10 cards, but still 18 copies looking for a place to go.
All of this is being driven by re-thinking how the deck plays and wins, since the divide between slower and more controlling and more aggressive has never been sharper, with the new cards all falling in the 3-cmc slot.
I play a 2/1 split. I think its a great card, but 3 will be my maximum because it's not a very good beater and also because it's not very good in the mirror.
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AsmodeusDM, I've been playing 3 and it continues to be the card in my deck that wins me the most games and the card that I recruiter for the most often. Not great against two tier 1 decks (Dnt/Eldrazi) but it's so good against the rest of them - often wins the game on the spot - that I think not playing at least 3 in your 75 is nuts, and 4 in the 75 is definitely worth trying.
I think you are getting the wrong impression. Almost everyone agrees that Prelate is the shizzles against the majority of the field. It is, without a doubt, the new card on which there has been more consensus. The reason people are not running 4 is that 3-drop slots are so tight right now, with all options being so powerful in their own way, and folks would rather not have too many dead (or semi-dead) cards against a significant portion of the field. If you really, really wanna beat 70% of the field, go ahead and run the full playset, it will definitely improve those matchups. But people confident in their play skill generally prefer not polarizing their match-ups too much.
It does seem strange that such an obviously strong card is not an instant 4-of. I agree. But, Luca is on the money here. It's a hedge because I really don't want to see two of these off the top of the deck against Elves, Eldrazi, Merfolk, D+T, etc. I can work with cards that have a less complete hold on the opponent. I can not work with a card that does nothing. The cards we are replacing the extra copies of Prelate with are going to do their job, whatever that may be. (You aren't drawing a blank text box in its place.) With that caveat, two or three is what that sort of card calls for.
Also, so far for Aether Vial versus Miracles I have 9.5.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
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Another important element that neither of you mentioned is that Prelate's high impact matches overlap largely with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben's. And Thalia is often more impactful and efficient. IE the shell Prelate is often hitting is the - Brainstorm, Ponder, fill in the blank 8-10 more cmc 1 cards. Thalia makes all of those spells half as efficient at making them cmc 2 and obviously has the added bonus of hitting cmc 0, 2, 3+ cards; on a Firststrike body, that costs a colored mana less, and is Karakas protected.It does seem strange that such an obviously strong card is not an instant 4-of. I agree. But, Luca is on the money here. It's a hedge because I really don't want to see two of these off the top of the deck against Elves, Eldrazi, Merfolk, D+T, etc. I can work with cards that have a less complete hold on the opponent. I can not work with a card that does nothing. The cards we are replacing the extra copies of Prelate with are going to do their job, whatever that may be. (You aren't drawing a blank text box in its place.) With that caveat, two or three is what that sort of card calls for.
That may all go without saying, but I think the fact that Prelate is weaker and targeting a similar area to Thalia GoT is a big part of why we see supplemental numbers 1-3x copies rather than it being run as a 4x.
TPDMC
I'll be writing an article about this at the beginning of next week, but here are some of my assorted thoughts on stuff I've seen/tested recently:
Aerial Responder was cute, but probably not good enough for the deck. It was worth testing, and it stays in my box of "when the metagame is right, there may be a time for you" cards. It's on a similar power level to Serra Avenger, though it fits in at the three drop slot, which is already a bit glutted as of late. When it came down, it was often a win-more card or could have been any generic beater and gotten the job done. It was, however, absolutely bonkers with equipment in a similar fashion to Mirran Crusader.
I'm on 3 Recruiter and 2 Prelate in the main. I really want to have a good number of Recruiters for the utter madness of Flickerwisp chains, which have been winning me tons of games. It almost doesn't matter what matchup it is; your opponents can just very quickly drown in 3/1 elementals. Many users here and on mtgs have been advocating two, but I'm really liking the full three; the deck plays out very smoothly. I also literally have no idea why people are trimming down to three Flickerwisp; that card has always been insane, and now we gave it a bunch of candy and set it loose on the world. I want to have two Prelates in the main, as in the matchups where it matters, a second Prelate is often a literal zero-outer situation.
I'm currently off THC, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily bad. I'm relatively neutral on the card. I think both Iatee and Finn have seen different, valid sides of THC. THC has an extremely high ceiling and low floor as a card. When your opponent is stumbling, THC often wins the game on the spot by offering several timewalks. Against a Delver deck, curving Thalia into THC is basically insurmountable. In a couple of specific matchups (e.g. Elves, Eldrazi), the card is noticeably better than our other options. When you are on the draw against an average deck, THC does feel a little slow and its impact is often minimal (though its body and legendary status is still nothing to sneeze at). I tried to stay on the fence for a long time by playing one as a tutor target, but it just isn't great when coming down on turn 4 off a vial or turn four after tutoring on turn three. If you play THC, commit to it and play 2-3 to maximize its impact. I'm also wary about some of the builds I've been seeing that skip on staples like Revoker or Stonforge to try to fit in multiple THC.
I have moved away from bullets in the main. Banisher Priest got bumped to the sideboard after I realized that I was usually just getting Flickerwisp or Prelate off Recruiter anyway. I still 100% want Banisher Priest in the 75 though, and I prefer it to Mangara.
I'm considering running 'geddons like the list that was posted here a few days ago. It does, however, seem slightly against the plan of getting a bunch of lands into play and chaining Recruiters into more stuff. In terms of mana usage, Gideon and Recruiter are obviously quite different, and Gideon plays better with the get ahead and 'geddon plan. I've got the card ride to Baltimore to figure out how I feel about that. I really like the idea of curving Prelate on 1 into 'geddon against a huge portion of the field. I might just default back to something safer with another Council's Judgment and the Gideons.
Serra Avenger needs to be in the deck. I really wanted to cut it to maximize the human/Cavern synergy and reduce the WW requirements of the deck, but I've just been pleasantly surprised by it at just about every turn. I might even sneak back up to three copies.
I apologize for typos here, I'm wiped but felt like I should post something.
So I did pretty poorly at EE5 (5-4), I punted two of the matches and lost the other two to normal variance. I played a Relic Warder, 3 Prelates, 3 Recruiters and Mangara main and 4 Path to Exile, 1 more Relic Warder, 1 THC, 1 Banisher Priest, 2 Mirran Crusader in the board, plus more normal stuff.
The 4 Path to Exile came in for 7/9 matches and 3 came in for the 8th (Jeskai Delver, perhaps a mistake) so I didn't regret playing 4 at all. My sideboard plan felt pretty good for the most part. I got an above average number of non-blue decks (6) but Prelate was still great against 2 of them (Lands, Painter). 2 Relic Warder 8 STP effects post-board vs DnT means it's pretty hard for them to keep a Mom alive or get anything equipped, and I think that makes up for playing such an anti-blue deck g1.
Eldrazi was the only t1 deck I really don't want to see and I saw it and lost to it twice. I thought my board was good and I don't think it's worse than a 50-50 matchup overall unless they're playing a ton of removal, but the games where they have really good hands give you very little room to outplay them so it feels worse because you rarely get that extra edge from being good at Magic. Even if it's not actually winning tournaments left and right, Eldrazi is really just terrible for the format. I'm not sure how much I need to discount my lose-to-Eldrazi-god-hand losses, since no matter how much you have for them, they're gonna get some of those wins, similar to a fast combo deck, their fast combo just takes a few turns to 'actually kill you' even though the game is over on t3. Also similar to fast combo, I think the person who wins the die roll immediately pushes up their EW% for the match by like 20%.
I regretted not having a Magus in the board, or even maybe in the main, but I don't know how to solve the mana problem. The new Oblivion Sower builds are especially hard to beat and probably best against us actually since the cast trigger gives them a bunch of really relevant DnT lands. I think I am going to try 2 Ghost Quarter in the sideboard, perhaps even one in the main as a 24th land, since this deck kinda wants 23.5 lands anyway. Prob going to go to the Baltimore Open in a few weeks and play something similar, but I want to come up with a more consistent wreck Eldrazi plan first.
R1 Painter (2-0)
G1 T1 Vial vs T1 Blood Moon that I don't care about. Prelate on 1 locks him out of relevant plays pretty quickly.
G2 Path his early Sulfur Elemental then Prelate on 1, Prelate on 4 (Fiery Confluence / any Planeswalker), Mangara his Bridge. I think Sulfur Elemental is ridiculously overrated by people who want to beat DnT and I think I am something like 15-1 in games where that card resolves. Unless they're called 'True Name Nemesis', creatures are the easiest card type for us to deal with, since we already have removal main.
R2 Miracles (1-2)
Unfortunately get paired right away with my friend with whom I playtested all day last Saturday, neither of us too thrilled to see have this as our m2. Even though the matchup is favorable overall, he's one of the better Miracles players around and the matchup is still only 50-50 post-board since I don't have any real haymakers just for Miracles. He gets a lot better post-board since he replaces his very dead Counterbalances with 2 Wear/Tear, 2 Mentor and a Koz Return. He also knows my exact 75 and after playing against it so much was gonna be far better prepared for it than anyone in that room.
G1 Have a nearly perfect hand on the play, Vial into very fast Prelate on 1+6.
G2 Have an okay double Cavern hand. Mom into Revoker, he Brainstorms in response and I correctly deduce he's putting a Terminus 2 deep, so I Prelate on 6 on t3, which forces him to Predict his own Terminus away. I'm feeling somewhat good at that point, but unfortunately he has double STP in hand for the Prelate, sets up another board wipe and then he Jaced I think?
G3 Have a pretty meh Karakas, Karakas, THC, Mom, SfM, Plains, Sofi hand. I think that's a keep, especially on the play, but it's rough. In theory I can set up a protected THC if I draw into lands and regardless I'm likely getting two equipment into play quickly with SfM, even if I miss a land drop. But if I don't draw lands I'm gonna fall behind pretty quickly, and in fact I didn't draw one for 3-4 turns. He Terminused my Sfm + Sofi + Batterskull + Mom board and cast Jace, I cast Flickerwisp on the Bskull, and he forced it, pretty much ending the game.
I wasn't willing to Lotus Petal the 2nd Karakas to play THC t3 since I wanted to play for the long game and a Terminus would essentially win on the spot. It turned out that would have been a better play given what was in his hand (something like EE, blue cards, Jace, FoW?) so he would have had to Force it, but I think it is generally probably a pretty desperate play to Lotus Petal a 3 drop if it's going to be better late. Drawing into a Cavern woulda been nice.
Anyway he ended up not dropping a match and then winning the tournament so we didn't get home til 3:30 am.
R3 Eldrazi (1-2)
G1 Win with a Vial + 3 Wasteland start. He was kinda salty but I think Eldrazi players t1 Chalicing left and right and then complaining about Wasteland should be some sort of game rule violation and they should be kicked out of the tournament immediately.
G2 Just get overrun, multiple TKSs.
G3 Long grindy game where his 2/2 Endless one holds back my Relic Warder (Jitte) and Banisher Priest (Smasher) for a long time, while I can only get in chip shots with Thalia. I punt the game at the end, have Recruiter and 2 Vials on 3, he Oblivion Sowers me and I fetch Mangara (because I have Karakas, but forgetting he has a Wasteland tucked among his million lands) instead of fetching Flickerwisp. I would most likely have been able to beat him with a Flickerwisp army - which was my original plan anyway, before I got into the 'oh crap I have to deal with his 5/8' mentality. I actually didn't have to deal with it and could outrace it - I just wasn't focused.
R4 DnT (2-0)
G1/g2 I don't remember the details but the games weren't very close. There was one turn he missed a Port activation that really cost him.
R5 Grixis Delver (2-0)
G1 Mull to 5 but get a Jitte online and win
G2 8 STP effects, he never gets a threat online
R6 Eldrazi (0-2)
G1 Can't come back from Chalice on 1, TKS, even after resolving Vial through Chalice.
G2 Draw into 3 Vials while his opening is Mimic, TKS taking SfM (which I Path), Reality Smasher and 2 huge Endless Ones. I have a bunch of Flickerwisps which should really good against Endless Ones, but instead they're just keeping me alive by Flickering the Reality Smasher and chumping. If he had his same hand minus the Mimic and I drew into a Recruiter or another relevant creature early, I probably coulda won.
R7 DNT (2-1)
G1 I have my maindeck Relic Warder in my opening hand to eat a Vial, which is especially a blowout g1.
G2 Grindy game, eventually he gets enough flyers.
G3 Even grindier game, we go to time but he's willing to scoop since I'm ahead. I would probably win in a few turns.
R8 Lands (2-0)
G1 Prelate on 2, have Flickerwisp for his 20/20. Tabernacle makes the game take a little longer than it would otherwise, but it wasn't close
G2 Have Relic Warder + Revoker for his Vortex, Recruiter for Faerie Macabre to eat a Fire+Loam.
R9 Jeskai Delver (1-2)
G1 I get pretty lucky that his Delver doesn't flip for a million turns in a row and that I have Revoker for his early Lavamancer.
G2 TNN into Jitte equip
G3 T1 Vial and Path his early Delver, having seen 0 basics in the first 2 games, but he has one and I get kinda punished tempo-wise. He equips a Delver with a Jitte and hits me once, but I have 2 Flickerwisps to play around with plus a Recruiter to get one more. Eventually I get him down to 2 before he plays Batterskull + TNN. I keep him off enough mana to equip it, but he pulls ahead on life anyway. I think there were a lot of little things in the game I could have done differently to win. Had a lot of turns to topdeck a relevant creature (Recruiter/SfM/etc.) while I had a Prelate on 1 shutting him off most of his draws, but didn't get anything.
@iatee
Thanks, as always, for the detailed report. Also, congratulations to your friend!
Did you run a starting 60 that you already posted?
Aside from Magus of the Moon somewhere in the build and maybe a Ghost Quarter, anything you really want to refine?
Yeah, the main was the one I posted last week with Mangara replacing Banisher Priest and Relic replacing a Revoker.
SB was:
4 Path
2 Rest in Peace
Relic Warder
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn
Faerie Macabre
Banisher Priest
THC
Containment Priest
I would be curious to see how a list with a GQ replacing a spell (or maybe a Port) plus a board like this would play:
3 Path
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Rest in Peace
Relic Warder
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn
Faerie Macabre
Banisher Priest
Containment Priest
GQ helps in a lot of the 'where is my Magus' matchups like Eldrazi and 12-Post. Vs Miracles you could actually cut them off white, though I'm not sure how exactly you'd want to board / how many lands and which you'd be keeping. Overall, I think GQ and Path are both very good and underplayed (though it seems like Lands people are already coming on board with GQ) cards in the format, given how tight everyone's mana is. The other option is going harder on Armageddon/Cataclysm. Ultimately some form of hardcore miserable Pox-style land destruction seems like a pretty good strategy if the 2 best decks in the format lose to it.
Good post. The analysis makes tournament reports so much more helpful to the rest of us. Also, I have jerked around with the idea of Ghost Quarter myself from time to time. There is a nifty trick you can pull off hitting your own Flagstones if you can't get two white mana for Flickerwisp or something. But in general, it seems like a possible card to hose players who fetch their one basic. I have been wanting to try it.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
What do you typically side out when you're bringing in all 4 Paths?
Generally Thalia since you're casting more spells yourself and don't really need to tempo them out with the Thorn effect - they're going to be losing tempo by playing everything relevant they find into a stream of one mana removal. You can also be more reckless with using them - make them have the Daze, since you have more coming anyway. Every post-board match vs Grixis Delver that I've played with 8 STPs has been a crazy blowout, feels like I'm playing with a cheat code.
Vs. Lands you swap STPs for them, which also feels great, massive upgrade.
4 PtE seems brutally overkill but with us having such a bad G1 vs Eldrazi... I can see going up from the 1 I currently have in my sideboard...
I just hate giving up creature silver bullets in my s/b slots when I'm running 3 recruiters :(
2 was AFAIK the number that has been most popular for the amount of PtE in the sb. Maybe start there and play a Banisher Priest for another tutorable answer in the slot?
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