My biggest gripe with Cradle has always been that I hate running cards that are bad when you don't have a board. Often times when I have a board I am ahead and I don't feel the need to get "more ahead" when I could just ride my current advantage to victory.
But I've also faced the mirror with his Scooze + Cradle fighting my Scooze no Cradle and the matchup gets very dumb very quickly. Really, its about personal taste.
Cradle is a very strong card in the deck in my experience. I've used it for about two years and usually with a 5 drop. I think the cradle usually allows you to get ahead of the opponent by ramping you, rather than you already being ahead. (Not saying you are wrong, rather that I have different experiences if the card.) Cradle besides enabling 5-drops also lets you use Tireless Tracker better and Scavenging Ooze. Another good use is when you are sacrificing your lands to Knight for fetching wastelands to rid the opponent of lands, in those situations Cradle allows you to keep playing spells while the opponent can't.
When playing Depths + Stage there is less need for a 5 drop hence Cradle is less of an obvious choice.
I suggest we don't count Dark Depths or Maze of Ith when discussing mana bases.
I 3-1'ed the local legacy event yesterday, playing (still) an experimental list with 1 tropical, 1 Leovold, 2 Trackers, 1 Thalia HC, 1 Titania, 3 StP, 3 Decay..
Basically had a lot of good matchups (DnT, RUgb Delver, Grixis Delver) and good draws and lost against a TES/ANT hybrid
A couple buddies are having some success online with vial mav builds https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetyp...g-32770#online
Vial mav is the way to go in this meta.Originally Posted by ironclad8690
You need your Thalia and Mom. You have recruiter to get any piece you need.
Now with Renegade Rallier to get waste or unearth creature or equipment, green sun zenith is not so solid with the 4 thalia plan plus the uncounterability and tricks you can do with Vial.
I love zenith, but I think vial is secretly becoming stronger. It can certainly feel bad to play a teeg and turn off your other zeniths vs fair decks, or tax yourself to the point of not being able to zenith a knight, but I think the true strength of vial is the uncounterability aspect. You can also forego the manadorks and opt for a more d&t type plan (lessening the potency of your opponent's sweepers) if you are in a control heavy meta.
I think I might try out a vial build next, really want to combine that philosophy with my recent foray into spirit of the labyrinth. Also batterskull is putting up more results than sword of light and shadow at the moment, just something to think about.
If you're interested in a vial version you may want to check out G/W Hatebears that was a thing in modern a while back (and since replaced essentially by W/B Hatebears/"Taxes" since BFZ came out), it may give some inspiration. In my opinion I feel like it may just end up a worse D&T, though, as you'd be missing half the tricks that make D&T so great and weakening the general Maverick strategy.
I would love more people to pick up the deck. I would speculate far fewer people are playing Vial Maverick than are playing either DNT or GSZ Maverick, but I think the conversion rate for the former is better. And I expect there is much more room for lists to be refined once people start working on it!
For Vial Maverick, I would suggest people to try out Bind. It led to significant blow outs for me as a fun-of, and if Vial is letting you sit idle with mana (which may be a bad thing, when you could be Porting) then you can leave Bind up more often. It led to beating DnT by countering a Mom activation, countering the fetch portion of a Brainstorm by Miracles, and a Griselbrand activation.
I am crazy and like toolbox decks too much which is why I fell in love with Maverick in the first place. Lands with KotR, Equipment with SFM, Artifact/Enchantment with ETutor, Green Creatures with GSZ... LOVE IT.
I noticed a pattern of the amount of Legendary cards we have and run. Thalia 1.0/2.0, Gaddock Teeg father, Cradle, Karakas, Jitte, Dark Depths, now even Leovold, and even older sideboard/flex goodies like Linvala, Thrun, Sigarda, etc. I know the mana is tight and it doesn't allow a lot of higher drops, but I am considering playing around with Captain Sisay. She seems a little slow, but with an active Mom she can survive and help toolbox more. I think her search coupled with Library provides a lot to the filtering in the way Knight and fetches facilitate.
Nice Things:
4 CMC means no Abrupt Decay. Green means GSZable if you hit 5 mana (even though you could just tutor some of the items with GSZ anyway). Human which pushes the Cavern back into potential flex land spot.
Bad Things:
4 CMC means real slow. Needs to live to provide any benefit. 2 toughness dies to Bolt.
I'm going to be playing around with the idea of her being a 1/2 of and maybe tweaking the sideboard to play nicer with it. I don't know how many Legends would be useful now a days, where more were useful in the meta a few years back. Linvala seems nice being able to shut down opposing DRS, Elves combo, Griselbrand, etc.
Thoughts? Discuss?
I think with karakas everywhere the less legends you run, the better. I've cut down on number of Thalia total for this reason.
100% agreed. I used to run Sigarda or Thrun or Tracker main--but with Depths in the list and no cradle it just makes it impossible to ever be able to leverage those cards. And I've also lost to Cradle many different times and in many different ways--so I would never consider it bad. Just personal preference for me.
The math on this gets weirder now that Recruiter of the Guard exists.
Here's the reality.
If you want legendary lands, you can Zenith/Recruiter for Knight of the Reliquary.
If you want legendary equipment, you can Recruiter for Stoneforge Mystic.
If you want card advantage, you can Zenith/Recruiter for Tireless Tracker.
So here's the real question--what cards can you search for with Sisay that makes it worth using her over Recruiter of the Guard?
I guess Sigarda and/or Thrun, Titania, Protector of Argoth. I would not try to include more than one of those in Maverick however.
In other news, I have taken a version of Vial Maverick into 2 leagues and 3-2'ed both of them:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Qasali Pridemage
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Scryb Ranger
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Gaea's Cradle
Sideboard
4 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Banishing Light
1 Containment Priest
League 1:
Orzhov Death and Taxes: 0-2 I just got crushed under a superior draw
Death and Taxes: 2-0 I had the moms this time.
Miracles: 2-0
Miracles: 2-0 both times spirit of the labyrinth blew him out in response to cantrips, also thalia and mom did work. Vialing in Teeg in response to Terminus might be the best possible feeling in all of Magic.
ANT: 0-2 g1 I had him dead after an ad nauseam (Revoker on LED, he went down to 1 or something), but he has 1 blue mana. He ponders, and Tendrils of agony happens to be in his top 3. Game 2 wasn't close, I thoughtseized him twice but never drew a hatebear or DRS to disrupt him.
League 2:
Reid Duke BUG, but with multiple Toxic Deluge (yes, even with noble hierarch and TNN): 1-2
Death and Taxes: 2-1
Punishing Thing in the Ice: 1-2
Sneak and Show: 2-0
ANT: 2-1 (I lost game 2 because I thought he was on a different deck, and I didn't sideboard).
6-4 ain't too bad. Hoping to pull off a 5-0 soon :D
I might change my list too. So far we have a couple different iterations, tapedecky just 5-0'd yesterday with a version featuring a robust Recruiter package:
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Flickerwisp
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Mother of Runes
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Plains
1 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
Sideboard
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Banisher Priest
2 Choke
1 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Pridemage
This list looks really fun.
So vial Maverick i see. Looks kinda fun. I feel like their are some interesting choices. I'll have to try it out!
Nice :)
How did the Orzhov Pontiff worked for you? With the Recruiter package looks like a nice add to replace the Zealous Persecution against Elves/DnT but maybe a little bit too slow?
Why not 4 Thalia / 4 Mom Mainboard?
Renegade Rallier is going to be a house in this deck.
I haven't played around with TTracker, but after seeing how much I like having Cradle I think I'm going to try and squeeze him in. The problem is with 1/2 ofs, I don't play super frequently so I am left fantasizing about Magical Christmas land. Sisay can get Thrun, Linvala, Sigarda, but again a few of those are GSZ able. In a very old build back around early 2010's I remember running Fauna Shaman for generic creature tutoring, which was way too slow and seemed more like a win more. I think GSZ was in that build too, so I dunno what I was doing.
I'm not against the idea (Linvala seems super relevant)
Just that 4cc => Untap step is hard to do when 3cc => Cast next turn is more consistent and cheaper. What you're searching for would need to be strong enough to warrant the risk of a tempo loss.
The Tracker + Feast and Famine + Cradle was super good FYI, my biggest issue with it was that against Miracles I found that Cradle got so dead after a terminus and I also found myself still losing even after 4-5 clues with Tracker. I really enjoyed the cards, but it wasn't improving the matchup I wanted to shore up; mainly Miracles and Lands.
I'm prepping for GP San Jose side events and I'm trying to finalize my last two sideboard slots; I was hoping for some suggestions.
Creatures: 25
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dryad Arbor
Spells: 13
4 Green Sun’s Zenth
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dark Depths
Lands: 22
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Thespian’s Stage
Sideboard: 15
3 Sanctum Prelate
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
2
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
I am most worried about Lands, Aluren, Miracles, Belcher-esque decks, and Cloudpost/MUD decks.
MUD is pretty easy the more pride mage you run. Surprised so many people run only 1. I never like to go below 2 and even run 3 locally often
Pithing needle is useful vs Lands, Aluren, and Miracles. With 3 Revoker and 2 Needle, I'd be surprised if SDT ever gets activated lol! As far as cloudpost and MUD, I have never had problems with those, or at least I don't face them commonly enough to really worry. Needle does hit Candelabra, Expedition Map, SDT (sometimes they run it), and Eye of Ugin out of Post, as well as Kuldotha Forgemaster, Lightning Greaves, and I guess Trading Post (sometimes?) out of MUD, but revoker is obvi better here for ability to name Grim Monolith and Metalworker.
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