Ah Ha! The exact card I have been looking for! Takes care of Planeswalker's and Scavenging Ooze's. Goodbye Bramblecrush! I have also updated the first post with why I think this deck is a serious contender over something like UWR Flash.
I have gone the Guildmage route with Dryad but eventually cut them. For what it's worth, I had more success with Nivmagus & Guildmage than Dryad. Overall though the mana requirements to activate the Guildmage turned me off.
Yeah your deck is definitely more of an all-in aggro deck but gave me some ideas. If I decided to head back in the aggressive direction myself Nivmagus may be better than Delver and Noble Stromkirk in the 1 drop slot.
In other news I added a maindeck Disperse over the 2nd Thoughtflare. Overloading Rift has won me some games, and not being able to bounce my own permanents has lost me some games so I'm splitting them. Also I'm considering Bramblecrush as a sideboard card to deal with Planeswalkers and such.
After further testing I'm back with some modifications. I beat UWR Flash a couple times, more draw power than them, more resilient threats. Beat some random decks, lost to BG Desecration Demon. Lost to a Domri Rade deck. What I found was I needed more answers to planeswalkers, (Liliana, Garruk Relentless), and more answers to larger creaters (Desecration Demon, Pumped up Scavenging Ooze). Scavenging Ooze is a pain in the ass. Bounce + Counter is an option, Mizzium Mortars sucks. Its good against Naya with there 4/4 Smiters and Rampagers but that's about it. I've found I can almost always survive until I can get a Turn//Burn online, I just need to get a Turn//Burn. I've went up to the full set of Turn//Burns. Can still kill early creatures, and answers everything at instant speed for 5 mana. 3 and a maindeck bouce spell may be better but here's where I'm at:
Streamlined the draw suite. Added a land to the SB to compliment the Aetherling control deck plan. May go up to 24 main but not sure yet. Also swapped a Rootbound Crag for a Hinterland Harbor. Cyclonic Rift SB for hard to deal with creatures/permanents. If anyone has any genius ideas on a way to deal with a Domri Rade please let me know!
The deck has been a lot of fun. You guys should give it a try. Be back later
So been getting some games in. Here's how it went:
Won a little, lost a little. Never activated a Guildmage, and a lot of times I either wasn't fast enough, or wasn't slow enough (needed more cards/more answers). In essence it felt like I was too far in the middle. My first move was to go in the Delver direction as Pynk suggested. Actually got pretty lucky with my Delver flips but I still didn't love it.
What I did find out was that the Statiscaster/Peddler sideboard plan was owning people and I wanted to move further to the control side of the spectrum. Also Pyromaster wasn't strong enough to be a central part of my gameplan but is a solid roll player. The following iteration is what I've been playing with and I like where it's at, although the numbers are all over the place and will need to be further tuned.
Now we're basically a control deck with a clock. Get a Dryad or Pike going and burn/counter your way to victory. You have a proactive game plan game 1 so you don't just auto lose to having the wrong mix of burn spells or counterspells against certain decks. And while Simic Charm was very good in the more aggressive versions of the deck I don't think its good enough for this build. After sideboarding against the aggro decks you side Augurs for the Peddler/Statiscaster combo (Augur is the worst when you're looking for the other half of the combo), and depending on the flavor of aggro some number of counterspells, draw spells Dryads, Pikes, or Pyromancers, for Aetherling.
Against slower decks side out burn for counterspells/Aetherling.
My only concern now is that my spells are too reactive to aggressively grow Dryad/trigger Pyromancer, but they may not need to be. What do you think?We'll see, i'll report back later. Thanks.
Advice on counterspells: 4 Syncopate seems bad for a deck that main phases spells. Spell Rupture does not do anything on your deck until mid/late game, which I think Dissipate or Rewind does a better job.
Also might need a boardwipe, like Mizzium Mortars.
On the other side, the Guildmage-Pyromancer-Dryad interaction is cute, but is fragile and mana hungry with paying UG for card draw/buff.
Thanks for the response. I think your right about Mortars. Usually I can get a Dryad big enough to just plow through cluttered boardstates, but a plan B is always desired. I added 1 main over the 3rd Turn//Burn and 1 to the SB over the 4th Peddler.
Guildmade may be too cute but I think it's worth a try. I'm off the next 2 and 1/2 days so I will be finding out.
In regard to the counterspells, they all kind of suck... What the deck really wants is Mana Leak but no such luck. Basically I want to be able to play a turn 2 threat and have the ability to counter their third turn play if necessary. Then you have them for Thragtusks/Planeswalkers etc. Spell Rupture can accomplish that, and mid/late game with a Pike or Dryad almost act as a hard counter. I thought about playing a Dissipate but I'm worried about the double blue, especially on Turn 3-4. Triple blue with Snapcaster. Rewind is interesting but I don't know if I have enough plays to really take advantage of the free four mana. Also as you pointed out I will probally be spending 2 mana on my turn in the middle turns, so often I would have to choose between advancing my board and leaving up the full four mana for Rewind, as opposed to 2 or 3 for Syncopate/Spell Rupture. Rupture defintely isn't ideal without any Delvers/Stromkirk Nobles though so in the end you may be right.
I built this deck because I wanted to play with Young Pyromancer. I built it for fun, but through my testing I've actually started to believe it may be a serious contender. Here's why:
This deck occupies the same space in the metagame as something like UWR Flash. You have cheap threats and counterspells to punish the midrange decks. You have good blockers and burn to stimey the aggro decks. You have more card draw spells than anyone to grind out any game going long. You have flexibility. If that sounds like your kind of deck, then why would you want to play this INSTEAD of UWR Flash? Because it beats UWR Flash. You have more card draw than them. Also you have Runechanter's Pike for inevitability. The primary advantage I see that UWR Flash has over RUG Fish is Supreme Verdict. That card is good. However, you have something they don't, Nightshade Peddler. You also have much more draw/dig to find it. Izzet Statiscaster is so good by itself it already makes most SB's that can cast it. Combined with Peddler it dominates the game. The other advantage they have are Detention Sphere's/Oblivion Rings. We are lacking in our options there, with bounce spells, and Pithing Needle. However I don't think it's a big enough factor to eliminate RUG from the equation. RUG is able to apply a much faster clock in Quirion Dryad, who often wins games single handidly by growing large enough (10/10+) to bash through the most cluttered of boards with Pyromancer tokens providing blockers on the swing back.
While I can't say definitively that this deck is a better choice than UWR Flash, I think it is an option.
The idea here is to lock your opponent out of the game with multiple Curse of Death's Hold and Karn Liberated, and then win at your leisure. Ill post the list then some explanations.
So, 4 Pristine Talisman to accelerate you into Curses and Karns, to keep you alive until you can achieve your soft lock, and to take you out of burn range once you have stabilized.
Red Sun and Blue Sun as your win conditions because they also are key role players in the early and mid game. No wasted slots. Red Sun also help against Planeswalkers, which aside from Karn can be real problems.
4 Dissipate to protect your soft lock.
2 Tribute to Hungers to cover all your bases. Losing to a Thrun or Dungrove Elder is unaccetable, and with how long this deck takes to win you can't really afford to auto scoop to any cards game 1.
Amass the Components. We will have a lot of extra mana, lets take advantage of it. I value card advantage over card selection here. That's why you don't see any Forbidden Alchemys. No Desperate Raving's because I feel there are too many cards that I can't afford to have discarded while trying to obtain or maintain my soft lock. Also there isn't much here that synergizes with the graveyard. Think Twice, Blue Sun's, and Amass the Components have been adiquate.
Every other slot should be fairly obvious. Except the sideboard...
Quite unconventional I know. But the theory is that if you don't win game 1, your deck is so slow that the best you can hope for is a draw. If your lucky. Invisible Stalker + Silver-Inlaid Dagger is the best plan I could come up with that is able to win quickly and resiliently. Your opponent should have sided out all of their sweepers, although you may run into some disenchants. But with Trinket Mage you have a virutal 5 copies to outlast them.
At work, gotta run, ill be back later to answer any questions and I would love to hear any ideas on how to improve the deck, especially the sideboard! Thanks!
Ran the above list at the open -1 Tragic Slip +1 Go for the Throat, and I moved the Nihil Spellbomb to the board over the Think Twice and added a 2nd Batterskull. Beat Delver round 1, Beat Humans rd 2, lost to RG aggro round 3 (games 1 & 3 he was attacking with a SoWaP by turn 3. In the third game I stabilized at 6 life with double Curse in play. When I go to make 6 spirts a couple turns later he proceeds to triple Galvanic Blast me ftw... Game three, after sideboarding, against my Lingering Souls/Reassembling Skeleton((aka R.Skelly))deck... Ohhh well). Rd 4 I beat Wolfrun, rd 5 I beat Ub Zombies, rd 6 I lose to Bw tokens after failing to draw a single copy of Curse of Deaths Hold. 4-2 drop.
Not many changes I would make. Deck felt strong. Maybe a third Revoke instead of a Nihil Spellbomb. Since Curses do such a good job of keeping Moorland Haunt in check I dont think they are as necessary.
On another note props to my former roommate and current team member who rode up there with me Josh Wagener for being such a beast and winning the whole thing. The other finalist Conor Moran is also another local so props to him as well as Ben Friedman for his 2nd consecutive Invitational top eight. If anyone is ever in the baltimore area come stop by Xanadu games. Theres a lot of really strong players coming out of there.
Ill post any further evolutions of deck when they happen. Ttyl.
Reworked the deck some and went 5-0 last night. Beat Ub Control, Humans, G/w Aggro, Birthing Pod, and Humans again. Prior to the tournament of was considering presideboarding against either aggro our control, and transforming after game one if needed. I wrote down what an ideal sixty would look like against aggro, then against control, both with the accompanying sideboards. Because cards like Lingering Souls, Reassembling Skeleton, Liliana, and your draw suite are decent against both control and aggro you have enough room in your 75 to house almost two separate decks. I would post each separate decklist if I wasn't on my phone. In the end I decided it was better to mix the two lists together and have the cards that overlap the least in the sideboard. Heres what I ran last night and will run tomorrow at the open save maybe one or two cards:
Only card I wish I had somewhere is Gideon, but with all the Bb and Uu spells its awfully tough. Maybe one more way to kill artifacts or enchantments would be nice as well. An O Ring or third Revoke perhaps. Deck is sick though.
Looks good. I agree Gideon would be a beast if you can make the mana work. Sorin + Gideon + Liliana seems even better to me but space is always an issue with this style of deck. Space is the reason for no Think Twices too I imagine. Have you been running out of gas at all? And have you had any problems with your 4 Snapcasters not having a target with only 12 good targets?
Went 4-0 in the swiss(6 week league, no IDing for me ) Beat Frites, Wolfrun, Rdw, and Delver. Lost in 3 games to Humans in top eight. Mulled to five game one. Still almost won but he had all the perfect threats. I slipped his Thalia, Liliana'd his Crusader, but had no answer for his Hero. Game 2 I won despite him having an active SoFaF from turn 4 on ( Lingering Souls to survive, BSZ, Mortarpod, then Buried Ruin returning an early Nihil Spellbomb I discarded to a Sword hit to get rid of his Haunt fuel, flashbacked a Sever targeting his non sworded spirit token to clean up the board (at 1 life), Batterskull and Wurmcoil to put the game out of reach). Game 3 he plays turn 1 traveler, turn two Grafdiggers Cage!!, turn 3 SoFaF... Of still thought I would be able to pull it off because I had drawn Batterskull and Wurmcoil again, but on turn 5 he plays Angelic Destiny, untaps plays a Crusader and equips Sword... Nice cards... I don't draw a 6th land, can only Zenith for 3 and die.
So yea deck was a beast all night. I think it could use a couple O Rings or Revokes, plus Day of Judgment over BSZ would be a nice upgrade but that might be too much. I'm thinking about cutting the second Vault for another Isolated Chapel. Not sure where I'm gonna try and fit in the O Rings or whateverbut ill post an update when (if?) I do. Or maybe I just need to leave in alitte more countermagic against humans. We will see.
Oh and Witchbane Orb totally destroyed my Mono Red opponent
In the portion you quoted I was referring to playing Sorin AND Timely. Point was I like Sorin main, and think Timely would be really good coming out of the board in addition to Sorin but I am trying to avoid adding any more white spells for now.
Cut 2 Snapcasters and an Island for Mortarpod, Batterskull, and a Buried Ruin. Swapped the maindeck
Go for the Throat and the Sideboard Sever the Bloodline. Added an extra Dissipate to the board to compensate for not having Snapcasters against control. Added a Ratchet Bomb over a BSZ because of Buried Ruin. Quite happy with the deck atm, it felt powerful tonight.
Not having Snapcasters may seem odd but I think its right. They put such a constraint on your deckbuilding options. Being able to run as many artifacts, planeswalkers, and flashback spells as you want is very nice. Let me know what you think and ill report back from the tournament tomorrow.
Thanks for all the feedback guys. Let me try to address it all in one post.
Prior to this deck I was playing a Uw blade deck that ran snapcaster, mirran crusader, and hero of bladehold as the creature suite, with 3 SoWaP. Midnight Haunting was in the original build and was very good against control. When Lingering Souls got printed and aggro became more popular I cut them and added maindeck Timely Reinforcements, Mental Misstep, Dismember, and Gut Shot and it was pretty insane. I narrowly missed day two at GP.Baltimore after a heartbreaking loss in the 9th round. Timely + Snapcaster was one of the strongest things you could do in the deck. It was especially good because you had Crusader and Hero to quickly end the game as long as you could stay alive. While Timely would still be pretty good in this deck I dont think it would work as a direct replacement for Sorin. In this deck you dont have those powerful midrange creatures, you have to win with your 1/1's alone. Sorins emblems are so important to being able to change gears that I dont think I could cut them. Maybe its one of those cards you have to play with to fully appreciat.
Timely would be great in the board but I would have to further stretch the mana base and im not sure it's worth it. It definitely could be though, and I will have to test it with more white spells in the board because Timely and something like Celestial Purge would be very helpful.
Same deal with Midnight Haunting as far as the mana base. However I like the card a lot, especially in a deck with Think Twice, Alchemys, and Snapcaster.
It doesn't have any other real synergies though, and for what im trying to do here I think Skeletons might be better, especially since it lets me stick with the Ub heavy mana base. I think there is potential for a separate deck there with Souls, Haunting, and Snapcaster.
Buried Ruin is very underrated IMO. I dont think it does enough to warrant a slot with just the swords as targets, and its competing with Vault and Drownyard for the Colorless land slots. But if I were to add the Mortarpod and the Batterskull maindeck then it might be a very good inclusion.
Increasing Devotion could be a powerful enabler/win con. I wish that thing was instant speed though. Dont like tapping out on my turn if I dont have to and Alchemys, Thought Scour, and Drownyard allow that.
As to the overall power level of Reassembling Skeleton, its better than it looks, which is admittedly pretty bad Its at its best when being discarded to a Liliana or binned off an Alchemy or Thought Scour. Scour is particularly nice because you can go turn one scour, mill a skeleton, turn two bring it back, or leak/think twice. Same with Souls. Skeleton is definitely the weakest card in the deck but I think its good enough. You have Vault to give it deathtouch, Sorin to pump its power, and Mortarpod in the board to machine gun down Moorland Haunt tokens or whatever. Note: Mortarpod + Vault kills any target creature. I also just have a soft spot in my heart for them and they are super fun to play with, and the look on your opponents face is always priceless
In regards to SoWaP I have been favoring it in my recent blade brews for sure. But in this deck you actually have evasive attackers and this deck makes better use of FaFs untap ability than perhaps any other deck. Between flashback spells, utility lands, counter spells, and powerful sorcery spells (planeswalkers) you have a ton to do with the extra mana. Plus you have some alternative sources of lifegain in sorin and vault
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Ah Ha! The exact card I have been looking for! Takes care of Planeswalker's and Scavenging Ooze's. Goodbye Bramblecrush! I have also updated the first post with why I think this deck is a serious contender over something like UWR Flash.
Yeah your deck is definitely more of an all-in aggro deck but gave me some ideas. If I decided to head back in the aggressive direction myself Nivmagus may be better than Delver and Noble Stromkirk in the 1 drop slot.
In other news I added a maindeck Disperse over the 2nd Thoughtflare. Overloading Rift has won me some games, and not being able to bounce my own permanents has lost me some games so I'm splitting them. Also I'm considering Bramblecrush as a sideboard card to deal with Planeswalkers and such.
Updated deck list on first post.
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Augur of Bolas
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Runechanter's Pike
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Think Twice
2 Faithless Looting
2 Thought Flare
4 Turn // Burn
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Essence Scatter
1 Dissipate
1 Rewind
4 Steam Vent
4 Breeding Pool
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Hinterland Harbor
3 Rootbound Grag
4 Izzet Statiscaster
3 Nightshade Peddler
2 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Aetherling
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Desolate Lighthouse
Streamlined the draw suite. Added a land to the SB to compliment the Aetherling control deck plan. May go up to 24 main but not sure yet. Also swapped a Rootbound Crag for a Hinterland Harbor. Cyclonic Rift SB for hard to deal with creatures/permanents. If anyone has any genius ideas on a way to deal with a Domri Rade please let me know!
The deck has been a lot of fun. You guys should give it a try. Be back later
Won a little, lost a little. Never activated a Guildmage, and a lot of times I either wasn't fast enough, or wasn't slow enough (needed more cards/more answers). In essence it felt like I was too far in the middle. My first move was to go in the Delver direction as Pynk suggested. Actually got pretty lucky with my Delver flips but I still didn't love it.
What I did find out was that the Statiscaster/Peddler sideboard plan was owning people and I wanted to move further to the control side of the spectrum. Also Pyromaster wasn't strong enough to be a central part of my gameplan but is a solid roll player. The following iteration is what I've been playing with and I like where it's at, although the numbers are all over the place and will need to be further tuned.
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Augur of Bolas
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Runechanter's Pike
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Think Twice
1 Thought Scour
1 Faithless Looting
1 Thought Flare
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Turn//Burn
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Searing Spear
2 Syncopate
2 Essence Scatter
1 Dissipate
1 Rewind
4 Steam Vent
4 Breeding Pool
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Rootbound Grag
3 Hinterland Harbor
4 Izzet Statiscaster
3 Nightshade Peddler
1 Mizzium Mortar
3 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Aetherling
Now we're basically a control deck with a clock. Get a Dryad or Pike going and burn/counter your way to victory. You have a proactive game plan game 1 so you don't just auto lose to having the wrong mix of burn spells or counterspells against certain decks. And while Simic Charm was very good in the more aggressive versions of the deck I don't think its good enough for this build. After sideboarding against the aggro decks you side Augurs for the Peddler/Statiscaster combo (Augur is the worst when you're looking for the other half of the combo), and depending on the flavor of aggro some number of counterspells, draw spells Dryads, Pikes, or Pyromancers, for Aetherling.
Against slower decks side out burn for counterspells/Aetherling.
My only concern now is that my spells are too reactive to aggressively grow Dryad/trigger Pyromancer, but they may not need to be. What do you think?We'll see, i'll report back later. Thanks.
Thanks for the response. I think your right about Mortars. Usually I can get a Dryad big enough to just plow through cluttered boardstates, but a plan B is always desired. I added 1 main over the 3rd Turn//Burn and 1 to the SB over the 4th Peddler.
Guildmade may be too cute but I think it's worth a try. I'm off the next 2 and 1/2 days so I will be finding out.
In regard to the counterspells, they all kind of suck... What the deck really wants is Mana Leak but no such luck. Basically I want to be able to play a turn 2 threat and have the ability to counter their third turn play if necessary. Then you have them for Thragtusks/Planeswalkers etc. Spell Rupture can accomplish that, and mid/late game with a Pike or Dryad almost act as a hard counter. I thought about playing a Dissipate but I'm worried about the double blue, especially on Turn 3-4. Triple blue with Snapcaster. Rewind is interesting but I don't know if I have enough plays to really take advantage of the free four mana. Also as you pointed out I will probally be spending 2 mana on my turn in the middle turns, so often I would have to choose between advancing my board and leaving up the full four mana for Rewind, as opposed to 2 or 3 for Syncopate/Spell Rupture. Rupture defintely isn't ideal without any Delvers/Stromkirk Nobles though so in the end you may be right.
This deck occupies the same space in the metagame as something like UWR Flash. You have cheap threats and counterspells to punish the midrange decks. You have good blockers and burn to stimey the aggro decks. You have more card draw spells than anyone to grind out any game going long. You have flexibility. If that sounds like your kind of deck, then why would you want to play this INSTEAD of UWR Flash? Because it beats UWR Flash. You have more card draw than them. Also you have Runechanter's Pike for inevitability. The primary advantage I see that UWR Flash has over RUG Fish is Supreme Verdict. That card is good. However, you have something they don't, Nightshade Peddler. You also have much more draw/dig to find it. Izzet Statiscaster is so good by itself it already makes most SB's that can cast it. Combined with Peddler it dominates the game. The other advantage they have are Detention Sphere's/Oblivion Rings. We are lacking in our options there, with bounce spells, and Pithing Needle. However I don't think it's a big enough factor to eliminate RUG from the equation. RUG is able to apply a much faster clock in Quirion Dryad, who often wins games single handidly by growing large enough (10/10+) to bash through the most cluttered of boards with Pyromancer tokens providing blockers on the swing back.
While I can't say definitively that this deck is a better choice than UWR Flash, I think it is an option.
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Augur of Bolas
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Runechanter's Pike
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Think Twice
1 Faithless Looting
1 Thought Flare
4 Turn // Burn
2 Pillar of Flame
1 Izzet Charm
2 Syncopate
2 Essence Scatter
1 Dissipate
1 Rewind
4 Steam Vent
4 Breeding Pool
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Hinterland Harbor
3 Rootbound Crag
4 Izzet Statiscaster
3 Nightshade Peddler
2 Negate
1 Dispel
2 Aetherling
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Pithing Needle
1 Desolate Lighthouse
Please let me know what you guys think. Suggestions/feedback are welcome. I'll let you know how the further testing goes.
Thanks.
4 Curse of Deaths Hold
3 Karn Liberated
2 Blue Sun's Zenith
2 Red Sun's Zenith
4 Whipflare
4 Dissipate
3 Go for the Throat
2 Tribute to Hunger
4 Think Twice
2 Amass the Components
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacombs
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Evolving WIlds
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
3 Island
4 Invisibile Stalker
2 Trinket Mage
3 Silver-Inlaid Dagger
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Negate
1 Pillar of Flame
So, 4 Pristine Talisman to accelerate you into Curses and Karns, to keep you alive until you can achieve your soft lock, and to take you out of burn range once you have stabilized.
Red Sun and Blue Sun as your win conditions because they also are key role players in the early and mid game. No wasted slots. Red Sun also help against Planeswalkers, which aside from Karn can be real problems.
4 Dissipate to protect your soft lock.
2 Tribute to Hungers to cover all your bases. Losing to a Thrun or Dungrove Elder is unaccetable, and with how long this deck takes to win you can't really afford to auto scoop to any cards game 1.
Amass the Components. We will have a lot of extra mana, lets take advantage of it. I value card advantage over card selection here. That's why you don't see any Forbidden Alchemys. No Desperate Raving's because I feel there are too many cards that I can't afford to have discarded while trying to obtain or maintain my soft lock. Also there isn't much here that synergizes with the graveyard. Think Twice, Blue Sun's, and Amass the Components have been adiquate.
Every other slot should be fairly obvious. Except the sideboard...
Quite unconventional I know. But the theory is that if you don't win game 1, your deck is so slow that the best you can hope for is a draw. If your lucky. Invisible Stalker + Silver-Inlaid Dagger is the best plan I could come up with that is able to win quickly and resiliently. Your opponent should have sided out all of their sweepers, although you may run into some disenchants. But with Trinket Mage you have a virutal 5 copies to outlast them.
At work, gotta run, ill be back later to answer any questions and I would love to hear any ideas on how to improve the deck, especially the sideboard! Thanks!
Not many changes I would make. Deck felt strong. Maybe a third Revoke instead of a Nihil Spellbomb. Since Curses do such a good job of keeping Moorland Haunt in check I dont think they are as necessary.
On another note props to my former roommate and current team member who rode up there with me Josh Wagener for being such a beast and winning the whole thing. The other finalist Conor Moran is also another local so props to him as well as Ben Friedman for his 2nd consecutive Invitational top eight. If anyone is ever in the baltimore area come stop by Xanadu games. Theres a lot of really strong players coming out of there.
Ill post any further evolutions of deck when they happen. Ttyl.
3 Reassembling Skeleton
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
4 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Think Twice
4 Mana Leak
2 Dissipate
3 Tragic Slip
2 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Curse of Deaths Hold
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Batterskull
2 Vault of the Archangel
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Swamp
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Glacial Fortress
3 Drowned Catacombs
3 Isolated Chapel
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Curse of Deaths Hold
1 Mortarpod
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Negate
2 Dissipate
1 Think Twice
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Celestial Purge
2 Revoke Existence
Only card I wish I had somewhere is Gideon, but with all the Bb and Uu spells its awfully tough. Maybe one more way to kill artifacts or enchantments would be nice as well. An O Ring or third Revoke perhaps. Deck is sick though.
So yea deck was a beast all night. I think it could use a couple O Rings or Revokes, plus Day of Judgment over BSZ would be a nice upgrade but that might be too much. I'm thinking about cutting the second Vault for another Isolated Chapel. Not sure where I'm gonna try and fit in the O Rings or whateverbut ill post an update when (if?) I do. Or maybe I just need to leave in alitte more countermagic against humans. We will see.
Oh and Witchbane Orb totally destroyed my Mono Red opponent
3 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Mortarpod
1 Batterskull
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Think Twice
1 Thought Scour
4 Mana Leak
2 Dissipate
2 Sever the Bloodline
1 Buried Ruin
1 Nephial Drownyard
2 Vault of the Archangel
3 Isolated Chapel
3 Drowned Catacombs
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Swamp
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Go for the Throat
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Curse of Deaths Hold
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Negate
2 Dissipate
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Jace, Memory Adept
Cut 2 Snapcasters and an Island for Mortarpod, Batterskull, and a Buried Ruin. Swapped the maindeck
Go for the Throat and the Sideboard Sever the Bloodline. Added an extra Dissipate to the board to compensate for not having Snapcasters against control. Added a Ratchet Bomb over a BSZ because of Buried Ruin. Quite happy with the deck atm, it felt powerful tonight.
Not having Snapcasters may seem odd but I think its right. They put such a constraint on your deckbuilding options. Being able to run as many artifacts, planeswalkers, and flashback spells as you want is very nice. Let me know what you think and ill report back from the tournament tomorrow.
Prior to this deck I was playing a Uw blade deck that ran snapcaster, mirran crusader, and hero of bladehold as the creature suite, with 3 SoWaP. Midnight Haunting was in the original build and was very good against control. When Lingering Souls got printed and aggro became more popular I cut them and added maindeck Timely Reinforcements, Mental Misstep, Dismember, and Gut Shot and it was pretty insane. I narrowly missed day two at GP.Baltimore after a heartbreaking loss in the 9th round. Timely + Snapcaster was one of the strongest things you could do in the deck. It was especially good because you had Crusader and Hero to quickly end the game as long as you could stay alive. While Timely would still be pretty good in this deck I dont think it would work as a direct replacement for Sorin. In this deck you dont have those powerful midrange creatures, you have to win with your 1/1's alone. Sorins emblems are so important to being able to change gears that I dont think I could cut them. Maybe its one of those cards you have to play with to fully appreciat.
Timely would be great in the board but I would have to further stretch the mana base and im not sure it's worth it. It definitely could be though, and I will have to test it with more white spells in the board because Timely and something like Celestial Purge would be very helpful.
Same deal with Midnight Haunting as far as the mana base. However I like the card a lot, especially in a deck with Think Twice, Alchemys, and Snapcaster.
It doesn't have any other real synergies though, and for what im trying to do here I think Skeletons might be better, especially since it lets me stick with the Ub heavy mana base. I think there is potential for a separate deck there with Souls, Haunting, and Snapcaster.
Buried Ruin is very underrated IMO. I dont think it does enough to warrant a slot with just the swords as targets, and its competing with Vault and Drownyard for the Colorless land slots. But if I were to add the Mortarpod and the Batterskull maindeck then it might be a very good inclusion.
Increasing Devotion could be a powerful enabler/win con. I wish that thing was instant speed though. Dont like tapping out on my turn if I dont have to and Alchemys, Thought Scour, and Drownyard allow that.
As to the overall power level of Reassembling Skeleton, its better than it looks, which is admittedly pretty bad