I'm interested in Rhythm of the Wild, particularly if we start messing around with Vannifar and KotR, which both greatly benefit from haste. Rhythm also has really strong synergy with Persist critters.
Something that we may not have considered up to this point though, is that we'd need one more mana to combo off, since Van can't blink a land and Saheeli can't copy a dork if we try to go off in one go.
I'm not sure I know what you mean. Saheeli copies Van, sac original, and then sac an existing mana dork to begin the chain.
Van lets us replace some number of Guardians with a card that gives us more flexibility while retaining similar Saheeli potential. I could see something like a 4/2 Vannifar/Guardian split, giving us more combo redundancy, while expanding out ability to grind or hunt for bullets when necessary.
Damn, if it wasn't legendary it could at least combo by itself with saheeli...
It kills with a mana dork, and Saheeli. That's a large part of why I believe it's going to see play. As AcademyRuins noted above, Saheeli effectively gives her haste, which covers for the weakness of normally needing to untap with it.
Tooth and Nail player here, can I ask a few questions?
How good has the white splash been for you?
How do you do against Jeskai? That matchup seems pretty terrible to me.
I've been wondering if Treasure Map/Treasure Cove is good in tooth and nail. The midgame scry engine seems good as the deck has a lot of air, and the flip side both ramps and refills the hand.
I dig the white splash. The white hate enchantments are some of the best sideboard action in the format, and they don't cost us very much to play. These cards are coming in against fairly linear decks, and Blood Moon and (sometimes) Tireless Tracker are pretty clean side outs.
The Jeskai match is tough, but not nearly as difficult as UW proper. They're much more vulnerable to Blood Moon, and their burn is less important than most of what it's replacing (counters, card selection, and sometimes Terminus). Bolting the Arbor Elf might be the right play, but the Overgrowth list is going to climb the mana ladder anyways.
I really love Treasure Map, but I wonder if it's too slow, and too low impact versus other turn 2 plays that can swing the game (Planeswalkers, and Choke). It's certainly worth testing, though.
The 75 needs some work, but the deck felt great overall. Overgrowth, in particular, was pretty incredible, and enabled a number of T3 and T4 Tooth and Nails. I beat Jeskai Control, BG Rock, Boggles, Dredge, and Amulet Titan.
I didn't reinvent the wheel, but a couple of thoughts: I wasn't loving the blue splash that I sometimes see in devotion lists, and it made a card that a deck like this can leverage well in Blood Moon, much more iffy. In general, I think Garruk is more consistent than Kiora. She has a higher ceiling, but especially with the addition of Overgrowth, Garruk has a higher floor. Because Blood Moon generally comes out against decks like Burn, Dredge, Hollow One, KCI, Affinity, etc, I felt pretty comfortable adding a sideboard only splash of white for the hate enchantment suite.
I'll be running it back, maybe tonight, but possible changes include Ballista -> Hornet Queen, and replacing Worship (I don't have that many creatures) in the board.
@Lejoon, I'm curious why you think Glen Elendra isn't up to snuff. It impressed me in the matchup, though I agree it's not enough on its own. The holy grail against UW is getting disruptive cards down underneath the permission (Teeg, Voice, Saheeli off a dork), but Archmage warps the game when it lands.
I dig the idea of shifting mana dork slots toward the 1-drops. I want to be playing Voice, Teeg, or Saheeli on Turn 2 against them. I haven't had a lot of success with single counterspells, though. It feels like they usually have another piece of interaction in hand.
@Shelldell: I had Sin Collector in my BtL builds, and while good, felt like a nice piece, rather than the anchor that a resolved Archmage is. Nabbing a Cryptic with Sin Collector is good, but forcing them to walk it into an active Archmage is phenomenal. It's also worth noting Archmage is a good Guardian/Lark target.
In my experience, the best cards I've played against UW are Voice, Gaddock Teeg, and Archmage. Cards that limits their tools, and forces them into a narrow play pattern until they're dealt with. It's possible that the best line is to just add another Voice and another Archmage (SB).
An aside about the black splash in general. The biggest issue I've had with the black splash when I've had a 5c manabase, is how much trickier everything else gets. I use a fetch to get Tomb, and that's one less fetch for white, blue, red, or a basic. I've been in situations where I've have to choose between access to black, or the red I need to actually hard cast Kiki-Jiki. This isn't to say the black splash is clearly bad, but I do worry about the trade-offs.
I beat Mardu twice, Enduring Ideal (!!!) twice, BridgeVine, and Boggles. My only loss of the day was to UW Control in the finals. (I had an ID against an unknown deck)
So, UW continues to be the bane of this deck. The standard list feels really good against much of the field, but I continue to bang my head against the brick wall that is UW. Trackers are solid, Reveillark helps, and Archmage was very good (I think I want a second in the board), but I'm still struggling to figure out how to beat UW's combination of counterspells, Terminus, and planeswalkers. I stole game one of the finals with the play and an aggressive draw, but most of the match felt arduous.
A couple of additional thoughts:
Glen Elendra Archmage was my big addition this time around, and it was huge all day. I moved Shalai to the board to make room, and it ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've run it in older lists, and I've always been pleased with how it plays in interactive formats. Game 2, it almost carried me to a match win against UW on its own, but alas, I flooded out as I was about to turn the corner.
Evo into Gearhulk is really good against BridgeVine.
I went with Baloth over Thragtusk primarily for CMC reasons, though I've come to value 4 toughness more than the bonus 3/3.
Shalai is generally fine, and sometimes great. I'm happy to have her against the B/x interactive decks, and she's obviously good against Storm and Burn, but I think Archmage might have stolen her job. It does good work against B/x, and Storm, is surprisingly decent against Burn, and is much better against UW.
Bring to Light Saheeli update: I went 4-1 in a competitive league last night, losing to 8 whack (and roughly 73 Goblin Grenades). I then lost in the top 8 of a PPTQ today, with both of my loses coming against the same Hollow One player. Deck felt consistently strong throughout the day, but I feel like I need a) more and better graveyard hate and b) a more powerful creature than Acidic Slime to Bring to Light for when a combo kill isn't in play.
I'm going to suck it up and add a couple of Rest in Peaces to the board. Acidic Slime is great at what it does, but I want something else when I'm not going for the kill, or grabbing a Command to stabilize. What do folks think about Baneslayer as a curve topper? I've explored this angle before, but I'm intrigued by the potential to just go get it without question. Other options include (but aren't limited to) Angel of Sanctions, Glorybringer, Thragtusk, and Blood Baron. In particular, I want something that can turn around a bad situation against decks like Burn and Hollow One.
Regarding the Knight/Hydra discussion: I adore Knight, but needing to untap with it has always been the big hangup for me. For Saheeli decks, I want cards to be making a big splash the moment they come down. Hydra occupies a similar space, I think. It's a big beater, and Bugler fetches it, but I'm not sure a mid-range beat-stick is what we're after. At least, not unless it's providing something else (life, a card, etc).
On the topic of Bugler, I'm wavering a bit, at least in a deck with Bring to Lights and Glittering Wish. I currently have 23 hits, but I've been wondering if I'd rather just draw a card. I've been thinking about some fun stuff for that slot: Champion of Wits, Tireless Tracker, Bygone Bishop, Rogue Refiner (I know), and even a Runic Armasaur.
After a couple of rough weeks, I decided to put my tinkering hat on, and now that I've got reasonable access to Competitive Leagues (manatraders!), I'm not limited to paper if I want a quality testing ground.
I just went 3-2 with this list, which isn't bad for a first draft.
I beat Humans, Titan Shift, and UR Wizards. I lost to Humans, and RDW.
Wizards: A very close 3 games. I really missed Staticaster in this one.
Titan Shift: He lacked the quantity of interaction he needed to keep me from comboing off two quick games in a row.
Humans: In the match I lost, I had sluggish hands, and I died on turn 4. The match I won was lopsided in the other direction.
Burn: I stuttered, and couldn't quite recover in a close G3.
It feels like I want a 22nd land, but I'm not positive what should get cut. Maybe a Noble Hierarch? Both matches I lost, I struggled to hit land drops, and the deck generally feels pretty hungry.
Bugler feels good, but I'm right on the edge of an acceptable number of hits.
Siege Rhino felt like a million bucks.
Glittering Wish was consistently good, but I'm not stoked on my current sideboard. Slaughter Games, Fracturing Gust, and Crumble to Dust are iffy to me.
I felt the lack of Eldritch Evolution a couple of times. Bring to Light is capable of some really cool stuff, but it lack the explosiveness of Evo.
Overall, I had a great time with this build, and I'm going to run it through a few more leagues tomorrow to see if it has legs.
Went 1-2 drop in 3 straight PPTQs over the last 2 weekends. :\ Played Burn 3 times, Mardu 3 times, Hollow One 2 times, and U/W control. I lost one match to Hollow One on a punt, but otherwise, lost a bunch of matches that felt very winnable with the exception of U/W feeling pretty bad.
My losses to Mardu and Burn felt like I just needed to see more/better cards. I died to Burn bricking on a third land for 3 turns when hitting a land would have let me slam a Thragtusk, for example. It might be my local meta, or just luck of the draw, but I've been playing against a ton of interactive red decks lately. I came prepared for Humans, Tron, BridgeVine, Hollow One, KCI, etc, and have yet to see the majority of those decks.
Not pleased with the results, obviously, but I'm not feeling down on the project. Burn in particular feels like a favorable matchup in about every scenario where they're not jamming Searing Blaze into Eidolon of the Great Revel on the play.
U/W moving toward a Terminus-centric build, and me moving away from value town cards has probably put this matchup squarely in the "unfavorable" pile. I think I'm fine with that, but boy did that match feel bad.
How did the Reveillark feel? Did you find yourself going for it with Evo, or was is mostly something you wanted to draw? The Kira looks like non-bo with how this deck functions - am I missing something there? Are you still happy with Bridges given the Buglers?
@Shelldell, I was inspired by GerryT's recent write-up on Saheeli Evo. He sold me on Dignitary in the current meta, and past experience with it as a sometimes bullet in Pod has me hyped to give it a go here. Apologies if I'm banging that drum a bit too loudly.
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I'm not sure I know what you mean. Saheeli copies Van, sac original, and then sac an existing mana dork to begin the chain.
It kills with a mana dork, and Saheeli. That's a large part of why I believe it's going to see play. As AcademyRuins noted above, Saheeli effectively gives her haste, which covers for the weakness of normally needing to untap with it.
I dig the white splash. The white hate enchantments are some of the best sideboard action in the format, and they don't cost us very much to play. These cards are coming in against fairly linear decks, and Blood Moon and (sometimes) Tireless Tracker are pretty clean side outs.
The Jeskai match is tough, but not nearly as difficult as UW proper. They're much more vulnerable to Blood Moon, and their burn is less important than most of what it's replacing (counters, card selection, and sometimes Terminus). Bolting the Arbor Elf might be the right play, but the Overgrowth list is going to climb the mana ladder anyways.
I really love Treasure Map, but I wonder if it's too slow, and too low impact versus other turn 2 plays that can swing the game (Planeswalkers, and Choke). It's certainly worth testing, though.
4 Arbor Elf
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Eternal Witness
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Xenagos, God of Revels
1 Acidic Slime
1 Primeval Titan
1 Hornet Queen
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells
2 Primal Command
4 Tooth and Nail
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Overgrowth
3 Blood Moon
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
7 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Dragonlord Atarka
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
2 Worship
3 Stony Silence
3 Rest in Peace
The 75 needs some work, but the deck felt great overall. Overgrowth, in particular, was pretty incredible, and enabled a number of T3 and T4 Tooth and Nails. I beat Jeskai Control, BG Rock, Boggles, Dredge, and Amulet Titan.
I didn't reinvent the wheel, but a couple of thoughts: I wasn't loving the blue splash that I sometimes see in devotion lists, and it made a card that a deck like this can leverage well in Blood Moon, much more iffy. In general, I think Garruk is more consistent than Kiora. She has a higher ceiling, but especially with the addition of Overgrowth, Garruk has a higher floor. Because Blood Moon generally comes out against decks like Burn, Dredge, Hollow One, KCI, Affinity, etc, I felt pretty comfortable adding a sideboard only splash of white for the hate enchantment suite.
I'll be running it back, maybe tonight, but possible changes include Ballista -> Hornet Queen, and replacing Worship (I don't have that many creatures) in the board.
I dig the idea of shifting mana dork slots toward the 1-drops. I want to be playing Voice, Teeg, or Saheeli on Turn 2 against them. I haven't had a lot of success with single counterspells, though. It feels like they usually have another piece of interaction in hand.
In my experience, the best cards I've played against UW are Voice, Gaddock Teeg, and Archmage. Cards that limits their tools, and forces them into a narrow play pattern until they're dealt with. It's possible that the best line is to just add another Voice and another Archmage (SB).
An aside about the black splash in general. The biggest issue I've had with the black splash when I've had a 5c manabase, is how much trickier everything else gets. I use a fetch to get Tomb, and that's one less fetch for white, blue, red, or a basic. I've been in situations where I've have to choose between access to black, or the red I need to actually hard cast Kiki-Jiki. This isn't to say the black splash is clearly bad, but I do worry about the trade-offs.
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Reflector Mage
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Acidic Slime
1 Reveillark
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Sun Titan
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Saheeli Rai
3 Eldritch Evolution
Lands
1 Breeding Pool
3 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Worship
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Spellskite
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
I beat Mardu twice, Enduring Ideal (!!!) twice, BridgeVine, and Boggles. My only loss of the day was to UW Control in the finals. (I had an ID against an unknown deck)
So, UW continues to be the bane of this deck. The standard list feels really good against much of the field, but I continue to bang my head against the brick wall that is UW. Trackers are solid, Reveillark helps, and Archmage was very good (I think I want a second in the board), but I'm still struggling to figure out how to beat UW's combination of counterspells, Terminus, and planeswalkers. I stole game one of the finals with the play and an aggressive draw, but most of the match felt arduous.
A couple of additional thoughts:
Glen Elendra Archmage was my big addition this time around, and it was huge all day. I moved Shalai to the board to make room, and it ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've run it in older lists, and I've always been pleased with how it plays in interactive formats. Game 2, it almost carried me to a match win against UW on its own, but alas, I flooded out as I was about to turn the corner.
Evo into Gearhulk is really good against BridgeVine.
I went with Baloth over Thragtusk primarily for CMC reasons, though I've come to value 4 toughness more than the bonus 3/3.
Shalai is generally fine, and sometimes great. I'm happy to have her against the B/x interactive decks, and she's obviously good against Storm and Burn, but I think Archmage might have stolen her job. It does good work against B/x, and Storm, is surprisingly decent against Burn, and is much better against UW.
I'm going to suck it up and add a couple of Rest in Peaces to the board. Acidic Slime is great at what it does, but I want something else when I'm not going for the kill, or grabbing a Command to stabilize. What do folks think about Baneslayer as a curve topper? I've explored this angle before, but I'm intrigued by the potential to just go get it without question. Other options include (but aren't limited to) Angel of Sanctions, Glorybringer, Thragtusk, and Blood Baron. In particular, I want something that can turn around a bad situation against decks like Burn and Hollow One.
Regarding the Knight/Hydra discussion: I adore Knight, but needing to untap with it has always been the big hangup for me. For Saheeli decks, I want cards to be making a big splash the moment they come down. Hydra occupies a similar space, I think. It's a big beater, and Bugler fetches it, but I'm not sure a mid-range beat-stick is what we're after. At least, not unless it's providing something else (life, a card, etc).
On the topic of Bugler, I'm wavering a bit, at least in a deck with Bring to Lights and Glittering Wish. I currently have 23 hits, but I've been wondering if I'd rather just draw a card. I've been thinking about some fun stuff for that slot: Champion of Wits, Tireless Tracker, Bygone Bishop, Rogue Refiner (I know), and even a Runic Armasaur.
I just went 3-2 with this list, which isn't bad for a first draft.
2 Noble Hierarch
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Lotus Cobra
3 Militia Bugler
1 Reflector Mage
1 Eternal Witness
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Siege Rhino
1 Acidic Slime
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Spells
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Glittering Wish
3 Saheeli Rai
1 Primal Command
3 Bring to Light
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Breeding Pool
1 Plains
3 Forest
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Bounding Krasis
1 Bring to Light
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Saheeli Rai
1 Slaughter Games
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
2 Stony Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Worship
I beat Humans, Titan Shift, and UR Wizards. I lost to Humans, and RDW.
Wizards: A very close 3 games. I really missed Staticaster in this one.
Titan Shift: He lacked the quantity of interaction he needed to keep me from comboing off two quick games in a row.
Humans: In the match I lost, I had sluggish hands, and I died on turn 4. The match I won was lopsided in the other direction.
Burn: I stuttered, and couldn't quite recover in a close G3.
- It feels like I want a 22nd land, but I'm not positive what should get cut. Maybe a Noble Hierarch? Both matches I lost, I struggled to hit land drops, and the deck generally feels pretty hungry.
- Bugler feels good, but I'm right on the edge of an acceptable number of hits.
- Siege Rhino felt like a million bucks.
- Glittering Wish was consistently good, but I'm not stoked on my current sideboard. Slaughter Games, Fracturing Gust, and Crumble to Dust are iffy to me.
- I felt the lack of Eldritch Evolution a couple of times. Bring to Light is capable of some really cool stuff, but it lack the explosiveness of Evo.
Overall, I had a great time with this build, and I'm going to run it through a few more leagues tomorrow to see if it has legs.My losses to Mardu and Burn felt like I just needed to see more/better cards. I died to Burn bricking on a third land for 3 turns when hitting a land would have let me slam a Thragtusk, for example. It might be my local meta, or just luck of the draw, but I've been playing against a ton of interactive red decks lately. I came prepared for Humans, Tron, BridgeVine, Hollow One, KCI, etc, and have yet to see the majority of those decks.
Not pleased with the results, obviously, but I'm not feeling down on the project. Burn in particular feels like a favorable matchup in about every scenario where they're not jamming Searing Blaze into Eidolon of the Great Revel on the play.
U/W moving toward a Terminus-centric build, and me moving away from value town cards has probably put this matchup squarely in the "unfavorable" pile. I think I'm fine with that, but boy did that match feel bad.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1271146#paper
A couple of questions:
How did the Reveillark feel? Did you find yourself going for it with Evo, or was is mostly something you wanted to draw? The Kira looks like non-bo with how this deck functions - am I missing something there? Are you still happy with Bridges given the Buglers?