While I dont personally play an anti-Monsters list, just looking at the meta in the last couple weeks it seems pretty obvious that the best way to beat it is aggro.
There are some Mono-Red lists cashing and of course U/B Heroic cashing pretty regularly.
Either of these lists would have to go through a R/G/W Monsters or two, to cash in any daily as the Monsters deck is 60% of the meta right now.
All that being said, Born of the Gods I feel like brings some pretty good options to deal with Monsters. Monsters will get better/faster with Xenegos, but not much else.
While aggro will be getting much better, MB will be getting better, U/B might (I hope) be a thing and U/G getting better. Additionally any number of other lists getting stronger.
I personally dont think Monsters will be a 60% broken meta in a few weeks but for now, your options are pretty limited.
I been using a straight RG list that uses 4 Boon Satyr that blows them out fairly easily. I dont like the white since the mana is worse, even if the cards are better I feel having 4 Stormbreath in your deck is enough to win games.
I think strong aggro is the solution. That's what I'm attempting to brew up post Born
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I think strong aggro is the solution. That's what I'm attempting to brew up post Born
I agree. I think red will have some answers with speed and burn spells to help with PWs. I also think the indirect damage aggro game is a good one against GRw. Mogis and purphoros will be very helpful in this although I don't know yet if Mogis will have enough support. Mono Red Dev/aggro that tails out on pheonix and purphoros seems quite strong. It would be hard to defend a PW from speed and those 4 drops as they are better at dealing damage than ground aggro. Fated conflag wipes any non monstrous threat shy of arbor colossus. I think the curve will be aggressive enough and powerful enough to do enough damage and be good against GRw. Especially the PW heavy decks.
Blue and black both got some new tools to deal with big creatures. Blue got a cheap counterspell (Nullify), and black got several removal spells (Bile Blight, Gild, Drown in Sorrow). Before, Dissolve and Hero's Downfall were stretched pretty thin, making U/B weak against planeswalkers. Now, it's pretty easy to counter or destroy, or Thoughtseize all of R/G and RGw's threats, then walk over with a Prog Sphinx. It's so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if RGw vanished from the metagame entirely.
Blue and black both got some new tools to deal with big creatures. Blue got a cheap counterspell (Nullify), and black got several removal spells (Bile Blight, Gild, Drown in Sorrow). Before, Dissolve and Hero's Downfall were stretched pretty thin, making U/B weak against planeswalkers. Now, it's pretty easy to counter or destroy, or Thoughtseize all of R/G and RGw's threats, then walk over with a Prog Sphinx. It's so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if RGw vanished from the metagame entirely.
Actually, I think that is a really interesting point. If this is coupled with a metagame tilt toward a solid aggro build from UW or R or whatever then I think the PW dominant decks will change a lot (decreased amount PW) offering up a greater opportunity to play control. I'm really looking forward to this change.
Blue and black both got some new tools to deal with big creatures. Blue got a cheap counterspell (Nullify), and black got several removal spells (Bile Blight, Gild, Drown in Sorrow). Before, Dissolve and Hero's Downfall were stretched pretty thin, making U/B weak against planeswalkers. Now, it's pretty easy to counter or destroy, or Thoughtseize all of R/G and RGw's threats, then walk over with a Prog Sphinx. It's so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if RGw vanished from the metagame entirely.
Im not sure how you really got to that conclusion. Bile Blight and Drown don't do anything to RG's creatures since there too big and the removal is too slow to keep up with the hasty threats. Glid and Nullify arent bad, but they don't deal with Xenagos or Elspeth too well.
Theres not many ways of dealing with resolved PW's in Theros Block in general. No Dsphere, no Pithing Needle, no Mutavaults to attack them, no Lifebane Zombie to threaten them, meaning all there is really is Hero's Downfall, and Burn Spells.
The new removal will probably be good for dealing with Wx Heroic, but with all the ramp and threats that RG decks have, I dont see them slowing down at all.
Gild is not good. It might be neccessary, but it is not good. I will test asphyxiate before gild. The purpose of 1:1 removal is to try to generate a tempo advantage. Gild cannot do this effectively because of cost and sorcery speed. If you use gild on a polukranos, you are merely not dying, not getting an advantage. I would rather be on the polukranos side of the equation there because at least my fourth turn has the ability to just kill my opponent.
For those of you trying aggro, are using a white base or a red base? One of the biggest problems of the RW heroic lists from earlier in the block was that they had to play red in a deck wanting WW on turn 2. The deck was fun but just suicided to often to be good. Now that it has the possibility of mono white, I think it will be a lot better. Whether that is good enough though will be shown shortly.
Im not sure how you really got to that conclusion. Bile Blight and Drown don't do anything to RG's creatures since there too big and the removal is too slow to keep up with the hasty threats. Glid and Nullify arent bad, but they don't deal with Xenagos or Elspeth too well.
Theres not many ways of dealing with resolved PW's in Theros Block in general. No Dsphere, no Pithing Needle, no Mutavaults to attack them, no Lifebane Zombie to threaten them, meaning all there is really is Hero's Downfall, and Burn Spells.
The new removal will probably be good for dealing with Wx Heroic, but with all the ramp and threats that RG decks have, I dont see them slowing down at all.
I agree with you that the new answers seem unlikley to completely eliminate GR. But I think you also underestimate the effect that nullify and gild will have. UB has two great non-combat answers to planeswalkers at the moment - hero's downfall and dissolve. Unfortunately, the lack of other viable answers for the other threats in the GR deck (stormbreath, poly, polis etc.) means that you're forced to rely in downfall and dissolve to answer those creature threats, meaning it's a crapshoot as to whether you can stop the planeswalkers. DOUBLING the number of ways to answer big creatures in UB makes it much more likely that they can save dissolve/downfall for the planeswalkers. I also can't emphasise enough how good an answer to stormbreath dragon Nullify is. You are so far ahead on that trade, and its cost means that you can conceivably do things like tapout for whelming wave, leaving up a counter for their creature followup, or play ashiok with counter backup.
@Deftjackal
Asphyxiate is way better in aggro than gild (i think it might actually be very good in a Bx aggro/tempo shell, maybe BW or UB) - although watch out for springleaf drum, if that gets played then asphyxiate may be unplayable), but gild's better in control decks because it answers stormbreath dragon and because you're more likely to get to the point in the game where you take advantage of the gold token. It's not a great removal spell by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm pretty sure it's playable.
I agree with you that the new answers seem unlikley to completely eliminate GR. But I think you also underestimate the effect that nullify and gild will have. UB has two great non-combat answers to planeswalkers at the moment - hero's downfall and dissolve. Unfortunately, the lack of other viable answers for the other threats in the GR deck (stormbreath, poly, polis etc.) means that you're forced to rely in downfall and dissolve to answer those creature threats, meaning it's a crapshoot as to whether you can stop the planeswalkers. DOUBLING the number of ways to answer big creatures in UB makes it much more likely that they can save dissolve/downfall for the planeswalkers. I also can't emphasise enough how good an answer to stormbreath dragon Nullify is. You are so far ahead on that trade, and its cost means that you can conceivably do things like tapout for whelming wave, leaving up a counter for their creature followup, or play ashiok with counter backup.
Exactly right. For reference, here's the deck I've been testing against RGw:
The basic strategy is pretty simple: keep up counter mana whenever possible, trade 1 for 1, play Prognostic Sphinx, win.
Naya decks (currently) only have 4 threats you care about at all: Xenagos, Elspeth, Stormbreath Dragon, and Polukranos. Conveniently, you have 20 answers for those cards, and card drawing and scry to find them.
The Meletis Charlatans are kind of an experiment ATM. They might be a little win-more. They could also be more removal or maybe Read the Bones for more card drawing.
How does it do against the field? I have no idea. I've only tested against RG and Naya control. I imagine it might struggle against heroic decks in the current configuration. But it beats the crap out of RG decks.
I agree with you that the new answers seem unlikley to completely eliminate GR. But I think you also underestimate the effect that nullify and gild will have. UB has two great non-combat answers to planeswalkers at the moment - hero's downfall and dissolve. Unfortunately, the lack of other viable answers for the other threats in the GR deck (stormbreath, poly, polis etc.) means that you're forced to rely in downfall and dissolve to answer those creature threats, meaning it's a crapshoot as to whether you can stop the planeswalkers. DOUBLING the number of ways to answer big creatures in UB makes it much more likely that they can save dissolve/downfall for the planeswalkers. I also can't emphasise enough how good an answer to stormbreath dragon Nullify is. You are so far ahead on that trade, and its cost means that you can conceivably do things like tapout for whelming wave, leaving up a counter for their creature followup, or play ashiok with counter backup.
@Deftjackal
Asphyxiate is way better in aggro than gild (i think it might actually be very good in a Bx aggro/tempo shell, maybe BW or UB) - although watch out for springleaf drum, if that gets played then asphyxiate may be unplayable), but gild's better in control decks because it answers stormbreath dragon and because you're more likely to get to the point in the game where you take advantage of the gold token. It's not a great removal spell by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm pretty sure it's playable.
Nullify is fine but Gild doesnt seem very good. Paying 4 mana at sorcery speed seems pretty bad. Its not very good verses GRx since their best cards have haste and can come down before turn 4 and having to tap out seems like the last thing you want to do against the deck. Drown in Sorrow and Bile Blight don't do anything against GRx, so realistically you have 1 card that can do anything against RGx's creatures, and the card only works before a threat comes down, so that is why I just don't see where the Dissolves and Downfalls are going to do anything different.
The current problem with control is that trying to win off 1 for 1s seems too unreliable since the midrange decks can be quicker and can make multiple threats. The UB deck may get a little bit better but I just dont see it consistently being good. Theres nothing new for the deck that can really deal with multiple cards, so the deck really seems the same.
The basic strategy is pretty simple: keep up counter mana whenever possible, trade 1 for 1, play Prognostic Sphinx, win.
Naya decks (currently) only have 4 threats you care about at all: Xenagos, Elspeth, Stormbreath Dragon, and Polukranos. Conveniently, you have 20 answers for those cards, and card drawing and scry to find them.
The Meletis Charlatans are kind of an experiment ATM. They might be a little win-more. They could also be more removal or maybe Read the Bones for more card drawing.
How does it do against the field? I have no idea. I've only tested against RG and Naya control. I imagine it might struggle against heroic decks in the current configuration. But it beats the crap out of RG decks.
Meletis charlatan seems terrible, your chances of getting any value out of that seem astronomically small. It doesn't work with counterspells, so what's your plan - let two big threats resolve and hope you can untap, alive, and pay a bunch of mana to maybe get a 2 for 1? I'd rather have virtually any other card in that slot. One thing you have to think about with that deck is what your win-con in the mirror is. It's a shame hero's downfall answers ashiok so well, but prognostic sphinx gets countered/thoughtsiezed every game in the mirror when you each have 8 counterspells. You need something durable and/or cheap. I'm pretty much drawing a blank offhand, maybe just ashiok and try to protect with dissolve?
Oh, and I'm pretty sure read the bones is strictly superior to divination, the life loss is barely anything. If we were talking about Inspiration, that's a completely different story, but between the two sorceries it's pretty clear imo.
@Deftjackal - we'll see whose prediction turns out to be right :). I (tried) to play enough UB control last meta to know that I would have loved gild against GR, and I believe that in combination with nullify is going to be really big game.
That is insane. 14/14 naya decks, that's atrocious.
There aren't that many people writing about block, but I can assure you that if BNG doesn't do something about this I will be doing all I can to get something banned (Elspeth being the most likely target, that's what seemed to push the RG deck over the top) and I'll do my best to conscript MTGO academy's block writer into the campaign too. I'm relatively hopeful at this stage though, but that is a serious level of craziness.
That is insane. 14/14 naya decks, that's atrocious.
There aren't that many people writing about block, but I can assure you that if BNG doesn't do something about this I will be doing all I can to get something banned (Elspeth being the most likely target, that's what seemed to push the RG deck over the top) and I'll do my best to conscript MTGO academy's block writer into the campaign too. I'm relatively hopeful at this stage though, but that is a serious level of craziness.
How would banning Elspeth change things THAT much? I see Elspeth winning in their mirror match but just being win more against most other decks.
Single set blocks are nearly always degenerate formats -- there just aren't enough cards to make a balanced format. The new block format might turn out to be similarly degenerate, but I doubt it will include the same old RGw deck.
Elspeth makes you auto win against aggro which is the other plausible way to attack the archetype. It's also good against ug which was something of an anti meta choice vs gr, due to not being affected by voyages end.
I am new here, but the UBG deck I'm working on was able to hang with this menace of a deck last night, well we got to turn 12 each around, then I lost lol.
I agree. BUG has the control to stop RGw's biggest problems by combining nullify, dissolve, and hero's downfall, has the midrange monster presence to halt the rest of it's attack, and has gained a win con with Phenax.
I wouldn't go with Psychobabble's list - it trades the vital midrange monster presence for inspired creatures. Creatures that are a pain to activate in the first instance and get destroyed by midrange big monsters who badly outgun them. Not to mention they cut your mill potential with Phenax drastically.
I still think we'll see it eventually. It has enough good cards to change significantly depending on how the meta shakes out.
Doesnt matter that Anti RGW will lose to every other archtype just as long as it wins this match up.
There are some Mono-Red lists cashing and of course U/B Heroic cashing pretty regularly.
Either of these lists would have to go through a R/G/W Monsters or two, to cash in any daily as the Monsters deck is 60% of the meta right now.
All that being said, Born of the Gods I feel like brings some pretty good options to deal with Monsters. Monsters will get better/faster with Xenegos, but not much else.
While aggro will be getting much better, MB will be getting better, U/B might (I hope) be a thing and U/G getting better. Additionally any number of other lists getting stronger.
I personally dont think Monsters will be a 60% broken meta in a few weeks but for now, your options are pretty limited.
IMO
I agree. I think red will have some answers with speed and burn spells to help with PWs. I also think the indirect damage aggro game is a good one against GRw. Mogis and purphoros will be very helpful in this although I don't know yet if Mogis will have enough support. Mono Red Dev/aggro that tails out on pheonix and purphoros seems quite strong. It would be hard to defend a PW from speed and those 4 drops as they are better at dealing damage than ground aggro. Fated conflag wipes any non monstrous threat shy of arbor colossus. I think the curve will be aggressive enough and powerful enough to do enough damage and be good against GRw. Especially the PW heavy decks.
Actually, I think that is a really interesting point. If this is coupled with a metagame tilt toward a solid aggro build from UW or R or whatever then I think the PW dominant decks will change a lot (decreased amount PW) offering up a greater opportunity to play control. I'm really looking forward to this change.
Im not sure how you really got to that conclusion. Bile Blight and Drown don't do anything to RG's creatures since there too big and the removal is too slow to keep up with the hasty threats. Glid and Nullify arent bad, but they don't deal with Xenagos or Elspeth too well.
Theres not many ways of dealing with resolved PW's in Theros Block in general. No Dsphere, no Pithing Needle, no Mutavaults to attack them, no Lifebane Zombie to threaten them, meaning all there is really is Hero's Downfall, and Burn Spells.
The new removal will probably be good for dealing with Wx Heroic, but with all the ramp and threats that RG decks have, I dont see them slowing down at all.
For those of you trying aggro, are using a white base or a red base? One of the biggest problems of the RW heroic lists from earlier in the block was that they had to play red in a deck wanting WW on turn 2. The deck was fun but just suicided to often to be good. Now that it has the possibility of mono white, I think it will be a lot better. Whether that is good enough though will be shown shortly.
I agree with you that the new answers seem unlikley to completely eliminate GR. But I think you also underestimate the effect that nullify and gild will have. UB has two great non-combat answers to planeswalkers at the moment - hero's downfall and dissolve. Unfortunately, the lack of other viable answers for the other threats in the GR deck (stormbreath, poly, polis etc.) means that you're forced to rely in downfall and dissolve to answer those creature threats, meaning it's a crapshoot as to whether you can stop the planeswalkers. DOUBLING the number of ways to answer big creatures in UB makes it much more likely that they can save dissolve/downfall for the planeswalkers. I also can't emphasise enough how good an answer to stormbreath dragon Nullify is. You are so far ahead on that trade, and its cost means that you can conceivably do things like tapout for whelming wave, leaving up a counter for their creature followup, or play ashiok with counter backup.
@Deftjackal
Asphyxiate is way better in aggro than gild (i think it might actually be very good in a Bx aggro/tempo shell, maybe BW or UB) - although watch out for springleaf drum, if that gets played then asphyxiate may be unplayable), but gild's better in control decks because it answers stormbreath dragon and because you're more likely to get to the point in the game where you take advantage of the gold token. It's not a great removal spell by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm pretty sure it's playable.
Exactly right. For reference, here's the deck I've been testing against RGw:
2 Meletis Charlatan
4 Dissolve
4 Hero's Downfall
4 Nullify
4 Divination
4 Drown in Sorrow
4 Gild
4 Thoughtseize
10 Swamp
4 Temple of Deceit
The basic strategy is pretty simple: keep up counter mana whenever possible, trade 1 for 1, play Prognostic Sphinx, win.
Naya decks (currently) only have 4 threats you care about at all: Xenagos, Elspeth, Stormbreath Dragon, and Polukranos. Conveniently, you have 20 answers for those cards, and card drawing and scry to find them.
The Meletis Charlatans are kind of an experiment ATM. They might be a little win-more. They could also be more removal or maybe Read the Bones for more card drawing.
How does it do against the field? I have no idea. I've only tested against RG and Naya control. I imagine it might struggle against heroic decks in the current configuration. But it beats the crap out of RG decks.
Nullify is fine but Gild doesnt seem very good. Paying 4 mana at sorcery speed seems pretty bad. Its not very good verses GRx since their best cards have haste and can come down before turn 4 and having to tap out seems like the last thing you want to do against the deck. Drown in Sorrow and Bile Blight don't do anything against GRx, so realistically you have 1 card that can do anything against RGx's creatures, and the card only works before a threat comes down, so that is why I just don't see where the Dissolves and Downfalls are going to do anything different.
The current problem with control is that trying to win off 1 for 1s seems too unreliable since the midrange decks can be quicker and can make multiple threats. The UB deck may get a little bit better but I just dont see it consistently being good. Theres nothing new for the deck that can really deal with multiple cards, so the deck really seems the same.
Meletis charlatan seems terrible, your chances of getting any value out of that seem astronomically small. It doesn't work with counterspells, so what's your plan - let two big threats resolve and hope you can untap, alive, and pay a bunch of mana to maybe get a 2 for 1? I'd rather have virtually any other card in that slot. One thing you have to think about with that deck is what your win-con in the mirror is. It's a shame hero's downfall answers ashiok so well, but prognostic sphinx gets countered/thoughtsiezed every game in the mirror when you each have 8 counterspells. You need something durable and/or cheap. I'm pretty much drawing a blank offhand, maybe just ashiok and try to protect with dissolve?
Oh, and I'm pretty sure read the bones is strictly superior to divination, the life loss is barely anything. If we were talking about Inspiration, that's a completely different story, but between the two sorceries it's pretty clear imo.
@Deftjackal - we'll see whose prediction turns out to be right :). I (tried) to play enough UB control last meta to know that I would have loved gild against GR, and I believe that in combination with nullify is going to be really big game.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg%2Fdigital%2Fmagiconline%2Ftourn%2F6654169
Well, BNG can't get here fast enough...
There aren't that many people writing about block, but I can assure you that if BNG doesn't do something about this I will be doing all I can to get something banned (Elspeth being the most likely target, that's what seemed to push the RG deck over the top) and I'll do my best to conscript MTGO academy's block writer into the campaign too. I'm relatively hopeful at this stage though, but that is a serious level of craziness.
How would banning Elspeth change things THAT much? I see Elspeth winning in their mirror match but just being win more against most other decks.
I wouldn't go with Psychobabble's list - it trades the vital midrange monster presence for inspired creatures. Creatures that are a pain to activate in the first instance and get destroyed by midrange big monsters who badly outgun them. Not to mention they cut your mill potential with Phenax drastically.
I still think we'll see it eventually. It has enough good cards to change significantly depending on how the meta shakes out.
Again, I give my full analysis of the core of the deck and potential cards in another thread here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/new-card-discussion/536602-bug-in-block