Do you actually own GSZs or do you simply want to avoid purchasing them? The latter is fine, I'll never tell someone "your budget should be higher," I just don't understand why you would ever elect to run CoC over GSZ. The ability to tutor for DEN is trivial in my eyes and the instant-speed nature of the card in no way offsets the additional mana requirements as far I'm concerned. GSZ allows you to run fewer mana dorks, fewer do-nothings (such as Thragtusk) and more combo pieces. You want to draw Mysric Snake every game but you still don't want to run 4. You want to be able to GSZ up a Dryad Arbor on turn 1 some % of the time but you don't really want to run Elvish Mystic. You want to have a Temur Sabertooth in your deck and you want to find it but the card is quite bad on turn 4.
Is just more powerful and consistent than a CoC build. I would just always run the GSZ version myself. Again, if this is more about "I own CoCs and don't want to purchase GSZs," that's fine, I can totally get behind that, I just wouldn't run CoC over GSZ in a vacuum. GSZ is just such a stupidly powerful card that it seems silly to omit it in my mind. It's just a 1 mana Demonic Tutor.
I like both cards a fair amount. In a perfect world I'd recommend both, but since I try to build decks with budgets in mind I try not to go wild with expensive cards. Yavimaya Elder is a very strong card that costs virtually nothing. When Courser rotates out of Standard and drops in price I'll start switching over to that but insofar as it's a ~50 cent card vs an ~8 dollar card I don't mind promoting the weaker version that's still good. Given that most Green 4 drops are lackluster fatties I'd much rather blow my budget on 1-2 Oracles (I do think that it's a significantly more powerful card) and a whack of GSZs to fetch them than worry about Coursers. Again, I've played with Yavimaya Elder a LOT and it's always been good for me so if I'm trying to stretch my my money I'd much rather invest in Oracles since you can always find room for 1-2 of those in Green decks and there aren't fantastic replacements. Whenever possible I try to promote cards that will have homes outside of specific decks (hence why I usually promote "good stuff" decks") and while it's true that both Courser and Oracle are solid Green cards I have a strong reason to believe that Courser will significantly decrease in price at some point whereas Oracle probably isn't dropping anytime soon. And, again, I feel that it's harder to find good Green 4 drops than good Green 3 drops since most 4 drops tend to be marginal threats that die to removal whereas 3 drops are often things like Dungrove Elder, Predator Ooze, Yavimaya Elder, Farhaven Elf, Fierce Empath, Reclamation Sage, etc.
Do you actually own GSZs or do you simply want to avoid purchasing them? The latter is fine, I'll never tell someone "your budget should be higher," I just don't understand why you would ever elect to run CoC over GSZ.
This is certainly a factor, but being able to tutor and cast Mystic Snake makes CoC better for me, finding and casting the Snake on my turn is useless. Also, I don't see the point in Temur Sabertooth, maybe it works for you, but I can't see me getting any value out of that card. Thragtusk isn't a do nothing in my play group; it's the vital life gain piece in the deck. While I'm at it, what is the point of Dryad Arbor without Altar of Bone/Birthing Pod? I don't understand that choice either. Oracle is a solid 4-drop, but I prefer to get all my extra lands with Wood Elves and Coiling Oracle because people don't use spot removal on those; they do on the Oracle. Oh, and those "do-nothings" also power my CoC when people think I don't have enough mana to cast Avenger/DEN on the end of the turn before mine.
This is certainly a factor, but being able to tutor and cast Mystic Snake makes CoC better for me, finding and casting the Snake on my turn is useless.
Also, I don't see the point in Temur Sabertooth, maybe it works for you, but I can't see me getting any value out of that card.
Removal is far from useless against these styles of decks and cheap protection effects such as these can go a long way to keeping your Prophets and such alive. Otherwise it's just another Deadeye Navigator style card that bounces your perms but it's significantly more durable. DEN is relatively easy to kill in a vacuum which I why I prefer to lean on more durable variations whenever possible.
Thragtusk isn't a do nothing in my play group; it's the vital life gain piece in the deck.
Thratusk prevents you from losing games but he generally doesn't win them. Drawing 1-2 for lifegain is fine but you're not going to beat a table down with them. He's a good roadblock that can buy you time to hit your endgame stuff but in my experience you generally just cast and block with him.
It turns a T1 GSZ into an Elvish Mystic. Obviously you're never happy to draw the Arbor but having access to a (low opportunity cost) turn 1 play is very powerful in my experience.
Oh, and those "do-nothings" also power my CoC when people think I don't have enough mana to cast Avenger/DEN on the end of the turn before mine.
I'm not saying that GSZ is strictly better than CoC. I'm saying that I would always play the former in a vacuum. For all of the advantages that CoC offers none of them, in my personal opinion, offsets the fact that you're always paying 2 more mana for a very similar effect. GSZ fills holes in your curve and ensures that you can use the vast majority of your mana every turn of the game which is generally better than playing a card that will help you when your deck is already doing its thing. Whereas it's extremely easy to get CoC "flooded," it's not a card that you want to see early + often, it's virtually impossible for GSZ to ever be a bad draw. In terms of sheer consistency, versatility and raw power-level it doesn't seem close to me.
From a political standpoint, I see this as equivalent or worse to a T1 Sol Ring. I will draw everyone's attention before I actually do anything worth the attention. Also, I don't see this ever being the difference between winning and losing, at least not in my play group.
For the most part I think we will just need to disagree on GSZ vs. CoC in this deck. In decks without chump blockers or the need to use a creature counter spell, I can easily see GSZ winning every single time. Where you see GG I see two tapped chump blockers.
For the most part I think we will just need to disagree on GSZ vs. CoC in this deck. In decks without chump blockers or the need to use a creature counter spell, I can easily see GSZ winning every single time. Where you see GG I see two tapped chump blockers.
If you start the game with 2 chump blockers in play then we're playing very different games.
If you start the game with 2 chump blockers in play then we're playing very different games.
I definitely agree.
My personal preference is to play balls-out and shuffle up when someone wins, but this group likes to play 10-15 turns and frowns on decks that win by turn 7. I agree with you in principle based on cut-throat play group conditions, but I think it's also important to illustrate how a different style may be helpful in other play groups. The point is to be successful in my opinion, and playing the strongest deck list possible is not always the way to be successful in all play groups.
And I still think that if I were to pilot a list that just used GSZs that I'd be more successful. Every scenario that you provide as "incentive" to play Chord involves having many creatures in play, a Prophet out, things like that. That is, the card is good in ideal conditions where no one is significantly interacting with you. The point that I'm trying to make is that GSZ is good not only when you're facing goldfish, but also when your opponents are actually playing real decks. You've claimed that random Pauper decks are oppressive in your meta while also posting a throng of decks that use broken Vintage staples. You're clearly a big fish in a shallow pond that has no meaningful opposition. When your opponents actually play Magic and field cards that matter the "everything works" point of view flies out the window real fast. It becomes much more obvious much more quickly what separates good cards from medium cards and this is one of those instances where I don't understand how you can put the cards at parity. GSZ is literally good on every turn of the game, including turn 1, whereas CoC is only at its best multiple turns into the game when your deck is already doing its thing. I'm saying that if anyone were to pilot a GSZ deck against a CoC deck in the same meta the GSZ list would more consistently and more quickly take control of the game. I think that the "ramping on turn 1 will draw hate" argument is complete BS because that implies some very inept competition. What, if you start on turn 2 they have blinders on but if you start on turn 1 they zero in like a hawk? I've been playing MP magic for years against throngs of different players and that seems like complete hokey to me. Either your opponents are competent Magic players at which point they'll understand that ramp is ramp, be it on turn 1 or 2, or they're newbs who play for fun, social reasons, etc. The concept of ramp isn't so intricate that starting on T2 vs T1 will wildly throw people off of your trail. Beyond that, I don't understand how anyone can tell me that having access to Elvish Mystic on turns 1-2 and "generic ramper" on turn 3 is irrelevant for a ramp deck. It's not. Your deck is just plain faster and more consistent when you play with GSZ and it takes absolutely no time to figure that out. I know because I've played with the card in multiplayer Constructed, Cube, EDH, Modern, Legacy, you name it. It's the best Green card in your deck because it finds your bombs/key threats/silver bullets while filling out all of the holes in your curves as you go. You can blindly jam 4 into any Green deck and it'll just become a more consistent deck. The same cannot be said for CoC because that card has actual limitations whereas GSZ has none. You just plain cannot just cast CoC on turns 1 or 2 barring some very weird ***** and from a competitve standpoint that makes the card substavtially weaker. When you look at formats like Modern and Legacy, powerful formats doing powerful things, does it not strike you by surprise that one card sees (or saw) a fair amount of play whereas another sees 0? Do you not see how a card that is almost always going to be the best draw in your deck is better than one that's conditional and often win-more? I don't hate CoC, I don't love GSZ, I just don't understand how you can look at these 2 cards and convince yourself that the former can reasonably compete with the latter. I've also played with both cards and it's so not remotely close that I struggle to think how anyone who has could have reached the same conclusion as you. When you play 4 CoCs in a deck you will draw multiples early on, that's never good, whereas I would LOVE to start every game with a fist full of GSZs. It's literally not possible for it to be a bad draw. I am more than willing to accept any argument about budget, personal preference, convenience, whatever. None of that ever bothers me. What does grind me gears is when people try to downplay the sheer power-level of a card and attempt to convince themselves and/or others that a marginal card is just as good, if not better, than a God tier card. I just absolutely refuse to believe that you can play both cards in "competitive" Green decks against competent opponents (regardless of the format, MP or otherwise) and deduce that they're roughly equivalent. If your opponents aren't legitimate threats then it doesn't matter what you elect to field, beating weak players with weak decks is a trivial task, my point is that as your competition becomes stiffer and stiffer it becomes clear why some cards are almost strictly better than others.
I also expected Courser of Kruphix to more expensive (being the better card and relevant in Standard), but perhaps you might want to stop recommending Oracle of Mul Daya altogether (even though it is the green Jace).
I think that the "ramping on turn 1 will draw hate" argument is complete BS because that implies some very inept competition. What, if you start on turn 2 they have blinders on but if you start on turn 1 they zero in like a hawk?
For me, yes, this is true. I don't say this to judge the players in the group, they just don't go in with the attitude that winning makes the play enjoyable necessarily.
Again I agree that in a vacuum, GSZ beats CoC every day of the week. If you aren't playing in a group where everyone is competitive, sometimes taking the 'less consistent card that makes your deck work better when it's already working' is the better choice, even if $ is not an issue.
FWIW, after adding in some non-budget land, this is my final deck list to field in the next play session.
I did a scan of gatherer for some decent blue Deadeye targets and hit upon this list. It's not everything that exists, but seems to be the best in class for blue (no sphinx because mulldrifter is way cheaper, for example).
not a ton of great options; seems like multicolor is the way to go.
also super goofy: deadeye paired with Dryad Arbor for landfall-type triggers. Pair Avenger of Zendikar to get an army and then dryad arbor to make that army huge. Courser of Kruphix is already decent, but 1U: Gain 1 life is kind of fun. Beyond that, there might not be much potential.
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I dunno, to me a deck like:
8x Forest
4x Island
1x Mountain
4x Breeding Pool
2x Hinterland Harbor
2x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Rogue's Passage
1x Dryad Arbor
Creatures (29)
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Coiling Oracle
2x Wood Elves
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Fierce Empath
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Temur Sabertooth
2x Mystic Snake
3x Prophet of Kruphix
1x Mulldrifter
2x Thragtusk
1x Primeval Titan
1x Bane of Progress
1x Prime Speaker Zegana
2x Deadeye Navigator
1x Sylvan Primordial
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
4x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Rite of Replication
2x Dense Foliage
Is just more powerful and consistent than a CoC build. I would just always run the GSZ version myself. Again, if this is more about "I own CoCs and don't want to purchase GSZs," that's fine, I can totally get behind that, I just wouldn't run CoC over GSZ in a vacuum. GSZ is just such a stupidly powerful card that it seems silly to omit it in my mind. It's just a 1 mana Demonic Tutor.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
My Powered 630 card Vintage Multiplayer Cube
cEDH: WUBR Blue Farm WUBR, UG Kinnan Flips UG, U Urza Scepter U
I like both cards a fair amount. In a perfect world I'd recommend both, but since I try to build decks with budgets in mind I try not to go wild with expensive cards. Yavimaya Elder is a very strong card that costs virtually nothing. When Courser rotates out of Standard and drops in price I'll start switching over to that but insofar as it's a ~50 cent card vs an ~8 dollar card I don't mind promoting the weaker version that's still good. Given that most Green 4 drops are lackluster fatties I'd much rather blow my budget on 1-2 Oracles (I do think that it's a significantly more powerful card) and a whack of GSZs to fetch them than worry about Coursers. Again, I've played with Yavimaya Elder a LOT and it's always been good for me so if I'm trying to stretch my my money I'd much rather invest in Oracles since you can always find room for 1-2 of those in Green decks and there aren't fantastic replacements. Whenever possible I try to promote cards that will have homes outside of specific decks (hence why I usually promote "good stuff" decks") and while it's true that both Courser and Oracle are solid Green cards I have a strong reason to believe that Courser will significantly decrease in price at some point whereas Oracle probably isn't dropping anytime soon. And, again, I feel that it's harder to find good Green 4 drops than good Green 3 drops since most 4 drops tend to be marginal threats that die to removal whereas 3 drops are often things like Dungrove Elder, Predator Ooze, Yavimaya Elder, Farhaven Elf, Fierce Empath, Reclamation Sage, etc.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Kederkt Leviathan - it's a great stop when the board becomes clogged with to many permanents. Teams up beautifully with Prophet of Kruphix.
Spearbreaker Behemoth - it protects your other top end threats in a world of wraths and creature descruction.
Less useful but not useless. These decks usually play cards like Cloudstone Curio, Temur Sabertooth and Deadeye Navigator for a reason.
Removal is far from useless against these styles of decks and cheap protection effects such as these can go a long way to keeping your Prophets and such alive. Otherwise it's just another Deadeye Navigator style card that bounces your perms but it's significantly more durable. DEN is relatively easy to kill in a vacuum which I why I prefer to lean on more durable variations whenever possible.
Thratusk prevents you from losing games but he generally doesn't win them. Drawing 1-2 for lifegain is fine but you're not going to beat a table down with them. He's a good roadblock that can buy you time to hit your endgame stuff but in my experience you generally just cast and block with him.
It turns a T1 GSZ into an Elvish Mystic. Obviously you're never happy to draw the Arbor but having access to a (low opportunity cost) turn 1 play is very powerful in my experience.
I'm not saying that GSZ is strictly better than CoC. I'm saying that I would always play the former in a vacuum. For all of the advantages that CoC offers none of them, in my personal opinion, offsets the fact that you're always paying 2 more mana for a very similar effect. GSZ fills holes in your curve and ensures that you can use the vast majority of your mana every turn of the game which is generally better than playing a card that will help you when your deck is already doing its thing. Whereas it's extremely easy to get CoC "flooded," it's not a card that you want to see early + often, it's virtually impossible for GSZ to ever be a bad draw. In terms of sheer consistency, versatility and raw power-level it doesn't seem close to me.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
For the most part I think we will just need to disagree on GSZ vs. CoC in this deck. In decks without chump blockers or the need to use a creature counter spell, I can easily see GSZ winning every single time. Where you see GG I see two tapped chump blockers.
Meaning what exactly? You play a mana dork on turn 1. People look at it. Fine. What do they actually do about it?
You don't see how starting on turn 1 with a mana dork could ever help a ramp deck win a game of Magic?
If you start the game with 2 chump blockers in play then we're playing very different games.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
My personal preference is to play balls-out and shuffle up when someone wins, but this group likes to play 10-15 turns and frowns on decks that win by turn 7. I agree with you in principle based on cut-throat play group conditions, but I think it's also important to illustrate how a different style may be helpful in other play groups. The point is to be successful in my opinion, and playing the strongest deck list possible is not always the way to be successful in all play groups.
And I still think that if I were to pilot a list that just used GSZs that I'd be more successful. Every scenario that you provide as "incentive" to play Chord involves having many creatures in play, a Prophet out, things like that. That is, the card is good in ideal conditions where no one is significantly interacting with you. The point that I'm trying to make is that GSZ is good not only when you're facing goldfish, but also when your opponents are actually playing real decks. You've claimed that random Pauper decks are oppressive in your meta while also posting a throng of decks that use broken Vintage staples. You're clearly a big fish in a shallow pond that has no meaningful opposition. When your opponents actually play Magic and field cards that matter the "everything works" point of view flies out the window real fast. It becomes much more obvious much more quickly what separates good cards from medium cards and this is one of those instances where I don't understand how you can put the cards at parity. GSZ is literally good on every turn of the game, including turn 1, whereas CoC is only at its best multiple turns into the game when your deck is already doing its thing. I'm saying that if anyone were to pilot a GSZ deck against a CoC deck in the same meta the GSZ list would more consistently and more quickly take control of the game. I think that the "ramping on turn 1 will draw hate" argument is complete BS because that implies some very inept competition. What, if you start on turn 2 they have blinders on but if you start on turn 1 they zero in like a hawk? I've been playing MP magic for years against throngs of different players and that seems like complete hokey to me. Either your opponents are competent Magic players at which point they'll understand that ramp is ramp, be it on turn 1 or 2, or they're newbs who play for fun, social reasons, etc. The concept of ramp isn't so intricate that starting on T2 vs T1 will wildly throw people off of your trail. Beyond that, I don't understand how anyone can tell me that having access to Elvish Mystic on turns 1-2 and "generic ramper" on turn 3 is irrelevant for a ramp deck. It's not. Your deck is just plain faster and more consistent when you play with GSZ and it takes absolutely no time to figure that out. I know because I've played with the card in multiplayer Constructed, Cube, EDH, Modern, Legacy, you name it. It's the best Green card in your deck because it finds your bombs/key threats/silver bullets while filling out all of the holes in your curves as you go. You can blindly jam 4 into any Green deck and it'll just become a more consistent deck. The same cannot be said for CoC because that card has actual limitations whereas GSZ has none. You just plain cannot just cast CoC on turns 1 or 2 barring some very weird ***** and from a competitve standpoint that makes the card substavtially weaker. When you look at formats like Modern and Legacy, powerful formats doing powerful things, does it not strike you by surprise that one card sees (or saw) a fair amount of play whereas another sees 0? Do you not see how a card that is almost always going to be the best draw in your deck is better than one that's conditional and often win-more? I don't hate CoC, I don't love GSZ, I just don't understand how you can look at these 2 cards and convince yourself that the former can reasonably compete with the latter. I've also played with both cards and it's so not remotely close that I struggle to think how anyone who has could have reached the same conclusion as you. When you play 4 CoCs in a deck you will draw multiples early on, that's never good, whereas I would LOVE to start every game with a fist full of GSZs. It's literally not possible for it to be a bad draw. I am more than willing to accept any argument about budget, personal preference, convenience, whatever. None of that ever bothers me. What does grind me gears is when people try to downplay the sheer power-level of a card and attempt to convince themselves and/or others that a marginal card is just as good, if not better, than a God tier card. I just absolutely refuse to believe that you can play both cards in "competitive" Green decks against competent opponents (regardless of the format, MP or otherwise) and deduce that they're roughly equivalent. If your opponents aren't legitimate threats then it doesn't matter what you elect to field, beating weak players with weak decks is a trivial task, my point is that as your competition becomes stiffer and stiffer it becomes clear why some cards are almost strictly better than others.
... why?
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Again I agree that in a vacuum, GSZ beats CoC every day of the week. If you aren't playing in a group where everyone is competitive, sometimes taking the 'less consistent card that makes your deck work better when it's already working' is the better choice, even if $ is not an issue.
FWIW, after adding in some non-budget land, this is my final deck list to field in the next play session.
1x Acidic Slime
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Bane of Progress
4x Coiling Oracle
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
3x Deadeye Navigator
1x Kruphix, God of Horizons
2x Mulldrifter
3x Mystic Snake
1x Primeval Titan
4x Prophet of Kruphix
4x Sylvan Caryatid
1x Sylvan Primordial
3x Thragtusk
2x Wood Elves
4x Breeding Pool
8x Forest
2x Hinterland Harbor
6x Island
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Rogue's Passage
Instant (3)
3x Chord of Calling
Sorcery (1)
1x Rite of Replication
2x Dense Foliage
not a ton of great options; seems like multicolor is the way to go.
also super goofy: deadeye paired with Dryad Arbor for landfall-type triggers. Pair Avenger of Zendikar to get an army and then dryad arbor to make that army huge. Courser of Kruphix is already decent, but 1U: Gain 1 life is kind of fun. Beyond that, there might not be much potential.