In addition to all this, Electrickery can still be cast as a 1 mana removal spell (say on a turn 1 Delver) if you need it to be. Electrickery is just so much more versatile even if scry 1 might be nice.
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Not yet. I keep meaning to un-lazy myself and actually play the thing a bit and then either update this thread or post a new one, but XCOM2 just came out...
EDIT: Actually, here is a list I'm saving for myself later:
Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Not yet. I keep meaning to un-lazy myself and actually play the thing a bit and then either update this thread or post a new one, but XCOM2 just came out...
EDIT: Actually, here is a list I'm saving for myself later:
I am extremely pleased that such an unambiguously fair multicolor deck is now fighting Delver for the top spot.
This is almost exactly what I am running card for card. Sideboard is only difference. I agree on the Boros Guildgate, I think it should be a Boros Garrison.
I have seen one other version of the list running around that uses Kabira Crossroads and Mortuary Mire with Azorius Chancery and Boros Garrison to bounce value lands. It tore me up the other day when I was playing MBC (I think). It 5-0'd recently. I will say that I think I suck at playing this deck because I have yet to win a game with it despite the fact that it is doing quite well in the meta. The play lines are not that difficult to grasp either so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, unless of course that is what's wrong. Maybe its deceptively more difficult to pilot than I think?
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Basic Strategy
The main draw engine of this deck is comprised of two parts: Pistons and Birds.
Pistons are artifacts that draw you a card when they enter the battlefield; Birds are undercosted fliers with the "drawback" of bouncing an artifact/permanent. "Correct" operation of the deck involves having your birds bounce your pistons; as the pistons go up and down from hand to table, you will always replace your birds and pistons with fresh cards.
A snap-keep hand typically includes a piston, a pair of lands that can cast it on turn two, and either a bird or a spot removal, preferably color-matching the mana you're holding. One land can be playable on the draw, if you've got a piston in hand already.
If you somehow get into a situation with no pistons in your hand, or in play, or in the bin with recursion options in hand, you are now in "aggro mode". This turns your creatures from aggressively-costed cantripping fliers into clunky bad-tempo aggro dorks. You can still win, but it will usually be by either luck-sacking another piston, or by closing out the game quickly with aggro dorks and burn-to-the-dome.
You can afford to stand around in "aggro mode" at the beginning of the game, waiting to draw the first piston into an especially-strong-but-piston-less hand, basically until your spot removal or land drops run out. After that, it's time to be realistic and try at least to go down fighting.
The main difference is that the metagame has slowed down, which de-emphasizes the importance of having untapped land on early turns, which leads to the color freedom to play the blue splash to begin with. Mulldrifter means that you actually DO have some kind of late-game to play after you've dumped your hand on 1-for-1s.
The other thing is to always remember that this is a control deck; the threats are cheap and low key, but the whole thing is tuned to push you into the position where you have 4-8 power on board and multiple burn spells in hand, to either eliminate blockers or punish opponent face. You don't cast full-price Mulldrifter on 5 mana, you cast him on 7.
The Mortuary Mire version seems hopelessly overtuned. Putting cards on top of your deck doesn't accomplish much.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
So I played 3-4 hours of matches today with that list and just got trounced. I saw a similar list 5-0 a League but I can't buy a win to save my life. I find that I am constantly mulliganing hands to 4 or 5 cards because the hands are just so unkeepable. I played against the gambit but mostly Delver decks. I saw Tron, MBC, Delver, Delver, Delver, and Delver lol. I think I took one match against U/B Delver and every other match just destroyed me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with this deck. I feel like I'm just making the plays I can but its never quite enough.
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So I played 3-4 hours of matches today with that list and just got trounced. I saw a similar list 5-0 a League but I can't buy a win to save my life. I find that I am constantly mulliganing hands to 4 or 5 cards because the hands are just so unkeepable. I played against the gambit but mostly Delver decks. I saw Tron, MBC, Delver, Delver, Delver, and Delver lol. I think I took one match against U/B Delver and every other match just destroyed me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with this deck. I feel like I'm just making the plays I can but its never quite enough.
What time do you usually play? I could spectate you, try to see what's going wrong...
I had my first-ever "tier1 netdeck lolol" tantrum throwna t me this morning. Like, this list is almost identical to the tier 3 deck I was playing for years, dude...
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I'm with you guys on that. It feels like, when I win, the opponent just gets buried in an avalanche of card advantage. When I lose, which is more often than not, it feels like my creatures are just extremely outclassed and too slow and my answers are mediocre.
Being able to burn an opponent out is awesome but having your card drawing artifacts countered hurts so bad. That seems to be the play people are making. It not only denies you a card but it denies you any meaningful bounce from a Skyfisher or a Hawk outside of a land and that hurts the tempo SO bad.
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You're right, you do have to watch out for Delver's counterspells on your pistons. And the Jeskai version is way weaker to that, because of the number of tapped lands you have.
A good opening hand against Delver has 2-4 removal spells. You will win this matchup by stalling their aggressive plan repeatedly, mainly by cheaply killing all their threats. As long as they have < 3 power on board, you are under no particular obligation to do anything at all.
It's still a very losable matchup, because sometimes they just draw all the right cards at all the right times - but they are very much drinking their cards through a straw, and if they can't get that early momentum their wheels tend to come off entirely.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
You're right, you do have to watch out for Delver's counterspells on your pistons. And the Jeskai version is way weaker to that, because of the number of tapped lands you have.
A good opening hand against Delver has 2-4 removal spells. You will win this matchup by stalling their aggressive plan repeatedly, mainly by cheaply killing all their threats. As long as they have < 3 power on board, you are under no particular obligation to do anything at all.
It's still a very losable matchup, because sometimes they just draw all the right cards at all the right times - but they are very much drinking their cards through a straw, and if they can't get that early momentum their wheels tend to come off entirely.
I'll keep that first piece of advice in mind. That last paragraph does ring true with my experience. I wonder if this deck wants Flame Slash in the board? It does work against both Affinity and Mono-U Delver. It would be a good addition to Galvanic Blast. I mean, artifact destruction works in the same places, sort of, but Flame Slash feels like it would hit more targets against more matches such as Gary in MBC.
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You'll noticed I updated the thread title. I went through and updated the OP, too, but there was an accident and I lost all my changes. I'll try again later.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
You'll noticed I updated the thread title. I went through and updated the OP, too, but there was an accident and I lost all my changes. I'll try again later.
I did notice the title update lol.
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You'll noticed I updated the thread title. I went through and updated the OP, too, but there was an accident and I lost all my changes. I'll try again later.
It's so unfortunate that all the changes to primer have been lost I just hope that you have time and patience to do this job once again
You'll noticed I updated the thread title. I went through and updated the OP, too, but there was an accident and I lost all my changes. I'll try again later.
It's so unfortunate that all the changes to primer have been lost I just hope that you have time and patience to do this job once again
Maybe more Duress to take away counterspells vs control or it's not worth it?
Anyway, splash for black seems unpopular for some reason...
I think the issue is the loss of Mulldrifter. If you think about it, that's really the only blue card in the deck. There is one in the sideboard but that's it.
I actually decided to try main decking Electrickery over Chain Lightning. There are just so many decks where its good and are basically auto-losses pre-board without it (such as Elves).
I need to get a couple of copies of Kor Sanctifiers. I've seen 1 main decked in some lists. I think its a good idea. This deck is kind of slow and is good against creature decks but decks that can milk a lot of value out of their creatures like Tortured Existence decks, and Elves, and even Tron to some degree are very hard because we aren't fast enough to pressure them out of their value engines which can often out value our own. Being pre-boarded against some of those decks can help.
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It's so unfortunate that all the changes to primer have been lost I just hope that you have time and patience to do this job once again
Thank you for your concern. I'll probably re-do it tonight. Mostly it's a matter of deleting old irrelevant text and deleting some cards that no longer make the cut.
Re: Black Splash:
This deck operates on a metric of hand size. The pistons + birds engine isn't exactly card advantage - it's just a way of pressuring the board without losing hand size. Unless something gets countered, every bird returns a rock, and every rock draws a card. The influx of cards from your draw step is countered by the outflow of hitting your land drops.
Your hand size will naturally shrink during the game, either when you get your cantripping stuff countered, or when you spend a removal spell on an opposing creature. Being able to recover hand size well in the later turns is a huge part of why the blue splash revitalized this deck. Because of Mulldrifter.
The old Boros version ran Remember the Fallen to do this, which worked pretty well.
The only card in that Mardu version that increases your hand size is Grim Harvest, and I'm not sure I like it there - it's a lot of mana to spend, and you can't reliably dumpster a guy to trigger the recover when it's convenient to you.
That said, Bleak Coven Vampires is a pretty decent finisher, Gurmag Angler seems very comfortable as a 1-of, Terminate and Chainer's Edict both seem very relevant in this Angler-infested metagame, and the sideboard is, overall, pretty hot. I think I'd want to test with Read the Bones as a hand-increaser, 2-3x.
The old Boros builds played 1-2x maindeck. They're a good "soft spot" for sideboard swapping, 2/3 for 3 is not the worst, they have lots of incidental uses, and in a pinch you can kick them to pop your own Ichor Wellspring.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
It's so unfortunate that all the changes to primer have been lost I just hope that you have time and patience to do this job once again
Thank you for your concern. I'll probably re-do it tonight. Mostly it's a matter of deleting old irrelevant text and deleting some cards that no longer make the cut.
Re: Black Splash:
This deck operates on a metric of hand size. The pistons + birds engine isn't exactly card advantage - it's just a way of pressuring the board without losing hand size. Unless something gets countered, every bird returns a rock, and every rock draws a card. The influx of cards from your draw step is countered by the outflow of hitting your land drops.
Your hand size will naturally shrink during the game, either when you get your cantripping stuff countered, or when you spend a removal spell on an opposing creature. Being able to recover hand size well in the later turns is a huge part of why the blue splash revitalized this deck. Because of Mulldrifter.
The old Boros version ran Remember the Fallen to do this, which worked pretty well.
The only card in that Mardu version that increases your hand size is Grim Harvest, and I'm not sure I like it there - it's a lot of mana to spend, and you can't reliably dumpster a guy to trigger the recover when it's convenient to you.
That said, Bleak Coven Vampires is a pretty decent finisher, Gurmag Angler seems very comfortable as a 1-of, Terminate and Chainer's Edict both seem very relevant in this Angler-infested metagame, and the sideboard is, overall, pretty hot. I think I'd want to test with Read the Bones as a hand-increaser, 2-3x.
The old Boros builds played 1-2x maindeck. They're a good "soft spot" for sideboard swapping, 2/3 for 3 is not the worst, they have lots of incidental uses, and in a pinch you can kick them to pop your own Ichor Wellspring.
I thought about that. I'm not sure what I'd drop for them. I'm thinking 1 Sanctifier main over a Kuldotha and 1 side over a Smelt.
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I got exactly as far as the Refuge Lands before needing to go to work this morning. The Mardu version is loads of fun, though probably not as strong as Jeskai, and Read the Bones is a solid card in it.
EDIT: Okay, that's a good first cut. Should we look at getting this bumped over to Established?
Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I got exactly as far as the Refuge Lands before needing to go to work this morning. The Mardu version is loads of fun, though probably not as strong as Jeskai, and Read the Bones is a solid card in it.
EDIT: Okay, that's a good first cut. Should we look at getting this bumped over to Established?
IMO, if you go by MTGGoldfishes rankings this deck is definitely Tier 1.
How do we beat Tron?
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Same way control beats any ramp deck - by killing their bombs. If they have no cards in hand and no threats on board, then all their ramping and color-fixing are a naked waste of cards.
Mardu makes this easy, because Terminate and Chainer's Edict will trade 1-for-1 with any threat they play.
It's harder for Jeskai. You need to make every Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, and Celestial Flare hit something valuable. You can board out your Lone Missionary, because he's not attacking through anything and you don't need the life pump. Don't board out your Lightning Bolt or Galvanic Blast - it threatens a fast ending to the game, it helps punch holes to keep your fliers connecting, and you CAN trade 2-for-1-or-worse to get their fatties off the board. Don't worry about the lifegain from Fangren Marauder - you can make up the damage. Always remember that your creatures are disposable, and you can Celestial Flare after damage is dealt but before end of combat, which might let you single out an attacker you otherwise couldn't have pinched.
In any build of this deck, you need to keep close track on how many cards they still have, and know when to dig for removal and when to push for board presence. What is the opponent doing? Is he scrambling through his deck looking for a threat? Is he putting up a wall of blockers?
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I am glad I finally found an Kuldotha Mardu/Boros/Jeskai primer at MTGS <3
Ok, so:
I play Paper Pauper and we actually care about Goblin Grenade and Hymn to Tourach. So all my analysis will be based on that. For example, I run Negate at the sideboard where I should run Dispel because of Hymn. I have dumped the Rebirths for a while now, putting in a full set of Lone Missionaries for additional lifegain against Goblins and Burn.
At my experience, the Mardu version is pretty bad at keeping CA while mantaining pressure because we don't have Mulldrifters and Read the Bones is kind of a bummer when the meta is based on aggro.
Any thoughts on Custodi Squire for Paper Pauper? It fits perfectly and everything the deck does: It's a flying 3/3, that for 5 has the ability to return basicly any creature, artifact or enchantment card you want. Seems like a good card to have at Mardu or Boros versions (and maybe, as a 2-of at Jeskai versions), also it creates a pretty strong CA engine with Font of Return.
Also, it may sound dumb but with Jeskai I try to take the control route against Tron, siding in all of my Negates (mainly for both Ray of Revelation and Rolling Thunder) and 2 Curse of the Bloody Tome, and then stalling the board as much as I can to mill him. Forcing them to choose between killing my Tomes or my other enchantments. I'm not sure on how efficient it would be but seems to work about right for me. Other option is Reality Acid, which is one of the cards that makes Tron have some serious issues against UW Acid Trip. I even considered running Spreading Seas but we all'd rather have 8 artifacts for Metalcraft and hawks.
Same way control beats any ramp deck - by killing their bombs. If they have no cards in hand and no threats on board, then all their ramping and color-fixing are a naked waste of cards.
Mardu makes this easy, because Terminate and Chainer's Edict will trade 1-for-1 with any threat they play.
It's harder for Jeskai. You need to make every Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, and Celestial Flare hit something valuable. You can board out your Lone Missionary, because he's not attacking through anything and you don't need the life pump. Don't board out your Lightning Bolt or Galvanic Blast - it threatens a fast ending to the game, it helps punch holes to keep your fliers connecting, and you CAN trade 2-for-1-or-worse to get their fatties off the board. Don't worry about the lifegain from Fangren Marauder - you can make up the damage. Always remember that your creatures are disposable, and you can Celestial Flare after damage is dealt but before end of combat, which might let you single out an attacker you otherwise couldn't have pinched.
In any build of this deck, you need to keep close track on how many cards they still have, and know when to dig for removal and when to push for board presence. What is the opponent doing? Is he scrambling through his deck looking for a threat? Is he putting up a wall of blockers?
The biggest problems I've had are that, I'll have them within Burn range and then they'll plop out a Marauder that I can't deal with and then over the course of a couple turns they have over 30 life.... Or they stall just long enough to Torch or Rolling Thunder me out of the game. Even post-board the stock list has no way of interacting with that. We run Dispel... The only other way I've managed to bypass the Torch is to bring in all of the Missionaries. The life gain increase the amount of mana they have to have to torch you out which could shut off that game plan completely until they get a few swings in with a Marauder but if that's the case then they probably are winning anyway and don't need to Torch you out.
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Kuldotha decks usually don't beat Tron, it's about as simple as that most of the time. You have a really weak clock so they get lots of time to set up their mana engine and gain life with Fangren Marauder. Even if you draw a way to kill a Marauder (big if in the Jeskai versions) they still probably gained at least 5 life which can be enough of a setback. The longer the game goes, the closer they get to killing you with Rolling Thunder as well. you can try land destruction but this requires using valuable sideboard slots and this deck is slow enough that they can draw out of having a land or two blown up. I disagree with boarding out Lone Missionary, you need all the early aggression you can get to have a chance against Tron, and if they don't have the early Tron then you could get a few hits in with it which really matters if you want to have a chance. Don't be afraid to play an early Kuldotha Rebirth on an artifact land either. Sometimes they stumble and you'll get in 2+ hits which is great for you. They might plop a Sea Gate Oracle into play to slow you down but it's not like you don't have ways to kill that guy. Mardu might be a little better equipped to fight through Tron but I find it's still a dog.
It's not a great matchup, because they CAN just draw hotter than you can handle, but that really doesn't change your strategic prerogative. You can stretch the clock a bit with Molten Rain, or keep some Counterspell in your back pocket for a more conclusive 1-for-1 answer, but there's not a game you're winning against them without beating their bombs.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
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EDIT: Actually, here is a list I'm saving for myself later:
4 Glint Hawk
4 Kor Skyfisher
3 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Mulldrifter
2 Lone Missionary
Pistons
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Prophetic Prism
Burns
2 Chain Lightning
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Oblivion Ring
Lands
4 Ancient Den
4 Great Furnace
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Secluded Steppe
4 Swiftwater Cliffs
3 Tranquil Cove
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
1 Boros Guildgate
3 Dispel
3 Electrickery
3 Gorilla Shaman
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Celestial Flare
2 Lone Missionary
I quite like it, though I might replace the Chain Lightning with Firebolt due to personal preference. Also, the Boros Guildgate for another Wind-Scarred Crag - not sure why that's even there. Maybe it's supposed to be a Boros Garrison?
EDIT EDIT: Because I'm bored this morning, I'll elaborate:
I think the above list, plus or minus my changes, is the platonic ideal of the deck. It's maxed out on all the best cards in the red/white version: Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher, Ichor Wellspring and Prophetic Prism, Kuldotha Rebirth (3x is the practical max), Lightning Bolt and Galvanic Blast, Ancient Den and Great Furnace. It's also maxed out on the only blue card good enough to be maindecked, Mulldrifter.
I am extremely pleased that such an unambiguously fair multicolor deck is now fighting Delver for the top spot.
This is almost exactly what I am running card for card. Sideboard is only difference. I agree on the Boros Guildgate, I think it should be a Boros Garrison.
I have seen one other version of the list running around that uses Kabira Crossroads and Mortuary Mire with Azorius Chancery and Boros Garrison to bounce value lands. It tore me up the other day when I was playing MBC (I think). It 5-0'd recently. I will say that I think I suck at playing this deck because I have yet to win a game with it despite the fact that it is doing quite well in the meta. The play lines are not that difficult to grasp either so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, unless of course that is what's wrong. Maybe its deceptively more difficult to pilot than I think?
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The main difference is that the metagame has slowed down, which de-emphasizes the importance of having untapped land on early turns, which leads to the color freedom to play the blue splash to begin with. Mulldrifter means that you actually DO have some kind of late-game to play after you've dumped your hand on 1-for-1s.
The other thing is to always remember that this is a control deck; the threats are cheap and low key, but the whole thing is tuned to push you into the position where you have 4-8 power on board and multiple burn spells in hand, to either eliminate blockers or punish opponent face. You don't cast full-price Mulldrifter on 5 mana, you cast him on 7.
The Mortuary Mire version seems hopelessly overtuned. Putting cards on top of your deck doesn't accomplish much.
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Actually, it would be awesome to read a new primer for jeskai
What time do you usually play? I could spectate you, try to see what's going wrong...
I had my first-ever "tier1 netdeck lolol" tantrum throwna t me this morning. Like, this list is almost identical to the tier 3 deck I was playing for years, dude...
Being able to burn an opponent out is awesome but having your card drawing artifacts countered hurts so bad. That seems to be the play people are making. It not only denies you a card but it denies you any meaningful bounce from a Skyfisher or a Hawk outside of a land and that hurts the tempo SO bad.
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A good opening hand against Delver has 2-4 removal spells. You will win this matchup by stalling their aggressive plan repeatedly, mainly by cheaply killing all their threats. As long as they have < 3 power on board, you are under no particular obligation to do anything at all.
It's still a very losable matchup, because sometimes they just draw all the right cards at all the right times - but they are very much drinking their cards through a straw, and if they can't get that early momentum their wheels tend to come off entirely.
I'll keep that first piece of advice in mind. That last paragraph does ring true with my experience. I wonder if this deck wants Flame Slash in the board? It does work against both Affinity and Mono-U Delver. It would be a good addition to Galvanic Blast. I mean, artifact destruction works in the same places, sort of, but Flame Slash feels like it would hit more targets against more matches such as Gary in MBC.
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You'll noticed I updated the thread title. I went through and updated the OP, too, but there was an accident and I lost all my changes. I'll try again later.
I did notice the title update lol.
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It's so unfortunate that all the changes to primer have been lost I just hope that you have time and patience to do this job once again
Update:
What do you guys think about Mardu build like this?
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/321699#online
Maybe more Duress to take away counterspells vs control or it's not worth it?
Anyway, splash for black seems unpopular for some reason...
I think the issue is the loss of Mulldrifter. If you think about it, that's really the only blue card in the deck. There is one in the sideboard but that's it.
I actually decided to try main decking Electrickery over Chain Lightning. There are just so many decks where its good and are basically auto-losses pre-board without it (such as Elves).
I need to get a couple of copies of Kor Sanctifiers. I've seen 1 main decked in some lists. I think its a good idea. This deck is kind of slow and is good against creature decks but decks that can milk a lot of value out of their creatures like Tortured Existence decks, and Elves, and even Tron to some degree are very hard because we aren't fast enough to pressure them out of their value engines which can often out value our own. Being pre-boarded against some of those decks can help.
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Thank you for your concern. I'll probably re-do it tonight. Mostly it's a matter of deleting old irrelevant text and deleting some cards that no longer make the cut.
Re: Black Splash:
This deck operates on a metric of hand size. The pistons + birds engine isn't exactly card advantage - it's just a way of pressuring the board without losing hand size. Unless something gets countered, every bird returns a rock, and every rock draws a card. The influx of cards from your draw step is countered by the outflow of hitting your land drops.
Your hand size will naturally shrink during the game, either when you get your cantripping stuff countered, or when you spend a removal spell on an opposing creature. Being able to recover hand size well in the later turns is a huge part of why the blue splash revitalized this deck. Because of Mulldrifter.
The old Boros version ran Remember the Fallen to do this, which worked pretty well.
The only card in that Mardu version that increases your hand size is Grim Harvest, and I'm not sure I like it there - it's a lot of mana to spend, and you can't reliably dumpster a guy to trigger the recover when it's convenient to you.
That said, Bleak Coven Vampires is a pretty decent finisher, Gurmag Angler seems very comfortable as a 1-of, Terminate and Chainer's Edict both seem very relevant in this Angler-infested metagame, and the sideboard is, overall, pretty hot. I think I'd want to test with Read the Bones as a hand-increaser, 2-3x.
The old Boros builds played 1-2x maindeck. They're a good "soft spot" for sideboard swapping, 2/3 for 3 is not the worst, they have lots of incidental uses, and in a pinch you can kick them to pop your own Ichor Wellspring.
I thought about that. I'm not sure what I'd drop for them. I'm thinking 1 Sanctifier main over a Kuldotha and 1 side over a Smelt.
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EDIT: Okay, that's a good first cut. Should we look at getting this bumped over to Established?
IMHO both the deck and the primer absolutely deserve moving to the Established section!
IMO, if you go by MTGGoldfishes rankings this deck is definitely Tier 1.
How do we beat Tron?
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Mardu makes this easy, because Terminate and Chainer's Edict will trade 1-for-1 with any threat they play.
It's harder for Jeskai. You need to make every Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, and Celestial Flare hit something valuable. You can board out your Lone Missionary, because he's not attacking through anything and you don't need the life pump. Don't board out your Lightning Bolt or Galvanic Blast - it threatens a fast ending to the game, it helps punch holes to keep your fliers connecting, and you CAN trade 2-for-1-or-worse to get their fatties off the board. Don't worry about the lifegain from Fangren Marauder - you can make up the damage. Always remember that your creatures are disposable, and you can Celestial Flare after damage is dealt but before end of combat, which might let you single out an attacker you otherwise couldn't have pinched.
In any build of this deck, you need to keep close track on how many cards they still have, and know when to dig for removal and when to push for board presence. What is the opponent doing? Is he scrambling through his deck looking for a threat? Is he putting up a wall of blockers?
I am glad I finally found an Kuldotha Mardu/Boros/Jeskai primer at MTGS <3
Ok, so:
I play Paper Pauper and we actually care about Goblin Grenade and Hymn to Tourach. So all my analysis will be based on that. For example, I run Negate at the sideboard where I should run Dispel because of Hymn. I have dumped the Rebirths for a while now, putting in a full set of Lone Missionaries for additional lifegain against Goblins and Burn.
At my experience, the Mardu version is pretty bad at keeping CA while mantaining pressure because we don't have Mulldrifters and Read the Bones is kind of a bummer when the meta is based on aggro.
Any thoughts on Custodi Squire for Paper Pauper? It fits perfectly and everything the deck does: It's a flying 3/3, that for 5 has the ability to return basicly any creature, artifact or enchantment card you want. Seems like a good card to have at Mardu or Boros versions (and maybe, as a 2-of at Jeskai versions), also it creates a pretty strong CA engine with Font of Return.
Also, it may sound dumb but with Jeskai I try to take the control route against Tron, siding in all of my Negates (mainly for both Ray of Revelation and Rolling Thunder) and 2 Curse of the Bloody Tome, and then stalling the board as much as I can to mill him. Forcing them to choose between killing my Tomes or my other enchantments. I'm not sure on how efficient it would be but seems to work about right for me. Other option is Reality Acid, which is one of the cards that makes Tron have some serious issues against UW Acid Trip. I even considered running Spreading Seas but we all'd rather have 8 artifacts for Metalcraft and hawks.
Thoughts?
The biggest problems I've had are that, I'll have them within Burn range and then they'll plop out a Marauder that I can't deal with and then over the course of a couple turns they have over 30 life.... Or they stall just long enough to Torch or Rolling Thunder me out of the game. Even post-board the stock list has no way of interacting with that. We run Dispel... The only other way I've managed to bypass the Torch is to bring in all of the Missionaries. The life gain increase the amount of mana they have to have to torch you out which could shut off that game plan completely until they get a few swings in with a Marauder but if that's the case then they probably are winning anyway and don't need to Torch you out.
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