Game 1: Locked him down with T2 Stone Rain into T3 Stone Rain into T4 Acid-Moss.
Game 2: Had an opening hand with 3 lands but being on the draw I decided to mulligan down to 6. Never saw the third land then and he bolted two of my dorks.
Game 3: This was a close one. Never saw any LD spells. Played Finks T2, he plays Sakura Tribe-Elder and passes. I Sudden Shock his Sakura which was as close to LD as I'd get this game. Got him down to 8 with just Finks. Eventually I landed a Blood Moon followed by Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. He plays Primeval Titan but had to block my Ruric to prevent losing. He bolts my Finks so I kept attacking just for 2. I play second Blood Moon, he Nature's Claims to kill my first Blood Moon, fetches a mountain and gets three Valakut triggers to hit me for 6 and kill my Finks. Second Blood Moon resolves, we pass the turns and I topdecked a Titan when he was on 2 life.
I'd say Titanshift version (he played Through the Breach too) is much harder than pure RG Scapeshift. Blood Moon does a lot of work but Primeval Titan's can be hard to deal with.
Game 1: He mulliganed to 5, never saw the second land.
Game 2: He mulliganed to 6, I landed a T2 Obstinate Baloth followed by a Thragtusk. Ancient Grudge took care of his Aether Vial and Anger took care of his mostly 2 toughness Spirits.
They're hard to predict due to the Draw-Go strategy. Rattlechains together with Aether Vial allows them to do combat tricks or simply hold mana up for removal/counters and then empty their hand EoT. Although their threats all have flying, our creatures are simply too big if we get a couple on board and we have a faster clock. Beware of Nebelgast Herald it can tap down our creatures before combat leaving us with no attack and no defense on their turn.
Game 1: Mulligan to 6. On the draw, he plays Oboro and Cursecatcher. I play Arbor Elf and pass. He plays Cavern and another Cursecatcher. I follow up with T2 Blood Moon, locking him out of blue mana. He managed to get me down to 6 but my sequence of Titan to kill his Lord (vialed in) then attack with Titan and pump for additional +4/+0 was too much to handle.
Game 2: Never had the chance to stop him. Spreading Seas on the forest I had Utopia Sprawl on locked me out of red and when I finally drew a Mountain it was too late.
Game 3: Decided to keep an opening hand with Sudden Shock, Ancient Grudge, Mountain, Kessing Wolf Run, Arbor Elf, Obstinate Baloth and Utopia Sprawl. I knew it was risky but I figured Sudden Shock can deal with a potential lord and Ancient Grudge can deal with Aether Vial. I drew a Stomping Ground the next turn, played Utopia Sprawl on it and passed. He Spreading Seas'd the Stomping Ground and kept pressure on me with a Cursecatcher and a Silvergill Adept. Eventually I get to 5 mana and play a Thragtusk followed by Obstinate Baloth next turn. He made a mistake of not blocking them while I had Kessig Wolf Run to pump Tusk and get him down to 2. He never got a second lord and I topdecked a Titan to seal the win.
Spreading Seas is one of the few cards that can harm us early game. Casting it on the forest enchanted with Utopia Sprawl makes the Sprawl fall off and we can't untap it with Arbor Elf. Cursecatchers are also tricky to play around, especially in multiples. Kill their lords as soon as possible otherwise they get out Anger range. Pack up on lifegain via Finks, Baloth and Thragtusk to buy that extra time.
Opened the new Chandra in prize boosters so I might give her a go next time.
So went 3-1 last night in a tournament with only 11 players, I ended up 3rd place I guess due to some getting a bye or something. Overall I'm pleased with my performance since it's just the second time I play with the deck in paper form. The sideboarding and how the games played out are all from memory so everything might not be 100% correct. (Btw is so much easier online to sb with all your cards in front of you and not the need to find, replace and shuffle before presenting your deck, not to mention the reverse in preparation for next match)
Game 1: Blood moon did good job out of his dual lands and his GQ while i limited him of his blue lands. He got early out the Dawn Charm + Isochron Scepter Combo (fog on a stick as he called it ). But he couldn't stop the Ruric trigger anyway if he wanted to use the scepter or another fog spell to prevent combat damage. It also limits his play since he only runs noncreature spells.
Game 2: Started with Choke in hand, some lands, a BoP and Primal Command. Choke limits him somehow while i ramp up, drawn into another Ruric, fetches Titan. He wants to play Ethereal Haze on titan etb trigger but ruric punish him so he sees no options to win in time and concedes. He sided in 3 supreme verdict but drawn none.
He was a returning player to MTG and the deck was not as good as it could been.
Won 2-0 - BG brew with some white splash
In: 1 batterskull, 1 thrun, 2 dismember, 1 finks
Out: 2 nissa, 2 primal, 1 polukranos
Game 1: Bop followed by a Blood moon T2 and then stone rain T3 limited his capability to play the things he wanted with the duals and basics destroyed. He played The Rack early but easily to play around, a Fleemance Lion and a Rakshasa Deathdealer. Pretty easy game with Inferno titan coming down pinging his smaller creatures down. He never gets enough lands or right colors for monstrosity for the lion.
Game 2: Started with Bop, Chameleon, moss, some lands and sprawl. He plays out Grim Flayer early and connects, allowing him to get delirium with only 3 cards (he included some enchantment creature). I moss his land and the next turn plays chameleon. While he plays the lion and gets in for some more swings I gets down to 6 life - I don't want to block with chameleon if he has a blossoming defense. He doesn't attack with flayer because of chameleon. I just draw lands and 2 elfs the following turns. He's at 16 life with lion and flayer on board, attacks with lion. I think he got careless or knew he couldn't win in the long run with Cham problack, since he had many if not only bg removal spells and unable to block with mostly bg creatures. and I pump Cham 2 times with 7 lands and 1 elf, precisely what I need for a win.
Game 1: Me going first I got down Blood moon T2 with arbor elf and some rains on him T3, but he thoughtsized my anger T1 and got out bitterblossom T2. He followed up with Lingering Souls and Intangible Virtue. I drew anger and then Ruric, but I missplayed another elf before the anger, realizing my mistake he beat me down the following 2 turns since I was one mana short of playing Ruric I couldn't do anything drawing into nothing helpful.
Game 2 & 3: I don't really remember but they are real easy, he disrupt me somewhat with thoughtseize and inquisition but since so many cards are hard on him; blood moon, anger, stone rain, inferno titan and with a greedy mana base we make a lot of trouble for him and we get through for a second win.
Game 1: First game was Spreading Seas and blood moon war the first turns. He seas my stomping ground, I play moon, he seas the same land (he kept 2 in his starting hand he told me), I draw moon and play it nothing better to do since I miss lands, he seas a forest, I draw another moon and play out. But since he played Aether Vial T1 and I’m not drawing lands and struggle with colors; I sit with both anger and moss and can’t play anything. When I finally drawn mountain and can play anger they're too big; 4/4s
Game 2: In my opening hand I got one land and no dorks or sprawls, mull to 6 and get no lands. At five I get 2 lands, bop, rain and thragtusk and anger on the scry. T1 forest bop. T2 decides to rain his island but he Cursecather; in retro perspective I got too greedy maybe and should have hold onto it, but then I rather cast anger without needing another +1 mana if he uses cursecatcher. But he then screws my red mountain with Seas's Claim so can’t cast the anger I drawn. He thereafter lays down 2 mutavault, aether vial and Master of the Pearl Trident and keeps swinging with one muta the following turns. I destroy one muta with a rain I drew and also shocks one lord on his turn but then I'm already low on life. He vials in Lord of Atlantis and plays Merrow Reejerey and my anger can't reach them anymore and then he swings with everything for the kill.
A hard matchup indeed, never played against merfolk w ponza. Was really unsure what to sb in and what to keep. Reference Mendoza sb suggestions in my notebook but feel unsure about his suggestions.
Choke is auto include but I'm unsure about moon since it only turns off his mutavaults and caverns, but in hindsight I should kept 3 moons since he had time to do a lot of damage over time with mutas. I also needed to go down to 5 in the starthand which sucks since merfolk are so aggressive but still has control elements in their deck. And with 12 lords and 4 spreading seas plus 2 Sea's Claim they got so easily through and mess a lot with our lands, especially utopia is risky to play.
Afterthoughts
I really liked Ruric, great with vigilance reach but mostly the 6 damage trigger, since when we're up to 6+ mana is just usually fatties we drop by then to win the game.
I never got to use nissa and they felt little redundant having 2 when I sb. I will try 1 or 2 Garruk, Primal Hunter instead and 0-1 nissa for next tournament.
I'm still not sure if 2 or 1 primal is enough for the deck. Still great for a lot of things.
Constructive Feedback or suggestions are welcome This my first tournament report but felt it was good to put down the time to write it down and to reflect over it.
I like Nissa personally but only as one of. Her +1 can ramp us just like Arbor Elf if the land is Sprawled. Her -3 can bring us back threats like Titan or even Blood Moon if needed. And if she survives 3 turns we can simply ulti her to get draws out of our lands.
I see you sided out Polukranos a lot. It seems useful against Merfolk to deal with their lords since as you've seen it yourself, they can quickly get out of Anger range.
Blood Moon is good against Merfolk but I think we can safely side out at least two copies. They'll be careful with nonbasics in games 2/3.
Thanks, the same to you! Was very good and fittingly coincidental to read about your Merfolk match. Believe your sb looked very good.
You sided out Thrun while I sided him in. He has regen but it might be little too taxing keeping G1 mana up for that when I consider it now, and yeah Polukranos I should kept. Ditching the dismembers due to life total will matter against such aggressive deck - but on the other hand 4 life to get rid of a lord can make a real difference and dismember takes them when shock doesn't, and only requires 1 mana which doesn't care about moon or seas. We also have anger and beast within.
With 2 choke and 3 moons it might be a little overboard with so much LD so it should be fine sb out 4 of them. However I don't like to side out too much creatures but if I keep one Garruk and one Nissa in the main I should be fine, since they don't die to anger and give us creatures and card draw.
I sided Thrun out because I find it too expensive with no good effect against them. Regeneration doesn't do much if they have evasion via islandwalk and they don't run creature counters. Hexproof might work against the odd Vapor Snag or Echoing Truth but that's about it.
Against aggressive decks I usually bump up the life gain. Kitchen Finks, Obstinate Baloth, Thragtusk etc. can be enough to put blockers on the field and stall those few turns until Titans show up. With LD spells in our deck we can even destroy lands that they've Spreading Seas'd.
Choke is a nice option but with blue being poorly represented in my local meta, I've been hesitant to add some to my SB.
I have a love/hate relationship with Dismember for the same reasons you mentioned. Though with a lot of life gain I think it isn't as bad here. Having 5 mana allows us to cast Obstinate Baloth and leave 1 mana up for Dismember. Baloth's life gain offsets the life loss.
Thanks for the reports fellas. I'm glad to see you getting good results.
Fish is a tiny part of the meta right now, but when it starts coming up it tends to keep showing up for a little while. It's one of those decks that gets popular for short periods -- usually because it finds an angle between other decks in the meta that hate it out. Choke is generally excellent, but narrow. I like putting cards in my sideboard that are either useful against multiple decks or are tactical nukes against one really bad match-up that I absolutely know will come up (tier one decks like Jund and Affinity). It's a great card in a very blue meta game so if you have Fish, Thing Ascension, maybe Grixis Control then it might be worthwhile. I prefer Engineered Explosives though. Think about it. EE is good against pretty much ALL the aggro decks and hits about half the Fish dorks + Vial too so it can be played in multiple match-ups making it very flexible. It's good against Bogles, Elves, Gobo, Thing, Jund and more. It's even good against Evolution and Eldrazi because it takes out their mana dorks -- not that we really need it against Eldrazi.
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
5-0 to victory last night. A long Grindy night. My only big change to the deck was dropping a wurmcoil to the side and adding Chandra flamecaller. I have yet to have run into a bad situation were I can't get 2 red. With 2x bonfire I've yet to hit a situation were it was bad. Running 1 bolt and a kozeliks return in main aswell. No beast Withins in main anymore. I have so much handle on my games, it is usually just a way to kill Lili if I can't lock jund out quickly. I still keep em in my side.
Thanks for the reports fellas. I'm glad to see you getting good results.
Fish is a tiny part of the meta right now, but when it starts coming up it tends to keep showing up for a little while. It's one of those decks that gets popular for short periods -- usually because it finds an angle between other decks in the meta that hate it out. Choke is generally excellent, but narrow. I like putting cards in my sideboard that are either useful against multiple decks or are tactical nukes against one really bad match-up that I absolutely know will come up (tier one decks like Jund and Affinity). It's a great card in a very blue meta game so if you have Fish, Thing Ascension, maybe Grixis Control then it might be worthwhile. I prefer Engineered Explosives though. Think about it. EE is good against pretty much ALL the aggro decks and hits about half the Fish dorks + Vial too so it can be played in multiple match-ups making it very flexible. It's good against Bogles, Elves, Gobo, Thing, Jund and more. It's even good against Evolution and Eldrazi because it takes out their mana dorks -- not that we really need it against Eldrazi.
EE seems good especially on 2 since we don't really have any 2 drops. Having it on one kills our dorks and Utopia Sprawl but if it hurts our opponent more it's a worthy sacrifice.
I like the two bolts in MB, sometimes it lets you kill that early dork to stall them just enough to follow it up with land destruction.
I posted this in the Brain in a Jar thread but maybe I'm thinking I should be looking here for ideas first.
What I'm thinking is a Brain deck that has LD in it. For some odd reason instant LD for 1 mana seems crazy powerful to me. The only differences I see is that with Utopia Sprawl and BoP you're able to drop a Blood Moon or LD spell on that critical turn 2. A Brain deck would function a little differently with different choices.
I don't have a decklist going yet but I'm brewing something up! Since most of you guys have already developed a valid LD strategy here, I would like to know what you think about my idea, specifically with Smallpox and Catch/Release. They appeal to me more because they also control the board state, where the typical LD spells destroy lands and that's it. With the added bonus of taking creatures with them, I believe these spells to be more powerful. The problem I see is casting them when you can't find a Brain.
I posted this in the Brain in a Jar thread but maybe I'm thinking I should be looking here for ideas first.
What I'm thinking is a Brain deck that has LD in it. For some odd reason instant LD for 1 mana seems crazy powerful to me. The only differences I see is that with Utopia Sprawl and BoP you're able to drop a Blood Moon or LD spell on that critical turn 2. A Brain deck would function a little differently with different choices.
I don't have a decklist going yet but I'm brewing something up! Since most of you guys have already developed a valid LD strategy here, I would like to know what you think about my idea, specifically with Smallpox and Catch/Release. They appeal to me more because they also control the board state, where the typical LD spells destroy lands and that's it. With the added bonus of taking creatures with them, I believe these spells to be more powerful. The problem I see is casting them when you can't find a Brain.
Thoughts??
Interesting idea. With the current core of 4x Utopia, 4x Arbor Elf, 2x Birds of Paradise and virutally no 2 drops, this seems like an interesting idea. Would definitely need to be more orientated around instant and sorceries to get value out of Brain. The fuse mechanic or split cards such as Boom//Bust would allow some nice interactions.
Went 2-2 today with nearly identical list to Fridays. Only difference was 3 Angers in the main instead of Bonfires and Chandra, Torch of Defiance instead of Chandra, Pyromaster. Forgot to add something else to SB instead of Bonfires.
Didn't know what I was up against at first since I saw no Blood Moon's and only Izzet Charm and Cryptic Command in the first game. Boarded in Finks for 2nd game but he boarded in Angers so I sided them back out in game 3. Ancient Grudge was there to deal with Batterskull which won him game 2 after equipping it on Goblin Dark-Dwellers. Overall it felt like a favourable matchup since they have no way of dealing with out fatties. Tapping them down via Cryptic only buys them a turn.
Game 1 he burned me down with Goblin Guide, Lavamancer and other burn spells. Game 2 I never drew any relevant removal. Bolted one of his Swiftspears but even Finks couldn't help against his hand of 2x Swiftspear, Goblin Guide, Rift Bolt and 3x Lava Spike.
I think I was mostly unlucky with the draws. Never saw any Angers or enough early turn threats such as Finks or Baloths to keep up with his burn.
It's tough playing against discard. The worst CMC3 offender you plan on slamming down T2 will get taken away by Thoughtseize/Inqusition. He also played Seeker of the Way which needs to be dealt with asap else it can quickly become a Lightning Helix each turn. List was heavier on white and black so Blood Moon does extra work here. 3rd game I had to mulligan down to 5 which is really unfavourable against discard matchups. Kept a land with Arbor Elf, Lightning Bolt and 3 lands but could never really get going.
Land that Blood Moon asap. Leonin Arbiter taxes our fetching and turns their Ghost Quarters into LD. Postboard bring in Ancient Grudges to deal with Aether Vial. Anger hits most of the creatures except for Loxodon Smiter. Won the 2nd game after attacking with my 2/1 finks into his Smiter which he blocked even though he was on 21. I followed it up with Anger clearing my Finks, Birds and Arbor Elf but also taking away his Finks, Smiter, Aven Mindcensor and Noble Hierarch. Grudge took care of his Vial and Blood Moon took away his mana which bought me enough time to topdeck a Titan.
While I didn't really have the chance to see the new Chandra in action, I don't think she's a good fit. Waiting on my copies of Madcap Experiment to see how that works out.
Lately I've been moving away from beast within too. I tried torch of defiance, it is ok but I love flamecaller more. Played a few hours tonite with friend. The love hate of bonfire is starting to become, a hate hate. I was on bonfire train for so long. So now I'm running 3 bolts and a kozeliks return in main. Side board is 3x angers and 2x sudden shock.
definitely do not see a case for flamecaller over torch. torch is on a better curve (t2 blood moon, t3 chandra), it kills a threat, and it can ramp into inferno titan. this deck is probably the best spot for her since we have no trouble casting her and she can easily take over a stalled board, which this deck can create very easily. i see beast within as a necessary evil, as our only other ways to deal with planeswalkers are direct damage and attacking.
Rolling thunder anyone. Since we're talking double red with Chandra, Titan and main board angers. Idk maybe 1. I enjoy this deck. Maybe I need to test more with torch. I just like her as my spice.
I've been trying out the Madcap Experiment/Emperion combo and feel very ambivalent to it. I've been running 3 Emperions and 4 Experiments and, because those cards go into our win-con slots, they compromise our ability to actually win the game. On several occasions I've found myself in a position where I couldn't attack my opponent. For example:
Grixis with Tasigur on board, Bolt in the yard and three mana up including U and R. If he has a Snap I lose the Emperion to blockers and Bolt. And because I had so few threats in my deck he was able to manage them with his Terminates/Snaps/etc.
or
Evo with a massive army on the board (too much to attack and trample over with Kessig Wolf-Run). Just sat there waiting for him to find a P2E or Pridemage because attacking would have cost me the Emperion in combat. I tried attacking with massive X/1 Arbor Elves, but this didn't quite get there in time.
or
RDW with any three goblins and ANY cards in hand. You'd think this would be a bye, but unless you get an Anger or Titan pretty quickly, they just build up their cheap board, save three burn spells then kill the Emperion and attack for lots and lots.
In each of these cases I found myself desperately looking for a way to win because the Emperion wasn't actually a threat. I was hiding behind it like a more fragile version of Worship. When you Madcap into Emperion you may only use one card in hand and thus come out even on card advantage but when you take threats out of your deck you ultimately hurt yourself. Thus, I think I prefer to have more individual threats in my deck.
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
I've been trying out the Madcap Experiment/Emperion combo and feel very ambivalent to it. I've been running 3 Emperions and 4 Experiments and, because those cards go into our win-con slots, they compromise our ability to actually win the game. On several occasions I've found myself in a position where I couldn't attack my opponent. For example:
Grixis with Tasigur on board, Bolt in the yard and three mana up including U and R. If he has a Snap I lose the Emperion to blockers and Bolt. And because I had so few threats in my deck he was able to manage them with his Terminates/Snaps/etc.
or
Evo with a massive army on the board (too much to attack and trample over with Kessig Wolf-Run). Just sat there waiting for him to find a P2E or Pridemage because attacking would have cost me the Emperion in combat. I tried attacking with massive X/1 Arbor Elves, but this didn't quite get there in time.
or
RDW with any three goblins and ANY cards in hand. You'd think this would be a bye, but unless you get an Anger or Titan pretty quickly, they just build up their cheap board, save three burn spells then kill the Emperion and attack for lots and lots.
In each of these cases I found myself desperately looking for a way to win because the Emperion wasn't actually a threat. I was hiding behind it like a more fragile version of Worship. When you Madcap into Emperion you may only use one card in hand and thus come out even on card advantage but when you take threats out of your deck you ultimately hurt yourself. Thus, I think I prefer to have more individual threats in my deck.
I just played a madcap version that was basically your maindeck you eluted to a few days back, subbing 2 Chandra flamecaller for the 2 inferno titan. It can still clean up against aggro, can't bolt someone and just get pathed, and is very versatile. It was sweet. I was only playing 2 emperion though.
I'm wondering if by introducing 4 madcap at 4 cmc if we can consider those slots as disruption instead of a threat. Think of it like blood moon instead of 4 more stone rains. If we do that, dropping the remaining 3 acid moss would free up slots for more threats. I almost never wanted to play them- by the time I got to 4 cmc, I had already disrupted (moon, stone rain, madcap-> emperion). At that point, I wanted a haymaker instead. Adding madcap lowers the curve (2 titan and 2 5 mana threats became madcaps) too, making the ramp less important. I like replacing them with card draw- more specifically more walkers at the 4-5 CMC slot and the 4th stormbreath dragon.
Thoughts? It would simultaneously increase the threat density, which is definitely something the deck needs, I think.
Edit: I added my decklist. I've since dropped 2 mwonvuli acid-moss for the 4th stormbreath and 1 nissa, worldwaker, although I think I'll be replacing it with nissa, vital force (and possibly the 4th stormbreath too).
I've been trying out the Madcap Experiment/Emperion combo and feel very ambivalent to it. I've been running 3 Emperions and 4 Experiments and, because those cards go into our win-con slots, they compromise our ability to actually win the game. On several occasions I've found myself in a position where I couldn't attack my opponent.
In each of these cases I found myself desperately looking for a way to win because the Emperion wasn't actually a threat. I was hiding behind it like a more fragile version of Worship. When you Madcap into Emperion you may only use one card in hand and thus come out even on card advantage but when you take threats out of your deck you ultimately hurt yourself. Thus, I think I prefer to have more individual threats in my deck.
Was thinking about that yesterday; the threat level, if able to attack and the ability to protect the emperor in ponza vs blue moon.
First of all it takes up 6-7 slots with this combo, which means we have to cut a lot. In my case I cut 6(4 madcap + 2 emperor): 1 primal, 1 titan, 2 beast, 1 polukranos, 1 chameleon. What to cut can always be argued and tested but those cards were what I cut.
With 6-7 cards changed a lot of cards the deck had good use of before are gone. What I'm trying to say the established decklists works well and we can change around some with creatures, planeswalkers, removal spells - we remove a lot by the cost of the combo.
Then we have to consider starting hands with a emperor in hand which be a dead card often, sure we CAN hardcast it but not very optimal.
Once we get to cast madcap and not get countered (which is a risk too) on T3 or T4 we have a 8/8 which can stall for some time. But like you said there are times where it's just a sitting duck stalling and we hope to draw into threats and hope the opponent doesn't draw an answer for it. Now we only have 1 emperor in the deck and 3 madcap if we comboed of succesfully. What if we draw a emperor the following turns? Then there are 3 dead madcaps in the decks somewhere.
Attacking in is always some risk, even defending at times, due to combat tricks or/and removals combined from opponent. Like you mentioned bolt, snap block and bolt. A 3/3 and then a dismember. Blessed Alliance maybe? Or just good old path, terminate, maelstrom pulse. Heck even a bounce spell sets us back.
Not to mention all artifact hate in everyone's sb because of affinity. So how do we do in game 2 and 3? Side it out because of added removal or keep it in and chance to get some value out of it. I don't like either. Change 6-7 slots for sideboard cards are a lot, we need to replace ALL the combo cards. Then the need to replace the combo cards with relevant cards from sideboard. What if the 4 moons needs to go in sb as well and 3 LD spells? Then it's almost the whole sb. We might find ourselves against a deck where the circumstances are so and that be bad to be forced change so many cards.
The reason to run it in Blue Moon is because we can protect the combo and the emperor with a variety of counters. We really can't with Ponza, we can just hope it sticks there together with moon and some LD for use to play threats eventually or the pressure of emperor is enough.
It works wonders at times but it sucks to cast the combo and get it instantly removed or think that it's safe let every opponent's attacker pass through just to get it bounced, or never draw anything relevant to pressure the opponent.
Is not the best analysis but that's just some of my thoughts after tested it for awhile. I'd say no for the Madcap + Emperor combo.
I've been trying out the Madcap Experiment/Emperion combo and feel very ambivalent to it. I've been running 3 Emperions and 4 Experiments and, because those cards go into our win-con slots, they compromise our ability to actually win the game. On several occasions I've found myself in a position where I couldn't attack my opponent. For example:
Grixis with Tasigur on board, Bolt in the yard and three mana up including U and R. If he has a Snap I lose the Emperion to blockers and Bolt. And because I had so few threats in my deck he was able to manage them with his Terminates/Snaps/etc.
or
Evo with a massive army on the board (too much to attack and trample over with Kessig Wolf-Run). Just sat there waiting for him to find a P2E or Pridemage because attacking would have cost me the Emperion in combat. I tried attacking with massive X/1 Arbor Elves, but this didn't quite get there in time.
or
RDW with any three goblins and ANY cards in hand. You'd think this would be a bye, but unless you get an Anger or Titan pretty quickly, they just build up their cheap board, save three burn spells then kill the Emperion and attack for lots and lots.
In each of these cases I found myself desperately looking for a way to win because the Emperion wasn't actually a threat. I was hiding behind it like a more fragile version of Worship. When you Madcap into Emperion you may only use one card in hand and thus come out even on card advantage but when you take threats out of your deck you ultimately hurt yourself. Thus, I think I prefer to have more individual threats in my deck.
I just played a madcap version that was basically your maindeck you eluted to a few days back, subbing 2 Chandra flamecaller for the 2 inferno titan. It can still clean up against aggro, can't bolt someone and just get pathed, and is very versatile. It was sweet. I was only playing 2 emperion though.
I'm wondering if by introducing 4 madcap at 4 cmc if we can consider those slots as disruption instead of a threat. Think of it like blood moon instead of 4 more stone rains. If we do that, dropping the remaining 3 acid moss would free up slots for more threats. I almost never wanted to play them- by the time I got to 4 cmc, I had already disrupted (moon, stone rain, madcap-> emperion). At that point, I wanted a haymaker instead. Adding madcap lowers the curve (2 titan and 2 5 mana threats became madcaps) too, making the ramp less important. I like replacing them with card draw- more specifically more walkers at the 4-5 CMC slot and the 4th stormbreath dragon.
Thoughts? It would simultaneously increase the threat density, which is definitely something the deck needs, I think.
Edit: I added my decklist. I've since dropped 2 mwonvuli acid-moss for the 4th stormbreath and 1 nissa, worldwaker, although I think I'll be replacing it with nissa, vital force (and possibly the 4th stormbreath too).
I've been trying out the Madcap Experiment/Emperion combo and feel very ambivalent to it. I've been running 3 Emperions and 4 Experiments and, because those cards go into our win-con slots, they compromise our ability to actually win the game. On several occasions I've found myself in a position where I couldn't attack my opponent.
In each of these cases I found myself desperately looking for a way to win because the Emperion wasn't actually a threat. I was hiding behind it like a more fragile version of Worship. When you Madcap into Emperion you may only use one card in hand and thus come out even on card advantage but when you take threats out of your deck you ultimately hurt yourself. Thus, I think I prefer to have more individual threats in my deck.
Was thinking about that yesterday; the threat level, if able to attack and the ability to protect the emperor in ponza vs blue moon.
First of all it takes up 6-7 slots with this combo, which means we have to cut a lot. In my case I cut 6(4 madcap + 2 emperor): 1 primal, 1 titan, 2 beast, 1 polukranos, 1 chameleon. What to cut can always be argued and tested but those cards were what I cut.
With 6-7 cards changed a lot of cards the deck had good use of before are gone. What I'm trying to say the established decklists works well and we can change around some with creatures, planeswalkers, removal spells - we remove a lot by the cost of the combo.
Then we have to consider starting hands with a emperor in hand which be a dead card often, sure we CAN hardcast it but not very optimal.
Once we get to cast madcap and not get countered (which is a risk too) on T3 or T4 we have a 8/8 which can stall for some time. But like you said there are times where it's just a sitting duck stalling and we hope to draw into threats and hope the opponent doesn't draw an answer for it. Now we only have 1 emperor in the deck and 3 madcap if we comboed of succesfully. What if we draw a emperor the following turns? Then there are 3 dead madcaps in the decks somewhere.
Attacking in is always some risk, even defending at times, due to combat tricks or/and removals combined from opponent. Like you mentioned bolt, snap block and bolt. A 3/3 and then a dismember. Blessed Alliance maybe? Or just good old path, terminate, maelstrom pulse. Heck even a bounce spell sets us back.
Not to mention all artifact hate in everyone's sb because of affinity. So how do we do in game 2 and 3? Side it out because of added removal or keep it in and chance to get some value out of it. I don't like either. Change 6-7 slots for sideboard cards are a lot, we need to replace ALL the combo cards. Then the need to replace the combo cards with relevant cards from sideboard. What if the 4 moons needs to go in sb as well and 3 LD spells? Then it's almost the whole sb. We might find ourselves against a deck where the circumstances are so and that be bad to be forced change so many cards.
The reason to run it in Blue Moon is because we can protect the combo and the emperor with a variety of counters. We really can't with Ponza, we can just hope it sticks there together with moon and some LD for use to play threats eventually or the pressure of emperor is enough.
It works wonders at times but it sucks to cast the combo and get it instantly removed or think that it's safe let every opponent's attacker pass through just to get it bounced, or never draw anything relevant to pressure the opponent.
Is not the best analysis but that's just some of my thoughts after tested it for awhile. I'd say no for the Madcap + Emperor combo.
Thanks for replying and including your decklist Spike. I'm glad you are enjoying the deck, whatever version you are running.
You asked for thoughts regarding the replacement of disruption spells with the Madcap combo. I am having some trouble determining the perfect balance of disruption to agression in this deck. If you go back a bunch of pages you'll find my initial version and see that it ran 17(!) disruption spells. I had room in my deck for Stone Rain, Acid-Moss, Molten Rain, Beast Within and Blood Moon. One of the things I really liked about that deck was the consistency it offered. As long as I kept a mana dork I was pretty much always interacting with my opponent on T2 and decided quickly that this was one of the major advantages the deck offered. As a two colour deck it was already more reliable mana-wise than a lot of the leading decks in the format and I found that I had favourable or very favourable match-ups against almost all of the format's tier one decks. Over the last few weeks I've noticed a lot of people reducing the number land D spells they are running with some concern. Now you ask about reducing them still further. As I said off the top, I freely admit to having some trouble balancing the disruption and the win cons so I'm not sitting here claiming to be the know all oracle of Ponza. But I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of reducing disruption to squeeze in a combo I already feel off about.
Zasse_G: Totally agree with pretty much everything you said. I hadn't even gotten to the sideboarding issue, but the point you make about having one Emperion in play (or dead) and drawing the other leaves you with a lot of dead draws in the deck. Now think about the fact that a lot of decks don't care about Blood Moon (either because they have lots of basics (U-Tron has 7-9 Islands and can wait under a Blood Moon until they are ready to win, Repeal the Moon and still win, Soul Sisters has lot of Plains, RDW for obvious reasons, etc.). So as you say, it's possible you will have as many as 6 dead cards in your deck.
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Okay yesterday we had a Modern game day (yes we cheated a little and played modern instead of standard) and it didn't went as good for me as I hoped; 2-2. We were 16 contestants and too many got 2-2 record so no top 8 for me.
Sadly I didn't meet any of the 3 jund players, nahiri control, u tron or dredge. We also had UR aggro, Infect, black control brew and 1 of those annoying merfolks.
I mull to 6 game one with a mediocre hand; rain, beast, anger but no moon or ramp. He gets 2 courser of kruphix out early, a lot of lands to play and life total pretty often over 20. Voice of resurgence joins him, having 2 anger but missing 1 red mana to play both I can only play one but at least get rid of voice. He gets out Polukranos and me thereafter Titan where we trade because he use the ability to get rid of titan and elf I played earlier.
Game 2 I got moon, bird, thragtusk and moss, but he bolts my bird, I get out moon T3 but I then sit on 3 lands for some turns. He eventually finds a plain and a forest, gets out Pia & Kira followed by Resto angel, which become to much for me eventually.
I guess I maybe should be more aggressive with mulligan game 1 and also should kept the angers in the deck, I focused too much on angel and courser 4 toughness. Completely forgot the 1 Pia & Kiran in their sb
I win game 1 where he tries to go off 2 times but fails and the third time plays Empty the Warrens storm count 4 but he's not prepared for my titan coming down cleaning up and then finish quickly.
Game 2 he wins with classic storm and by refilling his hand with bedlam: ascension, past in flames and grapeshot, where I would otherwise just need to swing one more time with polukranos and finks.
Game 3 I lower his land count early, but he plays a fetchland and pass - preventing me to destroy it and fetches on my end step. In response I beast his steam vents - which in hindsight was me being too greedy, should cast on untap step, and also I gave him free hits in before I can find any creatures of my own. I should have hold on to that beast. He wins by playing Epic Experiment = 5, flipping his Thing In the Ice he played the turn earlier, and up goes my dragon and elf. He cast Ignite Memories for free because of Epic and can play it two times with ascension, me being on 13 I know it's a lottery since I have dragon, elf and forest on hand. He gets the jackpot: dragon and elf, and can then swing for lethal. I just needed one more turn to swing for 7 with dragon and the monster ability to hurt him enough, he had 7 cards in hand and 10 life before I passed the turn.
I had only played against the new "storm" decks, thing ascension and jeskai ascension before. So I wasn't aware if he played classic storm or if the classic storm had included bedlam and thing. If I knew about that I would sb in 2 dismember instead of 2 shock. Also when play LD we should focus on the red lands after sb since they're more needed for rituals, bedlam, ascension and manamorphose. Still storm doesn't need very much lands and we need to lower or curve to get in early hits.
But these were the funniest and greatest games, a real thrill to play against storm and the matches real even.
Game 1 he gets his bridge, bell, codex and lantern. Well I just play chameleon, garruk, nissa and continue produce beast tokens while destroying his lands. He use surgical extraction on my stone rain, 2 already in the grave, and my beast within (one being inquisitioned). He has one land, one mox opal and gets to draw his second bridge but can't play it. He pithing needle Nissa - I assume he didn't want me to ultimate or fetch permanents but cost him the game. I know I need one primal, half of my library was left and thus high chance seeing 1 of 2 primals. I decided to go for it by activating Chameleon, Activate Garruk and draw 8 cards, finds my primal, bounce his bridge and swing for lethal.
Game 2 he got bridge and lantern out but in my start hand I had grudge, destroys his bridge and flashback to destroy lantern. With all my creatures out pressuring him he mills himself in blindness and thus milling the second bridge. Lantern Control is just too slow to have a chance.
Well not much to say, the standard deck that was in the Pro Tour Hawaii Top 8 but little modified for modern, Ancient Stirrings and old Emrakul and Ulamog. The deck is just too slow and not consistent enough for modern. Having ancient grudge game 2 he only can use the Legendary artifact once and has to search anew for another one, and drawing into 2 new Emy and Newlamog didn't help him either since they're useless in hand.
Afterthoughts
Sideboard is really important and which I still finds real hard to figure out what to take in and out for decks you haven't played enough if any against. Both Kiki Chord and Storm I haven't played against enough and wasnt aware of their decklists to great extent. Lantern Control and Marvelous Temur I had knowledge enough of what they played but were also easy matchups and therefore easier to sb.
Feeling a little letdown only getting 2-2
I still believe in this deck, but it is fragile for hand disruption or removal in the early turns, which delay our moon or ability to use elf and utopia, not to mention our start hand are needy thus the aggressive mulligan.
- Garruk, Primal Hunter is real good, beast tokens are always nice to block and attack and the card draw wow. Might go up to 2 Garruks, Primal Hunter again, but I doesn't like the GGG requirements but if we have that in mind is usually fine.
- Nissa is not as good as I hoped, mostly use her +1 ability and she doesn't have anything to retrieve if she's played on curve. Sometimes I only use her +1 to get extra mana, but then I would prefer use one Garruk Wildspeaker instead
- Ruric is great, sure he can at times punish us if we want to play maybe beast within against a threat, but Ruric is usually annoying enough with vigilance, reach and 6/6 body to keep the opponents occupied. I think 1 is the best fit together with 2 titans.
- Polukranos haven't done enough for me and I feel little mellow towards him. Sure 5/5 for 4CMC is great but his ability is so expensive and he only hurts small creature with the number of counters added. I found myself in situation where I don't have enough mana to get rid of a threat or where I want to use the ability and cast something but have to choose. Maybe go Back to Baloth, add another Chameleon or Thragtusk, heck even one Goblin Dark-Dwellers maybe?
Took the Madcap combo out of the deck and played a small event tonight at a new store in my neighborhood. Went 3-0 but only one of my opponents had a real deck (Infect). Went 2-0 against a weak Mill deck, then had a good match against Infect before wrapping up against zombies (!).
When I saw infect in the room I made room in the board for a couple of Spellskites and they came up huge. I made a judgment error on Game 1, going for an Acid Moss on my oppo's only land when he had Glistener Elf and Hierarch in play with me at 3 poison counters. this was going to set me up for Titan then next turn to clear him out, but he played a land and killed me. I had Beast Within in hand and should have held back. Oh well. Learning all the time. G2 I played a T2 Blood Moon and T3 'Skite. Game 3 was similar. I played an Engineered Explosives to buy time and then a Spellskite to take away his Giant Growths and a Blood Moon to further disrupt him. Anger came up here too, removing all doubt abut the outcome.
The Mill deck gave me a little concern as he started off with a 1 mama mill card and followed it up with some mill-13 nastiness. G1 I just ran him over with a fast start into my monsters (Dragon + Titan) and Game 2 was all about Primal Command. I waited until he'd milled 26 cards away, putting about 30 cards in the 'yard when you factor in a couple of fetchlands and then shuffled my 'yard back into my deck and fetched my singleton Witness. Then I cast the Witness, returning P.Command so I could do it again. Once again, Titan closed it out.
In each case I asked myself if I would be better off with Madcap Combo and the answer was never "yes." Indeed, I would have had to board the whole thing out against Infect as the 'Skites are way too important there, and that would have left me very threat light.
/A
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4x Arbor Elf
2x Birds of Paradise
3x Inferno Titan
2x Obstinate Baloth
1x Chameleon Colossus
1x Thragtusk
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Stormbreath Dragon
Spells (14):
4x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4x Stone Rain
3x Bonfire of the Damned
2x Lightning Bolt
1x Primal Command
4x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
Planeswalkers (2):
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
1x Nissa, Vital Force
Lands (21):
8x Forest
1x Mountain
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Stomping Ground
1x Dismember
1x Beast Within
1x Stormbreath Dragon
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Sudden Shock
3x Anger of the Gods
3x Kitchen Finks
I forgot to swap the Bonfires for Angers main and luckily variance was on my side.
Won 2-0 - RG Titanshift
In: 2x Sudden Shock, 3x Kitchen Finks, 1x Beast Within
Out: 1x Thrun, the Last Troll, 3x Bonfire of the Damned, 1x Chandra, Pyromaster, 1x Chameleon Colossus
Game 1: Locked him down with T2 Stone Rain into T3 Stone Rain into T4 Acid-Moss.
Game 2: Had an opening hand with 3 lands but being on the draw I decided to mulligan down to 6. Never saw the third land then and he bolted two of my dorks.
Game 3: This was a close one. Never saw any LD spells. Played Finks T2, he plays Sakura Tribe-Elder and passes. I Sudden Shock his Sakura which was as close to LD as I'd get this game. Got him down to 8 with just Finks. Eventually I landed a Blood Moon followed by Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. He plays Primeval Titan but had to block my Ruric to prevent losing. He bolts my Finks so I kept attacking just for 2. I play second Blood Moon, he Nature's Claims to kill my first Blood Moon, fetches a mountain and gets three Valakut triggers to hit me for 6 and kill my Finks. Second Blood Moon resolves, we pass the turns and I topdecked a Titan when he was on 2 life.
I'd say Titanshift version (he played Through the Breach too) is much harder than pure RG Scapeshift. Blood Moon does a lot of work but Primeval Titan's can be hard to deal with.
Won 2-0 - UW Spirits
In: 2x Sudden Shock, 2x Ancient Grudge, 3x Anger of the Gods, 1x Stormbreath Dragon
Out: 3x Bonfire of the Damned, 1x Blood Moon, 1x Chameleon Colossus, 1x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, 1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, 1x Thrun, the Last Troll
Game 1: He mulliganed to 5, never saw the second land.
Game 2: He mulliganed to 6, I landed a T2 Obstinate Baloth followed by a Thragtusk. Ancient Grudge took care of his Aether Vial and Anger took care of his mostly 2 toughness Spirits.
They're hard to predict due to the Draw-Go strategy. Rattlechains together with Aether Vial allows them to do combat tricks or simply hold mana up for removal/counters and then empty their hand EoT. Although their threats all have flying, our creatures are simply too big if we get a couple on board and we have a faster clock. Beware of Nebelgast Herald it can tap down our creatures before combat leaving us with no attack and no defense on their turn.
Won 2-1 - Merfolk
In: 3x Anger of the Gods, 2x Sudden Shock, 2x Ancient Grudge, 2x Kitchen Finks
Out: 3x Bonfire of the Damned, 2x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, 1x Blood Moon, 1x Chameleon Colossus, 1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, 1x Thrun, the Last Troll
Game 1: Mulligan to 6. On the draw, he plays Oboro and Cursecatcher. I play Arbor Elf and pass. He plays Cavern and another Cursecatcher. I follow up with T2 Blood Moon, locking him out of blue mana. He managed to get me down to 6 but my sequence of Titan to kill his Lord (vialed in) then attack with Titan and pump for additional +4/+0 was too much to handle.
Game 2: Never had the chance to stop him. Spreading Seas on the forest I had Utopia Sprawl on locked me out of red and when I finally drew a Mountain it was too late.
Game 3: Decided to keep an opening hand with Sudden Shock, Ancient Grudge, Mountain, Kessing Wolf Run, Arbor Elf, Obstinate Baloth and Utopia Sprawl. I knew it was risky but I figured Sudden Shock can deal with a potential lord and Ancient Grudge can deal with Aether Vial. I drew a Stomping Ground the next turn, played Utopia Sprawl on it and passed. He Spreading Seas'd the Stomping Ground and kept pressure on me with a Cursecatcher and a Silvergill Adept. Eventually I get to 5 mana and play a Thragtusk followed by Obstinate Baloth next turn. He made a mistake of not blocking them while I had Kessig Wolf Run to pump Tusk and get him down to 2. He never got a second lord and I topdecked a Titan to seal the win.
Spreading Seas is one of the few cards that can harm us early game. Casting it on the forest enchanted with Utopia Sprawl makes the Sprawl fall off and we can't untap it with Arbor Elf. Cursecatchers are also tricky to play around, especially in multiples. Kill their lords as soon as possible otherwise they get out Anger range. Pack up on lifegain via Finks, Baloth and Thragtusk to buy that extra time.
Opened the new Chandra in prize boosters so I might give her a go next time.
WBG Elves WBG
Cheeri0s
EDH:
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage RG || GWUB Atraxa, Praetors' Voice GWUB
R Zo-Zu the Punisher R || WU Brago, King Eternal WU
UB Gisa and Geralf UB || BGW Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW
Here's my list I entered with
4x Arbor Elf
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Inferno Titan
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Thragtusk
2x Stormbreath Dragon
1x Chameleon Colossus
1x Polukranos, World Eater
Spells (15):
4x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4x Stone Rain
3x Anger of the Gods
2x Primal Command
2x Beast Within
4x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
Planeswalkers (2):
2x Nissa, Vital Force
Lands (21):
9x Forest
1x Mountain
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Stomping Ground
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Batterskull
1x Anger of the Gods
2x Dismember
2x Choke
2x Sudden Shock
3x Kitchen Finks
3x Ancient Grudge
Won 2-0 - Turbofog
In: 3 grudge, 2 choke
Out: 3 anger, 1 chameleon, 1 polukranos
Game 1: Blood moon did good job out of his dual lands and his GQ while i limited him of his blue lands. He got early out the Dawn Charm + Isochron Scepter Combo (fog on a stick as he called it ). But he couldn't stop the Ruric trigger anyway if he wanted to use the scepter or another fog spell to prevent combat damage. It also limits his play since he only runs noncreature spells.
Game 2: Started with Choke in hand, some lands, a BoP and Primal Command. Choke limits him somehow while i ramp up, drawn into another Ruric, fetches Titan. He wants to play Ethereal Haze on titan etb trigger but ruric punish him so he sees no options to win in time and concedes. He sided in 3 supreme verdict but drawn none.
He was a returning player to MTG and the deck was not as good as it could been.
Won 2-0 - BG brew with some white splash
In: 1 batterskull, 1 thrun, 2 dismember, 1 finks
Out: 2 nissa, 2 primal, 1 polukranos
Game 1: Bop followed by a Blood moon T2 and then stone rain T3 limited his capability to play the things he wanted with the duals and basics destroyed. He played The Rack early but easily to play around, a Fleemance Lion and a Rakshasa Deathdealer. Pretty easy game with Inferno titan coming down pinging his smaller creatures down. He never gets enough lands or right colors for monstrosity for the lion.
Game 2: Started with Bop, Chameleon, moss, some lands and sprawl. He plays out Grim Flayer early and connects, allowing him to get delirium with only 3 cards (he included some enchantment creature). I moss his land and the next turn plays chameleon. While he plays the lion and gets in for some more swings I gets down to 6 life - I don't want to block with chameleon if he has a blossoming defense. He doesn't attack with flayer because of chameleon. I just draw lands and 2 elfs the following turns. He's at 16 life with lion and flayer on board, attacks with lion. I think he got careless or knew he couldn't win in the long run with Cham problack, since he had many if not only bg removal spells and unable to block with mostly bg creatures. and I pump Cham 2 times with 7 lands and 1 elf, precisely what I need for a win.
Won 2-1 - BW Tokens
In: 1 anger, 1 batterskull, 2 shock, 2 finks
Out: 2 nissa, 2 primal, 1 chameleon (no reach), 1 polukranos
Game 1: Me going first I got down Blood moon T2 with arbor elf and some rains on him T3, but he thoughtsized my anger T1 and got out bitterblossom T2. He followed up with Lingering Souls and Intangible Virtue. I drew anger and then Ruric, but I missplayed another elf before the anger, realizing my mistake he beat me down the following 2 turns since I was one mana short of playing Ruric I couldn't do anything drawing into nothing helpful.
Game 2 & 3: I don't really remember but they are real easy, he disrupt me somewhat with thoughtseize and inquisition but since so many cards are hard on him; blood moon, anger, stone rain, inferno titan and with a greedy mana base we make a lot of trouble for him and we get through for a second win.
Loss 0-2 - Merfolk
In: 2 shock, 2 dismember, 1 thrun, 1 batterskull, 2 finks, 2 choke, 1 anger
Out: 1 rain, 4 moon, 1 polukranos, 1 ruric, 1 cham, 2 primal, 1 nissa
Game 1: First game was Spreading Seas and blood moon war the first turns. He seas my stomping ground, I play moon, he seas the same land (he kept 2 in his starting hand he told me), I draw moon and play it nothing better to do since I miss lands, he seas a forest, I draw another moon and play out. But since he played Aether Vial T1 and I’m not drawing lands and struggle with colors; I sit with both anger and moss and can’t play anything. When I finally drawn mountain and can play anger they're too big; 4/4s
Game 2: In my opening hand I got one land and no dorks or sprawls, mull to 6 and get no lands. At five I get 2 lands, bop, rain and thragtusk and anger on the scry. T1 forest bop. T2 decides to rain his island but he Cursecather; in retro perspective I got too greedy maybe and should have hold onto it, but then I rather cast anger without needing another +1 mana if he uses cursecatcher. But he then screws my red mountain with Seas's Claim so can’t cast the anger I drawn. He thereafter lays down 2 mutavault, aether vial and Master of the Pearl Trident and keeps swinging with one muta the following turns. I destroy one muta with a rain I drew and also shocks one lord on his turn but then I'm already low on life. He vials in Lord of Atlantis and plays Merrow Reejerey and my anger can't reach them anymore and then he swings with everything for the kill.
A hard matchup indeed, never played against merfolk w ponza. Was really unsure what to sb in and what to keep. Reference Mendoza sb suggestions in my notebook but feel unsure about his suggestions.
Choke is auto include but I'm unsure about moon since it only turns off his mutavaults and caverns, but in hindsight I should kept 3 moons since he had time to do a lot of damage over time with mutas. I also needed to go down to 5 in the starthand which sucks since merfolk are so aggressive but still has control elements in their deck. And with 12 lords and 4 spreading seas plus 2 Sea's Claim they got so easily through and mess a lot with our lands, especially utopia is risky to play.
Afterthoughts
I really liked Ruric, great with vigilance reach but mostly the 6 damage trigger, since when we're up to 6+ mana is just usually fatties we drop by then to win the game.
I never got to use nissa and they felt little redundant having 2 when I sb. I will try 1 or 2 Garruk, Primal Hunter instead and 0-1 nissa for next tournament.
I'm still not sure if 2 or 1 primal is enough for the deck. Still great for a lot of things.
Constructive Feedback or suggestions are welcome This my first tournament report but felt it was good to put down the time to write it down and to reflect over it.
I like Nissa personally but only as one of. Her +1 can ramp us just like Arbor Elf if the land is Sprawled. Her -3 can bring us back threats like Titan or even Blood Moon if needed. And if she survives 3 turns we can simply ulti her to get draws out of our lands.
I see you sided out Polukranos a lot. It seems useful against Merfolk to deal with their lords since as you've seen it yourself, they can quickly get out of Anger range.
Blood Moon is good against Merfolk but I think we can safely side out at least two copies. They'll be careful with nonbasics in games 2/3.
WBG Elves WBG
Cheeri0s
EDH:
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage RG || GWUB Atraxa, Praetors' Voice GWUB
R Zo-Zu the Punisher R || WU Brago, King Eternal WU
UB Gisa and Geralf UB || BGW Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW
You sided out Thrun while I sided him in. He has regen but it might be little too taxing keeping G1 mana up for that when I consider it now, and yeah Polukranos I should kept. Ditching the dismembers due to life total will matter against such aggressive deck - but on the other hand 4 life to get rid of a lord can make a real difference and dismember takes them when shock doesn't, and only requires 1 mana which doesn't care about moon or seas. We also have anger and beast within.
Sideboard against Merfolk
Matt Mendoza
Out: 3 Rain, 1 Moon, 1 Acid-Moss, 1 Beast Within, 1 Command
In: 2 Shock, 2 Dismember, 2 Firespout, 1 Thrun
kavselj
In: 3x Anger of the Gods, 2x Sudden Shock, 2x Ancient Grudge, 2x Kitchen Finks
Out: 3x Bonfire of the Damned, 2x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, 1x Blood Moon, 1x Chameleon Colossus, 1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, 1x Thrun, the Last Troll
Zasse (My updated)
In: 2 shock, 2 finks, 2 choke, 2 grudge, 2 dismember, 1 anger
Out: 2 rain, 2 moss, 2 dragon, 2 primal, 1 moon, 1 chameleon, 1 ruric,
With 2 choke and 3 moons it might be a little overboard with so much LD so it should be fine sb out 4 of them. However I don't like to side out too much creatures but if I keep one Garruk and one Nissa in the main I should be fine, since they don't die to anger and give us creatures and card draw.
Against aggressive decks I usually bump up the life gain. Kitchen Finks, Obstinate Baloth, Thragtusk etc. can be enough to put blockers on the field and stall those few turns until Titans show up. With LD spells in our deck we can even destroy lands that they've Spreading Seas'd.
Choke is a nice option but with blue being poorly represented in my local meta, I've been hesitant to add some to my SB.
I have a love/hate relationship with Dismember for the same reasons you mentioned. Though with a lot of life gain I think it isn't as bad here. Having 5 mana allows us to cast Obstinate Baloth and leave 1 mana up for Dismember. Baloth's life gain offsets the life loss.
WBG Elves WBG
Cheeri0s
EDH:
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage RG || GWUB Atraxa, Praetors' Voice GWUB
R Zo-Zu the Punisher R || WU Brago, King Eternal WU
UB Gisa and Geralf UB || BGW Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW
Fish is a tiny part of the meta right now, but when it starts coming up it tends to keep showing up for a little while. It's one of those decks that gets popular for short periods -- usually because it finds an angle between other decks in the meta that hate it out. Choke is generally excellent, but narrow. I like putting cards in my sideboard that are either useful against multiple decks or are tactical nukes against one really bad match-up that I absolutely know will come up (tier one decks like Jund and Affinity). It's a great card in a very blue meta game so if you have Fish, Thing Ascension, maybe Grixis Control then it might be worthwhile. I prefer Engineered Explosives though. Think about it. EE is good against pretty much ALL the aggro decks and hits about half the Fish dorks + Vial too so it can be played in multiple match-ups making it very flexible. It's good against Bogles, Elves, Gobo, Thing, Jund and more. It's even good against Evolution and Eldrazi because it takes out their mana dorks -- not that we really need it against Eldrazi.
EE seems good especially on 2 since we don't really have any 2 drops. Having it on one kills our dorks and Utopia Sprawl but if it hurts our opponent more it's a worthy sacrifice.
I like the two bolts in MB, sometimes it lets you kill that early dork to stall them just enough to follow it up with land destruction.
WBG Elves WBG
Cheeri0s
EDH:
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage RG || GWUB Atraxa, Praetors' Voice GWUB
R Zo-Zu the Punisher R || WU Brago, King Eternal WU
UB Gisa and Geralf UB || BGW Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW
What I'm thinking is a Brain deck that has LD in it. For some odd reason instant LD for 1 mana seems crazy powerful to me. The only differences I see is that with Utopia Sprawl and BoP you're able to drop a Blood Moon or LD spell on that critical turn 2. A Brain deck would function a little differently with different choices.
Some options include Smallpox, Catch // Release, Crumble to Dust, Boom // Bust, as well as all of the LD cards you guys are currently using.
I don't have a decklist going yet but I'm brewing something up! Since most of you guys have already developed a valid LD strategy here, I would like to know what you think about my idea, specifically with Smallpox and Catch/Release. They appeal to me more because they also control the board state, where the typical LD spells destroy lands and that's it. With the added bonus of taking creatures with them, I believe these spells to be more powerful. The problem I see is casting them when you can't find a Brain.
Thoughts??
Various LD lists have been posted here but most recently it's the RG Ponza version, yeah. Any other strategies are also more than welcome.
Interesting idea. With the current core of 4x Utopia, 4x Arbor Elf, 2x Birds of Paradise and virutally no 2 drops, this seems like an interesting idea. Would definitely need to be more orientated around instant and sorceries to get value out of Brain. The fuse mechanic or split cards such as Boom//Bust would allow some nice interactions.
Went 2-2 today with nearly identical list to Fridays. Only difference was 3 Angers in the main instead of Bonfires and Chandra, Torch of Defiance instead of Chandra, Pyromaster. Forgot to add something else to SB instead of Bonfires.
4x Arbor Elf
2x Birds of Paradise
3x Inferno Titan
2x Obstinate Baloth
1x Chameleon Colossus
1x Thragtusk
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Stormbreath Dragon
Spells (14):
4x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4x Stone Rain
3x Bonfire of the Damned
2x Lightning Bolt
1x Primal Command
4x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
Planeswalkers (2):
1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1x Nissa, Vital Force
Lands (21):
8x Forest
1x Mountain
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Stomping Ground
1x Dismember
1x Beast Within
1x Stormbreath Dragon
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Sudden Shock
3x Bonfire of the Damned
3x Kitchen Finks
Won 2-0 // On the draw // Blue Moon
In: 2x Grafdigger's Cage, 2x Ancient Grudge, 1x Beast Within, 1x Dismember
Out: 3x Anger of the Gods, 1x Stormbreath Dragon, 1x Blood Moon, 1x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Didn't know what I was up against at first since I saw no Blood Moon's and only Izzet Charm and Cryptic Command in the first game. Boarded in Finks for 2nd game but he boarded in Angers so I sided them back out in game 3. Ancient Grudge was there to deal with Batterskull which won him game 2 after equipping it on Goblin Dark-Dwellers. Overall it felt like a favourable matchup since they have no way of dealing with out fatties. Tapping them down via Cryptic only buys them a turn.
Lost 0-2 // On the draw // Burn
In: 3x Kitchen Finks, 2x Sudden Shock, 1x Beast Within, 1x Stormbreath Dragon
Out: 4x Blood Moon, 2x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, 1x Stone Rain
Game 1 he burned me down with Goblin Guide, Lavamancer and other burn spells. Game 2 I never drew any relevant removal. Bolted one of his Swiftspears but even Finks couldn't help against his hand of 2x Swiftspear, Goblin Guide, Rift Bolt and 3x Lava Spike.
I think I was mostly unlucky with the draws. Never saw any Angers or enough early turn threats such as Finks or Baloths to keep up with his burn.
Lost 1-2 // On the play // Mardu Control
In: 3x Kitchen Finks, 2x Sudden Shock, 1x Beast Within
Out: 2x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, 1x Stone Rain, 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance, 1x Anger of the Gods, 1x Blood Moon
It's tough playing against discard. The worst CMC3 offender you plan on slamming down T2 will get taken away by Thoughtseize/Inqusition. He also played Seeker of the Way which needs to be dealt with asap else it can quickly become a Lightning Helix each turn. List was heavier on white and black so Blood Moon does extra work here. 3rd game I had to mulligan down to 5 which is really unfavourable against discard matchups. Kept a land with Arbor Elf, Lightning Bolt and 3 lands but could never really get going.
Won 2-0 // On the draw // Hatebears
In: 3x Kitchen Finks, 2x Sudden Shock, 2x Ancient Grudge, 1x Stormbreath Dragon
Out: 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance, 1x Blood Moon, 1x Stone Rain, 1x Inferno Titan, 1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, 1x Chameleon Colossus, 1x Obstinate Baloth, 1x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Land that Blood Moon asap. Leonin Arbiter taxes our fetching and turns their Ghost Quarters into LD. Postboard bring in Ancient Grudges to deal with Aether Vial. Anger hits most of the creatures except for Loxodon Smiter. Won the 2nd game after attacking with my 2/1 finks into his Smiter which he blocked even though he was on 21. I followed it up with Anger clearing my Finks, Birds and Arbor Elf but also taking away his Finks, Smiter, Aven Mindcensor and Noble Hierarch. Grudge took care of his Vial and Blood Moon took away his mana which bought me enough time to topdeck a Titan.
While I didn't really have the chance to see the new Chandra in action, I don't think she's a good fit. Waiting on my copies of Madcap Experiment to see how that works out.
WBG Elves WBG
Cheeri0s
EDH:
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage RG || GWUB Atraxa, Praetors' Voice GWUB
R Zo-Zu the Punisher R || WU Brago, King Eternal WU
UB Gisa and Geralf UB || BGW Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW
2 Birds of Paradise
4 arbor elf
1 eternal witness
4 obstinate baloth
2 stormbreath Dragon
1 thragtusk
2 inferno titan
Spells :
4x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4x Stone Rain
3x Lightning Bolt
1x Primal Command
4x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Garruk, primal Hunter
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
Lands (21):
9x Forest
1x Mountain
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Stomping Ground
2 Thrun, the last Troll
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1x Dismember
1x Beast Within
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Sudden Shock
3x Anger of the Gods
3x Kitchen Finks
Grixis with Tasigur on board, Bolt in the yard and three mana up including U and R. If he has a Snap I lose the Emperion to blockers and Bolt. And because I had so few threats in my deck he was able to manage them with his Terminates/Snaps/etc.
or
Evo with a massive army on the board (too much to attack and trample over with Kessig Wolf-Run). Just sat there waiting for him to find a P2E or Pridemage because attacking would have cost me the Emperion in combat. I tried attacking with massive X/1 Arbor Elves, but this didn't quite get there in time.
or
RDW with any three goblins and ANY cards in hand. You'd think this would be a bye, but unless you get an Anger or Titan pretty quickly, they just build up their cheap board, save three burn spells then kill the Emperion and attack for lots and lots.
In each of these cases I found myself desperately looking for a way to win because the Emperion wasn't actually a threat. I was hiding behind it like a more fragile version of Worship. When you Madcap into Emperion you may only use one card in hand and thus come out even on card advantage but when you take threats out of your deck you ultimately hurt yourself. Thus, I think I prefer to have more individual threats in my deck.
I just played a madcap version that was basically your maindeck you eluted to a few days back, subbing 2 Chandra flamecaller for the 2 inferno titan. It can still clean up against aggro, can't bolt someone and just get pathed, and is very versatile. It was sweet. I was only playing 2 emperion though.
I'm wondering if by introducing 4 madcap at 4 cmc if we can consider those slots as disruption instead of a threat. Think of it like blood moon instead of 4 more stone rains. If we do that, dropping the remaining 3 acid moss would free up slots for more threats. I almost never wanted to play them- by the time I got to 4 cmc, I had already disrupted (moon, stone rain, madcap-> emperion). At that point, I wanted a haymaker instead. Adding madcap lowers the curve (2 titan and 2 5 mana threats became madcaps) too, making the ramp less important. I like replacing them with card draw- more specifically more walkers at the 4-5 CMC slot and the 4th stormbreath dragon.
Thoughts? It would simultaneously increase the threat density, which is definitely something the deck needs, I think.
Edit: I added my decklist. I've since dropped 2 mwonvuli acid-moss for the 4th stormbreath and 1 nissa, worldwaker, although I think I'll be replacing it with nissa, vital force (and possibly the 4th stormbreath too).
4 wooded foothills
4 windswept heath
3 stomping ground
1 mountain
4 utopia sprawl
4 arbor elf
2 birds of paradise
4 blood moon
4 stone rain
3 beast within
3 anger of the gods
3 mwonvuli acid-moss
3 stormbreath dragon
2 garruk, primal hunter
2 Chandra, flamecaller
2 platinum emperion
3 kitchen finks
3 sudden shock
3 grafdigger's cage
2 engineered explosives
2 thrun, the last troll
1 anger of the gods
1 firespout
Was thinking about that yesterday; the threat level, if able to attack and the ability to protect the emperor in ponza vs blue moon.
First of all it takes up 6-7 slots with this combo, which means we have to cut a lot. In my case I cut 6(4 madcap + 2 emperor): 1 primal, 1 titan, 2 beast, 1 polukranos, 1 chameleon. What to cut can always be argued and tested but those cards were what I cut.
With 6-7 cards changed a lot of cards the deck had good use of before are gone. What I'm trying to say the established decklists works well and we can change around some with creatures, planeswalkers, removal spells - we remove a lot by the cost of the combo.
Then we have to consider starting hands with a emperor in hand which be a dead card often, sure we CAN hardcast it but not very optimal.
Once we get to cast madcap and not get countered (which is a risk too) on T3 or T4 we have a 8/8 which can stall for some time. But like you said there are times where it's just a sitting duck stalling and we hope to draw into threats and hope the opponent doesn't draw an answer for it. Now we only have 1 emperor in the deck and 3 madcap if we comboed of succesfully. What if we draw a emperor the following turns? Then there are 3 dead madcaps in the decks somewhere.
Attacking in is always some risk, even defending at times, due to combat tricks or/and removals combined from opponent. Like you mentioned bolt, snap block and bolt. A 3/3 and then a dismember. Blessed Alliance maybe? Or just good old path, terminate, maelstrom pulse. Heck even a bounce spell sets us back.
Not to mention all artifact hate in everyone's sb because of affinity. So how do we do in game 2 and 3? Side it out because of added removal or keep it in and chance to get some value out of it. I don't like either. Change 6-7 slots for sideboard cards are a lot, we need to replace ALL the combo cards. Then the need to replace the combo cards with relevant cards from sideboard. What if the 4 moons needs to go in sb as well and 3 LD spells? Then it's almost the whole sb. We might find ourselves against a deck where the circumstances are so and that be bad to be forced change so many cards.
The reason to run it in Blue Moon is because we can protect the combo and the emperor with a variety of counters. We really can't with Ponza, we can just hope it sticks there together with moon and some LD for use to play threats eventually or the pressure of emperor is enough.
It works wonders at times but it sucks to cast the combo and get it instantly removed or think that it's safe let every opponent's attacker pass through just to get it bounced, or never draw anything relevant to pressure the opponent.
Is not the best analysis but that's just some of my thoughts after tested it for awhile. I'd say no for the Madcap + Emperor combo.
Thanks for replying and including your decklist Spike. I'm glad you are enjoying the deck, whatever version you are running.
You asked for thoughts regarding the replacement of disruption spells with the Madcap combo. I am having some trouble determining the perfect balance of disruption to agression in this deck. If you go back a bunch of pages you'll find my initial version and see that it ran 17(!) disruption spells. I had room in my deck for Stone Rain, Acid-Moss, Molten Rain, Beast Within and Blood Moon. One of the things I really liked about that deck was the consistency it offered. As long as I kept a mana dork I was pretty much always interacting with my opponent on T2 and decided quickly that this was one of the major advantages the deck offered. As a two colour deck it was already more reliable mana-wise than a lot of the leading decks in the format and I found that I had favourable or very favourable match-ups against almost all of the format's tier one decks. Over the last few weeks I've noticed a lot of people reducing the number land D spells they are running with some concern. Now you ask about reducing them still further. As I said off the top, I freely admit to having some trouble balancing the disruption and the win cons so I'm not sitting here claiming to be the know all oracle of Ponza. But I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of reducing disruption to squeeze in a combo I already feel off about.
Zasse_G: Totally agree with pretty much everything you said. I hadn't even gotten to the sideboarding issue, but the point you make about having one Emperion in play (or dead) and drawing the other leaves you with a lot of dead draws in the deck. Now think about the fact that a lot of decks don't care about Blood Moon (either because they have lots of basics (U-Tron has 7-9 Islands and can wait under a Blood Moon until they are ready to win, Repeal the Moon and still win, Soul Sisters has lot of Plains, RDW for obvious reasons, etc.). So as you say, it's possible you will have as many as 6 dead cards in your deck.
Sadly I didn't meet any of the 3 jund players, nahiri control, u tron or dredge. We also had UR aggro, Infect, black control brew and 1 of those annoying merfolks.
Here's my list I entered with
4x Arbor Elf
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Inferno Titan
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Thragtusk
2x Stormbreath Dragon
1x Chameleon Colossus
1x Polukranos, World Eater
Spells (16):
4x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4x Stone Rain
3x Anger of the Gods
2x Primal Command
3x Beast Within
4x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
Planeswalkers (2):
1x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
Lands (21):
9x Forest
1x Mountain
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Stomping Ground
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Batterskull
1x Anger of the Gods
2x Dismember
2x Choke
2x Sudden Shock
3x Kitchen Finks
3x Ancient Grudge
Loss 0-2 - Kiki Chord
In: 2 dis, 1 thrun, 3 kitchen
Out: 3 anger, 1 rain, 1 primal, 1 moss
I mull to 6 game one with a mediocre hand; rain, beast, anger but no moon or ramp. He gets 2 courser of kruphix out early, a lot of lands to play and life total pretty often over 20. Voice of resurgence joins him, having 2 anger but missing 1 red mana to play both I can only play one but at least get rid of voice. He gets out Polukranos and me thereafter Titan where we trade because he use the ability to get rid of titan and elf I played earlier.
Game 2 I got moon, bird, thragtusk and moss, but he bolts my bird, I get out moon T3 but I then sit on 3 lands for some turns. He eventually finds a plain and a forest, gets out Pia & Kira followed by Resto angel, which become to much for me eventually.
I guess I maybe should be more aggressive with mulligan game 1 and also should kept the angers in the deck, I focused too much on angel and courser 4 toughness. Completely forgot the 1 Pia & Kiran in their sb
Afterconstruction sideboard
In: 2 dis, 1 thrun, 2 shock
Out: 2 primal, 1 cham, 1 polu, 1 beast
Loss 1-2 - Storm
In: 3 finks, 2 shock, 1 thrun, 1 batterskull
Out: 4 Moon, 3 anger
I win game 1 where he tries to go off 2 times but fails and the third time plays Empty the Warrens storm count 4 but he's not prepared for my titan coming down cleaning up and then finish quickly.
Game 2 he wins with classic storm and by refilling his hand with bedlam: ascension, past in flames and grapeshot, where I would otherwise just need to swing one more time with polukranos and finks.
Game 3 I lower his land count early, but he plays a fetchland and pass - preventing me to destroy it and fetches on my end step. In response I beast his steam vents - which in hindsight was me being too greedy, should cast on untap step, and also I gave him free hits in before I can find any creatures of my own. I should have hold on to that beast. He wins by playing Epic Experiment = 5, flipping his Thing In the Ice he played the turn earlier, and up goes my dragon and elf. He cast Ignite Memories for free because of Epic and can play it two times with ascension, me being on 13 I know it's a lottery since I have dragon, elf and forest on hand. He gets the jackpot: dragon and elf, and can then swing for lethal. I just needed one more turn to swing for 7 with dragon and the monster ability to hurt him enough, he had 7 cards in hand and 10 life before I passed the turn.
I had only played against the new "storm" decks, thing ascension and jeskai ascension before. So I wasn't aware if he played classic storm or if the classic storm had included bedlam and thing. If I knew about that I would sb in 2 dismember instead of 2 shock. Also when play LD we should focus on the red lands after sb since they're more needed for rituals, bedlam, ascension and manamorphose. Still storm doesn't need very much lands and we need to lower or curve to get in early hits.
But these were the funniest and greatest games, a real thrill to play against storm and the matches real even.
Win 2-0 - Lantern Control
In: 1 thrun, 3 grudge, 3 finks
Out: 1 dragon, 2 titan, 1 ruric, 3 anger
Game 1 he gets his bridge, bell, codex and lantern. Well I just play chameleon, garruk, nissa and continue produce beast tokens while destroying his lands. He use surgical extraction on my stone rain, 2 already in the grave, and my beast within (one being inquisitioned). He has one land, one mox opal and gets to draw his second bridge but can't play it. He pithing needle Nissa - I assume he didn't want me to ultimate or fetch permanents but cost him the game. I know I need one primal, half of my library was left and thus high chance seeing 1 of 2 primals. I decided to go for it by activating Chameleon, Activate Garruk and draw 8 cards, finds my primal, bounce his bridge and swing for lethal.
Game 2 he got bridge and lantern out but in my start hand I had grudge, destroys his bridge and flashback to destroy lantern. With all my creatures out pressuring him he mills himself in blindness and thus milling the second bridge. Lantern Control is just too slow to have a chance.
Win 2-0 - Marvelous Temur
In: 3 finks, 3 grudge
Out: 3 anger, 2 titan, 1 ruric
Well not much to say, the standard deck that was in the Pro Tour Hawaii Top 8 but little modified for modern, Ancient Stirrings and old Emrakul and Ulamog. The deck is just too slow and not consistent enough for modern. Having ancient grudge game 2 he only can use the Legendary artifact once and has to search anew for another one, and drawing into 2 new Emy and Newlamog didn't help him either since they're useless in hand.
Afterthoughts
Sideboard is really important and which I still finds real hard to figure out what to take in and out for decks you haven't played enough if any against. Both Kiki Chord and Storm I haven't played against enough and wasnt aware of their decklists to great extent. Lantern Control and Marvelous Temur I had knowledge enough of what they played but were also easy matchups and therefore easier to sb.
Feeling a little letdown only getting 2-2
I still believe in this deck, but it is fragile for hand disruption or removal in the early turns, which delay our moon or ability to use elf and utopia, not to mention our start hand are needy thus the aggressive mulligan.
- Garruk, Primal Hunter is real good, beast tokens are always nice to block and attack and the card draw wow. Might go up to 2 Garruks, Primal Hunter again, but I doesn't like the GGG requirements but if we have that in mind is usually fine.
- Nissa is not as good as I hoped, mostly use her +1 ability and she doesn't have anything to retrieve if she's played on curve. Sometimes I only use her +1 to get extra mana, but then I would prefer use one Garruk Wildspeaker instead
- Ruric is great, sure he can at times punish us if we want to play maybe beast within against a threat, but Ruric is usually annoying enough with vigilance, reach and 6/6 body to keep the opponents occupied. I think 1 is the best fit together with 2 titans.
- Polukranos haven't done enough for me and I feel little mellow towards him. Sure 5/5 for 4CMC is great but his ability is so expensive and he only hurts small creature with the number of counters added. I found myself in situation where I don't have enough mana to get rid of a threat or where I want to use the ability and cast something but have to choose. Maybe go Back to Baloth, add another Chameleon or Thragtusk, heck even one Goblin Dark-Dwellers maybe?
When I saw infect in the room I made room in the board for a couple of Spellskites and they came up huge. I made a judgment error on Game 1, going for an Acid Moss on my oppo's only land when he had Glistener Elf and Hierarch in play with me at 3 poison counters. this was going to set me up for Titan then next turn to clear him out, but he played a land and killed me. I had Beast Within in hand and should have held back. Oh well. Learning all the time. G2 I played a T2 Blood Moon and T3 'Skite. Game 3 was similar. I played an Engineered Explosives to buy time and then a Spellskite to take away his Giant Growths and a Blood Moon to further disrupt him. Anger came up here too, removing all doubt abut the outcome.
The Mill deck gave me a little concern as he started off with a 1 mama mill card and followed it up with some mill-13 nastiness. G1 I just ran him over with a fast start into my monsters (Dragon + Titan) and Game 2 was all about Primal Command. I waited until he'd milled 26 cards away, putting about 30 cards in the 'yard when you factor in a couple of fetchlands and then shuffled my 'yard back into my deck and fetched my singleton Witness. Then I cast the Witness, returning P.Command so I could do it again. Once again, Titan closed it out.
In each case I asked myself if I would be better off with Madcap Combo and the answer was never "yes." Indeed, I would have had to board the whole thing out against Infect as the 'Skites are way too important there, and that would have left me very threat light.
/A