If the discard clause is so important - why not Wilt-Leaf Liege - turn your team into finishers.
PS: could you perhaps spoiler your decklist at the bottom of each post - it just makes it easier to check what you have in already.
Personally I don't find the discard clause important, but I know others value having that extra protection against Liliana OTV.
My list isn't changing much at this point. I'm really down to hemming and hawwing over one or two cards in the sideboard, and I have a feeling when its all said and done that I'll just have to go with my gut on that choice:
Yeah - I get that it doesn't change much, but the list exists a couple pages back so to reference what's going on requires scrolling. Not the end of the world if you don't, but just nice if it was there each time (and spoiler tags means it doesn't clog up the page).
I like the list. I'm a bit back and forth on chalice as well, but sb slots are easily swapped. I'm curious how good you think choke is going to be, dropping it is pretty much the only time I win against merfolk. I kinda like against some Ux shells, since most of these list run about 6-10 "islands", and occasionally you can catch storm without blue, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Another possible 3cmc creature can be dauntless escort I suppose if you're worried about sweepers otherwise we're starting to scrap the bottom of the barrel looking for other options lol.
My experience with rancor has been underwhelming. We don't have lots of matchups which require us to get trample damage in besides tokens/faeries (neither are huge atm, but rancor is very good here). Rancor is also decent against the UWR twin, with their wall of omens and resto being surprisingly good stalls early. It is only semi-effective against soul sister depending on draws, because we're not getting through big pridemates, and they're not always looking to chump with lifegain creatures outside of maytr of sand.
I currently have use two swords a proW/R proW/B for these games because they both give me lifegain, which I feel is very relevant. I think being able to re-equip and rancor returning to hand is comparable, but as 1/2-of I would have to say a sword gets me a win more often. Perhaps Unflinching Courage may be a good alternative, although it lacks the recursion.
While I'm thinking of cards and am still awake, Aura Of Silence may be worth considering. It would make Affinity's spells cost 2 more, severely slow down some parts of Blue Moon, and still act as a Seal Of Primordium. The trade off is that it costs 3, so it might be a turn behind when Blood Moon hits. Also being WW may make that card hard to cast in some situations.
Searching Gatherer for everything Green or White between 4 and 5 CMC...
Chameleon Colossus - Its a 4/4 with pro black that can get much bigger through pumps. Loxodon Hierarch - This is a Obstinate Baloth that can regenerate our team. No discard clause however. Mirrorweave - An interesting way to turn the tables on the Phyrexian Obliterator player by making our entire team Obliterators for a turn! Patrician's Scorn - Can be used as a "free" Back to Nature in many situations. Restoration Angel - Could be good in a list that also runs Kitchen Finks or Blade Slicer instead of Loxodon Smiter. Retaliate - Really expensive way to deal with creatures that attack us that we can't deal with. Reveilark - Could stall the board and then bring back some of our hate bears. Good value creature. Reverence - Stops Twin creatures from attacking, and prevents death via Tokens until they get two pumps. Sigarda, Host of Herons - Extremely hard to kill if it resolves. Springjack Shepherd - This can make a bunch of chump blockers if we are stuck in a grindy creature match. Thragtusk - For 5 mana we can gain 5 life immediately, and have two bodies. Pretty good value here. Timbermare - This would break a stalemate long enough for us to win? Wall of Reverence - We can gain a lot of life with this, and hold off large creatures at the same time.
Chameleon Colossus: It isn't that good without any tribal synergy. Otherwise he is just a beater that caan easily get chump-blocked by any nonblack creature.
Loxodon Hierarch: I actually like this card more than Obstinate Baloth now that more sweepers and less Lilianas are being played.
Mirrorweave: Almost no one plays Phyrexian Obliterator...
Patrician's Scorn: It could work.
Restoration Angel: I would recommend this in Kitchen Finks and Blade Splicer lists, but it is better in Death and Taxes.
Retaliate: Usually blocking works better than this.
Reveillark: It's okay, but for 5 mana I would expect something a little stronger.
Reverence: This is interesting but Worship is almost always better than it.
Sigarda, Host of Herons: This is a good card. It might even be better than Baneslayer Angel.
Springjack Sheapherd: Bunches of chump-blockers is not better than more Worships.
Thragtusk: For the most part, I'd say that Kitchen Finks is better than this.
Timbermare: If you need to hit people to the face, play more fliers.
Wall of Reverence: Once again, Worship is better than lifegain.
I just played in my first largish (62 people) and high stakes tournament with my hatebears deck, so I thought I'd do a tournament report. I'm running a version of the deck with lingering souls and fauna shaman and no arbiters, so it may not be super relevant to y'all. This is my first time trying to write a report and I realize I didn't actually take good enough note or remember enough to make it that useful, but it might be interesting if you are curious how the less popular version of the deck can do. I don't remember my exact sideboarding but I can probably reconstruct it if you ask.
I haven't actually done much testing so this isn't an optimized list or anything. The sideboard in particular hasn't had that much thought into it beyond Fauna Shaman + silver bullet singleton hatebears = good.
The games!
Round 1 vs. Gifts
Game 1: I got a Loxodon Smiter out early and started bashing away. He couldn't do much to stop it, and a gifts for Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn wiped all my critters other than Smiter but I had a path to clear Smiter's way to attack more.
Game 2: This was a longer, grindier game. He managed to board wipe two times I think, but couldn't mount much pressure in between before I could rebuild my board state.
1-0
Round 2 vs. UWR control
Game 1: This started with the typical me trying to play creatures and him trying to stop me. I got a Smiter out and added a Wilt-Leaf after he tapped out to cast Stormbreath Dragon. He also had a Sword of Fire and Ice that he threw on the Path-proof dragon. I swung for the win with these guys and a Birds (that I think had 2 power, so I must have activated Gavony), but punted by not pathing his snapcaster before blocks, and I lost to the sword wielding dragon.
Game 2: I think this was more of the same, except no dragon from him. I think I eventually closed with a Baneslayer.
At this point time was called as we were drawing our initial hands for game 3. Neither of us was gonna win by turn 3 so we drew.
1-0-1
Round 3 vs. UWR midrange
Game 1: He applies lots of pressure with Vendillion Clique while my ground creatures stop Geist from attacking. Eventually he swings with both and cryptics to tap my dudes, but I pathed the angel token to stay at 1 life (6 before the attack) and I killed him on the swing back with Wilt-Leaf Liege and Stirring Wildwood.
Game 2: He succeeded at denying me creatures early and then resolved a batterskull, and I couldn't do anything.
Game 3: I got quite lucky and cast 3 Loxodon Smiters in consecutive turns early on (not sure if it was 2-3-4 or 3-4-5). He had paths for the first two but not the third, and those two lands of ramp helped me start vomiting Lingering Souls and big creatures like a Baneslayer. I was able to win through the air.
My opponent afterwards told me that his deck was supposed to have two Supreme Verdicts in the side but he had forgotten to put them back in after using them for standard, so I got quite lucky there.
2-0-1
Round 4 vs. Big Zoo
Game 1: He mulligans to 5, concedes without casting any spells after seeing my turn 2 Smiter and turn 3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
Game 2: I wasn't sure what deck he was on (although I should have known, his R2 game was near mine) so I sideboarded for melira pod. I was wrong, and he got off to an aggressive start. I managed to stabilize the board state at 4 life with multiple Wilt-Leaf Lieges, but he top-decked a Sejiri Steppe to let a creature sneak through to finish me.
Game 3: He had a solid start with turn 2 BTE->BTE->goyf. However I got a Smiter out earlyish and a Scavenging ooze that stopped the goyf from getting too large. I managed to build up a solid board state with Lingering Souls and Wilt-Leaf Liege and was able to deal a lot of damage in the air while holding off his dudes on the ground.
3-0-1
Round 5 vs Dega
This deck was Bob, Brimaz, Lingering Souls, Sorin, Lilliana, Ajani, Chandra, and lots of discard and removal.
Game 1: He mulligans to 5, removes my first few creatures but soon just can't keep up and I beat down.
Game 2: After he bolted all my dorks I got stuck on 2 land for a while and then 3, just couldn't do much and lost.
Game 3: I was doing a bit better but he managed to make lots of tokens with Lingering Souls and Sorin and then made Sorin emblems to win.
3-1-1
Round 6 vs. Ad Nauseum / Phyrexian Unlife
Game 1: I get out a turn 2 Thalia, turn 3 Fauna Shaman, turn 4 search up and cast Gaddock Teeg, he can't deal with the hate and I bash in. He got Phyrexian Unlife out but it only saved him for one turn. I think I topdecked a wilt-leaf which helped the hatebears close quickly.
Game 2: Very similar story, turn 2 Thalia, turn 3 Fauna Shaman, turn 4 Gaddock Teeg, turn 5 Spellskite, turn 6 Ethersworn Canonist, he can't deal with it.
4-1-1
And I made it to top 8!
Top 8:
Quarterfinals vs. Dega
Same deck as round 5.
Game 1: This game was incredibly long and grindy, and a deck check before resulted in two of the other quarterfinals matches finishing before we finished game 1. We both built up board states with lots of creatures and tokens and then slowly battled for turns and turns. At the end he had Sorin, Lilliana, AND Ajani Vengeant, and a Vault of the Archangel that let his spirits, vampires, and cats trade with all of my stuff. Baneslayer was my only out but he was able to keep it tapped down with Ajani. He eventually ultimated Sorin and won.
Game 2: He used lots of removal on my early creatures, and later when I cast Wilt-Leaf Lieges two turns in a row he was out of terminates and paths and couldn't deal with two 6/6s.
Game 3: We exchanged creatures and removal until we were both in topdeck mode. I had two spirit tokens and he had a Lavaclaw Reaches, and we traded 2-3 life attacks for a while until I drew a Wilt-Leaf that buffed my spirits enough to win the game after 3 more attacks.
Our match attracted a decent crowd, I think both because our match went long (would absolutely gone over time if the top 8 wasn't untimed) and it was an interesting pair of decks. The rest of the top 8 was more traditional stuff like Melira Pod, UWR control, Storm, and Kiki Pod.
It was late and the prizes divided nicely so we split the top 4.
Overall I was really happy with how the tournament went. I've been playing this deck in a lot of smaller modern tournaments at my LGS and have been having a pretty decent win rate, but it was great to also be successful at a bigger more serious tournament. Although I think I was at least not unlucky with my match-ups.
Well done on the tournament. I think the deck has legs (obviously).
Just a couple questions - which cards are you finding key?
From your tournament report Loxodon Smiter looks like the nuts. Is it the can't be countered clause? The body for it's CMC? Obviously both play a role, but the answer to this determines whether we should be adding things like Tarmogoyf or Thrun, the Last Troll to our lists.
Secondly, is Fauna Shaman not just a bad Birthing Pod? Pod allows you to abuse ETB, Persist, Undying etc while also making the creature uncounterable. Shaman allows you to avoid CMC issues.
I have a short report for tonight. I tested against 2 combo decks in 10-game sets: Amulet/Hive Mind andAd Nauseum/Angel's Grace. The Amulet deck wins by using some mana ramp to either resolve a Hive Mind and play Pacts that you can't pay for, or search out Inkmoth Nexus and Wolf Run to make it or Primeval Tital lethal. The Ad Nauseum combo draws its deck with the namesake card and then casts a Lethal Lightning Storm at our faces.
The Amulet match was bad for us, but the Ad Nauseum match was the most lopsided match of Magic I've played in a long time... and its in our favor!
Against Amulet, I won only 1 out of 4 games before boarding, and only 3 out of 6 after sideboards were added. I brought in Torpor Orb, Chalice, Seal of Primordium, and Worship.
The thing about Amulet combo is that its combos ignore most of our dedicated combo hate. Most other combos can't really deal with a Worship, but Hive Mind doesn't care about that card. Inkmoth Nexus doesn't care about that card either. Chalice of The Void is OK at 2 mana to shut off the Pyroclasms and Summer Blooms, but is useless when set at 0 because Hive Mind puts our copy of the Pacts directly on the stack (they're never "cast" so Chalice triggers for their Pact but not ours.)
The search hate and Thalia are honestly the best cards we can have here. Thalia slows down the Summer Bloom draws by a turn, and the search hate can severely hamper a Primeval Titan if it is from Aven Mindcensor. Leonin Arbiter's hate can eventually be paid for.
Going from a poor match to something completely different, Ad Nauseum is now officially my best match up, at least according to the number of wins vs. losses in testing. GW won all 4 pre board games, and won 5 out of 6 games after sideboarding. Why? Thalia is pretty sick here, forcing the basic Ad Nauseum + Angel's Grace combo to cost "8". Qasali Pridemage is sick here, popping a Lotus Bloom on upkeep and forcing it to be used at inopportune times. Spellskite actually counts as "hard" hate for this deck! Lightning Storm has one target and get "charged" with lands when this combo goes off. Spellskite makes sure all that damage goes to it instead of our face.
The match is even more insane after boarding. Ad Nauseum has Echoing Truth and more creature removal, but we get access to Chalice for 0. We Chalice, and now Ad Nauseum can't use Slaughter Pact to kill off Spellskite or Thalia. Chalice for 0 also stops the Lotus Blooms from resolving. What about when we don't have Spellskite to protect and they don't have a Lotus ticking down? In that situation, setting Chalice for 1 is also a great play by keeping Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand, and the Angel's Graces from doing anything. To top it off, we get to cut out all of the dead creature removal and have all gas going into game 2s against this deck.
There's probably not much we can do about the Amulet deck except hope that Blood Moon hates the deck out. I plan on dodging it since it is such a small part of the metagame. I know I wouldn't play that deck at a major event...
Im not sold on not playing baneslayer. with the mana dorks you can easily go to 5 and most opponents, aside from combo, have a hard time if he connects. has thrun been so much better?
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Im not sold on not playing baneslayer. with the mana dorks you can easily go to 5 and most opponents, aside from combo, have a hard time if he connects. has thrun been so much better?
I play 2 baneslayers, 1 Linvala, 1 Thrun. I like that mix instead of 4 Baneslayers. Depending how the format goes I could see changing those 3 core creatures around with Sigarda as well.
I've been testing Thrun in place of Liege, and Rancor in place of Baneslayer. Thrun has been good, and I haven't entirely been missing Baneslayer, although I am not sure if Rancor is making a big enough impact. It's definitely good as far as the cmc goes. The biggest issue I have with Baneslayer is getting to 5 when I want to pop off my Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge and Horizon Canopy. I almost always want to use Ghost Quarter before I get to 5 mana, which is detrimental to casting Baneslayer.
I still really like Baneslayer though. It's big, it flies, it gains life, and it has first strike. Some decks lose if they can't answer it. Other decks don't really care. Control will usually have an answer, and tapping out to play it against combo can open you up to a game loss the following turn. It's one of those cards that is either really really good, or just kinda sits in your hand.
Well done on the tournament. I think the deck has legs (obviously).
Just a couple questions - which cards are you finding key?
From your tournament report Loxodon Smiter looks like the nuts. Is it the can't be countered clause? The body for it's CMC? Obviously both play a role, but the answer to this determines whether we should be adding things like Tarmogoyf or Thrun, the Last Troll to our lists.
Secondly, is Fauna Shaman not just a bad Birthing Pod? Pod allows you to abuse ETB, Persist, Undying etc while also making the creature uncounterable. Shaman allows you to avoid CMC issues.
Smiter is great at landing early and applying pressure despite discard, counterspells, and bolts. So I guess it's a really consistent threat in a way that Tarmogoyf isn't. However I think that Wilt-Leaf Liege is the key card in the deck. Smiter applies early pressure but Wilt-Leaf wins the game. If I manage to activate Fauna Shaman and don't need to find a specific hatebear then I will almost always search for a Wilt-Leaf Liege. The anthem effect is really powerful in fair matchups, turning Smiter into a 6/6 and spirit tokens into 2/2s, hatebears into legitimately sized beaters, and even letting Birds attack in the air.
I think Fauna Shaman avoiding CMC issues is a really big advantage over pod. I don't want to sacrifice a Smiter to find a Wilt-Leaf Liege, I want to have both a Smiter and a Liege, so I'd rather discard a mana dork to find the Liege. The biggest drawback of Shaman is that she dies to creature removal, which is way more prevalent than artifact removal. I don't think the fact that the creatures are counterable is much of a drawback because a deck running counterspells will probably also have removal to prevent you from activating Fauna Shaman in the first place. To your opponent Fauna Shaman basically reads "kill me immediately or you will really regret not doing so", and while most of the time they'll kill it, occasionally it's a source of crazy value.
Teeg is decent against roughly 40% of the field. He stops Splinter Twin, Sphinx's Revelation, Scapeshift, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, Supreme Verdict, Path to Exile, Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling, Cryptic Command, Hive Mind, Ad Nauseum and Gifts. All in all, he is not bad. Especially if these are cards you see in your meta. The biggest issue is that most of the decks that play these cards have ways to answer him.
Teeg is decent against roughly 40% of the field. He stops Splinter Twin, Sphinx's Revelation, Scapeshift, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, Supreme Verdict, Path to Exile, Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling, Cryptic Command, Hive Mind, Ad Nauseum and Gifts. All in all, he is not bad. Especially if these are cards you see in your meta. The biggest issue is that most of the decks that play these cards have ways to answer him.
This is why - for now, at least - he's out of my build. I love him but every deck that he does well against typically has a fairly standard main deck way of removing him. He's also not enough of a hate effect (to me, at least) to run more than 1. There was a build earlier in the thread that utilized Time of Need, allowing you to play him, Linvala, Thrun as a 1-of's yet essentially have multiple copies in the deck. Time of Need and Arbiters don't play all that great together but, like anything else, you can play around it since you know your deck.
Hatebear deck about to top 8 the cfb 5k, should be on twitch sometime soon.
do you know who's piloting?
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Un autre con brandit le drapeau de la nouvelle économie. Agitant sa criminelle thérapie, l'abruti prophá¨te s'en va guerrir le monde de ses maux ! Mais la misá¨re n'a que faire de cette médecine á dose homeopathétique, Il n'y a d'autre cure que l'ablation du liberal-fascisme qui nous ronge. - Amanda Woodward, Un Autre Con
Un autre con brandit le drapeau de la nouvelle économie. Agitant sa criminelle thérapie, l'abruti prophá¨te s'en va guerrir le monde de ses maux ! Mais la misá¨re n'a que faire de cette médecine á dose homeopathétique, Il n'y a d'autre cure que l'ablation du liberal-fascisme qui nous ronge. - Amanda Woodward, Un Autre Con
Yeah - I get that it doesn't change much, but the list exists a couple pages back so to reference what's going on requires scrolling. Not the end of the world if you don't, but just nice if it was there each time (and spoiler tags means it doesn't clog up the page).
Whatever happened to the Rancor tests?
Another possible 3cmc creature can be dauntless escort I suppose if you're worried about sweepers otherwise we're starting to scrap the bottom of the barrel looking for other options lol.
edit:
My experience with rancor has been underwhelming. We don't have lots of matchups which require us to get trample damage in besides tokens/faeries (neither are huge atm, but rancor is very good here). Rancor is also decent against the UWR twin, with their wall of omens and resto being surprisingly good stalls early. It is only semi-effective against soul sister depending on draws, because we're not getting through big pridemates, and they're not always looking to chump with lifegain creatures outside of maytr of sand.
I currently have use two swords a proW/R proW/B for these games because they both give me lifegain, which I feel is very relevant. I think being able to re-equip and rancor returning to hand is comparable, but as 1/2-of I would have to say a sword gets me a win more often. Perhaps Unflinching Courage may be a good alternative, although it lacks the recursion.
I'm pondering Kitchen Finks in that Voice spot.
Another card for consideration - Witchstalker, although it's late and I can't think of what it hits at the moment.
Chameleon Colossus: It isn't that good without any tribal synergy. Otherwise he is just a beater that caan easily get chump-blocked by any nonblack creature.
Loxodon Hierarch: I actually like this card more than Obstinate Baloth now that more sweepers and less Lilianas are being played.
Mirrorweave: Almost no one plays Phyrexian Obliterator...
Patrician's Scorn: It could work.
Restoration Angel: I would recommend this in Kitchen Finks and Blade Splicer lists, but it is better in Death and Taxes.
Retaliate: Usually blocking works better than this.
Reveillark: It's okay, but for 5 mana I would expect something a little stronger.
Reverence: This is interesting but Worship is almost always better than it.
Sigarda, Host of Herons: This is a good card. It might even be better than Baneslayer Angel.
Springjack Sheapherd: Bunches of chump-blockers is not better than more Worships.
Thragtusk: For the most part, I'd say that Kitchen Finks is better than this.
Timbermare: If you need to hit people to the face, play more fliers.
Wall of Reverence: Once again, Worship is better than lifegain.
I'd say that our main choices of 4-5 drops are
Batterskull
Sublime Archangel
Sigarda, Host of Herons
Baneslayer Angel
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Elspeth, Knight Errant
Thrun, the Last Troll
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
My list:
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Gavony Township
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
1 Plains
2 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
3 Horizon Canopy
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Baneslayer Angel
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
2 Stony Silence
2 Dismember
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Celestial Flare
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Celestial Purge
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Orzhov Pontiff
I haven't actually done much testing so this isn't an optimized list or anything. The sideboard in particular hasn't had that much thought into it beyond Fauna Shaman + silver bullet singleton hatebears = good.
The games!
Round 1 vs. Gifts
Game 1: I got a Loxodon Smiter out early and started bashing away. He couldn't do much to stop it, and a gifts for Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn wiped all my critters other than Smiter but I had a path to clear Smiter's way to attack more.
Game 2: This was a longer, grindier game. He managed to board wipe two times I think, but couldn't mount much pressure in between before I could rebuild my board state.
1-0
Round 2 vs. UWR control
Game 1: This started with the typical me trying to play creatures and him trying to stop me. I got a Smiter out and added a Wilt-Leaf after he tapped out to cast Stormbreath Dragon. He also had a Sword of Fire and Ice that he threw on the Path-proof dragon. I swung for the win with these guys and a Birds (that I think had 2 power, so I must have activated Gavony), but punted by not pathing his snapcaster before blocks, and I lost to the sword wielding dragon.
Game 2: I think this was more of the same, except no dragon from him. I think I eventually closed with a Baneslayer.
At this point time was called as we were drawing our initial hands for game 3. Neither of us was gonna win by turn 3 so we drew.
1-0-1
Round 3 vs. UWR midrange
Game 1: He applies lots of pressure with Vendillion Clique while my ground creatures stop Geist from attacking. Eventually he swings with both and cryptics to tap my dudes, but I pathed the angel token to stay at 1 life (6 before the attack) and I killed him on the swing back with Wilt-Leaf Liege and Stirring Wildwood.
Game 2: He succeeded at denying me creatures early and then resolved a batterskull, and I couldn't do anything.
Game 3: I got quite lucky and cast 3 Loxodon Smiters in consecutive turns early on (not sure if it was 2-3-4 or 3-4-5). He had paths for the first two but not the third, and those two lands of ramp helped me start vomiting Lingering Souls and big creatures like a Baneslayer. I was able to win through the air.
My opponent afterwards told me that his deck was supposed to have two Supreme Verdicts in the side but he had forgotten to put them back in after using them for standard, so I got quite lucky there.
2-0-1
Round 4 vs. Big Zoo
Game 1: He mulligans to 5, concedes without casting any spells after seeing my turn 2 Smiter and turn 3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
Game 2: I wasn't sure what deck he was on (although I should have known, his R2 game was near mine) so I sideboarded for melira pod. I was wrong, and he got off to an aggressive start. I managed to stabilize the board state at 4 life with multiple Wilt-Leaf Lieges, but he top-decked a Sejiri Steppe to let a creature sneak through to finish me.
Game 3: He had a solid start with turn 2 BTE->BTE->goyf. However I got a Smiter out earlyish and a Scavenging ooze that stopped the goyf from getting too large. I managed to build up a solid board state with Lingering Souls and Wilt-Leaf Liege and was able to deal a lot of damage in the air while holding off his dudes on the ground.
3-0-1
Round 5 vs Dega
This deck was Bob, Brimaz, Lingering Souls, Sorin, Lilliana, Ajani, Chandra, and lots of discard and removal.
Game 1: He mulligans to 5, removes my first few creatures but soon just can't keep up and I beat down.
Game 2: After he bolted all my dorks I got stuck on 2 land for a while and then 3, just couldn't do much and lost.
Game 3: I was doing a bit better but he managed to make lots of tokens with Lingering Souls and Sorin and then made Sorin emblems to win.
3-1-1
Round 6 vs. Ad Nauseum / Phyrexian Unlife
Game 1: I get out a turn 2 Thalia, turn 3 Fauna Shaman, turn 4 search up and cast Gaddock Teeg, he can't deal with the hate and I bash in. He got Phyrexian Unlife out but it only saved him for one turn. I think I topdecked a wilt-leaf which helped the hatebears close quickly.
Game 2: Very similar story, turn 2 Thalia, turn 3 Fauna Shaman, turn 4 Gaddock Teeg, turn 5 Spellskite, turn 6 Ethersworn Canonist, he can't deal with it.
4-1-1
And I made it to top 8!
Top 8:
Quarterfinals vs. Dega
Same deck as round 5.
Game 1: This game was incredibly long and grindy, and a deck check before resulted in two of the other quarterfinals matches finishing before we finished game 1. We both built up board states with lots of creatures and tokens and then slowly battled for turns and turns. At the end he had Sorin, Lilliana, AND Ajani Vengeant, and a Vault of the Archangel that let his spirits, vampires, and cats trade with all of my stuff. Baneslayer was my only out but he was able to keep it tapped down with Ajani. He eventually ultimated Sorin and won.
Game 2: He used lots of removal on my early creatures, and later when I cast Wilt-Leaf Lieges two turns in a row he was out of terminates and paths and couldn't deal with two 6/6s.
Game 3: We exchanged creatures and removal until we were both in topdeck mode. I had two spirit tokens and he had a Lavaclaw Reaches, and we traded 2-3 life attacks for a while until I drew a Wilt-Leaf that buffed my spirits enough to win the game after 3 more attacks.
Our match attracted a decent crowd, I think both because our match went long (would absolutely gone over time if the top 8 wasn't untimed) and it was an interesting pair of decks. The rest of the top 8 was more traditional stuff like Melira Pod, UWR control, Storm, and Kiki Pod.
It was late and the prizes divided nicely so we split the top 4.
Overall I was really happy with how the tournament went. I've been playing this deck in a lot of smaller modern tournaments at my LGS and have been having a pretty decent win rate, but it was great to also be successful at a bigger more serious tournament. Although I think I was at least not unlucky with my match-ups.
Just a couple questions - which cards are you finding key?
From your tournament report Loxodon Smiter looks like the nuts. Is it the can't be countered clause? The body for it's CMC? Obviously both play a role, but the answer to this determines whether we should be adding things like Tarmogoyf or Thrun, the Last Troll to our lists.
Secondly, is Fauna Shaman not just a bad Birthing Pod? Pod allows you to abuse ETB, Persist, Undying etc while also making the creature uncounterable. Shaman allows you to avoid CMC issues.
I have a short report for tonight. I tested against 2 combo decks in 10-game sets: Amulet/Hive Mind andAd Nauseum/Angel's Grace. The Amulet deck wins by using some mana ramp to either resolve a Hive Mind and play Pacts that you can't pay for, or search out Inkmoth Nexus and Wolf Run to make it or Primeval Tital lethal. The Ad Nauseum combo draws its deck with the namesake card and then casts a Lethal Lightning Storm at our faces.
The Amulet match was bad for us, but the Ad Nauseum match was the most lopsided match of Magic I've played in a long time... and its in our favor!
Against Amulet, I won only 1 out of 4 games before boarding, and only 3 out of 6 after sideboards were added. I brought in Torpor Orb, Chalice, Seal of Primordium, and Worship.
The thing about Amulet combo is that its combos ignore most of our dedicated combo hate. Most other combos can't really deal with a Worship, but Hive Mind doesn't care about that card. Inkmoth Nexus doesn't care about that card either. Chalice of The Void is OK at 2 mana to shut off the Pyroclasms and Summer Blooms, but is useless when set at 0 because Hive Mind puts our copy of the Pacts directly on the stack (they're never "cast" so Chalice triggers for their Pact but not ours.)
The search hate and Thalia are honestly the best cards we can have here. Thalia slows down the Summer Bloom draws by a turn, and the search hate can severely hamper a Primeval Titan if it is from Aven Mindcensor. Leonin Arbiter's hate can eventually be paid for.
Going from a poor match to something completely different, Ad Nauseum is now officially my best match up, at least according to the number of wins vs. losses in testing. GW won all 4 pre board games, and won 5 out of 6 games after sideboarding. Why? Thalia is pretty sick here, forcing the basic Ad Nauseum + Angel's Grace combo to cost "8". Qasali Pridemage is sick here, popping a Lotus Bloom on upkeep and forcing it to be used at inopportune times. Spellskite actually counts as "hard" hate for this deck! Lightning Storm has one target and get "charged" with lands when this combo goes off. Spellskite makes sure all that damage goes to it instead of our face.
The match is even more insane after boarding. Ad Nauseum has Echoing Truth and more creature removal, but we get access to Chalice for 0. We Chalice, and now Ad Nauseum can't use Slaughter Pact to kill off Spellskite or Thalia. Chalice for 0 also stops the Lotus Blooms from resolving. What about when we don't have Spellskite to protect and they don't have a Lotus ticking down? In that situation, setting Chalice for 1 is also a great play by keeping Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand, and the Angel's Graces from doing anything. To top it off, we get to cut out all of the dead creature removal and have all gas going into game 2s against this deck.
There's probably not much we can do about the Amulet deck except hope that Blood Moon hates the deck out. I plan on dodging it since it is such a small part of the metagame. I know I wouldn't play that deck at a major event...
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path to Exile
2 Worship
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Choke
2 Torpor Orb
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Rest in Peace
~ Brian DeMars
I play 2 baneslayers, 1 Linvala, 1 Thrun. I like that mix instead of 4 Baneslayers. Depending how the format goes I could see changing those 3 core creatures around with Sigarda as well.
I still really like Baneslayer though. It's big, it flies, it gains life, and it has first strike. Some decks lose if they can't answer it. Other decks don't really care. Control will usually have an answer, and tapping out to play it against combo can open you up to a game loss the following turn. It's one of those cards that is either really really good, or just kinda sits in your hand.
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
Smiter is great at landing early and applying pressure despite discard, counterspells, and bolts. So I guess it's a really consistent threat in a way that Tarmogoyf isn't. However I think that Wilt-Leaf Liege is the key card in the deck. Smiter applies early pressure but Wilt-Leaf wins the game. If I manage to activate Fauna Shaman and don't need to find a specific hatebear then I will almost always search for a Wilt-Leaf Liege. The anthem effect is really powerful in fair matchups, turning Smiter into a 6/6 and spirit tokens into 2/2s, hatebears into legitimately sized beaters, and even letting Birds attack in the air.
I think Fauna Shaman avoiding CMC issues is a really big advantage over pod. I don't want to sacrifice a Smiter to find a Wilt-Leaf Liege, I want to have both a Smiter and a Liege, so I'd rather discard a mana dork to find the Liege. The biggest drawback of Shaman is that she dies to creature removal, which is way more prevalent than artifact removal. I don't think the fact that the creatures are counterable is much of a drawback because a deck running counterspells will probably also have removal to prevent you from activating Fauna Shaman in the first place. To your opponent Fauna Shaman basically reads "kill me immediately or you will really regret not doing so", and while most of the time they'll kill it, occasionally it's a source of crazy value.
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This is why - for now, at least - he's out of my build. I love him but every deck that he does well against typically has a fairly standard main deck way of removing him. He's also not enough of a hate effect (to me, at least) to run more than 1. There was a build earlier in the thread that utilized Time of Need, allowing you to play him, Linvala, Thrun as a 1-of's yet essentially have multiple copies in the deck. Time of Need and Arbiters don't play all that great together but, like anything else, you can play around it since you know your deck.
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do you know who's piloting?
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
it's at the top.