Got my Vials a week-ish ago, already had Hierarch and Caverns from a previous jaunt with Bant Eldrazi, and I also own a couple Horizon Canopy. I have Bobs from my long love affair with black midrange, and I agree they seem right in this deck. Thalias, Mages, and Ziggurats set me back a little but the rest of the deck is pretty affordable, which was great.
While I wait for the last few cards to come in I've been playing on cockatrice a lot. It's getting pretty laggy it seems, but Humans has been doing very well for me there. Looking forward to beating some friends face-to-face on Friday, I hope. Really appreciate this thread for tips and ideas.
Speaking of which, do we play Lieutenant early or late? Pump the team, or have the team pump her?
Bob brings the threat of card advantage, but as a creature in a removal heavy match up it's rare he will live to be able to generate his advantage as he has little protection. However there are other ways to get card advantage without being open to removal.
In short, having access to G mana in the early turns is difficult with the Vial version, and Coco probably wants a creature in that slot, like Eternal freakin Witness. Both versions want a creature, but for different reasons. That alone dismisses Sanctuary imho.
Now the MUs where you face a ton of 141 removal spells, Bob is a card you can slowroll, you'll play your other 2-drops before (Lieut, Med unless it's entirely SB'ed out, Freebooter, Thalia, even Mayor according to the game state). If you have an enchantment instead, you have one less creature so the spot removals are as strong because some of these decks kill our guys without targeting (Lili, Verdict).
The card is decent but our creatures are expendables, Bob included, and the Vial manabase is a concern. It's way better in decks where your creature need to survive, like Infect where they combine it with Spellskite and other protection spells. Even Stompy might be more interested in that card than us.
in the matches with significant amounts of removal, such as GDS, BGx, and UWx control. Burn is another one
GDS is favorable to us. The case of Burn is interesting, but once again, mana issues make the spell hard to cast on T1. Better have creatures that can be vialed in (play around Eidolon and timings) and that gain you life, if ever Burn prey on us.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
Now that we are a top tier deck, people will try to adapt their decks to it.
I'm curious what you all think how people will try to do this. After that, we can look into ways to counter those attempts.
First off, Our Freebooter/Meddling Mage/Thalia package allready feels great as a countermeasure. I see Xathrid Necromancer as the best way to deal with sweepers and I feel War Priest of Thune would be good against Stony Silence/Solemnity.
That obviously depends on the situation, but I think in most cases the advantages of pumping the team are obvious
I think we can elaborate here. In many cases, Lieut is a 2-cmc Champ, and you want to run it first so it grows more and is a legit target for a removal spell, and above all a better threat on its own.
It's really important not to pump creatures that will be primary targets for removal (mostly in creature-light MUs).
For example against Living End or Storm, it's important to cast Med, Thalia or FreeB as soon as possible but you know it's the creature that will be targeted by removal (post-SB for the most part), while Lieut will virtually be a hexproof creature, since the opponent doesn't care about it in the first place. Casting Lieut first should help increase the clock by 3 damage over the course of the game. On the play I would play Lieut, on the draw, probably the interactive creature instead.
In creature MUs like Affinity or Coco decks, you want Lieut first in the room, because once again, Med will be the target of their removal spells. Another thing here is that even with a +1/+1 counter, you'll probably not attack with interactive creatures because they'd face blockers and trade. Of course, here it depends whether those interactive creatures become relevant in combat, but if not, better play them after Lieut.
VS Bogles or DS, it's interesting to turn Lieut into a big dumb guy as well, and some cards like Mayor of Avabruck will never attack even with a counter or 2 on them. Thalia is the one creature that is priority over Lieut here.
VS GBx, I would never slowroll a Lieut because I want it to be a removal magnet at some point, while keeping Med, Thalia or FreeB on the board, making my opp's resources harder to manage. Mantis Rider doesn't need to be pumped for example, so you need a very specific sequence or a good reason to turn it into a 4/4.
I'm standing at the opposite side here, not because it's always right (obv some of what you said is entirely true), but because I see too many misplays with this deck, where players assume Lieut is better when it pumps a team without any further consideration, while Lieut is more often a Champion of the Parish with upside rather than a Lord with upside. In the early stage of a game, a Turn 2 Lieut may be the hardest play to make with the deck.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
This is the dialogue I hoped to start by asking the question about Lieutenant sequencing. Thanks for your replies, m-witte and headminerve. Hoping to hear other pilots' perspectives as well.
Headminerve summed it up pretty well. It really just takes some time to get used to how to play Lieutenant in each matchup. It really comes down to two questions/choices:
1) Do we want to go wide or go big?
2) Is there a specific threat that we want our opponent to either prioritize or de-prioritize?
If you want to go wide, you play Lieutenant late. If you want to go big, you play Lieutenant early. If you want to de-prioritize another creature, you want to play Lieutenant early to get it big. And vice versa for prioritizing another threat.
Also, awesome to see this thread make it into the Tier 1 forum. It's been a fun ride, fellas!
While Bob gets removed often, does he get picked over other threats that are also in play? In a vacuum our opponent would use their removal on whatever threat happens to be there. So the question is while Bob is a threat is he more threatening than our other pieces?
For example say you're playing abzan and you have one path in hand, a 2/3 goyf in play, and are at 7 life. Your opponent has a mantis rider, Bob, and no cards in hand. Which one do you path?
The Bob may draw a noble or a Lord to help accelerate the clock, but right now the mantis rider will kill you in 3 turns. Giving you only two more turns to draw an answer if you path Bob. Leaving Bob alone also doesn't guarantee that they will draw another threat before you can stabilize.
Another problem with Bob is that he dies to every type of removal in the format (with the caveat of color specific removal). He even dies to Liliana the last Hope's +1. Most of our other threats can potentially get past some form of removal. Champ, and lieu can out grow bolt and electrolyze, mantis can't be hit by push without revolt, mirrian crusader dodges a lot of things, meddling Mage and kitesail have proactive disruption. So vulnerability could also be a contributing factor to why he might not live to get his full usefulness.
One last point is that he's just plain slow. Yes you can flash him in at your opponents end step, but he still only gets you a single card per turn cycle max. Compared to the other examples that m_witte has provided that can potentially get more cards in a turn. I don't particularly like grim haruspex for the same reason I don't like xathrid necromancer, but they do share a similar advantage in that they can have big payoffs.
Mentor however is actually really interesting. I wasn't a big fan at first but while thinking about this post I've actually really taken a shine to the card, especially in these grindy matchups. In longer games you tend to end up with a decent amount of Mana lying around. Most of our top decks will be around 2-3 cost so being able to afford the draw tax shouldn't be too difficult. And as m_witte pointed out it plays very well with vials. It also makes them less of a dead draw. Since you can not only vial in to save Mana, but you can also get instant speed draw. The potential to chain multiple draws and/or drawing cards the turn it comes down, to me at least, makes this more appealing than Bob. The cost of mentor should also matter less, especially if we were already planning to slow roll Bob. I might actually try a few of these and see how it goes.
I still like shapers sanctuary, but I will concede that reworking the Mana base to get it in, is more trouble than it's worth.
Well, I owned four Bobs before I bought into Humans, so it was easy for me, but it's true that he don't come cheap. The card advantage seems really important though. Mentor could be good, but it is a nonbo with a lot of our creatures if Mayor is in play. On a related note, I've been thinking about going back to a playset of Mayors in the main (currently run 3) since the pump, even if temporary, seems like a main wincon in many matches.
Hanweir Garrison seems like it could be pretty good, tempted to try it in the big Thalia slot. It would be an absolute house with Lieutenant in play.
How bad do we need Seachrome Coast? Could one or both become Mutavaults? I guess we probably need the blue source, but a manland would be very good.
I almost always want to go big with Lieutenants to take them out of bolt/anger range, to make them bigger than goyfs, etc. There are exceptions to this but it all depends on the matchup, the context, and so on. I very infrequently end up intentionally putting counters on my Mayors of Avabruck.
Hanweir Garrison has been pretty mediocre for me. He gets blocked and doesn't have haste.
Dark Confidant doesn't just come in versus the attrition matchups, he also is just fine versus a lot of other decks, like Eldrazi Tron, Company, Smallpox, etc. I really don't understand the Mentor of the Meek > Dark Confidant argument, if anyone is making that. They both die to everything (listen, we're Humans, we die to everything regardless), but one requires you to (1) have another creature in hand and (2) to pay mana to activate. Mentor of the Meek doesn't even trigger off of Mantis Riders or your other 2-power creatures if you have a Mayor in play. He also lends himself to a bad play pattern where you want to run him out before your other threats (which exposes him to a higher likelihood of removal). I'm happy for ya'll if Mentor is working for you, but I'll stick with Dark Confidant.
In other news, just got back from the Invitational. My 75 went 24-9 on the weekend. I went 3-1 in the Invitational (yea I'm bad at Standard), my friend Jake went 5-2 in the Modern Classic (having never played the deck), and my friend James O'Shaughnessy went 7-1 in the Invitational, ending up 9th overall, missing top 8 on breakers. I also went 9-6 in the Modern Open, after finishing day 1 in 7th at 7-2 (it was a small open).
I have a lot of thoughts on the deck, heard about some people trying new things. I'll write up a report later today.
Mutavault is a good way to push the limits of the manabase. Worth a try and then see how many mulligans you get because of them.
I'd play Lyev Skyknight before adding Garrison to the mix. An interactive flyer will offer more than a non-interactive grounder imo. I had excellent results with both for in very different MUs. Garrison is great when you're already ahead or on an empty board, while Lyev helps you race through a stall board and have situational tempo utilities VS mostly artifacts and PWs.
Bob is probably better than the other options for another reason that's not mentionned enough imho : the mana cost. It's very easy to fill the SB with 3-drops, less so to find 2-drops that shine. It's one of the 3 reasons why Freebooter is better than Collector.
I have tried out Bob in a variety of Humans lists in the past and he consistently adheres to the "better on paper than in practice" idea. Without built in lifegain and/or a super low curve (lower than what most lists are running right now), he's too slow and will kill you more often than he kills the opponent. Humans decks almost always want to be proactive; sitting back on a painful card advantage engine goes against what the rest of the deck is trying to accomplish. He suffers from the same issue that Mayor of Avabruck does, in the fact that you hardly ever want to attack with him, but unlike Mayor, he offers no aggression potential. For those wanting card advantage, there's always Collected Company
tl;dr: on the weekend, we really beat up on the Company decks, Storm, Eldrazi Tron. Had some close games versus Affinity and Dredge. We went 0-3 versus Titanshift, 0-2 versus Lantern, and 0-3 versus Jeskai.
So funny story about being killed by your own Bob. Had my modern fnm last night, and I did actually manage to die from my own Bob. The game was very atypical though. I ended up with a truly outrageous board state but was blocked due to being hit by cryptic command for six straight turns in a row. I had an 8/8 lieutenant at the end and Bob himself was a 6/5.
But anyways I wanted to discuss a different card. I know Daxos of Meletis is in the first post, but I wanted to restart the discussion on him. He seems pretty relevant to a lot of our needs:
*Extra cards
*Life gain to offset both Bob and horizons
*Gets under big creatures such as goyfs, eldrazi, rhinos, etc
*Removes opponents potential draws
*Can possibly net us removal/reach spells we lack
As well as the fact that we can utilize all of our lands to cast the exiled card. Even ziggurat can be used if it's a creature.
He does have some short comings though. He doesn't have any immediate impact the turn he comes down. Can still get chumped by Mana dorks and the like. He's also a three cost and might have trouble fitting in without taking another three drop out.
Any thoughts on rogue refiner? Decent body + ETB card draw means it provides immediate value.
I prefer my three drops to impact the board immediately. I'd want a card like this in Jeskai matchups, but the fact that it gets blocked by Snapcaster Mage is pretty bad. That said, give it a shot and let us know!
Got my Vials a week-ish ago, already had Hierarch and Caverns from a previous jaunt with Bant Eldrazi, and I also own a couple Horizon Canopy. I have Bobs from my long love affair with black midrange, and I agree they seem right in this deck. Thalias, Mages, and Ziggurats set me back a little but the rest of the deck is pretty affordable, which was great.
While I wait for the last few cards to come in I've been playing on cockatrice a lot. It's getting pretty laggy it seems, but Humans has been doing very well for me there. Looking forward to beating some friends face-to-face on Friday, I hope. Really appreciate this thread for tips and ideas.
Speaking of which, do we play Lieutenant early or late? Pump the team, or have the team pump her?
I've revamped my deck and proxied some vials up. Plays out great! Placed my order for a playset today, so i'm officially on the vial list.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
In short, having access to G mana in the early turns is difficult with the Vial version, and Coco probably wants a creature in that slot, like Eternal freakin Witness. Both versions want a creature, but for different reasons. That alone dismisses Sanctuary imho.
Now the MUs where you face a ton of 141 removal spells, Bob is a card you can slowroll, you'll play your other 2-drops before (Lieut, Med unless it's entirely SB'ed out, Freebooter, Thalia, even Mayor according to the game state). If you have an enchantment instead, you have one less creature so the spot removals are as strong because some of these decks kill our guys without targeting (Lili, Verdict).
The card is decent but our creatures are expendables, Bob included, and the Vial manabase is a concern. It's way better in decks where your creature need to survive, like Infect where they combine it with Spellskite and other protection spells. Even Stompy might be more interested in that card than us.
GDS is favorable to us. The case of Burn is interesting, but once again, mana issues make the spell hard to cast on T1. Better have creatures that can be vialed in (play around Eidolon and timings) and that gain you life, if ever Burn prey on us.
I'm curious what you all think how people will try to do this. After that, we can look into ways to counter those attempts.
First off, Our Freebooter/Meddling Mage/Thalia package allready feels great as a countermeasure. I see Xathrid Necromancer as the best way to deal with sweepers and I feel War Priest of Thune would be good against Stony Silence/Solemnity.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
He did say he thinks 4 Canopies are good though
It makes me wonder what this deck will do, it can't really adjust to midrange and control decks cropping up and playing boardwipes.
You could play Sin Collector to snag the card completely
I think we can elaborate here. In many cases, Lieut is a 2-cmc Champ, and you want to run it first so it grows more and is a legit target for a removal spell, and above all a better threat on its own.
It's really important not to pump creatures that will be primary targets for removal (mostly in creature-light MUs).
For example against Living End or Storm, it's important to cast Med, Thalia or FreeB as soon as possible but you know it's the creature that will be targeted by removal (post-SB for the most part), while Lieut will virtually be a hexproof creature, since the opponent doesn't care about it in the first place. Casting Lieut first should help increase the clock by 3 damage over the course of the game. On the play I would play Lieut, on the draw, probably the interactive creature instead.
In creature MUs like Affinity or Coco decks, you want Lieut first in the room, because once again, Med will be the target of their removal spells. Another thing here is that even with a +1/+1 counter, you'll probably not attack with interactive creatures because they'd face blockers and trade. Of course, here it depends whether those interactive creatures become relevant in combat, but if not, better play them after Lieut.
VS Bogles or DS, it's interesting to turn Lieut into a big dumb guy as well, and some cards like Mayor of Avabruck will never attack even with a counter or 2 on them. Thalia is the one creature that is priority over Lieut here.
VS GBx, I would never slowroll a Lieut because I want it to be a removal magnet at some point, while keeping Med, Thalia or FreeB on the board, making my opp's resources harder to manage. Mantis Rider doesn't need to be pumped for example, so you need a very specific sequence or a good reason to turn it into a 4/4.
I'm standing at the opposite side here, not because it's always right (obv some of what you said is entirely true), but because I see too many misplays with this deck, where players assume Lieut is better when it pumps a team without any further consideration, while Lieut is more often a Champion of the Parish with upside rather than a Lord with upside. In the early stage of a game, a Turn 2 Lieut may be the hardest play to make with the deck.
1) Do we want to go wide or go big?
2) Is there a specific threat that we want our opponent to either prioritize or de-prioritize?
If you want to go wide, you play Lieutenant late. If you want to go big, you play Lieutenant early. If you want to de-prioritize another creature, you want to play Lieutenant early to get it big. And vice versa for prioritizing another threat.
Also, awesome to see this thread make it into the Tier 1 forum. It's been a fun ride, fellas!
For example say you're playing abzan and you have one path in hand, a 2/3 goyf in play, and are at 7 life. Your opponent has a mantis rider, Bob, and no cards in hand. Which one do you path?
The Bob may draw a noble or a Lord to help accelerate the clock, but right now the mantis rider will kill you in 3 turns. Giving you only two more turns to draw an answer if you path Bob. Leaving Bob alone also doesn't guarantee that they will draw another threat before you can stabilize.
Another problem with Bob is that he dies to every type of removal in the format (with the caveat of color specific removal). He even dies to Liliana the last Hope's +1. Most of our other threats can potentially get past some form of removal. Champ, and lieu can out grow bolt and electrolyze, mantis can't be hit by push without revolt, mirrian crusader dodges a lot of things, meddling Mage and kitesail have proactive disruption. So vulnerability could also be a contributing factor to why he might not live to get his full usefulness.
One last point is that he's just plain slow. Yes you can flash him in at your opponents end step, but he still only gets you a single card per turn cycle max. Compared to the other examples that m_witte has provided that can potentially get more cards in a turn. I don't particularly like grim haruspex for the same reason I don't like xathrid necromancer, but they do share a similar advantage in that they can have big payoffs.
Mentor however is actually really interesting. I wasn't a big fan at first but while thinking about this post I've actually really taken a shine to the card, especially in these grindy matchups. In longer games you tend to end up with a decent amount of Mana lying around. Most of our top decks will be around 2-3 cost so being able to afford the draw tax shouldn't be too difficult. And as m_witte pointed out it plays very well with vials. It also makes them less of a dead draw. Since you can not only vial in to save Mana, but you can also get instant speed draw. The potential to chain multiple draws and/or drawing cards the turn it comes down, to me at least, makes this more appealing than Bob. The cost of mentor should also matter less, especially if we were already planning to slow roll Bob. I might actually try a few of these and see how it goes.
I still like shapers sanctuary, but I will concede that reworking the Mana base to get it in, is more trouble than it's worth.
Also woo! For getting to tier 1!
Hanweir Garrison seems like it could be pretty good, tempted to try it in the big Thalia slot. It would be an absolute house with Lieutenant in play.
How bad do we need Seachrome Coast? Could one or both become Mutavaults? I guess we probably need the blue source, but a manland would be very good.
Hanweir Garrison has been pretty mediocre for me. He gets blocked and doesn't have haste.
Dark Confidant doesn't just come in versus the attrition matchups, he also is just fine versus a lot of other decks, like Eldrazi Tron, Company, Smallpox, etc. I really don't understand the Mentor of the Meek > Dark Confidant argument, if anyone is making that. They both die to everything (listen, we're Humans, we die to everything regardless), but one requires you to (1) have another creature in hand and (2) to pay mana to activate. Mentor of the Meek doesn't even trigger off of Mantis Riders or your other 2-power creatures if you have a Mayor in play. He also lends himself to a bad play pattern where you want to run him out before your other threats (which exposes him to a higher likelihood of removal). I'm happy for ya'll if Mentor is working for you, but I'll stick with Dark Confidant.
In other news, just got back from the Invitational. My 75 went 24-9 on the weekend. I went 3-1 in the Invitational (yea I'm bad at Standard), my friend Jake went 5-2 in the Modern Classic (having never played the deck), and my friend James O'Shaughnessy went 7-1 in the Invitational, ending up 9th overall, missing top 8 on breakers. I also went 9-6 in the Modern Open, after finishing day 1 in 7th at 7-2 (it was a small open).
I have a lot of thoughts on the deck, heard about some people trying new things. I'll write up a report later today.
I'd play Lyev Skyknight before adding Garrison to the mix. An interactive flyer will offer more than a non-interactive grounder imo. I had excellent results with both for in very different MUs. Garrison is great when you're already ahead or on an empty board, while Lyev helps you race through a stall board and have situational tempo utilities VS mostly artifacts and PWs.
Bob is probably better than the other options for another reason that's not mentionned enough imho : the mana cost. It's very easy to fill the SB with 3-drops, less so to find 2-drops that shine. It's one of the 3 reasons why Freebooter is better than Collector.
http://www.mattling.com/2017/12/scg-invitational-weekend.html
tl;dr: on the weekend, we really beat up on the Company decks, Storm, Eldrazi Tron. Had some close games versus Affinity and Dredge. We went 0-3 versus Titanshift, 0-2 versus Lantern, and 0-3 versus Jeskai.
But anyways I wanted to discuss a different card. I know Daxos of Meletis is in the first post, but I wanted to restart the discussion on him. He seems pretty relevant to a lot of our needs:
*Extra cards
*Life gain to offset both Bob and horizons
*Gets under big creatures such as goyfs, eldrazi, rhinos, etc
*Removes opponents potential draws
*Can possibly net us removal/reach spells we lack
As well as the fact that we can utilize all of our lands to cast the exiled card. Even ziggurat can be used if it's a creature.
He does have some short comings though. He doesn't have any immediate impact the turn he comes down. Can still get chumped by Mana dorks and the like. He's also a three cost and might have trouble fitting in without taking another three drop out.
I prefer my three drops to impact the board immediately. I'd want a card like this in Jeskai matchups, but the fact that it gets blocked by Snapcaster Mage is pretty bad. That said, give it a shot and let us know!