and even then I mostly stared down on Mutant's Prey that were in my hand without legal targets on the board. But if you had any success with that card, I'd love to hear.
I gotta admit, that Moon-Stompy design looks pretty appealing. Bolt and Moon are some of the best interaction out there, and Bolt gives reach. Only thing I'm not really crazy about is the multiple basic Mountains plus Geist and other G-only effects, and I'm not sure that Dismember or Thundermaw is ideal (I always lean towards Stormbreath for removal-resistance/immunity, but Thundermaw makes sense if you're mostly removing tokens).
A question to people who have experience playing against the BR Hollow one decks. How do you deal with them Game 1, and what do you bring in from the sideboard for Game 2? They can be surprisingly fast.. what usually kills me are their fast hands that produce two Hollow One + a certain number of phoenix right away. I usually rely on Strangleroot Geist as a blocker to survive the early assault, then use Baloth to outclass their 4/4's.. but it's still tough. Do others here have a good strategy for dealing with that deck? Thanks.
Trying to deploy Geist as a blocker is a good idea. What I try to do in priority order is
1- Keep up dismember on turn 1
2- play militant on t1 to prevent faithless looting flashbacks
3- play experiment one on turn 1 if you can grow it to a 3/3 on turn 2
However, the most important is to untap with a Scooze at latest on turn 4, or on turn 5 if you have enough chump blockers. if you have one in hand do chump in early turns with whatever you can and then play the Scooze.
Ok, thanks for the tips. Not very many Hollow One decks yet in my meta, but if they increase in number.. I'm putting back the Dismembers in the main. And so Dryad is also important in this one, guess I won't side her out.
About your build.. why so many Dromoka's command in the main. Against what decks do you use them for?
And I hope there are not many Ponza decks in your meta. With only 3 forest in the main, your deck folds easily to Blood Moon.
Anyway, I do agree that Hollow One is the faster deck. Ooze are valuable in getting rid of any phoenix they dumped into their yard with discard. I also side in one Deglamer, to serve as extra removal for the Hollow One - Hollow One is the only artifact in their deck, but shows up often enough that Deglamer almost always has a target.
One thing I noticed is most Hollow One decks have little or no removal. Angler is the only thing bigger than our baloth, and they don't always have it.
Just found two cards that I hadn't heard of before, both of which are hardly/not mentioned at all in either thread, and both of which seem to have pretty amazing synergy with our deck as well as with each other. Might be worth running 1x of each in side against grindy control matchups and frankly any other decks that tax us, counter us, remove our creatures, or drag the game out past turn 5.
Our deck could use just a touch of tech I think. For those of you who don't run a tech slot mainboard, I really must insist you try it. When you don't need it, its still a very nice to have, and when you do, you are very, very glad you have it. I can't tell you how many times Bow has helped be stabilize against burn, and these two are the same CMC as bow with equally as powerful effects.
Rhonas's Monument - I currently mainboard a bow of Nylea, and this might be taking the slot. We already run a low curve, but Monument maximizes the benefits of that curve, leaving open mana for pump/hex/Treetop/spell pierce, getting in two creatures where we would have only had enough for one, or even getting in 1 drops for free. Plus, the added pump and trample is just really, really great.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary - This one was actually in one of the pro lists from last year, and the more I look at it, the more I like it. Its a ton of value packed into one card, just like Bow and Monument. The first half of the card gives us the power of selective topdecking, and the second half gives us the ability to draw anytime we play a creature. Considering over a third of our deck is cheap creatures, Bestiary suddenly becomes very, very relevant, and especially for grindy matchups where we tend to lose gas. Seems to be better than Shapers' Sanctuary, and certainly better than Evolutionary Leap: its proactive. Also, it works against removal and counterspells equally, in that we still get the card if the creature is countered.
I know finding room for both of these, and even then, the chances of getting them both out is pretty unlikely, but I'll be testing out these two alongside Bow as a 1x in my 75 for a good while.
I also do not run Narnam Renegades but I fell in love with Wasteland Viper. Versus the Hollow One decks you can just deploy them as blockers for their Hollow Ones, and against other decks they are pseudo removal or really annoying threats if combined with Rancor.
The important thing when playing against Hollow One is to acknowledge that they are most of the time the faster deck. Therefore the only thing we need to do is to play the defensive game until our creatures get bigger than theirs. (Our three drops)
As For the Phoenix as they are only 2/2 you can take some hits from them. So I usually wait until I can play an Avatar of the Resolute with at least one counter on it. Then we can block them with reach without loosing our creature.
Also any of our creatures equipped with Rancor can trade a Hollow One 1 for 1.
Forgot to say... I like your idea of an avatar with a counter for blocking the phoenix that Hollow One decks use.
Speaking of our strong 3 drops..how many 3 drops would you keep in the main once the new 5/4 elf is available? I'm on 22 land, and plan to have 4 elf and 1 baloth in the main.
I'm going to be on at least a 3/3 mix of Baloth and Champion. This should give enough density of heavy hitters, while mitigating the risk posed by Meddling Mage.
@The Fluff: How many 1 drops are you playing? I'm running 3 playsets of 1 drops with 8 fetches and I'm running only 2 Leatherback Baloths, so I'm planning to just replace those 2 with the new elf. However, for no fetches build I'd play 2 playsets of 1 drops, 4 elf + 2 baloth and 2x Blossoming Defense with 22 lands probably. I wouldn't want my 3 drops to get path'ed or push'ed easily.
I'll be running 1x Rhonas, 1x Baloth, and 3x Champion the day my cards come in the mail. Champion is an incredible addition to our deck, he's so good that I can finally justify cutting Rhonas by 1 (no need to worry about double draws anymore, and no guilt for dropping to 1x). And the Baloth is just for good measure against Hollow One/Goyf.
Right now I have 5 3-drops, being 3 Baloths and 2 Rhonas. I'm thinking about whether to go 3 Champion 2 Rhonas, or go 4-1. Going into a blind meta, what do you guys think about this? I'm tempting to go 3-2, but I'm not sure yet.
EDIT: the full-art version of Champion has been spoiled/leaked!! (It's a rare, by the way)
Eh I figured that it was too pushed to be anything other than rare really. Admittedly the CC will keep the price down since unless green gets a lot more goodies hitting GGG just for this will be fairly hard to get to. Unless a deck in standard can be built around this.
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2x Simic Initiate
2x Servant of the Scale
4x Experiment One
4x Narnam Renegade
4x Strangleroot Geist
4x Avatar of the Resolute
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Llanowar Reborn
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Spike Feeder
and even then I mostly stared down on Mutant's Prey that were in my hand without legal targets on the board. But if you had any success with that card, I'd love to hear.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
1- Keep up dismember on turn 1
2- play militant on t1 to prevent faithless looting flashbacks
3- play experiment one on turn 1 if you can grow it to a 3/3 on turn 2
However, the most important is to untap with a Scooze at latest on turn 4, or on turn 5 if you have enough chump blockers. if you have one in hand do chump in early turns with whatever you can and then play the Scooze.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Yeah, also excited about the new steel leaf.
About your build.. why so many Dromoka's command in the main. Against what decks do you use them for?
And I hope there are not many Ponza decks in your meta. With only 3 forest in the main, your deck folds easily to Blood Moon.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Anyway, I do agree that Hollow One is the faster deck. Ooze are valuable in getting rid of any phoenix they dumped into their yard with discard. I also side in one Deglamer, to serve as extra removal for the Hollow One - Hollow One is the only artifact in their deck, but shows up often enough that Deglamer almost always has a target.
One thing I noticed is most Hollow One decks have little or no removal. Angler is the only thing bigger than our baloth, and they don't always have it.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Our deck could use just a touch of tech I think. For those of you who don't run a tech slot mainboard, I really must insist you try it. When you don't need it, its still a very nice to have, and when you do, you are very, very glad you have it. I can't tell you how many times Bow has helped be stabilize against burn, and these two are the same CMC as bow with equally as powerful effects.
Rhonas's Monument - I currently mainboard a bow of Nylea, and this might be taking the slot. We already run a low curve, but Monument maximizes the benefits of that curve, leaving open mana for pump/hex/Treetop/spell pierce, getting in two creatures where we would have only had enough for one, or even getting in 1 drops for free. Plus, the added pump and trample is just really, really great.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary - This one was actually in one of the pro lists from last year, and the more I look at it, the more I like it. Its a ton of value packed into one card, just like Bow and Monument. The first half of the card gives us the power of selective topdecking, and the second half gives us the ability to draw anytime we play a creature. Considering over a third of our deck is cheap creatures, Bestiary suddenly becomes very, very relevant, and especially for grindy matchups where we tend to lose gas. Seems to be better than Shapers' Sanctuary, and certainly better than Evolutionary Leap: its proactive. Also, it works against removal and counterspells equally, in that we still get the card if the creature is countered.
I know finding room for both of these, and even then, the chances of getting them both out is pretty unlikely, but I'll be testing out these two alongside Bow as a 1x in my 75 for a good while.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary - You might want to play Greenbelt Rampager with this one, they synergize well together
I blame the time of night it was.
However I stand by Bestiary, and agree that Greenbelt does work quite well with that.
Forgot to say... I like your idea of an avatar with a counter for blocking the phoenix that Hollow One decks use.
Speaking of our strong 3 drops..how many 3 drops would you keep in the main once the new 5/4 elf is available? I'm on 22 land, and plan to have 4 elf and 1 baloth in the main.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
EDIT: the full-art version of Champion has been spoiled/leaked!! (It's a rare, by the way)