I think that would probably be fair to say. That benefit might be slightly offset by the relatively increased difficulty in piloting a Chord deck efficiently as well as the fact that there isn't really a settled "Optimal" version of the deck due to the range of tools available to us.
I think we'll always see a high variance in terms of results for Chord decks because of how meta dependent different builds of the deck can be.
Yeah, there are times when everything lines up nicely and you get your Eidolon out on T2 for Ad Naus or you sweep up a Bogle with 2-4 auras and everything goes swimmingly. Other times you're drawing your Pontiffs against Burn or mulling down to 5 against Jund and coming up against each unfavored match up and drawing the ineffective parts of the deck. For better or worse piloting Chord doesn't seem extremely consistent unless one is very familiar with the deck and you get a lot of time to familiarize yourself with the lines in various match ups.
Are we only playing red for 1 pia and kira and 1 kiki-jiki?
Would not the deck be better without red? The only thing we loose is the odd combo kill and what we gain are all the blue and black cards we ever dreamt of!
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Are we only playing red for 1 pia and kira and 1 kiki-jiki?
Would not the deck be better without red? The only thing we loose is the odd combo kill and what we gain are all the blue and black cards we ever dreamt of!
Red also has raging ravine, helix, fulminator mage (granted he's black hybrid) and other sb cards. The kiki wins are often the best out for this deck and let us win games we probably shouldn't have. Not to mention Kiki has synergy with most of the creatures in the deck. P. Killa is a great card and has a ton of synergy with Voice and Resto as well. If you just want a tool box deck without the combo, you should probably start a thread elsewhere.
Subbak, yeah, I think Kataki is really unnecessary in Chord, as long as we have 3 EE in the board, and some artifact destruction in the 75. The extra spot for other things is much more useful.
Are we only playing red for 1 pia and kira and 1 kiki-jiki?
Would not the deck be better without red? The only thing we loose is the odd combo kill and what we gain are all the blue and black cards we ever dreamt of!
Red also has raging ravine, helix, fulminator mage (granted he's black hybrid) and other sb cards. The kiki wins are often the best out for this deck and let us win games we probably shouldn't have. Not to mention Kiki has synergy with most of the creatures in the deck. P. Killa is a great card and has a ton of synergy with Voice and Resto as well. If you just want a tool box deck without the combo, you should probably start a thread elsewhere.
If you just want to go voice into pia and kira to make preasure you can just find whirler rogue. Now the big token kan not be blocked. Follow that up with a turn 4 tamiyo, resto angel or glen eledra archmage.
Instead of raging ravine we get celestial colonade. We could play spell quellers and mystic snake.
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I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
I've got the deck built. It even plays fairly well, but I've been noticing that the deck loses to itself too often.
Two issues I can see:
Opening hands, and it seems to stem from the fact that the deck has quite a few niche 1-ofs, and four drops. Many opening hands have a spread of four drops, one or more niche cards like pontiff, and lands. This results in lots of mulligans and sub-par hands. Also, as you all know, drawing kiki in your opener is a bit like mulliganing anyway. It just seems like the deck's openers really suck.
Second problem, the deck plays a grindy game, but doesn't really have anything "big" to threaten a board in those grindy situations. The best I can muster tends to be resto angel, and a siege rhino (which I am running instead of baloth).
I feel like both problems can be solved in a similar way. The deck probably needs to streamline itself towards more multiples of things, to aid consistency. I also feel like including a single hard-to-trade-with threat, or something that breaks board stalls or something that brings unconditional removal would be ideal, such as:
Baneslayer Angel
Duplicant
Kalonian hydra
Aurelia, the warleader
It doesn't necessarily have to be crazily resistant to removal either, as we can get it back with eternal witness. I like Duplicant the most, followed by Aurelia because of her ability to untap all your creatures and enable a big chord of calling mid-combat, and also she closes out games faster than anything else available.
Still pretty torn as to what I want to play tomorrow.. I'm fairly happy with both these lists currently with the exception of needing to cut a card from the MD in Coco (Between Pridemage & a Finks at the moment.)
Deck A, I know just about every interaction with the deck and have played it in 3 GPs.. one of which I went 11-4 at (GP Charlotte this year). Fauna Shaman does work against the loads of Grafdigger's Cage I plan on running into, has a better MU vs the faster decks in the format but has a harder time with the URx/Jund MUs.
Deck B, I'm slightly less familiar with.. feels clunkier vs the faster decks of the format but has a much grindier long game.
Since your fairly happy with both lists then If I had to choose it would be the deck your most comfortable with. I think pridemage should stay in, it at least ensures you got some protection against cage preboard.
I think sigarda,host of herons can close out games pretty fast. She has evasion, dodges removal other than wraths and has a sizeable body to boot. Oh and she almost always wrecks Jund if she's on the battlefield
No need to think about big finishers considering Sigarda has already been mentioned time and time again. She's our best option - blanks everything but sweepers (including All Is Dust).
You wanna get cute with anything else, better make sure it has evasion + hexproof as well.
Kataki also wrecks Ad Nauseam if dropped soon enough.
Quick note: Kataki does not, in fact, do much against Ad Nauseam. Ad Nauseam is trying to a.) Find the combo, b.) Get the mana. They can generally afford to pay the 1 mana tax for something like pentad prism while they look for ad naus/grace, if they happened to drop it early and then you kataki'd. They can ad naus/grace in response to the triggers once they find the combo. While it certainly slows them down by maybe 1 turn (probably less.), I think "wrecks" probably gives the wrong impression: You should always, always find Eidolon of Rhetoric, then protection for Eidolon of Rhetoric (skite,resto), then a clock.
Kataki's a fine board-in vs. Robots, Ad Naus and Lantern Control, but I don't think I've ever tutored it up against Ad Naus.
---
To contribute a bit, I've been ******* around with new sigarda and Magus of the Moon in board.
New Sig's not bad as a beater/value engine in matchups. She will eat the first Scapeshift. She will overwhelm most fair decks if not dealt with immediately. Burn can't beat her. Infect, Robots, Death's Shadow are generally annoyed by the amount of chump blocking she can do.
So this is the 75 I've registered for Indy, in testing it has been consistent compared to the chord list I have been trying. Having a game plan that allows for a real turn 3 combo is really nice.
Kinda afraid of Merfolk and Dredge, but mainly because of a lack of testing versus them.
Good luck to people playing Kiki in GPs this weekend!
Regarding huntmaster discussion on the previous page. I agree with the sentiment of it being somewhere in between Obstinate and P&K and I think that's precisely why we *don't* want it. We're a deck built around silver bullets. Unless we need to condense deck slots, P&K and Obstinate the use cases of huntmaster with more specificity.
So this is the 75 I've registered for Indy, in testing it has been consistent compared to the chord list I have been trying. Having a game plan that allows for a real turn 3 combo is really nice.
Kinda afraid of Merfolk and Dredge, but mainly because of a lack of testing versus them.
Good luck to people playing Kiki in GPs this weekend!
[/deck]
Are you the guy who 5-0'd the other day with this list?
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I think we'll always see a high variance in terms of results for Chord decks because of how meta dependent different builds of the deck can be.
Are we only playing red for 1 pia and kira and 1 kiki-jiki?
Would not the deck be better without red? The only thing we loose is the odd combo kill and what we gain are all the blue and black cards we ever dreamt of!
Red also has raging ravine, helix, fulminator mage (granted he's black hybrid) and other sb cards. The kiki wins are often the best out for this deck and let us win games we probably shouldn't have. Not to mention Kiki has synergy with most of the creatures in the deck. P. Killa is a great card and has a ton of synergy with Voice and Resto as well. If you just want a tool box deck without the combo, you should probably start a thread elsewhere.
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
If you just want to go voice into pia and kira to make preasure you can just find whirler rogue. Now the big token kan not be blocked. Follow that up with a turn 4 tamiyo, resto angel or glen eledra archmage.
Instead of raging ravine we get celestial colonade. We could play spell quellers and mystic snake.
I've got the deck built. It even plays fairly well, but I've been noticing that the deck loses to itself too often.
Two issues I can see:
Opening hands, and it seems to stem from the fact that the deck has quite a few niche 1-ofs, and four drops. Many opening hands have a spread of four drops, one or more niche cards like pontiff, and lands. This results in lots of mulligans and sub-par hands. Also, as you all know, drawing kiki in your opener is a bit like mulliganing anyway. It just seems like the deck's openers really suck.
Second problem, the deck plays a grindy game, but doesn't really have anything "big" to threaten a board in those grindy situations. The best I can muster tends to be resto angel, and a siege rhino (which I am running instead of baloth).
I feel like both problems can be solved in a similar way. The deck probably needs to streamline itself towards more multiples of things, to aid consistency. I also feel like including a single hard-to-trade-with threat, or something that breaks board stalls or something that brings unconditional removal would be ideal, such as:
Baneslayer Angel
Duplicant
Kalonian hydra
Aurelia, the warleader
It doesn't necessarily have to be crazily resistant to removal either, as we can get it back with eternal witness. I like Duplicant the most, followed by Aurelia because of her ability to untap all your creatures and enable a big chord of calling mid-combat, and also she closes out games faster than anything else available.
Deck A, I know just about every interaction with the deck and have played it in 3 GPs.. one of which I went 11-4 at (GP Charlotte this year). Fauna Shaman does work against the loads of Grafdigger's Cage I plan on running into, has a better MU vs the faster decks in the format but has a harder time with the URx/Jund MUs.
Deck B, I'm slightly less familiar with.. feels clunkier vs the faster decks of the format but has a much grindier long game.
Meh, maybe I'll flip a coin on the way down.
Deck A -
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Eternal Witness
3x Fauna Shaman
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3x Kitchen Finks
1x Magus of the Moon
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Phantasmal Image
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Restoration Angel
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Spellskite
1x Village Bell-Ringer
3x Voice of Resurgence
1x Breeding Pool
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
2x Forest
2x Gavony Township
2x Horizon Canopy
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
Instant (10)
3x Chord of Calling
4x Collected Company
3x Path to Exile
2x Blood Moon
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Path to Exile
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Spellskite
1x Stony Silence
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
Deck B -
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Eternal Witness
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Magus of the Moon
2x Noble Hierarch
1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Reflector Mage
2x Restoration Angel
1x Reveillark
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Spellskite
3x Voice of Resurgence
3x Wall of Omens
1x Breeding Pool
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
2x Forest
2x Gavony Township
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
Sorcery (4)
4x Eldritch Evolution
Instant (6)
3x Chord of Calling
3x Path to Exile
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Keranos, God of Storms
2x Lightning Helix
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Spellskite
1x Thragtusk
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
I think sigarda,host of herons can close out games pretty fast. She has evasion, dodges removal other than wraths and has a sizeable body to boot. Oh and she almost always wrecks Jund if she's on the battlefield
You wanna get cute with anything else, better make sure it has evasion + hexproof as well.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Quick note: Kataki does not, in fact, do much against Ad Nauseam. Ad Nauseam is trying to a.) Find the combo, b.) Get the mana. They can generally afford to pay the 1 mana tax for something like pentad prism while they look for ad naus/grace, if they happened to drop it early and then you kataki'd. They can ad naus/grace in response to the triggers once they find the combo. While it certainly slows them down by maybe 1 turn (probably less.), I think "wrecks" probably gives the wrong impression: You should always, always find Eidolon of Rhetoric, then protection for Eidolon of Rhetoric (skite,resto), then a clock.
Kataki's a fine board-in vs. Robots, Ad Naus and Lantern Control, but I don't think I've ever tutored it up against Ad Naus.
---
To contribute a bit, I've been ******* around with new sigarda and Magus of the Moon in board.
New Sig's not bad as a beater/value engine in matchups. She will eat the first Scapeshift. She will overwhelm most fair decks if not dealt with immediately. Burn can't beat her. Infect, Robots, Death's Shadow are generally annoyed by the amount of chump blocking she can do.
She grants magus hexproof.
You have to fetch intelligently to play Magus.
WGR Naya Rock
Kinda afraid of Merfolk and Dredge, but mainly because of a lack of testing versus them.
Good luck to people playing Kiki in GPs this weekend!
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Bounding Krasis
1 Breeding Pool
4 Collected Company
4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Eldritch Evolution
2 Eternal Witness
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Mountain
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Pestermite
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Reflector Mage
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Spellskite
1 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Wall of Omens
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Kor Firewalker
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Spellskite
1 Stony Silence
Are you the guy who 5-0'd the other day with this list?