The Duskwatch Recruiter "loop" is not a loop in the "mathematical" sense or when you for example go infinite life with Melira and Kitchen Finks. In that example when you do one look, if your opponent does not interact with you, you will replicate the boardstate an arbitrary amount of times, the only thing that changes is your life.
In this example the deck is getting reordered in a non-mirrored fashion. Each "scry" (let me call it that while it is not really) will put something new to the top that eventually can be of interest to the opponent to respond to. He might have Thought Scour, or any other of the countless spells/abilities in Magic to deny you an activation, or evne Extirpate that has Split Second. Each activation the game state is changed in a non-trivial fashion.
Thus I don't think the opponent is obliged to allow you to go through this "loop". I think the judges that told you otherwise didn't really think it through.
Split second is the only thing that stops it and even then sudden shock should have been used before you made inf mana (if the player was smart) being the main one because extirpate unless they have 2 won't be enough to shut the deck down. It's perfectly fine if the opponent wants you to play through it in that case for me because I run none gy based win cons (another reason I guess why balista is good) and green vizier to cast all my creatures making sure the path is clear. 99% of the time the combo will be clear at that point.
Not that it's surprising, but people are starting to talk about vizier + druid in this deck everywhere. His list is missing Renegade Rallier though, which I think is a pretty bad call since rallier can reanimate any of the pieces of the combo (which is pretty crucial since each piece also dies to shock and anything better than it).
Rishkar is another option for people that are worried about getting the colored mana to cast the kill combo. Put a +1/+1 counter on Druid and now you have inf mana of any color.
Tbqhwyf I would wait until the Druid Deck proves itself. If original Abzan coco just shows to inferior, there's no reason to build it before the new deck.
i don't see how you can have any color of mana with rishkar....
lol I didn't mean rishkar, I was talking to a buddy about him. I meant Vizier of the menagerie as I stated before. Joel's article stated ways to get colored mana and I started my build with one in and love it. I also play blood artist rather than redcap so my misses off of coco are about the same. But yes rishkar only makes green with his buddies. We were talking about how to get -1/-1 counters off of Druid/finks now that I am dropping anafenza and going down to 1 canopy. that being said I am fully on the 4 of Druid and vizier with 3 recruiter, it's just too good to not try to hit early.
Been running a lot of games on Xmage and I must say, this Druid/Vizier tech has major teeth and may rebuild the deck further as time goes by.
3-4 druids seems like the right number. I am currently running 3 and many games revolve around me simply untapping with a druid in play. If I ever get to activate with any sort of Chord, Vizier, or EWit (w/ Chord in the GY) in hand, that is just an immediately closed out game.
2-3 Vizier seems like the right number. I am also running 3 of those, but I commonly find myself SBing the 3rd one out to make room for SB cards. There are so many combo pieces, it's hard to find room for what I actually want to replace at any given point, and since I rarely want Vizier in play by itself, the 3rd one is an easy target for SB. Right now I'm happy with that situation, but 2 might be a better number if we find we need something else to shore up rough spots.
Rallier/Saffi/Seer adds consistency, don't ignore it. I've had several games where I stall out and/or my opponent is removing things as they come down and I end up with this combo instead of one of the good ones. That said, this combo is great because it lets me scry my way to the nearest CoCo and all of a sudden, I've got gas.
Thune/Feeder seems completely unnecessary. While I've been a huge fan of feeder in older, grindier styles of this deck, it really is a 3 mana 'do nothing' card in this deck and Archangel of Thune is basically unplayable at 5 mana. I'd rather pop a Recruiter into play and dig for a replacement card if I have 5 mana and nothing really going on.
Finally, Walking Ballista feels like the best closer for Druid/Vizier/Recruiter because it's 1 card, can kill at instant speed using only green mana, and doesn't rely on the GY. I have only actually gotten to cast the Ballista once, and he's never made it past the stack, but that's how powerful of a finish it is. The fact that it doesn't get hit by CoCo or Chord is a minor drawback to have a single card win-con floating in your deck when the situation calls for it. The only other wincon I can see competing with this is Emrakul, which could be worth considering if mill becomes a bigger deal.
Druid tech is the nuts and I have a suspicion it may be ban-worthy in the long run due to the fact that you can regularly kill on T3 if your opponent doesn't interact with you. That said, get in while it's hot~
Agree with the majority of your comments. However I'm really liking mirror entity as the finisher rather than ballista. Found that it has also been quite effective even without the combo and without CoCo or Chord in hand.
Agree with a lot except I run 4/4/3 Druid vizier/recruiter as I have not found needing inf bolster needed at all anymore. I also cut saffi and run only 4 bird 2 noble as dorks. With balista you have no need to explain going inf and stacking your deck to do crazy stuff too. Deck feels great but can still lose to some of the same things as before like anger and such. Cage/other sb hate seems less effective with this new build too.
I'm wondering if there's a deck out there that prophetic ravings could work its way into. That just seems like it'd be fun.
Mirror entity is seriously what we should be playing game 1. It's a mana sink that protects from anger of the gods with 4 mana. It wins the game on its own if we ever untap with a bunch of creatures and entity. Walking ballista is awful and a coco miss and chord miss.
I'd consider a ballista sideboard if we think we need to be a turn faster.
Honestly just drawing all your creatures with duskwatch recruiter probably lights out for most decks.
I think we should be focusing on this combo and playing 4x finks / 1x seer as a backup combo that insulates us from living end (seer beats LE on its own) and burn.
Pretty sure 4/4/1 is correct for vizier, druid, duskwatch respectively. Duskwatch is just such an average card you don't want to draw it.
Having one of our combo creatures be a decent mana dork is just too good not to be the primary focus.
Mirror entity is seriously what we should be playing game 1. It's a mana sink that protects from anger of the gods with 4 mana. It wins the game on its own if we ever untap with a bunch of creatures and entity. Walking ballista is awful and a coco miss and chord miss.
I'd consider a ballista sideboard if we think we need to be a turn faster.
Honestly just drawing all your creatures with duskwatch recruiter probably lights out for most decks.
I think we should be focusing on this combo and playing 4x finks / 1x seer as a backup combo that insulates us from living end (seer beats LE on its own) and burn.
Pretty sure 4/4/1 is correct for vizier, druid, duskwatch respectively. Duskwatch is just such an average card you don't want to draw it.
Having one of our combo creatures be a decent mana dork is just too good not to be the primary focus.
I feel very differently, duskwatch on its own is very good and who cares if 1 card isn't hit by coco/chord (although ewit gets it back if you have it in hand or hit it with either)?
I would say 4/4/1 is wrong regardless. Duskwatch is much better 2 drop for 2 than vizier, and I've never felt like I'm not seeing enough vizier in a given game. 4/3/2 would be the closest I could get to that, and I'm not sure 4 is the right number of druids either, the card is still an 0/2 for 2 if you're not comboing with it. That said, it is VERY powerful to untap with one, but I think having 4 CoCos, 4 Chords, and 2 Ewits gives us more than enough redundancy for all that at the end of the day. I'd rather go up to 4/3/3 before I go up to 4/4/1, but I can't even find a card I want to cut for a 4th druid right now so no reason talking about 4rd Vizier vs 3rd Recruiter yet.
As far as Finks/Ana/Seer numbers, Ana has been a 1-of in many versions of the deck for the longest time and with 3 Vizier, I think Ana is just a great value card and 'yet-another-potential-wincon' which is something I'm completely fine with. Finks, Ana, and Scooze are the best creatures in my deck when we're talking beat-stick value, and if we can't threaten our opponent with bear-beats, that leaves our opponent free to put their full focus on stopping our combo kill instead of not dying. We want to keep them focused on both at the end of the day. I am currently running 3 Seers + Rallier + Saffi, I could see an argument for dropping to 2 Seers, but the ability to scry my way to the next threat in the face of removal and/or board wipes is plenty enough as far as I'm concerned. It's also a 1 drop, and I find that helps a little bit - not so much as far as having a T1 play, but those T3/T4 situations where you're just trying to dump your hand on the board so you can have stronger Chords in future turns. Being able to squeeze Finks + Seer onto a board with 4 mana is a valuable thing all on it's own.
Right now, I'm a little more concerned with the SB. I think 3x Sculler + 3x Path are going to be fairly stock in the near future, I've also seen lists running Linvala and Revoker, a move I think is prudent given the likelihood of mirror matches in the near future... I personally have a 3rd Recruiter in the side for grinder MUs like Grixis, and he's served me well, but other options don't fee as good. Spellskite, Selfless Spirit, Rec Sage, Maelstrom Pulse, Orzhov Pontiff, Kataki, Stony Silence, all these cards seem lost all of a sudden, should we be playing stuff like Rally again? Tasigur? Thrun? Confidant? I'm not even sure what we need at this point.
I just hate the idea of needing Vizier with Druid ready to go and having Ana with recruiter. I haven't found myself in the situation where I couldn't get it done without Ana bolster beats. If I need to beat down angel/feeder is much faster to go through without needing my gy.
If Walking Ballista being a card that can't be hit by CoCo or Chord is being considered, why isn't Helix Pinnacle? It does nothing on its own, but it's a one drop, and has built in protection, can win you games out of a CoCo (if you get the other pieces) or out of Chord (at the end of opponents turn). Things that Walking Ballista can't do, due to summoning sickness.
So far it's performed pretty incredibly in online testing. With the new combo it reminds me more of when I used to play Twin than of Abzan CoCo. Super resilient and really quick, turn 3 wins are pretty frequent and turn 4 wins are almost guaranteed if it's not interacted with.
Tough matchups seem to be Grixis and BGx, but ewit and rallier provide enough recursion to equal out those a bit
So far it's performed pretty incredibly in online testing. With the new combo it reminds me more of when I used to play Twin than of Abzan CoCo. Super resilient and really quick, turn 3 wins are pretty frequent and turn 4 wins are almost guaranteed if it's not interacted with.
I don't care for voice as it doesn't help either of the combo's and this deck is now just a combo deck imo. I have given up on the beat down and love it. I'm on 1 gavony (this has allowed me to drop 1 land completely I feel), no ana main, and no voices, yet all in on combo with the 4 druid/4 vizier/3 dusk and still running 2 seer. I personally switch the bird/noble because I think flying/black mana matters more than the 1 of attacker getting pumped. You state you like the t3 potential yet you aren't that devoted to it is I guess what i'm getting at. Your sb seems a little odd to me too but that's maybe meta choices.
there's something wrong with your list. There 2 times 2x duskwatch recruiter and if i count the # of cards, you only have 56 cards. 35 spells and creatures and 21 lands....
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Modern:
-Rg valakut
-U/W control
-U/R storm
-G/W value town
As for Voice, i really like it because it's a great beater/counterspell prevention tool. Really solid for non-combo games where you need to win with value.
I'm more than open to suggestions though, and would love to rework my board some.
Split second is the only thing that stops it and even then sudden shock should have been used before you made inf mana (if the player was smart) being the main one because extirpate unless they have 2 won't be enough to shut the deck down. It's perfectly fine if the opponent wants you to play through it in that case for me because I run none gy based win cons (another reason I guess why balista is good) and green vizier to cast all my creatures making sure the path is clear. 99% of the time the combo will be clear at that point.
Not that it's surprising, but people are starting to talk about vizier + druid in this deck everywhere. His list is missing Renegade Rallier though, which I think is a pretty bad call since rallier can reanimate any of the pieces of the combo (which is pretty crucial since each piece also dies to shock and anything better than it).
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
Lol 2 convos put together sorry I'm spacey.
-Rg valakut
-U/W control
-U/R storm
-G/W value town
Legacy :
-Storm
lol I didn't mean rishkar, I was talking to a buddy about him. I meant Vizier of the menagerie as I stated before. Joel's article stated ways to get colored mana and I started my build with one in and love it. I also play blood artist rather than redcap so my misses off of coco are about the same. But yes rishkar only makes green with his buddies. We were talking about how to get -1/-1 counters off of Druid/finks now that I am dropping anafenza and going down to 1 canopy. that being said I am fully on the 4 of Druid and vizier with 3 recruiter, it's just too good to not try to hit early.
3-4 druids seems like the right number. I am currently running 3 and many games revolve around me simply untapping with a druid in play. If I ever get to activate with any sort of Chord, Vizier, or EWit (w/ Chord in the GY) in hand, that is just an immediately closed out game.
2-3 Vizier seems like the right number. I am also running 3 of those, but I commonly find myself SBing the 3rd one out to make room for SB cards. There are so many combo pieces, it's hard to find room for what I actually want to replace at any given point, and since I rarely want Vizier in play by itself, the 3rd one is an easy target for SB. Right now I'm happy with that situation, but 2 might be a better number if we find we need something else to shore up rough spots.
Rallier/Saffi/Seer adds consistency, don't ignore it. I've had several games where I stall out and/or my opponent is removing things as they come down and I end up with this combo instead of one of the good ones. That said, this combo is great because it lets me scry my way to the nearest CoCo and all of a sudden, I've got gas.
Thune/Feeder seems completely unnecessary. While I've been a huge fan of feeder in older, grindier styles of this deck, it really is a 3 mana 'do nothing' card in this deck and Archangel of Thune is basically unplayable at 5 mana. I'd rather pop a Recruiter into play and dig for a replacement card if I have 5 mana and nothing really going on.
Finally, Walking Ballista feels like the best closer for Druid/Vizier/Recruiter because it's 1 card, can kill at instant speed using only green mana, and doesn't rely on the GY. I have only actually gotten to cast the Ballista once, and he's never made it past the stack, but that's how powerful of a finish it is. The fact that it doesn't get hit by CoCo or Chord is a minor drawback to have a single card win-con floating in your deck when the situation calls for it. The only other wincon I can see competing with this is Emrakul, which could be worth considering if mill becomes a bigger deal.
Druid tech is the nuts and I have a suspicion it may be ban-worthy in the long run due to the fact that you can regularly kill on T3 if your opponent doesn't interact with you. That said, get in while it's hot~
Anyone else been considering mirror entity?
Everyone loves an angry mob RWG
Why so Bloo? RU
I'm wondering if there's a deck out there that prophetic ravings could work its way into. That just seems like it'd be fun.
I'd consider a ballista sideboard if we think we need to be a turn faster.
Honestly just drawing all your creatures with duskwatch recruiter probably lights out for most decks.
I think we should be focusing on this combo and playing 4x finks / 1x seer as a backup combo that insulates us from living end (seer beats LE on its own) and burn.
Pretty sure 4/4/1 is correct for vizier, druid, duskwatch respectively. Duskwatch is just such an average card you don't want to draw it.
Having one of our combo creatures be a decent mana dork is just too good not to be the primary focus.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I feel very differently, duskwatch on its own is very good and who cares if 1 card isn't hit by coco/chord (although ewit gets it back if you have it in hand or hit it with either)?
As far as Finks/Ana/Seer numbers, Ana has been a 1-of in many versions of the deck for the longest time and with 3 Vizier, I think Ana is just a great value card and 'yet-another-potential-wincon' which is something I'm completely fine with. Finks, Ana, and Scooze are the best creatures in my deck when we're talking beat-stick value, and if we can't threaten our opponent with bear-beats, that leaves our opponent free to put their full focus on stopping our combo kill instead of not dying. We want to keep them focused on both at the end of the day. I am currently running 3 Seers + Rallier + Saffi, I could see an argument for dropping to 2 Seers, but the ability to scry my way to the next threat in the face of removal and/or board wipes is plenty enough as far as I'm concerned. It's also a 1 drop, and I find that helps a little bit - not so much as far as having a T1 play, but those T3/T4 situations where you're just trying to dump your hand on the board so you can have stronger Chords in future turns. Being able to squeeze Finks + Seer onto a board with 4 mana is a valuable thing all on it's own.
Right now, I'm a little more concerned with the SB. I think 3x Sculler + 3x Path are going to be fairly stock in the near future, I've also seen lists running Linvala and Revoker, a move I think is prudent given the likelihood of mirror matches in the near future... I personally have a 3rd Recruiter in the side for grinder MUs like Grixis, and he's served me well, but other options don't fee as good. Spellskite, Selfless Spirit, Rec Sage, Maelstrom Pulse, Orzhov Pontiff, Kataki, Stony Silence, all these cards seem lost all of a sudden, should we be playing stuff like Rally again? Tasigur? Thrun? Confidant? I'm not even sure what we need at this point.
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Combo Pieces:
3 Devoted Druid
2 Vizier of Remedies
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Anafenza, Kin Tree Spirit
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Viscera Seer
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Walking Ballista
Dorks:
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
Toolbox/Value:
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
4 Windswept Heath
3 Razorverge Thicket
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Temple Garden
2 Forest
2 Plains
3 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
2 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Reclamation Sage
1 Yixlid Jailer
So far it's performed pretty incredibly in online testing. With the new combo it reminds me more of when I used to play Twin than of Abzan CoCo. Super resilient and really quick, turn 3 wins are pretty frequent and turn 4 wins are almost guaranteed if it's not interacted with.
Tough matchups seem to be Grixis and BGx, but ewit and rallier provide enough recursion to equal out those a bit
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
I don't care for voice as it doesn't help either of the combo's and this deck is now just a combo deck imo. I have given up on the beat down and love it. I'm on 1 gavony (this has allowed me to drop 1 land completely I feel), no ana main, and no voices, yet all in on combo with the 4 druid/4 vizier/3 dusk and still running 2 seer. I personally switch the bird/noble because I think flying/black mana matters more than the 1 of attacker getting pumped. You state you like the t3 potential yet you aren't that devoted to it is I guess what i'm getting at. Your sb seems a little odd to me too but that's maybe meta choices.
-Rg valakut
-U/W control
-U/R storm
-G/W value town
Legacy :
-Storm
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Combo Pieces:
3 Devoted Druid
2 Vizier of Remedies
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Anafenza, Kin Tree Spirit
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Viscera Seer
1 Walking Ballista
Dorks:
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
Toolbox/Value:
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
4 Windswept Heath
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Temple Garden
2 Forest
2 Plains
3 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
2 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Reclamation Sage
1 Yixlid Jailer
As for Voice, i really like it because it's a great beater/counterspell prevention tool. Really solid for non-combo games where you need to win with value.
I'm more than open to suggestions though, and would love to rework my board some.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes