What do you all think about the new Sarkhan? Could it fit in a Dragon heavy Skred Deck?
It filters, and ramps nicely into Stormbreath.
Sarkhan, Fireblood 1RR
Legendary Planeswalker — Sarkhan (Mythic)
[+1]: You may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
[+1]: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon spells.
[-7]: Create four 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying.
[3]
What do you all think about the new Sarkhan? Could it fit in a Dragon heavy Skred Deck?
It filters, and ramps nicely into Stormbreath.
Sarkhan, Fireblood 1RR
Legendary Planeswalker — Sarkhan (Mythic)
[+1]: You may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
[+1]: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon spells.
[-7]: Create four 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying.
[3]
Use tags, we here in /Skred/ arent so good at standard Goblin Chainwhirler is a sideboard card at best to kill x/1s. And a bad one for us. Also too red heavy, all your lands have to produce red Sarkhan, Fireblood is kinda subpar, he doesnt protect himself, abilities dont affect board much unless youre piloting a dragon deck
Not crazy about it. It's weak and removable card selection. I feel like playing Faithless Looting is likely better: you get to dig an extra 4 cards down for the same mana as the Pyromancer digs 2.
So a R/G Skred deck did fairly well at GP Vegas, and the pilot pointed out his own mistakes in several places that he could have done differently to possibly get to Day 2. Any thoughts on his Build? Has anyone done any testing with Skred G/Red?
So a R/G Skred deck did fairly well at GP Vegas, and the pilot pointed out his own mistakes in several places that he could have done differently to possibly get to Day 2. Any thoughts on his Build? Has anyone done any testing with Skred G/Red?
I dont know his list but when I thought about adding other colors I came to conclusion it will hardly work. Also I cant call not going to day2 as doing well.
Disdainful Pyromancer Disdainful Pyromancer I think is bad. Basically a costly looter for 2. With upside of becoming a removal (at a cost). Too slow.
The Green's felt pretty decent in testing so far, even against Hollow One, which is not a very good matchup pre-Board from what I'm seeing. Only a few matches in, but I already really like some of the things Green gives you:
- BBE is always good; even hitting Mind Stones and Relics generally burns through a clump of land you didn't need, as you had enough to cast BBE in the first place, and then you can just crack the Rocks to draw again, meaning the BBE always replaces itself.
- Huntmaster is phenomenal. I might have to make room for a second. With stuff like Stones and Relics and Scrying Sheets, manipulating Huntmaster to flip is super easy. I always felt like passing with no actions to crack Stones or Scry was a bit of a gamble, and not particularly efficient. Huntmaster completely changes that dynamic, as you get to do all the durdly things you want, while also casting Searing Blood-ish.
- I am worried about Koth. I'm only running two, I have yet to even play him, but I am worried he'll be supremely underwhelming, even though I only have 5 Snow-Covered Forests in the deck. I generally end up playing it safe and Fetching for the Forests early, meaning I end quicker games with maybe 3 or 4 Mountains in play, which I think would definitely end up feeling bad if I needed Koth to do more. May end up cutting him for the second Huntmaster and...
- Karn. Started with a 1-of, have found him to be phenomenal every time he hits the field, so I may go up to 2 if I cut both Koths. With a 1-of P&K, 3 Tireless Trackers, and all the rocks in the deck, he can really pull some weight! Either value or threats, no matter the situation, if you can afford to spend time getting him onto the field, he does a lot of work!
So I definitely want to do more testing with this Build, and if anyone has any ideas for improvements or anything, I'd love to hear them! With Alpine Moon coming out soon, most of Skred's worst matchups now have a decent SB option available, so I'd really love to see this deck do well. Haha, there we go!
Can you give a list please? I struggle to see how Karn is fantastic. If your goal is to grind out your opponent, Karn is a good tool but I think Skred is not geared to do this. Unlike Jund or UWx Control Skred's removal is creature removal, there are no universal answers to planeswalkers, artifacts, enchantments or some sorcery combo.
What you describe of BBE, Karn, Huntmaster and Trackers is a midrange value build. Yes it will beat fair strategies with less grinding. But it is slow and one-dimensional. It has built-in problems with manabase, Aggro and Combo. Jund can get away with it (vaule build) because Jund has discard and permanent removal, Ponza can get away with it because of explosive starts with t2 Blood Moon and templo plays like t2 Stone Rain and t3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss.
We can discuss splash pros and cons. Ill start it with mana inconsistensy. If you have 5 Forests, you will get hands like 2x Forest, Mindstone, Skred, Bolt - unplayable. Forest, Mountain, Relic - has serious problems with casting double red spells. Both of these hands would be 100% keep without green splash. With mana problems, Aggro problems come. Different problems can rise when adding green to the manabase and there are different ways to solve them but introducing new problems so we need to see the list to discuss it. For example I play 20 mountains, if I replace 5 of them with Forests I go down from 95% probability of having t1 red source to 88%. This introduces muligan problems and Aggro problems - inability of t1 Skred/Bolt is a problem against aggro. I can diminish this by reducing number of Scrying Sheets going from 3 to 0, then I have manaflood problems. I can diminish them with Trackers, but I need to cut something, what do I cut granted I already added Huntmasters and BBE? Koth, Stormbreath and Pia? (double red and such) Am I building a bad Ponza deck?
Then you play fetches. This means after Blood Moon your fetches dont contribute to Skred. If you play basic Forests then they dont contribute to Koth and introduce general mana problems: for example casting Anger of Gods becomes less consistent. If you play shocks then they introduce life loss and low amount of snow permanents. And fetches cost life. If you dont play fetches then you have other problems etc.
So some test results from when I've had free time the past two weeks:
Storm: 6-2 Great matchup when you MD Relics and tons of spot removal.
Jeskai Control: 5-3 Generally a great matchup, although the game get much harder if you can't lock the Board down with a PW or a Moon.
Merfolk: 2-0 Obviously needs more testing, but felt very good, as I'm sure most creature-heavy decks would. A friend of mine has Humans, and I hope to have results from that matchup soon to do some comparisons.
Yup! Current list went exactly as I expected: remove Koths, add an extra Karn and max out BBE, focus on heavy value with good removal backup, and then finish off the back of Value Creature or a Planeswalker. List.
A little while ago I said I would test out Sweltering Suns. I spent a few weeks trying it out and then at my last FNM I ran Anger of the Gods. Here are my thoughts on the card.
Sweltering Suns is always going to do something. Whether you cast it to wipe the board or cycle it, you will always pay three mana to at least do something. This is much different than AotG, which cannot cycle for the added benefit of exiling everything that it kills. Suns, despite the cycling, didn't make the deck feel any more consistent than it already does. Much for the same reasons that cycling Mind Stone is slow, cycling Sun costs the same amount of mana. True, it can be done at instant speed, whereas Stone requires you to pay two upfront and than the last mana later. Furthermore, while AotG's exile isn't relevant against a lot of decks, there are decks where it just obliterates the opponent -- Dredge, some CoCo decks, and the like. Here, Suns is infinitely worse, and the only reason to play Suns is for an expensive cycling ability. While there are times when drawing Anger is dead, if we are in topdeck mode and forced to cycle Suns we were probably losing anyway. On Friday, AotG just felt so much better in every way. Randomly hosing cards like Eternal Witness and Scavenging Ooze is amazing in some matchups and I wouldn't trade that away. For all of these reasons, I've found AotG to be the superior sweeper.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Oh, wow, thanks for the thoughts, Cavalry! I hadn't considered that, and the only matchup where I really wanted the cycle over Anger was against Control, which isn't our worst matchups or anything to begin with. Given that setup, do you favor Kozi's Return or something else for extra sweepers in the Board?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It filters, and ramps nicely into Stormbreath.
Sarkhan, Fireblood 1RR
Legendary Planeswalker — Sarkhan (Mythic)
[+1]: You may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
[+1]: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon spells.
[-7]: Create four 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying.
[3]
For one more mana, you have Chandra, Torch of Defiance. What more needs to be said?
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
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
Goblin Chainwhirler is a sideboard card at best to kill x/1s. And a bad one for us. Also too red heavy, all your lands have to produce red
Sarkhan, Fireblood is kinda subpar, he doesnt protect himself, abilities dont affect board much unless youre piloting a dragon deck
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
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
Disdainful Pyromancer Disdainful Pyromancer I think is bad. Basically a costly looter for 2. With upside of becoming a removal (at a cost). Too slow.
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
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
- BBE is always good; even hitting Mind Stones and Relics generally burns through a clump of land you didn't need, as you had enough to cast BBE in the first place, and then you can just crack the Rocks to draw again, meaning the BBE always replaces itself.
- Huntmaster is phenomenal. I might have to make room for a second. With stuff like Stones and Relics and Scrying Sheets, manipulating Huntmaster to flip is super easy. I always felt like passing with no actions to crack Stones or Scry was a bit of a gamble, and not particularly efficient. Huntmaster completely changes that dynamic, as you get to do all the durdly things you want, while also casting Searing Blood-ish.
- I am worried about Koth. I'm only running two, I have yet to even play him, but I am worried he'll be supremely underwhelming, even though I only have 5 Snow-Covered Forests in the deck. I generally end up playing it safe and Fetching for the Forests early, meaning I end quicker games with maybe 3 or 4 Mountains in play, which I think would definitely end up feeling bad if I needed Koth to do more. May end up cutting him for the second Huntmaster and...
- Karn. Started with a 1-of, have found him to be phenomenal every time he hits the field, so I may go up to 2 if I cut both Koths. With a 1-of P&K, 3 Tireless Trackers, and all the rocks in the deck, he can really pull some weight! Either value or threats, no matter the situation, if you can afford to spend time getting him onto the field, he does a lot of work!
So I definitely want to do more testing with this Build, and if anyone has any ideas for improvements or anything, I'd love to hear them! With Alpine Moon coming out soon, most of Skred's worst matchups now have a decent SB option available, so I'd really love to see this deck do well. Haha, there we go!
MAKE SKRED GREAT AGAIN!
I may need to make a red hat for this.
What you describe of BBE, Karn, Huntmaster and Trackers is a midrange value build. Yes it will beat fair strategies with less grinding. But it is slow and one-dimensional. It has built-in problems with manabase, Aggro and Combo. Jund can get away with it (vaule build) because Jund has discard and permanent removal, Ponza can get away with it because of explosive starts with t2 Blood Moon and templo plays like t2 Stone Rain and t3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss.
We can discuss splash pros and cons. Ill start it with mana inconsistensy. If you have 5 Forests, you will get hands like 2x Forest, Mindstone, Skred, Bolt - unplayable. Forest, Mountain, Relic - has serious problems with casting double red spells. Both of these hands would be 100% keep without green splash. With mana problems, Aggro problems come. Different problems can rise when adding green to the manabase and there are different ways to solve them but introducing new problems so we need to see the list to discuss it. For example I play 20 mountains, if I replace 5 of them with Forests I go down from 95% probability of having t1 red source to 88%. This introduces muligan problems and Aggro problems - inability of t1 Skred/Bolt is a problem against aggro. I can diminish this by reducing number of Scrying Sheets going from 3 to 0, then I have manaflood problems. I can diminish them with Trackers, but I need to cut something, what do I cut granted I already added Huntmasters and BBE? Koth, Stormbreath and Pia? (double red and such) Am I building a bad Ponza deck?
Then you play fetches. This means after Blood Moon your fetches dont contribute to Skred. If you play basic Forests then they dont contribute to Koth and introduce general mana problems: for example casting Anger of Gods becomes less consistent. If you play shocks then they introduce life loss and low amount of snow permanents. And fetches cost life. If you dont play fetches then you have other problems etc.
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
Storm: 6-2 Great matchup when you MD Relics and tons of spot removal.
Jeskai Control: 5-3 Generally a great matchup, although the game get much harder if you can't lock the Board down with a PW or a Moon.
Merfolk: 2-0 Obviously needs more testing, but felt very good, as I'm sure most creature-heavy decks would. A friend of mine has Humans, and I hope to have results from that matchup soon to do some comparisons.
Yup! Current list went exactly as I expected: remove Koths, add an extra Karn and max out BBE, focus on heavy value with good removal backup, and then finish off the back of Value Creature or a Planeswalker. List.
Sweltering Suns is always going to do something. Whether you cast it to wipe the board or cycle it, you will always pay three mana to at least do something. This is much different than AotG, which cannot cycle for the added benefit of exiling everything that it kills. Suns, despite the cycling, didn't make the deck feel any more consistent than it already does. Much for the same reasons that cycling Mind Stone is slow, cycling Sun costs the same amount of mana. True, it can be done at instant speed, whereas Stone requires you to pay two upfront and than the last mana later. Furthermore, while AotG's exile isn't relevant against a lot of decks, there are decks where it just obliterates the opponent -- Dredge, some CoCo decks, and the like. Here, Suns is infinitely worse, and the only reason to play Suns is for an expensive cycling ability. While there are times when drawing Anger is dead, if we are in topdeck mode and forced to cycle Suns we were probably losing anyway. On Friday, AotG just felt so much better in every way. Randomly hosing cards like Eternal Witness and Scavenging Ooze is amazing in some matchups and I wouldn't trade that away. For all of these reasons, I've found AotG to be the superior sweeper.