I wouldn't call Treetop strictly better yet. Wildwood survives Lightning Bolt and blocks Affinity's flying pests like a champ. Unless you really need to get aggressive early or trample over Spirits, Wildwood is still pretty attractive. Fixing your colors helps too.
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MODERN RGB Jund BGR WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY RUGB Delver GURB
EDH UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR BBB Skithiryx Control BB
I run 1 Wildwood and 2 Treetops typically. As HomelandZecurity said Wildwood has some benefits that randomly shine and being able to tap for two colors is great. Treetop is primarily better in being able to punch through chump blockers and being far friendlier to activate.
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Ok, so no Goyf as you see and it is not entirely a budgetary issue for me in this deck its more of a power level to what the deck is trying to do. First, with all the fetches available and running some LD lands I believe Knight of the Reliquary can out pace a goyf quickly. It can come down the same turn with Birds and can make great use of a Swiss-Army Knife style land base. Want to cascade into Living End with some nice fatties in your GY, let me activate my KotR and fetch me up a Bojuka Bog. Need to kill a man land or want to cripple a Tron player about to untap and have full Urza mana avail, tap that KotR and getcha Ghost Quarter. Need to gain some life to stay/put the mid game back in your favor, tap that KotR and get your Vault of the Archangel. All the time growing that little KotR to a finisher. Voice of Resurgence is positioned well to keep opposing players to using their turn for removal as pairing a Voice token with Lingering Souls token's can get out of hand quick. Birds of Paradise over Noble Hierarch. Birds give all 5 colors whereas Noble does not give us B and this can be an issue if we are trying to stick a T2 Liliana of the Veil. Plus we can still get the Exalted trigger from Qasali Pridemage.
One sideboard card I want to touch on is Wheel of Sun and Moon straight up hoses opponents GY shenanigans what ever they are trying to do. That with the thing about Enchantments being a little harder to remove. Downside is that it targets.
Loving my 1 of Vault of the Archangel. It crushed many foes tonight. I have one free flex spot in my deck. Should it be:
4th Liliana, 3rd Scooze, or a Garruk Wildspeaker? All 3 have merits and downfalls:
1) I don't care to draw 2 Liliana usually, and she is mediocre to bad against several matchups (Living End, most fast Aggro, Baloth/Smiter decks).
2) I don't EVER want a second scooze in my hand. I hate it when I draw a second one unless I know I'm purposefully baiting removal, but this is a rare occurrence.
3) Garruk ramps and makes Souls devastating, but at the end of the day it's possible he is mediocre.
Loving my 1 of Vault of the Archangel. It crushed many foes tonight. I have one free flex spot in my deck. Should it be:
4th Liliana, 3rd Scooze, or a Garruk Wildspeaker? All 3 have merits and downfalls:
1) I don't care to draw 2 Liliana usually, and she is mediocre to bad against several matchups (Living End, most fast Aggro, Baloth/Smiter decks).
For the record, I don't think there's enough baloths and smiters in the format to give much consideration to that. That could change if 8rack becomes a thing again, but even still, liliana is still good in the matches against decks that play baloth/smiter. In fact, every time I've had an opponent put a creature into play off a lili +1, I have won that game. Lingering Souls, on the other hand...
Honestly, I would just play 4 lili's. They're easily sided out for better cards against aggro. And actually, in the living end match up, she can be used to some extent for our benefit as well. Sure, she's not great against living end, but she's not terrible either. In some cases, putting your own dudes in the yard is a plausible idea, and getting her to 6 loyalty is definitely achievable sometimes. At the very worst, she gets one dude off the table if they go off.
So on what conditions do you guys decide to play or not play confidants? I'm airing on the side of not due to personal budget, but what are the reasons to not play them currently and if you're not playing confidants how do you compensate for the lack of card advantage?
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Modern UMerfolk GBWMelira PodRIP GBW Abzan Midrange GBR Jund Midrange
Mastodon, let me know if this is bad of me. After seeing Frank Lepore's newest video set, I decided to build my own Ghostway deck. However, Naya seems underpowered and somewhat inconsistent. So Abzan! Because Seige Rhino is ridiculous.
I have been seeing Voice over Bob in some lists, but I can't actually imagine doing that. The ceiling on how good bob can be is so high and in the meta-game that I see emerging I don't actually think the life loss is that big of a deal.
I have also done a bit of testing with Tasigur and have come to the conclusion that it is also not right for this deck. In most cases it hasn't felt like I have 'drawn' a card off of it. Mostly, your opponent just gives you the worst card in your yard (getting a thoughtseize back late game is not great). Worse is that you can't even cast any of the sub-optimal cards or pitch them to lilly as your oppoenent will just give them back too you again.
Siege rhino does so much and asks so little. It is the proper 4/5 in this deck.
This is the 4th draft of this deck,and I am looking for any advice/tips to help streamline it.
Please help with any recommendations, and any advice for the sideboard.
Budget discussion is not allowed outside of the Budget subforum. Although this post does not explicitly say it's a budget list, the lack of Thoughtseize, Lilly, and Goyf is pretty strong evidence that it is. Please take budget discussions to the appropriate subforum. Starting on 2/9/2015 these posts will be warned/infracted.
Mastodon, let me know if this is bad of me. After seeing Frank Lepore's newest video set, I decided to build my own Ghostway deck. However, Naya seems underpowered and somewhat inconsistent. So Abzan! Because Seige Rhino is ridiculous.
Also not a Junk deck. Although it uses abzan colors, this is clearly a different take on the traditional BGx Midrange archetype. We really need the specific Tier 1/Tier 2 archetypes in question to be discussed in their respective threads, not just variants that use those colors or cards.
Once again I must ask, what is the decision behind whether or not to play confidants??? Is it mostly based on the prevalence of burn in the metagame or is it a bad idea when playing rhinos?
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Modern UMerfolk GBWMelira PodRIP GBW Abzan Midrange GBR Jund Midrange
Once again I must ask, what is the decision behind whether or not to play confidants??? Is it mostly based on the prevalence of burn in the metagame or is it a bad idea when playing rhinos?
I think, and this is just my own opinion, that it depends on whether you like bob or not. The deck is pretty good with or without him.
This is my current list as of this moment. I'd really like to cut the kitchen finks because I don't think they're too wonderful in the maindeck and I'm very on the fence about courser of kruphix and also phyrexian arena. Both of them are awesome once they start going, but they're just both a little slow. Still, I feel like I need opportunities to generate card advantage which these provide. I feel like I should run one more lingering souls and 1 more planeswalker, either liliana #4 or a sorin.
Lastly, how do you guys go about building a sideboard for this deck? My meta consists of a decent amount of tron (1 RG, usually 1 blue tron), 1-2 burn decks, and then a bunch of other random jank like Living End, Esper Control, Twin, and UWR Kiki control. I was thinking like 3 stony silence, 4 pieces of land hate, and then some other combination of cards that are traditional to sideboard?
It seems to me that people are just a little lukewarm on Bob after the last few months of burn and delver. However, I think Bob will come back in a big way now, its just too good. I have been playing with it over the last couple weeks and it has been great. In the mirror an unanswered bob usually means you just win the game. In the UWR match up it doesn't actually hurt to have a lightning rod out on turn 2 (they can't really afford to let you have it out) so that you can play out your lilly on turn 3 and keep it around for more than a turn. Even in the worst situations (such as burn and zoo) is still throws itself in front of a creature or takes a bolt for the team in game one (clearly it comes out for more appropriate options).
After attempting to play Bob in 3 post-ban tournaments, I decided I hate it. Zoo is still really good. Burn is still a thing. Affinity. You name it. So I switched from 4 Bob to 3 Arena, and while they were much better, they were slow, AND you couldn't reliably draw them since there were only 3. In favor of consistency, I have cut all arenas and all Bobs, and am now crushing all foes in sight!
The format basically went back to what it was before delver ruled all. I put Bobs back in my deck as a 3 of. Bob is back, and hes just as good before treasure cruise. Its the same thing as before, if youre playing against aggro, or burn, you side em out. against any other matchup they make the game super in your favor, and with the growing popularity of Abzan, youll want them in the mirror
I'm new to this deck, but here are my card choice reasons for the sb:
3 Extirpate - There are a few storm/tron/scapeshift players here and I'm hoping to be able to combo it with Thoughtseize/Fulminator/Edge.
2 Mirran Crusader - For G/x or B/x matchups.
Thanks!
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
BWGJunkBWG
BRGJundBRG
B1Eldrazi ShopsB1
UAzami, Lady of ScrollsU
BGMeren of Clan Nel TothBG
BUWJenara, Asura of WarBUW
GURAnimar, Soul of ElementsGUR
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
3x Voice of Resurgence
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Siege Rhino
SORCERY'S
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Lingering Souls
2x Maelstrom Pulse
INSTANTS
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Path to Exile
PLANESWALKER'S
3x Liliana of the Veil
LAND'S
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Stirring Wildwood
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Windswept Heath
2x Overgrown Tomb
2x Temple Garden
1x Godless Shrine
1x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Forest
3x Aven Mindcensor
2x Choke
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Fracturing Gust
2x Stony Silence
2x Thoughtseize
2x Wheel of Sun and Moon
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Ok, so no Goyf as you see and it is not entirely a budgetary issue for me in this deck its more of a power level to what the deck is trying to do. First, with all the fetches available and running some LD lands I believe Knight of the Reliquary can out pace a goyf quickly. It can come down the same turn with Birds and can make great use of a Swiss-Army Knife style land base. Want to cascade into Living End with some nice fatties in your GY, let me activate my KotR and fetch me up a Bojuka Bog. Need to kill a man land or want to cripple a Tron player about to untap and have full Urza mana avail, tap that KotR and getcha Ghost Quarter. Need to gain some life to stay/put the mid game back in your favor, tap that KotR and get your Vault of the Archangel. All the time growing that little KotR to a finisher.
Voice of Resurgence is positioned well to keep opposing players to using their turn for removal as pairing a Voice token with Lingering Souls token's can get out of hand quick.
Birds of Paradise over Noble Hierarch. Birds give all 5 colors whereas Noble does not give us B and this can be an issue if we are trying to stick a T2 Liliana of the Veil. Plus we can still get the Exalted trigger from Qasali Pridemage.
One sideboard card I want to touch on is Wheel of Sun and Moon straight up hoses opponents GY shenanigans what ever they are trying to do. That with the thing about Enchantments being a little harder to remove. Downside is that it targets.
Current Decks
Standard : WB Orzhov Vampires BW GUB Sultai Constrictor BUG
Brawl : GB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons BG
Modern : GB Golgari Elves BG GR Atarka Goblins RG
Pauper : W Heroic W GB Delve BG
4th Liliana, 3rd Scooze, or a Garruk Wildspeaker? All 3 have merits and downfalls:
1) I don't care to draw 2 Liliana usually, and she is mediocre to bad against several matchups (Living End, most fast Aggro, Baloth/Smiter decks).
2) I don't EVER want a second scooze in my hand. I hate it when I draw a second one unless I know I'm purposefully baiting removal, but this is a rare occurrence.
3) Garruk ramps and makes Souls devastating, but at the end of the day it's possible he is mediocre.
For the record, I don't think there's enough baloths and smiters in the format to give much consideration to that. That could change if 8rack becomes a thing again, but even still, liliana is still good in the matches against decks that play baloth/smiter. In fact, every time I've had an opponent put a creature into play off a lili +1, I have won that game. Lingering Souls, on the other hand...
Honestly, I would just play 4 lili's. They're easily sided out for better cards against aggro. And actually, in the living end match up, she can be used to some extent for our benefit as well. Sure, she's not great against living end, but she's not terrible either. In some cases, putting your own dudes in the yard is a plausible idea, and getting her to 6 loyalty is definitely achievable sometimes. At the very worst, she gets one dude off the table if they go off.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marsh Flats
4x Overgrown Tomb
3x Godless Shrine
3x Stirring Wildwood
2x Swamp
2x Forest
2x Plains
2x Scavenging Ooze
4x Siege Rhino
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Thrun, the Last Troll
Instant(13)
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Abzan Charm
3x Dismember
3x Path to Exile
4x Distress
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Lingering Souls
2x Maelstrom Pulse
SideBoard
This is the 4th draft of this deck,and I am looking for any advice/tips to help streamline it.
Please help with any recommendations, and any advice for the sideboard.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
4 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wall of Omens
4 Siege Rhino
2 Restoration Angel
2 Kitchen Finks
Spells:
3 Ghostway
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Chord of Calling
3 Thoughtseize
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Tectonic Edge
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Duress
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Spellskite
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Wrath of God
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sin Collector
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes:
Creatures
4x [[Tarmogoyf]]
4x [[Dark Confidant]]
4x [[Siege Rhino]]
3x [[Scavenging ooze]]
Planeswalkers
4x [[Liliana of the Veil]]
Spells
4x [[Abrupt Decay]]
2x [[Dismember]]
1x [[Path to Exile]]
1x [[Slaughter Pact]]
3x [[Thoughseize]]
3x [[inquisition of kozilek]]
1x [[Maelstrom Pulse]]
2x [[Lingering Souls]]
Land
4x [[Verdant Catacombs]]
3x [[Marsh Flats]]
1x [[Windswept Heath]]
2x [[Overgrown Tomb]]
1x [[Twilight Mire]]
1x [[Temple Garden]]
1x [[Godless Shrine]]
3x [[Tectonic Edge]]
1x [[Swamp]]
1x [[Forest]]
1x [[Plains]]
2x [[Treetop Village]]
2x [[Stirring Wildwood]]
1x [[Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth]]
SB
1x [[Sorin, Solemn Visitor]]
3x [[Fulminator Mage]]
1x [[Unravel the Aether]]
2x [[Graffdiger's Cage]]
3x [[Timely Reinforcements]]
2x [[Stoney Silence]]
1x [[Duress]]
1x [[Thrun, The Last Troll]]
1x [[Fracturing Gust]]
I have been seeing Voice over Bob in some lists, but I can't actually imagine doing that. The ceiling on how good bob can be is so high and in the meta-game that I see emerging I don't actually think the life loss is that big of a deal.
I have also done a bit of testing with Tasigur and have come to the conclusion that it is also not right for this deck. In most cases it hasn't felt like I have 'drawn' a card off of it. Mostly, your opponent just gives you the worst card in your yard (getting a thoughtseize back late game is not great). Worse is that you can't even cast any of the sub-optimal cards or pitch them to lilly as your oppoenent will just give them back too you again.
Siege rhino does so much and asks so little. It is the proper 4/5 in this deck.
Budget discussion is not allowed outside of the Budget subforum. Although this post does not explicitly say it's a budget list, the lack of Thoughtseize, Lilly, and Goyf is pretty strong evidence that it is. Please take budget discussions to the appropriate subforum. Starting on 2/9/2015 these posts will be warned/infracted.
Also not a Junk deck. Although it uses abzan colors, this is clearly a different take on the traditional BGx Midrange archetype. We really need the specific Tier 1/Tier 2 archetypes in question to be discussed in their respective threads, not just variants that use those colors or cards.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
I think, and this is just my own opinion, that it depends on whether you like bob or not. The deck is pretty good with or without him.
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay
4 Siege Rhino
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Courser of Kruphix
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Lingering Souls
1 Murderous Cut
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Treetop Village
This is my current list as of this moment. I'd really like to cut the kitchen finks because I don't think they're too wonderful in the maindeck and I'm very on the fence about courser of kruphix and also phyrexian arena. Both of them are awesome once they start going, but they're just both a little slow. Still, I feel like I need opportunities to generate card advantage which these provide. I feel like I should run one more lingering souls and 1 more planeswalker, either liliana #4 or a sorin.
Lastly, how do you guys go about building a sideboard for this deck? My meta consists of a decent amount of tron (1 RG, usually 1 blue tron), 1-2 burn decks, and then a bunch of other random jank like Living End, Esper Control, Twin, and UWR Kiki control. I was thinking like 3 stony silence, 4 pieces of land hate, and then some other combination of cards that are traditional to sideboard?
Any advice would be appreciated!
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Siege Rhino
4 Tarmogoyf
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Instants (7)
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile
1 Murderous Cut
Sorceries (13)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Thoughtseize
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
3 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Batterskull
3 Extirpate
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Stony Silence
2 Timely Reinforcements
I'm new to this deck, but here are my card choice reasons for the sb:
3 Extirpate - There are a few storm/tron/scapeshift players here and I'm hoping to be able to combo it with Thoughtseize/Fulminator/Edge.
2 Mirran Crusader - For G/x or B/x matchups.
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
When versing Merfolk, what are you afraid of? How do you normally end up losing to a fish deck?