Last week i've been jamming a lot of leagues. Going 4-1/4-1/2-3/3-2/5-0
Deck is still very good. There has not been a match-up that feld unwinnable. You just need to know your role in the game.
Last week i've been jamming a lot of leagues. Going 4-1/4-1/2-3/3-2/5-0
Deck is still very good. There has not been a match-up that feld unwinnable. You just need to know your role in the game.
Of course, the deck hasn't suddenly "got bad" or anything. It's still strong and has a potential turn 3 win. What I'm considering is more the matchups and other components in the landscape right now. There's a reason why Gx Tron has whole months or more when it's completely unplayable and other times when it's a great choice.
Having been a bit out of the loop and seeing players back away from this deck in general (could also be deck-fatigue or boredom, that's a legit thing) I'm just wondering beyond one person's anecdotal success whether there are larger forces at work which will be working against me if (for example) I was to jam druid coco at a bunch of large GP side events
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Played a few games against my buddy this morning running his Death's Shadow. We play a series of games without sideboarding and then do a few with sideboarding.
His hand disruption worked well against me gutting my combo pieces, Chords and CoCos. I was able to hang on a little and steal a few games with Ballista shooting him for the win but it was tough.
I am thinking I will stuck with the deck and play the under the radar angle. I still like the deck - when it is running correctly it is very explosive. Plus, it would be about $500 to buy into a different deck...
I also played a game against one of my friends, last night he was playing Tier 1 Jeskai Tempo with Geist and Spell Queller. We only played one game and I won 2-1 quite easily. (my deck link is in sig)
R1: Overwhelmed his removal with creatures, nice start with T1 Dork and ended the game with Rhonas and Scooze beat downs.
R2: Opening hand had 3 lands, no dork, kept it and didnt see another land for the rest of the game. Didn't see a dork until turn 4, but it was still a close game despite me being land screwed - brought him down to ~6 life before he killed me.
R3: Same as game 1, but no T1 dork so a little slower. Eventually taxed his removal too much and he lost to creature beat downs.
The deck feels prety strong even against decks that have tons of removal. I haven't had a chance to play against much else recently, but I'll be going to FNM's more frequently now so hopefully I can report more.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Fauna Shaman is a great addition in my opinion to the Spell Queller lists. I'm not sold on the 1-of Courser of Kruphix in the main as it's a pretty lackluster tutor target that could likely be swapped for a Scavenging Ooze. I've never been a fan of Kor Firewalker from the board but can see it as a 1-of ace for the Burn MU.. a 2nd copy of Burrenton Forge-Tender could fill the slot as well.
Other than that, I think this list looks pretty fantastic and I'm excited to give it another shot.
Myself included being excited about this list. I've seen ones with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy also, which i think is interesting. LOVE the 3 geist out of the board for control matches, i always find those super frustrating to win without midrange threats like that, I've even mostly been on GW value town because of all the jeskai and grixis in my area, but this list seems versatile enough to hang. I really wish they posted individual records, or if they did I haven't seen them...Wondering how this list did in particular along with the bant value town lists at 12th and 15th.
This list seems like it has a lot of really weird numbers of cards. Fauna shaman feels like a 3-4 or a 0 to me mostly, and 3 duskwatch feels like 2 too many in this kinda build. I'd almost give some thought to going 4 fauna shaman, up to 4 eternal witness, and down on a lot of other combo pieces.
With 4 quellers (which I presume you are banking on for Supreme Verdict insurance game 1) I'm not sure I would want to run a selfless spirit as a silver bullet main deck especially with no renegade ralliers, kinda lean toward making that something better (an ooze perhaps would be good).
The number of 3-drops actually seems unusually low (9?) for a 11 dork deck even with 21 lands. I'd be inclined to see closer to 10, or even 11. It definitely feels loose to have a courser in there without the 4th witness, but if you were heavier on Shamans courser gets better (since the repeated shuffling == more land drops).
This list seems like it has a lot of really weird numbers of cards. Fauna shaman feels like a 3-4 or a 0 to me mostly, and 3 duskwatch feels like 2 too many in this kinda build. I'd almost give some thought to going 4 fauna shaman, up to 4 eternal witness, and down on a lot of other combo pieces.
With 4 quellers (which I presume you are banking on for Supreme Verdict insurance game 1) I'm not sure I would want to run a selfless spirit as a silver bullet main deck especially with no renegade ralliers, kinda lean toward making that something better (an ooze perhaps would be good).
The number of 3-drops actually seems unusually low (9?) for a 11 dork deck even with 21 lands. I'd be inclined to see closer to 10, or even 11. It definitely feels loose to have a courser in there without the 4th witness, but if you were heavier on Shamans courser gets better (since the repeated shuffling == more land drops).
My immediate thought was 3 Shaman / 2 Recruiter. I've always preferred Witness as a 3-of as it's relatively clunky in a number of MUs. Selfless spirit is perfectly fine without Rallier in my opinion. 7 1-CMC dorks plays nicely with Shaman on T2 allowing you to untap with 4 Mana and turn irrelevant creatures into Quellers starting on T3.
I'm probably just biased having cashed GPs playing Fauna Shaman and still believe it's in a great position given how popular Grafdigger's Cage is.
I agree with you for sure I just think 2 seems like a suspect number of them to play. I'd playtest 4 before I'd try 2.
I don't think there's really enough sweepers in the format to be running a spirit main, an there's a lot more paths these days and trading spirit 1 for 1 is not really where you want to be. Spellskite or Ooze are both likely to gain you more percentage points right now.
What do you guys think of Disdainful Stroke over Unified Will? I feel like it hits everything I actually care about countering and avoids all the awkward situations.
What do you guys think of Disdainful Stroke over Unified Will? I feel like it hits everything I actually care about countering and avoids all the awkward situations.
In the Queller lists it may be correct. The main card Stroke doesn't hit would be Oblivion Stone which I suppose Queller should have covered. Unified Will does do a bit more work vs. Lantern hitting both Whir/Bridge and can counter Living End. On the other side of that argument, Stroke definitely has more play to it in the Mirror, Ponza, and Jeskai Control (non-tempo).
Test it out and let us know what you think.
Edit: I put in 10 games with the Bant list above last night and was thoroughly unimpressed with the decks performance across a variety of MUs. I'll give it a few more go's today but not having that Finks/Gavony grind engine I'm used to just left me feeling helpless against anything fair.
What do you guys think of Disdainful Stroke over Unified Will? I feel like it hits everything I actually care about countering and avoids all the awkward situations.
Edit: I put in 10 games with the Bant list above last night and was thoroughly unimpressed with the decks performance across a variety of MUs. I'll give it a few more go's today but not having that Finks/Gavony grind engine I'm used to just left me feeling helpless against anything fair.
I feel the same about the Finks build. I was looking into the Bant version with Queller. But what match up makes it better?
Right now, Finks and beatdown wins me a lot of match ups. Like 5c Shadow and other decks that struggle against multiple hard to remove creatures.
Next to that, I love the Tidehollow plan from the board.
Right now I have a straight forward list with 4 Duskwatch, 4 Vizier, 4 Devoted in the main.
I can see a hybrid in the future. I like Meddling Mage as a 'Blue' creature. Next to that is Reflector Mage, but can't realy find a valid reason why it is better as Fiend Hunter and co.
I have been either winning easily and fast through the combo, in a longer and more grindy game through Finks life-gain, or losing bad through not hitting or having the combo disrupted.
I have been trying to figure out a way to make the combo more consistent and/or less fragile. Proper game-play and sequencing has helped but when they kill Druid it really hurts.
Same, but for now the deck has either been "Oops I win on turn 3 because you didn't remove my T2 Druid" or "Game went long, I eventually got the combo, but dug through the deck and I couldn't manage to find a way to win". I have been looking at a lot of consistency stuff, like Eldritch Evolution from the sideboard to race linear decks Games 2 & 3, Gather the Pack, upping Duskwatch Recruiter numbers, Elvish Visionary, etc...
I don't know if I'd say that Druid combo is dead, but I will admit that I'm switching off the deck.
I've been grinding modo with a KoTR version
MODO, well there is your problem! The deck is absolutely horrible to play on there! The deck isn't dead, it just has to adapt to the meta a bit.
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As always, I have been not liking the Finks combo. With every new set release they're just chump blockers that I can hide behind until I can get my druid combo online. Any creature can do that, and since Finks can't fight with the likes of Death's Shadow or Gurmag Angler, or close out the game super fast, I have been looking at other options.
The first change I did was into a more Knightfall style deck, adding in 4 Knight of the Reliquary, Kessig Wolf Run, and a Stomping Ground. It went well, and I was winning through Kessig a fair amount because a KorR could search it up just as well as a Duskwatch Recruiter could search up a Walking Ballista. It esentally put me at 6 win-cons + 4 Company + 4 Chord + Ballista + Kessig + 4 EWits + 2 Canopies. This meant thatonce I had infinite mana pretty much half my deck was the lethal 3rd combo piece I was looking for. It went well, with giant KotR's winning games on their own too. But then one of my Knights went missing at an event and I have only had 3 since...
Last night I played the deck again after a while and put the Finks combo back in. To none of my surprise, Finks did nothing all night (played GDS, Tron, Hatebears, Ponza) when they probably should have been better since those are mostly good creature-centric matchups. In my three flex slots I put in Tidehollow Sculler to try out disruption like Humans plays. They were surprisingly good, but still not the best thing ever. Having them in the side is fine I'd say. Deck for reference (but with Scullers, not Ralliers and that Scooze)
This brings me to the next iteration of the deck. I am looking to remove the finks combo (1 Seer + 4 Finks), then three flex slots (3 Scullers), then I still have a few more cuts that could be made like 1 Selfless Spirit maindeck. This leaves me with a 9 card void, which can go lower by cutting down to 7 mana dorks, a Vizier, or maybe an EWit. So that's 11 cards to fill now. What I was thinking is putting in the GW value deck card package which would make us basically a Knightfall deck, but straight GW, so better mana, and have bigger creatures to combat midrage decks. The deck I'm starting with is:
- Voice of Resurgence: Doesn't help except for fighting midrange.
- Knight of the Reliquary: Thins the deck and gets Horizon Canopy. Can essentially tap it to draw a card. Also a huge threat and T3/4 5/5-7/7 Knights are not uncommon. Have to mess with the mana to play Ghost Quarter.
- Ramunap Excavator: Can get back Horizon Canopy, but overall is played for the Ghost Quarter plan. Hard to justify unless you are deep on that plan.
- Tireless Tracker: Good when flooded, gives lots of carddraw but takes a turn to use it all. Good in long grindy games.
- Courser of Kruphix: Pulls lands off the top sometimes to dig through the deck. Useful with KotR and fetchlands and a Canopy to keep shuffling the deck and see when to crack the canopy for the best card.
- Renegade Rallier: Amazing with revolt. The problem is most times you don't have revolt so this rots in your hand or is a 3/2.
What I'm curious about is what 9-11 card midrage-value-ish package would you put in the deck to try and help it while trying to not slow down the combo. Assume that at some point in ever game you assemble the combo, be it turn 3 or turn 10. All I'll say is at the minimum I am thinking of upping to 3 Duskwatch Recruiter because I often find I have tons of mana so I can get a few activations out of it. I don't want to talk about what I was testing yet because it may influence other peoples thought processes. I want to know if multiple people converge on the same thing or are in completely different directions on this. Also, are there any creatures I'm missing?
EDIT: One thought in the completely different direction is to dive deeper into black and play Dark Confidant. Way back at the beginning of this thread there were a few people pushing to play Bob, but that was a different deck. Lowering the curve to be ~all 2cmc with only Witness, Chord, and Company being the not 2cmc cards would east the life loss just a bit. Druid is a must-answer threat, but so is Bob. By playing a ton of OP 2drops we can stretch the opponents removal even thinner than it already is. Card draw is one of the big problems of the deck I find. Didn't draw a Company/Chord? Too bad you're going to run out of gas. Upping the number of Duskwatch and adding Bob's would give us lots of card advantage engines.
I am also experimenting on this and I am also on the same line as dropping the finks combo. Also entertaining of putting blue for spell queller or knightfall mix and having counter spells in sb. Unfortunately I havent got time to playtest much because of work. Please post if you have any results.
I like the synergy between knight of the reliquary and tracker. I think 4 knights and 2 trackers are a good number. Dont like courser since sometimes it doesnt provide any value.
What I'm curious about is what 9-11 card midrage-value-ish package would you put in the deck to try and help it while trying to not slow down the combo. Assume that at some point in ever game you assemble the combo, be it turn 3 or turn 10. All I'll say is at the minimum I am thinking of upping to 3 Duskwatch Recruiter because I often find I have tons of mana so I can get a few activations out of it. I don't want to talk about what I was testing yet because it may influence other peoples thought processes. I want to know if multiple people converge on the same thing or are in completely different directions on this. Also, are there any creatures I'm missing?
Right now I am in the same space as you are. Finks seems terrible in many situations. BUT he is great as a blocker and gaining life in the situation of it. It won my many games versus Shadow. The life combo lost me just as much. Titan opponents who don't scoop up. So you just lose on the spot to that kind of behaviour.
I am really curious what it means for the T3 kill. The midrange plan is pretty decent with the Knights.
I dislike the 4 Birds / 4 Noble plan. I am more fan of the 4 / 2 split of it.
If I would build the deck from scratch i'll start with this:
I need to think/test Scavenging Ooze more, I play two in the main right now. Card is solid in many match-ups but a whiff in some.
I would look into the Field of Ruin over Ghost Quarter in combination with Knight. Field an opponents land, get an forest, make a green, sac it to knight and gain some more.
Not feeling any love for Courser or Tireless Tracker in a midrange build. Tracker is solid tho, but I think we can use something else, what that is....
Went something like 29-7 on xmage during the last week, sadly didn't have time for irl grinding. Lots of random decks as expected, but also a fair share of proper ones - beat 4 or 5 Shadow decks, mostly 2-0, a bunch of more classic BGx midrange, and some UW Control, Eldratron, Ad Naus, Storm, Fish and 8Rack. Got beaten up a bit by Tron (tested Fulmi, felt real bad), Valakut (had a really fun and close last game where the only out was Omen+Shift, which he had) and Burn. Losses to Burn were really interesting, don't think I've lost that MU before. Turns out it gets rough real quick if you don't draw your 4-of Finks there.
For most of those games I tried a version with 2 Sin Collectors in the main, hoping to face a bunch of Storm/Valakut/Control. Didn't really get my wish, Collector was decent enough, but is back in the board again. Mainboard now is on 3 Duskwatch, 1 Anafenza, 1 Ballista, 1 Rhonas again.
Finks has performed great throughout almost all MU's. Yeah, it ain't a great beater, but it gives the deck a much higher combo potential (infinite life still beats 60% of Tier 1 and 50% of Tier 2, assuming actual outs in UW, Knightfall and Elves), destroys fairs decks and buys time vs aggro to assemble (or re-assemble) a combo kill. Everybody agrees that Druid/Vizier is stronger, but relying on only one combo that is easily broken up (instead of two that are easily broken up) seems way too all-in for my taste.
Quote from Momsie »
The life combo lost me just as much. Titan opponents who don't scoop up. So you just lose on the spot to that kind of behaviour.
How exactly do you lose to people not conceding? They can't win, so if it's G1 they commit to a draw at best, assuming you can't find a way to kill them after stacking your deck. Or are we talking online here? In that case, sure, that will happen sometimes. Not really a fault of the combo however, but the game engine.
For you guys who really dislike Finks and want to go for some more Value Town/Hatebears approach - isn't Knightfall with Druid/Vizier just a strictly better place to experiment for that? Got Knights, got Company, got Druid, got Reflector Mage/Spell Queller for even more fair beats. Haven't experimented with anything, but if you wanna go that route, that seems like a good starting point to me.
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"I can call an army to my side in the blink of an eye. Best not blink."
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
Rallier was the best Fink's replacement I tried but you need to play more horizon canopy or fetches or kotr to enable it. It also requires thinking ahead before you coco. In my experience revolt was live 90% of the time I wanted it. Having a selfless spirit really helps.
I think red splash is the best still overall. I did the best by far with a lavamancer and 4 wolf runs. Will likely build that again once I get done dicking around with wayward swordtooth and dromoka's command.
12-1-1 for FNM at 2 different stores over the last 2 weeks with this deck.
Rumors of this deck’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Agreed. I've played a good amount against Jeskai Control, GDS, Burn, and Eldrazi & Taxes against my friend group and can consistently win games. GDS is the hardest of those since they put on a fast clock with the disrution, but it can still be beaten and Finks is an all-star at keeping us alive in this matchup.
Deck is still very good. There has not been a match-up that feld unwinnable. You just need to know your role in the game.
Of course, the deck hasn't suddenly "got bad" or anything. It's still strong and has a potential turn 3 win. What I'm considering is more the matchups and other components in the landscape right now. There's a reason why Gx Tron has whole months or more when it's completely unplayable and other times when it's a great choice.
Having been a bit out of the loop and seeing players back away from this deck in general (could also be deck-fatigue or boredom, that's a legit thing) I'm just wondering beyond one person's anecdotal success whether there are larger forces at work which will be working against me if (for example) I was to jam druid coco at a bunch of large GP side events
His hand disruption worked well against me gutting my combo pieces, Chords and CoCos. I was able to hang on a little and steal a few games with Ballista shooting him for the win but it was tough.
I am thinking I will stuck with the deck and play the under the radar angle. I still like the deck - when it is running correctly it is very explosive. Plus, it would be about $500 to buy into a different deck...
R1: Overwhelmed his removal with creatures, nice start with T1 Dork and ended the game with Rhonas and Scooze beat downs.
R2: Opening hand had 3 lands, no dork, kept it and didnt see another land for the rest of the game. Didn't see a dork until turn 4, but it was still a close game despite me being land screwed - brought him down to ~6 life before he killed me.
R3: Same as game 1, but no T1 dork so a little slower. Eventually taxed his removal too much and he lost to creature beat downs.
The deck feels prety strong even against decks that have tons of removal. I haven't had a chance to play against much else recently, but I'll be going to FNM's more frequently now so hopefully I can report more.
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/counters_company_with_jarvis_y.html
In which matchups do you side in Liliana, the Last Hope, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, or the 2 Distended Mindbender? I'm guessing Jeskai Control for the first 2 and Tron variants for the Midnbenders?
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=118304
1 Walking Ballista
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Eternal Witness
2 Fauna Shaman
1 Meddling Mage
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Reflector Mage
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
3 Vizier of Remedies
1 Courser of Kruphix
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
2 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
Spells (8)
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reflector Mage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
3 Path to Exile
2 Unified Will
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Kataki, War's Wage
Fauna Shaman is a great addition in my opinion to the Spell Queller lists. I'm not sold on the 1-of Courser of Kruphix in the main as it's a pretty lackluster tutor target that could likely be swapped for a Scavenging Ooze. I've never been a fan of Kor Firewalker from the board but can see it as a 1-of ace for the Burn MU.. a 2nd copy of Burrenton Forge-Tender could fill the slot as well.
Other than that, I think this list looks pretty fantastic and I'm excited to give it another shot.
With 4 quellers (which I presume you are banking on for Supreme Verdict insurance game 1) I'm not sure I would want to run a selfless spirit as a silver bullet main deck especially with no renegade ralliers, kinda lean toward making that something better (an ooze perhaps would be good).
The number of 3-drops actually seems unusually low (9?) for a 11 dork deck even with 21 lands. I'd be inclined to see closer to 10, or even 11. It definitely feels loose to have a courser in there without the 4th witness, but if you were heavier on Shamans courser gets better (since the repeated shuffling == more land drops).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
My immediate thought was 3 Shaman / 2 Recruiter. I've always preferred Witness as a 3-of as it's relatively clunky in a number of MUs. Selfless spirit is perfectly fine without Rallier in my opinion. 7 1-CMC dorks plays nicely with Shaman on T2 allowing you to untap with 4 Mana and turn irrelevant creatures into Quellers starting on T3.
I'm probably just biased having cashed GPs playing Fauna Shaman and still believe it's in a great position given how popular Grafdigger's Cage is.
I don't think there's really enough sweepers in the format to be running a spirit main, an there's a lot more paths these days and trading spirit 1 for 1 is not really where you want to be. Spellskite or Ooze are both likely to gain you more percentage points right now.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
In the Queller lists it may be correct. The main card Stroke doesn't hit would be Oblivion Stone which I suppose Queller should have covered. Unified Will does do a bit more work vs. Lantern hitting both Whir/Bridge and can counter Living End. On the other side of that argument, Stroke definitely has more play to it in the Mirror, Ponza, and Jeskai Control (non-tempo).
Test it out and let us know what you think.
Edit: I put in 10 games with the Bant list above last night and was thoroughly unimpressed with the decks performance across a variety of MUs. I'll give it a few more go's today but not having that Finks/Gavony grind engine I'm used to just left me feeling helpless against anything fair.
I feel the same about the Finks build. I was looking into the Bant version with Queller. But what match up makes it better?
Right now, Finks and beatdown wins me a lot of match ups. Like 5c Shadow and other decks that struggle against multiple hard to remove creatures.
Next to that, I love the Tidehollow plan from the board.
Right now I have a straight forward list with 4 Duskwatch, 4 Vizier, 4 Devoted in the main.
I can see a hybrid in the future. I like Meddling Mage as a 'Blue' creature. Next to that is Reflector Mage, but can't realy find a valid reason why it is better as Fiend Hunter and co.
MODO, well there is your problem! The deck is absolutely horrible to play on there! The deck isn't dead, it just has to adapt to the meta a bit.
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As always, I have been not liking the Finks combo. With every new set release they're just chump blockers that I can hide behind until I can get my druid combo online. Any creature can do that, and since Finks can't fight with the likes of Death's Shadow or Gurmag Angler, or close out the game super fast, I have been looking at other options.
The first change I did was into a more Knightfall style deck, adding in 4 Knight of the Reliquary, Kessig Wolf Run, and a Stomping Ground. It went well, and I was winning through Kessig a fair amount because a KorR could search it up just as well as a Duskwatch Recruiter could search up a Walking Ballista. It esentally put me at 6 win-cons + 4 Company + 4 Chord + Ballista + Kessig + 4 EWits + 2 Canopies. This meant thatonce I had infinite mana pretty much half my deck was the lethal 3rd combo piece I was looking for. It went well, with giant KotR's winning games on their own too. But then one of my Knights went missing at an event and I have only had 3 since...
Last night I played the deck again after a while and put the Finks combo back in. To none of my surprise, Finks did nothing all night (played GDS, Tron, Hatebears, Ponza) when they probably should have been better since those are mostly good creature-centric matchups. In my three flex slots I put in Tidehollow Sculler to try out disruption like Humans plays. They were surprisingly good, but still not the best thing ever. Having them in the side is fine I'd say. Deck for reference (but with Scullers, not Ralliers and that Scooze)
4 Devoted Druid
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Viscera Seer
4 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Vizier of Remedies
4 Kitchen Finks
Land
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Gavony Township
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Spellskite
1 Walking Ballista
Instant
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Pharika, God of Affliction
3 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
This brings me to the next iteration of the deck. I am looking to remove the finks combo (1 Seer + 4 Finks), then three flex slots (3 Scullers), then I still have a few more cuts that could be made like 1 Selfless Spirit maindeck. This leaves me with a 9 card void, which can go lower by cutting down to 7 mana dorks, a Vizier, or maybe an EWit. So that's 11 cards to fill now. What I was thinking is putting in the GW value deck card package which would make us basically a Knightfall deck, but straight GW, so better mana, and have bigger creatures to combat midrage decks. The deck I'm starting with is:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Devoted Druid
4 Vizier of Remedies
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Walking Ballista
4 Eternal Witness
9 FREE SLOTS
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Land (20)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Gavony Township
3 Forest
1 Plains
This would allow for some combination of midrange stuff like Voice of Resurgence, Knight of the Reliquary, Ramunap Excavator, Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix, Renegade Rallier, etc... I don't want to dilute the combo, so every card I put in I want to be able to dig for cards I need once I have the combo assembled. Here's my assessment of each:
- Voice of Resurgence: Doesn't help except for fighting midrange.
- Knight of the Reliquary: Thins the deck and gets Horizon Canopy. Can essentially tap it to draw a card. Also a huge threat and T3/4 5/5-7/7 Knights are not uncommon. Have to mess with the mana to play Ghost Quarter.
- Ramunap Excavator: Can get back Horizon Canopy, but overall is played for the Ghost Quarter plan. Hard to justify unless you are deep on that plan.
- Tireless Tracker: Good when flooded, gives lots of carddraw but takes a turn to use it all. Good in long grindy games.
- Courser of Kruphix: Pulls lands off the top sometimes to dig through the deck. Useful with KotR and fetchlands and a Canopy to keep shuffling the deck and see when to crack the canopy for the best card.
- Renegade Rallier: Amazing with revolt. The problem is most times you don't have revolt so this rots in your hand or is a 3/2.
What I'm curious about is what 9-11 card midrage-value-ish package would you put in the deck to try and help it while trying to not slow down the combo. Assume that at some point in ever game you assemble the combo, be it turn 3 or turn 10. All I'll say is at the minimum I am thinking of upping to 3 Duskwatch Recruiter because I often find I have tons of mana so I can get a few activations out of it. I don't want to talk about what I was testing yet because it may influence other peoples thought processes. I want to know if multiple people converge on the same thing or are in completely different directions on this. Also, are there any creatures I'm missing?
EDIT: One thought in the completely different direction is to dive deeper into black and play Dark Confidant. Way back at the beginning of this thread there were a few people pushing to play Bob, but that was a different deck. Lowering the curve to be ~all 2cmc with only Witness, Chord, and Company being the not 2cmc cards would east the life loss just a bit. Druid is a must-answer threat, but so is Bob. By playing a ton of OP 2drops we can stretch the opponents removal even thinner than it already is. Card draw is one of the big problems of the deck I find. Didn't draw a Company/Chord? Too bad you're going to run out of gas. Upping the number of Duskwatch and adding Bob's would give us lots of card advantage engines.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
I like the synergy between knight of the reliquary and tracker. I think 4 knights and 2 trackers are a good number. Dont like courser since sometimes it doesnt provide any value.
Right now I am in the same space as you are. Finks seems terrible in many situations. BUT he is great as a blocker and gaining life in the situation of it. It won my many games versus Shadow. The life combo lost me just as much. Titan opponents who don't scoop up. So you just lose on the spot to that kind of behaviour.
I am really curious what it means for the T3 kill. The midrange plan is pretty decent with the Knights.
I dislike the 4 Birds / 4 Noble plan. I am more fan of the 4 / 2 split of it.
If I would build the deck from scratch i'll start with this:
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Devoted Druid
4 Vizier of Remedies
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Walking Ballista
4 Eternal Witness
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Collected Company
I need to think/test Scavenging Ooze more, I play two in the main right now. Card is solid in many match-ups but a whiff in some.
I would look into the Field of Ruin over Ghost Quarter in combination with Knight. Field an opponents land, get an forest, make a green, sac it to knight and gain some more.
Not feeling any love for Courser or Tireless Tracker in a midrange build. Tracker is solid tho, but I think we can use something else, what that is....
For most of those games I tried a version with 2 Sin Collectors in the main, hoping to face a bunch of Storm/Valakut/Control. Didn't really get my wish, Collector was decent enough, but is back in the board again. Mainboard now is on 3 Duskwatch, 1 Anafenza, 1 Ballista, 1 Rhonas again.
Finks has performed great throughout almost all MU's. Yeah, it ain't a great beater, but it gives the deck a much higher combo potential (infinite life still beats 60% of Tier 1 and 50% of Tier 2, assuming actual outs in UW, Knightfall and Elves), destroys fairs decks and buys time vs aggro to assemble (or re-assemble) a combo kill. Everybody agrees that Druid/Vizier is stronger, but relying on only one combo that is easily broken up (instead of two that are easily broken up) seems way too all-in for my taste.
How exactly do you lose to people not conceding? They can't win, so if it's G1 they commit to a draw at best, assuming you can't find a way to kill them after stacking your deck. Or are we talking online here? In that case, sure, that will happen sometimes. Not really a fault of the combo however, but the game engine.
For you guys who really dislike Finks and want to go for some more Value Town/Hatebears approach - isn't Knightfall with Druid/Vizier just a strictly better place to experiment for that? Got Knights, got Company, got Druid, got Reflector Mage/Spell Queller for even more fair beats. Haven't experimented with anything, but if you wanna go that route, that seems like a good starting point to me.
- Yeva, Nature's Herald
Abzan Toolbox Primer
GWBAbzan CompanyBWG
GWBUGifts RockUBWG
I think red splash is the best still overall. I did the best by far with a lavamancer and 4 wolf runs. Will likely build that again once I get done dicking around with wayward swordtooth and dromoka's command.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Rumors of this deck’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Agreed. I've played a good amount against Jeskai Control, GDS, Burn, and Eldrazi & Taxes against my friend group and can consistently win games. GDS is the hardest of those since they put on a fast clock with the disrution, but it can still be beaten and Finks is an all-star at keeping us alive in this matchup.
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company