Yeah, dude, the fact that Treetop is so cheap to activate is the nuts. I feel awful saying this, but I think I actually liked Treetop more than Vents, Stirrings, Ravine or Colonnade thus far. I was swinging for a lot of damage with it, and Reid Duke was basically winning with Veil and Treetop beats throughout his recent video. So in Abzan are you playing 2 Treetops/1 Vent? Would you do that if this deck were playing it's 3x paths and 4x souls?
I really will consider playing it as a spicy 1 of in a traditional manland. That cheap 3/3 trample body is amazing. It's also easy on the mana coloring to activate.
Yeah, Flayer just didn't impress me. I'm playing the 3/3 split because sometimes my meta is infested with burn, but in an open tournament I'd go 4/2.
I never liked Abzan when it was playing the 3x Nobles with 3x Grim Flayers, I hated that version of Abzan and I had a losing record with it.
I'd like to try Reid's list one more time, but outside of the Grixis player who beat me I wasn't happy with the quality of my opponents or their plays. There were some good players there but I didn't face them last night. I thought the FNM would be bigger, I guess the holiday had a lot of people gone.
I'm playing BG Rock (Steve Hatto's version from GP) and have a lot of trouble with Burn which is common in my town. What would you recommend as sideboard against Burn?
I've also posted this question in the modern prices topic, though here it's more about gameplay and meta viability.
I play a quite strong midrange deck in standard and like the way decision making infuences the way the game works out for you. I have played against Abzan and absolutely love the deck, but I've always considered it to expensive!
Nowdays, I own the full abzan manabase including manlands, all supporting spells and most sideboard staples. I also own a Tarmogoyf which I pulled once and love to play with it.
Now I have the option to buy the rest (the usual suspects incl. Grim Flayer delirium, no Bob) for €400,- to €450,- which is about $500,- usd.
My local meta consists of the following decks (including my own*):
Esper Control
Dredge
Tooth&Nail
Mardu Midrange
Jeskai Tempo
BW Eldrazi
Bant Eldrazi
GB-Tron
E-tron
Elves
Humans*
Bushwhacker Aggro*
Bant Knightfall*
On FNM level, most notably add:
Grixis DS
Grixis Control
Affinity
UR Storm
The question here is: Is Abzan still a viable midrange strategy in this meta? Also, would the financial investment be stable enough for the years to come?
I know it might be heavily biassed but hope to gain some straight answers
I've also posted this question in the modern prices topic, though here it's more about gameplay and meta viability.
I play a quite strong midrange deck in standard and like the way decision making infuences the way the game works out for you. I have played against Abzan and absolutely love the deck, but I've always considered it to expensive!
Nowdays, I own the full abzan manabase including manlands, all supporting spells and most sideboard staples. I also own a Tarmogoyf which I pulled once and love to play with it.
Now I have the option to buy the rest (the usual suspects incl. Grim Flayer delirium, no Bob) for €400,- to €450,- which is about $500,- usd.
My local meta consists of the following decks (including my own*):
Esper Control
Dredge
Tooth&Nail
Mardu Midrange
Jeskai Tempo
BW Eldrazi
Bant Eldrazi
GB-Tron
E-tron
Elves
Humans*
Bushwhacker Aggro*
Bant Knightfall*
On FNM level, most notably add:
Grixis DS
Grixis Control
Affinity
UR Storm
The question here is: Is Abzan still a viable midrange strategy in this meta? Also, would the financial investment be stable enough for the years to come?
I know it might be heavily biassed but hope to gain some straight answers
If midrange is your calling, then invest. I am currently playing the Abzan Traverse version of the deck and have put up just short of winning it all results. The deck is very interchangeable and according to your local meta, you can do damage.
I've also posted this question in the modern prices topic, though here it's more about gameplay and meta viability.
I play a quite strong midrange deck in standard and like the way decision making infuences the way the game works out for you. I have played against Abzan and absolutely love the deck, but I've always considered it to expensive!
Nowdays, I own the full abzan manabase including manlands, all supporting spells and most sideboard staples. I also own a Tarmogoyf which I pulled once and love to play with it.
Now I have the option to buy the rest (the usual suspects incl. Grim Flayer delirium, no Bob) for €400,- to €450,- which is about $500,- usd.
My local meta consists of the following decks (including my own*):
Esper Control
Dredge
Tooth&Nail
Mardu Midrange
Jeskai Tempo
BW Eldrazi
Bant Eldrazi
GB-Tron
E-tron
Elves
Humans*
Bushwhacker Aggro*
Bant Knightfall*
On FNM level, most notably add:
Grixis DS
Grixis Control
Affinity
UR Storm
The question here is: Is Abzan still a viable midrange strategy in this meta? Also, would the financial investment be stable enough for the years to come?
I know it might be heavily biassed but hope to gain some straight answers
I can truly say without bias that if you already own all those staples and you like midrange, it's worth it.
All these staples intersect, you'd he surprised how close you are to a bunch of other decks.
Abzan has been mainly tier 2 this year with some points of tier 1. Jund was tier 1 for over two years.
If you're a midrange player i definitely would go for it, you4e only true other midrange options ar4 jeskai geist, which is a ton of money if you don't own those staples.
In the future you can look into jund, grixis shadow, 5c shadow and Abzan company. Go for it, man. I'm saying this as a player who plays midrange pretty exclusively despite owning nearly every tier 1 deck at some point
Gbx has moments of being out of tier 1 but it has rarely ever been downright bad. There's too many important staples for it to be a bad investment.
Nah. No deck should be maining surgical outside of lantern
Be careful with surgical, that card is one of the hugest traps in all of modern. It should really only he used against combo decks or ramp decks that fulminators is good with.
Nah. No deck should be maining surgical outside of lantern
Be careful with surgical, that card is one of the hugest traps in all of modern. It should really only he used against combo decks or ramp decks that fulminators is good with.
Sorry for typos, writing this on my phone.
but in many games i played, after a hand disruption or after killing a creature, i always wished i could surgical that card and get rid of it for the rest of the game so i don't have to deal with it later on or again. that's why i asked if you have tried maining it.
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Nah. No deck should be maining surgical outside of lantern
Be careful with surgical, that card is one of the hugest traps in all of modern. It should really only he used against combo decks or ramp decks that fulminators is good with.
Sorry for typos, writing this on my phone.
but in many games i played, after a hand disruption or after killing a creature, i always wished i could surgical that card and get rid of it for the rest of the game so i don't have to deal with it later on or again. that's why i asked if you have tried maining it.
And this is literally what I'm recommending against, that's not how you want to be using surgical. Bad players do that.
Don't bring in surgical because, "it'd be nice to get rid of my opponent's Tarmogoyf's" or "snapcaster mages".
Never ever use Surgical like that. I always refer to Surgical as being a combo hate, not a GY hate card. Fully agree with Spsiegel here.
I saw players bring in Surgicals against my Lingering Souls in the past. Don't be that person! You only bring in Surgical when its really good, and the only reasons right now are Storm, Big Mana (in combination with Fulminator), Living End (not as GY hate actually, your best goal is to discard Living End and then Extract it, so again, combo hate) and dredge (extracting their recurring creatures or narcomoeba is fine, but surgical is not amazing here, its more like a card that you bring in if you don't have anything better or in addition to that). Ofc also for all combo decks, but this are the most prevalent right now.
Surgical has no business in attrition based matchups.
I might just be reiterating here, but I'm not sure if it's been made clear, - the reasoning for not playing surgical extraction in a midrange mirror is that you're creating card disadvantage for yourself, unless you extract a card that is also in your opponents hand. That scenario is not impossible - but probably unlikely.
Most of our cards trade 1 for 1, and in a mirror you don't want to trade a card from your hand just to stop your opponent from drawing more copies of a card you don't like dealing with. In midrange mirrors cards like Fulminator Mage or top end threats like Thrun, The Last Troll or Sigarda, Host of Herons will be much more difficult for your opponent to deal with than Surgical Extraction.
As it's been said - run surgical if you're facing decks that have a specific combo piece that their deck relies heavily on to win, like Ensnaring Bridge in Lantern Control or Valukut, The Molten Pinnacle in Titan Shift.
I might just be reiterating here, but I'm not sure if it's been made clear, - the reasoning for not playing surgical extraction in a midrange mirror is that you're creating card disadvantage for yourself, unless you extract a card that is also in your opponents hand. That scenario is not impossible - but probably unlikely.
Most of our cards trade 1 for 1, and in a mirror you don't want to trade a card from your hand just to stop your opponent from drawing more copies of a card you don't like dealing with. In midrange mirrors cards like Fulminator Mage or top end threats like Thrun, The Last Troll or Sigarda, Host of Herons will be much more difficult for your opponent to deal with than Surgical Extraction.
As it's been said - run surgical if you're facing decks that have a specific combo piece that their deck relies heavily on to win, like Ensnaring Bridge in Lantern Control or Valukut, The Molten Pinnacle in Titan Shift.
Card disadvantage is certainly the problem, but not only when you have it in your opening hand, but it also is devastating when you topdeck it.
Fine in Limited and Standard - no place in modern.
Nekrataal sees no play and it's a similar card. Other ETB kill creature cards like Big Game Hunter and Shriekmaw are also very fringe.
There's so many much more impactful cards we can cast for 4 mana.
This new card should be stupid-good in Commander and may find fringe application in decks with creature tutoring ability and flicker effects but, generally, what pppprk said.
I really will consider playing it as a spicy 1 of in a traditional manland. That cheap 3/3 trample body is amazing. It's also easy on the mana coloring to activate.
Yeah, Flayer just didn't impress me. I'm playing the 3/3 split because sometimes my meta is infested with burn, but in an open tournament I'd go 4/2.
I never liked Abzan when it was playing the 3x Nobles with 3x Grim Flayers, I hated that version of Abzan and I had a losing record with it.
I'd like to try Reid's list one more time, but outside of the Grixis player who beat me I wasn't happy with the quality of my opponents or their plays. There were some good players there but I didn't face them last night. I thought the FNM would be bigger, I guess the holiday had a lot of people gone.
I'm already playing Kitchen Finks, 2 main + 2 side.
Played a small local tournament today, 3 rounds.
0-2 vs. Burn
0-2 vs. Grixis Control
2-0 vs. Dredge
TappedOut
Would love to have more input to improve!
I play a quite strong midrange deck in standard and like the way decision making infuences the way the game works out for you. I have played against Abzan and absolutely love the deck, but I've always considered it to expensive!
Nowdays, I own the full abzan manabase including manlands, all supporting spells and most sideboard staples. I also own a Tarmogoyf which I pulled once and love to play with it.
Now I have the option to buy the rest (the usual suspects incl. Grim Flayer delirium, no Bob) for €400,- to €450,- which is about $500,- usd.
My local meta consists of the following decks (including my own*):
Esper Control
Dredge
Tooth&Nail
Mardu Midrange
Jeskai Tempo
BW Eldrazi
Bant Eldrazi
GB-Tron
E-tron
Elves
Humans*
Bushwhacker Aggro*
Bant Knightfall*
On FNM level, most notably add:
Grixis DS
Grixis Control
Affinity
UR Storm
The question here is: Is Abzan still a viable midrange strategy in this meta? Also, would the financial investment be stable enough for the years to come?
I know it might be heavily biassed but hope to gain some straight answers
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW
If midrange is your calling, then invest. I am currently playing the Abzan Traverse version of the deck and have put up just short of winning it all results. The deck is very interchangeable and according to your local meta, you can do damage.
I can truly say without bias that if you already own all those staples and you like midrange, it's worth it.
All these staples intersect, you'd he surprised how close you are to a bunch of other decks.
Abzan has been mainly tier 2 this year with some points of tier 1. Jund was tier 1 for over two years.
If you're a midrange player i definitely would go for it, you4e only true other midrange options ar4 jeskai geist, which is a ton of money if you don't own those staples.
In the future you can look into jund, grixis shadow, 5c shadow and Abzan company. Go for it, man. I'm saying this as a player who plays midrange pretty exclusively despite owning nearly every tier 1 deck at some point
Gbx has moments of being out of tier 1 but it has rarely ever been downright bad. There's too many important staples for it to be a bad investment.
Be careful with surgical, that card is one of the hugest traps in all of modern. It should really only he used against combo decks or ramp decks that fulminators is good with.
Sorry for typos, writing this on my phone.
but in many games i played, after a hand disruption or after killing a creature, i always wished i could surgical that card and get rid of it for the rest of the game so i don't have to deal with it later on or again. that's why i asked if you have tried maining it.
TappedOut
Would love to have more input to improve!
And this is literally what I'm recommending against, that's not how you want to be using surgical. Bad players do that.
Don't bring in surgical because, "it'd be nice to get rid of my opponent's Tarmogoyf's" or "snapcaster mages".
I saw players bring in Surgicals against my Lingering Souls in the past. Don't be that person! You only bring in Surgical when its really good, and the only reasons right now are Storm, Big Mana (in combination with Fulminator), Living End (not as GY hate actually, your best goal is to discard Living End and then Extract it, so again, combo hate) and dredge (extracting their recurring creatures or narcomoeba is fine, but surgical is not amazing here, its more like a card that you bring in if you don't have anything better or in addition to that). Ofc also for all combo decks, but this are the most prevalent right now.
Surgical has no business in attrition based matchups.
Most of our cards trade 1 for 1, and in a mirror you don't want to trade a card from your hand just to stop your opponent from drawing more copies of a card you don't like dealing with. In midrange mirrors cards like Fulminator Mage or top end threats like Thrun, The Last Troll or Sigarda, Host of Herons will be much more difficult for your opponent to deal with than Surgical Extraction.
As it's been said - run surgical if you're facing decks that have a specific combo piece that their deck relies heavily on to win, like Ensnaring Bridge in Lantern Control or Valukut, The Molten Pinnacle in Titan Shift.
TappedOut
Would love to have more input to improve!
No. Just don't bring it in against JEskai or UW at all.
Card disadvantage is certainly the problem, but not only when you have it in your opening hand, but it also is devastating when you topdeck it.
I think Rhino is underwhelming lately, why do you still play it?
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Nekrataal sees no play and it's a similar card. Other ETB kill creature cards like Big Game Hunter and Shriekmaw are also very fringe.
There's so many much more impactful cards we can cast for 4 mana.
This new card should be stupid-good in Commander and may find fringe application in decks with creature tutoring ability and flicker effects but, generally, what pppprk said.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn