Which do you all prefer playing graveyard hate wise? Rest in peace or Relic?
I run a split. Rip is the best one but in some matchups where you eant to bring it in it isn't game ending meaning draeing multiples can lose you the game. Relic on the otherhand cantrips. I actually run 1 rip one relic and one cage. Cage is a nod to the elf decks in my meta. It would be another relic otherwise. If your meta is a lot of dredge storm and living end though you probably want the rips.
@dntScoundrel
Leonin relic warder does wonders in that matchup. I would skip on aegis. If you want that effect go for leyline instead, but The matchup revolves entirely around bridge so I like to focus on answers to that. Flickerwisp doesn't count.
Lessons I've learned against GBx decks: Take out all vials. Jund it's really hard and now they have Last Hope to shut us down significantly out of the game. I know the feeling...
Anyway, I wish better lucky on your next tournament! I can't see a single card to disagree. Just personal choices, though
I disagree about vial. Vialing in flickerwisp is really important in that matchup. That and resto are how you beat out the removal. It gives a target for kcomand but k comand has other target and is usually a 1 of. It feels bad to have your action cards discarded and to be left with vial but your key cards are always ripped from hand in that matchup. I am saying this as someone who plays mirrian crusader though so keep that in mind. If you can blank their bolt on crusader you win. Crusader is really the best card for the matchup since fatal push was printed.
Edit: for more context I tand to use my gost quarters very aggressively against jund to color screw them. In my meta they don't run super safe manabases. This means vial ensures I can still curve out. Jam my mutavalts and cycle canopy's. If you bring in graveyard hate (I bring in a rip and a relic) goyf and lavamancer are pretty easy to blank and it also helps vs ooze. Olivia has always been the card that gets me actually.
In a deck filled with better creatures, better disruption and dark confidant, vial will end up being bad in the grindy game. Thoughtseize and IoK stops your "blank this removal" move. He won't spend removal into a resto or flickerwisp. Flickerwisp will be IoK'd and resto will end up being your better creature that doesn't block or race an opposing Tarmogoyf.
I'm not the best player with the deck, but I can consider myself a bit experienced with GBx matchups since it's the MU that I've played the most. They're hard to outvalue, although it's not impossible. I highly recommend to side out vials because surprise factor will be lost and that's our worse topdeck in that MU. And we're the aggro deck here.
Crusader is not always enough to win the game. Many junds has Bolt and/or Grim Lavamancer in their 75, if he doesn't get caught by any discard spell. It's still a beast, but not always enough
Hey guys, currently prepping and testing for GP Toronto. I've got 2 flex spots I can't currently seem to settle on. I've got Mirran Crusader and Eldrazi Displacer in there right now. I've noticed people have been mb'ing 2 Aven Mindcensor recently, that interests me. What do you guys have in your flex spots in this meta and why?
In a deck filled with better creatures, better disruption and dark confidant, vial will end up being bad in the grindy game. Thoughtseize and IoK stops your "blank this removal" move. He won't spend removal into a resto or flickerwisp. Flickerwisp will be IoK'd and resto will end up being your better creature that doesn't block or race an opposing Tarmogoyf.
I'm not the best player with the deck, but I can consider myself a bit experienced with GBx matchups since it's the MU that I've played the most. They're hard to outvalue, although it's not impossible. I highly recommend to side out vials because surprise factor will be lost and that's our worse topdeck in that MU. And we're the aggro deck here.
Crusader is not always enough to win the game. Many junds has Bolt and/or Grim Lavamancer in their 75, if he doesn't get caught by any discard spell. It's still a beast, but not always enough
That's all just my opinion.
I've been finding that GBx has been removing hand disruption against me for more removal personally.
I agree that vial makes our grindy game worse against GBx, but generally speaking I feel like we always lose those games if we don't get ahead on tempo anyway. We need to get ahead, disrupt them, and overwhelm their ability to answer our stuff before they lose and vial helps with that immensely. In the late game once the board is stabilized the top of our deck is so much worse than the top of their deck that I've come around to the idea of keeping in vials and not trying to play the long game as it's not something we can win on a card per card basis
I agree that vial makes our grindy game worse against GBx, but generally speaking I feel like we always lose those games if we don't get ahead on tempo anyway. We need to get ahead, disrupt them, and overwhelm their ability to answer our stuff before they lose and vial helps with that immensely. In the late game once the board is stabilized the top of our deck is so much worse than the top of their deck that I've come around to the idea of keeping in vials and not trying to play the long game as it's not something we can win on a card per card basis
It isn't all or nothing with vials. Against BGx decks I usually keep in 1-2. It is amazing in the opener and still good in the mid game but what you really want to avoid is drawing multiples during a game. This is a match where you either win by some combination of disrupting the mana base, blanking removal with flicker or blanking discard with vial both to get ahead on cards, incurring enough repeat value off flicker targets and or sneaking through flying damage while clogging up the ground.
Decided to have some fun this week and go back to old school shenanigans build. A lot of blink effects Mangara of corondorAkroma, Angel of Fury. Just been grinding out more recently with stock taxes lists and burn recently so wanted to run a for fun variant this week. running shefet dunes on sole basis it provides colorless and white.
@jake: Aven mindcensor helps versus titan shift if you expect it to be there in force and isn't bad against the rest of the meta. finks can be good if you expect a lot of aggressive builds, thalia, heretic can be good as just a vanilla tax that is good in almost all matches. Dryad militant is great versus storm and nerfs snapcaster and goyf to some extent. Beefing up some of your 2 and 3 ofs can also be considered.
Update: Went 3-1 lost a close match to grixis death's shadow, won a close match against humans than beat ponza pretty handidly and beat affinty ( mull to 5 g1 and t2 stony silence followed by t4 Linvala)
Magnar is pretty bad. I've tried him as a fun of and found he never did anything. I wish he wad atleast playable but it my experience he is about as useful as a land. Akroma on the other hand is my favorite fun of. She may be sub par but she leads to some great gotcha moments. It's fun to break her out every once in a while to keep the regulars at fnm on their toes. My favorite nonstandard card is judges familiar. It's so good when you go turn 1 vial turn two thalia, forcespike your fatal push.
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So... Lightning Bolt was the card with the most copies in PT, alongside Thoughtseize. Followed not by far, for Fatal Push. Thoughts?
It's been a while that I'm tempted to play things like Fiendslayer Paladin / Paladin En-Vec. I haven't had the courage to do so yet, but I start to think that could replace Mirran Crusader... or not? What do you think? (Yeah yeah... double strike, I get that. But non 'boltable/pushable' creature and a possibly rising of Mardu Pyromacer seems tempting, right?)
Oh and we had a W/u Spirit Taxes feat. Eldrazi's with 6 wins and no other dnt shell I could notice
On Side-boarding;
Playing stony silence for us has gotten worse and worse as we have begun to play more artifacts in the form of smuggler's copter and thraben inspector. This is why you'll see some lists without it int he board, but conventional wisdom is that stony is so good where you want it, that it is worth it. If you're still playing the card (which may or may not be correct depending on your meta, playstyle, etc), I'm curious to hear how you like to board with it. For instance, I think that thraben inspector is absolutely vital vs lantern and would not ever board it out, even if I was bringing in 4 stonies. The truth is, they like to start with hand disruption and then control your draws, making stony hard to resolve. Inspector can help you to draw something relevant. If you have stony and inspector, then you're probably in a good spot.
I use similar logic with vial vs affinity as it helps us stay at parody on board. A fellow streamer likes to make fun of my non-bo style boarding, calling it the "spiderspace special," but I truly believe that to be correct.
Also, D&T is not usually fast enough to get under a GBx deck. For a long time, I experimented with boarding out 0-4 vials vs them and finally came around to the camp of boarding them out. It might be a very different discussion for a deck like humans which can clock them fast enough for it to matter, but it's simply not the case with us. Our deck grinds pretty well with canopies and inspectors or displacers (for the 2 most popular variants. Otherwise you have cards like collected company so I stand by my point). Additionally we have walkers to bring in vs them making us even grindier. Yes, they can resolve a dark confidant that can run away with the game, but they can also brick on hand disruption as we beat them down with a bear and rest in peace makes tarmogoyf into a plant token.
So I'm curious. How can we improve vs the humans deck. I know my meta seems to be increasing with them. I have both the black and white eldrazi and the mono white eldrazi
So I'm curious. How can we improve vs the humans deck. I know my meta seems to be increasing with them. I have both the black and white eldrazi and the mono white eldrazi
I'm currently trying Settle the Wreckage in my sb against them. Works well with leonin arbiter and works well against any go wide strategies. In B/W Eldrazi, zealous persecution is great. 2 Fatal push in the side as well. Other than that, anything with flying is obviously good against them, as well as gideon. I've been trying to find an answer for a while as well, these are just the things I've noticed.
Just curious as to how you guys deal with people forgetting to pay for arbiter at Competitive REL events. I've always simply reminded my opponent they need to pay 2 if they crack their fetch and pick up their deck, but I've had a couple players say that's a judge call.
So I'm curious. How can we improve vs the humans deck. I know my meta seems to be increasing with them. I have both the black and white eldrazi and the mono white eldrazi
Human is a pretty good matchup for BW EnT, Orzhov Pontiff and Fatal Push helps out of the sideboard but Wasteland Strangler with flicker/displacer/tidehollow often wins it.
Just curious as to how you guys deal with people forgetting to pay for arbiter at Competitive REL events. I've always simply reminded my opponent they need to pay 2 if they crack their fetch and pick up their deck, but I've had a couple players say that's a judge call.
If they crack their fetch without saying "hold priority" all you have to do is say "fetchland resolves" point at Leonin Arbiter and say "you can't search." If they try to pay 2, then you call a judge. Don't remind them. Also, they have to shuffle, even if they don't get to search.
Just curious as to how you guys deal with people forgetting to pay for arbiter at Competitive REL events. I've always simply reminded my opponent they need to pay 2 if they crack their fetch and pick up their deck, but I've had a couple players say that's a judge call.
If they crack their fetch without saying "hold priority" all you have to do is say "fetchland resolves" point at Leonin Arbiter and say "you can't search." If they try to pay 2, then you call a judge. Don't remind them. Also, they have to shuffle, even if they don't get to search.
I guess they don't HAVE to shuffle if they fail to search.
Hi, new Death & Taxes player here. I've put together some of the pieces of the deck and I'm going to buy little by little the less than 10 cards that I need.
This is the list I was planning to play (Mono White):
You may notice that some of SB cards are budget substitutes, that's because it's just a provisional sideboard until I buy Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, Gideon Ally of Zendikar, Settle the Wreckage and Kitchen Finks.
I have some questions for you:
1) I know that is IMPOSSIBLE to replace Thalia, but since is the only mainboard card that I don't own, I wanted to play the deck now at FNMs even if it isn't competitive, just for playtesting it and have some fun. I'm going to buy the full playset in the next few months, but what could I play in her place for now? Maybe some Dryad Militants and a copy of Hero of Bladehold?
2) Is Brimaz worth? Is one of the flex slots and I'm not sure about him. Seems strong, but I see that most of people don't run him. What do you think?
3) Is Eldrazi Displacer worth in this build? I find this guy really broken and I wanted to play a couple of them, but playtesting, I found that 3 mana without Eldrazi Temple seems like a lot to activate the blink ability.
4) Something to improve sideboard? I made it really quick and thinking about my local meta, so maybe I forgot something important.
Thank you and I hope that I'll learn a lot by reading all of you!
@JuanAM8 Welcome to our forum and make yourself at home!
About your list, I think you miss more graveyard hate. 1 relic and 1 cage is a bit too few, unless your metagame has not many GY strategies. Another thing is spot/mass removals in your sideboard. You could play Wrath of God (or Day of Judgment for budget reasons).
I think that Kor Firewalker could be great in a mardu and burn heavy field. If your meta isn't this, I'd rather play Burrenton or Selfless Spirit (#3, #4).
I guess they don't HAVE to shuffle if they fail to search.
For ghost quarter & path to exile, yes they can choose to not search. Fetchlands are the mandatory ones. The Gatherer rulings are quite relevant:
1/1/2011 If an effect says “You may search your library . . . If you do, shuffle your library,” and you haven’t paid 2, you can’t choose to search, so you won’t shuffle.
1/1/2011 If an effect says “Search your library . . . Then shuffle your library,” and you haven’t paid 2, the search effect fails, but you will still have to shuffle.
@Lagunafly Great results, congrats! I'm interested how well was Grim Lavamancer and Hazoret in your list. For Hazoret, in matches that you'd like him, Eldrazi displacer could shine a bit?
Another question, how well did stonecloaker perform?
Hey guys, finished GP Toronto at 5 - 3. I was 5 - 2 going into round 8 and then got paired against merfolk. I'll write a slightly more detailed tournament report with my list sometime this week. I'm also curious to how stonecloaker performed.
EDIT: Jace and Bloodbraid being unbanned, what are we supposed to do? How bad is this for us? Is Phyrexian Revoker finally going to have to be maindecked, alongside an Eidolon of Rhetoric or Ethersworn Canonist?
I run a split. Rip is the best one but in some matchups where you eant to bring it in it isn't game ending meaning draeing multiples can lose you the game. Relic on the otherhand cantrips. I actually run 1 rip one relic and one cage. Cage is a nod to the elf decks in my meta. It would be another relic otherwise. If your meta is a lot of dredge storm and living end though you probably want the rips.
@dntScoundrel
Leonin relic warder does wonders in that matchup. I would skip on aegis. If you want that effect go for leyline instead, but The matchup revolves entirely around bridge so I like to focus on answers to that. Flickerwisp doesn't count.
I disagree about vial. Vialing in flickerwisp is really important in that matchup. That and resto are how you beat out the removal. It gives a target for kcomand but k comand has other target and is usually a 1 of. It feels bad to have your action cards discarded and to be left with vial but your key cards are always ripped from hand in that matchup. I am saying this as someone who plays mirrian crusader though so keep that in mind. If you can blank their bolt on crusader you win. Crusader is really the best card for the matchup since fatal push was printed.
Edit: for more context I tand to use my gost quarters very aggressively against jund to color screw them. In my meta they don't run super safe manabases. This means vial ensures I can still curve out. Jam my mutavalts and cycle canopy's. If you bring in graveyard hate (I bring in a rip and a relic) goyf and lavamancer are pretty easy to blank and it also helps vs ooze. Olivia has always been the card that gets me actually.
I'm not the best player with the deck, but I can consider myself a bit experienced with GBx matchups since it's the MU that I've played the most. They're hard to outvalue, although it's not impossible. I highly recommend to side out vials because surprise factor will be lost and that's our worse topdeck in that MU. And we're the aggro deck here.
Crusader is not always enough to win the game. Many junds has Bolt and/or Grim Lavamancer in their 75, if he doesn't get caught by any discard spell. It's still a beast, but not always enough
That's all just my opinion.
GW Death and Taxes WG
I've been finding that GBx has been removing hand disruption against me for more removal personally.
I agree that vial makes our grindy game worse against GBx, but generally speaking I feel like we always lose those games if we don't get ahead on tempo anyway. We need to get ahead, disrupt them, and overwhelm their ability to answer our stuff before they lose and vial helps with that immensely. In the late game once the board is stabilized the top of our deck is so much worse than the top of their deck that I've come around to the idea of keeping in vials and not trying to play the long game as it's not something we can win on a card per card basis
It isn't all or nothing with vials. Against BGx decks I usually keep in 1-2. It is amazing in the opener and still good in the mid game but what you really want to avoid is drawing multiples during a game. This is a match where you either win by some combination of disrupting the mana base, blanking removal with flicker or blanking discard with vial both to get ahead on cards, incurring enough repeat value off flicker targets and or sneaking through flying damage while clogging up the ground.
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Flickerwisp
4 Blade Splicer
4 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Restoration Angel
3 Kitchen finks
2 Mangara of Corondor
1 Akroma, angel of Fury
4 Path to Exile
4 Aether Vial
Lands 23
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Shefet Dunes
12 plains
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Aven mindcensor
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Lone Missionary
2 Stony Silence
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
@jake: Aven mindcensor helps versus titan shift if you expect it to be there in force and isn't bad against the rest of the meta. finks can be good if you expect a lot of aggressive builds, thalia, heretic can be good as just a vanilla tax that is good in almost all matches. Dryad militant is great versus storm and nerfs snapcaster and goyf to some extent. Beefing up some of your 2 and 3 ofs can also be considered.
Update: Went 3-1 lost a close match to grixis death's shadow, won a close match against humans than beat ponza pretty handidly and beat affinty ( mull to 5 g1 and t2 stony silence followed by t4 Linvala)
WDeath and TaxesW
RWGBurnGWR
It's been a while that I'm tempted to play things like Fiendslayer Paladin / Paladin En-Vec. I haven't had the courage to do so yet, but I start to think that could replace Mirran Crusader... or not? What do you think? (Yeah yeah... double strike, I get that. But non 'boltable/pushable' creature and a possibly rising of Mardu Pyromacer seems tempting, right?)
Oh and we had a W/u Spirit Taxes feat. Eldrazi's with 6 wins and no other dnt shell I could notice
Playing stony silence for us has gotten worse and worse as we have begun to play more artifacts in the form of smuggler's copter and thraben inspector. This is why you'll see some lists without it int he board, but conventional wisdom is that stony is so good where you want it, that it is worth it. If you're still playing the card (which may or may not be correct depending on your meta, playstyle, etc), I'm curious to hear how you like to board with it. For instance, I think that thraben inspector is absolutely vital vs lantern and would not ever board it out, even if I was bringing in 4 stonies. The truth is, they like to start with hand disruption and then control your draws, making stony hard to resolve. Inspector can help you to draw something relevant. If you have stony and inspector, then you're probably in a good spot.
I use similar logic with vial vs affinity as it helps us stay at parody on board. A fellow streamer likes to make fun of my non-bo style boarding, calling it the "spiderspace special," but I truly believe that to be correct.
Also, D&T is not usually fast enough to get under a GBx deck. For a long time, I experimented with boarding out 0-4 vials vs them and finally came around to the camp of boarding them out. It might be a very different discussion for a deck like humans which can clock them fast enough for it to matter, but it's simply not the case with us. Our deck grinds pretty well with canopies and inspectors or displacers (for the 2 most popular variants. Otherwise you have cards like collected company so I stand by my point). Additionally we have walkers to bring in vs them making us even grindier. Yes, they can resolve a dark confidant that can run away with the game, but they can also brick on hand disruption as we beat them down with a bear and rest in peace makes tarmogoyf into a plant token.
4 tectonic edge
4 ghost quarter
2 sea gate wreckage
2 horizon canopy
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Eiganjo Castle
9 Plains
8 non creature spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Selfless Spirit
2 Spellskite
1 Phyrexian Revoker
3 blade splicer
3 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
3 Restoration Angel
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Worship
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Sundering Growth
2 Plains
1 Forest
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Temple Garden
2 Brushland
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Ghost Quarter
2 stirring wildwood
2 Gavony Township
1 tectonic edge
1 gemstone caverns
10 noncreature spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Aether Vial
2 Collected Company
28 creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Flickerwisp
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Restoration Angel
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Worship
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrine
1 Shambling Vent
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Plains
1 Gemstone Caverns
8 Noncreature Spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
4 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Spellskite
2 Selfless Spirit
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Rest in Peace
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Sin Collector
2 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Worship
3 Brushland
3 Eldrazi Temple
1 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Gemstone Caverns
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Temple Garden
10 noncreature spells
4 Aether Vial
2 Ancient Stirrings
4 Path to exile
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Leonin Arbiter
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Spellskite
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Flickerwisp
1 Eternal Witness
4 Thought-knot seer
2 Reality Smasher
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Worship
1 Spellskite
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Moorland Haunt
2 Mutavault
1 Island
2 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 adarkar wastes
1 flooded strand
9 noncreature spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
1 detention sphere
28 creatures
3 Spell Queller
3 Selfless Spirit
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 eldrazi displacer
3 Reflector Mage
4 Flickerwisp
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 leonin arbiter
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 spellskite
2 Rest in Peace
2 stony silence
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 ghostly prison
2 burrenton forge-tender
2 Surgical Extraction
1 kira, great glass-spinner
1 blessed alliance
I'm currently trying Settle the Wreckage in my sb against them. Works well with leonin arbiter and works well against any go wide strategies. In B/W Eldrazi, zealous persecution is great. 2 Fatal push in the side as well. Other than that, anything with flying is obviously good against them, as well as gideon. I've been trying to find an answer for a while as well, these are just the things I've noticed.
Just curious as to how you guys deal with people forgetting to pay for arbiter at Competitive REL events. I've always simply reminded my opponent they need to pay 2 if they crack their fetch and pick up their deck, but I've had a couple players say that's a judge call.
GW Death and Taxes WG
Human is a pretty good matchup for BW EnT, Orzhov Pontiff and Fatal Push helps out of the sideboard but Wasteland Strangler with flicker/displacer/tidehollow often wins it.
If they crack their fetch without saying "hold priority" all you have to do is say "fetchland resolves" point at Leonin Arbiter and say "you can't search." If they try to pay 2, then you call a judge. Don't remind them. Also, they have to shuffle, even if they don't get to search.
This is the list I was planning to play (Mono White):
2 Shefet Dunes
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Ghost Quarter
12 Plains
Spells:
4 Aether Vial
2 Smuggler's Copter
4 Path to Exile
Creatures:
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Leonin Arbiter
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Blade Splicer
4 Flickerwisp
4 Restoration Angel
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Oblivion Ring
You may notice that some of SB cards are budget substitutes, that's because it's just a provisional sideboard until I buy Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, Gideon Ally of Zendikar, Settle the Wreckage and Kitchen Finks.
I have some questions for you:
1) I know that is IMPOSSIBLE to replace Thalia, but since is the only mainboard card that I don't own, I wanted to play the deck now at FNMs even if it isn't competitive, just for playtesting it and have some fun. I'm going to buy the full playset in the next few months, but what could I play in her place for now? Maybe some Dryad Militants and a copy of Hero of Bladehold?
2) Is Brimaz worth? Is one of the flex slots and I'm not sure about him. Seems strong, but I see that most of people don't run him. What do you think?
3) Is Eldrazi Displacer worth in this build? I find this guy really broken and I wanted to play a couple of them, but playtesting, I found that 3 mana without Eldrazi Temple seems like a lot to activate the blink ability.
4) Something to improve sideboard? I made it really quick and thinking about my local meta, so maybe I forgot something important.
Thank you and I hope that I'll learn a lot by reading all of you!
About your list, I think you miss more graveyard hate. 1 relic and 1 cage is a bit too few, unless your metagame has not many GY strategies. Another thing is spot/mass removals in your sideboard. You could play Wrath of God (or Day of Judgment for budget reasons).
I think that Kor Firewalker could be great in a mardu and burn heavy field. If your meta isn't this, I'd rather play Burrenton or Selfless Spirit (#3, #4).
For ghost quarter & path to exile, yes they can choose to not search. Fetchlands are the mandatory ones. The Gatherer rulings are quite relevant:
1/1/2011 If an effect says “You may search your library . . . If you do, shuffle your library,” and you haven’t paid 2, you can’t choose to search, so you won’t shuffle.
1/1/2011 If an effect says “Search your library . . . Then shuffle your library,” and you haven’t paid 2, the search effect fails, but you will still have to shuffle.
Another question, how well did stonecloaker perform?
EDIT: Jace and Bloodbraid being unbanned, what are we supposed to do? How bad is this for us? Is Phyrexian Revoker finally going to have to be maindecked, alongside an Eidolon of Rhetoric or Ethersworn Canonist?
GW Death and Taxes WG