I got a decent amount of the list from one of Zephyr's earlier builds (and the primer). Removed the Prohibits entirely and cut back a bit on removal and card draw so that quicker decks stand a good chance. Not sure if I should swap in another land instead of the Radiant Fountains, but they've helped me hold out for a Seraph of Dawn before, so...
I updated my sideboard according to this article from Alex Ullman, which I believe to be one of the biggest pros in pauper. His metagame analysis are great and really useful, so I used his predictions on the meta to tailor my sideboard accordingly. Supposedly now that Esper Familiars is gone, it's yet to be seen if Delver stays on top since it lost a lot of firepower, but we were already good against it anyways. Which means now Kuldotha Jeskai will rise to at least nº2, and Affinity will also climb a few spots on that list. Dimir Delver is a few turns too slow against us, so that's good, and we outdraw MBC and outvalue them with Cenn's Enlistment. This means covering Kuldotha and Affinity the most, with a few spots to MBC, both Delvers and Burn / Kiln Fiend.
Dust to Dust will utterly wreck Affinity and Kuldotha's landbase, while also taking out key pieces like Myr Enforcer or Ichor Wellspring without triggering it, and Dispeller's Capsule is a fetcheable out against them on top of a silver bullet against enchantment decks like Tortured Existence or Turbo Fog. Holy Light and Viridian Longbow are great against Delver and it's faeries, as well as against Elves and Goblins, which Alex predicts will be on the surge, and also helps against random aggro swarms. Circle of Protection: Red and Hindering Light pull their weight against Burn by protecting me from their burn spells repeatedly or drawing me cards in the process. Light also pulls double duty against MBC by countering their removal or Corrupts, and Feldon's Cane gives me back all the cards I used. In conjunction with Curse of the Bloody Tome (which also helps against Turbo Fog, Kuldotha, Teachings and other grindy decks), it basically secures our game against MBC. Finally, Relic of Progenitus is a tutorable silver bullet against graveyard based strategy and also to nerf Gurmag Angler.
I essentially conceded my already bad matchup against Boggles (which is not that popular anyways, it has been weeks since I last faced a Boggles deck)and worsened G2 and 3 against both Stompy and Infect a few percentage points in order to severely improve my games against what Alex predicts to be the top decks by at least a 10-15%.
Is there any way to cover Stompy better in the MB (and maybe devote 2 slots to them without weakening the matchups I improved too much) other than Sunlance?
You've probably already considered this, but CoP: Green sounds like a possible answer to both rough matchups. I don’t know what their sideboards look like though(I don’t tend to play with sideboards). Against Bogles, just use it to stall until able to grab the Dispeller’s Capsule, stopping their lifegain and vigilance auras, then pushing through while preventing damage? Or something along those lines. I’m theorizing. It could also lessen the damage from Stompy, allowing us to go to the longer game and giving us card advantage to work with. Side value of stopping Infect, which may crop up.
Aether Spellbomb sounds like a good idea, but it targets, so I don't believe that it will affect Bogles. Celestial Flare seems pretty handy against "one creature beatdown" decks though. It could potentially replace Gideon's Reproach. The rough thing is that it costs double white.
From looking things up, I'm just going to spout cards because some of the SB options might help others.
Possible Main Deck: Kor Sanctifiers, Silverchase Fox (allows you to remove an enchantment another turn and can trade), Curfew (free shuffling with Squadron Hawk!), possibly even Standard Bearer to eat removal and edicts, while absorbing pump. It would have to be a meta call of course.
After spending all evening tonight doing deck testing with the misses I've finally got my Caw Blade Build optimized to just the way I want it, and sorted out the dilemma I had been having of which secondary counterspell to run. I tested mainly against a hyper aggressive build of Goblins and a traditional Mono Black Control deck to see how Caw Blade fared against both ends of the tempo spectrum. Here's what I concluded:
While very effective against Goblins, Mana Leak, Rune Snag, and Prohibit were all fairly useless against Mono Black Control in the late game and I repeatedly died to either a massive Corrupt to the face or a Death Denied for 5+ creatures. On the flip side of things, Contradict was an absolute house against Mono Black in the late game but was far too slow to prevent me from getting run over by a horde of little green men before I could stabilize when I played against Goblins.
After pondering the dilemma for a bit and doing a search for common rarity counterspells on http://gatherer.wizards.com I finally had a "Eureka!" moment and stumbled on what I believe to be the perfect secondary counterspell for this deck: Stoic Rebuttal. To support it properly I had to make a small tweak to the mana base, but that was cheap and easy to do and now the deck plays very well against both blitzkrieg aggro and slow grindy control decks. At worst it's Cancel, but the majority of the time by turn 4 it's going to be Counterspell.
Is Stoic Rebuttal usually active by turn 4? It doesn't look like enough artifacts at first glance, but that could be my inexperience. Either way, the deck looks really cool! I waver between Seraph, Custodi Squire and Guardian of the Guildpact in my deck.
The question of metalcraft by turn 4 is easily answered. If you want at least 3 of card type X in your first 11 cards at least 50% of the time, you will need roughly 12 copies (hypergeometric distribution calculator). Jin15 runs 4 artifacts, 6 artifact lands and 4 Trinket Mage, which seems about right considering you can't cast Stoic Rebuttal for UU on turn 4 if you need double Trinket Mage to make metalcraft. This doesn't take brainstorm into account (which makes you see more cards to make your goals), or going first or taking a mull which makes you see less. All in all, I'd try to fit the last 2 ancient dens and a Court Homunculus somewhere too (maybe cut a Seraph?), just to have some more margins for metalcraft.
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Aether spellbomb? It is a trinket, and bouncing a creature full of pump spells kills their initiative.
Æther Spellbomb seems ok in theory, but in practice you're telegraphing the bounce to the Stompy player, which will then proceed to not cast pump spells on their guys until you activate the Spellbomb effect.
Aether Spellbomb sounds like a good idea, but it targets, so I don't believe that it will affect Bogles. Celestial Flare seems pretty handy against "one creature beatdown" decks though. It could potentially replace Gideon's Reproach. The rough thing is that it costs double white.
From looking things up, I'm just going to spout cards because some of the SB options might help others.
Possible Main Deck: Kor Sanctifiers, Silverchase Fox (allows you to remove an enchantment another turn and can trade), Curfew (free shuffling with Squadron Hawk!), possibly even Standard Bearer to eat removal and edicts, while absorbing pump. It would have to be a meta call of course.
Kor Sanctifiers looks excellent as a 2-of to have artifact / enchantment hate mainboard against a meta who's so reliant on Artifacts right now. Definitely considering making it some slots, but what do I take out though? Everything's so cramped at the moment. However, it could allow me to cut a Dust to Dust and something else for two copies of Standard Bearer (which is better against Stompy, Infect and Burn but worse against Boggles).
After spending all evening tonight doing deck testing with the misses I've finally got my Caw Blade Build optimized to just the way I want it, and sorted out the dilemma I had been having of which secondary counterspell to run. I tested mainly against a hyper aggressive build of Goblins and a traditional Mono Black Control deck to see how Caw Blade fared against both ends of the tempo spectrum. Here's what I concluded:
While very effective against Goblins, Mana Leak, Rune Snag, and Prohibit were all fairly useless against Mono Black Control in the late game and I repeatedly died to either a massive Corrupt to the face or a Death Denied for 5+ creatures. On the flip side of things, Contradict was an absolute house against Mono Black in the late game but was far too slow to prevent me from getting run over by a horde of little green men before I could stabilize when I played against Goblins.
After pondering the dilemma for a bit and doing a search for common rarity counterspells on http://gatherer.wizards.com I finally had a "Eureka!" moment and stumbled on what I believe to be the perfect secondary counterspell for this deck: Stoic Rebuttal. To support it properly I had to make a small tweak to the mana base, but that was cheap and easy to do and now the deck plays very well against both blitzkrieg aggro and slow grindy control decks. At worst it's Cancel, but the majority of the time by turn 4 it's going to be Counterspell.
How is Stoic Rebuttal performing for you? My main concerns about adding 1U counterspells instead of double U like Stoic Rebuttal or Deprive were that I needed to consistently cast them on turn 2-3 onwards, which proves quite difficult when they're double U and have an additional requirement. While it's true that Prohibit does nothing against Corrupt, Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Death Denied for 3+, it still works against the rest of their deck. I think you will play many matches against faster decks like Aggro or Tempo where you will look at a Stoic Rebuttal and wish it was a 1U counterspell instead. I think it's not worth weakening other matchups just to counter 3 MBC spells, specially when it's already a favorable matchup with all the card advantage going on...
However I'm more than eager to run Rebuttal if it works good for you, casting it consistently on turns 2-3 and not being dead late game is what I'm looking for in the secondary counterspell.
Kor Sanctifiers looks excellent as a 2-of to have artifact / enchantment hate mainboard against a meta who's so reliant on Artifacts right now. Definitely considering making it some slots, but what do I take out though? Everything's so cramped at the moment. However, it could allow me to cut a Dust to Dust and something else for two copies of Standard Bearer (which is better against Stompy, Infect and Burn but worse against Boggles).
I'm not sure what your deck looks like right now, so I can't really make any suggestions. I try to keep 2 creature slots open beside the 4 Hawks, Mulldrifters and Mages, so that's where I'd slot them. While it takes away from the usual game-ender, I seem to recall you using Custodi Squire as utility. Maybe this card's utility is more important? The difficulty is that even with Bonesplitter, Sanctifiers can't trade with an Angler and it doesn't have any ability to prevent blocking. Possible cut a draw spell or two depending on what you run?
the original list ran 4 thoughtcast instead of 4 artificer's epiphany. I didn't like thoughtcast because I felt like I didn't have enought artifacts to make it efficient
I don't really like viridian longbow, probably gonna take it out for a flayer husk maybe
I've only been testing this since 4 days ago, and right now my results are
3-1 against acid trip
1-2 against goblins
0-1 against mbc
1-0 against kuldotha jeskai
1-1 against G stompy
I like it so far, I think I need some more practice in order to understand what to do in certain situations
I think you're mixing it too much with Affinity, so it plays both styles while not being really good in either one, kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. I think Thoughtcasts are better in this version. That said, I would cut the Affinity cards and some Artifact Lands and add 4 Evolving Wilds plus 2 more lands. If you run a full playset of Artificer's Epiphany you might as well run Accumulated Knowledge since you're devoting the full playset slots to it anyways. The Counter / Removal section seems fine, although a bit short on removal for my liking. Auriok Sunchaser as a 2-of seems interesting, how are you liking it? For 1-drops, rather than Court Homunculus I would run Doomed Traveler, guy is far more resilient and gives you two bodies in one card which is basically free card advantage.
Any thoughts on running Vault Skirge in a typical Caw-Blade deck? Is it worth cutting other creatures in the deck? Would it be better in an Esper build, or perhaps a build more focused on Thoughtcast?
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UW Caw-Blade GW Bogles U Delver GBTolarian Community College's/Turn One Thoughtseize's $2 Dredge UR Drake RUG Murasa Tron
UWR Twin GW Bogles B 8-Rack (budget) UWR Delver/Geist UW Gifts Tron UR Bedlam Delver WRG Burn UBR Death's Shadow
UR Artifacts (~M15) UW Heroic (~Theros) WBR Warriors (~KTK) R Aggro (~Origins) RUG Wombo-Combo Energy (~Kaladesh)
How is Stoic Rebuttal performing for you? My main concerns about adding 1U counterspells instead of double U like Stoic Rebuttal or Deprive were that I needed to consistently cast them on turn 2-3 onwards, which proves quite difficult when they're double U and have an additional requirement. While it's true that Prohibit does nothing against Corrupt, Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Death Denied for 3+, it still works against the rest of their deck. I think you will play many matches against faster decks like Aggro or Tempo where you will look at a Stoic Rebuttal and wish it was a 1U counterspell instead. I think it's not worth weakening other matchups just to counter 3 MBC spells, specially when it's already a favorable matchup with all the card advantage going on...
However I'm more than eager to run Rebuttal if it works good for you, casting it consistently on turns 2-3 and not being dead late game is what I'm looking for in the secondary counterspell.
To properly answer this question I spent around 10 hours playtesting the Stoic Rebuttle build and several other Caw Blade builds with some friends over the last three days. What I learned is that Rebuttle looks a lot better on paper than it does in practice. Even with 10 artifacts and Trinket Mage, the Rebuttles were usually uncastable until the later turns of the game. You were absolutely right that this deck really needs it's secondary counterspell to cost 1U. Rebuttle is a great late game hard counter, but it's rarely going to stop important turn 2 and 3 plays.
The other thing I learned from all that playtesting is that my build needed more dedicated win conditions. After playtesting more than 20 games against Mono Black Control I found that it was literally impossible for me to beat them pre-board, as they had an equal amount of card draw and vastly more ways to 2-for-1 me. Hymn to Tourach and Okiba-Gang Shinobi just destroyed me over and over again, and there was nothing I could do to beat a resolved Pestilence other than pray I drew an Oblivion Ring and hope they didn't draw another copy of Pestilence (which they usually did). At one point I tried swapping my decklist around to run a full set of Accumulated Knowledge, and even with that I couldn't outdraw them; and every creature I played just got hit with some kind of removal. For reference, the MBC list I tested against is in the spoiler tag below.
Given that MBC makes up a huge portion of my local metagame it was really important to me that I be able to go at least 50/50 against them pre-board and have a way to win at least 75% of the time post board, so I spent a lot of time re-tuning my list and trying different strategies until I found a list that could give me the win rates I wanted. I didn't have too much trouble against the other decks I tested against (see the list in my signature) but man was MBC ever a nightmare matchup.
With that in mind, I've once again re-tooled my list to give it a larger number of more difficult to deal with threats and settled on Mana Leak as my secondary counterspell. It's not always effective in the late game, but it is pretty darn good at staving off turn 2 Hymns and sending Gray Merchants to the graveyard rather than the battlefield, which are what has been giving me the most trouble. They're also good against more aggressive decks with lower land counts, since it's an early counter and even in the late game they don't usually have the mana to pay for it.
I also made a big change to the sideboard and am now packing a full set of 4 Curse of the Bloody Tome for long grindy matchups like MBC and other control decks that may be able to outdraw me in the long game. Resolving one Curse is good, but I decided to run a full set because sticking a second one is literally game over against MBC and any other deck that can't remove them. All you have to do at that point is just stall for half a dozen turns until the opponent decks themselves, and I've found it to be an extremely effective strategy against other control decks. The set of Curses has definitely given me the 75% win rates I want against MBC post board, and 3 Guardian of the Guildpact coupled with 2 Cenn's Enlistment have given me enough threats to achieve a 50/50 win percentage pre-board and greatly improved my matchups against aggro by providing me with more blockers and a reliable win condition.
That deck list actually looks really solid against MBC, and I'm digging the Oblivion Rings. Seems like they would make the Bogles matchup a lot more better too because of the ability to remove their lifelink/trample auras. Have you tried matchups other than MBC? You mentioned doing well against aggro, so I'm just curious. Either way, removing most of the draw seems very different in playstyle, but it also seems to have made room for more protection and removal. Do you find yourself with an empty hand at all because of that? One other thing, Flayer Husk being gone surprises me. Did it not help with Geth's Verdict and chump blocking against aggro?
Either way, the Bloody Tomes seem like a great idea (in a match that isn't timed of course!), and I really like the new ideas. Thanks for the time you took to playtest!
That deck list actually looks really solid against MBC, and I'm digging the Oblivion Rings. Seems like they would make the Bogles matchup a lot more better too because of the ability to remove their lifelink/trample auras. Have you tried matchups other than MBC? You mentioned doing well against aggro, so I'm just curious. Either way, removing most of the draw seems very different in playstyle, but it also seems to have made room for more protection and removal. Do you find yourself with an empty hand at all because of that? One other thing, Flayer Husk being gone surprises me. Did it not help with Geth's Verdict and chump blocking against aggro?
Either way, the Bloody Tomes seem like a great idea (in a match that isn't timed of course!), and I really like the new ideas. Thanks for the time you took to playtest!
I have been playtesting against a pretty wide variety of decks, which include all the ones mentioned in my signature. Storm (my play group runs "No banlist" for Pauper outside of the weekly sanctioned tournaments at my LGS), Mono Black Control, Goblins, Affinity, and a R/G Eldrazi ramp deck. For me Caw Blade has been the hardest deck to tune and optimize that I've ever played, because every time I tune it to be good against one deck it ends up losing to another. So I keep bouncing between playing Guardian of the Guildpact or Seraph of Dawn with Bladed Bracers as the main win condition, 1 or 2 Cenn's Enlistment (one coming out to make space for the aforementioned Bladed Bracers or Flayer Husk), and whether to run 3 Radient Fountain or 3 Desert in the mana base. If I run Guardians, more Enlistments, and Radient Fountains I can beat control decks pre-board but usually lose to aggro decks like Goblins and Affinity, whereas running Seraphs with Bladed Bracers and Deserts in the mana base gives me a solid game 1 against aggro but I'll usually lose horribley to control decks. I'd love to fit more card draw into the deck, since I frequently find myself running out of cards mid to late game, but every time I try to take something out for Accumulated Knowledge or Artificer's Epiphany I end up not having enough blockers or removal to stabilize against aggro or control.
At this point I've put probably two dozen hours of play testing into Caw Blade and it still just frustrates the hell out of me, because there doesn't seem to be any one "optimal" way to build it. If anyone has any suggestions for what they think is an optimal build I'm all ears, but as far as I can tell you have to tune it to beat either aggro or control and accept that you're just going to lose to whichever matchup you don't optimize for. I'm starting to get frustrated enough with the deck that I'm really considering just giving up on it and going back to playing Delver, which is much easier to tune and optimize.
I understand the frustration, having played the deck for almost 3 years now. The deck really rewards the pilot who knows it inside-out and has knowledge of the deck against the table (which is why you might suffer a bit in G1 against random rogue decks). To really find the optimal build you must try some cards, fail with them and know why they failed (which you just did yourself with Stoic Rebuttal). Once you start to get to know what works and what doesn't, it's easy to see the job that each individual card has to perform. Against MBC, Hymn to Tourach seems killer on turn 2, but Brainstorm can help hide away key cards, and Trinket Mage helps you recover if Hymn ripped a 4th land out, while Hawks doing their thing to bring more creatures and counterspells straight up saving you the trouble.
Against Okiba-Gang Shinobi you can use instant speed removal or straight up block / remove their attackers before they actually attack, and against Pestilence the trick isn't removing but neutering it with Sylvok Lifestaff: it basically makes it impossible for them to kill you via Pestilence (or Crypt Rats) alone since your creatures granting you 3 life makes it so that you will always be ahead in life. And if you kill all their guys, Pestilence dies too.
With a mix like this covered and a healthy amount of card draw you shouldn't have problem against neither MBC nor aggro. Against aggro counter their creatures and kill the drops that make it through whenever possible, and don't hesitate to trade your guys, especially with Sylvok Lifestaff on your side. Eventually they'll run out of gas, which will make it possible for you to run away with the game. Against MBC, Guardian of the Guildpact is on the verge of playability due to the increase of Edict effects, so I would overwhelm them with Cenn's Enlistment and start exhausting their resources. Practice a lot in order to learn which are their key spells (Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Tendrils of Corruption are the most important ones because they gain them life) and counter them on sight. Slowly grind them out and drown them in CA and you'll do good even through discard. A pair of Custodi Squire will loop endlessly and reuse creatures from the grave to give you even further edge, and they're fearsome threats on their own. Mulldrifter becomes a bomb because they must kill it or die to it, and it nets you two cards. Four Curse of the Bloody Tome are a lot though, I'd run 2-3 and then more universal effects that you can side in other matchups like Hindering Light. Finally, make sure to run a lot of lifegain in your lands, and if you need it badly, you can split your finishers 1-1 to include a Seraph of Dawn or even try things like Exile or Aven Riftwatcher
The deck's not easy to pilot or optimize, but it really rewards a patient pilot who spends time practicing it and learning the meta.
Thanks a ton for all the really helpful advice Zephyr! Even though it's been frustrating trying to tune it for the optimal amounts and types of creatures, counters, removal, and draw I don't think I'm ready to give up on Caw Blade just yet. As far as I can tell the deck needs a minimum of 7 to 8 counterspells, 7 forms of creature removal, 11 to 12 pieces of draw, 4 dedicated lifegain sources, and 22 to 23 lands to function effectively; which makes it really tricky to find space for everything when you still have to build around the core of 4 Squadron Hawk, 4 Trinket Mage, and 4 Mulldrifter.
Of that core though the one card that has consistently underwhelmed me and made me wish I had something different in my hand has been Mulldrifter. I know it's often touted as the best creature in Pauper, but over and over again I've found myself wishing I had a creature with 3 toughness to block with rather than casting it as a Divination or waiting until I had 5 mana then just chump blocking with it. With that in mind I think the first change I'm going to make to my build from here on out is dropping the set Mulldrifters and playing Sea Gate Oracle in their place, and if I do end up still playing Mulldrifters somewhere in the deck then it will probably be 2 or 3 of them in place of dedicated win conditions. I do need to get the card draw and cantrip numbers up to 11 or 12 in my list for it to play well though, so I'm thinking my draw suite will end up looking like either
I know the Ninjas are generally more of a tempo card than a control card, but running Bladed Bracers with Trinket Mage, Oracles, and Ninjas seems pretty legit. A 3/3 Vigilance that draws you a card every time it hits is a real "must answer immediately" threat that will bury the opponent in card advantage if they don't get rid of it within a turn or two.
As far as the removal suite goes I totally see where you're coming from keeping the CMC of everything down to 2, but with the number of Tortured Existence and Gurmag Angler decks (not to mention the RUG and mono green Tron decks ramping out Eldrazi) floating around these days I'm really hesitant to drop Oblivion Ring for Gideon's Reproach. I think if it dealt 5 damage I'd give it a shot, but Angler is such a huge card showing up in all kinds of decks right now that I don't think I can afford to leave my removal suite vulnerable to it.
On the flip side of things, I think you're probably right about the 4 copies of Curse of the Bloody Tome being a little excessive, and dropping one would give me space a Viridian Longbow in the board to deal with the always popular White Weenie decks that Holy Light does nothing against.
Anyway, thank you again for your advice. It was all really solid and helpful, and definitely made me want to continue testing, practicing, and working on Caw Blade.
After piloting Caw Blade in this week's three round paper Pauper tournament at Universe Games in Minneapolis MN I have a brief tournament report to contribute.
Before I get started though, here's the list I settled on for the tourney:
Game 1 I kept a reasonable hand of 7 with a few lands, Sea Gate Oracle, Brainstorm, Journey to Nowhere, and Squadron Hawk. My opponent wins the roll and opens with Seat of the Synod into Springleaf Drum and I immediately know what I'm up against. He has a slow start and I go on the beatdown with Squadron Hawk and a Bonesplitter while digging for removal and counterspells. I Journey a couple Myr Enforcers and my opponent doesn't seem to mind, he's just excited to see someone playing Brainstorm with fetch lands in Pauper and remarks about how similar the format can be to Legacy. I beat him down to 6 life while continuing to dig and find a couple Oblivion Rings but no counterspells. The next turn he drops Atog, immediately sacs every permanent be controls, and Flings the Atog at me for lethal.
After boarding in 2 Dispeller's Capsule and 2 CoP: Red (Taking out my 4 Rune Snags), game 2 plays out much the same way except I find the Counterspell and hold up the mana for it while exiling his creatures and beating down. When he gets low on life he attempts the Fling plan again, but this time I stop it and kill him with a bladed bird the following turn.
Game 3 was more of a grind fest. I found a Counterspell early and held up the mana for it, while exiling a grand total of 3 Atogs and 2 Carapace Forger with Journey and Oblivion Ring. I play defense with a Lifestaff equipped Sea Gate Oracle and Trinket Mage for a time while drawing more cards than any deck should have the right to draw, but I don't find any more Counterspells or removal and eventually my opponent out draws me on the creature front and beats me down with 2 Carapace Forger, 3 Myr Enforcer, and his last Atog. GG.
Result: Loss, 1-2
Record: 0-1
Round 2: Nivix Blitz
Game 1 I win the roll and keep an opener with a few lands, Hawk, Trinket Mage, and a lone Rune Snag. I'm not sure what my opponent is playing and after a few turns of "draw, go" on both sides I tap out to play my Trinket Mage and go get a Seat of the Synod, since I'm a little short on land. Big mistake. While I'm tapped out the opponent drops two Blighted Agent and proceeds to spend the following five turns beating me down with them while I frantically dig to find removal and come up empty handed.
Game 2 I bring in 2 Prismatic Strands, 3 Holy Light, and Viridian Longbow in place of 3 Oblivion Ring, 2 Counterspell, and Flayer Husk. I'll be damned if I'm losing to Blighted Agents again! lol This game I keep an opener with Brainstorm, Sea Gate Oracle, three lands, a Rune Snag, and something else I can't quite remember. We both play "draw, go" for a while until the opponent tries playing a Nivix Cyclops and I Rune Snag it. From there I play a Trinket Mage and go find my Longbow, then my opponent Gitaxian Probes me and—seeing that I have no counters or removal for larger creatures—he drops two more Cyclops on the table. I Brainstorm end of turn and find a land, one Prismatic Strands, and a Journey to Nowhere. I untap and Journey one of the Cyclops and pass the turn with Prismatic Strands mana up. My opponent empties his hand of Gut Shot, Lightning Bolt, double Mutagenic Growth, and Shadow Rift then attempts to swing for lethal. Prismatic Strands before damage, naming Red, crushes his hopes and dreams. The next turn I cast Mulldrifter, followed by another the following turn, and beat him down with my two fliers and a Bonesplitter.
Game 3... does not get off to a good start. After boarding in two CoP: Red my opening 7 is a no lander, my 6 is a no lander, and my 5 is too. I finally keep a hand of 4 cards with Sea Gate Oracle and three lands. On turn 2 my opponent drops Kiln Fiend then goes nuts emptying his hand of spells on turn 3 and hits me for lethal with the Fiend before I even have the chance to even play my Oracle. The Rune Snag sitting on top of my deck mocks me.
Result: Loss, 1-2
Record: 0-2
Round 3: Burn
Having played against this opponent last week I already know that she is playing Burn, so game 1 I mull to 6 to find an opener with Tranqil Cove, 2 copies of Radiant Fountain, Rune Snag, Trinket Mage, and Sea Gate Oracle. I gain quite a bit of life, counter not one but two Searing Blaze, and end up aggroing out on her with a Bonesplitter and Sylvok Lifestaff equipped Sea Gate Oracle after she burns away my Trinket Mage. I finish my opponent off with just 3 life left and a Searing Spear sitting on top of her library.
For game 2 I take out my 4 Journey to Nowhere and 3 Oblivion Ring, since I know my opponent plays no creatures or non-land permanents in her Burn build, and I bring in 2 CoP: Red, 2 Prismatic Strands, and 3 Curse of the Bloody Tome. I didn't think the Curses would do anything relevant in this match, but they were still a less dead draw than Oblivion Ring. For my opening 7 I get Tranqil Cove, Island, Radiant Fountain, Rune Snag, Rune Snag, Counterspell, and Trinket Mage. Keeping it is a no brainer and the game goes exactly as expected. My opponent Lightning Bolts me twice and from there on out I counter every burn spell she plays until her hand is empty and I'm left with a Trinket Mage equipped with a Sylvok Lifestaff to finish the job with. He's soon joined by 3 Squadron Hawks and the game ends in my favor relatively quickly.
Result: Win, 2-0
Final record: 1-2
All in all I feel good about how the tournament went. I may have lost two of my three matches but I never felt like my deck wasn't up to snuff. I had a few bad draws here and there, but all the games I lost (aside from the one where I had to mull to 4) were pretty darn close and I never felt like my deck was too low on card draw, answers, or threats. The Sea Gate Oracles were absolutely fantastic and did a great job keeping my hand full of cards while providing a blocker with reasonable toughness. They carried Bonesplitters nicely too, and I'm now totally happy with my creature suite. Every creature generates card advantage, and with 8 counterspells and 7 pieces of unconditional creature removal maindeck I feel like I've got a solid defense against aggro.
I'm pretty happy with my build and felt like it was a good night, even though my win/loss record didn't look so good. But hey, I had fun playing and I did get a foil full art Island in the one booster pack I got for playing and that more than covered the tournament entry cost. A good night indeed!
I had an idea about a variant build of Caw Blade. It's just a concept so far but I thought I'd share it with those of you who play the deck and see if you think it has potential.
The basic idea is to avoid heavy sorcery speed mana investments such as Mulldrifter to keep more mana open for countering - but still eat the cake as well by virtue of a different CA package.
Creature package would be: Hawks, Trinket Mage, Leonin Squire and Court Homunculus
Draw package: Chromatic Star and Perilous Research. (And Brainstorm obviously).
The idea is this: Chromatic Star is -1 mana but fixes mana, so lets you run more basics and fewer ETBT lands, so it's good. If the mana fixing isn't needed, it sacs to Perilous Research which is instant speed. Leonin Squire recurs broken stars, homunculi or research fodder. Trinket Mage sets you up so you always have what you need
I'm also thinking a build like this could support Celestial Flare to give you even more instant speed options. You could counter, draw or play removal on the fly. Maybe even throw in a few Deputy of Acquittals in there to reuse stuff and protect threats. Waddjathink?
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After piloting Caw Blade in this week's three round paper Pauper tournament at Universe Games in Minneapolis MN I have a brief tournament report to contribute.
Before I get started though, here's the list I settled on for the tourney:
Game 1 I kept a reasonable hand of 7 with a few lands, Sea Gate Oracle, Brainstorm, Journey to Nowhere, and Squadron Hawk. My opponent wins the roll and opens with Seat of the Synod into Springleaf Drum and I immediately know what I'm up against. He has a slow start and I go on the beatdown with Squadron Hawk and a Bonesplitter while digging for removal and counterspells. I Journey a couple Myr Enforcers and my opponent doesn't seem to mind, he's just excited to see someone playing Brainstorm with fetch lands in Pauper and remarks about how similar the format can be to Legacy. I beat him down to 6 life while continuing to dig and find a couple Oblivion Rings but no counterspells. The next turn he drops Atog, immediately sacs every permanent be controls, and Flings the Atog at me for lethal.
After boarding in 2 Dispeller's Capsule and 2 CoP: Red (Taking out my 4 Rune Snags), game 2 plays out much the same way except I find the Counterspell and hold up the mana for it while exiling his creatures and beating down. When he gets low on life he attempts the Fling plan again, but this time I stop it and kill him with a bladed bird the following turn.
Game 3 was more of a grind fest. I found a Counterspell early and held up the mana for it, while exiling a grand total of 3 Atogs and 2 Carapace Forger with Journey and Oblivion Ring. I play defense with a Lifestaff equipped Sea Gate Oracle and Trinket Mage for a time while drawing more cards than any deck should have the right to draw, but I don't find any more Counterspells or removal and eventually my opponent out draws me on the creature front and beats me down with 2 Carapace Forger, 3 Myr Enforcer, and his last Atog. GG.
Result: Loss, 1-2
Record: 0-1
Round 2: Nivix Blitz
Game 1 I win the roll and keep an opener with a few lands, Hawk, Trinket Mage, and a lone Rune Snag. I'm not sure what my opponent is playing and after a few turns of "draw, go" on both sides I tap out to play my Trinket Mage and go get a Seat of the Synod, since I'm a little short on land. Big mistake. While I'm tapped out the opponent drops two Blighted Agent and proceeds to spend the following five turns beating me down with them while I frantically dig to find removal and come up empty handed.
Game 2 I bring in 2 Prismatic Strands, 3 Holy Light, and Viridian Longbow in place of 3 Oblivion Ring, 2 Counterspell, and Flayer Husk. I'll be damned if I'm losing to Blighted Agents again! lol This game I keep an opener with Brainstorm, Sea Gate Oracle, three lands, a Rune Snag, and something else I can't quite remember. We both play "draw, go" for a while until the opponent tries playing a Nivix Cyclops and I Rune Snag it. From there I play a Trinket Mage and go find my Longbow, then my opponent Gitaxian Probes me and—seeing that I have no counters or removal for larger creatures—he drops two more Cyclops on the table. I Brainstorm end of turn and find a land, one Prismatic Strands, and a Journey to Nowhere. I untap and Journey one of the Cyclops and pass the turn with Prismatic Strands mana up. My opponent empties his hand of Gut Shot, Lightning Bolt, double Mutagenic Growth, and Shadow Rift then attempts to swing for lethal. Prismatic Strands before damage, naming Red, crushes his hopes and dreams. The next turn I cast Mulldrifter, followed by another the following turn, and beat him down with my two fliers and a Bonesplitter.
Game 3... does not get off to a good start. After boarding in two CoP: Red my opening 7 is a no lander, my 6 is a no lander, and my 5 is too. I finally keep a hand of 4 cards with Sea Gate Oracle and three lands. On turn 2 my opponent drops Kiln Fiend then goes nuts emptying his hand of spells on turn 3 and hits me for lethal with the Fiend before I even have the chance to even play my Oracle. The Rune Snag sitting on top of my deck mocks me.
Result: Loss, 1-2
Record: 0-2
Round 3: Burn
Having played against this opponent last week I already know that she is playing Burn, so game 1 I mull to 6 to find an opener with Tranqil Cove, 2 copies of Radiant Fountain, Rune Snag, Trinket Mage, and Sea Gate Oracle. I gain quite a bit of life, counter not one but two Searing Blaze, and end up aggroing out on her with a Bonesplitter and Sylvok Lifestaff equipped Sea Gate Oracle after she burns away my Trinket Mage. I finish my opponent off with just 3 life left and a Searing Spear sitting on top of her library.
For game 2 I take out my 4 Journey to Nowhere and 3 Oblivion Ring, since I know my opponent plays no creatures or non-land permanents in her Burn build, and I bring in 2 CoP: Red, 2 Prismatic Strands, and 3 Curse of the Bloody Tome. I didn't think the Curses would do anything relevant in this match, but they were still a less dead draw than Oblivion Ring. For my opening 7 I get Tranqil Cove, Island, Radiant Fountain, Rune Snag, Rune Snag, Counterspell, and Trinket Mage. Keeping it is a no brainer and the game goes exactly as expected. My opponent Lightning Bolts me twice and from there on out I counter every burn spell she plays until her hand is empty and I'm left with a Trinket Mage equipped with a Sylvok Lifestaff to finish the job with. He's soon joined by 3 Squadron Hawks and the game ends in my favor relatively quickly.
Result: Win, 2-0
Final record: 1-2
All in all I feel good about how the tournament went. I may have lost two of my three matches but I never felt like my deck wasn't up to snuff. I had a few bad draws here and there, but all the games I lost (aside from the one where I had to mull to 4) were pretty darn close and I never felt like my deck was too low on card draw, answers, or threats. The Sea Gate Oracles were absolutely fantastic and did a great job keeping my hand full of cards while providing a blocker with reasonable toughness. They carried Bonesplitters nicely too, and I'm now totally happy with my creature suite. Every creature generates card advantage, and with 8 counterspells and 7 pieces of unconditional creature removal maindeck I feel like I've got a solid defense against aggro.
I'm pretty happy with my build and felt like it was a good night, even though my win/loss record didn't look so good. But hey, I had fun playing and I did get a foil full art Island in the one booster pack I got for playing and that more than covered the tournament entry cost. A good night indeed!
Nice to hear you're happy with the build! Don't worry about the win / loss ratio, those were definitely winnable matchups. Keep up with the deck and keep practicing and you'll get better results! How is Sea Gate Oracle performing for you? I'm interested in the card, but it doesn't bring that much CA like Mulldrifter does. Drifter is an "answer me or die" threat due to 2 natural power (enhaced by equipment) and flying that also gives you 2 cards upon entering the battlefield, so when the playing field is even it does a lot to put you ahead. Don't cut them off completely.
I also think that the lack of at least 1-of of a dedicated finisher like Cenn's Enlistment or Guardian of the Guildpact for when you need to grind it out against control or MBC is a mistake.
Also I wouldn't count Oblivion Ring in the 12-14 answers package I mentioned early. Sure it answers anything, but you really want immediate answers for faster decks, and 3 is a lot to ask. Maybe try going down to 2 and shave a copy of something else to play 2 Gideon's Reproach / Sunlance?
I had an idea about a variant build of Caw Blade. It's just a concept so far but I thought I'd share it with those of you who play the deck and see if you think it has potential.
The basic idea is to avoid heavy sorcery speed mana investments such as Mulldrifter to keep more mana open for countering - but still eat the cake as well by virtue of a different CA package.
Creature package would be: Hawks, Trinket Mage, Leonin Squire and Court Homunculus
Draw package: Chromatic Star and Perilous Research. (And Brainstorm obviously).
The idea is this: Chromatic Star is -1 mana but fixes mana, so lets you run more basics and fewer ETBT lands, so it's good. If the mana fixing isn't needed, it sacs to Perilous Research which is instant speed. Leonin Squire recurs broken stars, homunculi or research fodder. Trinket Mage sets you up so you always have what you need
I'm also thinking a build like this could support Celestial Flare to give you even more instant speed options. You could counter, draw or play removal on the fly. Maybe even throw in a few Deputy of Acquittals in there to reuse stuff and protect threats. Waddjathink?
Idea sounds good, but there are a few cards I don't like (Court Homunculus comes to mind). This build has a potential to accrue massive card advantage if you're playing black with Executioner's Capsule and Mortuary Mire, although it looks more like a proactive, tap-out control deck. Thoughtcast can be used here too if we're running tons of artifacts. Do you have any list in mind?
I've posted this in the MTGO version of this forum, but I figured I'd post it here in case any paper pauper players can give insight.
Just getting into pauper and after jumping between a lot of decks, this seems like the one I'm most interested in. It seems odd that it isn't more present online, since this seems to be one of the most skill-amiplifying decks in the format.
Here is my list. I haven't really tested it much, but will soon, and I've done a lot of reading up on the paper version of this forum. There has been a lot of debate over which finisher to run, and I thought, why not all of them? That way I'll have all my bases covered...
The sideboard is similar to OP's most recent one (on the paper forum), with 2 CoP: Green instead of 2 Curse of the Bloody Tome as it would help the Bogles matchup, which seems to be the deck's only weakness.
Can anyone offer any pointers or card suggestions? Is running all the different finishers excessive?
Also, how does Vault Skirge seem in a Thoughtcast-based build? I will eventually try to test it out as well.
Lastly, are there any important commons for this deck in paper that aren't legal in MTGO?
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UW Caw-Blade GW Bogles U Delver GBTolarian Community College's/Turn One Thoughtseize's $2 Dredge UR Drake RUG Murasa Tron
UWR Twin GW Bogles B 8-Rack (budget) UWR Delver/Geist UW Gifts Tron UR Bedlam Delver WRG Burn UBR Death's Shadow
UR Artifacts (~M15) UW Heroic (~Theros) WBR Warriors (~KTK) R Aggro (~Origins) RUG Wombo-Combo Energy (~Kaladesh)
It's always good to play Ponder, it's the most played noncreature spell alongside Lightning Bolt after all. However I would do so only if after making place for it I still had enough removal, counterspells and card draw. You seem to be going a bit overboard with all the finishers, so I would go -1 Seraph of Dawn +1 Sea Gate Oracle. I would also go -1 Oblivion Ring +1 Gideon's Reproach since the Instant speed and 2 CMC really make it count.
So I've done a lot of tournament practice testing... modified the list, but haven't got around to adding in Artificer's Epiphany yet.
From what I can tell based on my list and the way I play, the deck's primary weakness, other than hexproof, is decks that can generate lots of board presence quickly. Such as Goblins or certain Delver variants. Holy Light and Viridian Longbow can deal with Spellstutter Sprite, unflipped Delver, and Foundry-Street Denizen, etc., but the opponent can still flood the board with bigger butts like Spire Golem, Ninja of the Deep Hours, and Goblin Cohort. My plan usually is to block with hawks and Sylvok Lifestaff, but they either Lightning Bolt/Flame Slash/Snap the hawk, or I can't find the lifestaff quick enough, so I have to tap out t3 to find it with Trinket Mage, and wait until 4 to equip it (and by then the game's almost over). It seems Circle of Protection: Red also is weaker in the Goblins matchup due to Goblin Sledder; CoP is only effective if you have as much mana as they have Goblins on the field, and most of the time they will have more.
Any suggestions? Perhaps I'm playing these matchups wrong? What key cards should I be removing/countering against board-flood aggro decks? What should my sideboard plan look like? (I suspect I will have similar problems vs Elves and Slivers).
On a different note, a 1-mana common artifact was recently spoiled for Shadows over Innistrad:
Explosive Apparatus
Cost: 1 generic
Artifact
[3], Tap, Sacrifice this: This deals 2 damage to target creature/player.
Sort of like a Pyrite Spellbomb that doesn't require red (albeit with a hefty activation cost). Is it worth it to run at all given the counterspells/removal suite already present in the typical caw-blade deck?
Against swarming matchups the gameplan is to kill their lords ASAP (Goblin Sledder in Goblins, Turntimber Elf in Elves, the +1/+1 ones in Slivers) while countering the cards that put multiple bodies on table (Mogg War Marshal, Beetleback Chief, Hive Stirrings etc). Be sure to fetch for a Sylvok Lifestaff early on and trade your creatures 1 for 1 as much as possible, as they will leave life behind. This game plan, backed up by removal and counterspells, should exhaust the aggro deck's gas pretty quickly, at which point you can simply drop a Mulldrifter, stabilize, and take the pilot's seat controlling the game from there on. Delver in fact is easier than Goblins, Elves or Slivers since they don't vomit massive undercosted dudes in the first two turns, just kill the Delvers and watch out for Spellstutter Sprite swinging the tempo in their favor. The Cloud of Faeries ban slowed them down quite a bit.
Then out of the board you bring in Holy Light and Viridian Longbow, and that should give you enough of an edge to make games 2 and 3 easier for you. If you still have too much trouble you can run 2-3 Aven Riftwatcher mainboard I guess.
Explosive Apparatus is super pricy for a Seal of Fire costing 4 whopping mana, but I guess the synergy with artifact effects like Artificer's Epiphany / Thoughtcast and the flexibility of being fetchable colorless removal that can be run in straight UW (B has Executioner's Capsule) kinda make it a candidate for testing as a 1-of in some flex spot.
Hey guys, I don't know if any of you have seen fruuty's list of Pauper decks on tappedout ([url=http://tappedout.net/users/fruuty/deck-folders/[/url]), but he's missing U/W Caw Blade and has a Jeskai one instead. I was going to send him a list, but wanted to get a consolidated deck first, so it isn't just my take being posted. What cards do all of us tend to play the same amount of, or at least make sure are in the deck?
Edit: He put a list up. I think the ones that we've been using are a bit more refined though, so I'd still like ideas.
From the deck lists I've seen here, I've got:
4x Squadron Hawk
4x Mulldrifter
4x Trinket Mage
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterspell
4x Journey to Nowhere
Cenn's Enlistment
What number of Ancient Den and Seat of the Synod, what counterspells and draw cards, etc. Should the finisher be one Seraph and one Guardian? Two of one? Discussion would be great. And correct me if I missed anything on the list!
4x Evolving Wilds
6x Island
2x Plains
2x Radiant Fountain
2x Seat of the Synod
4x Tranquil Cove
1x Bonesplitter
1x Bladed Bracers
1x Flayer Husk
1x Sylvok Lifestaff
2x Artificer's Epiphany
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterspell
2x Gideon's Reproach
4x Doomed Traveler
2x Seraph of Dawn
4x Mulldrifter
4x Squadron Hawk
4x Trinket Mage
4x Journey to Nowhere
I got a decent amount of the list from one of Zephyr's earlier builds (and the primer). Removed the Prohibits entirely and cut back a bit on removal and card draw so that quicker decks stand a good chance. Not sure if I should swap in another land instead of the Radiant Fountains, but they've helped me hold out for a Seraph of Dawn before, so...
2 Holy Light
2 Hindering Light
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Curse of the Bloody Tome
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Viridian Longbow
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Dispeller's Capsule
Dust to Dust will utterly wreck Affinity and Kuldotha's landbase, while also taking out key pieces like Myr Enforcer or Ichor Wellspring without triggering it, and Dispeller's Capsule is a fetcheable out against them on top of a silver bullet against enchantment decks like Tortured Existence or Turbo Fog. Holy Light and Viridian Longbow are great against Delver and it's faeries, as well as against Elves and Goblins, which Alex predicts will be on the surge, and also helps against random aggro swarms. Circle of Protection: Red and Hindering Light pull their weight against Burn by protecting me from their burn spells repeatedly or drawing me cards in the process. Light also pulls double duty against MBC by countering their removal or Corrupts, and Feldon's Cane gives me back all the cards I used. In conjunction with Curse of the Bloody Tome (which also helps against Turbo Fog, Kuldotha, Teachings and other grindy decks), it basically secures our game against MBC. Finally, Relic of Progenitus is a tutorable silver bullet against graveyard based strategy and also to nerf Gurmag Angler.
I essentially conceded my already bad matchup against Boggles (which is not that popular anyways, it has been weeks since I last faced a Boggles deck)and worsened G2 and 3 against both Stompy and Infect a few percentage points in order to severely improve my games against what Alex predicts to be the top decks by at least a 10-15%.
Is there any way to cover Stompy better in the MB (and maybe devote 2 slots to them without weakening the matchups I improved too much) other than Sunlance?
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Edit: Sorry, didn't read the "Main Board" part.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
From looking things up, I'm just going to spout cards because some of the SB options might help others.
Possible Main Deck: Kor Sanctifiers, Silverchase Fox (allows you to remove an enchantment another turn and can trade), Curfew (free shuffling with Squadron Hawk!), possibly even Standard Bearer to eat removal and edicts, while absorbing pump. It would have to be a meta call of course.
SB: Echoing Calm, Demystify, Disenchant, Revoke Existence, Aura Flux and Disperse (bounce an enchantment to trade with their creature).
While very effective against Goblins, Mana Leak, Rune Snag, and Prohibit were all fairly useless against Mono Black Control in the late game and I repeatedly died to either a massive Corrupt to the face or a Death Denied for 5+ creatures. On the flip side of things, Contradict was an absolute house against Mono Black in the late game but was far too slow to prevent me from getting run over by a horde of little green men before I could stabilize when I played against Goblins.
After pondering the dilemma for a bit and doing a search for common rarity counterspells on http://gatherer.wizards.com I finally had a "Eureka!" moment and stumbled on what I believe to be the perfect secondary counterspell for this deck: Stoic Rebuttal. To support it properly I had to make a small tweak to the mana base, but that was cheap and easy to do and now the deck plays very well against both blitzkrieg aggro and slow grindy control decks. At worst it's Cancel, but the majority of the time by turn 4 it's going to be Counterspell.
Here's my finalized list for reference:
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Trinket Mage
4 Mulldrifter
3 Seraph of Dawn
[12 Spells]
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Cenn's Enlistment
[4 Artifacts]
2 Bonesplitter
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
1 Bladed Bracers
4 Journey to Nowhere
3 Oblivion Ring
[22 Lands]
4 Tranquil Cove
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
3 Desert
3 Island
2 Plains
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Viridian Longbow
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Dispeller's Capsule
2 Circle of Protection: Green
3 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Prismatic Strands
3 Holy Light
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Æther Spellbomb seems ok in theory, but in practice you're telegraphing the bounce to the Stompy player, which will then proceed to not cast pump spells on their guys until you activate the Spellbomb effect.
Kor Sanctifiers looks excellent as a 2-of to have artifact / enchantment hate mainboard against a meta who's so reliant on Artifacts right now. Definitely considering making it some slots, but what do I take out though? Everything's so cramped at the moment. However, it could allow me to cut a Dust to Dust and something else for two copies of Standard Bearer (which is better against Stompy, Infect and Burn but worse against Boggles).
How is Stoic Rebuttal performing for you? My main concerns about adding 1U counterspells instead of double U like Stoic Rebuttal or Deprive were that I needed to consistently cast them on turn 2-3 onwards, which proves quite difficult when they're double U and have an additional requirement. While it's true that Prohibit does nothing against Corrupt, Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Death Denied for 3+, it still works against the rest of their deck. I think you will play many matches against faster decks like Aggro or Tempo where you will look at a Stoic Rebuttal and wish it was a 1U counterspell instead. I think it's not worth weakening other matchups just to counter 3 MBC spells, specially when it's already a favorable matchup with all the card advantage going on...
However I'm more than eager to run Rebuttal if it works good for you, casting it consistently on turns 2-3 and not being dead late game is what I'm looking for in the secondary counterspell.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
I'm not sure what your deck looks like right now, so I can't really make any suggestions. I try to keep 2 creature slots open beside the 4 Hawks, Mulldrifters and Mages, so that's where I'd slot them. While it takes away from the usual game-ender, I seem to recall you using Custodi Squire as utility. Maybe this card's utility is more important? The difficulty is that even with Bonesplitter, Sanctifiers can't trade with an Angler and it doesn't have any ability to prevent blocking. Possible cut a draw spell or two depending on what you run?
I think you're mixing it too much with Affinity, so it plays both styles while not being really good in either one, kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. I think Thoughtcasts are better in this version. That said, I would cut the Affinity cards and some Artifact Lands and add 4 Evolving Wilds plus 2 more lands. If you run a full playset of Artificer's Epiphany you might as well run Accumulated Knowledge since you're devoting the full playset slots to it anyways. The Counter / Removal section seems fine, although a bit short on removal for my liking. Auriok Sunchaser as a 2-of seems interesting, how are you liking it? For 1-drops, rather than Court Homunculus I would run Doomed Traveler, guy is far more resilient and gives you two bodies in one card which is basically free card advantage.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
UW Caw-Blade
GW Bogles
U Delver
GBTolarian Community College's/Turn One Thoughtseize's $2 Dredge
UR DrakeRUG Murasa Tron
UWR TwinGW BoglesB 8-Rack (budget)UWR Delver/GeistUW Gifts TronUR Bedlam DelverWRG Burn
UBR Death's Shadow
UR Artifacts(~M15)UW Heroic(~Theros)WBR Warriors(~KTK)R Aggro(~Origins)RUG Wombo-Combo Energy (~Kaladesh)
My (upgradable) $150 Modern budget UR Delver (possibly outdated): http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/budget-modern/738332-ur-bedlam-delver
My Pauper Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/69019
To properly answer this question I spent around 10 hours playtesting the Stoic Rebuttle build and several other Caw Blade builds with some friends over the last three days. What I learned is that Rebuttle looks a lot better on paper than it does in practice. Even with 10 artifacts and Trinket Mage, the Rebuttles were usually uncastable until the later turns of the game. You were absolutely right that this deck really needs it's secondary counterspell to cost 1U. Rebuttle is a great late game hard counter, but it's rarely going to stop important turn 2 and 3 plays.
The other thing I learned from all that playtesting is that my build needed more dedicated win conditions. After playtesting more than 20 games against Mono Black Control I found that it was literally impossible for me to beat them pre-board, as they had an equal amount of card draw and vastly more ways to 2-for-1 me. Hymn to Tourach and Okiba-Gang Shinobi just destroyed me over and over again, and there was nothing I could do to beat a resolved Pestilence other than pray I drew an Oblivion Ring and hope they didn't draw another copy of Pestilence (which they usually did). At one point I tried swapping my decklist around to run a full set of Accumulated Knowledge, and even with that I couldn't outdraw them; and every creature I played just got hit with some kind of removal. For reference, the MBC list I tested against is in the spoiler tag below.
4 Cuombajj Witches
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Chittering Rats
2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
[12 Spells]
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sign in Blood
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Oubliette
3 Pestilence
[23 Lands]
3 Barren Moor
20 Swamp
4 Duress
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Contaminated Ground
3 Echoing Decay
2 Scour From Existence
Given that MBC makes up a huge portion of my local metagame it was really important to me that I be able to go at least 50/50 against them pre-board and have a way to win at least 75% of the time post board, so I spent a lot of time re-tuning my list and trying different strategies until I found a list that could give me the win rates I wanted. I didn't have too much trouble against the other decks I tested against (see the list in my signature) but man was MBC ever a nightmare matchup.
With that in mind, I've once again re-tooled my list to give it a larger number of more difficult to deal with threats and settled on Mana Leak as my secondary counterspell. It's not always effective in the late game, but it is pretty darn good at staving off turn 2 Hymns and sending Gray Merchants to the graveyard rather than the battlefield, which are what has been giving me the most trouble. They're also good against more aggressive decks with lower land counts, since it's an early counter and even in the late game they don't usually have the mana to pay for it.
I also made a big change to the sideboard and am now packing a full set of 4 Curse of the Bloody Tome for long grindy matchups like MBC and other control decks that may be able to outdraw me in the long game. Resolving one Curse is good, but I decided to run a full set because sticking a second one is literally game over against MBC and any other deck that can't remove them. All you have to do at that point is just stall for half a dozen turns until the opponent decks themselves, and I've found it to be an extremely effective strategy against other control decks. The set of Curses has definitely given me the 75% win rates I want against MBC post board, and 3 Guardian of the Guildpact coupled with 2 Cenn's Enlistment have given me enough threats to achieve a 50/50 win percentage pre-board and greatly improved my matchups against aggro by providing me with more blockers and a reliable win condition.
Here's my current re-tuned list:
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Trinket Mage
4 Mulldrifter
3 Guardian of the Guildpact
[13 Spells]
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak
2 Cenn's Enlistment
[3 Artifacts]
2 Bonesplitter
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
4 Journey to Nowhere
3 Oblivion Ring
[22 Lands]
4 Tranquil Cove
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Radiant Fountain
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
5 Island
2 Plains
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Dispeller's Capsule
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Prismatic Strands
3 Holy Light
4 Curse of the Bloody Tome
Either way, the Bloody Tomes seem like a great idea (in a match that isn't timed of course!), and I really like the new ideas. Thanks for the time you took to playtest!
I have been playtesting against a pretty wide variety of decks, which include all the ones mentioned in my signature. Storm (my play group runs "No banlist" for Pauper outside of the weekly sanctioned tournaments at my LGS), Mono Black Control, Goblins, Affinity, and a R/G Eldrazi ramp deck. For me Caw Blade has been the hardest deck to tune and optimize that I've ever played, because every time I tune it to be good against one deck it ends up losing to another. So I keep bouncing between playing Guardian of the Guildpact or Seraph of Dawn with Bladed Bracers as the main win condition, 1 or 2 Cenn's Enlistment (one coming out to make space for the aforementioned Bladed Bracers or Flayer Husk), and whether to run 3 Radient Fountain or 3 Desert in the mana base. If I run Guardians, more Enlistments, and Radient Fountains I can beat control decks pre-board but usually lose to aggro decks like Goblins and Affinity, whereas running Seraphs with Bladed Bracers and Deserts in the mana base gives me a solid game 1 against aggro but I'll usually lose horribley to control decks. I'd love to fit more card draw into the deck, since I frequently find myself running out of cards mid to late game, but every time I try to take something out for Accumulated Knowledge or Artificer's Epiphany I end up not having enough blockers or removal to stabilize against aggro or control.
At this point I've put probably two dozen hours of play testing into Caw Blade and it still just frustrates the hell out of me, because there doesn't seem to be any one "optimal" way to build it. If anyone has any suggestions for what they think is an optimal build I'm all ears, but as far as I can tell you have to tune it to beat either aggro or control and accept that you're just going to lose to whichever matchup you don't optimize for. I'm starting to get frustrated enough with the deck that I'm really considering just giving up on it and going back to playing Delver, which is much easier to tune and optimize.
Against Okiba-Gang Shinobi you can use instant speed removal or straight up block / remove their attackers before they actually attack, and against Pestilence the trick isn't removing but neutering it with Sylvok Lifestaff: it basically makes it impossible for them to kill you via Pestilence (or Crypt Rats) alone since your creatures granting you 3 life makes it so that you will always be ahead in life. And if you kill all their guys, Pestilence dies too.
So far I've discovered that in order to fare well against both ends of the spectrum you'll need something between 12-14 counters + kill spells, with Journey to Nowhere and Counterspell maxed out. You also don't want your answers to cost more than 2 mana. This leaves us with 4-6 flex spots for answers. In the counterspell department you have Mana Leak, Prohibit or Rune Snag if you run the full set, and in the removal department you have Gideon's Reproach against 4+ toughness and things like Okiba-Gang Shinobi or Ninja of the Deep Hours, on top of flat out destroying almost all guys in Pauper. Sunlance is also great if you're not facing too much White, but it misses Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Hooting Mandrills, Nivix Cyclops, Spire Golem and Myr Enforcer most notably.
With a mix like this covered and a healthy amount of card draw you shouldn't have problem against neither MBC nor aggro. Against aggro counter their creatures and kill the drops that make it through whenever possible, and don't hesitate to trade your guys, especially with Sylvok Lifestaff on your side. Eventually they'll run out of gas, which will make it possible for you to run away with the game. Against MBC, Guardian of the Guildpact is on the verge of playability due to the increase of Edict effects, so I would overwhelm them with Cenn's Enlistment and start exhausting their resources. Practice a lot in order to learn which are their key spells (Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Tendrils of Corruption are the most important ones because they gain them life) and counter them on sight. Slowly grind them out and drown them in CA and you'll do good even through discard. A pair of Custodi Squire will loop endlessly and reuse creatures from the grave to give you even further edge, and they're fearsome threats on their own. Mulldrifter becomes a bomb because they must kill it or die to it, and it nets you two cards. Four Curse of the Bloody Tome are a lot though, I'd run 2-3 and then more universal effects that you can side in other matchups like Hindering Light. Finally, make sure to run a lot of lifegain in your lands, and if you need it badly, you can split your finishers 1-1 to include a Seraph of Dawn or even try things like Exile or Aven Riftwatcher
The deck's not easy to pilot or optimize, but it really rewards a patient pilot who spends time practicing it and learning the meta.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Of that core though the one card that has consistently underwhelmed me and made me wish I had something different in my hand has been Mulldrifter. I know it's often touted as the best creature in Pauper, but over and over again I've found myself wishing I had a creature with 3 toughness to block with rather than casting it as a Divination or waiting until I had 5 mana then just chump blocking with it. With that in mind I think the first change I'm going to make to my build from here on out is dropping the set Mulldrifters and playing Sea Gate Oracle in their place, and if I do end up still playing Mulldrifters somewhere in the deck then it will probably be 2 or 3 of them in place of dedicated win conditions. I do need to get the card draw and cantrip numbers up to 11 or 12 in my list for it to play well though, so I'm thinking my draw suite will end up looking like either
4 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Mulldrifter
or
4 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
I know the Ninjas are generally more of a tempo card than a control card, but running Bladed Bracers with Trinket Mage, Oracles, and Ninjas seems pretty legit. A 3/3 Vigilance that draws you a card every time it hits is a real "must answer immediately" threat that will bury the opponent in card advantage if they don't get rid of it within a turn or two.
As far as the removal suite goes I totally see where you're coming from keeping the CMC of everything down to 2, but with the number of Tortured Existence and Gurmag Angler decks (not to mention the RUG and mono green Tron decks ramping out Eldrazi) floating around these days I'm really hesitant to drop Oblivion Ring for Gideon's Reproach. I think if it dealt 5 damage I'd give it a shot, but Angler is such a huge card showing up in all kinds of decks right now that I don't think I can afford to leave my removal suite vulnerable to it.
On the flip side of things, I think you're probably right about the 4 copies of Curse of the Bloody Tome being a little excessive, and dropping one would give me space a Viridian Longbow in the board to deal with the always popular White Weenie decks that Holy Light does nothing against.
Anyway, thank you again for your advice. It was all really solid and helpful, and definitely made me want to continue testing, practicing, and working on Caw Blade.
Before I get started though, here's the list I settled on for the tourney:
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Trinket Mage
4 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Mulldrifter
[12 Spells]
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Rune Snag
[4 Artifacts]
2 Bonesplitter
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
1 Flayer Husk
4 Journey to Nowhere
3 Oblivion Ring
[22 Lands]
4 Tranquil Cove
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Radiant Fountain
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Viridian Longbow
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Dispeller's Capsule
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Prismatic Strands
3 Holy Light
3 Curse of the Bloody Tome
Round 1: Affinity
Game 1 I kept a reasonable hand of 7 with a few lands, Sea Gate Oracle, Brainstorm, Journey to Nowhere, and Squadron Hawk. My opponent wins the roll and opens with Seat of the Synod into Springleaf Drum and I immediately know what I'm up against. He has a slow start and I go on the beatdown with Squadron Hawk and a Bonesplitter while digging for removal and counterspells. I Journey a couple Myr Enforcers and my opponent doesn't seem to mind, he's just excited to see someone playing Brainstorm with fetch lands in Pauper and remarks about how similar the format can be to Legacy. I beat him down to 6 life while continuing to dig and find a couple Oblivion Rings but no counterspells. The next turn he drops Atog, immediately sacs every permanent be controls, and Flings the Atog at me for lethal.
After boarding in 2 Dispeller's Capsule and 2 CoP: Red (Taking out my 4 Rune Snags), game 2 plays out much the same way except I find the Counterspell and hold up the mana for it while exiling his creatures and beating down. When he gets low on life he attempts the Fling plan again, but this time I stop it and kill him with a bladed bird the following turn.
Game 3 was more of a grind fest. I found a Counterspell early and held up the mana for it, while exiling a grand total of 3 Atogs and 2 Carapace Forger with Journey and Oblivion Ring. I play defense with a Lifestaff equipped Sea Gate Oracle and Trinket Mage for a time while drawing more cards than any deck should have the right to draw, but I don't find any more Counterspells or removal and eventually my opponent out draws me on the creature front and beats me down with 2 Carapace Forger, 3 Myr Enforcer, and his last Atog. GG.
Result: Loss, 1-2
Record: 0-1
Round 2: Nivix Blitz
Game 1 I win the roll and keep an opener with a few lands, Hawk, Trinket Mage, and a lone Rune Snag. I'm not sure what my opponent is playing and after a few turns of "draw, go" on both sides I tap out to play my Trinket Mage and go get a Seat of the Synod, since I'm a little short on land. Big mistake. While I'm tapped out the opponent drops two Blighted Agent and proceeds to spend the following five turns beating me down with them while I frantically dig to find removal and come up empty handed.
Game 2 I bring in 2 Prismatic Strands, 3 Holy Light, and Viridian Longbow in place of 3 Oblivion Ring, 2 Counterspell, and Flayer Husk. I'll be damned if I'm losing to Blighted Agents again! lol This game I keep an opener with Brainstorm, Sea Gate Oracle, three lands, a Rune Snag, and something else I can't quite remember. We both play "draw, go" for a while until the opponent tries playing a Nivix Cyclops and I Rune Snag it. From there I play a Trinket Mage and go find my Longbow, then my opponent Gitaxian Probes me and—seeing that I have no counters or removal for larger creatures—he drops two more Cyclops on the table. I Brainstorm end of turn and find a land, one Prismatic Strands, and a Journey to Nowhere. I untap and Journey one of the Cyclops and pass the turn with Prismatic Strands mana up. My opponent empties his hand of Gut Shot, Lightning Bolt, double Mutagenic Growth, and Shadow Rift then attempts to swing for lethal. Prismatic Strands before damage, naming Red, crushes his hopes and dreams. The next turn I cast Mulldrifter, followed by another the following turn, and beat him down with my two fliers and a Bonesplitter.
Game 3... does not get off to a good start. After boarding in two CoP: Red my opening 7 is a no lander, my 6 is a no lander, and my 5 is too. I finally keep a hand of 4 cards with Sea Gate Oracle and three lands. On turn 2 my opponent drops Kiln Fiend then goes nuts emptying his hand of spells on turn 3 and hits me for lethal with the Fiend before I even have the chance to even play my Oracle. The Rune Snag sitting on top of my deck mocks me.
Result: Loss, 1-2
Record: 0-2
Round 3: Burn
Having played against this opponent last week I already know that she is playing Burn, so game 1 I mull to 6 to find an opener with Tranqil Cove, 2 copies of Radiant Fountain, Rune Snag, Trinket Mage, and Sea Gate Oracle. I gain quite a bit of life, counter not one but two Searing Blaze, and end up aggroing out on her with a Bonesplitter and Sylvok Lifestaff equipped Sea Gate Oracle after she burns away my Trinket Mage. I finish my opponent off with just 3 life left and a Searing Spear sitting on top of her library.
For game 2 I take out my 4 Journey to Nowhere and 3 Oblivion Ring, since I know my opponent plays no creatures or non-land permanents in her Burn build, and I bring in 2 CoP: Red, 2 Prismatic Strands, and 3 Curse of the Bloody Tome. I didn't think the Curses would do anything relevant in this match, but they were still a less dead draw than Oblivion Ring. For my opening 7 I get Tranqil Cove, Island, Radiant Fountain, Rune Snag, Rune Snag, Counterspell, and Trinket Mage. Keeping it is a no brainer and the game goes exactly as expected. My opponent Lightning Bolts me twice and from there on out I counter every burn spell she plays until her hand is empty and I'm left with a Trinket Mage equipped with a Sylvok Lifestaff to finish the job with. He's soon joined by 3 Squadron Hawks and the game ends in my favor relatively quickly.
Result: Win, 2-0
Final record: 1-2
All in all I feel good about how the tournament went. I may have lost two of my three matches but I never felt like my deck wasn't up to snuff. I had a few bad draws here and there, but all the games I lost (aside from the one where I had to mull to 4) were pretty darn close and I never felt like my deck was too low on card draw, answers, or threats. The Sea Gate Oracles were absolutely fantastic and did a great job keeping my hand full of cards while providing a blocker with reasonable toughness. They carried Bonesplitters nicely too, and I'm now totally happy with my creature suite. Every creature generates card advantage, and with 8 counterspells and 7 pieces of unconditional creature removal maindeck I feel like I've got a solid defense against aggro.
I'm pretty happy with my build and felt like it was a good night, even though my win/loss record didn't look so good. But hey, I had fun playing and I did get a foil full art Island in the one booster pack I got for playing and that more than covered the tournament entry cost. A good night indeed!
The basic idea is to avoid heavy sorcery speed mana investments such as Mulldrifter to keep more mana open for countering - but still eat the cake as well by virtue of a different CA package.
Creature package would be: Hawks, Trinket Mage, Leonin Squire and Court Homunculus
Draw package: Chromatic Star and Perilous Research. (And Brainstorm obviously).
The idea is this: Chromatic Star is -1 mana but fixes mana, so lets you run more basics and fewer ETBT lands, so it's good. If the mana fixing isn't needed, it sacs to Perilous Research which is instant speed. Leonin Squire recurs broken stars, homunculi or research fodder. Trinket Mage sets you up so you always have what you need
I'm also thinking a build like this could support Celestial Flare to give you even more instant speed options. You could counter, draw or play removal on the fly. Maybe even throw in a few Deputy of Acquittals in there to reuse stuff and protect threats. Waddjathink?
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Nice to hear you're happy with the build! Don't worry about the win / loss ratio, those were definitely winnable matchups. Keep up with the deck and keep practicing and you'll get better results! How is Sea Gate Oracle performing for you? I'm interested in the card, but it doesn't bring that much CA like Mulldrifter does. Drifter is an "answer me or die" threat due to 2 natural power (enhaced by equipment) and flying that also gives you 2 cards upon entering the battlefield, so when the playing field is even it does a lot to put you ahead. Don't cut them off completely.
I also think that the lack of at least 1-of of a dedicated finisher like Cenn's Enlistment or Guardian of the Guildpact for when you need to grind it out against control or MBC is a mistake.
Also I wouldn't count Oblivion Ring in the 12-14 answers package I mentioned early. Sure it answers anything, but you really want immediate answers for faster decks, and 3 is a lot to ask. Maybe try going down to 2 and shave a copy of something else to play 2 Gideon's Reproach / Sunlance?
Idea sounds good, but there are a few cards I don't like (Court Homunculus comes to mind). This build has a potential to accrue massive card advantage if you're playing black with Executioner's Capsule and Mortuary Mire, although it looks more like a proactive, tap-out control deck. Thoughtcast can be used here too if we're running tons of artifacts. Do you have any list in mind?
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Just getting into pauper and after jumping between a lot of decks, this seems like the one I'm most interested in. It seems odd that it isn't more present online, since this seems to be one of the most skill-amiplifying decks in the format.
Given that Treasure Cruise is banned, is it worth it to run any amount of Ponder in addition to Brainstorm? Or would those slots be better fit with Artificer's Epiphany, Thoughtcast, or Sea Gate Oracle (good in Bladed Bracers variants)?
Here is my list. I haven't really tested it much, but will soon, and I've done a lot of reading up on the paper version of this forum. There has been a lot of debate over which finisher to run, and I thought, why not all of them? That way I'll have all my bases covered...
1 Bladed Bracers
1 Bonesplitter
1 Flayer Husk
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
Creatures (17)
1 Guardian of the Guildpact
4 Mulldrifter
2 Sea Gate Oracle
2 Seraph of Dawn
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Trinket Mage
Enchantments (5)
4 Journey to Nowhere
1 Oblivion Ring
Instants (11)
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
1 Gideon's Reproach
2 Prohibit
1 Cenn's Enlistment
Lands (22)
1 Ancient Den
4 Azorius Chancery
2 Desert
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Island
1 Plains
2 Radiant Fountain
1 Seat of the Synod
4 Tranquil Cove
3 Dust to Dust
2 Holy Light
2 Hindering Light
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Circle of Protection: Green
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Viridian Longbow
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Dispeller's Capsule
The sideboard is similar to OP's most recent one (on the paper forum), with 2 CoP: Green instead of 2 Curse of the Bloody Tome as it would help the Bogles matchup, which seems to be the deck's only weakness.
Can anyone offer any pointers or card suggestions? Is running all the different finishers excessive?
Also, how does Vault Skirge seem in a Thoughtcast-based build? I will eventually try to test it out as well.
Lastly, are there any important commons for this deck in paper that aren't legal in MTGO?
UW Caw-Blade
GW Bogles
U Delver
GBTolarian Community College's/Turn One Thoughtseize's $2 Dredge
UR DrakeRUG Murasa Tron
UWR TwinGW BoglesB 8-Rack (budget)UWR Delver/GeistUW Gifts TronUR Bedlam DelverWRG Burn
UBR Death's Shadow
UR Artifacts(~M15)UW Heroic(~Theros)WBR Warriors(~KTK)R Aggro(~Origins)RUG Wombo-Combo Energy (~Kaladesh)
My (upgradable) $150 Modern budget UR Delver (possibly outdated): http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/budget-modern/738332-ur-bedlam-delver
My Pauper Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/69019
You should try to find place for 2 Artificer's Epiphany to go alongside Sea Gate Oracle and Mulldrifter. Speaking of which, how are all the Sea Gate Oracle players liking it in the Bladed Bracers version? My main concern is that we don't have a Human or Angel with protection like Guardian of the Guildpact or inevitability like Cenn's Enlistment so after all our humans are wiped out it's a Flayer Husk without a body. Granted that it turns all our dudes into threats.
Vault Skirge + Thougtcast seems like a faster, more aggro build. It could use Doomed Traveler as a double-life threat and maybe if the WW isn't too prohibitive, Loyal Cathar.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
From what I can tell based on my list and the way I play, the deck's primary weakness, other than hexproof, is decks that can generate lots of board presence quickly. Such as Goblins or certain Delver variants. Holy Light and Viridian Longbow can deal with Spellstutter Sprite, unflipped Delver, and Foundry-Street Denizen, etc., but the opponent can still flood the board with bigger butts like Spire Golem, Ninja of the Deep Hours, and Goblin Cohort. My plan usually is to block with hawks and Sylvok Lifestaff, but they either Lightning Bolt/Flame Slash/Snap the hawk, or I can't find the lifestaff quick enough, so I have to tap out t3 to find it with Trinket Mage, and wait until 4 to equip it (and by then the game's almost over). It seems Circle of Protection: Red also is weaker in the Goblins matchup due to Goblin Sledder; CoP is only effective if you have as much mana as they have Goblins on the field, and most of the time they will have more.
Any suggestions? Perhaps I'm playing these matchups wrong? What key cards should I be removing/countering against board-flood aggro decks? What should my sideboard plan look like? (I suspect I will have similar problems vs Elves and Slivers).
On a different note, a 1-mana common artifact was recently spoiled for Shadows over Innistrad:
Explosive Apparatus
Cost: 1 generic
Artifact
[3], Tap, Sacrifice this: This deals 2 damage to target creature/player.
Sort of like a Pyrite Spellbomb that doesn't require red (albeit with a hefty activation cost). Is it worth it to run at all given the counterspells/removal suite already present in the typical caw-blade deck?
UW Caw-Blade
GW Bogles
U Delver
GBTolarian Community College's/Turn One Thoughtseize's $2 Dredge
UR DrakeRUG Murasa Tron
UWR TwinGW BoglesB 8-Rack (budget)UWR Delver/GeistUW Gifts TronUR Bedlam DelverWRG Burn
UBR Death's Shadow
UR Artifacts(~M15)UW Heroic(~Theros)WBR Warriors(~KTK)R Aggro(~Origins)RUG Wombo-Combo Energy (~Kaladesh)
My (upgradable) $150 Modern budget UR Delver (possibly outdated): http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/budget-modern/738332-ur-bedlam-delver
My Pauper Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/69019
Then out of the board you bring in Holy Light and Viridian Longbow, and that should give you enough of an edge to make games 2 and 3 easier for you. If you still have too much trouble you can run 2-3 Aven Riftwatcher mainboard I guess.
Explosive Apparatus is super pricy for a Seal of Fire costing 4 whopping mana, but I guess the synergy with artifact effects like Artificer's Epiphany / Thoughtcast and the flexibility of being fetchable colorless removal that can be run in straight UW (B has Executioner's Capsule) kinda make it a candidate for testing as a 1-of in some flex spot.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Edit: He put a list up. I think the ones that we've been using are a bit more refined though, so I'd still like ideas.
From the deck lists I've seen here, I've got:
4x Squadron Hawk
4x Mulldrifter
4x Trinket Mage
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterspell
4x Journey to Nowhere
Cenn's Enlistment
Flayer Husk
Bonesplitter
Sylvok Lifestaff
6x Island?
2x Plains?
4x Tranquil Cove
2x Radiant Fountain
4x Evolving Wilds
What number of Ancient Den and Seat of the Synod, what counterspells and draw cards, etc. Should the finisher be one Seraph and one Guardian? Two of one? Discussion would be great. And correct me if I missed anything on the list!