Well, now that Abzan is the Khan of Khans of Tarkir what deck do you think is the best to counter it? I think Mardu midrange/control is probably the best because it has access to both hand disruptions (thoughtseize,despise,mardu charm) and sweepers (end hostilities,anger of the gods).
U/B control is probably another good choice but I think Mardu has a better aggro match up.
My Mardu deck which is still undergoing lots of tweaking got utterly rocked by Abzan at my last FNM. I either run out of removal or can't present enough threats. The fact that many people were using hexproof/regenerate effects made it even harder. Anger of the Gods is also pretty much useless since everything is 4 toughness (or can be made 4 toughness) and can't be done at instant speed.
I'm guessing the pantheon's UB control deck is pretty good against Abzan (the version Turtenwald was playing, not Floch), if permission decks are your kind of thing. You can trade one for one all day long against their deck and have perilous vault when things go bad.
Versions with whip will be more of a problem if you don't expect it.
I'm guessing the pantheon's UB control deck is pretty good against Abzan (the version Turtenwald was playing, not Floch), if permission decks are your kind of thing. You can trade one for one all day long against their deck and have perilous vault when things go bad.
Versions with whip will be more of a problem if you don't expect it.
I would definitely pick up some copies of perilous vault if Abzan decks become more popular.
@cfusionpm: Are you running end hostilities? Try run 2 main deck with 1 or 2 more on the side.
I'm guessing the pantheon's UB control deck is pretty good against Abzan (the version Turtenwald was playing, not Floch), if permission decks are your kind of thing. You can trade one for one all day long against their deck and have perilous vault when things go bad.
Versions with whip will be more of a problem if you don't expect it.
I would definitely pick up some copies of perilous vault if Abzan decks become more popular.
@cfusionpm: Are you running end hostilities? Try run 2 main deck with 1 or 2 more on the side.
Yeah, Perilous Vault is the way to go against Abzan Midrange. You just have to survive long enough after they start flooding the board with Planeswalkers, Siege Rhinos, and Wingmate Rocs. Or you could even just use the Vault as a deterrent by playing it, and always keeping 5 mana open (but not setting it off unless you absolutely had to). It will force the Abzan deck to play more slowly and keep things in hand longer (which makes it more vulnerable to hand disruption).
Another thing that slows them down is Phyrexian Revoker naming Sylvan Caryatid. It can maybe buy a turn or two until their land catches up.
I'm guessing the pantheon's UB control deck is pretty good against Abzan (the version Turtenwald was playing, not Floch), if permission decks are your kind of thing. You can trade one for one all day long against their deck and have perilous vault when things go bad.
Versions with whip will be more of a problem if you don't expect it.
I would definitely pick up some copies of perilous vault if Abzan decks become more popular.
@cfusionpm: Are you running end hostilities? Try run 2 main deck with 1 or 2 more on the side.
Yeah, Perilous Vault is the way to go against Abzan Midrange. You just have to survive long enough after they start flooding the board with Planeswalkers, Siege Rhinos, and Wingmate Rocs. Or you could even just use the Vault as a deterrent by playing it, and always keeping 5 mana open (but not setting it off unless you absolutely had to). It will force the Abzan deck to play more slowly and keep things in hand longer (which makes it more vulnerable to hand disruption).
Another thing that slows them down is Phyrexian Revoker naming Sylvan Caryatid. It can maybe buy a turn or two until their land catches up.
If Mardu can slow the Abzan down then I think Mardu can outrace Abzan with Butcher alone.
Another thing that I just notice is the synergy between perilous vault and Nissa, Worldwaker. It's not too hard for a monogreen devotion to be able to drop vault and activate it at the same turn after playing a Nissa and turn a land into a 4/4.
I've always been a RDW player but I'm not playing it this rotation because I don't think it's fast enough to race the mid-range decks in this meta. Harness and Treasons are good cards but they are very situational unlike perilous vault or end hostilities which will almost never be dead cards or topdecks. If you like playing RDW then my suggestion is to turn it into a B(oros)DW and you can complement your burns with banishing light, chained to the rocks and suspension field even hushwing gryff.
I run a four color (WUBG) Planeswalker deck, and I went to SCG states this weekend and actually did okay with my deck (35 out of 110). 5 out of the 7 matches were against Abzan midrange, and the only card that I really feel like would have helped me in those matches that I was really far behind was Perilous Vault. I've added 2 into my sideboard for those matchups. Sagu Mauler, by the way, leaves Abzan Midrange absolutely stumped until they side in the Duneblast. Sagu Mauler + Ajani Steadfast's +1 is amazing. Ashiok is also great against this matchup, even if s/he eats a kill spell right away. You usually wipe at least two good cards from the top of the deck (Elsepth, Siege Rhino, etc), and you've made them use a card from their hand to do it.
Hornet Queen is good unless they're running two or more copies of Bile Blight. One card that I've been meaning to test out that I think would be absolutely hilarious against Abzan is Villainous Wealth. They run no counter spells in the deck, and if you do it for 6, you'll be able to cast anything that you come across. A viable strategy might be to wipe the board with a Perilous Vault when things are getting too hairy, and then just dump 6BGU into your Villainous Wealth and hopefully snag an Elspeth, Ajani, Sorin, Siege Rhino, or Wingmate Roc (or, if you're insanely lucky, all of the above).
Well, you could get rid of Rhino too and if you play mardu you have access to thoughtseize and despise, but anyways. I agree with you that cards like Perilous Vault and Hornet Queen are probably better against Abzan. I didn't even think about Sagu Mauler but I think you're absolutely spot on about it. I think now I'm going to switch from Mardu to Temur Devotion or even just G/U devotion so I can play Sagu Mauler. If you go with U/G devotion you have access to some card drawing (Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time) and counterspells (disdainful strokes, negate) while Temur give us access to Sarkhan, the dragonspeaker, Savage Knuckleblade and Stormbreath Dragon.
I've had pretty good results with Mono-Green Devotion. The threats you present are better than theirs and they don't run enough removal to play that game. A lot of them are also just stone dead to a hornet queen in the main (they obviously can side into plenty of answers post-board). Not saying it crushes them, but around my local meta, Abzan has been struggling to beat the mono-g and g splash something devotion decks.
EDH is like French fries: some people like waffle cut, crinkle cut, or plain old straight cut, and while there's slight flavor difference and personal preference, at the end of the day they're still fries.
I've had pretty good results with Mono-Green Devotion. The threats you present are better than theirs and they don't run enough removal to play that game. A lot of them are also just stone dead to a hornet queen in the main (they obviously can side into plenty of answers post-board). Not saying it crushes them, but around my local meta, Abzan has been struggling to beat the mono-g and g splash something devotion decks.
Really? I would think that mono green would struggle because Abzan runs 4 main deck thoughtseize. I think G/x devotion would be better.
Mono Green is an even matchup. It's a question of whether Azban gets more removal than Mono gets fatties, basically. The more aggro version of Azban from the top 4 has a much better matchup against mono green.
That said, if you want to build a deck to beat Abzan... you have to actually build the deck and test it, that's what good players do. Half of the posters suggesting cards on this thread are just... lol.
Mono Green is an even matchup. It's a question of whether Azban gets more removal than Mono gets fatties, basically. The more aggro version of Azban from the top 4 has a much better matchup against mono green.
That said, if you want to build a deck to beat Abzan... you have to actually build the deck and test it, that's what good players do. Half of the posters suggesting cards on this thread are just... lol.
Some people (like me) just don't have time or other players to playtest other than going to FNM, that's why we read this forum.
I've had pretty good results with Mono-Green Devotion. The threats you present are better than theirs and they don't run enough removal to play that game. A lot of them are also just stone dead to a hornet queen in the main (they obviously can side into plenty of answers post-board). Not saying it crushes them, but around my local meta, Abzan has been struggling to beat the mono-g and g splash something devotion decks.
Basically this. Mono Green beats Abzan pretty easily. It's the reason why I never stuck with Abzan long enough since my meta is full of devotion.
If Siege Rhino.dec warps the meta so much that people are playing Villainous Wealth, the new best deck will be something awful.
Villainous Wealth shouldn't generally be mainboarded because it's dead against a lot of decks. Against the winning Abzan deck from PT Khans of Tarkir, however, it can single-handedly win the game. It's one of those cards that you hope to topdeck when you're in a corner but have 10-13 mana open.
Mono Green is an even matchup. It's a question of whether Azban gets more removal than Mono gets fatties, basically. The more aggro version of Azban from the top 4 has a much better matchup against mono green.
That said, if you want to build a deck to beat Abzan... you have to actually build the deck and test it, that's what good players do. Half of the posters suggesting cards on this thread are just... lol.
Some people (like me) just don't have time or other players to playtest other than going to FNM, that's why we read this forum.
You're absolutely right, it's a big time and resource commitment to be a "good" competitive magic player, and it's not for most people. But when you come to this forum you're getting a bucket of bad information along with the tablespoon of good. How would you know the difference? Unfortunately, by doing the things you say you don't have the time or players to do. That's fine, just understand that honestly a large amount of what people are posting here is complete garbage.
And yeah, you're totally free to say "herpaderp, that means what YOU'RE saying is garbage, LAWLZ", you might be right But the thing is, I'm not the one advocating for some truly horrible cards and strategies on this thread... I'm the one saying they're horrible. There's some good suggestions here too, but..... yeah.
U/B control is probably another good choice but I think Mardu has a better aggro match up.
And Abzan Charm is absolutely broken
What do you guys think?
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Versions with whip will be more of a problem if you don't expect it.
@cfusionpm: Are you running end hostilities? Try run 2 main deck with 1 or 2 more on the side.
Yeah, Perilous Vault is the way to go against Abzan Midrange. You just have to survive long enough after they start flooding the board with Planeswalkers, Siege Rhinos, and Wingmate Rocs. Or you could even just use the Vault as a deterrent by playing it, and always keeping 5 mana open (but not setting it off unless you absolutely had to). It will force the Abzan deck to play more slowly and keep things in hand longer (which makes it more vulnerable to hand disruption).
Another thing that slows them down is Phyrexian Revoker naming Sylvan Caryatid. It can maybe buy a turn or two until their land catches up.
Another thing that I just notice is the synergy between perilous vault and Nissa, Worldwaker. It's not too hard for a monogreen devotion to be able to drop vault and activate it at the same turn after playing a Nissa and turn a land into a 4/4.
Mardu can't race Abzan with Butcher. Butcher will be removed and you will be at least 2 for one'd.
If you want to beat Abzan, play Hornet Queen, Hushwing Gryff, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Perilous Vault, or Disdainful Stroke, those cards are pretty good against it. No one is playing it, but Sagu Mauler is pretty good against Abzan too, at least in my playtesting experience. The decks that can run it aren't that good, but it's good in a vacuum.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
I run a four color (WUBG) Planeswalker deck, and I went to SCG states this weekend and actually did okay with my deck (35 out of 110). 5 out of the 7 matches were against Abzan midrange, and the only card that I really feel like would have helped me in those matches that I was really far behind was Perilous Vault. I've added 2 into my sideboard for those matchups. Sagu Mauler, by the way, leaves Abzan Midrange absolutely stumped until they side in the Duneblast. Sagu Mauler + Ajani Steadfast's +1 is amazing. Ashiok is also great against this matchup, even if s/he eats a kill spell right away. You usually wipe at least two good cards from the top of the deck (Elsepth, Siege Rhino, etc), and you've made them use a card from their hand to do it.
Hornet Queen is good unless they're running two or more copies of Bile Blight. One card that I've been meaning to test out that I think would be absolutely hilarious against Abzan is Villainous Wealth. They run no counter spells in the deck, and if you do it for 6, you'll be able to cast anything that you come across. A viable strategy might be to wipe the board with a Perilous Vault when things are getting too hairy, and then just dump 6BGU into your Villainous Wealth and hopefully snag an Elspeth, Ajani, Sorin, Siege Rhino, or Wingmate Roc (or, if you're insanely lucky, all of the above).
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
That said, if you want to build a deck to beat Abzan... you have to actually build the deck and test it, that's what good players do. Half of the posters suggesting cards on this thread are just... lol.
Basically this. Mono Green beats Abzan pretty easily. It's the reason why I never stuck with Abzan long enough since my meta is full of devotion.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
Villainous Wealth shouldn't generally be mainboarded because it's dead against a lot of decks. Against the winning Abzan deck from PT Khans of Tarkir, however, it can single-handedly win the game. It's one of those cards that you hope to topdeck when you're in a corner but have 10-13 mana open.
You're absolutely right, it's a big time and resource commitment to be a "good" competitive magic player, and it's not for most people. But when you come to this forum you're getting a bucket of bad information along with the tablespoon of good. How would you know the difference? Unfortunately, by doing the things you say you don't have the time or players to do. That's fine, just understand that honestly a large amount of what people are posting here is complete garbage.
And yeah, you're totally free to say "herpaderp, that means what YOU'RE saying is garbage, LAWLZ", you might be right But the thing is, I'm not the one advocating for some truly horrible cards and strategies on this thread... I'm the one saying they're horrible. There's some good suggestions here too, but..... yeah.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU