This deck does have problems with fliers and I think I am going to start testing Daybreak Ranger in the side... It is probably just me but this deck has been performing better for then my Wolf Run lol...
Yeah.. I played with that. Garruk Relentless was the other move I was making since eating Doom Blades or burn seem more relevant against most decks with fliers (the exception is Tempered Steel). Most of them have a harder time with planeswalkers and even forcing them to attack into them can be beneficial. I've seen people get crazy with Relentless and Mortarpod, but that's a whole other deal. I ran Daybreak Ranger in my States list and he was meh.. but then again I didn't see much Tempered Steel (just round 6). The metagame has shifted again so he seems reasonable.
In general I've been loving the deck. I haven't been playing much else competitively since rotation though. So just a couple strong showings at FNM and 5-2 at States getting me 15th out of about 120 (if I had only not had to mull to 4 against RDW, I had top 8 in sight) is really all I have..
The key thing I like about this approach right now is main deck configuration should put you largely positive against Wolf Run, and hopefully a liveable UB matchup. I have pretty much never had trouble with Wolf Run. I've found UB more of a pain than most other matchups. The fact you can pull out the proactive free wins has been really relevant for me. I've smashed aggro decks and token decks often by recognizing the tipping point where they can no longer race me. Decks that wish to attrition and don't have much of a plan that aren't based on heavy permission like Pod and GB decks I've just been smashing easily.
To date there is only 1 deck that I played against that I haven't felt I couldn't beat. It was Grixis control deck that was all permission, incinerate, removal and snapcaster, that won off a couple Sorin's Vengeance. I have a better plan now(my UB plan), but they ran enough to stop me from sticking threats(it even had maindeck Disperse), that even a T4 Thrun was too slow to win. The other thing I came across that was hard to deal with was a Esper Heartless Solar Flare deck that maxed out on Frost Titans. Frost Titan is a pain. I wasn't running Apostle's blessings yet and I made the mistake of thinking I was the aggro deck. I needed to just side in my Naturalizes and then it would have been like playing against any other garbage Solar Flare deck. Other than those and an unlucky loss to RDW I've been dominating.
As I've said before I haven't play MBI yet and the prospect of that deck scares me a bit, but I need to test it. It's quite possible the deck already has the tools. I've been trying to shape it in a way that gives me maximum play since it's easy for these decks to get trapped in a linear plan. The timing of the instance speed spells (especially Beast Within) is incredibly important. Using it as a Combat trick has won me several games.
In general this deck has a lot of proactive aggression which makes it play a pretty powerful game against the formats top decks. The control elements are mostly just outsize based stabilization which have been mostly sufficient for the aggro in this field so far. Biggest risk is another fast proactive deck, especially one that can afford removal, or a fast deck that just aims to go over. A deck like pre-rotation Vampires would be difficult. Maybe a deck like Elves would be difficult too. But as long most decks are nickel and diming without that fast of clock we have a lot of leeway.
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Any check out Valeriy Shunkov's latest article. He's running a bit of junk(Mentor? Really?) but he's got a lot of pieces. Sort of fringing on Tokens without going all the way to Token Town.
I don't know about you guys but it seems that U/B Control is on the rise and I can't seem to beat it... suggestions would be nice... It has gotten to the point that when I see U/B I just quit... starting to get annoying... Dissipate, Geth's Verdict or Phatasmal image my thrun, BSZ and wipes my board... and then all mighty mana leak...
Game 1 might as well be a auto concede but then game 2 I am a bit more in control when I can extract there mana leaks and disspiates... but at the same time I have to still be aggro... mid range is starting to be to slow here... either have to be super aggro or start playing control which I am not going to do...
I don't know about you guys but it seems that U/B Control is on the rise and I can't seem to beat it... suggestions would be nice... It has gotten to the point that when I see U/B I just quit... starting to get annoying... Dissipate, Geth's Verdict or Phatasmal image my thrun, BSZ and wipes my board... and then all mighty mana leak...
Game 1 might as well be a auto concede but then game 2 I am a bit more in control when I can extract there mana leaks and disspiates... but at the same time I have to still be aggro... mid range is starting to be to slow here... either have to be super aggro or start playing control which I am not going to do...
The trick with UB is you have to stay ahead on tempo. You have to be casting something pretty much every turn early so that they can't be using their Forbidden Alchemy's and Think Twices. The problem is their answers until they get into Snapcaster range are cheaper than our threats. I have found most lists run more permission than removal. If it was more removal it would be easier (other than BSZ).
My first plan was sneaking in turn 2 Nevermore.. this worked until they started running 9 permission spells main. Even if I could shut down BSZ or Mana Leak you never knew what combination of answers they had in their hand. You take out Mana Leak and your luck is they are holding 2 Dissipates and 2 Snapcasters. Atleast against BSZ it gave a bit of insurance.
Surgical Extraction was the next thing I tried. Unfortunately for it to work they would have had to use it. Yes it stops Snapcaster but in order to take the mana leak they've already leaked something. Worse was figuring out the timing. I mean if you use it to null a Snapcaster you are golden, but they might just cast that Dissipate in their hand instead. If you just go for the Leak right away you might end up with the same issue I had with Nevermore permission.
The reason these decks couldn't exist before was 2 fold. Vengevine punished them hardcore. It's better they have to use cards in hand, but it does nothing for them, rather than forcing them to find a narrow answer cause they might just find it and have answers for everything else you do. The other issue was Spell Pierce and Dispel. That's why I've grudgingly put the Autumn's Veil in the board(and to some extent Apostle's Blessing main, although it's good in other matchups). It's all about when you stop a certain answer. Given the expense of these counters and counters+snapcaster it can be key for forcing through some spells. The thing is we play permanents they have a really hard time with. They can't beat Garruk and a Sword on Board is very difficult for them. Thrun is a pain atleast (if they are using Images what did they cut?) and Mirran Crusader often requires them to tap out somewhat early to Zenith for 2. The best move we can do early is continue to tie up their mana.
Honestly this need to play Fish sort of sucks. But atleast we have an efficiently costed tool. It just sucks that Autumn's Veil doesn't read:
"Spells you control can't be countered by blue or black spells this turn, and you and creatures you control can't be the targets of blue or black spells this turn."
Autumn's Veil has always been the weakest of the cycle of hate cards and primarily because it's a reactive card for Green which has no desire to be reactive. But if we want to be reactive you would think it would turn off Black Discard. I mean when was the last time you had something countered by a black spell. Of course this would shut off sacrifice cards too. But I think that would make it a sufficient hate card since it wouldn't stop their game plan or their sweepers. Viridian Emissary is decent in this matchup too. Any 2 drop that doesn't require further investment to get value is a good move. Maybe even the Mayor.
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@Prophet_DNA: How does your Wolf Run list run against UB? I imagine that deck would have issues with heavy permission amd BSZ too. If they save their spot removal for your Inkmoths'.. The biggest reason they are beating UB right now is Dungrove.. But not sure that will continue to be enough. Either way it suggests they have a real issue with hard to kill landed threats.
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@Prophet_DNA: How does your Wolf Run list run against UB? I imagine that deck would have issues with heavy permission amd BSZ too. If they save their spot removal for your Inkmoths'.. The biggest reason they are beating UB right now is Dungrove.. But not sure that will continue to be enough. Either way it suggests they have a real issue with hard to kill landed threats.
My wolf run has the same exact problems and that is one reason why I was getting frustrated yesterday... lol... couldn't play either of my decks... Natural Justice actually had a better game against control but the
4x Mana Leak
4x Dissipate
4x Snapcaster Mage
Equaling 16 counters lmao... so annoying...
Tried siding Dongrove into my Natural Justice but he is worst there... not enough Forest to make him huge and no Primetimes to make him bigger... Looks like we just need hexproof so I am going to start exploring some lesser known creatures with hexproof to see if that improves my match up... maybe Sacred Wolf which fits into the mana curve instead of swords and you can power him up with Gavorny... might try adding one more Gavorny so I know for a fact I am going to pull it... drop him down and he gives me the affect like I would with Virdian Emmisary that you can not target... make me sac him so less sacrifice for Thrun...
My wolf run has the same exact problems and that is one reason why I was getting frustrated yesterday... lol... couldn't play either of my decks... Natural Justice actually had a better game against control but the
4x Mana Leak
4x Dissipate
4x Snapcaster Mage
Equaling 16 counters lmao... so annoying...
Tried siding Dongrove into my Natural Justice but he is worst there... not enough Forest to make him huge and no Primetimes to make him bigger... Looks like we just need hexproof so I am going to start exploring some lesser known creatures with hexproof to see if that improves my match up... maybe Sacred Wolf which fits into the mana curve instead of swords and you can power him up with Gavorny... might try adding one more Gavorny so I know for a fact I am going to pull it... drop him down and he gives me the affect like I would with Virdian Emmisary that you can not target... make me sac him so less sacrifice for Thrun...
well for ur wolf run add in dungrove i think he is going to shine there and add in Nevermore and call snapcaster and i think u should be fine
well for ur wolf run add in dungrove i think he is going to shine there and add in Nevermore and call snapcaster and i think u should be fine
My wolf run is entirely different animal lol... Either case this is for NJ and I have tried never more and it is lacking and only solves the problem of a late game counter... I think we need an option that can apply early pressure like Emmissary and Hexproof like the Elder... Still trying out Sacred Wolf and it is decent but not running into a whole lot of control today... Alot of mono white weenie...
My wolf run is entirely different animal lol... Either case this is for NJ and I have tried never more and it is lacking and only solves the problem of a late game counter... I think we need an option that can apply early pressure like Emmissary and Hexproof like the Elder... Still trying out Sacred Wolf and it is decent but not running into a whole lot of control today... Alot of mono white weenie...
You don't need dungrove or any other hexproof beasts.
According to my last game day, planeswalkers are the biggest threat against u/b or solar flare decks + thrun ofcourse. They just coudn't handle Garruk+Gideon.
Add in Nevermore and call snapcaster and i think u should be fine
Prophet_DNA is absolutely correct on why running stuff like Nevermore or Surgical Extraction or answers in general is not where we necessarily where we want to be. They aren't bad but they more likely than not stop later permission where we've already lost all tempo and likely most cards in hand. You want your early threats to do their work. You need that tempo gain. You can't wait to name snapcaster to stop Permission spell 3-4.. It's already too late likely. Surgically extracting Mana leak is fine after the first but then comes Dissipate.
However Prophet_DNA also illustrated exactly why Sacred Wolf isn't good enough. Part of the decks game plan is solid board presence. It's not just aggro. Sacred Wolf is a lot like a weaker Geist of St Traft. You can't stabilize with it. Mirran Crusader might eat burn but it's an efficient blocker on top of attacker. Sacred Wolf isn't powerful enough to matter, and Viridian Emissary is fringing on that. I mean how many more mana creatures do you want. As DuWolf illustrated running 11 you get flooded out with dorks and lands. The problem is cutting lands for this doesn't mean you will curve out properly early game. Especially if your Emissary doesn't die. And truthfully in counter heavy decks they can afford a few hits off Emissary and then time killing at a point it no longer matters. You have to be pretty aggressive for it to matter. And running 11+ dorks (counting Emissary) puts you in Wolf Run territory without the impact of threats.
On the otherside DuWolf is correct that our planeswalkers(especially Garruk) kill UB control. Just toasts them. Gideon isn't great but it kills their win pretty well. Good luck resolving them though. That has been the problem. You need to time it after they tap out with a sweeper.. which suggests that they need to but they are pretty good at attacking our tempo early. I've found resolving Garruk increasingly hard. Resolving anything really hard for that matter. As stated these decks feel like they play 16 counters just on density, and lots of digging. Almost like the old Draw Go decks. Being able to Counter back just to resolve a single one of these threats is usually enough to win the game but we don't have the blue access naturally. Autumn's Veil as bad as it is seems reasonable.
What do you think of running Spellskite in the sideboard to re-target any Wolf's Run activations?
Maybe but it's a bit late by then. It's not like we have the abundance to deal with the flow of Titans they have. They will eventually just destroy us on board unless you run DoJ but then Spellskite isn't helping there. I don't think it's terrible but it's seems wrong to try to play inevitability and control in that matchup. You just want to race and disrupt them.
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With 7-8 mana dorks in our deck after turn 3-4 we are out of mana leak range.
They were either countering my mirran crusaders+hero of bladeholds or tapping out on turn 4 for DOJ. So dropping Gideon or Garruk wasn't that hard.
And they can't really dig that much - 3-4 Think twice, 3 Alchemy, thats all. And the chances to drew them aint that big.
Luckily the type of blue black I'm refering to is on a down turn. I found trying to exhaust counterspells my usual tactic useless since they could successfully most games counter atleast through turn 5. 5Cancels.dec doesn't really care that you can pay for mana leak since after T5 they don't really run out of hard counters either. They don't always have it, but they chances they do seemed higher than the probability that you draw perfectly threat after threat. Sneaking down turn 2 Crusader was often do able but it couldn't kill if they managed to throw down atleast a single chump(snapcaster) before T6 at which point they BSZ killing the crusader all the dorks, and still have mana leak up. The key difference between Dungrove and Crusader is shows here since Dungrove gets out of BSZ range fast. BSZ for 1 on T5 is a pretty good move in a permission heavy hand especially if we've been holdin out to get out of mana leak range since it clears our dorks basically leaving us equal on board but with less cards in hand. T3 Thrun is about the best to hope for since it typicaly takes atleast a bit of work or tapping out for BSZ to neutralize(even not killing him but putting a few counters on is usually worth it since they can always snapcaster to finish the job later).
Either way I hope these decks are on a decline, and people go back to good old UW to combat the aggro decks in the format. As I see it these GW lists are basically big token decks. They aren't unlike Juza's winning list just a bit bigger.
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I'm trying the cut to 24 lands. And running burn in the sideboard for aggro. I think this will work ok against RDW. I might be weakening that matchup too much but I don't think so, since I do have ways of life gain and board stabilization. I'm thinking something like this:
Ryan how are you solving the infect match up? Seem U/B is on the decline on MTGO too and haven't really had any problems so my build stayed the same. There is now a U/B infect being played all over the place but doesn't seem to be as powerful as the mono black which IMO we have a pretty bad match up...
i fought against a blue black deck, and though the tactic to exhaust counters is a good plan, but with a resolved jace, memory adept, it can kill you in 4 turns. this match-up is where you need a lot of oblivion rings or beast withins. thrun shines in this matchup and youd want to side in a whole playset, or 3 at the minimum. bringing down anything is really hard. i do agree that autumns veil could work here, as ugly as that sounds.
Viel is even worst... Tried it and all it really did was bait a counter... If control really gets out of hand I started to test out Grand Abolisher at the end there and if he stuck at least you knew you didn't have to worry about counters or even Think Twice or a Snapcaster on your turn... That would have been the way I would have gone but U/B seems to have subsided on MTGO so giving Abolisher a full test was getting harder... At your locale meta that is where I would go against control...
The deck of the week on MTGO seems to be infect...
Ryan how are you solving the infect match up? Seem U/B is on the decline on MTGO too and haven't really had any problems so my build stayed the same. There is now a U/B infect being played all over the place but doesn't seem to be as powerful as the mono black which IMO we have a pretty bad match up...
I haven't played UB Infect yet.. I brought in more burn in my board to fight Mono B Infect. Hence the change I was doing last week. I was thinking perhaps I was losing too much to RDW with that change but it was a good change against Humans and Infect, and pretty decent against Tokens. Those decks probably aren't burning my birds so with teh 6 red sources + birds I'm pretty good at getting red spells online. However, against RDW that's a different story. It's a bit more hit and miss since they might just burn out the dork.
As for Autumn's Veil it has worked exactly as I've hoped. Never play it first, always play in response to a counter. It may draw out a 2nd counter, but it's a cheap way to keep them playing cards. I almost wish I had a 4th. I have to admit I'm very comfortable playing fish decks. I just hate the mana in Bant right now and I am unwilling to drop the green. Abolisher isn't bad either. I ran Abolisher for a little while but I could never convince myself to run enough to matter since it seemed weak in multiples and these decks do have lots of ways to deal with Bears. The sinergy with Angelic Destiny does make it a bit better .. perhaps enough to try it. Melira has similar issues. Seems way too narrow for something that just gets killed. I ran it in my Shaman sideboard as a 1 of that pretty much never performed back in the day. I think right now is equally hostile if not more since the infect decks back then didn't use much removal.
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Well even though I said final list awile back I think it will constantly change back and forth lol... Here is the newest list and I have started to include the sideboard plan I have been working with...
I have removed Sun Titan all together... he was a neat trick but I think that is all he was. Other then maybe Crusader and a Sword he really started to not have that many targets to bring back. If I was still running Emissary maybe because when that elf dies I can fetch a land and thin out the deck but if a mana dork dies I really don't want to recur it back.
Elspeth came back because she just seemed more useful then a Sun Titan but not as useful as a two of or more. That left me with one more spot to fill and I decided to move my mana curve up one more and add in Elesh Norn. She has always been a solid card but as a one off I think my curve and live and if I get my Gavony engine working she helps pump up my guys even further and helps wipe the board with other chump or mana dorks out there now.
How has DoJ been for everyone? I am actually thinking of taking it out of the sideboard because I don't find myself siding it in a whole lot. Even against aggro match ups I don't see it often enough to make it worth while...
Edit: Also I think this deck just has a natural problem vs control. U/B Control or Solar Flare just seem to be hard match ups for me...
Edit: Also I think this deck just has a natural problem vs control. U/B Control or Solar Flare just seem to be hard match ups for me...
Yeah we have to get something early to stick or Thrun. The matchup completely comes down to that. UB sac effects are definitely even more of a pain. I just watched Kibler play Juza's list against UB in 2 rounds on SCG and the only game he had a chance was the T2 Crusader on the play. Just looking at the starting hand it was obvious what would happen. He tried to bring in more removal, which isn't bad if they tap out to play their big drops giving you an opening, but I think these decks can often have time to be patient. It's actually rather depressing on how difficult it is to get through that counter wall. Juza must have not faced many UB with people trending away due to Wolf Run Green.. However with popularity of little white guys I see us trending back to UB and back to RG Wolf Run. Will be interesting to see where this settles.
The decks that seem to consistently get by that deck best either run Dungrove or Mana Leak themselves. I think our best look at beating these guys is figure out how UW Humans seems to have a favorable matchup. Do any of the token variations have a good UB matchup? I wonder if this really just comes down to finding a few optimum sideboard slots and hoping we don't hit it every round. Like could something like Shrine of Loyal Legions be ok.. I don't know. Inkmoth was actually pretty good against these decks with my initial run but it was too inconsistent on the mana. I am sticking on Autumn Veil for now but it's really as good as anything.. Surgical Extraction seems about the same. Double white for Abolisher was a pain for me and I'd still get tempo'd since it was still best if you wanted to resolve a 3 drop so if you go T1 birds it's probably still better to play the Crusader first for potential damage (before they just BSZ you anyway). In which case the Abolisher might just not work anyway. It's basically awkward on the curve being WW.
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You know what I have been thinking about doing is siding out the Swords either game 1 or 2 for Overrun lol... Thoughts? Might speed up the deck to get that final push against control...
Hey guys. So, I recently jumped ship from a mono green dungrove deck and am now building G/W midrange control. Currently the list has no planeswalkers or swords (due to money, although my list is not budget and I do plan to include swords). Feedback is greatly appreciated! I just want this to function in FNM essentially =).
4-0 another local Standard event (one store does constructed Standard Thursday, and draft for their FNM). I really got to build this online. I just have been slow to get my Garruks online (where I had all 4 in paper within a week of rotation before Wolf Run broke since testing showed he was insane). I played this list:
Daybreak was still subpar since the decks I brought it in against could still kill it. Maybe those Incinerates would be better. But I'm thinking the right move might be 1 more O-Ring and 1 more Arc Trail in the board. Not sure... Maybe the 2 incinerates were better, but I kind of want the 2nd O-Ring somewhere. Maybe an Act of Aggression would be good.
Anyway,
Round 1 UB Midrange
Game 1: No clue what his deck does. He Metamorphs a Mirran Crusader but I use Apostles Blessing to attack through with Feast and Famine netting me 8 damage and double discard. So make quick work of the deck. 1-0
Game 2: I don't sideboard right cause I have no clue what his deck does. He plays out 2 Inquisitor's Flail and a Tumble Magnet early (and one of his lands is an Inkmoth Nexus). He metamorphs my Hero then doomblades it.. He ends up running it into Thrun, with Flails on it so I trade cause I don't want to take so much damage but I don't have Regen up. I tap out for a Primordial Hydra. Turn 6 he drops Spellskite and Phyrexian Obliterator. I have 1 Beast Within but can't deal with the Magnet and the Obliterator. A suited up Obliterator has me dead so off to game 3. 1-1
Game 3: I bring in my artifact hate this time and side out all my Heros of Bladehold. Against decks that copy Hydra is way better. And crusader they can never leverage as well as I. I also get rid of the Autumn's Veils I sided in since he didn't seem to have permission to bring in Gideon. I get a T3 Gideon Jura and he gets stuck on 2 lands.. I Beast Within his land, and get Mirran Crusader beats going. By the time he gets the 3rd land for a Tumble Magnet I have a 6/6 Hydra on Board too and he had already chumped my Gideon once with a Beast Token. and he's done.
2-1 (1-0)
Round 2 GW Wolf Run
Game 1: I come into the game pretty confident but this is a local player I've never beat. He hasn't been around the store much the last year though (since I started making a tear with my Hydra Conviction deck at the beginning of the summer). He wins the die roll. Game 1 I am always one turn behind, I resolve T2 Crusader only for him to play T3 Solemn. I lack the untapped 4th land to play T4 Garruk so I play out a sword.. he slimes.. I get out Hydra, he gets out Primeval and then a Wurmcoil and a Garruk of his own. He has the Beast Within for both my Kessig and my Hydra.. Pretty he has exactly what he needs and I lose (2 out of 3 Beast Within and the 1 slime). 0-1
Game 2: He sees me only side one card and is a little surprised, and I said I am maindecked for Wolf Run pretty much. This game goes better. I beast within his first land off a Pilgrim, which messes up his planned T2 Rampant Growth.. So by the time he gets his Turn 3 Rampant growth I get Garruk and an Angelic Destiny on a beast token and a Kessig Wolf Run gets me the win pretty fast. 1-1
Game 3: He leads off with Rampant growth which as I predict gets my Pilgrim and Mirran Crusader straight into a DoJ. So I drop another Pilgrim. Instead of dropping Garruk I decide to go for the throat and drop Destiny on my Pilgrim. Scared off how much damage that does he days again. I get Garruk down making a beast. He plays Wurmcoil. I create another beast put the Destiny on a Beast and I play a Mirran Crusader. He is about to attack into the beast but he realizes it has first strike and he plays a Primeval. I draw 7 off Garruk, find True Conviction and Apostle's Blessing and a Kessig Wolf Run. I play True Conviction and do 14 damage in the air knocking him down to 1 gaining 14 life. He tanks for a very long time on his turn.. As it turns out he has the Beast Within, but he can't deal with the Mirran Crusader + Kessig since it's first strike would prevent the life gain from Wurmcoil and Trample through.
2-1(2-0)
Round 3 Junk Pod
Game 1: Pretty much as you expect. I win the die roll he never sees Pod and has no way to deal with his threats and I win like T6 or so off Mirran Crusader beats with Kessig.. I O-Ring a Splicer Token, and Apostle's Blessing through another a different turn(He gets Splicer on a Mimic Vat) 1-0
Game 2: I should have known he was on Pod but I was lazy. I side in Arc Trails and Daybreak Rangers but not artifact destruction. I know I saw the Mimic Vat but Vat isn't really a concern since it is much too slow to matter and a waste of card. He gets the T2, T3 Pod hand.. and with Double pod we fight it out a bit but eventually he has enough Golem Tokens to beat me and his Glissa Perilous Myr antics keep a Daybreak Ranger and Crusader off the board (I had sided out a couple Crusaders since they are naturally weak to Splicers but that's what I drew). 1-1
Game 3: Was T2 Crusader, T3 Destiny.. Pretty much a blow out. He did manage to deal with the Destiny after the first swing but I had an Ancient Grudge for his Splicer Token and Kessig+Crusader to go the distance. A lot like game 1 just faster.
2-1 (3-0)
Round 4 UB Control
Game 1: So happy I win the Dice roll. Look at my hand and realise it's not fast enough(4 lands, Mirran Crusader, Garruk, and Hero of Bladehold and only 1 white source) so mull to 6. This hand isn't any better, it's actually worse in that respect.. 3 lands Thrun, Garruk, Batterskull). I keep this hand cause any hand with Thrun is decent against UB. First card I draw is a 2nd Thrun. And sure enough like clockwork not much happens til T4 Thrun, where the opponent isn't too happy. His list plays a lot of sweepers but as I find out 2 turns later Life's Finale is a 2 of on top of 2 BSZ and I can always regen Thrun with finale.. Of course I'm not playing around it so Thrun dies. I use it to sneak a Batterskull on the board. He plays out a Wurmcoil which I use to sneak out True Conviction. He follows up with a another Wurmcoil and I get Garruk going for a bit.. and Thrun.. Anyway long story short this is quite possibly the longest single match of magic I've played in a constructed event. The TO decides since it's a casual shop and this is playing for first to just let it keep going. I swear this 1 round goes over time. Basically through a crazy attrition top deck war and the life is stupid with Wurmcoils and Batterskull, where I'm like suiting up ever dork 1 at a time and EoT beasting my own lands for creatures to put Batterskull on and he is snapcasting removal and sweepers on the 2nd to last turn I resolve Garruk giving me enough tokens to get in with Batterskull for the win. The reason I call it last turn is he is a Nephalia Drownyard deck and he only had to mill me 1 more time since his life finales and flashback life finales had stripped most of my creatures and he had milled me ever turn he could afford. If he had top decked a 2nd drownyard I would have died. He managed to kill my Kessig with Ghost Quarter and mill my other 3 otherwise the game would have been shorter. I took the victory ironically won off 2 cards I usually side out (True Conviction + Batterskull). 1-0
Game 2: So I re-examine my sideboard strategy. I take out the Beast Withins for Ancient Grudges (since I saw 2 Wurmcoils and I doubt he would side them out, as it turns out he had a Sphinx but never saw them). I take out a Destiny and a Hydra and 2 Pilgrims, for Autumn's Veil and Sword of Feast and Famine. I get the fast Birds to Crusader Kessig start and on T3 instead of casting my Thrun, I swing for 6 with Crusader. As I expect he taps out for BSZ turn 4. I follow up with Thrun. Thrun carries on where Crusader left off and a couple Snapcasters in the way don't stop the trample and he doesn't dig into an answer.
2-0 (4-0)
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Someone after the event told me I was just running a worse version of Juza's GP list. I had been running the deck for the last 5 weeks but I definitely saw the similarities. He told me that he felt Gavony Township was probably better than Kessig in most cases and that the weakening of my mana base probably wasn't worth it. I had made the comparison last week since when I saw Juza's list I'm like wow this is the closest list I've seen to what I've been doing yet. So I stopped and thought about it. Where is my list different and how do I justify those changes? One of the worse things you can do as a deck builder is make a "worst version of" deck. I was guilty of that all last fall when I play Bant Shaman instead of RUG. Both decks ended the same way (quick Frost Titan lock, vengevine was too slow to matter in most matchups). I don't want to be guilty of this again.
1. Mana Base
This is the first place. 3 color is a *****. I jumped all over the mana bases since the set was spoiled. I started in UG (since it seemed that tempo would be very good in this format) then I went to RUG but realized that I couldn't run the dorks I wanted to and all the lands that did nothing. So I tried Bant with Moorland Haunt and Township but Bant mana base sucks. 8 Forest + 4 Razorverge is how I started. Brutal. The blue spash is doable very small splash but for what mana leak? Moorland Haunt seemed reasonable but how many can you run in this configuration. Suppose I add 4 Hinterland Harbors, and 4 Glacial Fortress and 4 Plains to this mana base I'm already at 24 with (G 16, W 12, U 8). I cut 2 Hinterland Harbor for 2 Haunts.. is it worth it? You can't construct your mana any other way and keep up the T1 G in Bant. And if you are running more than 4 dorks and you aren't running 11 to 12 T1 G sources you are doing wrong. Period.
GW is the shoe in, in a Mirran Crusader deck that runs dorks which is where I decided I wanted to be. Juza's list runs (16 G, 12 W) and has room for 4 Townships. And still has the 12 T1 G sources. I realized that Red and Black were the only realistic splash in a GW deck pretty early on. If you want early G you want either to be Ally around G to leverage scars lands or you want your splash to be an enemy color to both. The thing is black doesn't seem to add enough. It makes you reactive and less proactive. So in the end the only options seemed to be straight GW or Naya. Why Naya well as you can see with my base I can go 12 T1 G and still go (15 G, 12 W, 6 R) with 4 Kessigs. Other than a couple extra tapped Copperline Gorges late game my mana base is no worse than Juza's. This is relevant mind you. Having to play the plain T2 to play a Crusader instead of my 2nd Copperline Gorge meant when I drew a Razorverge Thicket I didn't have the 3rd G source for Garruk in G1 against Wolf Run and had to play a tapped land. So I will say my mana base is a bit worse. Not so much against early development but for playing 5 drops consistently on T4.
2. Philosophy
This is probably the biggest difference between decks. A number of people told me I should be running Primeval Titan. And I was like well I've run it before but cut it. Both Tokens and what I'm doing are very different than Wolf Run Ramp. The ramp deck runs a medium threat density of about 8 (vs Controls 3-5) or aggros 20+. A ramp deck plays bigger threats so a lot of slots are dedicated to ramp often in the ballpark or 12-16 slots. You want to make sure you can play those 6 drops but there is always a risk of getting all fat or all ramp. Whereas a midrange deck like the Juza list or mine really wants to jump into the game fast but doesnt want that many lands. Still wants to curve out at 5-6 and stop. The way to make this work without flooding out is either to cut lands which leaves you weak to red and mana screw or to have mana sinks and lands that do something. This is why RUG is having a hard time without being more of a control deck.
However the lands Kessig and Township reward different cards. Both like Token generators. Township wants to swamp the board so Tokens are good. And Kessig wants a never ending line of threats to pump so tokens are good. That is basically where the similarities end. A Township deck wants to expand on the board making Spot removal rather useless against it but vulnerable to sweepers. A Kessig deck wants to punch through damage making spot removal very good against it but sweepers less important since it can rely on just a few threats. While both decks can do both(especially after board) one is better than the other each way. If Spot Removal is good against you anyway you want to exhaust it. You want to play very high quality threats that must be removed or they die. If sweepers are good against you want to negate the use of spot removal against you by spreading faster than they can handle. Both decks meet in the middle with Token generators in planeswalkers since it lets both decks get around their weakness. However if you are playing big threats Big Garruk is better, and if you are spreading out Elspeth is better. The effect this has on the curve is very important and I will get to that.
The only other overlap seems to be the main 3-4 drop creatures in the deck being Mirran Crusader and Hero of Bladehold. Hero is better with Township and Crusader is better with Kessig. Look at my tournament report above if you don't see how that clearly is the case. Since I want to be the best Mirran Crusader deck the choice for me is pretty easy. Similarly Thrun is better with Kessig than Township. Thrun doesn't even need a sword to be a house with Kessig. Both of these creatures being stronger makes your UB matchup just that little bit better. It's the difference between getting chumped for a couple turns or doing 8 or so damage with Crusader regardless. It is one thing that turns Crusader into a 1 man threat at any point of the game regardless of what other cards you draw. It also makes your Crusader better than theirs. This is relevant with cloning around. In fact other than Hero of Bladehold there is no threat in this deck that cloning it makes it better for the opponent. Yes Thrun dies, but Hydra and planeswalkers can't be cloned, and my Crusaders are always better. It is easy to board for decks that revolve on cloning. Kessig instantly makes anything a threat.
3. The Curve
Let's look first at the creature curve. So both play 8 1 drops. I play 8 3 drops and he plays 2 potential 2 drops and 6 3 drops. If you basically take my Hydras to be replacements for 2 Blade Splicers and 2 Mikaeus it's pretty easy to see the equivalence. Both Mikaeus and Hydra are flexible X cost spells that are good early and late. Both need to untap to get value, one is better with a spread board state and one is better amplifying singular threats. Mikaeus however is legendary and Blade Splicer is better early than late. To me Hydra seems a logical swap based on philosophy. The fact that him and big Garruk make a sort of draw engine is very relevant. Next group are the 4-5 drops. I play 3 Heros, 2 Thruns and a Batterskull, and Juza plays 4 Heros and 2 Geist Honored Monks. Again an equal 6 slots. Heros aren't as good for me as him, but Thruns and Batterskulls are a lot better. Again he spreads out with Monks and I focus single strong threats. Batterskull is my latest add and is basically my 3rd Thrun. I remembered how good Batterskull was at basically being a Vengevine for Caw Blade and since Thrun 3 was awkward this seemed reasonable. The fact it acts as an amplifier as well is a very nice little bonus. I'm a little lighter on top here but don't have the potential 2 drops so I consider us pretty equal curve here with the card choices fitting the philosophy almost exactly even right down to slot numbers.
Next, let's look at removal/utility which we both run 5, he runs 3 O-Rings and 2 Mortarpods, and I run 2 Beast Within, 1 O-ring and 2 Apostle's Blessing. So basically 3 Vindicates each and 2 other spells. His mortarpods do give him a leg up head to head but I don't run the token generation early enough or to the same extent to matter. Apostles Blessing is more to protect against removal and give evasion which is much more important to a deck that plays a lot of singular good threats. Next lets look at pumps and token generators. He plays 6 Token generators and 3 pumps and I play 4 Token generators and 5 Pumps. Again equal number of slots. My emphasis on single slots makes more pumps benefit. Due to power of Elspeth in the deck he prefers Relentless over Primal Hunter for curve concerns.. Since I run pumps Garruk's draw is more relevant to me. Curve wise here I'm:
3: 1
4: 2
5: 4
6: 2
And Juza is:
4: 3
5: 6
Even the Overruns and True Convictions have some bit of parallel use here. Overrun mind you is only good aggressively where True Conviction is both good aggressively and allows you pull out against almost anything. It has won me games against Mono Red with just Timely Reinforcement tokens. Or against Tempered Steel when I had been dropped to 2. True Conviction allows you to beat 2 Wurmcoil Engines. But you only benefit from having larger threats. It's also insane with Tramplers and Hero of Bladehold. These are all things Kessig make better since it gives you larger threats. Big Garruk's Tokens being equal swap with a Titan or Wurmcoil is very relevant. Mind you it largely blanks on Crusader. But if Crusader is going the distance for you probably won't get to the point you want to play it.
Basically the curves of these decks are very similar and the slot allocation is almost identical. Given that this is completely independent I think these numbers feel very strong. If I were to just switch out for Juza's mana base I would probably have to go for Elspeth meaning I couldn't play as many Garruk Primal Hunters and then I'd be on Relentless.. The choice of Township pretty much makes Primal Hunter very difficult to play, and I feel is very strong card I want to leverage. But I can understand why Token builds wouldn't want it as much. Their biggest threat is an X Mikaeus or a big Monk.. They don't run as many pumps. It is much more gradual and wide spread. I'd rather avoid the board attrition battles if I can and punch through over the top. But it does come at a risk at times since the strategy linchpins a bit. Luckily there is a lot of redundancy.
4. Adding Red
I've been up to now basically show the differences and equivalencies to support why the splash or philosophy isn't worse. But how about how it's better. Red gives access to better sideboard cards. Ancient Grudge and Burn come to mind. While neither of these help us with UB they completely dominate against other GW and UW decks. Way better than Mortarpod. We still have access to Naturalize but the red opens up whole other avenues. I could run Rolling Tremblor (if it didn't suck). RSZ was very tech when Emissary and Solar Flare was big. Maybe Brimstone Volley. Daybreak Ranger. I haven't figured out what the best fit is here but they are the type of things which are harder for this color combination. Cheap efficient removal and the potential for 1 sided 2 for 1's. If anything the recent trending has made my list better than it was before.
Conclusion
So is the trade off worth it? I think so. Do I love Juza's deck. Definitely. If I was to make any conclusions from this analysis is that:
1. 6 drop creatures aren't really serving us well. We can't run them out against UB and they are too under impacting for us against Wolf Run. They were ok when everyone was on Emissaries or we had tons of time against Solar Flare. This is no longer the case. Yes they let us step over Aggro but there are a lot of ways to do that. Notice the trends of even lists on this thread. Embrace it.
2. Go for the free wins. They aren't always going to help you against UB but against Wolf Run and rogue deck X probability is just going to be in your favor if you are doing powerful stuff. This means Angelic Destiny or Swords if applicable. Perhaps Overrun. We are so use to attrition tempo standard with Jund then Caw Blade. Control decks are closer to real control decks not just midrange decks. Sometimes they just dont have it so test them at every corner. This is the type of thing that is hard to gauge since it makes matchups that seem unfavorable favorable purely on odds. If you are doing powerful enough stuff don't get overclogged with utility/removal. Try running less than you are typically comfortable with to fit in that much more win and see where it takes you.
This includes those DoJ's in the board. I even cut my Timely's a week or so ago(I don't recommend this for every list). Then last weekend I see Juza's list and think where's his Timely's?.. I guess he has enough Tokens perhaps but he is boarding Thruns and Swords. Instead of defense he just goes for a different type of offense.
3. Planeswalkers with immediate effects are king. This is a given perhaps but in the world of Oblivion Ring Gideon, Venser, and Koth are a lot weaker than Elspeth or the Garruks. Gideon isn't bad if you are looking for a 6/6 or an assassin but his +2 ability is significantly worse.
You should drop these acidic slimes...4 is way too much for our decks. You can put some hero of bladeholds if you can ofcourse (maybe 2 of)
Remove rampant growth and put some viridian emissaries. They are awesome chump blockers, especially against these fast red decks with Stromkirk noble.
If you decide to keep 4 birds + 4 pilgrims + 4 rampant growth...24 lands is way too much. My initial g/w justice deck was running with 21 lands. With the mana producers above.
Yeah you make very good points. I want to test with Rampant Growth because it's essentially a guaranteed land when I need it... although I do like Viridian Emissary (only issue is my opponents taking the 2 dmg to stop me ramping). I reduced my lands from 24 to 22, and am still running the 4 birds, 4 Avacyn's, 4 Rampant Growth. However (and I'm not "budget" persay), I can't afford the Hero of Bladeholds. Also, I tend to love the Acidic Slimes, since they earn their pay all day long as a formidable blocker and the ability to blow things up (at the very least, a land).
Yeah you make very good points. I want to test with Rampant Growth because it's essentially a guaranteed land when I need it... although I do like Viridian Emissary (only issue is my opponents taking the 2 dmg to stop me ramping). I reduced my lands from 24 to 22, and am still running the 4 birds, 4 Avacyn's, 4 Rampant Growth. However (and I'm not "budget" persay), I can't afford the Hero of Bladeholds. Also, I tend to love the Acidic Slimes, since they earn their pay all day long as a formidable blocker and the ability to blow things up (at the very least, a land).
Given your lack of planeswalkers Slimes are actually very reasonable. You need to get ahead to win. There is no fall back position. No dominating the board if left unchecked situation if the deck can deal with your Mirran Crusader. A T4 Board wipe leaves you very dead in the water. In that sense I don't get why you'd run your own DOJ. Mind you I see the aggro problem. Thrun is your only mechanism to turn it around and stabilize. See Planeswalkers do both. So you end up really splitting your game plan. As I see it you do run too much ramp for your top end. I realise you are rushing to 5-6 but what it has cost you in threat density prevents you from making a consistent early board presence. This is exactly the problem post-Jace Ban RUG had. You need to jump ahead. If anyone disrupts this plan you are probably dead in the water.
So right now the deck seems conflicted. The amount of ramp makes you want to run some decent 6's. I mean you aren't that off a ramp decks ramp amount, but you want to play Mirran Crusader/Swords. I think you have to choose. If you want to run that much ramp beef up your top end.. run bit more top heavy. I guess that puts you more on a GW Wolf Run plan. Otherwise you need solidify your midrange. Drop the extra ramp and get more solid 3-4 drops. Either way you are on the proactive side here. 8 Removal Spells is too much if your deck is working. You don't have the ability to play the attrition game. If you were a sink into planeswalker deck maybe I could justify it but right now the extra removal is just shoring up non-existent matchups and in general is a crutch.
I'm not sure which way suits you best but I'd probably go lower curve midrange simply because atleast there you are pushing your advantage where as later game you are competing with just being a weaker Wolf Run Deck. Mind you going bigger will give you more wins against random aggro but you will lose to the better decks and players. It only pays to play attrition when it's a battle you know you can win. If you can't afford Heros.. even just cutting a couple Beasts and Rampant Growths and Days for a solid arsenal of Blade Splicers. Even a junk mythic Indomitable Angel (4/4 flier for 4) fits the curve and threat density better even though I don't recommend the card when there are clearly better options. If you don't care about that and just want to play some big powerful stuff I suggest you up the land count to 25, run Viridian Emissary + Rampant Growth and no Birds or Pilgrims or Crusaders. Move up to 3 DoJ's main and add a 3rd Wurmcoil Engine. And just hope you have enough answers for everything.
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Given your lack of planeswalkers Slimes are actually very reasonable. You need to get ahead to win. There is no fall back position. No dominating the board if left unchecked situation if the deck can deal with your Mirran Crusader. A T4 Board wipe leaves you very dead in the water. In that sense I don't get why you'd run your own DOJ. Mind you I see the aggro problem. Thrun is your only mechanism to turn it around and stabilize. See Planeswalkers do both. So you end up really splitting your game plan. As I see it you do run too much ramp for your top end. I realise you are rushing to 5-6 but what it has cost you in threat density prevents you from making a consistent early board presence. This is exactly the problem post-Jace Ban RUG had. You need to jump ahead. If anyone disrupts this plan you are probably dead in the water.
So right now the deck seems conflicted. The amount of ramp makes you want to run some decent 6's. I mean you aren't that off a ramp decks ramp amount, but you want to play Mirran Crusader/Swords. I think you have to choose. If you want to run that much ramp beef up your top end.. run bit more top heavy. I guess that puts you more on a GW Wolf Run plan. Otherwise you need solidify your midrange. Drop the extra ramp and get more solid 3-4 drops. Either way you are on the proactive side here. 8 Removal Spells is too much if your deck is working. You don't have the ability to play the attrition game. If you were a sink into planeswalker deck maybe I could justify it but right now the extra removal is just shoring up non-existent matchups and in general is a crutch.
I'm not sure which way suits you best but I'd probably go lower curve midrange simply because atleast there you are pushing your advantage where as later game you are competing with just being a weaker Wolf Run Deck. Mind you going bigger will give you more wins against random aggro but you will lose to the better decks and players. It only pays to play attrition when it's a battle you know you can win. If you can't afford Heros.. even just cutting a couple Beasts and Rampant Growths and Days for a solid arsenal of Blade Splicers. Even a junk mythic Indomitable Angel (4/4 flier for 4) fits the curve and threat density better even though I don't recommend the card when there are clearly better options. If you don't care about that and just want to play some big powerful stuff I suggest you up the land count to 25, run Viridian Emissary + Rampant Growth and no Birds or Pilgrims or Crusaders. Move up to 3 DoJ's main and add a 3rd Wurmcoil Engine. And just hope you have enough answers for everything.
Hmm, okay I see what you're getting at. If I were to cut the 4 Rampant growth, and maybe go either more creature threats or more utility spells, you think that would work out well? The DoJ will go to the SB for sure, and I will run 2 swords (alongside my 1 Batterskull), and if I need to SB in DoJ I'll just take out 2-3 of Beast Within and/or Oblivion Ring.
Hmm, okay I see what you're getting at. If I were to cut the 4 Rampant growth, and maybe go either more creature threats or more utility spells, you think that would work out well? The DoJ will go to the SB for sure, and I will run 2 swords (alongside my 1 Batterskull), and if I need to SB in DoJ I'll just take out 2-3 of Beast Within and/or Oblivion Ring.
What you need straight up is more threats. Your 8 slots of removal and Slimes have utility covered. You need something that you can play that the opponent is more worried about. Even if it is just more bodies to carry swords. They should be efficiently costed bodies though. Planeswalkers are ideal but you need good solid 3-5 drops.
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What you need straight up is more threats. Your 8 slots of removal and Slimes have utility covered. You need something that you can play that the opponent is more worried about. Even if it is just more bodies to carry swords. They should be efficiently costed bodies though. Planeswalkers are ideal but you need good solid 3-5 drops.
Okay, thanks! I will make the adjustments and find a good 3-5 drop until I can get my hands on some Hero of Bladehold. I also upped my land count to 23 since taking out the Rampant Growths... may need to up it again to 24, but maybe not. I just haven't play tested enough (had 3 games today but since then I changed the list up) to know the right amount. Stuck in 3 Accorder Paladin as it's the best filler I have at the moment (yeah...). I will play this list and slowly purchase the better, more expensive cards =).
Yeah.. I played with that. Garruk Relentless was the other move I was making since eating Doom Blades or burn seem more relevant against most decks with fliers (the exception is Tempered Steel). Most of them have a harder time with planeswalkers and even forcing them to attack into them can be beneficial. I've seen people get crazy with Relentless and Mortarpod, but that's a whole other deal. I ran Daybreak Ranger in my States list and he was meh.. but then again I didn't see much Tempered Steel (just round 6). The metagame has shifted again so he seems reasonable.
In general I've been loving the deck. I haven't been playing much else competitively since rotation though. So just a couple strong showings at FNM and 5-2 at States getting me 15th out of about 120 (if I had only not had to mull to 4 against RDW, I had top 8 in sight) is really all I have..
The key thing I like about this approach right now is main deck configuration should put you largely positive against Wolf Run, and hopefully a liveable UB matchup. I have pretty much never had trouble with Wolf Run. I've found UB more of a pain than most other matchups. The fact you can pull out the proactive free wins has been really relevant for me. I've smashed aggro decks and token decks often by recognizing the tipping point where they can no longer race me. Decks that wish to attrition and don't have much of a plan that aren't based on heavy permission like Pod and GB decks I've just been smashing easily.
To date there is only 1 deck that I played against that I haven't felt I couldn't beat. It was Grixis control deck that was all permission, incinerate, removal and snapcaster, that won off a couple Sorin's Vengeance. I have a better plan now(my UB plan), but they ran enough to stop me from sticking threats(it even had maindeck Disperse), that even a T4 Thrun was too slow to win. The other thing I came across that was hard to deal with was a Esper Heartless Solar Flare deck that maxed out on Frost Titans. Frost Titan is a pain. I wasn't running Apostle's blessings yet and I made the mistake of thinking I was the aggro deck. I needed to just side in my Naturalizes and then it would have been like playing against any other garbage Solar Flare deck. Other than those and an unlucky loss to RDW I've been dominating.
As I've said before I haven't play MBI yet and the prospect of that deck scares me a bit, but I need to test it. It's quite possible the deck already has the tools. I've been trying to shape it in a way that gives me maximum play since it's easy for these decks to get trapped in a linear plan. The timing of the instance speed spells (especially Beast Within) is incredibly important. Using it as a Combat trick has won me several games.
In general this deck has a lot of proactive aggression which makes it play a pretty powerful game against the formats top decks. The control elements are mostly just outsize based stabilization which have been mostly sufficient for the aggro in this field so far. Biggest risk is another fast proactive deck, especially one that can afford removal, or a fast deck that just aims to go over. A deck like pre-rotation Vampires would be difficult. Maybe a deck like Elves would be difficult too. But as long most decks are nickel and diming without that fast of clock we have a lot of leeway.
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Any check out Valeriy Shunkov's latest article. He's running a bit of junk(Mentor? Really?) but he's got a lot of pieces. Sort of fringing on Tokens without going all the way to Token Town.
2 Mortarpod
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
Creatures
3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Hero of Bladehold
2 Jade Mage
1 Mentor of the Meek
4 Mirran Crusader
3 Viridian Emissary
3 Angelic Destiny
Instants
3 Beast Within
Legendary Creatures
3 Thrun, the Last Troll
Planeswalkers
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Sorceries
1 Overrun
Basic Lands
8 Forest
4 Plains
Lands
4 Gavony Township
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Sunpetal Grove
1 Mortarpod
2 Leonin Arbiter
3 Suture Priest
2 Act of Aggression
1 Beast Within
2 Dismember
2 Gideon Jura
2 Timely Reinforcements
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Game 1 might as well be a auto concede but then game 2 I am a bit more in control when I can extract there mana leaks and disspiates... but at the same time I have to still be aggro... mid range is starting to be to slow here... either have to be super aggro or start playing control which I am not going to do...
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
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The trick with UB is you have to stay ahead on tempo. You have to be casting something pretty much every turn early so that they can't be using their Forbidden Alchemy's and Think Twices. The problem is their answers until they get into Snapcaster range are cheaper than our threats. I have found most lists run more permission than removal. If it was more removal it would be easier (other than BSZ).
My first plan was sneaking in turn 2 Nevermore.. this worked until they started running 9 permission spells main. Even if I could shut down BSZ or Mana Leak you never knew what combination of answers they had in their hand. You take out Mana Leak and your luck is they are holding 2 Dissipates and 2 Snapcasters. Atleast against BSZ it gave a bit of insurance.
Surgical Extraction was the next thing I tried. Unfortunately for it to work they would have had to use it. Yes it stops Snapcaster but in order to take the mana leak they've already leaked something. Worse was figuring out the timing. I mean if you use it to null a Snapcaster you are golden, but they might just cast that Dissipate in their hand instead. If you just go for the Leak right away you might end up with the same issue I had with Nevermore permission.
The reason these decks couldn't exist before was 2 fold. Vengevine punished them hardcore. It's better they have to use cards in hand, but it does nothing for them, rather than forcing them to find a narrow answer cause they might just find it and have answers for everything else you do. The other issue was Spell Pierce and Dispel. That's why I've grudgingly put the Autumn's Veil in the board(and to some extent Apostle's Blessing main, although it's good in other matchups). It's all about when you stop a certain answer. Given the expense of these counters and counters+snapcaster it can be key for forcing through some spells. The thing is we play permanents they have a really hard time with. They can't beat Garruk and a Sword on Board is very difficult for them. Thrun is a pain atleast (if they are using Images what did they cut?) and Mirran Crusader often requires them to tap out somewhat early to Zenith for 2. The best move we can do early is continue to tie up their mana.
Honestly this need to play Fish sort of sucks. But atleast we have an efficiently costed tool. It just sucks that Autumn's Veil doesn't read:
"Spells you control can't be countered by blue or black spells this turn, and you and creatures you control can't be the targets of blue or black spells this turn."
Autumn's Veil has always been the weakest of the cycle of hate cards and primarily because it's a reactive card for Green which has no desire to be reactive. But if we want to be reactive you would think it would turn off Black Discard. I mean when was the last time you had something countered by a black spell. Of course this would shut off sacrifice cards too. But I think that would make it a sufficient hate card since it wouldn't stop their game plan or their sweepers. Viridian Emissary is decent in this matchup too. Any 2 drop that doesn't require further investment to get value is a good move. Maybe even the Mayor.
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@Prophet_DNA: How does your Wolf Run list run against UB? I imagine that deck would have issues with heavy permission amd BSZ too. If they save their spot removal for your Inkmoths'.. The biggest reason they are beating UB right now is Dungrove.. But not sure that will continue to be enough. Either way it suggests they have a real issue with hard to kill landed threats.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
My wolf run has the same exact problems and that is one reason why I was getting frustrated yesterday... lol... couldn't play either of my decks... Natural Justice actually had a better game against control but the
4x Mana Leak
4x Dissipate
4x Snapcaster Mage
Equaling 16 counters lmao... so annoying...
Tried siding Dongrove into my Natural Justice but he is worst there... not enough Forest to make him huge and no Primetimes to make him bigger... Looks like we just need hexproof so I am going to start exploring some lesser known creatures with hexproof to see if that improves my match up... maybe Sacred Wolf which fits into the mana curve instead of swords and you can power him up with Gavorny... might try adding one more Gavorny so I know for a fact I am going to pull it... drop him down and he gives me the affect like I would with Virdian Emmisary that you can not target... make me sac him so less sacrifice for Thrun...
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
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well for ur wolf run add in dungrove i think he is going to shine there and add in Nevermore and call snapcaster and i think u should be fine
My wolf run is entirely different animal lol... Either case this is for NJ and I have tried never more and it is lacking and only solves the problem of a late game counter... I think we need an option that can apply early pressure like Emmissary and Hexproof like the Elder... Still trying out Sacred Wolf and it is decent but not running into a whole lot of control today... Alot of mono white weenie...
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
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WUR Geist Midrange WUR
Commander
W Nahiri's Celestial Foundry W
WB Orzhov Inquisition (Cleric Tribal) WB
WUBRG Progenitus's Prismatic Domain WUBRG
WURG Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis Love You WURG
WUG Rafiq of the Many Auracrafting WUG
WRG Hazezon Tamar Overrun WRG
G Seton's Druid Ramp G
Prophet_DNA is absolutely correct on why running stuff like Nevermore or Surgical Extraction or answers in general is not where we necessarily where we want to be. They aren't bad but they more likely than not stop later permission where we've already lost all tempo and likely most cards in hand. You want your early threats to do their work. You need that tempo gain. You can't wait to name snapcaster to stop Permission spell 3-4.. It's already too late likely. Surgically extracting Mana leak is fine after the first but then comes Dissipate.
However Prophet_DNA also illustrated exactly why Sacred Wolf isn't good enough. Part of the decks game plan is solid board presence. It's not just aggro. Sacred Wolf is a lot like a weaker Geist of St Traft. You can't stabilize with it. Mirran Crusader might eat burn but it's an efficient blocker on top of attacker. Sacred Wolf isn't powerful enough to matter, and Viridian Emissary is fringing on that. I mean how many more mana creatures do you want. As DuWolf illustrated running 11 you get flooded out with dorks and lands. The problem is cutting lands for this doesn't mean you will curve out properly early game. Especially if your Emissary doesn't die. And truthfully in counter heavy decks they can afford a few hits off Emissary and then time killing at a point it no longer matters. You have to be pretty aggressive for it to matter. And running 11+ dorks (counting Emissary) puts you in Wolf Run territory without the impact of threats.
On the otherside DuWolf is correct that our planeswalkers(especially Garruk) kill UB control. Just toasts them. Gideon isn't great but it kills their win pretty well. Good luck resolving them though. That has been the problem. You need to time it after they tap out with a sweeper.. which suggests that they need to but they are pretty good at attacking our tempo early. I've found resolving Garruk increasingly hard. Resolving anything really hard for that matter. As stated these decks feel like they play 16 counters just on density, and lots of digging. Almost like the old Draw Go decks. Being able to Counter back just to resolve a single one of these threats is usually enough to win the game but we don't have the blue access naturally. Autumn's Veil as bad as it is seems reasonable.
Maybe but it's a bit late by then. It's not like we have the abundance to deal with the flow of Titans they have. They will eventually just destroy us on board unless you run DoJ but then Spellskite isn't helping there. I don't think it's terrible but it's seems wrong to try to play inevitability and control in that matchup. You just want to race and disrupt them.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Luckily the type of blue black I'm refering to is on a down turn. I found trying to exhaust counterspells my usual tactic useless since they could successfully most games counter atleast through turn 5. 5Cancels.dec doesn't really care that you can pay for mana leak since after T5 they don't really run out of hard counters either. They don't always have it, but they chances they do seemed higher than the probability that you draw perfectly threat after threat. Sneaking down turn 2 Crusader was often do able but it couldn't kill if they managed to throw down atleast a single chump(snapcaster) before T6 at which point they BSZ killing the crusader all the dorks, and still have mana leak up. The key difference between Dungrove and Crusader is shows here since Dungrove gets out of BSZ range fast. BSZ for 1 on T5 is a pretty good move in a permission heavy hand especially if we've been holdin out to get out of mana leak range since it clears our dorks basically leaving us equal on board but with less cards in hand. T3 Thrun is about the best to hope for since it typicaly takes atleast a bit of work or tapping out for BSZ to neutralize(even not killing him but putting a few counters on is usually worth it since they can always snapcaster to finish the job later).
Either way I hope these decks are on a decline, and people go back to good old UW to combat the aggro decks in the format. As I see it these GW lists are basically big token decks. They aren't unlike Juza's winning list just a bit bigger.
-------------
I'm trying the cut to 24 lands. And running burn in the sideboard for aggro. I think this will work ok against RDW. I might be weakening that matchup too much but I don't think so, since I do have ways of life gain and board stabilization. I'm thinking something like this:
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Sunpetal Grove
2 Clifftop Retreat
4 Forest
3 Plains
4 Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures(21):
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Primordial Hydra
3 Hero of Bladehold
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Apostle's Blessing
2 Beast Within
Planeswalkers(4):
4 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Artifacts(2):
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Batterskull
Enchantments(5):
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Angelic Destiny
2 True Conviction
3 Autumn's Veil
2 Incinerate
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Naturalize
3 Arc Trail
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Gideon Jura
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
Trade Thread: Click Here
Image Disclaimer: Please review User Notes before clicking infraction.
:symb::symw::symg:Nature's Corrupting Justice:symb::symw::symg:
The deck of the week on MTGO seems to be infect...
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
Trade Thread: Click Here
Image Disclaimer: Please review User Notes before clicking infraction.
Against Infect...you might want Green Sun Zenith back so you can grab just 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast from SB...pretty nice stall card against Infect
I haven't played UB Infect yet.. I brought in more burn in my board to fight Mono B Infect. Hence the change I was doing last week. I was thinking perhaps I was losing too much to RDW with that change but it was a good change against Humans and Infect, and pretty decent against Tokens. Those decks probably aren't burning my birds so with teh 6 red sources + birds I'm pretty good at getting red spells online. However, against RDW that's a different story. It's a bit more hit and miss since they might just burn out the dork.
As for Autumn's Veil it has worked exactly as I've hoped. Never play it first, always play in response to a counter. It may draw out a 2nd counter, but it's a cheap way to keep them playing cards. I almost wish I had a 4th. I have to admit I'm very comfortable playing fish decks. I just hate the mana in Bant right now and I am unwilling to drop the green. Abolisher isn't bad either. I ran Abolisher for a little while but I could never convince myself to run enough to matter since it seemed weak in multiples and these decks do have lots of ways to deal with Bears. The sinergy with Angelic Destiny does make it a bit better .. perhaps enough to try it. Melira has similar issues. Seems way too narrow for something that just gets killed. I ran it in my Shaman sideboard as a 1 of that pretty much never performed back in the day. I think right now is equally hostile if not more since the infect decks back then didn't use much removal.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
2x Gideon Jura
3x Garruk, Primal Hunter
1x Elspeth Tirel
Creatures - 21
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Mirran Crusader
2x Thrun, the Last Troll
4x Hero of Bladehold
2x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
2x Sword of Body and Mind
Spells - 2
2x Beast Within
Enchantments - 4
4x Oblivion Ring
Lands - 24
9x Forest
5x Plains
2x Gavony Township
4x Sunpetal Grove
4x Razorverge Thicket
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
3x Day of Judgment
3x Timely Reinforcements
4x Naturalize
4x Surgical Extraction
vs. Solar Flare
-1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
-1 Elspeth Tirel
-1 Hero of Bladehold
-2 Sword of Body and Mind
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
+4 Surgical Extraction
vs. Control
-1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
-1 Elspeth Tirel
-2 Beast Within
-1 Hero of Bladehold
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
+4 Surgical Extraction
vs. Burn
-4 Mirran Crusader
+3 Timely Reinforcements
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
I have removed Sun Titan all together... he was a neat trick but I think that is all he was. Other then maybe Crusader and a Sword he really started to not have that many targets to bring back. If I was still running Emissary maybe because when that elf dies I can fetch a land and thin out the deck but if a mana dork dies I really don't want to recur it back.
Elspeth came back because she just seemed more useful then a Sun Titan but not as useful as a two of or more. That left me with one more spot to fill and I decided to move my mana curve up one more and add in Elesh Norn. She has always been a solid card but as a one off I think my curve and live and if I get my Gavony engine working she helps pump up my guys even further and helps wipe the board with other chump or mana dorks out there now.
How has DoJ been for everyone? I am actually thinking of taking it out of the sideboard because I don't find myself siding it in a whole lot. Even against aggro match ups I don't see it often enough to make it worth while...
Edit: Also I think this deck just has a natural problem vs control. U/B Control or Solar Flare just seem to be hard match ups for me...
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
Trade Thread: Click Here
Image Disclaimer: Please review User Notes before clicking infraction.
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
Trade Thread: Click Here
Image Disclaimer: Please review User Notes before clicking infraction.
Yeah we have to get something early to stick or Thrun. The matchup completely comes down to that. UB sac effects are definitely even more of a pain. I just watched Kibler play Juza's list against UB in 2 rounds on SCG and the only game he had a chance was the T2 Crusader on the play. Just looking at the starting hand it was obvious what would happen. He tried to bring in more removal, which isn't bad if they tap out to play their big drops giving you an opening, but I think these decks can often have time to be patient. It's actually rather depressing on how difficult it is to get through that counter wall. Juza must have not faced many UB with people trending away due to Wolf Run Green.. However with popularity of little white guys I see us trending back to UB and back to RG Wolf Run. Will be interesting to see where this settles.
The decks that seem to consistently get by that deck best either run Dungrove or Mana Leak themselves. I think our best look at beating these guys is figure out how UW Humans seems to have a favorable matchup. Do any of the token variations have a good UB matchup? I wonder if this really just comes down to finding a few optimum sideboard slots and hoping we don't hit it every round. Like could something like Shrine of Loyal Legions be ok.. I don't know. Inkmoth was actually pretty good against these decks with my initial run but it was too inconsistent on the mana. I am sticking on Autumn Veil for now but it's really as good as anything.. Surgical Extraction seems about the same. Double white for Abolisher was a pain for me and I'd still get tempo'd since it was still best if you wanted to resolve a 3 drop so if you go T1 birds it's probably still better to play the Crusader first for potential damage (before they just BSZ you anyway). In which case the Abolisher might just not work anyway. It's basically awkward on the curve being WW.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Commander
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader G
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons WG
Legacy
GU 12 Post UG
Trade Thread: Click Here
Image Disclaimer: Please review User Notes before clicking infraction.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Mirran Crusader
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Acidic Slime
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Beast Within
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Rampant Growth
2 Day of Judgment
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Razorverge Thicket
9 Forest
5 Plains
Not bothering with posting SB at the moment as I just want to flush out the main deck.
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Sunpetal Grove
2 Clifftop Retreat
4 Forest
3 Plains
4 Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures(21):
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Primordial Hydra
3 Hero of Bladehold
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Apostle's Blessing
2 Beast Within
Planeswalkers(4):
4 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Artifacts(2):
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Batterskull
Enchantments(5):
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Angelic Destiny
2 True Conviction
3 Autumn's Veil
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Naturalize
3 Arc Trail
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Daybreak Ranger
2 Gideon Jura
Daybreak was still subpar since the decks I brought it in against could still kill it. Maybe those Incinerates would be better. But I'm thinking the right move might be 1 more O-Ring and 1 more Arc Trail in the board. Not sure... Maybe the 2 incinerates were better, but I kind of want the 2nd O-Ring somewhere. Maybe an Act of Aggression would be good.
Anyway,
Round 1 UB Midrange
Game 1: No clue what his deck does. He Metamorphs a Mirran Crusader but I use Apostles Blessing to attack through with Feast and Famine netting me 8 damage and double discard. So make quick work of the deck. 1-0
Game 2: I don't sideboard right cause I have no clue what his deck does. He plays out 2 Inquisitor's Flail and a Tumble Magnet early (and one of his lands is an Inkmoth Nexus). He metamorphs my Hero then doomblades it.. He ends up running it into Thrun, with Flails on it so I trade cause I don't want to take so much damage but I don't have Regen up. I tap out for a Primordial Hydra. Turn 6 he drops Spellskite and Phyrexian Obliterator. I have 1 Beast Within but can't deal with the Magnet and the Obliterator. A suited up Obliterator has me dead so off to game 3. 1-1
Game 3: I bring in my artifact hate this time and side out all my Heros of Bladehold. Against decks that copy Hydra is way better. And crusader they can never leverage as well as I. I also get rid of the Autumn's Veils I sided in since he didn't seem to have permission to bring in Gideon. I get a T3 Gideon Jura and he gets stuck on 2 lands.. I Beast Within his land, and get Mirran Crusader beats going. By the time he gets the 3rd land for a Tumble Magnet I have a 6/6 Hydra on Board too and he had already chumped my Gideon once with a Beast Token. and he's done.
2-1 (1-0)
Round 2 GW Wolf Run
Game 1: I come into the game pretty confident but this is a local player I've never beat. He hasn't been around the store much the last year though (since I started making a tear with my Hydra Conviction deck at the beginning of the summer). He wins the die roll. Game 1 I am always one turn behind, I resolve T2 Crusader only for him to play T3 Solemn. I lack the untapped 4th land to play T4 Garruk so I play out a sword.. he slimes.. I get out Hydra, he gets out Primeval and then a Wurmcoil and a Garruk of his own. He has the Beast Within for both my Kessig and my Hydra.. Pretty he has exactly what he needs and I lose (2 out of 3 Beast Within and the 1 slime). 0-1
Game 2: He sees me only side one card and is a little surprised, and I said I am maindecked for Wolf Run pretty much. This game goes better. I beast within his first land off a Pilgrim, which messes up his planned T2 Rampant Growth.. So by the time he gets his Turn 3 Rampant growth I get Garruk and an Angelic Destiny on a beast token and a Kessig Wolf Run gets me the win pretty fast. 1-1
Game 3: He leads off with Rampant growth which as I predict gets my Pilgrim and Mirran Crusader straight into a DoJ. So I drop another Pilgrim. Instead of dropping Garruk I decide to go for the throat and drop Destiny on my Pilgrim. Scared off how much damage that does he days again. I get Garruk down making a beast. He plays Wurmcoil. I create another beast put the Destiny on a Beast and I play a Mirran Crusader. He is about to attack into the beast but he realizes it has first strike and he plays a Primeval. I draw 7 off Garruk, find True Conviction and Apostle's Blessing and a Kessig Wolf Run. I play True Conviction and do 14 damage in the air knocking him down to 1 gaining 14 life. He tanks for a very long time on his turn.. As it turns out he has the Beast Within, but he can't deal with the Mirran Crusader + Kessig since it's first strike would prevent the life gain from Wurmcoil and Trample through.
2-1(2-0)
Round 3 Junk Pod
Game 1: Pretty much as you expect. I win the die roll he never sees Pod and has no way to deal with his threats and I win like T6 or so off Mirran Crusader beats with Kessig.. I O-Ring a Splicer Token, and Apostle's Blessing through another a different turn(He gets Splicer on a Mimic Vat) 1-0
Game 2: I should have known he was on Pod but I was lazy. I side in Arc Trails and Daybreak Rangers but not artifact destruction. I know I saw the Mimic Vat but Vat isn't really a concern since it is much too slow to matter and a waste of card. He gets the T2, T3 Pod hand.. and with Double pod we fight it out a bit but eventually he has enough Golem Tokens to beat me and his Glissa Perilous Myr antics keep a Daybreak Ranger and Crusader off the board (I had sided out a couple Crusaders since they are naturally weak to Splicers but that's what I drew). 1-1
Game 3: Was T2 Crusader, T3 Destiny.. Pretty much a blow out. He did manage to deal with the Destiny after the first swing but I had an Ancient Grudge for his Splicer Token and Kessig+Crusader to go the distance. A lot like game 1 just faster.
2-1 (3-0)
Round 4 UB Control
Game 1: So happy I win the Dice roll. Look at my hand and realise it's not fast enough(4 lands, Mirran Crusader, Garruk, and Hero of Bladehold and only 1 white source) so mull to 6. This hand isn't any better, it's actually worse in that respect.. 3 lands Thrun, Garruk, Batterskull). I keep this hand cause any hand with Thrun is decent against UB. First card I draw is a 2nd Thrun. And sure enough like clockwork not much happens til T4 Thrun, where the opponent isn't too happy. His list plays a lot of sweepers but as I find out 2 turns later Life's Finale is a 2 of on top of 2 BSZ and I can always regen Thrun with finale.. Of course I'm not playing around it so Thrun dies. I use it to sneak a Batterskull on the board. He plays out a Wurmcoil which I use to sneak out True Conviction. He follows up with a another Wurmcoil and I get Garruk going for a bit.. and Thrun.. Anyway long story short this is quite possibly the longest single match of magic I've played in a constructed event. The TO decides since it's a casual shop and this is playing for first to just let it keep going. I swear this 1 round goes over time. Basically through a crazy attrition top deck war and the life is stupid with Wurmcoils and Batterskull, where I'm like suiting up ever dork 1 at a time and EoT beasting my own lands for creatures to put Batterskull on and he is snapcasting removal and sweepers on the 2nd to last turn I resolve Garruk giving me enough tokens to get in with Batterskull for the win. The reason I call it last turn is he is a Nephalia Drownyard deck and he only had to mill me 1 more time since his life finales and flashback life finales had stripped most of my creatures and he had milled me ever turn he could afford. If he had top decked a 2nd drownyard I would have died. He managed to kill my Kessig with Ghost Quarter and mill my other 3 otherwise the game would have been shorter. I took the victory ironically won off 2 cards I usually side out (True Conviction + Batterskull). 1-0
Game 2: So I re-examine my sideboard strategy. I take out the Beast Withins for Ancient Grudges (since I saw 2 Wurmcoils and I doubt he would side them out, as it turns out he had a Sphinx but never saw them). I take out a Destiny and a Hydra and 2 Pilgrims, for Autumn's Veil and Sword of Feast and Famine. I get the fast Birds to Crusader Kessig start and on T3 instead of casting my Thrun, I swing for 6 with Crusader. As I expect he taps out for BSZ turn 4. I follow up with Thrun. Thrun carries on where Crusader left off and a couple Snapcasters in the way don't stop the trample and he doesn't dig into an answer.
2-0 (4-0)
----------------------------
Someone after the event told me I was just running a worse version of Juza's GP list. I had been running the deck for the last 5 weeks but I definitely saw the similarities. He told me that he felt Gavony Township was probably better than Kessig in most cases and that the weakening of my mana base probably wasn't worth it. I had made the comparison last week since when I saw Juza's list I'm like wow this is the closest list I've seen to what I've been doing yet. So I stopped and thought about it. Where is my list different and how do I justify those changes? One of the worse things you can do as a deck builder is make a "worst version of" deck. I was guilty of that all last fall when I play Bant Shaman instead of RUG. Both decks ended the same way (quick Frost Titan lock, vengevine was too slow to matter in most matchups). I don't want to be guilty of this again.
1. Mana Base
This is the first place. 3 color is a *****. I jumped all over the mana bases since the set was spoiled. I started in UG (since it seemed that tempo would be very good in this format) then I went to RUG but realized that I couldn't run the dorks I wanted to and all the lands that did nothing. So I tried Bant with Moorland Haunt and Township but Bant mana base sucks. 8 Forest + 4 Razorverge is how I started. Brutal. The blue spash is doable very small splash but for what mana leak? Moorland Haunt seemed reasonable but how many can you run in this configuration. Suppose I add 4 Hinterland Harbors, and 4 Glacial Fortress and 4 Plains to this mana base I'm already at 24 with (G 16, W 12, U 8). I cut 2 Hinterland Harbor for 2 Haunts.. is it worth it? You can't construct your mana any other way and keep up the T1 G in Bant. And if you are running more than 4 dorks and you aren't running 11 to 12 T1 G sources you are doing wrong. Period.
GW is the shoe in, in a Mirran Crusader deck that runs dorks which is where I decided I wanted to be. Juza's list runs (16 G, 12 W) and has room for 4 Townships. And still has the 12 T1 G sources. I realized that Red and Black were the only realistic splash in a GW deck pretty early on. If you want early G you want either to be Ally around G to leverage scars lands or you want your splash to be an enemy color to both. The thing is black doesn't seem to add enough. It makes you reactive and less proactive. So in the end the only options seemed to be straight GW or Naya. Why Naya well as you can see with my base I can go 12 T1 G and still go (15 G, 12 W, 6 R) with 4 Kessigs. Other than a couple extra tapped Copperline Gorges late game my mana base is no worse than Juza's. This is relevant mind you. Having to play the plain T2 to play a Crusader instead of my 2nd Copperline Gorge meant when I drew a Razorverge Thicket I didn't have the 3rd G source for Garruk in G1 against Wolf Run and had to play a tapped land. So I will say my mana base is a bit worse. Not so much against early development but for playing 5 drops consistently on T4.
2. Philosophy
This is probably the biggest difference between decks. A number of people told me I should be running Primeval Titan. And I was like well I've run it before but cut it. Both Tokens and what I'm doing are very different than Wolf Run Ramp. The ramp deck runs a medium threat density of about 8 (vs Controls 3-5) or aggros 20+. A ramp deck plays bigger threats so a lot of slots are dedicated to ramp often in the ballpark or 12-16 slots. You want to make sure you can play those 6 drops but there is always a risk of getting all fat or all ramp. Whereas a midrange deck like the Juza list or mine really wants to jump into the game fast but doesnt want that many lands. Still wants to curve out at 5-6 and stop. The way to make this work without flooding out is either to cut lands which leaves you weak to red and mana screw or to have mana sinks and lands that do something. This is why RUG is having a hard time without being more of a control deck.
However the lands Kessig and Township reward different cards. Both like Token generators. Township wants to swamp the board so Tokens are good. And Kessig wants a never ending line of threats to pump so tokens are good. That is basically where the similarities end. A Township deck wants to expand on the board making Spot removal rather useless against it but vulnerable to sweepers. A Kessig deck wants to punch through damage making spot removal very good against it but sweepers less important since it can rely on just a few threats. While both decks can do both(especially after board) one is better than the other each way. If Spot Removal is good against you anyway you want to exhaust it. You want to play very high quality threats that must be removed or they die. If sweepers are good against you want to negate the use of spot removal against you by spreading faster than they can handle. Both decks meet in the middle with Token generators in planeswalkers since it lets both decks get around their weakness. However if you are playing big threats Big Garruk is better, and if you are spreading out Elspeth is better. The effect this has on the curve is very important and I will get to that.
The only other overlap seems to be the main 3-4 drop creatures in the deck being Mirran Crusader and Hero of Bladehold. Hero is better with Township and Crusader is better with Kessig. Look at my tournament report above if you don't see how that clearly is the case. Since I want to be the best Mirran Crusader deck the choice for me is pretty easy. Similarly Thrun is better with Kessig than Township. Thrun doesn't even need a sword to be a house with Kessig. Both of these creatures being stronger makes your UB matchup just that little bit better. It's the difference between getting chumped for a couple turns or doing 8 or so damage with Crusader regardless. It is one thing that turns Crusader into a 1 man threat at any point of the game regardless of what other cards you draw. It also makes your Crusader better than theirs. This is relevant with cloning around. In fact other than Hero of Bladehold there is no threat in this deck that cloning it makes it better for the opponent. Yes Thrun dies, but Hydra and planeswalkers can't be cloned, and my Crusaders are always better. It is easy to board for decks that revolve on cloning. Kessig instantly makes anything a threat.
3. The Curve
Let's look first at the creature curve. So both play 8 1 drops. I play 8 3 drops and he plays 2 potential 2 drops and 6 3 drops. If you basically take my Hydras to be replacements for 2 Blade Splicers and 2 Mikaeus it's pretty easy to see the equivalence. Both Mikaeus and Hydra are flexible X cost spells that are good early and late. Both need to untap to get value, one is better with a spread board state and one is better amplifying singular threats. Mikaeus however is legendary and Blade Splicer is better early than late. To me Hydra seems a logical swap based on philosophy. The fact that him and big Garruk make a sort of draw engine is very relevant. Next group are the 4-5 drops. I play 3 Heros, 2 Thruns and a Batterskull, and Juza plays 4 Heros and 2 Geist Honored Monks. Again an equal 6 slots. Heros aren't as good for me as him, but Thruns and Batterskulls are a lot better. Again he spreads out with Monks and I focus single strong threats. Batterskull is my latest add and is basically my 3rd Thrun. I remembered how good Batterskull was at basically being a Vengevine for Caw Blade and since Thrun 3 was awkward this seemed reasonable. The fact it acts as an amplifier as well is a very nice little bonus. I'm a little lighter on top here but don't have the potential 2 drops so I consider us pretty equal curve here with the card choices fitting the philosophy almost exactly even right down to slot numbers.
Next, let's look at removal/utility which we both run 5, he runs 3 O-Rings and 2 Mortarpods, and I run 2 Beast Within, 1 O-ring and 2 Apostle's Blessing. So basically 3 Vindicates each and 2 other spells. His mortarpods do give him a leg up head to head but I don't run the token generation early enough or to the same extent to matter. Apostles Blessing is more to protect against removal and give evasion which is much more important to a deck that plays a lot of singular good threats. Next lets look at pumps and token generators. He plays 6 Token generators and 3 pumps and I play 4 Token generators and 5 Pumps. Again equal number of slots. My emphasis on single slots makes more pumps benefit. Due to power of Elspeth in the deck he prefers Relentless over Primal Hunter for curve concerns.. Since I run pumps Garruk's draw is more relevant to me. Curve wise here I'm:
3: 1
4: 2
5: 4
6: 2
And Juza is:
4: 3
5: 6
Even the Overruns and True Convictions have some bit of parallel use here. Overrun mind you is only good aggressively where True Conviction is both good aggressively and allows you pull out against almost anything. It has won me games against Mono Red with just Timely Reinforcement tokens. Or against Tempered Steel when I had been dropped to 2. True Conviction allows you to beat 2 Wurmcoil Engines. But you only benefit from having larger threats. It's also insane with Tramplers and Hero of Bladehold. These are all things Kessig make better since it gives you larger threats. Big Garruk's Tokens being equal swap with a Titan or Wurmcoil is very relevant. Mind you it largely blanks on Crusader. But if Crusader is going the distance for you probably won't get to the point you want to play it.
Basically the curves of these decks are very similar and the slot allocation is almost identical. Given that this is completely independent I think these numbers feel very strong. If I were to just switch out for Juza's mana base I would probably have to go for Elspeth meaning I couldn't play as many Garruk Primal Hunters and then I'd be on Relentless.. The choice of Township pretty much makes Primal Hunter very difficult to play, and I feel is very strong card I want to leverage. But I can understand why Token builds wouldn't want it as much. Their biggest threat is an X Mikaeus or a big Monk.. They don't run as many pumps. It is much more gradual and wide spread. I'd rather avoid the board attrition battles if I can and punch through over the top. But it does come at a risk at times since the strategy linchpins a bit. Luckily there is a lot of redundancy.
4. Adding Red
I've been up to now basically show the differences and equivalencies to support why the splash or philosophy isn't worse. But how about how it's better. Red gives access to better sideboard cards. Ancient Grudge and Burn come to mind. While neither of these help us with UB they completely dominate against other GW and UW decks. Way better than Mortarpod. We still have access to Naturalize but the red opens up whole other avenues. I could run Rolling Tremblor (if it didn't suck). RSZ was very tech when Emissary and Solar Flare was big. Maybe Brimstone Volley. Daybreak Ranger. I haven't figured out what the best fit is here but they are the type of things which are harder for this color combination. Cheap efficient removal and the potential for 1 sided 2 for 1's. If anything the recent trending has made my list better than it was before.
Conclusion
So is the trade off worth it? I think so. Do I love Juza's deck. Definitely. If I was to make any conclusions from this analysis is that:
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Yeah you make very good points. I want to test with Rampant Growth because it's essentially a guaranteed land when I need it... although I do like Viridian Emissary (only issue is my opponents taking the 2 dmg to stop me ramping). I reduced my lands from 24 to 22, and am still running the 4 birds, 4 Avacyn's, 4 Rampant Growth. However (and I'm not "budget" persay), I can't afford the Hero of Bladeholds. Also, I tend to love the Acidic Slimes, since they earn their pay all day long as a formidable blocker and the ability to blow things up (at the very least, a land).
Given your lack of planeswalkers Slimes are actually very reasonable. You need to get ahead to win. There is no fall back position. No dominating the board if left unchecked situation if the deck can deal with your Mirran Crusader. A T4 Board wipe leaves you very dead in the water. In that sense I don't get why you'd run your own DOJ. Mind you I see the aggro problem. Thrun is your only mechanism to turn it around and stabilize. See Planeswalkers do both. So you end up really splitting your game plan. As I see it you do run too much ramp for your top end. I realise you are rushing to 5-6 but what it has cost you in threat density prevents you from making a consistent early board presence. This is exactly the problem post-Jace Ban RUG had. You need to jump ahead. If anyone disrupts this plan you are probably dead in the water.
So right now the deck seems conflicted. The amount of ramp makes you want to run some decent 6's. I mean you aren't that off a ramp decks ramp amount, but you want to play Mirran Crusader/Swords. I think you have to choose. If you want to run that much ramp beef up your top end.. run bit more top heavy. I guess that puts you more on a GW Wolf Run plan. Otherwise you need solidify your midrange. Drop the extra ramp and get more solid 3-4 drops. Either way you are on the proactive side here. 8 Removal Spells is too much if your deck is working. You don't have the ability to play the attrition game. If you were a sink into planeswalker deck maybe I could justify it but right now the extra removal is just shoring up non-existent matchups and in general is a crutch.
I'm not sure which way suits you best but I'd probably go lower curve midrange simply because atleast there you are pushing your advantage where as later game you are competing with just being a weaker Wolf Run Deck. Mind you going bigger will give you more wins against random aggro but you will lose to the better decks and players. It only pays to play attrition when it's a battle you know you can win. If you can't afford Heros.. even just cutting a couple Beasts and Rampant Growths and Days for a solid arsenal of Blade Splicers. Even a junk mythic Indomitable Angel (4/4 flier for 4) fits the curve and threat density better even though I don't recommend the card when there are clearly better options. If you don't care about that and just want to play some big powerful stuff I suggest you up the land count to 25, run Viridian Emissary + Rampant Growth and no Birds or Pilgrims or Crusaders. Move up to 3 DoJ's main and add a 3rd Wurmcoil Engine. And just hope you have enough answers for everything.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Hmm, okay I see what you're getting at. If I were to cut the 4 Rampant growth, and maybe go either more creature threats or more utility spells, you think that would work out well? The DoJ will go to the SB for sure, and I will run 2 swords (alongside my 1 Batterskull), and if I need to SB in DoJ I'll just take out 2-3 of Beast Within and/or Oblivion Ring.
What you need straight up is more threats. Your 8 slots of removal and Slimes have utility covered. You need something that you can play that the opponent is more worried about. Even if it is just more bodies to carry swords. They should be efficiently costed bodies though. Planeswalkers are ideal but you need good solid 3-5 drops.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Okay, thanks! I will make the adjustments and find a good 3-5 drop until I can get my hands on some Hero of Bladehold. I also upped my land count to 23 since taking out the Rampant Growths... may need to up it again to 24, but maybe not. I just haven't play tested enough (had 3 games today but since then I changed the list up) to know the right amount. Stuck in 3 Accorder Paladin as it's the best filler I have at the moment (yeah...). I will play this list and slowly purchase the better, more expensive cards =).
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
3 Accorder paladin
4 Mirran Crusader
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Acidic Slime
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Beast Within
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Nevermore
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Razorverge Thicket
9 Forest
6 Plains