Every game I lost was because either a) I was 1 mana short of drawing the the 7th land for AoS for umpteen turns or b) incredibly bad draws combined with my opponent topdecking like a boss. I know this sounds like *****ing but when it actually plays out like that I don't know how else to describe it. For example, I mull to 6 in the top 8 and keep a hand of Elf, Sin C, Resto, Mulch, Isolated Chapel, Forest. I have to keep that against Jund.
This is what happens.
M: Iso, go.
H: Land.
M: Draw Slime. Forest, Elf, go.
H: Land Farseek go.
M: Draw another Slime. I know he has removal based on body language so I Sin Collector and see the following: Lands, Bonfire, Bonfire, Dreadbore. Nice. Keep. Sir.
His next draws are Huntmaster, Huntmaster, Abrupt Decay for my drawn Fiend Hunter, Thragtusk, Garruk PH and I finish the game stuck on 4 lands as I Mulch into nothing and brick off draws. Repeat the same for g2.
I beat Jund because of LD with Slime most of the time. The Zombies matchup was basically Thragtusk/Angel stalls against his Blood Artist/Aristocrat combo. The mirror is not fun and is a coin flip. Mono Red came down to Thragtusk.
I'm currently playing 2 Cavern of Souls main but they really aren't needed atm anymore as it seems that control is just dead. I definitely want a Vault the question is Cavern or Gavony and if it's Gavony it might lead to me making weird MD choices.
But anyways Fiend Hunter was ok this time. He reset Olivia. He "blinked" my AoS a few times but I was winning that anyways. But in reality he was just a bad Sever the Bloodline. Still really torn on this one, I want to play him MD but people aren't playing enough Advent of the Wurn to justify it.
Finally I got to try out Voice against mono red/aggro and dear god was it nuts.
The list I want to try for FNM out now would have MD Voices and Behemoths with Lingering Souls back in the MD. As much as I like Fiend Hunter and Thragtusk, it just felt like Voice & Tusk had "swaportunity" and Sever was the better Hunter.
If you think about it voice gives you the same thing thragtusk does. A good gameplan against aggro by trading and leaving value and a decent gameplan against control with its second ability and its pseudo resilience. The only difference is that you can't blink voice and get vslue out of it. And maybe the fact that thragtusk puts quite a bit of pressure while voice is a bit smaller. The fact that voice costs 2cmc makes it really good for our purposes though.
Just saying, I would've played Mulch to get value and will side out the dorks as a Bonfire for 1 hurts a lot. Even a flipped Huntmaster wrecks our board. It's not that we're in a race against Jund but yeah, there are times when the deck is just not cooperating.
Jund is supposed to be an easy matchup but things happen.
I lost in the semis of the last WMCQ against a Jund deck that uses 3 Thundermaws instead of big Garruk. his turn 1 Elf, turn 2 Farseek, turns 3 & 4 Hellkites while I'm durdling with Mulch and Salvages = GG for me
Behemoths with Lingering Souls back in the MD
This would convince you to play Township
Problem with Voice is it clogs up the 2 drop slot. I want to be able to Mulch turn 2 or Salvage end of my opponents turn even if I have a Troll on hand.
Question: how many removals do you guys have in your board?
Below's the board I'm using:
3 Slime
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Centaur Healer
1 Obzedat - used to be Cavern before but after numerous games with U decks, I felt it's just not needed and will use this space for Sin Collector
2 Silklash Spider - in for Aristocrats BUT I really felt not that needed anymore and may shift to 2 Sin Collectors
2 Tragic Slip
2 Abrupt Decay
Reason I'm asking is I wanted to try Sever but felt that it's just too slow.
Maybe you guys had better experiences with the card.
Wanted to play more with Sin Collector to see if it's consistent enough to give me that edge against the mirror.
Removing their Mulch, Salvage & Rites will put me ahead and will allow me to have better board presence. Heck, it will even remove their removal on hand
This is frankly just being ignorant. People dont complain that expensive things exist, they get annoyed when there are no alternatives to the expensive versions of cards.
Its a card game. People want to play the card game. They arent mad that certain pieces of cardboard are rare and collectable. They get upset when there arent alternative printings that allow them to play the game.
I have a GPT coming up this weekend and I've been testing this baby with fiend hunters, voices, behemoth(less) and I still haven't decided on the final build. What I will say is I like voice a lot, but like zine said, I encountered many a time when it was turn 2 and I had voice and either mulch and/or salvage in my hand (especially in my earlier builds when I ran 2-3 Voice MD), and even against early aggression, delaying either spell another turn can lose the game for me.In terms of fiend hunter, I like him, but I just can't see MD'ing more than 1-2 tops. I guess the biggest decision right now is whether to keep the behemoth/souls package as removing or keeping them lays the building blocks to the rest of my list.
I don't understand your play of not going T1, Forest, Elf. If you're playing around Pillar/Slip, then it makes no sense to not mulch on your T2 since by playing the Elf, you end up in the same position as you would the previous turn. Granted, not drawing the 5th land is pretty bad.
I don't understand your play of not going T1, Forest, Elf. If you're playing around Pillar/Slip, then it makes no sense to not mulch on your T2 since by playing the Elf, you end up in the same position as you would the previous turn. Granted, not drawing the 5th land is pretty bad.
I had played the guy a ton before and he only killed turn 1 mana accelerants. Seriously. Otherwise he would complain later on in the game about how he wasted a removal spell after turn 1. Like, sometimes you make the incorrect play because it ends up working out which it did until I bricked for 6+ turns and he god drew.
If it was a random person I would of turn 1 elf no problem there.
that's the beauty of this deck. there's no strict line that if you don't follow a specific line of play, you auto lose. we have flexibility within the deck itself and we don't need to change drastically.
this is the reason why i didn't cut my Behemoths since it allows me for that 1 turn kill.
if this is not possible, it will still be fine since the deck's really good even when the game go long. it's that added option of play that will make Craterhoof stick in my main for now.
This is frankly just being ignorant. People dont complain that expensive things exist, they get annoyed when there are no alternatives to the expensive versions of cards.
Its a card game. People want to play the card game. They arent mad that certain pieces of cardboard are rare and collectable. They get upset when there arent alternative printings that allow them to play the game.
So I'm new to this deck. I've been playing Control for most of this Standard season, and after losing to this deck constantly, I figured it was time to just meta-concede and just play the thing. And lo and behold, I gave it a spun earlier this week and I love the deck.
It seems like there are two main flavors of this deck .. builds that include the Hoof/Souls/Township package, and those that don't. It seems like the Hoof version is more capable of explosive wins out of nowhere, but may or may not be as versatile and resilient as the version that doesn't include it (i.e., weaker to Verdict, Bonfire, etc.). Am I correct? What other differences are there?
I've done a little testing, and I'm loving Voice of Resurgence. I swear, it's like Thragtusk for 2 mana. I want to run more of the ghost deer, but then I wonder if I should give him (or his elemental remnant, really) some more support .. which leads me to want to run more Souls and The Hoof. Which I'm not sure I really want to do. What do y'all think?
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Level 2 Judge
Currently playing:
Standard: Superfriends!
Legacy: Nic Fit / Pod
Pauper: Delvar; Tron; Flicker Stuff
Commander: Riku ("Some weird doubple spell thing happened"); Keranos ("I did a Gatherer search for 'random' and 'flip a coin.'"); Superfriends!
Came in third place out of 16 so I am happy so far with the deck. I played 4 games, here is how it went:
Boros: 0 -2
Jund: 2 -0
Gruul: 2 - 1
Mill: 2 -0
I lost to boro's unfortunately because of an initial bad hand the first round and then also getting mana flooded. Second round I was doing fine but for the love of god could not A) top deck a AoS or B) get an unburial rites in the graveyard or hard to get out a AoS to get rid of some pesky creatures. I had gotten him down to about 6 life, I was at about 12. But he was able to play a thundermaw like turn 6 with already a HellRider and another 5/5 flying/first strike card(can't remmeber the name, one of the maze guys from dragons maze). Either way he got me a turn before I got him.
Playing gruul, I easily could have won the second round but I misplayed when blocking which unfortunately left me open and one mana short to play a AoS.
Otherwise, the deck stood up pretty well and I had a guy there that plays in tournaments look at it and he gave me a little bit of feedback but overall said it was good (he was also really confused as to how I lost to boros). He suggested to get rid of the pilgrims and replace them with farseeks, and to also add in Lotleth trolls instead of the smiters I was running.
Would replacing the mana dorks with farseeks be a good idea though? At one point I see it good to get land out from my deck, another says it's bad because I wont have a chump blocker and cant ramp as easily. Thoughts?
slime/decay their enchants? Other than that, there is not much else. Or you can silkslash spider them if they make their dudes fliers. Personally, it's a rough matchup to say the least.
How does this deck even compete against Bant Hexproof? I literally got crushed and it wasn't even close.
I'm thinking Gaze of Granite but to live to 6 mana is rough.
fiend hunter helps a little bit. It makes it so that they kind of have to enchant a hexproof guy to avoid being blown out. So you can generally fight a hand of something like voice/smiter/strangleroot geist with a bunch of enchantments, but if they get their aura combos going with a hexproof guy, it can be pretty hard to race. Turn 2 geist is pretty much auto lose outside of you getting like a turn 3 tusk/slime. and even then it's rough.
you generally treat it like any other aggro matchup, except they have creatures you can't deal with, so you have to kind of race them. Stuff like trostani and vault is good here because they hep TONS in a racing situation. Acidic slime and abrupt decay get rid of their auras.
I've also had good results with slum reaper, but it's only really good in a deck with lingering souls. It's also pretty narrow, so I wouldn't bother playing it unless you actually have to worry about bant hexproof in your meta.
The matchup isn't unwinnable by any means, but it really requires you to draw certain cards and be able to get those cards out on time to win. Their draws aren't that consistent, so it's not like you absolutely have to have a nut draw every game either.
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fiend hunter helps a little bit. It makes it so that they kind of have to enchant a hexproof guy to avoid being blown out. So you can generally fight a hand of something like voice/smiter/strangleroot geist with a bunch of enchantments, but if they get their aura combos going with a hexproof guy, it can be pretty hard to race. Turn 2 geist is pretty much auto lose outside of you getting like a turn 3 tusk/slime. and even then it's rough.
you generally treat it like any other aggro matchup, except they have creatures you can't deal with, so you have to kind of race them. Stuff like trostani and vault is good here because they hep TONS in a racing situation. Acidic slime and abrupt decay get rid of their auras.
I've also had good results with slum reaper, but it's only really good in a deck with lingering souls. It's also pretty narrow, so I wouldn't bother playing it unless you actually have to worry about bant hexproof in your meta.
The matchup isn't unwinnable by any means, but it really requires you to draw certain cards and be able to get those cards out on time to win. Their draws aren't that consistent, so it's not like you absolutely have to have a nut draw every game either.
I was nut drawn both games but I felt it wasn't even close.
t1: Pilgrim
t2: GoST
t3: Armadillo Cloak
t4: Spectral Flight
t5: Still had all these enchantments, dead
t1: -
t2: Pilgrim
t3: GosT
t4: Cloak
t5: Cloak, Armor
t6: Shows hand of Rancor, Rancor, Spectral Flight, dead.
There really isn't a great card against them at all. Ray of Revelation doesn't deal with the fact GoST is still a problematic card as is Stalker. I think Terminus might get a shot in the SB for me as this matchup is horrific and you need to get lucky.
Have yet to face Bant Aura's, but here is another deck that is scary, Grixis. The make you sacrifice dudes (8 or more spells worth), counter (about 6 worth), and play really scary dudes. Sire of Insanity + NivMizet is just broken. Also Master of Cruelty + Ral Zerack is pretty much game over. I am side Boarding Sigarda (1-2) now just for that deck due to the overkill of Sacrifice. Witchbane Orb might be a good alternative as well. We need better removal and Abrupt decay just does hit any of their big threats. It is just one deck, but the effectiveness against us was very good. We gain lots of life but master of Cruelty's + Rouge's Passage is relatively fast answer.
I'm surprised that Grixis Control and Turbo Fog seem to be hard matchups. I've had no issues with these matchups, but I do find Bant Enchantments and Naya Blitz to be extremely hard.
I think Terminus might get a shot in the SB for me as this matchup is horrific and you need to get lucky.
I've been thinking of trying terminus to help vs a number of decks, I'm really struggling vs decks that are able to just vomit their hand onto the board very quickly. If I can miracle or even hardcast a T5 terminus I feel like it would be enough to close out most of aggro matchups, these decks aren't afraid to just play their entire hand out and have like 5-6 guys on the field. At that point thragtusk/AoS don't really cut it as they just keep attacking profitably with medic or hellrider. AoS kinda acts as a sweeper but sometimes it's just not enough to just a bit too late. It would obviously also help with the decks playing enchantments, also Barter in Blood could be a card against those decks but it might be a bit too narrow.
I'm thinking Terminus would also be really good against other midrange AoS decks, just play a bit slower than them and hit the T5/T6 terminus to swing things into your favor as I've found most of them don't expect a sweeper from my side and will happily dump their hand onto the table.
I've been thinking of trying terminus to help vs a number of decks, I'm really struggling vs decks that are able to just vomit their hand onto the board very quickly. If I can miracle or even hardcast a T5 terminus I feel like it would be enough to close out most of aggro matchups, these decks aren't afraid to just play their entire hand out and have like 5-6 guys on the field. At that point thragtusk/AoS don't really cut it as they just keep attacking profitably with medic or hellrider. AoS kinda acts as a sweeper but sometimes it's just not enough to just a bit too late. It would obviously also help with the decks playing enchantments, also Barter in Blood could be a card against those decks but it might be a bit too narrow.
I'm thinking Terminus would also be really good against other midrange AoS decks, just play a bit slower than them and hit the T5/T6 terminus to swing things into your favor as I've found most of them don't expect a sweeper from my side and will happily dump their hand onto the table.
It's actually been very good for me. I used to play Divine Reckoning back in the day and this is just better. Helps a ton against Blitz, R/x, and Hexproof.
Sadly, I had been playing this deck for way too long and honestly it's so boring to play and there are glaring holes now with certain new cards like Turn & Burn. Just going to jam Grixis for now as it is a lot better than what people give it credit for and it's challenging to play which is something I like.
It's actually been very good for me. I used to play Divine Reckoning back in the day and this is just better. Helps a ton against Blitz, R/x, and Hexproof.
Sadly, I had been playing this deck for way too long and honestly it's so boring to play and there are glaring holes now with certain new cards like Turn & Burn. Just going to jam Grixis for now as it is a lot better than what people give it credit for and it's challenging to play which is something I like.
Good luck to all you reanifreaks out there.
I hear you about the "holes" in reanimator. I dread facing Jund Midrange, and everyone is main boarding something against us or a side board of pure hate. I am considering trying something else for a while until the hate against Reanimator subsides. At my FNM, I am the only player with a competative Reanimator and every deck runs 2 Rest in Peace or Ground Seal. WTH?
I hear you about the "holes" in reanimator. I dread facing Jund Midrange, and everyone is main boarding something against us or a side board of pure hate. I am considering trying something else for a while until the hate against Reanimator subsides. At my FNM, I am the only player with a competative Reanimator and every deck runs 2 Rest in Peace or Ground Seal. WTH?
Since people are mainboarding Ground Seal, I decided to put three Acidic Slimes mainboard. Even if they don't play Ground Seal, it's still good when you slime their lands.
maindecking GY hate gives a really bad match up against other decks. it's really meta dependent.
those that maindeck Ground Seal will have a few dead cards against aggro and it's a really bad risk for them.
if the meta is really balanced like what it is here in my area, Frites is still a really good deck as no one wants to have that risk of going pure hate for a specific archetype in main and then get paired with another.
This is frankly just being ignorant. People dont complain that expensive things exist, they get annoyed when there are no alternatives to the expensive versions of cards.
Its a card game. People want to play the card game. They arent mad that certain pieces of cardboard are rare and collectable. They get upset when there arent alternative printings that allow them to play the game.
Have yet to face Bant Aura's, but here is another deck that is scary, Grixis. The make you sacrifice dudes (8 or more spells worth), counter (about 6 worth), and play really scary dudes. Sire of Insanity + NivMizet is just broken. Also Master of Cruelty + Ral Zerack is pretty much game over. I am side Boarding Sigarda (1-2) now just for that deck due to the overkill of Sacrifice. Witchbane Orb might be a good alternative as well. We need better removal and Abrupt decay just does hit any of their big threats. It is just one deck, but the effectiveness against us was very good. We gain lots of life but master of Cruelty's + Rouge's Passage is relatively fast answer.
agreed Grixis is hard to play if you're playing a deck that's creature based which makes them weak to other control types like Esper that has virtually no crits at all except maybe for Snapcaster. so their crit hate main will make their deck weak against one that doesn't have any.
btw, this is why im keeping my Behemoths and Souls. flashback if it gets countered, sack a token if they want me to and then hardcast Behemoth with Cavern for that single turn kill.
This is frankly just being ignorant. People dont complain that expensive things exist, they get annoyed when there are no alternatives to the expensive versions of cards.
Its a card game. People want to play the card game. They arent mad that certain pieces of cardboard are rare and collectable. They get upset when there arent alternative printings that allow them to play the game.
maindecking GY hate gives a really bad match up against other decks. it's really meta dependent.
those that maindeck Ground Seal will have a few dead cards against aggro and it's a really bad risk for them.
if the meta is really balanced like what it is here in my area, Frites is still a really good deck as no one wants to have that risk of going pure hate for a specific archetype in main and then get paired with another.
Ground Seal isn't that much of a dead card since it replaces itself. At worst jund gets to cantrip.
Ground Seal isn't that much of a dead card since it replaces itself. At worst jund gets to cantrip.
This. it's not about replacing a card, it's about using that specific slot on that specific turn and that specific mana. it's basically losing a turn if used against a non Frites deck when used in the early turns. Late game, it's like, pay 2 - draw another card which should've been drawn instead.
Cantripping against aggro when it should've been another card that I can cast and get really value from? I'll pass
This is frankly just being ignorant. People dont complain that expensive things exist, they get annoyed when there are no alternatives to the expensive versions of cards.
Its a card game. People want to play the card game. They arent mad that certain pieces of cardboard are rare and collectable. They get upset when there arent alternative printings that allow them to play the game.
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Besides that I come away 99% satisfied with the deck but I'm really thinking about card interactions and if certain cards are necessary anymore.
R1: Jund. 2-0
R2: B/W Zombies. 2-1.
R3: Junk Reanimator. 2-1.
R4: Mono Red. 2-1.
R5: 4c Sire Reanimator. Draw.
t8: Jund. 0-2.
Every game I lost was because either a) I was 1 mana short of drawing the the 7th land for AoS for umpteen turns or b) incredibly bad draws combined with my opponent topdecking like a boss. I know this sounds like *****ing but when it actually plays out like that I don't know how else to describe it. For example, I mull to 6 in the top 8 and keep a hand of Elf, Sin C, Resto, Mulch, Isolated Chapel, Forest. I have to keep that against Jund.
This is what happens.
M: Iso, go.
H: Land.
M: Draw Slime. Forest, Elf, go.
H: Land Farseek go.
M: Draw another Slime. I know he has removal based on body language so I Sin Collector and see the following: Lands, Bonfire, Bonfire, Dreadbore. Nice. Keep. Sir.
His next draws are Huntmaster, Huntmaster, Abrupt Decay for my drawn Fiend Hunter, Thragtusk, Garruk PH and I finish the game stuck on 4 lands as I Mulch into nothing and brick off draws. Repeat the same for g2.
I beat Jund because of LD with Slime most of the time. The Zombies matchup was basically Thragtusk/Angel stalls against his Blood Artist/Aristocrat combo. The mirror is not fun and is a coin flip. Mono Red came down to Thragtusk.
I'm currently playing 2 Cavern of Souls main but they really aren't needed atm anymore as it seems that control is just dead. I definitely want a Vault the question is Cavern or Gavony and if it's Gavony it might lead to me making weird MD choices.
But anyways Fiend Hunter was ok this time. He reset Olivia. He "blinked" my AoS a few times but I was winning that anyways. But in reality he was just a bad Sever the Bloodline. Still really torn on this one, I want to play him MD but people aren't playing enough Advent of the Wurn to justify it.
Finally I got to try out Voice against mono red/aggro and dear god was it nuts.
The list I want to try for FNM out now would have MD Voices and Behemoths with Lingering Souls back in the MD. As much as I like Fiend Hunter and Thragtusk, it just felt like Voice & Tusk had "swaportunity" and Sever was the better Hunter.
News flash: Reanimator still very good.
I'm only playing 3 Thragtusk atm. Soon to be 2 as I side it out in more matchups nowadays. Just haven't been impressed with the card as I used to be.
I could see the deck playing Voice instead of Thrag easily though. Wouldn't shock me in the least.
URBURB
Just saying, I would've played Mulch to get value and will side out the dorks as a Bonfire for 1 hurts a lot. Even a flipped Huntmaster wrecks our board. It's not that we're in a race against Jund but yeah, there are times when the deck is just not cooperating.
Jund is supposed to be an easy matchup but things happen.
I lost in the semis of the last WMCQ against a Jund deck that uses 3 Thundermaws instead of big Garruk. his turn 1 Elf, turn 2 Farseek, turns 3 & 4 Hellkites while I'm durdling with Mulch and Salvages = GG for me
This would convince you to play Township
Problem with Voice is it clogs up the 2 drop slot. I want to be able to Mulch turn 2 or Salvage end of my opponents turn even if I have a Troll on hand.
Question: how many removals do you guys have in your board?
Below's the board I'm using:
3 Slime
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Centaur Healer
1 Obzedat - used to be Cavern before but after numerous games with U decks, I felt it's just not needed and will use this space for Sin Collector
2 Silklash Spider - in for Aristocrats BUT I really felt not that needed anymore and may shift to 2 Sin Collectors
2 Tragic Slip
2 Abrupt Decay
Reason I'm asking is I wanted to try Sever but felt that it's just too slow.
Maybe you guys had better experiences with the card.
Wanted to play more with Sin Collector to see if it's consistent enough to give me that edge against the mirror.
Removing their Mulch, Salvage & Rites will put me ahead and will allow me to have better board presence. Heck, it will even remove their removal on hand
3 Isolated Chapel
2 Godless Shrine
3 Forest
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
2 Woodland Cemetery
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Gavony Township
1 Sunpetal Grove
// Creatures
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Thragtusk
3 Restoration Angel
3 Arbor Elf
3 Angel of Serenity
1 Acidic Slime
2 Sin Collector
1 Voice of Resurgence
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Mulch
4 Unburial Rites
3 Lingering Souls
3 Acidic Slime
2 Sin Collector
1 Voice of Resurgence
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Garruk Relentless/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
1 Sever the Bloodline
I have a GPT coming up this weekend and I've been testing this baby with fiend hunters, voices, behemoth(less) and I still haven't decided on the final build. What I will say is I like voice a lot, but like zine said, I encountered many a time when it was turn 2 and I had voice and either mulch and/or salvage in my hand (especially in my earlier builds when I ran 2-3 Voice MD), and even against early aggression, delaying either spell another turn can lose the game for me.In terms of fiend hunter, I like him, but I just can't see MD'ing more than 1-2 tops. I guess the biggest decision right now is whether to keep the behemoth/souls package as removing or keeping them lays the building blocks to the rest of my list.
I had played the guy a ton before and he only killed turn 1 mana accelerants. Seriously. Otherwise he would complain later on in the game about how he wasted a removal spell after turn 1. Like, sometimes you make the incorrect play because it ends up working out which it did until I bricked for 6+ turns and he god drew.
If it was a random person I would of turn 1 elf no problem there.
this is the reason why i didn't cut my Behemoths since it allows me for that 1 turn kill.
if this is not possible, it will still be fine since the deck's really good even when the game go long. it's that added option of play that will make Craterhoof stick in my main for now.
So I'm new to this deck. I've been playing Control for most of this Standard season, and after losing to this deck constantly, I figured it was time to just meta-concede and just play the thing. And lo and behold, I gave it a spun earlier this week and I love the deck.
It seems like there are two main flavors of this deck .. builds that include the Hoof/Souls/Township package, and those that don't. It seems like the Hoof version is more capable of explosive wins out of nowhere, but may or may not be as versatile and resilient as the version that doesn't include it (i.e., weaker to Verdict, Bonfire, etc.). Am I correct? What other differences are there?
I've done a little testing, and I'm loving Voice of Resurgence. I swear, it's like Thragtusk for 2 mana. I want to run more of the ghost deer, but then I wonder if I should give him (or his elemental remnant, really) some more support .. which leads me to want to run more Souls and The Hoof. Which I'm not sure I really want to do. What do y'all think?
Currently playing:
Standard: Superfriends!
Legacy: Nic Fit / Pod
Pauper: Delvar; Tron; Flicker Stuff
Commander: Riku ("Some weird doubple spell thing happened"); Keranos ("I did a Gatherer search for 'random' and 'flip a coin.'"); Superfriends!
Came in third place out of 16 so I am happy so far with the deck. I played 4 games, here is how it went:
Boros: 0 -2
Jund: 2 -0
Gruul: 2 - 1
Mill: 2 -0
I lost to boro's unfortunately because of an initial bad hand the first round and then also getting mana flooded. Second round I was doing fine but for the love of god could not A) top deck a AoS or B) get an unburial rites in the graveyard or hard to get out a AoS to get rid of some pesky creatures. I had gotten him down to about 6 life, I was at about 12. But he was able to play a thundermaw like turn 6 with already a HellRider and another 5/5 flying/first strike card(can't remmeber the name, one of the maze guys from dragons maze). Either way he got me a turn before I got him.
Playing gruul, I easily could have won the second round but I misplayed when blocking which unfortunately left me open and one mana short to play a AoS.
Otherwise, the deck stood up pretty well and I had a guy there that plays in tournaments look at it and he gave me a little bit of feedback but overall said it was good (he was also really confused as to how I lost to boros). He suggested to get rid of the pilgrims and replace them with farseeks, and to also add in Lotleth trolls instead of the smiters I was running.
Would replacing the mana dorks with farseeks be a good idea though? At one point I see it good to get land out from my deck, another says it's bad because I wont have a chump blocker and cant ramp as easily. Thoughts?
Melira Pod - Modern
I'm thinking Gaze of Granite but to live to 6 mana is rough.
fiend hunter helps a little bit. It makes it so that they kind of have to enchant a hexproof guy to avoid being blown out. So you can generally fight a hand of something like voice/smiter/strangleroot geist with a bunch of enchantments, but if they get their aura combos going with a hexproof guy, it can be pretty hard to race. Turn 2 geist is pretty much auto lose outside of you getting like a turn 3 tusk/slime. and even then it's rough.
you generally treat it like any other aggro matchup, except they have creatures you can't deal with, so you have to kind of race them. Stuff like trostani and vault is good here because they hep TONS in a racing situation. Acidic slime and abrupt decay get rid of their auras.
I've also had good results with slum reaper, but it's only really good in a deck with lingering souls. It's also pretty narrow, so I wouldn't bother playing it unless you actually have to worry about bant hexproof in your meta.
The matchup isn't unwinnable by any means, but it really requires you to draw certain cards and be able to get those cards out on time to win. Their draws aren't that consistent, so it's not like you absolutely have to have a nut draw every game either.
Modern:
Twinning End
Commander:
Mayael the Anema
I was nut drawn both games but I felt it wasn't even close.
t1: Pilgrim
t2: GoST
t3: Armadillo Cloak
t4: Spectral Flight
t5: Still had all these enchantments, dead
t1: -
t2: Pilgrim
t3: GosT
t4: Cloak
t5: Cloak, Armor
t6: Shows hand of Rancor, Rancor, Spectral Flight, dead.
There really isn't a great card against them at all. Ray of Revelation doesn't deal with the fact GoST is still a problematic card as is Stalker. I think Terminus might get a shot in the SB for me as this matchup is horrific and you need to get lucky.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
I've been thinking of trying terminus to help vs a number of decks, I'm really struggling vs decks that are able to just vomit their hand onto the board very quickly. If I can miracle or even hardcast a T5 terminus I feel like it would be enough to close out most of aggro matchups, these decks aren't afraid to just play their entire hand out and have like 5-6 guys on the field. At that point thragtusk/AoS don't really cut it as they just keep attacking profitably with medic or hellrider. AoS kinda acts as a sweeper but sometimes it's just not enough to just a bit too late. It would obviously also help with the decks playing enchantments, also Barter in Blood could be a card against those decks but it might be a bit too narrow.
I'm thinking Terminus would also be really good against other midrange AoS decks, just play a bit slower than them and hit the T5/T6 terminus to swing things into your favor as I've found most of them don't expect a sweeper from my side and will happily dump their hand onto the table.
It's actually been very good for me. I used to play Divine Reckoning back in the day and this is just better. Helps a ton against Blitz, R/x, and Hexproof.
Sadly, I had been playing this deck for way too long and honestly it's so boring to play and there are glaring holes now with certain new cards like Turn & Burn. Just going to jam Grixis for now as it is a lot better than what people give it credit for and it's challenging to play which is something I like.
Good luck to all you reanifreaks out there.
I hear you about the "holes" in reanimator. I dread facing Jund Midrange, and everyone is main boarding something against us or a side board of pure hate. I am considering trying something else for a while until the hate against Reanimator subsides. At my FNM, I am the only player with a competative Reanimator and every deck runs 2 Rest in Peace or Ground Seal. WTH?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
Since people are mainboarding Ground Seal, I decided to put three Acidic Slimes mainboard. Even if they don't play Ground Seal, it's still good when you slime their lands.
those that maindeck Ground Seal will have a few dead cards against aggro and it's a really bad risk for them.
if the meta is really balanced like what it is here in my area, Frites is still a really good deck as no one wants to have that risk of going pure hate for a specific archetype in main and then get paired with another.
agreed Grixis is hard to play if you're playing a deck that's creature based which makes them weak to other control types like Esper that has virtually no crits at all except maybe for Snapcaster. so their crit hate main will make their deck weak against one that doesn't have any.
btw, this is why im keeping my Behemoths and Souls. flashback if it gets countered, sack a token if they want me to and then hardcast Behemoth with Cavern for that single turn kill.
This. it's not about replacing a card, it's about using that specific slot on that specific turn and that specific mana. it's basically losing a turn if used against a non Frites deck when used in the early turns. Late game, it's like, pay 2 - draw another card which should've been drawn instead.
Cantripping against aggro when it should've been another card that I can cast and get really value from? I'll pass