Fellow Amuleteers, has anyone ever tried Nissa,. Steward of Elements? It seems to fit the deck quite well. The scry helps when casted early for x 1 or 2; a late topdeck can give you 10 extra damage out of nowhere, if cast just after a titan is Nice too.
Well, after an ordeal to get the Curse/Twitch account merge, (and a 4+ years break from MTG), I finally got back into MTGs.
Last friday went to FNM (4-0) with our deck (List later) and wanted to do a little report.
R1 - Mardu Pyromancer: G1 went smoothly as I had double cascade to meet a Thoughtseize. After it, fatties hit. G2 kept a one lander with a sole swamp but wraith, cascade, ceradon, horror, kolaghan and anger. Was put into a bit of pressure as the second land was yet another basic swamp but a timely shriekmaw to kill pyro and a fulminator off LE to kill his sole form of recasting lingering souls was enough
R2- Jeskai control. G1 went smoothly as triple fulminator, a beast within and a faerie macabre kept him off both mana and active azcanta. G2 again a one one lander full of gas. When noted that oponent was land screw (didnt found fourth for wrath), chained all 4 wraith till the land, LE with fulminator (discarded) on yard for the win.
R3 humans. Short G1 got crushed. G2 we both mulled, a T2 meddling Mage for LE was met with a shriekmaw into t3 wrath and game. G3 he went to 5 and couldnt do much.
R4 merfolks. Easy win, specially when no spreading seas appear.
thats not possible youll have to choose a target for vesuva as it comes into play. as both come into play at the same time the crossroads is no legal target for vesuva.
easy cut then i guess
you sure? it's not like Valakut + scapeshift? as they come all into play at the same time, they're, in fact in play triggering valakut that many times?
even if that's illegal, i wouldn't cut kabira crossroads
Edit: i believe in fact it's possible. I take the example of living end. if there's, say a clone in the yard, when it comes back into play you can choose to copy a creature brought back by the LE.
Edit 2: my bad, you can't. that means two things: i've cheated people and i've been cheated. Anyways, i will still support Kabira crossroads, just exchanging the package to Kabira + karoo, then play it again.
Sorry, this post is only meant for whoever has agreed to write the primer and people who have a lot of experience with it.. I am new to this deck, played it online a little and feel there are certain things that REALLY need to be addressed. I have read the whole thread and tried multiple lists, but there are so many 1-ofs, to someone who has never played this in a tournament before and thus lacking the ability to make logical cuts/alterations, there are a few things I really would like to read from the experienced players. The discussion on Khalni Garden a few pages back was very helpful and if someone could take the time to breakdown the pieces of the deck and explain WHY they chose to play it, that would be the best thing for this deck and primer. If this could serve as some kind of template for the primer awesome, but here is what I have not really read justifications for in the thread:
1. Trinket Mage, Ancient Stirrings, and Wargate, the pros and cons of all. I know Stirrings is favored, but I have seen quite a few lists run Mage as well, and last week at my local tourney I was talking to a guy running Kangaroo and loves it. The general consensus on Wargate is that it is to slow, but does this apply to lists that run Hive Mind and are a little slower than just focusing on the Titan kill?
2. Is 9-10x Karoo lands the optimal number? The color difference is irrelevant because that varies based on the list, but is 9x basically the core? How many REAL lands do you have to play to maintain maximum consistency with the Karoos?
3. What is the minimal/max amount of lands u want? The list I LOVE on mtgtop8 runs 25, but that seems like 2 few. Anyone can get lucky and make top 2 in a small tourney, so, what amount of lands do most feel are the bare minimum to keep it consistent? What do they feel is the MAX to run for consistency and versatility?
Also, Kabira Crossroads stumps me a little. Is this inclusion only for Burn/Affinity/Aggro matchups? Playing a fast combo deck, why would I want to gain life when I can just win? Does this regularly buy the 1 extra turn needed?
5. How necessary is Pact of Negation in builds running Hive Mind. I know this can be meta dependent, but is there a MINIMUM Pact number to run? From my little experience I want 4x Summoner's Pact and 3x Slaughter Pact. Most of the time IF I had been running Negation, in protecting Titan (which from what I read is the essential role) I have either had the win and its irrelevant, another Titan, or didn't have the colors 2 pay for it next turn.
I will be posting tournament reports in the following weeks, I have purchased basically everything on eBay and really like how it plays, but I have never seen SOLID answers to those questions. I am a very experienced combo player, but since I have no actual tournament experience yet with the deck, I can not theoretically answer any of the posed questions and do not want 2 make educated guesses.
1 - While i have not even tried Wargate, i can speak about Stirrings vs Trinket Mage. The main difference is probably what're you going to do with them. Stirrings will be probably cast t1 o t2 to find, either a missing karoo, a tolaria or an amulet. It's more proactive. Trinket mage doesn't allow you to find land, but if you run it, you can (and should) run 1 or less mana artifacts that can improve certain game 1 matchups (chalice, relic, EE, etc). It's mostly a matter of preference. Stirrings helps the combo being more consistent, Trinket mage allows to have answers so you'll be able to survive long enough to combo off. Whatever you value more is what you should run. One thing worth of note is that (this is just personal opinion), if you run stirrings, you should run Wurmcoil in your 75. It's a great card in a deck like ours and its better when you have ways to find it. Stirrings does just that. I can say also that, the thing that drove me away the most from stirrings was that, many times i failed to hit an amulet and picked a land, but sent to the bottom four cards i wanted to be on top. So i just stick to serum visions, amulet and CIPT land as my one drops.
2 and 3- I refuse to run anything less than 27 lands. The color diference though, in some, very rare cases can be a problem. as for karoo, i run 10 and sometimes i think going down by one is not a bad idea
4 - Kabira Crossroads: Yes. if you get to a bit of a slow start, being able to fetch this + vesuva to gain 4 can buy that extra turn against burn or fast aggro.
Kessig is only worthwhile if ran alongside Inkmoth. It's a cute backup plan, but imo, inkmoth is just too fragile and kessig doesn't do enough outside of this to justify running it.
Khalni: extra blocker and negates (sometimes) LotV.
Tolaria West: i believe to be mildly important in the non hive lists, but the single most important land in the hive builds. aside from pact fetching, i know that i said it many times, but discarding a land and getting EE against jund or affinity is insane
5 - Most of the time its use will be protect titan, but, also it can force a titan through countermagic if cavern is absent. That enough imo, makes me believe it to be maindeckable. One thing i learnt the hard way to keep in mind when using pacts (in both hive and nonhive builds) against URW control is that they run tectonic edge. So, it's VERY important to double check that we can pay the pact's next turn even if they play a tec edge and blow up a two mana land or color screw us. Probably a minimum of pacts would be 6 (just a wild guess). i believe that number to be the minimum to be able to consistently access a pact (between the pacts and tolarias). 4 of summon and 2 negation, the slaughter's one are the weakest imo.
you get expected value not value with certainty (in the case of merems list though its really close to it). this is a game of chance as such saying that probabilities are meaningless is really weird imo.
to your q: doesnt it answer itself ? how often will the 7 damage happen when youre attacking with a 8/6 trample haster? every time your opponent blocks with <2 resistance and doesnt have a removal/shrink.
one could also ask when is it better then tolaria. obviously when your pressured and have to turn the board around immediately with more then a slaughter pact. my deck is still being mailed to me so i cant answer how often that ll happen.
Probabilities are not meaningless in any card game, i agree. But percent numbers are something i never take into account, at least not exactly.
No, you got it wrong. Of course everytime you attack with titan + slayers' or two titans you can activate knoll. But how often you find yourself in that situation, where you can activate it? because it seems that the knoll would only be worthwhile in builds that do not run the hive mind. i am testing the deck with hive mind and, while every time i get an amulet of vigor and a titan and thus meet the hideaway requirements, sometimes you'll find yourself attacking with just the titan dealing 6 meaning no hideaway.
assuming there are 45 cards left in your library of which 3 are titans when the spinerock triggers it'll find at least one with close to 25%.
if you factor those summoning pacts in it increases to 50%.
when you have 3 titans, 4 pacts, 4 commands, 1 wurm, 1 karn in your 45 left at the time you spinrock then itll see one of these with 75%.
quite loose if you ask me.
I didn't ask for meaningless (at least to me) percent numbers regarding the chances of finding a titan. You activate a hideaway land, you get value, end of story.
What i asked was, "how often you had the chances to attack with two titans or a titan + slayers' stronghold" to do the 7+ damage required by the knoll.
I've chosen not to run the Hivemind package. This is simply because I feel that keeping the focus on the main win condition is more consistent. My version has access to Primeval Titan in 15 cards (3 Wargate, 4 Commands, 4 Pacts and the 4 Titans).
I've chosen Ancient Stirrings over Serum Visions because they greatly increase the chance of getting to the Amulet, allow me to have a lower land count and increase the chances off hitting my sideboard artifacts, Wurmcoil and Karn.
The Explores are fine as a two off. At worst it's a cantrip, they speed you up a turn when you don't have an Amulet, allow a turn 2 Titan on a double amulet hand when Azusa or Summer Bloom are missing, make it possible to reuse a bounced one off land on the same turn. Azusa is a better options but having more makes for some awkward draws.
The Primal Commands have been amazing for me. I primarily use them for life gain and searching for a Titan/Wurmcoil against the fast decks. Against control it mostly puts a land on top instead of the life gain.
The lone Karn has been good though not overly impressive. It's a way to remove troublesome permanents like Bloodmoon when they are main deck (it happened to me) and almost never bad to draw due to the amount of mana this deck makes. I've been thinking about replacing it with a Pact of Negation though I don't see many situations the negation would be a better option. Forcing Titan through is what Cavern of Souls is better at and will be my Tolaria West target before I would consider Pact of Negation. And I prefer a more pro-active path over using Titan's land search for Tolaria into pact. If you go for Tolaria into Pact the opponent always has time to play removal before you have the pact. When the opponent was tapped out you most of the time have the opportunity to abuse the Spinerock with the second Titan land search and to produce another threat with it. Though I'm still considering switching it out for a Pact of Negation.
Another thing I'm considering is running another forest over one of the Primal commands. I'm low on forests and feel a little high on the Primal Commands.
Tolaria into pact doesn't always mean pact of negation. Sometimes is just another summoner's so you tell your opponent "if you deal with this one, there's another one coming". Also, tolaria wests are more useful in the builds that run Hive mind as you can search your wincons. Also, hate artifacts.
question: how would be a Spinerock package with titan? if you attacked with a slayers' on titan, you can look for that and have the advantage? how consistent can you achieve that?? Seems like a good idea in the titan focused builds
Khalni Garden also saves titan from Liliana's -2 sac. I have been able to rebuy garden a few times just to keep getting blockers which is nice. I have liked the Temple of Mystery as more colored mana and another way to help a tad on consistency. There were times that I wanted a dual land just to be able to cast all my spells. Possibly an island would be better tho to combat blood moon which can be a pain.
I think I will add spellskite to the board as a pretty good answer and blocker against jund. Maybe its not great but i'll try it out. Another avenue I was thinking against jund was to bring in individually powerful cards that are hard to answer. I.E. Thrun or something else.
A tier one jund deck seems tough sometimes when they thoughtsieze you, liliana you, fulminator you and slaughter games you. The constant discard is tough to build a board presence against them.
If a Jund does all that in a single game, i find hardly believable to win with any deck. That being said, yes, the most useful use imo for khalni garden is to protect titan from lil's -2. I've updated the list im testing, you can find it on my sig
So Ive been testing in 2-mans and 8-mans online.
Trinket mage seems great in theory but in practice its a little slow. I had cut wargates to try 2 trinket mage and im back to 2 wargates. I like the wargates better. More flexibility and it can grab a land which is sweet.
Also how many karoos are most of you guys running? Im running 9, 4 simic, 3 selesnya, 1 boros, and 1 golgari. I had 10 for a while but ive had to mulligan quite a few hands because my only lands are karoos.
Also sakura tribe scout is a 3 of in my list and the cards has been impressing me lately. At first i didnt like it because it felt too slow (no immediate return like azusa) but the more i play with it the more it feels like a rampant growth. Great in the early game, mediocre to bad in the late game.
Also cavern of souls has been really great for me. Ive played against the glacial slow Blue/White control online 4 times and have beaten it all 4 times mostly I think due to Cavern of Souls. I run 2 with 2 tolaria and 2 wagates to fetch them.
If you play Trinket Mage and do not play silver bullet artifacts maindeck (i run Chalice of the Void + EE main), you're doing it wrong
That's some good sideboard info, thanks. My question is, what do you side out? All of the cards in the maindeck are important.
Against most opponents, just take out redundant pieces. A titan or two, maybe a serum visions and a pact Never the bloom or the amulet though.
If you know the meta and the decks, you can try and preemptively board out cards. Say, if you'll play against jund which has terminate and several copies of lightning bolt, you can remove titans, knowing it's more winnable through the hive mind combo. Against living end too. If you face affinity or bw tokens or something that you are certain doesn't play many answers to a big bad 6/6, you can leave take out a hive mind, some blue pacts. Against control and their countermagic, going the titan way is better because of cavern of souls
Hey everyone! Just want to say this thread has givne me a lot of ideas and I like them all!
So this deck caught my eye a while back as a sweet deck that I'd like to try and build. Its right up my alley as being awesome (turn 2 attack with primeval titan), powerful, and fun.
Recently I just won a theros sealed ptq and will be playing in my first pro tour in valencia in febuary. As you guys know, the pt is modern. We'll have another set come febuary in Born of the Gods, but usually most new sets only add a few cards to modern and dont typically create new archetypes. With that assumption I figured I better get started testing modern as any and all testing I do from now until then will be valuable just to learn the format.
I ended up looking this deck up and buying the entire deck on MODO about 2-3 weeks ago. I have been grinding with it in my free time since then. I finally feel like I have a feel for the deck and am really enjoying playing and winning with it.
I started with a pretty stock list with 2 hivemind and 6 pacts maindeck (2 summoners 2 negation). I have since cut the pact of negations and hivemind to try and make the deck more streamlined and consistant in casting primeval titan as fast and as often as possibly.The downside of this is that slaughter games and cards like that really hurt.
A few cards that I wanted to talk about main and side;
Maindeck;
Trinket mage - He's a recent addition that I've liked but havent loved. Another amulet is never a dead card. People will side in artifact hate so having more of that card is great. A suggestion that I saw is engineered explosives with trinket mage. I dont know why but I never thought of this card but it seems to be better than most other sweepers and it can be tutored with tolaria west and mage which seems perfect. Seems great against merfolk, affinity, and maybe even splinter twin on 3 to hit pestermite, deciever and possible blood moons. Im going to keep the mage for now since im going to go home and add EE to my sideboard.
Tolaria west - LittleLizard said it best. I believe this card is absolutely necessary and should be at least a 1 maybe 2 of in most decks. I have 2. It finds a karoo when you have everything else. It finds summoners pact to get azusa and titan. I think about 90% (maybe more) of the time I search for titan with pact but sometimes you already have 2 titans in hand and an azusa would drastically speed you up or even let you play titan that turn. Now that I'm going to add Engineered explosives to the sideboard this card will also be able to find a sweeper which is awesome. With 4 serums visions in most builds, mine too, the blue is fine to just play it as a regular land too.
Man-lands / wolf run - I have won a few games just by wolf running a plant for khalni garden or azusa. They are quite rare tho. I have one inkmoth nexus in the main and have been reasonably happy with it. The one time it really showed its stripes was against b/w soul sisters when a titan could not win because he was at something like 42 life. I was able to wolf run the nexus for lethal the turn before I died to giant ajani pridemates. I like the idea of a bigger man-land to add some pressure. Cellestial collonade seems sweet against planeswalkers but the 5 mana activation might be too steap.
Also I have been sideboarding 2 ghost quarters for about a week and since then havent lost a match to tron. They really help. Against G/R tron sometimes they are just straight up wasteland and coupled with beast within you can easily keep them off of tron most games.
I have been kind of winging it when it comes to sideboarding. Does anyone have some good tips for sideboarding with this deck? I know everyone runs a few cards different but maybe general ideas?
Thanks!
Mine is just to stick to the proven tech. Bojuka bog against Jund, Living end and such, Creeping corrosion (1 or 2 of) against affinity, Boil against anything that has lots of islands, Seal of primordium against blood moon and affinity, Timely reinforcements against aggro and burn. Beast within should come in against Jund, Pod and tron. Also some people suggested spellskite which seems perfectly reasonable to protect titan and some of the mol lists ran Wurmcoil in their side, i assume against jund and blood moon matchups. If you run trinket mage, you can toy as well with chalice of the void against... nearly everything (on 0 against living end, on 1 against SSisters, on 2 against hatebears, Jund, storm (rituals), on 3 against Bw tokens, twin...) and pithing needle
also, MostlyLost suggested Gaddock Theg. I think it's worth a shot since forces pod to go into midrange mode (they can't cast pod if they haven't and they can only chord for 0), annoys twin (forces them to go kiki-jikki) and control
As for the manland question, i believe Stirring Wildwood is the best. It's outside bolt range, the reach is surprising relevant against, say Bw tokens and affinity (buying a turn against a nexus is worth a lot), it fixes mana and the activation cost is not that steep.
Nearly every time i get to attack with the Titan, i fetch for a karoo and a tolaria, bounce the tolaria and transmute it into something that secures me the game. Pact of negation to protect the titan, Engineered explosives, or just another pact for another titan later. Also it can fetch for a pact if your hand doesn't have one. Tolaria west can make some bad hands into winning hands. It is THAT good.
I have an issue with this. A lot of hands make getting 1UU to transmute Tolaria West after attacking impossible. You can't attack, fetch Simic Growth Chamber and Tolaria West, float 1UU, bounce Tolaria West, and transmute Tolaria West for example, because transmute is sorcery speed. Sam Black implied you could do this in his Wizards dailyMTG article on this deck but he was wrong.[/QUOTE]
He's right, you can't. But im just talking about bouncing it though. Having one untapped land plus the simic is not that rare. Sometimes you already have the Tolaria West in your hand and look for a karoo plus another land, sometimes you already have another untapped land and sometimes you have neither, just bounce it and look for something next turn. But the point is that, for me, Tolaria West is the most important and resourceful land (after the karoos and the slayers') in the deck
I like Compulsive research alot, but i think people should give gifts a shot in the deck. Gifts can essential garuntee you a titan next turn if you have the mana for it by getting Pact, Titan, Noxious Revival... and Eternal witness maindeck isn't crazy since amulets are target number 1 game 2/3. Even getting back a Serum visions on turn 3/4 and replaying it isn't terrible since I find the biggest problem the deck has is not drawing enough cards/not using its mana well enough when it is missing 1 piece. Would have to test research though, may just be a bit more consistent.
Essentially i feel my version gives up explosiveness slightly for consistency. I haven't tried 4 Hive minds, I feel 3 probably is the max and might be the best number.
And as far as gut shot goes it probably should be pyroclasm now for aggro matchups, pyro just gives you the best 2 for 1(or better) and is likely a 4 of just for any aggro matchup now that pod isn't so popular(at least online).
I did give Gifts a try. And i liked it in theory. In practice, it was always a card i didn't want to draw because i didn't want to wait another turn.
I have never tried tolaria west and it might be good but I just never tried. Tolaria west basically fetches pact right? I just don't think it's gonna be that important. If you can explain why it's so important I would like that, to me treetop village seems enough after the first Titan strike.
No cavern of souls simply because it's expensive. I'd like one but it's not priority and too expensive.
Nearly every time i get to attack with the Titan, i fetch for a karoo and a tolaria, bounce the tolaria and transmute it into something that secures me the game. Pact of negation to protect the titan, Engineered explosives, or just another pact for another titan later. Also it can fetch for a pact if your hand doesn't have one. Tolaria west can make some bad hands into winning hands. It is THAT good.
Since funnywille asked for it and I believe that it might help many other players (including me if other people also do this) I will post my decklist and go on a card-by-card explanation including some cards that I don't use but have tried or think I understand why people use.
Primeval Titan, Amulet of Vigor, Slayer's Stronghold, Boros Garrison: Main combo pieces. Play Titan with Amulet of the field search of Stronghold and Barrison the hit on the same turn.
Lotus Cobra: It is great ramp in this deck, in the worst case summer bloom becomes pyretic ritual and if you have a basic or shock land you get even more out of it. You have to remember that even without the Amulet a turn 3 Titan or Hive mind is a fairly big treat and if you for some reason already have the Stronghold on the field you don't need the Amulet to give the Titan haste. It also hits and blocks and that can be relevant
Azusa: It's worse summer bloom that can be fetched by Summoner's Pact. Some people use more than me but I find that one is enough to search with pact if really needed and I prefer running more draw, control and cobras because azusa will rarely do much on the turn it hits since it costs 3 and only gives 2 land drops (sometimes 1 if people kill her on the land's trigger)
Summoner's Pact: It searches for Titan, Azusa and Gaea's Revenge after sideboard. Must have for consistency and versatility.
Sleight of Hand: Some people think Serum Visions is better and it really is a close call but this deck is supposed to be fast deck and sleight of hand gets you what you need NOW while serum visions gets it next turn.
Remand: Very good IMO. It is frequently better to wait a turn with them remand mana ready than to play anything else. This deck can go from nothing to win in 1 turn so being able to slow you opponent to get one more turn of land drop and get a draw in the process is very good. It can also save your Titan from Path of exile or counter if you can get a little more mana. (remember, if the opponent has mana to counter titan twice you can remand your own titan to get him back and draw a card)
Ancient Stirrings: It searches for lands and the amulet for 1 mana, that may not seem much but those are the 2 things you usually need the most.
Summer Bloom: Must have. Even without the amulet those land drops mean big ramp. Since the deck plays around karoo lands you usually get all 3 land drops from it and on turn 2 that can mean a turn 3 Titan/Hive mind.
Hive Mind: Secondary win condition that can win out of nowhere with very little your opponent can do. It can win games otherwise lost and get your opponents by surprise. Some people use other pacts for decks that can pay the green one but I think it is too risky and can be a dead card on many situations
Garruk Wildspeaker: He can be a big ramp for the next turn untapping karoo lands, get creatures, overrun your cobras/beasts and even untap the Titan's lands once as an Amulet would making him pretty versatile but lately I've been thinking he is too slow and Gifts Ungiven would be a better card for this slot
Misty Rainforest: Since I run Lotus Cobra, Misty rainforest is very important. It fixes my mana (early game this is very important) and gets 3 mana if the cobra is out. I've seen lots of people run Gemstone Mine and Tendo Ice Bridge for mana fixing but with the cobra, rainforest is better and it also searches for basics if you are afraid of a blood moon
Teetering Peaks: It makes sure that you can kill in one hit with Titan and since it can be bounced it also helps when hitting with the cobra/Treetop
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion: Some people seem to think Kessig Wolf Run is better but unless you are using it on a 1/x creature or have a LOT of mana sunhome always costs at least the same and since the main creature you will use it on is Titan sunhome is no doubt better for me. Some people use both but I have too many problems with color fixing as is and don't recommend it.
Treetop Village: Some people use inkmoth nexus but Treetop (and I guess inkmoth too) usually hits the field when a Titan attacks but I know it won't kill in one hit and might get killed before it attacks again. Usually when this happens the opponent is left with less than 10 life so Treetop needs to hit less than a Inkmoth would and it is already a 3/3 trample making it much more efficient than I believe a Inkmoth would be. Treetop also benefits more from sunhome than Inkmoth so that is better for m.
Vesuva: It helps a lot with consistency. If you get a combo land on your hand it can break the combo because you won't be able to fetch it and you might need to tap it to get the Titan out so vesuva makes sure you can still combo as long as that land is in the field. Some people run more of them and that's fine but I think 1 is all you need.
Gaea's Revenge: Any deck with a lot of control. Not many creatures can kill it and the only spell that people use and can hit it is Beast Within. I have been thinking of running 1 mainboard actually.
Seal of Primordium: As DarkBrew said, it is the best answer for blood moon and I can say that it helps a lot in other situations killing a Inkmoth or just as a way to spend your mana in case you get a lot but don't have a Titan or something like that (happens sometimes)
Noxious Revival: Not the greatest sideboard but I like it for it's versatility. It can get a combo piece back, save you from Surgical Extraction or get that Griselbrand, Emrakul or even Counter out of the yard stopping some decks in desperate times.
Ghostly Prison: I've been thinking of getting pyroclasm but I'm not sure since I run Cobras. This really helps against merfolk, tokens and some other decks
Damping Matrix: Haven't tested it yet but seems good.
Sejiri Steppe: Basically to avoid blockers but I nearly never side it in. I think it's going out
Gut Shot: Just to fill the spot really. Have killed a inkmoth and a Aven Mindsensor with it but not really good.
I guess that's it. Hope I can help someone with this
Do you miss the Tolaria Wests? I actually find them the most important land in the deck as it usually finds an answer for every situation. Also, no cavern of souls?
Last friday went to FNM (4-0) with our deck (List later) and wanted to do a little report.
R1 - Mardu Pyromancer: G1 went smoothly as I had double cascade to meet a Thoughtseize. After it, fatties hit. G2 kept a one lander with a sole swamp but wraith, cascade, ceradon, horror, kolaghan and anger. Was put into a bit of pressure as the second land was yet another basic swamp but a timely shriekmaw to kill pyro and a fulminator off LE to kill his sole form of recasting lingering souls was enough
R2- Jeskai control. G1 went smoothly as triple fulminator, a beast within and a faerie macabre kept him off both mana and active azcanta. G2 again a one one lander full of gas. When noted that oponent was land screw (didnt found fourth for wrath), chained all 4 wraith till the land, LE with fulminator (discarded) on yard for the win.
R3 humans. Short G1 got crushed. G2 we both mulled, a T2 meddling Mage for LE was met with a shriekmaw into t3 wrath and game. G3 he went to 5 and couldnt do much.
R4 merfolks. Easy win, specially when no spreading seas appear.
you sure? it's not like Valakut + scapeshift? as they come all into play at the same time, they're, in fact in play triggering valakut that many times?
even if that's illegal, i wouldn't cut kabira crossroads
Edit: i believe in fact it's possible. I take the example of living end. if there's, say a clone in the yard, when it comes back into play you can choose to copy a creature brought back by the LE.
Edit 2: my bad, you can't. that means two things: i've cheated people and i've been cheated. Anyways, i will still support Kabira crossroads, just exchanging the package to Kabira + karoo, then play it again.
1 - While i have not even tried Wargate, i can speak about Stirrings vs Trinket Mage. The main difference is probably what're you going to do with them. Stirrings will be probably cast t1 o t2 to find, either a missing karoo, a tolaria or an amulet. It's more proactive. Trinket mage doesn't allow you to find land, but if you run it, you can (and should) run 1 or less mana artifacts that can improve certain game 1 matchups (chalice, relic, EE, etc). It's mostly a matter of preference. Stirrings helps the combo being more consistent, Trinket mage allows to have answers so you'll be able to survive long enough to combo off. Whatever you value more is what you should run. One thing worth of note is that (this is just personal opinion), if you run stirrings, you should run Wurmcoil in your 75. It's a great card in a deck like ours and its better when you have ways to find it. Stirrings does just that. I can say also that, the thing that drove me away the most from stirrings was that, many times i failed to hit an amulet and picked a land, but sent to the bottom four cards i wanted to be on top. So i just stick to serum visions, amulet and CIPT land as my one drops.
2 and 3- I refuse to run anything less than 27 lands. The color diference though, in some, very rare cases can be a problem. as for karoo, i run 10 and sometimes i think going down by one is not a bad idea
4 - Kabira Crossroads: Yes. if you get to a bit of a slow start, being able to fetch this + vesuva to gain 4 can buy that extra turn against burn or fast aggro.
Kessig is only worthwhile if ran alongside Inkmoth. It's a cute backup plan, but imo, inkmoth is just too fragile and kessig doesn't do enough outside of this to justify running it.
Khalni: extra blocker and negates (sometimes) LotV.
Tolaria West: i believe to be mildly important in the non hive lists, but the single most important land in the hive builds. aside from pact fetching, i know that i said it many times, but discarding a land and getting EE against jund or affinity is insane
5 - Most of the time its use will be protect titan, but, also it can force a titan through countermagic if cavern is absent. That enough imo, makes me believe it to be maindeckable. One thing i learnt the hard way to keep in mind when using pacts (in both hive and nonhive builds) against URW control is that they run tectonic edge. So, it's VERY important to double check that we can pay the pact's next turn even if they play a tec edge and blow up a two mana land or color screw us. Probably a minimum of pacts would be 6 (just a wild guess). i believe that number to be the minimum to be able to consistently access a pact (between the pacts and tolarias). 4 of summon and 2 negation, the slaughter's one are the weakest imo.
Probabilities are not meaningless in any card game, i agree. But percent numbers are something i never take into account, at least not exactly.
No, you got it wrong. Of course everytime you attack with titan + slayers' or two titans you can activate knoll. But how often you find yourself in that situation, where you can activate it? because it seems that the knoll would only be worthwhile in builds that do not run the hive mind. i am testing the deck with hive mind and, while every time i get an amulet of vigor and a titan and thus meet the hideaway requirements, sometimes you'll find yourself attacking with just the titan dealing 6 meaning no hideaway.
I didn't ask for meaningless (at least to me) percent numbers regarding the chances of finding a titan. You activate a hideaway land, you get value, end of story.
What i asked was, "how often you had the chances to attack with two titans or a titan + slayers' stronghold" to do the 7+ damage required by the knoll.
Tolaria into pact doesn't always mean pact of negation. Sometimes is just another summoner's so you tell your opponent "if you deal with this one, there's another one coming". Also, tolaria wests are more useful in the builds that run Hive mind as you can search your wincons. Also, hate artifacts.
question: how would be a Spinerock package with titan? if you attacked with a slayers' on titan, you can look for that and have the advantage? how consistent can you achieve that?? Seems like a good idea in the titan focused builds
If a Jund does all that in a single game, i find hardly believable to win with any deck. That being said, yes, the most useful use imo for khalni garden is to protect titan from lil's -2. I've updated the list im testing, you can find it on my sig
If you play Trinket Mage and do not play silver bullet artifacts maindeck (i run Chalice of the Void + EE main), you're doing it wrong
Main. And rememeber you can tutor it with tolaria west against control if you want to force a titan through
Against most opponents, just take out redundant pieces. A titan or two, maybe a serum visions and a pact Never the bloom or the amulet though.
If you know the meta and the decks, you can try and preemptively board out cards. Say, if you'll play against jund which has terminate and several copies of lightning bolt, you can remove titans, knowing it's more winnable through the hive mind combo. Against living end too. If you face affinity or bw tokens or something that you are certain doesn't play many answers to a big bad 6/6, you can leave take out a hive mind, some blue pacts. Against control and their countermagic, going the titan way is better because of cavern of souls
Mine is just to stick to the proven tech. Bojuka bog against Jund, Living end and such, Creeping corrosion (1 or 2 of) against affinity, Boil against anything that has lots of islands, Seal of primordium against blood moon and affinity, Timely reinforcements against aggro and burn. Beast within should come in against Jund, Pod and tron. Also some people suggested spellskite which seems perfectly reasonable to protect titan and some of the mol lists ran Wurmcoil in their side, i assume against jund and blood moon matchups. If you run trinket mage, you can toy as well with chalice of the void against... nearly everything (on 0 against living end, on 1 against SSisters, on 2 against hatebears, Jund, storm (rituals), on 3 against Bw tokens, twin...) and pithing needle
also, MostlyLost suggested Gaddock Theg. I think it's worth a shot since forces pod to go into midrange mode (they can't cast pod if they haven't and they can only chord for 0), annoys twin (forces them to go kiki-jikki) and control
As for the manland question, i believe Stirring Wildwood is the best. It's outside bolt range, the reach is surprising relevant against, say Bw tokens and affinity (buying a turn against a nexus is worth a lot), it fixes mana and the activation cost is not that steep.
I have an issue with this. A lot of hands make getting 1UU to transmute Tolaria West after attacking impossible. You can't attack, fetch Simic Growth Chamber and Tolaria West, float 1UU, bounce Tolaria West, and transmute Tolaria West for example, because transmute is sorcery speed. Sam Black implied you could do this in his Wizards dailyMTG article on this deck but he was wrong.[/QUOTE]
He's right, you can't. But im just talking about bouncing it though. Having one untapped land plus the simic is not that rare. Sometimes you already have the Tolaria West in your hand and look for a karoo plus another land, sometimes you already have another untapped land and sometimes you have neither, just bounce it and look for something next turn. But the point is that, for me, Tolaria West is the most important and resourceful land (after the karoos and the slayers') in the deck
I did give Gifts a try. And i liked it in theory. In practice, it was always a card i didn't want to draw because i didn't want to wait another turn.
Nearly every time i get to attack with the Titan, i fetch for a karoo and a tolaria, bounce the tolaria and transmute it into something that secures me the game. Pact of negation to protect the titan, Engineered explosives, or just another pact for another titan later. Also it can fetch for a pact if your hand doesn't have one. Tolaria west can make some bad hands into winning hands. It is THAT good.
Do you miss the Tolaria Wests? I actually find them the most important land in the deck as it usually finds an answer for every situation. Also, no cavern of souls?