Anyone here consider running Chained to the Rocks over PTE? I have been testing with both and like CttR. Maybe in the sideboard. The tradeoff for not giving them a land is giving them a chance to bring in some enchantment hate in game 3 that they otherwise wouldn't in game 2.
NVRBLND has it right. I have come to same of the same conclusions he has. I added a couple more fetches to help feed DRS and also give me more reliable green mana for Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse. I also have felt like one of the biggest problems I have is my 3 drop slot. There are no shortages of three drops for this deck. I had been running Geralf, but he doesn't help a ton with consistency. Sure, he is a sick 2 drop, but there are a lot of times he sits in my hand when I draw a Nykthos.
Speaking of Nykthos, funny how I wanted to design the deck around abusing it, but its not nearly as amazing as I originally planned. 3 seems about right. If you went 4, I would definitely suggest adding a second Urborg.
The deck also only has 4 answers to anything with flying (and no answers to Colonnade - sure as hell don't want to add another colorless land like Tec Edge or GQ). There are enough Vendillion Cliques, Delvers, Colonnades in the meta right now and they are really good against this deck. Solution is pretty obvious -4 Geralf, +4 Vampire Nighthawk.
I went 3-1 in the Modern Daily yesterday with this deck, so it still has some life to it. Definitely need to shore up the sideboard a bit more. I have changed it since last night again.
Here is a fun deck that I have been playing a bit with. I use shocks and planeswalkers but made this one a bit more budget friendly. TCG Low is showing just under $70 and MTGOtraders.com is showing a little over $50. Both of these prices are with a playset of Boros Reckoner, which isn't critical to the combo part of the deck at all. In fact, you have a $25 MTGO deck without him and a $33 paper deck without him. If we see another cheap red or white instant/sorcery token producer, it actually helps the deck out a ton. Doomed traveler would have been great too. Super fun to play and I could see the Chandra/Elspeth full powered version being competitive as well. Very solid deck against control and decent matchups vs the rest.
The fun part of the deck is knowing when to get your burn on and when to play a more controlling version, depending on your opponents deck. Obviously Selesnya, Mono U, White Wieners and Gr ramp decks need to have their early creatures targeted. Esper or UW control should trigger you to go straight to their dome. Black Devo is a little trickier, but not horrible. Tokens make their desecration demon's pretty laughable. Not too many decks pack enchantment hate, which makes your win-cons pretty solid.
Getting out Pyromancer on t2 is usually the right play. I frequently hold burn in hand for a couple turns if I'm unsure what they are playing. The obvious combo is getting Purphoros and any token maker on the board. I have only ever activated him a couple times, but he is a beast with tokens. To make this thing super budget, I would get rid of Boros Reckoner for Guttersnipe which pushes you towards more of a burn archetype. Chained to the Rocks is pretty nuts against anything that isn't control. Against them I would side in another burn oriented card (Flames of the Firebrand maybe). Also, if you went towards a more creature heavy deck, budget friendly cards like Spear of Heliod and Legion's Initiative can get pretty good too. Hell, I could even see a super budget version of the deck running Hive Stirrings as a weaker midnight haunting type card.
You have 8 cards that manipulate the top of your deck, which is handy when you change modes from burn to getting your Assemble the Legions/Elspeth/Chandra/Purphoros combo online.
Gary is much better than Griselbrand here. Gary wins the game on turn 5. Otherwise you have to draw nykthos and then your best hope is seeing him on t6-7 even if you or your opponent haven't done anything to affect the board. Doesn't seem likely.
MTGO Daily Event
Match 1: Boros Landfall
G1: He got me down to 5 life after I Maelstrom Pulse his two goblin guides. Glad I added those in there last minute before the DE. Two DRS were beasts and helped me T4 a Phyrexian Obliterator, making all of his creature attacks into one sided Jokulhaups. Gary came down FTW but it was pretty much my game baring multiple top-deck burn spells regardless.
G2: I sided out my Phyrexian Arenas, brought in my lone Inquisition of Kozilek, all my Gatekeepers, and even Hexmages to get some good blockers. He was super fast with a series of Ghost Quarters, 2 Steppe Lynx, Boros Charm, and fetches. 8/9 Lynx is good. (1-1)
G3: Close game, he pathed my Phyrexian Obliterator with 3 of his own creatures on board, but turn 5 Gray Merchant is pretty much game over. (2-1).
Match 2: RDW... I'm missing my Vampire Nighthawks after the T1 rift bolt already...
G1: Too fast for me, T4 win for him.
G2: Similar, but went to T6, when I had a Phyrexian Obliterator. Two thoughtseizes hurt, but they kept him stuck on 2 lands with no bolts. Obliterator was good against his multiple Keldon Mauraders that ended up being "bad" burn spells. A top deck Mountain when I'm at 4 got him his 3rd land to cast his only card in hand - Flames of the Firebrand. (0-2)
Burn is simply a bad matchup unless I can get stall long enough to get a Turn 5 Gray Merchant out. Creature based aggro is favorable, but I only ever saw Keldon Mauraders from him, which makes removal just OK. I'm sure the 1 drop version of this deck would handle Burn much better. Also tempted to play a damn Dragon's Claw if RDW/Burn starts to gain more popularity.
Match 3: UR Kiki...
Mull to 5, keep 2 lands with two Thoughtseize. Wait 7 turns - don't draw anymore land. Sitting on 2 Lili, 3 Phyrexian Obliterator, and Geralf.
G2: He hits his PM/ST combo T4 after I Pithing Needle Exarch (after seeing it with a Thoughtseize) when he didn't have Pestermight or Splinter Twin in his opener.
Match 4: Merfolk
G1: Don't miss my land drops. T5 I have two Phyrexian Obliterators plus a Gray Merchant, Arena and DRS... pretty much our nuts.
G2: Stuck on 2 lands with an awesome hand. Is 23 lands ideal I wonder? I need 5 lands pretty consistently by T6, so I'm thinking I might add some more shocklands.
G3: He keeps 1 Mutavault and an Aether Vial. I Thoughtseize T1 and get his Vial. He draws 4 Islands in a row, plays his hand out and I misclick F2 with 7 mana floating and enough devotion on the board with Gray Merchant in Hand. I concede after I F2 past my floating mana with a Gray Merchant win on the board and show Gray Merchant. I'm sure he was confused.
Overall, I'm happy with the deck. I'm going to go up to 24 lands and keep tweaking.
Been working on this deck for a couple weeks.I have a few other decks that are established, but this is the most fun deck to play by a long shot. About to play the DE with it, but after reading the whole thread I wanted to throw out a few thoughts. First - there are two very different decks in this thread. The first is the true devotion/gray merchant version and the second is the immortal servitude 1 drop version, which looks cool but should be a different deck.
Dark Confidant - my favorite all time card and I own a playset. Doesn't belong in the devotion version at all though. I'm running 4 x Grey Merchant, 4 x Phyrexian Obliterator, and 12 x 3 drops. That's 20 cards over 3 cmc. Even though "dies to removal" isn't a solid argument all the time, its very relevant in comparing Bob to Phyrexian Arena. Surprised this is even up for debate.
Planeswalker killing. Sure there is pithing needle. However, I have found Vampire Hexmage to be much more versatile and permanent. I'm not trying to play 10 turns. I would rather get a problem walker off the board and be able to drop Hexmage on turn-2 to wait for them to drop it. Worst case I get a nice blocker and 2 devotion.
Liliana of the Veil - one of my favorite cards, but with 23 lands and only 4 cards I'm ok having in the GY (Bloodghast) she doesn't shine big time here. A lot of times I find that she is a 3CMC edict that gives me 2 devotion. She gets better post board when I can bring in extirpates against a deck like Living End - since they always pitch it when its in their hand. I'm running two - but really like seeing it as a 4-of in the board.
Ok, DE time, will post a report and my whole decklist afterwards if anyone is interested.
They could fix the fetching aspect of gates if they made an enchantment or artifact with the following text: "Gate cards in your library are their corresponding colored basic lands in addition to being gates."
My card design language isn't great, but you get the point. Current ramp like Farseek and Ranger's Path wouldn't need to be recreated into meaningless "gate ramp" type cards.
Hmm...I had forgotten about Pike...This is possible. I could lose a couple of enchantments. Mainly D. Sphere, and put some good Instant/Sorceries in, mainly pump spells. Mutagenic growth would be good
The less enchants you have, the worse Ethereal Armor gets.
It's kind of confusing, tbh. Compare it the boggled aura-enchant deck. It's got less synergy, and the two creatures you picked slow the list down. Also, seems like with the more types of swords you run, the less need you the variety.
@niminion - I'm really thinking over the guildmage. It seems like he is too slow unless you can play control for 4-5 turns. I would rather have more position on the board relative to my opponent by turn 5 if I'm not running counters. I guess that begs the question, what do our turns look like? I don't like dropping turn 1 Jace's Phantasm or turn 2 Wight really. It seems like that's when we want to be milling or spoiling their board. I mean, best case with this deck is 10 cards in their yard after turn 3 (sure, you can get there after turn 2, but its unlikely). Seems like we need some control options in the mean-time or else we are already way behind to anything fast. I get what you are doing with Essence Harvest, but once you get a big one off, you already have a bomb on the board. I would rather a good counterspell that point.
@11something, I think your view on Deathrite Shaman is off.
Once your opponents graveyard is of suffiecient size there is no reason not use the resources for the shaman, and in fact shaman helps make your redundant milling more worthwhile.
Once there are +10 cards for phantasm or if 1 more mana will help reach 10 cards, shaman can be used for ramp or damage.
Once there are enough creatures in the gy for wop6 to either be a fast enough clock or big enough to win in combat, shaman can be used to gain life.
Consuming aberration is probably so huge that taking a couple cards out of the gy does not change the clock if goes through unblocked.
The GY is a resource for a lot of decks, pouring flashback cards into an opponents gy can bring them back into a game you had all but closed out.
This deck can make use of ramp for dumping your hand faster, casting, aberration, jace, guild mage activation, cantrips, then he shocks opponents in the face while removing flashback targets, then he removes creatures to gain some life in a race while stopping reanimator. Shaman is amazing, and this deck makes a large opposing gy for him to play with turn after turn.
@Niminion - you might be right. I haven't been playing a ton of standard over the past two months. I get a few games a week in online, but mostly playing Modern and Legacy. You can't argue with a turn 4 Jace. It might be really nice to pull out Unburial Rites and maybe a few other cards, but I'm not seeing much else. Here is my decklist sans the shaman.
how about some love for Mindshrieker? fits the game plan, is a mana sink, and can hit as hard as phantasm versus control.
I think its too inconsistent. I would prefer 2 Nephalia Drownyard as a mana sink. I'm not sure if you are saying that it could be a replacement for Jace's Phantasm, but its not as good in this deck. By the time you are looking for mana to throw away, Phantasm is going to be a 5/5 Flyer anyways. I don't even think I like it over Consuming Aberration either.
*golf clap*
Speaking of Nykthos, funny how I wanted to design the deck around abusing it, but its not nearly as amazing as I originally planned. 3 seems about right. If you went 4, I would definitely suggest adding a second Urborg.
The deck also only has 4 answers to anything with flying (and no answers to Colonnade - sure as hell don't want to add another colorless land like Tec Edge or GQ). There are enough Vendillion Cliques, Delvers, Colonnades in the meta right now and they are really good against this deck. Solution is pretty obvious -4 Geralf, +4 Vampire Nighthawk.
I went 3-1 in the Modern Daily yesterday with this deck, so it still has some life to it. Definitely need to shore up the sideboard a bit more. I have changed it since last night again.
4 x Young Pyromancer
4 x Boros Reckoner
2 x Purphoros, God of the Forge
Instants/Sorceries:
4 x Magma Jet
4 x Boros Charm
4 x Lightning Strike
4 x Shock
4 x Skullcrack
4 x Warleader's Helix
2 x Chained to the Rocks
4 x Assemble the Legion
Land:
4 x Boros Guildgate
4 x Temple of Triumph
10 x Mountain
6 x Plains
The fun part of the deck is knowing when to get your burn on and when to play a more controlling version, depending on your opponents deck. Obviously Selesnya, Mono U, White Wieners and Gr ramp decks need to have their early creatures targeted. Esper or UW control should trigger you to go straight to their dome. Black Devo is a little trickier, but not horrible. Tokens make their desecration demon's pretty laughable. Not too many decks pack enchantment hate, which makes your win-cons pretty solid.
Getting out Pyromancer on t2 is usually the right play. I frequently hold burn in hand for a couple turns if I'm unsure what they are playing. The obvious combo is getting Purphoros and any token maker on the board. I have only ever activated him a couple times, but he is a beast with tokens. To make this thing super budget, I would get rid of Boros Reckoner for Guttersnipe which pushes you towards more of a burn archetype. Chained to the Rocks is pretty nuts against anything that isn't control. Against them I would side in another burn oriented card (Flames of the Firebrand maybe). Also, if you went towards a more creature heavy deck, budget friendly cards like Spear of Heliod and Legion's Initiative can get pretty good too. Hell, I could even see a super budget version of the deck running Hive Stirrings as a weaker midnight haunting type card.
You have 8 cards that manipulate the top of your deck, which is handy when you change modes from burn to getting your Assemble the Legions/Elspeth/Chandra/Purphoros combo online.
Match 1: Boros Landfall
G1: He got me down to 5 life after I Maelstrom Pulse his two goblin guides. Glad I added those in there last minute before the DE. Two DRS were beasts and helped me T4 a Phyrexian Obliterator, making all of his creature attacks into one sided Jokulhaups. Gary came down FTW but it was pretty much my game baring multiple top-deck burn spells regardless.
G2: I sided out my Phyrexian Arenas, brought in my lone Inquisition of Kozilek, all my Gatekeepers, and even Hexmages to get some good blockers. He was super fast with a series of Ghost Quarters, 2 Steppe Lynx, Boros Charm, and fetches. 8/9 Lynx is good. (1-1)
G3: Close game, he pathed my Phyrexian Obliterator with 3 of his own creatures on board, but turn 5 Gray Merchant is pretty much game over. (2-1).
Match 2: RDW... I'm missing my Vampire Nighthawks after the T1 rift bolt already...
G1: Too fast for me, T4 win for him.
G2: Similar, but went to T6, when I had a Phyrexian Obliterator. Two thoughtseizes hurt, but they kept him stuck on 2 lands with no bolts. Obliterator was good against his multiple Keldon Mauraders that ended up being "bad" burn spells. A top deck Mountain when I'm at 4 got him his 3rd land to cast his only card in hand - Flames of the Firebrand. (0-2)
Burn is simply a bad matchup unless I can get stall long enough to get a Turn 5 Gray Merchant out. Creature based aggro is favorable, but I only ever saw Keldon Mauraders from him, which makes removal just OK. I'm sure the 1 drop version of this deck would handle Burn much better. Also tempted to play a damn Dragon's Claw if RDW/Burn starts to gain more popularity.
Match 3: UR Kiki...
Mull to 5, keep 2 lands with two Thoughtseize. Wait 7 turns - don't draw anymore land. Sitting on 2 Lili, 3 Phyrexian Obliterator, and Geralf.
G2: He hits his PM/ST combo T4 after I Pithing Needle Exarch (after seeing it with a Thoughtseize) when he didn't have Pestermight or Splinter Twin in his opener.
Match 4: Merfolk
G1: Don't miss my land drops. T5 I have two Phyrexian Obliterators plus a Gray Merchant, Arena and DRS... pretty much our nuts.
G2: Stuck on 2 lands with an awesome hand. Is 23 lands ideal I wonder? I need 5 lands pretty consistently by T6, so I'm thinking I might add some more shocklands.
G3: He keeps 1 Mutavault and an Aether Vial. I Thoughtseize T1 and get his Vial. He draws 4 Islands in a row, plays his hand out and I misclick F2 with 7 mana floating and enough devotion on the board with Gray Merchant in Hand. I concede after I F2 past my floating mana with a Gray Merchant win on the board and show Gray Merchant. I'm sure he was confused.
Overall, I'm happy with the deck. I'm going to go up to 24 lands and keep tweaking.
17 Swamp
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Creatures
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Bloodghast
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Thoughtseize
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Vampire Hexmage
1 Pithing Needle
4 Extirpate
Dark Confidant - my favorite all time card and I own a playset. Doesn't belong in the devotion version at all though. I'm running 4 x Grey Merchant, 4 x Phyrexian Obliterator, and 12 x 3 drops. That's 20 cards over 3 cmc. Even though "dies to removal" isn't a solid argument all the time, its very relevant in comparing Bob to Phyrexian Arena. Surprised this is even up for debate.
Planeswalker killing. Sure there is pithing needle. However, I have found Vampire Hexmage to be much more versatile and permanent. I'm not trying to play 10 turns. I would rather get a problem walker off the board and be able to drop Hexmage on turn-2 to wait for them to drop it. Worst case I get a nice blocker and 2 devotion.
Liliana of the Veil - one of my favorite cards, but with 23 lands and only 4 cards I'm ok having in the GY (Bloodghast) she doesn't shine big time here. A lot of times I find that she is a 3CMC edict that gives me 2 devotion. She gets better post board when I can bring in extirpates against a deck like Living End - since they always pitch it when its in their hand. I'm running two - but really like seeing it as a 4-of in the board.
Ok, DE time, will post a report and my whole decklist afterwards if anyone is interested.
My card design language isn't great, but you get the point. Current ramp like Farseek and Ranger's Path wouldn't need to be recreated into meaningless "gate ramp" type cards.
The less enchants you have, the worse Ethereal Armor gets.
@Niminion - you might be right. I haven't been playing a ton of standard over the past two months. I get a few games a week in online, but mostly playing Modern and Legacy. You can't argue with a turn 4 Jace. It might be really nice to pull out Unburial Rites and maybe a few other cards, but I'm not seeing much else. Here is my decklist sans the shaman.
7 Island
7 Swamp
4 Watery Grace
4 Drowned Catacombs
2 Nephalia Drownyard
Creatures
4 Jace's Phantasm
4 Wight of Precinct Six
3 Augur of Bolas
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Consuming Aberrations
4 Psychic Strike
4 Death's Approach
2 Increasing Confusion
2 Mind Grind
4 Mind Sculpt
1 Ultimate Price
Walkers
2 Lilliana of the Veil
2 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Cyclonic Rift
2 Glaring Spotlight
2 Sever the Bloodline
4 Appetite for Brains
Not 100% sure what I would cut for Shaman if I decided to go that route.
It hurts our gameplan if we are running Snapcaster Mage, which seems like a no-brainer.
I think its too inconsistent. I would prefer 2 Nephalia Drownyard as a mana sink. I'm not sure if you are saying that it could be a replacement for Jace's Phantasm, but its not as good in this deck. By the time you are looking for mana to throw away, Phantasm is going to be a 5/5 Flyer anyways. I don't even think I like it over Consuming Aberration either.