The deck is fine with EE, but it's probably better without it. Went 2-2 with ^^^ that build. Lost in 3 games to Jund and then Knightfall. I didn't cast EE very much and when I did, it didn't feel great. You really need to build a deck around it. Even with targets like Finks and Voice, you're still 2 for 1-ing yourself.
I acknowledge that my Companies will be worse 4 times out of a 100. The goal here is to see if having 2 conditional wild cards improves the deck or if it would be better having the creatures instead. Will a single FNM prove anything? Statistically speaking, no. I do have a bunch of experience with Abzan Company, so a few matches should be reasonable to gauge how useful the card is in this particular build.
With the above list, I have 25 Company targets, which means my percentage of hitting 2 is 81.6%. I realized that I was missing Scavenging Ooze, so I cut another Evolution for that. With 26 targets for CoCo, the percentage of hitting 2 is 83.8% compared to 87.8% with 28 targets. 4% is definitely measurable, but I've played Abzan CoCo A LOT with 27-29 creatures and know what to expect from those builds.
I want to see if EE improves a stock(ish) build of the deck, while only dropping Company consistency by 5-10%
I tried brewing toolbox type decks with Evolution and they aren't as good as Abzan Company. The idea here is that we're adding an additional 3 wild cards to help get whichever piece is needed and still maintaining 25 CoCo targets. I think I'm going to take this to FNM tomorrow night. Lately people have been playing a bunch of Dredge and Tron. If too many people are playing Tron, I might balk and play something else.
Any advice or suggestions? I would like more Voice of Resurgence and Tidehollow Sculler, but I don't own them.
** Revised list + 1 Scooze and - 1 Eldritch Evolution
I've been working on this deck on Cockatrice for the new Standard. I liked playing Esper Dragons, so I'm trying to adapt it to the new environment. I also have UBW build that is very similar with Ojutai which I also play, but this is probably more consistent because of the mana.
I think it would be interesting for all of us to get some numbers about some questions or points. Can some people please answer me these questions?
You guys could even do the same with your own questions if you want too. I'll try to help.
1- How many lands (please if you don't mind share the number of Gavony Township too) and mana dorks do you play MB?
2- Do you play any Non-creature spell besides CoCo and Chord MB? If no, how many creatures with cmc>3?
3- Do you play 4 Eternal Witness MB? If yes, have you ever considered 3xEternal Witness + 1xFlickerwisp?
4- If you do have Sin Collector in your SB do you bring it in against the mirror? How about Jund?
5- Do you still have Linvala in your sideboard?
6- Do you play Reveillark in your sideboard? Or is it just non sense since it is grave based and people are bringing in grave hate? If you do play it, have you ever thought about Saffi Eriksdotter (instead of Dauntless Escort, for example) for some protection and even more combo or is it just too far?
7- What spell (Coco, Chord, Mix) do you SB out when you bring in Path to Exile against Jund? How about Affinity?
8- What's the top 5 cards you don't want to see your opp cast? Please be reasonable don't say something like 5 cards from Tron eheheh
9- What's your top 3 worse Match Ups. And your top 3 best is...
Thank you!
1 - 23 / 3 Gavony Township
I'm pretty excited. Just ordered my 4th Verdant Catacombs and 2nd Horizon Canopy, so I'll have a pretty complete build!!
2 - No.
3 - No -- 3.
4 - I have used SC in my sideboard, without much success. Small sample size.
5 - No.
6 - No. Dauntless Escort is awesome.
7 - Recently I've been using an all creature sideboard to keep with the theme of the deck.
8 - Oblivion Stone, Kozilek's Return, Damnation, Grafdigger's Cage... trying not to say Karn... Leyline of Punishment maybe?
The reason I added Fulminator is because I'm terrified of Tron. My FNM is a good mix. There are always a few Affinity, a burn or zoo, a couple Jund, at least one Tron, occasionally Merfolk or Elves, a couple Eldrazi lately and a couple spicy brews haha. I'm thinking about dropping Sin Collector for Thoughtseize and Fiend Hunter or Sage for a Path / Decay.
I can see the argument to play paths, because they remove big clocks and cards like Linvala, Olivia and Kalitas which can be an issue for us. I tend to not want to play many of them and lean on extra fiendhunters if those creatures are an issue for me.
RE: Reclamation sage and Pridemage
It is important to have both; one beats pithing needle/revoker, having access to both beats meddling mage effects or surgical extraction effects. Sage beats Linvala type effects, Pridemage beats Torpor orb/Gryff.
That said, I always prefer Reclamation sage in this deck because of its synergy with chord and gavony township -- leaving a body behind gives you another way to win the game. Card advantage, straight up.
An example of a matchup where I strongly prefer Rec Sage is Affinity -- we can kill a plating or force a ravager sac, while still presenting a threat/blocker/chord mana, whereas if we spend 3 mana to pridemage something on curve we usually wind up even further behind on board.
Merfolk is another one; if you chord up a rec sage to kill a spreading seas, block, and trade it for a lord that's a much better line of play than chording up pridemage and killing seas. If you rec sage an early Aether Vial you often wind up ahead, vs. behind a card if you pridemage.
I played some matches against Grixis Control preboard and lost all...he had the bolt, snap, bolt for my creatures, K-Command or elctrolyse. Often a mana leak for CC and if i had the chance to combo off he had Kalitas on board. He finished me off with G-Angler or Tasigur. How do you play against this deck? In my experience i miss something to handle creatures on the board (more then a single Fiend Hunter). A single big creature can sometimes be game in the opponents favor.
I haven't played this matchup yet, but it sounds really difficult. Spellskite could help a lot in game one. SB: Voice of Resurgence, Burrenton Forge Tender, Scavenging Ooze and Sin Collector sound useful.
Reclamation sage kills bridge and presents a clock. I really do not like abrupt decay in this deck and wound up pulling them; the corner case of killing Scavenging Ooze is really not enough to be a non-creature.
Edit: If you are worried about torpor orb, have one pridemage and one rec sage. S'usually what I do and it works. Yeah, decay beats counterspells, but that's such a tiny bit of the meta.
Would Reclamation Sage destroy a resolved Torpor Orb? Would chording in response for sage destroy an orb that had just been cast?
No, it would not kill one that had just been cast because once it hits the battlefield it works.
The reason to play one sage and one pridemage instead of abrupt decays is that it plays around pretty much all hate options and both can be hit off of collected company and chord, giving you pretty close to 6 virtual copies (1 for each chord, 1 for the card, and 1 for the set of companies is how I tend to think of playing singletons).
I would rather play Archangel/Feeder combo in the board than play non-creature spells to remove hate cards for our primary combo. I just do not understand the desire to dilute the creature based gameplan by jamming non-creature spells.
Just my two pence of course.
I agree with your reasoning regarding creatures. I don't ever want to drop below 29, and if I do I'm going to SB out a CoCo.
Don't you think Pridemage is always better than Sage considering the possibility of Torpor Orb? Especially with exalted ability. It's cost is the same as Sage right? 2 cmc + 1 to sac and destroy something.
Reclamation sage kills bridge and presents a clock. I really do not like abrupt decay in this deck and wound up pulling them; the corner case of killing Scavenging Ooze is really not enough to be a non-creature.
Edit: If you are worried about torpor orb, have one pridemage and one rec sage. S'usually what I do and it works. Yeah, decay beats counterspells, but that's such a tiny bit of the meta.
Would Reclamation Sage destroy a resolved Torpor Orb? Would chording in response for sage destroy an orb that had just been cast?
Rec Sage gets wrecked by Torpor Orb and Qasali by Damping Matrix, both rarely seen SB techs which completely screw with our strategy.
Thought so. Was thinking about adding sage to my SB, but doesn't sound so hot now. Pridemage and decay are fine.
Reclamation sage kills bridge and presents a clock. I really do not like abrupt decay in this deck and wound up pulling them; the corner case of killing Scavenging Ooze is really not enough to be a non-creature.
Edit: If you are worried about torpor orb, have one pridemage and one rec sage. S'usually what I do and it works. Yeah, decay beats counterspells, but that's such a tiny bit of the meta.
Would Reclamation Sage destroy a resolved Torpor Orb? Would chording in response for sage destroy an orb that had just been cast?
So does anyone have the list that won Bazzar of the Moxen 2016? It beat out UW Eldrazi in the finals which is interesting. I'd love add it to the primer.
Found the decklist. I don't see it in the primer, so I'm sure if you have. Nothing too fancy. 3 Voice main deck and 2 Worships in the SB: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11725&f=MO
I want to see if EE improves a stock(ish) build of the deck, while only dropping Company consistency by 5-10%
source bc math is hard:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10veMmh5Ds0i0Jhb3UJ_oaRA14Ybk8ll2bU4x2iiUEPU/edit#gid=1862430835
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots
2 Viscera Seer
2 Spellskite
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Voice of Resurgence
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Scavenging Ooze
Spells-10
2 Eldritch Evolution
4 Collected Company
4 Chord of Calling
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
4 Windswept Heath
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Gavony Township
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Thoughtseize
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Dauntless Escort
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Reveillark
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Kataki, War's Wage
I tried brewing toolbox type decks with Evolution and they aren't as good as Abzan Company. The idea here is that we're adding an additional 3 wild cards to help get whichever piece is needed and still maintaining 25 CoCo targets. I think I'm going to take this to FNM tomorrow night. Lately people have been playing a bunch of Dredge and Tron. If too many people are playing Tron, I might balk and play something else.
Any advice or suggestions? I would like more Voice of Resurgence and Tidehollow Sculler, but I don't own them.
** Revised list + 1 Scooze and - 1 Eldritch Evolution
Try it! It's fun!
Here's a link to deckstats:
http://deckstats.net/decks/61471/459525-ub-zombie-dragons/en
Any advise or suggestions?
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Mindwrack Demon
1 Deathbringer Regent
4 Dragonlord Silumgar
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
//Spells
1 Dispel
1 Negate
3 Corpse Churn
1 Grasp of Darkness
4 Silumgar's Scorn
2 Oath of Jace
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Read the Bones
1 To the Slaughter
1 Languish
3 Necromantic Summons
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
8 Island
8 Swamp
2 Ultimate Price
3 Dispel
1 To the Slaughter
2 Negate
2 Languish
3 Transgress the Mind
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 - 23 / 3 Gavony Township
I'm pretty excited. Just ordered my 4th Verdant Catacombs and 2nd Horizon Canopy, so I'll have a pretty complete build!!
2 - No.
3 - No -- 3.
4 - I have used SC in my sideboard, without much success. Small sample size.
5 - No.
6 - No. Dauntless Escort is awesome.
7 - Recently I've been using an all creature sideboard to keep with the theme of the deck.
8 - Oblivion Stone, Kozilek's Return, Damnation, Grafdigger's Cage... trying not to say Karn... Leyline of Punishment maybe?
9 - WORST: Tron, Bloodmoon, Tron.
BEST: Eldrazi, Eldrazi, Burn
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
4 Herald of Kozilek
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Oblivion Sower
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4 Artificer's Epiphany
Sorcery:
4 Crumble to Dust
Artifact:
4 Hedron Archive
Land:
2 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
3 Mountain
3 Island
4 Corrupted Crossroads
4 Wandering Fumarole
4 Shivan Reef
2 Battlefield Forge
2 Yavimaya Coast
I'm sold haha! Here's my SB for FNM tomorrow:
I haven't played this matchup yet, but it sounds really difficult. Spellskite could help a lot in game one. SB: Voice of Resurgence, Burrenton Forge Tender, Scavenging Ooze and Sin Collector sound useful.
I agree with your reasoning regarding creatures. I don't ever want to drop below 29, and if I do I'm going to SB out a CoCo.
Don't you think Pridemage is always better than Sage considering the possibility of Torpor Orb? Especially with exalted ability. It's cost is the same as Sage right? 2 cmc + 1 to sac and destroy something.
Thought so. Was thinking about adding sage to my SB, but doesn't sound so hot now. Pridemage and decay are fine.
Would Reclamation Sage destroy a resolved Torpor Orb? Would chording in response for sage destroy an orb that had just been cast?
Found the decklist. I don't see it in the primer, so I'm sure if you have. Nothing too fancy. 3 Voice main deck and 2 Worships in the SB:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11725&f=MO