My favorite card is Reaper of the Wilds.
Year after starting MTG I bought a theros box upon theros release to pull reaper of the wilds. Upon reading it I knew it was something I would enjoy playing and what got me to want to start playing standard. Before I would only play limited. This was the card that pulled me into standard.
It brings a different sort of feel to the battlefield than any other card I have played with. It's a card that most of my opponents hate to see and instantly changes their strategies. It can trade 1 to 1 with bigger creatures, or start to stabilize the field by either starting to remove creatures or pause their attacks.
Go gorgons!
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- Durnam
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Member for 10 years, 3 months, and 22 days
Last active Fri, Jul, 8 2016 10:21:49
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the per
I have found lili to be very matchup dependent. Against blue I always side her out because that is the best card our opponent can remand other than rally losing valuable tempo. I run her as a one of right now because of this.
This is actually incorrect since both triggers happen at begining of your up keep you would put rallys trigger on the stack then Bob's. Bob would come off first then rallys betting you a card from Bob
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
4 Windswept Heath
4 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Isolated Chapel
1 Sunpetal Grove
2 Plains
1 Forest
1 Swamp
Creatures
1 Viscera Seer
4 Doomed Traveler
2 Young Wolf
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Blood Artist
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Dark Confidant
4 Lingering Souls
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Rally the Ancestors
1 Evolutionary Leap
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Stony Silence
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Stony Silence
After not playing Abzan Aristocrats in favor of abzan company I am back to playing the deck again due to the release of lilliana and evolutionary leap.
I tried for awhile to play collected company, and it was just terrible. The payoff was not enough for having trying to do a hit or miss combat trick/2 for 1 card that cost 4 mana. It was tough to execute against too many decks due to either too low of an impact late game/blue counters (remand hurts a lot)/not being proactive enough.
EVOLUTIONARY LEAP IS SIMPLY A BETTER CARD.
This card is absolutely insane in the abzan build. It can act as an additional sac engine (which was key!) keep your low mana creatures coming when you would otherwise run out of gas being the primo card advantage generator this deck was missing, and is nearly as fast as co company, but with a much more consistent payoff.
The mana base was very screwy with this card however and I think that can easily be fixed by running additional fetch lands (not due to budget reasons and waiting for bfz). I often was only able to get 2 green mana sources on the field which caused a bottle neck. Playing leap and not activating it when it comes into play hurts.
On to the matchup analysis.
I played in a fnm tourney of 35+ players for a total of 6 rounds. I played the following decks: Burn, Twin, Grixis Delve, Modern Cheeri0s Reboot, Cruel Control, then a jund land destruction brew. I went 4-2 losing to twin and delve.
All my wins come from favorable matchups, and my loses were unlucky/outplayed. So its really hard to determine how well this deck performed.
Burn game 3 was the only interesting game, I was down to 2 life then was able to get back in it via leap/seer with blood artist. I was leaping twice a turn due to only have 2 green mana, but with seer I was in no real danger of being burned out due to being able to get above 6 life at any time. He was also stuck on 2 mana most of the game. After turn 5 and you are still alive leap is absolutely bonkers.
Twin was a blowout, no removal game 1, and he had a spellskite game 2. He landed twin both games.
Grixis delve was a fluke I believe, game 1 I took easily, game 2 I misplayed, on turn 1 I played a swamp, turn 2 a forest when I had a fetch land that could fetch for a plains. I expected him to have sided in blood moon but didn't believe he already had it, I was wrong and turn 3 he played it and was never able to find a plains. Game 3 I kept drawing green cards without greeen mana, and at the exactly the right time he thought scoured a Forrest to my graveyard (WTF!) and wasn't able to play any of my cards.
Cherrio's he was on the play and went off on turn 2. Game 2 I path his Puresteel Paladin leading to a blowout. Game 3, he had to waste his grapeshot on my Eidolon of Rhetoric and drew into a path so I was in no danger of losing.
Cruel ultimatum went perfectly, he wasn't able to deal with bloodsoaked champion and by the time he could cast cruel ultimatium my board presence was looking at lethal through it. Aristocrats laughs at control decks.
Against land jund destruction, I am not sure how it went as it was after 1 AM. I was simply able to grind him out.
Will post more as I think about this deck more.
I see potentially 3 scenarios, all with minimal upside
1) Have a solid board presence but missing either cartel aristocrat or blood artist. You can dig for those pieces and you either find one, or you get closer to finding one by removing unneeded cards.
2) you have blood artist and cartel aristocrat but you need creatures. At worst you only find 1 creature but then you get rid of cards that get in your way of finding creatures.u Only bad scenario is scrying lingering souls to the bottom. At best you find 2 voices which is pure card advantage.
3) You have no board state, this is similar to scenario 2 where you at worst may scry lingering souls to the bottom, but will get closer to creatures you want.
This card is just pure card advantage in our shell. At worst it seems to be almost 'scry 6'. By the time we get to 4 mana, rarely do we need more lands and this avoid being land flooded.
Just quote another user who has a deck list in their post and copy how they did it.
Won against Blue Moon, lost to affinity, drew against storm, won against a hate bears variant(white lands only), won against Twin.
Due to money constraints the land situation wasn't optimal but went rather well in the 5 matches. Only a single match I felt like I had a color issue. Never played vault of the archangel but in the matchups that I think it would be used it seems like I already have the edge so I would like to cut that for another Verdant Catacombs. 3 Isolated Chapel and 3 Godless Shrine seems to be too much B/W lands for this deck. Switching out a Godless Shrine for a 3rd Overgrown Tomb sounds like the correct thing to have a better chance of not drawing a shrine and chapel hand as nearly any 2 dual land hand is keep-able as long as they are the same 2 colors.
Sideboard was just a mess as wasn't sure what to expect and will be vastly different the next time. Tragic slip was the most used card in the SB as a lot of matchups its useful in (twin, any creatures, even affinity)
Affinity just seems like a terrible matchup and I wonder if it's even worth trying to sideboard for it, or if it's better to focus on more 50/50 matchups and take the affinity lost if paired up.
So here's a few more indepth take aways:
Bloadsoaked champion into cartel aristocrat always felt like the best thing I could be doing, regardless of anything else I had in my hand. Swinging for 2 on turn 2 and having blocking protection on opponents turn made the difference in several games from playing from ahead and behind. Turn 1 young wolf or doomed traveler just didn't pack nearly as much punch. Then in the late game, was an extremely valuable mana sink. You always want it turn 1, but drawing any extra can be real back breaking.
This deck feels actually really good against blood moon and twin decks. Went 2-1 against both, blood moon was played twice in that match, against twin only trouble I had was spellskite.
Storm I simply had the wrong sideboard tech. Kor Firewalker would have been enough to sway the game I believe.
Decklist below:
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Isolated Chapel
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Plains
2 Forest
2 Swamp
Creatures
1 Viscera Seer
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Young Wolf
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Blood Artist
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Lingering Souls
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Rally the Ancestors
1 Cauldron Haze
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Rally the Ancestors
1 Cauldron Haze
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Stony Silence
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Tragic Slip
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Timely Reinforcements
Mana flexibility. 2 cmc vs 3 cmc and double white. Slightly better without a sac outlet as rally the ancestors is nearly dead without one while Cauldron Haze still protects your 2 toughness creatures providing you an extra blocker/pumps of voice token.
High probability of being a dead card makes me think it may not work that well, but the chances of it being another finisher similar to rally the ancestors makes me think it's worth testing.
There are often spoilers outside of "spoiler season" I suppose, but you can't rely on expecting those at any given time (except certain events and holidays). However official spoiler season should start march 2nd.
Khans of tarkir had a similar timeline.
First week of official spoilers started sept 1st source: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/khan-do-attitude-part-1-2014-09-01
Khans pre-release started sept 20th,
khans release date sept 26th.
Source: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1496
Dragons pre-release starts march 21st and release date march 27th.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-dragons-tarkir-2014-11-03
Large set so there will be 3 weeks of spoilers before pre-release.