Quote from megatog201 »Yeah. Sorry man. I don't know your knowledge of the game but shocks are far better than pain lands.
I'm not a pro player by any means... but Chris Vanmeter had this to say in an article after the first week of M15 standard.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28984_Rats.html
I had initially planned on just swapping the Overgrown Tombs for Llanowar Wastes and callimg it a day, but after playing the deck a bunch (albeit it without any M15 cards) online over the last two weeks while streaming , I realized that was wrong.
I thought that with how often we want to use all of our mana every turn, Llanowar Wastes would do less damage to us in the long run than Overgrown Tomb. Incorrect. Between Scavenging Ooze using a lot of green mana, and our sideboard having a lot of black spells, it appeared that the painland would do more to us than the shock land would.
I did swap a Forest for a Llanowar Wastes because I wanted another black source in the deck to help support all of the black removal spells in the sideboard.
Now, ultimately he tested it and found out you would rather have the Overgrown Tombs, but the general point is that there is actually a question in 3 color decks of which lands to play between Shocks and Pain lands. And CVM actually went into testing assuming Llanowar Wastes would be better.
Exhibits B and C are the Jund Monsters decks from the top 8 of the Pro Tour. 4 Llanowar Wastes, only 2 Overgrown Tombs in both of the decks. One of those Jund Monsters decks plays Nissa, so playing a Pain-land over a shockland that is also a Forest is meaningful.
I kind of agree that the only creature in the deck should be Hierarch. I almost think Exalted Angel would be the better choice. It costs a bit more, but its a better creature. You gain 4 life with the Angel just as you would Hierarch, but you have to block with it to get the life.
I would think in this deck Meloku would be better than Vulturous Zombie, the Zombie can get huge in this deck, but playing him would require me to go a third color for just one card. If I go a third color maybe I could add in Putrefy and it might give me a bigger card pool to sideboard with.
But adding a third color will make all of my gold cards harder to cast because they cost two colored mana to cast.
I have already tried UG with counters to abust the deck with, but that didn't work cause there wern't enough green creatures to support the deck with, and there was nothing in blue.
Green/Black could work with that 2/1 1B fear guy, cause that will most likely get through and trigger Nature's Will, but what cards can you play in GB that will abuse the ability to untap after you deal damage to your opponent?
Green/Red has possibilities, theres that enchantment that lets you have another attack phase (probably not in t2 anymore) and you can use that.
I wouldn't cut the Genju's for Meloku, but you have to atleast put 1 in there since you are drawing so many cards you will probably end up drawing him anyway.
And who says he doesn't have synergy with the deck? You are stealing lands all day, so you should have 10 lands by turn 6 or 7. So you can return all of them to your hand and be swinging for 10 in the air next turn winning the game in two turns.
Kiega and the others aren't as good in this type of deck.
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Dark Banishing
4 Horobi's Whisper
4 Mana Leak
4 Consult the Necrosages
4 Psychic Drain
4 Twincast
4 Toshiro Umezawa
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
Land
4 Dimir Aqueduct
2 Duskmantle, House of Shadows
4 Watery Grave
7 Swamp
7 Island
Just cooked this up now, anything you can think of that might make the deck better off the top of your head?
Edit: The deck started off with a noticable synergy with Toshiro and Twincast and some of your mill cards. Is it worth it to keep him in the deck now or should I drop him for some more control or mill cards?