I'm currently building Yuuya's list, and I picked up Flickerwisps as a budget option to do a similar deal (value 3/1 flier). While I certainly miss the hand disruption, and almost moreso the instant speed, I have to say I've been impressed with how it has performed for a substitute piece:
They can reset DSpheres to catch more important targets, or more of the same target that have popped up.
They play well with Restoration Angel, where you can Angel the wisp on your end step to exile anything problematic they control until the end of next turn. The extra turn you get from sending their Angler or Voice of Resurgence home for the turn can be extremely helpful.
Even better, you can also Flickerwisp an Angel, then when it comes back on end step restore the Flickerwisp to do the same as above.
They can just give you more value out of pretty much every creature in your deck. More finks life, more WoO cards, more Sun Titan triggers.
You can play them as a two-mana 3/1 flier by restoring your own lands, allowing you to hold up counter mana.
You can minus a planeswalker and get your loyalty back, no charge.
"Ghost quarter your Swamp? Swing with Sun Titan, bring back ghost quarter, kill your Blood Crypt? Flickerwisp the titan, end step bring back Ghost Quarter, strip mine your Overgrown Tomb?" (that's not really a reason, I just wanted to share a moment I had playtesting)
I am not sure why people have a problem with cheap decks. Decks should not be piles of the most expensive cards, it makes for terrible magic. Also burn is extremely hard to play well. A single miss timed attack or spell and you lost the game. There is zero margin for error with the deck, and you need be good at reading tells. While the deck might be easy to play, it is very hard to play well. Also, people focus on interactive like the only way to do that is with creatures and spells being thrown at creatures. Something as simple as determine spell sequencing based on their mana left open is extremely important. People are far too narrow on the interactive definition. Not every game needs to be 25 turns to be interactive.
Well the issue is, with rare exception (decks of mostly common/uncommon printings, especially recent ones), cards are expensive because they're good, not the other way around. Being good means lots of people want them, and demand goes up. As Magic has grown logarithmically, supply for older good cards is often fractions of what's needed to satiate everyone's demand. High demand and low supply leads to tier 1 decks being primarily composed of cards worth dozens or even hundreds individually, because they go in lots of different decks. As such, each of those decks turns out in the hundreds of dollars range.
The few decks which don't share a pool of high-quality cards with a bunch of other decks usually, but not always, turn out much cheaper. Affinity benefits from both this and being made of a great number of commons/uncommons, but is still very expensive because it's currently one of the biggest metagame players at the moment. This also benefits Burn and Zoo (except for Goyf kek).
Cost: $2.97 according to the low prices on TCGplayer on 10/10/14.
Effectiveness: There are much better white weenie or even soldier tribal decks. But it lets you vomit your hand pretty quickly, and stands up to getting Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods'd surprisingly well.
So does anybody have any advice for aggro matchups? It's the only one which gives me real trouble, unless I curve into combo perfectly (turn 3 Tolaria->Memnite, turn 4 Ritual-> Storm/Memnite/Emrakul) then I usually just lose first, and the bolts/Electrolyzes I have aren't enough to handle it.
Other matchups:
Twin: Their combo is faster than ours, but we can also just bolt Pestermite/Exarch when they land the turn before Twin; it's less resilient. About 50/50 win/loss.
Burn: Well timed Condescend/Remand or Bolt the Goblin Guide usually gives us time to combo off before we die, and the annihilator 6 is backbreaking when lands are your only permanents. 70/30 or so.
Scapeshift: This matchup's all about baiting your opponent to try to go off first, countering, and then comboing; depending on their list. Shadow of Doubt is a great sideboard to shut it down g2/g3. 50/50, with match 1 being harder than match 2/3.
Storm: Remand/Condescend at the right point to fizzle them, then go off. Needs a good curve, and graveyard hate options for the sideboard are limited without Grafdigger's Cage/Tormod's Crypt. 30/70.
Those are the decks I've playtested against so far with the deck.
Iona, Shield of Emeria is something I've been running in the sideboard -- it's pretty fun to pull against Goryo's Vengeance, Storm, 8Rack, Burn, etc; since you can literally turn their deck off.
You pay the sacrifice cost when you play the spell ("As an additional cost to play..."). After it's been played, you don't need to pay the cost for each copy created by Howl of the Horde, just as you don't need to pay 1R for each copy.
I'm not exactly sure what I found to be wrong with it, since you bring it up. Playing it on turn 3 in my deck was so-so, because it felt like it's only purpose was to sit there. My build is control-ish, so I didn't have a bunch of pressure and burn to back him up. If he did have a bunch of pressure, though, I think it would be great.
There is, like you said, the option of playing him on turn 6 or 5 as well. This also seemed awkward. On turn 6 or 5 my opponent had Elspeth, or Xenagos, or had killed me from aggro. Instead of using Knuckleblade, which waited in my hand until turn 6, I felt like a planeswalker was better, since it came down on turn 4 or 3 (and had etb effect.) I felt the same way about Sagu Mauler too. If you think about it, Sagu is really similar to Knuckleblade when waiting for six mana - except that you don't have to pay for Sagu to dodge removal, and with Knuckleblade you do.
Another card that I am not liking so much is Temur Charm. Does this ever do anything other than counter? I feel like I might as well play Dissolve, it has a bonus and is more consistent.
Yeah, I see your list is definitely more control-oriented. I haven't really had an issue with planeswalkers, since usually I just Stubborn Denial them or Temur Charm whatever blockers they have -- either pound them to the graveyard (I definitely use the first mode at least as much as mode 2, and mode 3 is occasionally useful) or use 3rd mode when they have Elspeth tokens out, then swing at the planeswalker with my 6/6 dude. I think with your deck, you're closer to RUG control than monsters, and might want to build as such; Elspeth as a wincon and cards like Mindswipe/Crater's Claws to take advantage of the ramp, along with one or two fatties maybe.
Really? I'm surprised, Savage Knuckleblade has been bonkers every time I've played it so far, especially later in the game when you have mana open to haste it and bounce it to your hand whenever. It's like Ætherling for beatdown decks -- it puts a fast clock on your opponent, is very fat, and can dodge basically any removal. I usually don't even play it until I have 6 mana out, unless I know the opponent is out of removal options for it or I'm holding up Stubborn Denial.
I'm gonna be honest, Surrak Dragonclaw doesn't actually impress me as much as he first did either. He's essentially a 6/6 haste stapled to a very expensive combat trick, which is nice but not useful if your opponent isn't playing an aggressive deck. And leaving 5 mana open is really suspicious. I think this stems from the fact that creature counters aren't big in this standard, all we have is Dissolve. He's still definitely sideboard material against control decks, but I might switch him out of the maindeck in favor of more Sagu Mauler.
So here's what I've been playtesting. Polis Crusher will probably get relegated entirely to the sideboard in favor of something else, maybe a 3rd Sagu Mauler. Dorks and Savage Knuckleblade are core. I like having Goblin Rabblemaster as a four-of because multiples of him on the field are terrifying. He also plays well with Stoke the Flames. Icy Blast and Mindswipe can be blowouts against the right decks, so they're good sideboard material. Annul might get swapped for something else, but I like it against control/midrange. Same for Polis Crusher. Feed the Clan is something I like to have to side in against hyper aggro decks, since unless we get early Caryatid, they can do a lot of damage before we get a safe Knuckleblade or Rabblemaster on board. Stubborn Denial 4-of maindeck might seem weird, but I've literally never had it as a dead card in this deck. One-mana negate is kind of dumb. I talked about why I like See the Unwritten previously. Temur Charm is amazing, all three modes are ridiculous -- "Deal 5-7 damage to target creature", mana leak, and "walk over your opponent".
You could try Herald of Torment, like the guy above you suggested. A herald'd groundpounder should block whatever's in the air well enough. If fliers are a big enough issue in your meta, Plummet or Windstorm are options. Arbor Colossus ain't a bad beater, but he costs a sideboard slot all the same. Should handily stop whatever flier he's throwing, though.
Set Adrift might not be bad for the sideboard as a bounce -- it's a pretty huge tempo swing sometimes, and we have room for a delve card or two.
Polis Crusher only "hoses" enchantment decks, which aren't exactly all the rage, but he's immune to Banishing Light/Suspension Field, and plows through stuff like Courser of Kruphix. His monstrous makes a good mana sink, too. I agree he's probably one of my swap-out-for-something-else slots, but I'm going to test him some more. He'll still have a place in the sideboard against enchantment/control, even if he's not where he needs to be.
I've been running See the Unwritten as a two-of, and it's been going well for me. Resolving it and getting Sagu Mauler + Savage Knuckleblade for a one-card+huge tempo advantage (of high card quality because you dug 8 for them) is usually a "GG" if it resolves. Really gives the deck the power to plow through the late game when both players are low on gas. Usually side it out for G2, as it's a lot less good when your opponents are expecting it and holding up End Hostilities or whatever, but it hasn't failed to win me a game upon resolution yet.
No love for Sagu Mauler? The dude's pretty resilient, evasive, and we have ramp available. If you flash out Surrak Dragonclaw the previous turn, he's pretty hard to deal with.
Also, I agree on the "more caryatid" front as well.
I disagree on the "Mantis Rider ... [isn't] great". The dude's huge pressure, and puts air pressure that we don't have in Judge's Familiar or Cloudfin Raptor anymore; haste lets him maintain about the same pressure those guys did, a +1/+1 counter or Ghostfire Blade activates Stubborn Denial and Icy Blast, I think he's a pretty sold beater.
Jeskai Charm is great, but the difficulty in both having the mana and being able to hold it up is kind of lame. I'm not doing 4 of, but the damage wins me games sometimes, and being able to put their Ensoul'd Darksteel Citadel on top of their deck is pretty great; I'm running two right now. Izzet Charm didn't do nearly as much, but it was also CC and not CCC.
Goblin Rabblemaster's in my list now, alone he's okay but when you have multiples he's pretty terrifying. He fits well in this deck because we have the tools to protect him too, especially if they try a combat trick (since he has the power for ferocious then).
Ride Down I go back and forth on; sometimes it's dead, but when it's not it's almost always a blowout for me, essentially Lava Axe stapled to Murder. I'll probably put it in the sideboard, but it could definitely be mainboard material depending on the meta.
Monastery Swiftspear got worse when I shifted the balance towards creatures, but it's still not terrible. I am looking at other 1-drops, though.
Control's easily the worst game 1 matchup for me, but it gets a ton better post-sideboard where I can take out stuff like Ride Down and shove in Annul/Negate; the deck can still easily win before the game gets late enough as long as we draw one or two protective spells.
Tokens are another tough one, if I get air pressure (Mantis Rider or Ensoul'd Ornithopters) then we win, but i can't handle a dozen 1/1 tokens.
So it looks like I went full-on into URW aggro-control territory. Still have ensoul artifact, but I dropped gen servant-> doom because of unreliability. I'm not really in this deck's territory anymore (I think there's a lot of dig and good combo pieces/enablers in KTK to make this deck, I just didn't do it here). I'll still post my findings for good measure, though.
You can ignore the Howl of the Horde if you want -- it's not nearly reliable enough to make the competitive cut, but I got to swing with a 5/5 Ornithopter, Howl, and Shrapnel Blast for OTK when I was testing 2 of it, but only once. It was a lot of fun, but usually it's dead.
Some of the sideboard is random stuff, I don't know what the meta's like, since everyone on 'trice is testing stuff too, and some of it is really bad. Annul might be able to come out, but Banishing Light is still enough of an issue that I like to have it. Jeskai Charm/Ride Down and bounce spells all work really well with prowess, Mantis Rider is a lightning rod for your opponent's removal given that everything else is fairly resilient or a one-drop. Phyrexian Revoker got even better with Nissa, Sarkhan, and all the Outlast creatures. I can't remember having to drop it without a target. Monastery Swiftspear works very well with all of the spells, it gets Prowessed to at least 3/4 pretty regularly if your opponent is trying anything.
edit: grammar
Well the issue is, with rare exception (decks of mostly common/uncommon printings, especially recent ones), cards are expensive because they're good, not the other way around. Being good means lots of people want them, and demand goes up. As Magic has grown logarithmically, supply for older good cards is often fractions of what's needed to satiate everyone's demand. High demand and low supply leads to tier 1 decks being primarily composed of cards worth dozens or even hundreds individually, because they go in lots of different decks. As such, each of those decks turns out in the hundreds of dollars range.
The few decks which don't share a pool of high-quality cards with a bunch of other decks usually, but not always, turn out much cheaper. Affinity benefits from both this and being made of a great number of commons/uncommons, but is still very expensive because it's currently one of the biggest metagame players at the moment. This also benefits Burn and Zoo (except for Goyf kek).
4 Veteran Armorer
4 Revered Dead
4 Azorius Arrester
4 Ballyrush Banneret
4 Nyxborn Shieldmate
4 Archetype of Courage
4 Boros Elite
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Weight of Conscience
Lands:
20 Plains
Cost: $2.97 according to the low prices on TCGplayer on 10/10/14.
Effectiveness: There are much better white weenie or even soldier tribal decks. But it lets you vomit your hand pretty quickly, and stands up to getting Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods'd surprisingly well.
Upgrade Paths: Brimaz, King of Oreskos and Honor of the Pure are both very powerful in white weenies while also costing actual money. Going Boros for cheap removal like Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, and Pillar of Flame as well as finisher cards like Dynacharge is another option.
Other matchups:
Twin: Their combo is faster than ours, but we can also just bolt Pestermite/Exarch when they land the turn before Twin; it's less resilient. About 50/50 win/loss.
Burn: Well timed Condescend/Remand or Bolt the Goblin Guide usually gives us time to combo off before we die, and the annihilator 6 is backbreaking when lands are your only permanents. 70/30 or so.
Scapeshift: This matchup's all about baiting your opponent to try to go off first, countering, and then comboing; depending on their list. Shadow of Doubt is a great sideboard to shut it down g2/g3. 50/50, with match 1 being harder than match 2/3.
Storm: Remand/Condescend at the right point to fizzle them, then go off. Needs a good curve, and graveyard hate options for the sideboard are limited without Grafdigger's Cage/Tormod's Crypt. 30/70.
Those are the decks I've playtested against so far with the deck.
You pay the sacrifice cost when you play the spell ("As an additional cost to play..."). After it's been played, you don't need to pay the cost for each copy created by Howl of the Horde, just as you don't need to pay 1R for each copy.
Yeah, I see your list is definitely more control-oriented. I haven't really had an issue with planeswalkers, since usually I just Stubborn Denial them or Temur Charm whatever blockers they have -- either pound them to the graveyard (I definitely use the first mode at least as much as mode 2, and mode 3 is occasionally useful) or use 3rd mode when they have Elspeth tokens out, then swing at the planeswalker with my 6/6 dude. I think with your deck, you're closer to RUG control than monsters, and might want to build as such; Elspeth as a wincon and cards like Mindswipe/Crater's Claws to take advantage of the ramp, along with one or two fatties maybe.
I'm gonna be honest, Surrak Dragonclaw doesn't actually impress me as much as he first did either. He's essentially a 6/6 haste stapled to a very expensive combat trick, which is nice but not useful if your opponent isn't playing an aggressive deck. And leaving 5 mana open is really suspicious. I think this stems from the fact that creature counters aren't big in this standard, all we have is Dissolve. He's still definitely sideboard material against control decks, but I might switch him out of the maindeck in favor of more Sagu Mauler.
4 Savage Knuckleblade
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Surrak Dragonclaw
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Polis Crusher
2 Rattleclaw Mystic
2 Sagu Mauler
Lands
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Mana Confluence
4 Shivan Reef
3 Temple of Mystery
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Temple of Abandon
2 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Temur Charm
3 Stoke the Flames
2 See the Unwritten
4 Stubborn Denial
3 Mindswipe
3 Icy Blast
3 Trap Essence
2 Annul
2 Feed the Clan
2 Polis Crusher
So here's what I've been playtesting. Polis Crusher will probably get relegated entirely to the sideboard in favor of something else, maybe a 3rd Sagu Mauler. Dorks and Savage Knuckleblade are core. I like having Goblin Rabblemaster as a four-of because multiples of him on the field are terrifying. He also plays well with Stoke the Flames. Icy Blast and Mindswipe can be blowouts against the right decks, so they're good sideboard material. Annul might get swapped for something else, but I like it against control/midrange. Same for Polis Crusher. Feed the Clan is something I like to have to side in against hyper aggro decks, since unless we get early Caryatid, they can do a lot of damage before we get a safe Knuckleblade or Rabblemaster on board. Stubborn Denial 4-of maindeck might seem weird, but I've literally never had it as a dead card in this deck. One-mana negate is kind of dumb. I talked about why I like See the Unwritten previously. Temur Charm is amazing, all three modes are ridiculous -- "Deal 5-7 damage to target creature", mana leak, and "walk over your opponent".
Edit: tagging cards
Edit2: As a side note, has anybody else noticed that four damage seems to be the place to be this standard? Savage Knuckleblade, Polukranos, Eater of Worlds, Stormbreath Dragon, Courser of Kruphix, Butcher of the Horde, Xenagos, the Reveler, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, are all looking like staples here. There's Nyx-Fleece Ram, Siege Rhino, and some planeswalkers that immediately +1 to 5, though.
Polis Crusher only "hoses" enchantment decks, which aren't exactly all the rage, but he's immune to Banishing Light/Suspension Field, and plows through stuff like Courser of Kruphix. His monstrous makes a good mana sink, too. I agree he's probably one of my swap-out-for-something-else slots, but I'm going to test him some more. He'll still have a place in the sideboard against enchantment/control, even if he's not where he needs to be.
I've been running See the Unwritten as a two-of, and it's been going well for me. Resolving it and getting Sagu Mauler + Savage Knuckleblade for a one-card+huge tempo advantage (of high card quality because you dug 8 for them) is usually a "GG" if it resolves. Really gives the deck the power to plow through the late game when both players are low on gas. Usually side it out for G2, as it's a lot less good when your opponents are expecting it and holding up End Hostilities or whatever, but it hasn't failed to win me a game upon resolution yet.
Also, I agree on the "more caryatid" front as well.
Jeskai Charm is great, but the difficulty in both having the mana and being able to hold it up is kind of lame. I'm not doing 4 of, but the damage wins me games sometimes, and being able to put their Ensoul'd Darksteel Citadel on top of their deck is pretty great; I'm running two right now. Izzet Charm didn't do nearly as much, but it was also CC and not CCC.
Goblin Rabblemaster's in my list now, alone he's okay but when you have multiples he's pretty terrifying. He fits well in this deck because we have the tools to protect him too, especially if they try a combat trick (since he has the power for ferocious then).
Ride Down I go back and forth on; sometimes it's dead, but when it's not it's almost always a blowout for me, essentially Lava Axe stapled to Murder. I'll probably put it in the sideboard, but it could definitely be mainboard material depending on the meta.
Monastery Swiftspear got worse when I shifted the balance towards creatures, but it's still not terrible. I am looking at other 1-drops, though.
Control's easily the worst game 1 matchup for me, but it gets a ton better post-sideboard where I can take out stuff like Ride Down and shove in Annul/Negate; the deck can still easily win before the game gets late enough as long as we draw one or two protective spells.
Tokens are another tough one, if I get air pressure (Mantis Rider or Ensoul'd Ornithopters) then we win, but i can't handle a dozen 1/1 tokens.
4 Ornithopter
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Mantis Rider
3 Goblin Rabblemaster
Spells
4 Ensoul Artifact
3 Shrapnel Blast
2 Feat of Resistance
2 Jeskai Charm
3 Ride Down
4 Stubborn Denial
4 Shivan Reef
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Mountain
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Mana Confluence
2 Flooded Strand
Artifacts
2 Springleaf Drum
2 Ghostfire Blade
2 Annul
2 Void Snare
2 Hubris
2 Negate
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Icy Blast
3 Ornithopter
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Mantis Rider
Enchantments (4)
4 Ensoul Artifact
Instants (18)
4 Stubborn Denial
2 Magma Jet
3 Jeskai Charm
3 Ride Down
2 Shrapnel Blast
4 Feat of Resistance
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Shivan Reef
3 Flooded Strand
4 Battlefield Forge
5 Mountain
2 Island
2 Plains
Sorcery (1-of-fun-of)
1 Howl of the Horde
You can ignore the Howl of the Horde if you want -- it's not nearly reliable enough to make the competitive cut, but I got to swing with a 5/5 Ornithopter, Howl, and Shrapnel Blast for OTK when I was testing 2 of it, but only once. It was a lot of fun, but usually it's dead.
Some of the sideboard is random stuff, I don't know what the meta's like, since everyone on 'trice is testing stuff too, and some of it is really bad. Annul might be able to come out, but Banishing Light is still enough of an issue that I like to have it. Jeskai Charm/Ride Down and bounce spells all work really well with prowess, Mantis Rider is a lightning rod for your opponent's removal given that everything else is fairly resilient or a one-drop. Phyrexian Revoker got even better with Nissa, Sarkhan, and all the Outlast creatures. I can't remember having to drop it without a target. Monastery Swiftspear works very well with all of the spells, it gets Prowessed to at least 3/4 pretty regularly if your opponent is trying anything.
edit: tagging cards.