Currently, our team is cooperating on getting a solid deck in for MOCS. This thus requires a different approach. Suffice to say, I'm ignoring Slaughter Games for the time being, since there are two decks that run it - Grixis [unbeatable] and Rakdos [very easy anyway].
I'm getting some angels in md and some in the sb. List is in a flux currently.
I tried out Sundering Growth but yeah, haven't really liked it. It'd have been different had I any tokens to populate, alas, I don't.
I'm virtually undefeated against Rakdos, G/W decks and in the mirror. To this date I only lost a match to G/W and once to mirror, both were results of horrible mulligans.
Bad news is, Grixis Control with Counterflux, Rakdos's Return, Slaughter Games (the real, crippling targets are Jace and Sphinx's Revelations) and the persistent Golgari. Golgari I'd say 40-60, Grixis is 30-70 at best.
A friend of mine comments that the deck's difficulty is 20 on the scale of 10 since I almost always 'win' with keyrune beatdown. I actually find it rather easy - you just play to survive, then start chaining revelations, then at some point you'll have a billion mana and cancel up on an empty board and just win from there.
SB is a flux as I try to figure out the best way to make use of it.
I know it's a bit weird that I'm not playing fat finishers in the maindeck, and it's not due budget reasons (I do play full jaces anyway). It's just that, in mid-late game when I can actually cast angel, I can start casting big revelations already and I really rather just sit back and enjoy the ride instead of gambling on a 7 drop that's vulnerable to Selesnya Charm and Aerial Predation. I like Lyevs, they're inexpensive, they're relevant in control mirrors, they kill walkers with ease and are just as real a finisher as a 5 power flier that's conviniently immune to selesnya charm.
I'm more or less convinced I'll be locked into playing this - maybe, maybe a few angels in the md, and I probably should get a few in the sb for Golgari.
Hit me up with your ideas and opinions, since block is like a deal few actually care about and I'd love to discuss it with players invested in it especially for the upcoming mocs.
I guess what bothers me about this deck is that it seems too fair. It will always be good but I don't know if it will ever be more than that.
I exclusively grind with Grixis Storm online. I've faced the deck 4 times now with a single game loss due to fizzle. All those 1/1s don't swing hard enough for you to care, so you just keep on drawing cards on your draw phase, Rotting Rats makes the rats player discard either business or land, both which severely limits their abilities to keep on applying pressure. Overall, I just think it's pretty weak, especially against Storm where it should be destroying.
I looked at the M12. I think there was a card called Timely Reinforcements and I believe RDW's doing worse than a tavern wench nowadays. I might be wrong though.
They're both easier to play than this guy. Heritage Druid doesn't even care about summoning sickness and Piledriver only rewards you for what you should already be doing - make goblins and turn them sideways.
This card needs to survive a turn, that you have 2 other creatures in play, have a creature die this turn... For a 5/5 Flier. Yeah that just doesn't cut it.
I like the power down, as a competitive-only player, and I think it could be toned a little more, especially the titans. I was disappointed when they were printed.
To me, as a competitive player [again, for emphasise], low-level power formats are appealing. It makes for less swingy games, leaves more room for interraction, and allows me to outplay my opponent. It was depressing enough to lose so many games because hey, your opponent drew his second BSA and you didn't draw your second Terror. Yeah.
Low-level formats allow wide array of decks being a possibility. Nothing can be "hosed" hard so everything, even bad decks are viable. This makes for more people wanting to run bad decks overall or play suboptimal decks because they beat "Best Deck" in their inbred testings. Again, this gives good competitive players an advantage.
It also makes room for a lot of good decks to be viable and picking a deck suddenly becomes relevant, unlike "Do I want my 2nd OR 3rd Venser in my Faeries deck?" or "How many Inkmoth Nexuses should I run in Caw/Blade". I enjoy those nitpiucky deckbuilding, only in eternal formats. T2 should be fast, fast enough that no deck should get to the point of refinement Faeries, Jund and Caw/Blade has gotten to. Being rogue becomes viable in a wide-open format. Choosing the right deck becomes relevant.
And I hate 2 things in Magic: Zoo decks and Junk decks. High power formats often make these decks come true. You either play Zoo which beats most control and loses to Junk, or you play Junk and you just hope one of your trump cards doesn't get answered. I don't enjoy the interractions there. Again, I'd rather interract with a variety of decks.
You have to understand that because Stromkirk Noble is worse than Goblin Guide doesn't mean RDW is getting toned down (Timely Reinforcements is the reason for that but that's neither here nor there). If everything is toned down, then the card that look bad compared to toys of yesterday become gold today. That's what I want to see.
Why is there even a discussion going on? This is very obviously a casual / EDH card, and maybe a fringe limited card if the format allows for stalemates. That's it.
Stromkirk noble is a TERRIBLE red one drop. Most of the time i see him trading for another 1/1, or being stopwalled by something wit 2 or 3 toughness. Maybe it'll become 2/2 or even 3/3 to be removed, whereas here's to say your opponent always has time to respond to its growth before it effects anything.
TERRIBLE.
I don't think this guy is really over the top or anything, and I do think he's being overratred.
That said, if you're running a red deck, and your creatures can't go through to get some damage across, you're doing something wrong with your burn spells.
Yeah the guy is nice. It's a real card. I don't understand the hype, especially seeing we're stuck with Timely Reinforcements for a year at least. It's not a good time to be casting red guys this year and if I were to cast one, I'd start with Grim Lavamancer before this, and that's splashing it in a control deck.
I imagine he could be a decent player in block though. Being immune to the new white Nekrataal is really cute.
There are a couple of valid reasons to play aggro:
1. It's the least mentally exhausting archetype. Not because it takes less "skill". I'd say, from most exhausting to least, Combo > Control > Aggro, and I consider most combo decks to take the least amount of skill, just a lot of practice and discipline.
Playing a large tournament with a control deck can be an exhausting affair, since your games generally go on longer than it would if you were playing an aggro deck, and there are more lines of play that are less subtle than if you wree playing an aggro deck. Most players are really not cut out for that mental exhaustion (No offense intended).
2. Fast aggro decks punish slow metas. It doesn't matter if you have 4 Cruel Ultimatums in your deck if you never get to cast them. Aggro decks are consistent in that they have a ton of redundancy, so they usually mulligan less and they mulligan better than control decks.
3. It's THE basic strategy. In some metas, you can just ride 2/2s for 2 to victory - See NMS block. You can't ever completely "hose" aggro decks, even if you pack DoJ. Aggro may not always be the best choice but it's never a "bad" choice in a given meta.
I'm getting some angels in md and some in the sb. List is in a flux currently.
I tried out Sundering Growth but yeah, haven't really liked it. It'd have been different had I any tokens to populate, alas, I don't.
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Azorius Guildgate
7 Plains
3 Lyev Skyknight
4 Cancel
4 Syncopate
4 Azorius Keyrune
4 Azorius Charm
4 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Detention Sphere
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Psychic Spiral
1 Lyev Skyknight
2 Sundering Growth
2 Archon of the Triumvirate
4 Dispel
3 Cyclonic Rift
2 Rest in Peace
I'm virtually undefeated against Rakdos, G/W decks and in the mirror. To this date I only lost a match to G/W and once to mirror, both were results of horrible mulligans.
Bad news is, Grixis Control with Counterflux, Rakdos's Return, Slaughter Games (the real, crippling targets are Jace and Sphinx's Revelations) and the persistent Golgari. Golgari I'd say 40-60, Grixis is 30-70 at best.
A friend of mine comments that the deck's difficulty is 20 on the scale of 10 since I almost always 'win' with keyrune beatdown. I actually find it rather easy - you just play to survive, then start chaining revelations, then at some point you'll have a billion mana and cancel up on an empty board and just win from there.
SB is a flux as I try to figure out the best way to make use of it.
I know it's a bit weird that I'm not playing fat finishers in the maindeck, and it's not due budget reasons (I do play full jaces anyway). It's just that, in mid-late game when I can actually cast angel, I can start casting big revelations already and I really rather just sit back and enjoy the ride instead of gambling on a 7 drop that's vulnerable to Selesnya Charm and Aerial Predation. I like Lyevs, they're inexpensive, they're relevant in control mirrors, they kill walkers with ease and are just as real a finisher as a 5 power flier that's conviniently immune to selesnya charm.
I'm more or less convinced I'll be locked into playing this - maybe, maybe a few angels in the md, and I probably should get a few in the sb for Golgari.
Hit me up with your ideas and opinions, since block is like a deal few actually care about and I'd love to discuss it with players invested in it especially for the upcoming mocs.
Nighthavk_
"Exile all graveyards from the game; or each player discards two cards; or each creature deals 1 damage to its controller."
Requesting an errata, wizards please.
Nighthavk_
In what magical christmasland is it happening? Because it's certainly not doing even fine in high profile nats or GPs.
This card needs to survive a turn, that you have 2 other creatures in play, have a creature die this turn... For a 5/5 Flier. Yeah that just doesn't cut it.
Obvious EDH / Casual / Fringe limited card.
To me, as a competitive player [again, for emphasise], low-level power formats are appealing. It makes for less swingy games, leaves more room for interraction, and allows me to outplay my opponent. It was depressing enough to lose so many games because hey, your opponent drew his second BSA and you didn't draw your second Terror. Yeah.
Low-level formats allow wide array of decks being a possibility. Nothing can be "hosed" hard so everything, even bad decks are viable. This makes for more people wanting to run bad decks overall or play suboptimal decks because they beat "Best Deck" in their inbred testings. Again, this gives good competitive players an advantage.
It also makes room for a lot of good decks to be viable and picking a deck suddenly becomes relevant, unlike "Do I want my 2nd OR 3rd Venser in my Faeries deck?" or "How many Inkmoth Nexuses should I run in Caw/Blade". I enjoy those nitpiucky deckbuilding, only in eternal formats. T2 should be fast, fast enough that no deck should get to the point of refinement Faeries, Jund and Caw/Blade has gotten to. Being rogue becomes viable in a wide-open format. Choosing the right deck becomes relevant.
And I hate 2 things in Magic: Zoo decks and Junk decks. High power formats often make these decks come true. You either play Zoo which beats most control and loses to Junk, or you play Junk and you just hope one of your trump cards doesn't get answered. I don't enjoy the interractions there. Again, I'd rather interract with a variety of decks.
You have to understand that because Stromkirk Noble is worse than Goblin Guide doesn't mean RDW is getting toned down (Timely Reinforcements is the reason for that but that's neither here nor there). If everything is toned down, then the card that look bad compared to toys of yesterday become gold today. That's what I want to see.
"Doesn't even fly in the kitchen table" means "It's not even viable in kitchen table".
I don't think this guy is really over the top or anything, and I do think he's being overratred.
That said, if you're running a red deck, and your creatures can't go through to get some damage across, you're doing something wrong with your burn spells.
I imagine he could be a decent player in block though. Being immune to the new white Nekrataal is really cute.
sure it does but gl paying 45 mana to kill an Emrakul with Spikeshot Elder.
1. It's the least mentally exhausting archetype. Not because it takes less "skill". I'd say, from most exhausting to least, Combo > Control > Aggro, and I consider most combo decks to take the least amount of skill, just a lot of practice and discipline.
Playing a large tournament with a control deck can be an exhausting affair, since your games generally go on longer than it would if you were playing an aggro deck, and there are more lines of play that are less subtle than if you wree playing an aggro deck. Most players are really not cut out for that mental exhaustion (No offense intended).
2. Fast aggro decks punish slow metas. It doesn't matter if you have 4 Cruel Ultimatums in your deck if you never get to cast them. Aggro decks are consistent in that they have a ton of redundancy, so they usually mulligan less and they mulligan better than control decks.
3. It's THE basic strategy. In some metas, you can just ride 2/2s for 2 to victory - See NMS block. You can't ever completely "hose" aggro decks, even if you pack DoJ. Aggro may not always be the best choice but it's never a "bad" choice in a given meta.