Played Humans at GP OKC; went 7-2 into 1-5. On the plane home as I type this.
Matchups were
Bye, Bye
4c Shadow - W
Affinity - L. Nut draws against me. Our best hands can't beat their best hands. Couldn't find one of my 3 Izzet Staticasters or 2 Vithian Renegades.
Storm - W
Eldrazi Aggro - W
Affinity - W
Storm - W
Grixis Shadow - L. I probably should have won this matchup but I punted.
Day 2
Grixis Shadow - W
GW Elves - L. This matchup is tough. Didn't find any sideboard cards and died.
GB Tron - L. I'm up against Corey Baumeister. I know he's on GB Tron because I roomed with Manfield for the weekend and they were on very similar lists. I had a great hand in game 2 but Baumeister cast a turn 3 Wurmcoil and a turn 4 Ugin.
RW Chalice - L. Opponent cast a turn 2 Blood Moon on the play with SSG and then named Aether Vial with Sorcerous Spyglass the following turn. This RW Chalice deck isn't great but it sure kicks the crap out of Humans.
Titanshift - L. In game 1, opponent played a turn 3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar and blocked me long enough for them to construct Valakut.
Jund - L. In game 3, opponent played a turn 1 Grim Lavamancer on the play. I had brought in the Dismembers, but never drew them or Reflector Mage.
I think I had reasonable matchups in Day 1, but lost the matchup lottery in day 2.
Throughout the entire weekend, it felt like I had very few decisions, and that I made the wrong ones for the one or two times where it was really relevant. Sometimes you Meddling Mage name one card that beats you and instead they have the other card that beats you.
I'm pretty down on Humans after this weekend. I still think it is a solid tier 2 deck that can be very good in the right meta, but that it is somewhat under-powered. I will enumerate my reasons below so that people can more easily follow and respond:
(1) Your most busted hands aren't as powerful as the most busted hands of decks like Affinity, Titanshift, or Tron.
(2) Our disruption package gets way worse postboard. People bring in a variety of removal spells, so that naming a card like Supreme Verdict could still get you blown out by Settle the Wreckage. It is also sometimes difficult to guess the right hate card, since people often bring their pet cards. And most decks have access to a lot of powerful sideboard cards against Humans. If other decks want to beat Humans by committing enough sideboard slots to the matchup, they usually can.
(3) There are some really bad matchups: GB Tron, Titanshift, Lantern, and Jeskai. These decks are on the rise and are very, very hard to beat. I do not think any Humans players have figured out a good sideboard strategies for these matchups. I understand that people are going to respond to this by saying they have had success versus some of these decks but I'd caution that you need to observe your results over a larger sample of games.
(4) The matchups that I thought were reasonable are actually pretty close, if not bad: people are learning how to beat Humans and are coming to tournaments with better sideboard plans. These decks include Affinity, Junk, Jund, and BW Hatebears.
(5) Humans has a very hard time playing from behind. This means that you are especially punished when you have to mulligan. You need to run above expectation to go deep in a tournament.
(6) As a corollary to the above, it is very difficult to leverage skill differences when you are playing from behind as Humans. I had lots of opponents make suboptimal decisions with their removal spells. For example, I had an opponent use Dismember on a Hierarch on an otherwise empty board when they had 2 more Fatal Pushes in hand and no fetches, meaning they would later have a hard time removing a Mantis Rider. This ended up not costing them the game, even though my opponent ended up taking a bunch of damage from my Mantis Rider, as I had mulliganed and my draws were anemic and so I was basically playing from behind all game. Had I had a more powerful opening hand, they would have lost this game. (To be sure, it is true that it is easy to play ahead with all decks, but more powerful decks like Storm and Tron are more capable of punishing someone for suboptimal plays.)
(7) It actually isn't too hard to play against Humans if you are packing enough removal. Just point and click and you will probably be fine.
(8) This might be obvious, but the deck is very, very play/draw dependent.
If your meta is filled with Eldrazi Tron and Storm, then I think Humans would remain a strong deck choice. And to be sure, there aren't any completely unwinnable matchups: sometimes you have a fast 2 Champion 2 Lieutenant hand and run them over.
That said, I probably would not be bringing this to an event like a GP, Open, or PT. (at least for the time being)
You can play Stony Silence and Kataki if you want, there are just going to be a number of games where you can't cast them and lose.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" answer to these questions, to be honest. At least in the sense that, it would take an enormous amount of games to have reliable statistical evidence to show whether you win more or less with a card like Stony Silence in your deck. I think the relevant things you need to consider are (1) how risk averse are you? Are you willing to sacrifice consistency for overall power? (2) what kind of playstyle do you have? Do you prefer to lock people out of games (with cards like Stony Silence) or do you prefer to grind them out with Staticasters and Vithian Renegades? and (3) what is the meta like that you play in? Do you see a lot of Affinity? If so, maybe we want to play the higher power level cards like Stony Silence that are more narrow than a card like Izzet Staticaster.
A lot of people like to say, "oh that's bad," without giving the above questions their due attention. I think this forum is actually pretty good in the sense that people are very open to new ideas.
All of that said, I think Stony Silence is a perfectly reasonable card. I haven't been playing it because I've actually had a lot of success versus Affinity with Izzet Staticasters and Vithian Renegades.
Right now, the things I'm trying versus Jeskai are Lightning Greaves, Thorn of Amethyst, Geist of Saint Traft, and Chalice of the Void. (edit: I should say, I think the match-up is pretty bad for Humans and I'm getting desperate.)
I think Invisible Stalker is a neat idea but a 1/1 body is not enough, especially when we aren't always drawing our lords.
I'm also playing 2 Phantasmal Image, which has been pretty great for me so far. (I'm using the same mana-base).
Any thoughts on rogue refiner? Decent body + ETB card draw means it provides immediate value.
I prefer my three drops to impact the board immediately. I'd want a card like this in Jeskai matchups, but the fact that it gets blocked by Snapcaster Mage is pretty bad. That said, give it a shot and let us know!
tl;dr: on the weekend, we really beat up on the Company decks, Storm, Eldrazi Tron. Had some close games versus Affinity and Dredge. We went 0-3 versus Titanshift, 0-2 versus Lantern, and 0-3 versus Jeskai.
I almost always want to go big with Lieutenants to take them out of bolt/anger range, to make them bigger than goyfs, etc. There are exceptions to this but it all depends on the matchup, the context, and so on. I very infrequently end up intentionally putting counters on my Mayors of Avabruck.
Hanweir Garrison has been pretty mediocre for me. He gets blocked and doesn't have haste.
Dark Confidant doesn't just come in versus the attrition matchups, he also is just fine versus a lot of other decks, like Eldrazi Tron, Company, Smallpox, etc. I really don't understand the Mentor of the Meek > Dark Confidant argument, if anyone is making that. They both die to everything (listen, we're Humans, we die to everything regardless), but one requires you to (1) have another creature in hand and (2) to pay mana to activate. Mentor of the Meek doesn't even trigger off of Mantis Riders or your other 2-power creatures if you have a Mayor in play. He also lends himself to a bad play pattern where you want to run him out before your other threats (which exposes him to a higher likelihood of removal). I'm happy for ya'll if Mentor is working for you, but I'll stick with Dark Confidant.
In other news, just got back from the Invitational. My 75 went 24-9 on the weekend. I went 3-1 in the Invitational (yea I'm bad at Standard), my friend Jake went 5-2 in the Modern Classic (having never played the deck), and my friend James O'Shaughnessy went 7-1 in the Invitational, ending up 9th overall, missing top 8 on breakers. I also went 9-6 in the Modern Open, after finishing day 1 in 7th at 7-2 (it was a small open).
I have a lot of thoughts on the deck, heard about some people trying new things. I'll write up a report later today.
It's an interesting idea. I know some Infect builds that have been playing 2 Shaper's Sanctuary in their board versus attrition matchups.
My biggest concern is the manabase. It is very difficult to cast non-creature spells in this deck. For example, there are only 8 green sources of mana in my build, of which 4 are Noble Hierarch!
That's not to say that the idea is without merit. We would just need to change around the manabase -- possibly cut some Ancient Ziggurats and fastlands, add some fetches.
@Octa-bit
For example say you have freebooter and meddling Mage, and your opponent has push, path, and engineered explosives.
For what it's worth, I've been thinking about adding a second Sin Collector to my sideboard to handle this issue.
This is actually a really great example to go over. First, it's important to realize that you're not going to be able to keep themoff of killing both of these creatures and having a removal spell left over if they plays perfectly. Second, while there aren't any great lines for us, there is one awful line to avoid: we don't want both our Freebooter and Mage to get killed with the EE.
We want to induce bad plays by our opponents, and we want our opponent to end up with the worst removal spell. Since we're playing versus Junk, we want that spell to be Fatal Push. First, our opponent might not be able to trigger Revolt later, so it might be dead versus Mantis Riders. Second, if this is a post-board game, Push doesn't kill Mirran Crusader at all. Third, maybe we want to get our Plains off the Path to Exile. Fourth, we want to get the EE out of their hand because it can potentially hit more than one of our creatures.
To make my example more clear, let's assume we have Freebooter, Mage, and a land in hand, with 4 mana available and a Vial on 2.
Here, I would cast Kitesail Freebooter first. Again, I want to induce my opponent into using their removal poorly. If my opponent kills Freebooter with the trigger on the stack, that is just fine. I would name the other instant speed removal spell with Meddling Mage to make him use Engineered Explosives on my Mage. Hopefully my opponent spend his entire next turn using the EE to kill the Meddling Mage. Of course, if their life total is high enough, they might just take a few hits first. EE on 2 to kill our Meddling Mage is a bit awkward for Junk, though, since they have Tarmogoyfs, Grim Flayers, and Scavenging Oozes.
If they let the Freebooter trigger resolve, I'd probably take the Fatal Push. I'd then cast Meddling Mage. If we're able to convince our opponent that our third card in hand was another Freebooter or Meddling Mage, they might fire off the Path to kill the Freebooter with Mage on the stack. If so, we just name Fatal Push. If they don't fire off the Path, I would name Engineered Explosives. They would be left with a Path to Exile as their only removal spell. In this spot, they'd get to choose whether they end up with Engineered Explosives or Fatal Push as their final removal spell (since they could Path either the Mage or the Freebooter, getting back the EE or Push respectively).
Again, if our opponent plays perfectly, they would be able to pick the EE or the Push as the spell the end up with after killing both our creatures, depending on what they draw next turn. If they are a higher life total, they probably want to get the EE back since it has the upside of potentially hitting two creatures, even though it is less efficient of a removal spell. The point, though, is to create several decision points that gives our opponent the opportunity to play poorly. In the situations I described above, there were at least two situations where our opponent would play suboptimally (e.g., killing Freebooter with trigger on the stack or killing Freebooter with Meddling Mage on the stack).
I'm not sure how that list would play out vs. Humans. Probably closer than some of these Tokens lists, but getting card advantage from Dark Confidant or sweepers like EE or Damnation is a big part of how Jund/Junk beat Humans. Zealous Persecution could go a long way here if you're able to snipe Dark Confidants, Noble Hierarchs, Thalias, etc.
Vault of the Archangel might just be KO vs Humans if you have time to activate it.
@Edelweiss
I've tried Kambal a little bit but it's worse than Canonist versus Storm just because it's 3 mana instead of 2. Kambal is certainly better vs. Burn, where it is quite great (not dying to Grim Lavamancer is very nice). Kambal doesn't seem great in a lot of other matchups. I don't think he is better than your other cards like Meddling Mage or Kitesail Freebooter vs. control decks.
@Spsiegel1987
Nice, these have been my results as well. I think Big Thalia could be replaced with something else.
@SmauG
Thanks for the report, interesting changes to the Humans list. I don't think I'd play Thoughtseize and I probably want to play more creatures for Collected Company, but that's just me.
Just got back from the NJ RPTQ. Went 5-2, losing to Dredge and Jund (both somewhat close; Dredge cast 2 Nature's Claim on my 2 Cages) and beating Abzan Company, UWR Queller, UR Breach, Affinity and UW Control.
2 Grafdigger's Cages over-performed, pretty much were key to beating UWR and Abzan Company, and almost got there versus Dredge.
4 Horizon Canopy, 2 Seachrome Coast, 3 Mayor of Avabruck, 1 Dark Confidant, 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar, the rest was stock. Sideboard was 2 Grafdigger's Cage, 2 Vithian Renegades (was only going to be 1 but switched last minute to get the extra oomph versus Affinity), 2 Izzet Staticaster, 2 Dismember, 3 Dark Confidant, 2 Mirran Crusader, 1 Ethersworn Canonist, 1 Sin Collector.
Had two friends playing very similar lists this weekend, one went 9-5 in the Baltimore Team Open and the other went 5-2 at the same RPTQ I was at. Hunter Nance apparently also top 8ed the Raleigh RPTQ with Humans. Deck is good even when people are ready for it.
Nice to chat with my Vesuvan Doppelganger! Or maybe I'm your Vesuvan Doppelganger. Either way...
@ChainVeil
Tokens doesn't run as much disruption as Jund. 4 Path to Exile, 2 Collective Brutality (which isn't especially goods vs. Humans), and 4 Thoughtseize (at least according to some recent lists I just found) vs. 4 Fatal Push, 3 Terminate, 1-2 Lightning Bolt, 1-2 Abrupt Decay, 2 Kolaghan's Command, 7 IOK/Thoughtseize, 4 LOTV.
Tokens needs to get an Intangible Virtue or two down to have a chance. The thing is, even if you have 4 2/2 Vigilance fliers, it's not too hard for Humans to make a 9/9 Champion of the Parish, or a 4/4 Mantis Rider. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben can really slow Tokens down too.
That said, I haven't extensively tested the matchup. BW Tokens not especially popular these days.
The most problematic card in Jund is Dark Confidant. If they can get that down on turn 2 on the play, Humans can be in trouble, since they don't have any creature interaction until Reflector Mage, and letting Jund draw a bunch of removal spells is going to be lights out.
I strongly believe that 4 Horizon Canopys is correct.
You only lose 1 green source and 1 blue source if you run the full 4 Horizon Canopy (with 2 Seachrome Coast). That's only a couple of percentage points if you look at hypergeometric calculator. Still very high chance of having the correct mana to play your spells.
You're going to lose a lot more games from flooding out on lands.
edit: At the very least, it is a close call. I mulligan aggressively to strong hands and would prefer to be able to cycle lands later in the game.
I like Dark Confidant a lot. I'm actually thinking about playing 4 in the 75, with 3 in the sideboard and 1 in the main over Mayor of Avabruck. Yes, he usually dies to everything, but that's why I want to have all 4! He becomes a must answer threat. I have found that versus the non-Snapcaster based attrition decks, you can tax their removal if you just go 1-for-1 with everything, and eventually you will stick a hard-to-remove threat like Mirran Crusader or a Dark Confidant. That said, you need to be really careful about not getting blown out by Damnation, Engineered Explosives, Maelstrom Pulse, Liliana, the Last Hope, Flaying Tendrils, etc.
Of course, sometimes it's just unavoidable and they topdeck one of these answers but that's Magic for you!
For what it's worth, I do like keeping Vial on 2 in these matchups because you can vial in Dark Confidant during their endstep or you can vial in Kitesail Freebooter during their draw step to try to hit their sorcery speed removal.
@Edelweiss
Hostage Taker is definitely a sweet card but I think 4 mana is just a bit too much. That said, I haven't tried it so go nuts! Another issue I have with Hostage Taker is that you have to be able to untap with him. So, yeah, you could vial him in, but your opponents will still have an opportunity to respond to the trigger before you can cast the creature that is being taken hostage. I think that Fiend Hunter might just be a cheaper, albeit less exciting option.
I won't sugarcoat it, attrition matchups are tough. These are decks that are designed to beat decks like ours. I'm running about 50% versus Junk/Jund, which I think is about right. Game 1, you just wanna jam all your creatures as fast as you can and hope you don't lose to a sweeper like Engineered Explosives and Maelstrom Pulse (I know Willy Edel posted a Junk list with THREE main deck Engineered Explosives!). Games 2 and 3 you have to be much more judicious about playing to the board. You need to thread the needle, so to speak: you need to be able to apply enough pressure to force your opponent into a situation where they have to respond, but you also need to avoid getting hit by too many 2-for-1s. I've found that Humans can usually endure maybe 1 or 2 2-for-1s, but not much more than that. (Also, if you are on the draw, be mindful that your turn 1 play might get Thoughtseized away! This means I am more likely to keep 3 land 4 creature spells with no 1-drops and less likely to keep 1 land, 1 Vial, 5 3-drop creature hands.)
Fortunately, we have something of a better plan versus UWR Control (no Spell Quellers, no Geist of Saint Traft): Grafdigger's Cage is very disruptive to their main plan, which is to use and re-use Snapcaster Mage against us. They tend to have less 2-for-1s than Junk, maybe like 1 Anger and 1 or 2 Supreme Verdict, and they don't force you to commit to the board as much because they don't have Tarmogoyfs or Grim Flayers or anything like that. Your smaller creatures are all threats to UWR: for example, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben gets stone-walled in the GBx attrition match-ups quickly because of Goyf, but she's basically always a threat versus UWR Control. Also, because UWR doesn't have access to Thoughtseize, they have to play countermagic, which can be really bad against us. Don't let them cash their Spell Snares and Mana Leaks against you in Game 1! Making those cards dead goes a long way to winning. I've found this matchup to be much more favorable than Jund/Junk.
With respect to UWR builds with Geist of Saint Traft and Spell Queller, this matchup is a lot easier. Geist really isn't very good versus us and our opponents don't really have many opportunities to attack us. These versions also tend to run less sweepers. Don't forget that Spell Queller doesn't actually counter your spell, it exiles it while it's on the stack (meaning, Cavern of Souls doesn't work!) Also be careful about attacking you 2/2s and 2/1s into open mana, since they might flash in Spell Queller as an Ambush Viper. I keep in some Reflector Mages post-board to bounce their Quellers.
Bringing this deck to the Baltimore Open for side events on Saturday and then the Philadelphia area RPTQ.
I totally agree with you about Anafenza and Dredge. I actually think she's a touch too slow in that matchup, especially if you are on the draw and you don't have a turn 1 Noble Hierarch. But I think she's definitely worth bringing in anyways.
I really have her in my sideboard for the Lightning Bolt/Anger of the Gods matchups, such as UR Breach and Titanshift, though I have trimmed down to only 1.
For what it's worth, Dredge also has Lightning Axe, Abrupt Decay, Vengeful Pharaoh, and Gnaw to the Bone as well. I think they should bring them all in, there can be situations where they cast Gnaw, go up to 40+ life, and have a Pharaoh in the graveyard. It's hard to kill them at that point, either you need to amass a monster army and kill them in one swing or you need to wait and deck them.
I had a game in one of those videos where I had a turn 1 or turn 2 Cage, and then a turn 2 or turn 3 Meddling Mage naming Abrupt Decay. My opponent had both Lightning Axe and Abrupt Decay in their hand and ended up beating me.
I haven't been an active follower of this thread, but I've been playing a lot with this deck and wanted to share my thoughts with ya'll. Here's a few links to some posts and videos I've done: Primer, Sideboard Guide, video of me playing through a league.
I've had some good results with the deck, I won the SCG DC Classic, went 6-2 at my Regionals, and went 8-2 in this last weekend's MTGO PTQ, losing to Dredge in the quarters. I've also played about 30 leagues with the deck too.
Cheers!
edit: For what it's worth, Dredge got a bit lucky to beat me in the PTQ. I think it's somewhat close if you're not running Grafdigger's Cage, but my build (with 2 Anafenza, 2 Cage in the sideboard) is probably slightly favored.
Matchups were
Bye, Bye
4c Shadow - W
Affinity - L. Nut draws against me. Our best hands can't beat their best hands. Couldn't find one of my 3 Izzet Staticasters or 2 Vithian Renegades.
Storm - W
Eldrazi Aggro - W
Affinity - W
Storm - W
Grixis Shadow - L. I probably should have won this matchup but I punted.
Day 2
Grixis Shadow - W
GW Elves - L. This matchup is tough. Didn't find any sideboard cards and died.
GB Tron - L. I'm up against Corey Baumeister. I know he's on GB Tron because I roomed with Manfield for the weekend and they were on very similar lists. I had a great hand in game 2 but Baumeister cast a turn 3 Wurmcoil and a turn 4 Ugin.
RW Chalice - L. Opponent cast a turn 2 Blood Moon on the play with SSG and then named Aether Vial with Sorcerous Spyglass the following turn. This RW Chalice deck isn't great but it sure kicks the crap out of Humans.
Titanshift - L. In game 1, opponent played a turn 3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar and blocked me long enough for them to construct Valakut.
Jund - L. In game 3, opponent played a turn 1 Grim Lavamancer on the play. I had brought in the Dismembers, but never drew them or Reflector Mage.
I think I had reasonable matchups in Day 1, but lost the matchup lottery in day 2.
Throughout the entire weekend, it felt like I had very few decisions, and that I made the wrong ones for the one or two times where it was really relevant. Sometimes you Meddling Mage name one card that beats you and instead they have the other card that beats you.
I'm pretty down on Humans after this weekend. I still think it is a solid tier 2 deck that can be very good in the right meta, but that it is somewhat under-powered. I will enumerate my reasons below so that people can more easily follow and respond:
(1) Your most busted hands aren't as powerful as the most busted hands of decks like Affinity, Titanshift, or Tron.
(2) Our disruption package gets way worse postboard. People bring in a variety of removal spells, so that naming a card like Supreme Verdict could still get you blown out by Settle the Wreckage. It is also sometimes difficult to guess the right hate card, since people often bring their pet cards. And most decks have access to a lot of powerful sideboard cards against Humans. If other decks want to beat Humans by committing enough sideboard slots to the matchup, they usually can.
(3) There are some really bad matchups: GB Tron, Titanshift, Lantern, and Jeskai. These decks are on the rise and are very, very hard to beat. I do not think any Humans players have figured out a good sideboard strategies for these matchups. I understand that people are going to respond to this by saying they have had success versus some of these decks but I'd caution that you need to observe your results over a larger sample of games.
(4) The matchups that I thought were reasonable are actually pretty close, if not bad: people are learning how to beat Humans and are coming to tournaments with better sideboard plans. These decks include Affinity, Junk, Jund, and BW Hatebears.
(5) Humans has a very hard time playing from behind. This means that you are especially punished when you have to mulligan. You need to run above expectation to go deep in a tournament.
(6) As a corollary to the above, it is very difficult to leverage skill differences when you are playing from behind as Humans. I had lots of opponents make suboptimal decisions with their removal spells. For example, I had an opponent use Dismember on a Hierarch on an otherwise empty board when they had 2 more Fatal Pushes in hand and no fetches, meaning they would later have a hard time removing a Mantis Rider. This ended up not costing them the game, even though my opponent ended up taking a bunch of damage from my Mantis Rider, as I had mulliganed and my draws were anemic and so I was basically playing from behind all game. Had I had a more powerful opening hand, they would have lost this game. (To be sure, it is true that it is easy to play ahead with all decks, but more powerful decks like Storm and Tron are more capable of punishing someone for suboptimal plays.)
(7) It actually isn't too hard to play against Humans if you are packing enough removal. Just point and click and you will probably be fine.
(8) This might be obvious, but the deck is very, very play/draw dependent.
If your meta is filled with Eldrazi Tron and Storm, then I think Humans would remain a strong deck choice. And to be sure, there aren't any completely unwinnable matchups: sometimes you have a fast 2 Champion 2 Lieutenant hand and run them over.
That said, I probably would not be bringing this to an event like a GP, Open, or PT. (at least for the time being)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" answer to these questions, to be honest. At least in the sense that, it would take an enormous amount of games to have reliable statistical evidence to show whether you win more or less with a card like Stony Silence in your deck. I think the relevant things you need to consider are (1) how risk averse are you? Are you willing to sacrifice consistency for overall power? (2) what kind of playstyle do you have? Do you prefer to lock people out of games (with cards like Stony Silence) or do you prefer to grind them out with Staticasters and Vithian Renegades? and (3) what is the meta like that you play in? Do you see a lot of Affinity? If so, maybe we want to play the higher power level cards like Stony Silence that are more narrow than a card like Izzet Staticaster.
A lot of people like to say, "oh that's bad," without giving the above questions their due attention. I think this forum is actually pretty good in the sense that people are very open to new ideas.
All of that said, I think Stony Silence is a perfectly reasonable card. I haven't been playing it because I've actually had a lot of success versus Affinity with Izzet Staticasters and Vithian Renegades.
Right now, the things I'm trying versus Jeskai are Lightning Greaves, Thorn of Amethyst, Geist of Saint Traft, and Chalice of the Void. (edit: I should say, I think the match-up is pretty bad for Humans and I'm getting desperate.)
I think Invisible Stalker is a neat idea but a 1/1 body is not enough, especially when we aren't always drawing our lords.
I'm also playing 2 Phantasmal Image, which has been pretty great for me so far. (I'm using the same mana-base).
I prefer my three drops to impact the board immediately. I'd want a card like this in Jeskai matchups, but the fact that it gets blocked by Snapcaster Mage is pretty bad. That said, give it a shot and let us know!
http://www.mattling.com/2017/12/scg-invitational-weekend.html
tl;dr: on the weekend, we really beat up on the Company decks, Storm, Eldrazi Tron. Had some close games versus Affinity and Dredge. We went 0-3 versus Titanshift, 0-2 versus Lantern, and 0-3 versus Jeskai.
Hanweir Garrison has been pretty mediocre for me. He gets blocked and doesn't have haste.
Dark Confidant doesn't just come in versus the attrition matchups, he also is just fine versus a lot of other decks, like Eldrazi Tron, Company, Smallpox, etc. I really don't understand the Mentor of the Meek > Dark Confidant argument, if anyone is making that. They both die to everything (listen, we're Humans, we die to everything regardless), but one requires you to (1) have another creature in hand and (2) to pay mana to activate. Mentor of the Meek doesn't even trigger off of Mantis Riders or your other 2-power creatures if you have a Mayor in play. He also lends himself to a bad play pattern where you want to run him out before your other threats (which exposes him to a higher likelihood of removal). I'm happy for ya'll if Mentor is working for you, but I'll stick with Dark Confidant.
In other news, just got back from the Invitational. My 75 went 24-9 on the weekend. I went 3-1 in the Invitational (yea I'm bad at Standard), my friend Jake went 5-2 in the Modern Classic (having never played the deck), and my friend James O'Shaughnessy went 7-1 in the Invitational, ending up 9th overall, missing top 8 on breakers. I also went 9-6 in the Modern Open, after finishing day 1 in 7th at 7-2 (it was a small open).
I have a lot of thoughts on the deck, heard about some people trying new things. I'll write up a report later today.
It's an interesting idea. I know some Infect builds that have been playing 2 Shaper's Sanctuary in their board versus attrition matchups.
My biggest concern is the manabase. It is very difficult to cast non-creature spells in this deck. For example, there are only 8 green sources of mana in my build, of which 4 are Noble Hierarch!
That's not to say that the idea is without merit. We would just need to change around the manabase -- possibly cut some Ancient Ziggurats and fastlands, add some fetches.
@Octa-bit
For what it's worth, I've been thinking about adding a second Sin Collector to my sideboard to handle this issue.
This is actually a really great example to go over. First, it's important to realize that you're not going to be able to keep themoff of killing both of these creatures and having a removal spell left over if they plays perfectly. Second, while there aren't any great lines for us, there is one awful line to avoid: we don't want both our Freebooter and Mage to get killed with the EE.
We want to induce bad plays by our opponents, and we want our opponent to end up with the worst removal spell. Since we're playing versus Junk, we want that spell to be Fatal Push. First, our opponent might not be able to trigger Revolt later, so it might be dead versus Mantis Riders. Second, if this is a post-board game, Push doesn't kill Mirran Crusader at all. Third, maybe we want to get our Plains off the Path to Exile. Fourth, we want to get the EE out of their hand because it can potentially hit more than one of our creatures.
To make my example more clear, let's assume we have Freebooter, Mage, and a land in hand, with 4 mana available and a Vial on 2.
Here, I would cast Kitesail Freebooter first. Again, I want to induce my opponent into using their removal poorly. If my opponent kills Freebooter with the trigger on the stack, that is just fine. I would name the other instant speed removal spell with Meddling Mage to make him use Engineered Explosives on my Mage. Hopefully my opponent spend his entire next turn using the EE to kill the Meddling Mage. Of course, if their life total is high enough, they might just take a few hits first. EE on 2 to kill our Meddling Mage is a bit awkward for Junk, though, since they have Tarmogoyfs, Grim Flayers, and Scavenging Oozes.
If they let the Freebooter trigger resolve, I'd probably take the Fatal Push. I'd then cast Meddling Mage. If we're able to convince our opponent that our third card in hand was another Freebooter or Meddling Mage, they might fire off the Path to kill the Freebooter with Mage on the stack. If so, we just name Fatal Push. If they don't fire off the Path, I would name Engineered Explosives. They would be left with a Path to Exile as their only removal spell. In this spot, they'd get to choose whether they end up with Engineered Explosives or Fatal Push as their final removal spell (since they could Path either the Mage or the Freebooter, getting back the EE or Push respectively).
Again, if our opponent plays perfectly, they would be able to pick the EE or the Push as the spell the end up with after killing both our creatures, depending on what they draw next turn. If they are a higher life total, they probably want to get the EE back since it has the upside of potentially hitting two creatures, even though it is less efficient of a removal spell. The point, though, is to create several decision points that gives our opponent the opportunity to play poorly. In the situations I described above, there were at least two situations where our opponent would play suboptimally (e.g., killing Freebooter with trigger on the stack or killing Freebooter with Meddling Mage on the stack).
Link here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/204846466
I'm not sure how that list would play out vs. Humans. Probably closer than some of these Tokens lists, but getting card advantage from Dark Confidant or sweepers like EE or Damnation is a big part of how Jund/Junk beat Humans. Zealous Persecution could go a long way here if you're able to snipe Dark Confidants, Noble Hierarchs, Thalias, etc.
Vault of the Archangel might just be KO vs Humans if you have time to activate it.
@Edelweiss
I've tried Kambal a little bit but it's worse than Canonist versus Storm just because it's 3 mana instead of 2. Kambal is certainly better vs. Burn, where it is quite great (not dying to Grim Lavamancer is very nice). Kambal doesn't seem great in a lot of other matchups. I don't think he is better than your other cards like Meddling Mage or Kitesail Freebooter vs. control decks.
@Spsiegel1987
Nice, these have been my results as well. I think Big Thalia could be replaced with something else.
@SmauG
Thanks for the report, interesting changes to the Humans list. I don't think I'd play Thoughtseize and I probably want to play more creatures for Collected Company, but that's just me.
2 Grafdigger's Cages over-performed, pretty much were key to beating UWR and Abzan Company, and almost got there versus Dredge.
4 Horizon Canopy, 2 Seachrome Coast, 3 Mayor of Avabruck, 1 Dark Confidant, 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar, the rest was stock. Sideboard was 2 Grafdigger's Cage, 2 Vithian Renegades (was only going to be 1 but switched last minute to get the extra oomph versus Affinity), 2 Izzet Staticaster, 2 Dismember, 3 Dark Confidant, 2 Mirran Crusader, 1 Ethersworn Canonist, 1 Sin Collector.
Had two friends playing very similar lists this weekend, one went 9-5 in the Baltimore Team Open and the other went 5-2 at the same RPTQ I was at. Hunter Nance apparently also top 8ed the Raleigh RPTQ with Humans. Deck is good even when people are ready for it.
Nice to chat with my Vesuvan Doppelganger! Or maybe I'm your Vesuvan Doppelganger. Either way...
@ChainVeil
Tokens doesn't run as much disruption as Jund. 4 Path to Exile, 2 Collective Brutality (which isn't especially goods vs. Humans), and 4 Thoughtseize (at least according to some recent lists I just found) vs. 4 Fatal Push, 3 Terminate, 1-2 Lightning Bolt, 1-2 Abrupt Decay, 2 Kolaghan's Command, 7 IOK/Thoughtseize, 4 LOTV.
Tokens needs to get an Intangible Virtue or two down to have a chance. The thing is, even if you have 4 2/2 Vigilance fliers, it's not too hard for Humans to make a 9/9 Champion of the Parish, or a 4/4 Mantis Rider. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben can really slow Tokens down too.
That said, I haven't extensively tested the matchup. BW Tokens not especially popular these days.
The most problematic card in Jund is Dark Confidant. If they can get that down on turn 2 on the play, Humans can be in trouble, since they don't have any creature interaction until Reflector Mage, and letting Jund draw a bunch of removal spells is going to be lights out.
You only lose 1 green source and 1 blue source if you run the full 4 Horizon Canopy (with 2 Seachrome Coast). That's only a couple of percentage points if you look at hypergeometric calculator. Still very high chance of having the correct mana to play your spells.
You're going to lose a lot more games from flooding out on lands.
edit: At the very least, it is a close call. I mulligan aggressively to strong hands and would prefer to be able to cycle lands later in the game.
I like Dark Confidant a lot. I'm actually thinking about playing 4 in the 75, with 3 in the sideboard and 1 in the main over Mayor of Avabruck. Yes, he usually dies to everything, but that's why I want to have all 4! He becomes a must answer threat. I have found that versus the non-Snapcaster based attrition decks, you can tax their removal if you just go 1-for-1 with everything, and eventually you will stick a hard-to-remove threat like Mirran Crusader or a Dark Confidant. That said, you need to be really careful about not getting blown out by Damnation, Engineered Explosives, Maelstrom Pulse, Liliana, the Last Hope, Flaying Tendrils, etc.
Of course, sometimes it's just unavoidable and they topdeck one of these answers but that's Magic for you!
For what it's worth, I do like keeping Vial on 2 in these matchups because you can vial in Dark Confidant during their endstep or you can vial in Kitesail Freebooter during their draw step to try to hit their sorcery speed removal.
@Edelweiss
Hostage Taker is definitely a sweet card but I think 4 mana is just a bit too much. That said, I haven't tried it so go nuts! Another issue I have with Hostage Taker is that you have to be able to untap with him. So, yeah, you could vial him in, but your opponents will still have an opportunity to respond to the trigger before you can cast the creature that is being taken hostage. I think that Fiend Hunter might just be a cheaper, albeit less exciting option.
I won't sugarcoat it, attrition matchups are tough. These are decks that are designed to beat decks like ours. I'm running about 50% versus Junk/Jund, which I think is about right. Game 1, you just wanna jam all your creatures as fast as you can and hope you don't lose to a sweeper like Engineered Explosives and Maelstrom Pulse (I know Willy Edel posted a Junk list with THREE main deck Engineered Explosives!). Games 2 and 3 you have to be much more judicious about playing to the board. You need to thread the needle, so to speak: you need to be able to apply enough pressure to force your opponent into a situation where they have to respond, but you also need to avoid getting hit by too many 2-for-1s. I've found that Humans can usually endure maybe 1 or 2 2-for-1s, but not much more than that. (Also, if you are on the draw, be mindful that your turn 1 play might get Thoughtseized away! This means I am more likely to keep 3 land 4 creature spells with no 1-drops and less likely to keep 1 land, 1 Vial, 5 3-drop creature hands.)
Fortunately, we have something of a better plan versus UWR Control (no Spell Quellers, no Geist of Saint Traft): Grafdigger's Cage is very disruptive to their main plan, which is to use and re-use Snapcaster Mage against us. They tend to have less 2-for-1s than Junk, maybe like 1 Anger and 1 or 2 Supreme Verdict, and they don't force you to commit to the board as much because they don't have Tarmogoyfs or Grim Flayers or anything like that. Your smaller creatures are all threats to UWR: for example, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben gets stone-walled in the GBx attrition match-ups quickly because of Goyf, but she's basically always a threat versus UWR Control. Also, because UWR doesn't have access to Thoughtseize, they have to play countermagic, which can be really bad against us. Don't let them cash their Spell Snares and Mana Leaks against you in Game 1! Making those cards dead goes a long way to winning. I've found this matchup to be much more favorable than Jund/Junk.
With respect to UWR builds with Geist of Saint Traft and Spell Queller, this matchup is a lot easier. Geist really isn't very good versus us and our opponents don't really have many opportunities to attack us. These versions also tend to run less sweepers. Don't forget that Spell Queller doesn't actually counter your spell, it exiles it while it's on the stack (meaning, Cavern of Souls doesn't work!) Also be careful about attacking you 2/2s and 2/1s into open mana, since they might flash in Spell Queller as an Ambush Viper. I keep in some Reflector Mages post-board to bounce their Quellers.
Bringing this deck to the Baltimore Open for side events on Saturday and then the Philadelphia area RPTQ.
Cheers!
I totally agree with you about Anafenza and Dredge. I actually think she's a touch too slow in that matchup, especially if you are on the draw and you don't have a turn 1 Noble Hierarch. But I think she's definitely worth bringing in anyways.
I really have her in my sideboard for the Lightning Bolt/Anger of the Gods matchups, such as UR Breach and Titanshift, though I have trimmed down to only 1.
For what it's worth, Dredge also has Lightning Axe, Abrupt Decay, Vengeful Pharaoh, and Gnaw to the Bone as well. I think they should bring them all in, there can be situations where they cast Gnaw, go up to 40+ life, and have a Pharaoh in the graveyard. It's hard to kill them at that point, either you need to amass a monster army and kill them in one swing or you need to wait and deck them.
I had a game in one of those videos where I had a turn 1 or turn 2 Cage, and then a turn 2 or turn 3 Meddling Mage naming Abrupt Decay. My opponent had both Lightning Axe and Abrupt Decay in their hand and ended up beating me.
I haven't been an active follower of this thread, but I've been playing a lot with this deck and wanted to share my thoughts with ya'll. Here's a few links to some posts and videos I've done: Primer, Sideboard Guide, video of me playing through a league.
I've had some good results with the deck, I won the SCG DC Classic, went 6-2 at my Regionals, and went 8-2 in this last weekend's MTGO PTQ, losing to Dredge in the quarters. I've also played about 30 leagues with the deck too.
Cheers!
edit: For what it's worth, Dredge got a bit lucky to beat me in the PTQ. I think it's somewhat close if you're not running Grafdigger's Cage, but my build (with 2 Anafenza, 2 Cage in the sideboard) is probably slightly favored.