checking their 2 drop threat and landing a t3 geist then just tempoing them and keeping them on the back foot is usually a pretty good game winner for me. that said just try to play with value in mind. Junk/Jund doesn't really have any actual ways to really draw cards aside from bob. Most of their threats are just designed to be 2 for 1s. so if you can avoid spending 2 cards on 1 of their cards then you should be able to wreck them pretty easily.
has anyone thought about maulfist revolutionary? if i'm right then this effectively doubles the amount of poison counters a player has when it hits the battlefield
Only adds one of the same counter on the permanent or player.
has anyone thought about maulfist revolutionary? if i'm right then this effectively doubles the amount of poison counters a player has when it hits the battlefield
basically the idea is to build a URx control deck around these cards. Counterspells, burn, draw spells, etc. all play into the roll of metallurgic summonings. Summonings turns your removal spells into creature value and only get better in multiples. Late game you have a win condition of returning all your spells to your hand and casting fateful showdown to win.
Here's a sample decklist of what I've basically envisioned the deck to look like in 2 color form:
black:
The black splash is rough. most of the good black spells are double black, but ruinous path in particular really helps against walkers instead of having to use a bunch of burn.
Weaknesses
The deck runs few actual win conditions. There are times where you simply burn your opponent out, but for the most part you either win with metallurgic summonings either creating a swarm of artifacts or bringing back fateful showdown and a bunch of spells.
This means that lost legacy can pretty well tear you apart. Transgress the mind is harsh if it actually takes a summonings. the good news is that this deck makes a pretty good counterspell deck.
Strengths
You have LOTS of removal. So strategies that rely on synergies like WR vehicles are pretty easy to tear apart. Amalgam decks can be kind of rough, but splashing white for declaration in stone and running more incendiary flows helps a lot in that regard.
Your win conditions are pretty hard to actually interact with. There aren't many cards that actually answer a resolved summonings. If you can just keep from getting run over you're going to win the long game. You also have a lot of card draw and filtering with this deck so finding multiple copies of summonings happens pretty consistently.
GW aggro seems like a very serious deck. You get access to both of the best cards in standard right now (copter and V gearhulk) as well as gideon, tireless tracker, sylvan advocate, etc. It's basically playing all the most efficient cards in standard.
If you're trying to tune your energy aggro deck and you don't have a legitimate plan for smugglers copter then you're going to have problems. That card is probably going to be one of the most played rares in the set.
So far I've seen it in everything from mono 1 drops aggro to a jace replacement in the old sultan dredge deck and it seems pretty good everywhere
both decks look like much more "goodstuff" decks to me. The maindecks look more like what my post board deck looks like against the midrange G/x strategies.
personally I think if you're going to raise the curve of the deck and look to play more in the long game and drop a lot of the energy enablers like attune with aether and servant of the conduit for more individually impactful cards, then you should drop the hellions. Without plenty of sources of energy creation and playing cards like harnessed lightning and voltaic brawler, you're going to end up running out of energy and having to sac the hellion a lot of the time. The longer the game you intend to play, the worse hellion becomes.
just my .02 cents. Both players are obviously much more accomplished than me and know the competitive arena much better than I do, but I've got quite a few games in with the deck at this point and honestly these lists look kind of slapped together. Both might end up being a better overall direction for the deck to go than my lower to the ground version.
I DO like things like magmatic chasm and appetite for the unnatural in the board. Magmatic chasm especially has a high potential to be very powerful in this deck and appetite for the unnatural seems like a great card against the decks looking to lean on aggressive vehicles like smuggler's thopter and fleetwheel cruiser.
So far I've noticed 3 kinds of decks in the new format:
sligh decks that look to end the game as quickly as possible. This is mostly boros vehicles and energy aggro.
grindy goodstuff decks. Plays a lot of indiviually powerful cards and simply "junds em out". Generally either abzan or jund colors.
combo/control decks. These decks lean on early removal and setup cards to power out really big things quickly. Generally temur emerge and izzet artifacts are the major players here.
This deck is generally really good against the combo/control archetypes off the bat, 50/50 against the grindier decks, and you're likely to lose g1 against boros vehicles and move to a 70/30 matchup post board (at least my faster version is). I imagine brad and ross are looking to be really good against the sligh decks g1 and board to be better against the combo decks. This is probably the right call at a competitive event with more spike players and fewer johnny players (all of my testing has been on xmage thus far).
There are a lot of grinds match ups out there and the deck goes into top deck mode a good amount of the time. Sage of shalia's claim is just such a bad draw when you don't have any outlets and for the most part making 3 energy isn't really any better than making 2 energy. I'd much rather play a more powerful card that can make use of the energy created than just some random energy source.
Devotion was a whole different beast than energy and had much more powerful ways to abuse the mechanic. As it stands I just don't think energy is powerful enough of a mechanic to devote your whole deck towards (ie simply making as much energy as you possibly can)
If aether hub could make a mana for every energy in your pool or if harnessed lightning could hit players it would be a whole different ball game
Sage just isn't good. If you find yourself wanting to play sage of shalia's claim to try to keep up with your energy requirements then you have too many energy requirements.
I'm pretty certain that longtusk cub, voltaic brawler, lathnu hellion, and harnessed lightning are the best uses of energy for this deck and should probably be your only real outlets. They use enough energy to make full use of all the energy created by the deck but aren't so hungry that you have to play a bunch of bad cards just to make energy.
Arlinn Kord is working pretty good so far. I ended up replacing chandra with the wolf walker in my board for cost reasons but it's doing very well. I just wish you didn't HAVE to flip when you make a 2/2. I'm pretty sure chandra is the better card here overall, but there certainly isn't $50 worth of difference.
made a few more changes to the deck. Added chandra and nissa to the sideboard to help against the super grindy midrange decks. Was going to try to keep from dropping real money into this deck but if I end up taking it to a big event I think I'll need the extra power. Also dropped aethertorch renegade for architect of the untamed. Plays a pretty similar role but architect is just a much better body for the games where you're not really looking to activate. The main thing I really liked about renegade is that it ETB and gives 4 energy, which can make for some pretty busted draws with longtusk cub. Maybe I should just go for thriving rhino, which isn't anything spectacular, but it's basically something in between and doesn't have a bad body.
fleetwheel cruiser is just too good. The games where you go t2 servant into t3 cruiser just turns every creature afterwards into a free 5 damage burn spell. It also provides tons of protection against sorcery speed sweepers. Also playing verdurous gearhulk and activating cruiser with the ETB effect on the stack and just throwing all the counters on the cruiser for a 9 damage trample swing is a real play.
I think smuggler's thopter is a better choice for decks that produce 1/1s. There's not much reason behind not playing a larger vehicle in this deck like cultivator's caravan or fleetwheel cruiser since just about every creature you play is going to be able to effectively crew it.
you're right
4 bomat courier
4 scrapheap scrounger
4 pia nalaar
2 bloodhall priest
4 smuggler's copter
2 key to the city
1 call the bloodline
4 incendiary flow
4 unlicensed disintegration
4 foreboding ruins
1 smoldering marsh
4 aether hub
4 swamp
10 mountain
1 call the bloodline
2 lightning axe
4 galvanic bombardment
1 kalitas, traitor of ghet
4 transgress the mind
3 weaver of lightning
I'm pretty happy with it. It does a fantastic job of playing both offense and defense and can easily switch rolls.
basically the idea is to build a URx control deck around these cards. Counterspells, burn, draw spells, etc. all play into the roll of metallurgic summonings. Summonings turns your removal spells into creature value and only get better in multiples. Late game you have a win condition of returning all your spells to your hand and casting fateful showdown to win.
Here's a sample decklist of what I've basically envisioned the deck to look like in 2 color form:
4 galvanic bombardment
3 select for inspection
4 harnessed lightning
3 incendiary flow
3 anticipate
2 negate
4 collective defiance
2 fateful showdown
2 glimmer of genius
1 insidious will
4 dynavolt tower
4 metallurgic summonings
24 land
Other cards to splash for
white:
blessed alliance
declaration in stone
fumigate
black:
The black splash is rough. most of the good black spells are double black, but ruinous path in particular really helps against walkers instead of having to use a bunch of burn.
Weaknesses
The deck runs few actual win conditions. There are times where you simply burn your opponent out, but for the most part you either win with metallurgic summonings either creating a swarm of artifacts or bringing back fateful showdown and a bunch of spells.
This means that lost legacy can pretty well tear you apart. Transgress the mind is harsh if it actually takes a summonings. the good news is that this deck makes a pretty good counterspell deck.
Strengths
You have LOTS of removal. So strategies that rely on synergies like WR vehicles are pretty easy to tear apart. Amalgam decks can be kind of rough, but splashing white for declaration in stone and running more incendiary flows helps a lot in that regard.
Your win conditions are pretty hard to actually interact with. There aren't many cards that actually answer a resolved summonings. If you can just keep from getting run over you're going to win the long game. You also have a lot of card draw and filtering with this deck so finding multiple copies of summonings happens pretty consistently.
So far I've seen it in everything from mono 1 drops aggro to a jace replacement in the old sultan dredge deck and it seems pretty good everywhere
4 Longtusk Cub
4 Sylvan Advocate
3 Tireless Tracker
4 Voltaic Brawler
2 Nissa, Vital Force
4 Fleetwheel Cruiser
4 Harnessed Lightning
3 Collective Defiance
4 Incendiary Flow
6 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Aether Hub
4 Cinder Glade
4 Game Trail
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Plummet
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Collective Defiance
1 Magmatic Chasm
2 Malevolent Whisper
2 Root Out
Brad:
4 Bristling Hydra
4 Sylvan Advocate
4 Tireless Tracker
4 Voltaic Brawler
2 Pia Nalaar
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Nissa, Vital Force
4 Harnessed Lightning
2 Oath of Chandra
4 Oath of Nissa
7 Forest
5 Mountain
4 Aether Hub
4 Cinder Glade
4 Game Trail
2 Deadlock Trap
2 Fleetwheel Cruiser
2 Appetite for the Unnatural
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Nissa, Vital Force
3 Nahiri's Wrath
both decks look like much more "goodstuff" decks to me. The maindecks look more like what my post board deck looks like against the midrange G/x strategies.
personally I think if you're going to raise the curve of the deck and look to play more in the long game and drop a lot of the energy enablers like attune with aether and servant of the conduit for more individually impactful cards, then you should drop the hellions. Without plenty of sources of energy creation and playing cards like harnessed lightning and voltaic brawler, you're going to end up running out of energy and having to sac the hellion a lot of the time. The longer the game you intend to play, the worse hellion becomes.
just my .02 cents. Both players are obviously much more accomplished than me and know the competitive arena much better than I do, but I've got quite a few games in with the deck at this point and honestly these lists look kind of slapped together. Both might end up being a better overall direction for the deck to go than my lower to the ground version.
I DO like things like magmatic chasm and appetite for the unnatural in the board. Magmatic chasm especially has a high potential to be very powerful in this deck and appetite for the unnatural seems like a great card against the decks looking to lean on aggressive vehicles like smuggler's thopter and fleetwheel cruiser.
So far I've noticed 3 kinds of decks in the new format:
sligh decks that look to end the game as quickly as possible. This is mostly boros vehicles and energy aggro.
grindy goodstuff decks. Plays a lot of indiviually powerful cards and simply "junds em out". Generally either abzan or jund colors.
combo/control decks. These decks lean on early removal and setup cards to power out really big things quickly. Generally temur emerge and izzet artifacts are the major players here.
This deck is generally really good against the combo/control archetypes off the bat, 50/50 against the grindier decks, and you're likely to lose g1 against boros vehicles and move to a 70/30 matchup post board (at least my faster version is). I imagine brad and ross are looking to be really good against the sligh decks g1 and board to be better against the combo decks. This is probably the right call at a competitive event with more spike players and fewer johnny players (all of my testing has been on xmage thus far).
Devotion was a whole different beast than energy and had much more powerful ways to abuse the mechanic. As it stands I just don't think energy is powerful enough of a mechanic to devote your whole deck towards (ie simply making as much energy as you possibly can)
If aether hub could make a mana for every energy in your pool or if harnessed lightning could hit players it would be a whole different ball game
I'm pretty certain that longtusk cub, voltaic brawler, lathnu hellion, and harnessed lightning are the best uses of energy for this deck and should probably be your only real outlets. They use enough energy to make full use of all the energy created by the deck but aren't so hungry that you have to play a bunch of bad cards just to make energy.
Arlinn Kord is working pretty good so far. I ended up replacing chandra with the wolf walker in my board for cost reasons but it's doing very well. I just wish you didn't HAVE to flip when you make a 2/2. I'm pretty sure chandra is the better card here overall, but there certainly isn't $50 worth of difference.
fleetwheel cruiser is just too good. The games where you go t2 servant into t3 cruiser just turns every creature afterwards into a free 5 damage burn spell. It also provides tons of protection against sorcery speed sweepers. Also playing verdurous gearhulk and activating cruiser with the ETB effect on the stack and just throwing all the counters on the cruiser for a 9 damage trample swing is a real play.
4 aether hub
4 game trail
5 mountain
9 forest
1 hanweir battlements
creatures - 29
4 kessig prowler
4 longtusk cub
4 servant of the conduit
4 voltaic brawler
4 lathnu hellion
2 architect of the untamed
3 fleetwheel cruiser
4 verdurous gearhulk
4 harnessed lightning
4 attune with aether
4 blossoming defense
2 hijack
2 ornamental courage
1 mountain
2 chandra, torch of defiance
1 nissa, vital force
3 incendiary flow