Also, to nitpick a point, Warden of Evos Isle isn't a 2/1.
Yea, I somehow just always thought he was a 2/1. I think when the spoilers were up I said something along the lines of, "there is no wind drake at common". It became "there is no non-rare wind drake" in my mind. Sorry
In preparation for the current PTQ season I have just started to really think about M14 limited. In my testing and conversations with local players I have trying to hash out which of Blues 2/1 flyers for 2U I like more, Trained Condor or Warden of Evos Isle.
So far I would give the edge to the Condor. Condor allows you to play a tempo deck in a slow format. I have had some success in MTGO 8-4s with Scroll Thief along side Condor. UG has been one of my favorite archetypes in this format, and the Condor is a star in that deck. However, this bird gets worse the bluer you are because more and more of your creatures have wings of their own.
Warden shines in the decks condor would be worse. Heavy blue, UB, and Uw decks allow the Wardens to gain you a mana advantage to matter. These decks have the tools to stabilize as you get a discount on your flyers and attack for 2 a turn. Multiple wardens can be pretty insane. Warden does not break stalls as well as the Condor, but still isn't a terrible draw on a stalled board.
I think I give the edge to the Condor. I think that the upside of the condor is greater in a larger number of decks. It is a potent effect in my favorite archetype. This card allows you to "fix" drafts that have gone wrong by getting random good attacks in. I feel like warden is better in decks that are already good to begin with, and condor is probably going to be okay in those decks as well. Lots of flyers are going to win games in this format (assuming you are able to stabilize the board for them).
So my questions for the MTGSalvation community are:
In a blank pack 1/pick 1 which of these two card which would you pick? Why?
If you are already blue with Opportunity, Claustrophobia and in pick three you have a blank pack with these two cards, what do you take?
What cards would you need to have to move you away from your preferred 2/1 flyer?
Standard is supposed to be a cheap. So far, Extended has been the cheaper format for me this year, and frankly, that just isn't right.
standard is supposed to be excessable. and it really is. Sure jace is great. but for a player who wants a cheap deck. He can play baby jace, pithing needles, o-rings in his controll deck. RDW is viable and cheap. See you can play standard with out Jace.
if you think about it, its a full costed spectral procession.
and we all know how often mono blue decks played 6 mana for 3 1/1 flyers.
The problem this card poses is in M11 drafts. How high do you pick them? When the set 1st comes out i have a feeling people will pick these birds (too) early, so the 2 bird drafter will even themselves out. After the deck proves to be undraftable people might be able to put together the huge bird army decks. Then the deck will reach its full potential.
the argument to play this deck with vengvine and jace is overly hopefull. NLB does not lose its vengvine returners (if anything the 2mana Boarder land ranger is just better than the bird army). and with jace you are wasting 4 slots in you already tight controll deck to be able to chump block for ever. seems bad. UWx's 2 spot is pretty full already, and now with mana leak in m11 it just got even tighter. Not going to see play with 56 other cards, but will live the dream twice in a 40 card deck.
The "planets" in the picture are the 5 colors of magic. The red one is the biggest. I would be really surprised if it was anything but a red spell. I wouldnt be surprised if the card is from scars of miroden. The planet in the back looks alot like Mirroden, and the 5 "planets" fit the 5 moons. Just a thought.
am i the only one excited about Vengevine?
i think its one of the best cards that could have been printed for mythic bant style decks. Its great on turn 3 in every matchup. Its great on turn 6 in every matchups, and you dont mind drawing multiples. I think hes a powerhouse.
Gideon might be a decent sideboard option vs junk/ bant/ ww/ other creature decks. They waste a turn hitting him, and you just bash them to death. I dont know if its replaces mindcontrol effects or if its better than vengevine and day of judgment (when they dont have dauntless escort)
Mainboard collar combo is not going to be relevant as it is just a wast of time vs UW control and not the best way to approach the jund matchup.
bant charms pull double(some times triple) duty in the naya matchup. Pridemages are also pretty fine sideboard choices for this mu. The reason these cards are better then pithing needle is because they do other things besides kill the combo. Pridemages helps you beat down naya faster than they can combo, and then pops away the collar. Bant charm is a good way to handle KoTR if your oppoents are bigger than yours.
I want to stress how bad path to exile is in bant style decks. There is no situation where you want to have path to exile in your 75 cards. It terrible vs jund, other bant decks, rdw, ww, naya, and control decks. In the 3 color creature decks you dont want to give them that extra land, pretty much ever. And in the mythic mirror, its always just better to mindcontrol their guy.
The 4/3 haste/ reanimating guy might make me change my mind on path eventually... but ill have to see
I think this fast green guy actually feels mythic. When you play it the 1st time its nothing more than a beefy color specific giant solifuge. But the 2nd time you play it OH BOY! Alongside Ranger of Eos and Bloodbraid elf, this dude is just nuts. It sucks that is mythic because its going to be expensive yada, but this guy feels pretty mythic to me.
the wall is perfect for white. It comes down, replaces itself, and forces your opponent to play more creatures to get around the big, ol wall. You lose 0 cards while your opponent needs to play another card. This makes day of judgment better.
The "wah wah this should be blue" argument is not valid IMO. Sure, it draws you a card, but cantripping is open to every color. Blue already has its decent wall in the form of calcite snapper. The turtle is much more blue than wall of blossom. Blue trys to match you card for card, and the turtle's attacking ability allows it to do that. White, when it is on the control front attempts to force its opponents in a position where its wrath effects are much more powerful, something that blue doens't always need to do.
I guess I have had the 20/20 come out on Turn two or Turn 3 too often against me, Iona can slow them down but they have answers to her in both blue and black and if the game goes long it tends to favor them.
Maybe I am just getting into odd situations with the deck when I had the Iona, typical board Turn 3 would be Me with Iona and Sinkweed Imp maybe a Narcomoeba, and opponent with a 20/20. When I changed the Iona to another Sphinx the Dark Depths players would often sacrifice Vampire Hexmage on the Dread Return of the Sphinx letting me get to more bridges for a combo kill with FKZ or the occasional Reanimate a Golgari Grave Troll, + FKZ with some bridge tokens.
The sting of free blockers is more than good enough to hold down the 20/20. In this mu, the fact that hexmage, which they can tutor for can shut down bridge makes FKZ even worse. Hexmage doesnt need to target a permanent with counters on it, it just has to target a permanent, so bridges are very fragile making the FKZ plan worse. So, just play more blockers and get in while blocking the 20/20. they get put into a position where the 20/20 has to play defense and you don't care if the 20/20 is untapped as you crash into the red zone.
FKZ also helps out in the DD matchup where being faster helps more so than Iona.
IMO sphinx and 2 iona is the better package in this MU. Game 1, assuming they didnt get the turn 1 thoughtseize, turn 2 20/20 , which will kill either package. Iona shuts down a majority of their deck. our beatdown plan is pretty good agaisnt them as long as you have and having a mix of iona, sphinx, imps and meibias, provides a mix of blockers that echoing truth cannot dismantle. at that point FKZ will help us kill faster, but it is not necessary. nor is it ever really necessary.
Dredge trys to be as reliable as possible. Having a non mana producing land is not going to help a deck that wants to play less than 20 lands. Hexmage doesn't help our beat down plan, because we don't like to pay mana for 2/X's. So you are playing 2 cards that on their own don't help us at all when they are alone in our hand. So, do they help when we mill them? Nope. So they are only good when we mill out deck, hit dread return and life from the loam, accumulate 3 creatures, resolve a life from the loam, and then resolve a dread return. Sounds like a dream graveyard.
Wouldn't you just want to play cards that are good by themselves, that are still just as one sided when you go nuts?
This weekend I played in the PTQ in New Jersey. I played Cedric Philips' build but with -1 scalding tarn +1 Dryad arbor because the man land is just nuts. I didn't want to cut a mana producing land for the summoning sick forest.
I wound up missing round 1 due to a ridiculous amount of traffic. So i needed to play as tight as possible.
Round 2- vs Dark Bant/ Doran
g1-his kitchen finks and tarmogoyf could not stop an army of 2/2's and Iona on black (looking back on it green should have been the call.) However path to exile ended the 7/7. Next turn the 2nd iona came down naming green (hitting pule, putrefy, bant charm and every dude in the deck).
g2- i went off of the iona plan. bringing in life from the loam and echoing truth (for fear of leyline). I got quick board presence off of a hedron crab t1. Bloodghasts and Drowned rusalka made a few tokens before experpate came down hitting bloodghast. by this time i was pretty far ahead before he droped a crypt removing my graveyard. He has a 3/4 tarmogoyf in play along side a 4/4 Knight of the reliquary, but was dead to my army of 2/2's unless he had a pulse. he didnt.
1-0
round 3- combo elves.
g1- this matchup is a bye. I got Iona into play naming green before he went infinate. i won.
g2- same deal, this time with dark blasts to prevent me from messing up.
2-0
round 4- little zoo
g1- i wish i didnt lose my notes on this game because all i remember was that the board was clogged and he was at a low life total, and i was at 8 life total. I had two blockers and he had one card in hand and 2 4/5 goyfs that both needed to hit me for it to be lethal. He only had 3 different land types in play, and i had bridges in my grave. He basically needed to have path in hand, and top deck another path. he did.
g2- this match is supposed to be a bye. I got STOMPED. T1 crypt keeps me off of the beatdown plan and after he pops crypt I was able to stabilize. But he is able to find another crypt and have some timely paths.
2-1
Round 5- Thopter Fea
G1- In a situation where I couldn’t cast dread return, but he smothered my own narcomebia pre-combat, giving me 3 zombies. Iona and 4 zombies get the job done.
G2- Damn turn 1 bitter blossom.
G3- He lays down a Dark Confidant, a vendilion cligue, and misplays with experpate, hitting blooghast instead of bridge when I have Drowned Rusulka and a Bloodghast in play. All you need is one. But he got the foundry online. He only had 2 mana open on my turn. I decided that he didn’t have mana leak due to the thopter combo, muddle the mixture , and dark confidant. I had 2 ancient grudges in my grave along with my 1 Iona and dread return. I cast the 1st grudge on the foundry. It resolves. I play dread return netting a billion tokens, and shutting off blue. The race was in my favior as he played a 2nd dark confidant, but if he didn’t misplay by full swinging for less than letahn when I could swing for lethal he would have won.
Round 6- Black Zoo.
G1- He had to read all of my cards, and never played this matchup before.
G2- that being said, he played the matchup soundly and actually made some good plays with experpatet/ crypt, but hes zoo. So he loses.
Round 7- Dark Depths.
G1- He combos off t3. Good thing narcomobeia, imp, sphinx, and iona can block 20/20s. Zombies go to town. I put him in a position where he needed to put the token on defence. That’s a good place to be.
G2- leyline. yagmoth tomb of urbog., thoughtseize my echoing truth. Pass turn. Land, crab, pass turn. Darkdepths hexmage. SCOOP.
G3- I wish I had a report of this match because it was so perfectly played on both sides. I just had better luck.
Round 8- UGR scapeshift.
I looked at the standings before the round and saw that I was sitting at 15 points. I was 5-1 in games I played, but 0-1 vs traffic. I got really bummed looking at the standings because I it was round 8 and I only had one match loss and no chance at top 8. (I know that if I was there for round 1 and won, I would have played a different set of players and It would have been harder fighting up the X-0 bracket, but still, id rather lose to a better player than to traffic.)
G1- I haven’t played this matchup. But I do remember looking at this list and thinking “oh they aren’t playing flamespout now, sweet!” I think I was drunk. Turn 2 I have a billion tokens, but cant flip up dread teturn for iona. He sweeps and burns all the bridges. Try to go on agro plan, but he scapeshifts and wins.
G2- He drops about 7 tibe elders and wood elves as he tares apart my grave with double trap.
So I end the day at 5-3 (but with only 2 loses to actual players) All things said and done, I would not change a single card I played in the mainboard, but I am a little sckeptical about thoughtseize, it doesn’t seem like it does anything relevant. Im going to test combo matchups this week to see if I need thoughtseize. I really don’t know what else would be a decent replacement. Maybe natures claim (although I hate that card in our deck as a replacement to ancient grudge or echoing truth, I think it might be a good supplement to those staples.
I might just be unlucky, but even if I Echoing Truth my opp's Leyline, I often have only one turn to go off. I almost wish I had room for Enchantment hate.
Maelstrom Pulse is good too. That being said, echoing truth is almost always better. You play the truth on turn 2-3 when your opponent can't replay the Leyline. And against the decks that play the leyline sb (mostly Thepts) you don't necessarily need to "go off" to win. More often than not a few random 1/X's and 2/X's get the job done just fine.
If you are going to replace the sphinx of lost truths it should be with Iona #2. The sphinx is great at making sure you get to your Iona or your haste granting Zealot, but I feel like G1 just hitting Iona is good enough. It has tested very well.
I was skeptical about playing with Dryad Arbor but this week I did some testing with it. It is really nifty to crack a fetch to find a 1/1 which brings along a bloodghast or two, but having it in the deck was never game breaking. IMO bloodghast and narcomobias are good enough, and cutting the steam vents made ancient grudge just weak enough to get the boot from the sideboard. Having full access to grudge is slightly more important than the 1/1.
Yea, I somehow just always thought he was a 2/1. I think when the spoilers were up I said something along the lines of, "there is no wind drake at common". It became "there is no non-rare wind drake" in my mind. Sorry
So far I would give the edge to the Condor. Condor allows you to play a tempo deck in a slow format. I have had some success in MTGO 8-4s with Scroll Thief along side Condor. UG has been one of my favorite archetypes in this format, and the Condor is a star in that deck. However, this bird gets worse the bluer you are because more and more of your creatures have wings of their own.
Warden shines in the decks condor would be worse. Heavy blue, UB, and Uw decks allow the Wardens to gain you a mana advantage to matter. These decks have the tools to stabilize as you get a discount on your flyers and attack for 2 a turn. Multiple wardens can be pretty insane. Warden does not break stalls as well as the Condor, but still isn't a terrible draw on a stalled board.
I think I give the edge to the Condor. I think that the upside of the condor is greater in a larger number of decks. It is a potent effect in my favorite archetype. This card allows you to "fix" drafts that have gone wrong by getting random good attacks in. I feel like warden is better in decks that are already good to begin with, and condor is probably going to be okay in those decks as well. Lots of flyers are going to win games in this format (assuming you are able to stabilize the board for them).
So my questions for the MTGSalvation community are:
In a blank pack 1/pick 1 which of these two card which would you pick? Why?
If you are already blue with Opportunity, Claustrophobia and in pick three you have a blank pack with these two cards, what do you take?
What cards would you need to have to move you away from your preferred 2/1 flyer?
-Thanks,
Orphan.
standard is supposed to be excessable. and it really is. Sure jace is great. but for a player who wants a cheap deck. He can play baby jace, pithing needles, o-rings in his controll deck. RDW is viable and cheap. See you can play standard with out Jace.
and we all know how often mono blue decks played 6 mana for 3 1/1 flyers.
The problem this card poses is in M11 drafts. How high do you pick them? When the set 1st comes out i have a feeling people will pick these birds (too) early, so the 2 bird drafter will even themselves out. After the deck proves to be undraftable people might be able to put together the huge bird army decks. Then the deck will reach its full potential.
the argument to play this deck with vengvine and jace is overly hopefull. NLB does not lose its vengvine returners (if anything the 2mana Boarder land ranger is just better than the bird army). and with jace you are wasting 4 slots in you already tight controll deck to be able to chump block for ever. seems bad. UWx's 2 spot is pretty full already, and now with mana leak in m11 it just got even tighter. Not going to see play with 56 other cards, but will live the dream twice in a 40 card deck.
i think its one of the best cards that could have been printed for mythic bant style decks. Its great on turn 3 in every matchup. Its great on turn 6 in every matchups, and you dont mind drawing multiples. I think hes a powerhouse.
Gideon might be a decent sideboard option vs junk/ bant/ ww/ other creature decks. They waste a turn hitting him, and you just bash them to death. I dont know if its replaces mindcontrol effects or if its better than vengevine and day of judgment (when they dont have dauntless escort)
bant charms pull double(some times triple) duty in the naya matchup. Pridemages are also pretty fine sideboard choices for this mu. The reason these cards are better then pithing needle is because they do other things besides kill the combo. Pridemages helps you beat down naya faster than they can combo, and then pops away the collar. Bant charm is a good way to handle KoTR if your oppoents are bigger than yours.
I want to stress how bad path to exile is in bant style decks. There is no situation where you want to have path to exile in your 75 cards. It terrible vs jund, other bant decks, rdw, ww, naya, and control decks. In the 3 color creature decks you dont want to give them that extra land, pretty much ever. And in the mythic mirror, its always just better to mindcontrol their guy.
The 4/3 haste/ reanimating guy might make me change my mind on path eventually... but ill have to see
The "wah wah this should be blue" argument is not valid IMO. Sure, it draws you a card, but cantripping is open to every color. Blue already has its decent wall in the form of calcite snapper. The turtle is much more blue than wall of blossom. Blue trys to match you card for card, and the turtle's attacking ability allows it to do that. White, when it is on the control front attempts to force its opponents in a position where its wrath effects are much more powerful, something that blue doens't always need to do.
The sting of free blockers is more than good enough to hold down the 20/20. In this mu, the fact that hexmage, which they can tutor for can shut down bridge makes FKZ even worse. Hexmage doesnt need to target a permanent with counters on it, it just has to target a permanent, so bridges are very fragile making the FKZ plan worse. So, just play more blockers and get in while blocking the 20/20. they get put into a position where the 20/20 has to play defense and you don't care if the 20/20 is untapped as you crash into the red zone.
IMO sphinx and 2 iona is the better package in this MU. Game 1, assuming they didnt get the turn 1 thoughtseize, turn 2 20/20 , which will kill either package. Iona shuts down a majority of their deck. our beatdown plan is pretty good agaisnt them as long as you have and having a mix of iona, sphinx, imps and meibias, provides a mix of blockers that echoing truth cannot dismantle. at that point FKZ will help us kill faster, but it is not necessary. nor is it ever really necessary.
Dredge trys to be as reliable as possible. Having a non mana producing land is not going to help a deck that wants to play less than 20 lands. Hexmage doesn't help our beat down plan, because we don't like to pay mana for 2/X's. So you are playing 2 cards that on their own don't help us at all when they are alone in our hand. So, do they help when we mill them? Nope. So they are only good when we mill out deck, hit dread return and life from the loam, accumulate 3 creatures, resolve a life from the loam, and then resolve a dread return. Sounds like a dream graveyard.
Wouldn't you just want to play cards that are good by themselves, that are still just as one sided when you go nuts?
I wound up missing round 1 due to a ridiculous amount of traffic. So i needed to play as tight as possible.
Round 2- vs Dark Bant/ Doran
g1-his kitchen finks and tarmogoyf could not stop an army of 2/2's and Iona on black (looking back on it green should have been the call.) However path to exile ended the 7/7. Next turn the 2nd iona came down naming green (hitting pule, putrefy, bant charm and every dude in the deck).
g2- i went off of the iona plan. bringing in life from the loam and echoing truth (for fear of leyline). I got quick board presence off of a hedron crab t1. Bloodghasts and Drowned rusalka made a few tokens before experpate came down hitting bloodghast. by this time i was pretty far ahead before he droped a crypt removing my graveyard. He has a 3/4 tarmogoyf in play along side a 4/4 Knight of the reliquary, but was dead to my army of 2/2's unless he had a pulse. he didnt.
1-0
round 3- combo elves.
g1- this matchup is a bye. I got Iona into play naming green before he went infinate. i won.
g2- same deal, this time with dark blasts to prevent me from messing up.
2-0
round 4- little zoo
g1- i wish i didnt lose my notes on this game because all i remember was that the board was clogged and he was at a low life total, and i was at 8 life total. I had two blockers and he had one card in hand and 2 4/5 goyfs that both needed to hit me for it to be lethal. He only had 3 different land types in play, and i had bridges in my grave. He basically needed to have path in hand, and top deck another path. he did.
g2- this match is supposed to be a bye. I got STOMPED. T1 crypt keeps me off of the beatdown plan and after he pops crypt I was able to stabilize. But he is able to find another crypt and have some timely paths.
2-1
Round 5- Thopter Fea
G1- In a situation where I couldn’t cast dread return, but he smothered my own narcomebia pre-combat, giving me 3 zombies. Iona and 4 zombies get the job done.
G2- Damn turn 1 bitter blossom.
G3- He lays down a Dark Confidant, a vendilion cligue, and misplays with experpate, hitting blooghast instead of bridge when I have Drowned Rusulka and a Bloodghast in play. All you need is one. But he got the foundry online. He only had 2 mana open on my turn. I decided that he didn’t have mana leak due to the thopter combo, muddle the mixture , and dark confidant. I had 2 ancient grudges in my grave along with my 1 Iona and dread return. I cast the 1st grudge on the foundry. It resolves. I play dread return netting a billion tokens, and shutting off blue. The race was in my favior as he played a 2nd dark confidant, but if he didn’t misplay by full swinging for less than letahn when I could swing for lethal he would have won.
Round 6- Black Zoo.
G1- He had to read all of my cards, and never played this matchup before.
G2- that being said, he played the matchup soundly and actually made some good plays with experpatet/ crypt, but hes zoo. So he loses.
Round 7- Dark Depths.
G1- He combos off t3. Good thing narcomobeia, imp, sphinx, and iona can block 20/20s. Zombies go to town. I put him in a position where he needed to put the token on defence. That’s a good place to be.
G2- leyline. yagmoth tomb of urbog., thoughtseize my echoing truth. Pass turn. Land, crab, pass turn. Darkdepths hexmage. SCOOP.
G3- I wish I had a report of this match because it was so perfectly played on both sides. I just had better luck.
Round 8- UGR scapeshift.
I looked at the standings before the round and saw that I was sitting at 15 points. I was 5-1 in games I played, but 0-1 vs traffic. I got really bummed looking at the standings because I it was round 8 and I only had one match loss and no chance at top 8. (I know that if I was there for round 1 and won, I would have played a different set of players and It would have been harder fighting up the X-0 bracket, but still, id rather lose to a better player than to traffic.)
G1- I haven’t played this matchup. But I do remember looking at this list and thinking “oh they aren’t playing flamespout now, sweet!” I think I was drunk. Turn 2 I have a billion tokens, but cant flip up dread teturn for iona. He sweeps and burns all the bridges. Try to go on agro plan, but he scapeshifts and wins.
G2- He drops about 7 tibe elders and wood elves as he tares apart my grave with double trap.
So I end the day at 5-3 (but with only 2 loses to actual players) All things said and done, I would not change a single card I played in the mainboard, but I am a little sckeptical about thoughtseize, it doesn’t seem like it does anything relevant. Im going to test combo matchups this week to see if I need thoughtseize. I really don’t know what else would be a decent replacement. Maybe natures claim (although I hate that card in our deck as a replacement to ancient grudge or echoing truth, I think it might be a good supplement to those staples.
Maelstrom Pulse is good too. That being said, echoing truth is almost always better. You play the truth on turn 2-3 when your opponent can't replay the Leyline. And against the decks that play the leyline sb (mostly Thepts) you don't necessarily need to "go off" to win. More often than not a few random 1/X's and 2/X's get the job done just fine.
I was skeptical about playing with Dryad Arbor but this week I did some testing with it. It is really nifty to crack a fetch to find a 1/1 which brings along a bloodghast or two, but having it in the deck was never game breaking. IMO bloodghast and narcomobias are good enough, and cutting the steam vents made ancient grudge just weak enough to get the boot from the sideboard. Having full access to grudge is slightly more important than the 1/1.