- gordy12791
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Member for 14 years, 3 months, and 18 days
Last active Wed, Jan, 24 2018 00:21:30
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Apr 18, 2011gordy12791 posted a message on Bant Shaman 4.0Thanks. I noticed that before, but forgot to correct it. Missing card is 1 Sylvan RangerPosted in: gordy12791 Blog
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Mar 23, 2011gordy12791 posted a message on Naya Shaman 2Both swords are decent against valakut, but they are quite a lot too slow to swing it I'm afraid. When they are good, its actually the milling from SoBoM and the discard+untap from SoFaF which makes them so.Posted in: gordy12791 Blog
The earliest you can realistically hit with a sword is turn 4. You are probably facing a titan by then (on the draw), or are about to (on the play). Turn 5, your board gets wrathed by valakut. So you have to have won by then. Sword doesn't really help with that. -
Feb 12, 2011gordy12791 posted a message on Bant Shaman 2.0Yeah, boros picked up suddenly around the time I made this list. I think there are a few things going into that. Firstly, they seem to be playing less journey to nowhere than before, which makes baneslayer excellent against them after sideboarding. Many of their draws that deal a lot of damage to you don't disrupt you, so before the games would go like this:Posted in: gordy12791 Blog
t1 I play Birds of Paradise, opponent plays steppe lynx
t2 I play cobra and a tapped land and pass, opponent plays fetchland, geopede, attack for 4
t3 I play land, baneslayer, opponent journeys the BSA, plays another fetchland and attacks for 9. I'm now basically dead unless I have a 2nd BSA.
Whereas now the t3 baneslayer sticks. It could definately be small numbers, and a 'genuine' percentage would probably only be around 50-60% now, but I think its more about the changes to their lists. I'm also being hit by fewer game 1 sparkmages, which is massive.
On my side, I am main-decking linvala, I tutor it pre-emptively more often, and I'm remembering to keep in linvala after sideboarding (I used to forget to bring it in). Garruk is pretty good agianst them too because their creatures are quite big; you block one big guy with the 3/3, and another goes after garruk, and so you gained 6-10 life and in general forced them to crack another fetchland. If they ignore garruk, you can quickly out-tempo them. And of course, I'm generally getting better at choosing when to chump with hawk, when to chump with vengevine, when to turn the tables and become aggressive, etc., as I get more practice. This is one of the most skill-intesive and decision-intensive match-ups in my opinion, because of all the combat math and guesswork on which creatures/removal they have.
Overall, its just multiple changes having a large impact. I'm not scared of boros at all now. -
Nov 2, 2010gordy12791 posted a message on Bant Shaman 2.0I guess I can see your point. I wouldn't play more than two at most though; it clogs up my hand when I draw it as it is.Posted in: gordy12791 Blog
Wurmcoil is more interesting because it could potentially replace baneslayer. I suppose I feel the difference between 5 and 6 mana (normally a whole turn) is actually quite large in the matches where life-gain is relevent (RDW, tokens etc.). Against tokens, BSA is also the far superior finisher. On the other hand, engine cannot be doom bladed or double bolted effectively, which could be very important.
I might put one in and see when I want to tutor for it instead of BSA. -
Oct 28, 2010gordy12791 posted a message on Bant Shaman 2.0When the first comment was posted, there were no squadron hawks. Instead, there were 4baneslayer angels, in true mythic stylePosted in: gordy12791 Blog
Frost titan might come in for linvala or baneslayer or even masticore at some point. I tend to feel like tapping down primeval with it is a lost cause. The two extra lands generally give mono-green ramp or valakut all the ammunition and mana they need. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Standard Abzan midrange (rhino, roc, sorin/elspeth, removal, courser/caryatid) has been a non-issue for me so far; it's the deck I'm happiest to see opposite me by some distance. They aren't winning late, so they need to win early, but you're actually coming out about as fast as they are. Not sure why others are needing the queen; perhaps Kruphix's insight and a better-fuelled eidolon is providing the late-game edge others are getting from hornet queen?
Basically what I was finding with hornet queen was that I was losing to boss sligh, jeskai and heroic lists long before it had a chance to be relevant. It's great in the green mirror, especially, if they don't have doomwake, but that defined it as a sideboard card for me (it's weak where the deck is weak, strong where it is already strong).
Interesting point about whip; I've definitely weakened its recursion ability massively. The mass lifegain from whip has often been critical to survival though; I'm not sure how else I'd get that. Soul of theros maybe? I think there's actually a paucity of decent 4+ mana enchantments, so what is whip being replaced with? Also worth noting when you have this many enchantments, especially two-mana enchantments, whipping back a doomwake can be converted into plague wind surprisingly often. On your point about filling/draining the yard, note most lists run murderous cut as another drain on the graveyard.
Underworld coinsmith is absolutely the weakest card in the deck, wasn't there originally, and is basically a concession to boss sligh murdering me over and over again, though it's also acceptable against jeskai or anyone else likely to throw burn at your head. Siege Rhino is much more expensive than the coinsmith and so doesn't really fill the same role. Nyx-fleece ram I've gone back and forth on, but once again the point of those cards is Boss Sligh; coinsmith is better here because the life-gain is immediate, there tend to be no individually large creatures for a ram to block, and coinsmith often kills things or forces pump spells by blocking. If I was struggling with Abzan at all, I'd play rams since blocking siege rhino is pretty sweet. This is a pair I certainly keep looking at though; pretty much every time I draw coinsmith I'm saying 'would I rather this was a ram' and vice-versa. It wouldn't take a big metagame move for me to flip.
For discussion purposes, it might help to consider my list as partially pre-sideboarded against sligh because cheap mono-red is and always has been more popular online than in paper. If I were going to a paper tournament I would be -3 coinsmith, +1 maggot, +2 hornet queen.
Fair point on the mystics; I will try to experiment with this. Something like -4 mystics, +1 insight, +1 banishing light, +1 land, +1 suspension field might shift the deck correctly. As with all such changes, it's about whether you can survive the fast decks. I do side some number of mystics out a lot. Though insight is probably better thought of as a 7+ mana card.
I've been absent from MtG in any serious way for a long time, but the idea of trying to play Kruphix's insight caught my attention; this card is really potent card draw for what green normaly gets and goes into a deckstyle that I like very much. After some work, I played two dailies yesterday and two earlier in the week going 1-2, 3-1, 3-1, 4-0. This deck seems really strong, but I've gone much deeper on constellation that most of the other lists I see around, which is interesting.
I'm mostly just grinding out other Courser-based decks or using a barrage of life-gain/removal against the aggro decks until my late-game takes over. Control doesn't really seem to be a factor at the moment I imagine magic online may be a little more skewed towards fast aggro than most metas (I think I played against about 6 fast aggro lists in that 15 matches), which is certainly having an effect; e.g. it is why I cut hornet queen from the main. With that said, I haven't missed it too much. Here's my list:
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
3 Temple of Silence
3 Forest
2 Temple of Malady
1 Plains
1 Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Caves of Koilos
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Underworld Coinsmith
3 Brain Maggot
4 Courser of Kruphix
2 Pharika, God of Affliction
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Doomwake Giant
3 Banishing Light
3 Whip of Erebos
3 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
3 Suspension Field
2 Nyx-fleece Ram
2 Hornet Queen
1 Banishing Light
1 Brain Maggot
1 Underworld Coinsmith
1 Kruphix's Insight
1 Pharika, God of Affliction
Feedback welcome.
The card requires you to build around it in a big way, but when it catches your opponent out it really catches them out.
People saying he is unplayable are definately going too far, but he's certainly going to need a specific type of deck to come together in order to be playable (a very similar one to zegana, funnily enough; 24+ creatures and at least half a dozen ramp effects). If standard elves ever becomes a thing, I like having this type of effect in the sideboard.
Voice is good against both of those cards and the decks that they spawn; it will be a force in standard for a long time. If anything, the current lack of control makes it a little weaker than you might expect it to be.
If no one is playing the tokens decks in, say, October, why are people running ratchet bomb? Serious question.
The card is flexible and strong enough that I could see it helping to spawn something entirely new though (Junk midrange perhaps?).
On a more offbeat note, I also like that it adds to what I think could become a critical mass of +1/+1 counter effects. We have quite a few cards that care about that now (renegade krasis, bred for the hunt, exava, rakdos blood witch, zameck guildmage).
If you look at the post chain I was responding to, we were dealing with whether a vanilla 6/6 for 4 (colours unspecified) would be unplayable. As I said, I'm think that's taking it a bit far, but I don't think such a card would be that powerful.
I wasn't talking about alms beast, which is most certainly not vanilla and is also colour-restrictive.
'Unplayable' might be taking it a bit far, but sirgog is right that a vanilla 6/6 for 4 is just not sufficiently high above the curve to be powerful right now. I'd also take deadbridge goliath over a random 6/6 in my deck any day. And the goliath doesn't see any play.
Broadly, two categories:
1. When the cards you see may impact your plays for the turn.
This includes land sequencing; say its turn 3 and you do have a sunpetal grove, but no fourth land. Casting the salvage may well find you a shockland and then you play it immediately, saving you 2 life on the alternative if you need four lands untapped next turn.
2. When you don't want it countered.
As seen in the video. It's worth noting that if you do want it countered, this argument reverses itself. Say the Junk Rites player in the video had a t3 liliana of the veil follow-up (unlikely I know, but it makes the point well). Then baiting the negate might just outright win the game.
Apart from those, you may as well bluff one of the charms or abrupt decay. And sometimes you'll actually have those cards!
This, of course, is why esper uses nephalia drownyard or PWs as its win condition, not AoS. These finishers are the correct comparision to aetherling.
and remove:
A lot of the cards I would add are cards that I think are not quite right at the moment or don't have a deck, but could easily get one at some point in the next year and a half and I'd rather buy them while they are dirt cheap.
I feel like rancor is working along the right lines if you want to maximise the power of this card. There are a good number of decent effects/cards that mostly suffer from being blown out by instant speed removal, e.g. rancor, silverblade paladin, sublime archangel, wolfir silverhart, domri rade fight ability. VoR is in the right colours to support these cards, and ignoring (say) a silverblade paladin until your turn could be very painful.
That said, the power level is high enough that I don't think you need to build around it to make it viable; it'll just naturally fit in a bunch of decks' maindecks and sideboards as a value 2-drop.
You might want to check those dates/blocks again....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avacyn_Restored
Order is
Innistrad <----Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage
Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored <----Cavern of Souls
M13
RTR
That said, there's nothing stopping wizards deciding to print an answer to delver/snapcaster mage before releasing innistrad. It doesn't take a genius to work out those are powerful cards that should be kept in check.