I think Royal Assassin was a good card. Back in the day, like way back, he was a very good card was almost a staple in any Bx deck. The problem is not he's "bad", but rather that single cards and even the meta has shifted away from the longer, slower gameplay of bygone times. Now you have decks that dont care if you kill their beats, like recursion decks, vengevine, Emeria, dredge, etc.
Also, more creatures than ever have shroud, or some ability that makes it not in your best interest to destroy. Also, black has better cards to fill in that slot. Most games come down to one or two key plays, and having an assassin rarely swings the game as much as a surprise move.
well, if i had to pick a single shard, I would say Grixis. It embodies deceit, death, damage, pain, speed, sacrifice, and trickery. I don't think any other shard can be as "evil".
Next Level Bant is not that good. It's a "filler" deck that is seeing some success because the meta is in limbo right now and deck builders are taking chances with, and winning with, out-of-the-ordinary decks ideas.
NLB struggles greatly if it doesn't see a Vengevine by T4. Honestly, nothing about an army of Sea Gate Oracles, Scute Mobs, or Heirarchs is really dangerous unless you have Elspeth, but she's just solid with any beats.
Dont bring extra cards in your deck box. Bring your deck, sideboard, and tokens (if you have any). In case you get deck-checked by teh judges you dont want to have ANY extra sleeved or unsleeved cards near your deck. It looks suspucious.
I use one of those fat pack boxes with my deck, sb, tokens, and 2 dice containers. It works like a champ.
As for extra sleeves, I would bring at least 10 extra sleeves in case one or two sleeves gets ripped/torn or there is a problem with some sleeves.
Also, bring some kind of carb based snack. You will be very pressed for time most of te day. Unless you get a bye, you will have very little time between rounds to do anything other than taking a leak.
I find it funny that Plummet is common while Sligbow Trap is uncommon. I guess WotC is is trying to make baneslayer/persecutor/etc less of a threat. I will sideboard 3-of.
The last T2 tounament I did was in 1997!! I got back into it with the Houston PTQ this last Saturday.
The Meta essentially looks like what you see in the "Competitive" and "Developing Competitive" forums.
In no order (hehehe)
Jund
U/W Control
Bant (Mythic and Conscription)
UWr Planeswalkers
Polymorph
Naya
Grixis
RDW
Mono White/Green/Black
Vamps
Some Kind of Combo deck (Time Sieve, Runeflare, etc)
Random Rogue deck
As for what you want to play, honestly, I dont think it matters. Just browse through all the T2 legal sets and be sure to choose cards that are just plain solid. If you dont have a deck "theme" be sure to pick cards that have good synergy or that offer 2 for 1 card economy.
It seems like you have a bunch of red and black cards. I would shoot for a rogue-ish RB burn/discard deck.
First, do you find that dropping nothing but 0 power walls and 0/1 chumps hinders you in any way? Do you find your life dropping low before you stabilize with Garruk and Sphinxes? I put the Nest Invaders in specifically to add some early aggro with mana ramping to put pressure on control deck and trade with BBE and such. Do you find the 4 fogs better than 2 or 3?
I played my deck at the Houston PTQ, and although my record sucked, all of my games (with the exception of one Time Sieve combo) were very close and went to 3 games. I even hosed some good Jund deck. I found Naturalize to be a solid SB choice, but I will pick Relic Crush over Naturalize for my next event. In the games where I needed to remove artifacts or enchantments there were oftentimes at least 2 in play at any given time. Some guy dropped 2 Eldrazi Monuments on me and my one Naturalize was no match. Also, against Time Sieve decks we need more art removal early game to kill their Borderposts. I know Time Sieve combo is pretty rare, but I played against TWO of them at the PTQ and lost both because I didn't have enough aggro/disruption to stop them. Sad, I know.
I was not running any spreading seas main or SB and I never really found a need for them. Besides Jund, every single deck I played was either mono color or was half Blue. Perhaps that's just my Meta vs yours.
That said, almost any deck that is mostly Red or Green should splash the other color to get BBE. The haste with CA given by Cascade is really too powerful to pass up. I mean, free beats, spells, draw, etc. You name it, BBE give it to you in spades.
If you want to abuse Momentus Fall, I think the best idea (for your deck idea anyways) would be to use Garruk 3/3s or OVerrun + attack followed by Fall while your guys are +3/+3. That way you are using "virtual advantage" instead of wasting cards to sac.
The thing I dont like about this idea is that you have built a deck that uses relatively useless/hard to cast creatures (Nulltread and Dormant G) to simply sac to Momentus Fall.
Essentially what you are doing is spending 1 or 2 turns setting up some random 5/5 that you intend to sac the following turn? Instead of creating board presence and pressure you are casting hollow creatures that you sac anyways.
Yesterday, I was looking through a binder of cards I hadn't looked at since 1997. Force of Will. Bam. Right there. I didn't even know I still had any. I wont be selling any of my old cards because they are a part of my teenage years. Very fun memories. Maybe that's why I got back into the game...
I guess what I am saying is that I'm not in this game to make money. If I was, I suppose I'd open a store. Hell, even then I wouldnt make "money"...
The thing I dont like about Bramblesnap and Overrun is that they are anti-synergistic. Overrun works when you have a swarm of attackers. Bramblesnap wants you to tap out your dudes to make one guy really big. This also leaves you very vulnerable to a counter attack. Who knows, maybe it works well together?
The deck is called Walk Hard. I played a modified T2 version of it this past weekend at the Houston PTQ Amsterdam. I didn't do so hot, but beat Jund round 1 which was a pleasant surprise.
I'm still testing it out, but I think it's not consistent enough in its current state.
Also, more creatures than ever have shroud, or some ability that makes it not in your best interest to destroy. Also, black has better cards to fill in that slot. Most games come down to one or two key plays, and having an assassin rarely swings the game as much as a surprise move.
NLB struggles greatly if it doesn't see a Vengevine by T4. Honestly, nothing about an army of Sea Gate Oracles, Scute Mobs, or Heirarchs is really dangerous unless you have Elspeth, but she's just solid with any beats.
I use one of those fat pack boxes with my deck, sb, tokens, and 2 dice containers. It works like a champ.
As for extra sleeves, I would bring at least 10 extra sleeves in case one or two sleeves gets ripped/torn or there is a problem with some sleeves.
Also, bring some kind of carb based snack. You will be very pressed for time most of te day. Unless you get a bye, you will have very little time between rounds to do anything other than taking a leak.
The last T2 tounament I did was in 1997!! I got back into it with the Houston PTQ this last Saturday.
The Meta essentially looks like what you see in the "Competitive" and "Developing Competitive" forums.
In no order (hehehe)
Jund
U/W Control
Bant (Mythic and Conscription)
UWr Planeswalkers
Polymorph
Naya
Grixis
RDW
Mono White/Green/Black
Vamps
Some Kind of Combo deck (Time Sieve, Runeflare, etc)
Random Rogue deck
As for what you want to play, honestly, I dont think it matters. Just browse through all the T2 legal sets and be sure to choose cards that are just plain solid. If you dont have a deck "theme" be sure to pick cards that have good synergy or that offer 2 for 1 card economy.
It seems like you have a bunch of red and black cards. I would shoot for a rogue-ish RB burn/discard deck.
First, do you find that dropping nothing but 0 power walls and 0/1 chumps hinders you in any way? Do you find your life dropping low before you stabilize with Garruk and Sphinxes? I put the Nest Invaders in specifically to add some early aggro with mana ramping to put pressure on control deck and trade with BBE and such. Do you find the 4 fogs better than 2 or 3?
I played my deck at the Houston PTQ, and although my record sucked, all of my games (with the exception of one Time Sieve combo) were very close and went to 3 games. I even hosed some good Jund deck. I found Naturalize to be a solid SB choice, but I will pick Relic Crush over Naturalize for my next event. In the games where I needed to remove artifacts or enchantments there were oftentimes at least 2 in play at any given time. Some guy dropped 2 Eldrazi Monuments on me and my one Naturalize was no match. Also, against Time Sieve decks we need more art removal early game to kill their Borderposts. I know Time Sieve combo is pretty rare, but I played against TWO of them at the PTQ and lost both because I didn't have enough aggro/disruption to stop them. Sad, I know.
I was not running any spreading seas main or SB and I never really found a need for them. Besides Jund, every single deck I played was either mono color or was half Blue. Perhaps that's just my Meta vs yours.
That said, almost any deck that is mostly Red or Green should splash the other color to get BBE. The haste with CA given by Cascade is really too powerful to pass up. I mean, free beats, spells, draw, etc. You name it, BBE give it to you in spades.
Essentially what you are doing is spending 1 or 2 turns setting up some random 5/5 that you intend to sac the following turn? Instead of creating board presence and pressure you are casting hollow creatures that you sac anyways.
I guess what I am saying is that I'm not in this game to make money. If I was, I suppose I'd open a store. Hell, even then I wouldnt make "money"...
YMMV. Good luck!
3 halimar depths
8 island
3 khalani garden
4 misty rainforest
3 nest invader
4 overgrown battlement
2 sphinx of jwar isle
3 AEther tradewinds
2 fog
4 garruk wildspeaker
4 howling mine
3 jace, the mind sculptor
2 reality spasm
4 time warp
2 twincast
- Didn't CIPT
- Didn't bounce after you pop it
- Had shroud
I'm still testing it out, but I think it's not consistent enough in its current state.