Think back to the era of Big Jace. What was the BEST way to beat big Jace? Play little Jace, and either Jace first, or Jace follow up. Using PW's to beat other PW's has always been VERY important because there aren't a ton of ways to beat them. It's infuriating that Wizards keeps making changes to things that don't need to be changed. It's very annoying. They could have left it at you get to choose which one lives, but taking it that extra step and allowing both you and your opponent to have the same PW in play? That's absurd.
The other changes are negligible. The Sideboard change was actually long over due in my opinion, bringing it in tune with Limited is important, to prevent potential confusion.
It's symmetrical, which isn't nearly as good as if it were one-sided. It can really goof up opponent's plans if they try to cast Thragtusk and reveal a mana dork off the top.
Really good if you can put cards on top first somehow. Difficult to do in the current Standard which makes it too random.
Hysterical EDH griefer card that will likely backfire on the caster when the opponent casts an Ornithopter into Blightsteel Colossus.
This card is going to be cheating Omniscence into play. You play one, and a TON of 1 and 2 mana enchantments and just cycle through your library until you find big blue. Then you get to cycle through your deck again to find your win condition, whatever that may be. Could also be fun with one mana dudes and any fatty. Or something of that nature. This can be very, very exciting.
Wow, so it is fake!
The "original" design was really solid-
something tells me the real thing won't quite measure up.
He's referring to colored Mana-
Borbor is RRGG, Ruric is RG.
The design wasn't solid at all! The card is absurd in creature mirrors. It's 90% unkillable.... How many cards in standard currently get around regeneration? Terminus included. It's pretty silly to think that card could have seen print. Talk about the best solution to Thragtusk. It comes down earlier and blocks all day.
I'd go up to 4 rampager before I even got close to Giant Growth. I'd also probably go for Ranger's Guile before I touched it because dodging removal and getting a bit bigger seems more relevant.
Unless they have some magical first striking creature Rancor makes every creature a painful threat to consider in combat. It's also a free shock for every combat because it either lets you trade with something bigger in combat or deals damage, while returning to your hand after.
I've been running this for the last few weeks and it does a LOT of work. If I don't flood out on lands during the early stages of the game I've won every game on the play and still had a lot of wins on the draw when the Ghor-Clan Rampager package tends to come in.
Minor critique, in a deck with no card draw or filtering, I don't really like one of's. Legion Loyalist is strong, but if I was going for that effect, I would move myself to 4 post board.
but this is instructive isn't it? do you think cocatrice would be nearly as popular as it is/was if all of the card images in it were replaced with blank rectangles with scrawled card text in it? Do you think Hasbro/WoTC would be doing this is Cocatrice didn't use any images at all (even if they try to get by with the fig-leaf of "we're not downloading, our users just download them").
Define sarcasm. Re-read my post.
Edit: To contribute to the conversation, Pokemon has the right idea for moving forward with online games. Hasbro wants to continue to have exclusivity while also making MTGO more reasonable, they need to take a page out of their book. Giving out codes in packs for virtual packs gives people incentive to actually buy physical cards. Then they can take it a step further and make it available to purchase the packs online still and now you have two sources of pack income. It rewards people for purchasing packs still.
Gamester very interesting list, I thnk I am going to give it a shot at tommorrow nights WNM. Would you mind posting your side boarding strategy? (what goes in and out for popular deck matchups?)
To be completely honest, sideboarding is very much something that happens based around what I saw in their deck list, and what I perceive them to bring in against me...
Some examples include:
Against creature light decks I cut the Ambush Vipers and Guildmages for Huntmasters and Angels (and then something like the Pyreheart and a Slaughterhorn)
Against creature heavy decks I cut the Flunkies/Maulers (depending on whether they are red based or Jund/Naya) for Reckoners and Huntmasters.
I'll come up with a more defined SB plan for cut and dry if I had to give the list to someone blind, but for the most part it's a feel kind of thing. I mentioned more about SB in my original post a few pages ago. I'll copy and paste that section in a minute. It's bedtime now, but I'll try to remember to hop on tomorrow early and give a more in depth look at how I sideboard blind.
Edit: This is what I posted earlier and a lot of this holds true from initial testing into actual tournament play. This isn't a cut and dry sb guide, but it's a very much theoretical as card choices and play styles of my opponent change the way I board very heavily.
The sideboard:
Reckoner is a beast. Plain and simple. He's not main because I want the additional mana sources if I'm playing him. He isn't always castable off 16 sources, but off 21 he's pretty consistently coming down turn 3.
Mountain/Pilgrim is so I can go up to 21 sources post board.
3 Angel/3 Huntmaster for the control decks. Some cards are worse in this match-up then others (Experiment is pretty bad when they can just Charm it over and over again, and Stromkirk is never getting through an Augur), so I really want these guys. While my SB is pretty much 15 or no, it still provides some play. You also have ample amounts of options for what to take out. For example!:
+15
-8 One drops
-4 Ghor-Clan
-2 Skarrg
-1 Slaughterhorn
or instead of Skarrg
-1 Wolf
-1 Viper
or even just all 3 Vipers
Or
+4 Reckoner
+1 Mountain
+4 Pilgrim
-2 Skarrg
-4 Visionary (we're up to 21 sources, the cantrip is less useful)
-3 Flunkies (We're on the Reckoner plan now, probably skipping this guy)
Can leave Skarrg in and take out some number of other guys, like Lightning Mauler, Viper and one drops.
Edit: Hey, I didn't get a chance to get on today, we had a power outage and couldn't get our modem to restart. I wont be able to type up a SB guide until tomorrow probably, but again, you can read the quoted section above for a basic example of the theory behind the SB and that should help out.
Have you thoughabout legion loyalist over the guild Mage? Gives you the trample, avoid s lingering souls better too. Plus I don't imagine you got to animate lands too often?
Dormi presents an answer to flyers so I haven't had much trouble, and Angel's post board are pretty relevant so it's not too rough.
I thought about Loyalist initially, but it was entirely theory crafted. I was considering it as a one or two of max, but I ended up moving to the Guildmage because it gives you something else to do with excess mana to prevent you from truly flooding. Animating lands doesn't happen often, but when it does it's pretty relevant. Enough so that I wouldn't cut Guildmage for Loyalist, though battling Lingering Souls could be pretty clutch.
This is the list I'm running now. Post board I have two less ways to cast Angel and Reckoner than previously (I swapped out the MD Temple Gardens for Overgrown Tombs and a MD mountain for a Temple Garden), but that's because my new Red one drop of choice to go with my Ooze is Cackler. It's not as insane as Stromkirk Noble, but he does give me a two power one drop and that's important. I also can utilize Overgrown Tombs to cast him, preventing me from actually having a tough time casting a Red and Green one drop in a deck with only 16 lands.
One thing I'm considering is which is more important, the ability to cast Restoration Angel out of the board, or the ability to cast either Stromkirk or Cackler on turn one. If casting Angel is more important, it may be correct to cut the red one drops in favor of Pilgrims (not something I'm too fond of) in the main, and then reworking the mana a bit to better utilize the white I'm now producing. The fact that only a few cards utilize W at all makes it hard to justify the pilgrim in the main, but it's something I've been testing.
Essentially I wanted to take the idea's presented by Saito, and combine them with Jund Aggro ala Ari Lax and then see how far I could push the envelope. What started out as a thought experiment turned into the above, and it's been absolutely insane. I crushed my game day with the above 75 (+1 Temple Garden boarded and -1 Reckoner simply due to card availability... I forgot I had planned on not attending game day and promised a bud he could borrow my set, so then I had to reacquire some more Reckoners in order to play).
So, quick Tournament Report
Round 1: BUG Delver
This match-up really comes down to how well they draw. If they draw the nuts, then it becomes hard because they are able to attrition you with removal, and your only true source of CA is Dormi. It is possible to just get beat, though if you play aggressively enough and mise a bit, you can just steam roll them. This was the case here. In game one he went turn 1 Delver, turn 2 Flip (revealing Dimir Charm) but he couldn't beat my turn 1 Experiment, turn 2 Emissary into Flunkies then turn 3 Dormi and hit Ambush Viper which took care of his Delver and let me cruise. Game 2 we both Mulliganed to five, only I hit turn one Experiment, turn 2 Emissary into Pilgrim turn 3 Restoration Angel into Flinthoof Boar for what was the perfect mulligan to five.
Round 2: Bant Control
I killed him before he could resolve anything relevant in either game.
Round 3: Jund Midrange
I love this match-up. They are slow to get started, but once they do it's pretty hard to beat them. Unfortunately for them, I don't ever flood out and so they have little hope of truly getting their engines going. I managed to crush my opponent with my four land draw because I had double Ghor-Clan and was able to produce massive amounts of damage through his attempts at disruption. In game two I managed the dream of turn 3 Huntaster thanks to another pilgrim in the first two turns and drawing excessive land.
I'd like to stop real quick and talk about how many lands I drew. For a 16 land deck, you would expect to max out at around 3 lands per game. I ran extremely well in the first three rounds, never having less than four lands on the table by the time the game ended (I'm counting Pilgrim as a land here) and able to correctly cast all my spells. This is wonderful, and you when designing absurd decks you have to remember that magic is a game of numbers and percentages, but at the end of the day to win a tournament, you still have to catch a case of the run goods. So, if you design a deck that is safe and has perfect numbers, sure, you are going to increase your odds of the run goods, but don't dismiss those crazy decks just because some of the percentages are lower than you want.
Round 4 was against my friend who I let borrow Reckoners so he scooped me into the Top 8.
Round 5 ID with another friend of mine who was playing this deck -3 or so cards (he ran additional lands MD because we can't all be crazy).
Top 8
Played against the Aristocrats and I stomped their face in. I don't think this deck is very good btw. It has some decent match-ups against almost anything, and it did win the Pro Tour, but this is one of those decks that's a lot like Gifts was during Kami block. It can win the PT, but that's because the environment is different. The players who played it were all extremely skilled pilots, and were able to play the deck as close to perfect as you can in the game of magic. Every single play you make with the deck can actually just lose you the game, so making the correct decisions is hard. In this match-up my opponent had utilized the decks raw power to make top 8, going 3-2 and being 8th seed, but he wasn't able to use that against me because I would say I'm on par or better than he is, which completely nullifies the advantage that he would normally have playing the deck. He misplayed a few lands, and made a crucial error in sacrificing a guy to save a Cartel, and I was able to take advantage of this in game one and then watch him mulligan into oblivion game two.
Note, I played two games every round through the finals. Never went to a third game, and for this, I'm extremely thankful. I went into the tournament not wanting to play magic and wound up having a great time because I played the perfect amount of magic.
Semi's was against the friend who borrowed my Reckoners and we were already prize split so he conceded.
Finals I played against Esper Control and was able to use a Guildmage to trample over for lethal game one when he had multiple Lingering Souls tokens in play and in game two I don't think he was expecting Huntmaster on turn 4 but double Angel on 5 and 6 (I had a turn 3 Dormi so I drew a ton of cards) was enough to give me the playmat (which I promptly gave to his son who was there, as I've known this guy since before his son was born and have watched him grow up so... giving a playmat to an 8 year old is much more rewarding than keeping it and never using it anyway).
If I had to make some comments about the way I would go with the deck from here on out I would say that 16 lands is very dangerous. If I was to play in a GP I would most certainly add a 17th land to the main deck, as having access to 18 real lands post board was insanely productive. The worst card for me on the day was probably Reckoner because everybody is playing cards that beat Reckoner now and it's not as unexpected as it was last weekend. Not saying the card wasn't good, but it was very difficult on my mana at all the wrong times and there were a few games where I chose to cast Dormi Rade over it and the game promptly ended the next turn. One thing I really like though is Fighting with it and fighting with Ambush Viper. Oh, and flashing in a Viper mid combat is probably the most rewarding thing I've done in constructed, especially when my opponents had to pick the card up to read it. Card is much better than people give it credit for (if they give it any) and I think it's very strong when played in the Dormi Rade version of Gruul (a removal spell that's a creature). One other card that was an all star for me was Flinthoof Boars 5-7, Mogg Flunkies. This guy doesn't ever have haste, but on turn 2 off an Emissary he's just as beefy as Flinthoof Boar and should probably be given more credit. Guy's just a solid two drop from start to finish.
We have an artwork that most of us are 99% sure is City of Brass, but it's not "confirmed" in the sense that we've seen an actual card or received information from a reliable source (or whatever criteria they use here to "confirm" something).
How often do we add things to spoilers before we actually see a card? Sometimes, spoilers are spoilers without seeing cards. Oh well, if it's not "confirmed" then that needs to be made very, very clear over at the City of Brass sleeves thread. You can't have one thread claiming that it's in modern masters, and then it be completely absent from another.
Shouldn't this be updated to include City of Brass, a card we have confirmed information on? Just because we don't know the rarity necessarily, the fact they are making card sleeves for it should mean that it's confirmed enough to be put in the initial post.
You really can't play a G[MANA]andaR[/MANA] 1-drop in the same deck without playing 10 Stomping grounds. There's just no way
Idk, it's 9 and 7 for turn one ways to cast either, and since the deck has to mulligan pretty aggressively anyway only running 16 lands, its not improbably that the land I do have in my opener is the correct one. 9/16 and 7/16 aren't terrible odds I think. It would however, be beneficial to have access to 10 Stomping Grounds. I would however consider cutting Experiment for like a Rakdos Cackler, but then you would really have to rework almost the entire deck because now 3/3's on turn 2 are less stellar (still good though) and I'm not sure Flunkies is correct at that point. Something like Ash Zealot might just be better (though RR seems just as rough as having access to G on turn 1)
One final thing, I've been considering cutting the Rootbound Crags anyway in favor of +1 Temple Garden, +1 Forest, +2 Mountain, but I'm not "sold" on the prospect of playing a land that doesn't cast Reckoner post board. Producing G isn't ever an issue that I've come across often enough to truly matter.
Edit: Also, Ari Lax did just that, played a R and G one drop at the PT, and he had 9 turn 1 Red sources and 10 turn 1 Green Sources. Sure, his numbers are out of 22 though, so I have a statistically more probable chance of having the land in my opener able to produce red (as 9/16 is better than 9/22) and a slightly lower chance of having the ability to produce G (something like, .02 percent). Granted, he wants a higher chance of having lands in his opener than I do (generally he wants 2-3, whereas I never want to have 3 lands in my opener, 1 is fine, and 2 is literally the perfect number).
Obviously the consistency of his mana base is higher than mine because he runs +6 lands, but my point is still roughly that I have a generally acceptable amount of percentages to have the correct land in my opener to cast the one drop of choice.
I've been tinkering with a hyper aggressive Gruul deck that tries to maximize the value of two drops. It's essentially the greediest deck I've ever worked on, and due to real life I haven't been able to play it a ton, but what I have it's been incredibly bonkers at times. It's by no means tuned or anything, but I thought I'd share and see what reactions I get. I present, the greediest deck of all time:
So, this is my thought process behind the deck, and it's actually based on how I've been drafting Gruul on Magic Online. The concept is that your Bloodrush guys don't actually ever theoretically get cast. You play a deck with them considered at their Bloodrush Cost, however the ability to cast them if you ever "flood" out is where your value is gained. Slaughterhorn fills this role as being a 3 drop that's below average, but who has a very exciting G casting cost to Searing Spear your opponent (or a creature that's in combat) and Ghor-Clan Rampager is very promising at GR. They both get more exciting if you get to actually cast them in a game (more the Rampager than the Slaughterhorn, but w/e), but if you don't it's not a big deal because you still get to cast them. Dormi Rade is probably my favorite card in the set outside Dimir Charm, and building a deck that can essentially hit almost every time is impressive.
Some of the interesting choices:
One drop:
I went with Experiment One and Stromkirk because of their ability to grow. The one mana investment potentially has the ability to pay back in huge sums, and I believe that the ability to be a 3/3 at some point in the game is something that is worth more than something always being a 2/2.
Two drop:
First, I'll talk about Ambush Viper. In a deck that needs to run no spells outside of Dormi Rade to take full effect of the card, Ambush Viper acts like a spell. It removes any ground creature that doesn't have first strike (sad day) and that is important. The ability to trade with a Thragtusk or most of the guys in the Human deck is important, as sometimes games go pretty long. While this deck isn't trying to grind out games very often, the ability to draw a removal spell of Dormi Rade is important. Not to mention, with Rade he can fight and kill anything in the format. This is very good at removing things like, Restoration Angel and Boros Reckoner, cards that are very popular that you would otherwise have a hard time fighting against.
Next I'll discuss Mogg Flunkies. First, it's almost always a pump spell for Experiment, and it has the added benefit of being part of a nut draw of sorts. The fact that it's a 3/3 for 1R is the important part, and since you should actually never only have this guy in play, his drawback is very limited. Being able to go turn 1 Experiment, turn 2 Burning-Tree Emissary into Flunkies for +2 counters and swing for three leads to some pretty impressive starts. I dropped the count to 3 because it's not my favorite card, and I generally only really want to draw one per game, but it's never awful.
Elvish Visionary actually doesn't pump Experiment, and I'm not sure how much I like it, but it does serve a very important purpose as well. Being a two drop cantrip is actually important when you are talking about a deck with 16 mana sources main deck. It allows you to effectively play 56 cards, and 16/56 is a lot better looking than 16/60. Of course this isn't concrete because you still have to get two lands into play for this to work, but the effect is solid. Not pumping Experiment One makes it less appealing, but I think the trade off is good enough.
Boar/Mauler/Emissary is part of a very good second turn set of options. Boar is a 3/3 most of the time, so it can pump Experiment off the Emissary on turn 2, allowing for super strong starts. The fact that they all cost 2 mana is the most important thing though because they are all aggressive plays that allow you to play less lands because you don't have to worry about the need to play increasingly more valuable cards the further the turns go. These guys provide enough value on turn 2/3 that it's okay to skimp a bit.
2 Guildmage/1 Pyreheart Wolf - Probably the 3 cards I'm sold the least on. I have the Guildmage in there as an answer to Lingering Souls and a psuedo Rancor, while simultaneously turning excessive amounts of lands into pretty beefy threats. The Wolf is a way to push damage through the longer the game goes on. Both of them are pretty mana intensive though for a 16 land deck, and that's troublesome, but they are only 3 cards, and I'm okay with this risk right now.
Slaughterhorn/Gho-Clan - the concept behind the deck is the inclusion of these two cards. They give you creatures to draw of Dormi that provide either bodies on the field or spells in your hand for reduced prices. If you flood out you can cast them, but if you get stuck on 2/3 then you aren't really screwed because you can still cast every card in your deck. This is important, as we are only playing 16 lands.
Dormi Rade lets us draw cards. Boss.
Lands. This is kinda weird. I want to play Reckoner really bad post board. He's just so strong. The Sacred Foundry, while costing two points of life most of the time, is still a mountain to pump Boar, while also being able to cast Resto Angel post board if needed. Temple Garden is still a forest, and so it still can cast Reckoner and Angel post board, while being that green source I need. Originally my lands were 4/4/5/3 with 5 Mountains and 3 Forests, but I figured since I'm probably not winning games that go super long, the damage is negligible and the ability to include those cards post board is huge.
The sideboard:
Reckoner is a beast. Plain and simple. He's not main because I want the additional mana sources if I'm playing him. He isn't always castable off 16 sources, but off 21 he's pretty consistently coming down turn 3.
Mountain/Pilgrim is so I can go up to 21 sources post board.
3 Angel/3 Huntmaster for the control decks. Some cards are worse in this match-up then others (Experiment is pretty bad when they can just Charm it over and over again, and Stromkirk is never getting through an Augur), so I really want these guys. While my SB is pretty much 15 or no, it still provides some play. You also have ample amounts of options for what to take out. For example!:
+15
-8 One drops
-4 Ghor-Clan
-2 Skarrg
-1 Slaughterhorn
or instead of Skarrg
-1 Wolf
-1 Viper
or even just all 3 Vipers
Or
+4 Reckoner
+1 Mountain
+4 Pilgrim
-2 Skarrg
-4 Visionary (we're up to 21 sources, the cantrip is less useful)
-3 Flunkies (We're on the Reckoner plan now, probably skipping this guy)
Can leave Skarrg in and take out some number of other guys, like Lightning Mauler, Viper and one drops.
Anyway, that's all I got for now, what do you guys think? It's very greedy, and might need to move up to 18 lands, but I'm not entirely sure if I want to do that. I might add a 17th somewhere in the list, maybe cutting a Visionary or something, but anyway, comments? Did I miss anything super important?
17 Force of Wills in the 10c uncommon bin. Foil Witness's in the foil uncommon bin for 25c each. Best find though was when I went through my old collection after years and found a complete set of revised dual lands in pristine condition. Forgot I had them because I had quit and sold my collection, but they were in a box of basic lands that I had kept in case I ever played again.
Edit: I lied. I forgot the best find. Got married a few years ago. My wife bought me a magic the gathering book as a wedding gift. It came with a promotional Jace. Not only is it the sweetest picture ever, but it's also incredibly valuable.
Think back to the era of Big Jace. What was the BEST way to beat big Jace? Play little Jace, and either Jace first, or Jace follow up. Using PW's to beat other PW's has always been VERY important because there aren't a ton of ways to beat them. It's infuriating that Wizards keeps making changes to things that don't need to be changed. It's very annoying. They could have left it at you get to choose which one lives, but taking it that extra step and allowing both you and your opponent to have the same PW in play? That's absurd.
The other changes are negligible. The Sideboard change was actually long over due in my opinion, bringing it in tune with Limited is important, to prevent potential confusion.
This card is going to be cheating Omniscence into play. You play one, and a TON of 1 and 2 mana enchantments and just cycle through your library until you find big blue. Then you get to cycle through your deck again to find your win condition, whatever that may be. Could also be fun with one mana dudes and any fatty. Or something of that nature. This can be very, very exciting.
The design wasn't solid at all! The card is absurd in creature mirrors. It's 90% unkillable.... How many cards in standard currently get around regeneration? Terminus included. It's pretty silly to think that card could have seen print. Talk about the best solution to Thragtusk. It comes down earlier and blocks all day.
This card is so underpowered it wouldn't see any play. You could safely make it a common because it's terrible in draft as well.
Wizards pls.
Minor critique, in a deck with no card draw or filtering, I don't really like one of's. Legion Loyalist is strong, but if I was going for that effect, I would move myself to 4 post board.
Define sarcasm. Re-read my post.
Edit: To contribute to the conversation, Pokemon has the right idea for moving forward with online games. Hasbro wants to continue to have exclusivity while also making MTGO more reasonable, they need to take a page out of their book. Giving out codes in packs for virtual packs gives people incentive to actually buy physical cards. Then they can take it a step further and make it available to purchase the packs online still and now you have two sources of pack income. It rewards people for purchasing packs still.
To be completely honest, sideboarding is very much something that happens based around what I saw in their deck list, and what I perceive them to bring in against me...
Some examples include:
Against creature light decks I cut the Ambush Vipers and Guildmages for Huntmasters and Angels (and then something like the Pyreheart and a Slaughterhorn)
Against creature heavy decks I cut the Flunkies/Maulers (depending on whether they are red based or Jund/Naya) for Reckoners and Huntmasters.
I'll come up with a more defined SB plan for cut and dry if I had to give the list to someone blind, but for the most part it's a feel kind of thing. I mentioned more about SB in my original post a few pages ago. I'll copy and paste that section in a minute. It's bedtime now, but I'll try to remember to hop on tomorrow early and give a more in depth look at how I sideboard blind.
Edit: This is what I posted earlier and a lot of this holds true from initial testing into actual tournament play. This isn't a cut and dry sb guide, but it's a very much theoretical as card choices and play styles of my opponent change the way I board very heavily.
Edit: Hey, I didn't get a chance to get on today, we had a power outage and couldn't get our modem to restart. I wont be able to type up a SB guide until tomorrow probably, but again, you can read the quoted section above for a basic example of the theory behind the SB and that should help out.
Dormi presents an answer to flyers so I haven't had much trouble, and Angel's post board are pretty relevant so it's not too rough.
I thought about Loyalist initially, but it was entirely theory crafted. I was considering it as a one or two of max, but I ended up moving to the Guildmage because it gives you something else to do with excess mana to prevent you from truly flooding. Animating lands doesn't happen often, but when it does it's pretty relevant. Enough so that I wouldn't cut Guildmage for Loyalist, though battling Lingering Souls could be pretty clutch.
4 Rakdos Cackler
3 Ambush Viper
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Lightning Mauler
3 Mogg Flunkies
2 Skarrg Guildmage
1 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Slaughterhorn
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
4 Boros Reckoner
1 Temple Garden
4 Avacyn Pilgrim
3 Restoration Angel
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
This is the list I'm running now. Post board I have two less ways to cast Angel and Reckoner than previously (I swapped out the MD Temple Gardens for Overgrown Tombs and a MD mountain for a Temple Garden), but that's because my new Red one drop of choice to go with my Ooze is Cackler. It's not as insane as Stromkirk Noble, but he does give me a two power one drop and that's important. I also can utilize Overgrown Tombs to cast him, preventing me from actually having a tough time casting a Red and Green one drop in a deck with only 16 lands.
One thing I'm considering is which is more important, the ability to cast Restoration Angel out of the board, or the ability to cast either Stromkirk or Cackler on turn one. If casting Angel is more important, it may be correct to cut the red one drops in favor of Pilgrims (not something I'm too fond of) in the main, and then reworking the mana a bit to better utilize the white I'm now producing. The fact that only a few cards utilize W at all makes it hard to justify the pilgrim in the main, but it's something I've been testing.
Essentially I wanted to take the idea's presented by Saito, and combine them with Jund Aggro ala Ari Lax and then see how far I could push the envelope. What started out as a thought experiment turned into the above, and it's been absolutely insane. I crushed my game day with the above 75 (+1 Temple Garden boarded and -1 Reckoner simply due to card availability... I forgot I had planned on not attending game day and promised a bud he could borrow my set, so then I had to reacquire some more Reckoners in order to play).
So, quick Tournament Report
Round 1: BUG Delver
This match-up really comes down to how well they draw. If they draw the nuts, then it becomes hard because they are able to attrition you with removal, and your only true source of CA is Dormi. It is possible to just get beat, though if you play aggressively enough and mise a bit, you can just steam roll them. This was the case here. In game one he went turn 1 Delver, turn 2 Flip (revealing Dimir Charm) but he couldn't beat my turn 1 Experiment, turn 2 Emissary into Flunkies then turn 3 Dormi and hit Ambush Viper which took care of his Delver and let me cruise. Game 2 we both Mulliganed to five, only I hit turn one Experiment, turn 2 Emissary into Pilgrim turn 3 Restoration Angel into Flinthoof Boar for what was the perfect mulligan to five.
Round 2: Bant Control
I killed him before he could resolve anything relevant in either game.
Round 3: Jund Midrange
I love this match-up. They are slow to get started, but once they do it's pretty hard to beat them. Unfortunately for them, I don't ever flood out and so they have little hope of truly getting their engines going. I managed to crush my opponent with my four land draw because I had double Ghor-Clan and was able to produce massive amounts of damage through his attempts at disruption. In game two I managed the dream of turn 3 Huntaster thanks to another pilgrim in the first two turns and drawing excessive land.
I'd like to stop real quick and talk about how many lands I drew. For a 16 land deck, you would expect to max out at around 3 lands per game. I ran extremely well in the first three rounds, never having less than four lands on the table by the time the game ended (I'm counting Pilgrim as a land here) and able to correctly cast all my spells. This is wonderful, and you when designing absurd decks you have to remember that magic is a game of numbers and percentages, but at the end of the day to win a tournament, you still have to catch a case of the run goods. So, if you design a deck that is safe and has perfect numbers, sure, you are going to increase your odds of the run goods, but don't dismiss those crazy decks just because some of the percentages are lower than you want.
Round 4 was against my friend who I let borrow Reckoners so he scooped me into the Top 8.
Round 5 ID with another friend of mine who was playing this deck -3 or so cards (he ran additional lands MD because we can't all be crazy).
Top 8
Played against the Aristocrats and I stomped their face in. I don't think this deck is very good btw. It has some decent match-ups against almost anything, and it did win the Pro Tour, but this is one of those decks that's a lot like Gifts was during Kami block. It can win the PT, but that's because the environment is different. The players who played it were all extremely skilled pilots, and were able to play the deck as close to perfect as you can in the game of magic. Every single play you make with the deck can actually just lose you the game, so making the correct decisions is hard. In this match-up my opponent had utilized the decks raw power to make top 8, going 3-2 and being 8th seed, but he wasn't able to use that against me because I would say I'm on par or better than he is, which completely nullifies the advantage that he would normally have playing the deck. He misplayed a few lands, and made a crucial error in sacrificing a guy to save a Cartel, and I was able to take advantage of this in game one and then watch him mulligan into oblivion game two.
Note, I played two games every round through the finals. Never went to a third game, and for this, I'm extremely thankful. I went into the tournament not wanting to play magic and wound up having a great time because I played the perfect amount of magic.
Semi's was against the friend who borrowed my Reckoners and we were already prize split so he conceded.
Finals I played against Esper Control and was able to use a Guildmage to trample over for lethal game one when he had multiple Lingering Souls tokens in play and in game two I don't think he was expecting Huntmaster on turn 4 but double Angel on 5 and 6 (I had a turn 3 Dormi so I drew a ton of cards) was enough to give me the playmat (which I promptly gave to his son who was there, as I've known this guy since before his son was born and have watched him grow up so... giving a playmat to an 8 year old is much more rewarding than keeping it and never using it anyway).
If I had to make some comments about the way I would go with the deck from here on out I would say that 16 lands is very dangerous. If I was to play in a GP I would most certainly add a 17th land to the main deck, as having access to 18 real lands post board was insanely productive. The worst card for me on the day was probably Reckoner because everybody is playing cards that beat Reckoner now and it's not as unexpected as it was last weekend. Not saying the card wasn't good, but it was very difficult on my mana at all the wrong times and there were a few games where I chose to cast Dormi Rade over it and the game promptly ended the next turn. One thing I really like though is Fighting with it and fighting with Ambush Viper. Oh, and flashing in a Viper mid combat is probably the most rewarding thing I've done in constructed, especially when my opponents had to pick the card up to read it. Card is much better than people give it credit for (if they give it any) and I think it's very strong when played in the Dormi Rade version of Gruul (a removal spell that's a creature). One other card that was an all star for me was Flinthoof Boars 5-7, Mogg Flunkies. This guy doesn't ever have haste, but on turn 2 off an Emissary he's just as beefy as Flinthoof Boar and should probably be given more credit. Guy's just a solid two drop from start to finish.
How often do we add things to spoilers before we actually see a card? Sometimes, spoilers are spoilers without seeing cards. Oh well, if it's not "confirmed" then that needs to be made very, very clear over at the City of Brass sleeves thread. You can't have one thread claiming that it's in modern masters, and then it be completely absent from another.
Idk, it's 9 and 7 for turn one ways to cast either, and since the deck has to mulligan pretty aggressively anyway only running 16 lands, its not improbably that the land I do have in my opener is the correct one. 9/16 and 7/16 aren't terrible odds I think. It would however, be beneficial to have access to 10 Stomping Grounds. I would however consider cutting Experiment for like a Rakdos Cackler, but then you would really have to rework almost the entire deck because now 3/3's on turn 2 are less stellar (still good though) and I'm not sure Flunkies is correct at that point. Something like Ash Zealot might just be better (though RR seems just as rough as having access to G on turn 1)
One final thing, I've been considering cutting the Rootbound Crags anyway in favor of +1 Temple Garden, +1 Forest, +2 Mountain, but I'm not "sold" on the prospect of playing a land that doesn't cast Reckoner post board. Producing G isn't ever an issue that I've come across often enough to truly matter.
Edit: Also, Ari Lax did just that, played a R and G one drop at the PT, and he had 9 turn 1 Red sources and 10 turn 1 Green Sources. Sure, his numbers are out of 22 though, so I have a statistically more probable chance of having the land in my opener able to produce red (as 9/16 is better than 9/22) and a slightly lower chance of having the ability to produce G (something like, .02 percent). Granted, he wants a higher chance of having lands in his opener than I do (generally he wants 2-3, whereas I never want to have 3 lands in my opener, 1 is fine, and 2 is literally the perfect number).
Obviously the consistency of his mana base is higher than mine because he runs +6 lands, but my point is still roughly that I have a generally acceptable amount of percentages to have the correct land in my opener to cast the one drop of choice.
4 Stromkirk Noble
3 Ambush Viper
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Lightning Mauler
3 Mogg Flunkies
2 Skarrg Guildmage
1 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Slaughterhorn
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Temple Garden
1 Mountain
4 Boros Reckoner
1 Mountain
4 Avacyn Pilgrim
3 Restoration Angel
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
So, this is my thought process behind the deck, and it's actually based on how I've been drafting Gruul on Magic Online. The concept is that your Bloodrush guys don't actually ever theoretically get cast. You play a deck with them considered at their Bloodrush Cost, however the ability to cast them if you ever "flood" out is where your value is gained. Slaughterhorn fills this role as being a 3 drop that's below average, but who has a very exciting G casting cost to Searing Spear your opponent (or a creature that's in combat) and Ghor-Clan Rampager is very promising at GR. They both get more exciting if you get to actually cast them in a game (more the Rampager than the Slaughterhorn, but w/e), but if you don't it's not a big deal because you still get to cast them. Dormi Rade is probably my favorite card in the set outside Dimir Charm, and building a deck that can essentially hit almost every time is impressive.
Some of the interesting choices:
One drop:
I went with Experiment One and Stromkirk because of their ability to grow. The one mana investment potentially has the ability to pay back in huge sums, and I believe that the ability to be a 3/3 at some point in the game is something that is worth more than something always being a 2/2.
Two drop:
First, I'll talk about Ambush Viper. In a deck that needs to run no spells outside of Dormi Rade to take full effect of the card, Ambush Viper acts like a spell. It removes any ground creature that doesn't have first strike (sad day) and that is important. The ability to trade with a Thragtusk or most of the guys in the Human deck is important, as sometimes games go pretty long. While this deck isn't trying to grind out games very often, the ability to draw a removal spell of Dormi Rade is important. Not to mention, with Rade he can fight and kill anything in the format. This is very good at removing things like, Restoration Angel and Boros Reckoner, cards that are very popular that you would otherwise have a hard time fighting against.
Next I'll discuss Mogg Flunkies. First, it's almost always a pump spell for Experiment, and it has the added benefit of being part of a nut draw of sorts. The fact that it's a 3/3 for 1R is the important part, and since you should actually never only have this guy in play, his drawback is very limited. Being able to go turn 1 Experiment, turn 2 Burning-Tree Emissary into Flunkies for +2 counters and swing for three leads to some pretty impressive starts. I dropped the count to 3 because it's not my favorite card, and I generally only really want to draw one per game, but it's never awful.
Elvish Visionary actually doesn't pump Experiment, and I'm not sure how much I like it, but it does serve a very important purpose as well. Being a two drop cantrip is actually important when you are talking about a deck with 16 mana sources main deck. It allows you to effectively play 56 cards, and 16/56 is a lot better looking than 16/60. Of course this isn't concrete because you still have to get two lands into play for this to work, but the effect is solid. Not pumping Experiment One makes it less appealing, but I think the trade off is good enough.
Boar/Mauler/Emissary is part of a very good second turn set of options. Boar is a 3/3 most of the time, so it can pump Experiment off the Emissary on turn 2, allowing for super strong starts. The fact that they all cost 2 mana is the most important thing though because they are all aggressive plays that allow you to play less lands because you don't have to worry about the need to play increasingly more valuable cards the further the turns go. These guys provide enough value on turn 2/3 that it's okay to skimp a bit.
2 Guildmage/1 Pyreheart Wolf - Probably the 3 cards I'm sold the least on. I have the Guildmage in there as an answer to Lingering Souls and a psuedo Rancor, while simultaneously turning excessive amounts of lands into pretty beefy threats. The Wolf is a way to push damage through the longer the game goes on. Both of them are pretty mana intensive though for a 16 land deck, and that's troublesome, but they are only 3 cards, and I'm okay with this risk right now.
Slaughterhorn/Gho-Clan - the concept behind the deck is the inclusion of these two cards. They give you creatures to draw of Dormi that provide either bodies on the field or spells in your hand for reduced prices. If you flood out you can cast them, but if you get stuck on 2/3 then you aren't really screwed because you can still cast every card in your deck. This is important, as we are only playing 16 lands.
Dormi Rade lets us draw cards. Boss.
Lands. This is kinda weird. I want to play Reckoner really bad post board. He's just so strong. The Sacred Foundry, while costing two points of life most of the time, is still a mountain to pump Boar, while also being able to cast Resto Angel post board if needed. Temple Garden is still a forest, and so it still can cast Reckoner and Angel post board, while being that green source I need. Originally my lands were 4/4/5/3 with 5 Mountains and 3 Forests, but I figured since I'm probably not winning games that go super long, the damage is negligible and the ability to include those cards post board is huge.
The sideboard:
Reckoner is a beast. Plain and simple. He's not main because I want the additional mana sources if I'm playing him. He isn't always castable off 16 sources, but off 21 he's pretty consistently coming down turn 3.
Mountain/Pilgrim is so I can go up to 21 sources post board.
3 Angel/3 Huntmaster for the control decks. Some cards are worse in this match-up then others (Experiment is pretty bad when they can just Charm it over and over again, and Stromkirk is never getting through an Augur), so I really want these guys. While my SB is pretty much 15 or no, it still provides some play. You also have ample amounts of options for what to take out. For example!:
+15
-8 One drops
-4 Ghor-Clan
-2 Skarrg
-1 Slaughterhorn
or instead of Skarrg
-1 Wolf
-1 Viper
or even just all 3 Vipers
Or
+4 Reckoner
+1 Mountain
+4 Pilgrim
-2 Skarrg
-4 Visionary (we're up to 21 sources, the cantrip is less useful)
-3 Flunkies (We're on the Reckoner plan now, probably skipping this guy)
Can leave Skarrg in and take out some number of other guys, like Lightning Mauler, Viper and one drops.
Anyway, that's all I got for now, what do you guys think? It's very greedy, and might need to move up to 18 lands, but I'm not entirely sure if I want to do that. I might add a 17th somewhere in the list, maybe cutting a Visionary or something, but anyway, comments? Did I miss anything super important?
Edit: I lied. I forgot the best find. Got married a few years ago. My wife bought me a magic the gathering book as a wedding gift. It came with a promotional Jace. Not only is it the sweetest picture ever, but it's also incredibly valuable.