can this thread be changed to Ux Deadeye Combo? just saying.
In other news, i haven't seen Blue Sun's Zenith in any lists yet. It allows for an instant speed kill and is a good card for a combo deck in it's own right.
t3 talisman, t4 lotus (benefit of leaving 3 colored mana up...), t5 navigator is the fastest win in the decks i've thought up. that wins at instant speed, as long as you have USZ and Exarch in hand.
mana dorks,
rune-scarred demon,
fetches singleton primal surge,
vomit deck into play,
craterhoof is huge and hasty,
enchant him with infinite reflection that was vomited in play,
mana dorks get big and hasty,
smash.
so i put together a similar version of this deck after reading it. it currently has:
wolfir avenger x 3,
blade splicer x 4,
wolfir silverheart x 1,
acidic slime x 3,
restoration angel x 3 (availability),
strangleroot geist x 4,
thalia x 0 main,
fiend hunter x something,
metamorph x 3.
i like this particular build without thalia because i can cloudshift aggressively without worrying about the extra mana. i'm also fond of all the creatures having haste or flash.
if i get to test more than just casual games, i'll post my actual take on the deck, but i had good experiences so far. i went bop -> splicer -> attack and pass with 4 mana up. he was a RG aggro deck: he casts hellrider and attacks with that and a chandra's phoenix. I restoration angel the splicer, get a golem, kill both his creatures. boom. this deck is fun to play
Gang of Devils seems like the choice here. I don't see anything else in the pack, and i know I want to be red obviously. If it's an aggro red deck, the devils are hard to kill without the opponent dying, and if it's all-removal red deck, then he's a big blocker who can kill their creatures if he falls. BR already feels like it's going to be viable and aggressive, and we know that even pitchburn devils was splashable in innistrad. it's hard to get 2-for-1'ed when he has the potential to be a 4-for-1.
i just want to add that i had a similarly aggro deck during my sealed event. i had a GB deck playing all of my two drops possible. i also had the revenge of the hunted and that card is a flippin' all star. my best story is revenge on the 5/5 deathtouch for 4BB that draws a card whenever a creature dies. Deathtouch and trample ate 4 of my opponents creatures, drew me four cards, and prompted a concession soon after.
with regard to two drops, I feel as though the only color to draft to reliably get 2 drops is green.
here's a question for you all, and i'm curious about the answer: how high a priority are 2 drops going to be in draft? there are plenty of good 3 drop soulbond creatures in any color, and i feel as though an aggressive deck will be able to take advantage of those by bonding them immediately and smashing.
Here's a short list of 2 drops and relevant 1 drops:
my favorite white 2 drop is the 2/2 who gets first strike for 2W: he reminds me of darkthicket wolf in that he is hard to block on turn 3 and makes for a good soulbond target. after that is 2/1 vigilance, 2/1 soulbond: lifelink, and 1/2 pro vamps.
black doesn't have much, but gets butchered ghoul for synergy with bone splinters and the 4 drop that dies and brings back a 2 drop (or less). then theres blood vampire, 2/1 zombie, and thats about it.
then red has the 1/1 for 1 firebreather, somberwald vigilante, and kruin striker, who gets the award for being the best (followed by the firebreather) in red.
next, blue gets 1/1 soulbond to fly, nephalia smuggler, and the 1/1 sac: draw a card. this doesn't seem like much.
green gives you the 2/1 wolf, 1/1 who puts a +1/+1 on something, (abundant growth! it counts.), and the deathtouch soulbond guy as good 2 drops. as 3 drops, green gets the +1/+1 soulbond, borderland ranger, 3/3 spider, and wolfir avenger.
personally, i think green is the strongest for 1 and 2 drops.
What do you all think about the speed of the format? yeah, many of the 2 drops are bears, but it doesn't look like there are that many of them. in innistrad, i drafted 10-12 2 drops. am i going to end up drafting 10-12 3-drops and be just as happy?
Take a look at this link: there are some ideas for BW Superfriends, BW Control, and BW Tokens with some sample lists. I think they look fun to play, and it seems like black and white both have some good options for meta-gaming.
sorry it's taken so long. I went 4-0 with this list at my monday night standard, a couple days ago. I played esper control with lingering souls and sorin, esper spirits a la finkel w/o equipment mainboard, w/u humans, and gw humans/aggro in the finals.
I don't remember too many details, but i'll list off the things that stuck out in my mind.
round 1:
round 1 against esper control, i won in two rather quick matches. i took one point of damage across both games, from a sorin vamp token in game one. my draw the first game saw all three of my dissipates. the first two countered his lingering souls, which we later discussed was probably correct. the last dissipate hit his gideon: i figured that because my three spirit tokens had been beating down and because i was in a fairly aggressive position, i didn't want to give him time with the gideon. This may have been wrong, but it ended well enough.
Also, the first game i fought on his turn over a sorin which ended up resolving, but left him tapped down to 1 blue/black source. i untapped and did my favorite part about this deck: devil's play for around 10, leaving him at two. I had a BV in play from the turn before, so he drew his card for the turn and scooped.
round 2:
round two against esper spirits, I won in two games also. The first game was exceptionally slow: i've played the spirits deck enough to know that his draws/ponders were very unlucky for him. the slow game is the game i like, so i was sitting pretty happy the whole time. I know they don't play more than 2-3 mana leaks as the counter suite, so i tapped low fairly regularly during his turns. I tried a BV on turn 6, he leaked, i paid, he leaked again, and i was pretty sure i wouldn't be seeing any more counterspells from him for the rest of the game.
my singleton whipflare took out his snapcaster and one spirit token after his agression was fairly low, so i got to burn him out with 2 BV in play with 3 flashbacked draw spells to seal up game 1.
game two, i was pretty sure he was bringing in hero of bladehold as tech against corrosive gale. i wouldn't have sideboarded gale had i had access to it (couldn't find any anyways) because i have enough sweepers main and side, but that's beside the point. turn 6 or so, the sequence goes hero - leak - negate (probably a singleton from sideboard) - leak, which leaves the hero in the graveyard and my opponent tapped out. I untap, pay 6 for a gideon off a shimmering grotto, and sit comfortably for a while. He amasses some troops as i plus 2 it over and over, but he pulls the trigger on drogskol captain + image to kill (way overkill) the offending gideon jura. someone watching the game comments that I'm dead without a day of judgement, and luckly i'd been holding it for a few turns at that point. I day his 3 or 4 tokens, his snapcaster, and image+captain, and that was game. For note, this game went to time, but i had 2 bv in play and enough burn to get him a turn after the 5 turns. I don't feel too bad about going to time here, but i do play a little slower than the people at my store.
round 3:
round 3 against u/w humans: i won in three. i got blown the hell out in game one. I died turn 3 or 4 in about 5 minutes. game two i actually sided out all but one BV. I knew he didn't know what i was playing, and i know that he plays leonin relic-warder main deck. I assumed he wouldn't sideboard correctly (how could he?), or even at all: all his information was that i was a control deck.
Game 2 was a bit longer. i remember i got to play enough sweepers to keep his team in check, and repeatedly was able to sun titan-back a snapcaster to use a sweeper or point removal.
Game 3 was even gridier than game 2. life is long with 2 sun titans, 4 lingering souls, 3 snapcaster and 1 devil's play to finish off an opponent, but i was mono-sweeper for him in the post board games. It was definitely difficult all three games, esp after getting smashed game one, but i managed to pull it out.
round 4:
round 4 was against a brewy GW humans/aggro/gavony township deck. I won in 3 again, but got smashed in game 1. I actually thought he was on g/r ramp because of what he normally plays (as to my knowledge), so i kept a hand of like leak, think twice, dissipate x2, lands. So i got smashed. game two.
I kept in all the BV this time, boarded in the sweepers, and the gideon, then boarded out something. This is what i get for writing this up almost a whole week later.
I has seen his deck was nothing but 2/2s for 2. Elite Inquisitors and midnight hauntings made appearances. It seemed like tokens/first strike guys/ things that go well with gavony township.
Game 2 was pretty stretched out. I was down to 12-9-8-7-6 before i stabilized. Whipflare was pretty much the best card in standard against his deck; i was all sweepers all the time. When I started to whittle his health down with flashback spells/BV/spirits, he scooped.
Game 3 was pretty much the same as game 2. Of note, the game almost went to time. I was at 6 with 2 BV in play; he was at 4 after more flashback for card-draw with an empty board. Sun titan helped along the way, but a snapcaster for slagstorm killed him with slagstorm still on the stack.
the most important things i have to say are the the sweepers were tremendously strong against aggro, and it was nice to have those sweepers mainboard to board out against control. I loved that BV costs three and applies pressure against control. It was easy to resolve against esper control round 1, and gives a very easy was to get ride of planeswalkers and life totals.
on lands: I only regretted the shimmering grotto once for the gideon in round 2, but i still got to land it turn 6. i fortunately never faced any color problems.
on faithless looting: i love having exactly one in the list. that could well be personal preference, but i was happy to see it when i did.
i know many decks don't like leak right now, but more than once i used it to tap out an opponent to devil's play them dangerously low, leaving them dead with just a BV activation or slightly more.
my sideboard definitely needs work, but to be fair, my sun titans never saw any removal from the opponent.
For those of you who haven't tried it yet, i highly suggest trying the lingering souls. they're the reason i decided to bring the deck to monday night standard, and they straight-up did everything i wanted them to do.
@aukland: that is an intense mana base analysis you have posted. I'm bookmarking this page to use as reference in the future
Hey all,
I just finished 4-0 at the monday night standard here. i played a list similar to jaden's, but to me it seems pretty stock for the 4 color/lingering spirits direction of the deck. I'll post more details later, but i played against esper walkers control, esper spirits, uw humans, and gw humans (in that order). for reference, I think the LGS here is pretty competitive.
hey, i like this concept a lot, but havent had a chance to read all 48 pages yet so...has altar of the lost been discussed? is it just too slow?
comes into play tapped
doesn't do enough for us
doesn't advance our game plan
no space for it in the deck
takes the place of other important pieces of the deck
yeah, it's just too slow. It doesn't do anything that a nice manabase doesn't do
Thanks for your answer. I guess I'll have to buy/trade me a lot of duals then... Why only 3 snapcasters by the way? I went through a lot of trouble to get me a playset for the deck. I think I'll playtest with Elesh, just to see how I like it. I really like the deck, was a blast to play in 2 colours already! I'm going to try to get it ready for next FNM.
Are there any planeswalkers to consider for this deck? I've heard people play Garruk Relentless for example. What are your thoughts on that?
the block decks for Burning Vengeance were all RUg for a while simply because of garruk relentless. The reason for that was to give garruk-advantage (ie, ability to vindicate an opposing Garruk) and as additional removal. In these standard decks, Jace 3 has been tried because of his self-milling ability while drawing cards; liliana has been tried because of ditching your own cards and flashing them back for value. I don't think garruk has a place in the deck where it's heading now.
+1 for burning vengeance. I'm not someone who tests much because of time constraints, but the games I played casually the first week after the DKA prerelease were sweet demonstrations of lingering souls. I have a question for those who have played with the card so far:
When have you found yourself with 0/2/4 spirits on the field? I found myself basically always with 2 spirits on the field for pressure. Reminded me of caw-go with the level of flexibility, burning face or creatures, switching between roles of aggro and control, and a stream of tiny fliers.
@jaden's current list: how were you with only one phantasmal image in the board? was the only purpose for the sun titan package, or are you relying on it for legend ruling creatures? The reason I ask is that first list looks a little weak to thrun, the last troll.
on the same note, I can't bring myself to believe that 21 lands is correct. I'm glad the second list up'd the land count to 24
I've had UWb spirits as my competitive standard deck for a few weeks now. I may keep it there, but seeing the more controlling shell for lingering spirits in BV makes me want to switch the snapcasters to a new home.
dumb question: how can I subscribe to this thread without posting a dummy comment and subscribing? hmmmm...
Merged posts, please use the "EDIT" button in the future. -ISB <-- thanks mod. that works for subscribing too
I'm surprised there's no section about junk pod in BGw colors. it's typically a BG list with possibilities of fiend hunger, elesh norn, o ring, rune-scarred demon and unburial rites.
In other news, I played naya pod and podded into a huntmaster tonight and passed the turn. now that's value.
hey all,
I'm thinking about putting this deck together to try out for an FNM for one or two weeks. What is a good starting place for it? I see a few trends over the past 3 or 4 pages, but I'd like to know what the consensus is on necessary/considerable/bad cards is.
In other news, i haven't seen Blue Sun's Zenith in any lists yet. It allows for an instant speed kill and is a good card for a combo deck in it's own right.
t3 talisman, t4 lotus (benefit of leaving 3 colored mana up...), t5 navigator is the fastest win in the decks i've thought up. that wins at instant speed, as long as you have USZ and Exarch in hand.
Also for thought: snapcaster/probe/ponder do a good job of powering up a shrine of piercing vision.
rune-scarred demon,
fetches singleton primal surge,
vomit deck into play,
craterhoof is huge and hasty,
enchant him with infinite reflection that was vomited in play,
mana dorks get big and hasty,
smash.
wolfir avenger x 3,
blade splicer x 4,
wolfir silverheart x 1,
acidic slime x 3,
restoration angel x 3 (availability),
strangleroot geist x 4,
thalia x 0 main,
fiend hunter x something,
metamorph x 3.
i like this particular build without thalia because i can cloudshift aggressively without worrying about the extra mana. i'm also fond of all the creatures having haste or flash.
if i get to test more than just casual games, i'll post my actual take on the deck, but i had good experiences so far. i went bop -> splicer -> attack and pass with 4 mana up. he was a RG aggro deck: he casts hellrider and attacks with that and a chandra's phoenix. I restoration angel the splicer, get a golem, kill both his creatures. boom. this deck is fun to play
here's a question for you all, and i'm curious about the answer: how high a priority are 2 drops going to be in draft? there are plenty of good 3 drop soulbond creatures in any color, and i feel as though an aggressive deck will be able to take advantage of those by bonding them immediately and smashing.
Here's a short list of 2 drops and relevant 1 drops:
my favorite white 2 drop is the 2/2 who gets first strike for 2W: he reminds me of darkthicket wolf in that he is hard to block on turn 3 and makes for a good soulbond target. after that is 2/1 vigilance, 2/1 soulbond: lifelink, and 1/2 pro vamps.
black doesn't have much, but gets butchered ghoul for synergy with bone splinters and the 4 drop that dies and brings back a 2 drop (or less). then theres blood vampire, 2/1 zombie, and thats about it.
then red has the 1/1 for 1 firebreather, somberwald vigilante, and kruin striker, who gets the award for being the best (followed by the firebreather) in red.
next, blue gets 1/1 soulbond to fly, nephalia smuggler, and the 1/1 sac: draw a card. this doesn't seem like much.
green gives you the 2/1 wolf, 1/1 who puts a +1/+1 on something, (abundant growth! it counts.), and the deathtouch soulbond guy as good 2 drops. as 3 drops, green gets the +1/+1 soulbond, borderland ranger, 3/3 spider, and wolfir avenger.
personally, i think green is the strongest for 1 and 2 drops.
What do you all think about the speed of the format? yeah, many of the 2 drops are bears, but it doesn't look like there are that many of them. in innistrad, i drafted 10-12 2 drops. am i going to end up drafting 10-12 3-drops and be just as happy?
Take a look at this link: there are some ideas for BW Superfriends, BW Control, and BW Tokens with some sample lists. I think they look fun to play, and it seems like black and white both have some good options for meta-gaming.
edit: meant to use spoilers.
2x drowned catacomb
4x sulfur falls
2x clifftop retreat
1x dragonskull summit
1x isolated chapel
1x shimmering grotto
2x evolving wilds
1x swamp
3x mountain
1x plain
3x island
2x desperate ravings
1x faithless looting
2x forbidden alchemy
4x think twice
1x blue sun's zenith
3x dissipate
3x snapcaster mage
1x doom blade
1x go for the throat
1x oblivion ring
2x slagstorm
1x whipflare
1x day of judgment
4x lingering souls
4x burning vengeance
1x devil's play
2x sun titan
1x phantasmal image
2x spellskite
1x devil's play
1x oblivion ring
2x day of judgment
1x gideon jura
1x doom blade
2x whipflare
2x nihil spellbomb
sorry it's taken so long. I went 4-0 with this list at my monday night standard, a couple days ago. I played esper control with lingering souls and sorin, esper spirits a la finkel w/o equipment mainboard, w/u humans, and gw humans/aggro in the finals.
I don't remember too many details, but i'll list off the things that stuck out in my mind.
round 1:
round 1 against esper control, i won in two rather quick matches. i took one point of damage across both games, from a sorin vamp token in game one. my draw the first game saw all three of my dissipates. the first two countered his lingering souls, which we later discussed was probably correct. the last dissipate hit his gideon: i figured that because my three spirit tokens had been beating down and because i was in a fairly aggressive position, i didn't want to give him time with the gideon. This may have been wrong, but it ended well enough.
Also, the first game i fought on his turn over a sorin which ended up resolving, but left him tapped down to 1 blue/black source. i untapped and did my favorite part about this deck: devil's play for around 10, leaving him at two. I had a BV in play from the turn before, so he drew his card for the turn and scooped.
round 2:
round two against esper spirits, I won in two games also. The first game was exceptionally slow: i've played the spirits deck enough to know that his draws/ponders were very unlucky for him. the slow game is the game i like, so i was sitting pretty happy the whole time. I know they don't play more than 2-3 mana leaks as the counter suite, so i tapped low fairly regularly during his turns. I tried a BV on turn 6, he leaked, i paid, he leaked again, and i was pretty sure i wouldn't be seeing any more counterspells from him for the rest of the game.
my singleton whipflare took out his snapcaster and one spirit token after his agression was fairly low, so i got to burn him out with 2 BV in play with 3 flashbacked draw spells to seal up game 1.
game two, i was pretty sure he was bringing in hero of bladehold as tech against corrosive gale. i wouldn't have sideboarded gale had i had access to it (couldn't find any anyways) because i have enough sweepers main and side, but that's beside the point. turn 6 or so, the sequence goes hero - leak - negate (probably a singleton from sideboard) - leak, which leaves the hero in the graveyard and my opponent tapped out. I untap, pay 6 for a gideon off a shimmering grotto, and sit comfortably for a while. He amasses some troops as i plus 2 it over and over, but he pulls the trigger on drogskol captain + image to kill (way overkill) the offending gideon jura. someone watching the game comments that I'm dead without a day of judgement, and luckly i'd been holding it for a few turns at that point. I day his 3 or 4 tokens, his snapcaster, and image+captain, and that was game. For note, this game went to time, but i had 2 bv in play and enough burn to get him a turn after the 5 turns. I don't feel too bad about going to time here, but i do play a little slower than the people at my store.
round 3:
round 3 against u/w humans: i won in three. i got blown the hell out in game one. I died turn 3 or 4 in about 5 minutes. game two i actually sided out all but one BV. I knew he didn't know what i was playing, and i know that he plays leonin relic-warder main deck. I assumed he wouldn't sideboard correctly (how could he?), or even at all: all his information was that i was a control deck.
Game 2 was a bit longer. i remember i got to play enough sweepers to keep his team in check, and repeatedly was able to sun titan-back a snapcaster to use a sweeper or point removal.
Game 3 was even gridier than game 2. life is long with 2 sun titans, 4 lingering souls, 3 snapcaster and 1 devil's play to finish off an opponent, but i was mono-sweeper for him in the post board games. It was definitely difficult all three games, esp after getting smashed game one, but i managed to pull it out.
round 4:
round 4 was against a brewy GW humans/aggro/gavony township deck. I won in 3 again, but got smashed in game 1. I actually thought he was on g/r ramp because of what he normally plays (as to my knowledge), so i kept a hand of like leak, think twice, dissipate x2, lands. So i got smashed. game two.
I kept in all the BV this time, boarded in the sweepers, and the gideon, then boarded out something. This is what i get for writing this up almost a whole week later.
I has seen his deck was nothing but 2/2s for 2. Elite Inquisitors and midnight hauntings made appearances. It seemed like tokens/first strike guys/ things that go well with gavony township.
Game 2 was pretty stretched out. I was down to 12-9-8-7-6 before i stabilized. Whipflare was pretty much the best card in standard against his deck; i was all sweepers all the time. When I started to whittle his health down with flashback spells/BV/spirits, he scooped.
Game 3 was pretty much the same as game 2. Of note, the game almost went to time. I was at 6 with 2 BV in play; he was at 4 after more flashback for card-draw with an empty board. Sun titan helped along the way, but a snapcaster for slagstorm killed him with slagstorm still on the stack.
the most important things i have to say are the the sweepers were tremendously strong against aggro, and it was nice to have those sweepers mainboard to board out against control. I loved that BV costs three and applies pressure against control. It was easy to resolve against esper control round 1, and gives a very easy was to get ride of planeswalkers and life totals.
on lands: I only regretted the shimmering grotto once for the gideon in round 2, but i still got to land it turn 6. i fortunately never faced any color problems.
on faithless looting: i love having exactly one in the list. that could well be personal preference, but i was happy to see it when i did.
i know many decks don't like leak right now, but more than once i used it to tap out an opponent to devil's play them dangerously low, leaving them dead with just a BV activation or slightly more.
my sideboard definitely needs work, but to be fair, my sun titans never saw any removal from the opponent.
For those of you who haven't tried it yet, i highly suggest trying the lingering souls. they're the reason i decided to bring the deck to monday night standard, and they straight-up did everything i wanted them to do.
@aukland: that is an intense mana base analysis you have posted. I'm bookmarking this page to use as reference in the future
I just finished 4-0 at the monday night standard here. i played a list similar to jaden's, but to me it seems pretty stock for the 4 color/lingering spirits direction of the deck. I'll post more details later, but i played against esper walkers control, esper spirits, uw humans, and gw humans (in that order). for reference, I think the LGS here is pretty competitive.
comes into play tapped
doesn't do enough for us
doesn't advance our game plan
no space for it in the deck
takes the place of other important pieces of the deck
yeah, it's just too slow. It doesn't do anything that a nice manabase doesn't do
the block decks for Burning Vengeance were all RUg for a while simply because of garruk relentless. The reason for that was to give garruk-advantage (ie, ability to vindicate an opposing Garruk) and as additional removal. In these standard decks, Jace 3 has been tried because of his self-milling ability while drawing cards; liliana has been tried because of ditching your own cards and flashing them back for value. I don't think garruk has a place in the deck where it's heading now.
When have you found yourself with 0/2/4 spirits on the field? I found myself basically always with 2 spirits on the field for pressure. Reminded me of caw-go with the level of flexibility, burning face or creatures, switching between roles of aggro and control, and a stream of tiny fliers.
@jaden's current list: how were you with only one phantasmal image in the board? was the only purpose for the sun titan package, or are you relying on it for legend ruling creatures? The reason I ask is that first list looks a little weak to thrun, the last troll.
on the same note, I can't bring myself to believe that 21 lands is correct. I'm glad the second list up'd the land count to 24
I've had UWb spirits as my competitive standard deck for a few weeks now. I may keep it there, but seeing the more controlling shell for lingering spirits in BV makes me want to switch the snapcasters to a new home.
dumb question: how can I subscribe to this thread without posting a dummy comment and subscribing? hmmmm...
Merged posts, please use the "EDIT" button in the future. -ISB <-- thanks mod. that works for subscribing too
In other news, I played naya pod and podded into a huntmaster tonight and passed the turn. now that's value.
I'm thinking about putting this deck together to try out for an FNM for one or two weeks. What is a good starting place for it? I see a few trends over the past 3 or 4 pages, but I'd like to know what the consensus is on necessary/considerable/bad cards is.
thanks in advance for any input