She is meh. Her + protects herself, which is obviously a must for a high CMC walker, but it doesn't do so by impacting the board like Tamiyo or Sorin etc, so that protecting her doesn't actually net you any advantage. Her ultimate isn't even powerful enough to end the game in a lot of scenarios, and your opponent probably won't even care about her ultimating. I could see some jund deck that combines her ult with one of the red plague winds to steal wins though, but requiring additional cards to make a walker ultimate good just doesn't seem ideal.
So basically + to do nothing but discourage creatures from attacking her, and then ultimate to do very little that requires more cards to consistently end the game. She just seems like a 5 mana double vindicate over 3 turns, which seems fine in certain matchups, but she isn't maindeckable imo.
PS you just Conscripts her and -3 targeting herself. At least she doesn't have the drawback of completely blowing you out if she gets conscripted.
rUG dredge. Took it to FNM and managed to doge yard hate all night. It was fantastic bricking RG aggro players with a 10/10 vanilla. Oh yeah, and with 20-point Gnaw to the Bones
The deck basically has 3 modes of operation: aggro-control, where you stick one guy and protect him for the win, combo, where you connect with one guy and then play a ton of pump spells for the kill, and strict aggro, where you swarm your opponent with infect guys and win the race. These multiple modes are allowed because several of your spells perform double-duty: Mutagenic Growth can be protection from removal or a glorified Shock, Apostle's Blessing can counter removal spells or make a guy unblockable, Mental Misstep can counter a 1-drop to win the race or a removal spell, etc. etc.
Essentially you just want to figure out what kind of strategy you are playing in each matchup. For removal-heavy decks that also present clocks (delver and zombies) you want to be deploying as many threats as possible and use your spells to protect as many of them as possible. For decks that don't have any instant-speed removal (Pod decks, Ramp decks), you want to be the combo deck since they have virtually no way to interact with your combo. Play just enough guys to connect and then blow them up with your pump. And vs. Sweeper decks (any kind of control) you want to be the aggro-control deck, playing exactly 1 creature and protecting it.
Knowing how you want the deck to operate in each matchup helps you make good mulligan and sideboarding decisions, and then the deck just does the rest. But really, your starting hand is actually the most important decision you make in every game, because you have nothing to improve consistency and help "draw out" of bad keeps.
Oh, and PLEASE take your time. You are under no pressure of timing out whatsoever, so use that to your advantage and think long and hard about every decision. You'll be a better player because of it both with this deck, and in the long run.
Yeah, I could see printing something powerful where the creature itself is completely unplayable but the scavenge mechanic has an efficient cost to reward self-mill i.e. a 3/3 with CMC 5 but has scavenge 1.
In my testing, I usually paid the life for Gitaxian Probe on turn 1. The reason why is that 3-4 times, I actually drew into Delver of Secrets. It was just luck. Since then, I still do the Probe, but haven't gotten Delver in quite a while. These are hands in which Delver is not already in the hand. Gitaxian Probe usually gets sided out anyway for me. Sometimes I keep 1.
Don't sideboard probe out. I can't think of any matchup where probe is bad, probably because there aren't any. Magic is a game of information. When you know all of your opponent's lines of play, it becomes so much easier to choose your correct line. Just try playtesting against yourself in Cockatrice, and I bet you won't lose nearly as often as you will in real events, simply because information is that powerful.
That said, sometimes I'll pull 1 of my 3 in matchups that have less to none reactionary power if I really need the space, but that's pretty rare and only constitutes mostly rogue decks.
Anyways, I think probing on turn 1 for mana is fine, particularly if you know that it's an aggressive match-up. And fishing for that other cantrip off the probe, while slightly increasing the number of nut-draws you'll have, really won't set you that far ahead. Remember, you chose to keep your hand, so while drawing a cantrip/delver off the probe is sweet, you shouldn't have kept the hand if you needed to hit that t1 play for it to be a good hand.
Can somebody copy paste just the overall board plan. Like what feels week and whats strong in matchups. My issue is figuring out what to take out. Im not looking for a specific + / - cards listing. Just his discussion should be good. Much appreciated.
*snip*
What he says on the mirror match is basically that it's really hard and depends on what type of player the other guy is (aggressive vs. controlling) and how you predict he will be sideboarding. Vs. an aggressive player who you think will keep most of his removal and try to go for the win ASAP, you board into a controllish version with Timely etc., but not the full control with sphinxes. And when you think the other guy is going to go big with Sphinxes, you want to go for the kill early with the removal to clear blockers and play aggressively. This bit didn't really help me all that much, so I don't know what else I can add. He did imply that Timely is awesome on the draw and not so much on the play here, which is some great advice in my opinion.
I love this version, and am going to be playing an identical list at an SCG IQ this weekend with -1 Dismember +1 Gut Shot since I'm expecting more Delver than anything else, but I really think this is the best version I've seen so far for the metagame.
I have a couple Revokers in my SB. Stops Spellbomb and pods somewhat. Tracker for him or if he gets killed. Back from the dead. I thought about GQ(snazzy ass acronym) but against RAMP it would slow you down more in my opinion. They can just get another one. Just leave a racker untapped and try to single out anything swinging your way. I went 4 screeching Skaab just to give it a more aggressive play style. However, adding Dawntreader Elk over Borderland Ranger. Can get some awesome ramp with Elk dropped turn 2 and pop him for land. Turn three with five mana can lead to devistating tempo.
I'm also running 4 metamorphs. The play vs. ramp is to metamorph their primetime and fetch the two GQs I run (usually, sometimes 1 gets milled), so that I can blow up their wolfruns. The thing is that most lists only run 2 wolfruns, so two GQs to match can keep them from being able to threaten a lethal inkmoth swing for the rest of the game. By the time they have the titan, I've got at least 6 guys in the yard (and if not, then a ghoultree), and so anything in my deck will trade/trump, so the only real threat is the inkmoth + wolfrun, half of which is neutralized by the GQ play, the other half being stalled by forcing them to defend or just invalidated by a Tracker.
Plus, who doesn't want 8 ghoultrees vs. every aggro deck in the format? I think metamorph is awesome here.
I would run a couple Buried Ruin. Get back any Artifacts that get milled or eat hate. I'm limiting to one maybe two Maticores in my SB. Mostly for Mirran Crusader and pitch creatures or flashback spells into my GY.
You're better off running Ghost Quarter in that slot, unless you're on some wonky artifact subtheme I haven't thought of yet. It's just awesome right now given the amount of WRR and GR running around, and it seems like it would be tough to fit both given that UG doesn't have scars lands.
EDIT: Also, anyone else not running Screeching Skaab? I'm running 7 mana dorks right now, and it always seemed like I would always just have either a dork + anything or a Tracker's in my opener, so that turn 2 slot seems well-occupied at the moment. Plus the 2/1 body isn't anything more than a chump, since our plan is usually going over the top with titan+ sized guys.
The card is actually very well positioned right now, after being really impressed with the 3 I had last fnm, after siding it in almost every match I run a full 4 in my SB now as it can be very clutch against ramp and human decks and almost always want to see the card the first 4 turns, even in multiples. Sure the card can get pretty terrible late game, but that's no different then mana leak and if you survived long enough to get to the late game where it's a bad card then your already in a good position for winning, it answers a ton of problems control decks face, which is basically dealing with a threat before it hits the board. Its also extremely clutch these days for my planeswalker control deck because of Zealous, a lot of the time my opponent sits with the card in hand till my walker is ultimate ready and tries to steal it, despise helps prevent blowouts from that.
Cards like Strangleroot, Zealous, Thrun, Geist of Saint Traft, Titans, Karn and Garruk's and Huntmaster all cause problems for control decks when they hit the board, by either being impossible to 1 for 1 by being hexproof, or become 2 or 3 for 1s.
My last FNM I played a ramp deck who game 2 kept a very solid turn 4 titan hand, 3 lands, 2 ramps, a Primeval Titan after mulling. My turn 1 despise made that hand very very bad, as he preceded to draw into mostly ramp and dead draws the next three turns, and by the time he got a threat on the board I was already more then ready to deal with it.
I'll agree that it's a good card right now with Delver on the low side and WRR running rampant (heh), but please play Despise correctly if you're going to play it. There is no reason to play it on turn 1 as opposed to playing it on turn 3 when he is land from casting his Titan, you simply hit more cards when you wait two turns. The best way to play Despise is to wait until you know what you're playing against, then use it to disrupt their curve on what you predict will be their strongest creature against you. Sometimes that isn't practical, for example when you need leak mana to prevent a possible sword blowout if you don't have a way to remove it, but vs. a known WRR, there's no reason at all to cast it turn 1 instead of waiting.
Example: vs. t1 zombie, wait until they get to 2 lands, then play Despise to hit their messenger/captain. Sure, you might whiff because you let them play their hand out, but that means that you aren't facing a messenger or captain soon, which sounds like an easy victory to me.
Zealous is not as much of a blowout as people are claiming. If your walker is in ultimate range and gets Zealous'd, you're doing it wrong, at least for games 2 and 3. Just expect the card and don't walk into it, and you don't get blown out by it. It's just like aggro decks complaining about losing to wrath effects - don't overextend and you don't get blown out. The worst they can do is steal Gideon and bash for 6 or steal Sorin and make an emblem. They should never be ult'ing with your walkers.
EDIT: I like the addition of Drogskol Reaver in someone's list there. Could be an interesting choice: blocks in the air, gains life (super important in the meta right now for getting out of burn/zombies/swords/wolfrun etc. reach), and draws cards, but I wouldn't run more than 1 7CMC card.
That list wasn't that great. Had a horrific matchup vs. Delver, he just got lucky pairings. If it can't beat Delver, it won't make it in standard.
Cloudshift isn't what you want to do in a blink deck, because it does literally nothing on its own. Restoration Angel and Venser are much better and deserve space.
Also, the blink strategy has no synergy with the best cards right now. To play it, you have to jam weaker cards like Blade Splicer and Stonehorn, compared to the older Venser targets of Wall of Omens, Seagate Oracle, and Halimar Depths. Those targets actually advance your plan by providing draw and filtering to get you to your answers and finishers, while also slowing the game down, whereas the current "viable" targets do nothing but stall the game out (and blade splicer isn't even really that great at that, considering how easily any type of evasion gets past the token). Gideon is the only walker really worth resetting, since he resets at a relatively high loyalty, but resetting him also blanks the +2, which seems pointless. Venser doesn't let you use walker abilities twice, since they return at the end step. None of the blink effects let you do that, so I don't much see the point in a "walker" blink deck.
If anything, you want to play blink with undying, because that's an interaction actually worth setting up, while also not diluting your card pool with blade splicers and stonehorns.
This I think is one of the sleepers of the set. I ended up trying one out last night and it was nothing but great. I played a 1-of in Esper Walkers.
Vs. Esper spirits, it prevented 7 damage from an incoming captain + 3 spirits swing and then took out the captain. It probably single-handedly won me that game, since it took me another couple of turns to dig for the day, which I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Vs. Wolfrun White, it prevented the 3 damage swing from his Geist coming at Lili, and redirected it to kill his flipped Garruk Relentless.
Vs. RG aggro, it prevented 3 damage from a Huntmaster + wolf swing, and then redirected to kill the huntmaster.
Overall it was pretty sweet. I never once drew it and wished it was something else. It acts as both protection for walkers, creatures, and your dome and acts as spot removal. It really seems like one of the 2-for-ones that control decks love.
Definitely more than 2 sweepers main (Curse isn't a sweeper). I'm actually on 5 right now, 3 DoJ, 2 Terminus, with 0 Curses main. If you can't reset the board early, you're going to lose. And they aren't bad against Ramp or Control entirely. Ramp still plays Huntmaster, and acting as a spot removal for a Titan isn't a terrible play. Of course, you still board them out, but that's no reason not to start with them when they are an absolute necessity for the rest of the field.
And don't play dissipate over leak. Leak is good because of its speed. In most match-ups, you're favored when games go long, so you don't need those dissipates at all. Our game for the most part with aggro is to make it to the late game. Leak does that, dissipate does not. For control/WRR sure, Dissipate is better, but the field is mostly aggro. Besides, you probably aren't going to counter any titans in the late game with Dissipate anyways, thanks to Cavern.
Oh, and I didn't mention how horrid it must be to actually think about UU untapped on turn 3.
And for your sideboard, do I see Devastation Tide? Seems terrible. Nice walkers you have there.
EDIT: Speaking of which. Fix your sideboard. A coherent sideboard with an established board plan against the popular decks will greatly improve your game. A stack of 1-ofs isn't going to get anyone anywhere. Needs more purges, more Ratchet bombs (especially if you're losing to tokens?), to start. Those are pretty much board staples. After that, I like 3 curses in the 75 myself cause it hoses Delver, Despise isn't terrible, and Batterskull is every Zombies/RDW/RG player's best friend. 1-of Karn and Jace are fine, but idk if I like both together.
So basically + to do nothing but discourage creatures from attacking her, and then ultimate to do very little that requires more cards to consistently end the game. She just seems like a 5 mana double vindicate over 3 turns, which seems fine in certain matchups, but she isn't maindeckable imo.
PS you just Conscripts her and -3 targeting herself. At least she doesn't have the drawback of completely blowing you out if she gets conscripted.
Essentially you just want to figure out what kind of strategy you are playing in each matchup. For removal-heavy decks that also present clocks (delver and zombies) you want to be deploying as many threats as possible and use your spells to protect as many of them as possible. For decks that don't have any instant-speed removal (Pod decks, Ramp decks), you want to be the combo deck since they have virtually no way to interact with your combo. Play just enough guys to connect and then blow them up with your pump. And vs. Sweeper decks (any kind of control) you want to be the aggro-control deck, playing exactly 1 creature and protecting it.
Knowing how you want the deck to operate in each matchup helps you make good mulligan and sideboarding decisions, and then the deck just does the rest. But really, your starting hand is actually the most important decision you make in every game, because you have nothing to improve consistency and help "draw out" of bad keeps.
Oh, and PLEASE take your time. You are under no pressure of timing out whatsoever, so use that to your advantage and think long and hard about every decision. You'll be a better player because of it both with this deck, and in the long run.
Don't sideboard probe out. I can't think of any matchup where probe is bad, probably because there aren't any. Magic is a game of information. When you know all of your opponent's lines of play, it becomes so much easier to choose your correct line. Just try playtesting against yourself in Cockatrice, and I bet you won't lose nearly as often as you will in real events, simply because information is that powerful.
That said, sometimes I'll pull 1 of my 3 in matchups that have less to none reactionary power if I really need the space, but that's pretty rare and only constitutes mostly rogue decks.
Anyways, I think probing on turn 1 for mana is fine, particularly if you know that it's an aggressive match-up. And fishing for that other cantrip off the probe, while slightly increasing the number of nut-draws you'll have, really won't set you that far ahead. Remember, you chose to keep your hand, so while drawing a cantrip/delver off the probe is sweet, you shouldn't have kept the hand if you needed to hit that t1 play for it to be a good hand.
*snip*
What he says on the mirror match is basically that it's really hard and depends on what type of player the other guy is (aggressive vs. controlling) and how you predict he will be sideboarding. Vs. an aggressive player who you think will keep most of his removal and try to go for the win ASAP, you board into a controllish version with Timely etc., but not the full control with sphinxes. And when you think the other guy is going to go big with Sphinxes, you want to go for the kill early with the removal to clear blockers and play aggressively. This bit didn't really help me all that much, so I don't know what else I can add. He did imply that Timely is awesome on the draw and not so much on the play here, which is some great advice in my opinion.
I love this version, and am going to be playing an identical list at an SCG IQ this weekend with -1 Dismember +1 Gut Shot since I'm expecting more Delver than anything else, but I really think this is the best version I've seen so far for the metagame.
Anyways, here you go.
Please don't disclose SCG Premium Material.
I'm also running 4 metamorphs. The play vs. ramp is to metamorph their primetime and fetch the two GQs I run (usually, sometimes 1 gets milled), so that I can blow up their wolfruns. The thing is that most lists only run 2 wolfruns, so two GQs to match can keep them from being able to threaten a lethal inkmoth swing for the rest of the game. By the time they have the titan, I've got at least 6 guys in the yard (and if not, then a ghoultree), and so anything in my deck will trade/trump, so the only real threat is the inkmoth + wolfrun, half of which is neutralized by the GQ play, the other half being stalled by forcing them to defend or just invalidated by a Tracker.
Plus, who doesn't want 8 ghoultrees vs. every aggro deck in the format? I think metamorph is awesome here.
You're better off running Ghost Quarter in that slot, unless you're on some wonky artifact subtheme I haven't thought of yet. It's just awesome right now given the amount of WRR and GR running around, and it seems like it would be tough to fit both given that UG doesn't have scars lands.
EDIT: Also, anyone else not running Screeching Skaab? I'm running 7 mana dorks right now, and it always seemed like I would always just have either a dork + anything or a Tracker's in my opener, so that turn 2 slot seems well-occupied at the moment. Plus the 2/1 body isn't anything more than a chump, since our plan is usually going over the top with titan+ sized guys.
My engine right now w/o screeching:
4x Tracker's Instincts
3x Dream Twist
(Armored is a beautiful wall vs. aggro).
I'll agree that it's a good card right now with Delver on the low side and WRR running rampant (heh), but please play Despise correctly if you're going to play it. There is no reason to play it on turn 1 as opposed to playing it on turn 3 when he is land from casting his Titan, you simply hit more cards when you wait two turns. The best way to play Despise is to wait until you know what you're playing against, then use it to disrupt their curve on what you predict will be their strongest creature against you. Sometimes that isn't practical, for example when you need leak mana to prevent a possible sword blowout if you don't have a way to remove it, but vs. a known WRR, there's no reason at all to cast it turn 1 instead of waiting.
Example: vs. t1 zombie, wait until they get to 2 lands, then play Despise to hit their messenger/captain. Sure, you might whiff because you let them play their hand out, but that means that you aren't facing a messenger or captain soon, which sounds like an easy victory to me.
EDIT: I like the addition of Drogskol Reaver in someone's list there. Could be an interesting choice: blocks in the air, gains life (super important in the meta right now for getting out of burn/zombies/swords/wolfrun etc. reach), and draws cards, but I wouldn't run more than 1 7CMC card.
I don't know that there are any real targets for Appetite that Despise doesn't hit. Maybe Batterskull, but that's all I can think of.
That list wasn't that great. Had a horrific matchup vs. Delver, he just got lucky pairings. If it can't beat Delver, it won't make it in standard.
Cloudshift isn't what you want to do in a blink deck, because it does literally nothing on its own. Restoration Angel and Venser are much better and deserve space.
Also, the blink strategy has no synergy with the best cards right now. To play it, you have to jam weaker cards like Blade Splicer and Stonehorn, compared to the older Venser targets of Wall of Omens, Seagate Oracle, and Halimar Depths. Those targets actually advance your plan by providing draw and filtering to get you to your answers and finishers, while also slowing the game down, whereas the current "viable" targets do nothing but stall the game out (and blade splicer isn't even really that great at that, considering how easily any type of evasion gets past the token). Gideon is the only walker really worth resetting, since he resets at a relatively high loyalty, but resetting him also blanks the +2, which seems pointless. Venser doesn't let you use walker abilities twice, since they return at the end step. None of the blink effects let you do that, so I don't much see the point in a "walker" blink deck.
If anything, you want to play blink with undying, because that's an interaction actually worth setting up, while also not diluting your card pool with blade splicers and stonehorns.
This I think is one of the sleepers of the set. I ended up trying one out last night and it was nothing but great. I played a 1-of in Esper Walkers.
Vs. Esper spirits, it prevented 7 damage from an incoming captain + 3 spirits swing and then took out the captain. It probably single-handedly won me that game, since it took me another couple of turns to dig for the day, which I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Vs. Wolfrun White, it prevented the 3 damage swing from his Geist coming at Lili, and redirected it to kill his flipped Garruk Relentless.
Vs. RG aggro, it prevented 3 damage from a Huntmaster + wolf swing, and then redirected to kill the huntmaster.
Overall it was pretty sweet. I never once drew it and wished it was something else. It acts as both protection for walkers, creatures, and your dome and acts as spot removal. It really seems like one of the 2-for-ones that control decks love.
Anyone else tried this card out?
Seems too narrow to me. Unless there's another matchup you can bring it in against, I don't really want to commit slots.
And don't play dissipate over leak. Leak is good because of its speed. In most match-ups, you're favored when games go long, so you don't need those dissipates at all. Our game for the most part with aggro is to make it to the late game. Leak does that, dissipate does not. For control/WRR sure, Dissipate is better, but the field is mostly aggro. Besides, you probably aren't going to counter any titans in the late game with Dissipate anyways, thanks to Cavern.
Oh, and I didn't mention how horrid it must be to actually think about UU untapped on turn 3.
And for your sideboard, do I see Devastation Tide? Seems terrible. Nice walkers you have there.
EDIT: Speaking of which. Fix your sideboard. A coherent sideboard with an established board plan against the popular decks will greatly improve your game. A stack of 1-ofs isn't going to get anyone anywhere. Needs more purges, more Ratchet bombs (especially if you're losing to tokens?), to start. Those are pretty much board staples. After that, I like 3 curses in the 75 myself cause it hoses Delver, Despise isn't terrible, and Batterskull is every Zombies/RDW/RG player's best friend. 1-of Karn and Jace are fine, but idk if I like both together.