Entertainingly, Havoc Festival was the all star for me in the two-headed giant. I was playing Azorious Control and my partner Grixis aggro. We won every game we got this out (It helped that we won the others as well, but not the point). The idea we figured out is that the card is bonkers as long as you have just a little more life than them when you cast it. We would knock them down to 24ish (Most people assume thats fine in a 30 life game) then cast and hold tight pinging them when we could (And utilizing cards like search warrant to keep a lead)
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"Fail. Fail More. Fail Better."
"Failure is the road to success."
My Current Decks:
Standard T2:
:symw::symwb: B/W Tokens :symbw::symb:
:symu::symbu: B/U Control + Fliers :symub::symb:
Standard T1:
:symr::symw::symb: R/B/W Vampires :symb::symw::symr:
Had a super aggro Golgari deck my first prerelease, running 2 rakdos slash-freaks, 2 lifelink imps, 3 Dreg manglers, and 2 sewer shamblers, along with some other scavenge-able creatures. ended up 3-1 that event, only losing to another golgari deck that had better rares than me, and narrowly beating an azorius deck that had 2 supreme verdicts and a sphin's revelation
Oddly for me Utvara Hellkite just destroyed my opponents when he dropped out, no one could deal with him. Red Blue Aggro killed them, and Utvara helped
For me Lotleth Troll got it to a 5/4 or 4/3 and just attack, regenerate, win. Great card, also lucky enough to pull Rakdos's Return nothing like stripping 3 or 4 cards and dealing the same in beats!
Stab Wound hands down. In both prereleases I played, Stab Wound won me games in most of my matches almost by itself.
Inaction Mandate was also a HUGE gain. Never did I draw it where it was a dead card and in many cases it was a big tempo advantage that allowed me to win games.
Wizards print good rares, players complain about cash grab. They print underwhelming rares, players complain that the cards suck. They spoil the best cards first, players complain about the insane prices of preorders. They spoil the meh cards first, players complain that this is the worst set ever.
So. I think I understand now.
As far as these forums are concerned, WotC can never do anything good because:
Card that is new and probably good = "pushed"
Card that is new and probably bad = "EDH/casual fodder"
Card that is a reprint = "lazy"
Card that is a better version of an older card = "power creep"
Card that is a weaker version of an older card = "worthless"
I'm surprised to see so many people list rares. They're always so bad. But seriously, of course your rares were great. What commons and uncommons were better than you thought, etc. Much more helpful in this kind of a thread.
I opened 3 Deviant Glee and found them really useful for my Rakdos deck. They worked well with Daggerdrome Imp and Splatter Thug and even with already trampling creatures such as Cryptborn Horror and that 4/3 unleash guy (don't remember the name).
However, my results were poor. Maybe I played it wrong, but I thought my deck was better than it ended being. Lost twice against Golgari, and found specially frustrating that almost every time I played a turn 2 Gore-House Chainwalker they responded playing that 2/2 scavenge beetle that doesn't care to trade with it.
They guy who won at my pre-release played Selesnya splashing black for Pack Rat (following my advice), and yes, it was impossible to deal with it.
Ended up going 4-1 on my first ever sanctioned event, so I was pretty happy. Double Mythics in your colours would tend to do that I would guess.
I never got to play my Rhino, but I have a feeling it's a pretty good card in RTR limited with all the auras and Scavenge. Even making a 5/6 Hexproof guy with the Scorpion can be a pretty savage beating.
Grove of the Guardian + Populate all day, mainly Trostani's Judgment. I won about 14 games out of 18 that I played with the army of 8/8s. Both sealed with Selesnya went 4-1 and 4-0.
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I have divined your fate. You shall find your nemesis, a catastrophic clash. Devastation, misery for all, the unleashing of horrible curses and ferocious powers. Ruin, such ruin that I dream each night of blessed peace, assured that the universe is in balance once more...
Korozda Guildmage for the first ability. I honestly never even used the second ability. The slight pump was always extremely relevant, especially when you can activate it multiple times.
Entertainingly, Havoc Festival... ...then cast and hold tight pinging them when we could (And utilizing cards like search warrant to keep a lead)
Cut out the middle of your post to emphasize this part as it doesn't work. Read the first line of Havoc Festival.
On topic, the MVP for me was stab wound as well. Won me a lot of games. Korozda Guildmage never flat out won me a game but it slowly tips the board in your favor. Also... Rakdos Ragemutt was a house! Those three in particular were my picks for MVP from my pool.
Then of course Desecration Demon was awesome (didn't lose a game he hit the board) but as others have pointed out rares/mythics are often great. The above commons/uncommons are the ones to watch out for since you'll get them a lot more consistently.
While playing Azorius to a 3-0-1 finish on Sunday, Dramatic Rescue performed admirably. It certainly helped that my first two opponents played Selesnya and activated their Grove of the Guardians, but against other decks, it still came in handy. Between 2 rescues, 2 Inaction Injunction, 2 Azorius Arrester, and 2 Voidwielder, I either out-tempoed opponents with Concordia Pegasus and Vassal Soul or stalled long enough to drop the Archon promo. Probably the most surprising card was Armory Guard, which basically stops ground attacks by itself. My deck featured only the two rares in my guild booster (the promo + Palisade Giant), and I only saw the Giant once when the game was already decided, so commons and uncommons really pulled their weight.
For me it was Guttersnipe all night. I won every single game he hit the battle field and pulled off some really awesome synergy at time with him plus Pyrcoconvergence. There I would end up casting Izzet Charm for a net 6 damage, killing 2 troublesome weak creatures or one bigger one, then burn 2 to the face. It was dirty. Sadly, I didn't see him often enough to end up winning more then 4 of 6. Frostburn Wierd was also incredibly useful in the early game, as a much more effective verison of Watercourser, one my M13 limited favorites, simply for flexibity and ability to remove almost any major ground threat if need be, as well as awing in for 4 damage on turn 3. A wonderfully versitile card. Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius was actually really underwhelming. By the time he hit the field, I was usually throwing him under the bus of Necropolis Regent, which I had to do twice, or already destroying face with Hypersonic Dragon. He ended up only winning me one game all night.
Before this weekend I would have passed pack rat in a draft and been pissed about getting a crappy rare. (He just seems like bad card disadvantage.) After seeing him in action... I'm much more impressed. The fact that it clones him instead of just making boring rat tokens is amazing and makes him almost indestructible. He wasn't my mvp (being rare) but he was the biggest surprise for me.
But other than obviously bonkers mythic, it was Trostani's Judgment. I pulled 4 and played 3. It was a super excellent 2-for-1 every time. Unconditional removal for your opponents' bombs is good, even at 6 mana, and with the Populate effect, it is appropriately costed. Populating an 8/8 vigilance makes it undercosted even.
I went 6-0, only dropping a single game to the Selesnya mirror in the finals.
Whatever the selesnya guildmage is named. My first match against (Azorius vs Azorius), we stalled each other out with detain. The board was getting clogged and my opponent dropped Isperia, so basically I had no way to profitably attack... until I played her.
Spent about 5 turns breeding an army of centaurs and just stormed in for the win. He drew 8, but it seems it wasn't enough.
My pool delivered me a fine tuned golgari killing machine and I took 1st at my event. 60ish people at the start.
Lol troll, corpsejack menace and good sized array of cheap scavenge cards gave me more momentum than what anyone could deal with. I only got 1 stab wound, but it's definitely a great card.
an honorable mention I have is slum reaper I wasn't sure about it at first but between white enchantments making some of my critters useless and me not caring if scavenge critters died, it got me a lot of value.
Yeah, the flailer did work. He often ate an Arrest while I was tapped out. Fine by my book; they'd have wasted their turn arresting him, but I'd still have 6-7 power on board.
Of course Stabwound, cause its fun and packed two of them! Most of my games came down to close life totals below 5 against Izzet and Azorious. My MVP for those fights was surprisingly Archweaver. They would have a good flyer that outlasted my removal spells, I would swing all out, and they would take it thinking I was going out in style, and I would drop Archweaver to save my ass for another big swing.
For other decks, It's two cards that I can't really pick fora winner cause I needed both and one random creature. I had 2 Rouge's Passage and 2 Trestle Troll which allowed my to block regen for ok stoppage, then swing with one dude (Scavenged up) for multiple wins. To give one VIP with guilds is to hard when other guilds demand different stratagies for a win, eg., Rackdos V. Azoriuos playing against them as Golgari.
"Failure is the road to success."
My Current Decks:
:symw::symwb: B/W Tokens :symbw::symb:
:symu::symbu: B/U Control + Fliers :symub::symb:
Standard T1:
:symr::symw::symb: R/B/W Vampires :symb::symw::symr:
Modern:
:symr::snow::symr: Mono-Red Goblins :symr::snow::symr:
Everything Pauper:
Naya Nacatl Aggro
GENERATION 14: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
Inaction Mandate was also a HUGE gain. Never did I draw it where it was a dead card and in many cases it was a big tempo advantage that allowed me to win games.
when one of em comes to play on turn 2,
they usually won me the games only in few turns
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
However, my results were poor. Maybe I played it wrong, but I thought my deck was better than it ended being. Lost twice against Golgari, and found specially frustrating that almost every time I played a turn 2 Gore-House Chainwalker they responded playing that 2/2 scavenge beetle that doesn't care to trade with it.
They guy who won at my pre-release played Selesnya splashing black for Pack Rat (following my advice), and yes, it was impossible to deal with it.
I never got to play my Rhino, but I have a feeling it's a pretty good card in RTR limited with all the auras and Scavenge. Even making a 5/6 Hexproof guy with the Scorpion can be a pretty savage beating.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Cut out the middle of your post to emphasize this part as it doesn't work. Read the first line of Havoc Festival.
On topic, the MVP for me was stab wound as well. Won me a lot of games. Korozda Guildmage never flat out won me a game but it slowly tips the board in your favor. Also... Rakdos Ragemutt was a house! Those three in particular were my picks for MVP from my pool.
Then of course Desecration Demon was awesome (didn't lose a game he hit the board) but as others have pointed out rares/mythics are often great. The above commons/uncommons are the ones to watch out for since you'll get them a lot more consistently.
Frostburn Wierd was also incredibly useful in the early game, as a much more effective verison of Watercourser, one my M13 limited favorites, simply for flexibity and ability to remove almost any major ground threat if need be, as well as awing in for 4 damage on turn 3. A wonderfully versitile card.
Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius was actually really underwhelming. By the time he hit the field, I was usually throwing him under the bus of Necropolis Regent, which I had to do twice, or already destroying face with Hypersonic Dragon. He ended up only winning me one game all night.
But other than obviously bonkers mythic, it was Trostani's Judgment. I pulled 4 and played 3. It was a super excellent 2-for-1 every time. Unconditional removal for your opponents' bombs is good, even at 6 mana, and with the Populate effect, it is appropriately costed. Populating an 8/8 vigilance makes it undercosted even.
I went 6-0, only dropping a single game to the Selesnya mirror in the finals.
Proud member of Fires Rf Salvation
Currently Playing:
BPack RatB
Modern:
WURRWU ControlRUW
Legacy:
UHigh TideU
UGTurbo EldraziGU
EDH:
RWURuhan Planeswalker ControlUWR
RGBProssh, Skyraider of KherBGR
Spent about 5 turns breeding an army of centaurs and just stormed in for the win. He drew 8, but it seems it wasn't enough.
Also, Martial Law was amazing.
Lol troll, corpsejack menace and good sized array of cheap scavenge cards gave me more momentum than what anyone could deal with. I only got 1 stab wound, but it's definitely a great card.
an honorable mention I have is slum reaper I wasn't sure about it at first but between white enchantments making some of my critters useless and me not caring if scavenge critters died, it got me a lot of value.
Yeah, the flailer did work. He often ate an Arrest while I was tapped out. Fine by my book; they'd have wasted their turn arresting him, but I'd still have 6-7 power on board.
For other decks, It's two cards that I can't really pick fora winner cause I needed both and one random creature. I had 2 Rouge's Passage and 2 Trestle Troll which allowed my to block regen for ok stoppage, then swing with one dude (Scavenged up) for multiple wins. To give one VIP with guilds is to hard when other guilds demand different stratagies for a win, eg., Rackdos V. Azoriuos playing against them as Golgari.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!