Birds, Pilgrim, the Lone Elf: 8 Turn 1 mana dorks give the deck the speed to get a head quick. Gut Shot is seeing less and less play and the RG Wolf Run decks (the heavy Shock variants) have fallen wayside. Turn 1 Dork->Turn 2 Sword can often just beat some decks. I love me some free wins. The only change I might make is a 2-2 split between Pilgrim and Elf, but more testing is required.
Strangleroot Geist: I don't know if you guys remember this thread, but our problems have been answered. This guys is a WORK HORSE. The Turn 2 Sword, Turn 3 Geist, equip is a great play, as you can't even be blown out by removal. Turn 2 Geist, Turn 3 GSZ for Geist puts control decks so far behind its insane. He is strong against removal and Vapor Snag and he even blocks like a champ. This guy is THE reason I came back to GW.
Thalia: The other two drop. Thalia, like Geist, puts the brakes on the control decks hard and can ruin the day for a tempo players land-light hand as they struggle to chain their Ponders and Probes together. She is a difficult card to play, as you have to judge when to play her based on your hand, but she pulls her weight. Oh yea, and she blocks Geist of St. Traft like a champ. First Strike is incredibly relevant right now.
Blade Splicer: The premier 3 drop guy in the deck. He deals with Mirran Crusader, Phyrexian Crusader, laughs at edicts, and is a great beater. In addition he is much easier on the mana than Crusader and for that he gets the nod.
Hero of Bladehold: The reason to play white at all. I can't tell you how many times I have won games off the back of Hero alone. She makes your dorks worth something after they get done powering her out. Great card all around.
Vorapede: Basically I wanted a big guy to grab with Green Sun in the late game and after playing against this guy I was sold. Acidic Slime is great for utility but this guy just brings the pain and breaks stalemates. And the dream of Turn 3 Vorapede against control is just a good feeling.
Garruk Relentless: Immune to wraths, easy on the mana, fits the curve, creates a steam of dudes, a removal spell on the fly and sometimes a tutor AND an overrun built into one card? Where do I sign up?
Green Sun's Zenith: This card is 80% a three drop, and 19$ a two drop. Whether you want to ramp into Hero/Garruk or you want another Geist, this card shines. It also allows us to play a couple singletons in the board.
Oblivion Ring: Great removal spell. The "catch all" Nothing too exciting, just a good card doing the good stuff.
Sword of War and Peace: All I have to say is, what were we doing NOT playing Swords before. This card is incredible against the format right now and as I said earlier, the Turn 2 Sword-> Turn 3 Equip is just a crazy strong play that sometimes just blows out opponents. Great card all around.
Dismember: The removal spell of choice. It has fallen out of flavor but with its great at getting rid of road blocks when we decide to bring the beats. That said, the most one card I am most unsure of right now.
The Mana: A concession for the GG on Geist. I want a 4th Township, but I don't think it's feasible
The SB: Pretty stock. If you have questions just ask.
So what do you guys think? Anyone else have an experience here?
I agree about the swords and thats why I run 4 MB (2 SFaF and 2 SWaP) but I have crusaders just because swords and crusaders are insane really. I haven't tried the geists yet so let us know how that goes. Isnt the same complication Mana wise going to apply to Geist though GG on T2.
GSZ seems a little underwhelming without 2 many targets, after all mid game on Geist isnt going to be that great, Vorapede seems interesting though.
For the sake of discussion and comparison heres my current build.
I am aware that I need to get the razorverge thickets but I just havent got around to it.
I am also interested to see how Thalia goes for you, I can see her uses against Control type decks but anything else may be counter intuitive so please report back.
The mana problems aren't nearly as bad being heavy green as we are naturally heavy green so we can play our dorks turn 1. Having GG is far less hard than WW.
GSZ preboard is just Geist 5-6, and Geist is phenomenal. Postboard it gives you extra Slimes and Corrupters.
Funny you should stumble onto the same idea Koopa. I've actually been tweaking my old GW list to something that's remarkably similar to yours. Here's a link:
Strangleroot Geist: I don't know if you guys remember this thread, but our problems have been answered. This guys is a WORK HORSE. The Turn 2 Sword, Turn 3 Geist, equip is a great play, as you can't even be blown out by removal. Turn 2 Geist, Turn 3 GSZ for Geist puts control decks so far behind its insane. He is strong against removal and Vapor Snag and he even blocks like a champ. This guy is THE reason I came back to GW.
I couldn't agree more.
If you really want the last Gavony you can cut a Forest I think(although I'm not sure it's needed). We've always been heavy green. Even back with Overrun. 17 versus 18 Green sources with the dorks is not going to make the difference. If you are really worried do a 2/2 dork split. Really you don't need double white til T4. I actually sideboard my Heros since I found I've been sideboarding them against almost everything except Wolf Run.
Vorapede is ok, but it's really fringing on Titan territory especially if Green Sun'd. I don't really like Green Sun here that much. I ran it for a while as a 2 off too pre Geist. Geist gives it more value but you really are just making a Geist a 3 drop and I'm not sure it's that good. I mean I like Geist but it gets outclassed fast. As a 3 on T2 I'd take it, but outside of that I'd probably just want more threats. The trick to the deck is that you come out bigger or equal at all stages of the game either dominating for forcing board stalls that Gavony can tip to your advantage. Geists speed is lost quickly. The fact it can do 4 damage before anyone blinks is incredible but it is much more of a short term investment against any deck that isn't determined to keep the board clear or when you need defense against aggressive decks like red. I will admit those are the two most common situations outside of Humans and Wolf Run but maybe not quite enough to push it that far.
Thalia interests me a lot. I haven't tried that card yet and I can see some good applications I just wonder how relevant. 2 drops are tricky for a deck that really wants to leverage it's speed from mana. Playing it might set you back a turn while it sets them back a turn. If it can aid against Wolf Run though I would like it a lot. I need to test that matchup with it.
Finally, I disagree about removing Mirran Crusader as well. I understand the mana, but I mean you are fringing on mono green being a better choice, especially if Hero isn't nearly as good right now. Mirran Crusader is the reason to play white it just trumps everything but a Shock. The decline of the deck was directly proportional to cutting Mirran Crusader as far as I've seen. Blade Splicer promotes board stalls. If you have Splicer and I have Crusader, no one is attacking unless we top deck differently. Everything is match for match. However, if I have Crusader and you don't have Splicer I win a lot faster than vice versa with any sort of amplification the deck does naturally especially the swords. Mirran Crusader lets you leverage the difference of being ahead a lot more. It absolutely smashes the advantage of breaking stalemates. It makes even more sense now to go Crusader than Splicer ever than before (other than mana perhaps) in that Strangleroot Geist is much better Blade Splicer replacement than Crusader. When you are on the defense Strangleroot Geist does the trick especially against Red where Crusader was weak. We basically got a more aggressive option here. Given swords are back on the menu what are the best creatures to be running with them. Geist and Crusader by far. Crusader is deadly double strike and Geist is the only current option for T3 Swings that don't tie up your mana dorks (T1 Dork, T2 Sword, T3 Geist, Equip, Swing). We haven't had that since Stoneforge and Lotus Cobra.
Of course I build my whole list around the concept that I can leverage speed and breaking stalemates quicker than other decks. Hence why I lean on Kessig, but my mana is even grosser. The fixing is ok but the number of tap lands is near the max I would do for this sort of deck but with all the 2's and less 4's it's acceptable for me to play a tap land midgame if I must. The mana hasn't been terrible and I've run similar manabases for the last 5 months. Here's my current list.
I'm glad to see everyone's running the full set of SoWaP. It's something that I've been debating recently with my playgroup (though I'm all for it).
But anyways, I ran the list I posted earlier at FNM and kind of got stomped. The release of DKA seems to have made standard even faster. Delver now has Thought Scour (this card is gonna be huge) and zombies is a deck. A faster environment means more people will be running TS. I just don't know if GW has the speed necessary to make it happen. Even with Strangleroot Geist and/or 4x SoWaP..
I'm glad to see everyone's running the full set of SoWaP. It's something that I've been debating recently with my playgroup (though I'm all for it).
But anyways, I ran the list I posted earlier at FNM and kind of got stomped. The release of DKA seems to have made standard even faster. Delver now has Thought Scour (this card is gonna be huge) and zombies is a deck. A faster environment means more people will be running TS. I just don't know if GW has the speed necessary to make it happen. Even with Strangleroot Geist and/or 4x SoWaP..
Your 3's are weak except the swords which are often 5's. If you want speed you need more redundancy than just Geist. Midnight Haunting is remarkably slow in a non-equipment draw. It is awesome staller and can chip but puts on no immediate pressure. Anyone wise to it most likely walk into it. And walking into it is still defensive. This could be justified if Hero of Bladehold was amazing but against most decks now it isn't. When I talk about speed I don't mean in just a damage sense. I mean in a tempo sense. Our advantage is to be ahead, bigger on board faster. Where we can force decks to respond rather than promote their game plan. If humans use their turn 3 mana to O-Ring rather than play Crusader we're even farther ahead. Cause we play a bigger threat and hopefully they run out of O-Rings. If we get pulled into a ground stall we intend to break by being bigger on board. We are designed to break these stalls. Hence why Midnight Haunting is attrocious maindeck. I will take it as a concession to Delver and aggressive decks with flyers, but Haunting is a stop gap that pretty much only stalls and helps you stabilize to what? Hero? I'd play Khemba Skyguard before it mana allowing in those situations likely. The problem is you stall to play out near useless threats and since you were pushing their removal early (they haven't had to use those Snags or Leaks) your follow up plays are too little to late. Garruk Relentless is like a 4 mana removal spell here. Thrun isn't always enough with Images. In general inefficient and short lived.
Stuff like Timely and Fiend Hunter and more O-rings clog the 3 drop slot with only having certain effect. Basically you get dragged down into UW game with the same tools and less of them. They are better equipped to fight this battle short of Swords. It kinda works sometimes but it sort of forfeits the point of playing green in general.
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And I definitely prefer running 3 O-Rings, 2 Thrun, and 3 Geist over 4 Splicers and 4 Geist.
Manawise, I think he went way too heavy in the green direction. I think 8 Forest and 3 Township could work, but that's as far as I would be willing to drop down to on Townships since I sort of want to see one every game.
I haven't been around the GW Thread in a while because A) I gave up on the deck and B) I became a Mod and was off doing other things
Anyway, with DKA in our hands and some testing under my belt I wanted to share my list and my results with you guys!
First, the list:
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Blade Splicer
4x Hero of Bladehold
4x Strangleroot Geist
3x Avacyn's Pilgrim
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Vorapede
Spells(13)
3x Garruk Relentless
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Sword of War and Peace
2x Dismember
2x Green Sun's Zenith
10x Forest
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
3x Gavony Township
3x Plains
3x Ratchet Bomb
2x Naturalize
2x Sword of Feast and Famine
2x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Acidic Slime
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Purify the Grave
1x Ray of Revelation
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Viridian Corrupter
Card Choices:
Birds, Pilgrim, the Lone Elf: 8 Turn 1 mana dorks give the deck the speed to get a head quick. Gut Shot is seeing less and less play and the RG Wolf Run decks (the heavy Shock variants) have fallen wayside. Turn 1 Dork->Turn 2 Sword can often just beat some decks. I love me some free wins. The only change I might make is a 2-2 split between Pilgrim and Elf, but more testing is required.
Strangleroot Geist: I don't know if you guys remember this thread, but our problems have been answered. This guys is a WORK HORSE. The Turn 2 Sword, Turn 3 Geist, equip is a great play, as you can't even be blown out by removal. Turn 2 Geist, Turn 3 GSZ for Geist puts control decks so far behind its insane. He is strong against removal and Vapor Snag and he even blocks like a champ. This guy is THE reason I came back to GW.
Thalia: The other two drop. Thalia, like Geist, puts the brakes on the control decks hard and can ruin the day for a tempo players land-light hand as they struggle to chain their Ponders and Probes together. She is a difficult card to play, as you have to judge when to play her based on your hand, but she pulls her weight. Oh yea, and she blocks Geist of St. Traft like a champ. First Strike is incredibly relevant right now.
Blade Splicer: The premier 3 drop guy in the deck. He deals with Mirran Crusader, Phyrexian Crusader, laughs at edicts, and is a great beater. In addition he is much easier on the mana than Crusader and for that he gets the nod.
Hero of Bladehold: The reason to play white at all. I can't tell you how many times I have won games off the back of Hero alone. She makes your dorks worth something after they get done powering her out. Great card all around.
Vorapede: Basically I wanted a big guy to grab with Green Sun in the late game and after playing against this guy I was sold. Acidic Slime is great for utility but this guy just brings the pain and breaks stalemates. And the dream of Turn 3 Vorapede against control is just a good feeling.
Garruk Relentless: Immune to wraths, easy on the mana, fits the curve, creates a steam of dudes, a removal spell on the fly and sometimes a tutor AND an overrun built into one card? Where do I sign up?
Green Sun's Zenith: This card is 80% a three drop, and 19$ a two drop. Whether you want to ramp into Hero/Garruk or you want another Geist, this card shines. It also allows us to play a couple singletons in the board.
Oblivion Ring: Great removal spell. The "catch all" Nothing too exciting, just a good card doing the good stuff.
Sword of War and Peace: All I have to say is, what were we doing NOT playing Swords before. This card is incredible against the format right now and as I said earlier, the Turn 2 Sword-> Turn 3 Equip is just a crazy strong play that sometimes just blows out opponents. Great card all around.
Dismember: The removal spell of choice. It has fallen out of flavor but with its great at getting rid of road blocks when we decide to bring the beats. That said, the most one card I am most unsure of right now.
The Mana: A concession for the GG on Geist. I want a 4th Township, but I don't think it's feasible
The SB: Pretty stock. If you have questions just ask.
So what do you guys think? Anyone else have an experience here?
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
The mana problems aren't nearly as bad being heavy green as we are naturally heavy green so we can play our dorks turn 1. Having GG is far less hard than WW.
GSZ preboard is just Geist 5-6, and Geist is phenomenal. Postboard it gives you extra Slimes and Corrupters.
Thalia has been fantastic. She is great.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/township-aggro-1/
I haven't commited to using Thalia yet (though I'm in the process of trading for some) since I'm still pretty reliant on noncreature spells.
Who would've thought this deck could become more competitive by removing Mirran Crusader.
Draft My Cube!
No offense, but this is kind of like saying:
If you ignore the reason why strangleroot geist is better, than mirran crusader is TOTALLY better..
Draft My Cube!
I couldn't agree more.
If you really want the last Gavony you can cut a Forest I think(although I'm not sure it's needed). We've always been heavy green. Even back with Overrun. 17 versus 18 Green sources with the dorks is not going to make the difference. If you are really worried do a 2/2 dork split. Really you don't need double white til T4. I actually sideboard my Heros since I found I've been sideboarding them against almost everything except Wolf Run.
Vorapede is ok, but it's really fringing on Titan territory especially if Green Sun'd. I don't really like Green Sun here that much. I ran it for a while as a 2 off too pre Geist. Geist gives it more value but you really are just making a Geist a 3 drop and I'm not sure it's that good. I mean I like Geist but it gets outclassed fast. As a 3 on T2 I'd take it, but outside of that I'd probably just want more threats. The trick to the deck is that you come out bigger or equal at all stages of the game either dominating for forcing board stalls that Gavony can tip to your advantage. Geists speed is lost quickly. The fact it can do 4 damage before anyone blinks is incredible but it is much more of a short term investment against any deck that isn't determined to keep the board clear or when you need defense against aggressive decks like red. I will admit those are the two most common situations outside of Humans and Wolf Run but maybe not quite enough to push it that far.
Thalia interests me a lot. I haven't tried that card yet and I can see some good applications I just wonder how relevant. 2 drops are tricky for a deck that really wants to leverage it's speed from mana. Playing it might set you back a turn while it sets them back a turn. If it can aid against Wolf Run though I would like it a lot. I need to test that matchup with it.
Finally, I disagree about removing Mirran Crusader as well. I understand the mana, but I mean you are fringing on mono green being a better choice, especially if Hero isn't nearly as good right now. Mirran Crusader is the reason to play white it just trumps everything but a Shock. The decline of the deck was directly proportional to cutting Mirran Crusader as far as I've seen. Blade Splicer promotes board stalls. If you have Splicer and I have Crusader, no one is attacking unless we top deck differently. Everything is match for match. However, if I have Crusader and you don't have Splicer I win a lot faster than vice versa with any sort of amplification the deck does naturally especially the swords. Mirran Crusader lets you leverage the difference of being ahead a lot more. It absolutely smashes the advantage of breaking stalemates. It makes even more sense now to go Crusader than Splicer ever than before (other than mana perhaps) in that Strangleroot Geist is much better Blade Splicer replacement than Crusader. When you are on the defense Strangleroot Geist does the trick especially against Red where Crusader was weak. We basically got a more aggressive option here. Given swords are back on the menu what are the best creatures to be running with them. Geist and Crusader by far. Crusader is deadly double strike and Geist is the only current option for T3 Swings that don't tie up your mana dorks (T1 Dork, T2 Sword, T3 Geist, Equip, Swing). We haven't had that since Stoneforge and Lotus Cobra.
Of course I build my whole list around the concept that I can leverage speed and breaking stalemates quicker than other decks. Hence why I lean on Kessig, but my mana is even grosser. The fixing is ok but the number of tap lands is near the max I would do for this sort of deck but with all the 2's and less 4's it's acceptable for me to play a tap land midgame if I must. The mana hasn't been terrible and I've run similar manabases for the last 5 months. Here's my current list.
5 Forest
4 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Copperline Gorge
4 Sunpetal Grove
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Evolving Wilds
3 Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures(22):
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Spellskite
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Primordial Hydra
3 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Gideon Jura
Other(8):
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Sword of War and Peace
1 True Conviction
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Combust
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Hero of Bladehold
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Huntmaster of the Fell
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
I'm going to be putting the following list together tonight:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Mirran Crusader
3 Strangleroot Geist
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Gideon Jura
2 Mortarpod
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Sword of War and Peace
4 Gavony Township
5 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Sunpetal Grove
It's super linear, but who cares about linearity when everything in your deck is a potential threat.
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0
But anyways, I ran the list I posted earlier at FNM and kind of got stomped. The release of DKA seems to have made standard even faster. Delver now has Thought Scour (this card is gonna be huge) and zombies is a deck. A faster environment means more people will be running TS. I just don't know if GW has the speed necessary to make it happen. Even with Strangleroot Geist and/or 4x SoWaP..
Draft My Cube!
Your 3's are weak except the swords which are often 5's. If you want speed you need more redundancy than just Geist. Midnight Haunting is remarkably slow in a non-equipment draw. It is awesome staller and can chip but puts on no immediate pressure. Anyone wise to it most likely walk into it. And walking into it is still defensive. This could be justified if Hero of Bladehold was amazing but against most decks now it isn't. When I talk about speed I don't mean in just a damage sense. I mean in a tempo sense. Our advantage is to be ahead, bigger on board faster. Where we can force decks to respond rather than promote their game plan. If humans use their turn 3 mana to O-Ring rather than play Crusader we're even farther ahead. Cause we play a bigger threat and hopefully they run out of O-Rings. If we get pulled into a ground stall we intend to break by being bigger on board. We are designed to break these stalls. Hence why Midnight Haunting is attrocious maindeck. I will take it as a concession to Delver and aggressive decks with flyers, but Haunting is a stop gap that pretty much only stalls and helps you stabilize to what? Hero? I'd play Khemba Skyguard before it mana allowing in those situations likely. The problem is you stall to play out near useless threats and since you were pushing their removal early (they haven't had to use those Snags or Leaks) your follow up plays are too little to late. Garruk Relentless is like a 4 mana removal spell here. Thrun isn't always enough with Images. In general inefficient and short lived.
Stuff like Timely and Fiend Hunter and more O-rings clog the 3 drop slot with only having certain effect. Basically you get dragged down into UW game with the same tools and less of them. They are better equipped to fight this battle short of Swords. It kinda works sometimes but it sort of forfeits the point of playing green in general.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
60 cards
10 Forest
2 Gavony Township
4 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Sunpetal Grove
24 lands
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Blade Splicer
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Strangleroot Geist
24 creatures
3 Gideon Jura
2 Mortarpod
4 Sword of War and Peace
12 other spells
2 Creeping Corrosion
3 Dismember
2 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Naturalize
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Timely Reinforcements
15 sideboard cards
8 Forest
3 Gavony Township
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Rootbound Crag
3 Sunpetal Grove
24 lands
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Blade Splicer
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Llanowar Elves
2 Porcelain Legionnaire
4 Strangleroot Geist
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
24 creatures
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Overrun
2 Sword of War and Peace
12 other spells
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Celestial Purge
2 Dismember
1 Mortarpod
1 Overrun
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
15 sideboard cards
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
I definitely feel better about my build now.
And I definitely prefer running 3 O-Rings, 2 Thrun, and 3 Geist over 4 Splicers and 4 Geist.
Manawise, I think he went way too heavy in the green direction. I think 8 Forest and 3 Township could work, but that's as far as I would be willing to drop down to on Townships since I sort of want to see one every game.
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0