Awesome to see people talking about Knight of the Reliquary again. Its definitely one of the cards that makes humans great, in my opinion.
D90Dennis, I really like the look of your list. If you end up testing it, let me know how good rallier is. I haven't played with the card yet.
I wanted to mention that I think your manabase is missing a few things. 4 razorverge is a bit of an awkward number in a KotR decks - its something you can't sacrifice, doesn't go to the yard, and isn't a utility land. I've been playing 3 cavern of souls, 1 township, 1 ghost quarter, 1 tectonic edge, 1 horizon canopy, 9 fetches, and 6 fetchable lands.
Cavern is pretty similar to razorverge in most matchups and a huge blowout in a few, so I think its the better option. I also think that tectonic edge is important in the current metagame against decks like ad naus, titan breach, and esper control. It also seems great with rallier
I placed Top 8 of my IQ yesterday in Colombia, MO. I took notes and will post those later, but here is my list. 6 rounds, won 4, then double drew into top 8. Lost the first round. Stay tuned and please comment/ question any card choices.
Match notes coming soon.
First time trying student. I really liked having it, but I don't think I want 4 of the effect. Gather the towns folk I played a lot of but later it's kind of underwhelming.
I'd rather have value one drops that are good any point of the game versus a two one with no relevant text.
Weathered wayfarer is actually really good. Being able to thin the deck, drawing extra cards and hitting your lands is important. And because some of my lands are spell lands, I can fetch up whatever I need. I was able to keep tron offline because of ghost quarter activations.
Mirran Crusader and Knight of the holy nimbus are responces for all the removal around. My expected meta was jund and abzan, along with plenty of removal from other decks. those two creatures are very hard to kill.
The sword was just a one of that I wanted to try. It worked fine. I wanted to have a consistent way to gain life and rebuying by dead creatures.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I do as I choose, and I answer to no one!"
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
Round 1 vs abzan control
Game one: Pretty easy game. I see two Mirran crusaders and a Thalia's lieutenant. He can't interact with that as he sees no path to exile.
Game 2: I build up a huge board but I see no lords. I have a sword of light and shadow attached to a level 7 student of warfare, but he has plenty of green creatures and ooze keeps eating all my creatures in grave yard. He casts damnation and abrupt decays the sword. I run out of gas after that.
Game 3: I curve out one drop, two drop Mirran crusader with two Thalia's lieutenant. He dies pretty quickly.
Round 2 vs affinity
Game 1: I mull to 5. I have champion into two Thalia's lieutenant and I get him to 3. A clutch galvanic blast on my lieutenant gives him the time he needs to kill me. Game with him at 3 life.
Game 2: I didn't take very good notes as the game was over pretty fast. I won.
Game 3: He goes on the poison plan with ink moth and cranial playing. I draw blessed alliance for the first one, but he hits another one. He won't play a land because I have tech edge. He makes a curious play to block my champion with arc bound ravaged, then he sacs a ton of things to it to try to kill champion. I use my path on the arcbound. I have no more answers and my board consists of a 3 thraben inspectors, 3 champion of the parish. I draw my card, rearrange my mana to have white up and audibly say cool. I play the knight and attack with everything. He conceded. I think my bluff work because he could have blocked to survive, then kill me with the infect damage.
Round 3 vs Jund.
Game 1:I mull to 5. My hand gets shredded by discard and removal for my left over creatures.
Game 2: He flooded out somewhat after a lot of discard. I stick a crusader and go to town.
Game 3: It's a very hard game. I'm able to stick a few creatures but he sticks an EE 1 one to kill my Student and Kytheon.
I play some more creature into a damnation. I play a thraben inspector and pass. He sticks a tarmogoyf and passes. I draw with the clue, hit path and cast it. He searches up a swamp. I draw auriok champion and smugglers copter. He plays another tarmogoyf. I cast a Thalia's lieutenant and pass, not wanting to expose the copter to removal. He attacks with tarmogoyf, and I ghost quarter his forest. He fails to find. This is key, as he can't cast more green stuff some time. I eventually get beats in with lieutenant copter and auriok champion for the win. He shows me his hand with 2 tarmogoyf, ooze and kitchen finks.
Round 4 vs Blue Tron.
Game 1: My opponent goes in on how lucky he is. Round 1 bye. Round 2 win because of a deck check. Round 3 win because chalice of the void is good versus burn. I take note of that and mulligan to a hand with cavern of souls. He casts chalice on one, which I proceed to not care about because of the cavern. He gets natural tron and plays a sundering titan which doesn't destroy anything my only lands are cavern and horizon canopy. But the killer piece is batterskull equipped to the titan. I can't path and I give up.
Game 2: I have Thalia and cavern. I draw weather wayfarer and active it the next turn getting ghost quarter. He maps for ghost quarter, destroys my CAVERN, then sticks chalice one 1. At this point, I have disenchant for it but I let it stay around as I can search up more caverns and ghost quarters. He can't get tron online because he locked himself out of map.
Game 3: I win with cavern again and Mirran crusader. He shows me a hand full of counter spells.
He goes on how good on chalice should be against me.
There are 4 undefeated players so we are safe to double draw.
I played burn in the finals and lost. Not much worth talking about.
Overall it was pretty good. The only things I want to change are possibly Thr sword to to feast and famine. Black and white are the best protections for removal but if there are a ton of green creatures it's not that great. It's also bad versus scavenging ooze, which every green black decks seems keen on playing.
I'm really tempted to try true believer instead of ethersworn canonist. It makes me weaker versus ad nauseum but better versus burn and Jund. Burn can't beat true believer and mark of asylum. I have regionals Saturday so I'll have some time to decide.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I do as I choose, and I answer to no one!"
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
I'm not sure I understand the appeal to playing mono white over other versions of the deck. Are you basically saying that brave the elements is better than mana dorks, collected company, the best 3-drops, and twice as many Lords?
Additionally, copter seems really out of place. It's not a human, it's a noncreature in a Thalia deck, and it's not white for brave the elements.
That being said, wayfarer is cool tech. Maybe a GW land toolbox list exists with wayfarer and knight?
FencerKid will probably have some additional insight but here's my experience for now:
Overall it has decent consistency and a painless, Blood Moon resistant manabase. Mono white has the best burn matchup of any human deck, which is not insignificant. It is better positioned against Tron than some builds due to the ability to fit Ghost Quarter in the Mana Base, plus Thalia GoT mainboard, Stony Silence in the side. Honor of the Pure is an option if you want another anthem effect, Metallic Mimic too. Mayor can be good at times and awkward at others. IMO he's not as big of a loss as it seems. Lastly it's the cheapest to build, which matters to a lot of people.
The mono-white curve is usually pretty low with lots of one-drop 2/1s so flooding out or even just pulling subpar topdecks in a normal length game can be a very real problem. White has very little card draw other than Inspector so Copter's looting is therefore extremely valuable here as a means of drawing gas more reliably. Digging for White's great hate cards is good, too.
It gives the deck an evasive threat that attacks from a different angle than Brave the Elements. Offensively, BtE is sometimes an alpha strike but sometimes much less due to mixed color blockers or even colorless blockers in Affinity, Eldrazi, Tron. While it's true that Brave can't protect Copter, Copter already dodges all sorcery speed removal and sweepers, and dodges instant removal until it gets a chance to attack, by which point it's at least gotten you a chance to loot.. so it doesn't need quite as much protection as other creatures.
On the topic of Human Lords being extremely powerful, what about pushing that angle and going full on low cost humans.
16 human synergy creatures, all at CMC 2 or less.
Running all 8 1 mana mana dorks, along with a low curve we could probably afford to cut lands to an extremely low number.
Thraben Inspector would be another cheap human that could get buffed into being a threat, then in the late game once we run out of cards we could use the clue for a little more steam if that ever comes around. A 1 of Oviya Pashiri has a similar draw to it.
Burning-Tree Emissary puts creatures onto the board quickly, it hits 2 of our lords, as well as Duskwatch Recruiter which is another strong card in the long game.
Then with everything at 2CMC or lower, Return to the Ranks seems like it could be a good for rebuilding after a sweeper, and path to exile is of course the best spot removal in the game.
For a deck of:
1 mana creatures (13)
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Thraben Inspector
1x Oviya Pashiri
2 mana creatures (20)
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Hamlet Captain
4x Burning Tree Emmisary
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
Why not try Town Gossipmonger? 2/3 for W for a turn 2 attack is pretty good. And it can get buffed with Thalia's Lieutenent for a potential 3/4 swinging on turn 2. Unless transformed cards tap down when transformed. That I don't know.
On the topic of Human Lords being extremely powerful, what about pushing that angle and going full on low cost humans.
16 human synergy creatures, all at CMC 2 or less.
Running all 8 1 mana mana dorks, along with a low curve we could probably afford to cut lands to an extremely low number.
Thraben Inspector would be another cheap human that could get buffed into being a threat, then in the late game once we run out of cards we could use the clue for a little more steam if that ever comes around. A 1 of Oviya Pashiri has a similar draw to it.
Burning-Tree Emissary puts creatures onto the board quickly, it hits 2 of our lords, as well as Duskwatch Recruiter which is another strong card in the long game.
Then with everything at 2CMC or lower, Return to the Ranks seems like it could be a good for rebuilding after a sweeper, and path to exile is of course the best spot removal in the game.
For a deck of:
1 mana creatures (13)
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Thraben Inspector
1x Oviya Pashiri
2 mana creatures (20)
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Hamlet Captain
4x Burning Tree Emmisary
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
Why not try Town Gossipmonger? 2/3 for W for a turn 2 attack is pretty good. And it can get buffed with Thalia's Lieutenent for a potential 3/4 swinging on turn 2. Unless transformed cards tap down when transformed. That I don't know.
Problem is that you play him turn 1, then you have to tap him along with your turn 2 creature to flip him, which means no attack until turn 3. That's not where we want to be.
EDIT: I have a Primer post ready to go. Is everyone ok with phasing out this thread in favor of a full Primer?
FencerKid will probably have some additional insight but here's my experience for now:
Overall it has decent consistency and a painless, Blood Moon resistant manabase. Mono white has the best burn matchup of any human deck, which is not insignificant. It is better positioned against Tron than some builds due to the ability to fit Ghost Quarter in the Mana Base, plus Thalia GoT mainboard, Stony Silence in the side. Honor of the Pure is an option if you want another anthem effect, Metallic Mimic too. Mayor can be good at times and awkward at others. IMO he's not as big of a loss as it seems. Lastly it's the cheapest to build, which matters to a lot of people.
The mono-white curve is usually pretty low with lots of one-drop 2/1s so flooding out or even just pulling subpar topdecks in a normal length game can be a very real problem. White has very little card draw other than Inspector so Copter's looting is therefore extremely valuable here as a means of drawing gas more reliably. Digging for White's great hate cards is good, too.
It gives the deck an evasive threat that attacks from a different angle than Brave the Elements. Offensively, BtE is sometimes an alpha strike but sometimes much less due to mixed color blockers or even colorless blockers in Affinity, Eldrazi, Tron. While it's true that Brave can't protect Copter, Copter already dodges all sorcery speed removal and sweepers, and dodges instant removal until it gets a chance to attack, by which point it's at least gotten you a chance to loot.. so it doesn't need quite as much protection as other creatures.
You have to think of brave the elements as a split card.
Choose one: Prevent all damage dealt to your creatures, or your creatures are unblock-able, or, your creatures gain hex-proof, or counter target spell.
That is a very simplistic way of looking at it, but that really shows how powerful Brave the Elements really is. Of course there are matchups where the card doesn't do much. Tron and eldrazi means I usually (but not always) side it out. The card does so much for one mana. Its the reach that the other colors don't get. Is it stronger than all those cards you mentioned? Debatable. I've won games simply from top decking a brave to get through a board stall. Or giving me an extra turn after they anger of the gods.
Copter was a card I just decided to try on a whim. I don't play much standard but from hearing how well it did, I figured I would try it out. Its easy to crew and has built in evasion. I've been impressed ever since. You are correct that I have Thalia, but I don't always see her/ she survives, and that won't really stop me from playing it. I've cast copter plenty of times as a 3 drop. The big thing about copter, is that it gives mono white a resistant creature, and card selection. I think if you give colors access to something they don't normally get, it improves the deck.
Shelldell mentioned the lords that can be played in the deck. Honor of the pure and now metallic mimic increase that number. Honor is great. I probably should play it somewhere but I don't. Mimic I tried. It's been... alright in testing. when you follow it up with 2 or three one drops on turn 3 it has a lot of value. Drawing it late can make it underwhelming though.
EDIT: I have a Primer post ready to go. Is everyone ok with phasing out this thread in favor of a full Primer?
I don't mind a new primer. If in the beginning we have sections for each potential color splash I am down. I can contribute for mono white, but also for the other color splashes I've tried.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I do as I choose, and I answer to no one!"
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
Thanks FencerKid. I've also thought about a Wx list where all of the creatures are Wx so that Brave the Elements and Honor of the Pure still work but you can get threats like Mantis Rider in a CoCo shell to ty to combine some of the benefits of a mono-white list with a multicolored one. I'm not happy with it yet but I'll share if it ever comes together.
---
Like many people, I am still trying to appraise Renegade Rallier and see if she's good enough to build around. What would the best human targets be? By extension, what would a deck built around Rallier look like? Is there a tempo brew there that's good enough to justify building around her?
Things that give you value when they ETB:
-Thraben Inspector to get another clue
-BTE gives you RG mana for free
-Knight of the White Orchid might give a land
High power cards that are commonly / easily removed:
-Mayor of Avabruck
-Thalia GoT
-Dark Confidant
-Meddling Mage
There's a lot of Path and Anger of the Gods floating around.
The best options here don't fit very neatly into one color splash.
Hierarch or Champion are usually removed first and are therefore most likely to wind up in the graveyard but unfortunately these aren't the best targets to rez late in the game.
I don't mind a new primer. If in the beginning we have sections for each potential color splash I am down. I can contribute for mono white, but also for the other color splashes I've tried.
I've got quite a few color combinations, but not all of them just yet.
After messing around with the new 2-drops from AER, Skyship Plunderer and Metallic Mimic, I came away somewhat dissatisfied. Plunderer is ok – solid, even, when you have counters to add to – but it exacerbates mana incompatibilities with BTE, and Mimic doesn’t seem worth running due to its diminished value outside of opening hands. Instead, like many of you, I’ve added a couple more dorks to focus on our good 3-drops. Here’s where I’m at right now:
Again, the goal of the build is to accelerate out high-impact 3-drops on turn 2 and by extension CoCo out two 3-drops on turn 3 as often as possible. Towards this end Avacyn’s Pilgrim is a necessary evil – it’s a bad topdeck but the higher density of 3-drops offsets this downside somewhat. Are 12x 3-drops too clunky? My testing so far leans toward no, it's not a problem for the main board. Against decks where you have to tax or interact early I'll side out some of the 3-drops for more 1-2 mana spells, so that isn't a problem.
The main board is built around handling creature-based matchups, and then the sideboard presents several angles for approaching interactive or combo matchups. I’m soft to burn and dredge right now. Still testing both Rallier and Witness for the same two slots against grindy decks.
I know a few of you aren’t sold on Lyev Skyknight but I would be careful to not dismiss it too quickly. Human cards that are strong enough to fit in the MB don’t usually interact with much more than creatures. Detaining any nonland permanent, even if only for one turn, is a bigger deal than it looks, and 3 power in the air is strong. Yeah, it has problems against X/1 flyers, but in those matchups you should be siding in Izzet Staticaster, anyways. Overall it gives great tempo and until they print another 3/X flyer or something with better interaction I will probably be sticking with Skyknight in the main.
I’ve also come full circle back to supporting Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I'd been reluctant to run her after experiencing some CoCo nonbos and hearing similar feedback, but I've been testing her again with an open mind while trying to tune my deck to handle Big Mana decks and she has been indispensable.
As others have mentioned it's not too hard to play around the CoCo nonbo by mulling away hands that have both cards, or you can benefit from Thalia's early tempo benefits before suicide blocking with her to cast a CoCo stuck in your hand. Sometimes she's just a Lightning Rod that taxes your opponent for the Bolt used to kill her. But if that keeps a beater on the board and forces them to play off-curve for a turn or two that's still great IMO. Right now I’m just running two copies of her in the MB to balance her with CoCo, and two more copies in the side for when the benefit of her tax outweighs the heightened probability of nonbos. Using Rallier to help her stick to the board seems promising, but I haven't gotten a chance to test that yet.
Earlier versions of the deck had 2x Skyship Plunderer and 1x Mayor of Avabruck in the MB but I found myself siding them out so much that I just moved Path to the MB to free up some SB slots.
INITIAL TESTING
I’m starting to test the current version of the deck against a gauntlet with a few friends and so far I’ve done GW Tron and a tiny bit of Bant Eldrazi.
Tron G1
On the draw T1 Pilgrim into T2 Skyknight, detain an egg. Forced him to play Razorverge Thicket T2 to have green for Sylvan Scrying. T3 I play Brawler + Lieutenant, he plays his second Urza T3, cracks the original egg and plays / cracks another egg. T4 I play Mantis and attack for his exact life total (!)
Drew a hate-heavy hand with, Thalia GoT, Spreading Seas, and Stony Silence but only Pilgrim with one land. Not sure if the hate is worth the low land count & mediocre pressure but I go with it. Missed my T2 land drop but slam Thalia. He Paths Thalia but has to pay two and ramps me. I play Stony Silence and Spreading Seas his one Urza land but don’t have any threats on the board. He nukes the Stony Silence with Naturalize and puts two maps out. It takes another several turns to assemble Tron but by then I’ve got enough beats from Brawler + Pilgrim + Lieutenant to chip him down and finish him off the turn after he lands Karn.
Overall very lucky.
We played more matches post board and in a few I included 2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar. In one game I lived the dream of T2 Thalia GoT into T3 Thalia HC and the double tax was as back breaking as you'd expect. However, drawing Thalia after T3 was of such little help that overall I'm not sure that she's worth the sideboard space. I need to evaluate her vs BGx and especially Eldrazi, she might be more impactful at all stages of the game there.
Of course there were also a several games where he just had 2 or 3 Urza lands in hand to start and I couldn't stop him. But there's not much any deck can do against those hands so I didn't feel too bad. I would put Game 1 at 30-70 and Game 2 at maybe 45-55.
Bant Eldrazi is my next testing target. The Eldrazi themselves aren’t impossible for us to deal with – a large Champion can tangle with them on the ground, the sky is mostly open for our fliers, Path is solid, and Reflector Mage’s ability conveniently bypasses R Smasher’s discard clause. The real trouble is Ancient Stirrings, which digs deep for devastating hate cards like Engineered Explosives and Grafdigger’s Cage. I also couldn’t do anything against a resolved Worship and lost a game. Overall I’m not sure of the best way to approach this matchup. Maybe it’s to disrupt their Hierarch Ramp and tax their Stirrings with Thalia? Since moving from Bolt to Path the deck can handle the big threats but isn’t good at neutralizing an early dork.
I’m still deliberating on whether Spreading Seas is worth siding in against Eldrazi. Shutting off Eldrazi Temple is awesome when that does come up but you aren’t going to be totally shutting off their colorless supply like you would with Blood Moon. Maybe the cantripping nature of Seas makes it worth including even if the odds of having Seas while they have a Temple out is low. I’m not sure.
I will try to get more games vs Bant Eldrazi, Jund, and Affinity here in the near future.
Anyone else have experience against Bant Eldrazi? Any thoughts on the best way to approach that matchup?
Rallier works pretty well with knight of the reliquary. Same colors, knight triggers revolt, and rallier can return utility lands (quarter edge canopy).
That being said, there's a landfall zoo list that already abuses that interaction way better than we can. In my opinion, rallier is a great human that just doesn't really fit our gameplan. Like snapcaster or tasigur
This deck usually kill on turn 4 or 5 if they don't have sufficient removal.
1st match
2-0 Mardu Control deck
2nd match
1-2 Coco-Bant - The hardest matchup for the monowhite humans deck I think
3 match -
2-1 Red Aggro - Red aggro is not a problem, I rarely lose to them.
4th match
2-1 Green Tron - The oblivion stone is a problem, but without it they are dead. I think I boarded more Disenchant than he had Oblivion Stone.
D90Dennis, I really like the look of your list. If you end up testing it, let me know how good rallier is. I haven't played with the card yet.
I wanted to mention that I think your manabase is missing a few things. 4 razorverge is a bit of an awkward number in a KotR decks - its something you can't sacrifice, doesn't go to the yard, and isn't a utility land. I've been playing 3 cavern of souls, 1 township, 1 ghost quarter, 1 tectonic edge, 1 horizon canopy, 9 fetches, and 6 fetchable lands.
Cavern is pretty similar to razorverge in most matchups and a huge blowout in a few, so I think its the better option. I also think that tectonic edge is important in the current metagame against decks like ad naus, titan breach, and esper control. It also seems great with rallier
Match notes coming soon.
iq humans.dec, Built with Decked Builder
http://decks.deckedbuilder.com/d/271010
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
More good options for the deck would be Soldier of the Pantheon and Honor of the Pure.
I'm not sure why you'd need Weathered Wayfarer and Knight of the Holy Nimbus.
Mirran Crusader and the Sword seem a bit slow as well and I would probably keep them in the SB against Abzan.
I'd rather have value one drops that are good any point of the game versus a two one with no relevant text.
Weathered wayfarer is actually really good. Being able to thin the deck, drawing extra cards and hitting your lands is important. And because some of my lands are spell lands, I can fetch up whatever I need. I was able to keep tron offline because of ghost quarter activations.
Mirran Crusader and Knight of the holy nimbus are responces for all the removal around. My expected meta was jund and abzan, along with plenty of removal from other decks. those two creatures are very hard to kill.
The sword was just a one of that I wanted to try. It worked fine. I wanted to have a consistent way to gain life and rebuying by dead creatures.
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
I ended up in 6th place. 63 people total.
My list again for reference.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=111313
Game one: Pretty easy game. I see two Mirran crusaders and a Thalia's lieutenant. He can't interact with that as he sees no path to exile.
Game 2: I build up a huge board but I see no lords. I have a sword of light and shadow attached to a level 7 student of warfare, but he has plenty of green creatures and ooze keeps eating all my creatures in grave yard. He casts damnation and abrupt decays the sword. I run out of gas after that.
Game 3: I curve out one drop, two drop Mirran crusader with two Thalia's lieutenant. He dies pretty quickly.
Round 2 vs affinity
Game 1: I mull to 5. I have champion into two Thalia's lieutenant and I get him to 3. A clutch galvanic blast on my lieutenant gives him the time he needs to kill me. Game with him at 3 life.
Game 2: I didn't take very good notes as the game was over pretty fast. I won.
Game 3: He goes on the poison plan with ink moth and cranial playing. I draw blessed alliance for the first one, but he hits another one. He won't play a land because I have tech edge. He makes a curious play to block my champion with arc bound ravaged, then he sacs a ton of things to it to try to kill champion. I use my path on the arcbound. I have no more answers and my board consists of a 3 thraben inspectors, 3 champion of the parish. I draw my card, rearrange my mana to have white up and audibly say cool. I play the knight and attack with everything. He conceded. I think my bluff work because he could have blocked to survive, then kill me with the infect damage.
Round 3 vs Jund.
Game 1:I mull to 5. My hand gets shredded by discard and removal for my left over creatures.
Game 2: He flooded out somewhat after a lot of discard. I stick a crusader and go to town.
Game 3: It's a very hard game. I'm able to stick a few creatures but he sticks an EE 1 one to kill my Student and Kytheon.
I play some more creature into a damnation. I play a thraben inspector and pass. He sticks a tarmogoyf and passes. I draw with the clue, hit path and cast it. He searches up a swamp. I draw auriok champion and smugglers copter. He plays another tarmogoyf. I cast a Thalia's lieutenant and pass, not wanting to expose the copter to removal. He attacks with tarmogoyf, and I ghost quarter his forest. He fails to find. This is key, as he can't cast more green stuff some time. I eventually get beats in with lieutenant copter and auriok champion for the win. He shows me his hand with 2 tarmogoyf, ooze and kitchen finks.
Round 4 vs Blue Tron.
Game 1: My opponent goes in on how lucky he is. Round 1 bye. Round 2 win because of a deck check. Round 3 win because chalice of the void is good versus burn. I take note of that and mulligan to a hand with cavern of souls. He casts chalice on one, which I proceed to not care about because of the cavern. He gets natural tron and plays a sundering titan which doesn't destroy anything my only lands are cavern and horizon canopy. But the killer piece is batterskull equipped to the titan. I can't path and I give up.
Game 2: I have Thalia and cavern. I draw weather wayfarer and active it the next turn getting ghost quarter. He maps for ghost quarter, destroys my CAVERN, then sticks chalice one 1. At this point, I have disenchant for it but I let it stay around as I can search up more caverns and ghost quarters. He can't get tron online because he locked himself out of map.
Game 3: I win with cavern again and Mirran crusader. He shows me a hand full of counter spells.
He goes on how good on chalice should be against me.
There are 4 undefeated players so we are safe to double draw.
I played burn in the finals and lost. Not much worth talking about.
Overall it was pretty good. The only things I want to change are possibly Thr sword to to feast and famine. Black and white are the best protections for removal but if there are a ton of green creatures it's not that great. It's also bad versus scavenging ooze, which every green black decks seems keen on playing.
I'm really tempted to try true believer instead of ethersworn canonist. It makes me weaker versus ad nauseum but better versus burn and Jund. Burn can't beat true believer and mark of asylum. I have regionals Saturday so I'll have some time to decide.
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
Additionally, copter seems really out of place. It's not a human, it's a noncreature in a Thalia deck, and it's not white for brave the elements.
That being said, wayfarer is cool tech. Maybe a GW land toolbox list exists with wayfarer and knight?
Overall it has decent consistency and a painless, Blood Moon resistant manabase. Mono white has the best burn matchup of any human deck, which is not insignificant. It is better positioned against Tron than some builds due to the ability to fit Ghost Quarter in the Mana Base, plus Thalia GoT mainboard, Stony Silence in the side. Honor of the Pure is an option if you want another anthem effect, Metallic Mimic too. Mayor can be good at times and awkward at others. IMO he's not as big of a loss as it seems. Lastly it's the cheapest to build, which matters to a lot of people.
The mono-white curve is usually pretty low with lots of one-drop 2/1s so flooding out or even just pulling subpar topdecks in a normal length game can be a very real problem. White has very little card draw other than Inspector so Copter's looting is therefore extremely valuable here as a means of drawing gas more reliably. Digging for White's great hate cards is good, too.
It gives the deck an evasive threat that attacks from a different angle than Brave the Elements. Offensively, BtE is sometimes an alpha strike but sometimes much less due to mixed color blockers or even colorless blockers in Affinity, Eldrazi, Tron. While it's true that Brave can't protect Copter, Copter already dodges all sorcery speed removal and sweepers, and dodges instant removal until it gets a chance to attack, by which point it's at least gotten you a chance to loot.. so it doesn't need quite as much protection as other creatures.
16 human synergy creatures, all at CMC 2 or less.
Running all 8 1 mana mana dorks, along with a low curve we could probably afford to cut lands to an extremely low number.
Thraben Inspector would be another cheap human that could get buffed into being a threat, then in the late game once we run out of cards we could use the clue for a little more steam if that ever comes around. A 1 of Oviya Pashiri has a similar draw to it.
Burning-Tree Emissary puts creatures onto the board quickly, it hits 2 of our lords, as well as Duskwatch Recruiter which is another strong card in the long game.
Then with everything at 2CMC or lower, Return to the Ranks seems like it could be a good for rebuilding after a sweeper, and path to exile is of course the best spot removal in the game.
For a deck of:
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Thraben Inspector
1x Oviya Pashiri
2 mana creatures (20)
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Hamlet Captain
4x Burning Tree Emmisary
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
Non-Creature Spells:
4x Path to Exile
4x Return to the Ranks
Lands (18)
4x Windswept Heath
1x Temple Garden
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Plains
2x Forest
2x Gavony Township
Possibly putting Lantern Scouts in in order to win races against other aggressive decks.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
You don't really want mana dorks in a low cmc aggro deck. You'd want something a little more like this:
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Warden of the First Tree
3 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4 Thraben Inspector
3 Student of Warfare
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Hamlet Captain
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Path to Exile
2 Blossoming Defense
Land (20)
2 Temple Garden
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
5 Plains
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Auriok Champion
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Rest in Peace
2 Natural State
1 Arashin Cleric
Problem is that you play him turn 1, then you have to tap him along with your turn 2 creature to flip him, which means no attack until turn 3. That's not where we want to be.
EDIT: I have a Primer post ready to go. Is everyone ok with phasing out this thread in favor of a full Primer?
You have to think of brave the elements as a split card.
Choose one: Prevent all damage dealt to your creatures, or your creatures are unblock-able, or, your creatures gain hex-proof, or counter target spell.
That is a very simplistic way of looking at it, but that really shows how powerful Brave the Elements really is. Of course there are matchups where the card doesn't do much. Tron and eldrazi means I usually (but not always) side it out. The card does so much for one mana. Its the reach that the other colors don't get. Is it stronger than all those cards you mentioned? Debatable. I've won games simply from top decking a brave to get through a board stall. Or giving me an extra turn after they anger of the gods.
Copter was a card I just decided to try on a whim. I don't play much standard but from hearing how well it did, I figured I would try it out. Its easy to crew and has built in evasion. I've been impressed ever since. You are correct that I have Thalia, but I don't always see her/ she survives, and that won't really stop me from playing it. I've cast copter plenty of times as a 3 drop. The big thing about copter, is that it gives mono white a resistant creature, and card selection. I think if you give colors access to something they don't normally get, it improves the deck.
Shelldell mentioned the lords that can be played in the deck. Honor of the pure and now metallic mimic increase that number. Honor is great. I probably should play it somewhere but I don't. Mimic I tried. It's been... alright in testing. when you follow it up with 2 or three one drops on turn 3 it has a lot of value. Drawing it late can make it underwhelming though.
I don't mind a new primer. If in the beginning we have sections for each potential color splash I am down. I can contribute for mono white, but also for the other color splashes I've tried.
—Dr. Doom
-My approach to building decks. Sometimes it works.
---
Like many people, I am still trying to appraise Renegade Rallier and see if she's good enough to build around. What would the best human targets be? By extension, what would a deck built around Rallier look like? Is there a tempo brew there that's good enough to justify building around her?
Things that give you value when they ETB:
-Thraben Inspector to get another clue
-BTE gives you RG mana for free
-Knight of the White Orchid might give a land
High power cards that are commonly / easily removed:
-Mayor of Avabruck
-Thalia GoT
-Dark Confidant
-Meddling Mage
Efficient 2-Drop beaters:
-Voltaic Brawler
-Skyship plunderer
Issues:
There's a lot of Path and Anger of the Gods floating around.
The best options here don't fit very neatly into one color splash.
Hierarch or Champion are usually removed first and are therefore most likely to wind up in the graveyard but unfortunately these aren't the best targets to rez late in the game.
I've got quite a few color combinations, but not all of them just yet.
New Primer is now here, guys: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/769652-modern-humans
If I have missed any obvious card choices or if there are other lists that need representation, just let me know! Let's make it as robust as we can
1x Breeding Pool
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Forest
1x Mountain
2x Razorverge Thicket
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Voltaic Brawler
4x Lyev Skyknight
4x Mantis Rider
4x Reflector Mage
3x Path to Exile
4x Collected Company
1x Auriok Champion
1x Dromoka's Command
1x Rest in Peace
2x Spreading Seas
2x Stony Silence
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Izzet Staticaster
2x Renegade Rallier / Eternal Witness
LIST THOUGHTS
Again, the goal of the build is to accelerate out high-impact 3-drops on turn 2 and by extension CoCo out two 3-drops on turn 3 as often as possible. Towards this end Avacyn’s Pilgrim is a necessary evil – it’s a bad topdeck but the higher density of 3-drops offsets this downside somewhat. Are 12x 3-drops too clunky? My testing so far leans toward no, it's not a problem for the main board. Against decks where you have to tax or interact early I'll side out some of the 3-drops for more 1-2 mana spells, so that isn't a problem.
The main board is built around handling creature-based matchups, and then the sideboard presents several angles for approaching interactive or combo matchups. I’m soft to burn and dredge right now. Still testing both Rallier and Witness for the same two slots against grindy decks.
I know a few of you aren’t sold on Lyev Skyknight but I would be careful to not dismiss it too quickly. Human cards that are strong enough to fit in the MB don’t usually interact with much more than creatures. Detaining any nonland permanent, even if only for one turn, is a bigger deal than it looks, and 3 power in the air is strong. Yeah, it has problems against X/1 flyers, but in those matchups you should be siding in Izzet Staticaster, anyways. Overall it gives great tempo and until they print another 3/X flyer or something with better interaction I will probably be sticking with Skyknight in the main.
I’ve also come full circle back to supporting Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I'd been reluctant to run her after experiencing some CoCo nonbos and hearing similar feedback, but I've been testing her again with an open mind while trying to tune my deck to handle Big Mana decks and she has been indispensable.
As others have mentioned it's not too hard to play around the CoCo nonbo by mulling away hands that have both cards, or you can benefit from Thalia's early tempo benefits before suicide blocking with her to cast a CoCo stuck in your hand. Sometimes she's just a Lightning Rod that taxes your opponent for the Bolt used to kill her. But if that keeps a beater on the board and forces them to play off-curve for a turn or two that's still great IMO. Right now I’m just running two copies of her in the MB to balance her with CoCo, and two more copies in the side for when the benefit of her tax outweighs the heightened probability of nonbos. Using Rallier to help her stick to the board seems promising, but I haven't gotten a chance to test that yet.
Earlier versions of the deck had 2x Skyship Plunderer and 1x Mayor of Avabruck in the MB but I found myself siding them out so much that I just moved Path to the MB to free up some SB slots.
INITIAL TESTING
I’m starting to test the current version of the deck against a gauntlet with a few friends and so far I’ve done GW Tron and a tiny bit of Bant Eldrazi.
Tron G1
On the draw T1 Pilgrim into T2 Skyknight, detain an egg. Forced him to play Razorverge Thicket T2 to have green for Sylvan Scrying. T3 I play Brawler + Lieutenant, he plays his second Urza T3, cracks the original egg and plays / cracks another egg. T4 I play Mantis and attack for his exact life total (!)
Tron G2
OUT: 3x Path, 4x Reflector Mage
IN: 2x Spell Pierce, 2x Spreading Seas, 2x Stony Silence, 1x Thalia GoT
Drew a hate-heavy hand with, Thalia GoT, Spreading Seas, and Stony Silence but only Pilgrim with one land. Not sure if the hate is worth the low land count & mediocre pressure but I go with it. Missed my T2 land drop but slam Thalia. He Paths Thalia but has to pay two and ramps me. I play Stony Silence and Spreading Seas his one Urza land but don’t have any threats on the board. He nukes the Stony Silence with Naturalize and puts two maps out. It takes another several turns to assemble Tron but by then I’ve got enough beats from Brawler + Pilgrim + Lieutenant to chip him down and finish him off the turn after he lands Karn.
Overall very lucky.
We played more matches post board and in a few I included 2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar. In one game I lived the dream of T2 Thalia GoT into T3 Thalia HC and the double tax was as back breaking as you'd expect. However, drawing Thalia after T3 was of such little help that overall I'm not sure that she's worth the sideboard space. I need to evaluate her vs BGx and especially Eldrazi, she might be more impactful at all stages of the game there.
Of course there were also a several games where he just had 2 or 3 Urza lands in hand to start and I couldn't stop him. But there's not much any deck can do against those hands so I didn't feel too bad. I would put Game 1 at 30-70 and Game 2 at maybe 45-55.
Bant Eldrazi is my next testing target. The Eldrazi themselves aren’t impossible for us to deal with – a large Champion can tangle with them on the ground, the sky is mostly open for our fliers, Path is solid, and Reflector Mage’s ability conveniently bypasses R Smasher’s discard clause. The real trouble is Ancient Stirrings, which digs deep for devastating hate cards like Engineered Explosives and Grafdigger’s Cage. I also couldn’t do anything against a resolved Worship and lost a game. Overall I’m not sure of the best way to approach this matchup. Maybe it’s to disrupt their Hierarch Ramp and tax their Stirrings with Thalia? Since moving from Bolt to Path the deck can handle the big threats but isn’t good at neutralizing an early dork.
I’m still deliberating on whether Spreading Seas is worth siding in against Eldrazi. Shutting off Eldrazi Temple is awesome when that does come up but you aren’t going to be totally shutting off their colorless supply like you would with Blood Moon. Maybe the cantripping nature of Seas makes it worth including even if the odds of having Seas while they have a Temple out is low. I’m not sure.
I will try to get more games vs Bant Eldrazi, Jund, and Affinity here in the near future.
Anyone else have experience against Bant Eldrazi? Any thoughts on the best way to approach that matchup?
That being said, there's a landfall zoo list that already abuses that interaction way better than we can. In my opinion, rallier is a great human that just doesn't really fit our gameplan. Like snapcaster or tasigur
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Thraben Inspector
2 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
3 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Icatian Javelineers
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Gather the Townsfolk
3 Brave the Elements
2 Path to Exile
1 Flooded Strand
20 Plain
3 Banishing Light
1 Graffdigger Cage
2 Thormod Crypt
2 Return to the Ranks
2 Lantern Scout
4 Disenchant
1 Stony Silence
This deck usually kill on turn 4 or 5 if they don't have sufficient removal.
1st match
2-0 Mardu Control deck
2nd match
1-2 Coco-Bant - The hardest matchup for the monowhite humans deck I think
3 match -
2-1 Red Aggro - Red aggro is not a problem, I rarely lose to them.
4th match
2-1 Green Tron - The oblivion stone is a problem, but without it they are dead. I think I boarded more Disenchant than he had Oblivion Stone.