Played a 16 man tourney with my deck list as above with small modification to the sideboard (-2 Fulminators, -2 Illness, +2 Chalice of the Void, +2 Thrun). Went 3-1 and placed 5th. I was very happy about how the deck performed. I beat Classic Abzan midrange, burn and a mill deck.
I made the SB changes because burn has been very popular in my local meta and the one store I was playing at has had a large number of control players.
Match 1: 0-2 vs Gifts Ungiven.
Both games went the same way. Back to back Inquisition of Kozileks followed by removal of my threat. Game one my Doran got abrupted, and game 2 my Siege rhino got hit by maelstrom pulse. He just had the right removal and hand destruction. I never really got off the ground and lost to goyf and tasigur beats.
Match 2: 2-1 vs UB Mill.
First game was close, I had to mulligan to 6 and I just couldn't land enough threats to kill fast enough. +3 Thoughtseize, +2 choke, -3 Path to exile, -1 abrupt decay, -1 maelstrom pulse. Game 2, also mulligan, but I thoughtseize him turn 1 and get rolling with a doran and 2 spellskite in play. He just couldn't keep up with the beats. Game 3, he mulligans to 6, and doesn't hit the ground running. I get a harbinger into play, pass, he plays an Augur of Bolas, pass. I get a skinshift, he puts another augur of bolas and I stick a Doran from my hand, Pass. At this point he starts milling me. I make the mistake of swinging with doran. He showed me that he had Surgical Extraction in his hand via the Augurs. He double blocks doran and takes 8 from the skin shifter. He exiles all my dorans at this point and I drop choke. He gets a bit mana screwed and progresses with the mill plan. I manage to draw another rhino and skin shifter and he just dies to beats. He also exiled all my assault formations with another surgical extraction, but couldn't get over multiple 4/x's just beating on him.
Match 3: 2-0 vs Abzan
I am on the play and I go to my game plan of Harbinger, fetching Doran, to Spellskite. This takes him back a bit. I am pretty sure he had removal, but the skite messed all that up and he wasn't expecting a spellskite main, he drops a goyf. I drop a doran on turn 3 and swing away for 7 he takes it. Turn 3 he drops lily and -2. I sac harbinger. I swing with doran and skite into lily, who dies, and then drop a rhino. I forget his next play, but do a turn 5 rhino and he scoops. +2 RIP, +2 Pithing Needle, -2 Courser, -2 Nyx-Fleece. Game 2 he mulligans down to 6, and doesn't look happy with his hand. He drops a Treetop Village and passes. Harbinger, fetching doran. He drops a plains a passes, at this point I figure that he is kind of mana screwed, so I am thinking full court press. I drop an Assault formation and start swinging. Turn 3 a forest and lingering souls. Turn 3 doran and more swinging. He blocks once. Next turn he shocks and puts a Godless shrine into play and flashes back lingering, passes. I draw a collected company and drop a fourth land. I swing and 2 more souls down. He plays a non-black land and passes, at end of turn I cast collected company, which he lets resolve. I find a skinshifter and spellskite and he frowns. He then casts abrupt decay on doran, which I redirect to my skite. I guess he had been saving the abrupt, but once again spellskite messed all that up. I draw a rhino, but save it. I swing he blocks my skinshifter with a soul, take 3 dmg, and then trades his tree-top with my harbinger. He is sitting at 8 life at this point, draws and passes to me. I swing with my skinshifter and doran, I have 4 mana available at this time with a rhino in my hand. I chose not to activate my skinshifter so I could cast rhino in the second main to win. Which is what happened. He showed me that he had a path and a lily in his hand, and that if I had activated my shifter he would have been able to get another turn and possibly stabilize. They were good games.
Match 4: 2-0 R/G Burn.
Both were fast games. Game 1 Went pretty much as planned with harbinger and doran early, but also a maelstrom pulse to kill both his swiftspears. -2 Collected Company, +2 Chalice. I drew a chalice in my opening hand along with a Nyx-fleece ram. I stick chalice on 2 and proceed to just win from there. He was very frustrated by all the main deck answers I had.
I am very happy how the deck performed. I would definitely say the weakness of the deck is similar to any beats/aggro deck. Hand-destruction is a big problem. For this reason I am thinking about using Leylines of Sanctity instead of TS. Not too much combo in my meta. Stopping IoK, TS, lily and burn is a big consideration. I did also learn that Abzan hates collected company (abzan player basically told me that he hasn't been able to win against any deck that plays it). I am considering adding another one to the SB. I did play another for fun game against a Abzan player friend of mine and I beat him handly (unboarded). Anyway, I will be playing it more.
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Wow, cool build! How often do you find yourself with a low number of cards in your hand to make Ensnaring Bridge do work?
Please correct me if I am wrong, but Ensnaring Bridge seems like it best used against Junk/Jund, Tron and boggles? It is an interesting choice against decks like Merfolk, Amulet, and Affinity.
It definitely punishes discard strategies and hates on things like titans and such. On paper it only really seems live if you have 3 or less cards. If you look at the tier 1 decks, it is only really in play against Goyf, Rhino and Tasigur if you have 3 or fewer cards. However, Jund and Junk have aburpt decay to get rid of it and sometimes other artifact hate, which may be brought in against your spellskites. Against twin, it seems weak. Affinity can get around it with instant speed movement of Cranial Plating, burn doesn't care 90% of the time and infect could care less.
Seems like it is mostly useful against tier 2 and below decks. Just my theorycrafting. It it plays better on paper let me/us know!
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I'm trying to make it not strictly worse than other Collected Company decks such as Melira, Elves, and Zoo. I suppose that dandy UWR Midrange match-up does make it not strictly worse (UWR has too many Bolts and not enough Path to Exiles, so our guys tend to survive), although combo is still shaky and Wraths are still messy to handle.
...And the Melira CC match-up was so disgustingly bad that I maindeck Anafenza, the Foremost. The match-up's still bad whenever Anafenza/Ooze/Gryff don't show up, but Anafenza swings Game 1 soooooo hard that I tend to win games where I stick her. They often can't find Abrupt Decay fast enough, and you'd be surprised how many lists don't maindeck any creatures that deal with her. Anafenza also beats down fairly well on her own, which is great if they're hating on Doran/Assault Formation.
This deck hates opposing X/5+'s because they threaten to trade with Doran, then trade with or smash everything else. I maindeck Fiend Hunter to deal with X/5+'s and creature-based combo (dealing with creature-based combo with this deck sucks). Disowned Ancestor can punch an X/5+ to death if he's lucky and Outlasted a bunch. Gavony Township and Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers are there to make most of my guys punch X/5+'s. My sideboard anti-midrange trump is Batterskull instead of Blood Baron of Vizkopa because Batterskull makes everything punch X/5+'s. ...And it dodges Blood Moon and resists Wraths to boot!
You guys are right about Skinshifter--it's great in this deck! With Doran/Assault Formation out, they have to block him or he swings for 8, but if they chump him, I turn him into a Rhino and Trample over their puny 1/1.
Drown in Sorrow is pretty good at nearly-one-sided-sweeping Delver, Tokens, Affinity, and friends. I highly recommend it for sideboards.
I highly, highly, highly recommend 4 spellskites. It just wins against so many decks. Also, I know you are playing a more CC-heavy version of the deck, but you seem to have a lot of 1x. I used to have 4x Birds of Paradise in the deck, but I found that I always wanted to play Treefolk Harbinger on turn 1. I am not sure how the hierarchs have been treating you, but I would really recommend taking them out and trying to focus more on consistency.
How do you feel the discard route working for you?
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I highly, highly, highly recommend 4 spellskites. It just wins against so many decks. Also, I know you are playing a more CC-heavy version of the deck, but you seem to have a lot of 1x. I used to have 4x Birds of Paradise in the deck, but I found that I always wanted to play Treefolk Harbinger on turn 1. I am not sure how the hierarchs have been treating you, but I would really recommend taking them out and trying to focus more on consistency.
How do you feel the discard route working for you?
I can't stomach 4 Spellskites because they all have 0 power, 4 toughness, and 2 cmc, and I don't see enough Infect/Twin/Burn/etc. on Cockatrice. They help when I'm slightly ahead, but all they do is buy time when I'm behind. They can't swing for anything on their own, kill X/5's with only Doran/Assault Formation out, or swing for 4 damage on Turn 2 with a Turn 2 AF. My 61st card would either be able to swing for at least 3 damage per turn by itself or be Nameless Inversion to make Treefolk Harbinger less dead.
Noble Hierarch has been pretty good to me. It does screw me out of black mana every once in a while, but Exalted is pretty good, and so is the ramp. I once tried a 2 Birds of Paradise-2 Hierarch split, and Birds didn't attack with Doran/Assault Formation out often enough. Whenever I have a mana dork-Treefolk Harbinger start, I always lead with the mana dork.
Treefolk Harbinger has been hugely swingy in my list--it's great when it finds Doran and I hit lands on curve, it's good whenever I keep a 1-land hand and I make it find a Forest, and it's poor whenever I already have Doran/AF out or in hand. I guess it'll search for another Treefolk Harbinger or another Doran in that case, but I'd rather draw any other creature in the deck but mana dorks in that situation. I wouldn't make it a 3-of in my list.
The discard has been decent. Collected Company makes my 3 Tidehollow Scullers especially good--it has a fair chance of cheating one out at instant speed. I tried my list against Ad Nauseam today and it won surprisingly many games, thanks to the discard.
The 1-ofs are decent bench-warmers I'm not willing to devote that many slots to. As much as Technomagus will sing Eidolon of Rhetoric's praises, its static ability has LOST me multiple games (and won me multiple games), so I won't maindeck a second. Anafenza is the Hail Mary anti-Melira Combo slot and one of the good beater slots. Fiend Hunter is a solid bench-warmer that boots stuff, saves my bacon against creature-dense decks, and looks meh against creature-light decks. Skinshifter is the 60th card that I wanted to be a beater with the evasion to beat X/5's and Melira Combo--it's fairly poor at being evasive, but the last card I tried in that slot, Mirran Crusader, didn't win me enough games against BGx Midrange and Melira Combo. In exchange, Skinshifter randomly whallops combo decks with Doran/AF out. As I have a shaky time against both creature-based combo and creature-light combo decks, I think I'll keep the split.
The spellskite are amazing against boggles, scapeshift and any deck that runs abrupt decay, as it protects your win cons (Doran and AF). Harbinger into spellskite, into Doran, is a turn 4 kill if they can't stop you from swinging and assuming they used one fetch. Sounds like you have don't more testing on cockatrice than I have. I am 90% done building the deck on MTGo and I will start playing around with it on there. I'll let you know what I find.
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Deck looks pretty cool. I like the more aggressive versions, with Disowned Ancestor and the like. Also, why not utilize Glittering Wish to run less (functionally more) Dorans in the main, and other bullets in the sideboard? Something like this:
I made the SB changes because burn has been very popular in my local meta and the one store I was playing at has had a large number of control players.
Match 1: 0-2 vs Gifts Ungiven.
Both games went the same way. Back to back Inquisition of Kozileks followed by removal of my threat. Game one my Doran got abrupted, and game 2 my Siege rhino got hit by maelstrom pulse. He just had the right removal and hand destruction. I never really got off the ground and lost to goyf and tasigur beats.
Match 2: 2-1 vs UB Mill.
First game was close, I had to mulligan to 6 and I just couldn't land enough threats to kill fast enough. +3 Thoughtseize, +2 choke, -3 Path to exile, -1 abrupt decay, -1 maelstrom pulse. Game 2, also mulligan, but I thoughtseize him turn 1 and get rolling with a doran and 2 spellskite in play. He just couldn't keep up with the beats. Game 3, he mulligans to 6, and doesn't hit the ground running. I get a harbinger into play, pass, he plays an Augur of Bolas, pass. I get a skinshift, he puts another augur of bolas and I stick a Doran from my hand, Pass. At this point he starts milling me. I make the mistake of swinging with doran. He showed me that he had Surgical Extraction in his hand via the Augurs. He double blocks doran and takes 8 from the skin shifter. He exiles all my dorans at this point and I drop choke. He gets a bit mana screwed and progresses with the mill plan. I manage to draw another rhino and skin shifter and he just dies to beats. He also exiled all my assault formations with another surgical extraction, but couldn't get over multiple 4/x's just beating on him.
Match 3: 2-0 vs Abzan
I am on the play and I go to my game plan of Harbinger, fetching Doran, to Spellskite. This takes him back a bit. I am pretty sure he had removal, but the skite messed all that up and he wasn't expecting a spellskite main, he drops a goyf. I drop a doran on turn 3 and swing away for 7 he takes it. Turn 3 he drops lily and -2. I sac harbinger. I swing with doran and skite into lily, who dies, and then drop a rhino. I forget his next play, but do a turn 5 rhino and he scoops. +2 RIP, +2 Pithing Needle, -2 Courser, -2 Nyx-Fleece. Game 2 he mulligans down to 6, and doesn't look happy with his hand. He drops a Treetop Village and passes. Harbinger, fetching doran. He drops a plains a passes, at this point I figure that he is kind of mana screwed, so I am thinking full court press. I drop an Assault formation and start swinging. Turn 3 a forest and lingering souls. Turn 3 doran and more swinging. He blocks once. Next turn he shocks and puts a Godless shrine into play and flashes back lingering, passes. I draw a collected company and drop a fourth land. I swing and 2 more souls down. He plays a non-black land and passes, at end of turn I cast collected company, which he lets resolve. I find a skinshifter and spellskite and he frowns. He then casts abrupt decay on doran, which I redirect to my skite. I guess he had been saving the abrupt, but once again spellskite messed all that up. I draw a rhino, but save it. I swing he blocks my skinshifter with a soul, take 3 dmg, and then trades his tree-top with my harbinger. He is sitting at 8 life at this point, draws and passes to me. I swing with my skinshifter and doran, I have 4 mana available at this time with a rhino in my hand. I chose not to activate my skinshifter so I could cast rhino in the second main to win. Which is what happened. He showed me that he had a path and a lily in his hand, and that if I had activated my shifter he would have been able to get another turn and possibly stabilize. They were good games.
Match 4: 2-0 R/G Burn.
Both were fast games. Game 1 Went pretty much as planned with harbinger and doran early, but also a maelstrom pulse to kill both his swiftspears. -2 Collected Company, +2 Chalice. I drew a chalice in my opening hand along with a Nyx-fleece ram. I stick chalice on 2 and proceed to just win from there. He was very frustrated by all the main deck answers I had.
I am very happy how the deck performed. I would definitely say the weakness of the deck is similar to any beats/aggro deck. Hand-destruction is a big problem. For this reason I am thinking about using Leylines of Sanctity instead of TS. Not too much combo in my meta. Stopping IoK, TS, lily and burn is a big consideration. I did also learn that Abzan hates collected company (abzan player basically told me that he hasn't been able to win against any deck that plays it). I am considering adding another one to the SB. I did play another for fun game against a Abzan player friend of mine and I beat him handly (unboarded). Anyway, I will be playing it more.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but Ensnaring Bridge seems like it best used against Junk/Jund, Tron and boggles? It is an interesting choice against decks like Merfolk, Amulet, and Affinity.
It definitely punishes discard strategies and hates on things like titans and such. On paper it only really seems live if you have 3 or less cards. If you look at the tier 1 decks, it is only really in play against Goyf, Rhino and Tasigur if you have 3 or fewer cards. However, Jund and Junk have aburpt decay to get rid of it and sometimes other artifact hate, which may be brought in against your spellskites. Against twin, it seems weak. Affinity can get around it with instant speed movement of Cranial Plating, burn doesn't care 90% of the time and infect could care less.
Seems like it is mostly useful against tier 2 and below decks. Just my theorycrafting. It it plays better on paper let me/us know!
1 Murmuring Bosk
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Forbidding Watchtower
1 Gavony Township
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
2 Treefolk Harbinger
2 Disowned Ancestor
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Spellskite
2 Nyx-Fleece Ram
1 Skinshifter
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Fiend Hunter
Spells
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Path to Exile
2 Assault Formation
4 Collected Company
1 Aven Mindcensor
2 Stony Silence
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Golgari Charm
1 Rest in Peace
1 Nature's Claim
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Batterskull
1 Hushwing Gryff
I'm trying to make it not strictly worse than other Collected Company decks such as Melira, Elves, and Zoo. I suppose that dandy UWR Midrange match-up does make it not strictly worse (UWR has too many Bolts and not enough Path to Exiles, so our guys tend to survive), although combo is still shaky and Wraths are still messy to handle.
...And the Melira CC match-up was so disgustingly bad that I maindeck Anafenza, the Foremost. The match-up's still bad whenever Anafenza/Ooze/Gryff don't show up, but Anafenza swings Game 1 soooooo hard that I tend to win games where I stick her. They often can't find Abrupt Decay fast enough, and you'd be surprised how many lists don't maindeck any creatures that deal with her. Anafenza also beats down fairly well on her own, which is great if they're hating on Doran/Assault Formation.
This deck hates opposing X/5+'s because they threaten to trade with Doran, then trade with or smash everything else. I maindeck Fiend Hunter to deal with X/5+'s and creature-based combo (dealing with creature-based combo with this deck sucks). Disowned Ancestor can punch an X/5+ to death if he's lucky and Outlasted a bunch. Gavony Township and Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers are there to make most of my guys punch X/5+'s. My sideboard anti-midrange trump is Batterskull instead of Blood Baron of Vizkopa because Batterskull makes everything punch X/5+'s. ...And it dodges Blood Moon and resists Wraths to boot!
You guys are right about Skinshifter--it's great in this deck! With Doran/Assault Formation out, they have to block him or he swings for 8, but if they chump him, I turn him into a Rhino and Trample over their puny 1/1.
Drown in Sorrow is pretty good at nearly-one-sided-sweeping Delver, Tokens, Affinity, and friends. I highly recommend it for sideboards.
How do you feel the discard route working for you?
I can't stomach 4 Spellskites because they all have 0 power, 4 toughness, and 2 cmc, and I don't see enough Infect/Twin/Burn/etc. on Cockatrice. They help when I'm slightly ahead, but all they do is buy time when I'm behind. They can't swing for anything on their own, kill X/5's with only Doran/Assault Formation out, or swing for 4 damage on Turn 2 with a Turn 2 AF. My 61st card would either be able to swing for at least 3 damage per turn by itself or be Nameless Inversion to make Treefolk Harbinger less dead.
Noble Hierarch has been pretty good to me. It does screw me out of black mana every once in a while, but Exalted is pretty good, and so is the ramp. I once tried a 2 Birds of Paradise-2 Hierarch split, and Birds didn't attack with Doran/Assault Formation out often enough. Whenever I have a mana dork-Treefolk Harbinger start, I always lead with the mana dork.
Treefolk Harbinger has been hugely swingy in my list--it's great when it finds Doran and I hit lands on curve, it's good whenever I keep a 1-land hand and I make it find a Forest, and it's poor whenever I already have Doran/AF out or in hand. I guess it'll search for another Treefolk Harbinger or another Doran in that case, but I'd rather draw any other creature in the deck but mana dorks in that situation. I wouldn't make it a 3-of in my list.
The discard has been decent. Collected Company makes my 3 Tidehollow Scullers especially good--it has a fair chance of cheating one out at instant speed. I tried my list against Ad Nauseam today and it won surprisingly many games, thanks to the discard.
The 1-ofs are decent bench-warmers I'm not willing to devote that many slots to. As much as Technomagus will sing Eidolon of Rhetoric's praises, its static ability has LOST me multiple games (and won me multiple games), so I won't maindeck a second. Anafenza is the Hail Mary anti-Melira Combo slot and one of the good beater slots. Fiend Hunter is a solid bench-warmer that boots stuff, saves my bacon against creature-dense decks, and looks meh against creature-light decks. Skinshifter is the 60th card that I wanted to be a beater with the evasion to beat X/5's and Melira Combo--it's fairly poor at being evasive, but the last card I tried in that slot, Mirran Crusader, didn't win me enough games against BGx Midrange and Melira Combo. In exchange, Skinshifter randomly whallops combo decks with Doran/AF out. As I have a shaky time against both creature-based combo and creature-light combo decks, I think I'll keep the split.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12578
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Eternal Witness
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Siege Rhino
2 Spellskite
4 Tarmogoyf
Creatures [25]
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
Spells [12]
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Murmuring Bosk
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
Lands [23]
Deck Total [60]
1 Breeding Pool
1 Darkblast
4 Fulminator Mage
2 Lingering Souls
3 Rhox War Monk
1 Spellskite
3 Stony Silence
15
4 Disowned Ancestor
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
4 Spellskite
3 Skinshifter
4 Treefolk Harbinger
2 Yoked Ox
4
4 Assault Formation
13
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Glittering Wish
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Path to Exile
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Doran, the Siege Tower
14 ?