Thanks for the input whyjesse, and congratulations on winning a PTTQ. Argomok, Against affinity, I feel favored. (I run 3 mainboard engineered explosives)
With the sideboard list I posted above, I put in my 3 stony silence and my narural state and I take out my 4 thought knots. Affinity way to often has 0 cards in hand for thought knot to be relevant. I win most my games against affinity.
How is settle the wreckage mediocre against Affinity? Card is amazing - wipes manlands the whole bloody army. Anyway - as good as EE is - Settle the Wreckage is pretty key to beating a lot of go wide strategies - last night I beat BW tokens entirely off the back of Settle the Wreckage. As mentioned previously, individually decks like Elves, Merfolk, Tokens, Affinity dont necessarily take up a huge metashare (although Affinity does) - but you will likely face some sort of go wide deck in larger tournaments and have a difficult time without Settle the Wreckage.
Id also suggest that Stony is important and necessary against Ad Naus, Lantern and Gx Tron - in the absence of magical christmasland you dont always draw chalice (most ppl dont even play Chalice - although I personally consider it a must) and have it unanswered - sb cards like Stony provide redundancy to defeat those strategies..
Affinity is one of those decks that can afford to play around settle and can win without going wide. They can just cranial on an ornithopter and are you gonna waste a 4cmc spell? They are also fast and often kill your dork so WW is harder to get to. In contrast, company decks path you to give you easier access to WW, and merfolk is a whole turn slower than affinity.
Hey guys, I've been following this thread for a while and would like to try out the deck. The thing is all I'm missing is the noble hierarch.
Do you think this deck could work without those? Maybe with birds of paradise as a substitute?
I absolutely think its reasonable to play this deck with birds instead of noble hierarch. Obviously its better to have the nobles, but the bird is a fine substitute. You will lose probably a small percentage of games that you could have otherwise won, but its worth playing the deck to see if you like the play style of it before committing close to $200 to the deck. Also, if your shop has decent prize support and noble hierarchs in stock, you could take your winnings and slowly buy into the nobles with prize money.
I actually made a list for Bant Eldrazi substituting cards for Hierarchs using Birds, Boreal Druids and Qasali Pridemages (to retain some exalted triggers).
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Rhonas is great. It's situationally bad though, namely against any deck looking to interact with your creatures and kill you before turn ~6. This includes shadow and humans company. I have 1 in my 75, currently SB.
I have been testing walking ballista as a 2x replacing matter reshaper and think it's great. It always allows us to curve out properly, it's a good mana sink, it gives us reach, it can kill planeswalkers cleanly, it can be cast under blood moon, and it's an amazing top deck late game. Sure it's better utilized in eldrazi tron, but we often can get to 8ish mana against abzan/control and a 4/4 ballista is still huge. It gives us another reason to run gavony too. Plus it gives us more game against company decks which are a big problem for the deck.
Township and Worship have nothing to do with each other, you don't have to cut Township to be able to play Worship. Township is in general good against fair decks but has applications in all matchups. Worship only comes in against aggro.
Went 6-0 in rounds and 12-2 in games to win a PPTQ today. Tried out a weird sideboard:
3 Chalice
2 Settle the Wreckage
2 Flashfreeze
1 Unified Will
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Worship
2 Sorcerous spyglass
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gideon's Intervention
I think cutting the RIP for Grafdigger's was questionable, but I won the fair matchups RIP would have come in against anyway. Luckily I dodged counters company; I think it and storm are the only situations I would bring Grafdigger's anyway.
The Settles were okay. They helped me climb back from a losing board state against delver but my opponent had a tasigur which was able to draw 2 a turn because of the massive ramp.
The chalices were good as usual and I may in fact keep the 3. Having 2 chalices in your opener against burn can be extremely punishing, and stirrings and path are both somewhat mediocre in the matchup (Stirrings durdles, path ramps them).
Congrats!
Did you play the same MD you posted earlier in this thread? I can't decide what to play at a team unified event either bant eldrazi or e-tron, any opinions? I expect a lot of valakut/e-tron/affinity/storm/ux control/dredge.
I think I was on a 24 land / 5 dork list with 4 skyspawners, 1 rhonas, 1 reshaper, 3 drowner, 2 EE. I saw a lot of affinity at that tournament.
If you expect a lot of valakut, etron, and affinity, I would definitely pick bant eldrazi over eldrazi tron since bant has better matchups against those decks. Storm is probably a little better for eldrazi tron because of maindeck chalices but that's probably only marginal if you're running SB chalices since we're faster than them and have more removal. I'm actually not familiar with Etron's matchup against dredge.
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I've been doing a little bit of statistical analysis about mulligan decisions for the deck and what mana distribution to run. I've convinced myself that 6 dorks / 23 lands is better than 5 dorks / 24 lands. I've also solidified some of my mulligan decision heuristics. I made these calculations based off a combination of my own recorded win%s and a bunch of hypergeometric distribution calculations. These are not meant to be a rigorous mathematical analysis but rather an estimation. There are lots of limitations to this analysis so take it with a grain of salt.
Here are my expected win %s and mulligan %s with the following configurations:
With 6 dorks, ignoring my land count: 64.87% win / 25.86% mulls
With 5 dorks, ignoring my land count: 63.57% win / 29.97% mulls
With 24 lands, ignoring my dork count: 65.83% win / 22.42% mulls
With 23 lands, ignoring my dork count: 65.55% win / 23.46% mulls
These data suggest that the reduction in mulligan rate by going from 23 to 24 lands is significantly less (~1% fewer mulligans) than increasing my dorks from 5 to 6 (~4% fewer mulligans). By extension, the expected win rate is increased more with 5->6 dorks than 23->24 lands.
Also, based off my recorded games my winrate on 7 is 70.1%, versus my winrate on 6 is 56.3%. Therefore, for any opening hand with expected winrate of equal or less than 56.3% should be considered for mulligan.
My recorded winrate with 4 lands in hand is about 57%. Therefore hands with 4 lands should be considered for mulligan. I might keep them if the curve is good, like if the nonland cards are dork, skyspawner, thought-knot. But since it seems that 4-landers are indicative of probable flooding out, I would probably not keep a 4-lander if the nonland cards were reactionary or really off-curve, such as path, EE, drowner.
Lastly, I looked at whether or not hands could be kept with just 1 stirrings and no acceleration. I concluded that on the draw, a hand with stirrings but no acceleration might be worth considering because you have in the range of 50% (52.3%) chance of finding acceleration from either your stirrings, or drawing a dork, or drawing a temple in the first 2 draws. This is relatively close to the mulligan decision threshold of 57%. However, on the play, such a hand is definitely not worth keeping because you only have about a 35% (35.5%) chance of finding acceleration from the stirrings or drawing a temple off the top. These numbers are highly approximated and not rigorously calculated but should at least be in the right ballpark.
I've done a large amount of testing with walking ballista now (80 games). I think a 2-of is definitely valid in the maindeck. It has been good against abzan company, affinity, and jeskai control, namely either as 1) removal for weenies or 2) late-game mana sink. I haven't tested it against abzan but I imagine it's also good there. I think it's easily worth cutting matter reshaper for ballista. Reshaper only excels against burn and GDS which are both pretty winnable matchups. When possible, we should wait to cast the ballista until as late as possible to provide the maximum value and highest x, much in the same way we should reserve EE for the top of our curve as well.
It's pretty medicore against storm, eldrazi tron, GDS, and burn. Then again, reshaper is pretty mediocre against storm and eldrazi tron too.
The fact that it provides damage to face means that it's never a truly useless card like EE can sometimes be. It contributes to turn 5 kills and sometimes even turn 4 (T2 TKS / T3 smasher / T4 ballista to face on 2) and thus doesn't significantly slow the deck down.
With 2 EE main, this gives us 8 pieces of removal. That's huge, as it allows us to have a similar removal spell count as GDS (4 push, 2 terminate, 2 kolaghan's, ignoring snapcaster).
I've done a large amount of testing with walking ballista now (80 games). I think a 2-of is definitely valid in the maindeck. It has been good against abzan company, affinity, and jeskai control, namely either as 1) removal for weenies or 2) late-game mana sink. I haven't tested it against abzan but I imagine it's also good there. I think it's easily worth cutting matter reshaper for ballista. Reshaper only excels against burn and GDS which are both pretty winnable matchups. When possible, we should wait to cast the ballista until as late as possible to provide the maximum value and highest x, much in the same way we should reserve EE for the top of our curve as well.
It's pretty medicore against storm, eldrazi tron, GDS, and burn. Then again, reshaper is pretty mediocre against storm and eldrazi tron too.
The fact that it provides damage to face means that it's never a truly useless card like EE can sometimes be. It contributes to turn 5 kills and sometimes even turn 4 (T2 TKS / T3 smasher / T4 ballista to face on 2) and thus doesn't significantly slow the deck down.
With 2 EE main, this gives us 8 pieces of removal. That's huge, as it allows us to have a similar removal spell count as GDS (4 push, 2 terminate, 2 kolaghan's, ignoring snapcaster).
Thank you for your reply!
So, by adding 2 ballista to the maindeck, what would you cut for them?
Like I said before Rhonas is generally good but is bad whenever they meaningfully interact with your creatures. I'd suggest cutting matter reshapers for walking ballista.
Hm, I also wonder if spell queller is worth thinking about as a 1-of or 2-of in the sideboard. It's a good catch-all counterspell that also acts as a threat. We are also in the unique position of being able to flicker it, meaning we can exchange what's under it if we need to, and actually lock out games if we double displace it. I can see it having application in a lot of matchups. The main issue is mana and I think a 24 land list without utility lands or 6 dorks would be necessary. Even then it's probably not realistically castable consistently.
It'd come in against affinity, gifts storm, titanshift, burn (probably not because of stretching our colors too much), any company deck...
We are already favored against affinity, and burn is a solid 50/50 depending on the build. If players MD 3x Matter Reshaper's the match up becomes favorable.
Vs Storm and Titan Shift, you need different answers/ hate cards. I would much rather play against storm than Titan shift. I have 3x Rest In Peace and 2xGrafdigger's Cage to stall them. Permission on only goes so far agaisnt storm, I think it's best to just pressure them and leave in removal for their baral's. Vs titan shift? Pfft, curve out?
Are you playing on mtgo? How's it going lately? I haven't been playing modern due to the PPTQ season changing formats, but I think Bant Eldrazi is underplayed. Very underplayed.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
Any more than 2 pieces of grave hate is wrong against storm. Postboard they are often trying to Empty in which case grave hate does nothing. You are better off boarding in rule of law effects.
As I've mentioned before, flashfreeze and gideons intervention are both great against valakut. If you want to beat valakut you can, just by bringing in those cards. Side out all paths and EE.
Affinity is less favorable than burn... imo burn is pretty easy. Worship and chalice very often just win you the game postboard and stony silence does not, contrary to popular belief. Reshaper is good against burn but I do fine against burn without it. I would much rather use those slots for ballista to up my winrate against counters company than against burn.
Whyjesse
Are you still running the same 15 sideboard cards you posted on October 7th? Also, is your sideboard adjusted to your particular meta, or is that the same sideboard you would continue to use at big events not knowing what you would play against?
Also while I'm at it I might as well ask what your mainboard looks like at this point in time as well. You posted a list not all that long ago that included rhonas, and only 3 drowner of hope. I know you replaced matter reshaper with walking ballista, but what about the rest of your list? I'm thinking about changing my list up a bit, even though my current list seems solid. I run two leyline of sanctity sideboard that hep in a surprising amount of match ups. You seem to be on the chalice plan instead. Which offers similar protection in similar match ups. Chalice or leyline against burn is game over. Leyline against storm is great as they can't cast gifts ungiven and they can't grapeshot you out of the game.
My current list:
23 lands, no utility (currently off gavony owing to disappearance of abzan and uw control, the card is still really good)
2 birds
3 drowners
4 displacer
4 skyspawner
4 tks
4 reality smasher
2 walking ballista
4 path
2 ee
Current sideboard:
3 chalice
1 drowner
1 ee
2 flashfreeze
1 gideon's intervention
1 grafdigger's cage
1 pithing needle
1 reclamation sage
1 rest in peace
1 rhonas the indomitable
1 worship
1 flex (haven't decided between dismember, leyline, gaddock teeg, walking ballista)
As a side note, gideon's intervention is actually not terrible versus control. By definition it will always at least a 1-for-1 and has the potential to be a 1+ for 1 if they have a duplicates in hand. It can act as removal against one of their wincons or act as a pseudo-thoughtseize against cryptic or supreme verdict.
This is the list i would currently bring to a big event. In my eyes we only need SB help against storm, valakut, and counters company.
Thanks for posting an updated list. Much appreciated. And thank you for adding your sideboard plan against the top decks.
I see you run 6 dorks instead of the standard 5. I find it very hard to cut a drowner of hope for an additional bird. I do however understand the appeal. The statistical percentage of having a dork in your opening 7 with 5 dorks is 51.62%. By putting the 2nd bird in the list, you increase that percentage to 62.10%.
It's reasonable.
I think I'm going to try and incorporate the walking ballista into my main deck. As for sideboard, I think I'll try the rhonas and chalices. (It never feels good to "try out" a $70+ card though) it does seem like the walking ballista is weak in most match ups. But I guess I shouldn't discount it until I've tried it.
It seems like gavony township is especially good in your current build of the deck. 6 mana dorks and 2 walking ballista.
Don't just try out a card by buying it. you should play test it first with proxies (which is what I do) or online. I would test out rhonas first as it's cheaper and maindeckable.
Drowner is often too slow in the mainboard. It's often a dead card in our worst matchups.
Ballista is to shore up specific matchups namely abzan company. However against fair decks as a top deck with a lot of mana it's very very threatening.
As for gavony I still like it and think it would be reasonable, but with jeskai being so popular I want to ensure my caverns are being set on eldrazi and not on a dork, so I'm running 14 green sources. also I never see uw control anymore and that's where gavony was the best.
Ya, you have a point on not just buying the chalice to test it. I have an xmage acct, but I'd say it's uncommon to play the match ups I'm interested in testing. Thanks again for all the input.
what is your sideboard plan against Green White Value Town? Probably similar to counters company
Ramunap company is actually a really hard matchup. I havent tested it enough (~20 games) to know what to side out but I think smasher and ee come out. rhonas has been VERY good in that matchup.
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With the sideboard list I posted above, I put in my 3 stony silence and my narural state and I take out my 4 thought knots. Affinity way to often has 0 cards in hand for thought knot to be relevant. I win most my games against affinity.
Id also suggest that Stony is important and necessary against Ad Naus, Lantern and Gx Tron - in the absence of magical christmasland you dont always draw chalice (most ppl dont even play Chalice - although I personally consider it a must) and have it unanswered - sb cards like Stony provide redundancy to defeat those strategies..
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Do you think this deck could work without those? Maybe with birds of paradise as a substitute?
Alternate Bant Eldrazi
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
I have been testing walking ballista as a 2x replacing matter reshaper and think it's great. It always allows us to curve out properly, it's a good mana sink, it gives us reach, it can kill planeswalkers cleanly, it can be cast under blood moon, and it's an amazing top deck late game. Sure it's better utilized in eldrazi tron, but we often can get to 8ish mana against abzan/control and a 4/4 ballista is still huge. It gives us another reason to run gavony too. Plus it gives us more game against company decks which are a big problem for the deck.
Congrats!
Did you play the same MD you posted earlier in this thread? I can't decide what to play at a team unified event either bant eldrazi or e-tron, any opinions? I expect a lot of valakut/e-tron/affinity/storm/ux control/dredge.
If you expect a lot of valakut, etron, and affinity, I would definitely pick bant eldrazi over eldrazi tron since bant has better matchups against those decks. Storm is probably a little better for eldrazi tron because of maindeck chalices but that's probably only marginal if you're running SB chalices since we're faster than them and have more removal. I'm actually not familiar with Etron's matchup against dredge.
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I've been doing a little bit of statistical analysis about mulligan decisions for the deck and what mana distribution to run. I've convinced myself that 6 dorks / 23 lands is better than 5 dorks / 24 lands. I've also solidified some of my mulligan decision heuristics. I made these calculations based off a combination of my own recorded win%s and a bunch of hypergeometric distribution calculations. These are not meant to be a rigorous mathematical analysis but rather an estimation. There are lots of limitations to this analysis so take it with a grain of salt.
Here are my expected win %s and mulligan %s with the following configurations:
With 6 dorks, ignoring my land count: 64.87% win / 25.86% mulls
With 5 dorks, ignoring my land count: 63.57% win / 29.97% mulls
With 24 lands, ignoring my dork count: 65.83% win / 22.42% mulls
With 23 lands, ignoring my dork count: 65.55% win / 23.46% mulls
These data suggest that the reduction in mulligan rate by going from 23 to 24 lands is significantly less (~1% fewer mulligans) than increasing my dorks from 5 to 6 (~4% fewer mulligans). By extension, the expected win rate is increased more with 5->6 dorks than 23->24 lands.
Also, based off my recorded games my winrate on 7 is 70.1%, versus my winrate on 6 is 56.3%. Therefore, for any opening hand with expected winrate of equal or less than 56.3% should be considered for mulligan.
My recorded winrate with 4 lands in hand is about 57%. Therefore hands with 4 lands should be considered for mulligan. I might keep them if the curve is good, like if the nonland cards are dork, skyspawner, thought-knot. But since it seems that 4-landers are indicative of probable flooding out, I would probably not keep a 4-lander if the nonland cards were reactionary or really off-curve, such as path, EE, drowner.
Lastly, I looked at whether or not hands could be kept with just 1 stirrings and no acceleration. I concluded that on the draw, a hand with stirrings but no acceleration might be worth considering because you have in the range of 50% (52.3%) chance of finding acceleration from either your stirrings, or drawing a dork, or drawing a temple in the first 2 draws. This is relatively close to the mulligan decision threshold of 57%. However, on the play, such a hand is definitely not worth keeping because you only have about a 35% (35.5%) chance of finding acceleration from the stirrings or drawing a temple off the top. These numbers are highly approximated and not rigorously calculated but should at least be in the right ballpark.
It's pretty medicore against storm, eldrazi tron, GDS, and burn. Then again, reshaper is pretty mediocre against storm and eldrazi tron too.
The fact that it provides damage to face means that it's never a truly useless card like EE can sometimes be. It contributes to turn 5 kills and sometimes even turn 4 (T2 TKS / T3 smasher / T4 ballista to face on 2) and thus doesn't significantly slow the deck down.
With 2 EE main, this gives us 8 pieces of removal. That's huge, as it allows us to have a similar removal spell count as GDS (4 push, 2 terminate, 2 kolaghan's, ignoring snapcaster).
Thank you for your reply!
So, by adding 2 ballista to the maindeck, what would you cut for them?
How as Rhonas been for you?
Hm, I also wonder if spell queller is worth thinking about as a 1-of or 2-of in the sideboard. It's a good catch-all counterspell that also acts as a threat. We are also in the unique position of being able to flicker it, meaning we can exchange what's under it if we need to, and actually lock out games if we double displace it. I can see it having application in a lot of matchups. The main issue is mana and I think a 24 land list without utility lands or 6 dorks would be necessary. Even then it's probably not realistically castable consistently.
It'd come in against affinity, gifts storm, titanshift, burn (probably not because of stretching our colors too much), any company deck...
Vs Storm and Titan Shift, you need different answers/ hate cards. I would much rather play against storm than Titan shift. I have 3x Rest In Peace and 2xGrafdigger's Cage to stall them. Permission on only goes so far agaisnt storm, I think it's best to just pressure them and leave in removal for their baral's. Vs titan shift? Pfft, curve out?
Are you playing on mtgo? How's it going lately? I haven't been playing modern due to the PPTQ season changing formats, but I think Bant Eldrazi is underplayed. Very underplayed.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
As I've mentioned before, flashfreeze and gideons intervention are both great against valakut. If you want to beat valakut you can, just by bringing in those cards. Side out all paths and EE.
Affinity is less favorable than burn... imo burn is pretty easy. Worship and chalice very often just win you the game postboard and stony silence does not, contrary to popular belief. Reshaper is good against burn but I do fine against burn without it. I would much rather use those slots for ballista to up my winrate against counters company than against burn.
Are you still running the same 15 sideboard cards you posted on October 7th? Also, is your sideboard adjusted to your particular meta, or is that the same sideboard you would continue to use at big events not knowing what you would play against?
Also while I'm at it I might as well ask what your mainboard looks like at this point in time as well. You posted a list not all that long ago that included rhonas, and only 3 drowner of hope. I know you replaced matter reshaper with walking ballista, but what about the rest of your list? I'm thinking about changing my list up a bit, even though my current list seems solid. I run two leyline of sanctity sideboard that hep in a surprising amount of match ups. You seem to be on the chalice plan instead. Which offers similar protection in similar match ups. Chalice or leyline against burn is game over. Leyline against storm is great as they can't cast gifts ungiven and they can't grapeshot you out of the game.
23 lands, no utility (currently off gavony owing to disappearance of abzan and uw control, the card is still really good)
2 birds
3 drowners
4 displacer
4 skyspawner
4 tks
4 reality smasher
2 walking ballista
4 path
2 ee
Current sideboard:
3 chalice
1 drowner
1 ee
2 flashfreeze
1 gideon's intervention
1 grafdigger's cage
1 pithing needle
1 reclamation sage
1 rest in peace
1 rhonas the indomitable
1 worship
1 flex (haven't decided between dismember, leyline, gaddock teeg, walking ballista)
As a side note, gideon's intervention is actually not terrible versus control. By definition it will always at least a 1-for-1 and has the potential to be a 1+ for 1 if they have a duplicates in hand. It can act as removal against one of their wincons or act as a pseudo-thoughtseize against cryptic or supreme verdict.
This is the list i would currently bring to a big event. In my eyes we only need SB help against storm, valakut, and counters company.
Affinity: + Reclamation sage, pithing needle, worship, ee; - tks; to consider: settle the wreckage
Storm: + 3 chalice, ee, grafdigger's, rip, dismember, - 3 drowner, -2 ballista, -2 displacer; to consider: leyline, gaddock teeg
Jeskai: +3 chalice, gideon's intervention, rip, drowner, rhonas, - 4 path, - skyspawner
Valakut: +2 flashfreeze, gideon's intrevention, rhonas, drowner, -4 path, -ee; to consider: leyline, gaddock teeg
GDS: +drowner, +ee, -walking ballista
Etron: +pithing needle, dismember, rhonas, drowner, reclamation sage, -2 ee, -2 ballista, -skyspawner
Burn: +worship, +3 chalice, +2 flashfreeze, -3 drowner, -2 ballista, -stirrings (play/draw dependent); to consider: leyline
Lantern: +3 chalice, +ee, +pithing needle, +reclamation sage, -drowner, -path; to consider: leyline
UW control: +rhonas, +drowner, +pithing needle, + reclamation sage, +ee, +gideon's intervention, -2 path, -1 birds, -skyspawner
Counters company: +dismember, +grafdigger's cage, +pithing needle, +1 rhonas, +ee, -1 drowner, -reality smasher; to consider: gaddock teeg
Abzan: +drowner, +rhonas, +RIP, +ee, -skyspawner
Jund: +drowner, +RIP, +ee, -some number of tks depending on play/draw
Tron: +pithing needle, +drowner, +rhonas, -ballista
Elves: +dismember, +chalice, +needle, +worship, +rhonas, -reality smasher, -some number of drowner/displacer; to consider: settle the wreckage, gaddock teeg
I see you run 6 dorks instead of the standard 5. I find it very hard to cut a drowner of hope for an additional bird. I do however understand the appeal. The statistical percentage of having a dork in your opening 7 with 5 dorks is 51.62%. By putting the 2nd bird in the list, you increase that percentage to 62.10%.
It's reasonable.
I think I'm going to try and incorporate the walking ballista into my main deck. As for sideboard, I think I'll try the rhonas and chalices. (It never feels good to "try out" a $70+ card though) it does seem like the walking ballista is weak in most match ups. But I guess I shouldn't discount it until I've tried it.
It seems like gavony township is especially good in your current build of the deck. 6 mana dorks and 2 walking ballista.
Drowner is often too slow in the mainboard. It's often a dead card in our worst matchups.
Ballista is to shore up specific matchups namely abzan company. However against fair decks as a top deck with a lot of mana it's very very threatening.
As for gavony I still like it and think it would be reasonable, but with jeskai being so popular I want to ensure my caverns are being set on eldrazi and not on a dork, so I'm running 14 green sources. also I never see uw control anymore and that's where gavony was the best.
what is your sideboard plan against Green White Value Town? Probably similar to counters company