I have played a LOT of Innistrad Block on MTGO. I mainly play the 2-man Q's because of having a busy family life and not a lot of time to commit to playing dailies or waiting hours for an 8-man to fire. I was using RW humans for a long time and I found it to be the best deck in the format.
I noticed that the vast majority of my matches were against RW humans and UR Stalker-Noble-Enchants. Essentially, my thought was that if I could beat these decks consistently, I could win a huge percentage of my matches. The following deck is 22-7 in the 2-man Q's. I have lost a TOTAL of one match to RW or UR. It involved a 3 game match against Stalkerblade where they came out with the nut draw in all three games, winning the two where they were on the play. Without further ado, here is the list:
You are obviously thinking that Typhoid Rats are completely unplayable.
Here was my rationale when I built it:
I need to be able to answer Turn 1 Champion of the Parish or Stromkirk Noble. Dead Weight is obvious, Typhoid Rats gives me another (Non-Human to block Noble) option to slow their assault. The Darkthicket Wolves can also block the Noble. The Green two drops essentially force the opponent to react to them while I build up to casting the various bombs. The Skirsdag High-Priest is there to eat removal. In the rare games where it does not eat removal, it can pump out demons for the win. I usually side it out against decks that have a lot of removal as they will keep me off of three creatures and make him a Squire. If you haven't played with the card, just try it and see how people always prioritize removing it, making way for your other threats. I absolutely love to see someone waste a Brimstone Volley on it because they assume it is relevant to my deck.
The 6 Sacrifice effects work to keep Invisible Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft under wraps. Most decks have few answers to these two cards and they are in the board. This deck really does well when the opponent assumes their Hexproof is protection against my removal.
4 Curse of Death's Hold between Main and Sideboard really negates a lot of the other "best decks" that rely on token production for beatdown.
The bottom line is this: I have been playing Magic since 1994, but I usually just build a recognized deck and maybe make a couple of my own alterations in specific card choices or I switch around the numbers of individual cards. This is the first time when I have analyzed the decks I was facing and attempted to attack what I was seeing. It has been amazingly successful so I wanted to share it with the community and see if you have any suggestions.
One last note: The white mana is solely for flashback of Unburial Rites. The deck started out as BW with 4 Silverchase Foxes and 4 Midnight Hauntings replacing the maindeck green cards and white sideboard options instead of the Naturalizes. The Green is a much better splash color as it applies early pressure and the Mayors are very relevant threats; a 2-drop that can win the game on its own is a nice addition to the deck. The Maindeck Foxes were nice as spot removal for enchantments and a blocking option for opposing Stromkirk Nobles.
In summation.....Star Trek wins a prolonged naval battle against superior, yet less technologically advanced, numbers, with Picard leading the assault, while Kirk takes your soul by laying out Solo and probably his manservant Chewy as well, before impregnating and ditching your Princess.
I like current block formats the most.
Its so limited to its power scale against other formats.
Block constructed should be a more competitive format like it was back in Champions or Ravnica.
Part of the reason I made the thread is to see if anyone sees this being viable after DKA. If so, what do you like as additions?
For full disclosure, I have continued to play this list against everyone's new DKA brews and I literally have not lost a match to a deck containing cards from DKA, having faced the new RUG Dredge a couple of times and BW variants a couple of times, and one RG werewolf deck. None of these was really a challenge.
I don't have any DKA cards yet so I haven't changed it.
Two changes I will consider will be switching out Typhoid Rats for Tragic Slip or Young Wolf. Either card would fit the same purpose as the Rats and lessen my vulnerability to Geistflame.
In summation.....Star Trek wins a prolonged naval battle against superior, yet less technologically advanced, numbers, with Picard leading the assault, while Kirk takes your soul by laying out Solo and probably his manservant Chewy as well, before impregnating and ditching your Princess.
@Discard
I'm not sure that the Tribute to Hunger and Liliana of the Veil are going to work very well maindeck anymore. It seems that with so many token strategies, Sever the Bloodline and Curse of Death's Hold increase in value quite a bit.
I've also been looking at a BG based control strategy, although I have a couple of splashes.
I wanted to make sure that I madeTragic Slip and Sever the Bloodline worse. I haven't been able to test as much as I'd like, but the removal can keep up and the late game is typically in my favor.
Since the release of DKA I haven't seen any all-in strategies like UW Stalker or BUG Dredge, so I moved all of the sacrifice effects to the SB.
Also, I'm not sure that Caravan Vigil is correct. I'm a bit worried that without it though I can't reach my late game soon enough.
@Discard
I'm not sure that the Tribute to Hunger and Liliana of the Veil are going to work very well maindeck anymore. It seems that with so many token strategies, Sever the Bloodline and Curse of Death's Hold increase in value quite a bit.
I've also been looking at a BG based control strategy, although I have a couple of splashes.
Deck
Creatures
4 Dawntreader Elk
4 Daybreak Ranger
4 Bloodline Keeper
3 Bloodgift Demon
Non-Creatures
3 Dead Weight
4 Tragic Slip
4 Caravan Vigil
4 Sever the Bloodline
4 Garruk Relentless
2 Sudden Disappearance Land
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Evolving Wilds
7 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Mountain
I wanted to make sure that I madeTragic Slip and Sever the Bloodline worse. I haven't been able to test as much as I'd like, but the removal can keep up and the late game is typically in my favor.
Since the release of DKA I haven't seen any all-in strategies like UW Stalker or BUG Dredge, so I moved all of the sacrifice effects to the SB.
Also, I'm not sure that Caravan Vigil is correct. I'm a bit worried that without it though I can't reach my late game soon enough.
02-28-2012 10:35 AM
I love your list. Thanks to you, I think I'll try running a similar list pretty soon. Let ya know how I do after I run it.
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I noticed that the vast majority of my matches were against RW humans and UR Stalker-Noble-Enchants. Essentially, my thought was that if I could beat these decks consistently, I could win a huge percentage of my matches. The following deck is 22-7 in the 2-man Q's. I have lost a TOTAL of one match to RW or UR. It involved a 3 game match against Stalkerblade where they came out with the nut draw in all three games, winning the two where they were on the play. Without further ado, here is the list:
3 Mayor of Avabruck
3 Darkthicket Wolf
2 Skirsdag High Cultist
3 Bloodline Keeper
3 Bloodgift Demon
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Garruk Relentless
4 Dead Weight
3 Tribute to Hunger
2 Sever the Bloodline
1 Curse of Death's Hold
11 Swamp
5 Forest
4 Shimmering Grotto
4 Woodland Cemetery
2 Isolated Chapel
3 Curse of Death's Hold
4 Naturalize
1 Tribute to Hunger
2 Victim of Night
3 Witchbane Orb
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Sever the Bloodline
You are obviously thinking that Typhoid Rats are completely unplayable.
Here was my rationale when I built it:
I need to be able to answer Turn 1 Champion of the Parish or Stromkirk Noble. Dead Weight is obvious, Typhoid Rats gives me another (Non-Human to block Noble) option to slow their assault. The Darkthicket Wolves can also block the Noble. The Green two drops essentially force the opponent to react to them while I build up to casting the various bombs. The Skirsdag High-Priest is there to eat removal. In the rare games where it does not eat removal, it can pump out demons for the win. I usually side it out against decks that have a lot of removal as they will keep me off of three creatures and make him a Squire. If you haven't played with the card, just try it and see how people always prioritize removing it, making way for your other threats. I absolutely love to see someone waste a Brimstone Volley on it because they assume it is relevant to my deck.
The 6 Sacrifice effects work to keep Invisible Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft under wraps. Most decks have few answers to these two cards and they are in the board. This deck really does well when the opponent assumes their Hexproof is protection against my removal.
4 Curse of Death's Hold between Main and Sideboard really negates a lot of the other "best decks" that rely on token production for beatdown.
The bottom line is this: I have been playing Magic since 1994, but I usually just build a recognized deck and maybe make a couple of my own alterations in specific card choices or I switch around the numbers of individual cards. This is the first time when I have analyzed the decks I was facing and attempted to attack what I was seeing. It has been amazingly successful so I wanted to share it with the community and see if you have any suggestions.
One last note: The white mana is solely for flashback of Unburial Rites. The deck started out as BW with 4 Silverchase Foxes and 4 Midnight Hauntings replacing the maindeck green cards and white sideboard options instead of the Naturalizes. The Green is a much better splash color as it applies early pressure and the Mayors are very relevant threats; a 2-drop that can win the game on its own is a nice addition to the deck. The Maindeck Foxes were nice as spot removal for enchantments and a blocking option for opposing Stromkirk Nobles.
I like current block formats the most.
Its so limited to its power scale against other formats.
Block constructed should be a more competitive format like it was back in Champions or Ravnica.
Sig by DD Awie by CC
For full disclosure, I have continued to play this list against everyone's new DKA brews and I literally have not lost a match to a deck containing cards from DKA, having faced the new RUG Dredge a couple of times and BW variants a couple of times, and one RG werewolf deck. None of these was really a challenge.
I don't have any DKA cards yet so I haven't changed it.
Two changes I will consider will be switching out Typhoid Rats for Tragic Slip or Young Wolf. Either card would fit the same purpose as the Rats and lessen my vulnerability to Geistflame.
4x Young Wolf
4x Mayor of Avabruck
3x Darkthicket Wolf
2x Skirsdag High-Priest
3x Vorapede
2x Bloodgift Demon
Planeswalkers:
2x Garruk Relentless
1x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1x Liliana of the Veil
4x Tragic Slip
3x Dead Weight
3x Tribute to Hunger
2x Prey Upon
2x Sever the Bloodline
1x Curse of Death's Hold
Lands:
1x Grim Backwood
1x Vault of the Archangel
3x Isolated Chapel
4x Woodland Cemetery
8x Swamp
10x Forest
I'm not sure that the Tribute to Hunger and Liliana of the Veil are going to work very well maindeck anymore. It seems that with so many token strategies, Sever the Bloodline and Curse of Death's Hold increase in value quite a bit.
I've also been looking at a BG based control strategy, although I have a couple of splashes.
4 Dawntreader Elk
4 Daybreak Ranger
4 Bloodline Keeper
3 Bloodgift Demon
Non-Creatures
3 Dead Weight
4 Tragic Slip
4 Caravan Vigil
4 Sever the Bloodline
4 Garruk Relentless
2 Sudden Disappearance
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Evolving Wilds
7 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Mountain
I wanted to make sure that I madeTragic Slip and Sever the Bloodline worse. I haven't been able to test as much as I'd like, but the removal can keep up and the late game is typically in my favor.
Since the release of DKA I haven't seen any all-in strategies like UW Stalker or BUG Dredge, so I moved all of the sacrifice effects to the SB.
Also, I'm not sure that Caravan Vigil is correct. I'm a bit worried that without it though I can't reach my late game soon enough.
I love your list. Thanks to you, I think I'll try running a similar list pretty soon. Let ya know how I do after I run it.