So after trying to make a little kid luck in pauper and having some success with it, I realized that I should just cut black and forgo Blind Hunter even though I loved that card as Siege Rhino. Would love to hear some suggestions for card options and different builds. Here's a link for the modern deck: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-guide-modern-gw-little-kid-luck/
The basic idea is gain card advantage by playing resilient creatures and getting around the drawback of their relative low p/t with pump effects. This deck almost deads edict effects, can play around counter well and is one of the most grindy deck in the meta. You'll win some matches by timing your opponent and one of the fun things is seeing your opponent on 20crds in library while you still have 40. It also mulls well, I've won on a lot of mull to 5's. Part of the power of this deck is in its redundancy, it doesn't need any one card to do well.
The deck is actually a lot harder to play than it looks, without card draw you have to make efficient choices but at the same time you have to know when to sacrifice efficiency for speed and boarding is also difficult since you can't take out too many creatures. Sequencing can be challenging too, depending on the hand, the match up and knowing when to commit more to the board state or hold stuff back to play around wipe. Here's a more in depth look:
On Exalted:
Exalted helps your early board state before you can go wide, effectively giving Akrasan Squire haste and half a haste to Qasali Pridemage.
When the ground is clogged it helps bird tokens, rancored creatures and Kor Skyfisher get through for some heavy dmg.
When both sky and ground are clogged, or if you don't see rancor or flying, it helps the wide strategy by chipping away your opponents blockers, after some swings you should be able to go wide and finish them.
You can tempt an opponent into using a removal spell inefficiently by swinging with a Young Wolf, Safehold Elite or a bird token
Helps to get through big blockers
Nice to be able to have a good swing while leaving back blockers against other aggro decks
Weakness- if you don't see a resilient creature you can be set up for bad swing into removal
Overall it's sweet to have the option of going wide or tall.
Match Ups-
Weak- About 40% win rate, give or take 5%- Burn, Delver, Slivers, Mono White Sisters, Tron
Even- Mono Red Creatures,Elves, Izzet Blitz, UB Alchemy, UB Delver, Stompy, Affinity
Strong- About 60% win rate give or take 5%- MBC, UB Teachings, Bogles,Soldiery, Boros
Terrible- Turbo Fog, GW Sisters
I'm including T-practice in this since I haven't played enough leagues to have reliable data, the analysis will likely change as I play more and I've only included the decks in the top 70% of the meta. I'm also going by game count now and not match count.
I'm finding that most matchups aren't too far off 50%, with the exception of Sisters, Slivers and Turbo Fog in the Weak mus and with the exception of UB Teachings in the Strong; MBC, Boros, Bogles and Soldiery may also be 60%+ but I haven't played them in league enough with the updated build to know reliably.
Seems like an interesting build. I had built an Abzan deck I was trying out for a while but used Thraben Inspector and Elvish Visionary as a card draw engine. It certainly wasn't aggressive like this list though. It was definitely more mid-range. It was powerful but slow which hurts against decks like Tron which have a much more powerful late game.
I find the addition of Exalted interesting and confusing. Is attacking with a single creature really an effective way to win?
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depends on the board state, making a 2/2 a 3/3 to get through a 3 tough blocker is pretty important, or being able to do a big swing and leave blockers back, just having the option of going wide or tall is sweet. You can also use it to tempt them into removing a Young Wolf,Safehold Elite or a bird token. Also works well with flying creatures when the ground board is bogged down. Watch some of the modern lkl and see how it works. This is also a midrange deck, just can have a very aggresive start. Card advantage is in resilient creatures rather than draw, virtual card advantage.
I've been thinking about a more midrangey g/w deck now that Drake is gone. Travel Preparations. I just love this card in g/w grindy builds. Squadron Hawk is also I card I just think goes in about any deck that has white. So much value and if your opponent is weak in the air you slap on a rancor and get to work. If you're playing paper pauper Custodi Squire is a great card. I'm playing/testing a lot of standard pauper and I'm really liking how Self-Assembler is working out. Between him and hawks you should always have something on the board. as grindy as Standard pauper is, just a little ramp into S-A can just cause problems for decks that can't get past a 4/4. I'd recommend Avacyn's Pilgrim and Pale Recluse to help fix mana and possibly save on some land slots.
Yeah that sounds like a fun build, try it out and tell me how it goes. I tried the dork route myself in my abzan build and found that it hurt my top decks too much, was like I was running 29 lands, but with spells that replace themselves like assembler and squire I think that a dork build might do the trick. Do it up and post the list, would love to see other GW midrange builds.
- Hawk is a solid choice. I do run screech over hawk, I like being able to run just 3 screech and get potentially 12 flyers out of it and some people just scoop after you use both sides of prep on screech the turn after casting it and flashing it back. But hawk can be played out faster and you can't always flashback screech since tapping 3 creatures can be a bad choice in aggro depending on the board state.
- I really like hawk and assembler together
Here's my rough draft of creature considerations, some ramp at the low end but still some utility. Nest Invader helps vs edict effect while giving me mana ramp in match-ups where that it isn't an issue. Ulvenwald Captive has proven to be one of the best ramp creatures in the game since it can transform into a beater later on, not sure if I really need 4 copies though. I took Elder over Pridemage since I want the bigger body. I like Peema Outrider over the Blasterdom since it can give me more bodies if needed, it's got trample and I can target it with Travel Prep and other stuff.
this leave me about 8-10 slots for other stuff and about 20-22 lands, unless I tweek my creature list some. Just a lot of g/w good stuff options here, you've mentioned plenty. I'd probably run at least one copy of Cenn's Enlistment main deck to make use of late land pulls. Lots of options to mix and match between main and sideboard.
The basic idea is gain card advantage by playing resilient creatures and getting around the drawback of their relative low p/t with pump effects. This deck almost deads edict effects, can play around counter well and is one of the most grindy deck in the meta. You'll win some matches by timing your opponent and one of the fun things is seeing your opponent on 20crds in library while you still have 40. It also mulls well, I've won on a lot of mull to 5's. Part of the power of this deck is in its redundancy, it doesn't need any one card to do well.
The deck is actually a lot harder to play than it looks, without card draw you have to make efficient choices but at the same time you have to know when to sacrifice efficiency for speed and boarding is also difficult since you can't take out too many creatures. Sequencing can be challenging too, depending on the hand, the match up and knowing when to commit more to the board state or hold stuff back to play around wipe. Here's a more in depth look:
Resilient Creature effects: Young Wolf, Safehold Elite, Battle Screech
Resilient Spells: Battle Screech Travel Preparations (for playing into counter, can't always with screech though) Rancor
Pump Effects: Qasali Pridemage, Akrasan Squire, Rancor, Travel Preparations
In a deck like this there needs to be some life gain, right now there's just 4 Centaur Healer in the main but they can be bounced with Kor SkyFisher for more life if necessary.
Removal- Qasali Pridemage Journey to Nowhere
Other Fisher Shenanigans: Re-setting Young Wolf/Safehold Elite/Blastoderm
Travel Preparations can also reset Elite.
This is a fair deck but it's done surprisingly well in the meta and I believe it will only get better as it evolves.
On Exalted:
Exalted helps your early board state before you can go wide, effectively giving Akrasan Squire haste and half a haste to Qasali Pridemage.
When the ground is clogged it helps bird tokens, rancored creatures and Kor Skyfisher get through for some heavy dmg.
When both sky and ground are clogged, or if you don't see rancor or flying, it helps the wide strategy by chipping away your opponents blockers, after some swings you should be able to go wide and finish them.
You can tempt an opponent into using a removal spell inefficiently by swinging with a Young Wolf, Safehold Elite or a bird token
Helps to get through big blockers
Nice to be able to have a good swing while leaving back blockers against other aggro decks
Weakness- if you don't see a resilient creature you can be set up for bad swing into removal
Overall it's sweet to have the option of going wide or tall.
Match Ups-
Weak- About 40% win rate, give or take 5%- Burn, Delver, Slivers, Mono White Sisters, Tron
Even- Mono Red Creatures,Elves, Izzet Blitz, UB Alchemy, UB Delver, Stompy, Affinity
Strong- About 60% win rate give or take 5%- MBC, UB Teachings, Bogles,Soldiery, Boros
Terrible- Turbo Fog, GW Sisters
I'm including T-practice in this since I haven't played enough leagues to have reliable data, the analysis will likely change as I play more and I've only included the decks in the top 70% of the meta. I'm also going by game count now and not match count.
I'm finding that most matchups aren't too far off 50%, with the exception of Sisters, Slivers and Turbo Fog in the Weak mus and with the exception of UB Teachings in the Strong; MBC, Boros, Bogles and Soldiery may also be 60%+ but I haven't played them in league enough with the updated build to know reliably.
A build:
Lands: 22
8 Forest
8 Plains
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Terramorphic Expanse
Creatures: 25
3 Blastoderm
4 Centaur Healer
3 Kor Skyfisher
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Safehold Elite
4 Young Wolf
3 Akrasan Squire
Enchantments: 7
4 Journey To Nowhere
3 Rancor
Soceries: 6
3 Battle Screech
3 Travel Preparations
Sideboard: 15
2 Gleeful Sabotage
2 Hallow
2 Holy Light
3 Lone Missionary
1 Obsidian Acolyte
3 Sunlance
2 Dawn Charm
3w and 2l: M1:(boros 2-0) M2:(mbc 2-1) M3: (gw sisters 1-2) M4: (affinity 2-1) M5: (goblins 0-2)
3w and 2l: M1:(affinity 0-2) M2:(ur blitz 2-1) M3:(affinity 2-0) M4:(affinity 2-1) M5: (ub alchemy 0-2)
2w and 3l: M1: (stompy 2-1) M2: (stompy 2-1) M3: (ur control 0-2) M4: (slivers 0-2) M5: (mbc 0-2)(Hungover for the last 3)
3w and 2l: M1: (stompy 0-2) M2: (ub teachings 2-1) M3: (ub teachings 2-1) M4: (boros 2-0) M5: (tron 0-2)
1w and 3l: M1: (ub flicker 0-2) M2: (mono red creatures 2-0) M3: (slivers 1-2) M4: (affinity 1-2) M5: dropped
I find the addition of Exalted interesting and confusing. Is attacking with a single creature really an effective way to win?
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- Hawk is a solid choice. I do run screech over hawk, I like being able to run just 3 screech and get potentially 12 flyers out of it and some people just scoop after you use both sides of prep on screech the turn after casting it and flashing it back. But hawk can be played out faster and you can't always flashback screech since tapping 3 creatures can be a bad choice in aggro depending on the board state.
- I really like hawk and assembler together
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Young Wolf
4 Nest Invader
2 Ulvenwald Captive
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Wickerbough Elder
4 Peema Outrider
4 Self-Assembler
2 Pale Recluse
this leave me about 8-10 slots for other stuff and about 20-22 lands, unless I tweek my creature list some. Just a lot of g/w good stuff options here, you've mentioned plenty. I'd probably run at least one copy of Cenn's Enlistment main deck to make use of late land pulls. Lots of options to mix and match between main and sideboard.