Thank that's it. Now the only interactions that are favorable there are, mortars, satyr, renounce, flare, the hydra and rampage and stormbreath because of pro white. I didn't count devour flesh because the effect isn't narrow enough to hit BB regularly. Obviously G/R will shut this guy down.
So what can blue and/or black decks do against this guy?
As someone who has been playing Blood Barons since it's induction, I can say that the card is great, but it isn't Baneslayer Angel kind of great by any stretch.
Decks running WB have access to Whip of Erebos, which puts Obzedat way over the edge and leagues better than Blood Baron of Vizkopa.
Without Whip though, Blood Baron is much better than Obzedat.
BB has gone up $3 very recently. And you can have multiple barons out but a second obzedat is virtually dead in your hand since he's so difficult to remove
Turn//burn also gets him. And curse of swine amusingly enough.
Honestly, I think that blue/control will have the easiest time of it. Green/red can deal with him, but often losing a guy and giving the opponent 4+ life. That will be important for aggro/midrange trying to race or maintain board advantage. Control can just let him swing through a few times and will be fine as long as everything else is under control.
Since G/W looks so strong you shouldn't forget Advent of the Wurm as a potential killer. I believe is one nasty mofo but big green dudes are plentiful. So he certainly gets the job done if your opponent is only packing black or white spot removal.
Since everyone and their brother is going to be running Heroe's Downfall, Doom Blade, Putrefy, and Dreadbore, I think he is certainly the guy for the job.
I think the fact that Thoughtseize is ran in the same deck to curb the chances of removing Blood Baron with the already limited removal, is quite overlooked.
This guy is kind of a big deal. I think he is also almost $20 a pop on MODO.
You've got to make sure you evaluate Blood Baron in a deck, not in a vacuum.
There are certainly answers to it and creatures that trade favorably with it, but you have to consider that Blood Baron will be played in a deck with access to premium:
1. Discard - the best way to preemptively protect it, and
2. Removal - the best way to keep it from dying in combat.
Card is rock solid.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
—Jaya Ballard, task mage
redthirst is redthirst, fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. He was the leader of the Fires of Salvation, the only clan I'm aware of to get modded off the forums so hard they made their own forums.
Degenerate? Sure. Loudmouth? You bet. Law abiding? No ****ing way.
I think BBV is going to be super solid. I've been running it in esper and it does a lot of work. It helps stabilize against aggro and it is a viable win con. Sure, it does have problems with some of the big green creatures and red removal like mortars and turn//burn, but if it didn't have a weakness everyone would be running it just like Thragtusk.
Quote from Garland Greene aka the Marietta Mangler »
"Now you're talking semantics. What if I told you insane was working 50 hours a week in some office for 50 years, at the end of which they tell you to piss off... Ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
"Define Irony: Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash"
The thing with blood baron is, he dispute slots with Obzedat.
Also, 4/4 for five mana is bad stats. At that mana i want to play stuff that survive helix and mortar. K.Hydra had the same issue but at least it only have to survive one turn. The Baron can be chump blocked until your opponent get a answer which is a horrible trait.
Not saying this card is bad, but he was not a format staple in ISD-RTR and i believe he won't be in RTR-THE. His powerful but only when his resistances are highly relevant.
The thing with blood baron is, he dispute slots with Obzedat.
Also, 4/4 for five mana is bad stats. At that mana i want to play stuff that survive helix and mortar. K.Hydra had the same issue but at least it only have to survive one turn. The Baron can be chump blocked until your opponent get a answer which is a horrible trait.
He has no problem surviving helix because the helix can't target him in the first place. As far as him being chump blocked until they find an answer some decks can't afford to let their opponents gain 4 life a turn, and there aren't that many clean answers to him to begin with.
The thing with blood baron is, he dispute slots with Obzedat.
Also, 4/4 for five mana is bad stats. At that mana i want to play stuff that survive helix and mortar. K.Hydra had the same issue but at least it only have to survive one turn. The Baron can be chump blocked until your opponent get a answer which is a horrible trait.
Not saying this card is bad, but he was not a format staple in ISD-RTR and i believe he won't be in RTR-THE. His powerful but only when his resistances are highly relevant.
helix doesn't hit him.
The things I've run into the most with Blood Baron are devour flesh and Mizzium Mortars, with lifebane zombie up there as well. I've never really had a problem with Thragtusk since Blood Baron turns our removal into pseudo 1for1 against him, since the baron is bigger than the token. Personally, I don't care if he's chump blocked if I'm gaining life (though saccing before damage is annoying). My topdecks are always going to be better then theirs, on average, since my deck is built for the long game, though it can win quickly if it starts slamming dragons.
The thing with blood baron is, he dispute slots with Obzedat.
Also, 4/4 for five mana is bad stats. At that mana i want to play stuff that survive helix and mortar. K.Hydra had the same issue but at least it only have to survive one turn. The Baron can be chump blocked until your opponent get a answer which is a horrible trait.
Not saying this card is bad, but he was not a format staple in ISD-RTR and i believe he won't be in RTR-THE. His powerful but only when his resistances are highly relevant.
Top 5 card in upcoming standard. Dodges a ton of the best removal from the control deck, great against red, with only 30% of their burn killing him in 1 shot.(assuming 4 lightning 2-3 magma jet)
Everyone jumped on italofoca because he mistakenly mentioned Warleader's Helix as an answer to Baron but other than that, his post is pretty much spot-on. Baron's a decent size in a vacuum but bad for his cost, he's only relevant when his protections are.
Green has too many bigger things that eat him alive in combat. I dunno about any weird Blue aggro decks but he's too slow a clock for control to really worry about. (If they can't just kill him with Turn // Burn, Far // Away, Supreme Verdict, trump him in combat with Aetherling who itself is even more resistant to removal.) His butt is otherwise a bit tough for Red to deal with, unfortunately their best removal spell in this Standard burns for 4.
Obzedat is fairly similar and overall superior. Baron is also straight-up not as stupid as Desecration Demon, Boros Reckoner, or in my experience so far Kalonian Hydra. Stormbreath Deagon is going to be a thing too. Baron's just the guy you use when you need pro-White/Black.
Ok when I mention answers for him, I mean cards that are actually played and are not absurdly bad Gaze of Granite
Polukranos, World Eater doesn't really handle him but keeps him in check until you can handle him.
FYI, although I am not choosing to run Gaze, there are quite a few people in the Rock thread advocating it as a 3 or 4 of... It isn't optimal, but you didn't specify that in the post I responded to... I do appreciate the clarification.
As far as Polukranos goes, it definitely handles BB. It is a 5/5 whereas BB is a 4/4... Last I checked, a bigger creature generally kills the smaller creature. Of course, you'll say you meant that keeping BB in check just means preventing him from being active in combat scenarios which does effectively handle him... Unless you're hooked on that Common Core fuzzy math where 3x4 can equal 11 so long as your explanation is reasonable...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Garland Greene aka the Marietta Mangler »
"Now you're talking semantics. What if I told you insane was working 50 hours a week in some office for 50 years, at the end of which they tell you to piss off... Ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
"Define Irony: Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash"
There is a decent amount of stuff that can remove him but of course you run him with Sin Collector and Thoughtseize. Also look out for Brave the Elements as that can save him from pretty much anything cept board wipes. Also Spear of Heliod will get him out of mortar's range.
Why are people posting all sorts of things that can kill him.
It's better to post a list of what can't seeing as not many other Huge creatures have hexproof or protection in the format, especially not 2. For the record I feel stormbreath dragon will be hugely popular as well.
Black will play it with Lifebane/Sin collector and Duress so if you have 1 answer in your hand, its gone. Then sure it may be outclassed by 6/7 drops, but if it swings for 8 and puts you at high 20s it did it's job and you can't trade hits with it, even with a 6/6.
Now that his arch-enemy Thragtusk is gone, does it feel like that he'll devour standard? There are not a tremendous amounts of answers for him.
The only things I can think of are:
Thank that's it. Now the only interactions that are favorable there are, mortars, satyr, renounce, flare, the hydra and rampage and stormbreath because of pro white. I didn't count devour flesh because the effect isn't narrow enough to hit BB regularly. Obviously G/R will shut this guy down.
So what can blue and/or black decks do against this guy?
Decks running WB have access to Whip of Erebos, which puts Obzedat way over the edge and leagues better than Blood Baron of Vizkopa.
Without Whip though, Blood Baron is much better than Obzedat.
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
Honestly, I think that blue/control will have the easiest time of it. Green/red can deal with him, but often losing a guy and giving the opponent 4+ life. That will be important for aggro/midrange trying to race or maintain board advantage. Control can just let him swing through a few times and will be fine as long as everything else is under control.
Since everyone and their brother is going to be running Heroe's Downfall, Doom Blade, Putrefy, and Dreadbore, I think he is certainly the guy for the job.
This guy is kind of a big deal. I think he is also almost $20 a pop on MODO.
There are certainly answers to it and creatures that trade favorably with it, but you have to consider that Blood Baron will be played in a deck with access to premium:
2. Removal - the best way to keep it from dying in combat.
Card is rock solid.
—Jaya Ballard, task mage
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/805-w-underground-sea-h-revised-lands
- Thoughtseize
- Polukranos, the World Eater
- Gaze of Granite
- Ratchet Bomb
CounterspellsJust to name a few more....
Also, 4/4 for five mana is bad stats. At that mana i want to play stuff that survive helix and mortar. K.Hydra had the same issue but at least it only have to survive one turn. The Baron can be chump blocked until your opponent get a answer which is a horrible trait.
Not saying this card is bad, but he was not a format staple in ISD-RTR and i believe he won't be in RTR-THE. His powerful but only when his resistances are highly relevant.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
So
Far // Away is strong enough to effect him, unlike the less likely Devour Flesh
Turn // Burn is in my book the best removal spell in the game.
I didn't realize Advent of the Wurm made a non-white token so it is a very good answer for him.
Polukranos, World Eater doesn't really handle him but keeps him in check until you can handle him.
Thoughtseize and Lifebane Zombie are excellent consistent ways to stop him.
Ratchet Bomb isn't really the kind of answer you want. 5 ticks to kill him?
I know from experience that he gives U/W control problems as the only answer for him is Supreme Verdict or a timely counterspell.
He has no problem surviving helix because the helix can't target him in the first place. As far as him being chump blocked until they find an answer some decks can't afford to let their opponents gain 4 life a turn, and there aren't that many clean answers to him to begin with.
helix doesn't hit him.
The things I've run into the most with Blood Baron are devour flesh and Mizzium Mortars, with lifebane zombie up there as well. I've never really had a problem with Thragtusk since Blood Baron turns our removal into pseudo 1for1 against him, since the baron is bigger than the token. Personally, I don't care if he's chump blocked if I'm gaining life (though saccing before damage is annoying). My topdecks are always going to be better then theirs, on average, since my deck is built for the long game, though it can win quickly if it starts slamming dragons.
"How to evaluate a cards:
i. Read it carefully and understand it."
Also, I believe blood baron is underrated.
Green has too many bigger things that eat him alive in combat. I dunno about any weird Blue aggro decks but he's too slow a clock for control to really worry about. (If they can't just kill him with Turn // Burn, Far // Away, Supreme Verdict, trump him in combat with Aetherling who itself is even more resistant to removal.) His butt is otherwise a bit tough for Red to deal with, unfortunately their best removal spell in this Standard burns for 4.
Obzedat is fairly similar and overall superior. Baron is also straight-up not as stupid as Desecration Demon, Boros Reckoner, or in my experience so far Kalonian Hydra. Stormbreath Deagon is going to be a thing too. Baron's just the guy you use when you need pro-White/Black.
And Counters.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
FYI, although I am not choosing to run Gaze, there are quite a few people in the Rock thread advocating it as a 3 or 4 of... It isn't optimal, but you didn't specify that in the post I responded to... I do appreciate the clarification.
As far as Polukranos goes, it definitely handles BB. It is a 5/5 whereas BB is a 4/4... Last I checked, a bigger creature generally kills the smaller creature. Of course, you'll say you meant that keeping BB in check just means preventing him from being active in combat scenarios which does effectively handle him... Unless you're hooked on that Common Core fuzzy math where 3x4 can equal 11 so long as your explanation is reasonable...
Also flying. So he doesn't stop desecration demon or archangel of thune.
It's better to post a list of what can't seeing as not many other Huge creatures have hexproof or protection in the format, especially not 2. For the record I feel stormbreath dragon will be hugely popular as well.
Black will play it with Lifebane/Sin collector and Duress so if you have 1 answer in your hand, its gone. Then sure it may be outclassed by 6/7 drops, but if it swings for 8 and puts you at high 20s it did it's job and you can't trade hits with it, even with a 6/6.