I've been playing this list for a bit, and honestly I don't really know what to think of it. I feel like it takes a little too long to get the engine running. Delver goyf and pyromancer probably isn't the best shell. Switching from Delver/Goyf beats to loam engines feels a bit clunky. Maybe it's pilot error but I can never quite figure out if I should be setting up loam assaults or playing goyfs and pyromancers when I have those and lootings/serums/cantrips with an assault in hand on turn 2/3.
Basically I altered SirStompAlot's list from the primer with -4 gitaxian, -1 flame jab -1 life from the loam -2 electrolyze, +4 thought scour, +3 izzet charm +1 faithless looting. Also altered the land base a bit.
I would try Remand in the Spreading Seas slot, you're right that it's hardly fetchable. Also, usually I'm not that upset when I draw a Geist/Zur with one on the board, because that means they survived being on the board for a turn and that is almost always a winning position.
As for Thassa, the scry is great, but would you want to run it over Phyrexian Arena? Draw a card is way better than scry, and it's much better as a tutor (perhaps against a really grindy deck where you know you'll need a few turns to win still). I don't think we can even consider Thassa turning into a creature so it's really just about the unblockable (which steel can do better) that's abrupt-proof and the scry (which Arena can do better).
The difference is solely that with snap+cliques thassa is actually moderately capable of coming online, especially in any matchup that threads of disloyalty comes out of the board, and secondly i'd rather be "stuck" with a thassa in my opening hand than a phyrexian arena.
Like I said, I wouldn't play her in the hand-disruption heavy builds that rely on thoughtseize/inquisition/tidehollow/meddling mage, and would be much more inclined to play her in the snapcaster/clique/remand packages.
As for fetching her over steel, it's only an option against jund/junk. That is the only situation i'd do it, especially if i'm not capable of thoughtseizing in the last turn to look if there is an abrupt decay sitting about. With meddling mage and hand disruption heavy builds there is just no reason to fetch her because you've stripped or named cards like abrupt decay already, but the snapcaster/clique/remand builds don't run 7-8x thoughtseize effects with meddling mage.
The disruption/utility package of clique/snap/remand vs meddling/thoughtseize/inquisition is something i'll have to test out more. At the very least I think thassa deserves 1 sideboard slot in the clique build. I'm playing thassa main because simply that it is cute and fun. It's a fun interaction, not particularly a powerful one. I play to have a bit of fun and fetching up a thassa puts a grin on the face.
And heres my list for posterity. No sideboard fleshed out quite yet.
To clarify:
Tutoring out a Bestow creature with Zur sticks it onto the field, as a creature. Bestow creatures become Auras only when cast for their Bestow cost.
Thassa is an interesting idea that has been thrown around, but the primary issue is that Zur himself doesn't come down until turn 4 and doesn't swing until turn 5, so chances are you'll be frantically searching for Detention Sphere to deal with your opponent's field. If you swing with Zur and have the spare turn to tutor Thassa, you're already winning hard. Also, turning her into a creature is a bad idea because she's likely to just get pathed.
A good reason to play thassa, other than the fact that scrying every turn is very powerful, is that its making your geist/meddler/whatever unblockable while also being immune to abrupt decay. While steel of the godhead is a better fetch, thassa plays around jund and junk abrupt decays nabbing your steel and then blocking down geist. Either way, Im trying her as a 1-of with 2 steels and 1 dsphere. I have a feeling she's getting sided out the vast majority of the time but the interaction is cute and intriguing. I'd be less inclined to run her in a 7x thoughtseize/kozilek + meddling mage build, and more inclined in the clique/snap/remand builds.
How about we ban pillar of flame? Pillar of flame is as good as thragtusk in the abstract.
Also, I don't like the new jace because my deck has trouble against him. I think the new jace should be banned.
Also, I think Black Lotus should be banned from vintage. Just because.
(also I run 4x silverheart at my 5 drop instead of thragtusk, so your hyperbole is factually inaccurate)
I don't splash red for pillar of flame in all of my decks, nor does splashing red for pillar of flame make all of my decks better.
Green decks play thrag, yes. Red decks play pillar, yes. Decks that normally wouldn't play red do not now play red for pillar, but decks that normally wouldn't play green definitely DO play green just for thrag. That is the issue.
And how many decks dont' have one or more of the following cards mained?
-Thragtusk
Not very many, and that is the point. The point is not the overall power level of the card. I personally don't actually see issue with the power level of thragtusk. The issue I see is it's playability in _every single deck of the format_
If your curve goes to 5, you have to play green to play thragtusk. Not playing thragtusk makes your deck weaker. It doesn't matter what your deck is, if it can support a 5cmc creature, you play thragtusk. Period.
That pretty much sums it up. And if Delver didn't get banned last standard, or at least some of the cards in that deck, I doubt Thragtusk is going to get banned not when it appears in so many DIFFERENT decks.
It is still a diverse meta and that's what people want.
If it degenerates into two decks (one tusk and one anti-tusk) THEN maybe we'll see something done, especially if attendance falls.
I just don't see that happening, especially not now when they even put him in an event deck. That would be really bad business.
Delver wasn't the card to ban last standard, delver was in one deck.
Ponder now, that was the most likely card to ban in standard because every deck that ran blue ran 4 ponders except for a few variants of grixis and esper control. However, the thing about Ponder is that nobody was saying "hey man, just throw some blue duallies in your deck and run 4 ponders!" no matter what their deck was trying to accomplish.
The odd thing about delver that I find most people don't quite grasp is that its win percentages against non delver decks weren't even better than 50-55%, and it didn't even impact the format that much with what decks were being played. I will readily admit that delver was capable, especially post sideboard, to have a slightly favorable match up against nearly every deck. But the thing is, if you're looking to ban a card in delver decks its ponder, not delver. Caw-blade HAD to have JTMS and Stoneforge banned because those cards put caw-blade to something like a 70% win percentage against non caw-blade decks. THAT IS ABSURD. Delver never reached anywhere close to those levels.
And yes, you don't get that the format AT THIS MOMENT is thragtusk vs anti-thragtusk. It's midrange and control strategies that play thragtusk vs aggro decks that don't. Maybe 2 weeks from now that won't be the case but if it lasts like this for the next month, the card has to be banned.
So from what I seen, these are all the decks that are in the format. This is after watching todays SCG Coverage and my FNM group.
Decks that run 4x Thrags mainboard.
GW(x) Ramp
Junk/4C Reanimator
Jund Midrange
Jund Control
Bant Midrange
Bant Control
RUG Midrange
RUG Control
Both 4C Control decks (Grixis+Green and UWR+Green)
Decks that don't play 4 Thrags main.
UWR Control (shown above, theres a common variant thats UWRg just for thragtusk...)
UWR "Tempo" (aka midrange)
Grixis Control (Once again, theres another very common variant that includes green just for thragtusk)
GW Super low curve aggro (might still play 1-2 thrags)
UW Aggro aka "Haunted Humans" aka Tempo
GB Zombies
BR Aggro/Zombies
I think for one card, that split is horrendous. Snapcaster was never format warping like Thragtusk is right now. Snapcaster found a home as a 4-of in delver decks only. While you say delver was the most played deck in the format, it is not saying the same thing that every deck has to play blue or splash blue to play snapcaster. That is completely different. Control decks in last standard very rarely played 4 of snapcaster. At most I saw 3, generally i'd see 2 and thats mostly for the grixis decks so they could flashback whipflares or BSZ that gets countered/looted away with forbidden alchemy.
Thragtusk is a menace to standard right now. But that is just my opinion. I think the fact that it's 4G to cast makes it way too enticing to warp every single deck in the format to splash green ONLY for thragtusk. For me thats why it is more ban-worthy than snapcaster ever was. Basically if you're a midrange strategy, you're playing thrags as a 4-of. Essentially, my thoughts are if Thragtusk had the same casting cost as Vorapede (2GGG), it's nowhere near ban-worthy. 4G casting cost is just easily the largest, incredibly glaring design snafu of the card.
The format basically is Thragtusk vs Aggro (UW, GW, BG, or BR varieties). But the scary thing is... aggro is good enough that without thragtusk, it'll be the only deck to play in the format. Maybe thats the reason why we probably won't see such a heavily played and abused card banned in standard.
I've played him enough, and quite simply, he's just a turn slow. You play him one turn, flip him next turn, then don't make a token until his third turn on the board.
All assuming your opponent doesn't miss his turn 2/3 play (depending if he's on the play or on the draw). So the only way Mayor is good is if your opponent slips a turn, which is something I never really want to bank on...
Not to mention, delver decks (lets face it, it's the deck of the format) will gutshot it or just thought scour EOT after you pass your turn to prevent flipping. It's just... a terrible card because it's so slow.
What an incredibly clever and crafty deck build and sideboard strategy out of Calcano. I will almost guarantee that a vast majority of players could sleeve this deck up tomorrow and get completely crushed with it. Certainly demands a ton of play testing to create an innate knowledge of the deck and its match ups against other decks, because most of his answers arn't exactly as intuitive as "oh, my opponent plays equips, i'm just going to side in 4x grudge and crush g2"
Nothing like playing against delvers g1 and then playing against titans g2. Calcano most certainly deserves this victory.
I whipped this deck list up in about 30 minutes on Friday, played a ton of games at FNM and casually today (Saturday). If you're a veteran of UGx lists ignore all my stupid banter i'm copy and pasting this from another write up I did elsewhere but ended up not posting.
Sideboard is totally a WIP and I cannot even begin to give you a list of 15 cards that mean anything.
Okay, Mayor is not really the staple card of this deck, that's still delver, but he's a huge asset in how this deck is played. Obviously, the optimum play for this deck is T1 Delver, T2 Mayor swing for 4, then use tempo and instants on your opponents turn to play a draw/go style to flip werewolves. As you can see, every single card in this deck is "Human" when played, so it is a tribal deck in the sense of the excellent mana-fix Cavern of Souls provides for Huntmaster. This means Mayor buffs your delvers (and insectile abberations), he buffs your Snapcasters, and he buffs Huntmaster (which is not irrelevant to get Huntmaster out of galvanic range and instead make your opponent target the Mayor.)
Huntmaster is an awesome addition to the deck, he pingpongs constantly from his two sides and is a werewolf that you actively want to keep flipping. Mayor is another werewolf that you really don't mind which side he is on because he is either buffing your delver, or he's making massive wolves and buffing wolves that the lumberjack is making. With 6 red "Sources" I always find the ability to cast Huntmaster in my games
This deck is highly lacking in any sort of removal suite and is something I may try to fix. I've been highly underwhelmed with Think Twice so far so I may cut it. Mutagenic Growth here is acting as protection for delvers and mayors atm from tragic slip (which is freaking everywhere atm) and gutshot (which is seeing a lot less play in my meta). Snags and Leaks are your common blue-mage spells that keep tempo in your favor. Leaks are still relevant in my meta because nobody can afford caverns atm, but that will change, and I will either side them out every matchup I can or just not run them mainboard at all.
The interesting card that i'm playtesting currently over anything else is Moonmist. It's a lot of interesting things all tied up into one. First off, it flips your delvers (unfortunately, it also flips Insectile Abberations...). As a combat trick, it does everything you'd expect it to (and even more, because honestly, it's a card that has never seen play in standard so nobody really expects it, it does work right now). It pingpongs Huntmaster effectively and lets you keep creating wolves, gaining life, and shooting creatures.
This deck, I don't think is even honestly "Developing Competitive" level, but it is a whole ton of fun. You'll be amazed at how many wolves you can make, and QUICKLY with a Mayor and Huntmaster doing work. Delver still does his thing (and even better now with Mayor backing him up). Any falter in your opponents play can mean some devastating results because a flipped Mayor and a flipped Delver on the board is a nasty board state to be against. Most often in my games where I end up with t1 delver t2 mayor I always pass t3 for the flip and hold snag/leaks for that turn with (hopefully) a think twice EOT if my opponent does nothing worthwhile.
I play type 2 standard, I have a mage blade deck, but the advantage I get from him doesn't seem to be living up to his hype. I have 2 main decked
I also have 3 other type 2 decks and am working on revising a few of them and making 4 others
I'm trying to see where I can make cut backs, snapcaster holds value and would make it easier to get some things quickly, and I never feel like I get that much advantage with him compared to what other people say, and on top of that, I rarely even see a deck anymore that runs snapcaster, because everyone else switched to humans, tokens, and wolf run/ solar flare
....Yeah, I can't even compare my UR Tempo deck with a 2-off snappy to my UR Tempo when I got my third and fourth snappies. UR tempo wouldn't even be marginally competitive without SCM. I also very highly doubt UW Tempo would be competitive without SCM.
Geist of Saint Traft obvious inclusion... gets him out of whipflare range which seems to be a card thats gaining in popularity. Unfortunately he shares the 3drop with Drogskul Captain. Only need to run 2 here.
Doomed Travelers best 1 drop in the deck at this moment I think. If you go tempo over aggro then run the delvers. The fact they arn't spirits doesn't really matter... the card is just too good in a deck that runs 20+ instants/sorcs.
No. Domri's +1 "seems good" with Courser.
Jace's +1 is just somewhere slightly better than completely miserable with courser.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Young Pyromancer
Instant/Sorcery (25)
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Faithless Looting
3 Flame Jab
3 Life from the Loam
3 Izzet Charm
3 Seismic Assault
Land (20)
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
2 Breeding Pool
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Raging Ravine
1 Island
1 Mountain
Basically I altered SirStompAlot's list from the primer with -4 gitaxian, -1 flame jab -1 life from the loam -2 electrolyze, +4 thought scour, +3 izzet charm +1 faithless looting. Also altered the land base a bit.
The difference is solely that with snap+cliques thassa is actually moderately capable of coming online, especially in any matchup that threads of disloyalty comes out of the board, and secondly i'd rather be "stuck" with a thassa in my opening hand than a phyrexian arena.
Like I said, I wouldn't play her in the hand-disruption heavy builds that rely on thoughtseize/inquisition/tidehollow/meddling mage, and would be much more inclined to play her in the snapcaster/clique/remand packages.
As for fetching her over steel, it's only an option against jund/junk. That is the only situation i'd do it, especially if i'm not capable of thoughtseizing in the last turn to look if there is an abrupt decay sitting about. With meddling mage and hand disruption heavy builds there is just no reason to fetch her because you've stripped or named cards like abrupt decay already, but the snapcaster/clique/remand builds don't run 7-8x thoughtseize effects with meddling mage.
The disruption/utility package of clique/snap/remand vs meddling/thoughtseize/inquisition is something i'll have to test out more. At the very least I think thassa deserves 1 sideboard slot in the clique build. I'm playing thassa main because simply that it is cute and fun. It's a fun interaction, not particularly a powerful one. I play to have a bit of fun and fetching up a thassa puts a grin on the face.
And heres my list for posterity. No sideboard fleshed out quite yet.
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Zur the Enchanter
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
Instants/Sorceries (18)
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
2 Disfigure
1 Dismember
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Detention Sphere
2 Steel of the Godhead
Land (23)
4 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Watery Grave
2 River of Tears
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
A good reason to play thassa, other than the fact that scrying every turn is very powerful, is that its making your geist/meddler/whatever unblockable while also being immune to abrupt decay. While steel of the godhead is a better fetch, thassa plays around jund and junk abrupt decays nabbing your steel and then blocking down geist. Either way, Im trying her as a 1-of with 2 steels and 1 dsphere. I have a feeling she's getting sided out the vast majority of the time but the interaction is cute and intriguing. I'd be less inclined to run her in a 7x thoughtseize/kozilek + meddling mage build, and more inclined in the clique/snap/remand builds.
I don't splash red for pillar of flame in all of my decks, nor does splashing red for pillar of flame make all of my decks better.
Green decks play thrag, yes. Red decks play pillar, yes. Decks that normally wouldn't play red do not now play red for pillar, but decks that normally wouldn't play green definitely DO play green just for thrag. That is the issue.
Not very many, and that is the point. The point is not the overall power level of the card. I personally don't actually see issue with the power level of thragtusk. The issue I see is it's playability in _every single deck of the format_
If your curve goes to 5, you have to play green to play thragtusk. Not playing thragtusk makes your deck weaker. It doesn't matter what your deck is, if it can support a 5cmc creature, you play thragtusk. Period.
Delver wasn't the card to ban last standard, delver was in one deck.
Ponder now, that was the most likely card to ban in standard because every deck that ran blue ran 4 ponders except for a few variants of grixis and esper control. However, the thing about Ponder is that nobody was saying "hey man, just throw some blue duallies in your deck and run 4 ponders!" no matter what their deck was trying to accomplish.
The odd thing about delver that I find most people don't quite grasp is that its win percentages against non delver decks weren't even better than 50-55%, and it didn't even impact the format that much with what decks were being played. I will readily admit that delver was capable, especially post sideboard, to have a slightly favorable match up against nearly every deck. But the thing is, if you're looking to ban a card in delver decks its ponder, not delver. Caw-blade HAD to have JTMS and Stoneforge banned because those cards put caw-blade to something like a 70% win percentage against non caw-blade decks. THAT IS ABSURD. Delver never reached anywhere close to those levels.
And yes, you don't get that the format AT THIS MOMENT is thragtusk vs anti-thragtusk. It's midrange and control strategies that play thragtusk vs aggro decks that don't. Maybe 2 weeks from now that won't be the case but if it lasts like this for the next month, the card has to be banned.
Decks that run 4x Thrags mainboard.
GW(x) Ramp
Junk/4C Reanimator
Jund Midrange
Jund Control
Bant Midrange
Bant Control
RUG Midrange
RUG Control
Both 4C Control decks (Grixis+Green and UWR+Green)
Decks that don't play 4 Thrags main.
UWR Control (shown above, theres a common variant thats UWRg just for thragtusk...)
UWR "Tempo" (aka midrange)
Grixis Control (Once again, theres another very common variant that includes green just for thragtusk)
GW Super low curve aggro (might still play 1-2 thrags)
UW Aggro aka "Haunted Humans" aka Tempo
GB Zombies
BR Aggro/Zombies
I think for one card, that split is horrendous. Snapcaster was never format warping like Thragtusk is right now. Snapcaster found a home as a 4-of in delver decks only. While you say delver was the most played deck in the format, it is not saying the same thing that every deck has to play blue or splash blue to play snapcaster. That is completely different. Control decks in last standard very rarely played 4 of snapcaster. At most I saw 3, generally i'd see 2 and thats mostly for the grixis decks so they could flashback whipflares or BSZ that gets countered/looted away with forbidden alchemy.
Thragtusk is a menace to standard right now. But that is just my opinion. I think the fact that it's 4G to cast makes it way too enticing to warp every single deck in the format to splash green ONLY for thragtusk. For me thats why it is more ban-worthy than snapcaster ever was. Basically if you're a midrange strategy, you're playing thrags as a 4-of. Essentially, my thoughts are if Thragtusk had the same casting cost as Vorapede (2GGG), it's nowhere near ban-worthy. 4G casting cost is just easily the largest, incredibly glaring design snafu of the card.
The format basically is Thragtusk vs Aggro (UW, GW, BG, or BR varieties). But the scary thing is... aggro is good enough that without thragtusk, it'll be the only deck to play in the format. Maybe thats the reason why we probably won't see such a heavily played and abused card banned in standard.
All assuming your opponent doesn't miss his turn 2/3 play (depending if he's on the play or on the draw). So the only way Mayor is good is if your opponent slips a turn, which is something I never really want to bank on...
Not to mention, delver decks (lets face it, it's the deck of the format) will gutshot it or just thought scour EOT after you pass your turn to prevent flipping. It's just... a terrible card because it's so slow.
Nothing like playing against delvers g1 and then playing against titans g2. Calcano most certainly deserves this victory.
First off, the deck list.
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Huntmaster of the Fells
Instants and Sorceries
4x Vapor Snag
4x Mana Leak
4x Ponder
4x Think Twice
3x Moonmist
3x Mutagenic Growth
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Hinterland Harbor
2x Rootbound Crag
5x Forest
7x Island
Sideboard is totally a WIP and I cannot even begin to give you a list of 15 cards that mean anything.
Okay, Mayor is not really the staple card of this deck, that's still delver, but he's a huge asset in how this deck is played. Obviously, the optimum play for this deck is T1 Delver, T2 Mayor swing for 4, then use tempo and instants on your opponents turn to play a draw/go style to flip werewolves. As you can see, every single card in this deck is "Human" when played, so it is a tribal deck in the sense of the excellent mana-fix Cavern of Souls provides for Huntmaster. This means Mayor buffs your delvers (and insectile abberations), he buffs your Snapcasters, and he buffs Huntmaster (which is not irrelevant to get Huntmaster out of galvanic range and instead make your opponent target the Mayor.)
Huntmaster is an awesome addition to the deck, he pingpongs constantly from his two sides and is a werewolf that you actively want to keep flipping. Mayor is another werewolf that you really don't mind which side he is on because he is either buffing your delver, or he's making massive wolves and buffing wolves that the lumberjack is making. With 6 red "Sources" I always find the ability to cast Huntmaster in my games
This deck is highly lacking in any sort of removal suite and is something I may try to fix. I've been highly underwhelmed with Think Twice so far so I may cut it. Mutagenic Growth here is acting as protection for delvers and mayors atm from tragic slip (which is freaking everywhere atm) and gutshot (which is seeing a lot less play in my meta). Snags and Leaks are your common blue-mage spells that keep tempo in your favor. Leaks are still relevant in my meta because nobody can afford caverns atm, but that will change, and I will either side them out every matchup I can or just not run them mainboard at all.
The interesting card that i'm playtesting currently over anything else is Moonmist. It's a lot of interesting things all tied up into one. First off, it flips your delvers (unfortunately, it also flips Insectile Abberations...). As a combat trick, it does everything you'd expect it to (and even more, because honestly, it's a card that has never seen play in standard so nobody really expects it, it does work right now). It pingpongs Huntmaster effectively and lets you keep creating wolves, gaining life, and shooting creatures.
This deck, I don't think is even honestly "Developing Competitive" level, but it is a whole ton of fun. You'll be amazed at how many wolves you can make, and QUICKLY with a Mayor and Huntmaster doing work. Delver still does his thing (and even better now with Mayor backing him up). Any falter in your opponents play can mean some devastating results because a flipped Mayor and a flipped Delver on the board is a nasty board state to be against. Most often in my games where I end up with t1 delver t2 mayor I always pass t3 for the flip and hold snag/leaks for that turn with (hopefully) a think twice EOT if my opponent does nothing worthwhile.
....Yeah, I can't even compare my UR Tempo deck with a 2-off snappy to my UR Tempo when I got my third and fourth snappies. UR tempo wouldn't even be marginally competitive without SCM. I also very highly doubt UW Tempo would be competitive without SCM.
Doomed Travelers best 1 drop in the deck at this moment I think. If you go tempo over aggro then run the delvers. The fact they arn't spirits doesn't really matter... the card is just too good in a deck that runs 20+ instants/sorcs.