There is such a thing as flat-out trading cards for damage, card advantage be damned.
If you drop Madcap skills on a cackler, you get in 5 damage T2. Does it matter if you get 2-for-1'd? Not if you can do another 15 damage.
Not saying this list is good, just aggro is about going all-in and ending the game before it starts. It's easy to see how auras can be a (risky) part of that plan.
Thanks for the report, and yeah, I would have been much happier with the Domri. I doubt we'll see Seer played, never.
ahhhh the sweet sting of trade remorse. Does anyone remember how bad it sucked to make a bad trade as a little kid? Anyways, nice report, maybe seer will go through the roof soon
You the man dude, just the person I was hoping would respond before FNM!
I am totally going to swap out KoI. He just hasn't been very good the past month since my LGS turned into an aggro factory. Been trying to find a good replacement and that card is totally it.
If I can get the Shrines before FNM, I will. If not, I'm going to make the best of my current mana base and report back on what I think would work better/best.
Heading out now!
Dpaine, love your posts because I'm always doing similar stuff (jamming hellriders in the Dos Rakis list etc.). I'm going to be doing the same thing with Reckoners soon; 4 Aristocrats, No Thundermaw, and some mix of Reckoners and Hellriders. I see Z already posted about the godless shrine trick.
Look forward to hearing how your FNM goes, I will be running a similar list in a week when I get home from Mexico. GL!
EDIT:
And yeah, re: Reckoner... I was pretty okay with playing Hellhole Flailer in my Dos Rakis list, so I will switch that out for hellrider in the 3-drop spot. The reckoner's damage ability is almost like the Flailer's fling ability, but it's free, and the added bonuses of blocking and optional first strike seem pretty wild. Stoked to see how it goes!
Random: It annoys me to find out one pack of 50 Ultra-Pro sleeves I bought is different by 1mm in length than the other pack I bought.
THE FURY. This happened to me as well and it has haunted me for months! They're the same #$%^ing color and it's nearly impossible to tell them apart. Every time I think I've quarantined the last of the short ones, I find one mixed in with the other sleeves, usually when I am about to play FNM and it looks like I have marked cards in my deck! Gahhhhh.
I feel like Mono-red is very powerful, Dos Rakis has access to really useful tools (dreadbore, duress, KoI, Slaughter games) that might be really important in dealing with whatever rears its head in the new meta.
Gruul sligh might be bonkers as well; rancor/bloodrush on top of current red tech should be pretty interesting. Gruul sligh will be the next deck I build for sure.
EDIT: Interesting post btw, I'm sure it will be fun to compare predictions with how things actually shake out: "look at us poor naive fools - nobody saw mono-blue aggro coming!"
I'm being dense, tonight, Z...what do you mean? My current base is 4 Crypt, 4 Summit, 2 gates and mountains, +/- CoS, so all lands already cast Reckoner less Caverns set to something else. I run CoS for dealing with control, not mana smoothing, and I am definitely going to have to reconsider it with such a diverse creature base.
Again, what am I missing other than the issue of running gates which would slow things down in an opener? Two more black sources, yes, but that means adding in 4 sources that get in the way of Zealot. Or do you mean relative to running straight swamps rather than gates?
I think they just mean that the white mana from Godless Shrine can be used to cast reckoner.
Sidenote: I also picked up 1 Falkenrath Aristocrat. He has 3 more that I can trade for and that will be a huge improvement for my Dos Rakis deck. Aristocrat has been difficult to find locally, so I'm glad to find a possible trade outlet for it.
Yeah, FA was the first card I bought online because they were impossible to find in my area. Got three for 7.99 each though, booya! You will have a blast with them, just play your heart out until they rotate this september
~
EDIT
ps. To whom it may concern; Posting here to apply for membership in the clan... been mostly lurking since Zem's original RDW thread, posting occasionally to discuss bad cards I like. Absolutely love the forum community here, learned so much and improved a lot as a player. Been playing Dos Rakis in standard since Sept, but going to be building some Boros and Gruul lists soon with goodies I picked up at the prereleases this weekend.
I wasn't really sure how to react. I typed, then I get ignored pfft.
That guy made my day - like that bit in Gatsby about how being asked for directions makes you feel like a local? I think everyone replied with quite a bit of tact and restraint
I'm currently playing mono red but I've acquired the 8 RB Duals and 3 Falkenrath Aristocrats. I'm seriously considering replacing 8 Mountains for the duals and 3 Hounds of Griselbrand for the Aristocrats. I'm not running Thundermaw because I don't really want my mana costs to go past 4.
My question is: Is it silly to run just the three Aristocrats? I don't want to run any guildgates and with 8 black sources I'm concerned that there will be games where the Aristocrats are dead draws.
I think running 4 aristocrats is the #1 reason to go Dos Rakis.
Splashing black has a lot of negative effects in a Red list; you have to run more land, you can get mana screwed, stonewright has way less juice to fuel him, and it's harder to hit RR sometimes for Ash Zealot or Hellrider.
So why run black? For 4 Aristocrats. She is like a freight train from hell that wins so, so, so many games on her own. The combination of evasion and resistance to removal is incredible, and she turns all your bad late-game topdecks into indestructibility-granting snacks.
Photodyer... I laughed out loud at several points in that post... there are some truly cruel ideas there
Combo decks always seem to walk the knife's edge between totally unwieldy and totally unfair.
One thing to keep in mind as well is; does this deck still have a path to victory if someone pops a Slaughter Games to remove BA or Reckoner? Since the skeleton is based on tried-and-true red cards, the scary answer could be yes.
Good luck with your brewing! I might try to build a similar list for FNM, if I do I will let you know how it goes.
Innirestin'
GRUULS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN
You're welcome everyone!
***Edit with a link in case your life has been a barren wasteland without Cyndi Lauper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A&list=AL94UKMTqg-9CBC6qa5gomJaE7xw9Ve5y9
There is such a thing as flat-out trading cards for damage, card advantage be damned.
If you drop Madcap skills on a cackler, you get in 5 damage T2. Does it matter if you get 2-for-1'd? Not if you can do another 15 damage.
Not saying this list is good, just aggro is about going all-in and ending the game before it starts. It's easy to see how auras can be a (risky) part of that plan.
ahhhh the sweet sting of trade remorse. Does anyone remember how bad it sucked to make a bad trade as a little kid? Anyways, nice report, maybe seer will go through the roof soon
1. What mode do you usually use boros charm in? Indestructible, or double strike + lifelink dudes for crazy life swings?
2. If I'm playing against this deck, I will be nuking nearhearth and medic very proactively. Does it still run okay without those pieces?
3. What would you think about just having nearhearth (and/or medic) as just anti-aggro sideboard tech for boros lists?
Dpaine, love your posts because I'm always doing similar stuff (jamming hellriders in the Dos Rakis list etc.). I'm going to be doing the same thing with Reckoners soon; 4 Aristocrats, No Thundermaw, and some mix of Reckoners and Hellriders. I see Z already posted about the godless shrine trick.
Look forward to hearing how your FNM goes, I will be running a similar list in a week when I get home from Mexico. GL!
EDIT:
And yeah, re: Reckoner... I was pretty okay with playing Hellhole Flailer in my Dos Rakis list, so I will switch that out for hellrider in the 3-drop spot. The reckoner's damage ability is almost like the Flailer's fling ability, but it's free, and the added bonuses of blocking and optional first strike seem pretty wild. Stoked to see how it goes!
THE FURY. This happened to me as well and it has haunted me for months! They're the same #$%^ing color and it's nearly impossible to tell them apart. Every time I think I've quarantined the last of the short ones, I find one mixed in with the other sleeves, usually when I am about to play FNM and it looks like I have marked cards in my deck! Gahhhhh.
Gruul sligh might be bonkers as well; rancor/bloodrush on top of current red tech should be pretty interesting. Gruul sligh will be the next deck I build for sure.
EDIT: Interesting post btw, I'm sure it will be fun to compare predictions with how things actually shake out: "look at us poor naive fools - nobody saw mono-blue aggro coming!"
I think they just mean that the white mana from Godless Shrine can be used to cast reckoner.
Yeah, FA was the first card I bought online because they were impossible to find in my area. Got three for 7.99 each though, booya! You will have a blast with them, just play your heart out until they rotate this september
~
EDIT
ps. To whom it may concern; Posting here to apply for membership in the clan... been mostly lurking since Zem's original RDW thread, posting occasionally to discuss bad cards I like. Absolutely love the forum community here, learned so much and improved a lot as a player. Been playing Dos Rakis in standard since Sept, but going to be building some Boros and Gruul lists soon with goodies I picked up at the prereleases this weekend.
That guy made my day - like that bit in Gatsby about how being asked for directions makes you feel like a local? I think everyone replied with quite a bit of tact and restraint
I think running 4 aristocrats is the #1 reason to go Dos Rakis.
Splashing black has a lot of negative effects in a Red list; you have to run more land, you can get mana screwed, stonewright has way less juice to fuel him, and it's harder to hit RR sometimes for Ash Zealot or Hellrider.
So why run black? For 4 Aristocrats. She is like a freight train from hell that wins so, so, so many games on her own. The combination of evasion and resistance to removal is incredible, and she turns all your bad late-game topdecks into indestructibility-granting snacks.
Combo decks always seem to walk the knife's edge between totally unwieldy and totally unfair.
One thing to keep in mind as well is; does this deck still have a path to victory if someone pops a Slaughter Games to remove BA or Reckoner? Since the skeleton is based on tried-and-true red cards, the scary answer could be yes.
Good luck with your brewing! I might try to build a similar list for FNM, if I do I will let you know how it goes.