If you are really not going to be getting cards or playing it the way you want it to be for over two months, it's good that you communicated that. Much advice will be obsolete by that point.
Both Sigarda and Avacyn's Pilgrim are rotating out, so you won't be able to play either in standard post-Theros.
Obvious advice if you want to do hexproof (subject to your budget): +Temple Garden, +Witchstalker.
Curving is a little tricky, so I was thinking of adding some Avacyn's Pilgrim but thats 4 more creatures I need to find room for.
I would say that you should present the deck that you will have after the changes you know you will make. Reacting to cards that you are already planning on removing wastes everybody's time.
I agree that mana dorks will help: post rotation that means Elvish Mystic, Manaweft Sliver or whatever dork comes with Theros. It seems like you don't need the fixing for now, so plan on 3-4 Elvish Mystics for now.
This! Successful hexproof decks have mostly 1 plan: hexproof creature, enchant, kill. With basically all their cards devoted to that plan, they still mulligan a lot because they don't have a good combination of "suitable" creatures, auras and land.
I count at least 5 plans in your deck:
That seems like too many. You will too often have the wrong combinations of things or your opponent will end up answering the plan you have the most support for. I would focus on a maximum of two plans and get the best cards to support them. You could try putting a third plan in the sideboard (I favor removal, as not all opponents will have creatures targetable and worth targetting).
Buying another Rush of the Wilds is not terrible value if you can afford it: Stomping Grounds, 2xBTE, Mizzium Mortars, Battledriver, Rampager practically pay for the set. If you can trade or sell the excess Rampagers and now Battledriver, you'd be close to where you want to be. It would get you the BTEs and Cacklers too.
Playing Battledriver, then next turn bloodrushing a Beastmaster seems really fun.
I think your question comes back to Midrange/Battledrivers or Aggro. If you pull the Mystics, you are going aggro. The Battledrivers will be late and you won't have much to follow them with, since you will have played out your hand already.
Basically, without the Mystics, I think the Wild Beastmaster, Battledriver, Wrecking Ogre, Rubblebelt Raiders, Goliath all get worse.
If you are going agro, I would keep the tuskers and get rid of some of the high end.
If you are still undecided, I would keep some of the Mystics and get rid of some high end and maybe a Slaughterhorn or two. Then play it and see how you like the Experiment hands vs. the Mystic hands.
I'd like to help, but I don't really understand what you're trying to do.
You've got 2 Trafts, but I don't see a reliable way for him to punch through.
There's the Seances, but you don't describe them as central.
If you want to do the token/populate thing, then more Advents, Trostani, Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage make sense.
As it stands, your ideal game plan would be:
T1 Pilgrim
T2 Geist
T3 Parallel Lives, swing w/Geist
but no, you have no leftover mana and Geist just dies to any blocker ... And only two Geists means this won't happen very often...
Troll hide might be more of a SB card in case you are facing lots of sweepers. Although I find it to be demoralizing when you see it in play on a hexproof creature. If it was 1cmc to regen it would be much better.
Certainly, or at least 2cmc to play. The sequences with Scout are different, but either way, 3 mana to cast then holding up two is a problem. If more of your enchantments were less than 3 it would be better.
Speaking of CMC, I wonder whether Deviant Glee is preferable to Dark Favor even if you never activate the trample ability.
Voice is incredibly powerful, and I think would be a great T2 drop, I just don't want to pay $40-50 for one :D. But if you got 'em, by all means.
No, I'm too cheap to get them even at $30. If I wanted to actually play the deck between now and rotation, I would definitely invest $1 in 4 Strangleroot Geists and $4 in a playset of Rancor plus $1 shipping.
I don't think the Theros manabase will support Underworld Connections, Witchstalker and Fiendslayer Paladin. I don't think it can be done now without CIPT and I am pretty sure Wizards wants to make the fixing worse.
Selesnya Charm has three modes that are all useful: creature to give to edict, combat trick, exile Sire or other fatty.
I understand the reluctance to run Voice, but a creature that can be edicted and leave you something is very strong for avoiding 2 for 1s. With Celestial Flare, you may need to attack with it also to get protection.
Of the cheap creatures in these colors that leave you something after being edicted, Loyal Cathar, Young Wolf, Butcher Ghoul are all rotating, don't have haste and don't attack as strongly as Strangleroot.
The Mystics should help get you on the attack by turn 3, which I see as vital, and which you couldn't do without a Scout before.
I am concerned about the cost of your enchantments. T1 Mystic, T2 Witchstalker leaves you 4 mana on turn 3 if you make all your land drops. If you have Ethereal Armor, you will be able to get 2 enchantments down. Without Ethereal Armor, you have a single enchantment (or two Dark Favor, but even if you had BB, 4 blocking power puts you 3 cards down). If you use Trollhide, you don't have the mana to regenerate.
You haven't listed your land either. A post-rotation land base that provides GG, WW or B on turn 3 just screams Guildgates. This is not a good deck to run Guildgates in. Getting BB for Underworld Connections out of the manabase seems even more special.
Honestly, unless I liked losing, I would either use all of standard or go to Selesnya (GW) colors.
One of hexproof's biggest problems is mulligans. You want to go to 4 color? It's been tried and found wanting. After rotation it might make sense to do Naya hexproof, but most people think hexproof will die. Madcap Skills is really attractive also if a Naya Geist replacement shows up.
If I ran Alpha Authority, I would always get multiples or none. Even if you combine Alpha Authority with Madcap Skills on a Fencing Ace, you still haven't buffed the back end of the creature and it dies to Golgari Charm, Mutilate and Electrickery. Madcap Skills Seems awesome, but between it and Rancor, I would not want another aura that didn't improve toughness. There are too many combinations where Alpha Authority doesn't seem helpful. I think I would rather run Gift of Orzhova, Call to Serve or even (wincing) Trollhide than Alpha Authority.
The changes you made to your deck also made it more vulnerable to this deck and others like it. The Selesnya Charms that you removed would have dealt with Sire of Insanity and the Tyrant of Discord. By replacing the charms with auras you made the deck more powerful and consistent, but there is no free lunch.
So game 2 you side in your negates and when your opponent is going to have 4 mana, don't put as many enchantments on and keep two mana unused. You kill them a little slower, but it doesn't seem like they are killing you in a hurry if you exile their Sires. More mana dorks will also give you a better chance of having the mana to kill them while leaving mana up to counter Aetherize.
After the first time you negate the Aetherize, you don't even have to have it. Just leave the mana up and they may think you have your negate.
That looks pretty fun. I want to break the Young Pyromancer and that looks like it does it.
The only card that I struggle with is Faithless, since there is nothing I would want to bin. I know you can get two tokens, but otherwise it seems like card disadvantage. I wonder about the consistency of being able to cast Advent with only 12 G sources, but Faithless can do fixing.
I love the idea of Ogre Battledriver into Assemble the Legion. I think that with 12 R sources, Battledriver may not be reliably castable, nor will you be able to expect to use Barrage more than 1x/turn. Now that you are not running Burning Earth, you can run more duals. A 3-color deck with double color requirements probably needs more duals.
I like it!
I have already been building it something similar up. Obviously not as powerful or evasive without the stalker or geist, but it could work sometimes, and it shouldn't need to mulligan as much with only two colors, nor will it be as vulnerable to Burning Earth.
+4 dorks - speed kills
+4 Sunpetal Grove - Rotation not for months
+4 Rancor - rotation not for months, affordable and incomparable
-4 abundant growth - durdling is suicide, don't need fixing, only synergizes w/ethereal
-1 sphere - durdling is suicide
Fiendhunter Paladin at least sideboard
Sigarda at least sideboard.
See what Theros has before planning the post-rotation deck.
Here's what I was thinking (including budget considerations, as Voice>Strangleroot)
There are some good things about the M14 Event Deck
1. Those cards would cost you more if you bought them (decent value) as singles.
2. They give you the basis for a Gruul deck with many cards that see constructed play currently.
3. All of those cards will be playable in standard for over a year.
4. I have used the packaging, spindown counters, etc., so they have slight value.
The deck may not be great as constituted, with 1s and 2s of good cards and larger numbers of mediocre cards, but can be improved while retaining many cards.
Overall the event deck for M14 seems good as long as you would want to play a green-red deck.
There have been changes to the constitution of the event decks. The rare count (value) was increased with the Dragon's Maze event deck.
Until the M14 deck, these decks were largely composed of cards that were soon to rotate out of standard.
Consider the Dragon's Maze deck (released this spring): 5 of the 8 maindeck creatures and 11 of the 18 maindeck spells will not be playable in standard come October. Many of those cards will lose significant value at that time. Unless you want to play tokens a lot between now and October, the Strength of Selesnya deck is not a good value (Godless Shrine and Advent of the Worm are most of the value) and the valuable cards won't work well with the good cards in the M14 event deck.
The Gatecrash and older event decks have even less value. For example, Wrack and Rage has some useful cards, but nowhere near $20 worth.
Tl;dr: a=yes, b=no except between now and October 2013
If you are really not going to be getting cards or playing it the way you want it to be for over two months, it's good that you communicated that. Much advice will be obsolete by that point.
Both Sigarda and Avacyn's Pilgrim are rotating out, so you won't be able to play either in standard post-Theros.
Obvious advice if you want to do hexproof (subject to your budget): +Temple Garden, +Witchstalker.
Good versatile answer: Selesnya Charm
Cards to remove: Suntail Hawk, Alpha Authority
I would say that you should present the deck that you will have after the changes you know you will make. Reacting to cards that you are already planning on removing wastes everybody's time.
I agree that mana dorks will help: post rotation that means Elvish Mystic, Manaweft Sliver or whatever dork comes with Theros. It seems like you don't need the fixing for now, so plan on 3-4 Elvish Mystics for now.
This! Successful hexproof decks have mostly 1 plan: hexproof creature, enchant, kill. With basically all their cards devoted to that plan, they still mulligan a lot because they don't have a good combination of "suitable" creatures, auras and land.
I count at least 5 plans in your deck:
- Hexproof creature w/ enchantments
- Angel tokens with Angelic Accord and lifegain
- Cat tokens w/Ajani's Chosen
- Removal w/Pacifism and Banisher Priest
- Card draw with Triumph of Ferocity
- Big surprise tokens w/Advent
That seems like too many. You will too often have the wrong combinations of things or your opponent will end up answering the plan you have the most support for. I would focus on a maximum of two plans and get the best cards to support them. You could try putting a third plan in the sideboard (I favor removal, as not all opponents will have creatures targetable and worth targetting).Just my $.02 and worth what you paid for it.
Playing Battledriver, then next turn bloodrushing a Beastmaster seems really fun.
Rootborn Defenses
Sundering Growth (Burning Earth, Angelic Accord, Blind Obedience, Curses, etc)
Curse of Stalked Prey
Doom Blade (big creature removal)
Dreadbore (walkers)
Chandra, Pyromancer (control)
Mizzium Mortars (late sweeper, Blood Baron, Smiter, etc)
Crypt Incursion (reanimator, lets you still do Lingering)
Electrickery, Flames of the Firebrand (weenies)
Blind Obedience (aggro)
Glaring Spotlight (hexproof)
Pithing Needle (walkers, Underworld Connections)
Oblivion Ring
Legion's Initiative (saves some stuff from Mutilate)
Unburial Rites
Basically, without the Mystics, I think the Wild Beastmaster, Battledriver, Wrecking Ogre, Rubblebelt Raiders, Goliath all get worse.
If you are going agro, I would keep the tuskers and get rid of some of the high end.
If you are still undecided, I would keep some of the Mystics and get rid of some high end and maybe a Slaughterhorn or two. Then play it and see how you like the Experiment hands vs. the Mystic hands.
You've got 2 Trafts, but I don't see a reliable way for him to punch through.
There's the Seances, but you don't describe them as central.
If you want to do the token/populate thing, then more Advents, Trostani, Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage make sense.
As it stands, your ideal game plan would be:
T1 Pilgrim
T2 Geist
T3 Parallel Lives, swing w/Geist
but no, you have no leftover mana and Geist just dies to any blocker ... And only two Geists means this won't happen very often...
There is a deck that has Geist and Fiend Hunter and uses Saving Grasp/Restoration Angel. The Saving Grasp/Restoration Angel either saves Traft or does the exile trick with Fiend Hunter. But you probably don't want to invest in more Trafts and Restoration Angels at this point.
Your mana base seems generally good, but you should probably add some more U to cast Cackling Counterpart reliably.
I think you need to decide what your main plan is. Then you can add cards that are central to it and remove good cards that don't really fit.
Selesnya Charm can do removal, particularly combined with Rancor to remove a 3 power creature, so you may want to consider that.
Certainly, or at least 2cmc to play. The sequences with Scout are different, but either way, 3 mana to cast then holding up two is a problem. If more of your enchantments were less than 3 it would be better.
Speaking of CMC, I wonder whether Deviant Glee is preferable to Dark Favor even if you never activate the trample ability.
No, I'm too cheap to get them even at $30. If I wanted to actually play the deck between now and rotation, I would definitely invest $1 in 4 Strangleroot Geists and $4 in a playset of Rancor plus $1 shipping.
I don't think the Theros manabase will support Underworld Connections, Witchstalker and Fiendslayer Paladin. I don't think it can be done now without CIPT and I am pretty sure Wizards wants to make the fixing worse.
I understand the reluctance to run Voice, but a creature that can be edicted and leave you something is very strong for avoiding 2 for 1s. With Celestial Flare, you may need to attack with it also to get protection.
Of the cheap creatures in these colors that leave you something after being edicted, Loyal Cathar, Young Wolf, Butcher Ghoul are all rotating, don't have haste and don't attack as strongly as Strangleroot.
The Mystics should help get you on the attack by turn 3, which I see as vital, and which you couldn't do without a Scout before.
I am concerned about the cost of your enchantments. T1 Mystic, T2 Witchstalker leaves you 4 mana on turn 3 if you make all your land drops. If you have Ethereal Armor, you will be able to get 2 enchantments down. Without Ethereal Armor, you have a single enchantment (or two Dark Favor, but even if you had BB, 4 blocking power puts you 3 cards down). If you use Trollhide, you don't have the mana to regenerate.
You haven't listed your land either. A post-rotation land base that provides GG, WW or B on turn 3 just screams Guildgates. This is not a good deck to run Guildgates in. Getting BB for Underworld Connections out of the manabase seems even more special.
Honestly, unless I liked losing, I would either use all of standard or go to Selesnya (GW) colors.
Fencing Ace is a high variance strategy.
If I ran Alpha Authority, I would always get multiples or none. Even if you combine Alpha Authority with Madcap Skills on a Fencing Ace, you still haven't buffed the back end of the creature and it dies to Golgari Charm, Mutilate and Electrickery. Madcap Skills Seems awesome, but between it and Rancor, I would not want another aura that didn't improve toughness. There are too many combinations where Alpha Authority doesn't seem helpful. I think I would rather run Gift of Orzhova, Call to Serve or even (wincing) Trollhide than Alpha Authority.
Against the Sire deck, you may not need the hexproof as much so you could sideboard in creatures for enchantments. The bant auras deck that is over in the competitive section has 3 Negates in the sideboard which would help against Aetherize or Cyclonic Rift.
So game 2 you side in your negates and when your opponent is going to have 4 mana, don't put as many enchantments on and keep two mana unused. You kill them a little slower, but it doesn't seem like they are killing you in a hurry if you exile their Sires. More mana dorks will also give you a better chance of having the mana to kill them while leaving mana up to counter Aetherize.
After the first time you negate the Aetherize, you don't even have to have it. Just leave the mana up and they may think you have your negate.
As for Chandra's Phoenix, Pillar of Flames is a good cheap card in a red deck sideboard. It also helps against Gravecrawler, Voice of Resurgence, Geralf's Messenger, Strangleroot Geist and the like.
The only card that I struggle with is Faithless, since there is nothing I would want to bin. I know you can get two tokens, but otherwise it seems like card disadvantage. I wonder about the consistency of being able to cast Advent with only 12 G sources, but Faithless can do fixing.
The cards I would want to fit in are Farseek (fixing+ramp), Trostani, Chandra (card advantage), Molten Birth and the Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage.
What I really want to do is add 4 Farseek and try to support Lingering Souls, but I don't see how to make 4 colors reliable.
I don't see overwhelming early aggression, so I infer that you are stalling until your combo hits. The Chainwalker is not really a good defender, as it can't block when unleashed. Orzhov cards seem like a better bet for stalling. Thrill-kill Assassin, Dutiful Thrull, Boros Reckoner (uncastable), Basilica Guards, Corpse Blockade, Frontline Medic, Fiendslayer Paladin (uncastable), High Priest of Penance, Doomed Traveler, Loyal Cathar (uncastable) seem like better stallers. With the sac outlets, Zealous Conscripts seems interesting.
If Battledriver->Assemble is really your only wincon, you probably want 4 of each. Otherwise, an alternate wincon is Falkenrath Aristocrat.
I have already been building it something similar up. Obviously not as powerful or evasive without the stalker or geist, but it could work sometimes, and it shouldn't need to mulligan as much with only two colors, nor will it be as vulnerable to Burning Earth.
+4 dorks - speed kills
+4 Sunpetal Grove - Rotation not for months
+4 Rancor - rotation not for months, affordable and incomparable
-4 abundant growth - durdling is suicide, don't need fixing, only synergizes w/ethereal
-1 sphere - durdling is suicide
Fiendhunter Paladin at least sideboard
Sigarda at least sideboard.
See what Theros has before planning the post-rotation deck.
Here's what I was thinking (including budget considerations, as Voice>Strangleroot)
4 Temple Garden
4 Sunpetal Grove
8 Forest
6 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Mutavault
Creatures (18)
2 Arbor Elf
2 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Gladecover Scout
4 Strangleroot Geist
1 FiendHunter Paladin
4 Witchstalker
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
4 Rancor
4 Ethereal Armor
3 Unflinching Courage
3 Call to Serve
3 Selesnya Charm
1 Fiendhunter Paladin
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Pacifism
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Blind Obedience
3 Loxodon Smiter
1 Mending Touch
1 Pay No Heed
Please criticize/suggest, but kindly.
1. Those cards would cost you more if you bought them (decent value) as singles.
2. They give you the basis for a Gruul deck with many cards that see constructed play currently.
3. All of those cards will be playable in standard for over a year.
4. I have used the packaging, spindown counters, etc., so they have slight value.
The deck may not be great as constituted, with 1s and 2s of good cards and larger numbers of mediocre cards, but can be improved while retaining many cards.
Overall the event deck for M14 seems good as long as you would want to play a green-red deck.
There have been changes to the constitution of the event decks. The rare count (value) was increased with the Dragon's Maze event deck.
Until the M14 deck, these decks were largely composed of cards that were soon to rotate out of standard.
Consider the Dragon's Maze deck (released this spring): 5 of the 8 maindeck creatures and 11 of the 18 maindeck spells will not be playable in standard come October. Many of those cards will lose significant value at that time. Unless you want to play tokens a lot between now and October, the Strength of Selesnya deck is not a good value (Godless Shrine and Advent of the Worm are most of the value) and the valuable cards won't work well with the good cards in the M14 event deck.
The Gatecrash and older event decks have even less value. For example, Wrack and Rage has some useful cards, but nowhere near $20 worth.
Tl;dr: a=yes, b=no except between now and October 2013