The way that Palace Jailer's ability is worded, the effect's duration time is part of the initial triggered ability. Since the exiled creature gets returned due to an event specified in the triggered ability itself, rather than due to another ability on the Jailer (unlike Fiend Hunter, which has a second trigger), the Jailer's presence has no bearing on whether the creature remains in exile. Once the specified duration ends (i.e. an opponent becomes the monarch), the creature will be returned.
EDIT: Also, this would probably be more conclusively answered if it were moved to the Rulings subforum.
When splitting/sharing/negotiating prizes in the final rounds of a tournament, are players currently allowed to share prizes that were already paid out? An older version of the Tournament Rules states that players may share such prizes (Rule 5.2 here). However, 5.2 in the newest rules I can find changes the wording to "players are allowed to share prizes they have not yet received in the current tournament." (Link here) Is this something that has changed in the last few years?
As an example, say there's a PPTQ where prizes other than the invite have been paid out before the Top 8 (which, as I understand it, is how they are currently supposed to be structured.) One of the players in the finals asks his opponent to let him have the invite to the Regional PTQ. Is it now impossible/illegal for the second player to request a portion of the first player's prizes in return for guaranteeing him the Invite? (Assuming, of course, that the result of the actual match never enters the discussion, as that would obviously not be allowed.)
If it is possible, how would such an exchange occur? I understand that player 2 in this situation would have to drop from the tournament to grant player 1 the invite, but I'm not entirely clear on whether the match can still be played at all.
Something like this happened to me at a PPTQ a while ago, and I felt overwhelmed trying to figure out how to handle it, so I'd like to know what players' options are in such a situation for the future.
They seem to have gone to this creature centric design except for blue. But, and maybe I am counting on it too much, but I think Kaladesh will be great and a giant reset button to green's dominance. The funny thing is though, people never seem to complain as much as when blue is the top deck. Something about being beat by blue feels worse than the other colors. Sure, beat me to death with small efficient white creatures or giant stompy monsters, but not with snapcaster backed up by counterspells. ***Ramble mode off***
I'm not sure it's true that people complain more about blue decks dominating than anything else. I've only been playing since just before M12 came out, and here are things I've seen quite a few people vehemently complain about (in Standard):
Delver
Thragtusk
Jund
Reanimator
Mono Red Aggro
Thoughtseize + Pack Rat
Mono Blue Devotion
UW Control
Abzan/Siege Rhino
4+ colour manabases
Rally the Ancestors
Collected Company
GW Tokens
Reflector Mage
I haven't really noticed a difference between blue and the rest of the colour wheel in terms of how much hate anything gets or how intensely that hate is expressed. In my experience, all colours and strategies get complained about pretty equally when they're at the top of the format. Which is pretty much the key: any time there's a top deck or an ubiquitous card (i.e. always), someone will have a complaint. It's probable that blue gets complained about more in general, for various reasons, but I haven't noticed this to be true in the context of Standard.
Regarding your hopes for Kaladesh, I'm not convinced that it's going to be quite as Izzet-centric as you seem to believe. Sure, Wizards felt that Blue-Red was the best colour combination to represent it when we saw it in Origins, and we know it's a Steampunk-type plane, so we can assume that this element will be strongly represented. However, since we've only seen Kaladesh through the lens of those two colours so far, it's also possible that these Izzet elements were somewhat more prevalent in our previous glimpse of Kaladesh than they will be on the plane itself. (After all, the other colours still have to be there and will likely get powerful cards.) That said, I'm still hopeful that the next set will bring balance back to the format. I'm just a little more skeptical about it than are you. The power level does seem to be increasing with Innistrad and Eldritch Moon, so I hope that continues in Kaladesh. I still miss Inn/RtR Standard...
You forgot Gary. Good lord did people complain how OP it was for a common.
You're right. I kind of mentally included him with Thoughtseize/Pack Rat.
They seem to have gone to this creature centric design except for blue. But, and maybe I am counting on it too much, but I think Kaladesh will be great and a giant reset button to green's dominance. The funny thing is though, people never seem to complain as much as when blue is the top deck. Something about being beat by blue feels worse than the other colors. Sure, beat me to death with small efficient white creatures or giant stompy monsters, but not with snapcaster backed up by counterspells. ***Ramble mode off***
I'm not sure it's true that people complain more about blue decks dominating than anything else. I've only been playing since just before M12 came out, and here are things I've seen quite a few people vehemently complain about (in Standard):
Delver
Thragtusk
Jund
Reanimator
Mono Red Aggro
Thoughtseize + Pack Rat
Mono Blue Devotion
UW Control
Abzan/Siege Rhino
4+ colour manabases
Rally the Ancestors
Collected Company
GW Tokens
Reflector Mage
I haven't really noticed a difference between blue and the rest of the colour wheel in terms of how much hate anything gets or how intensely that hate is expressed. In my experience, all colours and strategies get complained about pretty equally when they're at the top of the format. Which is pretty much the key: any time there's a top deck or an ubiquitous card (i.e. always), someone will have a complaint. It's probable that blue gets complained about more in general, for various reasons, but I haven't noticed this to be true in the context of Standard.
Regarding your hopes for Kaladesh, I'm not convinced that it's going to be quite as Izzet-centric as you seem to believe. Sure, Wizards felt that Blue-Red was the best colour combination to represent it when we saw it in Origins, and we know it's a Steampunk-type plane, so we can assume that this element will be strongly represented. However, since we've only seen Kaladesh through the lens of those two colours so far, it's also possible that these Izzet elements were somewhat more prevalent in our previous glimpse of Kaladesh than they will be on the plane itself. (After all, the other colours still have to be there and will likely get powerful cards.) That said, I'm still hopeful that the next set will bring balance back to the format. I'm just a little more skeptical about it than are you. The power level does seem to be increasing with Innistrad and Eldritch Moon, so I hope that continues in Kaladesh. I still miss Inn/RtR Standard...
R1 vs U/w Spirits 1-2
They bring in lots of counter magic for G2 and G3
R2 vs U/w Spirits 1-2
I just lost to this deck and I have to play it again??
Same results as R1
R3 vs R/b Vampires 2-0
This poor guy is just terrible. He does nothing until t4 and then casts Stensia Masquerade! Then follows it up with call the bloodline.
Not even a contest here
R4 vs no one. The guy dropped.
R5 vs G/w Tokens 0-2
I get run over even with Virulent Plague on the table.
Not a good showing at all for R&B Dragons. Though I am not sure if it is the deck or me. First off I am just not great at this game. And second I never play control. Always aggro.
But I did like the deck and found it very fun. There are lots of high value cards here.
The deck feels more like a draw - go since it runs so many instant spells. 16 in my main deck. And I never felt like I was out of answers. Kolaghan's Command and Goblin Dark-dwellers are extremely good in this deck.
I am not sure if it needs a draw spell like Read the bones. It does not make sense to me to cut kill spells to add a draw spell to find kill spells. Nephalia Acadamy concerns me. If people start playing this commonly, it will wreck cards like duress and Transgress the mInd. If that turns out to be the case, the disruption can be replaced with Murder.
Rough. How did your mana work out for you? 24 lands with 14 cards with CMC four or greater seems a bit low to me. Did you have any trouble casting your creatures on time?
The G/W Tokens matchup is definitely tough. I think this is one of the matchups where we need to be the beatdown. I haven't had too many chances to play against the deck, but so far the games where I feel like I have the best chance of winning are the ones where I try to maneuver myself into a position where I can aggro them out with fliers. Drawing too much removal feels bad against them, since a lot of it doesn't line up well against their cards and even Ruinous Path is pretty mediocre if you don't already have a board presence when you cast it. That, and Westvale Abbey plus their incremental advantages from planeswalker tokens gives them a big advantage if you let the game go too long.
The need this deck has to try to be the beatdown in certain matchups is why I like having a few more low-cost threats in place of a few of the removal spells. Even with cards like Chandra and Dragonlord, Black/Red doesn't seem like it has the tools to reliably establish inevitability over some of the popular decks of the format. I think moving toward a more value-based midrange style with the option of being more aggressive is a better approach for these colours in the current meta, especially since jamming one-for-one removal spells is an easy strategy to outpace with cards like CoCo running around everywhere. Of course, low cost threats are hard to come by these days if you aren't green or white...I've been playing with different mixes of hangarback, sin prodder, and Abbot of Keral keep, which have been fine but not great. Sin prodder is easily worse than either of the other two, though having menace is very relevant a lot of the time.
On the card draw issue, I think it's definitely worth having at least a couple of Read the bones or something in the maindeck (I'm currently running two in the main and one in the side.) It helps you keep up with the card advantage generated by other decks and can dig for threats when you need ways to close out the game. For another thing, it gives you more proactive spells that you can recast with Dark Dwellers when your opponent has no creatures that you can or want to kill.
Also, if Nephaila Academy does see play (and I'm not sure the existence of Duress is enough to warrant it), it's worth noting that it doesn't do anything against Transgress the Mind, since Transgress causes the card to be exiled rather than discarded.
The closest I've ever come was when I was playing RW Burn online in Theros block Standard. During on game, I clicked the wrong button and accidentally kept a hand with no land. I then proceeded to get Thoughtseized by my opponent, who referred to it as the "most ballsy keep he'd ever seen." I then ripped three or so lands in my first few draw steps and managed to get him down to 2 or 3 life, and was in position to kill him if I topdecked another spell. I didn't, and I ended up losing the game, but I still found it pretty funny. My opponent messaged me after and said he would have tilted out hard had I beaten him.
A turn only moves to a new phase or step once all players have passed priority in succession while the stack is empty. So in this case, yes, you would get priority again and be able to transform your land before the Declare Attackers step.
Great report. I've been working on a deck like this since before rotation, and while I haven't had a chance to do any heavy testing with it yet, my experiences in the games I have played largely matched yours. Every matchup I've played has felt very winnable, and I feel hugely favoured against small, fast decks like Humans that constantly turn on my removal. This the list I have so far:
I'd post my sideboard, but it's a confused mess at the moment. DOLZero, how did you like To the Slaughter? I have it in the side right now, but so far I've never felt like I wanted to bring it in. I'm strongly leaning toward replacing it.
The two copies of Foundry are there because I want to be able to do things with my lands. They haven't given me any mana problems yet, but they haven't felt particularly necessary either, despite helping in a couple of games. It's likely better to replace them with more colour-producing lands.
My thoughts on the deck so far:
I've found that Draconic Roar has very often been the best card in the deck. Between it and the triggers from Thunderbreak Regent, it can be incredibly easy to grind the opponent down to single-digit life totals without ever having to attack. Especially when Dark-Dwellers can flash back the roar for full value. It may prove to be better to go with the lists that drop the dragons for more cards like Kalitas, such as the Pro Tour list, but it will take a lot of convincing for me to part with my dragons.
I think Chandra definitely deserves a slot in this deck, though I realize she fights for space with the Dragonlord. I've been running a 2-1 split online, replacing the Nalaars with 1x Kalitas and the second Chandra, which has been working great so far. Both of the 6-drops have consistently overperformed.
Finally, to those who are running Olivia, how has she been for you? I imagine she'd often just be a 3/3 flier, since I think trying to pair her with madness cards is a huge trap here - and it looks like you guys have come to similar conclusions - and I'm hesitant to pitch spells to her. However, it would be nice to have an outlet for potentially dead cards, and being able to get our Thunderbreaks and Dark-Dwellers out of the range of Languish seems very powerful in some situations.
(I apologize for having more questions than input at this point. There are a bunch of PPTQs coming up in my region over the next couple of months, so hopefully I'll be able to obtain and provide some more specific data to help refine the deck. )
Might be worth testing as a sideboard card in midrange matchups, but I wouldn't be optimistic about it. As has been pointed out, if you play this after your opponent casts a siege rhino, they can sac the rhino and lose 5 and come out even on cards and a point ahead in the life race. For five mana, it just seems like it could often end up being too slow and too low impact even if some things do go your way.
The Grixis/Jund side of me still wants to jam it into some sort of cruel value deck, though. I enjoy watching my opponent's boardstate crumble.
I have been looking at a lot of decklists, and because this is the first time in a while mana has been excellent in standard, I guess there are things I do not understand. Is there any particular reason for running lands like Prairie Stream and Canopy Vista if you do not run green or white? Is it because it makes converge on painful truths and radiant flames better?
Playing the off-colour battle lands improves your mana base by allowing your fetches to grab more colours. If you have Prairie stream, for example, your Polluted Deltas are now able to get red, black, AND white since they can grab both Stream and Smoldering Marsh (and basic Swamp, obviously). Same thing with Canopy Vista and Wooded Foothills. Basically, running a land base like this makes it so that any one of your fetchlands can fetch any colour you need.
furthermore, khans allied fetches will rotate out as soon as the supposed Zen fetches rotate in, right?
No. I've seen a lot of people making this mistake. The only sets that will rotate out when BFZ is released are M15 and the three sets from Theros block. Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged don't rotate out until the 2016 Spring set is released. (Otherwise, we would end up with a three-set Standard format with only DTK, Origins, and BFZ.)
Game 1: Won the die roll. My early Akroan Hoplite and Seeker of the Way each got picked off by Draconic Roars, but I managed to stick a turn three Hordeling Outburst and swing with Goblins for a couple of turns with him not doing much. A turn five Stormbreath Dragon let me swing him down to 10. His turn, he played a Kolaghan, Storm's Fury without dash, but I had to the Chains in hand to remove it and swing him down to 3. I topdecked the Lightning Strike to finish him off before he could untap, though with 7 power on board and an Ashcloud Phoenix still in my hand, I was feeling pretty comfortable anyway.
(I'd only seen the Draconic Roar and Kolaghan in the first game, plus a Stormbreath Dragon revealed off the Draconic Roar, so I wasn't entirely sure how to board here, but I don't think there were many other things I'd have wanted to change.)
Game 2: This one was much more interesting. He took my Akroan Hoplite with Thoughtseize and played a turn three Rabblemaster. My turn three, I played a Hordeling Outburst to keep it from attacking while also trying to blank any potential removal. Next turn, he duressed away my Chandra, so I played my own Rabblemaster. Again, he did nothing on his turn. My turn, I attacked with my Rabblemaster. He blocked with his, leaving me with four goblin tokens to his two. Having missed my land drop, I followed up with a Thunderbreak Regent. His turn, he plays Anger of the Gods to wipe away my tokens, leaving him with one card in hand against my Regent. Next turn, I draw the land I needed to cast the Sarkhan and the two Stormbreaths sitting in my hand, which was more than enough to finish him off. Opponent proceeded to call me a lucksack. :cool::cool:
Round 2 vs Mono Red Aggro (2-0)
My opponent this round was new to Magic Online (though not to Magic itself, I don't think). He was running what looked like mono red with a sort of tokens theme running impact tremors, which I only ever saw late enough in the game and with me at a high enough life total that it was no longer relevant. Both games went about the same way: I ran him out of gas in the first few turns and proceeded to kill him with dragons. Hordeling Outburst was excellent in both of the Red matchups.
Game 1: Kept a reasonably aggressive hand and then proceeded to get destroyed by a nut draw. I don't think I ever even got to the point where I had three mana available before I was low enough that Eidolon of the Great Revel locked me out of the game.
Sideboarding
Same as Round 2.
Game 2: I forget exactly how this one went. He got off to a similarly fast start as Game 1, but this time I was able to kill his Eidolon early and eventually stabilize at around 5 life. At the end, I had both a Stormbreath Dragon and a Sarkhan on the battlefield with my opponent at 12, and won by only attacking with the Sarkhan and holding the Dragon back to block his lone goblin token so that I wouldn't die to a Stoke the Flames, which he turned out to have in his hand. End of turn, he cast it and domed me down to 1, then failed to draw another burn spell and died to my next attack.
Game 3: This one went much better for me, as my opponent got off to a slower start, which I was able to quickly neutralize with my hand full of burn and two active Seekers. A Thunderbreak Regent into a Stormbreath with my opponent down to one or two cards was enough to prompt the concession.
Round 4 vs Mono White Soldiers (2-0)
Game 1: I initially thought I was playing against Bant Heroic, since I saw a turn 1 Hoplite and a turn 2 Vanguard of Brimaz as well as both a Windswept Heath and a Flooded Strands. I got off to a reasonable start as well with Akroan Hoplite, Soulfire Grandmaster, and Hordeling Outburst, baiting out a God's Willing that I suspected was in his hand by double blocking his Vanguard with tokens and Stoking it in response to the trick. Next turn, he convoked out and Obelisk of Urd using the soldier tokens he'd gotten from a pair of Raise the Alarms, then attacked. With him tapped out, I used a Lightning Strike to kill his only blocker and swung for 11 to put him down to 7 life before playing an Ashcloud Phoenix as a blocker. For some reason, he only attacked with a single Favoured Hoplite next turn, which I took, dropping me to 19. He then played a Brimaz, but had no answer to my Phoenix, and I had enough chump blockers to stay alive long enough for it to kill him.
(I think I may have boarded in the Sarkhans, too, but I forget what I took out for them.)
Game 2: I curved Seeker of the Way into Hordeling Outburst, and a slurry of removal spells allowed me to keep attacking with Seeker and gaining life while I banged away at his life total as he tried to develop his board. After he attacked one turn, I used Glare to get rid of his single untapped token and swung him down to 4, since I would then have nine cards in the deck that would instantly win me the game and his board looked like it would quickly outclass mine. I had probably 2-3 more turns to draw any flier or burn spell, but luckily didn't need them as I topdecked Stormbreath Dragon and killed him. Again, my opponent proceeded to call me a lucksack.
The deck is fun and feels very strong, especially against midrangey creature matchups, and has a decent amount of play to it. I very seldom feel like there's no way for me to win a game until I've actually lost, and I've been surprised with how often the deck has allowed me to come back from very bleak-looking situations.
Of course, I'm always looking to learn, so if anyone has any thoughts suggestions on the deck or how best to play it, please chime in.
The matches were against RB Dragons, 2x Mono Red Aggro, and a Mono White Soldiers deck, so I wasn't exactly fighting against the format powerhouses in this particular tournament. I've played against both UB and Abzan several times with the deck, though, and while it has some weaknesses they can exploit, I felt like it had a solid game against both. This deck is good at pulling off wins out of nowhere as soon as the opponent slips up or gets a little too cocky or aggressive.
Stuff like GR Ramp and UB control does still feel a bit more shaky than I'd like, though, so I'm still tinkering around with the list. The sideboard is also a constant work in progress.
If anyone's interested, I'll try to get a full tournament report written up.
Your friend is incorrect. Goblin Shortcutter has a triggered ability that triggers when the creature enters the battlefield; by the time he has a chance to target anything with the ability at all, the creature spell (Goblin Shortcutter) has already resolved and is no longer on the stack. The ability is what targets, not the spell, so nothing here would trigger heroic.
Here's the order everything happens in:
-Your friend casts Goblin Shortcutter. It is now a creature spell on the stack. He passes priority. Nothing has been targeted yet.
-You receive priority. You now have a chance to do something in response before the creature spell resolves, such as kill Anthousa or counter the Goblin Shortcutter. (If the Shortcutter is countered, due to how its ability is worded, its ability would never trigger at all.)
-In this instance, you pass priority back without doing anything. Because priority has now been passed by all players in succession, the top spell on the stack, in this case the Goblin Shortcutter, now resolves, putting Goblin Shortcutter onto the battlefield as a creature permanent.
-At this time, the Goblin's ability now triggers and your friend declares the target and puts the ability onto the stack. If he chooses Anthousa, Setessan Hero as the target, it is now being targeted by an ability, which exists independently of the creature it came from (and is no longer even a spell at this point), so its Heroic ability does not trigger.
EDIT: Also, this would probably be more conclusively answered if it were moved to the Rulings subforum.
As an example, say there's a PPTQ where prizes other than the invite have been paid out before the Top 8 (which, as I understand it, is how they are currently supposed to be structured.) One of the players in the finals asks his opponent to let him have the invite to the Regional PTQ. Is it now impossible/illegal for the second player to request a portion of the first player's prizes in return for guaranteeing him the Invite? (Assuming, of course, that the result of the actual match never enters the discussion, as that would obviously not be allowed.)
If it is possible, how would such an exchange occur? I understand that player 2 in this situation would have to drop from the tournament to grant player 1 the invite, but I'm not entirely clear on whether the match can still be played at all.
Something like this happened to me at a PPTQ a while ago, and I felt overwhelmed trying to figure out how to handle it, so I'd like to know what players' options are in such a situation for the future.
You're right. I kind of mentally included him with Thoughtseize/Pack Rat.
I'm not sure it's true that people complain more about blue decks dominating than anything else. I've only been playing since just before M12 came out, and here are things I've seen quite a few people vehemently complain about (in Standard):
Delver
Thragtusk
Jund
Reanimator
Mono Red Aggro
Thoughtseize + Pack Rat
Mono Blue Devotion
UW Control
Abzan/Siege Rhino
4+ colour manabases
Rally the Ancestors
Collected Company
GW Tokens
Reflector Mage
I haven't really noticed a difference between blue and the rest of the colour wheel in terms of how much hate anything gets or how intensely that hate is expressed. In my experience, all colours and strategies get complained about pretty equally when they're at the top of the format. Which is pretty much the key: any time there's a top deck or an ubiquitous card (i.e. always), someone will have a complaint. It's probable that blue gets complained about more in general, for various reasons, but I haven't noticed this to be true in the context of Standard.
Regarding your hopes for Kaladesh, I'm not convinced that it's going to be quite as Izzet-centric as you seem to believe. Sure, Wizards felt that Blue-Red was the best colour combination to represent it when we saw it in Origins, and we know it's a Steampunk-type plane, so we can assume that this element will be strongly represented. However, since we've only seen Kaladesh through the lens of those two colours so far, it's also possible that these Izzet elements were somewhat more prevalent in our previous glimpse of Kaladesh than they will be on the plane itself. (After all, the other colours still have to be there and will likely get powerful cards.) That said, I'm still hopeful that the next set will bring balance back to the format. I'm just a little more skeptical about it than are you.
Rough. How did your mana work out for you? 24 lands with 14 cards with CMC four or greater seems a bit low to me. Did you have any trouble casting your creatures on time?
The G/W Tokens matchup is definitely tough. I think this is one of the matchups where we need to be the beatdown. I haven't had too many chances to play against the deck, but so far the games where I feel like I have the best chance of winning are the ones where I try to maneuver myself into a position where I can aggro them out with fliers. Drawing too much removal feels bad against them, since a lot of it doesn't line up well against their cards and even Ruinous Path is pretty mediocre if you don't already have a board presence when you cast it. That, and Westvale Abbey plus their incremental advantages from planeswalker tokens gives them a big advantage if you let the game go too long.
The need this deck has to try to be the beatdown in certain matchups is why I like having a few more low-cost threats in place of a few of the removal spells. Even with cards like Chandra and Dragonlord, Black/Red doesn't seem like it has the tools to reliably establish inevitability over some of the popular decks of the format. I think moving toward a more value-based midrange style with the option of being more aggressive is a better approach for these colours in the current meta, especially since jamming one-for-one removal spells is an easy strategy to outpace with cards like CoCo running around everywhere. Of course, low cost threats are hard to come by these days if you aren't green or white...I've been playing with different mixes of hangarback, sin prodder, and Abbot of Keral keep, which have been fine but not great. Sin prodder is easily worse than either of the other two, though having menace is very relevant a lot of the time.
On the card draw issue, I think it's definitely worth having at least a couple of Read the bones or something in the maindeck (I'm currently running two in the main and one in the side.) It helps you keep up with the card advantage generated by other decks and can dig for threats when you need ways to close out the game. For another thing, it gives you more proactive spells that you can recast with Dark Dwellers when your opponent has no creatures that you can or want to kill.
Also, if Nephaila Academy does see play (and I'm not sure the existence of Duress is enough to warrant it), it's worth noting that it doesn't do anything against Transgress the Mind, since Transgress causes the card to be exiled rather than discarded.
(Did I mention I was on the play that game? :P)
4 Smoldering Marsh
4 Foreboding Ruins
2 Cinder Barrens
2 Foundry of the Consuls
7 Mountain
6 Swamp
Creatures (15)
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
3 Fiery Impulse
4 Draconic Roar
2 Grasp of Darkness
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Ultimate Price
2 Read the Bones
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Ruinous Path
1 Languish
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
I'd post my sideboard, but it's a confused mess at the moment. DOLZero, how did you like To the Slaughter? I have it in the side right now, but so far I've never felt like I wanted to bring it in. I'm strongly leaning toward replacing it.
The two copies of Foundry are there because I want to be able to do things with my lands. They haven't given me any mana problems yet, but they haven't felt particularly necessary either, despite helping in a couple of games. It's likely better to replace them with more colour-producing lands.
My thoughts on the deck so far:
I've found that Draconic Roar has very often been the best card in the deck. Between it and the triggers from Thunderbreak Regent, it can be incredibly easy to grind the opponent down to single-digit life totals without ever having to attack. Especially when Dark-Dwellers can flash back the roar for full value. It may prove to be better to go with the lists that drop the dragons for more cards like Kalitas, such as the Pro Tour list, but it will take a lot of convincing for me to part with my dragons.
I think Chandra definitely deserves a slot in this deck, though I realize she fights for space with the Dragonlord. I've been running a 2-1 split online, replacing the Nalaars with 1x Kalitas and the second Chandra, which has been working great so far. Both of the 6-drops have consistently overperformed.
Finally, to those who are running Olivia, how has she been for you? I imagine she'd often just be a 3/3 flier, since I think trying to pair her with madness cards is a huge trap here - and it looks like you guys have come to similar conclusions - and I'm hesitant to pitch spells to her. However, it would be nice to have an outlet for potentially dead cards, and being able to get our Thunderbreaks and Dark-Dwellers out of the range of Languish seems very powerful in some situations.
(I apologize for having more questions than input at this point. There are a bunch of PPTQs coming up in my region over the next couple of months, so hopefully I'll be able to obtain and provide some more specific data to help refine the deck.
The Grixis/Jund side of me still wants to jam it into some sort of cruel value deck, though. I enjoy watching my opponent's boardstate crumble.
Playing the off-colour battle lands improves your mana base by allowing your fetches to grab more colours. If you have Prairie stream, for example, your Polluted Deltas are now able to get red, black, AND white since they can grab both Stream and Smoldering Marsh (and basic Swamp, obviously). Same thing with Canopy Vista and Wooded Foothills. Basically, running a land base like this makes it so that any one of your fetchlands can fetch any colour you need.
No. I've seen a lot of people making this mistake. The only sets that will rotate out when BFZ is released are M15 and the three sets from Theros block. Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged don't rotate out until the 2016 Spring set is released. (Otherwise, we would end up with a three-set Standard format with only DTK, Origins, and BFZ.)
Grammar is serious business.
Here's the decklist again, for reference.
4 Temple of Trimph
4 Battlefield Forge
5 Plains
11 Mountain
CREATURES (18)
4 Akroan Hoplite
3 Seeker of the Way
1 Soulfire Grandmaster
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Hordeling Outburst
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Wild Slash
3 Arc Lightning
2 Flamewake Phoenix
2 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
2 Valorous Stance
1 Glare of Heresy
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Round 1 vs RB Dragons (2-0)
Game 1: Won the die roll. My early Akroan Hoplite and Seeker of the Way each got picked off by Draconic Roars, but I managed to stick a turn three Hordeling Outburst and swing with Goblins for a couple of turns with him not doing much. A turn five Stormbreath Dragon let me swing him down to 10. His turn, he played a Kolaghan, Storm's Fury without dash, but I had to the Chains in hand to remove it and swing him down to 3. I topdecked the Lightning Strike to finish him off before he could untap, though with 7 power on board and an Ashcloud Phoenix still in my hand, I was feeling pretty comfortable anyway.
Sideboarding:
Out: 4x Lightning Strike
In: 2x Thunderbreak Regent, 2x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
(I'd only seen the Draconic Roar and Kolaghan in the first game, plus a Stormbreath Dragon revealed off the Draconic Roar, so I wasn't entirely sure how to board here, but I don't think there were many other things I'd have wanted to change.)
Game 2: This one was much more interesting. He took my Akroan Hoplite with Thoughtseize and played a turn three Rabblemaster. My turn three, I played a Hordeling Outburst to keep it from attacking while also trying to blank any potential removal. Next turn, he duressed away my Chandra, so I played my own Rabblemaster. Again, he did nothing on his turn. My turn, I attacked with my Rabblemaster. He blocked with his, leaving me with four goblin tokens to his two. Having missed my land drop, I followed up with a Thunderbreak Regent. His turn, he plays Anger of the Gods to wipe away my tokens, leaving him with one card in hand against my Regent. Next turn, I draw the land I needed to cast the Sarkhan and the two Stormbreaths sitting in my hand, which was more than enough to finish him off. Opponent proceeded to call me a lucksack. :cool::cool:
Round 2 vs Mono Red Aggro (2-0)
My opponent this round was new to Magic Online (though not to Magic itself, I don't think). He was running what looked like mono red with a sort of tokens theme running impact tremors, which I only ever saw late enough in the game and with me at a high enough life total that it was no longer relevant. Both games went about the same way: I ran him out of gas in the first few turns and proceeded to kill him with dragons. Hordeling Outburst was excellent in both of the Red matchups.
Sideboarding
Out: 4x Akroan Hoplite, 4x Goblin Rabblemaster, 2x Stormbreath Dragon
In: 3x Arc Lightning, 3x Wild Slash, 2x Thunderbreak Regent, 2x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
Round 3 vs Mono Red Aggro (2-1)
Game 1: Kept a reasonably aggressive hand and then proceeded to get destroyed by a nut draw. I don't think I ever even got to the point where I had three mana available before I was low enough that Eidolon of the Great Revel locked me out of the game.
Sideboarding
Same as Round 2.
Game 2: I forget exactly how this one went. He got off to a similarly fast start as Game 1, but this time I was able to kill his Eidolon early and eventually stabilize at around 5 life. At the end, I had both a Stormbreath Dragon and a Sarkhan on the battlefield with my opponent at 12, and won by only attacking with the Sarkhan and holding the Dragon back to block his lone goblin token so that I wouldn't die to a Stoke the Flames, which he turned out to have in his hand. End of turn, he cast it and domed me down to 1, then failed to draw another burn spell and died to my next attack.
Game 3: This one went much better for me, as my opponent got off to a slower start, which I was able to quickly neutralize with my hand full of burn and two active Seekers. A Thunderbreak Regent into a Stormbreath with my opponent down to one or two cards was enough to prompt the concession.
Round 4 vs Mono White Soldiers (2-0)
Game 1: I initially thought I was playing against Bant Heroic, since I saw a turn 1 Hoplite and a turn 2 Vanguard of Brimaz as well as both a Windswept Heath and a Flooded Strands. I got off to a reasonable start as well with Akroan Hoplite, Soulfire Grandmaster, and Hordeling Outburst, baiting out a God's Willing that I suspected was in his hand by double blocking his Vanguard with tokens and Stoking it in response to the trick. Next turn, he convoked out and Obelisk of Urd using the soldier tokens he'd gotten from a pair of Raise the Alarms, then attacked. With him tapped out, I used a Lightning Strike to kill his only blocker and swung for 11 to put him down to 7 life before playing an Ashcloud Phoenix as a blocker. For some reason, he only attacked with a single Favoured Hoplite next turn, which I took, dropping me to 19. He then played a Brimaz, but had no answer to my Phoenix, and I had enough chump blockers to stay alive long enough for it to kill him.
Sideboarding:
Out: 4x Akroan Hoplite, 4x Goblin Rabblemaster
In: 2x Valorous Stance, 1x Glare of Heresy, 2x Arc Lightning, 3x Wild Slash
(I think I may have boarded in the Sarkhans, too, but I forget what I took out for them.)
Game 2: I curved Seeker of the Way into Hordeling Outburst, and a slurry of removal spells allowed me to keep attacking with Seeker and gaining life while I banged away at his life total as he tried to develop his board. After he attacked one turn, I used Glare to get rid of his single untapped token and swung him down to 4, since I would then have nine cards in the deck that would instantly win me the game and his board looked like it would quickly outclass mine. I had probably 2-3 more turns to draw any flier or burn spell, but luckily didn't need them as I topdecked Stormbreath Dragon and killed him. Again, my opponent proceeded to call me a lucksack.
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The deck is fun and feels very strong, especially against midrangey creature matchups, and has a decent amount of play to it. I very seldom feel like there's no way for me to win a game until I've actually lost, and I've been surprised with how often the deck has allowed me to come back from very bleak-looking situations.
Of course, I'm always looking to learn, so if anyone has any thoughts suggestions on the deck or how best to play it, please chime in.
4 Temple of Trimph
4 Battlefield Forge
5 Plains
11 Mountain
CREATURES (18)
4 Akroan Hoplite
3 Seeker of the Way
1 Soulfire Grandmaster
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Hordeling Outburst
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Wild Slash
3 Arc Lightning
2 Flamewake Phoenix
2 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
2 Valorous Stance
1 Glare of Heresy
The matches were against RB Dragons, 2x Mono Red Aggro, and a Mono White Soldiers deck, so I wasn't exactly fighting against the format powerhouses in this particular tournament. I've played against both UB and Abzan several times with the deck, though, and while it has some weaknesses they can exploit, I felt like it had a solid game against both. This deck is good at pulling off wins out of nowhere as soon as the opponent slips up or gets a little too cocky or aggressive.
Stuff like GR Ramp and UB control does still feel a bit more shaky than I'd like, though, so I'm still tinkering around with the list. The sideboard is also a constant work in progress.
If anyone's interested, I'll try to get a full tournament report written up.
Goblin Shortcutter
Your friend is incorrect. Goblin Shortcutter has a triggered ability that triggers when the creature enters the battlefield; by the time he has a chance to target anything with the ability at all, the creature spell (Goblin Shortcutter) has already resolved and is no longer on the stack. The ability is what targets, not the spell, so nothing here would trigger heroic.
Here's the order everything happens in:
-Your friend casts Goblin Shortcutter. It is now a creature spell on the stack. He passes priority. Nothing has been targeted yet.
-You receive priority. You now have a chance to do something in response before the creature spell resolves, such as kill Anthousa or counter the Goblin Shortcutter. (If the Shortcutter is countered, due to how its ability is worded, its ability would never trigger at all.)
-In this instance, you pass priority back without doing anything. Because priority has now been passed by all players in succession, the top spell on the stack, in this case the Goblin Shortcutter, now resolves, putting Goblin Shortcutter onto the battlefield as a creature permanent.
-At this time, the Goblin's ability now triggers and your friend declares the target and puts the ability onto the stack. If he chooses Anthousa, Setessan Hero as the target, it is now being targeted by an ability, which exists independently of the creature it came from (and is no longer even a spell at this point), so its Heroic ability does not trigger.