- Santiclause
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Member for 11 years, 2 months, and 2 days
Last active Thu, Apr, 7 2016 14:45:52
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Feb 4, 2014Santiclause posted a message on Launch Giveaway!My favourite card is Wirewood Symbiote. I first played in Odyssey/Onslaught, and I was enamored of Elves. Wirewood Symbiote was, and remains, one of the most versatile and interesting cards to play when you're doing anything Elven.Posted in: Announcements
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Not to mention that Mikaeus gives them all +1/+1 anyway, so you'd need two Illnesses for the Assembled tokens to drop dead the moment they come in.
Re: the deck itself: I'd think that having a free sac engine is better than using Illness in the Ranks, because there might come a time when you just want to keep your tokens.
Incidentally, if you have a mountain on the field when you drop your boar on T3, that will trigger Experiment One's evolve. You actually swing for 10 on T3, not 9.
I'm iffy on 4 Caverns, the largest number of any single tribe you have is 8.
Have you considered Clan Defiance in a Jund ramp? I mean, those are the colours you've got the most in your base.
Your caverns don't seem like a good fit, here, and I'm not sold on KWR for aggro - you don't get good value out of it until midgame. Consider dropping the two caverns and the two viashino shanktails for 4 experiment ones, which is still low on one-drops but it's better than what you've got.
You could revive a pit fight or a GCR, or you could fling whatever you bloodrushed for another 6+ damage to the face.
The draw source IS weak, that's why I gave up trying to do midrange Gruul and succumbed to the obvious power of fast Gruul aggro.
I think, though, that if you replaced the two Domris for some more Garruks for consistent bloodrush draw, that you might be able to do something there.
Spire Tracers are a bad one drop. While the Tracer + Madcap combo is awesome in a limited event, it doesn't work in Standard, where there are a lot of answers to it - you'll just get 2 for 1'd. Consider using Experiment One or Dryad Militant as your one drop - or both! Or if you want red one drops, Rakdos Cackler and Stromkirk Noble are the go-to red one drops.
Just because "turn 5 or 6" is considered quick for the metagame where you play, doesn't mean it's actually quick. You can make it faster, by using better cards.
A Gruul aggro deck doesn't even have to be expensive. The deck I'm running right now only has shocklands and hellriders as the money cards, the rest are just commons and uncommons. You can replace hellriders with cheaper cards like, say, rubblebelt raiders or something.
The important point, though, is that aggro needs to be fast, and you've got a lot of bad, slow cards in there.
I never said take out the pit fights - I said take out the revives. Nothing stopping you from having both pit fight and reach.
Fling will let you end the game much sooner.
The Domri Rade repeatable fight is decent, but you only get it once every 3 turns. That's a really, really slow clock, and you'll get outraced by proper midrange or late game combo/control decks.
I like Clan Defiance, I was only suggesting taking it out if you wanted to keep the Domri Rades in.
Re: the Shanktail: there are better, cheaper sources of first strike if you really, really need it. You should consider other bloodrushers like Slaughterhorn instead of the Viashino Shanktail.
Borderland Ranger is a 2/2 3 drop that gets you land in the hand, not on the battlefield. Ranger doesn't ramp for you, it makes your midrange more consistent. If you're looking for consistent midrange, that's not aggro.
Skarrg Guildmage is a 2/2 2 drop without haste, so it's slightly under an explosive aggro curve (Gorehouse Chainwalker is a 3/2, Flinthoof Boar is a 3/3, Rakdos Shredfreak is a 2/1 haste, Lightning Mauler is a 2/1 with soulbond haste, et cetera). The all-creatures-get-trample is only useful when you've got big critters that need to power through. Ghor-clan Rampager's bloodrush already gives trample, and Rancor already gives trample (assuming you take out the Titanic Growths for the Rancors, which you should), so the only pumpers you've got are the Madcap Skills (which should grant sufficient evasion anyway) and the Zhur-taa Swines. We'll get to the swines in a moment.
The guildmage's second ability requires 4 lands open to be useful (3 with an arbor elf), so it's a 4/4 on turn 4 (3 with arbor elf) with nothing else on it. There are much, much better turn 4 (3 with arbor elf) aggro drops. Hellrider, for example, is a 3/3 with haste, and even if it attacks alone, the extra damage from its trigger makes it a better 4/4.
Zhur-taa Swine... dropping it as a critter is too late for fast aggro, and it's behind the curve anyway. The bloodrush costs 3CMC for +5/+4, which is bad. Ghor-clan Rampager's bloodrush is 2CMC for +4/+4 with trample. You can find better cards to fill this one's position on the curve, both as a 5 CMC critter (Thundermaw Hellkite) and a 3 CMC spell (Brimstone Volley, for example).
Arbor Elf isn't REALLY aggro, but you can get away with it if you build your deck properly.
Wasteland Viper isn't aggro.
Borderland Ranger isn't aggro.
Skarrg Guildmage isn't aggro.
Zhur-taa Swine isn't aggro.
Titanic Growth is just not great at all, and can be replaced with Rancors.
Madcap Skills... might be good, can't really say. I just included some in my maindeck for my Gruul aggro deck but I haven't been able to try it yet.
KWR lets you get the bloodrush effect when you don't have bloodrush in your hand, or when you don't want to waste a bloodrush card.
Disciple of the Old Ways is also a no-no. The good bloodrush cards are Slaughterhorn and GCR (the latter one is the only TRULY good bloodrush card, unfortunately). Consider Fling over your Revives - swing through for damage, then burn them again after combat. You're only sitting at 23 creatures, right now, so the Domri Rades might not be bringing you all that much value on the +1. Maybe take out the Clan Defiances?
I've tried to make a deck similar to this that was based on bloodrush and the unfortunate truth is that building entirely around bloodrushing isn't quite sufficient - too slow for fast aggro, not strong enough for big midgame power.
If you plan on giving it a go anyway, I suggest Rubblehulks - they'll do a lot for you in the range of the game where your deck is going to be most effective.
The thing about the guildmages is that they don't give you their anti-blocker potential on turn 2, so if you drop one it's both: not doing damage, and not helping your 1 drop Cackler/Stromkirk/whatever else. By turn 3, if you want to take advantage of it, you have to leave your mana open and it only helps against blockers. A blocked attacker is an attacker that doesn't get through to hurt them. An attacker that doesn't get through is a wasted attacker. You're going hyper aggro here - the format has too many sweepers and instant speed removals to try to play the long game (which the guildmage is a bit more suited for, since its anti-blocker is repeatable).
This vast quantity of instant speed removal is also a problem for the Pit-Dweller, but I think that that card has potential, so I'm not gonna tell you to remove it. The whole Fling/Devour Flesh thing seems fine, although Devour Flesh is kind of a wasted slot - it's not great for pushing through blockers, and when you use it on your Pit-Dweller you're gaining 4 health instead of burning them for 5 like with the Fling. YMMV, of course, but I think you'll find yourself wanting better cards than Devour when you start playtesting, and you'll drop down to Pit-Dweller and Fling, and then from there you might find your dweller getting speared or mortar'd when you don't have the Fling in hand, and you'll either go back to the devour to protect your pit-dweller or you'll remove them altogether. 8 (well, 7 currently) cards to protect another 4 isn't really the greatest idea, although again, I don't think the Pit-Dweller is ALL that bad... it probably depends on your local meta.
Re: cryptborn horrors being a good drop on turn 7: I can think of many cards that are better "turn 7" drops, but that's beside the point. You don't want to think of cards based on how good they might be on turns 7 or 8 or 9. If you want hyper aggressive, getting to mid game is Bad (tm). The majority of your threat should come from early to early-mid, and then you use whatever reach you have to power through after sweepers like terminus or supreme verdict, or some solid blockers like a swagtusk.
Re: the suggestion to replace the flailers with nighthawks: I think the flailer is probably a better choice for what the OP is trying to do with the deck. Agree on replacing Rakdos though. Hellrider or hellkite is a much better finisher. Rakdos is just a big evading beater, but he doesnt swing until T5 at the earliest. He's the big bomb and he has to wait an entire turn until he can be a threat - and an entire turn in this format... well, let's just say he might not be inciting all that many riots.
I think the horrors will be a dead card too often to warrant inclusion, even with all your sources of direct loss. I mean, if you can swing through on turn three with a pit-dweller and then drop the horror, that's good curve value, so in this deck it might not be too bad... you'll have to see how it plays out, I guess. I think the guildmages should definitely be replaced, though.