Quote from gabriel_404 »I've been playing Collins Mullen's version for about 15 matches, and what I've found is that I need some card draw, and that I flood a lot with 20 lands. I obviously need more reps but wondered if any of you have had the same experience.
I'm thinking I'll main 2x Dark Confidants, taking out one land and moving one Meddling Mage to the board. Another option is Duskwatch Recruiter, this might be better because it only draws creatures, not late-game Vials or lands. His flip-side is beefier and has synergy with Mayor of Avabruck.
What do you guys think?
I've played about 20 leagues now with Collin's version. How many Horizon Canopys are you playing (you need 2-3)? How aggressive are you mulliganing? This deck mulligans very aggressively. I tried 2x Bob in the main for awhile but I don't think that's where we want to be right now. He's not aggressive enough in matchups you need a clock and doesn't present immediate value or disruption. I've been running 1x Tireless Tracker in the main as the body isn't bad when you need him to attack and you can get immediate value off him if you have a land to play after casting him.
Duskwatch recruiter seems worthy of a test but at first thought I'd rather have Tireless Tracker or Bob since this deck rarely has 3 mana sitting around.
Quote from Dr. Sanchez »Quote from Scarlatti »I have some good results with Vial Humans and 3 main Merieke ri berek instead of 2 little Thalia and an anafenza
Merieke in combination with vial sounds interesting, first time I see the card mentioned in this thread. Vialling in Merieke at the end of an opponents turn is sexy. Not sure if I would want Merieke maindeck though and definitely not 3. Reflector mage is already bad against non-creature match-ups but at least has a 2/3 body.
Not sure if she is better than Hostage taker. Not being able to take artifacts is a thing, and the fact that she doesn't provide an attacking body in an aggro deck is pretty meh. Biggest drawback is probably that she doesn't do anything the turn she comes into play. She has a few advantages though so you can make an argument for her. I will try them both.
I tried Merieke when I found it looking on ScryFall as a 1 of in the board. Tried it for long enough to get it down in a couple different matchups. The only matchup I found it to be decent in was Eldrazi and the mirror. Its way too slow vs Merfolk, Affinity, and other aggro matchups. Does nothing vs control. Thought it would be decent against DS, and it was, but only with a vial on 3. Even then I'd rather another Sin Collector or Tracker there.
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It looks like most have dropped the Gideon, Ally of Z. Was it not that good? Even if you're heavy on the tokens?
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I haven't played this yet, but was thinking about the manabase. Could you get away with using one Canopy Vista and one Cinder Glade? The are forests, and are searchable with all your fetches, and seem like they could save you some life pretty often.
Another thought, for painless T1 green sources, what about a fastland like Botanical Sanctum? Is it very important for your late game land to come in untapped? I don't like this idea as much as the first one...
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Round 1: 2-1 vs Storm - He went off like crazy on Game 1, then in G2 he stumbled a bit and I punished him. The good cards were Tidehollow Skuller to take his pieces (1 Pyromancer Ascension and 1 Grapeshot), Dismember to kill a Goblin Electromancer, and Aven Mindcensor in response to a fetch. I didn't write down my sideboarding but I know I took out walls to get more aggressive, and brought in some creatures and a Chalice of the Void. He killed a Thalia on sight, but it kept him from going off so I guess she did her job.
Round 2: 1-2 vs Jund Dredgevine - This deck is really good and I didn't have graveyard hate. His main recursive creatures were Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, and of course Vengevine, with Stinkweed Imp to block and Dredge 5 every turn. The one game I won, I really beat down with aggression, and the other two went longer and even gaining a million life off of Kitchen Finks/Flickerwisp didn't save me.
Round 3: 2-1 vs Abzan Tokens - This was fun, as the deck is a copy of one of my brews. It is like BW Tokens splashing for Siege Rhino and Voice of Resurgence plus Gavony Township. Super fun deck but it's terrible against D&T with the flicker effects. In Game 1 he disrupted me pretty good but I attacked his manabase to keep him off Green, and I killed his Auriok Champion with Wasteland Strangler which felt pretty good. Game 2 went long with him thoughtsiezing me a lot and Auriok Champion giving him his Bitterblossom Tokens for free... he eventually flew over and killed me. Game 3 was so fast I felt bad. I played early Tidehollow Sculler, knew he had a bunch of 3-drops, then played Thalia, then played Fulminator Mage to blow up third land and keep him off a color, beating down the whole time. The nail in the coffin was vialing in a second Sculler on his draw step right after he'd drawn a 2-drop and taking it away. I think I won on turn 5-6 with him holding a handful of cards.
Round 4: 2-1 against Merfolk. Game 1, Wall of Resurgence on a Darksteel Citadel was pretty great and he flooded a bit so I won. In Game 2 he spreading seas'd me and I had only 3 lands and he won. In Game 3 we were both greedy; he kept 1 land and I kept 2, and we both had Vials but I got more land when I needed it. He seas's me again but I blinked the land it was on. Between his vial and hitting the second land, he dumped his hand all the way out. I put my vial to 4, made a dumb attack that he didn't block for some reason, and then I played Wrath of God and vialed in a Restoration Angel. That game ended pretty quick.
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4 Caves of Koilos
4 Godless Shrine
2 Fetid Heath
2 Shambling Vent
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Darksteel Citadel
3 Plains
2 Swamp
10 Spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
2 Dismember
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
2 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Wall of Resurgence
3 Wasteland Strangler
1 Fiend Hunter
3 Restoration Angel
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Lingering Souls
2 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
2 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Wrath of God
Insight #1 - I need to practice. I forgot how many small decisions add up and how quickly I need to make them. Might have to dust off the MTGO account....
Insight #2 - Wall of Resurgence is great. I don't have Inkmoth Nexus or Blinkmoth Nexus, so my favorite targets are Shambling Vent and Darksteel Citadel The only downside is it makes lands vulnerable to Searing Blaze. The upsides are numerous, even against Burn. Searing Blaze is always good against us, so I don't believe that it's right to take the Wall out for that reason. What do you folks think? Do you ever board it out, perhaps to become more aggressive against control/combo/slow decks?
Insight #3 - Eldrazi Displacer seemed slow and clunky to me too. I'll keep one for now because I want to keep open mind for now.
Insight #4 - Six maindeck removal spells is great! Also, Fiend Hunter was like the seventh - I'd like to find room for one more.
Insight #5 - I'm sold on Wasteland Strangler! I don't always have exiled cards to target, but usually do. It feels so good to target the card exiled under the Fiend Hunter that I really want another one.
Insight #6 - Fulminator Mages out of the sideboard are possibly-maybe too slow against Eldrazi. I used them as chump blockers and to destroy Mutavaults, so they're not useless, but every time I saw one it was too late to stop the fast mana.
Insight #7 - We can slow down Eldrazi pretty good, with removal, blockers, and tricks like flickering Endless Ones, etc. However, we have to seal the deal! They will eventually topdeck a Reality Smasher and if you're in topdeck mode, you might not have both a removal spell AND another card to discard to its ability. That said, it doesn't feel impossible. My game 1 I smashed him so bad and so fast he was shaking his head wondering what happened. But in games 2 and 3 (mulled to 5) it got grindy and I had to chump block a lot, while he got value off of Matter Reshapers and finally got a trampler. It's still a small sample, but I do think this is a good weapon to fight the menace.
Insight #8 - Affinity wasn't that bad, but again, the small sample size. Have you also had that experience?
Insight #9 - This manabase was pretty good - needs more testing but I like it so far. The Dismembers are not hard to cast, and they got even easier when the Eldrazi deck played Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I try to keep the creature count high, but 27 was fine all night. I think some of you play 25 - Does that ever cause trouble with Thalia?
Speaking of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, she is very good in a few matchups, and gets killed pretty quick, so I don't mind having 4 in normal case. For this meta however, I might try 2. I know that's sacrilege, please disagree with me if you have a valid reason! I also am ready to try a version without Leonin Arbiters, but I also want some search hate, so I think I'll do two Aven Mindcensors like some of you do. Thalia and Aven are high on the list to board out because their usefulness varies. Another card like that is Lingering Souls - it feel weird for me to have it in the board but will stick with that for now. When it's good, it's so good!
Here are my changes and new decklist for tonight:
Main:
-3 Leonin Arbiter
-1 Eldrazi Displacer
+2 Aven Mindcensor
+2 Wall of Resurgence
Sideboard:
+2 Kitchen Finks
+1 Orzhov Pontiff
-1 Spellskite
-2 Engineered Explosives
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Godless Shrine
2 Fetid Heath
2 Shambling Vent
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Darksteel Citadel
3 Plains
2 Swamp
10 Spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
2 Dismember
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Flickerwisp
1 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Wall of Resurgence
3 Wasteland Strangler
1 Fiend Hunter
3 Restoration Angel
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Orzhoff Pontiff
2 Lingering Souls
1 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
2 Thoughtseize
1 Wrath of God
Couple questions:
I just ordered some Orzhov Pontiffs for my sideboard. What matchups do you guys bring those in for? The obvious ones are Affinity, Infect, Junk and Tokens...
- One card I would still like to try is Big Game Hunter. Does anyone have results with that one?
- One strategy that I like when playing other decks against burn is to sideboard out all my artifacts/enchantments, and bring in utility creatures instead. They invariably bring in Destructive Revelry against white decks and Aether Vial decks, and I like the idea of giving them 4 dead cards post-board. It is crushing. However, I don't know if it's worth it in this case, because Aether Vial is so important to our strategy. What are your opinions and experience? Is the artifact that important against burn? In this case, I'm thinking the sideboard would be:
-4 Aether Vial
- METAGAME: The decks I want to beat are (in order by % of metagame): Eldrazi 41%, Affinity 15%, Junk/Jund 5.5%, Infect 3.6%, Zoo/Burn 3.6% and Abzan Coco/Melira 2.9%. Of these, let's start talking about sideboards and best/worst matchups.
+2 Kor Firewalker
+2 Fulminator Mage (or Lingering Souls? or more Kitchen Finks?)
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Anyway, I listed my boarding for each match I played - please feel free to tell me what I did wrong!
Round 1: monored goblins (2-0)
Game 1 went well, I killed his things and kept him from having a mass of goblins to pump. Maindeck Sunlance was great. He had some red enchantment to buff the goblins.
IN: +2 Burrenton Forge-tender, +1 Celestial Purge
OUT: -1 Vryn Wingmare, -1 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Leonin Arbiter
Game 2 he bolted my Thalia, then goblin grenaded Thalia #2. Flickerwisp saved my Hierarch, and an exalted Serra Avenger finished it.
Round 2: Soul Sisters (0-2)
I don't wanna talk about it. Archangel of Thune & 3 Fiendslayer Paladins & 2 Ajani's Pridemates. I scooped at 19 life
IN: +1 Vryn Wingmare, +1 Aven Mindcensor, +2 Spellskite, +2 Engineered Explosives
OUT: -1 Sunlance, -1 Scavenging Ooze, -4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
* Was it a big mistake to take out Thalia? * Seems like I should never do that again. *
Game 2 I only got 2 Plains the whole game and so I had to EE for 1, but 2 would have been better because he played Mastery of the Unseen as well as Pridemate and some other 2-drop. Either way, I got smashed.
Round 3 Rg goblins (2-1)
Game 1 I didn't see much burn, seemed more creature-based like the first one. There was a fun sequence where he started to fetch and I vialed in Arbiter in response. The Arbiter landed but (with fetch still on the stack) he bolted my Arbiter and I responded by Pathing one of his creatures so he wouldn't get to search for a basic. My guy still died but I felt good about the timing of the Path to Exile. He had a lot of 1/1 tokens and Goblin Bushwackers and eventually got me to zero.
IN: +2 Burrenton Forge-tender, +2 Spellskite, +2 Engineered Explosives
OUT: -1 Vryn Wingmare, -1 Aven Mindcensor, -4 Flickerwisp because 1 toughness seemed bad.
Game 2 was not good for him. I played T1 Noble Hierarch, T2 Thalia + Path, T3 Archangel of Tithes. I did see that he brought in Exquisite Firecraft so I sideboarded again.
IN: +2 Leyline of Sanctity
OUT: -2 Leonin Arbiter
Game 3 was closer. He had a Goblin Guide with Rancor that I was able to kill, and when the Rancor went back to his hand I blew up his only land that could produce green, hoping that he had no forests, and luckily he did not. Eventually we got to a very stalled board with Archangel of Tithes and two Nobles and a few other things on my side, and bunches of goblins that he couldn't swing with. He got me down to 1 and he was at 11, and he tapped out for a Goblin Rabblemaster which popped out a token that couldn't attack. He was tapped out so I swung for 17 since he couldn't block. Too close!
Round 4 Naya Burn (1-2)
Game 1 went as it should, he fetched and shocked himself down to about 9 and got me to about the same, then he ran out of gas and I beat down with Serra Avenger and Leonin Arbiter. I don't think the Arbiter stopped him from any searches, but he definitely burned himself a lot by fetch/shocking in response to Arbiter. I was hesitant to take them out, but couldn't figure out what was lower impact. Looking back I think it should be Flickerwisp. Still not 100% sure though.
IN: +2 Burrenton Forge-tender, +2 Spellskite, +2 Leyline of Sanctity
OUT: -1 Vryn Wingmare, -1 Aven Mindcensor, -4 Leonin Arbiter
Game 2 he had a beautiful curve, killed my Avenger with Searing Blood, blew up Vial with Destructive Revelry, and had another Destructive Revelry in his hand when I died.
* This is when I got really stupid. I thought I would strand him with 4 useless spells if I took out all my artifacts! So I took out 6 artifacts, including two of my best cards against burn, but left in two enchantments (Leyline of Sanctity). So dumb. *
OUT: -2 Spellskite, -4 AEther Vial
IN: +1 Vryn Wingmare, +1 Celestial Purge, +4 Leonin Arbiter (I wanted these guys back in anyway)
Game 3 I kept a slowish hand because it had a Leyline. Still didn't realize the mistake until he dropped that Destructive Revelry on it. Ugh. It turned out to be a tough close game, I was stuck on lands at first but he had double Goblin Guide to "help me out". I made one more bad mistake by getting so excited about getting land from the double Goblin Guide that I didn't path one of them, even though I had left up a Plains and my opponent knew I had a Path in hand. I pulled out of the mana screw, learned some things about Rift Bolt triggers with Thalia in play, and he eventually drew a Searing Blaze to win with 4 life.
Overall 2-2 was fine and I had a good time and learned some stuff, but DAMN I felt dumb about that last game. Thanks in Advance for any Pointers!
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2 Dryad Militant
2 Judge's Familiar
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Spellskite
4 Flickerwisp
4 Blade Splicer
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Mangara of Corondor
3 Restoration Angel
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
23 Lands:
1 Eiganjo Castle
13 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Seachrome Coast
2 Celestial Purge
1 Dismember
1 Sundering Growth
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Mark of Asylum
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
I tossed the two fastlands in there because a) I already have them for EDH, and b) I want to get Engineered Explosives for the sideboard, and c) they sometimes confuse the opponent. In my testing they have never been a problem.