Not much to say here. A new player with a junk deck splashing for Medomai the Ageless. I milled him out with Ashiok/Medomai beats to win both games. Felt bad. :\
Match 2: American midrange/control
G1: Not much to say here. I answered every single one of his threats, but he also answered mine. Each Ashiok got answered one way or another and I milled myself with no threats left
G2: -2 Bile blight, -2 Aetherspouts, +2 Sphinx, +1 Liliana, +2 Negate. This game went a lot better than first. Again, I answered every single one of his threats without fail but managed to keep an Ashiok alive this time. I took him down with a stolen Keranos+Mantis Rider and a Sphinx of my own.
G3: No sideboard changes, G3 was similiar to G2. I stuck a Liliana and managed to ult her, getting 2 Stormbreath Dragons, 2 Mantis Riders, Keranos, and a Purphoros to take the game & match.
Deck felt super powerful here but the lack of a wincon besides Ashiok shows that the deck is lacking something.
Match 3: Abzan Junk
A good friend of mine, we play test often and I've beaten him a few times so I know this match up is a good one.
G1: I use the incorrect removal spells at the wrong time which starts a chain reaction of threats that get out of hand fast. Simply a misplay early that cost me later. Better piloting of the deck could have probably cruised this game to a victory.
G2: +1 Sphinx, +1 Dead Drop, -2 Bile Blight. I misplayed Dead Drop as an instant. Had I played it correctly, I believe I would have slowly regained control of the match. Again, a misplay (as well as playing with new cards) costed me the match.
Didn't play the best here but I'm not entirely too upset with how the games went. It never felt like I was just going to outright lose because of the deck. I lost because of how I played, the deck had the answers, I just tried to use them incorrectly.
Match 4: Outlast Aggro
This deck was kind of weird. It was like an amazing limited deck and a bad version of heroic.
G1: I keep a slow hand with little removal and die on turn 4 to a 17 DMG swing from a Fabled Hero. To the sideboard!
G2: +4 Returned Phalanx, +1 Bile Blight, +2 Drown in Sorrow. -2 Dissolve, -4 Disdainful Stroke. Phalanx was okay here. He had a few tricks since it pseudo heroic but they did slow him down a few turns. Eventually ground out removal and beat him down with his own Anafenza.
G3: -1 Aetherspouts, +1 Drown in Sorrow. Some of his duders were x/3 so I was hesitant to throw in the 3rd Drown but the game worked out in the end. Probably wouldn't have brought it in the end. I almost brought in dead drop to play around all his protection spells (10 mainboarded, I learned after). IDK, the game felt incredibly easy since he wasn't really aggro. I don't think outlast really has a place in constructed, it's just too slow.
Match 5: American Control
G1: This game went incredibly long. I answered every single threat he offered up, and in return, he did the same till I managed to stick the final Ashiok. Unfortunately, I was pretty beat up from his burn spells and the game ended with him having a Keranos and a single card in his library, a lightning strike while I'm at 1. On hindsight, I probably could have let him stick a non-issue card like Purphoros; He ran very few creatures and I answered most of them (besides a Nyx Fleece Ram). He had a few little creatures so I kept in a few blights.
G2: +1 Prognostic Sphinx, +2 Negate, +1 Liliana. -2 Aetherspouts, -1 Bile Blight. Won this game by milling him out. He wisely sideboarded out his Stormbreaths. Managed to stick an Ashiok early and ride it to victory, exiling his banishing lights and burn in the process.
G3: Time was called as we started game 3 so we called it a tie.
Overall, the deck feels powerful. I feel like Ashiok is where we want to be in this format, or as long as midrange is running rampant.
Aetherspouts doesn't feel as good as it did in BUG. I'll probably go down to 1 mainboard. It's a total house when I send 4-5 of their creatures to the bottom of their library or get added value off Ashiok. I didn't have that happen once tonight, only blanking an aggro players 4 dmg swing.
This deck SERIOUSLY needs another wincon besides Ashiok. I feel like there's a lot of white going around (mardu, abzan, jeskai) and with it, banishing light. This cards not super easily to answer with 2 maindeck dissolves.
I don't thinkEmpty the Pits is that bad. Most games I had 10~ cards delved, and another 10-15 in the graveyard. I didn't really delve unless I really had to, and I still had plenty of fodder left over. Hard to say, but this deck can't stay with just 4 Ashioks as the wincon.
Sphinx is probably good as a 2-of mainboard, but I'm not sure what to remove.
I want 1-3 more Radiant Fountain because burn scares me. Thoughtseize & fetchlands slowly add up.
Disdainful Stroke is boss. I never once regret running 4 mainboard, but I kind of like a 3/3 split between it and Dissolve. Being unable to answer downfalls/banishing lights really sucks. Hard to say, though.
Pearl Lake Ancient might be decent. I'm considering trying it this Tuesday as a 1-of mainboard.
4-1'd the competitive store in my area tonight! Highest I've ever gone there so I'm pumped for Chicago.
Played against Boss Sligh (x2), B/W Devotion, Jund Monsters, and Junk Constellation.
Absolutely love Deathrite Shaman. I was unsure of putting it in at first but I'm hooked. He either eats really early removal or gets in 2-3 activations on a stalled board. Bile Blight too; it did a lot of work when I had just two so I knew I had to put in a 3rd. I kind of want to go up to 4 heralds but I'm not sure what I'd remove... maybe go down to 3 Spiteful Returned?
My sideboard needs a lot of work. Thoughts? I haven't played against hexproof in the two weeks I've been playing this deck so Devour Flesh has been kind of useless. Haven't played against control either so Nighthowler hasn't been put in yet. I'm also not sure HOW to sideboard in most situations. How do you guys generally sideboard in each matchup? Also should I throw in a whip or Pharikas cure for burn? No one at my stores plays it.
I'm insanely interested in trying out this deck. Only thing keeping me back are the Thunes. What do you guys think of the deck? The meta of my LGS is aggro and janky homebrews so I think this could do work.
Basically play like a straightforward aggro list. Path of Bravery should be gaining you life every turn so the anthem is always active. AA of Thune synergizes with most of your cards so on a magically good turn, your 2/2s should grow to 4/4s or 5/5/s and you gain 10+ life. 4 Anthems that stack allow you to grow your creatures and ride through the mid game.
Planning to take B/W Humans to GP Chicago. I know the deck needs some work and I have a few questions. I'm new to the colors, archtype, and still relatively new to Magic itself.
1 - I know my land base is pretty poor. I initially ran 22 then bumped it up to 23 after getting my final Temple of Silence. I'm working on trading for rest of the lands, but I'm not sure what I want it to look like in the end. I'm always glad to either start with Mutavault or draw into it with my first few turns. Is it worth it to run 4, or will it hurt with all those double costed white spells? What about Mana Confluence? I feel like not being able to keep certain hands or play the cards that I want to on t1/t2 due to lack of shocks/confluence really hurts and would make my deck much, much better. But is 4x Confluence worth it? Ideally I'd run 21-22 lands: 4x Mutavault, 4x temple, 4x Godless Shrine, 4x Mana Confluence, 3-4 plains, 2 swamp.
2 - Thoughtseize, when to? One game that comes to mind is where I kept a relatively white heavy hand and a Thoughtseize + Pain Seer. It wasn't until turn 4 that I drew a black source and I opted to drop a Pain Seer so I could start drawing more. Opponent played a blood baron, then the turn right after an Archangel. I managed to win the round but I'm still kicking myself over letting him play two big threats that I could have easily handled had I played better (and had a better landbase!) Should I Thoughtseize turn 1, game 1 so I can scope out my opponent's hand and figure out what I'm playing against, or should I drop a turn 1 Tormented Hero/soldier, then Thoughtseize turn 2?
3 - I'm interested in throwing Keening Apparition in the mainboard but because it's not a human, I really don't want to. I'm not even sure what to remove. What do you guys think?
4 - I'm mainly using Orzhov Charm to destroy creatures- very rarely do I have the freedom of returning a one drop. I'm not sure I want to keep them in the list but the thought of bouncing a token and saving my army from dsphere or stonewalling a multicolored creature with my freshly-revived Soldier of the Pantheon sounds too good. What do you guys think?
5 - Devour Flesh in the mainboard? I played against Naya Hexproof over gameday at a rather competitive store. Game 1 I got completely ran over and I managed to stall Game 2 feigning a Celestial Flare in my hand. I lost in the end though, having never drawn what I needed so I'd like to revamp my sideboard/mainboard removal to better deal with Blood Baron/Hexproof which I'm sure will be rampant at GP Chicago.
6 - Sideboarding... How? I feel like I struggle with this the most. The first real competitve deck I played as G/B Dredge and that was such a pain to sideboard. I feel like it's given me a bad habit to sideboard out only a couple of cards when I could be making much larger changes. As I've said, my FNM environment is pretty janky and relaxed so I don't see many of the Tier 1 decks I'll surely be playing against in a GP environment. Are there any relevant articles on WB aggro/humans that lists how to sideboard, or what your sideboard should consist of?
7 - Similiar to the above question, but are there any articles/write-ups about WB aggro/humans? I really love reading accounts of games, what went wrong, good plays, how they sideboarded, etc. I've been looking for similar write ups on this list but haven't been able to find anything.
That's all that I can think of for now. Any comments are highly appreciated! Long time lurker here and first time poster.
8 - ThrillKill Assassin - Does she have place in the main or sideboard? I think being able to reliably get past things like Courser or Caryatid could help a lot but I'm not sure what to take out.
Do you guys think there's a chance Xathrid Necromancer will see a reprint in 2015?
I recently put this deck together (two weeks ago, 3-2 & 4-1 at my last two FNMs!) and I'm a bit sad and worried about the upcoming rotation. It's a blast to play and I don't know how the deck will play or feel post-rotation. It's hilarious getting my board wiped by an overloaded mortars only to get 8 zombie tokens and all my creatures returned back to my hand.
I'm excited for this card, what about you guys? I'm thinking about bringing a whip or two back to the mainboard. I also really hope we see another good bestow creature/that Pharika is good. I don't want to run too many of these if I'm only running 7 enchantments pre-sideboard.
I'm very excited for this card. Will definitely be useful for G/B Dredge. I'm hoping another good enchantment creature comes along, I don't think you could run more than 2 of these with only 7/8 enchantments pre-sideboard. Thoughts?
Made a few personal changes and ran it to a 3-1-1 record:
4 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
Removal:
3 Bile Blight
2 Despise
3 Thoughtseize
2 Murderous Cut
2 Aetherspouts
4 Hero's Downfall
Draw:
2 Font of Fortunes
2 Divination
3 Jace's Ingenuity
3 Dig Through Time
4 Disdainful Stroke
2 Dissolve
Lands
1 Flooded Strand
4 Dismal Backwater
1 Radiant Fountain
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
6 Swamp
4 Temple of Deceit
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bile Blight
1 Dead Drop
4 Drown in Sorrow
1 Negate
2 Prognostic Sphinx
4 Returned Phalanx
Match 1: Junk new player
Not much to say here. A new player with a junk deck splashing for Medomai the Ageless. I milled him out with Ashiok/Medomai beats to win both games. Felt bad. :\
Match 2: American midrange/control
G1: Not much to say here. I answered every single one of his threats, but he also answered mine. Each Ashiok got answered one way or another and I milled myself with no threats left
G2: -2 Bile blight, -2 Aetherspouts, +2 Sphinx, +1 Liliana, +2 Negate. This game went a lot better than first. Again, I answered every single one of his threats without fail but managed to keep an Ashiok alive this time. I took him down with a stolen Keranos+Mantis Rider and a Sphinx of my own.
G3: No sideboard changes, G3 was similiar to G2. I stuck a Liliana and managed to ult her, getting 2 Stormbreath Dragons, 2 Mantis Riders, Keranos, and a Purphoros to take the game & match.
Deck felt super powerful here but the lack of a wincon besides Ashiok shows that the deck is lacking something.
Match 3: Abzan Junk
A good friend of mine, we play test often and I've beaten him a few times so I know this match up is a good one.
G1: I use the incorrect removal spells at the wrong time which starts a chain reaction of threats that get out of hand fast. Simply a misplay early that cost me later. Better piloting of the deck could have probably cruised this game to a victory.
G2: +1 Sphinx, +1 Dead Drop, -2 Bile Blight. I misplayed Dead Drop as an instant. Had I played it correctly, I believe I would have slowly regained control of the match. Again, a misplay (as well as playing with new cards) costed me the match.
Didn't play the best here but I'm not entirely too upset with how the games went. It never felt like I was just going to outright lose because of the deck. I lost because of how I played, the deck had the answers, I just tried to use them incorrectly.
Match 4: Outlast Aggro
This deck was kind of weird. It was like an amazing limited deck and a bad version of heroic.
G1: I keep a slow hand with little removal and die on turn 4 to a 17 DMG swing from a Fabled Hero. To the sideboard!
G2: +4 Returned Phalanx, +1 Bile Blight, +2 Drown in Sorrow. -2 Dissolve, -4 Disdainful Stroke. Phalanx was okay here. He had a few tricks since it pseudo heroic but they did slow him down a few turns. Eventually ground out removal and beat him down with his own Anafenza.
G3: -1 Aetherspouts, +1 Drown in Sorrow. Some of his duders were x/3 so I was hesitant to throw in the 3rd Drown but the game worked out in the end. Probably wouldn't have brought it in the end. I almost brought in dead drop to play around all his protection spells (10 mainboarded, I learned after). IDK, the game felt incredibly easy since he wasn't really aggro. I don't think outlast really has a place in constructed, it's just too slow.
Match 5: American Control
G1: This game went incredibly long. I answered every single threat he offered up, and in return, he did the same till I managed to stick the final Ashiok. Unfortunately, I was pretty beat up from his burn spells and the game ended with him having a Keranos and a single card in his library, a lightning strike while I'm at 1. On hindsight, I probably could have let him stick a non-issue card like Purphoros; He ran very few creatures and I answered most of them (besides a Nyx Fleece Ram). He had a few little creatures so I kept in a few blights.
G2: +1 Prognostic Sphinx, +2 Negate, +1 Liliana. -2 Aetherspouts, -1 Bile Blight. Won this game by milling him out. He wisely sideboarded out his Stormbreaths. Managed to stick an Ashiok early and ride it to victory, exiling his banishing lights and burn in the process.
G3: Time was called as we started game 3 so we called it a tie.
Overall, the deck feels powerful. I feel like Ashiok is where we want to be in this format, or as long as midrange is running rampant.
Played against Boss Sligh (x2), B/W Devotion, Jund Monsters, and Junk Constellation.
Absolutely love Deathrite Shaman. I was unsure of putting it in at first but I'm hooked. He either eats really early removal or gets in 2-3 activations on a stalled board. Bile Blight too; it did a lot of work when I had just two so I knew I had to put in a 3rd. I kind of want to go up to 4 heralds but I'm not sure what I'd remove... maybe go down to 3 Spiteful Returned?
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Gnarled Scarhide
3 Tormented Hero
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Herald of Torment
4 Spiteful Returned
4 Mogis's Marauder
2 Thrill Kill Assassin
3 Bile Blight
3 Hero's Downfall
2 Ultimate Price
4 Thoughtseize
Lands 22
18 Swamp
4 Mutavault
4 Lifebane Zombie
3 Duress
2 Doomblade
2 Dark Betrayal
1 Nighthowler
2 Devour Flesh
My sideboard needs a lot of work. Thoughts? I haven't played against hexproof in the two weeks I've been playing this deck so Devour Flesh has been kind of useless. Haven't played against control either so Nighthowler hasn't been put in yet. I'm also not sure HOW to sideboard in most situations. How do you guys generally sideboard in each matchup? Also should I throw in a whip or Pharikas cure for burn? No one at my stores plays it.
I'm insanely interested in trying out this deck. Only thing keeping me back are the Thunes. What do you guys think of the deck? The meta of my LGS is aggro and janky homebrews so I think this could do work.
5 Swamp
5 Plains
4 Temple of Silence
4 Godless Shrine
4 Mutavault
1 Mana Confluence
4 Tormented Hero
4 Gnarled Scarehide
4 Underworld Coinsmith
4 Vizkopa Guildmage
4 Banisher Priest
2 Athreos, God of Passage
3 Desecration Demon
3 Archangel of Thune
4 Ordeal of Heliod
4 Path of Bravery
1 Whip of Erebos
Basically play like a straightforward aggro list. Path of Bravery should be gaining you life every turn so the anthem is always active. AA of Thune synergizes with most of your cards so on a magically good turn, your 2/2s should grow to 4/4s or 5/5/s and you gain 10+ life. 4 Anthems that stack allow you to grow your creatures and ride through the mid game.
2x Athreos, God of Passage
2x Banisher Priest
4x Boros Elite
3x Cartel Aristocrat
3x Imposing Sovereign
4x Pain Seer
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
3x Tormented Hero
3x Xathrid Necromancer
9x Plains
8x Swamp
4x Temple of Silence
3x Orzhov Charm
4x Thoughtseize
2x Spear of Heliod
2x Celestial Flare
3x Dark Betrayal
2x Doom Blade
2x Fiendslayer Paladin
3x Sin Collector
2x Ultimate Price
1x Xathrid Necromancer
Planning to take B/W Humans to GP Chicago. I know the deck needs some work and I have a few questions. I'm new to the colors, archtype, and still relatively new to Magic itself.
1 - I know my land base is pretty poor. I initially ran 22 then bumped it up to 23 after getting my final Temple of Silence. I'm working on trading for rest of the lands, but I'm not sure what I want it to look like in the end. I'm always glad to either start with Mutavault or draw into it with my first few turns. Is it worth it to run 4, or will it hurt with all those double costed white spells? What about Mana Confluence? I feel like not being able to keep certain hands or play the cards that I want to on t1/t2 due to lack of shocks/confluence really hurts and would make my deck much, much better. But is 4x Confluence worth it? Ideally I'd run 21-22 lands: 4x Mutavault, 4x temple, 4x Godless Shrine, 4x Mana Confluence, 3-4 plains, 2 swamp.
2 - Thoughtseize, when to? One game that comes to mind is where I kept a relatively white heavy hand and a Thoughtseize + Pain Seer. It wasn't until turn 4 that I drew a black source and I opted to drop a Pain Seer so I could start drawing more. Opponent played a blood baron, then the turn right after an Archangel. I managed to win the round but I'm still kicking myself over letting him play two big threats that I could have easily handled had I played better (and had a better landbase!) Should I Thoughtseize turn 1, game 1 so I can scope out my opponent's hand and figure out what I'm playing against, or should I drop a turn 1 Tormented Hero/soldier, then Thoughtseize turn 2?
3 - I'm interested in throwing Keening Apparition in the mainboard but because it's not a human, I really don't want to. I'm not even sure what to remove. What do you guys think?
4 - I'm mainly using Orzhov Charm to destroy creatures- very rarely do I have the freedom of returning a one drop. I'm not sure I want to keep them in the list but the thought of bouncing a token and saving my army from dsphere or stonewalling a multicolored creature with my freshly-revived Soldier of the Pantheon sounds too good. What do you guys think?
5 - Devour Flesh in the mainboard? I played against Naya Hexproof over gameday at a rather competitive store. Game 1 I got completely ran over and I managed to stall Game 2 feigning a Celestial Flare in my hand. I lost in the end though, having never drawn what I needed so I'd like to revamp my sideboard/mainboard removal to better deal with Blood Baron/Hexproof which I'm sure will be rampant at GP Chicago.
6 - Sideboarding... How? I feel like I struggle with this the most. The first real competitve deck I played as G/B Dredge and that was such a pain to sideboard. I feel like it's given me a bad habit to sideboard out only a couple of cards when I could be making much larger changes. As I've said, my FNM environment is pretty janky and relaxed so I don't see many of the Tier 1 decks I'll surely be playing against in a GP environment. Are there any relevant articles on WB aggro/humans that lists how to sideboard, or what your sideboard should consist of?
7 - Similiar to the above question, but are there any articles/write-ups about WB aggro/humans? I really love reading accounts of games, what went wrong, good plays, how they sideboarded, etc. I've been looking for similar write ups on this list but haven't been able to find anything.
That's all that I can think of for now. Any comments are highly appreciated! Long time lurker here and first time poster.
8 - ThrillKill Assassin - Does she have place in the main or sideboard? I think being able to reliably get past things like Courser or Caryatid could help a lot but I'm not sure what to take out.
I recently put this deck together (two weeks ago, 3-2 & 4-1 at my last two FNMs!) and I'm a bit sad and worried about the upcoming rotation. It's a blast to play and I don't know how the deck will play or feel post-rotation. It's hilarious getting my board wiped by an overloaded mortars only to get 8 zombie tokens and all my creatures returned back to my hand.
I'm excited for this card, what about you guys? I'm thinking about bringing a whip or two back to the mainboard. I also really hope we see another good bestow creature/that Pharika is good. I don't want to run too many of these if I'm only running 7 enchantments pre-sideboard.
I'm very excited for this card. Will definitely be useful for G/B Dredge. I'm hoping another good enchantment creature comes along, I don't think you could run more than 2 of these with only 7/8 enchantments pre-sideboard. Thoughts?