It's got strong pieces, but it's just not as powerful as Abzan or as cohesive as Jeskai. It's made what, 1 top 8 appearance? On the other hand, the other two seem to make up 70-80% of every top 8 in some variation. Maybe someone can brew up a winning recipe, but I know my builds have not been all that good or consistent.
All Mardu needs are a few high value 1 and 2 drops and it's golden. There's some great stuff in the 3, 4, 5CMC range, but it's just too slow and not quite as much value compared to Jeskai and Abzan-specific stuff.
The biggest problem I'm seeing playing Mardu is the lack of a good strong 2 drop. The only real option is Seeker of the Way, which is situational at best. It's really hard to play consistent threats within the first 5 turns when everything costs 3, 4, or 5 mana, and a few requiring BB or RR. The only viable options are burn spells or disruption, which is always good but doesn't advance board presence. In a meta with a bunch of 1 for 1 removal, it's hard to keep up without 2 drops in our colors that are as strong as say Fleecemane Lion or Rakshasa Deathdealer, which are great in opening draws or late game top deck.
With that in mind, I'm trying to take my deck in a more stalling control direction with a focus on kill/discard/burn/sweep and a few huge finishers.
i don't even play the deck myself, but it's safe to say no deck is completely "nonskill". look at Tom Ross for example.
Except Abzan midrange? Kind of just curve out, play the best card in your hand and out-pace everyone else for value. Besides the boss mana dorks, there's 3/3s for 2, 4/4s for 3, 4/5s for 4, all with relevant abilities, deathtouch, hexproof, regen, pumpability, trample, life swap. Not to mention a plethora of removal spells and planeswalkers available. It's just Abzan GoodStuff. Really hard to lose with.
If I have for example a Seeker of the Way and some other creature in play and I attack with both, if I cast Ajani's Presence with an additional Strive to target both creatures, does that second "cast" trigger another boost of Prowess?
I think warriors can work in mardu but I have yet to test it.
I find the format to be pretty sweet namely because I put together naya midrange/control and it confused people.
Lots of potential in the new format I hope that people do not find a few cards that will allow format domination.
All I see at my local store is Courser/Caryatid/Siege Rhino + whatever other flavor of other stuff thrown in. Usually Rakshasa Deathdealer and Fleecemane Lion or other green fatties. Throw in some Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfalls, Banishing lights, not to mention the amazingly powerful and versatile Abzan Charm, and you've got a force to be reckoned with. There is a lot of potential for variety, but the fact is LOTS of people are playing this deck (or some minor variation) and it's extremely difficult to deal with, unless specifically tuned to deal with it. I had a warriors deck originally and it felt like attacking into a brick wall. It was decent work just getting past their line of Coursers/Caryatids, and that was before even worrying about their actual threats. Now I'm shifting more towards a wrath/kill/disrupt/planeswalker control style build because rounds keep coming down to top deck battles, and that's a hard battle to win against Siege Rhino with other hexproof/deathtouch/regen creatures.
Abzan and Jeskai are cleary the two dominating archtypes for now. I still have a lot of faith in Mardu and it's cleary the runner behind those two. The Theros decks seens to be flopping very hard, I didn't expect to mono green devo and BW control to just die this way.
The good thing is, in each of those archtype, the number of possibilities seens to be great, althrough a perfect interaction is just a matter of time.
Imo this format have much lower diversity among tier 1 then Theros/RTR but this downside is outweight by the fact the decks are much more cooler to play with and the difference between tier one and two two decks seens to be small this time around. There's a dozen of tier 2 deck that have favorable match ups against the tier ones, something that didn't happen last season were Esper and Black Devotion didn't had less then 55% win rate vs. any tier 2 archtype.
Mardu did very bad at the PT and other tournaments from what I read. It certainly isn´t the runner-up to Jeskai and Abzan, far from it. It seems Mardu simply isn´t viable, how sad that might be.
As someone invested in Mardu, I can agree. It's definitely been an uphill battle figuring out what works. Abzan just has better value card for card and Jeskai has better speed. Having invested pretty heavily into Mardu colored cards and lands, it's frustrating to see just how bad it is against Abzan/Jeskai over and over. But I think the biggest problem is Mardu doesn't know what it wants to be. The mana base isn't quite there to make a fast aggro deck viable, the value cards aren't quite there to make it a strong enough midrange deck, and the control decks lack good and consistent finishers, especially considering the burn available to Jeskai and removal available to Abzan.
At the very least, bile blight hits their dorks as well. An answer to cards that comprise good starts and good endings is certainly nothing to scoff at.
Sylvan Caryatid is hexproof and Courser of Kruphix is 4 toughness, so unless you're doing something ELSE into them as well, it's frustrating to say the least, especially when most of our burn spells only do 2 or 3 damage. It's been the death of me two FNM in a row. I can either waste a Heros Downfall, Crackling Doom, or Banishing light on the Courser to stall the threats/land life gain (while knowing all the decks run full playsets of both and I have no maindeck answers to Caryatid) or just hope I can deal with whatever threats DO come down. But even then, they have a 0/3 hexproof blocker and 2/4 blocker. The only real ways around them seem to be wraths or air creatures. I'm trying out a creature set next week with Goblin Rabblemaster being the only non-flyer and bringing some nice air support with Herald of Torment, Hushwing Gryff, Stormbreath Dragon, or Wingmate Roc in addition to Butcher of the Horde. With enough kill/disruption, I should be able to survive long enough to get the 5CMC threats online.
IMO it´s great!. But time will tell if siege rhino was a mistake.
Let's see, it forces a commitment to three colours, it doesn't trade with itself, it doesn't replace itself, there are no blink cards in standard to take advantage of its ETB.
The moment I saw it the spoiler for it I felt it was a properly balanced thragtusk for the midrange decks to use.
It forces commitment to three colors that are known for huge fatties, disruption, kill spells, exiling, life gain, and +1/+1 counters. If I wasn't already invested in black, white, and red just before Khans, I'd be ALL OVER abzan. The stuff is just gold right now. Also, Whip of Erebos is stupid good. Whip a Rhino for another 6 point life swing, attack with lifelink and gain another 4. Who cares if the damage gets through or not, you just gained 7 life for a potential 14 point life total swing. Just makes me wish I invested in Coursers/Caryatids and other staples before Khans launch. And the fact that 75% of local decks are running these is making me main deck things like Hushwing Gryff.
I guess it matters how much you like Siege Rhino or Jeskai Charm. I'm not a big fan so far because I'm not running either and don't want to dump a couple hundred more dollars to make the switch over. Fingers crossed that Mardu lineups can be more effective soon. At my local meta, it's Siege Rhinos for days.
My Mardu deck which is still undergoing lots of tweaking got utterly rocked by Abzan at my last FNM. I either run out of removal or can't present enough threats. The fact that many people were using hexproof/regenerate effects made it even harder. Anger of the Gods is also pretty much useless since everything is 4 toughness (or can be made 4 toughness) and can't be done at instant speed.
I'm working on Mardu as well but I was going more aggro. I really think thoughtseize and or despise may be the only real option. I'm also tempted to try stain the mind. (yeah a turn 3 siege rhino really sucks I'm not sure there really is an answer for that. I think the fact that The Azban players consistently drew multiple copies is what made the decks so strong. (If I didn't know better I'd swear there was more than 4 in the deck.)
The problem I'm running into is in balancing getting rid of their threats (discard/destroy/exile) while having enough of my threats survive their removal, plus getting through their remaining big bad threats. It's an uphill battle that's totally showcased by the top 8. Luckily, I just play local FNM, but with everyone essentially running some kind of Siege Rhino deck, it's frustrating to have to build around that.
The problem is a lot of the mono colored cards just aren't as powerful as the gold borders or are significantly better with support from other colors.
With that in mind, I'm trying to take my deck in a more stalling control direction with a focus on kill/discard/burn/sweep and a few huge finishers.
Except Abzan midrange? Kind of just curve out, play the best card in your hand and out-pace everyone else for value. Besides the boss mana dorks, there's 3/3s for 2, 4/4s for 3, 4/5s for 4, all with relevant abilities, deathtouch, hexproof, regen, pumpability, trample, life swap. Not to mention a plethora of removal spells and planeswalkers available. It's just Abzan GoodStuff. Really hard to lose with.
All I see at my local store is Courser/Caryatid/Siege Rhino + whatever other flavor of other stuff thrown in. Usually Rakshasa Deathdealer and Fleecemane Lion or other green fatties. Throw in some Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfalls, Banishing lights, not to mention the amazingly powerful and versatile Abzan Charm, and you've got a force to be reckoned with. There is a lot of potential for variety, but the fact is LOTS of people are playing this deck (or some minor variation) and it's extremely difficult to deal with, unless specifically tuned to deal with it. I had a warriors deck originally and it felt like attacking into a brick wall. It was decent work just getting past their line of Coursers/Caryatids, and that was before even worrying about their actual threats. Now I'm shifting more towards a wrath/kill/disrupt/planeswalker control style build because rounds keep coming down to top deck battles, and that's a hard battle to win against Siege Rhino with other hexproof/deathtouch/regen creatures.
As someone invested in Mardu, I can agree. It's definitely been an uphill battle figuring out what works. Abzan just has better value card for card and Jeskai has better speed. Having invested pretty heavily into Mardu colored cards and lands, it's frustrating to see just how bad it is against Abzan/Jeskai over and over. But I think the biggest problem is Mardu doesn't know what it wants to be. The mana base isn't quite there to make a fast aggro deck viable, the value cards aren't quite there to make it a strong enough midrange deck, and the control decks lack good and consistent finishers, especially considering the burn available to Jeskai and removal available to Abzan.
Sylvan Caryatid is hexproof and Courser of Kruphix is 4 toughness, so unless you're doing something ELSE into them as well, it's frustrating to say the least, especially when most of our burn spells only do 2 or 3 damage. It's been the death of me two FNM in a row. I can either waste a Heros Downfall, Crackling Doom, or Banishing light on the Courser to stall the threats/land life gain (while knowing all the decks run full playsets of both and I have no maindeck answers to Caryatid) or just hope I can deal with whatever threats DO come down. But even then, they have a 0/3 hexproof blocker and 2/4 blocker. The only real ways around them seem to be wraths or air creatures. I'm trying out a creature set next week with Goblin Rabblemaster being the only non-flyer and bringing some nice air support with Herald of Torment, Hushwing Gryff, Stormbreath Dragon, or Wingmate Roc in addition to Butcher of the Horde. With enough kill/disruption, I should be able to survive long enough to get the 5CMC threats online.
It forces commitment to three colors that are known for huge fatties, disruption, kill spells, exiling, life gain, and +1/+1 counters. If I wasn't already invested in black, white, and red just before Khans, I'd be ALL OVER abzan. The stuff is just gold right now. Also, Whip of Erebos is stupid good. Whip a Rhino for another 6 point life swing, attack with lifelink and gain another 4. Who cares if the damage gets through or not, you just gained 7 life for a potential 14 point life total swing. Just makes me wish I invested in Coursers/Caryatids and other staples before Khans launch. And the fact that 75% of local decks are running these is making me main deck things like Hushwing Gryff.
The problem I'm running into is in balancing getting rid of their threats (discard/destroy/exile) while having enough of my threats survive their removal, plus getting through their remaining big bad threats. It's an uphill battle that's totally showcased by the top 8. Luckily, I just play local FNM, but with everyone essentially running some kind of Siege Rhino deck, it's frustrating to have to build around that.