This closer to the truth to what actually happened.
The Aztecs were brutal conquerors that sacrificed captives to their gods to stop the world from ending as a religious practice, they usurped the mayans who practiced the same rituals. They ravaged their neighbors... The mesoamericans were waging war on each other and enslaving each other before the Europeans arrived...
Did you really just "brown on brown crime" this thread? I can't...
The Aztecs' conquest of others in the context of precolombian history has little bearing on the current oppression of that people (or any of the other native american people, for that matter) today.
So, I do play mind over matter in my deck, but I also have two alternate win conditions. The first of these is Master of waves with a rite of replication (just master+rite puts 200 power on the board with 31 6/5 bodies) or docent of perfection with oodles of countermagic to protect it. I used to have a more creature based build with door of destinies and other tribal based synergies (gempalm sorcerer was a favorite) and that too was pretty decent. I think it just depends on whether you want a true creature-based tribal direction or a weissman-style draw go deck. I think, unfortunately if you want to play weissman, the win-con is always going to involve something that either provides near-total inevitability,or an instant win, as that's just kindof the nature of that archetype's playstyle (I mean, you could put weak/fragile win conditions in, if you don't care about winning too much).
Hey everyone. Congrats on all your game day successes! I wanted to bring to your collective attention the deck that took 25th place at Portland's GP this weekend. A tempo build with always watching.
a) People assumed that people would be prepared for spirits, and chose to play something else, resulting in less representation.
b) Jeff hoogland, iirc, was the only spirit deck on stream last week, in spite of it being over 15% of the top tables.
As much as I hate playing top tier decks, I love the aggro/tempo style decks that UW Spirits is tooo much to not play it. However, I'd wonder about a slightly different approach to it, closer to the first deck than the more controlling one.
Question 1) Why no Topplegeist?
- That plus Nebelgast Herald seems like itd be able to race the faster decks with no problem, as well as making it practically impossible for them to block.
Question 2) Could we just lower the curve a TON and skip Archangel Avacyn?
- Without her, your curve stops at a 2-of with Ojutai's Command at 4cmc, IF you cut those (Q4) it stops at 3, which is nuts, and hyper aggressive.
Question 3) How necessary is Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit?
- I mean I can tell shes good in this list, but I've never really been a fan of Bolster, and without that shes just a legendary Grizzly Bear.
Question 4) Whats the proper number of Declaration in Stone and Ojutai's Command?
- Personally I've never thought that highly of DiS, I mean its good, but I'd hate to play an all flash deck with sorcery removal lol. Also, if we're going super low to the ground with fliers, we may not even need them, especially if we run Ojutai's Command for recursion, and counter creatures, and Reflector Mage.
Question 5) Is Reflector Mage needed?
- Hes OP, and my gut says yes he is, however the non spirit part makes me cringe lol, though I like him better than card]Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit[/card]. This seems like one of those decks that is kinda tight on slots, and though he is OP, perhaps its just not quite worth it, especially in a hyper aggro thats going under (or over hehe) everything.
Something I was thinking was possibly something along the lines of:
So basically I just tried to get this as low to the ground as possible. Again, the highest CMC is a 3-of with Ojutai's Command, which I could see being cut to a 2-of, but figured its our only card draw so I'll keep it for late game if it gets there. Topplegeist with Nebelgast Herald as well as Fogwalker should keep their board super tapped down. Every single creature has evasion, with Flying on all except for the Fogwalkers that have Skulk. Mainboard Always Watching pumps the team and gives us a little bit of blocking power, and helps in the mirror.
For the sideboard, Reflector Mage is too good to not have in there, as well as Declaration in Stone, but I just think they'd slightly slow us down mainboard. Turn Aside essentially serves as Essence Flux 5-8 in protecting our stuff. Bygone Bishop I'm not entirely sold on as it raises the curve a bit and doesnt do all that much with investigate as its CA, but really slow CA, he is mainly the flex spot.
What do yall think about this version? I think it can be extremely quick and go under/over a lot of decks, including White Weenies. All we really need to do is Spell Queller their Always Watching or Thalia's Lieutenant and/or keep the stream of tappers going, after that the tempo loss should be an easy GG. It's probably a little bit weaker mainboard to things like BW Control, but I think its fast enough to steal a game, and has pretty hefty self protection, even mainboard.
Unfortunately, the reality is that there's no reason to try to make spirits "hyperaggro". Please note, Hyperaggro typically involves many more small creatures and burn spells of some fashion to win by turn 4 or 5. Atarka Red is a great example of hyperaggro. In any case, this deck has only 2 one drops, , neither of which is particularly aggressive. Anafenza is the only card in the deck that comes close to enabling a hyperaggro strategy, and shes legendary, making her a pretty suboptimal build-around/enabler. We certainly can't do aggro better than humans which has much more efficient creatures (see thalia's lieutenant which is leagues better than anafenza). No reason to go low to the ground when humans does it better. Not interested in playing a worse version of a deck that already exists.
Overview:
U/W Spirits is, as of this writing, the most powerful tribal subtheme to emerge from the Shadows of Innistrad Block. The deck is most reminiscent of U/B fairies, historically-- using instant speed fliers with disruptive abilities, such as tapping down creatures, or countering spells, to ensure that combat damage is pressed through unimpeded.
The deck appears to support two separate playstyles:
1) Aggressive tempo, typified by the use of Anafenza, Kin Tree Spirit and Nebelghast Herald. As a temporary reference for such a build, Below is Harrison Feng's Top 32 (and second best performing) List from the 7/23/16 SCG open:
The second potential playstyle is flash midrange/control, typified by a full set of avacyn, as well as more removal and countermagic. An example of such a build is Jeff Hoogland's 13th place list from the same SCG Open
Mainboard Creatures Mausoleum Wanderer is the only one drop in the deck, and it's a versatile one. Foremost, without even bringing any other spirits into play, wanderer has the ability to force spike an opponent's instant or sorcery, thereby forestalling the resolution of opponent's critical spells (in the current format dromoka's command, collected company, or Languish) at critical junctures during the game. In addition, wanderer is buffed whenever another spirit enters play. This has two implications: first, wanderer can become substantially larger, allowing the spirit player to race damage more effectively, or, alternatively, that the force spike ability becomes increasingly difficult to pay. In the later case, because spirits have flash, you cant wait until an opponent attempts to cast a spell before flashing in spirits to ensure the spell is countered.
Selfless spirit is a solid card in any creature heavy deck. Here, its purpose is fairly obvious. It's a 2/1 body with flying that has the added bonus of making combat highly favorable, preventing mass losses to damage/destruction based sweepers, and ensuring that more disruptive spirits such as mausoleum wanderer and spell queller remain in play.
Rattlechains is berhaps the bread and butter creature of the deck. It has flash, grants flash to all other spirits that do not otherwise have it (for example, mausoleum wanderer or sefless spirit and also has the added benefit of granting a spirit hexproof upon entering the battlefield. This ability is of particular importance because of the need to preventspell queller from leaving the battlefield.
nebelghast herald Is a flash speed spirit that taps a creature whenever a spirit comes into play. This allows the spirits player to tap down creatures at instant speed during either player's combat.
This Card Likely Needs little introduction. Very powerful disruption stapled to a stocky flying body.
Avacyn is the top end of the curve, and functions much as selfless spirit, while having a larger body, and no loss of card advantage. An interesting note, is that avacyn can be flipped into avacyn, the purifier with little repercussion for the spirit player, if he or she controls a selfless spirit at the time of the ability triggering.
Noncreature Spells clash of wills offers flexible removal that can hit ealy game plays and adds redundancy to the disruptive plan of the deck.
Ojutai's command is played in this deck almost universally, currently. The command is especially potent here, because the deck has an abundance of creatures at the 1 and 2 drop slots. Further, bringing back cards such as mausoleum wanderer, rattlechains, or selfless spirit can effectively end up countering non-creature spells, while generating additional card advantage or swinging the damage race.
Sideboard
TBA
Mono white & W/R humans: This is the match the deck does not want to play. Interestingly, Tempo lists struggle more than controlling lists because of their lack of sweepers. The deck is simply incapable of producing threats as efficiently, typically using 2 mana at a time to put threats on the board, rather than 1. Further, because so few creatures in the deck have more than 2 toughness, blocking is almost never profitable. Finally the disruptive element of the deck is practically moot against creature heavy builds (force spike, hexproof, etc). In short, White humans puts creatures of comparable or better stats onto the boards both more quickly and efficiently than spirits, and is also fairly unaffected by the disruption plan. Some sideboard measures have included always watching (which is also tremendously useful in the mirror), blessed alliance (to try to swing combat and life totals), as well as secure the wastes (which rather unfortunately can be invalidated by a single thalia's lieutenant). Unfortunately, here, the objective is to curve out near perfectly, and hope that the opponent sees a relatively slow hand.
Bant company: U/W spirits is perhaps the only deck that gives bant company a good run for its money. Mausoleum wanderer and spell Queller make resolving dromoka's command and collected company correctly a far more challenging affair. To boot, all the spirit deck's creatures fly, leaving the company player unable interact with creatures coming into the red-zone, outside of having dromoka's command. A loss here is often caused by flooding, color screw or simply running out of gas. Coco has a near inexhaustible threat density, and certainly more ways to accumulate card advantage with cards such as tireless tracker and duskwatch recruiter.
G/W Tokens: While this is a matchup that has not been observed extensively in video coverage, it does not seem a overly-challenging one. Specific advantages had by the spirit player are the fact that all of its creatures simply fly over plant and knight ally tokens, dispatching the deck's planeswalkers quite handily. In addition, access to planar outburst and declaration in stone makes dealing with tokens a simple mater.
Edits:[This space to be modified as necessary throughout the deck's life course]. There's way more to be written, but this is what i could bang out in the hour or two I had. Let me know if you think there should be some edits. I'll make accommodations only for well-reasoned and competitively oriented suggestions.
So ive tested enough against the g/w matchups to feel comfortable with this decka being strong, and having enough of an adavntage. What about aggro? Silkwrap seems real bad agains boss humans, and lantern scout tested poorly. I have to wonder if there's any other tool aside from secure the wastes. Walls? Lifelinkers?
In this deck, I would -4 Gideon almost every time against something like Bant Coco. You simply don't have creatures who like blocking, so he'll just die anyway. Much better to have a +1 damage per creature every attack. Or just skip Gideon entirely. I'm thinking whether that +2/0 || +0/+2 card might be good as a 2-of. Imagine having 2 spirits out, flashing a third and suddenly dealing 12. OR, gang up on a creature with your 2/3s and 2/5s to kill it.
Clash I don't like, but what instant worries you so much to play Dispel? Most often you can keep open 2 mana and play Negate/Unsubstantiate, and if they don't cast something, you don't have to either. I would even venture to play Void Shatter in slower games. What I don't like is a ramp opponent casting Atarka for 7, having 6 lands up, and not being able to Clash for lack of 7 lands.
right. And i have a few times thought that collective effort may just be a better card, given its lower cost and versatility.
Dromoka's command is the nuts against this deck. It reverses the tempo of the game in the g/w/x player's favor. Coco is just an insanely powerful card and some portion of time will be a total blowout if you cant stop it. Secure the wastes is another format defining card. Just based on the g/w/x metagame dominance, dispel deserves consideration. This doesnt even touch the instant heavy u/r or b/w decks. Void shatter, on the other hand, does not.
I played a decent number of games (12 or so) this weekend with someone who was testing for the protour. He was on Bant coco (not humans).
Some observations: games were split roughly 55-45 or closer. He noted that games felt very polar, and i agreed. He either totally decimated me or i utterly crushed him. There was no real back and forth in any game.
Games i won, i usually opened with a wanderer. The stack interactions really give coco fits, and i dont think i lost any game where i curved out on t1-2.
I mainboard 3 gideons and they were really rough in this matchup. Dromoka's command after tapping out for gideon pretty much rendered him moot. Better on the play than the draw, for sure, but still surprisingly lousy.
I also run 4 declarations in stone, and man was it bad. Between reflector mage, dromoka's command and Declaration in stone, they have a removal sweet that's good enough to slow the pressure and use the clues that make their advantage insurmountable. In every single instance i would have prefered unsubstantiate, or even blessed alliance.
Lastly, clash of will, as others have pointed out, was not so great. There were many times where i had to tap down and only could represent U, with clash in hand, and desperately wished i had dispel instead. I might make the swap, depending on what the meta shakes out to be.
Take homes for me were similar to the conclusions of others: deck needs to be more tempo oriented and lower to the ground. Any game where i managed to keep such a strategy, i won. Hands which could go longer, just didnt have the parity of card quality needed to beat the goodstuff decks
Did you really just "brown on brown crime" this thread? I can't...
The Aztecs' conquest of others in the context of precolombian history has little bearing on the current oppression of that people (or any of the other native american people, for that matter) today.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gppor16/9-32-decklists-2016-08-14
I also think things are settled enough to begin a sideboard write up. Should have that up by weeks end
a) People assumed that people would be prepared for spirits, and chose to play something else, resulting in less representation.
b) Jeff hoogland, iirc, was the only spirit deck on stream last week, in spite of it being over 15% of the top tables.
U/W Spirits is, as of this writing, the most powerful tribal subtheme to emerge from the Shadows of Innistrad Block. The deck is most reminiscent of U/B fairies, historically-- using instant speed fliers with disruptive abilities, such as tapping down creatures, or countering spells, to ensure that combat damage is pressed through unimpeded.
1) Aggressive tempo, typified by the use of Anafenza, Kin Tree Spirit and Nebelghast Herald. As a temporary reference for such a build, Below is Harrison Feng's Top 32 (and second best performing) List from the 7/23/16 SCG open:
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Nebelgast Herald
4 Rattlechains
4 Reflector Mage
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
3 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Archangel Avacyn
8 Island
7 Plains
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
Spells (8)
4 Essence Flux
2 Ojutai's Command
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Bygone Bishop
2 Always Watching
2 Stasis Snare
2 Blessed Alliance
3 Negate
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
The second potential playstyle is flash midrange/control, typified by a full set of avacyn, as well as more removal and countermagic. An example of such a build is Jeff Hoogland's 13th place list from the same SCG Open
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Archangel Avacyn
Lands (25)
8 Island
8 Plains
1 Meandering River
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
3 Stasis Snare
2 Anticipate
3 Clash of Wills
1 Essence Flux
3 Ojutai's Command
1 Scatter to the Winds
2 Planar Outburst
2 Bygone Bishop
2 Silkwrap
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Confirm Suspicions
2 Negate
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Planar Outburst
Mainboard
Creatures
Mausoleum Wanderer is the only one drop in the deck, and it's a versatile one. Foremost, without even bringing any other spirits into play, wanderer has the ability to force spike an opponent's instant or sorcery, thereby forestalling the resolution of opponent's critical spells (in the current format dromoka's command, collected company, or Languish) at critical junctures during the game. In addition, wanderer is buffed whenever another spirit enters play. This has two implications: first, wanderer can become substantially larger, allowing the spirit player to race damage more effectively, or, alternatively, that the force spike ability becomes increasingly difficult to pay. In the later case, because spirits have flash, you cant wait until an opponent attempts to cast a spell before flashing in spirits to ensure the spell is countered.
Selfless spirit is a solid card in any creature heavy deck. Here, its purpose is fairly obvious. It's a 2/1 body with flying that has the added bonus of making combat highly favorable, preventing mass losses to damage/destruction based sweepers, and ensuring that more disruptive spirits such as mausoleum wanderer and spell queller remain in play.
Rattlechains is berhaps the bread and butter creature of the deck. It has flash, grants flash to all other spirits that do not otherwise have it (for example, mausoleum wanderer or sefless spirit and also has the added benefit of granting a spirit hexproof upon entering the battlefield. This ability is of particular importance because of the need to preventspell queller from leaving the battlefield.
nebelghast herald Is a flash speed spirit that taps a creature whenever a spirit comes into play. This allows the spirits player to tap down creatures at instant speed during either player's combat.
This Card Likely Needs little introduction. Very powerful disruption stapled to a stocky flying body.
Avacyn is the top end of the curve, and functions much as selfless spirit, while having a larger body, and no loss of card advantage. An interesting note, is that avacyn can be flipped into avacyn, the purifier with little repercussion for the spirit player, if he or she controls a selfless spirit at the time of the ability triggering.
Noncreature Spells
clash of wills offers flexible removal that can hit ealy game plays and adds redundancy to the disruptive plan of the deck.
Ojutai's command is played in this deck almost universally, currently. The command is especially potent here, because the deck has an abundance of creatures at the 1 and 2 drop slots. Further, bringing back cards such as mausoleum wanderer, rattlechains, or selfless spirit can effectively end up countering non-creature spells, while generating additional card advantage or swinging the damage race.
Sideboard
TBA
Mono white & W/R humans: This is the match the deck does not want to play. Interestingly, Tempo lists struggle more than controlling lists because of their lack of sweepers. The deck is simply incapable of producing threats as efficiently, typically using 2 mana at a time to put threats on the board, rather than 1. Further, because so few creatures in the deck have more than 2 toughness, blocking is almost never profitable. Finally the disruptive element of the deck is practically moot against creature heavy builds (force spike, hexproof, etc). In short, White humans puts creatures of comparable or better stats onto the boards both more quickly and efficiently than spirits, and is also fairly unaffected by the disruption plan. Some sideboard measures have included always watching (which is also tremendously useful in the mirror), blessed alliance (to try to swing combat and life totals), as well as secure the wastes (which rather unfortunately can be invalidated by a single thalia's lieutenant). Unfortunately, here, the objective is to curve out near perfectly, and hope that the opponent sees a relatively slow hand.
Bant company: U/W spirits is perhaps the only deck that gives bant company a good run for its money. Mausoleum wanderer and spell Queller make resolving dromoka's command and collected company correctly a far more challenging affair. To boot, all the spirit deck's creatures fly, leaving the company player unable interact with creatures coming into the red-zone, outside of having dromoka's command. A loss here is often caused by flooding, color screw or simply running out of gas. Coco has a near inexhaustible threat density, and certainly more ways to accumulate card advantage with cards such as tireless tracker and duskwatch recruiter.
G/W Tokens: While this is a matchup that has not been observed extensively in video coverage, it does not seem a overly-challenging one. Specific advantages had by the spirit player are the fact that all of its creatures simply fly over plant and knight ally tokens, dispatching the deck's planeswalkers quite handily. In addition, access to planar outburst and declaration in stone makes dealing with tokens a simple mater.
Edits:[This space to be modified as necessary throughout the deck's life course]. There's way more to be written, but this is what i could bang out in the hour or two I had. Let me know if you think there should be some edits. I'll make accommodations only for well-reasoned and competitively oriented suggestions.
Make sure to read all the posts! New Thread with primer will be going up shortly.
We should construct a new primer that takes into account any results from today, and modify it moving forward.
Dromoka's command is the nuts against this deck. It reverses the tempo of the game in the g/w/x player's favor. Coco is just an insanely powerful card and some portion of time will be a total blowout if you cant stop it. Secure the wastes is another format defining card. Just based on the g/w/x metagame dominance, dispel deserves consideration. This doesnt even touch the instant heavy u/r or b/w decks. Void shatter, on the other hand, does not.
Some observations: games were split roughly 55-45 or closer. He noted that games felt very polar, and i agreed. He either totally decimated me or i utterly crushed him. There was no real back and forth in any game.
Games i won, i usually opened with a wanderer. The stack interactions really give coco fits, and i dont think i lost any game where i curved out on t1-2.
I mainboard 3 gideons and they were really rough in this matchup. Dromoka's command after tapping out for gideon pretty much rendered him moot. Better on the play than the draw, for sure, but still surprisingly lousy.
I also run 4 declarations in stone, and man was it bad. Between reflector mage, dromoka's command and Declaration in stone, they have a removal sweet that's good enough to slow the pressure and use the clues that make their advantage insurmountable. In every single instance i would have prefered unsubstantiate, or even blessed alliance.
Lastly, clash of will, as others have pointed out, was not so great. There were many times where i had to tap down and only could represent U, with clash in hand, and desperately wished i had dispel instead. I might make the swap, depending on what the meta shakes out to be.
Take homes for me were similar to the conclusions of others: deck needs to be more tempo oriented and lower to the ground. Any game where i managed to keep such a strategy, i won. Hands which could go longer, just didnt have the parity of card quality needed to beat the goodstuff decks