Imagine having a card engine that can find hate cards which artifacts are famous for... that also pumps knight... and can be recurred every turn...
Brew away.
I think inventors's fair is too slow. With Coco you have change to hit the correct card 3rd turn. With inventors' fair you can land your hate card in fifth turn. Againts many deck you're already dead then.
So far, im testing 2 Monastery Mentor, as some people told me before, sometimes its not the best option; 3 could be too many, since i started to play 2, he has been useful every time i got him.
I have a 10-card discard package, which gives me best chances vs combo decks, and also the 2 Collected brutality improves the burn and creature-based matchups. With 10 spells that can make myself discard, 1 Fiery temper is most of the time welcome (normal with reveler, great with faithless looting and awesome with collected brutality)
Regarding sideboard, 1-of Boros charm when i expect wrath-effects or when i need to close games fast.
2-of Blood moon ; desperate choice to try to improve at least a bit the sad tron-matchup, also comes handy vs Scapeshift
and shutting enemy manlands.
Rest of it is pretty standard.
Currently the deck has 14 threats ( Young Py, Mentor, Revelers and Lingering ), not sure if im fine with that or if i need 1 more.
Also thinking a lot of the 20th land, since some games it becomes a problem when not getting 3rd land.
Every feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Have you thought to use zealous persecution? I have found it very useful in my mardu deck where my build is also 4x pyros, 2x mentor and 4x souls.
Had to say that Ghost quarter + surgical dont help againts valakuts if they use scapeshift or uses breach to primetime or just founds primetime. Those valakuts enters the battlefield at the same time and triggers before we can do anything. That's why I think that it's better that they hit their valakuts to our creatures than to our lifepoints. We have more creatures, but dont have more lifepoints. Also then we dont haveto worry about our paths so we can easily use paths to primetimes. If we use Leyline of Sanctity the primetime is our only problem and I think 6/6 Trampler is smaller problem for us.
On the other hand, the aven mindcensor is good againts scapeshift.
btw, tested yesterday a deck with 4x knights/coursers/ramunaps/azuzas and two trackers in web. Didnt have big influence for the result but naturally I found more ofter ramunap+azusa combo. I continue my testings.
I have played in my SD a few Leyline of sanctity. That could be a good choise againts ad nauseum, also helps against titanshift, burn and Junk/Jund. Have you think about that?
Unfortunately I havent had any time to test this deck in IRL tournaments, I have lot of test plays againts uw control which feels pretty bad one. Especially elspeth sun champion is almost unbeatable, they have also lot of board swipers. Other bad matchups are titanshift and storm.
Which are the best choices againts these decks?
Not the completely same list, but very similar deck. I have little changes as 3 coursers, 7 mana dorks and so on, but still I keep my eyes on what Todd is doing. I dont have EE so I might use wrath of god for those situations.
Hi I'am playing. Mostly the deck works very well as Todd Stevens have been prove. My opinion is that planeswalkers can be very big problems, also titanshift and storm looks hard ones.
I would not add any other colour to manapool. GW is enough, I'm even thinking to add more horizon canobys, because horizon + excavator is great combo.
Oh sorry, I mean sanctuaty which helps a lot. i havent played against living end with this deck but in my mind Aven is good one against cascade and also there's whisperwood elemental which we use.
versus ad nauseum and living end we have sd option of leyline of the void and lighter one aven mindcensor, ofcourse stony, surgical and qasali pridemage/rec sage helps also.
Storm is hard but there's good possibility to destroy their lands before they can do anything after that they prob. scoops.
If all is good we should have tons of card draws by tracker in the end game, so in my mind I would change fauna shaman to extra tracker.
So far I think that I dont see that shaman is necessery.
Hi all, I have lately tested Stevens deck through xmage and noticed that it's amazing. I run list with basic idea of 7 manadorks, 2 oozes,4 voices, 4 knights, 2 tracker, 2 exces, 2 azusas, 3 coursers and 4 companies. Somehow I can promise that with two tracker u can find from your deck what ever you want. This deck is pure value and madness, as Todd Stevens ssid it is very fun to play.
For as example, today I played several games where my tracker was 16/16, knights were 12/12, ooze token were also 12/12 and my opponent didnt have any lands.
Do you prefer that there finks in the main? For now I thought that coursers have gain me enough life.
I think chord of calling is too slow for my meta and to tutor Tireless Tracker feels bad choice in situation where I need answers. If we need to tutor we will probably find something more valuable(silver bullet).
But tomorrow I have more test games, I will see what's the result and how was Abzan charm maybe I will test version with chords soon. We'll see.
Teeg is there to give us a game 1 against Dredge, everything else is a bonus. Why do you think he's only sideboard material? Not disagreeing per se, but interested in your reasoning.
Card draw is iffy. We run ~29 mana sources between lands and dorks, all of which become dead draws real quick in this format. We also run a bunch of guys that do nothing in the wrong situation, making raw card draw pretty risky. What do you want to find with the card draw?
I want to draw more eldritch evolution or cards to solve problems. For example, I played against infect, I had pretty good opening hand but no tools, with card draw I could have been found one of those 13 cards which will handle the problem. Have been felt same way earlier, we need to dig in to find evolution or our answers. The card draw is not ever dead choice.
Also with card draw we can pass faster those dead cards to find next ones. Without we can easily be dead before we will find any of answers. I mean we have to have card advantage that we can use toolbox.
I was going to write that blue source is not worth of it. With that this deck starts to go too many ways and some cards will be hard to cast.
Last small games yesterday I thought that I miss card draw, so I started to figure out/test two abzan charm. Also thinking the night's whisper, but atm I think that I have more use to charm. I will still use only 4 eldritch evolution to tutor.
Gaddock teeg is nice, but I think that it's totally sideboard material. Againts infect we have much more to use (especially melira, after that seizes, aidolon, thalia, spellskite and so on.)
I think inventors's fair is too slow. With Coco you have change to hit the correct card 3rd turn. With inventors' fair you can land your hate card in fifth turn. Againts many deck you're already dead then.
Have you thought to use zealous persecution? I have found it very useful in my mardu deck where my build is also 4x pyros, 2x mentor and 4x souls.
On the other hand, the aven mindcensor is good againts scapeshift.
btw, tested yesterday a deck with 4x knights/coursers/ramunaps/azuzas and two trackers in web. Didnt have big influence for the result but naturally I found more ofter ramunap+azusa combo. I continue my testings.
Unfortunately I havent had any time to test this deck in IRL tournaments, I have lot of test plays againts uw control which feels pretty bad one. Especially elspeth sun champion is almost unbeatable, they have also lot of board swipers. Other bad matchups are titanshift and storm.
Which are the best choices againts these decks?
I would not add any other colour to manapool. GW is enough, I'm even thinking to add more horizon canobys, because horizon + excavator is great combo.
Storm is hard but there's good possibility to destroy their lands before they can do anything after that they prob. scoops.
So far I think that I dont see that shaman is necessery.
For as example, today I played several games where my tracker was 16/16, knights were 12/12, ooze token were also 12/12 and my opponent didnt have any lands.
Do you prefer that there finks in the main? For now I thought that coursers have gain me enough life.
There's already one thread for Mardu. http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/528062-mardu-dega-bwr-midrange
You will probably get more ideas from there.
But tomorrow I have more test games, I will see what's the result and how was Abzan charm maybe I will test version with chords soon. We'll see.
I want to draw more eldritch evolution or cards to solve problems. For example, I played against infect, I had pretty good opening hand but no tools, with card draw I could have been found one of those 13 cards which will handle the problem. Have been felt same way earlier, we need to dig in to find evolution or our answers. The card draw is not ever dead choice.
Also with card draw we can pass faster those dead cards to find next ones. Without we can easily be dead before we will find any of answers. I mean we have to have card advantage that we can use toolbox.
Last small games yesterday I thought that I miss card draw, so I started to figure out/test two abzan charm. Also thinking the night's whisper, but atm I think that I have more use to charm. I will still use only 4 eldritch evolution to tutor.
Gaddock teeg is nice, but I think that it's totally sideboard material. Againts infect we have much more to use (especially melira, after that seizes, aidolon, thalia, spellskite and so on.)
Here's my deck atm.
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Noble Hierarch
4x Voice of Resurgence
2x Strangleroot Geist
1x Spellskite
1x Wall of Omens
2x Filigree Familiar
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Orzhov Pontiff
1x Spike Feeder
2x Siege Rhino
1x Phyrexian Obliterator
1x Archangel of Thune
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
Land (23)
2x Forest
2x Gavony Township
1x Godless Shrine
4x Blooming Marsh
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Temple Garden
4x Marsh Flats
4x Windswept Heath
1x Twilight Mire
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Path to Exile
2x Abzan Charm
1x Dromoka's Command
Sorcery (4)
4x Eldritch Evolution