I have been having lots of success with this deck list but collected company has gave me troubles two weeks in a row at fnm. Any suggestions for sideboarding to fight this better? I think my main is pretty good, I like searing bloods main as I deal with a lot of seekers of the way/aggro/soulfire grandmaster
It is very hard to fight hornet's nest and arashin cleric's off collected company. I am not sure what I should side out. Currently I side out searing bloods for 2 roast and obelisk of urd. Siding in arc lightning could be good in case of hornet's nest.
Does atarka green have a better matchup here? Having destructive revelry in the side (for courser of kruphix and mastery of the unseen) with anti-life gain atarkas command would be very nice.
Also keep in mind both decks that abuse it have mainboard lifegain (abzan is rhino, esper dragons is foul tongue) making the 2 life moot unless fighting burn.
Also keep in mind our opponents are losing a lot of sweepers (bile blight, drowning sorrow), sylvan caryatid and courser are rotating out and we still get to keep monastery swiftspear wildslash, heelcutter,dragon and hordeling outburst. The only thing we will need to worry about unless something gets reprinted is virulent plague.
It sucks we are losing stoke the flames,lightning strike, titan strength, foundry denizen,goblin rabblemaster, frenzied goblin,searing blood (I will miss this one a lot), and eidolon of the great revel. I am positive we will see a lightning strike equivalent in origins, heck maybe even a foundry. Even if we don't, we have other red drops that will see their day in the sun.
I would take out -2 heelcutter, and put two zurgos in place of it. You have 12 3 drops (16 if you count stoke but I won't) and that can be pretty bricky, which if you get land screwed is going to hurt. The sideboard looks fine (typical rdw but tried and tested). In my rdw I like to run 2 searing blood mainboard, 1 roast and I opt for 3 hordeling instead of 4 due to me bricking too many times with it. At my lgs there are a lot of on the ground decks.
It really depends upon your meta.
I also think hall of triumph is win more and a horrible top deck later on if not in your opening hand.
It is a pretty format warping card. Two top decks that use it don't even care about the life gain loss unless they are against rdw (esper dragon/ub has foul tongue, abzan has rhino to gain it all back). It makes mulligans even worse and can rip a answer from your hand to one of their things. We are not even counting they get to see your hand and write down what you have. That alone is invaluable and essentially you are playing Pegasus from yu-gi-oh.
If you look at standard there really isn't any good synergy decks. Sure we have rdw foundry street denizen+creatures,den protector+deathmist, and a few others but those are far and few between. If you look at a lot of stuff in decks, it is mostly value creatures that are good by themselves. To deal with thoughtseize, you need to be redundant.
On the draw impossible to counter, on the play possible to counter but unlikely.
Thoughtseize isn't broken, but it is pretty degenerate. I don't think standard was the right place for it to be reprinted as the power level is a lot lower. It seems fine in modern as we have turn 3 infinite combos that need to be kept in check. With this in mind, two out of three of the top tier decks use thoughtseize. If that isn't format warping, I don't know what is.
If there is any card in standard that is anti-fun other than getting counter spelled a gorillion times it would be this card.
I agree ukyo, most decks need their draws to line up most of the time and often times you need to play into stupid stuff (like bile blight,crackling doom,anger, and other removal. I'll give a good example, you are playing rdw vs mardu. Turn 3 comes the anger, turn 4 comes butcher (better have stoke or 2:1 yourself), then sorin turn 5. Or my favorite yet is one time I had a slow opening hand with just fodders and hordeling outburst, some burn and turn 4 I get angered (I didn't want to overextend with another hordeling cause I expected it), then I did hordeling next turn and guess what? Anger of the gods.
Next game was funny though, three crackling dooms in a row against me and then I stomped his face with burn and monsters, even doing a cool combat trick to make my monastery a 2 (spell cast for prowess) so my dashed in zurgo wouldn't get zoinked in fear of anger of the gods. Then we have those retarded games like someone resolving two rabblemasters, taking both out, then seeing a third. Same thing with Rhino but even worse since he hits you for three and they gain three. One game I got killed by rhinos etb triggering multiple times + whip.
Anyone have one of those games with a friend or person where it was super even down to the last life and really felt like your decisions mattered? Im talking one of those long grindy games where tempo goes back and forth and not just one sided. I just had one today and it was awesome. 50-60% of the time though, deck stuff is just on curve.
Overall, when you're behind there is little chance for you to come back. Very few cards bring you back into the driver seat.
Statistically, it helps a little but people don't consider the life loss as a downside when they really should. There are quite a few decks that you don't want to lose life against at all(mirror match, atarka sligh,jeskai,mardu etc) where those little points of damage can often times kill you a turn early when (say for example you needed one more turn to burn them out).
Splashing and mana fixing is really the only reason to be running fetches in decks that need it such as atarka sligh. It is so painful with atarka sligh when you get stuck with a mana confluence, pain land, and one source of regular mana. Double points if you get two mana confluence and a pain land.
to sum things up, I like having the full life as if you don't draw well that extra turn can mean the difference between winning and getting rhino'd.
I am sure I will get some solid disagreement here, but I feel that standard is more 'who draws best' than I can remember. In the past their were certain cards that just evened the battlefield fairly quickly. Thragtusk is a good example (I know rhino is like that now, but you still have to do something the first few turns or even rhino might not save you).
I feel that because of this 'who draws best' so many decks can exist. It doesn't necessarily mean that standard is really as open as it seems... it just means that wizards has done such a good job of neutering cards that once you get ahead.. it's hard to lose it, regardless of the deck you are playing.
PS: I think Abzan Aggro/Midrange/Control is still the best. When every card of yours is above the curve, as long as you draw decently you have a really good chance of winning. So many other color combo's you get a couple great cards mixed in with a couple crappy cards.
My experience with standard thus far is that it seems by turn 5-6ish you can usually tell who is going to win unless its a mirror match so sometimes it does feel that way. The format right now is very hostile at times and keeping a monster on the field is hard depending upon the deck (if playing weenies it is wild slash, lightning bolt, searing blood, arc lightning) or bigger non fliers (roast, draconic roar,stoke the flames) or just the general purpose answers such as heroes downfall, murderous cut, ultimate price for mono. Let us not forget foul tongue/crackling doom.
Turn 3 Rhino, turn 4 rhino is pretty brutal depending upon the deck. We aren't even factoring in them bringing back rhino's for even more life lost and gain.
Abzan imo definitely has one of the most flexible sideboards i've seen in this standard and can morph into anything it wants. The fact that since it is black it has thoughtseize is already leagues above other decks. It allows you to not only see all the cards a person has, but rip apart decent hands. The life gain you lose is irrelevant with lightning helix rhino.
The only card I truly hate from dtk is either silumgars scorn or foul tongue invocation. There really isn't any way for rdw to combat it (unless you're atarka sligh) if they resolve 2-3 of them. To make matters worse, they don't even need a creature to be sacrificed to get the life gain.
Ramping up to threats doesn't really seem feasible unless it is sylvan caryatid due to the meta being pretty hostile at the moment with spot removal. It seems right now you either need to be fast like mono red or get shrek'd by control.
When mana dorks work it is awesome, but there is far too much removal at the moment (ultimate price, wild slash, lightning bolt, searing blood, bile blight) that a lot of people main deck so most of the time you won't ramp. On paper elvish mystic into rabblemaster into surrak into thunderbreak/stormbreath is awesome, but most of the time you don't get there. And even if you get there, there is usually a cheesy board wipe to set back all your hard work and tempo.
It really depends upon your meta. If you're fighting green devotion or some deck that just goes above 3 cmc it isn't good. If all you fight on a regular basis are abzan, control, white red,ground decks with 3cmc or less or even mono red it can help you tremendously.
On the play it is awesome casting turn 2. On the draw it can be so so but still attracts a kill spell.
Regarding Collateral Damage, there's no situation where this deck benefits from sacrificing a creature, and you want to have your threats, so the extra cost is just a cost. There's no "synergy". Sure, you often do have plenty of disposable creatures, and in many cases you can cast it as a regular Bolt, but sometimes you can't. There's a real downside to it. Meanwhile, the usual burn package for this deck includes Wild Slash, Lightning Strike, and Stoke the Flames. Is the additional cost worth the one extra damage over Slash, or the one fewer mana compared to Strike? I don't think so, at least not in this deck or this format, and I also don't think the deck needs to go up to more than 12 burn spells.
Dragonrage seems worse than Trumpet Blast to me. Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but I'd stay away.
One situation this deck benefits from for collateral damage is when an opposing player does bile blight, you sack the token they blighted and the rest of your tokens survive thanks to bile blight fizzling out. You can do this with wild slash and lightning strike or anything that destroys that creature but the extra 3 is nice from collateral.
So how do we deal with esper control in the side? It is always frustrating to get them down to 3 life and they foul toungue invocation us. Is bringing in a playset of thunderbreak or ashcloud phoenix, or rending volley the right choice on the draw? Should you keep 4x stoke the flames on the draw?
Here is what I have been working on, the 4x searing blood is a meta call for my lgs as it has quite a bit of aggro decks and some abzan showing up with den protectors and the like.
Even game 1 can be hard sometimes as aggro vs esper dragon if they get the right draws, game 2/3 is always a ***** due to counterspell.
Espers sideboard and mainboard are probably the best around in standard atm with board wipes,spot removal, or just straight up counter. They even have ways to kill token decks proactively (virulent plague) and reactively (bile blight, and drowning sorrow)
I fought two esper dragons game day as rdw and it was always the same story, get them down to three life and never get that last bit of damage before they foul tongue invocation + 4 or counter spell. Granted, game 2 on one I got stuck at 2 land (and would've won if not stuck) but always beat them game 1. I should really switch to atarka sligh to stop that retarded life gain, but you trade consistency and life for it. What makes the matchup even worse is that if you kill ojutai or icefall with rending volley, or even silumgar by lucky chance, they just get it back for essentially free with haven . Don't even get me started on the retarded card advantage they get with ojutai's ability, treasure cruise,anticipate, and more.
Overall, a very boring deck that prevents opposing players from playing magic and getting pecked to death.
If more people migrate to this control (there are already a few at my lgs) I might want to build bant to combat this.
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Foundry Street Denizen
3 Zurgo Bellstriker
3 lightning berserker
2 Goblin Heelcutter
2 goblin Rabblemaster
3 searing blood
4 wild slash
4 lightning strike
4 stoke the flames
4 dragon fodder
3 hordeling outburst
20 mountain
4 eidolon of the great revel
4 roast
3 outpost siege
2 arc lightning
1 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Obelisk of the Urd
It is very hard to fight hornet's nest and arashin cleric's off collected company. I am not sure what I should side out. Currently I side out searing bloods for 2 roast and obelisk of urd. Siding in arc lightning could be good in case of hornet's nest.
Does atarka green have a better matchup here? Having destructive revelry in the side (for courser of kruphix and mastery of the unseen) with anti-life gain atarkas command would be very nice.
It sucks we are losing stoke the flames,lightning strike, titan strength, foundry denizen,goblin rabblemaster, frenzied goblin,searing blood (I will miss this one a lot), and eidolon of the great revel. I am positive we will see a lightning strike equivalent in origins, heck maybe even a foundry. Even if we don't, we have other red drops that will see their day in the sun.
It really depends upon your meta.
I also think hall of triumph is win more and a horrible top deck later on if not in your opening hand.
If you look at standard there really isn't any good synergy decks. Sure we have rdw foundry street denizen+creatures,den protector+deathmist, and a few others but those are far and few between. If you look at a lot of stuff in decks, it is mostly value creatures that are good by themselves. To deal with thoughtseize, you need to be redundant.
On the draw impossible to counter, on the play possible to counter but unlikely.
Thoughtseize isn't broken, but it is pretty degenerate. I don't think standard was the right place for it to be reprinted as the power level is a lot lower. It seems fine in modern as we have turn 3 infinite combos that need to be kept in check. With this in mind, two out of three of the top tier decks use thoughtseize. If that isn't format warping, I don't know what is.
If there is any card in standard that is anti-fun other than getting counter spelled a gorillion times it would be this card.
Next game was funny though, three crackling dooms in a row against me and then I stomped his face with burn and monsters, even doing a cool combat trick to make my monastery a 2 (spell cast for prowess) so my dashed in zurgo wouldn't get zoinked in fear of anger of the gods. Then we have those retarded games like someone resolving two rabblemasters, taking both out, then seeing a third. Same thing with Rhino but even worse since he hits you for three and they gain three. One game I got killed by rhinos etb triggering multiple times + whip.
Anyone have one of those games with a friend or person where it was super even down to the last life and really felt like your decisions mattered? Im talking one of those long grindy games where tempo goes back and forth and not just one sided. I just had one today and it was awesome. 50-60% of the time though, deck stuff is just on curve.
Overall, when you're behind there is little chance for you to come back. Very few cards bring you back into the driver seat.
Splashing and mana fixing is really the only reason to be running fetches in decks that need it such as atarka sligh. It is so painful with atarka sligh when you get stuck with a mana confluence, pain land, and one source of regular mana. Double points if you get two mana confluence and a pain land.
to sum things up, I like having the full life as if you don't draw well that extra turn can mean the difference between winning and getting rhino'd.
My experience with standard thus far is that it seems by turn 5-6ish you can usually tell who is going to win unless its a mirror match so sometimes it does feel that way. The format right now is very hostile at times and keeping a monster on the field is hard depending upon the deck (if playing weenies it is wild slash, lightning bolt, searing blood, arc lightning) or bigger non fliers (roast, draconic roar,stoke the flames) or just the general purpose answers such as heroes downfall, murderous cut, ultimate price for mono. Let us not forget foul tongue/crackling doom.
Turn 3 Rhino, turn 4 rhino is pretty brutal depending upon the deck. We aren't even factoring in them bringing back rhino's for even more life lost and gain.
Abzan imo definitely has one of the most flexible sideboards i've seen in this standard and can morph into anything it wants. The fact that since it is black it has thoughtseize is already leagues above other decks. It allows you to not only see all the cards a person has, but rip apart decent hands. The life gain you lose is irrelevant with lightning helix rhino.
The only card I truly hate from dtk is either silumgars scorn or foul tongue invocation. There really isn't any way for rdw to combat it (unless you're atarka sligh) if they resolve 2-3 of them. To make matters worse, they don't even need a creature to be sacrificed to get the life gain.
When mana dorks work it is awesome, but there is far too much removal at the moment (ultimate price, wild slash, lightning bolt, searing blood, bile blight) that a lot of people main deck so most of the time you won't ramp. On paper elvish mystic into rabblemaster into surrak into thunderbreak/stormbreath is awesome, but most of the time you don't get there. And even if you get there, there is usually a cheesy board wipe to set back all your hard work and tempo.
On the play it is awesome casting turn 2. On the draw it can be so so but still attracts a kill spell.
One situation this deck benefits from for collateral damage is when an opposing player does bile blight, you sack the token they blighted and the rest of your tokens survive thanks to bile blight fizzling out. You can do this with wild slash and lightning strike or anything that destroys that creature but the extra 3 is nice from collateral.
Here is what I have been working on, the 4x searing blood is a meta call for my lgs as it has quite a bit of aggro decks and some abzan showing up with den protectors and the like.
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Lightning Berserker
2 Zurgo Bellstriker
3 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Wild Slash
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the flames
4 Searing blood
4 Dragon Fodder
3 Hordeling Outburst
4 Roast
2 Eidolon of the great revel
2 arc lightning
2 goblin heelcutter
1 scouring sands
2 rending volley
2 ashcloud phoenix
Espers sideboard and mainboard are probably the best around in standard atm with board wipes,spot removal, or just straight up counter. They even have ways to kill token decks proactively (virulent plague) and reactively (bile blight, and drowning sorrow)
I fought two esper dragons game day as rdw and it was always the same story, get them down to three life and never get that last bit of damage before they foul tongue invocation + 4 or counter spell. Granted, game 2 on one I got stuck at 2 land (and would've won if not stuck) but always beat them game 1. I should really switch to atarka sligh to stop that retarded life gain, but you trade consistency and life for it. What makes the matchup even worse is that if you kill ojutai or icefall with rending volley, or even silumgar by lucky chance, they just get it back for essentially free with haven . Don't even get me started on the retarded card advantage they get with ojutai's ability, treasure cruise,anticipate, and more.
Overall, a very boring deck that prevents opposing players from playing magic and getting pecked to death.
If more people migrate to this control (there are already a few at my lgs) I might want to build bant to combat this.