Thanks for the input everyone. I think I have the version I want to use for testing. A few things:
1. Wild Cantor seems good for the reasons listed (Acts as accel. and not just fixing, and pumps both 'Goyf and Dryad)
2. Rift Bolt seems like a natural fit, it costs less (suspend cost anyway) and helps pump 'Goyf more often. Also, Lightning Helix, Rift Bolt, and Seal of Fire seem like a sufficient burn suite especially since our goal long term is to get out Searing Meditation and use our mana to burn with it.
@Guille: From what I remember of this deck it rolls over aggro with all the lifegain, but this newer version does have less lifegain so you may be right, I will have to test it out more to see...
@magicmaster: I may end up with one of those, but I think with six lands in the deck I can put in the graveyard it should be consistent enough. Call definitely seems good and may end up being better, but I would rather find something that pumps both Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryad if possible. I'm leaning towards Rift Bolt at the moment.
Again, what do you guys think about Chromatic Star vs. Wild Cantor? Or is there something beter i haven't thought of?
Good point guys, I guess I could try to find a way to work the Edge of Autumn in, any other ideas on a sorcery that would be worth adding that would actually pump 'Goyf and the Dryad?
I know I want to make some sort of gro deck with Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryad. I don't know what made me think of the old Tamanoan Meditation deck, but I always loved the idea, and a lot of the support cards seem to work so well together. I think this deck could do pretty well since it basically has great short-game and long-game capabilities. Against control you have two cheap beatdown creatures capable of ending the game very quickly and slipping under most countermagic other than Remand, along with a slew of must-counter spells. Against aggro you should be able to sit back on your life-gain while you burn out their creatures until you have Meditation on the board, this matchup should never be too hard. Most combos actually played in Standard right now win with a limited amount of damage and you should be able to race them with your lifegain and beatdown fairly easily, and if Storm sticks around we can always put Rule of Law in the sideboard. I haven't tested this deck much, but I'd like to get input on it, I would think the hardest matchup would be control with Wrath or Damnation. Quagnoth can help here after you've drawn out a Wrath or two, but I would like any suggestions on improving this matchup.
Card Choices (at least the ones that may not seem fairly obvious):
Glittering Wish: This card seems to fit this deck beautifully. It replaces Edge of Autumn as our sorcery to boost Tamagoyf, and it fetches either piece of our "combo" as well as several great utility spells we otherwise wouldn't have access to game 1. Also, with Birds and Chromatic Star for mana fixing, and 4 Horizon Canopy to get land into our grave instead of sac'ing Flagstones, I think this plan is just better and more consistent than the Edge-Flagstones plan. Also, wish pumps Dryad as well.
-Edit: Thanks for reminding me, Wish removes itself from the game...
Chromatic Star: I was looking for one more 1-drop that fixes mana. This adds one more card type to our grave for Tarmogoyf, but doesn't pump Dryad. This is the choice I am most questioning. The only other replacement I can think of here is Wild Cantor. I'm not sure which is better. I will try both, Wild Cantor can pump Dryad later in the game, and it can add acceleration as opposed to just fixing, but we shouldn't have any trouble pumping Dryad, we can reasonably expect at least one creature to end up dying over the course of a game, and there's only so many things we can do to pump Tarmogoyf. Other suggestions here would be very helpful.
Seal of Fire: This just seems like an all-star in this deck. It deals damage for Tamanoa. It pumps Dryad if we draw it later. It gives us a 1-drop that is relevant in the later game. Most notably, it does all these things while easily and instantly adding an enchantment to our graveyard for Tarmogoyf. I can't see why any deck with Tarmogoyf in standard could afford to not run these.
Mana: I opted for pain-lands almost exclusively as the drawback is negated with Tamanoa out, and it even becomes a plus with Tamanoa and Meditation out as one tap from these can start the cycle of pain for your opponent if you're out of burn. Gemstone Mine's and Horizon Canopy's put lands into our graveyard later game for little cost. If we already have a land for Tarmogoyf and a depleted Mine, there's always Gruul Turf to bounce it back.
Sideboard: This deck is more than happy to sideboard in Tormod's Crypt against any deck it can be used against. There is a Wish toolbox with one of each gold card maindeck to improve consistency in drawing the ones of these I need when I need them, and there is Firemane Angel (win condition and lifegain enabler without Tamanoa), Wreak Havoc (good against control with signets, bouncelands, and other power artifacts esp. game one), and Harmonic Sliver for some form of enchantment removal capability game one. Disenchant seems self-explanatory, and Quagnoth is to improve the control matchup (and help against any random discard decks) by coming down as an unanswerable threat late when they have used up a Wrath or two this should end the game quickly.
My main questions are:
Any other card's I should be including? Anything I have that seems worthless? Is Incinerate good enough with Helix already in the deck (I think so)? Chromatic Star, Wild Cantor, or something else?
I guess this is a question of the timing of damage prevention, if I Earthquake with X > 2, will the damage be prevented to Mistmeadow Skulk?
My first reaction was that the spell will have a CMC 3+ while on the stack and so the damage will be prevented as per protection, but the damage is dealt when the spell resolves, so does that mean that the spell will be in the graveyard and have a CMC of 1 when the damage is dealt?
After reading the text on Confusion in the Ranks I couldn't tell if the enchantment itself targets or not. It says "...it's controller chooses target...", so if I have out a creature that cannot be targeted obviously it can't be taken, but if I have a creature with protection from red, can it be targeted with this ability? I was just unclear if this is considered an ability of a red permanent or not.
What do you guys think about the new black Circle?
Circle of Affliction
1B Enchantment
CIP: Choose a color. When you're damaged by a source of the chosen color you may pay 1 to drain one life from the source's controller.
I'm wondering if this card would be a decent sideboard card in a MBA, or B/x discard aggro type deck against Boros/other aggro. Would it be better than CoP: Red? For reference, here's the deck I'm thinking about running it in as a SB card:
The deck already does decent against Boros, basically if I draw Rack I am faster and win, but I would rather have a better than 50/50 post-SB. Do you guys think this new Circle would help? Is there another place for it in Standard?
I was surprised that I couldn't find a thread about this deck, but after I saw it in an article, I thought I would try my own take on it. Here's the deck:
The idea is that turn 2 Destructive Flow is GG against about 3/4 of the extended decks out there. Obviously it's not as hot against mono decks like MUC, Mono-Green Aggro, or MBC (if it is even a contendor). Thus the sideboard has therapy and cryoclasm against control, and persecute against anything mono.
I don't think think this is the deck for Pernicious Deed, I think it would work better with Chalice of the Void like mono-green aggro does. Krosan Grip is a good SB against deed (as well as plenty of other things) since deed can hurt this deck a lot.
I was also toying with the idea of adding Hypnotic Spector, but I think everything currently in there is better, and I doubt the mana base would support it consistantly.
I think this is a fairly solid build for this deck, although the Xantid Swarm is basically an open slot for something to help stop disruption of the combo. I think Devoted Caretaker really good anti-disruption for this deck. What do you guys think?
I think you may be right about the deck trying to go in too many directions. Although I do believe just about all of the cards are good on their own. The one-of's Pentarch Paladin and Magus of the Disk are probably fairly weak, but that's why there's only one. The deck doesn't miss too much when you don't draw the ranger or it dies, there's magewright's stone for backup and chord of calling to find the ranger or something else you need. While there is some synergy between the other cards in the deck (i.e. Hierarch, Valkyrie, and Magus together) maybe it is trying to do too many things. Any suggestions for changes or alternatives?
There was a discussion about how to best abuse Scryb Ranger and this was my deck idea from that. There is obvious synergy with Mangara, Pentarch Paladin, Spectral Force, and Vinelasher Kudzu. With that in mind there are plenty of ways to go with it, what do you guys think:
One concern of mine is that I couldn't think of any answers in G/W to dragonstorm combo or the like. I don't know how popular this is going to be, but are there any ideas out there?
I've been toying with deck ideas with the Ranger for a little while. There's a lot of good synergy out there. My favorite is to use it with Mangara to blow up some of their early stuff. Here's what I have, it's a really fun deck, haven't tested enough to know if it's very competetive, but it seems like it should do fairly well.
1. Wild Cantor seems good for the reasons listed (Acts as accel. and not just fixing, and pumps both 'Goyf and Dryad)
2. Rift Bolt seems like a natural fit, it costs less (suspend cost anyway) and helps pump 'Goyf more often. Also, Lightning Helix, Rift Bolt, and Seal of Fire seem like a sufficient burn suite especially since our goal long term is to get out Searing Meditation and use our mana to burn with it.
3. Added Fiery Justice and Glare of Subdual to the sideboard to have more of a toolbox.
4. Shifted the mana a little to reflect the deck's color ratios.
Here's my current version of the deck:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Wild Cantor
3 Tamanoa
3 Loxodon Hierarch
Spells:
4 Seal of Fire
4 Rift Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
3 Glittering Wish
3 Searing Meditation
3 Horizon Canopy
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Brushland
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Gruul Turf
2 Mountain
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Quagnoth
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Lightning Helix
1 Tamanoa
1 Searing Meditation
1 Wreak Havoc
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Glare of Subdual
1 Firemane Angel
1 Fiery Justice
I'll post again here when I've done some relevant testing and let you all know how it fares.
Thanks again for the comments and suggestions!
@magicmaster: I may end up with one of those, but I think with six lands in the deck I can put in the graveyard it should be consistent enough. Call definitely seems good and may end up being better, but I would rather find something that pumps both Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryad if possible. I'm leaning towards Rift Bolt at the moment.
Again, what do you guys think about Chromatic Star vs. Wild Cantor? Or is there something beter i haven't thought of?
-Edit: Maybe Rift Bolt over Incinerate in this deck?
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Tamanoa
3 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Seal of Fire
4 Incinerate
3 Lightning Helix
3 Glittering Wish
3 Searing Meditation
3 Chromatic Star
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Brushland
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Gruul Turf
1 Keldon Megaliths
1 Mountain
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Disenchant
2 Quagnoth
1 Lightning Helix
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Tamanoa
1 Searing Meditation
1 Firemane Angel
1 Wreak Havoc
1 Harmonic Sliver
I know I want to make some sort of gro deck with Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryad. I don't know what made me think of the old Tamanoan Meditation deck, but I always loved the idea, and a lot of the support cards seem to work so well together. I think this deck could do pretty well since it basically has great short-game and long-game capabilities. Against control you have two cheap beatdown creatures capable of ending the game very quickly and slipping under most countermagic other than Remand, along with a slew of must-counter spells. Against aggro you should be able to sit back on your life-gain while you burn out their creatures until you have Meditation on the board, this matchup should never be too hard. Most combos actually played in Standard right now win with a limited amount of damage and you should be able to race them with your lifegain and beatdown fairly easily, and if Storm sticks around we can always put Rule of Law in the sideboard. I haven't tested this deck much, but I'd like to get input on it, I would think the hardest matchup would be control with Wrath or Damnation. Quagnoth can help here after you've drawn out a Wrath or two, but I would like any suggestions on improving this matchup.
Card Choices (at least the ones that may not seem fairly obvious):
Glittering Wish: This card seems to fit this deck beautifully. It replaces Edge of Autumn as our sorcery to boost Tamagoyf, and it fetches either piece of our "combo" as well as several great utility spells we otherwise wouldn't have access to game 1. Also, with Birds and Chromatic Star for mana fixing, and 4 Horizon Canopy to get land into our grave instead of sac'ing Flagstones, I think this plan is just better and more consistent than the Edge-Flagstones plan. Also, wish pumps Dryad as well.
-Edit: Thanks for reminding me, Wish removes itself from the game...
Chromatic Star: I was looking for one more 1-drop that fixes mana. This adds one more card type to our grave for Tarmogoyf, but doesn't pump Dryad. This is the choice I am most questioning. The only other replacement I can think of here is Wild Cantor. I'm not sure which is better. I will try both, Wild Cantor can pump Dryad later in the game, and it can add acceleration as opposed to just fixing, but we shouldn't have any trouble pumping Dryad, we can reasonably expect at least one creature to end up dying over the course of a game, and there's only so many things we can do to pump Tarmogoyf. Other suggestions here would be very helpful.
Seal of Fire: This just seems like an all-star in this deck. It deals damage for Tamanoa. It pumps Dryad if we draw it later. It gives us a 1-drop that is relevant in the later game. Most notably, it does all these things while easily and instantly adding an enchantment to our graveyard for Tarmogoyf. I can't see why any deck with Tarmogoyf in standard could afford to not run these.
Mana: I opted for pain-lands almost exclusively as the drawback is negated with Tamanoa out, and it even becomes a plus with Tamanoa and Meditation out as one tap from these can start the cycle of pain for your opponent if you're out of burn. Gemstone Mine's and Horizon Canopy's put lands into our graveyard later game for little cost. If we already have a land for Tarmogoyf and a depleted Mine, there's always Gruul Turf to bounce it back.
Sideboard: This deck is more than happy to sideboard in Tormod's Crypt against any deck it can be used against. There is a Wish toolbox with one of each gold card maindeck to improve consistency in drawing the ones of these I need when I need them, and there is Firemane Angel (win condition and lifegain enabler without Tamanoa), Wreak Havoc (good against control with signets, bouncelands, and other power artifacts esp. game one), and Harmonic Sliver for some form of enchantment removal capability game one. Disenchant seems self-explanatory, and Quagnoth is to improve the control matchup (and help against any random discard decks) by coming down as an unanswerable threat late when they have used up a Wrath or two this should end the game quickly.
My main questions are:
Any other card's I should be including? Anything I have that seems worthless? Is Incinerate good enough with Helix already in the deck (I think so)? Chromatic Star, Wild Cantor, or something else?
Thanks for your time and for your thoughts!
My first reaction was that the spell will have a CMC 3+ while on the stack and so the damage will be prevented as per protection, but the damage is dealt when the spell resolves, so does that mean that the spell will be in the graveyard and have a CMC of 1 when the damage is dealt?
Thanks for the help!
Thanks in advance!
Circle of Affliction
1B Enchantment
CIP: Choose a color. When you're damaged by a source of the chosen color you may pay 1 to drain one life from the source's controller.
I'm wondering if this card would be a decent sideboard card in a MBA, or B/x discard aggro type deck against Boros/other aggro. Would it be better than CoP: Red? For reference, here's the deck I'm thinking about running it in as a SB card:
3 Funeral Charm
4 The Rack
4 Savannah Lions
4 Dark Confidant
4 Smallpox
4 Shreiking Grotesque
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Mortify
2 Tomb of Yawgmoth
The deck already does decent against Boros, basically if I draw Rack I am faster and win, but I would rather have a better than 50/50 post-SB. Do you guys think this new Circle would help? Is there another place for it in Standard?
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Destructive Flow
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Burning-Tree Shaman
4 Call of the Herd
4 Elephant Guide (Swod of Fire and Ice?)
4 Putrefy
3 Rumbling Slum
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Bloodstained Mire
10 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Krosan Grip
4 Cryoclasm
3 Persecute
The idea is that turn 2 Destructive Flow is GG against about 3/4 of the extended decks out there. Obviously it's not as hot against mono decks like MUC, Mono-Green Aggro, or MBC (if it is even a contendor). Thus the sideboard has therapy and cryoclasm against control, and persecute against anything mono.
I don't think think this is the deck for Pernicious Deed, I think it would work better with Chalice of the Void like mono-green aggro does. Krosan Grip is a good SB against deed (as well as plenty of other things) since deed can hurt this deck a lot.
I was also toying with the idea of adding Hypnotic Spector, but I think everything currently in there is better, and I doubt the mana base would support it consistantly.
Let me know what you think!
Here's what I think:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sterling Grove
4 Eladamri's Call
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Guilty Concience
1 Worship
1 Ivory Mask
1 Privileged Position
1 Pariah
2 Sacred Ground
4 Krosan Grip
3 Suppresion Field
3 Ivory Mask
3 Chalice of the Void
I think this is a fairly solid build for this deck, although the Xantid Swarm is basically an open slot for something to help stop disruption of the combo. I think Devoted Caretaker really good anti-disruption for this deck. What do you guys think?
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Scryb Ranger
3 Magewright's Stone
1 Saffi Ericksdotter
3 Vinelasher Kudzu
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Spectral Force
3 Adarkar Valkyrie
1 Magus of the Disk
1 Pentarch Paladin
4 Temple Garden
4 Brushland
1 Pendelhaven
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Plains
6 Forest
4 Naturalize
4 Whirling Dervish
3 Witch Hunter
4 Sacred Ground
One concern of mine is that I couldn't think of any answers in G/W to dragonstorm combo or the like. I don't know how popular this is going to be, but are there any ideas out there?
Thanks for the input!
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Scryb Ranger
3 Vinelasher Kudzu
3 Magewright's Stone
1 Saffi, Ericksdotter
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Spectral Force
1 Pentarch Paladin
1 Magus of the Disk
3 Adarkar Valkyrie
3 Chord of Calling
4 Brushland
1 Pendelhaven
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Plains
6 Forest
4 Naturalize
4 Whirling Dervish
4 Sacred Ground
3 Witch Hunter
There is also the combo of Adarkar Valkyrie, Loxodon Hierarch, and Magus of the Disk built in to destroy their board each turn. What do you think?