Few months ago there was a 3 way game with Nekusar, the Mindrazer (brutal deck, evil), Kaseto, Orochi Archmage (whom was not off to a good start), and my Ezuri, Claw of Progress. It was rather back and forth in this game with several reset cards being tossed around like all 3 of us using overloaded Cyclonic Rift at one point in the game. I was able to rebuild somewhat faster since early in the game my land searches and drew into a Avenger of Zendikar. I had 10 lands, Wistful Selkie, Ezuri (with 6 experience counters) and a Cold-Eyed Selkie in play. The Avenger made 10 Plant tokens and it made a nice wall of defense against my opponents.
Following turn Kaseto created some snakes. Nekusar recast his commander and dropped an Underworld Dreams, plus removed 1 counter from a susptended Wheel of Fate which will go off the next upkeep and there was a Megrimand a Memory Jar in play. Life totals were getting low due to the damage from discarding and drawing that the Wheel of Fate would be lethal to both Kasteo and myself. My turn came about and I got a Rite of Replication and a land. I cast a kicked Rite on my Avenger and got 50 Plant tokens and 50 experience triggers. I went to combat and tossed the +1/+1 counters onto the Cold-Eyed Selkie and islandwalked my way over and took out Kaseto then passed the turn to my doom.
Nekusar did not have a island (he had blue sources) and would have popped the Jar which would have almost killed me.
I went 5-0 in the event going in with a defensive mindset with enough cards to make a vilable mono-white using life gaining effects and enblam creatures. Also using Approach of the Second Sun to win several matches was fun. Several games all I had to do was hold out 8 turns and with my blockers and Kittens it was easy to turtle and praise the sun and in the final game I had both in hand from the start.
Damnation
Blood Moon
Cackling Counterpart
Ranger of Eros
Summoning Trap
Cyclonic Rift
Thragtusk
Call of the Herd
Advent the Wurm
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Domri Rade
Damping Matrix
... a few triples
Gifts Ungiven (2 in first box)
Wort, the Raidmother (2 in first box)
Sever the Bloodline (2 in second box)
What I found that was really odd getting only two Burning-Tree Emissary out of the frist box and none in the 2nd. I have several original ones and yet only 2 of the MM17? Another guy got 2 boxes and got 3 of them and another friend of mine got 11. Weird.
Not a single masterpiece from the Kaladesh block despite the 5-ish boxes of Kaladesh and 3 boxes of Aether Revolt. Zendikar block I got 7 in relative short order (4 from BfZ and 3 from Oath).
After we ended Gisela, the Broken Blade player showed me his hand. Next turn he was going to drop Bruna, the Fading Light. Would have been his first time doing the meld too.
Slightly modified from the deck I ran at FNM (went 2-2). Mostly added in Thought-Knot Seer & Read the Bones. Originally I had 4 Endbringer, 4 Endless One, 3 Ghostfire Blade and 4 Reaver Drone. The Drones worked well with the equipment but the Endbringer was usually a dead card due to missing land drops or getting milled out (faced against 2 mill decks). This build feels more straight forward and with the addition of the Thought-Knot Seer's powerful hand removal and Read the Bones card draw it ran great. Sadly I am not able to play in Game Day but I did get some play tests done with my friends at the card shop. Managed to go 2-0 against a G/R/w landfall deck.
Nothing was more satisfyingly than seeing an Eldrazi Mimic get pumped to a 5/5 from a Reality Smasher and the next turn sac Mirrorpool making another Smasher.
Pirate Labs has some decent 120 card deck boxes out now and pretty inexpensive. They fit a double sleeved decks with ease and single sleeved decks have plenty of space to spare for token cards. I snagged 10 of them.
The Whiners are always saying they would have won if the combo/land drop/bad draw/ect. No matter if they won the game or got smacked down by a horde of Sliver tokens it was always something that could have been done differently if we had cut their deck by 3 cards. You hear about it almost from the start and see a social media post about it later that night and again a week afterwards. Everything must be perfect from the draw to the last point of damage or the whole game shop had to suffer their verbal diarrhea until the next round. You still hear their complaints even if they win ("Pfff! Would have won on turn 3 instead of turn 4 but I forgot a trigger...").
Weekends at my LGS is usually EDH days and often a lot of the long time players attend to hangout for a lazy afternoon. I had just moved back to the area and restarted playing after taking a break around Betrayers and restarted playing again at Gatecrash. I come in one weekend to have some fun with Sliver Overlord deck that I had been tweaking. It was a group game of about 5 players, 2 were old friends of mine and the others were a young couple new to the area (I learned later were real competitive and total asses). My friends would often take out any Sliver decks with impunity but this time they decided to leave me alone and took on the couple. Things began to stall out after the boyfriend( UW deck with Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as his general) got his protections out and his gf was playing some white weenie deck that had several board wipes which kept my slivers in check. Before my turn they teamed up and managed to take out one of my friends and in the process tap themselves out. Not really viewing me as a threat the boyfriend gloated that he would win on his next turn.
I had built my deck with redundancy in mind. Several of the new slivers were put into the deck along with a few enchantments and artifacts to aid me. It was, and still is, mostly permanents with a few choice spells to help get around some hurdles. My turn started and I drew and cast Primal Surge. It was a risk and with my only permanents, other than 8 lands, was Akroma's Memorial and a Sol Ring I had nothing to lose (lost most of my army in a instant cast Rout on the previous end step). First was a shock land, then Cryptic Gateway, Mana Echoes, Flying Sliver, Training Grounds, land, Necrotic Sliver, Aggravated Assault, Sliver Queen, some more land, and the spell ended on Living Death. My friends were laughing their asses off and the couple tried to look unimpressed until I announced the creation of about 2 million slivers. We had to explain how Mana Echoes worked to the two (they thought it was only if it was cast not placed into play) and they went as far as to check the online on the cards wording.
They scooped before I could unleash the hive and refuse to play against Slivers in any group games. Over time I got to see how toxic they really were in other games of Magic and in the local D&D games that were running across the week. They would often draw out games on FNM when they were loosing, ranting about how some players were making bad plays while those players were in a game, making off color and occasional racist remarks & frivolous complaints about other players (IE-taking too much time shuffling). One point they tried to state that some card had some 'updated ruling' in their favor.... doing that age where the 8 year old kids have smartphones to see a Oracle text ruling. They spent almost all their free time at the LGS to the point where some of my friends would not show up for casual games or D&D if they saw the couples car in the parking lot. Thankfully the two left town the following summer for school and had to quit Magic due to it interfering with their classes.
Dear Painland.
You said that Nissa Vastwood Seer constantly flipped. You need 7 lands to flip her. You play 20 lands. When i do the math it will take a while before you get 7 lands in play.
Here is my math
Youd need 7 lands in play. Thats 35% from all the lands you have.
So you have to draw 35% of your deck to get them. Thats 35% x 60=21 cards.
On turn 13/14 you have drawn 21 cards. There is some acceleration (Visionary/Nissa).
So i wonder if it was that easy to flip Nissa.
There, edited my first post since writing with a migraine can muddle thoughts.
In my area the meta is very variable on speed. She flipped at least 8 times in 6 matches in the drawn out bouts and usually I get her 2nd ability off before she is targeted and destroyed. One game was fun when Collected Company snagged me a Nissa and a Shaman of the Pack while a Planeswalker Nissa was in play. Granted the Shaman was the killing blow it was just fun to get 2 sides of Nissa out.
Went 4-1 in last nights FNM (took 2nd place). Shaman of the Pack, Nissa, Vastwood Seer and Collected Company were the MVPs of the night. Most of the games went 3rd match, with sideboards becoming more and more important. Being aggressive worked well in most matches and the only issue I have noticed was a lack of card draws since you can empty your hand rather quickly. Hopefully BFZ can help with that.
Round Breakdown
Round 1 VS UB Mill.
Match 1: Won, death done via the power of Collected Company. Did get milled quite a bit.
Match 2: Loss. Oppoenent sided in Lanquish and some counterspells. Could not get ahead. Sphinx's Tutelage is evil!
Match 2: Won. Sided out some cards (forgot what) for Naturalize and Back to Nature.
Round 2 VS Azban Aggro
Match 1: Loss. Mana issues. Mulled to 6 and could not get lands.Fleecemane Lion and Warden of the First Tree ate my elves.
Match 2: Loss. Mana screwed to no end. Mulled to 4 and conceded after 4 turns of no lands.
Round 3 VS Azban Outlast/Bolster
Match 1: Won. The elves came out fighting.
Match 2: Loss. I got cocky and did a bad play (played Collected Company in response to declare of Attack phase before attackers were chosen. bah!)
Match 3: Won. Sided in creature hate. Had Nissa come out and play, repeatedly. Flipped every time. At some point I will get her Ultimate off.
Round 5 RU Direct Damage
Match 1: Won but it was one hell of a fight. He managed to keep the elves in check and the lovely Shaman of the Pack and Nissa, Vastwood Seer were the stars of that match.
Match 2: Loss by epic plays. Pyromancer's Goggles and Crater Claws getting copied melted my face after getting softened by Ugin, the Spirit Dragon,
Match 3: Won. Went to time as well. It was filled with epic plays and Collected Company helped get the victory. Sided in Gaea's Revenge and got both out and they kept Ugin in check.
Overall very happy with this build. Nissa, Vastwood Seer is freaking great for the deck and she constantly kept coming out and often getting flipped in longer matches. Using her 2nd ability often got me a good chump blocker and made Nissa a good target. Managorger Hydra was rarely seen and given its great performance in the previous incarnation of the deck I was disappointed (ran this on GameDay few weeks ago and went 2-2).
Following turn Kaseto created some snakes. Nekusar recast his commander and dropped an Underworld Dreams, plus removed 1 counter from a susptended Wheel of Fate which will go off the next upkeep and there was a Megrimand a Memory Jar in play. Life totals were getting low due to the damage from discarding and drawing that the Wheel of Fate would be lethal to both Kasteo and myself. My turn came about and I got a Rite of Replication and a land. I cast a kicked Rite on my Avenger and got 50 Plant tokens and 50 experience triggers. I went to combat and tossed the +1/+1 counters onto the Cold-Eyed Selkie and islandwalked my way over and took out Kaseto then passed the turn to my doom.
Nekusar did not have a island (he had blue sources) and would have popped the Jar which would have almost killed me.
I went 5-0 in the event going in with a defensive mindset with enough cards to make a vilable mono-white using life gaining effects and enblam creatures. Also using Approach of the Second Sun to win several matches was fun. Several games all I had to do was hold out 8 turns and with my blockers and Kittens it was easy to turtle and praise the sun and in the final game I had both in hand from the start.
Damnation
Blood Moon
Cackling Counterpart
Ranger of Eros
Summoning Trap
Cyclonic Rift
Thragtusk
Call of the Herd
Advent the Wurm
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Domri Rade
Damping Matrix
... a few triples
Gifts Ungiven (2 in first box)
Wort, the Raidmother (2 in first box)
Sever the Bloodline (2 in second box)
What I found that was really odd getting only two Burning-Tree Emissary out of the frist box and none in the 2nd. I have several original ones and yet only 2 of the MM17? Another guy got 2 boxes and got 3 of them and another friend of mine got 11. Weird.
The game was going smoothly with most of the players keeping the others in check, Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis had bounced my doubling season on turn 4 to keep my planeswalkers from getting out of hand while Riku of Two Reflections was taking out some threats (such as 2 nykthos, shrine to nyx that was threatening to ramp up both Athreos, God of Passage and Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis). I was able to get Crystalline Crawler with 4 +1/+1 counters and it survived to my next turn. I had 8 lands ready on my turn with a up to 5 more mana from the Crystalline Crawler when I drew Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Riku was tapped out of blue and the other players were tapped out as well. I tapped the crawler to add a counter, pulled the 5 counters off for GGGGG and cast doubling season. With my remaining mana cast Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Needless to say I popped Ugin's ultimate right away. The 7 cards I drew sealed the game and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Ob Nixilis Reignited, Kiora, the Crashing Wave, Garruk, Apex Predator, Oath of Gideon, and Sphere of Safety entered the fray. Needless to say that some ultimate's were used (Teferi and Kiora right off the bat) and some regular abilities as well (Garruk and Ob nuked Gisela and Riku respectively). I was about to use Jace's plus (which would have set up his ultimate on Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis upkeep heh) when everyone decided that it was hopeless as nobody was going to stop me in time. I doubt this will ever happen again.
After we ended Gisela, the Broken Blade player showed me his hand. Next turn he was going to drop Bruna, the Fading Light. Would have been his first time doing the meld too.
4 Bearer of Silence
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
Spells
3 Spatial Contortion
4 Transgress the Mind
3 Ruinous Path
3 Read the Bones
3 Murderous Cut
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Caves of Koilos
1 Wastes
5 Swamp
2 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
2 Mirrorpool
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
3 Duress
3 Warping Wail
3 Flaying Tendrils
3 Infinite Obliteration
3 Grasp of Darkness
Slightly modified from the deck I ran at FNM (went 2-2). Mostly added in Thought-Knot Seer & Read the Bones. Originally I had 4 Endbringer, 4 Endless One, 3 Ghostfire Blade and 4 Reaver Drone. The Drones worked well with the equipment but the Endbringer was usually a dead card due to missing land drops or getting milled out (faced against 2 mill decks). This build feels more straight forward and with the addition of the Thought-Knot Seer's powerful hand removal and Read the Bones card draw it ran great. Sadly I am not able to play in Game Day but I did get some play tests done with my friends at the card shop. Managed to go 2-0 against a G/R/w landfall deck.
Nothing was more satisfyingly than seeing an Eldrazi Mimic get pumped to a 5/5 from a Reality Smasher and the next turn sac Mirrorpool making another Smasher.
The Whiners are always saying they would have won if the combo/land drop/bad draw/ect. No matter if they won the game or got smacked down by a horde of Sliver tokens it was always something that could have been done differently if we had cut their deck by 3 cards. You hear about it almost from the start and see a social media post about it later that night and again a week afterwards. Everything must be perfect from the draw to the last point of damage or the whole game shop had to suffer their verbal diarrhea until the next round. You still hear their complaints even if they win ("Pfff! Would have won on turn 3 instead of turn 4 but I forgot a trigger...").
I had built my deck with redundancy in mind. Several of the new slivers were put into the deck along with a few enchantments and artifacts to aid me. It was, and still is, mostly permanents with a few choice spells to help get around some hurdles. My turn started and I drew and cast Primal Surge. It was a risk and with my only permanents, other than 8 lands, was Akroma's Memorial and a Sol Ring I had nothing to lose (lost most of my army in a instant cast Rout on the previous end step). First was a shock land, then Cryptic Gateway, Mana Echoes, Flying Sliver, Training Grounds, land, Necrotic Sliver, Aggravated Assault, Sliver Queen, some more land, and the spell ended on Living Death. My friends were laughing their asses off and the couple tried to look unimpressed until I announced the creation of about 2 million slivers. We had to explain how Mana Echoes worked to the two (they thought it was only if it was cast not placed into play) and they went as far as to check the online on the cards wording.
They scooped before I could unleash the hive and refuse to play against Slivers in any group games. Over time I got to see how toxic they really were in other games of Magic and in the local D&D games that were running across the week. They would often draw out games on FNM when they were loosing, ranting about how some players were making bad plays while those players were in a game, making off color and occasional racist remarks & frivolous complaints about other players (IE-taking too much time shuffling). One point they tried to state that some card had some 'updated ruling' in their favor.... doing that age where the 8 year old kids have smartphones to see a Oracle text ruling. They spent almost all their free time at the LGS to the point where some of my friends would not show up for casual games or D&D if they saw the couples car in the parking lot. Thankfully the two left town the following summer for school and had to quit Magic due to it interfering with their classes.
There, edited my first post since writing with a migraine can muddle thoughts.
In my area the meta is very variable on speed. She flipped at least 8 times in 6 matches in the drawn out bouts and usually I get her 2nd ability off before she is targeted and destroyed. One game was fun when Collected Company snagged me a Nissa and a Shaman of the Pack while a Planeswalker Nissa was in play. Granted the Shaman was the killing blow it was just fun to get 2 sides of Nissa out.
4 Gnarlroot Trapper
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Managorger Hydra
4 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
4 Shaman of the Pack
2 Sylvan Messenger
2 Gilt-Leaf Winnower
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Comapany
Lands (20)
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Temple of Malady
4 Jungle Hallow
8 Forest
3 Back to Nature
2 Naturalize
3 Eyeblight Massacre
2 Languish
2 Reclamation Sage
1 Gilt-Leaf Winnower
2 Gaea's Revenge
Went 4-1 in last nights FNM (took 2nd place). Shaman of the Pack, Nissa, Vastwood Seer and Collected Company were the MVPs of the night. Most of the games went 3rd match, with sideboards becoming more and more important. Being aggressive worked well in most matches and the only issue I have noticed was a lack of card draws since you can empty your hand rather quickly. Hopefully BFZ can help with that.
Round Breakdown
Round 1 VS UB Mill.
Match 1: Won, death done via the power of Collected Company. Did get milled quite a bit.
Match 2: Loss. Oppoenent sided in Lanquish and some counterspells. Could not get ahead. Sphinx's Tutelage is evil!
Match 2: Won. Sided out some cards (forgot what) for Naturalize and Back to Nature.
Round 2 VS Azban Aggro
Match 1: Loss. Mana issues. Mulled to 6 and could not get lands.Fleecemane Lion and Warden of the First Tree ate my elves.
Match 2: Loss. Mana screwed to no end. Mulled to 4 and conceded after 4 turns of no lands.
Round 3 VS Azban Outlast/Bolster
Match 1: Won. The elves came out fighting.
Match 2: Loss. I got cocky and did a bad play (played Collected Company in response to declare of Attack phase before attackers were chosen. bah!)
Match 3: Won. Sided in creature hate. Had Nissa come out and play, repeatedly. Flipped every time. At some point I will get her Ultimate off.
Round 4 VS Enchantment Aggro
Cant remember this match to well. Went 2-1. Back to Nature shined. Collected Company and Chord of Calling shined.
Round 5 RU Direct Damage
Match 1: Won but it was one hell of a fight. He managed to keep the elves in check and the lovely Shaman of the Pack and Nissa, Vastwood Seer were the stars of that match.
Match 2: Loss by epic plays. Pyromancer's Goggles and Crater Claws getting copied melted my face after getting softened by Ugin, the Spirit Dragon,
Match 3: Won. Went to time as well. It was filled with epic plays and Collected Company helped get the victory. Sided in Gaea's Revenge and got both out and they kept Ugin in check.
Overall very happy with this build. Nissa, Vastwood Seer is freaking great for the deck and she constantly kept coming out and often getting flipped in longer matches. Using her 2nd ability often got me a good chump blocker and made Nissa a good target. Managorger Hydra was rarely seen and given its great performance in the previous incarnation of the deck I was disappointed (ran this on GameDay few weeks ago and went 2-2).