Wayward servant is much better than geralf's messenger if you play any white. I get that Solemnity makes a infinite loop where in which you can kill somebody with messenger and a sac outlet, but it also makes carrion feeder very useless other than as a combo part as solem is not a may but must card.
The only reason Carrion Feeder is in the list is to provide a cheap sac outlet.
Get that, but if they path or otherwise exile it before a sac outlet comes into play or otherwise disrupt the combo with solem on the field it does very little. There really is no backup plan for if they board against you or the combo really isn't going off and it feels like there isn't enough offensive depth without the combo. You have no real way of removing your own solem if you need to feed and beat with carrion.
Wayward servant is much better than geralf's messenger if you play any white. I get that Solemnity makes a infinite loop where in which you can kill somebody with messenger and a sac outlet, but it also makes carrion feeder very useless other than as a combo part as solem is not a may but must card.
That's a very disappointing Elspeth. The original nissa didn't work that well in zendikar let alone keep value after. I really hope this is the deck one.
Blade of the Bloodchief should be considered as well if you go equip route. not that your going to have a lot of sac outlets but any you do use really ramps up most of the deck
Yeah but those are not free spells and they are pump spells not as utility as once upon is. The two miracle spells depend on targets already in play to get the utility out of them rather than cards in the deck, that and on there own the CMC of them is horrible if you haven't manipulated them to the 1 mana cost miracle. At least once upon is base CMC 2 which is more doable and if you need to dig for either side its playable. Not perfect but playable
Any one had a chance of testing once upon a time yet. I'm still waiting for my foil copies to come in.
Also, it seems like its primary use would be to let you use it as a land substitute that can also get a creature if you don't need another land. Considering this is not really a deck that is skimping on land (say <=16) I'm not even sure its principal function would work out that well.
That is interesting. I know some old casual-legacy Lowland Stompy decks often ran Land Grant, for that reason - it’s a nonland that can be free cast to become a land (and put a card in grave for delving a Hooting Mandrills, and cast a green spell for Talara’s Battalion or Nettle Sentinel...) I wonder if it finds a place in that sort of deck, where it is another way that deck can fluff its grave and reduce its land count...
But that’s not so sensible in the modern build.
There is the question about how toolbox we are and the ability to freebie a spell turn 1 isn't insignificant. Arent some of the more recent decks running only 18ish lands? Low land count in that case plus the ability to pull something to play for whats in your hand could be very useful.
Another thought against Rancor is the mentioned speed aspect. I don't think that we need that speed boost that much anymore. We aren't fast enough to fight with the fast linear decks anyways. As nowadays most of them win T3 consistently (Twiddle Storm, Infect). Which is something we cannot do even with Rancor. So we need these decks to miss their T3 win anyways. So replacing them with more ways to make our stuff hard to deal with or more creatures should give us points against the other interactive decks, while loosing points in matches which are already close to unwinnable for us.
Its only 4 cards out of 60 and we nearly play 26 creatures or higher. If nothing else what we have in our SB can fit where rancor will anyway as a solution. I mean what can we add to our main deck that's going to affect the liner decks anyways and not screw us over? What 4 cards are going to satisfy the demands of a huge variable meta? I mean if you need to add vines for your meta fine or blossoming, but as a template 4 rancor is a really not horrible idea to help roll over matches quicker or cause a response from a control player.
Dang, I guess I'm in the minority here but I think that Rancor is the best card in the deck and a key reason to play it. It deals more damage than any other single card in nearly every match-up, and is only ever really bad against Chalice Of The Void or a rare Spellskite. I would never play fewer than 4, especially in the lower to the ground zero 3CMC build I've been playing.
I play 4 rancor as well. Not every deck has plenty of removal, had sometimes put 2 rancor on a one drop then attacking for 6 turn 2. Does not matter if they remove the creature after that, the damage was done. Of course, against a removal heavy deck it's the reason we run vines and some builds have blossoming defense. Just have to play smart and know when to protect the casting of rancor, and also know when it's safe to cast it without support from vines and blossoming.
Against a good chunk of modern decks you basically have people start at 17 or less life anyways depending on how greedy the manabase they are playing. 11 life your turn 2 can really clock people faster than they anticipate.
@Marl
Yes but the 2 for 1 and dies to removal argument basically make you hinder yourself in some matches to the point of you losing because you play too conservatively.
I mean they can 2 for 1 us when we play aspect of hydra or vines or blossoming in response to us targeting a creature right? We still play them main board. I don't see rancor being that different other than being obvious when we play it.
This game has a whole lotta IF in it. While stompy doesn't have a lot of responses to IF main board unless they are trying to pre kill one of our creatures and even then its has to be in hand when needed which is another IF anyway.
My thoughts on the discussion are this, Rancor is actually a very useful card to have main since many of our creatures don't have penetration aids like trample or flying natively. Only steel leaf and avatar have any kind of penetration aid and having rancor added to some of our early creatures with a not insignificant amount of power plus the trample ability so that if/when an opponent does start to block you aren't loosing back end damage. Yes there is the 2 for 1 aspect but then there is always going to be a removal argument as well. Additionally if they do destroy a creature with rancor on it before you at the very least are getting a rancor back for another creature.
this is good even with the storm seeker effect pinned on since it can be used for gas late game post turn 4 in both red and black. those colors usually peter out of hand by that time.
this turn 4 isn't horrible, and as a plus its all your creatures instead of a single like usual. Im thinking this could maybe be more modern playable in some ways and definitely standard.
Yes but the 2 for 1 and dies to removal argument basically make you hinder yourself in some matches to the point of you losing because you play too conservatively.
I mean they can 2 for 1 us when we play aspect of hydra or vines or blossoming in response to us targeting a creature right? We still play them main board. I don't see rancor being that different other than being obvious when we play it.
This game has a whole lotta IF in it. While stompy doesn't have a lot of responses to IF main board unless they are trying to pre kill one of our creatures and even then its has to be in hand when needed which is another IF anyway.