Two tuskers/avatars and an Aspect/vines is enough to play ghalta for 2, and how often do we have more than 6 power with a pump in hand by turn 3? I almost always do.
While Rhonas doesn't rely on creature power to be played, Ghalta doesn't rely on creature power/mana in order to swing every turn, and as a 12/12-trample you're almost guarenteed to have some unblockable damage or at least force a double/triple block to stop it. Which definitely could make him worth testing some more. I'll be doing it all night tonight and will let you know what i think.
He is weak to destroy/exile effects...and I wonder whether he's technically a target for Fatal push or not? Either way I think we can agree he's definitely the more explosive play, though not the most resilient one.
You yourself said your creatures get removed a lot. You're not the only one though. Most people playing Stompy face a lot of removal. But this means that when faced with removal, which will almost always happen, you won't be able to cast Ghalta. Half the time it's just a dead card in your hand, and what you're imagining is the absolute best-case scenario. Imagine the worst case scenario.
Think about it like this:
-You have a good hand that will get Ghalta out on turn 4. This is pretty reasonable since you have Aspect in hand with a bunch of on-curve creatures. You're assuming none of them are removed in the early stages of the game. Already, you're being quite optimistic.
-You opponent plays Thoughtseize. They're not even going to take Ghalta. They will take Aspect or something that will stop you from casting it. They know it's in your hand and they will use just enough removal from preventing you from ever playing it.
-The game plays on. At some point, through discard and removal, Ghalta is the only creature left in your hand. Maybe you drew another pump spell. Any creature you play will be removed because your opponent has been given plenty of time to draw more removal while you were doing nothing.
-Wouldn't you wish that you had another creature in this scenario?
Yes, not every deck you play against will be Jund. But I guarantee that every deck out there will have many ways of stopping you from playing that card. But by all means, play a copy in your sideboard. Some decks don't play removal. You might want to take advantage of that. But don't play Ghalta in the main. Please.
I know I was the one that suggested BBE, but I've come to the conclusion that it's probably not worth it. I'm not going to try it, I'm not going to buy it, but I think it has some sort of potential. If you want to try it, go ahead.
You might have to cut down on one-drops to improve the hits from BBE. This also means that Aspect and Vines probably have to be cut because there is less devotion. That's okay though, Bolt and Atarka's Command can fill those spots.
Went 4-0 for the first time yesterday.
I'm not going to go into too much detail, I just want to talk about my experience against the new Jund deck.
The first two rounds were against Jund. I went 2-1 the first one and 2-0 the second time. Nothing new, just regular stuff. This led me to believe Jund is a very favorable matchup.
The third round I played against Grixis control. I won that match, but we played some casual games afterwards. He played with Jund and won 3 straight games. I don't know how it happened, but it just did.
I learned that there's a lot of lifegain in Jund. Is it now worth it to bring in Rest in Peace against them? Scavenging Ooze and Kitchen Finks are relevant. Usually they need Tarmogoyf to close out the game quickly when they've discarded my hand. However, most people at my LGS are telling me not to have graveyards, but that may be because my graveyard hate yesterday was Relic of Progenitus.
Hey uh, in case people skipped over my previous comment, what's the plan against Blood Moon decks? I'm not even sure if they're going to keep it main board, but I'm interested in knowing how we should deal with it.
Not really, the reasoning is that if you have enough creatures to make it cheap, then you're winning anyways, and when you don't have that many creatures, then you cannot play it. The reason it is good against Humans and Eldrazi is that it's something that can win the game when both players have a lot of creatures on the battlefield. I think 1 should be played maximum, and it should be in the sideboard unless you have a meta heavy on these decks.
What are our plans against Blood Moon decks? Do we just side out all (or most) of our white cards a go mono-red. What if there are problematic creatures to deal with?
I'm thinking about Mardu Pyromancer decks that run 2 copies of Blood Moon in the main. I just don't think Blood Moon is worth removing, or even possible to be dealt with. On the other hand, will they even keep Blood Moon in their deck or will they just side it out?
What are people's thoughts on playing Bloodbraid Elf? We can add in card like Lightning Bolt and Atarka's Command, without ruining the feel of a Stompy deck.
Is this making us too much of a Zoo deck? If anything, we're upping our curve, but keeping the explosiveness,
Against Grixis Shadow, I've been playing Great Sable Stag. If it isn't taken by discard, their only way of killing it is with Lightning Bolt, which they don't run very many copies of. It's unblockable against them while also being an excellent chump blocker. And guess what? It doesn't get targeted by Jace. I'm all for 3 copies in the sideboard for black-based decks.
or maybe even boardwiped. If our control opponent plays Supreme Verdict, then plays Jace the turn after, we're not winning that match.
A relevant Experiment One survives, albeit weakened. A counterless Strangleroot Geist survives. A Treetop Village survives. Rhonas survives. Our Rancor returns to us.
This deck is more boardwipe resilient than most creature decks, even before game 2 when we’ve sided in those Heroic Interventions.
I understand what you've been saying, and the deck does seem pretty resilient, but experience says otherwise. My opponent knows about these interactions, and they will do what they can to get those cards off the table with Path to Exile and stuff before they land Supreme Verdict.
I would argue that there are many other creature decks that deal with boardwipes better than we do. Humans has disruption that can get rid of the boardwipes from the opponent's hand or play Meddling Mage to stop it from being played, or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to buy a turn. Several decks have the option of playing Chord of Calling and finding Selfless Spirit with it.
Our deck doesn't have that kind of tech. Sure, there will be a few games where one or two of our cards survive, but that's it.
Display of Dominance was brought up in the old Stompy thread and shot down as being too narrow. With Jace being unbanned, it's definitely worth discussing again, but it still seems narrow. Wouldn't Pithing Needle still be better in the sideboard as it also can disable planeswalkers and can hit a much broader set of threats against other decks?
Pithing Needle does seem a little bit better. I'm already running it, and now that I think about it, it deals with Jace permanently, since they can always draw a second one. However, it goes beyond just killing Jace.
But I thought about it more and the only other big card that also gets hit by Display of Dominance is Liliana of the Veil, which also gets hit by Pithing Needle.
So yeah, my bad. It was just an idea.
Related to the same topic, should we be increasing the number of Pithing Needles we play? With Jace being more popular, it seems like a wise decision, but I would really hate to draw multiple copies of that card.
The worst matchups I've had so far was a deck that played ensnaring bridge, intruder alert, and steward of solidarity. He would just play his entire hand until my 2+ creatures couldn't attack, forced my geist to go undying which evolved my E1, and there was nothing i could do. He drew and played until he got the steward out and created infinite tokens.
I haven't played Affinity yet but I imagine I'll be reaching for my sideboard and have half of it dedicated to cheap/broad artifact/enchantment removal: Deglamor/Unravel The Aether (2x of each in case one gets removed) 1x Manglehorn, and 2x pithing needle.
The other half of my sideboard is devoted to lifegain, removal, and 2x Heroic Intervention to add additional immunity to boardwipes for the already hexproof-heavy deck I run.
I'm still considering replacing all removal with Beast Within...its more expensive, and with a downside, but it works against everything. For now I mainboard 2x dismember and sideboard 2x gutshot with 2x natures way.
Dude, you're making WAY too many drastic changes to your deck just because of a handful of decks. There's a concept in Magic you should be aware about called diminishing returns. Ideally in a game, you don't want to draw too many copies of the same card, you want diversity. Just look at any card in the deck and ask yourself if you would like drawing all copies of it. I can guarantee that there isn't a single card in your deck that you want to draw all copies of.
Don't go too heavy on artifact removal. Against affinity, I like 2 copies of Creeping Corrosion (I've only resolved it once against Affinity, and my opponent conceded). A handful of artifact removal and Beast Within should do the trick. Remember, you don't need to kill every single artifact you see, you simply won't be able to. Just focus on taking out the key cards that make Affinity powerful and they will be left with a handful of Ornithopter and Memnite that just don't do anything against you.
Another concept you should be aware of is called over-sideboarding. If you sideboard too many cards after a game, your deck will be diluted and you won't actually have any creatures to play.
Thanks, but I was asking more about the most popular decks, so that players can see which matchups are good and which are bad etc. Some people that post here have a lot of experience against certain decks, and I need that when I write parts of the primer.
Also, I think that 5 artifact hate cards in your sideboard is a bit much, especially since you haven't even played against affinity yet. What does your local meta look like? I would also still like to see your list, because it's hard to make comments about your deck when I don't know what it looks like or what your meta is.
You're going to need to ask people who know their decks well to know the matchups. I would tell you about the Burn matchup because I play it but I don't consider myself to be enough of an expert with the deck.
I think you should go to the Tier 1 section of MTG Salvation and visit each deck, and ask people in those forums to visit this forum and write what they think of the matchup. Since there are quite a few experts in each forum, you should be getting some pretty good advice.
I can visit other forums too if you want some help, since I don't want to impose all this work on you.
All right Ponza's starting to scare me. I haven't faced it yet, but I see quite a few people at my LGS playing it. On top of that, I'm very sure they're going to be running Bloodbraid Elf because it seems like it was made for the deck.
How do we beat it?
When playing against affinity, is it right to bolt Steel Overseer? It seems like a card that should't go unanswered, but it also seems like a pretty slow card, so maybe it's better to just go for the face if we think we're winning the race.
You yourself said your creatures get removed a lot. You're not the only one though. Most people playing Stompy face a lot of removal. But this means that when faced with removal, which will almost always happen, you won't be able to cast Ghalta. Half the time it's just a dead card in your hand, and what you're imagining is the absolute best-case scenario. Imagine the worst case scenario.
Think about it like this:
-You have a good hand that will get Ghalta out on turn 4. This is pretty reasonable since you have Aspect in hand with a bunch of on-curve creatures. You're assuming none of them are removed in the early stages of the game. Already, you're being quite optimistic.
-You opponent plays Thoughtseize. They're not even going to take Ghalta. They will take Aspect or something that will stop you from casting it. They know it's in your hand and they will use just enough removal from preventing you from ever playing it.
-The game plays on. At some point, through discard and removal, Ghalta is the only creature left in your hand. Maybe you drew another pump spell. Any creature you play will be removed because your opponent has been given plenty of time to draw more removal while you were doing nothing.
-Wouldn't you wish that you had another creature in this scenario?
Yes, not every deck you play against will be Jund. But I guarantee that every deck out there will have many ways of stopping you from playing that card. But by all means, play a copy in your sideboard. Some decks don't play removal. You might want to take advantage of that. But don't play Ghalta in the main. Please.
You might have to cut down on one-drops to improve the hits from BBE. This also means that Aspect and Vines probably have to be cut because there is less devotion. That's okay though, Bolt and Atarka's Command can fill those spots.
I'm not going to go into too much detail, I just want to talk about my experience against the new Jund deck.
The first two rounds were against Jund. I went 2-1 the first one and 2-0 the second time. Nothing new, just regular stuff. This led me to believe Jund is a very favorable matchup.
The third round I played against Grixis control. I won that match, but we played some casual games afterwards. He played with Jund and won 3 straight games. I don't know how it happened, but it just did.
I learned that there's a lot of lifegain in Jund. Is it now worth it to bring in Rest in Peace against them? Scavenging Ooze and Kitchen Finks are relevant. Usually they need Tarmogoyf to close out the game quickly when they've discarded my hand. However, most people at my LGS are telling me not to have graveyards, but that may be because my graveyard hate yesterday was Relic of Progenitus.
Last round was against BR hollow one. Just raced.
I'm thinking about Mardu Pyromancer decks that run 2 copies of Blood Moon in the main. I just don't think Blood Moon is worth removing, or even possible to be dealt with. On the other hand, will they even keep Blood Moon in their deck or will they just side it out?
Is this making us too much of a Zoo deck? If anything, we're upping our curve, but keeping the explosiveness,
I understand what you've been saying, and the deck does seem pretty resilient, but experience says otherwise. My opponent knows about these interactions, and they will do what they can to get those cards off the table with Path to Exile and stuff before they land Supreme Verdict.
I would argue that there are many other creature decks that deal with boardwipes better than we do. Humans has disruption that can get rid of the boardwipes from the opponent's hand or play Meddling Mage to stop it from being played, or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to buy a turn. Several decks have the option of playing Chord of Calling and finding Selfless Spirit with it.
Our deck doesn't have that kind of tech. Sure, there will be a few games where one or two of our cards survive, but that's it.
Pithing Needle does seem a little bit better. I'm already running it, and now that I think about it, it deals with Jace permanently, since they can always draw a second one. However, it goes beyond just killing Jace.
But I thought about it more and the only other big card that also gets hit by Display of Dominance is Liliana of the Veil, which also gets hit by Pithing Needle.
So yeah, my bad. It was just an idea.
Related to the same topic, should we be increasing the number of Pithing Needles we play? With Jace being more popular, it seems like a wise decision, but I would really hate to draw multiple copies of that card.
Dude, you're making WAY too many drastic changes to your deck just because of a handful of decks. There's a concept in Magic you should be aware about called diminishing returns. Ideally in a game, you don't want to draw too many copies of the same card, you want diversity. Just look at any card in the deck and ask yourself if you would like drawing all copies of it. I can guarantee that there isn't a single card in your deck that you want to draw all copies of.
Don't go too heavy on artifact removal. Against affinity, I like 2 copies of Creeping Corrosion (I've only resolved it once against Affinity, and my opponent conceded). A handful of artifact removal and Beast Within should do the trick. Remember, you don't need to kill every single artifact you see, you simply won't be able to. Just focus on taking out the key cards that make Affinity powerful and they will be left with a handful of Ornithopter and Memnite that just don't do anything against you.
Another concept you should be aware of is called over-sideboarding. If you sideboard too many cards after a game, your deck will be diluted and you won't actually have any creatures to play.
You're going to need to ask people who know their decks well to know the matchups. I would tell you about the Burn matchup because I play it but I don't consider myself to be enough of an expert with the deck.
I think you should go to the Tier 1 section of MTG Salvation and visit each deck, and ask people in those forums to visit this forum and write what they think of the matchup. Since there are quite a few experts in each forum, you should be getting some pretty good advice.
I can visit other forums too if you want some help, since I don't want to impose all this work on you.
How do we beat it?