i think you're about as wrong as can be. i really wanted inner flame acolyte to be a good card for the deck, it looks on the face of it like a reasonable replacement for Char, but its just not. its really just a wimpy guy that gets blocked by an elf token and dies. its alright against Wrath decks but you can still do alot better for your trouble. mutavault alone (as well as treetop village) is infinitely more troublesome for a wrath deck than any haste creature in standard. there's really no doubt in my mind that Countryside Crusher is the best red 3 drop in Standard. In fact it might be the best 3 drop period, its on the same power tier as Doran and Troll Ascetic.
Inner flame is not meant to be a "replacement" for char, it's meant to be the creature to fill the 3cc slot in the curve. It takes 3 turns of countryside crusher being on the field to hit for as much as inner-flame(assuming of course that you flip a land), and it almost never stays on the field that long.
As for the "Blockers", they should have been burned, where are these elf tokens coming from? Are you burning the dome like a scrub?
RDW/Sligh wants to hit for as much as possible a fast as possible, and it doesn't want to give up an ability that creates an immediate threat for an ability that requires it to be unanswered for multiple turns.
weird. bitterblossom & marshflitter pwn your wrath effects.
omg a bad moon out means you're double screwed. hi mutavault is main decked too! and when blackguard is out, he gets a counter every time he's activated. how are you gonna kill a 5/5 manland?
Marshflitter doesn't do a thing to wrath effects, it dies just like everything else and doesn't do anything special. Yes, bitterblossom is pretty good, but it still is slow and bounceable and you have to give up hitting for any real damage on turns 3 and 4.
He is actually horribly suboptimal is RDW due to lack of haste. Your better off with inner flame accolyte fighting everything but burn, because he dies 99% of the time before doing anything.
Rogues are very fragile. It has 8 real threats from blackguard and stinkdrinker, and 2 decent beaters from oona's prowler and earwig squad. Really easy to shut them down by killing a couple of their good creatures. A well timed board clearer will win the game against rogues easily.
Bosk makes doran splash that much more easy, turn 2 or 3 doran is easily the norm now, and it's veeeeeeery good. Doran single handledly boosts this thing from 10$ to 15$ in my eyes.
i've said it before but i'll rehash, cuz screw it why not, i'm havin fun arguing tonight.
if you're turn 3 play is Earwig Squad then you need to connect with your 2 drop rogue (say an Oona's Prowler) in order to be able to make your 3 drop. if your opponent has any instant speed removal for the prowler he has not only prevented 3 damage and killed your guy, he's denied you the ability to make your 3 drop.
thats a vulnerability that another aggro archetype would never have to worry about. the entire class of spells (instant speed creature removal) has a more severe impact on a Prowl rogue deck than it does on a generic aggro deck deck.
no aggro deck likes having its creatures removed but at least most of them aren't directly impeded in making their plays just because the opponent removed your creatures. but Prowl rogues are. its a unique vulnerability tied to the linear Prowl mechanic.
why would you bother to saddle yourself with that vulnerability if you don't have to? it might be worth it if the synergistic gains were greater than anything that could be achieved with a non-linear strategy, but they just aren't.
UB Rogues might be fine, there are some pretty good rogues out there. But the Prowl mechanic is kinda bad and Earwig Squad is a particularly awful example of it because its positioning on the mana curve gives it such a high exposure to getting totally screwed by a spot removal.
Your hopeless. Madness decks did the same thing, and they did just fine.
no, the issue is not whether or not you'll ever be able to activate Prowl. you certainly will on a regular basis. the issue is the relatively low amount of upside you receive in exchange for the downside you expose yourself to. playing with a linear mechanic means that you accept that built in weaknesses that go with that type of strategy. a rogue deck is legitimately more vulnerable to whole classes of spells than a non-rogue aggro deck. you can't argue that its not, you'd just be outright wrong.
the whole point of this thread, the crux of my argument is and always has been that the upside is too weak to justify the downside. the "nut draw" ideal opening of the deck, where your opponent does nothing to try and stop you, still fails to produce a more powerful opening than what can be achieved with completely non-linear cards.
Looking at it, it's better than troll ascetic. It's better than call of the heard. It's better than imperious perfect. It's better than Hypnotic spectre. It's power is on the same level as doran! Sure, you might not get to prowl all the time, but it fits in perfectly with a host of other competitive cards as well, unless you think mogg fanatic, oona's prowler, and mogg war marshal are unplayable jank in an aggressive deck.
And no, it's not a "nut draw" to have a creature attack and deal damage on the 3rd turn. Oona's prowler can rarely be blocked. Mogg war marshal can be 2 creatures you have to block with gargadon, prickly boggart has fear. You have to devote your early game to stopping them from dealing any damage at all, and it's not easy. We're talking the first few turns here, it's only slightly easier to stop than arrogant wurm.
Rogue decks WILL deal damage and they WILL prowl cards out, and this is from playtesting sligh, the best possible deck to stop them from prowling with cheap removal.
Whoa whoa...turn 10? Erm...how about turn 5? You guys obviousley havnt played against many dedicated rack decks.
This is the play that won me some FNM's recently.
Turn 1: Thoughtsieze
Turn 2: Augur of skulls
Turn 3: Pop the augur, drop a land, then Stupor. good game.
This is on top of peoples normal turn 2 drop whatever, so they have one card in hand on their turn 3. after that its rack and more discard to keep them dying. What sucks is when ou dont draw into discard for some freaky reason and your opponent recovers. Im gonna add the rack and augur back in to make it a speedy process, so yeah I agree that without augur, the whole process is slowed down to turn 5 or 6 with them having an empty hand. but with the rack still in along with maralen, the deck doesnt revolve around just her.
Well the fact that both rogues and big mana exist in the same format is troublesome, because rogues are fairly easily stopped just by killing/blocking the early prowl enablers and ruining their tempo. This requires cheapening removal(extra shocks, bounce, flyers etc.), but this tones down the removals power which could leave one vulnerable to big mana's explosive midgame
Creatures that have to stay on the field many turns in a removal heavy enviroment are.
It doesn't solve that problem at all. You play it, it dies. It's not an artifact, enchantment or land.
As for the "Blockers", they should have been burned, where are these elf tokens coming from? Are you burning the dome like a scrub?
RDW/Sligh wants to hit for as much as possible a fast as possible, and it doesn't want to give up an ability that creates an immediate threat for an ability that requires it to be unanswered for multiple turns.
Marshflitter doesn't do a thing to wrath effects, it dies just like everything else and doesn't do anything special. Yes, bitterblossom is pretty good, but it still is slow and bounceable and you have to give up hitting for any real damage on turns 3 and 4.
Your hopeless. Madness decks did the same thing, and they did just fine.
"Like what if they killed your wild mongrel!!!!"
The deck is stronger than that.
Looking at it, it's better than troll ascetic. It's better than call of the heard. It's better than imperious perfect. It's better than Hypnotic spectre. It's power is on the same level as doran! Sure, you might not get to prowl all the time, but it fits in perfectly with a host of other competitive cards as well, unless you think mogg fanatic, oona's prowler, and mogg war marshal are unplayable jank in an aggressive deck.
And no, it's not a "nut draw" to have a creature attack and deal damage on the 3rd turn. Oona's prowler can rarely be blocked. Mogg war marshal can be 2 creatures you have to block with gargadon, prickly boggart has fear. You have to devote your early game to stopping them from dealing any damage at all, and it's not easy. We're talking the first few turns here, it's only slightly easier to stop than arrogant wurm.
Rogue decks WILL deal damage and they WILL prowl cards out, and this is from playtesting sligh, the best possible deck to stop them from prowling with cheap removal.
Dodecapod, your on a 4 turn clock.