Spellbreaker Behemoth is the only card I would consider in my Maelstrom deck because he's not a horrible cascade and makes a lot of creatures, including Maelstrom, uncounterable. Honestly, counterspells shouldn't be that big of a problem because the deck is a card-advantage machine. I love it when they counter Maelstrom because then I get to recast him.
It's still undecided with distributors how stores are acquiring this product. Normally we get per set about 500+ boxes going through multiple distributors, but Wizards has said nothing about how limited this is. If it's like From the Vaults than you have to "sign up" with a distributor and you can only receive your product through that one distributor. If it's "limited" like event decks or something similar you can go through multiple distributors. Wizards really needs to let stores know because we've had multiple people come in and ask to preorder a box and without us knowing numbers it's impossible to promise anything.
I'm also curious as to why some stores think the "ten cases" is correct?
In my experience running Wanderer since he came out, I like to play the deck as a toolbox with just threats and answers. Basically card advantage.dec. If it doesn't two-for-one it's not in my deck.
Scroll Rack has been disappointing for me because it doesn't do anything when you play it. Yeah, you can set up the top of your deck for great cascades, but that's just insinuating that you're running bad cards that you don't want to cascade into. You don't really want to be sitting there like a control deck playing with the top of your library all the time. This deck wants to SMASH in my opinion, and you want to tap out generally.
Squee - There is no way to find your Survival so this card is really narrow.
Glen Elendra Archmage - Don't know why your playing counterspells. This one is not so bad, but generally I don't like keeping mana up. I like tapping out and smashing.
Mana Drain and Cryptic Command - Terrible cascades. Cryptic is fine though.
Venser - This card is only tempo. The body is never relevant. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is just better at dealing with counterspells and he gives all your creatures flash. Only thing Venser is good for is a kicked Rite of Replication bouncing 5 of their land.
Hatred wins games. No one sees it coming the first time and since your in black you can tutor it up whenever. Just don't make a habit of it or people will start hating you out.
We do so much online sales that we try to pass down some deals to people who frequent the store. Pretty much anything we make in store is extra. We were selling the Boros one for $30 and the Simic one for $25. We usually sell these at $20 but the Boros one was just too ridiculous. We try to be stocked in store with all sealed products from Wizards because we do care about the random people who come in looking to play FNM. We've had at least 3 or 4 people graduate from casual to competitive because of these decks.
To those that say the prices are being jacked up from stores opening these, have a look at Thragtusk. He's plummeted because of so many stores opening these. Clifftop Retreat has also gone down a few bucks since these were released because of supply and demand economics. I don't understand the posts about stores opening more product for singles and the prices going UP. That's not how supply and demand works.
The bad thing is, since there are so many rares, and there is only one choice of event deck, unless the supply is unlimited, we will be seeing these people buying them up in bulk and stripping the deck and selling the singles, and that WOTC lost sight as to why they made event decks in the first place.
I work at an LGS and I can tell you that supply is definitely limited. Supply is determined through how many distributors you go through and how much you have previously ordered through them before. Personally we got about 32 displays of this product and hell yeah we cracked these for singles. We also tried to sell these to customers in store. You know how many we actually sold in store so far? Five. Five whole event decks. You know how many of the singles we sold? All of them. It makes sense to most people just to buy the singles they need. There is a reason that an LGS will crack these and that's because more people will buy the singles than buy an entire event deck for FNM. Plus the fact that these event decks are acquired through our distributors at about half price, making it a no brainer to crack. In the end, a business is going to want to make money. That's what makes them successful.
Claiming that LGS's shouldn't crack these because it's not fair to the players is naive and childish. Our players want singles and that's what were giving them. I don't mean to sound accusatory, but it irritates me when people think they're entitled to some product that wizards creates.
Highlight of my pre-release was turn 4 Act of Treason his 3/1 and smash with it and my Slaughterhorn. Turn 5 with him tapped out, I attack with Slaughterhorn, bloodrush with the 5/4 swine giving him +5/+4, then double strike with Boros Charm for 16 damage. Bloodrush led to some silly plays.
We have a guy that plays Esper Merfolk and treats the Syggs as a double sided commander - flips the card to see which one is the active commander in that game. It's pretty cool.
That's actually a really cool idea to "make" new tri-colored generals. Only other general I could see would be Jund goblins with the two Worts.
The one thing you have to worry about though is having to many effects that just manipulate the top of your library and not enough things to do. The hard part is finding that balance that you're comfortable with. I prefer less manipulation and more spells that just do things. My manipulation includes Sylvan Library, Top, Mystical Tutor, and Worldly Tutor.
Scroll Rack is just too slow sometimes because you generally want to tap out and smash with this deck. Remember, Maelstrom is not a control deck, and I feel that Intet or something similar would benefit more from Scroll Rack.
Bouncelands are terrible unless you have a land you want to reset such as Bojoku Bog or a Hideaway land. I would not suggest them for any 3-color deck.
I agree that Maelstrom is a totally different deck then Intet. Maelstrom is more mid-range while Intet is more prone to control. Same colors, different decks and different play styles.
In my experience running Wanderer since he came out, I like to play the deck as a toolbox with just threats and answers. Basically card advantage.dec. If it doesn't two-for-one it's not in my deck. And I don't think that using a bunch of mana rocks is the way to go if you actually want cards that are relevant when cascading. Nothing is more dissatisfying than cascading into double rocks. I understand that some people want to get him out as fast as possible, but generally unless your going for general damage, you're just going to run out of things to do if you're spewing your hand out onto the table.
Scroll Rack has been disappointing for me because it doesn't do anything when you play it. Yeah, you can set up the top of your deck for great cascades, but that's just insinuating that you're running bad cards that you don't want to cascade into. You don't really want to be sitting there like a control deck playing with the top of your library all the time. This deck wants to SMASH in my opinion, and you want to tap out generally.
Cards you should consider cutting:
Glend Elendra Archmage
Praetor's Counsel
Walk the Aeons
Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
Pestermite
Treasure Mage
Intet
Omniscience
All these cards I listed that you should cut are either too narrow or just not worth the slot. I've personally cut creature tutors like Treasure Mage and Fierce Empath because they aren't really threats and waste a turn/cascade. Now I realize that we might have different playstyles/metas but most of these cards are just from experience playing with Wanderer since the beginning. I would offer more advice but I don't have my deck with me. Let me know if this helped a bit.
Plow Under times a million. It's extremely hard to recover from a copied Plow Under on turn 5 or 6. Also Stunted Growth is a neat mono-green Mind Twist effect.
I'm also curious as to why some stores think the "ten cases" is correct?
Scroll Rack has been disappointing for me because it doesn't do anything when you play it. Yeah, you can set up the top of your deck for great cascades, but that's just insinuating that you're running bad cards that you don't want to cascade into. You don't really want to be sitting there like a control deck playing with the top of your library all the time. This deck wants to SMASH in my opinion, and you want to tap out generally.
Some cards I think you should add:
Phyrexian Ingester - Duplicant number 2. Pod Dups into more dups.
Sylvan Primordial - Very good multiplayer card.
Garruk Wildspeaker - More planeswalkers are never bad.
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Woodfall Primus - Blows up everything in the world.
Ulvenwald Tracker - Fighting is very good. Green sun target.
Indrik Stomphowler - Favorite card ever. Best two-for-one ever.
Green Sun's Zenith - Best utility card in your deck.
Worldly Tutor - Good if you play creatures.
vithian Renegades - I always have a target. Great green sun target.
Yavimaya Dryad - Moar ramp.
Farhaven Elf - Clamp fodder.
Noxious Revival - Free regrowth effect. Good with cascade.
Volition Reigns - Take any permanent forever.
Inferno Titan - Don't know why you cut this. Does all the damage in the world with Chromatic Lantern and is a very good threat that also kills dudes.
Cards you should consider cutting:
Squee - There is no way to find your Survival so this card is really narrow.
Glen Elendra Archmage - Don't know why your playing counterspells. This one is not so bad, but generally I don't like keeping mana up. I like tapping out and smashing.
Mana Drain and Cryptic Command - Terrible cascades. Cryptic is fine though.
Venser - This card is only tempo. The body is never relevant. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is just better at dealing with counterspells and he gives all your creatures flash. Only thing Venser is good for is a kicked Rite of Replication bouncing 5 of their land.
We do so much online sales that we try to pass down some deals to people who frequent the store. Pretty much anything we make in store is extra. We were selling the Boros one for $30 and the Simic one for $25. We usually sell these at $20 but the Boros one was just too ridiculous. We try to be stocked in store with all sealed products from Wizards because we do care about the random people who come in looking to play FNM. We've had at least 3 or 4 people graduate from casual to competitive because of these decks.
To those that say the prices are being jacked up from stores opening these, have a look at Thragtusk. He's plummeted because of so many stores opening these. Clifftop Retreat has also gone down a few bucks since these were released because of supply and demand economics. I don't understand the posts about stores opening more product for singles and the prices going UP. That's not how supply and demand works.
I work at an LGS and I can tell you that supply is definitely limited. Supply is determined through how many distributors you go through and how much you have previously ordered through them before. Personally we got about 32 displays of this product and hell yeah we cracked these for singles. We also tried to sell these to customers in store. You know how many we actually sold in store so far? Five. Five whole event decks. You know how many of the singles we sold? All of them. It makes sense to most people just to buy the singles they need. There is a reason that an LGS will crack these and that's because more people will buy the singles than buy an entire event deck for FNM. Plus the fact that these event decks are acquired through our distributors at about half price, making it a no brainer to crack. In the end, a business is going to want to make money. That's what makes them successful.
Claiming that LGS's shouldn't crack these because it's not fair to the players is naive and childish. Our players want singles and that's what were giving them. I don't mean to sound accusatory, but it irritates me when people think they're entitled to some product that wizards creates.
That's actually a really cool idea to "make" new tri-colored generals. Only other general I could see would be Jund goblins with the two Worts.
Scroll Rack is just too slow sometimes because you generally want to tap out and smash with this deck. Remember, Maelstrom is not a control deck, and I feel that Intet or something similar would benefit more from Scroll Rack.
Scroll Rack has been disappointing for me because it doesn't do anything when you play it. Yeah, you can set up the top of your deck for great cascades, but that's just insinuating that you're running bad cards that you don't want to cascade into. You don't really want to be sitting there like a control deck playing with the top of your library all the time. This deck wants to SMASH in my opinion, and you want to tap out generally.
Some cards I think you should add:
Sower of Temptation
Ulvenwald Tracker
Acidic Slime
Indrik Stomphowler
Jace, the Mindsculptor
Garruk Wildspeaker
BIRTHING POD!
Skullclamp
Phantasmal Image
Cards you should consider cutting:
Glend Elendra Archmage
Praetor's Counsel
Walk the Aeons
Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
Pestermite
Treasure Mage
Intet
Omniscience
All these cards I listed that you should cut are either too narrow or just not worth the slot. I've personally cut creature tutors like Treasure Mage and Fierce Empath because they aren't really threats and waste a turn/cascade. Now I realize that we might have different playstyles/metas but most of these cards are just from experience playing with Wanderer since the beginning. I would offer more advice but I don't have my deck with me. Let me know if this helped a bit.