Hi guys... A quick question. I was playtesting a BR control list vs GW tokens. So they were in they killer curve: T1 creature, t2 creature, t3 nissa, t4 gideon ... which can be pretty backbreaking for BW control (or any deck for that matter without immediate answers). In the play, I went T2 EOT removal, T3 nothing, T4 destroy nissa via ruinous path, T5 Goblin-dark-dweller for ruinous path to kill Gideon. So I was left with my GDD vs two creatures. From that point on the game went normally and I eventually won with more removal and chandra.
This got me thinking...is it possible to play Mardu with MD: Languish, Gideon and Goblin DD? I know this is sort of off-topic but one could use the same deck pretty much BW control + Goblin DDs for extra recursion. The question is if the mana base can sustain the RR of the Goblin DD by turn 5-6. Or, perhaps a more basic question would be, is it worth it ?
Any thoughts?
Thanks
I must say that the Mardu Control lists look inviting primarily because of Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Chandra, Flamecaller, 2 cards that have RR in their casting cost, and if you try to just slot those cards into a BW Control shell you'll have RR, BB, and WW cards which you will get destroyed trying to play. There are of course some real advantages to playing 2 colors. You have better mana and you get to play utility lands: Blighted Fen and Westvale Abbey. I acknowledged how the Abbey helped in my report above, but the Fen helped out quite a number of times and I was only playing 1. I'm sure that there's a Mardu Control thread around to discuss that deck.
I wanted 4 Read the Bones in the maindeck, but I always was quick to shave 1 after boarding. Not that they weren't good, but since I was ostensibly bringing in good cards for the matchup and removing bad ones, I felt I didn't need the filtering as much post-board.
An analog for Avacyn would be very difficult, but another Linvala might suffice.
Thanks so much for the writeup, another Linvala is where I landed as well in the meantime. I was playing a split of this list and another creatureless version all day and felt like I was missing the Evolving Wilds in the other list for the singleton Descend upon the Fishermen, your base feels a little better. How do you feel about Kalitas in the list? I've seen a lot of discussion back and forth on him, seeming to land somewhere between 0-2 in the 75. I have three I picked up before the spike, think I might sell one to fund an Avacyn.
Kalitas is interesting. I really like him as a card and I played 2 in the SB in prior testing, and occasionally he was very good. Usually, however, the opponent will never SB out all of their removal, and between that removal and your own sweepers he has such a big target on him that he never lived to do anything. I read an article (I think on Channel Fireball) that was very insightful, and it said that a BW deck can be either midrange or control, but one that skirted the line and tried to do both was doomed to failure. I don't know if I would go that far, as there are plenty of options in these 2 colors, but I decided that I would run only token generators and a single Linvala in the maindeck and as for the SB, I would only run creatures that I could justify for specific purposes: Pitiless Horde against Ramp and any other deck that took time to setup and had minimal instants, and Archangel Avacyn against control and decks that were specifically weak to flyers.
If the BG Aristocrats deck becomes a big player in the metagame, I could see Kalitas being added back to the SB for that particular matchup, and he could incidentally be sided in against some aggro decks where his lifegain would make a difference.
7 rounds of swiss:
2-1 vs Bant Company
2-0 vs Bant Company
2-1 vs Naya Midrange
0-2 vs BW Control
2-1 vs W Humans
2-0 vs Bant Company
1-1-1 vs Bant Company
Top 8: 2-0 vs Bant Company
Top 4: 2-1 vs BW Control
Finals: 0-2 vs Bant Company
Obviously lots of Bant Company at the tournament, and I thought the deck matched up well with it (until the final match, of course). Gideon, Hallowed Moonlight, and Languish overperformed all day. Most games were won with token beatdown, of course, but 4 games were ended with Ormendahl, Profane Prince, and 1 was won specifically with Avacyn, the Purifier.
I don't think I would have changed any cards in the maindeck in retrospect. I never played against any Ramp decks, so I guess I could have cut down on the Pitiless Horde and Infinite Obliteration, but I used all of the other SB cards.
Would you mind sharing your SB strategy for the top few decks? I love the look of this build and want to try it out online tonight. Any analogue for the 1x copy of Avacyn until I get my hands on one?
My strategy (may not be the best, but whatever):
I wanted 4 Read the Bones in the maindeck, but I always was quick to shave 1 after boarding. Not that they weren't good, but since I was ostensibly bringing in good cards for the matchup and removing bad ones, I felt I didn't need the filtering as much post-board.
7 rounds of swiss:
2-1 vs Bant Company
2-0 vs Bant Company
2-1 vs Naya Midrange
0-2 vs BW Control
2-1 vs W Humans
2-0 vs Bant Company
1-1-1 vs Bant Company
Top 8: 2-0 vs Bant Company
Top 4: 2-1 vs BW Control
Finals: 0-2 vs Bant Company
Obviously lots of Bant Company at the tournament, and I thought the deck matched up well with it (until the final match, of course). Gideon, Hallowed Moonlight, and Languish overperformed all day. Most games were won with token beatdown, of course, but 4 games were ended with Ormendahl, Profane Prince, and 1 was won specifically with Avacyn, the Purifier.
I don't think I would have changed any cards in the maindeck in retrospect. I never played against any Ramp decks, so I guess I could have cut down on the Pitiless Horde and Infinite Obliteration, but I used all of the other SB cards.
There's lots of good options in these 2 colors, for removal, threats, and card drawing, and it may well be a while before the best version is determined. I am still in the development stage, but I think I will want:
1. Minimal creatures main deck - maybe none (to reduce the effectiveness of the opponent's main deck removal), but maybe Linvala, the Preserver or Wasteland Strangler, cards that have a bonus against aggro decks.
2. Enough instant-speed removal. Quite a bit of the best new removal is sorcery speed, and I'm worried about opposing man-lands and instant-speed Angels and Warriors. Grasp of Darkness, Anguished Unmaking, and Blighted Fen look good, and maybe even Virulent Plague (not an instant, of course, but pro-active against tokens).
3. I'm liking the idea of Dark Petition in the main deck to fetch up multiple answers when needed. This deck should always have spell mastery turned on, and a mini-toolbox of 3cc 1-ofs sounds good for a control deck.
4. Making sure to play enough lands. Especially with access to Shambling Vents, Blighted Fen, and Westvale Abbey, I'm thinking that a minimum of 26 lands is needed.
FYI, forum rules say that we are allowed to discuss decks with new cards in the regular boards after the full set has been spoiled, so we can probably take all discussion over to the regular thread "[PRIMER] BW Control" in Established Standard.
Unfortunately, it looks as though all of the current threads will be archived on Saturday, so anything new that is discussed there will go away with the old archived posts. We should probably keep this thread going until then.
TrappedUnderIce: I like the looks of your deck! I played the Hoogland BW Control the last few months, and I like the Control style more than the Midrange style moving forward. I will probably start out with a shell similar to yours, maybe without the Oath of Gideon, 1 more of Westvale Abbey and Sorin, Grim Nemesis, and Dead Weight rather than Silkwrap. I think there are so many good options in this 2-color combination that it may be a few weeks (or longer) before an optimal build is found. I do like the idea of playing virtually no creatures maindeck (with the exception of Linvala, the Preserver, and the token generators) and board into more creatures for game 2.
I'm not sure we're supposed to talk about what happens after rotation (but maybe we are only supposed to refrain from talking about spoiled cards until the set actually is legal). Anyway, I also hope that there's more to the Mardu/RB Dragons after rotation, but I'm worried. It's more than just losing Stormbreath (which also lessens the effect of the dragon-reveal cards). There's also Anger of the Gods, and Thoughtseize, and of course Rabblemaster that are leaving.
I agree. GR Tron has always come after BGx decks. Currently I don't run any hate for Tron, I have done testing with 4-5 pieces of hate and it doesn't make enough of a difference. I would much rather dedicate slots to matchups that I have a more realistic chance of winning.
What im currently playing:
snip
This deck has a few things that I'm testing out which in the past I have been quite dismissive of:
Tasigur, the golden fang: This is something that people have been fighting over for awhile. After some more testing I can once again say that in a build like this you very often flop on the activation, still though once in awhile it gives results. I think it's up to the player whether that is worth the -1 to power when compared to gurmag angler.
x2 eternal witness: i didn't think I would like it but I was quite surprised. Playing a game with witness in hand gives so many possibilities. Fantastic when your opponent plays without really considering the possibility of recursion
golgari rot farm: I'm not brave enough to play more than one. I decided to give it a try to see how well it works with garruk/death cloud. Conclusion; when it works it's amazing when it fails it's a disaster, the fear of an opposing tech edge is very real.
On a final note, don't despair at the rise of RG tron. Every couple of months it raises it's head and then after a little while gets hated out, I expect (and hope) that this will be the case this time around.
My list is very close to yours. Among other differences, I am running Gurmag Angler over Tasigur because of the large amounts of useless stuff that accumulates in our graveyards so I never get anything good back. You might try replacing the Slaughter Pact with Murderous Cut, as that tends to get more chaff out of the yard, especially if you are running one more Eternal Witness to get another use out of it. I actually might try another Witness in my deck -- chaining Witnesses with Primal Command while bouncing one of their lands to ensure they do not draw anything is a really good feeling.
Lastly, while I have swallowed my fear in the past and run a Golgari Rot Farm, I cannot do it now with all of the land hate being added for the upsurge in Tron and Bloom decks. You are correct that when it is good it is very, very good, though.
I'd hesitate to play this deck with Tron being a player right now. Unless somehting changed that is a terrible match-up for this deck.
In a large enough tournament, you shouldn't base your decision to play or not play the deck on its matchup against a single deck, since there are so many different decks that are being played right now.
That said, Tron is a really tough matchup, and if there's a significant presence in your local area, Poop is probably right. Now, you can certainly modify your deck to help (I run Fulminator Mages in the maindeck which does help out with Tron and the Amulet Bloom deck), but any change may hurt other matchups.
Is there any interaction between these 2 cards? In other words, does Collected Company, which uses the word "look" instead of the word "search", get shut down by Shadow of Doubt?
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. There is no way that, post cloud, you will have less than 3 lands in play, so you will always be able to cast your tarmogoyf. It's also going to be at a bare minimum a 4/5, and generally bigger.
Being able to cast goyf on T2, compared to not being able to cast gurmag until T4 at least, seems clearly worse.
Your argument about goyf dying to cloud makes no sense, its not like gurmag has any resistance to cloud either.
I can't see a situation where gurmag is better than goyf, outside gurmag being bigger, which is rare since this deck throws cards in the GY at a rapid rate and plays at a minimum walkers, if not artifacts and enchantments as well. The other possibility is if you can't spare a single extra mana on T4/5.
The payoff for playing goyf is you have a card that is castable on T2, compared to rotting in your hand which is massive.
If someone can give me a situation where gurmag is somehow superior to goyf, I'm all ears, but I suspect nothing except what I said above exists.
1. There are quite a number of times that I will Cloud, using Garruk's +1 ability, where I will wind up with 1 land out. I actually used to run a Tombstalker over Tarmogoyf with Death Cloud in old Extended, and Gurmag is a slight upgrade over Tombstalker simply because of the single B in the casting cost (and the rare occurrence where the 1 extra delve cost is relevant).
2. In the usual Cloud deck, there aren't really that many creatures for the opponent to worry about killing. I find that an early Goyf ALWAYS dies (just as an early Gurmag will always die), unless you are playing against a combo deck that doesn't care about an early Goyf, in which case the Goyf usually is a 2/3 or maybe a 3/4. A Gurmag will always be bigger than a Goyf in these situations, but it does take longer to cast. Post-Cloud is where the Gurmag is better than Goyf. I believe that the difference between a 4/5 (the standard mid-game Goyf) and a 5/5 (Gurmag) is huge, and I also believe that the difference between a 5/6 (also a potential mid-or late-game Goyf) and a 5/5 Gurmag is not all that significant. The 6th toughness point is simply not relevant after a Cloud.
So a Gurmag seems to me to be better than a Tarmogoyf in a deck in which you are actively trying to Cloud. If you are playing a mostly BG Rock-style deck with Death Cloud as an afterthought, then a Tarmogoyf makes more sense.
Re: Brian Dolen's deck: Yes, I was really excited when I turned on the SCG coverage and it said "Temur Aggro", as I really like the Aggro versions (such as ryansolid's version he has posted above). I was a little disappointed when I saw his matches, as Dolen's deck sure looks like Temur Midrange to me -- not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. As a midrange deck goes, it seems solid, but I would think that without all the aggro elements it would have a much tougher battle against control. My matchup percentage against UB Control is one of the best parts of playing Temur Aggro.
Thanks for the quick reply! I will now try to read over the entire thread to get a feel for the history of the deck -- I am thinking now that I would like to run 3-4 Blood Moons in the SB, as there seem to be a number of decks that will fold to a T1 or T2 Moon. I will put the deck together on MTGO and see how it runs.
I must say that the Mardu Control lists look inviting primarily because of Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Chandra, Flamecaller, 2 cards that have RR in their casting cost, and if you try to just slot those cards into a BW Control shell you'll have RR, BB, and WW cards which you will get destroyed trying to play. There are of course some real advantages to playing 2 colors. You have better mana and you get to play utility lands: Blighted Fen and Westvale Abbey. I acknowledged how the Abbey helped in my report above, but the Fen helped out quite a number of times and I was only playing 1. I'm sure that there's a Mardu Control thread around to discuss that deck.
Kalitas is interesting. I really like him as a card and I played 2 in the SB in prior testing, and occasionally he was very good. Usually, however, the opponent will never SB out all of their removal, and between that removal and your own sweepers he has such a big target on him that he never lived to do anything. I read an article (I think on Channel Fireball) that was very insightful, and it said that a BW deck can be either midrange or control, but one that skirted the line and tried to do both was doomed to failure. I don't know if I would go that far, as there are plenty of options in these 2 colors, but I decided that I would run only token generators and a single Linvala in the maindeck and as for the SB, I would only run creatures that I could justify for specific purposes: Pitiless Horde against Ramp and any other deck that took time to setup and had minimal instants, and Archangel Avacyn against control and decks that were specifically weak to flyers.
If the BG Aristocrats deck becomes a big player in the metagame, I could see Kalitas being added back to the SB for that particular matchup, and he could incidentally be sided in against some aggro decks where his lifegain would make a difference.
My strategy (may not be the best, but whatever):
I wanted 4 Read the Bones in the maindeck, but I always was quick to shave 1 after boarding. Not that they weren't good, but since I was ostensibly bringing in good cards for the matchup and removing bad ones, I felt I didn't need the filtering as much post-board.
Against Bant Company, I just brought in the 3 Hallowed Moonlight, and took out some combination of Read the Bones, Anquished Unmaking, and Ob Nixilis Reignited, depending on how the opponent's deck looked.
Against Ramp (which I did not play all day), I was going to bring in the Pitiless Horde, Infinite Obliteration, Anguished Unmaking, Duress and Archangel Avacyn for the Linvala, Languish, Grasp of Darkness, and a Read the Bones.
Against most aggro, including Humans, I would bring in Ultimate Price, Flaying Tendrils, Duress, Anguished Unmaking, and Archangel Avacyn for the Transgress the Mind and Read the Bones.
An analog for Avacyn would be very difficult, but another Linvala might suffice.
6 Swamp
3 Plains
3 Evolving Wilds
4 Shambling Vent
4 Caves of Koilos
3 Forsaken Sanctuary
1 Blighted Fen
2 Westvale Abbey
Creatures:
1 Linvala, the Preserver
Spells:
4 Transgress the Mind
4 Grasp of Darkness
2 Declaration in Stone
4 Read the Bones
2 Ruinous Path
2 Anguished Unmaking
3 Languish
1 Descend upon the Sinful
1 Dark Petition
3 Secure the Wastes
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
2 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Descend upon the Sinful
3 Duress
3 Hallowed Moonlight
3 Pitiless Horde
1 Ultimate Price
1 Infinite Obliteration
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Archangel Avacyn
7 rounds of swiss:
2-1 vs Bant Company
2-0 vs Bant Company
2-1 vs Naya Midrange
0-2 vs BW Control
2-1 vs W Humans
2-0 vs Bant Company
1-1-1 vs Bant Company
Top 8: 2-0 vs Bant Company
Top 4: 2-1 vs BW Control
Finals: 0-2 vs Bant Company
Obviously lots of Bant Company at the tournament, and I thought the deck matched up well with it (until the final match, of course). Gideon, Hallowed Moonlight, and Languish overperformed all day. Most games were won with token beatdown, of course, but 4 games were ended with Ormendahl, Profane Prince, and 1 was won specifically with Avacyn, the Purifier.
I don't think I would have changed any cards in the maindeck in retrospect. I never played against any Ramp decks, so I guess I could have cut down on the Pitiless Horde and Infinite Obliteration, but I used all of the other SB cards.
1. Minimal creatures main deck - maybe none (to reduce the effectiveness of the opponent's main deck removal), but maybe Linvala, the Preserver or Wasteland Strangler, cards that have a bonus against aggro decks.
2. Enough instant-speed removal. Quite a bit of the best new removal is sorcery speed, and I'm worried about opposing man-lands and instant-speed Angels and Warriors. Grasp of Darkness, Anguished Unmaking, and Blighted Fen look good, and maybe even Virulent Plague (not an instant, of course, but pro-active against tokens).
3. I'm liking the idea of Dark Petition in the main deck to fetch up multiple answers when needed. This deck should always have spell mastery turned on, and a mini-toolbox of 3cc 1-ofs sounds good for a control deck.
4. Making sure to play enough lands. Especially with access to Shambling Vents, Blighted Fen, and Westvale Abbey, I'm thinking that a minimum of 26 lands is needed.
Unfortunately, it looks as though all of the current threads will be archived on Saturday, so anything new that is discussed there will go away with the old archived posts. We should probably keep this thread going until then.
TrappedUnderIce: I like the looks of your deck! I played the Hoogland BW Control the last few months, and I like the Control style more than the Midrange style moving forward. I will probably start out with a shell similar to yours, maybe without the Oath of Gideon, 1 more of Westvale Abbey and Sorin, Grim Nemesis, and Dead Weight rather than Silkwrap. I think there are so many good options in this 2-color combination that it may be a few weeks (or longer) before an optimal build is found. I do like the idea of playing virtually no creatures maindeck (with the exception of Linvala, the Preserver, and the token generators) and board into more creatures for game 2.
My list is very close to yours. Among other differences, I am running Gurmag Angler over Tasigur because of the large amounts of useless stuff that accumulates in our graveyards so I never get anything good back. You might try replacing the Slaughter Pact with Murderous Cut, as that tends to get more chaff out of the yard, especially if you are running one more Eternal Witness to get another use out of it. I actually might try another Witness in my deck -- chaining Witnesses with Primal Command while bouncing one of their lands to ensure they do not draw anything is a really good feeling.
What is your reasoning behind running Grafdigger's Cage over other graveyard hate such as Relic of Progenitus and Nihil Spellbomb?
Lastly, while I have swallowed my fear in the past and run a Golgari Rot Farm, I cannot do it now with all of the land hate being added for the upsurge in Tron and Bloom decks. You are correct that when it is good it is very, very good, though.
In a large enough tournament, you shouldn't base your decision to play or not play the deck on its matchup against a single deck, since there are so many different decks that are being played right now.
That said, Tron is a really tough matchup, and if there's a significant presence in your local area, Poop is probably right. Now, you can certainly modify your deck to help (I run Fulminator Mages in the maindeck which does help out with Tron and the Amulet Bloom deck), but any change may hurt other matchups.
1. There are quite a number of times that I will Cloud, using Garruk's +1 ability, where I will wind up with 1 land out. I actually used to run a Tombstalker over Tarmogoyf with Death Cloud in old Extended, and Gurmag is a slight upgrade over Tombstalker simply because of the single B in the casting cost (and the rare occurrence where the 1 extra delve cost is relevant).
2. In the usual Cloud deck, there aren't really that many creatures for the opponent to worry about killing. I find that an early Goyf ALWAYS dies (just as an early Gurmag will always die), unless you are playing against a combo deck that doesn't care about an early Goyf, in which case the Goyf usually is a 2/3 or maybe a 3/4. A Gurmag will always be bigger than a Goyf in these situations, but it does take longer to cast. Post-Cloud is where the Gurmag is better than Goyf. I believe that the difference between a 4/5 (the standard mid-game Goyf) and a 5/5 (Gurmag) is huge, and I also believe that the difference between a 5/6 (also a potential mid-or late-game Goyf) and a 5/5 Gurmag is not all that significant. The 6th toughness point is simply not relevant after a Cloud.
So a Gurmag seems to me to be better than a Tarmogoyf in a deck in which you are actively trying to Cloud. If you are playing a mostly BG Rock-style deck with Death Cloud as an afterthought, then a Tarmogoyf makes more sense.