Let's say I have a bunch of tokens and burrenton forge-tender. I play overrun. My opponent plays volcanic fallout. I sac the forge-tender to prevent the damage. My opponent plays another fallout, does forge tender prevent the second fallout as well?
Came back from the 1k, was just shy of making it into top 8 (9th place), could've made it if I had just asked my opponent for a 2-0 rather than a 2-1 >.<. Anyways, the card, Safe Passage...really, really good. In half of the rounds I won, it was off the back of this card. Whether it acted as a counter for a jund charm/volcanic fallout/cloudthresher, or giving me the nutty one-sided wrath of god in the combat step, the card was just plain insane. Easily replaces dauntless escort. On in other note, not so hot if used against us.
I don't really get why baneslayer angel is worth so much. Sure its extremely efficient, but look at her sister, battlegrace angel. Is baneslayer really so much better?
Aside from the savage land, I like this decklist. With sign in blood, doom blade, lightning bolt, and ball lightning...I believe this will be a dominant deck, if not THE deck to beat. It's blazingly fast and kills quickly.
I wanna bring g/w tokens from standard in vintage. Obviously there are a lot more cards available to the archtype in this format than the prior, but not knowing the format all that well, can someone make a couple of suggestions on what cards I could put in? Or does this deck stand no chance whatsoever, no matter what changes are made.
For some time, when I was a kid, we had this single attacker, single blocker rule. In which only one creature was allowed to attack and only one was allowed to block. It of course made vizzidrix and thorn elemental a house and a monster :D.
Went to the illinois PTQ and got 5-2-1. So close to top 8, just had to win a round.
Round 1: Faeries
I was grateful having 2x pridemages MD because I always had one ready for his bitterblossoms. Otherwise, when I got to go on the play, my pridemage/steward slipped beneath the wall of the counters and dealt him all the damage. Got him down to 5 and 7 on both games.
This is a really rough matchup for us. There's just so many counterspells, and him flashing in scion of oona to pump up his mutavaults and other faeries are just brutal. I really regretted not having eyes of the wisent on my SB. Guttural response and cloudthresher (even one resolved) was not enough to stop the fae, as they still had mutavaults. Lost
Round 2: (homebrew) 5-CC
Basically ran a lot of mass removal, jund charm, fallout, wrath of gods, martial coup, the works. So I tried playing conservatively. But eventually, he martial coup'd me, and ramped up to the point where he played primal command and fetched an empyrial archangel. I could never get enough of guys to kill his angel and I lost game 1. Game 2, I was able to flash in a cloudthresher and I saw he had a worried look on his face, he was at 11, and I could've dealt lethal to him if I activated my ajani and played overrun, but for some reason, I was afraid of a cryptic tapping down my ****, and just attacked with the cloudthresher. He took a lot. But then drew into wrath of god, killed thresher. Then the rest was history. He played archangel and cryptic commanded me twice in a row after that. I could've won that if I hadn't made that one mistake. Lost
Round 3: (homebrew) Bant
By now I'm out of contention for top 8, and I'm in no man's land. Basically I'm facing the worst decks in the metagame. I decide to stay in since I drove a while to get here and might as well get free practice. Also, to live the dream of possibly getting into top 16 or 32 for some packs.
Turned out to be a pretty good decision.
This homebrew bant was weird, but effective. He admitted to not affording noble hierarchs so the deck lacked that. But he played bant sureblade, which was a little annoying. Pridemage (no big deal). And Knight of New Alara, which made his guys huge (sureblade as a 6/5 first-striking monstrosity). I lost game 1 to him. I thought, I my ****ing god, if I lose again, that'll be 3 straight round losses in a row, how can I lose to this?
It didn't really help I had only 2 path's MD and had no sideboard (as my SB is designed to fight tier 1 decks).
Fortunately, in game 2, I got the god draw, with turn 1 hierarch. Turn 2 spectral. Turn 3 ajani. turn 4, overrun. Good game.
Game 3 was a little more difficult. But basically I got a liege out early and started beating him down with my 4/4 steward of velareon, he (wrongly) chump blocked like 3 times in a row, and lost a bunch of guys. Eventually I sealed the deal by pathing his rafiq and then bashing him with a bunch of 4/4's. Wilt-Leaf Liege was the MVP in this round.
With this first victory of the day under my belt, I breathe a sigh of relief, talk to a couple a guys from my cardshop to find out how they're doing. They pretty much scrub out with their 1-2 records and drop. I decide to stay in, why the hell not. There's still 5 more rounds. Won
Round 4: (regular) Bant
This is pretty much the bant that you know and love with the mimic, rhox warmonks, and rafiq combo all in one.
don't remember much, except I overrun him game 1, he kills me game 2 through mimic and rafiq.
Game 3 is more critical. He has rafiq on the board, I let him hit me a couple of times for 8. He tries to cryptic command my cloudgoat ranger and liege, I guttural response it, and win.
Guttural response, you are awesome. Could not have won without it. Won
Round 5: G/W Tokens
So now with a 2-2 record, I'm slowly moving out of the tier 3 and tier 2 metagame in head into tier 1 world where I face token deck after token deck.
This is a brutal matchup, and also one of the most nerve-wracking. There is so much thinking involved, you have to second-guess whether they have overrun under heights, if they've got removal, how many guys you should block/attack with, etc etc.
But it basically comes down to who can overrun first. Whoever overruns wins. This makes me glad as hell that I MD 3 overruns.
Game 1 - I overrun.
Game 2 - He has a cloudgoat ranger out, 2 treetop villages, and an active windbrisk heights. I have my own cloudgoat ranger and a dauntless escort with 2 overruns in hand. I'm ready to kill him next turn. But I need all my guys alive to kill him for exactly the right damage. He thinks a long time. He's got 1 card in hand. Is it wrath? I don't know. He finally decides to attack with cloudgoat and cloudgoat tokens and I decide not to block, he reveals an overrun under heights and I die.
Game 3 - We pretty much hit the time, but basically, he can't kill me in time because he has garruk out rather than overrun, and I kill his garruk.
Conclusion: Garruk sucks. There's no instant kill or surprise factor. It also can't be windbrisk heighted'd.
Pollen Llubaby is meh. I SB in all 3, never saw 1. Don't think it would've made a difference anyways. Draw
Round 6: B/W Tokens
Game 1, he gets the god draw against me and my slow hand with no accelerants and a lonely kitchen finks and cloudgoat can't keep up.
I board in 3 cloudthreshers.
Game 2, he scullers me on turn 2 and I reveal 2 cloudthreshers and a spectral procession. He grabs a thresher. At one point, he has two bitterblossoms out and ajani goldmane. He uses ajani to make his guys big, making the loyalty 3, and attacks with all his guys. I smile and flash in my second cloudthresher killing his attacking sculler, wiping his board of bitterblossom tokens, kill his ajani next turn with a huge cloudthresher. Next turn he plays ajani and makes more guys with bitterblossom, I flash in a second cloudthresher and knock them out. He's at 20 so I'm looking to kill the second ajani, when I draw into overrun and kill him with some huge mother****ing cloudthreshers.
Game 3, he gets stuck on 1 land and I roll over him.
Conclusion - so B/W tokens has ZP. That's not so bad. we just play more conservatively and don't make dump moves like play double spectrals or spectral and cloudgoat out at the same time. This drawback is not so bad considering we have CLOUDTHRESHER, which is just a house against them. Won
Round 7: Naya Planeswalker Control
It's a really nice girl with the same 3-2-1 record. I'm surprised to find that she's knowledgeable about the game and really into it. She was also moderately atttractive. OUt of 196 people there, there were several girls there, most being pretty good looking. awesome.
Game 1, she gets stuck on two lands and losses.
Seeing what she's playing, I quickly board in my fourth dauntless and 3 forge-tenders.
Game 2, accelerates out pretty quickly into 7-8 mana on turn 4 and I start to worry a bit. She plays elspeth and chandra and ajani vengeant. But I play dauntless escort and forge-tender to protect myself, and punch through the elspeth token with liege and steward to take down first chandra, then later elspeth. I plan to take down vengeant, but I draw into overrun and kill her. Won
Round 8: B/W Tokens
This is do or die time. Winner of this gets into top 32 and goes home with the prize packs.
Game 1, I have a huge board with stewards, 2 lieges, and treetop village. He has a bitterblossom with glorious anthem out. He can't seem to draw into a 5th land that he needs (to hallowed burial the board???), and has to chump with his bitterblossom token, playing defense the whole time. Taking damage from both me and his bitterblossom. Eventually, I deal enough damage to finish him.
Game 2, the game gets out of hand. I can't stop his turn 2 bitterblossom. Followed by turn 3 glorious anthem, and then turn 4 ajani goldmane. I try building up a board of cloudgoat and dauntless escort and noble hierarch. I flash in cloudthresher during his turn to knock out two tokens and kill ajani upon activation but he's got a 5/5 murderous redcap and 4 huge bitterblossom tokens (3/3, 4/4, 5/5), attacks me for a lot, brings me down to 1. Next turn, I attack with all my guys including 2 treetops, he chump blocks all. I get overrun under my windbrisk heights for a total of 31 damage, but he absorbs 24 damage through creatures, even killing my cloudthresher (which was a 11/11!!!). In the end it brings him down to 7. He draws into pithing needle. Stop my treetop villages. Plays kithken finks gains life. Plays another kitchken finks. Basically I need an overrun, I draw, not there, and die to bitterblossom tokens.
Game 3, we're drawing close to time. He scullers me turn 2. I reveal cloudthresher, ajani goldmane, spectral procession, overrun, and clougoat ranger. The nuts hand. Feeling the pressure of time, he nabs the cloudthresher, and during my turn, I play the spectral. I don't think I can win this game in time. But on his turn 4, he taps out to play glorious anthem. And seeing his fatal error, during my next turn, I play overrun and I kill him outright. His shoulders slump as he reveals his hand of 3 zealous persecutions. yay for misplays. Won
So I end with a pretty good 5-2-1 record for my first ever PTQ. Despite losing horribly in my first two rounds, I won out (and drew once) for the rest of the day. And at the end, I go to the front counter to collect my 9 packs, and settle down to watch the top 8 matches (which are always a lot of fun). Only 1 token deck made it to the top and that was the B/W version, which scrubbed out first because he kept a two land hand and kept drawing ing 3 CC spells (he had like 4 glorious anthems in hand) and just got overrun by kithkin. Sesimic Swans is sick btw, I don't know if we can beat that deck as it can get that turn 4 kill a fourth of the time. Though if we get a quick hand with overrun we stand a much better chance than b/w does.
Oh btw, lots and lots of people played B/W tokens, everywhere I looked was a B/W tokens deck (I was at a table where every pairing had at least one B/W tokens matchup!). This was wierd as at chicago regionals, i didn't see too many b/w tokens decks (lots of R/X decks instead). And don't get me started on the cruise qualifier, which had such a weird metagame of decks that scrubbed out of the main event (it had turbofog, sanity grinding, doran, outdated 5 color control...ugh, basically our worst matchups).
It's kind of funny how well the deck performs at the tier 1 level, but struggles a bit against the tier 2-3 decks (mostly because they rely on the midrange strategy and path's become increasingly relevant).
The only changes I would make would be taking out pollen llullaby from my SB and putting in Eyes of the Wisent. Faeries is a really bad matchup for us, and we need all the help we can get. We might be seeing more faeries this summer because of Sam Black doing so well at Barcelona with his faeries deck (got top 8).
I'm not too particularly worried about the B/W Tokens matchup. I think post-board, it's in a favor despite them having ZP. They can kill our tokens with a spell, but we can kill their tokens AND get a 7/7 huge body of the deal. personally, I like the b/w matchup and found the g/w mirror more stressful (facing the possbiility of being overruned yourself is pretty nerve-wracking, haha, guess I know how it feels like now).
About warp world, seems pretty vulnerable to mass removal and really fast decks. I'm not too impressed. I agree with the guy above who said that a lot of its power stemmed from its homebrew, unknown origins. Same with Swans, where people just didn't have the right hate to battle it.
Illinois PTQ top 8
Chapin's 5 CC
Warp World.dec
RDW (I'm surprised as well)
Boat Brew
U/W Reveillark
B/W Tokens
Sesimic Swans
B/W Kithkin
with B/W Kithkin and Sesimic Swans as the winners.
warning to all players - in the top 8, the b/w tokens guy inbetween games was looking at a piece of paper that contained his notes on what to SB in and out against certain decks. His opponent, the B/W Kithkin guy called a judge and got the guy DQ'd. So apparently your allowed to refer to notes and talk about people's decks inbetween rounds, but during a round, do NOT bring any notes to the table.
Also, i like the deathbringer liege idea. If G/W tokens run wilt-leaf, why can't we run deathbringer?
It's done really well in competitive tournaments. Snagging first, in quite a few actually.
Also, what do you guys think about Path of the Pure. It pumps every guy you've got. And it costs only 2 mana! Does it replace wilt-leaf?
Aside from the savage land, I like this decklist. With sign in blood, doom blade, lightning bolt, and ball lightning...I believe this will be a dominant deck, if not THE deck to beat. It's blazingly fast and kills quickly.
Thanks in advance.
decklist idea:
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Quasali Pridemage
4x Steward of Valeron
3x Wilt-leaf Liege
4x Cloudgoat Ranger
3x Ajani Goldmane
3x Overrun
4x Spectral Procession
4x Path to Exile
2x Guttural Response
3x Krosan Grip
Lands - 24
Should we be MD hate against this (e.g. pithing needle?).
I hate to change up the SB just for this deck, but it looks like the deck is going to become as popular as hell.
Round 1: Faeries
I was grateful having 2x pridemages MD because I always had one ready for his bitterblossoms. Otherwise, when I got to go on the play, my pridemage/steward slipped beneath the wall of the counters and dealt him all the damage. Got him down to 5 and 7 on both games.
This is a really rough matchup for us. There's just so many counterspells, and him flashing in scion of oona to pump up his mutavaults and other faeries are just brutal. I really regretted not having eyes of the wisent on my SB. Guttural response and cloudthresher (even one resolved) was not enough to stop the fae, as they still had mutavaults. Lost
Round 2: (homebrew) 5-CC
Basically ran a lot of mass removal, jund charm, fallout, wrath of gods, martial coup, the works. So I tried playing conservatively. But eventually, he martial coup'd me, and ramped up to the point where he played primal command and fetched an empyrial archangel. I could never get enough of guys to kill his angel and I lost game 1. Game 2, I was able to flash in a cloudthresher and I saw he had a worried look on his face, he was at 11, and I could've dealt lethal to him if I activated my ajani and played overrun, but for some reason, I was afraid of a cryptic tapping down my ****, and just attacked with the cloudthresher. He took a lot. But then drew into wrath of god, killed thresher. Then the rest was history. He played archangel and cryptic commanded me twice in a row after that. I could've won that if I hadn't made that one mistake. Lost
Round 3: (homebrew) Bant
By now I'm out of contention for top 8, and I'm in no man's land. Basically I'm facing the worst decks in the metagame. I decide to stay in since I drove a while to get here and might as well get free practice. Also, to live the dream of possibly getting into top 16 or 32 for some packs.
Turned out to be a pretty good decision.
This homebrew bant was weird, but effective. He admitted to not affording noble hierarchs so the deck lacked that. But he played bant sureblade, which was a little annoying. Pridemage (no big deal). And Knight of New Alara, which made his guys huge (sureblade as a 6/5 first-striking monstrosity). I lost game 1 to him. I thought, I my ****ing god, if I lose again, that'll be 3 straight round losses in a row, how can I lose to this?
It didn't really help I had only 2 path's MD and had no sideboard (as my SB is designed to fight tier 1 decks).
Fortunately, in game 2, I got the god draw, with turn 1 hierarch. Turn 2 spectral. Turn 3 ajani. turn 4, overrun. Good game.
Game 3 was a little more difficult. But basically I got a liege out early and started beating him down with my 4/4 steward of velareon, he (wrongly) chump blocked like 3 times in a row, and lost a bunch of guys. Eventually I sealed the deal by pathing his rafiq and then bashing him with a bunch of 4/4's. Wilt-Leaf Liege was the MVP in this round.
With this first victory of the day under my belt, I breathe a sigh of relief, talk to a couple a guys from my cardshop to find out how they're doing. They pretty much scrub out with their 1-2 records and drop. I decide to stay in, why the hell not. There's still 5 more rounds. Won
Round 4: (regular) Bant
This is pretty much the bant that you know and love with the mimic, rhox warmonks, and rafiq combo all in one.
don't remember much, except I overrun him game 1, he kills me game 2 through mimic and rafiq.
Game 3 is more critical. He has rafiq on the board, I let him hit me a couple of times for 8. He tries to cryptic command my cloudgoat ranger and liege, I guttural response it, and win.
Guttural response, you are awesome. Could not have won without it. Won
Round 5: G/W Tokens
So now with a 2-2 record, I'm slowly moving out of the tier 3 and tier 2 metagame in head into tier 1 world where I face token deck after token deck.
This is a brutal matchup, and also one of the most nerve-wracking. There is so much thinking involved, you have to second-guess whether they have overrun under heights, if they've got removal, how many guys you should block/attack with, etc etc.
But it basically comes down to who can overrun first. Whoever overruns wins. This makes me glad as hell that I MD 3 overruns.
Game 1 - I overrun.
Game 2 - He has a cloudgoat ranger out, 2 treetop villages, and an active windbrisk heights. I have my own cloudgoat ranger and a dauntless escort with 2 overruns in hand. I'm ready to kill him next turn. But I need all my guys alive to kill him for exactly the right damage. He thinks a long time. He's got 1 card in hand. Is it wrath? I don't know. He finally decides to attack with cloudgoat and cloudgoat tokens and I decide not to block, he reveals an overrun under heights and I die.
Game 3 - We pretty much hit the time, but basically, he can't kill me in time because he has garruk out rather than overrun, and I kill his garruk.
Conclusion: Garruk sucks. There's no instant kill or surprise factor. It also can't be windbrisk heighted'd.
Pollen Llubaby is meh. I SB in all 3, never saw 1. Don't think it would've made a difference anyways. Draw
Round 6: B/W Tokens
Game 1, he gets the god draw against me and my slow hand with no accelerants and a lonely kitchen finks and cloudgoat can't keep up.
I board in 3 cloudthreshers.
Game 2, he scullers me on turn 2 and I reveal 2 cloudthreshers and a spectral procession. He grabs a thresher. At one point, he has two bitterblossoms out and ajani goldmane. He uses ajani to make his guys big, making the loyalty 3, and attacks with all his guys. I smile and flash in my second cloudthresher killing his attacking sculler, wiping his board of bitterblossom tokens, kill his ajani next turn with a huge cloudthresher. Next turn he plays ajani and makes more guys with bitterblossom, I flash in a second cloudthresher and knock them out. He's at 20 so I'm looking to kill the second ajani, when I draw into overrun and kill him with some huge mother****ing cloudthreshers.
Game 3, he gets stuck on 1 land and I roll over him.
Conclusion - so B/W tokens has ZP. That's not so bad. we just play more conservatively and don't make dump moves like play double spectrals or spectral and cloudgoat out at the same time. This drawback is not so bad considering we have CLOUDTHRESHER, which is just a house against them. Won
Round 7: Naya Planeswalker Control
It's a really nice girl with the same 3-2-1 record. I'm surprised to find that she's knowledgeable about the game and really into it. She was also moderately atttractive. OUt of 196 people there, there were several girls there, most being pretty good looking. awesome.
Game 1, she gets stuck on two lands and losses.
Seeing what she's playing, I quickly board in my fourth dauntless and 3 forge-tenders.
Game 2, accelerates out pretty quickly into 7-8 mana on turn 4 and I start to worry a bit. She plays elspeth and chandra and ajani vengeant. But I play dauntless escort and forge-tender to protect myself, and punch through the elspeth token with liege and steward to take down first chandra, then later elspeth. I plan to take down vengeant, but I draw into overrun and kill her. Won
Round 8: B/W Tokens
This is do or die time. Winner of this gets into top 32 and goes home with the prize packs.
Game 1, I have a huge board with stewards, 2 lieges, and treetop village. He has a bitterblossom with glorious anthem out. He can't seem to draw into a 5th land that he needs (to hallowed burial the board???), and has to chump with his bitterblossom token, playing defense the whole time. Taking damage from both me and his bitterblossom. Eventually, I deal enough damage to finish him.
Game 2, the game gets out of hand. I can't stop his turn 2 bitterblossom. Followed by turn 3 glorious anthem, and then turn 4 ajani goldmane. I try building up a board of cloudgoat and dauntless escort and noble hierarch. I flash in cloudthresher during his turn to knock out two tokens and kill ajani upon activation but he's got a 5/5 murderous redcap and 4 huge bitterblossom tokens (3/3, 4/4, 5/5), attacks me for a lot, brings me down to 1. Next turn, I attack with all my guys including 2 treetops, he chump blocks all. I get overrun under my windbrisk heights for a total of 31 damage, but he absorbs 24 damage through creatures, even killing my cloudthresher (which was a 11/11!!!). In the end it brings him down to 7. He draws into pithing needle. Stop my treetop villages. Plays kithken finks gains life. Plays another kitchken finks. Basically I need an overrun, I draw, not there, and die to bitterblossom tokens.
Game 3, we're drawing close to time. He scullers me turn 2. I reveal cloudthresher, ajani goldmane, spectral procession, overrun, and clougoat ranger. The nuts hand. Feeling the pressure of time, he nabs the cloudthresher, and during my turn, I play the spectral. I don't think I can win this game in time. But on his turn 4, he taps out to play glorious anthem. And seeing his fatal error, during my next turn, I play overrun and I kill him outright. His shoulders slump as he reveals his hand of 3 zealous persecutions. yay for misplays. Won
So I end with a pretty good 5-2-1 record for my first ever PTQ. Despite losing horribly in my first two rounds, I won out (and drew once) for the rest of the day. And at the end, I go to the front counter to collect my 9 packs, and settle down to watch the top 8 matches (which are always a lot of fun). Only 1 token deck made it to the top and that was the B/W version, which scrubbed out first because he kept a two land hand and kept drawing ing 3 CC spells (he had like 4 glorious anthems in hand) and just got overrun by kithkin. Sesimic Swans is sick btw, I don't know if we can beat that deck as it can get that turn 4 kill a fourth of the time. Though if we get a quick hand with overrun we stand a much better chance than b/w does.
Oh btw, lots and lots of people played B/W tokens, everywhere I looked was a B/W tokens deck (I was at a table where every pairing had at least one B/W tokens matchup!). This was wierd as at chicago regionals, i didn't see too many b/w tokens decks (lots of R/X decks instead). And don't get me started on the cruise qualifier, which had such a weird metagame of decks that scrubbed out of the main event (it had turbofog, sanity grinding, doran, outdated 5 color control...ugh, basically our worst matchups).
It's kind of funny how well the deck performs at the tier 1 level, but struggles a bit against the tier 2-3 decks (mostly because they rely on the midrange strategy and path's become increasingly relevant).
The only changes I would make would be taking out pollen llullaby from my SB and putting in Eyes of the Wisent. Faeries is a really bad matchup for us, and we need all the help we can get. We might be seeing more faeries this summer because of Sam Black doing so well at Barcelona with his faeries deck (got top 8).
I'm not too particularly worried about the B/W Tokens matchup. I think post-board, it's in a favor despite them having ZP. They can kill our tokens with a spell, but we can kill their tokens AND get a 7/7 huge body of the deal. personally, I like the b/w matchup and found the g/w mirror more stressful (facing the possbiility of being overruned yourself is pretty nerve-wracking, haha, guess I know how it feels like now).
Illinois PTQ top 8
Chapin's 5 CC
Warp World.dec
RDW (I'm surprised as well)
Boat Brew
U/W Reveillark
B/W Tokens
Sesimic Swans
B/W Kithkin
with B/W Kithkin and Sesimic Swans as the winners.
warning to all players - in the top 8, the b/w tokens guy inbetween games was looking at a piece of paper that contained his notes on what to SB in and out against certain decks. His opponent, the B/W Kithkin guy called a judge and got the guy DQ'd. So apparently your allowed to refer to notes and talk about people's decks inbetween rounds, but during a round, do NOT bring any notes to the table.
EDIT: When exactly in june will this be starting?