Although rotation hangs just ahead of us, I've come up with a deck that has been wildly successful in initial playtesting. It's BGR with a lot of beef, a lot of haste, a lot of resiliency, and great removal:
I love the manabases possible with Innistrad + Ravnica lands; Messenger may seem hard to cast in a 3-color deck but there are 19 lands producing black. The curve is tilted towards early beats, and there's plenty of late-game staying power. It's a brutal, aggressive deck that can endure sweepers & spot removal, outmuscle other creature-heavy decks, and Get There in the endgame.
It's hard to resist playing Thrags and Thundermaws, but a cheaper, more efficient, more explosive route is the way to go. I've only been playing it a few days, but I think it has a lot of promise and I've had a ton of fun slamming beats down opponents' throats.
I took 1st at my local last week and 3rd this week. ( guy just had the perfect hand for storm )
Was thinking of running Clique over Tombstalker. Anyone swapped these two?
I still love Team. I prefer Stalker to Clique because he is a much faster finisher and far better at controlling combat against aggro. If your meta is especially heavy on control/combo and light on aggro, Clique is probably the better call on account of his disruption.
Mirri's Guile is amazing. It makes it so much easier for you to take advantage of the Pox effects, keeps unnecessary discard out of your hand in the late game, helps you find threats or answers... and all without the constant mana investment required by Sensei's Divining Top. You can't convert it in to an extra card, but the fact that it only costs 1 mana total is huge because the deck generally keeps few lands on the board.
I think it would be more likely to be useful if it was based around general archetypes rather than specific decks. Like combo decks of all sorts tend to have good matchups against things like zoo and maverick and goblins because they don't have to interact much. So using categories like U/x tempo, straight-ahead aggro, Storm combo, Graveyard dependent (dredge/reanimator), etc might be useful.
There's significant variance within those archetypes that would greatly influence individual matchups, but it could probably be useful to players trying to metagame by identifying deck types which would be favorable in a given environment.
I don't think creature-heavy Bant will thrive in the current metagame. It has a high mana curve and many of its creatures are simply outclassed by faster beats or heavier control decks. I think a Thresh approach is the right way to come at the deck, with a low curve, fast responses and efficient threats. Here's what I play:
It has a fairly high threat density but maintains the low curve and fast speed of Thresh. I've played one version or another of UGW for a long time, and it's versatile enough to handle anything while still being able to push its own gameplan.
Many people seem to be overlooking Goblin Wardriver, but I think he's pretty good. With a curve tilted towards early creatures, he does a lot to further the rush. I also like Reckless Waif a lot, as he enables some ridiculous starts.
Its won multiple 50+ person events (our FNMs are huge) and has been extremely consistent in general.
I like this approach the best. The deck should be fast, streamlined and brutal. Packing a high density of undercosted threats along with the late-game bombs lets the deck steamroll opponents. I think 4 O-Rings are necessary though, as it is an MVP card I want to see pretty much every game.
Here's what I've been playing, and I am very impressed:
I think Elite Vanguard absolutely has a place in this deck. He provides a second route to fast early beats alongside CotP and keeps the curve low. In general, my list is skewed towards fast early beats with only 3 copies of Hero, Garruk, Crusader and Splicer, but the key to success is to keep up a stream of undercosted beats starting on turn 1 without having to overcommit to the board.
I like Accorder Paladin over Hamlet Captain because he provides more pressure on his own and is easier on the mana. And I go with Gideon's Lawkeeper over Fiend Hunter because you don't want your hand gummed up with expensive cards given the aggro nature of the deck and the low curve. Plus, Lawkeeper can switch targets to neutralize their best attacker/blocker. Obviously he does not handle utility creatures as well, but this deck wins by pushing through fast damage through the combat step.
I kind of want to fit in the 4th Hero, Splicer and Crusader but the low curve is important to success.
I have drifted away from Maverick because not playing flexible disruption MD means there are some matchups that you will simply lose. For example, combo simply goldfishes you g1. GSZ and Fauna Shaman can provide some Teeg/Iona hate, but that's often too slow or not enough.
There are 4 decks that are all very similar:
RUG (Red, Blue, Green)
Bant (White, Blue, Green)
Junk (Black, White, Green)
Maverick (White, Green)
Maverick is quite different from the others. It does not pack much disruption (though some have GSZ and/or Fauna Shaman toolbox hate), and it is much more of an aggro deck than the others.
I've taken some time off from this deck for a while to play GW Maverick and some rogue experiments, but now I'm exploring the idea of fusing this deck with Maverick. Here's my rough draft list:
Basically it is Maverick splashing black for Confidant and Vindicate. Confidant is the main reason for the splash, but Vindicate is pretty nice too. Since the metagame is so heavily aggro right now, the discard isn't as effective or necessary as it was when SOTF/Mystical tutor were legal. Now, a higher creature count is necessary. So far I have been pleased with the results, since there are so many powerful cards that combine well together.
Anyways, it seems to have a lot of interesting components that work well together. Perhaps it is already an established archetype that I am unaware of, but a quick check of the forums here and on the source proved fruitless. I threw a prototype of this together and it looks like it could be fun to play.
How has Elspeth worked out? Planeswalkers offer a lot of power, but they are awfully slow to get online, and since the meta is currently composed of lots of fast aggro decks like Goblins, Merfolk, Zoo and Vengevival, I don't know that they will be useful enough in those matchups to warrant use. Affinity is also rising in popularity with SOM's release, even if it has yet to prove itself as a top-tier deck. However, I haven't tested Elspeth, so I'm just speculating here.
The prominence of the aforementioned aggro decks has driven me to try out a different build of the deck lately. I often found myself wishing I had a sweeper or two in those matchups, so I decided to replace Pridemage MD with Engineered Explosives. I also swapped Gerard's Verdict for Inquisition of Kozilek, since being able to grab Vial, Lackey, Nacatl, Survival, Plating, Ravager, etc on turn 1 is crucial. Pridemage and Verdict are wonderful against Bant/Countertop/Landstill, but not so much against fast aggro.
However, the card I most wanted in those matchups was Firespout, so I decided to give it a try in the SB. It requires splashing a 4th color (via 1 Badlands in the SB), but with Mirri's Guile, KOTR and Confidant, I have not had much of a problem finding the mana I need. Plus, removing Pridemage and Verdict has dramatically reduced the demand for crazy color combos of mana.
Having so much board control (4 Firespout, 4 EE, 4 STP and 4 Vindicate) post-SB has dramatically improved my aggro matchups, and yet the deck retains enough discard to disrupt combo and control decks. My biggest complaint with the new build is the reduced threat count, but Pridemage was rarely enough to carry the day anyways and Inquisition can protect a Goyf/KOTR from STP better than Verdict.
When I took out the moxen, I added Qasali Pridemage and I have been happy overall with them. QP + Vindicate gives you 8 ways to handle any artifacts/enchantments that you need to get rid of, and Exalted helps you win the all-important Goyf-vs-Goyf stalemate.
However, there have been times that I wish I was playing something fatter in place of Pridemage. Nantuko Shade has crossed my mind, but the mana requirements of the deck are already quite high and I don't think I can afford to reliably pump 2-3 mana in to him every turn. For now, I'm sticking with Pridemage.
I played the Mox Diamonds in my old build, and the more I used them, the more I felt that they offered only a marginal advantage. You need 3 lands + mox in the opening hand to make it sing, since in that case it will bump your whole gameplan up a turn. But if you have a hand with only 2 lands plus mox, then it is basically just a lotus petal since you will only gain 1 mana total out of it. And keeping a hand with 3 lands + mox means you only have 3 business spells off the bat - and oftentimes that is simply not enough gas to keep up with Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, or other top-tier decks. In short, it dilutes the threat/answer/disruption count too much for my taste. I would rather have it be a 1 or 2-cmc business spell.
Quote from Dzra »
Discard can definitely be lousy late-game topdecks, but the idea is that you cripple them enough early to cover yourself until you drop a large creature. In theory, by the time they recover, you've arrived at the mid-game where this deck gets a whole lot of beefy support from KotR/Wasteland and Vindicate (and Deed if your build is running it).
I wholeheartedly agree with this though. 4 Thoughtseize + 4 Hymn is not enough discard to consistently disrupt opposing decks enough. Verdict's are great, since they are raw 2-for-1 card advantage that also trip up opponent's gameplans and sometimes gain you some life. I always want 11-12 discard spells MD plus 4 more SB. Plus, Guile/Top/Confidant help make up for the fact that they can be dead topdecks sometimes.
Dark Horizons was what I called my build when I still played Terravore and Sinkhole, but since I have shifted away from that strategy it is probably more appropriate for your build than mine. I feel like my build is really just a classic BGW aggrocontrol rock deck; it's extremely versatile and simply plays the best cards available to Green, Black and White.
Stronghold and Nantuko Monastery are my favorite tutor lands (and Karakas has its uses), but you never want to draw them as one of your 2 lands in an opening hand or something. Playing more fetches/duals and increasing the reliability of being able to hit any mana combination you need (even in the face of Wastelands) is crucial to the deck, and the tutorlands usually feel like win-more cards when I have the opportunity to put them to use anyways. So that's why I don't run any, but there's no denying that tutoring up Stronghold to bring back a fattie is sexy.
4x Spike Jester
4x Scavenging Ooze
2x Lotleth Troll
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Dreg Mangler
4x Falkenrath Aristocrat
3x Ghor-Clan Rampager
4x Dreadbore
4x Blood Crypt
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Stomping Ground
4x Dragonskull Summit
4x Woodland Cemetery
3x Swamp
4x Domri Rade
4x Mizzium Mortars
3x Thragtusk
I love the manabases possible with Innistrad + Ravnica lands; Messenger may seem hard to cast in a 3-color deck but there are 19 lands producing black. The curve is tilted towards early beats, and there's plenty of late-game staying power. It's a brutal, aggressive deck that can endure sweepers & spot removal, outmuscle other creature-heavy decks, and Get There in the endgame.
It's hard to resist playing Thrags and Thundermaws, but a cheaper, more efficient, more explosive route is the way to go. I've only been playing it a few days, but I think it has a lot of promise and I've had a ton of fun slamming beats down opponents' throats.
I still love Team. I prefer Stalker to Clique because he is a much faster finisher and far better at controlling combat against aggro. If your meta is especially heavy on control/combo and light on aggro, Clique is probably the better call on account of his disruption.
4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
3x Pox
3x Liliana of the Veil
2x Ghastly Demise
Finishers
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Tombstalker
Other
4x Dark Ritual
4x Mirri's Guile
2x Life from the Loam
4x Bayou
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Polluted Delta
4x Swamp
1x Badlands
4x Wasteland
4x Firespout
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Nature's Claim
3x Engineered Explosives
Mirri's Guile is amazing. It makes it so much easier for you to take advantage of the Pox effects, keeps unnecessary discard out of your hand in the late game, helps you find threats or answers... and all without the constant mana investment required by Sensei's Divining Top. You can't convert it in to an extra card, but the fact that it only costs 1 mana total is huge because the deck generally keeps few lands on the board.
There's significant variance within those archetypes that would greatly influence individual matchups, but it could probably be useful to players trying to metagame by identifying deck types which would be favorable in a given environment.
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Batterskull
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
3x Spell Pierce
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Windswept Heath
4x Tundra
4x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
1x Maze of Ith
4x Wasteland
4x Serenity
4x Tormod's Crypt
1x Volcanic Island
4x Firespout
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Stoneforge Mystic
It has a fairly high threat density but maintains the low curve and fast speed of Thresh. I've played one version or another of UGW for a long time, and it's versatile enough to handle anything while still being able to push its own gameplan.
4x Reckless Waif
4x Stormblood Berserker
4x Goblin Wardriver
4x Chandra's Phoenix
3x Koth of the Hammer
4x Incinerate
4x Galvanic Blast
2x Gut Shot
19x Mountain
4x Ghost Quarter
4x Act of Treason
4x Manabarbs
4x Sword of War and Peace
3x Whipflare
I like this approach the best. The deck should be fast, streamlined and brutal. Packing a high density of undercosted threats along with the late-game bombs lets the deck steamroll opponents. I think 4 O-Rings are necessary though, as it is an MVP card I want to see pretty much every game.
Here's what I've been playing, and I am very impressed:
4x Elite Vanguard
3x Doomed Traveler
3x Gideon's Lawkeeper
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Accorder Paladin
3x Mirran Crusader
3x Hero of Bladehold
3x Garruk, Relentless
4x Oblivion Ring
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
8x Plains
2x Forest
I think Elite Vanguard absolutely has a place in this deck. He provides a second route to fast early beats alongside CotP and keeps the curve low. In general, my list is skewed towards fast early beats with only 3 copies of Hero, Garruk, Crusader and Splicer, but the key to success is to keep up a stream of undercosted beats starting on turn 1 without having to overcommit to the board.
I like Accorder Paladin over Hamlet Captain because he provides more pressure on his own and is easier on the mana. And I go with Gideon's Lawkeeper over Fiend Hunter because you don't want your hand gummed up with expensive cards given the aggro nature of the deck and the low curve. Plus, Lawkeeper can switch targets to neutralize their best attacker/blocker. Obviously he does not handle utility creatures as well, but this deck wins by pushing through fast damage through the combat step.
I kind of want to fit in the 4th Hero, Splicer and Crusader but the low curve is important to success.
SB:
4x Celestial Purge
4x Lead the Stampede
3x Naturalize
Maverick is quite different from the others. It does not pack much disruption (though some have GSZ and/or Fauna Shaman toolbox hate), and it is much more of an aggro deck than the others.
I'd say the core for Maverick is:
2x Birds of Paradise
4x Mother of Runes
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Qasali Pridemage
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Vindicate
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Aether Vial
4x Windswept Heath
4x Marsh Flats
3x Savannah
1x Bayou
1x Scrubland
1x Plains
3x Horizon Canopy
4x Wasteland
Basically it is Maverick splashing black for Confidant and Vindicate. Confidant is the main reason for the splash, but Vindicate is pretty nice too. Since the metagame is so heavily aggro right now, the discard isn't as effective or necessary as it was when SOTF/Mystical tutor were legal. Now, a higher creature count is necessary. So far I have been pleased with the results, since there are so many powerful cards that combine well together.
4x Weathered Wayfarer
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Swords of Light and Shadow
4x Windswept Heath
4x Horizon Canopy
1-2x Forest
4x Wasteland
1x Treetop Village
Anyways, it seems to have a lot of interesting components that work well together. Perhaps it is already an established archetype that I am unaware of, but a quick check of the forums here and on the source proved fruitless. I threw a prototype of this together and it looks like it could be fun to play.
The prominence of the aforementioned aggro decks has driven me to try out a different build of the deck lately. I often found myself wishing I had a sweeper or two in those matchups, so I decided to replace Pridemage MD with Engineered Explosives. I also swapped Gerard's Verdict for Inquisition of Kozilek, since being able to grab Vial, Lackey, Nacatl, Survival, Plating, Ravager, etc on turn 1 is crucial. Pridemage and Verdict are wonderful against Bant/Countertop/Landstill, but not so much against fast aggro.
However, the card I most wanted in those matchups was Firespout, so I decided to give it a try in the SB. It requires splashing a 4th color (via 1 Badlands in the SB), but with Mirri's Guile, KOTR and Confidant, I have not had much of a problem finding the mana I need. Plus, removing Pridemage and Verdict has dramatically reduced the demand for crazy color combos of mana.
Having so much board control (4 Firespout, 4 EE, 4 STP and 4 Vindicate) post-SB has dramatically improved my aggro matchups, and yet the deck retains enough discard to disrupt combo and control decks. My biggest complaint with the new build is the reduced threat count, but Pridemage was rarely enough to carry the day anyways and Inquisition can protect a Goyf/KOTR from STP better than Verdict.
Here is the new build tuned to beat aggro:
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Vindicate
3x Engineered Explosives
4x Marsh Flats
4x Bayou
3x Scrubland
2x Savannah
1x Swamp
4x Wasteland
4x Firespout
1x Badlands
4x Duress
4x Extirpate
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
However, there have been times that I wish I was playing something fatter in place of Pridemage. Nantuko Shade has crossed my mind, but the mana requirements of the deck are already quite high and I don't think I can afford to reliably pump 2-3 mana in to him every turn. For now, I'm sticking with Pridemage.
I wholeheartedly agree with this though. 4 Thoughtseize + 4 Hymn is not enough discard to consistently disrupt opposing decks enough. Verdict's are great, since they are raw 2-for-1 card advantage that also trip up opponent's gameplans and sometimes gain you some life. I always want 11-12 discard spells MD plus 4 more SB. Plus, Guile/Top/Confidant help make up for the fact that they can be dead topdecks sometimes.
Stronghold and Nantuko Monastery are my favorite tutor lands (and Karakas has its uses), but you never want to draw them as one of your 2 lands in an opening hand or something. Playing more fetches/duals and increasing the reliability of being able to hit any mana combination you need (even in the face of Wastelands) is crucial to the deck, and the tutorlands usually feel like win-more cards when I have the opportunity to put them to use anyways. So that's why I don't run any, but there's no denying that tutoring up Stronghold to bring back a fattie is sexy.