Those are really the only playable cards I could think of that could go in the board. Top ones I would use would be Celestial Purge and Combust. Dismember would be okay too, but at 4 life it seems a little dodgy.
Spellskite is able to divert the enchantment onto itself when it is cast, at the price of 2 life. And R/U pyro ascension can't really kill it with burn, so it would need to be bounced by an Into the Roil before they combo
The way I see it, Ezuri is a massive "must answer" threat. Normally he presents a problem to most decks the turn he comes into play (if you're playing smart). I run 4 of him personally, as I am never, ever unhappy to have more than one, because if he is removed, you have a spare, and if he is not removed, you usually win.
I dont run treespeakers in my elf deck either, for a number of reasons.
Nothing beats a turn 2 arch druid. And you cannot do this when debating over treespeaker or llanoward/arbor elf.
Sure he makes elves more or less free and is nice ramp, but he runs into the same problem as every other leveler does.
Turn 1 play him.
Turn 2 tap 2 mana level him (this is of couse if you dont have a oren rief that you have to play which ive run into often) : In response he gets bolted/bursted/disfigured
Now you are out 1 card and 2 turns. What is good about this? Nothing.
You are out tempo and board presence.
Say its the same situation, you have the opening cards in hand,
T1 llanowar/arbor elf
T2 Archdruid.
If the druid survives, it brings more to the table than an active treespeaker on turn 3.
I can see how everyone thinks that Treespeakers is the bee's knees for elves, but in fact levels makes it a risky gamble.
This post makes no sense... Your opponent can use all of those spells on your archdruid and you're worse off cus you're out an archdruid... I don't understand the logic behind this post. You essentially just said that archdruid is better to have on the board... uh...yeah...yeah he is lol. You want to play him on turn 2 to get bolted or bursted or disfigured instead of a treespeaker? Hmmm... Against RDW you should be holding back archdruids, not playing them recklessly into red's abundant amount of burn magic in hopes you will just go bonkers the next turn.
Playing T1 treespeaker also depends on the composition of your hand and how you want to play out the game. Like if you can level on turn 2 and play a ranger or a fauna shaman, or hey even another 1 mana dork...then in some cases its better. Not to mention treespeaker leveled up, on turn 3, can help you do ridiculous things.
A lot of the time I usually side 1 or 2 treespeakers out but they are still an exceptional card. Especially if you're running Copperhorn Scout.
Any good results yet against tier 1 decks like titan ramp, U/W control, or eldrazi ramp? I am having some troubles with the deck lately. Seems like I am not setting up quickly enough before my opponent does and I get blown out.
How much artifact removal is being run in everyone's list? Any why Nature's Claim? Just because its a 1 mana instant?
When I saw the R/G version I became intrigued. I agree with the above poster that the entire deck should not rely on one card getting out early and staying there. So I built a deck that works without it, but is better with it.
Keep in mind you can still play the creatures, as their effects are "come into play" effects, and do not necessarily need a target (if there is just 1 artifact out, they need to target it, with the exception of the Tuktuk Scrapper). So they aren't completely dead draws in that regard, kind of bad creatures for their mana cost...but can provide you with board presence even without Liquimetal Coating.
This is why I went with a R/U build instead of a R/G build. U gives us access to draw spells like preordain and Sea Gate Oracle (and Jace 2.0 if you can afford it) and counter control cards like Mana Leak, Dispel, Spell Pierce and Turn Aside, providing the ability to stall and draw the cards you need in order to make your deck more synergistic.
So with DoJ main, you have 9 ways of getting rid of AP when he has eaten his fill of life. Without it, running Consume the Meek, you only have 7 ways, with the only method of tutoring being a singleton Vess.
Have you had troubles finding answers to your own AP? Or do you basically just play the control/waiting game once they are in the negative life totals?
NDE could be run alongside Platinum Angel as a kind of insurance policy. Just buy some time to bring up your negative life total. Maybe replace Magmaw (I can't believe thats an actual card) for the angel?
If there's nothing you want to play t1, I would suggest putting in Jungle Shrine and trying to make the mana a little more flexible. NDE is triple W and you have 6 white sources. Something about that seems shaky to me.
He has 10 white sources...don't forget the Mesas.
Deck looks fun with the manabarbs. There is no mana burn anymore so you can basically at their end step burn yourself with barbs with whatever mana you have open.
Deck seems a little shaky and anyone with burn should be able to counter NDE. Looks like it could be interesting though!
Quite a few little tricks you can do with this kind of deck. Abyssal persecutor is crazy good with basilisk collar, which you can fetch with mystic. You also have many many (15) ways of dealing with the persecutor once he has beat face.
Tidehollow is kind of fun because you can either use him as disruption/aggro or respond to his ability going on the stack, sac him to a Bloodthrone or Aristocrat and permanently remove a card from their hand, and swing with a pumped guy.
You also get to run a lot of creatures along with a very solid set of removal to back them up, as well as run main deck planeswalker removal via O-Ring.
I dunno what you would put in the SB but...yeah.
Aggro Play:
T1: Beetle, T2 Bloodthrone, swing for 1, T3 Bloodghast > sac > fetchlandghast > sac > cracklandghast > sac > swing for 10
You might want to try Beastmaster Ascension. It is not uncommon for a deck like this to have 7+ creatures on board at one time. You drop this enchantment and swing with 7 5/6s instead.
Also, you may want to consider adding either more pump spells or a couple of burn spells. Perhaps Lightning Bolt? Without pumping enchantments or artifacts or garruk out, you just have a bunch of useless creatures out that...don't really do much besides chump. If your opponent gets trample or a flyer out, you are on a clock and have no way of dealing with it in terms of removal.
Just pulled this off against someone 2 games in a row lol.
T1: Guide > 18
T2: Fiend > 16
T3: Swing, Staggershock face > 8
T4: rebound Staggershock face > 6, swing for 6, win. 3 Mana untapped on board with a spell pierce and bolt in hand.
The guy tried to Negate my Staggershock in another game off the rebound, saving himself 2 damage from the shock and thinking my Fiend wasn't going to get the +3/+0 if the spell didn't resolve. He spent 5 minutes trying to prove me wrong...then conceded.
Celestial Purge
Suture Priest
Dispatch
Due Respect
Demystify
Soul's Attendant
Combust
Dismember
Those are really the only playable cards I could think of that could go in the board. Top ones I would use would be Celestial Purge and Combust. Dismember would be okay too, but at 4 life it seems a little dodgy.
Spellskite is able to divert the enchantment onto itself when it is cast, at the price of 2 life. And R/U pyro ascension can't really kill it with burn, so it would need to be bounced by an Into the Roil before they combo
4x Arbor Elf
2x Copperhorn Scout
4x Elvish Archdruid
4x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4x Fauna Shaman
3x Joraga Treespeaker
3x Leatherback Baloth
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Nissa's Chosen
2x Sylvan Ranger
3x Eldrazi Monument
3x Garruk Wildspeaker
3x Nissa Revane
Land:
17x Forest
2x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Board:
2x Acidic Slime
1x Molten-tail Masticore
1x Sylvok Replica
2x Tajuru Preserver
1x Vengevine
3x Naturalize
4x Plummet
1x Contagion Engine
Board needs tweaks, and is mostly designed for my local meta, but yeah.
This post makes no sense... Your opponent can use all of those spells on your archdruid and you're worse off cus you're out an archdruid... I don't understand the logic behind this post. You essentially just said that archdruid is better to have on the board... uh...yeah...yeah he is lol. You want to play him on turn 2 to get bolted or bursted or disfigured instead of a treespeaker? Hmmm... Against RDW you should be holding back archdruids, not playing them recklessly into red's abundant amount of burn magic in hopes you will just go bonkers the next turn.
Playing T1 treespeaker also depends on the composition of your hand and how you want to play out the game. Like if you can level on turn 2 and play a ranger or a fauna shaman, or hey even another 1 mana dork...then in some cases its better. Not to mention treespeaker leveled up, on turn 3, can help you do ridiculous things.
A lot of the time I usually side 1 or 2 treespeakers out but they are still an exceptional card. Especially if you're running Copperhorn Scout.
How much artifact removal is being run in everyone's list? Any why Nature's Claim? Just because its a 1 mana instant?
4x Oxidda Scrapmelter
1x Hoard-Smelter Dragon
3x Cunning Sparkmage
4x Manic Vandal
3x Acidic Slime
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Wurmcoil Engine
Spells:
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Nature's Claim
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Liquimetal Coating
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Mox Opal
Planeswalkers:
3x Garruk Wildspeaker
1x Koth of the Hammer
Land:
8x Forest
7x Mountain
1x Raging Ravine
4x Rootbound Crag
2x Tectonic Edge
2x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Basilisk Collar
3x Tunnel Ignus
1x Cunning Sparkmage
3x Overgrown Battlement
1x Nature's Claim
4x Arc Trail
2x Nature's Spiral
Still a little wonky here and there. Going to test and make adjustments though.
This is why I went with a R/U build instead of a R/G build. U gives us access to draw spells like preordain and Sea Gate Oracle (and Jace 2.0 if you can afford it) and counter control cards like Mana Leak, Dispel, Spell Pierce and Turn Aside, providing the ability to stall and draw the cards you need in order to make your deck more synergistic.
4x Manic Vandal
4x Oxida Scrapmelter
3x Tuktuk Scrapper
4x Sea Gate Oracle
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Liquimetal Coating
4x Preordain
3x Lightning Bolt
4x Mana Leak
2x Turn Aside
3x Jace, the Mind Sculpter
Land:
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Halimar Depths
2x Terramorphic Expanse
2x Evolving Wilds
6x Island
8x Mountain
Have you had troubles finding answers to your own AP? Or do you basically just play the control/waiting game once they are in the negative life totals?
He has 10 white sources...don't forget the Mesas.
Deck looks fun with the manabarbs. There is no mana burn anymore so you can basically at their end step burn yourself with barbs with whatever mana you have open.
Deck seems a little shaky and anyone with burn should be able to counter NDE. Looks like it could be interesting though!
3x Abyssal Persecutor
4x Bloodghast
4x Bloodthrone Vampire
2x Vampire Aristocrat
3x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Mortician Beetle
2x Pawn of Ulamog
4x Path to Exile
3x Oblivion Ring
2x Consuming Vapors
Other(2):
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Blade of the Bloodchief
4x Marsh Flats
2x Sejiri Steppe
13x Swamp
5x Plains
Quite a few little tricks you can do with this kind of deck. Abyssal persecutor is crazy good with basilisk collar, which you can fetch with mystic. You also have many many (15) ways of dealing with the persecutor once he has beat face.
Tidehollow is kind of fun because you can either use him as disruption/aggro or respond to his ability going on the stack, sac him to a Bloodthrone or Aristocrat and permanently remove a card from their hand, and swing with a pumped guy.
You also get to run a lot of creatures along with a very solid set of removal to back them up, as well as run main deck planeswalker removal via O-Ring.
I dunno what you would put in the SB but...yeah.
Aggro Play:
T1: Beetle, T2 Bloodthrone, swing for 1, T3 Bloodghast > sac > fetchlandghast > sac > cracklandghast > sac > swing for 10
Also, you may want to consider adding either more pump spells or a couple of burn spells. Perhaps Lightning Bolt? Without pumping enchantments or artifacts or garruk out, you just have a bunch of useless creatures out that...don't really do much besides chump. If your opponent gets trample or a flyer out, you are on a clock and have no way of dealing with it in terms of removal.
T1: Guide > 18
T2: Fiend > 16
T3: Swing, Staggershock face > 8
T4: rebound Staggershock face > 6, swing for 6, win. 3 Mana untapped on board with a spell pierce and bolt in hand.
The guy tried to Negate my Staggershock in another game off the rebound, saving himself 2 damage from the shock and thinking my Fiend wasn't going to get the +3/+0 if the spell didn't resolve. He spent 5 minutes trying to prove me wrong...then conceded.