MTG Salvation

Quote from nikko90

turn 2 smiter can't be leaked, from that moment if I dont find a path soon, my geist becomes a Flame Javelin
I can bolt ooze if played in early, but in mid/late game he can simply respond by using the ability getting +1 counters and life
Thrun does not attack, he use it in defense while waiting for sigarda or other cows

I think the problem is not Thrun but Sigarda since she flies. I suggest you play bombs post board. Cards like Baneslayer Angel and Batterskull will give them a headache. Also playing a few wraths and Ajani V helps too. Also, you might want to make sure you have at least 3 copies of Electrolyze. Electrolyze + bolt/helix is one of the ways not to 2 for 1 yourself when killing a creature with 4 toughness.

Quote from jland13

I just played my first match on Trice and went 1-2 against Grixis Control thanks to Griselbrand, had him down to 5 in the last game and then he dropped it trumping my flipped Delver and Geist and I had no answer unfortunately. The deck did very well other than not being able to handle Grissy, got Delver flipped right away every game. My sb strategy was probably sub-optimal too (-4 Scour, -2 Pikes, +2 Volley, +2 Sphere, +2 Negate) but managed to win g2 aftr losing g1, and nearly had g3. What are some good cards against it? I can only think of Detention Sphere/Azorius Charm/Oblivion Ring from my deck currently.

Yeah, Griselbrand is a hard card to beat. Aside from those 3 cards that you mentioned, you can still use unsummon from the side, though I'd put a few copies in the main. What do you think of dropping the pikes completely? I know it speeds up our clock but since we lost good cantrips like ponder, do you think it is better off as creatures or additional spells to increase the chance of flipping delvers?


I'm a bit curious why some of us are worried in stretching the mana base. Splashing white is definitely worth it. Cards like Restoration Angel and Geist of Saint Traft makes the deck a lot better. I know shock lands can hurt your life total, but there will be instances where you have nothing else to play and you can just put the dual into the field tapped.

The other card I think is way underutilized in UWR is Thundermaw Hellkite. It pulls wins out of nowhere, and comes down earlier than most of the finishers. Turn//burn is amazing against tusk and angel of serenity though. Another sweet draw to red is counterflux, which is better against the control mirror, though worse than dissipate against reanimator.

The biggest draw to me for UWB is Far//Away. It solves so many problems (hexproof, tokens, indestructible), and can act as a one-sided wrath. Plus you get curse of death's hold, which is really nice against aristocrats.

The main question though is which play style do you prefer. I think all are relatively close in terms of viability if you know the deck well and how to play against all the matchups. If you like playing with creatures, I would go with bant. If you like playing a purely reactive game, I would pick esper. If you want a balance, play UWR.

EDIT: I realize all my split card tags don't work. How do I fix that?

Alright, so from what I understand from everyone here, this would be the ideal setup going forward:

1) Keep the Standard Competitive User Group. This was something we never really considered on taking away anyway, but just so everyone is aware, this will be staying.

2) Changing Established to Proven and Developing to Established. It appears that everybody is on board with this. Developing has some weird taboo attached to it and changing the names of the subs to match that of Modern will make the forum as a whole look more coherent.

3) Keep the new Established forum open to posting. While the mods will make stickied official threads for the "Tier 2" archtypes, users can post primers of other potential competitive decks in this forum as well. However, user generated threads will be required to:

-Have a full functioning Primer when posted
-Remain active (If a thread is inactive for two weeks, the thread will be moved to Standard Deck Creation. Also, remaining active will be considered to actually carry a conversation and discussion, not just one or two users bouncing off each other)

4) Issue Warning and Infractions for "Non Competitive Discussion" Basically any discussion that violates the spirit of the competitive forum (Discussing clearly terrible cards for example) will be warned and infracted. Get enough of these kind of warnings/infractions (on top of something like budget) you could see yourself taking some time off (as already expressed in the forum rules).

5) Forum Layout


Proven
->Esper Control
->Jund Midrange
->Naya Aggro
->Naya Midrange
->Rx Aggro
->UWR Midrange

Established
->Aristrocrats
->Bant Control
->Bx Zombies
->Humaniator
->Jund Aggro
->Junk Reanimator

Just so everyone understands my reasoning here. Jund and Naya Midrange, Rx Aggro, and UWR Midrange are all cemented as Tier 1 decks. Naya Aggro, in general has done well, and while there are different versions (Naya Blitz, Naya Humans, Naya Zoo), I think they all play similar enough that they can share a forum together. Esper Control is the premier control deck in the format. Even if it has done less than stellar in some events, the deck is one of the pillars of the format.

Aristrocrats is a good deck and has had some strong placings, but the lack of players and lack of numerous placings prevent it from having a sub. Both the reanimator decks are good, but again are not consistently putting up results, normally coming in waves then getting hated out. Jund Aggro is on the rise and might get moved to Proven, but for now, staying in Established. Zombies has had some results, but has been on the decline. Lastly, Bant Control, again while having some strong results and being on the rise, without having the consistent results and high numbers, it doesn't quite warrant a forum.

Quote from DemonSlayer

The players are not the ones in control, it's them the designers.

Lies. It is the players. A lot of you crybabies whined and complained. For years, aww man, land destruction/land manipulation is too powerful. (2nd turn stone rain off birds/elf, followed by plow under). People cried about upheaval, astral slide/lightning rift. People cried about replenish/opalescence. Rishadan Port, wah wah wah more crying. Dark ritual, counterspell, brainstorm, wah wah all unfair. Thanks to the players, the CREATURES have gotten even better, the Counters/Mana Acceleration/Land Destruction, all went down hill. I remember when 4/4 for CMC = 3 actually had a downside. So of course all you do now is turn creatures sideways, that's what the players wanted and that is what the designers made. The format and MAGIC is what the players make it.

I miss Mana Leak.

Quote from Larry94

So whats your silver bullet aggro deck that you use to crush delver decks in a competent players hands?

You cant keep us all waiting like this. Please let us know.

sure he can. its called a silver bullet for a reason

Quote from Larry94

Alot of us wont put up with 3 more months. We will just take a break. Thats what I am considering. But apart from delver the standard match ups are so much fun. I play for those rare games which isnt against delver.

And I have played sooo much competitive online recently and I have noticed that delver has been increasing ALOT in popularity. You still see the odd white tokens, mono green, green/red ramp, zombies and decks based around titans but all these combined are getting rarer and rarer - trust me on that. People are getting bored of losing to delver and so are just playing delver themselves now.

Quote from ThisCharmingMan

I'm challenging that assertion, and I don't think you seem to understand that. I don't think you are competent, because you don't carry yourself as such. You seem to think that going 2-2 at an FNM makes you competent. However, I know plenty of people that I DO consider competent who pilot Delver. And they generally do very well at events, real ones, not FNMs.

Holy crap people shut UP

i am SO sick of this whining. You know what? Delver is a deck. Deal with it.

You lose to every deck. You don't hear people whine this much when they lose to a bad matchup.

Delver is a good deck. It still loses.

There ARE other decks, contrary to popular belief. You CAN play these to winning records if you are COMFORTABLE WITH THE DECK and if you TEST THE DELVER MATCHUP. You need to actually tune ur deck based on metagames. Quit acting like a herd, try a deck. Its free to test so you can't even use that excuse. Get off your high horse and try Cockatrice. Seriously.

IM SAYING THIS ONCE. QUIT ****ING WHINING ABOUT DELVER. Everyone. In fact i hope all X00,000 people read this post because I'm tired of it. if you don't like WotC's decision see you in October. If you want, either play delver or actually TRY and build a different deck. Ok? Good.