Price of Glory is my favorite for the flavor text alone.
"True strength lies in action. Let the weak react to me."
—Kamahl, Pit Fighter
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- Spage
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Member for 14 years, 5 months, and 18 days
Last active Thu, Aug, 16 2018 09:15:17
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How long you have been playing the deck does not always equate to how well you know the deck. Be careful with that. It does give experience, but it won't mean you are always right. I don't think I'm wrong currently, but I have been proved wrong in the past, as an example of that.
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In other news, Tezzeret the Seeker still seems weak, but I'm trying it out as an over-costed 5th bridge. To its credit it did save me in the game I drew it, but I still feel queasy having a 5 cc card that has double blue in the deck.
So normally if you are at 15 health, you have lost. The Ad Nauseum player has played his 4th land, and proceeds to combo off, as most Ad Nauseum players do when they know you won't be hurting yourself with fetchs like the average deck. He now has 16 lands in his hand. He needs 6 to kill me, and 7 to win through spellskite. He still has 2 left. Maybe he was forced to play his 5th Land or even 6th. He has 14 lands in his hand now. We still lose.
Let's say we are playing my version, where I'm usually not causing myself to lose life from anything but Thoughtsize or shocking myself, and rarely doing both. Or even the standard version and haven't hurt ourselves literally to death. So I'm at 18 life. The Ad Nauseum player has played his 4th land, and proceeds to combo off. Chances are, he isn't playing a 21 land deck that sometimes pops itself around, but every once and awhile it does. Luckily, even that doesn't win him game 1 in this situation. But you would have lost if you were at 15 life. In fact, if you are at 17 life, you have lost as well unless you milled a land.
More importantly for this match up though : Game 2 and 3.
Patrician's Scorn will come out of their sideboard, Hurkyl's Recall as well. Spellskite is useless, as is Leyline of Sanctity. Pithing Needle is useless on the same basis. They are the definition of dead cards after sideboarding. Patrician gets played for free, and Hurkyl soon after. They can play their 6th or even 7th lands and be fine. On board defenses are useless, as are counterspells. The only nondead cards are cards that can disrupt their hand or exile their combo.
You got me on the Abrupt Decay one. I haven't faced enough Eldrazi decks to be fair. Most people at my LGS think it will be banned, so aren't buying into them.
Spellskite doesn't save you from Lightning Storm actually. Every land they discard they get to change Lightning Storm's targets. It happened to me at GP Pittsburgh.
Tutor to me isn't an early game card, that much I do agree. It is a late game finisher, much like Bridge. In this deck, it is cast on turn 3-4 to get whatever your deck has that will ruin the other person's day.
I'd define dead card as something like Pithing Needle vs Burn, Abrupt Decay vs Eldrazi, Spellskite vs Ad Nauseum. In those situations, the card you have will not have a large impact, more often than not it is going to be cast to leave your hand rather than to impact the board. Infernal Tutor is a threat that you can reach any card the other deck does not want to see, which is why in mirror matchups if I can Duress a Infernal Tutor, I will(So long as the card I don't want to see isn't already in their hand). I've seen other players do the same vs me when they play discard spells on me.
If you run 3-4 Pyroclasms in your 75, take a mountain. Your Defense is based on red, so that is the basic land you want.
With Eldrazi, Thoughseize might be better than Inquisition. I think the ideal amount most people want is 6 to 7 discard spells. I personally go with 6. Also, note that if they are playing white, they usually board in Leyline of Sanctity. This is a reason I went down to 6 after a short stint of using 7.
I'm biased for both of those cards. I personally would run 3 Spellskites in my 75 minimum. Infernal Tutor is my baby, and I love that card to death. That bias aside, Infernal tutor in this deck is basically a Demonic Tutor. I've won stalled games just by drawing it. It is never a dead card in my opening hand, as I'm playing out my hand as fast as I can anyway. I would not run more than 1, but I would run just 1.
I'd say find something else to take out, especially with Infect/Burn being a decent match chance after you miss an Eldrazi deck.
Grid is good, but imo not a good card currently. I like it, but in most matchups it isn't really helping enough. It is not something I am usually digging for in any match up, therefore, doesn't have a place in my 75 right now. Later that might change.
Hope this helped, and good luck piloting it!
Thraximundar allows you to voltron while winning many different ways. My black decks all have Massacre Wurm. My Blue Black decks always have Memory Plunder, because nothing is more fun than killing a Tooth and Nail into Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth than Memory Plundering for the Massacre Wurm in response.
Aurelia allows you to do Red White control, equipment, or anything else really. White for board destruction, and Red for Burn, and you can get a long way.
Merike re Berit allows for a steal theme, but also allows for an artifact/control theme.
Straight up Big Red Burn gets there more than you'd think. Don't run Purphoros, God of the Forge or Krenko, Mob Boss, but only because I'm tired of seeing them as well.
Create a destroy all the non-land permanents deck. Be sure to make most of the mass wipes at instant speed. Mine is Tariel, Reckoner of Souls deck
Make an Izzet Copy deck. Mine has Evacuation and Archaeomancer in it as the closest thing to a combo that I get. It runs 4 counterspells. It can be a real pain, but at the same time, my win cons are your win cons.
This is what I do in those metas. My hate for Green or Simic is very apparent, so I tend to find some ways to counteract their decks easy value train without being too unfun.
Also, always have like 2-3 ways of getting rid of Graveyards.
List as an example. I suggest testing against a list like this over other Eldrazi decks as this one will hurt the most. At least until something in Eldrazi is banned like Eye of Ugin.
However, that being said, I usually only activate Mikokoro with Lantern active, and then usually only at the end of their turn.
Extra draw steps for both players are important when you are racing against their combat steps. That is usually the number one use of the land. Are you on a clock with nothing in your hand helping you? Then you activate Miko, blind if need be.
Sometimes I do activate it to strengthen the lock. Hellbent, they have nothing on top, and I have 4 mana with a Millrock on top. Prime time to activate. In times when they have destroyed the lock, it allows the deck to quickly build up(because with no board presence you are now in a race against the clock)
As for the Weak win con, while playing with Mikokoro for years, I can probably count about 10-15 games that I have won in response to their win con (Like a lethal Lightning Bolt, or them casting Ad Nauseum without Angel's Grace, or an Eldrazi Grave shuffle effect). Aka, not many times, but it does come up sparingly. Not enough to justify using the card in your deck, but enough to know that it is a possible use.
I think Ghost Quarter is better 7 out of 10 times.
Miko Pros
Miko Cons
Sea Gate Pros
Sea Gate Cons
That's my thoughts on the differences of the two Lands. I still run a Miko as it is nice to have, but more and more I kinda just want Ghost Quarter. Going back to when I played at GP Pitt, while Miko saved me in a couple games, killing Manlands is really nice when the main removal is Abrupt Decay. That was before Eldrazi.
What are you defending against? Snapcaster Mage (kinda as they will also be casting spells that they will want later anyway), Ancient Grudge (Admittedly this does hurt, but I usually try to shuffle it away), and the Old main Eldrazi Titans (which is a stall tactic at best if they have them).
Any other corner cases, such as more Pithing Needle targets for opponents, stopping grave centric decks from getting important cards, if you have 7 open mana you could crack it, etc, are just not good reasons. I can expand on that if you want, but it mostly boils down to overplanning for a rare board state.
Meanwhile Ghoulcaller's Bell does not hurt us in blind milling when you have an active Academy Ruins, in fact it can act as a digging tool. That's really the only thing it has over Pixis.
Most of the issues that people are worried about, save for the Ancient Grudge, can be fixed by dedicated grave hate like Tormod's Crypt or Nihil Spellbomb or Surgical Extraction. Ancient Grudge can be solved with an Extirpate, but honestly I've done that 2 times in 2 years of having Extirpate in my Sideboard.
What these two cards come down to in my opinion is generally, I want a Bell, because generally the bell is better to have. In some corner cases, I wish it was a Pixis, in that 1 in 30 games that I played it. If you want it in your sideboard for that 1 in 30 times that it will be better than Ghoulcaller's bell, I can direct you to a better Sideboard card that will hose them better.
Now, chances are, most people saw the most played creature in standard(Courser of Kruphix) revealing the top card of the library, and thought "Huh, Pixis of Pandemonium would be real good" without knowing ever looking in the MTG Salvation Modern Creation Forums. A good thought in one deck does not mean people clearly ripped off the idea.
Top Control was playing discard + Ensnaring Bridge before 8-Rack came along as even an idea, then someone decided "Yeah enough of this fatesealing nonsense, let's just discard their hand." Oh no they stole the idea! Or they thought pairing Bridge with discard spells is really trolly and powerful.
Even in Top Control, you have our own mtgsalvation member Shadowgripper try out the deck, but do sooo much better than any other of the pilots ever could. No one gave the deck the time of day, and now even respected members of the mtg community were colored impressed(or annoyed in the case of Lantern, the Zoo King
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I guess my point is, I have no problem with anyone "stealing" ideas, because in the grand scheme of MTG that is impossible. If your idea was so great, you should be winning GPs. If someone wants to highlight a deck, especially a rogue deck, then let them use their platform to do so. Rogue decks are what make MTG interesting. Even if the deck idea gets credited to the wrong person, so what? I promise you that the next deck you face with your deck won't care who created the idea.
Edit: As a hypocritical addendum - Pixie Sticks is not an acceptable name for Top Control. Don't even.
To be fair, I'd be testing this for sure. We did try Thopter Foundry for a hot minute like 2 years ago. It didn't last. I could see maybe slotting it in as it gives lifegain, gives bodies to block when bridge isn't available, gives flying bodies that could attack if we wanted to win that way under bridge. I could see it.
Though honestly I would rather go for a Neo Affinity build that legacy had than to slot it in.