Those of you comparing the champion to hada freeblade need to remember a few important things.
1) the number of allies hada had to interact with were very few and, I think most can agree, pretty poor constructed cards. Where hada only had two sets of allies, champion will have five sets of humans (with 3 more by the time m13 releases), many of which are already playable.
2) allies were spread across all colors, making it especially difficult to play hada along with the best allies. Maro has already stated that the vast majority of humans in innistrad will be white, making it more likely that the champion's best and most powerful "allies" will be accessible to him.
3) we have yet to see the extent of what the human tribe has to offer. I think I can safely say there will be many more human tribal cards spoiled in innistrad, let alone the next two sets. Champion will only get better (unless they print some serious human-hosers)
I'm not saying that hes going to be a constructed powerhouse (although I do believe he'll see play), but to dismiss him as nothing but a "hada freeblade reprint" is very short-sighted.
I know the numbers look wacky, but it's just for testing, I wanna have iok and duress there to see which works better, same with vines and growth, and spell pierce vs mana leak.
Anyway, the misty rainforests should make splashing blue very easy, and they help maindeck anyway, because thinning out forests helps us topdeck threats and black mana (both of which are more relevant lategame).
The 7 fetches main give us 14 ways to hit forests and 14 ways to hit swamps, which is almost exactly right for the costs and curve. The reason I went 7/10 for forests is because, even though mathematically it should probably be 6 forests, we'd rather have the forests early for birds.
Also, vs Gideon, vines of vastwood is pretty good. With a vines, Gideon has to survive two turns of all your creatures attacking him
very nice. I'll definitely try this list out when I have some time. Finally ordered myself to stop playing magic so I can clear my bonus on full tilt before it expires :\
I believe someone said before that there would be a total of 20 cards with infect. . .
We've so far got 10 Creatures and 2 infect artifacts so I'm still hopeful we can get a 1cc creature before the end.
The two cards spoiled today open the door for mono color infest decks, but with the splashing benefits being as good as they are I just don't see any surfacing yet.
I can't see any non-black infect deck being worth playing over one with black. Plague stinger is too good.
I included mana leak at absolutely no expense to any of my two drops. I absolutely agree that the 2 drop is crucial. Mana leak is in there to deal with the turn 4 or 5 threats such as gideon, doj, consume the meek, etc (although day and consume can certainly be played around). Boar umbra and hand are underwhelming and definitely cuttable imo.
Here's how most games go:
Turn 1: Disruption (inquisition/duress)
Turn 2: Creature
Turn 3: Creature or Creature + pump
Turn 4: Pump. Mana open for leaking any potential threat to your threats (day of judgment, gideon, jace to a lesser extent)
Turn 5: A lot of the time, your opponent will have tapped out here. If you mana leaked it, you're way ahead. But even if not, a Putrefax with no chance of counter is game winning.
The more I think about it, the more I really like mana leak in this deck. On turns 4 and 5, you are really just going for the kill with pump spells. Casting creatures is slow (except putrefax, obviously) and also risks overextending yourself against black or white. This makes the synergy with mana leak awesome since pumps are cheap and you'll have mana open to counter.
hexmage is actually a great counter I didn't think of. good call. And it's gideon's first ability that crushes us, not the second. You simply have to spend way too many resources to kill him.
At any rate, I'm not trying to derail this topic. Just thought you guys might want to hear where my testing has taken me. I'll most likely be moving over to the UBG topic, although I didn't really like the decklists I saw while skimming it.
In testing against u/w, I realized that I'll lose 95% of the time to a resolved Gideon Jura. It's just ridiculous. Gideon is the absolute bane of any infect deck.
The only counter I can think of to Gideon Jura in b/g is catching it with duress, which is far from reliable, especially later in the game when they'll just counter it. So I decided to see if it would be feasible to run mana leak. In my opinion, it is.
Here's what I did:
-5 Forest
-4 Swamp
+4 Misty Rainforest
+4 Darkslick Shores
+1 Island
-3 Boar Umbra
-1 Hand of the Praetors
+4 Mana Leak
The mana base remains virtually untouched, losing only a single green source. Of course, you have to account for the drawback of Darkslick Shores. However, I feel it's not that big of an issue since most of the decks threats come down before turn 4 (when darkslick starts coming into play tapped).
Boar Umbra and Hand were easily the weakest parts of the deck, in my opinion. They just can't compare with the versatility that Mana Leak offers. And I don't think I need to mention what great synergy counters have with duress/inquisition.
I think it will help a lot against RDW too, which is one of our worst matchups. U/w is actually a pretty good matchup unless they stick a Gideon. I think that mana leak, with duress coming in from the sideboard, gives us a crushing advantage against u/w.
Cystbearer definitely seems like a better card than Ichor Rats, in my opinion. I've been pretty unimpressed with rats and actually cut it down to 3 pretty recently. Its double black is also pretty awkward, especially when you really want two forests in play asap for vines.
This deck is definitely starting to lean towards heavy green, but plague stinger is probably the best card in the deck. I also really like the disruption of inquisition and duress.
I don't think blight mamba is better than either ichorclaw or rats, but it might be worth including over something else. Having a 2 drop is reeeeeally important in this deck.
Playing against randoms on mwsplay, I just want to say that people get so mad when they lose to poison. People on mwsplay tend to rage anyway, but something about poison just brings out the worst.
If that's the case, Canopy Cover should be our best friend. Just wait till they tap out, and boom! Instant trollshroud, with evasion thrown in. You can still pump it, but they can't burn it.
Hmmm. Maybe.
But I really think that any competent opponent who knows what deck we're running will never tap out with RDW. Like I said, they just focus on neutralizing your threats early. They're not even going to think about trying to cast koth or levelling up dragonlord until the coast is clear.
I suppose it would be nice if you cast canopy cover with vines of vastwood in hand and mana open, but they can easily double burn you, and then you're wayyyyy behind. Plus that requires both to be in hand, which isn't going to happen terribly often.
I was afraid of that. Doom Blade is definitely your best friend against RDW. Maybe Grip of Darkness as extra removal in the sb? In my old G/B deck I could drop a Leatherback Baloth to put a serious hitch in their plans, but since that's not an option anymore... Obstinate Baloth may be worth considering, even if just as a life-gain roadblock. Alternately, Darksteel Myr can't be burned and stops their biggest non-trampling, nonflying creature each turn. As a last resort, Fog could be worth something.
PS: Vampire's Bite is almost ALWAYS going to be a 2-for-1 - Giant Growth can let your creature live through an encounter.
All good advice (although I prefer smother to doom blade as main deck option, but it's a moot point).
However, the biggest issue isn't creatures, it's their plethora of removal. You can generally count on them running at least 12 maindeck burn spells, if not more. And if they have more in their sideboard, they'll bring that in too. All they need to do is neutralize all your threats and resolve a Koth.
I'm testing with 4x vines and 4x growth maindeck now but I haven't run into any RDW opponents yet. Need a practice partner. :[
In my preliminary testing, this deck seems to have an absolutely miserable matchup against RDW. Like, really, really bad.
They just kill all your early threats and then win the game with kargan dragonlord and/or koth. Vines/growth gets overwhelmed by all the cheap removal. Boar umbra will lead to a 2-for-1 most of the time. Even putrefax dies to a single bolt.
What can we do to fix this? My kneejerk reaction is to have 4 giant growth sideboard, so that post-sb, I have eight one-mana "counters" to any removal.
edit: actually, scratch that. I'm putting the giant growth main deck in place of vampire's bite. the mana is awkward but I can live without double-pumping on turn 3.
1) the number of allies hada had to interact with were very few and, I think most can agree, pretty poor constructed cards. Where hada only had two sets of allies, champion will have five sets of humans (with 3 more by the time m13 releases), many of which are already playable.
2) allies were spread across all colors, making it especially difficult to play hada along with the best allies. Maro has already stated that the vast majority of humans in innistrad will be white, making it more likely that the champion's best and most powerful "allies" will be accessible to him.
3) we have yet to see the extent of what the human tribe has to offer. I think I can safely say there will be many more human tribal cards spoiled in innistrad, let alone the next two sets. Champion will only get better (unless they print some serious human-hosers)
I'm not saying that hes going to be a constructed powerhouse (although I do believe he'll see play), but to dismiss him as nothing but a "hada freeblade reprint" is very short-sighted.
I think manalith is going to be really good in this format though.
god that would be sick good
very nice. I'll definitely try this list out when I have some time. Finally ordered myself to stop playing magic so I can clear my bonus on full tilt before it expires :\
I can't see any non-black infect deck being worth playing over one with black. Plague stinger is too good.
Here's how most games go:
Turn 1: Disruption (inquisition/duress)
Turn 2: Creature
Turn 3: Creature or Creature + pump
Turn 4: Pump. Mana open for leaking any potential threat to your threats (day of judgment, gideon, jace to a lesser extent)
Turn 5: A lot of the time, your opponent will have tapped out here. If you mana leaked it, you're way ahead. But even if not, a Putrefax with no chance of counter is game winning.
The more I think about it, the more I really like mana leak in this deck. On turns 4 and 5, you are really just going for the kill with pump spells. Casting creatures is slow (except putrefax, obviously) and also risks overextending yourself against black or white. This makes the synergy with mana leak awesome since pumps are cheap and you'll have mana open to counter.
hexmage is actually a great counter I didn't think of. good call. And it's gideon's first ability that crushes us, not the second. You simply have to spend way too many resources to kill him.
At any rate, I'm not trying to derail this topic. Just thought you guys might want to hear where my testing has taken me. I'll most likely be moving over to the UBG topic, although I didn't really like the decklists I saw while skimming it.
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Swamp
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
6 Forest
Creatures
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Plague Stinger
3 Putrefax
4 Blight Mamba
2 Hand of the Praetors
4 Cystbearer
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Giant Growth
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Mana Leak
1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
4 Duress
2 Doom Blade
4 Trigon of Infestation
4 Naturalize
In testing against u/w, I realized that I'll lose 95% of the time to a resolved Gideon Jura. It's just ridiculous. Gideon is the absolute bane of any infect deck.
The only counter I can think of to Gideon Jura in b/g is catching it with duress, which is far from reliable, especially later in the game when they'll just counter it. So I decided to see if it would be feasible to run mana leak. In my opinion, it is.
Here's what I did:
-5 Forest
-4 Swamp
+4 Misty Rainforest
+4 Darkslick Shores
+1 Island
-3 Boar Umbra
-1 Hand of the Praetors
+4 Mana Leak
The mana base remains virtually untouched, losing only a single green source. Of course, you have to account for the drawback of Darkslick Shores. However, I feel it's not that big of an issue since most of the decks threats come down before turn 4 (when darkslick starts coming into play tapped).
Boar Umbra and Hand were easily the weakest parts of the deck, in my opinion. They just can't compare with the versatility that Mana Leak offers. And I don't think I need to mention what great synergy counters have with duress/inquisition.
I think it will help a lot against RDW too, which is one of our worst matchups. U/w is actually a pretty good matchup unless they stick a Gideon. I think that mana leak, with duress coming in from the sideboard, gives us a crushing advantage against u/w.
Cystbearer definitely seems like a better card than Ichor Rats, in my opinion. I've been pretty unimpressed with rats and actually cut it down to 3 pretty recently. Its double black is also pretty awkward, especially when you really want two forests in play asap for vines.
This deck is definitely starting to lean towards heavy green, but plague stinger is probably the best card in the deck. I also really like the disruption of inquisition and duress.
Hmmm. Maybe.
But I really think that any competent opponent who knows what deck we're running will never tap out with RDW. Like I said, they just focus on neutralizing your threats early. They're not even going to think about trying to cast koth or levelling up dragonlord until the coast is clear.
I suppose it would be nice if you cast canopy cover with vines of vastwood in hand and mana open, but they can easily double burn you, and then you're wayyyyy behind. Plus that requires both to be in hand, which isn't going to happen terribly often.
All good advice (although I prefer smother to doom blade as main deck option, but it's a moot point).
However, the biggest issue isn't creatures, it's their plethora of removal. You can generally count on them running at least 12 maindeck burn spells, if not more. And if they have more in their sideboard, they'll bring that in too. All they need to do is neutralize all your threats and resolve a Koth.
I'm testing with 4x vines and 4x growth maindeck now but I haven't run into any RDW opponents yet. Need a practice partner. :[
They just kill all your early threats and then win the game with kargan dragonlord and/or koth. Vines/growth gets overwhelmed by all the cheap removal. Boar umbra will lead to a 2-for-1 most of the time. Even putrefax dies to a single bolt.
What can we do to fix this? My kneejerk reaction is to have 4 giant growth sideboard, so that post-sb, I have eight one-mana "counters" to any removal.
edit: actually, scratch that. I'm putting the giant growth main deck in place of vampire's bite. the mana is awkward but I can live without double-pumping on turn 3.