I know there is some debate over the utility of a blue splash, but if one were to do it for the counterspells and a little draw, here is my attempt at a build...
Sea Gate Oracle is too slow? This isn't RDW. The Oracle is an excellent card. Sure, Deceiver Exarch has a cute ability but it sure is nice digging two cards deeper for a Pod or for an answer that you don't have.
Aggro, in general, has become a far more intelligent archetype than it used to be. It used to be that a competitive aggro deck was built entirely around tempo, whether by gearing up for an explosive early start, or having a consistently overwhelming pace. Cast efficient creatures; turn sideways; win.
Now? Now board position matters. Now card synergy is crucial, especially in its nuances. Now prediction is absolutely - ABSOLUTELY - vital, especially given that as much as Wizards has pushed for aggro strategies, they've also printed a ridiculous variety of competitive sweepers and killspells for Aggro to deal with. And let's not forget that Lightning Bolt is here until October, yeah?
Aggro is easy to play. Control is hard to play. But Control is easier to play well, I think, than Aggro is.
Agreed--if the card pool were equal it might be different... but Control clearly has better cards (as evidenced by the consistent placement of control decks across every top 8 for the last several months, which would suggest it's more than just good piloting) than aggro does right now... ie. it's easier to play well because it's just a better collection of tools.
Link or examples? I'm genuinely curious, because I had not heard either of these facts.
In fact, I was under the impression that English, due to its influences from both the Latin languages (like french) and the Germanic languages, was the language that most often had multiple words with essentially the same meaning. Happy to be proven wrong though.
gordy is more than right. Do a simple search on google, English has the biggest vocabulary of any world language by a huge margin. More than 5 times as many words as French. Subtleties are better captured in English than most other languages simply because of this greater vocabulary--so while you may despise English for being a language of international colonialism, imperialism, whatever, you have to give it its due for being a pretty excellent language when it comes to getting your point across as precisely as possible. I don't think French's position as the diplomacy language stems from its efficiency or efficacy as a language, and moreoever, it isn't really lingua franca of diplomacy anymore and hasn't been since the second World War. Google.
But more to the magic point... the decklists are in English and have been since that article went up so... that's pretty much the most important part for me, google translate the rest.
Even though Valakut doesn't win the tournaments it still shuts down almost all mid-range decks from having any shot. Caw-blades can thank Valakut for their success.
Exarch Twin also contributes, as it is an extremely powerful combo deck, like Valakut, which requires you to design your deck around it.
^This. Too many midrange decks are getting blown out by Valakut to ever make it far enough to compete.
apologies mods for posting an external link, you may remove it and change it to a MTGS link, i couldn't find one though.
uses the toolbox of ETB creatures with late game venser. doesnt' look overly aggressive or good, but you cant argue against T8.
It may not be overly aggressive but it sure looks good to me... I think he could stand some more Wall of Omens and some actual removal, but maybe that's because I dont play in a meta FULL of UW like one might see at a national tournament. It's silly but I feel like this deck does better against "better decks" than it does against vampires, etc. but a few tweeks might make it better at your local FNM haha. Either way, I think Venser is the nuts in this deck, and Seagate Oracle, Venser, and the possibility of counters in the board make blue a viable splash for me.
If we are responding strictly to the question posed by the thread, I think it's necessary to evaluate what "good" means. I tend to evaluate that as being more than just "viable." Good means better than viable. It seems that for the last several standard seasons, there have been dominant decks (see: Caw Blade, Jund, etc). When you have a deck as dominant as one of those, other decks don't really fit my idea of "good." For a while, for instance, there was Bloodbraid Elf and Co., and there was everyone else. "Everyone else" doesn't fit my model of "good."
In other words, it's clearly been a while (someone mentioned pre-Faeries?) since aggro has been "good." When Jace got banned, I think everyone expected RDW to be really powerful, which meant that everyone packed hate, and clearly, RDW isn't good enough to overcome all that hate because it's still UW that appears to be running the show, with Twin and Valakut and UB also saying hello. Tempered Steel seems borderline "good," right now though, so maybe that's the deck you've been waiting for?
As far as the Junk build goes, if you're playing white in a control-ly shell, Wall of Omens seems an auto-include. Also, Memoricide is such a house against 'kut and Twin that you might wanna stash 4 in the board...
I don't have any sort of magnifying glass nearby so I can't really trust my eyes to give me an accurate answer on that what. And I don't really wanna tear up a $25 card--which is why I also don't really want to do the bend test, etc... Hence me wondering if anyone else has gotten fakes from these guys.
I bought a Chinese playset of the new Garruk from mtgmintcard on eBay. They have a TON of feedback, 99% of which is positive. However, I'm somewhat concerned my card is a fake. It's thinner and more maleable than other cards and lacks the distinctive "Magic card smell." Maybe their made from different material in China? I don't know. Has anyone had any experience with these guys?
RUG has potential as well methinks--GB and GW are probably the most obvious combinations because of the disruption/Rock style of the former and the land synergy/creatures of the latter. But RUG lets you play with Inferno Titan, Lightning Bolt, Slagstorm and of course, Mana Leak. Because of the great amount of dual lands for RG and especially Raging Ravine, it'd basically work out to be similar to an RUG Titan deck with the new Garruk taking the place of Jace.
In any case, I do think that Thrun deserves a place in the deck--he's such a solid way to fight off opponent's advances while you power up your board position/draws you 4 cards with Garruk in a bind. In a GB deck he's just the right card to evoke the Rock playing style you're looking for, and in GW, he can survive Day of Judgment if you have the mana open.
Also, I think Venser the sojourner could do some crazy stuff in pod decks... Gideon is performing REALLY well in this deck... would you consider switching it to Venser?
Venser would be a house in a Bant list, which has the allied colors to make the mana base pretty un-taxing. Blue means a constantly entering Aether Adept or Deceiver Exarch would give opponents headaches, and with cards like Wall of Omens and Obstinate Baloth already in the deck, that'd be the least of their worries...
I've played my GWB Pod in several competitive games now over a few tournaments, and I'd have to say that the mana base caused me to redraw far more often than I might prefer. Since I was really only running a few black cards in the main and literally half of them required double black (Entomber Exarch, Sheoldred, the Whispering One, and Skinrender) I'm going to start testing a GW only version. Oblivion Ring and Dismember should provide enough removal and I'm hoping the tempo I gain from having a much less taxing mana base will be a big boost. I found myself in a lot of close games where maybe getting a card down a turn earlier would have been the difference, but a missing black mana source or white mana source prevented me from playing that card.
Also going to consider the new Garruk as a one or two of because of his great interaction with the big curvetoppers when playing against control and his ability to populate the board when those guys aren't out there yet. I think Memoricide was the best reason to run black because it stops Valakut and Twin in their tracks--any suggestions on beating Valakut with just green and white cards?
4 Hinterland Harbor
7 Forest
2 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Mountain
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Acidic Slime
3 Birds of Paradise
2 Caravan Vigil
1 Inferno Titann
3 Primeval Titan
3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Viridian Emissary
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Beast Within
3 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Mana Leak
2 Ponder
4 Rampant Growth
2 Slagstorm
No sideboard yet, since who knows what the meta is?
Thoughts? Again, if you don't think blue is good, consider yourself already noted.
Agreed--if the card pool were equal it might be different... but Control clearly has better cards (as evidenced by the consistent placement of control decks across every top 8 for the last several months, which would suggest it's more than just good piloting) than aggro does right now... ie. it's easier to play well because it's just a better collection of tools.
gordy is more than right. Do a simple search on google, English has the biggest vocabulary of any world language by a huge margin. More than 5 times as many words as French. Subtleties are better captured in English than most other languages simply because of this greater vocabulary--so while you may despise English for being a language of international colonialism, imperialism, whatever, you have to give it its due for being a pretty excellent language when it comes to getting your point across as precisely as possible. I don't think French's position as the diplomacy language stems from its efficiency or efficacy as a language, and moreoever, it isn't really lingua franca of diplomacy anymore and hasn't been since the second World War. Google.
But more to the magic point... the decklists are in English and have been since that article went up so... that's pretty much the most important part for me, google translate the rest.
^This. Too many midrange decks are getting blown out by Valakut to ever make it far enough to compete.
It may not be overly aggressive but it sure looks good to me... I think he could stand some more Wall of Omens and some actual removal, but maybe that's because I dont play in a meta FULL of UW like one might see at a national tournament. It's silly but I feel like this deck does better against "better decks" than it does against vampires, etc. but a few tweeks might make it better at your local FNM haha. Either way, I think Venser is the nuts in this deck, and Seagate Oracle, Venser, and the possibility of counters in the board make blue a viable splash for me.
In other words, it's clearly been a while (someone mentioned pre-Faeries?) since aggro has been "good." When Jace got banned, I think everyone expected RDW to be really powerful, which meant that everyone packed hate, and clearly, RDW isn't good enough to overcome all that hate because it's still UW that appears to be running the show, with Twin and Valakut and UB also saying hello. Tempered Steel seems borderline "good," right now though, so maybe that's the deck you've been waiting for?
In any case, I do think that Thrun deserves a place in the deck--he's such a solid way to fight off opponent's advances while you power up your board position/draws you 4 cards with Garruk in a bind. In a GB deck he's just the right card to evoke the Rock playing style you're looking for, and in GW, he can survive Day of Judgment if you have the mana open.
Venser would be a house in a Bant list, which has the allied colors to make the mana base pretty un-taxing. Blue means a constantly entering Aether Adept or Deceiver Exarch would give opponents headaches, and with cards like Wall of Omens and Obstinate Baloth already in the deck, that'd be the least of their worries...
Seems pretty good to me.
A perfectly succinct and logical answer. Sideboard completed haha. We'll see what happens at FNM this week.
Also going to consider the new Garruk as a one or two of because of his great interaction with the big curvetoppers when playing against control and his ability to populate the board when those guys aren't out there yet. I think Memoricide was the best reason to run black because it stops Valakut and Twin in their tracks--any suggestions on beating Valakut with just green and white cards?