I saw uu mana cost and thought "Finally a good counterspell!".
Then I read the thing :-/.
Come on wizards!
Why don't we have this yet:
UU
Instant
Counter target spell with cmc 3 or less.
or
U
counter target spell with cmc 2 or less.
But no we will get a harder to cast essence scatter that can hit an unused card type. Fantastic.
(just wanted to note here that I don't play standard and I could care less about it, we need these in modern)
Lol at super power creep. No, just no.
Counterspell will never get a reprint. However, I think that something like 'counterspell, that spell's controller draws a card' wouldn't break the format THAT much.
Loving this deck. Seems way more interesting than the rest of Standard right now.
From what I can tell there's an all-in/agressive version (damage doublers, creature protection, etc.) and a more tempo/control version (spellheart, removal etc.) Is there a concensus on the more competitive of the two? Or is it just personal preference?
Also, what's the deck's main source of card advantage? I always seem to end up with an empty hand...
Most lists run 4 Steam Augury and I agree, it's a pretty powerful EoT turn 4 play since it will most of the time net you 2-3 cards depending on how you play mind games with your opponent. Some lists bring in Opportunity from the SB against long control matches. I will test some PW even though people are not too fond of them here since I agree that somethimes it runs out of fuel just as we are about to close the match out
So the general consensus is that our worst matchups are Esper Control and Mono B Control/Devotion. Funny enough those are the two best decks out there so we have some work to do. I think we should start by analizing each of the decks and figuring out which cards are good against them and adjust sideboard (maybe a little of mainboard) accordingly since the rest of the matchups are pretty much in our favor.
Essentially solid wincons, good walkers, the best removal, lifegain aplenty and massive CA all wrapped up into a neat deck.
I think we lack a wincon that will take us all the way against this deck, especially pre-board. The can simply remove most of our creatures with their 12 removals and/or thoughtseize. A well-timed Sphinx's Revelation can negate one or two burn spells to the face we throw at them.
Their deck is low on wincons and likes to extend games. I think that's the part we should take advantage of. I think the best options are to include our own safe wincon against them (Aetherling, Dumbledore Sphinx), or something that can win extended games. A fringe card I could maybe see working is Pyromancer's Gauntlet since they have very few ways to deal with it and makes our burn to the face or at walkers much more effective. I haven't looked at many more cards that we can use but what do you guys think? How can we reliably beat this deck with wha we have?
As many have said the wqy to beat mono b is to prevent them from setting a lifegain engine online and punishing them for paying life for thoughtseize, RTB and Underworld connections. I was thinking, would Essence Backlash be too janky? It costs 4 but countering a DDemon and hitting them for 6 seems good. Heck even countering Gary and hitting them for 2 is fine by me. What do you guys think?
Hey guys, I've been reading some of the lists here and they seem like a lot of fun to play. The thread is a little long so I haven't been able to sift through it all. I have some questions that may or may not have been answered, so forgive me if it has been discussed to death:
1) I haven't seen any Goblin Electromancer in any of the lists so I assume the general consensus is a big NO. While I see his faults compared to other creatures he doesn't seem to be entirely useless, turning all of the spells into massively mana effective cards.
2) How useful/useless is Ral Zarek? I see how his first ability is kind of useless (though it allows semi-ramp, or offensive/defensive plays).
I hope to make a list soon and I appreciate the help
Hey guys, this deck comes from a lot of testing and discussion that took place in this thread: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=527049.
Props to BonyTony and all of those who contributed to the development of the deck.
What is this deck?
This deck focuses on the interaction between Trading Post and Angelic Accord. It seeks to exhaust your opponent's threats while setting up your engine and turning every card drawn into 4/4 Angels and gain 4 life. It is a slow, grindy deck so if you like fast wins or are impatient, this isn't the deck for you. This deck was originally purely B/W, with a few people splashing a third color for minor effects. Ultimately, the deck had proved to be extremely effective with just B/W. However, with the rotation of Innistrad we lost two crucial cards: Lingering Souls and Mutilate.
Losing these two cards is a massive blow to B/W since these were key cards in keeping aggro in check long enoug to set up the engine. The only reasonable sweeper we have in those colors is Merciless Eviction and it costs 6 mana, way too much to be of any use. It was a shame, since we got a lot of black goodies in Theros: Thoughtseize, Hero’s Downfall and Read the Bones. Just as I was about to give up hope I came across Anger of the Gods. This is exactly the kind of card we needed to replace Mutilate, a fast, efficient sweeper that can keep faster decks in check. So with a little tweaking around this is the list that I came up with:
Blood Baron of Vizkopa: Our only mainboard creature and quite frankly, the only one worth putting in this version of the deck. Similar to blue’s Aetherling, he is hard to remove and the 4/4 lifelink body synergizes really well with Angelic Accord.
Trading Post: Obvious inclusion. While it is used mainly for the “Gain 4 life” ability, being able to summon blocking goats or sacrifice extra Posts and Prisms for a card is a pretty good deal. Bonus points if you also run Ratchet Bomb.
Prophetic Prism: An almost must have in 3 color decks. This turn 2 beauty cantrips, fixes our mana and allows us to draw a second card when combined with Post.
Elixir of Immortality: A singleton elixir is really good in this deck. It provides a sort of protection from the rare maindeck enchantment removal or the more common counterspells by shuffling our cards back into the deck so we can find them later. As an added bonus it also nets us an Angel with Accord in play.
Angelic Accord: The main part of the engine. It makes a lot of cards in this deck significantly better by creating Angels whenever we gain 4 or more life.
Thoughtseize: Do I really need to explain this card? So good in anything that runs B is not even funny. Our deck shrugs off the life loss with the sheer amount of lifegain we have.
Anger of the Gods: THE reason we run red. Excellent sweeper for just 3 mana, just what we need to buy us time to set up our engine
Read the Bones: much better than Sign in Blood in this deck. Since we rely so much on very few cards and do not have massive amounts of draw (I’m looking at you Sphinx’s Revelation) we need to dig as deep as possible and this card does just that.
Warleader’s Helix: An already amazing card made better by the fact that it gains us 4 life. Gets rid of pesky Jace and other equally annoying critters.
Hero’s Downfall: Simple spot removal, here solely for the fact that it says, “Planeswalker” as well. If for any reason PW aren’t THAT common (unlikely) this will eventually be replaced. Great card nonetheless.
Mizzium Mortars: Early spot removal, late game emergency sweeper. Not that much of a fan in THIS particular deck but I will adjust numbers as needed.
Devour Flesh: This was originally Doom Blade, but it gets around hexproof and the lifegain is no big deal so in it goes. If tokens become a thing this can easily be Doom Blade.
Lands: other than the 12 in-color shocks I also have 3 Rakdos Guildgates and 3 Temple of Triumph. This deck does not mind tapped lands THAT much. The guildgate is there as a necessity since R and B are equally important in the late game and we still do not have a R/B Scryland *grumble grumble*. The 3 scrylands help us dig just a little bit for our engine and fixes our mana.
Final Thoughts
I have still not done much testing even though I’m itching to do it. I could also use some help with sideboard suggestions since, even though I do have one in mind, it’s still not solid enough to put on paper. Any improvements, comments, constructive criticism or cards I missed are greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading!
P.S. I think that a B/W creature based Angelic Accord deck is possible, mainly because Whip of Erebos is a thing. It makes your Angels make more Angels and synergizes extremely well with Obzedat.
^ I came here to say exactly what hchoeiberg said. Allow me to ellaborate a little more.
Mono U currently has very few good fliers. You are forced then to play things like Metropolis Sprite (a terrible terrible card) and Nimbus Naiad (a Wind Drakewith a negligible effect). By splashing W you can replace those two with Lyev Skynightwhich is a powerful creature in itself and Ascended Lawmage.
You can also replace Disperse with the more versatile Azorius Charm.
Even if you decide to go mono U, Spell Rupture is pretty bad. Syncopate or even Stymied Hopes would honestly be better in that spot.
Just for fun I would include 1 of Thassa herself. With Bident and her you only need 2 more creatures to get the 5/5 indestructible beast, plus Scrying every turn is soooo good in decks like these. Just my 2 cents
I remember when RTR was was released and I immediately slammed 4 ash zealot and 4 cackler into my stromkirk noble+brimstone volley/hellrider shell.
I went to my local comic shop and slammed bads playing all kinds of nonsense like Armada wurm and Vraska, it honestly took these disgusting scrubs 2 months to realise that they need to play centaur healer or lingering souls if they want to survive to turn 5 to play swagtusk.
If you think cards like ashen rider are castable, please come to my comic store so i can take your money, then when the meta adjusts and plays centaur healer ill trade u my satyrs 10 $ a piece.
Scrubs will be scrubs
Your last sentence makes absolutely no sense. And you high and mighty tone makes you look like an idiot. GTFO
Proof that these forums are filled with new players attempting to debate time-tested strategies. Cant even be bothered to do a google search before posting?
If you as a red sligh deck have "left over mana" you build your deck wrong.
I would far prefer to go 2 colors and get a bunch of white or black or even green 2 drops to fuel the aggro plan before I used the saytr.
Experiment 1, Legion Loyalist, Dryad militant, Soldier of the Pantheon, and Tormented Hero are all probably just flat out better than this, because the satyrs downside will become a relevant liability in most games.
Militant in particular seems well suited for this deck as you can play both Sacred forge and overgrown tomb and play her off either that also can play a first turn crackler. the 2 drop slot for that deck is also huge.
Lol at suggesting splashing a color to play different colored 1-drops in a format that only has 1 dual land that comes into play untapped. You are so afraid of losing life in an aggro deck that you would rather sacrifice consistency? Learn2aggro
Would love to see your hand of Dryad Militant, mountain, mountain, mountain (or a scryland), while the opposing red player plays a turn 1 Satyr.
Annnd here we see the people who talk like they know magic but in reality started playing yesterday. If you dont see this as a Jackal Pup (a fine aggro card) with a decent upside, then I have news for you
Wow. Most of the posters in this thread are just way too spoiled from the easy mana fixing of current standard...or rather the lack of. You didn't have to work at fixing your mana for you, just shell out $5-$10 ea for your lands. WotC has shown between M14 and this block that they are trying to slow down Standard a bit and make you work for your mana fixing. I really like these lands as I think they skill test both deck building and mulligan skills more than previous lands.
No one is saying that these lands make mana fixing terrble. They add two colors, that is their job and they are really good at it. The debate is whether the effect is powerful enough to warrant a rare slot in a tapped land. Mana fixing is still easy.
If I'm playing control and can get away with running 4-6 scry lands, that might be enough to actually reduce the total number of lands needed to be run in a control deck because I can dig for them a little without devoting any additional resources.
Dear God no. If you run 4 of these lands in a control deck you will see maaaaaaaybe one per match. Scrying once per match does not improve your chances of getting a land enough to counteract the chance of NOT getting a land if you dont put it there in the first place.
Additionally, if I'm playing midrange and open a 2-land hand with a single scry land and no other fixing, maybe I'm not going to immediately throw the hand back and draw six because I get that one extra card to dig for my 3rd land.
That is a terrible decision. 2 land hands can be kept only in very rare cases (I have a Sign in blood and I'm on the draw). And even THAT is still risky. Scry 1 does not greatly improve your chance of a land. Thats like playing RDW and saying "Oh I think I'll keep this 5 land hand cuz I have a fetchland and it will probably mean I draw less land". These lands will lead to terrible mulligan decisions
Also, someone was talking about a worse cycle of rare lands...lorwyn creature type check lands come to mind, and oddysey filter lands were pretty bad (though fine at the time).
You mean the lands that came into play UNTAPPED with no additional cost than showing a card from your hand in a set in which 90% of the decks had a tribal theme or included changelings? Ujum
I like these lands. I'm not jumping out of my seat excited about them, but I like that they make you think twice about your 3rd and fourth colors as well as likely slowing standard down by a turn or two.
Exactly. But the debate is, do they warrant a Rare slot?
Lol at super power creep. No, just no.
Counterspell will never get a reprint. However, I think that something like 'counterspell, that spell's controller draws a card' wouldn't break the format THAT much.
Most lists run 4 Steam Augury and I agree, it's a pretty powerful EoT turn 4 play since it will most of the time net you 2-3 cards depending on how you play mind games with your opponent. Some lists bring in Opportunity from the SB against long control matches. I will test some PW even though people are not too fond of them here since I agree that somethimes it runs out of fuel just as we are about to close the match out
This is the most recent event winning Esper list:
1x Aetherling
Enchantments
4x Detention Sphere
Instants
4x Azorius Charm
3x Dissolve
3x Hero's Downfall
4x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Syncopate
Planeswalkers
2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Merciless Eviction
4x Supreme Verdict
2x Thoughtseize
Lands
4x Godless Shrine
4x Hallowed Fountain
4x Temple of Deceit
4x Temple of Silence
4x Watery Grave
4x Island
3x Plains
3x Pithing Needle
1x Trading Post
1x Aetherling
2x Blood Baron of Vizkopa
4x Doom Blade
1x Gainsay
2x Negate
1x Thoughtseize
Essentially solid wincons, good walkers, the best removal, lifegain aplenty and massive CA all wrapped up into a neat deck.
I think we lack a wincon that will take us all the way against this deck, especially pre-board. The can simply remove most of our creatures with their 12 removals and/or thoughtseize. A well-timed Sphinx's Revelation can negate one or two burn spells to the face we throw at them.
Their deck is low on wincons and likes to extend games. I think that's the part we should take advantage of. I think the best options are to include our own safe wincon against them (Aetherling, Dumbledore Sphinx), or something that can win extended games. A fringe card I could maybe see working is Pyromancer's Gauntlet since they have very few ways to deal with it and makes our burn to the face or at walkers much more effective. I haven't looked at many more cards that we can use but what do you guys think? How can we reliably beat this deck with wha we have?
1) I haven't seen any Goblin Electromancer in any of the lists so I assume the general consensus is a big NO. While I see his faults compared to other creatures he doesn't seem to be entirely useless, turning all of the spells into massively mana effective cards.
2) How useful/useless is Ral Zarek? I see how his first ability is kind of useless (though it allows semi-ramp, or offensive/defensive plays).
I hope to make a list soon and I appreciate the help
Hey guys, this deck comes from a lot of testing and discussion that took place in this thread: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=527049.
Props to BonyTony and all of those who contributed to the development of the deck.
This deck focuses on the interaction between Trading Post and Angelic Accord. It seeks to exhaust your opponent's threats while setting up your engine and turning every card drawn into 4/4 Angels and gain 4 life. It is a slow, grindy deck so if you like fast wins or are impatient, this isn't the deck for you. This deck was originally purely B/W, with a few people splashing a third color for minor effects. Ultimately, the deck had proved to be extremely effective with just B/W. However, with the rotation of Innistrad we lost two crucial cards: Lingering Souls and Mutilate.
Losing these two cards is a massive blow to B/W since these were key cards in keeping aggro in check long enoug to set up the engine. The only reasonable sweeper we have in those colors is Merciless Eviction and it costs 6 mana, way too much to be of any use. It was a shame, since we got a lot of black goodies in Theros: Thoughtseize, Hero’s Downfall and Read the Bones. Just as I was about to give up hope I came across Anger of the Gods. This is exactly the kind of card we needed to replace Mutilate, a fast, efficient sweeper that can keep faster decks in check. So with a little tweaking around this is the list that I came up with:
2 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
Artifacts: 8
4 Trading Post
3 Prophetic Prism
1 Elixir of immortality
Enchantments: 5
4 Angelic Accord
1 Underworld Connections
4 Thoughtseize
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Read the Bones
3 Warleader's Helix
2 Hero's Downfall
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Devour Flesh
3 Temple of Triumph
4 Blood Crypt
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Godless Shrine
3 Rakdos Guildgate
5 Swamp
2 Mountain
Sideboard is still in progress.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa: Our only mainboard creature and quite frankly, the only one worth putting in this version of the deck. Similar to blue’s Aetherling, he is hard to remove and the 4/4 lifelink body synergizes really well with Angelic Accord.
Trading Post: Obvious inclusion. While it is used mainly for the “Gain 4 life” ability, being able to summon blocking goats or sacrifice extra Posts and Prisms for a card is a pretty good deal. Bonus points if you also run Ratchet Bomb.
Prophetic Prism: An almost must have in 3 color decks. This turn 2 beauty cantrips, fixes our mana and allows us to draw a second card when combined with Post.
Elixir of Immortality: A singleton elixir is really good in this deck. It provides a sort of protection from the rare maindeck enchantment removal or the more common counterspells by shuffling our cards back into the deck so we can find them later. As an added bonus it also nets us an Angel with Accord in play.
Angelic Accord: The main part of the engine. It makes a lot of cards in this deck significantly better by creating Angels whenever we gain 4 or more life.
Underworld connections: For those long drawn-out games where card advantage is king.
Thoughtseize: Do I really need to explain this card? So good in anything that runs B is not even funny. Our deck shrugs off the life loss with the sheer amount of lifegain we have.
Anger of the Gods: THE reason we run red. Excellent sweeper for just 3 mana, just what we need to buy us time to set up our engine
Read the Bones: much better than Sign in Blood in this deck. Since we rely so much on very few cards and do not have massive amounts of draw (I’m looking at you Sphinx’s Revelation) we need to dig as deep as possible and this card does just that.
Warleader’s Helix: An already amazing card made better by the fact that it gains us 4 life. Gets rid of pesky Jace and other equally annoying critters.
Hero’s Downfall: Simple spot removal, here solely for the fact that it says, “Planeswalker” as well. If for any reason PW aren’t THAT common (unlikely) this will eventually be replaced. Great card nonetheless.
Mizzium Mortars: Early spot removal, late game emergency sweeper. Not that much of a fan in THIS particular deck but I will adjust numbers as needed.
Devour Flesh: This was originally Doom Blade, but it gets around hexproof and the lifegain is no big deal so in it goes. If tokens become a thing this can easily be Doom Blade.
Lands: other than the 12 in-color shocks I also have 3 Rakdos Guildgates and 3 Temple of Triumph. This deck does not mind tapped lands THAT much. The guildgate is there as a necessity since R and B are equally important in the late game and we still do not have a R/B Scryland *grumble grumble*. The 3 scrylands help us dig just a little bit for our engine and fixes our mana.
Thanks for reading!
P.S. I think that a B/W creature based Angelic Accord deck is possible, mainly because Whip of Erebos is a thing. It makes your Angels make more Angels and synergizes extremely well with Obzedat.
Mono U currently has very few good fliers. You are forced then to play things like Metropolis Sprite (a terrible terrible card) and Nimbus Naiad (a Wind Drakewith a negligible effect). By splashing W you can replace those two with Lyev Skynightwhich is a powerful creature in itself and Ascended Lawmage.
You can also replace Disperse with the more versatile Azorius Charm.
Even if you decide to go mono U, Spell Rupture is pretty bad. Syncopate or even Stymied Hopes would honestly be better in that spot.
Just for fun I would include 1 of Thassa herself. With Bident and her you only need 2 more creatures to get the 5/5 indestructible beast, plus Scrying every turn is soooo good in decks like these. Just my 2 cents
EDIT: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NVM I derped for a second there
Your last sentence makes absolutely no sense. And you high and mighty tone makes you look like an idiot. GTFO
Flaming warning issued. -viper
The moment where you start attacking someone's grammar is the moment where you lost the argument
Proof that these forums are filled with new players attempting to debate time-tested strategies. Cant even be bothered to do a google search before posting?
Lol at suggesting splashing a color to play different colored 1-drops in a format that only has 1 dual land that comes into play untapped. You are so afraid of losing life in an aggro deck that you would rather sacrifice consistency? Learn2aggro
Would love to see your hand of Dryad Militant, mountain, mountain, mountain (or a scryland), while the opposing red player plays a turn 1 Satyr.
No one is saying that these lands make mana fixing terrble. They add two colors, that is their job and they are really good at it. The debate is whether the effect is powerful enough to warrant a rare slot in a tapped land. Mana fixing is still easy.
Dear God no. If you run 4 of these lands in a control deck you will see maaaaaaaybe one per match. Scrying once per match does not improve your chances of getting a land enough to counteract the chance of NOT getting a land if you dont put it there in the first place.
That is a terrible decision. 2 land hands can be kept only in very rare cases (I have a Sign in blood and I'm on the draw). And even THAT is still risky. Scry 1 does not greatly improve your chance of a land. Thats like playing RDW and saying "Oh I think I'll keep this 5 land hand cuz I have a fetchland and it will probably mean I draw less land". These lands will lead to terrible mulligan decisions
You mean the lands that came into play UNTAPPED with no additional cost than showing a card from your hand in a set in which 90% of the decks had a tribal theme or included changelings? Ujum
Exactly. But the debate is, do they warrant a Rare slot?