The main issue I have with this deck recently is just Big Naya is near unstoppable for all of the 'Crats builds, either BWR or Junk, with BWR having a bit better chance due to Threaten effects. It forces us to run much more removal than we have spots for. The good thing is that we have a pretty good matchup against RG, but other aggro decks are pretty painful to handle. But I've personally stopped playing it due to too many matchups coming down to "Get a T4 Skirsdag Demon, draw 3 removal spells, or lose". With reanimator falling out of favor as well, that removes one of our best matchups.
Though, what does everyone think of Sam Black's 4 color version of this deck? I feel like having both Falkenraths and Varolz is a bit too many sac outlets, but at the same time we'd almost always have one down. But I still don't think that deck has a good matchup against Big Naya, but it does help to have the Threaten effects, plus the better resiliency of the Junk matchup, while moving away from the Blood Artist shell (which gets hurt even more with the popularity of Voice). But the mana base then becomes as much of an issue.
something I've talked about before with this deck...how do you make the choices of what to board out? I understand what needs to come in, but I never really tell what to take out - I assume we're going to just take out spells for spells, creatures for creatures?
8-2s definitely went past 16th, it was a 400+ player tournament.
I also don't see why you think this is a BWR aristocrats thread. Brad Nelson created the Aristocrats and the Aristocrats act 2. Now he has created a new deck which he calls Junk Aristocrats. Please tell me why this thread is color specific? This is an aristocrats deck, plain and simple.
And previous discussion focused on the BWR version. I'm not saying that there is anything against BGW, I'm a big fan of both decks based on certain meta aspects. BGW is much more similar to Act 1 than Act 2. But when there's a thread specifically about the BGW version, I don't think it's appropriate to hijack this thread to force it down our throats. I may not directly agree with some card choices, but this isn't the first time a deck with some of these cards has been discussed. I brought up a Zombie-crats list from several weeks ago, based on it having good results at a PTQ. It was a single deck, but it's nowhere near as farfetched as you make it out to be.
I actually dropped high priest AND sorin, as i found the reckoner to be to little too late against a few decks with an already shaky matchup (aside from aggro, but a lot of the time he doesn't save you) and sorin i felt to be pretty win-more. i've read a few people agreed with that assessment of sorin at least, but i'd wager it's more down to personal preference than anything.
you're spot on with the mana situation. i went with a black shell to go for messenger, which tags gravecrawler right along with him. i don't miss reckoner all that much, to be honest. my list is pretty airtight as is.
high priest was unreliable for me. he died too often for me to get the demons out of him, so i threw in gravecrawlers in his place. no regrets, man.
I do agree with you that High Priest is very underperforming in Act 2. It's never consistent enough in when he comes out. Sorin on the otherhand, is one of the best cards we have against Aggro decks like RG aside from Reckoner/Act.
This is the BRW thread, while I have done some discussion myself on the advantages of both, this is not the place to keep flaunting "how much better GWB is" when it's too early to tell in the meta because of how new the deck is. It could very well get hated out. Also, if you did go 8-2 with the BGW version at Dallas, why is there no decklist in SCG results? 8-2s didn't go past 16th,
I still don't like Messenger, the life loss and undying is nice, but it's nothing game breaking. I've been running BWR all afternoon, and I'm rarely getting to the point where I can run both that and Reckoner consistently T3. Usually I won't get the 3rd black until T5 or so, at which point if the messenger will end games, it's done so already.
However, I could see Gravecrawler fitting in. We don't have many early drops, and if we have more high priests we usually want something to fit in with a Cartel T3, in which case it fits nicely, and in multiples we can easily recur. Without Messenger, I just don't like it.
While I do feel like Gravecrawler could work, it would be at the cost of Sorin at the minimum, and to be valuable we'd have to add other zombies, in which case I'd say take out the Reckoner/Act combo. Zombies have no place in Act 2, but easily fit the shell for Act 1, Replacing Champion of the Parish and something else.
Which leads me to another point - with Jund and Reanimator not getting as impressive finishes these past few weeks (especially Reanimator which has been very unimpressive online this week), is Act 2 the best place to be? Should we be moving back to an Act 1 shell, a hybrid of the two?
I think he means the tradeoff in Aggro vs Midrange matchups, similar to Act 1 vs Act 2. Act 2 has an amazing Reanimator matchup, at the cost of an aggro matchup. Junk Crats goes back better against aggro, but I think he's saying at the cost of our midrange/control matchups. I can't confirm, I haven't been able to test Junk Crats yet.
I feel like 4 Acts and 3 Trickery is too much. I think that 22 land and a pair of Thundermaws is alright, but not at the cost of the extra 2 drops (Mauler or Striker). I don't agree with cutting Emissary or Strikers. I feel like 2 Trickery , 1-2 Mizzium Mortars, and 2 Legion Loyalist in the board is really good for that spot.
I wouldn't even call it "aristocrats" considering the deck only has cartel aristocrat and a sac theme with the usual targets (traveller, souls, artist...eh, I guess I see the commonalities) in common. The two decks play out similarly, though the junk deck is grinder.
I've been playing with it for a week and a half and can tell you that the best way to beat it is playing previous iterations of aristocrats with electrickery in the board. Bwr is one of the worst matchups for the bgw deck.
I do think they're related, but only slightly. I feel like it's much better against aggro since they get to run 10-12 Doomed Traveler effects with Wolf and Voice, and have a slightly lower curve. But that's not the discussion here.
The same weakness could be exploited here, electrickery is still pretty bad for us. Do you think that this new deck winning will end up forcing electrickery in even more boards? If so, do we need to have answers for that (stuff like Intangible Virtue, etc)?
Sorta interesting that a BUG deck...doesn't run any countermagic anywhere in the 75. The esper deck also only has negate in the sideboard as a 2 of and a single syncopate. Are we just not wanting to counter stuff anymore and would rather just blow it up? Which seems like the trend nowadays.
As a fan of the BRW Aristocrats deck, I'm enjoying the GBW version just as much. Voice allows a lot of the issues with aggro to be resovled, while at the same time being great against many others, and having a much better cards that exist on their own, as the deck gets so much from synergy, and not many of the cards are spectacular in a vacuum.
Why Victim over Tragic Slip? Is it just because of the lack of souls, so it's less advantageous? There's a lot of things Victim doesn't kill and that bothers me.
How is resto performing for you?
Also, with an abundance of UWR seeming to pop up again, I've been using Intangible Virtue more, making it take a few slots in the board, to blank staticaster.
What do people think of Obzedat in the main, as was used in SCG last weekend (the author did a great article too on the deck). I feel the author is ignoring control too much, to an extent that I can't because of how much UWR is in my local meta, and it's definitely getting a lot of coverage these past few weeks. I still think 1 Cavern main is correct, what about the second?
Though, what does everyone think of Sam Black's 4 color version of this deck? I feel like having both Falkenraths and Varolz is a bit too many sac outlets, but at the same time we'd almost always have one down. But I still don't think that deck has a good matchup against Big Naya, but it does help to have the Threaten effects, plus the better resiliency of the Junk matchup, while moving away from the Blood Artist shell (which gets hurt even more with the popularity of Voice). But the mana base then becomes as much of an issue.
Not according to the final results - http://8e8460c4912582c4e519-11fcbfd88ed5b90cfb46edba899033c9.r65.cf1.rackcdn.com/www/scg_events/files/20130525220720000000.html
And previous discussion focused on the BWR version. I'm not saying that there is anything against BGW, I'm a big fan of both decks based on certain meta aspects. BGW is much more similar to Act 1 than Act 2. But when there's a thread specifically about the BGW version, I don't think it's appropriate to hijack this thread to force it down our throats. I may not directly agree with some card choices, but this isn't the first time a deck with some of these cards has been discussed. I brought up a Zombie-crats list from several weeks ago, based on it having good results at a PTQ. It was a single deck, but it's nowhere near as farfetched as you make it out to be.
I do agree with you that High Priest is very underperforming in Act 2. It's never consistent enough in when he comes out. Sorin on the otherhand, is one of the best cards we have against Aggro decks like RG aside from Reckoner/Act.
I still don't like Messenger, the life loss and undying is nice, but it's nothing game breaking. I've been running BWR all afternoon, and I'm rarely getting to the point where I can run both that and Reckoner consistently T3. Usually I won't get the 3rd black until T5 or so, at which point if the messenger will end games, it's done so already.
However, I could see Gravecrawler fitting in. We don't have many early drops, and if we have more high priests we usually want something to fit in with a Cartel T3, in which case it fits nicely, and in multiples we can easily recur. Without Messenger, I just don't like it.
While I do feel like Gravecrawler could work, it would be at the cost of Sorin at the minimum, and to be valuable we'd have to add other zombies, in which case I'd say take out the Reckoner/Act combo. Zombies have no place in Act 2, but easily fit the shell for Act 1, Replacing Champion of the Parish and something else.
Which leads me to another point - with Jund and Reanimator not getting as impressive finishes these past few weeks (especially Reanimator which has been very unimpressive online this week), is Act 2 the best place to be? Should we be moving back to an Act 1 shell, a hybrid of the two?
I do think they're related, but only slightly. I feel like it's much better against aggro since they get to run 10-12 Doomed Traveler effects with Wolf and Voice, and have a slightly lower curve. But that's not the discussion here.
The same weakness could be exploited here, electrickery is still pretty bad for us. Do you think that this new deck winning will end up forcing electrickery in even more boards? If so, do we need to have answers for that (stuff like Intangible Virtue, etc)?
Yes, because Voice.
How is resto performing for you?
Also, with an abundance of UWR seeming to pop up again, I've been using Intangible Virtue more, making it take a few slots in the board, to blank staticaster.
What do people think of Obzedat in the main, as was used in SCG last weekend (the author did a great article too on the deck). I feel the author is ignoring control too much, to an extent that I can't because of how much UWR is in my local meta, and it's definitely getting a lot of coverage these past few weeks. I still think 1 Cavern main is correct, what about the second?
T3: Gruul Cluestone
T4: Rubbleback Rhino
Opponent has a Battering Krasis (3/2) and Drakewing Krasis in play, nothing else, U untapped.
T5: Armed on Rhino, attack, he blocks with the 3/1, pump with Slaughterhorn and Ghor-Clan Rampager, 11/11 Trample Double Strike Hexproof, take 21.