your list is so light on green cards you should just cut them entirely, run snapcaster over elite inquisitor and go up to 4 unsummon + 4 azorius charm.
I think you might be onto something with this deck, I like it.....
actually with phyrexian mana gone snapcaster isn't really a 2 drop anymore so....maybe don't switch your 2 drop with it.....i need to think about this more apparently.
What is the correct number of planeswalkers? Right now I'm playing 3 Nissa and 3 Garruk.
I'm going to test dropping a Garruk and going to 4 Monuments. Although, I may test out Vines as a 2 of with 2 in the board. I saw one list in a T8 with Vines as a 4-of.
Also, I'm not playing Genesis Wave. If I play a 2 of I want it to be something that is good late game and/or post DoJ... Something like Rude Awakening would be absolutely nuts, but I digress.
I think garruk is better than nissa....I can't see dropping garruk and keeping nissa in. garruk threatens the kill (overrun) the turn after you play it. It's a win condition. Nissa seems really underwhelming by comparison.
How to win with elves (from best to worst):
Overrun with ezuri
Overrun with garruk
evasion & +1/+1 from monument
a joraka multikick'd plus counters from oran-rief
...
both veengevine recursion and nissa are slow grindy ways to win, of the two I prefer vengevine but I would cut all the nissa's and vengevines from my deck before I touched garruk or any of the other win conditions.
1. I don't like genesis wave....it's inconsistent, win-more and slow.
2. This deck thrives on 20+ lands. I'm running 22. Think of it as 15 lands + free +1/+1 counters and free land destruction on your opponents nonbasics ....why would you play under 20 lands and be mana screwed when you have lands that double as spells when you don't need the mana?
3. Fauna shaman is solid in this deck. if you're already running fauna shaman and zillions of creatures running at least a couple vengevines is SO easy! They fit the deck perfectly!
I feel like this deck is best as a fast aggro deck that kills quickly and makes no compromises, but if people want to playtest splashes of other colours they are welcome to try.
I playtested a green eldrazi monument deck that splashed blue for counterspells and mindsculptors and it wasn't a terrible deck...but
states top finishes are dominated by blue/x control decks and primeval titan ramp decks (valakut+eldrazi). There is a splash of RDW and elf decks winning but not enough to justify people running a ton of pyroclasms or DoJ's maindeck....
my reasoning is that as long as elves and aggro in general is under-represented in the meta it's not worth splashing for counterspells because they won't be playing sweepers.....and if it gets to a point where people are running a lot of sweepers I would rather just not play elves.
I was testing this guy in green/red aggro and he is solid. My deck had some flaws, but this guy is an amazing finisher. Moltentail belongs in a fast creature aggro deck like RDW or red/white landfall.
Your opponent stabalizes at 11 life from your geopedes & goblin guides but instead of a random burn spell in hand you have moltentail masticore...you play it and now they have 3 turns (or less) to kill you or find an answer instead of the normal 5 or 6 turns it would take you to draw enough burn to finish them off. Seems pretty damn good to me.
I think with the current card pool, Black and Blue control may be better than Blue and White.
If I knew I was facing only the three currently popular top tier decks: valakut ramp, eldrazi ramp, u/w control I would consider black blue control because 4 duress maindeck seems like a very sexy compliment to counterspells and doom blade is better than oust, journey or condemn.
The problem is, we all know there are going to be a bunch of random decks you have to fight your way through in the first few rounds:
allies
RDW
elves
poison
WW
vampires
etc
most of those random decks get stomped on by the white cards from u/w control (DoJ, baneslayer, condemn), blacks equivelent's are a turn slower (consume the meek, grave titan, doom blade).
I also don't like dead cards....if black runs consume the meek its a dead card vs valakut ramp. if it runs duress its a dead card vs allies/elves/etc.
I'm sure a blue/black control deck can be made and will do fine, but in this sub-forum we generally believe blue/white is the better choice and that black is too hard to splash.
the only color I would consider splashing is red, and it would be for pyroclasm out of the SB...but then you're running fetches so you can't SB leonin arbiter ...
the only way I see this working is if you are against a very slow deck.
if you use tricks to put counters on it to speed it up....you're devoting several cards to one combo and not doing much else so your opponent will likely kill you in short order.
the only way I see this dominating is in magical Christmas land territory
turn 2 thrumming bird
turn 3 grand architect, tap both to cast lux canon, put a charge on it
turn 4 trinket mage into voltaic key, destroy a permanent with lux canon
I can see playing a blue/artifact deck with all of those cards in it but....other decks can win on turn 4....destroying a permanent just doesn't seem like as strong of a game plan.
I think that type of deck will really start to shine once more of the block is out.
most of the time i drop elspeth its making 3 tokens right away, which is acceptable.
There are two directions you can go depending on what kind of meta you expect
1. counterspell control with jaces ingenuity
Here's three reasons why:
Titan valakut
Titan eldrazi
u/w control
you don't want to tap out against any of those decks.
2. fewer counterspells & no jaces ingenuity with more planeswalkers & creature hate
here's three reasons why
RDW
other aggo decks (poison, myr, WW)
elves & vengevine decks (naya/bant etc)
These decks pump out threats fast and holding a hand full of counter spells and card draw does nothing if you're loosing on the battlefield.
The difference between the 2 options isn't really huge....
The post rotation top u/w control decks from NYC's top 16 all run 5-6 counterspells, 3-6 creature removal, 0-1 jaces ingenuity, 7-8 planeswalkers.
I was surprized on the planeswalker count but the difference seems to be swapping jace beleren for higher casting cost planeswalkers.
They also all use different creature removal (oust, condemn, journey to nowhere).
condemn is one of the most popular of the three removal options but arguably the worst against popular titan ramp strategies.
journey to nowhere is nice but what about all is dust, ratched bomb & elspeth (both you're own and opponents!)
oust...well oust is only a temporary solution. I love ousting a fauna shaman or goblin guide...not so sexy vs a titan.
I think there are valid arguments for and against all of them.
top 16 from NYC was full of titan ramp (valakut+eldrazi) and control.
in both those matches counterspells and/or discard really shine.
I like the idea of this deck...but I wouldn't play any version that doesn't disrupt the opponent significantly.
scryb, venser and doppleganger suffer from exactly the same problem....they are both bad on their own. so is mimic vat for that matter.
I would never run a deck with all 12 of
4x venser
4x mimic vat
4x doppleganger
because in order to make those 12 cards consistently good your deck has to be full of creatures.....which means no disruption....which means you loose to faster decks that you don't interact with meaningfully.
I'm sure there is some number of those you can run to combo off your creatures while stilling have enough disruption....if I had to choose I would pick venser and mimic vat since they both combo off enters the battlefield effects and fit a control theme deck.
I think flashfreeze is a really solid SB card vs Eldrazi ramp and valakut.
I like running maindeck journey to nowhere over ratchet bomb because it is faster an provides an answer to titans/eldrazi. I think even journey to nowhere on a leveled up joraga treespeaker could be the kind of play that saves you.
how have people found leonin arbiter in this matchup?
I had this thought as well...mind control and volition reigns both seem good against a lot of decks.
It's a little odd thought....do you do something pro-active like play a baneslayer/gideon/sun titan etc and try to counter/remove their bombs with other cards or do you intentionally not counter one of their bombs and steal it?
I find that sometimes things slip through the counterspells and volition reigns would be the perfect catch-all answer.
I've been keeping track in my playtesting every time I draw sun titan I ask myself if volition reigns would be better....it's a mixed bag. Sometimes sun titan brings back wall of omens or jace Beleren drawing me into counterspells and removal turning the game around.
Other times sun titan seems lacking and I'm staring across at a planeswalker wishing sun titan has been volition reigns so I could have stolen it.
I find garruk, fauna shaman, vengevine, birds of paradise and lotus cobra to be very strong and I've been pairing them with different colours and playtesting to try and find the best deck.....I'm hoping this is it.
4x arid mesa
3x misty rainforest
4x Island
5x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Teetering Peaks
I'm kinda squinting at the list thinking it could easily be mono red or r/w landfall and play almost the same. I guess distortion strike is the right meta call when you expect opponents to have blockers but no removal.
Plated geopede needs more love...he wrecks face!
also... tainted strike is terrible and there will be plenty of games where you don't draw kiln fiend at all....plan accordingly.
Yes I know necrotic ooze doesn't gain triggered abilities...this is a good green/black beat down vengevine deck that happens to have necrotic ooze in it. explore isn't ideal but you need to have 4 mana turn 3 because you have no 3 drops and a zillion 4 drops.
garruk ramps you to titan mana, makes tokens, overruns....seems solid overall since you're playing a zillion creatures.
lots of low casting cost creatures (lotus cobra/birds/fauna shaman) are required so you can cast 2 in a turn bringing back vengevines.
moltentail masticore and Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief are solid creatures on their own that you actually cast from your hand which happen to work well with necrotic ooze....I put one gigantomancer in against my better judgement....one is more than enough.
This deck obviously isn't perfect but it's miles more competitive and consistent than most necrotic ooze decks I've seen posted.
I think you might be onto something with this deck, I like it.....
actually with phyrexian mana gone snapcaster isn't really a 2 drop anymore so....maybe don't switch your 2 drop with it.....i need to think about this more apparently.
I'm doing some testing with it. Consistency seems like a good thing. I cut all is dust for them.
I think garruk is better than nissa....I can't see dropping garruk and keeping nissa in. garruk threatens the kill (overrun) the turn after you play it. It's a win condition. Nissa seems really underwhelming by comparison.
How to win with elves (from best to worst):
Overrun with ezuri
Overrun with garruk
evasion & +1/+1 from monument
a joraka multikick'd plus counters from oran-rief
...
both veengevine recursion and nissa are slow grindy ways to win, of the two I prefer vengevine but I would cut all the nissa's and vengevines from my deck before I touched garruk or any of the other win conditions.
2. This deck thrives on 20+ lands. I'm running 22. Think of it as 15 lands + free +1/+1 counters and free land destruction on your opponents nonbasics ....why would you play under 20 lands and be mana screwed when you have lands that double as spells when you don't need the mana?
3. Fauna shaman is solid in this deck. if you're already running fauna shaman and zillions of creatures running at least a couple vengevines is SO easy! They fit the deck perfectly!
I feel like this deck is best as a fast aggro deck that kills quickly and makes no compromises, but if people want to playtest splashes of other colours they are welcome to try.
I playtested a green eldrazi monument deck that splashed blue for counterspells and mindsculptors and it wasn't a terrible deck...but
states top finishes are dominated by blue/x control decks and primeval titan ramp decks (valakut+eldrazi). There is a splash of RDW and elf decks winning but not enough to justify people running a ton of pyroclasms or DoJ's maindeck....
my reasoning is that as long as elves and aggro in general is under-represented in the meta it's not worth splashing for counterspells because they won't be playing sweepers.....and if it gets to a point where people are running a lot of sweepers I would rather just not play elves.
Your opponent stabalizes at 11 life from your geopedes & goblin guides but instead of a random burn spell in hand you have moltentail masticore...you play it and now they have 3 turns (or less) to kill you or find an answer instead of the normal 5 or 6 turns it would take you to draw enough burn to finish them off. Seems pretty damn good to me.
If I knew I was facing only the three currently popular top tier decks: valakut ramp, eldrazi ramp, u/w control I would consider black blue control because 4 duress maindeck seems like a very sexy compliment to counterspells and doom blade is better than oust, journey or condemn.
The problem is, we all know there are going to be a bunch of random decks you have to fight your way through in the first few rounds:
allies
RDW
elves
poison
WW
vampires
etc
most of those random decks get stomped on by the white cards from u/w control (DoJ, baneslayer, condemn), blacks equivelent's are a turn slower (consume the meek, grave titan, doom blade).
I also don't like dead cards....if black runs consume the meek its a dead card vs valakut ramp. if it runs duress its a dead card vs allies/elves/etc.
I'm sure a blue/black control deck can be made and will do fine, but in this sub-forum we generally believe blue/white is the better choice and that black is too hard to splash.
the only color I would consider splashing is red, and it would be for pyroclasm out of the SB...but then you're running fetches so you can't SB leonin arbiter ...
if you use tricks to put counters on it to speed it up....you're devoting several cards to one combo and not doing much else so your opponent will likely kill you in short order.
the only way I see this dominating is in magical Christmas land territory
turn 2 thrumming bird
turn 3 grand architect, tap both to cast lux canon, put a charge on it
turn 4 trinket mage into voltaic key, destroy a permanent with lux canon
I can see playing a blue/artifact deck with all of those cards in it but....other decks can win on turn 4....destroying a permanent just doesn't seem like as strong of a game plan.
I think that type of deck will really start to shine once more of the block is out.
There are two directions you can go depending on what kind of meta you expect
1. counterspell control with jaces ingenuity
Here's three reasons why:
Titan valakut
Titan eldrazi
u/w control
you don't want to tap out against any of those decks.
2. fewer counterspells & no jaces ingenuity with more planeswalkers & creature hate
here's three reasons why
RDW
other aggo decks (poison, myr, WW)
elves & vengevine decks (naya/bant etc)
These decks pump out threats fast and holding a hand full of counter spells and card draw does nothing if you're loosing on the battlefield.
The difference between the 2 options isn't really huge....
The post rotation top u/w control decks from NYC's top 16 all run 5-6 counterspells, 3-6 creature removal, 0-1 jaces ingenuity, 7-8 planeswalkers.
I was surprized on the planeswalker count but the difference seems to be swapping jace beleren for higher casting cost planeswalkers.
They also all use different creature removal (oust, condemn, journey to nowhere).
condemn is one of the most popular of the three removal options but arguably the worst against popular titan ramp strategies.
journey to nowhere is nice but what about all is dust, ratched bomb & elspeth (both you're own and opponents!)
oust...well oust is only a temporary solution. I love ousting a fauna shaman or goblin guide...not so sexy vs a titan.
I think there are valid arguments for and against all of them.
in both those matches counterspells and/or discard really shine.
I like the idea of this deck...but I wouldn't play any version that doesn't disrupt the opponent significantly.
scryb, venser and doppleganger suffer from exactly the same problem....they are both bad on their own. so is mimic vat for that matter.
I would never run a deck with all 12 of
4x venser
4x mimic vat
4x doppleganger
because in order to make those 12 cards consistently good your deck has to be full of creatures.....which means no disruption....which means you loose to faster decks that you don't interact with meaningfully.
I'm sure there is some number of those you can run to combo off your creatures while stilling have enough disruption....if I had to choose I would pick venser and mimic vat since they both combo off enters the battlefield effects and fit a control theme deck.
anything you can do to help you hit that turn 2 luminarch ascension is probably solid.
I like running maindeck journey to nowhere over ratchet bomb because it is faster an provides an answer to titans/eldrazi. I think even journey to nowhere on a leveled up joraga treespeaker could be the kind of play that saves you.
how have people found leonin arbiter in this matchup?
It's a little odd thought....do you do something pro-active like play a baneslayer/gideon/sun titan etc and try to counter/remove their bombs with other cards or do you intentionally not counter one of their bombs and steal it?
I find that sometimes things slip through the counterspells and volition reigns would be the perfect catch-all answer.
I've been keeping track in my playtesting every time I draw sun titan I ask myself if volition reigns would be better....it's a mixed bag. Sometimes sun titan brings back wall of omens or jace Beleren drawing me into counterspells and removal turning the game around.
Other times sun titan seems lacking and I'm staring across at a planeswalker wishing sun titan has been volition reigns so I could have stolen it.
4 birds of paradise
4 lotus cobra
4 fauna shaman
1 stoneforge mystic
4 leatherback baloth
4 vengevine
3 baneslayer
3 garruk wildspeaker
1 basilisk colar
1 sword of vengeance
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Stirring Wildwood
4 verdant catacomb
3 marsh flats
5 forest
3 plains
1 misty rainforest
I find garruk, fauna shaman, vengevine, birds of paradise and lotus cobra to be very strong and I've been pairing them with different colours and playtesting to try and find the best deck.....I'm hoping this is it.
4x Lightning Bolt
4x mana leak
4x staggershock
4x Distortion Strike
4x searing blaze
4x chandras spitfire
4x Kiln Fiend
4x Goblin Guide
4x plated geopede
4x arid mesa
3x misty rainforest
4x Island
5x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Teetering Peaks
I'm kinda squinting at the list thinking it could easily be mono red or r/w landfall and play almost the same. I guess distortion strike is the right meta call when you expect opponents to have blockers but no removal.
Plated geopede needs more love...he wrecks face!
also... tainted strike is terrible and there will be plenty of games where you don't draw kiln fiend at all....plan accordingly.
4 birds of paradise
4 fauna shaman
4 vengevine
4 necrotic ooze
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 gigantomancer
3 moltentail masticore
4 lotus cobra
3 Grave titan
3 garruk wildspeaker
4 explore
4 verdant catacomb
3 marsh flats
4 misty rainforest
6 swamp
8 forest
Yes I know necrotic ooze doesn't gain triggered abilities...this is a good green/black beat down vengevine deck that happens to have necrotic ooze in it. explore isn't ideal but you need to have 4 mana turn 3 because you have no 3 drops and a zillion 4 drops.
garruk ramps you to titan mana, makes tokens, overruns....seems solid overall since you're playing a zillion creatures.
lots of low casting cost creatures (lotus cobra/birds/fauna shaman) are required so you can cast 2 in a turn bringing back vengevines.
moltentail masticore and Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief are solid creatures on their own that you actually cast from your hand which happen to work well with necrotic ooze....I put one gigantomancer in against my better judgement....one is more than enough.
This deck obviously isn't perfect but it's miles more competitive and consistent than most necrotic ooze decks I've seen posted.