I see Glorious Anthem being reprinted and a lot of other 3 drops overshadowing Attended Knight. But she's a good follow up to Honor the Pure
With what we have already, monowhite is showing off some pretty attractive curves. Consider the following:
Turn 1 - War Falcon
Turn 2 - Honor of the Pure
Turn 3 - Attended Knight
Turn 4 - Angel of Jubilation
Granted, if Honor isn't reprinted it's going to be quite a bit less appealing. Still, I do like some of the strengths that Attended Knight has over Blade Splicer. Now if only his token was a Human as well...
Rancor on a Dungrove Elder or Thrun is certainly powerful, but I think I like it even more in something like GW Humans with Silverblade Paladin. Think about it: T1 Avacyn's Pilgrim, T2 Silverblade paired with Pilgrim. On the next turn, you play a Rancor on the Pilgrim. Suddenly, the lowliest of the low has gained six trample power, and is now a must-remove threat! And until the Silverblade is dead, any amount of removal out of the opponent is not going to cut it since pretty much any card becomes deadly with a combination of Double Strike and Rancor. (Granted, they can also kill your Pilgrim in response to the Rancor to get rid of the Rancor. Good for them, they just wasted removal on a mana dork.)
I don't think Rancor is too powerful an effect for the current standard, especially with Snapcaster Mage and targeted graveyard removal to help control decks deal with it, but I do think that it could have easily filled a rare slot (assuming it's actually being printed for real at uncommon).
Norin comes back to kill your opponent the turn after? is it really that hard to see? Not really much that can be done by an opponent in one turn anyway with no cards in hand.
Norin will never be able to attack for damage no matter how many turns pass <_<
The first thing I noticed when I opened my packs was Reaper from the Abyss and Liliana of the Veil. Unfortunately, the rest of my black was absolutely unplayable trash, but I was ok with not playing them when I realized I had opened the nuts on removal in red and some great stuff in blue. My deck ended up looking like this:
First round was fairly easy, I ate my friend's :symr::symg: aggro deck alive with my removal and fliers.
Second round vs :symw::symb: my opponent blocked my Ashmouth Hound with an Abattoir Ghoul twice, and it got hit by Geistflame in response to the hound's trigger both times :D. He played Curse of Death's Hold on me both games, but my relevant creatures were too big to die and flying, so I pulled it out.
Third round first game he was on the play and I had a slow hand vs. his T1 Champion of the Parish, T2 Human, T3 Human, T4 Human, T5 Fiend Hunter removing a blocker. Game 2 I had a better hand, but I made some misplays and his creatures got too huge for my burn to deal with (possibly with help from Gavony Township), so I ended up losing when I might have won. His :symw::symg: deck was really good though.
Fourth round first game was 42 minutes. My opponent was :symw::symr::symg: with mostly creatures. He had some guys but they couldn't attack into my larger creatures, so he used and flashbacked Feeling of Dread on my two flying attackers to buy a couple turns, then used and flashbacked Gnaw to the Bone to buy some more (gaining a total of 26 life). I was getting him close to dead with my flyers, but I also only had two cards left in my library and was staring down 12+ lands, some small creatures, and a Kessig Wolf Run on his side. I thought surely he would be able to get there, but while I was thinking about how to win he conceded so we could go to the next game. Second game went much faster, with me getting the tempo win on the third turn after time was called due to killing each of his blockers as he played them. Luckily for me I also had the relevant removal right away for his Essence of the Wild both games.
All in all, I went 3-1 with a good dose of luck and came in 3rd place. The guy who beat me in round 3 split with his opponent for the top two spots, so I can't feel too bad about losing to him. I had a lot of fun, that's for sure.
I'm totally getting some of this just for the art. If it's in M12, maybe I'll give my old Spiritdancer deck one last hurrah with some hexproof before she rotates out...
Yeah, don't get me wrong, I do like Overwhelming Stampede as well since you can have pretty much lethal damage with just two dorks on the board and a Hydra/Stomper. Just that until recent, I was in a fairly spot-removal-heavy meta which explains why I am running 'condensed dork packages' like Nest Invader, Wolfbriar Elemental and Kozilek's Predator since there's simply a lot of PtE where I play ( besides just now where people are making attempts to run Mono-Green.. ), so obviously the better choice for me would be to have 'condensed' quantity over quality, at least until people have to say goodbye to their Paths. Having Stampede pump for 1, or 0, is rather anticlimactic if you get too hasty using it and your 'stampede leader' just eats removal in response, obviously.
Yeah, a stampede-based strategy does have problems with removal sometimes, which is why I gave myself the option of siding in a fourth monument from the sideboard. That plus vines and Great Sable Stag worked fairly well against Jund and UW control, although I don't think I ever landed the monument against the latter...oddly enough, I think I only lost to Day once vs. UW control, just Elspeth/Gideon + Jace slowing me down and fatesealing.
I found it pretty interesting though: when my opponent would keep using spot removal on my fatties instead of playing blockers, I would often just have so many 2/2 elves, wolves or oozes that stampede would power through the win anyway. Beastmaster would probably do the same thing with that set of creatures, though, so again it depends on your opponent and your meta. I've seen a marked shift lately in my meta away from Jund and towards naya aggro variants, so there really wasn't much spot removal to bother me and I could overrun to my heart's content.
One card I'm still convinced has amazing potential is Genesis Wave. I have a friend who's even playtested proxies of this against Mythic to some success, with a strange... Elfball-type mix. Considering the speed of Elvish acceleration, a T4 Wave into a ton of Elves, lands, and Monument is pretty much 'I win next turn'. It can 'whiff', but even when it does, generally you clear out what would otherwise be a pretty nasty mana pocket.
Elves is probably the best-positioned deck to exploit it, since most of what they have is dirt cheap and won't whiff...but it seems to me as vulnerable as most other elf-based strategies. Namely, if they wipe out your important mana-producers before the wave goes off, you're stuck playing small stuff again. Using the wave as a mana dump/board advantage engine is acceptable, but unless you have lots of mana it's likely to be useless, and Wolfbriar Elemental as a similar engine will always be at least a huge dude for 4. We'll just have to see how reliable the wave is on turn 3-4 in the new environment. It could be that elves are just fine, since a lot of removal is going out.
I would really like to see the wave in some kind of Lotus Cobra/eldrazi ramp deck with 25+ lands. The cobra can set off the wave easily using fetches, the wave will grab plenty of lands which will be useful the next turn (or immediately if you have cobra(s) to exploit the massive landfall), and any eldrazi titan whiffs will simply shuffle themselves and all other whiffs back into a much-thinned library with an easier chance of drawing them to use.
If you would read his article on BMA, it would show you that the enchantment is actually meant as an anti-overextension tool more than one requiring it. Rather than need your fatties out on the board or overextend into various dorks, two swings with a board of Invader, manadork, spawn and say, plant token becomes lethal very soon.
That's an interesting article, thanks for recommending it. I can see what you mean by anti-overextension, and I can see how it would be more reliable than needing fatties. I think the difference would be between the risk of them killing your fatty off in response to Overwhelming Stampede and the risk of killing Beastmaster Ascension off whenever it goes critical, in which case Beastmaster probably wins due to the rarity of enchantment removal. Even so, something in me just...cringes when I think of a win condition that doesn't change the board position immediately. For Beastmaster to do that you would have to overextend, so I think I prefer the Stampede. I might try a Beastmaster deck in the future though, it looks like it could be fun to use and effective if done right. Hopefully Sylvok Replica won't piss all over it...
The reason I won those 6 games was Overwhelming Stampede. If I could run 6 or 7 of these I would. They're simply devastating and win games.
Yeah, that card seems to get a lot of rogue wins. Overall it won more games for me during my run than even Eldrazi Monument, due to the fact that it can abruptly generate a quick win out of an ok board position. Overrun was a lot better at creating something out of nothing, but it usually required overextension to use, and Beastmaster Ascension strikes me as being somewhat similar on both fronts. Overwhelming Stampede can instead take just one or two fatties and maybe a mana dork alongside and make it instantly lethal, or at least produce enough damage to wipe out all the opponent's creatures with some trample damage to boot. At that point, even if they clear the board, you should still be able to play more stuff to finish them off since you didn't overextend.
EDIT: Thought up a simple example.
Turn 1: land, play llanowar/arbor elf
Turn 2: land, play leatherback baloth (or channelers)
Turn 3: land, attack for 4 (gets through because they can afford it or don't want to sac an early creature), play unkicked wolfbriar/obstinate baloth/leatherback/channelers
Turn 4: land, tap llanowar and lands for stampede, swing for lethal
Turn 5 (if they're still alive): swing for lethal or swing and play another creature
Now obviously this isn't that great of an example; you'll be playing around removal, or won't have enough lands or llanowars, or maybe you won't even have the stampede that early. What matters is that it demonstrates the efficiency of Overwhelming Stampede. Neither Overrun nor Beastmaster Ascension nor even Eldrazi Monument could go the distance, but Overwhelming Stampede can, and with only a single creature played each turn leading up to it.
I like this the best. Like All Is Dust, your opponent should be winning by the time it goes off. Unlike All Is Dust, you will take their win and turn it into your own
I just wish white had gotten a more universal answer to planeswalkers. I was hoping for Faith's Fetters or something like it, but oh well...
I didn't exactly "miss" mentioning Chimeric Mass. . . I didn't think it had good enough potential. I'm well aware that it can dodge ordinary creature removal, however, you need to activate it for it to be a creature. When it IS a creature, it retains its weakness of being an artifact and now has the weakness of being a creature. Playing it for less then 5 puts it within range of a new BB Kill spell (Most of our creatures are anyway, but why keep it within that range if we don't have to?). While it's not a creature, it's succeptable to Nature's Claim, Shatter, Naturalize, and the like. Granted, your opponent is probably using those for top priority removal (Monument/Ascension), but overall, there's no inherent ability for the mass. It can be chump blocked as well very easily, unlike all the bombs I've listed. Overall, the 6 I have listed are more justifyable in running than something that has no benefit besides an activated body.
Let's compare usefulness, and use against BSA
Wurm = Evasion (BSA can't block, Lol)
Genesis = HUGE board advantage (BSA can't deal with 4 -5 cards at once)
Liege = Game Ender (Eats BSA for Lunch and then spawns rather large babies)
Battleshpere = 5 separate bodies (BSA cries when trying to block all)
Golem = 9 power over 3 bodies for relatively cheap (BSA cries when trying to block all)
Wurmcoil = 6/6 Scary Beasty Wurm of Life and Death, with the resilience to make a 3/3 Beasty Wurm of Life AND a 3/3 Beasty Wurm of Death. (Eats BSA for 1st Breakfast, 2nd Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Supper, Desert, and Midnight Snack)
Mass = Activated Body from between a 1/1 to a 6/6 (What's the point in paying more? You're opponent should be dead soon) (BTW, must be at least a 6/6 to eat a BSA)
Fair enough. I was more interested in its post-Day applications than as a normal creature, but now that I think about it Mitotic Slime is still better in that category. Perhaps Chimeric Mass will find a home in UW Control...as for the others you listed, I agree on the intimidate wurm and precursor golem. The others I'm not so sure about. Wurmcoil is extremely good but a little high on the curve for me, battlesphere is even higher, and liege even higher than that. Like Shinato, I just don't see them being consistent enough drops if you don't get enough land and/or your mana creatures die off.
As for Genesis Wave, I'm still out to lunch on that one. It has a lot of promise, and it's probably my favorite card in the set, I just don't think it works as well for the kind of green aggro that plays a lot of 4cmc+ things. Not only do you have the same issue as the above of it being likely a dead card without plenty of mana, but you end up needing to pay 7 or 8 to get the most out of it. Otherwise, your precursor golems and eldrazi monuments and wolfbriars and other large things that net you wins get shunted off to the graveyard while you get maybe some llanowars and lands. Not to mention it puts itself and things like vines/overwhelming stampede in the yard regardless. I think it would be better in beastmaster elves or some sort of GW ramp aggro with lotus cobra.
And as a finisher, just in-case he can't attack to win: False Cure
I've had a very similar casual deck for almost four years now called Public Service. I cobbled it together from random cool stuff long ago, and ever since it's been renowned among my play group for making hilariously dumb multiplayer games
Basically the point of the deck is to sit around and give people life or creatures or lands. This deck never actually attacks, even if it has huge creatures, it just sits there helping people out. People don't attack you, because why would they? You're spreading the love around. Tempting Wurm makes things even more hilarious.
The goal of the deck isn't really to win, but it can if the game goes on too long (which it usually does), in which case you tutor up the Citanul Flute and start grabbing Skyshroud Cutters. Eventually you double False Cure and annihilate everyone at once. Surprisingly, this deck has only lost maybe once or twice over the many times it's been played, due simply to 1) the huge creatures it runs and 2) people not wanting to kill it due to losing the cool stuff it gives. It's a blast to play, and definitely the most fun I've ever made :3
EDIT: forgot a few cards from the list, had to dig it out first
With what we have already, monowhite is showing off some pretty attractive curves. Consider the following:
Turn 1 - War Falcon
Turn 2 - Honor of the Pure
Turn 3 - Attended Knight
Turn 4 - Angel of Jubilation
Granted, if Honor isn't reprinted it's going to be quite a bit less appealing. Still, I do like some of the strengths that Attended Knight has over Blade Splicer. Now if only his token was a Human as well...
I don't think Rancor is too powerful an effect for the current standard, especially with Snapcaster Mage and targeted graveyard removal to help control decks deal with it, but I do think that it could have easily filled a rare slot (assuming it's actually being printed for real at uncommon).
Norin will never be able to attack for damage no matter how many turns pass <_<
Don't forget Entomber Exarch on 4. Now I kinda feel like playing Bx Pod just to make control decks cry
Or Heartbeat of Spring. Cast this as early as turn 5 or even turn 4 to get almost your entire deck into play!
1 Ashmouth Hound
1 Avacynian Priest
1 Deranged Assistant
2 Civilized Scholar
2 Stitched Drake
1 Makeshift Mauler
1 Moon Heron
1 Murder of Crows
1 Battleground Geist
1 Angel of Flight Alabaster
1 Geistcatcher's Rig
2 Geistflame
1 Harvest Pyre
1 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Brimstone Volley
1 Claustrophobia
1 Into the Maw of Hell
Artifacts
1 Traveler's Amulet
2 Plains
8 Island
7 Mountain
First round was fairly easy, I ate my friend's :symr::symg: aggro deck alive with my removal and fliers.
Second round vs :symw::symb: my opponent blocked my Ashmouth Hound with an Abattoir Ghoul twice, and it got hit by Geistflame in response to the hound's trigger both times :D. He played Curse of Death's Hold on me both games, but my relevant creatures were too big to die and flying, so I pulled it out.
Third round first game he was on the play and I had a slow hand vs. his T1 Champion of the Parish, T2 Human, T3 Human, T4 Human, T5 Fiend Hunter removing a blocker. Game 2 I had a better hand, but I made some misplays and his creatures got too huge for my burn to deal with (possibly with help from Gavony Township), so I ended up losing when I might have won. His :symw::symg: deck was really good though.
Fourth round first game was 42 minutes. My opponent was :symw::symr::symg: with mostly creatures. He had some guys but they couldn't attack into my larger creatures, so he used and flashbacked Feeling of Dread on my two flying attackers to buy a couple turns, then used and flashbacked Gnaw to the Bone to buy some more (gaining a total of 26 life). I was getting him close to dead with my flyers, but I also only had two cards left in my library and was staring down 12+ lands, some small creatures, and a Kessig Wolf Run on his side. I thought surely he would be able to get there, but while I was thinking about how to win he conceded so we could go to the next game. Second game went much faster, with me getting the tempo win on the third turn after time was called due to killing each of his blockers as he played them. Luckily for me I also had the relevant removal right away for his Essence of the Wild both games.
All in all, I went 3-1 with a good dose of luck and came in 3rd place. The guy who beat me in round 3 split with his opponent for the top two spots, so I can't feel too bad about losing to him. I had a lot of fun, that's for sure.
It might be interesting to do T1 Training Grounds, T2 this. That's assuming you have a worthwhile other use for Training Grounds, of course.
Also tons of fun with Pandemonium.
Yeah, a stampede-based strategy does have problems with removal sometimes, which is why I gave myself the option of siding in a fourth monument from the sideboard. That plus vines and Great Sable Stag worked fairly well against Jund and UW control, although I don't think I ever landed the monument against the latter...oddly enough, I think I only lost to Day once vs. UW control, just Elspeth/Gideon + Jace slowing me down and fatesealing.
I found it pretty interesting though: when my opponent would keep using spot removal on my fatties instead of playing blockers, I would often just have so many 2/2 elves, wolves or oozes that stampede would power through the win anyway. Beastmaster would probably do the same thing with that set of creatures, though, so again it depends on your opponent and your meta. I've seen a marked shift lately in my meta away from Jund and towards naya aggro variants, so there really wasn't much spot removal to bother me and I could overrun to my heart's content.
Elves is probably the best-positioned deck to exploit it, since most of what they have is dirt cheap and won't whiff...but it seems to me as vulnerable as most other elf-based strategies. Namely, if they wipe out your important mana-producers before the wave goes off, you're stuck playing small stuff again. Using the wave as a mana dump/board advantage engine is acceptable, but unless you have lots of mana it's likely to be useless, and Wolfbriar Elemental as a similar engine will always be at least a huge dude for 4. We'll just have to see how reliable the wave is on turn 3-4 in the new environment. It could be that elves are just fine, since a lot of removal is going out.
I would really like to see the wave in some kind of Lotus Cobra/eldrazi ramp deck with 25+ lands. The cobra can set off the wave easily using fetches, the wave will grab plenty of lands which will be useful the next turn (or immediately if you have cobra(s) to exploit the massive landfall), and any eldrazi titan whiffs will simply shuffle themselves and all other whiffs back into a much-thinned library with an easier chance of drawing them to use.
That's an interesting article, thanks for recommending it. I can see what you mean by anti-overextension, and I can see how it would be more reliable than needing fatties. I think the difference would be between the risk of them killing your fatty off in response to Overwhelming Stampede and the risk of killing Beastmaster Ascension off whenever it goes critical, in which case Beastmaster probably wins due to the rarity of enchantment removal. Even so, something in me just...cringes when I think of a win condition that doesn't change the board position immediately. For Beastmaster to do that you would have to overextend, so I think I prefer the Stampede. I might try a Beastmaster deck in the future though, it looks like it could be fun to use and effective if done right. Hopefully Sylvok Replica won't piss all over it...
Yeah, that card seems to get a lot of rogue wins. Overall it won more games for me during my run than even Eldrazi Monument, due to the fact that it can abruptly generate a quick win out of an ok board position. Overrun was a lot better at creating something out of nothing, but it usually required overextension to use, and Beastmaster Ascension strikes me as being somewhat similar on both fronts. Overwhelming Stampede can instead take just one or two fatties and maybe a mana dork alongside and make it instantly lethal, or at least produce enough damage to wipe out all the opponent's creatures with some trample damage to boot. At that point, even if they clear the board, you should still be able to play more stuff to finish them off since you didn't overextend.
EDIT: Thought up a simple example.
Turn 1: land, play llanowar/arbor elf
Turn 2: land, play leatherback baloth (or channelers)
Turn 3: land, attack for 4 (gets through because they can afford it or don't want to sac an early creature), play unkicked wolfbriar/obstinate baloth/leatherback/channelers
Turn 4: land, tap llanowar and lands for stampede, swing for lethal
Turn 5 (if they're still alive): swing for lethal or swing and play another creature
Now obviously this isn't that great of an example; you'll be playing around removal, or won't have enough lands or llanowars, or maybe you won't even have the stampede that early. What matters is that it demonstrates the efficiency of Overwhelming Stampede. Neither Overrun nor Beastmaster Ascension nor even Eldrazi Monument could go the distance, but Overwhelming Stampede can, and with only a single creature played each turn leading up to it.
Celestial Purge
I like this the best. Like All Is Dust, your opponent should be winning by the time it goes off. Unlike All Is Dust, you will take their win and turn it into your own
I just wish white had gotten a more universal answer to planeswalkers. I was hoping for Faith's Fetters or something like it, but oh well...
Fair enough. I was more interested in its post-Day applications than as a normal creature, but now that I think about it Mitotic Slime is still better in that category. Perhaps Chimeric Mass will find a home in UW Control...as for the others you listed, I agree on the intimidate wurm and precursor golem. The others I'm not so sure about. Wurmcoil is extremely good but a little high on the curve for me, battlesphere is even higher, and liege even higher than that. Like Shinato, I just don't see them being consistent enough drops if you don't get enough land and/or your mana creatures die off.
As for Genesis Wave, I'm still out to lunch on that one. It has a lot of promise, and it's probably my favorite card in the set, I just don't think it works as well for the kind of green aggro that plays a lot of 4cmc+ things. Not only do you have the same issue as the above of it being likely a dead card without plenty of mana, but you end up needing to pay 7 or 8 to get the most out of it. Otherwise, your precursor golems and eldrazi monuments and wolfbriars and other large things that net you wins get shunted off to the graveyard while you get maybe some llanowars and lands. Not to mention it puts itself and things like vines/overwhelming stampede in the yard regardless. I think it would be better in beastmaster elves or some sort of GW ramp aggro with lotus cobra.
I've had a very similar casual deck for almost four years now called Public Service. I cobbled it together from random cool stuff long ago, and ever since it's been renowned among my play group for making hilariously dumb multiplayer games
2 Veteran Explorer
3 Wall of Shards
2 Kavu Predator
2 Tempting Wurm
2 Hunted Horror
3 Grollub
3 Hunted Troll
4 Skyshroud Cutter
1 Worthy Cause
1 Nourish
1 Rampant Growth
4 False Cure
3 Diabolic Tutor
4 Reverent Silence
1 Citanul Flute
1 Biomantic Mastery
1 New Frontiers
9 Swamp
7 Forest
6 Plains
Basically the point of the deck is to sit around and give people life or creatures or lands. This deck never actually attacks, even if it has huge creatures, it just sits there helping people out. People don't attack you, because why would they? You're spreading the love around. Tempting Wurm makes things even more hilarious.
The goal of the deck isn't really to win, but it can if the game goes on too long (which it usually does), in which case you tutor up the Citanul Flute and start grabbing Skyshroud Cutters. Eventually you double False Cure and annihilate everyone at once. Surprisingly, this deck has only lost maybe once or twice over the many times it's been played, due simply to 1) the huge creatures it runs and 2) people not wanting to kill it due to losing the cool stuff it gives. It's a blast to play, and definitely the most fun I've ever made :3
EDIT: forgot a few cards from the list, had to dig it out first