Gideon, Champion of Justice: He will be included into the planeswalker trio of Jace, Tamiyo and him in UW Control shell for the rest of this Standard Season.
Skargg Goliath: TIMMY!
Zameck Guildmage: Looks very strong in Limited.
Consuming Abberation: I always love mill strategy and its second ability looks Johnny nice. It has no evasion though.
Clan Defiance: A Fireball spell for up to triple value? Watch this card out.
Nightveil Specter: Being a flying 2/3 for 3 CMC and able to play opponent's lands, among other things, on your own side is great.
Hands of Binding: Invisible Stalker value in Standard is a all-time high. Having this in flyers-heavy Limited decks looks very strong also.
Gruul Keyrune: 3/2 is big enough to be relevance in Standard.
I'm keeping my eyes on Havengul Lich. First, it is a mythic rare from a lightly opened middle set. Second, it had reached $10 before. Third, thought scour and forbidden alchemy fits it well. Fourth, pieces of the heartless summoning deck still exist such as Sphinx of Uthuun, bloodgift demon, desecreation demon, etc). Fifth, it is not legendary and it is a zombie.
All it needs is a little Dimir support from Gatecrash and this card will rise.
The Lich still also needs faster non-green ramp cards other than Heartless Summoning to support him if you want to go with Dimir route. The card does require large amount of mana to make re-casting tricks work. Still, you can just splash green for it, and there are somanygreencreatures that suit the Lich well available.
Just hope GTC provide something nice so the Lich becomes relevant again.
As a wee child (13 or 14) MTG was falling out of favor in my neighborhood. I was much more into the Decipher Star Wars CCG. So I traded my complete collection of revised dual lands for the Star Wars staple cards. At the time the trade was relatively equal, but the gift of hindsight certainly makes me look foolish!
Isn't there still Decipher Star Wars players around playing and organizing unofficially? Those old cards may still worth something for collectors, right?
i think the 75 should contain Mizzium Skin type protection (vs Abrupt Decay) along with Negates (vs Terminus / Supreme Verdict), just too crushing if the opponent manages to kill the entire team or a crucial wall the turn before you get to kill him/her
The real problem of this rotation's Heartless decks is that there are very few alternate ramp cards on par with the HS. The last rotation has Sphere of the Sun (for general Heartless Ramp archetype) and Grand Architect (for Heartless Architect archetype). The best ramp card available right now IMO is Farseek, which forces the deck to play green. It shouldn't be problem to play three colors now though with supports of shock lands.
Two of the most underrated cards in Standard make a good rogue deck. I had moderate success with it since the release of INN. Dropping Wurmcoil Engine in turn 3 or 4 seems nice.
Round 1 (Mono B Post, 2-0) : I easily beat him with Staff of Nin on the board both games.
Round 2 (GW Aggro, 2-1) :
Round 3 (Delver, 1-2) : Very competitive one, but he managed to have two flipped Delvers and won easily in game 3.
Round 4 (Goblin, 2-1) : Faster decks always scares the sh!t out of me, but I somehow got Wurmcoils right on time on my both wins.
Round 5 (Mono G Infect, 0-2) : Another super fast deck and I couldn't draw anything to save my life both games.
Round 6 (Delver, 2-1) : Another great game. The rig saved my butt.
Round 7 (WRG Pod, 2-1) : His deck looks very strong and I don't really have any answers to the Pod, but I somehow got through. BSZ helped.
Round 8 (BR Zombie, 2-0) : My opponent just carelessly played against me so I basically rolled over him.
Here are what I learned about this deck:
- Staff of Nin, when it is on board early, is seriously good.
- Mindslaver is a little too slow to lock the game down and I rarely made a good use out of it.
- Speaking of slowness, Spine of Ish Sah is way too slow in a very competitive field.
- I might consider main-decking Geistcatcher's Rig instead of the Spine in more competitive events, since it will hit a lot of things i.e. Delvers and Angels.
I find this list very interesting. I used to play this deck pre-M13 and had mixed results. But with additions of Trading Post and Disciple of Bolas, and the fact that another version of this deck made it at 2nd place at Portland PTQ buy me back to this again.
I'm building one for an upcoming tournament and still need helps. There are other choices for the spots Disciple of Bolas are that may be as good or better.
I ended up 3rd-4rd place for 15 players Game Day tournament using GW Human Descendants deck. I beat 2 mirror matches along the way only to lose to an interesting Genesis Wave deck in the semi-final.
Skargg Goliath: TIMMY!
Zameck Guildmage: Looks very strong in Limited.
Consuming Abberation: I always love mill strategy and its second ability looks Johnny nice. It has no evasion though.
Clan Defiance: A Fireball spell for up to triple value? Watch this card out.
Nightveil Specter: Being a flying 2/3 for 3 CMC and able to play opponent's lands, among other things, on your own side is great.
Hands of Binding: Invisible Stalker value in Standard is a all-time high. Having this in flyers-heavy Limited decks looks very strong also.
Gruul Keyrune: 3/2 is big enough to be relevance in Standard.
The Lich still also needs faster non-green ramp cards other than Heartless Summoning to support him if you want to go with Dimir route. The card does require large amount of mana to make re-casting tricks work. Still, you can just splash green for it, and there are so many green creatures that suit the Lich well available.
Just hope GTC provide something nice so the Lich becomes relevant again.
Isn't there still Decipher Star Wars players around playing and organizing unofficially? Those old cards may still worth something for collectors, right?
Mine, in MTG, was buying 3 Molten-tail Masticore for 50 bucks, and maybe trading Avenger of Zendikar for 2 Leyline of Vitality.
Mizzium Skin can also stop Angel of Serenity very effectively.
Negate can't stop Supreme Verdict, but yeah. Golgari Charm is a better way to protect your walls against that type of board wipe among others.
Two of the most underrated cards in Standard make a good rogue deck. I had moderate success with it since the release of INN. Dropping Wurmcoil Engine in turn 3 or 4 seems nice.
1 Buried Ruin
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Phyrexia's Core
8 Island
3 Swamp
Creatures - 25
4 Grand Architect
2 Havengul Lich
4 Myr Superion
3 Perilous Myr
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Treasure Mage
3 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Heartless Summoning
Artifacts - 5
1 Mindslaver
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Staff of Nin
2 Trading Post
Sorceries - 4
4 Ponder
2 Curse of Death's Hold
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Contagion Engine
1 Geistcatcher's Rig
1 Steel Hellkite
4 Mental Misstep
2 Spellskite
2 Go for the Throat
Round 1 (Mono B Post, 2-0) : I easily beat him with Staff of Nin on the board both games.
Round 2 (GW Aggro, 2-1) :
Round 3 (Delver, 1-2) : Very competitive one, but he managed to have two flipped Delvers and won easily in game 3.
Round 4 (Goblin, 2-1) : Faster decks always scares the sh!t out of me, but I somehow got Wurmcoils right on time on my both wins.
Round 5 (Mono G Infect, 0-2) : Another super fast deck and I couldn't draw anything to save my life both games.
Round 6 (Delver, 2-1) : Another great game. The rig saved my butt.
Round 7 (WRG Pod, 2-1) : His deck looks very strong and I don't really have any answers to the Pod, but I somehow got through. BSZ helped.
Round 8 (BR Zombie, 2-0) : My opponent just carelessly played against me so I basically rolled over him.
Here are what I learned about this deck:
- Staff of Nin, when it is on board early, is seriously good.
- Mindslaver is a little too slow to lock the game down and I rarely made a good use out of it.
- Speaking of slowness, Spine of Ish Sah is way too slow in a very competitive field.
- I might consider main-decking Geistcatcher's Rig instead of the Spine in more competitive events, since it will hit a lot of things i.e. Delvers and Angels.
I'm building one for an upcoming tournament and still need helps. There are other choices for the spots Disciple of Bolas are that may be as good or better.
- Molten-tail Masticore: Can shoot Angels and/or the player down, and can survive Bonfire.
- Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas: Can search of the Post or other combo parts fast and can finish the game with his ultimate.
Also, the sideboard choices are also difficult to choose from.