I looked at that card so damn hard. In a furious rage, I took them out the deck, flipped over a table, and yelled obscene things at my card collection. I ran a few more red sources during the life of that list, but that's not the point. The point is to never play magic while under the influence of alcohol. You make rash decisions.
I really would love to hear from someone who has been playing the deck longer and what top decks you've played against. I've only played against it twice in actual tournaments and once the guy played wrong, so he lost. The other, the guy got severely mana screwed and didn't mull properly. So I actually only have testing results.
Copy and pasting from what I posted in the development thread:
I went 4-1 tonight
Wins were against:
UB infect
Valakut
UW Puresteel Paladin
Eldrazi Green
My loss was against Grixis Twin, which I would have won if I hadn't drawn lands 5 turns in a row
It does when against some reasonable decks
However, regarding sweepers, the only one that would REALLY ruin my day would be Creeping Corrosion, which is why I play counter magic in the board.
Glint Hawk relies on you having a 0-drop (ideally metalcrafted Mox Opal) to be any good - post-sweeper you sometimes can't even play him onto an empty board. It does nothing to answer opposing plays, and only gets pumped by Signal Pest and the Warzones not everyone plays. It can lead to soem more explosive starts, but at the expense of some consistency. 4 x Mox Opal does help in the winning Japanese build.
Preordain seems fine as a turn 3-4 play, but there are better t3-4 plays (Splicer, Hero, Tempered Steel...) You can straight up replace preordain with other spells worth finding and not have to splash blue.
The counterspells are cute, but with Refraction Trap as an option, you are splashing it for 4 cards - Consume the Meek, Ratchet Bomb, Black Sun's Zenith and Day of Judgement. Shrines, Idols, Masses all help dodge these cards and don't reply on playing an extra colour. It's not that the blue is bad, but as has been shown, it's not necessarily 'better'. Part of the reason the deck is good right now is that there are more than enough cards to make a pretty decent deck whichever way you go.
Origin Spellbomb is a terrible T1 play - it's actually the least threatening thing the deck can do. On Turn 3, playing it and cracking it, or playing it and a 2 drop, seems OK, but it becomes a cantripping Vector Asp for 3, which is just not amazing.
A card that used to get some love but has fallen from favour is Master's Call - I've been using it in a budget version online and it has been an MVP. Instead of Spellbomb, I'd give that a go.
I thought the same about Spellbomb until I played at my last event. It seems like it would be terrible, but it's just such a good tempo card. It's great for activating a Glint Hawk Idol for a couple turns in a row, and while you could just use the mana that's casting/popping the spellbomb, it just "feels" alot smoother. I don't know how to explain it, but Spellbomb is a really nice card.
Wins were against:
UB infect
Valakut
UW Puresteel Paladin
Eldrazi Green
My loss was against Grixis Twin, which I would have won if I hadn't drawn lands 5 turns in a row.
I finally got to try Inkmoth tonight, and it's absolutely fantastic. I also tried a blue splash for 3x Preordain and it gives the deck a fantastic solution to it's problem of terrible top-decking.
I'll post my list and possibly match summaries later.
I attended (didnt play) but here are some observations
-In the feature match between Jonathan (plays at my LGS) vs. Edgar Flores Dismember and Shrine of Burning Rage and Leyline of Punishment completley stomped all over Caw-Blade. Those cards were pretty much how he made it to top 8. You can read the match summary over at SCG's website
-Dismember is crazy. Alot of decks were running it and the fact that it's psuedo-colorless and costs 1 mana AND kills Batterskull make this card an all-star in any deck.
So Tempered Steel is dominating the pro-tour right now in block-construced and quite a few of the decks are opting to play Hero of Bladehold. What do you guys think of this in the Tempered Steel deck for Standard?
I'm sure there are better targets for her ability than some that you have already, e.g you don't have very many dragons(I could be totally wrong, but I'm about to run a search on Gatherer for it)
Tempered Steel is really more of a safety than anything else. I have no problem winning without it and if I get to drop one then it's just gravy.
Pretty much. Basically, if you get a Tempered Steel, you almost have to try to lose. Winning without it, however, is slightly more difficult, but very possible with Signal Pest/Warzone/Overseer etc.
SB Mental Misstep may not be a bad idea against U/B control, but I'm not too worried about it. The point of this deck is to have buffs coming from different places all the time. So what if they took your Tempered Steel? You still get to land two signal pests and a contested war zone.
My SB isn't very transformative, just emphasizing one strength over the other and siding in different removals when necessary.
I'm not gonna lie, the idea of siding in an equipment package is enticing. G1 overrun them with aggro, G2 change gears and land T3 Batterskull then hang some swords on some Glint Hawks and go to town.
EDIT: I just saw this list that went top 16 at Louisville SCG piloted by Ken Adams:
He ran a small equip package in the SB, but I can't find a breakdown of the matches to see how it worked out. I also don't really agree with having Phyrexian Revokers MB instead of Hex Parasite, but then again it's not my deck. Afeter seeing the impact of Shrine of Loyal Legions I think I'm gonna make space for that in my deck.
I've been testing mb revokers and you'd be surprised how often it's relevant. I'd say more decks have a revoker target than Hex Parasite (note that I haven't actually used Hex Parasite).
As much as i like this deck i dont think that it can make Tier 1. Its more resilent and resourceful than Kuldotha Red but still is very weak to removal like Arc Trail , Forked Bolt or Black Sun Zenith as long as you dont have a Tempered Steel online (Steel Overseer doesent count becouse he gets toasted too until thee is a Tempered Steel on the table). Youre also very draw dependant and have to mull very agressivly.
Besides that its very fun to play and with the right draw you can beat anything.
I dont have a finished sideboard yet, but i sure will run 4 Spellskite against RDW (Spellskite also passes the Lightning Bolt test and can go bash with Tempered Steel and Overseer) and other removal heavy decks and 4 Phyrexian Revoker as additional Planeswalker hate and Ratchet Bomb/Cunning Sparkmage solution. I am also thinking of adding Celestial Purge against Vampires and Big Red.
Any ideas what i should add to the SB for the Splintertwin/Exarch combo?
I also play with the idea of splashing B to the deck for Duress and IoK for some disruption but when i tested arround with this it allways felt like the splash takes out too much tempo of the deck and hence made me lose games. Besides that, i cant IoK a Batterskull which can become a huge pain in the ass when you dont have enoughDispatch on your hand. I still made it to win a lot of matches with Batterskull in play though, thanks to Inkmoth Nexus which can become deadly very quickly with a Tempered Steel or Overseer in the game and is a great 2nd wind condition.
It also would be awezum to find a way to run Tezzeret in this deck but i didnt come up with any good ideas till now becouse every change i want to make slows the deck down too much.
Any thoughts on my list or ideas?
Solution for all your problems : splash blue for Spell Pierce/ Unified Will
Duly noted.
Copy and pasting from what I posted in the development thread:
It does when against some reasonable decks
However, regarding sweepers, the only one that would REALLY ruin my day would be Creeping Corrosion, which is why I play counter magic in the board.
I thought the same about Spellbomb until I played at my last event. It seems like it would be terrible, but it's just such a good tempo card. It's great for activating a Glint Hawk Idol for a couple turns in a row, and while you could just use the mana that's casting/popping the spellbomb, it just "feels" alot smoother. I don't know how to explain it, but Spellbomb is a really nice card.
Wins were against:
UB infect
Valakut
UW Puresteel Paladin
Eldrazi Green
My loss was against Grixis Twin, which I would have won if I hadn't drawn lands 5 turns in a row.
I finally got to try Inkmoth tonight, and it's absolutely fantastic. I also tried a blue splash for 3x Preordain and it gives the deck a fantastic solution to it's problem of terrible top-decking.
I'll post my list and possibly match summaries later.
This. This. This. THIS.
I have been playing alot of white latley, but red does seem to recieve an unnecessary amount of hate.
That being said, I am ridiculously excited for this guy. He's just what the Puresteel deck needed.
>Implying, of course, two full sets havent been released since that time
Such a stupid argument.
-In the feature match between Jonathan (plays at my LGS) vs. Edgar Flores Dismember and Shrine of Burning Rage and Leyline of Punishment completley stomped all over Caw-Blade. Those cards were pretty much how he made it to top 8. You can read the match summary over at SCG's website
-Dismember is crazy. Alot of decks were running it and the fact that it's psuedo-colorless and costs 1 mana AND kills Batterskull make this card an all-star in any deck.
Chancellor of the Annex possibly?
Defiler of Souls
Furnace Dragon in less artifact heavy builds
Halo Hunter could maybe make some sort of combo in the deck. What combo? I have no idea. Just brainstorming
I just went through about half of the results from gatherer for on-color Angels Demons and Dragons and these are ones that I thought could be nice.
Pretty much. Basically, if you get a Tempered Steel, you almost have to try to lose. Winning without it, however, is slightly more difficult, but very possible with Signal Pest/Warzone/Overseer etc.
I've been testing mb revokers and you'd be surprised how often it's relevant. I'd say more decks have a revoker target than Hex Parasite (note that I haven't actually used Hex Parasite).
Solution for all your problems : splash blue for Spell Pierce/ Unified Will