I was actually playtesting a bit against temur aetherworks earlier and it seemed annoying to play against. Though we both played without doing SB since we are just trying to see how game 1 would go. That or I'm just a terrible pilot. Anyone else feel the same about aetherworks?
That's my main concern with the bw version I haven't done by own testing yet but it seems slower and less consistent than mono black.
Does disposessesing all the marvels from a marvel deck cripple it enough?
While I agree that they are inherently different formats the power level of cards remains the same. Sol ring is easily as strong as a moxen would be in our format but one is banned and the other isn't? Mana crypt/vault are even better in commander than they are in legacy because the self damage aspect is largely offset by the higher life total.
Cards like gaeas cradle, necropotence, and humility are still just as good in multiplayer.
The justification that it's a multiplayer format and therefore it's somehow ok to have one land that taps for 10 mana or be able to pay 1 life and draw as many cards as you want just doesn't hold up to me. Sure it being a singlehon format means that those cards are rarer to come up even in decks that they are in. But when they do the game is decided often on turn 0. That is an amount of variance I would personally rather not have.
What does the format lose by banning these cards? 6 mana on turn 3? The requirement to put these cards in every deck you make so that it's 'competitive'?
Personally I'd rather do without.
I actually agree 100% with everything added to the banlist. I disagree mith all the unbans though. I would definitely be onboard with this list with no unbans. Sign me up!
That said they have backed off and will likely end up with the same old banlist that we've had for ages and we will continue building decks with cards that are too powerful for legacy :/
As someone who likes the idea of the gatewatch, and a consistent cast of characters, I'm happy with this change. While I'm definitely fatigued of the "core 5", and understand the desire to have them be ever present for marketing and story reasons, it's just not healthy for the game.
What I'm hoping for is yes, less printings of the core 5 planeswalkers (I think their current involvement in the story and depiction of cards is just fine), but also that the next block takes place concurrently as Amonkhet block, and follows Ajani, as the sole Gatewatch representative. The creative team said that their story model was inspired by serialized TV shows - I can't remember the last time I saw a show that didn't have an A plot and a B plot. There's no reason WotC can't adopt that model here. Core set of walkers? Check. Room for new/returning walkers? Check. Continuous story with reoccurring characters? Check. They would be able to keep all the benefits of having a consistent cast, while also addressing Gatewatch fatigue. It really would be the best compromise.
The main issue there is that when this is done in tv and in books it flows well because the cuts can be short and jumping back and forth doesn't take very long. A 6 month gap between/during jumps breaks up the flow too much imo to keep the feel of contiguous timelines. This is why in most successful fantasy I've read even when it jumps to different plots the time tends to have little or no overlap.
If in so many matchups you are boarding out a land and into a more aggressive stance would it make sense to just shift the maindeck to be lower to the ground and more aggressive? There's the old adage that if you always side in a card maybe it should be main decked but I think that holds true for larger shifts as well.
If you guys are having any difficulty in control/spot remaval matches 2-3 Eternal Scourge in the sideboard have done wonders for me. Their interaction with scrapheap is ludicrous, so much so that in some of my builds I maindecked up to 2 over pia/engineer.
Pick the Brain has been pretty bad for me and usually just an expensive Transgress the Mind, so I will probably go back to Lost Legacy or something else there.
I like your list a lot and it's where im starting for my deck, so far my only tweak has been to swap a chandra for a skysovereign, it's done well so far.
Lost Legacy can't hit artifacts, so you cannot get Torrential Gearhulk with it, which is a prime target.
what is your usual sideboard for BG and mardu?
I'm somewhat new to the deck and liko others here have been disappointed by pia nalar thus far. What do you guys think of Eternal Scourge as a 2 of? It synergizes well with scrapheap scrounger if it dies in combat and can prove to be just as annoying to remove. It also has that 3 power for heart. It does suffer from being easily managed by a ballista though.
Never use TS offensively if it won't kill them (unless it's 2 in the same attack). 2-3 is correct but the issue isn't using 2 to kill. Can use it to fog a must stop 8 damage defense, TS their dude. I like the list what I'd do to get 4 Thoughtseize is drop 1 land and 1 TS or Push (wait, Push should be dismember anyway} swap all instances of Fatal Push for Dismember.
The fog option for ts is real and comes up but if you can get 6-7 infect in with a ts, and find or have the second it's worth it in some mu. I completely disagree on dismember vs push. Push hits so many things that dismember doesnt and in the instances where we really want the removal we don't want to pay a ton of life usually. I could see swapping the sb push for a dismember or a second path but md push is far better. The 18th land is a concession to losing probe, I was noting several games where I was having difficulty getting a third land. Also the conversation was getting back to the original 3 thoughtseize, not 4.
So real talk the changes you've made all look a bit too cute.
There are so many dead cards and you've gone down to 2 TS for protection/information which doesn't leave you much room to combo off, and considering you've upped the number of combo pieces which are entirely dead cards I just don't see how the deck can function like that.
I would like to have some stats on your games and ask how many games you've played with the list so far?
You could just add a 3rd thoughtseize and go up to 61 cards, wouldnt change the math on draws drastically. I don't see anything easily cut for it from the MD. You want 3 Tainted Strike in the scenario where 1 doesnt get you to 10, cutting a creature seems wrong, we only have 2 pieces of removal so we shouldnt trim there, trimming more from TBR, or cutting a BI seems wrong too. Keep in mind that in a lot of cases, played properly Surgical can work as discard/hand information too.
I can start quantifying my testing if it would help here.
What I recall off the top of my head from the last few days;
2-0 skred red
1-2 Naya landfall zoo
2-1 Jund
2-1 Bant Eldrazi
1-2 B/G tron
2-1 Abzan
0-2 Abzan
2-0 Affinity
2-1 Lantern
Again I would request that if you want to discuss the 'new' version of the deck to make a new thread. There is so little in common between this thing that I am calling 'Baby Jund' and Death's shadow zoo that discussing it here is not helpful.
On the topic at hand; I've been running through the current t1 and preboard we are doing alright, I need to compile my results but abzan is about 50/50, jund is 60/40, burn is 50/50, bantdrazi is still awful but preboard is actually better now, they are tuned for more ramp and slower games, affinity is 60/40, tron is still an easy win. The most recent tweak ive made is -1 thoughtseize and +1 wooded foothills, up to 13 fetches and the 5 shocks. The deck was getting mana screwed a bit too often.
I've been testing two versions recently, variations from the 'stock list'.
The first was a pretty quick port basically -1 Temur Battle Rage, -2 Lightning Bolt, -4 Gitaxian probe, -3 Steppe Lynx, for 3 Tainted Strike, 2 Fatal Push, 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Narnam Renegade, and 1 Greenwheel Liberator.
The Second was an attempt at going more zoo-like and replacing the probes with extra creatures. -1 Thoughtseize, -2 Lightning Bolt, -3 Steppe Lynx, and -4 Probe. Adding 4 Narnam Renegade, 2 Greenwheel Liberator, 1 Wooded Foothills, and 3 Fatal Push.
Both have performed fairly well, I'm leaning towards the first list because it retains the explosivity of the original list. I need more testing to be sure though.
That's my main concern with the bw version I haven't done by own testing yet but it seems slower and less consistent than mono black.
Does disposessesing all the marvels from a marvel deck cripple it enough?
Cards like gaeas cradle, necropotence, and humility are still just as good in multiplayer.
The justification that it's a multiplayer format and therefore it's somehow ok to have one land that taps for 10 mana or be able to pay 1 life and draw as many cards as you want just doesn't hold up to me. Sure it being a singlehon format means that those cards are rarer to come up even in decks that they are in. But when they do the game is decided often on turn 0. That is an amount of variance I would personally rather not have.
What does the format lose by banning these cards? 6 mana on turn 3? The requirement to put these cards in every deck you make so that it's 'competitive'?
Personally I'd rather do without.
That said they have backed off and will likely end up with the same old banlist that we've had for ages and we will continue building decks with cards that are too powerful for legacy :/
The main issue there is that when this is done in tv and in books it flows well because the cuts can be short and jumping back and forth doesn't take very long. A 6 month gap between/during jumps breaks up the flow too much imo to keep the feel of contiguous timelines. This is why in most successful fantasy I've read even when it jumps to different plots the time tends to have little or no overlap.
If in so many matchups you are boarding out a land and into a more aggressive stance would it make sense to just shift the maindeck to be lower to the ground and more aggressive? There's the old adage that if you always side in a card maybe it should be main decked but I think that holds true for larger shifts as well.
I like your list a lot and it's where im starting for my deck, so far my only tweak has been to swap a chandra for a skysovereign, it's done well so far.
Lost Legacy can't hit artifacts, so you cannot get Torrential Gearhulk with it, which is a prime target.
what is your usual sideboard for BG and mardu?
You could just add a 3rd thoughtseize and go up to 61 cards, wouldnt change the math on draws drastically. I don't see anything easily cut for it from the MD. You want 3 Tainted Strike in the scenario where 1 doesnt get you to 10, cutting a creature seems wrong, we only have 2 pieces of removal so we shouldnt trim there, trimming more from TBR, or cutting a BI seems wrong too. Keep in mind that in a lot of cases, played properly Surgical can work as discard/hand information too.
I can start quantifying my testing if it would help here.
What I recall off the top of my head from the last few days;
2-0 skred red
1-2 Naya landfall zoo
2-1 Jund
2-1 Bant Eldrazi
1-2 B/G tron
2-1 Abzan
0-2 Abzan
2-0 Affinity
2-1 Lantern
// 4 Artifact
4 Mishra's Bauble
// 19 Creature
4 Death's Shadow
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Street Wraith
3 Narnam Renegade
// 17 Instant
4 Mutagenic Growth
3 Temur Battle Rage
3 Become Immense
2 Fatal Push
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Tainted Strike
// 18 Land
1 Arid Mesa
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Thoughtseize
// 3 Creature
1 Ranger of Eos
2 Hooting Mandrills
// 3 Enchantment
1 Phyrexian Unlife
2 Stony Silence
// 5 Instant
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Hide // Seek
1 Path to Exile
1 Fatal Push
1 Surgical Extraction
// 1 Land
1 Forest
// 3 Sorcery
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Pyroclasm
On the topic at hand; I've been running through the current t1 and preboard we are doing alright, I need to compile my results but abzan is about 50/50, jund is 60/40, burn is 50/50, bantdrazi is still awful but preboard is actually better now, they are tuned for more ramp and slower games, affinity is 60/40, tron is still an easy win. The most recent tweak ive made is -1 thoughtseize and +1 wooded foothills, up to 13 fetches and the 5 shocks. The deck was getting mana screwed a bit too often.
The first was a pretty quick port basically -1 Temur Battle Rage, -2 Lightning Bolt, -4 Gitaxian probe, -3 Steppe Lynx, for 3 Tainted Strike, 2 Fatal Push, 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Narnam Renegade, and 1 Greenwheel Liberator.
The Second was an attempt at going more zoo-like and replacing the probes with extra creatures. -1 Thoughtseize, -2 Lightning Bolt, -3 Steppe Lynx, and -4 Probe. Adding 4 Narnam Renegade, 2 Greenwheel Liberator, 1 Wooded Foothills, and 3 Fatal Push.
Both have performed fairly well, I'm leaning towards the first list because it retains the explosivity of the original list. I need more testing to be sure though.