I've definitely come around to the hierarch build after trying it out a bit, the thing i like about it, is that they actually adds something to each of our game plans. In terms of tempo, we get bigger attacks, in terms of control, we get to cast cryptic a turn earlier, and in terms of combo we get to go off a turn earlier. What's not to like? I disagree with the idea that we cant run it with serum visions. Having options is always helpful.
Yeah, that's true. Now that I think about it, I like the hierarchs, it gives us a legitimate reason to play this over RUG twin. We have a better beat down plan and a slightly better control plan, as our paths can kill things bolts can't. Our combo is weaker, but it can be a turn faster which can matter a lot. I like you, lol.
This is what I have been testing. So far it plays really well. Played 1 game against scapeshift and won. When 2-0 against Abzan company and I played 3 games against my friend's Jund deck and went 2-1, 0-2, 2-1.
Turn 2 knight is a major threat and the exalted triggers are really nice, which is why I added back the hierarchs. The deck has a pretty even mana base, which makes triple U a bit of a pain. I dropped one cryptic and one snapcaster. I also dropped both witnesses. Snap is awesome, but I felt the hierarchs were more important with 22 lands. Witness is a nice card, but again I felt hierarch was more important to my game plan.
Further tuning, I will have to work on the SB. Spell pierce will become dispel and verdicts will change to engineered explosives. I didn't get to play hallowed moonlight, but I really wanted to, looks like crazy nifty tech. As far as the mainboard, I think I want to remove 1 pridemage for another Clique. Clique won games if it stuck for more than a turn or two. It was just gross with exalted triggers. I will continue to test it more.
That Hallowed moonlight was in case the one guy with grishoalbrand/through the breach was there, It technically also counters any token generator and cantrips, heh.
I think I can get behind this, but u think u can get away with 3 heirarchs? Cutting the witnesses and a snappie are reasonable, but I like having 2 cryptics. As for cliques, ur prolly right, however, I only own 1, so......
I tore it apart already, but it was very similar to yours in feel. Main difference was goyfs and no maindeck pridemages. In the games I played against Tron I don't think any of these things would have mattered. They went like this:
1) mull to 5, turn 3 natural tron into karn, exile your hangarback walker, exile hand stuff, exile stuff, get karn up to 11 or so, stirrings for another karn, blah blah, cast ulamog.
2) turn 1 map, turn 2 double relic (when I have the combo in hand) + second tron piece, game's functionally over.
In retrospect I think that pridemage is core to putting pressure on tron, since he accelerates the beats clock significantly. But in my games it would not have mattered. He tronned up too fast and hated out the combo.
Spell pierces and lots of them might be the ticket as well, but again you've got to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and goyf might be the key there. HBW is probably just too slow.
I think the problem is that you need a 2-mana beater that can slide under a turn 3 natural tron. Once I had a goyf and untapped with my counters (especially post-board) I had both a clock and disruption. Being able to snapcaster counter helps too to add to the clock. I would normally only go for the knight if I saw that the opponent wouldn't be able to tron, or if I had some disruption. As I said though, 1 game doesn't exactly give me a lot of info (but we did post board after the first one).
I couldn't quite get happy with the control shell, but I cheaped out and didn't play as many counterspells as I shoulda (tried 4 remands, 2 snares, 2 cryptics) I think. Also added Academy ruins.
HBW with academy was very, very good - got me there one game with Township and about 8 casts of Hangarback walker.
My meta is strange though, and I ran into an ensaring bridge tezzerator deck which annihilated me - I probably was a bit light on pridemages though.
Then, Tron. The control shell just cannot really beat tron. It's absolutely miserable. Your hope is that you spell pierce Karn and then combo out and they don't do any more stuff. It was really horrific, probably scared me off of the deck given how many tron decks there are in my meta (UW tron, 2x RG tron, and 1x weird mono white tron with secure the wastes).
Hm.... I didn't have a problem with tron in the one game I played against it. Playing a turn 2 goyf, and attacking them down with artifact, land, and instant, possibly even sorcery if I serum visioned, generally put enough pressure on them, that my counters held them off. I could have just been lucky though admittedly. This was especially true when they tried to stabilize with wurmcoil engine as I would just let it resolve and path it. Then again, it was one game, so I can't really say...
That deck reminds me a lot of the legacy version (which did very well in the legacy open). I might have to give it a shot.
@ts31: you mind explaining your sideboard a bit?
So I just saw this, I was replying with my phone earlier. My sideboard is that way cuz I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured being able to kill RIP and blood moon were paramount. After that, I just threw stuff together, don't take the SB too seriously. The Setessan tactics, however, is kind of my board wipe, as my creatures are almost always bigger than theirs.
Well just played one game with it and tokens destroyed it. I think board wipes might be a worthwhile consideration. Ghostly prison might be a good idea too, just lock them down. This was only one match, so not much to take away from that, except when decks go wide, we get in trouble.
Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
I will just say that clique with 3 exalted creatures out is gross. Hierarchs also helped with the 3xU requirement for cryptic. I am testing with a couple dorks, but the control shell feels nice.
The more testing the better =) i appreciate all the feedback! What did u cut for the heirarchs?
@ts31 i was thinking of somehow jamming sejiri and academy ruins in your landbase.. and then go with pokken's thoughts about jamming hbw instead of tarmo.
Would it be too much to try and jam hexproof + worship tech in here to go with our tempo plan?
I imagine you could do the first, although with the second, what does that accomplish? Not bagging on it, i just dont know what the goal of it is.
Well just played one game with it and tokens destroyed it. I think board wipes might be a worthwhile consideration. Ghostly prison might be a good idea too, just lock them down. This was only one match, so not much to take away from that, except when decks go wide, we get in trouble.
Snaps was great, and it did feel like a twin deck in the respect, but unlike twin, I didn't feel like I had an answer that I could drop for the win. I also missed having a dork turn 1, to help ramp out the combo faster. I think that needs to be in the deck. Being able to combo off turn 3 is a huge threat and needs to be part of the deck.
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
Supreme Verdict might be the right answer, but that's all I can think of. Jund gets fat goyfs from running 8-10 sorceries or so and 6 of them being discard and there's just not the right stuff in our colors to support that.
You could try out Search for Tomorrow potentially, but all in all I think I would recommend swapping Voice or Hangarback in that slot and see if it performs better.
Krosan grip is a sweet piece of tech. It does a kind of poor man's abrupt decay imitation, stopping numerous combos cold (storm, twin, bloom, and I am sure some others I'm not thinking of--maybe half of ad nauseam?:). Being able to Krosan Grip an oblivion stone or expedition map might be worth the price of admission too haha.
Honestly though, I'm okay with Goyf currently. a 3/4 that can turn into a 4/5 by chumping a snapcaster or something is perfectly reasonable when paired with my ~6/6 knights. I actually like the goyfs a lot.
I was thinking about the snaps a lot. How have they been performing? Main targets are path and counters I take it? How does your deck deal with GY hate? I find that a single scooze makes my life very sad.
I think I am going to build out your deck on MTGO and test it a bit. It looks very solid!
Not gonna lie, scoozes aren't as prevalent in my LGS as they are probably in other places. However, from my limited experience (1 game/1 guy) I felt like I always had an answer for a scooze. 2 cryptics, 2 spell pierces, and 4 paths always managed to hit him. If you're worried about scoozes though, I don't see why you can't have extra spot removal SB. In terms of enchantment based gy hate, RIP can be problematic, but I have a lot of SB options against enchantment hate. As long as they don't have RIP in play, going for the combo is still an option.
Also, tell me if you have any improvements on it after testing it, I only get to play occasionally so I can't tune it amazingly well.
Supreme Verdict might be the right answer, but that's all I can think of. Jund gets fat goyfs from running 8-10 sorceries or so and 6 of them being discard and there's just not the right stuff in our colors to support that.
You could try out Search for Tomorrow potentially, but all in all I think I would recommend swapping Voice or Hangarback in that slot and see if it performs better.
Krosan grip is a sweet piece of tech. It does a kind of poor man's abrupt decay imitation, stopping numerous combos cold (storm, twin, bloom, and I am sure some others I'm not thinking of--maybe half of ad nauseam?:). Being able to Krosan Grip an oblivion stone or expedition map might be worth the price of admission too haha.
Honestly though, I'm okay with Goyf currently. a 3/4 that can turn into a 4/5 by chumping a snapcaster or something is perfectly reasonable when paired with my ~6/6 knights. I actually like the goyfs a lot.
I'd love to see how that list plays with hangarback walkers instead of goyfs. I really like it, but I think the sorcery count is too low for goyf to be quite the right beater of choice. It's possible that Voice is better, too, but I see that you want the potential for 4+ power to present a fast clock.
I think the CA from HBW's (and possibility of winning with Gavony Township + Thopter beats) might be the right call.
That said, I really like the list and will almost surely be sleeving something very similar up on Friday
If you wanted to play the deck more controlly, I think Hangerback walkers are perfectly reasonable. However, I wanted my plan A to be more of a beatdown strategy. In a lot of games, Knights + goyfs are enough to win. Admittedly, on the goyf plan, path to exile, and only 4 sorceries does kind of screw with that, I don't know how to fix that though. However, most of the time, Goyfs were around 3/4 from my opponents added cards in the graveyard.
Game 1: We both keep 7 cards. My opponent inquisitions me in the start and takes one of my knights. I have a few counters and a qasali pridemage. I draw a goyf, but play my qasali pridemage hoping to eat and removal/counters he has. It sticks and I know the coast is clear. I then land a goyf with counter back up and beat him down. He attempted to combo off, but a path to exile dealt with that.
Game 2: (SB -1 retreat, +1 negate) My opening hand consists of the combo and 3 paths. My opponent sort of durdles around with a bunch of cantrips and terminates my goyf. He then attempts to combo, but my 3 paths ensures that doesn't happen. On turn 5, I drop a knight with negate open and I combo off. Apparently my opponent didn't know what I was doing and sideboarded incorrectly. Oh well, I guess that's the benefit of playing weird decks.
This matchup seems less terrible than it might seem. 4 paths, 2 E. wits, and 4 snappies lets you deal with anything that touches the battlefield, and their lightning bolts can rarely kill goyf and knight, and terminate is generally a 2-of in their decks.
Round 2 Naya Burn
Game 1: I go first and path his first one drop. Spell snare his 2 drop. Spell pierced a burn spell. Landed a goyf and rode him to victory
Game 2: (SB -2 Eternal Witness, -2 Cryptic command, +2 Dromoka's command, +1 Negate, +1 Mana Leak) My opponent had a fast start and I only had removal spells which was fine, until he started drawing all his burn. I managed to get my opponent hellbent and had a goyf on board but I was at 2 life. An atarka's command off the top finished it.
Game 3: Same SB choices. I start first, I fall behind a bit under wild nacatl and eidolon of the great revel, but manage to spell pierce a boros charm and land a goyf. I drew a dromoka's command and killed the eidolon and the nacatl with dispell backup. I countered his next burn card, played a knight, and then comboed off the next turn.
This matchup is really based of what part of your deck you draw against theirs. If you have your giant creatures against their smaller creatures, you can win easily. If you have your counters against their burn, you should do well. If your creatures line up against their burn, you just better hope you can combo off.
Round 3 Affinity
Game 1: I opened with a goyf and kept attacking. My opponent empties his hand in 3 turns, while I try to path a few guys and play a knight. After i play a knight, he days undoings, and I draw into my combo. I end the game turn 4
Game 2: (SB: -2 E. wit, -1 Dispell, -1 Retreat, -3 Remands, +2 Kataki, +1 Cryptic, +1 nature's claim, +1 krosan grip, +1 mana leak, +1 Setessan tactics) I start again. I play a pridemage, with an opening hand which included a knight, claim, 2 paths, and a snappy. I try and kill everything he has, but an etched champion complicates things. I play my knight while he attacks me with his champion. I find another knight and get into a slight standstill. I break it by drawing and playing a retreat and buffing my knights to ~13/13s, but have to stop as my life was getting low. 2 attacks later and I win as he can only block one of the knights and I killed all his other creatures
Round 4: Bloom Titan
Game 1: He starts off with an amulet, a bloom, into titan, into I die the next turn. I had 2 lands in play =(
Game 2: (SB -2 E. wit, -1 retreat, -2 spell snare, +1 Cryptic, +1 negate, +1 mana leak, +1 spell pierce, +1 krosan grip) I open with a hand of 4 counterspells and 3 lands. I keep. I proceed to counter his amulet and summer bloom. Turn 4 I draw a Clique and play it taking his slaughter pact. I keep attacking and draw a snapcaster mage and a cryptic command. He tries to buy time with an engineered explosives but I krosan grip that and then cryptic command his slaughter pact
Game 3: I keep a hand with counters and the combo. He uses ancient stirrings to find a talisman, which i spell pierce turn 2. I then play a goyf on turn 2 and a knight on turn 3. I combo off turn 4 for the win.
This version of the deck is what I've been toying around with lately. It's similar to RUG twin (almost the same with just a few cards shifted) and I have to say it's really fun. You get to play the control deck a lot, as paths are much better than bolts in taking down exarchs and titans to name a few. Also, with 6 ways to recurr them you can play a grindy match-up. I was iffy at first about keeping the pridemages and maybe adding scoozes, but I like them now, as they give exalted bonuses and give you an oboard answer to splinter twin decks. The side-board still might need a bit of changing around, and the mana base is really painful currently which can be an issue against burn or aggressive decks, as the combo requires that you pay life for every fetchland which can cause a lot of problems when you are low since you can't give them another turn where they could kill you. Trying to sit back on paths, snaps, and counters was actually a very reasonable way to win, since turning to corner with goyfs was pretty fast. Overall I like this version of the deck, but this is in development stages, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
Edit: Forgot to add that I side-boarded in krosan grip for the titan match-up.
I honestly do have to say, I was a major skeptic of desperate ravings at first, but... eventually when I started playing with just 2 of them, I almost universally would always want DR over Think twice. The thing about Desperate Ravings is that, yes there is risk, however, you dig 4 cards in, have a chance to recast any flashback cards thrown away, and you actually have a very good statistical probability of getting what you were looking for if you have like... 3 cards in your hand. With that being said, however, I still like Forbidden Alchemy more than both, heh.
That Hallowed moonlight was in case the one guy with grishoalbrand/through the breach was there, It technically also counters any token generator and cantrips, heh.
I think I can get behind this, but u think u can get away with 3 heirarchs? Cutting the witnesses and a snappie are reasonable, but I like having 2 cryptics. As for cliques, ur prolly right, however, I only own 1, so......
I think the problem is that you need a 2-mana beater that can slide under a turn 3 natural tron. Once I had a goyf and untapped with my counters (especially post-board) I had both a clock and disruption. Being able to snapcaster counter helps too to add to the clock. I would normally only go for the knight if I saw that the opponent wouldn't be able to tron, or if I had some disruption. As I said though, 1 game doesn't exactly give me a lot of info (but we did post board after the first one).
Hm.... I didn't have a problem with tron in the one game I played against it. Playing a turn 2 goyf, and attacking them down with artifact, land, and instant, possibly even sorcery if I serum visioned, generally put enough pressure on them, that my counters held them off. I could have just been lucky though admittedly. This was especially true when they tried to stabilize with wurmcoil engine as I would just let it resolve and path it. Then again, it was one game, so I can't really say...
Do you mind putting your decklist up?
So I just saw this, I was replying with my phone earlier. My sideboard is that way cuz I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured being able to kill RIP and blood moon were paramount. After that, I just threw stuff together, don't take the SB too seriously. The Setessan tactics, however, is kind of my board wipe, as my creatures are almost always bigger than theirs.
The more testing the better =) i appreciate all the feedback! What did u cut for the heirarchs?
I imagine you could do the first, although with the second, what does that accomplish? Not bagging on it, i just dont know what the goal of it is.
I dislike the mana dorks cuz it dilutes the power of the deck. The thing is, it plays more like rug twin than the other twin variants so you can beat ppl with ur guys. I feel like playing a defensive control game is reasonable if you are playing more aggreesive decks, and just countering everything that moves. I could be wrong, but when i had mana dorks in it, I felt like i lost consistency to protect myself.
Not gonna lie, scoozes aren't as prevalent in my LGS as they are probably in other places. However, from my limited experience (1 game/1 guy) I felt like I always had an answer for a scooze. 2 cryptics, 2 spell pierces, and 4 paths always managed to hit him. If you're worried about scoozes though, I don't see why you can't have extra spot removal SB. In terms of enchantment based gy hate, RIP can be problematic, but I have a lot of SB options against enchantment hate. As long as they don't have RIP in play, going for the combo is still an option.
Also, tell me if you have any improvements on it after testing it, I only get to play occasionally so I can't tune it amazingly well.
Honestly though, I'm okay with Goyf currently. a 3/4 that can turn into a 4/5 by chumping a snapcaster or something is perfectly reasonable when paired with my ~6/6 knights. I actually like the goyfs a lot.
If you wanted to play the deck more controlly, I think Hangerback walkers are perfectly reasonable. However, I wanted my plan A to be more of a beatdown strategy. In a lot of games, Knights + goyfs are enough to win. Admittedly, on the goyf plan, path to exile, and only 4 sorceries does kind of screw with that, I don't know how to fix that though. However, most of the time, Goyfs were around 3/4 from my opponents added cards in the graveyard.
2 Windswept Heath
3 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Gavony Township
1 Plains
1 Forest
2 Island
Spells:
4 Path to Exile
3 Remand
1 Spell Pierce
1 Dispell
2 Cryptic Command
2 Spell Snare
4 Serum Vision
4 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Tarmogoyfs
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Vendillion Clique
2 Eternal Witness
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Kataki war's wage
1 Nature's claim
1 Krosan Grip
1 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Spell Pierce
1 Cryptic Command
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Celestial Purge
1 Setessan tactics
1 Swan Song
Round 1 Grixis Twin
Game 1: We both keep 7 cards. My opponent inquisitions me in the start and takes one of my knights. I have a few counters and a qasali pridemage. I draw a goyf, but play my qasali pridemage hoping to eat and removal/counters he has. It sticks and I know the coast is clear. I then land a goyf with counter back up and beat him down. He attempted to combo off, but a path to exile dealt with that.
Game 2: (SB -1 retreat, +1 negate) My opening hand consists of the combo and 3 paths. My opponent sort of durdles around with a bunch of cantrips and terminates my goyf. He then attempts to combo, but my 3 paths ensures that doesn't happen. On turn 5, I drop a knight with negate open and I combo off. Apparently my opponent didn't know what I was doing and sideboarded incorrectly. Oh well, I guess that's the benefit of playing weird decks.
This matchup seems less terrible than it might seem. 4 paths, 2 E. wits, and 4 snappies lets you deal with anything that touches the battlefield, and their lightning bolts can rarely kill goyf and knight, and terminate is generally a 2-of in their decks.
Round 2 Naya Burn
Game 1: I go first and path his first one drop. Spell snare his 2 drop. Spell pierced a burn spell. Landed a goyf and rode him to victory
Game 2: (SB -2 Eternal Witness, -2 Cryptic command, +2 Dromoka's command, +1 Negate, +1 Mana Leak) My opponent had a fast start and I only had removal spells which was fine, until he started drawing all his burn. I managed to get my opponent hellbent and had a goyf on board but I was at 2 life. An atarka's command off the top finished it.
Game 3: Same SB choices. I start first, I fall behind a bit under wild nacatl and eidolon of the great revel, but manage to spell pierce a boros charm and land a goyf. I drew a dromoka's command and killed the eidolon and the nacatl with dispell backup. I countered his next burn card, played a knight, and then comboed off the next turn.
This matchup is really based of what part of your deck you draw against theirs. If you have your giant creatures against their smaller creatures, you can win easily. If you have your counters against their burn, you should do well. If your creatures line up against their burn, you just better hope you can combo off.
Round 3 Affinity
Game 1: I opened with a goyf and kept attacking. My opponent empties his hand in 3 turns, while I try to path a few guys and play a knight. After i play a knight, he days undoings, and I draw into my combo. I end the game turn 4
Game 2: (SB: -2 E. wit, -1 Dispell, -1 Retreat, -3 Remands, +2 Kataki, +1 Cryptic, +1 nature's claim, +1 krosan grip, +1 mana leak, +1 Setessan tactics) I start again. I play a pridemage, with an opening hand which included a knight, claim, 2 paths, and a snappy. I try and kill everything he has, but an etched champion complicates things. I play my knight while he attacks me with his champion. I find another knight and get into a slight standstill. I break it by drawing and playing a retreat and buffing my knights to ~13/13s, but have to stop as my life was getting low. 2 attacks later and I win as he can only block one of the knights and I killed all his other creatures
Round 4: Bloom Titan
Game 1: He starts off with an amulet, a bloom, into titan, into I die the next turn. I had 2 lands in play =(
Game 2: (SB -2 E. wit, -1 retreat, -2 spell snare, +1 Cryptic, +1 negate, +1 mana leak, +1 spell pierce, +1 krosan grip) I open with a hand of 4 counterspells and 3 lands. I keep. I proceed to counter his amulet and summer bloom. Turn 4 I draw a Clique and play it taking his slaughter pact. I keep attacking and draw a snapcaster mage and a cryptic command. He tries to buy time with an engineered explosives but I krosan grip that and then cryptic command his slaughter pact
Game 3: I keep a hand with counters and the combo. He uses ancient stirrings to find a talisman, which i spell pierce turn 2. I then play a goyf on turn 2 and a knight on turn 3. I combo off turn 4 for the win.
This version of the deck is what I've been toying around with lately. It's similar to RUG twin (almost the same with just a few cards shifted) and I have to say it's really fun. You get to play the control deck a lot, as paths are much better than bolts in taking down exarchs and titans to name a few. Also, with 6 ways to recurr them you can play a grindy match-up. I was iffy at first about keeping the pridemages and maybe adding scoozes, but I like them now, as they give exalted bonuses and give you an oboard answer to splinter twin decks. The side-board still might need a bit of changing around, and the mana base is really painful currently which can be an issue against burn or aggressive decks, as the combo requires that you pay life for every fetchland which can cause a lot of problems when you are low since you can't give them another turn where they could kill you. Trying to sit back on paths, snaps, and counters was actually a very reasonable way to win, since turning to corner with goyfs was pretty fast. Overall I like this version of the deck, but this is in development stages, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
Edit: Forgot to add that I side-boarded in krosan grip for the titan match-up.