im a big fan of beating down so I like that she is an evasive beater with persist. her etb effect is more of an icing than something i necessarily build around. it is something nice to have if you are the one doing the actual wrath-ing
i actually disagree with people saying it can only be run as part of a counter package. in my three color decks that have blue, i tend to run only a couple(2-5) counter spells and negate always makes the cut because it only have one U.
for me there are other ways to get rid of creatures so my counterspells are usually reserved for game ending spells or to help push my game ending spell through.
delay is definitely a sweet option that I havent seen other places. im definitely going to see if i can pick a couple up. most of the time "must counter" spells lose much of their bite when they happen on schedule because everyone can plan for it.
No you pump him on your opponent's turn then go nuts, that's how i've always seen the way to do it, during his upkeep tap Mickey and put a +1/+1 counter on him, then go ahead and play something like Windborn Muse or some really fun prevention effect on your turn and pump it so it survives, then you've got yourself a seriously fun general, even if you did play him turn 2, just ensure you drop a accelerant like Sol Ring to give him that added 2 counters when you do decide to play him turn 2, it really makes all the diference when it comes to timing.
... this makes no sense. if you are pumping him on their turn it still means you HAVENT ATTACKED. so its not very voltron.
even with sol ring, he comes down turn 2 as a 2/2. a turn slower than isamaru. and if you stop attacking for a turn to pump him you are losing damage...
It's definitely the flexibility of Mickey that is starting to attract him to me. Isamaru can start bringing the beats early, and Norn is a big anthem later on, but Mikaeus can do a fair impression of either of those, and many things in between. Plus, he can pump himself and go Voltron if you find yourself without much of a board presence for him to support.
pumping himself seems so bad unless you played him turn 2 because you have nothing else to do. i mean do your metas just let things live multiple rounds especially if they are threatening? tapping him instead of attacking in a voltron strategy just seems so bad.
Well.. I think he is a different style of agro. He encourages a token agro strategy. I could totally see dropping Mikaeus in for a few mana one turn then the next turn playing draw / go using Decree of Justice or White Sun's Zenith to spawn guys at the end of your opponents turns, drop a counter on them then, pass to your turn and drop another counter on them. Then on your turn using some other sort of mass buff perhaps something like Coat of Arms or Leonin Sun Standard to really buff them up.
A cool aspect of Mikaeus is that you can go so many ways with him. I could see some proliferate support being amazing in the deck. I can see token swarm being amazing. I could see a lot of ways to sort of approach it.
White has good token spawners and some decent buff options. They are coming up with more and more good buff effects as well. I could see Ajani Goldmane being very solid in the deck.
Elesh norn tends to be MUCH more devastating in this kind of deck because her anthem has "haste" and also clears the way for your guys. early game you play some land fetchers/ramp to make sure you get to 7 mana, maybe some anthems. then you cast things like spectral procession. and slam elesh norn and typically 20+ someone on the spot. i mean it is vulnerable to getting eleshnorn removed, but so is mikaeus.
the only reason to play mikaeus is if you dont want to be as threatening.
I know you said low cost, but both Honden of Seeing Winds and Mind Unbound beat the living [censored] out of Arena in the card drawing department.
Honden is only 1 colored and it doesn't cost life. Mind Unbound is just insane CA if it gets to live a few turns.
IMO the only reason to run Arena over those two is if you expect to win/have control of the game before you hit 5-6 mana.
i disagree. the cost of the arena is very important to me because at 5/6 mana I want to start using my whole turn to do real things. where as at 3 i can lay the arena early. and in the late game i can play it and still cast another spell for the turn.
as far as mind unbound winning you the game, it is exactly for that reason i like arena better, people wont kill it or you immediately upon seeing it. in general i just feel like arena will draw you more cards for less mana on average.
im going to have to disagree with you on catastrophe. the whole point to the card is versatility. the problem with wraths is taht they dont help you when you are ahead. the problem with geddons is that they dont help you while you are behind. this card does what you want when you want it.
i would cut dragon mage but thats just cause in my meta letting other people draw is pretty bad.
aegis angel also is pretty meh.
i like leaving in hellkite charger because if not, at lease he is a hasted 5/5 flier when you dont have kaalia so he does alot more without the other part of your combo.
i also dont like condemn but thats a meta call. most of the generals in my meta dont swing.
also I would consider running unburial rites over quicksilver amulet. Both save you mana on your dudes. while one loses you a card and the other gains you a card. and presumably you are using both in the later game where most likely you have equal or more stuff in your GY than hand.
If I am running green I have Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, Explosive Vegetation, Skyshroud Claim, Sad Robot, STE, and Yavi Elder. I thought it was sacrilege to not run those spells in green.
Oh, and Krosan Grip...
End of Line
I like my mana fixing to actually ramp me. I pretty much always run reach/cultivate. I run explosive and skyshroud when I am very lategame heavy. I run STE if I am early game heavy or have creature recursion or other ways to abuse it.
yavi elder doesnt actually ramp you, takes so much mana and tempo. if you want it to actually fix your mana, you need double green early, and you will be wasting two turns, most likely discarding a card because you drew too many, and it still doesnt ramp you. sure it may be better later in the game. but usually late in the game there are much better draw engines.
most of the time Id rather have a cycle land or a real land than a yavi elder tbh. or something like worn powerstone.
elder feels bad in 3 color decks. sure he gets you two lands which fixes your mana, but you need to have double green to begin with. early game he uses alot of mana and most likely will make you discard. late game he still costs 5 mana and can only potentially draw you one spell.
Dice roll attacks drive me crazy. It makes me want to attack them even more aggressively.
dice roll attacks dont bother me as much as if the guy who attacked me for a bunch gets all pissy when I retaliate. if you are going to dice roll to decide who to attack, then man up to whatever the dice decided for you.
I think its fine to "go hostile" on someone, but you really need to make sure people in your group have adequate threat assessment as to when to do it, when to back off and go after someone else. this is where most things break down.
I know this is why I hate playing with new people Ive never met before. I was playing a beatdown deck once, spreading the damage around. and once everyone stabilized and I had like one card in had, one person just outright killed me instead of the blue player that was drawing a buttload of cards and who subsequently timestretched to oblivion.
I try so hard to keep decks "fair", and "fun", and as far from that D-word that everyone likes to throw around, but sometimes my old habits get the best of me. Sometimes I just like Mana Draining into Rasputin, OK?
Did I mention I was playing without Prime Time and our favorite Vindicator of Zs? It was going well, too. The deck was powerful. Will my Tooth and Nail always play out the same now?
No matter how hard I try to tone down my decks or create some "silly interactions," the power level always ends up a little beyond what I had hoped for. I'll convince myself this is a good thing, maybe the power level of my groups' decks will trend upward… maybe…
Gosh, I'm starting to hate myself already…
---
Is this an internal struggle for anyone else or just me?
now given I am not a big spike myself, but the way I manage this(and encourage more people to do) is have some decks that are super spikey to play once or twice in a night, and then the rest of the decks be goofy/fun. this also gets around the need to buy a buttload of staples. I dont really want more than 2 consecrated sphinxes because in the silly decks I have, they would just be drawing unecessary attention.
also if you feel like you "arent doing anything" in your silly decks, just make them with less disruption and more AWESOME(proactive cards). and make them with a lower curve. that means in a given game, you might not win, but you sure as hell are going to cast things and they will do something instead of being reactive.
my example of a recent deck that ive built and like alot is a RG beatdown Stonebrow deck. I put in alot of haste enablers which make sure my fatties get in there. and my favorite card by far is warstorm surge because I get to do things like a hasted inferno titan to 12 someone, or turning rampaging baloths into a makeshift valakut, or terastadoning my own lands to 18 someone in the face. I usually lose because I dont have that many defenses, but i get out there and I usually deal more damage than anyone else at the table and really contribute to each and every game.
for me there are other ways to get rid of creatures so my counterspells are usually reserved for game ending spells or to help push my game ending spell through.
delay is definitely a sweet option that I havent seen other places. im definitely going to see if i can pick a couple up. most of the time "must counter" spells lose much of their bite when they happen on schedule because everyone can plan for it.
... this makes no sense. if you are pumping him on their turn it still means you HAVENT ATTACKED. so its not very voltron.
even with sol ring, he comes down turn 2 as a 2/2. a turn slower than isamaru. and if you stop attacking for a turn to pump him you are losing damage...
pumping himself seems so bad unless you played him turn 2 because you have nothing else to do. i mean do your metas just let things live multiple rounds especially if they are threatening? tapping him instead of attacking in a voltron strategy just seems so bad.
Elesh norn tends to be MUCH more devastating in this kind of deck because her anthem has "haste" and also clears the way for your guys. early game you play some land fetchers/ramp to make sure you get to 7 mana, maybe some anthems. then you cast things like spectral procession. and slam elesh norn and typically 20+ someone on the spot. i mean it is vulnerable to getting eleshnorn removed, but so is mikaeus.
the only reason to play mikaeus is if you dont want to be as threatening.
i disagree. the cost of the arena is very important to me because at 5/6 mana I want to start using my whole turn to do real things. where as at 3 i can lay the arena early. and in the late game i can play it and still cast another spell for the turn.
as far as mind unbound winning you the game, it is exactly for that reason i like arena better, people wont kill it or you immediately upon seeing it. in general i just feel like arena will draw you more cards for less mana on average.
i would cut dragon mage but thats just cause in my meta letting other people draw is pretty bad.
aegis angel also is pretty meh.
i like leaving in hellkite charger because if not, at lease he is a hasted 5/5 flier when you dont have kaalia so he does alot more without the other part of your combo.
i also dont like condemn but thats a meta call. most of the generals in my meta dont swing.
also I would consider running unburial rites over quicksilver amulet. Both save you mana on your dudes. while one loses you a card and the other gains you a card. and presumably you are using both in the later game where most likely you have equal or more stuff in your GY than hand.
I like my mana fixing to actually ramp me. I pretty much always run reach/cultivate. I run explosive and skyshroud when I am very lategame heavy. I run STE if I am early game heavy or have creature recursion or other ways to abuse it.
yavi elder doesnt actually ramp you, takes so much mana and tempo. if you want it to actually fix your mana, you need double green early, and you will be wasting two turns, most likely discarding a card because you drew too many, and it still doesnt ramp you. sure it may be better later in the game. but usually late in the game there are much better draw engines.
most of the time Id rather have a cycle land or a real land than a yavi elder tbh. or something like worn powerstone.
dice roll attacks dont bother me as much as if the guy who attacked me for a bunch gets all pissy when I retaliate. if you are going to dice roll to decide who to attack, then man up to whatever the dice decided for you.
I know this is why I hate playing with new people Ive never met before. I was playing a beatdown deck once, spreading the damage around. and once everyone stabilized and I had like one card in had, one person just outright killed me instead of the blue player that was drawing a buttload of cards and who subsequently timestretched to oblivion.
now given I am not a big spike myself, but the way I manage this(and encourage more people to do) is have some decks that are super spikey to play once or twice in a night, and then the rest of the decks be goofy/fun. this also gets around the need to buy a buttload of staples. I dont really want more than 2 consecrated sphinxes because in the silly decks I have, they would just be drawing unecessary attention.
also if you feel like you "arent doing anything" in your silly decks, just make them with less disruption and more AWESOME(proactive cards). and make them with a lower curve. that means in a given game, you might not win, but you sure as hell are going to cast things and they will do something instead of being reactive.
my example of a recent deck that ive built and like alot is a RG beatdown Stonebrow deck. I put in alot of haste enablers which make sure my fatties get in there. and my favorite card by far is warstorm surge because I get to do things like a hasted inferno titan to 12 someone, or turning rampaging baloths into a makeshift valakut, or terastadoning my own lands to 18 someone in the face. I usually lose because I dont have that many defenses, but i get out there and I usually deal more damage than anyone else at the table and really contribute to each and every game.