The point of the 1-ofs is probably trying to at least have the technical ability of dealing with things, even if 1-of is unlikely it's a whole lot better than nothing. The worst feeling is when your opponent lands a threat and you know you have no way to deal with it even technically, and you're just painfully playing a few more turns not being able to concede but knowing you're a massive underdog, watching the looming nightmare becoming reality and then conceding. I have never believed in forcing a playset of each staple only because they are good cards. It just makes the deck really predictable to play against. Some cards play much better in multiples. I think playing 4x Sphinx's Revelation is a terrible decision, for example. The times when you draw 3 of them within the first few turns, you can expect to be stuck at 3-4 mana(or having lands but no cards ot play with) while your opponent beats you down. Meanwhile, playing 4x Thoughtseize or Azorius Charm seems much more preferable, because even if you draw an excess of them, it's nothing unbearable.
The best 1-ofs are the ones that you don't mind having in your hand, but never ever want two of. Typically a card like Whip of Erebos, any of the Gods, Blind Obedience or like in this case, Cyclonic Rift or Negate.
This explains it perfectly. Negate, essence scatter, cyclonic rift are cards I would never mind having in my hand as they are rarely ever dead cards, and sometimes as in the case of overload a great late game hoser, especially against planeswalker decks. They are also cards you wouldn't necessarily want to many of either.
To weigh in on the UWR argument, I recently switched from that to just U/W. I did a ton of playtesting last night, and I have to say my game got infinitely better against a wide range of decks after dropping red. It was a lot easier to tell if a starting hand was good without the horrible mana base and trying to balance cards and the only card I truly missed steam augry, and I really shouldn't as it rarely if ever worked in my favor. I was excited for "the new fact or fiction" but it really isn't. I think pure U/W is just a load more consistent and friendly to the player.
I honestly have a hard time choosing between Magma Jet and Izzet Charm, just because of that mode. They directly compete with eachother, where Magma Jet essentially always does 2/3 of Izzet Charms effect, but trades the counter mode for the ability to hit walkers and dome, and being slightly easier to cast. Maybe I'll try out Izzet Charm in it's place.
Another thing: With the recent success of pure UW control, I've been trying to think about why exactly I think red is worth adding to that deck, and what I gain by doing it. If UW by itself is fully competitive, what do I gain by adding red?
By looking at the field, we see that UW and Esper are both doing well. The Esper decks are essentially UW with a splash of black for an instant-speed removal suite, a few powerful creatures, Thoughtseize, and Ashiok. This means that as a tradeoff for the slightly more inconsistant manabase, they gain faster removal, more diverse finishers through powerful creatures, hand-disruption, and Ashiok, whom I believe is a very strong reason to go Esper right now.
So, for UWR to be worth it at all, it has to trump Esper in at least one of these areas. So, now, with that in mind, we look at the cards available that can be useful to us.
I will also mention what an enormous shame it is that Burning Earth doesn't say "an opponent" as opposed to "a player". If it had been opponent, that card alone would've been worth playing UWR for, imo.
Anyway, out of these cards, there are a few standouts to me. These are:
Out of these, the cards I consider to be must-play maindeck cards are Assemble, Counterflux, Mizzium Mortars and Steam Augury. These cards all provide something unique that pure UW doesn't, or provides it in a more useful or modular way. In addition to those, I believe EITHER Izzet Charm, Magma Jet or Lightning Strike should be played in atleast 2-4. The rest of the cards I'm unsure of. Stormbreath is a strong finisher, but I dislike the double red on it. I also just think Assemble is straight up better.
Chained to the Rocks...I'm unsure of. It could be a maindeck card, but I dislike how completly useless it is against control, as the list of threats it doesn't hit is so long. Stormbreath, Blood Baron and Obzedat all just laugh at it. Then there's also the problem with it's cost. At 1 mana, it is, admittedly, very cheap. However, the main advantage of a 1-mana removal spell is that it can be cast at turn one. Not so much with this one, as it requires an untapped Sacred Foundry for that to work. And the amount of stars that have to align for that to happen is pretty damn far over 9000. So the question then becomes why you would ever play it over Detention Sphere, which admittedly cannot hit those same creatures, but in return hits literally everything else on the board.
Warleader's Helix could be good, but if I'm going to play a 4-mana burn spell, I want it to kill planeswalkers aswell. While it does kill a few of them, it doesn't kill Ashiok, Elspeth or Jace after a plus. It also doesn't hit Blood Baron or Stormbreath, which in the end means that it's more or less pointless in the control matchup. That to me is what makes me feel it's a sideboard card.
Wear / Tear is an amazing sideboard card aswell, and should definitly be included there, as it hits Detention Sphere and God Artifacts, aswell as some Bestow creatures.
I also think 2-of of Barrage of Expendables can be worth considering in the SB, to retain the usefulness of the token generators in matchups where you are up against opposing Jaces.
So, with the analysis out of the way, I now intend to try to answer my original statement: "What do I gain by adding red?"
If we compare what we gain in comparison to UW by including the aforementioned spells, we see that we gain an improved filtering potential and draw through Magma Jet/Izzet Charm and Steam Augury, we gain more modular and powerful removal through Mortars, and finally we gain a trump in the control matchup through Counterflux. This can all be gained by a simple splash consisting of Steam Vents, Sacred Foundrys and Temple of Triumph, so you don't give up much in the way of consistancy.
Matchupwise, I feel we improve our odds against fast, low-curve aggro when compared to both UW and Esper. On the other hand, we falter against big creature aggro, such as All-in Green and GWx aggro which is where Esper shines. As for the control matchup, I feel we are slightly favoured against UW, and about even against Esper. The other matchups I don't feel I can make any kind of statement on as of yet.
Keep in mind, of course, that these are all my own opinions. Nothing here is to be taken as facts, but is posted for the value of discussion.
I love the analysis but I feel you undervalue Turn//Burn. As someone above mentioned it can deal with Reckoners, and it can also deal with the gods and any creature with protection from white and from red, as well as creatures bigger than our other red spells.
You have a few spots with this list you can add other things. I haven't played at any tournaments with this, but It works well enough. I like the focus on Green with a red splash for the purpose of hitting proper land drops. That is also why I am not using reckless waif. I like that Wolfbitten captive gives you something to do one your turn that can allow a flip around turn 3-4. It is also better in the late game than early game, and easier on the early game mana.
I also think young wolf is very important to the deck, sure it only gets a pump from a flipped Mayor but it helps out against removal and sweepers.
Speaking of removal and sweepers, that is why I would include some number of Full Moon rise. One on the board negates all but BSZ from your opponent.
One thing I wish I could include more of is either some pump spells, or burn spells. I just don't know where I would flip them.
I just want to say that while I have had some crazy mad draws with this deck, and have won some games against buddies of mine, I think this deck is a subpar aggro deck. RDW, and that new Mono-green deck making rounds are I think both stricktly better. The problem as always is that our cards don't get crazy good till after a flip, and it is sometimes hard to get one. Daybreak ranger and full moon rise both go a ways to helping against delver and tokens though.
Ok I asked this in a thread that was apparently a copy of this one.
I know that snapcaster mages are the bees knees in this deck, but are they absolutely necessary? I am working on getting a set of them together, but could I possibly try and get together the deck minus them, and what success do you guys think I would fare without them.
Interesting list, especially the pharaoh as you mentioned. Do you have any ways to send him back to the yard from your hand if you dont have a looter out? I've never tested him because the BBB seems outright impossible in a 4 color deck, but as you said hardcasting him isn't really the point.
I'm not sure what kind of results you've had testing but I would HIGHLY recommend 4x Unburial Rites. You can always side it out against someone running 12x counterspells or something to that effect. It literally wins games all by itself though and it can really push a stalemate in your favor especially with Sun Titan.
I haven't had an issue with a stuck pharaoh in hand yet. Honestly I don't think he has ever hit my hand between dream twist and forbidden alchemy. Not to mention splinterfrights milling. I had really good success so far. Most of my games I mill down to within 20 cards of my deck, so I have had plenty of options for grabbing and using those unburial rites. Granted I have done maybe 6 games total, so by no means am I an expert. I will give it a try sometime.
There was a few problems I had with this deck... it lost to Flyers, essentially. Wurm was garbage (no evasion = very hard to race with when it can just be chumped until it's removed). Mana Leak was useless when milled... Splinterfright wasn't nearly as good when nine times out of ten you'd be happier casting a Ruinator from your yard as a proper finisher etc.
So I took a look at adding a third color... Sun Titan seems really good, flashback cost on Rites seems super good... after a bunch of tweaking, I wound up with this list:
Sideboard is a bit of a mess and is being changed a lot as I try out new ideas...
So at first glance it might seem that I'm running too few land, but with a full 4 BoP, Mulch, and Looter, I don't often have issues at all with hitting land drops (if anything, I'm looting away land off the top)... also, with looters and mill in here, most times my 5 and up drops aren't sitting in my hand, they're in my yard being reanimated...
It runs pretty smooth... I originally ran more duals, but found I really needed more basics so that I didn't need to worry about the manabase being too slow. I'm happy with where it's at, now it's just a matter of tweaking the finishers to my liking and adjusting the curve post-board as I see fit.
Whats funny snappy is I started off with a deck just like you had. I found it worked well enough but was missing some stuff to really keep it competitive. I saw your 4 color discussion and thought you were crazy at first but honestly we only need a touch of white and black, enough that it is really easy to splash. My new deck is this.
The mana base looks Janky, and I will be honest I may be off in a few numbers as I am doing this from memory, but I swear I had no problem with it during the test games I was running. You have 15 lands that come down turn one untapped, and only 6 lands that can come down after turn 3 tapped, which isn't to bad.
Some differences from your list Scrappy are the vengeful pharaohs. Honestly these guys are pretty amazing. Ya you will rarely if ever hardcast them, but that isn't the point. They can really give a lot of control decks pause to attack, since they don't really have the creatures to risk loosing. Even against aggro like WW and RDW it can give them pause, as they will trade 1-3 damage for a lost creature. I also only run 2 sun titans as he is in my opinion more of a win more kind of condition. It is useful to have though as it will give you another threat to bring back, and having one in your graveyard makes opponents nervous, but you can win plenty of games with him.
I also hated the idea of the swiftfoot boots for the longest time, that is until I tried them out, and they are easily the MVP of the deck. Either bringing back a sun titan or Kessig cagebreaker, or hardcasting either of them and equipping and swinging is enough to have you win the game. Speaking of cagebreakers I have 3 because honestly they are also an allstar. Early game pressure to late game win in a swing, and like I said them with boots is sick, if your opponent doesn't have an instant removal spell at that point you will probably win.
I don't really have a sideboard yet, still working on that part. While I don't know if a deck like this will ever win a PTQ I am sure it could easily win me a FNM, not to mention it is fun as hell.
So I realize that snapcaster is in fact insanely good in this deck, but can this deck work without him? I really wanna try something like this out, but am still working on getting a few snapcasters.
Also how many snapcasters do we want. Offhand I would say all 4, but idk.
13 counters, protections, dimembers, snapcasters to flash em back, spellskites to take heat that I can't counter. Geist for win condition.
The mana cost average is...1.8. Only 1 spell over 3 mana. Why do I need more than 21 lands again?
By all means prove us wrong, go win a major tournament, or your states with this deck. In the meantime I think the rest of us will continue playing well constructed decks.
In one of the Sealed events I played in, there was a game in which I didn't want my Village Ironsmith transforming; his Silver-Inlaid Dagger and Pitchforks made him stronger in human form than non-human
I am sorry, I see what you are getting at but that is just terrible logic.
Human side with dagger and pitchfork
1/1 first strike + dagger= 4/1 first strike with pitchfork is 5/2 first strike.
Werewolf Side
3/1 first strike +dagger=5/1 first strike with pitchfork 5/1 first strike
All you really gain is 1 toughness at the expense of having to use an extra card. Just about anything that could kill the werewolf form could probably kill the human form. To reword your first sentence, "In one of the Sealed events I played in, there was a game in which I didn't want my Village Ironsmith transforming because I enjoy tying up an extra card I could use to give someone else first strike and possibly +1/+1."
Because the deck isn't very good when they don't have pod. Pod only really seems good when it has another engine with it because you can't always rely on pod now that preordain and sea gate oracle rotated out.
This, without GUx pod decks running 4 ponder/preordain and 4 seagate oracles it is a lot more inconsistent. You used to be able to cheat yourself a pod quite easily with those 2 cards because you could shuffle through your deck quite well so it lessened the fact that you only have 4 of your main engine in the deck. The other advantage of all those shuffle effects was that you could look for the answer you needed if pod wasn't among them, and 1/3 bodies were pretty nice at buying time.
Pod really does need something to give it that kick again.
The problem with the Infect creatures is that that is their gimmick.
If you look at the average U/B control creatures, they all do more than just sitting there being a beater. I tried to make a U/B infect control deck but it just wasn't quite there yet. Crusaders and skithryx are great fun cards, but not really in a control deck. It honestly just did not mesh well. Maybe as a sneak attack like you say it will be better, who knows.
I love both Geth's Verdict and Tribute to Hunger. I possibly attribute it to being because my first competitive deck was a Psychatog deck in the odyssey/Onslaught block, where our only real removal was Sacrifice a creature type effects, along with smother and swat.
Granted I still love me my doomblades and such, but I definitely make room for those two cards.
This guy is a VERY good card, and just because all we see are Pod list either means that people aren't creative enough to try him elsewhere, or people aren't creative enough to look at something BESIDES Pod lists.
I think this. I also think we wont see a lot of him until the next set. We really need some more graveyard abusing cards to really get the most use out of him. Same with solar flare type decks. The decks are just missing something. Just wait for a buried alive type of card, or something to that effect. I will admit that the biggest downfall of the ruinator is you gotta run a lot of creatures, which is somewhat counter to normal blue decks.
This explains it perfectly. Negate, essence scatter, cyclonic rift are cards I would never mind having in my hand as they are rarely ever dead cards, and sometimes as in the case of overload a great late game hoser, especially against planeswalker decks. They are also cards you wouldn't necessarily want to many of either.
To weigh in on the UWR argument, I recently switched from that to just U/W. I did a ton of playtesting last night, and I have to say my game got infinitely better against a wide range of decks after dropping red. It was a lot easier to tell if a starting hand was good without the horrible mana base and trying to balance cards and the only card I truly missed steam augry, and I really shouldn't as it rarely if ever worked in my favor. I was excited for "the new fact or fiction" but it really isn't. I think pure U/W is just a load more consistent and friendly to the player.
I love the analysis but I feel you undervalue Turn//Burn. As someone above mentioned it can deal with Reckoners, and it can also deal with the gods and any creature with protection from white and from red, as well as creatures bigger than our other red spells.
forgive me I haven't made a deck on the site in awhile so doing the tags from memory.
16 Forest
4 Mountains
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Wolfbitten Captive
4 Young Wolf
4 Mayor of Avabruck
4 Gatstasf Shepherd
4 Immerwolf
2 Huntsmaster of the Fells
Instant
4 Moonmist
You have a few spots with this list you can add other things. I haven't played at any tournaments with this, but It works well enough. I like the focus on Green with a red splash for the purpose of hitting proper land drops. That is also why I am not using reckless waif. I like that Wolfbitten captive gives you something to do one your turn that can allow a flip around turn 3-4. It is also better in the late game than early game, and easier on the early game mana.
I also think young wolf is very important to the deck, sure it only gets a pump from a flipped Mayor but it helps out against removal and sweepers.
Speaking of removal and sweepers, that is why I would include some number of Full Moon rise. One on the board negates all but BSZ from your opponent.
One thing I wish I could include more of is either some pump spells, or burn spells. I just don't know where I would flip them.
I just want to say that while I have had some crazy mad draws with this deck, and have won some games against buddies of mine, I think this deck is a subpar aggro deck. RDW, and that new Mono-green deck making rounds are I think both stricktly better. The problem as always is that our cards don't get crazy good till after a flip, and it is sometimes hard to get one. Daybreak ranger and full moon rise both go a ways to helping against delver and tokens though.
Just my two cents.
IMO they are both rather lackluster. I don't care how much your 10/10 cost if it is going to get chump blocked all day by 1/1's.
I know that snapcaster mages are the bees knees in this deck, but are they absolutely necessary? I am working on getting a set of them together, but could I possibly try and get together the deck minus them, and what success do you guys think I would fare without them.
I haven't had an issue with a stuck pharaoh in hand yet. Honestly I don't think he has ever hit my hand between dream twist and forbidden alchemy. Not to mention splinterfrights milling. I had really good success so far. Most of my games I mill down to within 20 cards of my deck, so I have had plenty of options for grabbing and using those unburial rites. Granted I have done maybe 6 games total, so by no means am I an expert. I will give it a try sometime.
Whats funny snappy is I started off with a deck just like you had. I found it worked well enough but was missing some stuff to really keep it competitive. I saw your 4 color discussion and thought you were crazy at first but honestly we only need a touch of white and black, enough that it is really easy to splash. My new deck is this.
5x Forest
4x Island
3x Darkslick Shores
3x Drowned Catacombs
3x Razorverge Thicket
3x Sunpetal Grove
1x Woodland Cemetary
4x Bird of Paradise
4x Merfolk Looter
4x Ambush Viper
2x Armored Skaab
4x Splinterfright
3x Kessig Cagebreakers
2x Vengeful Pharaoh
2x Sun Titan
2x Mulch
2x Swiftfoot Boots
4x Forbidden Alchemy
3x Unburial Rites
2x Dream Twist
The mana base looks Janky, and I will be honest I may be off in a few numbers as I am doing this from memory, but I swear I had no problem with it during the test games I was running. You have 15 lands that come down turn one untapped, and only 6 lands that can come down after turn 3 tapped, which isn't to bad.
Some differences from your list Scrappy are the vengeful pharaohs. Honestly these guys are pretty amazing. Ya you will rarely if ever hardcast them, but that isn't the point. They can really give a lot of control decks pause to attack, since they don't really have the creatures to risk loosing. Even against aggro like WW and RDW it can give them pause, as they will trade 1-3 damage for a lost creature. I also only run 2 sun titans as he is in my opinion more of a win more kind of condition. It is useful to have though as it will give you another threat to bring back, and having one in your graveyard makes opponents nervous, but you can win plenty of games with him.
I also hated the idea of the swiftfoot boots for the longest time, that is until I tried them out, and they are easily the MVP of the deck. Either bringing back a sun titan or Kessig cagebreaker, or hardcasting either of them and equipping and swinging is enough to have you win the game. Speaking of cagebreakers I have 3 because honestly they are also an allstar. Early game pressure to late game win in a swing, and like I said them with boots is sick, if your opponent doesn't have an instant removal spell at that point you will probably win.
I don't really have a sideboard yet, still working on that part. While I don't know if a deck like this will ever win a PTQ I am sure it could easily win me a FNM, not to mention it is fun as hell.
Also how many snapcasters do we want. Offhand I would say all 4, but idk.
By all means prove us wrong, go win a major tournament, or your states with this deck. In the meantime I think the rest of us will continue playing well constructed decks.
I am sorry, I see what you are getting at but that is just terrible logic.
Human side with dagger and pitchfork
1/1 first strike + dagger= 4/1 first strike with pitchfork is 5/2 first strike.
Werewolf Side
3/1 first strike +dagger=5/1 first strike with pitchfork 5/1 first strike
All you really gain is 1 toughness at the expense of having to use an extra card. Just about anything that could kill the werewolf form could probably kill the human form. To reword your first sentence, "In one of the Sealed events I played in, there was a game in which I didn't want my Village Ironsmith transforming because I enjoy tying up an extra card I could use to give someone else first strike and possibly +1/+1."
This, without GUx pod decks running 4 ponder/preordain and 4 seagate oracles it is a lot more inconsistent. You used to be able to cheat yourself a pod quite easily with those 2 cards because you could shuffle through your deck quite well so it lessened the fact that you only have 4 of your main engine in the deck. The other advantage of all those shuffle effects was that you could look for the answer you needed if pod wasn't among them, and 1/3 bodies were pretty nice at buying time.
Pod really does need something to give it that kick again.
If you look at the average U/B control creatures, they all do more than just sitting there being a beater. I tried to make a U/B infect control deck but it just wasn't quite there yet. Crusaders and skithryx are great fun cards, but not really in a control deck. It honestly just did not mesh well. Maybe as a sneak attack like you say it will be better, who knows.
Granted I still love me my doomblades and such, but I definitely make room for those two cards.
I think this. I also think we wont see a lot of him until the next set. We really need some more graveyard abusing cards to really get the most use out of him. Same with solar flare type decks. The decks are just missing something. Just wait for a buried alive type of card, or something to that effect. I will admit that the biggest downfall of the ruinator is you gotta run a lot of creatures, which is somewhat counter to normal blue decks.