At first I was so excited because the name of the set suggests that Avacyn comes back and we finally get a block with a happy ending. But then someone on IRC mentioned that they probably wouldn't have revealed the set name that supports such an obvious inference of a happy ending so early on in the block if that were the case. And I looked closer at the promo pic and that angel actually looks kind of evil.
Is anything good ever going to happen in a Magic storyline ever again? The Phyrexians have overrun Mirrodin, the Eldrazi are coming to destroy Zendikar and the rest of existence, Bant is no more...
Took my mono-white build to FNM and finished 8th out of 22ish, going 3-2.
Game 1:
Villain was running some sort of mono-black control with Phylactery Lich. I beat him down pretty quickly and easily. 2-0.
Game 2:
Villain was a pretty tough player running mono-red goblins. Got obliterated Game 1 on the draw by a Lightning Bolt 2-for-1 on my Glint Hawk and Ornithoper and didn't even scratch him. Won on the play in Game 2 and managed to find a win in Game 3, both largely due to a landflooded villain. 2-1.
Game 3:
Villain was running GW Turbofog seemingly ripped directly from the Turbofog primer on these very forums. The first game lasted 35 minutes and he eventually killed me with Angels from Luminarch Ascension. I sided in Oblivion Ring, Hero of Bladehold, and my last Legionnaire for Dispatch and Spellskite and was hoping to overwhelm him before he got his engine set up in Game 2, but he found three Nature's Claims for my three Tempered Steels and we drew on time. 0-1-1.
Game 4:
Villain was the top-ranked player in the state running UB Control. I played this same guy at the draft on Wednesday night and I left the game feeling like I knew nothing about Magic and had to start over from zero. I started to get that feeling again tonight when I played him. He has an amazing way of putting me to really difficult and complex decisions with the game on the line. I hope someday I can improve to the point where I can make my opponents feel the way this guy makes me feel. I got an Inkmoth win in Game 1 but got my boards swept by Black Sun's Zenith in Games 2 and 3 and didn't really have a chance. I made the huge mistake of boarding out my Glint Hawk Idols because I wasn't familiar with this matchup. 1-2.
Game 5:
Villain was a kid running some sort of mono-black that I didn't get to see because I crushed him before Turn 5 in two straight games. 2-0.
Play record was 3-2 / 7-4-1 (2-0, 2-1, 0-1-1, 1-2, 2-0).
Cumulative record with this deck is 6-2-1 / 14-6-1. Not very impressive. The deck seems viable in my local meta, but I'm a terrible player.
There were 14 runners at my local FNM last night and I tied for first (3-0-1) playing mono-white Tempered Steel. I ran extremely hot with my opening draws.
Round 1:
Villain was a pretty sharp player running a UW control variant that seemed to be built around Venser and a bunch of white creatures with enters-the-battlefield abilities. At one point he was threatening a Stonehorn Dignitary lock with Venser but I was able to disrupt it with a Dispatch. Went 2-0.
Round 2:
Villain was probably the best player in the store running Valakut. I won Game 1 due to a rare unforced error on villain's part wherein he fetched a suboptimal combination of lands with Primeval Titan and gave me an extra turn to infect-kill him with a giant pumped Inkmoth. He sided in a ton of hate for Game 2 but I'm a huge lucksack and he didn't draw any of it. 2-0.
Round 3:
Villain seemed pretty smart and was running some sort of UW control, but I didn't see enough of his deck to know what he had. He had poor draws and was short on land both games and wasn't able to do much to stop me as I continued to draw nut hand after nut hand. 2-0.
Round 4:
Villain was a somewhat careless player running some form of Kuldotha Red. We were the only 3-0 players left in the field so we agreed to chop the 1st/2nd place prize pool, but played out a series for fun. My incredible streak of amazing opening hands came to an end here and my pewter army couldn't withstand his many Lightning Bolts and Incinerates and Goblin Grenades. He swung into me several times when the combat math had him clearly behind. Timely Reinforcements from the sideboard won me Game 2 as he recklessly and incorrectly swung and traded down into a losing board state, but Game 3 played out more or less like Game 1 as he just made lots of guys faster than I could and finished me off with burn to the dome after I stabilized the board. I was initially inclined to play for first place, but in hindsight I'm obviously glad I talked myself into the chop after looking at tiebreakers for 2nd and 3rd.
True play record was 3-1/7-2 (2-0, 2-0, 2-0, 1-2).
Hand #1
You guys voted unanimously to dump this hand and I think it's pretty obvious that you're right. This is a clear mulligan, because we have no land. It can sometimes be tempted to keep this and try to topdeck some land, as Altik_0 mentioned, because you do have a 0-drop and some powerful spells in hand. But you really have to throw it away.
Hand #2
Four of you said you would keep, and two were on the fence. I think this is in the range of hands that aren't decisive or dominating, but that you really should keep, because the possibility of doing better with only six cards is too low. You have a solid plan through Turn 2 and only need one more Plains to drop Tempered Steel.
Hand #3
Four voted to mulligan and two voted to keep. Personally, I would usually keep this hand, because being able to play a first turn Glint Hawk is pretty great and being able to fly in for 2 on turn 2 and wake up the Idol to fly in for 4 on turns 3 and 4 seems good, and we have a good chance of drawing into more threats. Most of you were concerned about this hand being too slow, and I think that's probably valid. My willingness to keep hands like this might be a problem in my game.
Hand #4
You voted unanimously to keep this and it's pretty clear that you're right. This is the kind of hand we're hoping to draw every game. We can dump all of our threats on Turn 1 and start pounding away before our opponent can even get on his feet.
Hand #5
You voted unanimously to keep this, but I think it's actually close because we only have one land. Metalcraft will be online by Turn 2 but we'll be tapped out until Turn 3 and it's not clear that we'll get a chance to play that Legionnaire. I'm not thrilled about the possibility of getting stuck with only a Signal Pest, Ornithopter, and Vault Skirge on board until Turn 6.
Hand #6
Four voted to keep, two voted to mulligan. I think I would usually keep this, but I want to see what you guys think about this: would your plan be to play the Idol or the Legionnaire on Turn 2?
Hand #7
You guys were split 1-3-2 on this hand. I think I would usually keep this for the first turn Glint Hawk and try to draw into more threats. As mabberman noted, there are seven cards in our deck of 53 that will allow us to play a second turn Tempered Steel, and a bunch more ways we can play a third turn Tempered Steel.
This exercise suggests to me that I'm a lot more reluctant to mulligan than other Tempered Steel players. As I mentioned above, I think this might be a weakness in my game and I'll definitely be giving more thought to the topic.
I'm sure many of you have come to realize, as I have, that Tempered Steel is a deck that's heavily dependent on a strong opening draw to allow it to overwhelm an opponent before he can implement his own gameplan. Given the importance of the opening draw, I think it's worth spending some time thinking about what kinds of opening hands are worth keeping and what kinds need to be mulliganed.
I took a sample of seven random starting hands from this mono-white build of Tempered Steel:
I feel that like RDW when we start putting up results people will pack more sideboard hate for us, causing us to disappear for a while. Then as people perceive Steel is gone they will remove their sideboard cards for it and it will start showing some results again with less hate around.
I think (hope?) this is right. This deck really lives and dies with the metagame. It crushed in July when nobody was ready for it; currently, I don't think it's competitive because it's been hated out of the top tier; in a few weeks, who knows?
I've been playing mono-white but the change in the metagame and the rise in popularity of Birthing Pod decks with tons of built-in targeted artifact hate have made me start to question it's viability. It seems like I can only win games 2 and 3 if we lucksack a nut draw.
At the same time, I feel like U/W would slow us down so much that we'd have trouble winning before our opponent implements his own gameplan. I can't imagine trying to play out this deck while leaving mana open for a counter every turn.
I'm beginning to question the viability of Tempered Steel in Standard.
I have to confess that I was originally drawn to Tempered Steel because it basically plays itself and doesn't present the pilot with many difficult decisions. You see, I'm terrible at Magic and just came back to the game after several years away. As I've playtested and read more about the metagame, it's become clear to me that the deck's biggest weakness is its vulnerability to sweepers and artifact/enchantment hate from the sideboard. This is a pretty serious and crippling weakness - so much so that a lot of people have dismissed the deck entirely based on how often it loses Games 2 and 3. Let's put our heads together and try to build a sideboard strategy that gives us the best chance of winning.
Let's start with Dromar The Banisher's excellent rundown of frequent sideboard options from the old thread in Developing Competitive:
Shrine of Loyal Legions - Good for recovering from sweepers and decks that use a lot of removal
Celestial Purge - Mostly for hitting Splinter Twin, also useful against red decks, Vampires, and Grave Titans.
Phyrexian Revoker - Use to shut off planeswalkers or mana dorks in ramp decks. Some people also mainboard this.
Spell Pierce/Mana Leak/Unified Will - used in the W/U versions to stop planeswalkers, sweepers, and other problematic cards from resolving. Pierce is the best option IMO but some pros seem to like Mana Leak better.
Oblivion Ring - Catch-all answer for everything but lands. Also a bit on the expensive side for us though
Dismember - Extra removal if necessary. Cheap to cast, doesn't require metalcraft and deals with almost as many targets as Dispatch. Some lists also run 1 or 2 maindeck.
Hero of Bladehold - Good against control decks, especially if they resolve a board wipe. Some people like to maindeck them as well.
Revoke Existence/Divine Offering - these were better when Caw-Blade was dominating and before Oblivion Ring was brought back to Standard but if Caw rises again they may see play.
Refraction Trap - Absolutely wrecks red decks and protects your guys from their burn.
Kor Firewalker - Some people still sideboard this to beat red decks, but I think it's a poor choice because a) Red decks can kill it with Shrine of Burning Rage or Dismember and b) it doesn't benefit from Tempered Steel or Steel Overseer.
Seems like a lot of builds, especially UW, also use Mental Misstep for early disruption and protection.
Timely Reinforcements also appears to haev gained popularity as a post-sweeper option and a tide-turner when we're losing against another aggro deck.
This is what I'm running maindeck right now, mono-white with Glint Hawks and Ornithopters:
It seems like our top sideboarding priority with this build is to give ourselves some semblance of a chance to win post-sweeper. With that in mind, this is my proposed first draft of my sideboard:
I'd probably take out some combination of Legionnaires and Dispatches to be able to run Shrines and Heroes. For the other slots, let's try to come up with some sideboard answers against the other popular Standard archetypes - Valakut, Exarch Twin, Caw Blade, RDW, UB and UW Control?
I don't really feel qualified to make suggestions for UB and UW Control because, frankly, I'm terrible at Magic and don't understand how control decks work. Maybe our best bet against them is just to keep trying to outrace and overwhelm and be prepared for sweepers.
The cards that comes up again and again for inclusion is Oblivion Ring, and it seems like this is because so many decks in the current metagame depend on a small number of linchpin permanents and their effects to win. I think the popularity of Exarch Twin and RDW also calls for the inclusion of Celestial Purge, which has the added benefit of helping us out against Vampires. And the popularity of various aggro builds (RDW, Tempered Steel mirror) justifies running Timely Reinforcements.
As you can see, I don't have a great plan for what to take out against various matchups other than "well Legionnaire and Idol seem weakest so let's axe them." I'd definitely appreciate some input on this, as well as input on my sideboard picks, matchup strategies, general thought process, or anything at all that will contribute to the discussion and help me/all of us pilot this deck better.
My two big projects for this deck right now are:
1. Obtaining Mox Opal and Spellskite, heh
2. Figuring out what to run in my sideboard and what to side in and out against other top tier decks
I've been having moderate success with this mono white build, and i'm looking to get it over the top. I do realize some of my problems could be my own mistakes but i want to make sure i'm not making a mistake in my deck building and how i built my sideboard.
I'm also contemplating splashing blue for preordain if that will improve things. But i don't know what to take out for it
Have you considered taking out the Legionnaires and Metamorphs in favor of Glint Hawks and Ornithopters? The first turn Plains/0-drop/Glint Hawk/0-drop is one of the nicer fast openings for mono-white Steel, and Metamorph seems slow.
What do you all think about running a singleton Emrakul?
What would be the idea behind this? It's not consistent with the primary objective of the deck, which is to overwhelm your opponent within the first several turns. I'm highly skeptical that something like Emrakul is even a good backup plan against some sort of sweep, because the deck has nothing to ramp or otherwise accelerate mana production and I don't think there's any serious deck in Standard that's not going to kill us within a few turns of sweeping.
But see Death Stroke.
Is anything good ever going to happen in a Magic storyline ever again? The Phyrexians have overrun Mirrodin, the Eldrazi are coming to destroy Zendikar and the rest of existence, Bant is no more...
Game 1:
Villain was running some sort of mono-black control with Phylactery Lich. I beat him down pretty quickly and easily. 2-0.
Game 2:
Villain was a pretty tough player running mono-red goblins. Got obliterated Game 1 on the draw by a Lightning Bolt 2-for-1 on my Glint Hawk and Ornithoper and didn't even scratch him. Won on the play in Game 2 and managed to find a win in Game 3, both largely due to a landflooded villain. 2-1.
Game 3:
Villain was running GW Turbofog seemingly ripped directly from the Turbofog primer on these very forums. The first game lasted 35 minutes and he eventually killed me with Angels from Luminarch Ascension. I sided in Oblivion Ring, Hero of Bladehold, and my last Legionnaire for Dispatch and Spellskite and was hoping to overwhelm him before he got his engine set up in Game 2, but he found three Nature's Claims for my three Tempered Steels and we drew on time. 0-1-1.
Game 4:
Villain was the top-ranked player in the state running UB Control. I played this same guy at the draft on Wednesday night and I left the game feeling like I knew nothing about Magic and had to start over from zero. I started to get that feeling again tonight when I played him. He has an amazing way of putting me to really difficult and complex decisions with the game on the line. I hope someday I can improve to the point where I can make my opponents feel the way this guy makes me feel. I got an Inkmoth win in Game 1 but got my boards swept by Black Sun's Zenith in Games 2 and 3 and didn't really have a chance. I made the huge mistake of boarding out my Glint Hawk Idols because I wasn't familiar with this matchup. 1-2.
Game 5:
Villain was a kid running some sort of mono-black that I didn't get to see because I crushed him before Turn 5 in two straight games. 2-0.
Play record was 3-2 / 7-4-1 (2-0, 2-1, 0-1-1, 1-2, 2-0).
Cumulative record with this deck is 6-2-1 / 14-6-1. Not very impressive. The deck seems viable in my local meta, but I'm a terrible player.
Round 1:
Villain was a pretty sharp player running a UW control variant that seemed to be built around Venser and a bunch of white creatures with enters-the-battlefield abilities. At one point he was threatening a Stonehorn Dignitary lock with Venser but I was able to disrupt it with a Dispatch. Went 2-0.
Round 2:
Villain was probably the best player in the store running Valakut. I won Game 1 due to a rare unforced error on villain's part wherein he fetched a suboptimal combination of lands with Primeval Titan and gave me an extra turn to infect-kill him with a giant pumped Inkmoth. He sided in a ton of hate for Game 2 but I'm a huge lucksack and he didn't draw any of it. 2-0.
Round 3:
Villain seemed pretty smart and was running some sort of UW control, but I didn't see enough of his deck to know what he had. He had poor draws and was short on land both games and wasn't able to do much to stop me as I continued to draw nut hand after nut hand. 2-0.
Round 4:
Villain was a somewhat careless player running some form of Kuldotha Red. We were the only 3-0 players left in the field so we agreed to chop the 1st/2nd place prize pool, but played out a series for fun. My incredible streak of amazing opening hands came to an end here and my pewter army couldn't withstand his many Lightning Bolts and Incinerates and Goblin Grenades. He swung into me several times when the combat math had him clearly behind. Timely Reinforcements from the sideboard won me Game 2 as he recklessly and incorrectly swung and traded down into a losing board state, but Game 3 played out more or less like Game 1 as he just made lots of guys faster than I could and finished me off with burn to the dome after I stabilized the board. I was initially inclined to play for first place, but in hindsight I'm obviously glad I talked myself into the chop after looking at tiebreakers for 2nd and 3rd.
True play record was 3-1/7-2 (2-0, 2-0, 2-0, 1-2).
You guys voted unanimously to dump this hand and I think it's pretty obvious that you're right. This is a clear mulligan, because we have no land. It can sometimes be tempted to keep this and try to topdeck some land, as Altik_0 mentioned, because you do have a 0-drop and some powerful spells in hand. But you really have to throw it away.
Hand #2
Four of you said you would keep, and two were on the fence. I think this is in the range of hands that aren't decisive or dominating, but that you really should keep, because the possibility of doing better with only six cards is too low. You have a solid plan through Turn 2 and only need one more Plains to drop Tempered Steel.
Hand #3
Four voted to mulligan and two voted to keep. Personally, I would usually keep this hand, because being able to play a first turn Glint Hawk is pretty great and being able to fly in for 2 on turn 2 and wake up the Idol to fly in for 4 on turns 3 and 4 seems good, and we have a good chance of drawing into more threats. Most of you were concerned about this hand being too slow, and I think that's probably valid. My willingness to keep hands like this might be a problem in my game.
Hand #4
You voted unanimously to keep this and it's pretty clear that you're right. This is the kind of hand we're hoping to draw every game. We can dump all of our threats on Turn 1 and start pounding away before our opponent can even get on his feet.
Hand #5
You voted unanimously to keep this, but I think it's actually close because we only have one land. Metalcraft will be online by Turn 2 but we'll be tapped out until Turn 3 and it's not clear that we'll get a chance to play that Legionnaire. I'm not thrilled about the possibility of getting stuck with only a Signal Pest, Ornithopter, and Vault Skirge on board until Turn 6.
Hand #6
Four voted to keep, two voted to mulligan. I think I would usually keep this, but I want to see what you guys think about this: would your plan be to play the Idol or the Legionnaire on Turn 2?
Hand #7
You guys were split 1-3-2 on this hand. I think I would usually keep this for the first turn Glint Hawk and try to draw into more threats. As mabberman noted, there are seven cards in our deck of 53 that will allow us to play a second turn Tempered Steel, and a bunch more ways we can play a third turn Tempered Steel.
This exercise suggests to me that I'm a lot more reluctant to mulligan than other Tempered Steel players. As I mentioned above, I think this might be a weakness in my game and I'll definitely be giving more thought to the topic.
I took a sample of seven random starting hands from this mono-white build of Tempered Steel:
4 Glint Hawk
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge
4 Steel Overseer
2 Porcelain Legionnaire
2 Spellskite
3 Glint Hawk Idol
3 Mox Opal
Enchantments
4 Tempered Steel
Spells
4 Dispatch
Land
2 Contested War Zone
4 Inkmoth Nexus
12 Plains
The hands I drew were:
Hand #1:
Hand #2:
Hand #3:
Hand #4:
Hand #5:
Hand #6:
Hand #7:
I'd like to see your thoughts. (1) Do we keep or mulligan? (2) Why?
I'll post my own answers and analysis after a few others respond. I think some of these are pretty clear but some others are close.
I think (hope?) this is right. This deck really lives and dies with the metagame. It crushed in July when nobody was ready for it; currently, I don't think it's competitive because it's been hated out of the top tier; in a few weeks, who knows?
At the same time, I feel like U/W would slow us down so much that we'd have trouble winning before our opponent implements his own gameplan. I can't imagine trying to play out this deck while leaving mana open for a counter every turn.
I'm beginning to question the viability of Tempered Steel in Standard.
Let's start with Dromar The Banisher's excellent rundown of frequent sideboard options from the old thread in Developing Competitive:
Seems like a lot of builds, especially UW, also use Mental Misstep for early disruption and protection.
Timely Reinforcements also appears to haev gained popularity as a post-sweeper option and a tide-turner when we're losing against another aggro deck.
This is what I'm running maindeck right now, mono-white with Glint Hawks and Ornithopters:
4x Inkmoth Nexus
4x Contested War Zone
12x Plains
Creatures
4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Glint Hawk
4x Steel Overseer
4x Signal Pest
4x Vault Skirge
4x Porcelain Legionnaire
4x Glint Hawk Idol
Enchantments
4x Tempered Steel
Instants
4x Dispatch
It seems like our top sideboarding priority with this build is to give ourselves some semblance of a chance to win post-sweeper. With that in mind, this is my proposed first draft of my sideboard:
4x Shrine of Loyal Legions
4x Hero of Bladehold
7x ???
I'd probably take out some combination of Legionnaires and Dispatches to be able to run Shrines and Heroes. For the other slots, let's try to come up with some sideboard answers against the other popular Standard archetypes - Valakut, Exarch Twin, Caw Blade, RDW, UB and UW Control?
[u]Valakut[/u]
Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring to deal with Primeval Titan? Tectonic Edge to deal with [card]Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle[/u]?
[u]Exarch Twin[/u]
Celestial Purge or Oblivion Ringto take out Splinter Twin?
[u]Caw Blade[/u]
Revoke Existence or [u]Divine Offering[/u]to take out Sword of Feast and Famine? Oblivion Ring for Swords or creatures?
[u]RDW[/u]
Refraction Trap to protect from burn? Celestial Purge for spot removal? Timely Reinforcements if we fall behind?
I don't really feel qualified to make suggestions for UB and UW Control because, frankly, I'm terrible at Magic and don't understand how control decks work. Maybe our best bet against them is just to keep trying to outrace and overwhelm and be prepared for sweepers.
The cards that comes up again and again for inclusion is Oblivion Ring, and it seems like this is because so many decks in the current metagame depend on a small number of linchpin permanents and their effects to win. I think the popularity of Exarch Twin and RDW also calls for the inclusion of Celestial Purge, which has the added benefit of helping us out against Vampires. And the popularity of various aggro builds (RDW, Tempered Steel mirror) justifies running Timely Reinforcements.
Thus, my proposed second draft of my sideboard:
3x Shrine of Loyal Legions
4x Hero of Bladehold
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Celestial Purge
2x Timely Reinforcements
With the following gameplans:
[u]Valakut[/u]
+3 Oblivion Ring to deal with Primeval Titan.
+4 Hero of Bladehold to survive Creeping Corrosion and Nature's Claim, which people side in against us and sometimes even run maindeck.
-4 Porcelain Legionnaire
-3 Glint Hawk Idol
[u]Exarch Twin[/u]
+3 Celestial Purge to take out Splinter Twin.
-3 Porcelain Legionnaire
[u]Caw Blade[/u]
+3 Oblivion Ring for Swords and creatures.
+3 Shrine of Loyal Legions to survive Day of Judgment.
+4 Hero of Bladehold to survive Day of Judgment.
-4 Porcelain Legionnaire
-4 Glint Hawk Idol
-1 Glint Hawk
-1 Ornithopter
[u]RDW[/u]
+3 Celestial Purge for spot removal.
+2 Timely Reinforcements if we fall behind.
-4 Porcelain Legionnaire
-1 Glint Hawk Idol
As you can see, I don't have a great plan for what to take out against various matchups other than "well Legionnaire and Idol seem weakest so let's axe them." I'd definitely appreciate some input on this, as well as input on my sideboard picks, matchup strategies, general thought process, or anything at all that will contribute to the discussion and help me/all of us pilot this deck better.
Here's my mono-white build:
4x Inkmoth Nexus
4x Contested War Zone
12x Plains
Creatures
4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Glint Hawk
4x Steel Overseer
4x Signal Pest
4x Vault Skirge
4x Porcelain Legionnaire
4x Glint Hawk Idol
Enchantments
4x Tempered Steel
Instants
4x Dispatch
My two big projects for this deck right now are:
1. Obtaining Mox Opal and Spellskite, heh
2. Figuring out what to run in my sideboard and what to side in and out against other top tier decks
Have you considered taking out the Legionnaires and Metamorphs in favor of Glint Hawks and Ornithopters? The first turn Plains/0-drop/Glint Hawk/0-drop is one of the nicer fast openings for mono-white Steel, and Metamorph seems slow.
What would be the idea behind this? It's not consistent with the primary objective of the deck, which is to overwhelm your opponent within the first several turns. I'm highly skeptical that something like Emrakul is even a good backup plan against some sort of sweep, because the deck has nothing to ramp or otherwise accelerate mana production and I don't think there's any serious deck in Standard that's not going to kill us within a few turns of sweeping.