Power creep? Last Standard season Delver was dominating left and right and had the brokenness of ponder, mana leak, and gitaxian probe at its desposal. The power of blade splicer resto shenanigans were more potent than resto thrag, and the ridiculously powerful birthing pod was a format staple. We had more powerful walkers like Koth and Tezz, and even they were pushed to the sidelines. Doom blade and go for the throat are more than a little better than ultimate price. Birds of paradise, far better than the dorks we have now, save deathrite in a fethland format, which this isn't. Also swords were around, remember those? Oh yeah and titans.
Season before last we had Jace, stoneforge, valakut and splinter twin. Preordain was a format staple. Nuff said.
The power of decks has been on the decline lately, and it looks like most of the raw power in standard right now are innistrad cards like snaps, geist, resto, huntmaster, and lilliana (who will see more play before she rotates with more black lands, guarantee it.) The power of this block so far has been a bit lower than last block, with only a few cars making their way into eternal. As of this post my guess as to gatecrash cars making it to eternal would be boros charm, the new dimir guildmage (if the combo takes off), and maybe the boros x spell in teachings or some such. Yeah a lot of playable cards from standard yers past are limited jank by todays standards, but UW delver, caw blade, valakut, jund, affinity, faeries, even zendikar-scars mono red, would wipe the floor with current decks.
Zegana is crazy good with Thrag and resto around. Following up a thrag with her is hardly an unlikely situation, are the naysayers the same people who said thrag into resto was magical christmas whatever? Wannabe pros everywhere.
Yeah it's not a great topdeck, and it's legendary, so I can see it as a one or two of in Thrag control lists if they retain their current form and playability in the meta. Even if you topdeck this card late and get your 6 cmc 1/1 with card draw, it turns all of your future restos into draw 4s and gives you a 4/4. And the scenario of thrag into this is such a big game that who cares if they wrath your team after, you just drew 6. Card is very good.
Also the bear is an amazing common, no need to echo the obvious.
Went against this deck with Bant control, yesterday, and honestly i'm not that impressed.
The deck is painfully slow, and not that hard to deal with. The deck seems fun to play, and every opponent goes "WTF" but that's it.
8 turns of ramping, protected by sweepers/bounce/Acharm, into Omniscience, Tutors for Temporal mastery and Door to nothingness, cast the now free Temporal, then the Door, pass turn, it's yours again, kill with Door.
Alternative kill with Thrag in play + Worldfire.
My math went : G1 i don't draw any action (given there isn't much in Bant control), and die to the Door T16/17 I think. G2, I side in Pithing needle, 2 Dphere, 2 Negate (Sweepers/Acharm out), and aggro him before he combo off (Thrag/Garruk PH are awesome obv.). G3, he ramp, i get him to 1, Pithing needle on Alchemist refuge to prevent EoT shenanigans, and have to Ray of revelation + FB to get rid of a curse of Echoes. Then he drop Nicol bolas, steal my Thrag, Worldfire, pass the turn. And I realise I hag Resto angel + 4 mana open...
So, without this huge/stupid missplay, I would have won 2-1, while being a slow deck, without much resilience outside of Thrag. So I don't think the deck will win vs R/B aggro, GW Humans, or UW(r) Flash.
The deck has access to all of the same anti aggro tricks as Bant does post board, so the matchup is about the same. That being said, the Bant aggro matchup isn't great by any means and the deck has the same faults there. I played the deck at FNM this past week, going 2-2 and losing to my own misplays and flooding. It's a pretty hard deck to pilot with the tutoring and decisions as to what spells to run into counters. It plays a bit like Bant with a more "final" wincon, and plays exactly like Bant post board vs BR. GW humans is a pretty easy matchup, and that deck seems to be fading a bit anyway due to lack of reach vs Bant, its sizeable dudes not walling BR anymore, and just straight losing to UWR, but that's another story.
It's essentially Bant replacing the walkers with omni-grisel-door-bolas-fire and replacing countermagic and utility with more ramp. It's a tad softer to countermagic than regular bant is, but it doesn't go to time as often and has much flashier ways to win post sphinx. It's also the most fun deck to pilot maybe ever. Ultimating Bolas, swinging with a 30 power Griselbrand, fogging in response, and dooring the opponent doesn't get old, and it happens more consistently than you may think.
The deck can slam omniscience turn 5, it doesn't care one bit about any counter light midrange deck. Have never lost a game where the opponent slaughter games'd my omni. One of the biggest draws to the deck is harnessing the power of kessig wolf run. When you ramp and ramp and ramp and the opponent is too scared of omnigrisel to counter your tusk, swinging with a 20 power tusk happens, and it's great.
This won is what happened. Standard is absolutely great if this could win a GP. Seems like a total meta call vs BR aggro, though I have no idea how it got past the Bant decks in the field. Is chronic flooding mill into angel mass human reanimator a viable deck? Thoughts?
Hey folks, I've noticed the same trend myself; Aggro in my mind/opinion is the strongest game in standard. Huge props to Redthirst - I lurk R/x aggro to glean invaluble information about what THEY worry about/have to get through, and Red tells it like it is/is an absolute encyclopedia (Zemanjaski too if you guys lurk there, they're great) of great information over there. Also OP as well, I can clearly see where you're coming from and you did a good job telling us you know your stuff/have been around/how you evaluate these cards.
Back on point - I want to suggest either a Naya shell I've been tuning, a recent 4c midrange piloted this past weekend at GP San Antonio by Conley Woods, and a few other individual cards I feel have unexplored potential.
About me ramble:
I recently won my states with Junk Midrange, and I will admit in sheer honesty it's because I didn't face GW aggro that day, or the newer face of Rakdos; bigger BR DragonVampireZombie aggro. Welcome to competitive magic, we all learn to adapt or we lose, talking to myself here mostly.
Conley Woods, 4c midrange - http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/41165
We have only seen this list as of yesterday, so, it's very unexplored turf still. I personally don't like quite a few choices in it, the deck feels very unfocused, and not tuned for aggro or control besides the Bonfire of the Damned. With the conscious decision to run Loxodon Smiter over Centaur Healer - which is highly debatable, I found that Conley's list can still be murdered quickly by a good Aggro player with decent draws. Again, tipping the hat to Redthirst here, I think his package including Centaur Healer is the right call, especially when MAINBOARDING 4x Restoration Angel. Conley himself said that this list was largely a metagame call, and you can change 10 cards or more in it and still have roughly the same deck. So where does that leave us?
I think the critical question is, should midrange mainboards/focus extensively on aggro for G1? I believe the answer is yes - a well built midrange deck should be able to catch control when they stumble, and again, a well-crafted sideboard should be able to enhance your G2/3 vs them.
I'll try to give some simple reasoning to keep this post from becoming a book, but as Junk Midrange - I simply cannot run/rely on sweepers such as Terminus, especially if using mana-dorks. I must rely on very conditional spot removal, and have additional spot removal on the SB, both of which have served me terribly inconsistently.
Anyway, on Naya, [SCD] time - Burning Oil. I absolutely love this card as a 2-3 of mainboard in conjunction with 2-3x Selesnya Charm. Burning Oil is functioning as my cheap go-to hit most early anything, not to mention the flashback is free card advantage when you get to utilize it. Deals with many things our "staple" black removal cannot, and for the most part, red removal feels plain better to me at the moment, again, due to the lack of a Doom Blade/Go for the Throat. Selesnya Charm can work as a sort of 1 turn Kessig Wolf Run on a stick or a Rancor for 1 turn and really help Thragtusk push damage through and catch people on a brutal backswing, but it is perhaps the strongest 2 CMC exile based instant removal for big/real threats. Everything the Charm can't deal with, the Oil pretty much can. Add a few Bonfires into the mix, and you have yourself some random early one-sidedWhipflares mainly to deal with again, early aggro, and hose Reanimator/anyone running mana-dudes.
Thoughts and criticisms light up and go! Will be back later with my own list and lurking.
Yeah I did look over the conley deck. I agree with you that the deck seems unfocused, definitely a meta anti aggro deck. That being said, he did make it very far, awkward mana and questionable control matchup aside, and his deck was the scariest deck at the tournament according to the winning zombie player. It seems that bad hands and draws last match were the only reason he didn't win the whole thing. A little more tuning and the deck may be a real contender.
The reid duke bant list could easily be tuned to fight off aggro more mainboard. He lost his match due to unlucky draws as well, but depending on what looks more prevalent in the meta the 4 mained dissipates could easily be 2 more azorius charms, selesnya charms, additional augurs, restos, whatever. I'm considering taking a similar list and splashing additional black for spot removal.
silklash spider, now there's interesting tech. to anyone suggesting it, any reports?
The recent turtenwald article talks about using alchemists refuge to detention sphere or wrath at instant speed to make dealing with haste guys a bit easier. Seems pretty slow, but I'm sure it pretty marvelous when it happens.
Yeah... I actually play Aggro. Have been since rotation. I know what it can do and I was flying over Thrags with Hellkites when popular opinion was still that Tusk made any kind of Aggro unplayable.
I'm not simply talking out my ass here...
When I say that Naya is the Midrange deck to play it's because it's the one I don't want to play against.
Lots of lifegain.
Efficient creatures.
Burn.
Board wipes.
Selesnya Charm (instant blocker, creature save, and hard removal for Hellkite).
Here's a rough sketch of something that I (as an Aggro player) don't particularly want to see across the table:
The deck's game against Control isn't great, but that's what the SB is for.
Fristly, you have a firefly avatar, so +inf respect. Secondly, it's the selesnya charm usage that strikes me most. The lifegain creature aspect seems very good vs the red decks, how does it do against the GW decks? Do you fnd the deck to stumble on mana? Doesn't seem like you can kill a turn 1 dork with a pillar too often. I am interested though, and Nathan Fillion is narrating all of your posts in my head.
As far as Selesnya Charm goes, I used it out of SB for matches like Frites and it helped break the games after G1. It could be a viable MB card. Frites is a terrible match which is the only reason I ever explored S-Charm to begin with, but it's application goes far beyond that match.
any anecdotes about it's effectiveness vs GW or thundermaw decks?
Well instead of using played out "uncharted territory" rhetoric, let's discuss the cards.
Red based aggro is using burn mostly as removal and is using aristocrat and dragon to go over the top. Sole life gain as a strategy is only pseudo viable when you are using it to offset burn or slow the game down to slam your finisher which puts you over the top. However, the dragon goes over the top of a lot of the great midrange stabalizers such as huntmaster and thrag, and taps down guys like AoS, griselbrand, niv mizzet, whatever. They are an aggro deck, and they're going over the top of you. Heroes' reunion stalled you into an endgame where you couldn't deal with their threats. We don't need more stall, we need cards that can deal with their threats. Heroes' reunion is not a new card, and it didn't see play the first time. I don't think lifegain.card actually ever saw play in magic, though feel free to correct me on that. You have to affect the board.
The tough thing is that spot removal just isn't that great right now. There's no almost catch all like doom blade or go for the throat to go 1 for 1 until you pull ahead with better cards. It's all extremely narrow, and the meta is too diverse for ultimate price to be consistent. However, it does answer quite a few good cards and may be a good answer for the time being. Azorius charm has been used to decent effect so far in the meta, it's great against early drops and rancored guys and exalted guys, but it's pretty bad against big haste guys. Again, i'm keen on trying selesnya charm, and I ask if anyone has experience with it.
Intrepid hero is a card that I said may be okay. It was featured in the 75 of a GP top 8 deck. Yes it's very easy to kill, and yes it's very narrow against the 2/2 swarm. If the opponent it taking time out to kill it, they are not playing a threat that turn, and that's a turn the midrange control build can break parity. It's bad vs the swarm, but that isn't really the aspect of the aggro deck that is a problem. 2/2s are very easily stonewalled right now, and sweepers are still good. It's the big flying guys that are the problem, and hero can kill those.
Can't beat em join em has only ever been a good mentality when there was a clear best deck in the format. I love the format, its diversity, and its allowance of brewing. However, you still have to be able to analyze cards and analyze the meta from week to week. There are multiple "thrag is too good this meta stinks" threads on this very forum. How silly do they look now? How silly will this thread look when aggro is haumphed next week? I'm simply trying to be ahead of the curve and enjoy a discussion about the best anti aggro tactics so when everyone jumps on that staretegy to clean up the aggro decks next week, I'll be on countermagic.dec and annihilate all of them.
There are definitely good anti aggro measures to be taken in any given deck's 75. I'm asking the community's opinion on what seems to be the best course of action. Personally, I'm considering running Bant with countermagic in the side and relying on charms and sweepers to get me there. Aggro isn't as swarmy as it was early on, so tamiyo isn't too bad of an option there. Selesnya charm kills dragon, rancor'd elephants, trades with their little guys, pumps your augur in resp to removal when it's obvious they can't attack past it. It seems good, I haven't tested it much, I'm looking to see if anyone has experience with it. The aggro creatures are bigger, maybe intrepid hero isn't so bad. It's been seeing some play recently, and saw play in the SB of that tokens deck that did well a couple of weekend ago at the GP. Speaking of which that deck seems very well positioned. It packed removal like ultimate price and sever the bloodline, both garruks and sorin to stall the board. The tokens both stall and create a proactive gameplan, getting pumped and racing due to gavony township and vault of the archangel. These are answers, I'm asking if anyone has anything similar to add or any experience with said cards.
Heroes' Reunion is not a card. It's card disadvantage in every scenario save against the burn deck, which doesn't exist. 7 life is nothing and not worth 2 mana and a card. Lifegain has only ever been a consistent answer to aggro when it was permanent based, ie dragon's claw in red mirrors, kor firewalker and batterskull. Timely reinforcements gave you life and chump blockers. Thragtusk is still good because it gives you life and chump blockers, or even a threat. These are cards. Heroes' Reunion is not a card.
States was weeks ago, don't use that to assess the meta. Standard is great right now and changing very rapidly with every event. At the local level, people are seeing what decks are doing well and sleeving them up for FNM, which is shifting the meta even there. Players are going to need to know how to assess the best answers for the week ahead.
The can't beat em join em mentality is bad in a rapidly shifting meta. A couple of weeks ago UW flash was the deck to beat, midrange just couldn't deal, and aggro wasn't good since it lost to thragtusk. If you can't beat em join em right? The deck loses horribly to aggro, and since aggro found a way past thragtusk, the midrange decks have to fight back and adapt. Then they will be the decks to beat as aggro is pushed back a notch. This is elementary, we just have to find the midrange answers to aggro right now so we can deal this week and then have them sideboard ready for 2 weeks from now where aggro is terrible but we need the answers sb just in case for when 3 weeks from now aggro comes back.
New iterations of br zombies really don't care about a lot of the typical anti-aggro answers. Knight of infamy attacks past healers and lingering souls tokens and restos all day, not getting hit by charms orings or spheres, and lets zombies smash for 3 on turn 2, making augur of bolas look like a jerk. The deck also packs falkenrath aristocrat and thundermaw hellkite, neither of those care about thragtusk or huntmaster in the least bit. aristocrat, messenger and crawler all laught at supreme verdict, and thundermaw usually drops the next turn and puts the opponent near dead. The deck is very powerful and very scary.
Mono-red can put an insane amount of pressure on within the first two turns. Both stromkirk noble and reckless waif punish midrange and control very harshly if they hit turn 1. Pyreheart wolf makes centaur healer, augur of bolas, and even thragtusk look silly at times. Hellrider puts the game in burn range very quickly. And again, that dragon.
GW seems to goldfish their turn 4 kill every game. This seem like the most beatable of the 3 big aggro decks, as it's the softest to sweeps and charms, but it's the harshest vs chump blockers due to rancored double strikers. Which the deck always has out swinging by turn 4 for 276 dmg.
You guys aren't respecting aggro nearly enough, and the format is about to shift there in a big way. Heroe's reunion is not a card. That can't be your turn 2 play, as you don't advance the board, and the aggro deck advances their board and hits you for at least that much over the next turn. Sphinx's revelation puts you way over the top of other midrange opponents, where you can afford to sit and ramp and counter until you fire one off without much pressure, and then chain them into victory. Aggro is smashing you too quickly, where you have to attack the board, and then those sphinxes are just sitting in your hand.
Aggro has evolved past the thrag-soft decks. Obviously the decks mentioned won't have all of those threats every game, and then some of the answers mentioned may suffice from time to time, but all of those cards are played in multiples and are all on curve. Their damage output outweighs the lifegain the answers present. All of the pros with all of their new brews are proudly exclaiming their victories over the midrange decks, and all of them seem very soft to hyper aggro. Hoof killing by turn 4 is the ideal nut draw, zombies killing by turn 4 isn't all too uncommon. Red decks packing flames of the firebrand or bonfire wipe away mana dorks while still applying pressure. You can't sit back and mulch all day while silverblade is all up in your face. Respect aggro or lose to it.
My meta is all aggro in various shapes and sizes. Zombies, monored, gw humans, all that stuff. All of these decks look lkike they're on the upswing, as they have great game vs a lot of the popular decks right now ie slower reanimating strategies, UW flash, bant sphinxes revelation, whatever.
Jund is the closest thing I can think of resembling a strong anti aggro deck, but it seems very inconsistent and folds to anything that uses counterspells. I think that deck may be on the way out. More proactive Bant seems ok, but haste guys out of monored and br zombies are problematic.
This card is busted busted busted with the options EDH playes have. Yeah Mycosynth lattice plus this just seems absurd, although a turn doesn't go by on a larger table with Mycosynth in play without the world getting blown up, either symmetrically or no. It doesn't seem more absurd than anything Arcum can do, but giving that option to Kaalia players, who have already been given ridiculously good treatment over the last few sets, seems kinda unfair.
Well, cheap removal is pretty terrible right now in standard. Azorious Charm often buys you a turn vs falkenrath aristocrat, thundermaw hellkite, equipped restoration angel and so on, but it ensures the opponent gets a really nice topdeck and only prolongs the inevitable. Sometimes that is enough to come back, but the new rakdos aggro and RDW decks can easily have you in the 1 card kill range by turn 4. Ultimate price is alright in the decks that can run it, but falkenrath aristocrat is a top tier threat, and there aren't many black control decks making waves besides. A deck like Bant can really use a tool against the fliers of the format, of which there are many dangerous ones. Obviously the card is best in the sideboard, but I think it may be a viable option. Almost every deck has a target for it, and almost all of these targets are awful targets for charm. In addition to the previously mentioned, we have:
This deck needs sphinx's revelation in the main. It's fantastic in all matchups. Huge CA at instant speed vs control and forces a counter, big lifegain vs aggro and draws into your sweeper or epic or another sphinx to just win. I was testing 1 of in the sb and always brought it in. then 1 of main and 1 side and always brought the second in. Then 2 mainboard, and I think that seems solid. Don't want too many due to epic whiffs or expensive hand cloggers, but when it goes off it wins games. Make g1 vs aggro go from unwinnable to fairly ok.
The strategy of increasing devotion as both a wincon and a stall is good against most decks, but in general watch out for GW midrange. A well timed selesnya charm on a blocked rancored guy is just trouble. The matchup isn't bad, supreme verdict wrecks them, but just watch out for this interaction. Otherwise this strategy is very effective, and the addition of lingering souls makes it even more so. Lingering souls does much of the same, only comes down sooner and makes falkenrath aristocrat look like a joke. Watch out for thundermaw hellkite.
What are people's thoughts now on Deathrite Shaman MB? Do you guys think that its worth it against enough decks to mainboard over sideboard? Same question for Knight of Infamy by the way, because my testing has shown that Shred-freak is TERRIBLE, especially against WG which is going to be one of the biggest decks out there.
I think shaman is worth testing mainboard as a 2 of just for use as a grim lavamancer effect, with the occasional flashback hate and/or zombies/reanimator hate. I think it's playable simply as a one drop that can get damage through when the board is gummed up, and there may be more matchups where he relevant than irrelevant. He can easily come out for hand disruption vs ramp decks and control decks.
I will say that the pitfalls of this deck are the greediness of the spell suite and pilot error. Firstly, you can't be just jamming in tons of colored spells in this deck. There are not enough duals for that to work, and most zombie game losses are when the hand is clogged with spells, either due to color screw or irrelevance to the game. Game 1 should be the fast beats, you just cant have crap like abupt decay, charms, multiple slips or dreadbores, too much burn or rancors sitting around not doing anything. I think 5 colored spells in the 60 is correct, the choices are meta dependent. I'm leaning towards brimstone volley as being the best option, with dreadbore, rancor and flames of the firebrand leading up the charge. I'm going to go with this split at first in the main, subbing out for more multiples of relevant spells game 2:
2 brimstone
1 flames
1 rancor
1 dreadbore
Also, this is not an easy deck to pilot. The choice of one drop is more relevant now with pillar everywhere. Which 2 drop or 3 drop you play when is a big decision. You have to make choices as to when to hold up regen, burn, or removal, and when to send in the aristocrat. This is a much more skill intensive deck than it was before rotation, most of the creatures in this deck are not really straightforward beaters, you have to know which man is the one for the job and when.
Also I'm seeing some lists with 22 lands and multiple aristocrats. One top 32 deck in Cinci ran 22 land, 3 aristocrats and 2 thragtusks main. If you or any of your loved ones go to a tournament with that abomination, please call a our hotline. Suicide is not the answer.
Season before last we had Jace, stoneforge, valakut and splinter twin. Preordain was a format staple. Nuff said.
The power of decks has been on the decline lately, and it looks like most of the raw power in standard right now are innistrad cards like snaps, geist, resto, huntmaster, and lilliana (who will see more play before she rotates with more black lands, guarantee it.) The power of this block so far has been a bit lower than last block, with only a few cars making their way into eternal. As of this post my guess as to gatecrash cars making it to eternal would be boros charm, the new dimir guildmage (if the combo takes off), and maybe the boros x spell in teachings or some such. Yeah a lot of playable cards from standard yers past are limited jank by todays standards, but UW delver, caw blade, valakut, jund, affinity, faeries, even zendikar-scars mono red, would wipe the floor with current decks.
Yeah it's not a great topdeck, and it's legendary, so I can see it as a one or two of in Thrag control lists if they retain their current form and playability in the meta. Even if you topdeck this card late and get your 6 cmc 1/1 with card draw, it turns all of your future restos into draw 4s and gives you a 4/4. And the scenario of thrag into this is such a big game that who cares if they wrath your team after, you just drew 6. Card is very good.
Also the bear is an amazing common, no need to echo the obvious.
The deck has access to all of the same anti aggro tricks as Bant does post board, so the matchup is about the same. That being said, the Bant aggro matchup isn't great by any means and the deck has the same faults there. I played the deck at FNM this past week, going 2-2 and losing to my own misplays and flooding. It's a pretty hard deck to pilot with the tutoring and decisions as to what spells to run into counters. It plays a bit like Bant with a more "final" wincon, and plays exactly like Bant post board vs BR. GW humans is a pretty easy matchup, and that deck seems to be fading a bit anyway due to lack of reach vs Bant, its sizeable dudes not walling BR anymore, and just straight losing to UWR, but that's another story.
It's essentially Bant replacing the walkers with omni-grisel-door-bolas-fire and replacing countermagic and utility with more ramp. It's a tad softer to countermagic than regular bant is, but it doesn't go to time as often and has much flashier ways to win post sphinx. It's also the most fun deck to pilot maybe ever. Ultimating Bolas, swinging with a 30 power Griselbrand, fogging in response, and dooring the opponent doesn't get old, and it happens more consistently than you may think.
The deck can slam omniscience turn 5, it doesn't care one bit about any counter light midrange deck. Have never lost a game where the opponent slaughter games'd my omni. One of the biggest draws to the deck is harnessing the power of kessig wolf run. When you ramp and ramp and ramp and the opponent is too scared of omnigrisel to counter your tusk, swinging with a 20 power tusk happens, and it's great.
1 Clifftop Retreat
2 Hinterland Harbor
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Temple Garden
1 Goldnight Commander
1 Zealous Conscripts
4 Nightshade Peddler
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Izzet Staticaster
1 Tracker's Instincts
2 Izzet Charm
4 Unburial Rites
4 Faithless Looting
4 Chronic Flooding
4 Mulch
2 Goldnight Commander
4 Cathedral Sanctifier
2 Rolling Temblor
2 Izzet Charm
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Geist-Honored Monk
This won is what happened. Standard is absolutely great if this could win a GP. Seems like a total meta call vs BR aggro, though I have no idea how it got past the Bant decks in the field. Is chronic flooding mill into angel mass human reanimator a viable deck? Thoughts?
Yeah I did look over the conley deck. I agree with you that the deck seems unfocused, definitely a meta anti aggro deck. That being said, he did make it very far, awkward mana and questionable control matchup aside, and his deck was the scariest deck at the tournament according to the winning zombie player. It seems that bad hands and draws last match were the only reason he didn't win the whole thing. A little more tuning and the deck may be a real contender.
The reid duke bant list could easily be tuned to fight off aggro more mainboard. He lost his match due to unlucky draws as well, but depending on what looks more prevalent in the meta the 4 mained dissipates could easily be 2 more azorius charms, selesnya charms, additional augurs, restos, whatever. I'm considering taking a similar list and splashing additional black for spot removal.
silklash spider, now there's interesting tech. to anyone suggesting it, any reports?
Fristly, you have a firefly avatar, so +inf respect. Secondly, it's the selesnya charm usage that strikes me most. The lifegain creature aspect seems very good vs the red decks, how does it do against the GW decks? Do you fnd the deck to stumble on mana? Doesn't seem like you can kill a turn 1 dork with a pillar too often. I am interested though, and Nathan Fillion is narrating all of your posts in my head.
any anecdotes about it's effectiveness vs GW or thundermaw decks?
Red based aggro is using burn mostly as removal and is using aristocrat and dragon to go over the top. Sole life gain as a strategy is only pseudo viable when you are using it to offset burn or slow the game down to slam your finisher which puts you over the top. However, the dragon goes over the top of a lot of the great midrange stabalizers such as huntmaster and thrag, and taps down guys like AoS, griselbrand, niv mizzet, whatever. They are an aggro deck, and they're going over the top of you. Heroes' reunion stalled you into an endgame where you couldn't deal with their threats. We don't need more stall, we need cards that can deal with their threats. Heroes' reunion is not a new card, and it didn't see play the first time. I don't think lifegain.card actually ever saw play in magic, though feel free to correct me on that. You have to affect the board.
The tough thing is that spot removal just isn't that great right now. There's no almost catch all like doom blade or go for the throat to go 1 for 1 until you pull ahead with better cards. It's all extremely narrow, and the meta is too diverse for ultimate price to be consistent. However, it does answer quite a few good cards and may be a good answer for the time being. Azorius charm has been used to decent effect so far in the meta, it's great against early drops and rancored guys and exalted guys, but it's pretty bad against big haste guys. Again, i'm keen on trying selesnya charm, and I ask if anyone has experience with it.
Intrepid hero is a card that I said may be okay. It was featured in the 75 of a GP top 8 deck. Yes it's very easy to kill, and yes it's very narrow against the 2/2 swarm. If the opponent it taking time out to kill it, they are not playing a threat that turn, and that's a turn the midrange control build can break parity. It's bad vs the swarm, but that isn't really the aspect of the aggro deck that is a problem. 2/2s are very easily stonewalled right now, and sweepers are still good. It's the big flying guys that are the problem, and hero can kill those.
Can't beat em join em has only ever been a good mentality when there was a clear best deck in the format. I love the format, its diversity, and its allowance of brewing. However, you still have to be able to analyze cards and analyze the meta from week to week. There are multiple "thrag is too good this meta stinks" threads on this very forum. How silly do they look now? How silly will this thread look when aggro is haumphed next week? I'm simply trying to be ahead of the curve and enjoy a discussion about the best anti aggro tactics so when everyone jumps on that staretegy to clean up the aggro decks next week, I'll be on countermagic.dec and annihilate all of them.
Heroes' Reunion is not a card. It's card disadvantage in every scenario save against the burn deck, which doesn't exist. 7 life is nothing and not worth 2 mana and a card. Lifegain has only ever been a consistent answer to aggro when it was permanent based, ie dragon's claw in red mirrors, kor firewalker and batterskull. Timely reinforcements gave you life and chump blockers. Thragtusk is still good because it gives you life and chump blockers, or even a threat. These are cards. Heroes' Reunion is not a card.
States was weeks ago, don't use that to assess the meta. Standard is great right now and changing very rapidly with every event. At the local level, people are seeing what decks are doing well and sleeving them up for FNM, which is shifting the meta even there. Players are going to need to know how to assess the best answers for the week ahead.
The can't beat em join em mentality is bad in a rapidly shifting meta. A couple of weeks ago UW flash was the deck to beat, midrange just couldn't deal, and aggro wasn't good since it lost to thragtusk. If you can't beat em join em right? The deck loses horribly to aggro, and since aggro found a way past thragtusk, the midrange decks have to fight back and adapt. Then they will be the decks to beat as aggro is pushed back a notch. This is elementary, we just have to find the midrange answers to aggro right now so we can deal this week and then have them sideboard ready for 2 weeks from now where aggro is terrible but we need the answers sb just in case for when 3 weeks from now aggro comes back.
Heroes' Reunion is not a card.
Mono-red can put an insane amount of pressure on within the first two turns. Both stromkirk noble and reckless waif punish midrange and control very harshly if they hit turn 1. Pyreheart wolf makes centaur healer, augur of bolas, and even thragtusk look silly at times. Hellrider puts the game in burn range very quickly. And again, that dragon.
GW seems to goldfish their turn 4 kill every game. This seem like the most beatable of the 3 big aggro decks, as it's the softest to sweeps and charms, but it's the harshest vs chump blockers due to rancored double strikers. Which the deck always has out swinging by turn 4 for 276 dmg.
You guys aren't respecting aggro nearly enough, and the format is about to shift there in a big way. Heroe's reunion is not a card. That can't be your turn 2 play, as you don't advance the board, and the aggro deck advances their board and hits you for at least that much over the next turn. Sphinx's revelation puts you way over the top of other midrange opponents, where you can afford to sit and ramp and counter until you fire one off without much pressure, and then chain them into victory. Aggro is smashing you too quickly, where you have to attack the board, and then those sphinxes are just sitting in your hand.
Aggro has evolved past the thrag-soft decks. Obviously the decks mentioned won't have all of those threats every game, and then some of the answers mentioned may suffice from time to time, but all of those cards are played in multiples and are all on curve. Their damage output outweighs the lifegain the answers present. All of the pros with all of their new brews are proudly exclaiming their victories over the midrange decks, and all of them seem very soft to hyper aggro. Hoof killing by turn 4 is the ideal nut draw, zombies killing by turn 4 isn't all too uncommon. Red decks packing flames of the firebrand or bonfire wipe away mana dorks while still applying pressure. You can't sit back and mulch all day while silverblade is all up in your face. Respect aggro or lose to it.
Jund is the closest thing I can think of resembling a strong anti aggro deck, but it seems very inconsistent and folds to anything that uses counterspells. I think that deck may be on the way out. More proactive Bant seems ok, but haste guys out of monored and br zombies are problematic.
Thoughts?
sublime archangel
angel of serenity
griselbrand
olivia voldaren
desecration demon
Selesnya charm hits some of those and has other relevant modes besides, but I think there is at least room for discussion. Thoughts?
The strategy of increasing devotion as both a wincon and a stall is good against most decks, but in general watch out for GW midrange. A well timed selesnya charm on a blocked rancored guy is just trouble. The matchup isn't bad, supreme verdict wrecks them, but just watch out for this interaction. Otherwise this strategy is very effective, and the addition of lingering souls makes it even more so. Lingering souls does much of the same, only comes down sooner and makes falkenrath aristocrat look like a joke. Watch out for thundermaw hellkite.
I think shaman is worth testing mainboard as a 2 of just for use as a grim lavamancer effect, with the occasional flashback hate and/or zombies/reanimator hate. I think it's playable simply as a one drop that can get damage through when the board is gummed up, and there may be more matchups where he relevant than irrelevant. He can easily come out for hand disruption vs ramp decks and control decks.
I will say that the pitfalls of this deck are the greediness of the spell suite and pilot error. Firstly, you can't be just jamming in tons of colored spells in this deck. There are not enough duals for that to work, and most zombie game losses are when the hand is clogged with spells, either due to color screw or irrelevance to the game. Game 1 should be the fast beats, you just cant have crap like abupt decay, charms, multiple slips or dreadbores, too much burn or rancors sitting around not doing anything. I think 5 colored spells in the 60 is correct, the choices are meta dependent. I'm leaning towards brimstone volley as being the best option, with dreadbore, rancor and flames of the firebrand leading up the charge. I'm going to go with this split at first in the main, subbing out for more multiples of relevant spells game 2:
2 brimstone
1 flames
1 rancor
1 dreadbore
Also, this is not an easy deck to pilot. The choice of one drop is more relevant now with pillar everywhere. Which 2 drop or 3 drop you play when is a big decision. You have to make choices as to when to hold up regen, burn, or removal, and when to send in the aristocrat. This is a much more skill intensive deck than it was before rotation, most of the creatures in this deck are not really straightforward beaters, you have to know which man is the one for the job and when.
Also I'm seeing some lists with 22 lands and multiple aristocrats. One top 32 deck in Cinci ran 22 land, 3 aristocrats and 2 thragtusks main. If you or any of your loved ones go to a tournament with that abomination, please call a our hotline. Suicide is not the answer.