Take the villagers hands down and cut off green. Black has two very good cards Tragic slip and Skirsdag flayer and you can almost guarantee the two/three players in your left will go black.
There are two other black playbles in the pack in wakedancerfires of undeath that will really push a lot of players on your left into black.
GB is a really trash archetype anyway. GW is still really solid so the Gavony ironwright may be the other option.
Mubutu, what kind of people do you play with? Serious, or casual? "Exploiting" the stack, as you put it, is a large part of the game... I mean, the stack is there for a reason. In my experience, even the purely casual players in my area "exploit" damage on the stack. There's a significant number of cards that will be less useful, be it constructed, or even more so, limited. Momentary Blink comes to mind. Streamlining is good, but not at the cost of the main fanbase opinion.. And that's the competitive players, not the casual ones.
As a relatively old school player i was really quite flabagasted when i saw all the new changes in the spoiler. Admitedly i did come around to some of the changes when i read the WOTC article but, BUT, taking some groovy tricks away from the game makes being "good" that much harder. It makes the game simpler or "more intuitive" as they put it, but it makes for a closer, less emphatic matchup between Timmy and spike. Being the Latter which most readers of this post will be, its a hard pill to glug.
This list is getting tweaked all the time, especially the sb but i'll explain some of the card choices. Ive tested a LOT with this, about 30 + 8 man queus, and 2 premier ever (one which i top 8'd)
I'll try to explain some of the stranger card choices.
1. Relics lens - With 24 land + 8 sticks this deck mulligans and a very low rate
2. Aeon chronicler - with relics and lens's this guy is awesome.
3. Wydwen - Just very nice to tutor up via teachings, and then go on the offense. Or chump block something a million times, or kill and survive those pesky treetop villages.
4. needle maindeck - Only way a green based deck win against you is via treetop and garruk. Both which are stopped by this.
5. MD teferi's moat - Again no green deck has an answer to this g1. So if u resolve this expect a scoop. Only thing they can win is by profane command or something, but rune snag and command easily trumps that.
6. Liliana - she gets your needles or moat against agro, and slowly kills control.
SB
The biggest boon to this deck is your sb. It can have all 5 colours due to lens and relic. So sb is really meta dependant. you really need all the anti agro cards and
Boom bust - My SB all star. RG big mana and dragonstorm just sits there against this deck nothing. And a bust late game will leave them nothing agsint your 3-4 mana sticks. Absolute secret tech and a must have imho.
Molten disaster - 2 matchups. Pickles and sonic boom. Both own this deck so the one molten disaster will give you some hope of winning. Just make sure you are slightly ahead of life, then BAM!. They never see it coming.
Most of the deck is really really solid. ask if u want more info bford.
Skill levels been equal Sonicboom/pickles player has atlease a 60-40 advantage g1. g2 might be slightly better but its still one of the matchups you dont want to play against.
Key cards in this matchup are Mouth of ronom an urzas factory.
After Sb Pithing needle is very useful as it shuts down desert and makes your faerie conclave into a real threat, and extirpate also helps somewhat. Take possesion is golden in the SB too if u have the space for it.
But to be honest afterworlds boom and pickles arent going to be played that much. Storm, GB variants, This and mana ramp is what will be played a lot. On modo anyways.
Extirpating a troll etc, or anything that an agro deck has is fairly awful i think. The whole point of extirpate is to break up a combo piece....such as pickles or a trisk lock.
Any idea on when the Jace Belerens come in? Ive been playing Pickles since Summer, despite Ancestral Visions being really awesome, I feel the deck lacks draw - especially when it goes topdeck mode, since theres a very high chance of topdecking land.
I also know that the success of this deck is heavily based on playskill, since theres a high chance of mana flood. You have to make correct plays with your few spells all of the time to gain the tempo, card advantage, and favorable board position. But do other players have other pro playtips for the deck? I believe its a very good archetype with no bad matchups just as long as you make correct plays.
Wow this is one of the most hillarious posts i've seen in a while. Made my morning actually. This deck should only very very rarely go into top deck mode. And if you goto topdeck mode then you've probably allready lost.
Ancestral visions i think is sufficient draw, and the fathom seers are too much tempo loss unless you have a discard heavy meta. Atleast a couple of them should be in your sb.
Yea, I find it kind of hard to believe that in a "creature set", you wont face a deck that plays some kind of creature or removal within its first 3 turns.
If jace had a little more loyalty, he'd be amazing, but at 3 loyalty, he really does just cantrip then eat burn. Ajani starts the game at +2 Life and 5 loyalty, which is a pretty hard threat to deal with. IF they double incinerate it or w/e, its ok, because you gained 2 life out of it and made them discard 2 cards (that's a pretty good 4 mana)
As for thoughtseize, I could see it as a 4 of in the board, but maindeck it will only hurt you. One of the major decks that lives and will be played is sadin.deck or stoneblade as you call it. Losing 2 life against them is a free burn spell, and seems like its only good if you go first, and hit a gargadon in their hand. I would definently keep it in the board for the control matchups though.
I'm pretty much basing most of my card choices around states coming up. It seems that you fight through all the ****** aggro decks in the first 6-7 rounds, then face the good control players in the top 8. So having maindeck anti aggro is good for the first couple rounds.
There are two other black playbles in the pack in wakedancer fires of undeath that will really push a lot of players on your left into black.
GB is a really trash archetype anyway. GW is still really solid so the Gavony ironwright may be the other option.
3x burrenton forge-tender
3x ranger of Eos
In the SB on MTGO to some pretty good results. Obviously any red based deck would frown at 2x forgetender
I guess i'll now have to be a retrained monkey
As a relatively old school player i was really quite flabagasted when i saw all the new changes in the spoiler. Admitedly i did come around to some of the changes when i read the WOTC article but, BUT, taking some groovy tricks away from the game makes being "good" that much harder. It makes the game simpler or "more intuitive" as they put it, but it makes for a closer, less emphatic matchup between Timmy and spike. Being the Latter which most readers of this post will be, its a hard pill to glug.
// Lands
4 [FUT] River of Tears
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
4 [9E] Underground River
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [TSP] Dreadship Reef
1 [TSP] Urza's Factory
4 [FUT] Tolaria West
4 [CS] Snow-Covered Island
// Creatures
1 [TSP] Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 [PLC] Aeon Chronicler
1 [TSP] Triskelavus
1 [LRW] Wydwen, the Biting Gale
2 [LRW] Liliana Vess
// Spells
2 [10E] Pithing Needle
2 [TSP] Mystical Teachings
1 [FUT] Pact of Negation
3 [TSP] Careful Consideration
1 [TSP] Tendrils of Corruption
1 [TSB] Teferi's Moat
3 [PLC] Damnation
4 [LRW] Cryptic Command
4 [FUT] Coalition Relic
4 [TSP] Prismatic Lens
4 [CS] Rune Snag
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [TSP] Tendrils of Corruption
SB: 1 [TSB] Teferi's Moat
SB: 1 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 1 [TSP] Haunting Hymn
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [10E] Terror
SB: 3 [TSP] Trickbind
SB: 1 [TSP] Pull from Eternity
SB: 1 [PLC] Boom/Bust
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 [FUT] Molten Disaster
This list is getting tweaked all the time, especially the sb but i'll explain some of the card choices. Ive tested a LOT with this, about 30 + 8 man queus, and 2 premier ever (one which i top 8'd)
I'll try to explain some of the stranger card choices.
1. Relics lens - With 24 land + 8 sticks this deck mulligans and a very low rate
2. Aeon chronicler - with relics and lens's this guy is awesome.
3. Wydwen - Just very nice to tutor up via teachings, and then go on the offense. Or chump block something a million times, or kill and survive those pesky treetop villages.
4. needle maindeck - Only way a green based deck win against you is via treetop and garruk. Both which are stopped by this.
5. MD teferi's moat - Again no green deck has an answer to this g1. So if u resolve this expect a scoop. Only thing they can win is by profane command or something, but rune snag and command easily trumps that.
6. Liliana - she gets your needles or moat against agro, and slowly kills control.
SB
The biggest boon to this deck is your sb. It can have all 5 colours due to lens and relic. So sb is really meta dependant. you really need all the anti agro cards and
Boom bust - My SB all star. RG big mana and dragonstorm just sits there against this deck nothing. And a bust late game will leave them nothing agsint your 3-4 mana sticks. Absolute secret tech and a must have imho.
Molten disaster - 2 matchups. Pickles and sonic boom. Both own this deck so the one molten disaster will give you some hope of winning. Just make sure you are slightly ahead of life, then BAM!. They never see it coming.
Most of the deck is really really solid. ask if u want more info bford.
Key cards in this matchup are Mouth of ronom an urzas factory.
After Sb Pithing needle is very useful as it shuts down desert and makes your faerie conclave into a real threat, and extirpate also helps somewhat. Take possesion is golden in the SB too if u have the space for it.
But to be honest afterworlds boom and pickles arent going to be played that much. Storm, GB variants, This and mana ramp is what will be played a lot. On modo anyways.
Wow this is one of the most hillarious posts i've seen in a while. Made my morning actually. This deck should only very very rarely go into top deck mode. And if you goto topdeck mode then you've probably allready lost.
Ancestral visions i think is sufficient draw, and the fathom seers are too much tempo loss unless you have a discard heavy meta. Atleast a couple of them should be in your sb.
Nimbus maze is going to be awful in this deck with only 7 lands to turn them 'on'. I would reccomend replacing these with more basics.