Redtwister, that is a good argument. I can hardly believe that I am saying it, but I currently have zero Mangara of Corondor in my 75 (I have Banisher Priest in his place). I am not at all satisfied with this condition, but I do not see an alternative.
I do not like bringing generalist cards like Mangara, Flickerwisp, and Revoker from the side, so whatever I am going to use is going to be in the main.
D+T has recently become a slower deck, and I find myself digging my way out more often than before. While Mangara is good at that, he is slower at it than Banisher Priest and Relic-Warder, both of which also attack while Mangara does not. Taken as a whole, this has done some work speeding the deck back up for me. I have definitely benefited from this switch.
I do not really feel bad about going to three Flickerwisps. I fetch them so often that I have had little trouble having access to flight. And I do not want to draw too many too soon, as they are slow. They are also a slight strain on the mana supply. (I may have to finally drop to 3 Karakas, but I have swapped Horizon Canopy for Cavern of Souls.) The 3rd Revoker is missed, and its absence is part of the slowing of the deck. It is the 61st best card for the deck imo.
What I would really like is a 2-mana removal spell to accompany Prelate so that I feel confident summoning her while the opponent has a Delver or something. This scenario happens frequently, and I do not like my current options.
This is what I was talking about, how the new Thalia is strong enough to spawn several decks with her in their core. If it can manage good matchups, it is going to be such a a cool deck.
I don't think Miracles is the matchup in which THC shines brightest at all. It is a relevant card, to be sure. But Miracles does not skimp on its lands and does not usually either block with creatures or have haste. Thalia is going to be best against
Grixis
RUG
BUG
and will probably still be pretty good against
Elves
Sneak/Show
Eldrazi
and then still relevant in single every other matchup including Miracles.
I wrote a tournament report from this weekend here but most of my information comes from informal testing. It hardly matters. In two weeks everyone will have seen it themselves and know.
This leaves me with a bad curve, and I can feel it. I'm afraid to Wasteland because I occasionally stall on land drops. I also feel kinda thin against Burn and BUG, with nothing dedicated for either. Beyond that, the usual.
Just to play devil's advocate here, that scenario could fit an opponent's double-Delver fast-win, and should the Plowshares - supposing there was one - get countered, I don't care how awesome THC is (and I do think she's awesome), that could still be a loss. Maybe this isn't others' experience, but most matchups against Delver, no matter which brew of DnT I was playing, are only a downhill battle when 2 or more Delvers flip. Even if you deal with one of them soon after, the timing doesn't generally work in our favor.
I played with 2x THC locally this weekend; she was absent in my Elves match unfortunately, another easy 2-0 for my opponent. But against Grixis Delver, she was instrumental in holding back a Gurmag Angler along with her other self, because combined 5-first strike power on the board (hey, that's a new thing!) is pretty incredible. Twin Thalias on the board is probably enough to muck up any ground game opponents have in game 1, and obviously Rest in Peace cuts them down even harder post-board.
So fundamentally, we are in agreement THC is good. I've adopted your approach of only 4 fliers to accompany her, so naturally, the best approach to hedge against the explosive 2+Delver open is just extra cheap removal. Let's all face it as well: Avenger is really a slow card for Delver anyway. When those decks have to go ground game for lack of drawing or sticking Delvers, we win. With THC, we win that game harder, but the Delver hole stays the same, so if anyone goes in on her and cuts fliers, those versions of the deck would prob consider multiple Sunlance or equivalents again.
Right. Point conceded that I did not account for my opponent's actions. And those actions are important in a deck like Canadian Delver. The purpose of my words was to drive home the idea that you can virtually seal up the game in a fashion that was only really possible before if you had TGT + Wingmare and you already had board control. With THC, you can achieve this same condition without having independently wrested control of the board because this chick can fight. Having their potential blockers come out tapped is occasionally important. The result is kind of a lock. Your opponents are so behind in tempo, and dropping further with every turn, that you kinda have the game wrapped up on turn 3.
@Medea, I have been using an Ensnaring Bridge in my side board and some tutors to find it. As far as I can tell, Endrazi does not have a decent answer to it.
Tawyn, D+T really does not have much in the way of true beaters. The Eldrazi cards are popular in the Modern builds. I presume that what you are seeing is inspired by those card choices.
My THCs arrive this week and I am going to try hard to make a tournament this weekend. But I did a fair amount of testing again this weekend. I was going to put something similar to what spidernova said about the RUG and Shardless matchups. Players of decks like these will HAVE to put more basics in their decks or they will lose hard to this card. It has happened too many times now for me to call it statistical anomaly.
Facing RUG Delver, for example
On the play...
T1 Mother of Runes
T2 (Mom survived) Mystic or TGT or Port a land or StP a Delver or Revoker-meets-Daze or something *anything* useful
T3 THC resolves
T4 (THC survived)
That should about end g1. Seriously.
I was just reading your interesting closing thoughts on the BUG matchup. You note that both sides feel favored in this matchup. I definitely feel favored, so much so that I do not use Wilt-Leaf Liege, Mirran Crusader, or even bother with particular Golgari Charm defense at all. In a nutshell, I go in entirely unprepared for this matchup and I still expect to win. I would be very interested to hear what others, especially BUG players have to say on this matter.
As someone with 8 fliers and 3 Crusaders, dropping so much evasion seems pretty scary. Is the somewhat slower, ground-game based build sufficiently capable against Mentor/Pyromancer swarms, Anglers, Eldrazi beaters, and Elf bouncing shenanigans that you're never wishing for more evasion?
Curby, i expect to drop a game here and there from what you described. From what I have seen though, it is a good trade-off. On that note, though. I wonder if putting at least one more sword in the sb is a good plan. I like the green/black one.
I have a few quick questions for you Finn regarding Thalia, Heretic Cathar as I saw you posting about testing it a bit over on the source.
1. Are there any plays or moments you can recall from testing that stand out making her an auto include? Also what kind of numbers feel correct to you?
2. Were there ever times where you felt like her ability was just useless and wished she were something like a Mangara, extra Mirran Crusader, Brimaz, spirit of the labyrinth?
3. My last question is if you tested the elves match up, when did she seem strong and when did she seem underwhelming? It would seem that on draw with a druid or ranger that having a couple nettle Sentinel would leave me thinking that she wasn't good enough, but on combo turns with 1 sentinel she then would seem like a fine way to hold them back a bit. I don't let myself get tilted by this match up anymore, but it would be nice to add something that could slightly improve it closer to 30-70 rather than 10-90 in their favor. Maybe I'm not giving us enough credit but in my experience it really seems like elves is close to 10-90 their favor
Good questions:
1. THC seems to me to be sort of what we wanted Vryn Wingmare to be. The problem I always had with Wingmare (and Glowrider before that) was that it causes D+T to have an approach that is too narrow. But THC is an addendum to what TGT wants to do to the game, and not more of the same. That is, it makes D+T do more of what D+T does - but from a different angle, so it catches some different decks in its net. And she is a fighter to boot. The closest comparison I can make was when Threshold decks (like RUG) in 2007 swapped out their Werebears for Tarmogoyfs. There was the slight downside of not getting that extra mana, but the upside made the deck do its thing so much better.
2. Sure. Well, kinda. This brings me to a point I wanted to make. I seem to be getting more blowout victories. The tools we have now against stuff like Grixis Pyro and Jund and Shardless BUG are so disrupting that I can get far out in front in a way that was much less common in the past. That seems good, of course. You can feel the power of the deck big time. But I do drop a game here and there because I swapped out aggro stuff to achieve that goal. So, yeah. I have been trapped by Punishing Fire. I have been holding a duplicate legend in my hand. But I am leaning toward "it's worth it".
3. THC only seemed underwhelming when turn 3 was pointless. At all times when I got to turn 3 in decent shape - like I said, holding STP and her in the starting grip - I won most of those. I figure you want concrete stuff, so I might say that having her in the deck improves the matchup by perhaps 15%.
Quote from makguffin »
I had an interesting discussion with a friend about "ticking up the Vial".
I have found that there is a kind of intuition that comes with ticking up the vial. That said, I rarely feel that I ticked it up too fast, and I am fairly aggressive with it. I agree with you over your friend about going to three sooner rather than later, and for the same reasons.
**********
One more thing: Considering what a considerable part of [at least my] game, THC has become, I wonder if 2x Eiganjo Castle makes sense. Her butt of 2 (and not 1) is important because the castle gets her past bolts.
In my testing, THC is going to have a positive effect upon the Elves matchup, but only if you can actually make it to turn 3. <-- No surprise there, but it begs the question of which is the best way to get us to turn 3. Sunlance is probably a good sideboard card in general. It may be my first choice. But I really want to be able to hit a Thought-Knot Seer. Ideas?
Folks, the bar for a card taking the place of another card in this deck is pretty high. Think about the cards that are not universally accepted. Gisela, Thalia's Lancers, Permeating Mass, etc. These are cards with no obvious role in the deck, to say nothing of their reduced power level. I feel pretty certain there is no need to give them serious consideration.
BTW, my current 75:
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Flickerwisp
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
9 Plains
4 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Council's Judgment
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Rest In Peace
2 Enlightened Tutor
I do not like bringing generalist cards like Mangara, Flickerwisp, and Revoker from the side, so whatever I am going to use is going to be in the main.
D+T has recently become a slower deck, and I find myself digging my way out more often than before. While Mangara is good at that, he is slower at it than Banisher Priest and Relic-Warder, both of which also attack while Mangara does not. Taken as a whole, this has done some work speeding the deck back up for me. I have definitely benefited from this switch.
I do not really feel bad about going to three Flickerwisps. I fetch them so often that I have had little trouble having access to flight. And I do not want to draw too many too soon, as they are slow. They are also a slight strain on the mana supply. (I may have to finally drop to 3 Karakas, but I have swapped Horizon Canopy for Cavern of Souls.) The 3rd Revoker is missed, and its absence is part of the slowing of the deck. It is the 61st best card for the deck imo.
What I would really like is a 2-mana removal spell to accompany Prelate so that I feel confident summoning her while the opponent has a Delver or something. This scenario happens frequently, and I do not like my current options.
Grixis
RUG
BUG
and will probably still be pretty good against
Elves
Sneak/Show
Eldrazi
and then still relevant in single every other matchup including Miracles.
I wrote a tournament report from this weekend here but most of my information comes from informal testing. It hardly matters. In two weeks everyone will have seen it themselves and know.
-4 Mother of Runes
-3 Phyrexian Revoker
+2 Enlightened Tutor
+2 Fiend Hunter
+1 Ensnaring Bridge
+2 Council's Judgment
This leaves me with a bad curve, and I can feel it. I'm afraid to Wasteland because I occasionally stall on land drops. I also feel kinda thin against Burn and BUG, with nothing dedicated for either. Beyond that, the usual.
@Medea, I have been using an Ensnaring Bridge in my side board and some tutors to find it. As far as I can tell, Endrazi does not have a decent answer to it.
My THCs arrive this week and I am going to try hard to make a tournament this weekend. But I did a fair amount of testing again this weekend. I was going to put something similar to what spidernova said about the RUG and Shardless matchups. Players of decks like these will HAVE to put more basics in their decks or they will lose hard to this card. It has happened too many times now for me to call it statistical anomaly.
Facing RUG Delver, for example
On the play...
T1 Mother of Runes
T2 (Mom survived) Mystic or TGT or Port a land or StP a Delver or Revoker-meets-Daze or something *anything* useful
T3 THC resolves
T4 (THC survived)
That should about end g1. Seriously.
Good questions:
1. THC seems to me to be sort of what we wanted Vryn Wingmare to be. The problem I always had with Wingmare (and Glowrider before that) was that it causes D+T to have an approach that is too narrow. But THC is an addendum to what TGT wants to do to the game, and not more of the same. That is, it makes D+T do more of what D+T does - but from a different angle, so it catches some different decks in its net. And she is a fighter to boot. The closest comparison I can make was when Threshold decks (like RUG) in 2007 swapped out their Werebears for Tarmogoyfs. There was the slight downside of not getting that extra mana, but the upside made the deck do its thing so much better.
2. Sure. Well, kinda. This brings me to a point I wanted to make. I seem to be getting more blowout victories. The tools we have now against stuff like Grixis Pyro and Jund and Shardless BUG are so disrupting that I can get far out in front in a way that was much less common in the past. That seems good, of course. You can feel the power of the deck big time. But I do drop a game here and there because I swapped out aggro stuff to achieve that goal. So, yeah. I have been trapped by Punishing Fire. I have been holding a duplicate legend in my hand. But I am leaning toward "it's worth it".
3. THC only seemed underwhelming when turn 3 was pointless. At all times when I got to turn 3 in decent shape - like I said, holding STP and her in the starting grip - I won most of those. I figure you want concrete stuff, so I might say that having her in the deck improves the matchup by perhaps 15%.
I have found that there is a kind of intuition that comes with ticking up the vial. That said, I rarely feel that I ticked it up too fast, and I am fairly aggressive with it. I agree with you over your friend about going to three sooner rather than later, and for the same reasons.
**********
One more thing: Considering what a considerable part of [at least my] game, THC has become, I wonder if 2x Eiganjo Castle makes sense. Her butt of 2 (and not 1) is important because the castle gets her past bolts.
Also, yay, Medea.