I love how people in this forum claims the successful lists are questionable yet celebrates the fact that this forum lives in Tier 2 (because of these questionable lists which consistently top8s big events). This hypocresy that lies in these forums push successful people away from posting here (not only D&T/hatebears, but in general).
Maybe it's time to understand there is a reason why successful people running successful lists play different cards than most people here, rather than constantly say "this is bad, that's bad, they are so lucky". Retrospective time, everybody! Let's try understanding why successful people move away from the cards that are considered good and play cards that actually win games and yet are consiedered 'questionable' here.
Not trying to be harsh to anyone, nor trying to call out anyone. Just think it's about time to ponder about these things.
I think the biggest problem with harsh mentor, is that he does not actually stop opponents from using abilities, and jut damages them which won't stop them getting to wraths, and other important plays needed to stabilize. I'm optimistic that it will still be good enough, but when it comes to fetches, it's not anywhere close to arbiter. I think it shines the most against scooze and kiki combo, but also hits some relevant check marks against knight fall, affinity, and tron. I certainly think it could see play in the right meta.
It always depends on how to approach the matter. It's not necessarily an arbiter replacement, although it could be if you wanted it to. You can play the Mentor alongside Tunnel Ignus and then a fetchland of your opponent becomes a free Thunderous Wrath. Playing red also grants the good ol' Bolt AND Boros Charm, which is a Counterspell against wrath effects (and even 'counters' Verdict). Maybe you don't even want Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in your mainboard, or in the 75. Maybe you just tax in damage. So suddenly, them taking up to 8 damage to wrath (Fetch 1, Mentor +2, untapped Schokland +2, Tunnel Ignus +3) -although in a dream land- is not that bad of a trade as it can basically count as a free combat phase for you. Alternatively, it can cost les dmg but you get another attack step and more chances of playing preemptive answers to a wrath like Selfless Spirit. In this way you don't care them losing lands or not with arbiter, you have reach and can sneak early damage through combat + free damage from opponent's playing magic and finish off a burn spell. Although it's likely that it won't develop exactly like that in many games, I think I make my point. Maybe instead of Arbiter and little thalia you want Simian Spirit Guide and Big Thalia.
I'm not saying go play Harsh Mentor and Tunnel Ignus, and I would certainly never say they can replaces Arbiter or Thalia. Just saying it helps the archetype of WR taxes, and it's likely a key card to beat Tron, Griselbrand reanimator, affinity and coco, while punishing people for playing fetches. When your opponent's life total is 12/14 instead of 20, the amount of games you will lose 1 or 2 turns before winning will decrease significantly. It's just a matter of finding the right configuration and see if the archetype can approach the metagame correctly.
Harsh Mentor may be utter trash, but it doesn't look like that.
EDIT: Card also seems pretty good against Lantern Control.
Maybe, but noncreature 4 drops that do nothing on their own are not where this decks want to be in my opinion. Anyway, I was talking about red taxes, which seems a lot more appealing now.
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Gideon seems great against Burn, Valakut, Death's Shadow decks, Ad Nauseam, Griselbrand Reanimator. It also seems to pay off to play it alongside Baby Gideon.
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My fellow GW D&T Lovers, I am considering going to the other side in a spin of the deck designed to be a beatdown deck with taxing elements and grind out with Gavony Township. Has something like this been tried before?
Not including the classic Arbiter value package means less free wins, but the deck should be very solid against Control, creature decks and BGx, also the inclusion of the Birds, 3 drops can be smoothly played without the need to uptick vial, plus it flies so it's great with Gavony Township. The sideboard may be too cute, but not having arbiter and being able to abuse Chord as 4x copies of any 1-of we're bringing makes the deck a lot more consistent, and it's not that much of a non-bo with thalia, as you can drop the amount of guardians you play by being able to fetch them anyway should you need them.
The only shaky card in the board is the Pontiff, which can't be cast off the manabase, but we can always chord for it or cast off birds /vial it in should we draw it.
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I'm just gonna feel really bad if my opponent casts a prime time and I've got 2 pushes sitting in hand laughing at me :c
But you've never felt bad about giving your opp a land when you are trying to tax them?
Not really, you usually still have some ammount of choice about when they get that land by holding off casting path of a few turns if you think it's too early.
Holding the path against a resolved primeval titan? That's just as bad as having a push in hand. Pathing it is not that great either, at that point you're most likely dead or with a crippled/wiped board anyway.
Anyone ever tried a similar list to wescoe's article? It feels very off, but then again he's wescoe and he knows the archetype a lot better.
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I'm not sure exactly because I haven't run into this line on mtgo (which would definitively settle the issue), but does it even matter how the triggers are stacked? What I mean is does the "if" clause get checked more than once. If not the glimmervoid would get sac'ed anyways, but if it does check again during state-based actions after the flickerwisp trigger then it wouldn't be sacc'ed. Idk
It's very simple:
When two or more triggered abilities attempt to go on the stack at the same time they go on APNAP order. This stands for Active Player, Non-active Player. It means that those triggers that are controlled by the active player go on the stack in whatever order he or she wants, followed by those triggered abilities that are controlled by the non-active player in whatever order he or she wants. As items on the top of the stack resolve first, the triggered abilities controlled by the non-active player will resolve first.
Doing it in your turn:
So you control the flickerwisp ability, so yours is on the stack first, then the glimmervoid trigger gets stacked on top. When Glimmervoid's ability resolves flickerwisp's trigger is still on the stack, so the glimmervoid doesn't see any artifacts and gets sacced, then Opal enters the battlefield when wisp's ability resolves.
Doing it in your opponent's turn:
It gets ordered backwards, so if your flickerwisp entered the battlefield prior to the End Step of your opponent's turn, glimmervoid isn't sacrified cause wisp's ability resolves first and puts back the Opal into play. Now, if you play wisp EoT the void WILL be sacrified because the opal doesn't come back until the NEXT end step, which will happen in your turn.
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Triggers are ordered in APNAP sequence. So you're the active player and your trigger goes on the stack, then -on top of it- your opponent's triggers is put on the stack. So the land is sacced before the Opal comes back. If you did it on yor opps turn it would have worked ONLY if you did it during EoT, so the flicker trigger happens on your turn and there is no conflict of triggers.
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My opinion of Renegade Rallier is that its closer to a flickerwisp than a Ewit, yes i know the effect but Ewit you play when you want and if it resolved you get a card, now the other card is conditional yet the effect is alittle bit stronger (since it goes onto the Battlefield) yet again has an other condition (2 mana or less and must be a permanent). To me it seems like either an all in build around, or a 1-2 of because of space at the three drop. The reason i view it as a flickerwisp is that you can use it to effectively blank a removal spell, you can use it to gain abit of tempo (taking a land from them with a tech edge or something), its not totally identical but you can see how it is abit versatil yet conditional.
I prefer a card like Ewit because you know exactly what its going to do in a game when you see it in your hand and can adjust a bit easier, yet its not as explosive as Rallier so that could have an upside yet if its one of the last cards in your hand and you get no value its a lot worse (effect wise), the body is great though.
On the subject of this recursion, you need to also consider that if you are using this card, you might want to move to a package of Surgicals/Relic/Ravenous traps instead of RIP.
I agree that this a build around card, but the package doesn't really takes the build that far away from a straight GW D&T, as it has been the usual blink abuse build since always (maybe it's been derailing from that approach lately). I think the best GY cards fot such build is Tormod's Crypt followed by Relic of Progenitus.
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Alongside Displacer, Wisp and Restoration angel it's a 100% guaranteed permanent into play ability that you can abuse. It is the ultimate demise of GQ your opponent until they have 0 lands in play, you don't even care if they get basics cause you blow them up again and again and again. I think it's strictly better if you go that route, if you care for CoCos and removal then Witness is better, I think it's all about the direction you want to take and Rallier is a build-around-me card. I should have expanded a bit on my thoughts I suppose.
You're pretending like your opponent is just going to sit there and allow you to make these lines of play. He or she is going to point removal at Rallier, as soon as he or she realizes what you're doing with it. In that sense, it has the same problem as Mangara of Corondor; if you want to abuse it, it's going to be obvious, and your opponent isn't going to casually let you win.
No, I'm not saying that, but you can work around that when you're playing taxes. They're spells cost more, if you have arbiter, their fetches cost more. The card is good on its own, regardless of the blinking abuse, whereas mangara isn't. If you were to build a blink D&T in WG, you can easily play a regular gameplan while having the option to go nuts as soon as the opponent taps out (which happens often when playing arbiter and thalia in the same deck).
If this were true, we would have seen it already with an Eternal Witness focused WG build. Instead, we use Eternal Witness as a 1-2 of. It's effective, but not something that's effective enough to want to play four copies.
I'm not saying you should play this or die. It's a build around card and I can see the upside of using it in a shell that has the option to abuse it through flicker effects. In the same deck you can play spellskite and selfless spirit, which both can be returned into play by rallier to have an endless stream of value as soon as your opponent's shields are down. If the game doesn't allow for it, you're just still playing a regular D&T deck with the value of getting back stuff off the GY with this dude. I think the card is great and should be explored before disregarding it saying 'it will die to removal' or 'opponents will try to stop you'. Synergy and combo decks exists through counterspells, discard and removal and still find they're way through it. Having a little value combo on a D&T shell is not something to disregard.
I know my original comment was a reply to Ivg, but you should go click the "spoiler" tag in my post on the last page. I feel like you didn't do that, and instead started replying without any context whatsoever.
I'm a huge fan of Renegade Rallier, and I think it opens up great new possibilities for WG. That said, I think you're selling it wrong. Jamming unnecessary (3rd or 4th) copies of Restoration Angel to try and get value out of this card is the wrong way to go. If you're going to spend 4 mana for value, you're probably better off just playing Collected Company with Eternal Witness and playing a midrange version of D&T.
If you coco rallier and blink it with wisp you won't get the first trigger but you will get the second at EoT, so there's no shame in taking that line of play.
This is only true if you don't play CoCo during your opponent's end step. If you flicker your own Rallier at the end of your opponent's turn, it won't return to the battlefield until your next end step.
Eternal Witness is a different card. Ewit asks you to resolve stuff or to have a vial in play. Rallier asks for none of those.
I'm also saying from the beggining that Rallier doesn't take the slots as Ewit because they are different cards. You can play both and live happily ever after, although I wouldn't play more than 2 Ewits. Even Abzan CoCo doesn't play more than 3.
I'm also not saying you shouldn't play CoCo, although I wouldn't play 4 either. I'd even play something like 2 CoCo and maybe 1 or 2 more in the board. This is not a CoCo deck, but having heirarch available helps to smooth it out.
About the Wisp + Rallier thing, obviously. It's like returning bloodghast at EoT and triggering Amalgams 1 turn later, you just adjust your timing to it. By casting it during combat or with a spell on the stack you're still protecting your rallier from sorcery speed removal.
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Alongside Displacer, Wisp and Restoration angel it's a 100% guaranteed permanent into play ability that you can abuse. It is the ultimate demise of GQ your opponent until they have 0 lands in play, you don't even care if they get basics cause you blow them up again and again and again. I think it's strictly better if you go that route, if you care for CoCos and removal then Witness is better, I think it's all about the direction you want to take and Rallier is a build-around-me card. I should have expanded a bit on my thoughts I suppose.
You're pretending like your opponent is just going to sit there and allow you to make these lines of play. He or she is going to point removal at Rallier, as soon as he or she realizes what you're doing with it. In that sense, it has the same problem as Mangara of Corondor; if you want to abuse it, it's going to be obvious, and your opponent isn't going to casually let you win.
No, I'm not pretending that, but you can work around that when you're playing taxes. Their spells cost more, if you have arbiter, their fetches cost more. The card is good on its own, regardless of the blinking abuse, whereas mangara isn't. If you were to build a blink D&T in WG, you can easily play a regular gameplan while having the option to go nuts as soon as the opponent taps out (which happens often when playing arbiter and thalia in the same deck).
I'm not saying you should play this or die. It's a build around card and I can see the upside of using it in a shell that has the option to abuse it through flicker effects. In the same deck you can play spellskite and selfless spirit, which both can be returned into play by rallier to have an endless stream of value as soon as your opponent's shields are down. If the game doesn't allow for it, you're just still playing a regular D&T deck with the value of getting back stuff off the GY with this dude. I think the card is great and should be explored before disregarding it saying 'it will die to removal' or 'opponents will try to stop you'. Synergy and combo decks exists through counterspells, discard and removal and still find they're way through it. Having a little value combo on a D&T shell is not something to disregard.
If you coco rallier and blink it with wisp you won't get the first trigger but you will get the second at EoT, so there's no shame in taking that line of play.
I don't think Witness and Rallier compete for the same purpose. Rallier ramps you, gets you back an Aether Vial, Thalia, Scooze, Arbiter, Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, whatever (the most significant cards costs 2mor less) and it puts it straight up in the battlefield, you don't need to resolve them. I think it's strictly better than Witness in GW as they can play 4 Wisps + 4 Restos.
Even though I'm pretty excited about the addition of Renegade Rallier, I can already tell you that "strictly better" is a bad way to frame your argument.
Alongside Displacer, Wisp and Restoration angel it's a 100% guaranteed permanent into play ability that you can abuse. It is the ultimate demise of GQ your opponent until they have 0 lands in play, you don't even care if they get basics cause you blow them up again and again and again. I think it's strictly better if you go that route, if you care for CoCos and removal then Witness is better, I think it's all about the direction you want to take and Rallier is a build-around-me card. I should have expanded a bit on my thoughts I suppose.
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I don't think Witness and Rallier compete for the same purpose. Rallier ramps you, gets you back an Aether Vial, Thalia, Scooze, Arbiter, Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, whatever (the most significant cards costs 2mor less) and it puts it straight up in the battlefield, you don't need to resolve them. I think it's strictly better than Witness in GW as they can play 4 Wisps + 4 Restos.
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Maybe it's time to understand there is a reason why successful people running successful lists play different cards than most people here, rather than constantly say "this is bad, that's bad, they are so lucky". Retrospective time, everybody! Let's try understanding why successful people move away from the cards that are considered good and play cards that actually win games and yet are consiedered 'questionable' here.
Not trying to be harsh to anyone, nor trying to call out anyone. Just think it's about time to ponder about these things.
It always depends on how to approach the matter. It's not necessarily an arbiter replacement, although it could be if you wanted it to. You can play the Mentor alongside Tunnel Ignus and then a fetchland of your opponent becomes a free Thunderous Wrath. Playing red also grants the good ol' Bolt AND Boros Charm, which is a Counterspell against wrath effects (and even 'counters' Verdict). Maybe you don't even want Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in your mainboard, or in the 75. Maybe you just tax in damage. So suddenly, them taking up to 8 damage to wrath (Fetch 1, Mentor +2, untapped Schokland +2, Tunnel Ignus +3) -although in a dream land- is not that bad of a trade as it can basically count as a free combat phase for you. Alternatively, it can cost les dmg but you get another attack step and more chances of playing preemptive answers to a wrath like Selfless Spirit. In this way you don't care them losing lands or not with arbiter, you have reach and can sneak early damage through combat + free damage from opponent's playing magic and finish off a burn spell. Although it's likely that it won't develop exactly like that in many games, I think I make my point. Maybe instead of Arbiter and little thalia you want Simian Spirit Guide and Big Thalia.
I'm not saying go play Harsh Mentor and Tunnel Ignus, and I would certainly never say they can replaces Arbiter or Thalia. Just saying it helps the archetype of WR taxes, and it's likely a key card to beat Tron, Griselbrand reanimator, affinity and coco, while punishing people for playing fetches. When your opponent's life total is 12/14 instead of 20, the amount of games you will lose 1 or 2 turns before winning will decrease significantly. It's just a matter of finding the right configuration and see if the archetype can approach the metagame correctly.
Harsh Mentor may be utter trash, but it doesn't look like that.
EDIT: Card also seems pretty good against Lantern Control.
Maybe, but noncreature 4 drops that do nothing on their own are not where this decks want to be in my opinion. Anyway, I was talking about red taxes, which seems a lot more appealing now.
Little by little, WR D&T becomes more plausible.
4x Aether Vial
4x Path to Exile
Creatures:
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Selfless Spirit
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Flickerwisp
4x Loxodon Smiter
2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Hero of Bladehold
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
3x Gavony Township
4x Windswept Heath
2x Horizon Canopy
2x Temple Garden
1x Forest
3x Plains
1x Eiganjo Castle
2x Tectonic Edge
1x Stirring Wildwood
4x Razorverge Thicket
3x Rest in Peace
3x Stony Silence
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Eternal Witness
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Burrenton Forge-Tender
1x Gaddock Teeg
3x Chord of Calling
Not including the classic Arbiter value package means less free wins, but the deck should be very solid against Control, creature decks and BGx, also the inclusion of the Birds, 3 drops can be smoothly played without the need to uptick vial, plus it flies so it's great with Gavony Township. The sideboard may be too cute, but not having arbiter and being able to abuse Chord as 4x copies of any 1-of we're bringing makes the deck a lot more consistent, and it's not that much of a non-bo with thalia, as you can drop the amount of guardians you play by being able to fetch them anyway should you need them.
The only shaky card in the board is the Pontiff, which can't be cast off the manabase, but we can always chord for it or cast off birds /vial it in should we draw it.
Holding the path against a resolved primeval titan? That's just as bad as having a push in hand. Pathing it is not that great either, at that point you're most likely dead or with a crippled/wiped board anyway.
Anyone ever tried a similar list to wescoe's article? It feels very off, but then again he's wescoe and he knows the archetype a lot better.
It's very simple:
Doing it in your turn:
So you control the flickerwisp ability, so yours is on the stack first, then the glimmervoid trigger gets stacked on top. When Glimmervoid's ability resolves flickerwisp's trigger is still on the stack, so the glimmervoid doesn't see any artifacts and gets sacced, then Opal enters the battlefield when wisp's ability resolves.
Doing it in your opponent's turn:
It gets ordered backwards, so if your flickerwisp entered the battlefield prior to the End Step of your opponent's turn, glimmervoid isn't sacrified cause wisp's ability resolves first and puts back the Opal into play. Now, if you play wisp EoT the void WILL be sacrified because the opal doesn't come back until the NEXT end step, which will happen in your turn.
I agree that this a build around card, but the package doesn't really takes the build that far away from a straight GW D&T, as it has been the usual blink abuse build since always (maybe it's been derailing from that approach lately). I think the best GY cards fot such build is Tormod's Crypt followed by Relic of Progenitus.
Eternal Witness is a different card. Ewit asks you to resolve stuff or to have a vial in play. Rallier asks for none of those.
I'm also saying from the beggining that Rallier doesn't take the slots as Ewit because they are different cards. You can play both and live happily ever after, although I wouldn't play more than 2 Ewits. Even Abzan CoCo doesn't play more than 3.
I'm also not saying you shouldn't play CoCo, although I wouldn't play 4 either. I'd even play something like 2 CoCo and maybe 1 or 2 more in the board. This is not a CoCo deck, but having heirarch available helps to smooth it out.
About the Wisp + Rallier thing, obviously. It's like returning bloodghast at EoT and triggering Amalgams 1 turn later, you just adjust your timing to it. By casting it during combat or with a spell on the stack you're still protecting your rallier from sorcery speed removal.
No, I'm not pretending that, but you can work around that when you're playing taxes. Their spells cost more, if you have arbiter, their fetches cost more. The card is good on its own, regardless of the blinking abuse, whereas mangara isn't. If you were to build a blink D&T in WG, you can easily play a regular gameplan while having the option to go nuts as soon as the opponent taps out (which happens often when playing arbiter and thalia in the same deck).
I'm not saying you should play this or die. It's a build around card and I can see the upside of using it in a shell that has the option to abuse it through flicker effects. In the same deck you can play spellskite and selfless spirit, which both can be returned into play by rallier to have an endless stream of value as soon as your opponent's shields are down. If the game doesn't allow for it, you're just still playing a regular D&T deck with the value of getting back stuff off the GY with this dude. I think the card is great and should be explored before disregarding it saying 'it will die to removal' or 'opponents will try to stop you'. Synergy and combo decks exists through counterspells, discard and removal and still find they're way through it. Having a little value combo on a D&T shell is not something to disregard.
If you coco rallier and blink it with wisp you won't get the first trigger but you will get the second at EoT, so there's no shame in taking that line of play.
Alongside Displacer, Wisp and Restoration angel it's a 100% guaranteed permanent into play ability that you can abuse. It is the ultimate demise of GQ your opponent until they have 0 lands in play, you don't even care if they get basics cause you blow them up again and again and again. I think it's strictly better if you go that route, if you care for CoCos and removal then Witness is better, I think it's all about the direction you want to take and Rallier is a build-around-me card. I should have expanded a bit on my thoughts I suppose.