@lektek, any guide provided would be specific to flavor of deck that it was written for and that specific meta which changes quickly.
Looking at your deck, it seems to be a mishmash with more fun ofs than I’d suggest. Dnt suffers from variance to a higher degree than most any other deck in the format and this will only increase said variance.
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@colt, inspector has one power to crew copter or attack with. It also fills the missing point in the W curve by being cmc 1 rather than cmc 2.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@sspiegel, the deck has an absolutely brutal learning curve; ent is steeper yet. Don’t get disheartened.
Catmix wrote a sideboard guide some time ago. I wish I had a link but alas; I do not. Spider wrote another guide that’s in the leonin library in the OP.
Canopy is not essential but any W or WG deck will be better almost all of the time because of it. Play them if you have them.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
I’ve been playing Wb less eldrazi and taxes for a little while. I’ve had very strong results both in paper and online. Here are my results from tonight.
Round 1: bye
Round 2 vs jund vengevine WIN
Used arbiter and Thalia to lock op out of game one. I sided in RIP, forge tender and fiend hunter in g2 siding out restos and two stranglers and two flickerwisp. This proved to be a mistake as my cards proved not to be high impact enough besides rip. Hollow one proved to be very strong against against me as my cards were not to be terribly high impact. I brought two stranglers and a resto back in. I slowly whittled down ops resources in game 3 two for oneing frequently. Strangler proved to be better than expected.
Round 3 vs ug merfolk LOSS
I mulliganed to four in g1 and he had much to strong of a start with all the typical merfolk tricks. I sided in fatal push and fiend hunters in g2. I kept a canopy one lander in g2 based on being full of removal and a Thalia. I topdecked another canopy on the second turn and played Thalia. Op played the new merfolk lord that taxes removal. This was too much for me to overcome. This was my match to lose and my choices directly led to that. G1 was almost certainly unwinnable but I should have mulliganed in g2. Furthermore, casting Thalia when I didn’t have a vial or a land heavy hand was a mistake which was compounded by the new pseudo lord.
Round 4 vs ug merfolk WIN
I had all my best cards and was able to pick ops hand apart and processing it. I brought In fiend hunters and fatal pushes. G2 had op unfix my mana with spreading seas and outpower me before I could lose the enchantment. G3 was a more even version of g1 with me getting plenty of removal and him drawing lots of high impact creatures. This proved to be a slugfest with him drawing well as I established strong card advantage. I eked out a win for third out of 15 players.
Edited to add: the above list is not correct. The sideboard should have two surgical extractions in place of two dismembers.
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@fyreelemental, it top 8ed the SCG event this past weekend so it’s pretty ok. Lists must be tailored to the meta you’ll be playing in as dnt is a meta deck at heart. Your ability to tailor it is step one in being successful. A deck that has the flex spots filled with otherwise good cards for the wrong meta will not do well. Be prepared to lose often as this deck has a vicious learning curve.
Good luck.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the mtgsalvation forum and in that time there are a bunch of new people here. Allow me to introduce myself for those that don’t know me. I’m dsmonsta. I’ve been playing Magic on and off since the dark days of 4th edition when cards were either broken beyond belief or gimped by modern standards but didn’t play beyond kitchen table until the summer of 2015 or grixis summer as it’s lovingly referred to. This was a time when eldrazi were a punchline and splinter twin made up over ten percent of the meta. DNT has been my go to deck and modern my go to format since then. I’m a player and deckbuilder of unimpressive skill but I can craft a manabase like no one’s business. For what it’s worth I primarily play white/green or straight white. These are my areas of expertise although I’m familiar with the rest of the deck.
I wrote the original DNT manabase primer in April of 2016 and I think it still is useful but the format is much changed since then and my own views have matured as well. The original post can be found here for reference. It is based in large part on Frank Karsten’s superb article regarding manabase construction which is available here and the birds of paradise mana failure table which can be found here . READ THESE! It should be noted that Karsten’s math is more complex than the raw tables and includes a hand selection bias in the math and the tables appear to be more restrictive. This is for good reason. The raw tables are just that, raw.
In general, I like to define the threshold of success of any uncertain task that I set out on before I set out on it in order to temper my own expectations and root them in reality. This prevents me from throwing the towel prematurely if things go rougher than expected or declaring victory when it’s unearned.
1. Reliably casting our spells on the curve.
This is the most important thing that we need mana for and lands are our mana producers. Yes, we have aether vial and green splashes would be remiss to not play a set of noble hierarch but most of our spells will be cast with mana produced by lands. This does not necessarily mean that we need to hit every land drop but we depend on advancing to the middle and late portion of the games while our opponents resources are tied up and they are unable to progress a board state beyond the early game. This is more important now than ever before with a plethora of unfair and quasi-fair decks making up tier one.
2. Provide land destruction
DNT is one of the only decks in format that plays four or more lands that have a primary use that is not producing mana or getting lands that produce mana. Let us start with the obvious. Every iteration of this deck plays four ghost quarters. This is a hard and fast rule. The number of Thalias and arbiters played is flexible but ghost quarter is a four of automatically. Sadly WOTC says we have to play by the same rules as everyone else and four is the limit. Many DNT variants will run tectonic edges supplementally. This is a cornerstone of the deck.
3. Provide additional utility
Nobody likes topdecking a land when the board state is stalled and a land that just taps for mana that you already have nothing to do with is even worse. This is why we run utility lands and it’s fairly unique in format to run more than one or two of these utility lands. These range from man lands that put power on the board, dodge sweepers and can’t be countered to card draw or even stranger. We must eke every benefit possible out of our lands due to the fact we run very few non-creature spells.
This question is almost always asked regarding noble hierarch and for good reason. A first turn hierarch that survives to make mana can enable some tremendously mean plays that shift the percentage for wins in our favor. My favorite is turn two arbiter and ghost quarter but aven mindcensor and Thalia, heretic cathar are very strong as well.
To answer the question though we must know what turn we want to cast these spells on. Consulting Karsten’s tables we see that the answer for the first turn noble hierarch is 14 untapped green sources which is simple enough. Do we really need to cast hierarch on turn one though? It enables strong plays and all but is much less likely to survive until turn two than an aether vial. Every time both are in my opener I have trouble deciding which to play.
On the other hand let us say that we want to be able to cast a card that costs 1W on turn two. The same table says 13 lands are necessary for that to happen with reliability. Lately, I’ve been running a greedier manabases than previously to squeeze every bit of utility out of my cards and have the best top decks possible.
Twenty three. Probably. This has been the popular answer for much of the history of this deck in the modern format and for good reason. We sacrifice our own lands all the time and still need to draw them as vial won’t be seen in nearly half of our games.
The main exception to playing 23 lands is that green splashes have access to noble hierarch which is awesome. This is very well supported in results and 22 is the default answer for green splashses but is not by any means authoritative. I’ve personally run 23 lands in green splashes to use a set of stirring wildwood but that was before fatal push was around and I won’t be doing that at the moment. Some claim that ramp sources let us run a lower land count as they produce more mana. My response is that we still need to draw them and 22 is lower than the 26 draws that can power a green splash while only actually playing 22 lands.
Fetchlands are a staple of every format where they’re legal and for good reason. They provide outstanding reliability in manabase construction as well as deck thinning for a negligible cost in life. Any three color and most two color decks will play at least a set with up to 10 being average. We prey on this with leonin arbiter and aven mindcensor to at least steal tempo and force removal and at most lock opponents out of the game.
We can run fetchlands too and play around our own arbiter. The spider knows what part of the web is sticky. The advanatage of this aside from mana fixing is that we can turn on revolt for renegade rallier and fatal push, take advantage of deck thinning (it’s overrated by most but over the course of a few days it will matter and something is better than nothing) and fetch basics to nullify a blood moon type effect. The disadvantages are that eventually you will get caught by your own arbiter and hatebears/dnt makes up ~5% of the metagame as of this writing so it is not something to be embarked upon lightly. Have a good reason to play fetches if you choose to.
Four. Almost always and no; you won’t auto-lose to burn. You’ll give up a few percentage points against burn and decks of it’s ilk which make up ~7% of the meta as of this writing but improve your chances with almost everything else and besides, we have a solid match against burn already.
Yes. Horizon canopy is expensive (as of this writing SCG is sold out at $100) and the second line of text may as well read “1, tap, sac: draw another land.” but that’s one card closer to what will win you the game and you need a compelling reason to not run four. Here are some good reasons: “I can’t afford them.” “I’m playing a splash that isn’t green.” “My meta is nothing but burn.”
Please note that this is my opinion and it’s a fairly contentious one even among those that have contributed a great amount to this thread and also the development of the deck. I will point out that every pro player that has top eighted a GP with this deck has played a set of canopys though.
The short answer to this question is that you should be able to cast every card in your deck off of nothing but your basic lands. Blood moon exists and shouldn’t be discounted but the primary reason why we run basics is so that we don’t make our opponent’s ghost quarters and path to exiles better. This is a concern as they are the number one and two most commonly played cards in format as of this writing. We also use our own cards for emergency mana fixing. White/green tends to have a greedier (in terms of basics) manabase and I have been known to play two forests and one plains rather than two plains. This is compromise for casting noble hierarch reliably on the first turn.
I like to have half my lands have some other ability besides making mana as this contributes to a higher percentage of live draws when the board is stalemated or we’re behind. This will typically be 4 ghost quarters, 4 horizon canopys, 2 manlands and 1-2 other lands.
Since fatal push emerged on the scene and the meta included more and more ghost quarters I’ve had less and less luck with manlands (looking in your direction stirring wildwood) which had previously been real winners. This is in part due to the fact that spending 1GW to activate it and having it die to one mana worth of tempo in either case is bad trade when previously it survived lightning bolt and abrupt decay; the two best removal spells in format. For this reason I don’t encourage the wholesale use of more than a couple manlands unless they’re low investment types like mutavault that opponents will be less likely to spend removal on and it’s not a huge tempo loss if they do.
The Innistrad cycle utility lands are by and large great. [card[Gavony township[/card] is widely used and for very good reason as it can put a tremendous amount of power on the board. Less utilized lands are moorland haunt and slayer’s stronghold. I’d like to think that this is due to blue and red being less popular splashes. Last but not least is {card]vault of the archangel[/card] which has a tremendous amount of potential but is infrequently played due to WB eldrazi and taxes having a ridiculously tight manabase already.
The Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation cycle of desert lands are something that I think has great potential. Thread contributors and streamers extroardinare Deathandcatmix and Spiderspace have both used shefet dunes to good result on stream and I use them in Wc eldrazi and taxes but the one that I believe has the most potential is scavenger grounds as it allows non-green decks to pack graveyard hate in the main deck. Furthermore this happens at time when grave hate, especially fast and reasonably costed graveyard hate is very important in the meta. I think hashep oasis has playability. This is primarily due to the fact that it can giant growth a mirran crusader for tremendous offensive potential. Lastly, ifnir deadlands seems useable as it provides removal that is land based.
Here are some sample manabases. Each is on the conservative side.
Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
Are there any questions that you'd like to see addressed? So far the only one I've gotten was the inclusion of deserts which I'll be happy to oblige.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@Fuzzydan, I'll check them out but my advice now as it has been is to bite the bullet and get the canopys.
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Hey gang. The manabase primer is pretty dated and I'm going to be writing a new one. Are there specific issues that anyone wants to see addressed? Also, does anyone have access to hypergeometric distribution charts besides the old bopmtg ones?
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@Kayjay1991, gw is generally the fastest and most aggressive version of dnt. It also has the strongest manabase and best top decks. This is countered by it being the least interactive version of the deck and is least likely to be able to support eldrazi. Due to it being light on colorless in comparison.
Congrats on the promotion to tier one everybody! I never thought I'd see the day.
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The deck looks fine. The only changes I'd consider are mutavalts instead of temples or thought-knot seers instead of restos. It's by and large an either or thing.
The sideboard could be ok depending on the meta. Ask yourself what you'll be bringing in in a given match. If it's only two or three cards then you won't likely have a solid match against that deck.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@Laughingpeluso, vial comes out in games where threat density is critical and artifact hate is in the main or sideboard. Jund and junk are great examples of these types of matches. Noble hierarch can be safely sided out in long games where super efficient removal like electrolyze, izzet staticasters and sweepers will be in play. The quick mana acceleration is unlikely to be impactful in these games.
Fwiw, these are my opinions and by no means the conventional wisdom of the hive mind. Others would suggest not siding out vial against jund citing that it allows flickerwisp to be played at instant speed. Your mileage may vary.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@Xaricore, stonecloaker has long been a marginal card in this deck because it can't stick to the battlefield by itself and opens you up to blowouts of tempo loss. It's only good in a meta that is low on removal which modern is unlikely to be at any point in the foreseeable future. This isn't to say that stonecloaker is unplayable in the right deck in a certain meta but it will never be a four of.
Smugglers copter is excellent because it is both a means of card selection and an elusive clock that gives our creatures pseudo-haste. The card selection aspect is something that is very welcome in this deck. Mana flood is something that we struggle with. Two (or three) mana isn't too much to ask. Fwiw, selfless spirit is pretty good too.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@Poohbearoverlord, dnt/hatebears is a meta deck first and foremost. Outside of the core deck, everything is a flex spot that must address your meta. The good news is that dnt has a solid game against all those decks other than merfolk; which can be rough but not unwinnable. What is good against one deck is not terribly good against others. Vryn wingmare is great against ad nauseum but lousy against merfolk as an example.
Straight white is the starting point for the deck where you'll learn the complex interactions of this deck and how to leverage those interactions against the opponent to disrupt their strategy. My best advice is to read the primer and start reading this thread. Catmix has some videos that are geared toward beginners as well.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@stainthemind, I generally think that arbiter should be either one of the best cards in the match or sided out. I never find it to be just ok unless my board is fully unprepared for a match. Mana denial is a losing strategy against dredge as they do their fetching early in the game, have a good chance of drawing a mana producer and play life from the loam.
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Looking at your deck, it seems to be a mishmash with more fun ofs than I’d suggest. Dnt suffers from variance to a higher degree than most any other deck in the format and this will only increase said variance.
Catmix wrote a sideboard guide some time ago. I wish I had a link but alas; I do not. Spider wrote another guide that’s in the leonin library in the OP.
Canopy is not essential but any W or WG deck will be better almost all of the time because of it. Play them if you have them.
I’ve been playing Wb less eldrazi and taxes for a little while. I’ve had very strong results both in paper and online. Here are my results from tonight.
Round 1: bye
Round 2 vs jund vengevine WIN
Used arbiter and Thalia to lock op out of game one. I sided in RIP, forge tender and fiend hunter in g2 siding out restos and two stranglers and two flickerwisp. This proved to be a mistake as my cards proved not to be high impact enough besides rip. Hollow one proved to be very strong against against me as my cards were not to be terribly high impact. I brought two stranglers and a resto back in. I slowly whittled down ops resources in game 3 two for oneing frequently. Strangler proved to be better than expected.
Round 3 vs ug merfolk LOSS
I mulliganed to four in g1 and he had much to strong of a start with all the typical merfolk tricks. I sided in fatal push and fiend hunters in g2. I kept a canopy one lander in g2 based on being full of removal and a Thalia. I topdecked another canopy on the second turn and played Thalia. Op played the new merfolk lord that taxes removal. This was too much for me to overcome. This was my match to lose and my choices directly led to that. G1 was almost certainly unwinnable but I should have mulliganed in g2. Furthermore, casting Thalia when I didn’t have a vial or a land heavy hand was a mistake which was compounded by the new pseudo lord.
Round 4 vs ug merfolk WIN
I had all my best cards and was able to pick ops hand apart and processing it. I brought In fiend hunters and fatal pushes. G2 had op unfix my mana with spreading seas and outpower me before I could lose the enchantment. G3 was a more even version of g1 with me getting plenty of removal and him drawing lots of high impact creatures. This proved to be a slugfest with him drawing well as I established strong card advantage. I eked out a win for third out of 15 players.
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Dark Confidant
1x Field of Ruin
4x Flickerwisp
4x Ghost Quarter
2x Godless Shrine
4x Horizon Canopy
2x Kitesail Freebooter
4x Leonin Arbiter
3x Marsh Flats
4x Path to Exile
2x Plains
4x Restoration Angel
2x Swamp
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Tidehollow Sculler
1x Vault of the Archangel
4x Wasteland Strangler
3x Burrenton Forge-Tender
2x Dismember
3x Fatal Push
3x Fiend Hunter
1x Orzhov Pontiff
3x Rest in Peace
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Edited to add: the above list is not correct. The sideboard should have two surgical extractions in place of two dismembers.
Good luck.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the mtgsalvation forum and in that time there are a bunch of new people here. Allow me to introduce myself for those that don’t know me. I’m dsmonsta. I’ve been playing Magic on and off since the dark days of 4th edition when cards were either broken beyond belief or gimped by modern standards but didn’t play beyond kitchen table until the summer of 2015 or grixis summer as it’s lovingly referred to. This was a time when eldrazi were a punchline and splinter twin made up over ten percent of the meta. DNT has been my go to deck and modern my go to format since then. I’m a player and deckbuilder of unimpressive skill but I can craft a manabase like no one’s business. For what it’s worth I primarily play white/green or straight white. These are my areas of expertise although I’m familiar with the rest of the deck.
I wrote the original DNT manabase primer in April of 2016 and I think it still is useful but the format is much changed since then and my own views have matured as well. The original post can be found here for reference. It is based in large part on Frank Karsten’s superb article regarding manabase construction which is available here and the birds of paradise mana failure table which can be found here . READ THESE! It should be noted that Karsten’s math is more complex than the raw tables and includes a hand selection bias in the math and the tables appear to be more restrictive. This is for good reason. The raw tables are just that, raw.
In general, I like to define the threshold of success of any uncertain task that I set out on before I set out on it in order to temper my own expectations and root them in reality. This prevents me from throwing the towel prematurely if things go rougher than expected or declaring victory when it’s unearned.
1. Reliably casting our spells on the curve.
This is the most important thing that we need mana for and lands are our mana producers. Yes, we have aether vial and green splashes would be remiss to not play a set of noble hierarch but most of our spells will be cast with mana produced by lands. This does not necessarily mean that we need to hit every land drop but we depend on advancing to the middle and late portion of the games while our opponents resources are tied up and they are unable to progress a board state beyond the early game. This is more important now than ever before with a plethora of unfair and quasi-fair decks making up tier one.
2. Provide land destruction
DNT is one of the only decks in format that plays four or more lands that have a primary use that is not producing mana or getting lands that produce mana. Let us start with the obvious. Every iteration of this deck plays four ghost quarters. This is a hard and fast rule. The number of Thalias and arbiters played is flexible but ghost quarter is a four of automatically. Sadly WOTC says we have to play by the same rules as everyone else and four is the limit. Many DNT variants will run tectonic edges supplementally. This is a cornerstone of the deck.
3. Provide additional utility
Nobody likes topdecking a land when the board state is stalled and a land that just taps for mana that you already have nothing to do with is even worse. This is why we run utility lands and it’s fairly unique in format to run more than one or two of these utility lands. These range from man lands that put power on the board, dodge sweepers and can’t be countered to card draw or even stranger. We must eke every benefit possible out of our lands due to the fact we run very few non-creature spells.
This question is almost always asked regarding noble hierarch and for good reason. A first turn hierarch that survives to make mana can enable some tremendously mean plays that shift the percentage for wins in our favor. My favorite is turn two arbiter and ghost quarter but aven mindcensor and Thalia, heretic cathar are very strong as well.
To answer the question though we must know what turn we want to cast these spells on. Consulting Karsten’s tables we see that the answer for the first turn noble hierarch is 14 untapped green sources which is simple enough. Do we really need to cast hierarch on turn one though? It enables strong plays and all but is much less likely to survive until turn two than an aether vial. Every time both are in my opener I have trouble deciding which to play.
On the other hand let us say that we want to be able to cast a card that costs 1W on turn two. The same table says 13 lands are necessary for that to happen with reliability. Lately, I’ve been running a greedier manabases than previously to squeeze every bit of utility out of my cards and have the best top decks possible.
Twenty three. Probably. This has been the popular answer for much of the history of this deck in the modern format and for good reason. We sacrifice our own lands all the time and still need to draw them as vial won’t be seen in nearly half of our games.
The main exception to playing 23 lands is that green splashes have access to noble hierarch which is awesome. This is very well supported in results and 22 is the default answer for green splashses but is not by any means authoritative. I’ve personally run 23 lands in green splashes to use a set of stirring wildwood but that was before fatal push was around and I won’t be doing that at the moment. Some claim that ramp sources let us run a lower land count as they produce more mana. My response is that we still need to draw them and 22 is lower than the 26 draws that can power a green splash while only actually playing 22 lands.
Fetchlands are a staple of every format where they’re legal and for good reason. They provide outstanding reliability in manabase construction as well as deck thinning for a negligible cost in life. Any three color and most two color decks will play at least a set with up to 10 being average. We prey on this with leonin arbiter and aven mindcensor to at least steal tempo and force removal and at most lock opponents out of the game.
We can run fetchlands too and play around our own arbiter. The spider knows what part of the web is sticky. The advanatage of this aside from mana fixing is that we can turn on revolt for renegade rallier and fatal push, take advantage of deck thinning (it’s overrated by most but over the course of a few days it will matter and something is better than nothing) and fetch basics to nullify a blood moon type effect. The disadvantages are that eventually you will get caught by your own arbiter and hatebears/dnt makes up ~5% of the metagame as of this writing so it is not something to be embarked upon lightly. Have a good reason to play fetches if you choose to.
Four. Almost always and no; you won’t auto-lose to burn. You’ll give up a few percentage points against burn and decks of it’s ilk which make up ~7% of the meta as of this writing but improve your chances with almost everything else and besides, we have a solid match against burn already.
Yes. Horizon canopy is expensive (as of this writing SCG is sold out at $100) and the second line of text may as well read “1, tap, sac: draw another land.” but that’s one card closer to what will win you the game and you need a compelling reason to not run four. Here are some good reasons: “I can’t afford them.” “I’m playing a splash that isn’t green.” “My meta is nothing but burn.”
Please note that this is my opinion and it’s a fairly contentious one even among those that have contributed a great amount to this thread and also the development of the deck. I will point out that every pro player that has top eighted a GP with this deck has played a set of canopys though.
Since fatal push emerged on the scene and the meta included more and more ghost quarters I’ve had less and less luck with manlands (looking in your direction stirring wildwood) which had previously been real winners. This is in part due to the fact that spending 1GW to activate it and having it die to one mana worth of tempo in either case is bad trade when previously it survived lightning bolt and abrupt decay; the two best removal spells in format. For this reason I don’t encourage the wholesale use of more than a couple manlands unless they’re low investment types like mutavault that opponents will be less likely to spend removal on and it’s not a huge tempo loss if they do.
The Innistrad cycle utility lands are by and large great. [card[Gavony township[/card] is widely used and for very good reason as it can put a tremendous amount of power on the board. Less utilized lands are moorland haunt and slayer’s stronghold. I’d like to think that this is due to blue and red being less popular splashes. Last but not least is {card]vault of the archangel[/card] which has a tremendous amount of potential but is infrequently played due to WB eldrazi and taxes having a ridiculously tight manabase already.
The Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation cycle of desert lands are something that I think has great potential. Thread contributors and streamers extroardinare Deathandcatmix and Spiderspace have both used shefet dunes to good result on stream and I use them in Wc eldrazi and taxes but the one that I believe has the most potential is scavenger grounds as it allows non-green decks to pack graveyard hate in the main deck. Furthermore this happens at time when grave hate, especially fast and reasonably costed graveyard hate is very important in the meta. I think hashep oasis has playability. This is primarily due to the fact that it can giant growth a mirran crusader for tremendous offensive potential. Lastly, ifnir deadlands seems useable as it provides removal that is land based.
Here are some sample manabases. Each is on the conservative side.
Are there any questions that you'd like to see addressed? So far the only one I've gotten was the inclusion of deserts which I'll be happy to oblige.
Congrats on the promotion to tier one everybody! I never thought I'd see the day.
The sideboard could be ok depending on the meta. Ask yourself what you'll be bringing in in a given match. If it's only two or three cards then you won't likely have a solid match against that deck.
Fwiw, these are my opinions and by no means the conventional wisdom of the hive mind. Others would suggest not siding out vial against jund citing that it allows flickerwisp to be played at instant speed. Your mileage may vary.
Smugglers copter is excellent because it is both a means of card selection and an elusive clock that gives our creatures pseudo-haste. The card selection aspect is something that is very welcome in this deck. Mana flood is something that we struggle with. Two (or three) mana isn't too much to ask. Fwiw, selfless spirit is pretty good too.
Straight white is the starting point for the deck where you'll learn the complex interactions of this deck and how to leverage those interactions against the opponent to disrupt their strategy. My best advice is to read the primer and start reading this thread. Catmix has some videos that are geared toward beginners as well.