The sealed sim posted here is a pretty useful tool for prerelease prep, but it'd be even more helpful I think to actually get some conversation going on possible pools, so I thought I'd post some and get some different takes on them.
Few gold cards, only Abzan Ascendancy in Abzan colors, and two fetchlands means I'd make my money back, I guess. Plausible situation to consider a 2-color deck? White seems pretty shallow, with nothing exciting other than Ascendancy, and even that isn't doing as much as it should, with this pool, so maybe just GB? Red and blue are shallow but both have two or three decent splash cards. If we splash red, we have two taplands and a Mardu Banner, blue has a Jeskai Banner which doesn't really do much to help. So I'm thinking GB splashing R for Swift Kick and Burn Away, maybe?
Some reasoning, no clue how faulty it is: The deck has a pretty high curve, so I went out of my way to run Witness and the two Alpine Grizzlies to get some 3-drops in there. There's quite a bit of Delve in the deck (4 cards, plus Fiend's ability), so we probably can't count on those spells all being much cheaper than their mana costs, but Delve is a good come-from-behind mechanic, which we'll probably need being as slow as this. Lots of big butts and some incidental lifegain means we're probably favored in a long game; two Archer's Parapets give a way of winning outside of combat once we stabilize. Despise seems fantastic to me in this format since we should have plenty of opportunity to get rid of big 3-color threats before opponents get their mana sorted out. I chose *not* to run Awaken the Bear because the deck probably won't be doing a ton of attacking and Become Immense is just harder to play around for most of the game. I think Dead Drop probably sucks without a lot of Delve enablers, and we're already running quite a bit of better Delve stuff. I chose Throttle over Debilitating Injury, dunno if that's correct, but I'd happily side one out for the other depending on how slow my opponent's deck was.
Thoughts? I'll post some other pools, later on, or comment on any that other people decide to post, and hopefully we can get a sense of what to do with various pools before prerelease weekend.
Well, green is clearly the deepest so i think any deck this pool makes will start there. The green cards that definitely make my cut for me to start are
The gold is all solid but only abzan ascendancy is within 1 color of using from BG and from the artifacts I definitely have my eye on ghostfire blade. That's 13 green, 12 black, 1 gold, and 1 colorless for 27 cards I'd like to play. Time to focus in on a plan and make some cuts.
First, is the gold card worth splashing? I'd say yes, ascendancy is very strong even played late and i have a nice chunk of three lands that give me W as well as a main B or G, namely windswept heath, sandsteppe citadel, and blossoming sands. Does this gold splash open me up to any powerful white cards? No, not really. Only ainok bond-kin and mardu hateblade interest me and I'm not running a 1 or 2 drop in my splash color reliably. Also unyielding krumar are only really good if you can threaten the first strike at some point and makes them powerhouses with ghostblade or dragonscales.
Next up, curve. I've got 1,1,1m1,2,2,2,3,3,3,Xm5,7m6,4m2,4m2,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,d6,d6,d8,d9 where d# is a delve card and XmY is a morph with X to hard cast and Y to flip. At a glance this is too many 3s and 4s, and too many delve cards. I'm going to cut both alpine grizzlys, i like this card a lot but I'm both more interested in playing a morph on 3 to abuse the ghostfire blade and this deck contains stone 0 ferocious spells so with nothing better to do they would probably just trade down sooner or later. Next I'm going to cut 2 unyielding kumar, this guy is great when you can activate it but that won't be really reliable for me and without it all my other 4 drops have better bodies. This brings us to 23, but i'm going to go ahead and make a last minute substitution, necropolis fiend is too grave greedy for us to support our other 3 delve cards all of which are very on plan for our meaty beaty deck so i'm switching him out for a more on plan creature, witness of the ages which brings our morph count to 6 and really makes ghostfire blade hum. I could also do something like swap smoke teller who is just a bear without blue mana for a krumar bond-kin as another morph or swap witness and smoke teller for both archer's parapets but i think i like keeping a lowish curve that can attack if the board allows, i can always side into more defensive or expensive things based on the match up. So my final deck would be
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
I think Actinium has it pretty well set up. There's a few individual card choices I'd evaluate differently (probably run Krumar Bond-Kin over Witness of the Ages, and I'm not sure how much I like Shambling attendants), but it's a pretty good setup, I think.
I also did an Abzan Sealed, since that's the group I'm planning on playing as. I think this is probably an atypical pool, though.
Obviously, there's a lot of outlast dudes and enablers in this pool, so that's where I started. After throwing in the enablers/combat tricks and a decent number of the rares (I decided against running both Necropolis Fiends, for fear of seeing them stranded in hand, or made ineffective by each other), I cut back to 22 cards, and called it a day.
@Actinium, I like your choices for the most part. I like that you chose the white splash, and I think it's right. I like that you limited it to three Delve spells (although I'm 100% sure Shambling Attendants over Necropolis Fiend is wrong - just look at their core stats). I like the Ghostfire Blade support, since it works with Sultai Flayers and Heir of the Wilds. But Kin-Tree Warden has got to be wrong. That thing is awful, and Ghostfire Blade doesn't make it any better, since unmorphing will do nothing but make it pointless to have Blade equipped to it.
I think the right build is something like yours, but -1 Warden -1 Attendants, +1 Alpine Grizzly +1 Necropolis Fiend.
EDIT: @wally: wow, that's a crazy pool. I'd normally say Retribution of the Ancients is unplayable, but with 10 outlasters and 3 Feat of Resistance, maybe it rises to the level of playable after all. Honestly though, I can't help but think that you're always losing as much board presence as your opponent when you use it. It can't possibly be the best thing for that slot. Also, your mana base feels like a weak point. Scout the Borders is a terrible use of a turn, and you should definitely be running Nomad Outpost (since it functions perfectly well as a BW tapland), and it'd probably be a good idea to dump most of your black in favor of more white, just to increase your consistency.
-Retribution -2 Disowned Ancestor -Necropolis Fiend -2 Swamp +Pine Walker +Smoke Teller +Sagu Archer +Alabaster Kirin +Forest +Nomad Outpost, maybe? That gives you 9 green and white sources and 7 black, without dropping much power.
First thoughts:
A ton of multicolor and fixing leaves me with very little black and green. White and blue are decent and my red is great. My best option appears to be UR splashing green for the temur multicolored cards.
I decided to keep the deck fairly aggressive, so Bloodfire Mentor didn't make the cut. My curve looks topheavy, a lot of the more expensive cards are morphs. My green splash includes Savage Punch for additional removal and some niche synergy with my prowess cards and Alpine Grizzly to help enable ferocious.
@wallycaine thanks, the krumar is pretty much interchangeable with the witness. The witness is nice as he remains colorless after flipping which makes it easier on the mana to pass the ghostfire blade between an attacker and defender later in the game but krumar hits the kind of power that lets you break through the variety of x/5 butts that will stall most games.
For you and @puddle, in regards to the fiend vs the attendants I think that things like sagu archer and sage-eye harrier will gum up the air almost as often as rotting mastodon and salt road patrol gum up the ground. I really don't know yet, maybe harrier just sucks too hard to run, but past the wind drakish aven early flyers a lot of flyers have defensive 2/3 or 3/4 stats that lean towards staring contests. But in the land of board stalls the deathtouch man is king, attendants pretty much has to be multiblocked which feels like more of a built in 2 for 1 or maybe even 3 for 1 if he grows but i guess fiend with a ghostblade is a 6/7 flyer anyway so probably both work I just don't know which works more reliably or sooner or when that's important.
As for kin-tree warden he seems fine. He can just jump in front of an x/1 early or he can be a morph to carry the blade in the mid game or he can do a decent rotting mastodon impression late. I also really like that he's the only morph you want to get targeted by removal, like maybe the opponent sees your woolly loxodon and hooded hydra in game one so he decides to blow a bring low on your face-down card in game 2 and whoop, 3 mana to flip and regen, neener neener. I did completely forget about heir of the wilds having a ferocious trigger so alpine grizzly is better as a t3 play than i give it credit for and a decent sub for warden.
I'll try to weigh in on these other pools eventually, deciphering text pools into to something i can wrap my head around is something of a chore until i get these cards better memorized and don't have to keep double checking stats and text boxes.
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"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
If I had a pool with 3 Ghostfire Blades, I could see running every morph in my pool for the cheap 4/4s. I don't think you can judge Kin-Tree as viable in the midgame just on the basis of having one Blade, though. I'll also point out that Kin-Tree doesn't trade for value early on with any card in our pool. I don't imagine our pool is especially unusual in that regard. The difference between 1 power and 2 power is *enormous* in this set.
You make a pretty good point about Shambling Attendants. My brain just keeps hitting the 7B cost and going "Even with delving two off it, is that something I'd play?" But if the format is as slow as it seems, a 3/5 deathtoucher could be very powerful. Another problem I was having was that I was thinking of it defensively, rather than a very powerful attacker in this sort of format.
It's too bad there's not a good way to display the same thing as the generator does, in addition to the list. Might make sorting through new pools easier.
@ Puddle - I did forget that Nomad worked as a W/B tapland, though I disagree that taking out some of the outlast dudes for generic dudes is the right play. My mana is at 7/7/7 right at the moment, so I'd probably drop a swamp for Nomad outpost to get it to 8/7/7. I'm also slightly confused at you saying that Scout the borders is a terrible play, but then leaving it in the deck. It seemed to me to be a decent way of filling my graveyard for Necropolis while also allowing me to search for the Ainok Bond-Kin/Mer-Ek Nightblade combo.
Our pool leans very abzan which is the highest toughness colors, there's a laundry list of playable x/1s from mardu hateblade to bloodfire expert, and i don't think a grey ogre is unplayable. Heck, the main reason woolly loxodon is better than tusked colossodon isn't the extra stats, it's that in a pinch you can throw the loxodon in front of a valley dasher because you know you'll win if you can just hit 4 mana and stay above 12 life. I wouldn't begrudge you for not using him and no single use of warden is great, but he's fine at all stages of the game and i'm interested in that kind of versatility in a card.
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"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
There's also the fact that he has "2: Kin-tree Warden holds off a much bigger attacker for another turn." I think Kin Tree is pretty good, though it's typically one of the cards I'll cut earlier rather than later. I'd much rather run a Disowned Ancestor, for example, but I probably like Disowned more than most people.
@ Puddle - I did forget that Nomad worked as a W/B tapland, though I disagree that taking out some of the outlast dudes for generic dudes is the right play. My mana is at 7/7/7 right at the moment, so I'd probably drop a swamp for Nomad outpost to get it to 8/7/7. I'm also slightly confused at you saying that Scout the borders is a terrible play, but then leaving it in the deck. It seemed to me to be a decent way of filling my graveyard for Necropolis while also allowing me to search for the Ainok Bond-Kin/Mer-Ek Nightblade combo.
I was saying Scout the Borders is a card you don't want to have to play, not that it was a terrible play. I was going to suggest cutting it, but I couldn't figure out a justification for cutting enough black that you didn't need StB. In any case, I think you always want at least 9 sources of colors you want access to early, and black was offering you the least power. Necropolis Fiend is a card I like, but a double black card in a deck that only has two other reasons to be running black at all isn't usually a great bet.
Our pool leans very abzan which is the highest toughness colors, there's a laundry list of playable x/1s from mardu hateblade to bloodfire expert, and i don't think a grey ogre is unplayable. Heck, the main reason woolly loxodon is better than tusked colossodon isn't the extra stats, it's that in a pinch you can throw the loxodon in front of a valley dasher because you know you'll win if you can just hit 4 mana and stay above 12 life. I wouldn't begrudge you for not using him and no single use of warden is great, but he's fine at all stages of the game and i'm interested in that kind of versatility in a card.
Well, the point of this thread is to get differing opinions on stuff like this, so I'm glad to hear disagreement. That said, I'm not convinced. The full list of cards with which a 1/1 on defense can trade *up* is:
Wetland Sambar
Mardu Skullhunter
Bloodfire Expert (sorta...)
Leaping Master (sorta...)
Highland Game
There's a handful more sideways trades, like Hateblade, but all (four) of those are either unplayable, defensive in nature, or else morphs themselves. Any deck capable of actually mounting an early game game offense will shrug off a 1/1 blocker, and in any case, such decks will not be common. I can't see how it'd ever be right to play Warden unmorphed, and if you're at that stage, then virtually any other morph in the format would be a better card to have, let alone everything that's better than morphs, in general.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the mana base, then. I've found 7/7/7 to work fairly well in my testing, and I don't feel like practically dropping a color is worth it in this set unless the pool completely supports it. As you noted, there's not really enough playables to go to straight G/W, so I'd prefer to leave myself in three colors and trade a little consistency for the ability to ensure I can dominate the late game. If I was going to drop down to two colors, I'd have gone to B/W first, as that allows me to keep most of the outlast creatures. Oh, and a final note? Even with your proposed changes, I'd have been at nine white sources, eight green, and six black. You'd have to cut down to five black sources to enable you to get to the nine sources of each you want.
The idea is that Quiet Contemplationd Act of Treason can pretty much tap down all blockers, letting Alpine Grizzlys swing for heavy damage even though they have irresponsibly low toughness.
So I seemed to have a very different instinct from everyone else, I'd love to hear how wrong I am so I don't make headstrong mistakes at the prerelease.
The biggest problem I see with your build, pops, is that it only runs 10 creatures, and only 2 early drops. This basically guarantees you'll be starting the game on the defensive, but most of your tricks (i.e. Act of Treason and Quiet Contemplation) act as finishers rather than being good defensively.
The second problem, I think, is that your mana base is as thinly spread as it's possible to be. You're maximizing your odds of getting color screwed by splitting evenly across all your colors that way.
My advice, for Temur/Mardu/Abzan decks anyway, would be to figure out where your best creature curve sits, and then fill in with removal/tricks. Jeskai and Sultai might be able to make some concessions to strong tempo plays (thanks to Prowess or Delve getting you ahead on the curve), but the other clans need their creatures. And secondly, do what you can to minimize one of your colors. Other people might disagree, but I personally find I do better when I sacrifice power for consistency than the other way around.
That's a good lesson. I tend to think of a minimalized color as working less consistently instead of more consistently but that's actually backwards. Cognitive bias, I feel like having a color with very few lands associated with it dooms it to fail, but it's worse to have 3 colors that all 3 have very good chances to fail. I actually won the first prerelease I ever played by copycatting a deck I saw on this forum with only a couple of mountains for casting Fireball.. guess I don't learn from my successes.
Another Abzan pool for you guys. This one wasn't that hard for me to build, but I was having some trouble deciding which cards to cut there at the end.
I like your creatures, they'll win you a lot of games, although you're short a 3-drop or so, and I don't think this is really a deck for Archer's Parapet? Also your spells are a little weird. End Hostilities doesn't belong in a deck with Outlast guys, and Rakshasa's Secret seems pretty bad. I'd dump those 3 spells for 2 morphs and, I dunno, Rush of Battle? You have a bunch of Warriors. Or maybe Death Frenzy?
I like your creatures, they'll win you a lot of games, although you're short a 3-drop or so, and I don't think this is really a deck for Archer's Parapet? Also your spells are a little weird. End Hostilities doesn't belong in a deck with Outlast guys, and Rakshasa's Secret seems pretty bad. I'd dump those 3 spells for 2 morphs and, I dunno, Rush of Battle? You have a bunch of Warriors. Or maybe Death Frenzy?
It's possible you're right. I saw this deck as one that would attempt to gum up the board and win through Incremental Growth, Outlast, and Fatties, with some early blockers that could still get some damage in later. Archer's Parapet felt good in that deck, as a way to fend off early aggression and still get some damage in in the long game. It's definitely possible that this should be Alpine Grizzly, a card that got cut when Death Frenzy was in the deck. I never thought to add it back in. As for the two sorceries, they serve a purpose in the deck. Rakshasa's Secret exists to be a two for one that fuels my delve dudes. Seeing as the deck has few other ways to actually grind out card advantage I don't feel mind rot will be that disappointing in a slow three color format, important cards are likely to get stuck in hand for a while while the mana works itself out. And I'm always inclined to put the wrath in my sealed decks. If it's in your opening hand then you can play with it in mind. If you draw it later then you can either cast it or not based on the board state. If you're winning then you don't need to cast it, if you're losing it brings you back to parity, and if you're already at parity you can try to judge by hand size if you'll get more value out of it than your opponent.
Anyway, just giving the reasons for my card choices, seeing if they hold up when other people get a look at them.
Thing with Rakshasa's Secret is that this is a slow format with a lot of mana sinks, which means running out of cards isn't going to be a huge deal. Also, Delve being a thing means you have as much chance to accelerate your opponent as yourself.
I'm not a fan of Wraths in limited in general, but I guess we'll see if it has a role in this format.
For an Abzan pool, this had a lot of great control cards. I decided to go a more control route and use Meandering Towershell and a bunch of 4/Xs to get my board presence. I'm not sure how good Timely Hordemate is in this deck, or if I should go with something else. I like the synergy with all of the control and the Delve on Necropolis Fiend.
What do you guys think a good rule of thumb is for "cheapening" a delve creature. For instance when considering my curve for M15 I usually put a convoke creature in at 2 cmc less than it really was. (IE trip spirits was a 4 drop). For delve (obviously if you only play the best ones) I was thinking half the cmc -1 as a discount (so half the CMC round up or half +1 whichever is >) Something like Necropolis Fiend would be a 5 drop.
Thoughts?
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
I'm on my lunch break without enough time to actually build a deck from it, so I'll get to that later. But I wanted to put a non-Abzan pool up for discussion.
Abzan pool:
1 Mardu Ascendancy
1 Bear's Companion
1 Highspire Mantis
1 Brave the Sands
1 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Alabaster Kirin
1 Defiant Strike
1 Mardu Hateblade
1 Mardu Hordechief
2 Sage-Eye Harrier
2 Salt Road Patrol
1 Smite the Monstrous
2 War Behemoth
1 Jeskai Elder
2 Quiet Contemplation
1 Set Adrift
2 Crippling Chill
1 Embodiment of Spring
1 Glacial Stalker
2 Monastery Flock
1 Singing Bell Strike
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Whirlwind Adept
1 Bellowing Saddlebrute
1 Dead Drop
1 Despise
1 Debilitating Injury
1 Krumar Bond-Kin
1 Molting Snakeskin
1 Rotting Mastodon
1 Shambling Attendants
2 Sidisi's Pet
1 Throttle
3 Unyielding Krumar
1 Burn Away
1 Horde Ambusher
3 Act of Treason
1 Canyon Lurkers
2 Mardu Warshrieker
1 Swift Kick
1 Valley Dasher
1 Hooded Hydra
1 Become Immense
1 Heir of the Wilds
2 Sultai Flayer
1 Windstorm
2 Alpine Grizzly
2 Archer's Parapet
1 Awaken the Bear
1 Dragonscale Boon
3 Feed the Clan
2 Hooting Mandrills
1 Kin-Tree Warden
1 Longshot Squad
1 Naturalize
1 Smoke Teller
1 Woolly Loxodon
1 Witness of the Ages
1 Lens of Clarity
1 Jeskai Banner
1 Mardu Banner
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Blossoming Sands
1 Rugged Highlands
Few gold cards, only Abzan Ascendancy in Abzan colors, and two fetchlands means I'd make my money back, I guess. Plausible situation to consider a 2-color deck? White seems pretty shallow, with nothing exciting other than Ascendancy, and even that isn't doing as much as it should, with this pool, so maybe just GB? Red and blue are shallow but both have two or three decent splash cards. If we splash red, we have two taplands and a Mardu Banner, blue has a Jeskai Banner which doesn't really do much to help. So I'm thinking GB splashing R for Swift Kick and Burn Away, maybe?
1 Burn Away
1 Hooded Hydra
1 Become Immense
1 Heir of the Wilds
2 Sultai Flayer
2 Archer's Parapet
1 Dragonscale Boon
2 Hooting Mandrils
1 Longshot Squad
2 Alpine Grizzly
1 Bellowing Saddlebrute
1 Despise
1 Rotting Mastodon
2 Sidisi's Pet
1 Throttle
1 Witness of the Ages
7 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Rugged Highlands
Some reasoning, no clue how faulty it is: The deck has a pretty high curve, so I went out of my way to run Witness and the two Alpine Grizzlies to get some 3-drops in there. There's quite a bit of Delve in the deck (4 cards, plus Fiend's ability), so we probably can't count on those spells all being much cheaper than their mana costs, but Delve is a good come-from-behind mechanic, which we'll probably need being as slow as this. Lots of big butts and some incidental lifegain means we're probably favored in a long game; two Archer's Parapets give a way of winning outside of combat once we stabilize. Despise seems fantastic to me in this format since we should have plenty of opportunity to get rid of big 3-color threats before opponents get their mana sorted out. I chose *not* to run Awaken the Bear because the deck probably won't be doing a ton of attacking and Become Immense is just harder to play around for most of the game. I think Dead Drop probably sucks without a lot of Delve enablers, and we're already running quite a bit of better Delve stuff. I chose Throttle over Debilitating Injury, dunno if that's correct, but I'd happily side one out for the other depending on how slow my opponent's deck was.
Thoughts? I'll post some other pools, later on, or comment on any that other people decide to post, and hopefully we can get a sense of what to do with various pools before prerelease weekend.
1 heir of the wilds
2 sultai flayer
2 alpine grizzly
1 dragonscale boon
2 hooting mandrills
1 kin-tree warden
1 longshot squad
1 smoke teller
1 woolly loxodon
From there the blue and white seem middling and the red has some decent removal but is very shallow. The black seems good
1 bellowing saddlebrute
1 despise
1 debilitating injury
1 rotting mastodon
1 shambling attendants
2 sidisi's pet
1 throttle
3 unyielding krumar
The gold is all solid but only abzan ascendancy is within 1 color of using from BG and from the artifacts I definitely have my eye on ghostfire blade. That's 13 green, 12 black, 1 gold, and 1 colorless for 27 cards I'd like to play. Time to focus in on a plan and make some cuts.
First, is the gold card worth splashing? I'd say yes, ascendancy is very strong even played late and i have a nice chunk of three lands that give me W as well as a main B or G, namely windswept heath, sandsteppe citadel, and blossoming sands. Does this gold splash open me up to any powerful white cards? No, not really. Only ainok bond-kin and mardu hateblade interest me and I'm not running a 1 or 2 drop in my splash color reliably. Also unyielding krumar are only really good if you can threaten the first strike at some point and makes them powerhouses with ghostblade or dragonscales.
Next up, curve. I've got 1,1,1m1,2,2,2,3,3,3,Xm5,7m6,4m2,4m2,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,d6,d6,d8,d9 where d# is a delve card and XmY is a morph with X to hard cast and Y to flip. At a glance this is too many 3s and 4s, and too many delve cards. I'm going to cut both alpine grizzlys, i like this card a lot but I'm both more interested in playing a morph on 3 to abuse the ghostfire blade and this deck contains stone 0 ferocious spells so with nothing better to do they would probably just trade down sooner or later. Next I'm going to cut 2 unyielding kumar, this guy is great when you can activate it but that won't be really reliable for me and without it all my other 4 drops have better bodies. This brings us to 23, but i'm going to go ahead and make a last minute substitution, necropolis fiend is too grave greedy for us to support our other 3 delve cards all of which are very on plan for our meaty beaty deck so i'm switching him out for a more on plan creature, witness of the ages which brings our morph count to 6 and really makes ghostfire blade hum. I could also do something like swap smoke teller who is just a bear without blue mana for a krumar bond-kin as another morph or swap witness and smoke teller for both archer's parapets but i think i like keeping a lowish curve that can attack if the board allows, i can always side into more defensive or expensive things based on the match up. So my final deck would be
1 debilitating injury
1 throttle
1 dragonscale boon
1 abzan ascendancy
1 ghostfire blade
1 witness of the ages
1 kin-tree warden
1 smoke teller
1 heir of the wilds
1 hooded hydra
1 woolly loxodon
2 sidisi's pet
1 unyielding krumar
2 sultai flayer
1 longshot squad
1 bellowing saddlebrute
1 rotting mastodon
2 hooting mandrills
1 shambling attendants
1 windswept heath
1 blossoming sands
7 forest
7 swamp
I also did an Abzan Sealed, since that's the group I'm planning on playing as. I think this is probably an atypical pool, though.
1 Abzan Guide
1 Ponyback Brigade
1 Efreet Weaponmaster
1 Abomination of Gudul
1 Kin-Tree Invocation
1 Master of Pearls
1 Abzan Falconer
1 Dazzling Ramparts
1 Timely Hordemate
2 Ainok Bond-Kin
2 Alabaster Kirin
3 Feat of resistance
1 Firehoof Calvary
1 Jeskai Student
1 Mardu Hordechief
1 Sage-Eye Harrier
1 Salt Road Patrol
1 Siegecraft
2 Smite the Monstrous
1 Dragon's Eye Savants
1 Scion of Glaciers
1 Crippling Chill
1 Glacial Stalker
1 Jeskai Windscout
1 Mystic of the Hidden Way
1 Scaldkin
1 Singing Bell Strike
3 Taigam's Scheming
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Whirlwind Adept
1 Retribution of the Ancients
2 Dead Drop
2 Mer-Ek Nightblade
1 Swarm of Bloodflies
1 Bitter Revelation
2 Disowned Ancestor
1 Kheru Dreadmaw
2 Mardu Skullhunter
2 Molting Snakeskin
1 Rotting Mastodon
1 Sultai Scavenger
1 Throttle
1 Dragon-Style Twins
1 Goblinslide
1 Barrage of Boulders
2 Summit Prowler
1 Trumpet Blast
1 Valley Dasher
1 Meandering Towershell
1 Pine Walker
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Longshot Squad
1 Sagu Archer
1 Scout the Borders
1 Smoke Teller
1 Temur Banner
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Rugged Highlands
1 Tranquil Cove
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
1 Abzan Guide
1 Master of Pearls
1 Abzan Falconer
2 Ainok Bond-Kin
3 Feat of Resistance
1 Mardu Hordechief
1 Salt Road Patrol
1 Retribution of the Ancients
2 Mer-Ek Nightblade
2 Disowned Ancestor
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Longshot Squad
1 Scout the Borders
1 Jungle Hollow
6 Plains
5 Swamp
5 Forest
I think the right build is something like yours, but -1 Warden -1 Attendants, +1 Alpine Grizzly +1 Necropolis Fiend.
EDIT: @wally: wow, that's a crazy pool. I'd normally say Retribution of the Ancients is unplayable, but with 10 outlasters and 3 Feat of Resistance, maybe it rises to the level of playable after all. Honestly though, I can't help but think that you're always losing as much board presence as your opponent when you use it. It can't possibly be the best thing for that slot. Also, your mana base feels like a weak point. Scout the Borders is a terrible use of a turn, and you should definitely be running Nomad Outpost (since it functions perfectly well as a BW tapland), and it'd probably be a good idea to dump most of your black in favor of more white, just to increase your consistency.
-Retribution -2 Disowned Ancestor -Necropolis Fiend -2 Swamp +Pine Walker +Smoke Teller +Sagu Archer +Alabaster Kirin +Forest +Nomad Outpost, maybe? That gives you 9 green and white sources and 7 black, without dropping much power.
First thoughts:
A ton of multicolor and fixing leaves me with very little black and green. White and blue are decent and my red is great. My best option appears to be UR splashing green for the temur multicolored cards.
2 Snowhorn Rider
1 Riverwheel Aerialists
1 Crippling Chill
1 Embodiment of Spring
2 Force Away
1 Glacial Stalker
1 Jeskai Windscout
1 Master of the Hidden Way
1 Crater's Claws
1 Dragon-style Twins
1 Burn Away
1 Dragon Grip
1 Horde Ambusher
1 Arrow Storm
2 Bloodfire Expert
1 Summit Prowler
1 Alpine Grizzly
1 Savage Punch
1 Wooded Foothills
6 Island
6 Mountain
5 Forest
I decided to keep the deck fairly aggressive, so Bloodfire Mentor didn't make the cut. My curve looks topheavy, a lot of the more expensive cards are morphs. My green splash includes Savage Punch for additional removal and some niche synergy with my prowess cards and Alpine Grizzly to help enable ferocious.
For you and @puddle, in regards to the fiend vs the attendants I think that things like sagu archer and sage-eye harrier will gum up the air almost as often as rotting mastodon and salt road patrol gum up the ground. I really don't know yet, maybe harrier just sucks too hard to run, but past the wind drakish aven early flyers a lot of flyers have defensive 2/3 or 3/4 stats that lean towards staring contests. But in the land of board stalls the deathtouch man is king, attendants pretty much has to be multiblocked which feels like more of a built in 2 for 1 or maybe even 3 for 1 if he grows but i guess fiend with a ghostblade is a 6/7 flyer anyway so probably both work I just don't know which works more reliably or sooner or when that's important.
As for kin-tree warden he seems fine. He can just jump in front of an x/1 early or he can be a morph to carry the blade in the mid game or he can do a decent rotting mastodon impression late. I also really like that he's the only morph you want to get targeted by removal, like maybe the opponent sees your woolly loxodon and hooded hydra in game one so he decides to blow a bring low on your face-down card in game 2 and whoop, 3 mana to flip and regen, neener neener. I did completely forget about heir of the wilds having a ferocious trigger so alpine grizzly is better as a t3 play than i give it credit for and a decent sub for warden.
I'll try to weigh in on these other pools eventually, deciphering text pools into to something i can wrap my head around is something of a chore until i get these cards better memorized and don't have to keep double checking stats and text boxes.
It's too bad there's not a good way to display the same thing as the generator does, in addition to the list. Might make sorting through new pools easier.
@ Puddle - I did forget that Nomad worked as a W/B tapland, though I disagree that taking out some of the outlast dudes for generic dudes is the right play. My mana is at 7/7/7 right at the moment, so I'd probably drop a swamp for Nomad outpost to get it to 8/7/7. I'm also slightly confused at you saying that Scout the borders is a terrible play, but then leaving it in the deck. It seemed to me to be a decent way of filling my graveyard for Necropolis while also allowing me to search for the Ainok Bond-Kin/Mer-Ek Nightblade combo.
I was saying Scout the Borders is a card you don't want to have to play, not that it was a terrible play. I was going to suggest cutting it, but I couldn't figure out a justification for cutting enough black that you didn't need StB. In any case, I think you always want at least 9 sources of colors you want access to early, and black was offering you the least power. Necropolis Fiend is a card I like, but a double black card in a deck that only has two other reasons to be running black at all isn't usually a great bet.
Well, the point of this thread is to get differing opinions on stuff like this, so I'm glad to hear disagreement. That said, I'm not convinced. The full list of cards with which a 1/1 on defense can trade *up* is:
Wetland Sambar
Mardu Skullhunter
Bloodfire Expert (sorta...)
Leaping Master (sorta...)
Highland Game
There's a handful more sideways trades, like Hateblade, but all (four) of those are either unplayable, defensive in nature, or else morphs themselves. Any deck capable of actually mounting an early game game offense will shrug off a 1/1 blocker, and in any case, such decks will not be common. I can't see how it'd ever be right to play Warden unmorphed, and if you're at that stage, then virtually any other morph in the format would be a better card to have, let alone everything that's better than morphs, in general.
2 Quiet Contemplation
1 Set Adrift
2 Crippling Chill
1 Singing Bell Strike
1 Whirlwind Adept
1 Horde Ambusher
3 Act of Treason
1 Canyon Lurkers
1 Mardu Warshrieker
1 Become Immense
1 Sultai Flayer
1 Heir of the Wilds
2 Alpine Grizzly
1 Awaken the Bear
1 Ghostfire Blade
6 Island
6 Forest
5 Mountain
The idea is that Quiet Contemplationd Act of Treason can pretty much tap down all blockers, letting Alpine Grizzlys swing for heavy damage even though they have irresponsibly low toughness.
Actinium's deck looks pretty good.
The second problem, I think, is that your mana base is as thinly spread as it's possible to be. You're maximizing your odds of getting color screwed by splitting evenly across all your colors that way.
My advice, for Temur/Mardu/Abzan decks anyway, would be to figure out where your best creature curve sits, and then fill in with removal/tricks. Jeskai and Sultai might be able to make some concessions to strong tempo plays (thanks to Prowess or Delve getting you ahead on the curve), but the other clans need their creatures. And secondly, do what you can to minimize one of your colors. Other people might disagree, but I personally find I do better when I sacrifice power for consistency than the other way around.
Anyway, my deck looked like this.
1 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Rakshasa Deathdealer
1 Heir of the Wilds
1 Archer's Parapet
1 Mardu Hordechief
1 Salt Road Patrol
2 Siege Rhino
1 Longshot Squad
2 Sagu Archer
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Sultai Scavenger
1 Abzan Guide
1 Savage Punch
1 Rakshasa's Secret
1 Smite the Monstrous
1 End Hostilities
1 Incremental Growth
1 Rite of the Serpent
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Blossoming Sands
2 Scoured Barrens
3 Plains
3 Swamp
7 Forest
How would you have built this?
It's possible you're right. I saw this deck as one that would attempt to gum up the board and win through Incremental Growth, Outlast, and Fatties, with some early blockers that could still get some damage in later. Archer's Parapet felt good in that deck, as a way to fend off early aggression and still get some damage in in the long game. It's definitely possible that this should be Alpine Grizzly, a card that got cut when Death Frenzy was in the deck. I never thought to add it back in. As for the two sorceries, they serve a purpose in the deck. Rakshasa's Secret exists to be a two for one that fuels my delve dudes. Seeing as the deck has few other ways to actually grind out card advantage I don't feel mind rot will be that disappointing in a slow three color format, important cards are likely to get stuck in hand for a while while the mana works itself out. And I'm always inclined to put the wrath in my sealed decks. If it's in your opening hand then you can play with it in mind. If you draw it later then you can either cast it or not based on the board state. If you're winning then you don't need to cast it, if you're losing it brings you back to parity, and if you're already at parity you can try to judge by hand size if you'll get more value out of it than your opponent.
Anyway, just giving the reasons for my card choices, seeing if they hold up when other people get a look at them.
I'm not a fan of Wraths in limited in general, but I guess we'll see if it has a role in this format.
1 Jeskai Charm
1 Efreet Weaponmaster
1 Villainous Wealth
1 Mardu Charm
1 End Hostilities
1 Brave the Sands
1 Seeker of the Way
2 Timely Hordemate
1 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Kill Shot
2 Salt Road Patrol
1 Smite the Monstrous
1 War Behemoth
2 Crippling Chill
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Glacial Stalker
3 Treasure Cruise
1 Necropolis Fiend
1 Bellowing Saddlebrute
1 Kheru Bloodsucker
1 Murderous Cut
1 Bitter Revelation
2 Debilitating Injury
1 Disowned Ancestor
2 Dutiful Return
2 Krumar Bond-Kin
1 Rakshasa's Secret
1 Rite of the Serpent
1 Sultai Scavenger
1 Throttle
2 Unyielding Krumar
1 Jeering Instigator
1 Goblinslide
1 Hordeling Outburst
3 Act of Treason
1 Ainok Tracker
1 Bloodfire Expert
1 Bloodfire Mentor
1 Canyon Lurkers
1 Leaping Master
2 Summit Prowler
1 Meandering Towershell
1 Heir of the Wilds
1 Pine Walker
1 Temur Charger
1 Windstorm
1 Alpine Grizzly
1 Archer's Parapet
1 Awaken the Bear
3 Dragonscale Boon
1 Highland Game
1 Kin-Tree Warden
1 Naturalize
2 Sagu Archer
1 Savage Punch
1 Scout the Borders
1 Smoke Teller
1 Mindswipe
1 Utter End
1 Chief of the Scale
1 Master the Way
1 Lens of Clarity
1 Sultai Banner
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Dismal Backwater
1 Jungle Hollow
2 Thornwood Falls
1 End Hostilities
1 Seeker of the Way
1 Timely Hordemate
1 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Kill Shot
1 Salt Road Patrol
1 Smite the Monstrous
1 Necropolis Fiend
1 Bellowing Saddlebrute
1 Kheru Bloodsucker
1 Murderous Cut
1 Bitter Revelation
1 Throttle
1 Meandering Towershell
1 Heir of the Wilds
1 Pine Walker
1 Temur Charger
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Savage Punch
1 Scout the Borders
1 Utter End
1 Chief of the Scale
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Jungle Hollow
For an Abzan pool, this had a lot of great control cards. I decided to go a more control route and use Meandering Towershell and a bunch of 4/Xs to get my board presence. I'm not sure how good Timely Hordemate is in this deck, or if I should go with something else. I like the synergy with all of the control and the Delve on Necropolis Fiend.
Thoughts?
I'll probably post either a Sultai pool or a Temur pool tonight or tomorrow.
1 Sultai Charm
1 Snowhorn Rider
1 Herald of Anafenza
1 Alabaster Kirin
3 Defiant Strike
2 Firehoof Calvary
1 Jeskai Student
2 Mardu Hordechief
1 Siegecraft
1 War Behemoth
1 Riverwheel Aerialists
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Waterwhirl
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Scaldkin
1 Singing Bell Strike
1 Taigam's Scheming
1 Weave Fate
1 Wetland Sambar
2 Whirlwind Adept
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Bellowing Saddlebrute
1 Kheru Bloodsucker
1 Mer-Ek Nightblade
1 Raiders' Spoils
1 Swarm of Bloodflies
1 Disowned Ancestor
1 Dutiful Return
1 Kheru Dreadmaw
1 Krumar Bond-Kin
1 Molting Snakeskin
1 Rakshasa's Secret
1 Rite of the Serpent
1 Sidisi's Pet
1 Horde Ambusher
1 Monastery Swiftspear
1 Ainok Tracker
1 Arrow Storm
1 Barrage of Boulders
2 Bloodfire Expert
1 Bloodfire Mentor
2 Bring Low
1 Shatter
1 Meandering Towershell
1 Trail of Mystery
1 Heir of the Wilds
1 Temur Charger
1 Tuskguard Captain
2 Alpine Grizzly
1 Archer's Parapet
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Feed the Clan
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Kin-Tree Warden
1 Longshot Squad
3 Naturalize
2 Savage Punch
1 Scout the Borders
1 Smoke Teller
1 Tusked Colossodon
1 Highspire Mantis
1 Winterflame
1 Briber's Purse
1 Heart-Piercer Bow
1 Jeskai Banner
1 Mardu Banner
1 Windswept Heath
1 Opulent Palace
2 Dismal Backwater
1 Thornwood Falls
I'm on my lunch break without enough time to actually build a deck from it, so I'll get to that later. But I wanted to put a non-Abzan pool up for discussion.