I have been playing the above list for some time and I am still torn if I want to play Vial or collected company. I used to play coco and it was decent but I had more mana problems.
I lost to the tempo deck in top 8 lost once due to mull to 4 and second time just dis not draw a land on time or a path for the giant scooze.
Also the surgical in the board are the best Sideboard decision ever pretty much at least for me.
It's been awhile since I've been active here but I wanted to share my updated GW Hatebear list that I've been running for the last few months. I've had a lot of success with it at PPTQs and Day 2 of GP Indianapolis.
When someone pays the 2 for Arbiter the cost has been payed for both players that turn, so that wouldn't work.
Your claim is a fallacy. 'If a player pays (2), that enables only him or her to ignore Leonin Arbiter’s effect that turn. Each other player is still affected by it.'
The Nahiri + Emrakul combo has been showing up a lot more where I play so I've changed my lineup to better deal with it. New list has been doing pretty good, only problem matchups I've had lately are Tron and Blood Moon.
I know my list has some very unconventional choices, but I don't think Tectonic Edge is a card we want to be playing. It's too slow for the currently aggressive format. Same goes for Aether Vial in my experience. A turn 1 Vial is a great draw, but a turn 4 vial is the worst feeling in the world.
In case it wasn't obvious, my deck is against running Wilt Leaf Lieges because they don't work with CoCo that well. I like Dromoka's Command better then Blessed Alliance(It's removal, Protection, Buffs, and enchantment removal in one card) but I'm willing to accept that's me being me.
The only deck that I have consistant issues with is Elves, which is why I've got the two revokers in the side. I keep trying out Finks, improving 1/2 two good matchups and just getting slaughtered by Elves on Turn 5 when Ezuri goes "+18/+18 and Trample?"
A big factor in Eldrazi&Taxes's current and recent success is that it has a lot more removal than most other D&T/hatebear variations (whether that be real removal in Wasteland Strangler, sideboard Pontiff, etc, or pseudo-removal in the form of hand disruption). GW can do all sorts of great things, but sometimes falters simply because it doesn't have the necessary removal to deal with the opponent's threat (like Blighted Agent).
So with that being said, I concur with an above comment about wanting to be lowering to the ground. My friend and teammate (we've both played hatebears/D&T for a while now) have a "2-drop GW" build that's loosely based on some of the concepts described by Craig Wescoe's teammate in this article. I personally think 2 Dromoka's Command in the maindeck is a great idea - it acts as additional removal (super valuable), is versatile against all the Anger of the Gods that are in the format currently, as well as Blood Moon (which actually does a lot of work against GW).
I will write something a bit more detailed and elaborate later this week.
The 3-drops are what I'm most unsure of with such a deck. Loxodon Smiter is the main 3-drop - you want to play with Aether Vial exclusively on 2, so having your 3-drop be uncounterable is good. It also provides some very, very valuable size. Kitchen Finks is good against Burn, Midrange and Control, and plays nicely with Dromoka's Command and Gavony Township.
With Dromoka's Command and Sefless Spirit, you can much more easily protect your board and not have to worry as much about overcommitting into things like Supreme Verdict or Anger of the Gods. Qasali Pridemage and Dromoka's Command give you a good amount of protection against Blood Moon, in addition to being able to play using Aether Vial.
I've had some success with this deck at FNM-level events. It's a unique concept and has a lot of potential. I will say, however, that like all D&T or Hatebear decks, pushing your deck to be lower to the ground has a polarizing effect. By that I mean it makes you much better in some matchups, at the expense of other matchups. This should be intuitive, since you basically give up a *lot* of power and size by playing less 3-drops and no Wilt-Leaf Lieges. That being said, it could be mitigated in some sense depending how you use the flex slots and how you build your sideboard.
In the article I linked, Surrak was a suggested 4-drop. At first glance it looks funny, but I think it has some serious potential. Because you play so many 2-drops, you could realistically play Surrak on Turn 3 and be able to give something haste *right away*. It's not uncommon to be open with turn 1 Aether Vial; turn 2 2-drop, vial in Hierarch; turn 3 vial in 2-drop, play Surrak using Hierarch. That's 8 power on the board. An explosive turn like that can set the tempo of the game in your favour and allow you to race your opponent. Hm, I should give this more testing myself, haha.
Anyways, I'll drop back in with some more thoughts on this build, sideboard tech and other stuff. Hope this is insightful!
I'm glad we agree that voice is still good. Burn and combo are big in my meta so I'm opting for 4 Thalias. Thalia, Heretic Cathar has been very good for me as well. It shuts down Kiki-Chord and Goryo's partially, and is great for racing since the opponent can't block with the creatures they put into play that turn. We'll see if she works better with the Wilt-Leaf build which seems better for racing right now. Worst matchups before sideboarding still seem to be more combo/aggro decks like infect and affinity. Against infect I side in Sunlance, Spellskite, and Blessed Alliance and stuff like Scooze comes out. Blue decks are still fairly prevalent in my meta so Choke remains in the sideboard.
That's interesting to hear that you've had good results with THC. My friend and I argue all the time about the card, it's always seemed to me like something with really high upside in certain scenarios/matchups but not as useful otherwise. Stopping Kiki-Chord from winning outright is great, but the matchup probably still remains unfavourable in the long game without some other hate cards from the sideboard (like Gaddock Teeg, Linvala, etc).
And yep, Affinity and Merfolk have always been the worst matchups for GW Hatebears in my experience (Infect less so because 1) we can tax their pump spells and race them, 2) we can deal with Inkmoth relatively effectively, and 3) we can trade blockers for Glistener Elves).
I also think it's interesting that you're playing the deck without Vials, though I'm sure this is something that has been discussed Ad Nauseum throughout this thread. Have you considered Collected Company?
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
I don't think it would be great in hatebears as the only thing we can really make leave the battlefield is ghost quarter. It sounds good in Death and Taxes or Eldrazi and Taxes because you have Vial, Displacer, and Flickerwisp.
I don't think it would be great in hatebears as the only thing we can really make leave the battlefield is ghost quarter. It sounds good in Death and Taxes or Eldrazi and Taxes because you have Vial, Displacer, and Flickerwisp.
Actually, When you blink it with displacer, it left the battlefield, so it WILL trigger revolt.
Honestly, I think I might want to re-build hatebears with some of the new tech we've seen. First off, more fastlands options if we want to splash colors, the Rallier would be great in the CoCo lists, especially after a boardwipe. On the topic of the Fast Lands, what color options might we now have better access too?
Been thinking of the current meta: I'm liking Mindcensor less and less, despite how good he once was. Definitely still good against Tron and Scapeshift, though. As for the bans: Infect losing Probe means Become Immense is held back at least a turn and we can bluff removal. Dredge taking a hit means we can be less aggressive with sideboarding graveyard hate.
You could cast Rallier and Eriksdotter, or after using a ghost quarter to bring an Eriksdotter back from GY. Would be an interesting infinite combo. Both cards can also be used to bring back or protect or creatures.
I don't think it would be great in hatebears as the only thing we can really make leave the battlefield is ghost quarter. It sounds good in Death and Taxes or Eldrazi and Taxes because you have Vial, Displacer, and Flickerwisp.
Actually, When you blink it with displacer, it left the battlefield, so it WILL trigger revolt.
Yeah, but hatebears doesn't run Eldrazi Displacer. Death and Taxes (or Eldrazi and Taxes) does, which was my point. In hatebears we only can trigger Revolt with Ghost Quarter or having one of our attackers die. In Death and Taxes, Rallier could be good.
I proxied GW Hatebears, playtested it a while and love how it plays. I like it more aggressive than WB vial version - the blink tricks are cool, but always came a bit late for my taste. Now I'm thinking about buying into it as my first "real" non-budget deck. My hesitation is, that I barely see good results on a competitive level and I don't really understand why? Does GW Hatebears have any extreme horror match-ups? I don't need to play a Tier 1 deck, but I think I need something at solid tier 2 power level to compete in long terms, because I want to play the deck for a looong time and stay always viable. I really appreciate your help. I want to play a deck I love but I also like winning. The other deck I like would be Coco Elves. Please help me to make the right decision
Thank you
Welcome to the mostly quiet thread of GW hatenbears.
Hatebears is a deck you play if you know your meta extremely well. It's not a solid choice for a blind meta, at least, not anymore. Back when Pod was in charge we were a lot better with Maindeck search hate, but these days we've fallen by the wayside. Hatebears is a deck for unfair metas, in my opinion. Thalias, Quasali Pridemage, Scooze, all the good stuff is used to slow the opponent down and make them play honest or deny them resources
The deck's main issue is that, due to it's colors of G/W and don't bother running a third color thanks to Leonin Arbiter, is that we lack removal. Path is fine and all, but removal like Dromoka's Command and ect require that you have a creature on board. Because of that, the top tier decks will kill you if you go into the late game, or if you don't establish a boardstate early. Jund will easily out attrition you, Tron dropping Ugin is a GG, Eldrazi is Eldrazi (Screw TKS even if our Mana Denial works wonders on them), Burn will ruin your day unless you can stick a Thalia or Kor Firewalker or Finks, and Affinity's a rough fight game 1.
It's a deck that will win despite the odds, but it comes down to you, the pilot. You have to KNOW your Meta very well in order for this deck to do well, not to mention you need to work on predicting how your foe might react.
tl;dr Very skill and knowledge intensive, but very rewarding.
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http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=109176
I have been playing the above list for some time and I am still torn if I want to play Vial or collected company. I used to play coco and it was decent but I had more mana problems.
I lost to the tempo deck in top 8 lost once due to mull to 4 and second time just dis not draw a land on time or a path for the giant scooze.
Also the surgical in the board are the best Sideboard decision ever pretty much at least for me.
I wrote a full article describing the build focusing on why I play Collected Company instead of Aether Vial.
http://www.newcompassgames.com/2016/11/07/deck-tech-gw-vial-less-hatebears/
I'd appreciate your feedback and would love if you'd give me a follow on Twitter @thenatewalker or catch me on stream at twitch.tv/n_walker!
Thanks - Nate
With the knight and the Leonine you can pay 2 and strip mine him whenever the oponent is out of mana.
Your claim is a fallacy. 'If a player pays (2), that enables only him or her to ignore Leonin Arbiter’s effect that turn. Each other player is still affected by it.'
Source: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=209287
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Temple Garden
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Gavony Township
1 Stirring Wildwood
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Wilt-Leaf Liege
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons
4 Collected Company
I feel like ever since Scapeshift, Tron, and Chord decks have been weakened in this meta it has not felt great lately.
As far as Wilt-Leaf Liege, it has only been good for me in Jund/Junk heavy metas (which this isn't).
I feel like we need to be lower to the ground and faster in this meta to even play this deck. I've gone up to 7 Thalias in the main.
Is the Eldrazi and Taxes version of this deck just better at this point? And why? Should we be playing Thought-Knot Seer and Brushlands?
Just a few thoughts I've had recently.
Also Blessed Alliance is amazing in the side, great against burn, boggles, infect, suicide zoo.
Naya Burn
Grixis Twin
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Aven Mindcensor
4 Loxodon Smiters
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
1 Dromoka's Command
Lands
3 Brushland
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
3 Temple Garden
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Worship
1 Fracturing Gust
I know my list has some very unconventional choices, but I don't think Tectonic Edge is a card we want to be playing. It's too slow for the currently aggressive format. Same goes for Aether Vial in my experience. A turn 1 Vial is a great draw, but a turn 4 vial is the worst feeling in the world.
In case it wasn't obvious, my deck is against running Wilt Leaf Lieges because they don't work with CoCo that well. I like Dromoka's Command better then Blessed Alliance(It's removal, Protection, Buffs, and enchantment removal in one card) but I'm willing to accept that's me being me.
The only deck that I have consistant issues with is Elves, which is why I've got the two revokers in the side. I keep trying out Finks, improving 1/2 two good matchups and just getting slaughtered by Elves on Turn 5 when Ezuri goes "+18/+18 and Trample?"
So with that being said, I concur with an above comment about wanting to be lowering to the ground. My friend and teammate (we've both played hatebears/D&T for a while now) have a "2-drop GW" build that's loosely based on some of the concepts described by Craig Wescoe's teammate in this article. I personally think 2 Dromoka's Command in the maindeck is a great idea - it acts as additional removal (super valuable), is versatile against all the Anger of the Gods that are in the format currently, as well as Blood Moon (which actually does a lot of work against GW).
I will write something a bit more detailed and elaborate later this week.
Cheers!
Naya Burn
Grixis Twin
Sure! Sorry for the delay, I've been pretty occupied with some other things.
4 Temple Garden
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Horizon Canopy
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Gavony Township
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
2 Dromoka's Command
Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Selfless Spirit
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Loxodon Smiter
This is roughly what the maindeck looks like.
The 3-drops are what I'm most unsure of with such a deck. Loxodon Smiter is the main 3-drop - you want to play with Aether Vial exclusively on 2, so having your 3-drop be uncounterable is good. It also provides some very, very valuable size. Kitchen Finks is good against Burn, Midrange and Control, and plays nicely with Dromoka's Command and Gavony Township.
With Dromoka's Command and Sefless Spirit, you can much more easily protect your board and not have to worry as much about overcommitting into things like Supreme Verdict or Anger of the Gods. Qasali Pridemage and Dromoka's Command give you a good amount of protection against Blood Moon, in addition to being able to play using Aether Vial.
I've had some success with this deck at FNM-level events. It's a unique concept and has a lot of potential. I will say, however, that like all D&T or Hatebear decks, pushing your deck to be lower to the ground has a polarizing effect. By that I mean it makes you much better in some matchups, at the expense of other matchups. This should be intuitive, since you basically give up a *lot* of power and size by playing less 3-drops and no Wilt-Leaf Lieges. That being said, it could be mitigated in some sense depending how you use the flex slots and how you build your sideboard.
In the article I linked, Surrak was a suggested 4-drop. At first glance it looks funny, but I think it has some serious potential. Because you play so many 2-drops, you could realistically play Surrak on Turn 3 and be able to give something haste *right away*. It's not uncommon to be open with turn 1 Aether Vial; turn 2 2-drop, vial in Hierarch; turn 3 vial in 2-drop, play Surrak using Hierarch. That's 8 power on the board. An explosive turn like that can set the tempo of the game in your favour and allow you to race your opponent. Hm, I should give this more testing myself, haha.
Anyways, I'll drop back in with some more thoughts on this build, sideboard tech and other stuff. Hope this is insightful!
Cheers.
4 Temple Garden
4 Razorverge Thicket
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Gavony Township
Spells (6)
4 Path to Exile
2 Dromoka's Command
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Wilt-Leaf Liege
3 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Spellskite
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Choke
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Sunlance
I'm glad we agree that voice is still good. Burn and combo are big in my meta so I'm opting for 4 Thalias. Thalia, Heretic Cathar has been very good for me as well. It shuts down Kiki-Chord and Goryo's partially, and is great for racing since the opponent can't block with the creatures they put into play that turn. We'll see if she works better with the Wilt-Leaf build which seems better for racing right now. Worst matchups before sideboarding still seem to be more combo/aggro decks like infect and affinity. Against infect I side in Sunlance, Spellskite, and Blessed Alliance and stuff like Scooze comes out. Blue decks are still fairly prevalent in my meta so Choke remains in the sideboard.
Naya Burn
Grixis Twin
And yep, Affinity and Merfolk have always been the worst matchups for GW Hatebears in my experience (Infect less so because 1) we can tax their pump spells and race them, 2) we can deal with Inkmoth relatively effectively, and 3) we can trade blockers for Glistener Elves).
I also think it's interesting that you're playing the deck without Vials, though I'm sure this is something that has been discussed Ad Nauseum throughout this thread. Have you considered Collected Company?
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
Naya Burn
Grixis Twin
Actually, When you blink it with displacer, it left the battlefield, so it WILL trigger revolt.
Honestly, I think I might want to re-build hatebears with some of the new tech we've seen. First off, more fastlands options if we want to splash colors, the Rallier would be great in the CoCo lists, especially after a boardwipe. On the topic of the Fast Lands, what color options might we now have better access too?
Been thinking of the current meta: I'm liking Mindcensor less and less, despite how good he once was. Definitely still good against Tron and Scapeshift, though. As for the bans: Infect losing Probe means Become Immense is held back at least a turn and we can bluff removal. Dredge taking a hit means we can be less aggressive with sideboarding graveyard hate.
RWGisela, Blade of Explosions
You could cast Rallier and Eriksdotter, or after using a ghost quarter to bring an Eriksdotter back from GY. Would be an interesting infinite combo. Both cards can also be used to bring back or protect or creatures.
Yeah, but hatebears doesn't run Eldrazi Displacer. Death and Taxes (or Eldrazi and Taxes) does, which was my point. In hatebears we only can trigger Revolt with Ghost Quarter or having one of our attackers die. In Death and Taxes, Rallier could be good.
Naya Burn
Grixis Twin
Welcome to the mostly quiet thread of GW hatenbears.
Hatebears is a deck you play if you know your meta extremely well. It's not a solid choice for a blind meta, at least, not anymore. Back when Pod was in charge we were a lot better with Maindeck search hate, but these days we've fallen by the wayside. Hatebears is a deck for unfair metas, in my opinion. Thalias, Quasali Pridemage, Scooze, all the good stuff is used to slow the opponent down and make them play honest or deny them resources
The deck's main issue is that, due to it's colors of G/W and don't bother running a third color thanks to Leonin Arbiter, is that we lack removal. Path is fine and all, but removal like Dromoka's Command and ect require that you have a creature on board. Because of that, the top tier decks will kill you if you go into the late game, or if you don't establish a boardstate early. Jund will easily out attrition you, Tron dropping Ugin is a GG, Eldrazi is Eldrazi (Screw TKS even if our Mana Denial works wonders on them), Burn will ruin your day unless you can stick a Thalia or Kor Firewalker or Finks, and Affinity's a rough fight game 1.
It's a deck that will win despite the odds, but it comes down to you, the pilot. You have to KNOW your Meta very well in order for this deck to do well, not to mention you need to work on predicting how your foe might react.
tl;dr Very skill and knowledge intensive, but very rewarding.
RWGisela, Blade of Explosions