Doesn't matter. What matters is what is Top 8'ing, and what they are running. There are hardly any from all the PTQ's that run more then one Genju of the Realm.
I am all for one copy in the deck, but, KPDaly, it's overkill to run 4, especially seeing that any drawn are dead, and that they are terribly anti-synergistic with Meishan (something, that, fi you play the deck correctly, like these folks have, you will understand is pretty much *the* most important target for Ideal).
If you are that scared about Nikko Onna, then just run Clutch. If they want to waste an OJ for it, then let them, because they will eventually run out of tricks to save it, and it's not concievable for them to be able to drop Nikko, then a spirit or Arcan, every turn.
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
But will that really matter, if you're swinging for 8 with Trample 4 turns in a row?
There's always a way out of a situation, but the point remains that if you're caught up against a recurring Niko-Onna, dropping a fresh Genju every turn is likely your safest path to victory. Too bad we don't have Sterling Grove...
But it gets in for 8 before it dies. And 4x8 = more than dead.
At least with repeating Genjus, you can race them.
Sorry, KPDaly, but I got the impression that you use 4-of the Genju quite a bit.
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
Why does that matter? The fact is, I was suggesting sideboarding the extra Genjus up to 4. You've only spent most of your time here arguing against it, so I don't see how that matters. The reason I posted little on the rest of the deck is because I think it's pretty sound the way it is. The only things I changed from Ixidor's build was adding a 4th Ideal, cutting Myojin, and adding a rough draft of a sideboard.
EDIT: As far as wasting time arguing goes, you have posted 12 times in this forum (13 including your most recent post). 8 (9) of those have been for no other reason than to tell me and most of the others here that we are stupid for keeping Genju. the other 4 have been to tell people they're stupid for thinking some other thing.
It matters because the deck cannot afford to waste 3 spaces for Genjus, especially seeing how much crap they will be in so many matchups (look at ALL the examples I gave). Despite what you may think, this deck is actually pretty tight for sideboard spaces, and running more then 1 more Genju in the board is superfluous.
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
Yes, I plan to register a 15-card sideboard. :tongue2: I'm just not sure how I'm going to fill it out just yet.
This is based on the Ideal decks which have made Top 8s this season. If the metagame becomes a lot of WW and Black Hand, with Gifts and some random other decks, then an Ideal deck could be nicely under the radar. I should be building this tonight to play with my local group, and I'm going to try and build it on MTGO, also.
then wouldnt reverence be a good card to add for ww and hand??
and a thought.. in my ideal i run 2 of WRGB hondens.. i heard a tale about someone who played the blue one with mirror galery and almost lost
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I should have made myself clear. Against WW I board out Ideal for Genju. Sounds dumb huh? Well they have a very hard time dealing with Genju. The Honden plan is very bad but going creature control with Genju as your kill is strong. Meloku is another option, but it doesn't fare as well against Jitte.
The reason that Reverence isn't great is that with one hit with Jitte, it doesn't nothing the rest of the game. Pump, move, pump, attack.
I wouldn't say it does NOTHING. Yes, there are probably better answers (like Meishin), but if they don't have a Jitte out, you're fine with Reverence. A point for Reverence is also that you can easily drop it on turn 3 without any Ideal to buy yourself time to set up your win.
Here's a question: Why only 3 Ideals? In my tests with this deck, I sometimes struggle to find one when running 4.
The Ultimate Sideboard card for this deck that most of you seem to be missing is Mark of the Oni. There are times where it simply wins games by either clearing a blocker, stealing a Kagemaro if they're tapped out, Stealing a Yukora anytime, and whatnot. It's been in my build since day one, and I've never wanted to cut it.
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Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference, and a ****ing chainsaw.
Actually, you can take Kagemaro even if they aren't tapped out. Here is how. When you cast Enduring Ideal and they don't respond, you get the enchantment you want straight into play. So you can just get Mark if they don't pop it prematurely.
Here's a question: Why only 3 Ideals? In my tests with this deck, I sometimes struggle to find one when running 4.
I've never had problems with just 3. Between Top and the shufflers, I always seem to be able to find an Ideal. What I've found a few times is that I have one in my hand and I wait to play it, instead playing things like Ghostly Prison or the White Honded to slow down aggro, saving the Ideal for when I need it. The problem with running 4 is that having two in your opening hand is a mulligan, and since it costs 7, you have plenty of time to find it.
I'm considering dropping a Blue Honded for 1 Time of Need. The Blue Honden usually makes things complicated once I get going with Ideal, and Time of Need effectively doubles my Meloku or Myojin count. And the Myojin has been quite a saucy one so far.
Personally, I don't run the Blue Honden: all it does is increase your shrine count and -MAYBE- power a Meishin. However, there are just more useful things you can be running in those slots.
Re Kagemaro: Damn it, I completely forgot about that. You're absolutely right.
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Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference, and a ****ing chainsaw.
The thing about Blue Honden is that when you play it pre Ideal, it helps you a lot. However, when it lets you draw more cards (thus more Idea targets) it makes Ideal nearly obsolete. All of a sudden just running straight Hondens becomes better... Seriously, that is how my testing group discovered the power of Hondens.
At PTQ Waco last month I did pretty well with my Ideal deck(13/~85). I plan on playing it at PTQ: Austin in about 2 weeks. Does anyone else have any experience with this deck, and if so, throw out any suggestions. Here's a link to the report i wrote for it, http://www.patsgames.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=1646, but here is the the latest deck list. I've only played gifts three times, but I drew all the matches, and I should have won the third.
Oh, my record, by the way, was 4-0-3 at the PTQ, and 2-1-1 the week before at a smaller tourney before I made a LOT of changes.
4 Enduring Ideal
4 sakura tribe elder
4 kodama's reach
3 final judgment
3 ghostly prison
2 cage of hand
2 genju of the realm
2 Honden of Infinite Rage
2 Honedn Black
1 genju of the fields
2 Honden of: W
2 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Kodama of the North Tree
11 forest, 5 plains, 2 island, 2 swamps, 1 mntn, 1 ice bridge, 1 tranquil garden
SB
1 Boseiju
1 North Tree
1 Cage of Hands
4 Hisoka’s Defiance
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Wear Away
3 Rheito Lanter
1 Genju of the Fields
1 Ghostly prison or Final Judgment
Just to let you know what I'm doing w/the SB:
Gifts= -3 Prison, +3 Lanterns, -1 W Honden, +1 Cranial
WW = -1 Cage, +1 Prison
Red = - 3 Judgements, +1 Prison, Genju of Fields, Cage
Black = Not to sure, but probably pull Cages, add Prison, and maybe Wear
aways or North Tree
I don't run mind cages because it makes genjus worthless. Prison, white honden, and multi activated fields genju keep me alive, and i kill with Realms. I don't think i've ever killed with my red honden. It usually serves as 1)fuel for w and b honden and 2)take out small chumprs. Also, I find NoSB to be better since it stops Hanna kami BS.
Maybe I'll add it to the mind cages to the side for the WW match
Genjus are not your win condition. Period. You win with the Honden: Genju are far too easily disruptable.
After ravinca comes in, yes, this will be a very viable T2 deck: Zur's Weirding + Form of the Dragon is usually an insta-win.
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Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference, and a ****ing chainsaw.
After ravinca comes in, yes, this will be a very viable T2 deck: Zur's Weirding + Form of the Dragon is usually an insta-win.
Thats an interesting strategy. Although both weirding and form are kinda useless if you draw them.
The biggest issue I have with these ideal decks is they don't deal well with hand disruption of any form and they pretty much run off of a 7 mana white sorcery. (Any list running less than 4 enduring ideals is obsolete I would have to say) Not to mention a decent control blue list has about a 80% win game 1 and still around 60/40 game 2 and 3.
How much hand disruption have you actually seen, though (remember, still talking block). I personally haven't run into any.
To be slightly off topic, i think Form of the dragon goes better with Meishan unless you're playing against red. Any other color won't be able to burn you out at 5, and meishan would shut down their other win condition.
As far as relying soley on the ideal, my deck does not. I have won a number of games by dropping North Tree or hardcasting Genju of the realms on turn 4/5, followed up with playing out my hondens. I personally make sure to run enough of each basic land so that I can 'tutor' for the land to cast my spells. I actually pull out a couple Ideals if i'm playing against the random Heartbeat deck. I feel the deck is much stronger with the addition north trees as an occasional win condition.
There is a little deck called Gifts Ungiven that run 1 Ghost-Lit Stalker and 1 Myojin of Night's Reach. And that cute little card known as Cranial Extraction.
I am all for one copy in the deck, but, KPDaly, it's overkill to run 4, especially seeing that any drawn are dead, and that they are terribly anti-synergistic with Meishan (something, that, fi you play the deck correctly, like these folks have, you will understand is pretty much *the* most important target for Ideal).
If you are that scared about Nikko Onna, then just run Clutch. If they want to waste an OJ for it, then let them, because they will eventually run out of tricks to save it, and it's not concievable for them to be able to drop Nikko, then a spirit or Arcan, every turn.
2. I never said to run more than 1. I said to run 1, then sideboard 3, since there seems to be a lot of empty space in the sideboard for this deck.
Sorry, KPDaly, but I got the impression that you use 4-of the Genju quite a bit.
Of course, but 2 is lower then 4.
If you noticed, I began posting about 4 Genju right after this was said. I was never suggesting playing more than 2 MD.
EDIT: As far as wasting time arguing goes, you have posted 12 times in this forum (13 including your most recent post). 8 (9) of those have been for no other reason than to tell me and most of the others here that we are stupid for keeping Genju. the other 4 have been to tell people they're stupid for thinking some other thing.
Let's not degenerate into a flame war - Raia
3 Honden of Cleansing Fire
2 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Honden of Life's Web
1 Honden of Night's Reach
4 Ghostly Prison
1 Genju of the Realm
2 Meishin, the Mind Cage
4 Final Judgment
1 Myojin of Cleansing Fire
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Cranial Extraction
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Sensei's Divining Top
11 Forest
7 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
2 Cranial Extraction
3 Kodama of the North Tree
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Terashi's Grasp
Yes, I plan to register a 15-card sideboard. :tongue2: I'm just not sure how I'm going to fill it out just yet.
This is based on the Ideal decks which have made Top 8s this season. If the metagame becomes a lot of WW and Black Hand, with Gifts and some random other decks, then an Ideal deck could be nicely under the radar. I should be building this tonight to play with my local group, and I'm going to try and build it on MTGO, also.
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I used to write for MTGS, including Cranial Insertion and cube articles. Good on you if you can find those after the upgrade.
and a thought.. in my ideal i run 2 of WRGB hondens.. i heard a tale about someone who played the blue one with mirror galery and almost lost
Kane to Randy Orton
"Death waits for no one" Undertaker to Randy orton
The reason that Reverence isn't great is that with one hit with Jitte, it doesn't nothing the rest of the game. Pump, move, pump, attack.
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Here's a question: Why only 3 Ideals? In my tests with this deck, I sometimes struggle to find one when running 4.
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I've never had problems with just 3. Between Top and the shufflers, I always seem to be able to find an Ideal. What I've found a few times is that I have one in my hand and I wait to play it, instead playing things like Ghostly Prison or the White Honded to slow down aggro, saving the Ideal for when I need it. The problem with running 4 is that having two in your opening hand is a mulligan, and since it costs 7, you have plenty of time to find it.
I'm considering dropping a Blue Honded for 1 Time of Need. The Blue Honden usually makes things complicated once I get going with Ideal, and Time of Need effectively doubles my Meloku or Myojin count. And the Myojin has been quite a saucy one so far.
My Eternal Cube on CubeTutor| |My Reject Rare Cube on CubeTutor| |My Peasant Cube on CubeTutor
I used to write for MTGS, including Cranial Insertion and cube articles. Good on you if you can find those after the upgrade.
Re Kagemaro: Damn it, I completely forgot about that. You're absolutely right.
The Real Best Legacy Poster of 2005 poll
Oh, my record, by the way, was 4-0-3 at the PTQ, and 2-1-1 the week before at a smaller tourney before I made a LOT of changes.
4 Enduring Ideal
4 sakura tribe elder
4 kodama's reach
3 final judgment
3 ghostly prison
2 cage of hand
2 genju of the realm
2 Honden of Infinite Rage
2 Honedn Black
1 genju of the fields
2 Honden of: W
2 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Kodama of the North Tree
11 forest, 5 plains, 2 island, 2 swamps, 1 mntn, 1 ice bridge, 1 tranquil garden
SB
1 Boseiju
1 North Tree
1 Cage of Hands
4 Hisoka’s Defiance
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Wear Away
3 Rheito Lanter
1 Genju of the Fields
1 Ghostly prison or Final Judgment
Just to let you know what I'm doing w/the SB:
Gifts= -3 Prison, +3 Lanterns, -1 W Honden, +1 Cranial
WW = -1 Cage, +1 Prison
Red = - 3 Judgements, +1 Prison, Genju of Fields, Cage
Black = Not to sure, but probably pull Cages, add Prison, and maybe Wear
aways or North Tree
Maybe I'll add it to the mind cages to the side for the WW match
After ravinca comes in, yes, this will be a very viable T2 deck: Zur's Weirding + Form of the Dragon is usually an insta-win.
Thats an interesting strategy. Although both weirding and form are kinda useless if you draw them.
The biggest issue I have with these ideal decks is they don't deal well with hand disruption of any form and they pretty much run off of a 7 mana white sorcery. (Any list running less than 4 enduring ideals is obsolete I would have to say) Not to mention a decent control blue list has about a 80% win game 1 and still around 60/40 game 2 and 3.
To be slightly off topic, i think Form of the dragon goes better with Meishan unless you're playing against red. Any other color won't be able to burn you out at 5, and meishan would shut down their other win condition.
As far as relying soley on the ideal, my deck does not. I have won a number of games by dropping North Tree or hardcasting Genju of the realms on turn 4/5, followed up with playing out my hondens. I personally make sure to run enough of each basic land so that I can 'tutor' for the land to cast my spells. I actually pull out a couple Ideals if i'm playing against the random Heartbeat deck. I feel the deck is much stronger with the addition north trees as an occasional win condition.
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