@leoninkha tbh I threw Dovin in just because I didnt know what else at 3 i'd want in that slot. Now id rather throw one the following:
+1 shimmer
+1 clarion
+1 open the gates
+1 knight of autumn
+1 fight with fire
I remember playing against Rakdos Aristocrats.... Izzet Phoenix and Monored... dont recall the first match right now. The last game against monored was won with a Kicked Fight with Fire.
Prizes: Breeding Pool + FNM Mortify
Edit:
R1 vs Monored, 2-0: (was a bit lucky on game one, I was about to concede with 4 gates in Play but I played Shimmer of Possibility, found a Plaza of Harmony and then played a Gatebreaker Ram... the combination of both cards allowed me to stay alive for another turn, and then a timely Mesmerizing Benthid blocked the ground completely and allowed me to turn the corner)
R2 vs Rakdos Aggro, 2-0: He had a very go wide deck and he would've won game one if he had attacked with Judith 2 times (I had no blockers, not sure what he was thinking).
R3 vs Izzet Phoenix, 2-1: This is a match that I'm not so sure of my odds because that recurring Phoenix is very dangerous but after a ton of cantrips he just couldnt get his game together and I took game 1. ¡After sideboard I bring in 13 CARDS!, including Scrabbling Claws to exile his phoenixes. He got that game cause he played Niv-Mizzet a turn before I did and after that we only had a few minutes to finish the round so I knew my only chance was to find a Gatebreaker Ram, which I did and after 3 attacks I got him on turns (I had removal for everything he played).
R4 vs Monored, 2-1: Dropped game 1 because I went for a turn 3 Guild Summit thinking I would have enough time to recover instead of playing a Ram... NEVER DO THAT if they have a Runaway Steam-Kin down, the card is way too explosive and you need to hold them off as much as possible. The other games were just regular games against monored, delay them as much as possible, gain life and then start drawing cards.
Now for the explanation. This deck is primarily a stall control deck. Win condition becomes Gate Colossus and Gatebreaker Ram.
I love playing this deck. There are a lot of tough choices to be made. Specifically, what to counter and when. How much damage you take before wiping with Gate Ablaze (I often win with 1-5 life). Should I play Guild Summit? Or maybe Gatebreaker for a 4/4? Hold off...and counter? Definitely not an easy deck to play - though there were a lot of losses where I said, "if only I did THIS...I would have won."
The best part though, is once you get ramped up - you will have your entire deck in your hand, full of counters. It's actually not that hard as long as you can get your guild summit out.
Anyway - if you like completely dominating your opponent with your entire deck in your hand, 14/14 and 8/8 creatures decimating your opponents life points, and watching your opponent writher in agony as you counter every spell...then seeing a glimmer of hope in their eyes when you are about to deck, only to play clear the mind and have them concede immediately --- well. Then this is the deck for you.
Do you think the deck can evolve enough to stay competitive with the upcoming WAR set? I've been playing Arena last day or two (not with Gates) and all those Planeswalkers to choose for my opponents from make it tough to figure out the battle plan. Within the limited garbage that is Arena, it seems like fast decks like burn or fast-ish control UW or Ux seem to stand the best chances.
Spot removal like Vraska's Contempt is proving horribly ineffective since the opponent can simply slap down a new Planeswalker on the cheap. Nevermind the recurring Gods are going to be a royal PITA. One match resulted in my opponent with over 40 creatures on the board, no thanks to Ugin.
One idea is to focus on exclusively protecting your own creatures and save the spot removal for the more annoying PW's. Ixalan's Binding the few to keep them away, hit the rest. My deck plays no black. I find adding black forces me to cut another color to get the consistency I need. Tests with my deck show it's hard to include cards requiring or more without hurting my other colors. Single I can pull off though.
I have toyed with reviving an old deck idea centered around Evolving Wilds and Crucible of Worlds and sac outlets and keep bouncing around Plaza of Harmony for a life gain engine to free up additional slots.
I think Gates will continue to be a real deck. It just suffers against control or esper since they can run more discard/counters than we do.
The thing about all those new Planeswalker is that if they are not Mythic, they don't ULT, they just go up and down and some of their abilities aren't all that powerful. Its deceiving though but dont forget that we're a deck that goes BIG (or BIGGER) and we can usually overpower our opponents. A timely Negate protecting a huge Gatebreaker Ram is usually backbreaking because you can only take so many hits.
Had 2 tournaments with really awful results before this mostly due to being really tired and making bad mistakes + bad luck.
Today was much better and went 3-1.
I like the changes I made, which were basically putting Banefire and Fight with Fire in the maindeck while removing a Chamber Sentry and moving Shivan Fire to the sideboard.
This way I have more ways to just win on the spot if the games go long and it showed today. Its also better against control.
Took my rebuilt Gates deck to 2nd place at an 8 person FNM tonight.
Round 1: 2-1-0 Red Goblin.
Game 1: I was just outright slaughtered. I was drawing my lands but not my board wipes to keep Goblins at bay. After sideboarding two additional Deafening Clarion to keep the Goblins at bay and enough anti-enchantment measures to squelch Calvacade of Calamity, game 2 and 3 were far better granting me the wins. Game 3 was nasty, with both of us going down to 4 life. I was pushing hard that last turn with every card draw trick I could muster until I found a Gates Ablaze and wiped the board.
Round 2: 1-0-1 White/Black Vampire/Angel Lifegain and Gideon Blackblade.
Game 1 was nuts as the deck used life gain and/or Afterlife to keep creatures on the board and to apply pressure. I focused on ramping hard then double cast two Gates Ablaze then soft locked his Gideon to stabilize the board at four life. Then, next turn, proceeded to cast Expansion for 13, finishing the game. We went to turns game 2 after stealing his Gideon and using the +1 ability to gain the upper hand. Interestingly, my opponent absolutely did not like my cost manipulation shenanigans on my X cost spells, argued with me, then called a judge.
Round 3: 1-2 White life gain combo deck.
I crushed him game 1 so easily that I didn't get a clear idea at what the deck actually did. Turns out the deck made heavy use of Adanto Vanguard, Benalish Marshal, Dauntless Bodyguard and Leonin Vanguard. Tons of cheap white creatures, a little bit of life gain, and a gaggle of protection that survives Ablaze. With the right combination of cards, getting whacked for 9 per turn was the norm. I pushed hard to get land to feed my goats but completely failed to draw any useful creatures like I did first game. I learned later that the deck was a modified challenger deck, "United Assault."
Built this deck and tried it for the first time at my LGS today at the standard showdown. Went 3-1, beating Grixis Control, UB Control and BR Aggro. Lost to Mono Blue Tempo. It's a nice deck that's very fun to play and it seems like it has a lot of good matchups.
I didn't know what to put in the sideboard so I experimented some... The Wanderer was actually a super good counter to Rekindling Phoenix! I think I'm gonna put another one in the board.
I don’t have my deck list (posting from the park today) but I got hammered badly last week by Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God despite numerous attempts to counter or steal him. So this FNM, I tried to include four Planeswalkers. Unfortunately, due to a complex work schedule, I didn’t play test my deck enough with the new changes so it operated very rough.
This week, none of my opponents had Nicol. Gah... I placed 11th out of 12 players.
R1: Classic W lifegain deck: Went 1-2-0
My lone winning game this round was using Narset’s Reversal to copy Quasiduplicate to put down 4 Archway Angels for an insurmountable lead on life. Then I just kept plugging away with my 18/18+ Ram and taking the beating from the creatures. Game 3, I was color screwed but did manage to pull the same trick using Ram but we went to turns. The round would have been a tie but the opponent top decked the winning card.
R2: RW home brew went 1-0-1
A variant on the W lifegain deck. Not a nasty deck with the most annoying card being Tajic, Legion's Edge making all of my damage spells quite a bit less efficient. I obliterated the opponent game 1 but game 2 was drawn out far longer than necessary due to color screw and being unable to cast, at the end, five cards in my hand. I pulled off my Quasiduplicate/Narset combo but fell short by ONE damage to win the game.
R3: RU Arclight Phoenix : 0-2-0
I really had very little chance. With very few “exile” spells in my deck, I couldn’t keep the Phoenix off the deck long enough to make an impact into the game.
Grixis had Nicol Bolases (Dragon-God and flippy boi) but that was it. I lost G2 against Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God but a nicely timed Dovin's Veto against him in G3 won me the match!
@savannahlion thats the reason behind the 2 Scrabbling Claws in my sideboard. I basically recognized Izzet Phoenix as a bad matchup even when there's not alot of it being played in my meta. I think the match merits having something in the side. Give us your current list to see what you're working with.
Any details on what cards were played by those lifegain decks?
@snowcrow kuddos on beating that, seems like a tough matchup from what I gather
R1 vs Izzet Phoenix, 2-1: Lost game1 because I drew lands only. R2 vs Gruul, 2-0: Close games but I have Gates Ablaze R3 vs Selesnya, 2-0: Gates Ablaze had a word... R4 vs Sultai Selfmill, ID: This guy has a very interesting deck and he's been doing well, he plays Jace
+ Tamiyo + Ashiok and wins by selfmilling.
Game 1: RW Feather 2-0
Gates Ablaze won me the game both games.
Game 2: Grixis Control 2-0
The same deck I faced last week. His pre-board deck was pretty bad against me with a lot of hate against aggro, so it wasn't a hard game. Game 2 he mana screwed.
Game 3: Mono U Tempo 2-0
The same deck I lost against last time. This time I drew enough Gates Ablazed and got to resolve two Archway Angels in G2 with 10 Gates in play, lol.
I really like this deck. And it's cheap AF, the only expensive cards are T3feri and the two shocklands in my deck.
@savannahlion thats the reason behind the 2 Scrabbling Claws in my sideboard. I basically recognized Izzet Phoenix as a bad matchup even when there's not alot of it being played in my meta. I think the match merits having something in the side. Give us your current list to see what you're working with.
Any details on what cards were played by those lifegain decks?
@snowcrow kuddos on beating that, seems like a tough matchup from what I gather
I plumb forgot about scrabbling claws. I didn’t go the last two weeks. First it was pre-release for MH1 and last Friday I was under far too much unrelated pressure to play an effective game. I’m stuck on a family retreat today. My family thinks celebrating Father’s Day is done with me doing all the work.
The Narset/Quasi combo is nuts when it fires off but I don’t think I’ll expand on it. Narset replaces Expansion // Explosion. I find that I want to use Expansion more often on “larger” spells. Narset lets me copy X-Spells like Banefire or Mass Manipulation. Quasi let’s me add two other creatures. I use the Jump-Start ability more of them than I care to admit.
I am considering swapping one Mass Manipulation for a In Bolas’s Clutches. Most times, I only have enough to cast Manipulation for X=1 with a rare grab for x=2 but never 3. So I figure if I’m castings CMC=6 spell anyways, might as well aim for any permanent and snatch those stupid Ixalan lands.
I swapped out Shimmer of Possibility for Anticipate because I find casting it on my opponents EOT is more conducive to leaving me with enough open lands for other spells earlier. I’m already waiting a full turn anyways so anything to reduce that....
Yesterday on FNM I lent my deck to the monoblue master in the store and I played UB Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge ... we both went 3-0 and then ID against each other on the last round, hehe. Gates is still good in my meta.
I did some changes though and put 2 Gate Colossus back in the deck because I think it can improve the GRUUL matchup. To do that I took out Rhonas and Multani.
On the Sideboard I removed 2 Gruul Spellbreaker and put Multani and a Legion Warboss (Multani is never really going to leave this deck in case you haven't noticed haha)
I took home second place. This deck was a power house today with most people in the LGS discussing it by the end of the night.
Some changes that really helped was getting rid of my 2 basics. No one seems to play Settle the Wreckage anymore so I made room for additional producing lands. I sideboarded The Immortal Sun to keep my opponents off kilter so they wouldn’t sideboard their Planeswalkers out game 2. Surprisingly, the strategy worked. More on that later. Getting rid of those two forests really helped a lot. Before I was consistently having problems finding white (without Circuitous Route) to reliably cast any early white spells. With the changes, I didn’t even worry about it.
Game 1: UBWr Angels - 2-0-0 - Turns
I was matched against one of the top players there. Bleh.... First game saw some well timed Thought Erasures but I managed to play through them. My opponents deck was almost as slow as mine with probably 50% or more of his lands as vanilla ETBT duals. Despite his attempts, I managed to accelerate with land ramp and end up with three 11/11 Rams and a 9/9 Krasis. Game 2 was much the same except I sideboarded in The Immortal Sun for that punk Teferi and Dovin’s Veto to stop his Erasures. Never got to use any Vetos because Tereri came out super early but so did my Sun. The strategy worked despite approaching dangerously close to zero life. I dug hard for answers casting nearly all my Anticipate and Growth Spiral while my opponent leveraged Arguel's Blood Fast to dangerous life levels. My opponents deck used ETBT dual lands but had nothing that mitigated the ETBT or took advantage of the lands like Gates does.
Game 2: GR Gods - 2-0-0 - Turns
I absolutely hate the new God cards, they feel too much like Yu-Gi-Oh bollocks. My opponent had Ilharg, the Raze-Boar and brought God-Eternal Rhonas with Illharg’s ability. Surprise!! By that time I had a 11/11 Ram, Collossus and a Krasis in play. I traded my Ram but managed to keep my other two in the onslaught and took the hit from Rhonas while killing his Boar and two other beasties and letting Rhonas return to his hand. He cast Rhonas next turn but I dug down for a Gates Ablaze and wiped the board, copied my Ram and killed him before either God card appeared again. My Immortal Sun gamble paid off and I locked up his Planeswalker cards. I didn’t even care about their static abilities, I just kept swinging with my creatures until he died. My opponent made an interesting mistake and let slip that he only had the one Boar.
Game 3: G Elves - 1-2-0
Game 1 sucked. I drew my lands and cards but his ability to be faster on the cast, consistently putting down 5/4 and 4/5 creatures almost on whim was just too much. Game 2 was mine as I drew my much needed Blazes to keep the creature count low while I built up my lands. Game 3: was his again, almost identical to the first match. I had to mulligan once and never found enough of my land ramp or creature control. I stayed my execution but I’m the end, I just couldn’t find my much needed cards. Thrash // Threat was fricken awesome on this matchups. It helped me win my second game. I might see if I can include more.
Here’s the deck. Next week is pre-release so we’ll see how the post-M20 iteration fairs in two weeks.
Nothing in M20 has picked my interest for this deck, anything good?
Field of the Dead maybe? One or two of them, and you have a late game back-up plan... or early game since Scapeshift is still legal for a few more months.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
+1 shimmer
+1 clarion
+1 open the gates
+1 knight of autumn
+1 fight with fire
I remember playing against Rakdos Aristocrats.... Izzet Phoenix and Monored... dont recall the first match right now. The last game against monored was won with a Kicked Fight with Fire.
Prizes: Breeding Pool + FNM Mortify
Edit:
R1 vs Monored, 2-0: (was a bit lucky on game one, I was about to concede with 4 gates in Play but I played Shimmer of Possibility, found a Plaza of Harmony and then played a Gatebreaker Ram... the combination of both cards allowed me to stay alive for another turn, and then a timely Mesmerizing Benthid blocked the ground completely and allowed me to turn the corner)
R2 vs Rakdos Aggro, 2-0: He had a very go wide deck and he would've won game one if he had attacked with Judith 2 times (I had no blockers, not sure what he was thinking).
R3 vs Izzet Phoenix, 2-1: This is a match that I'm not so sure of my odds because that recurring Phoenix is very dangerous but after a ton of cantrips he just couldnt get his game together and I took game 1. ¡After sideboard I bring in 13 CARDS!, including Scrabbling Claws to exile his phoenixes. He got that game cause he played Niv-Mizzet a turn before I did and after that we only had a few minutes to finish the round so I knew my only chance was to find a Gatebreaker Ram, which I did and after 3 attacks I got him on turns (I had removal for everything he played).
R4 vs Monored, 2-1: Dropped game 1 because I went for a turn 3 Guild Summit thinking I would have enough time to recover instead of playing a Ram... NEVER DO THAT if they have a Runaway Steam-Kin down, the card is way too explosive and you need to hold them off as much as possible. The other games were just regular games against monored, delay them as much as possible, gain life and then start drawing cards.
It wins against everything...though not easily.
Hardest matchups are the fast decks - RDW and Monoblue Tempo.
UW control will be a long game, but usually I come out on top.
All other decks are pretty easy wins assuming you don't get mana screwed.
Here it is:
// 6 Creature
2 Gatebreaker Ram
2 Gate Colossus
2 Knight of Autumn
// 6 Enchantment
4 Guild Summit
2 Wilderness Reclamation
// 8 Instant
2 Cancel
2 Absorb
2 Syncopate
2 Expansion // Explosion
2 Island
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
2 Reliquary Tower
3 Open the Gates
4 Shimmer of Possibility
1 Clear the Mind
4 Gates Ablaze
4 Circuitous Route
Now for the explanation. This deck is primarily a stall control deck. Win condition becomes Gate Colossus and Gatebreaker Ram.
I love playing this deck. There are a lot of tough choices to be made. Specifically, what to counter and when. How much damage you take before wiping with Gate Ablaze (I often win with 1-5 life). Should I play Guild Summit? Or maybe Gatebreaker for a 4/4? Hold off...and counter? Definitely not an easy deck to play - though there were a lot of losses where I said, "if only I did THIS...I would have won."
The best part though, is once you get ramped up - you will have your entire deck in your hand, full of counters. It's actually not that hard as long as you can get your guild summit out.
Anyway - if you like completely dominating your opponent with your entire deck in your hand, 14/14 and 8/8 creatures decimating your opponents life points, and watching your opponent writher in agony as you counter every spell...then seeing a glimmer of hope in their eyes when you are about to deck, only to play clear the mind and have them concede immediately --- well. Then this is the deck for you.
"I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
Spot removal like Vraska's Contempt is proving horribly ineffective since the opponent can simply slap down a new Planeswalker on the cheap. Nevermind the recurring Gods are going to be a royal PITA. One match resulted in my opponent with over 40 creatures on the board, no thanks to Ugin.
One idea is to focus on exclusively protecting your own creatures and save the spot removal for the more annoying PW's. Ixalan's Binding the few to keep them away, hit the rest. My deck plays no black. I find adding black forces me to cut another color to get the consistency I need. Tests with my deck show it's hard to include cards requiring or more without hurting my other colors. Single I can pull off though.
I have toyed with reviving an old deck idea centered around Evolving Wilds and Crucible of Worlds and sac outlets and keep bouncing around Plaza of Harmony for a life gain engine to free up additional slots.
What do you guys think?
The thing about all those new Planeswalker is that if they are not Mythic, they don't ULT, they just go up and down and some of their abilities aren't all that powerful. Its deceiving though but dont forget that we're a deck that goes BIG (or BIGGER) and we can usually overpower our opponents. A timely Negate protecting a huge Gatebreaker Ram is usually backbreaking because you can only take so many hits.
BTW this is my newer list:
1 Mesmerizing Benthid
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 Gate Colossus
2 Knight of Autumn
1 Chamber Sentry
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
Other 23
2 Shimmer of Possibility
4 Gates Ablaze
2 Open the Gates
4 Growth Spiral
2 Depose // Deploy
4 Guild Summit
1 Expansion // Explosion
1 Banefire
2 Fountain of Renewal
1 Fight with Fire
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Breeding Pool
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
2 Gateway Plaza
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
2 Forest
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Ravager Wurm
2 Scrabbling Claws
1 Lava Coil
3 Crushing Canopy
1 Deafening Clarion
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Shivan Fire
3 Negate
Had 2 tournaments with really awful results before this mostly due to being really tired and making bad mistakes + bad luck.
Today was much better and went 3-1.
I like the changes I made, which were basically putting Banefire and Fight with Fire in the maindeck while removing a Chamber Sentry and moving Shivan Fire to the sideboard.
This way I have more ways to just win on the spot if the games go long and it showed today. Its also better against control.
Round 1: 2-1-0 Red Goblin.
Game 1: I was just outright slaughtered. I was drawing my lands but not my board wipes to keep Goblins at bay. After sideboarding two additional Deafening Clarion to keep the Goblins at bay and enough anti-enchantment measures to squelch Calvacade of Calamity, game 2 and 3 were far better granting me the wins. Game 3 was nasty, with both of us going down to 4 life. I was pushing hard that last turn with every card draw trick I could muster until I found a Gates Ablaze and wiped the board.
Round 2: 1-0-1 White/Black Vampire/Angel Lifegain and Gideon Blackblade.
Game 1 was nuts as the deck used life gain and/or Afterlife to keep creatures on the board and to apply pressure. I focused on ramping hard then double cast two Gates Ablaze then soft locked his Gideon to stabilize the board at four life. Then, next turn, proceeded to cast Expansion for 13, finishing the game. We went to turns game 2 after stealing his Gideon and using the +1 ability to gain the upper hand. Interestingly, my opponent absolutely did not like my cost manipulation shenanigans on my X cost spells, argued with me, then called a judge.
Round 3: 1-2 White life gain combo deck.
I crushed him game 1 so easily that I didn't get a clear idea at what the deck actually did. Turns out the deck made heavy use of Adanto Vanguard, Benalish Marshal, Dauntless Bodyguard and Leonin Vanguard. Tons of cheap white creatures, a little bit of life gain, and a gaggle of protection that survives Ablaze. With the right combination of cards, getting whacked for 9 per turn was the norm. I pushed hard to get land to feed my goats but completely failed to draw any useful creatures like I did first game. I learned later that the deck was a modified challenger deck, "United Assault."
edit: correction on minor detail
Are you playing the deck from post #73 or rebuilt again?
"I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
I don't really know how some matchups are right now but I managed to dodge everything that wasn't aggro, which is always good for me
R1 vs Abzan Goodstuff: 2-0
R2 vs Rakdos Aggro: 2-0
R3 vs Wr Weenie: 2-1
R4 vs Grixis Control: ID
I took out all of the colossi and I'm playing Niv-Mizzet and God-Eternal Rhonas, as well as Shalai in the MD for kicks
Edit: This was the list...
2 Arboreal Grazer
1 God-Eternal Rhonas
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 Knight of Autumn
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
1 Chamber Sentry
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
Other 21
2 Shimmer of Possibility
4 Gates Ablaze
1 Open the Gates
4 Growth Spiral
2 Depose // Deploy
4 Guild Summit
1 Expansion // Explosion
1 Banefire
1 Fountain of Renewal
1 Fight with Fire
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Breeding Pool
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
2 Gateway Plaza
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
2 Forest
1 Mesmerizing Benthid
2 Ravager Wurm
2 Scrabbling Claws
1 Lava Coil
3 Crushing Canopy
1 Deafening Clarion
1 Shivan Fire
4 Negate
Would play a 3rd Arboreal Grazer over the Fountain of Renewal but I couldn't find any
Here's the decklist:
3 Gatebreaker Ram
2 Gate Colossus
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Archway Angel
1 Chamber Sentry
Instants and Sorceries 17
2 Open the Gates
4 Growth Spiral
2 Shimmer of Possibility
2 Dovin's Veto
4 Gates Ablaze
1 Deafening Clarion
2 Circuitous Route
4 Guild Summit
Planeswalkers 2
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
Lands 26
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
3 Izzet Guildgate
3 Gateway Plaza
4 Plaza of Harmony
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Poool
2 Forest
4 Crushing Canopy
1 Collision // Colossus
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Knight of Autumn
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Gruul Spellbreaker
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 The Wanderer
1 Archway Angel
1 Ravnica at War
I didn't know what to put in the sideboard so I experimented some... The Wanderer was actually a super good counter to Rekindling Phoenix! I think I'm gonna put another one in the board.
This week, none of my opponents had Nicol. Gah... I placed 11th out of 12 players.
R1: Classic W lifegain deck: Went 1-2-0
My lone winning game this round was using Narset’s Reversal to copy Quasiduplicate to put down 4 Archway Angels for an insurmountable lead on life. Then I just kept plugging away with my 18/18+ Ram and taking the beating from the creatures. Game 3, I was color screwed but did manage to pull the same trick using Ram but we went to turns. The round would have been a tie but the opponent top decked the winning card.
R2: RW home brew went 1-0-1
A variant on the W lifegain deck. Not a nasty deck with the most annoying card being Tajic, Legion's Edge making all of my damage spells quite a bit less efficient. I obliterated the opponent game 1 but game 2 was drawn out far longer than necessary due to color screw and being unable to cast, at the end, five cards in my hand. I pulled off my Quasiduplicate/Narset combo but fell short by ONE damage to win the game.
R3: RU Arclight Phoenix : 0-2-0
I really had very little chance. With very few “exile” spells in my deck, I couldn’t keep the Phoenix off the deck long enough to make an impact into the game.
It’s been a disappointing last two FNM’s for me.
edit: fixed typos
Grixis had Nicol Bolases (Dragon-God and flippy boi) but that was it. I lost G2 against Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God but a nicely timed Dovin's Veto against him in G3 won me the match!
Any details on what cards were played by those lifegain decks?
@snowcrow kuddos on beating that, seems like a tough matchup from what I gather
R1 vs Izzet Phoenix, 2-1: Lost game1 because I drew lands only.
R2 vs Gruul, 2-0: Close games but I have Gates Ablaze
R3 vs Selesnya, 2-0: Gates Ablaze had a word...
R4 vs Sultai Selfmill, ID: This guy has a very interesting deck and he's been doing well, he plays Jace
+ Tamiyo + Ashiok and wins by selfmilling.
Here's my new sideboard hehe:
4 Gruul Spellbreaker
2 Ravager Wurm
2 Scrabbling Claws
1 Lava Coil
1 Deafening Clarion
1 Fountain of Renewal
1 Shivan Fire
2 Negate
-1 Circuitous Route
-1 Gruul Guildgate
+1 Shimmer of Possibility
+1 Boros Guildgate
Also added a second The Wanderer and Collision // Colossus to the sideboard.
3 Gatebreaker Ram
2 Gate Colossus
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Archway Angel
1 Chamber Sentry
Instants and Sorceries 17
2 Open the Gates
4 Growth Spiral
3 Shimmer of Possibility
2 Dovin's Veto
4 Gates Ablaze
1 Deafening Clarion
1 Circuitous Route
4 Guild Summit
Planeswalkers 2
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
Lands 26
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
3 Gruul Guildgate
3 Izzet Guildgate
1 Boros Guildgate
3 Gateway Plaza
4 Plaza of Harmony
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Poool
2 Forest
4 Crushing Canopy
2 Collision // Colossus
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Knight of Autumn
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Gaea's Blessing
2 The Wanderer
1 Archway Angel
1 Ravnica at War
Game 1: RW Feather 2-0
Gates Ablaze won me the game both games.
Game 2: Grixis Control 2-0
The same deck I faced last week. His pre-board deck was pretty bad against me with a lot of hate against aggro, so it wasn't a hard game. Game 2 he mana screwed.
Game 3: Mono U Tempo 2-0
The same deck I lost against last time. This time I drew enough Gates Ablazed and got to resolve two Archway Angels in G2 with 10 Gates in play, lol.
I really like this deck. And it's cheap AF, the only expensive cards are T3feri and the two shocklands in my deck.
I plumb forgot about scrabbling claws. I didn’t go the last two weeks. First it was pre-release for MH1 and last Friday I was under far too much unrelated pressure to play an effective game. I’m stuck on a family retreat today. My family thinks celebrating Father’s Day is done with me doing all the work.
Off the top of my head here is the list:
2 Azorius Guildgate
2 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
2 Gateway Plaza
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
2 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
// Artifacts (1)
1 The Immortal Sun
// Enchantments (4)
4 Guild Summit
2 Anticipate
4 Growth Spiral
1 Narset's Reversal
// Sorceries (11)
4 Circuitous Route
4 Gates Ablaze
2 Mass Manipulation
1 Quasiduplicate
// Creatures (11)
1 Archway Angel
2 Gate Colossus
4 Gatebreaker Ram
3 Hydroid Krasis
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
2 Banefire
1 Cancel
2 Crushing Canopy
2 Deafening Clarion
2 Knight of Autumn
3 Negate
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 The Wanderer
Some notes...
The Narset/Quasi combo is nuts when it fires off but I don’t think I’ll expand on it. Narset replaces Expansion // Explosion. I find that I want to use Expansion more often on “larger” spells. Narset lets me copy X-Spells like Banefire or Mass Manipulation. Quasi let’s me add two other creatures. I use the Jump-Start ability more of them than I care to admit.
I am considering swapping one Mass Manipulation for a In Bolas’s Clutches. Most times, I only have enough to cast Manipulation for X=1 with a rare grab for x=2 but never 3. So I figure if I’m castings CMC=6 spell anyways, might as well aim for any permanent and snatch those stupid Ixalan lands.
I swapped out Shimmer of Possibility for Anticipate because I find casting it on my opponents EOT is more conducive to leaving me with enough open lands for other spells earlier. I’m already waiting a full turn anyways so anything to reduce that....
I did some changes though and put 2 Gate Colossus back in the deck because I think it can improve the GRUUL matchup. To do that I took out Rhonas and Multani.
On the Sideboard I removed 2 Gruul Spellbreaker and put Multani and a Legion Warboss (Multani is never really going to leave this deck in case you haven't noticed haha)
That means this is the current list:
2 Arboreal Grazer
4 Gatebreaker Ram
2 Gate Colossus
2 Knight of Autumn
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
1 Chamber Sentry
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
Other 21
2 Shimmer of Possibility
4 Gates Ablaze
1 Open the Gates
4 Growth Spiral
3 Depose // Deploy
4 Guild Summit
1 Lava Coil
1 Banefire
1 Fight with Fire
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Breeding Pool
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
2 Gateway Plaza
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
2 Forest
1 The Wanderer
1 Mesmerizing Benthid
2 Gruul Spellbreaker
2 Ravager Wurm
2 Scrabbling Claws
1 Legion Warboss
1 Deafening Clarion
1 Fountain of Renewal
1 Shivan Fire
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
2 Negate
Some changes that really helped was getting rid of my 2 basics. No one seems to play Settle the Wreckage anymore so I made room for additional producing lands. I sideboarded The Immortal Sun to keep my opponents off kilter so they wouldn’t sideboard their Planeswalkers out game 2. Surprisingly, the strategy worked. More on that later. Getting rid of those two forests really helped a lot. Before I was consistently having problems finding white (without Circuitous Route) to reliably cast any early white spells. With the changes, I didn’t even worry about it.
Game 1: UBWr Angels - 2-0-0 - Turns
I was matched against one of the top players there. Bleh.... First game saw some well timed Thought Erasures but I managed to play through them. My opponents deck was almost as slow as mine with probably 50% or more of his lands as vanilla ETBT duals. Despite his attempts, I managed to accelerate with land ramp and end up with three 11/11 Rams and a 9/9 Krasis. Game 2 was much the same except I sideboarded in The Immortal Sun for that punk Teferi and Dovin’s Veto to stop his Erasures. Never got to use any Vetos because Tereri came out super early but so did my Sun. The strategy worked despite approaching dangerously close to zero life. I dug hard for answers casting nearly all my Anticipate and Growth Spiral while my opponent leveraged Arguel's Blood Fast to dangerous life levels. My opponents deck used ETBT dual lands but had nothing that mitigated the ETBT or took advantage of the lands like Gates does.
Game 2: GR Gods - 2-0-0 - Turns
I absolutely hate the new God cards, they feel too much like Yu-Gi-Oh bollocks. My opponent had Ilharg, the Raze-Boar and brought God-Eternal Rhonas with Illharg’s ability. Surprise!! By that time I had a 11/11 Ram, Collossus and a Krasis in play. I traded my Ram but managed to keep my other two in the onslaught and took the hit from Rhonas while killing his Boar and two other beasties and letting Rhonas return to his hand. He cast Rhonas next turn but I dug down for a Gates Ablaze and wiped the board, copied my Ram and killed him before either God card appeared again. My Immortal Sun gamble paid off and I locked up his Planeswalker cards. I didn’t even care about their static abilities, I just kept swinging with my creatures until he died. My opponent made an interesting mistake and let slip that he only had the one Boar.
Game 3: G Elves - 1-2-0
Game 1 sucked. I drew my lands and cards but his ability to be faster on the cast, consistently putting down 5/4 and 4/5 creatures almost on whim was just too much. Game 2 was mine as I drew my much needed Blazes to keep the creature count low while I built up my lands. Game 3: was his again, almost identical to the first match. I had to mulligan once and never found enough of my land ramp or creature control. I stayed my execution but I’m the end, I just couldn’t find my much needed cards. Thrash // Threat was fricken awesome on this matchups. It helped me win my second game. I might see if I can include more.
Here’s the deck. Next week is pre-release so we’ll see how the post-M20 iteration fairs in two weeks.
3 Azorius Guildgate
2 Breeding Pool
2 Gateway Plaza
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Plaza of Harmony
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
// Enchantments (5)
4 Guild Summit
1 In Bolas's Clutches
2 Anticipate
4 Growth Spiral
1 Narset's Reversal
// Sorceries (11)
4 Circuitous Route
4 Gates Ablaze
2 Mass Manipulation
1 Quasiduplicate
// Creatures (11)
1 Archway Angel
2 Gate Colossus
4 Gatebreaker Ram
3 Hydroid Krasis
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
2 Banefire
2 Seal Away
2 Deafening Clarion
3 Dovin’s Veto
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Scrabbling Claws
1 Thrass \\ Threat
1 The Immortal Sun
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~