It also makes typical uwr creatures quite generic. Snap can't give something flashblack, resto angel can't save stuff, clique can't screw up your hand, hellkite can't clear the air.
I was just thinking. Ratchet bomb or engineered explosives could be good. Provided you play around it yourself. Blind obedience isn't bad if you have a stable enough mana base to make use of the extort triggers. Ghostly prison could work wonders if you can accelerate it out turn 2.
Mostly so I don't feel bad running RIP's sb, partly because the active doesn't play well with arbiters out, and, tbh, partly because I don't have any quite right now and wouldn't know what to take out for them. If I needed generic 3cmc beaters, smiter and crusader already do wonders and are consistent rather than variable. They also have different forms of evasion and make matchups much better vs control and vs GB midrange/tempo variants respectively.
2-0 vs. GB Fauna Vengevine Homebrew
Game 1 - All I remember is seeing him get out deathrite shamans and fauna shaman, pitching 2 vengevines and searching for another vengevine. Ended up killing him with mirran crusader and I think a sword of war and peace over a couple turns.
Game 2 - Thinking he was playing a dredge deck, I board in RIP and my 2nd linvala and took out spellskite, smiters, and a sword or something like that. Think I put out a turn 2 aven mindcensor, 3 linvala that he GftT'ed, then playing my 2nd linvala the turn after and just swinging in the whole time.
He let me look at his deck afterwards and I felt it seemed like a janky homebrew involving decent 4 or 5 cmc creatures, fauna shaman, deathrites, bops, and vengevines
Round 2
0-2 vs. GR Aggro
Game 1 - He was swinging in with creatures like normal, none of the goblin guide triggers worked. I have a choice turn 5 of BSA at about 13 or so life, or sword equip and attack. Chose BSA. He uses his singleton dismember on his turn and swings in so I'm down to about 5. Too late for me to play swords and equip to gain enough life to stabilize since I had to keep up blockers (only mana dorks left). So I play swords and keep two blockers out. He puts in a haste creature or something like that and swings for game.
Game 2 - Think I boarded in Thrun and spellskites and boarded out Linvala, and mindcensors? Not too sure anymore. All I remember is I just had a red bull around start of round 2 and it was kicking in, so I forgot to play a land on turn 2 though I would've lost that game too with how my draws went (goblin guides missed again and his draws were better than mine) I had a BSA in hand and a thrun, but was stuck at 3 lands
Aggro is a hard matchup if I can't stabilize with an early sword/BSA
Round 3
2-0 vs RUG with vials
Game 1 - saw island, vial turn 1. Got really afraid I was paired with a fish deck. Vial turn 2, no fishes came out. Only snaps, cliques, cryptics, other counters etc. Think I won game one on the back of small creatures with a sword.
Game 2 - boarded in torpors, thruns and boarded out spellskite, linvala, and elspeth and 1 path I think. turn 1 dork, turn 2 flash mindcensor, turn 3 thrun, turn 4 torpor orb and crusader. Win off the back of thrun, crusader, and mana denial
Vial surprised me and made me scared for a second even though I got paired down since people say fish has a favorable matchup vs hatebears. Once I realized it was RUG, I played the same way I play UWR. Get stuff out. Sword if I can. Deny mana.
Round 4
2-0 vs UWR Gifts
Game 1 - Mindcensor at his EoT and swing in for 2 multiple times until he gets out clique. I path it, play thalia, deny mana, swing when I can.
Game 2 - thinking he was just normal UWR, I board in torpor orbs, thruns, take out linvala, spellskite, and 2 saders. For the most part, mindcensor at his EoT wait for counter, stick out sword, land a single creature to equip to, and swing.
Got paired up because he chose to tie with someone for a prior round. Not completely sure exactly how these games went since they were over pretty fast and weren't too memorable. Didn't see gifts either game, but someone told me later that he was playing a gifts deck. UWR feels fairly straightforward though. Bait out mana, play swords, deny mana, win.
Round 5
Got paired down to someone at 2-2 and he wanted to leave, so he gave me the win. Since everyone else was drawing, I ended up being top seed in top 8
Top 8
2-1 vs kikipod 1
Game 1 - I had my hate out, but he didn't need to find anything so his deck played against mine with creatures and their EtB effects. I lost this one.
Game 2 - board in Linvala and orb. T2 arbiter, T3 mindcensor, T4 orb, got out a crusader. Realized he was tapped out one turn. Double ghost quarter while I have 6 lands and he has 4, pathed something, he pathed something, I held a spare path in my hand just in case. Then just kept swinging. This one was my win
Game 3 - I curved out really well. T1 noble, turn 2 mindcensor, turn 3 sader, turn 4 elspeth. Basically won at this point, but for good measure, turn 5 BSA
Was almost positive going into this that I had amazing chances vs pod, but game 1 shook me. Lost almost all my confidence after that. Luckily, I was able to hate him out games 2 and 3. Was curious at how all my creatures stayed alive. Found out he only had 3 paths and they were sb.
Top 4 QF
2-1 vs kikipod 2
Game 1 - for some reason, I kept a hand with 2 horizons, 3 nobles, and 2 swords. Needless to say, my hate didn't come out until after he had a pretty good board position. Most memorable part of this game was when he pod'ed his wall for an izzet statiscaster and killed all 3 of my nobles along with 2 of his own (he had forgot that it hit his too). Needless to say, he won after stabilizing his board presence. Think it was a close game though.
Game 2 - same boarding strategy as vs kikipod 1. This time, I had relevant hatebears. Advanced my board position while delaying his as per usual. Think I ended up winning this one mostly due to bop with a sword while keeping his field down with the usual hatebears. Was a very close game, but once I got out BSA, I stabilized and won.
Game 3 - This game was down to the wire. I put out T2 arbiter, T3 arbiter. He put out the usual dorks and a redcap and proceeds to swing and pump with gavony. By the time I tec edged his gavony, his dorks were 3/3s and his redcap was 4/4. I put out a BSA, and kept myself in the game. I put out a crusader, and he puts out a thrun. I keep swinging with BSA to gain life back. At one point he blocks with his bop and uses restoration angel to save it so I can't gain life either and I'm down to about 6 at this point. I flash in mindcensor. I have 6 lands and he has 4 - one of which is an arid. I triple ghost quarters him and he manages to find a mountain off of one of the triggers. He has 2 mana dorks at the time. He swings with redcap, thrun and resto I block thrun with sader, chump redcap and take resto so I'm down to 3. I swing with BSA and go up to 8 when he chumps with his bop. Think he's at 8 at this point too. He tries to arid mesa to get lands for the kiki he drew the turn after I popped all his lands. He ends up missing and, to boot, his next card would've been a path which would've saved him from my BSA. I end up keeping guys on the field to chump with and swing with BSA to gain life and deal damage.
All three games here were ridiculously close. Especially game 3 where I kill all his lands the turn before he draws kiki and then where he passed up path when he cracks his arid.
Top 2 SF
1-2 vs Jund
Game 1 - This game took a long time since we had a fairly complex board state. I get out an early BSA that stick and get him down to 5 before he gets an olivia voldaren big enough to prevent me from attacking. I kill his red sources aside from his shamans and have arbiter out to prevent him from searching. He steals my BSA one turn. I play BSA #2. He attacks with my BSA and I take it. I topdeck'ed a path and didn't realize that once olivia dies, I get my BSA out, so I sat there for a long time trying to calculate my best option. Ended up choosing to path his voldaren and play elspeth to pump up and attack with my BSA to bring him down to about 8 and bring me back up. He gives me back BSA to my pleasant surprise. I with 2 BSA and some chumpers, I end up winning.
Game 2 - Boarded in RIP, boarded out linvala, spellskite, and one mindcensor. Kept a hand with 1 land, 2 mana dorks and some other relevant cards since I was on the draw. Needless to say, I drew a 3rd mana dork and sat on 1 land for a couple turns. Put out some hate and an RIP to make his goyf and shaman basically useless. Then he jund charms and I'm left with one land. I drew some lands the next two turns, but he inquisitioned to take out the one creature I could play and got stuff out to finish me off.
Game 3 - first hand had 1 land 1 mana dork, so I mull. Would've had no lands for a couple turns after looking at the top couple cards. 2nd hand 1 land some dorks and some hate, but the land was a tec edge. So I have to mull yet again. Again, wouldn't have drawn any lands for awhile with this hand too. So down to 5 cards, I have 2 lands, 2 dorks,and a path. He puts out a bob turn 2 lili turn 3 and wrecks my hand some more. Lili has 4 counters when I can put out a mirran crusader. He edicts it with lili so she's at 2. At this point I have no creatures out and he's hitting me with a bob (I pathed the first and got a 2nd). I have a BSA in hand and am hoping for a land so I can at least get rid of lili. Sure enough, not a land, so he gets to + lili and the game degenerates as I have no way to stabilize/progress my board state when he can kill my hand and edict any single creature I play. I play it out just in case he misplayed. I end up losing.
All in all, I really liked this list. It's really well positioned in the meta. No matchups feel terrible except some lists that aren't all too popular and/or consistent such as fish or rdw (just a presumption since I've never actually been paired with either of these). Some matchups in this meta feel like a bye. Land disruption when I have a better board position is brutal. Especially when there's no "penalty" involved with my disruption because of mindcensors/arbiters. I feel the best cards today (other than the kit required for the land disruption) were BSA, crusaders, and swords. They won me so many games. Elspeth as a singleton is mostly because I like elspeth and she's always pretty good. As a singleton, she worked out pretty well when I played her (usually because I had a sader or a BSA to pump up) I don't think there's anything in my deck I'd change right now except the qasali in the sb (gonna be a kataki once I can get it). I do notice though that people are surprised when I board in RIP against Jund. My reasoning is that DRS and goyf become mostly useless (and if they run souls, then it's half as good). I've never felt bad having RIP against Jund unless I have more than 1. Orb is a great sb card against decks like uwr and pod. Also, people are surprised that I board my spellskite fairly often. My spellskites are mostly for the aura/infect matchup more so than to protect my creatures. I tend to board them out even against decks with lots of removal because I prefer to cast things that either progress my board state or delay my opponent's board state. Spellskite merely stabilizes my board state from being delayed by my opponent, but playing it instead of a more relevant card tends to feel like I'm already delaying myself by playing it. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I dunno. I'll have to test it more thoroughly some time.
MB
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Stirring Wildwood
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Temple Garden
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
1 Spellskite
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Loxodon Smiter
3 Mirran Crusader
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Path to Exile
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Sword of War and Peace
SB
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Rest in Peace
2 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Torpor Orb
Round 1
Game 1 - All I remember is seeing him get out deathrite shamans and fauna shaman, pitching 2 vengevines and searching for another vengevine. Ended up killing him with mirran crusader and I think a sword of war and peace over a couple turns.
Game 2 - Thinking he was playing a dredge deck, I board in RIP and my 2nd linvala and took out spellskite, smiters, and a sword or something like that. Think I put out a turn 2 aven mindcensor, 3 linvala that he GftT'ed, then playing my 2nd linvala the turn after and just swinging in the whole time.
He let me look at his deck afterwards and I felt it seemed like a janky homebrew involving decent 4 or 5 cmc creatures, fauna shaman, deathrites, bops, and vengevines
Round 2
Game 1 - He was swinging in with creatures like normal, none of the goblin guide triggers worked. I have a choice turn 5 of BSA at about 13 or so life, or sword equip and attack. Chose BSA. He uses his singleton dismember on his turn and swings in so I'm down to about 5. Too late for me to play swords and equip to gain enough life to stabilize since I had to keep up blockers (only mana dorks left). So I play swords and keep two blockers out. He puts in a haste creature or something like that and swings for game.
Game 2 - Think I boarded in Thrun and spellskites and boarded out Linvala, and mindcensors? Not too sure anymore. All I remember is I just had a red bull around start of round 2 and it was kicking in, so I forgot to play a land on turn 2 though I would've lost that game too with how my draws went (goblin guides missed again and his draws were better than mine) I had a BSA in hand and a thrun, but was stuck at 3 lands
Aggro is a hard matchup if I can't stabilize with an early sword/BSA
Round 3
Game 1 - saw island, vial turn 1. Got really afraid I was paired with a fish deck. Vial turn 2, no fishes came out. Only snaps, cliques, cryptics, other counters etc. Think I won game one on the back of small creatures with a sword.
Game 2 - boarded in torpors, thruns and boarded out spellskite, linvala, and elspeth and 1 path I think. turn 1 dork, turn 2 flash mindcensor, turn 3 thrun, turn 4 torpor orb and crusader. Win off the back of thrun, crusader, and mana denial
Vial surprised me and made me scared for a second even though I got paired down since people say fish has a favorable matchup vs hatebears. Once I realized it was RUG, I played the same way I play UWR. Get stuff out. Sword if I can. Deny mana.
Round 4
Game 1 - Mindcensor at his EoT and swing in for 2 multiple times until he gets out clique. I path it, play thalia, deny mana, swing when I can.
Game 2 - thinking he was just normal UWR, I board in torpor orbs, thruns, take out linvala, spellskite, and 2 saders. For the most part, mindcensor at his EoT wait for counter, stick out sword, land a single creature to equip to, and swing.
Got paired up because he chose to tie with someone for a prior round. Not completely sure exactly how these games went since they were over pretty fast and weren't too memorable. Didn't see gifts either game, but someone told me later that he was playing a gifts deck. UWR feels fairly straightforward though. Bait out mana, play swords, deny mana, win.
Round 5
Top 8
Game 1 - I had my hate out, but he didn't need to find anything so his deck played against mine with creatures and their EtB effects. I lost this one.
Game 2 - board in Linvala and orb. T2 arbiter, T3 mindcensor, T4 orb, got out a crusader. Realized he was tapped out one turn. Double ghost quarter while I have 6 lands and he has 4, pathed something, he pathed something, I held a spare path in my hand just in case. Then just kept swinging. This one was my win
Game 3 - I curved out really well. T1 noble, turn 2 mindcensor, turn 3 sader, turn 4 elspeth. Basically won at this point, but for good measure, turn 5 BSA
Was almost positive going into this that I had amazing chances vs pod, but game 1 shook me. Lost almost all my confidence after that. Luckily, I was able to hate him out games 2 and 3. Was curious at how all my creatures stayed alive. Found out he only had 3 paths and they were sb.
Top 4 QF
Game 1 - for some reason, I kept a hand with 2 horizons, 3 nobles, and 2 swords. Needless to say, my hate didn't come out until after he had a pretty good board position. Most memorable part of this game was when he pod'ed his wall for an izzet statiscaster and killed all 3 of my nobles along with 2 of his own (he had forgot that it hit his too). Needless to say, he won after stabilizing his board presence. Think it was a close game though.
Game 2 - same boarding strategy as vs kikipod 1. This time, I had relevant hatebears. Advanced my board position while delaying his as per usual. Think I ended up winning this one mostly due to bop with a sword while keeping his field down with the usual hatebears. Was a very close game, but once I got out BSA, I stabilized and won.
Game 3 - This game was down to the wire. I put out T2 arbiter, T3 arbiter. He put out the usual dorks and a redcap and proceeds to swing and pump with gavony. By the time I tec edged his gavony, his dorks were 3/3s and his redcap was 4/4. I put out a BSA, and kept myself in the game. I put out a crusader, and he puts out a thrun. I keep swinging with BSA to gain life back. At one point he blocks with his bop and uses restoration angel to save it so I can't gain life either and I'm down to about 6 at this point. I flash in mindcensor. I have 6 lands and he has 4 - one of which is an arid. I triple ghost quarters him and he manages to find a mountain off of one of the triggers. He has 2 mana dorks at the time. He swings with redcap, thrun and resto I block thrun with sader, chump redcap and take resto so I'm down to 3. I swing with BSA and go up to 8 when he chumps with his bop. Think he's at 8 at this point too. He tries to arid mesa to get lands for the kiki he drew the turn after I popped all his lands. He ends up missing and, to boot, his next card would've been a path which would've saved him from my BSA. I end up keeping guys on the field to chump with and swing with BSA to gain life and deal damage.
All three games here were ridiculously close. Especially game 3 where I kill all his lands the turn before he draws kiki and then where he passed up path when he cracks his arid.
Top 2 SF
Game 1 - This game took a long time since we had a fairly complex board state. I get out an early BSA that stick and get him down to 5 before he gets an olivia voldaren big enough to prevent me from attacking. I kill his red sources aside from his shamans and have arbiter out to prevent him from searching. He steals my BSA one turn. I play BSA #2. He attacks with my BSA and I take it. I topdeck'ed a path and didn't realize that once olivia dies, I get my BSA out, so I sat there for a long time trying to calculate my best option. Ended up choosing to path his voldaren and play elspeth to pump up and attack with my BSA to bring him down to about 8 and bring me back up. He gives me back BSA to my pleasant surprise. I with 2 BSA and some chumpers, I end up winning.
Game 2 - Boarded in RIP, boarded out linvala, spellskite, and one mindcensor. Kept a hand with 1 land, 2 mana dorks and some other relevant cards since I was on the draw. Needless to say, I drew a 3rd mana dork and sat on 1 land for a couple turns. Put out some hate and an RIP to make his goyf and shaman basically useless. Then he jund charms and I'm left with one land. I drew some lands the next two turns, but he inquisitioned to take out the one creature I could play and got stuff out to finish me off.
Game 3 - first hand had 1 land 1 mana dork, so I mull. Would've had no lands for a couple turns after looking at the top couple cards. 2nd hand 1 land some dorks and some hate, but the land was a tec edge. So I have to mull yet again. Again, wouldn't have drawn any lands for awhile with this hand too. So down to 5 cards, I have 2 lands, 2 dorks,and a path. He puts out a bob turn 2 lili turn 3 and wrecks my hand some more. Lili has 4 counters when I can put out a mirran crusader. He edicts it with lili so she's at 2. At this point I have no creatures out and he's hitting me with a bob (I pathed the first and got a 2nd). I have a BSA in hand and am hoping for a land so I can at least get rid of lili. Sure enough, not a land, so he gets to + lili and the game degenerates as I have no way to stabilize/progress my board state when he can kill my hand and edict any single creature I play. I play it out just in case he misplayed. I end up losing.
All in all, I really liked this list. It's really well positioned in the meta. No matchups feel terrible except some lists that aren't all too popular and/or consistent such as fish or rdw (just a presumption since I've never actually been paired with either of these). Some matchups in this meta feel like a bye. Land disruption when I have a better board position is brutal. Especially when there's no "penalty" involved with my disruption because of mindcensors/arbiters. I feel the best cards today (other than the kit required for the land disruption) were BSA, crusaders, and swords. They won me so many games. Elspeth as a singleton is mostly because I like elspeth and she's always pretty good. As a singleton, she worked out pretty well when I played her (usually because I had a sader or a BSA to pump up) I don't think there's anything in my deck I'd change right now except the qasali in the sb (gonna be a kataki once I can get it). I do notice though that people are surprised when I board in RIP against Jund. My reasoning is that DRS and goyf become mostly useless (and if they run souls, then it's half as good). I've never felt bad having RIP against Jund unless I have more than 1. Orb is a great sb card against decks like uwr and pod. Also, people are surprised that I board my spellskite fairly often. My spellskites are mostly for the aura/infect matchup more so than to protect my creatures. I tend to board them out even against decks with lots of removal because I prefer to cast things that either progress my board state or delay my opponent's board state. Spellskite merely stabilizes my board state from being delayed by my opponent, but playing it instead of a more relevant card tends to feel like I'm already delaying myself by playing it. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I dunno. I'll have to test it more thoroughly some time.