I meant that getting Surgical'd is okay when we have a real beatdown plan since we don't rely on winning with the combo anyway.
When do we have a real beatdown plan? When do we not rely on winning with the combo? I've never found a situation where this happens.
Sorry, I shouldn't say that we don't rely on comboing. I meant that as in we try and have a beatdown plan that's equally viable or better to the combo plan. Against Jeskai and BGx we board around 4 or so value cards in like Tracker, Voice, Gideon etc and oftentimes they Surgical us but it's far from game over since we aren't putting all our eggs in the combo basket anyway.
However, my board plan against Phoenix is decidedly risky since they have Surgical. However I do not see the beatdown plan as being a viable option against them since their threats fly and evacuate our board. Maybe we could try and board in Paths and prioritize using the back half of Incubation, but since they mainly just interact with removal instead of removal + discard or counters I'm happier trying to play around Surgical and not try and beat them down.
Our beatdown plan is a joke. 12 0 power creatures and nothing is over 2 power except a couple shalai and a few flipped duskwatches. Also most of our creatures are really bad on their own.
Hey guys. I'm a recent fan of this deck. Took it to GP Oakland going 5-3. More specifically I went undefeated 5-0, lost 1-2 to Sam Black who turn 2 comboed me on KCI, and I lost every game 3 after that. It being my 2nd time ever playing with the deck, mistakes were definitely made and yet I felt very satisfied at the end. Every match up I played felt close. The deck is well constructed and very tight in space imo. It will get even better with the new g/u commune.
Some thoughts post-gp:
1) I think it's wrong not to play 3-4 ewit. She gives us that edge against BGx and enables more lines. Ex. With druid and a dork on the board you eldritch dork for vizier, ewit eldritch, eldritch ewit for wincon.
2) Definitely going up to 4 paths for UR Phoenix and GDS
3) -1 Overgrown tomb for basic. An extra shock for 1 sin collector is not what I need against burn and ur Phoenix. Also I never used black mana to pay for lunge
4) Considering increasing knight of Autunm in sb from 2 to 3 or 4. Maybe qasali makes more sense given the lack of viable 2cmc creatures, sac'ing when lunged so that it won't get exiled, and exalted triggers for a better plan b.
5) we are so freaking soft to Grafdiggers. Mb knight or qasali is probably correct but again, space is so tonight.
Can't EWit back Eldritch Evolution. Gotta read the cards all the way through. However, you are right about Witness and Chord goodness. I miss extra Witnesses too, but the increased consistency of turn 3 kill is very nice.
Qasali Pridemage is the answer for Cage. Because you can Chord for it with Cage on the stack, then activate after Cage resolves. Knight of Autumn can't do that.
Glad you cleared that up about eldritch. Thankfully I didn't make that mistake in Oakland or I'd feel real bad.
-1 birds, -1 shalai, -1 duskwatch are the cuts I made post-oakland from the GP Portland list I played with. T3 consistency is still great by keeping the spell package. On the topic of ewit, being able to bring back paths against ur Phoenix and gds is fantastic.
Hey guys. I'm a recent fan of this deck. Took it to GP Oakland going 5-3. More specifically I went undefeated 5-0, lost 1-2 to Sam Black who turn 2 comboed me on KCI, and I lost every game 3 after that. It being my 2nd time ever playing with the deck, mistakes were definitely made and yet I felt very satisfied at the end. Every match up I played felt close. The deck is well constructed and very tight in space imo. It will get even better with the new g/u commune.
Edit: after some more play testing, I was wrong about some thoughts I deleted from this post.
All of these Jund lists omit Elvish Visionary. That makes me sad. Lol. I have 4 of the FNM promo ones, I want to use them
I'm still an advocate for Visionary in Jund and it's not because I also have promo Visionaries but because of why it's in most lists in the first place - especially in lists that have made it to top 8 in GPs. I currently run 3 which feels like the perfect number after tons of play testing. To put it in a bigger picture, my list has 15 2for1s between CoCo, BBE, Dwynen's, and Visionary which is 1/4 of the deck. This is a strong ratio to have. Granted, I also run a 1of Lead for more value but it's a flex spot that I might change into a 19th land or 3rd ezuri.
TL;DR: Visionary remains a good card for many reasons; running Jund does not change its viability.
That legendary angel spoiled today is busted. Not having flash a a drawback but it seems like a resonable cure topper to split with resto. It stops quite a few combo decks, protects our taxers if timed correctly, and provides powerful lategame. The down side is that you need vial on 4 to make the most use out of it. I will probably play one maindeck and splash a little more green in my mana base.
I don't think it's particularly busted but I think it's a good card and a potential a 1-of in the 75.
Interesting choice of cards. I see the strength of trapper but it weakens BBE and Coco hits by having that instead of visionaries. Aside from this Visionaries is MUCH more important in Jund because it doesn't run canopies for draw power.
2 Forest is also very risky against decks that runs Path or Blood Moon.
Just wanted to say grats on the top 16. GW Combo has definitely shown its strength through several top 8 finishes and players like yourself continue to prove that it's capable.
You'll find that at the moment BBE is the talk amongst us Elfies. The unbanning has given us a new avenue that most of us here are excited to explore. Incase you're wondering this is why you won't see much discussion on GW Combo. Feel free to chime in.
I've settled on 19 lands being the solution also, but I think the answer is the 5th fetch. Can't afford to play a Blood Crypt as it destoys our 1 land opener.
Blood Crypt acts as a colorless land in that regard. It sacrifices the utility we would get from a true colorless land like Westvale for consistency. That's the way I see it anyways.
Aside from that it is after all an extra land and just like other Elf builds we never needed the 15th green source for creatures.
That being said, a 5th fetch is by no means a bad idea. It's what I was originally going for.
Actually, that is a very interesting point. Turn 3/4 TS into BBE could be very powerful. Stripping their sweeper than BBE for the mass amount of damage (against control/Jace) is a sweet place to be.
I think BBE Jund Elves could really be good against grindy decks as predicted. That will give us some sideboard room to hedge against combo, quick creature decks. BBE being in the deck naturally makes our strategy more grindy and thus, having potent answers to combo/tron in sideboard could go a long way. I do like this direction, it is interesting.
Couldn't have said it better myself. As great as the deck seems on paper, I think there is still some room for tuning the mb.
More specifically, there are two problems I have been having with the deck. The first is the mana base. The deck always needs to have red and black mana on the field in the event of me having or potentially drawing into a Shaman/BBE.
Here's an example I faced. I fetched early on for an overgrown tomb because I had Shaman in my opening hand. Makes sense right? Well I had no way to generate red mana incase I drew into BBE - which I did. Because I had no red mana I could not use BBE on T3/T4 BBE. I lost because of this.
The same situation happened when it was the other way around. I had a BBE in my opener then fetched for Stomping ground with no way to generate black for Shaman and lost because of that as well.
It could have been a really bad day and quite frankly it was only one day of testing so there's not much data but I personally rather be safe than sorry. Here's my solution.
Brace yourself because it's a bit painful. I think adding a Blood Crypt as the 19th land is optimal. Blood Crypt is great in those situations when you need both colors and already have a forest on the field. Why do we need a 19th land? Great question.
Here is the second problem I was facing. It was not drawing enough lands to consistently have 3/4 lands by T4/5. This is a problem when we have 8 4cmc cards. I think 19 lands will give is that safety net we need.
You're absolutely right. Any GB veteran such as yourself knows that a noncreature sb has been the norm. What I said was directed to amni92.
TS: I think the 4th TS is more important now than before with the replacement of Chord for BBE. BBE being able to cascade into noncreature spells like TS could be life or death in an open meta where you could potentially play against combo.
Also BBE into Collective Brutality is a missed opportunity I think we should take advantage of.
So far I've casted Domri 3 times and it's been amazing all 3 of them, drawing cards, killing creatures and making our opponent spend resources managing it.
I've added 2 Elves of Deep Shadow in place of 2 Nettle sentinel since our explosiveness potential is already lower because we play several cards that can't be casted with only 3 green mana and it provides black mana for our powerful SB cards. I'm thinking about cutting 1 Ezuri (going down to 2) and play a 2nd Domri because I'm loving it.
Thoughts on this forgotten planeswalker?
On the other hand. I've always loved the idea of a creature based toolbox and that's out the ecuation for obvious reasons if we go chord-less. So what's the base of a GOOD elf sideboard with the jund composition?
I'm with Syreal94 on this one. I like Domri in our deck but Jund just cannot afford the space IMHO. For GRx it would make sense because by not having Shamans it has much more room and flexibility in both the MB and SB. The Naya list I posted intrigues me for this reason of space and flexibility - also Kessig Wolf Run is Nuts. I think there's still room for innovation with GRx builds and that's pretty exciting.
I also agree with Syreal94 on GBx builds relying primarily on a noncreature sb. The Jund list I posted has a version of what I think is most optimal to have a fighting chance in an open meta. For metas that I'm familiar with I would obviously try to adapt my sb.
Very well put Syreal94. This is more so for every one else.
It's important to note that when comparing BBE to Collected Company we're not trying to replace it but instead figure out a better card in the spot of Chord of Calling for Shaman builds. Anybody who has played GB in the past knows that having Chord has never been the plan to having a winning chance against fast decks. If you guys want to win against fast decks then play GW Combo. You can't have your cake and eat it.
@Worldsaverinc
No Company will make the deck too slow. Being able to cheat out two creatures at instant speed is still much more powerful than chaining Sylvan into BBEs. As I said, we don't want to replace Company. After all that's the card that put us in the map in the first place - hence the name of this thread.
There's plenty of information on why BBE is good for Shaman builds in these last two pages. BG/Abzan Elves used to be my favorite builds but now I firmly believe Jund is the way to go. Here's what I'm personally running.
For the crazies that wanna do Naya over GW combo, here's a list I tuned. I found that it really only needs white for eidolon and ethersworn which are nuts against storm/ad nauseum.
This Naya list kinda reminds me of Andrew Sullano's GW Elf Company list he placed with a few years ago. It was purely focused on going wide and overrunning. I really like Kessig in here that I even thought about adding a 19th land as the 2nd copy.
I did read the article, but we're not Jund, we're Elves. Jadine's article is great when you're a proper midrange deck. When you're a linear based deck that uses BBE for value, you can't afford to deviate from the plan.
Don't get it twisted, we are a linear deck first. Always keep that in mind. Talara's Battalion is exponentially worse without the BBE cascade and is not servicable with it (notably, dies to bolt, doesn't go wide, doesn't replace itself or draw a card or go infinite). Just on raw card evaluation, Talara's Battalion is nothing but bad. If a card is bad on raw card evaluation, its not making it into the deck.
BBE being in the deck doesn't remove t1 Heritage t2 Dwynen's lol, it just makes T3-4 better. If you want to properly build a deck around BBE, then build actual Jund! Emberflux has the rest of what I was gonna say already, so I'm not gonna repeat it.
We're not a deck that will fully use BBE's cascade to its potential. We're simply using it to refill/fill the board. We will however use BBE's body and typeline the best, occasionally squeezing out a 4/3 or a 5/4 haste.
on RG:
I've already backpeddaled from Atarka's Command and straight to Bolts. The cheapness of the card in initial goldfishes show up and while it doesn't do nearly as much damage in a vacuum, its versatility in matchups (imagine cleaning up T1 Overseer or an Inkmoth all in, yummy) gives it the nod on future playtesting. I'll jam some with it again this weekend.
I've been thinking more on RG. Is Red sufficient for such a broad meta? It seems like it would falter quickly against fast decks. I'm thinking Naya would be better for white's silver bullets. The manabase ratio will be the same as the one you posted for Jund - which I agree with entirely - except Red will be the leading color for bolt, blood moon, etc.
Both Jund and Naya seem strong on paper. Jund has the strength of SotP, hand disruption, and efficient removal whereas Naya has the strength of bolt/atarkas and strong silver bullets (magus/blood moon, eidolon/ethersworn, kataki, selfless, etc) but nothing to contribute to the strong Elf synergy like SotP. I believe if the meta is full of midrange/control then Jund would be the clear choice; however, if the meta is full of tron/combo then Naya would be better suited. With that being said it raises the question of: Would Naya BBE be worth running over GW Combo when both decks have the same 'good' match ups? I'm personally leaning towards no based on GW Combo's several competitive REL top 8 finishes.
In any case I think for the rest of this month Jund is most optimal because the majority of players are feeding on the hype of Jund Midrange and UWx Control.
On the topic of: removing chord will make our fast MUs worse. Any version that isn't running the combo such as GB already had a bad MU even with chord. With GB the way to fight fast decks was with TS or Spot removal and that doesn't change by replacing chord with BBE. In fact it gets much better because you can now cascade into those spells whereas with chord it's a nonbo.
There's also no reason to fully revolve around BBE because that's only one card in a deck that's already been performing for years without it. Going aggro with Talara's and Wren's Run is an entirely different strategy that hasn't had success in the past afaik. This deck's strategy is still to be explosive, go wide, and use our big mana spells (coco/bbe/chord) to threaten lethal.
Edit: RG does look interesting with BBE into Atarkas. Maybe the aggressive strategy (wrens run, talara's) would work with that color combination.
Our beatdown plan is a joke. 12 0 power creatures and nothing is over 2 power except a couple shalai and a few flipped duskwatches. Also most of our creatures are really bad on their own.
Glad you cleared that up about eldritch. Thankfully I didn't make that mistake in Oakland or I'd feel real bad.
-1 birds, -1 shalai, -1 duskwatch are the cuts I made post-oakland from the GP Portland list I played with. T3 consistency is still great by keeping the spell package. On the topic of ewit, being able to bring back paths against ur Phoenix and gds is fantastic.
Yes, good point on qasali.
Edit: after some more play testing, I was wrong about some thoughts I deleted from this post.
I'm still an advocate for Visionary in Jund and it's not because I also have promo Visionaries but because of why it's in most lists in the first place - especially in lists that have made it to top 8 in GPs. I currently run 3 which feels like the perfect number after tons of play testing. To put it in a bigger picture, my list has 15 2for1s between CoCo, BBE, Dwynen's, and Visionary which is 1/4 of the deck. This is a strong ratio to have. Granted, I also run a 1of Lead for more value but it's a flex spot that I might change into a 19th land or 3rd ezuri.
TL;DR: Visionary remains a good card for many reasons; running Jund does not change its viability.
I don't think it's particularly busted but I think it's a good card and a potential a 1-of in the 75.
Interesting choice of cards. I see the strength of trapper but it weakens BBE and Coco hits by having that instead of visionaries. Aside from this Visionaries is MUCH more important in Jund because it doesn't run canopies for draw power.
2 Forest is also very risky against decks that runs Path or Blood Moon.
You'll find that at the moment BBE is the talk amongst us Elfies. The unbanning has given us a new avenue that most of us here are excited to explore. Incase you're wondering this is why you won't see much discussion on GW Combo. Feel free to chime in.
Blood Crypt acts as a colorless land in that regard. It sacrifices the utility we would get from a true colorless land like Westvale for consistency. That's the way I see it anyways.
Aside from that it is after all an extra land and just like other Elf builds we never needed the 15th green source for creatures.
That being said, a 5th fetch is by no means a bad idea. It's what I was originally going for.
Just my 2 cents.
Couldn't have said it better myself. As great as the deck seems on paper, I think there is still some room for tuning the mb.
More specifically, there are two problems I have been having with the deck. The first is the mana base. The deck always needs to have red and black mana on the field in the event of me having or potentially drawing into a Shaman/BBE.
Here's an example I faced. I fetched early on for an overgrown tomb because I had Shaman in my opening hand. Makes sense right? Well I had no way to generate red mana incase I drew into BBE - which I did. Because I had no red mana I could not use BBE on T3/T4 BBE. I lost because of this.
The same situation happened when it was the other way around. I had a BBE in my opener then fetched for Stomping ground with no way to generate black for Shaman and lost because of that as well.
It could have been a really bad day and quite frankly it was only one day of testing so there's not much data but I personally rather be safe than sorry. Here's my solution.
Brace yourself because it's a bit painful. I think adding a Blood Crypt as the 19th land is optimal. Blood Crypt is great in those situations when you need both colors and already have a forest on the field. Why do we need a 19th land? Great question.
Here is the second problem I was facing. It was not drawing enough lands to consistently have 3/4 lands by T4/5. This is a problem when we have 8 4cmc cards. I think 19 lands will give is that safety net we need.
TS: I think the 4th TS is more important now than before with the replacement of Chord for BBE. BBE being able to cascade into noncreature spells like TS could be life or death in an open meta where you could potentially play against combo.
Also BBE into Collective Brutality is a missed opportunity I think we should take advantage of.
I'm with Syreal94 on this one. I like Domri in our deck but Jund just cannot afford the space IMHO. For GRx it would make sense because by not having Shamans it has much more room and flexibility in both the MB and SB. The Naya list I posted intrigues me for this reason of space and flexibility - also Kessig Wolf Run is Nuts. I think there's still room for innovation with GRx builds and that's pretty exciting.
I also agree with Syreal94 on GBx builds relying primarily on a noncreature sb. The Jund list I posted has a version of what I think is most optimal to have a fighting chance in an open meta. For metas that I'm familiar with I would obviously try to adapt my sb.
It's important to note that when comparing BBE to Collected Company we're not trying to replace it but instead figure out a better card in the spot of Chord of Calling for Shaman builds. Anybody who has played GB in the past knows that having Chord has never been the plan to having a winning chance against fast decks. If you guys want to win against fast decks then play GW Combo. You can't have your cake and eat it.
@Worldsaverinc
No Company will make the deck too slow. Being able to cheat out two creatures at instant speed is still much more powerful than chaining Sylvan into BBEs. As I said, we don't want to replace Company. After all that's the card that put us in the map in the first place - hence the name of this thread.
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
1 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Shaman of the Pack
4 Collected Company
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fatal Push
2 Fracturing Gust
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Thoughtseize
For the crazies that wanna do Naya over GW combo, here's a list I tuned. I found that it really only needs white for eidolon and ethersworn which are nuts against storm/ad nauseum.
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Collected Company
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Blood Moon
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Elvish Champion
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Relic of Progenitus
This Naya list kinda reminds me of Andrew Sullano's GW Elf Company list he placed with a few years ago. It was purely focused on going wide and overrunning. I really like Kessig in here that I even thought about adding a 19th land as the 2nd copy.
I've been thinking more on RG. Is Red sufficient for such a broad meta? It seems like it would falter quickly against fast decks. I'm thinking Naya would be better for white's silver bullets. The manabase ratio will be the same as the one you posted for Jund - which I agree with entirely - except Red will be the leading color for bolt, blood moon, etc.
Both Jund and Naya seem strong on paper. Jund has the strength of SotP, hand disruption, and efficient removal whereas Naya has the strength of bolt/atarkas and strong silver bullets (magus/blood moon, eidolon/ethersworn, kataki, selfless, etc) but nothing to contribute to the strong Elf synergy like SotP. I believe if the meta is full of midrange/control then Jund would be the clear choice; however, if the meta is full of tron/combo then Naya would be better suited. With that being said it raises the question of: Would Naya BBE be worth running over GW Combo when both decks have the same 'good' match ups? I'm personally leaning towards no based on GW Combo's several competitive REL top 8 finishes.
In any case I think for the rest of this month Jund is most optimal because the majority of players are feeding on the hype of Jund Midrange and UWx Control.
There's also no reason to fully revolve around BBE because that's only one card in a deck that's already been performing for years without it. Going aggro with Talara's and Wren's Run is an entirely different strategy that hasn't had success in the past afaik. This deck's strategy is still to be explosive, go wide, and use our big mana spells (coco/bbe/chord) to threaten lethal.
Edit: RG does look interesting with BBE into Atarkas. Maybe the aggressive strategy (wrens run, talara's) would work with that color combination.