I run Concordant Crossroads in my (still under construction) Mazirek deck. It's not a creature, but it's super cheap to cast! It does grant everyone's creatures haste, sadly, but I wouldn't use it unless I was swinging for the hills that turn anyway.
Jare will be happy to know that I went back to Thoughtseize and Mutavault after switching to the green splash. Here's the latest list on which I'm focusing my testing. It performs pretty well.
I like the list! How's 24 lands going for you? I think we might be able to get away with it, especially if we use Temple of Mystery over Breeding Grounds for draw fixing, but I'm not sure. And only one Pack Rat? Just asking why.
I see the point - if devotion is what you want for Gray Merchant, why play anything that isn't a permanent? I just worry about the removal suite, and especially that Thoughtseize is in sideboard - UW/Esper Control will rip this apart I think.
What about being hit by removal? It's not very far-fetched to see two of Cackler, Shred-Freak or DD biting it to Devour Flesh or Far//Away or something, or even getting countered. Esper Control is very much a thing, and MBD packs plenty of kill spells too.
A deck that A) needs to have as much devotion on the board as possible, and B) needs to keep as much of it as possible when T5 rolls around, seems very open to disruption. MBD can afford to take its time with Thoughtseize to ruin an opponent's answers, and a bunch of kill spells to keep the board relatively open for whatever it does put down. But if you're running mostly threats and less removal, how are you going to answer a bigger creature that you don't have a Doom Blade in hand for? How much draw do you have to keep you in the match? What creatures besides the mentioned do you run, and how many, and why did you choose them and not similar ones?
We can't tell without a decklist, can we? And what's the point of discussing it at all if you're not going to tell us what's in it?
And what's wrong with discussing splash? It's still built around Gray Merchant and Black Devotion. Or should we have a new Primer thread for every splash variant?
Turn one: Cackler
Turn 2: shredfreak
Turn 3: remove a blocker/drop Dark Prophesy/Underworld Connections/etc
4: DD or LR
5: Gary
How is this bad?
Week after week, I won. And I play online, so the vast majority of my winnings go to IRL folks.
T1: Cackler
T2: BTE, BTE, Firefist Striker, swing for 2.
T3: Chandra's Phoenix. If Firefist is not dead, ignore a blocker. Swing for up to ten!
T4: Fanatic of Moglis. If all of the above creatures are alive, they take nine damage and are now dead. If they aren't, you can still swing for ten again, then fourteen next turn, and that's after you play any other haste creatures or burn spells.
RDW has tons of haste creatures, can spew out several creatures on T2 with Burning-Tree Emissary which also makes it harder to slow down, has reach in the form of burn, and can bring back Chandra's Phoenix over and over again with that burn (or Chandra, Pyromaster). What can you do that RDW can't? Given an exact same situation, where do you succeed where RDW fails?
i like you list a lot but i cant imagine not running 4 underworld connections in the main deck. maybe cut the devour flesh from the main deck and run it ?
Totally! It's basically a concession to the faster decks in my meta, swapping Devour Flesh for UC (I like having two DF in the list, it lets us kill a lone Blood Baron and technically has no target restrictions like Ultimate Price or Doom Blade) would work fine.
Four Pack Rats should work pretty well. We now know that it's a lot better than just land-flooding protection, so by all means give it a go. I was thinking of piloting a version with three Pack Rats and no Erebos mainboard - I feel he's only really great in the mirror, you run the risk of him being a pretty dead drop if you don't have enough devotion, and with all our UCs we have better draw options almost all of the time. I'll keep two in sideboard.
Also, on BG, I was also thinking more about Fade into Antiquity, and i'm not sure about it now. We can grind out the mirror with our own Ereboses, destroy UC with Abrupt Decay, and destroy Whips AND UC with Golgari Charm, so we have a better than even chance there generally. Against mono-blue, with our removal, we can play around Thassa, or even lay Pithing Needle to turn off the unblockable ability. Not sure about the other Gods, any thoughts?
The main reason I like Putrefy over additional 2cmc removal is that it's never dead whereas the others often are. Hero's Downfall #4 might be correct; the split is a hedge that Abrupt Decay will often be relevant against the planeswalkers I'd like to Downfall.
Lifebane has never been bad for me mainboard. Worst case he's either unblockable or trades with an attacker while giving me information. He does get sided out in matchups where he won't hit, but I think he pulls generalist duties well.
The only fast deck I've seen that concerns me is RDW; nobody seems to be playing it around here though.
This is fair enough - I do see a bit of RDW in my meta (my partner runs it, among others, so it's right there at home for me to test with), so I prefer to have more and faster removal (I now side out a UC, so it used to be a 4H'sD/3AD/2UP/2DF split). And yeah, Abrupt Decay will take out Ashiok or Domri (and Ajani, but I haven't seen anyone play it yet!). I really want to play Putrefy, so I think I'll compromise with something like this:
I don't quite want to go with Lifebane Zombie just yet, probably because I'll cut the slower removal for it anyway (and a Specter, of course). I'll toy around with having two in main and one in side, putting more removal in the SB to compensate if I need it.
Uh I don't think you have the right list that I was running. I was running BBDs GP list -1 Pack Rat in the board +1 Lifebane Zombie and -2 Mutavaults +1 Nykthos + 1 Swamp are the only changes. So Zombies were in the board, with 4 specter 4 downfall 4 connections main at the 3 CMC spot, so only 12 3 CMC spells mainboard in that spot and I usually took out some combination of Connections and/or Specters for the Zombies to prevent the 3 CMC spot getting too crowded (though against control it doesn't really matter since you board out dead removal for Duress, Needle, and Zombie).
Argh sorry, I did quote the wrong thing there I run twelve 3CMC also.
Meant to ask Psiven, this is what I get for posting late:
IMHO Prophetic Prism is way too cute in a deck where the ONLY card that warrants any type of mana fixing is Nightveil Specter. I could see it in a deck also running Dark Prophecy but that's really consigning yourself to mega-durdle. I mean combine that with Underworld Connections and you're running as many as 16 early drops that do absolutely nothing for potentially more than one turn. I already feel pretty durdly as it is...
Went 4-0 tonight at FNM (shortened due to PTQ tomorrow). Loving this deck.
Planned Changes:
-1 Devour Flesh (SB)
+1 Erebos, God of the Dead, Pack Rat, or Duress? (SB)
Not sure. I realized when I started sideboarding that I don't feel like there's a great place to stick the third Devour Flesh in, even against Blood Baron decks. Hard to say how I feel about Reaper of the Wilds because I haven't encountered any true aggro that I'd bring it in for.
Round 1: vs. UW Control
These games were the most interesting, I think. He had an extremely large number of counterspells, and I was playing around them the entire time and getting in with Mutavault when the coast was clear. Drew plenty of discard to keep him off Sphinx's Revelation, so the inevitability was always mine. Abrupt Decaying Detention Sphere is one of my favorite plays, with so many ways to trick block or surprise attack. At one point it looked like he might get away with ticking up a Jace to ultimate but I fought through triple Dissolve to Downfall it. 1-0 (2-0)
Round 2: vs. BW Midrange
This one was not much of a match unfortunately. Game 1 he kept a one-lander and drew dead. Game 2 he had a better hand until I Thoughtseized everything that mattered. He scooped early, but the writing was on the wall. 2-0 (4-0)
Round 3: vs. BW Midrange
This guy caught me a bit off-guard with lots of small white creatures (Precinct Captain and the 2/1 pro-multicolor guy) but Blood Baron was surprisingly easy to deal with; it resolved in both games that I won but was easily raced with Whip and Merchant. I think BW really needs to have all three to stand a chance here. My loss was on a pretty nasty mulligan to 4. As I sideboarded against these BW decks I realized that I don't really want a third Devour Flesh in there because I have no idea what I'd take out for it. 3-0 (6-1)
Round 4: vs. BWR Midrange
Rakdos's Return hurt me a couple times here as we took turns killing each others' only creatures, but Whip was the all-star that won it, so as long as I resolved that before RR landed I was good. Game 1 ended with a Whipped Merchant. Game 2 saw me keep a 7-land hand for no real reason (we'd already agreed to split it) and Game 3 was another Whipped Merchant for the kill. 4-0 (8-2)
I also played against a few decks on Cockatrice earlier: Dimir Mill/Control: Caught me by surprise, I won game 1 on the sheer luck of Mind Grind for 4 hitting 4 land in the 14 cards left in my library. Once I knew what I was looking for, Pithing Needle and Duress came in and his spells were hosed. This is a pretty awkward matchup as we have lots of draw power we don't necessarily want to use, but it's too vulnerable on the board. Red Devotion: I lost one game to a very fast draw against my mulligan/stumble, but overall I felt like it was pretty easy to disrupt their devotion and kill enough of their threats that Desecration Demon got to stay up as a blocker. They really need more burn spells to stop us from stonewalling them, so I don't fear this deck nearly as much as traditional RDW. GR Devotion: Domri sure doesn't live long here. I don't know how tuned his list was, but I didn't see any unusual card choices. Just had more than enough removal to strip all relevant threats while presenting the beatdown. I am generally more threatened by the versions that go heavy on Reach, which I didn't see here.
I really want to like your list (yay Putrefy!), but fifteen 3CMC cards gives me cold sweats. I feel like any deck that plays fast is going to make a mess of you - I'd rather run Ultimate Price and Devour Flesh than Putrefy, and I'm not sure if cutting a Hero's Downfall is a good idea. I also feel Lifebane Zombie is too risky to mainboard. Why did you go with what you did?
Another Fade, and another Granite too, make some room for it. A single one of either isn't going to be much use, you'll almost never have it when you need it. I've never been to hot on Pharika's Cure, but it's pretty much a meta call. Otherwise it should be fine!
I really want to like your list (yay Putrefy!), but fifteen 3CMC cards gives me cold sweats. I feel like any deck that plays fast is going to make a mess of you - I'd rather run Ultimate Price and Devour Flesh than Putrefy, and I'm not sure if cutting a Hero's Downfall is a good idea. I also feel Lifebane Zombie is too risky to mainboard. Why did you go with what you did?
Well, if you're going to ask, you should probably have a sideboard to move things around! If you wanted help with one, though, there are a few good things to have in the side.
Lifebane Zombie is excellent against any Green list (like GW aggro or R/G stuff), I run three in SB and swap with Nightveil Specter.
Erebos, God of the Dead is a great agains other MBC decks and BW Midrange mostly, I have one each in MB and SB, you could swap out a DD or Reaper.
Pithing Needle hoses down planeswalkers, AEtherling and the unblockable ability of Thassa, and a few other cards too, very cheaply. Take out some removal for it, I run two in SB.
Duress is a powerful counterpart to Thoughtseize against control and other noncreature-heavy decks, have two or three in SB and swap it with Doom Blade or other creature-only removal (as it's pretty dead against control).
As you're splashing Green, Gaze of Granite is a nice sweeper. It can hit our stuff too, but it's been brought up that it works best against decks that rely on one-and-two drop permanents (as we only have one in Pack Rat). Fade into Antiquity and Golgari Charm can also find uses, the former killing gods (and Erebos is very dangerous against us), and the latter able to kill any non-God enchantment, save your guys from a Supreme Verdict or sweep Master of Waves and his tokens away.
Basically, with the help of a little Green, we have a lot of SB options that help us cover up our weaknesses.
It's most useful against something like RDW or other decks that spew out their hands and don't have too much draw power (apart from planeswalkers, but we have Hero's Downfall and evasive creatures for them too). If we can keep a few options (and possibly another Underworld Connections) in our hand, we can wipe the board and try to recover from there, especially if the situation is bad anyway. This deck could really use something like Mutilate, and this is as good as we can get right now.
Basically the two big reasons to splash green are:
A) gaining access to a sweeper in Gaze of Granite, and
B) gaining access to more flexible removal.
Here's the list I use now. Compared to BBD's list, the changes are pretty minimal: Swamps out to accommodate nine green sources; changes to removal for Abrupt Decay to come in; and room in the sideboard for two each of Gaze of Granite and Fade into Antiquity (again, tossing mostly other removal).
Basically, the deck now works much better in the mirror without sacrificing any power against other decks. By pitching Ultimate Price for Abrupt Decay, we've slightly hurt our ability to kill monocloured creatures but gained literally every permanent 3CMC or less as targets, and it can't be countered!
And in the side, Gaze of Granite is a nice sweeper card that can get us out of a lot of trouble, and Fade into Antiquity annihilates any enchantment in play (Thassa, Bident, Erebos and Whip being most relevant), which is just priceless.
I think we gain much more than we lose by splashing Green, and when the BG scryland rolls around, we'll gain even more.
And without losing a single black source, we've gained a way to kill the Gods (great in mirror, an enemy Erebos is disastrous for us), gained one of the best removal cards ever in Abrupt Decay (it also hits Hammer, Spear and Bow, enemy Underworld Connections, and danger cards like Boros Reckoner, and can't be countered), and also gained access to an alternate four-drop in Reaper of the Wilds if more answers pop up for Desecration Demon. We could rework the deck to have ramp with Sylvan Caryatid, or put in Scavenging Ooze because that thing is just a house anyway (though I'd rather stick to the main plan). You could even use Vraska the Unseen if you want! Additionally, each of these cards only have a single G in them, so we only ever need a single dual on the field. And once the BG scrylands come in (I think next set?), the list only gets stronger.
(Still gonna pray to Erebos for proper black sweeper though!)
I like the list! How's 24 lands going for you? I think we might be able to get away with it, especially if we use Temple of Mystery over Breeding Grounds for draw fixing, but I'm not sure. And only one Pack Rat? Just asking why.
I've trimmed it down the best I could, going with maximum amounts of the higher percentage stuff.
4 Mutavault
20 Swamp
//Spells
2 Doom Blade
2 Hero's Downfall
1 Whip of Erebos
//Creatures
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Lifebane Zombie
3 Mogis's Marauder
2 Pack Rat
3 Rakdos Cackler
3 Rakdos Shred-Freak
4 Thrill-Kill Assassin
3 Tormented Hero
2 Xathrid Necromancer
2 Devour Flesh
2 Doom Blade
2 Duress
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Pharika's Cure
4 Thoughtseize
I see the point - if devotion is what you want for Gray Merchant, why play anything that isn't a permanent? I just worry about the removal suite, and especially that Thoughtseize is in sideboard - UW/Esper Control will rip this apart I think.
What about being hit by removal? It's not very far-fetched to see two of Cackler, Shred-Freak or DD biting it to Devour Flesh or Far//Away or something, or even getting countered. Esper Control is very much a thing, and MBD packs plenty of kill spells too.
A deck that A) needs to have as much devotion on the board as possible, and B) needs to keep as much of it as possible when T5 rolls around, seems very open to disruption. MBD can afford to take its time with Thoughtseize to ruin an opponent's answers, and a bunch of kill spells to keep the board relatively open for whatever it does put down. But if you're running mostly threats and less removal, how are you going to answer a bigger creature that you don't have a Doom Blade in hand for? How much draw do you have to keep you in the match? What creatures besides the mentioned do you run, and how many, and why did you choose them and not similar ones?
We can't tell without a decklist, can we? And what's the point of discussing it at all if you're not going to tell us what's in it?
And what's wrong with discussing splash? It's still built around Gray Merchant and Black Devotion. Or should we have a new Primer thread for every splash variant?
T1: Cackler
T2: BTE, BTE, Firefist Striker, swing for 2.
T3: Chandra's Phoenix. If Firefist is not dead, ignore a blocker. Swing for up to ten!
T4: Fanatic of Moglis. If all of the above creatures are alive, they take nine damage and are now dead. If they aren't, you can still swing for ten again, then fourteen next turn, and that's after you play any other haste creatures or burn spells.
RDW has tons of haste creatures, can spew out several creatures on T2 with Burning-Tree Emissary which also makes it harder to slow down, has reach in the form of burn, and can bring back Chandra's Phoenix over and over again with that burn (or Chandra, Pyromaster). What can you do that RDW can't? Given an exact same situation, where do you succeed where RDW fails?
Totally! It's basically a concession to the faster decks in my meta, swapping Devour Flesh for UC (I like having two DF in the list, it lets us kill a lone Blood Baron and technically has no target restrictions like Ultimate Price or Doom Blade) would work fine.
Also, on BG, I was also thinking more about Fade into Antiquity, and i'm not sure about it now. We can grind out the mirror with our own Ereboses, destroy UC with Abrupt Decay, and destroy Whips AND UC with Golgari Charm, so we have a better than even chance there generally. Against mono-blue, with our removal, we can play around Thassa, or even lay Pithing Needle to turn off the unblockable ability. Not sure about the other Gods, any thoughts?
This is fair enough - I do see a bit of RDW in my meta (my partner runs it, among others, so it's right there at home for me to test with), so I prefer to have more and faster removal (I now side out a UC, so it used to be a 4H'sD/3AD/2UP/2DF split). And yeah, Abrupt Decay will take out Ashiok or Domri (and Ajani, but I haven't seen anyone play it yet!). I really want to play Putrefy, so I think I'll compromise with something like this:
11 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Golgari Guildgate
2 Temple of Mystery
3 Mutavault
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
//Instants
1 Devour Flesh
2 Ultimate Price
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Hero's Downfall
2 Putrefy
4 Thoughtseize
//Enchantments
3 Underworld Connections
2 Whip of Erebos
//Creatures
2 Pack Rat
4 Nightveil Specter
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Lifebane Zombie
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Duress
1 Devour Flesh
1 Golgari Charm
2 Fade into Antiquity
2 Gaze of Granite
1 Underworld Connections
2 Pithing Needle
I don't quite want to go with Lifebane Zombie just yet, probably because I'll cut the slower removal for it anyway (and a Specter, of course). I'll toy around with having two in main and one in side, putting more removal in the SB to compensate if I need it.
Argh sorry, I did quote the wrong thing there I run twelve 3CMC also.
Meant to ask Psiven, this is what I get for posting late:
Another Fade, and another Granite too, make some room for it. A single one of either isn't going to be much use, you'll almost never have it when you need it. I've never been to hot on Pharika's Cure, but it's pretty much a meta call. Otherwise it should be fine!
I really want to like your list (yay Putrefy!), but fifteen 3CMC cards gives me cold sweats. I feel like any deck that plays fast is going to make a mess of you - I'd rather run Ultimate Price and Devour Flesh than Putrefy, and I'm not sure if cutting a Hero's Downfall is a good idea. I also feel Lifebane Zombie is too risky to mainboard. Why did you go with what you did?
Well, if you're going to ask, you should probably have a sideboard to move things around! If you wanted help with one, though, there are a few good things to have in the side.
Lifebane Zombie is excellent against any Green list (like GW aggro or R/G stuff), I run three in SB and swap with Nightveil Specter.
Erebos, God of the Dead is a great agains other MBC decks and BW Midrange mostly, I have one each in MB and SB, you could swap out a DD or Reaper.
I really like Devour Flesh with our removal - it can hit Blood Baron of Vizkopa or a monstrous Fleecemane Lion (assuming you couldn't Thoughtseize them away, of course), as long as there are no other creatures on the board.
Pithing Needle hoses down planeswalkers, AEtherling and the unblockable ability of Thassa, and a few other cards too, very cheaply. Take out some removal for it, I run two in SB.
Duress is a powerful counterpart to Thoughtseize against control and other noncreature-heavy decks, have two or three in SB and swap it with Doom Blade or other creature-only removal (as it's pretty dead against control).
As you're splashing Green, Gaze of Granite is a nice sweeper. It can hit our stuff too, but it's been brought up that it works best against decks that rely on one-and-two drop permanents (as we only have one in Pack Rat). Fade into Antiquity and Golgari Charm can also find uses, the former killing gods (and Erebos is very dangerous against us), and the latter able to kill any non-God enchantment, save your guys from a Supreme Verdict or sweep Master of Waves and his tokens away.
Basically, with the help of a little Green, we have a lot of SB options that help us cover up our weaknesses.
A) gaining access to a sweeper in Gaze of Granite, and
B) gaining access to more flexible removal.
Here's the list I use now. Compared to BBD's list, the changes are pretty minimal: Swamps out to accommodate nine green sources; changes to removal for Abrupt Decay to come in; and room in the sideboard for two each of Gaze of Granite and Fade into Antiquity (again, tossing mostly other removal).
12 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Golgari Guildgate
1 Temple of Mystery
3 Mutavault
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
//Instants
3 Doom Blade
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Hero's Downfall
4 Thoughtseize
//Enchantments
4 Underworld Connections
2 Whip of Erebos
//Creatures
2 Pack Rat
4 Nightveil Specter
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2 Devour Flesh
2 Duress
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Fade into Antiquity
2 Gaze of Granite
3 Lifebane Zombie
1 Pack Rat
2 Pithing Needle
Basically, the deck now works much better in the mirror without sacrificing any power against other decks. By pitching Ultimate Price for Abrupt Decay, we've slightly hurt our ability to kill monocloured creatures but gained literally every permanent 3CMC or less as targets, and it can't be countered!
We still have Devour Flesh in the sideboard to deal with Blood Baron of Vizkopa or hexproof stuff, or to switch with Doom Blade against black. Hell, there's a case for dumping Doom Blade altogether for a combination of Abrupt Decay, Hero's Downfall, Ultimate Price, Devour Flesh and even Putrefy if you want to.
And in the side, Gaze of Granite is a nice sweeper card that can get us out of a lot of trouble, and Fade into Antiquity annihilates any enchantment in play (Thassa, Bident, Erebos and Whip being most relevant), which is just priceless.
I think we gain much more than we lose by splashing Green, and when the BG scryland rolls around, we'll gain even more.
And without losing a single black source, we've gained a way to kill the Gods (great in mirror, an enemy Erebos is disastrous for us), gained one of the best removal cards ever in Abrupt Decay (it also hits Hammer, Spear and Bow, enemy Underworld Connections, and danger cards like Boros Reckoner, and can't be countered), and also gained access to an alternate four-drop in Reaper of the Wilds if more answers pop up for Desecration Demon. We could rework the deck to have ramp with Sylvan Caryatid, or put in Scavenging Ooze because that thing is just a house anyway (though I'd rather stick to the main plan). You could even use Vraska the Unseen if you want! Additionally, each of these cards only have a single G in them, so we only ever need a single dual on the field. And once the BG scrylands come in (I think next set?), the list only gets stronger.
(Still gonna pray to Erebos for proper black sweeper though!)