I personally haven't tried it out, but I imagine you'd want to run the full 8 discard spells and at least 6 removal spells.
Why do you say that? Since most lists run very few creatures, Myth will trigger off almost everything already. The downside of running too much discard and removal is that there is a high chance it will end up stranded in your hand, vs. just running more token generators and anthems that are never dead.
I have been looking at him as insurance against sweepers and a potential finisher, especially in lists with Elspeth Knight-Errant to give him evasion. He also has the side benefit of making people think twice about blowing up your anthems vs. blowing him up.
During your end step, "beginning of end step" triggers happen. Those resolve, then you pass priority, then your Twin opponent gets priority and combos off. Yes the copies enter tapped, but since end step triggers have already resolved, the tokens do not die. You each pass priority again and the turn ends. Opponent untaps their million tokens and beats your face in.
I like the Purphoros, God of the Forge and i also put it in the deck, but that was the first card my friends reacted on when i asked advice on what to change. Their reason was that it was to much of a win-more card and its a little slow. But i actually think it can work with all the tokengenerating. I think it was Marc Nestico or Higgs on Starcity who posted a decktech from a dailyevent who whent really well and that mardu-list included purph in sideboard. So i would say, if its not to slow it could at least be a 1-off try in sideboard against control-matchups. I dont see any reason to ny try atleast:)
Sure Purphoros is slow, but in a deck that is not trying to race in the first place that matters a lot less than it would if you were trying to e.g. jam him into Zoo. I view him as a stalemate breaker. Let's say you are playing against Junk and you are both topdecking, but you have a Purphoros out. They play a Souls and pass. You play a Souls, and now they can't attack into you AND have just taken 4 damage. That is essentially shortening your clock by 2 turns, and after you both flashback the next turn you are still at board parity but they have taken 8 more damage than you. Same thing with control matchups where a significant percent of the time you are going to have to burn them out once they stabilize at 5 life - not only does it give you more outs by turning many more cards into burn, but it guarantees you value by front-loading damage so you don't get wrecked by Electrolyze/Forked Bolt/sweepers. I really think these types of value edges are what make Mardu work since it is never going to win the raw card advantage game.
I have been looking at something extremely similar as I have been playing an RW version of this for a while. My main advice is to be careful not to shave your threats too much, this deck has a high potential to clear the board but then sit there for 5 turns doing nothing.
Tasigur is out of place since you can't activate his ability.
Wall of Omens is mostly a meta call, depending on whether you need to prevent an early death against Boggles, Infect or Zoo. I have played between 0-3 and they have ranged from great to useless. The upside is that that they are never really dead draws since they replace themselves.
I am not sure about Chandra and Ajani. Chandra's card advantage is a bit of a siren song; it's not really strong enough on its own since it is a big tempo hit to get going, so her value really depends on how many X/1s she can pick off. If you face a lot of Bobs, Snapcasters, Pyros she can be worth it. Ajani is randomly good but I have found him to frequently rot in hand. Sorin, Solemn Visitor is worth looking at I think.
Resto and Splicer are an underrated combo, in my experience people hate playing against them. I would run a full 4 of each since they are good enough on their own and great together.
Finks is an enigma - it seems great with Resto, but in practice might be a bit slow. I think it loses some luster in decks without Butcher.
I dont like Graven Cairns but I need to test more to determine what to change.
Cairns should probably be Rugged Prairie as that will help with more spells. 5 buddy lands also seems like a lot to me. The land base I am working with for my version that also needs double red/double white:
What meta have you been playing this list against? It looks good, I just have some concerns about some of the matchups at my LGS. Having only IoK instead of Thoughtseize is scary since I face a lot of Bloom Titan and Tron, also has the downside of not catching Cruise/Dig. The latter two are less of a concern since Mardu Charm does get them mostly in time, but there is a good chance a Titan or Karn will be in play before I could Charm them away. Also wondering how the matchup is against Big Zoo, I have trouble with it with my Boros Midrange as I can control the ground early but then get overwhelmed by KotR/Goyf/Smiter if my draw is too durdly, which it frequently is and looks like this list is as well (though Night's Whisper helps some). I think that's why I am interested in Butcher of the Horde, he lets you durdle around and then take over the game quickly, vs. planeswalkers are a much more grindy victory.
I could see possibly replacing it with something else like Wall of Omens but that would be making an entirely different deck.
Yeah, the reason I ask is that the current iteration of my list is deciding between YP or Wall of Omens/Nyx-Fleece Ram/Spellskite. It seems the choice is between free early wins or less early losses, maybe it is meta dependent. There is a fair amount of zoo and delver at my LGS so walls look more enticing than they should.
I've been having some decent luck with this version. I'm finding with so much Burn and UR Delver with Pyromancer tokens that Liliana is just not that good and I've been finding that running my own Pyromancers is better than running Bob's, especially since the deck runs 25 (29 if you include the flashback on Lingering Souls) instants and sorceries. Running Anger's main deck also helps with the pod matchup and is a nice reset button when an opposing board state becomes too overwhelming.
How have you found the combination of Young Pyro and Anger? To me it seems like it will lead to some super awkward situations where you really need to wipe your opponent's board but can't due to having a YP on board and no replacement threats in hand. Obviously YP has the upside that it can just win games (though that is more rare in a land of Delver hate), just curious if it is worth the nonbo.
Dead Drop seems bad against Bogles. If you are still alive by the time you can cast it you are winning anyway. Engineered Explosives and Spellskite are pretty flexible, and useful in that matchup.
I'd suggest looking at the RW Lockdown thread for ideas - it's a superfriends deck like this, but with a different control approach.
Off hand I would say be careful not to make the deck too durdly - if you are trading largely 1:1 you are eventually going to fall behind. If it's turn 5 and there is a clear board, your clock is still very slow giving your opponent time to claw back into the game. My intuition is that this needs to play the opposite of a BGx deck - kill everything then drop a quick clock, rather than drop a Goyf then kill everything. Planeswalkers can be bombs in the right situations, but can also rot in your hand - you have to be ahead on board before you cast them, the ones in this list are not great at getting you back into the game with the exception of Ajani on occasion. I'd look for a few ways to quickly close out the game here - luckily there are lots of options in these colors (Butcher, Baneslayer, Stormbreath, Thundermaw, Batterskull, etc). The options with lifelink are particularly good since against Delver, Zoo and Burn you are going to be at super low life by turn 4.
You may also want 24 lands - if you miss your 3rd land drop you are dead against a good amount of decks.
Midrange decks in general running Liliana and Bob are completely outclassed by Ancestral Recall, but I don't think there's a ton we can do at the moment. If we still want to play this deck I think we should stick to our guns and wait for the inevitable ban on Cruise. We shouldn't be changing the entire foundation of the deck. You should just play a different deck for the time being.
This is true if you are trying to keep fighting with 1:1 attrition. However, these colors have the ability to gain card advantage in ways other than straight up draw or discard. Anger can mimic a TC as a 3-for-1, and the threat of it can kill your opponent's tempo by forcing them to hold on to creatures. A single hit from a lifelink Butcher is ~ 2 extra spells your opponent needs to draw. The already-discussed Ajani that can also act as a 3-for-1. Lingering Souls buys two turns or 2-for-1's Forked Bolt.
I feel like BWR has the best possibilities to be tuned to the current meta for those who don't want to throw in the towel and play blue. I guess it's up to your interpretation as to whether turning it from a Bwr attrition deck into a WRb x-for-1/over-the-top deck sullies the name, but if there are ways to improve the deck for the moment why not try?
How many lands do you guys run? I run 23 and am thinking of bumping it up to 25.
It will depend on how many double colors you need and how many 4-drops you have.
For me, I start my mana bases with:
23 if I need one double color and have <4 4-drops.
24 if I need two double colors and/or have ~6 4-drops.
25 if I need three double colors and/or have 8+ 4-drops.
The way I have been thinking about this is essentially as a Rock-style deck, which have often been about one mana source heavy. When every card I play will have an impact on the game, I want to be able to cast things on time. If I flood a bit it sucks, but then the next spell I draw will generally help me catch up.
I am currently on Boros and agree that the filter lands are really nice for getting two double colors. Looking to make the switch to Mardu, I am skeptical about the prospect of consistently getting the triple-double on turn 3 with the mana bases I have seen here. Going off of Frank Karsten's article statistically they shouldn't work, but if color screw comes up less in reality than in theory (essentially due to fetching colors to play what's in your hand vs. what could be in your hand) it would ease some of my fears.
How do the mana bases work out for the decks wanting to be able to drop Lilliana, Brimaz/Finks and Anger on T3? You would theoretically need 19 sources of each color; I found it challenging to make a base that supports only Anger and Brimaz with 25 lands without resorting to taplands, and obviously it ended up being a super painful base.
Why do you say that? Since most lists run very few creatures, Myth will trigger off almost everything already. The downside of running too much discard and removal is that there is a high chance it will end up stranded in your hand, vs. just running more token generators and anthems that are never dead.
I have been looking at him as insurance against sweepers and a potential finisher, especially in lists with Elspeth Knight-Errant to give him evasion. He also has the side benefit of making people think twice about blowing up your anthems vs. blowing him up.
Sure Purphoros is slow, but in a deck that is not trying to race in the first place that matters a lot less than it would if you were trying to e.g. jam him into Zoo. I view him as a stalemate breaker. Let's say you are playing against Junk and you are both topdecking, but you have a Purphoros out. They play a Souls and pass. You play a Souls, and now they can't attack into you AND have just taken 4 damage. That is essentially shortening your clock by 2 turns, and after you both flashback the next turn you are still at board parity but they have taken 8 more damage than you. Same thing with control matchups where a significant percent of the time you are going to have to burn them out once they stabilize at 5 life - not only does it give you more outs by turning many more cards into burn, but it guarantees you value by front-loading damage so you don't get wrecked by Electrolyze/Forked Bolt/sweepers. I really think these types of value edges are what make Mardu work since it is never going to win the raw card advantage game.
Tasigur is out of place since you can't activate his ability.
Wall of Omens is mostly a meta call, depending on whether you need to prevent an early death against Boggles, Infect or Zoo. I have played between 0-3 and they have ranged from great to useless. The upside is that that they are never really dead draws since they replace themselves.
I am not sure about Chandra and Ajani. Chandra's card advantage is a bit of a siren song; it's not really strong enough on its own since it is a big tempo hit to get going, so her value really depends on how many X/1s she can pick off. If you face a lot of Bobs, Snapcasters, Pyros she can be worth it. Ajani is randomly good but I have found him to frequently rot in hand. Sorin, Solemn Visitor is worth looking at I think.
Resto and Splicer are an underrated combo, in my experience people hate playing against them. I would run a full 4 of each since they are good enough on their own and great together.
Finks is an enigma - it seems great with Resto, but in practice might be a bit slow. I think it loses some luster in decks without Butcher.
Cairns should probably be Rugged Prairie as that will help with more spells. 5 buddy lands also seems like a lot to me. The land base I am working with for my version that also needs double red/double white:
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Clifftop Retreat
2x Godless Shrine
3x Marsh Flats
1x Mountain
2x Plains
3x Rugged Prairie
3x Sacred Foundry
1x Swamp
1) Trying to break Butcher of the Horde
2) Some people hate playing blue
Yeah, the reason I ask is that the current iteration of my list is deciding between YP or Wall of Omens/Nyx-Fleece Ram/Spellskite. It seems the choice is between free early wins or less early losses, maybe it is meta dependent. There is a fair amount of zoo and delver at my LGS so walls look more enticing than they should.
How have you found the combination of Young Pyro and Anger? To me it seems like it will lead to some super awkward situations where you really need to wipe your opponent's board but can't due to having a YP on board and no replacement threats in hand. Obviously YP has the upside that it can just win games (though that is more rare in a land of Delver hate), just curious if it is worth the nonbo.
Dead Drop seems bad against Bogles. If you are still alive by the time you can cast it you are winning anyway. Engineered Explosives and Spellskite are pretty flexible, and useful in that matchup.
Off hand I would say be careful not to make the deck too durdly - if you are trading largely 1:1 you are eventually going to fall behind. If it's turn 5 and there is a clear board, your clock is still very slow giving your opponent time to claw back into the game. My intuition is that this needs to play the opposite of a BGx deck - kill everything then drop a quick clock, rather than drop a Goyf then kill everything. Planeswalkers can be bombs in the right situations, but can also rot in your hand - you have to be ahead on board before you cast them, the ones in this list are not great at getting you back into the game with the exception of Ajani on occasion. I'd look for a few ways to quickly close out the game here - luckily there are lots of options in these colors (Butcher, Baneslayer, Stormbreath, Thundermaw, Batterskull, etc). The options with lifelink are particularly good since against Delver, Zoo and Burn you are going to be at super low life by turn 4.
You may also want 24 lands - if you miss your 3rd land drop you are dead against a good amount of decks.
This is true if you are trying to keep fighting with 1:1 attrition. However, these colors have the ability to gain card advantage in ways other than straight up draw or discard. Anger can mimic a TC as a 3-for-1, and the threat of it can kill your opponent's tempo by forcing them to hold on to creatures. A single hit from a lifelink Butcher is ~ 2 extra spells your opponent needs to draw. The already-discussed Ajani that can also act as a 3-for-1. Lingering Souls buys two turns or 2-for-1's Forked Bolt.
I feel like BWR has the best possibilities to be tuned to the current meta for those who don't want to throw in the towel and play blue. I guess it's up to your interpretation as to whether turning it from a Bwr attrition deck into a WRb x-for-1/over-the-top deck sullies the name, but if there are ways to improve the deck for the moment why not try?
It will depend on how many double colors you need and how many 4-drops you have.
For me, I start my mana bases with:
23 if I need one double color and have <4 4-drops.
24 if I need two double colors and/or have ~6 4-drops.
25 if I need three double colors and/or have 8+ 4-drops.
The way I have been thinking about this is essentially as a Rock-style deck, which have often been about one mana source heavy. When every card I play will have an impact on the game, I want to be able to cast things on time. If I flood a bit it sucks, but then the next spell I draw will generally help me catch up.