I can echo the sentiment on Smuggler's Copter and Windbrisk Height. The card draw to speed up the deck is desirable mid to late game and can be essential to closing out close games.
So what do we run?
I think it depends. My testing of Copter showed me two ways in which you can see the deck. The first relies on a swarm of creatures to get on the board and just repeatedly attack. These creatures overwhelm an opponent's ability to address them efficiently. In this type of build, Windrisk Heights would be preferred (and even Shambling Vent is not completely optimal: even Delver doesn't run man lands). In the second, the decklist plays an avoidance game. Between Shambling Vent, Gideon, the copter activations, it is difficult for your opponent to interact. Vent becomes preferred because the Copter acts as a draw filter and relies heavily upon the non interactions offered by Gideon and friends.
I agree that I wouldn't want 4, Wescoe ran 3 in his 2013 deck. You can fairly reliably get 3 creatures, especially with BB, Gideon, and Sorin and absent our normal creature suite.
I also found that when I wanted to run a bunch of copters, I ran into limits with lands. Wind brisk Heights solves that because it is a land and also can be card draw. BUT, it ETB tapped (but so does Shambling Vent).
I suppose we could ditch Spectral Procession and pick up Dark Confidant.
So, some things:
1) Smuggler's Copter is way better in the Wescoe build that he proposed with a control build. I tried it in a more conventional BW tokens build and it felt lackluster. The main thing that is missing from both builds is the anthem effect. Gideon by himself is just not enough of an anthem IMO. When we talk about Selfless Spirits vs. Copter, I would say we are talking about two different builds of tokens not which card is better in a vacuum. The whole deck building dynamic just becomes different with it.
2) If we see a rise in Abzan, Zealous Persecution gets way better.
3) Gideon is just better than Delver of Secrets.
4) As I play tested the new Wescoe build, I kept wondering if Fatal Push didn't just make the overall deck better and negate the need for Liliana.
I still like Copter, but it is noticeably weaker to Jund (something he noted). If there is a rise in Tron, I can see that deck combatting it successfully. If you don't want the investment in a new experience though:
I played a one of Creeping Tar Pit, and I agree that it was great on a stalled board FTW. I can't say if it was better or worse than a Desolate Lighthouse or even a Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge.
So I went back and forth on Gitaxian Probe too but find myself in the firmly "necessary" camp. One of the attractive things about Delver is the sheer efficiency of the deck. I think that the deck makes use of our resources (life, cards in hand, and graveyard) to the best effect. Probe fits because you use life to gain card advantage plus information. Tasigur fits because you use the yard to get creatures.
Can you run it without probe? Sure. But why would you give up a free card draw effect that has synergies with applying threats?
And, yes, I understand the life thing. But, again, you play it out right and you can be at 1-2 life and still win. The deck is built like a race car.
On an added note: further testing of the Wescoe list showed that it does worsen our Affinity and Jund matches (esp. Pre-board). BUT, I still 2-0 affinity (although I think he kept questionable hands). The games were slower and Lili made it easier to grind them out, but it was a very different match from what I am used to.
One thing that I was thinking after yesterday. What if the proper removal suite with Fatal Push should be 4 Fatal Push/3 Path to Exile. Path is still the best removal available, but the Exile clause isn't necessarily always relevant and Push will hit just about everything in modern without giving them land. Just a thought. It is probably up to individual meta.
I am not saying this build is the bee's knees, just that Wescoe is right when he says that smuggler's copter solves a lot of issues. I felt like Lili was actually better.
The downside is that you are forced to play a slower game. I found myself playing a more patient game where I might deploy some tokens and use them for guard duty to get a copter into play or Gideon later. But the synergies that developed were amazing and surprisingly hard for opponents to deal with to gain themselves an advantage.
I have been playing Craig Wescoe's build with a few modifications and Smuggler's Copter and the walkers build. It is very different and I am not decided on it. I like how it grinds out the match (even against UW control) and Jund, and provides way more value than either deck can generate on their own. Copter does some serious work and makes the tokens, manlands, and avoiding board wipes have more value. The deck really emphasizes non-interaction and prevent opponents from responding to our flooding the board. It both goes wide and runs one threat and since most decks run sorcery speed wipes, it evades removal so much as to make even the wipes irrelevant. It makes Gideon, BB, and Lingering Souls a turn faster as well. Plus, pissing away removal not the Copters is satisfying in the tempo race because we still net a token from the exchange.
I am going to continue testing it out.
But if they wipe your board, how would you crew it without a Bitterblossom in play? And against Jund, I could see Kolaghan's Command being a problem. Still, Smuggler's Copter is an interesting concept and I think I will start testing it as well.
When Fatal Push comes out, I will also revert back to a BW build from Mardu. The whole point of Mardu was to have better reactive spells and superior mana base, but now with the BW fastland and efficient 1-mana removal I no longer have any significant reason for running 3 colors.
Surprisingly easy and with a better come back than standard BW tokens: you have your Shambling Vent or Gideon drops a Knight Ally token and you crew with those. Don't forget that the Copter is immune to the wipe as are the effects that create tokens, so we just get more tokens later and use those to crew the copter. 4 copters with card filtering ends up being a good situation even when they kill one. I lost game 1 versus Jund but then had one guy rage quit and another just get slaughtered in games 2 and 3 (even with a mana screw on my part) with the copters. K-Command had some play, but they just couldn't keep up with the board resilience. I felt like, against Jund anyway, the Copter, walker, and other token generators just made K-Command worse than they would have expected. I mean, think about it, you play Gideon, drop the token, crew your copter and attack on turn 4. They K-Command in response killing the token and your copter. Okay. But I still have a couple of tokens in play and Gideon is still there. Or, I wrath the board myself, play Gideon next turn, and he drops the token and crews the copter. It was brutal.
One game the guy dropped the one mana enchantment giving all creatures -1/-1. I didn't play my Bitterblossom, but played Gideon and Copter. He had to concede to multiple copters, knight tokens, and shambling vents all being used to crew things and fly in for damage and card filtering. It got to the point where Lili hurt him more than me because I could afford the discard. This build actually made me happy to see Bob in play in all the games because he could draw cards, but they usually couldn't interact well and they caused him damage in 4/6 games.
And the UW matches were into multiple Sphinx's Revelations, Cryptic Commands, etc. and they were still losing the attrition war. UW couldn't wipe the board because there was no point.
Hidden Stockpile seems just okay. The problem would seem to be that it isn't going to be that consistent. Also, it forces using things at sorcery speed (like fetches). I think if the creatures were flying that might help. But, I have been wrong before.
So what do we run?
I think it depends. My testing of Copter showed me two ways in which you can see the deck. The first relies on a swarm of creatures to get on the board and just repeatedly attack. These creatures overwhelm an opponent's ability to address them efficiently. In this type of build, Windrisk Heights would be preferred (and even Shambling Vent is not completely optimal: even Delver doesn't run man lands). In the second, the decklist plays an avoidance game. Between Shambling Vent, Gideon, the copter activations, it is difficult for your opponent to interact. Vent becomes preferred because the Copter acts as a draw filter and relies heavily upon the non interactions offered by Gideon and friends.
I agree that I wouldn't want 4, Wescoe ran 3 in his 2013 deck. You can fairly reliably get 3 creatures, especially with BB, Gideon, and Sorin and absent our normal creature suite.
I also found that when I wanted to run a bunch of copters, I ran into limits with lands. Wind brisk Heights solves that because it is a land and also can be card draw. BUT, it ETB tapped (but so does Shambling Vent).
I suppose we could ditch Spectral Procession and pick up Dark Confidant.
1) Smuggler's Copter is way better in the Wescoe build that he proposed with a control build. I tried it in a more conventional BW tokens build and it felt lackluster. The main thing that is missing from both builds is the anthem effect. Gideon by himself is just not enough of an anthem IMO. When we talk about Selfless Spirits vs. Copter, I would say we are talking about two different builds of tokens not which card is better in a vacuum. The whole deck building dynamic just becomes different with it.
2) If we see a rise in Abzan, Zealous Persecution gets way better.
3) Gideon is just better than Delver of Secrets.
4) As I play tested the new Wescoe build, I kept wondering if Fatal Push didn't just make the overall deck better and negate the need for Liliana.
I still like Copter, but it is noticeably weaker to Jund (something he noted). If there is a rise in Tron, I can see that deck combatting it successfully. If you don't want the investment in a new experience though:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Marsh Flats
4 Godless Shrine
4 Concealed Courtyard
1 Swamp
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Plains
4 Bitterblossom
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Spectral Procession
4 Intangible Virtue
1 Zealous Persecution
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
Side:
3 Fulminator Mage
Playtesting in the past has shown this build is also pretty resilient and betters the tron matchup to maybe 40-60 pre and post board.
I haven't but I should start with it being a four of plus path. Might go lower but we will see
Pages back is the data on how much it improves the liklihood of the flip. Maybe it is time.
All of you who didn't run probe totally missed out. j/k
Heehee one mana removal being bad in standard. Heehee.
Can you run it without probe? Sure. But why would you give up a free card draw effect that has synergies with applying threats?
And, yes, I understand the life thing. But, again, you play it out right and you can be at 1-2 life and still win. The deck is built like a race car.
One thing that I was thinking after yesterday. What if the proper removal suite with Fatal Push should be 4 Fatal Push/3 Path to Exile. Path is still the best removal available, but the Exile clause isn't necessarily always relevant and Push will hit just about everything in modern without giving them land. Just a thought. It is probably up to individual meta.
The downside is that you are forced to play a slower game. I found myself playing a more patient game where I might deploy some tokens and use them for guard duty to get a copter into play or Gideon later. But the synergies that developed were amazing and surprisingly hard for opponents to deal with to gain themselves an advantage.
Surprisingly easy and with a better come back than standard BW tokens: you have your Shambling Vent or Gideon drops a Knight Ally token and you crew with those. Don't forget that the Copter is immune to the wipe as are the effects that create tokens, so we just get more tokens later and use those to crew the copter. 4 copters with card filtering ends up being a good situation even when they kill one. I lost game 1 versus Jund but then had one guy rage quit and another just get slaughtered in games 2 and 3 (even with a mana screw on my part) with the copters. K-Command had some play, but they just couldn't keep up with the board resilience. I felt like, against Jund anyway, the Copter, walker, and other token generators just made K-Command worse than they would have expected. I mean, think about it, you play Gideon, drop the token, crew your copter and attack on turn 4. They K-Command in response killing the token and your copter. Okay. But I still have a couple of tokens in play and Gideon is still there. Or, I wrath the board myself, play Gideon next turn, and he drops the token and crews the copter. It was brutal.
One game the guy dropped the one mana enchantment giving all creatures -1/-1. I didn't play my Bitterblossom, but played Gideon and Copter. He had to concede to multiple copters, knight tokens, and shambling vents all being used to crew things and fly in for damage and card filtering. It got to the point where Lili hurt him more than me because I could afford the discard. This build actually made me happy to see Bob in play in all the games because he could draw cards, but they usually couldn't interact well and they caused him damage in 4/6 games.
And the UW matches were into multiple Sphinx's Revelations, Cryptic Commands, etc. and they were still losing the attrition war. UW couldn't wipe the board because there was no point.