I don't really get snap caster mage as our best cards are playable from the graveyard anyway and two mana to get something out of the yard and a 2/1 is a lot weaker than 2 mana for 2 2/1s and 2 4/3s with haste for instance. What are you flashing back that would be worth taking off a turn you could be filling your yard or flooding the board with crawlers and vengevines?
Yeah, by the time I'm at 4 mana I'm swinging my whole board and using my mana on my second main phase to recur whatever died in combat, or I'm swinging for lethal, or I'm losing super badly and the game is out of reach anyway. I don't think that card does much for us
Depends on what the rest of your hand looks like, but generally you don't want to be putting no board presence on T1 and T2, so if you had a T2 grisly salvage or way finder, T1 gravecrawler is probably correct and then cast 2 creatures on T3. If you've got no vengevines to get into play and you're worried about saving your one drop to play T3 to "help trigger vengevines that could theoretically enter play" I have to think this is a hand you should have mulliganed. Ideally you've got a graveyard enabler and at least two other creatures minimum in your starting hand, and finding a third creature so you can cast 2 on your T3 to trigger venges you might have found T2 should be pretty easy. Sometimes you don't find those vines and you win by massive lotleth trolls and swarmed crawlers, or an early angler. I think T1 crawler is almost always preferable to doing nothing though
I'm running one copper line gorge over black leave cliffs because my most explosive openings require T1 BoP and it's nice to save 2 life on that turn. If I don't get that T1 BoP the value of the GR colour combo goes down quite a bit, while any black mana I realistically always want coming into play untapped. That's my rationale anyway, and while cliffs would be nice I'm not comfortable running more than a couple lands that could enter tapped anyway.
Ergo, copper line gorge for the "nice to have T1" colours, shocks for the "need to have T2 onwards" colours
As of late in my two flex spots, I tried Ghor Clan Rampager and Become Immense. Rampager is better for pushing through blocking creatures, but we have so many recurring threats that I didn't see a need for it.
This tends to be my thought. I've goin that in grindy games with stalled board states that we can usually trade with whatever chumps us then recur everything we've lost on our second main phase and be ready to swing again at full strength on our next turn. Trample is great but not a lot of decks are running creatures they can trade off with our vengevines and gravecrawlers without gradually losing board control.
Ah I didn't realize that about the upkeep dredge trick. There's a lot of pod less pod in my local meta so 2 mana kill a 2/2 put 6 in your graveyard is definitely better than I initially gave it credit for.
Thanks for this thread guys, I've been playing Standard for about a year and this deck was my buy in to modern after gold fishing with it a bunch on tappedout and really liking the different lines of play that are available. Playing the Jund version with no GGT, and full sets of bloodghasts, grave crawlers, lotleth trolls, bops, and the Varolz death shadow combo. Have a quick question about dark blast though, what is it about this card that is good exactly? Is it just that it's a dredge enabler that can kill a one toughness creature or is there some trick with dredge that makes it a more versatile card than it seems?
Ergo, copper line gorge for the "nice to have T1" colours, shocks for the "need to have T2 onwards" colours
This tends to be my thought. I've goin that in grindy games with stalled board states that we can usually trade with whatever chumps us then recur everything we've lost on our second main phase and be ready to swing again at full strength on our next turn. Trample is great but not a lot of decks are running creatures they can trade off with our vengevines and gravecrawlers without gradually losing board control.