Thanks so much for your feedback! Im a RUG delver player for a few years, but still pretty new to this deck so Im sure there are things I can be doing better. Ill try to answer your questions.
I wanted to fit 3 blossoming defense into my deck for that evening, and I figured that pumping my creature in combat to kill an x/4 could be a decent path impression. That being said, I definitely want to go back up to 4 path. I mostly needed the room to test out something new.
I like what you said about sacred foundry, another fetch sounds a lot better. I think foundry is good at casting SB cards and turning on nacatl in your breeding pool hands, but its still unquestionably the worst land in the deck. Ill probably cut it.
I play a ton of counters in the SB because I still want to be interactive in matchups where path or blossoming defense are bad. Our best games are the ones where we stick a threat and have interaction up. I wanted to make sure that held true in matchups such as grishoal, or control. This mindset might be flawed though, if you really hate packing extra counters maybe I should re evaluate that idea.
Ive chosen to ignore graveyards because Ill sleep at night if I lose to dredge. I dont feel like I need hate in this deck outside of that one matchup, and Id rather put my % points elsewhere.
knight of autumn was definitely an experiment. I wanted to be able to blow up enchantments, and I also liked that the card had text vs burn. It was great when I resolved it vs hollow one, but I was already wining that game.
I'm still experimenting with the sideboard, wouldn't mind having a discussion about the cards I'm running there. Outside of the sideboard, I experimented with blossoming defense as a potential problem solver for my 'shields down' problem mentioned in my previous post. I wasn't disappointed.
Round 1: BR instant reanimator
If my opponent ever had the combo, I would of been fine. They got pretty unlucky. 2-0
round 2: BR hollow one.
Game one, they land a few too many high toughness threats and I can't find any paths. Game two I keep a decent hand with goyf serum and some paths. Goyf goes to town with an obsession and my opponent can't really draw anything useful. Game three I keep an interesting hand: Steam vents, Opt, Nacatal, Path, Path, Bolt, and Stubborn denial. My thoughts were that I can cast a few important spells in the early game, and I'm one land away from being able to play the game. My opponent goes turn one flameblade adept and I shock in my vents. He goes to burning inquiry turn two and I stub it. They swing for one missing a land drop. On my turn I get the land I need and cast Wild Nacatl Now my 3/3 stares down their 1/2 and my hand is Opt Bolt Bolt Path Path. It was beautiful and easily won. 2-1
Round 3: UR Moon control (with Thing In The Ice)
Game one I have a hand with two tarmogoyf and just beat face. A cool line by me was opting in response to his flame slash to grow the goyf to 4/5. Same as before, goyf with obsession gets the beats in every turn. I was able to counter a Bounce/Draw cryptic with blossoming defense. Nice.
Game two I scry to play around spot removal instead of blood moon. Naturally they land the moon and I am suddenly a total dog in the game. I chose the line I did because my only threat was delver. It was a really close game two, but ultimately it came down to not being able to flip that same delver for a third time. Game three was similar to game one. They had to fetch awkwardly to double bolt a B'fensed threat, thus no longer giving them the ability to safely deploy a blood moon. stub and dispel look really strong vs a hand of multiple cryptic commands. 2-1
Round 4: ID with tron.
The thing to do at my LGS is draw round 4 if you're 3-0. each player gets $30 vs a 40/20 split and its just a feel good thing. would of been interesting to see how the deck would of performed in the matchup. I was too busy trading for some foil shocks for the deck however ^^
After my round 3 I ended up playing a 'for fun' game against the moon opponent. I won on a mull to 5 with a Nacatl defense obsession Land Land hand. It was such a feel good moment and further justified the inclusion of blossoming defense in my build.
I'm having some problems with go-wide deck (Humans, Spirits, G devotion, etc.) since I find the 2 damage of Pyroclasm too few sometimes. I'm going to try Radiant Flames since you can uptick the damage to 3 if needed.
I suggest trying the new card deafening clarion as it has some really strong text against burn.
I've been jamming some counter cat at a few events, and I've identified a problem with my build. We can all agree that the optimal 2 lands to have are UW/R and GR/W. In my deck, I use curious obsession to gain card advantage and pull ahead of my opponents. The card has been great for me when it works. It grows our Wild Nacatl out of bolt range and allows both our 1 drops to trigger stubborn denial. The problem with the card however (and other traditonal CA spells in this deck) is that it requires us to tap our (potentially) only blue source, leaving our creatures defenseless to spot removal. I have come up with two solutions to this problem.
1) play the card keen sense. This allows us to execute our card draw plan, while letting us leave up U for counter magic. The downside is that you lose out on the other benefits of obsession, but it allows you to keep shields up for what will probably be the most important turn of the game for your opponent.
2) play the card disrupting shoal. Disrupting shoal is another card that lets us keep our shields up even when we tap our blue mana. I wouldn't mind jamming it into counter cat again, but I feel like the card can be almost as clunky as lightning helix.
What are your thoughts on these solutions? I think having a draw spell in green could be an effective solution, even though the green aura is much worse than the blue one. Do you have any other ideas? I feel like this issue is very solvable.
My big problem with Vizier combo at the moment is: Coco is card advantage at the cost of deck building restriction/increased variance. EVO Is a bullet tutor, but self exiles and is card disadvantage. Especially when countered. I also found that I was losing too often to grindy/value decks. This list is my attempt at solving these problems.
Evolutionary leap allows us to draw a creature every time a creature of ours would die. This means our opponent is losing a card and we are neutral on cards. I thought it would be a good start to fixing the problem, but I went a step further and added kitchen finks back to the deck. Kitchen finks gains us life, is two bodies, works well with vizier/shalai/gavony and now also Evolutionary Leap. Finks and leap actually present us with card advantage, especially with any of the other synergy cards mentioned. additionally, Eldritch evo with finks > Restoration angel is an aggro/value line that I wanted access to. Resto might not be worth the slot. I think Kitchen Finks as a value creature and Evolutionary Leap will really help against the grindy decks that are going to 1 for 1 us into the ground.
Let me know what you all think, I've been having some decent results so far.
Hey all, I've also been grinding this deck recently.
The biggest weakness of this deck is its matchup VS control or push/bolt decks. without cards like COCO, we lose a lot of value needed to grind these decks out. In short, the beatdown plan of this deck is much worse. So far I've been testing Steel Leaf Champion as a singleton target that hopes to close the game quickly.
The deck really gets hurt when they have a hand full of spot removal. Without cards to generate card advantage, I feel like we stand no chance vs BGX or mardu pyro.
Any thoughts or solutions? lets talk about this terrible matchup.
I've been using roast over spell snare. I think its a more powerful card in this meta.
I think you have an interesting list. What made you decide that Jace wasn't worth the cut?
Haven't posted on the thread in a while.
Why did we drop red? Why would we drop vial? I read the new primer (great) and it seems none of it is reflected in the current discussion.
Here's my list:
Here's my question:
Are we liking spell snare in this meta? I'm thinking its a little dated given the widespread use of cavern, vial, hollow one. Is the card still good? I could see cutting it for a flame slash, burst lightning, spell spierce, vaporsnag, grim lavamancer, etc.
Those are a lot of options to test, so I was hoping I could get some insight from someone who is on the RUG version of the deck!
Nice with Desperate Rituals and 7 temples. How was the Coco game? Just went off on turn 4 with lucky draws? Because I always lose to that deck almost...
I've gone down to 6 temples now, I'm really trying to win early the coco matchup was terrible, I got VERY lucky (won through 3 cocos with infinite mana game 2) (won through 3 tidehollow sculler game 3)
Decided I wanted to play a really explosive game today, cutting a land for a ritual. I think ritual is a great piece of technology as it can get an early ad naus out, or act as our third SSG if we spoils too many monkeys away.
I really wanted that explosive game plan, but I also didn't want to leave home without a mystical teachings. I also am trying celestial purge as a hedge against LOTV. I was happy to have both. Notably I'm not playing any Hurkyl's recall, but I also felt that I would not need them at the shop friday night.
Matchups:
Grixis control 2-0
This was an easy match. Tapped low to activate tassigur G2 and I went off with pact backup.
UB heartless summoning 2-0
This felt like a bye. outside of the incedental milling or remand, there wasnt much my OP could do to interact. ritual won me the game G2.
UB Mill 2-0
Game one my opponent surgicals my sleight of hand to see what I'm on. He then plays a Dark Confidant (???)turn 2. he leaves up a remand on turn 3, and I go off when he remands my serum vision. Ritual won me this game by giving me the extra piece of fast mana.
Vizier Combo 2-1
Game one my opponent combos off. Game 2 and 3 I get some very lucky ad naus rips.
Hope you guys enjoyed my brief report! Chime in and tell me your thoughts
I just don't think siding a 1 of in for the hopes to have it turn 1 or 2 is good. I think that there are many more effective plays to be made on those turns given that we are trying to race. Mana rocks are very important in this matchup as they usually side in blood moon. I would much rather be playing a rock turn 2 than a THZ.
Point being, THZ is bad against storm after turn one. I would stop siding in targeted discard for storm, they are nothing but blanks after the first two turns and we really want to be playing rocks on turn 2.
Thoughtseize is not the best vs storm unless you're taking a creature. Past in flames recurs everything, and gifts is an instant. The window of opportunity for Thoughtseize is incredibly small vs storm, so I would not side a 1 of in for the hopes I see it in the opener.
Also, you forgot to mention that we also use it to eat abrupt decay in the BGx matchup. if we THZ the OP, we can go off in the face of abrupt decay. Also, taking lili is pretty good in this matchup.
The Burn and affinity matchups are not problematic. We never have a hard time in these matchups (unless affinity gets a nexus) because we play a card that essentially gains us 10+ life. having access to any color for the low cost of 1 life per tap is excellent. I wouldn't run more than 2 (3 at most) as multiples can be bad, but always having a white, the second black, or need be a red mana for such a low cost is quite good.
Have you ever played the deck vs control? We have a great matchup. Control gets more representation and taps out for a shiny 4 drop. this is a great meta for ad naus coming up.
Thanks so much for your feedback! Im a RUG delver player for a few years, but still pretty new to this deck so Im sure there are things I can be doing better. Ill try to answer your questions.
- I wanted to fit 3 blossoming defense into my deck for that evening, and I figured that pumping my creature in combat to kill an x/4 could be a decent path impression. That being said, I definitely want to go back up to 4 path. I mostly needed the room to test out something new.
- I like what you said about sacred foundry, another fetch sounds a lot better. I think foundry is good at casting SB cards and turning on nacatl in your breeding pool hands, but its still unquestionably the worst land in the deck. Ill probably cut it.
- I play a ton of counters in the SB because I still want to be interactive in matchups where path or blossoming defense are bad. Our best games are the ones where we stick a threat and have interaction up. I wanted to make sure that held true in matchups such as grishoal, or control. This mindset might be flawed though, if you really hate packing extra counters maybe I should re evaluate that idea.
- Ive chosen to ignore graveyards because Ill sleep at night if I lose to dredge. I dont feel like I need hate in this deck outside of that one matchup, and Id rather put my % points elsewhere.
- knight of autumn was definitely an experiment. I wanted to be able to blow up enchantments, and I also liked that the card had text vs burn. It was great when I resolved it vs hollow one, but I was already wining that game.
Thanks for your feedbackDeckStats Link
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Hooting Mandrills
1 Snapcaster Mage
Cantrips:
3 Curious Obsession
4 Serum Visions
2 Thought Scour
2 Opt
Interaction:
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
1 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Spell Snare
3 Blossoming Defense
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Island
1 Forest
4 Serum Visions
2 Damping Sphere
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Hazoret the Fervent
2 Deafening Clarion
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Knight of Autumn
I'm still experimenting with the sideboard, wouldn't mind having a discussion about the cards I'm running there. Outside of the sideboard, I experimented with blossoming defense as a potential problem solver for my 'shields down' problem mentioned in my previous post. I wasn't disappointed.
Round 1: BR instant reanimator
If my opponent ever had the combo, I would of been fine. They got pretty unlucky. 2-0
round 2: BR hollow one.
Game one, they land a few too many high toughness threats and I can't find any paths. Game two I keep a decent hand with goyf serum and some paths. Goyf goes to town with an obsession and my opponent can't really draw anything useful. Game three I keep an interesting hand: Steam vents, Opt, Nacatal, Path, Path, Bolt, and Stubborn denial. My thoughts were that I can cast a few important spells in the early game, and I'm one land away from being able to play the game. My opponent goes turn one flameblade adept and I shock in my vents. He goes to burning inquiry turn two and I stub it. They swing for one missing a land drop. On my turn I get the land I need and cast Wild Nacatl Now my 3/3 stares down their 1/2 and my hand is Opt Bolt Bolt Path Path. It was beautiful and easily won. 2-1
Round 3: UR Moon control (with Thing In The Ice)
Game one I have a hand with two tarmogoyf and just beat face. A cool line by me was opting in response to his flame slash to grow the goyf to 4/5. Same as before, goyf with obsession gets the beats in every turn. I was able to counter a Bounce/Draw cryptic with blossoming defense. Nice.
Game two I scry to play around spot removal instead of blood moon. Naturally they land the moon and I am suddenly a total dog in the game. I chose the line I did because my only threat was delver. It was a really close game two, but ultimately it came down to not being able to flip that same delver for a third time. Game three was similar to game one. They had to fetch awkwardly to double bolt a B'fensed threat, thus no longer giving them the ability to safely deploy a blood moon. stub and dispel look really strong vs a hand of multiple cryptic commands. 2-1
Round 4: ID with tron.
The thing to do at my LGS is draw round 4 if you're 3-0. each player gets $30 vs a 40/20 split and its just a feel good thing. would of been interesting to see how the deck would of performed in the matchup. I was too busy trading for some foil shocks for the deck however ^^
After my round 3 I ended up playing a 'for fun' game against the moon opponent. I won on a mull to 5 with a Nacatl defense obsession Land Land hand. It was such a feel good moment and further justified the inclusion of blossoming defense in my build.
I suggest trying the new card deafening clarion as it has some really strong text against burn.
I've been jamming some counter cat at a few events, and I've identified a problem with my build. We can all agree that the optimal 2 lands to have are UW/R and GR/W. In my deck, I use curious obsession to gain card advantage and pull ahead of my opponents. The card has been great for me when it works. It grows our Wild Nacatl out of bolt range and allows both our 1 drops to trigger stubborn denial. The problem with the card however (and other traditonal CA spells in this deck) is that it requires us to tap our (potentially) only blue source, leaving our creatures defenseless to spot removal. I have come up with two solutions to this problem.
1) play the card keen sense. This allows us to execute our card draw plan, while letting us leave up U for counter magic. The downside is that you lose out on the other benefits of obsession, but it allows you to keep shields up for what will probably be the most important turn of the game for your opponent.
2) play the card disrupting shoal. Disrupting shoal is another card that lets us keep our shields up even when we tap our blue mana. I wouldn't mind jamming it into counter cat again, but I feel like the card can be almost as clunky as lightning helix.
What are your thoughts on these solutions? I think having a draw spell in green could be an effective solution, even though the green aura is much worse than the blue one. Do you have any other ideas? I feel like this issue is very solvable.
My big problem with Vizier combo at the moment is: Coco is card advantage at the cost of deck building restriction/increased variance. EVO Is a bullet tutor, but self exiles and is card disadvantage. Especially when countered. I also found that I was losing too often to grindy/value decks. This list is my attempt at solving these problems.
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
4 Vizier of Remedies
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Walking Ballista
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Restoration Angel
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Evolutionary Leap
4 Eldritch Evolution
3 Postmortem Lunge
3 Chord of Calling
Lands: 21
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Windswept Heath
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
2 Plains
4 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Path to Exile
2 Knight of Autumn
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Mystic Enforcer
1 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants
Evolutionary leap allows us to draw a creature every time a creature of ours would die. This means our opponent is losing a card and we are neutral on cards. I thought it would be a good start to fixing the problem, but I went a step further and added kitchen finks back to the deck. Kitchen finks gains us life, is two bodies, works well with vizier/shalai/gavony and now also Evolutionary Leap. Finks and leap actually present us with card advantage, especially with any of the other synergy cards mentioned. additionally, Eldritch evo with finks > Restoration angel is an aggro/value line that I wanted access to. Resto might not be worth the slot. I think Kitchen Finks as a value creature and Evolutionary Leap will really help against the grindy decks that are going to 1 for 1 us into the ground.
Let me know what you all think, I've been having some decent results so far.
The biggest weakness of this deck is its matchup VS control or push/bolt decks. without cards like COCO, we lose a lot of value needed to grind these decks out. In short, the beatdown plan of this deck is much worse. So far I've been testing Steel Leaf Champion as a singleton target that hopes to close the game quickly.
The deck really gets hurt when they have a hand full of spot removal. Without cards to generate card advantage, I feel like we stand no chance vs BGX or mardu pyro.
Any thoughts or solutions? lets talk about this terrible matchup.
I've been using roast over spell snare. I think its a more powerful card in this meta.
I think you have an interesting list. What made you decide that Jace wasn't worth the cut?
Why did we drop red? Why would we drop vial? I read the new primer (great) and it seems none of it is reflected in the current discussion.
Here's my list:
https://deckstats.net/deck-16018057-98ec6b7323118716049422e87acf9c1b.html
Here's my question:
Are we liking spell snare in this meta? I'm thinking its a little dated given the widespread use of cavern, vial, hollow one. Is the card still good? I could see cutting it for a flame slash, burst lightning, spell spierce, vaporsnag, grim lavamancer, etc.
Those are a lot of options to test, so I was hoping I could get some insight from someone who is on the RUG version of the deck!
cheers,
Donk
I've gone down to 6 temples now, I'm really trying to win early the coco matchup was terrible, I got VERY lucky (won through 3 cocos with infinite mana game 2) (won through 3 tidehollow sculler game 3)
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Pentad Prism
Creature
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
Enchantment
4 Phyrexian Unlife
Instant
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Angel's Grace
3 Pact of Negation
1 Lightning Storm
1 Desperate Ritual
3 Spoils of the Vault
4 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Deceit
3 Seachrome Coast
3 Darkslick Shores
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Plains
Sorcery
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Pact of Negation
1 Echoing Truth
1 Celestial Purge
1 Path to Exile
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Fatal Push
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
Decided I wanted to play a really explosive game today, cutting a land for a ritual. I think ritual is a great piece of technology as it can get an early ad naus out, or act as our third SSG if we spoils too many monkeys away.
I really wanted that explosive game plan, but I also didn't want to leave home without a mystical teachings. I also am trying celestial purge as a hedge against LOTV. I was happy to have both. Notably I'm not playing any Hurkyl's recall, but I also felt that I would not need them at the shop friday night.
Matchups:
Grixis control 2-0
This was an easy match. Tapped low to activate tassigur G2 and I went off with pact backup.
UB heartless summoning 2-0
This felt like a bye. outside of the incedental milling or remand, there wasnt much my OP could do to interact. ritual won me the game G2.
UB Mill 2-0
Game one my opponent surgicals my sleight of hand to see what I'm on. He then plays a Dark Confidant (???)turn 2. he leaves up a remand on turn 3, and I go off when he remands my serum vision. Ritual won me this game by giving me the extra piece of fast mana.
Vizier Combo 2-1
Game one my opponent combos off. Game 2 and 3 I get some very lucky ad naus rips.
Hope you guys enjoyed my brief report! Chime in and tell me your thoughts
4 leyline as always. I've gone up to 1 celestial purge in the SB to help deal with LOTV. BGX will always be a hard matchup.
Point being, THZ is bad against storm after turn one. I would stop siding in targeted discard for storm, they are nothing but blanks after the first two turns and we really want to be playing rocks on turn 2.
Also, you forgot to mention that we also use it to eat abrupt decay in the BGx matchup. if we THZ the OP, we can go off in the face of abrupt decay. Also, taking lili is pretty good in this matchup.