Playing with Nicol Bolas Dragon God in standard has gotten me pretty excited; his +1 closes the game incredibly fast
My own WIP take on him is that you want to go close to the old "blue jund" decks, running a ton of discard and little to no countermagic. You want to shred your opponent's resources as soon as possible so that when Nikki B comes down, his +1 starts stone raining as soon as possible. In Standard this is pretty powerful already but in a format like modern where people greed on their lands all the time, this becomes really devastating really fast and forces your opponent to play into your answers without getting time to set up a multispell turn.
Tons of discard with IOK, TS, LotV and ColBrut, gross CA with Snap Kommand loops, 2x MB Surgical because Modern is a broken awful format and then spot removal and maybe SV to set up your mana. I like CalebD's take of Cryptic being the only mainboard counterspell but I also kind of like staying mostly monoblack.
You got me with "Nikki B".
OK but seriously, this 8-rack style deck which wins with NB instead of racks could be very real. I'd even play cards like Rise // Fall and Wrench Mind in conjunction with IOK and TS to quickly move the game towards the board/hand state that we want. Aggro decks will have to contend with Collective Brutality - Blue and Red become splashes in this new paradigm. We can't fight UW on the same footing when it comes to countermagic, so we'll just have to change the whole playing field instead of trying to level it.
G tron is horrible. If you alpine moon U tron though, they are going to have a tough time coming back. Overall i just hate playing against Tron.
Storm is supposed to be an easy MU since we sport so many discard and should be able to keep their bears off the field too, I suppose sometimes we just draw the wrong half of our deck and they get their free win.
Minusing away the Bridge effect would indeed by awesome, but how do we avoid hitting another Bridge instead of Emrakul when we fire off Creativity? I mean, you could also run the new Karn and pull Bridge from the sideboard, but that's probably a different deck, some sort of prison where Saheeli can shut down symmetrical hosers during your turn.
You would only run 1 bridge and 1 emrakul. so if you creativity for 1, its 50-50 between getting a lock or a wincon. Then if you go for 2 you know you're getting both, and potentially a hasty emrakul that will return to being a bridge at end of turn, in case the 15 flying power doesnt end the game there. Bridge+Iona would be a pretty solid lock, but I'd rather finish the game then sit around and see if the opponent can break out.
The 3 huge strikes against this card are as follows;
1. Intangible virtue grants *each* token +1/+1. This card will only ever benefit once at most from our most powerful anthem. Bitterblossom produces 2 power each turn with virtue out, while this only continues to produce 1.
2. A single spot removal can erase all progress. Fatal push, path, terminate, even a single Reflector Mage trigger will feel horrible.
3. Same downside as bitterblossom minus the flying AND the multiple bodies means you can get chumped - while you bleed to death.
Nice catch on the Cage. So many little upsides to Creativity vs Polymorph.
I have since defeated Goblins (lords, no Whack). They had the one who can sac himself to kill Emrakul, so bolts were handy for keeping those of the board. Finished game 1 with Emrakul and game 2 with Elesh Norn. I am wondering if there are any other silver bullets like her and Iona worth keeping in the side.
Platinum emperion is a trap; in the games where you board it in, the opponent typically brought in artifact/enchantment destruction. For example i boarded it against dredge, which seemed like a good idea until they drew their nature's claim which was intended for any RIP. Against burn, they may bring in path to exile or wear//tear to deal with Iona or Worship. Against the other premier aggro decks, Phoenix and Spirits, they have ways to bounce the emperion back to your hand before dealing lethal. Against creature based decks Elesh Norn is still the best answer; at the very least she wipes the board even if bounced.
Blazing Archon was passed because of mostly the same reasons. Nix, humans and spirits will bounce it. Burn will ignore it with their reach.
The aether vial decks (humans and spirits) are consistently the hardest decks to deal with; they're fast enough that emrakul might not deal with them, have ETB effects to deal with Emrakul even if she comes down, and they ignore Iona. Our best bet is to suppress them and swing with tokens, but this is easier said than done. Sometimes you can land Elesh Norn and win; but the ETB effects are still a valid answer, or they may have stacked enough lords.
Something cute might be Ensnaring bridge, which reduces their answers to artifact removal only. You could then use your hand size to control the game; assuming your tokens can get through for damage. I have also considered other artifacts like Immortal Sun and Bolas's Citadel, but they don't stand out all that much.
If you're already casting Creativity, you can ignore Grafdiggr's Cage and just go for 2. Cage doesn't stop creativity because your creatures are entering from exile, not from the library, so if they board in cage they are stopping only your flashback spells looting and souls, and Nahiri ultimate.
Against Burn, it's unlucky they hit another bridge instead of some random creature. But if you have Iona on red their hand will grow letting your tokens across for the kill. don't forget to swing once their hand grows.
In an attempt to reduce the damage from my mana I've made the following changes to the deck. I also swapped 1 inquisition for 1 extra intangible virtue, since I was seeing less of the plan B materializing than I'd like, and I felt like bitterblossom often felt bad because it was so hard to convert my life loss into a winning race.
The modified manabase walks in the roots of the old Jeskai Kiki decks. Similar to this deck, it has to deal with 3 colors, often requiring a painful mix and yet needing to be able to cast kiki jiki for triple red. By including 3 checklands, I made it "safer" to fetch basics in the beginning turns, instead of giving aggro decks an edge. So if I've got a fetch and check + another dual land in my starter, I can fetch a mountain turn 1 for looting or bolt and save myself 2 damage easy.
So I dropped 60 tix on this deck tonight, for budgetary concerns -2 Bitterblossom -2 Thoughtseize +2 Saheeli, +1 IoK +1 Path.
Went 2-0 vs Storm for my first match. First game kept an odd hand of 2 IoK and my first draw was another IoK. Obviously that worked out lovely vs storm. Game 2 I kept a hand of Emrakul, 1 IoK and oodles of removal, and bolted/pushed 3 Barals. He fizzled when Spirit beats forced him to try and go off without. Didn't actually see the combo but the disruption/removal was obviously great. Will keep updating.
Losing the blossoms for saheeli is not a horrible idea. Sometimes blossom becomes liability, in fact the faster the meta the worse it gets. Blossom is also useless against Tron.
after more thought, yea damping sphere already covers that base and then some. In the case of tron prevention is better than cure anyway.
I like having 3 alpine moons and 3 stony silence in my sideboard.
Damping Sphere alone is barely a speed bump for G or GR Tron. They can still cast Oblivion Stone on turn-three and blow it on turn-five. Few of us - I feel confident in saying - run R, but Alpine Moon is equally vulnerable. It might even fix early color screw for them if they can't find a G for Ancient Stirrings or a R for Pyroclasm.
Damping Sphere alone will hose U Tron pretty effectively, but for normal G or GR Tron, Stony Silence is still needed.
Of course, destroying a land and extracting or extirpating it is the surest means of keeping them off of Tron, but BW has fewer tools to do that than BGx.
Isn't this all why its a horrible match up? I got my butt handed to me this friday night on my Mardu tokens deck. Never mind siding moon - if you don't manage to mull to it or draw it, it doesn't matter anyway. I'm sick of stony silence doing nothing for me - it stops map and o stone, OK. But instead they drew scrying or stirrings. And planeswalkers. Great. I've stacked T1 alpine moon into T2 stony silence - he draws tron naturally and nature's claims my moon and proceeds to smash anyway.
Looks like this is the thread I've been looking for since I saw the new Saheeli. What do you think? Her static is basically +1 token every time you cast literally anything in your deck, and if you have a servo that isn't summoning sick, she copies Emrakul for pseudo haste.
Also clearly this deck should be named Mardu Polymorph
You'll be surprised at the number of people who just stare blankly when I explain my deck as "well its basically mardu polymorph". Then i have to explain what polymorph is. I guess polymorph never got that kind of attention plus its not really in the meta now so the newer peeps wouldnt have heard of it.
RE: Saheeli - I've already bought 2 foil copies of her. There is nearly no question she will be good here. The only questions are - what does she replace, and how many do we want?
Despark also hits a few targets in Izzet Pheonix. Granted Path is better but i'll still take the extra removal.
Well, not *strictly* better, given that nix wants to chain 3 spells and the more lands you give them, the easier it will be for them to accomplish that without manamorphose. Like Reid Duke said, you can't underestimate the downside of ramping the opponent.
I've come by to congratulate the BW tokens community on the printing of Despark. A clean and cheap answer to virtually everything Tron casts save O-stone, which you have Stony Silences for. Ugin will still buy them a lot of time, but eh.
I doubt scorn is powerful enough; if Rise // Fall isn't value enough, i don't see how this worse abrupt decay with an alternative bounce option would be.
You got me with "Nikki B".
OK but seriously, this 8-rack style deck which wins with NB instead of racks could be very real. I'd even play cards like Rise // Fall and Wrench Mind in conjunction with IOK and TS to quickly move the game towards the board/hand state that we want. Aggro decks will have to contend with Collective Brutality - Blue and Red become splashes in this new paradigm. We can't fight UW on the same footing when it comes to countermagic, so we'll just have to change the whole playing field instead of trying to level it.
Storm is supposed to be an easy MU since we sport so many discard and should be able to keep their bears off the field too, I suppose sometimes we just draw the wrong half of our deck and they get their free win.
Can you post your list?
You would only run 1 bridge and 1 emrakul. so if you creativity for 1, its 50-50 between getting a lock or a wincon. Then if you go for 2 you know you're getting both, and potentially a hasty emrakul that will return to being a bridge at end of turn, in case the 15 flying power doesnt end the game there. Bridge+Iona would be a pretty solid lock, but I'd rather finish the game then sit around and see if the opponent can break out.
The 3 huge strikes against this card are as follows;
1. Intangible virtue grants *each* token +1/+1. This card will only ever benefit once at most from our most powerful anthem. Bitterblossom produces 2 power each turn with virtue out, while this only continues to produce 1.
2. A single spot removal can erase all progress. Fatal push, path, terminate, even a single Reflector Mage trigger will feel horrible.
3. Same downside as bitterblossom minus the flying AND the multiple bodies means you can get chumped - while you bleed to death.
Platinum emperion is a trap; in the games where you board it in, the opponent typically brought in artifact/enchantment destruction. For example i boarded it against dredge, which seemed like a good idea until they drew their nature's claim which was intended for any RIP. Against burn, they may bring in path to exile or wear//tear to deal with Iona or Worship. Against the other premier aggro decks, Phoenix and Spirits, they have ways to bounce the emperion back to your hand before dealing lethal. Against creature based decks Elesh Norn is still the best answer; at the very least she wipes the board even if bounced.
Blazing Archon was passed because of mostly the same reasons. Nix, humans and spirits will bounce it. Burn will ignore it with their reach.
The aether vial decks (humans and spirits) are consistently the hardest decks to deal with; they're fast enough that emrakul might not deal with them, have ETB effects to deal with Emrakul even if she comes down, and they ignore Iona. Our best bet is to suppress them and swing with tokens, but this is easier said than done. Sometimes you can land Elesh Norn and win; but the ETB effects are still a valid answer, or they may have stacked enough lords.
Something cute might be Ensnaring bridge, which reduces their answers to artifact removal only. You could then use your hand size to control the game; assuming your tokens can get through for damage. I have also considered other artifacts like Immortal Sun and Bolas's Citadel, but they don't stand out all that much.
And in the mid to late game, convert every extra land, or even additional lands already on the board, into Shocks.
Against Burn, it's unlucky they hit another bridge instead of some random creature. But if you have Iona on red their hand will grow letting your tokens across for the kill. don't forget to swing once their hand grows.
4 Indomitable Creativity
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Disruption (12)
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fatal Push
1 Path to Exile
2 Legion's landing
2 Bitterblossom
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Lingering Souls
Utility (6)
2 Intangible Virtue
4 Faithless Looting
Real Estate (23)
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
2 Clifftop Retreat
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Inspiring Vantage
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Graven Cairns
3 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Plains
The modified manabase walks in the roots of the old Jeskai Kiki decks. Similar to this deck, it has to deal with 3 colors, often requiring a painful mix and yet needing to be able to cast kiki jiki for triple red. By including 3 checklands, I made it "safer" to fetch basics in the beginning turns, instead of giving aggro decks an edge. So if I've got a fetch and check + another dual land in my starter, I can fetch a mountain turn 1 for looting or bolt and save myself 2 damage easy.
Losing the blossoms for saheeli is not a horrible idea. Sometimes blossom becomes liability, in fact the faster the meta the worse it gets. Blossom is also useless against Tron.
Isn't this all why its a horrible match up? I got my butt handed to me this friday night on my Mardu tokens deck. Never mind siding moon - if you don't manage to mull to it or draw it, it doesn't matter anyway. I'm sick of stony silence doing nothing for me - it stops map and o stone, OK. But instead they drew scrying or stirrings. And planeswalkers. Great. I've stacked T1 alpine moon into T2 stony silence - he draws tron naturally and nature's claims my moon and proceeds to smash anyway.
I wish they'd restrict one of the tron lands. LOL
You'll be surprised at the number of people who just stare blankly when I explain my deck as "well its basically mardu polymorph". Then i have to explain what polymorph is. I guess polymorph never got that kind of attention plus its not really in the meta now so the newer peeps wouldnt have heard of it.
RE: Saheeli - I've already bought 2 foil copies of her. There is nearly no question she will be good here. The only questions are - what does she replace, and how many do we want?
I like having 3 alpine moons and 3 stony silence in my sideboard.
Well, not *strictly* better, given that nix wants to chain 3 spells and the more lands you give them, the easier it will be for them to accomplish that without manamorphose. Like Reid Duke said, you can't underestimate the downside of ramping the opponent.