I'm going to be playing with my lovely new Death and Taxes builds for a while for FNMs (my meta isn't always running tier decks anyway, as history has shown for me), but I may be doing some Soul Sisters testing on XMage now and then.
(EDIT: I don't remember if we've discussed this or not, but why *don't* we run Thalia in this deck? We don't run that many noncreature spells.)
Hallowed Moonlight is a good, versatile card, yes. If it's needed in your meta, it can't hurt to run it. That said, Rest in Peace covers the most difficult situations and is unconditional-- they can't reanimate anything if there was never anything to reanimate, so there's no guesswork involved. Meanwhile, the other cards that cheat in a huge creature can be mitigated with a well-placed Path to Exile (or in Emrakul's case, Blessed Alliance for the edict effect).
Hallowed Moonlight does work very well against token generators and Collected Company-- it's a common SB card in Standard for that reason. For now, at least.
I ran a similar build to yours (though it was Spirits tribal rather than D&T style), and I can definitely vouch for Blessed Alliance. A very good card.
It's hard to be particularly helpful when your main complaint is "I hate control decks" and then just named a bunch of cards you use without even explaining why you chose them. I'd think it would be wise to look back at your original statement before pointing fingers. I said exactly what I meant-- the idea is to prevent Nahiri from ulting here-- and for control decks in general, you can beat them down with boosted tokens since they're harder to remove. I don't really know what else you'd want aside from going into painfully overanalytical detail.
But if you want excruciating detail, here you go, I guess.
It is exactly how I said: the choices I think are best against Nahiri decks are Pithing Needle and Celestial Purge. The Pithing Needle is great against any Planeswalker, but when the deck's main wincon revolves around it, it more or less debilitates them. It's not narrow at all when it's the single easiest thing to throw in to jam their whole system-- a colorless one-drop that literally any deck in Magic can play to stop Planeswalkers? It's fantastic.
After that, you can hold on to the Celestial Purge as a safeguard against the Nahiri if they have a way to destroy the Pithing Needle, or you can use it to remove threats like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (if they're running Mardu Nahiri) or Izzet Staticaster (which is in the Jeskai Nahiri sideboard and is devastating against us, especially in the early game).
Also, if you're not running Ghost Quarters, you should be. Jeskai Nahiri (and a LOT of control decks in general) run Celestial Colonnade, and it's incredibly troublesome.
Another decent choice against any red deck is Mark of Asylum. Keeps your creatures safe from burn removal.
As for the cards you named off: Rest in Peace - Decent but wouldn't be my first choice unless I knew they were doing something with significant graveyard interaction. Snapcaster Mage is a pretty good reason to board it in, though, as would be Kalitas or Emrakul. But I think we have better answers in running Pithing Needle to stop Emrakul from coming out to begin with, and Celestial Purge to kill things like Kalitas off. Blessed Alliance is also good, as it can stop Emrakul after she's out, and it can also stop Kalitas too.
Defense Grid - This is a terrible card for this deck. Control decks keep their mana open to counter spells and kill creatures, while meanwhile we're trying to drop a bunch of one-drop cards-- and try to keep one or two open to play Path to Exile, Blessed Alliance, Celestial Purge, or Dismember. This turns those 1 and 2-drop spells into 4 and 5-drop spells. No good at all.
Grand Abolisher - Again, this is one of those cards that only look good on paper. Sure, it's nice to think "yeah, now I can do stuff without being countered or killed!", but in practice, you're spending 2 mana on a creature that they will either counter on the way down or allow, and kill the next turn. You'll rarely, if ever, get any actual use out of it.
Celestial Purge - Good, for reasons we've already discussed.
Secure the Wastes - Also good, but I personally prefer Spectral Procession for being the most efficient mana-to-token ratio card we have available to us-- and they're evasive tokens too, which can get some unblockable beats in. They're hard for control decks with single-target removal to get rid of.
Suppression Field - Not a bad card, but it can backfire. Even if it takes longer, they can still activate those abilities-- and it makes using Martyr of Sands on our end feel incredibly bad, especially if we need emergency lifegain and can't afford to pay it because it costs 3 instead of 1. Some people like it. I prefer Pithing Needle.
Mana Tithe - A white Force Spike is pretty nice, but once they know you have it, it's really nothing more than something for them to play around by being sure to make sure they have one more mana open to cast their spells. It's just like running Judge's Familiar-- sure, it's nice when it works, but in most cases it's possible to just play around.
Surgical Extraction - Not worth it. Even if you can use it and name their Mana Leaks, their Remands, their Terminates, their Cryptic Commands, their Snapcaster Mages, their Doom Blades, their Pyroclasms, their Lightning Bolts, what have you, I guarantee that they'll have something else that works just as well for them. Most good control decks have a variety of counter/kill spells anyway, so you'll maybe get 1 or 2 other cards out of their deck.
when i saw it i could feel all the nostalgia coming back and i thought this will replace felidar sovereign and now i just cant wait for kaladesh to come out so i can retouch my old soul sisters deck that i didnt play with for years!
after all it was my first ''competitive deck'' and i played it way too much back in the days.
You can't believe it? We were talking about it literally last page.
I don't think it works too well in a Soul Sisters deck. Something running that would want far more card advantage and cards played per turn-- it's not very common for us to have over 50 life unless we're already undeniably winning. I think it'd work much nicer in a deck that gets lots of card draw and plays lots of one-drops every turn (or just builds up and goes off like Storm or Jeskai Ascendancy), or a deck that gets more lifegain in general, like Martyr Proc.
That said, it's a potential way out vs. Lantern Control, I guess? Not worth much if they Pithing Needle it, though.
Overall it's janky and I don't think it fits here. It's a neat card and a fun wincon, but I don't think it's one we can use unless we build around it (and honestly, if we're going to do a lifegain wincon, you may as well do Felidar Sovereign).
And I still think it's not really a good fit for a Soul Sisters deck-- that is to say, the very aggressive variant that this archetype is built around. I'm sure you could tweak the deck to be all about the lifegain all of the time, but you may find that to be a much more slow, control-based style of play, more suited to the Martyr Proc archetype, whose style of play revolves around "soft-locking" opponents out of the game by gaining life far faster than they can reduce it by recurring Martyr of Sands over and over again every turn with Proclamation of Rebirth, while laying down beats with Serra Ascendant.
I haven't been playing with SS much recently due to all the Nahiri decks online. I absoluteely HATE playing against 'control decks'. Do any of you share my feelings on this or is there a better way lol? I've read about choosing when to play your spells to bait out their counters etc, i've run 4 cavern of souls mainboard (prob the most success i've had in tournaments). I've tried SB cards like rest in peace (snapcaster mage), defense grid, grand abolisher, celestial purge, ,secure the wastes, suppression field, mana tithe, surgical extraction. What advice/ experiences can you give me to help improve my play/decisions against these type of decks?
Rest in Peace is a good card against decks that use Snapcaster Mage and Nahiri (because they can't re-use Emrakul after one use since she doesn't get shuffled back into the deck) But obviously, even one hit with Emrakul is devastating, so it's not THAT good (but if any deck can survive a turn against an Emrakul, it's a lifegain deck). Defense Grid hurts us more than them, I feel. Grand Abolisher is cool on paper, but not in practice. Celestial Purge is a common SB piece against Nahiri. Suppression Field is all right-- I personally prefer Pithing Needle as SB tech in ANY deck vs. Planeswalkers. Mana Tithe is interesting; I don't know how well it works for us. Surgical Extraction doesn't really seem all that necessary.
Ultimately, if your meta is overrun by Nahiri, I'd say board in Pithing Needles and Celestial Purges for sure.
Control decks are just as much a part of Magic as Aggro or Combo decks; you may as well get used to them or play something else. I know a lot of control decks really don't like dealing with our Spirit tokens, especially when pumped with Honor of the Pure. It's harder for them to get rid of them all.
... On a side note, I'm in the process of collecting AEther Vials to build Death & Taxes/Merfolk/Spirits. Do you think they have a place in Soul Sisters too?...
I don't think that we need Æther Vials in Soul Sisters. Vial allows merfolk to play arround sorcery speed mass-removal and to make combat ackward for your opponent, because you can flash in a lord. The Taxes decks play creatures that can creat card adventage when flashed in in response to spells or abilitys from your opponent (Flickerwisp, Leonin Arbiter, Selfless Spirit, Aven Mindcensor, ...). The only thing I would like to flash in is Archangel of Thune but taking vial up to 5 seems not good and Windbrisk Heights lets us allready play Archangel for free when we attack with your spirit tokens.
Fair enough. I just thought it could be interesting.
In my personal experience, mainboarding Spellskite is awful and never comes when I need it. It's nice in the sideboard for those bad matchups though-- it's another choice that completely debilitates Infect, too.
Definitely going to recommend the sideboard I used against Jund/Affinity/Infect/Burn.
Rest in Peace interferes with Jund's biggest threats (Goyf becomes worthless, Scooze can't use its ability, Kalitas can't use his ability) and Leyline of Sanctity stops you from getting burned or Thoughtseized/IOK'd, as well as protecting you from Liliana of the Veil's forced sacrifice.
Ghostly Prison and Stony Silence debilitates Affinity (It makes most of their mana sources worthless, and also stops Arcbound Ravager and Steel Overseer-- and they can't use Cranial Plating either), Ghostly Prison slows them down, and just locks them out Stony Silence is out they have no mana sources to tap.
Ghostly Prison and Blessed Alliance gives Infect a very hard time (Blessed Alliance's edict effect works around Vines of Vastwood). Of course, that can backfire if they play Dryad Arbor for that specific reason, so pack a full set of Path to Exile too. Ghostly Prison cripples their strategy as well, since they can't tap out on pump spells.
Leyline of Sanctity and Worship ruins Burn's day since we have so many ways to interfere with creature removal otherwise. Eidolon of the Great Revel is troublesome, but you can use removal on it (and if I understand it right, Aether Vial is a way around it since you're not actually casting the creature). But even then, get a Geist of Saint Traft or double Captain down and they literally cannot win if you get Worship out. That's what happened vs. that "Free Win Red" deck I mentioned-- had I not gotten impatient and careless, I would have won the first round by making him, over time, mill himself out. I had Geist and Worship out and he could burn me all he wanted-- my life wouldn't ever drop past 1 as long as I had a creature he couldn't kill.
4 Matches -- Wins: 3 Losses: 1
Rank: 3rd of 11 people playing
Match 1: vs. Infect, win 2-0
Not too much to say about this-- it was a sub-optimal version of the deck.
Game 1 - win: Removed his creatures with Paths, countered pump spells, etc.
Game 2 - win: Out: Aether Vial x4, In: Blessed Alliance x2, Ghostly Prison x2. Made the win even easier.
Match 2: vs. Affinity, loss 1-2
I actually had a very real chance of winning if it was not for a misplay in round 3.
Game 1 - loss: Aether Vials are too slow against aggro decks like this. Too slow to get a win either way.
Game 2 - win: Out: Aether Vial x4, In: Ghostly Prison x2, Stony Silence x2. Stony Silence does work. Easy win once it came down.
Game 3 - loss: I got intimidated by a creature that had Cranial Plating attached. I really could have taken the hit and played Stony Silence, but I was stupid and Pathed it instead. In came Etched Champion and on went the plating. Stony Silence couldn't help me at that point. I could have done Stony Silence, taken a big hit, and then Pathed the creature the next turn and I would have been fine. Ah well.
Match 3: vs. ...some kind of homebrew?, win 2-0
This deck was full of interesting (and expensive) threats like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (to cheat in with Unburial Rites), but was running all colors and was trying to do too much with it. This deck didn't belong to the kid playing, and the kid was far too impatient and panicked way too easily. He clearly knew how this mess of a deck worked, but he just wasn't a good pilot of it. You just can't tilt out so easily and expect to win.
Game 1 - win: Out-tempo'd him.
Game 2- win: Out: Favorable Winds x3, Aether Vial x1, In: Ghostly Prison x2, Rest in Peace x2. Actually kind of a stressful game because the kid was freaking out and not thinking anything through. Super uncomfortable to play with. Still, once Stony Silence came down, it wasn't too hard to finish him off.
Match 4: vs Free Win Red, win 2-1
I was actually really hoping I didn't face this guy. I saw him playing against other people and he was playing this deck, which had 4 Blood Moon and 4 Ensnaring Bridges, both of which are a nightmare for us to deal with. I didn't even know what this deck was called until I Googled "Red Ensnaring Bridge" and found that he was running this exact deck.
Game 1 - loss: He had all 4 Bridges down and Blood Moon out, and I was more or less locked out. Worship came down before the Blood Moon and was a lifesaver, and Aether Vial let me get Geist of Saint Traft out, which kept him from killing me or winning. However, since this is a VERY long and boring process, I accidentally played into the trap of attacking with Geist and letting it get blocked by Magus of the Moon, which let him tap Mountains (post-Koth ult) and finish me off. Boring game leads to careless mistakes.
Game 2 - win: Out: Favorable Winds x3, Path to Exile x1, In: Leyline of Sanctity x2, Pithing Needle x2. Much better draws let me Queller down Ensnaring Bridges. Wasn't too hard to win after that-- Blood Moon is no concern with Aether Vials out.
Game 3 - win: I thought this was hopeless because I ended up keeping a very bad hand, but only because it had an Aether Vial and 2 Quellers. Didn't let him get ANYTHING down. I don't think he was very happy after that...
So yes! I do think this deck does pretty well. Quite happy with the results and I'll have to play it again sometime.
Hey guys!
That Abzan player who quit: It was late game, I was at a very low life total. For the next couple of turns, I managed to play Ranger twice, fetch some Sisters/Serra to eventually go above 30 and win the game with Ascendants. Oh, he was very mad. I forgot the exact words but it was something like: Oh, that's when you know your deck is terrible when you had nothing going on until you drew the Rangers. Your deck is not good, blablabla. I starting laughing, lmfao.
How you know when your deck is bad: when you're running Abzan of all things and cannot beat a white weenie lifegain deck at low health for multiple turns and allow a complete recovery, leading to your defeat.
Concerns:
- I don't have much permanent removal, like for artifacts or enchantments.
- Not that many creatures. I'm running Vial, maybe should have more?
- Too many lands? I feel like with the Vials, lands are kind of dead draws after I get it ticked up.
I think you would greatly benefit from some more onedrops to make Ranger of Eos worth it. Since you seem to be going for a human-tribal-ish thing, I'd suggest dropping some stuff to fit in Champion of the Parish, Thraben Inspector, or Doomed Traveler, to name a few cheap options. I think you'd also benefit from some spirits/fliers in general, since they're kind of our secondary win condition. I know you want human synergy, but Spectral Procession + Honor of the Pure can be a pretty scary clock for the opponent. I don't like Gather the Townsfolk; the odds of you making value of its secondary ability are slim and it doesn't have the advantage of being instant speed like Raise the Alarm. I don't think it would hurt your plan much to make it Spectral Procession instead. If you really want human tokens, play more Secure the Wastes.
I'd also suggest demoting Ghostly Prison to the sideboard unless you know for sure your meta is heavily creature-based. It does little of value in decks that run few creatures and it'd suck to draw it when you don't need it.
(EDIT: I don't remember if we've discussed this or not, but why *don't* we run Thalia in this deck? We don't run that many noncreature spells.)
Hallowed Moonlight does work very well against token generators and Collected Company-- it's a common SB card in Standard for that reason. For now, at least.
But if you want excruciating detail, here you go, I guess.
It is exactly how I said: the choices I think are best against Nahiri decks are Pithing Needle and Celestial Purge. The Pithing Needle is great against any Planeswalker, but when the deck's main wincon revolves around it, it more or less debilitates them. It's not narrow at all when it's the single easiest thing to throw in to jam their whole system-- a colorless one-drop that literally any deck in Magic can play to stop Planeswalkers? It's fantastic.
After that, you can hold on to the Celestial Purge as a safeguard against the Nahiri if they have a way to destroy the Pithing Needle, or you can use it to remove threats like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (if they're running Mardu Nahiri) or Izzet Staticaster (which is in the Jeskai Nahiri sideboard and is devastating against us, especially in the early game).
Another useful card for either version of Nahiri deck is Leyline of Sanctity. It stops you from being targeted by any Burn spell, and keeps you safe from Vendilion Clique, Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and so on.
Also, if you're not running Ghost Quarters, you should be. Jeskai Nahiri (and a LOT of control decks in general) run Celestial Colonnade, and it's incredibly troublesome.
Another decent choice against any red deck is Mark of Asylum. Keeps your creatures safe from burn removal.
As for the cards you named off:
Rest in Peace - Decent but wouldn't be my first choice unless I knew they were doing something with significant graveyard interaction. Snapcaster Mage is a pretty good reason to board it in, though, as would be Kalitas or Emrakul. But I think we have better answers in running Pithing Needle to stop Emrakul from coming out to begin with, and Celestial Purge to kill things like Kalitas off. Blessed Alliance is also good, as it can stop Emrakul after she's out, and it can also stop Kalitas too.
Defense Grid - This is a terrible card for this deck. Control decks keep their mana open to counter spells and kill creatures, while meanwhile we're trying to drop a bunch of one-drop cards-- and try to keep one or two open to play Path to Exile, Blessed Alliance, Celestial Purge, or Dismember. This turns those 1 and 2-drop spells into 4 and 5-drop spells. No good at all.
Grand Abolisher - Again, this is one of those cards that only look good on paper. Sure, it's nice to think "yeah, now I can do stuff without being countered or killed!", but in practice, you're spending 2 mana on a creature that they will either counter on the way down or allow, and kill the next turn. You'll rarely, if ever, get any actual use out of it.
Celestial Purge - Good, for reasons we've already discussed.
Secure the Wastes - Also good, but I personally prefer Spectral Procession for being the most efficient mana-to-token ratio card we have available to us-- and they're evasive tokens too, which can get some unblockable beats in. They're hard for control decks with single-target removal to get rid of.
Suppression Field - Not a bad card, but it can backfire. Even if it takes longer, they can still activate those abilities-- and it makes using Martyr of Sands on our end feel incredibly bad, especially if we need emergency lifegain and can't afford to pay it because it costs 3 instead of 1. Some people like it. I prefer Pithing Needle.
Mana Tithe - A white Force Spike is pretty nice, but once they know you have it, it's really nothing more than something for them to play around by being sure to make sure they have one more mana open to cast their spells. It's just like running Judge's Familiar-- sure, it's nice when it works, but in most cases it's possible to just play around.
Surgical Extraction - Not worth it. Even if you can use it and name their Mana Leaks, their Remands, their Terminates, their Cryptic Commands, their Snapcaster Mages, their Doom Blades, their Pyroclasms, their Lightning Bolts, what have you, I guarantee that they'll have something else that works just as well for them. Most good control decks have a variety of counter/kill spells anyway, so you'll maybe get 1 or 2 other cards out of their deck.
You can't believe it? We were talking about it literally last page.
And I still think it's not really a good fit for a Soul Sisters deck-- that is to say, the very aggressive variant that this archetype is built around. I'm sure you could tweak the deck to be all about the lifegain all of the time, but you may find that to be a much more slow, control-based style of play, more suited to the Martyr Proc archetype, whose style of play revolves around "soft-locking" opponents out of the game by gaining life far faster than they can reduce it by recurring Martyr of Sands over and over again every turn with Proclamation of Rebirth, while laying down beats with Serra Ascendant.
Rest in Peace is a good card against decks that use Snapcaster Mage and Nahiri (because they can't re-use Emrakul after one use since she doesn't get shuffled back into the deck) But obviously, even one hit with Emrakul is devastating, so it's not THAT good (but if any deck can survive a turn against an Emrakul, it's a lifegain deck). Defense Grid hurts us more than them, I feel. Grand Abolisher is cool on paper, but not in practice. Celestial Purge is a common SB piece against Nahiri. Suppression Field is all right-- I personally prefer Pithing Needle as SB tech in ANY deck vs. Planeswalkers. Mana Tithe is interesting; I don't know how well it works for us. Surgical Extraction doesn't really seem all that necessary.
Ultimately, if your meta is overrun by Nahiri, I'd say board in Pithing Needles and Celestial Purges for sure.
Control decks are just as much a part of Magic as Aggro or Combo decks; you may as well get used to them or play something else. I know a lot of control decks really don't like dealing with our Spirit tokens, especially when pumped with Honor of the Pure. It's harder for them to get rid of them all.
From a few days ago:
Rest in Peace interferes with Jund's biggest threats (Goyf becomes worthless, Scooze can't use its ability, Kalitas can't use his ability) and Leyline of Sanctity stops you from getting burned or Thoughtseized/IOK'd, as well as protecting you from Liliana of the Veil's forced sacrifice.
Ghostly Prison and Stony Silence debilitates Affinity (It makes most of their mana sources worthless, and also stops Arcbound Ravager and Steel Overseer-- and they can't use Cranial Plating either), Ghostly Prison slows them down, and just locks them out Stony Silence is out they have no mana sources to tap.
Ghostly Prison and Blessed Alliance gives Infect a very hard time (Blessed Alliance's edict effect works around Vines of Vastwood). Of course, that can backfire if they play Dryad Arbor for that specific reason, so pack a full set of Path to Exile too. Ghostly Prison cripples their strategy as well, since they can't tap out on pump spells.
Leyline of Sanctity and Worship ruins Burn's day since we have so many ways to interfere with creature removal otherwise. Eidolon of the Great Revel is troublesome, but you can use removal on it (and if I understand it right, Aether Vial is a way around it since you're not actually casting the creature). But even then, get a Geist of Saint Traft or double Captain down and they literally cannot win if you get Worship out. That's what happened vs. that "Free Win Red" deck I mentioned-- had I not gotten impatient and careless, I would have won the first round by making him, over time, mill himself out. I had Geist and Worship out and he could burn me all he wanted-- my life wouldn't ever drop past 1 as long as I had a creature he couldn't kill.
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
3 Nebelgast Herald
1 Geist of Saint Traft
Spells (15)
4 AEther Vial
4 Path to Exile
3 Favorable Winds
3 Remand
1 Worship
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Moorland Haunt
6 Island
6 Plains
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Pithing Needle
2 Spreading Seas
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Ghostly Prison
Results!
4 Matches -- Wins: 3 Losses: 1
Rank: 3rd of 11 people playing
Match 1: vs. Infect, win 2-0
Not too much to say about this-- it was a sub-optimal version of the deck.
Game 1 - win: Removed his creatures with Paths, countered pump spells, etc.
Game 2 - win: Out: Aether Vial x4, In: Blessed Alliance x2, Ghostly Prison x2. Made the win even easier.
Match 2: vs. Affinity, loss 1-2
I actually had a very real chance of winning if it was not for a misplay in round 3.
Game 1 - loss: Aether Vials are too slow against aggro decks like this. Too slow to get a win either way.
Game 2 - win: Out: Aether Vial x4, In: Ghostly Prison x2, Stony Silence x2. Stony Silence does work. Easy win once it came down.
Game 3 - loss: I got intimidated by a creature that had Cranial Plating attached. I really could have taken the hit and played Stony Silence, but I was stupid and Pathed it instead. In came Etched Champion and on went the plating. Stony Silence couldn't help me at that point. I could have done Stony Silence, taken a big hit, and then Pathed the creature the next turn and I would have been fine. Ah well.
Match 3: vs. ...some kind of homebrew?, win 2-0
This deck was full of interesting (and expensive) threats like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (to cheat in with Unburial Rites), but was running all colors and was trying to do too much with it. This deck didn't belong to the kid playing, and the kid was far too impatient and panicked way too easily. He clearly knew how this mess of a deck worked, but he just wasn't a good pilot of it. You just can't tilt out so easily and expect to win.
Game 1 - win: Out-tempo'd him.
Game 2- win: Out: Favorable Winds x3, Aether Vial x1, In: Ghostly Prison x2, Rest in Peace x2. Actually kind of a stressful game because the kid was freaking out and not thinking anything through. Super uncomfortable to play with. Still, once Stony Silence came down, it wasn't too hard to finish him off.
Match 4: vs Free Win Red, win 2-1
I was actually really hoping I didn't face this guy. I saw him playing against other people and he was playing this deck, which had 4 Blood Moon and 4 Ensnaring Bridges, both of which are a nightmare for us to deal with. I didn't even know what this deck was called until I Googled "Red Ensnaring Bridge" and found that he was running this exact deck.
Game 1 - loss: He had all 4 Bridges down and Blood Moon out, and I was more or less locked out. Worship came down before the Blood Moon and was a lifesaver, and Aether Vial let me get Geist of Saint Traft out, which kept him from killing me or winning. However, since this is a VERY long and boring process, I accidentally played into the trap of attacking with Geist and letting it get blocked by Magus of the Moon, which let him tap Mountains (post-Koth ult) and finish me off. Boring game leads to careless mistakes.
Game 2 - win: Out: Favorable Winds x3, Path to Exile x1, In: Leyline of Sanctity x2, Pithing Needle x2. Much better draws let me Queller down Ensnaring Bridges. Wasn't too hard to win after that-- Blood Moon is no concern with Aether Vials out.
Game 3 - win: I thought this was hopeless because I ended up keeping a very bad hand, but only because it had an Aether Vial and 2 Quellers. Didn't let him get ANYTHING down. I don't think he was very happy after that...
So yes! I do think this deck does pretty well. Quite happy with the results and I'll have to play it again sometime.
W
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost of 4 or less.
Seems potentially decent. Maybe not as versatile as Sundering Growth, but cheaper.
Then there's also "Aerobatic Maneuver" (unofficial translation)
2W Instant
Flicker a creature you control and draw a card.
Could potentially work to abuse an ETB effect and get some card draw going?
How you know when your deck is bad: when you're running Abzan of all things and cannot beat a white weenie lifegain deck at low health for multiple turns and allow a complete recovery, leading to your defeat.
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
1 Geist of Saint Traft
Spells (17)
3 AEther Vial
3 Path to Exile
3 Favorable Winds
3 Remand
2 Spectral Procession
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Detention Sphere
1 Worship
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Moorland Haunt
6 Island
7 Plains
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Pithing Needle
2 Spreading Seas
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Ghostly Prison
Concerns:
- I don't have much permanent removal, like for artifacts or enchantments.
- Not that many creatures. I'm running Vial, maybe should have more?
- Too many lands? I feel like with the Vials, lands are kind of dead draws after I get it ticked up.
I'd also suggest demoting Ghostly Prison to the sideboard unless you know for sure your meta is heavily creature-based. It does little of value in decks that run few creatures and it'd suck to draw it when you don't need it.