I'm starting to think that Modern is a pretty casual format, since there's a guy running 4x Vexing Devil and currently undefeated. Good thing he is being trampled over by Humans and looking silly with the devils in hand.
I definitely won't let this thread die out!
Abzan Liege might not be the best choice right now but it can be a force to be reckoned with depending on the meta. I feel that GP São Paulo will feature a lot of Burn. It will really depend if Bx decks are in the meta for my decision. I'm glad I have a comrade in arms to help develop the deck
Doran is certainly interesting tech. I will keep it in mind.
Currently I'm thinking of three possible decks:
1. UR Storm, which I have some past piloting it. I don't like having a huge target on my back, though.
2. Mono Blue Living End. This deck surprised me with its consistency and odd angle of attack. Living End is a VERY swingy card and 4Cryptic Command helps a lot vs Ramp decks, which are Abzan's weaknesses.
3. Taking Turns. Just is more a casual choice, but I just love looping turns around and the deck looks good vs most matchups. Even the burn MU is not as bad as it seems. Though most of this choice is my Rogue deck preference speaking out.
I've just been overwhelmed by so many trons in every level of competition online right now. If this were a local meta I would bring the deck, surely, as it can be tuned, but for online it is so unfavorable right now it's not even funny. Since GB/x decks, which are our prey, are not on a high, I think I'll shelve this for a while, just keeping giving some insights from now and then here.
About Anafenza, yes, she is pretty good. She really feels amazing in the maindeck. I like her way more than Loxodon Smiter right now. Garruk Relentless is a hidden gem in this format. Really good because of versatility.
While I'm seeing a lot of Bogles online (srsly, had 3 or 4 Bogles just today), I think I prefer Fracturing Gust on the sideboard, as it is another card that we can bring against Affinity. Versus affinity we're generally going to topdeck mode vs topdeck mode and the matchup can end from nowhere if they topdeck a Cranial Plating/c] or Arcbound Ravager with Inkmoth Nexus. They are loaded with threats and Fracturing Gust completely neutralizes these kind of scenarios, specially in the lategame when you have the mana to cast it.
Along with Qasali Pridemages and Abrupt Decay we can have some tricks to hold Bogles down for a while until we can cast it as well. I think, at least. That would be my plan.
If I were to update the deck, I think I would cut both Smiters, add a third Anafenza and a fourth Lingering Souls. Tehn cut the Eidolons from the sideboard and put two Fracturing Gust, based on online meta as of today. Eidolon is good, but the matchups where he is reliable are very few at the moment.
I have been flirting with one-sided wraths, but I don't find any. What actually gave me some room for thought was ditching our smaller creatures and running more Siege Rhino, targeted discard and sweepers, but then again, there's already a thread for The Rock. Abzan Rites would be something like this, I guess.
I won't be playing much Abzan right now, but I'll keep an eye on the thread. It is my "go-to" deck when the meta seem a little more less Tron-y online. I really like playing it, probably more than Twin in the old days. I have to diversify a little bit on the strats if I want to do good in GP São Paulo in July, though.
I hope the movie was good
I'm writing this as I play a Modern Friendly League. The decklist is the same as I posted before, with the exception of -1 Orzhov Pontiff on the SB and +1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
G1: Bogles 0-2
Turns out our deck is pretty bad agains't Bogles. The lack of Liliana really bites us. We can blowout them if they go for the Daybreak Coronet by breaking their first enchantment, but that wasn't enough for me. Got trampled over by a giant bogle twice.
I don't even remember how I sideboarded against him, because everything was bad. I got annoyed because he laughed in the chat when I lost, which I thought was rude.
Match Total: 0-1
Game Total: 0-2
G2: Affinity
Talk about an intense match.
G1 I mull to 6, leaving one Voice of Resurgence on top, with Turn 1 noble, turn two Stirring Wildwood +Voice. He goes t1 blinkmoth into signal pest.
Turn two he gets ravager and ornipthopter, cranial plating and I draw a bunch of lands. Can't stop the robots.
G2 I have a firm grip with Qasali Pridemage and Stony Silence. I get turn 2 Silence, Turn 3 Pridemage and start hammering away him, as his only mana sources were artifact lands and a Mox. I hammered him with Qasali, until he gets a Tear for my Stony Silence. In the same turn, he Thoughtseizes me to find a grip with 2 Path to Exiles, one Abrupt Decay, one Stony Silence and two Lieges. He has the tear for the second silence, but it is too late. The beatdowns got to him.
I figured out he would have Ghirapur Aether Grid, so I sided out two BoPs for two Thoughtseizes.
I keep a hand with Noble, Qasali, Abrupt, Rhino and lands. He starts with Thopter + artifact land into Vault Skirge. This is going to be a problem.
He plays Spire of Industry into Galvanic Blast my Noble. I draw Garruk Relentless for the turn and now I face the decision of playing Qasali Pridemage with no mana open or holding Abrupt Decay and run into the possibility of not doing anything for a turn.
I decide to hold Decay. I'm at 19 life right now and a Cranial Plating could really wreck my day. I also have the nice play of Qasali with mana open into Garruk turn 4, which could possibly wrath his board. He plays Ghirapur, hits with Skirge. I Abrupt the Skirge and he and passes.
Qasali go, he plays Etched Champion with exactly 3 artifacts in play. He then Galvanics my Qasali. I sac Qasali to kill Ornipthopter, he now loses Metalcraft, I play Garruk killing the champion and now I have a pretty good lead: I still have Rhino in hand and 2 lands (could be Lingering Souls ), he has no card in hand and his only threat is double Inkmoth Nexus on the board. He Ghirapur's my Garruk and the deck does what he is designed to do: win the topdeck war. He can't hold his own against Rhino + Smiter on the following turns.
Matches: 1-1
Games: 2-3
G3 Eldrazi Tron
He has turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer into turn 3 Reality Smasher. Then turn 4 Endbringer Fun times.
I side out Abrupt Decay to 2 Thoughtseize. I don't know what the hell to do against this deck.
G2 I start with noble into t2 Smiter. He goes matter reshaper turn 2. T3 I drop another noble and Anafenza. He goes for another Matter Reshaper.
Liege turn 4. He trades both reshapers with Anafenza, but they're exiled.
Natural tron on turn 4, Reality Smasher + Walking Balista, but I Path and he scoops.
G3 is a really grindy match, where he ends drawing way more cards than me thanks to Sea-Gate Wreckage and then Endbringer. I got the chance to close the game if I drew some stuff, but in the end I couldn't draw anything but Forest and other lands.
G4 vs Merfolk
Finally a favorable matchup!
Game one I start with a shaky hand. I have path, push, garruk and lands. I start the game so I just land and go.
He goes with cursecatcher. Hm. I topdeck a BoP and play it, so I can Garruk next turn. Here is the blowout: he plays a lord and attacks with Cursecatcher. I Path to Exile the Lord, with no open mana, so he just sacs the Catcher. No extra land for him.
I then Garruk Relentless the lord and win the tempo and Card Advantage battle. Very hard to come back from that.
I take out 2 Anafenza, as I sense that I won't be attacking too much this game early. +1 Zealous Persecution +1 Abrupt Decay
He mulls to five and I keep a hand with Noble, Birds, Smiter, Path and Lands. Everything I ever wanted.
He can't put up with the turn 2 Smiter, into turn 3 removal and pressure from the deck. I also topdecked more PtEs, Decays and Pushes, sohe just concedes.
Matchs: 2-2
Games: 5-5
Everything tied for the last game!
G5: Mono White Proclamation of Rebirth
I come out really fast g1. Noble -> Smiter -> Liege -> Souls. He has a rather slow hand with Weathered Wayfarer and Kami of False Hope and gets overwhelmed really fast.
He shows me his hand after the first game containing a Proclamation of Rebirth. Well, that helps me sideboard, thank you good sir.
Game 2 is draining. He gets his engine going with Martyr of the Sands bumping his life to a lot, Serra Ascendant being a threat and Ghostly Prison holding me down. The deck is decently resilient to the point that I was @ 5min on the clock and still had some chance of winning, but I figured out I would just waste my time. So I conceded, put the Smiters back to the maindeck and decided to race him.
G3 I keep Liege, Teeg, Noble, Birds and lands, one being Gavony Township. This hands looks perfect for a swarm, just missing a Lingering Souls. I will have Teeg to protect me from Wrath of God and I can start hitting him pretty fast.
I play noble, he plays a tapland. I then topdeck Thoughtseize and see Banishing Light, Oblivion Ring, Path to Exile, Disenchant and lands (one being Ghost Quarter). This is going to be a topdeck battle soon if I can't swarm. I make a little mistake here by taking Oblivion Ring. Maybe I should take Path to he wouldn't be able to double removal on his next turn, but I thought "if I topdeck Elspeth I want her to stick".
So I play Teeg and pass. He plays a freshly from the top Squadron Hawk. I topdeck Lingering Souls, play the Souls and Birds, looking for a Liege alpha strike next turn.
He Paths my Liege and Banishing Lights my Teeg, but the damage is done: I now have my dorks and Spirit tokens with Gavony online. He does not manage to find the Wrath of God and we get the W
Matchs: 3-2
Games: 6-5
Overall, positive!
I really liked the current maindeck. One league is not enough of a sample size to take conclusions, but I lost to decks I was supposed to lose and I won against decks I was supposed to win. I still want to find opportunities to use Elspeth, Sun's Champion. I desired to topdeck her a LOT. Garruk Relentless was a BEAST and got me several wins from his tutor ability. I really felt, however, that I wanted some creature with ETB destroy a permanent or some guy with Haste or Lifelink (Like this or maybeboth?[c]) I could really use some of those.
I'm also thinking of adding Fracturing Gust to the sideboard. It is great against affinity and allround answer to both artifacts and enchantments.
Trying to deckbuild around the new cards made me go for two apporoaches:
1. Heavy white with Gideon (and no Brutality). You should still have a single black on turn two or three for Anafenza and Lingering Souls, but you won't need the double black requirements. Mana stays as it is. This means you can use Brimaz (which I was looking for as well).
This is a deck that has a better clock and is more linear. You don't have many angles of attack, but the angles you have are efficient and hit HARD.
This should be your option if facing non-interactive strategies, such as Storm. The deck loses a little bit of % against other rock strategies, but still should be favorable. Humans matchup will be more of a coinflip as well.
2. Heavier on the black sources, with Brutality and Garruk. This means you lose clock, but you have more angles of attack and a better presence in the mid to late game. What you lose in racing, you gain in tempo. Humans is easier, Death Shadow is easier, Rock is a cakewalk. You do lose more to storm and uninteractive strategies.
You take longer to win, but you have less problems reaching that winning state.
I do love the Garruk Relentless. He is rarely irrelevant, and if he flips the turn he goes to the table, you can always tutor a Liege or Rhino to make up for the damage that you would do if he were a Gideon instead. I never lost a game where I could activate Garruk twice. This is pretty big.
It really depends on your local meta. As I have been facing some Enduring Ideal decks online as well as having some 50-50 hard matchups against affinity, I have added two Qasali Pridemages to the maindeck. This is my current decklist, that I'm testing online (unfortunately I had a triple tron matchup yesterday, which is arguably the worst match of all times, so no useful feedback):
PS: Maybe it's because of your mana requirements, but most of the time I fetch Overgrown Tomb. It is the mana that opens the most plays for me turn 1 through 4, I almost never go for Godless Shrine. Also, I think that if I rely too much on a single land to give me both secondary colors, it is a very easy target for hate. I get screwed twofold by losing it.
Some thoughts:
1. I really want to put Elspeth in the maindeck. She's gas in most matchups and one of the best topdecks you can ever wish for. I have cut one Wilt-Leaf Liege in lieu of her.
I've moved the Orzhov Pontiff to the sideboard and removed one Smiter for two copies of Anafenza, the Foremost. While we do have some awkwardness of her counters ability and Exalted from Noble Hierarch, she hits hard and randomly screws graveyard shenanigans. It makes our Dredge matchup easier g1, and it is close to 50-50 already.
One less Voice of Resurgence and one Abrupt Decay to the sideboard for the two copies of Qasali Pridemage. This is what I really want to test out, specially vs Affinity, and it is popular right on leagues online. It randomly wins games agains't Enduring Ideal too. It's just a good card overall.
Cards that I want to squeeze in but have no room for: Collective Brutality - one of the best Rock cards ever printed. I feel, however, that by using it I will want a fourth Lingering Souls and maybe trim down on Path to Exiles. I feel that 13 pieces of removal (counting Garruk Relentless here) is the sweet spot for the deck. Perhaps we want to go higher on a meta filled with Merfolk, Infect and Humans, so that's where I would use it.
Eidolon of Rhetoric - I want a second one and I'm close to cutting Orzhov Pontiff for it. Pontiff is good and tutorable with Garruk, but If I'm tutoring with Garruk, why not Liege or Rhino? Maybe I should cut the Aven Mindcensors though, as I haven't been having much success with them lately. Perhaps it's the lack of matchs against Storm.
Siege Rhino - I could run four and still think that I need more. Such a good card. Currently running one.
Eternal Witness - For those times when I really need Maelstrom Pulse again, or Abrupt Decay or the fourth land drop. You can even tutor her with Garruk, get him back from the grave and play him again. A lot of shenanigans possible with her, but sadly, no room in the deck.
Jokes aside, maybe Lantern winning will bring forth the conversation of unbanning BBE.
-_-
OTOH I really want to see that Living End deck reaching top tables. It is so crazy!
Abzan Liege might not be the best choice right now but it can be a force to be reckoned with depending on the meta. I feel that GP São Paulo will feature a lot of Burn. It will really depend if Bx decks are in the meta for my decision. I'm glad I have a comrade in arms to help develop the deck
Doran is certainly interesting tech. I will keep it in mind.
Currently I'm thinking of three possible decks:
1. UR Storm, which I have some past piloting it. I don't like having a huge target on my back, though.
2. Mono Blue Living End. This deck surprised me with its consistency and odd angle of attack. Living End is a VERY swingy card and 4Cryptic Command helps a lot vs Ramp decks, which are Abzan's weaknesses.
3. Taking Turns. Just is more a casual choice, but I just love looping turns around and the deck looks good vs most matchups. Even the burn MU is not as bad as it seems. Though most of this choice is my Rogue deck preference speaking out.
About Anafenza, yes, she is pretty good. She really feels amazing in the maindeck. I like her way more than Loxodon Smiter right now.
Garruk Relentless is a hidden gem in this format. Really good because of versatility.
While I'm seeing a lot of Bogles online (srsly, had 3 or 4 Bogles just today), I think I prefer Fracturing Gust on the sideboard, as it is another card that we can bring against Affinity. Versus affinity we're generally going to topdeck mode vs topdeck mode and the matchup can end from nowhere if they topdeck a Cranial Plating/c] or Arcbound Ravager with Inkmoth Nexus. They are loaded with threats and Fracturing Gust completely neutralizes these kind of scenarios, specially in the lategame when you have the mana to cast it.
Along with Qasali Pridemages and Abrupt Decay we can have some tricks to hold Bogles down for a while until we can cast it as well. I think, at least. That would be my plan.
If I were to update the deck, I think I would cut both Smiters, add a third Anafenza and a fourth Lingering Souls. Tehn cut the Eidolons from the sideboard and put two Fracturing Gust, based on online meta as of today. Eidolon is good, but the matchups where he is reliable are very few at the moment.
I have been flirting with one-sided wraths, but I don't find any. What actually gave me some room for thought was ditching our smaller creatures and running more Siege Rhino, targeted discard and sweepers, but then again, there's already a thread for The Rock. Abzan Rites would be something like this, I guess.
I won't be playing much Abzan right now, but I'll keep an eye on the thread. It is my "go-to" deck when the meta seem a little more less Tron-y online. I really like playing it, probably more than Twin in the old days. I have to diversify a little bit on the strats if I want to do good in GP São Paulo in July, though.
I hope the movie was good
PS: I have been thinking of Profane Command as a "one sided wrath" effect. Kill their best guy, get back your best creature from the deck or just give fear to all my legal targets and swing for lethal.
G1: Bogles 0-2
Turns out our deck is pretty bad agains't Bogles. The lack of Liliana really bites us. We can blowout them if they go for the Daybreak Coronet by breaking their first enchantment, but that wasn't enough for me. Got trampled over by a giant bogle twice.
I don't even remember how I sideboarded against him, because everything was bad. I got annoyed because he laughed in the chat when I lost, which I thought was rude.
Match Total: 0-1
Game Total: 0-2
G2: Affinity
Talk about an intense match.
G1 I mull to 6, leaving one Voice of Resurgence on top, with Turn 1 noble, turn two Stirring Wildwood +Voice. He goes t1 blinkmoth into signal pest.
Turn two he gets ravager and ornipthopter, cranial plating and I draw a bunch of lands. Can't stop the robots.
Sideboarded in: 2 Stony Silence, 1 Zealous Persecution. I take out 3 Voices.
G2 I have a firm grip with Qasali Pridemage and Stony Silence. I get turn 2 Silence, Turn 3 Pridemage and start hammering away him, as his only mana sources were artifact lands and a Mox. I hammered him with Qasali, until he gets a Tear for my Stony Silence. In the same turn, he Thoughtseizes me to find a grip with 2 Path to Exiles, one Abrupt Decay, one Stony Silence and two Lieges. He has the tear for the second silence, but it is too late. The beatdowns got to him.
I figured out he would have Ghirapur Aether Grid, so I sided out two BoPs for two Thoughtseizes.
I keep a hand with Noble, Qasali, Abrupt, Rhino and lands. He starts with Thopter + artifact land into Vault Skirge. This is going to be a problem.
He plays Spire of Industry into Galvanic Blast my Noble. I draw Garruk Relentless for the turn and now I face the decision of playing Qasali Pridemage with no mana open or holding Abrupt Decay and run into the possibility of not doing anything for a turn.
I decide to hold Decay. I'm at 19 life right now and a Cranial Plating could really wreck my day. I also have the nice play of Qasali with mana open into Garruk turn 4, which could possibly wrath his board. He plays Ghirapur, hits with Skirge. I Abrupt the Skirge and he and passes.
Qasali go, he plays Etched Champion with exactly 3 artifacts in play. He then Galvanics my Qasali. I sac Qasali to kill Ornipthopter, he now loses Metalcraft, I play Garruk killing the champion and now I have a pretty good lead: I still have Rhino in hand and 2 lands (could be Lingering Souls
Matches: 1-1
Games: 2-3
G3 Eldrazi Tron
He has turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer into turn 3 Reality Smasher. Then turn 4 Endbringer Fun times.
I side out Abrupt Decay to 2 Thoughtseize. I don't know what the hell to do against this deck.
G2 I start with noble into t2 Smiter. He goes matter reshaper turn 2. T3 I drop another noble and Anafenza. He goes for another Matter Reshaper.
Liege turn 4. He trades both reshapers with Anafenza, but they're exiled.
Natural tron on turn 4, Reality Smasher + Walking Balista, but I Path and he scoops.
G3 is a really grindy match, where he ends drawing way more cards than me thanks to Sea-Gate Wreckage and then Endbringer. I got the chance to close the game if I drew some stuff, but in the end I couldn't draw anything but Forest and other lands.
But hey, I've learned that Reality Smasher is not so good when you have Wilt-Leaf Liege in hand with Path!
Matches: 1-2
Games: 3-5
G4 vs Merfolk
Finally a favorable matchup!
Game one I start with a shaky hand. I have path, push, garruk and lands. I start the game so I just land and go.
He goes with cursecatcher. Hm. I topdeck a BoP and play it, so I can Garruk next turn. Here is the blowout: he plays a lord and attacks with Cursecatcher. I Path to Exile the Lord, with no open mana, so he just sacs the Catcher. No extra land for him.
I then Garruk Relentless the lord and win the tempo and Card Advantage battle. Very hard to come back from that.
I take out 2 Anafenza, as I sense that I won't be attacking too much this game early. +1 Zealous Persecution +1 Abrupt Decay
He mulls to five and I keep a hand with Noble, Birds, Smiter, Path and Lands. Everything I ever wanted.
He can't put up with the turn 2 Smiter, into turn 3 removal and pressure from the deck. I also topdecked more PtEs, Decays and Pushes, sohe just concedes.
Matchs: 2-2
Games: 5-5
Everything tied for the last game!
G5: Mono White Proclamation of Rebirth
I come out really fast g1. Noble -> Smiter -> Liege -> Souls. He has a rather slow hand with Weathered Wayfarer and Kami of False Hope and gets overwhelmed really fast.
He shows me his hand after the first game containing a Proclamation of Rebirth. Well, that helps me sideboard, thank you good sir.
SB out: 3 Pushes, 3 Voices, 2 Smiters. In: 1 Grafdigger's Cage, 2 Nihil Spellbomb and 2 Gaddock Teeg, 2 Thoughtseize
Not sure what the last card was.
Game 2 is draining. He gets his engine going with Martyr of the Sands bumping his life to a lot, Serra Ascendant being a threat and Ghostly Prison holding me down. The deck is decently resilient to the point that I was @ 5min on the clock and still had some chance of winning, but I figured out I would just waste my time. So I conceded, put the Smiters back to the maindeck and decided to race him.
G3 I keep Liege, Teeg, Noble, Birds and lands, one being Gavony Township. This hands looks perfect for a swarm, just missing a Lingering Souls. I will have Teeg to protect me from Wrath of God and I can start hitting him pretty fast.
I play noble, he plays a tapland. I then topdeck Thoughtseize and see Banishing Light, Oblivion Ring, Path to Exile, Disenchant and lands (one being Ghost Quarter). This is going to be a topdeck battle soon if I can't swarm. I make a little mistake here by taking Oblivion Ring. Maybe I should take Path to he wouldn't be able to double removal on his next turn, but I thought "if I topdeck Elspeth I want her to stick".
So I play Teeg and pass. He plays a freshly from the top Squadron Hawk. I topdeck Lingering Souls, play the Souls and Birds, looking for a Liege alpha strike next turn.
He Paths my Liege and Banishing Lights my Teeg, but the damage is done: I now have my dorks and Spirit tokens with Gavony online. He does not manage to find the Wrath of God and we get the W
Matchs: 3-2
Games: 6-5
Overall, positive!
I really liked the current maindeck. One league is not enough of a sample size to take conclusions, but I lost to decks I was supposed to lose and I won against decks I was supposed to win. I still want to find opportunities to use Elspeth, Sun's Champion. I desired to topdeck her a LOT.
Garruk Relentless was a BEAST and got me several wins from his tutor ability. I really felt, however, that I wanted some creature with ETB destroy a permanent or some guy with Haste or Lifelink (Like this or maybe both?[c]) I could really use some of those.
I'm also thinking of adding Fracturing Gust to the sideboard. It is great against affinity and allround answer to both artifacts and enchantments.
1. Heavy white with Gideon (and no Brutality). You should still have a single black on turn two or three for Anafenza and Lingering Souls, but you won't need the double black requirements. Mana stays as it is. This means you can use Brimaz (which I was looking for as well).
This is a deck that has a better clock and is more linear. You don't have many angles of attack, but the angles you have are efficient and hit HARD.
This should be your option if facing non-interactive strategies, such as Storm. The deck loses a little bit of % against other rock strategies, but still should be favorable. Humans matchup will be more of a coinflip as well.
2. Heavier on the black sources, with Brutality and Garruk. This means you lose clock, but you have more angles of attack and a better presence in the mid to late game. What you lose in racing, you gain in tempo. Humans is easier, Death Shadow is easier, Rock is a cakewalk. You do lose more to storm and uninteractive strategies.
You take longer to win, but you have less problems reaching that winning state.
I do love the Garruk Relentless. He is rarely irrelevant, and if he flips the turn he goes to the table, you can always tutor a Liege or Rhino to make up for the damage that you would do if he were a Gideon instead. I never lost a game where I could activate Garruk twice. This is pretty big.
It really depends on your local meta. As I have been facing some Enduring Ideal decks online as well as having some 50-50 hard matchups against affinity, I have added two Qasali Pridemages to the maindeck. This is my current decklist, that I'm testing online (unfortunately I had a triple tron matchup yesterday, which is arguably the worst match of all times, so no useful feedback):
PS: Maybe it's because of your mana requirements, but most of the time I fetch Overgrown Tomb. It is the mana that opens the most plays for me turn 1 through 4, I almost never go for Godless Shrine. Also, I think that if I rely too much on a single land to give me both secondary colors, it is a very easy target for hate. I get screwed twofold by losing it.
4 Verdant Catacomb
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Temple Garden
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Gavony Township
2 Forest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Noble Hierarh
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Loxodon Smiter
2 Anafenza, the Foremost
3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Siege Rhino
3 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Garruk Relentless
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Thoughtseize
2 Stony Silence
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Abrupt Decay
Some thoughts:
1. I really want to put Elspeth in the maindeck. She's gas in most matchups and one of the best topdecks you can ever wish for. I have cut one Wilt-Leaf Liege in lieu of her.
I've moved the Orzhov Pontiff to the sideboard and removed one Smiter for two copies of Anafenza, the Foremost. While we do have some awkwardness of her counters ability and Exalted from Noble Hierarch, she hits hard and randomly screws graveyard shenanigans. It makes our Dredge matchup easier g1, and it is close to 50-50 already.
One less Voice of Resurgence and one Abrupt Decay to the sideboard for the two copies of Qasali Pridemage. This is what I really want to test out, specially vs Affinity, and it is popular right on leagues online. It randomly wins games agains't Enduring Ideal too. It's just a good card overall.
Cards that I want to squeeze in but have no room for:
Collective Brutality - one of the best Rock cards ever printed. I feel, however, that by using it I will want a fourth Lingering Souls and maybe trim down on Path to Exiles. I feel that 13 pieces of removal (counting Garruk Relentless here) is the sweet spot for the deck. Perhaps we want to go higher on a meta filled with Merfolk, Infect and Humans, so that's where I would use it.
Eidolon of Rhetoric - I want a second one and I'm close to cutting Orzhov Pontiff for it. Pontiff is good and tutorable with Garruk, but If I'm tutoring with Garruk, why not Liege or Rhino? Maybe I should cut the Aven Mindcensors though, as I haven't been having much success with them lately. Perhaps it's the lack of matchs against Storm.
Siege Rhino - I could run four and still think that I need more. Such a good card. Currently running one.
Eternal Witness - For those times when I really need Maelstrom Pulse again, or Abrupt Decay or the fourth land drop. You can even tutor her with Garruk, get him back from the grave and play him again. A lot of shenanigans possible with her, but sadly, no room in the deck.