Really? I haven't sleeved up Bant Drazi in a long time but Affinity and Burn never really used to give me trouble. Decks like Dredge, Storm, and Tron are the problem matchups
I mean, Sultai can run FoV as well? Jund doesn't offer anything extra there. And yeah, I'm really not a fan of your Living End build. It seems like you're jumping through a lot of hoops just to force "zombie tribal" and LE into the same deck
And no, Hogaak got banned because the deck was just absolutely busted lol
I wonder if it would be possible to come up with a build with slightly more green? We would lose some explosiveness for sure, but we would gain Force of Vigor in the sideboard for fighting Leyline (although the current Force of Negation package is probably better against everything besides turn 0 Leyline) and Lotleth Troll would help in the matchups where they get enough big creatures on the board to block our Vines for free.
Okay I've tested both builds now and I gotta say, Glimpse/Chill seems wayyyyy stronger than the Brutality build. What worries me is that if your opponent has unanswered grave hate the deck is reeeeeeally bad. The Brutality build can still fight with big Trolls, but it's also just so much slower/less consistent. Would be really nice to find a healthy middle ground
Been playtesting with the 5-0 BUG list and hot damn this thing has wheels! I am really tempted to throw in some number of dredgers and Lotleth Trolls though. Anyone else experimenting?
I don't have much experience against Tron, but my understanding is that you're all on on Discard/counterspells and TBR.
You might get a chance to blow up some artifacts.
But mainly you're just trying to go fast/play tempo if you can
I don't really know what you're supposed to do about martyr proc, but Amulet is pretty straightforward. You're just trying to put bodies on the board and disrupt them at the same time, so a lot of your cards are naturally good. Noble into KoA is a great start, especially if they only have one Amulet.
Arbiter can shut down/slow down their transmute chains, and maybe a Mindcensor wouldn't hurt either. Worship should be good too, you've just gotta watch out for Ballista and Firespout. Keep your Paths in, and if they grab a Tolaria West off of Titan, you should Path it in response to the bounce trigger before they can grab their Pact of Negation. They'll just grab a Pact for another Titan instead, but depending on their mana development it might save you a turn
Well ideally you hope to dodge Bogles, I wouldn't devote any slots to specific tech for them.
Board out any non-bolt removal, board in EE, any extra Stubs and any other relevant counters you have.
Save your counters for the really important enchantments. If you're lucky you can strip their threats from hand (if they don't see their Leyline), or blow them up with EE. Blowing up key enchantments with EE is okay too if they have Totem Armor online already.
Then you're basically all in on TBR
Oh you're right, I wasn't thinking clearly about Surgical. My brain is fuzzy before I've finished my coffee
Agree with everything you said. On top of not affecting the board, those cantrips should be finding you the cards you're casting Secrets for anyways, and Snap can take care of the rest
Are you sure you want to run Secrets?
We don't have a whole lot of creatures, and we typically only end up with them
in the yard on accident. I suppose you can tutor a Surgical on 0, but otherwise even
Getting to 1 for a Shadow/push/thoughtseize can be tricky. If you want this type of effect you
Should probably just play Traverse
I actually just playtested like a million games against Hardened Scales last night.
The matchup didn't feel great, but not horrible either. Our gameplan is to try to play tempo until we can make an opening for TBR
They don't vomit their hand like Affinity so keep in all your discard, board out Street Wraiths
My best games usually went something like Discard > Removal > Last Hope > Shadow/Delve Threat, or if you can pump out a Gurmag on turn 2 and follow it up with removal. Anger of the Gods is also way better than it seems at first. Shutting off Modular is really useful, even if it only ends up being a 1 for 1 on a hangerback or something. Don't bother with Lavaman, Thoughtseize is better here
Sorry everything I wrote is kind of a jumble
@svarog
Hey welcome man, I'm new to this deck as well
I don't think we're particularly good at the moment, but we aren't bad either
No Spirits is definitely a hard matchup, especially if they're throwing in Reflector mages too.
Tribal aggro decks with really good interaction stapled onto creatures is such a nightmare. Humans is a hard enough matchup, Spirits are hard in similar ways except they all fly too lol. Post board you just turn into a bad control deck.
Bring in Lavaman, Brutality, Last Hope, Kommand, EE, Abrade, any sweepers you have
Take out Wraiths, Delve Threats, Stub D's, maybe a TBR if you have enough cards to bring in
Here's the discord link for any future browsers
https://discord.gg/xyXgjFc
And no, Hogaak got banned because the deck was just absolutely busted lol
Also, is there a discord server anywhere?
You might get a chance to blow up some artifacts.
But mainly you're just trying to go fast/play tempo if you can
Arbiter can shut down/slow down their transmute chains, and maybe a Mindcensor wouldn't hurt either. Worship should be good too, you've just gotta watch out for Ballista and Firespout. Keep your Paths in, and if they grab a Tolaria West off of Titan, you should Path it in response to the bounce trigger before they can grab their Pact of Negation. They'll just grab a Pact for another Titan instead, but depending on their mana development it might save you a turn
I know pros swear by it but I really don't like it in Grixis
Board out any non-bolt removal, board in EE, any extra Stubs and any other relevant counters you have.
Save your counters for the really important enchantments. If you're lucky you can strip their threats from hand (if they don't see their Leyline), or blow them up with EE. Blowing up key enchantments with EE is okay too if they have Totem Armor online already.
Then you're basically all in on TBR
Agree with everything you said. On top of not affecting the board, those cantrips should be finding you the cards you're casting Secrets for anyways, and Snap can take care of the rest
We don't have a whole lot of creatures, and we typically only end up with them
in the yard on accident. I suppose you can tutor a Surgical on 0, but otherwise even
Getting to 1 for a Shadow/push/thoughtseize can be tricky. If you want this type of effect you
Should probably just play Traverse
The matchup didn't feel great, but not horrible either. Our gameplan is to try to play tempo until we can make an opening for TBR
They don't vomit their hand like Affinity so keep in all your discard, board out Street Wraiths
My best games usually went something like Discard > Removal > Last Hope > Shadow/Delve Threat, or if you can pump out a Gurmag on turn 2 and follow it up with removal. Anger of the Gods is also way better than it seems at first. Shutting off Modular is really useful, even if it only ends up being a 1 for 1 on a hangerback or something. Don't bother with Lavaman, Thoughtseize is better here
Sorry everything I wrote is kind of a jumble
@svarog
Hey welcome man, I'm new to this deck as well
I don't think we're particularly good at the moment, but we aren't bad either
No Spirits is definitely a hard matchup, especially if they're throwing in Reflector mages too.
Tribal aggro decks with really good interaction stapled onto creatures is such a nightmare. Humans is a hard enough matchup, Spirits are hard in similar ways except they all fly too lol. Post board you just turn into a bad control deck.
Bring in Lavaman, Brutality, Last Hope, Kommand, EE, Abrade, any sweepers you have
Take out Wraiths, Delve Threats, Stub D's, maybe a TBR if you have enough cards to bring in