Pre-ban a bellower package was fun and effective. Black is paired with abrupt decay Glissa and the executioners capsule loop. Sadly, there are more black creatures now, and that is why you see a drop in use of slaughter pact. I used trinket mage then to search for capsule and amulets.
Riftsweeper with an eternal witness and mortuary mire basically allows you to cycle as many of one card as you like ignore RFG effects. If you play a titan and it dies, you can play ewitness instead of transmuting. Play that titan again... it gets pathed, play rift sweeper, play it again, it dies, play mortuary mire, get back titan... I did this a LOT when I had it with the bellower cards (Caustic caterpillar, lotus cobra, rot wolf, scooze, reclamation sage, kitchen finks...). Sweeper allows you to play around the best removal
UG counter magic and making the deck tempo with more counter spells seems soild.
UG red, as I mentioned before, fits the meta well.
Black doesn't seem to remove the relevant stuff at the time you need it to, Mass removal is better IMO.
White, for any good cards, is too mana intensive.
Right now I feel there are too many problems and not a lot of great solutions. Right now I am weighing Tragtusk and acidic slime in the main. Putting distance between me and the opponent with life seems good, and fatal push gets baloth, and Tusk is a 2 for one at worst.
Acidic slime (my favorite card) ALWAYS has value. disrupting a land base can really throw a greedy deck, and the 2/2 death touch is great fodder against fair decks like the ones that run Goyf.
Digging is important, as well as mana. Explore seems best for this. Visions is great with the counter magic if you want to durdle a bit.
Goyf, bolt, and creatures with trample need a big but to survive... in the case of goyf, you can try to trade with a bigger power. But ultimately EE is the best plan for Goyfs.
Tron is a problem, but LD solves that.
Cheerios is solved with a chalice of the void. and EE
The prowess deck is hurt by graveyard hate and EE, it is also reliant of a enchantmant and is mana intensive.
BW tokens are solved with EE and LD, though the planeswalkers can get unruly.
The thought knot seer deck.. sweet god I do not know.
Deaths shadows... never played it... I think screwing with their lands would work.
She is great with mortuary mire, which favors a black build (I prefer the UG).
The big advantage is pairing her with ones of's. Like woodland bellower or Rift sweeper. Which are great at keeping the tian loop going.
The drawback is the format is favoring the unfair. Without bloom, it seems we are stuck in the slow lane with little consistent contro cards to get us out of it. Red colorless gives a lot to work with (kozeleks return, crumble to dust) they are hit by ancient stirrings.
Explore over visions offers an option to overcome the combo of playing cards AND digging. Tribe scouts helps with the bloom loss.
Dig and play lands is the key. Batter skull is great at keeping you alive but is underwhelming as a kill option. Batista gives you a little more umph, but no evasion.
Mystcutter hydra was fun, I saw a lot of control in my area.
Oran-Rief Hydra, Kalonian Hydra, and Primordial Hydra all looked fun.
ruric thar IMO is the best to lock out a troublesome deck combined with ewitness and rift sweeper and a mortuary mire.
That is correct, If you already have a West in hand you can leave the lands untapped and bounce something else and do it EOT.
Many opponents kill it (path it) while you have the first trigger. When they don't we move to your second question.
You do give it haste. And the next two lands depends on what deck you are playing against, as well as what is in your hand. AND THAT is why the deck is not easy to play. Getting a west can set you up for another titan, or a EE. If you against burn, go get radiant fountain if you are low on life, need a chump blocker or a sac outlet get kahlini garden. Dredge? or goyfs? get BB. plus you have to consider pact mana.
again, if you have west in hand, you just do that EOT. Becuase you want to be able to play a titan or two the next turn and get the fortress for the win. You are better off optimizing mana available in most cases because you are closer to later game, as your opponent will be closer to his end game and be getting more mana, you want to be able to overwhelm them.
I mean, unless you drew a land or a tribe scout, you are probably doing something oppressive or digging. (Ancient stirrings to batter skull for example).
The chain would start by searching for tolaria and a bounce land, both come into play tapped and then untap, you float GUU, then you transmute the bounced tolaria that turn.
If you have Boros bounceland and vesuva, I am wondering why you kept that hand, or feeling bad for such crappy draws. The 3 cards you do not want to see are Vesuva, Boros Garrison, and slayers stronghold. You would need to have a pretty compelling 6 cards to keep those in an opening hand... If you have the Stronghold and Garrison: pitch it, 100% of the time. keeping or drawing one makes it harder to pull off the combo, but that is just a statistical probability you have to accept and live with. You will see games where you only see 2 lands the entire game (In opening hand or naturally drawing), you can lose or win with only 2 lands naturally.
This deck has several singletons, many are combo pieces, the others filler that help you. Just like any combo, you don't want to see certain cards, just like in Burn or Jund you do not want to see 10 lands... you want to see answers.
You do not need botanical sanctum if you are not running Serum visions. You need fast green colored mana then, in which you can run forests. Keeping the deck to 4 colors seems strongest. Greem for dudes, Red and White for lands and sideboard, and blue for Tolaria West.
I have run walking ballista main, and it really depends on your meta. I main deck it when I know I am going to see a lot of creature decks, particularly infect. Just putting it out there for 3 will keep you from dying. It also works as a great finisher: if you smacked them for 16, and they fetched, then you can just search up a ballista off a Tolaria West off the second titan and just deal direct damage. At worst it is spot removal and a chump blocker, at best it is a fireball that wins you the game. I did use it in my side board at a quarterly tournament and it is fantastic against Cheerios. It also lets you walk right out of a lock down against sun and moon... get it.. walk.
Still would try cutting visions, going to 4 explores and 4 asuza's. I have not been disappointed with the results thus far in mine, I may up to another Tribe scout (skyshourd ranger). Explore seems really strong. Visions eats the fast mana slot to need to have blue, but moving away from it you focus on green, which allowed me to shift to a 3rd forest, which has its own advantages. I board in Bog a lot, and may want to shift it back in, If I do, I prefer to replace a tapped land, at worst a 'colorless' land like cavern of souls which seems less relevant in the meta at the moment.
Yes, explore is not 'a good card' as some have argued, but you have to think about what the deck is trying to do: Play lands. The slot does the thing that visions does: dig. Yes, not nearly as well, but it combines the main goal for the deck (playing more lands than your opponent) and digging. I feel visions screws with the mana-base too much to justify it, and since you are taking away a fast land slot, you may want to take that all in consideration.
Going: Gemstone mine, scout; float a green, bounceland, play mine again, explore, play land (maybe even ancient stirrings or amulet) possibly setting up asuza to be able to transmute a tolara west and play a titian is a line of play I pulled off a lot this weekend. Getting stuck on 5 mana is all too common. also, with heavy removal, it is nice to just get hard mana on the field.
I would venture away from the visions and the botanical sanctum. you are loosing a fast mana spot with the bog. You shift to explore and a ice bridge or mana confluence to make sure you can always get the color you need for the wish and the side board. Bog really sets you back with the color mana since you have no black spells. Also losing a bounce land is questionable. not having 4 asuza's is not a great plan (as I have reluctantly come to this same conclusion).
But beyond that, the deck looks fun, and a little more resilient by having access to a few outs game one.
Match one: 1-2 lost dice roll, Played one of the best players in Georgia, He was playing B/G, He saw all the removal to keep me off tempo games 2 and 3. I one first round from a turn 4 titan.
Match 2: 2-1 won dice roll, Cherrieo's: Apparently y that thing can go off turn 1-3... he went off turn 3 before I could figure out what he was playing. Won game 2 with a Leyline and chalice of the void for zero turn 1, and won game 2 by taking out his land and playing a EE for 0 turn 2.
Match 3: 2-0 won dice roll, played a friend. Playing allies deck tat uses a second sunrise type affects. won 2-0. (I just know how to beat it and have a high win % against it).
Match 4, 2-0 won dice roll.. never saw his deck, R/w vehicles I guess. Killed himv turn 2 game 1, and Ruric thar locked him out game 2.
Match 5: 2-1 lost dice roll: Cheerios again! lost game one (he comboed turn 2), he scooped to chalice at zero my first turn, we get deck checked.. and he was missing two lands and I get the match. (I did have leyline in hand with a favorable opener, I think I could have gotten it.)
Match 6: 0-2 lost dice roll... Bant Eldrazi: died to Thought-Knot Seer and a Eldrazi Displacer lock both games. (I do not think this is a favorable match-up, even though it is a lowered tier deck ATM)
Math 7: 1-1-1: Titian shift. He gets Platinum Emperion out, I decide to try to deck him than scoop (mistake and wound up costing too much time) I go to well over 100 life and he runs out of mountains... then proceeds to get 2 Platinum Emperion and 4 titians on the field. I can answer back with 2 batter skulls, but decided at 12minutes left in the round to scoop and crush game 2... then go to turns game 3.
I know I messed up my first match and last match, though there is no guarantees of victories from either. unfavorable hands against bant endrazi did not help, at no point did I just 'have it' in that match.
Crumble to dust (land destruction in general) was a champ, is super good in the format. I think acidic slime may start making its way in to my list again.
I do not see how sigarda, host of herons helps with oblivion stone. Sure she has hexproof for Karn, but O-Stone destroys, not sacks, and all is dust is not too common anymore. Also pulling from white rather than red is kinda touchy IMO. Ruric Thar, the Unbowed I think is just better in that match up for the same reasons you would bring in Sigarda.
I have done the boarding out of amulets against burn and jund before. I only do it when I am on the draw. You just go creature for creature always looking for life gain and you usually just overwhelm them. They take a lot of damage by themselves and you just keep gaining back about half of what you lost. Ruric sealed the game for one matchup, another was just bouncing and replaying the radiant fountain and Courser of Kruphix. That game was super close and I topdecked very well and my opponent did not draw nuts. I was playing cobras in the one matchup, and I was worried about blood moon, so I was planning a slow game, as blood moon slow them down as well, turns out not moons, and they did board in a lot of amulet hate which did clutter their hand and did not let them trigger prowess.
The getting stuck on 5 mana is common and the SSG pushes that over the edge to get the titan off turn 2. but a Acidic slime turn 2 (or 3 if you are slow) is great against many decks. Plus gives you a 2/2 body with death touch on the field. Int eh board I am running:
2x Radiant flame (I like return, I like 3 damage more atm)
2x: EE
2x:Cruble to dust
3x: Leyline of sanctity (real relevant in my meta.)
1x: Thragtusk
1x: Batter skull
1x: ruric thar (REALLY good in my meta)
1x: Dragon loard dramoka (Again meta and a life gain slot)
1x: Walking Ballista (crushes infect)
1x: OPEN (hornet queen, spell skite... dunno)
There is a quarterly coming up and will be testing (been swamped with work to test it this week)
Forgot to explain Explore: I am trying to consistently to get to 5x6 land drops, and is digs. Since I am using the 5 drops to my advantage, I feel the explores are better. I feel Slime follows the first rule of magic.
Also, I am seeing a lot of Sun and Moon, Mono blue take extra turns, and finally played against my first Adnasuim deck. I keep seeing the MTGO top lists and don't see hardly any of those decks. I am seeing some mean home brews like Blue White Prowess and Blue Green Eldrazi both devastating combo decks. We have a quarterly event coming up soon and I am worried about getting blindsided by rogue decks that top 8 in qualifying matches.
Reminders on top of the deck are not allowed in competitive. The best thing I found long term is to just state the steps. Untap (wait), Upkeep (wait), Draw... Yes, I did lose a match at a GP because I forgot a pact trigger, but that was because I was trying to fast play and win that turn.
I have got to time a LOT. it is partially due to trying to min/max mana and the next turn, or the sheer act of comboing off. But actually mostly due to my opponents. Ironically aggro decks (like zoo or Coco) take the longest in my experience because they are trying to do what you do on a regular basis, calculate your mana and see if you can kill them with titan. Side boarding is also the longest process, not for you if you make a list, but your opponent when they have no idea how to stop you. Midrange players and other combo players usually have spot removal and so they just change their hand hate or removal count. Where as the aggro player MUST kill you faster that you can kill them, so they have to be more cautious about over-committing, especially when they do not have a lot of ways to stop it on the fly.
I do have to say the other times I have gone to turns is because they are slow playing... I just call a judge on a rules question and they usually hang out in the area and that tends to speed up the game a little... why? because THEY know they are slow playing. I have had people tapped out, not running the right colors or have enough mana ask me to wait on a uncounterable un-targetable combo piece and take 2 minutes to allow me to continue just to scoop just before combat damage, wasting over 5 minutes more.
Mostly though I just try to move at a pace so that my opponent knows what is happening. Becuase if you have to stop and re-show your mana and declared targets etc... it just takes longer. Also, in bigger events, my matches do go longer, but I ask for time extensions when a judge has to spend 10 minutes explaining my I can cast emerkul turn 2.
I like walking ballista over the hanger back. Particularly for infect. I get that Hanger is a better card, but function against the decks that are troublesome.... Shoot a steppe lynx or a small shadows, take out and Inkmoth nexus, or druid...*pew pew* shoot those cheerios. Block remove counters and take out that swift spear, or necatal. At worst? a bolt to the face... or a really bad fireball.
The coarlhelm build is cute, but doesn't even abuse the best parts of the deck, particularly infinite life and scrying. (Trade routes). also, only 8 bounce lands and no dig mechanics make it a heavy midrange deck that lacks the consistency I feel (and tested). It is a lot like the old patron of the moon /ob nixilis, the fallen you used to do with tooth and nail.
Heavy blue with counterspells seems strongest in format right now.
I dislike path for our deck, I do not like accelerating my opponent for any reason.
Kight of the reliquary is better with things like sun titan. and loam (which also pairs with trade routes).
I would favor black and get trinket mage, and have glissa the traitor and executioners capsule (loops infinitely with glissa or engineered explosives). *If you want a stronger midrange build*
I agree to avoid the midrange and stick to counterspells and titans (i included ruric in there because he seems really good in the meta and can stop a few decks.)
Riftsweeper with an eternal witness and mortuary mire basically allows you to cycle as many of one card as you like ignore RFG effects. If you play a titan and it dies, you can play ewitness instead of transmuting. Play that titan again... it gets pathed, play rift sweeper, play it again, it dies, play mortuary mire, get back titan... I did this a LOT when I had it with the bellower cards (Caustic caterpillar, lotus cobra, rot wolf, scooze, reclamation sage, kitchen finks...). Sweeper allows you to play around the best removal
UG counter magic and making the deck tempo with more counter spells seems soild.
UG red, as I mentioned before, fits the meta well.
Black doesn't seem to remove the relevant stuff at the time you need it to, Mass removal is better IMO.
White, for any good cards, is too mana intensive.
Right now I feel there are too many problems and not a lot of great solutions. Right now I am weighing Tragtusk and acidic slime in the main. Putting distance between me and the opponent with life seems good, and fatal push gets baloth, and Tusk is a 2 for one at worst.
Acidic slime (my favorite card) ALWAYS has value. disrupting a land base can really throw a greedy deck, and the 2/2 death touch is great fodder against fair decks like the ones that run Goyf.
Digging is important, as well as mana. Explore seems best for this. Visions is great with the counter magic if you want to durdle a bit.
Goyf, bolt, and creatures with trample need a big but to survive... in the case of goyf, you can try to trade with a bigger power. But ultimately EE is the best plan for Goyfs.
Tron is a problem, but LD solves that.
Cheerios is solved with a chalice of the void. and EE
The prowess deck is hurt by graveyard hate and EE, it is also reliant of a enchantmant and is mana intensive.
BW tokens are solved with EE and LD, though the planeswalkers can get unruly.
The thought knot seer deck.. sweet god I do not know.
Deaths shadows... never played it... I think screwing with their lands would work.
Ad nasium... LD does work.
@solidbass
The Eternal witness is fine.
She is great with mortuary mire, which favors a black build (I prefer the UG).
The big advantage is pairing her with ones of's. Like woodland bellower or Rift sweeper. Which are great at keeping the tian loop going.
The drawback is the format is favoring the unfair. Without bloom, it seems we are stuck in the slow lane with little consistent contro cards to get us out of it. Red colorless gives a lot to work with (kozeleks return, crumble to dust) they are hit by ancient stirrings.
Explore over visions offers an option to overcome the combo of playing cards AND digging. Tribe scouts helps with the bloom loss.
Dig and play lands is the key. Batter skull is great at keeping you alive but is underwhelming as a kill option. Batista gives you a little more umph, but no evasion.
Mystcutter hydra was fun, I saw a lot of control in my area.
Oran-Rief Hydra, Kalonian Hydra, and Primordial Hydra all looked fun.
ruric thar IMO is the best to lock out a troublesome deck combined with ewitness and rift sweeper and a mortuary mire.
Many opponents kill it (path it) while you have the first trigger. When they don't we move to your second question.
You do give it haste. And the next two lands depends on what deck you are playing against, as well as what is in your hand. AND THAT is why the deck is not easy to play. Getting a west can set you up for another titan, or a EE. If you against burn, go get radiant fountain if you are low on life, need a chump blocker or a sac outlet get kahlini garden. Dredge? or goyfs? get BB. plus you have to consider pact mana.
again, if you have west in hand, you just do that EOT. Becuase you want to be able to play a titan or two the next turn and get the fortress for the win. You are better off optimizing mana available in most cases because you are closer to later game, as your opponent will be closer to his end game and be getting more mana, you want to be able to overwhelm them.
I mean, unless you drew a land or a tribe scout, you are probably doing something oppressive or digging. (Ancient stirrings to batter skull for example).
If you have Boros bounceland and vesuva, I am wondering why you kept that hand, or feeling bad for such crappy draws. The 3 cards you do not want to see are Vesuva, Boros Garrison, and slayers stronghold. You would need to have a pretty compelling 6 cards to keep those in an opening hand... If you have the Stronghold and Garrison: pitch it, 100% of the time. keeping or drawing one makes it harder to pull off the combo, but that is just a statistical probability you have to accept and live with. You will see games where you only see 2 lands the entire game (In opening hand or naturally drawing), you can lose or win with only 2 lands naturally.
This deck has several singletons, many are combo pieces, the others filler that help you. Just like any combo, you don't want to see certain cards, just like in Burn or Jund you do not want to see 10 lands... you want to see answers.
I have run walking ballista main, and it really depends on your meta. I main deck it when I know I am going to see a lot of creature decks, particularly infect. Just putting it out there for 3 will keep you from dying. It also works as a great finisher: if you smacked them for 16, and they fetched, then you can just search up a ballista off a Tolaria West off the second titan and just deal direct damage. At worst it is spot removal and a chump blocker, at best it is a fireball that wins you the game. I did use it in my side board at a quarterly tournament and it is fantastic against Cheerios. It also lets you walk right out of a lock down against sun and moon... get it.. walk.
Yes, explore is not 'a good card' as some have argued, but you have to think about what the deck is trying to do: Play lands. The slot does the thing that visions does: dig. Yes, not nearly as well, but it combines the main goal for the deck (playing more lands than your opponent) and digging. I feel visions screws with the mana-base too much to justify it, and since you are taking away a fast land slot, you may want to take that all in consideration.
Going: Gemstone mine, scout; float a green, bounceland, play mine again, explore, play land (maybe even ancient stirrings or amulet) possibly setting up asuza to be able to transmute a tolara west and play a titian is a line of play I pulled off a lot this weekend. Getting stuck on 5 mana is all too common. also, with heavy removal, it is nice to just get hard mana on the field.
But beyond that, the deck looks fun, and a little more resilient by having access to a few outs game one.
1x Boros Garrison
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Crumbling Vestige
4x Gemstone Mine
3x Gruul Turf
1x Khalni Garden
1x Radiant Fountain
1x Selesnya Sanctuary
3x Forest
4x Simic Growth Chamber
1x Slayers' Stronghold
1x Sunhome, fortress of the legion
3x Tolaria West
1x Vesuva
1x Ghost quarter
Creatures
4x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4x Primeval Titan
4x Sakura-Tribe Scout
1x simian spirit guide
1x Mistcutter Hydra
1x Courser of Kruphix
4x Amulet of Vigor
4x Ancient Stirrings
1x Engineered Explosives
2x batterskull
4x Explore
4x Summoner's Pact
1x Ruric thar, the unbowed
1x Spellskite
1x obstinate baloth
1x walking ballista
3x Leyline of sanctity
1x engineered explosives
2x crumble to dust
2x Kozilek's Return
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Chalice of the void
Match one: 1-2 lost dice roll, Played one of the best players in Georgia, He was playing B/G, He saw all the removal to keep me off tempo games 2 and 3. I one first round from a turn 4 titan.
Match 2: 2-1 won dice roll, Cherrieo's: Apparently y that thing can go off turn 1-3... he went off turn 3 before I could figure out what he was playing. Won game 2 with a Leyline and chalice of the void for zero turn 1, and won game 2 by taking out his land and playing a EE for 0 turn 2.
Match 3: 2-0 won dice roll, played a friend. Playing allies deck tat uses a second sunrise type affects. won 2-0. (I just know how to beat it and have a high win % against it).
Match 4, 2-0 won dice roll.. never saw his deck, R/w vehicles I guess. Killed himv turn 2 game 1, and Ruric thar locked him out game 2.
Match 5: 2-1 lost dice roll: Cheerios again! lost game one (he comboed turn 2), he scooped to chalice at zero my first turn, we get deck checked.. and he was missing two lands and I get the match. (I did have leyline in hand with a favorable opener, I think I could have gotten it.)
Match 6: 0-2 lost dice roll... Bant Eldrazi: died to Thought-Knot Seer and a Eldrazi Displacer lock both games. (I do not think this is a favorable match-up, even though it is a lowered tier deck ATM)
Math 7: 1-1-1: Titian shift. He gets Platinum Emperion out, I decide to try to deck him than scoop (mistake and wound up costing too much time) I go to well over 100 life and he runs out of mountains... then proceeds to get 2 Platinum Emperion and 4 titians on the field. I can answer back with 2 batter skulls, but decided at 12minutes left in the round to scoop and crush game 2... then go to turns game 3.
I know I messed up my first match and last match, though there is no guarantees of victories from either. unfavorable hands against bant endrazi did not help, at no point did I just 'have it' in that match.
Notes: need outs for ensnaring bridge, worship, Platinum Emperion.
Leyline is super good,
Crumble to dust (land destruction in general) was a champ, is super good in the format. I think acidic slime may start making its way in to my list again.
Chalice of the void is great to not get comoboed turn 2 against Cheerios. Walking balista is great at keeping the 2/2's off the. field.
I have done the boarding out of amulets against burn and jund before. I only do it when I am on the draw. You just go creature for creature always looking for life gain and you usually just overwhelm them. They take a lot of damage by themselves and you just keep gaining back about half of what you lost. Ruric sealed the game for one matchup, another was just bouncing and replaying the radiant fountain and Courser of Kruphix. That game was super close and I topdecked very well and my opponent did not draw nuts. I was playing cobras in the one matchup, and I was worried about blood moon, so I was planning a slow game, as blood moon slow them down as well, turns out not moons, and they did board in a lot of amulet hate which did clutter their hand and did not let them trigger prowess.
(Running 61 for 6 flex spots): 3x Acidic slimes, 3x SSG
The getting stuck on 5 mana is common and the SSG pushes that over the edge to get the titan off turn 2. but a Acidic slime turn 2 (or 3 if you are slow) is great against many decks. Plus gives you a 2/2 body with death touch on the field. Int eh board I am running:
2x Radiant flame (I like return, I like 3 damage more atm)
2x: EE
2x:Cruble to dust
3x: Leyline of sanctity (real relevant in my meta.)
1x: Thragtusk
1x: Batter skull
1x: ruric thar (REALLY good in my meta)
1x: Dragon loard dramoka (Again meta and a life gain slot)
1x: Walking Ballista (crushes infect)
1x: OPEN (hornet queen, spell skite... dunno)
There is a quarterly coming up and will be testing (been swamped with work to test it this week)
Forgot to explain Explore: I am trying to consistently to get to 5x6 land drops, and is digs. Since I am using the 5 drops to my advantage, I feel the explores are better. I feel Slime follows the first rule of magic.
Also, I am seeing a lot of Sun and Moon, Mono blue take extra turns, and finally played against my first Adnasuim deck. I keep seeing the MTGO top lists and don't see hardly any of those decks. I am seeing some mean home brews like Blue White Prowess and Blue Green Eldrazi both devastating combo decks. We have a quarterly event coming up soon and I am worried about getting blindsided by rogue decks that top 8 in qualifying matches.
I have got to time a LOT. it is partially due to trying to min/max mana and the next turn, or the sheer act of comboing off. But actually mostly due to my opponents. Ironically aggro decks (like zoo or Coco) take the longest in my experience because they are trying to do what you do on a regular basis, calculate your mana and see if you can kill them with titan. Side boarding is also the longest process, not for you if you make a list, but your opponent when they have no idea how to stop you. Midrange players and other combo players usually have spot removal and so they just change their hand hate or removal count. Where as the aggro player MUST kill you faster that you can kill them, so they have to be more cautious about over-committing, especially when they do not have a lot of ways to stop it on the fly.
I do have to say the other times I have gone to turns is because they are slow playing... I just call a judge on a rules question and they usually hang out in the area and that tends to speed up the game a little... why? because THEY know they are slow playing. I have had people tapped out, not running the right colors or have enough mana ask me to wait on a uncounterable un-targetable combo piece and take 2 minutes to allow me to continue just to scoop just before combat damage, wasting over 5 minutes more.
Mostly though I just try to move at a pace so that my opponent knows what is happening. Becuase if you have to stop and re-show your mana and declared targets etc... it just takes longer. Also, in bigger events, my matches do go longer, but I ask for time extensions when a judge has to spend 10 minutes explaining my I can cast emerkul turn 2.
Heavy blue with counterspells seems strongest in format right now.
I dislike path for our deck, I do not like accelerating my opponent for any reason.
Kight of the reliquary is better with things like sun titan. and loam (which also pairs with trade routes).
I would favor black and get trinket mage, and have glissa the traitor and executioners capsule (loops infinitely with glissa or engineered explosives). *If you want a stronger midrange build*
I agree to avoid the midrange and stick to counterspells and titans (i included ruric in there because he seems really good in the meta and can stop a few decks.)