From what I've seen, Jund Death's Shadow tends to play Temur Battle Rage... when decks pack that, it's a good idea to keep in mind that you can cast Vines of Vastwood on your opponent's Shadow to counter the Temur Battle Rage.
Yeah, you're right, I had that in mind but forgot to wrote it in the previous message.
What are our answers to death's shadow? I usually just lose against that. I usually do very well at tournaments when I don't see a lot of it.
DS is a tough matchup for us. A friend of mine plays the jund version of that deck and I figured out what we probably need in the sideboard to try to beat them: I use Blossoming Defense, Vines, Heroic Intervention and Autumn's Veil to protect our creatures from Fatal Push and other removals, and to fight the Death Shadows I play 1x of Bow of Nylea (which is only useful during attack, for deathtouch) and I replace the dryads with Wasteland Viper which can transform our creature chump blocked by DS in a Fatal Push for them (using bloodrush).
However I think that our main plan is to wait until they almost kill themself and then attack with a single big swing, so you have to protect your creatures, cast them as many as possible and keep your aspects or vines for big damage.
Smuggler's Copter: I really like Merfolk Branchwalker, and I think the card value is great, which is why I'm considering Smuggler's Copter. This is probably the worst card out of my considerations, and I know it's anti-synergistic with Experiment One and Aspect of Hydra, but it's possible (this is a very big if) that the card advantage is more important to search up the threats and answers I desperately need. Since we don't really need a lot of lands, I could simply discard those while looting. Merfolk has often had success with it, maybe Mono Green Stompy could too.
Shapers' Sanctuary: Like I said, there's a lot of control at my LGS, and Shapers' Sanctuary might just be the thing for me. For every threat they get rid of, I pretty much just draw up a new one. That way I won't run out of threats, but control decks might run out of answers. This is a sideboard card, obviously.
Heroic Intervention: In some control matchups, like Jeskai control, I either win or lose, and that depends on whether or not my opponent has a boardwipe or not. They can't really out-value our deck with one for one answers, but a boardwipe will set us back to zero. The real question I have is whether I should play Heroic Intervention or play more creatures that are resilient to boardwipes (I already run Strangleroot Geist, regenerating Experiment One can be relevant, and I'm thinking about Kitchen Finks). Rhonas the Indomitable seems like it could replace Dungrove Elder, even if I'm running a lot of Forests.
In general it's a nice deck but I'd make some changes:
Branchwalker never surprised me; yes, that's a quite good card but I don't think that fits well in our deck. A 2/1 for 2 which COULD be a vanilla 3/2 is not the best 2 drop we need... I'd put there a Garruk's companion instead which has trample and gives devotion for the aspects. Moreover I'd take off 1 treetop for 1 more rancor. I would suggest Rhonas instead of Dungrove, but if you play against a lot of removal decks the Elder can resist even against a path. Speaking of Heroic Intervention, I'd certainly add a 2x in the sideboard instead of adding more resilient creatures like kitchen finks, cause it's more important to keep a huge presence on the board (3/3 e1, trampling 3/2 companions, ecc) instead of having a lot of undying creatures IMHO.
Oh and maybe add at least 2x of Blossoming Defence, they saved me a lot of times against control decks!
Serpopard is an excellent SB card against decks that run mainboard chalice. As chalice doesn't stop casting it just counters. Also being a big beater makes it superior to veil in my opinion.
Guttural response
Eyes of wisent
Vexing shusher
All also work
Also choke (it's doesn't work directly but it dose stop them countering stuff
Thank you! I'll give a try to the serpopard and the wisent
Has someone tried Prowling Serpopard? I've had hard times playing against heavy counterspells deck and I was wondering if it's worth adding 1x of it in the sideboard. Now I use 2x of autumn's veil in the side but I don't think is enough and it's quite frustraiting to see your creatures being countered so many times. Do you have any idea? (not only about the serpopard)
I prefer to stay with creatures 3 mana and under. I've tried and like both Groundbreaker and Predator Ooze as one-ofs. Both give 3 devotion. Groundbreaker is a win-this-turn play, whereas Predator Ooze is more for the long game where the board stalls out. PO is hard to deal with and can get big fast.
WrenchMind, I like your list. Some interesting ideas in the sideboard, especially Fog. One of my favorite old school cards.
If you want a 4-drop, I'd personally go with Thrun, the Last Troll over Surrak. I like Thrun, just don't feel like getting 4 lands by turn 4/5 is super reliable.
I agree with you, thrun is better and in fact I think I'll replace surrak for him. But I feel that you would fill differently that hole, so I ask to you what card you would put in there?
I just don't like the lack of early pressure. Sure, Viper's better than Militant as a late draw... but so much worse as an early draw. You've only got the 8 one-drops in your deck, all starting at 1 power... I'm just concerned you're not getting early damage in and oftentimes simply doing nothing on T1 (or as close to nothing as this deck can do, a 1-power creature), which seems a waste. Militant pre-emptively hoses so many decks you might face (dredge, snapcaster, anything that wants to delve) that it's a rough cut even aside from it being innately 2/1 that inflicts some real early damage.
Yeah, after testing it, I can say that viper is not as good as the militant, which is a must in this deck.
I like the Bow of Nylea in the sideboard. Burn players would not really side in artifact destruction against us... if the bow is cast early, they have a hard time if you could gain 3 life each turn.
It's a really good utility card against any deck, but I think that against burn the best card we have is Feed the Clan. That's my Burn-player friend's worst nightmare
The reason I prefer Narnam Renegade over Wasteland Viper or other 1-drops is that it can trigger extra counters on Avatar. But you need to run at least 4 fetches, probably 6 would be better tho.
Narnam is a good card but I think that if you're using fetches, it might as well splash with other colours (it has no sense playing with evolving wilds). It would be a nice upgrade for our deck but I want to keep this as a budget deck for a while. Maybe in the future I could add fetches, but for now it feels good to me
Hi! I've made some changes to my deck during some tests and now I want to know what do you think about it. I know that vipers are worse than the militant but currently I'm testing them because sometimes topdeck in late game a militant is pretty frustrating, while vipers add a +1/+2 and deathtouch to one of our creatures if needed. Also I have some doubts about surrak but it wins games alone from time to time.
How much have people tested Blossoming Defense in addition to the 4 Vines? I'm guessing that it would be very good to have 5-6 effects that negate removal in a removal heavy meta, but there has only been a bit of discussion about it when the card just came out.
I've tested a 2x of it against a Jund DS and a Grixis Delver and I think that, in this meta, is a really valuable option to "counter" random paths or fatals
I think that your deck is really good, the only personal changes that I would make are: cutting the Elder (but probabily in this deck 1 is fine) for another Rancor and replace tuskers with Garruk's Companion (only because of trample).
I was originally playing with 22 lands total and for some reason I just kept flooding out every game. I cut 2 basics for Dungrove and Rhonas and I like the curve a lot better now.
I've had that problem too and in fact now I play with 19 lands (with only 1 treetop) and I feel like that the deck now is running well, but if you search in this forum many other agree that playing with 22/23 lands is the optimal. I don't know who's right and who's wrong
I totally agree with you MagicYio, probably Khenra it's not the best two drop for our deck. Scooze is much better for the same cost (1G), but LeoninKha if you are running a 4x of Aspect of Hydra, the Tusker or Garruk's Companion would be the best choice IMHO.
I'd use Eldritch Evolution over Evolutionary Leap. It costs one more mana, but you can get whatever you want, and it goes directly onto the battlefield. Much better card IMHO.
I think they definitely should be used in different situation, because eldritch doesn't "protect" from boardwipes but, if you have only one creature, it can give you another stronger one onto the battlefield. On the other hand Leap cost less, it is always ready to use (unless you opponent has got enchantment-hate spells) and at least you can get a little advantage from each of your removed creatures. But that's my opinion and unfortunately I've never tested those cards.
It is the first time that I play against any Scapeshift build, so I didn't really know how to play against it. I imagine that this version (RGWU) tries to control the opponent and later do de combo, but he just couldn't.
Game 1 I was really fast: Experiment One into Strangleroot Geist into Leatherback Baloth and the next turn Rancor + Vines.
Game 2 he kept a mediocre hand after mulligan and drew a lot of lands, which gave me the opportunity to curve out with big creatures and win fast.
Side:
+2 Beast Within (it stops the Valakut combo)
+1 Evolutionary Leap (trying it since he was going to side-in Anger of the Gods. Maybe a mistake)
+1 Dungrove Elder (against his Path and bounce spells)
-2 Dismember (no creatures and life-loss, obvius choice)
-2 Scavenging Ooze (no creatures in graveyards)
After the game, I talked with him and he said that I had to side-in Feed the Clan and Pulse of Murasa to answer when he were going to combo-of. I'll try the next time.
Game 1 he had a Mirran Crusader and a Thalia by turn 3, it was impossible to fight against that with small creatures.
Game 2 I started fast and he curved another Mirran Crusader, but thanks to Avatar of the Resolute's trample and Aspect+Vines, I managed to win by one big hit.
Game 3 was really balanced and it resolved on the draw. He had flying creatures and he exiled my Avatars. Just the same as the first game: my creatures were just so small.
Side:
+2 Beast Within (I prefer a 3/3 than most of their creatures, of course).
+1 Pithing Needle (Trying to have it in opening hand to Aether Vial, no luck).
+1 Dungrove Elder (Flickerwisp and Path)
-2 Scavenging Ooze (Same as the first round: too low number of creatures dying and no GY cards)
-1 Vines of Vastwood (Rancor and Aspect seem better in this matchup thanks to First Strike creatures)
-1 Leatherback Baloth (typical change BalothxDungrove)
I realiced that it was a mistake to cut the Baloth, because I needed the fatties to win the game, maybe I even had to side in Obstinated Baloth. What do you think about this?
Game 1 was nuts. He played 3 discard spells + a mulligan that I made. Even with that, I managed to keep two creatures on board that he didn't kill and I just won thanks to an Aspect of Hydra.
Game 2 I didn't saw any of the sideboard cards, but I had God-draws. Treetop Village was an all star here, since he emptied his hand really quick, so no removal for it.
Side:
+1 Dungrove Elder (Obvius choice)
+2 Evolutionary Leap (Same)
+1 Relic of Progenitus (Trying to avoid Delve)
+2 Beast Within (Same as D&T: I prefer to fight against a 3/3 than Tasigur or Death's Shadow)
-3 Leatherback Baloth
-3 Rancor
Awful.
Game 1 I started really well and he was at three life. He played 3 Cryptic Commands + flashbacked one with Snappy. He put 11 tokens on the battlefield so I couldn't do anything.
Game 2 was even worse. I left him at 15 by turn 2 and he just played a Timely Reinforments. Next turn he played Lingering Souls. Turn after turn he killed most of my creatures, chumpblocked them or simply countered them. With Elspeth he finished with 15 tokens on the battlefield and he even refilled his hand (and life counter) with a X=5 Sphin'x Revelation. Really bad, really. The only one possitive thing that I keep of this pairing is that Evolutionary Leap works incredibily good: he didn't wanted to play boardwipes and every Path was a card in my hand. I'm sure that in the future this card will make me really happy.
Side:
+2 Evolutionary Leap
+1 Dungrove Elder
+1 Scavenging Ooze (Lingering Souls, the Delve counterspell, Snappy...)
+1 Relic of Progenitus (same as Scooze)
+1 Pithing Needle (Collonade and Elspeth)
-3 Leatherback Baloth
-1 Rancor
-2 Dismember
I wish that I have sleeved Ratchet Bomb yesterday haha.
I really liked the sideboard that I ran yesterday. I didn't play any lifegain cards, but there was some Burn players. Same for artifact-enchantment hate, since there was 2-3 Affinities. The only thing that I would change is cut the SB Dungrove Elder for Thrun, the Last Troll, but I need to buy it. My sideboard looks like a lot of 1-ofs, but most of them have the same purpose + an added value against some decks, so I like the idea
Just wow! I think that's a good result for our 50$ deck and I'm gonna definitely take 1 or 2 copy of Leap as I see it's a really nice card against removals. Thank you for sharing your results and well done!
P.S. tonight I'm gonna play with my friends and if there will be some interesting matchups I'll share them here in the next days
Hi everybody! A friend of mine plays a similar version of this deck (He runs GRB Death Shadow) and he's looking for help to improve his deck and collect feedback about it.
This is his list:
Yeah, you're right, I had that in mind but forgot to wrote it in the previous message.
DS is a tough matchup for us. A friend of mine plays the jund version of that deck and I figured out what we probably need in the sideboard to try to beat them: I use Blossoming Defense, Vines, Heroic Intervention and Autumn's Veil to protect our creatures from Fatal Push and other removals, and to fight the Death Shadows I play 1x of Bow of Nylea (which is only useful during attack, for deathtouch) and I replace the dryads with Wasteland Viper which can transform our creature chump blocked by DS in a Fatal Push for them (using bloodrush).
However I think that our main plan is to wait until they almost kill themself and then attack with a single big swing, so you have to protect your creatures, cast them as many as possible and keep your aspects or vines for big damage.
In general it's a nice deck but I'd make some changes:
Branchwalker never surprised me; yes, that's a quite good card but I don't think that fits well in our deck. A 2/1 for 2 which COULD be a vanilla 3/2 is not the best 2 drop we need... I'd put there a Garruk's companion instead which has trample and gives devotion for the aspects. Moreover I'd take off 1 treetop for 1 more rancor. I would suggest Rhonas instead of Dungrove, but if you play against a lot of removal decks the Elder can resist even against a path. Speaking of Heroic Intervention, I'd certainly add a 2x in the sideboard instead of adding more resilient creatures like kitchen finks, cause it's more important to keep a huge presence on the board (3/3 e1, trampling 3/2 companions, ecc) instead of having a lot of undying creatures IMHO.
Oh and maybe add at least 2x of Blossoming Defence, they saved me a lot of times against control decks!
Thank you! I'll give a try to the serpopard and the wisent
Thank you, I'll give them surely a try!
I agree with you, thrun is better and in fact I think I'll replace surrak for him. But I feel that you would fill differently that hole, so I ask to you what card you would put in there?
Yeah, after testing it, I can say that viper is not as good as the militant, which is a must in this deck.
It's a really good utility card against any deck, but I think that against burn the best card we have is Feed the Clan. That's my Burn-player friend's worst nightmare
Narnam is a good card but I think that if you're using fetches, it might as well splash with other colours (it has no sense playing with evolving wilds). It would be a nice upgrade for our deck but I want to keep this as a budget deck for a while. Maybe in the future I could add fetches, but for now it feels good to me
Thanks to everyone for your feedback!
19 Forest
1 Treetop Village
//Enchantments
4 Rancor
//Instants
3 Aspect of Hydra
2 Blossoming Defense
1 Collected Company
2 Dismember
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Experiment One
4 Leatherback Baloth
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
4 Wasteland Viper
2 Autumn's Veil
1 Back to Nature
2 Beast Within
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Dismember
2 Feed the Clan
2 Fog
2 Heroic Intervention
2 Naturalize
Hi! I've made some changes to my deck during some tests and now I want to know what do you think about it. I know that vipers are worse than the militant but currently I'm testing them because sometimes topdeck in late game a militant is pretty frustrating, while vipers add a +1/+2 and deathtouch to one of our creatures if needed. Also I have some doubts about surrak but it wins games alone from time to time.
Any suggestion are welcome!
P.S. Apologies for my english
I've tested a 2x of it against a Jund DS and a Grixis Delver and I think that, in this meta, is a really valuable option to "counter" random paths or fatals
I think that your deck is really good, the only personal changes that I would make are: cutting the Elder (but probabily in this deck 1 is fine) for another Rancor and replace tuskers with Garruk's Companion (only because of trample).
I've had that problem too and in fact now I play with 19 lands (with only 1 treetop) and I feel like that the deck now is running well, but if you search in this forum many other agree that playing with 22/23 lands is the optimal. I don't know who's right and who's wrong
I think they definitely should be used in different situation, because eldritch doesn't "protect" from boardwipes but, if you have only one creature, it can give you another stronger one onto the battlefield. On the other hand Leap cost less, it is always ready to use (unless you opponent has got enchantment-hate spells) and at least you can get a little advantage from each of your removed creatures. But that's my opinion and unfortunately I've never tested those cards.
Just wow! I think that's a good result for our 50$ deck and I'm gonna definitely take 1 or 2 copy of Leap as I see it's a really nice card against removals. Thank you for sharing your results and well done!
P.S. tonight I'm gonna play with my friends and if there will be some interesting matchups I'll share them here in the next days
This is his list:
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Death's Shadow
4 Fatal Push
1 Forest
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Grim Flayer
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Liliana of the Veil
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
4 Street Wraith
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Swamp
3 Tarfire
1 Temur Battle Rage
3 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Vines of Vastwood
3 Wooded Foothills
Thanks to anyone will help!
P.S. I apologize for my bad english...