I finish 3-1, so 19-5 with the deck so far! I may try it for tomorrow's LCQ, but I don't have much time to make a decision since I gotta leave early in the morning.
Congrats on the results. Just one question. Is the wurm hardcast by this deck, or is it only used to dome the opponent for 16 with cremator?
It's 100% discard for 16 damage only.
I've been playing a few games recently with the stock list and I've started to come around to Nullhide a little.
Vs black decks it makes them hesitant to play LotV, but otherwise it's the fattest creature that can be fetched with an Evo onto Geist. The 'hexproof' is pretty weak but it slows down the turn they choose to remove it.
most of there stuff enters tapped or has a can't block clause.
I've played dredge and the answer is darkblast + block with Prized Amalgam.
Darkblast was really annoying vs dredge simply because it allowed them to trade creatures one for one, and of course they can simply... dredge it back.
A good hand can beat dredge, but Creeping Chill often keeps them out of lethal Craggwick discard range making the matchup pretty difficult.
I've got Scales, but I was trying to play a homebrew with Frogmite, Enforcer, Reckless Bushwhacker and Experimental Frenzy.
My posts are over in the Affinity thread if your interested. I did really well two weeks in a row at the Thursday tournaments going 3 - 0 twice. Then I took it to the Saturday tournament and lost every match... my only win was a bye.
Ah nice list. Yeah I tried bloodbraid but I'm thinking of going back to tracker now, you seem to like it anyway!
The two cards I'm not sure of are Nullhide and Scooze. Do you ever fetch Nullhide with Evo? It's a big beater but it seems it's not particularly hard to remove and actually hinders some of our spells. If you want to dodge removal why not play Thruun, The Last Troll?
With the number of decks playing graveyard strategies Scooze is good, but playing it as a one of feels weird to me, I'd normally play two if I really wanted the card or otherwise leave it in the sideboard. How helpful has scooze been for you before?
How do you feel about the double Cavern of Souls? I reduced to one before because I had too many untenable hands with double souls or souls and kessig together, but maybe I just need to play some more games and let the stats even out.
I had replaced all my slagstorms with Anger of the Gods when dredge became popular but I havn't seen any dredge players locally in a while so I guess i'll go back to Slagstorm.
I finish 3-1, so 19-5 with the deck so far! I may try it for tomorrow's LCQ, but I don't have much time to make a decision since I gotta leave early in the morning.
Nice results!
I'm done with my affinity experiment so will start playing Cragganwick again I think. Are you still running the 'standard' list?
Sideboard can be adapted for my local meta but I'm still not set on Nullhide / Tireless Tracker
It's a week on and I thought I'd give the deck another go since we did so well last week. I honestly can't believe we got straight wins again, the deck did well but at the same time we had some very lucky games. That being said we also had some bad matchups (we also lost the roll for first play in every match, which is pretty detrimental for this deck) so the fact that we pulled through shows me that this deck actually has some serious staying power.
Humans 2 - 0
Game 1: was incredibly close. He was on the play and put down some serious aggro with Mantis Rider. My hand had played out slow due to limited mana sources, but held many signal pest. He swings and I decide not to block, putting me at 2. He has 18 health and thanks to double Mantis rider has two blockers available. I play frogmite into Bushwhacker, I already have ornithopter, frogmite and three signal pest on the board giving all attacking creatures +4 this turn. He blocks the three highest dmg but that leaves exactly 18 to go through for lethal.
Game 2: I keep a slower hand with some control spells. I keep him off balance until I draw Frenzy, after that I overwhelm the board with artifacts in two turns and that's game.
Red Prison 2 - 1
This is a terrible matchup in my opinion, chalice completely shuts down the deck and Anger prevents us from getting too much traction.
Game 1: I simply happen to have the aggro game going, he plays Chalice later but I already have my cheap artifacts down and secure the win.
Game 2: he plays Chalice turn 1 before I have an opportunity to play, I have 3 0 mana's in my hand. After a few turns I concede the game.
Game 3: Crazy close game. He gets Chalice down on one, but a turn too late. He controls the board until I get Frenzy down and play some cards. He plays bridge with 0 cards in hand and has an Eidolon of the Revel on the board preventing me from attacking or playing any cards. I know that under the Frenzy I have one artifact removal spell in hand so eventually I decide to destroy Frenzy to get the cards back. Destroying the bridge and getting some creatures out leaves me at exactly 1 life. He sacs his Chandra for her ultimate Emblem (deal 5 whenever you cast a spell). Due to Eidolon my clock is slow needing at least 2 turns to kill. He draws land two turns in a row. My face ->
Thopter Sword Combo 2 - 1
Game 1: Average hand puts some fast pressure on him for a turn 4 win, he tells me he could of used KCI to infinite combo next turn. Too bad for him.
Game 2: He gets the thopter foundry online and simply outvalues me by gaining 4+ thopters a turn.
Game 3: I keep a very slow hand because it has some control. Spell Pierce keeps him off opal on turn one, Smash to Smithereens gets rid of his Foundry (although he sacced it to itself to prevent taking dmg...). I land some Bushwhackers but only have ornithopter and signal pest on board to make use of it, he uses fatal push to stop me getting too much damage through. I draw into 2 Contested war zones allowing me to double pump on a turn for enough damage to close out the win.
Conclusions
Well I can't say this deck is going to be appearing in any GP's soon but... this is the most successful I've ever been at FNM, and for two weeks running now too. Yes I had some luck with my opponents getting bad draws etc, but I didn't win any rolls either, and playing first is very important for this deck. The matchups also have not been in my favour; Humans and prison can completely stonewall this deck if they get the right cards out.
The reason we didn't straight up lose in these matches is Experimental Frenzy. Yes it lets us get out some creatures, but it also lets us dig for important cards such as artifact destruction. That being said, it kinda sucks to play out your mana and see the spell you need on top of the deck knowing that next turn it will be placed into the hand and thus be unavailable. At some point it's worth while to sac the Frenzy and get back those key cards.
Contested War Zone has been a clutch card in getting enough damage out to close the game. Spell Pierce has also been crucial in all these game, havn't had much chance to use sideboard cards like Legion Loyalist but potentially it can give us reach in heavy creature / token matchups. The big problem with side boarding is choosing to balance how many cards to bring in. Generally speaking sidebaording slows down our primary goal of clocking the opponent quickly, so we don't want to oversideboard if it's going to stop us getting a fast win.
My conclusion is this deck has some serious legs, janky as it may look, it has the possibility of explosives starts and inevitability if you can cast Frenzy. I'm gonna keep testing it but I'd love for someone else to pick it up and give me some feedback. I wan't to know if I've just been getting lucky or if I've stumbled upon a real game changing deck here.
So a while back I tried making a "pure" affinity deck using Frogmite and Myr Enforcer along with Bomat courier.
Whilst the deck was fun and had explosive starts, it was easy to disrupt and ran out of steam quickly. It also lost to itself if you drew a bad starting hand.
So, with the printing of Experimental Frenzy I tried working the card into a traditional affinity deck alongside Cranial Plating and Steel Overseer, however the deck proved to be a little disappointing. The problem with Frenzy was both it's expense and the difficulty of topdecking either two lands or many expensive cards in a row.
Thinking about how to reduce both mana costs and lands without sacrificing the decks power led me to this deck. The idea is simple, play super fast aggro and use Experimental Frenzy as Plan B to resupply cards and win games that stretch a long time. The most important feature of the deck is the lack of Cranial Plating and the inclusion of Reckless Bushwhacker. This is based on the idea of trying to maximize both damage and speed at the same time, whilst Plating is an amazing card Bushwhacker effectively lets us attack an entire turn earlier.
The choice of 3 Bushwhackers and 3 Myr Enforcers is because although they are powerful cards, drawing two in the starting hand actually slows us down.
The choice of 14 lands is a little arbitrary, low lands is great for Frenzy but Frenzy itself is an expensive card and requires us to get to 4 mana, the deck also relies on casting as many artifacts as possible as quickly as possible, therefore we don't want more than 2 lands in our starting hand, and in fact 1 land plus Mox Opal is probably the ideal draw. Thus the deck as it stands has 22 mana sources, which feels about right.
Overall 3 - 0
Obviously I'm very happy with this result, I had never expected the deck to do so well. Testing had shown me that it's possible to draw a T3 kill but also that it's possible to draw a hand with no lands or a hand with too many, either of which means we have to mulligan. It should be noted that this decks does NOT mulligan well. Mulliganing doesn't just cost us a card but also reduces the effectiveness of all our other cards depending on either the Metalcraft or the Affinity mechanic.
KCI 2 - 0
Not much to say, both games were a matter of trying to race the combo. Sideboarded out Fenzy and brought in Crypt and Relic since if the game is going long enough for us to cast Frenzy then we are probably going to lose to the KCI combo.
Valakut 2 - 1
Game one I manage to attack fast enough to secure the win. Sideboard out Frenzy again since this is a combo race. Brought in Spell Pierce and one Tormods Crypt simply because I want a fast start.
Game two he wipes the board with Anger of the Gods then follows up with Scapeshift for the win.
Game three I manage to apply early pressure until he casts Anger again, luckily I kept a mana up for Spell Pierce. Unfortunately he top decks another one next turn, however I bought myself an extra turn to attack which means he is on very low health. A few top decks later I close out the win with a Memnite and Blinkmoth.
GB Rock 2 - 1
Game 1 was pretty brutal. I kept a no land hand because it had enough 0 mana artifacts to enable metalcraft on Opal, and would have let me play out the hand by turn two. He's on the play and using inquisition to take my Ornithopter... meaning that I have a do nothing hand. He lands multiple Liliana's and secures the win.
Game 2 I'm on the play, and although I don't have an amazing hand multiple Signal Pest let me get through enough early damage.
Game 3 I have another mediocre hand, however Bushwhacker and Contested War Zone let me keep the pressure on. Later he lands a languish to kill my robots, but Blinkmoth together with Contested War Zone let me close out the game.
Conclusions
The real crux of the deck is having a payoff card in the form of either Reckless Bushwhacker, Signal Pest or Contested War Zone. Without these cards you are stuck playing and topdecking thopters and memnites and the clock is way too slow. Having one or two of them however let you attack crazy fast. Bushwhacker lets you hit hard for 6 to 10 as early as turn 2, if you can follow that up then the opponent is playing defensive for the rest of the game.
I had some good hands and some slow hands, but didn't get any of the goldfish killer hands I found when testing the deck. I had to mulligan multiple times when I drew a no land hand.
This is the best I've ever done at my local FNM, and I've played with all sorts of decks such as Spirits, Mardu, and Craggwick Cremator. My FNM is very competitive and you are likely to see only top tier decks on any one night. I had previously thought this deck was a bunch of fun jankness and had expected to go 1-2 or 0-3 as I have done with other decks. The 3-0 result is very surprising...
Is this deck actually good? Maybe, but it certainly is a blast to play
Nice write-up, personally I wouldn't keep a hand with 1 land. Craggwick is very mana hungry, and unless you know what the matchup is too many decks will kill off the dorks before you can use them. Dorks also play out slower than lands since you can't tap them the turn they are played.
I'm taking a break from Cragganwick to experiment with Mardu Phoenix and get some practice with Bant Spirits, but it's good to see the deck putting up results.
If anyone has success with tweaking the stock list I'd love to hear about it.
Elves 1 - 2
First game he collected company's into two Shaman of the Pack for ten, draws another at the the start of next turn. Dead.
Game two an early Evo fetches Linvala locking him out of the game early on.
Game three kept a hand with lands and few creatures because it had Anger of the Gods, used Anger to remove his first wave of stuff, but only drew dorks and lands later on. Had one 50/50 chance to win with Cragganwick, but was unlucky.
Mardu 0 - 2
Both games he used discard to keep good cards out of my hand, and mid-ranged away my beaters. Had one 50 / 50 chance to win with Cragganwick, unlucky again.
Red Prison 2 - 1
Game one he gets down ensnaring bridge but my decision to mainboard Knight of Autumn pays off, and I fetch it with Evo for the win.
Game two he rituals for early goblin lord, I remove it but he plays two more later. He also lands witchbane orb preventing me from using the combo win.
Game three he has witchbane orb and torpor orb and ensnaring bridge. Eventually draw Shattering Spree to win the game.
Conclusions
Elves can out aggro us, but I think after side boarding we have the advantage. He had some very lucky Collected company hits unfortunately.
Mardu and other midrange decks are definitely going to be a difficult match up unless we can get the combo win.
Sideboarding for me is easy in knowing what to bring in, but difficult in knowing what to take out, especially if your changing 4+ cards around.
So far I've tried to avoid taking out too many combo pieces when sideboarding, maybe trimming Ghalta or a worm. I'm not sure if that's sensible or not to be honest, but many decks have solutions for straight up aggro and since the joy of the deck is slamming face for 16 I like to keep those cards in.
If facing midrange decks like Mardu / Jund, I would trim the mana dorks. Against control I would reduce Evo since they can counter it and have you sac a creature for nothing.
If anyone has advice on how to sideboard against different decks I'd appreciate it.
I've been testing Bloodbraid Elf and so far it's been pretty solid, especially against blue decks where you can use it to force your way through counterspell. I'm running 3 at the moment. I'm hesitant to run 4 because the deck is already running many mana heavy creatures.
BB Elf ->
Good hits: Bolt, Geist, Steel leaf, Knight of Autumn
Mediocre hits: Magus (depending how you've stacked your lands), Eldritch Evo (I've had a situation where I didn't have any viable targets since the cascade trigger resolves before BB Elf does)
Bad Hits: Mana dorks
I've dropped to one Cavern of Souls MB and one sideboard, since I strongly dislike drawing two colourless lands as an opener. Kessig Wolf run is an all star land, pumps for lethal and lets you power through decks running ensnaring bridge with a Noble or Birds.
I agree that the deck needs more 2-drops and Evo sac targets, but... Voice just wont cut it. The deck's mana base can't afford being forced to consistantly fetch a white land, at least not with the current land set. The deck needs to have GG or GGG every game, but also needs to be able to hold up R for the first turns in case you need to bolt something, as well as get RR by turn three or 4. You could change to 2xNoble and 4xBirds maybe if you wanted more white mana. Personally I don't like relying on mana dorks to fix colours since so may of my games end up with the dork being bolted/killed as soon as I pass the turn.
I'm thinking about running either 1 Kitchen Finks or 1 Knight of Autumn MB since my FNM meta has a lot of burn and artifact decks.
The more I play the deck, the more reliably I find myself planning around the Cragganwick Crementor discard. Lots of games you don't need to discard a worm, and can get away with some solid aggro beats and a 5/4 creature discard to finish off. Many times having a Fauna Shaman stick until your next turn let's you set up for the combo.
I'm not sure Archgaze is the creator of the archetype. It's been around for a while since April at least as a deck from Watarai Junichi. Although it's definitely been streamlined with the addition of Steeleaf Champion and impervious Greatworm.
Anyway, I've been playing the deck as well with some mixed but overall positive results. I've always loved Eldritch Evolution so any framework which can run this card makes me happy. I primarily see this as a beat down deck with a combo backup, since the combo itself can be difficult to assemble or luck based depending what you have in hand.
It's pretty sweet to be dealing 16 damage to the face though. The problems I've been having are that it's pretty mana intensive, requiring GGG for stealeaf does not mix well with colorless lands like Cavern of Souls. Triple G and double R requirements prevent us from going full Naya and adding more white cards. That being said, Cavern has definitely won me games playing against blue decks.
I feel the deck is still pretty raw, and lot's of the cards are potential flex (e.g. Tireless tracker, Nullhide ferox [I don't get this card], scooze), but then what do you replace them with? Finks? Bloodbraid? Huntmaster of the Falls? My inclination is to try to max the value from Eldritch Evolution in a way that doesn't compromise the aggro plan.
I'm going to try and build something similar since I already have all the cards, and I always love janky robot builds.
What i'm wondering is what your game plan is for games where you don't draw Frenzy and/or don't get to 4 mana? (Although with 24 mana sources this probably shouldn't be a problem?) Having the steel overseers in a game where you don't draw frenzy could be useful.
I'm guessing the standard plan for games with frenzy is:
Cast lots of artifacts until you run out of mana and/or hit Ravager/Plating -> attack with a flyer for lethal?
Probably because you want to be able to cast as many cards as possible once you have an Experimental Frenzy on the board.
I picked up that card earlier when I was playing at FNM, only played a single game but had some fun going from no board state to having 6+ extra creatures / artifacts on the board. You can cast a ton of spells by using the opals and springleaf drums you just "drew" to generate extra mana during that turn. Too bad if you hit 2 lands though.
It's 100% discard for 16 damage only.
I've been playing a few games recently with the stock list and I've started to come around to Nullhide a little.
Vs black decks it makes them hesitant to play LotV, but otherwise it's the fattest creature that can be fetched with an Evo onto Geist. The 'hexproof' is pretty weak but it slows down the turn they choose to remove it.
I've played dredge and the answer is darkblast + block with Prized Amalgam.
Darkblast was really annoying vs dredge simply because it allowed them to trade creatures one for one, and of course they can simply... dredge it back.
A good hand can beat dredge, but Creeping Chill often keeps them out of lethal Craggwick discard range making the matchup pretty difficult.
My posts are over in the Affinity thread if your interested. I did really well two weeks in a row at the Thursday tournaments going 3 - 0 twice. Then I took it to the Saturday tournament and lost every match... my only win was a bye.
Ah nice list. Yeah I tried bloodbraid but I'm thinking of going back to tracker now, you seem to like it anyway!
The two cards I'm not sure of are Nullhide and Scooze. Do you ever fetch Nullhide with Evo? It's a big beater but it seems it's not particularly hard to remove and actually hinders some of our spells. If you want to dodge removal why not play Thruun, The Last Troll?
With the number of decks playing graveyard strategies Scooze is good, but playing it as a one of feels weird to me, I'd normally play two if I really wanted the card or otherwise leave it in the sideboard. How helpful has scooze been for you before?
How do you feel about the double Cavern of Souls? I reduced to one before because I had too many untenable hands with double souls or souls and kessig together, but maybe I just need to play some more games and let the stats even out.
I had replaced all my slagstorms with Anger of the Gods when dredge became popular but I havn't seen any dredge players locally in a while so I guess i'll go back to Slagstorm.
Nice results!
I'm done with my affinity experiment so will start playing Cragganwick again I think. Are you still running the 'standard' list?
Sideboard can be adapted for my local meta but I'm still not set on Nullhide / Tireless Tracker
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Contested War Zone
1 Mountain
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Spire of Industry
Creatures (30)
4 Bomat Courier
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
3 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
3 Reckless Bushwhacker
4 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge
3 Experimental Frenzy
Instants (2)
2 Galvanic Blast
Artifacts (11)
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
3 Welding Jar
2 Legion Loyalist
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dispatch
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Spell Pierce
1 Wear//Tear
1 Whipflare
FNM Report
Overall 3 - 0
It's a week on and I thought I'd give the deck another go since we did so well last week. I honestly can't believe we got straight wins again, the deck did well but at the same time we had some very lucky games. That being said we also had some bad matchups (we also lost the roll for first play in every match, which is pretty detrimental for this deck) so the fact that we pulled through shows me that this deck actually has some serious staying power.
Humans 2 - 0
Game 1: was incredibly close. He was on the play and put down some serious aggro with Mantis Rider. My hand had played out slow due to limited mana sources, but held many signal pest. He swings and I decide not to block, putting me at 2. He has 18 health and thanks to double Mantis rider has two blockers available. I play frogmite into Bushwhacker, I already have ornithopter, frogmite and three signal pest on the board giving all attacking creatures +4 this turn. He blocks the three highest dmg but that leaves exactly 18 to go through for lethal.
Game 2: I keep a slower hand with some control spells. I keep him off balance until I draw Frenzy, after that I overwhelm the board with artifacts in two turns and that's game.
Red Prison 2 - 1
This is a terrible matchup in my opinion, chalice completely shuts down the deck and Anger prevents us from getting too much traction.
Game 1: I simply happen to have the aggro game going, he plays Chalice later but I already have my cheap artifacts down and secure the win.
Game 2: he plays Chalice turn 1 before I have an opportunity to play, I have 3 0 mana's in my hand. After a few turns I concede the game.
Game 3: Crazy close game. He gets Chalice down on one, but a turn too late. He controls the board until I get Frenzy down and play some cards. He plays bridge with 0 cards in hand and has an Eidolon of the Revel on the board preventing me from attacking or playing any cards. I know that under the Frenzy I have one artifact removal spell in hand so eventually I decide to destroy Frenzy to get the cards back. Destroying the bridge and getting some creatures out leaves me at exactly 1 life. He sacs his Chandra for her ultimate Emblem (deal 5 whenever you cast a spell). Due to Eidolon my clock is slow needing at least 2 turns to kill. He draws land two turns in a row. My face ->
Thopter Sword Combo 2 - 1
Game 1: Average hand puts some fast pressure on him for a turn 4 win, he tells me he could of used KCI to infinite combo next turn. Too bad for him.
Game 2: He gets the thopter foundry online and simply outvalues me by gaining 4+ thopters a turn.
Game 3: I keep a very slow hand because it has some control. Spell Pierce keeps him off opal on turn one, Smash to Smithereens gets rid of his Foundry (although he sacced it to itself to prevent taking dmg...). I land some Bushwhackers but only have ornithopter and signal pest on board to make use of it, he uses fatal push to stop me getting too much damage through. I draw into 2 Contested war zones allowing me to double pump on a turn for enough damage to close out the win.
Conclusions
Well I can't say this deck is going to be appearing in any GP's soon but... this is the most successful I've ever been at FNM, and for two weeks running now too. Yes I had some luck with my opponents getting bad draws etc, but I didn't win any rolls either, and playing first is very important for this deck. The matchups also have not been in my favour; Humans and prison can completely stonewall this deck if they get the right cards out.
The reason we didn't straight up lose in these matches is Experimental Frenzy. Yes it lets us get out some creatures, but it also lets us dig for important cards such as artifact destruction. That being said, it kinda sucks to play out your mana and see the spell you need on top of the deck knowing that next turn it will be placed into the hand and thus be unavailable. At some point it's worth while to sac the Frenzy and get back those key cards.
Contested War Zone has been a clutch card in getting enough damage out to close the game. Spell Pierce has also been crucial in all these game, havn't had much chance to use sideboard cards like Legion Loyalist but potentially it can give us reach in heavy creature / token matchups. The big problem with side boarding is choosing to balance how many cards to bring in. Generally speaking sidebaording slows down our primary goal of clocking the opponent quickly, so we don't want to oversideboard if it's going to stop us getting a fast win.
My conclusion is this deck has some serious legs, janky as it may look, it has the possibility of explosives starts and inevitability if you can cast Frenzy. I'm gonna keep testing it but I'd love for someone else to pick it up and give me some feedback. I wan't to know if I've just been getting lucky or if I've stumbled upon a real game changing deck here.
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Contested War Zone
1 Mountain
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Spire of Industry
Creatures (30)
4 Bomat Courier
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
3 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
3 Reckless Bushwhacker
4 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge
3 Experimental Frenzy
Instants (2)
2 Galvanic Blast
Artifacts (11)
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
3 Welding Jar
2 Legion Loyalist
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dispatch
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Spell Pierce
1 Wear//Tear
2 Whipflare
FNM Report
Preface
So a while back I tried making a "pure" affinity deck using Frogmite and Myr Enforcer along with Bomat courier.
Whilst the deck was fun and had explosive starts, it was easy to disrupt and ran out of steam quickly. It also lost to itself if you drew a bad starting hand.
So, with the printing of Experimental Frenzy I tried working the card into a traditional affinity deck alongside Cranial Plating and Steel Overseer, however the deck proved to be a little disappointing. The problem with Frenzy was both it's expense and the difficulty of topdecking either two lands or many expensive cards in a row.
Thinking about how to reduce both mana costs and lands without sacrificing the decks power led me to this deck. The idea is simple, play super fast aggro and use Experimental Frenzy as Plan B to resupply cards and win games that stretch a long time. The most important feature of the deck is the lack of Cranial Plating and the inclusion of Reckless Bushwhacker. This is based on the idea of trying to maximize both damage and speed at the same time, whilst Plating is an amazing card Bushwhacker effectively lets us attack an entire turn earlier.
The choice of 3 Bushwhackers and 3 Myr Enforcers is because although they are powerful cards, drawing two in the starting hand actually slows us down.
The choice of 14 lands is a little arbitrary, low lands is great for Frenzy but Frenzy itself is an expensive card and requires us to get to 4 mana, the deck also relies on casting as many artifacts as possible as quickly as possible, therefore we don't want more than 2 lands in our starting hand, and in fact 1 land plus Mox Opal is probably the ideal draw. Thus the deck as it stands has 22 mana sources, which feels about right.
Overall 3 - 0
Obviously I'm very happy with this result, I had never expected the deck to do so well. Testing had shown me that it's possible to draw a T3 kill but also that it's possible to draw a hand with no lands or a hand with too many, either of which means we have to mulligan. It should be noted that this decks does NOT mulligan well. Mulliganing doesn't just cost us a card but also reduces the effectiveness of all our other cards depending on either the Metalcraft or the Affinity mechanic.
KCI 2 - 0
Not much to say, both games were a matter of trying to race the combo. Sideboarded out Fenzy and brought in Crypt and Relic since if the game is going long enough for us to cast Frenzy then we are probably going to lose to the KCI combo.
Valakut 2 - 1
Game one I manage to attack fast enough to secure the win. Sideboard out Frenzy again since this is a combo race. Brought in Spell Pierce and one Tormods Crypt simply because I want a fast start.
Game two he wipes the board with Anger of the Gods then follows up with Scapeshift for the win.
Game three I manage to apply early pressure until he casts Anger again, luckily I kept a mana up for Spell Pierce. Unfortunately he top decks another one next turn, however I bought myself an extra turn to attack which means he is on very low health. A few top decks later I close out the win with a Memnite and Blinkmoth.
GB Rock 2 - 1
Game 1 was pretty brutal. I kept a no land hand because it had enough 0 mana artifacts to enable metalcraft on Opal, and would have let me play out the hand by turn two. He's on the play and using inquisition to take my Ornithopter... meaning that I have a do nothing hand. He lands multiple Liliana's and secures the win.
Note: Liliana the Last Hope is just SUPER bad for this deck.
Game 2 I'm on the play, and although I don't have an amazing hand multiple Signal Pest let me get through enough early damage.
Game 3 I have another mediocre hand, however Bushwhacker and Contested War Zone let me keep the pressure on. Later he lands a languish to kill my robots, but Blinkmoth together with Contested War Zone let me close out the game.
Conclusions
The real crux of the deck is having a payoff card in the form of either Reckless Bushwhacker, Signal Pest or Contested War Zone. Without these cards you are stuck playing and topdecking thopters and memnites and the clock is way too slow. Having one or two of them however let you attack crazy fast. Bushwhacker lets you hit hard for 6 to 10 as early as turn 2, if you can follow that up then the opponent is playing defensive for the rest of the game.
I had some good hands and some slow hands, but didn't get any of the goldfish killer hands I found when testing the deck. I had to mulligan multiple times when I drew a no land hand.
This is the best I've ever done at my local FNM, and I've played with all sorts of decks such as Spirits, Mardu, and Craggwick Cremator. My FNM is very competitive and you are likely to see only top tier decks on any one night. I had previously thought this deck was a bunch of fun jankness and had expected to go 1-2 or 0-3 as I have done with other decks. The 3-0 result is very surprising...
Is this deck actually good? Maybe, but it certainly is a blast to play
I'm taking a break from Cragganwick to experiment with Mardu Phoenix and get some practice with Bant Spirits, but it's good to see the deck putting up results.
If anyone has success with tweaking the stock list I'd love to hear about it.
Last week was two dredge players, went 2 - 2 overall beating burn and lantern control but losing to burn (different player) and dredge.
I'd run Slagstorm but there are too many decks using graveyard recursion at the moment, e.g. dredge, bridgevine, arclight phoenix decks, etc.
Elves 1 - 2
First game he collected company's into two Shaman of the Pack for ten, draws another at the the start of next turn. Dead.
Game two an early Evo fetches Linvala locking him out of the game early on.
Game three kept a hand with lands and few creatures because it had Anger of the Gods, used Anger to remove his first wave of stuff, but only drew dorks and lands later on. Had one 50/50 chance to win with Cragganwick, but was unlucky.
Mardu 0 - 2
Both games he used discard to keep good cards out of my hand, and mid-ranged away my beaters. Had one 50 / 50 chance to win with Cragganwick, unlucky again.
Red Prison 2 - 1
Game one he gets down ensnaring bridge but my decision to mainboard Knight of Autumn pays off, and I fetch it with Evo for the win.
Game two he rituals for early goblin lord, I remove it but he plays two more later. He also lands witchbane orb preventing me from using the combo win.
Game three he has witchbane orb and torpor orb and ensnaring bridge. Eventually draw Shattering Spree to win the game.
Conclusions
Elves can out aggro us, but I think after side boarding we have the advantage. He had some very lucky Collected company hits unfortunately.
Mardu and other midrange decks are definitely going to be a difficult match up unless we can get the combo win.
So far I've tried to avoid taking out too many combo pieces when sideboarding, maybe trimming Ghalta or a worm. I'm not sure if that's sensible or not to be honest, but many decks have solutions for straight up aggro and since the joy of the deck is slamming face for 16 I like to keep those cards in.
If facing midrange decks like Mardu / Jund, I would trim the mana dorks. Against control I would reduce Evo since they can counter it and have you sac a creature for nothing.
If anyone has advice on how to sideboard against different decks I'd appreciate it.
I've been testing Bloodbraid Elf and so far it's been pretty solid, especially against blue decks where you can use it to force your way through counterspell. I'm running 3 at the moment. I'm hesitant to run 4 because the deck is already running many mana heavy creatures.
BB Elf ->
Good hits: Bolt, Geist, Steel leaf, Knight of Autumn
Mediocre hits: Magus (depending how you've stacked your lands), Eldritch Evo (I've had a situation where I didn't have any viable targets since the cascade trigger resolves before BB Elf does)
Bad Hits: Mana dorks
I've dropped to one Cavern of Souls MB and one sideboard, since I strongly dislike drawing two colourless lands as an opener. Kessig Wolf run is an all star land, pumps for lethal and lets you power through decks running ensnaring bridge with a Noble or Birds.
I agree that the deck needs more 2-drops and Evo sac targets, but... Voice just wont cut it. The deck's mana base can't afford being forced to consistantly fetch a white land, at least not with the current land set. The deck needs to have GG or GGG every game, but also needs to be able to hold up R for the first turns in case you need to bolt something, as well as get RR by turn three or 4. You could change to 2xNoble and 4xBirds maybe if you wanted more white mana. Personally I don't like relying on mana dorks to fix colours since so may of my games end up with the dork being bolted/killed as soon as I pass the turn.
I'm thinking about running either 1 Kitchen Finks or 1 Knight of Autumn MB since my FNM meta has a lot of burn and artifact decks.
The more I play the deck, the more reliably I find myself planning around the Cragganwick Crementor discard. Lots of games you don't need to discard a worm, and can get away with some solid aggro beats and a 5/4 creature discard to finish off. Many times having a Fauna Shaman stick until your next turn let's you set up for the combo.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/much-abrew-cremator-evolution-modern
Anyway, I've been playing the deck as well with some mixed but overall positive results. I've always loved Eldritch Evolution so any framework which can run this card makes me happy. I primarily see this as a beat down deck with a combo backup, since the combo itself can be difficult to assemble or luck based depending what you have in hand.
It's pretty sweet to be dealing 16 damage to the face though. The problems I've been having are that it's pretty mana intensive, requiring GGG for stealeaf does not mix well with colorless lands like Cavern of Souls. Triple G and double R requirements prevent us from going full Naya and adding more white cards. That being said, Cavern has definitely won me games playing against blue decks.
I feel the deck is still pretty raw, and lot's of the cards are potential flex (e.g. Tireless tracker, Nullhide ferox [I don't get this card], scooze), but then what do you replace them with? Finks? Bloodbraid? Huntmaster of the Falls? My inclination is to try to max the value from Eldritch Evolution in a way that doesn't compromise the aggro plan.
What i'm wondering is what your game plan is for games where you don't draw Frenzy and/or don't get to 4 mana? (Although with 24 mana sources this probably shouldn't be a problem?) Having the steel overseers in a game where you don't draw frenzy could be useful.
I'm guessing the standard plan for games with frenzy is:
Cast lots of artifacts until you run out of mana and/or hit Ravager/Plating -> attack with a flyer for lethal?
I picked up that card earlier when I was playing at FNM, only played a single game but had some fun going from no board state to having 6+ extra creatures / artifacts on the board. You can cast a ton of spells by using the opals and springleaf drums you just "drew" to generate extra mana during that turn. Too bad if you hit 2 lands though.