Sort of untrue about Elves "having nothing past Turn 5" - Eldrazi Monument is very possible, Proc/Ranger/etc. Anything that plays a lot of removal I just go full beatdown G2 with Eldrazi monument. Can't reliably combo in those matchups, UWR is a 30/70 G1 in their favor, but after that it goes our way in my experience - given that you have a properly build SB.
As for people being bad pilots, Its likely that a lot of people in this thread ARE bad pilots, I've been playing combo elves since its debut at PT Berlin and I still don't claim to be an expert, Its an insanely hard deck to play well with regularly for an entire tournament.
You're setting up a straw-person game where they always have elec + snap, or multiples bolts, etc. Ranger is one thing, but Proclamation of Rebirth is another, I run 4/2 split and 2 fecundity in my SB. Anyway, I've played around 30 sets now with paper decks against my roommate, and we actually find the match up fairly close after board. UWR isn't the deck you want to play against every round, but its extremely winnable.
I'm suprised so many people think that electrolyze/bolt/helix/etc/etc are such huge problems. Pure combo elves always played Proclamation of Rebirth and Ranger of Eos in the SB for the long game. Not to mention Fecundity.
I'm mostly just insulted Ayn Rand was called a philosopher in the OP of this thread.
A great work speaks for itself. Context may give us clues as to why the person wrote it, but if it is worth being thought it will be made self-evident in the text that we should contemplate it.
Christianity existed the moment Christ had followers. As for organized Christianity, people were preaching the word of the New Testament and traveling to all nations as a unified group before there was the word "Catholicism".
2) who are the Nephilum
Nephilim are the sons of god, and daughters of men. Genesis talks about this. Presumably the mating of angels and men.
If this card were to be constructed playable, you'd need to make it a 3/4 (or even a 4/4, if you wanted to push it over the top) so that a restoration angel couldn't just flash in and eat it. :[
Got in 12 games of Spirit Jund vs. UB Blossom Faeries pre-board. Jund won 8-4. Bitterblossom tends to land too late, get targeted discarded, or die to Abrupt Decay/Maelstrom Pulse. Faeries did win on the back of 4 Faerie Rogues from Bitterblossom once, though, and it countered a Pulse with Blossom, a Faerie Rogue, and a Spellstutter Sprite once.
Deathrite Shaman tends to sneak through counterspells and Doom Blade, and he makes Jund's life in this match-up somewhat easier. Targeted discard can nab him, but Bob, Bloodbraid Elf, and Liliana of the Veil are also must-eliminates for the Fae, so a disruption-light Fae hand may need to take one of the others.
Jund tends to win quite often when it Bolts Spellstutter Sprite when it ETB and attempts to counter something.
(The Faeries list runs 4 Tiago, no Swords, and no Vedalken Shackles, and it assumes Ancestral Vision remains banned. Because of Ancestral Vision's slow nature, I'm not sure how much that would turn the match-up around. I did test a UB Vision Blossom no-Tiago no-Shackles build against Pod, though, and Pod ripped it apart because only spot removal spells were really live against them. For that reason, I believe an optimal Blossom Fae list includes Tiago.)
Testing an untuned and thrown together faeries list against a highly tuned tier 1 current deck seems like a moot point. Were you playing inquisitions? Disfigure? Why all four tiago? Threads of Disloyalty maindeck? Scion of Oona could even be incorrect in a propper "modern" UB Bitterblossom faeries. It isn't saying much that the deck lost a bunch, Faeries is a deck that requires extremely exact play, extremely exact deck building, and needs to be playing the right tools for each specific metagame its in.
Hey guys, I posted a while back about my team's 2nd/8th place finish at states, but I wanted to follow up by saying I wrote an article for TCG player on it and I'd love if you all read it and tell me what you think! Its a pretty full tournament report - enjoy!
my question is about lands: how was your feeling with 24 lands + 4 Farseek and a keyrune? did you think during the tourney that the low number of lands is a problem?
i ask this because i have the feeling that play 26 lands (just perfect for a normal control deck) it's a little too high with 4 farseek mainboard
24, a keyrune, 2 gatecreeper vines, and 4 farseek puts the deck at 31 mana sources, which I felt was about right. Your spells are generally powerful enough to push you into the late-game, and being able to cast a huge Sphinx's Revelation mid-game after you've wrathed them out is the sickest thing ever.
I would not be casting acidic slime in this deck. The body isn't relevant, and overall Ray of Revelation gets most of the work done that you need.
Both myself and my teamate both Top8d States, myself getting 4th and him getting 2nd. He got manascrewed in the finals in game three, but I was very happy with our deck as neither of us dropped even a single game in the swiss. Unfortunate to lose, but even after being so successful with the deck, I feel like it is far from the best deck in the format. It has a lot of opportunity for mind games and your own personal playskill to be relavent, but its lacking in feeing. Feels like old standard jund "ok I play all my good cards, are you dead?" half the time. Overall, very happy I played it, I think I would have been playing 4 Geist of St. Traft between main/side if I could do it all again. That card is far too good to not be a serious card for any (and I mean any) U/W deck. The deck is at least good enough to get 2 out of 2 pilots into the top8 of a 100 person event without ever really being at risk of being eliminated.
Feel free to ask any questions about the deck I'd be happy to answer you. My matchups where - Esper Contol, Frites, Bant Mirror, U/W Pure Control, Bant Aggro, Jund Ramp/Control, Draw, Loss to 75 card mirror match in the top 8 to my teamate.
Some more general comments:
-Entreat the Angels is pretty bad, it does not do a damn thing against any deck prepared to beat tokens (which is 100% of good players)
-Sphinx's Revelation is absolutely nessecary
-You need to play four Jace
-Tamiyo is kind of boring/bad
-Negate is one of the best cards in the entire format and Im fairly certain it should be maindeck in some capacity
I've been testing this deck a lot since the full spoiler, and I've come to a pretty solid place with it. I'll generally explain why I play what cards I do.
I see a lot of people playing Azourious charm. Without ranting, I'd just like to say I generally disagree with playing this card unless have a stronger beatdown component than the average Bant "control" archetype. putting guys on top when you have a winning board state is good (by winning I mean attacking) and gaining life on the swing is good when you're racing (and by racing I also mean attacking) - my deck isn't really an attacking deck, so I don't play the card. I can play more Think Twice if I feel the desire to be cycling cards.
The Farseek/Gatecreeper vine is pretty generic. I had 4 Gatecreepers originally but found the little lifegain they get from blocking to be neglegable compared to the amount of times I just needed to ramp into terminus to clear up the board. I went down to 0 gatecreeper vines for some time, but two found their way back in, and I'll explain why in a moment.
Like most people building control, my deck started with 4 copies of think twice. After having Gatecreepers/Farseeks in my deck, I often had stranded think twices against aggro decks. It was occasionally good (mostly in the control mirror) but generally speaking I was dying with think twice in my hand against Zombies because I never had the time to cast the damn thing. I went down to 3 for a long time, but eventually ended up replacing 2 more with the pair of gatecreeper vines. The vine helps out vs aggro like think twice wasn't able to, and also helps me secure my land drops, which is always helpful.
I am playing two Sphinx's Revelation because the card is good in every matchup. I was playing 1 and 1 snapcaster for a while but the only thing I ever wanted to snapcaster back was Sphinx's Revelations so I just decided to go up to two, and I haven't looked back.
The win conditions are fairly generic, not much to talk about. Armada wurm ends games on its own, Angel is massive card advantage and often ends games as well. Thragtusk is the ultimate monster to ramp into and stabilize after a sweeper.
Cyclonic Rift has been excellent for me, both as a 2 mana bounce spell against random early game crap like the 3/3 Centaur token, and just bouncing a lotleth troll for tempo to build up mana. The overload can clear out blockers for the huge alpha strike as well as put planeswalkers back in their hand for you to counter, etc. Lots of uses, very versitile, and often exactly what you're looking for.
The one Selesnya Keyrune is an extra ramp spell that doubles as a way to threaten planeswalkers, something this deck can have trouble with against cards like abrupt decay and o-ring snagging our D. Spheres. Having an early Watchwolf that dodges wrath effects is a wonderful way of handling a pesky liliana/jace/etc. I have thought of going up to two, but I don't want the overall card quality to suffer.
The Planeswalkers/Terminus/D.Sphere are fairly generic. I like these numbers a lot. 4/1 of Terminus/Verdict has been right for me (trying lots of different configurations out)
The sideboard is not perfect, but for the states metagame it covers most of the bases I really care about. I bring in Healers for the hard aggro matchups. Healer also doubles as an aggressive card against the Jund planeswalker attrition decks. Purify the Grave against Frists and 4x Snapcaster decks, the extra Jaces in the control mirrors, Negates for the control mirrors and weird walker decks. its also nice to bring in negates against Rakdos Return. 1 Ray/Cursebreak for beating Rancor and Opposing D. Spheres. I usually bring in 1 Ray in the mirror, and 1 Cursebreak against aggro, being that the 2 life is generally enough to get you over the hump, as future rancors are seldom an issue once you stabalize past the first. Sigarda is a great beater against control decks without standard sweepers, and the extra O-ring for utility closes up the 15 nicely.
I guess my ultimate question for this thread is why are some of you even casting blue cards? Geist of St. Traft seems to be the only consistent card that people want to be casting, but I can't really view it as worth it for that card alone. I could easily craft an extremely solid and consistent WG beatdown deck with lots of great hate options and resiliency. What does Az. charm and geist really offer the deck that you don't already have?
I guess I went a much different direction than the OP did in U/R Delver. I thought of the deck more as a "counter/Burn" deck that used creatures for damage and (in the case of Talrand) card advantage. Here is where I am with the deck, might look a little crazy but I played a good game 1 set (of about 15 games) against BG zombies and came out of it well. No doubt it needs tuning but I was happy with it.
I guess I'm just not terribly interesting in winning by attacking with a 3/2 flier over and over again. Id much rather plan to go over the top of that plan. Plus, with the likely prevalency of Pillar of Flame being all over the place, I'd really like to avoid the 2 toughness problem.
As for people being bad pilots, Its likely that a lot of people in this thread ARE bad pilots, I've been playing combo elves since its debut at PT Berlin and I still don't claim to be an expert, Its an insanely hard deck to play well with regularly for an entire tournament.
4 Arbor Elf
1 Boreal Druid
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Essence Warden
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
2 Regal Force
Spells
4 Beck // Call
3 Cloudstone Curio
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Chord of Calling
1 Marsh Flats
2 Breeding Pool
3 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Ranger of Eos
3 Path to Exile
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Tar Fiend
A great work speaks for itself. Context may give us clues as to why the person wrote it, but if it is worth being thought it will be made self-evident in the text that we should contemplate it.
Nephilim are the sons of god, and daughters of men. Genesis talks about this. Presumably the mating of angels and men.
Testing an untuned and thrown together faeries list against a highly tuned tier 1 current deck seems like a moot point. Were you playing inquisitions? Disfigure? Why all four tiago? Threads of Disloyalty maindeck? Scion of Oona could even be incorrect in a propper "modern" UB Bitterblossom faeries. It isn't saying much that the deck lost a bunch, Faeries is a deck that requires extremely exact play, extremely exact deck building, and needs to be playing the right tools for each specific metagame its in.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10779
24, a keyrune, 2 gatecreeper vines, and 4 farseek puts the deck at 31 mana sources, which I felt was about right. Your spells are generally powerful enough to push you into the late-game, and being able to cast a huge Sphinx's Revelation mid-game after you've wrathed them out is the sickest thing ever.
I would not be casting acidic slime in this deck. The body isn't relevant, and overall Ray of Revelation gets most of the work done that you need.
4 Thragtusk
2 Armada Wurm
2 Gatecreeper Vine
2 Restoration Angel
1 Angel of Serenity
Stuff
2 Cyclonic Rift
4 Detention Sphere
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
4 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Farseek
1 Selesnya Keyrune
2 Syncopate
4 Temple Garden
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Glacial Fortress
3 Forest
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Purify the Grave
4 Negate
4 Centaur Healer
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Supreme Verdict
Feel free to ask any questions about the deck I'd be happy to answer you. My matchups where - Esper Contol, Frites, Bant Mirror, U/W Pure Control, Bant Aggro, Jund Ramp/Control, Draw, Loss to 75 card mirror match in the top 8 to my teamate.
Some more general comments:
-Entreat the Angels is pretty bad, it does not do a damn thing against any deck prepared to beat tokens (which is 100% of good players)
-Sphinx's Revelation is absolutely nessecary
-You need to play four Jace
-Tamiyo is kind of boring/bad
-Negate is one of the best cards in the entire format and Im fairly certain it should be maindeck in some capacity
2 Gatecreeper Vine
4 Thragtusk
2 Armada Wurm
2 Angel of Serenity
Spells
2 Syncopate
4 Farseek
2 Cyclonic Rift
1 Think Twice
4 Detention Sphere
1 Selesnya Keyrune
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Tamiyo, The Moon Sage
4 Terminus
2 Sphinx's Revalation
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple Garden
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Hinterland Harbor
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Forest
3 Centaur Healer
4 Negate
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Purify the Grave
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Cursebreak
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
I see a lot of people playing Azourious charm. Without ranting, I'd just like to say I generally disagree with playing this card unless have a stronger beatdown component than the average Bant "control" archetype. putting guys on top when you have a winning board state is good (by winning I mean attacking) and gaining life on the swing is good when you're racing (and by racing I also mean attacking) - my deck isn't really an attacking deck, so I don't play the card. I can play more Think Twice if I feel the desire to be cycling cards.
The Farseek/Gatecreeper vine is pretty generic. I had 4 Gatecreepers originally but found the little lifegain they get from blocking to be neglegable compared to the amount of times I just needed to ramp into terminus to clear up the board. I went down to 0 gatecreeper vines for some time, but two found their way back in, and I'll explain why in a moment.
Like most people building control, my deck started with 4 copies of think twice. After having Gatecreepers/Farseeks in my deck, I often had stranded think twices against aggro decks. It was occasionally good (mostly in the control mirror) but generally speaking I was dying with think twice in my hand against Zombies because I never had the time to cast the damn thing. I went down to 3 for a long time, but eventually ended up replacing 2 more with the pair of gatecreeper vines. The vine helps out vs aggro like think twice wasn't able to, and also helps me secure my land drops, which is always helpful.
I am playing two Sphinx's Revelation because the card is good in every matchup. I was playing 1 and 1 snapcaster for a while but the only thing I ever wanted to snapcaster back was Sphinx's Revelations so I just decided to go up to two, and I haven't looked back.
The win conditions are fairly generic, not much to talk about. Armada wurm ends games on its own, Angel is massive card advantage and often ends games as well. Thragtusk is the ultimate monster to ramp into and stabilize after a sweeper.
Cyclonic Rift has been excellent for me, both as a 2 mana bounce spell against random early game crap like the 3/3 Centaur token, and just bouncing a lotleth troll for tempo to build up mana. The overload can clear out blockers for the huge alpha strike as well as put planeswalkers back in their hand for you to counter, etc. Lots of uses, very versitile, and often exactly what you're looking for.
The one Selesnya Keyrune is an extra ramp spell that doubles as a way to threaten planeswalkers, something this deck can have trouble with against cards like abrupt decay and o-ring snagging our D. Spheres. Having an early Watchwolf that dodges wrath effects is a wonderful way of handling a pesky liliana/jace/etc. I have thought of going up to two, but I don't want the overall card quality to suffer.
The Planeswalkers/Terminus/D.Sphere are fairly generic. I like these numbers a lot. 4/1 of Terminus/Verdict has been right for me (trying lots of different configurations out)
The sideboard is not perfect, but for the states metagame it covers most of the bases I really care about. I bring in Healers for the hard aggro matchups. Healer also doubles as an aggressive card against the Jund planeswalker attrition decks. Purify the Grave against Frists and 4x Snapcaster decks, the extra Jaces in the control mirrors, Negates for the control mirrors and weird walker decks. its also nice to bring in negates against Rakdos Return. 1 Ray/Cursebreak for beating Rancor and Opposing D. Spheres. I usually bring in 1 Ray in the mirror, and 1 Cursebreak against aggro, being that the 2 life is generally enough to get you over the hump, as future rancors are seldom an issue once you stabalize past the first. Sigarda is a great beater against control decks without standard sweepers, and the extra O-ring for utility closes up the 15 nicely.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Talrand, Sky Summoner
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
Spells
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Thunderous Wrath
3 Brimstone Volley
4 Thought Scour
3 Dissipate
2 Cyclonic Rift
1 Unsummon
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
2 Cavern of Souls
8 Island
4 Mountain
3 Smelt
2 Zealous Conscripts
3 Negate
2 Flames of the Firebrand
2 Tamiyo, The Moon Sage
3 Dispel