Rendroc: Are you going to SCG Worcester? That's an Open, but it's NOT a Grand Prix. Grand Prixs are usually even bigger in scope than Opens. An Open is a big tournament and it will be tough to advance to day 2 (I've only done it once), but it's even tougher at a Grand Prix (which is a Wizards sponsored event).
Anyway, I'm going to that Open myself and I am debating whether to rock Soldier Stompy or Legend MUD. Maybe we'll see each other there and I can critique your Soldier list.
I think GB Tron with 4 Fatal Push and 4 Collective Brutality MD is the way to go. Fatal Push is just really awesome removal that is maindeckable because nearly everyone in this format plays creatures of some kind.
The problem with Suppression Field is that it doesn't actually *stop* anything. You do realize that they can pay a measly 2 mana to activate what they need to activate? Sometimes it slows them down, but most of the time it's just a minor annoyance.
The corner case scenarios that you're looking at where Sfield is awesome are:
- On the play you cast it, say, off a Chrome Mox and a land. Boom, their first fetchland is hosed.
- You *stack* SFields so that activations cost 4 or 6 mana to use. That's more than a minor annoyance.
The problem with looking at a card this way is that these scenarios are less than 10% of the scenarios that will arise in any given game. You usually *won't* have SField on the play Turn 1, and you generally won't always stack SFields. And even when you *do* stack them, you are literally using 2 or more cards to generate the effect. That's severe card disadvantage for you - you're trading card advantage for tempo advantage in a losing fashion. You don't want to *need* two copies of a card just to generate the effect you want. Winter Orb completely restricts them to 1-2 mana a turn all by itself - no extra copies needed. And it does it at any stage of the game. The difference to me is vast in my playtesting - Winter Orb is generally superior to SField when trying to slow down the mana production of midrange and control decks.
And when I want to "hose" a deck that relies heavily on activated abilities (Death and Taxes and such), I'd rather just flat-out *stop* their ability to use those things completely and not *hope* that they are slowed down by the mana tax of SField. Thus, I rely on 4 Damping Matrix post-board. Matrix just flat-out says "no" to Mother of Runes, AEther Vial, equipment, and Stoneforge Mystic. They have to remove the Matrix before they can even use their abilities, whereas with SField, all it takes is a healthy board full of lands on their end and they laugh at your pitiful attempts to tax their Mystics, Mother, and Vials.
Damping Matrix does NOT shut down Chrome Moxen. It only affects non-mana abilities. There's nothing in the Soldier deck that is affected by it.
Suppression Field is straight garbage in my opinion, to be honest. It's ONLY ever good if you cast it Turn 1 on the play and you lock out fetchlands. Otherwise, if you play it Turn 2 and beyond, they usually have the ability to just fetch in response, or just straight-up pay 2 mana to get a fetchland and not really be heavily affected by it. And much later in the game it's completely useless.
Winter Orb, however, is very live from the early game to the late game. In fact, it's a great surprise tactic to play a Winter Orb mid-game after opponent has tapped out and expects to use his mana. Winter Orb is much better against Miracles in a grindy long game because in the long game, Suppression Field loses almost all of its relevance and ends up being a blank card.
I recently made Top 4 at a Legacy $1k with the above list.
Here's what I faced:
Rd1: 2-1 vs. 12post: Winter Orb does the trick here, and Preeminent Captain is too fast a clock.
Rd2: 2-1 vs. Lands(!): Despite losing G1 to Glacial Chasm lock and then Marit Lage kill, in G2 and G3 Rest in Peace and Winter Orb both pull their weight, along with Thalia 2.0.
Rd3: 2-1 vs. Death'n'Taxes(!): Lost one game to a Sword of War and Peace but in the other two games guys like Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer were amazing getting rid of his threats.
Rd4: 0-2 vs. Infect: Could have won G1 if I had untapped City of Traitors under Winter Orb so I could play Recruiter of the Guard -> fetch Jailer -> flash Jailer in on his Blighted Agent, but alas, I didn't. Tough matchup, but winnable.
Rd5: ID
Top8 Rd1: 2-1 vs. RW Painter: G1 he wins quickly with the combo, but in G2 and G3 I have copious hate (4 Damping Matrix, 3 Leonin Relic-Warder) that is too much for his deck to handle, along with the fast clock.
Top8 Rd2: 0-2 vs. Shardless BUG: This was the roughest match of the day. He just hit all of his abrupt decays and Lilis and ancestral visions and even my Rest in Peace from the board wasn't enough.
The deck feels strong. I don't know if it's strong enough to make a run at a really large tournament, but I definitely felt in control for most of the day. I mostly only lost games due to misplays on my own part, and except for the Top8 match against BUG Shardless I felt like even the games I lost I just barely lost. I like the way the deck plays and it's fun and exciting to play.
I've been having quite a bit of success playtesting this list online (on xmage I have one of the top-5 highest constructed ratings based on my play with this deck and with tron in modern):
I think the way to make this deck really work is just to maximize the Thalia effect and mulligan nearly every hand until you have something that you can play on turn 1 = i.e. turn 1 chalice, turn 1 winter orb, turn 1 thalia (with a chrome mox), turn 1 preeminent captain...
The Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailers give you just enough removal that was missing before that you can out-tempo the fair decks through blockers. They are kind of blank against noncreature decks, of course, but Palace Jailer even can function as a pseudo-Enlistment Officer if they don't have creatures to attack back with.
If you can get one of the 12 main soldier threats in play early, you're usually pretty golden. Ballyrush Banneret is back in this deck over the flying soldiers because with 4 Fairgrounds Warden and 1 Palace Jailer MD, you have enough removal for Delver of Secrets that the flying guys aren't really needed as much. Ballyrush Banneret is very good at breaking Winter Orb symmetry too.
I don't know, man. Let's build the BEST version of this deck. Not a version tricked out for your own personal meta (playing burn every event). That's super niche and not likely for the VAST MAJORITY of people. I've played in events across the country of all sizes and I've probably played burn in <10% of those events. Once you win the first couple rounds of a big event, the likelihood of facing burn gets even lower.
We want to build the most objectively powerful version of Soldier Stompy. So, I think that it's best to keep your "reluctantly playing it" cards with a note about that or something. It's more constructive if we keep those meta-specific calls OUT of the progress of this thread. If you believe that Charioteers is objectively powerful against a normal meta, instead of making a stretch to prove its worth against DNT or UR Delver, you could rationalize its place in the deck in general. But, based on your post, it doesn't sound like you feel it has merit unless you're playing Burn in every event.
You're cutting valuable cards to play Charioteers - the opportunity cost is real.
Back on topic:
Thalia Stompy is becoming more real. I'd like to know what people's impressions are of this deck vs. that one. Why play this deck over Thalia Stompy (8 Thalia, Eldrazi Displacer + Eldrazis, Mox Diamond)? Are we just jumping through hoops (Preeminent Captain) for our best play to be Captain of the Watch? Meanwhile, the Eldrazi deck gets to play Thought Knot Seer and Reality Smasher without a need to connect with a 2/2. What does the Soldier deck do that the Thalia Stompy deck does not?
My initial impression is that it's just Enlistment Officer and Recruiter of the Guard. The six card advantage cards seem to be the most useful differences. This comes at the cost of beef/clock. However, with the arrival of Palace Jailer, is card advantage a mitigated bonus for Soldier Stompy?
Why doesn't this deck play Umezawa's Jitte? Is the cost too high because of Chrome Mox discard?
I've tried the Thalia + eldrazi deck and it might be objectively more powerful than this one, however, there are a few things that Soldiers have going for them over that deck:
- Preeminent Captain is more powerful than any single Eldrazi. The tempo advantage you get from simply attacking with Captain is greater than almost anything else in Legacy. And now that Palace Jailer and Fairgrounds Warden have been printed, you no longer have to worry about fat blockers stopping you from attacking with this guy quite as often as you did in the past.
- Chrome Mox is better than Mox Diamond in this type of deck that lacks land recursion (such as Life from the Loam). Chrome Mox is actually even better than Lotus Petal or Simian Spirit Guide (which the other Eldrazi lists play). Chrome Mox is perfectly suited for this deck because the 4 Enlistment Officers often allow you to recoup the card disadvantage incurred by playing Chrome Mox. This deck can obviously play Chrome Mox due to the high white card count whereas Eldrazi and even Eldrazi+Thalias cannot play them quite as easily due to too many "colorless" cards.
- Enlistment Officer is a great source of raw card advantage that neither Eldrazi+Thalias nor straight Eldrazi has. One of the problems I ran into playing Eldrazi lists was that they would "run out of gas" often, so that if you didn't develop a winning board state early in the game (even though the deck was good at doing so), you would often lose the late game to decks that could generate card advantage. With Enlistment Officer, Soldiers has the ability to a.) come back from sweepers and b.) win the late-game card advantage race.
- Eldrazi+Thalias can play both Palace Jailer and Fairgrounds Warden, but Soldiers has the ability to make them more consistently uncounterable, and cheat them into play for free with Preeminent Captain, *and* draw them with Enlistment Officer or fetch them with Recruiter of the Guard. I like having access to spot removal whenever I need it, and Soldiers gives you access to these guys more readily than any other deck.
Now, the reasons I'd play Eldrazi+Thalias over Soldiers come down to two things basically:
- Thought-Knot Seer is incredibly good
- Eldrazi Displacer is situationally good
You can't really find a corollary for Soldiers with the first point, but I can give up playing Displacer more easily now that I have access to Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer.
Re: Charioteers & needing lifelink - Does 2 points of life per hit warrant an additional 1W mana? I don't think so. If you need incremental lifegain, you're not playing this deck correctly. The only matchup where incremental lifegain is really useful is against burn. Most other matchups hinge on developing your board presence and nullifying specific threats of your opponent - i.e. stopping their Delver, or stopping their Dark rituals, or stopping their Terminus. Charioteers is simply a bad creature that you should never be playing due to the high mana cost vs. its marginal utility.
Re: Suppression Field & mulliganing correctly - This is the HALLMARK of a bad card. You shouldn't have to mulligan aggresively to make use of a card. If you do, it's simply a bad card that shouldn't be played. Look at Chalice as a counterpoint - can you mulligan aggressively to make it more effective? Sure. But you don't *need* to mulligan to Chalice for it to be effective. You can draw into it on Turn 4 and cast it and lock out further 1 mana spells or even cast it for more and lock out 2cc and above. Suppression Field is almost completely useless after a certain point in the game, and often times that point is Turn 2-3 when they've already fetched their lands and don't mind paying 2 mana to activate their Jace or Liliana while you sit with -1 card advantage on the board and marginal tempo advantage.
BTW Dude, there's no need for Oblivion Ring anymore with the new soldiers that were printed. At all. Yes, it sometimes will nab you a non-creature permanent, but those times are far outweighed by the number of times you'd rather have your 2W removal a.) uncounterable b.) draw-able by Enlistment Officer c.) able to attack and block and d.) cheated into play by Preeminent Captain.
I would never play any removal in this deck anymore that isn't Palace Jailer or Fairgrounds Warden. If you need anti-artifact or anti-enchantment options in the sideboard or even as a singleton (at most) MD, I'd play Leonin Relic-Warder and fetch him with Recruiter of the Guard.
Also:
- Suppression Field is a bad card. It's the biggest trap card in the MTG world. It looks so good, but it's only really effective if you play it turn 1 off a chrome mox. 90% of the time it will be a blank or nearly a blank form of card disadvantage for you.
- Dawnbringer Charioteers are awful. Do you really need lifelink that badly that you're going to pay 4 mana for a 2/4 flier when you can instead pay only 2 mana for a 2/3 flier in Kor Skyfisher?
I have no idea about these creatures you are killing/removing, but when I play non-combo creature decks (i.e. not elves or painter type) I beat them, unless the creature deck get an equipment of some kind, pretty much without killing their dudes. I often beat D n T and to a lesser Maverick for the reason that I deal with their equipment and run S Field- they can't win by beating on the ground without equipment, and if you deal with that you win. Those decks in particular do not care what removal you have or if its uncounterable, because Mom hits t1. Rare decks like Affinity can get past me on the ground, because of protection from all colours, which can't be dealt with anyway by Soldiers. I rarely if ever hit creatures with O rings, perhaps you have a slew of Delvers, Eldrazi and Goyfs to hit with them? I do not, and the Jailers (which I do use too) don't often have viable targets (and the 3 mana dwarf would be especially bad here). I have two potential metas with some overlap, and in one I can sit there as much as I like with creature kill, but if I am facing a creature the odds are its a t2 Grisselbrand/Iona, T2 Enchantress or T1 Glistener Elf. Other than that its creatureless, plus D N T mentioned above and Burn, and those O rings look a lot better in that environment against Lilly, Jace et al. The other meta I rarely go to I have not played SS in, o ring would be poor because its abrupt decay heavy.
Have you done any testing with this deck vs Delver variants and BGx decks that play Tarmogoyf and any Wx deck that plays Stoneforge Mystics??
This deck always had issues with fat Tarmogoyfs, Batterskulls, and early flipped Delvers. The inclusion of Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer solves all of these issues by removing that one tough blocker, or stopping that early Delver from killing you.
On your second point. Skyfisher and Charioteers are both pretty awful. But they fly, which is why they may be relevant and get inclusion. But I don't have that many matches where flying is relevant, and yes, I am specifically playing them over other flyers for the common burn matchup, which is very hard without lifelink. As I said I don't have that many critter decks about, I need lifelink way more than flying often and we have few options in the lifelink department for now. I don't need a t1 or 2 flyer at all, and I don't need one that set me back a land- I have a high top end as it is. So Skyfisher won't make my list any time soon, and if I don't run Charioteers I will have to run Aven Riftwatcher type cards- in short I need the life more than the flying, but in the slots I have having both is good.
This game is all about tempo. Mana cost is HUGE. The difference between 1W and 2WW is like the GAP IN THE Grand Canyon.
I find suppression field works very well against most of the the decks I face whether early or late- remember I run 1 or 2 mana restriction effects in the board too. I would certainly rather run it than cost reducers in the 2 slot. We fill up on good CA cards that a late game one is not an issue, especially as my list is light on cost reduction and has more fat in.
You're not testing against quality decks and/or quality opponents then. In such a case, you'll find that Suppression Field has minimal effect later in the game.
BTW Dude, there's no need for Oblivion Ring anymore with the new soldiers that were printed. At all. Yes, it sometimes will nab you a non-creature permanent, but those times are far outweighed by the number of times you'd rather have your 2W removal a.) uncounterable b.) draw-able by Enlistment Officer c.) able to attack and block and d.) cheated into play by Preeminent Captain.
I would never play any removal in this deck anymore that isn't Palace Jailer or Fairgrounds Warden. If you need anti-artifact or anti-enchantment options in the sideboard or even as a singleton (at most) MD, I'd play Leonin Relic-Warder and fetch him with Recruiter of the Guard.
Also:
- Suppression Field is a bad card. It's the biggest trap card in the MTG world. It looks so good, but it's only really effective if you play it turn 1 off a chrome mox. 90% of the time it will be a blank or nearly a blank form of card disadvantage for you.
- Dawnbringer Charioteers are awful. Do you really need lifelink that badly that you're going to pay 4 mana for a 2/4 flier when you can instead pay only 2 mana for a 2/3 flier in Kor Skyfisher?
Once you get Damping Matrix into play, it shuts down all of their Equipmement, Vials, Mother of Runes, and Stoneforge Mystics and Mangaras. That's pretty key post-board, but Revoker can do a good job as well.
I've been testing extensively against tier decks with my latest posted list and even though it is not 100% optimized I literally have something like an 80% win rate against the field with most losses coming as the result of misplays or just grindy matches against bad matchups such as Death n Taxes or Lands.
The addition of Thalia 2.0, Fairgrounds Warden, Recruiter of the Guard, Sanctum Prelate, and Palace Jailer have really destroyed some of the obstacles that were in this deck's way in the past.
Fairgrounds Warden in particular is just insane as a 3 mana unconditional removal spell that can be a.) uncounterable b.) cheated into play for free c.) drawn by Enlistment Officer, and d.) actually attack and block as well.
Winter Orb + Thalia 2.0 is crazy good against alot of decks.
Recruiter is not really a 4-of because you lose tempo playing him but as a 2-of or even 3-of he can add much needed card selection.
I think this deck might actually be close to Tier 1 at this point, and I'd rather play this than Eldrazi.
** The key is this: before, this deck would wreck Storm and other combo decks, and post a good matchup against Miracles. But it would struggle against the BGx Delver/Tarmogoyf/Gurmag Angler decks on top of struggling against Lands and DnT. Now that Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer have been printed, this deck wrecks Delver/Tarmogoyf/Gurmag Angler decks. The only remaining "bad" matchups are Lands and Death'n'Taxes, and D'n'T isn't as bad anymore now that you can play Recruiter->Revoker and Fairgrounds Warden/Palace Jailer for their problematic creatures. **
Suppression Field is trash. Unless you get it out on Turn 1, it's 90% of the time a liability.
I always had more success with Winter Orb anyway, but that's more of a sideboard card than anything else.
Look, the ability to play Chalice of the Void 5-8 that can actually "Chalice" something that costs more than 2 cmc, AND can stop it from even being cast in the first place (to generate storm)... is way better than Suppression Field or Winter Orb. I think this is the "lock piece" the deck needed. And the fact that it's a creature means it gets a bonus from spare Caverns naming "Human".
Between Recruiter, Palace Jailer, and Sanctum Prelate, Soldiers just got a heaping helping of powerful tools to improve the deck.
Basically, Recruiter of the Guard is a 4-of now, and we can play less of other stuff like Daru Warchief (down to a 3-of) and play more tutor targets both maindeck and in the sideboard. This guy can get Containment Priest, Ethersworn Canonist, Palace Jailer (if you need to remove a creature or fight show and tell), Peacekeeper (against fast aggro decks - then you stop paying his upkeep when you build up your forces to alpha strike), and more.
Palace Jailer is simply the removal spell that this deck needed, AND it essentially cantrips! You might even get to draw multiple cards off this guy!
Sanctum Prelate is Chalice of the Void on a creature, but even better! You can essentially name whatever spell you want to stop with this thing. Already have Chalice @ 1 out in play against Miracles? Name "6" and lock him out of Terminus and your creatures essentially can't die for the rest of the game! I'm thinking the deck will be playing maybe even as many as 4 Sanctum Prelate MD instead of Suppression Field / Winter Orb. You're essentially now playing 8 Chalice of the Void MD, or even 12 if you consider that Recruiter of the Guard can get Prelate as well. Sick.
Anyway, I'm going to that Open myself and I am debating whether to rock Soldier Stompy or Legend MUD. Maybe we'll see each other there and I can critique your Soldier list.
The corner case scenarios that you're looking at where Sfield is awesome are:
- On the play you cast it, say, off a Chrome Mox and a land. Boom, their first fetchland is hosed.
- You *stack* SFields so that activations cost 4 or 6 mana to use. That's more than a minor annoyance.
The problem with looking at a card this way is that these scenarios are less than 10% of the scenarios that will arise in any given game. You usually *won't* have SField on the play Turn 1, and you generally won't always stack SFields. And even when you *do* stack them, you are literally using 2 or more cards to generate the effect. That's severe card disadvantage for you - you're trading card advantage for tempo advantage in a losing fashion. You don't want to *need* two copies of a card just to generate the effect you want. Winter Orb completely restricts them to 1-2 mana a turn all by itself - no extra copies needed. And it does it at any stage of the game. The difference to me is vast in my playtesting - Winter Orb is generally superior to SField when trying to slow down the mana production of midrange and control decks.
And when I want to "hose" a deck that relies heavily on activated abilities (Death and Taxes and such), I'd rather just flat-out *stop* their ability to use those things completely and not *hope* that they are slowed down by the mana tax of SField. Thus, I rely on 4 Damping Matrix post-board. Matrix just flat-out says "no" to Mother of Runes, AEther Vial, equipment, and Stoneforge Mystic. They have to remove the Matrix before they can even use their abilities, whereas with SField, all it takes is a healthy board full of lands on their end and they laugh at your pitiful attempts to tax their Mystics, Mother, and Vials.
Suppression Field is straight garbage in my opinion, to be honest. It's ONLY ever good if you cast it Turn 1 on the play and you lock out fetchlands. Otherwise, if you play it Turn 2 and beyond, they usually have the ability to just fetch in response, or just straight-up pay 2 mana to get a fetchland and not really be heavily affected by it. And much later in the game it's completely useless.
Winter Orb, however, is very live from the early game to the late game. In fact, it's a great surprise tactic to play a Winter Orb mid-game after opponent has tapped out and expects to use his mana. Winter Orb is much better against Miracles in a grindy long game because in the long game, Suppression Field loses almost all of its relevance and ends up being a blank card.
Here's what I faced:
Rd1: 2-1 vs. 12post: Winter Orb does the trick here, and Preeminent Captain is too fast a clock.
Rd2: 2-1 vs. Lands(!): Despite losing G1 to Glacial Chasm lock and then Marit Lage kill, in G2 and G3 Rest in Peace and Winter Orb both pull their weight, along with Thalia 2.0.
Rd3: 2-1 vs. Death'n'Taxes(!): Lost one game to a Sword of War and Peace but in the other two games guys like Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer were amazing getting rid of his threats.
Rd4: 0-2 vs. Infect: Could have won G1 if I had untapped City of Traitors under Winter Orb so I could play Recruiter of the Guard -> fetch Jailer -> flash Jailer in on his Blighted Agent, but alas, I didn't. Tough matchup, but winnable.
Rd5: ID
Top8 Rd1: 2-1 vs. RW Painter: G1 he wins quickly with the combo, but in G2 and G3 I have copious hate (4 Damping Matrix, 3 Leonin Relic-Warder) that is too much for his deck to handle, along with the fast clock.
Top8 Rd2: 0-2 vs. Shardless BUG: This was the roughest match of the day. He just hit all of his abrupt decays and Lilis and ancestral visions and even my Rest in Peace from the board wasn't enough.
The deck feels strong. I don't know if it's strong enough to make a run at a really large tournament, but I definitely felt in control for most of the day. I mostly only lost games due to misplays on my own part, and except for the Top8 match against BUG Shardless I felt like even the games I lost I just barely lost. I like the way the deck plays and it's fun and exciting to play.
I've been having quite a bit of success playtesting this list online (on xmage I have one of the top-5 highest constructed ratings based on my play with this deck and with tron in modern):
4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Preeminent Captain
4 Fairgrounds Warden
3 Ballyrush Banneret
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Daru Warchief
3 Enlistment Officer
1 Palace Jailer
3 Captain of the Watch
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Winter Orb
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
2 City of Traitors
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Karakas
4 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Palace Jailer
2 Containment Priest
4 Rest in Peace
3 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Damping Matrix
I think the way to make this deck really work is just to maximize the Thalia effect and mulligan nearly every hand until you have something that you can play on turn 1 = i.e. turn 1 chalice, turn 1 winter orb, turn 1 thalia (with a chrome mox), turn 1 preeminent captain...
The Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailers give you just enough removal that was missing before that you can out-tempo the fair decks through blockers. They are kind of blank against noncreature decks, of course, but Palace Jailer even can function as a pseudo-Enlistment Officer if they don't have creatures to attack back with.
If you can get one of the 12 main soldier threats in play early, you're usually pretty golden. Ballyrush Banneret is back in this deck over the flying soldiers because with 4 Fairgrounds Warden and 1 Palace Jailer MD, you have enough removal for Delver of Secrets that the flying guys aren't really needed as much. Ballyrush Banneret is very good at breaking Winter Orb symmetry too.
I've tried the Thalia + eldrazi deck and it might be objectively more powerful than this one, however, there are a few things that Soldiers have going for them over that deck:
- Preeminent Captain is more powerful than any single Eldrazi. The tempo advantage you get from simply attacking with Captain is greater than almost anything else in Legacy. And now that Palace Jailer and Fairgrounds Warden have been printed, you no longer have to worry about fat blockers stopping you from attacking with this guy quite as often as you did in the past.
- Chrome Mox is better than Mox Diamond in this type of deck that lacks land recursion (such as Life from the Loam). Chrome Mox is actually even better than Lotus Petal or Simian Spirit Guide (which the other Eldrazi lists play). Chrome Mox is perfectly suited for this deck because the 4 Enlistment Officers often allow you to recoup the card disadvantage incurred by playing Chrome Mox. This deck can obviously play Chrome Mox due to the high white card count whereas Eldrazi and even Eldrazi+Thalias cannot play them quite as easily due to too many "colorless" cards.
- Enlistment Officer is a great source of raw card advantage that neither Eldrazi+Thalias nor straight Eldrazi has. One of the problems I ran into playing Eldrazi lists was that they would "run out of gas" often, so that if you didn't develop a winning board state early in the game (even though the deck was good at doing so), you would often lose the late game to decks that could generate card advantage. With Enlistment Officer, Soldiers has the ability to a.) come back from sweepers and b.) win the late-game card advantage race.
- Eldrazi+Thalias can play both Palace Jailer and Fairgrounds Warden, but Soldiers has the ability to make them more consistently uncounterable, and cheat them into play for free with Preeminent Captain, *and* draw them with Enlistment Officer or fetch them with Recruiter of the Guard. I like having access to spot removal whenever I need it, and Soldiers gives you access to these guys more readily than any other deck.
Now, the reasons I'd play Eldrazi+Thalias over Soldiers come down to two things basically:
- Thought-Knot Seer is incredibly good
- Eldrazi Displacer is situationally good
You can't really find a corollary for Soldiers with the first point, but I can give up playing Displacer more easily now that I have access to Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer.
Re: Suppression Field & mulliganing correctly - This is the HALLMARK of a bad card. You shouldn't have to mulligan aggresively to make use of a card. If you do, it's simply a bad card that shouldn't be played. Look at Chalice as a counterpoint - can you mulligan aggressively to make it more effective? Sure. But you don't *need* to mulligan to Chalice for it to be effective. You can draw into it on Turn 4 and cast it and lock out further 1 mana spells or even cast it for more and lock out 2cc and above. Suppression Field is almost completely useless after a certain point in the game, and often times that point is Turn 2-3 when they've already fetched their lands and don't mind paying 2 mana to activate their Jace or Liliana while you sit with -1 card advantage on the board and marginal tempo advantage.
Have you done any testing with this deck vs Delver variants and BGx decks that play Tarmogoyf and any Wx deck that plays Stoneforge Mystics??
This deck always had issues with fat Tarmogoyfs, Batterskulls, and early flipped Delvers. The inclusion of Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer solves all of these issues by removing that one tough blocker, or stopping that early Delver from killing you.
This game is all about tempo. Mana cost is HUGE. The difference between 1W and 2WW is like the GAP IN THE Grand Canyon.
You're not testing against quality decks and/or quality opponents then. In such a case, you'll find that Suppression Field has minimal effect later in the game.
I would never play any removal in this deck anymore that isn't Palace Jailer or Fairgrounds Warden. If you need anti-artifact or anti-enchantment options in the sideboard or even as a singleton (at most) MD, I'd play Leonin Relic-Warder and fetch him with Recruiter of the Guard.
Also:
- Suppression Field is a bad card. It's the biggest trap card in the MTG world. It looks so good, but it's only really effective if you play it turn 1 off a chrome mox. 90% of the time it will be a blank or nearly a blank form of card disadvantage for you.
- Dawnbringer Charioteers are awful. Do you really need lifelink that badly that you're going to pay 4 mana for a 2/4 flier when you can instead pay only 2 mana for a 2/3 flier in Kor Skyfisher?
I've been testing extensively against tier decks with my latest posted list and even though it is not 100% optimized I literally have something like an 80% win rate against the field with most losses coming as the result of misplays or just grindy matches against bad matchups such as Death n Taxes or Lands.
The addition of Thalia 2.0, Fairgrounds Warden, Recruiter of the Guard, Sanctum Prelate, and Palace Jailer have really destroyed some of the obstacles that were in this deck's way in the past.
Fairgrounds Warden in particular is just insane as a 3 mana unconditional removal spell that can be a.) uncounterable b.) cheated into play for free c.) drawn by Enlistment Officer, and d.) actually attack and block as well.
Winter Orb + Thalia 2.0 is crazy good against alot of decks.
Recruiter is not really a 4-of because you lose tempo playing him but as a 2-of or even 3-of he can add much needed card selection.
I think this deck might actually be close to Tier 1 at this point, and I'd rather play this than Eldrazi.
** The key is this: before, this deck would wreck Storm and other combo decks, and post a good matchup against Miracles. But it would struggle against the BGx Delver/Tarmogoyf/Gurmag Angler decks on top of struggling against Lands and DnT. Now that Fairgrounds Warden and Palace Jailer have been printed, this deck wrecks Delver/Tarmogoyf/Gurmag Angler decks. The only remaining "bad" matchups are Lands and Death'n'Taxes, and D'n'T isn't as bad anymore now that you can play Recruiter->Revoker and Fairgrounds Warden/Palace Jailer for their problematic creatures. **
Here is my list:
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Karakas
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Winter Orb
4 Enlistment Officer
4 Preeminent Captain
4 Fairgrounds Warden
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Captain of the Watch
3 Daru Warchief
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Kor Skyfisher
1 Palace Jailer
1 Sanctum Prelate
2 Damping Matrix
1 Sanctum Prelate
4 Rest in Peace
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Palace Jailer
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
I always had more success with Winter Orb anyway, but that's more of a sideboard card than anything else.
Look, the ability to play Chalice of the Void 5-8 that can actually "Chalice" something that costs more than 2 cmc, AND can stop it from even being cast in the first place (to generate storm)... is way better than Suppression Field or Winter Orb. I think this is the "lock piece" the deck needed. And the fact that it's a creature means it gets a bonus from spare Caverns naming "Human".
Between Recruiter, Palace Jailer, and Sanctum Prelate, Soldiers just got a heaping helping of powerful tools to improve the deck.
Basically, Recruiter of the Guard is a 4-of now, and we can play less of other stuff like Daru Warchief (down to a 3-of) and play more tutor targets both maindeck and in the sideboard. This guy can get Containment Priest, Ethersworn Canonist, Palace Jailer (if you need to remove a creature or fight show and tell), Peacekeeper (against fast aggro decks - then you stop paying his upkeep when you build up your forces to alpha strike), and more.
Palace Jailer is simply the removal spell that this deck needed, AND it essentially cantrips! You might even get to draw multiple cards off this guy!
Sanctum Prelate is Chalice of the Void on a creature, but even better! You can essentially name whatever spell you want to stop with this thing. Already have Chalice @ 1 out in play against Miracles? Name "6" and lock him out of Terminus and your creatures essentially can't die for the rest of the game! I'm thinking the deck will be playing maybe even as many as 4 Sanctum Prelate MD instead of Suppression Field / Winter Orb. You're essentially now playing 8 Chalice of the Void MD, or even 12 if you consider that Recruiter of the Guard can get Prelate as well. Sick.
Remember, kids: Remand and Repeal are good because they at least break even on card advantage. Card advantage = good. Card disadvantage = bad.
Unsubstantiate is card disadvantage every single time.