The manabase is perfect IMO. The obvious question is why Bloodstained Mire over Arid Mesa, and that is so I can fetch every color with any of my fetches. If I swtich to Mesa then I would need two Bx duals, or I would have 4 fetches that wouldnt find my black land for domain.
I had been running Swiftspear, but wanted to go upto 14 one drops, at which point I dont have enough spells. It needs to be a red or a green creature though to make the manabase work, Loam lion is a nightmare to curve correctly from. I am going to try Vexing Devil first, but Ill try a few other things too. Grim Lavamancer as a one or two of is an option. Really though I just need wizards to mess up again and print another Nacatl or goblin guide.
It's hard for them to "counter" with Skullcrack and I don't think they board in enchantment hate against us G2. I'm gonna try it today and I'll let you know.
Its not often I dont know a card exists, but here's one. This is better than the Burn board options were using now, but I still prefer Kor Firewalker. Firewalker can come in against Storm and Burn will board in enchantment hate game 3
Im really not a fan of the Rule of Law in your sideboard. I assume its only in there for storm and Living End? Storm can go off a turn earlier, and their removal of choice is often Echoing Truth. Id much prefer Ethersworn Canonist. Living End isnt likely to have an answer either, Shriekmaw can't kill artifacts.
But you shouldnt need it anyway. The only actively bad cards are Path to Exile, and youve still got 3 Negate, 1 Abrupt Decay, and 1 Zealous Persecution. Id much rather have something like Rakdos Charm, which can still be brought in against both, but also has game against Twin, Rock, decks with Batterskull, and Tokens.
I was actually thinking about putting 4 Skullcrack in the board for Junk. That would let me -3 Mutagenic Growth, -1 Become Immense, +4 skullcrack. Im going to test it anyway.
Are you saying you run 1/1 or 2/2 Spell Pierce/ Mana Leak?
I'd be curious to hear your insight on the additions of Geist/Tribal to the list, over the Naya colors, and what your reasoning for adding the 2 extra colors is.
You said you think your list gets the junk matchup as high as 50/50, would you mind explaining your reasoning behind the thought? I really want to make the small Domain list work, but I chickened out on my last attempt haha.
I know that Geist's angel can do ridiculous stuff over top of Junk with Ghor-Clans/Charms/Mutagenics, and Vines as protection, but I notice you're not running Vines so your approach must be different (unless you just don't commit hard to the angel to allow for blowout). I found that Geist became a super dead card, very quickly against Junk, as I simply couldn't swing unless I had significant pumps, at which point I'm just simply revealing my hand.
I also had trouble with opponent Blood Moons when I couldn't hit my Enchantment removal, and I found this was another major tipping point in my decision to go back to Naya. You have to rely on a small % of your deck to get Blood Moon off of the table, and until you do so, your Geists and Flames are dead cards. Do you have a solution to this problem, be it through cards, or just playstyle?
So Tribal Flames is just a nutty good card that gives the deck unfair reach. My build at its core is a red deck, so fetching correctly has been surprisingly easy. If I have Nacatl I usually fetch Stomping ground first, if not then Sacred Foundry, followed by Steam Vents for double red and Overgrown Tomb for full domain. Its important to be a bit more aggressive with mulligans than most decks too. A hand with 3/4 lands or without a one drop likely just isnt keepable.
The best way to beat Abzan is to do it quickly. This deck doesnt do this quite as well as infect, but its close, and its as fast as burn. With Geist, on multiple situations I had Geist with 2-3 other creatures against something like 3-4 tokens. Unless I had another Geist, Ghor-Clan, or Boros charm I would just hold the Geist back. It doesnt matter if thats revealing your hand, because theres nothing they can do about it. If theyre tapped out then yes I will go all in on the token, if theyve got open mana that means theyre not advancing their board and Ill burn them out. If Im in a situation with just a Geist and its not enough then it just wasnt meant to be. Every matchup you are going to lose some % of the time, and Im fine with that.
Im just not worried about Blood Moon. Celestial Purge is good against Abzan and Blood Moon, if I start seeing it all over the place Ill just up the count and aggressively fetch plains early. For now the type of hate Im mostly seeing is Timely Reinforcements.
The Abzan matchup feels like a 45-55 with all things being equal, but against an opponent that isnt familiar with a Zoo deck like this the matchup feels 50/50 at worst. Having a 1 drop is essential to winning the game though, Im going to just auto mull any hand without a 1 drop next testing session and see how it goes. This is also the one match I would prefer that Swiftspear was just a Kird Ape. I also felt my sideboarding was a mess, because the cards vary alot between builds I kept changing how I boarded, which is a problem. I am going to put together a board with more backbreaking answers for fewer matchups, instead of the board I used which is much broader.
Burn: Mutagenic Growth is insane against decks relying on red spells for removal. Game 1 try and win the die roll, sideboard games just switch the Eidolons for Firewalkers.
Storm: Game 1 I closed it out turn 3 off of Become Immense the turn before he would have gone off. I won 2 games off Become Immense on the weekend, but I was happy with it as a one of. The situations where become immense is better than boros charm or ghor-clan arent many, but its nice it have it in the deck. Sideboard I brought in the Eidiolon and Firewalkers. Obviously a Rule of Law effect would be better, but I think thats enough. I resolved a Firewalker and it gained me something like 15 life over the game. First time he went off it was for 12 Goblins, but he put me well over 20 life, a few turns later he tried to go off again and ended up 1 mana/or life short of being able to kill me.
Affinity: Game 1 I just scooped at 20 life after drawing turn 2 and having zero way to outrace his board. Both games 2 and 3 I brough in 8 hate cards, had turn 2 Stony Silence both games, and he just never had a chance.
Merfolk: Man I got crushed. He had Aether Vial turn 1 both games he won, game 3 he killed me with 6, SIX, lords in play. Thanks, no thanks.
My takeaway: My sideboard was not good. If I keep 3 Kor Firewalker, 2 Combust, 2 Stony Silence, Rakdos Charm, and Eidolon, that leaves 6 open spots. I want alteast one more card for affinity, and then the rest I am going to change. No idea what direction Ill go, probably some Blood Moons. And I was happy with Path to Exile. As much as I hate to admit my early testing analysis isnt immediately correct, Abzan is just too prevalent, and its good against Twin, if the meta swings away from those decks I start cutting, but for now 3 felt good.
I played in the SCG 5k yesterday, went 5-3. I likely cost myself top 8 when late in game 3 round 6 the top 2 cards caught my finger as I was drawing and had to shuffle the second away because I saw what it was. That card would have won the game, instead I drew a land and lost that turn. By the time round 8 came around I was just on tilt and wasnt playing tight at all, I lost a game 3 after seeing 10 lands and 4 spells all game. I'll get around to giving a bit of a recap when I have some time, but I am very happy with where the deck is at. I was also very happy with my Abzan matchup, I played it 3 times (1-2), but the two loses were round 6 and 8, which both should have been wins if I wasnt playing sloppy.
I am not saying gore-clan cannot run over any creature but what do you do when your opponent has open mana... Not attack with your creature or attack and get 2 for 1 by his removal. Gore-clan is great but you cant play it as removal and sometimes path will keep you on the offensive.
I hear what youre saying, obviously unconditional removal is unconditional removal. The way I have my deck built though I already have mutagenic growth, ghor-clan rampager, become immense, and occasionally boros charm. 2 for 1's are going to occasionally happen. It just means when your opponent is representing removal you need to play a little more conservatively and either rely on your creatures to pressure them, or shift to playing more like a burn deck.
The deck needs a way to kill things it cant run over. Even historical zoo decks had something to deal with that, usually path. getting rid of a creature and smashing them for damage with a bunch of 2-3 dmg creatures is a lot better than a bolt to the face or needing to 2 for 1 yourself to get rid of a threat. Need to have a way to deal with goyf/rhino/affinity/twin/....ect.
I disagree. A Ghor-Clan'ed creature is going to kill anything. That said, I got a few games in today and was happy at 20 lands. One of the combinations of cards for that slot I am going to test is 2 path to exile in place of the land and 1 mutagenic growth.
On paper 21 looks like too many, but Ive been happy with it in testing. The mana for going double red into UW for Geist is difficult, especially when youre needing green on turn 1 some percentage of the time too. Im also happy getting up to 4 mana most games, because the decks biggest play is Boros Charming a creature youve Ghor-Claned. 4 mana also makes it very easy to hit full tribal without constraining youreself at all on mana for casting spells.
I only have 3 Eidolon main because I dont have room for the full set. Its one of the best cards in alot of matchups, but multiples arent necessary to close out games. The first is usually all I need. In the matchups that just cant beat it I can always board the 4th in. I would not play less than the full four in my 75 though.
The matchups I look to play the "control" roll are Burn, Infect, and sometimes Affinity. In those matchups I will proactively hold my burn as removal, in most others I am much more likely to just ignore what theyre doing and try to goldfish.
Edit: Meh, Im going to cut a Sacred Foundry for the 4th Eidolon and then a 3rd Become Immense and see how it plays. Anyone have any outside the box ideas for a one of to test? Im going to run a few matches with Distortion Strike too.
@OttomanOttoman : By all means, I can hardly claim ownership of the deck (If you insist though be sure to credit Mongo McGillicutty). As for Eidolon the only matchup I have any concern with it against is RDW. Just play some games with it and youll quickly understand how difficult it is for the opponent, especially when youre following it up with Geists, Tribal Flames, and Boros Charms to the face.
@RPS1224: So I started with a list pretty similar to the SCG lists from the first weekend after Pod’s banning, except I was playing Geist over Tarmogoyf. When I swapped out Geist I replaced it with Tribal Flames and it ended up feeling like just a suboptimal burn deck at that point though. I liked the Gitaxian Probes, but the deck really didn’t need them, it just needed gas. Taking them out and going up to 21 lands also fixed most of the mana issues. I am still concerned in a meta full of Liliana, but the bifurcation of Abzan into Lili and non-Lili versions makes me more comfortable with it. And really, the only other option is more 1 drops. And if Kird Ape as the 13-16th one drops is the answer then the deck just isn’t playable IMO.
At FNM the Geist was mostly good, and wouldn’t have been worse than whatever I might replace it with. I don’t think theres any room in the deck for a 4th though. I want to be playing Monastery Swiftspear, and 18 spells is already on the low end for it. I like my manabase at 21 too, so the only place to cut at that point is one drops, Eidolon’s, or Ghor-Clans, and I don’t know where I’d begin.
@Buiqs: Having only played similar lists, in the dark I would
Infect: +4 Path, +2 Vines of Vastwood, +1 Destructive Revelry, -2 Boros Charm, -4 Mutagenic Growth, -1 Ghor-Clan
Twin: +4 Path, +1 Destructive Revelry,+2 Kor Firewalker, -4 Rancor, -3 Boros Swiftblade
Affinity: +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Destructive Revelry, -2 Boros Charm
RDW: +2 Unflinching Courage, +2 Kor Firewalker, +3 Thalia -4 Rancor – 2 Boros Charm, -1 Boros Swiftblade
Abzan:+4 Path, -4 Rancor
@Drinkard: The Bloodstained Mires allow all my fetches to get either blue or black mana for Tribal Flames. It could just as easily be Arid Mesa with Blood Crypt, but I had Mires in my binder but no blood Crypts. Honestly, yes, Arid Mesa is optimal, but the only reason it matters is for Blood Moon.
Ive been busy with life so I havent had a chance to play at all in a few weeks. My list currently is
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Grounds
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Kird Ape
4 Goblin Guide
2 Vexing Devil
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Tribal Flames
3 Boros Charm
3 Path to Exile
1 Become Immense
The manabase is perfect IMO. The obvious question is why Bloodstained Mire over Arid Mesa, and that is so I can fetch every color with any of my fetches. If I swtich to Mesa then I would need two Bx duals, or I would have 4 fetches that wouldnt find my black land for domain.
I had been running Swiftspear, but wanted to go upto 14 one drops, at which point I dont have enough spells. It needs to be a red or a green creature though to make the manabase work, Loam lion is a nightmare to curve correctly from. I am going to try Vexing Devil first, but Ill try a few other things too. Grim Lavamancer as a one or two of is an option. Really though I just need wizards to mess up again and print another Nacatl or goblin guide.
Its not often I dont know a card exists, but here's one. This is better than the Burn board options were using now, but I still prefer Kor Firewalker. Firewalker can come in against Storm and Burn will board in enchantment hate game 3
But you shouldnt need it anyway. The only actively bad cards are Path to Exile, and youve still got 3 Negate, 1 Abrupt Decay, and 1 Zealous Persecution. Id much rather have something like Rakdos Charm, which can still be brought in against both, but also has game against Twin, Rock, decks with Batterskull, and Tokens.
Are you saying you run 1/1 or 2/2 Spell Pierce/ Mana Leak?
So Tribal Flames is just a nutty good card that gives the deck unfair reach. My build at its core is a red deck, so fetching correctly has been surprisingly easy. If I have Nacatl I usually fetch Stomping ground first, if not then Sacred Foundry, followed by Steam Vents for double red and Overgrown Tomb for full domain. Its important to be a bit more aggressive with mulligans than most decks too. A hand with 3/4 lands or without a one drop likely just isnt keepable.
The best way to beat Abzan is to do it quickly. This deck doesnt do this quite as well as infect, but its close, and its as fast as burn. With Geist, on multiple situations I had Geist with 2-3 other creatures against something like 3-4 tokens. Unless I had another Geist, Ghor-Clan, or Boros charm I would just hold the Geist back. It doesnt matter if thats revealing your hand, because theres nothing they can do about it. If theyre tapped out then yes I will go all in on the token, if theyve got open mana that means theyre not advancing their board and Ill burn them out. If Im in a situation with just a Geist and its not enough then it just wasnt meant to be. Every matchup you are going to lose some % of the time, and Im fine with that.
Im just not worried about Blood Moon. Celestial Purge is good against Abzan and Blood Moon, if I start seeing it all over the place Ill just up the count and aggressively fetch plains early. For now the type of hate Im mostly seeing is Timely Reinforcements.
Round 1: Burn (2-0)
Round 2: Abzan (2-1)
Round 3: Burn (2-1)
Round 4: Merfolk (1-2)
Round 5: Affinity (2-1)
Round 6: Abzan (1-2)
Round 7: Storm (2-0)
Round 8: Abzan (1-2)
I registered
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Boros Charm
4 Tribal Flames
3 Mutagenic Growth
3 Path to Exile
1 Become Immense
2 Stony Silence
2 Destructive Revelry
2 Combust
1 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Celestial Purge
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Crackling Doom
1 Rakdos Charm
The Abzan matchup feels like a 45-55 with all things being equal, but against an opponent that isnt familiar with a Zoo deck like this the matchup feels 50/50 at worst. Having a 1 drop is essential to winning the game though, Im going to just auto mull any hand without a 1 drop next testing session and see how it goes. This is also the one match I would prefer that Swiftspear was just a Kird Ape. I also felt my sideboarding was a mess, because the cards vary alot between builds I kept changing how I boarded, which is a problem. I am going to put together a board with more backbreaking answers for fewer matchups, instead of the board I used which is much broader.
Burn: Mutagenic Growth is insane against decks relying on red spells for removal. Game 1 try and win the die roll, sideboard games just switch the Eidolons for Firewalkers.
Storm: Game 1 I closed it out turn 3 off of Become Immense the turn before he would have gone off. I won 2 games off Become Immense on the weekend, but I was happy with it as a one of. The situations where become immense is better than boros charm or ghor-clan arent many, but its nice it have it in the deck. Sideboard I brought in the Eidiolon and Firewalkers. Obviously a Rule of Law effect would be better, but I think thats enough. I resolved a Firewalker and it gained me something like 15 life over the game. First time he went off it was for 12 Goblins, but he put me well over 20 life, a few turns later he tried to go off again and ended up 1 mana/or life short of being able to kill me.
Affinity: Game 1 I just scooped at 20 life after drawing turn 2 and having zero way to outrace his board. Both games 2 and 3 I brough in 8 hate cards, had turn 2 Stony Silence both games, and he just never had a chance.
Merfolk: Man I got crushed. He had Aether Vial turn 1 both games he won, game 3 he killed me with 6, SIX, lords in play. Thanks, no thanks.
My takeaway: My sideboard was not good. If I keep 3 Kor Firewalker, 2 Combust, 2 Stony Silence, Rakdos Charm, and Eidolon, that leaves 6 open spots. I want alteast one more card for affinity, and then the rest I am going to change. No idea what direction Ill go, probably some Blood Moons. And I was happy with Path to Exile. As much as I hate to admit my early testing analysis isnt immediately correct, Abzan is just too prevalent, and its good against Twin, if the meta swings away from those decks I start cutting, but for now 3 felt good.
I hear what youre saying, obviously unconditional removal is unconditional removal. The way I have my deck built though I already have mutagenic growth, ghor-clan rampager, become immense, and occasionally boros charm. 2 for 1's are going to occasionally happen. It just means when your opponent is representing removal you need to play a little more conservatively and either rely on your creatures to pressure them, or shift to playing more like a burn deck.
I disagree. A Ghor-Clan'ed creature is going to kill anything. That said, I got a few games in today and was happy at 20 lands. One of the combinations of cards for that slot I am going to test is 2 path to exile in place of the land and 1 mutagenic growth.
I only have 3 Eidolon main because I dont have room for the full set. Its one of the best cards in alot of matchups, but multiples arent necessary to close out games. The first is usually all I need. In the matchups that just cant beat it I can always board the 4th in. I would not play less than the full four in my 75 though.
The matchups I look to play the "control" roll are Burn, Infect, and sometimes Affinity. In those matchups I will proactively hold my burn as removal, in most others I am much more likely to just ignore what theyre doing and try to goldfish.
Edit: Meh, Im going to cut a Sacred Foundry for the 4th Eidolon and then a 3rd Become Immense and see how it plays. Anyone have any outside the box ideas for a one of to test? Im going to run a few matches with Distortion Strike too.
@RPS1224: So I started with a list pretty similar to the SCG lists from the first weekend after Pod’s banning, except I was playing Geist over Tarmogoyf. When I swapped out Geist I replaced it with Tribal Flames and it ended up feeling like just a suboptimal burn deck at that point though. I liked the Gitaxian Probes, but the deck really didn’t need them, it just needed gas. Taking them out and going up to 21 lands also fixed most of the mana issues. I am still concerned in a meta full of Liliana, but the bifurcation of Abzan into Lili and non-Lili versions makes me more comfortable with it. And really, the only other option is more 1 drops. And if Kird Ape as the 13-16th one drops is the answer then the deck just isn’t playable IMO.
At FNM the Geist was mostly good, and wouldn’t have been worse than whatever I might replace it with. I don’t think theres any room in the deck for a 4th though. I want to be playing Monastery Swiftspear, and 18 spells is already on the low end for it. I like my manabase at 21 too, so the only place to cut at that point is one drops, Eidolon’s, or Ghor-Clans, and I don’t know where I’d begin.
@Buiqs: Having only played similar lists, in the dark I would
Infect: +4 Path, +2 Vines of Vastwood, +1 Destructive Revelry, -2 Boros Charm, -4 Mutagenic Growth, -1 Ghor-Clan
Twin: +4 Path, +1 Destructive Revelry,+2 Kor Firewalker, -4 Rancor, -3 Boros Swiftblade
Affinity: +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Destructive Revelry, -2 Boros Charm
RDW: +2 Unflinching Courage, +2 Kor Firewalker, +3 Thalia -4 Rancor – 2 Boros Charm, -1 Boros Swiftblade
Abzan:+4 Path, -4 Rancor
@Drinkard: The Bloodstained Mires allow all my fetches to get either blue or black mana for Tribal Flames. It could just as easily be Arid Mesa with Blood Crypt, but I had Mires in my binder but no blood Crypts. Honestly, yes, Arid Mesa is optimal, but the only reason it matters is for Blood Moon.