I think G/R can have a solid/favorable matchup against monoU g1 with proper tuning (without destroying your percentages against other decks), and then still a decent matchup with Esper/UW post board.
The only issue with GR is that it is susceptible to poor draws more so than other decks.
It's a terrible topdeck for a deck that often finds itself in topdeck mode. Yeah, midgame Revelation doesn't always get you there.
On the flipside, it can put the game out of reach quickly if you get it into play on turn 3.
I think this card is very powerful, but the meta is pushing it out of the deck at the moment. Having another removal spell or Blood Barron in it's place is probably the better call right now.
Besides Mizzium Mortars and just eating the damage, you can also give your creatures trample in the form of Nylea or Ghor-Clan Rampager. Fighting it with Dormi + Wasteland Viper can work too.
Even Gruul Charm seems better than Rogue's Passage.
People are kind of missing the point with Elseph.
If they have Elseph active, you've lost. You just have to accept that. Watering down the deck with all kinds of crap to try to beat Elseph is not the best way to approach this problem. I mean even if you manage to channel all the remaining of the power in the deck to kill Elseph, the Esper deck is just going to untap and do something else powerful on the next turn.
Instead the focus should be on winning the game before Elseph goes active. Or at the very least, having such a commanding lead that it doesn't stabilize them.
I really like the list, and am thinking of trying one similar with Ghor-clans as well. Do you think running 2 rogue's passage is fine? How about temple of abandon? I feel like scry with domri is pretty good, and also helps to somewhat combat the issue of the mana dorks late game. Are you totally ditching xenagos in this brew? How are you planning on using Chandra? I feel the haste creatures add up after awhile.
Rogue's Passage is bad. Really, really bad.
In this format, you can't reliably expect your creature to survive combat as long as an opponent has two mana open and a card in hand. Committing five mana to making it unblockable is a huge risk with little payoff.
Because this deck runs so many scry lands, having turn 2 mana up to counter isn't guaranteed. And if your opponent sees you pay two life for a shockland, they might alter their play to get around it. And exiling has almost no benefit in this format with the exception of a few narrow cards.
When you counter that critical turn 2 play it's awesome. But most of those critical turn 2 plays are creatures and the deck is already well equipped with answers to them. Later on Syncopate can get the job done, but it's not very exciting. The deck just has so many better cards to run.
I think the devotion decks have always had the better nut draws, but are the most susceptible to blowouts since in order to get your engine online you have to flood the board. Also they have been more susceptible to early game hand disruption in my experience since a lot of players have been siding in lifebane zombie in addition to the thoughtseize. I'm just not a fan of having so many useless creatures on their own without something to ramp to. Having the dorks early is nice, but having so many you end up drawing them late game is the opposite of what I want. The 3/3s you refer to at least in my deck at least have hexproof so you can voltron those or just swing in reliably and there's not a whole lot they can do. I would argue the monsters variant is more consistent in that way.
The mirror for me has come down to exactly like you said, and in that situation I would rather have the bigger creatures available.
The thing is, it makes no difference if you get blown out by having your mana guys Verdict'd away, or if you played a long grindy game that ended when your opponent topdecked Sphinx's Revelation. A loss is still a loss.
Hand disruption is bad, but on the other hand the devotion deck can simply topdeck Garruk and go nuts while the monsters deck can't do anything comparable.
Or maybe the lesson here is that we should be running more Garruks in the monsters deck...?
After testing a ton of different G/R monster lists and the going back to devotion, it seems like the devotion deck is just straight up better. Even in your worst matchups where they have the scary cards like Supreme Verdict/Anger of the Gods, sometimes you just go off fast enough and there's nothing they can do. All this diddling around with 3/3s just leaves the door open to them surviving the late game where they can take the game back.
The devotion deck also seems to be more consistent because you have 16 enablers that essentially do the same thing - help you get Garruk into play. And then once you have Garruk, most of the variability in the deck is completely gone. The monsters deck is susceptible to some clunky draws where you have too little mana to cast dragons or too much and nothing to do with it. Or they deal with your initial wave and you're forced to topdeck the right cards to win.
My main issue is just that the devotion mirror is a complete coin-flip with the game decided by who goes first and gets to go off with Garruk + Nykthos first. But as frustrating as that is, at least you don't straight up lose every time they go off if you had been playing the monsters version.
Armed // Dangerous has a high risk of you getting blown out by removal.
If you've noticed, all the top-tier decks in this format run instant speed spot removal. The key to this standard environment is to blunt the impact of those cards.
"RUIN HIS LIFE! TAKE HIS PARENTS TO COURT! BEAT HIM UP! MAKE HIM SUFFER FOR MY PRECIOUS CARDS!"
No, not really hyperbole.
Taking his parents to court should not be characterized as attacking him or "making him suffer". Situations like this are exactly the reason for why small claims court exists.
As I said before, if he is able to prove to a judge the amount he lost from the theft, he should file with small clams court without even giving it a second thought. The worst possible outcome is that he loses the case and is out $100 or so. The best possible is that the court orders this kid's parents to pay him back.
No one's life is ruined in this process. All we are talking about here is a matter of who owes what to who. There are no police or arrest records involved.
If your thinking about another Hydra Kalonian Hydra looks a lot better since its a two turn clock by himself.
Kalonian Hydra actually is a legitimate option for this deck. Stormbreath Dragon seems to be the choice card for this slot, but Hydra isn't straight up worse either. Actually if you have Hammer in your deck (a few people here are going that route) then Hydra is a strong choice because those cards play VERY well together.
You definitely have enough evidence to prove that this is the person who stole your binder.
The tricky part is proving all of the things that were taken out of it before he gave it back.
If you can do that somehow I think you should strongly consider a civil suit to recover your losses. You're wasting your time if you think these people are going to write you a check for $1,000.
But still, you need something that was keeping track of what was in the binder or you can't win in court. If you use some kind of electronic database software (that is timestamped of course), and then have a witness to say that you didn't sell off your collection in between the timestamp and when it was stolen, that would probably be enough to make your case.
And you don't need a lawyer to go this route. You can just go file in small claims court and eventually a judge will hear your case. All this would cost is your time and a small filing fee which is usually less than $100.
Because this is a civil suit, it's not like they're going to arrest the kid and his record is going to be ruined. All you are asking is for the court to get your money back. You are saying, "look they admitted to taking my stuff and I'm not pressing charges, but I think now I'm entitled to what was lost".
How have you guys been finding Nylea in the devotion lists? I find myself sideboarding her out in almost every matchup as she only seems to be good in situations in which I was already winning anyway.I don't have a huge sample size of games but i've generally found her underwhelming and its been leading me to think about replacing her in the main. Thoughts?
I tested with Nylea for a while and eventually realized that she was just too inconsistent. Some games she was absolutely required to win and no other card in the deck could replace her, but then other times she was the main reason that you lost, as she got shut off by a well timed removal spell. Also, drawing two is extremely painful, which does happen from time to time even if you only have two in the deck.
Meh, this card is very similar to Ghor-Clan Rampager, which doesn't see much play now. And Rampager might even be the better card anyway.
I suppose there's the possibility of a very agro version running both.
The only issue with GR is that it is susceptible to poor draws more so than other decks.
On the flipside, it can put the game out of reach quickly if you get it into play on turn 3.
I think this card is very powerful, but the meta is pushing it out of the deck at the moment. Having another removal spell or Blood Barron in it's place is probably the better call right now.
Besides Mizzium Mortars and just eating the damage, you can also give your creatures trample in the form of Nylea or Ghor-Clan Rampager. Fighting it with Dormi + Wasteland Viper can work too.
People are kind of missing the point with Elseph.
If they have Elseph active, you've lost. You just have to accept that. Watering down the deck with all kinds of crap to try to beat Elseph is not the best way to approach this problem. I mean even if you manage to channel all the remaining of the power in the deck to kill Elseph, the Esper deck is just going to untap and do something else powerful on the next turn.
Instead the focus should be on winning the game before Elseph goes active. Or at the very least, having such a commanding lead that it doesn't stabilize them.
Rogue's Passage is bad. Really, really bad.
In this format, you can't reliably expect your creature to survive combat as long as an opponent has two mana open and a card in hand. Committing five mana to making it unblockable is a huge risk with little payoff.
When you counter that critical turn 2 play it's awesome. But most of those critical turn 2 plays are creatures and the deck is already well equipped with answers to them. Later on Syncopate can get the job done, but it's not very exciting. The deck just has so many better cards to run.
The thing is, it makes no difference if you get blown out by having your mana guys Verdict'd away, or if you played a long grindy game that ended when your opponent topdecked Sphinx's Revelation. A loss is still a loss.
Hand disruption is bad, but on the other hand the devotion deck can simply topdeck Garruk and go nuts while the monsters deck can't do anything comparable.
Or maybe the lesson here is that we should be running more Garruks in the monsters deck...?
The devotion deck also seems to be more consistent because you have 16 enablers that essentially do the same thing - help you get Garruk into play. And then once you have Garruk, most of the variability in the deck is completely gone. The monsters deck is susceptible to some clunky draws where you have too little mana to cast dragons or too much and nothing to do with it. Or they deal with your initial wave and you're forced to topdeck the right cards to win.
My main issue is just that the devotion mirror is a complete coin-flip with the game decided by who goes first and gets to go off with Garruk + Nykthos first. But as frustrating as that is, at least you don't straight up lose every time they go off if you had been playing the monsters version.
If you've noticed, all the top-tier decks in this format run instant speed spot removal. The key to this standard environment is to blunt the impact of those cards.
That's great news that you were able to recover a sizable portion of what was lost. You were very lucky that the father was such a reasonable guy.
Taking his parents to court should not be characterized as attacking him or "making him suffer". Situations like this are exactly the reason for why small claims court exists.
As I said before, if he is able to prove to a judge the amount he lost from the theft, he should file with small clams court without even giving it a second thought. The worst possible outcome is that he loses the case and is out $100 or so. The best possible is that the court orders this kid's parents to pay him back.
No one's life is ruined in this process. All we are talking about here is a matter of who owes what to who. There are no police or arrest records involved.
Kalonian Hydra actually is a legitimate option for this deck. Stormbreath Dragon seems to be the choice card for this slot, but Hydra isn't straight up worse either. Actually if you have Hammer in your deck (a few people here are going that route) then Hydra is a strong choice because those cards play VERY well together.
The tricky part is proving all of the things that were taken out of it before he gave it back.
If you can do that somehow I think you should strongly consider a civil suit to recover your losses. You're wasting your time if you think these people are going to write you a check for $1,000.
But still, you need something that was keeping track of what was in the binder or you can't win in court. If you use some kind of electronic database software (that is timestamped of course), and then have a witness to say that you didn't sell off your collection in between the timestamp and when it was stolen, that would probably be enough to make your case.
And you don't need a lawyer to go this route. You can just go file in small claims court and eventually a judge will hear your case. All this would cost is your time and a small filing fee which is usually less than $100.
Because this is a civil suit, it's not like they're going to arrest the kid and his record is going to be ruined. All you are asking is for the court to get your money back. You are saying, "look they admitted to taking my stuff and I'm not pressing charges, but I think now I'm entitled to what was lost".
I tested with Nylea for a while and eventually realized that she was just too inconsistent. Some games she was absolutely required to win and no other card in the deck could replace her, but then other times she was the main reason that you lost, as she got shut off by a well timed removal spell. Also, drawing two is extremely painful, which does happen from time to time even if you only have two in the deck.