Every time I am looking through my mono black EDH deck I look at it and think to myself "well, it doesn't actually DO anything, I don't know, maybe I can cut it" but then I put it to the "am I ever sad/frustrated to draw this or have it in my hand?" and the answer is always a resounding "no".
It comes in handy so so often, causing blowouts or at the very least allowing you to get rid of that sudden hasty trampling double-striking pumped up Proggy headed at you. Being "target player" lets you blow people out that aren't even attacking you too if you feel like it.
One of my favorites in black is Infernal Tribute. Sac any permanent to draw a card -- protects all of your permanents from theft/exile/cloning/whatever. Costs 2 to activate, but seriously, you get a draw a card off it! Also pretty great with good ol' Spine of Ish Sah
I've played MBC for a bit, and IMO anyone that is playing fewer than 4 Lashwrithe is doing it wrong. I'm also a huge fan of Phyrexian Crusader in the MB, even as the only infect creature. It has very relevant protections, and just flat out wins against some deck types, as well as being an allstar blocker against aggro. Not to mention that a Lashwrithe on him can be game over in a single swing, 2 at most.
Liking the werewolf. The reanimation spell is garbage it needed to cost 3B to be playable.
Because the ability to mill yourself and cast any fattie of your own that happens to get milled for 3W is garbage, amirite?
This spell could very easily enable some REALLY awesome reanimation decks -- it allows you to not need any card in hand at all. Just mill and cast. Good stuff.
Frightful Delusions has possibly interesting applications in a U/B control deck that features heavy discard already. It just adds another aspect to the whole "play your hand out quickly to avoid discard, but beware counters". Between this and Mana Leak you force them to play around counters by waiting for more mana, but you are also making them discard in the meantime, so it makes for interesting choices.
This just adds to that by making the "bait the counter while holding your real spell" another risky proposition. Sure, probably not constructed playable, but still an interesting spell. It actually works best with hard counters, ones that people have to play around even late game -- this plus cancel in the late game can make for very tough choices for your opponent.
Like I said, probably not playable, but still interesting.
Could someone please sell me on Vault Skirge? I am really on the fence.
Depends what kind of build you are running, and what your meta looks like. I like him a lot for 2 reasons:
1. I play 4 Skirge, 4 Nighthawk, and even a couple of Liliana's Specters, along with the requisite Lashwrithe and Obliterators. My main gameplan is to stick an evasive creature, remove all of their threats and/or answers with discard, and then beat face with an equipped flier or Obliterator. Vault Skirge fits perfectly into that gameplan, and besides, I have very little else to do with my mana until turn 3 generally anyway, outside of discard.
2. The lifegain is sometimes pretty awesome, depending on how much aggro is in your meta. I went 5-0 this friday, and I owed at least a couple of games to the little lifelink imp. My first round was against RDW, and the little guys kept me alive long enough to land a real threat. In game 3 I had a skirge down, then played a nighthawk, and then played a lashwrithe. I was at 8 life and he had 2 cards in hand, and he was forced to use both of his burn on my creatures to prevent me from equipping and putting the game squarely out of his reach. There were several other games where an equipped skirge kept me alive long enough for an Obliterator to seal the game, or just got me there itself.
Most decks just can't race a growing lifelink flier. Now I will certainly grant that they are pretty unimpressive if they aren't equipped, but they still generate a 2 point swing every turn, which isn't terrible. They aren't a necessity in the deck for sure, but they are nice in the right builds and right meta.
1. Hexproof. Thrun, Dungrove Elder, etc.
2. Protection from spot removal colors, namely black, with red and white in second. Mirran Crusader is pretty awesome here, Vault Skirge dodges pretty much all black removal, artifact and black creatures in general do well here. Phyrexian Crusader is another.
3. Creatures that are "unprofitable" for your opponent to kill. Wurmcoil Engine is a star here, but even things like Hero of Bladehold, Grave Titan -- things that affect the board immediately, token producers, that kind of thing. Squawk fits into this category too.
You can also run the appropriate color swords to give protection. Blade Splicer is alright in that it creates a token, but removing the token leaves you with a 1/1, which just isn't very threatening.
Really the deck is just the same thing we see every format. The difference is that people aren't building other decks now. New caw doesn't really post amazing results because it loses to anything midrange since it's actually pretty underwhelming at what it does. The real problem lies in that no one is going to try and play midrange in a format with Valakut and Splinter Twin. What's making it work is that it's the only option for Tempo-Control in the format. Essentially it's a weaker version of a Fish style build or Faeries. With all the format warping we've seen from ZEN block though, it becomes the best option because the decks that can beat it fairly consistantly are completely annihalated by the decks that caw beats. At the same point, some form of tempo control exists every format and is generally the preferred build. Although it's not always going to be the most powerful, they will become the bandwagon because they can boast being the most consistantly good deck by not having any overwhelmingly bad matchups.
This. EXACTLY this. A good midrange deck has a very good MU vs. caw, but midrange gets annihilated by twin and valakut, which are still prevalent enough to crush any dreams of playing midrange.
So, oddly enough, caw isn't the problem, it's that decks that could challenge caw effectively are being held in check by other decks.
edit: With Valakut (and to a lesser extent Twin) around, you have to ask yourself when building any deck whatsoever -- can my clock be at or below 6 turns with no interaction from the other player, or can I disrupt the other play enough to stop their turn 4/5/6 win? Green, white, and red can sometimes answer that they can get there as fast or faster, black and blue can say that they can probably disrupt enough, and blue and white together happen to do it best. I have a fun little deck with new Garruk, Gideon, and black for disruption that does very well against caw, aggro, and other control, but it just rolls over and dies to 'kut and twin. I can tweak in either direction to be able to beat combo, but my caw MU suffers, and vice-versa. Caw just answers things best right now, although other places in the world are playing aggro to great results, so perhaps a lot of it has to do simply with the meta (and by that I mean a country as a whole, or even an ethnicity, seeing that many Euro countries are also playing Caw)
interesting list did you like ranger over robot? seems like it would be really rough on draws
I tried the robot in a few iterations of the deck, and I just never liked him very much. 4 always felt too slow for ramp, since for the most part I only care about getting to 5, and that doesn't get me there any faster, or at least no faster at all than a ranger would. The body is nearly completely irrelevant on the robot since it comes down too late to be effective as a chump blocker in the MUs where you need one badly, where the ranger does come down early enough to perhaps save your bacon. Lastly what I like about ranger is that she can make marginal hands a little easier to keep -- if you have 2 mana that includes a G in your opener and a ranger, you can feel alright keeping that hand. 2 with a robot? Not so much.
Now, all that being said, I am 95% certain that I am going to replace the ranger with 3x Cultivate since that single-cardedly guaruntees you 5 mana of the right color the turn after you play it. It doesn't have a body and it comes down a turn later, negating a little bit of the safety net of knowing you won't miss any land drops, but I think overall it will work better.
This will be in conjunction with taking out Birds and Cobra for Wall of Omens and Squadron Hawk, giving me WAY better chumping ability, so the body won't be missed. Like I said, I didn't really get to see the explosiveness in action with the other ramp, whereas I have tested and really liked the stability of having creatures that replace themselves, have evasion, etc.
The other reason that I haven't liked the mana dorks that need to stick around is that it created too many really awkward situations against aggro. Do I chump and lose my ability to cast what I need to cast next turn? Can I Day all their beaters away but then mana screw myself? I like being able to Day 3 of my creatures for 3 of theirs and still come out ahead since all of mine replaced themselves already and then some.
Whew -- TL,DR -- Robot has always felt like too little of an effect too late in this particular deck. He is outstanding in many places, in my lists he just didn't feel like it.
I just ran a GBw Garruk/Gideon list last night to a 4-1 second place finish, just barely losing the final round in 3 games. I beat 2 RDW, a U/B control, and a Caw Blade to get to the final round, and ended up losing to a frickin' hexproof/angelic destiny deck. Yeah, I was embarrassed.
I have been playing the GW(x) shell ever since M12 came out. I took it to a couple of PTQs, first as a Bant version with Vensor. I went 5-3 but just wasn't happy at all with how it ran, trying to keep mana open to counter things was indeed as awkward as people have been posting here. I wanted a true tap-out control deck, so the next day I instead splashed black, but just for the creature removal (GftT and DB). I was happier with it, but something was still just not quite right.
None of these versions had much if any ramp -- maybe a couple of sad robots. I liked instead going with Squadron Hawks, Wall of Omens, Blade Splicer -- stuff to block, create some real or virtual CA, and provide a little bit of pressure here and there when possible. I then decided that the early drops that I was using were merely clogging up the board and stalling the game until I could land my walkers, so a couple weeks ago I tried a pure G/W version with the cobras and birds and fetches, and it failed miserably. Last week I went with a G/W version with no ramp and just Dismember main for instant spot removal, and I liked it......except when I ran in to Valakut in the final round. Luckily we decided to just ID and split anyway since we were the only 4-0 people going in to the 5th round, but we played it out for fun anyway and I just got stomped (as I had already kind of guessed would happen).
So this past week some friends and I decided that black was needed, and strongly, for some decent instant removal that doesn't kill me along with some targeted discard to deal with stuff that is otherwise awkward to deal with after it lands -- Primey, some walkers, etc.
The list I posted here worked very well, except that I don't know if I ever really got off a bomb more than a turn early here and there. Never a T3 anything, but that is also due to me playing against red and black who could just burn my stuff out. The discard was awesome to have, and the SB Memoricide was killer, but I think I am going to go back to the chump blocker/CA engine instead of the ramp engine for the early game.
I'll post a little more breakdown of things later on
I'm running a G/W Superfriends type deck at FNM and having some fun with it, went 5-0 last week. Gideon and Garruk 2.0 are just flat out made for each other, and throw in a 1-2 of Karn and/or Elspeth, some walls and wraths, some spot removal, and you're good to go. Clog the board, wrath, and lay down some walkers to finish the job.
What Thursday said is correct, in that there is a cost associated with spells being instant, especially counter-magic. This means that sorcery speed spells will nearly always be more powerful when compared to instants, as well as the possible loss of opportunity when needing to keep counter magic open and your opponent ends up not playing anything (or anything worth countering at least) -- you just left at least 2 mana open and did nothing with it. If you are sitting on a titan and a 3 mana counter, you might have just left 8 mana open with nothing to show for it.
Now, in my opinion anyway, the question of whether or not a tap-out control or a draw-go control is more viable in a meta is: are there currently decks that are relatively popular that cast spells that just HAVE TO be countered? As in, if the spell resolves you have a >75% chance of just losing. The clearest example that springs to mind is the Destructive Force decks of last summer (I happened to play one for a while). I mean, if D-Force resolves, the other player generally just loses right then. Currently Twin and Valakut decks are close to this, but they can sometimes be handled in other ways than counters, Twin more-so than 'kut.
If your meta is full of RDW, Vamps, mid-range, or possibly other control, tap-out could be the way to go, running 0-4 counters. I prefer this style of deck personally, and am cooking up a Bant list with new Garruk, Gideon, Vensor, etc. with Beast Within and O-rings and walls to get me there. It's the style that I prefer. Some people like permission, and sometimes that is better.
It comes in handy so so often, causing blowouts or at the very least allowing you to get rid of that sudden hasty trampling double-striking pumped up Proggy headed at you. Being "target player" lets you blow people out that aren't even attacking you too if you feel like it.
And yeah, split second is just awesome.
Because the ability to mill yourself and cast any fattie of your own that happens to get milled for 3W is garbage, amirite?
This spell could very easily enable some REALLY awesome reanimation decks -- it allows you to not need any card in hand at all. Just mill and cast. Good stuff.
This just adds to that by making the "bait the counter while holding your real spell" another risky proposition. Sure, probably not constructed playable, but still an interesting spell. It actually works best with hard counters, ones that people have to play around even late game -- this plus cancel in the late game can make for very tough choices for your opponent.
Like I said, probably not playable, but still interesting.
Depends what kind of build you are running, and what your meta looks like. I like him a lot for 2 reasons:
1. I play 4 Skirge, 4 Nighthawk, and even a couple of Liliana's Specters, along with the requisite Lashwrithe and Obliterators. My main gameplan is to stick an evasive creature, remove all of their threats and/or answers with discard, and then beat face with an equipped flier or Obliterator. Vault Skirge fits perfectly into that gameplan, and besides, I have very little else to do with my mana until turn 3 generally anyway, outside of discard.
2. The lifegain is sometimes pretty awesome, depending on how much aggro is in your meta. I went 5-0 this friday, and I owed at least a couple of games to the little lifelink imp. My first round was against RDW, and the little guys kept me alive long enough to land a real threat. In game 3 I had a skirge down, then played a nighthawk, and then played a lashwrithe. I was at 8 life and he had 2 cards in hand, and he was forced to use both of his burn on my creatures to prevent me from equipping and putting the game squarely out of his reach. There were several other games where an equipped skirge kept me alive long enough for an Obliterator to seal the game, or just got me there itself.
Most decks just can't race a growing lifelink flier. Now I will certainly grant that they are pretty unimpressive if they aren't equipped, but they still generate a 2 point swing every turn, which isn't terrible. They aren't a necessity in the deck for sure, but they are nice in the right builds and right meta.
1. Hexproof. Thrun, Dungrove Elder, etc.
2. Protection from spot removal colors, namely black, with red and white in second. Mirran Crusader is pretty awesome here, Vault Skirge dodges pretty much all black removal, artifact and black creatures in general do well here. Phyrexian Crusader is another.
3. Creatures that are "unprofitable" for your opponent to kill. Wurmcoil Engine is a star here, but even things like Hero of Bladehold, Grave Titan -- things that affect the board immediately, token producers, that kind of thing. Squawk fits into this category too.
You can also run the appropriate color swords to give protection. Blade Splicer is alright in that it creates a token, but removing the token leaves you with a 1/1, which just isn't very threatening.
Mods get to troll. It's kind of like how cops get to run red lights and speed when they want. Or network admins get to run P2P servers.
When you enforce the laws, they no longer apply to you.
This. EXACTLY this. A good midrange deck has a very good MU vs. caw, but midrange gets annihilated by twin and valakut, which are still prevalent enough to crush any dreams of playing midrange.
So, oddly enough, caw isn't the problem, it's that decks that could challenge caw effectively are being held in check by other decks.
edit: With Valakut (and to a lesser extent Twin) around, you have to ask yourself when building any deck whatsoever -- can my clock be at or below 6 turns with no interaction from the other player, or can I disrupt the other play enough to stop their turn 4/5/6 win? Green, white, and red can sometimes answer that they can get there as fast or faster, black and blue can say that they can probably disrupt enough, and blue and white together happen to do it best. I have a fun little deck with new Garruk, Gideon, and black for disruption that does very well against caw, aggro, and other control, but it just rolls over and dies to 'kut and twin. I can tweak in either direction to be able to beat combo, but my caw MU suffers, and vice-versa. Caw just answers things best right now, although other places in the world are playing aggro to great results, so perhaps a lot of it has to do simply with the meta (and by that I mean a country as a whole, or even an ethnicity, seeing that many Euro countries are also playing Caw)
I tried the robot in a few iterations of the deck, and I just never liked him very much. 4 always felt too slow for ramp, since for the most part I only care about getting to 5, and that doesn't get me there any faster, or at least no faster at all than a ranger would. The body is nearly completely irrelevant on the robot since it comes down too late to be effective as a chump blocker in the MUs where you need one badly, where the ranger does come down early enough to perhaps save your bacon. Lastly what I like about ranger is that she can make marginal hands a little easier to keep -- if you have 2 mana that includes a G in your opener and a ranger, you can feel alright keeping that hand. 2 with a robot? Not so much.
Now, all that being said, I am 95% certain that I am going to replace the ranger with 3x Cultivate since that single-cardedly guaruntees you 5 mana of the right color the turn after you play it. It doesn't have a body and it comes down a turn later, negating a little bit of the safety net of knowing you won't miss any land drops, but I think overall it will work better.
This will be in conjunction with taking out Birds and Cobra for Wall of Omens and Squadron Hawk, giving me WAY better chumping ability, so the body won't be missed. Like I said, I didn't really get to see the explosiveness in action with the other ramp, whereas I have tested and really liked the stability of having creatures that replace themselves, have evasion, etc.
The other reason that I haven't liked the mana dorks that need to stick around is that it created too many really awkward situations against aggro. Do I chump and lose my ability to cast what I need to cast next turn? Can I Day all their beaters away but then mana screw myself? I like being able to Day 3 of my creatures for 3 of theirs and still come out ahead since all of mine replaced themselves already and then some.
Whew -- TL,DR -- Robot has always felt like too little of an effect too late in this particular deck. He is outstanding in many places, in my lists he just didn't feel like it.
My deck:
4x Marsh Flats
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
2x Swamp
3x Plains
4x Forest
3x Sylvan Ranger
4x Lotus Cobra
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Batterskull
Planewalkers: 7
3x Garruk, Primal Hunter
3x Gideon Jura
1x Karn Liberated
3x Oblivion Ring
2x Day of Judgment
3x Go For the Throat
2x Doom Blade
3x Despise
2x Duress
I have been playing the GW(x) shell ever since M12 came out. I took it to a couple of PTQs, first as a Bant version with Vensor. I went 5-3 but just wasn't happy at all with how it ran, trying to keep mana open to counter things was indeed as awkward as people have been posting here. I wanted a true tap-out control deck, so the next day I instead splashed black, but just for the creature removal (GftT and DB). I was happier with it, but something was still just not quite right.
None of these versions had much if any ramp -- maybe a couple of sad robots. I liked instead going with Squadron Hawks, Wall of Omens, Blade Splicer -- stuff to block, create some real or virtual CA, and provide a little bit of pressure here and there when possible. I then decided that the early drops that I was using were merely clogging up the board and stalling the game until I could land my walkers, so a couple weeks ago I tried a pure G/W version with the cobras and birds and fetches, and it failed miserably. Last week I went with a G/W version with no ramp and just Dismember main for instant spot removal, and I liked it......except when I ran in to Valakut in the final round. Luckily we decided to just ID and split anyway since we were the only 4-0 people going in to the 5th round, but we played it out for fun anyway and I just got stomped (as I had already kind of guessed would happen).
So this past week some friends and I decided that black was needed, and strongly, for some decent instant removal that doesn't kill me along with some targeted discard to deal with stuff that is otherwise awkward to deal with after it lands -- Primey, some walkers, etc.
The list I posted here worked very well, except that I don't know if I ever really got off a bomb more than a turn early here and there. Never a T3 anything, but that is also due to me playing against red and black who could just burn my stuff out. The discard was awesome to have, and the SB Memoricide was killer, but I think I am going to go back to the chump blocker/CA engine instead of the ramp engine for the early game.
I'll post a little more breakdown of things later on
Just hope you don't run in to Valakut though
Now, in my opinion anyway, the question of whether or not a tap-out control or a draw-go control is more viable in a meta is: are there currently decks that are relatively popular that cast spells that just HAVE TO be countered? As in, if the spell resolves you have a >75% chance of just losing. The clearest example that springs to mind is the Destructive Force decks of last summer (I happened to play one for a while). I mean, if D-Force resolves, the other player generally just loses right then. Currently Twin and Valakut decks are close to this, but they can sometimes be handled in other ways than counters, Twin more-so than 'kut.
If your meta is full of RDW, Vamps, mid-range, or possibly other control, tap-out could be the way to go, running 0-4 counters. I prefer this style of deck personally, and am cooking up a Bant list with new Garruk, Gideon, Vensor, etc. with Beast Within and O-rings and walls to get me there. It's the style that I prefer. Some people like permission, and sometimes that is better.