My recently finished Karona, False God Angel Tribal EDH deck. The main theme is Angels and different ways to cheat them out. Although the deck isn't 100% optimized most notably the manabase, I like how the deck has performed in my initial goldfishing. Any thoughts or comments are welcome. Please ask about card choices if you have any confusion why I picked something over the other.
Deck Analysis
Core Color: W
Secondary Colors: RG
Tertiary Colors: UB
Strengths:
1). Sustainability - This deck thrives on long drawn out attrition wars especially in larger tables.
2). Explosive Starts - In smaller games, this deck can hit hard after about turn 5. Reanimating discarded Angels or putting ones like [[Aurelia, the Warleader]] into play with [[Elvish Piper]] can take control of the game early. Unless you're killed off from the initial wave, the amount of powerful angels this deck has and the number of waves to cheat your dead angels back into play means this deck almost always has live draws.
Weaknesses:
1). Heavy color requirements - Although white is the core color for casting the Angels, this deck heavily relies on fetchlands and the fetchable duals to smooth out its manabase. From inital testing, I need to hit at least 2 fetchlands/gold lands within my opener to not suffer from mana problems later in the game.
2). Glass cannon - This deck suffers from moderate disruption especially towards manan and is very similar to how [[Kaalia of the Vast]] plays out. Without a decent opener, this deck can easily be rushed down.
3). Answers - Deck slots are extremely tight and one of the main problems this deck has is that it has few board wipes/targeted removal. This deck relies on politics and going bigger than your opponents to win.
Kytheon, Hero of Akros seems to be ticking up... he was $3/$5 low/mid at the beginning of the week, and now he's at $5/$6.65 low/mid right now.
I assume it's the same reason Archangel of Tithes spiked, because mono-white is looking solid in Standard, and there aren't many good 1-drops outside of Thraben Investigator?
WTF, not he's $12?? What's going on?
He can't possibly go up much more than that unless other Mythics (*cough* *cough* Jace *cough*) dropped significantly in price.
Foils haven't adjusted at all. I guess if you need him might as well get foils since they're literally the same price.
At midnight prerelease, I opened 3 planeswalkers in my pool including a booster foil Nahiri, Jace, and Sorin. I decided to try 4 color Superfriends for the hell of it because I would never be this lucky enough to have a chance at playing 3 planeswalkers in sealed. Shadows was quite fast but each round I did manage to play at least 2 walkers. In the third round, I had all 3 on the field at once. I ended splitting a 3-1 record and a couple packs.
What does Gitrog really contribute to this deck? Seems to me I'd rather put in Siege Rhinos and Scavenging Oozes. Gitrog may be a good SB piece for Abzan, to up the grind potential in the mirror, but I don't think it warrants playing multiple copies of if you're not breaking it with graveyard hax.
Gitrog has natural synergies with the deck Knight Loam (dredge, self discard, land toolbox). It doesn't nearly have as many in Abzan Midrange.
In a Loam shell, the 5-drop looks more powerful than the 4-mana Siege Rhino. Now, numbers may be tweaked, Scoozes and Rhinos can fit in the archetype anyway. I don't see why one would replace the other.
Now, I'm curious to see Gitrog abuse a graveyard strategy in a combo manner, which I believe is what you refer to. Sounds sweet and I definitely want to try it out as well.
I tried the Knight Loam engine in a Junk shell a couple months back and it was way too slow to do anything. It's the ultimate non-blue inevitability deck but it just lacked a way to close out the game. That's the main problem with the deck. Without some sort of real pressure or combo kill like Dark Depths, it's just too slow. However to be fair to that deck, it was my budget Goyf-less Abzan deck.
If the format slows down after a ban, I might try a Gitrog Monster brew especially since I have a playset of Goyfs now. That will mean Control having a firm place back in the format. Right now with Eldrazi and maindeck graveyard hate as bad as it is, I don't think i want to try it.
Kalitas is great against CoCo decks, against aggro, Delver variants and midrange but I agree he's not that good in Junk as he is in Jund. It's already for the fact that he goes well along with removal and Junk doesn't play so much of it, plus it's main removal Path to Exile and Kalitas don't go well together. I haven't played it in Junk but considering to what I've said he's questionable to me and if I had to decide I'm leaning toward no. There's too much anti-synergies with the rest of the deck.
Thanks for the quick reply. Yeah he seems to be more situated in Jund than Junk which is sad since Jund has been getting some nice toys recently. Jund has Bolt and Terminate in addition to the overlap removal in Decay, Pulse we have as well. Maybe I will test him in the main as a 1 of but I am not hopeful he will stick around.
Foil Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet seems to be in a middle of a buyout. Prerelease copies are gone from TCGPlayer with ones remaining at $50. Booster foils are still available at $32. With Shadows around the corner and having decent postings in Modern, he seems to be a multi-format all star.
Been out of the loop for a bit in my Fallout shelter waiting for Eldrazi to get banned. How has Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet been for your deck? I want to give him a try but he seems to have a nonbo with Ooze and a portion of our removal suite in Path. Is there any matchups where he is stellar in? At a glance, he does take care of enemy Finks nicely but not sure if his 4CMC is too late against aggro. Would love to know your thoughts.
I wasn't running Sarkhan Vol but this seems like a very big upgrade over Xenagos which I was running. I really like having to balance between both her sides which adds another dimension when using her. I will be super stoked to get my hands on this card for my cube where I think it will perform very well.
Liliana of the Veil has passed the $100 mark a few days ago and is now over $110. I'm curious why considering Eldrazi Aggro is the new thing and Liliana is pretty bad against the deck.
I think after this Pro Tour, it shows Modern needs better ways to punish greedy mana bases rather than more emergency bans to just patch the problem every time a new archetype runs rampant. Tectonic Edge quickly fell out of favor once Tron/Infect became more popular and now I'm not sure Ghost Quarter is enough. I know this won't be a well liked opinion but I think Modern needs Wasteland or a near clone of it. I'm just not sure where it's going to come from since Wasteland will never be legal in Standard at this rate.
I attended a small Modern tournament at a new store a bit further than the one I usually went to. The store was testing Modern attendance in its area and managed to get a 9 player tournament going. Here's my report from the 3 round event.
Round 1: Bye
Round 2: RG Tron
Game 1 my opponent assembles the Tron lands quickly through decent disruption. A Thoughtseize which revealed 2 Expedition Map, 1 Chromatic Star, and 1 Sylvan Scrying. Even a Ghost Quarter didn't slow him down from playing a Karn Liberated. However, he makes a critical error by going after my hand instead of my 2 3/4 Goyfs in play. I exile one of two Siege Rhinos in my hand and keep the Gavony Township. I play Township and attack into his Karn, buffing my pair of Goyfs through his Spellskite. Next turn he doesn't think his turn out correctly and minuses to exile one of my Goyfs but then clears with Oblivion Stone on the field. Not that it would have mattered as I kept the Windswept I drew last turn. Next turn I play Siege Rhino and Thoughtseize the remaining card away which was an Ulamog. I draw into another Goyf next turn while he topdecked lands 2 turns in a row. Game 2 I mull to 6 keeping a really risky hand. He can't assemble his Tron lands and I take away his Thragtusk with a Thoughtseize instead of Karn. Meanwhile, I am stuck on 1 Overgrown Tomb, 1 Ghost Quarter, and 1 Gavony Township while my opponent could not find his 7th mana source. I managed to delve to play Tasigur and get in for 2 hits. I topdeck Goyf and after a brief thought I play Bitterblossom forcing him to pop the Oblivion Stone. I play my 6/7 Goyf and even with a 2 turn window with Ancient Stirrings and a Star cycle, could not peel a land to play his Karn securing me the match win.
Round 3: Affinity
Game 1 was pretty much was Affinity does best: vomit their entire hand by turn 2. My hand wasn't terrible as I did have Bitterblossom in my opener. I took one big hit by Vault Skirge with Cranial Plating before the Faeries managed to make decent chump blockers. He opted to get more damage in by switching Plating to an unblocked attacker next turn instead of playing more threats. I ended up topdecking Siege Rhino at very low life and was attempting to race with a pair of Souls and a Goyf. However he topdecks Etched Champion and that's pretty much game 1. Game 2 I open with turn 2 Stony Silence and my opponent could not draw his one out in Wear // Tear. A Goyf and a pair of Souls backed up by a healthy amount of removal to clear the way made it an easy win. Game 3 I mull to 6 on a shaky hand. I managed to hold off the initial attackers by using Darkblast to kill his early Skirge and Steel Overseer. Dredging the Darkblast 2 turns in a row meant my Goyf held off his Ravager. However once he played Cranial Plating, it was GG for me. I did manage to place in top 4 earning me a couple packs of Oath so it wasn't terrible.
Closing thoughts: I was really impressed with Bitterblossom as a 1 of in the mainboard. I didn't side in Sorin in either matchup, but I have been very impressed with blossom so far. I do want to get more testing in with it in other matchups. Even though I never saw them either match, Scavenging Ooze was boarded out immediately in both matchups. I do think I want to reevaluate my manabase with Urborg. That second game, I didn't play Urborg because it would have enabled his Eye of Ugin to tap for his critical 7th mana. I may be also running one too many ETB tapped manlands. Thanks for reading.
Deck Analysis
Core Color: W
Secondary Colors: R G
Tertiary Colors: U B
Strengths:
1). Sustainability - This deck thrives on long drawn out attrition wars especially in larger tables.
2). Explosive Starts - In smaller games, this deck can hit hard after about turn 5. Reanimating discarded Angels or putting ones like [[Aurelia, the Warleader]] into play with [[Elvish Piper]] can take control of the game early. Unless you're killed off from the initial wave, the amount of powerful angels this deck has and the number of waves to cheat your dead angels back into play means this deck almost always has live draws.
Weaknesses:
1). Heavy color requirements - Although white is the core color for casting the Angels, this deck heavily relies on fetchlands and the fetchable duals to smooth out its manabase. From inital testing, I need to hit at least 2 fetchlands/gold lands within my opener to not suffer from mana problems later in the game.
2). Glass cannon - This deck suffers from moderate disruption especially towards manan and is very similar to how [[Kaalia of the Vast]] plays out. Without a decent opener, this deck can easily be rushed down.
3). Answers - Deck slots are extremely tight and one of the main problems this deck has is that it has few board wipes/targeted removal. This deck relies on politics and going bigger than your opponents to win.
1 Karona, False God
Angels (25):
1 Adarkar Valkyrie
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Angel of Despair
1 Angel of Jubilation
1 Angel of Serenity
1 Anya, Merciless Angel
1 Archangel Avacyn
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Emancipation Angel
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
1 Herald of the Host
1 Karmic Guide
1 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Maelstrom Archangel (Lieutenant)
1 Magister of Worth
1 Pristine Angel
1 Reya Dawnbringer
1 Serra Avenger
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Stoic Angel
1 Twilight Shepherd
Non-Angel Creatures (3):
1 Elvish Piper
1 Eternal Witness
1 Stoneforge Mystic
Planeswalkers (3):
1 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
1 Dack Fayden
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Blade of Selves
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Hedron Archive
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Quicksilver Amulet
1 Sol Ring
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Enchantments (3):
1 Animate Dead
1 Angelic Destiny
1 Luminarch Ascension
Instants (4):
1 Aurelia's Fury
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Utter End
Sorceries (11):
1 Austere Command
1 Defy Death
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Farseek
1 Obzedat's Aid
1 Open the Armory
1 Reanimate
1 See the Unwritten
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Unburial Rites
Lands (37):
1 Arid Mesa
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
1 Canopy Vista
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Cinder Glade
1 Command Tower
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Flooded Strand
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Nomad Outpost
4 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Prairie Stream
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Slayers' Stronghold
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Vesuva
1 Watery Grave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
Foils haven't adjusted at all. I guess if you need him might as well get foils since they're literally the same price.
At midnight prerelease, I opened 3 planeswalkers in my pool including a booster foil Nahiri, Jace, and Sorin. I decided to try 4 color Superfriends for the hell of it because I would never be this lucky enough to have a chance at playing 3 planeswalkers in sealed. Shadows was quite fast but each round I did manage to play at least 2 walkers. In the third round, I had all 3 on the field at once. I ended splitting a 3-1 record and a couple packs.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/588618-junk-loam-midrange
I tried the Knight Loam engine in a Junk shell a couple months back and it was way too slow to do anything. It's the ultimate non-blue inevitability deck but it just lacked a way to close out the game. That's the main problem with the deck. Without some sort of real pressure or combo kill like Dark Depths, it's just too slow. However to be fair to that deck, it was my budget Goyf-less Abzan deck.
If the format slows down after a ban, I might try a Gitrog Monster brew especially since I have a playset of Goyfs now. That will mean Control having a firm place back in the format. Right now with Eldrazi and maindeck graveyard hate as bad as it is, I don't think i want to try it.
Thanks for the quick reply. Yeah he seems to be more situated in Jund than Junk which is sad since Jund has been getting some nice toys recently. Jund has Bolt and Terminate in addition to the overlap removal in Decay, Pulse we have as well. Maybe I will test him in the main as a 1 of but I am not hopeful he will stick around.
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Siege Rhino
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Sorcery (11):
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Instant (8):
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Path to Exile
1 Abzan Charm
Enchantment (1):
1 Bitterblossom
Planeswalker (3):
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Shambling Vent
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
1 Feed the Clan
1 Celestial Purge
2 Stony Silence
2 Darkblast
1 Duress
1 Flaying Tendrils
2 Painful Truths
1 Damnation
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
I attended a small Modern tournament at a new store a bit further than the one I usually went to. The store was testing Modern attendance in its area and managed to get a 9 player tournament going. Here's my report from the 3 round event.
Round 1: Bye
Round 2: RG Tron
Game 1 my opponent assembles the Tron lands quickly through decent disruption. A Thoughtseize which revealed 2 Expedition Map, 1 Chromatic Star, and 1 Sylvan Scrying. Even a Ghost Quarter didn't slow him down from playing a Karn Liberated. However, he makes a critical error by going after my hand instead of my 2 3/4 Goyfs in play. I exile one of two Siege Rhinos in my hand and keep the Gavony Township. I play Township and attack into his Karn, buffing my pair of Goyfs through his Spellskite. Next turn he doesn't think his turn out correctly and minuses to exile one of my Goyfs but then clears with Oblivion Stone on the field. Not that it would have mattered as I kept the Windswept I drew last turn. Next turn I play Siege Rhino and Thoughtseize the remaining card away which was an Ulamog. I draw into another Goyf next turn while he topdecked lands 2 turns in a row. Game 2 I mull to 6 keeping a really risky hand. He can't assemble his Tron lands and I take away his Thragtusk with a Thoughtseize instead of Karn. Meanwhile, I am stuck on 1 Overgrown Tomb, 1 Ghost Quarter, and 1 Gavony Township while my opponent could not find his 7th mana source. I managed to delve to play Tasigur and get in for 2 hits. I topdeck Goyf and after a brief thought I play Bitterblossom forcing him to pop the Oblivion Stone. I play my 6/7 Goyf and even with a 2 turn window with Ancient Stirrings and a Star cycle, could not peel a land to play his Karn securing me the match win.
Round 3: Affinity
Game 1 was pretty much was Affinity does best: vomit their entire hand by turn 2. My hand wasn't terrible as I did have Bitterblossom in my opener. I took one big hit by Vault Skirge with Cranial Plating before the Faeries managed to make decent chump blockers. He opted to get more damage in by switching Plating to an unblocked attacker next turn instead of playing more threats. I ended up topdecking Siege Rhino at very low life and was attempting to race with a pair of Souls and a Goyf. However he topdecks Etched Champion and that's pretty much game 1. Game 2 I open with turn 2 Stony Silence and my opponent could not draw his one out in Wear // Tear. A Goyf and a pair of Souls backed up by a healthy amount of removal to clear the way made it an easy win. Game 3 I mull to 6 on a shaky hand. I managed to hold off the initial attackers by using Darkblast to kill his early Skirge and Steel Overseer. Dredging the Darkblast 2 turns in a row meant my Goyf held off his Ravager. However once he played Cranial Plating, it was GG for me. I did manage to place in top 4 earning me a couple packs of Oath so it wasn't terrible.
Closing thoughts: I was really impressed with Bitterblossom as a 1 of in the mainboard. I didn't side in Sorin in either matchup, but I have been very impressed with blossom so far. I do want to get more testing in with it in other matchups. Even though I never saw them either match, Scavenging Ooze was boarded out immediately in both matchups. I do think I want to reevaluate my manabase with Urborg. That second game, I didn't play Urborg because it would have enabled his Eye of Ugin to tap for his critical 7th mana. I may be also running one too many ETB tapped manlands. Thanks for reading.