Got some great testing in last night with a buddy of mine. Overall I am very pleased with the deck but had a few adjustments for it.
-1 Spear of Heliod I was seeing too much duplication and there are a lot of games where the spear didnt matter much so I figure I need to go back to 2x and just be happy there. The spear was bad against the fast aggro decks as well since it took too long to set up and be meaningful.
-1 Lyev Skyknight I really enjoy the skyknights but too often I would be forced to lead them into an empty board. I like them still but at the same time most of my aggro crushers I am not seeing quite enough quantity of so I need to bump those up and go a little lighter on these guys.
+1 Boros Reckoner he is a monster vs aggro and midrange decks. Considering the gods and elspeth I run main I have to push up my anti aggro main a bit better.
+1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos despite him being a legend, I was never seeing enough of him. I hate going up to a 4x of a legend especially since it meant I had to order another one but at the same time, I never could get enough of him. Opponents just need to kill the guy like all the time.
-1 Island my islands are a lot less important than my plains. Even with just 6 non white lands in the deck I am still occasionally having issues with my white but I cant recall having any issues with my blue. Thus, I am going to swap one of my lands and try to secure the reckoner a bit better.
+1 Plains
SIDEBOARD:
-1 Revoke Existence through more testing, I just dont see the quantities of gods and what not that would justify me bringing in two of these I dont think right now. I am just going to keep a single in the board for now and if things change I can bring it back but I think going conservative in this area for now will be fine.
+1 Celestial Flare it deals with some problems like blood barron and the dragon which have pro white. It also works well against aggro decks so I just sort of like it as a versatile answer.
-1 Azorius Charm it was too narrowly sort of an anti aggro card but it costs two and it had a lot of things that it wasnt working against and it requires me to keep mana up. I figured I could add another ox and be happy with that for now.
+1 Yoked Ox it looked really solid against opposing aggro decks. It just buys me tons of life and its cheap as hell to drop. Buying time means that I can stabilize and kill them so it seems good.
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- ISBPathfinder
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Feb 7, 2014
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Standard] UW MidrangeFurther consideration to my sideboard setup leads me to some changes:Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
-2 Prognostic Sphinx I think its sort of taking up the spot that should be elspeth. I dont see myself cramming tons of high mana bombs into the list so I think just bring up elspeth's count and just move on.
-1 Ætherling the high mana cost, heavy blue cost, and need for multiple blink effects when dropping him is sort of more painful the more I think about it. I think I just need to jam some elspeths and run with it.
+1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion The more I think about Elspeth, she seems like a really strong finisher vs control and midrange. She gives me the option to wrath big rat tokens out or beat up the big smashy green creature decks with a wrath that could dodge my guys assuming I dont have spear out. Her tokens have synergy well with the spears as well as the UW god and it gives me some versatility to wrath opponents who are running bigger creatures than my own. She also gives me an out against those dang blood barrons which can be a problem for this list so I like that angle of her as well.
+1 Azorius Charm I like the versatility it brings against aggro and midrange decks. I can see potential to just put a demon back on top of an opponents deck or something as well and try to tempo them. I feel like the lifelink is an actual option in here as well with some of the decks that seem to just gun for your head like RDW as well.
+1 Revoke Existence its hard to say how big of an impact the gods will have as of yet. I think its best to just assume the RG one is going to be a problem and pack a second one of these for now. -
Feb 4, 2014
ISBPathfinder posted a message on MTGSalvation Update FAQPosted in: Announcements
I seem to be having some issues with editing a blog entry. When I go to save the edits it just sort of freaks out on me saying "This field is required." in the bottom under the path (which I also have no idea what the path is).Well, I worked it out. Apparently the Markup tab seems to work but the Editor doesn't seem to want to work with me. No clue what the difference between them is but I can make it work for now.
Second issue, when I go to "My Content" there is a folder option one of which is blogs and the other is to create a new folder. When trying to create a new folder, there are no selections to be had in the drop down but I cannot create a folder without a folder type so... that currently is not operating. I also dont seem to be able to name the folder anything other than my username offhand.
Third issue, I dont see the option to upload images to sally anymore. I am assuming the preferred way for this going forward might be to do it by uploading content to user accounts and linking to them from there. Seeing as how I am having an issue with that I dont see how we upload images to sally at the moment.Nvm, it appears that there is an upload image option its just not showing here. -
Feb 3, 2014
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Standard] UW Midrange-2 OmenspeakerPosted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
-1 Lyev Skyknight
-1 Aetherling
-3 Bident of Thassa
-1 Azorius Charm
-1 Island
+4 Precinct Captain I needed something to hit in a bit sooner in the game. What I like about it though is that it can still get a bit out of hand if left alone especially with a spear thrown into the mix.
+1 Banisher Priest additional control on a stick. If my opponent is using removal on these guys it means other things are making it through potentially.
+1 Boros Reckoner problematic for aggro and midrange decks. I am also shifting heavier towards white so I can support this.
+1 Spear of Heliod adding more token support.
+1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion it made more sense to run than aetherling did since I dont need 7+ mana to drop and the spear supports this add somewhat as well as the fact that this gives some reach into the realm of a wrath possibly.
+1 Plains trying to push harder into the realm of having a white early game.
I have some toying with the sideboard as well.... will get about to that.
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Jan 31, 2014
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Standard] UW MidrangeI had some mild changes to log based on just further theorycrafting. I am setting up to test the list with a buddy of mine in the meantime as its still another week before all the cards will ship.Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
-1 Mutavault
-1 Plains
+2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx since the deck is sort of set up currently to draw cards, I think that Nykthos might be a good way to dump cards in and it seems good with Heliod as well as a good mana dump. I am a little worried about establishing my manabase correctly so I am just sort of lightly committing to some of these but I would rather hit my manabase then try to be greedy about things. Mutavault was tempting but overall, I think its less relevant at the moment due to the style of my build. I wouldnt want to trade the Mutavault in the early and I would prefer to have the excess mana in the late than another creature so... meh.
SIDEBOARD
-1 Pithing Needle I figure its very unlikely that I will want to pull in more than 2 of these against anything but pack rat so I figured moving one of these to a verdict which is still good vs packrat is still a good move. On the flip side as well, I forgot that Detension Sphere answers all of the rats assuming they dont kill spell the one I target so I think it should be less of an issue than I was originally thinking.
+1 Supreme Verdict it gives me a little versatility and its an answer to blood barron as well as big fast aggro decks.
-1 Keening Apparition I figure its unlikely that I really want to go to three art / enchant answers against most decks even after sideboarding. I like the versatility of having an exile answer though so I figure for now I will cut the option to go to two of these since I run one mainboard.
+1 Celestial Flare deals with a variety of things. I see myself bringing it in against aggro as well as to deal with big demons and blood baron.
-2 Fiendslayer Paladin I just couldn't see myself gaining advantage by bringing him in. I have a lot of things in the three spot already so I figured I needed to bring my curve down and add some cheaper stops against the aggro decks.
+2 Yoked Ox seems like a solid answer for aggro decks. Its hard for them to get past so it buys me time and I like that he is so cheap to drop.
EDIT: I still have some concerns as to my control matchups as well as some of the opposing midrange matchups. I have Prognostic Sphinx in the list still but I dont know how much to expect from them. It seems like they could be strong against heavy spot removal lists though. I have been sort of relying on my heavy draw to try to get me through those matches but its possible that I need to move some of my maindeck draw into sideboard to improve my game one against aggro more. Its still wayyyyyyyyyy too early to tell though. -
Jan 28, 2014
ISBPathfinder posted a message on The Upcoming Modern B/R AnnouncementI enjoyed your write up. I will admit to not being as knowledgeable about high end modern play and or the potential upcoming banlist change but it was fun to read. Thanks for the nice article.Posted in: Koopa Blog
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Sep 25, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Modern] UWR Flash ControlOverall, I have been happy running 3x Clique. I wanted to try to come back to Resto but lightly so I think I am going to try the following change:Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
-1 Electrolyze I like this removal a lot against a lot of people but I have run into some issues with this against Township on occasion. I also dont like having this when I run into sac outlets as they can dodge my draw effect.
+1 Restoration Angel I wanted to come back with just one angel. I saw a lot of situations where it was not what I wanted but I figure with the heavier clique set up it could be better but I dont want to cut into my spells or my cliques to add more than this. -
Aug 21, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Modern] UWR Flash ControlDoing a little more shifting after more thinking.Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
-1 Aven Mindcensor I think honestly this shifts me too far into trying to be a tempo list. I want to keep my snapcasters happy with spells and this sort of effect is very situational so a 2/1 flash for 3 when he isnt appropriate is sort of meh. At least the shadows are still a draw a card effect when they are bad.
+1 Electrolize I love running 4x of these so this puts more control back in the list. I like these against a LOT of decks as they cantrip for me and generally just create good card advantage. -
Aug 16, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Modern] UWR Flash ControlWell, I havent gotten to play as much with my modern list so far but I have been really enjoying the UWR draw go mentality. I am slowly shifting a little more into a tempo style of build but after seeing how the slow rolling planeswalker versions have been playing I just dont see myself going back.Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
I forgot to mention some changes I went with a while ago:
Pyroclasm -> Path to Exile Pyro was too situational mainboard so I cut it out and put it in the SB. I found myself needing the Paths too often to run only 2 of them.
Remand -> Spell Snare unfortunately I have gotten mostly mixed results with snare and remand but overall I think I have seen better results with snare. I made this swap and removed remand from the list again.
Moving forward to where my list was lol. The resto angels have been sort of wonky for me. I am trying to speed things up and get a little more value than what they were giving me. I am trying out some things and seeing how they go.
-2 Restoration Angel It just hasnt been working out for me. I dont run enough creatures so too often it comes in just to beat face. I decided it needed to be something else after a while. Its also really hard to multi task in a turn.
+1 Aven Mindcensor I am really interested to see how this guy does. For now I am going to splash him slightly as a 1x of but I have some ideas how this might end up being a 2 of if he pans out. I am still running my 2x Shadow of Doubt so I am actually very interested to see how the two compare overall. I could see myself running a second mindcensor potentially but I think I still want to keep my spell count high for snaps.
+1 Vendilion Clique running a third clique will be interesting. Its really the top of the number I would ever run but its a nice fast little critter and I play against too much combo. I think this could be a bit of a meta call for me but with how much I see combo I think running the third one mainboard is a good call.
My sideboard feels like a damn trainwreck... It has a little of everything but its something I want to work on. Sadly I dont get to play enough or against a big enough variety of decks to really get a feel of much. I have however felt like I might want Surgical Extraction to return to the sideboard as I felt like between it and Sowing Salt I got better results from the extract. I would likely keep at least 1x salt in the SB but I would love to make room for 2x extracts again. -
Jul 16, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on [Modern] UWR Flash ControlI had been trying some combinations of the 2x planeswalker lists until late. My problem was that they seemed to focus more on the aggro matches and I felt like I had a much larger disadvantage against the combo players.Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
Due to this, I recently moved to a list very very close to that of Cheon's recent creation. I made a few tweeks though as I personally don't like going to 8 fetchlands but I felt that Sulfer Falls was a bit heavy at 3x. I decided for now to go to 7x fetches with 2 Sulfer Falls as sort of a compromise. I just feel like fetches are a liability to Aven Mindcensor as well as just the life loss from them adding up against the aggro decks. Mystic Gate still sort of worries me as its a little bit of a liability still but its interesting so I might play with it and see how it goes. You really have to watch how you tap though and I think ideally tap it down as soon as possible as keeping it for later seems like a liability.
I also think that the Clique in SB is mostly unnecessary as I think there are better cards to use as hate. There just seemed like too few matches where it was the correct card to come in from what I have seen. Its a nice all around card but I don't care for it in SB. I am trying a Pyroclasm as the replacement for the clique but I want to get some testing in before I really do too much commenting on sideboard and such. -
Feb 15, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Flash Bant (Standard)2 Pit Fight -> 2 Midnight Haunting with the addition of township I think Midnight Haunting might finally have a place in this deck. I want to play with a few of them and with dragon seeing a little less play I have some high hopes for it.Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
1 Simic Charm -> 1 Midnight Haunting I want to play with some haunting and am afraid of overdoing the new charm as I don't know how potent it will be yet. -
Feb 10, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Flash Bant (Standard)Updates for Gatecrash:Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
CUTS:
2 Rancor I had been having some issues with this against aggro decks as well as whiffing with augur. It did have some great moments though but overall I feel like enchant hate, control decks, and Detention Sphere type things are on an up swing currently. These are a few reasons for me to cut it currently.
1 Feeling of Dread I had some issues with the fact that I already use a lot of flashback with snapcaster mages so this doesnt really open me up much. It might be a different deal if I ran either more aggro or more control but as it stands its sort of odd in the build.
2 Supreme Verdict with things like Boros Charm on the rise I am curious to see how Aetherize might serve as a substitute. As I can flash dudes in and I have creatures it really seems like it opens up some doors.
2 Essence Scatter I love counters, I just have no clue where Cavern of Souls is going to be sitting going forward. For now I think I will just keep this sideboarded and bump my Syncopate count to 4x. I am a bit worried as to where humans might be sitting going forward as the aggro deck and control is creaping up as well so Syncopate seems good in a few ways currently.
3 Righteous Blow I dont know how much aggro to expect currently.... For now I am going to put it in the sideboard as my meta seems to be more about the midrange / control decks. I love this thing and depending on how I fare against aggro and how much of it there is I will consider putting it back mainboard. I love this thing though.
1 Augur of Bolas expecting less aggro. Less creates = less whiffs as well. I really hate when this guy misses....
1 Grove of the Guardian it was cool but I see an increase in control decks making me want to shift a bit to some townships.
ADDS:
2 Aetherize I am looking forward to what this does as a new wrath like effect. It slows aggro down significantly and buys me some time. Obviously it has some issies... (thragtusk) but other than that I think its interesting and I look forward to make people always question if I have it :p.
2 Pit Fight I have been really looking forward to playing around with this thing a little. I am currently adding the keyrune as well which is a great target to use the fight with. I had some issues answering things like Huntmaster so this seems like a good option for messing him up. I have TONS of pump in this deck too with the Simic Charms coming in for some testing so some fighting seems like it could be cool. I considered Smite but it seemed incredibly more situational.
3 Simic Charm big fan of the fact that it can bounce things out or be used as a nice big buff to beat people up. It seems like some great versatility I really look forward to beating someone up by hitting a snapcaster mage into a 5/4 creature lol.
1 Syncopate dropping down one counter but increasing my versatility with the counters. I dont know where aggro decks will be at going forward.
1 Sphinx's Revelation It seems like more people are going to control and less to aggro in my meta. I want more draw for sure.
2 Gavony Township bumping the land count by one and I like the idea of township in this deck.
Well, sideboard needs some work as well after all that goes through.... I hope to push it together for next week. -
Jan 5, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Flash Bant (Standard)Just as a side note, I played my list at FNM last night and went to top 2. The person I was paired up against in top two had beaten me earlier in the night though and there was no incentive to play the game out. So we just drew the top 2 and called it a night.Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
The list worked really well and on occasion just not knowing sort of what was being run for decks currently hurt me a little when it came to sideboarding and my own play. Still the list worked out very well. I will say though that I feel like I dodged a lot of my bad matchups though. -
Jan 4, 2013
ISBPathfinder posted a message on Flash Bant (Standard)Updates after further testing:Posted in: ISBPathfinder Blog
1 Sphinx's Revelation -> 1 Supreme Verdict I am just moving sideboard stuff around. I had been running 3x Supreme mainboard with one side and decided that aggro matches were my worst so I pushed one of the Revelations to sideboard in favor of a heavier maindeck wrath package.
1 Rancor -> 1 Feeling of Dread: Rancor was a lot of times really bad vs other aggro decks especially the really fast ones. Due to this I just wanted a lower consistency on the Rancors. I think they fit in against the midrange decks a lot better.
2 Temporal Mastery -> 2 Righteous Blow Temporal was bad in a lot of situations which ended up with me axing them from my list. I cant just take a miss a card draw vs aggro matches. Righteous Blow has been amazing vs aggro decks and even some midrange decks.
1 Wolfir Avenger -> 1 Righteous Blow against aggro decks there was such a thing as too many wolfirs. I like the guy but he feels hard to cast sometimes especially when trying to peel him off on turn 3. I also really didnt like seeing multiples of him most of the time. I think moving to 3x will be a good move.
Also... sideboard has moved around a bit due to the mainboard changes. I am not going to bother logging all of them. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am like... 90% sure that WF joined staff after you did. He actually didn't join as a commander mod at first (I want to say he was a mill mod) but was later added when we saw that he was posting like.... literally everywhere.
I wouldn't mind more partners so long as they don't go crazy strong with them. I hate partners with mechanic though as I feel like it takes all the fun out of it.
Then we decided to put you to work
I have been juggling things and waiting for the new cards to show up for M2020 which has kind of delayed me testing. I sort of hate testing decks as I wait for a bunch of changes so I have been putting it off. I still don't have any testing in for Judith but I will try to report back if and when I do manage to see and test her.
I would probably say Gamble is more likely to work out better for you than Scheming Symmetry. Keep in mind its topdeck tutoring at sorcery speed meaning that the other player gets their card before you get yours. It technically is the Imperial Seal effect but the fact that you give away an Imperial Seal is my concern. There are a lot of other possible tutors as well they are all just less efficient. Some other draw or vampire could also be an option if you don't come up with something that quite makes sense.
Technically promoting Nexus goes against the rules of the site. The issue is in part that almost the entire moderator team is transitioning off. The fact that we were told that the site would be entirely shut down the moderator team started making plans to replace salvation. The announcement that was made came well after Feyd our technician started making nexus well after we had ourselves attempted to purchase salvation to keep it going and were told that would not be possible.
Its actually kind of *****ty to tell everyone that the site is closing, make alternative plans, and then say its all good its going to continue. The point being that they have created a fractured community with how this was handled. I am not on staff anymore and am not in the loop but the last I heard the new owner had not really done much communication with the staff about plans and how to continue and replace the staff that were leaving.
So, yes technically everything about this thread should not be allowed but the staff that would normally stop this from happening have all been burned essentially with this transition. I have no idea who plans to still be on site working as a staff member but I have already seen several step away. If you look at the commander forums you will see that only two of five moderators are still listed. I believe wildfire is an admin on nexus as well so I don't know what his plans are but I think bob had intended to remain here (not really sure though).
So, yes its kind of *****ty but lots of people feel burned on this and the advantage of moving is mostly that Feyd (who was our technician here for the last several years) is essentially the sole owner of the new site and he is making huge changes and improvements all the time where salvation has been limping along for years now from a development standpoint.
I have no idea what the new owner's plans are. Maybe he will be amazing. I haven't had any interactions with him in several years at this point though and I think a lot of the staff are sort of fed up with the unknown.
There might be an email verification process I can't remember but its not associated with any other sites so signing up is quite easy.
Its more than just a second site. To give some back story, MTGSalvation has recieved almost zero development time in the last year and a half. A year and a half ago, we were given the deckbuilder which we had expected to point out the bugs in it quickly and have them be fixed. I think we got like one or two days of developers reviewing and a few minor bugs were fixed in it and then we received no further assistance from development other than to make sure that the site was still up and functioning since then.
Before the deckbuilder, it was probably a few years before that that we recieved significant developer assistance on the site and it was probably mobile which was the previous attention we got.
In a nutshell, we have not received much for attention from development since curse bought and transitioned the site which has been something like.... 5 years now I would guess. We had a HUGE backlog of requests of which a lot of the fixes were small cosmetic things that could have been quickly fixed. The upside of nexus is that essentially Feyd_Ruin (who was our previous tech) wrote the whole site and is updating and fixing things as he goes. The current product we have now can be requested to be improved and I believe Feyd will actually continue to improve the product there. MTGSalvation is like a half sunken ship on the other regards. Its unsure as to what kind of assistance it will have from the new owner but the backlog of requests is kind of large at this point.
I can't even tell you how often I have had to say, that's a great idea, we can add it to the stack but for the foreseeable future we don't know when we will get dev time next.
With the new pickup of a bunch of sticky flyers I am also going back and seeing if I can test out Dowsing Dagger and Sword of the Animist with a small equipment tutor package as well. I originally shyed away from them in part because I didn't have a lot of creatures that could pick up and carry them but I have added a lot more 4/5 mana flyers recently and so I wanted to circle back to them for testing. Having Sword of Feast and Famine in my list gives me a nice late game tutor for the equipment while the other two give me great early game ramp. Ramping lands is also a little less fragile for me given we usually refrain from mass jacking with lands in my meta.
Thalia's Lancers also was missing from my list which I didn't think about much due to not having that many legends but realizing how many of the lands I actually want are legendary I quickly added it in.
The OP is way out of date though with where I am at right now. I will see if I can get some testing in with some of my recent changes and update this thread.
Commander does have a set mulligan rule, its the same mulligan as every other format. At one point it was Partial Paris and there were rules outlining how that worked but as wizards moved to the Vancuver mulligans the rules committee decided to move away from Partial Paris and adopt the official mulligan rule that all other formats would be using. This reduced the number of rules for the format and brought it more in line with the other formats not to mention decreased the average speed of starting hands.
There is nothing saying people can't ask and suggest an alternate mulligan system for games. The rules committee usually encourages people to adapt based on what players want.
Do you think that anyone out there who is willing to do this couldn't just run some other combo?
Grindstone Combo: 7 mana to do everything in one turn and its an artifact creature + artifact which are probably the types of permentant that have the most options to remove and or respond to not to mention it only eliminates a single player not the table.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: 11 mana combo and also it is something easy to interact with not to mention somewhat difficult to tutor up being a planeswalker + creature / artifact.
Neither of these are very efficient and an artifact creature is very fragile as far as combos go. Generally speaking I doubt any of these options are better than combos that blue, black, and or green could already assemble so maybe for red, white, or boros colors it might be something new but I think this is probably a big knee jerk reaction.
I suspect there is probably a lot more depth to this mostly involving how quickly it comes online and how complex it is to set up and cost to assemble as well as what it does for you. For example if you were to cast Sphinx's Revelation for 20 it would be a big resource imbalance but that would be ignoring the setup you put into doing that effect.
I guess what drives me a little crazy is how vague and up to interpretation it is. Tolarian Academy for example could be either kept banned or unbanned depending on where you draw the line with this. Really the same thing could be said for anything that produces mana, ramps lands, or draws cards. Hell, you could call a Wrath of God effect a means of imbalancing resources assuming you are clearing out a resource you have little of that someone else is using.
I haven't had a chance to look at the document but I would guess to some degree the same reason that Hermit Druid never got the axe (it has ways to play it fairly) is perhaps the same reason it came off the list. There are a good number of cool and niche uses for painters servant like say Oona, Teysa, or Blind Seer where it isn't a card that needs to be banned.
This is purely a guess though, I have not gotten a chance to read the new updated policy.
Paradox Engine also doesn't seem like it has a purpose outside of going off infinite or close to it. Thats just what the card is intended to do.
Universal Automaton isn't terrible in that its easy on the manabase but it also doesn't have any upsides to it other than being easier to cast. It gets better with the worse your landbase is. If I were to try to include it over another one drop vampire the ones I would consider cutting would be:
The reason in my mind to run Universal Automaton is for its easy to cast mana cost. The worse your landbase, probably the better it gets. I am not opposed to removing the above one drops but its probably going to be for another one drop that I feel gives me more than they do. We had an issue up until late that we wanted more one drops than we had access to really. As more one drop vampires become available the worse ones will slowly phase out.
Judith, the Scourge Diva - its something I am far from confident in but its also an effect I have been curious about. I am including it to test and see how it goes but I am far from convinced that it will stay in the long run.
Iroas, God of Victory / Goblin War Drums - Both have worked fairly well for me. Iroas is definitely better even thought it costs one more mana the fact that our creatures don't trade in combat and opponents blockers are half as effective has been very good for me. If an opponent is playing token tactics it makes our numbers essentially twice as effective at getting past and if an opponent is not playing tokens it makes them almost incapable of blocking us. Iroas lets you attack and almost ignore defenses as they are so irrelevant not killing our attackers and requiring great numbers to block.