i actually really like ashiok for some reason. Sure it might not "do anything" against cortol decks like tron and UWR and it might not be fast enough against company, but is it all that bad? It´s really tough to deal with and it confuses opponents as to where to attack SO much it might be worth trying out.
Going back to my list, i was so wrong about tasigur it´s not even funny. I ended bumping him up to 2 copies main deck. You want to be able to follow up discard turn 1 and liliana t3 with something big, not just lose your hand completely and not have a plan against a top deck. Tasigur is pretty much exactly the same as a goyf in the deck that also gets around spell snare and mana leak if you play it right. The activation sucks, it´s true. Hitting a birds of paradise or a raven´s crime is the worst. But if you have 4 mana open and nothing in hand, what are you gonna do? NOT activate it? Still that´s not the reason you play the card though.
So i´ve been playing solitaire with the deck (since i haven´t gotten the cards yet), it´s really consistent, and it has a TONNE of different lines of play. Figuring out what board states will look like after ultimating a nahiri, if it´s worth keeping lands in hand for another draw with chandra or if you happen to draw magmatic insight, returning drownyard temples (or not) in case you draw avacyn´s judgment if you happen to have a tormenting voice in hand, playing a plains as the 7vth land from your hand, as opposed to not playing it in case you draw another land for the angel you have in your hand... just a lot of stuff
magmatic insight is lackluster. It´s not that good. Only really with drownyard temple. You need to hit land drops every turn with the deck, so throwing a land away in the hopes of drawing another 2 lands or a replacement land, is complicated. I might cut it down to 2 copies
crater elemental seems pretty good as a road block plus removal. I think it´s still very playable. wall of resurgence is nice as well with either drownyard temple or needle spires. It doesn´t matter if the drownyard temple dies and later on the spires can deal 10 damage on it´s own. It also creates a surprise attacker, since the land has haste. It´s a good card. Lands dying is an issue of course, maybe 2 is a good number on this one.
tormenting voice and lightning axe i´m keeping as a 4 of. Tormenting voice glues the deck together. It´s probably the most important spell as it is. My deck might have too many targeted removals, and therefore is a bit more susceptible to token stategies main deck. Testing will tell
Yep, so the numbers are super rough. Linvala is obviously super good since it´s an ETB creature that is relevant in a field full of reflector mages.
4 Emeria Angel, MIGHT be too many, yes. Maybe swap one for something with a little more impact early game. The current configuration relies so heavily on the angels and chandra basically. It´s kind of hard to close out the games that way. Avacyns judgment won´t be dealing 20 i think... So that might be a good place to start.
I had thought of adding green for other cards like ulvenwald hydra (which can fetch up stuff like Rogue's Passage,traverse the ulvenwald which is a great early and late game play, and some other things like maybe Mina and Denn, Wildborn, arlinn kord. The problem is i honestly thing a 3 colour mana base would be a mess. I wouldn´t know where to start.
There isn´t all that ramp in green nowadays anyway. If i would like to ramp from 2 to 4 mana there is hedron crawler (this formats sylvan caryatid). It isn´t pretty, but people at the higher tables HAVE had these in their decks before. But even then, i´m not so sure it would be necessary. It merits more testing of course.
I don´t like goggles in this deck, just because, it´s not a goggles deck. Just that. It´s ok with the draw spells, but it´s not THAT synergistic in my opinion.
But you can´t play as if they don´t have paths most of the time. You´d have to weigh out each outcome and most of the time if they do have the path, norn kills some creatures but there might still be a finks or 2 plus some wall of roots, and if gavony township comes in the following turn or is already in play... it´s pretty much over. The matches i played, t4 gifts is too slow, and mostly not reliable against the deck at all, i don´t know. They run you over.
If you played pack rat before, then i´m going to hear you out, since you´ve had more experience than i have with the card. But saying you´ll trade a rat for half a finks is not likely unless you´re chump blocking. It´s like the worst case scenario. Otherwise you would wait until you had bigger pack rats, since that trade is real bad. I think the roof is so high on the card, it should be worth it. I understand you´d also want to keep some cards in hand and lands to play, so as to balance out your resources... but pack rat is kind of an "all in" card anyways. There is even life from the loam to assure you´ll be dropping lands as well. Basically, i´m not looking at worst case, but at best case. They don´t deal with it, and 4 4/4´s might just get there.
Those are all valid points. I actually think most of the things you said were eye-opening and sort of overlap with what it think. I was thinking of cutting down 1 abrupt decay for a maelstrom pulse. The decay is so much cheaper though :/ I might have a slot or 2 free in the deck after all. I might take blood baron to the sideboard
3 path 3 abrupt is what i´ve universally ran for like forever. I tried playing 2 path 1 murderous cut and i remember it being important in a play where i needed removal and had a gift and 5 lands one of which was a fetchland, so i had to see how many cards would be in my graveyard if they gave me the cut if i could also get white with the fetch, if i could get anything else... etc etc. There were tonnes of options which i LOVE and is what drove me to this deck in the first place. I also drew it against a board with a wurmcoil engine and felt bad, so i went back to 3 paths...but i´ll have to try it out again!
Jace i think is ok as a 2 of in the deck. Saying it´s not good because you have only 16 spells is like saying snapcaster isn´t good for the same reason. Still it´s not just about the flip side. True, there aren´t THAT many spells, but it still helps you filter early and lets you throw that iona away when you don´t have liliana in play. Drawing iona in your opening hand is always a pain. 2 Jaces are in theory there to also assist with that. It´s also serves as a pseudo snapcaster mage, where you can go gifts for creeping corrosion jace abrupt decay snapcaster, which i did against affinity and which is effectively the same. Against control decks, i usually ALWAYS sided out the same cards regardless: 3 decay 1 elesh norn 2 explosives (back when i played 2 main deck). Decay is more than a dead card against control and jace can help you dump cards that aren´t good in the match and search for the cards you do need.I think it warrants an inclusion. you can also chump a creature and transform as to fog a goyf or something for a turn, and you can also activate and in response gifts ungiven so to flip him after the loot almost 100% of the time and trick your opponent into giving you a card you´ll later dump anyways. If they give you say Duress, you can then cast it and -3 the jace for another discard. It´s not the same as snapcaster, but still ok to have i think.
As for the mana base, i never thought of it that way. I do remember almost always fetching for overgrown tomb to play birds on t1 even with a verdant catacombs against burn(of course this depends on the hand, i might have needed black if the bird died), but i imagine it won´t hurt at all to make that change.
I will be trying out kitchen finks definitely. Still don´t think i like it main deck, but i´ll give it a try. I´m also going to be trying out leyline of sanctity. It hits a lot of decks, not only burn. Burn, discard in jund (and liliana -2 and -6), scapeshift valuakut triggers (decks without blue, command kind of deals with it although even some naturalize effect could be considered post sideboard for a straight R/G deck so we´ll see), ad nauseum, gifts. There are probably some more things i´m missing.
How should we deal with company decks? I´ve playtested against a friend who ended up losing in the finals of the WMCQ here last year, who played that deck. Decks that go wide are a pain in the butt and this one is no different. Kitchen finks is super annoying it hit´s hard, negates liliana, gains life, and later on, with gavony township, gets out of hand. We can´t unburial rites elesh norn and feel safe. They still can path it in response to a persist trigger, many creatures might at that point be x/3. it´s just super hard to win. This is another reason i think pack rat could be really good. T1 discard T2 pack rat used to be insane in standard, INSANE. Modern only really has cards like declaration in stone (which no one plays)detention sphere (same), maelstrom pulse (only us and jund) and maybe supreme verdict that´s close to all there is that can deal with a pack rat that survived. Sure, company can still try to combo you out, but if you discard a mana dork or a path and play pack rat, they´re under the gun... And this goes for other decks as well. I think pack rat can really really be a good choice for the deck. Safe to say i´ll try that out too
So i came up with a deck the other day, and wondered what people thought about it. Any improvements are welcome
Basically the deck revolves around Nahiri, the Harbinger and Emeria Shepherd. And also basic plains :). The idea is to control the board until you either ultimate Nahiri to get the shepherd, play a plains to get nahiri back (or any land to get any other permanent back) or until you actually cast a shepherd and hopefully win the game that way.
Magical christmas land? Weeeeell maybe not. Let me try to convince you
This wouldn´t be as good if it was THAT little synergistic. As a matter of fact, you usually rather NOT have your emeria shepherd in hand util you have mana to play it and therefor you might as well discard her util then. Lightning axe,nahiri, the harbinger and tormenting voice allow you to get the angels in the graveyard early on in exchange for other cards.
-2 Is broad spectrum removal. The "tapped creature" clause actually makes it harder for an opponent to attack nahiri. The deck plays like a control deck, we might not care if she gets attacked depending on what we have in hand, but also, your opponent might not attack if he/she doesn´t want to "give up" the creature either. Its just another tool to have at your disposal.
-8 is what it´s all about. It should be fairly easy to achieve this, lets not fool ourselves. The main goal is to get emeria shepherd and play a land of course, but other cards might be considered Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger,Kozilek, the great distortion,Linvala, the preserver,Archangel Avacyn, Goblin Dark-Dwellers and probably others i haven´t thought of. Remember you get the card back to your hand at end of turn, so it´s an effective tutor for a creature as well. By that time, considering everything went according to planned, you´d have another nahiri to activate and 7 lands in play (theoretically) to replay the angel if need be.
Ok so, i really like this card. The list i´ve thought of should play 4. Yes she costs 7 mana, doesn´t matter. You can discard early copies to tormenting voice, nahiri or lightning axe, as long as you can get 1 copy into play, it should be ok. The card lets you get back anything to play (that isn´t a land) when you play a plains. They aren´t legendary and multiples trigger multiple times of course. Drownyard temple helps assure you at least a landfall trigger if worst comes to worst. One angel can recur another and so on. Getting another shepherd or an ulamog or chandra into play is the dream. Other than that, a 4/4 flyer is ok, it´s not great and it´s very easily killed, but if you can get value...you got value.
Magmatic Insight is a turn 1 play almost 100% of the time you have it. Lets you throw drownyard temples and lands to dig in the deck.
Tormenting voice is sort of the other engine for the deck. Filters, enables madness, throws expensive stuff, all the deck wants.
Crater Elemental Seems like a unloved card. It´s something i´m trying out but that i also hope is good enough. It´s a brick wall that survives kozileks return, kills Archangel Avacyn for 1 mana, and even later on maybe gets to rumble in, who knows, chandra does put in 6 power. You might be laughing when it gets played t3, but maybe not later on
Wall of resurgence I was looking for another cheap permanent that kind of did what the deck wanted, this is not that bad. Animating a drownyard temple or needle spires is not the worst. It puts a reasonable blocker (i´m expecting a lot of company / agro) and a good attacker.
The sideboard is something i came up in a few minute just to fill it up a bit. hallowed moonlight for the company and token decks, just some more threats and removal. I might have to find something better for control decks since that´s most likely the weakest matchup. Somthing like sin podder,goldnight castigator,Pia and Kiran nalaar perhaps.
Also, maybe another actual "threat" in the deck wouldn´t be bad. Something that´s cheap and hits hard would do perfectly ala matter reshaper or oath of gideon. Maybe something else?
That´s my list. I know the sideboard is bad, it´s always been a mess.
I´ve played tasigur before, in my opinion, it´s a trap. Not a good card for the deck.
Birds over caryatids even if they don´t die to removal. Getting to do t2 liliana of lingering souls is great. Plus, you NEED to get on the board quick against agro decks like burn and affinity.
I´ve come to realize after almost 2 years of playing the deck, even though i usually don´t flood out, 25 lands is too much with 4 birds. I kept 25 lands because mulliganing with gifts is a pain, but i might cut a land for a cheap spell like engineered explosives. The curve isn´t that high after all.
hey guys! So i´m back playing this deck, after a long while. I had been playing the deck for almost 2 years, but bought abzan company, because i wanted something a bit more stable that DIDN´T lose to mono red or burn decks. As it turns out, infinite life does deal with mono red, but it´s unfortunately not my style of deck.
After 4-0 ing last week against 4(FOUR)affinity decks after having loaned my stony silences and going 3-1 this week (only losing to... you guessed it: burn) it´s safe to say i´ll be playing gifts in the WMCQ.
What do you guys generally sideboard against burn? The problem i see against that specific deck, is that, because we´re not playing red ourselves, we don´t have access to the best one mana removal spell in the format in lightning bolt. Path to exile is kind of the same, but giving burn lands early on makes you have to play around a lot of stuff later on, not to mention turns where they deal 9 to you out of nowhere. Therefor, the way to actually interact with the deck is to cope with board presence early on. I remember LSV aggressively double blocking goblin guides and switfspears with lingering soul token as to trade off board early, something i never would have done because i incorrectly assumed that the more tokens i had the more turns i had. In reality if they, say, bolted on token to keep the guide alive, they lost a card and if the guide died, they lost a lot of damage later on.
Now, there are different ways of interacting with the board against these types of decks. tarmogoyf is exactly the type of card i´m looking for. It stops the ground attack single handedly and costs 2 mana. Usually it being 3/4 is good enough. Of course, it also costs 150 dollars.
I wanted to find an alternative that is good enough against mono red, but that is also not so narrow. A less narrow sideboard card. Things like leyline of sanctity. What are your thoughts? It´s a great card against mono red, but also against things like general discard, other gifts deck, ad nauseum, etc. Most red decks expect this card out of the sideboard, so it makes it a bit less appealing. My opponent yesterday showed me a hand of 3 destructive revelry when i cast blood baron, giving me game 2.
I´ve almost ALWAYS had 3 timely reinforcements. At one time i played 2 spellskite and 2 engineered explosives main deck, with 3 reinforcements, 3 negates and a celestial purge in the sideboard and even that wasn´t enough most of the time. I always lost. engineered explosives is like broad spectrum antibiotics. It´s good against boggles, mono red, affinity, infect, tokens, merfolk, etc etc. I´m down to 1 main deck, but honestly, it´s worth more than that, have to re consider.
I considered cards like sylvan advocate as a card that stops most creatures, it also has vigilance, which is important. The problem is, even against mono red it´s not great. And it´s generally not good against any other deck, so it´s range isn´t really that wide. Too bad :/. voice of resurgeance is another good card. Trades early for a card and then chumps, not too shabby. kitchen finks is a great great great card against mono red. It´s often worth 3 cards. The problem is, it´s ONLY good against mono red. That´s not what i´m looking for.
burrenton forge-tender is another option. A brick wall that also counters a burn spell is great for 1 mana. The cheaper the spell the better against mono red, that´s just law. Once again, red deck specific hate that isn´t all that flexible. Is it good against anything else? kor firewalker i imagine is out of discussion as WW by turn 2 takes 2-4 lives to get online, most of the times.
Then i stumbled upon pack rat. Isn´t this card just insane good in this deck? Decks that have removal game 1 often side them out as they lack targets against the deck. Moreover they usually bring in graveyard hate. Against bigger decks, i usually bring in more discard and some negates. A discard turn 1 followed by a pack rat, a pack rat turn 4 with negate mana up or a pack rat t5 with 3 mana up arent that hard to achieve, specially the first configuration. It´s a card that is immune to graveyard hate that closes the game off in 3 or 4 turn. The whole game becomes about the card and how to get rid of it/ keep it alive. Against mono red specifically, it´s a turn 2 play that they have to kill. Otherwise turn 3 getting 2 2/2 rats is ok, and turns after that should be virtually impossible to deal with.
Its could also be potentially game breaking against other swarm decks like tokens or g/w aggro, company, and the likes. I would want to test it out. It´s a card that has "ok" stats, but whos ceiling could be is SO high it´s scary.
Definitely possible :P. Kher keep does something similar and is much cheaper. It´s not a win condition on it´s own of course, but it seems the abbey would take a lot longer to get turned on. Also, path to exile really stops the demon dead in it´s tracks. But i mean, playing ravens crime to wreck hands, until you can transform the abbey sounds reasonably possible.
I´d honestly love for this deck to work, it seems sweet! As long as they keep printing interesting lands, this deck can have a chance. I cant wait to find a deck to put some realms uncharted in. Is playing 1 copy of each urza land too bad? You could search them up with gifts or uncharted realms
Another interesting card that might be considered is Drownyard temple. It´s just a "free" land you can put into play... there has got to be some loops or engines around this card for this deck. I guess as it stands, it´s a land you can use to play your retrace spells for free with. It becomes an "engine" with trade routes (although that costs 5). Too bad it´s not a forest, it could be great with Dark heart of the wood if it were. Basically, anything that lets you sacrifice a permanent or land that remotely does anything interesting, could potentially become an engine with the drownyard. I think that card has some potential. It still isn´t dealing with the "How do we control the board" problem... but of course, that depends on the effect of said "hypothetical card"
So after stubbornly brewing gifts decks (which i love, don´t get me wrong) for 2 years or so, i wanted to get on board with something "tier1-ish". A deck i knew was stable for the WMCQ´s. Basically i´m on the boat with this deck. I just had 2 questions for the more advanced veterans of the deck:
-A friend of mine who did real well with this decks plays Varolz, the Scar-Striped as another sac outlet in case the needle the seer and sometimes to scavenge on to a combo piece with a -1/-1 counter, so to negate the counter and combo off. What do you guys think of this?
-When things get tough (say, mulling down to 4 and if you don´t get to see any coco´s), in all honesty, this deck is filled with really bad creatures (save maybe for kitchen finks). How´s something like brimaz, king of oreskos as a one of? He is good on his own, resilient to removal, gets vigilance tokens to power up chords, good with gavony etc etc. I think it´s a real solid card. Has he been thought of at all for the deck? or is he no good?
What does everybody think about jace, vryns prodigy for this deck? (not sure if it has been discussed before) I´ve been running 4 colour gifts for 2 years now, and been doing really well with it. I really think this card is great for the overall gameplan of the deck:
1) it´s super cheap. Cheap spells that allow you to develop early are real important this card is great for that.
2) It´s a free discard. So for those times when you draw that iona, you don´t have to find ravens crime and do it that way. But it´s also filtering. This deck doesn´t really see that many cards as other blue decks do, so this is real important.
3) There are a bunch of tricks you can do with this card, like blocking a creature and transforming, responding to a removal by activating and placing enough cards to transform him in your graveyard, looting and in response playing gifts ungiven and going crazy.
The issues i do see with the card, is that it doesnt allow you to cast flashbacks in your opponents turn, which means you have to tap out main phase to do it, and that sometimes is bad for you.
There is also few ways to keep his creature side for increasing amounts of turns.
Still, i think the card is great, should try to find some slots in the deck for it. At least test it out.
So i´ve picked up this deck recently, and i´m pretty happy with it so far. My current record is 19-1-1, loss was against abzan aggro, although i played horribly (i´d rather not talk about it) and it also was against my country´s 3 time WMC competitor... so yeah, the guy can play. And the draw was an intentional to secure my top 4 seat in the game day.
All in all i think it´s an extremely solid deck mainly because it´s one of the most "over the top" decks around, which is why i chose playing it in the first place.
Moving forward, i think that if esper keeps dominating, transitioning towards deathmist raptor and den protector might probably be the way to go. Heck, even once courser / caryatid shell rotates, it´s probably going to be the best replacement anyways. Regardless i still don´t know if dedicating 8 slots in the main is feasible or how i´d even do it, but i did try a singleton den protector last friday and every time i drew it, it was great. Like really really good. I remember keeping a good hand with it and getting IT thoughtseized and not my whip. Or morphing it, my opponent -2 ing a sorin with a butcher in play and me megamorphing the den protector to return a murderous cut, killing the butcher and attacking down the sorin through the token, it´s got potential.
Going back to my list, i was so wrong about tasigur it´s not even funny. I ended bumping him up to 2 copies main deck. You want to be able to follow up discard turn 1 and liliana t3 with something big, not just lose your hand completely and not have a plan against a top deck. Tasigur is pretty much exactly the same as a goyf in the deck that also gets around spell snare and mana leak if you play it right. The activation sucks, it´s true. Hitting a birds of paradise or a raven´s crime is the worst. But if you have 4 mana open and nothing in hand, what are you gonna do? NOT activate it? Still that´s not the reason you play the card though.
Swords to Ploweshare
Deathrite Shaman
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Scalding Tarn
Shardless Agent
NOT IN:
Leyline of the Void
Ad Nauseum
Grafdiggers Cage
Cunning Wish
Stifle
So i´ve been playing solitaire with the deck (since i haven´t gotten the cards yet), it´s really consistent, and it has a TONNE of different lines of play. Figuring out what board states will look like after ultimating a nahiri, if it´s worth keeping lands in hand for another draw with chandra or if you happen to draw magmatic insight, returning drownyard temples (or not) in case you draw avacyn´s judgment if you happen to have a tormenting voice in hand, playing a plains as the 7vth land from your hand, as opposed to not playing it in case you draw another land for the angel you have in your hand... just a lot of stuff
magmatic insight is lackluster. It´s not that good. Only really with drownyard temple. You need to hit land drops every turn with the deck, so throwing a land away in the hopes of drawing another 2 lands or a replacement land, is complicated. I might cut it down to 2 copies
crater elemental seems pretty good as a road block plus removal. I think it´s still very playable. wall of resurgence is nice as well with either drownyard temple or needle spires. It doesn´t matter if the drownyard temple dies and later on the spires can deal 10 damage on it´s own. It also creates a surprise attacker, since the land has haste. It´s a good card. Lands dying is an issue of course, maybe 2 is a good number on this one.
tormenting voice and lightning axe i´m keeping as a 4 of. Tormenting voice glues the deck together. It´s probably the most important spell as it is. My deck might have too many targeted removals, and therefore is a bit more susceptible to token stategies main deck. Testing will tell
If i were playing green, i´d probably be playing black and ever after as well as the vessel. But as i said, that´s a different deck.
4 Emeria Angel, MIGHT be too many, yes. Maybe swap one for something with a little more impact early game. The current configuration relies so heavily on the angels and chandra basically. It´s kind of hard to close out the games that way. Avacyns judgment won´t be dealing 20 i think... So that might be a good place to start.
I had thought of adding green for other cards like ulvenwald hydra (which can fetch up stuff like Rogue's Passage,traverse the ulvenwald which is a great early and late game play, and some other things like maybe Mina and Denn, Wildborn, arlinn kord. The problem is i honestly thing a 3 colour mana base would be a mess. I wouldn´t know where to start.
There isn´t all that ramp in green nowadays anyway. If i would like to ramp from 2 to 4 mana there is hedron crawler (this formats sylvan caryatid). It isn´t pretty, but people at the higher tables HAVE had these in their decks before. But even then, i´m not so sure it would be necessary. It merits more testing of course.
I don´t like goggles in this deck, just because, it´s not a goggles deck. Just that. It´s ok with the draw spells, but it´s not THAT synergistic in my opinion.
If you played pack rat before, then i´m going to hear you out, since you´ve had more experience than i have with the card. But saying you´ll trade a rat for half a finks is not likely unless you´re chump blocking. It´s like the worst case scenario. Otherwise you would wait until you had bigger pack rats, since that trade is real bad. I think the roof is so high on the card, it should be worth it. I understand you´d also want to keep some cards in hand and lands to play, so as to balance out your resources... but pack rat is kind of an "all in" card anyways. There is even life from the loam to assure you´ll be dropping lands as well. Basically, i´m not looking at worst case, but at best case. They don´t deal with it, and 4 4/4´s might just get there.
3 path 3 abrupt is what i´ve universally ran for like forever. I tried playing 2 path 1 murderous cut and i remember it being important in a play where i needed removal and had a gift and 5 lands one of which was a fetchland, so i had to see how many cards would be in my graveyard if they gave me the cut if i could also get white with the fetch, if i could get anything else... etc etc. There were tonnes of options which i LOVE and is what drove me to this deck in the first place. I also drew it against a board with a wurmcoil engine and felt bad, so i went back to 3 paths...but i´ll have to try it out again!
Jace i think is ok as a 2 of in the deck. Saying it´s not good because you have only 16 spells is like saying snapcaster isn´t good for the same reason. Still it´s not just about the flip side. True, there aren´t THAT many spells, but it still helps you filter early and lets you throw that iona away when you don´t have liliana in play. Drawing iona in your opening hand is always a pain. 2 Jaces are in theory there to also assist with that. It´s also serves as a pseudo snapcaster mage, where you can go gifts for creeping corrosion jace abrupt decay snapcaster, which i did against affinity and which is effectively the same. Against control decks, i usually ALWAYS sided out the same cards regardless: 3 decay 1 elesh norn 2 explosives (back when i played 2 main deck). Decay is more than a dead card against control and jace can help you dump cards that aren´t good in the match and search for the cards you do need.I think it warrants an inclusion. you can also chump a creature and transform as to fog a goyf or something for a turn, and you can also activate and in response gifts ungiven so to flip him after the loot almost 100% of the time and trick your opponent into giving you a card you´ll later dump anyways. If they give you say Duress, you can then cast it and -3 the jace for another discard. It´s not the same as snapcaster, but still ok to have i think.
As for the mana base, i never thought of it that way. I do remember almost always fetching for overgrown tomb to play birds on t1 even with a verdant catacombs against burn(of course this depends on the hand, i might have needed black if the bird died), but i imagine it won´t hurt at all to make that change.
I will be trying out kitchen finks definitely. Still don´t think i like it main deck, but i´ll give it a try. I´m also going to be trying out leyline of sanctity. It hits a lot of decks, not only burn. Burn, discard in jund (and liliana -2 and -6), scapeshift valuakut triggers (decks without blue, command kind of deals with it although even some naturalize effect could be considered post sideboard for a straight R/G deck so we´ll see), ad nauseum, gifts. There are probably some more things i´m missing.
How should we deal with company decks? I´ve playtested against a friend who ended up losing in the finals of the WMCQ here last year, who played that deck. Decks that go wide are a pain in the butt and this one is no different. Kitchen finks is super annoying it hit´s hard, negates liliana, gains life, and later on, with gavony township, gets out of hand. We can´t unburial rites elesh norn and feel safe. They still can path it in response to a persist trigger, many creatures might at that point be x/3. it´s just super hard to win. This is another reason i think pack rat could be really good. T1 discard T2 pack rat used to be insane in standard, INSANE. Modern only really has cards like declaration in stone (which no one plays)detention sphere (same), maelstrom pulse (only us and jund) and maybe supreme verdict that´s close to all there is that can deal with a pack rat that survived. Sure, company can still try to combo you out, but if you discard a mana dork or a path and play pack rat, they´re under the gun... And this goes for other decks as well. I think pack rat can really really be a good choice for the deck. Safe to say i´ll try that out too
Hello people!
So i came up with a deck the other day, and wondered what people thought about it. Any improvements are welcome
Basically the deck revolves around Nahiri, the Harbinger and Emeria Shepherd. And also basic plains :). The idea is to control the board until you either ultimate Nahiri to get the shepherd, play a plains to get nahiri back (or any land to get any other permanent back) or until you actually cast a shepherd and hopefully win the game that way.
Magical christmas land? Weeeeell maybe not. Let me try to convince you
This wouldn´t be as good if it was THAT little synergistic. As a matter of fact, you usually rather NOT have your emeria shepherd in hand util you have mana to play it and therefor you might as well discard her util then. Lightning axe,nahiri, the harbinger and tormenting voice allow you to get the angels in the graveyard early on in exchange for other cards.
Speaking of the cards:
nahiri, the harbinger
Core card. Comes in pretty quick and is tough as hell to deal with in a deck that can reliably protect it.
+2 makes her go up to 6 loyalty (which is really menacing), lets us discard cards like the shepherd and other permanent cards we don´t need or have plans of getting back later like Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger,Chandra, flamecaller, etc. Activates madness in fiery temper, Avacyn's Judgment and also works pretty nicely with drownyard temple.
-2 Is broad spectrum removal. The "tapped creature" clause actually makes it harder for an opponent to attack nahiri. The deck plays like a control deck, we might not care if she gets attacked depending on what we have in hand, but also, your opponent might not attack if he/she doesn´t want to "give up" the creature either. Its just another tool to have at your disposal.
-8 is what it´s all about. It should be fairly easy to achieve this, lets not fool ourselves. The main goal is to get emeria shepherd and play a land of course, but other cards might be considered Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger,Kozilek, the great distortion,Linvala, the preserver,Archangel Avacyn, Goblin Dark-Dwellers and probably others i haven´t thought of. Remember you get the card back to your hand at end of turn, so it´s an effective tutor for a creature as well. By that time, considering everything went according to planned, you´d have another nahiri to activate and 7 lands in play (theoretically) to replay the angel if need be.
Emeria Shepherd
Ohhh boy.
Ok so, i really like this card. The list i´ve thought of should play 4. Yes she costs 7 mana, doesn´t matter. You can discard early copies to tormenting voice, nahiri or lightning axe, as long as you can get 1 copy into play, it should be ok. The card lets you get back anything to play (that isn´t a land) when you play a plains. They aren´t legendary and multiples trigger multiple times of course. Drownyard temple helps assure you at least a landfall trigger if worst comes to worst. One angel can recur another and so on. Getting another shepherd or an ulamog or chandra into play is the dream. Other than that, a 4/4 flyer is ok, it´s not great and it´s very easily killed, but if you can get value...you got value.
Magmatic Insight is a turn 1 play almost 100% of the time you have it. Lets you throw drownyard temples and lands to dig in the deck.
Tormenting voice is sort of the other engine for the deck. Filters, enables madness, throws expensive stuff, all the deck wants.
Crater Elemental Seems like a unloved card. It´s something i´m trying out but that i also hope is good enough. It´s a brick wall that survives kozileks return, kills Archangel Avacyn for 1 mana, and even later on maybe gets to rumble in, who knows, chandra does put in 6 power. You might be laughing when it gets played t3, but maybe not later on
Wall of resurgence I was looking for another cheap permanent that kind of did what the deck wanted, this is not that bad. Animating a drownyard temple or needle spires is not the worst. It puts a reasonable blocker (i´m expecting a lot of company / agro) and a good attacker.
The sideboard is something i came up in a few minute just to fill it up a bit. hallowed moonlight for the company and token decks, just some more threats and removal. I might have to find something better for control decks since that´s most likely the weakest matchup. Somthing like sin podder,goldnight castigator,Pia and Kiran nalaar perhaps.
Also, maybe another actual "threat" in the deck wouldn´t be bad. Something that´s cheap and hits hard would do perfectly ala matter reshaper or oath of gideon. Maybe something else?
Let me know what you guys think!!!
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Drownyard Temple
5 Mountain
4 Needle Spires
8 Plains
Creatures
4 Emeria Shepherd
3 Crater Elemental
2 Wall of resurgence
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Sorceries
3 Magmatic Insight
3 Tormenting Voice
3 Avacyn's Judgment
Instants
3 Fiery Temper
3 Kozileks Return
4 Lightning Axe
3 Hallowed moonlight
2 Rending volley
1 Kozilek, the great distortion
1 planar outburst
2 Linvala, the preserver
2 fiery impulse
2 Gideon, Ally of zendikar
1 Silkwrap
4x Polluted Delta
1x Flooded Strand
1x Temple Garden
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Breeding Pool
2x Godless Shrine
1x Watery Grave
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Plains
1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Celestial Colonnade
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Jace, Vryns Prodigy
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Blood Baron of Vizkopa
3x Lingering Souls
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Duress
1x Unburial Rites
1x Life from The Loam
1x Ravens Crime
1x Engineered Explosives
4x Gifts Ungiven
3x Path to Exile
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Liliana of the Veil
3x Timely Reinforcements
2x Stony Silence
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Dispel
2x Negate
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Duress
1x Unravel the Aether
1x Creeping Corrosion
That´s my list. I know the sideboard is bad, it´s always been a mess.
I´ve played tasigur before, in my opinion, it´s a trap. Not a good card for the deck.
Birds over caryatids even if they don´t die to removal. Getting to do t2 liliana of lingering souls is great. Plus, you NEED to get on the board quick against agro decks like burn and affinity.
I´ve come to realize after almost 2 years of playing the deck, even though i usually don´t flood out, 25 lands is too much with 4 birds. I kept 25 lands because mulliganing with gifts is a pain, but i might cut a land for a cheap spell like engineered explosives. The curve isn´t that high after all.
After 4-0 ing last week against 4(FOUR)affinity decks after having loaned my stony silences and going 3-1 this week (only losing to... you guessed it: burn) it´s safe to say i´ll be playing gifts in the WMCQ.
What do you guys generally sideboard against burn? The problem i see against that specific deck, is that, because we´re not playing red ourselves, we don´t have access to the best one mana removal spell in the format in lightning bolt. Path to exile is kind of the same, but giving burn lands early on makes you have to play around a lot of stuff later on, not to mention turns where they deal 9 to you out of nowhere. Therefor, the way to actually interact with the deck is to cope with board presence early on. I remember LSV aggressively double blocking goblin guides and switfspears with lingering soul token as to trade off board early, something i never would have done because i incorrectly assumed that the more tokens i had the more turns i had. In reality if they, say, bolted on token to keep the guide alive, they lost a card and if the guide died, they lost a lot of damage later on.
Now, there are different ways of interacting with the board against these types of decks. tarmogoyf is exactly the type of card i´m looking for. It stops the ground attack single handedly and costs 2 mana. Usually it being 3/4 is good enough. Of course, it also costs 150 dollars.
I wanted to find an alternative that is good enough against mono red, but that is also not so narrow. A less narrow sideboard card. Things like leyline of sanctity. What are your thoughts? It´s a great card against mono red, but also against things like general discard, other gifts deck, ad nauseum, etc. Most red decks expect this card out of the sideboard, so it makes it a bit less appealing. My opponent yesterday showed me a hand of 3 destructive revelry when i cast blood baron, giving me game 2.
I´ve almost ALWAYS had 3 timely reinforcements. At one time i played 2 spellskite and 2 engineered explosives main deck, with 3 reinforcements, 3 negates and a celestial purge in the sideboard and even that wasn´t enough most of the time. I always lost. engineered explosives is like broad spectrum antibiotics. It´s good against boggles, mono red, affinity, infect, tokens, merfolk, etc etc. I´m down to 1 main deck, but honestly, it´s worth more than that, have to re consider.
I considered cards like sylvan advocate as a card that stops most creatures, it also has vigilance, which is important. The problem is, even against mono red it´s not great. And it´s generally not good against any other deck, so it´s range isn´t really that wide. Too bad :/. voice of resurgeance is another good card. Trades early for a card and then chumps, not too shabby. kitchen finks is a great great great card against mono red. It´s often worth 3 cards. The problem is, it´s ONLY good against mono red. That´s not what i´m looking for.
burrenton forge-tender is another option. A brick wall that also counters a burn spell is great for 1 mana. The cheaper the spell the better against mono red, that´s just law. Once again, red deck specific hate that isn´t all that flexible. Is it good against anything else? kor firewalker i imagine is out of discussion as WW by turn 2 takes 2-4 lives to get online, most of the times.
Then i stumbled upon pack rat. Isn´t this card just insane good in this deck? Decks that have removal game 1 often side them out as they lack targets against the deck. Moreover they usually bring in graveyard hate. Against bigger decks, i usually bring in more discard and some negates. A discard turn 1 followed by a pack rat, a pack rat turn 4 with negate mana up or a pack rat t5 with 3 mana up arent that hard to achieve, specially the first configuration. It´s a card that is immune to graveyard hate that closes the game off in 3 or 4 turn. The whole game becomes about the card and how to get rid of it/ keep it alive. Against mono red specifically, it´s a turn 2 play that they have to kill. Otherwise turn 3 getting 2 2/2 rats is ok, and turns after that should be virtually impossible to deal with.
Its could also be potentially game breaking against other swarm decks like tokens or g/w aggro, company, and the likes. I would want to test it out. It´s a card that has "ok" stats, but whos ceiling could be is SO high it´s scary.
I´d honestly love for this deck to work, it seems sweet! As long as they keep printing interesting lands, this deck can have a chance. I cant wait to find a deck to put some realms uncharted in. Is playing 1 copy of each urza land too bad? You could search them up with gifts or uncharted realms
Another interesting card that might be considered is Drownyard temple. It´s just a "free" land you can put into play... there has got to be some loops or engines around this card for this deck. I guess as it stands, it´s a land you can use to play your retrace spells for free with. It becomes an "engine" with trade routes (although that costs 5). Too bad it´s not a forest, it could be great with Dark heart of the wood if it were. Basically, anything that lets you sacrifice a permanent or land that remotely does anything interesting, could potentially become an engine with the drownyard. I think that card has some potential. It still isn´t dealing with the "How do we control the board" problem... but of course, that depends on the effect of said "hypothetical card"
So after stubbornly brewing gifts decks (which i love, don´t get me wrong) for 2 years or so, i wanted to get on board with something "tier1-ish". A deck i knew was stable for the WMCQ´s. Basically i´m on the boat with this deck. I just had 2 questions for the more advanced veterans of the deck:
-A friend of mine who did real well with this decks plays Varolz, the Scar-Striped as another sac outlet in case the needle the seer and sometimes to scavenge on to a combo piece with a -1/-1 counter, so to negate the counter and combo off. What do you guys think of this?
-When things get tough (say, mulling down to 4 and if you don´t get to see any coco´s), in all honesty, this deck is filled with really bad creatures (save maybe for kitchen finks). How´s something like brimaz, king of oreskos as a one of? He is good on his own, resilient to removal, gets vigilance tokens to power up chords, good with gavony etc etc. I think it´s a real solid card. Has he been thought of at all for the deck? or is he no good?
1) it´s super cheap. Cheap spells that allow you to develop early are real important this card is great for that.
2) It´s a free discard. So for those times when you draw that iona, you don´t have to find ravens crime and do it that way. But it´s also filtering. This deck doesn´t really see that many cards as other blue decks do, so this is real important.
3) There are a bunch of tricks you can do with this card, like blocking a creature and transforming, responding to a removal by activating and placing enough cards to transform him in your graveyard, looting and in response playing gifts ungiven and going crazy.
The issues i do see with the card, is that it doesnt allow you to cast flashbacks in your opponents turn, which means you have to tap out main phase to do it, and that sometimes is bad for you.
There is also few ways to keep his creature side for increasing amounts of turns.
Still, i think the card is great, should try to find some slots in the deck for it. At least test it out.
So i´ve picked up this deck recently, and i´m pretty happy with it so far. My current record is 19-1-1, loss was against abzan aggro, although i played horribly (i´d rather not talk about it) and it also was against my country´s 3 time WMC competitor... so yeah, the guy can play. And the draw was an intentional to secure my top 4 seat in the game day.
All in all i think it´s an extremely solid deck mainly because it´s one of the most "over the top" decks around, which is why i chose playing it in the first place.
Moving forward, i think that if esper keeps dominating, transitioning towards deathmist raptor and den protector might probably be the way to go. Heck, even once courser / caryatid shell rotates, it´s probably going to be the best replacement anyways. Regardless i still don´t know if dedicating 8 slots in the main is feasible or how i´d even do it, but i did try a singleton den protector last friday and every time i drew it, it was great. Like really really good. I remember keeping a good hand with it and getting IT thoughtseized and not my whip. Or morphing it, my opponent -2 ing a sorin with a butcher in play and me megamorphing the den protector to return a murderous cut, killing the butcher and attacking down the sorin through the token, it´s got potential.