AlternateNu posted:

I don't think you need 4 x Guildgates AND 4 x Temples. Eight dual lands should be enough with just the temples and shock lands.

That having been said, I would go for more Read the Bones to replace the Opportunities. You don't want to need 6 mana just to draw. And drop 2 x Hero's Downfall for 2 more Doom Blades. You can sideboard them out if necessary and you won't be killing Planeswalkers as much as you'll be killing creatures.

Zoness posted:

WRT U/B control:

Jace, AoT is pretty big in any base-blue control deck. I think Desecration Demon and Whip are both on the weak side - Haunted Plate Mail is a promising option and I still think Pharika's Cure belongs somewhere in the 75 for a U/B control list.

I think U/B is on the weak side for a control list right now though, it's missing a board wipe (Anger of the Gods or Supreme Verdict) and is lacking on efficient lifegain (Revelation, Blood Baron, Obzedat), and the removal suite isn't as versatile as that of the base-W control lists (lacking Detention Sphere for starters).

I'd consider a Ratchet Bomb / Trading Post package for a U/B list to shore up its primary weaknesses.

Retcon posted:

Is AoT actually that good? I know people have been investing in him before the rotation but he wasn't very good back then and I haven't seen anything to convince me that I want to run him in my control decks. His +1 ability doesn't seem very relevant right now and Memory Adept is much better at giving you card advantage while winning the game on his own. I realize that 4 versus 5 mana is a big difference but after playing with both AoT and Memory Adept a lot I vastly prefer Memory Adept in most matchups. Often I wished that AoT was just some removal spell so I wouldn't have to tap out for him and +1 him hoping that my opponent didn't play something I couldn't deal with.

Not having Detention Sphere is going to be a problem for U/B if cards like Hammer are a thing but I really like the removal suite for that color combination. You have Far // Away (which no longer has to deal with Thragtusk), Doom Blade, Hero's Downfall and Thoughtseize. I'm not sure how many Thoughtseizes you will be able to maindeck but it seems to that the combination of Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall can deal with most threats. Being able to get rid of a Domri at instant speed is very nice - tapping out for Detention Sphere is a very risky play in many situations. U/B is much weaker to Voice than U/W or Esper though and I'm not quite sure how to deal with that card without sacrifing card quality. For example you could play Omenspeaker but that card seems a bit underpowered to me.

Not having any lifegain (Pharika's Cure isn't really what you're looking for) is a bit annoying but Obzedat or Blood Baron aren't cards I'd run in my control deck anyway. Both of them are very clunky in that kind of deck and I rarely find myself in a position where I'm comfortable casting them. Relying on that kind of card leaves you open to cards you wouldn't lose to otherwise such as your opponent resolving a hasty threat or random removal.

Zoness posted:

Well, you say Jace, AoT isn't good but a lot of control decks in the top 8 of the open yesterday were packing at least 3 maindeck. The +1 is very potent as either virtual life gain or getting the opponent to overcommit into a Verdict (something that U/B admittedly lacks). I think AoT is better than Memory Adept against an aggro deck while postboard the U/B deck should be way ahead in a control mirror anyway so you can afford to be running the slightly weaker AoT game 1.

quote:

As far as the tapout plan goes - Obzedat is probably just a worse Aetherling for a control deck so that's out but I think Blood Baron is fine against mono-red depending on board states and pretty good at pressuring W/x or B/x midrange lists. People tapped out for Baneslayer Angel back in the day and Blood Baron is just a Baneslayer that dies to Mizzium Mortars (which is probably the first card to get boarded out for a lot of decks against control lists anyway). Christian Calcano ran 3 Blood Baron in the sideboard because against really fast decks it just wins postboard.

YeehawMcKickass posted:

Retcon posted:

I think those decks would have been better off not running AoT. His +1 does buy some time but it's a very clumsy way of buying time and he comes down on Turn 4. He draws cards or slow down your opponent but he isn't very good at both things and ultimately I find it hard to justify tapping out for him on Turn 4. In a control deck I want to leave open mana whenever I can and tapping 4 mana for AoT often leaves you in a bad position.

Oldsrocket_27 posted:

What kind of midrange did you run up against? Since sweepers don't really matter, would Anger of the Gods be a good play against aggro, and if not Flames of the Firebrand?

I'm thinking about building this because it looks so fun, but A) my local meta is pretty aggro-heavy with a fair bit of midrange and nonexistent control and B) building a new deck for me means trading off all of my current playable standard cards, because I don't make a ton of cash and when I spring a lot of cash for cards, I spend it on eternal format staples.

bhsman posted:

That all sounds pretty awesome, but I'm not surprised about it rolling over to Aggro; I know we joke about wanting Pyroclasm back but the deck doesn't make friends with Anger of the Gods due to it removing Tymaret from the game. I saw enough aggro decks at FNM to convince me to run a more Control-ish deck (which can be found here if anyone wants to take a gander) until the format slows down.

kirtar posted:

I'm building a maze's end deck because I find the concept amusing. I would like to keep it legal in Standard so I can use it at FNM. Right now I took the overall cards for two decklists (i.e. I can make either one) from the mtgsalvation forum (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10788897&postcount=9 and http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10762572&postcount=168). The core of the two is the same, with at least two of each guildgate, four maze's end, and various fog effects and planar cleansing.

With this particular deck, I am somewhat concerned about two cards that would immediately eliminate all built in win conditions. The first is Pithing Needle, which can be used to nullify both Maze's End and Crackling Perimeter. This of course, can be eliminated with artifact destruction, and both of the decks sideboard it. Slaughter Games is uncounterable and can take Crackling Perimeter out of the game so long as it is not already on the field. While I can think of a counter (Slaughter Games naming Slaughter Games), I'm not sure it would be worth worrying about.

Keeping in mind that I already bought the cards, I'd be fine with spending about $20-30 on upgrades or even another style of deck so I don't just have a combo deck (perhaps RDW).

Deck 1 Statistics (Something in the way)

Deck 2 Statistics (Other Guy)

Nehru the Damaja posted:

//Creatures
4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
4 Desecration Demon
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
4 Sin Collector

//Enchantments
2 Blind Obedience
2 Whip of Erebos

//Instants and sorceries
3 Read the Bones
2 Thoughtseize
4 Devour Flesh
4 Doom Blade
4 Hero's Downfall

//Land
4 Godless Shrine
8 Plains
9 Swamp
4 Temple of Silence

Jabor posted:

Just some quick thoughts on Maze's End, since I ran the Miracles version pre-rotation:

1. Don't play 2 of each guildgate. It's too slow and inconsistent. The best option is to run 14-15 gates and fill up on basics (or shocks if you have them, though they're less essential with Farseek gone), so you can actually do things like clear the board on turn four instead of dying on turn four with a sweeper you can't play until turn 5.

Yes, I know that sometimes you'll just lose to Ashiok or Nightveil Specter exiling one of your singleton gates. Too bad, it happens, it's not worth completely screwing up your manabase in order to try and mitigate that.

2. Saruli Gatekeepers is the best lifegain spell around, and it gives you a solid wall to fend off attacks with. It's basically essential if you want to beat a fast aggro deck, otherwise they'll wittle you down with unfoggable burn spells even after you've stabilized.

3. Ætherize is good, being a fog that also more-or-less fogs their next attack without spending an extra card. Also beats Skullcrack, resets Ooze and Desecration Demon, and a bunch of other good stuff. It's a little expensive though, I wouldn't run more than two.

4. I tried Assemble the Legion as a Needle-immune win condition, that also helps gum up the ground and keep Demons locked down. Obviously it works better if you don't show Crackling Perimeter in game one, letting them side out their enchantment removal.

5. Don't use Slaughter Games against Pithing Needle, it's really kind of pointless. Just use artifact destruction. Pre-rotation, Slaughter Games was basically how you beat Acidic Slime - now, you probably name Ætherling (to give you more time to assemble your gates against control), or the milling Jace or Ashiok to stop them wrecking your chances.

BizarroAzrael posted:

Wanted to resume the conversation about the BW midrange deck Nehru the Damaja posted in the last thread:


Per that conversation, I think Blind Obedience should be in the sideboard (especially once all the RDW players wise up on Hammer) Has anyone played this or anything like it yet? I've not played with so much removal before, but I like the recursion aspect from Whip with Sin Collector, besides the Obzedat exploit. I think Lifebane Zombie for the side too, to switch for Collector against mono-White and Selesnya aggro, which I think can still be A Thing, and anything where the intimidate and peak at their hand is useful.

So what should replace Obedience in the maindeck? Add some distress for early disruption? Maybe something that can supplement life early one whilst it's being spent on Shrines and Thoughtseize and what creatures and spells get off before the deck develops board presence.

kirtar posted:

1. If it's 14-15 gates, I assume it will just be multiples of the ones that produce the mana colors used most by the rest of the deck. This part will be the easiest to play around with since I will have two of each gate and plenty of basic land. The basic land would provide some protection against Burning Earth.
2. Looks like I'm including four of them. Is it worth having say, Far // Away to try and reset Saruli Gatekeepers and/or Gatecreeper Vine?
3. I might have to pick that up since it's also a bounce that might help delay damage even further.
4. I might experiment with that. It's probably not as expected as Crackling Perimeter and of course, is immune to Pithing Needle.
5. I assume the use of Slaughter Games on whatever alt win condition is just a situation of removing any Pithing Needles and going for Maze's End. My main concern was someone doing for example, Slaughter Games on Crackling Perimeter and Pithing Needle on Maze's End. The latter can be removed as long as artifact destruction is in the deck, but there's not much that can be done about the former.

Any thoughts on fog effects vs removals? There seems to be two lines of thought on Maze's End decks.

Madmarker posted:

So I've been playing modern merfolk for a bit, I'm running the same list that was on free side of Starcity a while ago. Anyway I can pilot the deck fairly well but I'm having a good bit of trouble with the boggle matchup, they load up a hexproof dude and my only real out is to either echoing truth the enchantment or cast hibernation. Anyway I'm at a loss as to a good sideboard card/cards for the matchup, anyway, here's what I"m running. Originally I had 3 snapcaster's in the Cosi tirckster spot but it was fairly underwhelming, and cosi's trickster grows incredible quickly. So what I'm trying to figure out is what, if anything I should do to the board to improve my boggle matchup.

Should I just run Spellskite, and if so, any idea on what to cut?

Creatures (26)

3 Coralhelm Commander
3 Cosi's Trickster
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
Lands (20)

17 Island
3 Mutavault
Spells (14)

4 Aether Vial
4 Deprive
2 Spell Pierce
4 Vapor Snag
Sideboard

3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tidebinder Mage
4 Spreading Seas
2 Echoing Truth
2 Hibernation
2 Spell Pierce

quote:

Deck: Boros Aggro/Burn Prototype

//Creatures
4 Ash Zealot
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Rakdos Cackler
3 Purphoros, God of the Forge

//Spells
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Legion's Initiative
4 Boros Charm
1 Hammer of Purphoros

//Lands
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Sacred Foundry
11 Mountain
1 Plains

Display deck statistics

Nehru the Damaja posted:

I've seen some people try Tithe Drinker as a blocker that buys you time and is slightly less useless than your average early-game blocker if you draw it late. Not sure how it performs though.

C-Euro posted:

Another idea that I had for Standard, maybe as gimmicky as my Pack Rats deck but a more consistent gimmick-

Deck: Wb "Stompy"

//Lands
4 Godless Shrine
14 Plains
4 Swamp

//Spells
4 Orzhov Charm
4 Path of Bravery
2 Spear of Heliod
4 Thoughtseize

//Creatures
3 Archangel of Thune
4 Fiendslayer Paladin
3 Frontline Medic
4 Precinct Captain
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
3 Tithe Drinker
3 Vizkopa Guildmage

//Sideboard
3 Brave the Elements
3 Blind Obedience
3 Glare of Heresy
3 Solemn Offering
3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

Display deck statistics

My only big question is whether or not it would be worthwhile to squeeze Boros Reckoner in here somewhere.

Mikujin posted:

Easy to put this all together with what I've got kicking around, here's RDW from Owen Turtenwald with a couple minor tweaks:
Deck: Red Deck Wins

Thoughts?

E: Alternatively, could drop down to 2 x Phoenix in favor of the Hammer, and keep the Mutavaults in. Post-wrath Vaults can get some work done without relying on topdecking burn just to get them back in play, and it's removing another card equally high on curve.

Coucho Marx posted:

I tried it, but you may as well play Pharika's Cure, it'll still die to anything and only give you two life most of the time. I swapped it with High Priest of Penance and was pretty happy, mono-red has no choice but to swing into or burn him, and either will trigger his destroy ability. You can 2-for-1 by blocking an X/1 as well, and his trigger kills any nonland permanent so he's still totally relevant all the time. Blind Obedience is a legit sideboard card that completely hoses the Hammer, and Extort is really relevant against aggro if you have the spare mana, so the two of them and you're on your way.

oryx posted:

I hate to be a downer, but it seems like you basically side-boarded with his deck? Did you make any changes to the sideboard?

I'd guess the reason that Hammer's in the sideboard is that it can actually can be a bit tempo hit against you. Let's look at the situation where this is good: you've got either the mana to cast the hammer and activate it with spare untapped lands, or enough mana to cast it and a second card that's cheap enough to cast. This is a pretty rosy situation, but having 4-7 mana and extra land/cards is not exactly this decks ideal "plan"; it wants to win in as few turns as possible before a sufficient defense can be mounted. The longer this deck lets the opponent to live, unless its a mirror match, the better their odds at winning. Obviously, if you're at three mana or less, this card just sucks; you're doing nothing to your board state for a turn or its sitting in your hand.

So my reasoning on this card is that it just doesn't fit what the deck wants to do out of the gates, and I'd probably side it in when I am going to be forced into a game that is going to go longer than I want/can't kill with my first 10 cards. I'd also be hesitant to ditch the fourth mutavault or phoenix, since they're pretty key members of the team. I'd consider trimming a mountain before a mutavault TBH.

Mikujin posted:

It is just a sideboard swap right now from his list, I'll tune my own board to my meta as needed.

While I'm aware the plan for RDW is to go for the throat, I don't ever see Hammer as the play you're making on T3. As has been stated by others, it's your drop when you've played everything else, and that's fine - if it was another creature (barring Phoenix) it wouldn't be swinging immediately anyways. Bonus points are that every topdeck you make from here on out is gas: pull a creature? It has haste, drop it and swing! Pull a land? It's now a 3/3 creature with haste, drop it and swing! It's not your on curve play (drop another CMC1 and CMC2 guy, or a Phoenix, or a dude and a damage spell), but the ability to turn your whole deck (save the other hammer) into gas seems absolutely amazing in a deck whose biggest priority is getting the other guy to 0 without caring what life total he's sitting at.

oryx posted:

Yes, Hammer might steal you a few games that you wouldn't have normally won, but how many might it lose you that a mutavault and a chandra's phoenix would have won? Or they could just stabilize, or you could take so long getting it going that your opponent renders 3/3s irrelevant.

oryx posted:

The fact that you'd never play it turn three is exactly why it's in the sideboard.

If you had a hand that was: mountain, mountain, mutavault, lighting strike, firedrinker satyr, gore-house chainwalker, would you want your seventh card to be the hammer? Would you rather it be your tenth card? Outside of mana flood, I can't think of many scenarios where I'd rather have the hammer than pretty much any card in the deck.

Yes, Hammer might steal you a few games that you wouldn't have normally won, but how many might it lose you that a mutavault and a chandra's phoenix would have won? Or they could just stabilize, or you could take so long getting it going that your opponent renders 3/3s irrelevant.

I mean you basically just said that you'd play this when you'd have literally nothing else to do. This is pretty much the last thing you want to say about a card in your starting sixty cards. You're essentially conceding that this deck's game plan is not going to work by you're hedging your bets.

If you playtest this deck and find you really just want the hammer, then this deck's going to need some significant changes (like more 3/4/5 drops to capitalize on the haste and more lands, purphoros maybe to take advantage of all the hasty creatures and the high devotion to red).

Jabor posted:

I don't see going to five-drops as a good plan (the five drops that are good plays for a RDW-style deck have haste already). But extending the curve to four seems good - Fanatic has four power, and he comes with a free bolt to the face with the hammer out.

I don't know why you'd run Purphoros though, his abilities don't seem to synergize with hasty dudes at all, and his activated ability takes mana that you'd want to make golems with instead.

Mikujin posted:

I think Fanatic wants to be in a more stompy deck, running stuff like Reckoners. Topping out a 4 in a deck that wants excess mana to power mutavaults and/or turn into golems seems a bit too pricey.

Eikre posted:

Scourgemark: The idea was to get devotion out of a cantrip, not activate Heroic. It is... not a very extraordinary card, either way. Switching Spectre for the Agent is almost certainly the right call, of course.

Zoness posted:

A 3/3 is at least as good as 2 2/2's when swinging up against a Jace +1.

quote:

I don't know why you'd run Purphoros though, his abilities don't seem to synergize with hasty dudes at all, and his activated ability takes mana that you'd want to make golems with instead.