What are your thoughts on Hell's Thunder? It seems like it should have a good place in this deck, and it is reasonably strong against typical blockers such as Wall of Omens, Sprouting Thrinax, the Kor Firewalker.
The rules glitch brough up by Bringer of the Red Dawn in the Jhoira deck is interesting. Does this mean I can use Bosh, Iron Golem as my Commander?? Or at least include him in my Karn deck?
No Jilt in the UR build? I always thought it was very versatile, can bounce your creatures back, do damage to theirs, etc. etc. Just not enough room or is it no good?
I ran a couple of games with this build after reading this article and the deck is just... awesome :D, it can win out of nowhere and there's no real bad matchup.
Thanks!
Fetchlands are not there because of the most played matchup you'll find. Ive recently put some people playing this deck and all of the ask about the fetchlands. And after the explanation and a couple of games they understand. The credit goes a lot to Kaesh. The match up everyone expects is jund. Jund kills you fairly faster and besides de mirror matchup or mga eldrazi green is the deck that can kill you faster. This is a burn deck but you want to make a land drop almost every turn to maximize your hand, so tinning the deck besides making an almost inexistent purpose since its under 1% its not a good point. Searing blaze is the most debated argument, but if you think about it, what cards you want to use Searing blaze against? If at your second turn you didnt play anything and you want to try to burn out a putrid leech you're already behind. Most of the cards you want to burn happen in your turn, using Hellspark Elemental or Ball Lightning to burn trough Wall of Omens and Thrinax making them block and using Searing Blaze before dmg to pass the full trample. The mirror match is very good because of the fetches. Its the same reason why I take out goblin guide in the mirror match, denying resources is the way to win and if they break a couple or 3 fetches since they play 8 , they are already a lightning bolt behind. And against jund since its a race, I've won many games at 1 3 life especially because you know what they can do and you can play your deck accordingly. If you expect a land from the top and you have to pay 1 life to use sometimes that not enough.
I've got a grixis style deck running 4x bushwacker, 4x mulldrifter, 4x each the land fetchers, 4x Bolt, other removal etc. So far it has done nicely in casual. Anything like this showing up in the queues, or challenges?
I should note I mean the landcyclers from alara block. (I know they seem subpar but being able to fix mana for this deck is great and with Exhume the hasty guys can finish the game by themselves.)
I'm not a pro by any means, but I'd expect fetches could POSSIBLY improve matchups against control, but it may weaken some aggro matchups. Red burn is ALWAYS a race, and when you're dealing damage to yourself... Well, imagine a real race. It's like slowing down on purpose.
However, thinning is always a good thing, so the 1 damage may be negligible if you draw into spells. (Continuing with the race analogy, it'd be like slowing down a bit to go into sprint mode.)
I think that boils down to expectations. You might play it differently if you expecting summons, and kargans. Knowing what your op is playing certainly improves grixis vs this a lot. Since it is the control.
Yeah if your cmcs are higher it goes to show in a performance type of deck (kill quickly as opposed to hope for a late kill at some nebulous future time) you need fixing and a high land count. I'd love to see your take the decks Gavin built. The 59 land deck in particular was pretty gruesome but some of the decks performed much better than they looked on paper.
It is an interesting thing to note that the Unified formats tend to be WotC's strong point. Do you think that was on purpose to see how well the community can work together? Last year the guys were really active on MODO and got us all excited about it and played lots of practice games with us. This year none of that seemed to have happened and yet the results were similar with Joe Hill pulling out an edge case win to secure our victory. (Last October/November it was Bubba's multiball efforts that won the day because the constructed formats were so crushing.)
I wish I could build the Zur's deck but it has enough cards I don't that this will take a bit of time. On the other hand there could be some cards which get replaced with lesser effects for a similar idea. And I would have to do my own version anyway just because. I might have to get a copy of him for that purpose.
Good stuff Andrea, I wrote a article about the Cruel Control build you covered and took it in TP room and in 2 man queues don't know when that will be posted. But I kinda want to take this build too in the same way and write about how it plays out more competitively and in practice mode trying to prepare for events. Keep up the good work.
I disagree with the Grixis is almost a bye, I find it pretty easy to deal with burn by burning and terminating their creatures and laying in some Blightnings to get them Top decking after that it's just chump blocking and attacking with manland till you hit the Cruel Ultimatium making it gg.
There are lots of great Legacy pauper cards but I am afraid to say my two favorites are rares. Karmic Guide + Deranged Hermit. I miss my foiled signed hermits and custom squirrel tokens. :/
Terrible terrible punnage (Artist drawing? Ouch.) But this definitely ranks up there with ways to make your opponent cry. So many spikes hate the idea of drawing so much it is almost like winning just to see the response.
Has any of the goblins you've beaten in the queues sided in gorilla shaman - I have memories I played against a similar uw blink list and I just omnomnomed its lands and beat it without too much sweat :)
One more card I should mention from Legacy: Snap. It's a 1U Unsummon that lets you untap two lands. It's actually very good and might even make it into certain decks.
The deck is definitely decent with a budget build and gets even better if you feel like investing money for the fetch lands. Since most of the deck is common rarity and my brother has been bugging me to build him something for MTGO, I've built him this deck and he and I have been slugging it out with against other Zen Block decks like Vampires and Eldrazi which I've been playing. While I'm not currently as up to date on the pauper formats as I am in Standard and Zen Block, this deck may be able to compete and will be decent for at least casual pauper matches with very few modifications. I also believe it will be a strong contender going into the next standard season when ALA block rotates and even in the new extended format.
ill gree on your tier one additons like 5cc and Bant. The restt will be tier 2 at best. Not to mention I think Swans is illegal, Eh not illegal but only playable til october. Sadly i have no faith in the community. Though with PT:Amsterdam there will be plenty of options for them to netdeck. Not saying its bad, they just arent creative.
I think you are right in a way. I think 5 color control will be just as big as Jund or Faeries, and Bant should find a way into Tier 1 also. Hovering below those I can see RDW, Kithkin, Elves, Doran, Naya, Merfolk, Swans,Scapeshift, BW Tokens (Bitterblossom+Eldrai Monument sounds nice) all making a big splash when the metagame is right. I think a lot of decks will be viable, just depends on breaking them out at the right time.
It featres Hells Thunder , at least I see it in the list.
A cascading wall of great information...well done.
Great job, awesome read. Those witches look quite deluxe...hmmm
What are your thoughts on Hell's Thunder? It seems like it should have a good place in this deck, and it is reasonably strong against typical blockers such as Wall of Omens, Sprouting Thrinax, the Kor Firewalker.
The rules glitch brough up by Bringer of the Red Dawn in the Jhoira deck is interesting. Does this mean I can use Bosh, Iron Golem as my Commander?? Or at least include him in my Karn deck?
No Jilt in the UR build? I always thought it was very versatile, can bounce your creatures back, do damage to theirs, etc. etc. Just not enough room or is it no good?
I ran a couple of games with this build after reading this article and the deck is just... awesome :D, it can win out of nowhere and there's no real bad matchup.
Thanks!
Fetchlands are not there because of the most played matchup you'll find. Ive recently put some people playing this deck and all of the ask about the fetchlands. And after the explanation and a couple of games they understand. The credit goes a lot to Kaesh. The match up everyone expects is jund. Jund kills you fairly faster and besides de mirror matchup or mga eldrazi green is the deck that can kill you faster. This is a burn deck but you want to make a land drop almost every turn to maximize your hand, so tinning the deck besides making an almost inexistent purpose since its under 1% its not a good point. Searing blaze is the most debated argument, but if you think about it, what cards you want to use Searing blaze against? If at your second turn you didnt play anything and you want to try to burn out a putrid leech you're already behind. Most of the cards you want to burn happen in your turn, using Hellspark Elemental or Ball Lightning to burn trough Wall of Omens and Thrinax making them block and using Searing Blaze before dmg to pass the full trample. The mirror match is very good because of the fetches. Its the same reason why I take out goblin guide in the mirror match, denying resources is the way to win and if they break a couple or 3 fetches since they play 8 , they are already a lightning bolt behind. And against jund since its a race, I've won many games at 1 3 life especially because you know what they can do and you can play your deck accordingly. If you expect a land from the top and you have to pay 1 life to use sometimes that not enough.
I'd run fetches myself as well, just saying. :P
fetches are good since it thins out your deck, letting you find more burn and works great with searing blaze
Actually Id say it is akin to speeding your op up by shortening the length they need to go. :D
I've got a grixis style deck running 4x bushwacker, 4x mulldrifter, 4x each the land fetchers, 4x Bolt, other removal etc. So far it has done nicely in casual. Anything like this showing up in the queues, or challenges?
I should note I mean the landcyclers from alara block. (I know they seem subpar but being able to fix mana for this deck is great and with Exhume the hasty guys can finish the game by themselves.)
I'm not a pro by any means, but I'd expect fetches could POSSIBLY improve matchups against control, but it may weaken some aggro matchups. Red burn is ALWAYS a race, and when you're dealing damage to yourself... Well, imagine a real race. It's like slowing down on purpose.
However, thinning is always a good thing, so the 1 damage may be negligible if you draw into spells. (Continuing with the race analogy, it'd be like slowing down a bit to go into sprint mode.)
Would the inclusion of 8 fetchlands improve or weaken the deck ?
I think that boils down to expectations. You might play it differently if you expecting summons, and kargans. Knowing what your op is playing certainly improves grixis vs this a lot. Since it is the control.
Yeah if your cmcs are higher it goes to show in a performance type of deck (kill quickly as opposed to hope for a late kill at some nebulous future time) you need fixing and a high land count. I'd love to see your take the decks Gavin built. The 59 land deck in particular was pretty gruesome but some of the decks performed much better than they looked on paper.
It is an interesting thing to note that the Unified formats tend to be WotC's strong point. Do you think that was on purpose to see how well the community can work together? Last year the guys were really active on MODO and got us all excited about it and played lots of practice games with us. This year none of that seemed to have happened and yet the results were similar with Joe Hill pulling out an edge case win to secure our victory. (Last October/November it was Bubba's multiball efforts that won the day because the constructed formats were so crushing.)
I wish I could build the Zur's deck but it has enough cards I don't that this will take a bit of time. On the other hand there could be some cards which get replaced with lesser effects for a similar idea. And I would have to do my own version anyway just because. I might have to get a copy of him for that purpose.
Good stuff Andrea, I wrote a article about the Cruel Control build you covered and took it in TP room and in 2 man queues don't know when that will be posted. But I kinda want to take this build too in the same way and write about how it plays out more competitively and in practice mode trying to prepare for events. Keep up the good work.
I disagree with the Grixis is almost a bye, I find it pretty easy to deal with burn by burning and terminating their creatures and laying in some Blightnings to get them Top decking after that it's just chump blocking and attacking with manland till you hit the Cruel Ultimatium making it gg.
There are lots of great Legacy pauper cards but I am afraid to say my two favorites are rares. Karmic Guide + Deranged Hermit. I miss my foiled signed hermits and custom squirrel tokens. :/
Terrible terrible punnage (Artist drawing? Ouch.) But this definitely ranks up there with ways to make your opponent cry. So many spikes hate the idea of drawing so much it is almost like winning just to see the response.
Has any of the goblins you've beaten in the queues sided in gorilla shaman - I have memories I played against a similar uw blink list and I just omnomnomed its lands and beat it without too much sweat :)
One more card I should mention from Legacy: Snap. It's a 1U Unsummon that lets you untap two lands. It's actually very good and might even make it into certain decks.
EDIT: I'll fix the title
Epic. The other way to do it is with an infinite loop, such as Stuffy Doll targetting yourself and enchanted with Pariah.
The deck is definitely decent with a budget build and gets even better if you feel like investing money for the fetch lands. Since most of the deck is common rarity and my brother has been bugging me to build him something for MTGO, I've built him this deck and he and I have been slugging it out with against other Zen Block decks like Vampires and Eldrazi which I've been playing. While I'm not currently as up to date on the pauper formats as I am in Standard and Zen Block, this deck may be able to compete and will be decent for at least casual pauper matches with very few modifications. I also believe it will be a strong contender going into the next standard season when ALA block rotates and even in the new extended format.
ill gree on your tier one additons like 5cc and Bant. The restt will be tier 2 at best. Not to mention I think Swans is illegal, Eh not illegal but only playable til october. Sadly i have no faith in the community. Though with PT:Amsterdam there will be plenty of options for them to netdeck. Not saying its bad, they just arent creative.
I think you are right in a way. I think 5 color control will be just as big as Jund or Faeries, and Bant should find a way into Tier 1 also. Hovering below those I can see RDW, Kithkin, Elves, Doran, Naya, Merfolk, Swans,Scapeshift, BW Tokens (Bitterblossom+Eldrai Monument sounds nice) all making a big splash when the metagame is right. I think a lot of decks will be viable, just depends on breaking them out at the right time.