Esper Goryos looking very nice. I do wonder if the green splash is worth it, though. Last time I saw that deck, it had a pretty hard time hardcasting Obzedat when needed; getting double white is pretty hard. Further diluting the manabase seems like it would relegate him to Goryo's fodder only.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT11| Amonkhet - Have you ever had decks with a Pharaoh?
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
- Start date
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Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I'm 3-0 going into the last round with UR but barely anyone showed up because the weather's too good.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
Won standard showdown
3-0 temur marvel. Deck is gross.
Sandwurms win every time
Got this
Nice!
Won standard showdown
3-0 temur marvel. Deck is gross.
Sandwurms win every time
Got this
Sweet! I got a Last Hope during the Kaladesh Standard Showdown.
Debating whether to go to the Showdown tomorrow or play Arms. That game's really good, but 60 still feels like a lot for it.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Won my event going 3-1, 2 Packs. Blossoming Marsh and a Foil Mindwrack Demon, the other pack was trash.
Speaking of the wurms, we're hosting a Legacy tourney here in Seattle today and there's a sandwurm convergence enchantress deck on cam right now. 
https://www.twitch.tv/cardkingdom
https://www.twitch.tv/cardkingdom
ARMS is fucking amazing!
(edit: sorry, wrong deck)
This is what I was on in the end, yeah I added the Hubs and I don't own more than one Ulamog. Every game was WURMS. Card is legit good. If they can't stop your 5/5s it's inevitability at work.
I left the store thinking
WHENS MAHVEL
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The thing is, at least Sandwurm Convergence is a card that can be answered.
True. I just love that with Marvel out even if Wurms die somehow I still get energy.
Black Zombies.
Zombies has been hated out pretty hard by adaptations in both Marvel and UR Control. I'd probably shoot for an RG Energy build if you want a fairly straightforward deck. Marvel is the straight up best deck right now and UR control is arguably well positioned against it if you want to play the meta. (After playing the matchup a lot more this week- over 20 matches- I do think UR control is probably about 55 - 60% favored)
divisionbyzorro
Member
Badum tush
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I think the marvel matchup is pretty 50/50 for UR. Especially when they come in with hydras post board.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
either pummeler or midrange
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsan17/top-8-decklists-2017-05-21
One of them made top 8 in GP Santiago last week.
RG has been doing well online too. Two lists 5-0'd yesterdays competitive league: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper
It's incredibly fast, fairly resilient to the sweepers hitting zombies, and a real pain for control to deal with, since every creature outside the servant is pretty much a must answer threat and the pt ratios are such that harnessed lightning is a poor answer.
It does die to marvel landing a marvel and just immediately hitting ulamog. Deck has no hand disruption or countermagic and can only disrupt marvel after the fact. Manglehorns and pressure are your best bets. You do have the ability to give your threats hexproof a decent amount of the time, so it is conceivable a marvel deck low enough life simply loses after ulamog hits if you can save your threats and alpha the next turn.
Pre board marvel is definitely not favored, especially if UR control has mainboard summary dismissals. Post board, you're right, it does get better for Marvel, but the thing I wasn't realizing before is that control actually takes the aggressor role in the post sideboard games. You get all your dragonmasters, titis, sphinx- which is surprisingly good here counter wars aside as it can pressure them down if you're kept up the offense even once the Ulamogs hit, whatever, and you just pressure the hell out of them. Sticking a turn 2 titi- not that hard to do since they usually board down to 3 or 4 lightnings max- is very strong against them.
A lot of the lists seeing play right now still have the fairly balanced sideboard plans from the Pro tour and immediately after. I recommend cutting down to 2 sweepers and 3 sprays in favor of having summary dismissals and ceremonious rejections available now as marvels are so ubiquitous online that losing some ev in zombies is worth it.
It's incredibly fast, fairly resilient to the sweepers hitting zombies, and a real pain for control to deal with, since every creature outside the servant is pretty much a must answer threat and the pt ratios are such that harnessed lightning is a poor answer.
It does die to marvel landing a marvel and just immediately hitting ulamog. Deck has no hand disruption or countermagic and can only disrupt marvel after the fact. Manglehorns and pressure are your best bets. You do have the ability to give your threats hexproof a decent amount of the time, so it is conceivable a marvel deck low enough life simply loses after ulamog hits if you can save your threats and alpha the next turn.
Pre board marvel is definitely not favored, especially if UR control has mainboard summary dismissals. Post board, you're right, it does get better for Marvel, but the thing I wasn't realizing before is that control actually takes the aggressor role in the post sideboard games. You get all your dragonmasters, titis, sphinx- which is surprisingly good here counter wars aside as it can pressure them down if you're kept up the offense even once the Ulamogs hit, whatever, and you just pressure the hell out of them. Sticking a turn 2 titi- not that hard to do since they usually board down to 3 or 4 lightnings max- is very strong against them.
A lot of the lists seeing play right now still have the fairly balanced sideboard plans from the Pro tour and immediately after. I recommend cutting down to 2 sweepers and 3 sprays in favor of having summary dismissals and ceremonious rejections available now as marvels are so ubiquitous online that losing some ev in zombies is worth it.
Pummeler? That sounds fragile as hell. Although there's a pump spell that gives hexproof, right? I don't think I should be playing U/R control since I haven't played Standard in like three years, but looking at the list Santiako provided... that looks right up my alley. It's literally everything I ever wanted from U/R and it's competitive to boot!
Can you post a list for reference?
So there's two types of GR- one is the type that made the top 8:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/..._saezs_red-green_energy__grand_prix_santiago_
This is more midrangey with tireless tracker. Better quality cards, can grind a bit better, but not as explosive as the other type, which is the pummeler deck. Example list from a 5-0:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/657042#paper
It's more "all in", but it really should be noted just how lethal this thing is. I had a pummeler with 4 energy out and an opponent at 20 thanks to them spot removing my earlier threats. I drop servant of the conduit to get energy, they let the servant hit the field, then cast Kozilek's return with the energy on the stack. I cast rampage on the pummeler, activate it going down to 1 energy so it turns into a 10/6 and survives the return, then use the remaining 1 energy plus the 2 energy from the servant etb trigger after the return resolves to go up to 20/12 and kill my opponent from full on turn 4. (Admittedly it was probably a very poor judgment call to let me untap with pummeler in play) You're also not wholly reliant on the pummeler; Rhonas and cubs can get the job done just fine.
When the removal of choice for most of the format is magma spray and harnessed lightning, these GR decks present incredibly durable threats. I'm even considering running suns in the sideboard as there's a decent chance you can use it as a plague wind due to the higher toughness after getting some energy sunk in your creatures.
Re:UR control- this is the 5-0 competitive league run I had last week with it: (played against zombies, 2 mirror matches, mardu, and marvel, so it was a fairly representative meta run)
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/654704#paper
I've been testing some changes since then, namely cutting a land for an illumination and banking on the large number of cyclers and anticipates to prevent early drought as midgame flooding is one of the ways you lose the game. Commit // Memory is a bit of a pet card, but I'm not entirely convinced it's worth the slot. It is the only maindeck way to get an Ulamog, Marvel or God off the field once resolved, though, and manuevering yourself into a situation where you can flashback memory at the end of your opps turn with gearhulk when down on hand size is very powerful.
Also trying Kefnet for the control matchup. Still mixed on that one but it has promise.
I don't like either midrange or all-in goldfishing so I guess those are out.
I like the 3/3 split of Essence Scatter and Negate since that's what I used to run in U/R Swans control back in the day. I also like the idea of some copies of Illumination as Glimmer 5-x. My questions are: what are the Thing in the Ices and Sphinxes for in the sideboard? And how does it deal with Bristling Hydras? Seems like a nightmare. At least Gideon you can attack with a removal and manland.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
thing in the ice comes in a lot of matchups but the control mirror and it can even do work there. The 0/4 body blocks well, the bounce is a quasi wrath, they are a clock and opponents side out a lot of removal. Also it's important to diversify your win conditions against black decks as you might not be able to counter their disposess. Sphinx is for the mirror and spell heavy marvel.
Counter the Hydra or trade with a gearhulk.
^
Yup, basically what I was going to say.
Some other small things re:hydra- if your opponent is sloppy and plays the hydra with less than 3 energy, you can lightning it with its own energy on the stack. TiTs can also buy you a second chance to counter so long as you flip the Thing with mana and a counter up or do it when your opponent won't have a chance to cast it again before you untap.
Sphinx can also be good against any kind of marvel. Dodging Ulamog's exile means that, if you've managed their whirlers with scatters and applied a decent amount of pressure, you can actually just fly over finish them off while Ulamog gets in a hit or two.
When you're playing AGAINST the mirror post board, I sometimes leave/bring another dismissal in. It's the only effective way to deal with an opposing sphinx (it exiles, not counters) and sometimes you can get some value off countering an opponent's spell and thing in the ice trigger at the same time. (which also, conveniently, puts the spell out of the gy. Hitting glimmer this way is a non trivial edge, as it can no longer be gearhulked back.)
I like Kefnet a lot in the mirror on the play, where it can come in under countermagic. Not convinced it's better than just bringing in an extra TiTi yet, though, or just another pet card of mine. Other than bouncing your Kefnet with TiTi or commiting it, opposing UR decks have pretty much no way to deal with it once resolved.
Yup, basically what I was going to say.
Some other small things re:hydra- if your opponent is sloppy and plays the hydra with less than 3 energy, you can lightning it with its own energy on the stack. TiTs can also buy you a second chance to counter so long as you flip the Thing with mana and a counter up or do it when your opponent won't have a chance to cast it again before you untap.
Sphinx can also be good against any kind of marvel. Dodging Ulamog's exile means that, if you've managed their whirlers with scatters and applied a decent amount of pressure, you can actually just fly over finish them off while Ulamog gets in a hit or two.
When you're playing AGAINST the mirror post board, I sometimes leave/bring another dismissal in. It's the only effective way to deal with an opposing sphinx (it exiles, not counters) and sometimes you can get some value off countering an opponent's spell and thing in the ice trigger at the same time. (which also, conveniently, puts the spell out of the gy. Hitting glimmer this way is a non trivial edge, as it can no longer be gearhulked back.)
I like Kefnet a lot in the mirror on the play, where it can come in under countermagic. Not convinced it's better than just bringing in an extra TiTi yet, though, or just another pet card of mine. Other than bouncing your Kefnet with TiTi or commiting it, opposing UR decks have pretty much no way to deal with it once resolved.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Surprised to still see you on anticipates, even before adding illuminations that has always been the first card to be cut and adding up to 4 illuminations allows you to go down to 24 or 25 lands.
Summary Dismissal in the main is worth considering, Marvel really is the biggest matchup to tech against. I dislike commit to memory in the main, started with 2 but over time I've stopped siding in artifact removal and answers like commit for the marvel matchup. I'd rather have an additional counter instead and not even consider the scenarios of them resolving a marvel and whiffing.
My pet card for UR is a single Chandra in the main. Kefnet is great in the mirror as it also contests the sphinx in the air.
Summary Dismissal in the main is worth considering, Marvel really is the biggest matchup to tech against. I dislike commit to memory in the main, started with 2 but over time I've stopped siding in artifact removal and answers like commit for the marvel matchup. I'd rather have an additional counter instead and not even consider the scenarios of them resolving a marvel and whiffing.
My pet card for UR is a single Chandra in the main. Kefnet is great in the mirror as it also contests the sphinx in the air.
Was off the anticipates until I saw Jaberwocki bring them back in. Tried them and found the early game smoothing nice. They also make your Things in the Ice much better in sideboarded games.
Yeah I agree re:artifact removal- I think I'm ready to replace the release the gremlins in my current board with ceremonious rejection.
Yeah I agree re:artifact removal- I think I'm ready to replace the release the gremlins in my current board with ceremonious rejection.
Ya nothing special in the main. Trying a hazoret in the board for non white midrange/control decks. Only played it once when I was very far ahead. I can get my list up tomorrow night when im off my phone.
All 3 of us who drove down were on affinity and went 8-1, 7-2, and 6-3 so this deck obviously is still good lol.
Won Standard Showdown on Mono-B zombies. Beat Marvel (running Ulamog AND Kozilek), Mardu, some spicy madness/discard enabled brew.
Showdown packs were pretty garbage out of everyone that opened in the store. I pulled 2 foil Amonkhet islands (sweet), and a foil Fevered Visions. Everything else was garbage from my 3 packs. Same went for the 6 packs of Amonkhet I won too.
Still though--feels nice to be this new to the game and win a Showdown. Few dudes built decks specifically to win the Showdown packs.
Showdown packs were pretty garbage out of everyone that opened in the store. I pulled 2 foil Amonkhet islands (sweet), and a foil Fevered Visions. Everything else was garbage from my 3 packs. Same went for the 6 packs of Amonkhet I won too.
Still though--feels nice to be this new to the game and win a Showdown. Few dudes built decks specifically to win the Showdown packs.
Trying to give deck-building an attempt. Nothing to win tournaments or anything with but just some kitchen table magic with the wife and friends. Trying to stick to standard since I just got into magic with Amonkhet and feel more comfortable staying in recent sets if that makes sense. Got a question with an interaction though. Would Gideon's intervention stop damage caused by madcap's experiment? Basically just put a couple or one set of really strong Artifact creatures in the deck and get it out to the field with those two aforementioned cards.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I miss Lorwyn and I need the RB and RW combos of these lands in foil
The best swamps, islands and plains in the game
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I've come to dislike full art lands they are just out of place in conjunction with nonbasics.
Edit: First aftermath card on camera in modern ever? Rubble in dredge is some sweet tech.
Edit: First aftermath card on camera in modern ever? Rubble in dredge is some sweet tech.
TiTi is Thing in the Ice?
Big Chandra, right? And is Commit to Memory useful to anything but Marvel? Zombies? Otherwise, yeah, I'd rather have more counterspells to stop Marvel from resolving. What other threats do I need to look out for post sb in the Marvel matchup?
Thanks for the answers, guys!
Yup, Thing in the Ice.
Marvel runs tireless tracker and occasionally hydra out of the board. Commit is useful as a catch all answer to any non creature permanent that slipped through your countermagic. You can also occassionally sculpt a gameplan off memory if you fall noticeably behind in the CA war. It's the most powerful part of the card, but it doesn't come up frequently. You could probably cut commit if you felt like it as it is a bit clunky. I just like it.
Marvel runs tireless tracker and occasionally hydra out of the board. Commit is useful as a catch all answer to any non creature permanent that slipped through your countermagic. You can also occassionally sculpt a gameplan off memory if you fall noticeably behind in the CA war. It's the most powerful part of the card, but it doesn't come up frequently. You could probably cut commit if you felt like it as it is a bit clunky. I just like it.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Yeah Chandra Flamecaller. You'll be able to find use for Commit in any matchup I just don't think it's good enough to be in the maindeck. You'll have to take a guess after game 1 whether they are spell or creature marvel to know what threats to look out for, spell marvel just board into a bunch of counterspells and sphinx, creature marvel gets hydras and tireless trackers possibly more whirler virtuosos. There's also hybrids so it's pretty tough to gauge. Heck I got Dispossessed by a Temur Marvel.
It's a real pain not knowing how marvel will sideboard. If you cut all sweltering suns and they come with their go wide strategy you're SOL, and vice versa if they board into all counterspells.
Gearhulk Memory is definitely the highlight of Commit but it earns a spot in the sideboard for dealing with PWs, Gods and such after they resolved as well as being great in the mirror. I've flashbacked Commit before.
Have you tried out Brutal Expulsion? It's absolutely backbreaking for Zombies and other Scrapheap Scrounger decks. While the metagame has shifted unfavourably for Zombies troublesome midrange decks appear to become more popular.
I was unimpressed with brutal expulsion in the past but did try it out against zombies and, yeah, that's just the single most brutal spell you can drop on them. Especially since you can flash it back too. However, I've found the zombies matchups less frequent and frankly easier with a decent number of suns and sprays main, so I took it out of my board despite it overperforming in that specific matchup.
For Marvel, I've been on 1 - 2 Suns + a Release the Gremlins post board. While release can catch a marvel in a emergency, it can also function as a pseudo sweeper vs whirler. Suns isn't too horrible to have dead, given the cycling.
For Marvel, I've been on 1 - 2 Suns + a Release the Gremlins post board. While release can catch a marvel in a emergency, it can also function as a pseudo sweeper vs whirler. Suns isn't too horrible to have dead, given the cycling.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
How's your buddy doing btw?
Release the Gremlins funnily is pretty good in the mirror.
Release the Gremlins funnily is pretty good in the mirror.
He couldn't make day 2, sadly, but managed to get enough points for his two byes next season so he's happy. Gonna make use of them in Amsterdam next week!
I'm still torn on which Marvel version to play and currently leaning, despite popular opinion, to go with Servants over Censor. It feels better to play for me and it offers some great value postboard, because it makes Manglehorn even better in the mirror. It also gives me access to Torch of Defiance in the mirror and against control, which is way better threat in those matchups. I feel like resolving a CToD against UR can be huge. Her -3 is able to take care of both Thing and Dragonmaster Outcast easily. Also playing a Tracker on turn 3 on the play with a Clue just feels like cheating.
I'm still torn on which Marvel version to play and currently leaning, despite popular opinion, to go with Servants over Censor. It feels better to play for me and it offers some great value postboard, because it makes Manglehorn even better in the mirror. It also gives me access to Torch of Defiance in the mirror and against control, which is way better threat in those matchups. I feel like resolving a CToD against UR can be huge. Her -3 is able to take care of both Thing and Dragonmaster Outcast easily. Also playing a Tracker on turn 3 on the play with a Clue just feels like cheating.
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