Magic: The Gathering C/D

Jopkeloops is my name - don't have anything but RTR cards at the moment though

i'm doing some Gatecrash drafts, went 2-1 with Boros and 2-0-split with Orzhov (had to eat dinner), was not really satisfied with my deck either time.

For Boros I know this sounds obvious but you really just need a lot of creatures. I had 14 + a Keyrune and it didnt' feel like near enough. Also cheap removal is really, really key because you just need to get a few attacks through.

As for Orzhov, holy cow is Extort a powerful mechanic, at the expense of nearly all your creatures being tiny. So again, removal is real key, as is stuff like Smite (which is awful vs. Dimir by the way). If you have the Guildmage, know that you can activate his second ability twice and deal double damage when you gain life. Also, Syndic of Tithes is definitely my favorite common, because 1) it's really powerful, 2) the name sounds like "Syndic of Titties", and 3) the art makes looks like he's delivering a pizza. A+ card all around/

that 1/4 extort wall also key

no kidding...I had a dude drop 5 extort dudes by turn 4 (Thrull Parasite, the 1/2 flyer, then the wall, then on turn 4 a Syndic and another flyer) - either the most insane deck I've seen thus far or the most insane draw. either way it's neat to see a limited deck that wins while doing almost no combat damage

oh yeah and Hands of Binding is really, really good. even better than it looks.

haven't drafted much yet but release sealeds are up today so i'm gonna start playing lots of those

i 4-0ed a standard daily last night with this obscene deck:

4 champion of the parish
4 boros elite
4 experiment one
4 ash zealot
4 burning-tree emissary
4 flinthoof boar
4 lightning mauler
1 skarrg guildmage
2 frontline medic

4 ghor-clan rampager
4 boros charm

4 cavern of souls
4 temple garden
4 sacred foundry
4 stomping ground
3 rootbound crag
2 clifftop retreat

this deck is super fun and any game where you get a good draw you will feel like you are cheating. burning-tree emissary is way way way stronger than it looks, it's actually the best card in beatdown decks right now. the first time you chain it into a lightning mauler on turn 2 is a pretty 'holy shit' moment.

boros reckoner is also incredibly good and seems enough better than frontline medic to play despite the anti-synergy with champion and cavern, so i'm going to try to fit those in on my next run with the deck.

damn - it's been a while since i've seen a deck that stacked with creatures. guess you gotta fear the miracle Terminus but I'm glad decks like this exist given how many people are playing ridiculous 5-c Thragtusk decks. This looks a lot like Modern Zoo really (at least, from what I know of it). I'm sure that the Emmissary is nuts - I loved Priest of Gix in its day but the deck never quite fit.

xpost

I like this! Now you have me wondering if I should swap out Arbor Elf and Strangleroot Geist in my deck for Burning-Tree Emissary and Lightning Mauler. How are you finding Experiment One in this deck? I like how it interacts with the Geist.

i dunno if I'd cut Geist for anything - that's gotta be one of the top 3 green cards in the format. do you find the Zealot's abilities to be relevant?

yeah i have the deck saved as 'human zoo' which is basically what it is

i also have a domri rade list ready to go as soon as the release sealeds drop his price down to reasonable levels. saw some people playing him yesterday and the interaction between him and boros reckoner is really sick.

my deck can't play strangleroot because it's not a human and green is the tertiary color in the deck, so i'd never be able to cast it. i have boros charm as my wrath protection instead.

experiment one is the weakest of the one-drops but you really need more than 8 in a deck like this, and it's usually a 2/2 for G which is fine.

good point, i hadn't worked out what colors go where

is Boros Charm playing as well as I think it is?

well i don't know how good you think it is but it's played fine. not the best card in the deck and sometimes i have a cavern hand and can't cast it but it's important to have.

what decks did you play against?

i mean, how often did you not use it at a source of 4 damage

i think i only used it for damage in that daily but the indestructible mode is super powerful, it just didn't come up.

i played vs 2 blue control decks (both esper i think?), jund midrange, and GWB reanimator. bad matchups for this deck are any deck that can turn 3 a huntmaster, that's about it really. UWR snapcaster decks might be tough too, haven't played one yet.

Thragtusk seems pretty bad too

it's too slow unless they have a huntmaster or centaur healer on the way up to it

i'll take your word for it. may build this deck since most of the cards are cheap outside of Caverns, and I think I already have most of the shocks already from the last Rav block. I'm really not much of an aggro player but this format really makes me want to give it a shot.

What do you think about Skullcrack in the SB? It's sort of a 1R deal 8 vs. Tusk but I'm not sure how useful it is otherwise

blunts Sphinx's Revelation too

Just noticed Experiment One's creature type this weekend. Damn that's creepy.

as far as design that's one of my favorites in the set. I really like the way they did Evolve.

if you want something non-aggro i've got a reanimator deck with griselbrand and borborygmos that seems pretty good. if you stick a griselbrand and aren't in immediate danger of dying you can draw into the borby kill pretty easily. plus borby is fine on his own as a 7/6 trample that mulches and turns half your deck into free lightning bolts and doesn't die to ultimate price or damage based removal

i don't think i like skullcrack, the decks it's good against are mostly ones where you want boros charms already and i don't want to dilute the deck with a bunch of non-creature spells. frontline medic handles revelations and thragtusks well enough. i might try it at some point anyway because i like playing a different sideboard every event just to get experience/knowledge

I'm extremely tempted to try out this strategy at my next draft:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/woo-brews-drafting-5c-control/

Unfortunately, my LGS is determined to do chaos drafts instead of GTC, so it may be a while before I can make this happen.

idk his deck requires getting lucky w/ the amount of green fixing stuff you see and the 'bombs' aren't even that good

like I have played 2c decks w/ a better selection of bombs and spells

maybe I'm not good at drafting this set right now but I wasn't really happy with any of the 3 draft decks I got. both had 18-19 solid cards and some real filler. Boros and Simic really want a LOT of creatures but I just wasn't getting them. what I can say about this strategy is that only one of the five guilds is really aggressive so you do have time to build, that said I'm not sure the big drops in this set are going to help when you're staring down three extort dudes on turn 7 or getting slowly milled out

i keep getting sealed pools with no good 2-drops or 3-drops

i don't even know what to do in that situation, do i play all the bad ones just to have a real curve or do i play mono-4-drops and hope i don't get tempoed out

play all the bad ones

esp since you see a lot of boros in sealed

idk his deck requires getting lucky w/ the amount of green fixing stuff you see and the 'bombs' aren't even that good

― iatee, Tuesday, February 12, 2013 9:52 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Greenside Watcher and Verdant Haven have been widely available in the drafts I've done, the guildgates less so. You probably need to value guildgates higher than most other cards. To me, those are the key cards to make a 5 color strategy work. The bombs will vary based on what you open or get passed, I'm not convinced you need to grab the specific ones he mentioned.

it's more that the payoff isn't worth the trouble - greenside isn't even ramp unless you happen to get lucky w/ both getting and drawing gates.

holy shit boros reckoner is 25 bucks

I do believe a Simic/Dimir mana ramp strategy would work really well on its own. Simic and Orzhov both seem to be able to use all the mana they get and Dimir has some interesting long game stuff.

i'd say sell high on them right now if you have them, but the pro tour hasn't even happened yet and that usually gives a price bump to all the new standard all-stars, of which that card is certainly one.

its really rare for a Standard non-mythic to even top $15 so yeah that is quite ridiculous. that said I really love that card, particularly its amusing synergy with Pit Fight :)

if by pit fight you mean domri rade, that is what i will be attempting to do in standard this season

reckoner also plays really nice in UWR tempo which is significant because there are a bunch of pro tour level players who i just can't imagine ever picking up a green creature-based beatdown deck no matter how good it is

hmmm yes that would work too

i had to play against that card in a draft and it's one of the most obnoxious things to play against

i would like to know how strong your non-boros cards have to be for it to be correct to not play boros in sealed

i've gotten several pools with no playable boros deck

sure, but that's not really what i mean. it's more pools where you have a playable but mediocre boros pool and a stronger simic or w/e pool - is it still 'correct' to just jam the legion? that's what i've been doing and it's working out but i feel like im just giving in to some lazy thinking

the trick is to not play sealed

i love sealed...

i think it depends on the curve of the mediocre boros deck - also a lot of players tend to be bad at playing vs fast aggro decks, especially in an unfamiliar limited format, so you get some extra equity from that by just jamming boros.

that said i'd always go with what looks more powerful in a vacuum, at this point in the set lifecycle i want to be playing as many different cards as possible

also i think boros probably sucks in a good draft pod though i haven't drafted enough to confirm this

also if you have a chance take a look at the top 8 draft decks from the limited GP last weekend, it's pretty funny - there's one guy who forced simic and got a good deck and won the tournament, and the other 7 decks all look unplayable, like everyone was fighting over the same few cards

yeah I'm always surprised at how bad tournament winning limited decks look, but it makes sense

While it's good to try different strategies, playing to your play style is underrated. At GP Kansas City, I had a sealed control deck my friends all thought was insane, 3 Control Magic effects and some other bombs, but I found the deck hard to build and play because I'm much more used to aggro and midrange.

There's also a good chance Boros is just the best guild!

i think aggro is usually correct the first few weeks of a format but people really seem to adjust quick. I remember when RTR started, Rakdos always seemed like a cheap and easy way to victory, nowadays I have trouble going even 2-1 with it. nobody seems to have trouble vs. a turn 2 Chainwalker anymore.

cider are you doing those 4 tix phantom events? there's only 6 packs of prizes for 32 tix in entry fees, but I think if you're good you average out a pack or better per tournament. which means that you really only lose like one ticket or less per event which is really not bad for a couple hours of entertainment

i tried forcing boros in a draft last week and it was definitely not the best decision but i have yet to feel bad about just jamming as many two drops into my sealed deck as i can and letting people beat themselves, essentially

@frog - the released sealed queues are really good value and p soft - i went 12-2 in four sealeds last night (and got a bunch of qps as well - i have a realistic shot of hitting 35 this season)