im going to say creatures that dodge all sorcery removal and dont take up deck slots are better than one point of life. That one life point is normally rather insignificant in the long run where as a 4/4 flyer that can never be wrathed/hundreds of other sorcery speed removal options can on occasion win the game by itself.
While certainly better than the Refuges, the WW duals aren't strictly better. They are strictly better than the Invasion uncommon duals, though. (As are the Refuges and the M10 duals)
I def expect golem & amulet would to be really effective. Golem as a good stax component and a good artifact creature (5/3 is pretty solid). Amulet would be a house with many cards and in many formats : vault as well but even with cheaper cards a la borderpost (potentialy a mox effect by bouncing a land into hand for 1), or root maze especialy if you get 2 amulets on the battlefield ... each land provides 2 mana while your opponent lands come into play tapped, a crazy tempo acceleration. Probably some specific decks to build around it.
Unfortunately just yesterday I did a big cleaning and deleted many .dec lists including that deck too. But as far as I remember, it was something like this:
In regasrds to the U/G storm deck, i don't feel that trading a full one to two turns of combo potential are worth the ability to have SOMETHING left if you do fizzle. normal storm combo can just wait until the turn before they are about to die to go off, and so set themselves up to almost never fizzle.
Relic is not a huge problem for me. against control, it is annoying because it shuts off Tourtured Existence, but if they are spending mana to deral with your graveyard, you will have enough creatures on board to just bash them. many people also crack the relic too early, and this allows you to restock your graveyard and continue to use it.
the removal is an issue as I was discussing above, but i'm not sure where i would fit it in. I could possibly move the festercreeps to the board, take out the Stinkies, and then run 3 removal spells maindeck? not entirely sure what i would run though...
It works the following way.
"Tap: Target player gains control of target artifact, creature, or land you control."
1. You tap Bazaar Trader and target a creature you control. In this case you target Baneslayer as you are the controller of the creature for one turn due to Mark of Mutiny.
2. You target yourself as player who gains control of target creature (it doesn't matter that you are already the controller).
3. You keep the Angel forever because the "gains control" clause on Bazaar Trader does not end at end of turn.
"Oh and you can even do some more silly things with him. Just cast Mark of Mutiny targeting that opposing Baneslayer Angel, attack with her and then use you Bazaar Trader to make her yours indefinitely! How awesome is this?!"
i already have an esper colored Immortal Coil deck using relic of progenitus and puca's mischief. I may have to give it a try in standard as well with bazaar trader.
Nice deck, though I also shudder at the fact of no removal. With seeing a few BG decks relic might be put in sideboard which is something to watch out for. This deck however is nicely built from the more dredgey versions I have encountered and would not even completely fold to relic. I also like the brownscales main deck as it really compliments the deck. It is hard to find room for removal though, but I am sure there is a way.
I am suprised to see no MBC, and only 1 UB control in the top8, and still having the presence of storm in top8.
Also I believe that the UG primarily based storm could be quite good enough to run. For mana you are trading twiddles and puppetry (1 blue mana) to get more mana then started with similar to a ritual with longer lasting effects, say a fizzled storm still leaves you with the enchants on board while "traditional" storm in your sense is one of the current top contenders. Land enchants have more of an initial investment, but also have longer lifetime then a ritual if needed. With some tweaks I am sure it could be decent, you meeting it in round 2 shows it did win once before at least. With peer through depths you get a semi-tutor effect that would really help out the deck. That is honestly all you really need, and splicing puppetry to slow down aggro decks is a plus. It would take some tweaking but I do think it is viable.
eldawg has ran storm with just UR ponders, peers, and lots of rituals before in extended, and with brainstorm and impulses in classic and done well before.
And traditionaly, original pauper combo decks were UG Freed combo, however they were disrupted way too easily cause they turned lands into 3/3 creatures via spellbomb to abuse infinite mana + consume or torch.
Also UG minds desire, though not common, is based off the land enchant principle that was mostly run off of commons and have done well in the past. It heavily fears LD though, but I am not too sure that the current storm decks would really favor ld either, seeing as they run 12 lands only. Also LD isn't currenlty in the metagame, but the UG based deck would be hated out easily if it ever did prove to contend. The tendrils of agony took over UG desire once people started working with that card instead of brain freeze and mind's desire, but then again, those are decks with rares in them also.
When Tempest was released online, wasteland definitly changed the face of eternal formats meta. This card is a *must to have*. period. If a player doesnt own them, legacy wont be the same format or he couldnt play a large variety of decks (very very few decks doent need them) without a significative loss of effiency.
About creatures, Dark confident would be a nice number 2. That said, as merfolk are too divided, i think that pridemage, hierarch or tombstalker could also compete.
Good article. I agree very much about Chain Reaction. You mentioned Wall of Denial, but I think it will also be good with Bloodghast or Kor Firewalker. Speaking of Firewalker, another way to get rid of it in monored, although a little awkward, is Unstable Footing plus Pyroclasm/Fallout/Earthquake/Chain Reaction.
Congrats on your win...I have been playing Dead Dog exclusively, and I really love it as well. It tickles both my control and combo impulses, yet in reality is a beatdown deck. There's such glee in watching your opponent virtually squirm because killing your creatures just makes them stronger.
I'm surprised you didn't face Goblins. Anyone playing Pauper ought to think twice about playing anything besides Goblins. Fortunately, Dead Dog beats Goblins. ;)
In the first match I would have kept open strands as you can slowly pressure him into going off(though riftwatcher would go away soon) and have answers for it in hand. But as they say, Hindsight 20/20.
Just curious but almost every match I see arrows being taken out. Knowing control and combo will be a big part of the field I would question using arrows. Against combo you have to lay early threats to deal damage, and then sit back, and against control which most runs few creatures except MBC and some teachings variants. Maybe for ninja/rat/teachings it would be nice but I do think the javs put more pressure earlier, which is what you said you want. Those might be better as Oblivion rings even, as the arrows and javs do not help incredibly against bigger creatures. I like the idea of running more removal though, but making sure you topdeck fast threats in response to answers is also a must, and is the reason the deck runs a ton of creatures to begin with.
I would only take out arrows for creatures main deck, and be able to side in more removal if needed, being arrows, oblivion ring, or whatever. Or I am just curious of when arrows actually paid out, or would hypothetically pay out to hold its spot in the deck secure. I have been debating the use of arrows for a long time, I can never end up convincing myself it is good enough to play it.
I was thinking for a while to make a ww -shade and actually go blue splash for mull and counters vs storm, basically being able to turn into a blue white control deck in sideboard, but it seems you didn't have too much trouble late game against decks, it was just the storm that got you.(and the fact it would slow down the deck, and lower your sb options which is a bad idea in most respects but I will be working on some sort of mix to test it out)
Also ranth in an article he wrote says that standard bearer seems to not work against grapeshot but I have not confirmed this at all and was wondering if it was just bugged in magic online or something.
If this is true, I would prolly just run relics sideboard in place of bearers, and maybe even 3 copies filling the arrows spot sb. It would have helped you against TE, however you won both without the help.
Hey Scartore, you and I are on the same page. AJImpy and I have been messing with my KaBoom deck that uses Leviathons. I would love to see your decklist so we could compare notes. Right now, I've had the deck for about 2 years, it's fun to play, but it very rarely wins or does anything productive. When it does win, it wins big, but on the other side, when it loses, it just gets stomped.
I run 5C all promo card deck in Commander. My commander is Sliver Queen, which is currently the only 5c promo card. It is a hilarious deck to play and I enjoy losing every time. I particularly enjoy watching my opponents complain about Sliver Queen and then wonder why I don't play any slivers. No one ever seems to notice the big promo symbol on any of my spells. Granted have 1 of each of the original duels, rav duels, M10 duels in the deck is the only way to make this monstrosity work. Give it a year, when we have more promos and maybe I can narrow this down to just three colors.
Yeah not sure what happened there. That wasn't in there last night when I previewed the article. I also noticed half a sentence missing at the end. Most of this is probably due to my writing the article in MSWord and then copy/pasting it into the article submission screen. Gonna have to watch for that in the future. And I could get the card links to work either.
I think people will build decks around Wrexial, at least in standard. It avoids a lot of typical removal spells (Doom Blade, burn, Bituminous Blast) and there are plenty of cards that have great synergy with it. Spreading Seas will make it unblockable, and Time Warp or Cruel Ultimatum means it will hit for 10 damage before your opponent gets another turn. There aren't many playable 6 casting cost creatures, but Wrexial is definitely one of them.
I've been playing with a Krakens based "KaBoom" deck that would love to have that Ula's quest in it. Krakens are a cast iron behemoth to actually, y'know... cast.
the cloak deck is a huge problem, and dead dog has problems with midrange decks as a whole, like B/W as well. Someone suggested Ghastly Demise, and while this doesn't deal with Guardian, it's still seems okay. my only problem with it would be actually getting enough creatures into the graveyard for it to do something, so i would want to run last gasp or some "No requirement removal" over it. any removal that is added, though, will harm the synergy of the deck, and so finding the balance is key.
Good stuff I always love to see the number break downs like this as far as how important each card is to the overall meta and its nice to have the price here too for easy access only change that could be made I'd agree is the color coding on the first one is a bit confusing
im going to say creatures that dodge all sorcery removal and dont take up deck slots are better than one point of life. That one life point is normally rather insignificant in the long run where as a 4/4 flyer that can never be wrathed/hundreds of other sorcery speed removal options can on occasion win the game by itself.
While certainly better than the Refuges, the WW duals aren't strictly better. They are strictly better than the Invasion uncommon duals, though. (As are the Refuges and the M10 duals)
Great scope of worldwake and enjoyable to read.
I def expect golem & amulet would to be really effective. Golem as a good stax component and a good artifact creature (5/3 is pretty solid). Amulet would be a house with many cards and in many formats : vault as well but even with cheaper cards a la borderpost (potentialy a mox effect by bouncing a land into hand for 1), or root maze especialy if you get 2 amulets on the battlefield ... each land provides 2 mana while your opponent lands come into play tapped, a crazy tempo acceleration. Probably some specific decks to build around it.
Unfortunately just yesterday I did a big cleaning and deleted many .dec lists including that deck too. But as far as I remember, it was something like this:
26 Lands
4x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4x Stomping Ground
5x Forest
13x Mountain
20 Creatures
4x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Oracle of Mul Daya
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Farhaven Elf
4x Wood Elves
14 Other Spells
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Harrow
3x Expedtion Map
3x Scapeshift
I'm sure that the creatures and other spells are correct but can't remember the lands.
Hope this helps.
LE
EDIT: There were a few Terramorphic Expanses but can't remember how many.
when specifically will the new set be released on MTGO?
In regasrds to the U/G storm deck, i don't feel that trading a full one to two turns of combo potential are worth the ability to have SOMETHING left if you do fizzle. normal storm combo can just wait until the turn before they are about to die to go off, and so set themselves up to almost never fizzle.
Relic is not a huge problem for me. against control, it is annoying because it shuts off Tourtured Existence, but if they are spending mana to deral with your graveyard, you will have enough creatures on board to just bash them. many people also crack the relic too early, and this allows you to restock your graveyard and continue to use it.
the removal is an issue as I was discussing above, but i'm not sure where i would fit it in. I could possibly move the festercreeps to the board, take out the Stinkies, and then run 3 removal spells maindeck? not entirely sure what i would run though...
It works the following way.
"Tap: Target player gains control of target artifact, creature, or land you control."
1. You tap Bazaar Trader and target a creature you control. In this case you target Baneslayer as you are the controller of the creature for one turn due to Mark of Mutiny.
2. You target yourself as player who gains control of target creature (it doesn't matter that you are already the controller).
3. You keep the Angel forever because the "gains control" clause on Bazaar Trader does not end at end of turn.
Hope that helps,
Marin aka Plejades
Maybe I'm an idiot, but how does the below work?
"Oh and you can even do some more silly things with him. Just cast Mark of Mutiny targeting that opposing Baneslayer Angel, attack with her and then use you Bazaar Trader to make her yours indefinitely! How awesome is this?!"
Love the colorful charts! I'd take the Chrome Mox at 10. Pull the trigger, baby!
You mentioned syncing your phone with the mtgo schedule? Is it an iphone? Can you give me a brief description of how I can set this up?
i already have an esper colored Immortal Coil deck using relic of progenitus and puca's mischief. I may have to give it a try in standard as well with bazaar trader.
Nice deck, though I also shudder at the fact of no removal. With seeing a few BG decks relic might be put in sideboard which is something to watch out for. This deck however is nicely built from the more dredgey versions I have encountered and would not even completely fold to relic. I also like the brownscales main deck as it really compliments the deck. It is hard to find room for removal though, but I am sure there is a way.
I am suprised to see no MBC, and only 1 UB control in the top8, and still having the presence of storm in top8.
Also I believe that the UG primarily based storm could be quite good enough to run. For mana you are trading twiddles and puppetry (1 blue mana) to get more mana then started with similar to a ritual with longer lasting effects, say a fizzled storm still leaves you with the enchants on board while "traditional" storm in your sense is one of the current top contenders. Land enchants have more of an initial investment, but also have longer lifetime then a ritual if needed. With some tweaks I am sure it could be decent, you meeting it in round 2 shows it did win once before at least. With peer through depths you get a semi-tutor effect that would really help out the deck. That is honestly all you really need, and splicing puppetry to slow down aggro decks is a plus. It would take some tweaking but I do think it is viable.
eldawg has ran storm with just UR ponders, peers, and lots of rituals before in extended, and with brainstorm and impulses in classic and done well before.
And traditionaly, original pauper combo decks were UG Freed combo, however they were disrupted way too easily cause they turned lands into 3/3 creatures via spellbomb to abuse infinite mana + consume or torch.
Also UG minds desire, though not common, is based off the land enchant principle that was mostly run off of commons and have done well in the past. It heavily fears LD though, but I am not too sure that the current storm decks would really favor ld either, seeing as they run 12 lands only. Also LD isn't currenlty in the metagame, but the UG based deck would be hated out easily if it ever did prove to contend. The tendrils of agony took over UG desire once people started working with that card instead of brain freeze and mind's desire, but then again, those are decks with rares in them also.
When Tempest was released online, wasteland definitly changed the face of eternal formats meta. This card is a *must to have*. period. If a player doesnt own them, legacy wont be the same format or he couldnt play a large variety of decks (very very few decks doent need them) without a significative loss of effiency.
About creatures, Dark confident would be a nice number 2. That said, as merfolk are too divided, i think that pridemage, hierarch or tombstalker could also compete.
Good article. I agree very much about Chain Reaction. You mentioned Wall of Denial, but I think it will also be good with Bloodghast or Kor Firewalker. Speaking of Firewalker, another way to get rid of it in monored, although a little awkward, is Unstable Footing plus Pyroclasm/Fallout/Earthquake/Chain Reaction.
Congrats on your win...I have been playing Dead Dog exclusively, and I really love it as well. It tickles both my control and combo impulses, yet in reality is a beatdown deck. There's such glee in watching your opponent virtually squirm because killing your creatures just makes them stronger.
I'm surprised you didn't face Goblins. Anyone playing Pauper ought to think twice about playing anything besides Goblins. Fortunately, Dead Dog beats Goblins. ;)
In the first match I would have kept open strands as you can slowly pressure him into going off(though riftwatcher would go away soon) and have answers for it in hand. But as they say, Hindsight 20/20.
Just curious but almost every match I see arrows being taken out. Knowing control and combo will be a big part of the field I would question using arrows. Against combo you have to lay early threats to deal damage, and then sit back, and against control which most runs few creatures except MBC and some teachings variants. Maybe for ninja/rat/teachings it would be nice but I do think the javs put more pressure earlier, which is what you said you want. Those might be better as Oblivion rings even, as the arrows and javs do not help incredibly against bigger creatures. I like the idea of running more removal though, but making sure you topdeck fast threats in response to answers is also a must, and is the reason the deck runs a ton of creatures to begin with.
I would only take out arrows for creatures main deck, and be able to side in more removal if needed, being arrows, oblivion ring, or whatever. Or I am just curious of when arrows actually paid out, or would hypothetically pay out to hold its spot in the deck secure. I have been debating the use of arrows for a long time, I can never end up convincing myself it is good enough to play it.
I was thinking for a while to make a ww -shade and actually go blue splash for mull and counters vs storm, basically being able to turn into a blue white control deck in sideboard, but it seems you didn't have too much trouble late game against decks, it was just the storm that got you.(and the fact it would slow down the deck, and lower your sb options which is a bad idea in most respects but I will be working on some sort of mix to test it out)
Also ranth in an article he wrote says that standard bearer seems to not work against grapeshot but I have not confirmed this at all and was wondering if it was just bugged in magic online or something.
If this is true, I would prolly just run relics sideboard in place of bearers, and maybe even 3 copies filling the arrows spot sb. It would have helped you against TE, however you won both without the help.
Nice writing, keep the good work up!
Hey Scartore, you and I are on the same page. AJImpy and I have been messing with my KaBoom deck that uses Leviathons. I would love to see your decklist so we could compare notes. Right now, I've had the deck for about 2 years, it's fun to play, but it very rarely wins or does anything productive. When it does win, it wins big, but on the other side, when it loses, it just gets stomped.
thats true. I keep toying with moving my goblins out of pauper but i love the reactions when opponents realize that i am playing with all commons
I run 5C all promo card deck in Commander. My commander is Sliver Queen, which is currently the only 5c promo card. It is a hilarious deck to play and I enjoy losing every time. I particularly enjoy watching my opponents complain about Sliver Queen and then wonder why I don't play any slivers. No one ever seems to notice the big promo symbol on any of my spells. Granted have 1 of each of the original duels, rav duels, M10 duels in the deck is the only way to make this monstrosity work. Give it a year, when we have more promos and maybe I can narrow this down to just three colors.
Not that goblins need any help, but they get Basilisk Collar which is simply amazing on a Sparksmith or Goblin Sharpshooter
Yeah not sure what happened there. That wasn't in there last night when I previewed the article. I also noticed half a sentence missing at the end. Most of this is probably due to my writing the article in MSWord and then copy/pasting it into the article submission screen. Gonna have to watch for that in the future. And I could get the card links to work either.
I think people will build decks around Wrexial, at least in standard. It avoids a lot of typical removal spells (Doom Blade, burn, Bituminous Blast) and there are plenty of cards that have great synergy with it. Spreading Seas will make it unblockable, and Time Warp or Cruel Ultimatum means it will hit for 10 damage before your opponent gets another turn. There aren't many playable 6 casting cost creatures, but Wrexial is definitely one of them.
I've been playing with a Krakens based "KaBoom" deck that would love to have that Ula's quest in it. Krakens are a cast iron behemoth to actually, y'know... cast.
the cloak deck is a huge problem, and dead dog has problems with midrange decks as a whole, like B/W as well. Someone suggested Ghastly Demise, and while this doesn't deal with Guardian, it's still seems okay. my only problem with it would be actually getting enough creatures into the graveyard for it to do something, so i would want to run last gasp or some "No requirement removal" over it. any removal that is added, though, will harm the synergy of the deck, and so finding the balance is key.
Good stuff I always love to see the number break downs like this as far as how important each card is to the overall meta and its nice to have the price here too for easy access only change that could be made I'd agree is the color coding on the first one is a bit confusing