Thank you for checking out my videos/article Michelle!
I personally don't fear any green or white based aggro deck enough to dedicate a large amount of sideboard space to combat them. Decks like boggles, white weenie, elves, stompy etc... They all get stalled out by Moment's Peace long enough that you should be able to find your combo and win and it's also why I play Mystical Teachings. Fog effects are your best friend against the aggro decks of the format and you already play 4 Moment's Peace in the main deck, but sometimes these aggro decks can just get a nut draw you can't handle because you didn't draw your fog cards early enough or didn't draw your combo early enough, but that should rarely happen. After further testing, I feel in your sideboard you just want more fog effects over removal and so I would recommend 1-2 copies of Tangle and I would at the very least take out Firebolt for one of them.
One thing Goblins, Red Deck Wins and even Boggles have going for them is their access to red mana and more importantly, Flaring Pain. That is also why Hydroblast is so crucial in the sideboard.
Thanks Arctic Ghost for this article on Murasa Tron. I learnt something new about Murasa Tron.
Have you ever fought the Murasa Tron vs Hexproof matchup? If so, which deck do you feel is favored in your experience? Are you considering altering your sideboard to handle Hexproof (because currently your sideboard has little relevant to the Hexproof matchup), or is this not a matchup you are particularly fearful about?
Nice podcast, I laughed out load at the discussion of Pulsemage Advocate :)
Sorry to disappoint all the Pulsemage Advocate fans, but the Leyline of the Void will not work with this card, because there must be 3 legal targets in the opponent's graveyard in order to activate it. (The Oracle Ruling clarifies that point).
As AJ said, your opponent will pick up this card, read it, put it down, pick it up again, read it once more, then conclude that the card is terrible and that victory is nigh!
Thanks Carl for your helpful answers. Much appreciated.
I am also interested to know:
1. Has your Green Moon deck ever faced the LIVING END matchup? I would imagine that it's a good matchup for you, because the Blood Moons would wreck them and they have no counters or discard to disrupt you. Also, post-board you can side out the Torpor Orbs and bring in the Trinispheres, so that they must pay 3 mana for the Living End spell, rather than cascading into it for free. I like how Trinisphere functions well against the cascade mechanic!
2. Has your Green Moon deck ever faced the DREDGE matchup? It seems from your sideboard that you do not seem to fear that matchup, because I see no graveyard hate in your board. Is it a hard match for Green Moon to win?
Not a problem. The answers are below. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.
1.) Torpor Orb is essentially a "pre-board" against the Chord/Resto/Melira/Anafenza/etc. Combo decks, which I've been pretty bad against. At GP: Detroit, I ran Orb in the board (with the Crumble to Dust in the main). When I put the Dust into the board post bannings, I originally played Damping Matrix in the main, which were very good against a lot of decks, but didn't really have the effect that I needed against Chord many times. So, I replaced those with Torpor Orb. Funny enough, in paper I have yet to play against the Chord decks since I made the change. I've played against it online still quite a bit, and it has worked out. I admit that it is a dead card against pretty much all the match ups you mentioned. The number works well with what I'm swapping in and out in various matches. It's possible a case could be made that Trinisphere main would be more useful main than the Orb.
2.) Honestly, it is a card that rarely comes out. I cut it against Bogles, and their primary threat usually can outgrow the Miracle. One copy comes out against the random UW control decks (I know a couple people who play in closer large events that are on the deck). Otherwise, I generally keep it against everything else.
3.) Ram-Gang frequently gets asked about, since it dies to bolt so easily. Ideally, I want a 3-drop, at least 3 power creature, and built in haste I find very useful. It's fairly common for T1 mana accelerator, T2 Ram-Gang, swing for 3 (or 4 with Exalted). The high number of haste creatures in the deck allows me to recover and get in damage post-sweepers. While I understand that Ram-Gang isn't the best creature printed, for what I am doing, it answers my needs. Through the years, this slot has fluctuated some. I used to run Hell's Thunder in that spot, and if I went back along the path where I chose to completely ignore blocking, it may be an option again.
4.) I've never felt at a disadvantage to Jund. Honestly, the last competitive match (PTQ, GPT, PPTQ, SCG, GP) I lost to Jund was at a PTQ the week before Bloodbraid Elf was banned. (Honestly, I ran BBE in my deck at the time as well, so the banning hit me too, and I still harbor ill feeling towards WotC for it.) With the recent uptick in Jund seeing play, I'm pretty happy.
5.) Best matchup: Tron and Scapeshift. I'm also very favored about the various Eldrazi builds I've played against, and Jund. Pre-Board, Affinity is tough game one. Post board, as long as I mulligan correctly, I don't think I can lose.
I have an extensive sideboarding guide that wrote up for the wife to use, and if you are interested it in, I would be more than happy to share it with you.
Again, Let me know if you have any other questions.
It was interesting to read about the background to the card Timbermare, I didn't know about that tribute.
Can I ask you five questions about your Green Moon deck?
1. Regarding Torpor Orb, since you run multiple copies main deck, how many times do you find that it is a dead card? Are you completely convinced that you need 3 copies main deck? Have you found yourself against matchups like Naya Burn, Bogles, Infect, Affinity etc at a major tournament, and asking yourself "What are these darn Torpor Orbs doing in my hand!"
2. Regarding the card Bonfire of the Damned, how often do you find yourself siding out that card post-board?
3. Are you convinced about the card Boggart-Ram Gang? It seems a little on the weak side to me. Are you considering other options for the 3-drop slot, or are you convinced already about the power of Boggart Ram Gang?
4. Regarding the Jund matchup, do you consider it to be favorable or unfavorable or roughly equal? In testing, how frequently do you actually manage to resolve the Blood Moon in light of the Jund player's heavy discard?
5. What do you consider to be your absolutely best matchup? Would it be Red-Green Tron?
Tribal with Modern seems pretty cool. The all (non-banned) Creatures are legal variant might be even better!
I think there is a lot less brokenness if you restrict the following to their own tribes:
Griselbrand
Kiki-Jiki
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Those three for sure. Other possible exceptions:
Protean Hulk
Worldspine Wurm
Restoration Angel/Deceiver Exarch
Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap
There are still plenty of other infinite combos to deal with and the graveyard decks could be really brutal without sideboards. It's obviously impossible to shut them all down, but knocking out a few of the pillars could open it up to a balanced enough meta?
Modern tribal with the Legacy card pool for on-tribe (or maybe any) creatures is certainly a valid thought with regards to balance, and, I would hope, not too complicated to grasp.
Not exactly, since Modern can also do broken stuff (especially in absence of sideboards), and there are many non-broken, non-Modern cards that would be missed in such format.
I don't think there is, and that is also the aspect of the idea that seems the most problematic to me. We would have to single out (probably through many events) every "problematic" card, which would really create a huge ban list. Which is not necessarilly a big problem, but it certainly is un-elegant.
Could be interesting, but 'all' is very difficult. Take ramp strategies: Cloudposts, Overgrown Battlements, Cabal Coffers, Tron, Eldrazi Lands, Elvish Archdruid/Priest of Titania, and that's just off the top of my head, without going into reanimation or combo. We'd need a massive banned list, or to ban archetypes. Is there a straightforward way to create such a format?
Talking about "unfair" strategies got me thinking: what about one Regular event being replaced with Regular where all combo, reanimation, ramp etc. strategies are watered down (via eliminating all of the best supporting cards) so you would have an environment of aggro, midrange, control and not-too-broken "other strategies" (basically the same as what Standard wants to accomplish, but with a much larger card pool). I think it would be fun once in a month especially for players who don't enjoy the broken aspect of Legacy Tribal so much (and there seems to be quite a few of them).
"Incidentally, I have to disagree with miha about the current Tribal Apocalypse meta being all about combo"
I didn't mean to imply that Tribal meta is all about combo*, and fighting combo is also not the reason why I would unban Lackey. I simply think Goblin Lackey is not as powerful as some of the other cards (some of them indeed being combo pieces) that are allowed, plus Tribal is a format that is very capable of dealing with a 1/1 creature on T1. Not so much with some other powerful cards which are consistently played by the most successful players. If Lackey was allowed, Goblins deck wouldn't be top 5 in terms of power IMO. Maybe they would be most played, but I have no problem with that.
*Though it has shifted to a state where it is significantly impacted by, let's say, decks that do "unfair" things. Those are not just combo decks - those are also Eldrazi decks, and Natural Order decks and various flavours of Reanimators, Cloudpost decks etc. They might not be dominating in terms of attendance, but if you look at the most successful players this year and what they are playing you will see that they are all mostly doing something that's consistently devastating and requires specific answers and that regular aggro and midrange decks just can't deal with. Only at 6th place of the leaderboard we find a player who is devoted to playing aggro decks, and he is accomplishing that with an extremely fast red builds that have some chance of racing top decks. If that isn't a sign of dominance of "unfair" strategies, I don't know what is. And unbanning Lackey wouldn't change that, so it's not proposed as a solution or anything. It just seems that he shouldn't be banned when so many more powerful and hard-to-deal-with cards are allowed.
As far as who would want to play against more Goblins decks: I guess all the players who now unsuccessfully play midrange and non-red aggro decks that have *no chance* against the current top decks. ML_Berlin plays a very solid white weenie deck and is in a top 8 but he literally loses like 95% of the time against me whenever we play, because he cant deal with Natural Order or some other broken card. Same probably holds true whenever he plays any other top 5 player and whatever powerful deck they are playing. So while unfair decks might not be dominating in terms of attendance they are very clearly dominating in terms of power level and success. And for a player who has ambitions to win those are the decks that are relevant.
In this context Lackey remaining banned doesn't have much sense to me. I also think times have changed and people would not complain about it nearly as much as they have in the past. Goblin Lackey decks are very interactive and more fun to play against than some of the current top decks.
But I of course understand if it remains banned. It is a polarizing card to say the least.
Of course, but those are linear decks which can sometimes (often?) be stopped in large part by a single card, in which case a poor matchup for Force of Will is tolerable. Even in that matchup Force can protect your hoser.
Force of will is terrible against aggressive decks like Goblins/Soldiers etc that don't try to squeeze a combo in. It is therefore a very risky include. There is no easy/good answer to this.
Doesn't seem like Drake is getting banned soon. The ban list for this quarter was empty.
Thank you for checking out my videos/article Michelle!
I personally don't fear any green or white based aggro deck enough to dedicate a large amount of sideboard space to combat them. Decks like boggles, white weenie, elves, stompy etc... They all get stalled out by Moment's Peace long enough that you should be able to find your combo and win and it's also why I play Mystical Teachings. Fog effects are your best friend against the aggro decks of the format and you already play 4 Moment's Peace in the main deck, but sometimes these aggro decks can just get a nut draw you can't handle because you didn't draw your fog cards early enough or didn't draw your combo early enough, but that should rarely happen. After further testing, I feel in your sideboard you just want more fog effects over removal and so I would recommend 1-2 copies of Tangle and I would at the very least take out Firebolt for one of them.
One thing Goblins, Red Deck Wins and even Boggles have going for them is their access to red mana and more importantly, Flaring Pain. That is also why Hydroblast is so crucial in the sideboard.
Ah oh well, It was a fun idea anyway. Thanks for listening and for your rules insight. ;D
Thanks Arctic Ghost for this article on Murasa Tron. I learnt something new about Murasa Tron.
Have you ever fought the Murasa Tron vs Hexproof matchup? If so, which deck do you feel is favored in your experience? Are you considering altering your sideboard to handle Hexproof (because currently your sideboard has little relevant to the Hexproof matchup), or is this not a matchup you are particularly fearful about?
Thanks,
Michelle
Nice podcast, I laughed out load at the discussion of Pulsemage Advocate :)
Sorry to disappoint all the Pulsemage Advocate fans, but the Leyline of the Void will not work with this card, because there must be 3 legal targets in the opponent's graveyard in order to activate it. (The Oracle Ruling clarifies that point).
As AJ said, your opponent will pick up this card, read it, put it down, pick it up again, read it once more, then conclude that the card is terrible and that victory is nigh!
Thanks Carl for your helpful answers. Much appreciated.
I am also interested to know:
1. Has your Green Moon deck ever faced the LIVING END matchup? I would imagine that it's a good matchup for you, because the Blood Moons would wreck them and they have no counters or discard to disrupt you. Also, post-board you can side out the Torpor Orbs and bring in the Trinispheres, so that they must pay 3 mana for the Living End spell, rather than cascading into it for free. I like how Trinisphere functions well against the cascade mechanic!
2. Has your Green Moon deck ever faced the DREDGE matchup? It seems from your sideboard that you do not seem to fear that matchup, because I see no graveyard hate in your board. Is it a hard match for Green Moon to win?
Thanks for the information.
I deleted a comment, it did ask to show off the sideboard guide as well.
Hi, Michelle,
Not a problem. The answers are below. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.
1.) Torpor Orb is essentially a "pre-board" against the Chord/Resto/Melira/Anafenza/etc. Combo decks, which I've been pretty bad against. At GP: Detroit, I ran Orb in the board (with the Crumble to Dust in the main). When I put the Dust into the board post bannings, I originally played Damping Matrix in the main, which were very good against a lot of decks, but didn't really have the effect that I needed against Chord many times. So, I replaced those with Torpor Orb. Funny enough, in paper I have yet to play against the Chord decks since I made the change. I've played against it online still quite a bit, and it has worked out. I admit that it is a dead card against pretty much all the match ups you mentioned. The number works well with what I'm swapping in and out in various matches. It's possible a case could be made that Trinisphere main would be more useful main than the Orb.
2.) Honestly, it is a card that rarely comes out. I cut it against Bogles, and their primary threat usually can outgrow the Miracle. One copy comes out against the random UW control decks (I know a couple people who play in closer large events that are on the deck). Otherwise, I generally keep it against everything else.
3.) Ram-Gang frequently gets asked about, since it dies to bolt so easily. Ideally, I want a 3-drop, at least 3 power creature, and built in haste I find very useful. It's fairly common for T1 mana accelerator, T2 Ram-Gang, swing for 3 (or 4 with Exalted). The high number of haste creatures in the deck allows me to recover and get in damage post-sweepers. While I understand that Ram-Gang isn't the best creature printed, for what I am doing, it answers my needs. Through the years, this slot has fluctuated some. I used to run Hell's Thunder in that spot, and if I went back along the path where I chose to completely ignore blocking, it may be an option again.
4.) I've never felt at a disadvantage to Jund. Honestly, the last competitive match (PTQ, GPT, PPTQ, SCG, GP) I lost to Jund was at a PTQ the week before Bloodbraid Elf was banned. (Honestly, I ran BBE in my deck at the time as well, so the banning hit me too, and I still harbor ill feeling towards WotC for it.) With the recent uptick in Jund seeing play, I'm pretty happy.
5.) Best matchup: Tron and Scapeshift. I'm also very favored about the various Eldrazi builds I've played against, and Jund. Pre-Board, Affinity is tough game one. Post board, as long as I mulligan correctly, I don't think I can lose.
I have an extensive sideboarding guide that wrote up for the wife to use, and if you are interested it in, I would be more than happy to share it with you.
Again, Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks, Carl
Thanks for this article.
It was interesting to read about the background to the card Timbermare, I didn't know about that tribute.
Can I ask you five questions about your Green Moon deck?
1. Regarding Torpor Orb, since you run multiple copies main deck, how many times do you find that it is a dead card? Are you completely convinced that you need 3 copies main deck? Have you found yourself against matchups like Naya Burn, Bogles, Infect, Affinity etc at a major tournament, and asking yourself "What are these darn Torpor Orbs doing in my hand!"
2. Regarding the card Bonfire of the Damned, how often do you find yourself siding out that card post-board?
3. Are you convinced about the card Boggart-Ram Gang? It seems a little on the weak side to me. Are you considering other options for the 3-drop slot, or are you convinced already about the power of Boggart Ram Gang?
4. Regarding the Jund matchup, do you consider it to be favorable or unfavorable or roughly equal? In testing, how frequently do you actually manage to resolve the Blood Moon in light of the Jund player's heavy discard?
5. What do you consider to be your absolutely best matchup? Would it be Red-Green Tron?
Thanks,
Michelle
Tribal with Modern seems pretty cool. The all (non-banned) Creatures are legal variant might be even better!
I think there is a lot less brokenness if you restrict the following to their own tribes:
Griselbrand
Kiki-Jiki
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Those three for sure. Other possible exceptions:
Protean Hulk
Worldspine Wurm
Restoration Angel/Deceiver Exarch
Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap
There are still plenty of other infinite combos to deal with and the graveyard decks could be really brutal without sideboards. It's obviously impossible to shut them all down, but knocking out a few of the pillars could open it up to a balanced enough meta?
Still breakable, but much less so. Nice and straightforward, could be worth trying.
Modern tribal with the Legacy card pool for on-tribe (or maybe any) creatures is certainly a valid thought with regards to balance, and, I would hope, not too complicated to grasp.
3) Thought Lash was announced unbanned and removed from the list that counts (the Gatherling filter) in occasion of the July 8 article. http://puremtgo.com/articles/diaries-apocalypse-tribal-week-287
It's now removed from the other list, too.
I don't have time to read everything by everyone right now, I'll do it asap. Thanks to all for all the contributions!
Not exactly, since Modern can also do broken stuff (especially in absence of sideboards), and there are many non-broken, non-Modern cards that would be missed in such format.
So Modern tribal?
I don't think there is, and that is also the aspect of the idea that seems the most problematic to me. We would have to single out (probably through many events) every "problematic" card, which would really create a huge ban list. Which is not necessarilly a big problem, but it certainly is un-elegant.
Could be interesting, but 'all' is very difficult. Take ramp strategies: Cloudposts, Overgrown Battlements, Cabal Coffers, Tron, Eldrazi Lands, Elvish Archdruid/Priest of Titania, and that's just off the top of my head, without going into reanimation or combo. We'd need a massive banned list, or to ban archetypes. Is there a straightforward way to create such a format?
Talking about "unfair" strategies got me thinking: what about one Regular event being replaced with Regular where all combo, reanimation, ramp etc. strategies are watered down (via eliminating all of the best supporting cards) so you would have an environment of aggro, midrange, control and not-too-broken "other strategies" (basically the same as what Standard wants to accomplish, but with a much larger card pool). I think it would be fun once in a month especially for players who don't enjoy the broken aspect of Legacy Tribal so much (and there seems to be quite a few of them).
"Incidentally, I have to disagree with miha about the current Tribal Apocalypse meta being all about combo"
I didn't mean to imply that Tribal meta is all about combo*, and fighting combo is also not the reason why I would unban Lackey. I simply think Goblin Lackey is not as powerful as some of the other cards (some of them indeed being combo pieces) that are allowed, plus Tribal is a format that is very capable of dealing with a 1/1 creature on T1. Not so much with some other powerful cards which are consistently played by the most successful players. If Lackey was allowed, Goblins deck wouldn't be top 5 in terms of power IMO. Maybe they would be most played, but I have no problem with that.
*Though it has shifted to a state where it is significantly impacted by, let's say, decks that do "unfair" things. Those are not just combo decks - those are also Eldrazi decks, and Natural Order decks and various flavours of Reanimators, Cloudpost decks etc. They might not be dominating in terms of attendance, but if you look at the most successful players this year and what they are playing you will see that they are all mostly doing something that's consistently devastating and requires specific answers and that regular aggro and midrange decks just can't deal with. Only at 6th place of the leaderboard we find a player who is devoted to playing aggro decks, and he is accomplishing that with an extremely fast red builds that have some chance of racing top decks. If that isn't a sign of dominance of "unfair" strategies, I don't know what is. And unbanning Lackey wouldn't change that, so it's not proposed as a solution or anything. It just seems that he shouldn't be banned when so many more powerful and hard-to-deal-with cards are allowed.
As far as who would want to play against more Goblins decks: I guess all the players who now unsuccessfully play midrange and non-red aggro decks that have *no chance* against the current top decks. ML_Berlin plays a very solid white weenie deck and is in a top 8 but he literally loses like 95% of the time against me whenever we play, because he cant deal with Natural Order or some other broken card. Same probably holds true whenever he plays any other top 5 player and whatever powerful deck they are playing. So while unfair decks might not be dominating in terms of attendance they are very clearly dominating in terms of power level and success. And for a player who has ambitions to win those are the decks that are relevant.
In this context Lackey remaining banned doesn't have much sense to me. I also think times have changed and people would not complain about it nearly as much as they have in the past. Goblin Lackey decks are very interactive and more fun to play against than some of the current top decks.
But I of course understand if it remains banned. It is a polarizing card to say the least.
There is always a best time to play. That is what everyone should think of. - Gary McClure
It is important to have a settled mind. Most especially during the game. - Gary McClure
Every stories make sense. That is why a lot of people are playing on it. - Gary McClure
It is important to be freed from the trap. That is the only way to move again. - Gary McClure
Of course, but those are linear decks which can sometimes (often?) be stopped in large part by a single card, in which case a poor matchup for Force of Will is tolerable. Even in that matchup Force can protect your hoser.
Force of will is terrible against aggressive decks like Goblins/Soldiers etc that don't try to squeeze a combo in. It is therefore a very risky include. There is no easy/good answer to this.