Dies to Removal

Theory question: Against jund, do you pillar the arbor elf turn 1, turn 2, or do you not pillar it at all and save it for huntmaster?

The elf. In my experience, too many people bank on the hands with few land and a mana dork.

But I guess either choice is a good one. But if the huntmaster never comes I'd feel pretty stupid.

Is it weird that I'd rather see an early tusk over the huntmaster?

No, Huntmaster is a better card against aggro. Cheaper, two bodies, inbuilt removal. Tusk is easier to deal with with the technology we have (threatens, falters, goblin war drums).

Change my pitch up.....Smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up.....Smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up.....Smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up.....Smack my bitch up
....Smack my bitch up
Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
....Smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up.....Smack my bitch up
Change my pitch up.....Smack my bitch up

I'd generally pillar the elf. Sets Jund back a turn or so since they're so dependent on the mana dork -> farseek -> threat plan for early game.

Hey fellas, been posting back in the deck forums for a few days and figured I'd pop in here Hope all of you gentleman have been doing well. I took a 2-3 month breather from the game but I'm back in full force!!! Going to my local PTQ this weekend.

I am curious how you guys have been evaluating the current meta-game now that M14 is out with Xanrid Necromancer, Doom Blade, Scavaging Ooze etc. Jund got a lot stronger in general and got the perfect creature to combat it's rival, Reanimator. To combat these dominant Jund decks, I am expecting a rise in control and less creature decks , more U/W with counterspells. If I remember right, this is how the original U/W Flash got popular. Best way to stop Jund is to stop their cards from coming into play and getting ETB value. Additionaly, the W/B Humans deck looks to be pretty popular as it is fairly
resilient, and its sister deck, Aristocrats.

What I am trying to figure out is how to effectively beat these two decks with our selection of R/x creature decks for the upcoming PTQ this Saturday.

I have at least tested the following decks, updated RDW(with mutavault) , All-In-Red, R/G Aggro(stock list), and the Jund Dragons/Falkenrath deck by Cedric/Kibler and ol' faithful, Dos Rakis.

After most recently testing RDW and AIR, I am leaning to go a little bigger, understanding that with this I will lose consistency by adding colors and increasing the curve. A middle ground would be R/G Aggro.

I have not decided yet but am curious what you all would run at an event this weekend and how you have evaluated the metagame?

I fucking love you mutavault

rancor, baby, i love you BOTH!

what do you mean I cant?

well, you're leaving soon to another format ANYWAY do what can a man so?

I would probably play a 22-23 land Mono Red deck; tuned to beat Jund and UWR Game 1, with a board for BW Tokens and Aggro. That forces you to always race Hexproof decks, but I do think that they will be that popular right now. You always have to take a bit if a gamble when building your deck for an anticipated metagame anyway.

Lets be honest, I'd play 24 land because I love hitting my land drops that much.

I would probably play a 22-23 land Mono Red deck; tuned to beat Jund and UWR Game 1, with a board for BW Tokens and Aggro. That forces you to always race Hexproof decks, but I do think that they will be that popular right now. You always have to take a bit if a gamble when building your deck for an anticipated metagame anyway.

You're always great at evaluating cards against certain decks and what those decks are trying to do. Would you mind elaborating on how to tune for those matchups in particular?

I saw this deck got top8 at the SCG Lansing event over the past weekend.

[deck]3 Ash Zealot
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Firefist Striker
4 Hellrider
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
Lands (22)

n18 Mountain
4 Mutavault
Spells (7)

4 Searing Spear
3 Pillar of Flame[/deck]

Been testing with it a good bit and tweaking here n there. Was a little unsure with the burn and figured I might be OK with just PIllar and put in Dynacharge or something. I really want to make that card work. I could also probably cut a Pheonix if need be, so I have some room to play with. I thought Legion Loyalist wouldn't be bad either with the token decks running around but probably only in the SB.

Still, I could go a little more balls out and cut the burn for 4 Dynacharge and 3 Legion Loyalist.

Also toyed around with maindeck Burning Earth but some UW decks are just going UW with a fair amount of basics, and it leaves me even worse in the aggro mirror.

Pheonix matches up pretty well against both I think.

Would you give a few suggestions in regards to tuning the deck specifically for Jund and UWx?

Come over to the KDW thread. You're asking the questions that I'm asking.

Theory question: Against jund, do you pillar the arbor elf turn 1, turn 2, or do you not pillar it at all and save it for huntmaster?

Pillar the Elf. In my experience, too many players try and keep a land, dork, farseek hand. If you set them back 1-2 turns, they usually can't recover from it.

I would probably play a 22-23 land Mono Red deck; tuned to beat Jund and UWR Game 1, with a board for BW Tokens and Aggro. That forces you to always race Hexproof decks, but I do think that they will be that popular right now. You always have to take a bit if a gamble when building your deck for an anticipated metagame anyway.

MD Burning Earth baby yeeaaaaah!

I would probably play a 22-23 land Mono Red deck; tuned to beat Jund and UWR Game 1, with a board for BW Tokens and Aggro. That forces you to always race Hexproof decks, but I do think that they will be that popular right now. You always have to take a bit if a gamble when building your deck for an anticipated metagame anyway.

You're always great at evaluating cards against certain decks and what those decks are trying to do. Would you mind elaborating on how to tune for those matchups in particular?

I saw this deck got top8 at the SCG Lansing event over the past weekend.

[
deck]3 Ash Zealot
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Firefist Striker
4 Hellrider
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
Lands (22)

18 Mountain
4 Mutavault
Spells (7)

4 Searing Spear
3 Pillar of Flame[/deck]

Been testing with it a good bit and tweaking here n there. Was a little unsure with the burn and figured I might be OK with just PIllar and put in Dynacharge or something. I really want to make that card work. I could also probably cut a Pheonix if need be, so I have some room to play with. I thought Legion Loyalist wouldn't be bad either with the token decks running around but probably only in the SB.

Still, I could go a little more balls out and cut the burn for 4 Dynacharge and 3 Legion Loyalist.

Also toyed around with maindeck Burning Earth but some UW decks are just going UW with a fair amount of basics, and it leaves me even worse in the aggro mirror.

Pheonix matches up pretty well against both I think.

Would you give a few suggestions
in regards to tuning the deck specifically for Jund and UWx?

-1 Pillar, +1 Ash Zealot
-1 Mutavault, +1 Mountain

Sideboard
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Flames of the Firebrand / Electrickery
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Skullcrack
2 Traitorous Blood / Mark of Mutiny
1 Mutavault
4 Burning Earth

I just played UWr in the finals for Thusrday night standard.


T2 Domri, he poked it with augur. T3 Predator Ooze with Rancor. He helixes Domri

T4 burning earth. He scoops ;D

So if you wanna talk bigger let's talk, cause I'm smashin a deck I used to fold to when I saw two augurs on the field.

Although Zeman's adjustments to your list look pretty solid too, and if I had 4 mutavaults I probably wouldn't be able to keep myself away from mono red >_>

Fuck Augur is awesome; going to miss that guy.

/sarcasm?

I mean yeah hes pretty fuckin value town (should've been UU in my opinion) but playing against it was always a face smash

Nah, I appreciate the card. It isn't like Snappy or Thragtusk that are just brainless OP.

you're a good man, James

Awesome Zem, thanks a bunch, those changes make a lot of sense.

I havn't played straight up mono-red since October, this is gonna be fun!!! Hope the consistency of the deck helps me go the full 9 rounds strong!

^____^

I have a confession to make. This is practically the first time I've played with Mutavaults. Card is so nuts and doesn't care about verdicts. I've played just around 20 games with the new mono-red list and the only card I'm missing so far is GCR.

FWIW, I think ghor-clan rampager is actually terribly positioned as a magic card and will avoid playing it if at all possible. The best agro deck right now is playing 4 ash zealots and 4 mutavaults, at least in red.

The thing I'm unsure about right now are the numbers of firefist/mauler/pyreheart wolf. All of them seem very good, but at most you can play like, 6 in RDW with all the other good stuff. I also like the fact that Z suggested 1 land in the board as that's what I'm doing because you need 23 lands in your deck at minimum if your trying to play hellrider and burning earth post board.

Gonna say again, ghor-clan is mediocre to bad right now, ash zealot is amazing. Unless your playing like, ghor-clan with Predator ooze and domri which kind of sounds like a wet dream.

I have a confession to make. This is practically the first time I've played with Mutavaults. Card is so nuts and doesn't care about verdicts. I've played just around 20 games with the new mono-red list and the only card I'm missing so far is GCR.

I do miss GCR big time but I don't see as many Boros Reckoners like I used to, and GCR really excelled there. Have not needed him as much recently. Also, there was plenty of times I didn't have the mana to bloodrush him as BTE doesnt count as a green source for him.

Got my Mutavault cherry popped just a few days ago as well!!! This card is just amazing. So much better than Hellion Crucible ahaha

Just saw the Gruul Ragehammer thread and everything that Fate posted made my heart smile. I may have to play mono-green or some such at FNM.

FWIW, I think ghor-clan rampager is actually terribly positioned as a magic card and will avoid playing it if at all possible. The best agro deck right now is playing 4 ash zealots and 4 mutavaults, at least in red.

The thing I'm unsure about right now are the numbers of firefist/mauler/pyreheart wolf. All of them seem very good, but at most you can play like, 6 in RDW with all the other good stuff. I also like the fact that Z suggested 1 land in the board as that's what I'm doing because you need 23 lands in your deck at minimum if your trying to play hellrider and burning earth post board.

Gonna say again, ghor-clan is mediocre to bad right now, ash zealot is amazing. Unless your playing like, ghor-clan with Predator ooze and domri which kind of
sounds like a wet dream.

Not disagreeing with you at all , but I am curious why you love Ash Zealot at the moment in particular.

I personally love Firefist Striker, and wouldn't mind having Pyreheart Wolf around. He is competing with Chandras Phoenix currently in the popular decks at least.

Pyreheart is the best card. EVER.

the fuck going on in this bitch?

IDK, it's craaaaazy; we're actually talking about playing red!

Hmmm UR Delver feat. all my favourite cards...drool.

4 Augur of Bolas
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer

2 Chandra, Pyromaster

2 Runechanter's Pike

1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
7 Island
6 Mountain

4 Divination
1 Izzet Charm
1 Flames of the Firebrand
1 Mizzium Mortars
4 Pillar of Flame
2 Searing Spear
1 Silent Departure
4 Thought Scour
1 Turn // Burn
3 Unsummon

Yep.

LIGHTNING BOLT!

LIGHTNING BOLT!

LIGHTNING BOLT!

I need Lightning Bolt like the media needs to shut the fuck up about the royal baby.

Lol kaze

Yo dawg we heard you like lightning bolt so we put a bolt on your bolt so you can burn while you burn (Fork)

Totally drunk at a bar slamming Amberbock and blasting Trivium while all the locals look pissed.

Fuck yeah.

Overheard from two seats down: "this music is so chaotic."

Well if my name is Khaospawn ...

Speaking of Fork...have you considered Reverberate in the mono-red deck? Looks promising, copying an opposing Purge the Profane could give you the edge...