1st place on AVACYN ANGELS!!!
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@fsecco I actually love the 2nd Plains. I could see adding Demonic Tutor. The more black cards I add, the more I'd want a 2nd black producing land. The 2 Plains is a nod to eldrazi and shops. I could see it being a Scrubland if I upped the black card count.
Additionally the reason I avoided Tinker Sphinx is because I want to minimize the amount of "bad draws" the deck gets and increase consistency. That's the same reason why landstill and old UW angels lists always ommited tinker. But again it's a metagame deck so tweak it as you choose
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And even Sphinx doesn't have to be a dead draw, as you play lots of mana and Mana Drains. Sphinx is a fine sink for that and you can Tinker for Top if you need to even though this is clearly not a good play. Otherwise you could add other bombs for certain matchups as singletons to give your Tinker more choice (Trinisphere, Nihil Spellbomb, Ensnaring Bridge ...).
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Congratulations on your win. Reminds me of the old The Deck with the 2 Moats and 2 glorified flash Serra Angels for win cons.
Seems a bit soft to Storm with no Aegis of the Gods or Thoughtseize in the board.
I usually run 1 main Disenchant/Wear Tear for things like Key/Vault, Moat and Sylvan Library.
I would have thought Baneslayer Angel would be preferable as a 5/5 with first strike that beats Lodestone, Reality Smasher, Thought-Knot Seer and wins races with Lifelink or is the flash and indestructible rider of Avacyn better?
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I considered doing 1 Baneslayer 1 Avacyn but decided in 2 Avacyn. You can often catch an opponent with their pants down and flash is extremely relevant. Flash also makes her better vs opposing planeswalkers namely JTMS.
Aegis of the God's was in the sb but cut it last minute for another dredge hate. Aegis and Back to Basics were both in the sb at one point.
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@tattoocek said:
I'm not basing it solely on the events results. Leading up to the event I tested it vs pyromancer Gush and mentor. And basically those decks lose to moat. Especially in game 1. Post board ypu protect moat, or you get a notion Thief BLOWOUT play. It's good enough vs Gush when piloted well. That's all.
Library is there to trump Gush, 2 Moat 1 e-Tutor is there to trump Gush, and thieves are there to trump Gush. The deck certainly has game vs Gush. Like I said I built the deck with eldrazi, Gush, and shops in mind. In testing and in the event it did just that...
Is that a subliminal message, Mr. Potucek? Nice job on the finish!
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I tried this out for a few matches last night (played the moat mirrormatch, colorless powered eldrazi, 2x TKS shops, U/W flippy jace mentor), with a few small tweaks to get it under 15 proxies from what I own. I added 1 demonic tutor, 1 underground sea, 1 mana drain, and cut a moat (because I only own 1, and DT for moat might be fine?), 1 tundra(Im bad and only own 2), and 1 flusterstorm (because the local meta has too much shops to want to play 2 in the main).
It was really really fun. Very similar in feel to the 5 color moat piles I was playing a few months back, just with flash win-cons and not losing to wasteland instead of consecrated sphinxes and huntmasters. I kinda want to add Consecrated sphinx in as a drain sink. That or I want to play a crucible/waste/strip package as an alternate win con/control element.
Playing more black also opens up the possibility of leyline/helm as a win-con out of the board? Since you already have E tutor and Im playing demonic, it seems like something to experiment with.
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@L0cke17 I did the same kind of. I keep going back and forth on Karakas and plains. I'm cutting 1 of them for 1 Scrubland. And swapped e Tutor for Demonic Tutor. I considered Helm RIP too...I'm afraid to cut the Plains because I've loved having 3 Island and 2 Plains main. It's extremely hard to be Mana denialed. I really like the idea of Crucible strip/waste. But seems hard to fit without trimming off color moxen.
Keep me updated on testing and I'll do the same!
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@tattoocek I want to keep the karakas, its been surprisingly relevant. It can be good against dredge game 1 because you can use it to bounce the dragonlord after you have a moat in play, which is difficult, but happened last night when I did some more testing. But that may not be enough to make it worth keeping. Bouncing avacyn to reset and recast for the ETB trigger also happened twice.
Top seems to be seriously underperforming when I draw it. If I was gonna play crucible/strip/waste I'd start by cutting top, 1 misstep, and maybe the third drain I added to your list and play crucible and 1 of each waste and strip. Maybe add a second waste by cutting 1 off color mox.
e: if I was keeping 2 moats in the list, and had demonic, I'd cut the e-tutor instead of the drain or misstep.
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Have not tried this out yet since been testing for SCG Worcestor. Maybe after that though.
Demonic Tutor instead of Enlightened Tutor sounds like a strict upgrade other then the corner case of Thought-Knot Seer and requiring more black sources.
I would like one main deck Disenchant effect but not sure what to cut for it. Maybe the 4th Swords?
Would not cut Karakas, Karakas is really good with Vendilion Clique and against Oath of Druids.
Is it possible to fit a Strip Mine? Is nice to have against opposing Library and is randomly good against Shops or Dredge.
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@Arianeira Probably your best bet for fitting 1 strip in the deck is to cut the mox emerald or ruby. As far as a maindeck disenchant effect, you have EE, which functions better under thorns and gets most of the things you would want to be disenchanting anyways, while having better applications vs token strategies.
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@tattoocek said:
I'm not basing it solely on the events results. Leading up to the event I tested it vs pyromancer Gush and mentor. And basically those decks lose to moat. Especially in game 1. Post board ypu protect moat, or you get a notion Thief blowout play. It's good enough vs Gush when piloted well. That's all.
Library is there to trump Gush, 2 Moat 1 e-Tutor is there to trump Gush, and thieves are there to trump Gush. The deck certainly has game vs Gush. Like I said I built the deck with eldrazi, Gush, and shops in mind. In testing and in the event it did just that...
I sleeved up your list (with the changes you recommended) against Ryan and played three matches. I won two games, the first in which I ripped an active Jace right after Ryan decimated my hand and then flooded out hard, the second in which Ryan got color-screwed off of black mana and I was able to tempo him out with Clique, Avacyn, + Karakas while countering all of his cantrips with 3/4 missteps. The other 5 games were not even close. I had turn 1 Library twice and resolved a (topdecked) Moat in a separate game. I think you are overestimating your ability to keep Library active against a deck with 4 Cabal Therapies, as well as the impact of an active Library as Ryan outdrew me by 10-15 cards in the game I managed to keep it active for a couple of turns. I think you are also underestimating the ease in which Grixis Pyromancer can win via planeswalkers - Ryan could have realistically ultimated all three against me when I had Moat out. Dack ultimate meant I couldn't realistically pressure either Jace, which I couldn't do anyway because he protected them with Baleful Strix. He had two Force of Wills in his hand that he never had to use as I could never mount a realistic threat of JTMS + counterbackup against Probes and Therapies. At the same time, Ryan played around Notion Thief expertly, either Probing before committing more important draw spells or keeping Murderous Cut, Pyroblast, or Force in reserve.
I think the innovation is quite cool, but this type of strategy is not viable in a large tournament populated with competent Gush pilots.
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Well grixis therapy in my estimation would be much harder to beat than a mentor deck. Therapy can put the blue matchup way over the top...you of all people should know that. The grixis therapy decks are much more tempo oriented and therapy can destroy the hand of any opponent. And they have the consistency of the delver pyromancer decks of the past. Mentor is not that...
And if I can get the best of mentor and have a weaker grixis therapy matchup maybe that's just fine.
Not only that but in testing Grixis Therapy can not beat TKS Shops or Eldrazi with any sort or consistency. It's great at beating up blue though. So basically the deck you tested against is designed to beat up on opposing blue decks where it struggles to beat eldrazi and shops. I've found my moat deck to be fine vs mentor, shops, and eldrazi. With grixis therapy definitely being difficult. As I said this might be something I'm fine with or continue to tweak.
Everything in this metagame isn't all gloom and doom Mr. Murray
although I'd love to see mentor and gush leave. I think they'll do absolutely nothing or just hit gush. We shall see. -
@tattoocek said:
Well grixis therapy in my estimation would be much harder to beat than a mentor deck. Therapy can put the blue matchup way over the top...you of all people should know that. The grixis therapy decks are much more tempo oriented and therapy can destroy the hand of any opponent. And they have the consistency of the delver pyromancer decks of the past. Mentor is not that...
Your initial remarks were much more...optimistic. However I again think you are underestimating the resilience of Gush decks. These are the types of decks I've been beating up on for the past 9 months (whenever the chalice restriction was). People lose sight of the forest for the trees - they focus in on specifically stopping mentor but then lose as Gush outdraws them by 20 cards.
Not only that but in testing Grixis Therapy can not beat TKS Shops or Eldrazi with any sort or consistency. It's great at beating up blue though. So basically the deck you tested against is designed to beat up on opposing blue decks where it struggles to beat eldrazi and shops. I've found my moat deck to be fine vs mentor, shops, and eldrazi. With grixis therapy definitely being difficult. As I said this might be something I'm fine with or continue to tweak.
Ryan's list has a favorable White Eldrazi matchup - he tested the heck out of it. It's close to even against TKS Shops though Andy Markiton is not your average Shops pilot. He beat it twice in winning the Power 9. A characteristic of Gush decks is they require a fair amount of skill and experience to navigate hate. I wonder about your testing - who do you have piloting Gush?
Everything in this metagame isn't all gloom and doom Mr. Murray
although I'd love to see mentor and gush leave. I think they'll do absolutely nothing or just hit gush. We shall see.The metagame isn't gloom and doom - it's just that a well designed and piloted Gush deck is vastly superior to other Blue options.
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So it just dawned on me, Josh, why cast Moat when you could cast Academy Rector -> Form of the Dragon?
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@ChubbyRain these were your same remarks about my landstill oath deck yet I hadn't lost to Gush in an event, ever, with that deck. You said you always beat it...but it wasn't vs me
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@tattoocek said:
@ChubbyRain these were your same remarks about my landstill oath deck yet I hadn't lost to Gush in an event, ever, with that deck. You said you always beat it...but it wasn't vs me
When you take two of Gush Mentors best match ups and combine them...
I'm more than willing to test these matchups against you, Josh. Just hit me up.
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@ChubbyRain regular landstill doesn't play 4 Abrupt Decay and regular oath doesn't have the CA of a Standstill deck
maybe we should test it sometime haha -
@ChubbyRain said:
I sleeved up your list (with the changes you recommended) against Ryan and played three matches. I won two games
I think the innovation is quite cool, but this type of strategy is not viable in a large tournament populated with competent Gush pilots.
I am agnostic as to whether you are correct or not, but for someone who has criticized others for making inferences from small samples sizes, you should know that
three matches is not remotely a large enough sample to support that conclusion. Furthermore, Ryan is more than a 'competent' Gush pilot. Testing against him is going to be as representative as testing against LSV.Nice deck Josh!
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@Smmenen thanks! I will admit my initial testing was vs mentor and the matchup felt fine. Games were often close but my deck felt fine...just a few nights ago I tested vs grixis therapy and to no surprise it was a much harder matchup with therapy shining. So yeah that issue could be addressed a little more or I'll just chalk it up to a tough matchup and realize more people sleeve up mentor in favor of grixis therapy. Nevertheless the deck continues to evolve and change.
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@Smmenen said:
@ChubbyRain said:
I sleeved up your list (with the changes you recommended) against Ryan and played three matches. I won two games
I think the innovation is quite cool, but this type of strategy is not viable in a large tournament populated with competent Gush pilots.
I am agnostic as to whether you are correct or not, but for someone who has criticized others for making inferences from small samples sizes, you should know that
three matches is not remotely a large enough sample to support that conclusion. Furthermore, Ryan is more than a 'competent' Gush pilot. Testing against him is going to be as representative as testing against LSV.Nice deck Josh!
And if my inferences were based solely on those three matches, your critique would be valid. However, my opinion on the deck comes from my results with similar decks over the past 3 years, both as the pilot and as the Gush opponent. You should know quite a bit about that, Steve - the Humanstorm list I beat you with at Champs started out as a UW Bomberman Control deck that morphed into a more combo centric Humans list - it couldn't keep up with Gush and Treasure Cruise. That deck is not viable for several reasons, unfortunately, just like the several other iterations of the Blue Angels/UW Bomberman/Dance, Magic, Dance decks I've brewed and discarded due to the inability to have a passable game against a field that includes a sizable Gush component. This is pattern-recognition at work. The 3 matches I played were to check and see if this matchup had a different dynamic than the other decks - it does not.
I think testing against LSV or Ryan is much more indicative of a deck's strengths and weakness than a lesser opponent. If the end result is to win a tournament, you should be testing against pilots you expect to run into in the later rounds. Not those you expect to run into in the X-2 bracket.
