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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

I've been testing Athreos junk aggro decks with my friends the last couple days. It's pretty good, but not as hype as people think. It loses SO BAD to burn. It's like 40% against Esper and strong against mono-blue and selesnya.


Here's the basic decklist:

4 Tormented Hero
4 Soldier of the Pantheon

4 Pain Seer
4 Underworld Coinsmith
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Voice of Resurgence

4 Mogis' Marauder
3 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Athreos
2 Banishing Light
1 Spear of Heliod

1 Dictate of Heliod

4 Mana Confluence
4 Godless Shrine
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
4 Swamp
3 Plains
2 Mutavault

Cards I cut: Precinct Captain, Brave the Elements

Emphasizing black over white is weaker than going white because protection is obviously better than intimidate, but the reach and interactions are just better in straight orzhov. I'd have to drop pain seer and tormented hero to use brave the elements, and I'm actually not really sure which is best yet.

Underworld Coinsmith is super awesome, and just does more work than you'd expect. Banishing Light is way better than Orzhov charm because you're losing more life than normal with pain seer and mana confluence.

Anyway, the deck still needs a lot of work. Thoughts?
 

Crocodile

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";108711990]Anyway, the deck still needs a lot of work. Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

As far as I can tell, you're running Green solely for Voice of Resurgence (a card best cast as early as possible). Why not just cut the Green entirely?
 
As far as I can tell, you're running Green solely for Voice of Resurgence (a card best cast as early as possible). Why not just cut the Green entirely?

It's definitely more efficient if I do, but Voice is just insane in a weenie deck and synergizes really well with cards like Cartel Aristocrat. It also makes three cards alongside necromancer and athreos that fight removal spectacularly. Voice tokens are an awesome way to break through defence without relying on a boost card like mogis or brave that is also mana efficient while supporting your gameplan.

The deck is significantly worse with a vanilla white weenie like captain instead.
 
An LGS is having an easter sale and their cards are buy one get one free.
I picked up a pretty good haul of some smaller Modern stuff. I didn't touch Standard.
No heavy hitters like fetch lands, man lands, Cryptic Commands, etc. were available though.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";108711990]I've been testing Athreos junk aggro decks with my friends the last couple days. It's pretty good, but not as hype as people think. It loses SO BAD to burn. It's like 40% against Esper and strong against mono-blue and selesnya.


Here's the basic decklist:

4 Tormented Hero
4 Soldier of the Pantheon

4 Pain Seer
4 Underworld Coinsmith
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Voice of Resurgence

4 Mogis' Marauder
3 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Athreos
2 Banishing Light
1 Spear of Heliod

1 Dictate of Heliod

4 Mana Confluence
4 Godless Shrine
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
4 Swamp
3 Plains
2 Mutavault

Cards I cut: Precinct Captain, Brave the Elements

Emphasizing black over white is weaker than going white because protection is obviously better than intimidate, but the reach and interactions are just better in straight orzhov. I'd have to drop pain seer and tormented hero to use brave the elements, and I'm actually not really sure which is best yet.

Underworld Coinsmith is super awesome, and just does more work than you'd expect. Banishing Light is way better than Orzhov charm because you're losing more life than normal with pain seer and mana confluence.

Anyway, the deck still needs a lot of work. Thoughts?[/QUOTE]
Needs more Sin Collector.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Hype for Journey is definitely high in my group, two guys have boxes pre-ordered already

I'm just glad there isn't some super hype chase mythic. Mythic rarity is already a huge pain in the ass and I'm glad to not see one super obvious money rare tournament staple there.
 

Firemind

Member
Sad to say no new archetypes will emerge out of this. I wanted to see some actual playable minotaurs. :( MB aggro got a boost though.

So Boros. R/w or W/r? R/w has a bad matchup against R/G monsters, but a better matchup against control. MBC could go either way depending on draws.
 
Just got back from a SCG Invitational Qualifier. went 2-3 :-(

I really wasn't expecting to do so poorly. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with my deck, but I did have to mulligan a lot more than normal which really sucked. That and having to fight a lot of decks with Golgari Charms. 4/5 decks I fought also had Mistcutter Hydra which was annoying.

tapped out somehow fucked up my decklist with a bunch of weird shit, but this is what I ran today:

3 Thoughtseize
2 Doom Blade
2 Last Breath
1 Ultimate Price
2 Syncopate
4 Dissolve
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Blood Baron of Viskopa
1 AEtherling
3 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Detention Sphere

1 Mutavault
12 Temples
4 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
5 Islands
2 Plains


Sideboard:
1 Pithing Needle
1 Revoke Existence
1 Thoughtseize
3 Dark Betrayal
3 Nightveil Specter
2 Blind Obedience
2 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Gainsay
Needs more Sin Collector.

Sideboard card.
 

Wynnebeck

Banned
OK frauleins, I just got done looking at the spoilers and as an Esper player, I'm not too excited about this set or the pre-release. What are you guys planning on running? I ran Blue for BotG and that didn't do too well so I might just go B/W and try to snake Athreos.
 

kirblar

Member
You probably shouldn't be running control. Be proactive - its a good deck but has a massive skill factor which you probably want to minimize if you're not very experienced with the format.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
So what happens if you have both of these on the battlefield?

Image.ashx


UXXzIcQ.jpg
 
I think the player with more cards in their library wins at that point LOL
You probably shouldn't be running control. Be proactive - its a good deck but has a massive skill factor which you probably want to minimize if you're not very experienced with the format.

What do you mean proactive?

And I have a ton of experience in the format, the deck is adjusted to the local meta. I've attended tons of tournaments in the area, getting second at game day with the same deck. I grind constantly against everything from burn to mono blue and black to rakdos aggro, control and jund monsters.

I was literally getting seven and zero land hands in every round after sufficient shuffling today.

Despite that all my games were close, including stabilzing a one land mulligan to five. Thats what i meant by not expecting to go out like that. I was more ready today than I felt I ever had been. Even the match against prime speaker bug i had no experience with went to time and i lost by a turn 2-1. The fifth match was the first timeI lost to mono black in four straight tournaments. It was just a bad day for my luck.

I knew it was a bad omen when in this week's draft I lost to not drawing one of my 9 plains after seeing 24/40 cards with two divine verdict and a triad of fates in my hand.
 
Dack is so awesome in Vintage Gush if he's printed as spoiled.

+1 - Discard two lands you have trapped in your hand after gush, draw two more cards
-1 - Take opposing blightsteel/time vault/mox/sol ring
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I think you just exile x cards then put them on the bottom of the library without an option of casting that card.

But the first spell can't resolve due to Possibility Storm, and the second can't resolve due to the Eidolon. I think you'd just have to end your turn, draw, end turn, etc. unless someone could win with the permanents on the battlefield.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
But the first spell can't resolve due to Possibility Storm, and the second can't resolve due to the Eidolon. I think you'd just have to end your turn, draw, end turn, etc. unless someone could win with the permanents on the battlefield.

The first spell never resolves when possibility storm is out, it hits the stack, p.storm triggers and then exiles it off the stack.
 
But the first spell can't resolve due to Possibility Storm, and the second can't resolve due to the Eidolon. I think you'd just have to end your turn, draw, end turn, etc. unless someone could win with the permanents on the battlefield.

Right, but you can still cast a spell. In that case, you exile cards till you hit equal cmc, you may not cast it, so you put all those cards on the bottom of the library.

You can still attack, use activated abilities and play lands
 
Would you ever do two monocolored planeswalkers of the same color in one block?

If there was a strong enough reason I believe it’s possible but it’s not something I see us doing a lot.

Two mono black PW? Mayyyybe
 

Wichu

Member
So what are peoples' predictions for the next block?

So far the only info we know is from Wizards' trademarks ("Warlords of Khanar", "Khans of Tarkir", "Dragons of Tarkir") and hints that it has an 'unsual' block structure.

I was talking about it with a friend earlier today, and we're predicting these things:
  • Return of Elves (as a more shamanistic tribe) - we haven't seen Elves properly in a while (they weren't in Innistrad block, had very little presence in RTR, and were missing again in Theros), and Nissa is returning in M15 (hopefully less narrow this time). Plus the block will need mana acceleration for:
  • Huge expensive creatures (think 7+ CMC). One of the trademarks suggests a heavy focus on Dragons, which tend to be expensive. Theros block's move towards a slower format (notice how most of the aggro cards that are currently played are from RTR block), as well as indestructible Gods, Aura support, and Monstrosity's return in JOU to allow THS-block cards to compete in such a format, all point towards this. The artifact ramp we've gotten a bit of recently will help non-green decks with this. Not to mention the Riddle of Lightning reprint and the new Interpret the Signs and Stormchaser Chimera.
  • Heavy focus on combat mechanics rather than traditional removal. THS block is already leaning this way, with little good removal and many Heroic-enabling combat tricks. The trademarked names also imply a plane where fighting is commonplace.
  • Heavier mono-colour focus (and hybrid cards rather than gold) to support Devotion-based decks and encourage Gods to be played more. There's also the JOU cycle that care about having as many as possible of a specific basic land. I'm hoping for colour-specific keyword mechanics.
And going even further into the future, I can see this segueing into a return to Zendikar and the Eldrazi.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I have no clue what the next block will bring, but I really hope we're shot of having a billion cards that let you look at someone else's hand.

Also, please no more Mutavault.
 

Wichu

Member
I have no clue what the next block will bring, but I really hope we're shot of having a billion cards that let you look at someone else's hand.

Also, please no more Mutavault.

Yeah, I can't wait for it to rotate out of Standard so I can pick a couple up for my Commander decks on the cheap.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
That's like Hearthstone levels of "interaction".

wow
minion in play
such interact
very board state
much complexity
wow
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I love when you play some janky cards in the practice rooms on MTGO and players get salty as fuck when they lose to some non "Tier 1" card.

I caused some G/R Monsters players to lose by casting the singleton Reap Intellect in the deck I was using and he started sending me all this shit talk about how much better Rakdos' Return is. Then he died, mostly because of Reap Intellect.
 
I love when you play some janky cards in the practice rooms on MTGO and players get salty as fuck when they lose to some non "Tier 1" card.

I caused some G/R Monsters players to lose by casting the singleton Reap Intellect in the deck I was using and he started sending me all this shit talk about how much better Rakdos' Return is. Then he died, mostly because of Reap Intellect.

I used to play Esper Control with Liliana of the Dark Realms and Mind Grind.
 

Wichu

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";108994746]I used to play Esper Control with Liliana of the Dark Realms and Mind Grind.[/QUOTE]

Speaking of Esper, I just made this:
NA6xKOC.png

What have I done?

I must make a real-life version of this now
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I don't understand Eidolon, is there some key point I'm missing?

It seems like you'd just burn yourself out faster as a red weenie deck with this out.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Well, I fell for it.

Wracked my brains trying to figure out what I was missing.
 

Karakand

Member
Well, I fell for it.

Wracked my brains trying to figure out what I was missing.

there is some talk of maybe running it in legacy burn since CMCs > 3 that aren't cheated into play might as well be mental magic lands in the format

2 damage per proc is kinda worthless imo, sulfuric vortex is at least tolerable as a bug bite burn spell because it stops life gain
 

Wichu

Member
jkaskjldamnwsd9sdk2d_EN.jpg


Hey guys.

I felt bad sniping the final step of the puzzle that got the picture after not contributing much in the earlier steps, but dat Reddit karma :p
 

Yeef

Member
I saw that last night. I'm guessing he either misremembered the card or it was designed differently and got changed during development. The way the article is written, it seems like he thinks it deals 2 damage to another player whenever you play a card that's 3 or less.
 
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