Dies to Removal

Ran my Boros AIR (BAIR) deck to a 4-1-1 loss in T8 finish.

2-0 vs. Bant Control
2-1 vs. G Devotion
0-2 vs. Boss Sligh
2-0 vs. U Affinity
2-1 vs. Jund Monsters
ID (vs. Esper, should have played)

1-2 vs. U Devotion

@Aodh, list?

Also, given the talk with Val and what I've experienced from playing the deck some more, what do y'all think of this:
[deck]
Creatures (27)
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Foundry Street Denizen
3 Legion Loyalist
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Ash Zealot
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Lands (19)
19 Mountain

Spells (14)
4 Madcap Skills
4 Thunderous Might
3 Titan's Strength
3 Hammerhand

Sideboard (15)
3 Harness by Force
3 Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Skullcrack
2 Seismic Stomp
2 Stoke the Flames
1 Mountain
[/deck]


Stomp for more faltering vs other creature decks, to enable death-swing, and Stoke for removal vs midrange or reach vs decks with a lot of removal.

SB:
B/x Devo:
-4 Thunderous Might, -3 Hammerhand, +3 Harness, +4 Skullcrack
Enchantments are good, but when he kills stuff at instant speed, sorcery-speed buffs aren't amazing. Harness lets us grab a demon for final
death-swing, and skullcrack stops gary

R/W Burn:
-4 Thunderous Might, -2 Hammerhand +4 Skullcrack, +2 Stoke
Same logic as b-devo. Stoke gives reach, and you have to go wide with a lot of creatures, not a few with buffs

U/x Devo:
-2 Foundry, -2 Crusader, -2 Thunderous Might, +3 Prophetic, +1 Mountain, +2 Seismic
Slow down a bit, but gain the ability to blow them out from a locked board state.

U/W/x Control:
-3 Hammerhand, -1 Titan's, +4 Skullcrack
Lose a bit of buff, but get the skullcrack. Hammerhand doesn't have anything to falter, and both titan's and skullcrack are 3 damage, and stopping lifegain is MUCH better then scry 1

Jund Monsters or G/x Devo/Midrange :
-3 Loyalist, -2 Thunderous, +3 Harness, +2 Seismic
Slow down a tad, but get the blowout finisher

Boss Sligh Mirror:
On Draw: -4 Foundry Street, +3 Prophetic, +1 Mountain
On Play: -2 Foundry Street, +2 Seismic
They're just as fast, so on the draw I want the prophetics to block and also to punch through. On the play, I
want my speed back, but need the seismics to help punch through a locked boardstate

Other Aggro:
-4 Foundry, -2 Thunderous, +3 Prophetic, +1 Mountain, +2 Seismic
They tend to be slower then me, and don't have huge amounts of removal, so prophetic can end games quick, and seismic give the finishing attack

Played Tom Ross' updated boss sligh build, got absolutely mangled, finishing 1-4

[deck]Creatures
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Rakdos Cackler
3 Legion Loyalist
3 Frenzied Goblin
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker
4 Goblin Shortcutter

Buffs/Removal
4 Rubblebelt Maaka
4 Titan's Strength
1 Hall of Triumph
4 Chained to the Rocks

Land
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Battlefield Forge
3 Mana Confluence
6 Mountain[/deck]

10 Mountains for Chained is meh.

Needs more Rabblemaster too. There's no reason not to play the card if you're playing things like Shortcutter. Push your curve up and get more Mountains. I also don't think you need Chained maindeck.

On 17 lands it's fine, since only 42/17*16 of my 2-landers are mountainless. I tried Rabblemaster last week and he was fine, but he forces me to run more lands which I don't want; I'd rather play all of my cards by T3-4. Shortcutter is fine for turning off blockers even without giving another dude +1 on turn 4. Chained is a meta call since Eaper is on te decline for monsters locally.

[deck]
Creatures (36)
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Legion Loyalist
3 Frenzied Goblin
4 Firefist Striker
2 Goblin Shortcutter
2 Keening Apparition
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Pyrewild Shaman
4 Rubblebelt Maaka

Spells (4)
4 Boros Charm

Lands (20)
2 Mutavault
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Mana Confluence
8 Mountain

Sideboard (15)
4 Chained to the Rocks
3 Forge Devil
2 Keening Apparition
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Frontline Medic
1 Mutavault
[/deck]

Updated 75. I'm probably going to play this at the IQ in three weeks.

from tcg open

[deck]4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Goblin Shortcutter
2 Keening Apparition
4 Legion Loyalist
Creatures [26]
4 Boros Charm
2 Dynacharge
4 Lightning Strike
3 Stoke the Flames
Spells [13]
4 Battlefield Forge
3 Mana Confluence
10 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
Lands [21]

SIDEBOARD
3 Chained to the Rocks
2 Deicide
1 Harness by Force
1 Magma Spray
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Nyx-Fleece Ram
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Reprisal
3 Skullcrack
1 Stoke the Flames[/deck]

I find the lack of Firedrinker Satyr and Rakdos Cackler quite disturbing. It's really not a good list.

I was able to test a little bit this morning. Beat mono black 2-0, UW control 2-0, Boss Sligh 2-1, and losing 0-2 to Jund Walkers. So far I haven't been impressed with Frenzied Goblin and I've sided him out of every matchup. I might try to add more reach with Stoke the Flame and/or Lightning Strike.

I gotta say I feel the same about Frenzied Goblin

I feel like you really want to be running Generator Servant in there somewhere.

Land, 1-drop on turn 1.
Swing 2, land, play Gen Servant.
Sac Gen Servant, land, hasted Rabblemaster + Firefist. Trigger, trigger, attack for 8. If Foundry Street was your 1-drop, you're swinging 10 on turn 3.


I've been testing brews out, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that Generator Servant is awesome.

I love Magical Christmasland!

Played Ross sligh at fnm on a dare. Lost my first game to my opponent playing game 1 golgari charm and accidentally revealing anger of the gods. Managed to go 4-1 with half the store maining sweepers and going 0-5 on die rolls and game ones.

Played jund control (1st), Gb rock, burn, green devotion, and mono blue.

All my matches where close and we had to do some battling. Was pretty proud of my pay at times including winning my last game by convincing many opponent I had a shock effect in hand to keep him from sWinging for lethal, seeing up seismic stump.

I love Magical Christmasland!

Yeah, 12 cards to play off of a turn 3 Servant, leaving 2 lands untapped sure is Christmasland. And by playing Servant on 2, you absolutely have to sac it and 2-for-1 yourself into removal/counters, because you simply have no choice but to sac it.

Ummm? Lol. You spent a card to give Rabblemaster haste. That's simply not good enough. And if you don't have Rabblemaster, then you're even worse off.

Y'all niggas are dumb. The point he's making is that the card is fine on its own in the shell but enables broken plays.

I love Magical Christmasland!

Yeah, 12 cards to play off of a turn 3 Servant, leaving 2 lands untapped sure is Christmasland. And by playing Servant on 2, you absolutely have to sac it and 2-for-1 yourself into removal/counters, because you simply have no choice but to sac it.

Easy there, home slice. Don't get your panties in a wad. My point is that having 12 cards to play it off that aren't particularly impactful is not a good strategy. If I'm playing
Generator Servant I want to be pumping out much better cards than Rabblemaster and Firefist Striker, and if I'm just interested in another 2-power dude I'd much rather be playing Burning-Tree Emissary for a similar effect except it's a better card because it doesn't die to Golgari Charm.

Played Ross sligh at fnm on a dare. Lost my first game to my opponent playing game 1 golgari charm and accidentally revealing anger of the gods. Managed to go 4-1 with half the store maining sweepers and going 0-5 on die rolls and game ones.

Played jund control (1st), Gb rock, burn, green devotion, and mono blue.

All my matches where close and we had to do some battling. Was pretty proud of my pay at times including winning my last game by convincing many opponent I had a shock effect in hand to keep him from sWinging for lethal, seeing up seismic stump.

LP I haven't been able to perform with Ross' new lis as of yet, is there any gameplay advice you can give me? I keep getting ran over by mono U devotion and mono red aggro lists...

Idk, it all seems like patience and intuition. When I play boss sligh, I feel like I'm tapping into the spirit of red mana, and I just run with it. Probably why we ain't scared of no sweeper.

My problem is that often I just can't close out games fast enough

the worst part was when a red aggro deck just flat out raced me even though I was on the play (burn op I guess)

This sounds like a "who's the beatdown" problem more than anything. Maybe you aren't mulling aggressively enough or maybe your 75 isn't optimized for the mirror?

When I play, in not trying to maximize damage, I'm maximizing value. There are plenty of Times where I'll just skip combat since I'd just lose all value for a couple points of damage and instead elect to wait for like, a mad cap or for my opponent to tap low.

You're definitely going to get two for one'd, but you should play around then when possible and know that waiting is ok. It's not like you should be afraid of flooding out.

I love Magical Christmasland!

Yeah, 12 cards to play off of a turn 3 Servant, leaving 2 lands untapped sure is Christmasland. And by playing Servant on 2, you absolutely have to sac it and 2-for-1 yourself into removal/counters, because you simply have no choice but to sac it.

Easy there, home slice.
Don't get your panties in a wad. My point is that having 12 cards to play it off that aren't particularly impactful is not a good strategy. If I'm playing Generator Servant I want to be pumping out much better cards than Rabblemaster and Firefist Striker, and if I'm just interested in another 2-power dude I'd much rather be playing Burning-Tree Emissary for a similar effect except it's a better card because it doesn't die to Golgari Charm.

Hasted Rabble engine + faltering a blocker seems like a pretty impactful play to me, for a turn 3.


On a related note, referring to Rabblemaster. Convoke is nice, since you can tap the Goblin token he makes to keep it alive, instead of running it into a Courser or something.

Aggro mirrors are Also hard since You're built more like a white weenie deck then a red deck, but your creatures don't have the stats to back up a white decks strategy for the aggro mirror.

You basically have a lot of natural ca and 1 psuedo card engine in Akron crusader. You can afford to trade of cards q bit, but really, you're the swarm deck in aggressive mirrors most of the time.

This sounds like a "who's the beatdown" problem more than anything. Maybe you aren't mulling aggressively enough or maybe your 75 isn't optimized for the mirror?

I really don't know what makes a keepable hand with the new decklist though, that makes mulliganing a lot more difficult

I guess I'm just too used to having a sizeable burn suite

1-3 lands and at least two creatures is about all I ask for.

Then I guess I'm not playing the deck properly because I've only been keeping action-heavy hands

do you reckon I should run a few shocks main to counter all the aggro at my meta?

[deck]
Creatures (36)
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Firefist Striker
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
2 Goblin Shortcutter
2 Keening Apparition
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Rubblebelt Maaka

Spells (4)
4 Boros Charm

Lands (20)
2 Mutavault
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Mana Confluence
8 Mountain

Sideboard (15)
4 Chained to the Rocks
3 Forge Devil
2 Keening Apparition
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Frontline Medic
1 Mutavault
[/deck]

Decent results today. Made some good discoveries and beat up on a lot of people. Turns out Frontline Medic is the nut high against dredge. I haven't been able to Forge Devil people yet which makes me sad. White Weenie is as annoying to play against as I though it'd be, but still a winnable matchup. It's possible that the deck may just want more burn spells.

Took your list (or close to it, no mutavaults) through a daily today, Vald. It's pretty great, and rabblemaster is awesome. Lost round 1 to UWR control when he topdecked searing blood to take me out with lethal on board. Round 2 I faced a white lifegain deck. I thought I was done for, with main deck Sheep, fiendslayers, pridemates, etc. Rabblemaster took him down with the aid of the loyalist. Round 3 I took down mono blue devotion, and really wished for some searing bloods out of the board. Round 4 was against junk with way too much life gain. Took game 1. Game 2 had me with a 6/2 rabbler and boros charm, which would take him to one. He had a pair of archangel of thune, which would crack back and set me to 3. Until he played Ajani and won on the spot. And game 3... Blood Baron is pretty good against Chained. And the rest of the deck with out any way to kill him.

Definitely gonna put some searing blood in
the board, and potentially some stoke the flames, with the popularity of BW devotion and junk online.

Ajani is pretty brutal against this deck. I would anticipate creature decks with white to be playing a couple of these in the 75 for red matchups.

It may be time to just cut the Boros Charms completely. I've actually used it for something besides a four damage burn spell twice in 11 matches (both vs opponent's Brave the Elements in White Weenie while I was attacking), and I've walked all over UW control without it. That means we're really just splashing white for sideboard cards. Is that good? I'm not sure. Chained to the Rocks is EXCELLENT in this deck and Keening Apparition offers some insurance against more obscure matchups (Hexproof) as well as any deck with Courser of Kruphix. We're really not sacrificing much for the white splash so I think it's fine. We may just want to focus on being able to transform more vs aggro in postboard games.

My record in match play so far:

Mono black: 2-0
UWx control: 2-0
RW Burn: 0-1
RDW: 1-0
White Weenie: 1-0
Jund Walkers: 0-1
Dredge: 1-0
Other: 2-0

My matchup vs Jund Walkers was mostly me getting unlucky. Mull to five in g1 and then stuck on two land g2 with the second land being Mutavault so I couldn't chain the two Emissaries in my hand. Chandra is a real beating vs us but they are very slow out of the gate. I felt like this was a 50/50 matchup while playing.

I'm gonna try changing the charms out for 4 Dynacharges, and a board of:
4 Boros Charm
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Searing Blood
2 Frontline Medic
1 Keening Apparition
for tonight's daily event. I'll be reporting after the event!

Uneventful, sad event. Lost to Jund walkers 2-1, after a blowout win with dynacharge, the next two games saw plenty of sweepers and roadblocks that I couldn't get past. Then lost to white based boros in two quick games to a slew of 2/1's and blowouts by ajani's presence/brave the elements. Today's games just felt... nearly unwinnable.

Val, the Pro Tour seems to have a lot of RW Goblin Rabblemaster/Boros Charm/Chained to the Rocks decks... Seem familiar?

Glad I own 20 rabblemasters.

Yeah, they've spiked massively online. I should have followed my gut and bought more online.

Val, the Pro Tour seems to have a lot of RW Goblin Rabblemaster/Boros Charm/Chained to the Rocks decks... Seem familiar?

Nice...

If a mono blue deck wins this pro tour I'm gonna go on a rampage tho