Dies to Removal

So basically we are conceeding that postboard games will go longer so we don't mind boarding in Banishing Light in every matchup because we want more early interaction in the preboard games?

In game 1's, since you need your deck to be able to beat a wide swath of everything, your deck needs to be more proactive and focused on a specific gameplan: in our case, tempo advantage throughout and killing the opponent dead. All the game 1 cards should reflect that. Everything is either a threat, deals damage, or is a giant tempo swing. Most of the burn conveniently also doubles as removal or tagteams with Chandra to take down creatures we'd care about.

Banishing light doesn't function well for doing any of that. It's also why I didn't like seeing banishing lights in the mainboard of Jeskai mid builds. Postboard, you're still the aggressor the vast majority of the time, but you're tailoring your deck to be more midrangey and you'll have more games that involve playing 1 threat and a bunch of answers. In those games, it's helpful to have a catchall like banishing light.

Well neither card is good defensively so we kind of need to play the card that lines up less poorly against them. I feel like Rabblemaster is better positioned.

Hordeling Outburst is very good on defence...

Ideas for boarding vs Sidisi Whip?

My plans:

vs Abzan Aggro
-2 Magma Jet, -3 Brimaz, -4 Outburst, -1 Chandra
+3 Glare, +1 Banishing Light, +2 Sarkhan, +4 Hushwing

vs Abzan Midrange
-4 Lightning Strike, -2 Magma Jet, -4 Outburst
+3 Glare, +1 Banishing Light, +2 Sarkhan, +4 Hushwing

vs Sidisi Whip
-2 Magma Jet, -4 Outburst, -1 Chandra, -3 Stoke
+4 Hushwing, +3 Erase, +1 Banishing Light, +2 Sarkhan

vs Abzan Whip
-4 Lightning Strike, -2 Magma Jet, -4 Outburst, -1 Chandra, -1 Stoke
+2 Glare, +1 Banishing Light, +2 Sarkhan, +3 Erase, +4 Hushwing

vs Mardu
-2 Lightning Strike, -1 Chained
+2 Glare of Heresy, +1 Banishing Light

vs UW Heroic
-3 Chandra, -1 Stoke
+3 Glare, +1 Banishing Light

vs Jeskai Tokens
-4 Stoke, -4 Chained
+2 Glare, +2 Scouring Sands, +2 Sarkhan, +1 Erase, +1 Banishing Light

1-0 in the PTQ. Beat UW Control (2-0). Hard to be that patient.

Draw vs UW Heroic. Ran out of time due to lifegain.

Lost to manascrew vs RG monsters. 1-1-1.

Gotta win out.

Drew vs UB control for 1-1-2 drop. Frustrating times.

PreTQ side event go!

First round loss to mirror because manascrew. Starting to question why I even bother. Bad slump is bad.

First round loss to mirror because manascrew. Starting to question why I even bother. Bad slump is bad.

I believe in you.

The face that you realize its just a slump means you'll get out of it.

Beat Abzan Midrand 2-0, tgen lost to 4 colour Ascendancy because manascrew.

I think I need to look for an EDH side event.

I started playing with Pilgrim yesterday. Holy shit, why wasn't I doing this sooner??

Right?

I beat Sidisi Whip (2-0) in the 4th round. Hushwing is good.

Hushwing is truth.

Lost 5th round due to scumbag opponent + bad judge call.

I think I'm going to take a break.

I started playing with Pilgrim yesterday. Holy shit, why wasn't I doing this sooner??

Because nobody listens to me.

I believed you.

I started playing with Pilgrim yesterday. Holy shit, why wasn't I doing this sooner??

Because nobody listens to me.

I wasn't listening. What'd you say?

Went 4-3 at a ptq with basically pardee's last list. Deck felt solid against everything. Lost to manascrew/flood against abzan aggro (almost won game 3 on a mull to 5), lost game 3 against jeskai tokens although i had a very good hand against their average draws (3 lands, glare, chandra,dragon,sarkhan), but he just went double rabblemaster+burn spells and missing removal my planeswalkers were too late to the party. Sadly i got crushed by U/B control .... i don't know if it is a bad matchup or just him having absurd draws.

It's a pretty strong deck. Chained to the Rocks and Stormbreath Dragon are both pretty well positioned at the moment and the tempo you gain by playing only two colors (as opposed to 3) gives you a slight edge over the slower 3 color decks.

It felt pretty strong to me too at my PTQ. Every matchup felt average to great which is what I want in a deck. Even though I mulled in every game one for five rounds I still felt I had a good chance in those games (even won on a mull to 4 game one against 4 color Sidisi Soul). Just ended up losing a close round 1 against Mardu walkers and round 5 vs Mardu aggro. Won vs the Sidisi soul deck, Jeskai tokens, and a 73-card mirror all against strong players, and overall I'm happy with my performance because I played fairly well and was able to identify certain plays I made that may have been only slightly suboptimal without sulking about mulling a lot or flooding out (I did both more in this tournament than I ever have).

Highlights of the day was winning on that mull to 4 against a bad matchup and winning game two of round 1 after being dead on board, casting eot Stoke, then knocking top of deck to Stoke for lethal on my turn. I felt I did a much better job of playing to my outs than I've ever done and that helped make up for the relatively bad luck I had mulling and flooding.

You guys adding any of the new cards to the deck?

You guys adding any of the new cards to the deck?

I'm thinking of testing something entirely different for the first week, but I may just play the same 75 at a PPTQ coming up in two weeks.

If you're curious:

[deck]
Creatures (19)
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
3 Monastery Mentor

Spells (19)
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames
3 Chandra, Pyromaster

Lands (22)
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
10 Mountain
3 Plains
[/deck]

Might just be bad. It's a different philosophy from Pardee's deck (more aggressive and playing fewer powerful cards).

I'm surprised that this thread has died down while the archetype has continued to thrive.

I've been playing with this all week and been really digging it:

[deck]
Creature 15
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Heliod's Pilgrim
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells 22
4 Hordeling Outburst
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Valorous Stance
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames

Land 23
1 Evolving Wild
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
1 Mana Confluence
3 Plains
10 Mountain

Sideboard 15
4 Hushwing Gryff
2 Erase
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Wild Slash
2 Scouring Sands
2 Arc Lightning
1 Sarkhan the Dragonspeaker
[/deck]

I guess my deck falls more into the midrange camp...sorta. I'm a huge fan of the token strategies (especially with the Outpost Siege!) and the more aggressive version that maindecks Brimaz and Hushwing, but my area is split hard into 3 camps: Tokens, Heroic, and Siege Rhino decks. It's safe to say that I've adapted to that.

This deck was secretly tier one before FRF. Adding Valorous Stance might just push the deck over the top. Abzan Aggro and Midrange felt 50/50 before but now it ought to be favorable.

Of course there's now an interesting tension between Brimaz and opposing Valorous Stance. A lot of times I'd run out Brimaz instead of Rabblemaster when my opponent was holding two mana open to avoid Lightning Strike. Now that Valorous Stance is a card, that strategy is less viable.

Also of note was that the big reason to play Mardu was for Crackling Doom. Valorous Stance now fills that role and I feel like Mardu may just be outright worse.

Jammed a bunch of games with the list night doing some light testing against Boswells 1 drop abzan agro and a couple games against the frontier siege ramp decks.

Vs. Abzan agro, you're a huge favorite game 1, with boarded games being much closer. If you know/expect them to have drown postboard, simply board out outburst and your % goes way up.

Vs. the Ramp deck, the play pattern is basically deal them a bunch of damage, the ramp into a bomb and stabilize the board, then it's a race to see if they can kill you before you draw lethal burn/dragons. They're slightly favored most of the time in that race.

Is anybody still trying the Sam Black Roc version of this deck? That has been my main deck for awhile now so I was just curious if this is just the better deck, or they play differently enough that maybe that's simplifying the matter too much.

I really like Owen's list:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... -reforged/

I strongly dislike this deck, but it still might be worth looking at:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=79166

This one (Won the Super Sunday Championship) is also to my liking:



[deck]Creatures (17)
4 Seeker of the Way
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Sorceries (4)
4 Hordeling Outburst

Instants (9)
3 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Valorous Stance

Enchantments (4)
4 Chained to the Rocks

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Land (24)
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
1 Evolving Wilds
10 Mountain
5 Plains

Sideboard (15)
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
2 Outpost Siege
2 Peak Eruption
3 Hushwing Gryff
3 Glare of Heresy
3 Erase[/deck]

I think I like Owen's list the best of the three.

Outpost Siege, Valorous Stance and Wild Slash appear to be what was picked up from FRF for this deck. I like OS a lot, but I'm not sure this is the deck for it. Seems much better in Mardu. Correct choice likely depends on meta.