i believe he's talking about this one

like i said before, and like Tobi and others have said, it will always depend on your situation. i'm not going to say that 10 out of 10 times you should immediately take out chalice with your pridemage. obviously if there is a better choice, then go for that instead.

if you manage to get out a pridemage and shusher, i wouldn't necessarily say you're doing well enough to not consider destroying the chalice. the chalice effectively limits you to one spell per turn until you get up to 6 mana. it's a huge loss in tempo for your already slow-clock, mana accelerant-lacking GW deck.

when you play against shop-based deck, they can have a full arsenal of moxen, mishra's workshop, lotus, ancient tomb, sol ring, mana crypt, mana vault, etc. as the GW player, all you have access to are single-mana producing land and 2 moxen and a lotus (if you aren't playing the budget version). by turn 2 or 3, you are most likely going to have 2-3 mana available. by turn 2 or 3, they might have 6-8 mana available, certainly enough to play a chalice for 2.

in short, they can pull out a chalice for 2 extremely fast and early. i don't think you will have that much disposable mana when that happens, so it seems like in most situations where this will come up, you should get rid of the chalice as soon as possible. but if you manage to have a good stable mana base by the time they chalice, then i do agree that you should just leave it there.

why would i keep it in play and continually spend an additional G on every 2cc spell i play to get around it?

like i mentioned before, i assumed that you tested this a fair amount, and clearly you are winning in your metagame, so i'm not questioning any of your card choices, especially the werebear. i just wanted to know how often you were winning with it, and if you say it's around 60% of the time due to the bears, then who am i to question results.

but i really would find room in your deck for the additional 2 ESG. plain and simple, null rod turn one with counter backup is awesome, and if those werebears are as effective as you say they are, being able to play them on turn one whenever you can should be something you should go for.


while i partially agree with you here, i won't go as far as to say that unorthodox decks will simply be ignored unless you are a well known player. your deck is a clearly has choices that are geared towards your metagame. it's hard for people to comment or question card choices in a metagame deck when the usual response will be: "i understand that [blank] might seem out of place, but at the local store where i play, it's won me games and i wouldn't substitute it for any other card."

congratulations on second place.

just a quick question, how was heartwood storyteller? ever since i saw the decklist that Nick Vallas won with at the TMC open 3, i've tested and have integrated knights of the reliquary into my deck. i'll admit that i have not tested heartwood storyteller at all. his ability is amazing, but being 3cc seems like it would come in after your opponent has already played most of their key draw/search spells. how did these treat you during your tournament?

congratulations on your tournament win. i would really like to see the sideboard you used for that tournament.

just a few things to mention:

null rods are a must. i would consider saving up for those over anything else at the moment.

i think 4x knights of the reliquary is a bit much. one is usually good enough to win you the game and 3cc is a lot. i use a combination of 3x knights and 3x tarm in my GW deck. i can see the justification of using 4x knights if you can't get your hands on any tarms at all any time soon.

what situation do you find yourself playing true believer the most? i believe there are many other cards that are better alternatives, but i can understand if it's a metagame thing.


i've done this before once too. it's pretty awesome and no one sees it coming.

i assumed you've tested this a fair amount, and i'm not sure about your metagame, so i'll just start by asking a few quick questions, since you seem to be expecting them anyway.

is there a reason you're not using 4 ESG? it seems like an accelerant for a turn one null rod with a daze or force would be the best turn one play you could do.

how often do you find yourself winning with werebear? as a 2cc creature, i'm not sure how much he can help you in terms of early acceleration. and if you usually get threshold by turn 4, there are other alternatives which are better than a 4/4 by turn 4.

i'm not sure what you mean by this here. how are you intuitioning for bazaar and loam? your opponent will probably not choose to give you either unless the third card is something like ancestral recall. and even then, i'm not sure how bazaar helps you in this deck.

@the_lord_shaper & @BruiZar : pretty much everything that bluemage55 said addresses most, if not all, of your points.

i have found that the argument for shusher over swarm can be addressed in a few key factors.

1. as it was mentioned in the thread previously, the main problem with this deck is the lack of a draw engine. it has very few ways to generate card advantage without splashing into another color. the alternative to generating your own card advantage is slow down your opponents'. as bluemage55 mentioned, the ESG surprise factor if they use force of will does make a difference providing some card advantage, which this deck is lacking. if a player in that situation pitches a mana drain, that doesn't help much because drain is a dead card with shusher on the board anyway. but if the only other blue card they had was a merchant scroll or tezzeret or fact or fiction or ponder or any other search/draw card, then it will make a huge difference.

2. i believe the 2/2 body of the shusher for the additional G does matter. simply put, tezzeret is not the problem. you should be doing well against tezzeret regardless of if you use swarm or shusher imo. the problem i believe you run into is other aggro control decks, like fish. going back to the fundamentals of magic, [http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=3692], as the GW player, you are the beatdown deck, they are the control deck. swarm does not help you here at all in your role as the beatdown deck.

3. you don't ever actually have to use shusher's ability. ever. with xantid swarm, you actually have to attack with it, which will probably negate the exalted ability from pridemage as bluemage55 mentioned. it also runs into the problem of if your opponent has any sort of flying creature at all (which i know is not common, but is still a possibility). if you really think about it, shusher's ability is more of a static ability that might as well be this:

Vexing Shusher
GG - 2/2
Vexing Shusher can't be countered.
As long you have G available, spells you cast can't be countered by spells or abilities.

except for the surprise ESG activation that occurs when i am tapped out, i don't believe i have ever really used shusher's ability.

4. unless you get swarm in your opening hand to play on turn one, it's slow. when you are in topdeck deck mode around turn 3-4, which is likely to happen with this deck, and you draw a swarm, if you actually manage to get it to resolve, you have to wait a turn to use it. you can actually make use of shusher the moment you play it.


there are very very few situations where i'm not using the wasteland immediately. and like bluemage55 said, shusher's ability uses G, not 1.

[edit:] forgot to mention another reason

5. against shop decks, a chalice of the void for 2 will simply wreck you. if you didn't manage to get out teeg in time to stop it, then a shusher is the only thing that will keep you in the game. not being counterable means he gets around chalice by himself. and you now have the option of paying an additional G to play your creatures. obviously not the best situation to be in, but better to be in a bad situation than a dead situation.

i could see mold adder seeing some play in certain metagames.

during playtesting, one thing i will say about the xantid swarm vs shusher argument which gives the edge for shusher: shusher has great synergy with ESG. tapping out to play a mindcensor when they fetch or tutor will almost always force them to counter if they can. throw out an ESG to make it uncounterable with shusher and they will have wasted their counter.

i saw dream halls and got excited...

but then i saw the list and got considerably less excited.

congrats on the top 8 and the win/split. i would have been there but i'm out of town.

while 99% of the people here will agree that they don't understand the format as well as they should, they have one thing we never will: foresight into what cards will be coming out in future sets and the some implications those cards will bring. i like to give them the benefit of the doubt...sometimes

as such, one thing i noticed about this tread is that while most people are here complaining about the restriction of thirst, not many have offered an alternative to taking down tezzeret other than restricting drain. drain will never be restricted because if it ever was, it'll set a powerful chain of events where it'll only be a matter of time before shop and bazaar gets restricted right after.

5 lines might be an upgrade from what we've been getting.

I agree 100% with what Stormanimagus is saying. Vintage players are too stuck in their ways. Yes, losing thirst changes a lot, but so did brainstorm, and people got through that. Instead of complaining about every card that gets restricted and every card that should not have been unrestricted, people should be thinking about the endless new possibilities that have arisen.  

with the unrestriction of crop rotation, knight of the reliquary seems like a interesting direction to go into for this deck. 4x crop rotations could be incorporated where searching for a strip or wasteland effectively adds +2/+2 to a knight

Every deck but Fish

Oh I see. Thanks for the quick response.

I know that you can play a Thoughcast with 4 artifacts on the board by announcing the spell, then sacing a sphere for U mana to pay for it.

My question is, why can't you announce Yawgmoth's Will, then sac Lion's Eye Diamond to pay for it?

It seems to me that it should work the same way, but I was told a while ago that this wasn't legal. Can anyone help please? Thanks.

Featured on MagicTheGathering.com is a preview of Ninth Edition. On the cover it's "some sort of winged woman with a sword." My guess is it is Serra Angel. My question is: What do you think about this new look for her?

Though I like the original art the best, I like is a lot better than the seventh and eighth edition one. Your opinions?

FoW helps no matter what deck you play or what deck you play against.

I'd also recommend taking out the Brainstorms for 3 Dazes and a Gush. Brainstorm is good, but syngery is much more important in a deck like this.

Fetches are really not that great in here unless you are playing Tropical Islands.

Swap Quiet Speculations for Intuitions. They may be a turn slower, but the instant speed and the ability to grab Wonder when you need it makes it much better.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/249

Looks like it's almost time for the 2005 Invitational. Last year there was much talk about voting Zherbus into this year's Invitational.

The only thing I see in this is that might pose a problem is that the location of the Invitational is at E3 in Los Angeles and Zherbus lives in New Hampshire.



This is probably the category he would most likely be voted into. By hosting TheManaDrain.com, Zherbus has brought together players of Type 1and revolutionized it from a casual format to a highly-competitive, fast growing format. I can think of no one else better suited to be voted in.

No, when cards refer to itself, it is not targetting. It is only targetting if the card actually says target on it.

Have you ever considered running Dreams Halls in the deck? Back in the day, I ran Dreams Halls instead of Future Sight on those occasions where I drew into Bargain before I rectored and didn't have a brainstorm in my hand. I would rector out Dreams Halls and discard something black to play the Bargain.

DO IT!!!

You shouldn't feel guilty at all because he's the one that offered to sell for 30-50. Obviously he doesn't care too much about the money or else he would have checked on ebay or something to see how much it's worth.

Darksteel Citadel is stopped by Null Rod, something I hear is very popular these days...

Colossus can't be put into the grave.

Wasteland?

I agree, if something had to be restricted, Crucible would probably be the best choice. Other than Workshop builds, most other decks only play 1 anyway.

Standstill  :lol:

Now that's more like it!! :lol:

On a more serious note, I'm not saying we should name it something like brawny.dec, but something more associated with the cards being used in there. Even something like CuriousCritters.dec is better than Gay/R.

Do you think that Gay/R is the correct name for the deck too? It's still another name that doesn't reflect the deck. Beating down with 1/1 faeries may give people a reason to call the deck gay, but the name still does not reflect the deck itself.

4CControl is a Control deck with 4 colors
7/10 centers around using the 7/10 Sundering Titan
GAT uses Growing Dryads and Togs
UG Madness is a Madness deck that uses U and G
Stax uses smokestacks
Draw7 plays lots of draw 7s
Dragon's combo focuses around Worldgorger Dragon

The only exceptions to this is HulkSmash which many people are trying to change it's name to Tog.