Moonring Mirror seems more like an awful version of Phyrexian Arena. You get an extra card each turn but only at the cost of setting your entire hand aside for a turn to get that card. Sure it gets you a random Death Wish target each turn from your deck but Phyrexian Arena doesn't see play and neither should this.

Brian Woo can be annoying, but maybe because I have got used to him at C&J's, I found Roy Spires to be much worse when I met him at both U.S. Nationals this year (I didn't know he was Random-Miser then) and Worlds now. Some of his comments just really annoyed me at Nationals that I really didn't care to speak to him or deal with him at Worlds.

EDIT: NP Tom.

Sorry about that Hernandez, some of this stuff seems kind of obvious to me and others that I know well. I will be sure to let up next time, though it stings me when good players as well as even high level judges make quite wrong calls in tournaments. Just FYI, I'm the guy with the contacts.

Cornbread listed all the decks he felt were relevant, he left off such things as White Weenie, etc, which is why only 73 of the 98 decks are accounted for. He also happens to be missing a 3 color Tog deck from the stats I remember. But looking over his and my figures while scouting, we had acounted for 15 fish decks with about 6 decks unnacounted in the end. We assumed 2 of these matches to be Storm combo with opponents' decks unknown.



And you don't have to deal with him every week...  

Final Standings for Top 8

1. 4cc (TheLegendOfMagic)
2. Drain Slaver w/ Stick Jank (Random-Miser)
3. Stax (Luis Scott-Vargas)
4. 4cc (TracerBullet)
5-8th. Stax (Kenny Olberg)
5-8th. Mono Blue (Zhalfirin)
5-8th. Fish (Thomas Gimmel)
5-8th. Mono Blue (Shawn)

Interesting notes:

1. Sui Black era 1993 made a showing in hard sleeves, Drudge Skeletons with Holy Strength are the beats with Sengir for the win!

2. While scouting the decks I saw something I believed to be RG Beats, looking at game 2 he went Port, Sol Ring, Lotus Petal, Time Walk... What the F@&%?!

3. In the quarterfinals TheLegendOfMagic completely pissed off Kenny Olberg to no end when Legend came back from 1 life and topdecked several turns in a row to finally win the game.

4. Legend has been immortalized in a picture at Worlds, something I hope Zhalfirin will post so you can all see him side by side with the card Gus, from Unglued.

5. Two bumbling idiots were arguing over Scepter + Trinisphere. One said it cost 2, the other said it cost 3. The Judge came and told em it was 5.

Anyways the field was quite diverse with players from many countries and there was a lot of power, even though I didn't always think it was put to best use. One of my friends put it best after seeing note #5: "Even though at C&J's we think of Legend as an awful player who can't stack several Mem Jars right, there are people that are so much worse."

In Drain Slaver you can Drain into a 7/10, Draining into DSC can be quite difficult. Although a 7/10 is still not that spectacular versus Null Rod Aggro unless they have very few creatures.

What I mean to say is that no it's not completely horrid, it's just worse than pure UR.

I don't think anyone is debating whether DSC or 7/10 is better in combo, Tinkering for DSC means you want to win, now. DSC just performs this function superior to any other Tinker target.

@Dante: Thanks for the info. I never was a fan of Chrome Mox.

Basically adding green weakens your manabase to strip effects, so creating a continuous source of one color will be nearly impossible so don't rely on your mana base in the 4cc matchup. But, adding Mutation just breaks open the Workshop matchups in general to help you out a lot where UR fails.

Without Scales or Smokestacks this deck ends up without a way to deal with permanents of any kind other than land.

Marton it would be great if you read the rules as well, especially Dr.Sylvan's rule 4 section C.

Basically lorrum, your deck has no focus. There is no harmonic theme throughout the deck and there really doesn't seem to be a whole goal to the deck. You run a lot of 1 and 2 of's that seem quite random.

Mana base: Take out manlands, your deck needs to be able to abuse manlands to use them, such as Fish or Landstill. Take out Cloudposts, without ways to search for them they are awful in even T2, without ways to search for them in T1 they are just unplayable and horrible acceleration. Take out Gilded Lotus, unless you are playing Workshops, this card is not that good. If you want to try and run the mana denial element through Wastelands and Stifles, you need to run 4 Wastes and 1 Strip. Solemn Simulacrum is also just inferior mana acceleration in T1.

Basically your deck can go two ways, one being a la 4cc, which if you browse this forum and have power you could make the deck. Or if you have power this deck can turn into something such as Drain Slaver. You really can't make unpowered versions of these decks. If you want a semi-budget deck that I could see putting together with your cards you might want to try something such as Landstill.

Hope this helped and welcome to TMD. Read a few of the decks out there and see where you want to take your deck.

Thanks. On some of the points you adressed:

I felt that I could only cast Jar if I had 2 Workshops or a decent sized Academy and otherwise it seemed like it was not pulling its weight. I Wished for a Shaman once and it blew up two moxen, I think it's worth the slot, but maybe there is something more optimal, against things like 4cc or Tog, it can be a threat to their mana base if you are already stripping them. I think Woodripper is essential when you need to blow up your own HoG's and don't have an Explosives or you want to blow up HoG's and keep your Crucible while going off.

Carpet of Flowers, yes it adds mana, but I don't think it seems needed. It has no interaction with the rest of the deck, it just adds mana. I think it would feel more like Academy's #2 and 3, but I have not tested them. On Undiscovered Paradise, in that situation you are already in really bad shape, but I think maybe replace 1 Volcanic with an Undiscovered, I like being able to fetch every color I need.

This is my first tournament report, I've played T1 semi-seriously until I got banned from sanctioned play. I've been playing T1 more actively recently and have been posting here for a short while. I play at C&J's mainly, going to places for Proxy tournaments because none are held at C&J's. I played at the Mox Jet tournament at Gems.

Here is the tournament thread: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18585

Here is me banned from the DCI: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/suspended (Derek Flores)


So a about Thursday, I hear about a tournament down south that a few of the C&J’s crew are heading down to. I ask if I can go and it’s cool with them, so the day of, I am in a dilemma of what to play. All I had was Gay/r, so I asked one of my friends if I could borrow his FCG. He also had Animal Farm that he decided he wasn’t going to play. I asked him if I could play it and he said sure. So we drove down to LA, with my hopes that I would run into a lot of Workshops and crush them game 1 and hope to win one of the 2 later games and dodge Blood Moon and a damaging Rack and Ruin. After the long drive we got there about two in the morning, the day of the tournament. The five of us build and decide decks for the next four hours and then finally manage to get to sleep about six. We wake up sometime between ten and eleven, have breakfast, then take another sort of long drive to the tournament which is supposed to start at 1:00.

Here was the list that I ran, I copied this straight from Christiaan’s (Zhalfirin) deck, along with his Eternal Witness as a Living Wish target that seemed to be golden:

Maindeck
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Horn of Greed
4 Exploration
4 Brainstorm
2 Living Wish
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crop Rotation
1 Trade Routes
1 Fastbond
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Zuran Orb
1 Memory Jar
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Regrowth

4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Mishra’s Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Library of Alexandria

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald

Sideboard
4 Null Rod
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Wasteland
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Woodripper
1 Viridian Zealot


Round 1

Christiaan Royer (aka Zhalfirin) calls it, I have the bye. I wander around and watch my friends play, it sucks that my friends Dan Messineo and Ken Johnson (aka Kil0) are paired round one. Brent Peterson (aka unstablecornbread) gets to play the eventful Tog mirror match which he ends up drawing.

Matches: 1-0



Round 2 Gay/r – Casey McQuillin

Game 1: I keep a triple Brainstorm with Crucible hand. My first Brainstorm reveals two more Crucibles, but without any fetches I can’t get rid of the excess. I pass the turn and he lays a Library of Alexandria and draws a card during my turn. He plays a Cloud of Faeries which I don’t even notice while I finally ramp up to three mana, without any acceleration and play Crucible, which gets Forced. The second one gets through with a Wasteland in play. I keep stripping away his lands while proceeding to draw absolutely nothing. Horn of Greed comes down and he has no answer and I still can’t find anything. After thirteen turns of attacking with a single Cloud, he plays two more and a Spiketail Hatchling with me at 7 life. I opt to cast Crop Rotation or Living Wish, I can’t recall which, for Glacial Chasm at this point and pay the upkeep once. Two turns later I finally get Fastbond with Chasm in play and show him the combo pieces.

Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish

Game 2: He mulls to five and I get second turn Crucible with active Strip Mine, he concedes.

Matches: 2-0



Round 3 4cc – Patrick Pearcy aka Tracer Bullet

Game 1: Pat had commented earlier while I played next to him in round two on my interesting deck choice. I get a first turn Fastbond that stays and lay Horn of Greed. I expend as much as I can but get nothing. His start with Library actually makes me thankful that he probably won’t have two blue on turn 2 to play Mana Drain. Eventually after a few turns of drawing nothing, he disenchants my Fastbond. I have no cards in hand and no Crucible while I topdeck Explorations for the next three turns while being hit by two Angels.

Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish

Game 2: I lay the turn one Fastbond again and get a Horn into play. Pat plays Library first turn again and draws a card. On my turn I get Crucible and Zuran Orb to which he has no Force of Will and I win on turn two.

Game 3: Pat leads off with, you guessed it, Library of Alexandria. I get a Trade Routes in play and an Exploration. With three lands in play, one of them being a Workshop I cast Living Wish he lets it resolve. I look at the two Crucibles in my hand and think for a bit should I get Gorilla Shaman or Eternal Witness incase he has two-three counterspells. I opt for the Mox Monkey because of his five mana sources, two are moxen. On my next turn, I lead off with Mox Monkey, which he lets resolve. I play another Workshop and then attempt to cast Xantid Swarm. This eats a Mana Drain. Then, I use one Workshop to play Crucible, biting into a Force of Will. I cast the final Crucible with him at two cards and it resolves with Strip Mine in play. I Strip him once and then again with Exploration and then eat his two moxen with the Monkey, lowering him from five mana sources to one in a single turn. He has no way to recover from this.

Matches: 3-0



Round 4 4cc – Dan Drexler

Before the round started there were three 3-0’s, Dan, myself, and Ken Johnson (aka Kil0). The pairings get posted and I think I am playing Ken and we agree to draw to guarantee top 8 for us. However, the pairings were screwed up and I end up playing Dan.

Game 1: I keep a pretty good hand with Crucible and Strip Mine. Dan is able to get an early morphed Exalted Angel, but could not find the second white to flip it over. I cast Crucible of Worlds, expecting a counterspell, but miraculously it resolves. I begin to whittle away his lands and he ends up with just a Mox Pearl and Sol Ring in play. He is able to get a Tundra to flip over the Angel after a few hits. I’m down to 11 life and feel threatened. I cast Living Wish and proceed to get Glacial Chasm, hoping he doesn’t have a Wasteland. I let it hit me once with the upkeep then I kept replaying it from the grave with CoW. Finally I am able to combo out at a precarious 5 life.

Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish

Game 2: I draw the nuts. He plays land and says go. First turn I just win. Fastbond, Ancestral, Workshop, Crucible of Worlds, Brainstorm into Zuran Orb and Horn of Greed, GG. My opponent comments, “I’ve gotten turn one combos before, but I’ve never had it done to me.�

Matches 4-0



Round 5 Stax – Christiaan Royer (aka Zhalfirin)

I am using Christiaan’s deck so I think knocking him out of the tournament at this point might just leave me in a bind when I find I have no deck to play top 8. I am the only 4-0 at this point and there are about four 3-1’s. After checking what would happen if I conceded or drew to him, both would make him into top 8, we decided that to make sure none of the C&J players would play against each other in round 1 of top 8, we decided it would be best if I conceded.

Matches 4-1



Our plan worked, we put C&J players in spots 1, 2, 4, and 6, ensuring that we would not play in round 1 of top 8.


Top 8
1. Animal Farm – Me
2. Stax – Christiaan Royer (Zhalfirin)
3. Sligh – Sugrim
4. Stax – Ken Johnson (Kil0)
5. 4cc – Pat Pearson (Tracer Bullet)
6. Tog – Brent Peterson (unstablecornbread)
7. TnT - Joe
8. Stax – David Hernandez (Lemme think about this…)



Quarterfinals Stax – David Hernandez (aka Well I guess you know who)

We had talked before top 8 and I knew he had no Blood Moons, to my great relief. This matchup is quite in my favor as long as there is no Blood Moon. My only way to deal  is to play explosives for 3 ASAP, or Living Wish for Zealot using a Mox and a Lotus.

Game 1: On his first turn he leads off with two moxen, a Mana Crypt, a land and a Tangle Wire. I found this first turn very confusing. I take my turn going Land, Exploration, Land, Ancestral Recall. I see what he planned to do and on turn two he casts Ancestral Recall and Meditate during his upkeep. I have to play two turns of Tangle Wire at three, but with Exploration it isn’t that bad. On my second turn I develop my mana base, playing two turns. On my Meditate turn I get a HoG or two in play with Mishra’s Workshop and then play Fastbond with Zuran Orb. I am out of lands but my last card is Vampiric Tutor. Another Tangle Wire I believe comes and during my upkeep I Vamp for CoW and win.

Game 2: I was never really in this game. He gets an early Trinisphere after moxen and proceeds to lock me with Tangle Wire. He eventually Tinkers out Sundering Titan and I am dead a few turns later.

Game 3: My hand has Workshop, Lotus, and Timetwister, the rest is all junk. I keep and hope that he ends up keeping seven cards so that Twister doesn’t give him more. He keeps his opening hand and I play those three cards. My draw is pretty good with Exploration, Mox Emerald, and Horn of Greed, with my second land being Academy. On Dave’s first turn he plays land, mox, Chalice for one. This is annoying, but I have Engineered Explosives in hand. I play it for zero and pop it taking away the moxen and Chalice. I Brainstorm to get a few better cards and say go. He plays another CotV at one and I look at my hand, I have Fastbond, but I also have my final Explosives. I Explosives away the Chalice and win next turn with CoW and ZOrb.

We talk a bit afterwards, his first hand was nuts with many lock pieces, but the Twister robbed him of everything in game 3. He said good look and then I went to watch the other matches, my quarterfinals match was fun to play and I thank DaveHernandez for being a great opponent. Christiaan Royer (Zhalfirin) was smashing the TnT player, but alas it was just a fun game. Brent Peterson (unstablecornbread) is able to get out of a Maze of Ith by Flinging a Psychatog for exactly enough damage. Finally Ken (Kil0) and Pat (Tracer Bullet) are in a game, with Pat locked down but he had a morphed Angel. Ken had a 18 card window to draw anything to win, of course he does draw 17 lands and proceeds to lose the match because of this.



Semifinals 4cc – Patrick Pearcy (Tracer Bullet)

I know that this matchup is not in my favor, but I had been testing 4cc versus Turboland up till 6 am the morning before the tournament, so I think I could attempt to put up a fight if I played it properly. Although, looking back, 6 am didn’t seem like it was the right call.

Game 1: I keep a fairly unspectacular hand that allows me to play Horn of Greed from my moxen. That’s about all I do until I try to cast CoW which gets forced. I have another in hand and hope to start blowing up lands every turn once I get my next turn. My hand is Twisted away and I lose my second Crucible. I am in topdeck mode and he has a full grip. Pat gets Yawg Will while only a quick glance at his graveyard makes me concede with many draw spells and a Twist to get rid of the cards I had been trying to play against him all in one turn.

Sideboard: +4 Xantid Swarm, -1 Engineered Explosives, -1 Time Walk, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Living Wish

Game 2: I mulligan down to 6 for the first time in the tournament and keep a double Crucible hand, but no acceleration. My lands are Fetch, Strip, Wasteland, not breaking any until turn 3 when I play the first CoW. It gets forced while I keep taking beats from a Mox Monkey. Next turn I play the second CoW which lives, but he has six mana and the Monkey, I hoped he didn’t have the final mana. I make what I believe to be my only serious misplay of the tournament, so happy that I got CoW to resolve I forget to replay my land after the second CoW had resolved. Alas, he does have the seventh mana and he eats my Crucible. I then get a Xantid Swarm to resolve, but my hand is devoid of threats. He does make the mistake however of not casting Skeletal Scrying in response to a Swarm attack. Alas, Scrying goes off next turn and then he cycles Decree for two. I am at 9 at this point and really have no outs but to get some godly draws of Glacial Chasm and hope his full hand doesn’t have any counters. I draw nothing and die three turns later to three 1/1’s.


I end up splitting for third and fourth place with Joe because the prize difference was minimal and it wasn’t worth an extra match of Magic. He was playing TNT with Blood Moon, and Blood Moon is quite a scary thing.


Well the day before I was deciding to play either FCG or Fish, but when I learned that Christiaan (Zhalfirin) wasn’t going to be playing his Animal Farm deck I asked him if I could use it. I played the deck for about six hours straight and then got a minimal amount of sleep. I felt I did pretty well, with my only real loss being to 4cc in the top 8. I really can’t seem to think of anything to cut. I had really low impressions of Memory Jar as it really was only good when I had Exploration(s) or Fastbond, and if that is true, then I am probably in a pretty good situation that I don’t need it.

I was thinking maybe Wheel of Fortune, but this is my first time playing this deck since Gush was restricted, and Crucible has changed it quite a bit. I hope to keep playing this deck and see if there is any more room for improvement to an already tight decklist., but sadly, the Type 1 tournament at Worlds is sanctioned. I will be there to root on the C&J favorites.


EDIT: I found the 60th card!!! Stupid LoA!  

@theorigamist: Some people still prefer Brainstorm even in a build such as Zelyon's, but it is more feasable to play Standstill in Zelyon's build as opposed to Jacob Orlove's.

In Jacob Orlove's version of WTF/r, Standstill just has a huge lack of synergy with the changes he made.

First, Brainstorm helps guarantee you have the colored mana when you need it. Secondly, it only has 4 manlands, Gay/r can, on some occasions, just drop Standstill on an empty board and know that if there are 6 manlands left in the deck, it should draw one soon, while WTF/r has only 4, hindering the chances of drawing one. Thirdly, Orlove plays without Cloud of Faeries, meaning that it is impossible to play a threat and Standstill on turn two without a Mox. Fourthly he plays with CotH, a spell that costs 3 and then 4 mana, not working very well with Standstill.

Zelyon's build of WTF/r can opt to play with Standstill due to the fact that it runs Clouds and no spells over 2 mana. It does suffer from the same mana issues as Orlove's and 2 fewer manlands.


Faerie Conclaves do suck, IMO, but they are a necessary evil, they make Standstill more threatening in Gay/r. Usually if you draw Conclave and Factory you can't afford to activate both, Conclave is for those times where you cannot draw your Factories or they have been blown up.

If you run Colossus you can run either Brainstorm, which forces you to shuffle your deck which is quite easy to manage, or if you run enough artifacts, Thirst for Knowledge.

It is also far easier to get into pay with most Workshop based decks.

I think its assumed that combo should run Colossus if it runs something, I really think the major discussion should, is it worth that slot at all in combo?

If you feel it was worth the slot, I would like to know what it is replacing in your build of combo deck X, Y, or Z.

Basically everyone's meta is different and saying something like this really doesn't matter. Yes some cards are better in some metas, we are just trying to find it out which one is better overall.

I think that if you play a deck with Workshops, you should be playing Titan over Colossus. I think if you are not playing Workshops then it seems like Titan is a better choice because you are using it for one thing and one thing only, damage. Thats how I see it.

If you Daze a game breaking spell, well then you don't have a choice there, you have to. Where as you do have the choice between Flux and Rod. That extra mana can give them a free turn to cast some of the more mana intensive spells that Fish tries so hard to stop them from casting.

Daze has more syngergy with low cast cards such as Rod rather than something at 3 such as Flux.

My point is, both can be killed, while if Titan does get killed it did something.

Yes its an extra card to add to combo, but I always feel like adding a card that doesn't go for the main focus of the deck to be like adding a 61st card, all it does is decrease the chances of you drawing cards that you would need to win the way the deck is planned out to win.

I could see it being used in Belcher but that is because I feel that deck has spots to burn.

Planar Void forces Dragon to go off with Necromancy, and it negates Squee and Intuition to some extent. It's the same as Mishra's Ankh. You are already running Wretches, strip effects, Diabolic Edict, Chains, and Duress main, I really don't see how you have that big of a problem with Dragon. I haven't played this deck but that just seems to be a good matchup.

I don't think this deck needs bigger men, if it doesn't have a lock on you, it probably isn't winning. If you have the lock, you don't really need much more than a squire to win. Maybe you could add Cabal Therapy as more disruption.

Basically this deck has a problem with non-creature non-land permanents.

Yes Titan is easily destroyable, but thats assuming they have that destruction in hand, and if it is an instant, enough mana to cast it in response to Titan, or to recast it in the post-Titan scenario if they are tapped out or it is a sorcery speed effect. Even if it is destroyed it still has done damage.

I like goober's analysis that Titan helps in the matchups where you need it most and that Colossus is just a win more card.

Yes, Rod is strictly superior in Combo and Slaver matchups, but it is better versus Workshop prison and Workshop aggro. Against control I give the edge to Flux because most of the time they really don't want to pay 2 to keep their moxen around unless they need to filter into that color for some reason. Flux can also be pitched to FoW in this matchup. Rod is only better versus Black Lotus and Flux sometimes just turns their moxen into Lotus Petals. But I think that pitching to FoW is what gives Flux the edge in this matchup, but that is only if we are talking about MD'ing this card.

Mainly, I see Stax. Playing Crucible main actually gave me an out. Basically when they only had one Workshop and both CoW and Trinisphere, they would be forced to lead with CoW so that they wouldn't get locked under their own Sphere if I had a strip effect. This gave me a turn to Oxidize the CoW.

In the end I felt this matchup went the same as before when I tried pure UR. Was I able to Daze or FoW the spell that broke me? And did I get Curiosity to help and stop him from grinding me under with Smokestack? I felt that adding green it was still the same. Although, I have not tried it post-board with Artifact Mutation, nor I have I tried to use Energy Flux, both of which I believe can improve this matchup significantly.

Yes a 'Nilla 3/3 is not as good, but letting them resolve something like CoW, or Welder, Smokestack, well you get my point, when you could Daze it. Not Dazing or not Wasting something such as Workshop can really be hurtful even, if it does mean getting a Flux on the board. And secondly, when the opposing deck runs its own strip effects, three mana is really hard, especially by turn 3. They can also stop you with things such as Smokestack or Tangle Wire, further delaying the casting of the 3 mana behemoth.

Basically Tinker for Collosus seems to be inferior to Tinker 7/10 after the first turn or so. Sure it is an extra turn but at least if it gets Sworded or Duplicanted it still did something.

It's a slot that can always go to something better, IMO, and many decklists are already tight on cards as it is. And also, unless you get lucky and do something broken like casting Turn 1 Tinker, a Tinker resolving is already a good thing, there isn't really a need to dilute a deck further.

Basically the way I see it, if Tinker is resolving you are in good shape enough that you don't need to have Colossus in the deck.

Energy Flux doesn't stop things such as Triskelion, which is the one of the major disadvantages IMO of trying to use Flux, you can still get your board cleared. I am seeing less Slavery in my area and more Stax, so Flux seems like maybe a viable MD card for me.

I like the idea of Energy Flux, but doesn't it suffer from the same problem that you mentioned when talking about CotH in WTF/r? Playing it third turn, the best possible turn, means on turns 1-3 you cannot Daze and you cannot blow up lands. I don't know how this trade off works, but I will try Energy Flux and see how it goes as my meta has several Stax players.

Also if you start to replace the Rods with Fluxes, maybe Lotus might be considered?

I am for TfK just because as long as you have the mana, it is never a dead card. Without having Lock pieces, casting Meditate can just be bad, letting them up their permanent count way too much. If you have them in a Crucible Strip lock, Meditate doesn't help here where as TfK will work within this lock. As long as this deck runs Goblin Welder I see no reason to run Meditate over Thirst.

@Gandalf: I'm trying to point out that the advantage that WTF/r posseses when dealing with a CoW on the table isn't much of an advantage, it is still a serious threat that even the third color can't really help as much as would be liked.

Oxidizing a CoW after a few turns is only really helpful if they don't have a strip effect. Even then it helps them get the lands they'd had stripped and lets them pick and choose which they want to keep.

The cost of CoW isn't a problem for Prison, which is quite prominent in my meta, whereas for 4cc it is an investment, for Stax it isn't so bad. And every Stax deck here runs Blood Moon in their board, that card is just such a bomb versus so many decks.

IMO, an Island needs to be played in this deck as Jacob Orlove said, maybe my meta is a bit extreme, but I can't imagine this being a deck that is supposed to deal with random aggro decks such as RG Beatz and Sligh that can still wreck you when they side in Blood Moon.