Arcbound Ravager in Shops

[msg67183]

I think Ravager is very playable in shops, especially along side Triskelion. He gives you value from removal and combat. Thoughts on Ravager?

[GrandpaBelcher]

Probably:

Top 8
Randal Witherell - Aggro MUD

4x Mishra's Workshop
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Ancient Tomb
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Lodestone Golem
4x Juggernaut
4x Su-Chi
3x Metalworker
2x Triskelion
2x Arcbound Ravager
4x Phyrexian Metamorph
3x Lightning Greaves
3x Staff of Domination
4x Chalice of the Void

Sideboard
4x Grafdigger's Cage
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Tangle Wire
3x Pithing Needle

[icy_triskelion]

Yea, ravager is very playable in shops.  I know that in the tourney I toped8, ravager won me several games.  Either sacrificeing artifacts to him and them himself to move counters to triskelion. Also I won a game because I was able to make my metamorph(which was blightsteel) bigger then my opponent's.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Yea, ravager is very playable in shops.  I know that in the tourney I toped8, ravager won me several games.  Either sacrificeing artifacts to him and them himself to move counters to triskelion. Also I won a game because I was able to make my metamorph(which was blightsteel) bigger then my opponent's.

This exact thing with the ravager/triskelion saw a lot of play in the MUD decks during the brainstorm/gush/scroll. Seems even better now because it messes with removal.

[Madpeep]

Both Triskelion and Ravager are useless before Null Rod and Stony Silence, which many decks main deck.  Triskelion is really only playable against aggro decks and those are the decks you're most likely to see the above mentioned cards.  Even as a late game win with goblin welder recursion he's inferior to many other beaters.  Most importantly, neither creature helps your gamestate immediately. 

For a creature to be playable in any workshop deck he must do more than just attack.  Phyrexian Revoker is better than Ravager in many circumstances.  He shuts off Time Vault, Voltaic Key, Jace: TMS, Tezzeret 1&2, he stops mana production Moxen, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt.  There are extremely few situations where you want to top-deck a Ravager or a Triskelion, where there are hundreds of instances where you want a Revoker to keep you in the game.  Revoker is Sphere/Strip/Meddling/Null all wrapped up in one little package.  Ravager cannot compete with him for a 2-drop slot, not in vintage and there's just not enough room to run them both.

[msg67183]

Madpeep, have you been reading this forum? My list does have room where others dont. Thanks for the input though.

[vaughnbros]

Both Triskelion and Ravager are useless before Null Rod and Stony Silence, which many decks main deck.  Triskelion is really only playable against aggro decks and those are the decks you're most likely to see the above mentioned cards.  Even as a late game win with goblin welder recursion he's inferior to many other beaters.  Most importantly, neither creature helps your gamestate immediately.  

For a creature to be playable in any workshop deck he must do more than just attack.  Phyrexian Revoker is better than Ravager in many circumstances.  He shuts off Time Vault, Voltaic Key, Jace: TMS, Tezzeret 1&2, he stops mana production Moxen, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt.  There are extremely few situations where you want to top-deck a Ravager or a Triskelion, where there are hundreds of instances where you want a Revoker to keep you in the game.  Revoker is Sphere/Strip/Meddling/Null all wrapped up in one little package.  Ravager cannot compete with him for a 2-drop slot, not in vintage and there's just not enough room to run them both.

Triskelion has immediate board impact something most other options for shops don't have.  When staring down a growing jace, kataki, bob, original Tezz and many other situations there are not many other cards available to shops that can answer these situations as efficiently as triskelion can.

As for ravager he can serve a very unique role of gaining value off your opponents removal and your extra mana sources as well as being able to add extra damage to your attackers the second it hits the table.  It does these things at the low cost of 2 mana.

Do both of these cards get hit hard by stoney silence?  Of course but I think their power when they arent shut off still makes them playable  
Are either of these cards better than revoker? Probably not in most shops lists but that's not the question.  The question is are they better than at least 1 of the 60 cards a shops deck list which I definitely think can be the case.  Nothing says revokers and ravagers couldn't be in the same list they play very different roles they just happen to be the same mana cost.

[msg67183]

Great point Lance, you have explanations for all of your innovative ideas. Although ravager might not see play in every shop list, he does show up.

[Madpeep]

Yes, I've read this thread.  You haven't posted a list so I had no information to go off.  Even in aggro mud lists there isn't alot of room and you don't need eight 2-drop creatures.  So even though the two creatures are doing different jobs, they are competing for the same slot.

As for Trike, he's terrible against Jace and Tezzeret.  Sure, in an ideal world, you get him in play and then kill a planeswalker, but that's unlikely to happen and even if it does, you're usually too far behind to catch back up.  In Tezzeret's case, he already found his artifact, namely time vault or voltaic key.  Whichever part of the piece they were missing.  Even if they don't have the other piece yet, they'll find it off tutor's or cantrips before you do lethal damage.  Afterall, you just spent six mana for a 1/1.  He's not winning the game anytime soon.

As for Jace, they're not going to cast him if you have Trike already in play unless they have a second jace already in their hand or they know that they're going to win if they get a single activation.  Assuming Jace is in play, then they already brainstormed and found Steel Sabotage, Force, etc to protect him.  Even in the unlikely event that you get him resolved, They spent 4 mana, got a free card, increased the quality of their hand, and are better prepared to win, whereas you just spent 6 mana and ended up with a 1/1.

Ravager is better against Plainswalkers.  They're shut off before they're even cast.

[vaughnbros]

Yes, I've read this thread.  You haven't posted a list so I had no information to go off.  Even in aggro mud lists there isn't alot of room and you don't need eight 2-drop creatures.  So even though the two creatures are doing different jobs, they are competing for the same slot.

As for Trike, he's terrible against Jace and Tezzeret.  Sure, in an ideal world, you get him in play and then kill a planeswalker, but that's unlikely to happen and even if it does, you're usually too far behind to catch back up.  In Tezzeret's case, he already found his artifact, namely time vault or voltaic key.  Whichever part of the piece they were missing.  Even if they don't have the other piece yet, they'll find it off tutor's or cantrips before you do lethal damage.  Afterall, you just spent six mana for a 1/1.  He's not winning the game anytime soon.

As for Jace, they're not going to cast him if you have Trike already in play unless they have a second jace already in their hand or they know that they're going to win if they get a single activation.  Assuming Jace is in play, then they already brainstormed and found Steel Sabotage, Force, etc to protect him.  Even in the unlikely event that you get him resolved, They spent 4 mana, got a free card, increased the quality of their hand, and are better prepared to win, whereas you just spent 6 mana and ended up with a 1/1.

Ravager is better against Plainswalkers.  They're shut off before they're even cast.

You don't need to play a play set of ravagers to make it playable, meaning you don't actually need to expend 8 slots on both revokers and ravagers.

Your argument against triskelion can literally be made against nearly every single card.  A single activation of Jace or Tezz apparently means you should scoop up your cards? I also like how you completely ignored the Kataki and Bob part of my statement because revoker does nothing to them.

I think you meant revoker is better against planeswalkers.  Of course revoker is better against planeswalkers, revoker only has a few main functions shutting off planeswalkers, moxen, and vault/key.  What you are failing to realize is that all of those are from one archtype.  If I wanted to focus all of my card choices on the archetype that is winning the most lately, dredge.  Then Triskelion and Ravager are about 10x better than revoker.

[Madpeep]

Workshop decks, first and foremost, are designed to beat blue decks.  So of course I'm prioritizing planeswalkers and control cards.  If your store's playing a ton of Dredge and Kataki then you're playing the wrong deck.  The reason those decks have been doing so well lately is because they're playing against workshop decks.  Triskelion is fine in the sideboard as a 1-2 of, but Razormane Masticore is better against the decks that play Kataki/Bob/small creatures with toughness 5 or less.  Why risk losing to Null Rod or stoney silence at all?  For many of the creatures the fish decks are playing you're using trike to kill a single creature (Trygon, Ooze, Goyf, etc).  If you're going to spend 6 mana to kill one creature, you might as well run Duplicant instead, since he can also be used against Oath targets, Colossus from tinker.  Things that Trike is dead against.  Triskelion hasn't been great since the M10 changes when they got rid of damage stacking.

[msg67183]

Madpeep if you would like to see my list go to "screw sphere of resistance... Workshop aggro at its finest" and look at the last list.

[vaughnbros]

Workshop decks, first and foremost, are designed to beat blue decks.  So of course I'm prioritizing planeswalkers and control cards.  If your store's playing a ton of Dredge and Kataki then you're playing the wrong deck.  The reason those decks have been doing so well lately is because they're playing against workshop decks.  Triskelion is fine in the sideboard as a 1-2 of, but Razormane Masticore is better against the decks that play Kataki/Bob/small creatures with toughness 5 or less.  Why risk losing to Null Rod or stoney silence at all?  For many of the creatures the fish decks are playing you're using trike to kill a single creature (Trygon, Ooze, Goyf, etc).  If you're going to spend 6 mana to kill one creature, you might as well run Duplicant instead, since he can also be used against Oath targets, Colossus from tinker.  Things that Trike is dead against.  Triskelion hasn't been great since the M10 changes when they got rid of damage stacking.

If a workshop deck is designed to just beat blue decks I don't see how it could have any success in todays vintage or any deck for that matter being focused on beating one particular deck.  The format is far too diverse right now to do that.  

For a properly built shops deck dredge is a very good match up for shops and fish decks shouldn't be a bad match up either.  If I built correctly I don't see any metagame where I couldn't play shops if I wanted to.

Razormane masticore is completely outdated you lose so much card advantage from it being on the table and you get 2 for 1ed by any instan speed removal on him namely dismember, which sees play in nearly everything now.

Duplicant agains oath is kind of a mute point now.  Shops can play grafdiggers for tha deck now which is a better hate card because most oath decks win the turn they oath now whether it be a hasted emrakul, grislebrand drawing 7 or a demon tutoring.

Basically your argument is if you play duplicant, Razormane, and revoker you can out class triskelion.  That's the point is that triskelion is so versatile making it a main deck or none card.

[msg67183]

Great point Lance once again. Im glad I ask you tons of questions and you are willing to answer them. Thank you for all your help, you are a great friend. I have been playing vintage since November of 2010, and I have learned so much about the format, most of that came from you.
As for ravager and trike, they are great separate as well as great together. So I think my question has been answered.

[Madpeep]

There are three archtypes (pillars) of magic.  Control, Combo, and Aggro.  There are many ways to go about each and there are some hybrids, but those are the basics. 

Control is better at beating combo at the expense of being weak to aggro
Combo is great at beating aggro, but it's weak against control
Aggro beats control, but loses to Combo

Magic is a huge game of rock, paper, scissors.  When I said that Workshops are designed to beat blue decks, that's because fundamentally, they kick ass at doing that.  We have the tools to beat up blue decks.  We have spheres, thorns, lodestone, tangle wire, etc that blue decks hate to see.  We screw with their game plan and they have a hard time winning.   Creature decks don't care about those cards.  All of our "good" cards are cheap, the one's that are good against our natural enemy (combo), while all of our cards that we want to see against aggro are expensive (since it's supposed to be our weakness).  You and msg are obviously trying to build a deck to beat aggro, which is very doable, but workshop decks are best at beating up on combo.  It's what we're good at.  If there are alot of creature based decks in your meta, you're going to have a much more difficult time winning with workshops than if you changed decks to oath or combo.  Looking at the situation in reverse, aggro decks have a much easier time beating up on us workshop decks, since all of the cards that we don't want to see are super-cheap.  You guys want to run ravager just to offset the loss of their 1-cc kill spells, yet you're not stopping to think that, "oh crap, I just spent 6 mana on that and they killed it for 1".  Aggro is supposed to have an easier time beating us.  We ARE their good matchups.  To beat them you have to warp your deck so much that you almost scoop to combo.  No spheres?  You're running creatures to beat creatures, but their creatures are WAY more efficient than ours.  We have trouble dealing with Tarmogoyf, Trygon, Kataki, Ooze, Knight of the Reliquary....ALL of them cost 3 or less mana, yet it costs us 6 mana to deal with them.  This is not a battle in our favor no matter how much you two want it to be.  MSG, your list looks pretty decent from the other thread, but you will still lose to creature based strategies with that deck. It doesn't matter if it's U/W delver/snapcaster/kataki/stoneforge or if it's G/W kataki/ooze/knight/tarmo or even U/G trygon/tarmo/ooze/etc.  They all have 1 mana answers to our best cards and they have a hell of alot of them.

Instead of trying to fight through the avalanche, trying to beat an archtype that's difficult for us to beat, it's better to concentrate on what we're GREAT at, and that's winning against combo/blue control decks.

[msg67183]

Chalice @ 1?

[vaughnbros]

We clearly fundamentaly disagree about magic in general. 

While I agree at some points in history some formats degrade into rock, paper, scissors I don't think that is the ideal state of magic for a majority of people, including myself.  Currently vintage is not in rock, paper, scissors, mode.  There are far too many "hybirds" for this to be the case if thats what we are calling a deck with a diverse game plan now.  As far as decks with success doomsday is the only pure combo deck out there, landstill/espresso are the only pure control, and I don't think any deck qualifies as pure aggro.

Instead of trying to fight through the avalanche, trying to beat an archtype that's difficult for us to beat, it's better to concentrate on what we're GREAT at, and that's winning against combo/blue control decks.

I don't know what your tournament experience has been lately, but it is extremely rare to go through a tournament without seeing at least 1 aggro hybrid, 1 control hybrid, and 1 combo hybrid.  So good luck having sucess when you are literally rolling over to one of those match ups.

Your whole argument about shops only having 6 mana answers to 2/3 drops is flawed.  Your lands tap for 2 or 3 mana.  Your argument about 1 casting cost removal is flawed not only because there is chalice at 1, but also because there are cards like Ravager, Triskelion, Wurmcoil Engine, Duplicant, and many others options for shops where you are 2 for 1ing their removal.

[Madpeep]

Hybrids lean toward one side.  If it's a combo deck with bob/tombstalker/colossus, then it's still combo even though it can win through creatures.  If it's a control deck with delver/snapcaster/stoneforge, then it's still a control deck.  Every deck has alternate means to win, that doesn't change the fact that they are geared towards winning in a certain way and they can run creatures that help with their primary means of winning and still offer a back up plan.

There isn't a single game against any deck that I "roll over".  Although game 1 against Oath is fairly bad for me, just like it is for you/msg.

As for six drops costing the same as their two drops because we have better lands....Other decks will always have the mana to cast their 1-drops on turn 1, their 2-drops on turn two, and their 3-drops on turn three.  Their mana curves are consistent (barring our disruption).  We on the other hand cannot guarantee a six drop on turn 1, 2 or even 3. Also, we deal ourselves damage in order to hit that curve (Ancient Tomb).  The deck MSG listed has zero card draw or deck manipulation so you're literally betting on luck to win the game.  You won't even see Chalice in most of your games since you have no way to find it or draw extra cards.  You hope to outdraw your opponent or get one beast that he can't answer.

Ravager is NOT a two for one.  You get a minor effect out of him when they 1 for 1 your other creatures.  Triskelion is rarely a 2 for 1.  Usually he's not even a 1 for 1.  I'd rather have Grim Poppet in most of the matchups (No, I don't play him either).  Sure, you can't play ravager tricks, but thankfully you don't have to waste room on ravager either.  You're squeezing two sub-par creatures together just because they happen to have some synergy, but again, without any deck manipulation/tutor effect the odds are against you getting (and resolving) both of them in play at the same time to take advantage of the interaction.

We obviously play in very different metas.  I wish more people in my area played dismember.  Spend 2-3 mana and 4 life to kill one of my creatures?  That's the best 1 for 1 I could ask for.  It probably took up their entire turn just to cast it too.

[msg67183]

Madpeep, I have no idea where you play, but where we play, shops doesnt have card draw or deck manipulation.

[A.-1.]

Instead of trying to fight through the avalanche, trying to beat an archtype that's difficult for us to beat, it's better to concentrate on what we're GREAT at, and that's winning against combo/blue control decks.

I totally agree with you on this point and most others you've made in this thread. If I was playing UBx control, I'd love to play against a Shop list diluted with cards like Trike and Ravager.


Let me clear some things up here (hopefully).

I don't know what your tournament experience has been lately, but it is extremely rare to go through a tournament without seeing at least 1 aggro hybrid, 1 control hybrid, and 1 combo hybrid.  So good luck having sucess when you are literally rolling over to one of those match ups.

Lance (vaughnbros), Scott (Madpeep) has done well and won his share of tournaments with Shops.

Madpeep, I have no idea where you play, but where we play, shops doesnt have card draw or deck manipulation.

Matt (msg67183) and Lance, would it be fair to say you guys mostly at Bloomsburg and occasionally New Jersey? Scott is from Connecticut I believe (sorry if I guessed the wrong state). It seems like just have different views of very similar if not identical metas.

[A.-1.]

EDIT: Deleted double post.

[msg67183]

Rob, when you say "diluted" are you saying that trike and ravager are bad? Because I see very good quality

[InfectedMushroom]

Rob, when you say "diluted" are you saying that trike and ravager are bad? Because I see very good quality

I don't think he means that they are bad. However, they just don't cut it against a blue based control deck compared to what those cards could be. Trike is better with the rise of more creature based strategies, but Ravager is lacking IMO. Instead of disrupting the control player's plan, you are giving them time to set up a Tinker or Hurkyl's Recall to take control of the game. You would usually want those Trikes and Ravagers to be another sphere effect, Smokestack or other disruption.

That's just how I see it, though.

[vaughnbros]

Instead of trying to fight through the avalanche, trying to beat an archtype that's difficult for us to beat, it's better to concentrate on what we're GREAT at, and that's winning against combo/blue control decks.

I totally agree with you on this point and most others you've made in this thread. If I was playing UBx control, I'd love to play against a Shop list diluted with cards like Trike and Ravager.


Let me clear some things up here (hopefully).

I don't know what your tournament experience has been lately, but it is extremely rare to go through a tournament without seeing at least 1 aggro hybrid, 1 control hybrid, and 1 combo hybrid.  So good luck having sucess when you are literally rolling over to one of those match ups.

Lance (vaughnbros), Scott (Madpeep) has done well and won his share of tournaments with Shops.

I wasn't really disputing his merit to speak about shops I was just stating that it seems like a gamble to me to just focus on the combo match up.

In general I just don't really agree with making a good match up even better with any deck not just shops.  Why use an extra 4+ card slots to improve my good match up by 5% when I can use those same slots to increase my bad match ups by 10%.  I prefer a deck to have balance and that's why I stopped arguing when I realized that our fundamentals on magic deck building were tremendously different.

Madpeep, I have no idea where you play, but where we play, shops doesnt have card draw or deck manipulation.

Matt (msg67183) and Lance, would it be fair to say you guys mostly at Bloomsburg and occasionally New Jersey? Scott is from Connecticut I believe (sorry if I guessed the wrong state). It seems like just have different views of very similar if not identical metas.

He may be only a few states away, but it seems like his meta is pretty different.  He said he doesn't see dismembers, they see play in around 50% of the deck lists in the PA/jersey area, and a requirement of shops lists is draw and deck manipulation, serum powder is the closest thing but still doesnt see much play.

Rob, when you say "diluted" are you saying that trike and ravager are bad? Because I see very good quality

I don't think he means that they are bad. However, they just don't cut it against a blue based control deck compared to what those cards could be. Trike is better with the rise of more creature based strategies, but Ravager is lacking IMO. Instead of disrupting the control player's plan, you are giving them time to set up a Tinker or Hurkyl's Recall to take control of the game. You would usually want those Trikes and Ravagers to be another sphere effect, Smokestack or other disruption.

That's just how I see it, though.

This is kind of the point though.  By no means have I been arguing Ravager and Triskelion should see play in every shops list or any good shops list focused on the blue match up for that matter, but Matt is hellbent on not playing sphere of resistance and playing 4 main deck wurmcoil engines.  In this scenario, he can't really mana deny his opponent off anything and 4 revokers are not enough to shut down a planeswalkers so Triskelion becomes a very good compliment to wurmcoil engine.  As far as ravager he seems better in this deck than cards like Porcelain legionnaire, and equipments because of ravagers synergy with Triskelion, Wurmcoil Engine, and Tanglewire.  And the decks inability to make the game long enough make it difficult to get value out of crucible, smokestack or any other card of the like.  This is a stax build designed more to excel in creature heavy formats not combo heavy formats.

[A.-1.]

I don't think he means that they are bad. However, they just don't cut it against a blue based control deck compared to what those cards could be. Trike is better with the rise of more creature based strategies, but Ravager is lacking IMO. Instead of disrupting the control player's plan, you are giving them time to set up a Tinker or Hurkyl's Recall to take control of the game. You would usually want those Trikes and Ravagers to be another sphere effect, Smokestack or other disruption.

That's just how I see it, though.

@Lance: We seem to just have different views on Shop deck construction, which is fine. Scott also plays in New York, and sometimes he makes the trek all the way down to New Jersey. It sounds like you two see the meta differently. Again though, this is fine.

I guess if Matt is 'hellbent' on playing a certain Shop build, I certainly won't be able to convince him otherwise.

[msg67183]

Its not that Im hellbent on not playing sphere, I just want something in the deck to be mine. When I did well at the grudge match with orb of dreams it felt good. I like to have my own twist into a deck. Im still looking for that twist. I just love having feedback. Anyone think of any quirky ideas, post them here.