Sword of Fire and Ice in R/g

[jpmeyer]

Tog doesn't usually try to control the board...

You are correct. This was a misuse of terms on my part. I simply meant that it tends to utilize its early game to disrupt (Duress, Deed, countermagic) and plays Tog after its opponent's resources are depleted and it has a healthy number of cards in the yard to protect the Tog. The point was that the Tog itself isn't usually a factor in the first few turns.

No, it still really is dropped early against aggro unless I know that my opponent wants to walk into a Mana Drain (read: lose the game right there.)

[swawagon]

I am running a very similar build as mentioned. However I am curious as to why your decks are including fetchlands over Land Grant? Any reason? I am running 2 Bounty of the Hunt and pitch unneeded Land Grants (or naturalizes) most of the time, something fetchlands cannot do, and I am saving that 1 damage.

Rancor, Incinerate has been a sticky one for me too, I went with rancor as often vs Keeper or U/RPhid I slap them on island walking River Boas (running 4) for damage often much more than 3.

I stole tech from old-school stompy and fit in 4 Winter Orb. This hate is a must counter threat for Keeper and several other decks, and hardly slows me down as I am often in top deck mode soon enough.

Stormbind I like, especially considering I can still use Null Rods where with Cursed Scroll I cannot. Also with Winter Orbs down, 3 mana for Cursed Scroll is too much, and the 2 to activate Stormbind is much more managable.

Hidden Gibbons are… well, just to inconsistant for main deck, and stink vs Aggro.

I find hate to be effective. Root Maze skips in and out of my SB, as it is a killer in some contol and some combo matchups but nearly useless in too many matchups. Blood Moon is similar to that effect. My build is slightly light on mana much of the time and is uses Winter Orb so Blood Moon is right out for now, but yes, it can be brutal.

Root Maze and Null Rod work fairly well together. Unfortunately Winter Orb and Root Maze do not as if Winter Orb comes in after is does nothing for a turn as the Orb comes in tapped. I have pulled Winter Orbs for Dwarven Miner at times maindeck but they are expensive to use and too narrow while Winter Orb really hurts more universally.

As mentioned if you are running Root Maze a few Treetop Villages are indeed synergetic.

[bebe]

Land Grants are great except when you really need a land and the control player sees your hand and counters it. Thisd has happened to me too often to make them a comfortable substitute.
SoFI is my pump and draw mechanism so I dropped thr Rancors. There is just no room for them.
I am playing with a new sideboard however ...

 sb:
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Artifact Mutation
3 Root Maze
2 Oxidize
2 Flametongue Kavu
1 Naturalize

I feel that bthis handles most of the decksn that are problems pretty well. I've become less enamoured of Crypts lately and Root Mazes can be tech.

[jpmeyer]

Now that I think about it, Morphs are really good against Tog because they don't provide mana if they get Mana Drained, and they probably will get Mana Drained because Blistering Firecat and Hystrodon are really strong.

[johnstown713]

good point because I had been thinking they would get 3 mana.  Thanks for clearing that up.

[GodzillA]

I am curious as to why your decks are including fetchlands over Land Grant?

The main reason is because, like Bebe said, I don't like having my land countered. Furthermore, I don't like showing the control player all the goodies in my hand. It lets them plan their disruption much more effectively. The extra point of damage from a fetch is rarely relevant, and is a worthy sacrifice to avoid Land Grant's drawbacks, in my opinion.

[DavidHernandez]

I tried 3x Sword of Fire and Ice in a Stacker build last week, and ended up taking them out.  They were great when they came out after a Juggernaut, but they sucked when they were in my hand in multiples, with nothing to cast them on.

Testing against Gay/r sent me into a mad panic whenever a Null Rod resolved.  Stupid Gay/r.  

Damping Matrix shuts it down too.  

At first, it looked like "Curiosity for Workshop Decks", but now I think the card is overrated (or at least, not yet broken).  Eddavater once said that it was a "win more" card.  At the time, I disagreed, but after extensive testing, I have changed my mind.

dave.

[bebe]

I tried 3x Sword of Fire and Ice in a Stacker build last week, and ended up taking them out. They were great when they came out after a Juggernaut, but they sucked when they were in my hand in multiples, with nothing to cast them on.

Testing against Gay/r sent me into a mad panic whenever a Null Rod resolved. Stupid Gay/r.

This deck packs a lot of creatures and four Naturalizes. The utility of the card in this deck is quite different from Stacker which packs less creatures bigger fat. I've not had the problem of no creatures yet. Yes, Rods suck. But Cursed Scroll is no better in your deck if the Rod is out so ...

[GodzillA]

bebe's covered the issue rather well. R/G Stompy doesn't play remotely like Stacker. While your arguments seem relevant from Stacker's standpoint, very few of them apply to these builds. As bebe said, this deck is never lacking a creature to equip, and has Naturalizes to deal with opposing Rods or Matrices.

Additionally, most people aren't going to side in these cards against you like they would against Stacker, because the Sword is the only card affected by them in your deck. Against decks like U/r or Fish that are packing Null Rods main, simply side out the Swords for REBs and you're set.

[Phele]

What came to my mind after reading the whole thread and testing out the SoFI - it works pretty great - is: Why not use mask of memory instead? Sure it doesn't have the protection abilitys and the extra damage, but it's cheaper to cast and to equip, it gives you the better card draw and the discarded cards have synergy with the lavamancers. Grim and River Boas seem to be the best target for the masks.

[swawagon]

I don't think Mask Of Memory is really playable in R/G. Bonesplitter +2/+0 (1cc 1 equip) is alot of extra damage and cheaper yet. (in R/G Rancor is on color and even cheaper and in many cases better, less enchantment hate around than artifact hate and Rancor has no equip cost) However if card drawing is what turns people on the the SoFI it is expesive 3cc and 2 equip. The +2/+2 is a huge boost though too.

Lightning Greaves (2cc 0 equip) is extra damage (haste) and some of the best protection and a cheaper cc and equip cost than Sword of Fire and Ice. Lightning greaves has no card draw though.

Lightning Greaves, SoFI, and Bonsplitter (or Rancor) are all playable creature 'helpers' and really up you your playing style or meta or what your deck can muster up the mana for. Personally I think SoFI is just too expensive for my R/G but I know if the game is still going and it hits the table and swings equiping a creature a turn or 2 then it is going to be big. But I think the game will often be decided before you find the mana to cast it and a creature to equip. 5 mana for the most difficult permanent to keep on the table, right now in type one, that does nothing without the help of a creature and a few turns is just to much of an investment for type one R/G. I prefer a few Rancor and in testing think Lightning Greaves is not bad. The Greaves makes up for it's loss of tempo, casting it, by the haste it provides. Sometimes that is a bigger reason to run it than the untargetability is provides. Testing I switched it to haste everything that I brough out, for free no less, most often.

I do see Mask Of Memory useful in say a Madness type deck, O'Stompy maybe, as another discard outlet although not a very reliable one.

[bebe]

Personally I think SoFI is just too expensive for my R/G but I know if the game is still going and it hits the table and swings equiping a creature a turn or 2 then it is going to be big.

There it is. SoFI replaces Cursed Scroll. This is important to note. It was not meant replace Rancors. The question is what card will swing a game in your favor more. I don't want a 'win more' card in the deck. i want a card that swings a game in my favor when the board position is equal or 'gasp' unfavorable. SoFI will swing games against a number of decks. I am only devoting three slots to it as the deck can win without it but when it is needed it sure is nice to see. For the same reason Hystrodons have snuck into my deck ( thank you Wasp ). I statrted with one, then two and am now thinking of using three. They swing games. Lightning Greaves and Masks and Bonesplitters seem 'win more' cards in this deck.

R/g has one major problem. It relies heavily on top decks. For this reason it is built to be redundant - lots of burn/lots of creatures. SoFI and Hystrodons dramatically impose their effect on game play. They must be dealt with by your opponent.

Wasp's standard r/g build is quite good. One needs only look at the results where people play it. I wanted a build that was more resistant to the deck's weakest match ups. Other than combo - no aggro deck fares well against it - this deck has proved very resiliant and strong in testing.

I'm not going to post a final deck list yet as Godzilla is testing some iterations and I am still tweaking a few final selections but the deck is coming along nicely. I think some choices will ultimately be meta dependent in any case and Toronto is a mecca for wierdness.

[Methuselahn]

Wasp's standard r/g build is quite good. One needs only look at the results where people play it. I wanted a build that was more resistant to the deck's weakest match ups. Other than combo - no aggro deck fares well against it - this deck has proved very resiliant and strong in testing.

I really like where this deck is going.  I agree on the Hystrodons.  I can remember one tournament recently where I used 2 Hystrodons in waSP's standard R/G Beatz build.  They are strong. Strong enough to take me to the finals and lose to waSP HIMSELF!  (to which HE got the Ancestral Recall)  He laughed at me for using them that day, but with the sword, I think they are quite good.  

[waSP]

They are quite nice, but they were the wrong metagame call that day, Jeff .  Your build was too slow for the mirror (i had more early stuff, that's why i won).

The key to beating TnT is going to be running Rancor or Bonesplitter (I'm leaning towards Bonesplitter).

Simulacrum-TnT fares well against R/G (one of the reasons I have set it aside for the time being) and it will struggle with the new affinity builds (when the deck catches on).  Hystrodon is amazing against things like sligh (5 toughness) and is very metagame dependant.  When you see a lot of burn, Fledgling Dragon is probably better (you can race).  Or maybe Ravenous Baloth, but he requires a lot more controlling cards to function.  It doesn't matter what creature you are playing, as long as its big.  The SoFI will allow you to play more conditional creatures (3 shamans and maybe some Viridian Zealots now).

I don't think Hystrodon should become standard, since it isn't going to be good everywhere.  Skyshroud Elite might have to come back to the deck to deal with Mindslaver decks.  You need a much faster clock to past deal with them.

Just some anecdotal musings about R/G (this specifically and as an archetype).

[wizmentor]

In a deck with 5 fetch, 4 wasteland, and a strip,
terravore should at least be considered.