R/G Beats... Time to rise?

[[FtN|FH] Negator]

I challenge a R/G player to actually outline the weaknesses of the deck.  If you can't see your weaknesses, you can't actually know your strength.

Right.
First, i agree about Seedtime, i whould never play it outside heavy blue meta. And even there you don't wanna sit there waiting for your opponent to play a spell and react which forces you to save 2 mana open all the time.

Weaknesses ?
1. Oath
Oath in generall. Salvager-Combo-Oath is much easier because we can hate the combo. But "normal" Akroma/SotN Oath is very hard. White or blue splah can help here. Some hate is availible in the sideboard but excluding naturalize there is not much that can be played maindeck. So you have to decide: Oath hate in SB that can't be used against much other decks or not and hope to fight no Oath the day.

2. Tinker
11/11 trample is a problem for this deck...what helps is a opponent already low on life that can be raced, Mutation, and white splash.

3. Exaulted Angel
Rarely played but against Landstill or Keeper you may face it. Kill it while it's a 2/2 as soon as possiple. If its a 4/5 and you can't handle it in 1 or 2 turns you have very bad chances.


Out of my R/G experince (yes i am nearly full powered) the first two are the main problems you see in a normal turnament. I don't want to say R/G hates everything away or something like that but it's still underrated by many people if you ask me.

[Dante]

other weakness:

Good Combo.  At the main event, there will probably be a presence of Dragon/TPS/Deathlong in/near contention in the mid-late rounds.  A r/g version tech'd against CS and Workshop probably won't have Root Maze maindecked, which you'll probably need to win game 1 (Null Rod will probably get bounced/igorned).

Slots 9 - 16 last year included 2 Dragon players, 1 Death long, and 1 TPS.  A couple die rolls the other way, and the top 8 could have had 3 more combo decks in it.

[Revvik]

I believe maindecking Root Maze is almost a must.  It even keeps control players off Drain for that much longer, and keeps multi-colored control decks (3+) on their toes when it comes to pulling out certain colors.
It's a very powerful piece of disruption, and works well in conjunction with Null Rod and Wasteland.
It also helps against Tinker / Colossus, giving you a last chance for an Alpha Strike, and against the Tendrils kill of Meandeck Gifts by butchering Rebuild.

Combo is an honest weakness for this deck, but not only is combo a small presence in the metagame currently, but the same cards that inhibit control can inhibit combo.  An early enough Pyrostatic Pillar can also reinforce the clock.
While it's true that any one of these cards by themselves can't kill, if your opening hand consists of five land, Mox Ruby, Pyrostatic Pillar against combo and you think "Dur AUTOWIN", then by all means do not play this deck.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

While it is true that hate in itself cannot win, let us remember this deck is not entirely hate. The only true hate it has is Red Elemental Blast maindecked... It has Root Mazes to slow opponents down enough for the beats to be lethal. I believe this deck to be equally as viable as any Fish build. The difference is that Fish has mild card drawing in the form of Ancestral, Standstill, and maybe some plink drawing (Curiousity/ Ninja)...  Hell, this could even play Mask of Memory (although I personally am not too fond of that idea). This does not only beat Slaver and Stax, but it also beats damn near any build of Fish. That isn't 10% of the meta, thats a big whopping chunk. Either way, though. This forum isn't entirely about praise, so I'll join in with the "anti circle jerk" for a moment...

Yes, it's extremely true that you're pretty much going with the seven cards you start with. No tutors, no extra drawing, no nothing. It completely defies Vintage logic that a deck without card drawing can (or at least have the potential to) win. It is also true that decks devoted entirely to hating can not win... You can find a good example of this by looking at this:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=11542

This is what I'd expect the anti-Kirds out there to come up with.... Well... Maybe replace the Annuls with... something.. But keeping the basic frame of R/G + "What can't be lived without". Is this any more viable? You have Force of Wills, and you have... some kind of drawing power. Yet what are we missing? Beats. The creature base is horrible. It's not Aggro anymore... It's a confused Fish deck.

This deck isn't meant for the Gifts/ Slaver players to play. Stick with your Tinkers/ Yaw Wills. This deck is for the elite few who remember Magic as it once was... A bloody war of attrition involving "creatures" and the "attack step".

Granted, trying to beat an indestructible Terminator army of the future with WWI tactics ain't the smartest thing, but it can be quite "fun".

[exit music]

I've always meddled around with RG and I think I have a few good reasons it isn't good.

Firstly, it tends to be a deck that trades 1-for-1 a hell of a lot. I guarantee that every established deck doesn't care at all if it gets traded 1-for-1 against a deck with no draw engine. Control Slaver will let you kill its Welders becaue it will Brainstorm, Thirst, Tutor, then Tinker for a Pentavus.

The deck does not have a clock. If you even try to call yourself an aggro deck, you should be able to kill around turn 4. This deck takes about 4 turns to make a 3 turn clock; this is completely unacceptable in a good metagame.

Red/Green seems to play like a really bad Prison deck and a really bad aggressive deck. Unless you can fix these two huge issues, there is no hope for the deck.