GWB Beats

[Guli]

This list is the product of a lot of brainstorm sessions, discussions, debating and play testing in various match ups. Feel free to lay down the critics.

The evolution (read to the end)

Initially it was a standard GW beat down. Then it evolved into Scryb Ranger GW beatdown. About Ranger:

Before you say 'hmmzz, ranger?? really?' I would like to give you the main reason I think Ranger should be played:

He gives you the option to play more threats and less lands, hence increasing threat density.

Then there are a zillion other applications, like he generates mana on itself when you are missing a land drop. With Noble he generates even more mana and can bypass spheres relatively easy. The pro blue is very relevant against Fishy decks who do run Trygon, Meddling Mage, Snapcaster Mage, Cliques, ... Then we have the interaction with Mikaeus which is basically an aggro killer and a huge clock boost. I have also done some cute things versus Tangle Wire with Ranger. Also Ranger makes it virtually impossible to lose your lands to wastelands. On top of all that, Ranger makes it possible to win races due his flying and untap ability.

So euhm, you have mana, and you have untap tricks. The mana goes to Ooze right now but there are some other cards that could be powerful with the mana generation.

Back then, Gaddock Teeg and Thalia were the main hosers in the deck. Just recently this changed. Though Gaddock is still viable, I think there is another strong(er) option. If you click in my profile you can see the GW list in its best form to have a clue what I am referring too. So recently we decided to rely on Thalia and Aven instead of Gaddock. Thalia already hits the cards with high casting cost. But Aven hits them on a different level. Plus Aven is a card that supplements the mana denial strategy and avoids chalice and can be a house in race wars with exalted and Mikaeus.

The addition of black is related to the cutting of Gaddock. I concluded that Gaddock was most of the time an anti Force of Will card to push through your Stony Silence and other bombs. Thoughtseize is a card that can do this and on top it gains information so you can set up your play order more optimal. It is also a great turn 1 play if you don't get Noble or a Mox.

Mental Misstep has been a great card for GW but I feel that with Thoughtseize, and additional duress from SB, it should be cut. Also, the Workshop match up needs a bit support and Mental is very weak in the shop match. I believe Student is one possible solution. Also there are still those Swords to Plowshares to survive the early havoc they can cause. While Chalice at 1 can hurt, it does not stop Pridemage, Ranger, Mikaeus, Stony, Thalia, Ooze and Aven. These cards are in the end the cards that will win you the game. And an early chalice at 2 does not shut you off either, because then student, noble, Mikaeus, Aven, STP and claim's from the SB can put up a good fight. If the shop match up really worries you, there are some other options we tried and that worked nicely (Porcelain Legionnaire, Caustic Wasp).

I believe Cage is a very versatile card, but I think Jailer and Ooze are better options against dredge. To convince you, look at the main deck for a second. Thalia is a card that will force them to find land or they can't really do anything other than try getting some tokens. Also I want to bypass Mental Misstep and Nature's Claim by playing with acceleration and powerful 2 drops. Ooze is a serious problem for dredge but that is obvious. We run 3 maindeck, to combat Y will, Snapcaster Mage and Crucible. Ooze also is great in the aggro match up. Against control he can get value out of everything that was killed and countered. He also shuts down Welder, Grim Lavamancer and Tarmogoyf. Most importantly, he is were we sink our mana in with ranger/noble. Next, versus dredge, there is Mikaeus that plays a key role against their bridges and to give your bears some clock. Swords also help in the dredge match up to exile something early on. Ranger is a card that can block the Narcomoeba and enable attacking and blocking tactics (vigilance). Wastelands can slow them down a lot as well. So I think with Jailer from the SB this match up is going to be pleasant and interesting.

I mentioned Student as a 1 drop. The thing is with Ranger and Noble, you are constantly getting value out of these cards by tapping and untapping them. But the key thing here is to divide that value correctly. So the green mana goes to Ooze, the white mana goes to Student. And Mikaeus benefits from his tap abilities. These synergies don't really get in the way of each other. So using ranger actually gets you mana while it untaps Mikaeus for example. If this was not the case, so if it would put a stess on your resources, then Ranger GWB would not work out.

11/03/2012:
After the initial discussions in this thread I was convinced that Dark Confidant might also be a way to combat Blue decks, instead of Thoughtseize. This change was made on the date mentioned above.

I consider Ranger beatdown a new pillar. This might sound ambitious, but I think due his multiple roles and who knows what might be printed in the future (and what I have missed in the present) he will get stronger.

GWB Ranger Beatdown 2012

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Savannah
1 Plains
1 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Windswept Heath
1 Mox Jet
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Wooded Foothills

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Scryb Ranger
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
3 Student of Warfare/Porcellaine Legionnaire
3 Aven Mindcensor
+4 Dark Confidant
-4 Thoughtseize
3 Stony Silence
4 Swords to Plowshares

SB: 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 3 Duress
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage

Let us get this GWB Ranger archetype rolling, it has all the tools necessary to be a winner in the meta.

Edited the title; titles of threads should communicate what the thread is about, not look to provoke an argument over what deck is best - Prospero

[boggyb]

Cool. But no Grafdigger's? Unclear to me that Duress and Claim will be enough from the SB against Oath, and that Jailer and Ooze will be fast enough against Dredge -- I usually only feel safe with a Turn 0/1 answer to Dredge backed up by Jailer, not Jailer backed up by an even slower option. Has this been an issue for you? And how has Grafdigger's worked in testing?

[Guli]

Cool. But no Grafdigger's? Unclear to me that Duress and Claim will be enough from the SB against Oath, and that Jailer and Ooze will be fast enough against Dredge -- I usually only feel safe with a Turn 0/1 answer to Dredge backed up by Jailer, not Jailer backed up by an even slower option. Has this been an issue for you? And how has Grafdigger's worked in testing?

Both Oath as Dredge run Mental Misstep right. They both are fully equipped to handle a Cage. Still, I was thinking about playing 3x Cage and 3x Jailerin SB and cut Ooze and Silence. Made the changes!

[TheWhiteDragon]

Since your whole deck is now CC2 or less, I don't see why you don't have dark confidants.  They don't disrupt, but they are an insane engine to draw all the guys that do...along with adding +2 to the attack.

[Blue Lotus]

I can say it is absolutely wrong to not run confidant. He is the number one reason to play black in any null rod deck IMO.

I'm sure you considered it so I'm interested as to why it got left out.

[Guli]

BoB was in it the minute I added black. But then I realized I had issues with mana base. I need to be very conservative with the fetch lands. The more black cards (slots) in the deck the more black mana you want to have. Thoughtseize and/or Duress are unique effects that I was looking for, I wasn't looking for a draw engine. The facts are that the effects I wanted are black. I wanted something that disrupts their plan or lures out their counters while gaining information what to play first. Thoughtseize does this.

When you start scraping and cutting cards you mess around with the entire balance of the deck. So in what match up would you see Dark Confidant? In all match ups? Then he is a staple. This means playing 4 and not less... So 4 cards have to go out. It is a pretty tight list. Propose something concrete, and back it up with good reasoning and make me feel you are talking with experience (with this deck, don't get me wrong, not your overall personal game experience) and I happily will follow your lead Blue Lotus.

It is still a GW beat down deck with the use of Ranger. I added a tiny splash of black to make use of some specific cards that don't come along in the green and white card pool. And the black cards are being used to combat non wastelands decks, with the exception of landstill (still use full duress effects vs this) , which we should beat anyway.

[credmond]

Right now your 4 x thoughtseize are going to get hit by their 4 x mental misstep or flusterstorm or whatever.

I agree that Dark Confidant is the strongest black card you can add.

I agree that your deck list is a tight one and plays well even without Confidant.

I would mix him in in a way that keeps the balance but relies on Dark confidant to draw in to your answers/threats rather than just rely on 4 of or 3 of to have them pop up regularly enough.

so -1 Pridemage - 1 Swords -1 Aven Mindcensor and -1 Heirarch for + 4 Dark Confidant

or just do the first 3 I am suggesting for 3 Dark Confidant and see how it works and figure out after playing where you want that extra Confidant. Or it could wind up being that 3 is the right number. Of course your mana base will need adjusting to support him at 3 or 4 -of. Probably need a basic swamp in there.

Confidant is the kind of card that puts pressure on the opponent to answer quickly. You want that. You want the opponent to Force your turn 1 confidant or tutor up a way to answer just him. That makes your bears that come after stick. If confidant sticks around a few turns in the blue control match up you should have no trouble winning that game.

Confidant also will give you much better game when you go up against combo. Then you use Confidant to assembly line into your duress effects and cages while you beat face.

Confidant shines in all match ups. Seriously, in which matchup are you going to side him out in? Your deck has full aggro to make him brutal in the MUD matchup, even against a full blitzing aggro MUD. Even against Oath I would have no trouble throwing him out early and relying on Confidant to draw into pridemage, cages, or claims. Maybe against Belcher I would rather have 4 x Teeg than 4 x Confidant.

[Guli]

Don't forget that you will have to sacrifice another play to get in Confidant. That could be Thalia, Stony or Aven. Do you think this deck has time to waste by casting early BoB's? First the disruption, always the disruption. And yea, against some decks BoB counts as disruption, but not all.

Cutting Mindcensor is unacceptable. He is a key hoser against anything that runs blue and black. Cutting Pridemage is not desired either in my opinion. He is way too important in the Shop and Oath match up while being good against Time Vault and Aggro. Same goes for Noble, she is a staple, the whole point of Ranger/Noble is that it makes your deck run smoothly. If you are going to cut, I think it would be:

-3 Student of Warfare
+3 Dark Confidant

Since those 3 slots are the ones I am not really sure of anyway. I would not change the mana base but I would change the SB to improve the Shop match

-1 Stony
-1 Duress
-1  Nature's Claim
+3 Caustic Wasp (for chalice 1,2 and Smokestack)

[TheWhiteDragon]

I think the point you are missing is that by trimming a couple slots to add confidant, the amount you draw evens out or increases the odds of drawing said cards.  Would you not cut out a mindcensor to add ancestral if you had blue?  Yes, you want redundancy, but drawing a ton of cards adds to that redundancy.

And dropping a turn 1 Bob when you have turn 1 thalia is stupid.  You would drop the hoser first, then the engine.  Also, to say playing Bob competes with another drop is flawed logic.  Thoughtseize also competes with other drops.  You have to lead with one before the other cause you won't be playing 3 mana in a turn.  Nobody is telling you to cut seize, they're saying to add bobs.  If you have the option of a bob, pridemage, and thalia in hand and you say "oh crap, I have to play my bob first, and that is the worst of my options," then you are doing it wrong.  But when you topdeck a mindcensor or ooze or whatever, and start trading, a bob can crack that wide open and give you mad CA.  Bob is really good in any deck with cc2< decks.  Also, if you are drawing 2 threats a turn to every one of their counters, then bob is really complementing what you wanted to acheive with seize. 

In short, not running Bob is a mistake.  The list may be tight, but if you cut to 3 on some of your 4 ofs to add 3 or 4 bobs, you'll be pleased.  Look at your old threads and how you advocated for Edric.  The whole reason to run him is the same as bobs, but bob is actually more efficient early.

[credmond]

Don't forget that you will have to sacrifice another play to get in Confidant. That could be Thalia, Stony or Aven. Do you think this deck has time to waste by casting early BoB's? First the disruption, always the disruption. And yea, against some decks BoB counts as disruption, but not all.

Cutting Mindcensor is unacceptable. He is a key hoser against anything that runs blue and black. Cutting Pridemage is not desired either in my opinion. He is way too important in the Shop and Oath match up while being good against Time Vault and Aggro. Same goes for Noble, she is a staple, the whole point of Ranger/Noble is that it makes your deck run smoothly. If you are going to cut, I think it would be:

-3 Student of Warfare
+3 Dark Confidant

Since those 3 slots are the ones I am not really sure of anyway. I would not change the mana base but I would change the SB to improve the Shop match

-1 Stony
-1 Duress
-1  Nature's Claim
+3 Caustic Wasp (for chalice 1,2 and Smokestack)

You are overthinking it. Just throw him in there and then start testing the matchups. See what cards you miss and what you don't in your matchups and adjust the counts accordingly. Adding Dark Confidant will change how deep your deck digs on average each game and thus change completely the percentages of seeing any one card. It will change the very underpinning of how the deck functions so you can't go on old assumptions.

[serracollector]

I don't understand how thoughtseize is superior to fluster, spell pierce, mental misstep, and acall.  Your already playing 4 nobles, why add black over blue in any regards to this deck in any of its matchups?

[Guli]

Because I consider thoughtseize as a strong opener prior to the plans I have with the deck. It does not hang around in my hand, it disrupts their initial draw 7 by taking out their best card, or it lures out Force or Misstep. I don't think GW beats should play counter/cat strategies that is more suited for Bant/Noble/Fish.

I don't think it is a question of 'is BoB good enough or not' in this specific case. BoB is one of the best creature printed but I wasn't looking for a black heavy splash. There is swamp in your deck! Swam detected! Run BoB! With that logic, let us run both Demonic Tutor and Demonic Consultation. My goal is to play my usual game as GW beats (which works fine) and 'solve' blue control match with something they really don't like to see. I also think being able to hit anything but land with thoughtseize is very versatile.

Also Thalia and Aven should see more play with thoughtseize in the deck. And that means the opponent is cut off from going all too broken. The addition of black is all about fighting blue and dredge from the SB. So why not cut the thoughtseize for Dark Confidant then? I just made this reflection while I was writing...

Would Dark Confidant be an equally good way of fighting Blue Control (or better)? So instead of Thoughtseize. This also makes the mana base more solid because I can now avoid a turn 1 Bayou. Turn 2 Bayou is less problematic because once Scryb ranger is online, you can get all the non-basic you like, they are not wasting anything.

Dark Confidant also means more permanents since it is itself a permanent and gets you more permanents. This was important versus smokestack shop versions. And one more note, Dark Confidant fits in the theme of less lands more threats, by being a threat and by seeing more cards which enables running less lands.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I know you don't want to go all in on black, which is fine, but that's not the reason to NOT run Bob.  Running DT/consult was obviously tongue-in-cheek, but comparing 2 singletons with virtually no use in your deck to a card that can radically improve your deck is not good logic. 

I see your line of tangent thought took you to the point that I posted yesterday - that outdrawing blue is a complement to disrupting blue.  I don't know if I'd cut seize all together because blue tends to run a handful of bombs with counters and draw.  If you drop bob and stick it, you will probably outlast the counters....but you won't trump the tinker/ancestral/timevault/oath (or lodestone).  You have OTHER answers to these, but a turn 1 seize is a nice play.  Student of warfare seems much worse than bob.  I'd think cutting 1-2 student, maybe 1 seize, and 1 swords could fit in 4 bobs nicely.  I think 4 swords is probably too much - and you only have 4 so you will draw into it - which Bob will help you do with running 3.

Mikaeus is also more "cute" than good.  He's slow, even with ranger.

[serracollector]

ok if your gonna run black, and you want a permanent with a discard efx why not just run the 4 bobs and 3-4 Tidehollow Sculler?  This still alows you to wreck thier hand, while laying down more threats/permanents.   

[TheWhiteDragon]

Because  A) they can get the card back by killing tidehallow, and B) because leading with a 1 mana disrupter can wreck an opening 7 whereas a 2 colored mana spell can let them set up with that lotus/ancestral/oath when they get a turn before your second land drop.

[TheShop]

Guli, have you considered knight of the reliquary as compared to mikeus?  It is likely more cost efficient for size and plays into your control theme when tutoring?

[Ten-Ten]

Guli, have you considered knight of the reliquary as compared to mikeus?  It is likely more cost efficient for size and plays into your control theme when tutoring?

I was thinking the same but Mikaeus works best, i think, than the Knight when running Ranger in the deck.
maybe -1 mikaeus, +1 knight of the reliquary?

[Guli]

Mikaeus and Ranger on the board is good game, there is no deck that can survive that clock. Mikaeus solo is slower, but still viable and I topdecked a Ranger quite often, things get nasty again at that point. Mikaeus is faster than Tarmogoyf and with Ooze, I beat Tarmogoyf pretty hard.

We also realized that Ranger is on itself a big threat versus Fish. I went through the database in all colours, I did not find any flash creature that has flying and similar abilities. Oona's Blackguard has an interesting touch that intrigues me a bit but Ranger is just the real deal with his pro blue. Mikaeus Ranger beats Tinker>Inkwell pretty hard by the way.

Mikaeus alone should probably be used to either wait it out and go for a late drop bigger body. Or just cast it with 1 counter and slowly get more value out of it and meantime wait for a Ranger. I believe tapping Mikaeus even once giving 3 creatures counters is enough value already.

Stormanimagus suggested running 4 Mikaeus. I was more convinced for 3x in the deck. I compare Mikaeus with SFM role-wise. He controls the board against aggro, but in a much brutal way and offers clock. I think Mikaeus also offers some protection against Fire/Ice and Pyroclasm.


We put back Mental Misstep in the deck and cut the Students. I think Mental Misstep is too important against Dredge and Oath.

I want to avoid random inclusions as much as possible. If I want Knight, I want at least 3x. But then I probably want to add a couple utility lands. So adding Knight would ask a lot slots and this one of the reasons I am not going for it.

Dark Confidant has indeed been a big threat. Every card is actually, what card would you like to face anyway? Even Noble is so strong, and it gets countered often. You can't let a BoB hang around too much, you can't let Thalia hang around, Aven hits hard, Ooze on the board means no Snapcaster or Will or dredging or Crucible play, Stony changes the game state, Ranger can't be left alone when you play Fish or Shop (not that Shop can do much about it). Pridemage is also in there doing the damage and getting rid of annoying permanents. Mikaeus is a big issue too in the slow games.

The deck did just fine but I believe with BoB's and Jailer it got an improvement putting it right up there. The tiny splash is not a big deal for the mana base but it is a big deal for the control and dredge match up. Actually, like someone stated in this thread, BoB hits every match up. Against Workshop it has surprisingly been good in this deck when cast early on.

GWB Ranger Beatdown 2012

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Savannah
1 Plains
1 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Windswept Heath
1 Mox Jet
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Wooded Foothills

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Scryb Ranger
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Dark Confidant

4 Mental Misstep
3 Stony Silence
3 Swords to Plowshares

SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 4 Porcelain Legionnaire
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage

[xouman]

Everytime I play fish I'm quite afraid from tinker. This list has 3 swords and 3 avens as answers to tinker, plus mana denial to help.

Mox sapphire is still in? It only fuels misstep, and playing only 22 mana sources, with 5 artifacts and 5 strips you can find yourself screwed. I'd replace sapphire with another bayou.

Is misstep good enough to play x4 in the main? Against dredge is a bit better (post SB), against oath is nothing special, and in those two pairings cage is way better, and similar in other pairings.

No katakis, abolishers or canonists? kataki is THE card against mud, abolisher shines against drain decks, and canonist is a better way to hose snapcaster and will than grafidigger.


The list looks quite solid, those are only things that come to my mind. Ranger seems crap, but I reckon that has beautiful synergies. Confidant is a great add-in, and this deck can put pressure from T2 (T1 with moxen), and has a quite powerful mid and late game.

[Guli]

Everytime I play fish I'm quite afraid from tinker. This list has 3 swords and 3 avens as answers to tinker, plus mana denial to help.

Mox sapphire is still in? It only fuels misstep, and playing only 22 mana sources, with 5 artifacts and 5 strips you can find yourself screwed. I'd replace sapphire with another bayou.

Is misstep good enough to play x4 in the main? Against dredge is a bit better (post SB), against oath is nothing special, and in those two pairings cage is way better, and similar in other pairings.

No katakis, abolishers or canonists? kataki is THE card against mud, abolisher shines against drain decks, and canonist is a better way to hose snapcaster and will than grafidigger.


The list looks quite solid, those are only things that come to my mind. Ranger seems crap, but I reckon that has beautiful synergies. Confidant is a great add-in, and this deck can put pressure from T2 (T1 with moxen), and has a quite powerful mid and late game.

Every mox counts against Workshop. We cut Teeg and Elvish Spirit Guide for additional moxes and Aven. That is one way to look at it. I would rather fight drain with a quick thalia or bob than try to find for abolisher and probably walk into a drain.

Thalia is in my eyes an improvement on Canonist doing almost the same thing. If I would add a silver bullet to fight Shop, I want it to avoid chalice 1 and chalice 2 while still cast-able under spheres. I doubted between Abolish and Legionnaire but went for the aggro because it just sticks and puts pressure. Abolish needs a land and those are short against Shops. Another possibility is Trygon from the SB with a Tropical island. Caustic Wasp does the same thing versus brown, but he seems fragile with the 1/1 but maybe that doesn't matter that much? I love Kataki with the Vial and 8 -9 strip plan, a deck i have been promoting months ago with Arbiter and Aven. Now it is making top 8's and is recognized. Maybe it is possible to implement that plan into this Ranger Beatdown, I tought about it, but then again  with Ranger, BoB, Noble, Accelleration, I am not worried about the mana base. Besides, there are 17 lands in the deck, and I think this deck could go with even less but let's not take that risk. Being able to use Noble multiple times over the course of your and oppo's turn is sometimes broken with things like Thalia and Aven. It gets your stuff in play effectively. Scryb seemed pesky to me too but it wins games. Protecting your Stony from a Trygon can be crucial when they have a TV in play. Being able to attack and deal damage every turn is important. Their plan with Trygon blocking your dudes doesn't work anymore. Ranger is not good versus Oath. I board out Ranger and Mikaeus in that match up. But in any other match up the card stays in.

Misstep is your bomb versus Oath and Dredge because they are using 1cc cards to kill your hate.

Bleh, Tinker... You are probably right though, we should creatively solve that issue. Any thoughts? My first thought is to add tapping tappers, a concept we abuse anyway with ranger.

Weathered Wayfarer might be interesting too, in the light of Tinker and the suggested Knight. Fits perfectly with Ranger because Ranger actually enables the card. Can add 2x or something and play with 1 Karakas and 1 Maze of Ith. I like the fact it gets strip mine most though

[xouman]

Ummmm. you are right, abolisher does not exactly fit this deck. And in fact Thalia has a similar effect that canonist, but against drain decks you would like having both :p

Oath bombs are 1CC? Not in my meta. Your answer to oath maindeck is pridemage, and I can't see which oath card MD is going to handle it, apart from counterspells. Also ichorid maindeck plays few counterhate.

If you don't play cage maindeck, you have little impact against oath and ichorid, and misstep won't help you counter answers from oath and ichorid, since they won't play any. Post SB I agree that misstep increases it's value a lot in both pairings, specially ichorid.

I've "solved" tinker problem with welder, metamorph and cage. Since you can't play welder, and cage is relegated to the SB, you can try metamorph. However it's bad with Mikaeus and Thalia, but you still have lots of own creatures to copy, it's not only useful against tinker robot. I've copied opponent snapcasters (even you only would flashback swords in this deck), tarmos, golems, trygons, have sacrified itself to remove bridges, can kill an emrakul withouth haste... Probably metamorph is not good enough in this deck, but worths looking at it.

I've also tried meekstone and ensnaring bridge, but they are terrible with Mikaeus.


And now I have another question. It's better confidant than selkie? Confidant costs 1 mana less, but forces us to play a third color. Confidant produces life loss, while selkie does not. Confidant draws 1 card, and selkie usually would draw multiples, with mikaeus and 8 exalters. Against ichorid feels worse,  not sure against MUD, but facing blue and aggro I'd favour Selkie.

[Guli]

Oath and Dredge have Mental Misstep, or at least they SHOULD, and the best counter to that is Mental Misstep. The whole point is to get your cage in play in g2 and g3. The bounce and removal are also usually at the cmc 1.

Do you think 3 Mental Misstep is enough to accomplish this game plan?

[Shax]

I think your Dredge plan is lacking, or you just get unlucky versus Dredge. In our matches on Cockatrice the first one gave me the element of surprise on Dredge and it let me crush you (2-0), the second match was different of course and led to a (1-2) victory on your part.( Or it might have been 0-2, not sure.)

Scavenging Ooze Maindeck is your only out against Dredge game 1 besides getting lucky, which the plan with Ooze works if the Dredge player is not expecting it. However, Dredge can be known to play Unmask as a powerful disruption tool to shut down a Victory Route or in your case your survival plan. Mental Misstep against Dredge is a good idea, since they probably should be packing them as well to fight Cage. Contagion can see play in Dredge, so that means it is a hard answer to Ooze and Jailer(at the same time is a possibility!) in most cases. If your playing atleast two Black sources as lands I highly suggest having x4 Leyline of the Void in your sideboard. It is the best Graveyard hate, and since you run 2 black lands you can cast it. (Bayou and Scrubland)

[credmond]

Seems wrong not to run vampiric tutor. Vampiric for confidant or cage or strip or swords or silence when you need it seem like good plays. I would not run demonic though.

[StanleyAugust]

Mikaeus and Ranger on the board is good game, there is no deck that can survive that clock.

Wait, what? Almost all decks can survive that clock.

Mikaeus Ranger beats Tinker>Inkwell pretty hard by the way.

lol, who has played Inkwell the last 6 months?

[Guli]

No they don't survive that clock. You have absolutely no idea how the mechanics work out. I didn't either until I played enough games to realize optimal play with these cards. You also need to understand that this deck has very effective hate components. The opponent needs TIME to play around it, and in some cases that is not possible anymore. The usual scenario's resolve around a noble, thalia and aven/ooze. You start pumping them and they scoop. Their ability to cope with my threats is not that flexible.

Have seen some TMD users utilize Inkwell for some reason in online games. This might not seem very relevant for you, I understand that.

What I did do is add Weathered Wayfarer as a tutor and semi-cheaper-knight. since your way of pumping is by exalted and Mikaeus, the body of knight is not relevant in this case. In a way, when you are playing less land in your deck and more threats, a card like Wayfarer is a card advantage engine. It ensures you to get your strip effects, lands you need and offers an answer to Tinker+BSC and Show and Tell Emrakul. I believe in this deck, it can be very strong with Ranger. I haven't tested it, but in a specific mana drain situation, Wayfarer offers you an out with strip mine. You can simply deny them of double blue and then proceed to lure out their Force of Will and bypass mana drain. These are the kinds of plays I look for when considering a card. In this sense, I like the suggestion of Vampiric tutor as well. But vamp is tempo loss and card loss, while Wayfarer seems to net you cards and offers you tempo gain in the long run. (Demonic Consultation would be more interesting that Vampiric in my opinion IF you really want that tutor power)

Vampiric would probably not be 'bad' either but I prefer keeping additional black OUT of the deck. Can you respect that? I don't want those situations were I have to crack my fetch for bayou just to use that 1 vamp in my hand. Cracking a fetch for bayou in order to get down BoB is fine though, since BoB gets you lands in case your Bayou scoops. Same goes for Wayfarer. I believe the deck can cut to 16 lands with Noble, Ranger, Wayfarer, Moxes and Dark Confidant.

[Guli]

And now I have another question. It's better confidant than selkie? Confidant costs 1 mana less, but forces us to play a third color. Confidant produces life loss, while selkie does not. Confidant draws 1 card, and selkie usually would draw multiples, with mikaeus and 8 exalters. Against ichorid feels worse,  not sure against MUD, but facing blue and aggro I'd favour Selkie.

I like this post a lot. I will try Selkie instead of BoB's for the GW build. However, I believe it is going to be equally good. I think if you go GW, your mana base will be more stable like you state, and this means getting 3 mana is way more easy. My assessment at least.

I also like the idea of getting away with things with just 2 Colours. Another thing I like is that Scryb, Aven have evasion and most of the time Thalia has it too with first strike. Selkie could be another 'racer'.

Lastly, with Wayfarer, you got an addition way of netting cards! Wayfarer+Selkie might be more than enough for CA...

[MaximumCDawg]

I was coming here to post almost the exact same thing about Selkie.  The issue is, though, that the OP went into Black not for the card advantage but for the disruption.  And, since his list includes alot of bears that are NOT hatebears, I can see why he needs it.  A stable manabase is fine and dandy, but perhaps not worth having so many cards in the deck that do very little against fast Vintage win conditions on their own.

[ilpeggiore]

I'd really really like to read your matchups.

I cant believe that they are better than those of a traditional GW list with tons of hatebears.

unless you playing against deck with Inkwell, 

[MaximumCDawg]

Inkwell is still good, brothers and sisters.  With the advent of Blightsteel, people are leaning on targeted removal like Steel Sabotage and Swords to Plowshares over good ol' Diabolic Edict, Curfew, and Tariff.  The problem is, as I see it, that as long as Shops is still a thing, people will ALSO be packing Hurkyl's Recall, so you don't really blank alot of the matchups like you think you will.