GWB Beats

[Guli]

Bax, I have to say that time walk and recall are not necessary especially with 4 Bob in the deck. An argument can be made that going for Vampiric and a Loam could provide powerful lines of play too while keeping the mana base solid AND being able to play less land and good threat density. Bob is the best card to keep the threats coming while beating them down.

Karakas is good versus Emrakul, that I will give you. But then you are saying that your meta is full of Show and Tell and big fat legends? Then run more Karakas I would say IF you are sure about the Emrakul meta... And NO, just because your run 3 knights does not mean you will have adequate protection with 1 Karakas. Speed is of up most importance. I am not running Karakas right now, but If I feel that it would be necessary or say there is something new printed that fits our designs and works good with karakas, then I would start playing 2 of them. For now those slot are reserved for Cavern of Souls.

I disagree on playing Knight of the Reliquary. But I am looking for good things too, just as you are, so while I disagree, I would still like you to test them and report on them here. But don't let your bias take over, just give us some objective data and how the card worked out and against what (both good and bad points please).

I have been thinking about Mayor but I can't find closing arguments to run him. Haven't tested it yet either.

[bax]

Bax, I have to say that time walk and recall are not necessary especially with 4 Bob in the deck. An argument can be made that going for Vampiric and a Loam could provide powerful lines of play too while keeping the mana base solid AND being able to play less land and good threat density. Bob is the best card to keep the threats coming while beating them down.

Look at it this way. When i was building the GWB for the last tournement, i had in those two slot Sylvan Library and Life from the Loam. Now, sit down and think.
How many time would you prefer drawing Life over Time Walk and how many time would you prefer to draw Sylvan (or Vampiric) over Ancestral ?
The answer is simple, n-e-v-e-r.

This is unrespective if you run bob or not, is simply a matter of fact that life and sylvan (or vampiric) are considerably lesser powerful cards.

Karakas is good versus Emrakul, that I will give you. But then you are saying that your meta is full of Show and Tell and big fat legends? Then run more Karakas I would say IF you are sure about the Emrakul meta... And NO, just because your run 3 knights does not mean you will have adequate protection with 1 Karakas. Speed is of up most importance. I am not running Karakas right now, but If I feel that it would be necessary or say there is something new printed that fits our designs and works good with karakas, then I would start playing 2 of them. For now those slot are reserved for Cavern of Souls.

Karakas is good to bounce my Kataki when i am short of mana with mox in play and my oppo plays monobrown. I bounce it in EOT, or when he tries to remove my kataky with duplicant or metamorph, and then recast it in my turn.
Karakas is good to bounce my legends and use them as perpeual blocker against BANT, goblin etc. Karakas is good to bounce my oppo Emarakul. Karaks bounce my legends protecting them from removals.

Karakas doesn't ruin any mana base. What is the reason for not playing it other than if you do play few lands you cannot afford to have utility land ?

I disagree on playing Knight of the Reliquary. But I am looking for good things too, just as you are, so while I disagree, I would still like you to test them and report on them here. But don't let your bias take over, just give us some objective data and how the card worked out and against what (both good and bad points please).

I am not mad about the knights either, but they are stronger than Tarmogoyf in the current meta. They tend to be very slow. but you can be assured that if you land one, it becomes quickly a big problem for your opponent he needs to deal with.
Objectively during the full tournament last week i won only once becasue of them, i had two in play 8/8 and i did not die to BSC+timewalk, they got me enough time to win with Aven tripled exalted.

EDIT: Also the second match vs SnapDark control i won thanks to KotR survigin both pyroclasm and massacre

I have been thinking about Mayor but I can't find closing arguments to run him. Haven't tested it yet either.

Fact  is if your opponent in T1 is notplaying 2 spells per turn then you have already won.

[Guli]

If I would play 19 lands it would be with 2 Canopy

Like this:

4 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus

4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Noble Hierarch

3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Dark Confidant
3 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Scavenging Ooze

4 Mental Misstep
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor

SB: 3 Stony Silence
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Echoing Decay
SB: 1 Geist of Saint Traft
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

[bax]

...snip ..

Bro, it is the same list basically ..

Instead if i was to play 17 lands i would play Aether Vials

[Guli]

...snip ..

Bro, it is the same list basically ..
Instead if i was to play 17 lands i would play Aether Vials

I cut 1 Canopy already to get the deck total slots to 60 (was 61). And it makes a huge difference playing with 2 extra land and adding another Mox. It improved the Shop match up and the Canopy Cantrip is something I used before and I loved it then and loving it now. I like the 2/2 split on Cavern and Canopy.

[credmond]

Griselbrand is testing out pretty ridiculous.

This puts GW decks in a bind, especially against Griselbrand and Show And Tell. Previously GW could fight these decks with removal after Show and Tell resolution (stp, path, maze, karakas). Relying on removal is weak at fighting Griselbrand, since once he hits, the opponent can Bargain for 7 or 14 which is hard to recover from. The best answers to stopping Griselbrand are counterspells or Metamorph, since they stop the Bargain effect, but those are both outside of the normal GW toolbox. Metamorph would be awkward and narrow to throw in the sideboard and stretching the mana base to include something like flusterstorms seems awkward too.

Does GW have any ways of elegantly stopping Show and Tell Griselbrand or is this deck going to be our bane?

[Guli]

Karakas is a good answer to Show and Tell into Legend. That and pressure of course. Without pressure it hardly matters anyway. So if you just bounce the Grisel and make sure they can't use those extra cards you are still winning. Cards like Thalia, Teeg, Stony, Cage, Misstep and Aven will limit their options.

Time to play with 2x Karakas?

Other than that, Sower (or Gilded Drake since we aren't really on blue) is a good answer to take over the Brand or Emrakul. Metamorph is not an answer (doesn't even work if you show and tell it)


Chains of Mephistopheles also comes to mind.

[madmanmike25]

Phyrexian Revoker seems decent vs Griselbrand and is easy to cast.

[credmond]

Phyrexian Revoker seems decent vs Griselbrand and is easy to cast.

Yea Revoker seems okay, especially if you put him into play during Show and Tell resolution. Then you get to guess "Griselbrand" and there is no cip trigger that can be responded to with a Bargain effect. However, a 7/7 flyer with lifelink is still there to contend with. Or, a crafty Show and Tell player could reveal Emrakul instead! Ideally, you want something that nerfs both the fatty and the Bargain effect. The Bargain effect is the most important one to deal with however so at least Revoker does that and can fit into a GW shell, even maindeck.

Karakas is a good answer to Show and Tell into Legend. That and pressure of course. Without pressure it hardly matters anyway. So if you just bounce the Grisel and make sure they can't use those extra cards you are still winning. Cards like Thalia, Teeg, Stony, Cage, Misstep and Aven will limit their options.

If you are in the position to shrug off a Bargain for 7 or 14 from the opponent, I would say that you already have the match in the bag and the opponent can't do anything to stop you anyway. There are few things more devastating than a Bargain effect going off, except maybe Flash Hulk!
......

The other thing I am noticing is that Griselbrand almost makes swords to plowshares bad.

[Guli]

If you are in the position to shrug off a Bargain for 7 or 14 from the opponent, I would say that you already have the match in the bag and the opponent can't do anything to stop you anyway. There are few things more devastating than a Bargain effect going off, except maybe Flash Hulk!
......

The other thing I am noticing is that Griselbrand almost makes swords to plowshares bad

Karakas can not be countered. A removal spell CAN be countered. You still need to get rid of a 7/7 life link monster, no matter how badly you have locked them out of the game. That is a 3 turn clock and you are not racing it...

You should have the match in the bag mate...by putting out high quality threats. If you fail to do so, you will lose in any case. So you can assume the beat down player will have a couple of real threats out on the field. For example Thalia, a card that will most likely making them TAP out and at that time it would not matter if they drew their entire deck... So if you can bounce the brand and swing with your bears for 4-6 or so this would also mean they can not draw 14. They probably will only get to draw 7 cards and that is it. If they can't win that turn they lose. This is what I mean with pressure/Karakas solution. Griselbrand is not a card you can use over and over, it has a momentum and clock.

[credmond]

Sounds like you are relying on having that Karakas in play AND a good number of choice disrupt bears! The chances of that are very unlikely, especially with only 2 x Karakas in the deck.

The problem with that scenario is that we have an opponent who does things like counter our threats or strip our Karakas.

The real problem with Griselbrand is that unless you have the dream scenario with unanswered Karakas and a cadre of hate bears, then you are in a serious hole. If you have just the bears, Griselbrand effectively shuts off attacking, unless you have a tapper, since he has lifelink! What were they thinking when they gave him lifelink . . . If you just have Karakas or Karakas and light pressure, the opponent still gets a Bargain effect, and gets to draw into answers like pyroclasm or perish and a proper storm finish.

Griselbrand is just ridiculously good and will almost certainly define the new dominant Vintage deck. I think strategically speaking GW is the underdog here in the face of this threat, not the other way around.

[bax]

Wow guys, we are already trying to fix a matchup with a single card that has still not even made it to the format staples ? (and that imho will never make it)

[bluemage55]

Look i agree about the Township, to some extent, but if you do not get the importance of Karakas in a deck with Knight and 9 legendary creature i will not entertain this conversation with you any longer.

I am not even going to discuss ancestral and time walk.

You have no understanding of the importance of being able to play fewer lands and avoiding color screw.

[credmond]

Wow guys, we are already trying to fix a matchup with a single card that has still not even made it to the format staples ? (and that imho will never make it)

You are kidding right. You honestly think Griselbrand is not going to be played?

[bax]

Wow guys, we are already trying to fix a matchup with a single card that has still not even made it to the format staples ? (and that imho will never make it)

You are kidding right. You honestly think Griselbrand is not going to be played?

I think it will be played yes, i do not think it will be played to success on large scale and i doubt it will have an impact on the meta as big as people anticipate. Probably will only do few sparse appearances to top8.

But that is just my opinion, i'd be happy if i'll be proven wrong!

Ps. no i am not buying any GB
Pps Bargain is a much, much stronger card! Cannot even believe they have been compared to each other!

[brianpk80]

The point I'm making is that there shouldn't be any reason for a player to choose a mana-heavy build for their aggro deck.  The information you offered is similar to "If you decide not to run power, consider using Nimble Mongoose"; simply put, your suggestion has little relevance in a discussion about building/playing a competitive GWB beats deck.

A mana-heavy beatdown deck is a fundamentally flawed concept.  Advice on how to improve that is completely missing the elephant in the room, which is that the deck shouldn't be mana-heavy in the first place.

The build in question was heavy on mana.  There are pros and cons to that decision.  Feel free to discuss that at length.  It's obvious that there is nothing in the fortune-cookie-sized pointer I added that rises to the level of the blasphemy you're struggling to portray here.  *shrug*

[TheWhiteDragon]

Interesting. Only hand 3 is a clear mull to me if I am blind.

I use to think more cautiously like you are, but I learned that you just stick it up there and play active. In the long run this pays off more. They need to waste your land AND kill your bob or else you just are leading...

Obviously I get hands with 2 lands too. But I took some sample hands in which I present low land count but option to play active. My guess is that you get a lot of hands with 2-3 lands AND wastelands. This leaves you with 3 threats? And noble is not a threat really.. more like glue.

I actually totally thought to mull only on hand 3 as well.  Yes, darkblast in hand might hurt hand #1, null rod might hurt hand #4, lightning bolt might hurt your bob hand, etc....but if you always assume your opponent has the turn 1 answer to your line of play, you will be mulliganing 80% of hands and losing most games on sheer psychology.

[Guli]

Interesting. Only hand 3 is a clear mull to me if I am blind.

I use to think more cautiously like you are, but I learned that you just stick it up there and play active. In the long run this pays off more. They need to waste your land AND kill your bob or else you just are leading...

Obviously I get hands with 2 lands too. But I took some sample hands in which I present low land count but option to play active. My guess is that you get a lot of hands with 2-3 lands AND wastelands. This leaves you with 3 threats? And noble is not a threat really.. more like glue.

I actually totally thought to mull only on hand 3 as well.  Yes, darkblast in hand might hurt hand #1, null rod might hurt hand #4, lightning bolt might hurt your bob hand, etc....but if you always assume your opponent has the turn 1 answer to your line of play, you will be mulliganing 80% of hands and losing most games on sheer psychology.

Yes, and this can be overcome by playing with those bolt, blast and/or counter decks against a GW player. You will experience the same fear, do they have an answer to my Tinker? Should I counter that Thalia? What if they do something more nasty the next turn? etc etc... I still don't play like a moron and think it through but there are hands you just have to overcome those fears in a tight GW list.

So I went from 17 lands to 19 but I did it with cantrip lands and this indeed feels good. I hope the -1 Gaddock doesn't bite me in the but though. Hoping to draw them off Bob and Canopy's back. I also have to note that I hardly ever get plains anymore. Only in those dire situations against Shops. That card could be a Karakas. You aren't playing the slow fetch pass fetch pass game with this deck. You are putting up the pressure with the moxes.

Assuming 61 cards is "ok" in a deck with 2 Canopy

4 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Karakas
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus

4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Noble Hierarch

3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Dark Confidant
3 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Scavenging Ooze

4 Mental Misstep
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor

SB: 3 Stony Silence
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Echoing Decay
SB: 1 Geist of Saint Traft
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

This of course, assuming there will be more Show and Tell and Oath into Emrakul and Griselbrand.

[xouman]

Giselbrand is not a relevant card now, but can be in a short term. Any beats or fish deck has to take in mind any reasonable situation, because it's winning options come by disrupting opponent play and then attack. Is giselbrand hate covered with current cards? Well, oath and show and tell (and even reanimator effects) can't be really countered, so swords seems the best Giselbrand removal. But since they can likely draw 14 cards after we play the swords, they have a pretty chance to draw a MM or another counter. So, probably beats hate is not enough against Giselbrand, and cards like revoker could havc a place in the sb, or even main if you expect a lot of jace, vault, auriok, metalurg, welder...

[bax]

I actually totally thought to mull only on hand 3 as well.  Yes, darkblast in hand might hurt hand #1, null rod might hurt hand #4, lightning bolt might hurt your bob hand, etc....but if you always assume your opponent has the turn 1 answer to your line of play, you will be mulliganing 80% of hands and losing most games on sheer psychology.

Let me clarify something. Guli's question wasn't really a  complete questions that could get an "single & truth" answer because it did not specify other important information that should be available to properly answer the question such as :
1. is this G1, or post sideboard?
2. Do we know what deck is our opponent playing?
3. what build are we playing?
4. Are we on the draw or on the play ?

While answering my mulls questions I assumed  the following:
1. this is G1
2. we play pre-side vs unknown deck
3. we are playing Guli's build with 17 lands. hence low chances of drawing a land as the next card
4. i tried already to differentiate my answers

Obviously hand 1 you cannot keep against Fish UGR, but might be viable otherwise, although surely it is not optimal (if we play monobrown we have 2 dead cards for example).

Hand 4 is an hand that just do Thalia and then nothing. I think you can only win that game if you are playing against who kept a suboptimal hand. But, assume you are on the play and land you Thalia, what do you do if you oppo hand looked like this fetch, lotus, crypt, intuition, snapcaster, pierce, underground sea ? this is a so so hand, surely not the best this deck can see. But look ho would he react to your Thalia:

draws the mono misdirection (he is even unlucky!)
fetch - for island->tap U
Pay U Marna crypt->tap  floating 2
Pay 1 lotus-> break for UUU plus 1 floating
Intuition >  gets 3x AK

You do waste Thalia attack & pass (because you did not draw a land! how unlucky!!!)

Gets crypt dmg (he is really unlucky)
he draws mox Emerald (oh well ..)
Tap crypt play mox emerald float 1 mana
tap island tap emerald plus mana floating AK draw 3 cards (fetch mystical tutor & force of will)
play fetch go

What do you do now if you do not draw mana ? you lose simply and your opponent did not even have a great hand nor did have good draws.


Remember the strong players are not lucky to draw the right card at the right time, very often they have mulliganed so-so hands and kept only the real strong ones. I do not like to rely on my luck, because i know i have none!

[serracollector]

For those of you splashing blue, phantasmal image helps the Griselbrand Problem as well.  If they SNT you can immediately copy and Legend rule it, or you can simply cast one the next turn, assuming they can't FOW it due to a Teeg/Thali.  This card is also great for copying Bobs, and Goyf/Ooze/Knight/Pridemage/Opponent's whatever else is. Just a thought, but if your going with that many non basics, and 4 colors, wouldn't city of brass just be a better option than duals and fetchs?  Not like fetches help with your jaces and brainstorms.

[bax]

For those of you splashing blue, phantasmal image helps the Griselbrand Problem as well.  If they SNT you can immediately copy and Legend rule it, or you can simply cast one the next turn, assuming they can't FOW it due to a Teeg/Thali.  This card is also great for copying Bobs, and Goyf/Ooze/Knight/Pridemage/Opponent's whatever else is. Just a thought, but if your going with that many non basics, and 4 colors, wouldn't city of brass just be a better option than duals and fetchs?  Not like fetches help with your jaces and brainstorms.

No.

9/22/2011   If Phantasmal Image somehow enters the battlefield at the same time as another creature, Phantasmal Image can't become a copy of that creature. You may only choose a creature that's already on the battlefield.

Similarly City of Brass is not fetchable so if i do not have it in hand it doesn't help me knowing it's in the deck when i'd like to cast bob or ancestral but only have fetch and savannahs.

[Blue Lotus]

On land:

I play 21 lands, no bob (but do play gsz+dryad arbor) 2 mox and a lotus in my gw deck. I think with bob 19 lands should be fine against shop decks.

On Griselbrand:

Your focus shouldn't be answering griselbrand, it should be stopping show and tell. Its a 3 mana sorcery. If your plan against tinker is only path/swords, you are going to lose to the card quite a lot. But if you stop them from getting to 3 mana with thalia, waste, and null rod, then you are executing your game plan.

@ Serra: That does not work. You cannot clone the creature your opponent is putting into play with show and tell.

[brianpk80]

The good news is that Show and Tell decks are a bit clumsy.  Griselbrand may have a powerful effect and see play but no one should be terrified of it.  If players start running Show and Tell en masse Vintage, they're weakening themselves since the existing possible homes for Griselbrand (Oath, Dredge, Animate, Combo) are stronger.    

[Guli]

On land:

I play 21 lands, no bob (but do play gsz+dryad arbor) 2 mox and a lotus in my gw deck. I think with bob 19 lands should be fine against shop decks.

On Griselbrand:

Your focus shouldn't be answering griselbrand, it should be stopping show and tell. Its a 3 mana sorcery. If your plan against tinker is only path/swords, you are going to lose to the card quite a lot. But if you stop them from getting to 3 mana with thalia, waste, and null rod, then you are executing your game plan.

@ Serra: That does not work. You cannot clone the creature your opponent is putting into play with show and tell.

wrong, their entire strategy resolves around cast a spell that puts 7/7 lifelinker into play. Bouncing that card is super strong, because they will want to activate the ability. And then their low life total will put them into a losing position. Right there the mana denial will kick in. Obviously there will be occasions were our main mana denial plan will be enough to stop Show and tell. But it would be wrong to think that is the solution to this monster. A lot of times your mana denial will be too short and they will cast through your sphere effect and wastelands. Another thing is that there are other means of getting Griselbrand into play, cheaper means like Oath and Reanimate.

My advise is to play a couple of Karakas in this case, also because it hits another big player Emrakul. I have been moving towards Relic Warder again to have more outs to Tinker bot. So a good mix of Karakas/Stp/Relic-Warder should be decent enough as reactive answers.

[Blue Lotus]

On land:

I play 21 lands, no bob (but do play gsz+dryad arbor) 2 mox and a lotus in my gw deck. I think with bob 19 lands should be fine against shop decks.

On Griselbrand:

Your focus shouldn't be answering griselbrand, it should be stopping show and tell. Its a 3 mana sorcery. If your plan against tinker is only path/swords, you are going to lose to the card quite a lot. But if you stop them from getting to 3 mana with thalia, waste, and null rod, then you are executing your game plan.

@ Serra: That does not work. You cannot clone the creature your opponent is putting into play with show and tell.

wrong, their entire strategy resolves around cast a spell that puts 7/7 lifelinker into play. Bouncing that card is super strong, because they will want to activate the ability. And then their low life total will put them into a losing position. Right there the mana denial will kick in. Obviously there will be occasions were our main mana denial plan will be enough to stop Show and tell. But it would be wrong to think that is the solution to this monster. A lot of times your mana denial will be too short and they will cast through your sphere effect and wastelands. Another thing is that there are other means of getting Griselbrand into play, cheaper means like Oath and Reanimate.

My advise is to play a couple of Karakas in this case, also because it hits another big player Emrakul. I have been moving towards Relic Warder again to have more outs to Tinker bot. So a good mix of Karakas/Stp/Relic-Warder should be decent enough as reactive answers.

they draw 14 cards and win with or without the 7/7 (counter your removal or find a sweeper, for example). I wouldn't play more than one karakas as drawing two is just terrible and if you are only playing one, how reliable is it in a deck without kotr?

Fish decks have been most successful when they pressure a mana base at the same time as a life total. Load up on answers too much and you will just do nothing. This is especially true in a wide open format. What if you cut some basics for karakas and face 3 shop decks? What if you play two karakas and stumble on mana getting destroyed by gush as a result?

The more diverse a format, the more diverse answers you need and, invariably, the more dead cards you have vs a specific match up.

This ties in with brainpk's statement. If you start tweaking your deck to face another that isn't even in the format; you are just building a bad deck that is 35% against the field.

[boggyb]

hey, kind of a side note, but also a useful exercise -- can you guys enumerate the best cards against this kind of deck, listed in order of groan factor? i.e. how much you groan when you see them. Talking specifically about cards that a blue deck can run.

Massacre
Pyroclasm
Nature's Ruin
Swords
Fire // Ice
Dark Confidant
Jace
Liliana

?

[xouman]

You missed Balance, it's not that is really played nowadays, but can take all your critters for  .


Besides, as a beats/fish player I'm afraid of combos (you can do little against rit, rit, nauseam, or auriok+lotus without thalia, and of course vault+key), and MUD big robots as hellkite/wurmcoil

[bax]

Combo is really the last of the problems, unless it wins in turn 1 we have so many answer to combo it's almost embarassing. Thalia, Gaddock, Ooze, Cage etc.
MUD is the easiest matchup all around.

The real problem are the control and control-combo decks, which are also the deck that most likely will run pyroclasm and masssacre. Usually little can be done for those cards other than weak answers such as Gavony Township (Massacre doesn't work under Gaddock btw)

Jace usually is killed by Aven in EoT after he bounced a bigger crit. Liliana ? well if my oppo is playing liliana, i know he is playing a Tier 2...

In reality the card that kills this deck was not listed ... thankfully I wouldn't mention it either before Annecy BoM to avoid to see it in every side next week end!

[serracollector]

Arena of the Ancients?

Dysotopia?

Darkblast?

Grim Lavamancer?

Cursed Totem?

Peacekeeper?

Gutshot?

Crypt Rats?

Pernicious Deed?

Engineered Explosives?