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Post by JediCheese on May 12, 2013 13:51:00 GMT -5
So, I was out purchasing cards needed for next week and ended up talking to a few people about decks. Seems the B/G version of Pat Rat that John's been testing is called Golgari Control. The first decklist (3rd place): www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/5352353Main: 2 Golgari Guildgate 4 Overgrown Tomb 14 Swamp 4 Woodland Cemetery 4 Desecration Demon 2 Disciple of Bolas 4 Geralf's Messenger 4 Thragtusk 2 Abrupt Decay 3 Cremate 4 Liliana of the Veil 1 Murder 3 Mutilate 4 Sign in Blood 3 Tragic Slip 2 Victim of Night Sideboard: 3 Appetite for Brains 1 Cremate 2 Curse of Death's Hold 4 Duress 1 Mutilate 2 Underworld Connections 2 Vraska the Unseen The deck is pretty reasonable in price except for the Lilianas. If you don't count the Liliana of the Veils, the deck is $170 on SCG (and cheaper if you look elsewhere). I will be updating this post at work today as I scour the web for alternate decklists.
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Post by JediCheese on May 12, 2013 16:37:17 GMT -5
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Post by John Galli on May 13, 2013 8:28:32 GMT -5
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Post by JediCheese on May 13, 2013 19:11:11 GMT -5
Card review for possible inclusions:
Gloom Surgeon is a really good anti-aggro card. Sadly, the deck already creams aggro so you don't need further support. I would likely not bother.
Blood Scrivener looks interesting vs control. Your life total doesn't matter but being able to draw 2 a turn is a definite advantage. I don't know if it's enough and it's not maindeckable, but I would suspect it's likely a decent sideboard card.
Deathrite Shaman is likely the best possible include for Golgari Control. It removes targets from the graveyard when playing a vs junk or reanimator, does damage vs control and gains life vs aggro. He is also a 1/2 for 1 that can block a bunch of retarded aggro stuff before the game gets out of control. My only concern is if he is good enough.
I expect states to be a huge aggro/rites/junk fest. I don't know if there is enough control in the tournament to justify running 7+ sideboard slots to it.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on May 13, 2013 21:37:22 GMT -5
When/where is Wisconsin States this year? I heard it was not in Madison this time...
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Post by JediCheese on May 13, 2013 21:53:10 GMT -5
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Post by JediCheese on May 13, 2013 22:54:43 GMT -5
Squirrel!
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Post by JediCheese on May 18, 2013 19:42:43 GMT -5
Appears I'm T16. Went 5-2 after a horrible 1-2 start (lost a match due to infinite land draw).
In the final standings I ended up 14th place and won 9 packs.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using proboards
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Post by John Galli on May 19, 2013 20:51:49 GMT -5
Awesome, nice Chris! I assume you played the Golgari deck? Btw, post a tourney report when you get a chance, I'm curious on how the stuff went
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Post by JediCheese on May 21, 2013 0:10:54 GMT -5
Sadly, I only have game counts and limited information about the various decks I played against. So many decks play 90% of the same cards and I'm not all that up on standard decks to determine if I was playing vs aristocrats, tokens, reanimator, or whatnot.
A few thoughts about the deck.
Mutilate was awesome. I never sweated having multiples in hand. Too many decks aren't prepared to wipe the board. Token players usually shot their load with flashback too early and I would punish them for it. If I could play 5, I would!
Liliana of the Veil's -2 ability is bomb. It is very relevant vs several matchups (especially vs Bant Auras). I would say the +1 never was very useful and there are many times you would rather not discard yourself. I hit her ultimate once but the game was so in my favor by that point it didn't matter.
I had a single Golgari Charm SB. I wish I had 3 sideboard. It's useful vs Bant Aura and the token decks. I usually replaced a Tragic Slip for this card games 2 and 3 unless I saw no tokens.
I think Garruk Relentless is a definite include as I play the deck more. The threat density is somewhat low and often times I would wipe their team and not have anything to win with. Likely take out a Liliana and a piece of removal for two of him. Sadly I didn't play him in the deck at the tournament.
Geralf's Messenger is MVP in the deck. If I drew two of them in a timely fashion I knew I was winning. Too many times I could swing in with him and do 3 damage, then mutilate for a boardwipe and get him back larger with 2 damage as icing on the cake.
Disciple of Bolas is nuts. Drawing 5 to 6 cards off a Thragtusk or Desecration Demon is amazing (and the life swing keeps you alive long enough to use the cards you draw). Disciple of Bolas and Thragtusk must be a form of cheating because you gain 10 life, draw 5 cards, get a 3/3 and a 2/1 creature. Ditto for a Geralf's Messenger where your guy gets bigger, you gain 3 life and draw 3 cards.
The deck is very under the radar. I had several opponents board in graveyard hate vs my deck assuming I was playing some sort of jank reanimator!
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Post by John Galli on May 21, 2013 8:37:57 GMT -5
Yeah, nobody seems to know about this deck. I mention it to people and maybe 1 out of 15 have heard about it. Meanwhile we've been talking about it for a while here and I've been following it's progress on MTGO for a long time. Newer versions are playing Garruk Relentless, so you're probably correct on that move. A lot of the conclusions you came to are the same ones that I have from playing my mono black pack rat version. Mutilate has got to be the best wrath in standard, it just hits freaking everything and it's so insane in this deck when all of your creatures survive in some form or fashion. It hits all the tough to kill indestructible/regenerating guys in standard and it's highly controllable. Glad to hear it did well for you. Do you have any idea what the decks were that you lost to? One match sounds like land screw, I'm curious about the other. Btw, I never gave a tourney report for my Pack Rat deck at the PTQ. I was going to but the tournament was probably the most frustrating PTQ I've ever played in. Round 1 I made about ten serious misplays over the course of 3 games, and they were huge misplays that cost me the match easily. I ended up losing that round to homebrew werewolves (which went on to 3-0 somehow), and she drew the exact card off the top she needed in 2 of the 3 games to punish me for my misplays (I lost those 2 games with double demon and double pack rat on the board with 3 removal spells in hand both times. Yes, I am dumb.) Round 2 I beat bant, round 3 I mulled to five twice while my opponent opened with VOR, Smiter, Resto, double-thrag both games . Round 4 and 5, more mulligans and tons of misplays. It was just one of those days
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Post by JediCheese on May 21, 2013 10:24:29 GMT -5
The only match I legitimately lost was vs Jund Midrange and went 0-2 vs it (the opponent got into the top 8). There was one point where I had a Liliana in play, a Liliana in hand and we both had Thragtusks. I think we traded Thragtusks and tokens and I discarded one Liliana to +1 the other Liliana. After the match someone pointed out I could have let Liliana die and then play the 2nd one but I didn't see that as an option (I think my Liliana had 1 counter on her, but I'm not 100% sure).
IMHO, this is why I don't like Liliana. Her +1 actively hurts you unless you are playing vs control. Plus she has no way to create a threat in a stalemated board position (unless you ultimate her). Garruk Relentless just destroys an opponent if not killed shortly.
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Post by John Galli on May 21, 2013 11:04:42 GMT -5
Yeah in my list I never had that issue since I was running x4 Veilborn Ghoul and Liliana was just a straight beast. But of course I'm running a lot of subpar cards to your build so there's other matchups that I'm sure suffer to it
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Post by Travis Lannoye on May 21, 2013 11:11:22 GMT -5
I'll chime in a bit here on Liliana of the Veil. She is definitely one of the trickiest planeswalkers to play (probably second only to Jace TMS in Legacy, but that's more about Legacy being a harder format). Caleb Durward actually wrote an entire article about using Liliana here: www.channelfireball.com/home/legacy-weapon-the-ultimate-liliana/Chris, you're right that her -2 ability is terrific. Devour Flesh is technically another option for you if Liliana just isn't working out. I will say that there are plenty of times when I really like my hand and using the +1 just isn't an option. This is why I really liked the Bw Pack Rat build that I'm no longer messing with: there were always plenty of things to pitch to Liliana so I never had to worry about it. @this deck: It has a lot of good things going for it, between Thragtusks, Demons, planeswalkers, Messengers, and Mutilates. If I hadn't just put money into acquiring my Voices, I might have given this a shot. I wouldn't fault anyone for playing it at a larger event.
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Post by John Galli on Aug 5, 2013 10:38:54 GMT -5
Chris not sure if you're playing any Standard at all, but Jeff Hoogland has become a big name recently and plays in the Midwest. He's a really creative deckbuilder that Travis and I have followed for a bit since he's made decks we both like.
He's been playing an updated version of Golgari Control since M14 came out and having a ton of success with it, he top 16'd Chicago when I was there and I've had a lot of trouble locally beating his build.
He just put up a new list for it today on his twitter feed, looks pretty awesome-
Land (26)
1x Forest 2x Golgari Guildgate 2x Mutavault 4x Overgrown Tomb 13x Swamp 4x Woodland Cemetery
Sorcery (3)
3x Mutilate
Enchantment (3)
3x Underworld Connections
Artifact (1)
1x Ratchet Bomb
Planeswalker (3)
3x Liliana of the Veil
Instant (8)
3x Abrupt Decay 1x Devour Flesh 1x Doom Blade 1x Putrefy 2x Tragic Slip
Creature (16)
4x Desecration Demon 1x Disciple of Bolas 4x Lifebane Zombie 3x Scavenging Ooze 4x Thragtusk
Sideboard (15)
2x Deathrite Shaman 2x Doom Blade 3x Duress 2x Golgari Charm 1x Liliana of the Veil 1x Mutilate 1x Pithing Needle 1x Putrefy 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Vraska the Unseen
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