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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 4:59PM
#201
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Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2011
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I personally do not have much experience with trying it, but I don't see Yeva / Talrand as an effective matchup. Both decks are trying to do the same thing, stall and combo. Yeva really has two cards that can help Talrand combo by bouncing his Archaeomancer  , and Talrand only helps Yeva by offering a bit of flying defense. But if I had to offer advice, I would suggest: Talrand: add in some Kraken hatchlings. Yeva has no 1 drops that can really defend, her 2 drops all have 1 toughness and she only has one 3 drop that can actually block and survive, carven caryatadid  . Remove spiketail drake, tidings, and time reversal and add Talrand's invocation back in. Yeva: Lurking predators may actually be viable in 2hg, I was going to suggest removing it, but with two opponents comes two chances to trigger the ability every turn, which should average out to about 1.2 free non-land spells per turn or maybe 1 free creature per turn, plus the extra card filtering. I would prefer adding in a 2nd wild air and maybe soul of the harvest  personally though. Momentuous fall was maybe defendable prior to the DLC, but it isn't any more. This deck doesn't have "weak creature" that make viable targets. Using this on a 1/1 is a waste and using it on a 4/4 will hurt your board presence too much. There are better cards to replace this with. Add one wood elf for SURE. The land comes into play untapped - like nature's lore  , this has a lower *net* cost in mana than the gross cost. It has a net cost of 2 mana. It is a fantastic way to pay the cost of natural order  . Turn 3 wood elf turn 4 portal (with 1 mana open) or thragtusk are this deck's strongest plays aside from natural order or perhaps vengevine. Also I am not at all sold on overrun in this deck. It would be a great card for Garruk's deck. But especially when paired with Talrand you are generally going to be on the defense and relying on either land destruction or infinite turns to win. I think much more viable combos would be Chandra / Yeva, Odric/ Yeva, hell even Goblin / Yeva. Just think about all the wonderful ways erratic portal can be used with captain of the watch  or siege gang commander  . Also I think Talrand's and Yeva's board stall techniques won't work well enough in 2hg and you need one player with *hard* removal.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 6:10PM
#202
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2012
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That's wrong. There's a lot of synergy between the decks.
Talrand has 4 bounce cards to aid Yeva until it gets its own going, can Rite the ETB creatures like the Slime and Thragtusk, which are also great Followed Footsteps targets, can also copy the Eternal Witness for use as another Archaeomancer - one which can even return the mirror.
Yes, Yeva only directly helps Talrand with the Portal, but inderectly helps him by giving him a ton of raw materials to work with for control purposes. Talrand/Yeva is all about going infinite, and gaining as much life and destroying as much land/enchantments/artifacts as possible in order to give you the space to achieve that.
Talrand has the tools, Yeva posesses the raw materials.
But how would you fare against aggro decks? Like I said, against goblins and burn I didn't get to take my fifth turn...
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 6:50PM
#203
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Date Joined:
Jun 18, 2009
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I'll go ahead and give my coordinated strategies. I can post deck lists if anyone is interested in a particular combo, but understand that each combo requires a different build of the decks involved, even if those decks are involved in other combos.
My old standby: Goblins/Crosswinds. Talrand runs distortion strikes, counters, curiousity, and the big steal cards. No reason for time stretch with this build. You could run this with invocations included for flying blockers, but I only run this with Fog Banks (and no other creatures or token-generating). The Goblins build emphasizes haste and quick damage. The goal is to require players to expend their cards and their mana thwarting goblins until Crosswinds hits 5 mana and begins repeating turns and stealing things. At that point, game is usually fairly well controlled. Point is, instead of stalling (as in Celestial Light/Crosswinds combo), goblins just exhausts itself in an effort to exhaust defensive options. This combo works very, very well.
My new favorite: Crosswinds/Yeva. We run this as a land denial deck. I know that seems silly in this format, and it really does suffer against Goblins/Peacekeepers, but we've had enough games where we've obliterated one opponent's land by the end of turn 4 or 4.5 and they don't recover before we achieve dominance. This combo is particularly solid against teams running Lilliana because that deck doesn't get really good until 5 or 6 land hit the table.
My too-fun-to-care-about-winning combo: Chandra/Nefarox. The trick is to not run the latter as an Exalted deck but as a flier deck with heavy control. Only ground based creatures included in the build are the Deathbringer Lieges. Chandra runs heavy with land-based sweepers and the haste birds (no Magma Phoenix). Great deck combo for countering Mill and Talrand combos, and a great FU to the folks running Lifegain.
And finally, my partner loves mono-black combo: Lilliana/Crosswinds. I find this combo a bit boring, but it works very well. The Talrand build is pretty different here, though, emphasizing a lot more turn and time control.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 7:02PM
#204
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2012
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That's wrong. There's a lot of synergy between the decks.
Talrand has 4 bounce cards to aid Yeva until it gets its own going, can Rite the ETB creatures like the Slime and Thragtusk, which are also great Followed Footsteps targets, can also copy the Eternal Witness for use as another Archaeomancer - one which can even return the mirror.
Yes, Yeva only directly helps Talrand with the Portal, but inderectly helps him by giving him a ton of raw materials to work with for control purposes. Talrand/Yeva is all about going infinite, and gaining as much life and destroying as much land/enchantments/artifacts as possible in order to give you the space to achieve that.
Talrand has the tools, Yeva posesses the raw materials.
But how would you fare against aggro decks? Like I said, against goblins and burn I didn't get to take my fifth turn...
You stack your decks with 1/2 drops from Yeva to take early chump blocking duty, combined with Fog Banks too.
Really, if you were dead by turn 5 they either got a god draw, or you built the decks terribly.
My talrand deck is 99% equivalent to yours and the Yeva one is listed above.
They did get the goblin steam roll going (Krenko Mob Boss and that goblin granting haste and +1/+1 plus a krenkos command and something else all by turn five. The burn deck burned my blockers and did damage to me. I had a fog bank out but searing blaze decimated it, etc...
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 9:25PM
#205
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2012
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Few changes.....down to 61 cards...after considering some advice from henwen.... 3 Elvish Visionary  ----vanilla defender and card draw... 1 Fauna Shaman  ---- gets you the card you need... 2 Thornweald Archer  protection from flyers, deathtoucg 3 Beast Within  -- won't remove any of these no matter what anyone says. 1 Carven Caryatid  study defender plus card draw 1 Eternal Witness  --- obviously she will not be removed no matter what 2 Wood Elves  -----mana ramping ? s eems pricey at 3 mana for a forest and a 1/12 Briarpack Alpha  flash surprise is nice since I took out the giant growth 2 Erratic Portal  ----these are obvious keepers 2 Momentous Fall  --- block with a weaker creature then sacrifice it a the last moment for lifegain and cards?2 natural Order  -- usually grab Grab Gaea or a Wurm.. 2 Roaring Primadox  ---bounce and return creatures... 2 Vengevine  --Haste and auto regeneration....deinite keepers... 1 Wolfbriar Elemental  1 Yeva, Nature's Herald  --I suppose flash is nice.... 2 Acidic Slime  --- keepers but do I need all 3? 2 stingerfling spider  1 Overrun  -- wouldn't it be more cost effective to run a taunting elf instead though that takes a turn...2 Thragtusk  --- gain five live and a 5/3 that leaves behind a 3/3 token when it dies... 1 Lurking Predators  1 Primordial sage[//c] --- more card draw---  2 x [c]Wild Pair  ---this card is insanely awesome 1 Elderscale Wurm  combined with yeva (flash) and a portal you can bounce and recast this protecting it... 1 Gaea's Revenge  haste, can't be the product of nongreen sources and spells.... 1 Pelakka Wurm  +7 life and a 7/7 body works... I'd put the third wood elf in but im not sure what to remove...also stingerfling is in there as some protection from flying is needed....aside for the 2/1 deathtough...
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 10:25PM
#206
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Date Joined:
Jul 11, 2012
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 11:07PM
#207
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2012
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 12:58AM
#208
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2011
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I was against Yeva from the beggining. Now, I cant live without her  I guess I consider her a "bag of tricks". One of them is to play Wood Elves or Slimes on opponent end-step. Primordial Sages are not so good, Soul of Harvest  is much better. Pair that with Lurking predators  or Wild Pair  , and this deck really gets card/presence advantage. I prefer the former for 2v2, its usefulness skyrockets then I am considering cutting the Wolfbiar Elemental as well. I rarely get to play it normally, plus it doesnt combo with Soul. Decree of savagery  won me few games, some by cycling it, some by straight playing it. Few decks have real definitive answers to bunch of creatures that got +4/+4 just before the attack. I had the same approach as to Yeva on this. I dont run Briarpacks, btw. With Yeva giving everything flash, I dont really need them as surprise blockers. Hell, I can even block with Yeva herself if need be. I also think that one anti-air spider is enough. Maybe even too much.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 6:32AM
#209
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2012
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An early Sulfuric Vortex  seems to be a good counter to Stevo's build. 4 damage a turn plus your burns really puts that build on a clock I'm not sure it can beat mosto f the time. In addition, the card prevents life gain so all your tendrils, corrupt, exsanguinates, etc., don't give you life... Return it to his hand, counter it at all costs....Puts you on a tight clock... Though, there is only one of those in the deck and they have to get it out very early or it won't be effective...
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 7:00AM
#210
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2012
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Vengevine is incredible when you are getting milled  I got a guy down to 10. They were playing mill and burn against me but I only had four cards. So I cast to creatures just to get vengevine on the field (both of them) and attack with haste and my underworld dreams did the rest.
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