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Aug 14, 2012 -- 7:50AM, MadAdmiral wrote:

4 Godless Shrines seems a bit much.  I don't think you want to take that much damage from your lands.  I would cut that down to 2 and add in some more basics.

I know you like the Caves, but I think you've got too many.  I would go down to 2 or 3, replacing them with Isolated Chapels or basics.

3 Vaults is probably too many.  You have a lot of colored costs, so the colorless mana hurts.  Replace one with and Isolated Chapel.

I'm not sure you need 10 hand disruption spells.  That seems like overkill to me.  I'd probably cut the Inquisitions and turn them into Go for the Throat s.  That'd leave with a 8/6 discard/removal split, which is likely to get you further than 10/4.  Of course, that depends on the metagame.

Re: the Lands.
I think its fine to take a bit of damage from my lands at this point. Vault helps you get it back and you can end the game quickly if you stick any anthem + Lingering Souls/Spectral Procession. Turn 1 distruption seems highly important to compete in this metagame, so I think it'll have to stay that way. 3 Vault does give me a chance to draw it when I need to, but not when it will kill me. Vault is pretty important enough to warrant the third copy.

Re: Distruption
I find 10 is the magic number preboard if you want to constantly distrupt their hand while applying pressure. Gofer is an ok replacement but I do think Smother is better in the format if I were to replace it. 

Aug 14, 2012 -- 2:21PM, MadAdmiral wrote:

I really, really think your'e making a mistake in having so many non-basics.  You will get absolutely wrecked by a Blood Moon .  If I saw nothing but non-basics from you, I'd bring it in even if it's not traditionally good against the deck.  At bare minimum, you need one basic Swamp so you don't ever get locked out of black.

I agree that Vault can be important, but you don't want more than one and you don't want it early.  To me, that really means you want it only as a 2-of.

I think with 10 discard spells, you have too many hands where you're not doing anything except forcing them to discard.  Not to mention that discard gets worse in multiples or that they're pretty much horrible top decks.  At the very least, take out the 4x Duress from the sideboard.  If 10 discard spells aren't going to get the job done, four more aren't going to get it done either.

Also, given that the "best" deck in the format (or at least it seems that way) is the 4-color Pod deck, you want to have enough removal to deal with that deck. Discard doesn't hurt Pod nearly enough, since all they have to do is stick a Pod and it's basically game over. 

Pod is also the reason why I wouldn't play Smother .  Pod (and other decks) love Restoration Angel .  Too many of the current decks play the Angel to make Smother any good.

Just noticed that you didn't have any Ethersworn Cannonist s in the list.  That seems to be a good way to just get wrecked by Storm decks.

Re: Blood Moon
No one is playing it at the present moment. Affinity Red is probably the only deck runs it on a regular basis. I do agree its a problem. 

Re: Duress
The 4 Duress is the Storm plan. It seems good enough to me, thats how I usually distrupted Storm. They can simply remove the Ethersworn Canonist, they can't really rebuild their hands, especially with the lower quality cantrips. As for them being poor topdecks, its true, but thats why Tidehollow is really good.

Re: Pod and the solutions
4-colour pod is a good deck, but not necessarily the best one.
Smother hit most of the relevant creatures in the format, as opposed to Go for/Doom Blade. Not hitting Resto Angel is ok, and you can still hit it with Path anyway.

Aug 15, 2012 -- 6:55AM, zpikduM wrote:

Aug 15, 2012 -- 5:46AM, CyrusBales wrote:

I've been running Teysa in BW tokens to great success. Not the janky painter's servant combo with it, but just having extra free removal, she's a 3/4 for three mana with honor out, and she combo's well with blood artist.

The question is if Teysa is worth the 3slot drops over Spectral Procession and Lingering Souls.

This was roughly where we got to:

3 Blood Artist
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Teysa
(10)
4 Lingering Souls
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Spectral Procession
(12)
4 Path
3 Zealous Persecution
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
(10)
3 Honor of the Pure
1 Intangible Virtue
(4)

2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
4 Windbrisk Heights
1 Swamp
6 Plains
4 Isolated Chapel
2 Fetid Heath
1 Vault of the Archangel
(24)

Some numbers could be tweaked, an additional vault would be good for example.

We found having lots of anthems actually makes the deck worse since you get more dead draws, 4 anthems and the Persecutions to act as removal and an anthem seem be better. THe list was modified from the GP list. Hero could be a good addition in terms of an anthem effects, perhaps -1 teysa, +1 hero.

Blood artist is a pseudo anthem, since he provides extra damage much like an anthem but gives you value out of wraths on the other side of the board.