Speaking of removal. Doesn't this color pie abuse play into UGs favor?
Edit: also lol; there's even a blue and a green planeswalker on the card!
Card/Deck The Simic Combine
- Thread starter Tzenmoroth
- Start date
Speaking of removal. Doesn't this color pie abuse play into UGs favor?
Edit: also lol; there's even a blue and a green planeswalker on the card!
I just cast Bring to Light for the full five colours, and it was... underwhelming. I didn't realize it was restricted to only three types until I read the card while resolving it, what a bummer. My feeling is that this card has the Birthing Pod problem of being better in constructed, where you can build your deck with its constraints in mind; in draft, it's much harder to justifying warping your deck around a single copy.
one copy of Collected Company, four copies of Bring to Light
...so awkward that it can't fetch Birthing Pod
...so awkward that it can't fetch Birthing Pod
Speaking of ramp strategies, how do we feel about
?
Like, turn 3 Yavimaya Elder into turn 4 this seems like big game.
Like, turn 3 Yavimaya Elder into turn 4 this seems like big game.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
These are probably my favorite simic cards
higher power
lower power
I have a feeling this guy is going to be real good in this combination for higher power formats
I don't think actual ramp is really in the flavor of the color combination, but gushing mana certainly is.
In the penny cube:
You still have a pressure focused/tempo plan, but ramp always has this sort of weird intersection with tempo, and you can sort of create these short gushes of mana that adds power/toughness to the board, thus pushing ground pressure while ramping up the game's tempo.
As opposed to a more controlling stance where you are trying to physically build up a mana base to gain actual mana superiority. This is going for more of a sprint than a marathon.
higher power
lower power
I have a feeling this guy is going to be real good in this combination for higher power formats
I don't think actual ramp is really in the flavor of the color combination, but gushing mana certainly is.
In the penny cube:
You still have a pressure focused/tempo plan, but ramp always has this sort of weird intersection with tempo, and you can sort of create these short gushes of mana that adds power/toughness to the board, thus pushing ground pressure while ramping up the game's tempo.
As opposed to a more controlling stance where you are trying to physically build up a mana base to gain actual mana superiority. This is going for more of a sprint than a marathon.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Per our high powered UG discussion, LSV was kind of enough to provide yet another example of how a truly simic deck can look at high power:
He walks through the archetype perfectly, identifying some of the major payoff cards and how it works. The only other big payoff card left out is the aforementioned wolfir silverheart. Chord of calling also seems interesting to me at some power level, due to how well it works with various mana dorks (coiling oracle, birds etc).
The basic strategy works the same as you scale down: a potent mixture of evasion and power.
He walks through the archetype perfectly, identifying some of the major payoff cards and how it works. The only other big payoff card left out is the aforementioned wolfir silverheart. Chord of calling also seems interesting to me at some power level, due to how well it works with various mana dorks (coiling oracle, birds etc).
The basic strategy works the same as you scale down: a potent mixture of evasion and power.
His deck drew really well in some of those matches but man was that an absolute clinic on the deck. Thanks for sharing!
LSV plays Harmonize over Dig through Time. Interesting.
Harmonize is better in the deck, imo. While he's running a lot of 1-drop spells; he's running creatures, not cantrips. Dig at 7-9 mana is just meh, where T3 harmonize is a fairly reasonable proposition. If he went up against a deck with a bunch of boardwipes, he might have swapped it out.
Yeah, and I definitely get all that. I was more squeaking out a little bit of rhetoric, because Harmonize can get some hate around these parts. Turns out it might be a good component for making UG work? Neat.
I guess I like Wolfir more than most. In that deck, I would not have passed it for what he took. Deck didn't really need it though.
I think the only choice I vehemently disagreed with was passing Jitte. Not because he necessarily wanted to play it in that deck (I still would have most likely), but because you don't want to face it with that deck.
Thanks for posting. That was fun to watch.
I think the only choice I vehemently disagreed with was passing Jitte. Not because he necessarily wanted to play it in that deck (I still would have most likely), but because you don't want to face it with that deck.
Thanks for posting. That was fun to watch.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
haha, yeah, I laughed when I saw him running it too, remembering the debate over it in your thread. Really awesome stuff to see.
LSV's list of overrated vintage cube cards is really great too. Loved seeing balance, skull clamp, gush, and jitte on there.
Yeah, I'm curious. He kinda dismissed Jitte without much mention. Isn't it just amazing in a deck full of creatures? Why doesn't he want it here?
The only thing I can think is that in a super high powered cube, enough decks might be low on creatures to the point where Jitte loses a lot off it's effectiveness. It's damn near useless against combo and control. My reason for taking it was so I didn't have to play against it, especially with only Phyrexian Revoker to deal with it. Speaking of which, outside opposition that was the all-star in his deck. And he was very lucky to not have faced people playing (or drawing) actual removal.
A little background: I love vintage cube absolutely to death. It is the only reason why I have a MODO account, and if I had the money for power, I would build my own version of it.
I would have made the same pick that LSV did. Let me break it down:
First- Jitte is considerably worse in Vintage cube than it is in Legacy cube. Legacy cube is extremely creature-oriented, and is a format that Jitte thrives in. There are many decks in Vintage cube however, that simply do not care about Jitte. That doesn't make it a bad card by any means, but it is not necessarily a P1P1 like it is in Legacy cube.
Second- Look at what he took in it's place. LSV was in an extremely open archetype and only a few picks into pack three. Natural Order is a key piece of the deck he wants to build, even if he only (at the time) had a single target. Because the archetype was so open, the chance of seeing a Craterhoof behemoth, woodfall primus or hornet queen before the draft ended was extremely high. He had the very real capacity to Turn 2 or Turn 3 a natural order with his current deck construction, a play that fits exactly what the U/G ramp deck wants to do, -and- is better against the general field of decks than Jitte is. For many decks in Vintage Cube, Jitte is an annoyance. For most decks, Natural Order results in a concession.
When you get right down to it, he took a win condition over what essentially amounts to a moderate stax card in vintage cube. I would have done the same.
Also: I'm a big fan of Wolfir Silverheart, but when you have skullclamp and Opposition in your deck, deranged hermit and whisperwood elementalkind of beat it out. He didn't need another five-drop value play.
Rasmus 3rd place UG Ramp (Mixed-Boosters Draft)
| | | | | |
I participated in a mixed-booster draft today (I opened Khans of Tarkir, Battle for Zendikar and Invasion) and got third place with this (2-1). Opened the draft with an Eldrazi Devastator, since I (rightfully) expected durdly decks and wanted a nice safe first pick. Then started moving into a ramp deck, and ended up in UG.
Both Domestication and Imprisoned in the Moon were great cards, and gift of tusks did a lot of work as well. I noticed that I had some really tough games vs bomby creatures (Butcher of malakir and Swans of Bryn Argoll) since I needed to essentially just play murder on them.
The closest murder-analogy I had was either playing imprisoned in the moon, or playing Gift of Tusks and blocking them. So, if I was to make changes in my cube to promote UG ramp, I would definitely see over how many actual answers I have for creatures (often with abilites).
Basically, I had a problem with landing a really good green fatty but then having to face off an opposing creature with evasion and an ability, and needing a way to answer that.
Tl;dr UG really wants Murder