Omnath seems to have destroyed Standard. Somehow, I haven't run into it in Historic. Why is that? Someone please kill me with this thing. I can't try to figure out how to beat it if no one plays it. And if the answer to all of this is "It's not as good in Historic because there's more discard and removal for Cobras" that's just serious balogna. Look at this thing! That deck plays like a Vintage deck, it's obscene.
In the meantime, the format hasn't shaken up a huge amount in Historic. After a little less than a week of Zendikar Rising, this is where I'm at now.
I've cut all the five drops from the deck. I'm not sure that they're too slow for the format, but between Glorybringer, Thragtusk, Elder Gargaroth, or Angrath, you really want to have the right one for the right moment, and that's not super easy to pull off. If that's the case, then I'd rather have stuff that's less powerful but hits the board earlier. This was my initial thought with Nighthawk Scavenger, a card that's cheaper but has the ability be strong in the late game and close the game. Scavenger has been fine, but I cut them because I wanted another Mammoth and I wanted to add Radha and Klothys back into the deck. Don't sleep on Scavenger, depending on what you're looking for, it could definitely be right to include. With rate like it's got, you can't really mess up too bad by playing it.
Mammoth has been great. Five damage a turn is nothing to sneeze at. Mostly with Mammoth originally I was worried that the added flexibility and draw-smoothing wouldn't be worth it because neither the land side or the creature side would really be worthwhile, and I can officially say that that's not the case. By lowering the curve of the deck, a couple lands that enter tapped aren't the end of the world, so the land fits in fine. And also since we're lowering the curve of the deck, an aggressive blunt object 3-drop has a much more synergistic role in the strategy. We're moving away from the Thragtusk/Huntmaster/Bloobraid Jund strategy where you win through two-for-one threats and more of the Thoughtseize-Tarmogoyf strategy where you use your opponent's dwindling life total as leverage.
Inscription has also impressed me. What's funny is that Mind Rot is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing on turn three in quite a few matchups, but just not enough matchups where you'd actually want the card Mind Rot in your deck. However, sometimes even in matchups where you wouldn't necessarily expect it, the Mind Rot mode turns out to be useful. If you have a board that's stable and suspect your opponent's last two cards are Hazoret or Collected Company, nail em. The other thing that makes Inscription so good is that having a Scavenging Ooze that survives is critical in a lot of matchups, and so having the ability to rebuy an Ooze in the late game is enormous, something I overlooked. Even against a board of opposing creatures that are more expensive, Ooze still is the king of a board stall.
My belief, at least for now, is that Bloodchief's Thirst is just too good of a card to not play four of. Unlike Fatal Push, drawing two of these against something like Blue White Control is not a death sentence, but similarly to Fatal Push, drawing one significantly hampers your opponent's ability to tempo you out of the early game. Just an unreasonably good card.
In my last post, I said that I would stream an MTGMelee tournament last weekend, but some stuff came up, but this weekend I've definitely got the weekend cleared. My plan is to play in the MTGA Zone tournament that they usually hold on Saturdays at 1pm Eastern, and I'll stream it.
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