Comments on: Vengevine Monster Truck

By: Five With Flores » Cautiously Whelmed by Thrun, the Last Troll

Five With Flores » Cautiously Whelmed by Thrun, the Last Troll — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:09:12 +0000

[...] will likely make room in the curve, though it is unclear whether Thun gets played over, say, a Vengevine. My intuition is that decks that want a Vengevine will still want a Vengevine, but that there can [...]

By: Five With Flores » Something Borrowed; Something Blue; and Linvala, Keeper of Silence; too!

Wed, 26 May 2010 06:02:39 +0000

[...] Jace, the Mind Sculptor ∙ … and Linvala, Keeper of Silence So with all the hubbub about Vengevine last weekend (and did anyone notice a deck that was a few cards off of what we posted made Top 8? I [...]

By: worm333

worm333 — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:18:17 +0000

Despite it seeing 0 play, I maintain that Jund should play a tuk tuk the explorer or two to stop oncoming vengevines until you get the dragon factory online. If it sucks people can laugh at me, but I am running him.

By: Kha

Kha — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:07:41 +0000

Wouldn’t just sideboarding in some Prophetic Prisms and actually casting your spells as normal be better than bringing in the blue splash and fudging your manabase even more?

By: Averman004

Averman004 — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:18:26 +0000

Given the high conversion rate of the Vengevine Naya deck during the Nationals Qualifiers tournaments (“high” considering how many people actually knew of the deck and played it) and given how pumped the article writing community is about this deck, I am inclined to think that at upcoming major standard tournaments like this weekend’s Grand Prix, Vengevine decks playing copious amounts of creatures and little to no actual spells are going to be the “it decks.”

If we are looking at a Grand Prix metagame of U/W Control, U/W/r Planeswalkers, Vengevine Naya (and maybe even Jund in the style you presented here) with smatterings of other decks like RDW and Polymorph, is a Runeflare Trap deck like Robert Shilander’s an extremely good call? It seems like there is potential for a lot of easy wins there….

Specifially commenting on the deck you proposed: has any thought been given to maindecking Sedraxis Specter and an island? In my testing with Jund I am finding that Specter is coming in far more often than not, and I am finding it more and more difficult to resist making him a main deck card,

By: ADH

ADH — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:54:22 +0000

It’s been a while since I tried, but I remember losing 100% of the games in which I managed to resolve Nicol Bolas. I agree with the others that suggest dropping him for something a bit more down to earth.

I think Sarkhan the Mad is a cool card that can be a powerful engine in a variety of different kinds of decks, but I don’t see playing him in a jund colored deck that doesn’t have Broodmate Dragons to occasionally make him a nice big burn spell.

Also agreed with everyone on Ancient Ziggurat. Ziggurat seems to me to be one of the main advantages of playing an all creature deck, even more so than consistently recurring VV. I’m not even sure how much you need to go all creatures just for VV. Do you really expect to need to bring him out of the graveyard so often that you can drop Blightning and removal? If so, why not do something crazy like play Rotting Rats (and Bloodghast? Or other Unearth guys?) so you can be sure to have VVs in the bin to bring out?

Does anyone else like the idea of using Kor Skyfisher as a one-card way of triggering VV? For 2WW can you play it, have it bounce itself, play it again and bounce it again. Two creature spells, VV comes out. And you can do the same thing next turn, forever. Sure, one would rather bounce and replay Wall of Omens or something so you get a card and a 2/3 flier, but with an empty board and hand or against a deck without Path or O-ring… I’m just saying. Maybe once BBE and Ranger rotate, Skyfisher will become the main engine to recur Vengevine.

By: akfox

akfox — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:38:02 +0000

Congratulations on Q’ing for Nats! Perhaps this is that beginning of the road which leads to Michael Flores, World Champion.

By: Alfrebaut

Alfrebaut — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:34:49 +0000

I might be crazy, but I still don’t like Sarkhan. Maybe lose the Thrinaxes and Sarkhans for Vampires and Specters? Between Ziggurats, opposing Spreading Seas and Elf flips, I think they’d be fine even in the main. Plus, they’re almost like Blightning. Well, okay, maybe nowhere near as good, but in a creature-only deck, it’s as good as you could get.

By: Mandos

Mandos — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:24:02 +0000

Interesting,before we can even grasp the idea of meta switching to full U/W tapout and U/r/W walkers (plus the usual jund) you come in with a devastating grixis deck and before we could even grasp the cards and do enough playtest for grixis you are moving forward (like a real innovator) and post the next thing that you think will happen if ppl keep playing control…AGGRO!I like the idea but we will have to see if our meta turns this way or a gpt/PT will!
On a side note you have mentioned extensively the vampires deck (many times about mind sludge,bloodwitch,gatekeeper and nighthack but still…).You even said that you will try vamps or grixis for national qualifiers.
Anyway just wanted to ask you since I admire your constructive skills and have been reading you for quite some time now what do u think a good vampire deck could be this time?control oriented?aggro?mid range?I really liked the advice from your friend about playing the BEST cards of standard btw!I am very eager to read your comments on this…keep doing what you do best mike!

By: MTGBattlefield

MTGBattlefield — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:01:05 +0000

Vengevine Monster Truck…

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