Dies to Removal

Back to standard, I think soulfire grandmaster will have more impact then monastery mentor in jeskai builds. The lifelink on your burn spells is phenomenal and when I was playing with mentor, I found I was having trouble convoking stokes without rabble tokens around.

Is it better than Seeker though? I'd imagine you'd want at least 12 burn spells to make Soulfire better.

Agreed on Mentor though. I feel like Rabblemaster is better in most cases, and Brimaz too for that matter.

Between the number of times you do or don't trigger prowess by slinging spells around, seekers on average going to be worth 3/6 more points of damage from triggers and being able to attack through coursers. On the flip side, assuming neither gets killed for a couple turns, grandmaster's gaining you a lot more life while actually doing things in postboard games.

Against most midrange decks, you often just board out seeker because it's worth about 4 damage on a good day, then is a blank in your deck outside of chump blocking, while grandmaster is actually a threat going long and adds value to all your burn spells which would otherwise be mediocre removal. You're also a lot more resilient to the multiple rhino draw.

[deck]2 Jeskai Charm
4 Jeskai Ascendancy
4 Mystic Monastery
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Temple of Epiphany
1 Seeker of the Way
4 Hordeling Outburst
3 Raise the Alarm
4 Stoke the Flames
3 Flooded Strand
2 Plains
1 Island
3 Shivan Reef
4 Lightning Strike
4 Treasure Cruise
4 Temple of Triumph
2 Mountain
3 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Wild Slash
1 Valorous Stance
4 Goblin Rabblemaster[/deck]

Ajundi has the sketchiest mana, especially with Rhino.

I'm very happy shock is back.

I just wish it was actually shock so I could use my pimp foils.

Ajundi has the sketchiest mana, especially with Rhino.

Even with the allied fetches now?

[deck]4 Mantis Rider
4 Jeskai Charm
4 Lightning Strike
2 Magma Jet
4 Stoke the Flames
3 Mystic Monastery
2 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Shivan Reef
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Dig Through Time
2 Temple of Epiphany
4 Temple of Triumph
3 Wingmate Roc
4 Hordeling Outburst
3 Soulfire Grand Master
1 Seeker of the Way
1 Valorous Stance[/deck]

Burn and tokens with grand master for your viewing pleasure

So what I'm hearing is that with Pod gone, everyone has chosen to ACTIVATE MAX GREED and walk right into my Blood Moons?

Molten Rain will be my friend again.

Mana Sink Deck Wins will ride again!

I actually enjoyed playing my Modern port of Dos Rakis a lot, but got out-valued by Pod too often to take it seriously.

Pod made me want to kill myself when it went Voice into Finks, Pod Finks into Rhino, play Resto to blink Finks to Pod into another Rhino....

But I'm all better now. I swear.

Show me on the battlefield where the Rhino touched you.

All I've done today is brew Tezzeret and Gifts decks.

FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMMM

He said it was going to be a good touch!

Allied fetches slightly alleviate the problem but don't fix the underlying issue.

All I've done today is brew Tezzeret and Gifts decks.

FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMMM

Looks like WotC has the format on....

*sunglasses*

Cruise Control.

YYYYEEEAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!

Best thing I ever did playing pod was have to active pods, pod rhino into archangel, pod finks trigger angel into rhino, trigger angel reseting my finks.

David Cruiso

Allied fetches slightly alleviate the problem but don't fix the underlying issue.

The underlying issue is that you can only play 4 Rhinos. We need moar power!


So screw the red then. Just go pure Junk.

I knew I wasn't a fool for acquiring four foil Japanese Tezzeret!

Are his eyes squinty?

Zhu Li, do the thing!

I guess you'd want your maindeck to look something like this for ajundi:

1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Siege Rhino
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Lingering Souls
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Scavenging Ooze
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Path to Exile

I'd cut back on an Ooze, but yeah, that's what I had in mind.

Wait, where's Bob?

Needs more Bob.

I'd build a manabase, but that would be a bit more work then I feel like doing for a deck I'm likely never going to play. Also, if you want to lean extra hard on the mirror, add a garruk and maybe a sorin. Dark Confidant is fine in this shell as well since you have a reasonable amount of ways to offset the lifeloss, especially if you're packing Sorin.

Rhino will take care of some that life loss. No pain, no gain.

Damn, wouldn't Sorin just be better than Ajani anyway?

Sorin seems legit good.

I like the "too hard to build a manabase so won't bother", which avoids the glaring weakness of the archetype entirely.

Maybe. Ajani just puts you way ahead when you're on the play though since you get to jew over there lands and is also better for locking down rhinos. Ajani's also much better playing for board control. depends on how aggressive the format is.

The mana isn't THAT bad.

Or am I just delusional?

Don't answer that.

Sorin seems legit good.

I like the "too hard to build a manabase so won't bother", which avoids the glaring weakness of the archetype entirely.

It's more along the lines of I'm not gonna play it so I'm not gonna waste my time. The only modern manabases I ever bothered building where for decks I'd bother playing. A quick google search would just net me LSV/Efro's list from x season's ago which will in all likelihood get me 90% of the way there.

The archetype has a weakness yeah, but so does every other archetype. We call those "archetypes". I DID also mention that this is one of the better decks in the inbred meta which is why my initial mention of it was as a meta deck. First time I saw it was a GP top 8. Second time I saw it was infinite 4-0 dailies where Batuhina was crushing noobs.

Compelling argument.

Yes the mana is that bad. It's a meta-deck that's viable when you're trying to one up other midrange decks. Maybe it will be good, which only requires it to be well positioned.

Hand waving away the reason the deck stop being played is unhelpful.

Without the fixing provided by Deathrite you often struggled to cast half your spells.