Brian here! Loved the deck! Really had a great time all around despite falling a little short. Also glad we were able to showcase your historic prowess a bit with this event! Cheers!
love this kind of content, super informative especially for dudes like me who are getting back into the format, this channel has always been the go-to for me when it comes to historic. one question i would have is this deck defiantly gets worse with Bowmasters nerf, what would you swap out for it? and would you potently play the 1/1 mana dorks now? or is wizards just to dominant now?
great video Alth, great to see one of your decks top 8. would for sure love to see more content like this and like your equation control video you did for I think it was Arena qualifiers?
I've played Sam Combo against UR wizards for some matchs (the old build without Eos and Attendant tech), and I usually board out 1 to 2 Bowmasters. They are literally Raise the Alarm 90% of the time, experienced UR player won't play 1UR Fire unless you tap out for combo or so. I had a sideboard heavy on removal, and I thought double spell with Sam making a food T3 or later, saving me from burn spell after removing most of their creature could be better. But this build relies much on convoke, Raise the Alarm seems resonable, definitly trying your tech and sideboard plan later. Btw I think rebalanced A-Symmetry Sage is almost the best threat in any mtg format today, even in legacy you can hardly find any early threat close to it on power level, definitly broken.
Yeah I quite like Bowmasters against Wizards with this configuration because it's great at enabling both Chord and Knight Errant, and is a decent blocker in the early game against Soul-Scar Mage. Also since I'm bringing in 3 copies of Arasta, the Wizards player is often forced to use Flame of Anor to kill it which means we can either get value off the Bowmasters, or they have to choose not to draw if we have Bowmasters in play, either of which is decent. Yeah A-Symmetry Sage is definitely strong but I think the main reasons the Wizards deck did so well in AC4 is because there weren't that many interactive decks - even though Shinya won the finals against Dimir he said it was a bad matchup for him and just played really well, so as long as interactive decks are about in the format I'm not too worried about Wizards personally, but if Wizards finds a way to beat the interactive decks then I think it's a problem.
Oh so you were behind this deck's idea haha. Congrats then! What do you think of the other Samwise list in this tournament? It was using the Peregrin Tooke combo (the one you presented in alchemy a few weeks ago)
Yoo thanks! I think that build is interesting but I'm not a fan of pairing Samwise with other combos since it makes the deck's matchup spreads pretty polarizing where you're very weak to creature removal (so tough matchups vs wizards/ control etc where they have a ton of interaction which makes assembling any of your creature-combos incredibly difficult), and hate cards like Grafdigger's Cage/ Drana & Linvala etc. One of the things I like the most about the convoke package is that it gives the deck a secondary angle of attack meaning that you can more easily beat hate cards, and allows you to pivot against interactive decks. For example in testing against Wizards and Dimir Control it was almost impossible to assemble the combo due to the amount of interaction the opponent had, but because we had the convoke package we could trim or cut the combo and pivot into a go-wide midrange deck that was much harder for the interactive decks to beat.
Yeah for sure! I think this nerf is gonna have an enormous impact on the format and decks that draw a lot like Phoenix or Teferi control, and decks that rely on 1 toughness creatures like Humans and Elves suddenly become viable again.
I think it can help but it's not as effective as it is in this deck since you can't pair it with cheap removal in Mono G. Arasta can sometimes solo the game against Wizards but specifically Balmor and Soul-Scar Mage can power through it due to trample or the ability to shrink it with burn spells, so it's less effective in Devotion since you don't have stuff like Fatal Push to stop that. Having said that I've been having success recently with a Devotion build using Grizzled Huntmaster which can fetch Arasta out of the sideboard which gives you a better chance against Wizards than most other Devotion variants. I don't think you'd ever want to maindeck it or run multiples in the sideboard though.
Ahh yikes yeah that's rough, I assumed if they were gonna hit them they'd get banned so getting no refund for the nerf kinda stings. I think Bowmasters could still maybe see play in sideboards and The Ring could still see play in Alchemy or maybe Historic midrange decks but not 100% sure.
I know they're taking action against Bowmaster, but they really need to do something about Izzet Wizards also; it's skewed the ladder so hard into black removal and it's been Tier 1 for too long imo. I've been playing less and less Historic because of that archtype.
Yeah Wizards is a weird one since it has really polarizing matchups, I don't mind its position if it keeps the uninteractive decks honest and really struggles against the interactive decks, but if it gets to the point where it can fight through the interactive decks then I agree it's a problem.
Had you considered Voice of Resurgence in the sideboard at all? I had been playing a similar list for the past few months and that card has been an MVP in several matchups.
@@dang476 Ah that's an interesting card, I didn't get around to testing it because I think I generally prefer Juggernaut Peddler against control (which also doubles up as a great card against opposing combo decks like Yawgmoth) so I think I'd look to run 4 Peddler before the 1st Voice of Resurgence, but with the recent nerf of Bowmasters I could see maindecking 4 Peddler instead, and then I might be interested in trying Voice of Resurgence in the sideboard as another good card against interactive decks. Thanks for the suggestion!
