I figure it's only fair to follow up with my feedback on Beast's deck since he did me a solid of play testing mine (well that and to hopefully bring him back to the right thread since he can't seem to help himself from spilling over into all the other threads
)
Beast combined two of the most prominent archatypes in the card pool (Izzet Thopters, Gruul Monsters with a hint of Control/tempo found in either Simic or Golgari) and did a great job of taking the core cards out of each. The deck can play several different variations where one game it's actually playing an archatype (say Thopters) and then can be a totally different feel the next game. There are some subtle cross-overs and synergies in the archatypes and he did a great job of capturing them here. He also did a good job of incorporating cards to play against the meta without diluting the deck while still having quite a few 'answer' cards available.
Toughest match ups were fast aggro that went wide but I still felt; even in those games, that I had outs (my own tokens going wide or things like the 5 mana sweeper etc) so it really came down to the decks own tempo that cost me matches (see below).
I don't have any concerns or complaints that could be considered constructive to help improve the deck. Having said that, my one issue was it being a three color deck with double casting costs. Potential
on T3,
on T4 and
on T5. Even though six of the dual lands have the potential to come in untapped, realistically they should be viewed as tapped lands due to so few basics (and early/mid game were often played as tap lands to ensure colors on correct turns). That then is potentially 14 tap lands and can range down to 8 tap lands depending on when you find/hit basics. I'm not saying that I didn't eventually find/tutor the lands I needed or have games were I had timely colors but I often found myself behind in the early stages of the game or had hands that the mana didn't support (I often could play a portion of my hand/draws but had to sit on other cards until the colors came around). The deck did have enough strength/recovery to compensate most of the time but it did cost me a game or two.
Unfortunately the way Wizards built our mana base, I don't see any other options to try and improve it. If we had access to other fetch lands it would be smoother but would be even more powerful than it already is (and there needs to be some sort of stabilizing factor here right?
). This is why I felt the fast aggro/ wide aggro were challenging match ups. Not that I couldn't deal with them (the deck does have answers) but I couldn't consistently curve or play answers timely to interrupt their momentum.
Anyway, it's a great deck (with a good win percentage), I've really enjoyed it and I'll be keeping it in my play list for future games/ variety.
Nice job Beast.
elk