After seven straight wins, I'm feeling enough better about the changes I made to post them as an updated version of my original list. Still room for improvement, obviously.

Fireball - You! (v. 2.0) ()
(Ramp)

Threats

2x Sylvan Advocate
3x Lambholt Pacifist/Lambholt Butcher
1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer/Nissa, Sage Animist
2x Tireless Tracker
1x Reclamation Sage
2x Mina and Denn, Wildborn
1x Woodland Bellower
1x Ulvenwald Hydra
1x Chandra, Flamecaller
1x Omnath, Locus of Rage
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Ramp/Healing

3x Retreat to Kazandu
4x Nissa's Pilgrimage
3x Explosive Vegetation
2x Nissa's Renewal

Fireballs

3x Ravaging Blaze
3x Rolling Thunder

Lands (26)

8x Mountain
9x Forest
2x Rootbound Crag
2x Cinder Glade
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Rogue's Passage

Strategy is the same as my first post, and explanations for the changes and descriptions of my matches since can be found here.


Matchup Thoughts

Having now played 30-ish games with this deck, I'd like to go back and see if I met my original goal - building a deck that was favored against White/x Humans, Blue/x Mill, Four-Color Walkers, B/W/x Control, and G/R Ramp. I'll rank match-ups by favorability, along with some comments on each. I've lumped similar decks together, so , , and aggro/midrange will collectively be called aggro/midrange, etc.

Overwhelming Favorite:

Mill - Any mill deck that's splashing colors to acquire more sweepers (and cutting counterspells) gets destroyed. They could know our deck list and hand-pick their opening seven; we'd probably still win.

Strong Favorite:

Aggro/Midrange - Trying to beat us down with 3 and 4-drop creatures alongside efficient removal for our (nonexistent) small threats is not an effective plan. We just go bigger, and we can do it while stabilizing without much difficulty.

Walkers - Their mana is a disaster and they try to make up for it by establishing so much recurring value that they can grind the opponent into oblivion. Unfortunately for them, they're not very aggressive, and they can't stop fireballs.

Slight Favorite:

Mill - The question is whether they can blow us out with a counterspell on a fireball. There's a lot of passing back and forth while slowly getting milled out and hoping they tap low. They can't afford to counter our ramp, though. That means we can get enough mana to cast a threat, and if it gets countered, fireball their face. This match-up gets much worse if they run zero creatures and Ravaging Blaze is a dead card.

3-Drop Creatures - All of our creatures are bigger than theirs and our payoffs are all meaningful, but their tempo plays can let them push through a lot of damage. They can also play counterspells, which we're hoping not to see.

Ramp - We have the same spells, except our payoffs all have haste. Probably within a turn either way, Retreat to Kazandu is the best card in the match-up on both sides.

Control - They have lifegain, a meaningful clock, and removal that can efficiently take out our threats. They also deal themselves a lot of damage, and often play too conservatively, expecting to win the lategame. Fireballs off the top took this match every time I played it.

Even:

Humans - High variance, so one of you is probably getting blown out, but the matchup feels very close. Play/Draw matters a lot, and having a 2-drop on turn two is crucial.

Midrange - Thought-Knot Seer is a beating and Reality Smasher is a beating. They usually remove a sweeper or two from the control version (and drop a color) while getting more aggressive, all good choices against our deck.

Slight Underdog:

Ramp - Kozilek, the Great Distortion is a beating as well. Every card they get by splashing improves the match-up for them, although it is still a 50-ish card mirror.

Humans - The extra bit of speed benefits them; beating us before we can set up shop is a good strategy. Even on the play, strong underdog on the draw. If you're adding sweepers to the deck, this is why.

Aggro/Burn - See Humans.

Strong Underdog:

Renowned - They can grow their creatures one turn faster than we can get the mana to fireball them, we can't play around Wildsize blowouts, and their removal lines up very well against us. I don't think sweepers are the answer here, but I'm not sure what is.

Prowess - The more aggressive the build of the deck, the worse it is for us. Slip Through Space is bad, Titan's Strength is worse. We can overpower Thing in the Ice and Jori En, Ruin Diver, but beating a Mage-Ring Bully and Jhessian Thief start is hard. The change to add three Lambholt Pacifists is great here.


So, out of the five Tier-1 decks I targeted: I feel like a favorite against four of them, and a slight underdog against the fifth. Not bad!


Seeds for further discussion:

I cut the five worst performing cards and added in more meat - the Lambholt Pacifists have been excellent every game, and should definitely have been here all along. Having a two drop to play on the board before you ramp is fantastic. Hydra feels like an upgrade to Greenwarden, although not significantly - both are playable. Haven't drawn Ulamog yet, but I've never had a game where I looked at the board and thought "Ulamog would be bad here," so he's probably fine (update: have now drawn Ulamog - he's earned his spot). Added in the one value land I thought we had room for, and it's looked excellent every time I saw it. We still only have Chandra as a "true" sweeper, but I've only faced mono-white humans once. Outside of a 1-drop insanely aggressive deck like white humans or Call of the Full Moon red, though, we don't need one. All the decks trying to go a little bigger and a little midrange-ier get blown out by this deck. I'm going to make the claim that this deck does not need or want another sweeper - but I encourage you to test on your own to decide that for yourself.

As far as chaff remaining in the list, Reclamation Sage and Nissa, Vastwood Seer are the most reasonable cuts. Not sure what you'd add, but for those wishing to put in some Radiant Flames, I'd suggest them as the swap. You'll gain percentage against aggro, but lose it against midrange and control. It might take the UR Prowess match-up from atrocious to merely bad, although that's still an uncommon deck.




Update: Just hit Rank 40 for the first time this season with this deck! Yay! Also, Lambholt Pacifist is single-handedly winning games, thanks to @Immortal Reborn for the suggestion!

Been wrecking a lot of face with this one lately. I keep running into Abzan tryhards and it is undefeated vs them. It has great game vs Superfriends too thanks to all the trample, and Devour in Flames/Exquisite Firecraft.

The deck starts off aggressive with Snapping Gnarlid and Makindi Sliderunner.. or the less aggressive option of lololololSylvan Advocate. Then when the deck gets to 4 mana, things start to get pretty nuts with Mina and Denn, Embodiment of Fury, Arlinn and Grove Rumbler. Omnath and Chandra are just gravy. Embodiment of Insight may not even be needed, but I like the lands being able to attack, and then tap for mana. Mina and Denn giving all the landfall creatures trample is just insane.. Snapping Gnarlid and Sylvan Advocate never performed so well. There's also an elemental subtheme with Omnath.. as in you have access to elementals left and right to trigger his ability. Its a pretty powerful, synergistic deck.

Gruul Landfall Aggro/Midrange

4 x Makindi Sliderunner
2 x Sylvan Advocate
4 x Snapping Gnarlid

1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 x Tireless Tracker
2 x Exquisite Firecraft
3 x Devour in Flames
2 x Nissa's Pilgrimage

1 x Akoum Firebird
3 x Embodiment of Fury
2 x Mina and Denn, Wildborn
3 x Grove Rumbler
2 x Explosive Vegetation
1 x Arlinn Kord

1 x Embodiment of Insight

1 x Chandra, Flamecaller

1 x Omnath, Locus of Rage

6 x Mountain
8 x Forest
2 x Cinder Glade
2 x Rootbound Crag
3 x Looming Spires
4 x Evolving Wilds


I'm a little heavy at the 4 drop spot.. but I don't know what to cut other than the two Explosive Vegetation.. but I don't think I really want more Pilgrimages. Having double.. sometimes triple landfall triggers off Vegetation is absolutely brutal.. especially if I spent turn 2 and 3 dropping landfall creatures. It makes Sliderunner, and Gnarlid, 4 power dudes.. makes Advocate a 4/5.. gives Tracker a bunch of clues, sets Nissa up to flip the next turn.. basically it has insane synergy.

Anyway.. I'd love your feedback.. and I'd really like it if Barney tested it. It's right up his alley.

Gruul Landfall Aggro/Midrange

Anyway.. I'd love your feedback.. and I'd really like it if Barney tested it. It's right up his alley.

3-2 on steam. Had some land issues in the losses, may just be bad mulligans. Don't think I'd mind the extra pilgrimages but I'll keep at it.

Thank you so, so much for testing it there. Is love to hear your thoughts and feedback. What cards performed the best, what cards didn't, mana thoughts, cards you wished you saw more often, good/bad match ups, etc. Thanks again for taking the time.

Sure thing, in the middle of exams so I won't be too detailed.

Went another 0-3 on steam, totalling 3-5. Matchups included BG elves and UR prowess (Was at rank 40, while opponenets were mid 30's).

Most of the issues come down to mana. Too many 4 drops mean I need to run with 3+ land in the hand since I rely on top-decking lands. Turn three if I'm lucky I'll have a pilgrimage, but usually I won't. 4-5 lands in the hand and I risk getting land swamped.

I haven't been running against many planeswalkers so I am finding the devour sorcery a bad draw, quite often just halts my ramp and puts me in a bad situation.

I can see the synergy but against so much aggro/mid-range, and without any sweepers I'm finding I'll have a hand full of 4 drops and might get to play one or two per game, never mind the 5+ drops. The only 5+ card I've played in 8 games was chandra once - in which case her sweeper saved the game for me.

Grove Rumbler, Tracker, Firelord and the 2CMC drops are fairly decent. Devour hasn't been performing. Embodiment of fury is nice if lands are plentiful but combine it with other 4CMC+ cards and it's hard to justify. Feel like I'm mostly responding to threats rather than consistently hitting.

Looming spires has left me disappointed. Feels like a win more card if you reach mina, but quite often delays early presence. If I open with a 2, 3 and 4 drop I'd much rather have a plain land than a tap land.

Overally I just wish I had more ways to get things into my hand and on the board, setup takes to long and relies on a good tempo to avoid getting overrun, which is tricky to get with the mana curve.

I do feel like Pulse of Mirasa (sp?), and/or more Nissa's pilgramage and explosive vegetations would help a lot with land consistency.