MTG Combo: Fiend Hunter + Reveillark

Discussion

Rurara_Rahura on Diplomatic Immunity

6 years ago

Thanks MrSilk, I'm glad someone is having as good a time as I do with this deck.

Your alterations are all great. The main reason my version is composed this way is mostly due to the time that I chose to build it. Then, Beseech the Queen was a little difficult to get my hands on because it hadn't yet been reprinted. On top of that, the only reason I'm not running Fiend Hunter + Reveillark is because they didn't exist until several months later.

I originally had three Scour in the deck but I moved them to the sideboard and eventually they fell out of rotation. Since I picked up the Snow-covered basic lands though, I may sneak it back in. Basically, the deck plays a very hard game and I was getting a lot of guff for gutting people's decks.

I'm sure the reason people are not as threatened by Ajani's Chosen + Enchanted Evening is because they've forgotten the horror that is the Shadowmoore block, lol.

Pariah + Stuffy Doll is meant as a back-up. I can only think of one game I've played that it was absolutely necessary, wherein a player removed all my Enchanted Evenings from the game. So Stuffy Doll threatened a draw until I could find three Oblivion Ring to manually kill them. My Stuffy Doll plays are often on turn 5 when I don't have Enchanted Evening.~~~~~

In regard to your questions:1, There are exactly 33% lands in the deck. This is for my comfort mostly, but if you're using the deck in an online game then that may be the issue. Most shuffling algorithms will shuffle far better than we might by hand so the land-to-non-land ratio can get sidelined. I can't guarantee that this will fix it, but you can try to pair down the following cards to three copies each: Stuffy Doll, Echoing Calm, Oblivion Ring, Pariah. If your composition is still similar to my version then that would give you about 40% lands, which I consider to be "flooded" lol.

If you're not using it online then the above suggestion could still work, but I would just spend some extra time shuffling between games.

2, The best opening hand in my opinion is:Angel's Grace (or Providence), Blasting Station, Pariah, Ajani's Chosen, two Plains and a Swamp. With this composition you have an equal probability (7% + 0.2% per card drawn) to draw into either Stuffy Doll or Enchanted Evening.

During the game you only have two options every turn. Either A, Continue with your own plan and get closer to finishing the combo you want; or B, Disrupt your opponent's plan by removing one of their important permanents. If you are doing either of these things then you're on the right track, but don't get discouraged if you have to keep spending your turns on dealing with your opponent because the more turns you spend the higher probability that your winning draw is on the next turn.

On turn 5, if you don't have a complete combo (given the opening hand in this example) then you should have just under 20% probability to draw what you need and anything you draw that isn't part of the combo can be used to control the field, save your lifepoints, or tutor for the missing piece.

Beyond turn 5 your focus should be on disrupting your opponent. So hold on to Angel's Grace as long as possible and concentrate on removing threats. Do not hesitate to throw Pariah on one of your opponent's creatures if you're in the shit. That one enchantment has saved me more times than any other card in the deck!

In the future I'm going to improve this build with a set of Inquisition of Kozilek for sharper removal. So use those if you have a few copies and your first three turns should be very comfortable.

Matrixxx999 on Somebody Stop Me! v. 2.0

7 years ago

Thanks!

Here are the reasons why I use Fiend Hunter in this deck: