Felidar Guardian Combo? NOPE!
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Jan. 7, 2017, 12:53 p.m. by JamerzGamerz
Authority of the Consuls will become a heavily used sideboard card, if not main deck card, for the upcoming meta. As you may know Saheeli Rai plus the new card: Felidar Guardian makes infinite 1/4s with haste. This combo will most likely make a hugely popular jeskai blink deck of some sort. However, if you have an Authority of the Consuls out, you completely negate this combo!
JamerzGamerz says... #3
VampireArmy, if it comes down on turn 1, they have no way of countering it, and then they have to have a Fragmentize or something, otherwise they can't combo off. Also, you could Negate their Fragmentize. Yet another thing is that you could have multiples of Authority of the Consuls, so that they need multiples of Fragmentize, which is highly unlikely.
This is a great sideboard card because it is hard to remove, and comes down super early in the game, making it impossible to counter in some situations. Also, the fact that it completely counters the infinite combo and you don't have to leave up mana to counter the Saheeli Rai with Negate, means that this is the absolute perfect sideboard card for if a deck like that exists.
January 7, 2017 2:10 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #4
Sure, it's a decent sideboard card and yes, sometimes landing it turn 1 will happen but there are going to be many more games where a turn 1 enchantment isn't going to be possible and then the control player just focuses on killing it then grinding you out of resources until a combo is achieved or they simply beat you down with other value creatures. I'm not saying this is a bad card, i'm saying don't bank on silver bullets to win you the game
January 7, 2017 2:31 p.m.
If Authority becomes very widespread, I have a feeling these Jeskai decks will simply add a sideboard Reckless Fireweaver. Heck, seeing as how it's a 2 drop it may even be mainboard because it curves well.
All the tokens Saheeli makes are artifacts, so pings will happen fast and frequently with or without Authority being in play.
January 7, 2017 2:55 p.m.
JamerzGamerz says... #6
MouseyWolf, that is another reason Authority of the Consuls is so great: we gain a life every time a creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control! They would need two Reckless Fireweavers to negate this effect.
January 7, 2017 3:03 p.m.
Very good point! I think the decks will plan around that, Fragmentize is good main and sideboard tech, and I'm sure two fireweavers could work.
So, I have to agree, Authority is doing exactly wants to do, slow down the combo. It doesn't fully stop it if the deck planned well, but it sure does slow it.
January 7, 2017 3:13 p.m.
readerrw07 says... #8
Nahiri, the Harbinger says hi. Getting rid of enchantments isnt impossible for Jeskai
January 7, 2017 3:13 p.m.
Silver bullets are great but they don't guarantee a win against combo decks, if we have learned anything about combo decks and their players and strategies the decks that run the saheeli combo will run it in tandem with a value based strategy.
January 7, 2017 3:16 p.m.
Fatal Push with Revolt also stops the combo dead in its tracks, there should be any number of consistent ways to trigger Revolt so theres 3 colors that can easily have main deck answers to the combo, just make sure you have an answer and you should be fine.
January 7, 2017 3:57 p.m.
JamerzGamerz says... #12
Oh, and I also found that Walking Ballista is really good option, as it can threaten to ping Saheeli Rai in response to Felidar Guardian's flicker trigger. However, is does have the side effect of being able to get removed.
January 7, 2017 10:42 p.m.
JamerzGamerz even if you do ping it, a good deck builder will have other ways to reach a win condition, for example if that were to happen I could draw into another Guardian and/or a Panharmonicon and combo off with the Panharmonicon and another Guardian, or the original Guardian and Essence Flux resulting in two ETB exile triggers which I can stack resolve one on another Guardian the other on something else for example Eldrazi Skyspawner the guardians exile each other with one of their simultaneous ETB exile triggers and the other two on the Skyspawner; this equates to infinite Eldrazi Scions and Infinite mana, with a Thraben Inspector in play at that time I can draw into another win con like my own Walking Ballista which will come into play with an arbitarily large amount of +1/+1 counters and kill you, or I could flicker Ruins of Oran-Rief of infinite +1/+1 counters and swing with an massive haste creature; there are so many ways to exploit this little creature.
January 7, 2017 10:57 p.m.
karmassassin says... #16
You also have Disallow and Summary Dismissal, which you can use to counter either the blink or a Saheeli activation.
January 9, 2017 8:06 p.m.
Well this combo just got a whole lot more playable after the bannings. Sure it loses Smuggler's Copter to dig for the combo, but it also takes away a lot of the best pieces to combat them.
January 9, 2017 8:38 p.m.
Reading this post really wants makes me want to experiment on my first ever true -to-name combo deck! It has a lot of counters and of a lot of answers to counters. I'm intrigued :)
VampireArmy says... #2
you do realize that the jeskai decks will know this and either:
A) leave counter magic up
B) Counter sideboard in enchantment hate
January 7, 2017 1:32 p.m.