Assassin's Trophy
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on Sept. 26, 2018, 11:24 a.m. by Cragon18
I have been building a GB Rock deck for Standard and immediately jammed in 4 Assassin's Trophy. While this card may be all kinds of good in older formats with fewer basics, my testing has shown the downside to be quite bad. Using it on 2-3 mana creatures and ramping your opponent into a 4-5 drop a turn early is less than Ideal. I feel that the loss of Fatal Push will really be felt in mid-range/control strategies (particularly UB decks) but that is a topic for another day.
I say all of this to bring up a topic of what is the best early game removal? In later turns the downside of Trophy is much less, and GBx deck should run some number of them for sure(I'm currently running 3 which feels right), but I never want to cast it before turn 4-5. Should Cast Down be the choice or maybe even Dead Weight to pick off the early drops?
This is the deck I am testing that sparked this topic:
I look forward to your feedback and opinions!
Happy Brewing!
Krypt0nite_ says... #3
I would suggest Dead Weight as an early game removal, I think it will be playable.
September 26, 2018 11:26 p.m.
Yeah Boza, Cast Down has been good in my early testing. I think Green Stompy and Boros will be popular early on and it's great against those decks. I am trying 3 Assassin's Trophy currently, but I could certainly see that number going up as Teferi is likely to dominate the format and a 2 mana answer is very strong. I could see a 1-2 copies of Ritual of Soot in the right deck with more copies in the board in low to the ground matchups.
Krypt0nite_ I have actually had some pretty good success with Dead Weight. It picks off most early game creatures and shrinks big threats "permanently". It also synergizes really well with Golgari Findbroker which I've been testing in my deck.
Thanks for the suggestions!
September 27, 2018 8:49 a.m.
AgentGreen says... #5
Dead weight saw ALOT of play in Shadows over Innistrad. It's basically cheap removal. Sure it's sorcery speed removal, but it's good removal that really doesn't get worse later in the game
Boza says... #2
Cast Down in GB is currently the best removal option. I do not think AT is horrible or should be less than 4 copies in a Rock deck - just do not use that particular removal spell on the early drops.
The removal suite I would use is:
4 AT, 3 Cast Down, 3 Vraska's Contempt and 3 Ritual of Soot.
Less relience on creatures and more on planeswalkers. More Vivien Reid Duke for sure, more of both Vraska's and some amount of Karn. Your creatures should be either interactive (Thrashing Brontodon) or ones you do not mind dying.
September 26, 2018 11:49 a.m.