lyonhaert wrote: ↑4 years ago
darrenhabib: I already had
Dack Fayden on the board, and then Rebirth brought out:
If I'd cast Oath instead of pitching it to Dack's +1 and casting Rebirth I probably could have pitched another 4-6 walkers and cast Rebirth the next turn. I'm pretty sure
Ajani, the Greathearted,
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar,
Sarkhan Vol, and
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad were in my hand still.
So by what you suggested, for the actual set of 5 it might be (left to right):
Edit: Also, 90 degree tapping could get confusing because
Honor-Worn Shaku, but I'll figure something out.
Well never a dull decision making process when you get a fist full of planeswalkers all at once. Listen you'll never get a more complicated turn than this, so taking a long time is absolutely fine. Trust me I've seen people play long turns on much, much less decision making than what's going on here, so don't be put off by the complexity and making the table wait.
I would order the
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman 3rd as it does have the draw element and technically I'd swap Dack and Teferi to the number one and two spots. The reason is that draw is a little better than filtering, particularly when it comes to actually using the walkers abilities in that order. If that makes sense if you use Teferi draw first, then Dacks filtering, you'll have one additional card to choose for the discard.
Is
draw important this turn? Well you've already established that you have
Ajani, the Greathearted,
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar,
Sarkhan Vol, and
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad in hand, so sounds like you already have plenty of action.
So
mana then becomes the next important factor. I'm assuming that you are not going to have much left over from the
Primevals' Glorious Rebirth?
You can activate
Garruk Wildspeaker twice (with Oath) so you'll get at least 4 mana, but maybe more depending on lands (I see
Gaea's Cradle in that list).
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria can only give you additional mana at end of turn, and there are only literally 2 instants in that deck, so not really a factor.
So given that you can only produce 4 mana (let's say) will any
these other planeswalkers in hand
Ajani, the Greathearted,
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar,
Sarkhan Vol, or
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad provide great additional value?
Probably
yes with the
Oath of Teferi in play, so you might as well factor one of these in to the decision tree. Yah more complexity
And unfortunately you've got to keep them all in mind. But none of them provide draw or mana, so at least we can rule them out of the initial activation's.
Just at this stage I'd hallmark in my head that
Ajani, the Greathearted ability to give each of your planeswalker two additional loyalty counters are going to be a huge factor and would any "ultimates" be possible? Might as well do the math at this stage and only
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury [-6],
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman [-6],
Dack Fayden [-6].
Are these good? We've already established that draw is not the most important this turn, so I wouldn't hurry the Freyalise.
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman emblem could be good for buff/blocker potential.
Dack Fayden emblem looks to be non-exist as far as interaction with this deck.
But let's move onto
removal/protection now. Obviously protecting your planeswalkers is the name of the Superfriends game, so what threats might be needed to be dealt with? You can do a quick count of potential token generation to cover ground attacks.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury 2x 1/1,
Garruk Wildspeaker 2x 3/3,
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman 4x 2/2,
Garruk Relentless 2x 2/2. That's a potential 10 tokens, which is pretty great for protection (normally).
Do you need to deal with evasion (flying or other?). Or some other permanent which is holding you back?
If you do then that's why
removal is important to factor in next in your decision tree.
You have that
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria [-3] which can deal with any permanent.
Dack Fayden can steal an artifact (unless you've had in play for longer).
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman can get rid of one creature (starting loyalty prevent using twice).
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury can get rid of one artifacts/enchantments (starting loyalty prevent using twice).
Garruk Relentless to a lesser extent with the 3 damage.
Now going back to the
Ajani, the Greathearted you can factor in two additional loyalty counters, which will mean that you can use each of those removal abilities twice.
Once you are happy that with some number of removal you can protect your board, the mix between
tokens will get you there.
Finally there are the
buffs and what does this do for you? Getting a
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman emblem and/or
Ajani, the Greathearted counters will mean that your tokens will be more like 6/6 - 8/8 which suddenly prevent any sort of attacking.
Having said this there is in fact the decision tree of "can you provide a lethal attack?". Maybe to one or even two opponents? Sometimes the best defense is a good offence (kill them before they can swing in with creatures).
Sarkhan Vol can provide haste to make this viable.
Given that you have to use
Garruk Wildspeaker to provide the mana, which means you can't use
Ajani, the Greathearted to help, as you've used the mana to cast
Sarkhan Vol instead.
This also means no
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman emblem, so you'd have to say that it's going to be unlikely.
Right so I've gone over most of the virtual decisions, time to put them into practice. Start with the
draw.
1.) Did you need to use
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria [-3] for the removal twice in the turn (
Ajani, the Greathearted would allow this)? If not use it to draw at least one card or two if you don't need the removal at all.
2.) Did you need to use
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman [-3] on a creature? If so use it now so you get the draw.
3.) Did you need to use
Dack Fayden [-2] on an artifact? If not then use the draw.
So now that you might have more cards in hand you are going to have to reanalyze the broad plan, but let's just say that there is no new information to help.
Let's move onto the
mana. Did you decide on casting another card from hand? I've personally factored in the
Ajani, the Greathearted as the best play. However
Ajani, the Greathearted is a buff card, so it could be cast later. You have to weigh up between it getting countered as you cast (which can ruin everything), or removed once it hits the board, so you'd only get one activation. But honestly
Primevals' Glorious Rebirth would have been countered first, and any removal is probably going to target one of the other walkers onboard already.
4.) Use
Garruk Wildspeaker [+1] (twice) to cast
Ajani, the Greathearted.
Removal should be done next, as opponents might have ways to protect their resources at instant speed, and this might effect your plans.
5.) Use
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman,
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria,
Dack Fayden,
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury,
Dack Fayden as need be for their removal.
If you ended up wanting to use
Ajani, the Greathearted ability to put loyalty counters on planeswalker and tokens first so that you can use walker abilities twice, then you'd need to create your tokens first. This is what I mean by your virtual order to help you might end up differently to how you actually order them, but as long as you already know what you are doing for the turn, you can figure out correct order.
You will have to make your decision between which tokens and any buffs, depending on how you need to protect the board?
Create your tokens.
6.) I figure with the +2/+2 you'd get from
Ajani, the Greathearted [-2] (twice) that your tokens are probably going to be big enough to deter most attacks.
Let's say you ended up with
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury [+2] 1x 1/1,
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman [0] 2x 2/2,
Garruk Relentless [0] 2x 2/2, giving you 5 creatures with 3/3 or 4/4 stats. You've used some number of removal to get rid of the threats that would cause you problems as well.
Finally buffs.
7.)
Ajani, the Greathearted [-2] (twice).
Phew. Now it's not as simply as that, you might want to plan for the next turn as well. What sort of loyalty your planeswalkers end up with might influence your decisions.
But we've already seen how complex that was, and the fact is that anything can happen in between turns, so sometimes you can just over think future plans, and in my opinion go with what you can do at that stage given what you know. You should be so well set up that going for "maximum" future plays can often backfire.
The example you stated with waiting a turn to cast Rebirth is a classic example of maybe getting a higher reward for being patient. But at the same time you miss out on an entire turn worth of double planeswalker activation's which I feel is just as much value if not more, than waiting a whole turn to get some additional walkers into play. After all you get to cast those planeswalkers you still have in hand next turn potentially as well. You made the correct play.
An example of trying to future proof with the setup that I could think of is with focusing on
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury [-6] on the next turn. Getting say 8x green tokens once you've gotten to your next turn means refilling your hand. With
Ajani, the Greathearted loyalty you should be able to do this.
You might also be trying to factor in getting to Teferi [-8] emblem on the next turn. In a perfect world you can do this. But you are in such a dominant position that if the safer play is to use his [-3] on something, then you should absolutely go for the safer play. Chances are somebody will be able to push some damage/removal on your setup.
The other future turn proofing is going back to what I was saying about attacks, if you've been able to retain your board, you've probably got lethal on a couple of opponents (if not all).
Between
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman [-6] emblem and
Garruk Wildspeaker [-4] AND also casting
Sarkhan Vol in the next turn, you'll have something like 9x 10/10 creatures with haste and trample. That's 90 power. Add Nissa to the mix to give additional +2/+2 to each creature.
Actually I'm kind of keen to hear how you did sequence if you can remember and how the following turn played out if you can remember some details? Not exactly but just a little about your opponents being able to interact with you.
Zacama
