There are times when the list feels clunky. Those times involve the mid game, a hand loaded with various support pieces, and no real good way to sequence them. The end result - a bunch of mana down the drain, unable to be spent efficiently on anything. Not long after the
Whift test game I got some crazy draw setup going, and what did I do main two? Play the cheap ramp to generate as many resources as possible for next turn. Then use those resources to jump immediate impact stuff on people post untap.
I've always openly admitted Ghired is a
Sol Ring deck, to the point of advocating for using
Enlightened Tutor to get it early if given the chance to. A turn three Ghired is no slouch, and ultimately the three-drop ramp that plays it safe does not allow that to happen. So seeing how the outcome of a
Cultivate is a turn four Ghired, wouldn't this also be accomplished by playing some cheaper ramp and then being able to spend the early turns more productively? If you ramp earlier and can spend turn three setting up
Anointed Procession, then that's better than having turn two for setup and then ripping the Cultivate, no? However, I did supposedly try moving to an
Arbor Elf plus
land auras package earlier in the deck's life, and it didn't work. I guess there's only one way to see what will happen here - aggressive goldfishing!
I pulled up enough hands to get 100 opening sequences with the contentious ramp options to show up. This wasn't just pure opening hands, I'd play out the first few turns and see if I'd draw one of them before the turn I'd land on 5 mana. I compared what happened with the cheaper ramp (Arbor Elf plus land auras and a
Rampant Growth) versus the original 3-drops. The outcomes:
- Faster Ghired - 29
The cheaper ramp options led to a quicker deployment of Ghired than what the 3-drops would have resulted in.
- Same turn Ghired
- Better setup - 41
The cheaper ramp led to Ghired coming out to a better game state. This could be anything from being able to sequence in a powerful support piece like Anointed Procession, through being able to ramp harder in the early turns, to being able to save an Enlightened Tutor and power out a turn three Ghired sans Sol Ring.
- Unused - 3
The rest of the hand was able to chase out Ghired in a manner where the evaluated ramp slots wouldn't have changed pacing or setup. This is a mild win for the cheaper options, as they're a lot easier to stuff in later.
- Same setup - 2
Both the cheap ramp and the 3-drops led to the same outcome in the end. Pretty sure Farhaven Elf was involved here.
- Worse setup - 20
Not all hands have noteworthy support pieces to play out. In those instances, the original 3-drop ramp pieces were preferable due to the benefits they carry, be it the extra land to hand off a Cultivate or Selvala's future ramp increase.
- Failure to produce Ghired - 5
Essentially the hands that needed the Cultivate hand land to get Ghired going.
Given the fact the cheap stuff is no worse to actively better than the 3-drops 75% of the time in the early game, and is far more likely to get snuck in late, the swaps have been deemed desirable.
Seeing how I got all cost-effective on ramp, I also combed through the contentious spots brought up previously and doubled down on what the core role of the card in question is.
Odric's unblockability is nice and all, but the primary purpose is to be able to venture out into combat.
Dolmen Gate does that immediately for half the cost. Once the pieces come together, blockers shouldn't matter a lot anyway due to the intense scaling. While
Ogre Battledriver is technically copyable, he's not exactly remarkable when multiplied. The buffs offered are temporary and not that high, so he's not a legit beatstick but rather haste outlet with upside. Once again, it's possible to halve the requisite mana investment and retain most of the functionality. It should be noted that
Lightning Greaves formally nonbo with
Reconnaissance and
Rionya, but these are narrow circumstances. Pretty much the only time the former interaction will matter will be if swinging Ghired into unfavourable waters.
While doing the goldfishing,
Harmonize performed perfectly okay and I had little desire to replace it. I considered reintroducing
Bramble Sovereign, did some testing for that, and continued seeing the perplexing outcome that it's easier to spend much more mana on a subsequent turn to get a copy than to front the
1G on the spot. I could have snowed up my mana base and added
Into the North over
Wood Elves, but I rather like being able to copy ETB land getters. Just not quite enough to not cut the worse one
I'll see how often the copying comes up in the future.
I walked the slimmed version of the deck into a different group. I absorbed six pieces of spot removal and got wiped twice. The game reminded me of a sticks and stones fight post a nuclear war as I stuck a
Splinter Twin onto
Ohran Frostfang to try to find something to do. If forced to exist in such conditions, the more conditional beatsticks (
Angel of Destiny,
Kalonian Hydra) lose a lot of their appeal, especially as I was never able to even threaten copying one. Is this why Angel is in four Ghired decks on EDHREC?
Teferi's Protection would need to make a return, and I'd seriously need to consider cheap redirect jukes on top of that (
Bolt Bend,
Deflecting Swat).