Building Blocks: UR Invisible Stalker

i’ve been very frustrated with block constructed. such a small card pool at this point… and so many times games are based on your opening hand and whether or not you are the aggressor.

if you aren’t, then you HAVE to respond to every single threat that your opp plays… which is difficult to do. really seems like there’s very little one can do to ‘turn the tides’ in ISD block. you either start off with the tempo advantage, or you’re toast. if you stumble at any step in the game, you[re immediately too far behind to do anything.

this was evidenced in each one of your games. as soon as you miss a land drop, you’re toast.

@Vanwilder10: Yes, for some reason I thought Stromkirk had haste when I was thinking that. Too much Goblin Guide in red decks past!

@totemnus: I like that Spectral Flight gives you a way to beat the Dredge deck; Furor of the Bitten only encourages chump blocks from them while they build up enough graveyard to destroy you. I didn’t like how few enchantments this version played anyway – I would draw Stalker and be disappointed. Now I’m playing 4 Curiosity (no Ravings), 2 Flight, and 1 Butcher’s Cleaver. The mix has worked well so far. I’ve tried Furor of the Bitten. It’s not a bad card by any means, but it just doesn’t do much against a bunch of decks if you’re not on the play.

@dasMetzger: This is also true in Standard, and each game of Magic, to an extent. Magic is a game where it’s very hard to come back from a losing position. They balance this by printing cards like Wrath and cards so powerful that turn the tides themselves, like Inferno Titan. Innistrad has taken a break from the power bump that Magic has received in the past, so there are no Titan-esque threats that will bring you back from the brink and let you win. Innistrad also only has two viable sweepers – Blasphemous Act and Divine Intervention (which doesn’t even get their largest guy, etc). So yeah, it can be frustrating that once you are losing, you find it very hard to win. But I’ve played a lot of decks like that in multiple formats, just accepting that my early game has to be enough to kill my opponent before he can recover, or disrupt him enough so that he can’t.

It’ll get better with time, as more sets release. I still like Block as is. As for missing land drops, I’ll be completely frank when I say that I’m very awful at mulliganning. Sometimes you have to keep loose hands, but I keep loose hands all the time; it’s something I need to work on. While sometimes you just don’t draw land, other times where your hand has been dead from the start of the game and you need to draw a land to function… those are probably the games where you should ship it back.

since you’re already in blue… how bad is undead alchemist in the sideboard against dredge?

its a common sideboard card in the mirror, and most dredge decks have 0 ways to get rid of it unless they splash red for blasphemous act.

the only issue is that usually their yard is full up by turn 4 when the alchemist comes down.

and yes… the whole issue with tempo is also why i dont play standard anymore. i’m not mature enough to keep my cool when i lose the tempo game as it is just so frustrating to have your fate essentially sealed by turn 3. draft is about all i play now, which is why i thought moving into ISD block would be something doable (for the draft packs, and that i already have playsets of everything). but alas, it’s no more forgiving than standard, even less so.

If you were to build this deck for today’s metagame, which seems to have shifted towards decks playing more Planeswalkers, how would you modify it from what you posted above? It seems like the deck is still viable in that metagame, but what is your take on that?