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From Premade to Awesome #5: Poking a Hornet Nest
Posted on October 6, 2014 by Gurkengelee
Gurkengelee Benjamin Last (Gurkengelee on MTGO) started playing casual Magic about one decade ago. He enjoys all formats and loves to build decks who are fun to play and stand a chance to win.
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I think you should really either take the full “long-game” road or the “full-aggro” mode, the deck looks somewhat undecided in between.
I guess all the convoke things do tend to be a bit more late-gamish because you first need to drop your things on the table before you cast your big stuffs, but I have to admit I never really tried convoke decks so my opinion might not be so relevant ^^”
Assuming it’s a bit more late-gamish deck, i think you could and/or SHOULD keep the hornet nest. I tried it this card out in various more or less budget defensive decks (the two funniest being Purphoros-Nest-burn and GB graveyard) and it performs wonders.
I think it’s bad luck you hit decks with so many flyers, in the 10-15ish matches I played, it happened only once or twice!
Something that works rather well too is to find <
oops, sorry, small pb while typing.
Something that works rather well is to find something to deal direct damage to your own nest. In RG it works a lot better though.
I think in GW your only possibility is Nessian Wilds ravager, and only if the opponent doesn’t want to give you a 12/12
Not sure on what route to take from here tbh!
I am, again, impressed with your dedication and your writing style. I really enjoyed this article.
Regarding the content:
Convoke into creatures has some pretty restrictive demands on your tempo and your play style. I found that a good convoke deck is per se midrange, as you need build-up to power it and you lack long term win conditions besides one or two large creatures. I agree with your changes and I would’ve answered the aggro vs control question the same way you did.
The Sanctified Charge has to stay to enable another win condition against single removal. In limited, I was able to win with convoke decks simply because if they deal with my convoked creature, I can use the small stuff to overrun them with Charge or Selfless Cathar. Otherwise you just lose when they Blight your Hornet Queen tokens and you have nothing except ground fodder left in your deck.
(quick note while I was browsing through card to change my budget GB deck: i was mentionning only Nessian Wilds Ravager to fight your own creature – that was wrong. There is also setessan tactics, nad it’s much more reliable at that task!)
Hey Magikado, hey Edward,
a huge thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it. I will probably add another Charge to the deck as back-up winning condition as you suggested Edward. Even the threat of a combat trick can force your opponent to play too safe.
I really like the idea of the Nessian Wilds Ravager or Setessan Tactics. I am more drawn towards the Hydra though. In contrast to other Hydras you don’t have to pay X in order to make it big, which means it can be convoked with Chord of Calling. On the other hand Setessan Tactics and a Fleecemane Lion would allow to make 4 Hornet Tokens on turn 3. That would be great but we would need at least 3 copies to make it worthwile.
Ah, the debacle of the GW convoke deck…to be quicker or pack a bigger punch — or both, as the article described. Honestly, I don’t feel there’s any necessity to choose because sometimes being able to do both will actually win more games against more match-ups and more styles of decks.
If enchantment/artifact removal is wanted, I would think a single Reclamation Sage (esp. with Chord of Calling) wouldn’t hurt, if those types of permanents are causing trouble.
Hornet Nest seems fine enough, good for card advantage as well. Maybe the answer is to bump it down to just two in case of another wave of flying creatures comes your way.
But this series is best when somebody plays an archetype with expensive cards and they get beat by the “Premade to Awesome” list (and in this one, it was just a Starter Deck! my goodness)…very enjoyable to see. Nice article!