As primarily an aggro player, I love this card for my decks; however, Cavern of Souls is just another example of WotC not keeping each color in their own lane. Why have the various colors, each with their own abilities? Putting Flash (Wandering Emperor / Ardenvale Fealty) into white and lifegain into black ( Meathook / Sheoldred) are similar problems. Most of the broken cards have abilities that don't really belong in the color of the card. And don't get me started with Atraxa...
A-fucking-men!!! Why attempt to play the game if the opponent won't let you? Nothing worse than counter spells in my opinion. Almost as bad as land destruction
Your statement on counters is very true but remember that Mono Blue was a rampant deal for a hot minute, too. Until Mono Red finally gets crippled, everybody who likes playing unique decks are going to hate the fucking ladder for the next year.
I am really surprised to not see Roaming Throne in this deck list. It's a 4 mana counterable creature, sure, but as you say, there aren't many counterspell-themed decks in the current meta, plus you can technically place CoS on Golem if you see open Mana. As soon as it's on the field, it is a Human, has a super annoying Ward 2, and doubles pretty much EVERYTHING you do; Adeline attacks INTO Veteran Lifegain, Vendor Tokens, and even more brutally, both Veteran removals and Knight-Errant draw 4 creatures. As soon as you stick a second Throne onto the field, they get even MORE absurd by doubling each other's Ward, making them have basically Hexproof with the bonus gotcha upside of the OP not realising this while casting removal. Insta concede on fizzle. (Also I think Anim Pakal is a funny bonus combo with the Throne ^^)
It’s even better than that. It doesn’t have Ward 2, it has Ward FOUR. That’s because it is it’s own named type and thus it’s own Ward trigger gets doubled when it’s played on the stack. With Thalia that’s effectively Ward 5. Pay 7 mana for removal? Insane.
Wow, so glad you played this deck! I have been watching the Warden + Evangelist version on untapped, and wondered why it is so good! I think the traditional deck would have won every match you played the same as this deck! This version makes Cavern worse, and the counter spell mages have not been sent that message effectively yet. I think the previous human deck with 4x Cavern should actually be the best version of mono white. I wonder about a vigilance deck with Knight Errant. Spellbook Vendor + Giada + Adeline + Steel Seraph would allow for some big attacks, and then still cast a big Knight Errant! However, I really love the videos where you take a top tier deck +/- eight cards to showcase if those cards are good or not!
yes. let them just add a destroy land card in their deck... I think it's the other way around. counter decks were too dominant. if you are with midrange deck ,basically your first 3-4 turns are non-existant if the counter player went first...
definitely agree with the comment. Counterspells were too dominant. So many games where mono blue go first and counters every single spell and then game ends with a 20 damage from Djinn. It's not a fun game if no spells are able to be resolved. Its toxic.
yeah its not a huge sacrifice. the only thing it hurt is not being an island for things like flow of knowledge. Theres so many creature land out as well that field of ruin will almsot always find a target.
Feels like a lot of players don’t understand the need for counters and how they work, they just don’t like them because it makes them mad, also glad we are done with the trash decks now lol
So Cavern is important to allow future creature type decks to exist in explorer. Obviously it's reprint was important for paper cards so it's price could drop a bit. However I think the main thing is Wizards wants to print more consistent land hate, we have the new cave that destroys nonbasic for 1 while replacing it for them, then of course the is field of ruin. Etc. Lastly, I think there will be more "exile target spell" effects in the future. There are 2 cost return target spells that people can start running. Unsubstantiate for example. So I think we might see something like UU - return target spell to owners hand, if it's a creature spell, exile it instead.
Sanguine Evangelist gives 2 bodies, which makes it easier to convoke Knight-Errant of Eos and easier to pump Warden of the Inner Sky. But the more Board Wipes are going to be played the better Anointed Peacekeeper becomes.
I see counterspells in a lot more decks than just Blue tempo. Maybe because Im not in Mythic. And since I think counterspells are the most boring mechanic in the game, I like that land card. It can make more creature focused decks valid, or at least fun to play, besides what's used in the meta.
Hey Doc! Love the videos and decklists, would love to see you gun for Mythic rank 1 again that was awesome. Also do you ever compete in Arena Opens? That would be so fun to watch if that interests you!
I'm a casual player. I haven't reached the stage where I can appreciate counter spells yet, and maybe I just don't want to, ever. As annoying as playing against mono red is, at least you get to actually play cards from your deck and know whether you win or lose within 3 turns. I roll my eyes. I concede. I forget about the last 2 minutes of my life. I move on. And guess what, I'm still relatively happy. However, playing against decks with counter spells, especially hardcore ones mono blue, they grind the whole game to a halt. They only want to put lands onto the battlefield, and they want you to do the same, until they finally have enough resources to finish you off. In the mean time, you're basically playing against a discard deck because you would play something, and it would just get countered and goes straight to the graveyard. And guess what, you still lost, but after wasting 15 minutes of your day.
I enjoyed this deck. Your typical mono white that people hate made stronger with Cavern. When I test played this deck it was pretty unstoppable. HOWEVER I coincidentally lost EVERY game versus Rakdos.
I disagree 100% on counterspell heavy decks. Counterspell makes a 2 player game solitaire for the counterspell player. Counterspell that can counter any spell ruins mtg. The only counterspell that should exist should be "protect my cards" not "forbid my opponent from doing anything. "
I love Cavern of Souls. F mono blue lol. I have a special hate for counter spells because 1 guy in our commander group plays nothing but counter spells and no one can even play magic when hes there lol.
The real travesty is that cavern of souls just makes all the ramp decks atraxa uncounterable so disdainful stroke can't even come out the sideboard to deal with it.
I disagree about the cavern of souls bit, since it only applies to one creature type you'd have to stick to tribalish deck which have a lower win rate anyhow, so having one deck be good against counters is imho good for deck diversity from the standpoint of someone who only play BO3. BO1 has only been a trash fire of aggro decks so I don't think we should focus on card creation around it as a format
Cavern of Souls totally banned ctrl decks. They already were barely alive, and after this card Humans, Dinosaurs leave no chance to counter spells. RIP.😢😢😢
>be me coming back to mtga as a broke boy after years afk >make a budget mono blue deck to grind using some of my precious rares >ixalan comes out and cavern of souls/the rest of the mtg community proceed to call me slurs >feels bad man
I disagree about the counterspells. Those who use them usually tend to use them hardcore ime. And in some periods you run into those decks a little too often on Arena. It's really unfun to play against. And it's not just counterspells and mono blue, but any control combi of B, U and W. It's really unhealthy for the playing experience, and WotC is clearly aware of the problem. Judging by the blue cards from LCI, they seem more midrange focused in that set, which I really like. Even makes me want to play mono blue myself. Definetly more interesting than a lot of the other hardcore control bs that's going on. Each to their own of course. But imo Cavern of Souls is definetly a card that we needed to shake up the meta. Because this just means that mono blue players are not going so hardcore with the counterspells. Though they can still play a powerful control game without too many of them. To me that seems more healthy and balanced. Also seems like WotC tried to combat decks that mills your opponent with all those graveyard focused cards from LCI. I might of course be wrong, but to me it seems like WotC sees that there is a problem. Also, there are answers for intense counterspell players to use against Cavern of Souls, and obviously that's land destruction. They even put one in LCI, 'Volatile Fault'. And there's Demolition Field as well. Boseiju of course can't be used in mono blue, unless they make treasures consistently.
Exactly, just yesterday I played mono blue without CoS and by turn 6 had not been able to play a single creature, artifact; or enchantment, and my 2 removals were fizzled by phase out. Got hit 2 times by an 11 power Djinn. Didn’t even have a blocker on the field.and this is supposed to be healthy? lol no.
L O L when people claim ownership over overplayed decks like they came up with them I died laughing at that. Standard constructed is the shallow end of the pool that is magic for sure but fun nonetheless. Side note Cavern of souls is great for the meta.
Mono white aggro/humans has been around for AGES. BUT, my exact version (to the card) did not exist on untapped.gg previously, and now that exact version is the most played mono white humans version with 4,200 games since the ladder reset. I think there's likely correlation there to my "push to rank #1" video :)
Credit for actually playing new cards, instead of being a lame pleeb who plays the same pile of mono-red cards from the last 2 years. Seriously, more respect to the brewers and risk takers than the toilet seat gamers playing the same lame piles.
As far as the "boo-hoo bad for meta goes".. let those epic counter-players just add a destroy land card in their deck...(thats what we all need to do nowadays anyway,needing new specific removal for new meta-plays) I think it's the other way around. counter decks were too dominant. if you are with midrange deck ,basically your first 3-4 turns are non-existant if the counter player went first...talking balanced/unbalanced how about that fact huh..? meanwhile has 4 copies in his spot-lighted deck lols.thats one way to make a point ey bro
I think i can speak for most people, but i feel absolutely no pitty for Mono Blue when i use cavern of souls
Agree. Need something like that in standard for reanimataor...
totally agree! In fact, I think cavern of souls is by far the best thing that happened to Magic for a long time.
As primarily an aggro player, I love this card for my decks; however, Cavern of Souls is just another example of WotC not keeping each color in their own lane. Why have the various colors, each with their own abilities? Putting Flash (Wandering Emperor / Ardenvale Fealty) into white and lifegain into black ( Meathook / Sheoldred) are similar problems. Most of the broken cards have abilities that don't really belong in the color of the card. And don't get me started with Atraxa...
A-fucking-men!!! Why attempt to play the game if the opponent won't let you? Nothing worse than counter spells in my opinion. Almost as bad as land destruction
Any deck that plays only counters until they play their win con deserve everything they get.
I run in to mono blue temp ALL the time. Can't stand it, I'm so glad they printed cavern of souls.
Your statement on counters is very true but remember that Mono Blue was a rampant deal for a hot minute, too. Until Mono Red finally gets crippled, everybody who likes playing unique decks are going to hate the fucking ladder for the next year.
I am really surprised to not see Roaming Throne in this deck list. It's a 4 mana counterable creature, sure, but as you say, there aren't many counterspell-themed decks in the current meta, plus you can technically place CoS on Golem if you see open Mana.
As soon as it's on the field, it is a Human, has a super annoying Ward 2, and doubles pretty much EVERYTHING you do; Adeline attacks INTO Veteran Lifegain, Vendor Tokens, and even more brutally, both Veteran removals and Knight-Errant draw 4 creatures.
As soon as you stick a second Throne onto the field, they get even MORE absurd by doubling each other's Ward, making them have basically Hexproof with the bonus gotcha upside of the OP not realising this while casting removal. Insta concede on fizzle.
(Also I think Anim Pakal is a funny bonus combo with the Throne ^^)
Vendor tokens make two but they go on the same creature so that trigger is mostly useless.
It’s even better than that. It doesn’t have Ward 2, it has Ward FOUR. That’s because it is it’s own named type and thus it’s own Ward trigger gets doubled when it’s played on the stack. With Thalia that’s effectively Ward 5. Pay 7 mana for removal? Insane.
Wow, so glad you played this deck! I have been watching the Warden + Evangelist version on untapped, and wondered why it is so good! I think the traditional deck would have won every match you played the same as this deck! This version makes Cavern worse, and the counter spell mages have not been sent that message effectively yet. I think the previous human deck with 4x Cavern should actually be the best version of mono white. I wonder about a vigilance deck with Knight Errant. Spellbook Vendor + Giada + Adeline + Steel Seraph would allow for some big attacks, and then still cast a big Knight Errant! However, I really love the videos where you take a top tier deck +/- eight cards to showcase if those cards are good or not!
I've had great success with 2 Chimil and 4 Cavern of Souls. Blue players usually scoop when they can't counter.
1:03 All i can say is that i feel no pity for mono blue...and i hope the cavern stays.
yes. let them just add a destroy land card in their deck... I think it's the other way around. counter decks were too dominant. if you are with midrange deck ,basically your first 3-4 turns are non-existant if the counter player went first...
Same. F*ck em.
4 field of ruins for tempo in order to try to compensate?
definitely agree with the comment. Counterspells were too dominant. So many games where mono blue go first and counters every single spell and then game ends with a 20 damage from Djinn. It's not a fun game if no spells are able to be resolved. Its toxic.
Couldn't agree more on Cavern of Souls... it was not needed at all and makes the game worse - and I'm not exactly a control specialist.
Don't forget using skrelv to give protection from blue will drop the witless protection, bringing Ade back to huge damage at instant speed!
New favorite MTG channel, great content professionally delivered !
Djinn decks could run land destruction lands, it's not like there's no counterplay.
yeah its not a huge sacrifice. the only thing it hurt is not being an island for things like flow of knowledge. Theres so many creature land out as well that field of ruin will almsot always find a target.
I am happy to see less counter spells, it is by far the least fun part of magic. Target removal and sweepers are far less annoying in my opinion.
I think tempo kept control in check... whats stopping control from being greedy otherwise
Jesus, need 14 wildcards to make this deck - and I’m at 86% for the collection. Crazy
Feels like a lot of players don’t understand the need for counters and how they work, they just don’t like them because it makes them mad, also glad we are done with the trash decks now lol
Thank you for covering! Kept wondering about those cards.
I'm glad you dropped this video - I was very curious about what adjustments you'd make to mono white humans after this new set release.
So Cavern is important to allow future creature type decks to exist in explorer.
Obviously it's reprint was important for paper cards so it's price could drop a bit.
However I think the main thing is Wizards wants to print more consistent land hate, we have the new cave that destroys nonbasic for 1 while replacing it for them, then of course the is field of ruin. Etc.
Lastly, I think there will be more "exile target spell" effects in the future. There are 2 cost return target spells that people can start running. Unsubstantiate for example. So I think we might see something like UU - return target spell to owners hand, if it's a creature spell, exile it instead.
Sanguine Evangelist gives 2 bodies, which makes it easier to convoke Knight-Errant of Eos and easier to pump Warden of the Inner Sky. But the more Board Wipes are going to be played the better Anointed Peacekeeper becomes.
Does roaming throne have a place in this deck? Double triggers for cathar eos Adeline Kellan initiate, seems good
For flavor they needed to print and reprint for Commander. They should make a good land removal spell
I see counterspells in a lot more decks than just Blue tempo. Maybe because Im not in Mythic.
And since I think counterspells are the most boring mechanic in the game, I like that land card. It can make more creature focused decks valid, or at least fun to play, besides what's used in the meta.
Does warden get a counter if you convoke with Knight Errant? Would be nice if attacking (-> tapping) with 3 creatures/turn would count.
Hey Doc! Love the videos and decklists, would love to see you gun for Mythic rank 1 again that was awesome. Also do you ever compete in Arena Opens? That would be so fun to watch if that interests you!
I'm a casual player. I haven't reached the stage where I can appreciate counter spells yet, and maybe I just don't want to, ever.
As annoying as playing against mono red is, at least you get to actually play cards from your deck and know whether you win or lose within 3 turns. I roll my eyes. I concede. I forget about the last 2 minutes of my life. I move on. And guess what, I'm still relatively happy.
However, playing against decks with counter spells, especially hardcore ones mono blue, they grind the whole game to a halt. They only want to put lands onto the battlefield, and they want you to do the same, until they finally have enough resources to finish you off. In the mean time, you're basically playing against a discard deck because you would play something, and it would just get countered and goes straight to the graveyard. And guess what, you still lost, but after wasting 15 minutes of your day.
THX, with this Deck I'm the first Time Rang Gold in Arena with 13/16 Wins ;D
To be fair, counter spells vs aggro were a bit garbage anyway. There are plenty of better 2 slots vs aggro.
The Jeff Nippard of Magic
By far and away the greatest compliment I have ever received lmao
I enjoyed this deck. Your typical mono white that people hate made stronger with Cavern. When I test played this deck it was pretty unstoppable. HOWEVER I coincidentally lost EVERY game versus Rakdos.
I disagree 100% on counterspell heavy decks. Counterspell makes a 2 player game solitaire for the counterspell player. Counterspell that can counter any spell ruins mtg. The only counterspell that should exist should be "protect my cards" not "forbid my opponent from doing anything. "
Field of Ruin and what not is gonna be showing it's head more and more in decks, I've started to see it already to respond to Cavern of Souls.
already playing 2of since last set introduced so many creature land.
@DrRuckusMTG In the mono blue game, would targeting Adeline with Skrelv, giving it protection from blue make the Witness Protection fall off?
Skrelv gives hexproof, not protection. It could have protected if he has skrelv when monoblue was targeting.
maybe they could rework cavern to be a legendary land with a land cycling mechanic.
I love Cavern of Souls. F mono blue lol. I have a special hate for counter spells because 1 guy in our commander group plays nothing but counter spells and no one can even play magic when hes there lol.
The real travesty is that cavern of souls just makes all the ramp decks atraxa uncounterable so disdainful stroke can't even come out the sideboard to deal with it.
mono white aggro ftw
Ossi instead using BC?
What makes the game worse is the power of counterspells in general. Allowing that to be the only measure of can I stop. This combo is the real problem
Your face cam reminds me of early fallout game quality 😂
Cavern of souls is older than the commander format
If you play lunarch(sp) veteran, play voice of the blessed and make life easy.
Warden in Azorious Soldiers?
I disagree about the cavern of souls bit, since it only applies to one creature type you'd have to stick to tribalish deck which have a lower win rate anyhow, so having one deck be good against counters is imho good for deck diversity from the standpoint of someone who only play BO3.
BO1 has only been a trash fire of aggro decks so I don't think we should focus on card creation around it as a format
I've heard it many times... the best deck with... 100% win rate, and trying it ...
Every tournament deck on mtggoldfish has white and blue. And every single one of those decks have counter spells
Cavern of Souls totally banned ctrl decks. They already were barely alive, and after this card Humans, Dinosaurs leave no chance to counter spells. RIP.😢😢😢
>be me coming back to mtga as a broke boy after years afk
>make a budget mono blue deck to grind using some of my precious rares
>ixalan comes out and cavern of souls/the rest of the mtg community proceed to call me slurs
>feels bad man
I disagree about the counterspells. Those who use them usually tend to use them hardcore ime. And in some periods you run into those decks a little too often on Arena. It's really unfun to play against. And it's not just counterspells and mono blue, but any control combi of B, U and W. It's really unhealthy for the playing experience, and WotC is clearly aware of the problem. Judging by the blue cards from LCI, they seem more midrange focused in that set, which I really like. Even makes me want to play mono blue myself. Definetly more interesting than a lot of the other hardcore control bs that's going on. Each to their own of course.
But imo Cavern of Souls is definetly a card that we needed to shake up the meta. Because this just means that mono blue players are not going so hardcore with the counterspells. Though they can still play a powerful control game without too many of them. To me that seems more healthy and balanced. Also seems like WotC tried to combat decks that mills your opponent with all those graveyard focused cards from LCI. I might of course be wrong, but to me it seems like WotC sees that there is a problem.
Also, there are answers for intense counterspell players to use against Cavern of Souls, and obviously that's land destruction. They even put one in LCI, 'Volatile Fault'. And there's Demolition Field as well. Boseiju of course can't be used in mono blue, unless they make treasures consistently.
Exactly, just yesterday I played mono blue without CoS and by turn 6 had not been able to play a single creature, artifact; or enchantment, and my 2 removals were fizzled by phase out. Got hit 2 times by an 11 power Djinn. Didn’t even have a blocker on the field.and this is supposed to be healthy? lol no.
I feel like the old deck was better with the exception of the two drop
How did he cast virtue off a cavern of souls and a mountain?
I was wondering the same... But he has a treasure token
Was excited, thought you found a bug! But he had to pay 3 because of Thalia, so black mana came from the Treasure.
L O L when people claim ownership over overplayed decks like they came up with them I died laughing at that. Standard constructed is the shallow end of the pool that is magic for sure but fun nonetheless. Side note Cavern of souls is great for the meta.
Mono white aggro/humans has been around for AGES. BUT, my exact version (to the card) did not exist on untapped.gg previously, and now that exact version is the most played mono white humans version with 4,200 games since the ladder reset. I think there's likely correlation there to my "push to rank #1" video :)
100% same reaction to cavern of souls - I don't understand why they essentially nuked counter-based control in an already agro-dominated meta.
.. but great video mate
Kellan is worth the slots. He fits into other decks as well. Cave kills control and should be removed from the game.
The less control the better. The meat of this game should always be midrange. Midrange vs midrange are by far the most exciting and fun games
Credit for actually playing new cards, instead of being a lame pleeb who plays the same pile of mono-red cards from the last 2 years. Seriously, more respect to the brewers and risk takers than the toilet seat gamers playing the same lame piles.
Net-deckers deserve every bit of grief they can receive.
As far as the "boo-hoo bad for meta goes".. let those epic counter-players just add a destroy land card in their deck...(thats what we all need to do nowadays anyway,needing new specific removal for new meta-plays) I think it's the other way around. counter decks were too dominant. if you are with midrange deck ,basically your first 3-4 turns are non-existant if the counter player went first...talking balanced/unbalanced how about that fact huh..? meanwhile has 4 copies in his spot-lighted deck lols.thats one way to make a point ey bro
These are not best of three though, ser. Try the deck in best of three :) then you'll see that domain is the best deck!
I feel humans is good BO1 but BO3 it's average
Counter spell decks can go to hell
Hates cavern...runs four of 😂
BO1 ???!!
I dont trust it bro probably got a bit more mileage catching people offgaurd once its adopted more it will be worse
How surprising and boring >< :( When was the last time mono white aggro wasn't S or A tier? Thanks for the vid though.
Cavern definitely needs banned. Just unhealthy for the game.
Found the mono blue player
Found the mono blue player