The best combo is with Druid since it kills with Ballista, which you're right. It doesn't look like they're playing that. Ballista and Heliod can often take too much mana or be easily interacted with. Life gain in this matchup is not good, but I guess if they have Chord, it is much easier to find the 1 of Viscera Seer or 4 Vizier of Remedies. I guess it's a moot point kind of since I'm talking about my Abzan Heliod, not their deck, and I don't really know what their deck list is.TheAnnihilator wrote: ↑4 years agoThat's fair. I got the read that they weren't playing Druid Combo, just Heliod, which is admittedly a little slower. Even CoCo is a bit slow vs us, and they played that in G1. Still, their best line is likely just to go all in, as you mentioned. Tocatli may be too low impact, since it doesn't stop attack triggers or Dryad, but it might gain them the extra turn they need to combo. I agree that it isn't better than any of the cards you listed, but I'd side out a Finks For it, for example. The finks combo is 3-cards and a total of 7 mana, too unreliable imo. Their wincon should be Spike Feeder, just combing in response to removal anyways.FoodChainGoblins wrote: ↑4 years agoI think it's okay to side in. I'd have to see what they sided out. I just think it's approaching the matchup incorrectly. They are a quicker, more consistent combo deck. I feel like the strategy in the matchup is to combo as quickly as you can and hope to dodge Beast Within or Dismember (Beast can be easily telegraphed). Them stopping Amulet from doing what it does is not usually a winning recipe. But then maybe there were worse cards in the main. I would not side out any combo pieces, Giver of Runes, or mana dorks imo vs. Amulet. Our strategy is to slow them a little bit, then combo off ourselves. If we just sit with removal and don't get Titan, we can't outvalue Ranger Captain of Eos.TheAnnihilator wrote: ↑4 years agoI think Tocatli Honor Guard is pretty good in the MU, but obviously Auriok Champion isn't haha. Match 3 is up now btw.
As for the side strategy, that's just such low EV for my time and the viewers. I think I'd rather concede there haha.
I respect you for not doing that strategy on MTGO. I just wanted you to be aware that it does exist, in paper and online.
I appreciate you letting me know on that strat vs. infinite life. I wasn't aware before. I don't think I'd employ it though, even in paper, since that's just boring gameplay. It's still good to know about.
I was 4 Heliod short of running the newer version. I have played Company decks of all kinds ever since they came out; I just take breaks and play other stuff quite often. When I got my Heliods, I ended up facing Amulet, which was funny because that's what I normally was running. The Amulet player also didn't usually go to our FNM and the last time I saw him play was Goblins. I ended up in that very situation and only won because he Aether Gusted his Azusa to the top to not deck out first, but ended up 1 card short. He said that he should have sided all 4 Aether Gust, lol.
Then I go back to playing Amulet at another place on Sunday (2 days after that FNM) and a Soul Sisters player is on Heliod Combo. Odd situations for decks I've never seen either of those guys play before, lol. I got thrust into the same situation and was 1-1-1 in game 3. I told him that if he had more cards in his library, I'd scoop. But I didn't and I can't also force him to scoop. I ended up punting the final round to Zoo when I could have searched up bounceland, bounceland w/ red with my Prime Time, then Pacted for Dryad, then played Dryad, then played an extra land in hand, which was Hanweir Battlements at the time, played it for my extra Dryad land per turn, and swung for barely lethal, getting Valakut triggers. I didn't consider the double bounceland w/ Red floating after Dryad line since I was trying to see what I needed to do to survive the next turn. I felt that was Radiant Fountain and some other stuff, lol.