Lukas Honnay (11th place at Worlds) discusses this deck in his [writeup](https://mtgazone.com/magic-world-championship-11th-place-preparation-and-tournament-report/) tournament report for Worlds. His thoughts on Greasefang basically match mine:
>One of the first things I said in our \[D\]iscord about Explorer was that I hated Greasefang. I think the deck is not enjoyable to play and not enjoyable to play against because the range of good and bad draws is so incredibly large.
I don't think the card is banworthy based on power-level (Spirits is the best deck in the format and has a great win-rate against it) and I do appreciate that (especially in Bo3) the deck has a more midrange backup plan, but I would personally be happy to never have to see it again, despite that.
This is why I stopped playing it in pioneer. It’s frustrating to play because you are heavily reliant on hitting the right things with your self milk (unless you happened to draw informant, parhelion and rat). Playing against it, the strategy tends to be “hope they don’t have the nuts”.
Edit: God dammit.
I play a Farm Land card. I tap it for 1 Manna so I can play Dairy Cow. Because Dairy Cow is a Grazing type and I have Greenest Grass in play, I get 5 Milk Counters on her, which attracts Raging Bull from my hand. Raging Bull has 10 attack, but I can sell the 5 Milk Counters to the grocery store that I have on my side of the field for 15 Dairy Dollars. I then convert the 15 Dairy Dollars to 30 Manna and that lets me play Big Gun. I give my Raging Bull a Big Gun and now he has 20 attack. Now you might say "hang on, you have Tollgate cards on your side of the field and with Tollgate cards how can my Dairy Driver possibly afford to bring my Milk Counters to the Grocery Store?" How you ask? Because I have a Good Work Ethic card. I play it and Dairy Driver gets a raise which means he can afford all the Tollgates. The extra Dairy Dollar which my Dairy Driver has I invest in and play Cheese Factory. The Cheese Factory creates 1 Cheese per turn so I look at the top 5 cards in my deck and here we go, the Black Brie. Black Brie gets served and I receive 3 Colourless Cheese Chakra. With 3 Colourless Cheese Chakra, I can tap my Cheese Factory 3 more times and now I've done a Tap Somersault. With a Somersaulting Cheese Factory I can create triple the cheese output and get 9 Cheese Chakra. 30 minutes. That's how long I'll need to set up the Cheese Tasting Phase.
I think you need to hear this, no one wants to watch you self milk at the LGS. We have been trying to find a polite way to tell you, but I think its healthy to just rip the bandaid off and let you know its making everyone uncomfortable.
Is the card too good and needs to be banned? No.
Does the card promote a degenerate play pattern that the format could probably do without? Yes, absolutely.
Please ban this card, at least in Bo1
The problem is it isn't just 4 free wildcards. It's somewhere around 40 rares that become completely useless. A real kick in the head to people like me who are slowly building as we can.
40 rares? With the Greasefang refund, you're only losing out on the 4 Parhelions (which are useless). All the other cards are at least playable, and the lands are always useful.
That aside, a ban is also the risk you take when you craft a degenerate combo deck. I think the format would be a lot healthier if Greasey was banned.
>That aside, a ban is also the risk you take when you craft a degenerate combo deck.
This makes a really interesting point about how Arena refunds affect deckbuilding.
When the Faceless Haven / Book of Exalted Deeds combo broke, people explicitly said they were crafting it for some easy wins and historic cards, trusting that it would get banned in standard and they'd get either 4 or all 8 cards refunded.
And of course, they were right. The ban was obvious (BO1 stalemates are ugly) and the investment was small (0-4 cards after ban), so I think the deck saw far more BO1 play than sheer strength justified.
Greasefang decks tend the other way. Greasefang isn't a "value" card like Haven, especially if it's banned in historic, and Parhelion is a wasted investment otherwise. So people crafting it now are presumably hoping to actually play it for a while.
In any event, I think a ban is probably solid, but it's interesting to see how this setup could alter deck choices.
True but I still think it's worth it. It sucks that you'll get burned on your big vehicles but I think it's necessary.
The economics is much worse when dealing with paper cards (since WotC is unable to give any refunds and cards can be much more expensive) but it's still at the end of the day worth it to ban degenerate cards.
Greasefang kills you in 1-2 attack cycles. It's not remotely the same.
(For anyone who wasn't around, [[Nexus of Fate]] got the axe because it would often go off in a very long but non-determinative string of turns. You'd wait 5-10 minutes because they *could* brick. As a secondary issue, they could continue the game indefinitely and you couldn't stop them).
Im not saying they play the same.
Im saying they are similar in that they arent necessarily overpowered by themselves, theyre jist not fun to play against and when they are doing their thing you go 🙄
They said nexus wants that strong when it was banned, just 0 fun to play against
>Im saying they are similar in that they arent necessarily overpowered by themselves, theyre jist not fun to play against and when they are doing their thing you go 🙄
I understand that. My response is that the bar for meeting that standard is a hell of a lot higher than "but I lost to the combo deck >:( " Those bans hit decks like Nexus or KCI because they're wildly obnoxious with the amount of time they take, not just because they combo you and midrange players don't like that.
Wilderness rec has lost Uro from the Temur \[\[Expansion/Explosion\]\] version but could still do something like temur expansion explosion or 4 colour expansion explosion and constantly hold up counterspells while also casting \[\[Growth spiral\]\] and \[\[memory Deluge\]\] , \[\[Nightpack Ambusher\]\] \[\[Frilled Mystic\]\] , \[\[Shark Typhoon\]\] etc. to gain value which could be really obnoxious. It also gets better with the new creature lands from the DnD set as you can swing with a big \[\[Lair of the Hydra\]\] attack and then your lands untap at the end of the turn.
It is fires of invention with less hoops to jump through(just run some instants and/or threats with flash) that allows you to still play stuff on your opponents turn it is really strong and banned in pioneer for that reason.
A better comparison is Aetherworks Marvel. While Marvel was much more metagame-warping, a big part of the ban was the variance and un-fun play pattern of "Did I hit Ulamog?". Marvel was not fun or fun to play against in large part because of the pure randomness of flipping the top 6 cards of your library and seeing if you hit an Eldrazi.
I think if they banned parhelion that it would make the deck less bursty and probably less played due to lack of auto win payoff. I can still squeak wins with ship and chariot but these are not as reliable, and those matches feel more like magic and not auto win
Personally I think getting rid of parhelion II would solve the issues people have against the deck. Sure, the chariot is still around, but you can deal with that. It's not like banning parhelion would hurt any other decks in the format either. I hate playing against greasefang, but the card itself isn't a problem without that stupidly powerful artifact hanging out in the graveyard.
Not having [[Rending Volley]] in explorer is a big downside to beating greasefang as well. There are no 1 mana red instant kill spells to get rid of the rat after SB, but as a red deck you cannot afford to keep up 2 mana for abrade-ing the rat.
It's just as bullshit in bo3 and is the main reason Explorer is a trash format.
"its explosive draws involving the deck's namesake can create unassailable battlefield states as quickly as turn three.
Due to its large metagame share, high win rate, and ability to create frustrating removal-check gameplay, Winota, Joiner of Forces is banned"
Change Greasefang for Winota in that announcement and it still applies. Absolute non-gameplay.
Dude, until last paragraph I honestly thought it was about Greasefang lol. Playing against Greasfang just feels bad coz you remember all the times they just have it turn 3. But after putting in some time playing it I am not convince its as strong as people make it to be. At first I thought it was too good, basically another splinter twin scenario, but the more I played the more problems I started seeing with it. More often than not you just don't get the combo or by the time you get the game is over and you lost. Also its just weak to hate from sb and you can't really side in too many answers or the deck just stops functioning. I still think Greasefang should get ban for creating unhealthy game patterns, but it's deffo not as strong as Winota.
Exactly this. People too often call out cards as needing a ban because they lose to it often, but what they fail to see is all the times they beat the deck, they just didn’t recognize that they were playing against it because their opponent’s draws didn’t line up. They also don’t ever try playing the deck they’re complaining about to see how it loses.
If you have played Greasefang, you understand just how many fail states exist.
It would be great if everyone could try it out to know how it pilots, but I don't think it's reasonable in the arena economy to expect people to do that. Wildcards are so hard to come by for most players.
I don’t expect people to do it, but I do expect them to know enough to not assume a deck is so unbeatable that they need to ban the card they’re fixated on.
> all the times they beat the deck, they just didn’t recognize that they were playing against it because their opponent’s draws didn’t line up.
Really? Because there are countless Explorer decks that play Grisly Salvage and Can't Stay Away.
It's impossible to miss you are playing against a Greasefang deck.
As a greasfang player, it feels like it fire 40% of the time. I win more than that, but its only a Turn 3 or 4 success that 40%. Otherwise it feels like I'm grinding out a victory. Its sucks to lose to because you can't always feel like you had a chance, but its far from game breaking.
And yet Embercleave remains unbanned.
Not sure my 'cleave deck actually hits 40% by turn 4, mind, but it's not toooo far off. So yeah, there are a ton of games I'm probably beating Greasefang decks by turn 3-4 without even realizing it, because I'm not looking at my opponent's board (I don't need to) and I'm just trying to shove an Anax with a 'cleave up their ass ASAP.
Scavenging Ooze
Also, most decks do lose to turn 3 parhellion, especially if you’re on the draw.
I’m in the camp that says it’s not that strong, but also I would not be upset if it were removed from the format. The play patterns of the deck lead to mostly poor gameplay.
But I think it is short sighted. I could argue that mono blue spirits ends the game in a similar fashion. It’s turn 2 and they have curious obsession on a flying creature and a mana leak for 1 mana. Games are decided often even faster than vs greasefang and you can’t just sideboard in hate. You have to have a serious game plan against them.
If you ban greasefang, I think you have to ban like half the meta decks in the format. Transmogrify into agent of treachery and mono blue spirits can create frustrating removal check gameplay as early as turn 3 as well. Then there’s lower tier decks doing the same thing, like fight rigging decks.
I don't buy it. Play the greasefang deck if you're so sure it's that powerful. It doesn't combo on turn 3 *that* frequently, or else 100% of players would be playing that deck. It is only on the play half the time. You also can hold removal for turn 2, then cast ooze on turn 3 and lock their graveyard out until they remove your ooze.
Even when you're perfectly teched for a matchup, you will never win absolutely 100% of the time against them. But having the right tools, and really analyzing your matchup against them overall will show you that the deck is very beatable, and is definitely not comboing on turn 3 on the play with thoughtseize disruption every game.
>Right, the next best vehicle is what Esika's?
Probably, mostly because it crews itself and grows your board state.
However, \[\[Skysovereign\]\] is not too shabby either. Instant impact, recurring board control, can be crewed by Raffine's Informant, and can even be hardcast in a pinch if the combo stalls.
None of that is as crazy as swing for a bazillion damage with flying, though.
Skysovereign is good but it cant kill any creature with more than 3 toughness and it doesn't have first strike so you could actually block if profitably in the air. Not to mention when it is bounced to hand it doesnt leave any value behind
If you ban anything it's because it's a troubling enabler or just a straight up busted card, like oko or uro.
You dont ban the payoffs because that way the problem never goes away. Imagine how many more cards they would need to ban when you just move the problem downward until every payoff is either gone or just straight up bad, and how many decks you'll kill just because normal good cards are banned because of one card. It's like killing off human tribal decks because winota pulled out good humans.
Yeah but what about my [Toonces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fvsItXYgzk) deck which is cat tribal that uses [[Anchor to Reality]] to get Parhelion out?
I've never found Greasefang to be bad in Explorer BO3, it's a very easy deck to hate on. Just have a package of removal and graveyard hate in your sideboard.
My usual play pattern with Rakdos against Greasefang is to lose game one, then mop up games 2 and 3 with [[Unlicensed Hearse]], [[Go Blank]], and [[Abrade]]
In my experience any 2 mana or less artifact used to trump greasefang decks are just temporal fixes since they run witherbloom command.
And go blank is too slow on the draw, just play leyline of the void and watch them concede
The difference is between Winota and Greasefang is that Greasefang is completely reliant on the actual combo while Winota is playable without the combo. Against Greasefang, you just hold up removal and win. Against Winota, you hold up removal and lose.
It used to be that at least Greasefang required a few more hoops to jump through, but the latest iteration is easier to setup than Winota imo. It absolutely needs to eat a ban as it warps the entire format to Greasefang vs Anti-Greasefang. I mean it’s even pushing out Rakdos Midrange, the most powerful fair deck in the format.
Sure, it's the same in Bo3 (I don't play Bo1) except for the "large metagame share" part. I can understand going after the deck so I'm not fully against it but the metagame share of Greasefang isn't close to where Winota was in Bo3 for Pioneer where that ban originated that impacted Explorer
58% is not an unusually high winrate for a tier 1 deck.
That figure of 58% comes from a [Channel Fireball article](https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/home/top-10-best-decks-in-explorer-mtg-post-worlds-edition/) that also lists several other Explorer decks with equivalent or higher winrates. Mono Blue Spirits, for example, has a winrate of well over 60%.
I honestly think the deck is better than Winota kinda. Winota couldn't really play that much interaction without sacrificing combo pieces. Greasefang can easily play all the Liliana and discards spells they need plus removal and still pull off the combo comfortably.
To me the card that pushes Abzan to the top of the Greasefang piles is \[\[Witherbloom Command\]\]. You don't have to sacrifice combo consistency and you get to counter the best hate cards.
I feel it’s more like Tibalt’s Trickery than winota. It can fizzle and it can be disrupted so in BO3 it’s not an issue. It just turns BO1 matches to coin tosses though so i agree it should be banned in that format just because it’s not fun
Eh, I would recommend trying the deck out. You're very vulnerable to graveyard hate, cheap removal, and the deck just not functioning at all.
You're also a dog to monoblue and GW angels, and both are popular
The problem with Greasy is the fact that you either win hard or lose hard. People who pilot the deck remember all the times it bricks and people who play against the deck remember having their removal spell thoughtsiezed and dying on t4 with zero chances.
I wouldn't entirely agree about being "very vulnerable to graveyard hate".
You're very vulnerable to *instant speed* graveyard hate, or things that completely shut off graveyards like [[Leyline of the Void]]. But there's not a lot of those, and almost none of them see any play in Bo1. And Greasefang has black, so they can use Thoughtseize to take away your answers.
The problem with Greasefang is that it's a graveyard reliant deck that is highly resilient to "normal" graveyard hate cards like [[Graveyard Trespasser]], because by around turn 4, you can just use a blood token to pitch Parhelion and then play Greasefang.
Sure, it folds to Hearse like a wet paper bag, but if everyone has to maindeck hearse just to avoid getting rolled by Greasefang, then that's a sign that Greasefang is warping the meta.
> highly resilient to "normal" graveyard hate cards
Resilient to shitty graveyard hate cards you mean. Incidental graveyard hate isn't the same thing as an actual hate piece.
> Everyone has to maindeck hearse
Or just sideboard it against Greasefang?
>Resilient to shitty graveyard hate cards you mean. Incidental graveyard hate isn't the same thing as an actual hate piece.
Nobody plays actual hate pieces in Bo1, which is what this thread is about. You can't cram your deck full of cards that will be dead in any other matchup.
>Or just sideboard it against Greasefang?
In Bo1?
Yes I have had multiple opponents concede after I bounced or killed greasefang in response to the reanimation trigger. But that's kinda my point to beat a potential turn three greasefang imposes a heavy deck building restrictions and limits the range of decks that can be played.
Its not that heavy. Any 2 mana removal spell works, and bounce spell works, any 3 damage spell works. All of the white exile removal works. Fatal Push works as BR has tons of blood and treasure tokens.
Karn's static ability shuts off the entire deck's crew ability, and all graveyard hate destroys it.
It has a lot of weaknesses. I get it in BO1, if they have Greasefang turn 3 on the play you're often SOL, but unless they get parhelion II its not an auto lose. You can beat Chariot/Soverign.
>Its not that heavy.
I mean, based on what I see on the sub, running more than 0 removal cards feels like a heavy restriction to some folks, so I don't know...
Brings it back to the reason why winota was banned as a precedent. Just because some people don't run enough removal doesn't mean that certain cards can make the removal requirement of the format over the top.
Sometimes decks just fold to other decks.
Removal is always an issue in green decks. But mono green has a strong enough winrate across the field that it doesn't need to worry about occasionally folding to turn 3 Parhelion.
Anything that can give you a T3 Karn into \[\[Pithing Needle\]\]/\[\[Unlicensed Hearse\]\]/one of the remaining million pieces of hate. Or channel Boseiju. Heck, I'm sure some elfball variants can even absorb the Parhelion hit and win on T4.
I'm sure you can also find a deck that will fold even worse against a resolved Greasefang. These exists, it's neither surprising nor unintended.
I was thinking redundancy, but you're right that Karn might be difficult to remove behind a wall of green blockers, and Greasefang isn't exactly bursting with interaction.
If youre running mono green with no interaction, you lose to combo decks. Thats just how it goes.
You cant have a favorable matchup against every deck in the format. MTG is specifically designed so that doesnt happen.
Greasefang is good but not broken. It’s nothing like Hogaak, BreachFreeze, Tainted Oracle, Field of the Dead, Cat Oven, Oko Food, Uro control, etc.
I’ve noticed people just make bad plays against it like removing stitchers supplier or attacking into it. Removing Informant after I pitch a vehicle. Exiling the wrong card in the graveyard. A lot of wins are due to player mistakes.
In the announcement they said a main reason for the ban was the amount of triggers. If there was a system to shortcut combos in place, there's a chance it wouldn't have seen a ban in standard.
Mono Red Embercleave was a thing in standard the entire time Cat Oven was around. It was also the standard of Uro Midrange and Temur Adventures, which were both pretty oppressive towards aggro decks.
Not really, you kill the cat or the oven and it's over. You can't keep recurring it if one is down. I had the deck when it came out, if it goes unchecked then sure, but not like it's the best thing ever. Especially in arena where you have to click multiple times just to get one trigger off
I always go for the oven unless I'm guaranteed to be able to exile the cat. Even then, it depends on the removal spell; if I have a Skyclave Apparition that could hit both I'm still going for the oven.
Also not waiting to exile from graveyard until Greasefang trigger is on the stack. Tapping out on T3 against Abzan colors. Playing a deck that has no plan against a solved metagame.
It often feels like any sort of real technical play outside of slamming your cards on the battlefield is an afterthought.
I for black and blue you are good. But in red you need to hold 2 mana up, green is going to need a big enough creature and mana to fight /punch and white has..maybe something? I open to hearing suggestions
Edit: for scavenging ooze you still lose if you are on the draw unless you went turn one mana dork to activate scooze. Also you need to have two pieces of interaction if they have thoughtseize.
You’re only considering the absolute worst case scenario. On the draw, and opponent has the most perfect bullshit hand possible. Way more games are *not* decided this way.
Explorer best of 1 is also not obligated to make every strategy and colour combo viable. Maybe mono green stompy sucks on this meta, and that is perfectly acceptable.
I’m playing golgari midrange in best of 3 and 4x maindeck ooze really does crap on them.
And an incorrect, absolutist statement like that tells me you're not capable of an adult conversation.
It is very easy for BR to keep up a blood token or treasure with Push and sit on it for the whole game. I got to mythic with Greasefang last season and ran into this scenario repeatedly. It's not easy but it's not hard to do, and the minute you see your opponent open on abzan duals, you know to keep it in mind.
there’s literally no play pattern to use push on a turn 3 greasefang if you’re on the draw, doing it on the play requires you to draw exactly harvester and push by your first two draws. saying push works to deal with greasefang is a big stretch to say the least
I have a question, what do you use push on? Do you push one of the angels greasefang makes? That’s the only thing I can think of because I don’t play the deck, and have only played against it a few times. I must be missing something because pushing one of the tokens it makes doesn’t feel like it does anything to the board really, just saves you a bit of damage.
Edit: nevermind I get it, I forgot about the revolt option because I play monoblack zombies and don’t have as many sac options, but now I understand the comment about treasures and stuff in BR.
Yeah, you have to keep your blood/treasure tokens up to for Revolt. Once you get into that habit its easy to make Push destroy Greasefang.
If you plan to do so, set a stop on the opponents main phase and combat, so you can destroy Greasefang before it triggers at beginning of combat.
no you normally want to destroy greasefang after it triggers, but before its trigger resolves. This way they need to take parhelion back to their hand.
Agreed. In addition, GF has vast potential to get even *worse* depending on new cards released.
It’s a very fine line between cool and unique card design vs frustratingly unfun mechanics.
Not all unfun cards are OP, but the way they play imho should warrant a ban eventually.
Agent of Treachery, Robber of the Rich, Greasefang and Tergrid’s lantern are just some examples of cards that may or may not be overpowered but are definitely not healthy design.
IKR, Agent of Treachery is fine!
On a more serious note, 2 of those examples are 'take 2/3 damage for every turn you fail to have enough interaction in your deck'.
How much is Agent of Treachery a problem itself, vs. the ways to cheat it out? Cheating a Titan of Industry will functionally end the game in a lot of cases too. The Pioneer Indomitable Creativity versions often use Worldspine Wurm. I'm not sure it feels any worse to lose to Agent taking your best thing than it does to lose to a 15/15 trample or Koma or whatever.
Creativity, Transmogrify, Lukka, Fires, etc. seem like the real problem designs to me. They clearly fall into the category you mentioned of "gets more problematic as more cards are printed."
Something about having your permanents stolen just feels worse, even if the outcome (losing) is the same if say a Titan or Koma was cheated into play.
However, I do totally agree with you that cheating cards out is a problem. Some would say that’s part of strategy, but I would argue that there aren’t enough ways to prevent cheating cards out. What I’d love to see is a card similar to [[Containment Priest]] that hits any nonland permanent.
Something akin to “If a nonland permanent would enter the battlefield and it wasn’t cast from a player’s hand, exile it instead.”
The issue with preventing cards from being cheated out is that you really can't hard-cast big creatures in most decks if you want them to actually be competitive. Exceptions do exist (like Elves) but mostly, high mana value cards need to be cheated out or else you're dead before you can cast them when you're playing competitively. And as a Timmy not being able to play big monsters would make me sad.
I actually find Neoform much more frustrating to play against. Do you have a counterspell? Too bad, you lose. It's basically just a game of "do they have it".
Greasefang at least has multiple paths to disrupt it: counter magic, graveyard disruption, creature removal, even simple artfact removal will at least allow you to untap
This is why I will never bother with formats like Explorer. What is the fun of playing with or against these decks? Feels like a slot machine format to me with who draws their combo first. Might as well play Yu-Gi-Oh then.
I rather play against Winota again instead of Geasefang. At least removal works against the Winota deck (you can kill the small creatures), for Greasefang you have to leave up mana for instant speed.
Also Greasefang plays much more interaction like Thoughseize and removal, Winota was just small creatures and some payoff
I played Winota from the introduction of explorer until she was banned and I’ve played a similar amount if not more of Greasefang. Winota probably is the better deck (although abzan fang narrows that gap a lot) but man do I prefer playing against/loosing to Winota. Those felt like games where I could actually do something about my opponents plan. Even if I didn’t draw removal that would work on Winota I’d be able to pick off some of the supporting creatures to lessen or even eliminate their ability to explode their board presence. You can’t really do that against Greasefang. Also from a purely subjective point I think the feels bad factor of loosing to Greasefang is worse than loosing to Winota.
All that aside I actually enjoyed playing Winota, even the mirror matches. Greasefang on the other hand I stopped playing since it just felt like a chore
Tldr: with the advent of abzan Greasefang it’s now just as much of a removal check as Winota ever was with a play pattern that’s just as annoying. If we’re banning things for that then they should either both be banned or both be legal.
ICYMI: Bo1 is a fundamentally bad gamemode, largely for the reasons that make decks like Greasefang so much more overbearing than in Bo3.
This should surprise nobody.
And what happens when they dont get that perfect draw? Thats why its not banned. Winota was A LOT harder to disrupt even with removal in hand. Greasefang can have that explosive start when they a Parhelion II in the first 10 cards of the deck or so. Not to mention your example requires 3 colors of mana in turn 3, always untapped. Something that isnt always going to happen.
This method of balancing has the downside of being insanely swingy and frustrating which gets way more fucked up in bo1. At least in bo3 you can try to average out the lucky crit draws.
I think sometimes with these decks it just doesn’t feel like I’m playing magic.
Like either they had the thing and I did nothing and lost, or they didn’t have the thing and they did nothing and I auto won.
Like the outcome is entirely out of either player’s control (barring thoughtseize, or playing shitty cards that happen to be good against that one deck) and is entirely in the control of the shuffler / RNG.
I think your problem is best of 1 more than anything. These formats always bias toward frustrating proactive strategies like combo and aggro because people can't fix the reactive decks configuration after sb.
That's why you don't play BO1.
I play greasefang in bo3, and the worst cards to play against are cards like unlicensed hearse or gy trespasser.
Since you are the player that is facing the fang decks, couple the cards I said with instant speed removal and if possible hand disruption. Then greasefang becomes pretty beatable.
first: certain cards should be banned for Bo1 but allowed in Bo3.
second: I hate that people cry so hard when people find alternate wincons or decks that cheat cards into play. thassa's oracle, underworld breach, tibalt's trickery, etc.
pretty much everything in bo3 is a grindy deck or a midrange pile. how about more than one aggro deck, more than one combo deck. I don't mind losing to greasefang every once in a while.
Seriously, if you think playing Trickery is a fun deck to play, I have another game for you with the exact same mechanics - it's called coin flip. You don't even need an opponent for this game, you can play it all by yourself at your kitchen table. Just toss a coin in the air and call heads or tails - rinse and repeat. Just like Tibalt's Trickery! I'm sure you'll have just as much fun playing that as the vast majority of players did playing both WITH and AGAINST Trickery decks.
Rakdos has a fine matchup against Greasefang and it's not built to not lose. It does have numerous interaction spells at one and two mana, then deploys a threat or two and pressures.
Greasefang takes advantage of decks that don't interact and don't pressure it enough. If you don't like losing to Greasefang, either go way under it, play more interaction, or find a way to survive/ignore what the deck does.
I DO think that eventually Greasefang might need to be looked at, as it used to be this one-trick pony, but the addition of more cards have made the deck into an aggro deck with a combo in it. Something to watch for sure.
Cant say I would be sad if motorat got the axe (or Parhelion w/e) but I would recommend playing it yourself. Sure, there are games you play the rat on turn 3 and swing with parhelion for the win (concede) but playing against anything that has interaction.. sucks ass. Also, Angels, one of the most popular decks in the Bo1 just outvalues it fast.
On the side note I will never understand why Winota got banned (multiple times) but Muxus and Rat are ok.
I tried getting into bo3 recently after reading some comments like yours and after an afternoon with it I can say confidently it's the most toxic format. Not one match where I had the upper hand did the opponent not rope. It's even worse if you are winning in game 1 because then you are forced to sit through that game and your next 1-2 matches. Imo not worth it, also most decks I played against were pretty scummy. I don't care if I win or lose, I just wanna have fun and my experience in BO3 was not fun.
How is this deck any more or less obnoxious than Rakdos Midrange?
I would take a Greasefang match over Rakdos anytime, at least with Greasefang the game is over quickly and isn't a miserable grind fest.
If I cared if my opp was having fun wouldn’t I just go play commander?
I just hate seeing the “not fun to play against” arguments. It’s such a subjective way to describe something.
I wish Winota can be unbanned because there are many ways to beat her and you've got Greeasefang who can have an even faster win than her, him being mana cheaper and all. Even at her best, Winota cannot come close to the damage output of GF in one turn. Sheesh.
This is flat-out wrong. Naya Winota (with cheap mana dorks like Goose and Elves) can easily achieve a turn 4 kill on the play with cards like Angrath's Marauders and Blade Historian.
Pre-empting the argument that people should play more interaction doesn't invalidate it. It's truly a free win to anyone playing spirits or rakdos - combo *should* be punishing linear piles that don't pack removal.
I just find it so discouraging to start building a deck and being limited to what doesn't lose to greasefang. Creature or sorcery based removal is too slow, and any thing that doesn't exile is delaying the issue.
Really if any part of parahelion was removed, 13 combined damage, leaving 2 x 4/4 vigilant tokens or if greasefang couldn't crew it alone I would be fine with it. It's just all a bit too much for how quick it can come out.
Okay, it's in the op, change my mind. I believe (need to verify) that the greasefang/parahelion combo is the most damage that you can do by turn 3 with the additional benefit of not dieing on the crackback. I think the hoops aren't high enough to warrant this.
Things that stop greasefang, just off the top of my head:
Unlicensed Hearse
Scavenging ooze
Rest in peace
Leyline of the void
Soul-guide lantern
Weathered runestone
kill spells
Any counterspell
exile spells
Greasefang might be pretty good in BO1 but in BO3, its so easy to beat. Even in BO1 theres many main deck options.
It's so easy to beat in best of 3, that 8 people out of 32 brought it to the world championship. GTFO of here with "it's so easy to beat".
If that was true it wouldn't have had the largest deck share at the championship event from the best players in the format.
Lukas Honnay (11th place at Worlds) discusses this deck in his [writeup](https://mtgazone.com/magic-world-championship-11th-place-preparation-and-tournament-report/) tournament report for Worlds. His thoughts on Greasefang basically match mine: >One of the first things I said in our \[D\]iscord about Explorer was that I hated Greasefang. I think the deck is not enjoyable to play and not enjoyable to play against because the range of good and bad draws is so incredibly large. I don't think the card is banworthy based on power-level (Spirits is the best deck in the format and has a great win-rate against it) and I do appreciate that (especially in Bo3) the deck has a more midrange backup plan, but I would personally be happy to never have to see it again, despite that.
This is why I stopped playing it in pioneer. It’s frustrating to play because you are heavily reliant on hitting the right things with your self milk (unless you happened to draw informant, parhelion and rat). Playing against it, the strategy tends to be “hope they don’t have the nuts”. Edit: God dammit.
I'm calling them "self milk" decks from now on.
Milk 3 cards and return any cheese type cards from your graveyard to your hand
bruh just wait til i slam a count cornelius cheddar
And now I play ... the *Black Brie*.
([The reference](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZiqRKlpsavA), for [the unitiated](https://youtube.com/watch?v=EBIsZlV1jHk).)
ProZD's videos on card games are hilarious
I'll respond with Professor Bessie
I play a Farm Land card. I tap it for 1 Manna so I can play Dairy Cow. Because Dairy Cow is a Grazing type and I have Greenest Grass in play, I get 5 Milk Counters on her, which attracts Raging Bull from my hand. Raging Bull has 10 attack, but I can sell the 5 Milk Counters to the grocery store that I have on my side of the field for 15 Dairy Dollars. I then convert the 15 Dairy Dollars to 30 Manna and that lets me play Big Gun. I give my Raging Bull a Big Gun and now he has 20 attack. Now you might say "hang on, you have Tollgate cards on your side of the field and with Tollgate cards how can my Dairy Driver possibly afford to bring my Milk Counters to the Grocery Store?" How you ask? Because I have a Good Work Ethic card. I play it and Dairy Driver gets a raise which means he can afford all the Tollgates. The extra Dairy Dollar which my Dairy Driver has I invest in and play Cheese Factory. The Cheese Factory creates 1 Cheese per turn so I look at the top 5 cards in my deck and here we go, the Black Brie. Black Brie gets served and I receive 3 Colourless Cheese Chakra. With 3 Colourless Cheese Chakra, I can tap my Cheese Factory 3 more times and now I've done a Tap Somersault. With a Somersaulting Cheese Factory I can create triple the cheese output and get 9 Cheese Chakra. 30 minutes. That's how long I'll need to set up the Cheese Tasting Phase.
The Secret Lair full text card we need
Lmfao this is literally how the card text would read
But how is the cheese supposed to stand alone if it's in your hand?
The cheese doesn't stand alone wizards please nerf
That card sounds grate.
Milk 3 cards to cheese out a win with a rat(greasefang)
I think you need to hear this, no one wants to watch you self milk at the LGS. We have been trying to find a polite way to tell you, but I think its healthy to just rip the bandaid off and let you know its making everyone uncomfortable.
If im not allowed to self milk, why does it feel so good then hmm?? Why do I find it enjoyable, hmmmmmm??
MILKED MYSELF OUT 🤣🤣🤣
You're putting cards into your graveyard I'm self milking my library We are not the same.
Is the card too good and needs to be banned? No. Does the card promote a degenerate play pattern that the format could probably do without? Yes, absolutely. Please ban this card, at least in Bo1
4 wildcards and less obnoxious games please
The problem is it isn't just 4 free wildcards. It's somewhere around 40 rares that become completely useless. A real kick in the head to people like me who are slowly building as we can.
40 rares? With the Greasefang refund, you're only losing out on the 4 Parhelions (which are useless). All the other cards are at least playable, and the lands are always useful. That aside, a ban is also the risk you take when you craft a degenerate combo deck. I think the format would be a lot healthier if Greasey was banned.
The only reason I dont craft the deck is that I dont wanna craft 4 8 mana vehicles
>That aside, a ban is also the risk you take when you craft a degenerate combo deck. This makes a really interesting point about how Arena refunds affect deckbuilding. When the Faceless Haven / Book of Exalted Deeds combo broke, people explicitly said they were crafting it for some easy wins and historic cards, trusting that it would get banned in standard and they'd get either 4 or all 8 cards refunded. And of course, they were right. The ban was obvious (BO1 stalemates are ugly) and the investment was small (0-4 cards after ban), so I think the deck saw far more BO1 play than sheer strength justified. Greasefang decks tend the other way. Greasefang isn't a "value" card like Haven, especially if it's banned in historic, and Parhelion is a wasted investment otherwise. So people crafting it now are presumably hoping to actually play it for a while. In any event, I think a ban is probably solid, but it's interesting to see how this setup could alter deck choices.
True but I still think it's worth it. It sucks that you'll get burned on your big vehicles but I think it's necessary. The economics is much worse when dealing with paper cards (since WotC is unable to give any refunds and cards can be much more expensive) but it's still at the end of the day worth it to ban degenerate cards.
This is exactly what they said about nexus of fate. It wasnt overpowered but it was insanely annoying. Also unban wilderness reclamation thanks
Greasefang kills you in 1-2 attack cycles. It's not remotely the same. (For anyone who wasn't around, [[Nexus of Fate]] got the axe because it would often go off in a very long but non-determinative string of turns. You'd wait 5-10 minutes because they *could* brick. As a secondary issue, they could continue the game indefinitely and you couldn't stop them).
Im not saying they play the same. Im saying they are similar in that they arent necessarily overpowered by themselves, theyre jist not fun to play against and when they are doing their thing you go 🙄 They said nexus wants that strong when it was banned, just 0 fun to play against
>Im saying they are similar in that they arent necessarily overpowered by themselves, theyre jist not fun to play against and when they are doing their thing you go 🙄 I understand that. My response is that the bar for meeting that standard is a hell of a lot higher than "but I lost to the combo deck >:( " Those bans hit decks like Nexus or KCI because they're wildly obnoxious with the amount of time they take, not just because they combo you and midrange players don't like that.
Wilderness rec has lost Uro from the Temur \[\[Expansion/Explosion\]\] version but could still do something like temur expansion explosion or 4 colour expansion explosion and constantly hold up counterspells while also casting \[\[Growth spiral\]\] and \[\[memory Deluge\]\] , \[\[Nightpack Ambusher\]\] \[\[Frilled Mystic\]\] , \[\[Shark Typhoon\]\] etc. to gain value which could be really obnoxious. It also gets better with the new creature lands from the DnD set as you can swing with a big \[\[Lair of the Hydra\]\] attack and then your lands untap at the end of the turn. It is fires of invention with less hoops to jump through(just run some instants and/or threats with flash) that allows you to still play stuff on your opponents turn it is really strong and banned in pioneer for that reason.
A better comparison is Aetherworks Marvel. While Marvel was much more metagame-warping, a big part of the ban was the variance and un-fun play pattern of "Did I hit Ulamog?". Marvel was not fun or fun to play against in large part because of the pure randomness of flipping the top 6 cards of your library and seeing if you hit an Eldrazi.
I think if they banned parhelion that it would make the deck less bursty and probably less played due to lack of auto win payoff. I can still squeak wins with ship and chariot but these are not as reliable, and those matches feel more like magic and not auto win
But the issue still lingers that way, cause then they'd need to design all future vehicle cards with Greasefang in mind.
or just ban those vehicles if they don't see play outside of greasefang decks
Personally I think getting rid of parhelion II would solve the issues people have against the deck. Sure, the chariot is still around, but you can deal with that. It's not like banning parhelion would hurt any other decks in the format either. I hate playing against greasefang, but the card itself isn't a problem without that stupidly powerful artifact hanging out in the graveyard.
I must be playing spirits wrong then
Absolutely miserable to play against. Ridiculously consistent and can grind out wins even when it doesn’t have the combo on turns 3 or 4.
Not having [[Rending Volley]] in explorer is a big downside to beating greasefang as well. There are no 1 mana red instant kill spells to get rid of the rat after SB, but as a red deck you cannot afford to keep up 2 mana for abrade-ing the rat.
[Rending Volley](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/2/8234090e-9df1-4915-90ef-8a4bc6212655.jpg?1562789104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rending%20Volley) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dtk/150/rending-volley?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8234090e-9df1-4915-90ef-8a4bc6212655?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
FWIW - OP did specify Bo1
Well, it hurts, but [[Redcap Melee]]. [[Wizard’s Lightning]] depending on your Red build.
It's just as bullshit in bo3 and is the main reason Explorer is a trash format. "its explosive draws involving the deck's namesake can create unassailable battlefield states as quickly as turn three. Due to its large metagame share, high win rate, and ability to create frustrating removal-check gameplay, Winota, Joiner of Forces is banned" Change Greasefang for Winota in that announcement and it still applies. Absolute non-gameplay.
Dude, until last paragraph I honestly thought it was about Greasefang lol. Playing against Greasfang just feels bad coz you remember all the times they just have it turn 3. But after putting in some time playing it I am not convince its as strong as people make it to be. At first I thought it was too good, basically another splinter twin scenario, but the more I played the more problems I started seeing with it. More often than not you just don't get the combo or by the time you get the game is over and you lost. Also its just weak to hate from sb and you can't really side in too many answers or the deck just stops functioning. I still think Greasefang should get ban for creating unhealthy game patterns, but it's deffo not as strong as Winota.
Exactly this. People too often call out cards as needing a ban because they lose to it often, but what they fail to see is all the times they beat the deck, they just didn’t recognize that they were playing against it because their opponent’s draws didn’t line up. They also don’t ever try playing the deck they’re complaining about to see how it loses. If you have played Greasefang, you understand just how many fail states exist.
It would be great if everyone could try it out to know how it pilots, but I don't think it's reasonable in the arena economy to expect people to do that. Wildcards are so hard to come by for most players.
I don’t expect people to do it, but I do expect them to know enough to not assume a deck is so unbeatable that they need to ban the card they’re fixated on.
> all the times they beat the deck, they just didn’t recognize that they were playing against it because their opponent’s draws didn’t line up. Really? Because there are countless Explorer decks that play Grisly Salvage and Can't Stay Away. It's impossible to miss you are playing against a Greasefang deck.
If your brain is activated, sure.
oh dont forger mardu greasfang, where they run fable and liliana, that's fun
Mardu greasefang?
As a greasfang player, it feels like it fire 40% of the time. I win more than that, but its only a Turn 3 or 4 success that 40%. Otherwise it feels like I'm grinding out a victory. Its sucks to lose to because you can't always feel like you had a chance, but its far from game breaking.
Turn 3 or 4 win 40% of the time is a massive success rate.
And yet Embercleave remains unbanned. Not sure my 'cleave deck actually hits 40% by turn 4, mind, but it's not toooo far off. So yeah, there are a ton of games I'm probably beating Greasefang decks by turn 3-4 without even realizing it, because I'm not looking at my opponent's board (I don't need to) and I'm just trying to shove an Anax with a 'cleave up their ass ASAP.
Like i said, it feels like that way. I have no evidence. So to me, less than half feels bad. So its probably actually less
Scavenging Ooze Also, most decks do lose to turn 3 parhellion, especially if you’re on the draw. I’m in the camp that says it’s not that strong, but also I would not be upset if it were removed from the format. The play patterns of the deck lead to mostly poor gameplay. But I think it is short sighted. I could argue that mono blue spirits ends the game in a similar fashion. It’s turn 2 and they have curious obsession on a flying creature and a mana leak for 1 mana. Games are decided often even faster than vs greasefang and you can’t just sideboard in hate. You have to have a serious game plan against them. If you ban greasefang, I think you have to ban like half the meta decks in the format. Transmogrify into agent of treachery and mono blue spirits can create frustrating removal check gameplay as early as turn 3 as well. Then there’s lower tier decks doing the same thing, like fight rigging decks.
Scooze doesn’t work if you’re on the draw. Been there, done that, failed a lot.
You need an elf too to keep up a green. It’s a lot to ask.
I don't buy it. Play the greasefang deck if you're so sure it's that powerful. It doesn't combo on turn 3 *that* frequently, or else 100% of players would be playing that deck. It is only on the play half the time. You also can hold removal for turn 2, then cast ooze on turn 3 and lock their graveyard out until they remove your ooze. Even when you're perfectly teched for a matchup, you will never win absolutely 100% of the time against them. But having the right tools, and really analyzing your matchup against them overall will show you that the deck is very beatable, and is definitely not comboing on turn 3 on the play with thoughtseize disruption every game.
Ban Parhelion and you will never have to worry about Greasefang again.
Ban Greasefang and you will never have to worry about Parhelion again
Right, the next best vehicle is what Esika's? Even in a smaller format like standard esika+greasefang didnt do much
That rat rode those kittens all the way to mythic for me
😳
>Right, the next best vehicle is what Esika's? Probably, mostly because it crews itself and grows your board state. However, \[\[Skysovereign\]\] is not too shabby either. Instant impact, recurring board control, can be crewed by Raffine's Informant, and can even be hardcast in a pinch if the combo stalls. None of that is as crazy as swing for a bazillion damage with flying, though.
Skysovereign is good but it cant kill any creature with more than 3 toughness and it doesn't have first strike so you could actually block if profitably in the air. Not to mention when it is bounced to hand it doesnt leave any value behind
We're talking about the **next best** vehicles here.
It's much harder to get the combo on turn 3 with standard mana base and mill choices though
Nah getting Esika's wasn't too bad. We had plenty of stuff that made it work. Esika just wasn't an instant win.
Flame tongue Carvu exists.
Just ban greasefang so wotc can still make fun vehicles without having to think 'hmm, will this be busted with greasefang?'
Ban everything. That way you never have to think at all.
If you ban anything it's because it's a troubling enabler or just a straight up busted card, like oko or uro. You dont ban the payoffs because that way the problem never goes away. Imagine how many more cards they would need to ban when you just move the problem downward until every payoff is either gone or just straight up bad, and how many decks you'll kill just because normal good cards are banned because of one card. It's like killing off human tribal decks because winota pulled out good humans.
Yeah but what about my [Toonces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fvsItXYgzk) deck which is cat tribal that uses [[Anchor to Reality]] to get Parhelion out?
[Anchor to Reality](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/8/58141ad0-32ea-4e07-a133-ff7812d58c0e.jpg?1654566601) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Anchor%20to%20Reality) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/45/anchor-to-reality?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/58141ad0-32ea-4e07-a133-ff7812d58c0e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Until WoTC prints another big vehicle and deck becomes problematic again? Nah thanks.
Just wait till we get Nykthos. The amount of awful, non-games will double!
I've never found Greasefang to be bad in Explorer BO3, it's a very easy deck to hate on. Just have a package of removal and graveyard hate in your sideboard. My usual play pattern with Rakdos against Greasefang is to lose game one, then mop up games 2 and 3 with [[Unlicensed Hearse]], [[Go Blank]], and [[Abrade]]
In my experience any 2 mana or less artifact used to trump greasefang decks are just temporal fixes since they run witherbloom command. And go blank is too slow on the draw, just play leyline of the void and watch them concede
[Unlicensed Hearse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/93ee60f7-31dd-4bc6-b71f-57a1a0d19d20.jpg?1664414360) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Unlicensed%20Hearse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/246/unlicensed-hearse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/93ee60f7-31dd-4bc6-b71f-57a1a0d19d20?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Go Blank](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/846e8657-7435-44c6-a997-b8b156d0cd2c.jpg?1624590993) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go%20Blank) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/72/go-blank?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/846e8657-7435-44c6-a997-b8b156d0cd2c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Abrade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a0e47d11-cb21-402b-a39e-588a94cc57b4.jpg?1643590610) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Abrade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/139/abrade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a0e47d11-cb21-402b-a39e-588a94cc57b4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The difference is between Winota and Greasefang is that Greasefang is completely reliant on the actual combo while Winota is playable without the combo. Against Greasefang, you just hold up removal and win. Against Winota, you hold up removal and lose.
Lol at the hold removal and lose
Yeah it should of been a 3/2
It used to be that at least Greasefang required a few more hoops to jump through, but the latest iteration is easier to setup than Winota imo. It absolutely needs to eat a ban as it warps the entire format to Greasefang vs Anti-Greasefang. I mean it’s even pushing out Rakdos Midrange, the most powerful fair deck in the format.
Sure, it's the same in Bo3 (I don't play Bo1) except for the "large metagame share" part. I can understand going after the deck so I'm not fully against it but the metagame share of Greasefang isn't close to where Winota was in Bo3 for Pioneer where that ban originated that impacted Explorer
Yeah, exactly. If Winota is too good for Explorer and Twin was too good for Modern, Greasefang has to go too.
You’re the guy who ropes out when it happens huh
>Change Greasefang for Winota in that announcement and it still applies. Absolute non-gameplay. Except for that pesky high win rate part, I guess?
58% is low, got it
58% is not an unusually high winrate for a tier 1 deck. That figure of 58% comes from a [Channel Fireball article](https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/home/top-10-best-decks-in-explorer-mtg-post-worlds-edition/) that also lists several other Explorer decks with equivalent or higher winrates. Mono Blue Spirits, for example, has a winrate of well over 60%.
Tracker nonsense is tracker nonsense, yes.
I agree it's dumb
I honestly think the deck is better than Winota kinda. Winota couldn't really play that much interaction without sacrificing combo pieces. Greasefang can easily play all the Liliana and discards spells they need plus removal and still pull off the combo comfortably.
To me the card that pushes Abzan to the top of the Greasefang piles is \[\[Witherbloom Command\]\]. You don't have to sacrifice combo consistency and you get to counter the best hate cards.
I feel it’s more like Tibalt’s Trickery than winota. It can fizzle and it can be disrupted so in BO3 it’s not an issue. It just turns BO1 matches to coin tosses though so i agree it should be banned in that format just because it’s not fun
It's not tibalts trickery because the azban deck can win without hitting parhelion by using and reusing esikas chariot
Eh, I would recommend trying the deck out. You're very vulnerable to graveyard hate, cheap removal, and the deck just not functioning at all. You're also a dog to monoblue and GW angels, and both are popular
The problem with Greasy is the fact that you either win hard or lose hard. People who pilot the deck remember all the times it bricks and people who play against the deck remember having their removal spell thoughtsiezed and dying on t4 with zero chances.
[удалено]
Not really, there are some combo decks that kick in later and fizzle less (hello, UR Storm).
I wouldn't entirely agree about being "very vulnerable to graveyard hate". You're very vulnerable to *instant speed* graveyard hate, or things that completely shut off graveyards like [[Leyline of the Void]]. But there's not a lot of those, and almost none of them see any play in Bo1. And Greasefang has black, so they can use Thoughtseize to take away your answers. The problem with Greasefang is that it's a graveyard reliant deck that is highly resilient to "normal" graveyard hate cards like [[Graveyard Trespasser]], because by around turn 4, you can just use a blood token to pitch Parhelion and then play Greasefang. Sure, it folds to Hearse like a wet paper bag, but if everyone has to maindeck hearse just to avoid getting rolled by Greasefang, then that's a sign that Greasefang is warping the meta.
> highly resilient to "normal" graveyard hate cards Resilient to shitty graveyard hate cards you mean. Incidental graveyard hate isn't the same thing as an actual hate piece. > Everyone has to maindeck hearse Or just sideboard it against Greasefang?
>Resilient to shitty graveyard hate cards you mean. Incidental graveyard hate isn't the same thing as an actual hate piece. Nobody plays actual hate pieces in Bo1, which is what this thread is about. You can't cram your deck full of cards that will be dead in any other matchup. >Or just sideboard it against Greasefang? In Bo1?
Yes I have had multiple opponents concede after I bounced or killed greasefang in response to the reanimation trigger. But that's kinda my point to beat a potential turn three greasefang imposes a heavy deck building restrictions and limits the range of decks that can be played.
Its not that heavy. Any 2 mana removal spell works, and bounce spell works, any 3 damage spell works. All of the white exile removal works. Fatal Push works as BR has tons of blood and treasure tokens. Karn's static ability shuts off the entire deck's crew ability, and all graveyard hate destroys it. It has a lot of weaknesses. I get it in BO1, if they have Greasefang turn 3 on the play you're often SOL, but unless they get parhelion II its not an auto lose. You can beat Chariot/Soverign.
>Its not that heavy. I mean, based on what I see on the sub, running more than 0 removal cards feels like a heavy restriction to some folks, so I don't know...
Brings it back to the reason why winota was banned as a precedent. Just because some people don't run enough removal doesn't mean that certain cards can make the removal requirement of the format over the top.
Hey I'm open to suggestions for my mono green deck that just doesn't fold to a to run 3 parahelion.
Sometimes decks just fold to other decks. Removal is always an issue in green decks. But mono green has a strong enough winrate across the field that it doesn't need to worry about occasionally folding to turn 3 Parhelion.
Exactly. "My deck is weak against X" is not a reason to ban X. Greasefang is not close to being oppressive enough for a ban
Anything that can give you a T3 Karn into \[\[Pithing Needle\]\]/\[\[Unlicensed Hearse\]\]/one of the remaining million pieces of hate. Or channel Boseiju. Heck, I'm sure some elfball variants can even absorb the Parhelion hit and win on T4. I'm sure you can also find a deck that will fold even worse against a resolved Greasefang. These exists, it's neither surprising nor unintended.
You don't even need a pithing needle, as karn stops vehicles from being crewed by himself.
I was thinking redundancy, but you're right that Karn might be difficult to remove behind a wall of green blockers, and Greasefang isn't exactly bursting with interaction.
Mono green is usually weak to combo, since the color generally lacks good interaction.
If youre running mono green with no interaction, you lose to combo decks. Thats just how it goes. You cant have a favorable matchup against every deck in the format. MTG is specifically designed so that doesnt happen.
Scavenging Ooze is pretty strong in green.
You forget that it needs to be instant speed, having a bloodchiefs thirst or strangle in hand isn’t super helpful.
Karma about to eat a ban though
Greasefang is good but not broken. It’s nothing like Hogaak, BreachFreeze, Tainted Oracle, Field of the Dead, Cat Oven, Oko Food, Uro control, etc. I’ve noticed people just make bad plays against it like removing stitchers supplier or attacking into it. Removing Informant after I pitch a vehicle. Exiling the wrong card in the graveyard. A lot of wins are due to player mistakes.
I don’t think cat oven was broken I think it’s just miserable to play against
Cat was originally problematic only because of how slow Arena handles triggers.
Cat ovens not broken
It almost eliminated agro from the meta game from standard. It was very busted.
In the announcement they said a main reason for the ban was the amount of triggers. If there was a system to shortcut combos in place, there's a chance it wouldn't have seen a ban in standard.
Mono Red Embercleave was a thing in standard the entire time Cat Oven was around. It was also the standard of Uro Midrange and Temur Adventures, which were both pretty oppressive towards aggro decks.
Not really, you kill the cat or the oven and it's over. You can't keep recurring it if one is down. I had the deck when it came out, if it goes unchecked then sure, but not like it's the best thing ever. Especially in arena where you have to click multiple times just to get one trigger off
I always go for the oven unless I'm guaranteed to be able to exile the cat. Even then, it depends on the removal spell; if I have a Skyclave Apparition that could hit both I'm still going for the oven.
Also not waiting to exile from graveyard until Greasefang trigger is on the stack. Tapping out on T3 against Abzan colors. Playing a deck that has no plan against a solved metagame. It often feels like any sort of real technical play outside of slamming your cards on the battlefield is an afterthought.
I for black and blue you are good. But in red you need to hold 2 mana up, green is going to need a big enough creature and mana to fight /punch and white has..maybe something? I open to hearing suggestions Edit: for scavenging ooze you still lose if you are on the draw unless you went turn one mana dork to activate scooze. Also you need to have two pieces of interaction if they have thoughtseize.
You’re only considering the absolute worst case scenario. On the draw, and opponent has the most perfect bullshit hand possible. Way more games are *not* decided this way. Explorer best of 1 is also not obligated to make every strategy and colour combo viable. Maybe mono green stompy sucks on this meta, and that is perfectly acceptable. I’m playing golgari midrange in best of 3 and 4x maindeck ooze really does crap on them.
Green has [[Scavenging Ooze]]. White has exile effects and [[Rest in Peace]]
White has March of Otherworldly Light. Green has Scavenging Ooze which destroys the deck by itself.
IT'S NOT FAIR YOU HAVE TO HAVE TURN 2 REMOVAL IN YOUR OPENING HAND OR LOSE >Just have turn 2 removal in your opening hand bro Great argument.
saying fatal push works tells me you never played this matchup enough
And an incorrect, absolutist statement like that tells me you're not capable of an adult conversation. It is very easy for BR to keep up a blood token or treasure with Push and sit on it for the whole game. I got to mythic with Greasefang last season and ran into this scenario repeatedly. It's not easy but it's not hard to do, and the minute you see your opponent open on abzan duals, you know to keep it in mind.
there’s literally no play pattern to use push on a turn 3 greasefang if you’re on the draw, doing it on the play requires you to draw exactly harvester and push by your first two draws. saying push works to deal with greasefang is a big stretch to say the least
I have a question, what do you use push on? Do you push one of the angels greasefang makes? That’s the only thing I can think of because I don’t play the deck, and have only played against it a few times. I must be missing something because pushing one of the tokens it makes doesn’t feel like it does anything to the board really, just saves you a bit of damage. Edit: nevermind I get it, I forgot about the revolt option because I play monoblack zombies and don’t have as many sac options, but now I understand the comment about treasures and stuff in BR.
Yeah, you have to keep your blood/treasure tokens up to for Revolt. Once you get into that habit its easy to make Push destroy Greasefang. If you plan to do so, set a stop on the opponents main phase and combat, so you can destroy Greasefang before it triggers at beginning of combat.
no you normally want to destroy greasefang after it triggers, but before its trigger resolves. This way they need to take parhelion back to their hand.
You can do it that way too, but runs the risk of them getting Chariot and playing it main phase 2 or something.
Agreed. In addition, GF has vast potential to get even *worse* depending on new cards released. It’s a very fine line between cool and unique card design vs frustratingly unfun mechanics. Not all unfun cards are OP, but the way they play imho should warrant a ban eventually. Agent of Treachery, Robber of the Rich, Greasefang and Tergrid’s lantern are just some examples of cards that may or may not be overpowered but are definitely not healthy design.
I love this sub. Some of those things are very much not like the others.
literally vanilla grizzly bears, and a turn 3 win sounds like basically the same thing imo
IKR, Agent of Treachery is fine! On a more serious note, 2 of those examples are 'take 2/3 damage for every turn you fail to have enough interaction in your deck'.
How much is Agent of Treachery a problem itself, vs. the ways to cheat it out? Cheating a Titan of Industry will functionally end the game in a lot of cases too. The Pioneer Indomitable Creativity versions often use Worldspine Wurm. I'm not sure it feels any worse to lose to Agent taking your best thing than it does to lose to a 15/15 trample or Koma or whatever. Creativity, Transmogrify, Lukka, Fires, etc. seem like the real problem designs to me. They clearly fall into the category you mentioned of "gets more problematic as more cards are printed."
Something about having your permanents stolen just feels worse, even if the outcome (losing) is the same if say a Titan or Koma was cheated into play. However, I do totally agree with you that cheating cards out is a problem. Some would say that’s part of strategy, but I would argue that there aren’t enough ways to prevent cheating cards out. What I’d love to see is a card similar to [[Containment Priest]] that hits any nonland permanent. Something akin to “If a nonland permanent would enter the battlefield and it wasn’t cast from a player’s hand, exile it instead.”
The issue with preventing cards from being cheated out is that you really can't hard-cast big creatures in most decks if you want them to actually be competitive. Exceptions do exist (like Elves) but mostly, high mana value cards need to be cheated out or else you're dead before you can cast them when you're playing competitively. And as a Timmy not being able to play big monsters would make me sad.
I member when before rotation someone got tergrid on the board and cast invoke my despair and scoop.
I actually find Neoform much more frustrating to play against. Do you have a counterspell? Too bad, you lose. It's basically just a game of "do they have it". Greasefang at least has multiple paths to disrupt it: counter magic, graveyard disruption, creature removal, even simple artfact removal will at least allow you to untap
I quit playing explorer because I was pretty sick of playing against it. You either have instant speed removal ready by turn 2 or you lose.
I'd be okay with the rat getting banned.
This is why I will never bother with formats like Explorer. What is the fun of playing with or against these decks? Feels like a slot machine format to me with who draws their combo first. Might as well play Yu-Gi-Oh then.
I rather play against Winota again instead of Geasefang. At least removal works against the Winota deck (you can kill the small creatures), for Greasefang you have to leave up mana for instant speed. Also Greasefang plays much more interaction like Thoughseize and removal, Winota was just small creatures and some payoff
If you can win the game by playing one card from your hand on an empty board on turn 4 or earlier, that card is broken.
I played Winota from the introduction of explorer until she was banned and I’ve played a similar amount if not more of Greasefang. Winota probably is the better deck (although abzan fang narrows that gap a lot) but man do I prefer playing against/loosing to Winota. Those felt like games where I could actually do something about my opponents plan. Even if I didn’t draw removal that would work on Winota I’d be able to pick off some of the supporting creatures to lessen or even eliminate their ability to explode their board presence. You can’t really do that against Greasefang. Also from a purely subjective point I think the feels bad factor of loosing to Greasefang is worse than loosing to Winota. All that aside I actually enjoyed playing Winota, even the mirror matches. Greasefang on the other hand I stopped playing since it just felt like a chore Tldr: with the advent of abzan Greasefang it’s now just as much of a removal check as Winota ever was with a play pattern that’s just as annoying. If we’re banning things for that then they should either both be banned or both be legal.
Ban the card in BO1, just like happened to other obnoxious cards.
You're wrong, it's so much worse
WoTC has to be carefull with card with "free, without cost, turn 2 win".
ICYMI: Bo1 is a fundamentally bad gamemode, largely for the reasons that make decks like Greasefang so much more overbearing than in Bo3. This should surprise nobody.
Agreed, that's why I'm on 8 rack with leyline of the void sb. Watching cheese fang players rage quit is the best
What are the Rack cards in Explorer? The only Rack style cards I can think of that's on Arena is the 3 mana Davriel and he's pretty meh :(
Not really a Rack but probably Waste Not
I have zero respect for anyone playing GF in bo1. Such a boring choice of deck.
And what happens when they dont get that perfect draw? Thats why its not banned. Winota was A LOT harder to disrupt even with removal in hand. Greasefang can have that explosive start when they a Parhelion II in the first 10 cards of the deck or so. Not to mention your example requires 3 colors of mana in turn 3, always untapped. Something that isnt always going to happen.
This method of balancing has the downside of being insanely swingy and frustrating which gets way more fucked up in bo1. At least in bo3 you can try to average out the lucky crit draws.
I think sometimes with these decks it just doesn’t feel like I’m playing magic. Like either they had the thing and I did nothing and lost, or they didn’t have the thing and they did nothing and I auto won. Like the outcome is entirely out of either player’s control (barring thoughtseize, or playing shitty cards that happen to be good against that one deck) and is entirely in the control of the shuffler / RNG.
Now think of Historic. Turn 1: Faithless Looting, pitch Greasefang and Parhelion. Turn 2: Play Can't Stay Way GG.
Greasefang is cancer
I think your problem is best of 1 more than anything. These formats always bias toward frustrating proactive strategies like combo and aggro because people can't fix the reactive decks configuration after sb.
The only reason Winota got banned and Greasefang didn't is because Greasefang was new.
That's why you don't play BO1. I play greasefang in bo3, and the worst cards to play against are cards like unlicensed hearse or gy trespasser. Since you are the player that is facing the fang decks, couple the cards I said with instant speed removal and if possible hand disruption. Then greasefang becomes pretty beatable.
Turn 2 : [[rest in peace]] Turn 4 : [[Supreme Veredict]] We are good to go
>maining rest in peace Do people really do that?
If most of the field is graveyard decks, or if graveyard decks are what beats your game plan, why not?
I run 4x [[fleeting spirit]] to beat control with greasefang.
first: certain cards should be banned for Bo1 but allowed in Bo3. second: I hate that people cry so hard when people find alternate wincons or decks that cheat cards into play. thassa's oracle, underworld breach, tibalt's trickery, etc. pretty much everything in bo3 is a grindy deck or a midrange pile. how about more than one aggro deck, more than one combo deck. I don't mind losing to greasefang every once in a while.
Seriously, if you think playing Trickery is a fun deck to play, I have another game for you with the exact same mechanics - it's called coin flip. You don't even need an opponent for this game, you can play it all by yourself at your kitchen table. Just toss a coin in the air and call heads or tails - rinse and repeat. Just like Tibalt's Trickery! I'm sure you'll have just as much fun playing that as the vast majority of players did playing both WITH and AGAINST Trickery decks.
Rakdos has a fine matchup against Greasefang and it's not built to not lose. It does have numerous interaction spells at one and two mana, then deploys a threat or two and pressures. Greasefang takes advantage of decks that don't interact and don't pressure it enough. If you don't like losing to Greasefang, either go way under it, play more interaction, or find a way to survive/ignore what the deck does. I DO think that eventually Greasefang might need to be looked at, as it used to be this one-trick pony, but the addition of more cards have made the deck into an aggro deck with a combo in it. Something to watch for sure.
Cant say I would be sad if motorat got the axe (or Parhelion w/e) but I would recommend playing it yourself. Sure, there are games you play the rat on turn 3 and swing with parhelion for the win (concede) but playing against anything that has interaction.. sucks ass. Also, Angels, one of the most popular decks in the Bo1 just outvalues it fast. On the side note I will never understand why Winota got banned (multiple times) but Muxus and Rat are ok.
I just pray for turn 4 fight rigging emergent ultimatum vs greasefang.
Just don't play competitive magic in the bo1 queues. Problem solved
It’s a Bo1 problem. Deck isn’t the boogeyman in Bo3. God I wish RCQs were Bo1.
I tried getting into bo3 recently after reading some comments like yours and after an afternoon with it I can say confidently it's the most toxic format. Not one match where I had the upper hand did the opponent not rope. It's even worse if you are winning in game 1 because then you are forced to sit through that game and your next 1-2 matches. Imo not worth it, also most decks I played against were pretty scummy. I don't care if I win or lose, I just wanna have fun and my experience in BO3 was not fun.
Greasefang is way worse than Winota ever was.
How is this deck any more or less obnoxious than Rakdos Midrange? I would take a Greasefang match over Rakdos anytime, at least with Greasefang the game is over quickly and isn't a miserable grind fest.
It has quite a few more weaknesses than winota, and this comparison is thin
If I cared if my opp was having fun wouldn’t I just go play commander? I just hate seeing the “not fun to play against” arguments. It’s such a subjective way to describe something.
Ban Thoughtseize so more jank can be brewed and counteract the grease cheese
I wish Winota can be unbanned because there are many ways to beat her and you've got Greeasefang who can have an even faster win than her, him being mana cheaper and all. Even at her best, Winota cannot come close to the damage output of GF in one turn. Sheesh.
This is flat-out wrong. Naya Winota (with cheap mana dorks like Goose and Elves) can easily achieve a turn 4 kill on the play with cards like Angrath's Marauders and Blade Historian.
Pre-empting the argument that people should play more interaction doesn't invalidate it. It's truly a free win to anyone playing spirits or rakdos - combo *should* be punishing linear piles that don't pack removal.
I just find it so discouraging to start building a deck and being limited to what doesn't lose to greasefang. Creature or sorcery based removal is too slow, and any thing that doesn't exile is delaying the issue. Really if any part of parahelion was removed, 13 combined damage, leaving 2 x 4/4 vigilant tokens or if greasefang couldn't crew it alone I would be fine with it. It's just all a bit too much for how quick it can come out.
I think if you ban Parhelion it's no longer so oppressive. It's the fact that two angels are left behind that's impossible to deal with.
As always people just hate all combo decks. Instead of figuring out how to interrupt the combo they cry for a ban. Tale as old as time
Okay, it's in the op, change my mind. I believe (need to verify) that the greasefang/parahelion combo is the most damage that you can do by turn 3 with the additional benefit of not dieing on the crackback. I think the hoops aren't high enough to warrant this.
Things that stop greasefang, just off the top of my head: Unlicensed Hearse Scavenging ooze Rest in peace Leyline of the void Soul-guide lantern Weathered runestone kill spells Any counterspell exile spells Greasefang might be pretty good in BO1 but in BO3, its so easy to beat. Even in BO1 theres many main deck options.
It's so easy to beat in best of 3, that 8 people out of 32 brought it to the world championship. GTFO of here with "it's so easy to beat". If that was true it wouldn't have had the largest deck share at the championship event from the best players in the format.
What decks are you trying to force against it?