Just did playtesting, curved perfectly:

T1 golgari guildgate, T2 kraul warrior, T3 SKYLASER, T4 Fatal Fumes, T5 punish the enemy, T6 ruric thar the unbowed

Curving a T3 hired torturer into T4 fatal fumes is great, because if I don't use fumes I can activate torturer's ability.

Deadbridge chant does a lot of work.

I like our removal suite; it seems pretty adequate.

Not liking Phytoburst. Our lack of evasion really hurts it.

Battering krasis can be evolved by kraul/SKYLASER, then torturer/maaka, then gorgon/giant, then gorgon/giant again, then ruric, all the way to a 7/6.

I like how torturer and warrior play when I have the mana open. The mindgames are ppwerful with these two, especially running 3x each and 3x fatal fumes. Consistency really helps.

I will recommend not running any phytoburst and instead run two cluestones, unless we pick another decent critter to replace them.

I think 17 lands and 2 cluestones is a bit much. I want to find room for mending touch, it can be a really clutch combat trick.

It's too late, but I wish we had taken more guildgates.

Just playtest the deck a bit, you'll see we want loads of mana. I don't think mending touch is very good; it at best avoids a 1-for-1 trade, a situation where most players don't tend to go to unless they have a trick, and is virtually useless otherwise.

I agree totally with Goody. I think our curve and creatures got powerful enough that we have a late game and phytobursts are not worth it when we could just have another creature instead.

Having the mana sinks in Kraul Warrior and Torturer is huge. And our curve looks great. Our deck is just dudes, mana, and removal with 1 deadbridge chant... awesome. Straight forward. Good job guys (considering our card pool)!

Having both the cluestones in our off color is big, and I second them being mainboarded. It bumps up our red slots from 4 to 6, which is huge for consistency. They're also our only source of cycling/drawing. Rather have them as never-dead cards than mending touch which is meh.

Would we want to include the riot piker?

I'd say no. First strike is really powerful, but he's not that great after a couple swings or a 3 butt comes out.

smash10101, itsover9000, keilahmartin, wcdorrell, Chubbub, we'll be discussing the decklist here I think.

We picked up a couple of Maze Rushers in the autodrafting and we have a Riot Piker and Spike Jester in terms of creatures we are able to run.

I don't like the Rushers; it can be 6 damage but by turn 6 or 5 they should have something with 3 power on the board. I see it as being a wall for their bomb until they hit removal.

Riot Piker is interesting; it can be great bait for tricks with Maaka and Fatal Fumes, but otherwise it will die pretty quickly. For a 2 mana investment it's not bad, and we can possibly get it back later with the chant.

I would love to run spike jester, but I don't think our mana is good enough to run him, considering red is our smaller color.

I thus far haven't been too impressed with Carnage gladiator, but the regen is very nice, and 4 power is nothing to sneeze at; he's like a better maze rusher.

I like the decklist as is.

I have lost a few games to a surprise maze rusher though, so I wouldn't dismiss him so easily. But, we aren't looking as aggro as I thought we might be, so I'd be fine with leaving him in SB. Otherwise we'd be looking to drop a cluestone or something for it. I don't like the riot piker in this deck, he seems out of place. If we were very aggro w/ some battalion or something and we had a lot of combat tricks maybe, but not here.

I think you could sideboard out of the Carnage Gladiator if you find him troublesome, but I think he'll pull his weight in real matches. And I have no idea what you'd board in for him.

i wish we could run the spike jester, but if he doesn't work with the mana, he doesn't work. I would consider siding in the maze rusher and him if we need to against control. Haste is a very awesome keyword.

yup, this list looks good as is.

actually i'd like to swap one of the torturers for a maze rusher

I like the deck list that we ended up with. We should run a few mountains in our side board, in case we need to side in our rushers and our piker. We have the room.

when do you play, Goody?

Possibly this weekend

Are you guys filming the MTGO matches or writing them down? sorry to bug you just curious.

Uh we should be livestreaming/recording them, and we've decided to wait until after the weekend to start matches, Caley wants to get publicity and make sure eveerything is done smoothly.

We'll be playing Leafs_suck first

Cool, thanks.

I'll have the first match tonight at 10 PM EST, you can see caley's twitch.tv stream, OR look at mine at twitch.tv/goody_phil

Wish me luck guys

Actually, please come, as you guys can help me play the match if you'd like through the chat. Just don't watch the opponent's stream and don't give me hints of what he has in hand

Sweet. I'll try to be there. Good luck!

I'll try to be there as well.