-Eric
Well, it seems that my metagame here at CWRU is gonna be way different than the #bdchat metagame and because of that I've retooled The Patriot for a more random metagame. Here's what I've tried out:
4 City of Brass
4 Plateau
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland
2 Volcanic Island
2 Flood Plain (in lieu of 2 Volcanics till I get them, I traded my other 2)
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Strip Mine
4 Savannah Lions
4 Mother of Runes
4 Goblin Legionnaire
4 Meddling Mage
2 Frenetic Efreet
2 Lightning Angel
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Seal of Cleansing
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
I started playing this deck against Kirdape3 and was winning most of the time against his WW deck, his Ponza deck, and his Three-Deuce. Some favorite plays:
Windmill slamming down Lightning Angels on 2 subsequent turns.
Casting a Meddling Mage after a Land Grant and naming Kird Ape when he had three in his hand.
Casting Meddling Mage set to Incinerate while he was tapped out, preventing him from burning me out.
Now, this deck goes from a foil to BBS and combo to a deck that is just plain good against the field (it's also better against Keeper with the added burn and Scrolls.)
One thing is certain though: I just don't feel the same playing The Patriot without the phallic superstar.
I keep telling him to both a) remove the Frenetics (i've lost like one flip out of 6 or 7 against him, and a 2/1 flier for 1RU isn't that good unless he can reliably phase it out), and b) stabilize the mana base somehow because non-basic hate will KILL this deck.
On a side note: I HATE MEDDLING MAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That little annoying piece of *&^T wrecked me really well yesterday, what with calling out all sorts of stuff that I had twos and threes in hand.
Especially vs. a random field I think Serendib or Lightning Angels would be better.
The fatties help a lot vs. aggro and are still almost as good- if not better- the rest of the time.
Also, isn't Crystalline better than Legionnaire? I like Legionnaire a lot, but it seems like a lot of the time you won't have R open. Plus Crystalline ignores Abyss...
If you really like the legionnaire ability maybe Mogg Fanatic deserves a chance over Mother?
If I recall correctly, he once answered this question by saying that the Crystalline usually got bitten 1 or 2 turns after the Abyss dropped anyway, so the extra flexibility of the Legionairre's really helped. And the Mother dodge's Abyss too. Remember, anything that targets checks on both announcement AND resolution. Of course, if you need a white card against Abyss, you might as well Seal of Cleansing it, but Mother still has other uses
-Eric
Here's my latest R/W/U...
Artifact:7
3 Cursed Scroll
1 Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
Blue:5
3 Serendib Efrit
1 Timewalk
1 Ancestrall
Gold:8
4 Meddling Mage
4 Goblin Legionarre
Red:8
4 Jackal Pup
4 Lightning Bolt
White:8
4 Savvanah Lion
1 Aura of Silence
2 Swords to Plowshare
1 Enlightened Tutor
Land:24
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
1 Strip Mine
4 Plateau
4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 City of Brass
1 Flood Plain
This design is a lot of fun to play. The manlands
help out quite a bit versus control. And the mages
could be the most annoying creature ever printed
Personally I think the legionarres are a perfect
fit in place of the slivers and can also double
as removal in a pinch...