Compensation for everyone NOT playing Koth?

powda
powda Posts: 4
edited December 2016 in MtGPQ Events
You guys...

Am I the only one thinking that the one "weakness" of Koth is totally negated by Holiday Showdown? How do you try to starve out Koth - until he inevitably just cascades reds for a one-turn win - when the rest of the colors are worth double?

Not looking forward to this event and definitely keeping track of Koth matches I see.

Comments

  • hawkyh1
    hawkyh1 Posts: 780 Critical Contributor
    koths weakness lies in his card draw. his cascades would have
    played all/most of his hand in one turn pre mana double.

    HH
  • powda
    powda Posts: 4
    hawkyh1 wrote:
    koths weakness lies in his card draw. his cascades would have
    played all/most of his hand in one turn pre mana double.

    HH

    Agreed, I'm more concerned about 1st turn ravager, olivia, Emebermaw, etc. Super easy to pull off.
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    I've gotten matched up against him and won without a problem. The strategy at that point isn't to mana starve him, but to answer his first turn blow up and then realize that he'll be starved for cards the rest of the match. Probably helps that I'm using Arlinn so I can still use up his red matches as well as can tutor up more creatures to keep pace with him.

    Also I noticed the doubling is both benefiting him and hurting him since it's not a true double. His red matches don't give 24 mana, they give 15 which is a lot more manageable than I would have expected, however his blue and white matches don't give 4 mana like they should, but instead give 5. The math they've used was rather than actually double to just add 3 to every gem match.
  • techparadox
    techparadox Posts: 21
    Agreed that Koth isn't as much of a problem as one might think - his initial onslaught just hits sooner than it would in a normal game. Once he blows out his hand, he's just as slow to refill as anyone else out there. A Koth player might be able to work around that by sticking Alhammarret's Archive and Fevered Visions in the deck, but if they don't get those in the first turn then they're still just as screwed.
  • Monkeynutts
    Monkeynutts Posts: 566 Critical Contributor
    Koths best friend is the Tyrant of Valakut. Practically get that thing out on 2 matches and ai usually has 2 or more in hand.

    Koth seems to always match 3 reds everytime he uses his first ability and it always cascades enough so he has it ready next turn.
  • tm00
    tm00 Posts: 155 Tile Toppler
    Full power Ob nixilis with decent mana gains is hilarious too, you can focus on loyalty , nuke whatever your opponent summons the turn it comes down with a single match, and easily fill up quickly languish/anguished unmaking/aligned hedron network if they summon something with hexproof. Plus you can fill behold the beyond in a couple of matches and have ample time to get out the (warding?) orbs for even less danger.
  • MageKnight
    MageKnight Posts: 11 Just Dropped In
    My Kiora has never lost against him, whatever mana he can gain, blue and green cards can gain twice more, blue has the most mana gain cards next to green, and gain HP at the same time

    my strategy before is to deny him possible red mana gains for the first 5 rounds or until you manage to setup your game, add 2 supports that convert mana gems to your color

    I use reclaim + eldrazi scion tokens to gain mana, Adverse Conditions is one of those very useful cards

    bounce cards like Gone Missing where you lock him from drawing any decent cards

    and claustrophobia to disable tyrant
  • DumasAG
    DumasAG Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    People keep talking about Koth not having card draw. Am I the only person who regularly runs card draw in Koth? My first play is almost always Jori En, and I keep Magmatic Insight in the deck as well (draw two if your hand is empty, filter something you don't need at the moment if it's not). I have yet to run out of cards, or lose, in this event. Koth is definitely a problem with double-mana, and not just because he can regularly play Mindbender + Jori on turn 1...
  • Nothguorb
    Nothguorb Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
    Anything with black is good. You have access to premium removal, card draw, and forced discard. I've been playing with my Sarkhan deck and it works wonders. I've easily won ever round so far.
  • Nothguorb
    Nothguorb Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
    Anything with black is good. You have access to premium removal, card draw, and forced discard. I've been playing with my Sarkhan deck and it works wonders. I've easily won ever round so far.
  • techparadox
    techparadox Posts: 21
    DumasAG wrote:
    ... Am I the only person who regularly runs card draw in Koth? My first play is almost always Jori En...
    Jori is great for keeping Koth's hand loaded, if you have the card. Unfortunately, with the BFZ block being out of cycle the chances of a newer player being able to field it are pretty slim. Right now, a Koth player's best bets for drawing power are either Magmatic Insight or Fevered Visions (if you can get lucky enough to pull it from an SOI draw).
  • Irgy
    Irgy Posts: 148 Tile Toppler
    Koth wasn't even that good in the event. His big thing is he has more +mana than other PWs, but the +mana wasn't doubled, just the base value. This event turned everyone into Koth in terms of having a lot of mana to work with, and there's other heros better set up to take advantage of that. The only reason Koth might have been bad to play against is that the opponent's decks would have already been set up as big-mana decks while other random opponents might have just had their normal deck.
  • venice2010
    venice2010 Posts: 2
    I'm using Jori and Tamiyo's Journal both for my Koth to replenish my hand, considering I'm also using Wolf of Devil's breach and Lightning Axe. I recently got the Scrapheap from Kaladesh to combo it with my card with discard ability.

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