[DTB] Sneak Attack

[Kryptor]

Congratz to your win Fenrus!

and thanks for explaining what you was boarding against your matchups.

But I do still have a few questions about your deck and your Sideboard.

1) I really don´t understand why you run Daze in your deck. With SnT and Sneak i can´t imagine that you want to bounce your lands in the first few turns.
Then you cold only need it, when you are going off. Is Daze such a good counter when you are playing some of the combo parts? Don´t your enemys have that 1 mana to support their force or pierce?

2) Maybe i am the only player hat hates to play against Goblins (and thats the reason why i run 3 pyroclasm in sb), but what are you doing against that fast aggro decks, where everything with snt could be bounced with stringscrourger. It seems like you could only bring +2 stifle and +2 Breach. Is that enough to win?

[Darksteel]

Here is my current maindeck list:

4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Intuition
1 Preordain

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Flusterstorm

4 Lotus Petal

3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain

Is it worth running Spell Pierce over Daze? It requires you to have more mana open, but it's often more effective than Daze. I hate that Flusterstorm can't counter annoying permanents, but it's pretty good in counter wars.

I'll probably drop the Preordain for a Repeal, but I like the second Intuition. Do you guys think the bounce is more important or the tutoring?

[Bobmans]

Is it worth running Spell Pierce over Daze? It requires you to have more mana open, but it's often more effective than Daze. I hate that Flusterstorm can't counter annoying permanents, but it's pretty good in counter wars.


As for me personal i like to have only free protection spells in the mainboard. The numbers of protection depends on if i play Sneak or Omniscience plan. For Sneak i run 4 FoW, 4 Daze, 2 Misdirection. This way i can have protection and go of as early as turn 2 with a good hand. My main concern is discard and counter effects. So my sideboard contains both Divert (better when on the play ofcourse) and Flusterstorm, where Flusterstorm also has a role against storm. Sometimes i also pack Stifle/Trickbind vs EtB effects of a Show and Tell. However the last one is more important in the Omniscience plan. Also Karakas can be an issue. Still i havent figure out how to deal with that one, put Pithing Needle comes closest to my liking as it can also be used to shut down stuff like Jace, top, Liliana, or even a desthrite shaman as that can slow down a BUG list just enough to combo out. Also i dropped REB and Pyroblast from the side as i found that Wasteland is often run in blue decks. Not wanting to risk losing a Volcanic Island that i need later for Burning Wish to combo often becomes a dead card, where a Divert, Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce, Stifle etc is not.

At Kryptor:

Maindecking Daze enables 2 things. 1 you can protect a turn 2 Show and Tell or Sneak (especially when on the play game 1) and if you return a Volcanic Island that way you can protect it from a possible Wasteland. This all is more important to me than trying to fight opponents play's. It protects fast combo's and i dont care about anything the opponent is playing, unless it's faster than me or can stop my combo.
2. In game 2 and 3 the opponent will always try to play around Daze (if they saw you play it), you can make use of that.

[Justin]

Daze doesn't protect your Volcanic Island from Wasteland, because Wasteland is not a spell and uses an activated ability. There must be a spell on the stack that the Daze can target before you can cast it. A good player will activate Wasteland when the stack is empty of spells. I don't like Daze in this deck because getting set back a turn hurts this deck a lot. The kill spells in this deck cost three and four mana (five really for Sneak Attack if you want to activate it immediately). Daze works best in decks that are mostly full of one-drops and two-drops, such as RUG Delver or Reanimator.

[Water_Wizard]

Daze doesn't protect your Volcanic Island from Wasteland, because Wasteland is not a spell and uses an activated ability. There must be a spell on the stack that the Daze can target before you can cast it. A good player will activate Wasteland when the stack is empty of spells. I don't like Daze in this deck because getting set back a turn hurts this deck a lot. The kill spells in this deck cost three and four mana (five really for Sneak Attack if you want to activate it immediately). Daze works best in decks that are mostly full of one-drops and two-drops, such as RUG Delver or Reanimator.

They Waste, you Brainstorm, hold priority, Daze your Brainstorm, and pay with another land. It's very attenuated and requires a very specific circumstance, but you can use Daze as a shitty Stifle by paying to not counter your own spell.

[Bobmans]

Daze doesn't protect your Volcanic Island from Wasteland, because Wasteland is not a spell and uses an activated ability. There must be a spell on the stack that the Daze can target before you can cast it. A good player will activate Wasteland when the stack is empty of spells. I don't like Daze in this deck because getting set back a turn hurts this deck a lot. The kill spells in this deck cost three and four mana (five really for Sneak Attack if you want to activate it immediately). Daze works best in decks that are mostly full of one-drops and two-drops, such as RUG Delver or Reanimator.

Daze does protect as a pseudo effect. Assuming you drop sneak requiring you to use the volcanic island for S&T or Sneak. So its tapped. They response with whatever to try to stop the S&T/Sneak. You response with Daze returning the Volanic Island. You pass the turn, because the situation requires you to, with the volcanic island (your only red source at that time) in hand instead off tapped on the battlefield open for a Wasteland. So that i mean with protection from a possible Wasteland.
Besides that, how is Daze actually slowing you down. YOu don't play it to counter crap, only stuff that really is gonna stop you from combo.

[yankeedave]

So I have a major tourney coming up, but testing has shown that I am very weak to BUG (in both forms) with my current sideboard. This is a UK meta, which means anything from Lands, to Mono-W Stax to Burn turning up, as we as other competitive decks. I was hoping you guys could give me some pointers to improve it, with the BUG matchup in mind? Here's the current SB:

4 Defence Grid
2 Wipeaway
2 Submerge
2 Pyroclasm
2 Through the Breach
3 Surgical Extraction/Grafdiggers Cage

I was thinking of removing 1 Defence Grid, 2 Wipeaway for 3 Blood Moon, and I was also wondering about dropping the GY hate and Breaches for Leylines of Sanctity.

Suggestions?

Thanks

Dave

[Lejay]

So I have a major tourney coming up

Hi. How huge is it exactly ? It's possible a huge tournament in London could be interesting. Do you have a link to the tournament announcement please ?

[yankeedave]

Hi. How huge is it exactly ? It's possible a huge tournament in London could be interesting. Do you have a link to the tournament announcement please ?

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24957-UK-5000-Standard-SCG-IQ-and-£2000-Legacy-Event!-Doncaster-UK-12th-13th-of-January!&p=694329#post694329

[useL]

So I have a major tourney coming up, but testing has shown that I am very weak to BUG (in both forms) with my current sideboard. This is a UK meta, which means anything from Lands, to Mono-W Stax to Burn turning up, as we as other competitive decks. I was hoping you guys could give me some pointers to improve it, with the BUG matchup in mind? Here's the current SB:

4 Defence Grid
2 Wipeaway
2 Submerge
2 Pyroclasm
2 Through the Breach
3 Surgical Extraction/Grafdiggers Cage

I was thinking of removing 1 Defence Grid, 2 Wipeaway for 3 Blood Moon, and I was also wondering about dropping the GY hate and Breaches for Leylines of Sanctity.

Suggestions?

Thanks

Dave


Personally I dislike Defense Grid immensely. I run a pyro/reb/overmaster-split instead and find that useful enough. Have you looked at cards like Divert and Misdirection? They should take care of your problems enough to deal with the discard spells atleast.

[Guy I Don't Know]

So I have a major tourney coming up, but testing has shown that I am very weak to BUG (in both forms) with my current sideboard. This is a UK meta, which means anything from Lands, to Mono-W Stax to Burn turning up, as we as other competitive decks. I was hoping you guys could give me some pointers to improve it, with the BUG matchup in mind? Here's the current SB:

4 Defence Grid
2 Wipeaway
2 Submerge
2 Pyroclasm
2 Through the Breach
3 Surgical Extraction/Grafdiggers Cage

I was thinking of removing 1 Defence Grid, 2 Wipeaway for 3 Blood Moon, and I was also wondering about dropping the GY hate and Breaches for Leylines of Sanctity.

Suggestions?

Thanks

Dave

What does your mainboard look like? I dislike defense grid. Blasts at are better in my opinion, deal with Vendilion clique and counterspells and allows you to interact with them and counter things like hymn and counterbalance and humility. Blood moon wins games but is risky. Hopefully they don't play around it game two but if they see it then in game three they can go turn one swamp/forest death rite shaman and it is basically a dead card.... Divert is amazing but things like spell pierce are really helpful to negate the discard and Lillies. I go with the though the breach plan because of Lillies and how slow their deck is in general. Tbh I think not playing daze is very helpful in winning that matchup.

[defector]

In answer to the BUG mu question, I birng in 3 Blood Moon and 2 Divert. Blood moon can auto win games and be a t1 play on the draw. I don't play daze at all with three spell pierce in those slots. Don't go off until you have to. I've played that mu a lot and they are tough, but adding 5 must counters to your deck goes a long way towards helping snt resolve. Good luck in London!

[coma]

Now the meta it's without random aggro and tribal, with bug, miracle and esper blade more some combo.

I play this side:

3 Defense Grid (vs rug/canadian and deck with post die strategy to increasing counter' s count)
4 Leyline of Sanctity (vs black deck and combo)
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All (miracle/esper , blue deck without waste)
2 Wipe Away
3 Grafdigger's Cage

It's a good actual side for me.:smile:

[Koby]

Now the meta it's without random aggro and tribal, with bug, miracle and esper blade more some combo.

I play this side:

3 Defense Grid (vs rug/canadian and deck with post die strategy to increasing counter' s count)
4 Leyline of Sanctity (vs black deck and combo)
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All (miracle/esper , blue deck without waste)
2 Wipe Away
3 Grafdigger's Cage

It's a good actual side for me.:smile:

I can agree with this sideboard. I would also consider Blood Moon instead of Boseiju, since it shuts down a lot of decks. Defense Grid is inadequate vs UB/x decks due to their discard replacing most of the hard counters, but that is where Leyline shines. I would also make sure to play 3 Misdirection maindeck again, as that helps in all games against those same decks too.

[coma]

In this period if you play 3x misd it's a logical good idea, but I have some doubts on the moon.
Moon is good like a surprise for bug ,because if you win G1 in G2 he probably side out decay for no our target and you can win G2, but if you lose G1 , win G2 with moon , I side out moon in G3 for his decay .
More over a good pilot to bug that wait a moon remains with 1 mana and shaman open for decay.:confused:

Other thoughts it's , if you play vs aggro version of bug with delver .
You can died also after your lock , for fast creature and the 1 mana that shaman gives him to cast some pierce or other.

Those are my doubts.:smile:

[Esper3k]

I've had a lot of positive experiences using Flusterstorm main instead of Misdirection. Yes, it slows us down a turn but it's so much better than Spell Pierce at protecting your spells it's not even funny. Also synergizes well when you're holding a Lotus Petal to go off on that same turn.

[MeddlingMageGR]

I've had a lot of positive experiences using Flusterstorm main instead of Misdirection. Yes, it slows us down a turn but it's so much better than Spell Pierce at protecting your spells it's not even funny. Also synergizes well when you're holding a Lotus Petal to go off on that same turn.

Yes Flusterstorm is great, but the "free counterspells suite" is much better. 4 Force of Will, 4 Daze, 3 Misdirection.

[Esper3k]

I've never been a fan of Daze simply because we don't usually go off super quickly so it's effectiveness is usually lessened by opponents typically having mana available.

[JPA]

PV has posted his report of GP Denver, playing Sneak and Show: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pvs-playhouse-sneak-attacking-in-denver/

[defector]

Good read from PV. I took sneak&show to Denver as well, but ended up in 100th, not as strong as I would have liked, but still it was a great two day event and very fun. I was running:

Lands-19-
Fetch X6
Sol lands X5
Volcanic Island X4
Island X3
Mountain X1

Artifacts-4-
Lotus Petal X4

Red-4-
Sneak Attack X4

Creatures-8-
Griselbrand X4
Emrakul X4

Blue-25-
Show and Tell X4
Force of Will X4
Brainstorm X4
Ponder X4
Preordain X2
Repeal X2
Flustestorm X2
Spelll Pierce X2
Misdirection X1

Sideboard-15-
Leylline of Sanctity X4
Flustertsorm X2
Spell Pierce X1
Tormod's Cryptt X3
Through the Breach X2
Something Else X3


I can''t remember the full sb, and it sucked, so I guess that's that. had no byes for this one, so PLAYED ALL THE ROUNDS!!! I played legit decks the whole day, so no wierd stuff from that which kind of disappointed playing an unfair combo deck you'd like to play something random.

Day 1

Round 1
Affinity: Won 2-1, mulled to five g1, it's a tough mu for machine aggro.

Round 2
Omnitel: Won 2-0. He SnT's first g1 and I put in Griselbrand to his Omniscience. I drew 14 cards and countered everything he tried. If he had Emrakul I die, but fortunately for me he didn't. G2 we fought over a sneak attack and I eventually got one into play.

Round 3
RUG: Won 2-0. You can just SnT anything and win. No hot starts, lost the first counter war won the second. Griselbrannd g1 and Emrakul g2.

Round 4
RUG: Won 2-0. Weird g1, I knew he had stifle, and I played a land heavy hand. He never saw any pressure and eventually I made too many land drops for Stifle to matter. You can't stifle the 15 in the air. It was a grindy series which I wasn't expecting.

Round 5
BUG: Lost 0-2. This is bad news bears and hand disrupt combined with counter magic is pretty awful.

Round 6
Berzerk Nivmagus: 0-2. Too much counter magic and I played Flusterstormm very poorly. Not a deck that I was at all prepared for.

Round 7
Berzerk Infect: Won 2-0. Leaving the life total completely intact vs Griselbrand is pretty nice. The player was new and should have won g2 but for a misplay on his Karakas, very nice guy.

Round 8
Nic Fit Won 2-1. G1 I mull to 5 and get a sneak attack into play vs his thragtusk. I emrakul his board and then watch the thragtuskk token go ALL THE WAY! Fuck me. Games 2/3 were more to plan comboing out with both monsters in play.

Day 2

Round 9
Jund Won 2-0. The discard gets you down and then I was able to rebuild and go off. Had a strong t2 in g2 that won it.

Round 10
Esper Blade Lost 0-2. I got deck checked for the third fucking tme in round 9 and couldn't shuffle out of it, mullled to five both games, very frustrating as I think you can win this one.

Round 11
BUG Lost 0-2. This mu needs to be addressed.

Round 12
Infect Won 2-0. Kind of a bread/butter mu, they aren't well pointed to dealing with combo and having full life guaranteed with Griselbrand is bad news.

Round 13
Burn Lost 1-2. And I picked up a warning for tapping an Ancient Tomb that should have killed me. My opponent was more prepared for the mu than I was bringing in e-bridge for the win.

Round 14
Affinity Win2-1. Ended up playing a friend from my local to end the event, nice relaxing way to call it a day.

Well run event and four gold stars for zero assholes in 14 rounds. Everyone I played was cool. One series or two from the money, UGHHH!! Oh well, there will be a next time.

The deck itself played very well. I think the repeals main need to be some kind of bounce, not sure what is best, but something. The sideboard sucked horribly. I think some real work needs to be done there. As for the meta, I think the deck is decently positioned right now. I hope that Jund that becomes even better as that carves more room for us. RUG is totally beatable as any thing from SnT pretty much wins. I think its 50/50. BUG is the only real issue this deck is facing right now. We can compete with Miracles and Esper, but BUG has everything for us with change. I think maybe 3 Divert in the board? Something special for them. Need more practice, but right now I feel like that's the mu t focus on. also, i should have had 2 MisD main and Pierces over fluster. Hitting PW's is really relevant right now and the format is slow enough that you don't need daze. Anyway, thats all for now,, great weekend!
cheers
defector

[nodahero]

It occurs to me that this deck and Hypergenesis have very similar game plans i.e. cheat stuff in fast and win... My question is--- beyond that what am I missing? I don't think the haste/one shot is better then casting genesis and missing one attack to not lose the creature; particularly when it seems to me Genesis is typically a faster combo off.

To some degree I thought it was protection/redundancy but from a secondary review that seems inaccurate.

Any insight into the pro/con area would be AWESOME!!! Thanks.

[Esper3k]

It occurs to me that this deck and Hypergenesis have very similar game plans i.e. cheat stuff in fast and win... My question is--- beyond that what am I missing? I don't think the haste/one shot is better then casting genesis and missing one attack to not lose the creature; particularly when it seems to me Genesis is typically a faster combo off.

To some degree I thought it was protection/redundancy but from a secondary review that seems inaccurate.

Any insight into the pro/con area would be AWESOME!!! Thanks.

Pros over Hypergenesis:
- Better manabase. Since we're just UR, you're much less succeptible to Wasteland/Stifle.
- More protection spells available (we can play protection spells other than just FoW).
- Consistency - we can play Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain.

Essentially, Hypergenesis is like a slower, less consistent Belcher that gets to run Force of Will.

[Artlee]

It occurs to me that this deck and Hypergenesis have very similar game plans i.e. cheat stuff in fast and win... My question is--- beyond that what am I missing? I don't think the haste/one shot is better then casting genesis and missing one attack to not lose the creature; particularly when it seems to me Genesis is typically a faster combo off.

To some degree I thought it was protection/redundancy but from a secondary review that seems inaccurate.

Any insight into the pro/con area would be AWESOME!!! Thanks.

Hypergenesis would require some other colour commitment. Also if you play with cascade cards you don't really want to have other cards you could run into. This means that you would have to cut Brainstorm, Spell Pierce, Ponder and Daze. Without these cards you dont have the same ability to assemble the combo as fast as you would with the mentioned cards.

Getting your creatures into play with haste can also be a good thing in a format where some decks run liliana and other sacrifice spells at sorcery speed. If things pan out perfectly you drop Griselbrand, draw 7 or 14 cards and hope that emrakul and lotus petal are among the 7-14 cards. Then you can kill the opponent instantly.

Hypergenesis lets you put creatures into play that you have in your hand when it resolves. You happen to cast Sneak Attack without creatures in hand and hope on topdecking either Griselbrand or Emrakul.

[defector]

The protection suite is really important vs hypergenesis and sneak into grisel draw 14 petal emrakul is very relevant, you can combo out literally winning that turn backed with lots of protection. Sometimes it fails miserably, but its pretty consistent and the math supports its, in 21 cards you should see at least one each of your 4 ofs. The deck also boards better than hyper as snt or petal can easily go depending on the mu. All that being said experience is the ultimate teacher, sleeve em up and play em at your local then you'll know which one is for you.

[nodahero]

Thanks for all the input. I am trying to figure out where to pick up with Magic. I havn't really played alot in the last 2 years and feel really rusty. Again thanks for the input!!!

[JPA]

Congratulations to Will Craddock, winning SCG Dallas :cool:

[pavlaugh]

Very cool to see Sneak Attack win SCG Dallas! I played it as well, though ended up 4-3-1. Two of the losses were due to my bad play/hand selection for sure, and I got greedy in a match that resulted in the draw. I hadn't played Magic in 7 years except for a prerelease 2 years ago, so I think if the deck is piloted by someone with a strong knowledge of the field and more recent experience (like Craddock I'm guessing), this deck is a very good choice. I chose this deck largely because it seemed relatively easy to play and the most resilient combo deck. I may post a tourney report, but the short of the matter is: win against Omnitell; lose to Dredge (my bad playing); win against TES; draw with Countertop (RIP/Helm version) (because I got greedy, and he put Gilded Drake in from my Show and Tell game 2); win against Mono White Control/Artifacts; win against RUG Delver; loss to Esper Stoneblade Control (U/W); loss to Junk (W/G/B) (my bad hand selection).

Also, I did not run Lotus Petal because I did not like them during testing and wanted to run a more reliable manabase and more search spells (flex spots: 2 intuition, 2 preordain, 2 SD tops, 3 misdirection, 3 spell pierce). It did slow the deck down a turn, and I did not often get to "go off" with Sneak + Grisel --> Petal + Emrakul. I might continue playing without them as I never really wanted them at the SCG event. I liked having my mana sources stay in play and having the SD tops.

Thanks to everyone who posted in this thread before me. I read a lot of it and found it a valuable discussion.

[defector]

Well done Willl Craddock, second in Standard and first in the Legacy, a great weekend. I like the no Daze version and I am rocking something similar. I think the format especially withe rise of Jund is slow enough to drop Daze, which was always anti synergistic in my opinion. Anyway, long live sneak-show, good job!

@pavlaugh: I'd really encourage you to try the petals again. 19 lands, 5 sol lands, 8 fetch, 3 basics, 3 Volc and four petal is pretty solid and the petals give you a winning dimension that you don't have otherwise. It's not always to see in testing, but when you play an opponent that could top deck a karakas, but you just kill him instead, it's pretty nice:)

[TerribleTim68]

I've had a couple questions regarding creature selection. I've seen a couple different lists that went different ways. Seems like the better finishing lists have just gone the 4x Griz/Emmy plan. But I've also seen lists running 3x Griz/Emmy & 2x Prog. Prog seems like a good idea since he dodges Karakas. I've also seem lists running a singleton Spirit Guide as a 5th Petal. In goldfishing I've liked that idea since sometimes you Griz into 7 cards that don't have a Petal and you have to pass the turn. Sure, you're reloaded off those 7, but it seemed like that 5th Petal made a difference often enough.

Thoughts?

[defector]

I think with the low population of Knight of the Reliquary Karakas isn't a large enough concern to justify Progs. You may get randomly screwed by a Karakas as a low probability event, well welcome to combo. Mainly there are two cards that consistently show up in multiples that are pretty annoying post snt: Jace, and Liliana. Progs dodges one of them, so it's not terrible, but it's a little random and Progs really hurts you in games that you would win otherwise(sneak attack for grisel+progs=17 damage, pass turn). If things change it may become better, but for now I'd say consistent solid redundant four of's that fly is probably best.

I opted for more protection vs the SSG, but I've played with and without, play it and see what you think. I opted against it because just resolving a snt beats RUG, BUG/TA, and Jund. The only decks that really put pressur eon you to do a full combo out kill in one turn are Miracles and to a lesser extent stoneblade, so with how the meta is currently balanced I'd rather have the protection spell, but it's definitely the 60th card, if you want a SSG in that slot, go for it.

[pavlaugh]

@Defector, I'm not advocating for removal of the Petals... yet. Speed seems very important against TES/Elves/Dredge/Belcher. I did not like them especially against "fair" decks. I think I will continue to test without them as one tourney was not enough for me to make a decision.

@TerribleTim, I do not currently like any plan that cuts a Griselbrand. GB is such a powerhouse. It would be very difficult for you to lose to a Karakas/etc. once Griselbrand hits the table, even off of a Show and Tell. You're drawing 7-14 cards and will find a new answer. Karakas is really only good against an Emrakul that comes in from Show and Tell. With Sneak Attack, you either need 2 red mana sources or 1 extra turn to play around Karakas: (1) put Emrakul into play, declare attack step, they bounce, you activate Sneak again with Emrakul and enter attack step, declare attackers, BOOM; or (2) at their end of turn step Sneak in Emrakul, untap, attack step, etc.

If you want to try Progenitus in a Karakas-heavy environment, go for it. But I'd just cut 1-2 Emmys in that case. Still, I think Emmy is adequate / better at the job than Progenitus.

[defector]

@Pavlaugh. Fair enough testing is the ultimate answer. I think in the combo field though that we are the control deck at least as far as belcher and ant/tes is concerned. Im going to 4 pierce main and 3 fluster in the board and just looking to stop them from going off first before comboing out. Not sure if thats correct but ive played against ant a bit and i feel like thats the direction, barring an early snt griselbrand which i think just wins. I love the petals not so much for the speed but for the ability to get it all done in one turn. Good luck with your testing:) can you post your current 60 without petals? This is my the maindeck im taking to the local on sat.
Lands-19-
Sol Lands X5
Fetch X8
Volcanic X3
Island X2
Mountain X1

Artifacts-4
Petal X4

Creatures-8-

Red-4-
Sneak attack X4

Blue-25-
Force X4
Brainstorm X4
Ponder X4
Spell Pierce X4
Show and Tell X4
Preordain X2
Misdirection X2
Intuition X1

Thats the current main deck.
Cheers

[pavlaugh]

Here's the list I played:

4 griselbrand
3 emrakul

4 show and tell
4 sneak attack

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
2 preordain
2 sensei's divining top
2 intuition

4 force
3 misdirection
3 spell pierce

8 fetch
5 sol
4 volcanic
3 island
1 mountain

[georgjorge]

A few pages back there was a discussion on Burning Wish but I'd like to pick the topic up again. In my deck I play 3 Show and Tell 4 Wish 2 Sneak Attack essentially replacing the 2 Intuition and 2 Attack with 4 Wish. The thing is that replacing Sneak and Intuition with Wish allows to play fewer Sol lands, replacing them with cantrips, as the deck isn't that mana-hungry anymore (Wish + Show and Tell or Sneak + activation is the same, but being able to stretch the cost over 2 + 3 instead of 4 + 1 makes a difference). It also makes Daze a better card (for instance, second turn Wish, Dazing an opponents threat, third turn Petal/Sol land into Show and Tell, while it could set you back too much if you had Sneak Attack instead).

Of course, there are some matchups where you want Sneak Attack and not Show and Tell, most notably the mirror matchup or Turbo Eldrazi, where the Wish configuration is weaker.

The wishboard is reduced to the most necessary things: Raze (for Karakas), Overmaster, and Turbulent Dreams (for random stuff like Humility or against swarm decks after you've used a Griselbrand).

[pavlaugh]

@georgjorge, I think testing with Burning Wish has some merit given the better curve. However, it undoubtedly makes you more susceptible to anti-Show&Tell plans. If you happen to have Emmy rather than GB as your creature, you are usually in a better position with Sneak rather than Show&Tell against threats like Liliana, Jace, and Karakas/KotR. And as you already pointed out, the Show&Tell plan makes you more vulnerable to certain threats, including Liliana, Jace, Karakas/KotR, Turbo Eldrazi, mirror/Omniscience, Belcher, Helm/RIP combo, Reanimator, etc.

I'm not sure I buy the Daze argument even in theory because if you don't play Burning Wish / don't tap out turn 2, you have Spell Pierce to fight off an early (noncreature) threat. So yeah, Daze might be better than Spell Pierce when you play Burning Wish, but it's better only because you're playing Burning Wish, not necessarily because it's better in the abstract.

[defector]

@Pavlaugh: I like it. Its a different take, I would like to see a 4th emrakul, but other than that looks good for no petals. I really like top at least in theory, but at the same time I cant ever seem to get it into any list I make. You sir are a better man than I:)) I think you cant run both top and petal and support a high enough blue count for fow and snt. Im still committed to petal, but best of luck withyour approach!

@georgjorge B wish is interesting but I dont buy the daze argument and I think its too important to hard cast sneak attack to go to two. Also doesnt it really hurt your fow count? Idk looks neat, but not convinced. Why not up your snt with a personal tutor or 2 main?

General question: I have yet to come up with a sb strat that I can be proud of. Does the heavy discard in the meta right now require leyline of sanctity? I really hate that card, hate it, hate it. My current sb:
Leyline X4
Boseiju X3
Echoing Truth X3
Flusterstorm X3
Through the Breach X2

My line of reasoning is leyline jund/bug. Boseiju vs esper/miracles. Echoing truth goes in if e bridge/humility etc are on the horizon. Fluster vs storm and ttb for mirror. Implicit bets with this board is that ill beat dredge with the first 60 and flat out lose to reani. Any criticism/input would be great. I dont think snt decks side very gracefully so any advice/ibsight would be appreciated.
Cheers

[Grand Superior]

I'm new to Sneak and Show, but I currently run this sideboard:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Wipe Away
3 Blood Moon
3 Pyroblast

I hate Leylines too because it's awful having to mulligan to get them, but they work so well against the black discard decks (which we are terrible against) that I'm starting to think that they are mandatory. Blood Moon just auto-wins games and deals with Karakas so I like keeping it there. Wipe Away against random answers to our deck. Pyroblast just as additional counterspells against other blue decks. I want to get rid of Grafdigger's Cage so badly, but there are several Reanimator players in my meta and I'm just dead to their deck without Cage. I also wanna fit some Through the Breaches in there but I'm not sure if they're worth having anymore.

Also, sorry for this noob question, but what do people generally side out with this deck? I know the Intuitions are normally the first to go (because Surgical Extraction is great against it) but beyond that, I never know what to remove. Some copies of Lotus Petal? Some counterspells? Cantrips? Some combo pieces? I agree that Sneak and Show's sideboard dilemmas are the worst part of the deck.

[defector]

That board looks solid. I haven't had to fear reani too much in my meta, but it may be better in the meta and if so than some changes have to be made with the GY disrupt. As for the overall strategy, I wish I knew. I felt like I had an insight a few weeks ago where I divided the meta into two categories. One group is decks where all you have to do si resolve a SnT to win: Jund, Thresh, Team America, and Storm. Then the decks where you really had to combo out and win: Miracles, Stoneblade, Mav, Elves. Reani and the mirror was harder to place. Against the decks where all I needed to do was resolve a SnT I cut Petals first and one Intuition which gave me five slots to work with which seemed adequate for those match ups and accommodated the 4 Leylines. Against the decks that required me to combo out to win I cut 1 Petal and 1 Intuition and then mixed around with the protection suite. Pierce went out vs mav for bounce, I mixed the lands up with Bosieju for Stoneblade and Miracles. I played this deck at GP Denver and ran into problems with the blue count supporting both SnT and FOW, so its tough to cut the blue count in general. I don't know, my new strategy seems to work ok, but it doesnt work great. I'm looking for additional insights here in a serious way.
cheers

[pavlaugh]

I agree the sideboard is tough. I scoured this thread, decklists, and tourney reports. I discounted white leylines early on. I could not see needing to mulligan to get a card that merely helps you and does not make you auto-win (and takes up 4x in the board). If you have to mulligan once or twice to get the white leyline, you're giving them 1-2 free "discard a random card" spells anyway. And most decks running discard will still have pressure to kill you if the mulligan means you need extra turns to go off, right? Is the white leyline still good if you're facing early pressure?

I've never tested any leylines, though I see lots of people playing white and black. Maybe I need to try them to see if they are really good. Against discard, I usually found Misdirection or Spell Pierce to be adequate.

The SB I wanted for the SCG event was:
2 echoing truth
2 wipe away
3 graffdigger's cage
2 vendillion clique
2 pyroblast
1 hydroblast
1 through the breach
2 defense grid

I ended up not getting the wipe aways and 2nd clique so played +1 hydroblast, blood moon, and divert. I did not really like the SB, but that seems to be a consistent problem for everybody. 3-4 slots for bounce spells and 1-2 through the breach seemed to be in every SB I reviewed. The rest varies a lot.

I like Cage over black leyline, and one of those two options seems like the only way we can beat Reanimator, right? (I've never played against it, but it looks like a horrible matchup). I don't like auto-losing to any matchup, so I opted to include some Cages. Cage is also very good against Dredge. I didn't find the Dredge matchup to be heavily in my favor, but I haven't played against it much. They can block Griselbrand all day long, and if they get Bridge from Below going, Emmy becomes much less useful. (Dredge seemed like a matchup where having Lotus Petal is very good.)

The black leyline I could actually see playing because it is much more of an (almost) auto-win against Dredge/Reanimator (unless they bounce).

Defense grid is pretty good against RUG and perhaps BUG, but I'm not sure against miracles/control. It seems like the control decks have more threats that could need countering on their turn (e.g., jace, bridge, detention sphere, helm/RIP).

The cliques and blasts are just all-around versatile answers. Cliques are preemptive bounce spells against control or snag a counterspell. They also serve as a slow clock against control. (In reality, clique almost always draws a Force of Will). I've seen other people play Pithing Needle, as well, as a versatile sideboard card

I haven't cared for Blood Moon much because against most decks that run heavy nonbasics (RUG, BUG, Jund, etc.) your opponent will often either have threats on the table by the time Blood Moon hits (RUG, BUG especially), or will have deathrite shaman (BUG, Jund). Even Maverick, probably the second best deck to play it against, seems to be playing deathrite now and is often GW/x or morphed into some junk/rock variant. Certainly the best deck to play it against is Turbo Eldrazi / 12 Post. And that can actually be a difficult matchup, right? So maybe I will change my tune on a few Blood Moons in the SB.

@Defector, Boseiju seems nice against control. Have you played it much? I really like the idea of 4x echoing truth (no wipe aways) and 2x boseiju.

@Grand Superior, I almost always take out Intuition, a land (/petal), and a preordain first. Sometimes a Misdirection. Show and Tell against matchups where it's not as good (obviously).

[defector]

@Pavlaugh: Reani may very well become a good deck again. Todd Anderson recently posted a Reani-tel list that looks very sexy. It may have legs. I havent tested the Boseiju in live matches yet, just dicked around at home. So far it seems nice as the u/w whatevers are running no more than 2 wastes or a single dust bowl. It doesnt stop venser but that is pretty corner case. Just have two red avail snt in a sneak attack and kill them. I like it, but want real games against real opponents. I agree with you about dredge, we are favored but not by much. Given the small percentage in the overalk meta its hard to commit to leyline of the void. Idk love the deck hate the sb.

[MeddlingMageGR]

I prepare myself for a oncoming big Event here in Greece, with prize a Time Walk for the first place, and a Timetwister for the 2nd. My current sideboard is this :

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [DKA] Grafdigger's Cage
for Reanimator, Dedge, Ad Nauseam...

SB: 1 [TSP] Wipe Away
for Blazing Archon, Ensnaring Bridge, Peacekeeper...

SB: 3 [IA] Pyroclasm
for Goblins, Maverick, Elves, Jund...

SB: 2 [LG] Karakas
for Maverick, Reanimator...

SB: 3 [TO] Overmaster
for BUG mostly and for other heavy counter decks

SB: 3 [5E] Pyroblast
Counter decks such BUG and Omni-Tell.



And my maindeck is this :

// Lands
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
3 [UNH] Island
2 [EX] City of Traitors
1 [UNH] Mountain

// Creatures
4 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 [AVR] Griselbrand

// Spells
4 [M10] Ponder
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [US] Show and Tell
4 [US] Sneak Attack
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [NE] Daze
3 [MM] Misdirection

It is my personal choice to run All-Free counters (4 FoW, 4 Daze, 3 MisD), to protect my combo mainly, than counter my opponent's demi-threats.
I raise my number to 61, by adding 1 more Intuition. These 3 slots are also the first candidates for sideboard. Overmaster, Pyroclasm and Pyroblast. That's why I have 3 of them.

[coma]

@Pavlaugh: I like it. Its a different take, I would like to see a 4th emrakul, but other than that looks good for no petals. I really like top at least in theory, but at the same time I cant ever seem to get it into any list I make. You sir are a better man than I:)) I think you cant run both top and petal and support a high enough blue count for fow and snt. Im still committed to petal, but best of luck withyour approach!

@georgjorge B wish is interesting but I dont buy the daze argument and I think its too important to hard cast sneak attack to go to two. Also doesnt it really hurt your fow count? Idk looks neat, but not convinced. Why not up your snt with a personal tutor or 2 main?

General question: I have yet to come up with a sb strat that I can be proud of. Does the heavy discard in the meta right now require leyline of sanctity? I really hate that card, hate it, hate it. My current sb:
Leyline X4
Boseiju X3
Echoing Truth X3
Flusterstorm X3
Through the Breach X2

My line of reasoning is leyline jund/bug. Boseiju vs esper/miracles. Echoing truth goes in if e bridge/humility etc are on the horizon. Fluster vs storm and ttb for mirror. Implicit bets with this board is that ill beat dredge with the first 60 and flat out lose to reani. Any criticism/input would be great. I dont think snt decks side very gracefully so any advice/ibsight would be appreciated.
Cheers
Normally side in-out depends to main and side that we have.
For my family I haven't time to go far to play some big event, so I play in some little tournements , with this list and I have lose few match :

Creatures [9]

1 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

Instants [15]

1 Intuition
2 Misdirection
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Pierce

Sorceries [10]

2 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell

Enchantments [4]

4 Sneak Attack

Artifacts [4]

4 Lotus Petal

Lands [18]

1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta
1 Volcanic Island
2 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Island
4 Scalding Tarn

side:
3 Defense Grid
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Boseiju
2 Wipe Away
3 Grafdigger's Cage

no 4Th emrakul:
- I want to reduce died card
- I want to control blue count
- Normally I want to show griselbrand instead of emrakul (emrakul only in first/second turn, in the other time is only the finisher)

1 Simian Spirit Guide:
5th petal to increase possibility to cast a bomb one turn before and don't destabilize mana base, so it's perfect

Counter count: it's good for this meta with miracle, bug, esper, rug. Daze make a good job for fist second and third
turn. If opponent tap out we have and hard counter free with 1 card and I like it to my aggressive style to play with 10 cantrip to search combo.

Side I think we start to:
- 3 grid vs rug ur with much post side counter
- 4 leyline vs bug (it hits edict's effects, vendilion , discard's effect and vs storm it's an auto-win if our oppo don't buoncer it . Vs storm it's enought for me. Griselbrand win the race vs eventually token)
- 3 Boseiju vs esper and miracle and bug control (wiyh cascade) that play only 2 waste and don't use cantrip.

Others slot are moody. With this meta we can play without hate grave, but it's a risk however.
Some bouncer . I don't need to Flusterstorm X3 becuse it's better grid vs other fluster /reb/pierce (only with 1 card),
Through the Breach X2 I don't need if only in mirror, and I playing ony 3 emrakul it'snt best trick:tongue:

Side:
rug out 1 intuition 2 pierce in 3 grid
bug control (with cascade, baleful strix) in 3 bosiju 4 leyline 2 wipe away out 3 ancient 3 daze 2 ponder 1 brainstorm
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9969&iddeck=72668
Because it's a long match and he play much hate so I need also to wipe away. In this mu leyline it's a must to a good play.
bug delver in leyline out 1 intuition 2 pierce 1 preordain
miracle out 3 ancient 1 intuition 1 island in 3 bosiju 2 wipe away
esper in 3 boseiju

Bye

[georgjorge]

Thanks for the replies regarding Burning Wish. After some more testing, I'm really on the fence about Wish vs Attack. There are obviously situations where Attack is needed, but I've also had enough hands with three or four non-Sol lands and Wish where Sneak Attack either wouldn't have been castable or would have been too slow, while second turn Wish into third turn Show was fast enough. Sneak Attack is essentially a three-card combo of Attack + creature + Sol land/Petal, it's usually too slow for me without the third part. Thus being able to reduce the number of slots for Sol lands for more cantrips and protection while still being fast enough is great. And I quite like Raze in the wishboard against Karakas. More testing...

You're right about Daze + Wish of course, but I'm really not impressed with either Pierce or Daze. Pierce is decent against discard but not so hot in counterwars where you often don't have the extra mana against their Pierces and Dazes.

On Leyline: I find it to be great. I don't get why people think you have to mulligan to it anymore than to any other sideboard card? Against either storm combo or discard - where Leyline is used - any countermeasure you need will have to be online within the first two turns or so to be effective, so you really don't get that many draw steps anyway to draw into it (save for countermeasures that recover discarded cards like Recall).

I'm not so sure about Boseiju, which either gets Wastelanded a lot or comes so late that the life loss is a liability, but I haven't been able to come up with anything better for counterwars yet. Going to try out Defense Grid.

[TerribleTim68]

. . .I'm not so sure about Boseiju, which either gets Wastelanded a lot or comes so late that the life loss is a liability, but I haven't been able to come up with anything better for counterwars yet. Going to try out Defense Grid.

I've tried Boseiju as well in other decks for the same purpose. Yup, it either gets Wasted or you can't find it. Defense Grid is nice, but is usually met with Force. But it IS a "You either Force this or I roll you" kind of card. Given the choice, I'd take the Grid over Boseiju.

[S1N1STER]

Didn't do so hot at Jupiter yesterday, but I did get to hardcast Emrakul in game 1 vs. re-animator. I just kept drawing counters and lands, strange how I got to 15 mana without seeing a sneak attack, and the one time I cast S&T we both put in Griselbrand.

[pavlaugh]

Boseiju and Grid seem to serve different purposes. I like Grid against RUG because they have few post s&t/sneak threats for us to counter. I like Boseiju (or the idea of it) against control decks not running wasteland. I don't even know if I would side Grid in against most control decks. They seem to play more post-s&t/sneak threats that I want to be able to counter. Do y'all running grid board it in against UW control / miracles / helm control?

Also, making echoing truth uncountable (rather than just pay 3-5 to counter) seems good. But I lack the experience playing against control.

[defector]

Finally got some games in with Boseiju and it won me a series vs Miracles, uncounterable e truth on d sphere and then i was able to combo out. My current sb: boseiju x3 fluster x3 blood moon x3 grafdiggers x3 e truth x3. Its redundant and decently resilient against esper/miracles i bring in 6 cards 3 boseiju 3 truth. Other mu typically just 3 best suited cards. Its not ideal, but i can live with it. Snt decks are weak when it comes to boarding and im just trying to be zen about it. J think some gy disrupt is necessary as dredge is pretty close and reani is pretty bad. The truths go in a lot complimenting whatever set of 3 i feel is best. I almost always bring 2 in every g2 where i suspect some snt specific hate. Its not great but im getting comfortable with it. I would like some pyroclasm action though. I cut ttb and went with e truths instead. The only snt cards i am really weak against is angel and gilded drake. D sphere and humility and o ring are all manageable with e truth. Blood moon could be pyroclasm, not sure how much to fear karakas with kotr down and liking pyro a lot vs jund.

[blindspotxxx]

Another top finish of the deck :)

1st place Reginald Go with Sneak & Show
main deck:
4 sneak attack
4 show and tell
4 emrakul, the aeons torn
4 griselbrand
4 force of will
4 lotus petal
2 daze
2 repeal
2 misdirection
2 flusterstorm
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
1 intuition
4 misty rainforest
4 scalding tarn
3 volcanic island
2 city of traitors
3 ancient tomb
2 island
1 mountain

sideboard:
1 wipe away
1 echoing truth
1 spell pierce
2 grafdigger's cage
2 red elemental blast
2 blood moon
2 through the breach
2 shattering spree
2 pyroclasm

Out of 45+ People :)

[MeddlingMageGR]

Congratulations. :))))
Let me ask you a question. .. Are Repeals really a good addition to the deck? Are you satisfied with them? Are 2 of them enough? I are you run a single Intuition... would you change it for a third Repeal?

[blindspotxxx]

Not my deck but it serves as a flexible bounce and cantrip. You can bounce your petal for cantripping or bounce problem permanents like Ensnaring Bridge and the like :)

[defector]

I've played with and without Repeal and I think its a fine card. As the delver population increases it gets better, but even with lower delver counts id stil encourage anyone to test it.

[Dia_Bot]

Repeal is definitely fine because maindeck bounce is sometimes nice to have and it's never useless. However I have to admit I still prefer preordain in these spots for consistency reasons.

One question I have about the decklist is the 2 dazes. How do everybody feel about playing 2 dazes?
I've tried them myself in the past and always felt I would be better off either playing 4 of them or playing spell pierce/fluserstorm/misD in their place.

[MeddlingMageGR]

I am impressed about Dazes. I use 4 of them maindeck of course and I can't find a single reason to replace them. But as I said before it's my personal choice to play only with free counters. Daze, Force of Will, Misdirection.

I'm not kidding... Dazes winning games.

[Fenrus]

Repeal is definitely fine because maindeck bounce is sometimes nice to have and it's never useless. However I have to admit I still prefer preordain in these spots for consistency reasons.

One question I have about the decklist is the 2 dazes. How do everybody feel about playing 2 dazes?
I've tried them myself in the past and always felt I would be better off either playing 4 of them or playing spell pierce/fluserstorm/misD in their place.

I only run two dazes because they are often useless after the first few turns of the game. However, they are one of our best counterspells on turn one, two, and three. I play two because I like to see them in my opening hand but I do not want to draw them late game when I need a solid counter. It's the same reason I only play two misdirections; they are randomly great. But it sucks having six counters maindeck that require that you discard another blue card and that you can almost never hard cast, it's even worse with eight. At least that's my opinion.

[MeddlingMageGR]

I only run two dazes because they are often useless after the first few turns of the game. However, they are one of our best counterspells on turn one, two, and three. I play two because I like to see them in my opening hand but I do not want to draw them late game when I need a solid counter. It's the same reason I only play two misdirections; they are randomly great. But it sucks having six counters maindeck that require that you discard another blue card and that you can almost never hard cast, it's even worse with eight. At least that's my opinion.

That's true. 1st, 2nd and 3rd turn are the most important. However a late game Daze, could be extremely useful if it is discarded for Force of Will or Misdirection. Before Daze I used to have Flusterstorm and/or Spell Pierce. Great counters but I was at least 1 turn slower. I always had to keep some mana available.

[useL]

I am thinking of picking up this deck after a year with other archetypes. I have played the deck quite a lot and I have a question to you regular pilots:

The two flex slots (repeal, preordain, extra counters) could they be Sensei's Divining Top in a discard/control-heavy meta? Is this just too slow or can it work? I played against ANT that floated cards on top when I discarded him and the top just felt so good. Do we have to go off on t2 and therefore we dont want to play the top? I know preordain etc is blue for fow, but the top does a fantastic job protecting what you are to draw later on.

What are your experiences running top?

[Darksteel]

I am thinking of picking up this deck after a year with other archetypes. I have played the deck quite a lot and I have a question to you regular pilots:

The two flex slots (repeal, preordain, extra counters) could they be Sensei's Divining Top in a discard/control-heavy meta? Is this just too slow or can it work? I played against ANT that floated cards on top when I discarded him and the top just felt so good. Do we have to go off on t2 and therefore we dont want to play the top? I know preordain etc is blue for fow, but the top does a fantastic job protecting what you are to draw later on.

What are your experiences running top?

Top has been pretty good, honestly, especially in a meta of discard-heavy decks. While not as good as Brainstorm or Ponder, I think it's damn close and I like it more than Preordain, personally.

Repeal or another bounce is good to have as a one of, in my opinion. I used it in place of my second Intuition (since I only have one at the moment) and found it nice, especially as a catch-all to things like Humility and Ensnaring Bridge that just beat us.

And I don't feel like you have to go off turn 2, especially against fair decks. It's usually turn 3-4 for me. Sometimes you get the City-Petal-Show-Creature hand and go off turn 1, but I don't feel like you have to rush, unlike with say, something like Reanimator.

[Dia_Bot]

I only run two dazes because they are often useless after the first few turns of the game. However, they are one of our best counterspells on turn one, two, and three. I play two because I like to see them in my opening hand but I do not want to draw them late game when I need a solid counter. It's the same reason I only play two misdirections; they are randomly great. But it sucks having six counters maindeck that require that you discard another blue card and that you can almost never hard cast, it's even worse with eight. At least that's my opinion.

I can get behind your logic. Maybe I'll give dazes another try.

[pavlaugh]

I ran two tops in the "no petals" list on the last page. It was great against fair decks and still decent against combo. Overall I liked it and will keep it in the deck for now. I was obviously playing a much slower "sculpt the perfect hand" version of this deck, though. I think if you're going for speed, preordain is better because results are immediate and it pitches to fow.

I'll admit one of the reasons I ran top is because I was watching an SCG feature match streaming RUG vs Sneak, and in game 2 RUG forced a turn 1 top, only to have no hard counter for show and tell. What struck me is that some players overvalue top. I found this to be true when my opponents named top with pithing needle, kept abrupt decay in game 2, or spell pierced it. I was usually happy to see my opponent waste a card (counter) or turn (abrupt decay instead of discard spell).

[defector]

I like top a lot, but have always been too afraid to upset the blue count to main deck it. As for the daze debate, test and see what you like. I personally hate that card because losing a land drop really hurts, and I think the meta isslow enough right now that u dont need it. On the other hand ive seen top 8 decks running 2-4 and 0, so i dont think there is a right answer. I run 4 pierce 4 fow 2 misd as my ten counters and i am happy with it.

[Koby]

I ran two tops in the "no petals" list on the last page. It was great against fair decks and still decent against combo. Overall I liked it and will keep it in the deck for now. I was obviously playing a much slower "sculpt the perfect hand" version of this deck, though. I think if you're going for speed, preordain is better because results are immediate and it pitches to fow.

I'll admit one of the reasons I ran top is because I was watching an SCG feature match streaming RUG vs Sneak, and in game 2 RUG forced a turn 1 top, only to have no hard counter for show and tell. What struck me is that some players overvalue top. I found this to be true when my opponents named top with pithing needle, kept abrupt decay in game 2, or spell pierced it. I was usually happy to see my opponent waste a card (counter) or turn (abrupt decay instead of discard spell).

Lol that was me. Top is super sweet. I dont like two however, since they are worse than Preordain in multiples when you see both of them together. I split my Preordain slots with Tops however.

[pavlaugh]

Haha, nice! I agree drawing two tops usually sucks, but I didn't notice it happening. If you resolve one you're not likely to draw the other. PV played two tops in Denver but went down to 8 counters to do so. Not sure I like cutting counters...

[Final Fortune]

Thanks for the replies regarding Burning Wish. After some more testing, I'm really on the fence about Wish vs Attack. There are obviously situations where Attack is needed, but I've also had enough hands with three or four non-Sol lands and Wish where Sneak Attack either wouldn't have been castable or would have been too slow, while second turn Wish into third turn Show was fast enough. Sneak Attack is essentially a three-card combo of Attack + creature + Sol land/Petal, it's usually too slow for me without the third part. Thus being able to reduce the number of slots for Sol lands for more cantrips and protection while still being fast enough is great. And I quite like Raze in the wishboard against Karakas. More testing...

You're right about Daze + Wish of course, but I'm really not impressed with either Pierce or Daze. Pierce is decent against discard but not so hot in counterwars where you often don't have the extra mana against their Pierces and Dazes.

On Leyline: I find it to be great. I don't get why people think you have to mulligan to it anymore than to any other sideboard card? Against either storm combo or discard - where Leyline is used - any countermeasure you need will have to be online within the first two turns or so to be effective, so you really don't get that many draw steps anyway to draw into it (save for countermeasures that recover discarded cards like Recall).

I'm not so sure about Boseiju, which either gets Wastelanded a lot or comes so late that the life loss is a liability, but I haven't been able to come up with anything better for counterwars yet. Going to try out Defense Grid.

Overmaster is one of the best, if not the best, cards for fighting the counter war because the opponent has to trade his Daze and Spell Pierces for it and you can simply pay their tax and draw a card for the 2 for 1.

Defense Grid is decent for being a pre-emptive disruption piece that you can cast t1 for virtual card advantage against an opponent holding multiple counters not named force of will.

As an aside, is there a reason no one plays with Gitaxian Probe when you can just blow your opponent's out of the game with SoL Land, Petal Show&Tell after seeing their hand?

[WorstBandNameEver]

Overmaster is one of the best, if not the best, cards for fighting the counter war because the opponent has to trade his Daze and Spell Pierces for it and you can simply pay their tax and draw a card for the 2 for 1.

Defense Grid is decent for being a pre-emptive disruption piece that you can cast t1 for virtual card advantage against an opponent holding multiple counters not named force of will.

As an aside, is there a reason no one plays with Gitaxian Probe when you can just blow your opponent's out of the game with SoL Land, Petal Show&Tell after seeing their hand?

I have also wondered about probe but what would you cut to play it?

[Tormod]

Gitaxian Probe is undesirable because you want those 2 extra life as protection against bolt when you're drawing up to 14 cards with Griselbrand

[WorstBandNameEver]

I figured I would post up my deck list for a big, upcoming event that should be at least 75 to 100 people.

4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Emrakul
4 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Intuition

4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
4 Lotus Petal

2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

Sideboard (As of now)
3 Defense Grid
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Wipe Away
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroclasm
1 Karakas

I'm a little unsure about Daze. I used to play daze and then I stopped but I missed have the extra free counters. I also used to use 2x flusterstorm instead of spell pierce but I'm concerned about Jace and Lilana and I would rather have counters that can hit things that are not just instants and sorceries.

Does my sideboard seem to cover most of the bases for a big event where I will likely see a little bit of everything?

Do I need more graveyard hate?

I don't think I'm running anything too out the ordinary but It nice to have extra sets of eyes take a look at things.

Any advice, even your very subjective opinions are helpful.

Thanks.

[catmint]

Leyline of Sanctity is very good right now. I play a very similar maindeck, but i would play at least 3 Preordain and cut back the weaker countermagic (Daze).

[Final Fortune]

Gitaxian Probe is undesirable because you want those 2 extra life as protection against bolt when you're drawing up to 14 cards with Griselbrand

Arguing that Gitaxian Probe is bad in win more scenarios is pointless, 2 life doesn't make a big difference for Sneak Attack -> Griselbrand after you've attacked and gained 7 life to draw X - you can afford to be patient with a 14 point life swing in your favor and 7 new cards in the worse case scenario.

[pavlaugh]

I tested 2x gitaxian probe before opting for top. It's great against RUG and probably other tempo or esper control. Against RUG for example, paying 2 life to see if you can go off a turn or two eearlier will frequently net you life. Against an aggressive deck playing spell piece and daze, we use our life as a resoure to get to adequate mana to play around the counters if necessary. That usually means we won't be drawing off griselbrand anyway (ime).

Of course, I usually hard casted it anyway... If you cut anything for probe, it's prob going to be a cantrip.

[JPA]

And another SCG Open is won by Sneak and Show :cool:

[kaosjr]

This is my list that I won SCG Edison with:


Sneak and Show
Zack Mullin
1st Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 2/10/2013
Legacy


Creatures (8)

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
Lands (20)

3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
Spells (32)

4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack
4 Brainstorm
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
2 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
Sideboard

4 Defense Grid
4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Stifle
2 Karakas

Stifles in the SB and misdirections main were MVPs

[useL]

Could you explain the Stifle? When do you side them in and what do you remove?

[Koby]

Could you explain the Stifle? When do you side them in and what do you remove?

I am also curious about the choice for Stifle. Is it used to counter D-Sphere/O-ring? Wasteland? Karakas / Maze of Ith?

[Que]

This is my list that I won SCG Edison with:


Sneak and Show
Zack Mullin
1st Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 2/10/2013
Legacy


Creatures (8)

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
Lands (20)

3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
Spells (32)

4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack
4 Brainstorm
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
2 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
Sideboard

4 Defense Grid
4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Stifle
2 Karakas

Stifles in the SB and misdirections main were MVPs

Congrats on the Finish!

Pardon my ignorance with this deck. My question is what are the stifles in the sb for(Nath'd)? How were the Defense Grid? what matchups did you bring this in against? Also did you feel like you needed something like Top or Leyline of Sanctity against discard?

[useL]

I am also curious about the choice for Stifle. Is it used to counter D-Sphere/O-ring? Wasteland? Karakas / Maze of Ith?

Maybe just the sacrifice at end of turn trigger from sneak attack?

[Koby]

Congrats on the Finish!

Pardon my ignorance with this deck. My question is what are the stifles in the sb for(Nath'd)? How were the Defense Grid? what matchups did you bring this in against? Also did you feel like you needed something like Top or Leyline of Sanctity against discard?

I can answer for Defense Grid - these are for the Tempo decks (RUG, BUG, pretty much any Delver deck). It provides the best use of resources against decks that utilize cheap, taxing counters.

Leyline is also a good choice, and was actually surprised to see you did not run them. I suppose with Stifle, these also cover similar matchups.

[pavlaugh]

Congrats on the win! Could you also discuss the decision to not run bounce spells in the sb? Perhaps Stifle serves a similar purpose against hate except for Humility / Ensnaring Bridge (which arguably you're not likely to see too many of). I'm also curious about your board plan for Miracles / Esper Control. Thanks.

[kaosjr]

Stifles counteract all the "fair decks" sideboard answers such as karakas, Oring, etc. Stifle won me game 3 against 13 Post stifling his Ostone when he attempted to blow it up. Defense grids are for miracles, RUG, and stoneblade. Generally intuition and some mix of spell pierce and flusterstorm come out. Also I drop 1 basic island and 1 lotus petal for karakas against stoneblade and miracles. Against BUG you need your 1 mana counterspells for their hand disruption so I only board out the intuition for REB. Also to note stifle cannot counter the delayed trigger of sneak attack forcing you to sacrifice your creature. It is all 1 trigger when you put your fattie into play. I opted not to play bounce spells in the board because of the complete lack of respect people give this deck. Stifle handles most hate outside of ensnaring bridge and a few others while having some awesome interactions. Also misdirecting hymns and thoughtseizes are awesome.

[DarkKeeper]

Amazing tournament kaosjr! congrats for winning! is there any report you've written about the tournament to be read?! btw if you're still writing it and can just tell us what you sb in and out in every match up with your choise of cards that would be just great. Later!

[pavlaugh]

Also to note stifle cannot counter the delayed trigger of sneak attack forcing you to sacrifice your creature. It is all 1 trigger when you put your fattie into play. I opted not to play bounce spells in the board because of the complete lack of respect people give this deck. Stifle handles most hate outside of ensnaring bridge and a few others while having some awesome interactions.
Thanks for the comment about bounce vs. stifle. But are you sure about the triggered ability? My understanding (and I think others') is that stifle counters the delayed trigger when cast in response to the @ end of turn trigger going on the stack.

[Anusien]

Thanks for the comment about bounce vs. stifle. But are you sure about the triggered ability? My understanding (and I think others') is that stifle counters the delayed trigger when cast in response to the @ end of turn trigger going on the stack.
This.

For clarify, Sneak Attack's activated ability creates a delayed triggered ability to sacrifice the creature at the end of the turn. If you counter that trigger, the creature will stick around and it will never trigger again for that creature.

[kaosjr]

It seems as though you can stifle the delayed trigger. Judges lied to me :(

[kaosjr]

I'll write up something of a tournament report. I don't quite remember matches but I'll do sideboarding techniques, etc.

[JPA]

I'll write up something of a tournament report. I don't quite remember matches but I'll do sideboarding techniques, etc.

Awesome!

Major congrats on your great win! I like your list's configuration a lot.

[pavlaugh]

I'll write up something of a tournament report. I don't quite remember matches but I'll do sideboarding techniques, etc.
Looking forward to it!

[defector]

Well done!! Looking forward to the report:)):)

[coma]

Congrats to your result.
I'm so curious to read your report and side in/out .

Great:laugh:

[yankeedave]

Hey Ya'll

I have had a lot of experience with this deck in the last 8 months or so, but I always struggle with what to SB out when I am playing. The primer at the beginning it totally out of date, so does someone with a good ability to write primers fancy maybe doing an update? I am shockingly bad at that kind of thing, but one of you guys must be good! Otherwise, what do people side in/out for matchups?

Thanks

Dave

[elgoff]

Way to go Zack Mullin (kaosj)!!

I've been playing variant of the deck for almost a year by now.

I have a question for you Zack, why did you choose to go with SNEAK ATTACK/SnT over Omniscience/SnT ?
(anybody with lot of experience with the deck could provide an answer here...)

Also curious to read your report and side in/out .

props again!!

[kaosjr]

I'll be writing my "tournament report" tonight so be sure to check it out tomorrow. There's a possibility I'll write a new primer as well.

[Koby]

Way to go Zack Mullin (kaosj)!!

I've been playing variant of the deck for almost a year by now.

I have a question for you Zack, why did you choose to go with SNEAK ATTACK/SnT over Omniscience/SnT ?
(anybody with lot of experience with the deck could provide an answer here...)

Also curious to read your report and side in/out .

props again!!

The former is a 2-card combo deck, the latter is a 3-card combo deck.
The latter is objectively more powerful due to flexibility, but also vulnerable to Storm hate if the BWish method is used.

Sneak can be cast, Omni cannot.

[kaosjr]

I chose sneak attack over the omniscience version for several reasons. I played the omniscience version for a few months but it is forced to play less counterspells which opens itself up to hymn to tourach, liliana, etc which are obvious problems for the deck. While slightly more consistent, my version is more threat heavy and is a 2 card combo instead of three (show and tell, omniscience, win con). Sneak attack is also much better than show and tell in many matchups. If they put a knight of the reliquary in play, their own eldrazi, primeval Titan (that happened in top 8 of Edison), humility, etc. it is quite bad for us. Sneak attack also can't be REB'd which is pretty relevant. Sneak attack also plays around a lot of hate cards including the most popular in Karakas since you just put the creature back into play. The main reason for no omniscience is, like previously stated, that you're making yourself more consistent because you're only looking for 2 cards instead of three, and you are much more threat heavy against counterspell decks.

[kaosjr]

Also surgical extraction on show and tell if you're playing the omniscience version just blows you out.

[LockedDown]

Grats on your finish man, I just had a few questions. Me, you, and Josh had an almost identical main deck, I was the one who ended 14th with Sneak and Show, but, you did not play the 3rd misdirection was there a particular reason for this? You were also playing stifle, how good was that card for you throughout the day? And finally did you ever think about Blood Moon as a sideboard option?

[elgoff]

I'll be waiting for your report, thanks for the notes. :)

By the way OmniTell version doesn't die to Extraction, you still have 4 Burning Wish and a SnT on the board.

But I'm taking consideration for going back to Sneak and Show...that's why I'll be waiting for your report before doing so. Reading + testing before Pro Tour Montreal (Team Trio side event_) seems logic!!!

[kaosjr]

Grats on your finish man, I just had a few questions. Me, you, and Josh had an almost identical main deck, I was the one who ended 14th with Sneak and Show, but, you did not play the 3rd misdirection was there a particular reason for this? You were also playing stifle, how good was that card for you throughout the day? And finally did you ever think about Blood Moon as a sideboard option?

Stifle was very very good. In retrospect a 3rd misdirection is probably worth playing with all the discard in the current meta. Blood moon in the board? I never really thought about that. I suppose since everyone is being super greedy with their mana bases it would probably be very good. I'll have to test it out. Stifle basically shuts down all the hate that people are siding against us including liliana edict, jace bounce, karakas, oblivion ring/angel of despair, and many others.

[mistercakes]

congrats on your win. i'm the doomsday guy from your round 4. i have to ask, why did you choose not to play show and tell grisel on turn 2 with force backup vs doomsday? it really threw me off when i cast cabal therapy, but it seems like you just gave me a free turn just for the sake of it.

[kaosjr]

congrats on your win. i'm the doomsday guy from your round 4. i have to ask, why did you choose not to play show and tell grisel on turn 2 with force backup vs doomsday? it really threw me off when i cast cabal therapy, but it seems like you just gave me a free turn just for the sake of it.

I think i had a spell pierce as well and was waiting to make another land drop to play around silence + doomsday

[kaosjr]

Just finished my tournament report. Please comment and/or ask any questions you may have. I'm thinking about writing a new primer for the deck... thoughts?

Tournament Report: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25529-**1st!**-SCG-Legacy-Open-Edison-NJ-with-Sneak-and-Show&p=704140#post704140

[defector]

Well done!! Great report, i dislike the leyline plan as well. I am not sold in stifle but ill test it. Anyway good job:)

[MeddlingMageGR]

Stifle was very very good.Stifle basically shuts down all the hate that people are siding against us including liliana edict, jace bounce, karakas, oblivion ring/angel of despair, and many others.

To all these reasons, add 1 more : Stifle the delayed triggered ability of Sneak Attack, so the creature does not leave the board. I dont know... Stifle is too good for our deck. But there is no room in maindeck.

[JPA]

Just finished my tournament report. Please comment and/or ask any questions you may have. I'm thinking about writing a new primer for the deck... thoughts?

Tournament Report: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25529-**1st!**-SCG-Legacy-Open-Edison-NJ-with-Sneak-and-Show&p=704140#post704140

Thanks for the report.

A new primer would be great, the current one is almost a year old and the metagame has changed quite a bit.

[Bobmans]

I've seen some hybrid versions of Sneak Attack and Omniscience hitting top 8 positions recently. It's mostly run with the Burning Wish plan. Seems to me that it's more consistant than the Omniscience plan alone, but less consistant then the Sneak Attack plan.

What are you're thoughts? Good, bad or just cute?
A common setup is:

4 Griselbrand
3-4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Show and Tell
3 Sneak Attack
3 Omniscience
4 Burning Wish
3-4 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
8-5 Flex Slots
8 Cantrips
17-20 Lands

[countorlandea]

I've seen some hybrid versions of Sneak Attack and Omniscience hitting top 8 positions recently. It's mostly run with the Burning Wish plan. Seems to me that it's more consistant than the Omniscience plan alone, but less consistant then the Sneak Attack plan.

What are you're thoughts? Good, bad or just cute?
A common setup is:

4 Griselbrand
3-4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Show and Tell
3 Sneak Attack
3 Omniscience
4 Burning Wish
3-4 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
8-5 Flex Slots
8 Cantrips
17-20 Lands


eh, even though it top 8'd Im not buying it.

It seems like dead hands with this deck would be worse than either of the other decks

imagine a hand with like 2 grisels, an omniscience and a sneak attack or something of that sort.

[TerribleTim68]

So I sleeved this up for last night's local Legacy tourney.

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
2x Intuition
4x Force of Will
2x Misdirection
2x Daze
1x Flusterstorm
2x Spell Pierce
4x Show and Tell
4x Sneak Attack
4x Lotus Petal
4x Griselbrand
4x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
3x Volcanic Island
3x Island
1x Mountain
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta
2x Bloodstained Mire

SB
2x Blood Moon
3x Pyroclasm
2x Flusterstorm
2x Tormod's Crypt
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Through the Breach
2x Something I can't recall right now. :eyebrow:

The report:

Round 1 vs BJ playing W/B thing -
BJ is notorious for brewing his own stuff. Once in a while he plays something legit like Berserk-Infect, so you have to keep an eye on him. This deck was a strange brew.
Game 1 - He's on the play, as is usual for me. He spends the first couple turns playing some small white dudes, like Grand Abolisher and High Priest of Penance. I sculpt my hand. I tried to Show and Tell into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn but it was met with his own and they Legend-Rule each other. Eventually I assemble everything and run out a Sneak Attack into Griselbrand into draw-7 into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and swing out.
Game 2 - I side out the Show and Tells, bringing in the Through the Breach & Pyroclasms to try and control the board until I can just go straight Sneak Attack. The deck decided to hate me as I mull to 5 and never really get anything of worth while he keeps dropping dudes, swinging out and all that stuff.
Game 3 - I stick with my plan on the board and spend some time sculpting while he drops dudes, pretty much the same stuff from game 1. At one point I see an Isochron Scepter hit the table with an imprinted Orim's Chant. I decided it was time and went off with that thing this deck does; Sneak Attack into Griselbrand into draw-7 into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and BJ scoops 'em up.
2-1 (1-0)

Round 2 vs Joe playing Mono-Red Burn -
Game 1 - I got paired down here. With Joe on the play, of course, he proceeds to start burninating me as I scuplt for a bit. I never see him play anything aside from burn spells, no creatures at all. So turn 4 I go Show and Tell (to which he puts nothing into play) into Sneak Attack into Griselbrand into draw-7 into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and swing out. On to the next one.
Game 2 - I think I boarded out the Intuitions for the Flusterstorms just to give me a better chance of controlling any fast burn that may matter mid-game. Sometimes these things become an issue when you want to draw-7. He leads off with his same plays from last game while I scuplt a bit and eventually do the same Show and Tell into Sneak Attack into Griselbrand into draw-7 into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and this one is over.
2-0 (2-0)

Round 3 vs Dave playing Manaless Dredge -
I've played this deck a bit and feel I have a good understanding of it. I also tried to come prepaired for it since Dredge can be a thing in my meta. I also had watched Dave play some of the first 2 rounds so I kind of knew where he was hitting on all cylinders and where he was missing a bit.
Game 1 - Dave puts me on the play, of course. So I proceed to my "sculpt" phase while he does the DDD thing. I get lucky while he dredges some poo, not hitting anything of note and I do that Sneak Attack into Griselbrand into draw-7 into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn thing. On to game 2.
Game 2 - I board out the Show and Tells since I know he has some decent targets. I also drop the Intuitions and a couple counters since they aren't great in this matchup outside of countering the Dread Returns. I brought in a ton here; the Surgical Extractions, the Tormod's Crypts and the Pyroclasms in an effort to control a Zombie horde if it got out of hand. He puts me on the play again, of course. I mull to a 6 of double Surgical Extraction and some lands that may work if I can draw some business (two blue fetches and a Tomb) and choose to keep. He reveals double Chancellor of the Annex. So I know I'm spending a bit of time waiting. I go land-go. He draws, pitches Phantasmagorian and passes. I go land-go again and he responds with a Phantasmagorian activation. I let it go hoping to get something bigger but crack my fetches for actual lands. He pitches another Phantasmagorian, a Golgari Thug and an Ichorid. I proceed to extract that Ichorid (paying 2 for the Chancellors) and then try to get the Phantasmagorian, to which he responds by pitching 3 cards that aren't Phantasmagorian to return it to his hand. At this point I'm actually in good shape as he has a lone Thug as his only dredger in his yard and his hand is small, consisting of two Phantasmagorians and none in the yard to pitch to. I proceed to scuplt a bit. He evenutally dredges into a single Narcomoeba and Cabal Therapys me blind, naming Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I'm holding one and it goes to the yard, then shuffles the yard back in, with those two Extractions. :cool: Somehow the game went a bit long, Dave dredges the vast majority of his deck, never hitting anything of substance and I topdeck a Tormod's Crypt to deal the biggest blow I can. This one is all over at this point. He never hit but a single Narcomoeba all game, I extracted his Ichorids early which kept him off recurring a threat and building zombies and he said later that he sided out his Nether Shadows. I think that combination was enough to doom him.
2-0 (3-0)

Round 4 vs Chris playing Maverick -
I've never played Chris, just met him at this tournament and we choose to ID.
We played for fun and he beat me in 3 as I couldn't get much going the two he won. One game was facing Gaddock Teeg, the other facing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I couldn't work around either at the time.
ID (3-0-1) Finished tied for 1st.

Final Thoughts -
The deck did well. I could have played much better, but it was actually my first tournament with this deck so I'll take it. I think I seriously need some bounce in the board to deal with Thalia, Gaddock and the occasional Karakas. Either that or Stifle, I don't know. But bounce seems good.

[MeddlingMageGR]

You can always use 2 Karakas in side board. I have them for Maverick and Reanimator. Well done.

[TerribleTim68]

You can always use 2 Karakas in side board. I have them for Maverick and Reanimator. Well done.

True, but I don't own any and getting even one is a bit out of my reach. So I mostly play around that method. I think my answer might be swapping out those two sideboard cards that I can't recall because I never used them anyways to a couple Echoing Truths or something. Although that doesn't help against Karakas where Stifle would. I don't know.

Thanks for the props. :cool:

[coma]

I'm testing this side and I think it's very good. I search complementary effects of cards .

Side
4 grid
3 cage
2 stifle
1 needle
1 piroclasm
1 karakas
1 reb
1 sahttering spree
1 wipe away

Bye:laugh:

[picklock]

So I'm headed to SCGV this weekend and I'm running this maindeck:

4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Eons Torn
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Intuition
3 Spell Pierce
1 Daze
3 Misdirection
4 Lotus Petal
2 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain

I have yet to get the sideboard down yet. I was thinking a combination of the following based on answering cards that hose the deck:

Karakas (Karakas, Gaddock Teed, Thalia, reanimator... maybe even mirror?)
Stifle (hits the hate that comes in off of your own Show and Tell like O-ring and Angel of Despair)
Through the Breach (mirror and random places you can't Show and Tell like Cloudpost)
Surgical Extraction (need a way to interact with dredge and reanimator is faster than us so this helps there)
Defense Grid (tempo decks can be a huge pain without... but they haven't seen much play)

My thought process was that I have tons of counterspells to fight normal combo hate so I'd use my sideboard to fight the hate that counterspells can't? You can't counter a Karakas or anything brought in off your own Show and Tell... Is this right where I want to be or am I missing the mark?

[CranialX]

Has anyone tried splashing black for thoughtseize or inquisition of kozilek?
It gets to see the opponents hand and discard threats.

[pavlaugh]

The only thing missing from the SB list above that most people seem to run is one or more bounce spells (Echoing Truth / Wipe Away).

Bounce makes you not auto-lose to certain cards (Ensnaring Bridge / Humility); slightly better than Stifle against some cards because you can use it at any time (Oblivion Ring / Detention Sphere); slightly worse than Stifle against others because it costs more mana (Gilded Drake, Knight of the Reliquary); worse than Stifle but not useless against others (Jace, Liliana); useless or terrible against others (Venser, Terminus, Angel of Despair, Karakas, etc.); but strictly better against other random troublesome things (Pithing Needle, Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Stinkweed Imp, Baleful Strix, Meddling Mage, etc.).

Stifle is more proactive against other combo (Storm, Belcher, etc.), but bounce can be used in a pinch to buy you a turn against aggro and tempo decks and Dredge (or do the same thing as Stifle against Empty the Warrens, and sometimes Belcher if they need to use mana over two turns). Stifle can counter the delayed trigger from Sneak Attack (keeping your creature in play), but bounce can be used on Griselbrand to serve a similar purpose.

In short, I think bounce and Stifle can serve a similar purpose for countering opposing threats from Show and Tell, but the benefits of bounce slightly outweigh Stifle. Both could be useful, and I think some combination of bounce and Stifle could be the way to go if you can fit both in. The problem with that plan is it probably means cutting other good multi-purpose cards (that you don't have listed anyway) such as Hydroblast and Pyroblast, or the 4th Spell Pierce.

[pavlaugh]

Has anyone tried splashing black for thoughtseize or inquisition of kozilek?
It gets to see the opponents hand and discard threats.

I haven't tried it. Presumably you'd be cutting counters (Spell Pierce / Daze / Misdirection). But it seems like at that point you might as well just play Reanimator with Show & Tell main.

[CranialX]

Here is a list that might work.

4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Eons Torn
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
1 Intuition
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Misdirection
2 Repeal
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstaine Mire
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Mountain


Discard cards can help and protect, whatever cards that you are going to play via show and tell.
For example: oblivion ring, gilded drake.

I also like the idea that you get to see the opponent's hand. Does giving you a tactical advantage.

[pavlaugh]

Certainly discard would be useful in this deck -- like it is in any combo deck -- as would the ability to see your opponent's hand.

But does discard's improved utility vis-a-vis other blue alternatives (e.g., Stifle, Echoing Truth, Gitaxian Probe) outweigh (1) the weaker manabase overall and the greater susceptibility to attacks on your lands by Wasteland / Stifle; (2) the decreased acceleration from fewer SOL lands; and (3) the lower consistency of your FOWs/Misdirections being able to pitch a blue card?

That is the question. You might test it, but I suspect the answer is "no."

(EDIT: And regardless, I'd play Duress over Inquisition or just up the Thoughtseize count. I think Force of Will & Jace are more probable foes than Knight of the Reliquary and other <4cc creatures).

[lsho]

How do you think our mostly beloved Heffalumps (read: Terrastodon) would do in the board? He takes care of everything we fear like Ensnaring Bridge, Ring/Sphere, Humility, ...

I read a TR somewhere where a player used him successfully in the board. Could give us another angle.

So far, I play with 1 SDT maindecked, as well as

1 Terrastodon (vs all the annoying things)
2 Karakas (karakas/teeg/thalia/wasteland decks)
2 Surgical Extraction (dredge/reanimator/storm/mirror)
2 Pyroblast (blue decks)
1 Echoing Truth/Wipe Away (anthing)
2 Flusterstorm (counter decks)
2 Through the Breach (mirror, tin fins, belcher, aluren and any deck where i want to board-out s&t)
2 Blood Moon (anything where it can win on its own) // flex slot: 2 arcane laboratory (storm)
1 Pyroclasm (aggro)

[Will_L]

New Show pilot here.

Have my MD pretty much locked up, but having no experience with the deck I do have a question about the counterspell suite. I have no idea how many Dazes to play. I would just test myself to find out, but it isn't always easy to get my group together. I've seen many lists with 1-2 Dazes, but someone I play with has been playing this deck since ROE and has been a steadfast advocate of x4 Daze... Can anyone provide some insight into what they think the optimal amount of Dazes is with a counterspell base like this?

x2 Misdirection
x2 Flusterstorm
x4 Force of Will

Finally, I have a big question regarding the SB. In an unknown meta, is it better to go on the Leyline plan or should I be playing lots of bounce and MU specific cards?

Thank you in advance everyone.

[koba]

New Show pilot here.

Have my MD pretty much locked up, but having no experience with the deck I do have a question about the counterspell suite. I have no idea how many Dazes to play. I would just test myself to find out, but it isn't always easy to get my group together. I've seen many lists with 1-2 Dazes, but someone I play with has been playing this deck since ROE and has been a steadfast advocate of x4 Daze... Can anyone provide some insight into what they think the optimal amount of Dazes is with a counterspell base like this?

x2 Misdirection
x2 Flusterstorm
x4 Force of Will

Finally, I have a big question regarding the SB. In an unknown meta, is it better to go on the Leyline plan or should I be playing lots of bounce and MU specific cards?

Thank you in advance everyone.

4 daze is definitely excessive as you rarely want to see two in your opening hand. This deck needs its mana after all. Two is fine, but I would consider playing none at all and adding a flusterstorm and maybe a misdirection.

Leyline IS a very matchup specific card. It is fine and helps I would play some graveyard hate in an unknown meta, although I prefer cage. You also do not want more than 2 or 3 bounce spells. Apart from that, I like playing mu-specific cards like firespout/pyroclasm, through the breach, pyroblast, divert. You play a proactive deck that does not want to sideboard a lot after all. Success.

[useL]

Time for a proper sideboard card discussion. We only have 15 slots and I find it hard to choose. I play 4 fow, 2 misdirect, 3 pierce and 2 fluster main.

What should I place in a sideboard against the popular meta? (esper, jund, rug, elves, goblins, maverick and storm/combo)

Defense Grid
REB/Pyroblast
Overmaster
Leyline of Sanctity
GY-hate (reliq of progenitus-broader Card advantage vs grafdiggers cage-faster and harsher against dredge/storm)
Pyroclasm
Bounce (repeal, wipe away, echoing truth)

Please discuss, right now I lean on leyline, pyroclasm, 2 rebs and defense grids plus 2 wipe away.

[Lans89]

Time for a proper sideboard card discussion. We only have 15 slots and I find it hard to choose. I play 4 fow, 2 misdirect, 3 pierce and 2 fluster main.

What should I place in a sideboard against the popular meta? (esper, jund, rug, elves, goblins, maverick and storm/combo)

Defense Grid
REB/Pyroblast
Overmaster
Leyline of Sanctity
GY-hate (reliq of progenitus-broader Card advantage vs grafdiggers cage-faster and harsher against dredge/storm)
Pyroclasm
Bounce (repeal, wipe away, echoing truth)

Please discuss, right now I lean on leyline, pyroclasm, 2 rebs and defense grids plus 2 wipe away.

- 2/3 Reb/Pyro is always a must.
- 2 Echoing Truth as an all-round answer to different hate is something I Always include. They even work vs zombies and goblin tokens!
- I use Grafdigger's Cage because it also works against Elves. And rly.. In combination with your counter and clock, dredge won't win trough it.
- I would use defense grid if RUG becomes more populair again (and it will, while combo is rising).
- I currenly use 4x Leyline of Sanctity, there is too much discard around since Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay made Jund, BUG and even The Rock more populair.
- 2 Pyroclasm is often nice when Maverick is populair. I would use Firespout if you want more certainty vs Merfolk/Goblins/WheenyWhatever.
- I don't use Blood Moon nowadays. Ít's not rly necassery and the Leylines take too much space!
- Use 2 Through the Breach if Show and Tell decks are too popular

[Koby]

I have been using the following:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
3 Grafdigger's cage
2 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away
1 Through the Breach

Playing more TtB would be nice, but I like being able to destroy Elf decks as they pose the largest threat. There are also enough cards to board out (Misdirection & Spell Pierce) so having upto 5 cards to board in is nice.

[teonsw]

This might be a stupid question, but why do most Sneak attack decks run 2 city of traitors and 3 ancient tombs? Instead of 4 tombs and one city?

[Esper3k]

This might be a stupid question, but why do most Sneak attack decks run 2 city of traitors and 3 ancient tombs? Instead of 4 tombs and one city?

Some care more about the life loss.

I personally like the 4 Tomb / 1 City approach since I absolutely despise those opening with City of Traitors.

[pavlaugh]

I could see a 4-1 build preferable for your meta especially if you're playing a few sensei's divining top; at least then your 1-sol-land hand + SDT would give you a 58%/69% chance of getting a blue land (assuming 13 blue lands) for turn 2, respectively on the play or draw (if I'm reading my calculator correctly). In that situation, it's almost always better for your 1-sol-land to be city.

I've liked the 3-2 build personally. IMO, having 1 city is almost always preferable to 1 tomb if you have another island/fetch in your opening hand due to the life loss from tomb. The life can add up quickly against turn one delver / goblin guide. I would almost certainly mulligan a 1-sol-land hand (regardless of which sol land) unless I have the unlikely nut draw (S&T, fatty, petal, force, blue card, sol land). On the other hand, if you're playing top, then keeping a 1-sol-land hand can be a decent option, and that option is significantly better (and perhaps only acceptable) if the sol land is ancient tomb.

[countorlandea]

I have been using the following:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
3 Grafdigger's cage
2 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away
1 Through the Breach

Playing more TtB would be nice, but I like being able to destroy Elf decks as they pose the largest threat. There are also enough cards to board out (Misdirection & Spell Pierce) so having upto 5 cards to board in is nice.

do you have problems with karakas? Just curious because I'm using stifles for a variety of things and I noticed you don't like them.

[TerribleTim68]

Let's see here, played Sneak/Show at my local tourney last night. Well, sort of, long story, so I'll try to sum it up. :tongue:

My LGS was holding it's weekly Sunday night Legacy event, only this time the prizes were a Tundra, Bayou & a Force of Will for top 3. Possible other prizes dependant on number of players. With basically no advertising (I didn't even know about this until two hours before the start time & I'm a some what regular) I was not surprised when only 8 players showed up. So prizes for just top 3, here we go.

My List -
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
2 Stifle
1 Misdirection
4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
2 Intuition
4 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Moutain
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta

SB
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Pyroclasm
2 Echoing Truth
2 Misdirection
3 Flusterstorm

Ok, now to the report, or what there is of it. :rolleyes: Let me start by saying that I was told this would be a 4 round tournament. Ok, cool, here we go.

Round 1 vs "Dude I Don't Know & Can't Remember His Name" playing Junk (I think, it was W/U/B) -
Game 1:
As my usual, I lose the die roll and he's on the play. He goes turn 1 Inquisition Of Kosilek and strips my hand a bit. I'm ok with that, until he follows it up with more discard, lays a Stoneforge Mystic into a Batterskull and there really isn't much I can do in this one.
Game 2:
I get a huge start and go turn two Sneak Attack without mana to use it, but am holding the nuts for next turn. This one was quick and easy, just the way I like em. I will note, I did get to sneak in Griselbrand, then Stifle the delayed trigger, which in my opinion is pretty damn awesome! Was it pivotal? Probably not. But it was bad ass!
Game 3:
He comes out with discard, then follows up with dual Tidehollow Scullers and by this time my hand is shredded. He sails to victory.
0-1 (1-2 games)

Round 2 vs Dave playing Manaless Dredge -
Game 1:
I actually won the die roll! Having seen Dave playing Manaless in previous weeks, I put him on the play. He actually mulligans, making me think I've chosen wrong. He then keeps his 6, reveals Chancellor of the Annex and the starts his turn. Well, he passes his turn. I get to buy a littel time knowing that he Time Walked me twice basically with the mulligan. So I can derp a bit, pay two for my Brainstorm and off we go. I had the nuts and went off turn 3.
Game 2:
He puts me on the play, opens with Leyline of Sanctity, making my double Tormod's Crypt hand look less good, but what ever. I knew I sided in Echoing Truth so I'll find it eventually. I proceed to dig for my bounce, but in the mean time I put together a very nice Sneak Attack into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, which forced him to sac that Leyline. At the best time, I popped Crypt #1. He never recovered before I found another critter to haste at him.
1-1 (2-0 games, 3-2 overall)

At this point everything changed. There were 3 guys still undefeated. They all got together and chose to ID and talked the tournament coordinator into stopping the tournament there, locking them in the top 3. If the tournament had gome the 4 rounds as advertised I was still in contention for 3rd, maybe even 2nd. Now I was locked out after only 2 rounds. So I was now pissed and didn't really care. I told my round 3 opponent (Feline playing Geddon-Stax) I was going home. Feline talked me into playing, but I really didn't give a shit at this point and kept very questionable hands, didn't bother sideboarding at all and did things like Intuition at one point for 3 Lotus Pedals just because I could. I mean, I did need the mana to set up the Sneak Attack and use it all on the same turn. Ultimately I just didn't care. This round was really a joke and we were in essence playing for last. I went home rather angry, feeling cheated and will be taking some time off from that store for a bit. Oh, and I guess I should apologize to Feline for not really playing. You're a good player and deserve a real game and I didn't give you one. I was mad and just goofed off the whole match. Sorry.

A few observations on the list. I loved the MD Stifle. Originally my plan had been to use it for Karakas because Maverik is a thing. But it also had corner uses elsewhere too, like keeping my critters around. Yay Stifle! At times Misdirection seemed pointless. You can always Misdirection a Cabal Therapy back to it's caster like I did to the Dredge player. But to what point? In the end you lose two cards, as did they. So did you really accomplish anything outside of keeping your hand a secret or maybe, possibly protecting the card they name, if you had it? I don't know, it didn't seem that great. Well, in the case fo the Therapy back to the Dredge player it was great because it psudo-Time Walked me since it messed up his hand count. So I guess it may have actually been a s really solid play. Occasionally I do that without knowing it. :cool:

[countorlandea]

Nice mini-report, sorry to hear that they didn't fully play out the tournament considering there was only 8 people.


Misdirection can do some sweet random things. (ive misdirected ancestral visions, sinkholes,vindicates on my sneak attack, burn spells, and obviously as a counter to other counters)

I love it in our archetype.

[feline]

You're fine Tim, once it's over it's over and I can understand that, also seeing you push Show and Tell, I would love to see you rock that at the SCG open in the area next month, that is a deck on the up right now and it's doing good, though you probably know that since you follow the metagame enough. ^.^

[Patrunkenphat7]

Question:
Are you all boarding in Leyline of Sanctity against BUG and Esper decks that run both countermagic and discard? If so, what are you taking out? I am just wondering if the Leylines are brought in against strictly non-blue discard decks or if you always bring them in when you see Thoughtseize game 1 regardless of whether or not the opponent also plays countermagic.

[TerribleTim68]

I don't board Leyline. I don't like how it forces you to mull to it. I hadn't run into enough non-blue discard decks to make it worth while. I had hoped Misdirection could fill in there, not sure it does though.

[defector]

Hello All,

Here is the tourney report for SCG Indianapolis. I made Top 16. The 16 can be found here:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?t%5BT2%5D=3&event_ID=&feedin=&start_date=2013-03-10&end_date=2013-03-10&city=Indianapolis&state=&country=&start=1&finish=16&exp=&p_first=&p_last=&simple_card_name%5B1%5D=&simple_card_name%5B2%5D=&simple_card_name%5B3%5D=&simple_card_name%5B4%

And the Deck List can be found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=53940

The deck is so much fun! It ran well for me most of the day. Here are the rounds in brief, it was a long day so apologies if I mess up any names. I'l try to include sb commentary at the end as well. The deck doesn't sideboard that gracefully.

First off a shout out to another Nelson, Brad Nelson. Brad and I see each other at the occasional player meeting, we sit down, he suggests we battle while everyone is getting organized and of course I comply. We're both on Sneak Show! I get destroyed after forcing a Sneak Attack into play with nothing to sneak, but I feel good, Brad is a much better player than I am and if he chose to play Sneak-Show today and I chose to play Sneak-Show than I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY ANTICIPATED THE META!!!!

Kind of.

Round 1: My friend and playtest partner Craig. Sucks to drive six hours and then play someone you know, but oh well. Craig is one Nic Fit and I am on Sneak Show and we both know it.
2-0 without any theatrics or surprises. I felt bad for Craig, he told me going on that all he was worried about was Show and Tell decks and I think he faced four in six rounds. Show and tell was everywhere at this event and even with RUG increasing in frequency it's still not the right time to play Nic Fit.

Round 2: I face Aaron on stoneblade, I don't remember a lot here, both games were over pretty quickly. He told me that he was on a more aggressive, less control driven design of the deck, and unfortunately he drew a combo deck.

Round 3: I think his name was Ben on RUG. I had pretty strong draws in both games and I think he got stuck with aggro draws instead of control draws. G1 I had no counter back up with a SnT in hand and one Pondered on the top of my library and just cast it and he looked at his hand for a minute and then said, yes. Why bait when you can just win. Game 2 involved a counter war that I cam out on top of. I think it was Emrakul in both times.

Round 4: This was a crazy round. I played a nice guy named Geo on Manaless dredge. Game 1 I do an early SnT and put down Emrakul and he puts down Griselbrand. I totally could have conceded right there, but passed the turn. I knew we couldn't go to time and I was sickly fascinated with how bad this was going to be. My fascination only increased as he Phantasmagorianed two trolls into the yard after dredging six to start the turn. I believe he hit Grisel for the max 6,6,6,6,5,5,5. Then he raped my hand and DR on Flayer, do 4 to you, DR on Troll, do 46 to you. That was higher than my life total. Game 2 in come the 4 cages and I hit one early and ground out a win on Sneak Attack. G3 was ridiculous. I have a turn 1 cage and he dredges and misses and I Ponder/Brainstorm shuffle pass, we completely stall out and he begins Dryad Arbor BEATDOWN! I was killed by a thragtusk token at GP Denver, and I was having flashbacks, like are you fucking KIDDING ME! He beats me to 4 life after a second Arbor comes online and then I ponder into a Sneak Attack, I've shuffled all my extra lands away, so I have to hit Tomb to cast it(2 life) and then crack a fetch(1 life) to go along with a Petal to sneak in Grisly+Emraku for the win Great round, nice guy, total nail biter.

Round 5: I find myself in the number 1 chair of an SCG major. I have never had that happen before, I think 11th was the highest until today. I sit across from a guy named Kurtis(?) on Pox. Very nice guy who immediately tells me I better not be on Sneak Show, I smile and say of course not, who would play that pile? I'm quickly proved a liar after I SnT in Griselbrand. Then we're on to g2, while we're talking about g2 I tell him that I love Pox, but don't play it because Lilli's ultimate is not a legit win con, he tells me, sure, but it's still a pretty good ultimate. G2 he rapes my hand, rapes it some more, throws down Lilli and +1's her for several turns then ultimates Lilli and I concede. I'm sorry Lilli, your ultimate is fine by me. G3 I am on the play and he mulls to five digging for a good disruption hand, with t1 Spell pierce online I'm able to control through until I can combo off.

Round 6: Feature match against Dan Neeley. I'm nervous as I've never had a feature match before. I figure he is on 12 Post when I see the Vesuva, when he slams down a maindeck Pithing Needle on sneak attack, I am now aware that he has metagamed this mu better than I have. I SnT in Griselbrand and he puts in Primeval Titan grabbing two lands one of which starts with K. I'm not nervous anymore, I am just fucked. I make him kill me as I want to see some cards and I am not worried about time. G2: I sideboard terrible bringing in Pyroblast because I think he has FOW or something for me. I get to see two copies of it too as he Needles Sneak Attack and slams Kozilek down on me. He made one risky play G2 by Crop Rotating his second land drop and all I had was a Pyroblast for it, that was not the right card for that particular play. Dan is a great player and he top 8's the event, CONGRATS DAN N! He was very well prepared for the event and it showed.

Round 7: Feature and Camera match. This was against Eric Rill on RUG. I'd never been on camera before which was cool, but also a little nerve wracking. I play around stifle for a few turns and try to go off with FOW back up and run into double daze, ACK! He has a flipped delver and good pressure and I can't reassemble in time. Then for some reaosn I think that that was G2 and that it's al over, so I to shake his hand. He looks at me like I am crazy, but extends his hand right when I realize we have a game yest to play and I kind of pul my hand back. MOST AWKWARD HANDSHAKE EVAR!!! And on camera, which I am totally blaming for that. G2 is rinse repeat of game one except that he starts with goose, but has one more counter for me to go through. Ces la vie. After my demise we chat a little bt and he shows me teh Cooperationn tek in his RUG board, to funny:) very nice guy who top 8ed the event taking second, CONGRATS ERIC R!

Round 8: Sam on BUG/Delver TA.. We've played once before several months ago when Maverick was still a deck. He was on TA then and I was on Mav. This was a pretty frustrating round for Sam, as I got the opposite luck of the previous round. I think my G1 7 was: Emrakul, SnT, Island, Fow, MisD, Fow, Ponder on the draw and I draw a Sol land. G2 wasn't as bad, but it went about the same way. Nice guy and a familiar face, we wished each other luck for the last round. It's a good deck for TA to play against, but I had stone cold nut draws in both games.

Round 9: Andrew on Stoneblade. G1: I had strong hands and he couldn't find enough counter magic in time. G2 He did and he beat me to death with a batterskull. G3 I was on the play with a decent hand for control, but no pieces and it just developed really well. He had two IOK that game and both bricked against Sneak Attack/Fow hands. And that was that.

I ended 7-2 and was the highest 21 pointer in 11th, both guys at 8/9 had 22 as well as the sixth-eighth seeds. So no chance on a top eight, but a very satisfying finish over all. Congrats to Star City for running a great event and my hats off to each of my opponents, I had 9 rounds of class act guys and you don't always get that.

The general sideboard plans that I used for the day were as follows: Vs RUG/BUG/Stoneblade -2 PreOrdain, -1 Emrakul, -1 Grisel, -1 Spell Pierce, -1 Petal +3 Pyro, +3 Fluster. I cut 2 PreOrdain and 2 Petal for 4 Cage for Dredge. For Pox I think I just cut 2 Preordain for 2 Fluster for HD. I didn't sideboard a card in the Nic Fit series. For the 12 Post MU I completely fucked the sideboard up.

Thoughts for the next event: I am going to swap two Preordain for 2 Intuition and test it. I wanted a tutor a few times and sometimes got flooded out with cantrips. I've gone back and forth on this before and I don't have an answer that satisfies me. With RUG back and Stifle real again, I love the 20 land 4 petal mana base. I think you can side out one basic island vs miracles in this config as an extra bonus. For the board I am cutting Pyro as the blue count is just too goddamn delicate to make it really any good IMHO. I want Needle or something in there that interacts with Karakas, but not just Karakas.

So that's that, thanks for reading and Go Sneak Show!
Defector
Tom Nelson

[lsho]

Just a quickie that might have been answered already but I seem to be inable to handle Humility if it comes down. Is there any way I can handle it profitably? It is just super awkward if they have it in hand or even on board.

How do you handle it?

Cheers

[defector]

You need some kind of bounce, I run 2 wipe away and one e truth in the board. Its not a common card even people that run it usually only run one copy, so you can just try to duck it, but bounce is our only real heads on answer. Hope that helps.

[pavlaugh]

Congrats on the great finish! Your sideboard is different from the one you were testing a month ago (boseiju x3 fluster x3 blood moon x3 grafdiggers x3 e truth x3). It looks like Pyroblast essentially replaced your Boseijus. What made you go with the former over the latter, and do you think you'll try Boseiju again?

I understand cutting Blood Moon. It seems like that's only an "I win" card when you're also playing Terminus / Supreme Verdict.

Do you like the 4x Grafdiggers? I'm considering a mix of cages and relics/crypts and can't decide.

Thanks for the report!

[TerribleTim68]

Congrats on your finish. My list is very close to yours. I do run the 2 Intuition instead of your 2 Ponder and I think they work good. When you want them, you realyl want them, and they work. Plus, I often have no trouble siding them out, which makes room for stuff to come in very easily. For what it's worth, to help on your decision. :wink:

[defector]

Thanks for the congrats:) I think the Intuition is legit, so far in testing I am happy with it and I want to try out the broken side of the broken/consistent argument for a little while.
@Pavlaugh: As for the sideboard decisions this was my logic on Boseiju. Not being able to make the Sneak Attack uncounterable combined with the rebirth of RUG made me cut it. If something were to change that made the best Show and Tell an Omni version where the combo is all in on resolving Show and Tell then I think Boseiju becomes much more viable. Ironically, my first loss on the day was to 12 Post and even though I believe Blood Moon isn't correct right now, I really I wish I had it:) Ces la vie. On Grafdiggers I love, love love it! It stops dredge, impedes elves, impedes storm/PIF and is very strong vs Tin Fins/Reani. It's got amazing versatility in the meta right now and is more of an anti combo card than just straight GY hate. I'm all in on 4.

cheers defector

[Sunday Funday]

Went to a 72 man (7 rounds) tourney this past weekend and finished top 4. I had an undefeated run on my way to top 8 (5-0-2) and 10-0 in games. Here’s my list:

4 emrakul
4 griselbrand
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 force of will
4 show and tell
4 sneak attack
4 lotus petal
3 spell pierce
2 misdirection
2 intuition
1 flusterstorm
1 preordain
4 scalding tarn
4 misty rainforest
3 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors
2 island
1 mountain
3 volcanic island

4 leyline of sanctity
3 defense grid
1 red elemental blast
1 pyroblast
2 wipe away
2 pyroclasm
2 through the breach

I’ve been running this maindeck for the past 3 tournaments and felt very comfortable with it. The deck runs very smoothly and I barely mulligan with it. The only flex slots are the 1 preordain and the 1 flusterstorm. I’m thinking of cutting the one preordain for a sensei divining top. For grindier games especially the mirror, it’s all about hand sculpting and with top and fetchlands, it obviously does a great job at that.

Here’s a brief report:

Round 1: RUG (2-0)

I did not want to face RUG so early in the tournament as I fear RUG the most of all decks.
G1 he had the turn 1 delver. Turn 2 flip, played a second delver, so I figure I’m in big trouble. Luckily my hand had the show and tell and emrakul and one counter backup. Few turns later I went for it, he forced, I forced back, I put in emrakul. So the board was emrakul vs. double delvers. On his turn before combat, he picks up emrakul and reads and asks me if he can still block despite emrakul having protection from coloured spells. I said of course, delvers are permanents, not spells. Obviously he has the stifle at the ready for the annihilator trigger. He passed the turn. My hand was just show and tell at this point. He has a grip full of cards. My turn I attack with emrakul, he stifles the trigger, blocks with delver. His turn, he attacks with the delver, drops me to 4, passes. I figure if he has another stifle, he can take the 15, stifle the trigger, attack back and bolt me for the win. If that's his line, there's nothing I can do. I drew for my turn, griselbrand. I swung with emmy, he stifles, takes 15. I show and telled grizzy. Apparently he only had a bolt in hand and one red source which would have got me down to 1 but a timely grizzy foiled that plan to block his delver preventing him from getting there.
G2 He mulls to 6 and starts off the game with double wasteland while I was aggressively fetching basics. I played a turn 2 defense grid. Show and telled emrakul few turns later.


Round 2: RW Goblins (feat. Thalia + disenchants) (2-0)

G1 He turn 1 lackeys and starts dropping siege-gang then a piledriver. I show and telled emrakul early and he had no matron or stingcourger.
G2 I kept a reasonable hand of sneak attack, some lands, some cantrips. He turn 1 vials, then turn 2 thalia which I forced. I sculpt for a little bit until I see an emrakul. I tapped out to play a sneak attack and passed. Big mistake. I now left sneak attack open to hate like a pithing needle or something. I was thinking about just passing the turn and play sneak attack with mana open to sneak in emrakul next turn. I guess I got a little impatient. My hand was misdirection and intuition. On his turn he disenchants my sneak attack, I was like why did I play sneak this turn? Then I looked at my misdirection and intuition in my hand again and smiled. I misdirected the disenchant to kill his aether vial and he looked very surprised. I snuck in emmy and cantripped into another emmy few turns later.
Note: I didn’t take the show and tells out and bring in through the breach. In hindsight, that’s probably what I should of done since goblins have angel of despairs and other come into play trigger permanents against show and tell decks now. He did reveal his angels and thalias afterwards.


Round 3: RUG (2-0)

Again? I thought RUG was on the decline because of BUG and Jund. I guess not.
G1 I had two show and tells and emrakul in my hand. I went for the first show and tell and he double dazed. I went for the second turn after, and it’s good. He stifled one annihilator trigger but later succumbed to spaghetti.
G2 Don’t really remember as I didn’t take any notes whole tournament. I think I snuck in a griselbrand then went to town eventually.

Round 4: Reanimator (with show and tells and goryo’s vengeance but not tin fins) (2-0)

G1 I forced his turn 1 careful study. I show and telled turn 2, we both dropped grizzy. He show and telled the next turn, I put emmy and he has grizzy. He draws 14 hoping to somehow dump emmy in yard to reanimate it or triple lotus petal into another show and tell. He couldn’t find anything.
G2 He plays turn 2 thoughtseize and I had the option of piercing, forcing or misdirecting. I misdirected and thought, wait, he’s reanimator, he wants to discard, what am I doing? But then I thought, wouldn’t he just thoughtseize himself if he wants to discard? So I justified my play wasn’t bad. I see his hand, nothing scary for at least a while. My hand was also pretty slow until I found an emrakul and through the breach. On my turn, I have six mana and I cast through the breach leaving one mana for spell pierce backup. He has five mana open. From his thoughtseize, I knew he had: 1 animate dead, 1 dark ritual, 1 force of will. He decided to play dark ritual hoping that I will let resolve then force with 2 open to pay for pierce in case I had pierce. I just pierced the ritual and 15’d him for exactsies.

Round 5: All Spells (2-0)

My opponent was a known competent high tide player. Recently, he’s been playing different decks though, so I thought he might try a non-high tide deck.
G1 I kept a hand of pierce, force, pierce, ponder, and lands. He probes me and I knew he was playing a combo deck which my hand was very good at fighting. He tries to non-threshold a cabal ritual some turns later which a pierced. He later ramped to 4 black and cast Undercity informer which I just forced and he scooped.
G2 He kept his 7. This means I have to mull to force, right? I mulled all the way down to 3 and it was land land pierce. I figure if he can turn 1 me, this ain’t gonna get there. I tried my luck with 2. It was mountain and pierce. I kept. He turn 1 probes me twice, then passes. So no turn 1?? I mulled all that for nothing? He kept a hand that couldn’t turn 1? We were both on top deck mode and he end of turn discarded double bridges and manages to cast a narcomoeba which he used to flashback cabal therapy naming force of will (whiff) to produce two 2/2 zombies. I was on top deck mode but did not miss land drops. I eventually played sneak attack, spaghetti’ed him, then dug deeper and found grizzy.


Round 6 & 7 (ID) I drew round 6 and my friends urged me to play out the last round to dreamcrush my opponent and also have the higher standing so I can play in top 8. They also have a better chance of making it in if I crush my round 7. My opponent in round 7 played a very gruelling and tight round 6 and was very happy to win so he can draw the next round. I chose to play and he looked very upset. We went to game 3 and one of my buddies said he just lost so it didn’t really matter if I drew with him or not. I offered the draw because I didn’t want anyone to hold a grudge against me in the future.

Top 8 Quarters

Round 8: Sneak and Show (2-1)

I really don’t like to play the mirror but knew it was inevitable as there were a large number of us playing this deck in the tourney.
G1 We both make land drops and cantripped almost every turn. He decided to go play sneak attack. I countered, he allowed. He has no counter backup? Next turn I play sneak attack and snuck in grizzy and emmy. He showed his hand of all lands and said he couldn’t cantrip into anything.
G2 He cantrips more than me. We play land go for a little bit. He pulls the trigger first with sneak attack, I countered. Next turn he plays another sneak attack, I counter again, he counters back, and wins. I lose in short order.
G3 I was stuck with triple ancient tomb and one lotus petal and one volcanic island for the longest time. I didn’t want to cast my sneak because I wanted to have 2 colored mana open for double counters in case. After I drew another sneak, I decided to cast it. I just wanted to bait out counters, as I had another one in hand. He countered and I didn’t bother to counter fight. Next turn he casts sneak attack, I forced, he forced, I REB’ed his force, he brainstormed into nothing, then passed the turn with his sneak attack successfully countered by me. He had 2 cards in hand at this point. I went for it and cast through the breach for emrakul annihilating his board and bringing him to 1. I cast sneak attack later and grizzy snuck in.

Top 4 Semis

Round 9: BUG Midrange

This was the opponent that I so kindly drew with in round 7. This was a terrible matchup for me as he had hand disruption, counters, lillies, and jace main deck. In retrospect, I guess I should of tried to knock him out of top 8 contention to avoid the possibility of playing him in the top eight. Whatever…
G1 I cast show and tell about turn 3 and he brainstormed into no counters but played lilly the next turn and made me lose my spaghetti.
G2 See game one.

I didn’t see a single griselbrand both games when it would’ve mattered most. I really should of mulled to leyline as he cast about 6 thoughtseize in the span of both games.
So I ended up losing in the semi’s which I thought wasn’t too shabby at all for a 72 person tournament going undefeated to top eight. I admit I did make some loose keeps and some questionable plays. Hopefully I can take down the whole shebang next time.

[alphanumeric]

Brand new to legacy (and obviously to Sneak/Show), but I have read through the thread to try to educate myself.

If we have Pithing Needle in the board and we're facing Maverick g2/g3, what's the best Needle target?
- Karakas - it screws up Show and Tell; it requires an extra activation of Sneak Attack
- Knight of the Reliquary - it grows as they dig out Wastelands and fetches, and it can tutor for Karakas
- Wasteland - even if we fetch for basics, sometimes we draw into duals or sol lands that can get wasted

I had initially thought the play was Karakas, as it basically shuts off half our combo (though Griselbrand can still draw cards in response)... but Knight becomes their biggest beater while keeping us off duals and sol lands...

Similarly those are potential Stifle targets post-board... but because Stifle is instant-speed, we can at least make an informed assessment at that moment (instead of preemptively like with Needle).

[Will_L]

Brand new to legacy (and obviously to Sneak/Show), but I have read through the thread to try to educate myself.

If we have Pithing Needle in the board and we're facing Maverick g2/g3, what's the best Needle target?

I think the best target is Karakas. It's the only way Maverick can meaningfully interact with us outside of Thalia and Teeg. Knight can be huge, but more often then not you should be able to combo out before they attack you 3+ times with a 3 drop.


G2 He mulls to 6 and starts off the game with double wasteland. I played a turn 2 defense grid. Show and telled emrakul few turns later.

Defense Grid is such a stomping against RUG. I obviously drew pretty poorly, but Grid just kept me from interacting... Definitely cemented my thinking that it would be the nut high against RUG.

[alphanumeric]

Few turns later I went for it, he forced, I forced back, I put in emrakul. So the board was emrakul vs. double delvers. I was at 10 at this point. On his turn before he attacks with double flipped delvers, he picks up emrakul and reads and asks me if he can still block despite emrakul having protection from coloured spells. I said of course, delvers are permanents, not spells. Obviously he has the stifle at the ready for the annihilator trigger. He attacks with 1 delver holding the other back. This drops me to 7.
Congrats on the top 4! Regarding this round 1 game 1 sequence... couldn't you have blocked the lone attacking delver with Emrakul?

[Sunday Funday]

Congrats on the top 4! Regarding this round 1 game 1 sequence... couldn't you have blocked the lone attacking delver with Emrakul?

Thanks for the congrats! Thanks for pointing that out. I need to edit that :)

[defector]

Nice run:) I completely agree about the unhappiness of the BUG mu, they are our worst i believe. As for needle vs Mav. Always needle karakas first as it makes snt live and gives us racing opportunity. Then waste ghen kotr. At least ghats my strat. If im strong on lands ill get kotr over waste, depends on how the draws go.

[Michael Keller]

Went 6-0 at the local with Sneak and Show. The list is generally stock, but I tried using Volrath's Shapeshifter to see how it would work. It wound up working incredibly well as a de facto Griselbrand.

[defector]

Nice showing! Ca you give us a list, I'd love to see a rehab of good old Volrath:)

[MeddlingMageGR]

Went 6-0 at the local with Sneak and Show. The list is generally stock, but I tried using Volrath's Shapeshifter to see how it would work. It wound up working incredibly well as a de facto Griselbrand.

Volrath has errata. He is not as strong as he was before. It's useful only with Griselbrand, and that's a bad thing. It's like Seething Song for Sneak Attack. Don't use him. It's a waste of space.

[teonsw]

I'm currently wondering what kind of sideboards people are running. I am currently using 4 Leyline of Sanctity 3 Graffdiggers Cage 3 Red Elemental Blast 2 Wipe Away and 3 Through the Breach

[defector]

This is what I'm planning on taking to SCG Milwaukee:

Grafidgger's Cage X3
Wipe Away X3
Defense Grid X3
Vendillion Clique X2
Flusterstorm X2
Pithing Needle X2

For the record I don't like it, but that's what SnT decks do to you. I am gambling on seeing a lot of RUG and Esper and a small amount of TES. I run Clique for the mirror as I find Through the Breach hard to cast. We'll see how it goes, with my luck I'l get 8 rounds of tempo BUG, but what can you do:) The meta is wide and the deck boards like sex at Bible camp.

cheers
defector

[blindspotxxx]

Tournament Report Time :) My 1st top 8 with the Deck please bare with my tournament report

Duel for Duals 3 (60+ Players)

Main Deck:

4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Intuition
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard:

2 Through the Breach
2 Pyroblast
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away

Round 1 Bye 1-0

Won a bye from our local store :) This enabled me to check out the metagame, I swapped my sideboard after seeing so many Burn, Black Decks and Storm. Swapped out my 2 Blood Moons, 1 Pyroblast and 1 Boseiju for 4 Leyline of Sanctity. The change really paid off.

Round 2 Junk (Toughest Match that day) (Win 2-0)

Game 1 I keep a hand with no Combo pieces but a Brainstorm, a Spell Pierce and some lands and cantrips I guess. He goes 1st and hits me with a Thoughtseize taking my Brainstorm. I top deck a Sneak Attack and pass. He plays a Dark Confidant and passes. I think I place down the Sneak Attack via Ancient Tomb. He beats me down with Dark Confidant and a Deathrite Shaman and I don't have any cantrips to really dig out an Emrakul. I shuffle Ponder and top deck the Emrakul on the last turn with me facing Lethal. He has also gone down to below 15 life or exactly 15 life when I swing with Emrakul. Yep the deck loves me.

Game 2 I side in my Leylines and my Wipe Aways because I saw his Knight of the Reliquary. Opening hand did have double Sneak Attack but no disruption. He goes turn 1 Deathrite, turn 2 Thoughtseize and Dark Confidant, turn 3 Karakas and a Hymn to Tourach and a Dark Confidant. Then turn 4 he plays Liliana lol time to really scoop up the cards.

Game 3 I get a very awesome hand of Ponder, 2 Lands, Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Griselbrand and Leyline of Sanctity! Deep inside I was thinking it's impossible for me to lose lol Turn 0 Leyline and I play a land and Ponder I think and see 0 lands on the next 3 cards so I shuffle. My opponent plays a Turn 1 Karakas into Sensei's Top. I lay my 2nd land drop and not draw a land. On his turn 2 he mises his land drop, apparently we were both sort of screwed but he has Sensei's top to solve his problem. I miss 2 Land Drops while he makes 2 Lands drops and I think he plays a Tarmogoyf to end the game quickly. On turn 5 I draw an Ancient Tomb and I figured if I am going to Sneak Attack him I'll need a lot of lands and red sources so I Show and Tell Griselbrand to draw 7 cards. Of course he bounces the Griselbrand with Karakas. With my Show and Tell he lays down a Deathrite Shaman so now I'm on a faster clock. I was at 10 life after drawing cards but luckily after drawing 7 cards I discards some cards and an Emrakul to shrink his Tarmogoyf. He plays nothing and just attacks me with 3 damage with Tarmo and Deathrite, problem is he Wastelands my Ancient Tomb so I'm really screwed because I can't play the Show and Tell into Sneak Attack with 2 Red Sources to bypass Karakas. On the next turn I just lay a fetch to make 3 lands and simply pass because I will die if I Show and Tell my Sneak Attack and he plays down a creature. On his turn he makes a misplay of Thoughtseizing himself to grow his Tarmogoyf to 4/5 but I will still be down to 1 after the swings. I thought about countererng the Thoughtseize with Force of Will but I figured I might die so I just let him do his thing, If he had a double Card Type in his hand then I'm sure I'm dead. End of his turn I was hoping to draw 2 Mana Sources and I Brainstorm. 2 Lotus Petals on the Top wins me the game :) Show and Tell into Sneak Attack and double activation to bypass Karakas. This game got me super stressed out as squeezing in that win was super tough.

Round 3 SUPER LUCKY! Opponent went out to eat and he just didn't show up free win :) 3-0

Round 4 Show and Know (Win 4-0)

Game 1 We know each other so the pressure was a bit alleviated and I think I knew what I was fighting so no stressful decisions to be made. He goes Turn 3 Show and Tell with a Spell Pierce Back up but I casted a Brainstorm and a Flusterstorm. He doesn't know how Flusterstorm works I guess he was new to playing a Blue Deck because he used to pilot a Black Green Deck, he wasted his Spell Pierce on the Flusterstorm and the Show and Tell still gets countered. On my Turn I new he was out of Counters so I tap out into Sneak Attack. Next Turn was Sneak Attack Griselbrand into an Intuition for Emrakul :)

Board in: 2 Pyroblast, 2 Through the Breach, 2 Surgical Extraction
Board Out: 4 Show and Tell, 1 Preordain and 1 Emrakul I think

Game 2 I keep a hand of Griselbrand, Sneak Attack, Pyroblast and 4 Lands. I top deck 4 Lands in a row with him hitting me twice with Thoughtseize and Pithing Needle for Sneak Attack. Talk about an unwinnable position! My 5th draw was a Ponder which I see a Griselbrand and a Force of Will and another land. I take the Griselbrand because in my mind I knew he was gonna go for it. He Show and Tells Emrakul and I lay down Griselbrand! How lucky that he didn't Show and Tell for Omniscience. The only thing left for me to do is look for Through the Breach, 14 cards later..... and I kill his Emrakul with Legend Rule with Through the Breach and it's smooth sailing from there with him on 2 cards vs my Griselbrand engine.

Round 5 Esper Stoneblade (Win 5-0)

Game 1 Don't remember much but he Inquisitions me but I misdirect it back to him with him not having a Force of Will. He discards a Jitte I think and I see his hand of Stoneforge Mystic and double Brainstorm. I go for a Show and Tell which gets Force of Willed. I play a Sneak Attack and he Spell Pierces I think but I can pay for it. Emrakul and Griselbrand the wonder twins swing for the Win.


Board in: 2 Pyroblast, 2 Through the Breach, 4 Leyline of Sanctity and 2 Wipe Away
Board out: 4 Lotus Petal, 2 Intuition, 1 Preordain, 2 Flusterstorm and 1 Force of Will I think.

Game 2 Opening Hand Leyline of Sanctity and the combo again, super lucky! I don't remember much but I get Sneak Attack into play after him countering 2 of my enablers. He plays a Vendillion Clique but he forgets that I have Leyline in Play and I Sneak in Emrakul. I top deck for 4 turns into another Emrakul and win :)

Round 6 Miracle Helm (Lose 5-1)

Weirdest thing happened, we had 7 rounds of swiss and I'm the only undefeated player and I can't double ID because the next seed to me is 4-0-1 and he needs to hit that 5th win to secure top 8. He offers me his prize if I don't get into top 8 because based from computation he was confident that I will make it to top 8 even if I give him the win and Draw the last round.

Round 7 RUG Delver (ID 5-1-1)

ID into Top 8 :p I'm 7th place while my RUG Delver opponent is 8th place barely squeezing into Top 8.

Top 8 Playoffs Miracle Helm (SBGPinas)

I was paired with my Team mate and see that he has the best chances to advance to the Final so I give it to him. We play one game and well he gets a lucky Counterbalance flip of Jace vs my Sneak Attack. I lose when I Intuition for Show and Tell and he plays Helm of Obedience with Rest in Peace in play lol

Props to my super lucky draws and my round 3 opponent skipping round 3 lol and of course for SBGPinas and me both making top 8. I won a Verdant Catacombs and a share of a Tundra and half a Scrubland (Cashed), not bad for a day of fun and stress. I had an unbelievable luck of siding in Leyline and drawing it the on my 1st 7 cards and ever draw the other 3 Leylines.

I'll modify the sideboard as I predict a Meta-shift back into Control with double Miracles in the top 8 this tournament.

[MeddlingMageGR]

Sometimes I wonder what it would be if I had 4 Stifle instead of the Petals!!! Petals are good for 2 reasons. Generally, help in turn 1 combo (Sol-Land + Petal > Show and Tell + Fattie), and when a Grislebrand is out, so you can draw 7 or 14 cards to find a Petal and the other fattie. The first situation is very rare to happen, however the second one is very risky. Depends to your life total, if you're below 14 you just cant draw more than 7. I almost never sacrifice my Petal, to play Ponder or Brainstorm.
From the other side, Stifle is an answer to fetchlands, Planeswalkers, "comes into play - bounce" creatures like Sower of Temptation or Stingscourger, or Karakas but the most important is to counter the Sneak's Attack delayed triggered ability.
I dont know... I have a good feeling about this. Ill test it out and come back for the results.

[feline]

Well according to TheCouncil, this deck is not just a Deck to beat, but it's THE deck to beat or very close to it for March 2013, just about tied with 1 other deck for that top spot for the month.

[dcosiem]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum. I've been active on the posts on Omni-tell and Dream Halls forums. After so many countless testings with a mono blue Dream Halls deck similar to Rob V., who placed at SCG sometime recently, I realize the deck is not good. I say so because if you play Cunning Wish, you have less counters to cast in a counter war. If you don't play Cunning Wish, you lose to random cards. For example, if you cast Show and Tell, your opponent can put into the battlefield an Emrakul, Oblivion Ring, Karakas, etc depending on what you're facing. Anyone may refute my argument. I'm all ears. I realize the advantage with Sneak Attack vs. Dream Halls is Sneak Attack is one turn faster, thus more versatile in it's usefulness. At any point in the match when you feel you need to have card advantage to deal with a threat or situation, you can always pop Griselbrand in and draw 7 if needed, assuming you have enough life to activate this ability if you have a Sneak Attack out with a Griselbrand in hand and 1 red mana source active.

Here are some questions to everyone: How good is Intuition in this deck? Is it replaceable? At what times are you casting Intuition, and for what are you casting it for? Is it possible that sometimes, you may not need Intuition because luck is on your side? How good is Sensei's Divining Top in this deck? Do you feel that it deserves a slot in this deck because it's ability to sculpt hands really well? Is there any way we can possibly use Stifle in this deck to stop this deck from losing to small percentage to randomness? Is Vendilion Clique good to sideboard in against the mirror?

[MeddlingMageGR]

Here are some questions to everyone: How good is Intuition in this deck? Is it replaceable? At what times are you casting Intuition, and for what are you casting it for? Is it possible that sometimes, you may not need Intuition because luck is on your side? How good is Sensei's Divining Top in this deck? Do you feel that it deserves a slot in this deck because it's ability to sculpt hands really well? Is there any way we can possibly use Stifle in this deck to stop this deck from losing to small percentage to randomness? Is Vendilion Clique good to sideboard in against the mirror?

Nice questions. From my point of view...

Intuition is not bad. Its very good against non-blue decks (Goblins, Maverick) and low-counter decks, and mediocre against blue-counter decks. Some players play for 0 to 1, I prefer to play 3. Im a Intuition "lover". I have decide to play with "free" counters, like FoW, Daze, MisDirection, and in hard times I pick (for example) a Misdirection to redirect my opponent's Hymn to Tourach.
About SDT... with 4 Ponder, 4 Brainstorm, 0-3 Intuitions i dont think we need it. Besides that there is no room. Its an artifact too (i mean non-blue). I dont want to cut counters for an other searcher.
Stifle... Stifle is a big story. I believe that Stifle deserve a place in the decklist. Look 2 messages above what I wrote about Stifle :

"Sometimes I wonder what it would be if I had 4 Stifle instead of the Petals!!! Petals are good for 2 reasons. Generally, help in turn 1 combo (Sol-Land + Petal > Show and Tell + Fattie), and when a Grislebrand is out, so you can draw 7 or 14 cards to find a Petal and the other fattie. The first situation is very rare to happen, however the second one is very risky. Depends to your life total, if you're below 14 you just cant draw more than 7. I almost never sacrifice my Petal, to play Ponder or Brainstorm.
From the other side, Stifle is an answer to fetchlands, Planeswalkers, "comes into play - bounce" creatures like Sower of Temptation or Stingscourger, or Karakas but the most important is to counter the Sneak's Attack delayed triggered ability.
I dont know... I have a good feeling about this. Ill test it out and come back for the results."

Finally Clique is really good against mirror because its a ticking CLOCK. Not only 3 dmg per turn, not only discards a card from opponent's hand, but reduces the strength of his Griselbrand. Besides that, when a mirror match is placed, players play really slow (and 3dmg is an axe in his head)... They want to full their hand with counters and as many Emrakuls as they can find. Because only Emrakul is good agains't mirror. (if the opponent plays SnT for Griselbrand, and you play Emrakul, you win next turn. If both play Emrakul, you dont lose and he has lost a spell. I he puts an Emrakul and you a Griselbrand, you lose).

[pavlaugh]

Sometimes I wonder what it would be if I had 4 Stifle instead of the Petals!!! Petals are good for 2 reasons. Generally, help in turn 1 combo (Sol-Land + Petal > Show and Tell + Fattie), and when a Grislebrand is out, so you can draw 7 or 14 cards to find a Petal and the other fattie. The first situation is very rare to happen, however the second one is very risky. Depends to your life total, if you're below 14 you just cant draw more than 7. I almost never sacrifice my Petal, to play Ponder or Brainstorm.
From the other side, Stifle is an answer to fetchlands, Planeswalkers, "comes into play - bounce" creatures like Sower of Temptation or Stingscourger, or Karakas but the most important is to counter the Sneak's Attack delayed triggered ability.
I dont know... I have a good feeling about this. Ill test it out and come back for the results.

I've been playing a no-petals list, but just +1 land (20 lands) and +3 cantrips (making room for 2 intuition, 2 preordain, 2 top).

I think you've identified the two main benefits of petal. The first is the real reason to play petal, in my opinion. Being able to get a S&T or Sneak Attack out one turn quicker can be very important. In that situation, you're sacrificing one type of reliability (mana base / sculpting / counters) for another (speed).

The second situation is the one, however, in which petal is overvalued. If you get Griselbrand out and draw 7-14, you are almost certainly going to win the game, regardless of whether its in 0-1 turns or 1-2. Drawing petals in that situation is only a "win more" situation--it does help you win a turn earlier than you normally would, but at that point you don't usually need speed.

[Star|Scream]

Won a bye from our local store :) This enabled me to check out the metagame, I swapped my sideboard after seeing so many Burn, Black Decks and Storm. Swapped out my 2 Blood Moons, 1 Pyroblast and 1 Boseiju for 4 Leyline of Sanctity. The change really paid off.


Are you allowed to do this???

[defector]

I can give you some perspective from the other side. Intuition is mainly a win more/win less card in Sneak Show. Decks like goblins, Jund, mav, junk etc are weak to it but also are eak to your 75 in general. Decks like BUG/ RUG/ Esper are strong against it. You almost have to side out g2/3 due to se being everywhere. It's a powerful card with a powerful effect, but at 3 cmc I just want to cast snt. Anyway I would encourage testing and play. Start with 2 and see how you feel about it. Players have proven you don't need it to win but it shows up in a lot of top 8 lists.
Cheers
Defector

[MeddlingMageGR]

I've been playing a no-petals list, but just +1 land (20 lands) and +3 cantrips (making room for 2 intuition, 2 preordain, 2 top).

I think you've identified the two main benefits of petal. The first is the real reason to play petal, in my opinion. Being able to get a S&T or Sneak Attack out one turn quicker can be very important. In that situation, you're sacrificing one type of reliability (mana base / sculpting / counters) for another (speed).

The second situation is the one, however, in which petal is overvalued. If you get Griselbrand out and draw 7-14, you are almost certainly going to win the game, regardless of whether its in 0-1 turns or 1-2. Drawing petals in that situation is only a "win more" situation--it does help you win a turn earlier than you normally would, but at that point you don't usually need speed.


Some more analysis...
About the first condition, yes Petal is an accelerator. But how many times that scenario came on board? First turn yours > Sol land + Petal + Show and Tell + Fattie, and all these without opponent's Force Of Will, and without any "comes into play" traps from him. The possibilities are extremely low. It has happen to me playing with my friends few times, but never in a tournament. Even if I have the combo in my hand, I prefer to wait some turns to get some counters. In all other circumstances you just play a land and the petal, and your opponent a land. So in turn 2 you have 2 mana more (plus the land you play).
From the other side, Stifle can be a DECELERATOR with the same results. The next turn, you have 2 more mana, 2 lands, and your opponent 0 lands since everybody plays duals. And if he don't, some turn after he will play the dual.

If we compare the 2 examples I prefer to keep Stifle. It applies to most situations PLUS, its is a "horror" card. It gives some horror to opponent psychologically. Plays with his mind. You make him think twice about his lands or his activates abilities. Surely that card will slow him down. Starting with his thoughts. An other example for "horor" cards are Daze, and Misdirection. With Daze we slow him 1 turn, and due to Misdirection probably he sideboard the Hymns. I dont insist that everybody play Daze and MisD... but I do, and I explain why.


The othe scenario is that with Griselbrand. Gris is in play, probably with Sneak Attack, and you want to draw 7+7 cards to find a Petal and Mr.M. As I told before, its risky. And its not working in late game, or if you 're low at life. With Stifle you draw the 7 cards before or after the attack (or you dont draw at all if you need the life), it doesnt matter, (depending if you have a second Red mana for Emrakul), and you STIFLE the delayed triggered ability. So you can use him next turn as well. If its not Griselbrand and its Emrakul... 2 attacks from him surely finish the game because he stays on the board.

I think, and this is a personal assessment, that Stifle is greater here too. I dont mention that prevents a creature to go to graveyard... with what this entails (Extirpate for example)

If we sacrifice some "uncertain" speed, to add some more synergy, i believe that better results will come.

[pavlaugh]

Are you allowed to do this???

When I read it, I did a double-take as well. Seems like cheating / disqualifying conduct. But if it's Regular REL, perhaps the practice can be allowed by the TO. Still, highly suspect.

[pavlaugh]

I can give you some perspective from the other side. Intuition is mainly a win more/win less card in Sneak Show. Decks like goblins, Jund, mav, junk etc are weak to it but also are eak to your 75 in general. Decks like BUG/ RUG/ Esper are strong against it. You almost have to side out g2/3 due to se being everywhere. It's a powerful card with a powerful effect, but at 3 cmc I just want to cast snt. Anyway I would encourage testing and play. Start with 2 and see how you feel about it. Players have proven you don't need it to win but it shows up in a lot of top 8 lists.
Cheers
Defector

Very good point re: Intuition. I almost always board it out due to surgical extraction fears. I think it's still pretty good g1 against those decks you listed, though. If you don't really need it to assemble the combo, it sometimes will bait a soft counter; if it doesn't, it can be used to snag a second sol-land and help you play around soft counters (being able to play Show & Tell on turn 3 with 2 colorless open against RUG/BUG/Esper is strong, though admittedly wasteland foils this plan).

In the end for me, it's really just about making the G1 more consistent than it otherwise would be.

[coma]

some thoughts:

Intuition is necessary in main deck almost 2x, to win quickly some MU.
I kepp it in g2-3 vs aggro deck.
I try to play one inutition but , statistically some times we are too slow to win some Mu's situations.
I have a good sensation on :
-20 lands
-counter's configuration 4 fow 2 misd 3 pierce 2 fluster
-I cut 1 ponder to play with 2 intuition

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10479&iddeck=76430

Side that I use now:
4 leyline
3 grid
3 boseiju
1 wipe away
1 rushing river
2 piroclasm
1 reb

I cut cage because in this meta it isn't important.

:tongue:

[teonsw]

Are you allowed to do this???

Totally seems like cheating to me....

[Lemnear]

Totally seems like cheating to me....

It is plain cheating and the reason for decklists and deckchecks

[Darksteel]

Tips for the Death and Taxes matchup? They have 4 maindeck Karakas and Thalia. Seems like an uphill battle for sure, but what can be sideboarded for it?

[S1N1STER]

Tips for the Death and Taxes matchup? They have 4 maindeck Karakas and Thalia. Seems like an uphill battle for sure, but what can be sideboarded for it?

Don't forget the maindeck phyrexian revokers which just get vial'd in in response to you casting sneak attack, or the mangara which can exile emrakul. The only times I have ever beat D&T seem to be when I am playing someone who is borrowing the deck and isn't all that familiar with it.

[blindspotxxx]

Are you allowed to do this???


When I read it, I did a double-take as well. Seems like cheating / disqualifying conduct. But if it's Regular REL, perhaps the practice can be allowed by the TO. Still, highly suspect.


Totally seems like cheating to me....


It is plain cheating and the reason for decklists and deckchecks

Deck lists were collected after Round 1 by the TO so no cheating done here they can deck check me if they wanted I wrote down the correct list. Some of the people who had byes even swapped their whole decks.

[dsck]

Deck lists were collected after Round 1 by the TO so no cheating done here they can deck check me if they wanted I wrote down the correct list. Some of the people who had byes even swapped their whole decks.

Decklists are supposed to be collected before round 1 starts, your TO seems shady.

[nodahero]

Top 16 at SCG Milwaukee... I will post a report tomorrow (i hope). My losses were due to stupidty... I had never played this deck before today so I misplayed early but I learned quick.

[Megadeus]

Congratulations on top 16. Though it isn't like the deck is horribly difficult to pilot.

[Just me]

Decklists are supposed to be collected before round 1 starts, your TO seems shady.

Just to clarify, a decklist includes a maindeck (60+ cards) AND a sideboard (either 0 or 15 cards, no other number is allowed). It should be collected before round 1 and at that moment, your list is definite, no more changes of any kind are allowed to your list or the actual deck or sideboard.

You might want to update your local TO to that fact because otherwise, imagine how you would feel if next time, you play against somebody who scouted you, added 6+ cards in the SB to defeat and does so. based solely on an unfair advantage.
In essence, what happened (and was allwoed by the TO) is cheating and that's no fun.

[blindspotxxx]

Just to clarify, a decklist includes a maindeck (60+ cards) AND a sideboard (either 0 or 15 cards, no other number is allowed). It should be collected before round 1 and at that moment, your list is definite, no more changes of any kind are allowed to your list or the actual deck or sideboard.

You might want to update your local TO to that fact because otherwise, imagine how you would feel if next time, you play against somebody who scouted you, added 6+ cards in the SB to defeat and does so. based solely on an unfair advantage.
In essence, what happened (and was allwoed by the TO) is cheating and that's no fun.

Well that won't really be possible because after round 1 before pairings, decklists are collected. So you won't really know who you're fighting. But I do agree though that it gives unfair advantage to side boarding for the Meta. You can swap for the meta, but to a specific opponent not really. Anyway, I can tell them about it but I guess the intention was it was an incentive for those who got byes from previous small tournaments or maybe because they are undermanned.

Moving on, Sneak Show has taken another SCG Trophy :) Too bad it lost to Death and Taxes at GP Strasbourg

[oneiros76]

Dnt looks tricky, Vendillion Clique is probably decent to nab tricks from their hand+ chump revokers, otherwise pyroclasm seems decent

[the ploeg]

So went to a local tournie and brought the good old sneaky peaky and made top 4 and split. One card that saved some games for me was world spine worm. Dear god he is a hoser and the fact he leaves 15 trample power behind is awesome. Saved me in at least 3 games as everyone and their grandmother was rocking karakas or lilies or edict abilitys. This guy stops almost all the hate and sneak attack makes him better. I highly recommend him as a one of in the main deck as he can just deals with threats that emrakul cannot answer like baleful strix liliana, etc. Tell me your opinion but i think think he is to good not to have in sneak and show. Also nobody expects him and many do not want to swords him as 15 life does not help their cause.

[nodahero]

Report is still forthcoming. My day has been alot more busy then I would have guessed.

[MeddlingMageGR]

So went to a local tournie and brought the good old sneaky peaky and made top 4 and split. One card that saved some games for me was world spine worm. Dear god he is a hoser and the fact he leaves 15 trample power behind is awesome. Saved me in at least 3 games as everyone and their grandmother was rocking karakas or lilies or edict abilitys. This guy stops almost all the hate and sneak attack makes him better. I highly recommend him as a one of in the main deck as he can just deals with threats that emrakul cannot answer like baleful strix liliana, etc. Tell me your opinion but i think think he is to good not to have in sneak and show. Also nobody expects him and many do not want to swords him as 15 life does not help their cause.

I don't say Wurm isn't great, but Emrakul and Griselbrand are the best creatures we have right now. I am absolutely happy with Emrakul and the threats about him I try to fight them with Stifle and Karakas.

[the ploeg]

No i ran him as a ninth creature and the shuffle ability helped to when i needed to pitch a card. I ran the usual sweet of fatties plus 1 worm. tried it out and it paid off. now sideboard is what I need to figure out for next weekend. Any sudgestions with heavy goblins and stoneblade in my meta

[nodahero]

Those both seem like super easy match ups. My stoneblade matches this weekend at SCG MKE were a breeze. I actually played a pro in my round 9 text feature match and never felt in trouble. Vendillion Clique is super handy in that match up.

[Achamian]

Those both seem like super easy match ups. My stoneblade matches this weekend at SCG MKE were a breeze. I actually played a pro in my round 9 text feature match and never felt in trouble. Vendillion Clique is super handy in that match up.

Why is goblins a "super easy match up"? They have a pretty fast clock, they have Goblin Matron into Stingscourger and nowadays even Thalias in their sideboards to slow us down. Maybe even Pithing Needle to shut down Sneak Attack. I don't know, but I'm not smiling when I see I'm playing against goblins. I think it's a close match-up.

For Death & Taxes: if it becomes more popular in the future, maybe it's time again for Progenitus in our sideboards?

[nodahero]

As you pointed out they have Matron for Stingscourger... AKA they have a singleton they either A) have to get silly lucky and draw or B) they have to draw a 4 of spend 3 to play (waste a lackey trigger) and then get Stingscourger into play. By that time if you are playing well and not drawing like ass you should be fine. Don't forget you also pack Force to counter the Stingscrouger.

Thalia is irritating but easily beaten with as much cheating as our deck permits. Just drop your petals into play ASAP and board in the Karakas if you play it and you should be okay. Don't forget being on the play is also going to help because you should win game 1 alot so even if you lose game 2, you have the play game 3.

[the ploeg]

just had a ton of main deck hate also got bad draws. Is their an answer we can run for cavern of souls or not really.

[dcosiem]

I had some thoughts I wanted to share with everyone after recently playing a sanctioned tournament at Xanadu Games in Maryland. I went 3-3 in a 32 man tournament. I managed to beat Lands, Jund, Ant, but lost to control matches, Bug, Esper-blade, and 4-color Rug.

In my tournament matches against control, I guess I should of side-boarded in Vendilion Clique because several times did Esper-blade player took cards out of my hand with his own Vendilion Clique. In a control match, it's possible that before I combo off, I should Clique him to see what he has in his hand.

I played Jace, the Mindsculptor in my list over Intuition and I learned that it was not a good idea because sometimes after you attack with Emrakul through Sneak Attack, you need a quick find to finish him off before your opponent draws a threat. This happened to me against my Bug match in which I annihilate his field and he plays a Deathrite Shaman 3 turns later while I have nothing in hand but counter spells that couldn't counter Deathrite Shaman. I had the same problem against the 4-color Rug deck. I needed a quick tutor to pick up creatures and use them to attack with. These creatures in these control decks are a problem if you let them resolve. In theory, you want them to resolve to save your counters for the counter war. I believe this is true? What are people's suggestions against control deck match-ups? How do you handle creatures that you let your opponent resolve?

I realize you don't need Stifle if you play Vendilion Clique in your sideboard.

Daze was great, but sometimes it couldn't of been better with Misdirection causing my opponent to Hymh himself.

Jace, the Mindsulptor was sub-optimal. He's not all that great in play.

Sensei's Divining top was a beast. I was able to catch extra counters in response to my opponent trying to disrupt me through Sensei's Divining top.

[nodahero]

From your bug matchup it sounds more like bad luck then anything. How many cantrips did you run? In my current list i ran 10 with 2 tops included and I never had issues finding threats (I did not run any intuition).

[dcosiem]

From your bug matchup it sounds more like bad luck then anything. How many cantrips did you run? In my current list i ran 10 with 2 tops included and I never had issues finding threats (I did not run any intuition).

In the list which I took to the tournament, I ran 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 2 Sensei's Divining top, 2 Jace, the Mindsculptor, and 2 Preordain. : / The list I run now has still 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 2 Preordain, 2 Sensei's Divining top, but with 2 Intuition.

Sensei's top is so amazing in control matches. It gives you so much advantage in filtering your draw on your draw step that you don't necessarily care what the other player has since you're getting all the best cards that are coming to the top one per turn. Toping every turn makes every draw feel so right. I recommend everyone to test it.

[nodahero]

I actually ran two Tops in my recent top 16 at SCG Milwaukee (insert shameless plug to my report http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25887-Top-16-SCG-Milwaukee-with-Sneak-and-Show&p=718810#post718810 and this is my list from the event http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=55038)

Every time I played a Top in my match I felt in a much better place for very much the same reasons as you stated. I however, am not a fan of Intuition or Jace in this deck. I can see the merits of it and alot of my friends tried convincing me to but I disliked increasing the curve to fit them over more cost efficent spells.

What was your overall deckc compposition? Mine was 20 lands, 8 creatures, 10 cantrips (top included), 10 counters, 8 cheats, and 4 Petals. That composition worked well for me

[dcosiem]

@nodahero After reading some of your report, I should of sideboard-ed Clique in against my esper-blade match. :/ Control matches are no fun. There is always a counter war of some sort. Often times for me, I feel like my opponents always have double back up counter but never does. I guess that's my mentality of what to expect? : )

I play 18 lands because I feel that 20 lands is too much for this deck. In theory, I think we only need a blue land and an ancient tomb to combo off though Show and Tell. If we combo-off through Sneak Attack, we may need 4-6 lands depending on the angle of attack. This is my opinion of the deck's operational algorithm. I run 4 sol lands, 7 blue fetches, and 7 lands that include 3 Volcanic Island and 3/1 Island:Mountain split. It's pretty basic.

At the time of the tournament, I played 14 cantrips including Jace and top. I played 8 creatures, 8 counters, and 4 petals. It's basic list, but I run 2 less counters. Instead, I put 2 can trips because in my mind, I rather have more can-trips than counters i because not all the time are you playing against a control deck. Sometimes, you can be playing a non-control deck, which should mean that you should win more. In any case, having can-trips can make you win easier and faster. If you're playing against a control deck, having more can-trips is good too because it allows you to dig for spells that you need.

I like Intuition because it fulfills the instant speed tutor policy to dig for a certain card of choice to progress your board state from nothing to winning! LOL. I even talked to Chris Cornwell-Shiel who's list is on the beginning of the forum since he's local.

The fact that you lost your match to Merfolk lords has me thinking that I should better put Energy Field in my side instead of Pyroclasm to save me some turns to find a way to win.

[nodahero]

@dcosiem
The counters are not just for control but also combo. Our "combo" seldom outright kills the opponent so I prefer to have as much backup as I can in the form of counters. Cantrips help to set the combo off but do little against opposing decks. My mentality is that since we have a smaller critical mass of cards to assemble we can sit back and snipe off the relevant ones more efficently that to cantrip into our missing ones.

Cantrips work well in Storm variants because there is about 100 times the redundancy for each cards as there is in our deck. We need two specific different types of cards---one threat and one cheat (basically 1 of 8 and 1 of 8). Storm on the other hand can have any number of acceleration and any kill card. The kill card count is generally about 5 versus our 8 but since we need a 1 in 8 twice there level of redundancy since they run a million acceleration is actually alot better then ours.

I really do see the value of intuition but I hate the danger of running our target into an extirpate/extraction. I also dislike my opponent knowing what I am trying to set up. Example---If you intuition for a sneak attack with 4 mana up and you play Show and Tell they know damn well you prolly have an emrakul in hand so they won't throw out there Venser right away if they can generate the 4 mana later in the turn. I would rather have been spending 1 mana a turn for 3 turns (same mana spent) but have had less guarantee but infinitely more surprise power. I think the biggest thing going for Intuition over Top is that it is blue. However, if we want to up the blue count I would lean more towards clique because it is an offensive disruption option and provides a clock if need be. Not to mention in the mirror if your opponent casts show and tell and then you clique them they can be about to have a terrible class presentation TROLOLOLOL

[defector]

@nodahero: Congrats on your top 16! I went 2-7 and had a terrible day. I like the general config. We are having a 1K 4/21 in Madison and I think I am going to try the 19 lands that the first place player in Milwaukee had and see if 4 Sol Lands is workable. I've played 19/20 a lot and I think both are fine. Top is one of those cards I've never had the balls to play. I am on 9 cantrips in my current build with preordain rounding it out. I run one more counter main I think. We'll see how it performs:) Anyway, nice report and well done!

@dcosiem: I don't think energy field is good enough vs Merfolk. With us on 8 fetches and them on a wasteland, its going to be tough to keep cards out of the gy. We need an answer here just not sure that's it.

[dcosiem]

@nodahero: Congrats on your top 16! I went 2-7 and had a terrible day. I like the general config. We are having a 1K 4/21 in Madison and I think I am going to try the 19 lands that the first place player in Milwaukee had and see if 4 Sol Lands is workable. I've played 19/20 a lot and I think both are fine. Top is one of those cards I've never had the balls to play. I am on 9 cantrips in my current build with preordain rounding it out. I run one more counter main I think. We'll see how it performs:) Anyway, nice report and well done!

@dcosiem: I don't think energy field is good enough vs Merfolk. With us on 8 fetches and them on a wasteland, its going to be tough to keep cards out of the gy. We need an answer here just not sure that's it.

How do we deal with merfolk then? I'm at odds between the following solutions to deal with aggro in control decks. I either use Pyroclasm, Propaganda, or Engery Field. I feel like Propaganda is ok but insufficient.

[nodahero]

Pyroclasm is usually insufficent.

Energy field is too weak.

Propaganda is a decent option. I would rather take 3-6 a turn and make them spend mana then have my removal not do anything.

Alternative option is the 3 drop clasm from Lorywn block that is a hybrid to either/and hit flyers/non-flyers for 3. This option forces your opponent to have at least 3 lords in play.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

All Propaganda is going to do is make them waste a red blast on it if they are playing goblins, or grind out the game 1 to 2 creatures swinging a turn with multiple lords. I don't think even stuff like zoo or junk will have much of a problem due to A. Decay. Thats just my opinion. If you want something for merfolk, why not go back to ol' faithful, Llawan, Cephalid Empress? Crawlspace is good at making Piledrivers into Suck-Sauce.

-ABC

[TerribleTim68]

Hmm, Llawan, Cephalid Empress seems good in theory. But I have yet to play against Fish that didn't run Aether Vial. You may slow them down a bit, but they'll just Vial them back out.

[defector]

I just took first at the Mox mani 1K in Madison with Sneak Show. I just wrote a report that can be found here:http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25919-First-Place-Mox-Mania-1K.

I played Merfolk twice and beat it 2-0 and 2-1 and just got lucky in one series and kind of lucky in the other. Going first was really a benefit. You can't SnT vs them as they just kill you on the back swing, you really want Sneak Attack+Emrakul to get there. They really limit your line of play, but Sneak attack goes right through Cursecatcher. I used E Truth to bounce multiple lords and otherwise lived off the top. I've been told we're ahead in this MU, but I don't feel it. I think you just have to focus on the Sneak play line and hope you get there. Defense grid was goood for me though as it allowed me to force through a sneakk attack and win twice.

cheers,
defector

[dcosiem]

@defector

There has been some times where I've won because I "echoing truth" a creature to save me a turn to win. Perhaps, Propaganda is the way to deal with tempo/aggro deck after all. I still don't know if I like Vendilion Clique in the maindeck. I rather have Sensei's top there instead because top is just too good to not play in this type of deck where when shit has hit the wall, you can clean it up with Sensei's top. LOL. I've also learned that if you're playing against tempo/control decks, it's very important to add Vendilion Clique to block damage which will save you a turn or 2 before you can combo. With this idea in mind, I'm testing Snapcaster Mage in the side at 2. Why not Snapcaster Mage into Flusterstorm or a brainstorm in response to what you're opponent might be doing as well save you a turn or 2 by blocking Goyf or dark confidant, etc.

@everyone

Has anyone testing Snapcaster Mage in the side to use deal with tempo/control decks to have additional recur of instant and sorcery spells and as an additional blocker?

[JimmyC27]

I have been using the following:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
3 Grafdigger's cage
2 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away
1 Through the Breach

Playing more TtB would be nice, but I like being able to destroy Elf decks as they pose the largest threat. There are also enough cards to board out (Misdirection & Spell Pierce) so having upto 5 cards to board in is nice.

Hey Koby,

Is this still your sideboard? How do you deal with Karakas?

Thanks,

Jimmy

[Koby]

Quick little ditty - Went 5-1-1 in a local Legacy event and lost in Top 8.

Round 1 - Esper (2-0)
Round 2 - Maverick (1-0) - Opp got a game loss for decklist
Round 3 - BUG Delver (1-2) Lost G3 to a sequencing play error. Played out Ancient Tomb on turn 2, got wasted; was one turn away from winning at the end of the game. I could have played Scalding Tarn, then Ancient Tomb on turn 3 to resolve Show & Tell vs a known Daze.
Round 4 - Jund (2-0)
Round 5 - BUG Walker (2-0)
Round 6 - Nic Fit (GB/r) (2-0)
Round 7 - ID
Top 8 - BUG Delver (different player) (1-2) lost G3 after having resolved Sneak Attack when I failed to find a creature to put into play

I am only running 18 land and 4 Petals. I don't think the deck needs much more than that, and in place of those extra lands increase the cantrip count. I ran 1 Top and 2 Preordain, 2 Misdirection, 2 Spell Pierce, 1 Flusterstorm, 2 Intuition, along with the usual suspects.

SB:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroclasm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Through the Breach

Never boarded in Defense Grid as I never faced RUG or UW control; Through the Breach came in against Esper as addition enablers.
Defense Grid is needed vs non-Black, Blue decks. I didn't face one of those.
Leyline + Pyroclasm deal with DRS decks quite easily.

VS BUG Delver I boarded:
-2 Misdirection
-2 Lotus Petal
-2 Intuition/Preordain (mix depending on the draw/play - Preordain in the deck is better on the play)
+4 Leyline
+2 Pyroclasm


Hey Koby,

Is this still your sideboard? How do you deal with Karakas?

Don't rely heavily on Show & Tell to get there. Read your opponent. Find a 2nd red-source. Use Griselbrand defensively to draw into Emrakul. Find Emrakul.

In the past I've used Pithing Needle, but I don't think it's needed unless a lot of Karakas starts to show up.

[defector]

Sneak Attack beats Karakas. Its a little tough because it does force you to take one line of play, but its a core 4 and does work.

[Lemnear]

Sneak Attack beats Karakas. Its a little tough because it does force you to take one line of play, but its a core 4 and does work.

It requires them to have 2 creatures for every attack and if you bounce the emrakul and Griselbrand getting removed Post Combat they need to find at least 3 griselbrands to kill you with Karakas in play. That's tough

[Norm]

It requires them to have 2 creatures for every attack and if you bounce the emrakul and Griselbrand getting removed Post Combat they need to find at least 3 griselbrands to kill you with Karakas in play. That's tough


All you need is Emrakul + two red sources and you wreck Karakas. You don't need to find tons of creatures, you just put them back into play before attackers.

[pavlaugh]

Or 1 Emrakul + 1 red source + 1 more turn. (Activate Sneak at the opponent's end step.)

[apple713]

I've been playing sneak attack since January and it's quite possibly one of the most consistent decks I've ever played. It wins games it shouldn't and wins games fast. It punishes poorly built decks and doesn't really have a weak matchup game 1 (ie less than 50/50).

That being said, I find that sideboarding this deck is terrible. I hate the sideboard I have now and it really doesn't help improve my match ups.


2x island
1x mountain
4x scalding tarn
4x misty rainforest
3x ancient tomb
2x city of traitors
3x volcanic island

4x lotus petal

4x griselbrand
4x emrakul, aeons torn

4x force of will
4x spell pierce
4x sneak attack
4x show and tell
4x brainstorm
4x ponder

2x misdirection
2x intuition
1x preordain


Sideboard

4x echoing truth
2x shattering spree (it gets around counterbalance)
3x blood moon
2x divert (wish i added more)
4x red elemental blast (maybe i'll add pyroblast too)



Things I'm not happy about the deck:

Lotus Petals: because the games where you are going to win with a show and tell on t1 you are also probably going to win with show and tell on turn 2. It seems like a win more card that doesn't add value to the deck, especially since the deck runs so few lands. If you are hoping to drop a lotus petal off a griselbrand and be protected you need to play more conservative cause i've gotten burned many times on this. Also I sideboard these out almost every match.

Intuition: I feel like I would rather have a cantrip in this spot. It is also usually the first card I sideboard out EVERY match. Granted, it has saved me a few times but not enough for me to really be satisfied with it.

Preordain: maybe I'm just ocd but having just 1 is kinda annoying, feel like i should have Sensei's diving top instead.

In their place

Sensei's divining top: Helps in the longer grindy matches against control decks. Allows you to stack your deck against discard. Provides a more than 1 time use and especially useful with all the fetches and shuffle effects in the deck.

Extra land or two: in place of the lotus petals. 19 lands without lotus petals is usually enough. I typically sideboard them out every matchup and do just fine.

Vendilion Clique: I was never really a fan until I read this post and saw how much it could help against the control matchups. If you really need to you can clique yourself, or make sure the coast is clear for an unprotected show and tell or sneak attack on your upcoming turn.

Through the Breach: this card should have made the original 60 because its a 1 time sneak attack. Thats typically good enough to go the distance or buy you time so you can get there. Maybe 2-3 of them since they are on the high side of the curve




Matchup problems I run into are against miracles/stoneblade (mainly just control). They have lots of things they can add in to make it hard for you (humility, ensnaring bridge, jace, vendilion clique, vensur, counterbalance, karakas). If they land a counterbalance its hard to win a counterspell war or cast echoing truth for humility or bridge. Vendilion / vensur both suck to have to deal with cause they are clocks and are cast eot.

I think that's the only matchup I lose to...but i also beat it about 50% of the time. I really need something to just hose their deck. Some variations play helm combo so Show and tell is much weaker in this match


I made a excel doc with a bunch of sideboard cards and how they fair against other decks in the format and problem cards. you can find the link here https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3WxN3VFi4lcbk1WMmhiZDdGbmM/edit?usp=sharing

I assigned numbers 0 = no effect on matchup or card, 1 = little interaction or situational interaction, and 2 = strong interaction
The weighted totals are sum's of tier 1 decks and 1/2 of the sum of the tier 2 decks. The problem cards were not added to the weighted totals.

Do not rip this doc apart its a work in progress and I understand that it does not take many factors into consideration.

I would however appreciate constructive feedback and any corrections to the ratings I gave. Also if you have other sideboard possibilities I should consider post em.

[Lemnear]

Or 1 Emrakul + 1 red source + 1 more turn. (Activate Sneak at the opponent's end step.)

Missed the obvious. No more midnight postings for me. ;)

[catmint]

Nice work on the sideboard-exel apple. Don't agree with some of the numbers of the evaluation, but the idea to evaluated sidebaord cards this way is not bad. However to build a sideobard you need to also start with what do you want to board out against the specific matchups, so you have exactly the slots you want to board in. For example with 4 Pierce main and 4 red-blast/3 blood moon in the sideboard I am curious how you play versus RUG postboard.

More important than that you need to get a realistic idea of the strenghts and weaknesses of sneak-attack. It seems that you overvalue it, which is strange if you really play it since January.

Don't know which decks you played before that sneak is the most consistant one you've ever played, but there are certain consistency issues in sneak attack. Usually high power has a tradeoff with consistency and Sneak attack is a good compromise on that spectrum, but there are certain draws (mull with little/no cantripping) where you lose to "yourself" or very little disruption.

Also your matchup evaluation that there are no real negative matchups preboard seems a little optimistic to me. Especially RUG Delver but also Miracle control, Reanimator, Dredge, Merfolk and Death and Taxes are negative pre-board imo.

[apple713]

Nice work on the sideboard-exel apple. Don't agree with some of the numbers of the evaluation, but the idea to evaluated sidebaord cards this way is not bad. However to build a sideobard you need to also start with what do you want to board out against the specific matchups, so you have exactly the slots you want to board in. For example with 4 Pierce main and 4 red-blast/3 blood moon in the sideboard I am curious how you play versus RUG postboard.

More important than that you need to get a realistic idea of the strenghts and weaknesses of sneak-attack. It seems that you overvalue it, which is strange if you really play it since January.

Don't know which decks you played before that sneak is the most consistant one you've ever played, but there are certain consistency issues in sneak attack. Usually high power has a tradeoff with consistency and Sneak attack is a good compromise on that spectrum, but there are certain draws (mull with little/no cantripping) where you lose to "yourself" or very little disruption.

Also your matchup evaluation that there are no real negative matchups preboard seems a little optimistic to me. Especially RUG Delver but also Miracle control, Reanimator, Dredge, Merfolk and Death and Taxes are negative pre-board imo.


The sideboard evaluation is still a work in progress. I was hoping to get a little help/ideas from the forums.

I sideboard probably differntly than anyone in the sense that I always take the same cards out every match. Depending on how many cards I need to put in I take out Lotus petals, then preordain, then intuition, and if i need to ponders, but very very rarly ponders if ever at all. I take these cards out because I feel they are the weakest every match. Also the other cards in the deck are really essential to the deck functioning correctly.

Maybe I should be taking out other cards for the cards I put it? If I could get some feedback on what to take out and what to put in i could add it to the excel doc.

I have not played against rug too many times, but other than counterspells they dont have anything threatening. In game one their best card is daze for tempo, but we have lotus petal and sol lands so daze loses its potency fast. You should be able to play around stifles and I always get basics when possible so i dont have to worry about wastelands. Postboard you just blow them out cause they only have nonbasics (you have blood moon but this is unnecessary) so now instead of the SnT and Sneak Attack 8 threats, you have an additional 3 to bait out counterspells with or just push your main cards through with REB. This match is not nearly as difficult as miracles because once you land SnT or SA your win rate is much higher. Dont get me wrong, you can still get tempo'd out if you draw nothing but you have to be smart about your mulligans. Also i typically add diverts cause they run low on mana and its basically another spell pierce.

In my opinion the weakness to the deck is Show and Tell, which is maybe why I would want to run through the breach main (at least a couple).

I dont think I overvalue it because I think it is very undervalued in the meta right now. Very rarely if ever does Blue ever get to play combo. Thats like a match made in heaven because now the only real thing stopping you is counterspells. However, since you run more counterspells than the typical competition with 2 misdirections and more in the board, you can take them head on and usually come out on top.

The wheel of magic is (for the most part)
Combo > Aggro
Aggro > Control
Control > Combo

When the combo deck can now play control too until it just win's outright in 1 turn id say thats a winning combination.

High power does trade off with consistency but take a look at Belcher / Dredge. Both can win as fast is not faster than Sneak attack but they cant really effectivly defend themselves while doing it. I would hardly call cabal therapy a real disruptive card. Yeah i Mean you are going to get draws where you mana flood in a 19 land deck but shit happens with any deck. Proportionally SA/SnT has the right proportoions. Statistically speaking you should get a SA or SnT in your first 8 cards, and you should also get one of your 8 creatures. If you didnt get one or the other you probably got a cantrip to get you to the missing piece or a counterpell or two to buy time till you find the missing piece.

Against disruption you play slow and hide cards with brainstorm. Sneak attack has a lot of power in the sense that it can win fast but its real advantage is being able to play defense as well as offense. You are gonna get weak draws just like every other deck but you recover faster (because you just win). A bad hand for aggro is not curving out and being able to put pressure on us, or not having disrption. So they mulligan till they have one of the two strategys. Even if they put us on a clock, their clock is typically slower than it takes us to assemble our combo. Lets say jund is playing a heavy hand disruption packaage with 4 thoughtseize, 2 inquisition and 4 hymn to tourach's, thats 10 cards. if you look at what our deck has to combat those cards we have more, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Force of will, 2 Misdirection, 4 Brainstorm, we have 14 ways to deal with disruption....Thats why i dont even bother with leyline of sanctity in my board. I do however like divert because its so much better than just countering when you get a card from them and in the optimal situation 2 cards with hymn. If they play around spell pierce and diver thats fine, we get 3-4 turns to assemble our combo, thats a lot...

Matchups:

Miracle control: IMO is our hardest matchup (i havent played against Death and taxes) I asked someone who has been playing the counter top variants since thopter foundry....so for years. He admits that the game one is worse for them than us. It's hard for us because after board they have just as many counterspells but more disruption (humility, ensnaring bridge, Karakas, Vensur). I think the key here is to play with through the breach because 1 swing with emrakul and they are done.

Dredge: we are just as fast except we have more counterspells than they have disruption. Play correctly and you shouldnt lose...

Merfolk: should be about the same as RUG matchup even thought I havent played this one. I talked about RUG up top. BUG should also fall into this category however I worry more about this because they have hand disruption along with a counterspell package which may out number our counterspells.


The list of decks I've piloted in my time is extensive (16 years of exp under my belt): Stax, survival, bant, Team America, Jund, Miracles, Pox, Maverick, Dredge, MBC, Goblins, Merfolk, Landstill, Belcher, Stoneblade, Burn, ANT, , Dream halls, Pitch World, Combo Elves, RUG, counter thopter, NO Bant, Food chain elves, Vampires, counterslivers, dragon stompy, MUD, enchantress, ....so on and so forth.

Decks I havent piloted are Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, High Tide, 43 lands, tin fins (this is close to the modern version of our deck), painter stone, aluren, deadguy ale, hive mind


Sorry for the long posts guys but I really want to perfect this deck, as i feel very passionate about it being the best deck in the format. I like it so much I ported it to modern and play it there too.

[blindspotxxx]

I've been playing sneak attack since January and it's quite possibly one of the most consistent decks I've ever played. It wins games it shouldn't and wins games fast. It punishes poorly built decks and doesn't really have a weak matchup game 1 (ie less than 50/50).

That being said, I find that sideboarding this deck is terrible. I hate the sideboard I have now and it really doesn't help improve my match ups.


2x island
1x mountain
4x scalding tarn
4x misty rainforest
3x ancient tomb
2x city of traitors
3x volcanic island

4x lotus petal

4x griselbrand
4x emrakul, aeons torn

4x force of will
4x spell pierce
4x sneak attack
4x show and tell
4x brainstorm
4x ponder

2x misdirection
2x intuition
1x preordain


Sideboard

4x echoing truth
2x shattering spree (it gets around counterbalance)
3x blood moon
2x divert (wish i added more)
4x red elemental blast (maybe i'll add pyroblast too)



Things I'm not happy about the deck:

Lotus Petals: because the games where you are going to win with a show and tell on t1 you are also probably going to win with show and tell on turn 2. It seems like a win more card that doesn't add value to the deck, especially since the deck runs so few lands. If you are hoping to drop a lotus petal off a griselbrand and be protected you need to play more conservative cause i've gotten burned many times on this. Also I sideboard these out almost every match.

Intuition: I feel like I would rather have a cantrip in this spot. It is also usually the first card I sideboard out EVERY match. Granted, it has saved me a few times but not enough for me to really be satisfied with it.

Preordain: maybe I'm just ocd but having just 1 is kinda annoying, feel like i should have Sensei's diving top instead.

In their place

Sensei's divining top: Helps in the longer grindy matches against control decks. Allows you to stack your deck against discard. Provides a more than 1 time use and especially useful with all the fetches and shuffle effects in the deck.

Extra land or two: in place of the lotus petals. 19 lands without lotus petals is usually enough. I typically sideboard them out every matchup and do just fine.

Vendilion Clique: I was never really a fan until I read this post and saw how much it could help against the control matchups. If you really need to you can clique yourself, or make sure the coast is clear for an unprotected show and tell or sneak attack on your upcoming turn.

Through the Breach: this card should have made the original 60 because its a 1 time sneak attack. Thats typically good enough to go the distance or buy you time so you can get there. Maybe 2-3 of them since they are on the high side of the curve




Matchup problems I run into are against miracles/stoneblade (mainly just control). They have lots of things they can add in to make it hard for you (humility, ensnaring bridge, jace, vendilion clique, vensur, counterbalance, karakas). If they land a counterbalance its hard to win a counterspell war or cast echoing truth for humility or bridge. Vendilion / vensur both suck to have to deal with cause they are clocks and are cast eot.

I think that's the only matchup I lose to...but i also beat it about 50% of the time. I really need something to just hose their deck. Some variations play helm combo so Show and tell is much weaker in this match


I made a excel doc with a bunch of sideboard cards and how they fair against other decks in the format and problem cards. you can find the link here https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3WxN3VFi4lcbk1WMmhiZDdGbmM/edit?usp=sharing

I assigned numbers 0 = no effect on matchup or card, 1 = little interaction or situational interaction, and 2 = strong interaction
The weighted totals are sum's of tier 1 decks and 1/2 of the sum of the tier 2 decks. The problem cards were not added to the weighted totals.

Do not rip this doc apart its a work in progress and I understand that it does not take many factors into consideration.

I would however appreciate constructive feedback and any corrections to the ratings I gave. Also if you have other sideboard possibilities I should consider post em.

I don't feel comfortable with too many fetches I feel like 3 Islands is the way to go as you need to ramp up versus Control Decks but that's just me. Lotus Petals are great they are City of Traitors 3-7, 1 turn faster is the huge difference between defeat and winning. Lotus Petals also enable you to get the win that turn instead of the next when you draw cards from Griselbrand with Sneak Attack in play and you have played a land drop. Where Lotus Petal doesn't shine is the control match ups. I feel like the matchup is super grindy that's why I tend to play more long term resources as compared to short term speed. This is what I do vs Esper and Miracles.

Intuition is a super great card, I can't even begin to explain how good they are. This has won me many games and enables more Combo Consistency. The only times they suck is when facing Surgical Extraction. When the games are grindy and are long I tend to board these out but for Speed Matchups I keep them especially in the Mirror.

Why don't you use Through the Breach in the Sideboard? They are too good to not use. They shine in other Show and Tell Decks where you tend to board out show and tell and they are great versus opposing Surgical Extractions since you still have a win con. I honestly think that 4 Echoing Truth is too much, why do you need so much bounce?

Sensei's Top makes sense but I don't know why I like the singleton Preordain lol in todays meta of Black Green Decks Sensei's Top enables us to float the combo on top of the library then pop it up.

[apple713]

I don't feel comfortable with too many fetches I feel like 3 Islands is the way to go as you need to ramp up versus Control Decks but that's just me. Lotus Petals are great they are City of Traitors 3-7, 1 turn faster is the huge difference between defeat and winning. Lotus Petals also enable you to get the win that turn instead of the next when you draw cards from Griselbrand with Sneak Attack in play and you have played a land drop. Where Lotus Petal doesn't shine is the control match ups. I feel like the matchup is super grindy that's why I tend to play more long term resources as compared to short term speed. This is what I do vs Esper and Miracles.



I dont understand how lotus petals are city of traitors. Yes lotus petals help you win faster, but only sometimes. A lot of the time its just a wasted card as in its extra and unnecesssary. I mentioned earlier that gambling and drawing cards with griselbrand unnecessarily is not typically a great strategy. I find myself regretting it more often than not.


Intuition is a super great card, I can't even begin to explain how good they are. This has won me many games and enables more Combo Consistency. The only times they suck is when facing Surgical Extraction. When the games are grindy and are long I tend to board these out but for Speed Matchups I keep them especially in the Mirror.



I agree with this...I gave my wife this deck to play cause she is trying to figure out if she is a combo, aggro, or control player. She loved the deck but more importantly I can observe from the other side of the battlefield and realize that she drew intuitions and they were good things for her.


Why don't you use Through the Breach in the Sideboard? They are too good to not use. They shine in other Show and Tell Decks where you tend to board out show and tell and they are great versus opposing Surgical Extractions since you still have a win con. I honestly think that 4 Echoing Truth is too much, why do you need so much bounce?



Through the breach is being put into the sideboard because of the reasons mentioned. It is in the excel doc i made. I'll post the summary here so everyone doesnt have to open it unless they want details. Echoing truths are too much. The current sideboard is pretty bad though, i only like the REB's and Diverts. I'm unhappy with the rest.



Sensei's Top makes sense but I don't know why I like the singleton Preordain lol in todays meta of Black Green Decks Sensei's Top enables us to float the combo on top of the library then pop it up.

Senei's top is replacing preordain in my deck and possible -1 lotus petal for a second top, idk yet.

[blindspotxxx]

I dont understand how lotus petals are city of traitors. Yes lotus petals help you win faster, but only sometimes. A lot of the time its just a wasted card as in its extra and unnecesssary. I mentioned earlier that gambling and drawing cards with griselbrand unnecessarily is not typically a great strategy. I find myself regretting it more often than not.

They are City of Traitors because they are an accelerant. I believe that 9 accelerants are better than just 5. An earlier turn of Show and Tell or Sneak Attack means swinging the game in your favor rather than them. Imagine if they can put down Liliana 1st before you get to put down your Griselbrand. If you had a faster Griselbrand you could have drawn cards to Counter Liliana and not even having the need to play around it :)

[apple713]

They are City of Traitors because they are an accelerant. I believe that 9 accelerants are better than just 5. An earlier turn of Show and Tell or Sneak Attack means swinging the game in your favor rather than them. Imagine if they can put down Liliana 1st before you get to put down your Griselbrand. If you had a faster Griselbrand you could have drawn cards to Counter Liliana and not even having the need to play around it :)

Or just sneak attack them/ through the breach cause show and tell is garbage .... Well not garbage but definitely weaker and less successful

[TerribleTim68]

I dont understand how lotus petals are city of traitors. Yes lotus petals help you win faster, but only sometimes. A lot of the time its just a wasted card as in its extra and unnecesssary. I mentioned earlier that gambling and drawing cards with griselbrand unnecessarily is not typically a great strategy. I find myself regretting it more often than not.
. . .

The reason I will never take Lotus Petal out of my list -
Those moments where you drop Sneak Attack, activate and put Griselbrand into play, draw 7 cards and one of them is Lotus Petal and one of them is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

That ends games right now. Lotus Petal isn't always about accelerating, it's about access to another free mana to get that other creature out there and swing right now rather than waiting another turn for your opponent to find an answer. If you go through the trouble to Force a Sneak Attack into play and then get a creature into play all on the same turn, I'd rather have a means to simply end the game right there over waiting another turn.

[apple713]

This is the summary portion of what i put in the google doc. The higher the usefulness the more relevant it is suppose to be in helping you in your matches on average.

so while divert may not help our worst matchup the most, it has the most applications across all other decks in the format. Below is an image of the the detailed break out

card Usefulness
Divert 13.5
Pyroclasm 13
Flusterstorm 12
Red Elemental Blast 11.5
Defense Grid 11.5
Vendilion Clique 11
Stifle 10.5
Blood Moon 10
Through the Breach 10
Boseiju 9
Pithing Needle 8.5
Leyline of Sanctity 8.5
Echoing Truth 8
Sensei's Divining Top 8
Wipe Away 8
Rushing River 8
Surgical Extraction 7.5
Shattering Spree 4
Graffdiggers Cage 4

http://i41.tinypic.com/34fld1g.png

[blindspotxxx]

@Apple713

Wow that's a nice looking analysis but how did you come up with the numbers on each? Problem is, you can't really rate sideboards like that because some of them really trump some matchups. Like Dredge for instance, if we have Graveyard hate and draw into it the match up becomes super favored as compared to without. As much as catch all sideboards are great, we can't really analyze them in certain numbers.

Tournament Report Time :)

Cerberus Legacy Open 4

79 players

4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Intuition
1 Preordain
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:

2 Pyroblast
2 Through the Breach
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Defense Grid

Round 1 MBA (Win)

Game 1: Turn 1 or Turn 2 Show and Tell Griselbrand on the draw. I Force of Will his turn 3 Liliana and that's Game.

In: 4 Leyline of Sanctity, 1 Wipe Away
Out: 2 Intuition, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Preordain

Game 2: Turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity and Turn 4 Sneak in the Brothers of Destruction.

Round 2 Sneak Show Mirror (Win)

Game 1: This is one of the funniest games of Magic I have played. I'm paired with a friend who plays at our local shop's legacy events. So he goes Turn 2 Show and Tell, and we both drop an Emrakul. I have a Force of Will and a Flusterstorm in my hand but I decide to let it resolve. On his Turn 3 he casts another Show and Tell and I don't have any creatures. What I do is I Intuition into another Emrakul. He then uses Daze on his own Show and Tell and we both laugh because apparently he would drop a Griselbrand but him seeing my Emrakul changes his mind lol I Flusterstorm his Show and Tell with a smirk on my face and we are on to game 2.

In: 2 Pyroblasts, 2 Through the Breach, 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Out: 4 Show and Tell, 1 City of Traitors

Game 2 I Brainstorm into my lone Boseiju and cast an uncounterable Force of Will to his Sneak Attack, an uncounterable Intuition fetching 2 Through the Breach and a Sneak Attack and play an uncounterable Through the Breach which draws me a buttload of cards to his last 2. Sneak Attack into Emrakul wins the game for me.

Round 3 Punishing Jund (Win)

Game 1 After I have managed to Show and Tell an Emrakul through discard. He plays a fetch which I cut into a Bloodbraid Elf cascading a Liliana of the Veil :(

In: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
Out: 2 Intuition, 2 Flusterstorm

Game 2 Turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity I hear it's super effective against Black decks! He Pyroblasts my Turn 1 Brainstorm at the end of his turn and i drop a 2nd Turn Griselbrand via Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Petal and City of Traitors. I don't draw Emrakul except another lone Griselbrand. Yeah talk about luck! He then casts Surgical Extraction on my Griselbrand and I'm at low life with him with a Tarmogoyf on play. I Misdirect it to my discarded Leyline of Sanctity to shrink Goyf and to help me get better draws on my turn. A cantrips draws me Emrakul :)

Game 3 Turn one nothing for him, Turn 1 Ponder for me. I keep a Show and Tell on top of my Library for a 2nd Turn Show and Tell. On his 2nd turn, I was crossing my fingers for no Hymn to Tourach and he casts a turn 2 Hymn! My hand had 6 cards and he can't hit 4 of them or I can't have a turn 2 Show and Tell into Emrakul.

My hand is Sneak Attack, Lotus Petal, Emrakul, Emrakul, Mountain, Force of Will I think. If he gets the Emrakul, my library gets shuffled. If he gets any of the mana sources I can't cast a turn 2 Show and Tell. I have to thank my Lucky stars as what gets discarded is Sneak Attack and Force of Will!!!!! I cast turn 2 Emrakul and he his Bloodbraid misses :)

Round 4 Esper Stoneblade (Loss)

Game 1 I keep a Lotus Petal hand as my only colored mana source and a City of Traitors. I had already mulled to six and since I was fighting Stoneblade I'll have time to draw into my other 15 colored land sources and other 3 Petals for colored mana. I had an Intuition and the creatures. I never draw a colored source the entire game.

In: 2 Defense Grid, 1 Boseiju, 2 Through the Breach, 2 Pyroblast, 2 Wipe Away
Out: 2 Intuition, 2 Flusterstorm, 4 Lotus Petal, City of Traitors

Game 2 My Defense Grid draws his counter and I forgot but he dies to Griselbrand.

Game 3 I get hit with Inquisition of Kozilek on my Show and Tell, my Sneak Attack gets Spell Pierced. I don't get to cast my Through the Breach to his early SFM into Sword of Feast or Famine. I die to the SFM :(

Round 5 Punishing Jund (Win)

Game 1: I get a 2 Petal draw and lay a Turn 2 Sneak Attack. I never draw a single Fatty!

Game 2: Turn 0 Leyline. It trumps his Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach and Surgical Hand. I Sneak a Griselbrand and draw 14 cards without hitting another fatty! Next turn a Brainstorm gets me Emrakul :)

Game 3: I misdirect a turn 2 Hymn to Tourach. It hits his Liliana and another Spell. Then Turn 2 Show an Emrakul. It wins me the game, talk about lucky because i have no spells anymore after that. Nothing is more satisfying than a Misdirected Hymn!

Round 6 Dredge (Win)

Game 1: Turn 2 Emrakul on the play races his Ichorids and Zombies

In: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
Out: 2 Misdirections, 1 Intuition, 1 Preordaib

Game 2: Turn 0 Leyline Turn 3 Sneak in Griselbrand.. It's still not enough to beat 3 Bridges, 2 Ichorids and 2 Narcomoebas!!!

Game 3: Me on the play I kept a hand of City, Petal, Sneak Attack, Emrakul, Griselbrand, Fetch and a Cantrip. I play land and cantrip and He casts a turn 1 Cabal Therapy naming Show and Tell. It mises and well I top deck a Show and Tell for a turn 2 Kill :)

Round 7 Rest in Peaces (Draw)

ID into Top 8 with a team mate :)

Top 8

Quarterfinals Punishing Maverick

Paired with a teammate and after our general analysis on the meta of the top 8 I give him the win. Too bad he lost to in the Semis but still a good day for Magic as my team has 3 team mates in the top 8.

[apple713]

@Apple713

Wow that's a nice looking analysis but how did you come up with the numbers on each? Problem is, you can't really rate sideboards like that because some of them really trump some matchups. Like Dredge for instance, if we have Graveyard hate and draw into it the match up becomes super favored as compared to without. As much as catch all sideboards are great, we can't really analyze them in certain numbers.



True, its a very surface level analisys and more of a catch all. a card was rated 0 for having no effect on the match, 1 for very little effect/ situational effect, and 2 for a strong effect. the tier 2 decks only effected the overall numbers by half as much and the the problem cards were not added to the overall number at the top.

What i'll do next is try to take a look at all the tournament reports we've had on the forum here, (this will take a while). I'll try to analyze what cards went in and out and see if it turned into a win or loss. I'll have to factor in player errors, and whether or not the player drew their sideboard cards.

[koba]

True, its a very surface level analisys and more of a catch all. a card was rated 0 for having no effect on the match, 1 for very little effect/ situational effect, and 2 for a strong effect. the tier 2 decks only effected the overall numbers by half as much and the the problem cards were not added to the overall number at the top.

What i'll do next is try to take a look at all the tournament reports we've had on the forum here, (this will take a while). I'll try to analyze what cards went in and out and see if it turned into a win or loss. I'll have to factor in player errors, and whether or not the player drew their sideboard cards.

The numbers in the document are not always correct imho.

What does divert do against ant? I would rather have reb in that matchup (although it receives a zero).
Defense grid (and pithing needle) in the mirror? Would you really do that?

More importantly, you should definitely take into account the number of cards you can take out in each matchup.

Through the breach is not useless against RUG, true, but I would advise against siding out petals or ponder (or any card besides intuition) in favour for ttb. I think your matchup gets worse if you do that, so it does not merit a score of one in my opinion.

In fact, if you already have something like 5 good cards to side in against RUG (like rebs and grids), the value of all other potential sideboard cards is close to zero. I would not even sideboard blood moon (and surely not divert) in this situation as I do not want to sideboard out more than 5 cards against RUG.

I do not think it is much use to analyze all tournament reports either. The sample size is too low and there is almost no way to know if a sideboard card has really impacted the matchup anyway.

If I were you, I would start from a list you like (60 maindeck cards and 15 sideboard cards) and write down how you would sideboard against common matchups, both the cards you want to sideboard in and what cards you want to sideboard out and see what other people think about your sideboard strategy. It seems like a much more useful exercise, as always taking out the same cards in every matchup is not the right way to go.

[nodahero]

Another tactic that I would personally suggest for determining the value of sideboarding is it not limit your initial sideboard to 15. Use as many alternatives as you want and simply thin them from there as you start to determine which ones have the most impact in a game or the most cross application. This method used to be very popular by the European pros like Nassif. The last GP I remember watching with Nassif had 15 different singletons because they all had a little crossover application and were each tested to be the best at their intended goal. He went on to top 8 that GP as I recall.

[JPA]

I finished 19th at this year's Bazaar of Moxen, playing an 18-land-version of Sneak & Show with Probes and Tops. I went from 3-2 to 11-2 (16-1 in games :laugh:). I only had to win round 14 to draw into top 8... Instead I lost both round 14 and round 15 in very close matches. :frown:

My list:
4 Griselbrand
2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Gitaxian Probe

SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Through the Breach
SB: 2 Stifle
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Blood Moon
SB: 2 Pyroclasm

I decided to play with more cantrips, because even though I liked the raw power of the stock-lists with 10 counters, 9 cantrips and 8 Leylines in the board, I often felt like they gave me too little room to actually take the game in my own hands. The deck is already very topdeck-reliant, I tried to decrease this by adding Sensei's Divining Top.

After the tournament I have to say that the Tops weren't as good as I expected, Gitaxian Probe was way better than I expected (I would go up to 3). In the mirror match, they are awesome for obvious reasons. Same against all the hate-bear decks like Death and Taxes, Maverick and UWr Miracles. Even against decks like Canadian, they do so much, showing me how many tax/hard counters they have.
Flusterstorm felt really bad. When it actually countered something, Spell Pierce would have done the same; and more, since it can get Planeswalkers, Aether Vial, Pithing Needle, etc. etc. etc.

So if I were to play the deck again, I would cut 2 Sensei's Divining Top, 1 Flusterstorm for 1 Island, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Gitaxian Probe.

However, this is just the list I personally feel most comfortable playing, the 5 lists that won SCG Opens in 2012/2013 and Christopher Brunner's Strasbourg Top 8 list are probably way better.


Unfortunately, I didn't take any notes. Some impressions nonetheless:

My 2 losses on day 1 were both to fellow Germans. Guess I joke around too much when I can finally talk in my mother language. :smile: The first loss was to Jund, where my Blood Moon actually didn't affect him at all, because he had the forest in hand and topdecked the swamp... My Sensei's Divining Top was useless there, because I couldn't fetch anymore. Don't play SDT and Blood Moon in the same 75; it's really, really bad.
The 2nd loss was against Dredge, where I misplayed really hard, by pitching Echoing Truth instead of Brainstorm to Force of Will to counter one of his discard-outlets. His Zombie army raced my Griselbrand...
After that, at 3-2, I decided I didn't want to lose anymore. And so I only dropped 1 game in the next 8 matches.
Except the 2 losses on day 1, I only played against Control-decks and 1 time against Storm. Can't believe I lost to Jund and Dredge, winning against Esper, UWr and BUG multiple times.

On day 2, I got a deckcheck in the first round after the first game. It took unusually long, but everything was fine. My opponent (Shardless BUG) mulled to 6, started with Creeping Tar Pit - go. I went Scalding Tarn into Island, Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, Blood Moon. He instantly extended his hand and scooped them up. :tongue:

The next rounds were a blurr of more BUG and Elves. G2 against Elves was very fun. After T2 Show and Tell Emrakul in game 1, he was pretty angry already. Naturally, T2 Show and Tell happened again. I put in Griselbrand, he put... Progenitus. :laugh: Even though I had Pyroclasm for his pair of Nettle Sentinels and mana-Elves, I got raced eventually. In game 3 Gitaxian Probe showed me the coast was clear for the Spaghetti-Monster on Turn 3. When he tried to Natural Order into win next turn, I showed him my last 2 cards in hand: FOW and FOW. :laugh: He wasn't pleased.

The round before or after that I won against Pierre Sommen; he didn't lose a round after that before the quarterfinals. "See you in the Top 8" was what he said after our match. I agreed, not knowing that my winning spree was over. :frown: :frown:

Round 14 I was paired up, playing on table 1 against Luis Viciano, playing anti-Sneak and Show.dec. I lost game 1 by misplaying, going for the Show and Tell Emrakul AFTER I ACTUALLY SAW HIS WEATHERED WAYFARER WITH GITAXIAN PROBE OMG WTF. His maindeck Phyrexian Revoker sealed the deal. That was probably the point where I went on tilt.
I won a very close game 2, with the help of both of my Stifles. 1 for a critical Wasteland, 1 for Karakas on a Through the Breached Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I had 0 chance in game 3, since he drew the absolute nuts. His board in the end was something like 4 lands, Knight of the Reliquary, Gaddock Teeg, Phrexian Revoker, Phyrexian Revoker, Aether Vial. My Echoing Truth, Sneak Attack, Through the Breach, Griselbrand and some stuff was far from enough to beat that... Pyroclasm would have been enough, but I didn't find that in 8 cantrips, of course.

Before round 15 I saw that I would probably still be in the Top 8 if I won that round. And of course, I got the most random of matchups: THE MIRROR
My opponent played Karakas maindeck (probably should have called a judge for that, now that I think about it). I kept a brainfart hand in game 3, with 2 cantrips, Griselbrand, Sneak Attack, 2 counters, but only Ancient Tomb as a land. Since I was on the draw, I thought I could find one of my blue sources fast enough to beat his 6 cards. I Gitaxian Probed him T1 to find a blue source for my Ponder, seeing the best possible 5 cards; something like Griselbrand, Sneak Attack, Fow, Ancient Tomb, Brainstorm.
Of course I didn't find a blue source in something like 10 turns. When I did, my 2 counters weren't enough to stop his Sneak Attack. He even had Simian Spirit Guide to activate it, draw 10000 cards and win.
I wished him good luck in the Top 8 only to find out that he finished 9th. XD That's what you get for maindeck Karakas.

Overall, the deck felt very strong, as always. It is the most powerful Legacy deck after all. Omniclash/-maniac is definitely better in a hate-infested metagame, so I might switch to this. At least for smaller tournaments, I will start playing more fair, interactive decks. It' just too easy to just win everything with Sneak and Show.

On another note, I am currently working on updating the primer for this thread. The current one doesn't even know what Griselbrand did to this deck. :laugh:

Also, shoutouts to my opponents at the BoM, who were all graceful in defeat, humble in victory and very nice people in general. Looking forward to winning round 14 in Paris this November. ;-)

[apple713]

Short Tournament report for a local 4 round legacy

standard list with 2 sensei's tops instead of 1 preordain and 1 intuition. (end result is I dont know how top did because i never drew it in any of my games)

sideboard
2 vendilion clique
4 boseiju who shelters all
3 through the breach
1 red elemental blast
2 divert
3 echoing truth


Round 1 vs Miracles (2-0)

game 1 I keep a sketchy hand 2 ancient tombs 1 lotus petal and a ponder and a brainstorm. He apparently keeps a sketchy hand too. we are both looking for land for the first 5 turns or so. He has 2 lands and I have 2 ancient tombs. I draw into a land, then start brainstorming and assemble my pieces. Get there with sneak attack

sideboarding
+2 vendillion -2 sensei's tops
+4 boseiju -4 lotus petals
+3 through the breach -1 intuition, -2 show and tell
+1 reb -1 spell pierce

we both get goods hands. he drops counterbalance, with no top in play so i let it resolve so i can save my spell pierce for my back up. I cast through the breach with emrakul, he doesnt have a counter, and misses with counterbalance.


Round 2 vs Mirror (2-0)

he is struggling on lands and casts show and tell, I let it resolve putting a sneak attack into play.I let it resolve because I am holding a griselbrand and so on my turn i'll win cause my sneak attack is in play and if he drops a fatty i'll be able to kill it with the legendary rule. He drops a sneak attack too (oops i forgot he could do this). No worries, because i have lots of mana in play, I sneak attack griselbrand into play and dig for an emrakul to kill his emrakul. I get there on my turn.

sideboard
+2 vendilion cliques -1 sensei's tops -1 lotus petal
+3 through the breach -2 show and tell -1 lotus petal
+1 Boseiju -1 lotus petal
+1 reb -1 lotus petal

he decides to draw so i'm on the play. I have to mulligan. I vendilion clique him on his 3rd turn and he reveals 2 griselbrands and 2 sneak attacks, intuition and misdirection. I take his misdirection cause I have a counterspell in hand. i get in 3 swings in with vendilion before he can find 5 lands with back up.He intuitions into a force of will for back up. He attempts to cast sneak attack, i spell pierce it, he forces, I force. he leaves 1 land open. I cast through the breach on my turn with boseiju, get there.

round three vs high tide (2-0)

uneventful game. He casts merchant scroll, I spell pierce it. He wastes all his counters on my threats and doesnt get what he needs. I do and get there with emrakul.

sideboard
+2 vendilion cliques -2 sensei's tops
+3 thourgh the breach -1 intuition -2 lotus petal
+1 reb - 1 spell pierce
+4 boseiju -2 lotus petal -1 mountain -1 island

he keeps a very defensive hand, normally that would be good against my deck except i land a boseiju and through the breach into emrakul and take out his lands. easy walk to victory after that. He was holding 3 counter spells that he could cast when i used through the breach.

round 4 vs mud (2-1)

game 1 he turn 1 metalworkers and I dont have a force. Im holding a spell pierce for his grim monolith but since i was on the draw i didnt have a land in play. Turn 2 he casts 2 lodestone golems so i scoop it up and go to g2.

sideboard

+3 through the breach -1 intuition -2 senses tops

In hindsight i should have taken out my misdirections. (now i know)

g2 i spell pierce his grim monolith and he durdles around looking for lands with his SDT. I land sneak attack and roll him cause he has no defense.

g3 i show and tell an emrakul into play and he puts a voltaic key into play and already has a grim monolith. He has lots of mana but no fatties. Get there spaghetti monster.


Recap. Boseiju and through the breach should be in all the sideboards because it just wrecks control. If you hit an emrakul with it they can't recover fast enough... or its extremly unlikely.

i did have diverts and echoing truth's in my sideboard but didnt run into something i would want them for. I usually sideboard divert in against discard decks (great against hymn)

I'm perfectly happy i solved my control deck matchups. Not sure i fear anything in the format now.

[feline]

Turn 1 Ancient Tomb / Lotus Petal / Show and Tell / Emrakul... and so does opponent!!!!!

Keeping the intro/post short:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/248f

~Out of all the decks in the format, this is one that these changes affect the most. Keep having fun Show and Tell'ers, there's going to be one heck of a feature mirror match one day, especially if one side of the table doesn't see it coming.

[ankharlyn]

Turn 1 Ancient Tomb / Lotus Petal / Show and Tell / Emrakul... and so does opponent!!!!!

Keeping the intro/post short:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/248f

~Out of all the decks in the format, this is one that these changes affect the most. Keep having fun Show and Tell'ers, there's going to be one heck of a feature mirror match one day, especially if one side of the table doesn't see it coming.

Gah. The legend rule changes are terrible. Now in the mirror, whoever SnTs first loses if you both have an Emrakul in fist. Just ridiculous and stupid all around.

[yankeedave]

Need for Speed for the mirror? :)

[ankharlyn]

Need for Speed for the mirror? :)

My thought was that you'd probably want to board in Through the Breach and just be extra careful with Show and Tell in terms of never playing it first or something. I think Need for Speed would do the trick, but needing the extra card kind of sucks (though I guess 2UR is better than 4R sometimes).

[blindspotxxx]

Or just sneak attack them/ through the breach cause show and tell is garbage .... Well not garbage but definitely weaker and less successful

Show and Tell is faster and has less requirements than those cards (Mana Resources). And you don't run 4 Through the Breach maindeck, you need to draw them.


Gah. The legend rule changes are terrible. Now in the mirror, whoever SnTs first loses if you both have an Emrakul in fist. Just ridiculous and stupid all around.

Well whoever does Show and Tell 1st loses anyway, if you both put the same legends both die. Your down a card already.

[Koby]

Need for Speed for the mirror? :)

I mean, sure. Or you can put in Sneak Attack with S&T, then do the same thing too. 3 card combo vs 3 card combo, both require 2UR.

[ankharlyn]

Well whoever does Show and Tell 1st loses anyway, if you both put the same legends both die. Your down a card already.

I'd rather have it die than have my opponent be able to attack first with Emrakul, at which point having my own is 100% useless. At least the way it works currently doesn't actually make the person putting SnT down lose as soon as they pass the turn. Yes, I realize it's possible to work around it and such, but it's just stupid the way it works in the new rules.

[S1N1STER]

Hmmm, cast S&T, both players drop emrakul. Then you play karakas and bounce your opponents emrakul?

[apple713]

Now you are just required to play smarter.

People who have never played this deck think it's easy to play and requires no skill. While an inexperienced player can do well with it an experienced player can decimate all.

[blindspotxxx]

I'd rather have it die than have my opponent be able to attack first with Emrakul, at which point having my own is 100% useless. At least the way it works currently doesn't actually make the person putting SnT down lose as soon as they pass the turn. Yes, I realize it's possible to work around it and such, but it's just stupid the way it works in the new rules.

I board out show and tell in the mirror. It's just bad to play the card in the mirror. The changes benefit us a bit in the form of Phantasmal Image killing our legends. I'd say this is an advantage to our archetype.

[JPA]

Another advantage is that you can now play another Show and Tell into Griselbrand after you already played one, to get a blocker Griselbrand after attacking.

[pavlaugh]

Another advantage is that you can now play another Show and Tell into Griselbrand after you already played one, to get a blocker Griselbrand after attacking.

Yep, pretty sweet. There will be situations when we can draw an additional 7+ cards against aggro/tempo decks, counting on the life we will gain from blocking.

[ankharlyn]

Hm, I suppose that's true. No more clone kills is good, and being able to lay down a second Griselbrand seems nice.

I'm not running Karakas in my list (just for budget reasons at the moment), but I'm curious what you guys would do against it now with the new rules?

[Koby]

I'm not running Karakas in my list (just for budget reasons at the moment), but I'm curious what you guys would do against it now with the new rules?

Ignore it like we have been for the last year?
Continue to play Pithing Needle?
Continue to play Blood Moon-effects?

[jarvisyu]

Ignore it like we have been for the last year?
Continue to play Pithing Needle?
Continue to play Blood Moon-effects?

Not of this World obviously

[phazonmutant]

Is it right out to splash black for Thoughtseize, dropping Misdirection or 2 Pierces? I toyed with the black splash for UR Omniscience and was reasonably happy with it. The Petals go a long way for easing mana requirements but you'd still probably only run 4 sol lands in a 3color deck.

[Koby]

Is it right out to splash black for Thoughtseize, dropping Misdirection or 2 Pierces? I toyed with the black splash for UR Omniscience and was reasonably happy with it. The Petals go a long way for easing mana requirements but you'd still probably only run 4 sol lands in a 3color deck.

I tried this in Europe at Bazaar of Moxen. It worked well enough, but I still lost to Maverick and Death & Taxes; and in those matchups the deck does not need the black splash to begin with.

[phazonmutant]

I tried this in Europe at Bazaar of Moxen. It worked well enough, but I still lost to Maverick and Death & Taxes; and in those matchups the deck does not need the black splash to begin with.

Wouldn't you want Thoughtseize exactly for those matchups? Seems like Mangara, Canonist, Angel of Despair, Oblivion Ring, etc are all things you'd want to preemptively strip from their hands and they definitely run those cards.

[pavlaugh]

It has been done with reasonably good results. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=55030

[Koby]

Wouldn't you want Thoughtseize exactly for those matchups? Seems like Mangara, Canonist, Angel of Despair, Oblivion Ring, etc are all things you'd want to preemptively strip from their hands and they definitely run those cards.

In theory, yes. In practice, you end up weakening your mana base to Wasteland.

My match against D&T resulted in the following:
Early Thalia + triple Port + Wasteland = can't cast spells. Game 1 was Aether Vial + infinite dudes that stop S&T plan.

[ankharlyn]

Not of this World obviously

Oh, that's pretty neat. I think I might try it in place of Stifle due to cost reasons. Can it hit all types of abilities (activated/triggered at least)? It doesn't specify on the card so I'd imagine yes, but not sure.

Could you use it to counter an Oblivion Ring targeting Emrakul off of a Show and Tell? What about, say, Gilded Drake?

Edit: Seems like it would hit those.

[blindspotxxx]

Oh, that's pretty neat. I think I might try it in place of Stifle due to cost reasons. Can it hit all types of abilities (activated/triggered at least)? It doesn't specify on the card so I'd imagine yes, but not sure.

Could you use it to counter an Oblivion Ring targeting Emrakul off of a Show and Tell? What about, say, Gilded Drake?

Edit: Seems like it would hit those.

Yes it definitely would, but stifle has more uses but it's not free. I'm not sure if you can use that card on your sacrifice effect of sneak attack though. Karakas wi definitely be harder because if the gw player is smart he can leave a karakas and a Knight of the Reliquary untapped which will nullify a 2 red mana Sneak activation which buys them a turn depending on the number of karakas remaining in their libraries.

[Barbed Blightning]

Yes it definitely would, but stifle has more uses but it's not free. I'm not sure if you can use that card on your sacrifice effect of sneak attack though. Karakas wi definitely be harder because if the gw player is smart he can leave a karakas and a Knight of the Reliquary untapped which will nullify a 2 red mana Sneak activation which buys them a turn depending on the number of karakas remaining in their libraries.

You can prevent the sacrifice because it is a delayed trigger.

[Sunday Funday]

Came in 1st place this past weekend. 38 players so 6 rounds. Only lost 1 game in whole tournament. My list is the same as my last tournament report except the sideboard: +2 echoing truth -2 wipe away & -2 pyroclasm + 2 pithing needle. Wipe away requires UU which can be hard to get and echoing truth can bounce empty warren tokens (which I've been finding a lot of my meta is playing ANT/TES lately). Board sweepers like pyroclasm I don't really care for cuz creature decks are generally fair decks which I should be able to crush anyways. Pithing needle for karakas, jace, top, liliana, just seemed like a better option. A quick report:

Round 1 Junk (2-0)

G1: He plays a turn one deathrite shaman off a fetch and follows up with a turn 2 liliana which I force of willed. I show and tell'd an emrakul next turn and then he scooped.

G2: He mulls to 6. I begin the game with a leyline sanctity. My hand was pretty nuts. It had ancient tomb, petal, show and tell, sneak attack and lands but no fatty. He plays a turn one deathrite. I drew a griselbrand for the turn and finished him off by drawing a ton.

1-0

Round 2 ANT (2-0)

G1: He opened with a tropical island into sensei top. I have no idea what he's on. I'm thinking bant, supreme blue, RUG countertop etc. Since he's on blue, I figure I should sculpt a little with counter backup before I pull the trigger. I show and tell'd emrakul early with force backup and he lets it resolve. He only has a top and blue duals in play. He decides to infernal tutor getting cabal ritual which I force'd and then he scooped. I would've just scooped there cuz now he gave away that he's on ANT.

G2: I open with a leyline sanctity. We play land go for a little bit. I show and tell'd a fatty and finished him off. He said he didn't have an answer to leyline and couldn't possibly win that game (I'm sure he has empty warrens which I am readily expecting with echoing truths).

2-0

Round 3 TES (2-1)

G1: I show and tell'd a griselbrand turn 3. He tried to go off and I drew a ton and casted force of willed on something important and he scooped.

G2: I show and tell'd about turn 3 or 4 putting a griselbrand and he puts in a xantid swarm. I don't like that. I do have echoing truths which I have to dig. My hand is loaded with counters but needed a way to deal with swarm. I dug 7 deep off griselbrand going to 12. Still no echoing truth, just a bunch of useless counters. I decided to not dig another 7 because going to a precarious 5 would only require tendrils storm three to kill me. He attacks with swarm and allows the trigger to resolve, then before blocks, he chain of vapors my griselbrand (I tanked 3 minutes thinking about whether to draw 7 and go to 5 life). He has a lot of cards in his hand so I decided to make him earn that storm six to kill me. He didn't go off. We play draw go for a little bit and he cabal therapies me at one point naming show and tell. I drew more counters and eventually he swung with xantid swarm and storms six to kill me. I die with counter spells in hand.

G3: My six cards were: show and tell, ancient tomb, lotus petal, flusterstorm, echoing truth, and force of will. He cabal therapy's me and I reluctantly force of will pitching a flusterstorm. Since he named show and tell last game, I figure that's the card he fears most and will probably name it here which I oh so dearly need. I pitch flusterstorm cuz in case show and tell meets a xantid swarm again I really need that echoing truth to bounce it. I rip an emrakul off the top and show and tell'd it into play; he unsurprisingly puts his xantid swarm into play. He was forced to go off and couldn't.

3-0

Round 4 Sneak Attack with black (2-0)

G1: I find patience is key in this matchup. He casted some timely duresses on me and I just drew really well. He played a karakas at one point which kind of surprised me. I landed a sneak attack few turns later followed by an end of turn sneak in emrakul and killed him later.

G2: I keep a one lander with force of will and sneak attack and other business. Being on the draw I figure it should be alright. I have a tendency of keeping these hands which I should probably snap mull. I like to gamble and normally just hate starting the game short of 7 cards. I was stuck on that island for a long time while he was flooded. I pithing needle naming karakas. I finally cast my sneak attack to which a counter war ensued. I had to use my only red source namely lotus petal to cast it though. I had a sneak attack in play, a hand of griselbrand and emrakul and couldn't find a red source in the next 5 turns or so. Luckily he was drawing a ton of lands. I finally find an intuition which I casted searching 3 volcanic islands (kind of funny I know) and then killed him later.

4-0

Round 5 WUR Miracles RIP (2-0)

G1: I thought I was in a good position to double draw but my good friends advise me to play this one out and draw the next one so I trusted them. He landed an early RIP so I have to be wary of saving counters to either protect me and win on the spot or for his helm. He countered my first two attempts in going off, then my third attempt resolved a sneak attack then finished him off.

G2: He counters my first few attempts like game one then finally my sneak attack resolved pretty late game. He had more than six lands to sac at this point and had a helm in play. I snuck in my emrakul and declared attack, he said before attacks activate helm for 1 and mills my griselbrand off the top, omg. He steals my griselbrand, I attack with emrakul, no blocks, and he sacs close to all his lands and survives the attack. His turn, he attacks me with griselbrand draws 7 then blue blasts my sneak attack. My hand is just emrakul and he's at 2. I draw an echoing truth, play it on griselbrand and find a show and tell to put emrakul into play and he scooped.

5-0

Round 6: Dredge ID

Top 8:

[B] Quarterfinals: WUR Miracles RIP (2-0)

G1: I played a sneak attack with force backup and that was enough. The dynamic duo came in for the win.

G2: He played RIP and Sensei Top early and I played a defense grid early which he tried to counter but I pierced it. I echoing truth'ed his RIP during my main phase twice because he was topping a lot and I figured if he cast the helm and activate I just die because defense grid stops my counters. I casted sneak attack at one point and he force'd tapping 3 lands. I find another sneak attack shortly but I only have 4 mana. I can't run the risk of tapping out for sneak attack in fear of detention sphere, disenchant and the like. I finally find a mana source and casted sneak attack snuck in emrakul the same turn.

6-0

Top 4 split.

Afterthoughts: I side out misdirections every game. Even against Hymn decks, I just bring in Leyline sanctity. I want to cut them for Gitaxian Probes. So many times I'm gun shy and probes allow me to know if I can fire that turn.
One flusterstorm, and one preordain are still the flex slots.

High Points

Going undefeated whole tournament and losing only 1 game (12-1).
Knowing I have already beaten 5/8 top 8 players in the swiss, boosting my confidence for top 8 playoffs.
Mulling only twice whole tournament
Steve for the ride as usual.

Low Points

Defeating a friend round 1 by turn 2 both games and seeing him tilt and rage.
Losing most die rolls as usual.
Having my friends wait for me as most did poorly and wanted to leave

Funny Times

Played intuition searching triple volcanic island.
My opponent duressing me, sees sneak attack and show and tell and says he'll take the sneak and show.

Sneak and Show is undoubtedly the most powerful and resilient combo deck I have ever played. Game 1 is in your favor against most decks. Answers to hate cards come in post board. Combo decks weakness are evidently decks packing counter magic and discard. Your deck has as much countermagic to fight opposing ones. With misdirection and leyline postboard, the deck can easily decimate the entire field in the hands of a competent player.

[Michael Keller]

Won the Mythic Games Legacy Invitational in New York yesterday with Sneak and Show.

Look for a report!

[Kryptor]

Hi,

i could need some help. I really like the List that JPAnghelescu posted before. (with very little changes)

3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island

4 Lotus Petal

2 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will

4 Brainstorm
1 Intuition
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

But i would play a slightly diffrent sb like:

2 Echoing
2 TtB
1 Stifle
1 Extraction
1 Relic
2 Pyroclasm
2 Bloodmoon
1 Flusterstorm
3 Defense Grid

But my Question is now, how to board against some matchups: I would board something like that:

Mirror:
+2 TtB
+1 Stifle
+1 Fluster
-2 Misdirection
-1 SnT
-1 Petal

RUG:
+3 Grid
+2 Moon
-1 Emrakul
-1 Pierce
-1 Intuition
-1 Misdirection
-1 Probe

BUG:
+2 Moon
+2 Pyroclasm
-1 Intuition
-2 Petal
-1 Probe

U/W Control / Miracle:
+3 Grid
+2 TtB
+2 ETruth
-2 Misdirection
-4 Petal
-1 Intuition

Goblins:
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Stifle
+2 TtB
+2 ETruth
-3 Pierce
-2 Misdirection
-1 Intuition
-1 Don´t Know ?

TES/ANT:
+1 Fluster
+2 Moon
+1 Extraction
+1 Relic
-2 Misdirection
-1 Intuition
-2 Petal

Maverick:
+2 Moon
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Stifle
+1 Echoing Truth
-2 Misdirection
-1 Intuition
-4 Petal

Meervolk:
+3 Grid
-2 Petal
-1 Misdirection

Elves:
+2 Pyroclasm
+2 Echoing Truth
-2 Misdirection
-1 Petal
-1 Intuition

What do you think about this boarding plans ? Does anyone makes absolutly no sense ?

tanks for your help.

[Kryptor]

...

If I were you, I would start from a list you like (60 maindeck cards and 15 sideboard cards) and write down how you would sideboard against common matchups, both the cards you want to sideboard in and what cards you want to sideboard out and see what other people think about your sideboard strategy. It seems like a much more useful exercise, as always taking out the same cards in every matchup is not the right way to go.

semms like you are wrong...

[blindspotxxx]

SCG Open 2 Sneak Shows in the top 8 :)

Lost to Esper Deathblade in the finals though

[Ummmyeh13]

Yeah I played game 1 badly against Todd. Played the numbers on him not having one of 3 FoW when I didnt need to. Its a good match up imo.

[blindspotxxx]

You did pretty well lol That disenchant was unexpected! You casted that Sneak Attack with Counter Back up it's just that he drew that 1 pc Disenchant for the blow out. How do you find the Spirit Guides? I've been itching to try them but my mind is telling me not to lol

[TerribleTim68]

So let me get this straight, you guys are saying that Not of this World CAN counter the delayed sac trigger from Sneak Attack the same way Stifle can?

[Koby]

So let me get this straight, you guys are saying that Not of this World CAN counter the delayed sac trigger from Sneak Attack the same way Stifle can?

No, it cannot do so. The delayed sac trigger is not targeting the creature. It instructs the creature's controller to sacrifice that creature. No targeting occurs.

[TerribleTim68]

That's what I thought. So I'll stick with Stifle then.

[Genericcactus]

That's what I thought. So I'll stick with Stifle then.

I've found Stifle to be considerably worse than Not of This World. The only relevant thing it counters that Not of This World does not is the -2 ability on Liliana of the Veil, and the only matchup where I would want to bring in Stifle which also features Liliana is some versions of Dark Maverick. Stifling the delayed trigger on Sneak Attack is about as win-more as it gets. Not of This World being free is a real big deal. Having to wait a turn so that you have the mana open to Stifle something they may or may not have when you cast Show and Tell is loose and will result in far more losses than the marginal benefits brought by Stifle does wins.

[Patrunkenphat7]

This deck feels like the best deck in the format. I don't play it because of its inconsistency, but it "inconsistently" has a good matchup against EVERYTHING. I can't decide if Blade in the hands of a master is even as good as Show and Tell in hands of someone playing in their first Legacy tournament. Honestly the deck feels more powerful and streamlined than Survival. What I can't understand is why Survival became so dominant, yet this deck still isn't breaking through as "ban-able."

[aljiichiban]

This deck feels like the best deck in the format. I don't play it because of its inconsistency, but it "inconsistently" has a good matchup against EVERYTHING. I can't decide if Blade in the hands of a master is even as good as Show and Tell in hands of someone playing in their first Legacy tournament. Honestly the deck feels more powerful and streamlined than Survival. What I can't understand is why Survival became so dominant, yet this deck still isn't breaking through as "ban-able."


I think it's better that way, so that others would stop complaining and suggest that SNT/griselbrand should be banned.

[blindspotxxx]

This deck feels like the best deck in the format. I don't play it because of its inconsistency, but it "inconsistently" has a good matchup against EVERYTHING. I can't decide if Blade in the hands of a master is even as good as Show and Tell in hands of someone playing in their first Legacy tournament. Honestly the deck feels more powerful and streamlined than Survival. What I can't understand is why Survival became so dominant, yet this deck still isn't breaking through as "ban-able."

Show and Tell lets your opponent play a card (Oblivion Ring, Karakas, Knight of the Reliquary, Fiend Hunter, Mangara... etc..). Survival was just broken because it only benefitted you. Show and Tell is easily hated out if the metagame wants to. It's the fault of all the Grindy Fair Decks and the meta preparing for those match ups that let Sneak Show slip in the radar. Survival is a one card combo!


I've found Stifle to be considerably worse than Not of This World. The only relevant thing it counters that Not of This World does not is the -2 ability on Liliana of the Veil, and the only matchup where I would want to bring in Stifle which also features Liliana is some versions of Dark Maverick. Stifling the delayed trigger on Sneak Attack is about as win-more as it gets. Not of This World being free is a real big deal. Having to wait a turn so that you have the mana open to Stifle something they may or may not have when you cast Show and Tell is loose and will result in far more losses than the marginal benefits brought by Stifle does wins.

I agree with this, Stifle requires another Land Drop and there are so many things to consider. Possibly you might not even get that extra land drop due to lack of lands that you draw, Wastelands, Extra attack phase for your opponent. And Not of this World is cool! :P

[Patrunkenphat7]

Show and Tell lets your opponent play a card (Oblivion Ring, Karakas, Knight of the Reliquary, Fiend Hunter, Mangara... etc..). Survival was just broken because it only benefitted you. Show and Tell is easily hated out if the metagame wants to. It's the fault of all the Grindy Fair Decks and the meta preparing for those match ups that let Sneak Show slip in the radar. Survival is a one card combo!



I agree with this, Stifle requires another Land Drop and there are so many things to consider. Possibly you might not even get that extra land drop due to lack of lands that you draw, Wastelands, Extra attack phase for your opponent. And Not of this World is cool! :P

None of those "answers" to the actual card Show and Tell really do anything about Griselbrand, which is why this deck has been so good since it was printed. Yes, Show and Tell used to be easily disruptable before Griselbrand. I don't know how you can easily hate out the deck other than playing something that has super disruption and skewed matchups like BUG Delver. Also Survival is a lot more complicated than being a "one card combo," but this isn't really the place to debate that.