What Should I Play In My Metagame?

[beastman]

Unless Ichorid gets the god hand, they really dont have a shot at beating enchantress.

[LostButSeeking]

Im pretty sure that Dredge and dragon stompy have great MUs against dreadstill. No offense, but maybe your friend is just playing better than you. It sounds like you are trying to play too many different strategies, while your friend is just sticking with one.

I'm sure he's better at this than I am. He's been playing legacy a lot longer than I have, and cares more about winning. Besides that, I'm just putting the real decks together, almost all of my decks have proxies or substitutes (or had them 3 months ago). But whatever my personal faults, he wins a LOT, and it's a strong deck. But it shouldn't be an unbeatable deck.

On the matchups, Dragon stompy has a fair matchup when going first, a very ordinary matchup else. And even when going first, pushing my prison pieces through force of will can get ugly if I don't have more. And wasteland on my lands? Ugh.

Dredge is better (and personally, I love dredge) but it's still chancy. Turn 2 dreadnought can be hard to race, if he has even one piece of disruption, and if he is missing the stifle part of the pair, dreadnought reads : Remove bridges from target player's graveyard, which makes me sad and a LOT slower. And that's just game one! Everyone knows that Dredge's G2 and G3 matchups are significantly worse than its g1 chances, against any deck.

I'm not saying that either of these matches is a death sentence. Heck, even Affinity has a pretty good matchup as well, considering how well most of its threats dodge counterbalance. But I want more than an even chance or a fair matchup. I want to win.

Looking at the lists on the Rock page, I'm favorably struck by the Natural Order Rock list that placed 17th at Chicago. Maybe I'll give it some edits and the old college try. Thanks, sauce.

On Dredge, the only person with enchantress I've ever played doesn't have a particularly fantastic list, but maindeck unmask/therapy (which not all dredge players run) can keep enchantress defenseless long enough to crush his skull.

[DrJones]

Yeah, but The Cure has no chance against the rest of the field.

me: False Cure, Silence, Silence, attack with 14/14 Kavu
him: StP the Kavu, gg

otoh: MD Silences are hot against that pesky Counterbalances.. ;-)

I feel insulted for that comment. I've been tinkering with the deck and it has pretty good chances pre-board even against the most unfair decks on the DTB forum. I also have a very polished sideboard to have a positive matchup, but I'm still deciding what to take out against each deck, because all the cards I have are already very good.

Let me say that there's the false assumption than one Swords to Plowshares and Force of Will is enough to stop the deck, but that's not true. The deck already packs more beaters than traditional stompy decks, and unlike those decks, every single creature can win as soon as turn 2, even a first-turn Quirion Ranger. The idea I had when designing the deck was that instead of playing crappy cards to protect myself against Swords of Counters (Xantid Swarm, sylvan safekeeper), I would just play more threats. And most of these are better than Tarmogoyf, which I finally had to remove from my deck because he was too slow and inefficient to qualify.

I even have a decent matchup against ANT (the fastest deck in the format) before sideboard because I can actually deal +5 damage on my first turn, which totally kills the Ad Nauseam engine.

[emidln]

I even have a decent matchup against ANT (the fastest deck in the format) before sideboard because I can actually deal +5 damage on my first turn, which totally kills the Ad Nauseam engine.

1) No you don't.
2) No it doesn't.
3) They can use Infernal Tutor->IGG anyway.

[DrJones]

1) No you don't.
2) No it doesn't.
3) They can use Infernal Tutor->IGG anyway.

Don't ping the Hydra!

Edit: Got called n00b for combing out a standstill player after he played two standstills, two swords and one FoW to my first False Cure. I can't understand why these players are far less civil when losing than people playing goblins, even though those just can't win against my deck. I actually love to play with them because it's always a blast of fun; so listen to me, if you are a goblin player, you rock!

[Jak]

Ichorid can still go crazy before Tress locks him. Except for the Grass and Seal, all those cards are a bit slow.

No. Ichorid isn't that fast of a combo deck. Grass and Seal slow them down even more, and then you land the lock pieces and win. It seriously is an easy MU.

[The_Red_Panda]

Looking at the lists on the Rock page, I'm favorably struck by the Natural Order Rock list that placed 17th at Chicago. Maybe I'll give it some edits and the old college try. Thanks, sauce.

I've yet to win a game in tournament play against rock with UGR Dreadstill. I think it's mainly the redundancy of the deck, mixed with all of the recursive elements it uses.

If you're looking specifically to beat up on counterbalance/tempo thresh lists, don't use NO. It opens you up to an unfavorable two-for-one in a matchup where you want to be the control player. What you want to look into is that recursive threat disruption. This means Wastelands & Loam to disrupt Mishra's factories/manabases, Stronghold with Witness/Shriekmaw, and lots of Deed/Smother/Edict mixed with some good hand disruption to keep you in the fight until you hit the lategame.

[ebbitten]

Standard GBW rock will tend to have a very good game against dreadstill. You have more removal than they have threats AND counters, you have ~6 ish answers to counterbalance and a number of cards that are 3cc+ and almost every spell you play is a must counter for them. Sure they may get their standstill engine to work but that by itself won't win it for them.

[keys]

Team America is pretty good against Dreadstill. A large part of the deck dodges counterbalance, and Snuff Out is a strong answer to 'Nought and Goyf. The LD/disruption is relevant as well, since the more popular Ugr version has a pretty shaky manabase.

[Muradin]

I want to beat Merfolk, Counterbalance decks and Zoo / Goyfsligh variants. What'd be your deck of choice? The tournament is rather big (9+ rounds) so I need something consistent.

[johanessen]

Same question

[electrolyze]

I think some aggro loam variant can beat those decks and is pretty consistent.

I dont know which loam variant is the best against those deck, I play rgw which has a good mu.

[Bahamuth]

Goblins should be decent. Landstill is worth considering too. With a good board it can beat both Merfolk and Zoo. DDFT wouldn't be too bad either, if adjusted to be able to beat CB.

[miko]

White Weenie ;)

[(nameless one)]

i played turbo aggro elves (aka X-land elvish stompy) a couple of times in my meta. i basically plowed through both legacy tourney with my elf deck and came up top 4 with both tourneys (top 1 for both on the ratings)

now, everyone is playing it in my meta. is there a possible way to beat this deck...

my build can consistently win on turns 3-4 without disruption. elves seem to be resilient to a lot of disruption and hate recently...

any suggestions on how to beat this monster i've created? the only weakness i see would be countering land grant and destroying lands but all decks geared dedicated to that are too slow compared to elves (maybe counters)

anyways, thanks for the help!

engineered plague seems lame because of the lords running around...

[gravemind123]

Burn is probably a safe choice, it can kill turn 3 and 4 and you can run Flamebreak, Firespout, Volcanic Fallout, Pyroclasm and many other red-boardsweep effects to keep down the elves.

[Muradin]

TES / ANT, Landstill, The Mighty Quinn, Canadian Threshold and Goyfsligh / Zoo should all be doing fine versus this kind of deck.

[stacker]

i have access to most countertop variants including thresh and dreadstill, ichorid, and affinity

i play in a meta thats like 30% decks that contain some variant of stifle/countertop/goyf/confidant/nought/painter, 30% zoo, 20% white weenie, and the rest is random.

any opinions on what should i play and what sb should i pack? thanks

[Manhattan]

The meta I play in is absolute mayhem. Let me list what decks I saw today: Goblins, Pox, Enchantress, Eternal Garden, Aggro Loam, Belcher, Ichorid, Merfolk, Stax, Hypergenesis, Landstill, Zoo, Solidarity, Mono-U-Fairies/Wizards, RG-Beats, UB-Mill. Of those I only saw Goblins twice and Aggro Loam counting myself. Over the last times I've also seen ANT, Survival, Dragonstompy, 4Color-Intuition-Control, Fish, Rock and Affinity. And then there were at least a dozen others I didn't see. Any suggestions?^^

[Muradin]

Play TES or ANT or so. You will get to beat the shit out of most of the named decks with it.