I respectfully disagree. I've had a lot of people walk blindly into Spell Pierce and be stopped cold by it, where Spell Snare wouldn't have done a thing.
It's also extremely relevant to note that vs. any blue deck, I'll gladly trade a Pierce for a Brainstorm - something I hesitate to do with any other counterspell other than REB. With the tight mana constraints of most "control" decks in Legacy, they really can't afford to miss their cantrips, and often this can be nearly as devastating as Stifling a fetchland activation.
Hmm. This might be a case where a card is better in practice than it is in testing, because of the "Surprise!" factor. Also, it's clear that Spell Pierce is better when you draw it early. My frustration with it is when I draw it in the midgame, when my opponent has 3 or 4 lands, and I can't stop that Plow.
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Some points:
-Concerning Stifle:
I agree that it would be inferior to other choices in this deck. In my opinion Stifle is replaced by Knight in this deck, by just being able to get more Wastelands in one game.
-Concerning Spell Pierce:
Besides that i agree with Nightmare, you also have to look at what kinds of cards you want to stop with your third counter. Compared to Canadian where Spell Snare makes much sense, as they want to stop opposing Goyfs and Counterbalances (among others ofc), this deck does not care about these two cards in the same way. Reasons should be obvious.
My main concern when playing this pile is that either one of my creatures gets removed by STP or that my opponent lands something nasty (none creature), which i cant handle - so Pierce is superiour.
Sidenote
Interesting point, up to now i am not 100% sure when it is appropriate to counter a cantrip. In play i think that i have to let it resolve as it could be followed up by a more threating spell like Senseis / STP whatever, so i hestitate to use the Pierce on a cantrip. If you could drop some additional remarks about it - would be nice.It's also extremely relevant to note that vs. any blue deck, I'll gladly trade a Pierce for a Brainstorm - something I hesitate to do with any other counterspell other than REB. With the tight mana constraints of most "control" decks in Legacy, they really can't afford to miss their cantrips, and often this can be nearly as devastating as Stifling a fetchland activation.
-Control matchup:
Its clear that the control matchup (having Landstill and Itf in mind) is not that good, as its difficult to stick a creature against them and keep there card advantage engines in check at the same time. Till now i think that siding in Loam / Crucible and Wastelock them is the best approach.
If someone has any other tips i would be glad to here them.
-Tribal matchup - Elves:
This sound a little bit strange, but i actually had difficulties beating them. While he couldnt attack me for quite some time because of tarmos and other creatures, he still was able to get an insane amount of creatures on the board. Especially Perfect and that little insect, which can return elves to his hand gave me trouble (forcing me to waste a STP on this guy).
I had only one EE in the board during that match and i upped to count to three afterwards - any other ideas what to bring in against them?
Beeing able to punch through the line of creatures is key i figured, so i value Terravore (which i run) quite high in this matchup.
BBB
But Spell Snare isn't stopping that Plow either. And comparing the two, Pierce would have stopped it early, but Snare never will.
In this deck, where you're basically guaranteed to win the Goyf war if it comes to their resolved guys vs. your resolved guys, you're much more worried about their spells than their creatures. Pierce gives you a leg up in the early- to mid-game in that battle, where Snare may or may not.
It's a complicated question, and has a lot to do with elements outside the obvious - I'd say it's one of the more difficult decisions to make in Legacy, honestly.
First off, I will never trade tempo, go down cards, or pay extra mana to counter Brainstorm. This means, Daze will never counter it, Force of Will will never counter it - except in very rare circumstances - like when it's the only card in their hand.
However, if I have the opportunity to trade 1 mana and 1 card for their Brainstorm, especially early in the game, I will do it most of the time. Brainstorm is deceiving - although it is "just a cantrip" its function is much more profound than that of Opt, or Ponder, or even Top (although Top is much closer in power level in the short term, and much higher in the long term). The manipulation of the cards in their hand, and the ability to trade crap for good, followed by shuffling the crap away, is unparalleled in the game. It's far, far more relevant against decks where tutoring is important, like Tendrils or Reanimator. In those decks, stopping them from putting cards back can be gamewinning in itself, not to mention the possibility of denying a player access to land for a draw step or two - although that's the "perfect world" scenario, not the norm.
Additionally, my opinion of the play varies based on the opponent. A very strong opponent is actually much more vulnerable to the play than an average player. They're more likely to recognize the ability of Brainstorm to dig them out of a hole, and use it when important, rather than firing it off for no good reason. If they use it early, it's either to get rid of junk, or to find the missing pieces. I'll gladly deny them that.
Attitude also plays into it. That of course gets into the ability to read body language, etc. which I don't really want to get into at this point.
I strongly believe I could write a whole article on when you counter Brainstorm and when you don't - so I'll just keep it at the points I've already made, and hopefully you get some insight from there.
Yeah, I understand that I win goyf wars anyway. I also understand what Spell Pierce is trying to do. It just doesn't seem to do it very consistently when I play it. Also, I hate to keep coming back to this, but Mossivo sided Pierces out in 3 of his 4 matchups. So how good are they, REALLY?
Before anyone decides to go outside of the context of my comments, let me acknowledge up front that Spell Pierce is a fine sideboard card. My comments are in regards to Spell Pierce as a maindeck card. I think it's a "hit or miss" card that misses too often when applied so broadly.
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The fact that Mossivo sided them out so much doesn't really mean they're not good. I mean, I played six rounds with 3 maindeck yesterday, and sided 0 out the entire event. It's also possible (and in my eyes, likely) that he sided incorrectly.
For example - Round 1 (ichorid), I would have sided out 2 Clique and 2 KoR for the Relics. The Pierces still have the ability to counter the explosive starts Ichorid has, and can potentially stop a Dread Return if its early or in conjunction with Wasteland.
In the other two rounds he sided them out against heavy creature decks. That's not exactly an accurate cross-section of the metagame. Sure, if your whole metagame is Merfolk, Elves, and Zoo, it may not be as good as another counter in its place - but the chances of you playing against all creature decks in a 6 or 8 round event (including t8, of course) are pretty slim.
My particular metagame is heavy with CounterTop, Zoo, and Merfolk.
Anyway, maybe I haven't been giving Spell Pierce a fair shake. My experience with it has mostly been in playtesting, which is perhaps being skewed by the fact that the other side always knows when to bait it and when to play around it.
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I would Daze the shit out of a Brainstorm after turn one and am seriously wondering why it's in your deck if you aren't making that trade. I almost never care if my fetchlands get Stifled either, so we might be on different wavelengths. I also think Daze is considerably worse than Snare and Pierce.
Pierce also seems fine against Merfolk when you're on the play, because you can get Vial, Standstill, and their Force when you play your trump. Daze is only better against Force, which isn't nearly as important as the first two.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
Do you think there is a place for some sort of bounce (ie, rushing river, wipe away) in this sort of tempo build? You know, similar to Canadian Thresh.
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I've also been working on Bant Tempo lately, but after playing Canadian for nearly a whole year my approch was a lot less creature-heavy. Instead, I've been opting for a disruption suite similar to Canadian, but maybe this was just by habit:
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
Obviously, there isn't that much space left for as many creatures as you are running. My list doesn't contain the full 4 Ponder though, so in the end the difference might not be that big.
Conan, what is best in life? - To crush your enemies, see them driven before you... and to hear the lamentation of their women!
Planeswalkers, Iona (W) and Humility are quite annoying to name a few. A resolved Counterbalance can also be quite good against its answer (Qasali). All these things can be countered by Pierce but sometimes such cards hit the board and the deck has a massive problem then. Its also better to bounce his blockers and swing for the win than Swords one and get chumped by another which can give the opponent up to two turns to dig for answers.
Instead of 3rd Clique or a Rhox War Monk I would rather play 1 Rushing River as versatile answer to almost every nonland-permanent. In a Tempodeck like this it can be seen as 5th Qasali effect and 5th Swordseffect. In Canadian Threshold a Rushing River often led me to winning the game.
TS Crew
I've been doing some more testing of this deck (not the exact same build as the OP, but close enough) over the weekend, with a focus on rigorously testing Spell Pierce. Since so few people around here are ever willing to admit they're wrong, let me set the precedent: You were right, I was wrong. Spell Pierce is a fine choice for this deck. Before, I thought Spell Snare was clearly better, but now I think it's a very close call. Overall, I'm fairly impressed with the deck. Someone should write a primer.
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One day I'll get to it but I'm swamped right now. My team's been wanting me to write the primer on it for some time now, too. If enough people show interest in a primer, I'll get on it.
I played the deck yesterday in a 95ish people GPT Madrid Tournament as I really liked it in testing. I decided to play Version 2 (first list) with the following changes:
-1 Tropical Island
-1 Tundra
+1 Misty Rainforest
+1 Flooded Strand
-1 Vendilion Clique
-1 Spell Pierce
-1 Ponder
+1 Sensei's Divining Top
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
The added fetchlands are actually quite good as you always hit GW in turn 2 even without Hierarch and it makes the Knight bigger obv. Top for Ponder is just a personal thing, I never play 4 Ponder and the Top simply wins games if the opponent manages to drag out the game. Jitte's were solid when I drew them which happened rarely.
I won against ANT, Zoo and BGw Loam and lost to DDANT, Merfolk/w, Staff Elves and BGw Laompox. The last three decks are quite troublesome matchups and as I indicated I sadly never saw a Jitte against Merfolk and Elves which would have won easily.
All in all I feel the List has some problems to assemble a favorable boardposition. Exaltedtriggers are nice and all but a bear plus 3 triggers is simply not enough to race in many cases and under pressure Hierarch and Pridemage are exceptionally bad blockers. I always wanted more big creatures especially as it is rarely a problem to hit 1GW for Knight. This girl is really awesome in the deck.
I also think the cut down to 3 Pierce is wrong. It's a card we want to see consistantly in the earlygame and even in the lategame 2 Pierce still counter most non-creature spells. With more Knights the Jitte would be pushed into the board as 6-7 Swords are good but 4-5 Swords and 1-2 Jitte are simply better against decks with 20+ small beaters. Still have to think about what to cut for the 4th Pierce mostly likely Top/Ponder, I guess.
TS Crew
I agree that the primary weakness of the deck is that the Exalted creatures are bad blockers. The Cliques are bad blockers, too, which is one of the reasons I run War Monks in my list. 3 KotR's might be the right call. That bitch is strong.
Btw, try running 4 Ethersworn Canonist in your SB. That will go a long way towards solving the ANT and Elves matchups.
Here's my list:
4 Wasteland
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Rhox War Monk
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Pierce
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I agree with you here and therefore i play a more New Horzion-like creature base withAll in all I feel the List has some problems to assemble a favorable boardposition. Exaltedtriggers are nice and all but a bear plus 3 triggers is simply not enough to race in many cases and under pressure Hierarch and Pridemage are exceptionally bad blockers. I always wanted more big creatures especially as it is rarely a problem to hit 1GW for Knight. This girl is really awesome in the deck.
3 Knight
2 Terravore
In my opinion Rhox Warmonk is a little underwhelming in terms of size compared to these two, his advantage is that he pitches to FoW and therefore adding to the blue count (also Zoo isnt really played heavily in my meta).
Also playing Clique pushes the deck to far in the position where you have great attack force, but cannot block anything. I may play it because Aggro Loam has somewhat reemerged.
I would love to go to 4 Knight and 3 Terravore, the problem i see that i would make me a little too dependent on the graveyard and that i run into trouble with overall slots and blue count.
Not sure about 4th Pierce currently, has to test more.
BBB
Well I really like Clique's but I guess you are right and their slots should be used for big creatures, too. I have recently played Lorescale Coatl in CounterTop again and it is also an option as the snake grows quickly even without Top and it doesn't need the graveyard. People underestimate Coatl on paper but in actual games you never know if the player behind Coatl has a Brainstorm in hand and many people tend to play carefully when it hits the table.
As for the Sideboard: Yes Canonist seems to be better or even Meddling Mage as I really disliked Gaddock Teeg. Legendary sucked and having a Force in hand when my ANT opponent played Deathmark sucked even more. The problem with Canonist is that it doesn't do a thing against Controldecks or Natural Order. My test matches showed that I can live with the controlmatchup (w/o Teeg) but NO Prog Countertop seemed to be a quite difficult matchup because it runs Hierarch against manadenial, the same creature base and Balance/NO as mustcounters. Maybe with more CMC 3 beaters the MU percentage shifts a bit.
Sideboard looks like this then for an unknown meta:
2 Grip
3 BEB
2 Path
2 Jitte
3 Crypt (I never want a Relic in this deck)
3 Canonist or Meddling Mage
TS Crew
I have a quick question: how much better is Spell Pierce/Daze/Wasteland than the Survival package? This deck seems to play moderately similarly to Bant Survival, but you have the opportunity to blow out opponents with mana denial and counterspells instead of with an unfair enchantment. Is this approach distinctly better, or is it just that not everyone wants to play Survival?
I'm also not sure why basic Plains is necessary when you play 4 Hierarch and you have such diverse color requirements in your creature base. It's pretty useless in your opening hand if you don't draw another colored source and would almost always be better as a Savannah or Tundra I would think.
I didn't even realize people had posted that much in this thread, rofl.
Misplayer:
I didn't like Bant survival when I ran it in a tourney a couple of months ago. I felt like the lack of a pressure element really set your gameplan back.
I ran a model of bant survival that ran very close to this list, but sacrificed most of the "tutor" slots to simply be more redundant. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Every time I dropped a survival I wanted it to be a threat "knight, Vendillion, Rhox, etc."
As for now the Archtype is quite solid and minus a few match-ups I really think the list is quite sturdy against the current meta-game. I encourage all to test it.
EE in the side was to hunt down decks that run mother of runes, as well as having an additional sideboard card against dredge.Code:// Lands 2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest 2 [ON] Flooded Strand 2 [ON] Windswept Heath 3 [B] Tundra 3 [B] Tropical Island 1 [GUR] Forest 1 [GUR] Island 1 [GUR] Plains 4 [TE] Wasteland // Creatures 4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch 4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf 4 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage 2 [ALA] Rhox War Monk 2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique 2 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary // Spells 4 [B] Swords to Plowshares 4 [AL] Force of Will 4 [NE] Daze 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce 4 [MM] Brainstorm 4 [M10] Ponder // Sideboard SB: 2 [IA] Hydroblast SB: 2 [B] Blue Elemental Blast SB: 2 [CFX] Path to Exile SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip SB: 2 [M10] Pithing Needle SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
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