I've been liking Thoughtseize a lot, that said, I can definitely get your point. Can't say for certain but I will try to up the count of the hatebears.Originally Posted by testing32
I am currently running 1 thalia/canonist/sage/sulfur and I am missing the second canonist, I think I will test with 2 thalias+2 canonist+1sage+1sulfur for awhile
I played 2 Thalia 1 Canonist this week. It ended up mattering. I think I might actually prefer the 2nd canonist to Slaughter games. It comes down faster, is easier on the mana, works fine with teeg... biggest downside is that it does not actually win the game, and that it is counterable.
Here is the whole thing.
Round 1 - RUG Delver
G2: I keep a loose hand with something like 2x Bob, Decay, Library, Waste, Grove, Savannah. He plays a mongoose and counters the important spells. I remain mana/color screwed for a while and then struggle to force my fetch through stifle so I can begin playing my place cards. I succeed and then fail to resolve bobs. No way I played this correctly.
I have not had to play real magic against this deck for a while. The games usually go “chalice, decay, knight, win” or some similar sequence of jamming cards that win and removal. I board in a Choke, a Deluge, and a Jitte.
G2: I play a T1 chalice on 1. Then GSZ for a DRS and then Jitte. He has the grudge and wasteland and then mongoose again. I am stuck on 2 mana for the rest of the game.
0-1 (0-2)
Round 2 - Elves
G1: I play T2 bob against his T1 nettle sentinel. He plays ranger and visionary. I decay ranger and cradle. I flip a knight off of bob and go to 13. Bob trades for sentinel and knight + stage give him a 1 turn window to have it, and he does.
clasms and deluges go in. So does jitte and canonist. bobs, pridemage, scooze, and choke come out.
G2: I have a T1 pfire + grove and eventually draw into chalice + teeg. The game isn’t close.
G3: I keep Grove, clasm, 2x pfire, chalice, and maybe decay. I draw wildwood on T2. By the end of T3 clasm and the drawn wasteland reduce this board to a single bayou. He has 1-2 cards left in hand. From there I chalice him and clean up with wildwood.
1-1 (2-3)
Round 3 - Omni
G1: I keep a meh hand with a zenith and a choke. choke gets spell pierced, zenith for teeg resolves. So does his S&S and subsequent emrakul.
Out: loams, decays, dismember. In: Thalias, rec sage, choke, canonist, slaughter games
G2: I mull to 6. I have something like mox, taiga, grove, cycle, GSZ, choke. T2 choke resolves and a knight finishes him before he can find it. My memory of this match is fuzzy, but I vividly remember discarding the taiga after concluding that grove was useless in the matchup >.<.
G3: (Out: pfire? In: Vindicate) T2 chalice is forced. I land a teeg. Then a library and a thalia. My dudes eat a pyroclasm. I pay a billion life with library and find canonist + scooze. Those two put him to 0.
2-1 (4-4)
Round 4 - Pox
G1 : I start with mox discarding wasteland, fetch a forest, loam my lands back. That sets the tone for the game. I get him down to 3 before he edicts away my KotR. I was going to play a fetch to play around that, but ended up playing poorly instead. I took a bit of time but then got a creature and then forced it though for the final damage.
In: 2x Thalia, Vindicate, Revoker Out: Choke, Dismember, 2x Chalice
G2: This one was much grinder. I kept some speculative hand with thalia and vindicate. We had a mana fight and when the dust settled he had a lili and I had 3 lands, a dryad arbor and a Dark depths at 9. He wasted my arbor and goes to ultimate lili. I natural defrost my marit lage and kill him.
3-1 (6-4)
Overall I played like shit and managed to lose to what used to be the deck's best matchup.
Last edited by apocolyps6; 07-23-2015 at 02:27 PM.
Hi all, I'm starting to take this archetype for a spin. I love all the cards in it, so I had to try it. (Despite being called a traitor by now 4 people for switching archetypes). Is the miracles matchup bad, or is it just my incompetency with the deck? It feels like you have to chipshot damage at them and then slowly punishing fire them to death. I know chalice x = 1 + gaddock tegg is very good, but it's not fool proof. It seems like this match can easily end in a draw with both players playing at a reasonable pace or it pushes to game 3.
What's the best sideboard haymaker against them? Thrun? Huntmaster? Broodmate Dragon? Sigarda? Titania?
Also, has anyone tried magic origins nissa in this archetype yet? It seems very powerful in the long game and you can green sun for her. She does search for any forest!
:-)
If you want extra cards against Miracles you are better off with the 2nd choke rather than any Nic-Fit creature.
The miracles matchup is usually even or slightly in our favor preboard, and solidly in our favor postboard. This may be less true for mentor miracles as they usually have to play tempo against us with T3-5 win cons and that version should be better at it.
If you look at the deck, the worst cards against miracles are something like DRS, the 3rd pfire, the 3-4th mox. Basically your whole deck is good. Lock them down early, screw with their mana, get in for damage. If that does not work, use Library, Loam, or Pfire to beat them with raw card advantage. The matchup definitely takes some practice but you should not be losing to miracles pilots of roughly your skill level.
The deck plays 1 basic forest and does not often keep a 2/2 on board while having 7 lands. The walker side is fine and I'm all for interesting brewy things, but I'm skeptical the card is good enough.
Participated in a small tournament today, around 20 people. Made it to top4
r1 reanimator 2-1
r2 cloudpost 2-0
r3 lands 0-2 (I played horrible, forgot a tabernacle trigger on my knight and lost g1 because of that. g2 I should have casted chalice on 1 when I had the chance but didn't for some reason)
r4 mud 2-0
r5 draw into top8
top8
r1 d&t 2-0
r2 elves 0-2
Story of my life.
How do people board against Lands? I think G. Teeg and Liliana are pretty safe cuts (I don't think the "force you to make Marit Lage during combat on my turn, edict you" scenario comes up a lot) for Leylines but after that I'm less sure. I've been cutting Fires and some number of Decays for random stuff like Rec Sage, Golgari Charm, and Thoughtseize to fight over Exploration/Manabond. I don't have enough experience with the matchup to determine how correct this is though.
17th at SCG Richmond with the stock list and 4 hatebears over thoughtseize. Weird tournament:
Dredge L 1-2
Burn L 0-2
Loam Pox W 2-1
ANT W 2-1
ZombieBardment W 2-0
Dredge W 2-1
Reanimator Depths ID into 17th
Didn't play any of the decks I was preparing for by choosing this deck (Miracles, Delver, Blade). Lots of blowouts and not much real magic.
Last edited by testing32; 07-26-2015 at 09:48 PM.
Going back to last page's Charm vs Deluge debate, after playing a bunch of fair decks I think I agree that Deluge is a bit important.
What really pushed me over the edge is that I wanted a better way of resetting the board against RUG / BUG after I land the Chalice on 1 - I give them an opening for a Goyf or two to come down and that's when I have trouble coming back - I need 2 decays really to take care of them at that point. Though I'm also currently at 1 Thoughtseize, 2 Thalia and 2 Canonist as Omni hate, which may be a bit heavy, and I could probably trim a canonist to support 1 Deluge and 2 Charm. I also have 2 Slaughter Games as well, so I do think that Canonist may be a bit too heavy. I may even trim the TS, as a singleton I'm not seeing it as much as I really want to.
As an aside, what do we prefer to take out against RUG? For last night, I was bringing in 2 Charm (No Deluge, yet) and 2 Choke - I'm not too sold on the Choke, as 3 mana is basically 10 mana in that matchup, but should Leylines come in? I know they don't really neuter goyf, but they do make the geese quite manageable. What about Thalia? I've currently only been bringing in Thalia against the combo matchups, as I don't like the anti-synergy with PFire which is critical against the delver decks. What I was bringing out though was 2 GSZ, Teeg, and a Loam on the play, Lili on the Draw (As I felt as good as it was, it was sitting in hand dead too much). I won both of the matches, but they went to 3 each and the ones I lost were because my opponent got 2 Goyfs out during a Chalice on 1 and countered my knights.
With this SB configuration
2 Canonists
2 Thalia
1 Containment Priest
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Choke
2 Slaughter Games
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Golgari Charm
Against RUG Delver I bring 2 Thalias and 1 Choke for 2 GSZ and a Teeg. I sometimes cut the Dryad Arbor for a Charm/Pulse.
If I played with Deluge I would bring it but I don't feel I need it all that often. I am really liking the Thalia's in the matchup since it screws their tempo and I bring the Choke for the random freewin. I believe the matchup is good, Just play around what you can and don't be afraid of eating a daze/stifle if you can't play around them.
I see a lot of people just playing around everything and just giving out to their tempo.
Sometimes, they are just going to have it...there's nothing you can do about it. I think you need to structure your game plan to make them have it. Set chalice to X = 1 first and then X = 2. X = 1 shuts off their fast combos, X = 2 shuts off the slow combo (loam & punishing fire.) The only issue is X = 2 hurts you as well. :-/
I would also bring in slaughter games. Targets are Loam or Krosan Grip depending on board state. Also, I don't think they like to see tarmogoyf or thrun.
What's been said is pretty on point for battling Lands. Only thing I would disagree with is Chalice on 2. I'd much rather have a backup Chalice than a Chalice on 2.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
I don't believe getting fancy with Choke and Leyline is correct against RUG, which is already a very good matchup. I just cut G. Teeg and bring in Deluge. I don't think you want to cut Loams or Lilianas against RUG, I would cut Libraries before either if I had more cuts to make.
I've thought about Slaughter Games (mainly for Loam) but didn't think it was appropriate since they can still go off through Crop Rotation without Loam. It might actually be worth it though, because I think the matchup is really all about Loam. Chalice on 1 is still a thing to hedge against Crop Rotation.
How do you guys feel about me posting these weeklyish tournament reports? Should I be more brief?
Anyway, here is another. Trying a Spirit of the labyrinth over a vindicate. Vindicate is eh.
Round 1: Bomberman
G1: My opponent plays islands into Trinket Mage into winning the game.
I bring in all the creatures and take out the fires. (yes, all. I know >.<)
G2: I play a T1 chalice, T2 Thalia, Then a chalice on 0 and a Teeg for his EE. He plays a mentor and 2 Magi of the moon I take a billion turns to grind through that with scooze and 1 mox for green mana.
G3: He gives me 1 turn to stop him from going off and my T3 Choke wins me the game.
Round 2: RG Lands
G1: I play a chalice. Then navigate a knight onto the board, get wastelanded, play a second knight and take my opponent to 0.
In: Rec sage, 2x thalia, out: teeg, choke, dismember
G2:I T1 a chalice, then feed a bob and a DRS to his punishing fire lock in order to play scooze and eat his loam + bob. This leaves him just 1 mana short of double pfiring it(hence the ‘feeding'). I run away with the game with scooze + loam.
Round 3: Omni
G1: T1 chalice. Opponent does nothing and I beat him down to 0.
in: all the white chicks and choke out: decays, loam, disfigure
G2: T1 chalice. I make a scooze and get in with wildwood while opponent dumps 1drops do fuel a DTT. at 7 life (with 6 dmg on board) he goes for S&T but I drop a canonist and he scoops.
Round 4: Tempo miracles
G1: He forces a T1 mox... The 2 bobs and decay in my hand are now uncastable. awks. He plays a T3 mentor and I can’t beat it.
In: 2 revoker, choke, 2 clasm, 1 deluge Out: 2 mox, dismember, scooze, 2x pfire(?)
G2: He plays a T3 blood moon and I have 3 mountains in play. He then slowly finishes me off with mentor. I kind of fight through it and then he rip+helms me.
No way I boarded correctly in round 4. In my defense in G2 I wanted to play around moon, but I had 1 fetch and if I didn’t get bayou I could not play my 2x bob. That whole 4th round felt like a sucker punch :/
Last edited by apocolyps6; 07-28-2015 at 03:17 AM.
Hey guys,
I sat down with Niklas Kronberger and Christoph Alsheimer to tackle the new kid on the block, Punishing Blue!
Let me know what you think, I'd also appreciate it if you left the comment at the article itself so other readers can potentially benefit from your comments/questions and my responses.
Thanks! :)
Greetings
Nice article, I would say that the most important thing to take of the article is the deck name! I cringe every time the deck is called Aggro Loam. the deck is a lock/control at heart playing aggro only a couple of time through out a big tournament.
There is a sideboarding guide for the deck? I like the version of Grand Prix Lille.
Thanks for the article. Good job!
What I think:
The article is very good and this deck really should be catching on more than it is, but PLEASE do not call this deck "Punishing Blue". That just seems like a, frankly, horrible idea. The cuteness of the joke is absolutely not worth the baggage.
The name "Lock'n'Lands" comes up in the article itself. I would strongly recommend using that name (or any other name, really) instead, unless you want this issue to come up ad infinitum.
I agree that Punishing Blue is a cool name, but a poor choice. Mostly because it sounds like "A blue deck with Punishing Fire", which I imagine isn't quite what you're going for. How about we keep it simple? I suggest we simply call it
"Punisher".
It references both the presence of Punishing Fire and the targeted metagame nature of the deck without implying anything inaccurate.
Hey guys, how about we name the deck after a Bulldozer or Dump Truck. Both are vehicles with powerful engines often used to move chunks of land around (among other things). :p
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